Sunak’s EU Reset

Ever since the Brexit referendum in June 2016—when the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union—British-EU relations have been bitterly fraught. The reigning theory among pro-Brexit Conservatives in London was that EU officials had behaved like wronged ex-lovers: they begrudgingly accepted the end of the affair but were now determined to make the United Kingdom pay for its decision to leave. EU officials, for their part, were tired of British antics; anytime they agreed anything behind closed doors with the United Kingdom about how their relationship would work, those agreements would be leaked or not fulfilled. Moreover, the