[cmdkeen]

Well they didn't want to reform when we said we were having a referendum. Previously when other countries voted against the EU Constitution it was repackaged as the Lisbon Treaty and lo and behold didn't require votes. Now we have EU leaders saying they want to hurt the UK so much that no-one else will want to leave - despite the constituent members making very different noises.

The EU is fundamentally irreformable to reduce its power, it is the modern embodiment of Whig history - the view that progress is inevitable towards every greater liberty and enlightenment. This is the sort of attitude that leads to things like Greece being allowed to join the Euro when it was patently unready to do so.

One of the things you need to remember about the older people who tended to vote Leave is that they either voted in or remember the circumstances of the initial EU referendum in the UK. They remember what the UK joined and how it was presented to the UK. Other European countries with a much more recent history of revolution or dictatorship might want to remove power away from themselves, that is a view that is much more at odds with how Britain perceives itself.