The origins of the United Kingdom can be traced to the time of the Anglo-Saxon king Athelstan,
What was the historical perspective from/of the British politician?
Such an emphasis on British exceptionalism hardly bodes well for a renegotiation that is open to the unity and shared interests which have been both the foundation and the strength of the European project thus far. Nor does it adequately articulate Britain’s relationship with Europe and the rest of the world. To suggest that a struggle for ‘democracy and fairness’ is ‘peculiar’ to Britain is historically problematic at best, demonstrably patronising at worst. Surely many participants in the French Revolution, one of the historical events which Abulafia argues sets Britain apart from continental Europe, were motivated, at least in part, by a desire for greater ‘fairness’? Incorporation of European laws into our domestic body politic has produced concepts of ‘fairness’ which supplement our common law; for example, our government must take into account the impact of welfare reform upon our children. An offshoot of the European Convention on Human Rights, our much maligned Human Rights Act was informed by both our struggles and those of our European neighbours to establish an institutional mechanism whereby our right not to be tortured could be enforced as a right, rather than a haphazard and piecemeal accumulation of variable and distinct codes in criminal and common law.