Brexit
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Date | March 2017 - 2019 |
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Interest of | Camila Carlbom, Joanna Cherry, Dominic Cummings, Michelle Dewberry, Nigel Farage, Paddy Hannam, Gina Miller, Brendan O'Neill, Gloria De Piero, Alan Riley, Dominique Samuels, Spiked Online, Wolfgang Streeck, Rishi Sunak, Eloise Todd, Guy Verhofstadt, John Ward |
Brexit, a portmanteau of the words "British" and "exit", is the process by which the United Kingdom (UK) intends to withdraw from the European Union (EU), as a result of the June 2016 EU Referendum in which 51.9% voted to leave the EU.[1]
Contents
Article 50
On 2 October 2016, the first day of the Conservative Party conference, Prime Minister Theresa May announced she would trigger Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union by the end of March 2017 which would make the UK set to leave the EU by the end of March 2019. Although the terms for withdrawal have not been established, May has promised a Bill to remove the European Communities Act 1972 from the statute book and to transfer existing EU laws into the UK domestic law.[2]
Parliamentary debate
In a House of Commons debate on 11 October 2016, the Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer put 170 questions about Brexit to the government and sought an assurance that Parliament would be given a vote on the terms of the exit negotiations:
- "We do accept and respect the result of the referendum. But neither those who voted to remain nor those who voted to leave gave the government a mandate to take an axe to our economy. By flirting with Hard Brexit the Prime Minister puts at risk Britain's access to the single market rather than doing the right thing for jobs, for business and for working people in this country. So much for putting the national interest first!"[3]
For the government, Brexit Secretary David Davis said he was not prepared to outline Brexit aims in detail since it was “not black or white” whether the UK would stay in the single market and Parliament could not expect to be given every detail of the government’s plans for leaving. Davis said the government had a mandate to get the best possible deal but insisted he could go no further than talking about overarching aims because revealing the UK’s top priority would prove “extremely expensive”. Sterling fell to one of its lowest ever levels of $1.22 as David Davis was speaking.[4]
Background
The process of withdrawal from the European Union has, since 2007, been governed by Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. No member state has ever left the EU. Under Article 50, the withdrawal must be in accordance with the Member State's constitutional requirements and uncertainty exists as to the constitutional requirements in the UK. Unless extensions are agreed to unanimously by the Council of the European Union, the timing for leaving under the article is two years from when the UK gives official notice, but this official notice was not given immediately following the referendum in June 2016. The assumption is that during the two-year window new agreements will be negotiated, but there is no requirement that there be new agreements.[5] Some aspects, such as trade agreements, may be made difficult to negotiate by the EU until after Britain has formally left the EU.[6]
Withdrawal has been the goal of various individuals, advocacy groups, and political parties since the UK joined the European Economic Community (EEC), the predecessor of the EU, in 1973, though continued membership of the EEC and the Common Market was approved in a 1975 referendum by 67.2% of votes.
Related Quotations
Page | Quote | Author | Date |
---|---|---|---|
Theresa May | “Brexit means Brexit, and we're going to make a success of it.” | Theresa May | July 2016 |
Mark Rutte | “I'm totally, totally, totally against referendums on multilateral agreements.” | Mark Rutte | |
Frans Timmermans | “They are now being disappointed. Look at what the divisiveness of Brexit has done to the UK. Today, the UK looks like Game of Thrones on steroids.” | Frans Timmermans | 16 May 2019 |
Related Documents
Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
Document:A new turf war with Strasbourg pushes Warsaw further down the road towards Polexit from the EU | Article | 4 August 2021 | Paul Nuttall | Will the schism between Poland and the European Union over legal differences eventually lead to "Polexit"? |
Document:Antisemitism threats will keep destroying Labour | blog post | 12 February 2020 | Jonathan Cook | If we are only allowed to gently chide Israel in ways that cannot meaningfully advance Palestinian rights, if we are prevented from discussing the strategies of staunchly pro-Israel lobbyists to silence Israel’s critics, if we are denied the right to push for an international boycott of Israel of the kind that helped blacks in South Africa end their own oppression, then nothing is going to change for the Palestinians. |
Document:Boris Johnson in Downing Street for five years: what could possibly go wrong? | Article | 30 December 2019 | John S Warren | All the cards are held by Boris Johnson because he has the answer to all the problems facing Britain. Save, perhaps, one: what could possibly go wrong for the Conservative-Brexit Government? |
Document:Boris Johnson is a threat to democracy itself | Article | 18 June 2019 | Simon Wren-Lewis | We can only hope that while most Conservative members want to live in a world where there is no spoon, enough voters prefer changing the real world in ways that enhance, rather than diminish, our democracy. |
Document:Boris Johnson's first two priorities for post-Brexit Britain | Article | 1 February 2020 | Richard Murphy | Boris Johnson has admitted what Brexit was for. He wants to control and constrain people. The market in labour will be constrained. And let’s not for a moment pretend that a Freeport supports markets: freeports are instead about permitting the free movement of capital beyond the control of the state and without the imposition of any taxes. |
Document:Brexit is the villain in accidental death of the economy | Article | 6 August 2023 | William Keegan | The Brexit miscreants who conned the nation just carry on shamelessly, while their replacements, Rishi Sunak and co, take up the banner and Keir Starmer, once a noble remainer, offends his natural followers by ruling out rejoining the EU or even the single market. |
Document:Brexit reveals Corbyn to be the true moderate | blog post | 12 September 2019 | Jonathan Cook | It is time to stop acting like zealots for neoliberalism, squabbling over which brand of turbo-charged capitalism we prefer, and face up to our collective responsibility to change our and our children’s future. |
Document:Britain didn’t vote Labour just to get a new iron chancellor | Article | 4 August 2024 | William Keegan | The economic damage wrought by Brexit continues. Our investment and growth prospects would benefit enormously if Starmer and Reeves abandoned this policy of “no return to the customs union, single market or freedom of movement”. I repeat what I have said before: the Labour manifesto commits it to removing unnecessary barriers to trade. But Brexit is the most formidable barrier of all! |
Document:ECJ Advocate General says UK can revoke Article 50 unilaterally | Article | 4 December 2018 | Tony Connelly | Article 50 allows the "unilateral revocation of the notification of the intention to withdraw from the EU, until such time as the Withdrawal Agreement is formally concluded" |
Document:Election 2017: finally, a real choice for Britain's voters | Article | 17 May 2017 | Raoul Martinez | No wonder the billionaire-owned media are attacking Jeremy Corbyn with everything they've got. But we the people can still win. |
Document:England prepares to leave the world | Article | 4 November 2016 | Neal Ascherson | "If you believe you are a citizen of the world you are a citizen of nowhere." Mrs May will pass into folklore with that line, just as Mrs Thatcher is remembered for "There is no such thing as society." |
Document:Interfering with Laura Kuenssberg | blog post | 25 November 2019 | Craig Murray | It's no coincidence that it is precisely the old and the poorly educated that are the targets of Dominic Cummings’ "Brexit election” strategy. If it comes off, Laura Kuenssberg and her fellow hacks will have proven that the power of the mainstream media is as yet unbroken. |
Document:Jeremy Corbyn’s Coventry speech on Brexit in full | Speech | 26 February 2018 | Jeremy Corbyn | "So I appeal to MPs of all parties, prepared to put the people’s interests before ideological fantasies, to join us in supporting the option of a new UK customs union with the EU, that would give us a say in future trade deals." |
Document:Just like that: How the Tory magic trick was done | blog post | 18 December 2019 | Chris Jackson | Boris Johnson will not be leading the people into any mythical promised land, rather they will be led like lemmings off the edge of a cliff. The population of the nation now have more austerity, economic inequality, privatising of the NHS and ever deteriorating public services to look forward to, led by a right wing, elitist, populist. |
Document:Labour has ignored its voters – it is now paying the price | Article | 24 June 2021 | Paddy Hannam | George Galloway speaks to Spiked Online about the problems faced by the Labour Party, and his campaign in the 2021 Batley and Spen by-election |
Document:Legal Challenge To Brexit | Article | 27 November 2018 | The UK can stop the Brexit process unilaterally, without the consent of the other 27 EU Member States | |
Document:Message for the Red Wall | blog post | 12 April 2022 | Clifford Thurlow | "This is my message for the Red Wall. If you reach a crossroads and your destination is to the left and by mistake you turn right, the further you travel along the wrong road the further you will move away from your destination. It is not easy to turn back, to change your mind. Sometimes, you have to in order to survive." |
Document:Project Brexit | Comment | 24 June 2017 | David | Project Brexit: "Doomed to Failure" |
Document:Rachel Reeves needs to develop some decent ideas very quickly | blog post | 25 May 2023 | Richard Murphy | Rachel Reeves is a person out of time, out of ideas, and right now with no answer to any question that might reasonably be asked of her. It's very depressing. |
Document:Richmond Park prospective candidate: I would vote against Article 50 in Parliament | Statement | 4 November 2016 | Christian Wolmar | Statement by Labour Party prospective parliamentary candidate Christian Wolmar who aims to win the 2016 Richmond Park by-election |
Document:Sunak likes the single market. So why doesn't Labour? | Article | 5 March 2023 | William Keegan | "I had many criticisms of Thatcherism and its impact on unemployment and social harmony, but one thing Margaret Thatcher got right was the importance of the EU single market and attracting Japanese, German and other firms to the UK. All this is now up for grabs by Starmer and his team." |
Document:The Brutal Legacy of Bloody Sunday is a Powerful Warning to Those Hoping to Save Brexit | Article | 19 March 2019 | Patrick Cockburn | What we are seeing is the two most divisive issues in modern British history coming together in a toxic blend: these are Brexit and the Irish question. |
Document:The Centre Blows Itself Up: Care and Spite in the ‘Brexit Election’ | Article | 13 January 2020 | David Graeber | At the 'Brexit Election' of 2019, the anti-Semitism accusations weakened Labour immensely. But it was the – ultimately successful – campaign by the 'Centrists' to force Jeremy Corbyn to reverse his position on Brexit that really ensured their party’s electoral disaster. |
Document:The Challenge of Brexit to the UK | strategy document | 2 January 2018 | Chris Donnelly | "So, if we consider what qualities and characteristics we need in those whom we select for leadership today, in a period of rapid and profound change, in all sorts of institutions – government departments, big companies, the NHS - the conclusion is that we need to look for people who have abilities that suit a wartime environment"... Leadership understands that in a period of tumultuous change you cannot control, you have to command..." |
Document:The Dreamings of Dominic Cummings | Article | 24 October 2019 | James Meek | For Dominic Cummings the whole Brexit crisis may be a venturesome trial with disposable vessels: voters, the Conservative Party, the United Kingdom. If it doesn’t work out, there’s always California, and the rest of the solar system. |
Document:The Price of Peace | blog post | 6 November 2018 | Craig Murray | It is not possible to understand the current state of play in Brexit negotiations, without understanding that those effectively driving the Tory Party position do not view a hard border with Ireland as undesirable. They view it as a vital achievement en route to rolling back power sharing and all the affirmative measures which brought peace to Northern Ireland, in an affirmation of the glory and power of unionism. |
Document:The Real Reason Theresa May’s Brexit Has Failed | Article | 2 March 2019 | T. J. Coles | So, the choice faced by ordinary British people is between a neoliberal EU supported by millionaires like Kenneth Clarke or an ultra-neoliberal Brexit supported by multimillionaires like Jacob Rees-Mogg. Meanwhile, ordinary working-class people pay the price for these elite games, as usual. |
Document:The great con that ruined Britain | Article | 3 April 2016 | Peter Hitchens | Peter Hitchens, the repentant Thatcherite, has second thoughts about privatisation: if it’s all been so beneficial, why do so many of the containers that arrive in British ports, full of expensive imports, leave this country empty? |
Document:Theresa May's Misconduct In Public Office | Article | 9 March 2019 | David Wolchover Joshua Silver | Theresa May's Misconduct in Public Office offence arises from what is alleged to have been her wrongful activation on 29 March 2017 of Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union |
Document:Was EU Tax Evasion Regulation The Reason For The Brexit Referendum | Blog post | 26 September 2017 | Josh Hamilton | The EU's new anti-abuse measures coming into force in 2019 would tighten up restrictions on UK-based intermediaries that take part in off-shoring and tax avoidance, of which Britain is a global leader |
Document:What is the Plan - the Plan is to have no Plan | Article | 10 July 2018 | John S Warren | The Brexit political mess we are now in, and the deep divisions and rancour that have been created were foreseeable and inevitable: it is a complete, shambolic mess. And be in no doubt: a 2nd Scottish Referendum will now require only 50% + 1 vote. Nothing else is sustainable now. |
Document:Where we go from here - Britain after Brexit | Article | 28 August 2016 | Anthony Barnett | Analysis of the so-called "Brexit" referendum result and prognosis for the future of the UK by a "passionate European" who wants to "keep the European flame alive". |
Document:With Brexit, the UK has achieved the gold standard of self-harm | Article | 12 June 2022 | William Keegan | Events in the foreign exchange market forced the UK off the gold standard in 1931, under what was by then the National Government. The Labour politician Sidney Webb famously declared afterwards: “Nobody told us we could do that.” Brexit, too, is reversible. |
Document:Would-be German chancellor Scholz jumps the gun on EU expansion eastward, which may provoke more states to follow the UK and exit | Article | 15 August 2021 | Paul Nuttall | Olaf Scholz is a possible candidate for Chancellor of Germany at the September 2021 German parliamentary election. He has warned Russia to expect further European integration and expansion into Eastern Europe. Will this encourage more countries to follow the UK and leave the European Union? |
References
- ↑ "UK officials seek draft agreements with EU before triggering article 50"
- ↑
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- ↑ "Red-faced Iain Duncan Smith takes back bizarre claim one of Britain's top barristers is a 'second-rate lawyer'"
- ↑ "Pound falls back as Davis says government cannot outline Brexit aims in detail"
- ↑ "EU referendum: Would Brexit violate UK citizens' rights?". BBC News. Retrieved 5 July 2016.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
- ↑ "UK officials seek draft agreements with EU before triggering article 50"