The inevitability of gradualness: the longer-term origins of the 23 June 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum. Bruges Political Research Papers 56/2017

Westlake, Martin (2017) The inevitability of gradualness: the longer-term origins of the 23 June 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum. Bruges Political Research Papers 56/2017. [Policy Paper]

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Abstract

This paper identifies and charts a number of longer-term trends that led ultimately to the United Kingdom’s 23 June 2016 in-out referendum on European Union membership. It shows in particular how a device, the referendum, until recently regarded as anathema to the British tradition of parliamentary democracy, was first legitimised, then constitutionalised and, simultaneously, popularised. And it shows how manifesto commitments for a referendum on the single currency morphed into commitments for a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty and then the Lisbon Treaty and then into referendum lock acts and, finally, the in-out referendum.

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