Throughout history, even though there have always been alliances between Britain and other European countries, Britain was never fully counted as part of continental Europe. 

The history of Britain joining the European Union first started in 1957 when European membership was offered to London. Because of the confidence that Britain had in their economy, they refused this proposal. However, this confidence lasted from 1957 to 1963. In the end, it was them who wanted to join the European Union. Britain’s membership application was refused two times by former president of France Charles De Gaulle in 1963 and 1967, he had concerns about the fact that Britain and the European Union have different economic interests. In fact in the end it turned out that his suspicions had a grain of truth.

However, after De Gaulle’s resignation, the political atmosphere toward Britain’s European Union membership in France changed. And membership negotiations have started. Negotiations have gone through trouble because Britain did not want to accept some of the conditions underlying the European Union. For instance, they didn’t accept Schengen and Euro. Moreover, they also wanted to stay out of the regulations in the fields of law enforcement and justice. 

Even though Britain had privileges in some of the joint decisions to be a member of the European Union, this situation didn’t decrease the controversy; on the contrary, it increased. The doubts and arguments of these skeptics were growing day by day.

Politicians' Role in Brexit

The Brexit issue turned into a swamp for British politicians. The chaos first started with Margaret Thatcher, as she did not fully support the marriage between the European Union and Britain. However, in the end, pro-Europeans, inside her party showed this disagreement as one of the reasons and forced her to resign. 

After Thatcher, John Major managed to put a distance between London and Brussels with the clauses he wanted to be added during the negotiations. 

The Treaty of Lisbon was signed by Tony Blair the Prime Minister of the UK in 2007. The regulations of the European Union (EU) were revised by the Lisbon Treaty, which resulted in the creation of a more centralized leadership and foreign policy, and the establishment of a procedure for countries that wish to exit the EU. However, the burden of this situation fell on Cameron's shoulders. In order to win the elections, he made a “Brexit referendum” promise. He had to keep his promise after winning the elections, so he did. Even though David Cameron made propaganda, to stay inside the European Union, he did not succeed. With a very small difference, Brexit pros won the referendum. Like all other issues, the outcome of this referendum was controversial as well.

However, in the end, David Cameron resigned and gave the Brexit duty to Teresa May. Similarly to David Cameron, May was also against Brexit. However, as she stated in her Brexit speech that, they will do what the majority of the referendum wants them to do. As you can imagine, this attitude of May was also much discussed. The negotiations between May and Brussels weren’t going in the way that the British wanted it to be so the wind of resignation took her too, and she resigned from her job. And one of the key players in Brexit took over the duty of being Prime Minister. 

That person was Boris Johnson, in past he served as the Mayor of London followed by becoming the foreign secretary and lastly he became the Prime minister. He had a political slogan about Brexit, which was “Get Brexit Done”. This phrase speaks for itself, simply because they wanted to leave the European Union as soon as possible. After negotiating with Brussels and achieving the majority in the parliament, he achieved his goal and Britain wasn’t anymore a European Union member.

Reasons behind Brexit

The first reasons were the economical and political perspectives. Britain claimed “opt-outs” before entering the EU. Some of these concessions were not being a part of Schengen and Euro. They were able to stay out of many regulations and policies that were binding for EU members, such as the European Social Charter, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. 

The second reason was to create a “Global Britain”. As the UK government site explains “Global Britain is about reinvesting in our relationships, championing the rules-based international order and demonstrating that the UK is open, outward-looking and confident on the world stage.” 

Lastly, the migration issue was a problem for British people because free movement rules gave other European Union country's citizens the right to move, live, and work without any permission.  By 2020, approximately 1,843,000 EU-born migrants reside in the UK, which accounts for 52% of total immigrants. This situation had a large impact on the decision towards exiting the EU. However, according to DW in post-Brexit era unexpectedly UK immigration nearly tripled.  

Brexit Divorce Bill

The marriage started in a toxic way and unfortunately ended in the same way. And Britain had to pay a divorce bill for their decision. It cost England dearly. This is an illustration of how much the UK owes to the European Union.

Sounds of Regret

According to the latest Poll results, British people are not happy with the current Brexit, and overall they regret this decision. For instance, in the case of a referendum, now 57% would vote to re-enter the Union. Citizens think that this decision divided the country into two, and in the current conditions, the majority is not happy with the outcome. It didn’t turn out to be as imagined, as the polls reveal that every 6 people out of 10 think that Brexit is going bad or worse than expected. In a different poll conducted by Focaldata and UnHerd with 10000 respondents, 54% chose “strongly agree” or “mildly agree” with the statement “Britain was wrong to leave the EU.”

On the whole, after analyzing the backstage of Brexit in this article, we can conclude that exiting the European Union did not put an end to any argument, nor did it turn out the way everyone had hoped. After all the discussions, negotiations, agreements, resigning’s, and regrets we will see what will happen in the relationship between Britain and Europe in the near future.