EU leaders gather for 2 day EU Summit, Oct.17, 2017. German Chancellor Angela Merkel with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Theresa May and the French President Emmanuel Macron. Monasse Thierry/Press Association. All rights reserved.Whatever else it has been, the debate over the United Kingdom (UK) leaving the European Union (EU) has been inward-looking. It has focused, first and foremost, on the question of what Brexit could or should mean for Britain. This narrow domestic focus is also reflected in the Brexit debates taking place in the remaining 27 EU member states. These tend to frame Brexit as the result of factors specific to the UK – its isolationist mentality, its uncodified constitution, its ‘rabid’ press culture – rather than as the result of the broader problems of European politics. This has led to an overly optimistic debate among the EU27 about the future of the European project.
The double insularity in the debate risks obscuring broader socio-political changes within Europe that arguably influenced the British vote to leave. These factors are affecting other member states in much the same way as they are affecting the UK, and will not be laid to rest by British withdrawal.
Seeking to redress this imbalance, this policy brief explores the pan-European phenomena that prepared the ground for Brexit, and highlights some of the consequences of Brexit for Europe, drawing on arguments made by some of the 28 leading scholars we brought together for our recent book, Brexit and Beyond.[1]
