“Britain was already cherry-picking from the European tree without bothering to water the soil or tend to its branches”

Abstract

Abstract Starting from the ambivalent discursive constructions of belongings and attachments, this paper is a description of the uneasy and uncomfortable relation between the UK and the ‘continent’. It discusses the historical British insular attitude looking at the metaphorical language used around Brexit, with a special emphasis on the metaphor “have one’s cake and eat it”, referring to the “cherry-picking” attitude that the British government wishes to have, retaining EU membership benefits without its obligations. Boris Johnson admitted that his policy on cake was “pro having it and pro eating it”, expressing an argument that, on withdrawing from the European Union, Britain would still retain many of the benefits that it had enjoyed as a member, since Britain was already “cherry-picking from the European tree without bothering to water the soil or tend to its branches”.