Would you give an example of when that has happened?
> It just seems like the EU is too top-heavy
The EU intentionally admitted many poorer countries, to promote freedom, security and stability in Europe in the long term. Without EU membership, they would be under pressure from Russia and others.
> discontent
What discontent do you mean? There's always something, of course.
This is a bit of a non-sequitur, at least as far as Eurozone's anemic growth is concerned. France and Germany stagnating isn't caused by Poland or Romania growing. It is mostly their own internal systemic problems. There were times when German and Polish economies were both healthy, as little as 10 years ago.
Sweden, another rich EU member, should grow by healthy 2.2 per cent this year, but Sweden is a lot more willing to actually reform its way out of problems than Germany is. Smaller countries have less inertia in such situations, and more maneuvering space.
I mean, Brexit was the ultimate discontent and it didn't just come out of nowhere. It's still very recent history and, as far as I know, the circumstances that caused it haven't really changed.
And of course, out of the middle class crisis in the 21st century. You have the same discontent outside the EU, except it doesn't get blamed on Bruxelles. That's how Trump gets elected, for example.
Interestingly, the inflection point seems to have been within months of the UK actually leaving (while the UK formally left in Jan 2020, nothing changed until Jan 2021).
I'm curious to understand why those vulnerabilities existed in the first place .. and why weren’t they patched? also once you get hacked, its a sobering experience and u invest more in fixing the root cause .. so net net .. even with your narrative, brexit has been amazing for Great Britain (the best country in the world imho)
Remember, a lot of brexit voters voted for, essentially, a completely fantasy situation; they thought they'd be getting a situation similar to Norway, only with no free movement and with opt-outs from all rules. The EU was extremely clear from the beginning that this was not on the table (it never made sense in the first place; you can't have a single market where one participant is excused from following any of the rules), but Johnson et al were telling them that was what they were voting for. The hard(ish) brexit they ended up with is very much not what most people will have been expecting.
Then instead of accepting the changing circumstances of the world, it is blamed on a single entity “EU” that is single handedly causing all their woes. Just leave and your lives will be better. Well, they learned.
This is how you get people to vote for someone like trump. They claim it is all the fault of some X, get people riled up, promise to fix X, get voted, and then you have to actually make their lives better.
The majority of taxpayers wanted to stay. The majority of under 65s wanted to stay.
Nobody claimed no one under 65 voted for Brexit, just the majority. At your age in rhe 25-35 bracket you were outnumbered 2:1.
If votes were weighed by years you have to live with it remain would have won with about 65%.
I hope you’re enjoying it.
This is also why ur weight votes by years left to live logic is flawed .. democracy is basically one person .. one vote .. not one vote weighted by how many years you have left to live .. it wouldent be fair I I ask u to start weighing votes by how much taxes you pay, dependants u supporter or years worked .. would it ?
PS: I do work
Recent polling shows that ~20% of Leave voters favour rejoining the EU, so, well, apparently some of them learned.
That said, recent polling _in the UK_ shows a solid majority favouring rejoining the EU. About 20% of people _who voted leave_ now appear to favour rejoining the EU. Brexit actually getting sufficient support to win a referendum was kind of a moment-in-time thing.