Why Britain chose Brexit

None of us will easily forget the emotional response to the Leave vote in 2016, the national and international lamentation and the angry reproaches and insults, heaped on the majority: they were ignorant losers, white, old, xenophobic and stupid, ‘gammon’ who would be better dead or disfranchised. But leave aside the arrogance and snobbery; more fundamental was the basic ignorance of Europe shown by these zealous Europhiles. They mistook Brexit for a British, or English, aberration. In fact, it was the manifestation of a pan-European disillusionment with the ‘European project’.

Popular support for that project peaked 40 years ago, and has been in decline ever since. The French only just voted for the Maastricht Treaty even in 1992, the heyday of integration. In 2005 both the French and the Dutch voted against the draft EU constitution — a result Neil Kinnock (anticipating Remainer bile) described as ‘a triumph of ignorance’.