Abstract
This chapter outlines the result of the referendum in terms of the numbers and percentages of voters and of the total electorate voting for Leave and Remain. It speculates on how an extended franchise to 16- to 17-year olds and expatriates might have influenced the result. It reviews the research done into the reasons for voters voting as they did. As well as the perceived risks and benefits of leaving or remaining, for many voters general dissatisfaction appears to have been a factor, and in the author’s opinion long-term anti-European Union (EU) propaganda by the press also influenced voters. Finally, the chapter summarizes the agreements the May government reached with the EU on the terms of withdrawal and the future relationship. At the time of writing Parliament had yet to approve the withdrawal agreement or any replacement deal.
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- 1.
The Conservative Party promised before the 2015 general election to extend the suffrage to all British nationals living abroad without time limit, but this commitment was not repeated in the manifesto and no legislation had been passed before the EU referendum. A renewed commitment was made in the Conservative manifesto for the 2017 election, but a Private Member’s bill to change the law and grant British nationals a vote for life failed to pass the Commons in March 2019.
- 2.
See Grayling, A. C. 2017. Democracy and Its Crisis, 189–190. London: Oneworld.
- 3.
The Independent . 2016. EU referendum: UK result would have been Remain had voting been allowed at 16, survey finds. 24 June.
- 4.
Grayling, A. C. 2017. Democracy and Its Crisis, 192. London: Oneworld.
- 5.
See also Lord Ashcroft Polls. 2016. How the UK voted on Thursday, and why. 24 June. The percentage of 18–24-year-olds voting Remain was 71%: Moore, Peter. 2016. How Britain voted. YouGov UK. 27 June.
- 6.
Curtice, John. 2017. Why Leave won the UK’s referendum. Journal of Common Market Studies 55 – Annual Review: 19–37.
- 7.
With the exception of Greece in 2015 at the height of the euro crisis.
- 8.
A recent book by Danny Dorling and Sally Tomlinson not only shows from exit poll data that numerically the result was much more due to middle-class Conservative voters in southern England than to working class Labour voters in the Midlands and North but also traces the strength of the Leave vote back to nationalist sentiment and nostalgia for England’s past: Dorling, Danny, and Sally Tomlinson. 2019. Rule Britannia: Brexit and the End of Empire. London: Biteback Publishing.
- 9.
Clarke, Harold D., Matthew Goodwin and Paul Whitely. 2017. Brexit: Why Britain Voted to Leave the European Union , 173–174. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. See also Runciman, David. 2016. Brexit: A win for ‘proper’ people. The Prospect. 30 June.
- 10.
Lord Ashcroft Polls.
- 11.
Goodhart, David. 2017. The Road to Somewhere. The New Tribes Shaping British Politics. London: Penguin.
- 12.
BBC News. 2016. EU Referendum Results. 24 June.
- 13.
Curtice, 32–33, does not see a major protest element among (generally better-off) Conservative voters. I think, however, there was a major element of less well-off Labour voters registering a protest against Conservative austerity policies and welfare cuts through the referendum.
- 14.
HM Gov. 2016. Why the government believes that voting to remain in the EU is the best decision for the UK.
- 15.
The Leave campaigners Liam Halligan and Gerard Lyons acknowledge how big an undertaking it will be to unpick the intricate and far-reaching relations with the EU: Halligan, Liam, and Gerard Lyons. 2017. Clean Brexit: Why Leaving the EU Still Makes Sense, xi–xii. London: Biteback.
- 16.
BBC News . 2018. Brexit will make UK worse off, government forecasts warn. 28 November.
- 17.
BBC News. 2019. Brexit: What is the Irish border backstop? 5 April.
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Rawlinson, F. (2019). Introduction. In: How Press Propaganda Paved the Way to Brexit. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27765-9_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27765-9_1
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