In seeking to understand what Brexit means for European Union (EU) and UK social policy, the chapters in this book have tracked the development of the EU's social dimension from its origins in the European Economic Community's (EEC) founding Treaty, through the twists and turns of the relationship between UK governments, EU institutions and other member states since 1973, to the decision in the 2016 referendum to leave the EU, and the negotiations surrounding the withdrawal process in 2017 and 2018. For many observers of the Brexit debate, not least for the leaders of the Leave campaign, the referendum result came as a surprise. Neither the UK government nor EU institutions had prepared a plan B. For some social policy analysts, the outcome of the referendum was less of a surprise for a variety of reasons.

In 1973, the UK had signed up to a common market, but not to a social union. As the European Commission progressively extended its competence in the social domain, and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) carried out its role of ensuring compliance with EU legislation, successive UK governments sought to combat the loss of control over national (social) policymaking, which could have been foreseeable as an inevitable consequence of belonging to an international institution. They used the different tools and strategies at their disposal to block or delay further encroachment by EU institutions into an area jealously guarded as a national prerogative. In the process, they confirmed the reputation that the UK had gained as an ‘awkward’ partner (George, 1998), ‘half in half out’ of Europe (Adonis, 2018).

Lawyers, political scientists, labour economists and sociologists criticise EU institutions both for being too powerful, distant, slow and unaccountable in the social domain, and for not being powerful enough (Auer, 2017; Barnard, 2017; Deakin, 2017; Lenaerts and Gutiérrez-Fons, 2017; Oliver, 2018). Arguably, it was the failure of EU institutions to provide more effective social policy responses when faced with global challenges, especially the financial and refugee crises, that exacerbated growing disillusionment and euroscepticism across the EU, resulting in a ‘genuine legitimacy crisis on a grand scale’ (Susen, 2017: 157, original emphasis).