The current deep antagonism between Russia and Britain disguises some important similarities between the two countries. Those parallels are likely to become more obvious after Brexit — in ways that should worry both the UK and the EU.
Britain and Russia are on the fringes of the European continent. Partly as a result, the two have traditionally had a dual identity — regarding themselves both as European and as something more. Nearly 80 per cent of Russia’s landmass is in Asia. The British empire was built outside Europe and the country still has strong cultural ties with the “Anglosphere” in North America, Australasia and south Asia.
So it is unsurprising that the UK and Russia are likely to end up as the two major European powers that stand outside the EU. However, both countries will continue to worry about the EU’s collective power. As nations on the periphery, they have traditionally feared the rise of a single power dominating the European landmass — which partly explains why they ended up as allies in the Napoleonic wars and the two world wars. Each country has built its modern identity around the memory of victory in 1945. And both are shaped by nostalgia for imperial power.