Can we be sure that it is an EU success or more possible a combination of the threat of nuclear war, the need to repay the war debt by all countries and the recognition that trading was the way to go to create wealth, even if it has become obscenely bloated at the top.

The original EEC helped with that in part but it was ever the game plan to build the united states of Europe, to be controlled centrally and I very much fear from my own experiences that the UK was never considered to be a part of mainland Europe, so we have never been really accepted as a much greater part of it than the self-styled gang of 5 founding members of the EU.