A single-question ballot, a 1.3-million-vote margin, and the start of the UK's exit from the bloc that defined its postwar economy
Also known as Brexit · EU referendum 2016 · Leave vote · UK referendum 2016
Hero image: Tumisu via Wikimedia Commons — Union Jack and EU flag, 2016. CC0.
In short
On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom voted 51.89% to 48.11% to leave the European Union. The result triggered the resignation of the prime minister who called it, four years of withdrawal negotiations, the formal exit on January 31, 2020, and a continuing argument inside the UK about what it was actually for.
The five-minute version
On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom held its second referendum on European membership in 41 years. The first, in 1975, had endorsed staying by 67%. The second produced the opposite answer by a 3.78-point margin: 17,410,742 votes to leave, 16,141,241 to remain. Turnout was 72.21% — the highest in any UK vote since 1992.
David Cameron, the Conservative prime minister who had promised the referendum in his 2015 election manifesto to settle internal party fights about Europe, had campaigned for Remain. He resigned at 08:18 the next morning. Boris Johnson — who had announced for Leave four months earlier in a Daily Telegraph column, having reportedly written two columns and chosen the more politically rewarding one — had been expected to succeed him; he withdrew within a week after Michael Gove turned on him. Theresa May, who had supported Remain quietly, became Prime Minister on July 13. 'Brexit means Brexit,' she said.
The vote split along recognizable fault lines. Northern Ireland (55.8%) and Scotland (62%) voted Remain decisively. England (53.4% Leave) and Wales (52.5% Leave) carried the result. London (59.9% Remain) and the major university cities voted Remain; the post-industrial Midlands and North voted Leave. Younger voters favored Remain by roughly 2-to-1; voters over 65 favored Leave by roughly 2-to-1. Turnout in safer-Remain seats was lower than in marginal-Leave seats.
The Leave campaign rested on three claims: that EU membership cost the UK £350 million a week (a figure the UK Statistics Authority called 'misleading' before, during, and after the vote), that immigration was uncontrolled, and that the UK could 'take back control' of its laws and borders. The Remain campaign — 'Britain Stronger in Europe' — leaned on Treasury and IMF forecasts of post-exit GDP losses. The Office of National Statistics later estimated GDP was about 5% lower by 2024 than it would have been on the central forecast trajectory had the UK remained.
The withdrawal process took 1,317 days from the vote to the formal exit. May's deal was rejected by Parliament three times. Johnson succeeded her in July 2019, renegotiated the Withdrawal Agreement, called a snap election on December 12, won an 80-seat majority on a 'Get Brexit Done' platform, and signed the deal into law on January 23, 2020. The UK left the EU at 23:00 GMT on January 31, 2020. The transition period ended December 31, 2020. The full economic and political consequences continue to play out.
Timeline
Bloomberg speech: Cameron pledges to renegotiate EU membership and put the result to a referendum if the Conservatives win the next election.
General election delivers Cameron a 12-seat overall majority. The referendum becomes inevitable.
Negotiated 'new settlement' with the EU; sets the referendum for June 23.
Then Mayor of London. His Telegraph column reportedly existed in two versions; he chose Leave the day before he announced.
Labour MP for Batley and Spen, a Remain campaigner, is shot and stabbed by a far-right attacker shouting 'Britain first.' Campaign paused 3 days.
Nigel Farage initially concedes around 22:30 based on private polling. Results from Sunderland (61% Leave) hit at 00:17 — the Leave surge becomes visible.
07:20 BST. Chief Counting Officer Jenny Watson confirms Leave on 51.89%. The pound falls 8% against the dollar before sterling markets open.
08:18 BST. From the Number 10 podium. 'The British people have made a very clear decision to take a different path.'
After Boris Johnson withdraws (June 30) and Andrea Leadsom drops out (July 11), May is the only candidate.
May invokes Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union by letter to Donald Tusk. The two-year withdrawal clock starts.
After May resigns when her Withdrawal Agreement is rejected three times by Parliament.
Conservatives win an 80-seat majority. Labour loses the 'Red Wall' Leave-voting seats it had held for decades.
23:00 GMT. The UK becomes the first member state ever to leave the European Union. Transition period runs through December 31, 2020.
By the numbers
Leave votes
0,742
Remain votes
0,241
Margin
0,501 votes (3.78 pts)
Turnout
0.00% (33,577,342 ballots)
England
0.0% Leave
Scotland
0% Remain
Wales
0.0% Leave
Northern Ireland
0.0% Remain
Formal UK exit
0:00 GMT, January 31, 2020
Media coverage
5 pieces, ranked by how much they shaped the discourse.
The Guardian
Newspaper · UK · Jun 24, 2016
Britain has voted to leave the European Union in a stunning rebuke to the establishment and a result that has thrown global financial markets into turmoil. David Cameron has resigned.
The Sun
Newspaper · UK
Britain has voted to quit the European Union after a bitter four-month battle. Millions of voters defied dire economic warnings to register a stunning protest against the political establishment.
The New York Times
Newspaper · US
Britain voted on Thursday to leave the European Union, a result that turned the political and economic order on the Continent upside down and amounted to the most stark rejection yet of the European project.
Le Monde
Newspaper · France
frLe scrutin britannique du 23 juin marque une rupture historique dans le projet européen. C'est la première fois depuis la signature du traité de Rome qu'un État membre choisit de partir.The British vote of June 23 marks a historic rupture in the European project. It is the first time since the signing of the Treaty of Rome that a member state has chosen to leave.
Bild
Newspaper · Germany
deDie Briten haben entschieden: Sie verlassen die EU. Damit beginnt eine Zeit der Unsicherheit für ganz Europa. Die Märkte reagieren panisch, die Politik steht unter Schock.The British have decided: they are leaving the EU. With that begins a time of uncertainty for all of Europe. The markets reacted in panic, politics in shock.
People's voice
Quotes drawn from contemporaneous newspapers, blogs, comment threads, interviews, and published opinion polls — ranked by how much each line shaped the discourse around the event.
Sentiment mix · 8 voices
“I will do everything I can as Prime Minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months — but I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination.”
“The more the EU does, the less room there is for national decision-making. Sometimes these EU rules sound simply ludicrous, like the rule that you can't recycle a teabag, or that children under eight cannot blow up balloons.”
“Scotland sees its future as part of the EU. We are determined to act decisively to protect Scotland's place in Europe. A second independence referendum must now be on the table.”
“Dare to dream that the dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom. This will be a victory for ordinary people, for decent people, for real people.”
“Sunderland — Leave: 61 percent. Now if that is a pattern, this is going to be a much closer race than anybody thought.”
“Out is out. The British voted for Brexit. They have to live with the consequences. We are not going to enter into any kind of secret negotiation.”
“I think the people of this country have had enough of experts from organizations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.”
“Jo would have wanted two things above all else to happen now: one is that our precious children are bathed in love, and two is that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her.”
Gallery
Captured before it changed
Wayback Machine snapshots of the pages people actually loaded that day. Click any card to open the archive at full size.
Where, exactly
The world it landed in
Don't Look Back in Anger — Oasis
Sung spontaneously at the Manchester Arena bombing memorial a year later; widely heard as a post-Brexit anthem of British civic unity.
Black Star — David Bowie
Released January 8, 2016 — Bowie's posthumous album. The year's other defining cultural marker.
I, Daniel Blake (2016)
Ken Loach's Palme d'Or-winning film about UK welfare bureaucracy. Released two months after the vote; widely read as portraying the same towns that voted Leave.
Brexit: The Uncivil War (2019)
Channel 4 / HBO TV film starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Vote Leave's Dominic Cummings. The first major cinematic account.
Question Time (BBC)
The campaign's most-watched political panel show. Three Brexit specials drew the highest non-final audience figures of the year.
Same week, elsewhere
June 2016 was when the post-1990s liberal consensus visibly cracked in a Western democracy for the first time. The Trump election followed in November. Brexit and Trumpism were repeatedly conflated by international commentators; the on-the-ground politics were different but the cultural fault lines mapped.
Then & now
UK GDP (relative to OECD pre-vote forecast)
On trend (June 2016)
2016
≈5% below the pre-vote forecast trend
2024
OBR + ONS estimates, mid-range of published academic studies.
GBP/USD
1.488 (close, June 23, 2016)
2016
≈1.27 (2024 avg)
2024
Sterling fell 8% in the 24 hours after the vote and has not recovered the pre-vote level.
Net annual migration to the UK
335,000 (2016)
2016
685,000 (2023)
2023
EU migration fell sharply; non-EU migration more than offset it.
UK MEPs in European Parliament
73
2016
0 (UK left Jan 31, 2020)
2024
Northern Ireland's status
Full EU member via UK; soft border with the Republic of Ireland
2016
In the EU single market for goods (Windsor Framework); checks on UK→NI trade
2024
Impact
Brexit removed the UK from the single market and customs union it had helped design over forty-seven years. The 2016 question — 'Should the UK remain a member of the EU or leave the EU?' — produced a binary answer; the implementation produced four years of negotiation, a constitutional crisis, two new prime ministers, and a still-unresolved Northern Ireland question. Economic effects estimated by the OBR + most academic studies in the range of −4% to −6% of GDP by 2024. The political effects — the realignment of the Conservative coalition around Leave voters, the collapse of Labour's Red Wall, the renewed momentum for Scottish independence — are still unfolding.
Threads pulled by this event
Cameron resigns within hours. May, a quiet Remainer, becomes PM on July 13. 'Brexit means Brexit.'
March 29, 2017. Two-year withdrawal clock starts. The UK's negotiating position turns out to be weaker than expected.
May's deal rejected three times by Parliament. May resigns. Johnson renegotiates the Northern Ireland Protocol; his deal passes after the December 2019 election.
January 31, 2020, 23:00 GMT. First country ever to leave. Transition period runs through December 31, 2020.
Customs checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland fuel ongoing unionist anger. The Windsor Framework (2023) modifies but does not resolve the underlying problem.
Settled Status scheme grants residence to ~6 million EU citizens. Free movement ends; UK adopts a points-based immigration system.
UK Supreme Court rules in November 2022 that the Scottish Parliament cannot unilaterally call a referendum. The political question remains live.
Sources
Every claim on this page traces to a public, license-clean source. We don't asterisk well.
web.archive.org
api.gdeltproject.org
commonslibrary.parliament.uk
openlibrary.org
wikidata.org
commons.wikimedia.org
Classification
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