Or more likely, they had a mutual agreement until Britain wanted its own thing, so they exit the deal. Seems like something the English would do. We could have called it Brexit or something
It’s interesting to me that Africa is 2. I’d assume that when these were implemented Africa would be a cultural afterthought and Europe would’ve gotten number 2.
US is part of the NANP which means they have their own system for beyond +1, which is shared with Canada and half the Caribbean, and so they were given the whole of +1 rather than +10, +11, +12 etc. all resolving to the same thing, or +10 being for about 10 different countries while +11 was for one
Then the Soviet Union wanted a single digit too, which is why Russia and Kazakhstan share +7
All of the USSR was +7 IIRC. Most changed it after independence, notice how the Baltics, Belarus and whatnot have previously unassigned three-character numbers instead of two like most of Europe (except microstates). They only got their numbers in the 90s, and no shorter ones were available. +37 just became available since east Germany didn't exist anymore.
Same with the former Yugoslavian countries, all of YU used +38, when they split up they had to split up +38 too.
I love how the division in Europe vaguely looks like the Protestant Reformation led to different prefix numbers (I know I know, Poland & co don't match)