Talk:Brexit

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Fedegarb, Jovanna13 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Jovanna13. This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2020 and 27 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Umachoudhury (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Achatty.

Unbalanced article: remain bias

I'm a Remain supporter; I assumed this article in Wikipedia would present both sides of the argument. Instead it presents every aspect of Brexit from the Remain perspective. It reads like an argument with someone whose counterarguments have all been removed - indeed it reminds me of that photo of Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky where Trotsky has been edited out. There is no discussion of detailed sovereignty; the entrenchment of corporate interests; the prevention of radical reform; the immigration flexibility argument (this is particularly relevant now that there is an offer to Hong Kong); individual sanactions; etc etc. Despite the enormous amount of work that has gone into this article I'm afraid that a fair recommendation would be to have to taken down until something more balanced can be produced.

The article used to be informative around 2016-2017. Then a group of "agents" took over and trashed it by introducing a political angle (you can still see traces of this tribal left-right ideology in the abstract) and removing passages which make the EU look weak or unpleasant. The people behind it seemed to be full-time professionals. Now that The Blond Tousle-Haired Saviour has become PM, the pro-EU agents have largely gone away and some of the bias has been corrected. But it is still a trashy article compared to what it used to be. I have sometimes thought the professionals are Irish agents fearful of Ireland losing its tax haven status once they lose Britain as a free-market ally, or whether they are EU agents fearful of the reputational damage caused by a member leaving. Or London-based Labour Party and Liberal Party activists who thought that denouncing Brexit would be a vote-winner. Or City bankers who are reluctant to lose the lucrative (10bn/year) euro currency trade in London. The only remedy is to remove the "protection" from this article and allow experts to rework it. But nobody here is willing to relinquish power and give editorial control back to lowly Wikipedians. The agents' trick was to unblock the article briefly, then generate an aritificial edit war, and then block it again for long periods, while trashing any protests in Talk pages with irrelevant minutiae to cover their tracks. Mark my words.213.205.197.2 (talk) 17:54, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Brexit "was" or Brexit "is"?

This have been changed back and fourth since 1 February, and we should agree on what to use. Arguments for "was" is that UK officially have left the EU, and arguments for "is" is that there is still a transition period and negotiations ongoing, and a lot of things are still unresolved. What should we use? ― Hebsen (talk) 11:21, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

• Use "was". We have to make the demarcation somewhere, and the official and irrevocable departure is the right point to use. Yes there are unfinished business, but there will be for years to come. ― Hebsen (talk) 11:21, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
  • • When I attempted at rewording the first paragraph (see below), "is" became the natural choice. ― Hebsen (talk) 16:38, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Also we have to take into account future readers for whom this will be then past.Slatersteven (talk) 11:24, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

• Comment. It depends whether it is seen as an event, which happened at the end of January, or a process which is ongoing. What do reliable sources published since the end of January say? Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:46, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
• Use "was" - The United Kingdom left the European Union on January 31st. That was "Brexit". This BBC article sets out clearly that the UK has left the European Union, that Brexit is the withdrawal of the UK from the EU, and that happened on Brexit Day which was the 31st of January. [2]. The transition period means the UK is bound by many EU rules, similar to the way Norway is bound by certain rules too, but that in no way means Norway is in the European Union. The article must make clear that the transition period is ongoing as are the negotiations for the future relationship, but the rest should be in past tense. RWB2020 (talk) 14:43, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

  RWB2020, not true. That's when the transition started. We don't leave until 2021, and that's when most of the adverse impacts really kick in. Guy (help!) 10:33, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Use "was" - Using the definition of Brexit in the article's lead, we now have to refer to it in the past tense. I suspect the "is" usage is related to a political belief that the transition period is not "real" Brexit. If the sources supported that belief (which I don't think they do) we would have to re-define Brexit in the lead. Tammbeck (talk) 15:00, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
• Use "is" It is referred to in the present tense in the Telegraph: "A hard Brexit is more likely...."[3] Other sources refer to a post-Brexit deal. Of course Brexit can mean either an event or a process. I prefer the present tense because the article is about the process rather than what happened on one day. Of course all this will become academic by 2021, because the final agreement will have been reached. TFD (talk) 16:01, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
• Use "was" The United Kingdom has already left the EU. There will be some more talks on their future relationship, but Brexit (The UK leaving the EU) has already occurred so it should be past tense. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 17:33, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
• Use "refers to". The opening sentence remains clunky.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:30, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Subject to others' comment, I will make this change:

• Brexit (/ˈbrɛksɪt, ˈbrɛɡzɪt/) refers to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). The word is a portmanteau of "British" and "exit". Qexigator (talk) 13:20, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  Qexigator, that seems appropriate, since it resolves any need for us to decide. Guy (help!) 14:53, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Would that not go against WP:REFERSTO? Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:04, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Use "was" - as "Brexit" is a synonym for "withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU", and that is now in the past. -- DeFacto (talk). 14:10, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• Use "refers to" - Jack Upland's compromise covers all the bases.Tammbeck^Talk 15:05, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

... but is against good practice - WP:REFERSTO. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:07, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

"...sometimes used inappropriately...", but not here: it avoids pedantry of saying "is sometimes used to denote an event happening on "exit day" and sometimes the ongoing process due to end later". Qexigator (talk) 15:21, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

"Refers to" is bad english, and this is a bad compromise. "Refers to" is used to give context, but does actually define Brexit as the withdrawal itself. I mean, both "second referendum" and "withdrawal agreement" also refers to the UK's withdrawal from the EU. A better compromise would be to choose either of the two tenses, and then have a footnote containing what you wrote above. ― Hebsen (talk) 15:45, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

How can a grammatical sentence be "bad English" when it is a better choice of good editing than attempting to arbitrate in this particular instance between 'is' and 'was', given that neither is conclusively, or even predominantly 'correct', beyond the determination in the law of UK and EU that 'exit day' has occurred, while there is an after Brexit negotiating period terminating at the end of this year. Qexigator (talk) 17:40, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Use "is" - The fact that the article continues to be updated with current, rather than historical, events, means that the process described in the article is still ongoing. So, the article should reflect that, while obviously making clear that, in legal terms, the exit from the EU has already occurred. Using formulations like "Brexit refers to..." is a bit weaselly and against good practice. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:11, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Attempts at finding a better wording

I think the issues is that we are trying to sum up the current status in the very first sentence, as the first paragraph is too long to do that, and also contains process details. I think we should change the lead so the first paragraph only focus on the current status. Here is a possible rough take on the first paragraph, without wikilinks and the like:

Brexit (<IPA + portmanteau>) is the United Kingdom's (UK) withdrawal from the European Union (EU). While the departure took place 11 p.m. GMT on 31 January 2020, the UK and the EU is currently in a transition period, scheduled to end on 31 December 2020, during which they are negotiating their future relationship. As agreed in the withdrawal agreement, the UK remains subject to EU law and remains part of the EU customs union and single market during the transition period, but is no longer part of the EU's political bodies or institutions.

It appears "is" becomes the natural word to choose when doing it this way. The process stuff in the current first paragraph should be moved to the appropriate places in the lead. ― Hebsen (talk) 16:38, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the wording now edited in by Qexigator is poor, but this wording goes into unnecessary detail that should not be contained in the opening paragraph. My suggestion is:

Brexit (/ˈbrɛksɪt, ˈbrɛɡzɪt/;[1] a portmanteau of "British" and "exit") is the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). The UK ceased to be a member of the EU on 31 January 2020, and transitional arrangements will conclude on 31 December 2020...

Ghmyrtle (talk) 17:25, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

...'will'...? Qexigator (talk) 17:44, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Legally, yes, and it would be WP:CRYSTAL to say otherwise - but it could say "... is expected to..." if you preferred (though I think that is too weak). Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:30, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the lead as it now stands, as we can all see, is the result of a series of accretions while the process up to Brexit (Jan.2020) was going on, and it could be improved with a rewrite in view of the events happening in the current post-Brexit negotiating period. To meet the concerns expressed about 'refers', my proposed opening sentence would be:

Brexit (/ˈbrɛksɪt, ˈbrɛɡzɪt/) happened when the United Kingdom (UK) withdrew from the European Union (EU) on 31 January 2020, and transitional arrangements began for the period ending on 31 December 2020.The word Brexit is a portmanteau of "British" and "exit".

Qexigator (talk) 18:08, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Saying that Brexit "happened" is no better (worse, in fact) than using the word "was", and it takes the position that Brexit was a single event rather than being an ongoing process. I repeat the question I asked some time ago - do reliable sources, on balance, treat Brexit as a one-off event that has already happened, or as an ongoing process of disentanglement that is continuing, at least until the end of 2020? Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:30, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

The point of this discussion is that, in one context it is process, in another an event. The period before exit day, when the single event happened as determined by UK and EU law, was a process always going toward that event, during which time attempts were made to postpone or frustrate the happening of the event. But exit on exit day was a decisive event separating the pre-event process from the post-event process. For editing, we need not be partisan about this, or too precious, but aim for something that allows for both aspects, as succinctly as we can. UK membership undeniably ended at the end of January, for better or worse, according to the pov of any given reader, and irrespective of any editorial inclination or crystal ball. Qexigator (talk) 19:23, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't disagree at all. My suggested wording of the opening sentence simply says that Brexit is the withdrawal. The discussion over whether that withdrawal is an event that has happened, or is a process that is continuing, can be dealt with in later sentences. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:42, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment. Just a reminder to all that we're talking about an interim solution. I hope we can all agree that Brexit will have unequivocally happened after the end of the transition period. So I can live with "is" "was" or "referred to" in the short term even though none of these is optimal. Tammbeck^Talk 18:51, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Brexit will have unequivocally happened after the end of the transition period: that is what the law prescribes, but the successive extensions of the Article 50 period is enough to show that the parties (UK and EU) may decide otherwise, and NPOV editing must be open minded. Qexigator (talk) 19:00, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

The question being how the term "Brexit" is publicly used, it seems to be used with a clear difference between two meanings. One meaning, with a primarily economic focus, refers to a process that is scheduled (but only scheduled) to be completed on 31 December 2020. The other, with a primarily political focus, refers to an event within that process, on 31 January 2020. Each meaning finds legitimacy within its own focus and WP should not consider whether either of them is right or wrong. Nonetheless, a choice may be necessary editorially, since attempting to maintain the ambiguity throughout the article would be likely to make the article incoherent.

Thus I would go along with and develop Ghmyrtle's suggestion, to read:

Brexit (/ˈbrɛksɪt, ˈbrɛɡzɪt/;[1] a portmanteau of "British" and "exit") is the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). The term is used with a primarily economic focus, to refer to a process scheduled to be completed on 31 December 2020; it is also used, with a primarily political focus, to refer to the moment in that process, on 31 January 2020, when the UK ceased to be a member state of the EU, no longer participating in its governing institutions. For clarity of exposition, this article will employ the term in the latter, more inclusive meaning.

Errantius (talk) 22:47, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Broadly agree with that, but propose amending second sentence to read thus:

When the term is used with a primarily economic focus, it refers to a process scheduled to be completed on 31 December 2020; when used with a primarily political focus, it refers to the moment in that process, on 31 January 2020, when the UK ceased to be a member state of the EU, no longer participating in its governing institutions.

Qexigator (talk) 09:34, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Reads well, but sounds a bit ORish. Do we have RS that there are two different understandings of "Brexit" dependent on political/economic criteria?Tammbeck^Talk 09:41, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

We should not go into an unnecessarily detailed explanation of the process, and alternative meanings of the word, in the second sentence of the article. The question of terminology is of interest only to a few editors here, not to the wider readership. I still favour my simpler version of 17.25, 3 June 2020. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:14, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• I don't think you should ever have a first sentence that doesn't concretely explain what the term refers to. But that's what you have here. The first sentence should refer to the chronological period in which this is occurring.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:49, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

So what would you propose as an improvement, in view of above comments? Qexigator (talk) 11:17, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Tammbeck^Talk and was supposing that there are two meanings as I have described, both of them in common public use and thus of interest to our readers. They seem to be the meanings that this debate, apparently informed, is about. Then "what the term refers to" (Jack) is twofold and both references should be mentioned at the outset. Or, if someone can show that in fact only one of these meanings is in common public use, let them show that and we can go with that meaning. Errantius (talk) 11:35, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Given the above comments, the article could be improved by inserting an explanatory NPOV sentence at the top of the terminology section:

When the term Brexit is used with a primarily economic focus, it refers to the period ending on 31 December 2020; if used with a primarily political focus, it refers to 31 January 2020, when the UK ceased to be a member state of the EU, no longer participating in its governing institutions.

Qexigator (talk) 09:04, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

• I think we should go with Ghmyrtle's suggestion, or variants thereof. It clearly defines Brexit, and then immediately states the two dates, leaving it to the reader to interpret whether Brexit is a process or an event, and whether it has happened or not. We can only achieve that by using "is". I oppose the formulations by Qexigator and others. I don't see how the sources support the claim made. I also don't think it is accurate. Can we really sharply determine whether "Brexit" refers to a process or an event, solely based on whether the focus in on economics or politics? The context seems much more important that the focus. ― Hebsen (talk) 23:09, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Agree with your last point. As Qexigator and I prefer, each focus should qualified as "primarily". I had considered saying not only "primarily political" but "primarily political and legal", but feared unproductive queries on the meanings of both ... I think we don't have to "sharply determine" the difference here: all we have to do is indicate sufficiently how the term "Brexit" is publicly used. The fact that there are these two uses may be clear and there is sharpness in the dates, even if the reasons for either of the uses cannot be identified precisely. But then, having recorded two different uses, we have to make—and state at the outset—an editorial choice as to which of the two (presumably no other) the article will employ. Or the article might avoid employing the term "Brexit" and prefer throughout, perhaps, "British withdrawal"—but "Brexit" is neater. Errantius (talk) 00:26, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment This discussion shows that we as editors are not really able to find a satistactory solution to the question, given that, as far as I know, there is no clear cut source better than the ones I have cited above. I do not think we will be failing the readers by not recasting the present article as if the distinction is recognised and understood by public commentators and there was a clearly discernible consensus on the point among them. My personal (editorial NPOV) preference at the moment is not to tamper with the present lead in this respect.The situation is still fluid, and we should wait for the "final" event to happen, currently due on 31 December.Then will be a time to consider some rewrite of the article and the lead, and perhaps open a new article for the aftermath. Qexigator (talk) 07:36, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Qexigator. The status quo might be the least bad option until the end of the transition period (whenever that ends up being). Tammbeck^talk 07:46, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment. How about including some hidden text in the opening sentence: "Do not change "is" to "was". Although the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020, there are currently transitional arrangements in place which will conclude on 31 December, so that the entire process should not be referred to in the past tense." Or something along those lines. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:25, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Or this-

- For shorter hidden text: 'Do not change "is" to "was".UK membership ended 31 January 2020, and period of transitional arrangements ends on 31 December, '

-and insert at top of Timeline section 'UK membership of EU ended on 31 January 2020, beginning a period of transitional arrangements set to end on 31 December 2020.' Qexigator (talk) 11:01, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

That looks good to me. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:00, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I would prefer the last sentence in the hidden text to not be hidden, but this is fine. As Tammbeck has said, this is only a temporary solution. ― Hebsen (talk) 12:08, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh, one more thing. We should not use comments to tell editor to not change text, per MOS:COMMENT, so maybe the first sentence should be Please discuss before changing "is" to "was". or something like that. ― Hebsen (talk) 12:16, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

If it's good to go now, I will do Timeline section, but leave hidden text to someone who knows how, Qexigator (talk) 13:16, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I have inserted the comment. ― Hebsen (talk) 13:25, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Good outcome. Errantius (talk) 23:27, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

References

Where is the history section?

Where is the history section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.136.215.154 (talk) 08:49, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Do we need one?Slatersteven (talk) 09:10, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes. Put it back.213.205.197.2 (talk) 18:12, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Crucial information on coinage missing

A central reason why the EU did not wish to let go of Britain was that all those euro and eurocent coins need to be melted down and re-minted, with the new coins showing a map of Europe without the United Kingdom. The cost runs into billions. Also there is a political angle, whereby the island of Ireland will have a bite missing. Could someone who is pecuniarily endowed please take a photograph of the new and old euro coins, and upload it to the Brexit article? Likewise, a photograph in Wikipedia of the 50p coin celebrating peace and goddwill to all nations would put a smile on many readers' faces. Many thanks. 213.205.197.2 (talk) 18:10, 30 July 2020 (UTC)