Britain's economic interests ultimately require close European partnership, and complete isolation from European integration is unsustainable for a trading nation of 67 million facing global economic giants.
Thatcher warns that rejoining surrenders the sovereignty Brexit recovered, as EU membership constrains national lawmaking, border control, and budgetary authority through institutions unaccountable to British voters. Schmidt counters that monetary and trade sovereignty exercised alone by medium-sized powers becomes illusory when facing global capital flows, making sovereign cooperation through EU institutions more effective than sovereign subordination to uncontrollable external forces. Adenauer argues that Britain's geographical reality and the failure of Brexit's promises will eventually override historical sentiment, just as practical necessity drove German European integration after 1945. De Gaulle insists that successful rejoining requires Britain to embrace European civilizational identity rather than maintain Atlanticist assumptions that treat Europe as merely a commercial arrangement.
The split turns on whether European integration represents recovered sovereignty through institutional strength or surrendered sovereignty through institutional constraint.