European Union Referendum Research Articles

Whither the Centre? Tracing Centralisation and Fragmentation in UK Politics

This article explores the question of how to conceptualise the location, capacity and effectiveness of the ‘centre’ in the UK policymaking process. While the literature on UK governance has historically featured avid disagreements about the power and capacity of central government, we identify a more recent convergence around the idea that the UK government is characterised by persistent centralisation of decision making alongside a fragmentation of policy delivery and frontline capacity. Through a detailed review of UK governance debates, we trace the development of two, seemingly contradictory, schools of thought: the centralisation school and the fragmentation school. We then identify an emerging consensus which recognises a continuous and uneven centripetal–centrifugal dynamic and the concurrence of both centralisation and fragmentation. We contend that changes to the British political context following the 2016 European Union referendum buttress the claim that UK politics is shaped by twin processes of centralisation and fragmentation, reinforcing tensions between a centre that desires power and a range of forces eroding its capacity to deliver. Our overall contention is that the notion of ‘power without capacity’ effectively captures the contemporary character of the ‘centre’.

Trick or treat? The Brexit effect on immigrants’ mental health in the United Kingdom

This paper investigates changes in the mental health of immigrants living in the United Kingdom (UK) during the European Union (EU) referendum. Using the UK Household Longitudinal Study, this paper assesses how the mental health of immigrants has changed before and after the referendum, compared to natives. Findings suggest that following the EU referendum result, mental health significantly improved overall for naturalised immigrants as a whole and for non-EU immigrants, relative to the changes in natives. Further, there is no evidence that mental health worsened even for EU immigrants. Our results vary by gender, with non-EU women experiencing a statistically significant improvement in mental health. The results are robust to several checks, including using balanced panel data and individual fixed effects. Our findings are consistent with the idea that the end of free movement for EU immigrants has alleviated the perception of discrimination against non-EU immigrants. This interpretation is supported by empirical results from a multinomial logit showing that non-EU migrants, particularly women, are more likely to perceive discrimination for race-related reasons when denied a job, an effect which is no longer significant in the post-referendum period.

Brexit as a constitutive force in the Commonwealth: Constitutional identities and the withering Sovereign

Britain’s accession in 1973 to what is now the European Union marked a decisive turn in the British Commonwealth of Nations. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the status and value of the Commonwealth in global affairs was firmly reduced to the fostering of Britain’s soft power: common democratic values, championing civil society, and maintaining historic ties – the carefully preserved ruins of the British Empire. Yet, in 2016 the Commonwealth took on added significance during the European Union referendum campaign. Under the banner of “Global Britain”, the prospect of bringing a formal end to Britain’s membership of the European Union became much more certain after the Brexit wing of the Tory party won a large majority in the general election on December 12, 2019. For some Brexiteers, the Commonwealth is an important plank in Britain’s reassertion of its place in the world through trade and selective migration. To the extent that Brexit instantiates a crisis of constitutional identities in Europe, this is but a more recent episode in the narrative of Europe and her Other, a Europe to which Britain took refuge to reconstitute her relationship with her former colonies, which now make up the bulk of the Commonwealth. This essay centres the intellectual synergies of James Bryce, Jawaharlal Nehru, Kwame Nkrumah, and Shridath Ramphal to assess the constitutive force of Brexit in the Commonwealth. It is argued that, as a matter of constitutional identity, Britain’s anxiety about the constitutional order of the European Union has its current constitutive ground in the British Empire-turned-Commonwealth. Further, as precipitated by radical decolonial republicanism, this persistent constitutive force defines the British Crown’s imaginary exercise of sovereign power in the Commonwealth through a peculiar kind of presence, one that is performed through strategic absence.

As We Like It: Did the UK’s 2016 EU Referendum Reveal the “Will of the People?”

Rhetoric surrounding the United Kingdom’s 2016 referendum on continued European Union (EU) membership frequently has invoked the “will of the people.” Addressing the House of Commons in March 2019, then–Prime Minster Theresa May stated that “my sense of responsibility and duty has meant that I have kept working to ensure that we deliver on the result and the will of the people” (March 27, 2019).1 May’s successor, Boris Johnson, appealed to the same notion when suggesting in the Daily Telegraph (September 15, 2019) that opposition parties were “united in wanting to cancel the referendum result…and overturn the will of the people.” On the other side of the debate, Caroline Lucas (currently the sole Member of Parliament for the UK’s Green Party) stated that “[e]very recent opinion poll shows that the will of the people has changed since [the referendum]” (December 4, 2018).

Campaigning or Not in the 2016 Referendum? UK Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations and European Union Membership

Environmental non-governmental organisations stood out during the 2016 European Union referendum campaign. Despite clear reputational and regulatory risks, they participated in this fraught political debate in sharp contrast to other civil society sectors. This challenges common assumptions that material concerns, and ultimately survival, prevail in campaigning choices. We argue that campaigning choices reflect commitments to values that underpin these organisations’ raison d’être. Drawing on a pragmatist view of organisations, we analyse how external (media, regulatory) and internal (competence, governance processes) pressures shaped the campaigning choices of nine UK environmental organisations. We find that most environmental non-governmental organisations chose to engage, some even officially registering for Remain. Those active at the European Union level were most likely to engage – but also most open to criticism. Overall, environmental non-governmental organisations struggled to adapt their usual expertise-based, elite-focused campaigning style to the referendum which raises questions for civil society’s ability to speak for Europe, and contribute to controversial democratic debates, beyond the United Kingdom.

Memory of the U.K.'s 2016 EU referendum: The effects of valence on the long-term measures of a public event.

Emotional public events, relative to nonemotional ones, are typically remembered more accurately, more vividly, and with more confidence. However, the majority of previous studies investigating this have focused on negative public events and less is known about positive ones. The current study examined whether positive and negative public events were remembered in a similar manner by assessing individuals' memory for the time when they learned the results of the United Kingdom's 2016 Referendum on its European Union (EU) membership. Participants included U.K. participants who voted to leave the EU in the referendum and found the event highly positive, U.K. participants who voted to remain in the EU and found the event highly negative, and U.S. participants who did not vote and found the event neutral. Data from a total of 851 participants were assessed at four time points over the course of 16 months. Growth curve modeling showed that differences in memory between participants in the Remain group (who reported the highest levels of negative emotion) and those in the Leave group (who reported the highest levels of positive emotion) emerged over time. Specifically, Remain participants maintained higher levels of memory consistency than Leave participants, whereas Leave participants maintained higher levels of memory confidence than Remain participants. These results indicate that positive and negative public events are remembered differently, such that negative valence enhances memory accuracy, while positive valence results in overconfidence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Divided but linked by faith: Brexit and UK Muslims’ attitudes towards Europe

While issues of race and diversity have significantly dominated the rhetoric of Brexit Leavers and have shaped Britons’ attitudes towards membership of the European Union (EU), ethnic and religious minority voters’ attitudes towards Brexit have received little investigation. This article aims to fill this research gap by focusing on Muslims. It examines what differentiates Muslim Remainers from Muslim Leavers by focusing on their motivations to vote for or against Brexit. Despite being the religious group that was the most supportive of EU membership, the EU referendum has also created identity divisions amongst Muslims and has shed light on their ambivalent attitudes towards Europe and the benefits of EU membership. Several cumulative and cross-cutting factors have polarised this group regarding EU membership, such as their different perceptions of Europe and European identity, as well as issues pertaining to discrimination and Islamophobia, immigration and the economy.We argue that, beyond the divisions, Muslims’ attitudes towards Brexit were strongly correlated with the concept of ‘linked fate’, with the religious paradigm being an important predictor of Muslims’ voting behaviour.

British identities and the 2016 European Union referendum: The Greens for a Better Europe and the Labour In for Britain campaigns

In the rich and varied literature on the referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union, the contribution of this paper consists in connecting two categories of campaigners through the concept of national identity. Indeed, this concept sheds light on the study of a multifaceted domestic situation intertwined with collective as well as regional and international questions. Two criteria were applied. The first concerns the status of campaigners: only structures that officially registered with the Electoral Commission were selected. The second selection parameter derived from existing studies. That is why the Labour Party’s and the Green Party’s 2016 European Union campaigns will be explored in a comparative perspective, adopting a comprehensive approach. The main objective is to focus on British identity debates produced in the name of collective actors. Utilizing a constructivist framework, the paper delves into the perceptions of the European Union in the Remain leaflets of the Labour Party and the Green Party. Their leaflets were intended for wide distribution aiming at persuading the electorate about a specific message. As such, their topics had to be easily grasped by a variety of people, also constituting a privileged medium for conveying identity dimensions. Therefore, after establishing the interplay between the territorial strategy and the political identity of these two campaigners in the first part, the construction of interest categories in their leaflets will be studied in order to characterize the partisan factors they expressed. This serves to explore the conception of international relations underlying their argumentation in the third part.

Irreconcilable sovereignties? Brexit and Scottish self-government

ABSTRACT This article examines the contrasting norms of sovereignty that underpin the political discourse and policy choices of the UK and Scottish governments in the context of Brexit. Using the lens of contested sovereignty, it explores the meanings attached to sovereignty in both the Brexit process and the response to it within Scotland. It then considers the implications of these contested sovereignties for Scottish self-government, in the context of both devolution and independence. That analysis distinguishes between the locus of sovereignty (parliamentary versus popular) and the form of sovereignty (nation-state versus shared). Both governments have drawn upon popular sovereignty norms, but who makes up the people is contested. The UK’s Brexit policy, in relation to both negotiations with the European Union and its domestic preparations, is underpinned by a nation-state sovereignty norm. By contrast, Scottish nationalism is associated with conceptions of shared sovereignty that have become even more pronounced since the European Union referendum. The difficulty in reconciling these sovereignty norms has destabilized the UK’s territorial constitution and created new challenges for advocates of independence.

Jo Cox, public feeling and British political culture: #MoreInCommon

Five years after the murder of British MP, Jo Cox, during the European Union referendum campaign in 2016, this article examines the More In Common initiative through two sites of participatory practice: on Twitter via two related hashtags–#MoreInCommon and #LoveLikeJo–and the ‘More In Common’ exhibition (2021–2022) at the People’s History Museum in Manchester. We consider how both spaces help to organise public feeling and consider the ways in which these sites draw on Cox’s identity politics and values to curate her political legacy. We identify three emergent logics through our thematic analysis of the tweets posted with the hashtags in the month following her death: connected, visual and resistant. Considering the political legacy of ‘more in common’ 5 years later, we then trace the movement of the campaign from the digital to the physical and assess the ways in which Cox’s values are crystalized through co-created participatory artistic projects displayed in public gallery space.

Brexit and its Implications on the Freedom of Religion and Belief in the UK

This article examines what the implications of Brexit might be on the freedom of religion and belief, one of the most significant freedoms for social identity, in light of the ongoing debate concerning the political, economic, social and cultural effects of Brexit on the United Kingdom (UK). There is particular anxiety over increasing religious hate crime since the European Union (EU) Referendum of 23 June 2016, with people wondering if the tradition of tolerance in Britain will be affected. Consequently, in this article the following questions will be asked: Will Brexit seriously undermine the existential conditions of this freedom? Will Brexit enable the UK to present itself as a haven for people suffering because of restrictions on religious symbols introduced in Continental Europe? Are Government plans to prevent a rise in Brexit-related religious hate crimes sufficient? How should such hate crimes be combatted?

Migrant NHS nurses as ‘tolerated’ citizens in post-Brexit Britain

With this article we present European Union (EU) and non-EU nurses’ lived experiences of feeling ‘unwelcomed’ and ‘unsettled’ in a heightened xenophobic environment, in the workplace and elsewhere, following the 2016 EU Referendum. Brexit has exposed long-standing structural inequalities which oppress and disempower the NHS migrant labour force. Migrant nurses, a highly mobile and skilled workforce, were feeling increasingly disenfranchised and insecure in their employment. Drawing on notions such as tolerated citizenship and the contested political boundaries of belonging, and taking a situated intersectionality approach, we examine everyday bordering practices in the UK where the cultivation of a hostile environment is becoming increasingly prevalent. We contribute to the debates on forms of othering in post-Brexit Britain and question the instrumentality of policy interventions, closely connected to the ‘dangerous politics of immigration control’, which have far-reaching implications for long-term settlement of migrant nurses and other healthcare migrant workers.

Single issue EU referendums: tying hands, domestic effects and the challenge of consentification

ABSTRACT Single-issue referendums – which give voters a say on specific European Union (EU) policies or general questions of European integration – were rarely employed before the 2000s, but they have since become commonplace. Examples include Greece’s 2015 referendum on negotiations with the EU and International Monetary Fund (IMF), Hungary’s 2016 referendum on the relocation of refugees between EU member states and the UK’s 2016 vote to leave the EU. This article asks why we are seeing more single-issue referendums in the EU. Surveying different theoretical perspectives on the conditions under which such votes occur, it considers single-issue referendums as being driven by (1) the search for strategic advantage in a two-level game, (2) domestic effects and (3) problems of consentification. Case studies of eight single-issue referendums show that domestic effects matter but offer limited evidence of hand tying. Most single-issue referendums, it finds, were called by governments wrestling with issues that could win legal approval but not political legitimacy. This instrument of direct democracy will remain a feature of EU politics, we contend, as member states wrestle with domestic effects and the challenge of (de)legitimating EU decisions through traditional means.

Abdul, G., A., & Sehar, S. (2015). Conflict management and organizational performance: A case study of Askari Bank Ltd. Research Journal of Finance and Accounting. 6(11), 201. Adhiambo, R., & Simatwa, M. (2011). Assessment of conflict management and resolution in public secondary schools in Kenya: A case study of Nyakach District. International Research Journal 2(4), 1074-1088. Adomi, E., & Anie,

The Constitution of Kenya specifically recognizes the freedom of association to form and belong to trade unions. However, despite the adoption of the Labour Relations Act, union practice is still hampered by excessive restrictions. The EPZ companies are labor intensive requiring a large amount of labor to produce its goods or service and thus, the welfare of the employees play a key role in their functions. This study sought to determine the effect of trade union practices on employees’ welfare at export processing zones industries in Athi River, Kenya. The specific objectives sought to determine the effect of collective bargaining agreements, industrial action, dispute resolution and trade union representation on employees’ welfare at export processing zones industries in Athi River, Kenya. The study employed a descriptive research design. Primary data was collected by means of a structured questionnaire. The target population of the study was employees in EPZ companies in Athi River, Kenya with large employees enrolled in active trade unions. The unit of observation was the employees in the trade unions. The findings indicated that collective bargaining agreements had a positive and significant coefficient with employees’ welfare at the EPZ industries. Industrial action had a positive but non-significant effect with employees’ welfare at Export Processing Zones industries. Dispute resolution had a positive and significant coefficient with employees’ welfare at the EPZ industries. Trade union representation had a positive and significant coefficient with employees’ welfare at the EPZ industries. The study recommended that trade union should avoid the path of confrontation but continue dialogue through the collective bargaining process and demands should be realistic in nature with what is obtainable in the related industry. An existence of a formal two way communication between management and trade unions will ensure that right message is properly understood and on time too. Keywords: Collective Bargaining Agreements, Industrial Action, Dispute Resolution, Trade Union Representation, Employees Welfare & Export Processing Zones

Migration als Spaltpilz für die Europäische Union? Erkenntnisse aus dem Brexit-Prozess

The United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union (EU) in January 2020 marks a historic milestone in the European integration process. For the first time since its foundation the EU faces the existential question if the specific domestic political factors of Brexit have the potential to contribute towards the further disintegration of the Union. Migration stood at the heart of the campaign as the core issue in the public referendum conducted in June 2016. The British debate on migration took place in the context of the growing British scepticism towards the ability to combine the primacy of national sovereignty and political self-determination with the membership of the EU system of multi-level governance. The analysis presented here considers multiple factors through which migration as an issue contributed towards the narrow decision in favour of Brexit in the British EU referendum on 23 June 2016. As such it acts as an important case study for the analysis of disintegrative tendencies in the tension between national sovereignty and the supranational polity of the EU.

Parliamentary Representation: Should MPs Prioritise Their Own Views or Those of Their Voters?

The 2016 European Union referendum revealed fundamental divisions in British politics and society more broadly. It also raised key questions around representation and the role of Members of Parliament. Should they follow their own judgement or their constituents’ preferences when the two are not aligned? This study uses data from the Representative Audit of Britain Survey to examine what parliamentary candidates believe the answer to this question should be. We find that most candidates expect Members of Parliament to prioritise their own views. This belief is particularly prevalent among incumbents and those who do not think of Members of Parliament as career politicians. We also find a gender effect as male candidates are more likely to think that Members of Parliament should prioritise their own views than female candidates. Interestingly, however, there is no evidence of a Brexit effect when we compare the views of 2015 and 2017 general election candidates.

Euroscepticism or nationalism — which better explains the decision of the British to leave the European Union?

The article is dedicated to the 2016 United Kingdom European Union Referendum (known as the Brexit Referendum) that took place on 23 June 2016 and resulted in the majority of the votes cast being in favor of leaving the EU. As a consequence, on 31 January 2020, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland officially withdrew from the European Union.
 The purpose of this article is to try to make an interpretation of Brexit by attempting to answer a question of which of these two factors — Euroscepticism or nationalism — more heavily determined the will of the people and influenced the result of the referendum. Euroscepticism has accompanied the British from the very moment their country became part of the united Europe. The importance of nationalism in turn, analyzed as both English nationalism and British nationalism, has increased significantly in recent years.
 Using the collected research material, the author will try to prove the thesis that, in fact, these two factors are inextricably linked and it is very difficult to examine them separately. Euroscepticism, so deeply rooted in the British society, seems to have been — especially in recent years — the driving force of English and British nationalism.

Brexit and the ‘left behind’: Job polarization and the rise in support for leaving the European Union

AbstractThis paper focuses on the changing relationship between attitudes towards European Union (EU) membership and workers affected by globalization and technological advances in the lead‐up to the UK's EU referendum in 2016. It is found that workers employed in middling occupations, where both relative wages and employment have fallen, were significantly more likely than workers in high‐paying occupations to indicate that the UK's long‐term policy should be to leave the EU. This view was particularly noticeable amongst males with middling occupations in the post‐recessionary period between 2012 and 2015 and had increased significantly relative to the mainly pre‐recessionary period between 2004 and 2008.

Examining the links between conspiracy beliefs and the EU “Brexit” referendum vote in the UK: Evidence from a two‐wave survey

AbstractThis research examined the link between conspiracy beliefs and political decisions in the context of the 2016 European Union referendum in the United Kingdom. In a longitudinal study, we surveyed British participants at two‐time points (one week before the referendum vs. immediately after the referendum). At both time points, participants (n = 334) indicated their belief in conspiracy theories specific to the referendum, their general tendencies toward conspiracy theorizing, their political orientation, and support for leaving the EU, followed by how they voted in the referendum, taken at Time 2. Using cross‐lagged path analysis, we found that conspiracy beliefs specific to the referendum predicted both support for leaving the EU, and voting to leave the EU, above and beyond political orientation. We also found that the general tendency toward conspiracy theorizing predicted belief in conspiracy theories relevant to the referendum, which subsequently led to increased support for leaving the EU. The chief novelty of this research lies in its longitudinal design, allowing us to conclude that conspiracy beliefs precede political behaviors in a temporal sequence.

Young Europeans in Brexit Britain: Unsettling identities

AbstractSince the 2016 European Union referendum, young European migrants living in Britain have faced growing exposure to social exclusion and insecurities over their future. The Brexit process has not only changed their rights, but has also increased their experiences of xenophobia and discrimination. In this context, we consider it timely to focus on young EU nationals’ processes of identification and (re)constructions of their identities while they negotiate the multiple challenges posed by geopolitical transformations. The social constructionist research with young migrants shows that they increasingly experience their identities as fluid, with relationships that move between proximity and distance. Our findings from focus groups with 108 young people aged 12–18 years born in Central and Eastern European countries and case studies of 20 families support this perspective. The analysis documents young people's agency and efforts to negotiate identity as a process of becoming in the context of change and uncertainty. To understand how young people from a migrant background navigate individual and collective identities, the article offers an explanatory framework that highlights their need for familiarity, continuity, and control over their lives, necessary to maintain a sense of home and belonging.