Brexit and the ‘Imperial Factor’: A longue durée Approach to British Exceptionalism

To what extent can we detect echoes of the triumphant
Britannia (Thomas Arne composed Rule Britannia in 1740) in
contemporary Brexit debates? What were the subliminal
refractions of the refrain ‘Britons never will be slaves’ in
complaints about the frequently evoked ‘Brussels shackles’?
Through a longue durée approach to two major elements of
modern British history – Britannia and the celebration of
colonial expansion as a ‘bringer of progress’, this article charts
the persistence of political and cultural visions including the
Empire simultaneously as an expression, a tool and a channel
of British exceptionalism. Positing that the Empire was
integral to the emergence of British identity and its
consolidation, it also underlines, through references to John
Robert Seeley’s highly influential work, the key role played by
England in this process. Based upon the hypothesis that past
reflections on Britain’s global role – including those
championed by Cecil John Rhodes – have left an imprint on
the Brexit conversation in the run-up to, and aftermath of, the
vote, this article introduces the concept of ‘imperial factor’ as
a way of taking into account the long-term impact that the
development and possession of the world’s largest empire
has left on British ways of seeing the world, and, crucially, of
seeing Britain’s place in the world. Beyond the case-study of
exceptionalism offered here, further research, especially of a
quantitative nature, is suggested to refine our understanding
of the precise extent to which the ‘imperial factor’ played a
role in the Brexit vote of 2016. Conceived as an instrument to
take into account the potential imperial dimension of a multi-
faceted phenomenon such as Britain’s departure from the
EU, the ‘imperial factor’ is, more broadly, a useful tool to
gauge – in the UK but also among other formerly imperial
nations – the potential and variable long-term influence that
the possession of an empire left on national visions, psyche and practices.