Brexit

Brexit (a portmanteau of "British" and "exit") is the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. Following a referendum held on 23 June 2016 in which 51.9 percent of those voting supported leaving the EU, the Government invoked Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union which started a two-year leaving process which was due to conclude with the UK's exit on the 29 March 2019 and then, after an extension, on 31 October 2019. The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020.

2004

 * We [UKIP] seek an amicable divorce from the European Union and its replacement with a genuine free-trade agreement, which is what my parents' generation thought we’d signed up for in the first place.
 * Said by Nigel Farage. UKIP news, issue 56, July 2004.

2011

 * We no longer enjoy the same liberties Americans do. We don't have a constitution. We don't have a First Amendment. What we have, and what the whole of Europe has, is the Lisbon Treaty, a kind of top-down constitution that has been imposed on us against our will. And, unlike the American Constitution which empowers the people, the European constitution dis-empowers the people, and empowers the un-elected bureaucrats and career politicians for whose sole benefit it was created.
 * Pat Condell, "Europe needs a revolution" (25 August 2011), from YouTube

2012

 * Once again, I challenge the Prime Minister to have an open debate with me on why he believes we must stay part of this failing, corrupt EU. The future of our nation is at stake. Mr Cameron, you have my phone number.
 * Nigel Farage "The time will never be right for David Cameron to hold a referendum on the EU", The Telegraph (5 July 2012)

2013

 * [Brexit] is stupidity for a country with 53 percent of its exports going to the Continent and to the rest of Europe. It’s even so stupid that Britain’s best friends, the U.S., don’t understand it all.
 * Said by Guy Verhofstadt. Quoted by Politico. Guy Verhofstadt’s 7 best Brexit burns (Quoted in August 2016; Said in January 2013)


 * [An in/out referendum is] going to put Britain through years of uncertainty, and take a huge gamble with our economy.
 * Said by Ed Miliband. David Cameron promises in/out referendum on EU BBC News (23 January 2013)


 * Years of uncertainty caused by a future EU referendum would hit jobs and growth and this is not in the national interest
 * Said by Nick Clegg. David Cameron promises in/out referendum on EU BBC News (23 January 2013)

2015

 * I am ready to campaign with all my heart and soul to keep Britain inside a reformed European Union
 * Said by David Cameron. Quoted by the BBC. Donald Tusk: Deal on UK's EU renegotiation 'very tough' (12 November 2015)

2016

 * Let me be clear. Leaving Europe would threaten our economic and our national security.
 * Said by David Cameron Quoted by the Independent. David Cameron's EU referendum date announcement: Full text of speech (20 February 2016)


 * [Britain would be] freer, fairer and better off outside the EU
 * Said by Michael Gove. Quoted by the BBC. UK 'better off' out of EU - Michael Gove (20 February 2016)


 * The EU offers our small businesses and tourism sector huge opportunities, I can't understand why anyone would want to shut those opportunities down
 * Said by Tim Farron. 'Huge' business and tourism opportunities from EU - Farron BBC News (25 February 2016)


 * My judgment is that remaining a member of the European Union means we will be more secure from crime and terrorism.
 * Said by Theresa May. EU migration: UK to face 'free-for-all', Michael Gove warns, BBC News, (25 April 2016)


 * The Leavers​ don't seem to have much clue about what is to happen afterwards. Curious, considering so many of them have spent their adult lives agitating for this moment. Their approach appears to be a version of Napoleon's battle strategy: 'On se dégage, et puis on voit.' What exactly is Out supposed to entail? How do they picture Britain's relationship with the EU, and with the rest of the world, after they’ve secured a vote for Exit on 23 June?
 * Ferdinand Mount "Nigels against the World", London Review of Books 38:10 (19 May 2016)


 * The Labour Party is about as united as it possibly can be in asking people to Remain
 * Said by Tom Watson. EU referendum: Labour urges its voters not to back Brexit BBC News (10 June 2016)


 * As a historian I fear Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also Western political civilisation in its entirety
 * Said by Donald Tusk. Donald Tusk: Brexit could destroy Western political civilisation BBC News (13 June 2016)


 * Every family knows that a divorce is traumatic for everyone. Everyone in the EU, but especially the Brits themselves, would lose out economically [if Britain left the EU].
 * Said by Donald Tusk. Donald Tusk: Brexit could destroy Western political civilisation BBC News (13 June 2016)

2016

 * The British people have voted to leave the European Union and their will must be respected
 * Said by David Cameron. Brexit: David Cameron to quit after UK votes to leave EU BBC News (24 June 2016)


 * Brexit means Brexit, and we're going to make a success of it.
 * Said by Theresa May. Theresa May Says UK Will Make Success Of Brexit When She Is PM, Sky News - Youtube, 11 July 2016. (On 24 July 2019 Theresa May stood down as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom without Brexit having been achieved.)


 * The referendum is not binding.
 * Written by Ken Clarke in a letter to constiuents after the 2016 EU referendum and quoted in the Guardian. Asthana, Anushka and Mason, Rowena (13 September 2016) Ken Clarke tells constituents: 'EU referendum is not binding' in the Guardian. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
 * Yes, on November 8, you Joe Blow, Steve Blow, Bob Blow, Billy Blow, all the Blows get to go and blow up the whole goddamn system because it's your right. Trump's election is going to be the biggest "fuck you" ever recorded in human history and it will feel good — for a day. Maybe a week. Possibly a month. And then, like the Brits, who wanted to send a message, so they voted to leave Europe, only to find out that if you vote to leave Europe, you actually have to leave Europe. And now they regret it. All the Ohioans, Pennsylvanians, Michiganders, and Wisconsinites of Middle England, right, they all voted to leave and now they regret it. And over 4 million of them signed a petition to have a do-over, they want another election, but it's not going to happen. Because you used the ballot as an anger management tool. And now you're fucked. And the rest of Europe. They're like, "Bye Felicia!" So when the rightfully angry people of Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin find out after a few months in office that President Trump wasn't going to do a damn thing for them, it will be too late to do anything about it.
 * Michael Moore, Michael Moore in TrumpLand (October 7, 2016)
 * Being a member of EU comes with rights and benefits. Third countries (non members as the UK will be after Brexit) can never have the same rights and benefits since they are not subject to the same obligations. The single market and its four freedoms (which includes freedom of movement) are indivisible. Cherry picking is not an option.
 * Said by Michel Barnier. Brexit: EU negotiator says 'time's short' for reaching deal BBC News (6 December 2016)

2017

 * I wish the result had gone the other way. I campaigned passionately for that.  But as democrats our party has to accept that result and it follows that the prime minister should not be blocked from starting the Article 50 negotiations.
 * Said by Keir Starmer. Brexit decision 'difficult' for Labour, Keir Starmer says BBC News (31 January 2017)


 * Any [Brexit] deal is bound to be full of compromises which one group or another in Parliament finds difficult to stomach.
 * Said by William Hague. Downing Street rejects Hague call for snap election BBC News (7 March 2017)


 * Our laws will then be made in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast and interpreted not by judges in Luxembourg but by judges across the United Kingdom
 * Said by David Davis. Brexit: UK sets out plans to replace all EU laws BBC News (30 March 2017)


 * Your Prime Minister, your MP, Theresa May, called this election about Brexit. Have we heard from her what she plans to do about Brexit? No. This is mad. On Thursday, you are going to be faced with Prime Minister May, or Prime Minister Corbyn, against twenty-seven prime ministers from the European Union. It will be a shitshow.
 * Said by Lord Buckethead. Speaking a local hustings in Maidenhead (5 June 2017)


 * There are two kinds of European nations. There are small nations and there are countries that have not yet realized they are small nations.
 * Said by Kristian Jensen (13 June 2017), as cited in "Brits angry at Dane's 'small nation' jibe", Politico (13 June 2017).
 * Speaking at the Road To Brexit conference in Copenhagen, Jensen was Denmark's Finance Minister at the time. Dominic Schroeder, then British ambassador to Denmark, said he saw no sign of his country being a "of a diminished or diminishing power".


 * No deal is better than a bad deal
 * Said by Theresa May. Boris Johnson: EU can 'go whistle' over Brexit divorce bill, BBC News, 11 July 2017


 * Since the Brexit negotiations begun there's a third emotion I've been feeling - embarrassment. Embarrassment at our country's leaders. Embarrassment for Great Britain.
 * Said by Vince Cable. Anti-Brexit marchers rally in Parliament Square BBC News (9 September 2017)

2018

 * As Europe struggled to recover from recession, in 2015 the British prime minister David Cameron tossed Brussels a grenade. He said he would hold a referendum on the UK’s continued EU membership the following year. The torch of British Euroscepticism had passed from left to right. It was now Conservatives rather than Labour who were most anti-European. Cameron’s attempts to appease his ‘leave’ voters by negotiating reforms to the EU were dismissed by the ever cautious Merkel and, in June 2016, to Cameron’s surprise and dismay, the British electorate voted narrowly to leave the EU. The vote was taken as binding by the government. The date decided by Parliament for departure was March 2019.
 * Simon Jenkins, A Short History of Europe: From Pericles to Putin (2018)
 * Britain’s departure could not lightly be dismissed. Its economy was second only to Germany’s in size, and contributed twenty per cent of the EU budget. The UK might long have been half-hearted in its commitment to European union, but now it was not alone. A Pew survey in mid-2016 was one of many showing disapproval of the EU as high in Germany and the Netherlands as in Britain, and higher in France and Spain. Few governments dared imitate Britain and hold an open vote on continued membership. Union might be popular but the EU was not.
 * Simon Jenkins, A Short History of Europe: From Pericles to Putin (2018)


 * Brexit has been pushed by certain people who predicted easy solutions. Brexit has shown us one thing - and I fully respect British sovereignty in saying this - it has demonstrated that those who said you can easily do without Europe, that it will all go very well, that it is easy and there will be lots of money, are liars. This is all the more true because they left the next day, so they didn't have to manage it.
 * Said by Emmanuel Macron. Donald Tusk: Theresa May's Brexit trade plan won't work BBC News (20 September 2018)


 * Crashing out of Europe with no deal risks being a national disaster.
 * Said by Jeremy Corbyn. Brexit: Jeremy Corbyn meets Michel Barnier for 'useful' talks, BBC News, 27 September 2018


 * Brexit was not our choice, it is the choice of the UK. Our proposal tries to help the UK in managing the negative fallout of Brexit in Northern Ireland in a way that respects the territorial integrity of the UK.
 * Said by Michel Barnier. Brexit negotiators working 'day and night' for agreement BBC News (10 October 2018)


 * For me, getting a good Brexit is about securing the freedoms and opportunities to plough our own furrow whilst enjoying a relationship of co-operation and trade with mainland Europe.
 * Said by Derek Thomas. Quoted in the Falmouth Packet. Brexit conversation in Helston with MP Derek Thomas (10 November 2018)

2019

 * Therefore now in the national interest we have got to come together and secure a compromise. If we can't do that, well yes, we have to go back to the people.
 * Said by John McDonnell. Brexit: Labour plan can get majority, says John McDonnell BBC News (8 February 2019)


 * Britain is basically Pompeii if Pompeii had voted for the volcano.
 * Said by John Oliver about Brexit "Brexit III" (ff. 0:14:30), (17 February 2019).


 * You cannot drag out Brexit for a decade.
 * Said by Heiko Maas. Brexit: Tusk says UK MEPs could sit for 'months or longer' BBC News (16 April 2019)


 * We've got to a stage where we feel that any deal is so controversial and may well be so far from what people voted for when they voted to leave, that we think that it is probably appropriate… that we say to the people, 'Is this what you wanted?' We just want to check. Because if it isn't, then let's stay.
 * Said by Emily Thornberry. 2019 European elections: Labour MPs push for referendum pledge BBC News (26 April 2019)


 * I want us to leave the European Union, I think we should have left on the 29th of March but we've got these elections and I think it's really important that there's a good vote for ... people who do want to leave.
 * Said by Jacob Rees-Mogg. Quoted by the BBC. European elections 2019: Rees-Mogg backs Conservative candidate (9 May 2019)


 * It is my honestly held view that Parliament will not be able to get a deal on Brexit and therefore the only choice, reluctantly, is to ask the people to take another look at it.
 * Said by Tom Watson. Brexit: 'High price to pay' for Labour stance, says Watson BBC News (17 June 2019)


 * If the UK doesn’t pay what is due, the EU will not negotiate a trade deal.
 * Said by Guy Verhofstadt. Quoted by the Independent Boris Johnson news – live: EU 'will block trade deal' if UK refuses to pay £39bn divorce bill, as No 10 warns MPs they can't stop no-deal (26 August 2019)


 * I'm against any form of Brexit, I want to stop Brexit, but in particular a no-deal Brexit I think will be catastrophic for our economy, society, for a long time to come
 * Said by Nicola Sturgeon. Nicola Sturgeon: Stopping no-deal Brexit is priority BBC News (2 September 2019)

2020

 * The more divergence there is, the more distant the partnership has to be. Without an extension of the transition period beyond 2020, you cannot expect to agree on every single aspect of our new partnership. Without the freedom of movement of people, you cannot have the free movement of capital, goods and services. Without a level playing field on environment, labour, taxation and state aid, you cannot have highest-quality access to the world’s largest single market.
 * Said by Ursula von der Leyen. Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen have 'positive' meeting The Guardian (8 January 2019)


 * There is no need to give in on fish to complete a Free Trade Agreement. The UK must be firm - no more concessions. An FTA is in the EU's interest so dig in.
 * From a series of tweets by John Redwood, a pro-Brexit MP. "BBC under fire as reporter brands Brexit fishing expectations 'hopelessly naive'", Express (10 January 2020)


 * So this is it, the final chapter, the end of the road. A 47-year political experiment that the British frankly have never been very happy with. My mother and father signed up to a common market, not to a political union, flags, anthems, presidents, and now you even want your own army. For me, it has been 27 years of campaigning and over 20 years here in this parliament. I’m not particularly happy with the agreement we’re being asked to vote on tonight. But Boris has been remarkably bold in the last few months… he’s promised us there will be no level playing field, and on that basis, I wish him every success in the next round of negotiations, I really do.
 * Nigel Farage, EU Farewell Speech, as quoted in Nigel Farage’s Final EU Speech: Mic Gets Cut as He Waves UK Flag in Victory, Breitbart news


 * What happens at 11pm this Friday the 31st of January 2020 marks the point of no return. Once we’ve left, we’re never coming back and the rest frankly is detail. We’re going, and we will be gone. And that should be the summit of my own political ambitions. I walked in here, you all thought it was terribly funny but you stopped laughing in 2016. But my view of Europe has changed since I joined. In 2005, I saw the constitution that had been drafted… and saw it rejected by the French in a referendum. I saw it rejected by the Dutch in a referendum. And I saw you, in these institutions, ignore them. [You brought it back] as the Lisbon treaty, and boast you could ram it through without there being referendums. Well, the Irish did have a vote and did say no, and were forced to vote again. You’re very good at making people to vote again, but what we’ve proved is the British are too big to bully, thank goodness. So I became an outright opponent of the whole European project. I want Brexit to start a debate across the whole of Europe. What do we want from Europe? If we want trade, friendship cooperation, reciprocity, we don’t need a European Commission, we don’t need a European court. We don’t need these institutions and all of this power. And I can promise you, both in UKIP and in the Brexit party, we love Europe. We just hate the European Union.
 * Nigel Farage, EU Farewell Speech, as quoted in Nigel Farage’s Final EU Speech: Mic Gets Cut as He Waves UK Flag in Victory, Breitbart news


 * I hope this begins the end of this project. It is a bad project. It isn’t just undemocratic, it is antidemocratic. It puts in that front row, it gives people power without unaccountability. People who cannot be held to account by the electorate and that is an unacceptable structure.
 * Nigel Farage, EU Farewell Speech, as quoted in Nigel Farage’s Final EU Speech: Mic Gets Cut as He Waves UK Flag in Victory, Breitbart news


 * There is a historic battle going on across the west, in Europe, America, and elsewhere. It is globalism against populism. And you may loathe populism, but I’ll tell you a funny thing. It is becoming very popular! And it has great benefits. No more financial contributions, no more European Courts of Justice. No more European Common Fisheries Policy, no more being talked down to. No more being bullied, no more Guy Verhofstadt! What’s not to like. I know you’re going to miss us, I know you want to ban our national flags, but we’re going to wave you goodbye, and we’ll look forward in the future to working with you as a sovereign nation… [Farage is cut off by the chair]
 * Nigel Farage, EU Farewell Speech, as quoted in Nigel Farage’s Final EU Speech: Mic Gets Cut as He Waves UK Flag in Victory, Breitbart news
 * In Britain, hard-right revisionism packed itself into the single, self-destructive nuclear option of Brexit. From the 2000s, anti-Europeanism was pursued with skill and determination by the upstart UKIP party (founded 1993) and among Conservatives by the old, unreconciled, Britain-first rump, perhaps a third of the parliamentary party. Shaken by diplomatic failures with his European partners and spooked by the rise of British anti-Europeanism, David Cameron, who was prime minister from 2010 to 2016, called a referendum on British membership of the EU, which he expected to win. On narrowly losing, rather than play for time a shaken Cameron announced within hours that “the instruction” of “the people” should be “delivered.” He resigned, leaving to his successors, Theresa May and Boris Johnson, an anti-liberal, populist discourse of people against elites, democracy against parliament, which May nibbled at and Johnson swallowed whole.
 * Edmund Fawcett, Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition (2020), p. 349
 * The rebellion against membership of the European Union, culminating in the British ‘Brexit’ referendum on 23 June 2016, represents a new highwater mark for anxious and distrustful popular sentiment. A little more than seventy years after the war against extreme nationalism appeared won, a small but clear majority of those who chose to vote essentially reaffirmed the near-absolute primacy of nationalism over internationalism, reversing the political direction in which the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe had appeared to be travelling since 1945. In the United States, a phrase with dubious historical pedigree, ‘America First’, has become current once more. What we are living through is not, of course, precisely a repeat of the 1930s. However, the study of the 1930s reminds us of the dangers of crass inequality, of international ‘beggar-my-neighbour’ competition, of the capacity of marginalized social groups for extreme violence based on the scapegoating of minorities, and of the many other consequences that flow from irresponsible and often sadly misjudged notions of national self-interest.
 * Frederick Taylor, 1939: A People's History (2020)


 * Scotland will be back soon, Europe. Keep the light on.
 * Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish First Minister, via Twitter, according to Brexit: New era for UK as it completes separation from European Union posted December 31, 2020

2022

 * Also, would a referendum settle this issue (Repeal of ) once and for all? May I remind Members and the PSP what happened in the UK with Brexit. Both sides campaigned vigorously and bitterly. It created and entrenched polarised identities. [...] In the process, the credibility of the British government was severely damaged. Indeed, it has yet to recover.
 * , Singapore Parl Debates; Vol 95, Sitting No 77; 29 November 2022.