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In December 2020, seeking to start cashing in on its desired 'Brexit dividends', the UK Government published the Green Paper 'Transforming Public Procurement'. The Green Paper sets out a blueprint for the reform of UK public procurement law that aims to depart from the regulatory baseline of EU law and deliver a much-touted 'bonfire of procurement red tape'. The Green Paper seeks 'to speed up and simplify [UK] procurement processes, place value for money at their heart, and unleash opportunities for small businesses, charities and social enterprises to innovate in public service delivery'. The Green Paper aims to do so by creating 'a progressive, modern regime which can adapt to the fastmoving environment in which business operates' underpinned by 'a culture of continuous improvement to support more resilient, diverse and innovative supply chains.' I argue that the Green Paper has very limited transformative potential and that its proposals merely represent an 'EU law +' approach to the regulation of public procurement that would only result in an overcomplicated regulatory infrastructure, additional administrative burdens for both public buyers and economic operators, and tensions and contradictions in the oversight model. I conclude that a substantial rethink is needed if the Green Paper's goals are to be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union (EU). This outcome was not only unexpected but also had clear geographical and age‐bound divisions. While people over the age of 65 tended to vote to leave, younger voters were more likely to vote to remain a part of the EU. Reflecting on 7 years of journalism, this paper explores the ways in which young people have been represented by the news media with regards to the issue of Brexit. It analyses a database of 700 news media articles published from 2016 to 2022 across the UK, equating to 100 articles per calendar year and ranging from regional sources to those with an international reach. The paper showcases how young people occupy liminal spaces within the news media through an analysis of the language used to describe their political participation, and a focus on their role within political activism. As it is this media that dominates hegemonic narratives within traditional political spheres, the retelling and representation of young people's engagement serves, we argue, to reinforce their liminality as citizens apart. Reflecting on 7 years of journalism and analysing 700 news media articles related to Brexit and young people, this paper showcases how these media reinforce the liminal spaces occupied by this demographic in political discourse. As it is this media that dominates hegemonic narratives within traditional political spheres, the retelling and representation of young people's engagement serves, we argue, to reinforce their liminality as citizens apart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Reflection Papers published by the European Commission (EC), which focus on Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), and defence and the social dimension of European Union (EU) activity. Topics include Great Britain's decision to leave the European Union, also known as Brexit, Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) that includes migration management and national security, and EU's budget revenues.

The repeated risk of the so-called hard Brexit created great uncertainty about the future of mutual EU-UK trade relations. In 2020, the uncertainty was exacerbated by the COVID-19 global pandemic. These critical situations affected the EU's external trade and, in particular, the EU export capacity. Therefore, in addition to the standard factors, such as GDP, labour productivity or the presence of the FTA determining EU exports, this paper examines those factors that were relevant for EU export between 2016 and 2020, i.e. the uncertainty stemming from Brexit and the global COVID-19 pandemic. Fixed and time effects panel data analysis combined with the difference in difference method and a Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimator were used. The negative impact of Brexit uncertainty on EU exports has not been proven. The COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a deep downturn in international trade in 2020, had a negative impact on EU exports. However, EU exports to all partners decreased significantly regardless of the COVID-19 prevalence. This study updates the literature on the nexus between uncertainty and trade by examining the recent critical factors affecting EU export developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates political decisions and epidemiological developments. Employing a quantitative approach, this paper examines proportions of votes advocating Brexit with the proportional rates of Covid-19 vaccinations among individuals aged 18 years and above. A discernible pattern suggests a link between lower vaccination rates and pro-Brexit inclinations, validating the theory of disinformation affecting decision-making. This research finds a correlative relationship between political behaviour in voting for Brexit, and epidemiological outcomes measured by the uptake of vaccinations among various urban centres, towns, and local governmental jurisdictions within the United Kingdom. However, the results also show socioeconomic control variables are statistically more significant in predicting vaccination rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, scholarship on postfunctionalism in European integration has drawn attention to how processes of Europeanisation are not restricted to policymakers, but exist equally (if not more significantly) in the quotidian. The 2016–2020 Brexit process and debates on the relationship between national identity and 'Europeanness' urge a new consideration of how Europeanisation is narrated in everyday discourses. This paper analyses British fictional portrayals of the EEC and EU and posits a new theoretical framework of 'Imperial Gothic 2.0'. Pre-2016 representations of the EU were entirely dystopian. But post-2016, Brex-Lit fiction has reversed this trend and the EU now appears as a flawless utopia. Early twentieth-century 'Imperial Gothic' saw popular fiction defined by themes of British decline and oppression by foreign powers; a century later, Brex-Lit has resurrected these themes by narrating Britain in terminal decline, reflecting cultural anxieties, a reversal of Self and Other, and a loss of identities. This 'Imperial Gothic 2.0' reveals anxieties which reflect and influence political action, and reveals the extent to which imaginations and narratives of the EU have transformed from depictions of a distant, technocratic entity used for comedy or conspiracy, into a site of intense emotional affiliation, nostalgia, anticipation, and regret. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to study the evolution of Britain's involvement in the EU's foreign and security policy in order to highlight the reasons that led the issue to be left out of talks on the post-Brexit future relation. The paper argues Europeanisation or de-Europeanisation largely depends on the degree of politicisation of issues both in the EU, the EU-27 and in the UK. As long as foreign and security issues remained relatively low key, the UK was able to enjoy the magnifying effect of its participation in the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and contributed to the decision-making process in order to successfully influence EU policies. Politicisation of foreign and security issues was due both to developments in EU-led or national initiatives and to the reaction they provoked in the UK. The EU insisted the UK was to be considered as a 'third country' and stressed the need for future cooperation to be institutionalised. On the contrary, in the UK, public distrust against a putative European 'super state', led successive governments to avoid any formal commitment to new EU initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the deployment of animal welfare as an issue during the 'Brexit' referendum as a lens through which to explore the mutual shaping of discourses about care for animals in Britain and the British nation, or the nationalism of animal welfare. Adopting a genealogical outlook, it uses one political advertisement in particular—paid for by the official Vote Leave campaign—as a focalising image and means of opening up the issues, leading to an empirical emphasis on the issue of live animal export as it has mediated ideas about Europe and British identity. Introducing the idea of 'animal welfare chauvinism', the paper suggests that animal welfare messages in the context of this constitutional debate were products of chauvinistic and caring impulses which are mutually constitutive and crystallised through discourses formed in relation to contingent historical struggles. Analytically, stress is placed on the constructive role of situated and repeated discursive exchanges, occurring between animal advocates and other national political elites, within which 'care for animals' as a national ideal is forged. In this light, the article concludes with reflections on the stakes of entering into an already existing conversation on the 'national culture of care' for animals in Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how so-called Brexit, that is the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union (EU), has modified the regional geography of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs). The latter are therapies deriving from cell manipulation, gene editing, tissue engineering, or a combination of these techniques. Their development and delivery have been realised through research collaborations and commercial relations of international scope. In the EU, this has happened by means of a complex distribution of commercial activities and legal responsibilities. With Brexit, three main kinds of reconfigurations have occurred: the relocation of research and manufacturing activities; the reorganisation of quality control tests aimed to manage clinical risks; and the redistribution of legal responsibilities and representatives. This technical and legal reconfiguration is captured here by means of theoretical insights from the emerging domain of legal geography. Drawing on interviews conducted with both EU and UK professionals involved in ATMP development, this paper reveals the main challenges brought by Brexit to the current and future configuration of the ATMP landscape in the EU and the UK. Furthermore, it demonstrates how shifts in legal arrangements impact on science-intensive domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interpellation, the production and hailing of subjectivities, is key to poststructuralist international relations (IR) theory and yet with some notable exceptions interpellation/hailing as an analytical concept remains somewhat undertheorized. This paper presents a Lacanian–Žižekian psychoanalytical theorization of interpellation in IR, while engaging with the ontology and epistemology of belonging. More specifically, this paper develops four major psychoanalytical concepts: void/lack, fantasy, jouissance, and desire, as it argues that void/lack at the subjective and objective levels renders interpellation possible and destabilises it, thus accounting for the im/possibility of belonging. This paper illustrates the psychoanalytical framework of interpellation by analyzing national-populism as manifested in the Brexit discourse in the UK as well as the interpellation in homonationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When former British Prime Minister Theresa May resigned in May 2019, in the first few days much mainstream and social media coverage focused on the tears she cried. Newspapers highlighted her tears as an extraordinary act for a politician. Her unexpected display of emotions was met with sympathy, sometimes even considered a feminist political moment, and often contextualised the framing of May's political legacy. Analysing UK mainstream tabloid and broadsheet coverage following May's resignation, this paper explores the media reactions in more detail. A dominant theme in the assessment of May's legacy was her perceived inability to "get Brexit done." Any deployment of feminist celebrations of public female tears was quickly overtaken by coverage that constructs May as politically and personally fragile, rooted in a known range of sexist tropes that associate femininity in politics with weakness. This "feminine weakness" is the opposite of what is needed to fulfil the Brexit project, which is often described in masculinist terms. Thus, Brexit is constructed as inherently masculine, and women are considered a threat to this project, highlighting the ways in which Brexit is mediated as a gendered political process. This article argues for greater attention to the role media play in the gendering of populist discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data from six rounds of the European Social Survey (ESS), between 2004 and 2016, to examine attitudes towards European integration across countries. Using both individual responses and country-level variables, we analyse factors influencing Euroscepticism; how these factors are changing over time; and whether they may signal a latent potential for Brexit-like outcomes in different countries. Controlling for a unique combination of demographic, political and macroeconomic factors, we find individuals with higher levels of income and education, and those with more left-leaning political views to be more supportive of European integration, while those who are older and right-leaning to be less supportive. Using predicted values from our empirical analysis, we find median voters' attitudes diverging across European countries over time, with an increasing number of countries moving closer to the threshold values observed among voters in the United Kingdom in 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The warnings about Turkey's not-so-near accession to the EU are explored as a strategic tool in the Brexit campaign, linking concerns about sovereignty and immigration compounded with the anxieties surrounding Islam and the threat of terrorism. Drawing on the theoretical framework of Edward Said's Orientalism and the unique perspectives gathered from British Turks, this paper sheds light on their nuanced responses. It uncovers strategies of disbelief and denial in the face of the constructed narrative that portrayed Turkey as an undesirable 'Other' with its predominantly Muslim population. A closer analysis of some British Turks' narratives is premised not only on the sacralised defence of the principles of Turkish westernisation but also on the socio-political reputation of the Islamic Ottoman past as almighty. The article equally contributes to a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between British national identity and discourses surrounding immigration, sovereignty, and Islamophobia within the context of Brexit, as well as the principles by which the privileges of modern, secular Turkey, as well as the demise of the mighty Ottoman image, are maintained. In a paradoxical manner, the act of denial only serves to affirm the Brexit campaign's narrative depicting Turkey as an undesirable 'Other' with a predominantly Muslim demographic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers whether UK corporate insolvency law and the UK Insolvency Act 1986 have extra-territorial effect post-Brexit, and whether – and to what extent – it is for the courts or the legislature to extend any extra-territorial effect. It does not deal with 'inward recognition', ie the recognition of foreign judgments and orders in the UK. Brexit has left something of a vacuum and provisions which might otherwise have applied extra-territorially, at least within the EU, may now have been deprived completely of extra-territorial effect. But all is not lost and Brexit here presents opportunities. There is room for clarifying that particular provisions which might otherwise have discriminated between EU application and application vis-à-vis the rest of the world can now be given a uniform global interpretation. Courts should, however, proceed incrementally in extending the extra-territorial scope of UK corporate insolvency law. A bolder reform would be to enact legislation that specifies the exact extent to which the UK Insolvency Act applies extra-territorially. Legislation obviously depends on parliamentary time and requires detailed drafting but also provides the opportunity for the UK to showcase that it remains at the forefront of international insolvency developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union has always been tumultuous and problematic, and European integration has always been a controversial topic in the UK's contemporary politics. However, current research on the Brexit referendum's news discourse hardly addresses this topic directly. Therefore, this paper analyses the discursive construction of the UK versus the EU during the campaign coverage of the Brexit referendum in major British broadsheets. To do so, a corpus of four major British broadsheets along ideological lines (left-right) and Brexit stance (Leave-Remain) was analysed by applying a mixed method approach of Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies (Discursive News Values Analysis along with some Corpus Linguistic tools and techniques). The way news values were adopted in the campaign coverage of the British broadsheets shows a certain continuation of historical discourses around the relationship of the entities. The results show that news values during the campaign coverage were adopted by the pro-leave outlets to construct a highly negative and elite-associated image of the EU in contrast to the UK, while the pro-remain broadsheets mostly focused on a limited, practical and economic argument in favour of the EU, maintaining and highlighting the importance of UK independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Boris Johnson's political communication style by analyzing his use of language and its populistic elements. The aim is to shed light on his linguistic construction of reality by examining the statements he made in a Brexit-related context. Therefore, qualitative discourse analysis was chosen as the most suitable method and 100 statements were generated by the Google search engine from multifarious sources. This included the systematization of several categories of used rhetorical figures, phrases, slogans, and word types. The paper discovered specific patterns in named language categories depending on which elements of populistic communication Johnson is practicing. For example, this is reflected in rhetorical questions when he is talking about "dangerous others", the repetition of words such as "fantastic" and "great" and associating them with nouns like "country" and "people" in the sense of national unity, or an evident "us-them" division displayed while referring to Britain's uncertain future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Ireland and Northern Ireland barely featured during the 2016 referendum campaign, they have been central to Brexit negotiations. For some, Ireland's prominence in talks represents core EU values of solidarity and peace. For others, Ireland has been 'used' as a bargaining chip to 'frustrate Brexit'. In contrast, this paper shows how conflicting policy styles had an impact on the outcome of Brexit negotiations on the border in Ireland. Drawing on the literatures on Brexit negotiations, British policy style, and new intergovernmentalism, it shows that Ireland pursued a deliberative approach, contributing to its negotiating success. This is contrasted with three, relatively ineffectual, British approaches to Ireland, 'lack of engagement', 'magical thinking', and 'delayed deliberation'. The paper draws on original interviews conducted with Irish politicians during negotiations, and interviews with senior British political figures contained in the UK in a Changing Europe Witness Archive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement, reached on 17 October 2019, on the stocks listed on the London Stock Exchange are the subject of the paper. The classic event study methodology was used to quantify impact. This research is based on a sample of 138 stocks, divided into five sample sections according to the company’s business sector. In contrast to the research conducted after the referendum, which showed a clear negative impact on almost all of the observed sectors, the research conducted in this paper does not provide a unique conclusion. Three sectors recorded obvious positive effects, namely the financial sector, the food industry, and the medical sector, while no sector suffered obvious negative effects. The remaining two sectors did not provide data to aid in reaching a clear conclusion, as there were positive, negative and statistically insignificant results across different tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Brexit negotiations continue to draw criticism nearly two years on from the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, many media outlets have concentrated on making sense of what has been dubbed the 'Brexit circus'. In particular, significant media attention has been directed towards obstacles to Brexit's progression, such as the issue of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland and the 'backstop' arrangement. Through an examination of different media efforts to explain the border issue, this paper will discuss how conventional reporting methods have been unable to make this issue comprehensible to the individual. This paper will suggest that a hypertextual aesthetic form would provide a more effective means of making sense of the complexity of the border issue and its relationship to global political and economic structures. However, an understanding of the border issue also requires an understanding of the affective reality of life in this region and the history upon which this reality is founded. In this manner, this paper also argues that representational regimes capable of conveying affective realities could contribute important experiential dimensions to efforts to render dominant political and economic structures both cognisable and contestable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores challenges that Jersey faces in the post-Brexit era, and how Jersey can utilize paradiplomacy to overcome obstacles and broaden opportunities. Due to its constitutional status, preexisting international arrangements, and turbulences resulting from Brexit, the Bailiwick of Jersey is in a complicated context. Since May 2021, fishing conflicts have erupted off the coast of Jersey after the Jersey government adopted a post-Brexit fishing licensing scheme that requires French fishing boats to provide data showing they have a history of fishing in Jersey's waters. On the other hand, Jersey's export industry is stuck due to the island no longer benefiting from the free movement of goods after Brexit. In future negotiations, Jersey can use paradiplomacy to resolve post-Brexit difficulties. Jersey's interests will be best served by actively pursuing paradiplomacy with the EU and its members in order to achieve more beneficial trade and fishing arrangements for both parties. Jersey's paradiplomacy is not synonymous with protodiplomacy. It would be preferable for Jersey to remain under the sovereignty of the UK to maintain the substantial economic advantages and preferential treatment granted by the metropolitan territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of Brexit on UK financial services policy, explaining recent reforms to the domestic financial regulatory framework and assessing the prospects for future divergence from EU rules. Deploying the lens of de-Europeanisation, we show that the failure to include financial services in the final UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement necessitated major institutional changes. By contrast, there has been very limited change to date with respect to policy, while the government's ambitions for a 'Big Bang 2.0' package of regulatory reforms have been significantly scaled back. Drawing on insights from the political economy of finance, we argue that this process has been shaped by contested adaptational pressures mediated by three key variables: business unity, financial stability, and administrative capacity. The result is an emerging pattern of differentiated de-Europeanisation in financial services, ranging from intentional regulatory divergence to active alignment with EU rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the Growth Model (GM) research program in comparative and international political economy by analyzing the impact of Brexit on London and other financial centers within the European Union (EU). Our key contribution is to demonstrate that for many countries, national growth models are really city-level growth models, and that this is directly observable in the relationship between GMs and their international financial centers. Such city-level GMs are possible precisely because they do not depend on, nor are they deeply integrated into, the rest of their national economy. To explain these observations, we draw upon insights from economic sociology and argue that 'place-specific social capital' and professional 'linked ecologies' make such internationally oriented city-level GMs highly robust to external shocks – even one as big as Brexit. Empirically, we develop this argument using financial firm-level data to observe the post-Brexit movement of assets, loans, and jobs in London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt. We conclude with some observations on what a city-level GM perspective means for the study of comparative and international political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can we account for differences in the extent of risk disclosure among companies? The paper expands the existing explanations by claiming that corporate risk reporting is not just financial but also political communication. The presented empirical analysis of how corporations disclose Brexit-related uncertainties suggests that risk reporting is a part of a company's holistic conversation with multiple audiences in society (e.g. politicians, regulators, journalists and customers) and might have well-targeted but also unforeseen effects on each of them. The quantity and quality of risk disclosure can be explained – among other factors – by the extent to which companies want to participate in public discourse and wish their opinions on a particular political issue, such as Brexit, to be heard. In other words, risk reporting is a part of 'the politics of expectations' which should be investigated in its own right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a small and new EU member state Croatia had little to contribute to Brexit, which occurred just a few years after the country's accession to the EU. Stemming from its size, its pre-existing relations with the UK and its drive to learn to operate within the EU, Croatia is no outlier in the literature on small states' foreign policy. This paper analyses the behaviour of Croatia during Brexit and adds to the literature on small states. First, it analyses whether and to what extent Croatia opted for one or more of the following strategies: seeking shelter, hiding or hedging during the Brexit negotiations. Second, it examines the logics underpinning the aforementioned strategies (logic of consequences vs. logic of appropriateness). Third, it scrutinizes Brexit's impact on the Europeanisation of Croatia's foreign and defence policies and possible advancement or undermining of this Europeanisation process. We focus on both policy-uploading and policy-downloading dimensions of Europeanisation, thus contributing to the literature on Europeanisation. Our research is based on existing literature, second-hand sources such as official documents and statements, and the primary data collected through semi-structured interviews with eight persons who either shaped the Croatian foreign and defence policies or were well-informed about them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fate of British finance following the Brexit referendum revolves around the 'resilience or relocation' debate: will the City of London continue to thrive as the world's leading financial centre or will the bulk of its activity move to rival hubs after departure from EU trading arrangements? Despite extensive commentary, there remains no systematic analysis of this question since the Leave vote. This paper addresses that lacuna by evaluating the empirical evidence concerning jobs, investments, and share of key trading markets. Contrary to widely-held expectations, the evidence suggests that the City has been remarkably resilient. Brexit has had no significant impact on jobs and London has consolidated its position as the chief location for financial FDI, FinTech funding, and attracting new firms. Most unexpectedly, the City has increased its dominance in major infrastructure markets such as over-the-counter clearing of (euro-denominated) derivatives and foreign exchange—although it has lost out in the handling of repurchase agreements and share trading. Based upon this evidence, the paper argues that London's resilience is mainly a function of its status as a crucial 'agglomeration peak' of global finance which shelters its unique ecosystem from the typical pressures of capital flight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the host country of the 26th United Nations Climate Conference, the United Kingdom (UK) fully carried out climate diplomacy at the conference, and intended to promote the green concept in the international community through diplomatic means, which shows its greater ambition in international climate governance. However, the UK, as the source of the Industrial Revolution, has not always followed the so-called green norms in history. In the interaction with the EU norms after joining the European Community, the UK gradually developed from an "opponent" of green norms to an "advocate" of green norms. After "Brexit", the British government did not stop at the previous green norms of the EU, and further gave the green norms a special brand of the UK on this basis. At present, during the term of Boris Johnson's government, the green norms shaped by the UK have been basically formed and disseminated within a certain mechanism. In this paper, based on the normative power theory and relevant historical facts, how the UK has shaped international norms and obtained normative power through a series of climate policy will be discussed, and some enlightenment to China's participation in the construction of international norms system today will be obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic and Brexit were separate yet inter‐related developments which affected the British National Health Service (NHS). The UK's state‐funded health sector had historically relied on migrant labour and depended on a migration infrastructure designed to solve its nursing labour shortages. The analysis of primary qualitative and secondary quantitative data shows that the NHS migration infrastructure increased its orientation towards Asia to compensate for the effects of Brexit. The paper reveals how the persistent use of temporary visas along with conditional contractual arrangements has led to various exclusions for migrant nurses and midwives. These data also demonstrate how international travel restrictions associated with COVID‐19 created temporary obstacles for nurses' inflows. Alongside Brexit, this has also resulted in an increase in outflows amongst EU health workers. The article identifies the development of migrant support infrastructure amongst Filipino and Indian nurses as a major COVID‐19 linked innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UK geopolitics for the last five years has been heavily dominated by Brexit. The lead up to the referendum, the result, negotiations, intervening general election, extensions, further negotiations, and impending exit from the European Union have captured both academic and public interest. This paper contributes to geographical and wider social science research on the everyday geographies of socio‐economic change, with a particular focus on Brexit and the temporal politics of waiting. Emerging analyses focus on Brexit as an event, as uncertainty, and a discrete period for and of research on public moods. I illustrate how exploring Brexit through the lens of waiting provides new ways of thinking through the time‐spaces of Brexit, by drawing on data collected during an ethnographic participatory project in Gorse Hill, Greater Manchester (2018–2020). Analysis of group discussions, peer‐led research projects, podcast recordings, vox pops, and ethnographic fieldnotes highlight the embodied, everyday, endured, and emplaced experience of waiting for Brexit. More specifically, findings make the case for this waiting as crisis, as conjuncture, and as method. The paper closes with a discussion of the pace and timeliness of research, and the implications of waiting for, in, and with Brexit and other forms of socio‐economic change. This paper contributes to geographical and wider social science research on the everyday geographies of socio‐economic change, with a particular focus on Brexit and the temporal politics of waiting. I illustrate how exploring Brexit through the lens of waiting provides new ways of thinking through the time‐spaces of Brexit, by drawing on data collected during an ethnographic participatory project in Gorse Hill, Greater Manchester (2018–2020). Findings make the case for this waiting as crisis, as conjuncture, and as method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a modified battle of the systems approach and to explain the extent and location of financial services migration from London to the EU. It shows that the European Central Bank and European Commission pressured UK-based financial services to migrate to the EU by 2022, that companies migrated to EU cities most suited to their business models, with the critical exception of clearing services. Frankfurt's strategy of building a single prime financial centre has been limited to banking, but Paris' has won the day with a network of financial services spread across European cities that are coordinated in France and upheld with information and communication technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article approaches the theme of the psychology of de/globalisation by taking up the example of Brexit as an historical conjuncture that hinges upon troublesome questions of sovereignty. Operating at the interface between history and psychology, and informed by liminality scholarship, the paper offers a broad genealogical sketch of three mutations in the semantics of sovereignty as a mode of power that implicates subjectivity. Theological (premodern), nationalist (modern), and neoliberal/economic (postmodern) variants share the mythical motif of absolute autonomy. An account of globalisation as the spatial spread of the events of an initially partial process across the whole of a global field offers a view of the psychological as a subjective field of intelligibility shaped by societal and political settings. Drawing upon data from a focus group study conducted just before the 2016 referendum, attention is given to the resurgence of the theme of sovereignty amongst ordinary people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 29 March 2017, the UK made use of Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and thus initiated its withdrawal from the European Union. As a result, the UK left the European Union on 31 January 2020 (23:00 UTC). This paper provides a legal assessment of the impact of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union (Brexit) on zonal authorisation and mutual recognition procedures regarding the authorisation of plant protection products. Many legal issues are unclear in this respect due to the lack of European and national case law. The German Administrative Court of Braunschweig had to decide in an urgent procedure on the effects of Brexit with regards to the authorisation of a plant protection product in the mutual recognition procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brexit, COVID-19 and climate change pose challenges of national and global importance. They continue to have impacts across the economy, society, health, and the environment, all of which are determinants of health and well-being. Between 2018 and 2021, Public Health Wales undertook three Health Impact Assessments (HIA) in relation to the impact of the challenges in Wales. Based on these, work has been carried out to map the synergies across the 'Triple Challenge'. This paper highlights the commonalities in the impact of the three challenges for Wales, discusses the process carried out, learns from it and proposes actions that can be taken to mitigate harm. Results indicate the three components of the Triple Challenge must not be viewed as separate silos as they have cumulative multi-faceted impacts. This affects some population groups more negatively than others and present a 'Triple Challenge' to nation states in the UK and Europe. A HIA approach can enable a range of stakeholders to critically view similar challenges not just as single issues but as a holistic whole to mobilise action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines a sociological model of the conditions of possibility of the UK's decision to withdraw from the European Union in 2016. Drawing on the conceptual tools of Pierre Bourdieu and those inspired by him, it synthesises and goes beyond the partial and fragmentary accounts offered so far to offer a more comprehensive narrative implicating the interrelation of multiple fields, with agents' evolving strategies within the different fields being the major fulcra. To be specific, the conditions of possibility for the referendum result were provided by mutations within the global field of nation states ricocheting through the UK's political field, ethno-racial field and class structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the use of the word respect by the main advocates in the High Court and Supreme Court hearings of R v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (the 'Brexit case'). Courtroom discourse has received substantial research attention in pragmatics, and previous work has largely focused on notions of face and im/politeness exhibited in power-asymmetric encounters between lawyers and witnesses in hostile cross-examination. In contrast, this paper focuses on lawyer–judge interaction in appellate hearings and explores the ways in which advocates negotiate the task of making face-threats that are inherent to the discourse situation, while maintaining the levels of professional courtesy demanded by the institution. The word respect has a particular role in managing this balance, and has attached to it well-established implicit, indexical and professional meanings within the legal profession. The corpus analysis here shows that, although the advocates in question use respect in seemingly formulaic and ritualised ways, it is used to achieve multiple facework and interactional goals. Throughout the analysis we see advocates use respect when (dis)agreeing with judges, challenging opposing counsel and making recommendations to the court. • 'Respect' has implicit, indexical and institutional meaning in the courtroom. • Lawyers in appeal hearings must balance disagreement with courtesy. • Lawyers use 'respect' routinely as a marker of professional identity. • 'Respect' is versatile and is used to achieve a wide range of goals. • The pragmatics of the appeal court is distinct from that of other courtroom contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of "Britain and Europe" that David Cameron emphasised in his speech on 23 January 2013 is a curious one -it evokes a shared history full of intricate twists, which spans over several centuries, and at the same time, preserves the apparent incompatibility of the island nation and the continent. Cameron even proposed an "in-out referendum" to determine the future of the British people, and its realisation in 2016 made Brexit an unexpected reality and signifies a crucial setback in the recent history of the European project. Brexit is furthermore an expression of "a perceived cultural distinction between Britain and Europe" (Spiering 2015) that seems to persist in British discourse specifically. The paper thus uses Menno Spiering's concept of "British Euroscepticism" (2004), a unique form of Euroscepticism in terms of history, politics and culture, to discuss the cultural aspects of British differentness as entailing not only an opposition to Europe but also a potential to reflect on shared values and experiences. Based on this, the paper will trace the presentation of Europe in contemporary literature that emerged as a reaction to Brexit, especially poetry by Simon Armitage, Sean O'Brien and David Clarke, to ascertain the British perspective on the continent as either the paradigmatic Other or a constituent part for defining British identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on multisited qualitative research in Italy and the UK, this paper documents the dark side of onward migration and the experiences faced by Italian‐Bangladeshis in the UK after the Brexit referendum. The findings show that compared to their position in Italy, Italian‐Bangladeshis experienced a downgrading in symbolic, identity‐related, and, specifically, socio‐economic and cultural aspects in the UK society. The paper also uncovers the potential strategies that Italian‐Bangladeshis intend to adopt in case they lose the special rights provided to them by EU citizenship after Brexit. Since the majority of them have moved to the United Kingdom to build a future for their children, they find themselves forced to further reconfigure their strategies and reactivate different degrees of mobility in order to avoid the loss of social rights (access to welfare, the status of citizens) and material resources (housing and better working conditions) that they have long assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU Referendum of 2016 was one of the most significant events in recent British political history. It is widely recognised that citizens engaged with the referendum through understandings of Britain, the EU, the world, and their place in it. This study complements existing research where such understandings have been inferred from citizens' demographic characteristics, the characteristics of their localities/regions, or elite discourses. It builds on existing research where a more direct engagement with citizens' understandings has been achieved through interviews or focus groups, allowing the content of understandings to be thickly described. To these latter studies, this paper makes three main contributions. First, it focuses on popular imaginative geographies, which are conceptualised drawing on literatures in Geography and Political Science as fast‐thinking heuristics. Second, it brings new evidence to the conversation in the form of volunteer writing for Mass Observation. Third, the focus is on the content of popular imaginative geographies, but also how and why such geographies were used by voters in the referendum. The main findings include that many Leave supporters imagined Britain as an island – either a once great military and imperial power, an island separate from Europe, needing freedom from Europe to engage in the wider world; or a small island, a full container, close to the rest of Europe and vulnerable to mobilities across Europe's borders. By contrast, many Remain supporters imagined Britain as post‐imperial, small, vulnerable, and under threat of isolation from Europe and exposure to a chaotic, uncertain, dangerous world. Both groups engaged with the referendum through such popular imaginative geographies because the referendum presented voters with a difficult task, the campaigns provided few trustworthy facts, and voters therefore had to rely on cognitive shortcuts, including popular imaginative geographies. It is widely recognised that citizens engaged with the EU Referendum of 2016 through understandings of Britain, the EU, the world, and their place in it. This paper conceptualises popular imaginative geographies as fast‐thinking heuristics, draws on new evidence in the form of volunteer writing for Mass Observation, and focuses on the content of popular imaginative geographies, but also how and why such geographies were used by voters in the referendum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While it is well established that educational attainment is highly correlated with Brexit voting patterns, the predictive capacity of education has attracted less attention. Using full-sample and split-sample exercises, this paper demonstrates that educational attainment alone can correctly classify over 90% of local authorities by voting outcome in the 2016 referendum to leave the EU, depending on the prediction model and classification method used. This illustrates the importance of education as a key factor in the geography of Brexit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brexit has been a major crisis facing the European integration process. The paper examines how Brexit was framed and exploited by two EU member state governments, Czechia and Hungary. We conceptualize Brexit as a "distant crisis" for these two countries: although it is likely to have significant impacts, these are uncertain and not immediate. Building on the crisis-framing literature, we apply frame analysis to examine governmental rhetoric and find that both governments have instrumentalized Brexit for internal purposes by pragmatically adapting their discursive positions on it to fit their political calculus on both domestic and European issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the UK's future Indo-Pacific policy by looking into the newly published Integrated Review (IR) and comparing it with the French and German policy papers. The "Indo-Pacific tilt" is one of the most highlighted themes in the IR, but a reading of the review suggests that the UK remains Euro-Atlantic centered when it comes to defense and security policy. It is only after the internal and external security issues are addressed that the UK pursues its "global interest" through diplomacy and trade. Hence, while the geopolitical and economic importance of the Indo-Pacific is acknowledged, and the stance of the UK towards the region appears more ambitious and confident than that of France and Germany, it remains a question as to the degree to which the UK may commit to the Indo-Pacific. The UK defines China as a "systemic competitor" rather than a "threat," suggesting that while the challenges China poses may be comprehensive and profound, they are not taken as immediate and urgent. This designation is peculiar. On the one hand, it differs from the US policy, which sees China (and Russia) as threats to its national security. On the other hand, compared with the European counterparts, the UK is the only one that calls out China, expressing a stronger will to counter China when necessary. Therefore, it is suggested that the post-Brexit UK is likely to side with the US in the US-China-EU triangular relations. Being very much a middle power, however, the UK's space for maneuver is limited. It pledges to compete against China and seek the latter's cooperation simultaneously, but such a stance requires power and will that the country may be lacking. The deployment of HMS Queen Elizabeth to the Indo-Pacific, for instance, has been described as an expression of the UK's commitment to the rules-based international order. Yet Prime Minister Johnson's emphasis on not antagonizing anyone and the decision that the Carrier Strike Group will not sail through the Taiwan Strait indicates a concern about China and consequently difficulty implementing the "co-opetition" strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union, known as Brexit, is arguably the most important political, social, and economic phenomenon in British post‐WWII history. This paper analyses parliamentary debates from December 2018 concerning the European Withdrawal Act, focusing on the epistemic modality of Member of Parliaments' (MP) statements, to investigate the ontology of Brexit. Epistemic modality refers to linguistic devices that allow modification with regards to confidence, truthfulness, and probability, and enables investigation of MPs' commitments. Commitments are a part of their status function declaration, which create institutional reality. Analysis of such commitments permits inference about the institutional reality of Brexit. A video abstract is available at https://youtu.be/90RRWApg0rQ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The incipient crisis of the British state, which seems so apparent in 'Brexit', the move towards Scottish Independence, and the succession of minority governments, ought to be understood as a historical conjuncture. This conjuncture has entailed a profound reconfiguration of the social relations that constitute the British state-territory in the context of the world-system, making of it something as geographical as it is historical. Understanding this reconfiguration in novel, innovative, critical, productive or even sublative ways seems therefore to be a priority in the study of post-Brexit British politics and global political economy. Furthermore, as 'Brexit' has become the dominant narrativization of the objective conditions and subjective perceptions of this crisis, a convincing counter-narrative must be conceived for critical thinking and praxis. In the struggle over how to define our crisis in the British state, and drawing upon Critical Urban Theory, World-System Analysis, and poststructuralist political thought, the paper introduces the concept of the axiomatic city-state. This concept offers not merely an alternative empirical characterisation of the reconfigured British state, but a means of conceptualising broader transformations across the world-system at large. More importantly, it suggests a politically potent means for exploring critical vocabularies, strategies, and perhaps organization into the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brexit has opened doors for renewed attention to contested, multi-scalar geopolitical forces grounded in everyday life in borderlands. In this paper, we aim to unravel 'everyday Brexits' in the Gibraltar–La Línea (Spain) borderlands. By studying the 2019 commemoration of the historic 1969 border closure, we concentrate on how local borderwork by residents is mobilised for bottom-up geopolitics in the context of Brexit negotiations. We use a conceptual approach that focuses on multiple layerings of the border and the selectivity of stakeholders to select among these layers to pursue their interests. Based on on-site observations, in-depth interviews, and informal conversations with residents and key actors of La Línea and Gibraltar, we argue that Brexit has increased the tension of already loaded core-periphery relations in Spain. Brexit does not represent a sudden disruption. Rather, we show how Brexit allowed the bottom-up geopolitical mobilisation of latent, strongly historically embedded and continuous cross-borders sentiments of residents. This mobilisation could potentially challenge local cross-border power relations. In the final analysis, we conclude that the bottom-up geopolitics of 'ordinary' residents through everyday bordering processes is central to geopolitics research, including with regard to Brexit and in particular for non-British geographies affected by Brexit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an exploration into the phenomenon of Brexit, and how to approach it from the perspective of the critical humanities. Following calls by Edward Said and Lawrence Grossberg to cross the border between political science and cultural studies, this paper takes Karen Barad's agential realist approach to rethinking responsibility as response-ability and diffractively reads it alongside the performances and practices of Brexit, as well as the political theory of Hanna Pitkin and Lisa Disch. This new approach is developed through a close analysis of the debates held in the House of Commons surrounding the deferred 'meaningful vote' on the Brexit withdrawal agreement. The paper is organised into three parts, corresponding to a representative's responsibility on the: (1) local, (2) national, and (3) party level. As the deferred 'meaningful vote' did not happen, it will not be remembered as a landmark in the Brexit saga. This paper argues that precisely because of its unrealised nature, the deferred vote offers a potential space of resistance, contestation and transformation. The goal is to demonstrate that a greater understanding of the causes and consequences of Brexit can be achieved through the tools of the critical humanities, but that these tools can in turn be sharpened and reinvigorated as a result of said analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market and institutional shocks and upheaval, brought about by political, economic and social changes, have the potential to generate significant corporate restructuring. Foreign subsidiaries are particularly vulnerable to such impacts given the embeddedness of parent companies in their home countries, with the potential for disinvestment and regional decoupling. This paper examines the impact of the Brexit vote and negotiation period on UK-based foreign subsidiaries in the software and software-related sectors in Scotland and South East England. This firm-centric approach follows recent evolutionary thinking that restates the importance of examining the firm as a means by which to understand how regions respond to such disturbances. Rather than simply examine impact, the paper is concerned with why the scope and scale of impacts are mediated by particular corporate and global production networks (GPN) processes. Key to this is the examination of the importance of the value creation corporate role and degree of replication within the corporation (specificity), the GPN spatial configuration, and the markets that subsidiaries are mandated to serve. The paper concludes that a variety of impacts are evident, but that notable negative consequences have arisen for subsidiaries with low corporate specificity, working through European Union (EU)-configured GPNs, and serving European markets. These negative impacts are more notable in Scotland, compared with South East England where a large minority have experienced no detrimental impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present the importance of detailing the contextual conditions of a qualitative study to highlight any potential participant-researcher tensions. We emphasize the importance of understanding context in rich detail to expose societal complexities while maintaining positive participant-research rapport. Through two cases, this paper considers that bracketing, reflexivity, and transparency can be applied to form appropriate strategies to deal with external disruptions to qualitative fieldwork. The cases draw on Brexit's impact on two studies conducted in the United Kingdom. In so doing, we argue that time, relevance, and the individuals involved can coalesce to express varied influences on a study. Thus, bracketing, reflexivity and transparency become vital to dealing with such influences; particularly when they are disruptive to a study. Overall, the strategic approach outlined by this paper can be used to maximise awareness of potential sources of tension in the field and to deal with any tensions that do arise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I attempt a novel interpretation of Brexit as a 'wicked problem'. Wicked problems are those which are unique and complex, full of internal contradictions, and defy solution, instead only creating other problems. After reviewing the lead-up to the 2016 Brexit referendum, particularly the role of immigration, the core of the paper takes the main criteria for the specification of a wicked problem and applies them to Brexit. Special attention is given to two propositions: that every wicked problem is a symptom of other problems; and that every attempted solution to a wicked problem produces irreversible consequences. Both are seen to apply to Brexit. In the conclusion, I explore 'wicked synergies' between Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyse firms' location decisions when faced with Brexit. We combine evolutionary game theory and spatial agent‐based simulation approaches with input–output analysis to evaluate two different sectors: (i) crop and animal production; (ii) financial service activities. We separate the European Union in manifold regions and consider the following factors in the decision making: (i) market potential; (ii) productive integration; (iii) labour costs and (iv) displacement cost. Firms assign weights to each of these factors. Our results suggest that in traditional sectors firms tend to seek unsaturated markets. In sectors related to services, the greater the uncertainty, the greater the likelihood that firms will move. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]