Why Did Britain Vote for
Brexit?
Paul Whiteley (University of Essex)
Matthew Goodwin (University of Kent)
Harold Clarke (University of Texas at
Dallas)
The Referendum June 2016

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The referendum on UK membership of the European Union on June
23rd 2016 occurred because the promise of a referendum was
included in the Conservative Manifesto for the 2015 election which
made it binding on the British government.
There is a large literature on the determinants of support for EU
membership and for further integration which relates both to Britain
and to other countries. (Eichenberg and Dalton, 1993; Franklin,
Marsh and McLaren, 1994; Gabel and Whitten, 1997; Gabel, 1998;
Hooghe and Marks, 2005, Maier and Rittberger, 2008; Armingeon
and Ceka, 2014).
However, much of this research does not recognize the large scale
volatility of opinions on this issue, a phenomenon which suggests
that the key drivers of attitudes to the EU must themselves be
subject to significant short-term changes.
Approval and Disapproval of UK
Membership, April 2004 to December 2015
56
52
52
Percent
48
44
44
40
40
38
36
Start of-->
Eurozone
Crisis
32
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
Approve EU Membership
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Disapprove EU Membership
2015
The Geography of the Referendum Vote
Majority Leave (Blue) & Majority Remain (Yellow)
Percentages of Constituencies Voting to
Leave in the EU Referendum
100
87.6
90
Per Cent
70
78.2
77.2
80
72.5
69.0
63.4
60
50
40
30
21.9
20
10
1.7
0
Britain
Scotland
Wales
North
Midlands
South East South West
London
Predictors of Voting to Leave at the
Constituency Level in the EU Referendum
Predictors
Percentage University Degree
Percentage Manual Workers
Percentage Home Owners
Minority/White Ethnicity Ratio
Age:
Percentage 18-29
Percentage 65 and Older
Percentage Turnout 2015 Election
Country:
Scotland
Wales
Constant
B
s.e.
-.791***
.236*
.246***
-1.033*
.042
.102
.029
.530
-.288***
.131*
-.334**
.054
.066
.056
-14.812***
-5.033***
81.266***
.650
.650
.102
R2 = .89
N = 632
*** - p < .001; ** - p < .01; * - p < .05; one-tailed test.
Leave Voting by Social Demographics
(Source: Internet pre and post panel survey of the referendum vote)
Age-66+
66
56-65
57
46-55
57
36-45
44
26-35
38
18-25
25
Ethnicity-Minority
23
White British
53
Gender-Woman
51
Man
51
Social Grade-A/B
35
C1
48
C2
63
D/E
64
0
10
20
30
40
50
Per Cent Vote Leave
60
70
80
90
100
What Explains Support for EU
Membership among the Public?
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Hooghe and Marks (2005) provided a succinct summary of the
factors which influence public attitudes to the European Union
across Europe in their paper: ‘Calculation, Community and Cues’.
Calculations are about perceptions of the costs and benefits of
membership, which vary according to who are the winners or loser
in the process. People who have done well tend to favour UK
membership, and people who have been ‘left behind’ do not
Communities are about people’s social identities, with people
having an exclusive national identity being significantly more
Eurosceptic than those who acknowledge multiple identities such as
being both ‘British’ and ‘European’.
Cues are about who the public listens to when making up their
minds about how to vote in the referendum. These will include
politicians and political parties as well as experts and opinion
leaders.
What Does the Research on Earlier
Referendums in the EU Show?
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

Franklin, Marsh and McLaren (1994) showed that referendum votes
held to ratify the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 very often involved public
reactions to short-term, national and domestic issues in addition to
longer-term considerations about the future of the European Union.
Thus the unpopularity of the governments in Denmark and France
helped to ensure a rejection of the Maastricht treaty in the former
country and near rejection in the latter. They contrasted this with
Ireland, which had a much more popular government at the time and
where the referendum passed easily.
National and European issues get mixed up in the minds of the
voters and much of the time they are reacting to what their own
governments are doing. This means public attitudes to key issues in
Britain such as the economy and immigration and the popularity of
political leaders are likely to play a key role in explaining support for
the EU in the Referendum
A Valence Theory of Attitudes to the
European Union
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

The valence model of electoral choice hypothesizes that voters will
support a party that offers the best chance of delivering policies
such as economic prosperity and efficient public services, over
which there is widespread agreement about what should be done
(Stokes, 1963, Clarke et al. 2004: 8, Whiteley et al. 2013).
Divisions among the public are about which party is best able to
deliver, not about the policy goals. The term valence was introduced
by Donald Stokes in his critique of the Downs spatial model of party
competition published nearly sixty years ago (Downs, 1957; Stokes,
1963). Spatial issues are those over which there is disagreement
about policy goals.
Stokes argued that the most important issues in elections are
valence issues concerned with economic growth and prosperity, the
protection of citizens from crime and terrorism, and the provision of
high quality public services.
Attitudes to EU Membership are Spatial But
with Valence Roots



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Attitudes to UK membership of the EU is clearly spatial rather than a
valence issue, since there is widespread disagreement among the
public about the desirability of UK membership.
However, the source of this disagreement is a debate about whether
or not membership is delivering valence policies such as economic
prosperity, security, value for money in public spending, and more
generally if the EU is responsive and accountable to the voters.
If voters feel that the EU promotes prosperity, protects its citizens
from security threats, supports quality public services and enhances
democracy, then they are likely to support continued membership.
If on the other hand they think that the EU is failing to do these
things and worse still preventing a British government from doing
them, they are likely to oppose membership.
Variables in the Valence Model
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Two key valence variables in the referendum debate concerned economic
performance and immigration. Both are valence issues in Britain since
there is an overwhelming majority of people who support economic
prosperity and also the control of immigration.
Voters also use their evaluations of political leaders as devices for judging
valence performance. In this case the focus is not so much on what is
delivered, but rather on who is delivering it. Voters will opt for a ‘safe pair of
hands’ or a leader they think is competent and trustworthy, and avoid a
leader who they think is not up to the job.
The third component of the valence model is partisanship or party
identification which plays a role in the valence model because it represents
a cumulative ‘running tally’ of performance evaluations in delivering on
valence issues in the past (Fiorina, 1981; Clarke et al. 2004, 2009).
Emotional reactions to the economy and the European Union are part of this
mix since affective reasoning is an important aspect of voter decisionmaking alongside cognitive reasoning (Neuman et al. 2007)
Relationships are modelled using an internet pre-post panel survey in the
field at the time of the referendum with a sample size of 1,987 respondents
Perceived Costs and Benefits of Leaving the
European Union (internet panel survey data)
Personal Finances - Worse Off
No Difference/DK
Better Off
30
58
12
Immigration - Less
No Difference/DK
More
51
46
3
Terrorism - Less Risk
No Difference/DK
More Risk
21
63
16
Foreign Affairs - Less Influence
No Difference/DK
More Influence
21
64
15
Economy - Worse Off
No Difference/DK
Better off
39
37
24
0
20
40
Per Cent
60
80
100
Perceived Costs and Benefits of Continued
EU Membership
Keep Peace in Europe - Disagree
Neither/DK
Agree
29
34
37
More Terrorism-Disagree
Neither/DK
Agree
28
25
47
Supply Needed Workers-Disagree
Neither/DK
Agree
32
47
41
Erodes Sovereignty-Disagree
Neither/DK
Agree
28
21
51
Benefits British Culture - Disagree
Neither/DK
Agree
40
29
31
0
20
40
Per Cent
60
80
100
Emotional Reactions to UK Membership of
the European Union
60
50
50
44
Per Cent
40
32
30
26
23
20
19
20
14
12
12
10
0
Angry
Happy Disgushed Hopeful
Uneasy Confident
Afraid
Proud
1or More 1 or More
Positive Negative
Words Selected to Describe Feelings About EU Membership
Perceived Risks of Leaving the European
Union (LeDuc’s Law)
20
18.9
18
16
14
Per Cent
12.8
12.7
12.3
11.6
12
10
8
6.5
7.3
7.0
6
4.5
4
3.4
3.0
2
0
0 - Not
Risky
1
2
3
4
5
Risk of Leaving EU
6
7
8
9
10 - Very
Risky
Logit Model of Voting to Leave
Predictor
Benefits-Costs of Leaving EU
Economy-Influence
Immigration-Terrorism
Risk Assessments of Leaving EU
Emotional Reactions to EU
Importance of Europe as Issue
Left Behind in Economy
Party Leader Images:
Cameron
Corbyn
Farage
Johnson
Partisanship:
Conservative
Labour
Liberal Democrat
UKIP
SNP
National Identity:
English
Scottish
Welsh
European
Other
Campaign Contact:
Remain Campaign
Leave Campaign
Socio-Demographics:
Age
University Education
Gender
Social Class
Constant
B
s.e.
2.500***
1.030**
-.371***
-.304***
.599*
-.039
.578
.367
.062
.096
.270
.147
-.029
-.054
.194***
.196***
.056
.053
.055
.056
-.539*
-.060
-.347
-.338
1.416
.322
.321
.443
.563
.741
.185
-1.592**
-.323
-.841
-.287
.243
.552
.594
1.305
.463
-.083
.270
.194
.278
-.006
.093
.026
-.148†
1.289
.007
.236
.221
.101
.753
McKelvey R2 = .89
Percentage Voters correctly classified = 93.2
Percentage reduction in classification error (Lambda) = 86.2 per cent
N = 1780
Impact of Important Predictors in the Model
of Voting to Leave
Economy-International
Influence, 0.88
Immigration-Terrorism,
0.75
Risk Leave, -0.71
EU Emotions,
0.52
Importance Europe
Issue, 0.14
Conservative Party Id, 0.07
Nigel Farage, 0.44
Boris Johnson, 0.44
Scottish Identity,
0.32
-1.00
-0.75
-0.50
-0.25
0.00
Change in Probability Vote Leave
0.25
0.50
0.75
1.00
Explanatory Power of Rival Models of Voting
to Leave in the EU Referendum
1
2500
0.90
0.9
0.85
2000
0.71
0.73
0.71
McKelvey R2
0.7
0.6
1500
0.5
0.4
1000
0.3
0.2
0.26
0.16
0.15
SocioDemographics
National
Identities
500
0.1
0
0
Party Id
EU Emotions
McKelvey R2
Leader
Images
Risks
AIC
Benefit-Cost
Factors
Composite
Model
Akaike Information Criterion
0.8
Modelling the Perceived Risks of Leaving
the EU
Benefits-Costs of Leaving EU
Economy & International
Influence
Predictor
Negative Attitudes towards
Immigration
EU Control of UK Economy
Left Behind in Economy
Party Leader Images:
Cameron
Corbyn
Farage
Johnson
Partisanship:
Conservative
Labour
Liberal Democrat
UKIP
SNP
National Identity:
English
Scottish
Welsh
European
Other
Campaign Contact:
Remain Campaign
Leave Campaign
Socio-Demographics:
Age
University Education
Gender
Social Class
Constant
R2 =
N = 1736
B
s.e.
ImmigrationTerrorism
B
s.e.
.227***
.140***
.007
.013
.023
.052
.474***
.204***
.012
.020
.036
.018
-.046***
-.029***
.039***
.051***
.004
.004
.005
.004
-.063***
-.051***
.062***
.082***
.006
.006
.007
.007
-.044*
-.090***
-.141***
-.050†
.020
.028
.026
.040
.038
.063
-.093*
-.133**
-.199**
-.092
.006
.042
.040
.061
.059
.097
.042*
-.098*
.062
-.138*
-.067†
.021
.047
.052
.061
.046
.091**
-.085
.145*
-.238**
.049
.032
.072
.081
.094
.071
-.026*
-.013
.012
.018
-.029†
.005
.019
.027
.001
-.041*
.006
-.024**
-.020
.001
.020
.018
.009
.052
.002*
-.039†
.018
-.023*
-.137†
.001
.030
.028
.013
.080
.69
.75
*** - p < .001; ** - p < .01; * - p < .05, † - p < .10, one-tailed test
Note: high scores on benefit-cost factors indicate pro-Leave
perceptions.
Conclusions


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
Two key predictors in the Brexit model were cost-benefit calculations
of the economy and fears of immigration and terrorism
Emotional Feelings about UK membership of the European Union
played an important role as well with negative emotions outweighing
positive emotions
Leadership evaluations of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage had a
direct influence on the vote whereas Cameron and Corbyn did not.
However, they had an indirect effect via perceptions of the risks of
leaving.
Leave won because they had both a negative (‘fear of immigration’)
and a positive (‘take back control’) appeal, whereas the Remain
appeal was largely negative (‘risks of leaving’). The latter shifted
opinion towards remain but it was not enough to counteract the
appeal of Brexit.
Had the referendum taken place at the same time as the general
election in 2015, Remain would probably have won.