Brexit Used to Mean Brexit. What Does It Mean Now?

Theresa May won the U.K. premiership by saying that: “Brexit means Brexit.” This comment, along with some fratricidal maneuvers among the Brexiteers within her Conservative party, helped ensure that a politician who had supported staying in the European Union would be given the job of taking the U.K. out. But the continued Shakespearean bloodletting among the Brexiteers is getting in the way of working out what kind of a deal might be acceptable to those who have asked for it.

Meanwhile the studied vagueness of “Brexit means Brexit” no longer sounds decisive. By now, everyone should know exactly what Brexit means, but that’s the problem – nobody really knows. Add the disastrous miscalculation of calling a general election last year, which left Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party holding the balance of power, and we have the U.K.’s dreadful current political mess. And although there were only two options at the Brexit referendum in 2016 – stay or leave - there are now several more, none of which seem capable of commanding a majority in the U.K., and most of which would be unacceptable to the rest of the EU.

Simplifying the issue is always dangerous (just ask David Cameron, the prime minister who decided the referendum was a good idea). Much depends on the critical issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This matters because if the U.K. is to leave the EU’s customs union, as Brexiteers insist, then the border must become a “hard” border, with standard customs checks. Northern Irish politicians won’t stand for this. The obvious alternative, of leaving Northern Ireland within the customs union but removing the rest of the U.K., means introducing the concept of a border through the Irish Sea, which is unacceptable to Northern Irish Unionists. The issue of the Northern Irish border barely ever arose during the referendum campaign, when the DUP was an enthusiastic proponent of Brexit.