To keep Britain in the EU, avoid the Emma Thompson trap (Matthew Harries, IISS)

The idea that Britain matters is something that matters to the British. In fact, it is an idea that might take Britain out of the European Union. When the actor Emma Thompson joked that she came from a tiny, ‘misery-laden, cake-filled’ island, she made the front page of the Sun. Britons,self-deprecating or not, do not like being made to feel small, and the notion that it is the UK that needs the EU, rather than the other way around, sometimes goes down very badly.

https://www.iiss.org/en/politics%20and%20strategy/blogsections/2016-d1f9/february-23f5/to-keep-britain-in-the-eu-avoid-the-emma-thompson-trap-29f3