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.
Brexit and Political Education: Ariadne’s Thread Leads to Leave
An impressive list of academics, including seven Oxford faculty members, signed a petition in mid-June calling for new strategies to deal with misinformation. It makes very good sense to desire competent opinion as opposed to misinformation, and to argue that democratic legitimacy of the referendum’s outcome in some sense rests upon informed choice. (A specific example of a helpful intervention is this letter from the UK Statistics Authority challenging the “potentially misleading” statement of Nigel Farage about the “independence dividend” of Brexit.) These epistemic interventions need to be given more thought, but they all share the same classic problem: Who shall watch the watchers? While oversight and accountability genuinely help the democratic process, representing the proper style of character and …
The Disintegration of the West
The British vote to leave the European Union (EU) is the first step toward formal disintegration that the West has experienced. The closest parallel is France’s decision to step outside the integrated military command structure of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1966. But France remained a member of NATO; that decision was more like Britain’s opt-out from the single currency or Schengen, even if the shift of NATO’s headquarters from Paris to Brussels made it seem more dramatic. By contrast, the British have now decided that they do not want to take part in the EU and that they want to renegotiate their relationships with the rest of the world on a case-by-case basis. The West has not …
Why did the UK vote to leave the European Union?
It is not hard to see why Leave won. Evidence from numerous opinion polls showed that there was a clear majority for Leave on the basis of concerns about immigration and beliefs that leaving would reduce immigration. Moreover the same opinion polls showed us that there was no compensating majority who believed that the UK would be worse off if we left. Still less did people feel that they personally would be financially worse off. For further details see here. Although it should not have come as a surprise that Leave won, the result was close enough that it could easily have gone the other way. There will be much debate as to whether the Remain side could have made their …
A new narrative for the EU: a neo-medieval Europe of societal networks
We have theories of integration but not of disintegration which is a problem, argues Jan Zielonka. In the early 1990s Europe experienced three great revolutions: geopolitical, economic and digital. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the single market project and the advent of the internet have changed Europe beyond recognition, but the EU has not properly adjusted to this dramatic change. Europe lost trust, imagination and sex appeal Subsequently it lost its sex appeal for both Europe’s citizens and external observers. For many decades the EU was as a model of successful integration: an efficient market with welfare protection for its citizens and ability to pacify unstable neighbors. This is history however. At present, the EU is clearly in disarray. …
How the BBC will be benchmarking the Results on EU Referendum Night
Referendum night is going to represent something of a departure from usual. There will not be the drama of an exit poll announcement to stir excitement – and possibly shock – at 10pm. Meanwhile, when the actual results do start to be announced, except in Northern Ireland they will not be declared by the parliamentary constituencies with which we have all become familiar. Rather they will be unveiled local authority by local authority. As a result, we will get just one declaration for the whole of Birmingham, while, at the other end of the spectrum, the Isles of Scilly will get their moment in the sun. But perhaps the biggest departure from the routine of election night will be that …
Déjà Vu? Britain’s EU Referendum and Spain’s 1986 in-out NATO Referendum
As the Bremain and Brexit campaigns gear up for the last three days of campaigning, the outcome remains far from clear. Recent polls show the vote tied at 50/50. Both sides of the argument have heralded the referendum as a “unique event”. Unique as it may be for this generation of UK citizens, referenda of this kind are not singular. In fact, the UK’s referendum on EU membership, to be held on 23 June, shares a number of remarkable parallels with Spain’s in-out NATO referendum, held thirty years earlier on 12 March 1986. Let’s review the similarities one-by-one. The “question”: stay or leave NATO/the EU. Spain joined NATO in May 1982. Four years later, in March 1986, the Spanish Socialist …
