Moving beyond British exceptionalism

It is tempting to interpret the convoluted narrative that led to Brexit as a story of British exceptionalism. The fit between European integration and the United Kingdom (UK) had never been easy – much less natural, it would appear, than for any other country in Europe. It was for this reason that the British initially stood aside from the process, spurning repeated chances to join the institutional precursors to the European Union (EU). When they did belatedly change their mind and join the European Economic Community (EEC), moreover, they did so amid sustained domestic controversy. The deep-seated mismatch between Britain and its European partners was to become a leitmotiv of the country’s forty-six years as an EC/EU member state. The UK was never at ease within the EC/EU, but instead at odds with important aspects of the process, divided internally on the necessity of membership and liable to see itself as an ‘awkward partner’, the malcontent within.