Policy Brief [ 20/ 2016 ]
EU referendum: the beginning, not the end, of Brexiteers’ problems Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska Summary On 23 June 2016, Britain voted to leave the European Union. The referendum outcome triggered resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron and his replacement by former Home Secretary Theresa May. This brief enquires into why Cameron lost the referendum battle and what the major challenges facing the new prime minister are. May, who supported the ‘Remain’ campaign, will have to prove that she can deliver Brexit. That will not be an easy task, with obstacles at home and abroad. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU, and their reluctance to leave the EU could complicate May’s plans. PM May will also find it difficult to win hearts in Brussels. Britain tested the patience of the EU institutions with its reform demands, and Brussels will be reluctant to make things easier for the UK in Brexit talks. Member-states may be more receptive to Britain’s concerns, but the UK will probably not be offered any special treatment.
EU referendum campaign: Why Cameron lost the battle
The outcome of the UK referendum came as a shock to political commentators across Europe. Britain has always been a ‘reluctant European’, but the EU trusted that British common sense would trump anti-EU sentiments and that Britain would opt to remain a member of the EU. This is also what Cameron had hoped for in February 2016, when he came back from Brussels with his reform deal and advocated continued membership in the EU.1 But at the referendum held on 23 June, Britain decided to ignore Cameron’s arguments and voted to leave the EU, by almost 52% to 48%. Why did Cameron lose the referendum battle? ‘Britain Stronger in Europe’, the officially designated ‘Remain’ campaign, had hoped that explaining the economic risks of Brexit would suffice to convince undecided voters. ‘Remain’ thought that it held strong cards: both the Bank of England and 1 Cameron promised in his Bloomberg speech in January 2013 and in the 2015 Conservative manifesto to re-negotiate Britain’s settlement with the EU and to ask British people whether they want to stay in the EU on this basis or leave it.
the International Monetary Fund had warned that Brexit could lead to a recession – i.e. two successive quarters of negative growth. But focusing on economic arguments proved to be the wrong strategy. Polls showed that although the British people recognized that the UK economy would be worse off in the event of Brexit they did not think that Brexit would affect them directly.2 Attempts to predict how much poorer the British people would be in the event of Brexit failed to resonate with voters. The Treasury’s claim that Brexit would make each family £4,300 worse off was seen as scare-mongering, and also too precise to be realistic.3 It failed to convince voters. As Charles Grant argued in his post-referendum analysis, many Britons wanted to find out how their country could lead the EU if it stayed, rather than what would happen to its economy if it left.4 But ‘Remain’ failed to make a positive case for Britain’s continued EU membership. ‘Vote Leave’, the officially designated campaign in favour of leaving the EU, knew that challenging the economic data would be difficult. It decided therefore to focus on EU migration and on the ‘Brussels diktat’ – arguments that Cameron would struggle to rebut. In the past Cameron himself had contributed to Brussels-bashing, and had done little to set the record straight when his fellow Eurosceptics portrayed EU migrants as benefit-scroungers. Leading a government committed to cutting all forms of immigration, Cameron could not convincingly make a case for the positive impacts of immigration from the EU. Brexiteers, including the charismatic Boris Johnson, argued that only by voting to leave the EU would Britain be able to liberate itself from (allegedly) onerous EU regulations, and gain control of its migration policy. 2 Marcus Roberts, Remain or Leave: what the numbers below the headlines tell us about the outcome, YouGov, 14 June 2016: https://yougov.co.uk/ news/2016/06/14/remain-or-leave-what-numbers-below-headlines-tell-/ 3 HM Government, HM Treasury analysis: the immediate economic impact of leaving the EU, May 2016, see: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/ system/uploads/attachment_data/file/524967/hm_treasury_analysis_ the_immediate_economic_impact_of_leaving_the_eu_web.pdf 4 Charles Grant, How Leave outgunned Remain: the battle of the ‘five Ms’, CER insight, 25 June 2016.
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