On 23rd January 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron made a speech that set out his vision for a renewed partnership between Britain and the European Union. Apart from a call for repatriating certain powers, the Prime Minister promised the British people an in-or-out referendum in 2017 should his party win the 2015 general election. Now, after the Conservative Party’s surprisingly won an absolute majority in the May ballot, Mr Cameron decided to fast track the referendum, to be held as soon as 23rd June 2016.
The referendum process raised many important questions for the United Kingdom. Will David Cameron be able to negotiate a “New Deal” for his country before June 2016? How will his diplomacy affect Britain’s relationship with its European partners? Is a referendum of this kind democratic? And, what would a British exit from the EU—a “Brexit”—look like? Over the past year, the Oxford University Politics Blog has published a number of expert contributions that engage with these issues.
Now that the UK has voted to leave, the series will focus on the consequences of Brexit, the exit negotiations, and the changing relationship between Britain and the EU.
What Brexit means for Britain’s future, according to Oxford University’s Chancellor
As Britain formally triggers the doleful negotiations to exclude itself from the mainstream of European politics and economics, Prime Minister Theresa May refuses to use the word “divorce” to describe what is happening. My wife, a retired family lawyer and mediator, thinks May could be correct. After all, the family house we are exiting still contains much of our history and family silver, as well as our future economic interest. In that sense, divorce is scarcely an option. Britain has not been as insular an island as some people take it to be. From our reigning royal family (which is German) to our exports (overwhelmingly to Europe), we have helped to shape and in our turn been shaped by developments …
Complex Negotiations are Dynamic and Unpredictable: An analysis of Sturgeon’s and May’s approach to Brexit
In the week of 13 March, two momentous events took place. Parliament passed the bill giving the government authority to notify the European Council that the United Kingdom intends to withdraw from the European Union. And First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that her government will introduce legislation for a second independence referendum for Scotland. The first occurred despite the House of Lords’ insistence on a prior guarantee of the status of EU citizens or of an up-or-down vote on the final deal (or no deal); the second was a surprise move, seemingly calculated to pre-empt a positive news cycle on the day the bill was approved. These two leaders’ approaches to Brexit so far show the difference between imposing order and control in an …
In a democracy, no decision should ever be irreversible
The British parliamentary system, inspired by John Locke, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill and many others who believed in a system of checks and balances to guarantee our liberties, has in the past been much admired as a model of liberal democracy, one that has enabled the peaceful evolution that has been an almost unique part of our history. Today it has been superseded. The doctrine of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that the will of the people must always prevail, much admired by autocrats ever since the days of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety, now prevails in Westminster instead. Speaker after speaker in the House of Commons debates on Article 50 declared that, although he or she voted Remain and …
The will of the people: A primer in direct democracy
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, having been given sovereignty over whether the Kingdom leaves or remains in the European Union insist, in the interest of democracy and unity, on being given the opportunity to take an informed decision on the final outcome of the Art. 50 negotiations, as approved by parliament, through a referendum to either accept this outcome or to remain in the European Union. THE REFERENDUM PREDICAMENT A lot has been made in the press and in the recent parliamentary debates about the moral obligation for members of parliament to respect “the will of the people” as expressed in the narrow victory for leaving the European Union in the Brexit referendum of last …
Brexit arithmetics: A logical approach to predicting a Brexit deal
Do we know more now about the likely shape of the future Brexit deal? While Theresa May’s speech has provided some much-needed clarity on the British position, her uncompromising stance on the single market could make the deal yet more unpredictable. In the configuration sketched out today, the eventual result will depend even less on what Theresa May wants and even more on what the rest of the EU will give her. Commentators tend to argue that there are too many unknowns to figure out the positions and bottom lines of the 27. But nevertheless, the fundamentals are arguably simple enough to be described in three short equations, each of which gives us a clue about an eventual Deal UK (Duk). Equation 1: …
Populism on the Rise? The Brexit Vote and Beyond
The outcome of the British referendum on European Union (EU) membership has sent shockwaves across the globe that are still reverberating. Politically, the two major political forces in Westminster, the Conservative and Labour parties, are in disarray about how to shape UK’s ongoing relationship with the EU once we leave. Prime Minister Theresa May faces the daunting task of organising the British exit from the EU whilst keeping her party and country together. There are question marks over not only Britain’s new relationship with the EU, but also our partners within the British Union. Hot on the heels of the Brexit vote came the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States of America. This has been widely …
