European but not European enough: An explanation for Brexit

Abstract

To date, most accounts of the UK’s vote to leave the EU have focussed on explaining variation across individuals and constituencies within the UK. In this article, we attempt to answer a different question, namely ‘Why was it the UK that voted to leave, rather than any other member state?’. We show that the UK has long been one of the most Eurosceptic countries in the EU, which we argue can be partly explained by Britons’ comparatively weak sense of European identity. We also show that existing explanations of the UK’s vote to leave cannot account for Britons’ long-standing Euroscepticism: the UK scores lower than many other member states on measures of inequality/austerity, the ‘losers of globalisation’ and authoritarian values, and some of these measures are not even correlated with Euroscepticism across member states. In addition, we show that the positive association between national identity and Euroscepticism is stronger in the UK than in most other EU countries. Overall, we conclude that Britons’ weak sense of European identity was a key contributor to the Brexit vote.

Did Austerity Cause Brexit? Evidence from Aggregate Trends in Euroscepticism

“…And by far the least important reason, ranked fourth by 88% of respondents, was 'to teach British politicians a lesson'. Finally, in a forthcoming paper, Carl et al (2018) show that measures of austerity and inequality are not strongly related to Euroscepticism across EU member states. 1…”

“…The plot was almost identical when using a weighted average of the three series with weights corresponding to squarerooted numbers of polls (see Stata code in the Supporting Information). Indeed, the weighted average and the unweighted average were correlated at r = .999 (p < 0.001) for the whole time period, and at r = .994 (p < 0.001) for the period 2007-2016.4 In their forthcoming paper,Carl et al (2018) argue that four developments contributed to the rise of Euroscepticism between 1991 and 2016: the ERM crisis; the increasing extent of European political integration; the Eurozone debt crisis; and mass immigration from Eastern Europe.…”

To leave or not to leave? Understanding the support for the United Kingdom membership in the European Union: Identity, attitudes towards the political system and socio-economic status

“…The failure of the current empirical analyses at explaining those major trends and the lack of conclusive evidence regarding the relative importance of cultural and economic factors warrant further research. Current theoretical approaches conceive cultural and economic factors as distinctive forcesone rational and utilitarian and the other one non-utilitarian and culturaland tend to neglect their interaction (Carl et al, 2019;Curtice, 2017;Hobolt, 2016;Hobolt and de Vries, 2016;Kriesi et al, 2012;Teney et al, 2014). Such a framework is not suitable to analyse instances where individuals care about both types of considerations yet have a threshold beyond which economic (cultural) considerations are traded for cultural (economic) considerations.…”

“…On the other hand, the highly educated, professionals seem to have benefited from market integration and globalisation through the widened trade and travel opportunities, and are therefore inclined to support the United Kingdom’s continuing membership of the EU (Azmanova, 2011; Hobolt, 2016; Hobolt and de Vries, 2016; Kriesi et al, 2012; Teney et al, 2014). The identity approach argues that European integration erodes national-based identity and generates scepticism among those who are more attached to their national identity (Carey, 2002; Carl et al, 2019; Curtice, 2017; Hobolt, 2016; Hobolt and de Vries, 2016; Hooghe and Marks, 2005, 2009). A second type of cultural explanation is that the attitude towards European integration is driven by the strategy of punishing or confirming the political establishment which during the Brexit referendum in general backed ‘Remain’ (Abrams, 2018; Fox, 2020; Franklin, 2002; Franklin et al, 1994, 1995; Hobolt, 2009; Hug, 2002; Iakhnis et al, 2018; Reif and Schmitt, 1980).…”

Euroscepticism and Protestant Heritage: The Role of Religion on EU Issue Voting

“…The Reformation left its mark on a general skepticism towards supranationalism. The representatives and electorates in Protestant countries are not anti-European per se, but as they traditionally hold a very close loyalty to their own nation-state, they are more opposed to a transfer of sovereignty from the national to the supranational level (e.g., for the UK, see Carl et al 2018).…”