Why do people in the UK often pretend they're not in Europe?

[NJ5]

Something that I've been noticing for a while... it happens quite often that people in Britain talk about "going to Europe" when they mean going to places in Europe other than the UK. Another example, news articles talking about "UK and Europe" as if UK isn't part of Europe.

I know many British people hate the EU, but Europe is not the same thing as EU. So what's up with that?

Wake up already. You're part of Europe.