Brexit: The ‘missing’ debate in UK election

A KEY paradox of this year’s UK general election campaign is the absence of discussion on Brexit, the issue that has done so much to dominate politics in the last decade.

This weekend marks the 8th anniversary of the UK’s 2016 referendum on its EU membership, one of the most important moments in the nation’s post-war history. Yet, the major UK parties are largely avoiding discussing this topic, albeit for different reasons.

For the Conservatives, while the issue continues to motivate some of its voter base, it no longer has the salience it did in 2019, which has very real claims to having been a Brexit general election. Another reason that the ruling party seems now to be pushing the issue onto the backburner is the fact that it is still widely perceived not to be “making Brexit work”.