Britain Still Can't Escape Europe

Brexit will not end the U.K.’s long, fraught relationship with the Continent

- By Amanda Kolson Hurley

The memorial to the Gatow air disaster of 1948 is easy to overlook in a city with more than its share of 20th century ghosts. A simple plaque in Berlin’s Westend district commemorates the midair crash that claimed the lives of 15 people during the early days of the Cold War. The stone inscription may be inconspicuous, but its location in St. George’s Anglican Church reflects a long-standing British presence in the German capital, and the events it marks are a window onto the U.K.’s pivotal role in shaping the postwar European order.

With Brexit now final, the U.K. may discover that it’s not so simple to shed a European identity anchored in history and geography. Indeed, that reality—and a political culture perennially dogged by questions over the relationship with its European neighbors—seems destined to bind Britain to the Continent for years to come, despite all the government’s efforts to rebrand the nation as the globetrotting champion of international free trade.

After striking a trade deal with the European Union on Christmas Eve, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was time to move on. The U.K. must leave “old, desiccated, tired, super-masticated arguments behind” and “keep Brexit done,” he told the House of Commons on Dec. 30 as he rushed the accord into law.