Skip to main content
Rebordering Britain & Britons after Brexit

Symposium Introduction: The Paradox of Structure: The UK State, Society and 'Brexit'

Abstract

Ostensibly motivated by 'taking back control', is Brexit an opportunity to enhance the UK's capacity for self-government? If driven by an aspiration to maximise the central state's governing autonomy, it confronts a paradox: governance structures at once enable action and constrain it. Exploring this paradox of structure, this article sets Brexit in long-term perspective. As well as reshaping its external relations, Brexit inevitably unsettles the UK's internal structures, not least in (partly) disentangling he UK state and organised civil society from EU institutions and processes. Equally, those internal structures were themselves rarely static. Brexit has complicated the processes of their flux. The article introduces a symposium which addresses issues of this kind in three important domains: feminist civil society organisations (Minto), Westminster's role and scrutiny of European affairs (Cygan, Lynch and Whitaker) and the legal rights and access to justice of EU migrants under English law (Barnard and Fraser Burton).

You might also be interested in :

Contesting Brexit Masculinities: Pro-European Activists and Feminist EU Citizenship*
Although Brexit campaigns mobilized discourses of hegemonic masculinity that marginalize women, women seemed to be at the forefront of pro-EU campaigns post-referendum. I explore to what extent pro-EU activists make claims to EU citizenship that contest the masculinities of Brexit.
Scala Civium: Citizenship Templates Post-Brexit and the European Union's Duty to Protect EU Citizens
Brexit opened the way for the restoration' of British sovereignty and, if an EEA model (or an EEA-like model) is not chosen following the activation of Article 50 TEU, EU citizens settled in the UK will be requested to apply for either UK nationality or permanent leave to remain.
The Rule of Law and Access to the Courts for EU Migrants
The ability of workers generally to enforce their labour rights in the UK has been a matter of ongoing discussion over a number of years. However, the dominance of the topic of immigration in the Brexit debates, along with questions surrounding the need for, and position of…

Journal

JCMS - Journal of Common Market Studies

Author

Daniel Wincott (United Kingdom)

Article meta

Country / region covered

Year of Publication

Source type

Keywords