Brexit Reveals a Whole New Set of Political Wounds

One evening last week, I found myself dining in the House of Lords just as the “European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill”—the law that will finalize Brexit—was wending its way through the final stages of the British legislative process. At that point, members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords were making frantic last-ditch efforts either to prevent a “hard” Brexit—a departure without a deal with the European Union on the terms of separation—or to force one through. Because Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government lacked a majority, small groups of people on multiple sides of the argument were able to hold up any decision, either because they wanted to stop Brexit, to accelerate it, or to force the government to call a second public referendum on the terms that had been negotiated with the EU—terms that are indeed radically different from what was promised by the Leave campaign in 2016.