Throughout its nearly fifty years as a member of the European Community and later the European Union, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was always an "awkward partner" with Europe (Ludlow, 2019). Indeed, this arm's-length relationship spans millennia, as various European empires have looked at the British Isles as a prize for the taking, resulting in several wars and even more scattered attempts to exert influence and control over the islands. This battle of cultures can be seen today in everything from the House of Windsor’s family tree to the English language’s multiethnic structure. However, it was only in the past century that the UK and Europe formed a substantive relationship, if only to overcome the immediate threats of German militarism, and which blossomed into an economic partnership to alleviate the UK’s economic troubles.

The UK’s war debts and shifting international norms made the maintenance of the British Empire an untenable prospect in the aftermath of World War II. These pressures led to the end of colonialism and the creation of the British Commonwealth. Thanks to Imperial prioritization of trade amongst its colonies, and later the preference to trade within Commonwealth nations, trade between the UK and Commonwealth members was four times larger than the UK's trade with Europe, which was still recovering from war. Between 1953 and 1960, the exports of capital goods from the EEC rose 150%, while exports from the UK only rose 55% (World Trade Organization, 1961). During this same period, exports from the European Free Trade Association, which the UK joined in 1960, had only risen 73% (ibid). Europe's growth compared to the Commonwealth and the EFTC showed that the UK's economic future lay in a greater Europe.

In the mid-1900s, opposition to British integration with the emerging European institutions primarily rose from the left of British Politics. Leaders of the Labour party claimed a closer relationship would raise costs for British workers and provided general opposition towards the Christian Democratic political parties of Europe (CVCE, 2014). During the UK's first application to join the EEC in 1961, the Labour Party abstained from the vote, which succeeded 313-4 (ibid). However, the economic realities of the 1960s forced Labour to overcome its ideological objections towards European integration, and in 1967 Prime Minister Harold Wilson again applied for membership in the EEC. It was not until the resignation of French President Charles de Gaulle in 1969 (and with it, his longstanding veto of British membership) that a serious path toward accession presented itself. However, a Conservative victory in the next election meant that negotiations would be under the premiership of Ted Heath, and the treaty on accession passed the House of Commons on a largely party-line vote of 356-244 (ibid).

In these embryonic stages we saw the right-wing immigration-based argument against European integration form as former Conservative Minster Enoch Powell joined with Labour to oppose membership. Powell had long been a right-wing firebrand who attracted headlines in 1968 with what was to be known as the "Rivers of Blood" speech, where he lamented the rising immigrant numbers. While Powell was fired as a Shadow Minister the next day, his extreme claims on immigration would be tied to his status as a "founding father" of British Euroscepticism (Earle, 2018). At the next general election in 1973, Powell stood down as an MP, criticizing his own party's leadership and suggesting that the UK would no longer be democratic but governed by a "European superstate under institutions which know nothing of the political rights and liberties that we have so long taken for granted" (Ruse, 2022). This marriage of xenophobia and Europhobia would persist for decades to come.

Labour's opposition towards Europe peaked with its disastrous 1983 election manifesto, where Opposition Leader Michael Foot promised to leave the EEC. That manifesto, called by some one of the "longest suicide notes in history," paved the way for a second consecutive Conservative landslide (Mann, 2003). Thanks mainly to that overwhelming defeat, the next decade saw the left shed much of Foot's militant socialist ideology in favor of more moderate, centrist leadership. The following 25 years of Labour leaders would ultimately have close connections with Europe. Immediately after Foot came Neil Kinnock, who would later serve as a Vice President of the European Commission. John Smith's short tenure as leader did not allow for much shift in policy, yet Smith himself was one of the only 69 Labour MPs who voted for EEC membership in 1971 (Stuart, 2005). Finally, Tony Blair took even more overt pro-European actions: he was awarded the Charlemagne Prize in 1999 for services towards European integration, brought the UK’s relationship with Europe to its closest point by advocating for defense cooperation at Saint-Malo, and toyed with the adoption of the Euro, much to the chagrin to some of the British press (Bray, 1998).
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While Labour was turning its sights toward European partnership, the Conservative Party was slowly becoming more Eurosceptic. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's championing of the Single European Act in 1986 gave way to her Bruges Speech, which echoed Powell's ominous predictions of a European superstate. So important was Thatcher's intervention in Belgium that the influential Eurosceptic think tank The Bruges Group named itself after the event, and others claim the speech set the UK on the path to Brexit (Willetts, 2018). Euroscepticism within the Conservative Party increased throughout the 1990s. In 1991 UKIP was founded by Alan Sked, a former member of The Bruges Group. This new party on the Conservative's right flank created a factional cleavage that pulled the Conservative party farther toward its Eurosceptic fringes. During the 2001 Conservative Leadership election, pro-European MP Kenneth Clark received more support from fellow MPs on the third and final ballot. However, with the endorsement of outgoing leader William Hague and Thatcher, ardent Eurosceptic Ian Duncan Smith won 60% of the members' vote (Watt, 2001; Hoggart, 2001). A comparative Europhile compared to his immediate predecessors, even David Cameron pulled the Conservative Party from the Eurocentric EPP Party Group to create the Eurosceptic European Conservative and Reformist party group in 2006 (Kubosova, 2006). Today, ECR is comprised of right-wing populists and soft Eurosceptics from parties such as PiS, Sweden Democrats, and Brothers of Italy (ECR, 2022).

Going into the 2010s, the Conservative Party had strongly aligned itself against further integration. However, the 2010 general election saw no clear mandate for any party. Conservatives won the largest number of seats but were 20 seats short of a majority. This led to a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, which severely limited the reforms backed by the larger party. To entice Eurosceptic voters to support the Conservatives rather than UKIP in the next general election, Cameron promised an in/out referendum on continued membership in the EU, but only if the Conservatives won an outright majority. This was not an outlandish proposition, given how close the party was to winning a majority in 2010. However, with the manifesto pledge of having "a straight in-out referendum on our membership of the European Union by the end of 2017", the Conservatives won a razor-thin majority with 326 seats in 2015 (Watt, 2013). Eight months later, after a renegotiation of British issues with EU leaders, David Cameron announced that a referendum on remaining in the European Union would take place on June 23, 2016.
Brexit itself was a massive populist victory. In Cas Mudde’s seminal “The Populist Zeitgeist,” he defines populism as a political ideology that splits the population into two antagonistic groups, the virtuous and homogenous “pure people” and the “corrupt elite.” (2004). This delineation occurs on both the left and right of the political spectrum, with the left defining the “people” along socioeconomic status with the right defining it along national, cultural, or ethnic groups (Mudde & Kaltwasser 2017). This right-wing definition was apparent throughout the campaign as Brexiteers repeatedly used the threat of the outsider as a driver of animus for those who considered the EU’s freedom of movement a threat to British security. Furthermore, the left-wing populism that initially kept the Labour movement from endorsing European integration persisted along its fringe. Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn’s campaigning for Remain in 2016 is characterized as lackluster and considered a key factor behind Remain’s narrow loss due to Corbyn being “in his heart of hearts… a Brexiter” (Blewett, 2023).

Mudde also defines populist ideology as an expression of the volonté générale of the people (2004). This thin-centered description of populism was evident in the years after the referendum when a succession of Conservative Prime Ministers shed years of party orthodoxy due to the “will of the people,” which allowed the party to navigate the growing cleavage due to stalled negotiations and secure a significant electoral victory in 2019. While this reformation could be attributed to the Conservatives’ longstanding ability to modernize to reflect the nation's mood, this was a bottom-up approach, ultimately driven by a single mandate in 2016. While Prime Ministers Cameron and May attempted to square the peg of this will and their party’s policies regarding Europe, they failed due to increasing numbers of either Eurosceptic Conservative MPs or a critical mass of pro-European MPs acknowledging this popular will. Boris Johnson succeeded where his predecessors failed as he was willing to eject an MP from the party if he or she stood in, ostensibly, the people’s way. This purge of moderate Conservatives in the Fall of 2019 paved the way for an overwhelming pro-Brexit party in that year’s snap election.

This thin-centered rejection of expertise and the logic that the people’s will is to be respected at all costs was combined with a thick-centered ideology that is present throughout other Eurosceptic parties (Neuner & Wratil, 2020). This Euroscepticism converged with anti-immigrant rhetoric and nativist protectionism. Leaving the EU was presented as the answer to all of Britain’s ills. The various Leave campaigns successfully capitalized on longstanding British feelings of insecurity. While the official Vote Leave campaign focused on the economic benefits of increased sovereignty, such as the debunked claim that £350 Million that was sent to the EU could be spent at home, the second and third reasons listed on Vote Leave’s website and the dominant narrative throughout the campaign was immigration and border security (Vote Leave, 2016). Vote Leave also alluded to the specter of Turkey and other European nations with significant Muslim populations joining the EU, even when such possibilities were realistically decades away (ibid).
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Throughout its nearly fifty years as a member of the European Community and later the European Union, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was always an "awkward partner" with Europe (Ludlow, 2019). Indeed, this arm's-length relationship spans millennia, as various European empires have looked at the British Isles as a prize for the taking, resulting in several wars and even more scattered attempts to exert influence and control over the islands. This battle of cultures can be seen today in everything from the House of Windsor’s family tree to the English language’s multiethnic structure. However, it was only in the past century that the UK and Europe formed a substantive relationship, if only to overcome the immediate threats of German militarism, and which blossomed into an economic partnership to alleviate the UK’s economic troubles.

The UK’s war debts and shifting international norms made the maintenance of the British Empire an untenable prospect in the aftermath of World War II. These pressures led to the end of colonialism and the creation of the British Commonwealth. Thanks to Imperial prioritization of trade amongst its colonies, and later the preference to trade within Commonwealth nations, trade between the UK and Commonwealth members was four times larger than the UK's trade with Europe, which was still recovering from war. Between 1953 and 1960, the exports of capital goods from the EEC rose 150%, while exports from the UK only rose 55% (World Trade Organization, 1961). During this same period, exports from the European Free Trade Association, which the UK joined in 1960, had only risen 73% (ibid). Europe's growth compared to the Commonwealth and the EFTC showed that the UK's economic future lay in a greater Europe.

In the mid-1900s, opposition to British integration with the emerging European institutions primarily rose from the left of British Politics. Leaders of the Labour party claimed a closer relationship would raise costs for British workers and provided general opposition towards the Christian Democratic political parties of Europe (CVCE, 2014). During the UK's first application to join the EEC in 1961, the Labour Party abstained from the vote, which succeeded 313-4 (ibid). However, the economic realities of the 1960s forced Labour to overcome its ideological objections towards European integration, and in 1967 Prime Minister Harold Wilson again applied for membership in the EEC. It was not until the resignation of French President Charles de Gaulle in 1969 (and with it, his longstanding veto of British membership) that a serious path toward accession presented itself. However, a Conservative victory in the next election meant that negotiations would be under the premiership of Ted Heath, and the treaty on accession passed the House of Commons on a largely party-line vote of 356-244 (ibid).

In these embryonic stages we saw the right-wing immigration-based argument against European integration form as former Conservative Minster Enoch Powell joined with Labour to oppose membership. Powell had long been a right-wing firebrand who attracted headlines in 1968 with what was to be known as the "Rivers of Blood" speech, where he lamented the rising immigrant numbers. While Powell was fired as a Shadow Minister the next day, his extreme claims on immigration would be tied to his status as a "founding father" of British Euroscepticism (Earle, 2018). At the next general election in 1973, Powell stood down as an MP, criticizing his own party's leadership and suggesting that the UK would no longer be democratic but governed by a "European superstate under institutions which know nothing of the political rights and liberties that we have so long taken for granted" (Ruse, 2022). This marriage of xenophobia and Europhobia would persist for decades to come.

Labour's opposition towards Europe peaked with its disastrous 1983 election manifesto, where Opposition Leader Michael Foot promised to leave the EEC. That manifesto, called by some one of the "longest suicide notes in history," paved the way for a second consecutive Conservative landslide (Mann, 2003). Thanks mainly to that overwhelming defeat, the next decade saw the left shed much of Foot's militant socialist ideology in favor of more moderate, centrist leadership. The following 25 years of Labour leaders would ultimately have close connections with Europe. Immediately after Foot came Neil Kinnock, who would later serve as a Vice President of the European Commission. John Smith's short tenure as leader did not allow for much shift in policy, yet Smith himself was one of the only 69 Labour MPs who voted for EEC membership in 1971 (Stuart, 2005). Finally, Tony Blair took even more overt pro-European actions: he was awarded the Charlemagne Prize in 1999 for services towards European integration, brought the UK’s relationship with Europe to its closest point by advocating for defense cooperation at Saint-Malo, and toyed with the adoption of the Euro, much to the chagrin to some of the British press (Bray, 1998).
​
While Labour was turning its sights toward European partnership, the Conservative Party was slowly becoming more Eurosceptic. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's championing of the Single European Act in 1986 gave way to her Bruges Speech, which echoed Powell's ominous predictions of a European superstate. So important was Thatcher's intervention in Belgium that the influential Eurosceptic think tank The Bruges Group named itself after the event, and others claim the speech set the UK on the path to Brexit (Willetts, 2018). Euroscepticism within the Conservative Party increased throughout the 1990s. In 1991 UKIP was founded by Alan Sked, a former member of The Bruges Group. This new party on the Conservative's right flank created a factional cleavage that pulled the Conservative party farther toward its Eurosceptic fringes. During the 2001 Conservative Leadership election, pro-European MP Kenneth Clark received more support from fellow MPs on the third and final ballot. However, with the endorsement of outgoing leader William Hague and Thatcher, ardent Eurosceptic Ian Duncan Smith won 60% of the members' vote (Watt, 2001; Hoggart, 2001). A comparative Europhile compared to his immediate predecessors, even David Cameron pulled the Conservative Party from the Eurocentric EPP Party Group to create the Eurosceptic European Conservative and Reformist party group in 2006 (Kubosova, 2006). Today, ECR is comprised of right-wing populists and soft Eurosceptics from parties such as PiS, Sweden Democrats, and Brothers of Italy (ECR, 2022).

Going into the 2010s, the Conservative Party had strongly aligned itself against further integration. However, the 2010 general election saw no clear mandate for any party. Conservatives won the largest number of seats but were 20 seats short of a majority. This led to a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, which severely limited the reforms backed by the larger party. To entice Eurosceptic voters to support the Conservatives rather than UKIP in the next general election, Cameron promised an in/out referendum on continued membership in the EU, but only if the Conservatives won an outright majority. This was not an outlandish proposition, given how close the party was to winning a majority in 2010. However, with the manifesto pledge of having "a straight in-out referendum on our membership of the European Union by the end of 2017", the Conservatives won a razor-thin majority with 326 seats in 2015 (Watt, 2013). Eight months later, after a renegotiation of British issues with EU leaders, David Cameron announced that a referendum on remaining in the European Union would take place on June 23, 2016.