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Sign in with your library card Please enter your library card number. Show Summary Details Overview splendid isolation. Historically, British public opinion has always turned to the newspapers at times of national significance, and the Brexit vote confirms this tendency. The traditional press, bolstered by online media, remains the principal indicator of public discourse and still plays a crucial role. Analysing editorials and comments during the EU referendum highlights a process of recontextualisation of the material and immaterial borders between Britain and Europe.
History was the glue that bonded together opposite discourses and concepts, reconceptualising historical categories and playing a pivotal role not only as the point of departure, but concluding its parabola as the place of destination.
The relationship between Britain and Europe has mostly been regarded as cautious and parochial. On the one hand, the self-representation of Britain most often meaning England as the ideally liberal and democratic nation first shaped by the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution and later framed by Victorian values created a national identity clearly separate from the Continent.
The Suez crisis played a salient role in the post-imperial UK-Europe relationship. It is within this matrix that we can trace the roots of contemporary Eurosceptic and Europhile discourses. It plays upon wartime efforts and achievements. Historical narratives are constantly discursively re constructed and, according to Reinhart Koselleck , dominant discourses and narratives tend to relativise, deny, reformulate or even bury dramatic events. This selective reproduction of historical narratives and discourses has decontextualised some concepts, and rearranged and reshaped other elements in order to craft new strategic hierarchies and ideologies.
In framing the role of newspapers see Table 1 , it is important to distinguish the short-term role played during the referendum campaign — which mirrored a conflictual rather than collaborative relationship with the EU — and the long-term cumulative influence exercised by the media.
The question of its commitment to a European future soon became a thorny issue. From the start, the goal of British governments, whether Conservative or Labour, was to preserve national sovereignty, national identity and national interests as a whole.
Supranationalism and federalism associated with European integration remain controversial concepts and issues in Britain. Some even dream of withdrawal from Europe. But Britain is now economically dependent on its trade with the EU and its withdrawal would. So it seems that the country is bound to remain a reluctant partner in Europe, distancing itself more than ever from a euro zone in turmoil and remaining cautiously on the sidelines of the Union.
Selected Bibliography. Black J. Brendon P. Coates D. Driver S. Evans E. Ferguson N. George S. Lee S. Levine P. James L. Kwarteng K. May A. Pugh M. Schama S. Young J. Plan Selected Bibliography [link]. Yet the Cabinet decided to treat any violation of Belgian neutrality as a casus belli, so that when Germany attacked Belgium on 4th August , Britain felt obliged to act and helped France counter the German invasion.
Selected Bibliography Black J. Notes 1. John W. Y oung , pp. Quoted in Stephen J. Sir William Harcourt, leader of the Liberal Opposition in the House of Commons, wrote to his friend, John Morley, on July 6, "The condition of things in Europe, Asia, Africa and America is suchas to make me blessmy stars that it is the other fellows and not we who have the responsibility of dealing with them.
Of this there is plentiful evidence and the present article concerns itself chiefly with the role played by public opinion in bringing about the abandonment of Great Britain's cherished policy of "splendidisolation. Thus, from the Napoleonic wars to the end of the nineteenth century, Great Britain had played a lonely hand in European politics.
It was her empire that had claimed her concern, and it was upon her fleet rather than on alliances that she had depended for her security. As late as May 29, , Lord Salisbury, then prime minister, drew up the following memorandum: "Count Hatzfeldt [German ambassador at the Court of St.
James']speaksof our 'isolation' as constituting a seriousdanger for us. Have we everfelt that dangerpractically? If we had succumbedin the Revolutionary War, our fall would not have beendue to our isolation. We had many allies, but they would not have saved us if the French Emperor had been able to crossthe Channel
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