Key issues with brexit
In putting Brexit into effect the UK authorities faced a number of issues:
-How much economic damage was the UK willing to take in order to obtain the ability to depart from EU
legal standards (as doing so would inevitably result in loss of access to the EU Single Market)?...
In putting Brexit into effect the UK authorities faced a number of issues:
-How much economic damage was the UK willing to take in order to obtain the ability to depart from EU
legal standards (as doing so would inevitably result in loss of access to the EU Single Market)?
-How could Brexit be made legal reality without causing an enormous legal vacuum to open up?
-The Northern Ireland peace agreement had been designed on the assumption that Ireland and the UK
would both be EU members, how could Brexit avoid destabilizing the agreement (in particular if it
resulted in a hardening of the largely open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of
Ireland)?
-Although the UK as whole voted to leave, the 'remain' side had majority support in Scotland and
Northern Ireland. How should a pluri-national state seek to accommodate this division while delivering
on the referendum result?
-As Brexit would affect the devolution settlement, would it be necessary to get the consent of devolved
bodies for any deal? (These last two will be done briefly as you have covered them to some degree in
earlier lectures)
Questions to ask therefore
How Brexit was given legal form,
-What the future relationship between the UK and EU will be,
-How the emergence of a legal vacuum was avoided and what the status of EU law is in the post-Brexit
UK.
-How Brexit affected the devolution settlement
Controversial nature of referendums
Referendums are controversial partly because of the difficulty in interpreting a one word answer ("Yes"
to leaving the EU) to a question that can be interpreted in a number of ways.
It is likely that the majority in favour of leaving the EU was composed of people who envisaged this
decision taking very different forms.
Balance to be made - meaningful & disruptive
, All options involved a trade-off between making Brexit meaningful (by ensuring the UK has freedom to
depart from EU law and EU standards) and ensuring Brexit is not disruptive (the more power to depart
from EU approaches means less access to EU markets and more disruption to arrangements entered
into on the expectation of such access).
May vs Johnson government positions
There was a significant shift between the May government and the Johnson government. The May
government was more willing for the UK to follow EU rules in order to maintain free access to the Single
Market (a pointless but less painful Brexit).
The Johnson government was more willing to endure take the economic hit involved in losing access to
the Single Market to make Brexit more meaningful (a more meaningful but more disruptive).
Eventual outcome
Interestingly, the UK ended up with a form of Brexit much more radical than the majority wished for. If
you are interested in this issue, here is a short blog post on how the election of party leaders by party
members (rather than by MPs) represents an important constitutional change that played a key role in
bringing about a hard Brexit (not mandatory reading, only if you are interested)
R. McCrea 'How empowering party members produced a Brexit the voters didn't want' UCL European
Institute Blog 26 January 2021:
https://ucleuropeblog.com/2021/01/26/how-empowering-party-members-produced-a-brexit-the-
voters-didnt-want/
Triggering Article 50
Supreme Court ruled in Miller I that the decision to trigger Article 50 of the European Treaty (the
provision governing exit from the EU) could not be achieved by means of the prerogative powers but,
because the European Communities Act made EU law a source of UK law, parliamentary legislation was
required (note how this ruling is in line with the characterization of the EU as a legal order rather than a
mere treaty seen in Van Gend en Loos).
Boris Johnson's government agreed a Withdrawal Agreement in late 2019 which was ratified by
Parliament in January 2020.
Withdrawal agreement
1. Guarantees of rights of EU citizens living in the UK and UK citizens living in the EU. Agreement on this
topic was reached. EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU will be allowed to remain. EU citizens
may take cases to the CJEU for 8 years in relation to the citizens' rights elements of the Withdrawal
Agreement.
2. A transition period begins lasting from 31 January 2020 to 31 December 2020 during which the UK
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