The Cross-Party Politics of Brexit, June 2017–December 2019

Abstract

Abstract Between 2015 and 2019 the UK experienced one referendum, two elections, and three prime ministers. The Conservative Party retained power throughout, in no small part due to its ability to draw on the parliamentary backing of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) after the 2017 general election and the electoral support of an agreement with the Brexit Party in December 2019. Throughout 2019, as the Brexit debate came to a head, members of parliament (MPs) across all political parties—but particularly those opposed to Brexit—came together through sustained, informal forms of cross-party co-operation. The prospect of this translating into a ‘Government of National Unity’ that would ultimately be needed to resist Boris Johnson’s harder form of Brexit, or even to reverse the result entirely, was always unlikely. However, the idea that these opposition MPs were intent on frustrating Brexit was central to Johnson’s anti-parliament appeal in the general election that followed.