Boris Johnson Delivered Brexit, but Britain's Future Remains Just as Uncertain

 

Boris Johnson Delivered Brexit, but Britain’s Future Remains Just as Uncertain

 

March 15, 2021

 

More than three years after British voters narrowly voted to leave the EU in a 2016 referendum, Boris Johnson finally delivered Brexit on Jan. 31. But the deep divisions the issue opened up have remade the U.K.'s political landscape and show no signs of healing. Meanwhile, the future of the U.K.'s trade relations with the EU and U.S., as well as its global role, remain as uncertain now as they did in the run-up to Brexit. Learn more when you subscribe to World Politics Review (WPR).

 

In July 2019, three years after British voters narrowly voted to leave the European Union in a 2016 referendum, Boris Johnson assumed the office of prime minister amid a political environment characterized by anger, turmoil and confusion. But despite initial stumbles that led some observers to predict he would suffer the same dismal fate as his predecessor, Theresa May, Johnson managed to deliver on his promise to renegotiate the U.K.’s transitional withdrawal agreement with the European Union. His subsequent decisive victory in December 2019 parliamentary elections, built in part on successfully wooing traditional Labour party voters, gave Johnson the ample majority he needed to see his deal through. Before Johnson’s triumph, Brexit had been a disaster for both of the country’s two main political parties. The referendum outcome immediately brought down the Conservative government of former Prime Minister David Cameron, who had called for the vote in the first place. His successor, May, was felled by her inability to get the transitional withdrawal agreement she negotiated with Brussels through Parliament, mainly due to opposition by extremist Brexiteers within her own Tory ranks. For his part, Johnson achieved what May couldn’t, arriving at a transitional Brexit deal that a majority of Parliament could agree on—and then building on that majority in December 2019.

 

Anti-Brexit campaigners’ placards outside the Houses of Parliament, London, Jan. 28, 2019 (Photo by Kirsty O’Connor for EMPPL PA Wire via AP Images).

 

The issue was an unmitigated disaster for the opposition Labour party, which struggled under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn to find a winning position on Brexit. The December 2019 elections marked the party’s worst defeat in decades, in large part due to dissatisfaction with its lack of clarity on Brexit and also popular mistrust of Corbyn. Now Labour is seeking to rebuild under new party leader Keir Starmer, who replaced Corbyn in April 2020 after having previously served as Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary. The U.K.’s future remains uncertain, and the lack of clarity has global implications. London is eager to negotiate post-Brexit trade deals, beginning with the U.S., to make sure that vital exports are not interrupted. But its leverage to do so will be seriously diminished. Meanwhile, the deal Johnson negotiated for a permanent trading relationship with the EU, which took effect Jan. 1, has proved to be as disruptive to the U.K.’s trade with its erstwhile EU partners as critics—and even some supporters—predicted. For better and worse, Johnson will now own the consequences of having finally delivered Brexit. WPR has covered Brexit in detail and continues to examine key questions about what will happen next. What effect will the disruptions caused by the U.K.’s permanent trade deal with the EU have on Boris Johnson’s political fortunes? Will the U.K.’s “divorce” from the EU further weaken the trans-Atlantic alliance? And what kind of global role will the U.K. have after Brexit? Below are some of the highlights of WPR’s coverage.

 

 

Latest Coverage The Post-Brexit Trade Deal Is Off to a Rocky Start The United Kingdom’s delayed departure from the European Union and the implementation of a hard-fought, post-Brexit trade agreement on Jan. 1 have led to the most significant rise in barriers between any major trading partners in recent memory. There is no meaningful precedent to draw on when projecting what comes next, other than the general experience that higher trade barriers mean less trade and more economic loss. It is early days, but so far this forecast looks accurate. Domestic Politics and ‘Global Britain’ Over the past four years, Brexit became the new dividing line in British politics, superseding the previous left-right fault line of Tory versus Labour. Johnson’s election victory in December 2019 brought closure on whether or not Brexit will happen, but it won’t necessarily heal those divisions. Nor does it offer any guidance for how to orient the U.K.’s foreign policy in a world increasingly characterized by geostrategic and geo-economic competition. Why the U.K. will have to reconcile its competing priorities on relations with China, in The U.K.’s Incoherent China Strategy How the U.K. can craft an effective post-Brexit international role, in In the Aftermath of Brexit, What Can ‘Global Britain’ Be? How the U.K.’s effort to make human rights a central pillar of its post-Brexit foreign policy is running up against commercial interests in the Persian Gulf, in The Many Contradictions of ‘Global Britain’ in the Gulf Why the coronavirus pandemic will have a lasting impact on British politics, in How Britain’s New Labour Party Leader Could Challenge the Tories After COVID-19

 

 

The Difficulty of Delivering Brexit During the referendum campaign in 2016, many pro-Brexit leaders downplayed the difficulties of actually delivering Brexit, from the Northern Ireland border to the economic consequences of leaving the EU, while exaggerating the ease with which the U.K. would negotiate follow-on trade deals. But perhaps nowhere was the absence of a realistic approach more painfully obvious than in the negotiations with Brussels that followed the referendum. Why the drama over the U.K.’s withdrawal from the EU is continuing down to the wire, in Boris Johnson Is Hurtling the U.K. Toward Another Brexit Cliff Why negotiations over a post-Brexit trade deal between the U.K. and EU will be déjà vu all over again, in Brexit’s Finish Line Is Only the ‘End of the Beginning’ for Britain and the EU What Johnson’s renegotiated withdrawal agreement revealed about the future of U.K. trade policy, in With Another Brexit Delay, More Uncertainty—and a Glimpse at Future British Trade Why sealing a U.S.-U.K. trade deal will be tougher than both sides let on, in Despite Trump and Johnson’s Optimism, a U.S.-U.K. Trade Deal Won’t Be So Easy The Irish Backstop The border between Ireland and Northern Ireland emerged as a key flashpoint in the Brexit negotiations. With both jurisdictions within the EU’s single market and customs union, there were no barriers to trade or movement. But negotiators were hamstrung over how to maintain that status quo after the U.K. withdrew from the EU. Johnson claimed to have solved that problem, but the practical impact of the so-called backstop now that it is in effect seems to be validating concerns that it might reignite tensions that fueled the decades-long conflict, known as The Troubles, pitting Catholic republicans against Protestant unionists. How the coronavirus pandemic is compounding the impact of Brexit, in For the U.K. and Ireland, Brexit and COVID-19 Are a Perfect Storm How the coronavirus pandemic helped make the case for a reunited Ireland, in Will Ireland and the U.K.’s Divided Responses to COVID-19 Fuel Irish Unification? Why Johnson’s solution to the Irish backstop is not really a solution at all, in Brexit Still Hasn’t Solved the Problem of Northern Ireland Why Brexit can only be bad news for Northern Ireland, in In Northern Ireland, There’s No Such Thing as a ‘Good Brexit’