Another British prime minister, another setback in UK-EU relations. At least Margaret Thatcher turned up to EU summits to wield her handbag. Old clunking fist Gordon Brown couldn’t be bothered to show up to the EU’s Lisbon love-in last December.

The Downing Street spin about Brown having an unavoidable engagement in Westminster should be treated with the scorn it deserves; Brown is as much a fan of executive power as his predecessor Tony Blair. No, his late arrival in the Portuguese capital revealed something fundamental: that the EU is almost invisible in Britain.

Better late than never: Brown tardily signs Britain up to the Lisbon Treaty. Photograph: Reuters

What can I possibly mean by this? After all, we all think we know that most of the British press is profoundly Eurosceptic. But the reality is much worse: beyond the rabid imagination of the Daily Mail, the EU isn’t even on the radar screen.

Worse still, while there are occasionally EU stories elsewhere, they are usually brief and relayed in a way that minimises the EU’s role. Did you think, for instance, that Anglo-Franco-German cooperation on Iran had nothing to do with the EU? You would if you lived in Britain. I would bet my savings that most of those Brits who are so happy to travel, live and work in other member states have very little idea that it is thanks to the EU that they can do so. And that if they do know this, it makes them feel no more European.

I used to think this reflected Euroscepticism. Perhaps it does, partly. But more than this, I would argue that it shows how British elites – and indeed most British people – think of themselves, their state, and its role in the world.

American talk of Britain’s potential role as a bridge between Washington and Brussels played a big part in pushing the country towards EU membership. The EU has never been seen in Britain as essential to rolling out a workable foreign policy and re-establishing the state as it was in postwar France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries. Neither has it been seen as a road to effective sovereignty and modernity, as was the case for Ireland, Spain and Portugal.

Few British people see the EU as a means of economic transformation or survival in the context of globalisation, unlike in Scandinavia or in central and eastern Europe. More often it is seen as of some marginal utility in business, but even that is subject to harrumphing about red tape by big companies and free market ideologues. For them, Europe is a distraction; the real gold dust lies in China and India.

Why does this matter?......