The UK's Road Back to Europe

“Jim Newell shows that it will be difficult for the UK to rejoin the EU, but that it is eminently possible. The UK will not rejoin the EU by stealth or by accident. As the book admirably demonstrates, rejoining the EU will not happen without hard campaigning work by Rejoin supporters and moral leadership by national politicians.” --Brendan Donnelly, Director of the Federal Trust for Education and Research, UK Despite the efforts of leading party spokespersons in the UK to marginalise Brexit as an issue of public discussion, it shows no sign of disappearing from the political agenda any time soon. Meanwhile, a significant case can be made for the view that almost regardless of future developments, it will remain a significant issue simply because of the importance of Europe, economically and strategically, to the UK. EU-UK relations are ongoing; therefore, Brexit is a process not an event. For example, the 2021 EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement has established organisational machinery for permanent negotiations on trade and other matters between the UK and the EU and has to be reviewed every five years. Brexit has had significant consequences for the integration of the United Kingdom: consequences that are still playing themselves out through the events surrounding the Northern Ireland Protocol and the prospects for a second referendum on Scottish independence. It has given rise to a lively academic and media debate on the meaning and significance of ‘Englishness’. If ‘the Brexit experiment’ involving the UK’s almost complete withdrawal from the institutional frameworks of the EU, comes to be perceived as having been a failure, then there is little doubt that the forces, within the UK, that have never reconciled themselves to Brexit, will grow stronger. The purpose of this book is therefore to assess the strength of these forces and whether a road back to EU membership is likely to be taken any time soon. James L. Newell is a former Professor of Politics at the University of Salford where he taught for 27 years and is currently Adjunct Professor at the University of Urbino in Italy. He is the author or co-author of over 100 journal articles and book chapters and of eight books, including European Integration and the Crisis of Social Democracy (Palgrave, 2022)