AIIA event: Making sense of the ongoing Brexit stalemate

On 2^nd October 2016, then UK Prime Minister Theresa May Triggered Article 50, paving the way for the UK to leave the European Union. Although there was widespread concern (in particular among ‘remainers’) over the long-term social and economic consequences of leaving the EU, few would have predicted that the negotiation process would take more than three years. In this paper, I will briefly recall the well-known technical barriers that will have to be resolved, but focus on the broader ‘landscape’, and on aspects that tend to get less (if any) airtime in the media. For example, what role did British political culture play? What lessons can we learn from the Cambridge Analytica saga? What role did Hedge Funds play in the Brexit referendum? What measures have been taken to protect the UK’s financial services sector? As I will show, by broadening our horizon in this way, and adopting different analytical lenses (IR and CP), it becomes clear that the current Brexit debacle can be regarded an accident waiting to happen, rather than the outcome of a series of unfortunate party political and diplomatic developments and setbacks.

Frank Mols is Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Queensland, School of Political Science and International Studies. His research interests include populism, voter attitudes, EU attitudes, public policy analysis, political psychology and behavioral economics. His research has been published in leading international journals, such as the European Journal of Political Research, Public Administration, Political Psychology, Evidence and Policy, Journal of Social Issues, China Quarterly, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, West European Politics, Journal of Common Market Studies, and the Australian Journal of Public Administration. His 2017 book ‘The Wealth Paradox: Economic Prosperity and the Hardening of Attitudes’ (co-authored with Prof. Jolanda Jetten) appeared in print in 2017, and was published by Cambridge University Press.