36
ISSUES: Citizenship
Chapter 3: Politics in the UK
much of the EU’s body of rules even as
the UK quits the EU, even if that has a
cost measured in reduced external and
internal scope for unilateral action.
None of these choices has beenmade.
Different Brexiteers have made very
different claims at different times about
which model they favour, sometimes
making perfectly irreconcilable claims
about the choices they prefer. Now they
have to choose. And once they have
chosen, and once the blood has been
wiped from the floor after the intense
political battles that will be fought over
the choosing, theywill need to take these
choices to the EU and see what they can
negotiate.
Whatever choice is made will not be
backed by a mandate supplied by
June’s referendum. The Leave campaign
chose not to put one particular vision
of Brexit before the voters. This was
understandable. They could not have
deliveredasinglevisionwithoutexposing
the enormity of the gap between, on
the one hand, the Leavers who want to
maintain a high level of privileged access
to the EU’s internal market while hoping
to reduce the UK’s exposure to the full
range of accompanying regulatory
obligations (especially concerning the
free movement of persons) and, on the
other, the Leavers who were eager to
skip free of the EU’s embrace entirely in
pursuit of avisionof global tradeon terms
tailored to the UK’s needs alone. And the
Leave campaign’s evasion of the choices
allowed it to assemble a much wider
group of supporters than would have
been possible had it made the choices
and pinned down one particular model
of Brexit in advance of the referendum.
Strategically it was a brilliantly successful
way to win the referendum. Choices
that were not made – choices that
Referendums held in the UK
A referendum is amethod of referring a question or set of questions to the entire electorate
directly.
S
ince 1973 there have been 11
referendums held in the UK,
the majority of them have been
related to the issue of devolution.
The first UK-wide referendum was
held in 1975 on the United Kingdom’s
continued membership of the European
Community (European Union).
EU referendum2016
A referendum on the UK’s membership
of the European Union took place on
23 June 2016, when the UK voted to
leave the EU. For information about the
result and the process for leaving the EU,
see the House of Commons Library EU
referendumpages via parliament.uk.
Previous referendums in the UK
Ö
8 March 1973: Northern Ireland
– Northern Ireland sovereignty
referendum on whether Northern
Ireland should remain part of the
United Kingdomor join the Republic
of Ireland (yes to remaining part of
the UK)
Ö
5 June 1975: UK –Membership of the
European Community referendum
onwhether the UK should stay in the
European Community (yes)
Ö
1 March 1979: Scotland – Scottish
devolution referendum on whether
there should be a Scottish Assembly
(40 per cent of the electorate had to
vote yes in the referendum, although
a small majority voted yes this was
short of the 40 per cent threshold
required to enact devolution)
Ö
1 March 1979: Wales – Welsh
devolution referendum on whether
there should be a Welsh Assembly
(no)
Ö
11 September 1997: Scotland –
Scottish devolution referenda on
whether there should be a Scottish
Parliament and whether the Scottish
Parliament should have tax varying
powers (both referendums received
a yes vote)
Ö
18 September 1997: Wales – Welsh
devolution referendum on whether
there should be a National Assembly
for Wales (yes)
Ö
7 May 1998: London – Greater
London Authority referendum on
whether there should be a Mayor
of London and Greater London
Authority (yes)
were calculatedly evaded – are choices
that now must be made. To insist that
whatever deal is finally struck with
the EU-27 should be subject to the
approval of the British people is not to
countermand the verdict delivered last
June: it is instead to ensure that verdict be
arrived at on the basis of production of all
the evidence. If this means that Brexit is
a process not an event – a neverendum
rather than a referendum – then that is
simply the consequence of the way that
the Leave campaign chose not to choose
what Brexit is. The mandate they have
for Brexit is incomplete. Because ‘What
Brexit is’ is still not clear.
Ö
The above information is reprinted
with kind permission from The UK
in a Changing Europe. Please visit
for further
information.
©The UK in a Changing Europe 2017
Ö
22 May 1998: Northern Ireland –
Northern Ireland Belfast Agreement
referendum on the Good Friday
Agreement (yes)
Ö
3 March 2011: Wales – Welsh
devolution referendum on whether
the National Assembly for Wales
shouldgain thepower to legislate on
a wider range of matters (yes)
Ö
5 May 2011: UK – referendum on
whether to change the voting
systemfor electingMPs to theHouse
of Commons from first past the post
to the alternative vote (no, first past
the post will continue to be used to
elect MPs to theHouse of Commons)
Ö
18 September 2014: Scotland –
referendum on whether Scotland
should become an independent
country (no, the electorate voted 55
per cent to 45 per cent in favour of
Scotland remaining within the UK).
Ö
The above information is reprinted
withkindpermissionfromParliament
UK. Please visit
for further information.
©Parliament UK 2017
