Investigating Differences in Brexit-vote Among Local Authorities in the UK: An Ecological Study on Migration- and Economy-related Issues

During a non-binding referendum on the UK’s membership in the European Union in June 2016, 51.9% of UK voters voted in favour of leaving the European Union, also known as Brexit. However, the Local Authorities in the UK showed a wide variation in the referendum outcome. For 380 Local Authorities, the European Union referendum outcome was linked to data derived from the 2011 Census, creating a database to investigate associations between local factors and the referendum outcome. This ecological study formulated and tested hypotheses related to migration and economic issues as those two topics dominated the European Union referendum campaign. The results of multivariable generalised linear model analyses showed that the percentage of migrants who arrived between 2004 and 2011 in local areas was positively associated with the proportion of Leave-votes. This indicates that the relative number of recently arrived migrants might have been a key factor in voters’ decisions. Further research might focus on the origin of those migrants. Furthermore, in England, the percentage of lower educated was positively associated with the proportion of Leave-votes. This indicates that England was divided along educational lines. Moreover, this study also found a positive association between the proportion of elderly with self-reported poorer general health and the proportion of Leave-votes. Although investigating local health outcomes was beyond the study’s aim, this result indicates that health issues might be of importance in understanding local differences in European Union referendum outcomes. These findings provide us with a better understanding of the underlying factors of the Brexit-vote and directions for future research.