Voter Decision-Making in a Context of Low Political Trust: The 2016 UK EU Membership Referendum
| Author | Nick Clarke,Will Jennings,Jonathan Moss,Gerry Stoker |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00323217211003419 |
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217211003419
Political Studies
2023, Vol. 71(1) 106 –124
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/00323217211003419
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Voter Decision-Making in a
Context of Low Political Trust:
The 2016 UK EU Membership
Referendum
Nick Clarke1, Will Jennings1,
Jonathan Moss2 and Gerry Stoker1,3
Abstract
Using volunteer writing for Mass Observation, we explore how British citizens decided whether
to leave the EU. The 2016 referendum was the biggest decision made by the British electorate
in decades, but involved limited voter analysis. Many citizens did not have strong views about EU
membership in early 2016. The campaigns did not help to firm up their views, not least because
so much information appeared to be in dispute. Voters, often characterised as polarised, were
reluctant and uncertain. Many citizens took their duty to decide seriously, but were driven more
by hunch than careful analysis. In 2016, voters reacted against elites they did not trust at least
as much as they embraced the ideas of trusted elites. This contrasts with the 1975 Referendum
on the Common Market, when the vote was driven by elite endorsement. In low-trust contexts,
voters use cues from elites as negative rather than positive stimulus.
Keywords
voter decision-making, political trust, elite cues, EU Referendum, Mass Observation
Accepted: 26 February 2021
Introduction
In the period since the EU Referendum of 2016, we have learned a lot about what people
thought of the EU, Brexit, and related issues, and how this varied by locality, social
group, and attitude to other issues (Clarke et al., 2017a, 2017b; Curtice, 2016; Goodwin
and Heath, 2016; Goodwin and Milazzo, 2017; Hobolt, 2016; Lee et al., 2018). However,
we have learned rather less about how people thought of these things, how they formed
1University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
2University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
3University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT, Australia
Corresponding author:
Nick Clarke, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
Email: n.clarke@soton.ac.uk
1003419PSX0010.1177/00323217211003419Political StudiesClarke et al.
research-article2021
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Clarke et al. 107
opinions in response to requests from politicians and pollsters, and how they came to
decisions as voters in the period leading up to the referendum. This article aims to fill this
gap using evidence collected by the Mass Observation (MO) Project.
We begin by emphasising the unique contribution of MO collections. The letters and
diaries collected from panellists over a period of months in the run-up to the vote allow
researchers to explore how opinion and decision-making develops over time. Other quali-
tative methods such as focus groups allow us to explore the immediate thinking of partici-
pants, but MO data make visible the development of thinking.
The results of our study make up the bulk of the article. The MO panellists behave in
a way that is in tune with much public opinion research largely drawn from survey work.
They are rather vague and uncertain in their deliberations about the issues at stake. They
often develop opinions reluctantly, hesitantly, uncertainly, out of a sense of duty as citi-
zens, and in response to surveys, ballots and associated campaigns. In developing these
opinions, campaigns often do not help when they are characterised by claim and counter-
claim, and take place in a context of low political trust. In developing opinions, therefore,
the MO panellists often fall back on feelings and elite cues. Indeed, our evidence supports
the argument that voting in the EU Referendum was less an expression of polarisation and
more an awkward journey. Our findings encourage caution regarding claims that polarisa-
tion produced the conditions for the referendum and the closely divided result (Ford and
Goodwin, 2017; Goodhart, 2017; Norris and Inglehart, 2019). They support the counter
argument that polarisation was produced by the referendum and associated campaign,
outcome and aftermath (Curtice, 2018; Hobolt et al., 2020) – and may fade unless
restimulated.
Another main finding of the research is perhaps more surprising. MO collections pro-
vide evidence that voters were more uncertain than could be revealed by the forced
choices presented in surveys. Many voters found that campaigns and the information
environment made their task harder, rather than performing the standard role of clarifying
choices and issues. Voters ended up using cues, as much previous research would have
predicted, but often in a way not expected. Rather than elite cues steering voters, many
citizens voted against the elites they least trusted and so used their distrust of politics to
steer their decision-making.
By analysing MO’s referendum diaries, we aim to advance understandings of Brexit,
including what explains it and what might be its consequences. Primarily, though, we aim
to advance understandings of how people form opinions and make decisions as voters,
especially in the current period of low political trust in Britain and many other democra-
cies (Clarke et al., 2018; Stoker, 2016). Elite cues have been a particular focus of research
on referendum voting in recent years, not least because referendums often ask citizens to
decide on complex and unfamiliar issues (Hobolt, 2006; LeDuc, 2002; Nemčok et al.,
2019). Both elite cues and feelings have been much discussed in research on the Brexit
vote – and before that, on Euroscepticism across Europe – where the most influential
framework has probably been the ‘calculation, community, and cues’ framework of
Hooghe and Marks (2005). Here, ‘calculation’ refers to the cost–benefit analysis of slow-
thinking and rational choice models, while ‘community’ refers to feelings of national
belonging and understandings of national identity (which function as fast-thinking heu-
ristics), and ‘cues’ refers to the fast-thinking heuristic of elite endorsements. Since the EU
Referendum of 2016, this framework has been used by Hobolt (2016) and Clarke et al.
(2017b), who found the Leave vote to be explained by a combination of all three factors.
In the sections that follow, we use MO sources to demonstrate how a context of low
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