The novel political geography of Brexit

But the patterns of support for Remain in and Leave the European Union were vastly different, as you can see from these maps showing the vote geographically and in proportion to size of constituency.

Overall, the national vote was close, a 52 to 48 percent win for Leave on Brexit. But there were major differences between the regions: Scotland voted 62 percent Remain, Northern Ireland 56 percent Remain, Wales 53 percent Leave and England 53 percent Leave.

The regions are of vastly different demographic weight. Scotland cast just 8 percent of referendum votes, not much more than Wales’ 5 percent. Northern Ireland cast only 2 percent. Fully 85 percent of UK votes were cast in England. And just 11 percent of the U.K. votes were cast in London, which voted 60 percent Remain. The rest of England voted 55 percent Leave.

The table below shows the number of votes and percentages for Remain and Leave in each of these areas, in order of percentage for Remain.

In other words, Scotland, London and Northern Ireland were outliers; Brexit won elsewhere by solid margins.

But this was true even within London. If you separate the 17 London electoral districts that voted 60 percent or more Remain from the 14 which did not, you see a similar distinction. The 17 districts form a core, which I call Inner London; the 14 are at the eastern, southern, western and northern outer edges of the city. Here are their results (the calculations may be slightly off):

As you can see, Outer London looks not so very different from England outside London, while Inner London is a huge outlier from the rest of the United Kingdom. And Remain strength in Inner London crossed party lines. It includes heavily Labour Islington and Lambeth and heavily Conservative (and hugely affluent) Kensington & Chelsea and Richmond-upon-Thames.

I went through the returns from election districts where more than 100,000 votes were cast and found only a few that backed Remain by similarly large percentages: Edinburgh (74.4 percent) and Glasgow (66.6) in Scotland, and raffish seaside Brighton (68.6) in the South of England. Going down the list, you see South Lanarkshire (63.1) and Aberdeen (61.1) in Scotland, Bristol (61.7), Manchester (60.4) and Liverpool (58.2) in England, and Cardiff (60.0) in Wales — but not other large constituencies, which were expected to back Leave heavily, including Birmingham (49.6), Sheffield (49.0) and Leeds (50.3). A few smaller constituencies remained Remain territory, with the university towns of Oxford and Cambridge voting more than 70 percent Leave.

Most Americans who travel in Britain spend almost all their time in Inner London, perhaps with a train trip to Oxford or Cambridge. If that’s your experience, you should keep in mind that the part of the United Kingdom you’re familiar with voted heavily for Remain, and that’s true too if you’re among the many tourists in Scotland or the few in Northern Ireland. But almost all of the rest of the nation, whose motorways, strip highways and shopping malls don’t look all that different from their counterparts in the United States, voted decisively for Leave.