The Brexit referendum
- Date
- 23 June 2016
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- United Kingdom
- Era
- Contemporary
- Significance
On 23 June 2016 the United Kingdom held a referendum on its membership of the European Union, and voters chose to leave by 51.9% to 48.1%, with about 17.4 million votes for Leave against 16.1 million for Remain on a turnout of 72.2%.
The result, widely seen as a victory for nationalist and populist sentiment driven by concerns over immigration, sovereignty, and economic discontent, stunned political establishments across Europe. It prompted the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron, years of fraught negotiations, deep divisions within the UK including renewed debate over Scottish independence and the status of Northern Ireland, and the UK's formal departure from the EU on 31 January 2020. Brexit became an emblem of the mid-2010s populist surge and of the strains within liberal-internationalist projects, and it reshaped British politics, the EU, and the global conversation about globalisation and its discontents.
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Related politics & governance events
- The end of apartheid and Nelson Mandela's election in South Africa27 April 1994 (election); 10 May 1994 (inauguration)
- Dissolution of the Soviet UnionAugust–December 1991
- German reunification3 October 1990
- Fall of the Berlin Wall9 November 1989
- Revolutions of 1989 across Eastern Europe1989 (Autumn of Nations)
- Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika1985–1991 (from 11 March 1985)
Further reading
The wider story
The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991
The classic account of Europe and the world's turbulent twentieth century.
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