Opinion

Astriking feature of the Brexit camp’s narrative in the United Kingdom both before and after the 2016 referendum has been the repeated claim that leaving the European Union is consistent with the lessons of history.

Such ‘‘lessons’’ remain influential in the UK, but they invariably fail to stand up to close examination.

First, there is the question of the UK’s geography. Advocates of Brexit contend the UK is physically separated from continental Europe and is an island state that looks to America as much as it does Europe.

Britain is an island state but one that has been physically linked to France through the Channel Tunnel since 1994 and whose neighbours are European.

Second, and not unrelated, it is claimed that Britain’s identity is global rather than European. Nostalgic memories of the British empire loom large here.

There is a clear longing in the speeches of prominent Brexiteers like former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, and Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, to rekindle and deepen trade ties with Commonwealth nations to seamlessly replace those that the UK currently has with the EU.

But there is little evidence that the 51 Commonwealth countries are eager to rally round the UK and forge new ties with London.

While Britons may feel nostalgic about empire, many former colonies don’t share such happy memories.

Third, the Brexit camp has repeatedly emphasised that Britain’s experience during World War II made the country different from, and purportedly superior to, other EU member states.

A strong sense of British exceptionalism centres on the idea that Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1941 and relied on its ‘‘Dunkirk spirit’’ to resist Hitler until it was joined in this endeavour by the Soviet Union and the United States.

But this account of Britain’s wartime performance is highly selective.

By the late 1930s, the British government was linking its own fate to that of Europe. In 1939, the British declared war on Nazi Germany – not because it was attacked by Hitler’s regime – but because the Nazis (and the Soviets) attacked Poland.

Indeed, Winston Churchill recognised in 1940 that Britain as a European state could never withdraw into some sort of island sanctuary and be indifferent to the fate of the European continent.

Fourth, the Leave side has argued that Brexit is fully consistent with the foreign policy vision of Churchill.

Churchill’s observation in September 1946 that ‘‘we are with Europe, but not of it’’ has been repeatedly cited by the Leave camp as validation of their stance toward the EU.

Johnson likes to assume the Churchill mantle by warning frequently about a new form of menace on the continent – the establishment of ‘‘a European superstate’’ spearheaded by Germany.

At the same time, the Leave side likes to point to Churchill’s special relationship with the United States during World War II as a reason why it is not in Britain’s interests to remain in the EU.

But the use of the Winston Churchill analogy to support the case for Brexit is thoroughly misleading.

It was Churchill who advocated a United States of Europe in 1946 and the former Prime Minister publicly and enthusiastically endorsed the first British application to join the European Economic Community in 1961.

Nor is there any evidence that Churchill saw British membership of what was then called the EEC as an impediment to UK-US relations.

All British Prime Ministers since the UK’s entry into the EC in 1973 have continued to place considerable emphasis on the special relationship with Washington.

Indeed, it was an American president, Barack Obama, who observed that by leaving Europe the UK would be less valuable to other countries and less able to fight for its own interests.

The Trump administration has rejected that view, but has made it clear any FTA with a postBrexit UK must be consistent with ‘America First’ principles.

But if the Brexiteers’ reading of history has been flawed, why has the Theresa May government championed the Brexit cause on that basis?

The answer is that May, like her predecessor, David Cameron, has generally failed to distinguish between concerns about internal Conservative Party unity and wider considerations of British national interest, and therefore has shown little political interest in challenging the inaccurate historical claims of the Brexiteers.

May’s complicity has been aided and abetted by jingoistic and fervently pro-Brexit large circulation media outlets like The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express and The Sun and the pro-Brexit stance of Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party.

Ultimately, a pro-Brexit consensus amongst the two main political leaders has contributed to a climate in which the re-writing of history in the UK has occurred with alarming ease.

Robert G Patman is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Otago