Over the past century, the United Kingdom has transitioned through various international roles, from a global superpower during its imperial era to a key partner within the European Union. Brexit, however, has triggered what many scholars describe as a foreign policy ‘identity crisis’. This paper challenges this conventional narrative by applying an ontological security framework to investigate how EU membership and the European integration process themselves represented an identity crisis for many Britons. The analysis explores the emotional motives behind Brexit by examining how Euroscepticism, combined with a desire to reclaim Britain’s ‘islandness’ identity, contributed to the decision to leave the European Union. Employing a thematic narrative analysis, the research examines the interaction between identity-based motivations and broader political and historical contexts to reveal new understandings of the multifaceted factors driving Brexit and its enduring effects. By investigating ontological security concepts such as existential threat, continuity disruption, and the restoration of narrative identity, the paper argues that EU integration itself, rather than Brexit, was perceived by many as the principal threat to Britain’s biographical narrative and national identity. These insights contribute to understanding how identity-based anxieties influence major political decisions and carry implications for policymaking and EU–UK relations moving forward.
Mohammadpour et al. (Thu,) studied this question.