It’s interesting that Germany’s transition of power post-Merkel hasn’t got a lot of coverage in the UK. Understandable because of Covid. But generally European politics hasn’t ever interested the UK. Or other European nations for that matter. It’s not a uniquely British malaise. https://twitter.com/thorstenbenner/status/1350389712637358081

In Tony Judt’s ‘Postwar’ he states that television and newspapers across Europe have never really paid much attention to the internal affairs of each other - unless it was a particularly noteworthy event - for a number of reasons. Firstly globalisation. As Europe became more...

...accessible to Europeans TV shows became more fixated on far-flung places. This led to many Europeans feeling like Europe wasn’t of consequence to them and didn’t play a big part in their lives...

...Disinterest in internal political developments in other countries “...was a natural by product of the largely un-European mental universe of most Europeans.”(P. 782)

Judt was writing a good few years before Brexit. But I think it’s interesting to read what he has to say...

...I don’t think any politician in the UK was avowedly pro-Europe. Obviously the anti-Europe political case was made but the UKIP/Conservative politicians that made those arguments were never treated seriously, or their arguments countered, by mainstream politicians...

...so since the 1980s at least the only politicians willing to discuss the EU were the ones that were negative. And this was how discourse was framed. If the British public only ever heard the negatives case for Europe over 30+ years then that would of course have an impact...

There’s a saying in politics - “You can’t fatten a pig on market day.” The only time you began to hear positives about EU membership was during the referendum campaign. Compare that to the decades long dominance of anti-EU rhetoric in the public space.

It has to be said that the politicians that failed to make a positive case for the EU since the 1990s have to carry the can.But I’m not sure the fact that the fact the EU was for a majority of Britain’s membership something of an irrelevance to the British public is a uniquely...

British malaise as per Judt’s argument. So many Europeans really feel conscious of the EU as a force in their everyday life?