MOST of the European Union’s 28 members joined the club for a clear and enduring reason. For France and Germany, European co-operation was a means to heal the scars of war. Little Belgium saw it as an opportunity to gain diplomatic economies of scale; for more recent entrants from eastern Europe, including Poland, Hungary and Estonia, the club was a guarantor against Russian bullying. Britain, by contrast, entered the club in 1973 hesitantly, without enthusiasm and in a moment of transient economic anxiety. This underlies the Euroscepticism that pervades the Conservative Party and a majority of Britons, which could lead to Britain voting to exit the EU at a referendum in 2017. Britain never much wanted to be a member of the club in the first place. To the extent that it did, it was motivated by a narrow economic prospectus: to access the benefits of European free trade. It was never impressed by the subsidy regimes designed for French farmers and other special interests; Britain was a net contributor to the European budget for its first three decades of membership. This tested its rationale for joining the club from the start. The steady creep of EU powers and regulations, into the justice system, the workplace and beyond, have caused much greater resentment, which the ongoing troubles in the euro zone have exacerbated. Many Britons feel they have ended up in a power hungry, supra-governmental and economically moribund arrangement, which they never voted to join, and would not have done. Clearly, they have a point.

All the same, why are they so bothered? Unsatisfactory as the EU is, the benefits of belonging to the world’s biggest free-trade group probably outweigh the costs. That is why other north Europeans, including the Swedes, Dutch and even Germans, who share much or all of the British critique, are not similarly agitating to leave. Part of the answer lies in British history. Almost alone in the EU, Britain recalls the second world war with more pride than fear. It does so, moreover, in such a way as to exaggerate the benefits of isolation—of being a plucky island nation apart. This makes it reluctant to see itself as the European country, wedded to the fortunes of other European countries, that it is. Memories of empire also play a part in this deceit: some Tory Eurosceptics even dream of reconstituting it as an alternative to the EU, in the form of an Anglophone or Commonwealth trade block.

Given that there is no obvious appetite for such an arrangement from any other country, this suggests how deluded they are. And this is another feature of British Euroscepticism: the driving influence of the Tory party’s ideological right. It was primarily to appease this lobby that the Tory prime minister, David Cameron, promised the 2017 referendum in the event that the Tories win a general election next year. A parliamentary rebellion in January, by almost 100 Eurosceptic Tories, showed how badly his gambit has failed: the Eurosceptics are not appeased. It also showed how hard it could be for Mr Cameron to campaign to keep Britain in the EU, as the prime minister himself dearly wants.

Dig deeper:

Why, despite the wishes of its politicians, Britain might leave the EU anyway (November 2013)

How parties of the nationalist right are changing the debate on Europe (January 2014)

The plight of British trees has a political dimension for Eurosceptics (July 2013)