lots of wars incl. the 1st, second and the cold war.
The EU has helped to create a larger Europe with much less conflicts. Having a single currency is a great advantage, borders are no longer necessary and, yes, nations are still responsible for their fiscal and economic policies.
> even destroying the identities of those member nations
the EU doesn't do that.
> EU will see more Brexits again sooner or later unless those fundamental issues are properly addressed
Actually it's the opposite. The UK was dumb enough to give up the single market, freedom of movement, common standards, common politics, solidarity, etc. The negative effects and the lack of positive effects of the Brexit are plain to see and the younger generation in the UK will demand the benefits back. Those lost the most because of Brexit.
The disintegration of the EU after the Brexit was always propaganda. If one read the British press, the EU was always collapsing the next day and the Eurozone would disappear. Nothing like that has happened, not even remotely.
> foolhardy to think an even more tightly-federated EU would be successful just like that
The EU is already a huge success.
> The EU is already a huge success.
I'd love to hear some proof of this
That's debatable and you'd want to bring some data if you're debating this.
I live in EU but I'd live in the UK if it weren't for the horrible weather. At least they don't have the immigration and poverty of the local population problem (which turns into thefts) that southern europe has.
Not to mention the covid bill which we'll have to pay within 10 years which the UK skipped.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores...
> At least they don't have the immigration and poverty of the local population problem
UK? The UK had some of the regions with high poverty in the EU. Outside of London there are regions of high poverty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_Kingdom
Just three years ago: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2019/12/11/the-uks-poore...
Brexit makes it all only worse. Now you need to compare the UK with the poorer regions of the EU to look better. The UK itself has one extremely rich region and a lot of medium to poor regions.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/map-reveals-uk-re...
Immigration? That's on an all-time high in the UK:
https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/news/2022/08/25/immigration...
The EU doesn't really "unify" all the countries in to one. The US federal government has significantly more power than EU parliament has in many areas.
I also can't think of a single area where I feel my national identity is being destroyed or taken away from by the EU. In what ways does it do that?
You're missing the point of the EU. The EU was literally created to do this and to tone down national pride.
The purpose of the EU was to prevent wars in Europe. Europe was a hotbed for wars for hundreds of years. WW1 was not that special! We had countless wars in Europe, even wars that would be considered world wars in retrospect like Napoleon's romp across the continent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe
The founding idea of the EU is to intertwine countries, remove barriers between them, so that Europeans stop trying to kill one another because of cultural and national pride. That's why there are no borders, why there's a single market (the very origins of the single market are in tying together steel production between EU members so that they couldn't easily detach from one another and create their own war machines again), why there are common rules, etc.
There's a reason for that, which is that the US conquered or subjugated its neighbors rather than peacefully federating with them, and US states accepted a substantially lower level of sovereignty than any EU member. Texas tried to "Texit" only 16 years after it joined the US, and it received far less accommodation than the UK did in leaving the EU.
What a load of tripe. European nations are a relatively modern invention. Historically Europe has been ruled by various empires. Europe has historically looked more like the EU than a collection of countries. And though it all the local (mostly regional) culture has survived and thrived.
EU member nations are countries with literally hundreds if not thousands of years of storied history, all with varied cultures and traditions. It is impossible to unify such peoples in as heavy-handed a manner as the EU without harming and even destroying the identities of those member nations.
Cultural and national pride are things that are very real and not something to be tossed aside, they are the identities of those peoples and deserve to be respected.
The EU damages such things by way of instituting a single currency, removing the concept of borders, removing a nation's sovereign right to fiscal and economical policies, and more. I feel part of the reason Brexit ultimately came to be is because British pride could not allow EU encroachment to continue any further, and the EU will see more Brexits again sooner or later unless those fundamental issues are properly addressed.
A federation of states works for the United States of America because our states are, at the oldest, merely 200~300 years old, with most holding common or at least very similar heritages. There are less obstacles for such a union to overcome to be successful. The EU's member nations are wildly different by comparison and it is foolhardy to think an even more tightly-federated EU would be successful just like that.