As Edmund Burke once said, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it”.

So today through this article I will be explaining the BREXIT DEAL and the legal lessons we can learn from it.

Before the Brexit deal came out constitutional law used to be “boring” as said by Joshua Rozenburg, the presenter of “Law in Action; BBC Sounds”. There was nothing that could force people to get on the streets and protest, however, we all know how that changed since the United Kingdom decided to finally act upon article 50 of the EU.

Firstly let’s start by talking about the UK and its complex constitution. Unlike India, the UK does not have a written constitution but that doesn’t mean it is non-existent. It has an uncodified constitution, which is actually very rare in today’s world of Modern Politics, United Kingdoms’ Constitution is drawn from mainly 4 different resources:

1. Common Law
2. Works of Authority
3. Statute Law
4. Conventions

Another important aspect that we need to understand is prerogative powers; These are powers that originally belonged to the Crown, basically, the power is in the hands of a monarch, and they are given and governed by common law, so they aren’t given by legislation.

Let’s focus on the main lessons learned

1. Interdependence is of key importance: Europe has to agree with Britain, but Britain also has to agree with what Europe proposes. Trade needs to be flexible; planes still have to keep flying; this pandemic has to be tackled together; this is because certain things just cannot happen on their own. What Britain’s Brexit experience teaches, is just how deeply the problem of interdependence extends across. That is why the Northern Irish situation is so vital. The fate of Northern Ireland does not rest solely in the hands of the Irish, the Northern Irish, or the British. Somehow everyone is implicated at once. 

2. The Complex Nature of the European Union: Anyone who believes that withdrawing from the EU would be as easy as falling off a log has had an unpleasant awakening. Indeed, one interesting lesson is how EU Member States have become dependent on the EU for producing several of their laws.

3. The introduction of a spectrum BREXIT: What type of law and legal issues will emerge post-Brexit? There is a misconception that there is a simple choice. There will be no Hard Brexit or Soft Brexit but there will be a Spectrum Brexit. It is not a simple binary choice. Some sectors, some countries, some regions will do better than others and some will do worse than others. That was the experience of accession in almost every Member State and Brexit is the inverse of accession. So it will be a Spectrum Brexit.

The lessons of Brexit are many but there is no complete set yet of all the lessons. There is almost no end to the lessons which could be learned. Some of those lessons include sociological, psychological, economic, political, and constitutional lessons. It is clear however that law and politics are so clearly intertwined and interconnected in the EU. The Brexit process shows the interaction of law and politics in plain view.

1. https://www.iiss.org/blogs/survival-blog/2019/01/four-things-we-learned-brexit
2. https://www.algoodbody.com/files/uploads/news_insights_pub/What_are_the_lessons_so_far_from_Brexit.pdf
3. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32810887
4. https://www.business-standard.com/about/what-is-brexit

Edited by Ria Bhatia