...I was in the United States during the referendum and the immediate fallout, and opinion was fairly solidly on the side of Remain—quite often with the emphasis on such a vote as a cultural expression of cosmopolitanism as against reactionary exclusion, rather than any fixed view of the impact on economics or politics per se. The case for Britain in the E.U. from an American vantage point is easy enough: a more pro-American voice in the councils of Europe, less protectionist for U.S. goods, and less isolationist.
Very few Americans, however, would consent to a structure like the E.U. governing the U.S.: NAFTA suffered enough from accusations of supra-nationalism and eroding sovereignty as it was; if it included a panel of commissioners from Canada and Mexico who couldn’t be removed by American voters but could make internal American laws, the opposition[to remain] would have been near-unanimous...