There are Brits who will with zero irony whatsoever say they aren't European

>There are Brits who will with zero irony whatsoever say they aren't European

They usually mean this in a political sense, I've never seen anyone argue that we aren't ethnically or culturally European.

>storm on the channel: the continent is isolated

That is just fucking stupid

>[term] is well defined
>bureaucrats create their own twisted, nonsensical definition


Why do they do this?

Not OP, but I once had a Scottish professor of English say that Britain "isn't really" part of Europe.

Leave it to statisticians to teach geographists about geography. When will Brussels burn to the ground?

when we say european we mean continentals

we are very clearly part of europe both historically and geographically, but culturally we feel more removed from them, being isolated by sea

what is malta

The English Channel is so thin that you can see England from France. What, is Ireland not European? Is Iceland? Is Sicily?

hmmm

Culturally and historically they all are, but the Bureaucrats make it sound as if the EU has a claim to them.

>but culturally we feel more removed from them
You literally refer to yourselves as Anglo-Saxons and speak a Germano-French hybrid language, you're also nominally Christian and outside of London your culture strikingly resembles that of the rest of Western Europe, and you have insittutions and laws inspired by that of Rome. In what cultural sense are you not European?

There's a difference between "we're different from other Europeans" (spoiler: all Europeans are different from other Europeans" and "We're not Europeans".

I wonder if he considers Taiwan to be Asian.

they are European, some of them are just not well traveled enough and think that because someone speaks a different language they are basically an alien species

Britain, Ireland and Iceland are all far more isolated from their neighbours than mainlanders are. Each one has an insular culture. We simply don't csre what goes on in the continent because we do not feel as connected to it. This is observable with Japan aswell. Island nations are much more insular

did i not just explain that when we say european we mean continental?
>is Ireland continental?
no
>is Iceland continental?
no

Because it lets them treat Britain the same way they treat France or Belgium.

Are we continental?

Yes

Good post except for the hybrid language part

But how does being continental correlate with cultural differences when countries like Sweden, Norway, Finland have always been more isolated than the UK

Have you been? During Roman times, sure, but during the Viking era you were always fucking around in Europe, and then during the Renaissance the Swedish Empire was doing its thing. You seem about as connected to the rest of Europe as Britain.

Generally speaking the UK has been more connected to the mainland Europe than Scandinavia has been. Sweden as an empire was also very focused on the east

Look at the part of your post I quoted: you claimed the British feel *culturally* removed from the rest of Europe. Nothing is less true, at least outside of London.

Swedish and northern europe was focused solely on German and eastern lands. It was very isolated and practically formed it's own kind of feudal system instead of adopting the one from middle-europe.

>you claimed the British feel *culturally* removed from the rest of Europe
yes, feel being the key word

we feel removed from europe, i don't care how true YOU feel this is as a continental, i am telling you as a british person how the british feel

It doesn't matter how you feel tho. I could feel like a german but that doesn't make me german. The dutch put it out very well and explained what you ARE in the very meaning of the word.

so basically, you have some kind of national special snowflake syndrome

We dont feel like we are as similar to the continentals as the continentals are to each other, we feel like we are alike but different

the difference being that you are not in fact a german, and i am in fact a citizen of an island nation removed from continental europe
yes, it's called being an island nation and it's not a mentality unique to the british

for the record, i consider myself european in every sense of the word
i am simply explaining to you why britons say what they say

Surely you agree that you're more like France than France is like Poland, right?

This is the most retarded special snowflake analogy i've ever heard. I don't feel any similarity to say greeks but in your eyes we're the same but you get free pass cause muh island nation.

nobody cares what you think

Yes in some ways and no at the same time, we feel like everyone on the continent has a different mentality to us, always going to extremes and being quick to react and get emotional but also quick to fold back, just being too direct and having issue with too many things.

We pride ourselves on being phlegmatic as a nation

Is this taught you in school and reverbed through media as well?
"The big bad EU is the cause of all problems and we're trying to fight against those frog eaters in their ivory towers deciding about the curvature of bananas".

It seems that Brits need to always put themselves on the podium and require everyone to make an exemption for them like in EU legislation.
You are in the center of all trading, decision making etc. along with France and Germany but somehow you still think you're not European. It's like you're trying to be a superpower like USA, Russia or China who bends to no one but those days are gone.

We were a superpower, we are still a great power and one of the most powerful countries in the world, along with France and Germany, but we dont want to be in the EU to the same extent as France and Germany because we dont belong to Europe as much as France and Germany, but e dont want to deal with estonia or finland in decision making, we want to deal with France and Germany.

Russia is also not a superpower, the Russian Empire was but today's Russia is smaller, has fewer people , is bankrupt and has an awful economy and standard of living.

Same here, but because of the reconquista and later the discovery age. We used to ignore Europe except fot the hiatus feeded by the autistic rage of the Habsburgers.

>A Dane tries to tell me Greenland is European

we really don't care about that island

Canada is not a part of North America.

We just see the continentals as competitors rather than co-operators desu