This panel brings together papers studying changes to both the content (agriculture, environment and competition policy) and process of policy making in the UK after Brexit - is the UK de-Europeanising or disengaging from the EU acquis communautaire and ways of doing? Or is it trying to re-engage? And how does this differ across policy areas and different parts of the UK?

Throughout British membership of the EU, agricultural policy was largely determined by the CAP which the UK viewed as a dysfunctional policy. Although there were periodic reforms the EU moved slowly in the direction advocated by the UK and many of the main policy elements remained in place. The devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have always enjoyed a measure of policy freedom in agriculture and have diverged from England in some areas. This paper explores the extent of de-Europeanisation in the agricultural sectors in the UK and the extent of divergence between them, by focusing primarily on the development of policies for agricultural support that will replace those in place under the CAP. Overall, there has been substantial divergence in policy, but also areas of continuity, which means that processes of de-Europeanisation in the UK agricultural sectors has been uneven.

The impacts of Brexit are particularly important to investigate in an area of shared competence such as the environment, which prior to the 2016 EU referendum had witnessed extensive and seemingly popular Europeanisation. To that end, this paper develops and tests a refined theoretical account of de-Europeanisation to assess how well it explains how and why UK environmental policy became increasingly differentiated after 2016. Drawing on an original analysis of relevant policy documents, parliamentary processes and legal reforms, it reveals how policy, politics and polity have changed more significantly than was originally foreseen. It departs from the existing literature by revealing that the devolution settlements of the late 1990s have opened up the possibility of not one, but multiple pathways of change ranging from de-Europeanization, through to dis- and active re-engagement. Outside the framework of EU processes and institutions, UK policy is being re-shaped via a multi-level negotiation between actors in Brussels, London and the devolved nations. This negotiation has witnessed attempts at de-Europeanisation in England but active re-engagement in Scotland. The paper concludes that despite conflicting policy objectives across the UK, the predominant pattern of change is nevertheless one of gradual disengagement from the EU environmental rule-book.

In June 2016 the UK public voted for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. Brexit was predicated on the promise of regaining sovereignty and taking back control of a set of polices from agriculture and the environment and resetting a British perspective on immigration and trade policies. The Brexit strategy pursued by a succession of four Conservative administrations (2016-2023) was constructed around a De-Europeanisation agenda). The Withdrawal Agreement and the TCA only provided the parameters for a new and seven years after the Brexit vote can begin to provide empirical evidence of new UK policies and theorise about the direction of travel. This paper explores the latter. It accounts for the existing literature on De-Europeanisation and differentiated integration and argues that both do not entirely capture the basis of the UK’s new relationship with the EU. Brexit, in theory, is about escaping the EU’s influence and rulebook, but in practice given the EU’s size, power and geographical position and the Northern Ireland question, the UK finds itself continuing to orbit the European block, using many EU policies as a starting point for the development of new domestic ones. This paper outlines the orbiting Europeanisation framework with reference to state aid policy.