On 23 June 2016, the United Kingdom held the EU Membership Referendum to ask the voting population whether they wanted the country to remain a member of the European Union or leave it. 51.89 percent voted to leave and 48.11 percent voted to remain. The term “British Exit” or Brexit has since been widely used to reference the withdrawal of the U.K. from the EU. The United Kingdom officially left the European Union on 31 January 2020. But what exactly were the reasons for Brexit? Why did a considerable number of people in the U.K. want to leave EU?
The Major Arguments or Reasons for Brexit
1. Economic Reasons for Brexit: EU is an Ineffective Economic Body
One of the major arguments for Brexit is the supposed economic inefficiency of the European Union. In their Forbes article, financial writer John Mauldin and intelligence and international geopolitics expert George Friedman mentioned that those who wanted U.K. to wthdraw from the EU believed that the European supranational union is a dysfunctional economic entity. They cite the difference between the socioeconomic status of people in southern Europe and those who live in Germany and France as one of their examples.
The Eurozone Crisis is another example. A number of economists believed the European Central Bank did not respond effectively through measures that could ease out the difficulties of banking institutions when the sovereign debt crisis hit Europe and EU member-countries within the Eurozone. Former U.K. chancellor Alistair Darling told The Guardian that the banking crisis had left the people traumatized while becoming worrisome about the transmissible effect of economic crises transpiring across a single economic block such as the EU.
Cut backs in budget by the government of the United Kingdom during the Eurozone Crisis also fueled anti-EU sentiments. Economist Thiemo Fetzer, in his working paper for the Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy, established a correlation between austerity measures and public agreement to leave the European Union. Results revealed that cuts in welfare benefits contributed to economic grievances and greater political dissatisfaction, thus prompting people to vote for EU membership withdrawal.
Concerns over the global economic authority of China supposedly demonstrate further the perceived incompetence of the European Union. Researchers A. Riley and F. Ghilèse noted that the intergovernmental supranational organization has been reluctant to challenge the unwillingness of the Chinese government and Chinese companies to comply with standards set forth by the World Trade Organizations. The trade advantages enjoyed by China have affected industries and employment in countries such as the United Kingdom.
There was a notion that the financial contribution of U.K. was disproportional to the benefits it was receiving. There is some truth to this claim. It made an estimated gross contribution of GBP 13.00 billion to the EU while receiving GBP 4.1 billion in funding for its public sector expenditures in 2017. However, as explained iby the House of Commons Library, EU has a correction mechanism to rebalance excessive contributions. U.K. received rebates or based on contributions made and expenditures received.
Nevertheless, for those who were against the withdrawal of U.K. from the European Union, possible economic consequences were underscored. These anti-Brexit proponents argued that EU membership has allowed the U.K. to enjoy free trade agreements and the free exchange of other resources and capabilities that are beneficial to the local economy. An abrupt hard exist with no clear agreements with the EU could lead to trade barriers and lost of other economic benefits currently enjoyed by the United Kingdom.
2. Sovereignty as Reason for Brexit: Concerns Over the Independence of UK
Another argument or reason for Brexit revolves around concerns about the U.K. losing its sovereignty to the standards and policies of the European Union. These emerged in a time when nationalism and populism resurfaced across the world. he separate papers by D. Autor et al., C. Dippel, S. Heblich, and R. Gold, and I. Colatone and P. Stanig noted that the backlash against globalization and integration have been growing not only at the political sphere but also within the realms of local communities. A number of people have grown distrustful of intergovernmental organizations and international and global economic institutions.
The concept of Euroscepticism that first emerged in the late 1990s and spread further during the late 2000s demonstrates anti-integration sentiments in Europe. The concept centers on the criticism of the European Union due to several notions that integration undermines the sovereignty of nations and states. Skeptics have argued further that the EU lacks democratic integrity and transparency while being too elitist and bureaucratic. Note that Euroscepticism is found across the entire right and left political spectrum. But left-wing skeptics focus more on economic issues while the right-wing ones focus on nationalism and security.
Moreover, with regard to the United Kingdom, the country has an established history of asserting its sovereignty despite its existing EU membership. For example, there was a referendum in June 1975 that asked the U.K. population if they want the country to remain part of the European Economic Community. Although it resulted in the “remain” vote winning, opposition to European integration remained and grew further. The refusal of the country to adopt the single Euro currency and to join the single border-free Schengen area demonstrates attempts to assert independence from any form of intergovernmental and economic integration.
The establishment of the United Kingdom Independent Part or UKIP in 1993 further demonstrated the existing anti-EU politics and sentiments in the country. The party is a right-wing Eurosceptic party with a primary goal of advancing the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union. In addition, to illustrate how anti-EU sentiments pervaded the country, the party successfully clinched significant traction in local elections and European Parliament elections on several occasions. It became the third largest party in the 2004 EP elections while coming in second in the 2009 EP election and first in the 2014 EP election.
Note that UKIP managed to pressure the Conservative Party, led by then Prime Minister David Cameron, to adopt an anti-EU stance through its political capital. The Conservative Party specifically moved from the center-right bloc in the EP to join right-wing parties in 2009. It also rolled out a manifesto in 2010 announcing its plans to get back authority over political rights, the justice system, and social and employment legislation to the UK. Cameron announced further in 2013 that it would renegotiate the terms of EU membership. He later called a referendum that marked the start of Brexit after winning the election in 2015.
Nigel Farage, a British politician and a member of the European Parliament and the UKIP explained that bureaucracy in the EU is one of the reasons why U.K. left. He described this bureaucracy as having two ineffective governments with one functioning at the national level and the other at the EU level. He noted that EU threatens the sovereignty of member-countries because faceless bureaucrats make laws and decisions for nations and states they do not even live in. Even the EU Parliament cannot make its own laws because the actual power resides with the unelected and irremovable members of the European Commission.
3. Security Reasons for Brexit: Issues Regarding Threats From Immigration
Several security concerns have also also been considered as one of the main reasons for Brexit or one of the decisive collective factors why people in the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. These concerns include national security issues, economic stability, and labor availability for the local population. Many believed that leaving the EU would allow the UK to have greater control over immigration, border security, and economic policies. Hence, based on these reasons, Brexit was fueled by growing insecurity across U.K.
Note that a portion of the U.K. population believed that easy migration due to being a member of EU has led to the arrival of terrorists in the country and the radicalization of both the locals and migrants. The principle of free movement within the European Union meant that individuals from member states could travel and settle in the United Kingdom without strict border checks. National security concerns prevailed despite several security and intelligence analysts warning about the risks to national security attached to Brexit.
Researchers D. Abrams and G. A. Travaglino tested the aversion implication hypothesis in the context of immigration, political trust, and Brexit. Findings revealed that the U.K. voters were most likely to vote for withdrawal from the European Union due to concerns over high immigration levels combined with a low level of political trust. There was essentially a perceived threat from immigration and lack of confidence in politicians. These two factors prompted the voting public to reject the political status quo and vote to withdraw U.K. from EU.
An article by A. Riley and F. Ghilèse, researchers at the Barcelona Center for International Affairs, explained further that the free movement policy enacted in 2003 under then Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Eurozone Crisis in 2009 resulted in large arrivals of people from distressed parts of Europe, including Ireland and southern Europe, to the U.K. The country provided migrants from troubled European countries with employment opportunities. This trend did not sit well with a sizable portion of the local U.K. population.
There was also a popular notion across the United Kingdom that immigrants succeeded in landing employment despite existing problems with unemployment and poverty in the country. Migrants from other countries within the European Union could readily get jobs in the U.K. for two main reasons. The first is that a significant number of them can also speak English. The second is that several employers prefer hiring migrants for cheaper labor. Most migrants tend to have lower expectations about their employment and compensation package.
Concerns over migrants and refugees coming from the Near East and the Middle East were also part of the overall anti-immigration sentiments in U.K. These people had fled their home countries due to political instability. Germany has allowed them to seek asylum and citizenship while pressuring other EU member-countries to follow its lead. Some grew concerned that these EU-bound migrants would find their way in the U.K. in one way or another. This raised issues regarding limited job availability and worried about the arrival of religious radicals.
FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES
- Abrams, D. and Travaglino, G. A. 2018. “Immigration, Political Trust, and Brexit—Testing an Aversion Amplification Hypothesis.” The British Journal of Social Psychology. 57(2): 310-326. DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12233
- Colatone, I. and Stanig, P. 2018. “Global Competition and Brexit.” American Political Science Review. 112(2): 201-201. DOI: 10.1017/S0003055417000685
- Dippel, C., Heblich, S., and Gold, R. 2015. Globalization and Its Discontent: Trade Shocks and Voting Behavior. National bureau of Economic Research. DOI: 10.3386/w21812
- Fetzer, T. 2018. Did Austerity Causes Brexit? Working Paper Series No. 381. Coventry: Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy. Available via PDF
- Keep, M. 2018. “The UK’s Contribution to the EU Budget.” House of Commons Library. Available online
- Mauldin, J. and Friedman, G. 5 July 2016. “3 Reasons Brits Voted for Brexit.” Forbes. Available online
- Riley, A. and Ghilès, F. 2016. Brexit: Causes and Consequences. Barcelona Center for International Affairs. E-ISSN: 2013-4428
- PragerU. 2018. “Brexit: Why Britain Left the European Union.” PragerU. Available on YouTube
- Treanor, Jill. 13 September 2017. “Darling: Brexit Would Not Have Happened Without Banking Crisis.” The Guardian. Available online