Abstract
David Cameron hoped to heal the rift within his own party with the help of a referendum. He was under mounting pressure from UKIP. After winning the referendum on Scottish independence with a safe margin—against all expectations—he felt confident about winning an EU referendum with the same strategy of intimidation and unsettling threats. He kept stoking expectations that he was unable to fulfil. He remained isolated with his ideas of EU reform.
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Notes
- 1.
The European Union Act (Referendum Lock) of 2011 was designed to foil numerous and insistent pushes for an EU referendum. It made a referendum obligatory, but only in circumstances that were far away in a distant future. A transfer of competences would require extensive treaty change and Cameron was well aware that such change was not imminent. The wording of this piece of legislation is almost unreadable, but there is a succinct summary available. (https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/europeanunion.html, 14 February 2018). Vernon Bogdanor comments: “It is doubtful if a more absurd piece of legislation has ever been enacted at Westminster.” (Beyond Brexit, London (2019), p. 83).
- 2.
The motion was: “That this House calls upon the Government to introduce a Bill in the next session of Parliament to provide for the holding of a national referendum on whether the United Kingdom should (a) remain a member of the European Union on the current terms; (b) leave the European Union; or (c) re-negotiate the terms of its membership in order to create a new relationship based on trade and co-operation.” (https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm111024/debtext/111024-0002.htm , 24 February 2018).
- 3.
After five hours of debate, the motion was defeated 483 to 111. All three major parties had applied a three-line whip. It was the most serious Tory rebellion since the war. In 1992, only 41 Tories had defied the whip in voting against Maastricht and their then leader, John Major.
- 4.
Cruel tongues whispered that Cameron talked in poetry but acted in prose.
- 5.
Despite its name, UKIP was a thoroughly English party. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland it never scored in the double digits. In the East and Northeast of England, UKIP secured up to 35% of the vote.
- 6.
Syriza won elections in January 2015. Tsipras and Varoufakis pushed their country to the verge of Grexit. In the summer of 2015, Tsipras held a referendum on membership of the Eurozone only to ignore the explicit vote of the people a few days later. Three months later, he won another general election.
- 7.
David Cameron’s most important advisors on EU affairs were Jon Cunliffe (PermRep in Brussels), Tom Scholar and Ivan Rogers (Head of EU and Global Issues in Number 10). They had gathered experience in central functions of government, at the Treasury and in the City. None of them had a diplomatic background. None of them had worked in Brussels. None of them had personal networks throughout the EU.
- 8.
The British intervention in Iraq of 2003 had been the subject of an official commission of inquiry under the chairmanship of Sir John Chilcot. It submitted its final report not before July 2016. But in 2013, it was already common knowledge that the commission would pass a negative judgment on Blair’s assessment of Saddam Hussein’s military capabilities and intentions. It was clear to everyone that the decision to send British soldiers to Iraq had ended in high losses and few (if any) positive results.
- 9.
The quotum of the No vote was 46.8% and that was remarkably close to 50%.
- 10.
Margaret Thatcher in the House of Commons, 30 October 1990 (https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/108234, 8 March 2018).
- 11.
Fresh Start cooperated closely with the Open Europe think tank. Open Europe became a workshop generating new ideas for Cameron. Its director, Mats Persson, joined Cameron’s team at Number 10 in 2015. Fresh Start published its Green Paper in 2013. Foreign Secretary William Hague contributed an approving foreword (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/278507/Fresh_Start__full_.pdf, 13 March 2019).
- 12.
Carswell left UKIP again before the 2017 election. His electoral success was primarily due to the fact that he had represented his constituency already for over nine years. People voted for a familiar face rather than for the UKIP ticket.
- 13.
Voting in by-elections is notoriously difficult to predict. Voters are much more likely to cast a protest vote than they would in a general election.
- 14.
Majority voting under British electoral law makes it extremely difficult for small parties to win a seat. But if a number of seats are contested (marginal constituencies), a small party taking away a relatively small number of votes can have a huge effect in making such seats change hands. For fear of inroads from such smaller parties, candidates of established parties tend to move closer to demands and programmes of smaller parties. In the case of UKIP, Conservative candidates suddenly sounded much more nationalist and anti-EU. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that UKIP had staged an unfriendly take-over of the Conservative party. After 2017, one could say that the Conservatives had swallowed UKIP but at the price of heavy indigestion. Others talked of a Faustian bargain in which the Conservatives had sold their soul to UKIP to stay in power.
- 15.
It was the seat of Douglas Carswell who had defected to UKIP a year earlier and had kept his seat in the subsequent by-election. Nigel Farage was defeated again in his South Thanet constituency. But he came a strong second with 32.4% of the vote and relegated Labour to third position.
- 16.
Only 4.7% of the electorate voted SNP, the party won nevertheless 56 seats. UKIP won 12.6% of the total vote but was left with only one seat. It was a striking example of the distortions of the British first-past-the-post electoral system.
- 17.
William Pitt the Younger was appointed Prime Minister in 1783, aged 24. He remained in office until 1801. He served again as Prime Minister from 1804 until his premature death in 1806.
- 18.
This demand figured prominently in the manifestos of Labour, LDP, Greens, UKIP and BNP.
- 19.
Farage revoked that resignation shortly afterwards. He finally resigned after the referendum in the summer of 2016.
- 20.
On closer inspection, this supposition seems highly improbable. The Liberal Democrats had left no doubt that they would never agree to an EU referendum. Cameron would have lost all credibility if he had buckled. He could not seriously sacrifice his repeated promises on the altar of harmony within a coalition. Donald Tusk has said that Cameron believed he would never have to deliver on his promise. (Guardian: Cameron did not think EU referendum would happen, 21 January 2019 (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/21/donald-tusk-warned-david-cameron-about-stupid-eu-referendum-bbc, 31 January 2019). If that is true, it shows that Cameron was not only naive, but insincere.
- 21.
Cameron had antagonised various subgroups in his party when he supported gay marriage, radical reform of the House of Lords, grammar schools and higher budgets for the Department for International Development. His austerity policy and his coalition with the Liberal Democrats were anathema in the eyes of many right-wing Tories. This was all the more reason why Cameron had to keep his party together on the question of EU membership.
- 22.
In those days, Cameron had no idea that he owed this resounding success to exactly those campaign professionals who would, with no lesser success, orchestrate the campaign against him in 2016.
- 23.
Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1.
- 24.
After the Salzburg summit in September 2018, Jeremy Hunt, then Foreign Secretary, said: “The way that Britain reacts is not that we crumble or fold but actually you end up invoking the Dunkirk spirit and we fight back.” The Daily Telegraph, 30 September 2018 (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/09/30/jeremy-hunt-warns-eu-bad-brexit-deal-will-stir-britains-dunkirk/, 14 March 2019).
- 25.
Some people punned that ‘Britannia Rules the Waves’ only applied outside the EU. Inside it should read ‘Britannia waives the rules.’
- 26.
Cameron had completely underestimated the public effect of members of Cabinet attacking their own Prime Minister and Leader of their party. This made headlines against the background that Cameron had thrown open the contest for his succession. It engendered endless gossip and speculation. It became the talk of the town for weeks.
- 27.
Theresa May made use of the opt-out in the field of police and judicial cooperation. She took her country out of 133 provisions, but accepted 35 of them unilaterally a few days later. Among them was the European Arrest Warrant.
- 28.
These concerns were justified. This was demonstrated in 2016, when CETA was almost scuppered because the Belgian region of Wallonia refused to give its consent for ratification. Shortly before that, the Dutch population had almost stopped the EU Association Agreement with Ukraine through a negative referendum.
- 29.
In her view, this was valid even to freedom of movement outside the EU, as 2015 showed.
- 30.
In the words of an anonymous moderate Conservative critic of Cameron: “Cameron kept making concessions against his own better judgment in order to win the approval of people he deeply despised and whose ideas were incompatible with his own.”
- 31.
The wording “the United Kingdom, in the light of the specific situation it has under the Treaties, is not committed to further political integration into the European Union” is not without ambiguity. It can be interpreted as descriptive and subjective as well as prescriptive and objective. In the first case, it simply states a fact; in the second, it relieves the UK from a legal obligation.
- 32.
Conclusions of the meeting of the EU Council of 18/19 February 2016 (http://www.consilium.europa.eu/de/meetings/european-council/2016/02/18-19/, 28 March 2018).
- 33.
The wording of the conclusions supports this view. It repeatedly underlines that their content has to be incorporated into the treaties at a later stage: “The substance of this Section will be incorporated into the Treaties at the time of their next revision in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Treaties and the respective constitutional requirements of the Member States.” Or in another context: “The competences conferred by the Member States on the Union can be modified, whether to increase or reduce them, only through a revision of the Treaties with the agreement of all Member States.” What has to be incorporated into the treaties cannot be part of these treaties and therefore has a different legal quality.
- 34.
Parallels between the EU (or rather its most powerful Member State, Germany) and Hitler were standard stereotypes. This is still the strongest evocation of hatred, national pride and defensive reflexes in Britain. Boris Johnson contended that the EU was seeking to succeed where Napoleon and Hitler had failed (Sunday Telegraph, 15 May 2016). Michael Gove talked about the EU encouraging Hitler fans and given them a voice (Daily Mail, 6 March 2016). Typical the comment of a Leave supporter: “If we stay, Britain will be engulfed in a few short years by this relentlessly expanding German-dominated Federal State.” The nadir of these juxtapositions was reached by a poster of Vote Leave which showed British soldiers in the trenches of the Great War exclaiming: “So, you are telling us that 100 years from now, our descendants are just going to hand Britain over to the Germans without lifting a finger??? BREXIT!” (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck-nbn3XIAAh6Y7.jpg, 12 March 2018).
- 35.
It was the first and only ever cabinet meeting held on a Saturday since the Falklands War.
- 36.
Founded on 12 October 2015. Damian Green represented the Conservatives, Peter Mandelson Labour, Danny Alexander the LibDems, Caroline Lucas the Greens. There were also some prominent people of public life involved such as Sir Peter Wall, former Chief of Staff of the British Army, Sir Brendan Barber, former Secretary General of TUC, Jude Kelly, artistic director of the Southbank Centre, and Stuart Rose, former CEO of Marks & Spencer.
- 37.
Unfortunately, the acronym w BSE has unfortunate connotations in the UK as the formal designation for the ‘mad cow disease’ that had previously ravaged British cattle (bovine spongiform encephalopathy).
- 38.
Founded on 1 December 2015 by Alan Johnson, who is neither related to nor otherwise connected with Boris Johnson.
- 39.
During the referendum campaign of 1975, leaders of all political parties had made joint appearances. On 4 June 2016 six former Labour leaders (Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Neil Kinnock, Ed Miliband and the temporary leaders Harriet Harmann and Margaret Beckett) published a joint letter urging voters passionately to vote Remain. Jeremy Corbyn again refused to add his signature this letter.
- 40.
Tusk justified this by arguing that he had prevented unauthorised, underhand publication. He failed to inform the British side of his intentions, so the Cameron government was taken aback by Tusk’s sudden move.
- 41.
The director of communication at Number 10, Craig Oliver, did not help with Britain Stronger in Europe until the end of May.
- 42.
A high-ranking officer in the headquarters of Britain Stronger in Europe found strong words for this situation: “You can’t start fattening pigs on market day.”
- 43.
Some posters of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign made this explicit: “Don’t let them gamble with your future!” “Leaving Europe would be a leap in the dark!”, “Alternatives are all worse”.
- 44.
Obama’s words: “in the back of the queue” were—probably correctly—interpreted as a prompt from Number 10. No American would use the word ‘queue’, but would speak of a ‘line’. Dominic Raab, a vociferous Brexiteer in the Conservative party and later destined for a brief interlude as Brexit Minister, commented: “I don’t think the British people will be blackmailed by anyone, let alone by a lame-duck US President.” Shipman: All out War, p. 235.
- 45.
Faisal Islam asked Cameron on Sky News on 2 June 2016 (i.e. three weeks before voting day): “What comes first: World War three or global Brexit-recession?” This was a malicious question. Islam provoked huge applause and laughter for himself, and against poor Cameron (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjOBcAelzJQ, 27 February 2018).
- 46.
An anecdote can illustrate this unbridgeable gap between intellectuals and ordinary people. In a presentation that explained macroeconomic models and simulated the effects of Brexit on GDP, an elderly lady exclaimed: “It is your bloody GDP, not ours!” (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/10/blunt-heckler-economists-failing-us-booming-britain-gdp-london, 27 February 2018).
- 47.
The referendum had been initiated by the Liberal Democrats who understandably hoped to profit from a more proportionate electoral system. It was fiercely opposed by the Conservatives. In the end, the initiative foundered with 67.9% of the vote against, and only 32.1% in favour.
- 48.
The homepage of Vote Leave with this claim appeared for the first time in October 2015 (http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/why_vote_leave.html 19 January 2019).
- 49.
Most of those who had fought for Leave admitted after 23 June 2016 that these promises were baseless. Only Boris Johnson doubled down on his previous declarations and a year later renewed his guarantee that those £350 million would be ploughed into the NHS (http://metro.co.uk/2017/04/27/boris-johnson-stands-by-350million-vote-leave-bus-message-6600240/, 13 October 2018).
- 50.
These are all expressions from the Leave campaign.
- 51.
This was a perfidious half-truth. This argument was not false in purely quantitative terms, but only if all regulations, norms and standards defined by the EU were actually counted. But these laws were confined to trade and industry. They were technical norms not prescriptive commandments. They were addressed to specialists in their respective fields and hardly touched the large population. The argument failed to take into account that most of these laws formed the foundation of the Single Market, something pushed by all British governments. It also failed to mention that most of these Brussels made regulations would have to be substituted by national rules that would be costly and would impair free trade. Finally, most of these regulations and directives had received political consent by British representatives in Brussels.
- 52.
Cameron had said on 28 November 2014 in Staffordshire: “People want government to have control over the number of people coming here and the circumstances in which they come. They want control over who has the right to receive benefits and what is expected of them in return. People want grip. I get that. I completely agree with that.” (https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/jcb-staffordshire-prime-ministers-speech und http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-30250299, 05.05.2018). Speech on 14 April 2011 (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/apr/14/david-cameron-immigration-speech-full-text, 5 May 2018).
- 53.
Figures from Migration Watch UK (https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/statistics-net-migration-statistics, 13 Sept. 2018). Remember that these are net figures. Gross immigration was higher, for Britons leaving the country reduced the gross figures. This made the subjectively felt impact of foreigners much higher, for more foreigners arrived and the British (English) population shrank because of emigration.
- 54.
The picture had been taken on the Balkans in the autumn of 2015. It had nothing to do with the United Kingdom.
- 55.
On 9 March 2016, Nigel Farage declared in the European Parliament: “A vote for Remain is a vote for Turkey!” (https://www.youtube.com/redirect?v=_AzBXNDNBtQ&redir_token=zfaVR9gv5LBKH3IcEoFlTCFm0Q98MTUxOTc0NjAyOEAxNTE5NjU5NjI4&event=video_description&q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ukipmeps.org/, 15 May 2018). See Farrall and Goldsmith (2017, pp. 400–404). Daily Express, 3 June 2016 (https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/676548/nigel-farage-david-cameron-eu-turkey, 13 May 2018). On his visit to Ankara in 2011, David Cameron had promised, ‘to pave the road from Brussels to Ankara’. This quote was now used against him. The United Kingdom had traditionally always supported EU enlargement, hoping the more diversity would make further integration more difficult. Vote Leave turned a prospective EU membership of Turkey, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo into a national nightmare.
- 56.
The Sun, 9 March 2016 (https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1078504/revealed-queen-backs-brexit-as-alleged-eu-bust-up-with-ex-deputy-pm-emerges/, 13 May 2018). The factual background was a conversation five years previously. In those days, nobody—least of all the Queen—was thinking of Brexit. The Sun broke the iron rule that conversations with the Monarch remain private and that the Crown is not supposed to comment on current political affairs.
- 57.
The Brexit movement runs several websites. More detailed information about the arguments advanced in their campaign can be found on Brexit Central (https://brexitcentral.com, 15 March 2019), Economists for Free Trade (https://www.economistsforfreetrade.com, 15 March 2019), or Institute for Economic Affairs (https://iea.org.uk/category/brexit/, 17 March 2019).
- 58.
Tusk for the European Council, Juncker for the Commission, Schulz for Parliament, Draghi for the ECB and Dijsselbloem for the Eurogroup (https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/5-presidents-report_en.pdf, 13 April 2018).
- 59.
TINA: There is no alternative.
- 60.
The procedure did not formally contradict the letter of the Treaty, but certainly its spirit. The European Parliament prejudiced the nomination of a candidate which was the undisputed right of the Council by presenting two candidates selected from within the Parliament and proclaiming that no other candidate would be endorsed by Parliament. Parliamentary endorsement was, however, indispensable to be confirmed in office.
- 61.
Cameron had a strong case for complaint. Article 17(7) TEU states that the European Council submits a candidate for endorsement by the European Parliament, taking into account results of the last elections. Parliament then votes on this candidate. Should the first candidate not receive a majority, the Council has to nominate another candidate and present him or her to Parliament. The treaty language leaves no doubt that the initiative in proposing a suitable candidate is the prerogative of the Council. The backstairs understanding between Juncker and Schulz turned this arrangement on its head. Parliament proposed two Spitzenkandidaten and left it to the Council to choose one of them.
- 62.
Cameron stopped at nothing to besmirch Juncker and to attack his personal integrity. He alluded to alcoholism and dirty financial deals, he even started rumours about Nazi connections in Juncker’s family—always an unfailing weapon to discredit someone irretrievably. Cameron’s staff intervened systematically with European partners to stop Juncker. Unfortunately, they had to admit that Schulz was even less acceptable. Behind closed doors, Cameron threatened that should Juncker become President of the Commission, this would hasten Brexit.
- 63.
On 22 May 2019 British Steel announced insolvency.
- 64.
His first director of communications, Andy Coulson, had been chief editor of the News of the World, which was part of the Murdoch media empire. It was a paper almost exclusively devoted to gossip, prurient sensationalism and lurid details about scandals in high society. Coulson had to step down because of widespread phone hacking. Cameron hired him nevertheless as his personal communications director and kept him in that position when he entered Number 10. The phone hacking affair resurfaced, and on 8 June 2011, Coulson was arrested on the charge of illegal phone hacking. The trial brought to light a web of questionable interactions between Cameron, Coulson and Coulson’s lover Rebekah Brooks who also had an important position within the Murdoch group as Editor of the News of the World (Coulson’s predecessor) and of The Sun. Coulson was sentenced in 2014 for a conspiracy to intercept voice mails (phone hacking). The affair remained a stain on Cameron’s reputation.
- 65.
His rival, Boris Johnson, came from a hardly less privileged background, But he consciously cultivated a style of affability and authenticity. His sometime bizarre remarks were taken as sincerity. He made a point of using colloquial language, and he demonstratively rode a bike with a helmet. An opinion poll at the end of May 2016 showed that only 18% of voters believed Cameron to be honest as against 31% who believed that Johnson was sincere.
- 66.
Rumours still circulate about Sadiq Khan that resemble those that were peddled by extremist Republicans in the USA about Barack Obama and his wife Michelle. An old saying has it that the high Anglican Church is nothing but the Conservative party in prayer.
- 67.
Nigel Farage left no doubt that he would not accept a narrow Remain victory. On 16 My 2016 he told the Daily Mirror: “In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the remain campaign wins two-thirds to one-third that ends it.” (https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nigel-farage-wants-second-referendum-7985017, 15 March 2019). A day later he told the BBC: “If we were to lose narrowly, there’d be a large section, particularly in the Conservative Party, who’d feel the prime minister is not playing fair, that the Remain side is using way more money than the Leave side and there would be a resentment that would build up if that was to be the result.” (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36306681, 15 March 2019). On voting day (23 June 2016) Farage proclaimed: “I think that Remain might just nick it. Win or lose this battle, we will win this war.” (https://news.sky.com/story/win-or-lose-this-battle-well-win-this-war-10323299, 15 March 2019).
- 68.
On 18 February 2019, seven Labour MPs left the party and constituted the Independent Group in parliament. They complained that Jeremy Corbyn practiced an authoritarian, dictatorial leadership, that he tolerated racism and anti-semitism and that he had betrayed the party over Brexit. Another Labour MP followed suit the next day, quickly followed by a trio of female Tory MPs.
- 69.
Member States of the EU have broken their commitments under the Stability and Growth Pact of 1999 more than 170 times. The German Chancellor Helmut Kohl had sold this pact as the ultimate guarantee that the euro would be as stable and solid as the deutschmark. Even discounting those cases where exceptional circumstances were invoked with some credibility, there are still 110 infringements without any official sanctions. Theoretically, the pact specifies painful monetary fines for infringements. France has almost continuously failed to meet the targets of the pact. Jean-Claude Juncker justified this leniency of the Commission with the words: “Parce que c’est la France, la France de toujours.” A verdict of the CJEU would have been highly political. It would certainly have provoked a storm of protest in Britain. The Commission and other Member States would have had to tread extremely carefully in imposing sanctions. Presumably Cameron would have got off with a stern reprimand. Perhaps Juncker would have commented: “Parce que c’est le Royaume Uni, le Royaume Uni de toujours.”
- 70.
Even then, the UK might have kept the option to escalate and to withhold contributions for as long as voting rights remained suspended. If it had come to a showdown, the odds clearly favoured the UK.
- 71.
His advisors seriously explored possibilities of curtailing social benefits unilaterally without or even against EU law and to turn the referendum lock of 2011 into a permanent barrier that would prevent a gradual erosion of British law and the British statute book. They were guided by the decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany. Cameron never considered openly provoking the EU.
- 72.
Government of Scotland: White Paper, published in autumn 2013 (http://www.gov.scot/resource/0043/00439021.pdf, 12 March 2018).
- 73.
After the triumph for Leave, he changed his view.
- 74.
The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are demesnes of the Crown. They do not form part of the United Kingdom and are not members of the EU. They partake in the Single Market and in the Customs Union. Brexit strikes at the heart of the business model of the Channel Islands, yet they had no voice in it.
- 75.
Quod omnes tangit, ab omnibus approbetur.
- 76.
The vote in Gibraltar was even more explicit: 96% of voters preferred Remain (turnout 84%, quotum 80.6%). Remaining inside the EU was not tantamount to joining Spain. Gibraltar keeps a distinct British identity.
- 77.
Alistair Burt, Tory MP, noted after the referendum: “I argued that the first chance the British people were going to get to vote on the EU, they’d vote NO, no matter, what the question was.” (Shipman, All out war, p. 7).
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Shipman, T. (2017). All Out War. The Full Story of Brexit (p. 143). London: Collins.
Shipman, T. (2017). All Out War. The Full Story of Brexit (p. 144). London: Collins. On 27 February 2016, Cameron declared in an article he contributed to the Telegraph: “A Vote to Leave Is the Gamble of the Century.” Retrieved March 24, 2018, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/12176325/David-Cameron-Brexit-would-be-gamble-of-the-century.html. He did not answer the question why and how he himself could have advocated this choice a couple of months previously.
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Further Reading
Armstrong, K. A. (2017). Brexit Time. Leaving the EU – Why, How and When? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ashcroft, M., & Culwick, K. (2016). Well, You did ask…Why the UK voted to leave the EU. London: Biteback.
Ashcroft, M., & Oakshott, I. (2016). Call Me Dave. The Unauthorised Biography of David Cameron. London: Biteback.
Bennett, O. (2016). The Brexit Club. The Inside Story of the Leave Campaign’s Shock Victory. London: Biteback.
Buckledee, S. (2018). The Language of Brexit: How Britain Talked Its Way Out of the European Union. London: Bloomsbury.
Clarke, H., Goodwin, M., & Whiteley, P. (2017). Brexit. Why Britain Voted to Leave the European Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Culkin, N., & Simmons, R. (2019). Tales of Brexit Past and Present. Bingley: Emerald.
Diamond, P., Nedergaard, P., & Rosamond, B. (Eds.). (2018). Routledge Handbook of the Politics of Brexit. Abingdon: Routledge.
Dunt, I. (2016). Brexit. What the Hell Happens Now? Kingston upon Thames: Canbury.
Evans, G., & Menon, A. (2017). Brexit and British Politics. Cambridge: Polity.
Fabbrini, F. (Ed.). (2017). The Law and Politics of Brexit. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Glencross, A. (2016). Why the UK Voted for Brexit: David Cameron’s Great Miscalculation. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Green, D. A. (2017). Brexit: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hillman, J., & Horlick, G. (Eds.). (2017). Legal Aspects of Brexit. Implications of the United Kingdom’s Decision to Withdraw from the European Union. Washington, DC: Institute of International Economic Law.
Hosp, G. (2018). Brexit: Zwischen Wahn und Sinn: Eine Klippe für Großbritannien und Europa. Zurich: NZZ-Libro.
Kauders, D. (2016). Understanding Brexit Options. What future for Britain? Southampton: Sparkling Books.
Kramme, M., Baldus, C., & Schmidt-Kessel, M. (Eds.). (2016). Brexit und die juristischen Folgen: Privat- und Wirtschaftsrecht der Europäischen Union. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Niedermeier, A., & Ridder, W. (2017). Das Brexit-Referendum. Hintergründe, Streitthemen, Perspektiven. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
O’Toole, F. (2018). Heroic Failure. Brexit and the Politics of Pain. Head of Zeus: Croydon.
Oliver, T. (2018). Understanding Brexit: A Concise Introduction. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
Rogers, I. (2019). 9 Lessons in Brexit. London: Short Books.
Seldon, A., & Snowdon, P. (2016). Cameron at 10. The Verdict. London: Collins.
Shipman, T. (2017). All Out War. The Full Story of Brexit. London: Collins.
Smith, J. (2017). The UK’s Journey Into and Out of the EU: Destinations Unknown. Abingdon: Routledge.
Stäuber, P. (2018). Sackgasse Brexit: Reportagen aus einem gespaltenen Land. Zurich: Rotpunkt.
Szyszkowitz, T. (2018). Echte Engländer: Britannien nach dem Brexit. Vienna: Picus.
Taylor, D. J. (2017a). Who Do the British Think They Are? From the Anglo Saxons to Brexit, Stroud, The History Press
Taylor, G. (2017b). Understanding Brexit. Why Britain Voted to Leave the European Union, Bingley, Emerald Publishing
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Adam, R.G. (2020). Cameron Fighting the EU and His Own Party: Preparing for Brexit. In: Brexit. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22225-3_2
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