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 THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK
OF THE POLITICS OF BREXIT

The surprise decision expressed by the British people in the referendum held in June 2016 to
leave the European Union was remarkable. It also presents a “natural experiment” where the
exposure of a society to an extraordinary event allows scholars to observe, in real time in the real
world, the interaction of variables.
The Routledge Handbook of the Politics of Brexit takes stock of what we know in the social science
community about the Brexit phenomenon so far and looks to make sense of this remarkable
process as it unfolds. The book asks simple questions across a range of areas and topics so as to
frame the debate into a number of navigable “subdiscussions”, providing structure and form to
what is an evolving and potentially inchoate topic. As such, it provides a systematic account of
the background for, the content of, and the possible implications of Brexit.
The handbook therefore does not examine in detail the minutiae of Brexit as it unfolds on
a day-to-day basis but raises its sights to consider both the broad contextual factors that shape
and are shaped by Brexit and the deeper sources and implications of the British exit from the
European Union. Importantly, as interest in Brexit reaches far beyond the shores of the United
Kingdom, so an international team of contributors examines and reveals the global implications
and the external face of Brexit.
The Routledge Handbook of the Politics of Brexit will be essential reading and an authoritative
reference for scholars, students, researchers and practitioners involved in and actively concerned
about research on Brexit, British politics, European Union politics, and comparative politics and
international relations.

Patrick Diamond is Senior Lecturer at the School of Politics and International Relations,
Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom.

Peter Nedergaard is Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen,

Denmark.

Ben Rosamond is Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen,

Denmark.
“Wow! Almost nothing about Brexit is clear – and that makes this an extraordinary and extraor-
dinarily useful collection. For it contains both all that there is to know about Brexit and all that
we need to make sense of it – insofar, that is, as there is sense to be made of it. A wonderful
achievement and very highly recommended.”
Colin Hay, Professor of Political Science,
Sciences Po, Paris

“This is a wide ranging, informative, and up-to-date survey of Brexit and its implications for the
United Kingdom, for the European Union, and for countries beyond. Each of the twenty-four
chapters provides a state-of-the-art contribution that summarizes the current state of knowledge
for students and experts alike.”
Gary Marks, Burton Craige Distinguished Professor,
UNC-Chapel Hill, and Robert Schuman Fellow, EUI, Florence

“British exit from the European Union has become the defining issue for the UK today. This
insightful text tells you everything you need to know, and might not even have known to ask,
from the inside and the outside. Remarkable not only for the range of topics considered but also
for the depth of analysis of its stellar list of contributors, this book is the indispensable guide to
Brexit.”
Vivien A. Schmidt, Jean Monnet Professor of
European Integration, Boston University, USA

“Brexit is a process rather than an event, which has implications which go far beyond the UK
itself. With its excellent team of authors this book provides a broad, comprehensive and insightful
account of the many different contexts, issues and dilemmas associated with the decision and its
consequences. It will be an indispensable source for all students of Brexit.”
Andrew Gamble, Emeritus Professor of Politics, University of
Cambridge, and Professorial Fellow, University of Sheffield, UK
 THE ROUTLEDGE
HANDBOOK OF THE
POLITICS OF BREXIT

Edited by Patrick Diamond,

Peter Nedergaard and Ben Rosamond
 First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Patrick Diamond, Peter Nedergaard and Ben
Rosamond; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Patrick Diamond, Peter Nedergaard and Ben Rosamond to be identified
as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-04936-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-16961-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
 CONTENTS

Figures viii
Tables ix
Box x
Contributors xi
Preface xiv

1 Introduction 1
Patrick Diamond, Peter Nedergaard and Ben Rosamond

PART I
Brexit from the inside 13

2 Brexit and the state of the United Kingdom 15

Daniel Wincott

3 Brexit and the Irish case 27

Mary C. Murphy

4 Brexit and Scotland 40

Michael Keating

5 Brexit and the City of London: the revenge of the ultraliberals? 49

Leila Simona Talani

6 Brexit and the future model of British capitalism 66

Andrew Baker and Scott Lavery

v
 Contents

7 Brexit and British trade policy 80

Jed Odermatt

8 Brexit and agriculture 92

Wyn Grant

9 Brexit and higher education and research 103

Anne Corbett and Claire Gordon

10 Brexit, ‘immigration’ and anti-discrimination 118

Adrian Favell and Roxana Barbulescu

11 Brexit and British exceptionalism 134

Peter Nedergaard and Maja Friis Henriksen

12 Brexit and English identity 147

Ben Wellings

13 Brexit and the Conservative Party 157

Richard Hayton

14 Brexit and the Labour party: Euro-caution vs. Euro-fanaticism?

The Labour party’s ‘constructive ambiguity’ on Brexit and
the European Union 167
Patrick Diamond

15 The (anti-)politics of Brexit 179

Matthew Flinders

PART II
Brexit from the outside 195

16 Brexit and the Commonwealth: fantasy meets reality 197

Peg Murray-Evans

17 Brexit and Britain’s role in the world 208

Oliver Daddow

18 Brexit and the EU as an international actor 223

Henrik Larsen

19 Brexit and European defence: why more defence does not

equal more integration 233
Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen

vi
 Contents

20 Brexit and EU financial regulation 244

Lucia Quaglia

21 Brexit and the European Union: hanging in the balance? 254

Mads Dagnis Jensen and Holly Snaith

22 Brexit and small states in Europe: hedging, hiding or seeking shelter? 266
Anders Wivel and Baldur Thorhallsson

23 Brexit and the EU’s affiliated non-members 278

John Erik Fossum

24 Brexit and the future of EU theory 290

Christian Lequesne

Index 298

vii
 FIGURES

9.1 What about applications to Horizon 2020 from the rest of the world?
Top ten third countries in terms of share of participations in signed
grant agreements, Horizon 2020 compared with FP7 110
23.1 Patterns of differentiation in the EU 280
23.2 The institutional structure of the European Economic Area Agreement 283

viii
 TABLES

5.1 Financial markets share by country 53

5.2 UK share of financial markets 54
6.1 Four power blocs and the emergent political economy of Brexit 73
13.1 Conservative leadership election: result of parliamentary ballots 160
15.1 Five types of anti-politics 181
21.1 A taxonomy for measuring the impact of Brexit on the balance of
power in the EU 255

ix
 BOX

9.1 Countries in the EU association agreements with the EU higher education

and research programmes 104

x
 CONTRIBUTORS

Andrew Baker is Professor at the Department of Politics, University of Sheffield, United

Kingdom.

Roxana Barbulescu is Academic University Fellow at the Faculty of Education, Social Sciences
and Law, University of Leeds, United Kingdom.

Anne Corbett is Senior Associate at LSE Enterprise, London School of Economics and Political
Science, United Kingdom.

Oliver Daddow is Assistant Professor at the School of Politics and International Relations,
University of Nottingham, United Kingdom.

Patrick Diamond is Senior Lecturer at the School of Politics and International Relations,
Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom.

Peg Murray-Evans is Research Associate at the Department of Politics, University of York,

United Kingdom.

Adrian Favell is Chair in Sociology and Social Theory at the School of Sociology and Social
Policy, University of Leeds, United Kingdom.

Matthew Flinders is Professor at the Department of Politics, University of Sheffield, United

Kingdom.

John Erik Fossum is Professor at the ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of
Oslo, Norway.

Claire Gordon is Teaching Fellow at the European Institute, London School of Economics and
Political Science, United Kingdom.

Wyn Grant is Emeritus Professor at the Department of Politics and International Studies, Uni-
versity of Warwick, United Kingdom.

xi
 Contributors

Richard Hayton is Associate Professor at the School of Politics and International Studies,
University of Leeds, United Kingdom.

Maja Friis Henriksen is Research Assistant at the Department of Political Science, University
of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Mads Dagnis Jensen is Associate Professor at Department of Business and Politics, Copenha-
gen Business School, Denmark.

Michael Keating is Professor and Chair in Scottish Politics at the Department of Politics and
International Relations, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom.

Henrik Larsen is Professor with special responsibilities at the Department of Political Science,
University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Scott Lavery is Research Fellow at Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute, University
of Sheffield, United Kingdom.

Christian Lequesne is Professor at the Centre De Recherches Internationales, SciencesPo,

Paris, France.

Mary C. Murphy is Lecturer at the Department of Government, University College Cork,

Ireland.

Peter Nedergaard is Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenha-

gen, Denmark.

Jed Odermatt is Postdoc at the Centre of Excellence for International Courts, Faculty of Law,
University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Lucia Quaglia is Professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of
Bologna, Italy.

Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen is Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science, Uni-
versity of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Ben Rosamond is Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen,

Denmark.

Holly Snaith was Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen, Den-
mark, and is currently an Honorary Fellow of the Aston Centre for Europe, Aston University,
United Kingdom.

Leila Simona Talani is Professor at the Department of European and International Studies,
King’s College London, United Kingdom.

Baldur Thorhallsson is Professor and Head of the Faculty of Political Science, University of
Iceland, Iceland.

Ben Wellings is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Monash University,
Australia.

xii
 Contributors

Daniel Wincott is Professor and Blackwell Chair of Law and Society, School of Law and Poli-
tics, Cardiff University, United Kingdom.

Anders Wivel is Professor with special responsibilities at the Department of Political Science,
University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

xiii
 PREFACE

This collection of papers is among the first attempts to produce a systematic academic overview
and analysis of the Brexit process that was initiated by the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) decision to
vote to leave the European Union (EU) in June 2016, and the UK Government’s subsequent
decision to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. We recognise that at this stage, the Brexit pro-
cess is scarcely complete and that, as a consequence, Brexit is a ‘moving target’ with no predeter-
mined end point or destination. We nonetheless hope that the outstanding group of scholars who
have contributed to this volume have identified among the most important issues and challenges
that are set to define the Brexit process in the years and decades ahead of us.
This Routledge handbook on the politics of Brexit analyses the UK’s imminent departure from
the EU along two critical dimensions. The first aspect relates to the internal impact of Brexit on
the UK’s economy, society and politics; how far will the Brexit process transform the economic
and social structures of Great Britain in the foreseeable future? To what extent will Brexit lead to
a far-reaching overhaul of the British state and the nature of the UK polity, as many adherents of
Brexit hope? Will Brexit inevitably encourage the reconfiguration of English, Welsh, Scottish and
Irish identities so as to threaten the underpinnings of the UK territorial state? How will particular
sectors and arenas of national life – from agriculture to higher education – protect their strategic
interests in the aftermath of Great Britain’s exodus from the EU?
The second dimension of the volume relates to the external context of Brexit; what will be
the impact of Brexit on states outside the UK? How will the UK’s withdrawal from the treaties
affect the balance of power within the EU’s political institutions and between member states?
Will Europe automatically be a less influential and powerful actor on the global stage? Beyond
the EU, how will the Commonwealth countries react to the UK’s retreat from the Union, given
the anachronistic appeal of the ‘Anglosphere tradition’ in most Commonwealth nations?
These are among the most important and critical questions relating to the UK’s parting from
the EU that are discussed. We do not pretend that the treatment offered here is exhaustive; inev-
itably, there have been issues that we were not able to address in greater detail, from the impact
of Brexit on the European social model to future relationships between the EU and the United
States. Nevertheless, we very much hope that the handbook will make a compelling contribution
to the scholarly debates around these crucial issues in the coming years.
In compiling the book, we would like to express our profound thanks to Maja Friis Hen-
riksen who has provided outstanding research support on the volume, as well as contributing

xiv
 Preface

substantively to one of the chapters. We would like to thank Department of Political Science at
University of Copenhagen for funding Maja Friis Henriksen as research assistant for this project.
At Routledge, our editors Andrew Taylor and Sophie Iddamalgoda have been a source of great
help and encouragement throughout. Patrick Diamond would also like to thank Queen Mary,
University of London for providing a period of sabbatical leave that helped to ensure the com-
pletion of this volume.
Patrick Diamond
Peter Nedergaard
Ben Rosamond
December 2017

xv
 1
INTRODUCTION
Patrick Diamond, Peter Nedergaard and Ben Rosamond

Whether ‘Brexit’ materializes or whether Brexit is ultimately ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ in character, the
decision taken by the British people in the referendum held in June 2016 to leave the European
Union (EU) was a remarkable development from both political and scholarly points of view.
Politically, exiting the EU represents easily the most significant realignment of United Kingdom
(UK) foreign policy for many decades. In terms of process and consequence, Brexit poses stark
challenges. As the only example of a member state opting to leave the EU, Brexit raises huge
questions about the future integrity and coherence of the EU itself. Domestically, Brexit poses a
series of ‘wicked problems’ in terms of the UK polity and its politics and policy. The challenges
to policymaking and public administration of disentangling the UK from four and a half dec-
ades of accumulated EU legislation are immense. Most serious projections suggest that Brexit
will have a negative impact upon the UK economy, which in turn provokes the urgent search
for viable post-Brexit growth models for the UK. Moreover, Brexit provides a stark reminder
of the peculiar character of the UK’s plurinational constitutional settlement, not to mention its
increased delicacy. Beyond Europe, the prospect of the UK leaving the EU and (very possibly)
the Single Market and the Customs Union has wide-ranging and unpredictable implications for
the foreign economic policies and domestic politics of a significant number of countries. Actors
across the world have attached symbolic value to Brexit. For some, it represents the triumph of
a form of sovereign freedom consistent with an open liberal trading order. For others, it signifies
nothing less than the dangers of populist demagoguery and the pernicious spread of ‘post-truth’
politics. Brexit inevitably shapes external views of both the UK and the EU (Oliver 2017).
Of course, social scientists in general and political scientists in particular are interested in these
Brexit effects. Changes in the world we study, especially when they are as visible and as obviously
significant as Brexit, provoke a flurry of academic activity, often in defiance of the rhythms of
normal scholarly time. The scholar’s impulse is to seek deeper explanation and understanding of
the phenomenon in question, to ask ‘Of what is this an instance?’ (Rosenau and Durfee 1995),
even if the thing we are witnessing seems to be without precedent. Needless to say, different
subfields will pose distinct versions of this question and will seek to situate Brexit within a set
of pre-existing debates. So for those who have spent time researching the history of UK–EU
relations and/or the evolution of British attitudes to European integration, Brexit may come to
be seen as the ultimate expression of the UK’s status as an ‘awkward partner’ (George 1994; Wall
2008), or of the fundamental ambivalence of its appropriate foreign policy orientation (Sanders

1
 Patrick Diamond et al.

and Houghton 2016; Grob-Fitzgibbon 2016), or of the UK’s peculiar orientation to the global
economy (Gamble 2005), or of the way in which all of the foregoing have yielded a particularly
toxic version of Euroscepticism in the context of the UK (or perhaps, more accurately, England’s)
distinctive pattern of inter- and intra-party politics (Baker and Schnapper 2015). At the same
time, for students of British politics, Brexit is not just about ‘Europe’. Brexit touches every
aspect of politics and policymaking in the UK – parliamentary politics, public administration,
party politics, electoral politics, devolved government, foreign policy, economic policy and so on
(Armstrong 2017; Evans and Menon 2017).
If it is now impossible to write about and teach British politics without putting Brexit centre
stage, then the same is surely true for EU studies. Here there are two obvious foci for Brex-
it-related work. The first is the assessment of the impact of British withdrawal from the Union
upon the EU’s polity, policymaking and politics. Research in the field has a long track record of
dealing with these effects in relation to the expansion of the EU to include more member states,
but never before have scholars of EU politics been forced to contemplate and assess the institu-
tional, policy and political consequences of a member state (and a large one at that) exiting the
Union. The second focal point is the question of the extent to which Brexit is representative or
perhaps constitutive of a broader crisis of European integration (Dinan et al. 2017). Of special
interest here is the question of whether Brexit can be understood as an instance of European
dis-integration, perhaps presaging the ultimate collapse of the EU or, if not that, then maybe a
new phase where integration becomes more differentiated and the EU itself emerges weakened
and less effective (Vollaard 2014, Webber 2014, Rosamond 2016). A strong counter-hypothesis
is the idea that Brexit, by removing the EU’s primary gadfly, will actually come to be seen as a
harbinger of much deeper integration, at least among the core member states (De Witte 2017).
Brexit will clearly occupy a prime place on the research agendas of specialists in EU and
British politics for many years. But it also holds important implications for a much broader
community of scholarship. For example, Brexit has become a key case for comparative discus-
sions of populist politics and especially in the search for the drivers of the revolt of the so-called
left-behinds or losers of globalisation in the rich democracies. There is a good deal of agreement
that the result of the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency
should be understood as parts of the same political moment (Barnett 2017; Blyth 2016) but there
less certainty as to whether Trump and Brexit are best explained in relation to identity or eco-
nomic variables or through some permutation of the two (see variously Hobolt 2016; Clarke et al.
2017; Inglehart and Norris 2016; Becker et al. 2016; Gidron and Hall 2017). Either way, Brexit
would seem to tell us at least two things about the general trajectory of democratic politics in
the early decades of the twenty-first century. First, it is suggestive of the presence of an aggressive
anti-establishmentarianism at work within mature democracies, characterized by a distrust of
elites and the projects and institutions with which elites are associated (Hopkin 2017). Second,
Brexit seems to have been propelled by a distinctively populist and plebiscitary understanding
of democracy. The reduction of democratic politics to the ‘will of the people’ (as expressed by
a bare majority of the population) can be read as either a very effective campaigning tactic by
those Brexiteers who are keen to deliver on the result of the referendum, or it could be taken as
indicative of the broader ‘hollowing out’ of democratic politics (Mair 2013) where established
political parties have, in recent decades, become less able to mediate between the imperatives of
‘responsible’ government on the one hand and the need to represent and channel popular will
into the political system on the other.
It is hard to think of a political science subfield or, for that matter, any social science disci-
pline that will remain untouched by Brexit or that will fail to develop its own distinctive debates
around Brexit. This book represents a relatively early but – we hope – reflective and systematic

2
 Introduction

contribution to this scholarly conversation. As previously noted, much has been written already
about why Brexit occurred, but there have been relatively few attempts to understand the long-
term impact of the Brexit process on the UK and on those countries with ties to the UK. In
methodological terms, Brexit might even be thought of as a ‘natural experiment’, where the
exposure of a society to an extraordinary political shock or contingent event allows scholars to
observe, in real time and in the real world, the interaction of a variety of complex social, political
and economic variables. There are obvious dangers in trying to grapple with a rapidly changing
analytical object in real time. For example, happenings that might seem vitally important in the
eye of the political storm might, in the longer run, turn out to be merely incidental details. Nev-
ertheless, we maintain that Brexit is too important and frankly too interesting to ignore. As we
will explain, our approach – while not completely ‘future proof ’ – is designed to put Brexit into
broader perspective and to make a meaningful scholarly contribution to a societal and academic
conversation that has been on going in advance of and since the referendum.
The overwhelming interest in the Brexit phenomenon amongst the media and decision-
makers and within the social scientific community is hardly surprising, but the resulting cacoph-
ony demands that we take stock, making sense of this remarkable process as it unfolds. It is
increasingly clear that the UK’s departure from the EU will have far-reaching consequences for
the future shape and cohesion of the UK polity, the UK model of capitalism, UK foreign policy,
and Britain’s role in the world. It is also important to remember that interest in Brexit reaches
far beyond the shores of Britain. Brexit is, of necessity, a key agenda item in capitals around the
world. For example, Commonwealth countries that were once integral to the UK’s foreign eco-
nomic policy are anxious to assess the likely impact of the UK’s departure from the EU on their
domestic economy and politics. It is not just in the UK where it is important to understand both
why Brexit came about and how the Brexit process will unfold in years to come.
The rationale of this handbook is to take stock of what we know in the social science com-
munity about Brexit so far. Our intention is to be among the first to do so on a large scale. As
previously noted, the UK’s departure from the EU is self-evidently a moving target, which poses
significant challenges for those seeking to produce a ‘state-of-the-art’ analysis of the Brexit pro-
cess. Our approach is to ask a very simple question across a range of thematic areas and topics in
the chapters: what does Brexit tell us about this topic or area? Inevitably, this question leads our
contributors to assess the impact of Brexit on, inter alia, the territorial constitution of the UK,
the UK economy, UK policymaking, UK foreign policy, the European Union, international trade
and so on. But it is also worth noting that, by analysing Brexit in relation to particular domains
of inquiry, we also have the chance to reflect on what we already know about those domains
and how Brexit fits into long established scholarly literatures and policy discourses. As such, the
handbook will not bury itself in the minutiae of the Brexit negotiations as they unfold on a day-
to-day basis. Rather, the volume raises its sights to consider both the broad contextual factors
that shape and are shaped by Brexit, as well as the deeper sources and longer-term implications
of the UK’s exit from the EU.
Our primary criterion for inviting authors to contribute to this handbook has been simple.
They are all scholars with a track record of delivering outstanding publications in the relevant
areas of concern. For some of our authors, their chapter in this handbook will be one of many
contributions that they produce on Brexit. For others, this chapter here may be the only thing
that they publish on the politics of the UK’s departure from the EU. Our contributors have been
recruited on an international scale, since it is obviously vital to explore not only the internal
political, societal and economic dynamics of the UK leaving the EU but also the global implica-
tions and external dimensions of Brexit. In any case, as previously argued, Brexit is not just about
British politics. Like it or not, many scholarly fields are now stakeholders in Brexit.

3
 Patrick Diamond et al.

As far as disciplinary coverage is concerned, the field of political science is, for obvious reasons,
well represented among the authors; we hope that the book will be used widely among political
scientists and in university political science courses. However, a project such as this must take
proper account of contributions from a variety of subfields and disciplines across the political
and social sciences. As such, we have recruited expert contributors from the fields of law, political
economy, political sociology, international relations, security policy and so on.

Themes and objectives

In this handbook, we want to take stock of the scholarly discussion and debate on the Brexit pro-
cess. We aim to structure this somewhat inchoate and multifaceted debate into two dimensions
to provide a systematic analysis of the background for, as well as the content and the possible
implications of, the Brexit process. In order to structure the book, we have divided the contribu-
tions into the following key sections:

• Brexit from the inside. How does Brexit affect the United Kingdom as a multinational state,
especially in terms of its distinctive plurinational territorial compact? How far will Brexit
influence the future politics of the UK, and will it lead to far-reaching realignment of
the party system? Is it likely that Brexit will lead to the reshaping of the British model
of capitalism? How far will Brexit lead to the revival of the ‘Anglosphere tradition’ in
British politics?
• Brexit from the outside. How does Brexit affect the political system of the EU as well as various
member states of the EU? How will Brexit shape the political system and the institutions
of the EU (e.g. the European Parliament and the European Commission)? How will Brexit
influence the policies of the EU in key areas such as trade, the internal market, employment
and social affairs and agriculture? And how will Brexit change the relationship between the
EU and the UK on the one hand, and the United States, Russia and China on the other?

Inevitably, there are important topics that we have not been able to cover specifically, such as
the strategic implications of Brexit for the UK’s ‘special relationship’ with the United States (see
Wilson 2017) or the gender dimensions of Brexit (see Hozić and True 2017). But it also strikes
us that this volume breaks new ground by exploring aspects of Brexit that have been largely
neglected in the scholarly literature so far.

The chapters
The first section of the book examines the impact of the Brexit process internally on the polity,
economy and society of the UK.
Daniel Wincott assesses the underlying disunity that has framed the debate about the UK’s
membership of the EU over the last decade. According to Wincott, this discord arises because
none of the major political parties have been able to address coherently the European question in
British politics. Political divisions have also grown because of the emergence of plural-national
identities across the UK, alongside the development of spatial inequalities in economic growth
breeding new resentments and material grievances. Wincott examines the multiple challenges
that now confront the UK state in the aftermath of the Brexit decision. There is a deep leg-
acy of division and mistrust among citizens following the referendum outcome. There are also
growing concerns about the capacity of British public administration and the Civil Service to
address the issues raised by Brexit, and meanwhile the decision of British voters to leave the EU

4
 Introduction

is destabilising the territorial and judicial framework of the UK after two decades of intensive
constitutional reform. In particular, Brexit is ‘set to transform the territorial state’ in the years
ahead. Moreover, the economic instability that is likely to accompany the UK’s transition away
from the EU might exacerbate the very geographical, political and social divisions that produced
the outcome of the EU referendum in the first place.
In her chapter on Brexit and the Irish case, Mary Murphy looks at the impact of the Brexit
vote on the Republic of Ireland, the country outside the UK that is likely to be affected the most
by the decision of the British people to leave the EU. After several decades of generally cordial
relations between the UK and the Irish Republic, Brexit is likely to create new strains, given both
its certain effect on Ireland’s domestic economy and its external trade patterns and the constitu-
tional and territorial upheaval implied by the UK ceasing to be an EU member state. The process
of the British departure is already fomenting tensions between the north and south of Ireland. In
turn, this threatens to imperil the peace process that has brought an end to decades of political
violence in Northern Ireland following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The
Dublin Government’s concern that the UK Government has failed to give proper consideration
to the Irish dimension of Brexit is rooted in deep uncertainties about the nature of the border
regime after the UK’s departure from the EU. The Irish border is the only physical land frontier
between the UK and another EU member state. It would be an important space of Brexit with
no other factors in play, but, as Murphy shows, the precise configuration of the UK’s post-Brexit
relationship with the Customs Union and the Single Market is overlain with deep – and arguably
intractable – security concerns.
Michael Keating’s chapter assesses Scotland’s position in the light of the Brexit vote against the
backdrop of the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence and the ongoing political tensions
between nationalism and unionism in Scotland. In the period following British withdrawal from
the EU, England and Scotland are more likely to diverge politically and constitutionally, while
the apparatus of the state in Westminster will inevitably struggle to maintain the cohesion of the
UK. The disagreement stems not merely from different orientations towards the EU but also
from diametrically opposed views of the very nature of the British state. Many supporters of
Brexit believe that the Westminster Parliament is ‘supreme’ and that leaving the EU allows the
UK to reclaim its sovereignty. On the other hand, those parties most invested in the process of
political devolution argue that the UK is now a ‘union of nations’ and that the future status of
the UK and its relationship with the European Union has to be negotiated between each of the
constituent nations. Membership of the EU has enabled the UK to evolve as a multinational state
with a shared identity that has contributed since the 1990s to a significant modernisation of the
UK’s governing arrangements. It is as yet unclear whether Brexit will reverse this process, in so
doing imperilling the 400-year-old union between Scotland and England.
Leila Simona Talani’s chapter considers the likely impact of Brexit on the City of London. It
is widely accepted that the dominance of financial services, the core activity of the City, is the
centrepiece of the British model of capitalism. Talani notes that the impact of the UK’s departure
from the EU will have unpredictable consequences for the City. On the one hand, the City’s
financial services sector depends on open access to global markets, which Brexit will almost
certainly undermine. On the other hand, the UK leaving the EU might be the ‘catalyst’ for a
new phase of liberalisation, including further deregulation of product and capital markets, lower
taxes and the retrenchment of the welfare state: ‘the revenge of the ultra-liberals’. The paradox,
as other authors in this collection note, is that such a shift towards ultra-liberalisation would cut
across the political and economic aspirations of many of those who voted for Brexit in the first
place – those who sought a retreat from globalisation and a return towards a more protective and
even protectionist state.

5
 Patrick Diamond et al.

Andrew Baker and Scott Lavery examine the political-economic implications of the Brexit
decision. They argue that Brexit is unlikely to have any fundamental impact on the British model
of capitalism. Baker and Lavery emphasise the importance of path dependency on the economic
structures of the UK. London is likely to remain a leading financial centre, while the UK will still
be characterised by a deregulated and flexible labour market in the aftermath of Brexit. Above
all, the British model of capitalism will still be shaped by the established logic of the competition
state. Nevertheless, they acknowledge the inevitability of volatility and turbulence in Britain’s
political economy as a consequence of leaving the EU, while the economic and political out-
comes remain uncertain. Baker and Lavery show that heightened economic instability arising
from turbulence elsewhere in the global economy or from the Brexit process itself will have
unpredictable consequences for the future of British capitalism and for the scope and viability of
prospective growth models for the UK. The return to a more protectionist regime from either
the left or the right cannot be ruled out.
Jed Odermatt’s contribution investigates the long-term consequences of the UK gaining (on
the face of it) considerable autonomy over trade policy in the aftermath of Brexit. Supporters of
Brexit insist that ceasing to be a member of the EU will enable the UK to regain its historical
status as a global trading nation. More pessimistic voices dispute the claim that EU membership
was ever an impediment to free trade, and others still note that trade policy in the twentieth cen-
tury involves considerably more than the exchange of goods and services and the exploitation of
comparative advantages. There are certainly serious legal, political and regulatory impediments
to the UK playing a ‘Global Britain’ role, although Odermatt uses his chapter to argue that it is in
the mutual interests of both the UK Government and the EU to work together to ensure a stable
transition as the UK ceases to be a formal member of the EU trading bloc.
Wyn Grant revisits the controversial topic of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and
the impact of Brexit on UK agricultural policy and interest group politics. In the long run, UK
farmers will no longer be afforded the protections associated with the CAP. Yet there are those
within British agriculture who see Brexit as something of a strategic opportunity rather than a
threat for their sector. While agricultural support policies have long been a feature of industrial
democracies, there is a feeling that the CAP regime has always been a poor fit for the UK agri-
cultural sector. The impact of the UK’s exit on the EU budget might appear to be a catalyst for
far-reaching reform of the CAP, but, as Grant contends, a series of incremental adjustments are
more likely. CAP reform will remain, in all likelihood, an agonisingly slow process even in the
wake of the Brexit vote.
In their chapter on the UK higher education sector, Anne Corbett and Claire Gordon review
the impact of the Brexit shock on universities located in the UK. The most immediate question
is whether UK universities will, after Brexit, continue to be part of the various EU regimes of
research funding and teaching exchange, together with pan-European systems of mutual rec-
ognition of degree standards and quality assurance. Corbett and Gordon suggest that, in these
respects, precedents suggest that Brexit is most likely to be ‘soft’. Corbett and Gordon show that
key actors on both sides regard such an outcome as being key to the maintenance of the global
pre-eminence of both UK and EU higher education. But Brexit also coincides with moves to
fundamentally question the very conception of the university upon which those criteria of excel-
lence rest. With increasing emphasis in the UK on the commodification of higher education and
the idea of the higher education ‘market’, Brexit is likely to accelerate the moves made by the
UK not only to develop competitive advantages in relation to higher education but also to use
universities as instruments of the UK’s new external trade policy.
In Chapter 10, Adrian Favell and Roxana Barbulescu identify the prominent role that migra-
tion played in driving the UK’s decision to exit the EU. They make the claim that much of the

6
 Introduction

political science literature that seeks to analyse the Brexit vote has uncritically reproduced the
logic and discourse of the United Kingdom Independence Party’s stance on immigration. The
‘problem’ of migration and mobility in the UK is principally derived from democratic legitimacy
rather than from the economic impact of immigration flows. The chapter predicts that the UK’s
decision to leave the EU will, in all likelihood, make it harder for key sectors in the British econ-
omy, in particular financial services, to attract and retain human capital. Favell and Barbulescu
also refer to the fundamental contradiction in the UK Government’s position on Brexit where,
on the one hand, there is an emphasis on accommodating the preferences of socially conservative
working-class voters for lower levels of immigration, while, on the other, the vision of Global
Britain enunciated by many prominent supporters of Brexit means the continued acceptance of
the free movement of people across borders. Again, as others in the book argue, a renewed phase
of ultra-liberalisation in the aftermath of Brexit that leads to a fresh influx of migrants would
exacerbate the very tensions that led to the 2016 referendum outcome in the first place.
Peter Nedergaard and Maja Friis Henriksen maintain that the UK’s decision to depart from
the EU was not merely the product of political contingency but had deep roots in the British
polity, British history and British political culture. The UK has been shaped by a conception of
‘liberal exceptionalism’ that convinced the British, more particularly the English, that the UK
was better governed than other comparable states. This abiding faith that Great Britain was
superior in its administrative and constitutional practices was augmented by a strong measure of
British patriotism rooted in the experience of military victory in major wars from the fifteenth
through to the twentieth centuries. Nedergaard and Friis Henriksen make the claim that liberal
exceptionalism and patriotism have prevented the UK from cooperating effectively with other
states in continental Europe.
It follows that the outcome of the UK leaving the EU is unquestionably a reflection of the
distinctive ‘English character’, as outlined by Ben Wellings in his chapter on Brexit and English
identity. The politicisation of English identity in recent years contributed significantly to the
referendum outcome. While there has been an understandable focus on the political motivations
of the so-called left-behinds, Wellings demonstrates that the desire to break away from the EU
was not only animated by material grievances. At root, Brexit has ideational underpinnings
emanating from a virulent strain of English nationalism driven principally by the ‘defence of
British sovereignty’, as well as the desire for realignment towards the ‘Anglosphere tradition’ and
the imagined community of Atlanticism. The alliance between these components was fragile and
ephemeral but was able to hold together briefly and decisively for the duration of the referendum.
Brexit, he suggests, has been peculiarly English in character.
In his chapter on Brexit and the Conservative Party, Richard Hayton outlines the challenge
posed by Brexit for the Conservative conception of statecraft. The Conservative Party’s political
strength throughout the twentieth century has been derived historically from the party’s ability
to succeed both in the politics of support, namely winning elections, and in the politics of power,
namely governing proficiently. Hayton shows how Brexit undermines both the politics of sup-
port and the politics of power, potentially fatally weakening the tried and trusted Conservative
notion of statecraft. Brexit and the emergence of a more hard line Euroscepticism within the
Conservatives has undermined the party’s ability to win the support of those who voted to remain
in the EU, as demonstrated in the 2017 general election. At the same time, the Brexit process
is manifestly creating renewed economic uncertainty, which is undermining growth and living
standards, threatening the Conservative Party’s enduring reputation for economic competence.
Brexit poses no fewer challenges for the British Labour Party, as Patrick Diamond attests
in his chapter. In recent decades, Labour has emerged as the most influential pro-European
party in British politics, and in the main Labour campaigned vigorously for the UK to remain

7
 Patrick Diamond et al.

an EU member during the 2016 referendum. Nevertheless, there is a tendency to overstate

Labour’s pro-Europeanism and to underestimate the ambiguity traditionally felt within British
social democracy towards the European project. Labour’s current leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is a
long-standing Eurosceptic on the left of the party. Many traditional Labour supporters voted
for Britain to leave the EU in 2016. This situation has compelled Labour to adopt a position of
‘constructive ambiguity’ in the Brexit process. The party has sought to appeal to both Leave and
Remain voters by underlining its commitment to respect the referendum result while calling for
a ‘softer’ Brexit than the Conservative government’s position would seem to sanction. Without
doubt, Labour managed this balancing act very effectively in the 2017 general election, but it is
far from clear that the position of ‘constructive ambiguity’ is electorally or politically sustainable
in the longer term. If Labour were to enter government before the Brexit process was completed,
the cohesion of the party would be sorely tested.
Matthew Flinders then examines the impact of so-called anti-politics on the Brexit process,
which, he argues, raises fundamental questions about the relationship between representative
democracy and political populism. The chapter makes the claim that the Brexit referendum cre-
ated a ‘window of opportunity’ in June 2016 through which frustration and disillusionment with
the conventional political process – which has arisen in the wake of the financial crisis and the
pursuit of austerity policies – could be channelled by populist and nationalist forces in UK pol-
itics. While UK-specific factors drove the Brexit vote, Flinders recognizes that the anti-political
elements that drove the UK to leave the EU are hardly particular to Britain. Other states in the
EU are similarly vulnerable to these anti-political movements, as confirmed by the rising demand
for exit referendums in a number of member states.
The second substantive section of the volume reviews the external impact of the Brexit pro-
cess on countries and regions outside the UK.
Peg Murray-Evans assesses the impact of Brexit on the Commonwealth. She notes that in
the discourse of Global Britain, there is a strong emphasis on the potential economic benefits of
refocusing UK external trade policy on the emerging market economies of the Commonwealth.
The claim promulgated by many advocates of Brexit is that ceasing to be an EU member will
enable the UK to pivot away from the relatively stagnant European market to more dynamic
Commonwealth markets. Nonetheless, Murray-Evans reveals the potential weakness of this strat-
egy in the light of major changes in the relationship between the UK and the Commonwealth
states since the 1970s. Those countries with the most important material ties to the UK such
as the African, Caribbean and Pacific states are the least emphasized within the Eurosceptic
discourse on the UK’s global economic strategy in the wake of Brexit. The negotiation of trade
agreements with favoured Commonwealth countries such as India is likely to prove much more
difficult and protracted.
Oliver Daddow maintains that the UK’s decision to leave the EU has led to the emergence
of a more fundamental debate about Britain’s role in the world. The UK Government’s vision,
shared by many leading supporters of Brexit, is of a Global Britain in which the UK regains its
influential role on the world stage. Traditionally, the UK has struggled to resolve its European
vocation. Since Churchill, the UK has tended to work with a self-image of its foreign policy
as positioned at the centre of three circles of influence: Empire, the Anglosphere and Europe.
This position accorded only marginal significance to the union with Europe, a stance apparently
confirmed by the UK’s decision to leave the EU in June 2016. Yet Daddow maintains that it is
not yet clear whether Global Britain is even a viable proposition, let alone a desirable goal for
the UK in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. The UK is a medium-sized power whose economic
importance and geopolitical influence in relative terms has been in long decline, as power has
shifted to other regions of and to other actors in the international system.

8
 Introduction

In Chapter 18, Henrik Larsen examines the role of the EU as an international actor in the
wake of Brexit. The chapter begins by restating a long-standing dualism. By leaving the EU,
the UK will deprive the Union of the key resources and assets required to pursue an ambitious
international policy. On the other hand, the UK has long been sceptical of EU action in the
realm of foreign policy. The UK’s departure might therefore help the member states of the EU
to forge a more ambitious external foreign policy strategy. Nevertheless, Larsen does not foresee
major changes in the approaches and practices of EU decision-making in foreign policy. What is
more likely is that, in the absence of the UK, the importance of the Franco-German alliance will
grow, while it is likely that the situation in Russia and Eastern Europe will become even more
important for the EU. As Larsen makes clear, the question of what kind of actor the EU will be in
the future is likely to be resolved by broader external dynamics in the emergence of a multipolar
world order, notably the impact of the Trump presidency in the United States, Russia’s attempted
‘destabilisation’ of Eastern Europe and the growth of Asian geopolitical power.
Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen’s chapter addresses the related question of European defence, seek-
ing to trace the substantive position of the main EU players on defence and how they are likely
to react to the reality of Brexit. He shows that the strategic position of Germany, France and the
UK on defence policy remains ambivalent and uncertain, a situation underlined by the spending
constraints in the defence arena. Furthermore, there has been a significant ‘renationalization’
of defence policy across the EU in recent years. Aspirations for a common European army are
likely to remain unrealizable, despite their salience in Eurosceptic discourse in the UK. A more
feasible goal is improved cooperation on defence among EU member states in addressing the
strategic challenges posed by Russia, North Africa and the Middle East, as well as stronger EU–
US cooperation through NATO to deal with the security challenges of the future. The priority
will be the effective pooling of resources. Vedby Rasmussen’s punchline is that Brexit is likely
to have little impact on European defence. The dependency of European states on the United
States means that shifts in American foreign and defence policy are of much greater potential
consequence for the EU.
In relation to financial regulation at the European level, Lucia Quaglia demonstrates that Brexit
is likely to have a decisive impact, especially in the event of a ‘no deal’ version of a hard Brexit.
Historically, the UK Government has played a key role in winning the case for ‘market-friendly’
financial regulation, as well as in promoting financial integration across Europe. The City of
London has also benefited enormously as one of the world’s leading financial centres. Quaglia
speculates that, whatever the outcome of the Brexit talks and the nature of the agreement that
is reached between the UK and EU member states, the UK is likely to be less integrated with
the rest of the European financial sector, while the EU will be a less powerful actor within the
international financial system.
Chapter 21 address the potential impact of the Brexit vote on the institutions of the EU itself.
Mads Dagnis Jensen and Holly Snaith examine the power shifts that are likely to occur as a
consequence of Brexit, taking into account the micro, meso and macro levels of analysis: changes
within, between and outside the key EU institutions. They examine the potential shifts in geo-
political power that may arise as a consequence of the Brexit decision. These structural recalibra-
tions in the balance of power, they argue, are likely to take place at three distinct levels: within,
between and outside the EU’s institutions. Dagnis Jensen and Snaith remind us that, despite its
reputation for awkwardness, the UK has over the decades of membership been a key shaper of
the EU’s institutional order. As such, Brexit will not just alter matters such as voting weights and
coalition possibilities within institutions; it also implies a new politics of institutional evolution.
Brexit may well lead to increased relative power for either the European Council or the European
Commission, depending on how the institutional compromise between intergovernmentalism

9
 Patrick Diamond et al.

and supranationalism is eventually recalibrated. Moreover, it is important to remember that inter-

nal institutional rebalancing will also have effects on the coherence and viability of EU external
actions in the years ahead.
Anders Wivel and Baldur Thorhallsson address the fate of small states in the EU in the light
of the decision of the UK to leave the EU by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. The UK
ceasing to be a member of the EU poses strategic problems for small states. Historically, small
states have benefited from British membership of the EU, since the UK has provided a counter-
weight to France and Germany, while promoting the causes of intergovernmentalism, Atlanticism
and free trade that are often held to be in the strategic interest of small states. Of course, Brexit
necessarily affects small states differently. The smaller countries in the EU are nonetheless likely
to respond to Britain’s departure by adopting one of three key strategies: ‘hiding’, ‘seeking shelter’
or ‘hedging’. Thus far, hedging appears to be the most likely strategy for small member states to
adopt, forging new alliances and coalitions while doing all they can to avoid direct conflict or
confrontation with France and Germany.
John Erik Fossum reviews the impact of Brexit on the non-member states that are currently
affiliated with the EU. A crucial question to emerge from the Brexit negotiations is whether the
UK will make the transition from an EU member to a non-EU member by adopting an existing
model of affiliation, for example by becoming a member of the European Economic Area (EEA).
Fossum argues that the most likely impact of the Brexit process is for the UK to adopt a model of
affiliation that is consistent with a soft Brexit but formally outside EEA arrangements, in practice
conforming to many of the rules and norms of EEA membership.
In his contribution, the final chapter in the collection, Christian Lequesne argues that Brexit
will compel scholars of European integration to revisit dominant theories and narratives of the
integration process. It can no longer be assumed that the EU is destined for ever closer and more
harmonious integration and convergence among member states. In particular, Brexit will require
analysts of EU institutions and political processes to take domestic politics within member states
more seriously, while coming to terms with the various factors that are leading to major disinte-
gration across the EU, in particular the impact of the ‘new social cleavages’ that have arisen in key
member states since the early 1990s and the rise of a virulent strain of anti-politics in Western
representative democracies.
Brexit can be understood through the lens of longue durée analysis. Equally, it can be seen as
something made possible by a quite specific set of conjunctural circumstances. It is a very British
phenomenon, but its implications are global and its sources have analogues elsewhere. It is hard
to imagine a single study of Brexit that could capture all of that. We hope that this anthology
at least demonstrates this multidimensionality of Brexit. The chapters in this book have sought
to anchor the discussion of Brexit in established conceptual and empirical literatures. Yet almost
every chapter concludes by emphasizing the contingency of the Brexit process, as well as its
fundamental uncertainty in terms of outcomes. Of course, this reflects scholarly honesty. There
are limits on what we can know, particularly in terms of forecasting a multivariate process like
Brexit. But ‘uncertainty’ is also an accurate descriptor for actors of all kinds – be they politicians
or private individuals – caught up in the Brexit whirlwind. If nothing else, the study of Brexit is
and must continue to be a study of that uncertainty.

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11
 PART I

Brexit from the inside

 2
BREXIT AND THE STATE OF
THE UNITED KINGDOM
Daniel Wincott

The outcome of the Brexit referendum in June 2016 – a narrow majority for the United King-
dom (UK) to leave the European Union (EU) – came as a surprise to most commentators and
participants. Even Nigel Farage famously conceded it looks like ‘Remain will edge it’ as the polls
closed (Cooper and Forester 2016). There had been a diffuse but fairly widespread sense that the
status quo would be retained. This sense prevailed despite the fact that the polls were very tight,
especially if an image of the overall picture was built from analysis of the UK’s four ‘nations’
(Henderson et al. 2016). In fact, the campaign and result revealed deep disunity among citi-
zens and widespread distrust of authority. Division and distrust were engendered by engrained,
long-standing features of the UK State (Evans and Menon 2017), including the failure of political
parties to articulate and aggregate EU issues, the challenges posed by plural national identities
across the UK and (the role of the State in) the uneven spatial development of the UK economy.
At least for the first eighteen months after the referendum, Westminster party politics seems to
have been caught in a catastrophic equilibrium – the two major party leaders were unable to offer
clear, consistent and compelling plans for Brexit. As prime minister, Theresa May seems to have
focused primarily on maintaining the Brexit-related balance of her Cabinet. Things might have
turned out differently if a pre-referendum Brexit supporter had become prime minister – or if
May’s snap general election gambit had met with success. In the autumn of 2017, waves of challeng-
ing issues washed over Westminster – from inappropriate and/or abusive behaviour by way of Boris
Johnson’s apparently casual aside that jailed UK-Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was
‘teaching people journalism’ to Priti Patel’s off-piste meetings with Israeli politicians and officials.
Even then, May’s main objective appeared to be a strict maintenance of the Cabinet’s Brexit balance.
Particularly after the 2017 general election, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s ability to control
his parliamentary colleagues grew stronger. Yet the party’s historic electoral base was divided. Its
traditional working-class constituency included many Leave supporters, while Labour’s growing
strength was with largely Remain supporting younger and metropolitan voters. Labour’s policy
on Brexit was rooted in a commitment to respect the referendum result, while positioning them-
selves for a somewhat softer Brexit than that pursued by the Conservatives.
The engrained challenges faced by the UK state were widely regarded as fuelling support for
Leave, and, for some, they were deepened by the UK’s EU membership. Beyond the immediate
negotiation of Brexit, during the eighteen months after the referendum, difficult issues were
pushed to the sidelines of politics. The sidelining of other issues occurred for reasons of political

15
 Daniel Wincott

sociology, of public administration and, to an extent, of political economy. Identifying major

economic challenges and recognizing deep spatial and social inequalities, Theresa May’s Industrial
Strategy was a partial exception to this rule. Even so, the UK party system only weakly articulated
political-sociological divisions over the EU into the State. The lines of party competition were
primarily drawn across other issues that did not map onto conflict over the EU. Moreover, the
UK is a plurinational and devolved State. The evidence is that, individually and in a variety of
combinations, national aspects of identity (British, English, Irish, Northern Irish, Scottish and
Welsh) have strong and divergent connections with citizens’ attitudes on Brexit (Henderson
et al. 2016, 2017). In the referendum’s aftermath, there has been little evidence of conciliation or
convergence in public attitudes or that underlying issues of distrust, disconnection and division
were being addressed.
Turning to public administration, the UK Civil Service has had a high reputation for the
quality of its engagement with the EU. But without clear political direction, it cannot function
effectively: in the Brexit context, Anand Menon has characterised it as a ‘Rolls Royce’ public
administration ‘driven by drunks’ (2017). Equally, a long-standing analysis of the central UK
State (Bulpitt 1983) and Civil Service (Dunleavy 1991) highlights their preoccupation with
metropolitan, high-level policy concerns at the expense of detailed practical work. More generally,
the opportunity cost demands of Brexit may mean that political parties, government and public
administration do not have the capacity (or ‘bandwidth’) to take on other priorities – even where,
like the Industrial Strategy, they have been explicitly articulated. The en bloc resignation of
the Social Mobility Commission in December 2017 dramatised this ‘bandwidth’ issue (Pickard
2017). Moreover, the Industrial Strategy issues – such as productivity and uneven development –
are long-standing ‘wicked’ problems, difficult to address in any circumstances.
Brexit has also changed the context for the constitutional arrangement of the UK. They are
famously ‘flexible’ – not collected together in a definitive text or set of texts. Since the 1990s,
UK constitutional practice had been changing, although arguably without reaching a balance.
The constitutional role of the senior courts – especially the Supreme Court – had been growing.
EU law played a key role in these developments, as did national-democratic devolution. Brexit
unsettled and challenged the foundations on which the new judicial-constitutional role was
being built. It poses sharp questions about the future of the UK’s territorial constitution, even
if the immediate possibility of secession (by Scotland or Northern Ireland) faded in the eighteen
months after the referendum. But whatever territorial form the UK may take in the future,
Brexit raises the general question of what the constitutional role of the courts will be in the
future, an issue that has exercised senior judges (Bowcott 2017; Watts 2017).
The eighteen months after the referendum offered little evidence of momentum towards a
reversal of the Brexit decision. Equally, the prospects that the UK might leave the EU with no
agreement – the ‘hardest’ form of Brexit – seemed to recede after the 8 December agreement
between the UK and EU to conclude the first stage of the Article 50 negotiations. While
the implications of the Joint Report (Gov.UK 2017) on those negotiations continued to be
contested, the atmosphere around Brexit seemed to relax. At the time of writing the nego-
tiations seem set to be extended to include a transition period largely based on the current
status quo. The UK Government’s ultimate position is that it will leave the Single Market and
Customs Union, which precludes remaining in the European Economic Area (EEA) by join-
ing the European Free Trade Area (EFTA). In principle, EFTA, which includes a court that
adjudicates on Single Market matters for Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein (Baudenbacher
2017), might provide a framework for the softest of UK Brexits. Practically speaking, adding
a large State whose relationship to the Single Market has proven contentious would dis-
rupt the existing balance of the EEA. Equally, however, whatever its form, maintaining any

16
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continuing economic relationship negotiated between the UK and the EU (beyond World
Trade Organization rules), including how disputes over its terms would be resolved, raises
concerns about legitimacy and seem likely to involve and engage the UK’s judiciary.
This chapter’s next section discusses the UK’s recent constitutional development. It considers
the role of EU law in UK constitutional change. After raising a question about the implications
of Brexit for UK constitutional jurisprudence, it turns to its possible impact on the territorial
dimension of the constitution, including devolution. Then, the analysis will turn to questions of
political sociology, addressing issues of party politics and the UK’s plurinational character. Finally,
the chapter considers how patterns in public administration and political economy shape the
prospects for the UK State as it negotiates its way through Brexit.

The EU and the UK constitution

The European Communities Act (ECA) of 1972 occupies a paradoxical position in the historical
development of the UK constitution. It was, at once, a legal reassertion of the idea of parliamen-
tary sovereignty and a basis on which that idea could be transformed. A couple of decades earlier,
the (then flagging) idea that parliamentary sovereignty was the core constitutional principle had
been strongly restated by Sir William Wade (1955). Clever ECA drafting made European Com-
munity (and later Union) law contingent on the Westminster statute. But the European legal
system that the UK joined in the 1970s was not fully developed. The principle that European
treaty provisions could have primacy over domestically generated laws and be directly effective
in the domestic system had been established. But these ideas had not been extended to Directives – a
critical form of legislation made under the Treaties. It would be anachronistic to argue that to
claim that EU law would inevitably take the shape and form that it subsequently developed.
Over the next twenty or thirty years, what eventually became the EU expanded its policy
scope significantly. Alongside that expansion Europe’s legal system developed a much more
extensive, authoritative and elaborate structure. These changes are not best characterised as an
imposition of structures, processes, rules and regulations from the European level on the UK
(and other member states). Instead, member state institutions and actors were intimately involved
in the construction of the new legal Europe. For example, domestic courts – including those
in the UK – played a major role in developing the structure of European law. From a simple
organisational point of view, what was initially a single court sitting in Luxembourg could not
have unilaterally ‘conjured up’ a European legal system. Instead, it was interaction and dialogue
between the European Court and member states’ courts that created the European legal system.
In an important sense, this continuing interaction and dialogue are the European legal system.
Courts in the UK played a key role in these developments. As a consequence, their position,
relative to that of the executive and legislature branches of government, was enhanced, at least
on topics that fell within the purview of the EU. Many UK–EU cases were at once landmarks
of European law and part of a process of change in the UK’s own constitution. The precise
nature and interpretation of these developments have been – and remain – contentious. Nev-
ertheless, nearly twenty-five years after the ECA and over forty years after he had reasserted the
doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, Sir William Wade saw a constitutional revolution (1996)
in a House of Lords decision on Factortame (United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions 1990).
In other words, for its erstwhile high priest, parliamentary sovereignty had been changed and
restricted. Judges had, Wade argued, recognised and were implementing a new basic structure
to the constitution.
The senior judiciary seems never fully to have embraced Wade’s conception of revolution-
ary change. Nevertheless, a series of judgements that culminated in the Supreme Court’s HS2

17
 Daniel Wincott

decision – R (Supreme Court UK 2014) – did describe some laws as having a special consti-
tutional status. Any subsequent statute that implies a change in the meaning of an earlier law
effectively ‘repeals’ the earlier ‘ordinary’ statute. The constitutional implications of so-called con-
stitutional statutes can be repealed only by subsequent legislation that states explicitly its consti-
tutional repeal objective. After HS2, a sense was growing that the idea of constitutional statutes
had introduced potentially wide-ranging changes. The full extent and implications of this idea
had still to be worked through. Nevertheless, the balance had shifted between the judiciary on
the one hand and the legislative and executive branches of government on the other.
Discontent about the role played by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)
and the idea of the supremacy of EU law has been a core feature of Euroscepticism in the UK.
For those of this disposition, eliminating any role for the CJEU in the UK is a key objective of
leaving the EU. The distinct but related question of what the role of the UK’s Supreme Court
should be after Brexit has been the subject of much less extensive discussion. Should the Supreme
Court retain its enhanced position as an interpreter of constitutional statutes? Can it do so? The
Miller case (Supreme Court UK 2017) focused on the role Westminster should play in relation to
the triggering of Article 50 (see also Chapter 4). It has received considerable attention. In it, the
Supreme Court explicitly repudiated the claim that the ECA or the UK’s membership of the EU
had changed the underlying principle – the rule of recognition – of the UK Constitution. There
is a powerful sense of the Court re-emphasizing Westminster parliamentary sovereignty as a (at
times even the) core constitutional principle of the UK State. Even so, the notion that the ECA
enjoyed some sort of distinctive status, a ‘constitutional statute’ was not explicitly repudiated.
Moreover, according to the majority view, EU law was in itself a source of UK law at least until
the UK left the EU. The UK had embarked on a deliberate process of leaving the EU. West-
minster legislation was brought forward with the explicit purpose of repudiating the authority
of EU law in the UK.
What of the wider ramifications of Brexit for the role of the courts? At one time, the idea of
setting legal constraints around the operation of central government had been associated with the
political right (see, notably, Hailsham 1976). But nearly twenty years of Conservative government
after 1979 transformed the partisan politics of Constitutionalism in the UK. Treatment of certain
statutes as constitutional practice grew up around the ECA and the developing structure of EU
law. More than a quarter of a century after its enactment, the ECA was joined by a raft of seem-
ingly constitution-changing legislation on human rights and devolution. Perhaps partly inspired
by the ‘constitutionalisation’ of the ECA, legislation was introduced to disperse power from the
executive and legislature towards the judiciary and from Westminster and Whitehall to Belfast,
Cardiff and Edinburgh. The Human Rights Act (1998) ‘domesticated’ the European Convention
on Human Rights. The process of dialogue triggered between the UK’s domestic courts and the
European Court of Human Rights echoed that between UK and EU courts. The second major
strand of constitutional change – devolution – is considered in more detail shortly.
The senior judiciary has expressed concern about the role of the courts after the EU with-
drawal (for example, Watts 2017). Excising the ECA from the UK’s statute book will cut away the
main pillar on which UK judicial practice developed around constitutional statutes. In contrast to
the devolution legislation, the ECA has provided UK judges with an external legal point of ref-
erence for constitutional adjudication. The original approach taken by the EU (Withdrawal) Bill
implies a broad movement from constitutional European to ordinary domestic law. Its aim was to
‘domesticate’ the body of EU law by ‘retaining’ it as Westminster law. Provision was also made to
alter these rules, generally through secondary legislation, in order to allow the executive to make
rapid legal adjustments to meet emergent issues after Brexit. The Bill also revealed and reflected
the breadth and depth of the presence of the EU within the UK. It will not necessarily remove

18
 Brexit and the state of the United Kingdom

from the statute book all those ‘constitutional’ elements that had been linked to the EU. Never-
theless, repealing the ECA will transform the courts’ constitutional practice. The range of matters
it covers will be sharply reduced, and, in general, its foundations seem likely to be weakened.

The UK’s territorial constitution

Two interlinked keywords – ‘ambiguity’ and ‘asymmetry’ – have always defined the territorial
constitution of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The widespread
idea that the UK was, in a straightforward sense, a Unitary State can distract our attention from
the length and depth of its history of asymmetry (see Mitchell 2011). Nevertheless, a core set of
Anglo-British institutions in Whitehall and Westminster has been the ever present kernel central
to this Unitary constitutional imaginary. But its influence has ebbed as well as flowed. Arguably,
Unitary ideas had a particularly strong influence on how the constitution was understood during
the period in the 1970s and 1980s when the UK was first integrating with the EU, under the twin
influence of the parliamentary road to socialism and Thatcherism. But these ideas were always
hard to reconcile with some aspects of UK territorial governance.
Northern Ireland provides the clearest challenge to any thoroughgoing notion that the UK
was politically ‘unitary’. The existence of a devolved parliament and government in Northern
Ireland for the entire period between 1921 and 1972, followed by direct rule, exemplifies
asymmetric differentiation. In addition, the Scottish Office provided devolved administrative
arrangements for major areas of domestic policy, including the major social services for the
whole period from 1921 to 1998. Both Northern Ireland and Scotland have separate and distinct
territorial legal jurisdictions, which endure from before their Unions with Great Britain and
England, respectively. By contrast, in legal terms, Wales had been comprehensively integrated
with England. The absence of a separate or distinct legal jurisdiction was part of the rationale for
the more limited form of devolution dispensed to Wales in 1998.
‘Devolution settlement’ is the standard code for the arrangements created for Scotland, Wales
and Northern Ireland under Labour after 1997. That code is misleading. The idea of a ‘settle-
ment’ suggests a well defined, agreed and stable set of arrangements. The framework for North-
ern Ireland does seem well defined and has been confirmed explicitly in international treaties.
Plainly, it has not been stable. Devolved government has been suspended on several occasions,
including in the period before the Brexit referendum. In Scotland, devolution has been called
into question by demands for independence. The population is, in effect, split down the mid-
dle on the independence question – and has been governed by the pro-independence Scottish
National Party since 2007 (see Chapter 4). Independence was narrowly defeated in the 2014 ref-
erendum. In its wake, steps have been taken to devolve significant additional powers to Scotland.
Devolution in Wales has not been marked by the drama attached to Scotland or Northern
Ireland. Even so, the history of Welsh devolution has been chronically unsettled. Wales has
experienced nearly twenty years of permanent constitutional reform. No fewer than four major
Westminster Acts (Government of Wales Acts [GOWA] 1998 and 2006 and the Wales Acts 2014
and 2017) have made fundamental changes to the constitutional basis of devolution in Wales, if
repeatedly on a piecemeal basis.
Before Brexit, England was governed by ‘Anglo-British’ institutions at Whitehall and West-
minster. In 2015, some potentially important but little noticed changes were made to Westmin-
ster parliamentary practice. They introduced English Votes on English Laws (EVEL). But the
basic processes and practices of the state showed a remarkable capacity to carry on as before,
perhaps reflecting the fact that England provides something like 85 per cent of the UK’s popula-
tion. ‘Carrying on’ means that the new realities of devolution to Scotland and Wales introduced

19
 Daniel Wincott

nearly two decades earlier had not been fully absorbed into the self-understanding and practices
of the Anglo-British State. Politics outside England occupy the attention of the central State only
episodically.
These brief remarks show that devolution dispensations in the UK are plainly asymmetrical.
With some justification, they have been developed to reflect the particular circumstances of spe-
cific parts of the UK. As well as being particular, they are often ad hoc and bilateral; that is, they
seem to have developed in response to specific pressures and demands from individual territories.
By contrast, only limited and weakly institutionalised State-wide systems of intergovernmental
relations have been designed. Even the highest profiles of those – like the Joint Ministerial Com-
mittees – have operated intermittently and at times have been completely in abeyance.
Mechanisms have developed to manage the relationships between different sources of legis-
lation across the UK. The overarching ‘sovereignty’ of the UK Parliament had to be reconciled
with primary legislative competence at the devolved level. The convention has been to put
Legislative Consent Motions (LCMs) to the devolved legislatures before Westminster makes law
in an area of devolved competence. These motions have been used fairly widely and, in general,
have not proven particularly controversial. Although the descriptive term ‘LCM’ is now widely
used, these motions are also known as Sewell motions, after the member of the House of Lords
who proposed them for the Scottish Parliament. It is characteristic that the means of managing a
critical relationship should be both conventional and named for the individual who proposed it.
After promises made during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, LCM processes have
been written into devolution statutes. However, this change has not altered their conventional
status. They are not justiciable before the courts.
Overall, the sense of a system or scheme for devolution – or conception of the UK as a devolved
state – is weakly developed, if not wholly absent. Moreover, there is often disagreement, if not
necessarily explicit contestation, as to how devolution is understood. Distinct views are taken at
Whitehall and Westminster, in Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh, as well as within each of these places.
The complex, weakly institutionalised, ad hoc and asymmetrical character of devolution
notwithstanding, in general its practical operation has been remarkably smooth. Devolution
benefited from an unusually benign environment while it bedded in. The fact that Labour led
the administrations in Cardiff and Edinburgh as well as London was arguably less important than
the remarkable growth in public spending for the first decade of devolution. But another factor
has to be noted as well. The Civil Service managed the process of devolution with remarkable
quiet aplomb. Without detracting from its contribution, the part it played illustrates Civil
Service’s weaknesses as well as demonstrating its strengths. It ran devolution with Rolls Royce
smoothness but did not see thinking through the UK’s Constitution as a whole or suggesting
future-proofing reforms as part of its task. Its effectiveness in avoiding and managing conflict may
have contributed to a wider failure to think through devolution’s implications.
The ad hoc, bilateral and asymmetrical character of devolution has added to the historic ambi-
guity of the UK’s territorial constitution. On the one hand, all the Westminster devolution legis-
lation is careful to preserve the ‘sovereignty’ of the UK Parliament. In that sense, power ‘devolved’
is power ‘retained’. On the other, the devolved institutions are all rooted in authorizing referen-
dums in relevant – typically ‘national’ – populations. Westminster legislation also refers to the
permanence of devolved institutions. The sense of the historic authenticity of these institutions
was expressed particularly dramatically, as temporary presiding officer, Winnie Ewing opened the
first session of the newly elected Scottish Parliament in 1999. These were her words:‘The Scottish
Parliament, which adjourned on the 25th day of March 1707 is hereby reconvened’.
For roughly the first decade of devolution, there was remarkably little recourse to the courts
to adjudicate the boundaries of the new territorial constitution. The effective absence of a role

20
 Brexit and the state of the United Kingdom

for the courts was remarkable when set in the comparative context of multilevel and federal-type
states. Partly, it reflected the conventional, unwritten/uncodified nature of the UK ‘constitution’.
But, as we have seen, starting with the ECA, the notion that some Westminster legislation had a
distinctive ‘constitutional’ character grew up from the mid-1990s. The Westminster devolution
statutes were an important element of this development; that is, it emerged alongside and became
intertwined with devolution. Perhaps partly as a consequence, more devolution cases started to
come before the courts, notably the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. Perhaps the most
striking of these cases were those relating to Wales. They included clear statements about the
National Assembly for Wales as a legitimate, democratic source of primary legislation. These
cases reflected and reinforced the sense that devolved institutions were a solid and permanent
feature of life. The Brexit cases heard in the High Court and Supreme Court during 2016
seem to point in a different direction. Grounded in the idea of (Westminster) parliamentary
sovereignty, they may represent a more centralist rebalancing of UK-level constitutional practice.

Political sociology of Brexit: parties, national identities and the State

Two longer-term aspects of the UK political sociology helped to shape the context of the Brexit
referendum. The first concerns the treatment of the EU issue by Britain’s two largest political
parties. As both are basically divided internally over Europe, they have failed to link or to mobilise
public attitudes on the issue into the State. Second, these parties have found it difficult to address
questions of national identity across the UK, particularly in England. These two are examples
of State failure – in the sense that the State has been compromised by or implicated in a deep
problem.
For most of the twentieth century, political parties were central to the democratic operation of
Western states. These states were, in effect, party democracies or party states. Throughout the his-
tory of the UK’s membership, both of the main British political parties have been divided over the
EU. These divisions have meant that the linkage role of parties and the party system – connecting
and aggregating citizens’ views on the EU into the UK State – has not operated effectively. The
divisions and sense of political disconnection they engender have been a breeding ground for dis-
trust. A tendency (not limited to the UK) for national politicians to shift the blame for unpopular
policies onto the EU institutions has further exacerbated distrust.
The weak connection between the people and the State has a spatial or geographic aspect.
It is, no doubt, true that invisible differences exist over Brexit between people with, say, similar
income, occupations and education who live together in the same particular places (Kaufmann
2016). Nevertheless, the interaction of class, education, income, age, national identity within and
across places is poorly articulated, weakly represented by political parties and largely ignored
by political science. It is, for example, clear that the Labour Party hierarchy in Wales (solidly
committed to Remain in the referendum) lost touch with its traditional heartlands in the South
Wales Valleys (some voted Leave by 20-percentage-point margins). Equally, we have little sense of
how far citizens in Brexit-backing places – Bleanau Gwent, Bolsover and Bexley; North Antrim,
South Holland, West Somerset and East Belfast – share Brexit-related hopes, expectations, fears
and concerns. How do the attitudes and values in these places compare to those in West Belfast,
North Lanarkshire and Moray? More generally, the relationship of micro-level social and political
processes rooted in particular places to the macro-level operation of the State needs to be more
closely analysed and better understood.
Citizens’ attitudes towards Brexit changed strikingly little during the first eighteen months
after the referendum. Some research, including Livermore and Clarkson’s (2017) analysis of
qualitative ‘Brexit Diaries’, has detected a measure of movement. They characterise some 14 per

21
 Daniel Wincott

cent of the population as ‘accepting pragmatists’ – Remain voters who were looking to move on.
But they categorize three in ten as ‘devastated pessimists’. But unless attitudes shift substantially,
the UK will face a difficult problem of ‘loser’s consent’ to Brexit. Since the referendum, the
parties at Westminster seemed to be stuck in a self-perpetuating equilibrium, with little prospect
for reconciliation or winning consent from the losing side.
The UK has a complex pattern of national identities (see also Chapter 12). They are entan-
gled with emergent – and continually changing – constitutional practices across the State.
We have seen that the UK has a long history of special arrangements for peripheral nations
and territories. The political sociology of Northern Irish politics has always been treated
separately from ‘British politics’, with surprisingly little scholarship addressed to the UK as a
whole. ‘Within’ Britain, the politics of peripheral nations and national identities in Wales and
Scotland have received specialist attention, perhaps especially since the advent of democratic
devolution at the end of the 1990s. England, however, remains largely out of focus in empirical
political science – hidden in plain sight (although an important historically oriented political
theory literature has developed on England – Aughey 2007, Wellings 2012; Kenny 2014).
Overwhelmingly its largest part, England, is effectively conflated with Britain and thus avoids
direct interrogation (Henderson et al. 2017).
Powerful and complex patterns of national identification exist across the UK, including
England. Most people in the UK have strong – and often multiple – national identities. Main-
stream models of electoral politics tend to treat national identification as ‘baked in’ (more a
constant than a variable – Clarke et al. 2017: 146) and as ‘nested’ (at least in Britain, with Welsh,
Scottish and English identities nestled within British identity). Careful analysis shows a rather
different picture. British identity seems to operate in a different way in England, as compared
to Wales and Scotland (Henderson et al. 2017). Moreover, the balance between multiple iden-
tities can shift over time. In short, these identities have political implications – or are available
for political mobilization. National parties in Wales and Scotland provide some structure for
the mobilization of national identities into politics. On occasion, Englishness has been activated
politically – including by the Conservative Party in the UK’s 2015 general election (Jeffery
et al. 2016). But, so far, English national identity has not been mobilized into the political party
structure of Anglo-UK politics. In particular, no political party has systematically sought to be
the party of England; still less has that position been achieved. Explicit appeals to Englishness
were not a major theme of the 2016 referendum campaign. Nevertheless, the evidence suggests
that people who gave priority to English identity were significantly more likely than others to
vote to leave the EU (Henderson et al. 2017). The political potential of English identity retains a
protean quality. After Brexit, national identities in England and Englishness more generally could
prove powerful forces in UK politics.

Brexit, political economy and public administration

The UK economy is marked by starkly uneven spatial patterns. Wealth and income are con-
centrated in London and the South-East of England, where productivity rates are also much
higher than they are across the rest of the UK. These spatial patterns have deep roots – which
date back at least to the industrial shock of the Great Depression in the 1930s. The position of
heavy manufacturing and extractive industries recovered, to an extent, during the post-war boom
years. Throughout this period, however, the UK’s economy did not perform as well as our main
competitors in Europe and across the Western world – particularly in terms of productivity.
At the start of the 1950s, the UK’s level of output per hour worked was below that of the
United States on the one hand and a bit above that of France and Germany on the other. The

22
 Brexit and the state of the United Kingdom

latter two countries were, however, on a steeper improvement path. Both overtook the UK
in the late 1960s and caught up with the United States by the early 1990s. ‘Relative decline’
was the leitmotiv of the UK’s anxiety-ridden political classes throughout the post-war ‘boom’
(Barnett 1986; Weiner 1985). And while a more confident mood came to be reasonably well
established by the 1990s (Brivati 2007), the size of the UK’s productivity gap with the United
States, France and Germany has persisted. Since 2008 and the threat of a global banking col-
lapse, UK productivity levels have stagnated, and the gap with leading competitors has widened
(Harari 2017: 8).
Even as its economy experienced fundamental processes of restructuring, the trajectory of
UK aggregate productivity figures proved persistently poor. Both the sectoral mix and the spatial
balance of the UK economy changed dramatically since the 1950s. Understood as ending the
post-war boom, economic shocks during the 1970s hit the manufacturing industry particularly
hard. During the 1980s, services came to be consolidated at the UK economy’s metropolitan
centres. Economic dynamism has come to be concentrated in those cities where the population is
comparatively highly educated – particularly in and around London (see also Chapter 5). Those
places that were once dominated by extractive and manufacturing industry – as well as remote
rural locations and some coastal towns – have not fared well. And the State has mostly retreated
from any systematic effort to rebalance the UK economy, which many have regarded as a beyond
its scope to achieve.
Brexit has brought questions of productivity, relative decline and uneven spatial development
into a sharp focus. By espousing an Industrial Strategy, Theresa May indicated government
could and should do – and be seen to do – something active about the performance of the UK
economy. These interventions should also make a difference to the impact of overall economic
performance for a wider range of people and places. Not all her Conservative colleagues are
likely to share this position. For some, including many free trade Brexiteers the Industrial Strategy
idea would make the State too large and interfering.
There is a public administration dimension to these issues. The record of the UK State in
designing and delivering industrial interventions has not been stellar. One way or another,
acute analysts from Bulpitt (1983) to Dunleavy (1991) have observed that the UK’s central
institutions have sought largely to eschew entanglements with the complexity and messiness
of peripheral ‘low’ politics. Although his argument is pitched at a general theoretical level,
Dunleavy’s suggestion that bureaucrats prefer to do interesting work in small, elite agencies
close to centres of political power chimes in close harmony with the cultural norms that prevail
in Whitehall. This disposition provides a weak foundation on which a government might
build an Industrial Strategy. Even during those post-war decades when faith in the capacity
of the State for economic management was strong, Bulpitt noted a tendency to distance the
political-administrative centre from industry. He saw UK Keynesian practice as focused on
aggregate demand management, with levers being pulled from the Treasury. Public adminis-
trators were not required to roll up their sleeves. After 1979, Industrial Strategy was, for long
periods, anathema to central government. As a consequence, it had no place on the palette of
skills required of the core Civil Service.
Brexit has triggered a massive learning process within government – about Britain and about
its economic relationships with Europe and the wider world.
For example, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has engaged
with the pattern of economic activity across the territory of the UK, developing knowledge of
the industrial supply chains that run through Britain and that link it into the global economy.
By the same token, however, the novelty of this work illustrated how little was known previously
in government about the structure of the UK’s manufacturing economy.

23
 Daniel Wincott

Conclusions
Eighteen months after the referendum, Brexit had already posed massive challenges to the UK
State. It revealed and arguably deepened a disconnection between citizens and the State – and
dramatized the failure of political parties to provide an effective linkage mechanism between
them. Historically, the two main Britain-wide parties have been integral to a cleavage structure
that organised the mass citizenry into politics. Citizens are now divided in other politically sig-
nificant ways, which cut across party lines and block the effective articulation and aggregation
of citizens’ values at Westminster, seriously weakening the sense in which the UK approximates
to the idea of either parliamentary or party democracy. National identities are one aspect of this
disconnection. The existence of distinct peripheral Celtic sub-state nationalisms is reasonably
well understood. But nationalisms in the UK’s largest country – England – have largely been
neglected. Brexit itself was partly shaped by the interplay of Englishness and Britishness (Hen-
derson et al. 2017). There is more to come – politically and institutionally – from the interaction
of plural nationalisms in England as well as across the UK.
One tangible, if currently rather distant, possibility associated with Brexit is a change to
the territorial boundaries of the UK State, which could involve Scotland and/or Northern
Ireland. Even if the UK does hold together within its current boundaries, it cannot remain the
same: Brexit is set to transform the territorial State. As originally proposed, the EU (With-
drawal) Bill illustrated and would probably have the effect of entrenching the Anglo-British
character of the State’s Westminster/Whitehall core. Devolution has always had something of
an ad hoc, Heath Robinson quality; it cannot survive Brexit in its current form. That might
create an opportunity to reconstruct the UK’s territorial constitution on more systematically
laid foundations. But the UK State’s capacity to think through fundamentals and design a
constitutional system is limited. Even the disposition to do so seems alien to the Anglo-British
UK tradition. The pressing urgency of Brexit makes a constitutional design project both more
important and less likely.
Arguably, the Supreme Court has done more than any other branch of government to decide
specific cases on the basis of a devolution system. Together with decisions that discussed ‘consti-
tutional statutes’, the devolution cases were one leg of an emergent Supreme Court constitutional
jurisprudence. By repealing the ECA, Brexit removes what has hitherto been a strong leg of that
approach. Possible alternatives can be imagined. They could draw on the kind of partnership
developed between the UK Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights. Joining
EFTA or drawing lessons from its court (Baudenbacher 2017) could provide other models. For
anything beyond WTO terms, the febrile atmosphere around Brexit and the UK’s ongoing eco-
nomic relationship with EU makes for a challenging context in which judges will need to decide
cases that engage and divide politicians, the media and the wider public.
Finally, the economic context in which all these political issues will have to be addressed may
prove challenging. Some pro-Brexit commentators and politicians foresee enticing new eco-
nomic opportunities for the UK after Brexit. In general, those to take this position are proponents
of a free-market, free-trading future for the UK. Its advocates argue that flexibility is a key merit
of a free-trade growth model. Whatever its advantages, that flexibility itself – and particularly the
transition to a model of this kind – might deepen precisely the social, geographical and political
divisions that the Brexit process has revealed and hit some majority-Leave communities especially
hard. But most economists argue that Brexit brings with it a likelihood of significant economic
difficulty. The response of May’s Conservative government – to develop an Industrial Strategy –
is a striking reversal of the prior UK orthodoxy. Hitting the targets of that strategy – such as
improving productivity and upgrading infrastructure, as well as wider objectives for housing,

24
 Brexit and the state of the United Kingdom

mental health, injustice and inequality – would transform the UK socially and politically as well
as economically. And yet although these problems are well known, solving them is much more
difficult. In contrast to the constitutional issue, though, on these questions, certain Whitehall
departments – notably BEIS – do seem to be engaging in new ways.

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26
 3
BREXIT AND THE IRISH CASE
Mary C. Murphy

Introduction
On 25 June 2016, the day after the UK referendum on European Union (EU) membership, an
Irish Times headline declared, ‘Deep disquiet as vote pushes North[ern Ireland] into “unchartered
waters”’. The headline encapsulated the profound sense of dismay felt in Ireland following the
UK’s unexpected decision to leave the European Union (EU). For Ireland, the UK vote to depart
the EU poses acute economic and political challenges. Indeed, such is the magnitude of the Brexit
issue for Ireland that the National Risk Assessment 2017 has identified the UK exit from the EU
as a ‘strategic geopolitical risk’ and a ‘strategic economic risk’ for Ireland (Department of the
Taoiseach 2017). In a foreword to the document, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar notes, ‘Brexit represents
an overarching theme that could have far-reaching impacts on nearly all aspects of national life’
(ibid.). More than any other EU member state, Ireland stands to be most severely affected by their
neighbour’s decision to sever ties with the EU. The Irish state harbours fundamental concerns
about the likely negative impact of Brexit on the economy and about the potential for Brexit to
be accompanied by political instability in Northern Ireland.
Ireland and the UK are neighbouring states, but relations between the two have often been
acrimonious. A long history of conflict, particularly the Northern Ireland Troubles, contami-
nated the relationship. Developments from the 1990s onward, however, helped to heal uneasy
relations. More recently, the relationship has been not just cordial but friendly. The signing of
the 1998 Belfast Agreement was a pivotal moment that helped to placate and stabilise Northern
Ireland and in so doing improved relations between the neighbouring states. Importantly, joint
membership of the EU was the backdrop against which the peace process evolved and British–
Irish relations improved. The UK decision to leave the EU, however, exposed some tension
between the two states about the future relationship between the UK and the EU and what this
means for Ireland. Perhaps more significantly, it also upset the delicate political equilibrium that
supported the path to peace in Northern Ireland. A strong British–Irish relationship underpins
the Belfast Agreement. The depth and strength of this relationship, however, is threatened by the
UK decision to leave the EU.
The implications for Ireland of the UK leaving the EU are manifold. The precise economic
impact is unclear, but such is the extent of Ireland’s trading relationship with the UK that any
impact is likely to be negative and will affect a variety of sectors. Brexit also potentially entails

27
 Mary C. Murphy

broader political and territorial implications as it alters the framework within which recent con-
stitutional issues in Northern Ireland were agreed. This may lead to longer-term constitutional
and territorial change for both Ireland and the UK.
This chapter examines the history of the British–Irish relationship against the backdrop of
shared EU membership. It notes the anticipated impact of Brexit on the Irish economy and on
the politics and broader constitutional arrangements on the island of Ireland. It details the Irish
Government’s approach to the Brexit challenge and notes how Brexit has impacted the tone and
tenor of the British–Irish relationship. A perception that the Irish/Northern Ireland dimension
was overlooked, neglected and possibly even misunderstood fuelled Irish Government frustration
with the UK’s approach to Brexit. This prompted an increasingly hard-line approach by the Irish
Government under Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on the issue of Brexit and the Irish border. In turn,
this led to tensions between the two governments and challenged an important bilateral rela-
tionship. The various economic and political dimensions of Brexit have the potential to produce
unanticipated and wide-ranging constitutional and territorial changes that impact severely both
the UK and its nearest neighbour.

The history of British–Irish relations

For much of the twentieth century, relations between Ireland and the UK were frequently diffi-
cult and marred by violence, particularly in Northern Ireland. The 1920 Government of Ireland
Act partitioned the island and created a contested territorial arrangement where the six counties
of Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom and the remaining twenty-six coun-
ties became first the Irish Free State and later the Republic of Ireland. Partition clouded relations
between Ireland and the UK for many decades. British Unionists (in the UK and Northern Ire-
land) supported the policy, but it was strongly opposed by Irish nationalists on both sides of the
Irish border. Political contact and cooperation between the UK and Ireland was largely non-ex-
istent during this period. Although relations began to thaw during the 1960s with the emer-
gence of a new generation of political leadership in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern
Ireland, relations again deteriorated from the early 1970s with the emergence of the civil rights
movement in Northern Ireland when the contested territorial question became entangled with
issues around equality. The resulting violent conflict crystallised around a constitutional cleavage
where unionists favoured Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK and nationalists supported
a united Ireland. These opposing constitutional positions infiltrated all aspects of Northern Ire-
land politics and society, creating long-term division and hostility between communities and also
between the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Relations between the two states remained tense
throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Interestingly, however, the key forum for Irish–British contact
and cooperation during this time was within the EU.
On 1 January 1973, the UK and the Republic of Ireland joined the then European Economic
Community (EEC). Ireland’s decision to seek membership of the EU was heavily influenced
by the UK’s decision. Substantial Irish dependency on the UK market effectively required Ire-
land to follow the UK’s lead and seek membership of the Community. The decision was also
influenced by a new and younger generation of Irish politicians who sought to consolidate Irish
statehood through a process of economic and social modernisation. EU membership was seen as
instrumental to this objective. Ireland’s experience of the EU has been decidedly different from
that of its neighbour. Originally one of the poorest and least developed of EU member states,
the Republic of Ireland has, on the whole, benefited from membership of the EU. Participation
in the single European market, access to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and receipts
from EU structural funding helped to transform the Irish economy. Today, Irish living standards

28
 Brexit and the Irish case

are recovering following the post-2008 economic crisis and are currently above the EU average.
Public support for Ireland’s EU membership has typically been high. All of the main political
parties and social partners are broadly supportive of the EU, and there is no strong Irish Euros-
ceptic movement. The overall Irish experience of the EU and positive Irish attitudes towards the
EU contrast starkly with the UK’s more fractious and testy relationship.
Contrasting attitudes towards the EU, however, was not an obstacle to the softening of rela-
tions between the UK and Ireland from the 1990s. This thawing of relations came as a conse-
quence of closer collaboration and cooperation between the two states on the Northern Ireland
question. Attempts to address the conflict became more emphatic from the late 1980s onward
and culminated in the signing of the 1998 Belfast Agreement. The Agreement was a blueprint
for peace in Northern Ireland. It created novel power-sharing institutions and included agree-
ment on contested areas of public policy. New cross-border and cross-national institutions nur-
tured links between Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and other parts of the UK. EU
membership allowed for the border between north and south to soften to the point of invisibility
and so facilitated close economic and political connections between the Republic of Ireland and
the UK, as envisaged in the Belfast Agreement. Membership of the Single Market, free movement
and engagement with EU institutions supported cooperation and contact between the neigh-
bouring states. The resulting network of economic, political, social, cultural and psychological
linkages aided and encouraged a fledgling peace process. The EU also played an important
role in practically supporting moves towards peace in Northern Ireland by encouraging state-
level agreement, committing Peace funding, and facilitating regional-level empowerment (see
Hayward and Murphy 2012). Collectively, all of these domestic and European developments
permitted a shift in the tone and tenor of British–Irish relations to produce constructive coop-
eration based on respectful relations. The altered relationship between the UK and Ireland has
also been instrumental in terms of sustaining the peace process after 1998 when sporadic crises
threatened to derail it. Successive UK and Irish prime ministers (and senior Cabinet members)
maintained a close interest in Northern Ireland affairs and were available to engage with parties
when necessary. In these instances, a strong British–Irish relationship was pivotal in stabilising the
region. This more cordial, cooperative and collaborative relationship, however, has been bruised
by the UK decision to leave the EU – a decision that involves immense economic and political
consequences for Ireland, north and south.

Brexit and the British–Irish economic relationship

Ireland’s original decision to join the EU was heavily influenced by the UK decision to seek
membership. Irish reliance on UK markets meant that EU membership was imperative in order
to safeguard Ireland’s economy. EU membership, however, was also seen as a means for Ireland
to diversify its trade relations and so to lessen its economic dependency on the UK. Over four
decades later, Ireland is considerably less dependent on the UK. However, the magnitude of its
economic linkages with Britain remain substantial, and so the economic ramifications of Brexit
are potentially significant.
In 2015, 13.9 per cent of goods and 18 per cent of services were exported from Ireland to the
UK. Approximately 25 per cent of all Irish imports emanated from the UK. Some sectors are
more heavily impacted than others. The National Risk Assessment 2017 notes that sectors includ-
ing agri-food, retail, tourism, fishing and energy face ‘critical risks’ (Department of the Taoiseach
2017: 14). Various studies have pointed to the negative macroeconomic impact of Brexit on the
Irish economy with estimates of the effect ranging from a reduction in GDP between 0.5 per
cent and 3 per cent (see Bergin et al. 2016: 3). The most comprehensive analysis of the impact

29
 Mary C. Murphy

of Brexit on Ireland considers the complete macroeconomic impact under three alternative sce-
narios over the medium term. This study confirms that:

Ireland will be particularly badly impacted by Brexit. Depending on the scenario con-
sidered, the level of Irish output ranges to between 2.3 and 3.8 per cent below what it
otherwise would have been.
(ibid.: 10)

The future status of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is central to
how Irish economic interests will fare post-Brexit. The two economies are highly interdepend-
ent. Cross-border trade is significant, labour markets are integrated and many industries operate
on an all-island basis. The establishment of a hard border would severely challenge existing eco-
nomic activities and relationships.
Dire predictions about the impact of Brexit for Ireland have motivated the Irish Government
and the Irish business community to examine means of exploiting the economic opportunities
that may arise from Brexit. Continued Irish membership of the EU means that Ireland will retain
its attractiveness as a location for foreign direct investment. Irish business is working to diversify
its trading profile by boosting trade links with other parts of the EU and other parts of the world
and by encouraging increased investment. The relocation of business from the UK (particularly
from London and particularly in the financial services) may also be to Ireland’s benefit. However,
even the most positive assessments do not view these opportunities as being sufficient to fight off
the net negative impact of Brexit on Ireland.
Brexit will also impact on the movement of people between the Republic of Ireland and the UK.
In 2015, visitors from the UK accounted for 41 per cent of overseas trips to Ireland by non-residents
(Central Statistics Office 2016). This ease of movement between the two states predates UK and
Irish membership of the EU. The Common Travel Area (in existence since 1922) has allowed Irish
and UK citizens the right to live, study and work in either state. It means that Irish and UK citizens
have access to various benefits and services in both countries. The CTA plays a significant role in
facilitating the Irish–UK trade relationship. But it is also particularly important for Northern Ire-
land as it facilitates an open border between the two parts of the island. This means that those living
along the border (and elsewhere) can move freely between the two jurisdictions – a freedom that
is seen as central to livelihoods, identity and political aspiration and that is particularly important in
terms of satisfying Irish nationalist identification with the Republic of Ireland.
The most visible impact of Brexit for Ireland will be on the economy, trade and free move-
ment. These economic issues intersect with politically charged concerns about the status of the
border between north and south and about the future of relationships within Northern Ireland,
on the island of Ireland and between the UK and Republic of Ireland. The multilayered and com-
plex web of interconnectedness between the two islands has been underpinned by membership
of the EU. Removing that support block risks collapsing a series of not just economic gains but
also important political achievements that have been fundamental to the attainment of peace and
stability on the island of Ireland.

The British–Irish political and constitutional

landscape after Brexit
Brexit presents pronounced political, constitutional and diplomatic challenges for the Republic of
Ireland, and it has brought contested constitutional issues into sharp focus in Northern Ireland.
The UK exit from the EU changes the political and constitutional conversation in Northern

30
 Brexit and the Irish case

Ireland because it removes an important shared feature of the UK and Irish political landscape.
Brexit also exposes highly sensitive political complexities for the island of Ireland, which have
the potential to fracture political relationships between Ireland and the UK and to destabilise
Northern Ireland politics.
The 1998 Belfast Agreement is the anchor of the Northern Ireland peace process. It is based
on a multiparty agreement between a majority of Northern Ireland’s political parties and an inter-
national agreement between Britain and Ireland. The document underpins the establishment of
power-sharing institutions in Northern Ireland and contains provisions for dealing with policing,
prisoners and the decommissioning of weapons. It also contains important principles in relation
to civil, cultural and human rights, and future constitutional preferences. The fact of Irish and
UK membership of the EU facilitated the inclusion of important guarantees in the Agreement.
These included an open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland through
membership of the single European market. The significance of cross-border freedom brings
economic benefits but also political and symbolic advantages too. It enables an ease of association
with the Republic of Ireland that facilitates the expression of nationalist identity. The Agreement
also created cross-border institutions and bodies that give institutional recognition and meaning
to a series of economic, political and cultural connections between Northern Ireland and the
Republic of Ireland. East–West bodies that have a variety of policy remits also exist and allow for
mutually beneficial policy objectives to be explored and pursued. Joint EU membership means
that all of these cross-border and cross-national institutions often cooperate on EU policy issues
(see Murphy 2014). This demonstrates the subtle political benefits of shared EU membership for
relations on the island of Ireland and between the UK and Republic of Ireland.
The Agreement is also notable for guaranteeing the right of Northern Ireland citizens to
self-identity as Irish and/or British. Because of joint UK and Irish membership of the EU, either
classification of citizenship guarantees EU citizenship. The Irish Government has expressed seri-
ous concerns about how Brexit challenges the legal, political and human rights arrangements
contained in the Belfast Agreement – an agreement that Ireland is legally party to. Equally
significant is how Brexit potentially undermines confidence in the Agreement as a basis for
Northern Ireland’s hard won peace. The former secretary of state for Northern Ireland, however,
is not persuaded that Brexit threatens the durability of the Belfast Agreement. In his evidence
to the House of Lords European Union Committee report, Brexit: UK–Irish Relations (2016: 41),
James Brokenshire stressed that ‘the Government stood behind its commitments in the Belfast/
Good Friday Agreement, and “in our judgement the EU referendum does not change that at
all”. This difference of interpretation between the UK and Republic of Ireland is an increasingly
troubling aspect of the fallout from Brexit. When the Irish and British analysis of an issue that
affects Northern Ireland is not shared, it complicates and undermines the prospect of resolving
that issue (see Tannam 2017).
The principle of consent is a fundamental aspect of the Belfast Agreement. It provides that
there will be no change in the status of Northern Ireland until such time as a majority favour
change. The UK decision to leave the EU is at odds with the preference of the majority in
Northern Ireland – 55.8 per cent of Northern Ireland voters voted for the UK to stay in the EU.
This majority is comprised of overwhelming nationalist support and approximately one-third
support among unionists (Murphy 2016: 849). The majority Northern Ireland vote and the very
strong nationalist preference for Remain are overridden by the slim UK majority vote in favour
of Brexit. Concerns exist about how this complies with the consent principle enshrined in the
Belfast Agreement.
Addressing the Irish border issue in the context of Brexit means grappling with a series of
economic, political and security challenges. Administering, managing, policing and ultimately

31
 Mary C. Murphy

minimising the border between north and south presents a considerable challenge for the EU,
the UK and Republic of Ireland. Suggestions that the frontier be controlled and managed using
advanced technology have not been met with enthusiasm. Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon
Coveney has objected to such plans:

What we do not want to pretend is that we can solve the problems of the border on
the island of Ireland through technical solutions like cameras and pre-registration and
so on. That is not going to work.
(BBC News 2017: 1)

Other proposals that advocate the status quo or suggest that Northern Ireland remain within the
European Economic Area (EEA) may be practically feasible, but they are nevertheless politically
problematic because they effectively mean moving the land border between the UK and Ireland
to the Irish Sea. Such ideas are synonymous with calls for ‘special status’ for Northern Ireland
being urged by Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). These plans are
unacceptable to unionists, who view such a move as fundamentally undermining the integrity of
the UK. The Irish Government has not explicitly proposed a special or unique arrangement for
Northern Ireland but has been steadfast in its commitment to avoiding the imposition of a hard
border with Northern Ireland.
The Irish Government’s pronouncements on Brexit are in contrast to the relative silence
of the Northern Ireland administration. The Northern Ireland Executive did not produce a
position paper on the EU referendum or on Brexit. This was because of differences around the
power-sharing table. Nationalists supported the UK remaining in the EU during the referendum
campaign. Following the Leave result, they called for a special deal for Northern Ireland. In con-
trast, a majority of unionists favoured a UK exit from the EU and do not support special arrange-
ments for Northern Ireland. The collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive in early 2017 meant
that there was no forum for the parties to agree on how Northern Ireland might face the chal-
lenge of Brexit. Perhaps even more worrying however, was the fact that the prolonged absence of
an Executive demonstrated the tenuous nature of the peace accord in Northern Ireland.
The achievement of permanent peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland has been.
A number of legacy issues remain unresolved, including dealing with the past, parading and
the status of the Irish language. There are also persistent concerns about respect for equality in
Northern Ireland and fundamental differences between the parties in relation to the introduc-
tion of same-sex marriage. Attempts to address and resolve these outstanding difficulties soured
relations between the two political blocs. An unrelated financial scandal,1 which nevertheless
brought lingering political anxieties to the fore, culminated in the suspension of the Northern
Ireland Assembly in early 2017. Election results also contributed to some destabilisation of rela-
tions between unionists and nationalists. Nationalist political representation in the Northern
Ireland Assembly increased following the 2017 Assembly elections. However, this electoral trend
was arrested following the 2017 Westminster election, which recorded gains for Northern Ire-
land’s largest unionist political party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). A surprising national
election outcome was to play out well for the DUP party. An electoral gamble by Prime Minister
Theresa May failed to pay off. The Conservative Party sustained losses, and the prime minister
was forced to seek support from Northern Ireland’s pro-Brexit unionist party. The DUP agreed
to shore up Theresa May’s minority government, but the party’s new role propping up the British
Government was met with dismay by Irish nationalists, who saw the alliance as being antithet-
ical to nationalist interests. The benevolence of the UK Government on the Irish question was
also called into question given their reliance on unionist support. In a further twist, the general

32
 Brexit and the Irish case

election also reduced nationalist representation in Westminster. The smaller nationalist party, the
SDLP failed to return an MP, while Sinn Féin’s tally of MPs increased by three. The loss of SDLP
representation however, meant that there was no Irish nationalist voice in Westminster. This is
because the Sinn Féin Party follows an abstentionist policy and so refuses to take its seats in the
House of Commons. These shifting electoral arrangements challenged central planks of the peace
process, namely the UK as a benign force and nationalists having equal input and status to the
political system. The Irish Government was attuned to these difficulties and consistently eager
that the British Government take more serious heed of how Brexit and other internal develop-
ments produced a destabilising effect on Northern Ireland politics and Irish interests.
The precariousness of Northern Ireland’s political situation and the unsettling effect of Brexit
reopened some old political vestiges. A possible reimposed physical border between Northern
Ireland and the Republic of Ireland would be redolent of the worst days of the Northern Ireland
conflict. It may involve the installation of customs points and checkpoints, which would likely
act as a reminder of division and conflict. A physical border would be practically and psychologi-
cally difficult for border communities in particular (see Hayward 2017). There would be security
implications too. Earlier border constructions were frequently targets for paramilitary attacks.
In sum, the establishment of any form of border control system would signal a backwards step
for relations on the island of Ireland. In the worst-case scenario, Brexit may provoke a sinister
response from dissident groups, which could fatally undermine peace in Northern Ireland and
undo years of economic and political progress.
In its Position Paper on Northern Ireland and Ireland, the UK Government (2017) outlined its
commitment to safeguard the Belfast Agreement and stability in Northern Ireland. The docu-
ment, however, was heavy on aspiration and weak on detail. The British Government proposed
ideas that were dismissed as ‘wishful thinking’ by the EU and deemed unsatisfactory by the Irish
Government. The UK also rejected calls for special treatment for Northern Ireland and were
supported in this position by Northern Ireland’s unionist community.
The paucity of workable ideas emanating from the UK about how to deal with Brexit, in
particular about how to manage the Ireland/Northern Ireland dimension, came to a head in
late 2017. Plans to proceed to phase two of negotiations between the UK and the EU were
temporarily derailed when the DUP strongly objected to an initial deal between the UK and
the EU that included provisions to effectively keep Northern Ireland in the Single Market
and Customs Union after Brexit by keeping EU regulations in place. This form of proposed
special treatment for Northern Ireland was unacceptable to unionists for the way in which it
threatened to separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK by creating distinct arrange-
ments for the region. The conclusion of phase one Brexit negotiations was eventually reached
in mid-December 2017 when the European Council deemed that ‘sufficient progress’ had
been made to allow for phase two negotiations on the future UK–EU trading relationship to
commence in early 2018. This decision to agree on the movement to phase two negotiations
was based on a Joint Report agreed on between the UK Government and EU negotiators on
8 December 2017 following consultation with the DUP. The report included a section on
‘Ireland and Northern Ireland’ and contained a number of commitments in relation to the Irish
dimension to Brexit. These included the protection of the 1998 Belfast Agreement, a commit-
ment to North–South cooperation and the avoidance of a hard border. It is intended that the
objective to prevent a hard border will be achieved through agreement on the new EU–UK
relationship. In the event that this cannot be achieved, the UK Government has committed to
ensuring that no new regulatory barriers will be erected between Northern Ireland and the
rest of the UK, unless these are consistent with the Belfast Agreement and agreed to by the
Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly.

33
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