[Vigilanteman]

EU leaders fear a string of copycat polls could tear the organisation apart . . .

Yep, the EU "leaders" could have avoided the possibility completely by limiting themselves to the specific and limited functions under which they were formed.

But bureaucrats can't avoid bossy mission creep nor do they even have the common sense to notice when their bossiness is growing intolerable because of the bubble in which they live.

[marktwain]

Exactly.

The EU had a good exemplars to follow. The United States. Switzerland.

A federal system with narrowly defined powers for the central government. A list of rights that cannot be breached.

Instead, they quickly moved to a bureaucratic, unelected oligopoly, whose model was the nanny state.

[ScaniaBoy]

Not only that, but if the EU leaders had given Cameron s-o-m-e concessions when he tried to renegotiate Britain's deal, the referendum vote would most likely have ended with a Remain victory. As it was he was forced to bluff (lie!) in front of the Parliament to hide the fact that the maximalists in the EU bureaucracy had given him exactly naught. He was not able to campaign on a “new deal”.

Clearly the EU Commissioners knew about the British disdain of the EU, and they knew a referendum was forthcoming. And still they could not budge.

They are just as idiotic and authoritarian as the pre-Reformation Popes. And we know how that ended....