Brexit was the product of British Exceptionalism - quite a lot of Britons thought the EU would give Britain great concessions during the Leave Negotiations “because of how important Britain is” thus Britain would end up with “the same rights as an EU member without the duties of one” (such as Freedom Of Movement) and even the Remainers thought that “Britain should stay in the EU and change it from the inside” - in other words that Britain was so important that the other 27 countries and 470 million people would let it shape the EU to become what Britain wanted (which back then was pretty much ever more outrageous exceptions, since the Leave Referendum itself was the product of demanding to be exempted from Freedom Of Movement rules - but only from the EU to Britain and not the other way around - and to keep everything else, “or else we’ll do a Referendum on leaving the EU”, to which the answer was “No!”).
The very same British Exceptionalism keeps many if not most Britons thinking that the rest of the EU wants Britain back so much that it would get all the exceptions if it rejoins and keep its own currency.
Britain and Britons simply can’t accept that (as France and most French and Germany and most Germans did) they’re just a middle sized country in a World dominated by large countries (like the US and China) and large blocks (like the EU).
Now, the solution would be to get over the British Exceptionalism thing, but the entirety of the Press over there is constantly blowing the “Britain is important” and “Britons are superior” Nationalist dog-whistles, mostly by spinning international stories to make it seem like everybody else is paying attention to Britain and its leaders (just here the other day I got from a Brit an old good one from just after the 2008 Crash - “Gordon Brown saved the World’s Economy”) as well as reporting some stupid shit from some tiny place in a bigger EU country (say, some idiocy in the City Hall of some obscure small place in Germany) and spinning it as “this would never happen here (we’re so much better than that)”.
Britain has issues, massive issues, and they feed each other. Frankly, until there is massive societal and political change there, Britain will be unable to rejoin the EU as an equal partner willing to work together with the rest for the common good and if they did manage to rejoin somehow without that change (very unlikely given that it would require unanimous approval from all 27 members, and plenty would demand concessions that Britain would see as unacceptable, such as Spain wanting Gibraltar back), they would be back at doing the same old shit within a decade.
Brexit was the product of British Exceptionalism - quite a lot of Britons thought the EU would give Britain great concessions during the Leave Negotiations “because of how important Britain is” thus Britain would end up with “the same rights as an EU member without the duties of one” (such as Freedom Of Movement) and even the Remainers thought that “Britain should stay in the EU and change it from the inside” - in other words that Britain was so important that the other 27 countries and 470 million people would let it shape the EU to become what Britain wanted (which back then was pretty much ever more outrageous exceptions, since the Leave Referendum itself was the product of demanding to be exempted from Freedom Of Movement rules - but only from the EU to Britain and not the other way around - and to keep everything else, “or else we’ll do a Referendum on leaving the EU”, to which the answer was “No!”).
The very same British Exceptionalism keeps many if not most Britons thinking that the rest of the EU wants Britain back so much that it would get all the exceptions if it rejoins and keep its own currency.
Britain and Britons simply can’t accept that (as France and most French and Germany and most Germans did) they’re just a middle sized country in a World dominated by large countries (like the US and China) and large blocks (like the EU).
Now, the solution would be to get over the British Exceptionalism thing, but the entirety of the Press over there is constantly blowing the “Britain is important” and “Britons are superior” Nationalist dog-whistles, mostly by spinning international stories to make it seem like everybody else is paying attention to Britain and its leaders (just here the other day I got from a Brit an old good one from just after the 2008 Crash - “Gordon Brown saved the World’s Economy”) as well as reporting some stupid shit from some tiny place in a bigger EU country (say, some idiocy in the City Hall of some obscure small place in Germany) and spinning it as “this would never happen here (we’re so much better than that)”.
Britain has issues, massive issues, and they feed each other. Frankly, until there is massive societal and political change there, Britain will be unable to rejoin the EU as an equal partner willing to work together with the rest for the common good and if they did manage to rejoin somehow without that change (very unlikely given that it would require unanimous approval from all 27 members, and plenty would demand concessions that Britain would see as unacceptable, such as Spain wanting Gibraltar back), they would be back at doing the same old shit within a decade.