United Kingdom

At a summit meeting of the leaders of the member countries of the EU in Brussels in February 2016, the European Council announced agreement on reforms to British membership that had been requested by Cameron in an attempt to forestall British withdrawal (“Brexit”) from the EU. Although Cameron did not get everything that he had asked for in the proposal that he submitted to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, in November 2015, he won enough concessions to move forward on his promise of a referendum on continued British membership. In the face of considerable support within his own party for Brexit, Cameron nevertheless announced that he would campaign for remaining in the EU and scheduled the referendum for June 23, 2016.

Cameron was joined in the “Remain” effort by Corbyn. The “Leave” campaign was headed by former London mayor Boris Johnson, whom many saw as a rival for Cameron’s leadership of the Conservative Party, and Michael Gove, lord chancellor and secretary of state for justice in Cameron’s cabinet. Opinion polling indicated that the two sides were fairly evenly divided as the referendum approached, but in the event 52 percent of voters opted to leave the EU, making the United Kingdom the first country to ever do so. Cameron announced his intention to resign as prime minister by the time of the Conservative Party conference in October 2016 to allow his successor to negotiate the U.K. withdrawal under the terms of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which, when triggered, would open a two-year window for the exit process.

United Kingdom EU referendumThe majority vote by region in the 2016 referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain in the European Union.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The premiership of Theresa May (2016– )

The resignation of Cameron, the rise of May, and a challenge to Corbyn’s leadership of Labour

Only days after the Brexit vote, the political drama surrounding Johnson’s pursuit of the Conservative leadership assumed what many observers identified as Shakespearean proportions as Gove removed his prominent support for Johnson’s candidacy, saying that Johnson was “not capable of…leading the party and the country in the way that I would have hoped.” In rapid fashion, a wounded Johnson removed himself from consideration. Gove then threw his hat into the small ring of leadership candidates that was then winnowed by successive votes by parliamentary Conservatives in early July to Home Secretary Theresa May and Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom, whose names were put to a vote by all party members with results due in September. Almost before that process started, Leadsom unexpectedly withdrew her name from consideration, and on July 11 the Conservative Party’s 1922 Committee, which had been steering the leadership contest, declared May the new party leader “with immediate effect.” On July 13 Cameron formally resigned, and May became the second woman in British history to serve as prime minister.

Meanwhile, Labour underwent its own leadership controversy as prominent party members, including Blair, took Corbyn to task for not mounting a more vigorous effort on behalf of the “Remain” campaign. No sooner had Blair made his criticism than he found himself in the crosshairs, with the release on July 5 of the so-called Chilcot Report, the findings of a seven-year inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the Iraq War, which was scathing in its condemnation of Blair’s handling of the war from the initial decision to join the United States in invading Iraq to the Blair government’s failure to plan and prepare for the postwar aftermath in Iraq. Nonetheless, a challenge was mounted to Corbyn’s leadership of the party that eventually resulted in a head-to-head contest between Corbyn and Owen Smith, the former shadow secretary of work and pensions. In an online vote of party faithful in September, Corbyn held on to the leadership by capturing some 62 percent of the vote against about 38 percent for Smith.

Triggering Article 50