My dad, post-war Atlanticist and Empire nostalgic as he was, to my constant irritation would talk about Europe as if it were a continent beyond the Channel to which he didn’t belong. “We’re part of Europe,” I’d tell him and he’d mumble, “Yes, yes.” But I knew he was unconvinced. It wasn’t until 24th June that I understood how deeply entrenched this view still is in the UK. I discovered that my father’s ethos, its nostalgia for the past, its discomfort with the present and its dread of the future, had won the day.
Even when, out of his five daughters, three were living in France and one in Spain, my dad never accepted the idea that the UK might actually belong in Europe. He grew to admire the miracle of his seven bilingual grandchildren, their mobility and their adaptability as they moved through European cities, studying and working in French, English or Spanish, but he never embraced his country’s place in the EU, which irritated him to the last.