Brexit: Who is afraid of group attachment? Part I. Europe: What Europe?

Abstract

This article tries to make sense of Brexit, or otherwise, from a group attachment perspective. It provides a historical analysis of the fluctuating and highly ambivalent relationship of the United Kingdom (UK) with the European Union (EU), so far the most ambitious supranational and transnational group project in the world. But the EU has failed to keep up with some of its founding principles of openness, solidarity and compassion, in the handling of immigration—which has been the most determinant factor in the Brexit vote of June 2016, against a background of financial and migratory crises, as well as unacceptable inequality, nostalgia of sovereign British Empire and rise of English nationalism. The article aims to engage the reader to explore with the author some of the complexity of Brexit thinking and feeling, in the context of a developing EU.