The Road to Brexit
Thomas R. Ullmann
Introduction
There is considerable merit to the claim that the European Union (EU) the United Kingdom (UK) left in 2016 bore only a passing resemblance to the organization it had joined in 1973. Tracing this long and winding road demands that we follow two intertwined threads: the steady deepening of European integration and the equally steady rise of British Euroscepticism, nourished by demographic shifts, economic shocks, and a tabloid press ever ready to turn grievance into headline.
For clarity, the essay is arranged in short, tightly focused subsections. Read together, they form a single narrative arc from postwar idealism to the rancorous politics of the 2010s.
Origins: From Coal and Steel to EEC Membership
In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, Jean Monnet and others proposed pooling the sinews of war-coal and steel-to make any future European conflict “not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible”. The resulting European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) came into being in 1951. Its economic logic broadened with the 1957 Treaties of Rome, which founded the European Economic Community (EEC).
While Winston Churchill sketched a “United States of Europe” in 1946 [1], the early treaties remained cautious about supranational politics. Even so, French President Charles de Gaulle feared Anglo-American influence and twice vetoed British entry. Only after his resignation in 1969 did negotiations advance, and on January 1st, 1973, the UK finally joined the EEC.
The 2016 Brexit referendum was not the first plebiscite on membership. In 1975 Harold Wilson’s Labour government put continued EEC membership to a popular vote. With both Wilson and Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher on the same side, Remain carried the day with 67.2% of the vote [2]. Opposition figures ranged from Labours democratic-socialist Tony Benn to right-wing Conservative Enoch Powell, foreshadowing the unlikely alliances of 2016. It should be noted that Tony Benn was the mentor to Jeremy Corbyn, the future Labour leader who would lead the Labour party during the 2016 referendum.
It would be improper, however, to lump Benn and Powell together ideologically. The Labour rebels decried a democratic deficit that they believed would hamper future socialist governments, whereas Powell warned that membership threatened national identity and Britain's ability to negotiate its own trade deals. “We have ceased to be a democratic nation because we are no longer governed by our own Parliament,” he declared, though by his logic regional assemblies inside the UK could make the same complaint.
The Maastricht Shock and Black Wednesday
Direct elections to the European Parliament in 1979 nudged the project toward parliamentary politics, but the watershed was the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. Maastricht rechristened the bloc the European Union, introduced EU citizenship, and laid the foundation for a single currency. To many Britons, including an increasingly vocal group of Conservative back-benchers,this looked suspiciously like a federal project undertaken by stealth.
The European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), a precursor to the euro, required participating states to treat the German Deutschmark as an anchor currency and to stabilise exchange rates within agreed bands. During Margaret Thatcher’s final years in office she insisted on a strong sterling rate, ignoring warnings that the pound was over-valued. By 1992, under her successor John Majorthe, the strain broke. Pinning the pound to a higher value was one of Thatcher’s greatest failures.
There are many facets to the crescendo of this economic mismanagement. Once markets realised the pound was mis-priced, speculators such as George Soros short-sold sterling, forcing the Treasury to spend vast reserves even as the economy slid into recession. Because devaluation was ruled out under ERM rules, the only remaining lever was interest rates. The Bank of England (not yet independent) raised rates twice in one dayfrom 10% to 15%a gesture so desperate it merely invited further attacks. On 16 September 1992 this death spiral lead to the UK crashing out of the ERM, the stock market plunged, and sterling devalued: Black Wednesday.
Black Wednesday - 16 September 1992. How the newspapers reported the
sterling crisis. Photograph: Harris/PA Archive
Eurosceptic tabloids framed the crisis as proof that European entanglementsmeant national humiliation. The Sun snarled, “This is the price we pay for dancing to the German tune” [3]; the Daily Mail fumed, “The Bundesbank dictated terms-and our government obeyed” [4]. Content analysis by Andreas Peters later showed that anti-EU stories in major tabloids more than tripled between 1990 and 1994 [5].
From the AntiFederalist League to UKIP
Black Wednesday appeared to delegitimize pro-European arguments on the right and breathed life into the nascent Anti-Federalist League (AFL), founded in late 1992. Re-launched as the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in 1993, it recruited former Conservative activists-most notably Nigel Farage, who joined in 1994. Farage’s schoolmates recalled his pride that his initials matched “NF”, the National Front, and Michael Crick documents how, well into the 2000s, Farage courted BNP defectors [6].
UKIP fared badly in Westminster elections but flourished under the proportional system used for the European Parliament, winning three seats in 1999, twelve in 2004, and topping the 2014 poll with 27%. David Cameron could no longer ignore the insurgency on his right flank.
The 2015 Election and Camerons Gambit
2015 saw a general election that was somewhat unusual for the UK. With the UK having a first past the post electoral system coalition government are a rarity but from 2010-2015 the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats went hand in hand into government. This marred both parties into an identity crisis with both parties in the 2015 election needing to distance themselves from one another, pushing the conservatives rightwards. David Cameron, the then prime minister and leader of the conservatives was a social liberal whose economic leanings were centre right.
To placate his Eurosceptic back-benchers and staunch the bleed of votes to UKIP, Cameron promised an in/out referendum in the 2015 manifesto. When he unexpectedly secured a majority in May 2015, the promise became an unavoidable commitment.
The Referendum Campaign (2016)
With the Conservatives winning a majority in the 2015 election, the 2016 referendum became inevitable. David Cameron had miscalculated several key variables. One was the leanings of Boris Johnson. Until early 2016 his
position was unclear, even though he had often spoken fondly of the continent, having attended school in Brussels. In February 2016-mere months before the vote-Johnson declared his support for Brexit. Likewise, Michael Gove, the then Justice Secretary, aligned with Johnson, much to Cameron’s dismay [7].
This marked a sharp contrast with 1975: in 2016 figures long considered moderate were swayed by the Leave campaign.
The position of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn remains hotly debated. Echoing concerns once voiced by his mentor Tony Benn, Corbyn adopted a "Remain and Reform" stance, arguing that the EU was important but required deep social reform. Yet he delivered few pro-Remain speeches mirroring the reticence of several senior politicians, including future Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May.
Cameron also underestimated the impact of funding and social media. The Leave side comprised an official Vote Leave campaign and the unofficial Leave.EU. Together they raised just over č7 million, compared with č6.8 million for the Remain campaign [8].
Roughly 40 % of Leave spending went on digital advertising via AggregateIQ (AIQ) and Cambridge Analytica, with heavy use of tailored Facebook ads. AIQ alone served more than one billion targeted impressions, most in the final ten days [9, 10]. By contrast, Leave ran a minimalist ground campaign.
Leave messaging revolved around slogans and fear-mongering: the promise of extra money for the NHS, and warnings that Turkey might join the EU, unleashing mass migration. The rallying cry Take back control deliberately echoed the 1975 referendum.
AIQs demographic targeting focused on older voters, those with lower educational attainment, and post-industrial towns. The 2008 financial crisis had scarred many such communities, leaving them vulnerable to manipulation. In districts where fewer than 25 % of adults held a university degree, more than 65 % voted Leave. These areas-including Lincolnshire, the Midlands, and coastal Kent-received especially high volumes of AIQ ads between 10 and 23 June [11].
The legacy of Brexit
On 23 June, by a margin of just over one million votes, Leave triumphed-an outcome many view as an act of economic self-harm that disproportionately hurt the very communities that backed it. Article 50 was triggered the
following March, and formal withdrawal occurred on 31 January 2020. The process of fully implementing Brexit is still ongoing.
Debate continues over whether Brexit restores sovereignty, or even effectively decreases sovereignty without a say in European elections, entrenching new vulnerabilities. Nonetheless, few deny that the result consummated decades of political, economic, and cultural drift compounded by shrewd electioneering.
The view from Leigh-on-Sea looking on to the Themes, 2014. A town that
voted for Brexit, many coastal regions of the UK are impoverished and prone
to far-right influence.
References
[1] Winston S. Churchill. Speech at the University of Zurich. 19 September 1946.
[2] UK Electoral Commission. Referendum on the United Kingdom's continued Membership of the European Community: Official Results. 6 June 1975.
[3] The Sun. “This is the Price We Pay for Dancing to the German Tune”. Editorial, 17 September 1992.
[4] Daily Mail. “The Bundesbank Dictated Terms-And Our Government Obeyed”. Editorial, 17 September 1992.
[5] Andreas F. M. Peters. “The European Union in the British Press: Journalism, Discourse and National Identity”. European Journal of Communication, 19(3):291–319, 2004.
[6] Michael Crick. One Party After Another: The Disruptive Life of Nigel Farage. Simon & Schuster, 2021.
[7] Rowena Mason. “Boris Johnson and Michael Gove Join Brexit Campaign”. The Guardian, 20 February 2016.
[8] UK Electoral Commission. Vote Leave Limited Fined and Referred to the Police for Breaking Electoral Law. Press release, 17 July 2018.
[9] UK Electoral Commission. Vote Leave Spending Return (2016), table 3.1 (digital advertising breakdown), 2017.
[10] UK Parliament. Facebook Ad Creative from AggregateIQ for Vote Leave, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee evidence bundle Feb 2018.
[11] British Election Study. BES 2016 Referendum Wave Post-Vote Survey, release 2.0, 2017.