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For the Scottish government the twin goals of withdrawing from the UK and remaining in the European Union are challenging but potentially attainable. The prospect is not a unicorn vision like the belief that it is possible to leave the EU while keeping current benefits of remaining in the single European market. The Scottish government’s strategy […]
Theresa May has made withdrawal from the European Union the key word in defining what Brexit means, while advocates of remaining in the EU are now arguing for ‘de-withdrawal’, that is, a second referendum held before withdrawal becomes effective. The question on the ballot of this second referendum would be whether people want to endorse or […]
David Cameron started his career as party leader with a simple wish: to get the Conservative Party to ‘stop banging on about Europe’. However, he did not have a strategy for making his dream come true. Instead, he took a series of tactical decisions in hopes that each would silence Tory Eurosceptics committed to ‘banging […]
While Westminster politicians await the day next year when Theresa May will trigger Article 50, beginning a two year negotiation over the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, the count down is different in Scotland. The big question is when Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, will announce a date for holding a second referendum on […]
The referendum question was simple but the outcome has produced a sequence of conundrums. The most immediate question – when should the UK formally notify the EU it will leave – has a simple answer in the abstract: When it is ready. It is also strategically critical, because doing so starts a 24-month countdown until […]
British politicians do not expect to have their actions dictated by clauses in a written constitution but European Union policymakers do. Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union is an awkward constitutional constraint on Theresa May, the new Prime Minister. It not only recognises the right of an EU member state to withdraw […]
In less than a month after entering Downing Street Theresa May has made flying trips to see heads of five European governments that will have a vote on the European Union’s relationship with the United Kingdom once it leaves the Union. More trips will be in the offing, as 27 EU member states will be […]
The House of Commons is debating the Referendum Bill on Monday, which can bind the British government but cannot bind the European Union. Two arch-critics of the EU, Philip Davies MP and David Nuttall MP, have proposed that if the referendum is in favour of leaving the EU, the government should give formal notice of […]
The words referendum and plebiscite refer to electoral institutions in which the mass of the population votes on an issue. However, they have very different political connotations. Plebiscite is a negative term referring to an unfair and unfree vote in an undemocratic political system. It was a favourite device of French Emperors Napoleon Bonaparte and […]
David Cameron faces the risk of winning the EU referendum and losing his job as prime minister if he fails to convince a majority of Tories to back his recommendation to stay in the European Union. While the prime minister favours Britain remaining in the EU on terms he negotiates with Brussels, most Tory voters […]
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