BREXIT, STRATEGY, AND THE EU: BRITAIN TAKES LEAVE. Egmont Paper 100, February 2018

Biscop, Sven (2018) BREXIT, STRATEGY, AND THE EU: BRITAIN TAKES LEAVE. Egmont Paper 100, February 2018. [Policy Paper]

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Abstract

When as a young boy I was asked what I wanted to be later, unlike many others of my age I never chose to be a fireman or a truck driver. For years, my answer was: I want to be an Englishman. I guess I read too many books about the history of the British Empire at too young an age. Since then I have read a lot more, but I do still see myself as an anglophile (even though successive British governments do their best to dissuade me). I feel absolutely no Schadenfreude over Brexit therefore. Brexit is bad news for the EU and a disaster for the UK. In the area of foreign policy and defence that I will address here, the consequences will be far-reaching and the cost very high, for both Brussels and London. In the beginning, however, in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, the UK was a strong proponent of European cooperation. None other than Winston Churchill, in his 1946 speech at the University of Zürich, stated that “We must build a kind of United States of Europe”. That was the task the UK saw – for the others. For itself, the UK saw a different role.

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