Expectations, vote choice and opinion stability since the 2016 Brexit referendum
| Author | Stefanie Walter,Fabio Wasserfallen,Charlotte Grynberg |
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1465116519892328 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Expectations, vote
choice and opinion
stability since the 2016
Brexit referendum
Charlotte Grynberg
Department of International Relations, London School of
Economics and Political Science, London, UK
Stefanie Walter
Institute of Political Science, University of Zurich,
Switzerland
Fabio Wasserfallen
Institute of Political Science, University of Bern, Bern,
Switzerland
Abstract
A surprising development in the post-referendum Brexit process has been that vote
intentions have remained largely stable, despite the cumbersome withdrawal negotia-
tions. We examine this puzzle by analyzing the role of voters’ expectations about the
European Union’s willingness to accommodate the UK after the pro-Brexit vote.
Using data from the British Election Study, we explore how these expectations are
updated over time, and how they are related to vote intentions. We find that voters
who were more optimistic about the European Union’s response were more likely to
vote Leave. Over the course of the negotiations, Leavers have become more disillu-
sioned. These adjustments, however, have not translated into shifts in vote intentions.
Overall, we find evidence that motivated reasoning is an important driver of public
opinion on Brexit.
Corresponding author:
Fabio Wasserfallen, Institute of Political Science, University of Bern, Fabrikstrasse 8, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
Email: fabio.wasserfallen@ipw.unibe.ch
European Union Politics
2020, Vol. 21(2) 255–275
!The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/1465116519892328
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Keywords
Brexit, disintegration, expectations, motivated reasoning, referendum
Introduction
The Brexit vote was in many respects a leap in the dark: British citizens voted to
end their country’s membership of the European Union (EU) without knowing
what type of relationship would replace the deep, decade-old ties between the
United Kingdom (UK) and the EU. Not surprisingly, the run-up to the referen-
dum vote was characterized by a heated debate about what the consequences of
Brexit would be. Many experts warned that Brexit would have severe negative
effects on the British economy, because the loss of full access to the EU market
would destroy jobs, make British voters poorer and diminish British standing in
the world (Dhingra et al., 2016; Kierzenkowski et al., 2016). The Leave campaign
brushed these warnings away as ‘Project Fear’, arguing that Brexit would allow the
UK to regain control over immigration and British laws and regulations and that
the other EU countries would accommodate this move in order to maintain their
deep trade relations with the UK (Hobolt, 2016).
These narrativessuggest widely divergingexpectations about thepost-Brexit world
among Leavers and Remainers (Clarke et al., 2017; Owen and Walter, 2017). While
this is not surprisingin the context of a disintegrationreferendum (Walteret al., 2018),
one would expect narratives to converge when more information about the actual
consequencesof Brexit becomes available. Thishas not occurred, however. Although
the Brexit negotiations have been much more difficult and protractedthan the Leave
campaign had promised, narratives about the consequences of Brexit have remained
polarized and voteintentions stable. In the meantime, peoplehave developed distinct
identities about being a ‘Remainer’ or a ‘Leaver’ (Hobolt et al., 2018).
Our article explores these developments by tracing individual expectations about
the post-Brexitworld, both at the time of the referendum and in the post-voteperiod.
We argue that expectations about the international setting are influential for vote
decisions, becausethe consequences of a pro-disintegrationvote depend on the reac-
tion of other countries. This suggests that voters’ expectations about the degree of
willingness of the EU member states to accommodate a pro-Brexit vote after the
referendum should be related to their vote choice: those optimistic about the foreign
response should be more willing to vote in favor of Brexit than those with more
pessimistic expectations about the likelihood of an accommodative EU response.
While the likely reaction of the EU to a Leave vote was unknown during the
referendum campaign, the EU’s stance has become much clearer during the Brexit
negotiations.Rather than accommodatethe British desire to ‘have thecake and eat it,
too’, the EU has insisted that the UK cannotenjoy the benefits of the single market if
it does not comply with its rules (Turner et al., 2018). An informational standpoint
suggests that developments that reveal information about the actual foreign response
256 European Union Politics 21(2)
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