Italians saw seven changes of prime minister in the 1950s. Compared to such upheaval, Brussels officialdom was not so bad. A Spaniard with memories of Franco, or an Irish voter who grew up with an overbearing church, might even associate it with modernity. In other words, some Europeans welcomed the EU as a kind of deliverance from their ropey national politics. The well-run UK had much less to gain from contracting out its administration to foreigners. As an explanation for British Euroscepticism, this is immensely self-flattering, but it at least lines up with the circumstantial facts.
No longer. Since leaving the EU, Britain has become much more European in its political chaos. It might soon have its seventh prime minister since 2016. There are no fewer than five parties polling in double digits, suggesting a German or Dutch level of political fragmentation but with a majoritarian voting model that cannot accommodate it.
The UK’s famed “institutions” were said to make it unusual in Europe. Few have had a good decade. Neither Labour nor the Conservatives pretend the civil service is a Rolls-Royce now. After some lapses, including one to do with coverage of Donald Trump, the BBC has lost any aura of infallibility. The Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor scandal has compromised the royals. If it is true that what drove the European project was not just utopian zeal but also its opposite — deep cynicism about institutions at the national level — then Britain is starting to fit into that continental experience.