http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/679277/History-EU-how-bureaucrats-seized-power
Check out this article by Frederick Forsyth.
Good and well written historical summary.
The backers of this project were never honest.
As a Norwegian I only started to catch on sometime after the treaty of Maastricht.
It's telling that in the lead up to the Referendum in the UK, a large part of the 'Remain' arguments have revolved almost solely around economics - because that's the domain in which the EU does make a lot of sense.
The question really is will people be prepared to accept the risk of short term economic pain to reassert sovereignty. I fear patriotism is far enough gone now that too many people won't be.
There'll always be an England,
And England shall be free
If England means as much to you
As England means to me
Those last two lines - there are too many people now to whom England doesn't mean much to them. Nor does Britain as a whole - but Welsh nationalism, and Scottish nationalism, and Irish nationalism are seen as much more defensible than English nationalism - and it's England that needs to stand up today.
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!
But how many people still see themselves as Britons?
A good reference: How the First World War Inspired the EU
Now, why would this be of any importance?
Two reasons: Firstly it shows the anti-democratic bent of Monnet (and of his followers). It wasn't the fact that the Germans had voted in Hitler, but the fact that the Germans (and other peoples in Europe) had (in Monnet's warped mind) forced the politicans to start the Great War. Monnet considered that terrible tragedy a consequence of popular governance, and wanted to return to a rule by experts and unelected bureaucrats. Anyone who has read anything about the start of the first wold war knows that all decisions leading to the war was taken by a few politicians, crowned heads, and generals, and the citizens of the warring states had absolutely no say in the matter.
Even in democratic England the final decision was taken by a small number of government ministers (and possibly king George V) after a very short debated in the House.
So, the "Establishment" made a mess of things, but the common man was given the blame....
Secondly, from the real history of the beginnigns of the EU it is evident that the idea was to hinder a new WWI. But much had changed after the second world war; the Cold War, the nuclear deterrence, and NATO made a fourth war between Germany and France not only unlikely but actually impossible. Thus, the raison d´être of the EU - to prevent a new European war had already been overtaken by events.