Can the US be relied upon?

[The Grand Nudger]

If the EU were simply a club in which you paid dues, that might matter. It isn't. The UK gleans tremendous economic benefit from membership, and, as you noted, it provides direct subsidies as well. It's a situation not entirely dissimilar to our fed and states.

I suppose that it's a tough job, to tell rural communities that they need to adapt or die. It's not specific to the UK though, or caused by EU membership, or it's putative cost. I can see (and have seen, here as well)..though, why members of those communities would make the connection. Also how and why dissemination of propaganda to that effect is appealing. The fantasy being that things would change for those rural communities if only they got out from under the EU's thumb. I doubt that, though they'd lose the subsidies for sure.

[I_am_not_mafia]

TBH The bulk of the issues boil down to the fact that EU legislation isn't supposed to be applied directly to Member States legal systems.
Every other country goes through a process of scrutiny and applies amendments to Brussels' (One size fits nobody) output. 
Except Tony 'Rubber-stamp' Blair and his flatmate...
EU revenue is 15% VAT, 20% Tariffs, 65% Fines.
It's an open secret that the EU uses the legal system to fund itself which is why everyone else amends the regulations to reduce the effect on their population. But Tony didn't do amendments so Britain took the full whack and was being bled dry. The situation was so bad Brussels actually gave us a rebate, but that of course went to HM Treasury and the plebs that were being bankrupted never saw a penny.
So we're left with a small mountain of legislation to wade through to get back to something resembling sanity.

So we had two options. Stay in the EU and try to improve things. Except we didn't. We kept making bigger demands every time we got what we wanted and weakened EU regulations to make corporations more profitable.

Instead we took the second option to leave, thereby destroying our own economy in the process

Brexit will soon have cost the UK more than all of its payments to the EU over the last 47 years put together

Doesn't sound very rational to me.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's hard to put a price on the perception of greater freedom and autonomy.

[Mr Greene]

CAP is largely defined by Paris which relies upon a significant agricultural component of its economy, however much of French agriculture is inefficient and looks to state subsidies to continue. The French government puts a lot of effort into this as they see it as affecting their chances of reelection.
In the UK farming had been made efficient primarily as a result of WWII and the battle of the Atlantic, applying subsidies allowed commerce to underpay for produce trapping the farmers in a cycle that increased their reliance on subsidies and destroying rural economies.

---

TBH The bulk of the issues boil down to the fact that EU legislation isn't supposed to be applied directly to Member States legal systems.
Every other country goes through a process of scrutiny and applies amendments to Brussels' (One size fits nobody) output. 
Except Tony 'Rubber-stamp' Blair and his flatmate...
EU revenue is 15% VAT, 20% Tariffs, 65% Fines.
It's an open secret that the EU uses the legal system to fund itself which is why everyone else amends the regulations to reduce the effect on their population. But Tony didn't do amendments so Britain took the full whack and was being bled dry. The situation was so bad Brussels actually gave us a rebate, but that of course went to HM Treasury and the plebs that were being bankrupted never saw a penny.
So we're left with a small mountain of legislation to wade through to get back to something resembling sanity.

So we had two options. Stay in the EU and try to improve things. Except we didn't. We kept making bigger demands every time we got what we wanted and weakened EU regulations to make corporations more profitable.

Instead we took the second option to leave, thereby destroying our own economy in the process

Brexit will soon have cost the UK more than all of its payments to the EU over the last 47 years put together

Doesn't sound very rational to me.

Sometimes you have to cut wreckage loose and start from a clean slate.
The whole 'debate' was rather lacking in rationality, unless you consider labeling everyone who disagrees with you as being a nazi.

[The Grand Nudger]

The consumption of subsidy is not directly tied to efficiency in agricultural production. France, in forty years, has increased it's yields four times over. It's an agricultural powerhouse. Comparable to the US in many ways. While they talk about the family farm ad naus, they funnel their efforts to massive cereal grain processing operations. Small farms are struggling for the same reason there as anywhere else. Consumer demands have shifted, and economic activity has long since been urban rather than rural.

The EU didn't destroy small farms in the UK, France, or the US. It's simply presided over the decline and reduced it's impact through subsidy. The UK as an independent agent will, by necessity, do the same. I presume that the appeal in this scenario is that they will at least do it in a very british way?

[I_am_not_mafia]

I don't think even the most ardent europhile has claimed that the EU is perfect. The CAP is the classic example. There will always be things you can point to and say isn't perfect. Fact is by leaving we'll be much worse off with less freedom both personally and as a state, and we'll all suffer a vastly diminished quality of life.

The EU is the first of its kind and has been extremely successful at what it does. There will always be ways that it can be improved. Leaving and allowing ourselves to be at the mercy of the US, or if on WTO terms all the other countries in the world, is not a sensible solution.

---

Sometimes you have to cut wreckage loose and start from a clean slate.

Which is not possible with today's global economy. Countries are too interdependent.

[Abaddon_ire]

So you don't understand CAP. OK.
Would you really prefer the collapse of the UK agricultural base?

Too late. You already destroyed them.

Nothing wrong with a common currency.

That would be a myth.

Nothing wrong with that per se.

Jesus. Did you swallow all of Boris's lies?

Because quality standards don't matter, right?

Because who needs regulations, standards or a justice system.

Like the UK blatantly does.

Would you like to provide any evidence for your claims or do you expect us to take it on faith?
Gish gallops aren't particularly convincing unless you're talking to an echo chamber. If you were any more inept I'd start thinking you were a Poe.

The Gish Gallop was yours, I merely responded to YOUR gallop.

And neither, I expect you to at least have some vague clue what you are talking about.

[Mr Greene]

Unfortunately the polarised nature of things didn't leave room for nuance.

[The Grand Nudger]

What nuance exists between these two positions?

A. EU membership destroyed small farms and rural communities.

B. That's a pre-existing global condition.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Getting back to the OP though, I still don't know what's supposed to be so bad about an EU army. Brexiters will normally respond with something along the lines of '"You're having a laugh aren't you?" and then not be able to explain why it's a bad thing. It would have stopped us getting stuck in Iraq for example. We wouldn't now be worrying about the US dragging us into a war with Iran. An EU army sounds far more preferable now than being in NATO with a liability such as Trump.