Brexit: Why Britain Voted to Leave the European Union
Harold Clarke, Matthew Goodwin and Paul Whiteley, Cambridge University Press, 256 pages, $19.99.
There are many theories about why Britons voted last June to leave the European Union. Yet analysis of hard survey data is rare. The great virtue of "Brexit: Why Britain Voted to Leave the European Union," by three academics, is that it is based on detailed analysis of panel surveys carried out both before and after the vote. Using data as opposed to hunches yields interesting results, even if many confirm conventional wisdom. One concerns who voted for Brexit. The answer is old people, nongraduates and those from lower social grades. But contrary to common thought, there was no gender bias nor were those voters mostly poor. A second finding is on the importance of immigration to the debate. Pro-Brexit voters were much more likely to heed Nigel Farage's link of migration issues to Europe as a whole. Finally, the central role of the UK Independence Party and its leader, Farage, cannot be understated. Yet Brexit did not prevail just because "Leavers" outfought "Remainers." More important were what this book calls "baked-in views," built up over years of criticism of the E.U. When former Prime Minister David Cameron came back from Brussels, Belgium, in February 2016 to campaign to remain, his credibility was weakened by his previous attacks on the E.U. And the Remainers never tried to make a serious case in favor of immigration. More controversially, the authors argue that there may turn out not to be large costs from Brexit. They note that, for most countries (including Britain), E.U. membership has not had much impact.
ECONOMIST
