David Cameron’s catastrophic miscalculation : The EU Referendum, Brexit and the UK’s ‘culture war’

Abstract

The United Kingdom had never been an enthusiastic member of the European Union, with membership mostly based on pragmatism rather than principle, and assumptions about the economic advantages to be accrued, rather than any commitment to political union or supranational governance. However, this lukewarm commitment to UK membership of the EU cooled between 2010 and 2016, both reflected and reinforced by internal developments inside the Conservative Party under David Cameron’s leadership, the electoral threat posed to the Conservatives by the increasing popularity of Nigel Farage’s United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), and a growing perception in many towns and communities that had been ‘left behind’ due to de-industrialisation, Globalisation, and an apparently out-of-touch London-centric liberal elite. These feelings of anxiety and anomie were further fueled by the austerity program imposed by Cameron’s coalition government, which exacerbated the economic and social problems of many citizens and communities in already impoverished parts of Britain.