Migration Crisis and “Brexit”

Outhwaite, W

doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190856908.013.7

Migration Crisis and “Brexit”

Lookup NU author(s): Emeritus Professor William Outhwaite

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Abstract

The issue of migration bridges the divide between short-term and long-term explanations of Brexit.Short-term explanations stress the drift toward a referendum in British politics, the opportunistic miscalculation by a playboy prime minister, and the manipulation of the referendum vote by a grotesquely biased press and some of the same conspiratorial forces which secured Trump’s election. Longer-term explanations point to historical differences between the UK and (the rest of) Europe; the fact that the UK escaped defeat and occupation in World War Two; the distinctive legal system shared by England, Wales, and Northern Ireland (though not Scotland); and the UK’s majoritarian political culture. This chapter discusses in a comparative context. the contribution of a migration crisis to the UK’s EU membership and constitutional crisis.