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School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent (email: [email protected]); Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science (email: [email protected]); Department of Political Science, Simon Fraser University (email: [email protected]). This research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council’s ‘UK In a Changing Europe’ programme, with some additional funding from the University of Kent and the London School of Economics. The authors would like to thank J. Scott Matthews and Sara B. Hobolt for their helpful comments. The article also benefited from the comments made by those in attendance at the Nuffield Politics Seminar, the 2016 European Political Science Association meeting and the LSE Political Behaviour seminar. Data replication sets are available in Harvard Dataverse at: https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7910/DVN/PZB01G and online appendices at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123417000667.
Referendums on a country’s relations with the European Union (EU) are relatively common. The 23 June 2016 referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain in or leave the EU was the 55th such referendum in Europe since 1972, and the 30th since 2000. In some respects, the UK’s ‘remain-or-leave’ referendum was similar to other recent EU referendums.1 The vote was triggered by a party in government that was divided on Europe. Whereas most centrist voters generally supported the pro-EU side, most voters on the radical right and a significant portion on the radical left supported the anti-EU side. The referendum was also preceded by growing public support for a radical right and ‘hard’ Eurosceptic party, the UK Independence Party (UKIP).2
In other respects, though, the 2016 UK referendum was different. Whereas most other EU referendums have been on reforms of the EU treaties, or on whether a country should join the EU or adopt the euro single currency, the 2016 referendum was only the third on whether a country should remain in or leave the EU. The only other such ‘high-stakes’ referendums were an earlier referendum in the UK, in 1975, when 67 per cent voted to stay in the then European Communities, and the Greenland referendum in 1982, when 54 per cent opted to leave the European Communities. Following the UK 2016 referendum, though, we may see similar in/out referendums in other member states. Several radical right parties in other EU states are campaigning...