Exceptionally exceptional? : a postscript on Brexit in the guise of a conclusion

Abstract

This postscript starts with Kalypso Nicolaïdis' reflections on the role of the scholar in engaging with the dominant Brexit narratives, and ends with brief reflections by John Erik Fossum, Christopher Lord and Albert Weale. Nicolaidis muses on the challenge of making sense of what has happened 'when the moment under scrutiny is so pregnant with historical resonance and yet so entwined with everyday life'. Yet she asks, as we close this wide-ranging volume, can we not hope for scholars to contribute to the 'exceptional synthesis' that would be needed for 'the British tribes (of leave and remain) to learn again to walk together'? When our world keeps coming back to the same 'globally recurring dilemmas' doesn't it reveal that behind many differences is a shared ambivalence on fundamental questions, such as what ought to be the balance between, say, cooperation and control? Who truly is simply sovereigntist or cosmopolitan? So 'perhaps then, Brexit boils down to the contrasting connotation of one word: bond. Bond as bondage or servitude for some, bond as the ties that bind for others. Shackles vs Sharing'. Such open-endedness may provide a fitting end to a book which hopes to offer a pluralist understanding of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union on 31 January 2020.