Or is the objection merely to some wholly imaginary threat to the purity of the anglo-saxon race and culture and an unthinking and instantaneous embracing of anything nationalist and right leaning?
Yes. Yes it is. Everyone who disagrees with you is emotionally driven and intellectually dishonest.
The goal we object to was the attempt to build a giant country. The EEC should have stuck with the tariff free zone and free movement (of workers, not all citizens, as it was originally). Instead they grew into a 28-nation wannabe superpower with a currency, flag, central bank, law-making powers, etc. Now Juncker is pushing for an EU army. The whole project has departed from reality and is going to collapse in a few decades, sadly taking down the free trade zone with it.
Why?
Honestly, how would that be bad? After all the UK consists of Wales, England, Scotland and N. Ireland. People of the past opposed that unity so much they were willing to die to try to prevent it yet on the whole that unity has been undeniably positive.
For the EU for example, how could having an single foreign policy be a bad idea in any way? How does having an EU flag do any harm what so ever? I'd claim that point in particular shows the issue very much is emotionally driven.
And what will make it fall apart except people voting to leave it on grounds as trivial as having a flag?
Likewise such an extreme step as dismantling the entire EU project rather than just fixing the monetary problem can't really be justified rationally and looks pretty overwhelmingly like emotionally driven nationalism.
You seem wilfully ignorant: you focus on my non-essential point about the flag, for example, and ignore the obvious issues with the EU (which a cursory Google search will help you find).
Stiglitz identified the fundamental crossroads: the only fix for the Eurozone's monetary problems is fiscal union. Thing is, if that happens, there'll be further crises and further demands for integration. None of this will make the Germans and Greeks resent each other less, and the endgame is a resurgence of nationalism.
I'm a capitalist, not a nationalist, and it's very obvious to me that the EU should have remained a trade union of independent countries.
Because you might disagree with it? How can you be so narrow-minded to not even fathom people having different fundamental beliefs? Why don't Israel and Palestine just merge into one country called Unicornia? Why don't all people just separate religious beliefs from government, or conversely, why don't we all just switch to the correct(tm) religion?
One country may not want to support terrorists while another wants to support them because they are 'freedom fighters', how do you propose they operate under the same foreign policy?
