The conundrum at the heart of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 1981 novella, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, is that, although the death of Santiago Nasar was foreseen, nobody thought it was really going to happen and so nobody tried very hard to stop it. A conspiracy of circumstances combined and the fates converged inexorably. Was that what occurred with the United Kingdom’s 2016 referendum decision? If, as this study has sought to show, a longer-term perspective is taken, then there would indeed appear to have been a series of inexorable trends that were leading the UK away from fully integrated membership of the club, as it evolved. In that sense, the UK’s relationship with the European Union can be seen, in part, as a fraught accumulation of stand-offs, clashes, set-backs, vetoes, opt-outs, opt-ins and quixotic, stand-alone gestures punctuating the long, slow drift to which the title of this book alludes. Addendum 8.1 sets out some of the more significant entries in this story of the awkward partner; it is a long list, and it shows just how much the European Union was prepared to countenance to keep the UK in the Union – even at the high price, as the February 2016 New Settlement demonstrated, of accepting that, ultimately, there could be more than a single currency within the EU and more than one destination for member states to work towards within the overall European integration process.

But Addendum 8.1 only tells part of the story. In the first place, to concentrate only on certain negative events and developments in isolation is to obscure the many positive aspects of UK membership over the years. Successive British governments and Council presidencies have energetically and effectively championed such policy areas as the single market, trade, competition, the Lisbon Strategy, climate change, the environment more generally and enlargement more particularly to great and good effect. The UK has a good record (much better than some of the founding member states) in implementing directives and in respecting judgements of the European Court of Justice. And there have been a large number of influential British European politicians and civil servants over the years (as Chapters 3, 4 and 5 documented) who have made significant positive contributions to the European integration process.