UK try to do this? In particular, are there lessons for the future to be found in the past of EU-UK relations, looking back to the time before the UK joined the European project?

The story
The recently published DCU Brexit Institute working paper “The Long Arm of Whitehall Post-Brexit: Evidence from the Common Assembly (1952-1956)” deals with Brexit, blending political science and history. The paper is an analysis of the early period of European integration (1952-1956), when the UK was not yet a member of the institution that eventually grew into the European Union (the European Coal and Steel Community at that time). As such, the paper provides an insight on how the UK might behave as a non-EU member post-Brexit.

The paper tells the story of how organising theadministration of the Common Assembly (the precursor of the European Parliament) became a contentious issue reflecting the most basic question in European integration: What kind of cooperation shall we pursue in the European Union? In the early history of post-second-war European integration, the choice was between intergovernmental or supranational cooperation (or an approximation toward either of the two models).

Intergovernmentalism and Supranationalism
In the intergovernmental model, states are in the driving seat in European integration. They keep their sovereignty and do not share the power with other actors. In the supranational model, states delegate responsibilities and functions to non-state authorities or supranational institutions, such as the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice.

In the 1950s, the UK was an enthusiastic promoter of and participant in intergovernmental