Dr. Ian Cooper (DCU Brexit Institute)
After a day of feverish speculation, it is confirmed that the UK electorate will be going to the polls on July 4.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had previously indicated that the election would not happen until the “second half” of 2024, feeding the expectation that it would happen in the fall. Holding the polling date just a few days into July would technically qualify, even though the actual election campaign will mostly take place during the month of June.
Sunak has been just eighteen months in the job. His Conservative Party trails Keir Starmer’s Labour by 20+ points. Usually a government that far behind will cling on until the very end of its mandate. While he could have hung on for another six months, it seems that Sunak is gambling that a surprise, early(-ish) election call could change his fortunes.
How will Brexit figure in this election? Two predictions may be made. The first is that the leaders of the main parties will try to avoid the subject of Brexit as much as possible. The second is that the issue of Brexit will haunt the election campaign nonetheless.
Each of the main party leaders has their own reasons to try and avoid the subject of Brexit. For Sunak, he has no incentive to draw attention to a policy that most of the British electorate has seen as a failure. In actual fact, one of the few concrete achievements of his own that Sunak can point to is the Windsor Framework of February 2023, which tied up many of the loose ends of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal. The Windsor Framework finally allowed the UK to fully normalize post-Brexit relations with the EU, in particular as it relates to Northern Ireland. This agreement finally allowed for the restoration of power-sharing at Stormont earlier this year. However, Sunak will almost certainly never mention this success during the election campaign, because there are few votes to be gained from it.
Starmer, on the other hand, has his own reasons to stay mum on the subject of Brexit. He has calculated that Labour’s best strategy is to aim to “make Brexit work” by ameliorating the worst aspects of the ongoing UK-EU relationship. However, he has already ruled out the boldest moves – rejoining the single market or the customs union, or bringing back freedom of movement. For this reason, in keeping with the famous “Ming vase strategy” of doing nothing that could harm his polling lead, he is likely to avoid the subject as much as possible.
However, the issue of Brexit will haunt the election nonetheless because the ill-effects of Brexit are still being felt. Brexit is still imposing an economic penalty on the nation’s trade, investment and overall growth. Moreover, the Brexit process is far from complete – the UK is only just now bringing in post-Brexit controls on the movement of goods – and there are yet more cliff-edges to come. Disparate issues such as migration and the Russia-Ukraine War press the dire need for an improvement in EU-UK relations.
Only in the early hours of July 5, after the dust has settled from the frenzy of the campaign, will it become clear how the new government is likely to address the question.
Ian Cooper is a Research Fellow at the Brexit Institute at DCU. His research addresses questions of democracy and constitutionalism in the European Union, with a particular focus on the role of parliaments. He tweets from @IanCooperEU.