Gisela Stuart, Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston is a British-German politician and life peer who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Edgbaston from 1997 to 2017. A former member of the Labour Party, she now sits as a non-affiliated member of the House of Lords.
Gregory William Hands is a British Conservative Party politician serving as Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth since 2021 and as Member of Parliament (MP) for Chelsea and Fulham, previously Hammersmith and Fulham, since 2005. Hands was a Minister of State for Trade Policy, from February 2020 to September 2021.
Anna Mary Soubry is a British barrister, journalist and former politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Broxtowe from 2010 to 2019. Known for her support of pro-European policies, she was originally elected as a Conservative but left the party to join Change UK in 2019.
Caroline Elizabeth Johnson is a British Conservative Party politician and consultant paediatrician. She has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sleaford and North Hykeham since the by-election on 8 December 2016.
The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, took place on 23 June 2016 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 member state to have left the EU, after 47 years of having been a part of the union — the EU and 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, except in select areas in relation to Northern Ireland. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 retains relevant EU law as domestic law, which the UK can now amend or repeal. Under the terms of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, Northern Ireland continues to participate in the European Single Market in relation to goods, and to be a de facto member of the EU Customs Union.
The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 12 December 2019. It resulted in the Conservative Party receiving a landslide majority of 80 seats. The Conservatives made a net gain of 48 seats and won 43.6% of the popular vote – the highest percentage for any party since 1979.
The 2016 Conservative Party leadership election occurred as a result of Prime Minister David Cameron's resignation as party leader. He had resigned after losing the national referendum to leave the European Union. Cameron, who supported Britain's continued membership of the EU, announced his resignation on 24 June, saying that he would step down by October. Theresa May won the contest on 11 July 2016, after the withdrawal of Andrea Leadsom left her as the sole candidate.
Vote Leave is 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.
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. Factors including sovereignty, immigration, the economy and anti-establishment politics, amongst various other influences. The result of the non-legally binding 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 30 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.
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 with the result announced on 23 July, with Boris Johnson being elected with almost twice as many votes as his opponent Jeremy Hunt.
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.
People's Vote was a United Kingdom campaign group that unsuccessfully campaigned for a second referendum following the UK's Brexit vote to leave the European Union (EU) in 2016. The group was launched in April 2018 at which four Members of Parliament spoke, along with the actor Patrick Stewart and other public figures.
Brexit: The Uncivil War is a 2019 British television drama film written by James Graham and directed by Toby Haynes. It depicts the lead-up to the 2016 referendum through the activities of the strategists behind the Vote Leave campaign, that prompted the United Kingdom to exit the European Union, known as Brexit. It aired on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom on 7 January, and aired on HBO in the United States on 19 January. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Dominic Cummings, the Campaign Director of the official designated Brexit-supporting group, Vote Leave.
For our Future's Sake (FFS) was a student-led pressure group supporting a referendum on the Brexit withdrawal agreement. It represented at least 60 Students’ Unions, and 980,000 students, across the UK.
55 Tufton Street is a four storey Georgian era townhouse on Tufton Street, in Westminster, London, owned by businessman Richard Smith. Since the 2010s the building has hosted lobby groups and think tanks related to Brexit and climate change. A group of these think tanks, dubbed "The Nine Entities", use the building for biweekly meetings to coordinate policy and public messages.
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.
The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2019, commonly informally referred to as the Benn Act after the Labour MP Hilary Benn as Chair of the Exiting the European Union Select Committee who introduced it, was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that required the Prime Minister of the UK to seek an extension to the Brexit withdrawal date—then scheduled for 31 October 2019—in certain circumstances. The main provisions of the Act were triggered if the House of Commons did not give its consent to either a withdrawal agreement or leaving without a deal by 19 October 2019. The Act proposed a new withdrawal date of 31 January 2020, which the Prime Minister was obliged to accept if the proposal was accepted by the European Council.
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.
