Charles de Gaulle: Unlikely Ally of the Brexiteers

The referendum on whether the United Kingdom should leave or remain in the European Union (EU) takes place on June 23rd. Martyn Rady and Richard Overy, both distinguished historians of Europe, gather the historical arguments for Leave and Remain in our June issue, demonstrating that both sides can appeal to rationality and reason as well as the past. Interestingly, a number of prominent Brexiteers have found succour in an unlikely source, the great – if anglophobic – French statesman, Charles de Gaulle: 

England in effect is insular, she is maritime, she is linked through her interactions, her markets and her supply lines in the most diverse and often the most distant countries; she pursues essentially industrial and commercial activities, and only slight agricultural ones. She has, in all her doings, very marked and very original habits and traditions.

This quote, taken from a speech de Gaulle made in 1963 in opposition to the UK’s entry into what was then the European Economic Community, has been repeated with approval by, among others, the Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan and the biographer of Margaret Thatcher, Charles Moore, both of whom are historically literate and eloquent Eurosceptics.

Though there is some truth in the General’s assertions – Britain was the world’s foremost maritime power and suspicious of standing armies, it did privilege the industrial over the agricultural and its system of common law was at odds with that of the Continent – it shared a monarchy with a substantial part of France for 400 years (around the same length of time as the current, fragile Union between England and Scotland), while its Hanoverian monarchs ensured that Britain took great interest in the affairs of central Europe. When Britain did periodically turn its back on the Continent, it often met with criticism similar to that of de Gaulle’s.

In August 1764, Frederick the Great, spurned by his capricious ally, complained that Britain ‘is not interested in anything but naval dominance and her possessions in America … guided by these sentiments she will not pay any attention to Continental European affairs’. He was wrong. She did and will do so again, even if she votes to leave the EU. For, as both sides of the current debate remind us, the EU is not Europe.

Paul Lay is the editor of History Today.