Brexit referendum, 10 years on: the view from the North East
The North East announced a political earthquake. Here, five writers from the area reflect on why that vote mattered so much. PLUS: watch Claire Fox's speech at The Spectator's Brexit debate.
As the polls closed on 23 June 2016, most of us had quietly accepted that we would be staying in the EU. YouGov expected the result to be 52/48 in favour of Remain. Ipsos MORI had it even wider, 54/46. Nigel Farage’s first comment after the vote was: ‘It’s been an extraordinary referendum campaign, turnout looks to be exceptionally high and looks like Remain will edge it.’
Sunderland changed all that. It was the first city to declare its result in the EU referendum, just after midnight on 24 June – and what a result: 61.3 per cent Leave and 38.7 per cent Remain. Boom.
This was no freak result. The declarations in favour of Leave just kept on coming in. At 4.39am, David Dimbleby on the BBC announced: ‘We are absolutely clear now that there is no way that the Remain side can win… The British people have spoken – and the answer is: we’re out.’
Like many people who had voted Leave, perhaps more in hope than expectation, I was gobsmacked – and delighted. Not that the path from vote to departure was easy, with nearly four more years of shenanigans to come before we finally, formally, left. Nonetheless, the Brexit vote was seismic, announcing the arrival of the Populist Moment. Politics has never been the same since.
Below, you can watch Claire Fox’s speech defending Brexit at The Spectator’s Brexit debate last week. (You can watch the whole debate here.) Then, five writers from the North East reflect on the campaign, the vote and the aftermath.
TEN YEARS ON, I STILL LOVE BREXIT
Jon Bryan
The year is 2016…
At 04:58 on Friday 24 June, I sent my friend a simple message:
‘Morning! Historic day! J x’
I’d been up all night watching the coverage as the votes came in. Over 30million of us voted in a huge democratic exercise which had been built up to for months. The resulting ballot papers were a mass input from the public telling politicians what we thought. And most of those who voted wanted us to leave the EU. It was so good.
I still smile when I think about it. It was probably the most important political event in my lifetime and, for once, I was on the winning side. On the simple question of whether we should be part of a neoliberal and bureaucratic organisation like the EU, with all its anti-democratic structures, the UK public said an emphatic ‘No’.
It’s difficult to envisage, as it seems so long ago, but it was a hugely positive message. Against all the fearmongering being expressed by almost every mainstream politician, commentator and business leader, the electorate stuck up two fingers and refused to go along with the status quo. The Brexit vote was a decisive rejection of what we had, and I loved it for that.
It led to the immediate demise of a Tory prime minister who I had absolutely no time for, and the difficulties that established politicians grappled with after the vote showed how much we could shake things up by simply putting ‘X’ next to ‘Leave’ on a piece of paper. No UK political leader has come close to understanding what that vote meant and how they should react to it. The political instability and dealignment caused by that vote has been there for all of us to see over the past 10 years.
I have always tried to hang on to the positivity that was expressed by that vote to leave the EU. That we needed change; we needed to do something radical; and that we would not be swayed by the likes of Cameron, Clegg, Corbyn, Osborne, Obama, Sturgeon, Branson, Khan, Kinnock, Blair, Ashdown, Lucas, Jones, Campbell, O’Leary and Morgan. They were all cheerleaders for the idea that we shouldn’t tamper with what we had with, a ‘don’t rock the boat’ and a ‘better the devil you know’ type approach to political campaigning. I was so pleased that they were all on the losing side, and that I was with the majority vote.
While there were difficult times which immediately followed the vote – when the UK parliament did their upmost to strangle the public’s voice – it was a useful exercise in finding out who really believed in democracy. It was only those who wanted to enact the logical extension of that vote – that we should leave the European Union with or without a deal – who truly believed in the rights and power of ordinary people. We all learnt a lot through that experience, and we are better for that.
For my part, I continued to argue (wherever and whenever I could) that the UK electorate had spoken and that we should make sure that we delivered on that promise and those beliefs. That didn’t make me popular with some, but I firmly believed that I was right. Not only was I on the side of democrats, but I also knew that most people agreed with me. That not only gave me comfort, but it also meant that I smile about it now, as I did at the time.
In 2019:
It helped to have friends and a partner who affirmed that belief in democracy and principle, and there were also public voices who were speaking out too. In Newcastle, Leavers of Britain (LofB) helped me to smile and remain positive, providing a forum to meet like-minded individuals.
When LofB came to the North East in 2019, spreading out from its roots in London, I made sure to be at the first meeting and became part of the organising team of Leavers of Newcastle. Like a task and finish group – it kept going until we finally left the EU in 2020.
2026: Today!
Today’s news and political commentary on Brexit can be infuriating at times, with their focus on the economy and continual linking of it back to 2016. The fact that much of the vote was for political rather than economic reasons seems to have escaped the politicians, journalists and the commentariat. They never understood the political earthquake that shattered the consensus 10 years ago, and they still don’t understand it now.
I’m still smiling about the Brexit vote, and I will do so for a while longer. Not just because I was on the winning side, but because those who tried to overturn that democratic mandate for the four years that followed also ended up on the losing side once again when we finally left the EU in 2020. I drank a glass of fizz with friends and family that night.
This month, I’ll be marking the tenth anniversary of our vote to leave the EU with close friends who stuck with both the vote and the public, against everything that was thrown at them. No doubt there will be talk of those who voted to leave who regret the way that they voted, and the media will be sure to make the most of those voices. For my part, I don’t regret anything about it. It was the one time that my vote really counted, and that it was counted along with 17million others who also thought like me makes the experience that bit better.
Ten years on, I still love Brexit, and everything that the vote represented. Cheers to that day – one that I’ll never forget!
Jon Bryan is a trade unionist and organiser of Leavers of Newcastle. Follow Jon on X.
A DECADE OF SURPRISES
Mo Lovatt
Last month, the question ‘Is Britain ungovernable?’ hit the media rounds as a range of articles and radio talk shows debated the issue. At the same time, Tony Blair’s essay criticising Labour’s lack of ideas and a ‘governing purpose’ was released.
As I reflect on 10 years of Brexit, this is what surprises me the most: that leaving the EU has so thoroughly exposed a British political class bereft of purpose, plans or ideals. Decades of outsourcing political decisions – and accountability – to the European Union has clearly left us with an out-of-touch and moribund political elite.
But that was not the only surprise to emerge from the referendum result. It’s hard to overstate how much British politics has changed over the past decade, from the collapse of the two main parties and the idea of an electoral ‘safe seat’ to the ensuing rise of populism and the range of parties seeking to represent us; from the vastly more diverse media landscape to the willingness of ‘ordinary people’ to use their voice and engage in political activity. The elites and their useful idiots may bemoan the contemporary chaos, but for true democrats this is an exciting time. We live in a far more robustly democratic country because of that vote.
The very first Brexit surprise I encountered was on the day I cast my vote. The polling station, located in the very deprived area of Winlaton, Gateshead, was humming with activity as I pulled up, with people lining the streets – right around the block and beyond – to cast their vote. We had been told that our vote counted and 33, 551, 983 of us across the country came out to ensure we had our say in an almost unprecedented turnout of 72.2 per cent. It was an historic day.
Then came the reaction to Brexit – both publicly and in my private life. I had been working in a rather elite section of the Arts and Culture sector of the North East, involved in strategic decision making and policy. When I discussed my intention to vote Leave with colleagues, there were some wry smiles and gentle teasing. Mo Lovatt, still the radical contrarian at heart! But after the vote… My Goodness! I couldn’t quite believe it as colleague after colleague, friends too, gradually dropped me from their social circles. Work dried up, Twitter followers diminished and I became persona non grata (except, perhaps unsurprisingly, among the many techies and stagehands I’d work with along the way). One well-meaning colleague said to me: ‘I do wish you’d shut up on Twitter. You do realise you’ll never work in the industry again?’ My brother assured me the fuss would die down. That turned out to be wishful thinking!
Like so many others, the attempt by our political and cultural elites to overturn the democratic vote re-politicised me in a way I hadn’t been since my student years. I began being asked to appear on a variety of news and current affairs programmes and eventually went on to work with MEPs Claire Fox and Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen in the North West.
Both historically left-wing and dedicated to democracy, Claire and Henrik were determined to represent their European Parliamentary constituents from their office base in Stockport until we eventually left the EU and their jobs would cease to exist. But soon realising that representing people from as far as Workington in the north to Cheshire in the south wasn’t easy, even with an office in the centre of the region, the MEPs began going out to the electorate, where money, distance and transport connections made it impossible for many to come to Stockport. (I often wonder how many other MEPs over the years have been as determined to reach their European electorates!)
As we toured the region in a series of ‘Town Hall’ meetings, I encountered my next major Brexit surprise. Inevitably Remain voters turned up at those meetings to argue, to heckle, and to pour scorn on anyone who had voted Leave. They were always welcomed but I was genuinely shocked at how little these people knew about the European Union! In debate after debate, they revealed their ignorance of the trading bloc in the face of the arguments of those so-called low-information voters who had done their research and knew exactly why they’d voted to leave.
The tone of that discussion hasn’t changed over the last ten years. In late 2024, I was asked to appear on Matthew Wright’s LBC show, to talk about whether I regretted my Brexit vote. As it happened my colleague, Rob Lyons, had just written an excellent piece, covering the criticism by Mario Draghi, former president of the European Bank, of the EU and warning of its potential demise. I used Rob’s article as the basis of my argument. I began the interview with a joke about Remainers not knowing what they’d voted for and the host laughed. This is going to go well, I thought. But gradually, as I began quoting Draghi and pointing out the failures of the EU, Wright became visibly more angry and frustrated as I calmly laid out my position and refuted his claims. The segment ended with Wright throwing down his pen on the desk and storming out of the studio! It was great fun! I was glad I knew my facts, wasn’t swayed by the insults and firmly held my ground.
And that is my essential message to anyone who voted Brexit when the inevitable attempt to rejoin – either overtly or covertly – raises its head (more than it has already). Remember what we have gained. Remember what potential for change our vote has unleashed. Remember how much the elites revealed their contempt for us and for democracy. And, finally, remember we deserve more from our political leaders. In the words of Tony Blair, we deserve, ‘efficacy… the ability to get big things done. To have leaders who are not problem-managers but problem-solvers.’ Well said Tony. Thanks to the Brexit you despised, we may yet reap those rewards.
Mo Lovatt is national coordinator of Debating Matters and programme coordinator, Academy of Ideas. Follow Mo on X.
BREXIT 2016: THE BEGINNING OF A POPULIST REVOLUTION
Kevin Yuill
As the Brexit referendum results unfolded on that June night, I went to bed fairly early. Though others had gathered to celebrate the results, I was pessimistic about the prospects and slept before many results came in. Before I went to sleep, though, I composed a Facebook post congratulating the other side and urging those on my side to respect the democratic result of the referendum.
How I wished I had posted it! For, once the results came in, what was striking was how few of those who had campaigned against Brexit actually accepted the results, even though they were quite clear. The immediate response from those remainers who had cheered on Bob Geldof as he castigated the ‘Leave’ flotilla on the Thames was bitterness. The pro-remain papers, perhaps in the anger stage of grief, expressed disbelief. Typical was the front page of the Independent the day after the referendum:
‘We’ve broken off with Europe, the PM has resigned, Nigel Farage is rampant, markets have crashed, Scotland wants another referendum, there are 52 trade deals to be renegotiated – and one man is favourite to be the next prime minister [Boris Johnson].’
But since then, those elite politicians, policymakers and celebrities who opposed leaving the EU have thrown everything in the path of the democratic will of the people. Nigel Farage captured the reaction over the past 10 years since the vote: ‘We used to protest against the establishment, now the establishment protests against us’.
Such a momentous day had reverberations across the world. Brexit was a massive rejection of the rabble of politicians and powerbrokers who gather at Davos every January to plan out the path they think the world should take. Brexit was not only off their agenda, but the explosion of populist sentiment threatened them. World leaders almost unanimously condemned the British for having the temerity to question their leaders.
As an academic, I was shocked by the vitriol heaped on those few of us who admitted that we had voted Brexit. After I came out publicly in support of the referendum result, many privately expressed their agreement but noted that public espousal of Brexit would be the death of their careers.
Today, the Brexit vote remains the clearest test of democracy. Very few took the view that I had initially when I thought we had lost and Remain had triumphed. Instead of accepting that the people had spoken, we were told that the gullible majority had been lied to by right-wing politicians and media, that the majority of the population of this country were racist and therefore their vote should not count, and, perhaps most bizarrely, that Russian bots had spread disinformation. Anything but admit that the people hated the establishment and longed for change.
Perhaps most disconcerting to me was the betrayal of the working class by the left – or what calls itself the left today. The left in Britain had a deep commitment to democracy expressed, in the past, in hostility to joining the EU. Tony Benn, who, having died in 2014, must be turning in his grave today, asked five questions about power:
What power have you got?
Where did you get it from?
In whose interests do you exercise it?
To whom are you accountable?
How can we get rid of you?
The EU failed to satisfactorily answer any of these questions, but the rump of the left today has thrown its lot in with the Establishment.
After 2016, it became obvious that the left is no longer the left. I first became politically active after I began working on the hog-kill line in an abattoir at the age of 17 and remained on the left ever since. However, much as many of my left-wing principles – freedom of speech, siding with workers, autonomy and national sovereignty – remain, none of these appear to be respected by those who call themselves the left today. In fact, it is those on the right, perhaps similarly bemused by the nastiness of attacks on them from those who regard themselves as upstanding liberals, who appear the most open to change. Brexit further exacerbated the 30-year trend whereby the definitions of left and right collapsed.
In the years that followed the referendum, the betrayal of this second-largest vote in British history continues. Irritated by the attacks on Brexit and encouraged by others willing to put themselves forward, I stood in 2019 for the Brexit Party, formed by Nigel Farage and several others in response to the threat to renege on the decision to leave the EU and the failure of mainstream parties to defend the referendum in the Sunderland South and Houghton constituency.
I remember several things in particular about this campaign. First, I knocked on close to a thousand doors and spoke to myriad people on our street stalls. On one such stall, a white van screeched up and a fairly large man jumped out and asked me, are you Kevin Yuill? Somewhat nervously, remembering the violence I faced as an anti-racist campaigner in the East End of London in the 1980s, I answered yes. ‘I’m voting for you and I support your articles on assisted suicide, but I disagree with some of the others.’ He was an electrician, but had done plentiful research on all of the candidates, including reading articles I had written for Spiked, belying the ‘low-information voter’ image propagated by the Remain camp.
Second, many people told me that in all the years they had lived in the area – many as long as 30 years – I was the first political candidate they had spoken to. The Labour Party existed not as representatives of these people but as a group of apparatchiks and party managers who ignored those people who voted for them out of loyalty to the party of their parents and grandparents.
Third, it was sheer frustration with mainstream parties that drove people to vote for Brexit and for either the Brexit or Conservative Parties in this election. The writing was on the (red) wall for the Labour Party. Though my candidacy was not successful and the failure of the Conservative Party meant that Labour was again returned in 2024, the most recent election results indicate that the old system - and the Labour Party - is on its last legs.
It was difficult, in 2016, to see whether this vote was simply a spasm, a one-off kicking of the establishment that would not be repeated. Certainly, many centrist figures hoped that it was a moment of madness after which politics as usual would re-establish itself. But from our vantage point in 2026, populism is alive and well. Reform UK took control of Gateshead, Sunderland and South Tyneside from Labour and became the official opposition in North Tyneside. Newcastle council was left without a majority and all the seats up for grabs in Hartlepool went to Reform.
The revolution launched in 2016 continues.
Kevin Yuill is emeritus professor of history, University of Sunderland and a former Brexit Party candidate. Follow Kevin on X.
KEEP CALM AND KEEP VOTING
Dave O’Toole
I have always seen myself as political and I am an active trade unionist, yet I rarely vote. Put simply, there is seldom much worth voting for. The Brexit campaign, by contrast, was the most exciting example of democracy in action I had ever seen. At last, here was a clear, binary issue that I naively believed would be carried through. So, I did more than vote: I campaigned, leafleted, knocked on doors, wrote, debated and organised Leave groups and social events.
As a lecturer and branch secretary, my constituency was there. If I wanted to organise a meeting or communicate with others, I had only to leave my staffroom to encounter them. When I later became a trade-union organiser, my networks were similarly accessible and organised.
But my trade union contacts - largely academics - were firmly Remain, as were the local Labour Party and the Trades Council. The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) were pro-Leave and ran a Lexit campaign, but they would not align or work with the largely conservative-led Vote Leave or the Farage-aligned Grassroots Out campaign. The Socialist Party took a similar stance and remained aloof from the national campaign. So, many of my contacts on the Left were either solidly Remain or too concerned with political purity to work with others.
My own view was that if you have a vision for the political direction of the UK you need the power to make this happen. You need sovereignty. It was this principle on which we were being asked to vote. To that end, I was prepared to work with anyone who had the same vision, regardless of their political affiliation, and I was not prepared to engage in the distraction of arguing the different visions. Once we were ‘Out’ we would have a chance to shape those visions.
So, I started by discussing Brexit with everyone I met. I had conversations at the bus stop, at the dentist, in the pub – and eventually, I found fellow travellers. Several times a week we leafletted, ran stalls, attended talks or door knocked estates and tower blocks. None of those I worked with were what I’d call ‘Left’, yet I never heard a motive I disagreed with. Despite the slurs being levelled against Leave voters, I never heard a racist remark.
The energy was extraordinary. Looking back, it’s hard to believe the official campaign lasted only 10 weeks, it was a time of real enthusiasm and a desire for change.
But something else became clear: within the official campaigns, each side spoke a different language. Leave emphasised democracy and sovereignty; Remain focused on economics and what felt to me like trivialities, such as ease of travel – and ultimately, they failed to inspire the electorate.
On 23 June, the Leave vote won – decisively. Turnout was 72.2 per cent, outstripping even the 1997 General Election turnout. Over 33million people voted: 52 per cent for Leave, 48 for Remain. I assumed the democratic result would be enacted, but instead, the atmosphere intensified. The Remain campaign, previously lacklustre, re mobilised to overturn the result. Leave voters were mocked as ‘gammon’, ‘racist’, ‘uneducated’ or ‘deceived’. Some even suggested a second referendum would favour Remain as older Brexit voters died off.
This quickly turned into an assessment that the Leave vote was peopled by the great unwashed: council-estate dwellers, the uneducated, the xenophobe and the racist. I was accused of ‘enabling fascism’ by people I had worked with on trade-union campaigns. I was criticised on social media by the same trade unionists in a manner which was publicly polite and reasonable, but privately they expressed the most violent and unhinged attacks on working-class voters. People commented on the phenomenon of the ‘shy voter’ as it became increasingly common for Leave voters not to admit to having the temerity to vote.
Ten years on, it is difficult to believe how much the political landscape of the UK has altered. Both the Labour Party and the Conservatives are likely finished as serious political players. The present Labour government is besieged by criticism and has largely been abandoned by its working-class base. Attempts to create new movements on the Left which have retained a pro-EU stance, such as Your Party and Momentum, have not been successful. New media channels are being created and watched by those who’ve rejected the legacy media – pushing even mainstream channels to discuss issues that were previously rarely heard. There is a definite populist mood in the country – one which is completely at odds with the views of the Establishment.
The electorate are transformed. There is far less shyness by the voter now. Being at variance to the Establishment and legacy media holds little fear for them, and fear-mongering and accusations of racism are tactics which have lost their potency. Grassroots campaigns and single-issue groups are springing up everywhere as people engage in political activity. There is a renewed belief that voters can shape the society they live in and anger over liberal elite ideas and luxury beliefs. Rejoining the EU is not even on their radar.
Dave O’Toole is a retired trade unionist and organiser of Leavers of Devon.
REFLECTIONS OF AN ACADEMIC, 10 YEARS ON FROM THE BREXIT REFERENDUM
Caspar Hewett
It is hard to believe that the Brexit referendum was 10 years ago.
The surprise outcome which changed so much has also changed so little. We still have politicians angling to undo the result. We still have a political class who are totally out of touch with what the rest of us think. We still consistently hear how ignorant and stupid we, ‘the masses’, are. This is particularly prevalent in academia, where I work, where everything from climate change to gender is politicised and ‘ordinary people’ – which I assume is code for the working class – are viewed as, you guessed it, stupid and ignorant.
But it isn’t all bad. I sense a growing confidence in rejecting the dominant narrative. Yes, this sometimes comes out as (well-earned) distrust of politicians and in the form of conspiracy theories, but it has also had a positive side. It has opened up a space for debate across traditional political divides that I had not seen before. People with a wide spectrum of views voted for Brexit, and in the many discussions I have been involved in over the past decade, the pro-democracy element of Brexit comes to the fore again and again.
Brexit unexpectedly brought people together around the issues of free speech, democracy and the recognition of the disdain the political class has for us all. In stark contrast to what many in the Remain camp maintained, I see the Leave vote as a clear indication that ‘ordinary people’ don’t believe what they are told and are perfectly capable of thinking for themselves. It underlined for me, more than ever, the importance of public discussion, something that has been central to my activity for decades.
Although I have been organising public debates in the North East since 1998 through The Great Debate, it was in the wake of the Brexit vote that more opportunities arose to partner with diverse bodies to explore these issues. This included the Institution of Civil Engineers, the North-East Humanists and Newcastle Philosophy Society. The links I formed through the Brexit campaign and Politics in Pubs Newcastle have led to over 30 public events over the past three years.
This was refreshingly different from anything I had done before. The regular group of people who came were from very different political backgrounds – from ex-Marxists and Labour party supporters to people active in Reform and the SDP. To get such a diverse people in a room month after month having open conversations in which you are allowed to say anything is quite something! This would not have happened without Brexit.
Going back to when this all began, almost exactly a decade ago, I published a short opinion piece on The Great Debate website entitled ‘Why I Want Out of the European Union.’ I did not expect it to be particularly influential, but I wanted to make some key points in a public forum before the referendum, particularly about the sense of disenfranchisement people felt and the way that the general population were being portrayed as racist, ignorant and stupid during the campaign. Little did I know how amplified this would become once the vote was in! I did not expect us to win, but we did, and I was very pleased that I had stuck my neck out and written that piece.
Working in academia was not comfortable in the wake of the vote. People were angry, and there was little appetite to engage with what had happened and why. Ten years on, I think that most academics still don’t get it and, if anything, that unhealthy disdain for the working class has grown in universities.
More interestingly, conversations I had with colleagues in EU countries were much better than any I had in the UK. They were simply more receptive to hearing why I had voted to leave and I had some great discussions about the undemocratic nature of the EU and its history of keeping the developing world out of markets.
Academics in the UK seemed more concerned about the lack of access to EU funding than anything more principled. Many attempted, and failed, to make me feel like I was in a minority when it was quite clear from the vote itself that it was one of the only times I can remember when I most demonstrably wasn’t!
Sadly, little has changed in academia in the past 10 years. If anything, it has got worse. The prevailing view in the university sector has hardened in its disdain for the working class, alongside the so-called ‘left’ of today, who long ago gave up on a vision for transforming society in favour of a politics of telling people what to think. No doubt they would like to see society ruled by ‘those that know better’, rather like the nineteenth-century philosopher, Auguste Comte, who rejected democracy and argued for a new society governed by an intellectual elite. Comte’s grand vision was famously described by Karl Marx as Scheisspositivismus (‘crappy Positivism’). I think we should be equally contemptuous of their contempt.
The thing that gives me hope going forwards is that so many people reject being told what to think and are willing to engage with ideas. Much of the momentum of Brexit was lost thanks to the pandemic, but that sense of not accepting what the establishment is pushing has grown despite that, which is something to be celebrated. The job for those of us who do believe in a better future is to keep talking and play a part in creating a better narrative – a more democratic one based on dialogue that puts some trust in people’s ability to think.
Caspar Hewett is director of The Great Debate. Follow Caspar on X.