Taking back control: sovereignty as strategy in Brexit politics

Whether sovereignty is a 'real' or an 'imagined' concept, it is fair to say that it captured the public imagination in a very real way during the 2016 referendum on European Union (EU) membership. A commonly cited reason for leaving the EU was 'the principle that decisions about the UK should be made in the UK'. It is unpacking the potency of sovereignty - as a longstanding form of 'democratic nostalgia' within UK politics in opposition to a 'failure of democratic internationalism', and as a proxy for the rational desire for political control in a changing world - on which the present authors feel they can add some reflections to Professor John Agnew's valedictory lecture.