ABSTRACT

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 decades 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).