The result of the UK referendum on EU membership was an act of rejection of elite opinion. Almost the entirety of the country’s intellectual, economic and political establishment had explicitly opposed Brexit. There had been letters by Nobel laureates detailing the cost to UK research of a ‘Leave’ vote, a public statement by over 250 academics to the same affect, the official opposition of most British businesses as well as an avalanche of expert reports indicating the significant economic cost of leaving the world’s largest single market. In political terms, the ‘Remain’ campaign had the formal support of the country’s four largest political parties, the Tory-led national government and that of a plethora of international leaders, including the President of the …

An impressive list of academics, including seven Oxford faculty members, signed a petition in mid-June calling for new strategies to deal with misinformation. It makes very good sense to desire competent opinion as opposed to misinformation, and to argue that democratic legitimacy of the referendum’s outcome in some sense rests upon informed choice. (A specific example of a helpful intervention is this letter from the UK Statistics Authority challenging the “potentially misleading” statement of Nigel Farage about the “independence dividend” of Brexit.) These epistemic interventions need to be given more thought, but they all share the same classic problem: Who shall watch the watchers? While oversight and accountability genuinely help the democratic process, representing the proper style of character and …

The British vote to leave the European Union (EU) is the first step toward formal disintegration that the West has experienced. The closest parallel is France’s decision to step outside the integrated military command structure of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1966. But France remained a member of NATO; that decision was more like Britain’s opt-out from the single currency or Schengen, even if the shift of NATO’s headquarters from Paris to Brussels made it seem more dramatic. By contrast, the British have now decided that they do not want to take part in the EU and that they want to renegotiate their relationships with the rest of the world on a case-by-case basis. The West has not …

It is not hard to see why Leave won. Evidence from numerous opinion polls showed that there was a clear majority for Leave on the basis of concerns about immigration and beliefs that leaving would reduce immigration. Moreover the same opinion polls showed us that there was no compensating majority who believed that the UK would be worse off if we left. Still less did people feel that they personally would be financially worse off. For further details see here. Although it should not have come as a surprise that Leave won, the result was close enough that it could easily have gone the other way. There will be much debate as to whether the Remain side could have made their …

We have theories of integration but not of disintegration which is a problem, argues Jan Zielonka. In the early 1990s Europe experienced three great revolutions: geopolitical, economic and digital. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the single market project and the advent of the internet have changed Europe beyond recognition, but the EU has not properly adjusted to this dramatic change. Europe lost trust, imagination and sex appeal Subsequently it lost its sex appeal for both Europe’s citizens and external observers. For many decades the EU was as a model of successful integration: an efficient market with welfare protection for its citizens and ability to pacify unstable neighbors. This is history however. At present, the EU is clearly in disarray. …

Referendum night is going to represent something of a departure from usual. There will not be the drama of an exit poll announcement to stir excitement – and possibly shock – at 10pm. Meanwhile, when the actual results do start to be announced, except in Northern Ireland they will not be declared by the parliamentary constituencies with which we have all become familiar. Rather they will be unveiled local authority by local authority. As a result, we will get just one declaration for the whole of Birmingham, while, at the other end of the spectrum, the Isles of Scilly will get their moment in the sun. But perhaps the biggest departure from the routine of election night will be that …

As the Bremain and Brexit campaigns gear up for the last three days of campaigning, the outcome remains far from clear. Recent polls show the vote tied at 50/50. Both sides of the argument have heralded the referendum as a “unique event”. Unique as it may be for this generation of UK citizens, referenda of this kind are not singular. In fact, the UK’s referendum on EU membership, to be held on 23 June, shares a number of remarkable parallels with Spain’s in-out NATO referendum, held thirty years earlier on 12 March 1986. Let’s review the similarities one-by-one. The “question”: stay or leave NATO/the EU. Spain joined NATO in May 1982. Four years later, in March 1986, the Spanish Socialist …

Is it possible to have a more accurate prediction by asking people how confident they are that their preferred choice will win the day? As the Brexit referendum date approaches, the uncertainty regarding its outcome is increasing. And, so are concerns about the precision of the polls. The forecasts are, once again, suggesting a very close result. Ever since the general election of May 2015, criticism against pollsters has been rampant. They have been accused of complacency, herding, of making sampling errors, and even of deliberate manipulation of their results. The UK is hardly the only country where pollsters are swiftly losing their reputation. With the rise of online polls, proper sampling can be extremely difficult. Online polls are based …