It doesn't strike you odd that these claims pop up out of the blue when certain subjects are brought up?
The answer could simply be: "oh it's just ignorance at play, and some people just repeat what they heard and made them feel good because it helped them cope/made them resentful/.."
100% of the time I had these engagements, these folks didn't even know what the EU was. Donald Trump is a great example of this, he has no clue what the EU is, nor how it came to be lmao
Could you explain further from your perspective how you came up with this conclusion?