Taking Back Control as Democratic Theory
Albert Weale2022, Global Policy
Sign up for access to the world's latest research
checkGet notified about relevant papers
checkSave papers to use in your research
checkJoin the discussion with peers
checkTrack your impact
Abstract
The slogan 'take back control' was central to Brexit. The conception of democracy this slogan embodies is the traditional Westminster model. It is a model in the sense that it is supposed to provide a simplified characterisation of the operative principles of UK politics and government, although practice in fact diverges from those principles. It is also a model in the sense that the Westminster system is seen by those favouring Brexit as an ideal to which practice needs to be restored. The model can be associated with a corresponding conception of democracies in the international order. However, there are both functional and democratic disadvantages with that account of democracy and the international order, disadvantages that the development of the EU highlights. Two alternative models of democracy beyond the nation state are identified, before concluding that the Westminster model has a past but not a future.
Related papers
Who is in Control? Brexit and the Westminster Model
The Political Quarterly
This article provides a preliminary assessment of the impact of the Brexit process-from the June 2016 referendum to June 2018-on the British political system. Drawing on the classic work of Lijphart and the ensuing scholarship applying the Westminster model to Britain, it seeks to understand whether and to what extent Brexit has impacted on the majoritarian features of the system. Adapting Lijphart's criteria, it places its focus on the electoral-party dimension, the executive-legislative relations and the territorial power-sharing arrangements. It argues that Brexit has brought to light several intertwined tensions that had been brewing inside British politics over the course of the previous years, and which are likely to continue unfolding for several years. Even if emerging trends tend to be fragile, complex, even contradictory, and the current uncertainty makes any long(er)-term assessment futile, recent developments appear to signal a possible strengthening of the executive over the legislature and of the central over the devolved administrations, thus consolidating the majoritarian traits of the British political system.
Brexit and the Illusion of Democracy
Socialism and Democracy, 2017
The British referendum of 23 June 2016 and subsequent withdrawal from the European Union is often regarded as heralding a new democratic era for Britain as she is freed from the shackles of undemocratic EU institutions. After briefly analysing the validity of claims regarding the existence of a 'democratic deficit' in the EU, this paper examines whether national and popular sovereignty are likely to be reaffirmed by the experience of the referendum and its aftermath. It argues that, on the contrary, national sovereignty risks being further undermined as the UK, under the current conservative government, assumes a hyperglobalist position which prioritises free trade over other democratic freedoms. It also suggests that the referendum did little to revive popular sovereignty. Although the 'Leave' vote will be respected, the referendum debate itself was nothing more than a simulacrum of democracy. Far from solving the democratic deficit, the problem has only been exacerbated at a national level following the 'Remain' votes in Scotland and Northern Ireland. In the final analysis, this 'democratic moment', at least under a conservative government, was entirely illusory.
The Political Quarterly (2018) Who is in control? Brexit and the Westminster Model
This article provides a preliminary assessment of the impact of the Brexit process – from the June 2016 referendum to June 2018 – on the British political system. Drawing on the classic work of Lijphart and the ensuing scholarship applying the Westminster model to Britain, it seeks to understand whether and to what extent Brexit has impacted on the majoritarian features of the system. Adapting Lijphart's criteria, it places its focus on the electoral-party dimension, the executive-legislative relations and the territorial power-sharing arrangements. It argues that Brexit has brought to light several intertwined tensions that had been brewing inside British politics over the course of the previous years, and which are likely to continue unfolding for several years. Even if emerging trends tend to be fragile, complex, even contradictory, and the current uncertainty makes any long(er)-term assessment futile, recent developments appear to signal a possible strengthening of the executive over the legislature and of the central over the devolved administrations, thus consolidating the majoritarian traits of the British political system.
Westminster as Usual? Three Interpretations for the UK Democracy
The Brexit process has shattered the foundations of British politics, with prime ministerial resignations, government defeats, continuous rebellions and floor crossings. This phenomenon seems at odds with the usual decisiveness of Westminster systems. However, the aforementioned departures from the British tradition could be interpreted as compatible with the typical distance of any empirical reality from theoretical models, as exceptions to the rule due to the specificity of the European issue, or as the surfacing of some deeper social, economic and cultural tensions. Data alone are insufficient to confirm any of the alternative interpretations, although they seem to confirm the existence of longterm dynamics more than some short-term exceptionalism. Within this scenario, the article suggests that a series of institutional innovations introduced since the late 1990s have facilitated the political consolidation of those tensions, contributed to the partisan dealignment, and made room for a potential departure from a Westminster model of democracy.
Brexit and the Ethos of Direct Democracy
Brexit protest 13 © Garon S | Flickr Brexit protest 13 © Garon S | Flickr Referenda are important instruments of democratic politics. They have been used since the late eighteenth century in various circumstances of political life, most often in relation to constitutional change or issues of self-determination. In contemporary democratic societies, there is pressure to submit contested political questions to popular vote, in order to reduce tensions between popular will and governance. Even democratic governments which are not constitutionally obliged to do so now feel compelled to consult the people directly.
Popular sovereignty after Brexit
The Brexit referendum highlights the apparently anomalous role of the “people” in the constitutional order of the United Kingdom. Politically speaking, its verdict is acknowledged as unassailable and unaccountable, yet this “sovereign” status has no legal grounds. In turn, some commentators have argued that this discrepancy between “political” and “legal” understandings of popular sovereignty – or the failure to properly institutionalise popular sovereignty in a legal-constitutional form – represents a distinct site of constitutional crisis in its own right. However, I argue that such claims of constitutional anomaly, or of British exceptionalism in this regard, are misplaced. While the Brexit scenario seems to express the destabilising and disruptive potential of a popular sovereign that exceeds or evades constitutional recognition, this is in no sense a peculiarity of the British constitutional order. By its nature, popular sovereignty is inexhaustible by constitutional recognition, and so it tends to retain such disruptive potential regardless of whatever constitutional form it is assigned. Thus critics of the British constitutional status quo overestimate the capacity of constitutional law in general to regulate or domesticate the expression of popular sovereignty via referendums.
Democracy in Europe: A Political Philosophy of the EU
2018
Europe needs theory, or rather political philosophy. Given this provocative premise, Daniel Innerarity develops a brilliant argument aimed at overcoming the crisis of the European Union. We need a new narrative capable of taking up the challenge, posed by Europe, to rethink democracy in its complexity, beyond the nation-state model."
Reasserting the Centre: The Brexit Doctrine and the Imperative Mandate in British Politics
Parliamentary Affairs, 2020
Despite the outpouring of scholarship on the motivations behind the 2016 EU referendum result and the preliminary impact of Brexit on British politics, comparatively little time has been spent analysing the government(s) entrusted with implementation. This article aims to address this gap in the literature, examining government management of the Brexit process as a case study through which to illustrate the continued relevance of the British Political Tradition in British politics. It argues that through Brexit implementation, the May government initiated a process of centralisation of both policy-making influence and administrative resources within Whitehall. This process was shielded externally by appeals to the referendum result as an imperative mandate parliament was obliged to implement. Although the political landscape of May’s premiership was characterised by flux, these internal shifts towards centralisation in the executive are proposed to have had a more sustained impact t...
A Critical Assessment of the Impact of EU Membership on British Sovereignty
The impact of EU membership on British sovereignty remains a divisive issue in British politics. 1 The debate has revolved around two opposite views between Eurosceptics and pro-Europeans. While Eurosceptics argue that EU membership has undermined British sovereignty, pro-Europeans believe that it has in fact extended the nation's sovereignty. 2 Employing a pro-European perspective, this essay will argue that the impact of EU membership on British sovereignty has been primarily positive. Although EU membership has required the UK to transfer a part of its formal sovereignty to the EU, membership has significantly enhanced the UK's effective sovereignty and ability to achieve its policy goals. The essay will start by accounting for the concept of sovereignty, and continue by maintaining that Eurosceptics are right to argue that EU membership has eroded British sovereignty. This is evident in the extension of QMV and declined use of national veto in the Council of Ministers, increased powers of supranational European institutions, primacy of EU law, and the limits imposed by the European Union Act 2011 on parliamentary sovereignty. However, it will show that the Eurosceptic argument is undermined by the fact that the loss of sovereignty has not applied to matters of essential national concern. This is illustrated by the continuing requirement of unanimity in key areas, the role of national governments in areas of 'high politics', opt-outs, and the fact that the loss of sovereignty to the EU is not irreversible. While EU membership has required a transfer of a part of Britain's 1 C. Gifford, 'The UK and the European Union: Dimensions of Sovereignty and the Problem of Eurosceptic
Divided Culture and Constitutional Tensions: Brexit and the Collision of Direct and Representative Democracy
Parliamentary Affairs, 2019
This article considers connections between two aspects of Brexit: the cultural divide exposed and amplified by the European Union (EU) referendum of 23 June 2016 and the prolonged and intense period of multiple and overlapping constitutional tensions that followed the referendum. The referendum revealed the existence of two contrasting cultural groupings. Each was defined by a cluster of values that extended beyond attitudes towards the particular question of EU membership, and to which issues of citizenship were central. The manifestation and crystallisation of this cultural divide through the direct democracy of the referendum led directly to constitutional turmoil. Parliamentarians as a group found themselves misaligned with those who voted in the referendum producing a conflict between the principles of direct and representative democracy. Brexit has generated tensions between and within different institutions of the constitution and arguments about what the rules were, and what...
Related topics
Related papers
Brexit as Fugitive Democracy
Political theorist Sheldon Wolin's ideas are a useful guide to thinking about the EU's "managed democracy" and Brexit as an instance of "fugitive democracy", a sporadic rebellion against elite control. This helps understand why Brexit is hard to achieve, but also provides lessons for the left on future organising. "Democracy didn't end after the referendum!" We often hear these words from steadfast Remainers who wish to reverse the UK's decision to leave the European Union. It is a refrain most commonly deployed as an argument for a second referendum, with the implicit belief that it would yield a different outcome. It has the air of a truism. And in one sense, of course, it is true: democracy as an institutional formation featuring periodic elections did not end with the Brexit vote. But what if democracy is understood differently, in more radical terms: not as a ritualised form of government by socioeconomic elites, but as an episodic phenomenon that is inherently disruptive and in which ordinary citizens become active political agents? This is the conception of democracy-known as "fugitive democracy"-advanced by the political theorist Sheldon Wolin (b.1922-d.2015). A renowned critic of American politics and economy, Wolin's political thought is instructive in helping us make sense of our current moment and the forces which led us here. In this article, I argue that the vote for Brexit can be understood as an instance of fugitive democracy, aimed at contesting the legitimacy of a status quo in which ordinary citizens are economically marginalised and excluded from political power. Wolin was primarily focused on the American case, but I want to suggest that we can extend his arguments to contemporary Britain as well.
Regaining Sovereignty? Brexit and the UK Parliament
Przegląd Prawa Konstytucyjnego
The flexible formula of the British Constitution results in a relative openness to external influences. Notwithstanding this fact, the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) membership in the European Union’s (EU’s) structures (1973–2020) resulted in a progressive limitation of the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Brexit will not reverse the effects of the ‘soft’ modification of the foundations of the UK’s system, which occurred in the sphere of the practical implementation of the competencies of the branches of governance. Prima facie, the decision on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU should result in a ‘renaissance’ of the traditional doctrine of Westminster sovereignty, per A.V. Dicey. However, judicial activism, continued validity of the European Convention on Human Rights (incorporated on the basis of Human Rights Act 1998) and the irreversible consequences of the devolution of competencies in the UK for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are the factors that hinder the possible revital...
Brexit and the Illusion of Democracy, Socialism and Democracy, 2017, vol.31(3)
The British referendum of 23 June 2016 and subsequent withdrawal from the European Union is often regarded as heralding a new democratic era for Britain as she is freed from the shackles of undemocratic EU institutions. After briefly analysing the validity of claims regarding the existence of a ‘democratic deficit’ in the EU, this paper examines whether national and popular sovereignty are likely to be reaffirmed by the experience of the referendum and its aftermath. It argues that, on the contrary, national sovereignty risks being further undermined as the UK, under the current conservative government, assumes a hyperglobalist position which prioritises free trade over other democratic freedoms. It also suggests that the referendum did little to revive popular sovereignty. Although the ‘Leave’ vote will be respected, the referendum debate itself was nothing more than a simulacrum of democracy. Far from solving the democratic deficit, the problem has only been exacerbated at a national level following the ‘Remain’ votes in Scotland and Northern Ireland. In the final analysis, this ‘democratic moment’, at least under a conservative government, was entirely illusory.
Can Brexit Be Turned Into a Democratic Shock? Five Points
This paper argues that to make sense of Brexit, we have to start by clarifying what was the actual content and relevance of the ‘Brexit deal’ agreed between the United Kingdom and the European Union in February 2016, and how that deal allowed the British Prime Minister to shape the terms of the debate in order to further short term and narrowly partisan interests, and, at the same time, provided the European Council with a new opportunity to further the locking in of the neoliberal turn of the European Union. It is also argued that causes of the leave victory are many and complex. Pending a full analysis of the social and economic geography of the vote, it is clear that the thesis favoured by a good deal of media pundits (the leave vote reflecting the triumph of low nationalistic bordering on xenophobic feelings) is too simplistic and reductionistic by half. Such an explantion fully misunderstands how the migration issue is shaping political debate in Britain and the rest of Europe, while obscures the influence that the ongoing neoliberal mutation of the EU is likely to have had in the outcome. It is finally concluded that for Brexit to be turned into a democratic shock, with the potential of leading to a fairer and more democratic EU and UK, it is necessary to avoid Brexit as usual (i.e. the British and European leadership finding a formula to leave things unchanged despite the outcome of the referendum) and take Brexit as the incentive to redefine what European integration is and should be.
Democracy and Disintegration: Does the State of Democracy in the EU Put the Integrity of the Union at Risk?
Governance and Politics in the Post-Crisis European Union, 2020
'Take back control': in the lead up to a June 2016 plebiscite on whether to remain in or leave the EU, this was the rallying cry that framed the predominant narrative on the pro-Brexit side. Whatever might explain the determinants of individual voter choice in the eventual decision of the British electorate to leave by a majority of 52 per cent to 48 per cent, public debate during the campaign crystallised around the proposition that the UK should reclaim its sovereignty. The content of this cry for sovereignty was not empty. It was understood to mean the return of powers to the UK government for unilateral decision-making -powers that had been previously ceded to the EU, even though UK representatives are integral to EU decision-making processes. While the supposed material advantages of greater
Implementing the will of the people: sovereignty and policy conflicts in the aftermath of the UK’s referendum on EU membership
Comparative European Politics, 2022
Deep constitutional, political and social conflicts have marked the aftermath of the UK’s vote to leave the European Union. Sovereignty has been one of the sites of these conflicts. British Euroscepticism has traditionally mobilized national sovereignty against the EU’s supranational institutions. Since the referendum, the focus has shifted to the meanings and practices of sovereignty within the UK. In this paper, we find that the conflicts of sovereignty provoked by Brexit have primarily been at the institutional level, in the relations between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. Surprisingly, there has been little conflict around the abstract normative ideal of sovereignty as government by consent of the governed (“popular sovereignty”). Brexit was a source of conflict as much because of the content of the decision to leave the EU as it was due to disagreement about who rules. This discussion of the British case is a useful starting point for the comparative study of sovereignty conflicts in Europe, where institutional conflicts may be accompanied by substantive disagreements about “who rules?” This paper recommends that we carefully delineate conflicts of sovereignty from other sorts of conflicts connected to specific policy choices or outcomes.
The Routledge Handbook of the Politics of Brexit
The Routledge Handbook of the Politics of Brexit, 2018
Introduction: Brexit and the Future of the British Model of Democratic Capitalism
Political Quarterly , 2019
Post-Brexit: A Continuum For State Sovereignty
ILSA Journal of International and Comparative Law, 2016
A changing democracy: contemporary challenges to the British political tradition
Policy Studies, 2018
A series of authors including ourselves have argued that there is a dominant, if contested, political tradition (the BPT), that is a particular conception of democracy, that underpins to institutions and processes of British politics. However, here we argue that the BPT has never been more contested or vulnerable, focusing upon three contemporary challenges, the Scottish question, the rise of anti-politics and the demands to leave the European Union (EU), culminating in BREXIT, although we recognise there are others. At the same time, we contend that the BPT still plays a key role in how the political elite reacts to these challenges; its first response remains to preserve as much of the BPT as possible in changing circumstances. As such, the key question we address here is whether we are witnessing the beginnings of a fundamental shift in the nature of British political democracy, or whether, as so often before, the BPT and its adherents will adapt to, and accommodate, these challenges.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.