This is positively unthinkable in other parts of the word. Puzzlingly (or perhaps not-so-puzzlingly), large swaths of Western Europe are comfortable with this, despite having recent experience with totalitarian states that were positively brutal.

Say what you will, I do see a connection between the two.

Instead, it leaves the parties on the fringe as the only ones doing the criticizing.

Why should it be controversial to say that the EU is not perfect and that leaving it could work out better for certain countries?

Instead it's like no one can imagine a time where the EU did not exist and it's almost like we have forgotten that the EU is not the end all be all of everything.