英国与丹麦、瑞典和美国在《经济学人》选取的十项人口、经济与社会指标上的相似度较低，这些国家通常更小、更富、更快乐、税负更高且更不宗教化。相比之下，加拿大、法国、比利时、德国和荷兰更接近英国，其中西班牙在综合排名中与英国最为相似。

英西两国同为复合君主制国家，历史上都建立过庞大的美洲帝国并在上帝之名下压迫原住民，如今都存在强烈的分离主义运动。尽管英国人曾在近五个世纪中时而与西班牙交战、时而互不理睬，但现实中的社会与政治差异相对有限。

自2016年英国公投脱欧以来，西班牙在欧洲中的边缘感减弱，而英国的边缘化却在加深；与此同时，英国游客去年前往西班牙的次数是第二热门目的地法国的两倍。过去三十年里，西班牙语在英国中学考试中的受欢迎程度从远远落后于德语（3倍差距）和法语（9倍差距）转为超过两者。

Using ten demographic, economic, social and cultural indicators across OECD countries, Britain is shown to be much less similar to Denmark, Sweden and the United States, which are generally smaller, richer, happier, more highly taxed and less religious. Canada, France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands are closer matches, but Spain emerges as the single most similar country to Britain in the composite ranking.

Britain and Spain are both composite monarchies that once ruled vast American empires and oppressed indigenous peoples in the name of God, and both now face strong separatist movements. Despite centuries of British disdain for Spanish culture and cuisine, people who work in both countries report that day‑to‑day differences are modest.

Since Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the EU, Spain has become less peripheral in Europe while Britain has become more so, even as British tourists visited Spain twice as often as France last year. Over the past three decades, Spanish has gone from trailing German by a factor of three and French by nine in GCSE popularity to becoming more widely studied than either language.