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Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union Glossary of terms |
Brexit was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET). As of 2020[update], the UK is the only member state to have left the EU. Britain entered the predecessor to the EU, the European Communities (EC), on 1 January 1973. Following this, Eurosceptic groups grew in popularity in the UK, opposing aspects of both the EC and the EU. As Euroscepticism increased during the early 2010s, Prime Minister David Cameron delivered a speech in January 2013 at Bloomberg London, in which he called for reform of the EU and promised an in–out referendum on the UK's membership if the Conservative Party won a majority at the 2015 general election. The Conservatives won 330 seats at the election, giving Cameron a majority of 12, and a bill to hold a referendum was introduced to Parliament that month.
In February 2016, Cameron set the date of the referendum to be 23 June that year, and a period of campaigning began. A total of 33,577,342 votes were cast in the poll, with 51.89% voting for Britain to leave the EU. Cameron announced his resignation as prime minister the next day, with Theresa May taking over the position on 13 July. On 29 March the following year, May delivered a letter to Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, which officially commenced the UK's withdrawal from the EU and began a two-year negotiating process.
Brexit negotiations between the UK and the EU began in June 2017, and, by March the following year, a "large part" of the withdrawal agreement had been agreed.[1] On 25 November, the leaders of the remaining 27 EU countries officially endorsed the deal, with May putting it to Parliament in January 2019. The vote on the withdrawal agreement was defeated by 432 votes to 202, the biggest defeat of any government in the House of Commons. Two further votes on the deal—on 12 and 29 March—also resulted in large defeats for May.
Following these defeats, on 24 May the Prime Minister announced her resignation. A leadership contest began, which was won by Boris Johnson on 24 July. With the Brexit deadlock still not broken, on 29 October the Members of Parliament (MPs) voted in favour of holding a general election on 12 December. The Conservative Party won 365 seats in the election, giving them a majority of 80 seats. With a majority in the House of Commons now, Johnson's withdrawal agreement was voted through Parliament, and the UK officially left the EU at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020. A transition period—in which Britain remained a part of the European single market and the European Union Customs Union—began, as did negotiation on a new trade deal.
After negotiations throughout 2020, the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement was announced on 24 December, allowing goods to be sold between the two markets without tariffs or quotas. At 23:00 on 31 December 2020, the transition period ended, and the UK formally completed its separation from the EU. As of 2023[update], the broad consensus of economists is that leaving the EU has had a substantially negative effect on the UK's economy, which is expected to be several percentage points smaller than it would have been if it had remained in the bloc.[2][3][4]
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