This post by Sean Kippin introduces chapter 7 of Politics and Policy Making in the UK by Paul Cairney and Sean Kippin. It examines Brexit, which is a portmanteau combining Britain and exit from membership of the European Union. The Brexit referendum ballot wording was ‘Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?’ and people could vote to ‘Remain a member of the European Union’ or ‘Leave the European Union’.
The UK’s decision to leave the European Union (EU) in January 2020 was a major constitutional change. A June 2016 referendum delivered a narrow but decisive victory for ‘Leave’ over ‘Remain’’ (52% to 48%).
The Leave slogan ‘take back control’ drew on the Westminster Story (Chapter 3) to present EU membership as incompatible with British democracy and sovereignty. However, turning Brexit into policy reality in the intervening years illustrated the lack of control that UK policymakers actually have over decisions, outcomes, and consequences.
In Chapter 7, we relate Brexit to three perspectives: as the symbol of a policy problem (policy analysis), policymaking problem (policy studies), and problem of social and economic inequalities (critical policy analysis).
Policy analysis: how did policymakers approach Brexit?
We describe the referendum as a poor solution to an ill-defined problem. For example, former Prime Minster David Cameron had treated the referendum as a means of placating his party and the Eurosceptic media following his failure to renegotiate the UK’s terms of membership (Cameron then resigned after the vote). For others, Brexit was the alleged solution to a poor economy or low control over immigration, or the campaign was part of a ‘populist’ approach to relate EU membership to control by out of touch political elites.
5 step analysis helps to analyse Brexit as a policy problem and help to identify the problems faced by new Prime Minister Theresa May. First, actors defined Brexit as a problem in different ways: they debated over when to trigger Article 50, what powers the government had to enact Brexit, the UK Parliament’s role, and which issues to pursue in preliminary negotiations.
Second, policy actors identified very different feasible solutions, such as:
- ‘Soft Brexit’, leaving the EU but retaining economic union by remaining in either or both of the Single Market and Customs Union.
- ‘Hard Brexit’, leaving EU institutions, but coming to various bilateral agreements over areas of mutual interest.
- ‘No deal Brexit’, leaving without any formalised arrangements (often treated as the ultimate bad outcome).
- Some proposed different avenues to avoiding or ‘undoing’ Brexit, such as a confirmatory or second referendum (known by advocates as a ‘People’s Vote’).
Third and fourth, the main trade-offs between (and estimates of the effect of) the different solutions amounted to favouring sovereignty (i.e. control over trade and immigration policy), or maintaining economic union and a soft border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. Theresa May announced ‘red lines’ which closed off many possibilities. The status of Northern Ireland involved particularly contested trade-offs. Ultimately, political dynamics and feasibility issues ruled out many options, including soft Brexit and No Deal Brexit.
Fifth, the House of Commons failed to find a mutually acceptable way forward (including ruling out the ‘attractive fudge’ of the ‘Chequers Plan’). May resigned and was replaced by the Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson. Johnson called and won a General Election, then secured a similar deal to one considered by May (though Johnson’s government would keep Northern Ireland within the Single Market, to the consternation of Northern Ireland unionists). A ‘differentiated Brexit’ would ultimately take effect in 2020.
Policy studies: did Brexit change the UK’s ‘multi-level’ policymaking system?
Brexit exposed long-standing debates about the feasibility and fairness of different ways to govern. Debates on ‘multi-level governance’ explore whether there is an ‘optimal’ division of policymaking functions, such as in one authoritative centre or shared between different ‘territorial’ levels of government. Advocates of multi-level governance argue that the dispersion of power across different centres is more efficient and democratic than central state control, but these divisions relate more to the competing political demands to take or share power at the different levels, rather than a technocratic process of constitutional design.
There is some evidence that the UK government has become more centralised and majoritarian in approach, although the impact is difficult to measure. The main sectoral changes (Table 7.1 below) are in salient areas, such as immigration, where the UK has ended the ‘free movement of people’ (a key European freedom) and now operates a reformed trade regime (but has not really solved the problem of immigration described by prominent Leave campaigners). There have also been constitutional knock on effects, such as the adverse impact of the new UK internal market policy on devolved government autonomy (accentuated by high profile disputes, such as regarding the UK government’s veto of the Scottish Parliament Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill).
Critical Policy Analysis: Who is winning and losing due to Brexit?
The clear winners of the impacts of Brexit are hard to identify. So far, it is far easier to identify losses, and to note that those with more resources are far better placed to endure the hardship. According to some Leave campaigners, but not reality, some of the biggest beneficiaries of Brexit were to be a ‘left behind’ working class, centred in the deindustrialised ‘emblematic sites of revolt’ such as Sunderland. Rather, there have mostly been visible losses, such as among the minority ethnic groups, women, and disabled people who lost EU funding and important legal protections.
How does Brexit inform our Westminster and Complex Government stories?
The ‘take back control’ message embodies the Westminster story of centralised top-down control, but the Brexit process exposed the limits to that control. The Government endured years of delay and political setbacks, provoking multiple leadership crises which threatened the viability of Brexit and ended successive premierships. The process also exposed the limitations of the UK Parliament, which couldn’t find a solution to an ostensibly straightforward problem (outlined in detail by UK in a Changing Europe).
Brexit challenges one aspect of the complex government story by simplifying the multi-level policymaking system. However, policymaking complexity remains a necessity, reflecting bounded rationality and the inevitable delegation of policymaking to a large number and wide range of actors across the UK political system.
Take home messages
- The Brexit referendum illustrated the strength of the ‘Westminster story’, when voters chose to ‘take back control’.
- Brexit entailed years of delay and setbacks, political crises, threatening its viability. It illustrates the complexity of the policymaking process.
- The post-Brexit system is relatively simplified, removing one ‘level’ of government, however complexity and delegation are a necessity rather than a choice.
- Brexit created many losers, and few winners. Those with greater resources are generally better able to withstand the negative consequences.
Paul Cairney: Politics & Public Policy 