my hot take is that the concerted attempt to slowly turn up the heat as it were on that nation building project turned a lot of people off the EU. the failure of that project has left the EU in a condition where it's hard to define what it is. i've seen it described as 'not a state, but not not a state', which is as good a description as you're going to get.

what i don't see anymore is any articulation of a positive vision for the EU. in the UK a least, all i'm seeing from the europhiles is projection of a supposedly benevolent internationalist progressive polity which is very nice to migrants, which bears no resemblance to the EU that actually exists.

i find it so frustrating seeing the two imaginary EUs, the one portrayed by liberal remainers who think it's gr9, and the one projected by reactionary leavers who see it as a sinister foreign plot to hold britain back or whatever.

my take is that the EU is a neoliberal free trade zone with limited free movement of labour (that this labour takes the form of people is incidental to that process), and one of the most violent borders on earth. i think it has a horrible series of mechanisms to punish the poorer member states for not falling in line with regard to monetary and economic policy, and that the whole thing is laughably undemocratic.

that being said i think britain has been on a long decline since the 60's, and EU membership was one factor that allowed the effects of that decline on things like standard of living to seem to plateau for many people, even as we ripped up and tore out most of our productive industries (partly) to crush organised labour. brexit might make the extend of that decline more apparent to many, but they might just blame the EU for it.