[Owl558]

“The EU was not content to be a free trading, monetary & economic confederation.”

I don’t think we should assume that these are anti-EU movements. In the case of Scotland, they are looking towards the EU not away from it. Venice is reflecting an age old scism in the politics of the Italian penninsula.

“Their fanatical approach has..interfered with the different nations’ perceptions of proper sex roles, ethnic identification & other social institutions, developed over many generations.”

Socialist silliness was entrenched in Europe long before the EU. These are not American-style conservatives clamoring for a return to traditional values.

“...it was the American Left that pushed the creation of the EU in the aftermath of World War II.”

In point of fact, Republicans supported it as well - as a way to prevent yet another Europe-wide war.

Your final paragraph is spot-on, however.

[Ohioan]

There was Socialist silliness in Europe before the EU, but the fact is that member nations have been forced to adopt laws that effect immigration, relations between the sexes, and who may serve in the military, in what capacities, etc., because of EU dictates. It has pushed for social policies that have nothing to do with the supposed economic benefits that induced membership.

And with respect to Republicans pushing for the EU, those were predominantly not Conservative Republicans. Before the Goldwater to Reagan battle for control of the Republican Party, it was scarcely more Conservative than the Democratic Party. The Conservative Southern Democrats were more Conservative, than the East Coast Republicans, who succeeded in frustrating the Taft Republican efforts to move the Party to the Right in the 1940s & 1950s.