 | A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(May 2020) |
Director | Professor Anand Menon |
|---|---|
| Website | ukandeu |
The UK in a Changing Europe is an initiative intended to improve public access to research on the relationship between the UK and the European Union (EU). [1] It is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and is based at King's College London.
UK in a Changing Europe is an independent research organisation created to communicate academic research on the UK's relationship with the European Union. [2] The initiative is funded by the Economic and Social Science Research Council, which is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
UK in a Changing Europe is led by Director Anand Menon, Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King's College London. [3] Its deputy directors are Professors Catherine Barnard and Paula Surridge, and the senior research fellow is Jill Rutter. [2]
The organisation consists of nine senior fellows from across the UK, appointed in June 2019 to support the initiative. [4] These include:
The primary objective is to disseminate academic research in an accessible format to inform public and political debates on the UK's place in the EU. [1] The first round of fellows concluded in January 2015. [6] Funded academics are expected to work on projects to make their work accessible to the public, through activities such as blog posts and public events. [7]
At the 2017 Think Tank of the Year Awards, The UK in a Changing Europe won the "one to watch" category, in 2018 it won the "best UK international think tank category", [8] and in 2019 it won the "foreign affairs" category. [9]
The initiative hosts regular events, open to the public, on a range of policy issues relating to UK-EU relations, including on Brexit and Trade, Brexit and Parliament, Brexit and the Island of Ireland, Brexit and the Media, Brexit and the Constitution, Brexit and Public Opinion. The initiative also hosts an annual conference.
In April 2016, the group published a report (in collaboration with Full Fact) titled "Leave/Remain: The Facts behind the claims" which fact-checked 24 claims made by both campaigns.
During both the 2017 and 2019 general election campaigns the initiative published reports, analysing the competing claims and promises made on Brexit in each of the main party's manifestos – covering areas from citizens’ rights and immigration, through to defence and foreign policy. [10]
The group has made several contributions to the debate over the UK's membership of the European Union. Members have written 'explainers' covering topics such as security, media coverage, and migration. [11] They funded the report 'The EU Referendum and UK environment' released in April 2016. [12] They have also collaborated with ITV News and Full Fact on a series of reports, [13] and with the BBC's The World at One on short explainers. [14] On 25 April 2016 they published a report (in collaboration with Full Fact) entitled 'Leave/Remain: the facts behind the claims' which checked 24 claims made by both campaigns and found both sides had made 'misleading' or 'unfounded' claims. [15]
What UK thinks, a collaborative project run by NatCen Social Research, publishes a 'poll of polls' which has been used by several media outlets. [16] [17] [18] [19]
Open Europe was a British centre-right eurosceptic policy think tank with offices in London and Brussels, merging with the Policy Exchange think tank in 2020.
The Legatum Institute is a think tank based in London, UK. Its stated aim is to advance the education of the public in national and international political, social and economic policy. The Institute has over forty donors including the Legatum Foundation. It has been called "arguably the most influential think tank in Britain pushing its free market pro-Brexit vision and enjoying privileged access to media and ministers" but it has attracted controversy as a result of its opaque, offshore funding.
On 23 June 2016, a referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, took place in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar to ask the electorate whether the country should remain a member of, or leave, the European Union (EU). It was organised and facilitated through the European Union Referendum Act 2015 and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The referendum resulted in 51.9% of the votes cast being in favour of leaving the EU. Although the referendum was legally non-binding, the government of the time promised to implement the result.
Brexit was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020. The UK is the only sovereign country to have left the EU. The UK had been a member state of the EU or its predecessor, the European Communities (EC), since 1 January 1973. Following Brexit, EU law and the Court of Justice of the European Union no longer have primacy over British laws. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 retains relevant EU law as domestic law, which the UK can amend or repeal.
Vote Leave was a campaigning organisation that supported a "Leave" vote in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. On 13 April 2016 it was designated by the Electoral Commission as the official campaign in favour of leaving the European Union in the Referendum.
Leave.EU was a political campaign group that was first established to support the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union in the June 2016 referendum. Founded in July 2015 as The Know, the campaign was relaunched in September of that year with its name changed to "Leave.eu" to reflect altered wording in the referendum question.
The referendum on EU membership took place on 23 June 2016. Opinion polling for the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum was ongoing in the months between the announcement of a referendum and the referendum polling day. Polls on the general principle of the UK's membership of the European Union were carried out for a number of years prior to the referendum. Opinion polls of voters in general tended to show roughly equal proportions in favour of remaining and leaving. Polls of business leaders, scientists, and lawyers showed majorities in favour of remaining. Among non-British citizens in other EU member states, polling suggested that a majority were in favour of the UK remaining in the EU in principle, but that a similarly sized majority believed that if the UK were only able to remain in the EU on renegotiated terms then it should leave.
A number of politicians, public figures, newspapers and magazines, businesses and other organisations endorsed either the United Kingdom remaining in the EU or the United Kingdom leaving the EU during the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.
Issues in the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 are the economic, human and political issues that were discussed during the campaign about the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, during the period leading up to the Brexit referendum of 23 June 2016. [Issues that have arisen since then are outside the scope of this article].
A second referendum on independence from the United Kingdom (UK) has been proposed by the Scottish Government. An independence referendum was first held on 18 September 2014, with 55% voting "No" to independence. The Scottish Government stated in its white paper for independence that voting Yes was a "once in a generation opportunity to follow a different path, and choose a new and better direction for our nation". Following the "No" vote, the cross party Smith Commission proposed areas that could be devolved to the Scottish Parliament; this led to the passing of the Scotland Act 2016, formalising new devolved policy areas in time for the 2016 Scottish Parliament election campaign.
After the British EU membership referendum held on 23 June 2016, in which a majority voted to leave the European Union, the United Kingdom experienced political and economic upsets, with spillover effects across the rest of the European Union and the wider world. Prime Minister David Cameron, who had campaigned for Remain, announced his resignation on 24 June, triggering a Conservative leadership election, won by Home Secretary Theresa May. Following Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn's loss of a motion of no confidence among the Parliamentary Labour Party, he also faced a leadership challenge, which he won. Nigel Farage stepped down from leadership of the pro-Leave party UKIP in July. After the elected party leader resigned, Farage then became the party's interim leader on 5 October until Paul Nuttall was elected leader on 28 November.
The result in favour of Brexit of the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum is one of the most significant political events for Britain during the 21st century. The debate provoked major consideration to an array of topics, argued up-to, and beyond, the referendum on 23 June 2016. The referendum was originally conceived by David Cameron as a means to defeat the anti-EU faction within his own party by having it fail, but he misjudged the level of public support for leaving, particularly amongst Labour Party voters. Factors included sovereignty, immigration, the economy and anti-establishment politics, amongst various other influences. The result of the referendum was that 51.8% of the votes were in favour of leaving the European Union. The formal withdrawal from the EU took place at 23:00 on 31 January 2020, almost three years after Theresa May triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on 29 March 2017. This page provides an overarching analysis of the different arguments which were presented by both the Leave and Remain campaigns.
Best for Britain is a civil society campaign, launched on 26 April 2017, to stop Brexit and continue the UK's membership of the European Union (EU). Since 2021, the organisation's aim has changed to encourage greater internationalism rather than an immediate push to rejoin the EU.
Since the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum, a number of demonstrations have taken place and organisations formed whose goal has been to oppose, reverse or otherwise impede that decision.
Mike Galsworthy is the co-founder of Scientists for EU and Healthier IN the EU and a media commentator about the effects of Brexit on the scientific community in the United Kingdom, and is Chair of the European Movement UK. He is currently a visiting researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and was previously Senior Research Associate in the Department of Applied Health Research, University College London (UCL).
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.
Several allegations of unlawful campaigning in the 2016 EU referendum have been made. Some allegations were dismissed by the investigating bodies, but in other cases wrongdoing was established, leading to the imposition of penalties. Sanctions have included the levying of the maximum fine possible on Facebook for breaches of data privacy.
Following the referendum in the United Kingdom on its membership of the European Union on 23 June 2016, polling companies continued to use standard questions in order to gauge public opinion on the country's relationship with the EU. Opinion polling overall showed an initial fall in support for Brexit from the referendum to late 2016, when responses were split evenly between support and opposition. Support rose again to a plurality, which held until the 2017 general election. Since then, opinion polls tended to show a plurality of support for remaining in the EU or for the view that Brexit was a mistake, with the estimated margin increasing until a small decrease in 2019. This seems to be largely due to a preference for remaining in the EU among those who did not vote in 2016's referendum. Other reasons suggested include slightly more Leave voters than Remain voters changing how they would vote and the deaths of older voters, most of whom voted to leave the EU.
"Why the Government Believes That Voting to Remain in the European Union is the Best Decision for the UK" was a one-off pamphlet created in April 2016 by the government of the United Kingdom. The leaflet was created in anticipation of the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum in June, which would ask the British public whether the UK should leave the EU. After internal polling revealed that 85 per cent of the public wanted more information before making their decision, Prime Minister David Cameron announced that the government would send a leaflet to households across the UK, explaining why remaining in the EU was the best choice for the UK. The leaflets were paid for by British taxpayers at a cost of £9.3 million, and were delivered across the UK in two waves: the first to households in England, and the second to households in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Following the United Kingdom's formal exit from the European Union at the end of January 2020, polling organisations have conducted surveys to gauge public opinion on rejoining the organisation.