England,Englishness and Brexit

In the 1975 referendum England provided the strongest support for European integration, with a much smaller margin for membership in Scotland and Northern Ireland. By 2015 the rank order of ‘national’ attitudes to European integration had reversed. Now, England is the UK's most eurosceptic nation and may vote ‘Leave’, while Scotland seems set to generate a clear margin for ‘Remain’. The UK as a whole is a Brexit marginal. To understand the campaign, we need to make sense of the dynamics of public attitudes in each nation. We take an ‘archaeological’ approach to a limited evidence‐base, to trace the development of attitudes to Europe in England since 1975. We find evidence of a link between English nationalism and euroscepticism. Whatever the result in 2016, contrasting outcomes in England and Scotland will exacerbate tensions in the UK's territorial constitution and could lead to the break‐up of Britain.     

The Democratic Duty to Oppose Brexit

What should be the position of democrats in response to the Brexit referendum? Many urge a duty to accept the result. This article argues the contrary. If someone is a UK citizen, has a belief that leaving the European Union will be damaging to the common good of the UK and is a convinced democrat, then that person has a duty to oppose Brexit. Neither of the two principal reasons for accepting the result—a claim of popular sovereignty or of parliamentary sovereignty—imply a duty not to continue to oppose. Arguments from political equality for simple majority rule do not apply when the alternatives are ill defined. More generally, popular sovereignty presupposes and does not replace constitutional democracy, and in a parliamentary democracy there is always a continuing right to oppose.     

UK Euroscepticism and the Brexit Referendum

This article shows that key to understanding the referendum outcome are factors such as a profoundly eurosceptic public, high levels of citizen uncertainty, divided mainstream political parties on the EU and lack of unity within the ‘Leave’ campaign. The Brexit referendum is more than just about domestic issues and government approval. Utilitarian concerns related to economic evaluations of EU integration coupled with support of or opposition to EU freedom of movement are very likely to influence vote choice. Those campaigns that focus on rational utilitarian arguments about the costs and benefits related to EU membership as a whole but also to EU freedom of movement are expected to swing voters.     

The Brexit Negotiations and the Anglosphere

The Brexit negotiations raise the question of what Britain’s future role in the world should be. Brexiters have drawn on ideas of the Anglosphere to imagine what that future might be. The Anglosphere belongs in a long line of thinking about uniting English speaking communities around the world. Different conceptions of the Anglosphere such as CANZUK are identified. The Anglosphere appeals to many Brexiters because it gives them a positive vision of ‘Global Britain’ as an alternative to EU membership. The advantages to Britain of regaining full sovereignty and associating once more with its ‘true friends’ are stressed. What is ignored is the lack of support among Anglosphere countries for much closer relationships except in the security sphere, and the inability of increased economic ties with the Anglosphere to begin to match what the UK will lose by severing itself from its most important economic partner.     

Brexit,the 2019 General Election and the Realignment of British Politics

The outcome of the 2019 general election—a resounding Conservative majority and an unprecedented defeat for Labour—delivered a decisive electoral verdict for the first time in recent years following a period where British politics has been characterised by instability and indecision. In this article, we draw on aggregate-level data to conduct an initial exploration of the vote. What was the impact of Brexit on the 2019 general election result? How far has Brexit reshaped electoral politics? Was 2019 a ‘realignment election’? And, if so, what are the implications? With a focus on England and Wales we show that, although the Conservatives made gains deep into Labour’s working class heartlands, these gains have been a long time coming, reflected in Labour’s weakening relationship with working class Britain. As such, 2019 is not a critical election but a continuation of longer-term trends of dealignment and realignment in British politics.     

Brexit,Fisheries and Scottish Devolution: An Intergovernmental Disruption

With the UK set to leave the EU, the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) will no longer apply and an alternative legislative framework will need to be put in place, simultaneously navigating the devolved settlement. However, aspects of fisheries management fall under the area of international negotiation which is reserved to the UK government. Disagreements between the UK and Scottish governments over where the line between devolved and reserved lies in this matter has led to difficulties in formulating a post‐Brexit fisheries framework. This dispute has exposed weaknesses in relations between the two governments.     

Breaking Bad News: Penal Populism,Tabloid Adversarialism and Brexit

This article analyses the role that British conservative tabloid newspapers play in promoting penal populism and delegitimising liberal prison reform initiatives. Principally, we consider how different sections of the British press reacted to the then Prime Minister David Cameron's prison reform speech of 8 February 2016. The analysis illustrates how different newspapers cohered around two diametrically opposing interpretations of the scandalous state of the prison system, reflecting distinctive penal philosophies and moral positions. In the context of penal populism and the populist furies unleashed by the Brexit campaign, the central research finding is that the comparatively passive and equivocal support offered by the broadsheets was no match for the vitriolic attack mounted by the conservative tabloids on the ‘soft justice’ parts of Cameron's prison reform agenda. We conclude by arguing that the stark lesson to be learned is that the scandal‐ridden prison is a particularly toxic issue marked by serial policy failure. Consequently, in a febrile, intermediatised penal populist context, why would any political leader take on the manifest risks associated with embarking on liberal prison reform?     

Brexit,the Belfast Agreement and Northern Ireland: Imperilling a Fragile Political Bargain

The major impact of the Belfast Agreement was to engineer a peaceful coexistence between nationalism and unionism that involved each bloc recognising it had sufficient power to thwart the political ambitions of the other side, but not enough to push through its own agenda. This paper argues that Brexit seriously damages this peaceful coexistence and could trigger what is termed an Ulster war of attrition in which Northern Ireland becomes entrapped in a political stalemate where each side strives to triumph without having sufficient power to do so. It also argues that to restore internal political stability in Northern Ireland, and to indemnify against the risk of disorderly relationships between the British and Irish governments in the future, the strategic importance of Strand 3 of the Belfast Agreement requires strengthening.     

Planning for Brexit: the Case of the 1975 Referendum

Both during and since the 2016 referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union, concerns were raised as to the absence of contingency planning within Whitehall. This situation was in direct contrast with 1975, when extensive planning took place for the possibility of a vote to leave the European Community. However, there has been little in the way of detailed analysis of the contingency planning undertaken in 1975. Using archival evidence of the Wilson government's preparations, this article highlights the complex challenge that withdrawal would have posed for the UK in 1975, the tensions that existed between the political imperative for a swift withdrawal, in the event of a leave vote, and the civil service's concerns as to whether such a withdrawal was deliverable. Finally, it shows how dependent the UK's position would have been on the approach taken by the other members of the EC.     

Brexit and the British Constitution: a Long View

The Brexit referendum of 2016 brought a new concept to British politics, namely the ‘people’s will’, one that is seemingly at odds with conventional notions of parliamentary sovereignty, even a threat to its very existence. This article argues that although the device of the referendum is relatively new, the kind of popular control over Parliament and the executive that it invokes has long been a part of British politics. Ranging over 200 years, examples are drawn from the recall and deselection of MPs, mass petitioning campaigns, the role of the Speaker, and the flourishing of independent parties.     

How Do We Write the History of Brexit?

The vote to leave the European Union in 2016 and the political crisis that followed offer obvious subjects for the political historian. Yet, the study of Brexit raises serious challenges for academic writing, concerning method, the political preferences of the historian and the implication of history as a discipline in the European debate. This article explores some of the dilemmas and opportunities confronting the historian of Brexit, focussing, in particular, on the challenges to be addressed, the utility of conventional political methods and the insights that might be drawn from allied fields. It argues for a greater emphasis on the imaginative resources on which the different campaigns could draw, urging greater attention to conventional wisdoms, languages of class, collective memory and the forging of cultural or exceptionalist identities.