Why did Brexit win? Well, first bear in mind it’s not unusual for the EU to lose referenda. Before the end of the Cold War, the only votes it lost were in Norway (1972) and Greenland (1973). But in 1992, the Maastricht Treaty almost lost in France (51.1 percent in favor) and did lose in Denmark (50.7 percent against). In 2000 and 2003, Denmark and Sweden rejected the Euro, and in 2001, Ireland rejected the Treaty of Nice.
Then, in 2005, the big ones—France and the Netherlands rejected the EU Constitution, followed up in 2008 by an Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. So while it’s true that the EU has won more referenda than it’s lost, that none of the ones it lost were in/out votes, and that the EU didn’t accept most of these rejections and followed its “keep on voting until you get it right” playbook, this fact remains: As the EU accreted more power, it lost more referenda.
What about immigration? Was it a rebellion against globalization, a rebellion led by the “parochial,” primitive left-behinds, which led Brexit to victory, as Kathleen McNamara posits for Foreign Affairs? There doesn’t seem to be any reason to doubt that immigration was the best single issue for the Leave campaign. But immigration’s not a recent issue: by late 2003, it was the second most important one in Britain. By 2013, YouGov found (and then-Labour leader Ed Miliband agreed) that 78 percent of all British adults agreed that immigration had been too high under Labour.
Even more strikingly, concern about immigration in Britain was non-existent in the late 1990s, but by mid-2000 (well before 9/11), it had begun to spike. The reason for this is obvious: Immigration itself spiked under New Labour, jumping suddenly in 1998. I urge you to look at this chart: it explains just about everything you need to know, as far as numbers go.
What really made immigration an issue, though, was the sense that British politicians were lying about it and, no matter what they said, had no intention of controlling it. Again, I urge you to read this column by Andrew Neather, a speechwriter on immigration for the Blair government, who in 2009 wrote that
You might linger for a moment on the disdain summed up in Neather’s “fascist au pair, anyone?” aside. By the way, the London borough of Barking voted for Brexit by 62.4 percent. Burnley, in England’s northwest, went for Brexit by 66.6 percent. I wonder why.
The reason immigration mattered in 2016 wasn’t that Britain was in the midst of a sudden panic. It was that immigration had been a front-burner issue for 15 years. Immigration, in short, was a background condition. And it was a background condition not because of vague theories about globalization, or vaporous claims about the failure of Britons to “imagine themselves part of a cosmopolitan, thriving democratic polity,” but because of specific actions taken by the New Labour government, and broader EU policies, that were very unpopular.
It was also a background condition because, for a decade and a half, in the midst of an unprecedented wave of immigration—in large part from Europe, which makes it difficult to blame color prejudice—British politicians consistently ignored (at best) or lied (at worst) about it. The conclusion on the part of much of the public was clear: if politicians couldn’t be trusted to control immigration, the way to do it was to leave the EU, because it was British membership of the EU that allowed EU citizens to migrate to Britain.
The more you look at Brexit, the less unusual or spasmodic it turns out to be. True, Britain is more Euroskeptic than most EU nations, and any possibility that Britain might break that tradition was killed by the BSE crisis. But the EU has encountered more opposition across Europe as it’s grown since 1991, and since the start of the Euro crisis, the EU has become even less popular across Europe, including Britain. As in other countries, it’s a bit more popular in Britain now than it was at the depths of that crisis. Immigration, too, is no short-run matter: concern about it rose in Britain in reaction to New Labour’s immigration boom, and it reflects deep-seated worries about British social cohesion, values, infrastructure, and the sustainability of Britain’s welfare system, worries which in turn reflect the longue durée.
So what was different about 2016? The answer is obvious. It was when the referendum was held.
Before 2016, Britain didn’t have a choice, because all the major parties were committed to EU membership. In that way, too, Britain was a lot like the continent: if you want a party in Europe that promises to slow down the EU juggernaut, you have few choices but to vote for the Far Left or the Far Right. More than that, though—in Britain, the major parties frequently promised referenda on the EU but failed to follow through. Blair promised one on the EU Constitution in 2004, as did all three major parties in 2005. Labour retreated on that promise in 2007, and Cameron picked it up. The Liberal Democrats called for an in-out referendum in 2008, and Cameron retreated on his promise in 2009. In 2010, the Liberal Democrats again promised an in-out referendum, only to block a referendum in 2014. The only thing that really stands out about 2016 is that it was when the referendum finally happened.
Ted R. Bromund is senior research fellow in Anglo-American relations in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation. He recently reported on the Brexit debate for THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
