In what follows, a group of leading social scientists explore these themes, explaining what has happened in the past, the situation the UK finds itself in now, and the issues that might confront us going forward. The collection is intended as a guide to the big questions confronting the country in the years to come.

'Yet a no deal outcome would still have profound implications for the uK. as we analyse in what follows, from trade to connectivity to foreign policy to cooperation in policing, a failure to strike an agreement with the eu will impact on us in numerous ways.'

Absurd though it may seem, as the formal Brexit process reaches its endgame, fisheries might yet be the issue that determines whether the negotiations succeed or fail.

Fishers have wholeheartedly supported leaving the EU, believing that it and the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) have been the cause of the difficulties that their industry has experienced in the last four decades, difficulties that many continue to suffer.

The 2016 referendum, which resulted in a narrow win for those campaigning to leave the European Union, has posed perhaps the most complex set of questions ever faced by a peacetime government.