World economy

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...31

References………………………………………………………………………32

Introduction

Brexit and beyond

On 23 June 2016, the United Kingdom (UK) went to the polls to decide whether Britain should remain in, or leave, the European Union (EU). The success of the ‘leave’ vote, by a 51.89 per cent majority, stunned not only the British public but also the major political parties, the polling organisations, and the media, not to mention most political scientists. It also flabbergasted their continental counterparts. Despite the multiple crises in which the Union finds itself embroiled, neither publics nor authorities had fully comprehended the probability of ‘Brexit’. Unprecedented in nature, the vote shook whatever remained of the once preponderant telos of European integration – encapsulated in the symbolic, if legally vacuous, Treaty commitment to ‘ever closer’ union’ – to the core.

The process of Britain withdrawing from the EU, with which it has been deeply intertwined over the past four decades, will occasion a significant impact on virtually all aspects of the country’s political, juridical and economic life. From immigration policy to agriculture subsidies, criminal justice measures to environmental standards, financial services regulations to nuclear power technology, university student fees to employment laws and aviation, Brexit requires rethinking and relegislating a vast number of policy areas. It also promises to keep authorities (and other stakeholders) busier than ever until withdrawal day, and most likely beyond. Negotiating the terms of Brexit, along with new trade deals previously covered by EU agreements, requires immense capacity and will stretch the civil service to its limits. In addition, amending, repealing or improving existing EU legislation, once transposed into UK law via the Withdrawal Bill (formerly the ‘Great Repeal Bill’), is ‘one of the largest legislative projects ever undertaken in the UK’ (Simson Caird 2017, 5).2 Expect the Courts, too, to continue to arbitrate on questions of executive competences, and for the devolution settlement to be thorny and contested.

But the effects of Brexit will not stop at Britain’s borders. As the second largest economy, the third most populous Member State, and a significant net contributor to the EU budget, the UK’s departure will send ripples across the continent. As UK nationals and political representatives, including the 73 British Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) leave the institutions, the balance of power among the remaining Member States will shift. So, too, will voting patterns and alliances, the ideological make-up of the institutions, and, potentially, future policy directions. Beyond their relative position in the Union, Member States’ domestic politics will be affected, too, not least where they face home-grown Eurosceptic forces. Indeed, the rise of populism is a continent-wide phenomenon, and poses a broader challenge to the Union from both the left and the right of the political spectrum. Moreover, Brexit has prompted a fundamental rethink of the EU’s global role, given that the UK’s intelligence, military, diplomatic and soft power capacities will no longer be part of the Union (even if they were never placed fully in the service of European goals). And, crucially, it is the very idea of Europe, the pace and parameters of European integration, the place of the nation-state betwixt and between globalising and domestic pressures, and the business of doing politics in twenty-first-century Europe, which will come under intense scrutiny in the years ahead.

The core, underlying claim of that Brexit is not simply a British phenomenon, but rather a specific manifestation of more general, Europe-wide tensions that have characterised European integration since the 1950s. Viewed from a European perspective, the challenges of Brexit may appear unique in their intensity, but they can also be understood, in more familiar terms, as the latest in a long line of existential crises to have beset the Union since its foundation, as the periodic resurgence of national interests and identities have challenged the ideal of ‘ever closer Union’ and exposed the tensions underlying the European project. Indeed, the forces behind the Brexit campaign and subsequent vote, as well as many of the issues raised by the decision itself, are reminiscent of two distinct conceptual problems that have characterised politics in Europe since the early days of integration. The first is the tension between supranational control and the defence of national sovereignty, and the conceptual conflict this embodies between a Europe des patries (Europe of states) committed to pursuing common national interests, versus a fully fledged United States of Europe (see Moravcsik 1993). The second is the tension between, on the one hand, the dictates of market efficiency and the form of technocratic, depoliticised governance developed in service of this – the so-called ‘regulatory state’ (Majone 1994) – and, on the other hand, the ever-increasing calls for greater popular contestation and democratic control of the policy agenda (Hix & Follesdal 2006).

At a time when politics is moving particularly fast, and where questions of such complexity and import must be addressed on both sides of the channel, there has never been a greater need for academics, policymakers, and the public to engage with one another. This research aims to further this cause in three simple respects. First, it addresses most of the major policy areas, actors, institutions, relations and questions across the continent, in order to give insight into the comprehensiveness and complexity of the topic at hand. Second, while rooted in long-standing academic research by the foremost experts in their respective fields, the chapters are short and jargon-free, written in a style that is accessible to those not steeped in the individual disciplines themselves. Third, in line with the (laudable) concern at UCL  – and UCL Press – to achieve the broadest possible dissemination of academic knowledge, the book is open access: freely available for anyone to read and download.