We don't need to prove causation, merely to understand the strong association, and the EU's role in ensuring that no one country's interest (no, Germanophobes, not even that one) trumps all the others. The Marshall Plan certainly helped with the physical and economic regeneration of Western Europe but we've come way beyond that now and have much more to protect.
That framework helps to protect Europe against some of its own nastier elements; there are parties in France, Austria and elsewhere every bit as unsavoury as what Ukip tries to conceal but with competent leaders and organizers. Some of those could knock a country badly off course, and the buffering effect of EU membership keeps that from happening.
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