Meanings
- UKgovernmentThe withdrawal of the United Kingdom both from the European Union and from European institutions (e.g. the European single market or the European Union Customs Union).
The hard Brexit case that leaving the customs union need not harm British industry, agriculture, distribution and commerce has been overwhelmingly dismissed by all these areas of the economy.
2019 March 11, Simon Jenkins, “If May loses Tuesday’s Brexit vote, she must back a customs union or go”, in The Guardian2 more examples
Without question now, Britain is not ready for the negotiations, having spent the past year largely avoiding a real debate on the topic, other than a vague argument over the merits of a “hard Brexit” (as a clean break from the European Union is known), versus a “soft Brexit,” which would require more compromise.
2017 June 9, Steven Erlanger, Katrin Benhold, Stephen Castle, “The British Election That Somehow Made Brexit Even Harder”, in The New York TimesBüsingen was mentioned amid talk of Britain following the example of Switzerland: outside the EU but with access to its single market through bilateral agreements that accept, among other things, freedom of movement for EU citizens. That all ended abruptly when British prime minister Theresa May steered the UK towards a hard Brexit, promising to prune back EU ties to a minimum to ensure maximum domestic control over borders.
2017 June 23, Derek Scally, “What can the North learn from a small German-Swiss town?”, in The Irish Times
Origin
Translations
Finnish kova Brexit
- kova Brexitwithdrawal
Cite this entry
hard Brexit. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hard%20Brexit
“hard Brexit.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hard%20Brexit. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hard Brexit,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hard%20Brexit.
Source: hard Brexit on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.