If every population that's asked rejects the EU's vision what on earth makes you so sure that a comprehensive alternative wouldn't be popular?

Also there's no such thing as "picked apart" in the sense you mean, i.e. outside of military strategy. Nobody is picking North Korea apart despite that it's a world pariah. If a country doesn't want to collaborate with another country or accept its terms, it doesn't have to - the idea that cooperation is a form of warfare is exactly the mentality that the EU has, and is why it's so desperately dangerous and problematic as an organisation.