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Panel discussion
Explaining Brexit: ‘Known Knowns’ and Unanticipated Consequences
15 April 2019, Nottingham
This panel discussion is on key aspects and consequences of Brexit for British politics, led by academic experts and political practitioners. Part of Panel Session 1 of the PSA Annual International Conference 2019 in Nottingham, UK.
There are five distinct but connected themes:
- The impact of the protracted Brexit discourse and negotiations on British political culture: how and why did Brexit come about; what does the tone of referendum campaign, and the subsequent discourse that accompanied the withdrawal negotiations reveals of underlying changes in the social fabric of British politics.
- The second theme is what Brexit reveals about underlying changes medium or longer terms changes in political partisanship and party allegiance, the impact of Brexit on party politics.
- A third theme, the impact of Brexit, in whatever eventual form, for the machinery of government, public policy delivery and the workings of the British state.
- The fourth issue for debate is the significance of the ‘back-stop’ in the negotiations and on the UK’s likely future relations with its nearest neighbour and the wider EU. The latest expression of troubled relations between the UK and Ireland has not only been a significant aspect of the withdrawal negotiations, it has come to define, and indeed, latterly to dominate these critical divorce negotiations.
- The final theme is the impact of the prospective ‘divorce’ on the EU and the future direction of the European project.
Panellists:

Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke QC MP
Member of Parliament for Rushcliffe

Professor Rob Ford
University of Manchester

Roland Freudenstein
Wilfried Marten Centre for European Studies, Brussels

Professor David Phinnemore
Queen’s University Belfast

Jill Rutter
Institute for Government
Chair:
Dr Michael O’Neill
Nottingham Trent University
Location:
Nottingham Conference Centre
Burton Street
NG1 4BU
Nottingham