Diplomatist Magazine Diplomatist March 2019 | Page 45

INSIDE EUROPE
EU AND UK: THE DIFFICULT
ROAD AHEAD
BY BHASWATI MUKHERJEE*
I
s Europe going into reverse gear with the impending
divorce from UK? Five centuries ago, King Henry VIII,
impatient with the demands of the papacy and refusal to
annul his fi rst marriage, broke with Rome and established
the Church of England. That step changed Rome forever and
established today’s roughly 85 million Anglicans. That was
England’s fi rst divorce from Europe.
This divorce is more complicated. The origins of English
euro-scepticism originated with the Protestant Reformation.
Historical parallels can sometimes be misleading but the
echoes from the past can resonate in the future. Analysts
say that Brexit is also caused by the most pernicious and
debilitating Little English drug called ‘nostalgia’. Nostalgia
for empire and the past remain the ideological heart of the
passionate debate for separation from Europe.
Brexit, in the ultimate analysis, represents the rejection
of globalisation and the natural opposition of the English
to a bigger outside power, in this instance, the European
Union, the Commission and the Brussels bureaucracy. It is
indeed ironical that on the European side there is little or no
recognition of UK’s past glory. Anglo-French historian Robert
Tombs has aptly remarked that when Europeans talk about
history they refer to the Roman Empire, the Renaissance and
the Enlightenment. Britain is overlooked.
The awkward truth that the Brexit debates have revealed
is that the two sides do not understand each other at all. It
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist • Vol 7 • Issue 3 • March 2019, Noida • 45