 But today's webinar is a very exciting one. We've been talking about doing this one for a while. Our presenter is Howard Carrier, who completed an LLB in honors and an LLM in the Law of Human Rights and Civil Liberties at the University of Leicester. They're after working as research associate at the Business School of the University of Nottingham for Projects Investigating Litigation Funding in Access to Justice. Subsequently, he taught constitutional administrative law as lecturer in law at the University of Sunderland before relocating to the United States in 2005. His past dozen years include the MSLS program at Chapel Hill-Sills and subsequent appointments as reference librarian at Valdosta and his current post as copyright coordinator and social sciences librarian at James Madison University. I'm very excited to have Howard with us. Hello, everybody. Thank you very much to Linda for the generous welcome and introduction. I'm Howard Carrier, and as you heard, the social sciences librarian and copyright coordinator here at James Madison University, which is located in Harrison Dark in the Shenandoah Valley. So a little bit about today's webinar. First of all, apologies are my parts for the rescheduling of it. I originally intended to do it from home, and my cable company, who surely will be nameless, let me down. So that's why I wasn't able to go ahead last month. Now, I'd rather hope that that would actually be a fortunate thing, that there would be, you know, the UK election was pending, and we would have some certainty as to the direction of Brexit once this webinar was scheduled for after the UK election on June 8th, and that prediction as well seems to be entirely a-revious. So here we are in very uncertain circumstances talking about Brexit. What I'm going to do is basically I have a guide which I will happily share with Linda at the end of the webinar so she can circulate it to see the participants. That would be helpful. It's fairly rudimentary in word. I'll go ahead and find a more suitable piece of architecture for it. And basically this is what I'm going to work through today. Now, here's really why I am so interested in this topic, whether there are two reasons. First one, you know, naturally I am living in America, but I am British, and I wouldn't say I saw Brexit coming out of nowhere, and I think one of the things that we'll talk about in the webinar today is the slow kind of snowballing. But secondly, I think the thing that I would like to stress is that this is not a webinar about the wonderful resource which has already been circulated, produced by librarians in the United Kingdom. This is much more a personal reflection in our today. And the reason I'm starting with a picture of European Union passports to the bottom right-hand corner is because it does like a very personal cord. I was one of the first British citizens to also become an EU citizen. In fact, I was discussing this with a friend who was visiting me from England last week, and they were sort of describing how Brexit had impacted us to an American student who was interested. And I said, well, we were the first generation after the last seat after then was the European Community passports. So it's been like an entrenched part. One of the most progressive aspects about the Western law course was a module in the law of the European Union about to leave, then it had to do. But in fact, that would be a flip at the spot. How did this come about? So like I said, not a technical examination of Brexit, but the roads to Brexit, charted through relevant sources and resources, which I wouldn't paste these into the browser as we go along with that. So first of all, some very general resources. First of all, I think the one that's perhaps most useful in terms of a general understanding of certain resources, obviously want to go to Europa or EOLX and actually get EOLX and get the actual resource for the primary and second resource in the centre of virtual electronics hosted by the University of Luxembourg. If you want a guide to general description, a wonderful actually book evaluating the David Gowland produced published by Radlitz, it charts really the most. And last but not least, I mentioned to you, for those of you who have a general interest in the technical, legal, constitutional, this with guide or guide to Brexit produced by the Middle Temple. And I don't propose to go into this in any detail. It's by the library and it's at the Middle Temple. But for those of you looking for the legal or its impact on the UK and the very technical questions related to Article 50 and matters of that type, this is the guide to use. It circulated a few weeks ago since I'm looking at it, so I give those librarians buzzing together. The Middle Temple, by the way, is one of the inns of court in London. The legal profession in the UK is 52 sectors. The lower end and the higher end, if you like, the lower profession and the higher profession. Extralicitors, the rights of the audience in the higher court belong to certain legal treaties in the European Union. But the conversation about it starts to really develop the first referendum membership of the European Union to search terms to go. As you may have seen just a moment, one of the principal objectives to Britain joining the European Union was Charles de Gaulle to provide a history lesson. That's not my... In terms of understanding, I came on the basis of two who are familiar with Hans Sardin. I'm sure that's probably all of them from 1805 or the late 20th century. In searching within it, for those of you who haven't used simply searching for the European Union, one thing I found quite interesting, again, trying to on-mercise. That search for the 1975 referendum, in a very good way, exists on so many aspects in the 1967 outbreak. So there you are with my outbreaks. Yeah, they did. This is a briefing paper. There are various sources for them. Now this source here, someone individually has taken the time and effort to, from what I've seen, the ones I cross-referenced, I think the best one is the LSE, the London School of Economics of 1975 pamphlet. So those of you who are familiar with the wonderful BBC TV series, Life on Mars, 42 years ago. And again, when I claim this, it's interesting to look at the attitude to 42 years ago because honestly in so many ways, the attitudes expressed in 1975 are remarkably similar. This one I find particularly in memory of Wales to be killed by the common market. In 1975, apathy for the European Economic Unity in Wales was apparently high and that was in 2016. And when I came onto the Brexit section in just a moment, so in a few minutes' time, I'll express why I find this attitude to be objectively so strange. 1975 referendum, I think I should stress, I didn't lose 2016 pamphlet as well. So that's still open. You can compare 2016 to 1975. And like I said, for both, well particularly for the attitudes expressed and the way they're expressed are remarkably similar. Some of these are not terribly tasteful. I said there were various stages to address. We dealt with Britain joining the EDC in the early 1970s, late 60s, early 1970s. We dealt with the 1975 referendum and now we come to the Master Treaty of 1992. And this, I think, is the really important midpoints. We are now really at crunch time. I think that this really is Wales. The Master Treaty of 1992 is fundamentally, it really focuses on three fundamental things. The free movement of goods, workers and as the name implies, moving towards. And this merely is where the sudden prime minister of the time was John Major. And that's the other interesting thing. There are so many strange parallels that lie in the situation whereby the current prime minister, the same prime minister because the previous prime minister, David Cameron, was designed, she was not elected in the general election initially, which ended the current minister. The same is true of John Major. Mrs. Matta had been forced from government in 1990. There had been a conservative leadership election and John Major had become prime minister. And I think if he actually is probably going to be kinder to John Major than it was at the time because it was his unhappy, lost life to have to basically force the Master Treaty or the ratification of the Master Treaty through the House of Commons. Things when you're thinking about the Master Treaty in this moment. First of all, when you search for social provisions law, whether through regulations or directives which would impact the lives of citizens living in their member states. So these are sort of things that actually specify how much maternity leave somebody gets and things like that. And then there was the most enormous backlash against both of these ideas as the Master Treaty was being debated in the House of Commons, particularly from your skeptics as they were called in John Major's government. So again, this history that as I mentioned earlier so much of this is influenced by political parts of the infighting. Like Wednesday, the date in September 92 is the date at which the United Kingdom needs the exchange rate. Well, essentially there is no confidence, there's lack of confidence, but the power will not essentially be devalued. The Major went live up to his promises in terms of sterling. First of all, this is the origins of Britain never actually south of the European Monetary Union and at this time it also pops out of those key social provisions. At least my shade is the potential political bias they are circulated through the Bruges Group which is an independent think tank but most people regard as being right of centre. But a truly wonderful analysis of John Major's efforts to ratify the Master Treaty period in the early 1990s. The core question of where does Britain belong in the EU is merely addressed both socially and politically. Those of you familiar with the three websites, European Community Amendment Act. So in 1993, the UK ratified the Master Treaty. I think there is a fundamental conflict, something that scholars, not scholars, but students, sorry, people perhaps early in scholars, the Kingdom got certainly true of other jurisdictions too, like the United States. And also it was a huge problem I think for... So here we have a quote by Joshua Rosenberg, you see. And Rosenberg is... He seems like he's been on to see Queen's Council, a very well respected barrister and a leading UK leader journalist. So writing in the Law Society Gazette, which is like the in-house magazine of the Law Society, Britain's equivalent or sorry, England's equivalent, he said, I have spent much of my career trying to persuade people that the European Convention on Human Rights has nothing to do with the EU. There were two European courts I explained patiently. One in Strasbourg beside the Human Rights cases and one in Luxembourg dealing with the EU law. This is really significant. And I think it's one of the things that's got muddy and confused in the debate about Britain's place within the EU. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed entirely separately. So essentially we have now in the 21st century to completely end the Council of Europe. And the European Convention on Human Rights is our Bill of Rights. Many, many, many years after the Americans had a go at creating the Bill of Rights, it only took us two horrible world wars and we thought we might have one too. And the European Convention on Human Rights provides that. We are dealing with fundamental human rights. The right to life, the right to freedom through torture or human or degrading treatments. And the Blair government of Human Rights Act of 1998 does is it takes the provisions. And the reason they're outraged is human rights takes Europe generally. It was another decade or so and the Treaty for a Staffordshire Constitution. The time of the Treaty of Lisbon, the two country kingdom, and the wanting the United Kingdom is incredibly worried about, again, is this issue of whether or not UK domestic law is subservient to the EU law. And this is the standard. These treaty obligations, you know, we signed up to the Treaty. We've accepted that with this treaty, we're now into this area of international law where, whilst not being superior to our courts, actually kingdom, is dealt with very, very well. This bit here will take a lighthearted look at some of the myths. One of the leading employers could make Nissan cars in Sunderland. The definition, the factory. First of all, UCLA has been from actual think tanks through to political organisations. Again, in terms of objectivity, I am not going to comment on actual pledges that were made. Press. But this is a wonderful organisation that has an awful lot to say about Brexit during the capital. Similarly, the British Library has done something rather similar in terms of archiving these resources. So capturing and preserving the referendum debate, understanding what people were saying in 2016. And lastly, a couple of things I think are two of the best for the arguments that were raised one way or the other. And in terms of objectivity, one of them is a very eloquent argument for remaining by Nicholas Bar, Professor of Public Economics at LSE. And this is actually a link that starts with a in a way far more eloquent of political balance. Probably the best argument I've seen of the most tentative walk away. There are no reasons to go to these but they're there for your information. Where did Brexit come from? You need to look at the Conservative Party manifesto for 2010. This is where David Cameron first stresses there's going to be a referendum on the transfer of power from the UK to the EU as it's phrased. Again, I don't think that's a particularly accurate way of phrasing it but that's how it was phrased in the manifesto. But that time is important to stress in 2010 that isn't the fundamental statement of we're going to have a manifesto referendum on EU membership straight in or out. That comes later during the coalition governments between the Conservatives led by David Cameron and the Liberal Democrats led by Nick Clegg between 2010 and 2015. By the time we get to the Conservative manifesto for 2015, it's quite straightforward, we are going to have a referendum. But here when we look at this and I just can't resist sharing this because I think it just goes so closely to the half of what's being talked about. This is the Guardian's analysis of 2015 manifesto and its implications in Europe and here under the European Union, they've mentioned that the Human Rights Act introduced the British Bill of Rights. As I said ad naudium earlier on and many people have tried to remind people in terms of Brexit, the Human Rights Act has nothing to do with the European Union and yet when even what you might call a newspaper of record or a broad sheet of newspaper like The Guardian is seeming to muddy these concepts. I think it's a copy of fundamental part of why Brexit happened. And so this is actually really quite nice. I know I'm down to three minutes, I will go to this really quickly. BBC's timeline on Brexit essentially what I've tried to cover very quickly but nicely summarized into sort of bite-sized pieces, which if you want to show students why did Brexit happen in basically one page of Leicestershire's paper that would cover it rather well. In the remaining time I have perhaps beyond Brexit so here is a really important document which really sets out I said I wasn't going to go too much into the legal aspects of this but what's going to happen? This is a loose memo if you like on what happens when under Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon a member state decides to leave the European Union. I find this graphic vaguely optimistic you know the rope is being pulled apart but there's still some hope of spliting it back together. Here is if you like an analysis of how Article 50 will operate and so to the current situation on the 18th of April which is by Minister Theresa May called the SNAP UK General Election for the 8th of June 2017 it was assumed that nature of Brexit would dominate the campaign hard or soft Brexit. I am not going to read the news to you or just show you the stuff in BBC but this question of the hard or soft Brexit is really what we're struggling to deal with. And perhaps you know if you're happy for a certainness I'm looking more detail. The hard Brexit basically is the standpoint which was being used as the campaign approached by the May government in the meetup to the June election and essentially you might see it as a complete with your strong European Union but with the assumption that we will be able to negotiate the most attractive parts of EU membership and really all the stuff we don't like or rather when I say we I mean the advocates of this model. Quite how realistic it is to continue to belong to a club and you know pick out the very best aspects of membership whilst just conveniently avoiding the parts you don't want to deal with it's questionable but that was the campaign pitch. The Labour Party switched to softer Brexit. They respect the Brexit referendum of 2016 but in a softer way to preserve the aspects that you know have become embedded in British society arising from the social chapter. Other questions that you know are approaches that are being rooted are what is going to become a de facto second referendum on Brexit which is the little thing they say there will be a referendum of their position whilst on the actual terms of Brexit. But the issue with all of this is the election turned out to be not to be about Brexit at all it turned out to be about social matters, the NHS, education things like that. Brexit is just part of the problems prevailing in the United Kingdom at this time. In one of those very strange kind of parallels that seemed to run through this story I mean those who were interested in the Indian Coincidence would be fascinated by this. When John Major all those years ago in 1993 was trying to get through the master treaty for the legislation that would allow the classification of the master treaty he had essentially a very very small minority, so a very small majority of the government's elderly British MPs kept dying and ended up with what was a de facto minority government and he had to call on small political parties in Northern Ireland notably the DUP and the Austro-Unionists to prop up his Conservative Party government to survive a no confidence motion and to go ahead and seek the legislation that would ratify the master treaty. All these years later Theresa May called an election which she thought would be a referendum and it was also I think probably motivated by the fact the leading opposition party, the Labour Party was doing very very badly in the post of time without wishing to read the news to you this is the last thing I will show you today as you know the UK election did not go according to plan. There's no overall majority and in fact Mrs May is now in the position of seeking a deal with the DUP and the Austro-Unionists in Northern Ireland in order to prop up a Conservative minority government to once again deal with a fundamental question of the UK's membership of the European Union. It's hard to know what to say at this point we have solved. Today was supposed to be the day in which the nature of the deal between the Conservative Party and the Democratic Unionists would be announced between an appalling accident in London a terrible fire in the block of flats so that has been postponed whilst that's been dealt with be overtly political I suppose whilst such things are going on the European Union is expecting the United Kingdom to begin the Article 15 negotiations this week. Clearly that's not going to happen as we deal with the problems in our own Parliament. So the past beyond Brexit currently are well completely uncertain. I appreciate that webinar today was probably, like I said it was not a technical exploration of Brexit. It was one slightly confusing instrument having lived in America for the past 12 years recognising that something very pivotal had happened to his country's constitution last year and based on my own experiences as an EU citizen as an UK citizen trying to make some sense of this. I hope it's been of some interest to you but I would be happy to take any questions for anyone may have. So yeah if anybody has any questions, thank you very much Howard, this is great. There are a lot of things wonderful resources definitely and then one of the questions I have had and I think you've covered a wide range of resources but just in terms of keeping up with what's coming up what's happening, what do you think would be the best resource for someone who's relatively new to the issue who wants to especially if we have students who want to keep up with this, what would you recommend being the number one resource to use for that? I mean it's at the stage when the only source I can honestly think of and I know it sounds like the cop out of the newspapers this is moving so it's not that it's moving quickly it's not it's moving like people but it's moving so and certainly we know we are now a year in fact when you and I first talked about this webinar I said it's a good time you know it's a year after Brexit we knew it wasn't going to be an immediate shift but it's essentially a year later we are no closer to resolving how this is going to play out and now with the increased complexity of the minority government to the United Kingdom I think you're going to see a long period of stalemate be the attitudes towards Brexit and the other parties in the United Kingdom are massively different to those of the Conservative Party the Labour Party for the most part most of the members voted against Brexit some did not they respect the decision to leave but they do not respect the idea it's a fundamental separation from Europe which honestly you know goes far further I think in fact the Europeans who I spoke with in fact I think you see this in the European press are genuinely distressed you know we had had a bond not just politically the culture but it lasted as I said I'm 40 it's been there all my life and what's going on is a rejection of Europe and the European Union I can't provide you with a source that you know describes this properly until it all plays out I think the students that really want to keep an eye on this I would simply say give your best look at the European newspapers as well you know some of them are available in translation the best quality Germany's papers are developed and so on and so forth you can find them in translation or in German and similarly you know The London Times, The Guardian and the leading papers of record at the moment you know I think during 2016 there were three as everyone likes to say three huge surprises the first one was Brexit the second one was the only one that was fun which was Lester City which would be like I don't know pick the most lackluster American football team and send them to the Super Bowl and then the third one was in November when the Americans had a little surprise for the world as well and I think we're in that situation I know this sounds like a very flip and comment but here in the United States how well can we predict what government's going to look like you know in a few weeks time things are moving very quickly very rapidly and also with far less certainty perhaps than we're used to and I think that's very true in the United Kingdom with the Americans as well and that's a good point in terms of the European newspapers not just because my two students they tend to focus on the BBC but then don't actually go to the BBC No, please, please don't find the excuses to do not rely purely on the British attitude to this and actually it's also interesting as well for people who are looking for this language don't look in the Irish times or something like that the Irish relationship with the European Union is very, very different to the British one and also the whole question of Ireland now is very thorny because one thing I didn't touch on in the webinar but the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 created a soft border between Northern Ireland and the Republic a hard Brexit puts that back and that will be unacceptable one of the most significant changes in the last 20 years Right, and not quite as monumental but even with the data community and all the cross-European initiatives they've had No, absolutely in terms of regulation and data that's such a pivotal concern and you know if we also look at one of the things with the soft Brexit talks about is maintaining Erasmus on the educational links between UK and EU recently British universities are terrified there's an awful lot of EU funding that will not necessarily be going that way Alright, well thank you very much again, this was wonderful and I did get a comment from someone who came to me privately saying this was masterful so thank you very much Howard for covering this Very kind Thank you very much to everyone for tuning in today for the fairly dry subject of the UK and EU I appreciate the audience