Back to the Westminster Model? The Impact of Brexit on the UK Political System

Abstract

Brexit represents a critical juncture, not only for the relationship between the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK), but also for the UK political system. Since the June 2016 referendum, the UK has gone through rather turbulent and hectic times: two snap elections, three different Prime Ministers, an impressive series of Cabinet reshuffles, the biggest ever defeat for the Government in the House of Commons, unprecedented levels of electoral volatility across different types of elections and, last but not least, extraordinary constitutional tensions, with important clashes between political institutions being brought before the Supreme Court. This turmoil calls into question what sort of political system the post-Brexit UK will become. Given such intense times for British Politics, there is no shortage of public commentaries or scholarly work on Brexit. However, with so much happening on a day-to-day basis, the risk is to get sunk by running commentaries and quick analyses. Delving deep into the subtleties of the process, such analyses run the risk of only speaking to the British public, losing touch with comparative/theoretical landmarks and, thus, with the bigger picture. This panel pursues a different aim. It takes a broad, systemic perspective on the British political system and, proposing Arend Lijphart’s ‘Westminster model’ as analytical yardstick, asks to what extent the process of Brexit impacts on its political and institutional set-up. The panel aims to host papers that assess Brexit-related developments, with a special interest on three dimensions: -the complex set of relationships between electoral system(s), electoral market(s) and party system(s); -the relationships between the Government and two Houses of Parliament, with a specific focus on Brexit related bills and resolutions; -the relationships between the central and the devolved administrations, bringing in the different stances of the political forces acting primarily at devolved level. We invite papers combining theoretical rigour and awareness of the comparative literature on varieties of democratic systems with attention to the empirical detail, in a view to make an evaluation of the impact of Brexit more intelligible to a wider (not only British) audience.

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