Lesson video

Hello.

My name's Ms. Ikomi.

I'm going to be taking you through today's lesson.

Let's get started.

Today's lesson is called "What was the process for leaving the EU?" It is part of the wider unit "How well has the UK adjusted to its changing relationship with the EU?" By the end of today's lesson, you will be able to explain the process for how the UK left the European Union.

The keywords we're going to hear in today's lesson are Article 50.

This is the part of the treaty which allows countries to withdraw from the European Union.

Constitution, these are the principles and rules by which a country is organised.

It can be written or unwritten.

And last, common law.

This is the law made by the decisions of judges over many years.

We're going to start by thinking about, what is Article 50? In 2016, the UK held a referendum.

We were able to vote on the question, "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?" The referendum took place on the 23rd of June, 2016.

The voter turnout was 72%.

The result was close, with 51.

89% of voters voting to leave the EU.

The UK is the only member state to have left the European Union.

This occurred on the 31st of January, 2020 after a four-year process and two general elections.

So even though we voted to leave in 2016, it didn't officially happen until quite a long time after.

Aisha is starting to help us think about why that process took so long.

Aisha says, "Imagine you're buying a new phone.

You enter into a contract that tells you what you need to do and what the company who give you the phone will do.

The contract also tells you how to leave that phone contract." Similarly to a phone contract, the European Union uses something called treaties.

Each member state that joins agrees to these treaties.

The treaty on the European Union includes rules for leaving, and these rules are outlined in Article 50.

To exit the EU, Britain had to invoke Article 50, much like you'd have to let your phone contract supplier know that you're going to leave your contract.

We're going to think about the timeline for how this process happened, right from the beginning.

So in 2016, we had the Brexit referendum.

David Cameron, who was the prime minister at the time, called for the referendum, giving people who lived in the UK and were eligible the opportunity to vote on whether they would like to remain or leave the European Union.

In 2017, after we had voted to leave the EU, Article 50 was invoked by Theresa May, who was the prime minister at the time.

Gina Miller's Supreme Court challenge forced the government to pass an Act of Parliament.

We're going to have a think about that process later.

In 2019, we had an extension to Article 50.

Brexit negotiations were very complex.

The UK government was struggling to reach a deal with the European Union.

That meant that we had three extensions of Article 50.

In 2019, within the election, Boris Johnson promised to get Brexit done.

We'll come back to that later too.

Britain finally left the EU on the 31st of January, 2020.

Let's have a check.

I'd like you to change three words in Andeep's description below in order to make it correct.

Pause your video and have a go at this now.

Let's check our answers.

We could have said, "The European Union has treaties with its member states.

The treaty on the European Union includes rules for leaving, and they are in Article 50 of the treaty." The UK had been part of the EU since 1973.

Membership required the UK to adopt certain laws and regulations.

For example, being part of the single market, meaning that there would be fewer checks and restrictions on goods moving between the UK and the EU member states.

After leaving the EU, the UK would need to create new laws to manage things like borders, particularly with regards to customs checks.

That's because the single market didn't require so much checking because things were able to move around more freely.

This was especially difficult in Northern Ireland.

This is because the geography of Northern Ireland means that it shares a land border with the EU, the Republic of Ireland.

That means that it was the only part of the UK that had this specific issue.

Brexit was especially difficult for Northern Ireland due to the history.

Some people in Northern Ireland believe in a united Ireland, so will not accept any borders between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Others believe that Northern Ireland should be more part of the UK and so will not accept a border in the Irish Sea that separates it from the rest of the UK.

This issue and these differences within opinions became known as the Irish Question.

How could the UK leave the EU without creating a new border in Ireland? There were lots of other challenges too.

These included establishing trade relationships with the EU without being bound by their laws and regulations.

Establishing trade relationships without tariffs.

A tariff is a tax on trade.

Thinking about how much money should the UK get back from the EU.

This is called a settlement.

What does citizens' rights look like after Brexit? That includes things like workers' rights or rights to travel.

These different questions meant that negotiations on leaving the EU were long, and that's why we had this delay.

Andeep is telling us, "The UK sells products, like steel, and services, like finance, to EU member states.

The EU has member states which sell the same products too.

Since we're no longer part of the EU, we may have to pay extra taxes to continue selling these things in that area." Sam is asking, "Does that mean that the UK companies have to pay more to sell some products and mean less profits? It sounds like tariffs are bad for business.

As part of our negotiations, we need to agree how we will trade without tariffs." This is opening up some of the debates that were going on when the government was having this conversation.

These negotiations were not easy.

In Parliament, some politicians wanted the UK to remain in the EU and so rejected the attempts to move forward with Brexit.

Some wanted to hard align with Europe and so rejected legislation which was not firm enough and did not separate us enough from Europe.

It took three prime ministers and two general elections to finally reach the point of leaving the EU, to have these negotiations settled, to get a deal whereby everyone was somewhat happy.

Let's do a check.

What was the Irish Question? Was it A, how to manage the border between the EU and the UK; B, how to sell Irish products to Spain; or C, how to help Northern Ireland improve its economic output? Pause your video and choose your answer.

The correct answer is A, how to manage the border between the EU and the UK.

Let's put this into practise.

I'd like you to list four challenges that came with invoking Article 50.

Pause your video and have a go at this now.

I asked you to list four challenges that came with invoking Article 50.

You might have said the UK had no formal trade agreements and they needed to sign deals with other countries.

The UK would need to pay tariffs on EU goods.

This is an expensive tax that could harm the UK's economy.

Citizens' rights were enshrined in EU law.

Therefore, Britain had to agree how they would secure rights for citizens.

And Northern Ireland shared a land border with the EU and an agreement needed to be negotiated on how to manage this.

Next, we're going to think about, how did people oppose the referendum result? The referendum result was very close.

Around 52% of people who voted wanted to leave, versus 48% of people who voted wanted to remain.

More than 1/4 of people did not turn out to vote, so weren't included in either of those figures.

This close result caused disagreements about whether the government should pursue such a significant decision, should they move ahead with the result of the referendum or not.

A constitution is the set of principles and rules by which a country is organised.

It's often contained in one document.

The UK is a little bit different.

We actually do not have a single document that encases our whole constitution.

Instead, decisions about how the country are run are based on laws passed by Parliament and long-standing traditions, so therefore, our constitution is made up of lots of different sources.

We refer to this constitution as being unwritten, because it comes from different sources and is not in one document.

Sometimes we also call this uncodified.

This is different to other countries, such as the USA, which has a written codified constitution.

Let's do a check.

Without a written constitution, how do we run the country? Do we, A, ask judges to make all of our decisions as they have legal expertise; B, use Parliament to make laws and use historical decisions to help us; or C, just make decisions and see what happens? Pause your video and choose your answer now.

The correct answer is B.

In 2017, the Prime Minister Theresa May told Parliament that she was going to invoke Article 50 to begin the process of leaving the EU.

It quickly became clear that the options for leaving the EU wouldn't be easy or straightforward.

As such, Parliament became deadlocked from 2017 to 2019 as MPs disagreed about how best to do Brexit.

A deadlock is where nothing can get through because people have such different opinions, so therefore nothing can move forward in terms of making decisions or changes.

During this time, some politicians called for a second referendum for reasons such as they raised worries about the fairness of the campaign, they thought that it could break the deadlock, they said that people should be able to vote on the Brexit deal options that were being discussed which they hadn't known before.

In terms of fairness of the campaign, there was lots of things going on that some people argued meant that the campaign wasn't accurate.

Cambridge Analytica were a political consultancy company that were accused of targeting voters based on their personal data.

They used Facebook to collect personal data and then sold this to the Vote Leave campaign.

They then targeted voters with tailored adverts.

Facebook adverts themselves are not illegal.

However, using sensitive data for targeting ads without consent is not allowed.

People in favour of a second referendum argued that the fairness of the original campaign was in question, particularly with the use of personal data to target those voters.

There was also an argument for breaking the deadlock.

Parliament's deadlock over Brexit led to a constitutional crisis, meaning that we had key decisions being delayed and limited time for other legislation, things that were nothing to do with Brexit.

This included the Conservative manifesto commitments, things that they had said that they would like to put into place during their time in office.

Those in favour of a second referendum said that doing this would force MPs to either stop Brexit or find a way forward.

Lastly, the idea that people should be able to vote on the options.

Those in favour stated that people voted on the original referendum in 2016.

They were asked if they wanted to leave or remain.

However, they didn't know what the options would look like.

The second referendum would be about the deal rather than about the idea of leaving the EU.

They said that when people were asked to vote, they weren't fully aware of what the Brexit deal would mean, and there were so many changes since that point.

Ultimately, despite these arguments, the UK did not hold a second referendum.

Instead, in 2019, the prime minister at the time, Boris Johnson, called a general election.

The promise for this was to get Brexit done.

In this election, the conservatives won an 80-seat majority.

This was seen as a mandate to push through a deal.

A mandate means the authority or permission given to a leader or the government to take action.

Usually, it's after an election.

Let's do a check.

Which one of the following is a reason for a second referendum? A, Theresa May did not know how to negotiate a Brexit deal.

B, to show the EU we were really serious about leaving.

Or C, to break the parliamentary deadlock and solve the constitutional crisis.

Pause your video and choose your answer.

The correct answer is C.

Between the 2016 referendum and the departure from the EU in 2020, there was opposition to the process.

This wasn't just limited to politicians.

Some citizens also raised concerns.

One example was the Miller case.

Gina Miller brought the government to court arguing about whether the Parliament's approval was necessary to trigger Article 50 or whether it could be done without approval.

Prime Minister Theresa May had told Parliament that she would invoke Article 50 by the first quarter of 2017.

However, constitutional experts argued that an Act of Parliament was needed to make this official.

That meant that we would have to go through the process of creating an Act of Parliament from a bill.

Theresa May knew that if this happened, it would cause further delays due to Parliament's divisions over Brexit and the fact that not all MPs would necessarily vote in the way that would cause this to happen.

Gina Miller, a British businesswoman, listened to constitutional experts and therefore launched a legal challenge against the UK government.

The case, R Miller versus Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, was heard by the Supreme Court in January 2017.

The Supreme Court judges considered the constitutional arguments.

They ultimately ruled that the government must seek an Act of Parliament to leave the EU, meaning that a bill would have to pass through this process and be voted in by MPs, who represent their constituents.

In response, Parliament passed the European Union Notification of Withdrawal Act in 2017.

This gave the prime minister the power to invoke Article 50 with parliamentary approval.

This is an example of how judges in the UK can influence the law, and this happens through a process called common law.

It means that judges' decisions that are based on legal principles go on to shape future principles.

For example, after the Miller case, the government learned that Acts of Parliaments are now required for decisions related to foreign affairs.

Previously, the government could make many foreign policy decisions without Parliament approval.

Let's put this into practise.

Miller versus Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union's judgement is an example of what type of lawmaking? Pause your video and choose the answer.

The correct answer is A, common law.

Let's put this into practise.

Jun's telling us, "The UK left the EU in 2020 without any challenges to the process." I'd like you to think about to what extent you agree or disagree with this statement.

Provide a clear justification for your answer.

Can you use examples as part of your answer too? Pause your video and have a go at this now.

I asked you to decide whether you agreed with Jun's statement.

You might have said, "I disagree with this statement.

Although the UK officially left the EU in 2020, there were lots of challenges to the process, especially between 2017 and 2019.

For example, Parliament was deadlocked for a time because MPs couldn't agree on how to handle Brexit.

This meant decisions were delayed and some people wanted a second referendum.

The Miller case was another challenge as it questioned whether Parliament's approval was needed to trigger Article 50.

This led to legal action.

These challenges showed the process was far from straightforward." You might have said the other side.

"I agree with the statement.

While there were debates and disagreements about Brexit, the UK ultimately left in 2020 and the process was completed despite those challenges.

Although there were calls for a second referendum due to reasons such as fairness, concerns about the Leave Vote campaign, the government moved forward with the original referendum.

The Miller case did slow things down, but Parliament eventually passed the necessary Act to trigger Article 50.

Once Boris Johnson gained a large majority in the 2019 election, he was able to push through a deal and finalise Brexit." Last, we're going to think about, what challenges the government faced? As well as legal challenges, the government faced other challenges.

Between the referendum and the UK leaving the EU, the UK had three different prime ministers and two general elections.

The first prime minister was David Cameron.

He was the one who called for the Brexit referendum.

Next was Theresa May.

She was the prime minister between 2016 and 2019.

Last we had Boris Johnson, the prime minister from 2019 to 2022 who ultimately put through the Brexit deal.

Alex is telling us, "David Cameron was the prime minister at the time of referendum.

He campaigned to remain in the EU.

As such, he did not feel he was able to be the prime minister who led the UK out of the EU because he'd wanted to remain.

Despite winning the election in May 2015, he resigned as prime minister in July 2016.

Following David Cameron's resignation, Theresa May was elected leader of the Conservative Party and therefore became prime minister in July 2016.

There wasn't a general election that triggered her becoming prime minister because she was the leader of the Party.

She had also campaigned to remain in the EU.

She promised to be a strong and stable leader and called an election in May 2017.

She hoped through this election she would secure a majority and be able to deliver Brexit more effectively." After the 2017 general election, the Conservative Party won the most seats, 317, but they didn't have enough seats to form a majority government.

The Prime Minister Theresa May announced that she would try to form a government and work with the Democratic Unionist Party, a Northern Ireland party.

The lack of majority made it difficult for the government to deliver Brexit because MPs were divided on how to carry out the results of the referendum.

Let's do a check.

True or false? David Cameron campaigned to leave the EU but changed his mind after the referendum.

Pause your video and choose an answer.

The correct answer is false.

David Cameron wanted to remain in the EU and felt he wasn't the right person to therefore negotiate the deal to leave.

Therefore, he resigned as prime minister.

After this, Theresa May struggled to deliver a Brexit deal because she had to work with the DUP, who disagreed with the Northern Ireland deal that she had secured.

As such, she couldn't get her draught withdrawal bill passed by Parliament.

She did try three times.

She resigned in 2019 and was succeeded by Boris Johnson.

Let's do another check.

Theresa May tried to secure the Brexit deal three times.

Was this true or false? The correct answer is true.

This is because she brought the Brexit deal to Parliament, but because of the election and not having a majority, it was harder to secure the votes required to pass this deal.

As such, she resigned in 2018.

Boris Johnson called an election for December 2019.

His campaign slogan was "Get Brexit Done." He won an 80-seat majority, which allowed him to deliver the Brexit deal and leave the European Union.

The rapid succession of three prime ministers marked an unusual period of political instability.

During this time, Brexit dominated the government's agenda.

This drew criticism on their inaction on other policy areas.

There's lots of other things that were still going on in the country, such as things about poverty, about education.

Because Brexit was such a big conversation, it drew attention away from some of those issues.

True or false? Boris Johnson delivered the Brexit deal that led Britain out of the EU.

Pause your video and choose your answer.

The correct answer is true.

Boris won the 2019 general election with the slogan "Get Brexit Done." This gave him the numbers in Parliament to deliver a Brexit deal.

Let's put this into practise.

I'd like you to summarise the actions of each prime minister in the Brexit process.

David Cameron, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson.

Pause your video and have a go at this now.

Let's check our answers.

David Cameron was prime minister from 2010 to 2016.

He was the PM during the Brexit referendum.

He resigned after he campaigned to remain and Britain voted to leave.

Theresa May took over from 2016 to 2019.

She called an election promising strong and stable leadership.

The election resulted in a hung Parliament without a clear majority.

She invoked Article 50 and requested two extensions to Article 50.

She attempted to deliver a deal three times, but failed to get it through Parliament.

She then resigned.

Boris Johnson was the prime minister from 2019 to 2022.

He called an election promising to get Brexit done.

He won the 2019 election.

He delivered the Brexit deal through Parliament.

Britain left the EU in January 2020.

Today, we have been learning about what the process was for leaving the EU.

We've learned that the UK's departure from the EU was a lengthy and complex process.

In 2019, Theresa May invoked Article 50, starting the withdrawal process, but securing a deal proved difficult.

Between 2016 and 2020, three prime ministers worked to reach an agreement.

Legal challenges, including Gina Miller's case, required Parliament to approve the decision to trigger Article 50.

Despite these challenges, the UK officially left the EU in January 2020.

That's the end of today's lesson.

Thank you for joining me.