On the post-Brexit prospects for social policy in the UK
In this afterthought, Robert Pinker reflects on the prospects for social policy in the UK after Brexit. On 23 June 2016. the UK electorate voted to leave the European Union. The process of exiting the EU would commence right after the UK Government declared its intention to leave by triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. Pinker discusses the debate in the UK regarding the kind of Brexit favoured by those who wanted to leave the EU — a ‘hard’ or a ‘soft’ one. He also considers the legal challenges to a fast-track Brexit, along with the Prime Minister's Lord Mayor's keynote speech promising to adopt a new approach to managing the forces of globalisation and the Chancellor's Autumn Statement on 23 November 2017. Finally, he looks at the funding crisis in UK health and social care services, the government's 12-point Brexit Plan, and the Supreme Court's rulings on Article 50.