SUMMARY
Anand Menon and Alan Wager dissect the UK’s political landscape since the 2016 referendum and provide a comprehensive overview of its health as the country withdraws from the European Union. The referendum marked a clear break from traditional politics, as the Leave and Remain campaigns came to provide more ‘suitable’ labels for people’s political identity. Furthermore, the disagreement over the Brexit process between the two camps was complex rather than binary, exposing pre-existing divisions rather than creating new ones. The result is destabilisation, fractures and questions over political identity – and this may well persist even after the Brexit process has concluded.
This chapter is part of the publication Towards an ambitious, broad, deep and flexible EU-UK partnership?, which examines the political, economic, social and institutional implications of the UK’s departure from the EU in different policy fields, as well as its impact on UK politics and EU integration. The contributions in this book, all by leading experts on Brexit, draw from discussions held in the Brexit Think Tank Group, which was set up by the EPC in the aftermath of the 2016 referendum. Through this format, the EPC facilitated a continuing exchange between the European Commission’s Task Force for Relations with the United Kingdom and the policy community.
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