ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the ‘proximate explanations’ for the referendum result which seek to explain voter choices in terms of key demographic and socio-economic factors identifiable among leave voters. A key issue in the referendum was turnout and the relative willingness of those who supported the leave and remain sides to actually cast their vote. The referendum result needs to be understood in terms of the specific historical and political conditions in which it was held. This requires engagement with the long-term contextual factors creating the conditions of possibility for, the vote such as the deeply sedimented Euroscepticism evident in the UK's media and the wider political culture. The literature on public opinion on European integration can be divided into three broad categories which seek to explain voter positions in terms of utilitarian calculations, domestic cues/benchmarks and identity. The chapter describes British Euroscepticism within the context of the literature on right-wing populism with which anti-EU sentiments are generally associated across Europe.
