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" I was under the impression that the EU exerted some authority over England, but I guess that’s just not the case."

I believe you are getting two different organizations here confused. While the UK is not part of the Eurozone, the UK is part of the European Union. The Eurozone is an economic and monetary union of 19 European countries. This is what Greece is currently attempting to exit. They all share the same currency, but of course they don't share the same fiscal policies or share economies. When times are tight in Greece, they don't have the ability to control the money supply in their country. This is one of the reasons IMO that the Eurozone will never work. In order to share money, you have to be one country IMO for it to work. I believe the originators of this hoped that eventually all the countries on this would eventually become one country. That was the ultimate goal.

As a tourist, I love it. I can travel between all the Eurozone countries without any problems with customs at the border and I don't have to exchange my money. It's like going to a different state in the U.S. But when you travel to the U.K. or Switzerland, you are very aware they are not in the Euro. Because all the pain in the rear end problems of going through customs and exchanging your money come into play.

The EU has a congress that passes laws on it's member countrys and has representation from those member countries. That, the UK is part of.

Your impression is correct, the EU does. But there is a difference between the EU and the Eurozone.

It is kind of confusing, so unless you live here and have the crazy visa rules, you wouldn't need to know or bother

But basically you have the European Union which consists of 28 states that basically tries to co-ordinate what they do and prevent wars between themselves (at least that was the original aim, right now it's a bureaucratic nightmare)

These consist of nearly all countries in the geographical construct called Europe with the exceptions of

Iceland
Norway
Switzerland
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Kosovo
Serbia
Montenegro (Czarna Góra)
Albania
Macedonia
Moldavia
Ukraine
Transdniestr Republic
Russia
Belarus

The best diagram I found on wikipedia

The Eurozone is a sub-group of the EU which consists of states that share a common currency -- the Euro.

I see the trade benefits of the euro -- it means less currency conversions, but also the bad side without political union -- you can consider it to be analogous, but not similar, to the US with different states having one common currency (but the difference ends in the sense that the US federal government has more control over states than the EU council does)

Anyway, so the UK is part of the EU but not part of the eurozone, which makes sense to it. Cameron and most other British politicians "political expression" is to leave the EU but remain in something like the EFTA which is what Norway and Switzerland are in. But that is stupid -- because Norway still has to follow European Union rules and laws (to some extent) but has no vote at the EU meetings

Better to leave all relations with the EU and be like the USA dealing with the EU

But that is not good for the UK either due to multiple reasons:

the UK has 49% of its external trade with the EU (the rest to non-EU nations) and is increasingly economically tied to the EU (it's inevitable, it's the nearest geographical market)
Most of the UK's financial business comes from Europe. If it leaves the EU, it loses a large chunk of it's work and blows a huge hole in its economy. It can't replace this with work from the Americas as New York is too strong here while in Asia it is losing heavily to Hong Kong and Dubai
The UK used to have immigrants mostly from the commonwealth (the Indians brought a lot of business and boosts to the economy, while the Pakis brought jihadis), but now they have migrants from Europe who also are integrated and not welfare slobs -- what would happen to them? If they leave, I don't think they could be easily replaced

Finally, to your point that the EU exerts some authority over the UK, it does -- but that's a very weak authority, so that the UK can reject paying fees asked by the central authority.