Brexit: How was it for you? EPC Discussion Paper 17 September 2019

Duff, Andrew (2019) Brexit: How was it for you? EPC Discussion Paper 17 September 2019. [Discussion Paper]

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Abstract

On 10 November 2015, after months of veiled threats, Prime Minister David Cameron wrote a letter to Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, demanding a renegotiation of the terms of Britain’s membership of the European Union. Four years on and three prime ministers later, we may be about to see the denouement of Brexit. Nothing is yet certain, and there will be many more surprises – “bumps in the road”, as Boris Johnson calls them – before the UK’s relationship with the EU is stabilised. But if the prime minister is to be believed (and why not?) the UK will secede from the EU at midnight on 31 October – deal or no deal. Against the sceptics and cynics, Mr Johnson continues to argue that he is trying for a deal. He has good reason to do so. He knows, like we do, that Brexit without a deal would be very harmful for the British economy and society. The threat of no deal has split his own party, perhaps irrevocably. The prime minister has lost the slender parliamentary majority he inherited from Theresa May. Cabinet responsibility, which is one of the core disciplines of Britain’s famously unwritten constitution, has disintegrated. Civic disorder is rising. The devolution arrangements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are creaking under pressure. The courts, including the UK Supreme Court, have had to intervene on the matter of parliamentary prerogative versus executive power. The government’s decision to prorogue Parliament on 9 September until 14 October has dragged the Queen into the constitutional furore.

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