Before Brexit: Were Cameron ’ s EU concessions full of holes

Swiss researchers have looked at the pre-Brexit settlement negotiated by then UK Prime Minister David Cameron with the European Union and suggest that this was very much a missed opportunity for all parties that might have avoided the need for a referendum on the UK leaving the EU and all that ongoing problems to which that has led, despite the referendum being technically only advisory. The voting turnout for the referendum in June 2016 was not particularly high and the result was almost equally split with a very narrow margin for the leavers rather than the remainers. Nobody was more shocked by the result than many of those who campaigned to leave other than perhaps the person who called the referendum in the first place – Cameron. He had negotiated many concessions for the UK within the EU. The question of whether the UK should have retained its membership of the EU had vexed politicians for many years but was not particularly high on the public’s agenda despite the advent of a so-called “independence” party and the agitations of far-right, xenophobic groups with their own political agendas. Even many of the purported Eurosceptics could see the benefits of membership over the country leaving, not least avoiding the likely problem of a renewed call for Scottish independence from the UK and the issue of the border between the Republic of Ireland and the part of the UK that is Northern Ireland. To quote Cameron: The decision to hold a plebiscite on qui...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs