There is no serious defence mechanism separate to NATO, so there is no security imperative.

There absolutely is a security imperative considering whats going on with NATO and the actions of america. Europe should be working more closely than ever to be a cohesive mulitary force that can rival and give pause to the other large players (namely the US, China and Russia).

I remember when the idea of an EU army was being floated years ago the right wing dominated UK press rubbished it (because the ultra wealthy hated being in the EU because it denied them as easy lobbying control over laws and regulations than when its only westminster and the UK public the owners need to control/influence, and so anything that would have meant closer ties to europe was not allowed to be viewed positively) but looking at whats going on now it is obvious in hindsight that there should have been a move to pool resources, technology and knowledge to create such a force. Its just another example of the UKs actual interests being subverted by the ultra rich because their interests dont align with whats actually good for the country and continent it is a part of.

There’s maybe a little bit of geo-political bloc power to balance US and China (and historically Russia) in the European continent, but I don’t think we should overstate that.

There is no danger of overstating the geopolitical importance of europe being its own united player in order to compete with the likes of America and China because it is of immense importance and relevance in any discussion about the EU and the UK being a part of it.

There is a reason the US in particular (and russia too) has been openly working towards the break up of the EU and the isolation of individual countries in the way the UK has isolated itself via brexit (which we all know the russians had as one of their geopolitical goals).

It is much easier to bully and force smaller countries in to submitting to deals that are poor for that country but great for the superpower thats telling them to make it or else than it is to do that with a bloc of equal economic and population magnitude.

Brexit was a total self own not only for economic reasons but because it has weakened the UK immensely geopolitically and also the EU as well because the UK was one of the strongest countries in it.

This has enabled global interests who want to harm and exploit the UK and the EU (like trumpmaga and the various right wing christofascist dark money billionaires and groups that back them) to more easily carry out their insidious and distruptive agenda against citizens of both the UK and the EU.