Articles ANATOMY OF A CRISIS JR Seeley infamously claimed in the late 19th century that the British seemed, "as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind". (Johnson's Superman analogy does work in one respect: the coronavirus would be the Kryptonite of this triumphal moment, the mysterious, other-worldly substance that would render the Brexit state impotent.) The exceptionalism at the heart of Brexit - Britain is humiliated by being merely one European country among others - is what shaped the official responses to the unfolding coronavirus disaster. This idea of what was "appropriate" to Britain fused with the Brexit myth that the British chafed under the yoke of Brussels because they are an exceptionally freedom- loving people. [Extracted from the article]
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