Brexit: How Charles de Gaulle was alwys right about Britain's EU membership

In her 2002 book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, the Iron Lady claimed the French general "did not particularly like Britain but he understood us quite well".

Speaking at a press conference in 1963, the French General said: "England is insular, maritime, linked through its trade, markets and food supply to very diverse and often very distant countries. Its activities are essentially industrial and commercial, and only slightly agricultural."

"In short, the nature, structure and economic context of England different profoundly from those of the other States of the Continent."

De Gaulle viewed the UK's membership of the EEC as potentially destabilising.

He added: "It is foreseeable that the cohesion of all its members, who would be very numerous and very diverse, would not hold for long and that in the end there would appear a colossal Atlantic Community under American dependence and leadership which would soon completely swallow up the European community."

○ Emphatic 'No' by de Gaulle | The Guardian - Nov. 1967 |

One could consider the US has positioned itself as the power broker in Europe in foreign policy, intelligence and security deals, military might through the Pentagon and NATO. The main cause of the upheaval in EU politics was successful through policy in the Middle East causing the flow of refugees thereby strengthening populism and the rightwing parties. Bush and the invasion/occupation of Iraq and the Obama years with regime change in Libya and Syria.

'Sapere aude'