re: #245 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Their decline can be directly traced to WWs 1 and 2, but yes, after losing their Empire they lost their sense of scale. They really thought that Europe would give them a sweetheart deal to keep them as close to the Union as possible, and failed to see that the EU had no incentive to anything but make an example of them for any other nation considering their own Spexit, Portexit, Italiexit, Frexit, Monacexit, Andorrexit, Luxembexit, etc…

In short, the Brexit crowd “assumed” that the EU needed them more than they needed the EU.

But you’re right about that sense of scale: the British (well, the English in particular) have always had a superior , and very (literally) insular attitude towards “the Continent”. They seem to think that post-Brexit Britain is going to be something like it was in the Edwardian heyday: when it’s far more likely that it will revert to its really old (say, pre-Jacobean) status: i.e. a second-tier power on the geographic and political fringes of Europe. Too big to be ignored, but not powerful enough to be a Major Player.