Hi Atilla,
I think we agree: Macron is indeed leading the EU 'onto the next stage' - of decline.
You appear to be a rather confused here. I'm in favour of nations retaining their respective identities so that their people can relate to their native countries and have a sense of who they are (in a cultural context) and what it means to be English (in my case), French or German etc. That means that if they choose to (they don't have to), the Scots can wear tartan kilts and the French can wear striped shirts and berets etc. Silly examples I know, but they illustrate how people can express who they are and what they are by simple means. Or not if they don't want to. Alternatively, they can join a choir and sing traditional songs or do a strange tribal dance at the start of a rugby match etc., etc. It's the exact opposite of everyone "looking and acting like everyone else is dull and boring. Dress the same. Talk the same. Eat the same. Same ol yawn yawn yawn". What you say you're against I'm against - that's my point. But it's precisely what the EU wants.
Personally, I'm not particularly concerned with my own (national) identity: I just don't want it supplanted by the EU so that I'm made to feel European first and foremost and English as a dim and distant second. I suspect all Brexiteers will agree with this - along with many remainers. Would the French agree with me? I'll happily wager my house that they would. So, laugh, snigger and dismiss my argument as 'tosh' by all means, but I suspect you're in a minority on this issue and, as I said just a few posts ago, that's hardly a counter argument!
You appear to be confusing national identity with free will and personal choice. They are chalk and cheese. And I'm certainly not dictating what national identity is or ought to be - that would be ridiculous. It is what it is and it's arrived at over many decades and centuries. It's to do with having a sense of what it means to be English. Prior to the referendum, one aspect of national identity I liked and related to was a sense of fair play and being polite; something that used to be regarded as a national characteristic. As you suggest, on this front at least, it appears I may be deluded.
Please don't tell me how I think and feel. For the record, I'm proud of some British achievements and embarrassed by others. The Crusades and missionaries definitely fall into the latter category.
Aha, finally, you're starting to talk some sense! ;-)
Well, I agree with you that people are sooo mixed up. Based on this post of yours Atilla, it appears to me that you're more mixed up than most.
Tim.