Ten years ago, when the UK voted by a narrow majority to leave the European Union in a bitterly contested national referendum, the importance of the vote was reflected in the fact that more of the British public voted for a single cause than they have ever before or since.
For David Cameron, the British prime minister who made the fateful decision to call the referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the EU, the outcome was a personal political disaster, leaving him with no option but to resign.
The subsequent political turmoil, which ultimately resulted in the Conservatives losing power in 2024 following the failed Conservative premierships of Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, continues to this day, begging the question: what on earth persuaded Cameron to call the referendum in the first place?
On such a complex issue, there are no easy answers, but Cameron’s announcement of his intention to hold a referendum on the vexed issue of EU membership was based as much on his desire to keep the Conservative party in power as it was to do with addressing the UK’s problematic relationship with its European neighbours.
In his memoirs, For the Record, Cameron tried to argue that an in/out referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union was not necessarily a historical inevitability. Even so, for domestic political reasons, Cameron opted to hold a referendum in 2016—assuming the Conservatives would win a ruling majority in the 2015 general election—because he thought it was the best way to end the constant infighting among Conservative MPs over the EU. Or, as Cameron himself memorably remarked, he wanted his party to “stop banging on about Europe.”
Cameron fully understood that he was taking a risk by calling a referendum, not least because Chancellor George Osborne, his best friend in politics, kept telling him so. But Cameron remained confident that he could win the vote by negotiating a better deal for the UK with the EU, especially on the toxic issue of immigration, and by rallying key allies in the Conservative Party, such as Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, to support the Remain cause.
Cameron failed on both counts, factors that weighed heavily on the referendum's eventual outcome, with the majority of Britons voting to leave the EU, a decision that both ended Cameron’s political career and exacerbated the political divisions within British society over their attitude to Europe, which persist to this day.
Profound impact
That the Brexit vote should have such a profound impact on the UK’s global outlook was hardly surprising given that London’s relationship with Europe has never been simple or static. For centuries, Britain’s global empire and maritime power meant its geopolitical focus was largely outward, initially keeping it at arm’s length from the continental European project that began to take shape after World War II. It took the country years to join what was then the European Community, and even then, when it was last put to a vote in 1975, many backed it grudgingly or for narrow economic reasons.
The UK initially chose not to join the European Economic Community (EEC), a European trade group formed in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome, which was signed by Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Britain later applied to join the organisation in 1961, but the then French President, Charles de Gaulle, vetoed British entry twice, viewing the UK as a “Trojan horse” for American interests with Europe.
After de Gaulle left office, the UK successfully joined the EEC on 1 January 1973 under Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath. Heath, who had personally witnessed the devastation caused in Europe by the Second World War, saw in the EEC the possibility of “an end to divisions which have stricken Europe for centuries”.
However, the relationship was immediately controversial. Just two years later in 1975, the newly elected Labour government held the UK’s first-ever nationwide referendum on whether to stay in the EEC. About 67% of voters chose to remain, though deep divisions over Europe persisted.
But over the decades, British voters slowly changed their minds about the value of remaining in the alliance, with their earlier ambivalence turning into outright hostility as the EU gradually transitioned from a trade bloc to a political union, thereby challenging the sovereign independence of the major European powers.
