@kaa I think that is true. Britian has always been insulated from the Continent. In fact they celebrated it as the Splendid Isolation.
But I also think political legitimacy plays into this. British institutions: parliament, the courts of law, a constitutional monarchy and a strange but serviceable unwritten constitution have evolved over hundreds of years into something quite remarkable compared to the rest of the world. Historically these have served Britian well when Europe was in flames from the French Revolution and on. Those British intitutions have a political legitimacy that is hard to match in other countries. They are not easily surrendured, I think.