In its relationship with Europe, Great Britain famously never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

In the early 1950s, the British “No” to Europe stemmed from its over-confidence after the second world war. Great Britain dreamed of playing Athens to America’s Rome. It was an illusion, which should have been dispelled early on by the fiasco of the 1956 Suez crisis. It was obvious the US had little desire to look to London as a source of old wisdom. America had become a superpower and Great Britain, just like France, was a midsized power behaving in an anachronistic manner in the Middle East. A crucial decade was lost. Great Britain was not to be present at the creation of the European construction.

Another decade was lost in the 1960s: this one as a result of General Charles de Gaulle’s mistrust of the “Anglo-Saxons”. When Britain finally made it to Europe in the 1970s, it was very late, if not too late. The Franco-German marriage of reason, based on so much passion, had had ample time to establish itself. Great Britain was to remain a newcomer – a welcome member of the club, of course, but viewed always with a hint of suspicion. Did she really share our fundamental values, our final objectives (even if, to be fair, we were not always clear ourselves as to what they were) – not to mention our working methods? Great Britain was obviously of Europe, but was she European?