It is a well known secret that Britain was never in favor of a United Europe and they thought that the idea would collapse soon after the treaty of Rome in 1956. In fact Britain did not want to join the EEC until they realised that they were losing out, so it was Edward Heath that more or less forced the UK to join and we all know that De Gaul was totally against the idea.
Britain's foreign policy then changed in some respects with different governments wanting more influence over what Europe said and did. The US wants the UK to be there to keep an eye on the Europeans...
The EU is essentially a Franco German initiative and it has attracted medium size states who feared constant conflict and invasion so the way mainland Europeans think about the Euro project is very different from how the Brits see the concept.
Then we had Tony Blair's 'clever idea' to enlarge the EU primarily because he knew that by expanding it so much it would make the whole thing less effective.
Britain is caught between two major strands of thought. The first one supports the idea that the UK is better off staying under the influence of the USA (Hence the strange relationship between Bush and Blair or Thatcher and Regan) the other strand knows and understands that a United Europe is an inevitable consequence of development and progression. The Liberal Democrats are the only party with a clear policy on this.
It will be difficult to see Britain surviving in a world where the major powers are being replaced by China, Russia, India and Brazil. The US monopoly of international control is coming to a close end. It makes sense for a strong and unified Europe to stand together despite the current economic difficulties. Britain's traditional foreign policy of sitting on the fence and being able to divide and rule is now too obvious and as a consequence less effective.
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