Brexit and the British Policy Style: Back to Governance?

Abstract

Britain’s decision to leave the European Union (EU), is turning out to be a classic policy fiasco, whichever side of the remain/leave divide one supports. The actual decision to leave is almost impossible to fit into either of the main policy-making models of UK policy-making outlined in this book. Whilst interest groups played a significant role in getting Britain into the EU, they appear to have played little or no role in getting Britain out of the EU. Neither did Parliament, as such, play much of a role in the decision to leave the EU. Whether Brexit is hard or soft, the government faces a truly massive task in deciding what of the four decades of EU legislation that will become British law on exit day it will keep, abolish, or amend. Expertise on such matters in Whitehall and Westminster is in short supply and so interest groups must be very closely involved in the post-Brexit policy process if a whole series of policy disasters and blunders is to be avoided. Thus, the post-Brexit policy style will need to swing away from the Westminster model, back to bottom-up consensual policy-making.

This analysis of changes in the British policy style is an amended and expanded version of Richardson, J. (2017). The Changing British Policy Style: From Governance to Government? British Politics, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41293-017-0051-y.