I mean the UK. The UK is a commonwealth country and a fiveeyes country. It makes no sense for the UK to be in the EU. The fact that Ireland has high EU approva

I mean the UK. The UK is a commonwealth country and a fiveeyes country. It makes no sense for the UK to be in the EU. The fact that Ireland has high EU approval ratings is immaterial to the fact that it's not logical to have it be apart from the UK. This is a tragic artifact of history. Ideally this would be fixed, but I agree it isn't likely to happen. You wouldn't need a counterbalance if things were done right, which is to have the larger chunks (today's England, Scotland, Republic of Ireland) be split into more similar-sized chunks. Having a couple dozen chunks (called what you like: parish, county, state, province...) is probably sane.