10.6092/issn.2531-6133/10490
application/pdf
2531-6133
10490
2
en
Thom Brooks
University of Bologna Law Review
Democracy
Brexit is a Crisis of Leadership, not Democracy
Text.Serial.Journal
https://bolognalawreview.unibo.it/
4
Obiter Dictum
2020-02-11
2020-02-09
2019-08-23
2020-03-17
399-401
UBLR
Thom Brooks
2019
10.6092/issn.2531-6133/10490
399
University of Durham
2531-6133
2
Democracy
en
401
Brexit is a Crisis of Leadership, not Democracy
https://bolognalawreview.unibo.it/article/download/10490/10488
4
OBITER DICTUM                                                          https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2531-6133/10490




                  Brexit is a Crisis of Leadership, not Democracy



In June 2016, the United Kingdom saw a surprise result with 52% of voters
supporting the country's leaving the European Union. This was a surprise on
many levels not least that 'Remain' was the dominant campaign and ahead in
virtually every poll throughout the contest. While this result is sometimes
discussed as a rise in popular nationalism, it is best viewed as a crisis of
political leadership - where Brexit is a means, not an end, to a Conservative
partisan project which also explains the failure of two Prime Ministers to enact
it and a third to 'get Brexit done' as promised.

         The first point is that Brexit didn't originally mean Brexit. At the
beginning, the purpose of Brexit was to stop UKIP from draining support from
the Conservatives. Then Prime Minister David Cameron entered office in an
unwanted coalition government in 2010. A large part of the reason was that
many Tory votes had gone instead to UKIP and its vote share was growing each
election. So to stop it, Cameron offered a referendum on the UK's membership
in EU. His plan was never for Britain to leave, but to get voters to leave UKIP.

         The plan was remarkably successful. At the 2015 general election,
Cameron managed what few Prime Ministers achieve: an increased number of
MPs and overall majority. UKIP's votes had collapsed and his trick had worked
ensuring his Conservative government would continue. On the heels of his
surprise national victory, Cameron raced to conclude the referendum
campaigning against Brexit - to get it over with and then get onto his domestic
legislative agenda. Obviously, things did not go as he planned.

         The second point is that Brexit then came to mean not Brexit, but
becoming the next Tory Prime Minister. Leadership rivals all claimed they
could bring the country together but the real issue was unifying the Tories.
When Cameron resigned, it was only Tory members of Parliament who were



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choosing the next leader after all - and most had backed Leave. Theresa May
emerged victorious by promising her support for Brexit and winning over just
enough initial credibility for not having much campaigned for the other side,
but she had backed Remain and was able to win over anti-Brexit voices too.

       The third point is Brexit was not going to happen, or at least not in the
timescale of two years. While I was heavily criticised at the time for saying in
August 2016 that May would not deliver Brexit, I turned out to be the only one
right about that. Brexit of any variety will damage Britain's economy and
global standing. When people are worse off, it will be no consolation for them
to be told that they should be happy with their declining fortunes because they
had been convinced they should vote for it. Instead, the governing party will
get blamed not least because Brexit was promised to increase prosperity. This
is a heavy incentive not to deliver a Brexit beyond name only.

       And then there is Brexit's complexity. No one seems certain about how
many EU laws the UK would need to divide into what they want to keep, what
they want to change (and if so, how so) and what they want to scrap. One
conservative estimate is there are 18,000 laws to deal with. Without any vision
for what Brexit should look like and after a campaign that lacked a manifesto,
the UK government was never in a position to get to the detail of sorting out
what to do with these 18,000 laws other than keep as is and make everyone
wonder what the point of Brexit really is if it doesn't lead to any changes.

       It was unsurprising therefore to see May take the first six months
fighting an impossible court battle over whether she needed Parliament's
approval to start Brexit. She knew such support would come in a stonking
majority - and ultimately did. But the seemingly vexatious litigation which she
lost had all the appearances of someone trying to get the courts from stopping
Brexit and being a useful scape goat to avoid an outcome the government
didn't truly want.

       May was then soon replaced by Boris Johnson, who colourfully
promised Brexit 'do or die' and that he'd rather be 'dead in a ditch' than see
Brexit fail by 31 October. Yet curiously for someone making such strong
statements, he actually pulled votes on getting Brexit done a week before the
deadline not even bothering to make any serious attempt. More the actions of



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someone using Brexit to rally supporters to keep power than to ensure Brexit
happens come what may in fact.

       At the time of writing, Johnson's pledge to 'get Brexit done' appears to
have helped him win a large majority coupled with a poorly campaign by the
opposition Labour Party. But there are three takeaway points. First, the success
of 'get Brexit done' is not down to support for Brexit, but for bringing to an end
the thus far abstract, endless chatter about Brexit. Voters want to move on and
talk about something else after three years of political paralysis. Secondly,
Johnson has seen the UK technically withdraw from the EU, but otherwise
remain a member in all but name. Freedom of movement continues, the ECJ
remains top and much else.

       And finally, Brexit beyond name only break seems further away than
ever. This is mostly because of the complexity of delivering it and partly a
failure of leadership to come clean on its costs. But it is also a political failure
in a wider sense of being a electioneering football used as a means to secure
power, not an end to be delivered. Without any change in leadership or context,
Britain's paralysis over Brexit may well continue even with a Tory victory.

       Some might say democracy has been betrayed by a failure to deliver
Brexit, but this overlooks the damage to democracy goes much further and
deeper than that. All the while the Prime Minister refuses to publish a report
signed off by the security services for release to public that confirms what, if
any, alleged foreign interference took place in the EU referendum and what
impact this had. One can only speculate why - and therein in secret lies the
greater threat.



                                                                            Thom Brooks
                                                  Professor of Law and Government
                                               Dean of School at Durham Law School
                                                                    United Kingdom




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