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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]“ Charles de Gaulle would have agreed. When he blocked Britain’s first attempt to join the trade bloc that would become the European Union, he said that “England is an island, sea-going, bound up, by its trade, its markets, its food supplies, with the most varied and often the most distant countries.”

From geography flow thousands of years of history, a messy mix of conflicts and ties with the continent. Tombs identifies two threads in the complicated, contradictory tapestry of Anglo–Continental relations. First, ever since the sixteenth century, British islanders have not “pursue[d] or accepted a permanent organic Continental link.” Second, Britain has never been “tempted or forced to ally itself with the hegemonic Continental power of the day.” It has always wanted a balance of power in Europe and never sought supremacy itself. Even within the EU, Britain has generally looked to maximize its independence from the bloc’s decisions rather than to dominate decision-making.

Tombs emphasizes another important factor too quickly dismissed elsewhere: just how different Britain’s experience of the twentieth century was compared with its neighbors’. Britain remained unconquered throughout the century and emerged victorious from World War II. That moment of triumph against fascism remains the foundation myth of modern Britain and a source of enormous and understandable national pride. As Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the EU, understood, Brits feel no need to “exorcise history”—unlike those in Germany, Spain, France, Greece, Portugal, Italy, or Eastern Europe. “

— “the sovereign isle” , Robert tombs, Cambridge [/quote]

Whatever, this is all just intellectual masturbation. For all intents and purposes, the UK is European. There’s just as much difference between a Bulgarian and a Swede as a Brit and a Swede, if not more. [/quote]

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