Dont agree that anyone was misled, eu or common market was always about free trade and the largest component of trade is people. Saying its all about federalism is misleading tho. Agree that Nato and UN have had their role is resolving conflict but its the EU that has been the driver of peace, reconciliation and human rights which was correctly acknowledged by the Nobel prize for peace. Nato or the Un have never been shortlisted to my knowledge

You are just being cantankerous and silly Johnny.

Lasting peace in Europe comes from learning lessons from two world wars and stepping back from the brink. USA, Russia and China have more influence on world peace than the EU.

French fishermen and farmers and German car makers don't give a flying fcuk about the EU laws, human rights or the sense of fair play when it suits them and they exploit our goodwill.

The EU works because we always back down, pay more than we should be paying to be members and allow ourselves to be bullied. This was demonstrated by Cameron's pathetic recent attempt to get concessions from the other EU nations.

You're not convincing anyone with your lasting peace is down to the EU argument.

Indeed. And the Nuclear deterrent has done more than any of them.
Such ridiculous revisionism by the left trying to claim that the EU somehow saved us from WW3. Utter cobblers.

so you think the European convention on human rights which constitutes EU law, drafted by British legal experts for abuses against state power after WW2 and allows European citizens the right
to a fair trial
to privacy
freedom of thought and religion
freedom from discrimination and degrading treatment
freedom of expression
freedom from domestic violence
freedom from slavery
....has done nothing to help peace in Europe even though it forms the legal basis for the Good Friday agreement in NI.....
Then if this is what you are saying I will gracefully withdraw from this 'intelligent' debate

Because the wars have been with Europe (well two world wars), we need a legal framework that doesn't have a separate legal system for each country as stated by the very British lawyers who wrote the framework for Europe.

As an example in cross border disputes, we needed the same legal framework for human rights in Northern Ireland's Good Friday agreement because the nationalists did not accept UK law and the loyalists did not accept Irish law. Rightly or wrongly is irrelevant (and has probably been laboured in other threads) because they all accepted European law that gave human and therefore political freedoms and rights to all. We have subsequently had peace there for 20 odd years thankfully