Brexit and the Swedish Left : The Attitudes of the Social Democrats, the Left Party and the Greens towards the United Kingdom Leaving the EU

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine how the Swedish parliamentary left viewed Brexit and its expected consequences. The standpoints concerning Brexit that were presented by the Social Democrats (S; SAP), the Left Party (V) and the Greens (MP) during the foreign policy debates of 2016 and 2017, and during eight of the consultations with the Committee on EU Affairs, from December 2015 to September 2016, are analysed. The actions of the three parties are explained with the help of the concepts politicization, programme realization, vote maximization and maximization of parliamentary influence. The standpoints are categorized using a qualitative text analysis. The conclusion is that the Social Democrats and the Greens had a negative attitude towards the United Kingdom leaving the EU, and they argued that the result of the referendum was a matter of regret. According to the Social Democrats and the Greens, Brexit meant that the EU had to start fulfilling the wishes of the citizens; otherwise the legitimacy of the union would be damaged even further. The Left Party neither approved nor disapproved of Brexit, but it did consider the event a historic opportunity to reform the EU. The analysis of the standpoints showed that Brexit couldn’t be classified as a politicized (contentious) question for the Swedish left. The actions of the Social Democrats are seen as an attempt to achieve all the strategic goals: programme realization, vote maximization and maximization of parliamentary influence. The Left Party prioritized vote maximization over the other goals, while the Greens prioritized maximization of parliamentary influence at the expense of programme realization