Brexit and Northern Ireland: the 2016 referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union

ABSTRACT

The 2016 referendum in Northern Ireland on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union took place in the familiar context of historic and political divides. At the same time, perspectives on European integration, long-standing and evolving, were to the fore as political parties, lobby groups and various organisations campaigned around key issues such as the economic impact, migration, sovereignty, North–South relations, the reintroduction of a ‘hard’ border and the EU budget. The Remain campaigners in Northern Ireland were successful in winning the overall majority of votes cast but they found themselves on the losing side of the overall UK result. With a 62.69 per cent turnout, the outcome in Northern Ireland saw 55.8 per cent voting to remain and 44.2 per cent voting for the UK to leave the EU. This article draws on campaign literature, party activity, media coverage, governmental and specialist reports to assess the run up to, the result and the aftermath of the vote in Northern Ireland.

KEYWORDS:

• Brexit
• European Union
• Northern Ireland
• referendum

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the contributions made to this article by Katy Hayward, Damian Knipe, Sean Loughlin, Stephen McCloskey, Birgit Schippers, Angela Vaupel, and Robin Wilson.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.