With or without EU

Jorge González-Gallarza | Issue 6 | Brussels, Magazine, Uncategorised

From the Archive

19th June 1973: Gertrude Shilling's Royal Ascot 'Common Market' outfit which was designed by her milliner son David. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

Did post-imperial syndrome cause Britain to join and then leave the EU?

“The future of Europe and its people now worries me more than that of Britain,” declares Robert Tombs here, perhaps surprisingly. Shouldn’t Tombs, a Euro-hater, be rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect of the continent’s demise? In fact, This Sovereign Isle freely admits that Brexit may spell trouble for Britain, and that the EU may one day overcome its divisions. The likelier scenario, though, is that the case for Brexit will be substantiated by the bloc’s further engorging of its political superstructure. Tombs believes that joining the European Economic Community (EEC) was done spontaneously and erroneously. This scepticism demarcates Tombs from fellow Brexiters who initially supported EU membership, on the condition that the bloc remained a free-trade area instead of a supranational entity. This is a hope Tombs dismisses as utterly naïve. Tombs sees the incompatibility of the different rationales for European unity made on each side of the Channel as a cause of inevitable rup...

Subscribe to The Mace

Join the member community shaping British politics and stay ahead of what's really happening in the world of politics and public affairs, with expert analysis, breaking news, and insider insights from Westminster and Brussels. The Mace is the leading news source and resource for the government affairs industry, offering required reading and lobby intelligence for professionals.

To see what you are missing out on by not subscribing to The Mace, click here to download our full membership info-pack. This includes having no paywall on op-ed content or profiles/interviews, allowing professional profiles to be read with maximum impact and visibility by government, special advisers, MPs, peers, civil servants, and policy and political decision-makers.

Leader in UK Public Affairs: Dr Michelle Howard, Senior Advisor for Defence and Space, Lexington Communications: “The future of public affairs is full of promise for the creative”

Mace | September 16, 2026

Lexington’s Michelle Howard explains how an unconventional career spanning opera, journalism, hydropower and defence led her into public affairs, why political instability rewards creativity and listening, and what

FGS Global acquires Washington government affairs agency

Mace | August 7, 2026

FGS Global has acquired Washington, DC-based government affairs firm Rich Feuer Anderson.

Kemi’s true blue purge, with help from Sir Philip May

William Cash | July 26, 2026

The news that former Home Secretary Sir Grant Shapps has failed to make the new Tory candidate list has put fear into dozens of former Conservative MPs. Whether

Brussels Diary by Konstantinos Bogdanos: ‘The local bistros are half-empty as the Belgian middle class finds even a weekend meal an unaffordable luxury”

Konstantinos Bogdanos | May 26, 2026

Konstantinos Bogdanos, our regular Brussels Diarist, on how the bills for Europe’s political class are finally coming due in a city where the Belgian middle-class can't afford to