ABSTRACT
Changes in British society have led to a situation in which it is no longer useful, in terms of garnering votes or in devising conceptions of Britain’s role in the world, to constantly criticise the European Union. As an island nation, separate from ‘continental Europe’, and as a great empire with a unique set of political institutions. British elites came to see their country as distinct from Europe, and British identity came to be linked to its Great Power status and world role. The more ferocious and intrusive media, combined with changing values in British mass society, served to undermine the place of the monarchy as a symbol of British national identity. A pre-modern institution, long the symbol of the British nation, was widely perceived to be wanting as a focus for national identity. Britain has been an inherently conservative society, reluctant to endorse any change that would effect its traditions and self-perceived superior form of parliamentary democracy.
