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The Brexit Effect: What Leaving the EU Means for British Politics

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This book examines the seismic impact of Brexit on the British political system, assessing its likely long-term effect in terms of a significantly changed political and constitutional landscape.

Starting with the 2015 general election and covering key developments up to "Brexit Day", it shows how Brexit "transformed" British politics. The unprecedented turmoil – two snap elections, three Prime Ministers, the biggest ever defeat for the Government in Parliament, an impressive number of rebellions and reshuffles in Cabinet and repeated requests for a second independence referendum in Scotland – as a result of leaving the EU, calls into question what sort of political system the post-Brexit UK will become. Taking Lijphart’s "Westminster model" as its reference, the book assesses the impact of Brexit along three dimensions: elections and parties; executive–legislative relationships; and the relationship between central and devolved administrations. Based on a wealth of empirical material, including original interviews with key policymakers and civil servants, it focuses on the "big picture" and analytically maps the direction of travel for the UK political system.

This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of Brexit, British politics, constitutional, political, and contemporary history, elections and political parties, executive politics, and territorial politics as well as more broadly related practitioners and journalists.

Chapters one and two of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license. Funded by the University of Trento and the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies.

Author(s): Gianfranco Baldini, Edoardo Bressanelli, Emanuele Massetti
Series: Routledge Studies in British Politics
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022

Language: English
Pages: 231
City: London

Cover
Endorsement Page
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Outline of the book
Note
Chapter 1 The Westminster model and the UK political system before Brexit
1.1 Westminster, British politics, and the BPT
1.1.1 What’s in a name? The Westminster model and British politics
1.1.2 The BPT, historical inheritance, and institutional persistence
1.2 The normative debate on the Westminster model
1.3 Lijphart’s analytical framework: discussion and adaptation
1.4 The Brexit process as a case of constitutional and political change
1.5 The difficult Europeanisation of the UK political system
1.6 Referendums in the UK
1.7 Conclusions
Notes
Chapter 2 Understanding the Brexit effect
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The Brexit process: periodisation and analytical issues
2.3 Europeanisation and the weakening of the Westminster system
2.4 Back to Westminster? The impact of exiting the EU
2.4.1 Dimension 1: elections and the party system
2.4.2 Dimension 2: executive–legislative relations
2.4.3 Dimension 3: centre–periphery relations
2.4.4 Institutional change and stickiness
2.5 Research design and data
Notes
Chapter 3 Westminster preserved: Elections, party system, and the absorption of the Brexit shock
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Before Brexit: the British party system and voter alignment – from stability to turmoil
3.3 The institutional pillar of the two-party system: SMP and electoral legislation at other territorial levels of government
3.4 The Brexit effect on electoral alignments and the party system
3.4.1 Cleavage politics: are there new alignments and Brexit identities in the place of party identities?
3.4.2 The classification of party systems
3.4.3 One or many party systems? The importance of horizontal, vertical, and functional divisions
3.5 Data and analysis: Brexit as an electoral shock
3.5.1 Electoral alignments and cleavages
3.5.2 Party system classification
3.5.3 Multiple party systems?
3.6 The weak bases of the party system
3.7 Conclusion: a reaffirmed two-party game, with a very peculiar Conservative predominance
Notes
Chapter 4 Westminster challenged: The constrained dominance of the executive
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Executive–legislative relationships before Brexit
4.3 Rebellions and government defeats in the House of Commons
4.3.1 Rebels and the EU issue
4.3.2 After the Brexit referendum: the beginning of the withdrawal process
4.3.3 From the 2017 general election to the end of May’s premiership
4.4 Taking back control: Parliament and the strains of Brexit
4.4.1 The interpretation of the standing orders and parliamentary procedure
4.4.2 Controlling the business of the House of Commons
4.4.3 The role of the House of Lords
4.4.4 Johnson’s government and the final battle with Parliament
4.5 Conclusions: the 2019 general election and the role of Parliament post-Brexit
Notes
Chapter 5 Westminster reasserted: A Unitary but Disunited State
5.1 Ethnonational identities, party politics, and institutional reforms before Brexit
5.1.1 “Anglo-Saxon” centre and “Celtic” peripheries
5.1.2 The rise and consolidation of centre–periphery politics (1969–99)
5.1.3 Devolution as process and the contested territorial constitution (1999–2015)
5.2 The impact of Brexit on the centre–periphery dimension
5.2.1 The Brexit kick-off: a dis-United Kingdom (2015–16)
5.2.2 Brexit and devolved self-rule: between expansion of powers and (temporary) recentralisation
5.2.3 Brexit and devolved shared-rule: a constitutional clarification
5.2.4 Brexit and the territorial constitution: “unitary and decentralised”
5.3 Brexit, secessionist backlashes, and ethno-territorial tensions
5.3.1 Scotland: struggling for a second chance
5.3.2 Wales: firmly in the UK
5.3.3 Northern Ireland: between republican galvanising and loyalist anxiety
5.4 Conclusions: a unitary but dis-united state
Notes
Chapter 6 Understanding the Brexit strains during the Covid crisis
6.1 Political parties in the aftermath of Brexit Day: looking beyond “self-evident truths”
6.2 Executive–legislative relations: Johnson’s difficult leadership amidst the pandemic
6.3 Centre–periphery relations: recentralisation and contestation
6.3.1 The Internal Market Act 2020: Brexit against devolution?
6.3.2 Further backlashes in the Celtic peripheries
6.3.3 Latest reforms
Notes
Chapter 7 Conclusions: British politics after Brexit
7.1 How Westminster changed during the Brexit years
7.1.1 Elections and the party system
7.1.2 Executive–legislative relations
7.1.3 Centre–periphery relations
7.2 Beyond the domestic domain
7.2.1 Sovereignty and interdependence: taking back control?
7.2.2 Going comparative: challenges to British democracy in perspective
7.3 Westminster strikes back: British democracy after Brexit
Notes
Bibliography
Appendix
A. List of interviews
Appendix
B. Timeline of events
Index