Get Brexit Done was a political slogan frequently used by the British Conservative Party and former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the run up to the 2019 general election. The slogan reflected the party's pledge to, if re-elected, facilitate the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union by the end of January the following year.
After the 2016 EU membership referendum produced a result in favour of leaving the European Union, a period of debate within the United Kingdom and negotiations with the EU about the future began. In 2019, the UK fell into further political uncertainty when both prime minister Theresa May and her successor Boris Johnson failed to reach a consensus in the House of Commons for a withdrawal agreement on their terms or a withdrawal with no agreement at all.
By the time of the election campaign in late 2019, this meant that Brexit had dominated British politics for more than three years, remaining a divisive issue and creating a great deal of frustration amongst the general public. [1] [2] [3] The idea for the slogan came from a focus group conducted by the Conservatives in a hotel in Northern England shortly before the election was called. During discussions about the Brexit process members of the group talked of wishing to "get it done". [4]
The slogan was widely used on the Conservative Party's campaigning material and by its canvassers. [5] It was also frequently used by senior Conservative politicians. [6] [7] In November 2019, the Conservatives launched their manifesto under the slogan "Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential". [8]
The Conservatives faced criticism for the slogan from a variety of directions. Ex-British diplomat Sir Ivan Rogers accused the party of either misunderstanding the situation or deliberately attempting to "mislead the British public". [9] The Guardian 's Brussels correspondent described leaving the EU as "only the start of a new phase in the Brexit odyssey." [10]
Research conducted by The Guardian a week before the election found that the slogan resonated with voters in marginal constituencies [11] whilst another poll by Opinium from a day or two before the election found the plurality of responders wanted the EU withdrawal agreement to be ratified. [12] The Conservatives went on to win the election with a comfortable majority of seats. [13]
The “Get Brexit Done” slogan “obviously played a part” in Johnson’s victory, says Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London, “partly because it appealed to leavers but also because it appealed to some remainers who are sick to the back teeth of Brexit and want to get it over with.” [14]
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a British politician and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He was previously Foreign Secretary from 2016 to 2018 and Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 2001 to 2008 and Uxbridge and South Ruislip from 2015 to 2023.
Get Britain Out is a United Kingdom-based independent cross-party grassroots Eurosceptic group which campaigned for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. The campaign is still in operation and is pushing for the UK to break away from continued alignment with the European Union.
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The 2019 European Parliament election was the United Kingdom's component of the 2019 European Parliament election. It was held on Thursday 23 May 2019 and the results announced on Sunday 26 and Monday 27 May 2019, after all the other EU countries had voted. This was the United Kingdom's final participation in a European Parliament election before leaving the European Union on 31 January 2020, and was also the last election to be held under the provisions of the European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002 before its repeal under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and was the first European election in the United Kingdom to be held on a day that did not coincide with any local elections since 1999. This was the first of two national elections that would be held in the United Kingdom in 2019 with the 2019 general election being held six months later in December 2019.
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The 2019 Conservative Party leadership election was triggered when Theresa May announced on 24 May 2019 that she would resign as leader of the Conservative Party on 7 June and as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom once a successor had been elected. Nominations opened on 10 June; 10 candidates were nominated. The first ballot of members of Parliament (MPs) took place on 13 June, with exhaustive ballots of MPs also taking place on 18, 19 and 20 June, reducing the candidates to two. The general membership of the party elected the leader by postal ballot; the result was announced on 23 July, with Boris Johnson being elected with almost twice as many votes as his opponent Jeremy Hunt.
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The Brexit withdrawal agreement, officially titled Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, is a treaty between the European Union (EU), Euratom, and the United Kingdom (UK), signed on 24 January 2020, setting the terms of the withdrawal of the UK from the EU and Euratom. The text of the treaty was published on 17 October 2019, and is a renegotiated version of an agreement published in November 2018. The earlier version of the withdrawal agreement was rejected by the House of Commons on three occasions, leading to the resignation of Theresa May as Prime Minister and the appointment of Boris Johnson as the new prime minister on 24 July 2019.
The Irish backstop was a proposed protocol to a draft Brexit withdrawal agreement that never came into force. It was developed by the May government and the European Commission in December 2017 and finalised in November 2018, and aimed to prevent an evident border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland after Brexit.
A referendum on the Brexit withdrawal agreement, also referred to as a "second referendum", a "rerun", a "people's vote", or a "confirmatory public vote", was proposed by a number of politicians and pressure groups as a way to break the deadlock during the 2017–19 Parliament surrounding the meaningful vote on the Brexit deal.
Brexit negotiations in 2019 started in August, after having originally concluded in November 2018 with the release of the withdrawal agreement. Negotiations took place between the United Kingdom and the European Union during 2017 and 2018 for the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union following the referendum held on 23 June 2016.
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