Brexit: Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook on What Happens Next

Westminster and Brussels have just half a year left before they must agree on a deal for the UK to leave the EU. Resignations of Foreign Minister Boris Johnson and chief negotiator David Davis in July signaled the difficulty of getting a deal done. The People’s Vote campaign is calling for a second referendum, while strong ‘leavers’ are decrying even a ‘soft Brexit’ as a “crisis of democracy.” The possibility exists that the UK will depart with no deal. 

With these developments in mind, the National Interest asked scholars and experts the following questions: 

Where do Britain and the EU go from here on Brexit? Can and should Britain stay in the EU (from a legal, political, public opinion, or another standpoint) or is separation best? Should Britons get another vote on Brexit or on the final deal? What will Britain’s future relationship with the EU look like, and what kind of an effect will it have on Britain’s economy?

We present eighteen responses in alphabetical order. (The views of authors expressed are their own and not necessarily those of their institution.) Click on the links below to go to each expert’s response.

Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook is the executive director of the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School. 

We are headed for a precarious “no deal” cliff following Brussels’s de facto rejection of the latest UK “soft Brexit” plan, in which the UK flatly ignored the indivisibility of the EU’s sacred “four freedoms”—the free movement of goods, capital, services and labor. 

Fall deadlines loom large. Time to March 2019 is ticking down. Yet, amidst all looming questions, separation remains the only game in town. Prime Minister Theresa May is feeling squeezed by her own party and has uncertain support in parliament, where she would need the approval of a compromise Brexit deal, while the EU’s chief negotiator seems fully prepared to watch her flounder. 

Yet “no deal” is the most dangerous of outcome for both sides. It will rip a deep hole in the EU’s budget. It would bring EU-UK security cooperation to a halt. Borders would harden. It would halt financial industry business-as-usual in London’s City. Tariffs could cripple the UK’s big industries for decades to come. And all that to say nothing of the direct impact on citizens’ rights and movement of people on both sides.

Ahead of a “no deal” cliff, and with the EU still in the stronger position, chief negotiator Michel Barnier will aim to force May to accept further concessions, making her political future at home even more insecure. Polls indicate that a new referendum to choose between a potential compromise deal and staying in the EU—providing the EU would agree to support a Brexit reversal—would lead to an outright ‘remain’ victory. 

Could a referendum be achieved between now and March 2019? Unlikely. For now, it remains in both sides’ interest to continue to negotiate in good faith, as far as possible, to give the UK parliament a deal to vote up or down in the interest of retaining the public’s faith in the political system before March 2019. If Britain leaves on a mutually-negotiated path, an eventual return to the EU in the long term remains a possibility. Deal or no deal, in near term both sides will feel the pain.