Without Britain, the EU becomes a Franco-German enterprise, with Germany very much the dominant partner, and all the smaller member states squeezed between the two. This is not really what anybody wants, not even the Germans, who are reluctant hegemons.
德、英、法作为欧盟三大强国构成一种关键的平衡。没有英国，欧盟就会成为法德合资企业，其中德国占绝对主导地位，所有规模较小的成员国都被夹在法德当中。这并不符合任何人的意愿，其中甚至包括并不甘心充当霸主的德国。此外，英国和德国一直是平衡法国中央集权倾向的天然盟友。