Brexit, British Politics, and European Integration

The June 2016 referendum vote in the United Kingdom to leave the European Union was both the result of a perfect storm and a long time in the making. On the one hand, many events had to occur in the lead-up to the vote for it to end with this particular outcome. These included Cameron’s decision in January 2013 to call a referendum if his party were to win the next general election, the unexpected victory of the Conservatives in the May 2015 election, and the coincidence of the vote with a continent-wide refugee and migration crisis while the aftershocks of the euro crisis had still not been fully digested. On the other hand, from the very beginning of its membership in the European Community in 1973, the United Kingdom has featured as an awkward and reluctant partner while a uniquely Euroskeptic tabloid press has been systematically critical of anything coming out of “Brussels.” The reasons why 52 percent of the United Kingdom electorate voted “leave” were therefore complex and multifaceted. The pro-leave coalition constituted of strange bedfellows, including people who yearned for Britain’s imperial greatness and favored low regulation and free trade as well as voters who wanted to put a halt to the country’s openness to immigration and hoped leaving the European Union would allow the UK government to protect British industry and jobs. Prime Minister David Cameron’s resignation the day after the vote and succession by Theresa May, who made implementing Brexit the main goal of her new government, have set in motion various dynamics. They will have far-reaching consequences for British politics, and the constitutional balance between England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Brexit has reignited fears in Ireland of a return to “the troubles” in Ulster that had been put to rest by the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. It also brought back the thorny issue of Scottish independence. Furthermore, the referendum result has laid bare divisions that cut across political party lines, and exposed deep societal cleavages between young and old, North and South, urban and rural areas, educated elites and less educated citizens, and the winners and losers of globalization. Brexit is also part of larger phenomena in European and world politics. It is only one symptom of a deeper malaise in European integration, in addition to intractable problems regarding Eurozone reform in the North, migration in the South, security in the East, and the backsliding of liberal democracy in the center. Finally, Brexit is also a peculiarly British (or English) expression of rising populism and anti-elite politics that have swept the globe since 2016.