Welcome

The sheer operatic scope of Britain’s painfully protracted Brexit debate has spawned its own vocabulary of clichés and metaphors. Catchphrases like ‘Get Brexit done!’ We’ve had cliff edges and Canada Plus, backstops and borders (the latter in both hard and soft flavours). And we’ve seen plenty of bold claims about sunlit uplands. As Britain exits the EU Customs Union and Single Market, we dedicate this modest website to sunlit uplands.

Shortly after the June 2016 referendum, Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom – then a candidate for party leader following David Cameron’s resignation – famously declared:

“Our future is not written until we, the people, write it. As your prime minister my ambition will be to guide our country to the sunlit uplands - a future for our children and grandchildren of aspiration, tolerance and hope.”

Leadsom’s leadership campaign was mired in controversy. Just as Britain’s Brexit strategy was mired in deceit. But Leadsom was not the only person to evoke the sunlit uplands theme. Read more about the history of sunlit uplands here.

This site was launched as Britain made its final farewells to the European Union as the Transition Period – following the UK’s January 2020 exit from the EU – ended on 31 December 2020. As Britain heads off in search of new sunlit uplands, we showcase here a few sunlit uplands in and around the community of nations which still work closely together to create a shared European homeland.

For details of who is running this website, see the impressum.

31 December 2020