Political parties

The Brexit Deal: Can Parliament be Scared into Submission?

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As agreement is reached with the EU, Theresa May’s Brexit deal will come before parliament. In this contribution, Benjamin Martill, Dahrendorf Forum Post-Doctoral Fellow at LSE, breaks down the parliamentary arithmetic and assesses her options.

My Kingdom for a Deal

Theresa May has, at long last, reached agreement with the EU on the terms of Britain’s impending withdrawal from the Union on 29 March 2019. The deal is politically controversial and seems to have pleased no one, especially the hardline Brexiters. This is because it could see the UK remain within a single customs territory with the EU, precluding the need for a hard border on the island of Ireland. Northern Ireland would also remain in key elements of the single market for goods, for the same reason. This ‘backstop’ has proven to be the most contentious element of the Withdrawal Agreement, dragging out negotiations which were almost 80 percent complete at the beginning of 2018.

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How could a second Brexit referendum be triggered?

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parliamentWith ‘exit day’ less than six months away, public debate about a second Brexit vote continues. In this new post on this topic, Jess Sargeant, Alan Renwick and Meg Russell outline the key decision points and processes by which MPs or the government might choose to trigger a second referendum.

In our previous blogpost we considered how long it would take to hold a second referendum on Brexit, concluding that an extension to Article 50 would almost certainly be required. The length of the necessary extension would depend on when the referendum was triggered. Calling a referendum requires a majority in parliament, and whether such a majority exists will depend on political and circumstantial factors. But by examining the process of Brexit we can identify a number of key junctures at which a decision to hold a referendum could be made.

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Sustainability: the invisible common ground between the Italian problem and reforms in Europe

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italy hot spotAccording to Marc Brightman, the problems of migration and economic stagnation, often referenced as the causes of the votes for Brexit or populist parties in Italy, should be treated together as part of a single problem of sustainability. An opportunity exists to exploit the rather consensual ground of environmental economics and ecological economics in European negotiations to agree on reforms for Italy and the other member states.

The formation of a populist government in Italy is causing disarray among policymakers and policy advisors working in a framework that has not assimilated advances in interdisciplinary sustainability science.

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Brexit and British politics

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POLLING-STATION-2-e1517321458294.jpgA recently published report from The UK in a Changing Europe examines various aspects of Brexit and public opinion. Here, Anand Menon, Director, and Alan Wager, researcher at The UK in a Changing Europe reflect on some of the report’s key findings. They argue that Brexit has had the effect of deeply embedding tribal politics, based on social identity, into British political life, and that it is difficult to envision this changing any time soon. This article was originally featured on The UK in a Changing Europe site and is reposted with permission. 

It’s common to hear that Brexit has changed everything. And as with all such clichés, there is both an element of exaggeration and an element of truth to the claim. The decision of British voters to leave the European Union has had a fundamental effect in both revealing and deepening existing cleavages in British public opinion, and opening up new ones.

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Britain’s EU referendum: the pre-referendum campaign, so far

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blank pageThe debate on European issues in the UK has certainly gained momentum since the outcome of the 7 May general election made it a racing certainty that there would be an ‘in/out’ referendum before the end of 2017, most likely on a date still to be determined in 2016.  David Hannay, member of the House of Lords and former Ambassador to the EU, reviews the pre-referendum campaign so far.

Some of the main battle-lines have already become discernible.  But so far the debate is no more than that; it falls far short of the sort of all-out campaign which can be expected before the vote.

Why is that? Well, first there are a number of technical, electoral law considerations relating to finance and other matters which discourage any premature formal campaign activity; and in any case neither side of the argument has yet settled on the shape and composition of the main campaigning organisations. More significantly neither of the two main political parties, Conservative and Labour, have yet decided how they are going to campaign. That both these parties will be to some extent split when a real campaign does start is not seriously in doubt, and it is already possible to make an informed guess as to who will be campaigning for a ‘yes’ to remaining in the EU and who for a ‘no’. But on the Conservative side much will depend on the negotiations in Brussels which the government has engaged and whose outcome will only be known at the end of this year at the very earliest, probably rather later. And on the Labour side everything, this issue included, is shrouded in the fog of battle which surrounds the leadership succession. Of the smaller parties there is no doubt how the Scottish National Party, the Liberal Democrats and the UK Independence Party will line up; but in Northern Ireland the implications for the Good Friday agreement of Britain finding itself outside the European Union could produce a rather difference approach than was the case in 1975. Continue reading →