From Popular to Pooled Sovereignty, and Back Again? Competing Logics of Rule in the United Kingdom’s Membership and Exit of the European Union

The UK has often been described as an awkward member of the EU, firmly attached to a traditional idea of popular sovereignty. In fact, the UK’s membership of the EU has coincided with a profound transformation in the British state and corresponding understandings of sovereignty. The UK’s exit from the EU represents a clash between two visions of sovereignty, pooled and popular, with enormous implications for the constitutional, political and social fabric of the United Kingdom as a polity.