> Why did so many of the British never feel the EU is “theirs” even though objectively they were one of the most powerful countries in the Union and were instru

> Why did so many of the British never feel the EU is “theirs” even though objectively they were one of the most powerful countries in the Union and were instrumental in designing the rules? > It might have made some kind of difference if enough politicians after 1990 would have bothered to explain that to the British public. If I'm understanding it correctly, the UK had ~10% of the EU Parliament seats. Even if that was objectively more than anyone else had, it's still quite a minority. I'm not British, but the all the kinds of things you focus don't seem like they'd be at all significant for one's felt identity, especially when it competes with a long-established felt identity. Felt identity is formed by other things than "we have a large but clearly minority voting bloc" or "some economic policy was strongly influenced by a domestic politician 40 years ago."