Brexit Pocket Guide

This pocket guide will take you from past to present and right across the political spectrum.

-all info correct at January 2019 !!

Brexit. It follows the referendum of 23 June 2016 when 51.9 per cent of those who voted supported withdrawal. Withdrawal has been advocated by Eurosceptics, both left-wing and right-wing, while Pro-Europeanists (or European Unionists), who also span the political spectrum, have advocated continued membership.

The UK joined the European Communities (EC) in 1973 under the Conservative government of Edward Heath, with continued membership endorsed by a referendum in 1975. In the 1970s and 1980s, withdrawal from the European Communities was advocated mainly by the political left, with the Labour Party's 1983 election manifesto advocating complete withdrawal. In the late 1980s, opposition to the development of the EC into an increasingly political union grew on the right, with Margaret Thatcher – despite being a key proponent of the European single market – becoming increasingly ambivalent towards Europe. From the 1990s, opposition to further European integration came mainly from the right, and divisions within the Conservative Party led to rebellion over the Maastricht Treaty in 1992.

The new UK Independence Party (UKIP) was a major advocate of a further referendum on continued membership of what had now become the European Union, and the party's growing popularity in the early 2010s resulted in UKIP being the most successful UK party in the 2014 European Parliament election. The Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron pledged during the campaign for the 2015 UK General Election to hold a new referendum—a promise which he fulfilled in 2016 following the pressure from the Eurosceptic wing of his party. Cameron, who had campaigned to remain, resigned after the result and was succeeded by Theresa May, his former Home Secretary. She called a snap general election less than a year later, but lost her overall majority. Her minority government is supported in key votes by the Democratic Unionist Party.

On 29 March 2017, the Government of the United Kingdom invoked Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. The UK is due to leave the EU on 29 March 2019 at 11 pm UK time, when the period for negotiating a Withdrawal Agreement will end unless an extension is agreed.

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