IN HIS novel Anna Karenina, Tolstoy wrote that "happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". And so it was with Britain in the EU. Together they were never a happy family, hence the messy and acrimonious Brexit divorce.
After 50 years, it seems president Charles de Gaulle was absolutely right when he vetoed the UK’s membership of the EU’s forerunner, the European Economic Community, in 1963. His reason was the insular nature of the British, harbouring incompatibility and deep-seated hostility towards the European construction.
Notwithstanding the logic of geostrategy and politics, the EU and UK are separated by more than just the English Channel. This has been demonstrated time and again in history, as the "special relationship" with the US in preference to Europe confirms. Brexit is simply part of this pattern.
This divide is hard to explain in objective, rational terms as it is based on deep-seated emotional and subjective considerations. A plausible explanation seems to be the cultural, historical and behavioural faultline that put them apart. The EU is basically a European creation. It is the outcome of deep-rooted European historical experiences, values and preferences, encapsulated in the "idea of Europe", which the British do not share or refuse to share. For this reason, the EU can stand on its own without the UK. Brexit is not a threat to its survival, as some pundits warn. As De Gaulle foresaw, the EU will be better off without the UK, not that the reverse is true.
In his seminal thesis on Perpetual Peace, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) produced the intellectual foundation of the European integration project. He argued that in spite of periods of war and conflict, Europe possessed the overarching values and belief systems on which to build a lasting peaceful order. Following Kant’s thesis, the great historian Edward Gibbon proposed "to consider Europe as one great republic, whose various inhabitants have attained almost the same level of politeness and cultivation".
French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau maintained: "The nations of Europe form among themselves an invisible nation.... The actual system of Europe has exactly that degree of solidity which maintains it in a state of perpetual agitation without overturning it."
Emer de Vattel, founding father of international law, stated in the 18th century, "Europe forms a political system, a body where the whole is connected by the relations and different interests of nations … it is not as anciently a heap of detached pieces each of which thought itself very little concerned in the fate of others....
"Europe (is) a kind of republic, members of which, though independent, unite, through ties of common interest for the maintenance of order and liberty."
These intellectual forces give metaphorical and symbolic expression as well as a structure for the realisation of European integration as pioneered by Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet after the Second World War. Since then, European nations have lived in peace with one another.
Britain was never a part of the "idea of Europe" and never felt completely at home in Europe. Brexit was the final outcome of this incompatibility.
It suffered from perennial schizophrenia, prevaricating about its rightful place, alignment and role in the North Atlantic geopolitical arena, and was not really fully accepted as "one of us" in Europe.
As Winston Churchill wrote in 1930: "We see nothing but good and hope in a richer, freer, more contended European commonality. But we have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe but not of it. We are linked but not compromised. We are interested and associated but not absorbed."
Although by the end of the war, a less isolationist Churchill said in 1946: "We must build a kind of United States of Europe."
At the time of the formation of the European Economic Community in 1959, Britain stayed out, changing its mind later, only to be vetoed by De Gaulle. His fall from power in 1969 opened the way for then prime minister Edward Heath to negotiate membership, which happened in 1973.
It was mostly an uneasy partnership. The UK never subscribed to the EU mantra of "ever-closer union", membership became a bone of contention in UK party politics, rendering Brexit well-nigh inevitable. Since Margaret Thatcher, successive Tory governments resisted increasing EU integration, nagging for special treatment, bickering for cherry-picking options such as staying out of the eurozone and Schengen visa arrangements.
Were Thatcher still around, she would have voted for Brexit. Her endless tussles about the excessive powers of Brussels "eroding Britain’s sovereignty" and leading the way to a "European superstate", were also the language of the Brexiteers.
The "UK remains", as Churchill intoned, "with Europe, but not of it". "Brexit is Brexit", as new UK Prime Minister Theresa May proclaimed, implying no regrets about what has happened. Confirming her attitude is her appointment of the "King of Brexit", Boris Johnson, as foreign minister. Probably a reward for not running as prime minister, but her first big mistake.
Apart from BoJo’s patent unsuitability for the job, his appointment will be a slap in the face of EU members who bent over backwards to prevent the divorce. His new tune is that he "cannot stress too much that Britain is part of Europe". How’s that for chutzpa? Perfidious Albion all over again.
A soft landing for Brexit is not on the cards. It was a Pyrrhic victory, precipitating a long tail of untoward consequences.
Damage control will require a monumental effort to deal with a British nation split down the middle and turmoil in the markets, and preventing Scotland and Northern Ireland from taking their own "Brexit", and saving "little England" from languishing in the backwater of international politics (a Donald Trump presidency may help).
So, it won’t be business as usual for the UK. It hopes to mend fences, stay close to Europe and try to stay in the common market by way of the European Economic Area dispensation. The mood in Europe will make this difficult. The discontentment in Europe runs deep. It wants the UK to get out as soon as possible.
Brexit will probably go down as a further instalment of the decline of Britain, starting with its surrender of the Suez Canal in 1956. It chose to swim against the current of change in world politics, giving into parochial voter sentiments, resisting the ineluctable erosion of the Westphalian national sovereignty paradigm by the forces of globalisation, integration, interdependence and multilateralism.
Being aligned to these forces, the EU will survive the Brexit conundrum and probably be better off in the end, but on condition that it reforms itself urgently.
Some member states are highly uncomfortable with the status quo. Muddling through times of crisis, micromanagement by a suffocating EU bureaucracy in Brussels, and the lack of erudite and decisive leadership in the top echelon are serious obstacles that need to get attention to prevent countries such as France and the Netherlands doing their own exits. Brexit may be a timeous wake-up call for them.
• Prof Olivier is with the department of political sciences at the University of Pretoria, and Dr Olivier teaches at the University of Hull’s School of Politics, Philosophy and International Studies
