What if Michiganders voted to become our own country? We have only been part of the United States for 190 years after all—that’s practically nothing in the history of the world.
In June 2016, the United Kingdom (roughly the geographic size of Michigan) decided to leave the European Union (roughly the size of the US). This vote was known as “Brexit”—a cute portmanteau for a complicated political decision.
Setting the Stage
The EU is an alliance of 27 countries that evolved following World War II as a strategy for preventing future war.
The basic theory was that by creating shared economic markets and policies, member countries would experience themselves as having common interests, and extreme nationalism would be less likely to triumph. And it worked! Whereas Europe had been in a near-constant state of war for centuries prior to the agreement, there have been no wars between member states since the EU formed.
The original negotiations created a free-trade area for key military resources in 1952: coal, steel, scrap and iron ore. The structure continued to evolve and add new dimensions, and Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands made the expanded alliance official by signing the Treaty of Rome in 1957.
In 1993, this basic structure was embedded in the even broader Maastricht Treaty, which created the EU we know today, including the creation of the euro, free movement across internal borders, the development of a unified foreign policy, common citizenship rights and common courts.
Is the UK part of Europe?
The UK was invited to join during initial negotiations and declined. It later asked for membership twice (1963 and 1966), but its membership was vetoed by the French. It finally became part of the bloc in 1973. Then Brexit happened in 2020, and it left again.
Europe and the UK have very different histories. For roughly 100 years leading up to the World Wars, while Europe was in constant turmoil, the UK practiced what it called “splendid isolation.” Trusting that the French and Russian alliance would balance out the German, Austro-Hungarian and Italian alliance, the British spent their time consolidating an empire abroad instead.
World War I threatened to throw the balance of power on the continent out of whack, so Britain, despite its preference for isolation, stepped in to try to maintain the balance it preferred. British involvement in World War I was the starting domino that led to British involvement in World War II.
When Germany came very close to winning in 1940, the British nearly signed a treaty with Hitler. One of the factors that turned the tide and helped them keep fighting was a large series of loans from the US.
At the end of World War II, the UK was in severe debt and still had to rebuild from the Blitz. Like in the US, there was a baby boom, but it coincided with the Empire beginning to fall apart. The 1947 independence of India and Pakistan kicked off a multi-decade series of “emergencies.”
In other words, during the 1950s, the UK was distracted and uninterested in further foreign entanglement. A decade or two later, however, as all those babies grew up, there was a full-blown British youth movement (the Beatles!) and across the UK, growing interest in the new and modern.
During those same decades, several treaty provisions came into effect for the fledgling EU: the abolition of internal tariffs, the elimination of regulations favoring domestic industries over other members, as well as common transport and regulatory standards. The EU also created social policies that enhanced job opportunities.
These innovations drove the European economy even faster than loans drove the UK economy, and the UK wanted in.
So, how did it all fall apart?
The original UK vote to join the EU in 1971 was very narrow, and the first attempt to overturn it took place only three years later.
The Say No to Europe argument was two-pronged: first, that the creation of a common external tariff would disrupt Britain’s ability to get cheap goods (especially agricultural) from Commonwealth countries, thereby raising prices, and second, that the anti-socialist Christian Democracies in Europe would threaten the new social welfare policies established in Britain after the war.
The Say Yes argument was essentially economic, arguing that joining the EU would lead to prosperity. Although the treaty was quite short (12 clauses), the 1971 debate in Parliament took 300 hours over six days.
When the Labour Party took power in 1975, it held a referendum on EU membership.
A British referendum is a nationwide vote open to all registered voters to accept or reject a specific constitutional or major policy proposal. There is no requirement that the government hold referenda; it is an optional tool Parliament can use when they want public input. Parliament decides the rules, questions and timing, typically requiring a simple majority to pass. There is no direct federal equivalent in the US.
In 1975, the overwhelming majority voted to stay, despite electing Labour (whose campaign promise was to leave).
The Say No themes were then dropped by Labour, but picked up by the Conservative Party, and they continued to evolve and gain traction over the ensuing decades. Many in the UK were fine with the EU as long as they saw the benefits of membership: prosperity and protection.
The early 2000s, however, brought a series of shocks that disrupted that delicate balance. The recession and subsequent austerity policies in Europe left many UK residents feeling disconnected and unrepresented. The Arab Spring uprisings in 2010-2011 created new waves of immigration.
In both cases, there was a sense among some that needing to act with Europe limited the UK’s options. When a new referendum was held in 2016 (again a campaign promise, again shortly after a new party swept to power), the vote was (narrowly) to leave.
Want to learn more?
- Watch some movies about the Brits in World War II.
- Get a pop culture take on British history through history podcasts like You’re Dead to Me or YouTube series like Horrible Histories.
- Peruse the news, biographies and reactions at the time through Gale In Context: World History.
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