No longer being in the UK I will actually quote an acquaintance
Alex... why exactly did you post that quote? There's certainly no arguments in there - it's all just emotions. The emotions are absolutely understandable - this is a huge, huge deal, and obviously there's huge emotions involved. Absolutely. But emotions are not arguments - at least, I dearly hope that you're not swayed either way by the fact that some mental case is scared about fascists coming after him. It's just not an argument, there's no reason in it.
Regarding the EU, I will say just a few more things, and then I'll shut up, because I do think you are ultimately right in what you said earlier - it's too early to really be having this discussion. There is too much emotion involved, which makes it pretty hard to have a calm discussion about advantages and disadvantages. But, let me point out that if the only consideration regarding the EU were the regional development programmes that you correctly identify as greatly benefitting Scotland, then I wouldn't have a single negative thing to say about the EU. But there's so many other issues involved, and to reduce the discussion to just that one aspect where the EU is seen as good because it gave the Scots money... it just doesn't work that way.
I also will not try to argue that British politics is all good. Heck, living in Australia, I can see clearly that all throughout the British Empire, the establishment is a pretty horrid and slimy thing. Of the British parties that currently exist, the conservatives are certainly closet to my ideological position, but there's a huge amount of slimy opportunism in their party, and this combined with entrenched interests means that they're mainly "conservative" in the sense of conserving the interests of a particular group of people, as opposed to trying to conserve tradition, common sense, and all these other things that are being jettisoned wholesale today. Yes, I do think they're still better than Labour or (especially) the Lib Dems, but I have no illusions. In spite of all this, at least they are held responsible by the voters. You mentioned the benefits of stable democratic oversight - there is no such thing in the EU. For example, the two Polish representatives in the EU power structures - of whom, you will note, one is Donald Tusk, the head of the European Council, the closest we have to an EU president - are among the most corrupt scumbags in Polish politics, who seized the opportunity to be elected to the commission in order to flee Poland in the middle of a massive scandal that heavily implicated them in all manner of nasty things. You will note that the rest of the EU had no qualms about accepting these politicians, in spite of their evident corruption - because corruption is not a problem in the EU. What is important is that the politicians belong to the correct ideological crowd, and that they will be obedient to the interests of the big powers - or, to be more blunt, they will be obedient to Germany, which is particularly visible with Tusk, whose connections to Angela Merkel go far beyond what is acceptable in a democracy. I don't think that's quite what you have in mind when you talk about stable democratic oversight, because there's really no democracy to be had in the EU. These things look good at first glance, but the fine print is pretty disturbing. Essentially, the EU leadership is neither democratic, nor meritocratic - very often, it is demeritocratic, it is a leadership composed of mediocre politicians who were dumped in Brussels after running into trouble at home. The fact that you have corrupt scumbags like Tusk running the show, with most people not even being aware of any scandal (after all, I wouldn't know anything about his past either, if I didn't speak Polish), is a very strong indicator of what the EU is all about.
I would also like to point out that in the vote, it wasn't only the present state of the EU that was a consideration, but also its future - many people vehemently objected to the plans the EU leadership expressed for the future of the organisation. Consider also, that statistically, the older a British voter was, the more likely they were to vote leave. Today, this is being presented as some horrible injury perpetrated on young people, but I see it differently. Let's face it, young people, even 30-somethings like you and me, are self-centred, while 20-somethings are not only self-centred, but usually just plain ignorant (I won't mention the whining from 16-year-olds supposedly robbed of the right to decide their future - they're children, too immature to make decisions, so robbing them of the right to decide their future is precisely the point). Young and even early middle-age adults (I think we're starting to fit into that latter category, which is kind of disturbing) are on the make, and when voting, their first consideration is "what's in it for me", and usually "what's in it for me in the short term". Older people are in a far better position to make a rational decision, not only because they have the benefits of experience, but also because they are no longer constrained by self-interest so much. Many of the people who voted to leave won't even live long enough to leave, and they knew it very well - they were making what they felt was the best choice for their children and grandchildren. Incidentally: among the people who actually consciously recall life in the pre-EU Britain,
an utterly overwhelming majority voted to leave. That means something. It means a lot.
Ok, "a few more things" have turned into a couple of pretty long paragraphs, so I will leave it at that. My message, at its simplest: whoever is right in the debate (I do think it's "leave", but I don't claim certainty), there are most definitely both advantages and disadvantages to being in the EU, and I am pretty convinced that most people voted to leave not because of emotions, but because of reasoned arguments. You would do well to step out of your comfort zone and familiarise yourself with the arguments of the other side.
this is a good place to start, and it will cost you a whole $2.5. Go for it - you have nothing to lose in learning the other side's arguments!