Why did the British people vote to leave the EU? What factors explain the Brexit vote
In 2016 the British public was shocked to see the referendum determine that the British
people no longer wanted membership with the European Union (EU) and 51.9% of the
electorate voting in favour of Brexit (BBC, 2015). In the run-up to the Referendum, many
elements of the Leave Campaign convinced the public to Vote Leave. For example,
immigration and sovereignty were at the forefront of the campaign and heavily influenced the
British public. The media also heavily influenced the portrayal of immigration and
sovereignty and brought the Leave Campaign to the public. Finally, the Brexit Referendum
saw a strong correlation between age and voter choice and one’s race. Seeing a particular
alignment between older white people voting for Brexit. The media was able to utilise and
target the correct group with allegations of the Leave Campaign paying Cambridge Analytica
which can be argued to have heavily contributed to the Brexit vote.
One of the key factors that explained why the British people voted to leave the EU was
immigration. The leave campaign would argue that ‘EU membership fuelled uncontrolled
immigration’ (Clarke, Goodwin and Whiteley, 2017). Membership in the EU allowed the
freedom of movement and low-skilled workers to migrate between other EU members to
work (Europa.eu, 2021). Immigration has been a large topic of debate in the UK for many
years. The introduction of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) saw their
manifesto highlighting the level of immigration in the UK. when looking at the campaign
from both Remain and Leave, there were two main arguments; ‘Vote Remain to avoid the
economic risk of a Brexit (‘A leap in the dark’) or vote Leave to regain control of British
borders, British law-making and restrict immigration (‘Take back control’)’ (Hobolt, 2016;
, p1262). Since immigration was at the forefront of the Leave campaign, it is no surprise that in
the run-up to the Referendum 88% said that immigration was the most important issue
(Swales et al., 2016). The media played a large role in terms of immigration. For example,
the right-wing tabloid Daily Mail would release articles with the headline ‘The True cost of
our open borders revealed: EU migrants are MORE likely to have a job in the UK than
British citizens’ (Dathan, 2016). This article was published nearly 3 weeks before the
Referendum vote and misled the reader and fed the ‘immigrants taking our jobs’ argument.
The tabloid and right-wing media’s representation of immigration and the pre-existing
tension between UK citizens and immigrants fuelled the British voters to vote for Brexit.
In addition, another reason and factor that saw the British people vote for Brexit was the
element of British sovereignty. Before Brexit, EU law was a part of the UK constitution
through the European Communities Act 1972 (Laird, 2020). This meant that in some
situations, EU law took precedence over UK law. For example, Factortame was a breach of
Parliamentary legislation regarding fishermen from Spain however, European Commission
legislation took precedence over parliamentary legislation ruling in favour of the Spanish
Fisherman (Europa.eu, 2022). Factortame is one of many examples of EU sovereignty
contributing to the ‘take back control’ soundbite of the Leave campaign. Sovereignty has
been a long-standing debate concerning our relationship with Europe, dating back to 1962
when Hugh Gaitskell said that joining the European Community would be the ‘end of a
thousand years of history’ (Menon and Wager, 2020 p.280). 90% of those that voted Leave
said that sovereignty was the most important issue to them (Swales et al., 2016 p.13). This
highlights that the issue of sovereignty has always been an issue for British voters and
politicians. The ‘take back control’ slogan depicted Britain as an ‘independent country in full
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