BREXIT ISSUE-CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES

INTRODUCTION

On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom voted 52% to 48% to leave the
European Union (EU). This famously called the BREXIT REFERENDUM was
a startling development for the European continent and largely for the entire
world. It destabilised the financial markets, initiated global debates and paved
way for the inception of fresh relations between the UK and the EU. It
highlighted the dwindling position of the traditional political parties of Britain
and their nuances. Although the referendum vehemently and in stark voices kept
forth the demand for retreating from the EU, the ‘remain’ voters presented some
significant arguments against the ‘leave’ voters. In this article, we shall be
turning our attention to the Brexit Issue, its causes and its consequences.
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE UK AND THE EU

The UK joined the EU in 1973 when European Union was European Economic
Community (EEC). The EU is an ‘intra-continental’ political and economic
union which has 28 countries as its member states. It aims at building a strong
European economic force in the world by providing its member states a
common market with a standardised currency, measurements and weights which
is complemented by free trade and wider immigrant acceptance. The aim is to
primarily engage its members into high economic viability. However, in order
to be eligible to gain EU membership, the states have to open their economies
and political borders accordingly. UK, being the member state, had to undergo
the same process to employ the financial gains for herself. Interestingly,
scholars suggest that this integration between the UK and the EU was much
more differentiated as the agreement was not signed as willingly by Britain as
other countries which further intensified the wrangle.
THE BACKGROUND AND CAUSES BREXIT

As mentioned above, the ‘Differentiated Integration’ went on to be one of the

major causes for Britain leaving European Union. The social changes in Britain
had set the stage for the historic Brexit vote in 2016. During the 1960’s, almost
half of the Britain’s population was engaged in manual job sector and less than
10% of the population had a university degree. After 1990’s, the demography
took a complete turn when the working population decreased to a great extent
and nearly one- third of the electorate were university graduates. These
developments altered the traditional party politics of Britain that was primarily
based on class-divide politics. During this period, Britain had two main political
parties i.e. Labour Party and Conservative Party. The increase in educated
electorate brought social awakening in the UK.
The traditional party politics of Labour Party was based on mobilising the core
working class and, on the other hand, the Conservative Party had to cultivate
cross- class appeal. By the 1990’s, the transformation in the country’s class-
structure altered this calculus. The prominent election winner, Labour Party,
had to face repeated defeats and was thus compelled to develop a new cross-
calculus appeal to deal with the shrinking working class in the country. This
strategy was pursued extensively by Tony Blair who recorded three successive
election victories. The changes in party- tactics comprises of down-playing the
working- class and evolving a centrist party which focused on mobilizing the
middle-class. The Labour Party was rebranded as New Labour Party whose
supporters now included the middle class, university graduates who were deeply
influenced by Liberalism. However, this change in plan of action fetched short-
term results for Labour Party as its power play ended after 13 years. This
success, perhaps, came with a price as the literate population gradually started
losing faith in Labour Party and disassociation with the party began germinating
among these masses.
During 2010, the white working class started to experience disenchantment over
the issue of immigration. This proved to be a new opening for the Conservative
Party to regain its lost support due to Blair era. Withal, the party leader, David
Cameron, focused on modernising the party by mustering support from
graduates and the middle- class, thus, leaving again the white working
population unrepresented and powerless. Apathy from the working class
increased which visibly came out when many of these went on to vote in favour
of Brexit. As the Brexit referendum approached, the two main political parties
were not only ignoring the ethnic and social values of the left behind but were
also marginalising the low- skilled white working class. The ‘left behind’
gathered themselves into United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). This
crystallisation of the left-behind mobilised their social interests and campaigned
heavily against immigration caused by UK’s membership with EU. The UKIP
became the primary driver of public opposition to EU membership,
immigration, ethnic changes and cultural heterogeneity. Between 2010 to 2016,
UKIP gained major mass support from the left behinds and the white working
electorates. Adding to this, another ruckus was created by Tony Blair’ 2003
decision which stated that Britain would not impose even the temporary
restrictions for immigrants from A-8 countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
The A-8 countries included the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. These countries were deeply attracted
by Britain’s employment opportunities which pulled in large number of
migrants from these countries. This influx of migrants raised tensions among
the UK voters who were concerned about the increase in migrants. Therefore, in
the referendum, the issue of immigration held prime position in the political
agenda.
The Brexit voters saw EU membership as the main obstacle in achieving the
goal of reduced immigration as the EU maintains the stance that its members
have to open up their economies and political borders to develop single
European market and major work force. Immigration being the most important
catalyst resulted in value division among the voters and eroded their trust from
the mainstream political parties.
BREXIT-THE REFERENDUM

The ‘remain’ side of the referendum also presented suitable arguments which
focused on destabilising the country’s economy, their personal finances, self-
interests if UK left EU. These appeals were further fuelled by the Treasury
claims that each household would be £4,300 worse off annually if the country
voted for Brexit. The IMF too warned Britain that leaving EU would cause
severe harm to the British Living Standards and massive inflation. However, the
Remain camp failed to grasp the growing concerns of immigration that over-
burdened the argument of economical cost of leaving EU. Considering all the
uprising demands that bubbled up in past few decades, the Brexit Referendum
was held on June 23, 2016. The Leave camp won with 51.9% of the votes with
local authorities and Labour as well as Conservative masses reporting majority
vote on the Leave Side. The Remain side lost with 48.1% of the votes.
CONSEQUENCES AND CONCLUSION

After the big day, the process of withdrawal from the EU began to take its form.
Although the decision was crystal clear but the official paperwork and the
giving up of membership is in itself a long procedure. Therefore, a transition
period was set forth to give both sides breathing spaces to negotiate the future
course of action. While a new free trade agreement was considered to be
important as when UK will leave EU, it will simply restrain itself from the
single market and customs union at the end of this transition. To continue tariff-
free movement of British goods, services and people to other European
countries, Britain is negotiating terms and conditions with the EU. Apart from
trade, law enforcement, data sharing, aviation standards, access to fishing
waters, supplies of electricity and gas, licensing of medicines are some other
aspects of UK-EU future relationship that are being discussed. The transition
period and negotiations form the BREXIT DEAL which is one of the main
highlights of the whole Brexit issue. Although the result of referendum came in
2016 but still Britain has not withdrawn from EU due to the constant
negotiations and heated parliamentary debates carried out by changing
governments in power. While most of the negotiations were done by the
Theresa May government, some major parts were discussed by Boris Johnson.
Brexit was earlier meant to happen on 29 March 2019, but the deadline was
delayed twice after which a fresh date of January 31, 2020 was released. This
deadline was, perhaps, again revoked and now the latest deadline is December
31, 2020 when the world will witness the awaited BREXIT.