The essential problem with the Brexit movement is that it's based not on what the EU is but on the distorted view on what the EU is. When you start tackling the specific complaints that people had, it often turns out that it was the British government who had the power to alter the policies, not the EU. (For example, Britain deciding to let in Polish migrant workers after Poland joined the EU in 2004, unlike every other major country in the EU). The EU even conceded that Britain had a perpetual right to opt out of "ever-closer union."

So what could the EU have conceded that would have convinced the die-hard Brexiteers to opt for Remain?

- Nobody in the UK ever voted for an external, supra-national government to have increasing control over numerous and increasing aspects of British life: farming, fishing, immigration, subsidies, etc. etc.

- The EU is openly talking about a unified army, implementation of a law requiring all members to join the Euro and 'tax harmonisation': the removal of sovereign countries to set their own tax policies.

- Oh I know you'll tell me elected chambers that elect councils that distribute swords allocating a table of 7 presidents who nominate a head hobbit but the EU is patently undemocratic: noone knows who's in it, what they do or how they got there. Turnout for EU elections runs around 25% in the UK: it's hardly a mandate from the people is it?

- The EU is very expensive to the UK which makes a net contribution of £9 billion / year. This is money that could be spent on hospitals, teachers, police, etc.

- I know you like the EU because you see it as some hippy, huggy federation of nations but the EU is increasingly right-wing and neo-liberal - you need only look at their criminal treatment of Greece to see that.

-'The EU' might be talking about them, they probably talk about a lot of things that aren't going to happen. And some are probably more reasonable than you are making out.

- I don't agree it's undemocratic, but yes there is poor engagement. I think that's a reason why we voted to leave, rather than a reason to leave in and of itself.

- That's less than 1% of govt spending. That is cheap. Brexit will cut growth, this money may plug the gap, we aren't going to be economically better off after leaving though.

- The EU reflects its citizens, you only have to look at Britain itself to see the same thing happening.

I get that it is a "right wing, populist" thing to oppose the EU, but there are plenty of reasons not to like it.

It's like saying that the UK isn't democratic because the house of lords isn't elected, and neither is our head of state (which is even worse, because democratically elected representatives get absolutely no say in that).

Most of that stuff was in the EEC that the British did vote for. The EU did guarantee that Britain could further opt out of "ever closer union" if it wanted to.

> The EU is openly talking about a unified army, implementation of a law requiring all members to join the Euro and 'tax harmonisation': the removal of sovereign countries to set their own tax policies.

Britain also had a guaranteed opt-out of the Euro. Since Britain and France are the only EU countries with any military capabilities worth speaking out, Britain has an effective veto over any unified military policy.

> The EU is very expensive to the UK which makes a net contribution of £9 billion / year. This is money that could be spent on hospitals, teachers, police, etc.

You do know that the Leave campaign basically said the day after the referendum "oops, this part of our plank was a big, fat, steaming lie"?

> Oh I know you'll tell me elected chambers that elect councils that distribute swords allocating a table of 7 presidents who nominate a head hobbit but the EU is patently undemocratic: noone knows who's in it, what they do or how they got there. Turnout for EU elections runs around 25% in the UK: it's hardly a mandate from the people is it?

I'll grant you that the EU has a hard time trying to overcome apathy in its democratic institutions. But apathy doesn't make it less democratic.

> I know you like the EU because you see it as some hippy, huggy federation of nations

Ha ha ha. No, that's not how I see the EU at all.

Also, we're mostly a representative democracy. That means we vote for representatives whose job it is to.. represent us. Make decisions on our behalf. etc.

Yes, but Tory Britain is even more so.

All it would have taken is to swing the referendum result by a few percentage points.

Some moves towards reforming the EU to make it more democratic could have been welcome.

[1]: https://qr.ae/TUnWGJ

I have just completed a European Law module for my Graduate Diploma in Law, and this answer is a really concise and organised version of what I've been trying to say to people since the first few weeks of the course.

I have studied the European Union as an undergraduate politics student and now as a postgraduate law student, and I would totally agree with you that one of the primary issues of the European Union is its perception among citizens. Another commenter here mentioned how low the European Parliament Election turnout is in Britain, I think it was about 34% last time round, and this vote is often used as a 'protest' vote.

The public are not aware of how the European Union is constructed, and they are not aware of how the balance of power is determined. Much of the dialogue before the referendum in the UK was about 'unelected' and 'undemocratic' power in the EU, and this was usually directed towards the commission - a body that has no lawmaking power, and is selected by directly elected bodies(at the EU and Member State levels).

I really think the EU needs to speak louder and more directly to European Citizens about the role it plays and how it functions. Perhaps it does already, but I have not come across much outreach.

Full disclosure: I am an ardent remainer, and believe that whilst the EU is not perfect, we are much better off inside with influence than outside without.

The European Parliament may approve or reject a legislative proposal, or propose amendments to it. The Council is not legally obliged to take account of Parliament’s opinion but in line with the case-law of the Court of Justice, it must not take a decision without having received it.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/powers-and...

Hence, this appointment system, which is additionally kept in check by the European Parliament whose members are elected directly by the voters from all member states.

You could complain that it's too representative, but not that it's not democratic. The alternative of giving the European Parliament more power and let it constitute a "European Government" directly has not been found appealing by the governments of its member states, particularly not by the UK, since they do not want to give away so much of their sovereignty.

Complaining about lack of democracy in the EU while at the same time complaining about lack of national sovereignty is perhaps the most hypocritical and intentionally misleading part of the current populist agenda.

The European Commission drafts legislation and then the European Parliament decides whether or not to amend or pass the legislation.

Oh I know you'll tell me of the ignorance and stupidity of the racist, little England British voter and how they need to be 're-educated' but this is hardly a mandate from the people is it?

> ignorance

People can't be proud of not knowing about the EU and complain about being called ignorant at the same time.

(Quite a lot of this is misinformation, frankly - the Mail and the Express run hilariously biased anti-EU campaigns on their front pages.)

Our media are at least partly to blame, tolerating "opinions" on matters of fact and minimising our real exposure to actual things the EU does.

Protectionism is what we like to think of as standards. It improves lives in Europe.

It doesn't really matter how many trade deals or what the trade deals are when VAT, import fees are applied in such a way to equalize the costs of external trade, to the point there isn't much benefit of trading with outside the EU unless they're some how able to significantly reduce costs or pioneer an industry that doesn't exist in the EU.

Even with just the UK utiliziling only the WTO (which the UK has no control over in the EU), the UK could stand to get better trading with the rest of the world than it can within the EU. But, this is not just because it can set the WTO rates.

The UK is not obligated to apply VAT and other fees after it leaves the EU on any imports and it doesn't have to be concerned about applying protectionism in industries that don't even exist in the UK.

> Protectionism is what we like to think of as standards. It improves lives in Europe.

I'm not really sure about which standards you're talking about, but I'll take a couple of the earliest and longest implemented standards that the EU requires, something that Greenland left over in the beginning.

The standards of the common agriculture policy and the common fisheries policies that the UK farming and fishing industires have been lobbying to fix for multiple decades has only lead to the destruction of environments, forcing farmers on quotas who then can't sell their products being forced to then depend on EU subsidies and grants to operate, it has lead to the destruction of much of the industry in the UK which in turn has made in particular, numerous farming and fishing towns become welfare dependent... It's been over 20 years of consistent failing to address these issues.

The worst part of this all is that these issues were completely avoidable, the EU and UK could have actually solved these problems and not let the situation deteriorate to the point that people have become that unhappy that they just want out. I am interested though to hear an opposing view how this improved lives in Europe.

The CFP is a mess, but without something to replace it I suspect fish stocks would simply have been extracted below replacement level.

Small is not beautiful in global trade.

From the start the only one with any kind of power in the negotiations was the EU.

What do I expect them to do? Act solely in the interests of their pay packet and party. What should they do? Act in the interests of the nation. That was once supposed to be the point.

They could have sought concessions or adjustments from the EU as precursor to a second referendum. The few times another EU nation has rejected a treaty or some aspect of the Union there's been something of a renegotiation and a second referendum.

Since the ridiculous Fixed Parliaments Act there needs to be a super-majority to call a UK election early. Why not with a referendum for a change of such consequence?

Were the EU not such a divisive issue, for the whole 40 years of our EU membership, within the Tory party, they might have approached the issue with a little more honesty. It could all have SO easily been avoided.

Do people really forget David Cameron's renegotiation prior to the referendum that quickly?

He came out of that looking the fool and if anything actually helped the leave campaign.

Just look at May now and imagine Cameron in her shoes. No politician wants this.

Allowing the referendum was an interesting but silly motion already, a gross miscalculation.

They should expect a plain exit. With that done, a good deal with the USA is possible. The threat of that could instead get them a great deal with the EU, and they may even do well with both.

Desperate begging is the current plan though... that won't end well.

1. Can you explain the "attitude of the EU" part?

2. If the EU is that bad, why aren't other countries holding referendums and leaving the EU? Why is only the UK making so much noise?

I am not European, so my knowledge on this matter is pretty small. Honestly curious, not being snarky etc.

I think you're wilfully ignoring what has been happening in Ireland, Greece, France and Italy in recent years.

The reason why the EU is perceived so bad in some countries (like the UK) are partly historic and partly because it the EU is the perfect scapegoat for local politicians who have messed things up. In the UK, scapegoating the EU for your own mistakes was particularly common.

Add to this the facts that the Leave campaign lied about practically everything - or at least intentionally distorted the facts - and that many voters don't know much about the structure of the EU, and the Brexit became reality.

It is unlikely that a similar decision will be made in any of the remaining 27 countries, for lack of popular support and because people there are more aware of the benefits of the EU. Never say no, though, fuelled with money from outside the EU, currently right-wing populists are pretty good at exploiting the fact that the divide between the rich and the poor is ever increasing very cleverly, and since poverty will increase in all EU countries, irrational and populist recipes for "the simple man on the street" can continue to gain in popularity. Radical left wing parties have largely the same agenda, so these are interchangeable.

So it's possible that one or two countries might attempt to exit the EU after some populist party has won an election. It's unlikely, though, because the EU offers overall way more benefits than disadvantages. It's budget is ridiculously cheap in terms of percentage of GDP and you get a lot of bang for the bucks out of the trade union alone. Moreover, future generations are fairly pro-EU in most member countries (though there are some outliers).

They want to centralise power more and more, and seem completely oblivious to their own mistakes.

Just an odd example - make fuel from a food crop grown in tropical jungle areas, to save CO2? No surprises how that turned out...