"Britain was already cherry-picking from the European tree without bopthering to water the soil or tend to its branches". A metaphorical study of the UK in Europe.

Starting from the ambivalent discursive constructions of belongings and attachments, and the awkwardness of the repetition of the statement “We are leaving the European Union but we are not leaving Europe”, this paper is a description of the uneasy and uncomfortable relation between the UK and the ‘continent’. The study discusses the historical British insular attitude looking at the metaphorical language used around Brexit, with a special emphasis on the metaphor “have one’s cake and eat it”, referring to the “cherry-picking” attitude that the British government wishes to have, retaining EU membership benefits without its obligations. Combining moral reasoning with humour, Boris Johnson admitted that his policy on cake was “pro having it and pro eating it”, expressing an argument that, on withdrawing from the European Union, Britain would still retain many of the benefits that it had enjoyed as a member. Indeed, Britain was already “cherry-picking from the European tree without bothering to water the soil or tend to its branches”, and was already “having its cake and eating it” when it was in the EU, given the very special status and the beneficial state of affairs it had managed to achieve.