Austerity, immigration or globalisation: was Brexit predictable?

Report by: Social Market Foundation

Author(s): Thiemo Fetzer

November 27, 2018

The UK vote to leave the European Union is widely seen as a watershed moment in UK History and European integration. Why did some areas vote to leave the EU, and others to remain? What lessons can be drawn from the referendum other than the result itself? The UK referendum on the European Union membership on 23 June 2016 is a key moment for European (dis)integration. Even though the outcome has been expected to be tight, in the days running up to the referendum bookmakers and pollsters predicted the remain side to win. Many observers were left puzzled and keen to understand who voted for Leave. There are two complementary ways to approach the result. One is to try to understand broad patters, i.e., to ask “Were some factors more important than others in explaining the overall pattern of the vote?” This perspective does not pause causal questions, i.e., it does not ask about counterfactuals: “How would regions have voted if, instead of experiencing X, they had experienced Y?” A researcher would have set up a randomized control trial before the referendum and exposed some regions or voters to one type of experience, and others to an alternative experience, to analyse how random exposure to an experience affects voting behaviour. We can get close to this by trying to consider situations where, beyond their control, some regions/voters were exposed to different experience – not by a team of researchers but by changes in economic policies – ad exhibited differential voting patterns. In this paper, we present evidence on these two complementary perspectives. We start by summarizing the findings on the broad patters of the Brexit vote. After that, we ask specifically whether austerity had a causal effect on the Brexit vote, i.e., whether less austerity after 2010 would have resulted in a lower Leave share.

Read Full Report

Advanced search

<p></p> <style type="text/css"> #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; }<br /> /* Add your own Mailchimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block.<br /> We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */<br /></style> <div id="mc_embed_signup"> <form id="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" class="validate" action="https://smartthinking.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=d372da7dfc98b09a51f2878c8&id=7f0412ec89" method="post" name="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" novalidate="" target="_blank"> <div id="mc_embed_signup_scroll"> <h2><img class="popup-logo" src="http://smartthinking.wpengine.com/wp-content/themes/wordpress-clean-bootstrap/images/menu/SmartThinking_Logo.svg" /></h2> <h2><img class="mailing-list" src="http://smartthinking.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/mailing-list.png" />Join the recruiter mailing list for all the latest news</h2> <div class="mc-field-group"><input id="mce-EMAIL" class="required email" name="EMAIL" type="email" value="" placeholder="Email" /></div> <div class="mc-field-group"><input id="mce-FNAME" class="" name="FNAME" type="text" value="" placeholder="First name" /></div> <div class="mc-field-group"><input id="mce-LNAME" class="" name="LNAME" type="text" value="" placeholder="Last name" /></div> <div id="mce-responses" class="clear"> <div id="mce-error-response" class="response" style="display: none;"></div> <div id="mce-success-response" class="response" style="display: none;"></div> </div> <p></p> <div style="position: absolute; left: -5000px;" aria-hidden="true"><input tabindex="-1" name="b_d372da7dfc98b09a51f2878c8_7f0412ec89" type="text" value="" /></div> <div class="clear"><input id="mc-embedded-subscribe" class="button" name="subscribe" type="submit" value="Subscribe" /></div> </div> </form> </div> <p><script type='text/javascript' src='//s3.amazonaws.com/downloads.mailchimp.com/js/mc-validate.js'></script><script type='text/javascript'>(function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';fnames[1]='FNAME';ftypes[1]='text';fnames[2]='LNAME';ftypes[2]='text';fnames[3]='ADDRESS';ftypes[3]='address';fnames[4]='PHONE';ftypes[4]='phone';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true);</script><br /> </p>

<p> <link href="//cdn-images.mailchimp.com/embedcode/classic-10_7.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <style type="text/css"> #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; } /* Add your own Mailchimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */ </style> <div id="mc_embed_signup"> <form action="https://smartthinking.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=d372da7dfc98b09a51f2878c8&id=010447c258" method="post" id="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" name="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" class="validate" target="_blank" novalidate> <div id="mc_embed_signup_scroll"> <div class="mc-field-group"><input id="mce-EMAIL" class="required email" name="EMAIL" type="email" value="" placeholder="email" /></div> <div class="mc-field-group"><input id="mce-FNAME" class="" name="FNAME" type="text" value="" placeholder="first name" /></div> <div class="mc-field-group"><input id="mce-LNAME" class="" name="LNAME" type="text" value="" placeholder="last name" /></div> <div class="mc-field-group input-group"> <strong>Internship Types </strong></p> <ul> <li><input type="checkbox" value="1" name="group[5115][1]" id="mce-group[5115]-5115-0"><label for="mce-group[5115]-5115-0">Communications</label></li> <li><input type="checkbox" value="2" name="group[5115][2]" id="mce-group[5115]-5115-1"><label for="mce-group[5115]-5115-1">Events</label></li> <li><input type="checkbox" value="4" name="group[5115][4]" id="mce-group[5115]-5115-2"><label for="mce-group[5115]-5115-2">Fundraising</label></li> <li><input type="checkbox" value="8" name="group[5115][8]" id="mce-group[5115]-5115-3"><label for="mce-group[5115]-5115-3">Research</label></li> </ul> </div> <div id="mce-responses" class="clear"> <div class="response" id="mce-error-response" style="display:none"></div> <div class="response" id="mce-success-response" style="display:none"></div> </p></div> <p> </p> <div style="position: absolute; left: -5000px;" aria-hidden="true"><input type="text" name="b_d372da7dfc98b09a51f2878c8_010447c258" tabindex="-1" value=""></div> <div class="clear"><input type="submit" value="Subscribe" name="subscribe" id="mc-embedded-subscribe" class="button"></div> </p></div> </form> </div> <p><script type='text/javascript' src='//s3.amazonaws.com/downloads.mailchimp.com/js/mc-validate.js'></script><script type='text/javascript'>(function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';fnames[1]='FNAME';ftypes[1]='text';fnames[2]='LNAME';ftypes[2]='text';fnames[3]='ADDRESS';ftypes[3]='address';fnames[4]='PHONE';ftypes[4]='phone';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true);</script><br /> </p>

<p> <link href="//cdn-images.mailchimp.com/embedcode/classic-10_7.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <style type="text/css"> #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; } /* Add your own Mailchimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */ </style> <div id="mc_embed_signup"> <form action="https://smartthinking.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=d372da7dfc98b09a51f2878c8&id=a6b0d9156d" method="post" id="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" name="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" class="validate" target="_blank" novalidate> <div id="mc_embed_signup_scroll"> <div class="mc-field-group"><input id="mce-EMAIL" class="required email" name="EMAIL" type="email" value="" placeholder="email" /></div> <div class="mc-field-group"><input id="mce-FNAME" class="" name="FNAME" type="text" value="" placeholder="first name" /></div> <div class="mc-field-group"><input id="mce-LNAME" class="" name="LNAME" type="text" value="" placeholder="last name" /></div> <div class="mc-field-group input-group"> <strong>Job Types </strong></p> <ul> <li><input type="checkbox" value="1" name="group[5111][1]" id="mce-group[5111]-5111-0"><label for="mce-group[5111]-5111-0">Communications</label></li> <li><input type="checkbox" value="2" name="group[5111][2]" id="mce-group[5111]-5111-1"><label for="mce-group[5111]-5111-1">Events</label></li> <li><input type="checkbox" value="4" name="group[5111][4]" id="mce-group[5111]-5111-2"><label for="mce-group[5111]-5111-2">Fundraising</label></li> <li><input type="checkbox" value="8" name="group[5111][8]" id="mce-group[5111]-5111-3"><label for="mce-group[5111]-5111-3">Research</label></li> </ul> </div> <div id="mce-responses" class="clear"> <div class="response" id="mce-error-response" style="display:none"></div> <div class="response" id="mce-success-response" style="display:none"></div> </p></div> <p> </p> <div style="position: absolute; left: -5000px;" aria-hidden="true"><input type="text" name="b_d372da7dfc98b09a51f2878c8_a6b0d9156d" tabindex="-1" value=""></div> <div class="clear"><input type="submit" value="Subscribe" name="subscribe" id="mc-embedded-subscribe" class="button"></div> </p></div> </form> </div> <p><script type='text/javascript' src='//s3.amazonaws.com/downloads.mailchimp.com/js/mc-validate.js'></script><script type='text/javascript'>(function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';fnames[1]='FNAME';ftypes[1]='text';fnames[2]='LNAME';ftypes[2]='text';fnames[3]='ADDRESS';ftypes[3]='address';fnames[4]='PHONE';ftypes[4]='phone';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true);</script><br /> </p>

<p></p> <style type="text/css"> #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; }<br /> /* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block.<br /> We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */<br /></style> <div id="mc_embed_signup"> <form id="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" class="validate" action="https://smartthinking.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=d372da7dfc98b09a51f2878c8&id=56cdd44a75" method="post" name="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" novalidate="" target="_blank"> <div id="mc_embed_signup_scroll"> <div class="mc-field-group"><input id="mce-EMAIL" class="required email" name="EMAIL" type="email" value="" placeholder="email" /></div> <div class="mc-field-group"><input id="mce-FNAME" class="" name="FNAME" type="text" value="" placeholder="first name" /></div> <div class="mc-field-group"><input id="mce-LNAME" class="" name="LNAME" type="text" value="" placeholder="last name" /></div> <div id="mce-responses" class="clear"></div> <p></p> <div style="position: absolute; left: -5000px;" aria-hidden="true"><input tabindex="-1" name="b_d372da7dfc98b09a51f2878c8_56cdd44a75" type="text" value="" /></div> <div class="clear"><input id="mc-embedded-subscribe" class="button" name="subscribe" type="submit" value="Subscribe" /></div> </div> </form> </div> <p><script type='text/javascript' src='//s3.amazonaws.com/downloads.mailchimp.com/js/mc-validate.js'></script><script type='text/javascript'>(function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';fnames[1]='FNAME';ftypes[1]='text';fnames[2]='LNAME';ftypes[2]='text';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true);</script><br /> </p>

<p></p> <style type="text/css"> #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; }<br /> /* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block.<br /> We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */<br /></style> <div id="mc_embed_signup"> <form id="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" class="validate" action="https://smartthinking.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=d372da7dfc98b09a51f2878c8&id=d8503c84d6" method="post" name="mc-embedded-subscribe-form" novalidate="" target="_blank"> <div id="mc_embed_signup_scroll"> <div class="mc-field-group"><input id="mce-EMAIL" class="required email" name="EMAIL" type="email" value="" placeholder="email" /></div> <div class="mc-field-group"><input id="mce-FNAME" class="" name="FNAME" type="text" value="" placeholder="first name" /></div> <div class="mc-field-group"><input id="mce-LNAME" class="" name="LNAME" type="text" value="" placeholder="last name" /></div> <div id="mce-responses" class="clear"></div> <p></p> <div style="position: absolute; left: -5000px;" aria-hidden="true"><input tabindex="-1" name="b_d372da7dfc98b09a51f2878c8_d8503c84d6" type="text" value="" /></div> <div class="clear"><input id="mc-embedded-subscribe" class="button" name="subscribe" type="submit" value="Subscribe" /></div> </div> </form> </div> <p><script type='text/javascript' src='//s3.amazonaws.com/downloads.mailchimp.com/js/mc-validate.js'></script><script type='text/javascript'>(function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';fnames[1]='FNAME';ftypes[1]='text';fnames[2]='LNAME';ftypes[2]='text';fnames[3]='ADDRESS';ftypes[3]='address';fnames[4]='PHONE';ftypes[4]='phone';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true);</script><br /> </p>

Interest Areas

Austerity, immigration or globalisation: was Brexit predictable?

Report by: Social Market Foundation

Author(s): Thiemo Fetzer

Explore our reports

Interest Areas

Related Events

Austerity, immigration or globalisation: was Brexit predictable?

Report by: Social Market Foundation

Author(s): Thiemo Fetzer

Explore our reports

Interest Areas

Related Events

You might also like...