# Britain's place in Europe **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 26, 2010, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474 "2010-01-26T04:48:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/1 "2010-01-26T04:48:16Z")
In the recent thread on the Greatest City of Europe, a mini-debate sprung up about London’s place in Europe - whether the U.K. really “counted” as European. So…what do you think? Is the UK _really_ part of Europe?\* Is it its own special entity? What is it, which way is it going, and which way do you think it _should_ be going? Also, how old are you, and how have your views of Britain’s place in Europe changed? \*(Lest it need saying, I’m asking about a kind of cultural/emotional/symbolic belonging - we all know that the U.K. is geographically part of Europe.) ---
**Author:** ![Sofis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Sofis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofis)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/2 "2010-01-26T05:06:04Z")
My impression regarding this is that Brits like to occasionally pretend that they’re not part of Europe, and that a lot of Americans have fallen for it :). Britain is certainly European. There’s no greater difference between it and a randomly chosen European country than there is between two randomly chosen European countries. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/3 "2010-01-26T05:06:52Z")
For my part, yes: the UK is clearly part of Europe. (I’m American.) All the stereotypical visual hallmarks I associate with Europe are there in spades (the castles, cathedrals, quaint villages), the history is so intertwined with mainland Europe, there are similar historical cultural trends, etc. I realize that a lot of Brits don’t have that same view of themselves, but from an outsider’s perspective, it just obviously feels part and parcel of Europe. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/4 "2010-01-26T05:09:11Z")
For some reason some of them don’t like to think so, but they are. Sure, they are special in a number of respects, but that is true for different regions and cultures on the continent of Europe as well. They’re not special in any special way, if you get my drift. They share a broad tradition of political, religious and economic thought and practice with the rest of Europe. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/5 "2010-01-26T07:39:25Z")
I’m British. Yes, Britain is part of Europe. However, when I was living in Germany a lot of people there did kinda think of Britain as ‘different.’ Lots of people in Britain do too, though not as many as before. I can understand why people from outside Europe would think of Britain as something other than European - in many ways we’re closer to America, culturally, than continental Europe. TBH, it doesn’t really matter these days. It did when there were debates about whether we should join the EU and how far we should go in joining it. We’re in it now, for better or worse. The currency will be the next to go - it’ll take a while but when it eventually happens most people will just shrug their shoulders and carry on. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/6 "2010-01-26T08:07:48Z")
Their desire to feel independent is cute. I think that makes them more American than anything… oh I got it, they’re the 51st state! ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/7 "2010-01-26T08:10:41Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > \*(Lest it need saying, I’m asking about a kind of cultural/emotional/symbolic belonging - we all know that the U.K. is geographically part of Europe.) Other – “cultural[ly]/emotional[ly]/symbolic[ly]” speaking, there is no such thing as a monolithic “Europe” to begin with, so the question is, IMHO, meaningless. ETA: I’m in the “Neither British nor European” demographic, if that matters. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/8 "2010-01-26T08:20:45Z")
Went on vacation to France with a friend from Wales. She kept saying “oh, isn’t it wonderful being in Europe!” to which I kept saying “You’re _from_ Europe!!!” Rinse and repeat. And that’s the argument in a nutshell, I suspect. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/9 "2010-01-26T08:23:47Z")
The UK is as different from France as Texas is different from New York (culturally) In fact, if you look at people’s stance on major issues like abortion, death penalty, universal healthcare, etc, people in the UK are much more in agreement with people from the Continent, than people in Texas vs people from New York. The UK is part of Europe. Simple, really. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/10 "2010-01-26T09:13:40Z")
Britain is European, and sometimes in denial. ---
**Author:** ![wayward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a87d85/32.png) [@wayward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wayward)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/11 "2010-01-26T10:03:15Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Went on vacation to France with a friend from Wales. She kept saying “oh, isn’t it wonderful being in Europe!” to which I kept saying “You’re _from_ Europe!!!” Rinse and repeat. > > And that’s the argument in a nutshell, I suspect. I think this is really where the ambiguity comes from. The word “Europe” essentially has two meanings here in the UK, stemming from our being an island. 1. The continent of which we are geographically and culturally a part. 2. That place over the channel where the foreign people are. I’m not sure how well this applies, but I imagine an analogous situation might be someone from Hawaii “Going to the US”. I also find myself wondering how Ireland and Iceland think of themselves in a European context. (I voted ‘mostly or wholly European’, btw) ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/12 "2010-01-26T10:20:07Z")
Of course we’re European, the Romans made sure of that. Our entire history is interwoven with the history of the continent. Our island status certainly helps reinforce the ‘us v them’ mentality, but it doesn’t alter the facts. We may feel closer culturally to some of our former english-speaking colonies - particularly places like Canada, Australia, NZ or, dare I say, the US, mainly because so much of those cultures borrow heavily from ours, but in terms of modern attitudes towards social reform, for instance, we’re definitely European. ---
**Author:** ![Sofis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Sofis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofis)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/13 "2010-01-26T10:22:53Z")
> [@wayward](#): > > I also find myself wondering how Ireland and Iceland think of themselves in a European context. I can’t speak for Ireland or Iceland, but in Sweden we sometimes refer to those parts of Europe that are across the sea as “the continent”. It’s a pretty specific usage though; if we refer to “Europe” or “the Eurasian continent”, Sweden is certainly included. ---
**Author:** ![wolf-alice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9e8a1a/32.png) [@wolf-alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf-alice)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/14 "2010-01-26T10:59:16Z")
Having just come from a long weekend in Switzerland / France / Germany (I bend spacetime), where I felt endlessly (but not unhappily) foreign, as a British person I don’t feel very European at all, culturally and emotionally and symbolically speaking. Like **scifisam2009** says, we’re culturally closer to America in a lot of ways. I have more idea of current affairs and popular culture in America right now than I have any idea of what’s happening in Europe (that mythical homogeneous mass). The language too is a big thing - where we’re by-and-large relentless monoglots, my educated made-up anacdata guessfact says your average mainland European is going to be fluent in at least two languages. And it sounds like a small thing, but I’m always struck by how differently “Europeans” dress - kind of wholesome outdoorsy with no logos. I like the idea of being European, and I’m pro-Europe in my limited understanding of the matter, but I don’t really feel as though I am European, which to me is a shame. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/15 "2010-01-26T11:45:33Z")
> [@Sofis](#): > > I can’t speak for Ireland or Iceland, but in Sweden we sometimes refer to those parts of Europe that are across the sea as “the continent”. Sometimes? I always do it in the way that Brits refer to them as “Europe”. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/16 "2010-01-26T13:09:56Z")
They’re _more_ European than Norway (not an EU member, for instance.) ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/17 "2010-01-26T20:59:09Z")
The answer depends to some extent on your politics. Historically (1960s-70s) conservatives were in favour of Britain creating closer links with continental Europe and (eventually) of joining the Common Market (as it was then). Socialists were suspicious of Europe, seeing closer integration as a barrier to building socialism in Britain. There were, however, large minorities in both camps who took the opposite view. By the '90s both camps had changed their positions 180 degrees. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2010, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/18 "2010-01-30T00:08:50Z")
Actually, the answer has nothing to do with your politics since the question is not about the EU but Europe as a cultural entity. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2010, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britains-place-in-europe/526474/19 "2010-01-30T00:47:38Z")
It’s strongly Anglo-Saxon, somewhat influenced by a European sense of social responsibiliy.