Brexit: Britons have their cake and eat it, too.

Since “Brentry” in 1973, the call for a Brexit from European supranational institutions is nothing new in Britain. From an immediate referendum to leave the European Communities, the precursor to the EU, in 1975 to Brexit in 2016, attempts to sever ties with their counterparts across the English Channel has been a rhetorical norm in British politics. 

    Since post-war integration, Britain has shown itself both reluctant to commit to the European project and ready to bow out at any time in the interest of garnering political power at home. This attitude has a name: “cakeism,” a term coined in 2016 during Theresa May’s negotiations, and references Britain’s desire to “have their cake and eat it too” regarding relations with Europe. 

The recent Brexit referendum is simply another iteration of the anti-Europe political unrest that has been present in Britain for decades—the only difference is that this time, the anti-EU sentiment may achieve its goal.  

    Following the Suez Crisis in 1956, in which US pressure forced British forces to withdraw from the Egyptian canal previously under British military power, Britain’s economic vulnerability forced their hand into European integration. As a result, Britain’s entry (“Brentry”) into the EU’s precursor, the European Communities, in 1973 was apathetic and far from unanimous. Opinions on this contentious idea of a pooled sovereignty with Europe were reflected in Parliament’s voting margin: 244 MPs, a whopping 41 percent, voted against membership into the EC. Those opposed included one-fifth of Conservatives MPs and a majority of the Labor Party.  

    Almost immediately following their entry, Britain tried to break away from Europe, holding its first referendum to leave the EC in 1975. The vote failed by a substantial margin, but it set a precedent for political rhetoric in Britain of blaming European institutions for domestic shortcomings.

    In the British press and within the Conservative and Labour Parties, the idea of a cohesive and intertwined relationship with Europe remained an incredibly divisive topic. As Theresa May would proclaim 44 years after Britain’s integration into Europe, “The profound pooling of sovereignty that is a crucial feature of the European Union permits unprecedentedly deep cooperation…So the British electorate made a choice. They chose the power of domestic democratic control over pooling that control.”

British Prime Ministers have for decades used public opposition to European integration as a way of rallying popular support. Margret Thatcher lamented Britain’s lack of economic growth following Brentry in 1973 and expressed regret at having to concede control to Brussels: 

“We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a European super state exercising a new dominance from Brussels,” she said.

Tony Blair, who would become Prime Minister in the late 1990s and early 2000s, began his career as a Labour candidate with a strong anti-European stance, saying that Britain would “negotiate withdrawal from the EEC, which has drained our natural resources and destroyed our jobs.” In his opinion, it was Europe’s effect on Britain’s resources and labor market that warranted a call to sever ties. His views on Europe softened after he was elected. 

The last three Prime Ministers, David Cameron, and Theresa May, and current Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have stirred up fears of EU immigrants and waxed eloquently about the potential for more lucrative trade deals with non-EU countries.

 A consistent grievance in Brussels has been Britain’s tendency to take advantage of the economic benefits Europe has to offer, but paying less attention to committing resources and money elsewhere in the EU.

President of the European Commission Jacques Delors highlighted this decades-long frustration in 1989, saying, “We all know that the single market forms a whole with its advantages and disadvantages, its possibilities and limitations. Can our EFTA [European Free Trade Association] friends be allowed to pick and choose?” 

The question remains: did Britain’s inconsistent and fluid commitment to the EC, and later the EU, put them on a path to Brexit from the very beginning? Maybe Brexit in 2016 wasn’t a phenomenon of its own, but rather a reinvigorated and more fevered expression of rhetoric that has existed for decades.