Brexit Referendum: 23 June 2016 – the day our world changed

Desmond Clifford

Is it really 10 years?  I worked in the First Minister’s office in Cardiff on the morning Wales and Britain voted to leave the EU.

Carwyn Jones, then First Minister, was shell-shocked, and so was I. I’d spent a big chunk of my life in Brussels as the Welsh Government’s first diplomat, a representative to the European Union.

Back in Cardiff in 2016, I was still responsible for the Welsh Government’s EU policy.

Carwyn led the Remain campaign in Wales and spoke a couple of times alongside David Cameron.

Most commentators thought Carwyn spoke well and made a rational case for remaining. The Leave campaign was energised by Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson. The Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies supported Leave, but the Welsh campaign never developed a distinct identity.

Remainers had a well-stocked warehouse of issues. Wales benefitted from European regional money more than anywhere else in Britain: you could barely drive a mile without spotting a building paid for by the EU.

Farmers were subsidised through Europe’s agriculture scheme. Universities accessed serious research funding. Students spent time in Europe while our university towns teemed pleasingly with French, Spanish and German students.

Immigration was ratcheted to the top of the agenda when UKIP cottoned on that they could use it as a proxy for opposition to the EU.

Few truly cared much about the minutiae of EU market rules, but immigration offered a handle on “taking back control”.

Leavers spooked people into imagining a vast influx of Turkish migrants – which still hasn’t happened and isn’t going to.

EU immigration was mostly positive. Remember the Polish plumber? Remember those polite smiley young people who worked the pubs and coffee shops?

There was genuine pressure on public services in specific parts of England – notably the agricultural flatlands of east Anglia – but in Wales EU immigration was low, and in large parts of the country, practically non-existent.

Yet it was in those areas, oddly, that anti-immigration sentiment was at its highest.

That was the canary in the coalmine. The Brexit debate was often only marginally about the European Union.

Most people knew little, and cared less, about the CAP, the Single Market, the Customs Union. For many, the vote wasn’t about that. It was about distance from power, being seen or not seen, heard or not heard.

Too many people felt ignored, and the referendum was a way of poking Authority’s eye.

In the First Minister’s office on that gloomy June morning in 2016 – gloomy, though blindingly sunny outside – we pored over the figures: 52-48 in favour of leave. It was a clear defeat though not crushing.

You couldn’t help but wonder what extra effort could have nudged the dial the other way.

In the Senedd around 50 out of 60 Members voted Remain – that’s around 83% of all Members – including a good few Tories.

Traditionally Conservative areas like the Vale of Glamorgan and Monmouth voted Remain. Yet, among the whole Welsh electorate, less than 48% of people chose Remain.

The gap between the Welsh public and their political representatives was stark. This should have been a warning, alerting Wales’ politicians to widening disaffection.

Instead, it was treated as an aberration.  The warnings were ignored, Welsh Labour went on its way and finally paid the price at the 2026 election.

As most of us recall, the years following the referendum were painful. The result drove an enormous crevice through Britain’s politics which only widened through years of chaos. Parliament virtually collapsed under the strain and normal politics ceased to function.

It took a private citizen, the admirable Gina Miller, to fight in the Supreme Court to uphold parliament’s rights and to unscramble what politics couldn’t do.

Instability

Prime ministers were spat out like no time in our history and the instability unleashed in 2016 continues still; we’ll soon be on our seventh PM in a decade.

The Welsh Government spilled acres of ink on white papers arguing for nuanced terms of departure from the EU.  I wrote some of them. Our documents were widely praised and comprehensively ignored.

For years, I journeyed wearily to and from Whitehall every week, sometimes twice a week, often with Carwyn Jones or Mark Drakeford, leaving before dawn, to make Wales’ case with the UK Government.

Ultimately, we had no purchase whatsoever and our efforts were in vain. Devolution, in the sense of giving Wales a political voice within the United Kingdom, failed utterly – an outcome worth noting for future reference.

Wales lost EU money which was never fully replaced by the UK Government. Remember all the additional cash that was going to be spent on the NHS…? We’re still waiting.

The Senedd and Welsh Government lost powers which should have been repatriated from Brussels to Cardiff but were intercepted by Whitehall.

They were intercepted through the UK Internal Market Act, devised by Boris Johnson to usurp devolved governments. The Welsh Government was supported in its opposition by Keir Starmer, then Labour’s Brexit person. Now Starmer uses the same Act for the same purposes as Johnson and wonders why he and his cyphers are so unpopular in Wales.

Brexit emphasised the inability of the Welsh Government in current constitutional circumstances to exert any meaningful influence on the wider United Kingdom when its legitimate interests are stake.

I wish it were otherwise, but that’s where we are in 2026.

The European problem has always divided Britain down the middle. If there was a clear, long-term preference for or against, it would be less painful. It’s a question which always divides, and the ambiguity is agonising.

Poor leadership

The problem in 2016 was exacerbated by poor leadership among those who claimed, ultimately, to support Remain.

Although he was Prime Minister, David Cameron could not tell us until February 2016, only months before the referendum which he called, that he was unambiguously in favour of Remain.

Goodness knows what Jeremy Corbyn truly believed. Gordon Brown was consistently aloof on Europe until the referendum. Tony Blair was always pro-European but by 2016 no one wanted to hear from him.

It’s no comfort that the world predicted by Remain 10 years ago has mostly come to pass. Worst of all, the UK is poorer by about 4%, exactly as foreseen by the Welsh Government’s post referendum white paper.

Our economy is flatlining. Outside Europe, the UK lost its strategic role just at the wrong time as Russia mobilised with real menace.

Leavers assured us in 2016 that NATO and the Special Relationship with America would support our defence. Well so much for that in 2026.

Houdini politics

Remarkably, Nigel Farage goes largely from strength to strength. His Houdini politics is truly a phenomenon and defies easy explanation.

Meantime, the UK drifts like a cork on the ocean, all at sea, no harbour in view. It’s an unfamiliar position and the logic of defence pushes us back towards Europe, as it always must.

Where else could it push us?  Trumpism isn’t finished, not by any means, and I reckon we’ll hear again about Greenland before he’s done.

With immense irony, the EU referendum in 2016 moved in tandem with the Welsh football team’s unprecedented progress to the semi-finals of the European Cup. It was incredible.

Only three days before the vote Wales beat Russia 3-0; two days after we beat Northern Ireland 1-0.

We said No to Europe politically just as Wales asserted itself sportingly like never before.

I had anguished messages from friends around Europe, congratulating me on the football (all down to me, of course!) while lamenting our Leave vote. My responses were even more anguished. I couldn’t explain it; not then, not now.

Voters remorse

Opinion polling now shows voters remorse.  A vote tomorrow would produce a different result, but I feel no certainty that we wouldn’t eventually relive the whole divisive cycle over again.

Besides, we’d never get back into the EU on the same advantageous terms we had before. There’s quite a strong chance that we wouldn’t be allowed back in at all, on any terms, at least not while Reform remains strong.

On balance, I reckon that aspiring to re-join the EU is probably not the way forward, at least not in the short-term.

I think we should position ourselves closely to the EU without re-joining. We could join the Single Market and Customs Union while remaining apart from the political institutions in Brussels.

There would be some drawbacks; we’d be rule-takers, although that’s done Norway no harm. But doing nothing has drawbacks too; it’s making us poorer!

Realities

Since the World War, Britain has often failed to exercise clear-sighted international judgement. We should start now and take a view based on the realities before us. We can no longer rely on America in the ways we thought we could. This doesn’t mean we should give up.

It’s in our interests to retain the best available relationship with the USA, but we are obliged to recalibrate our expectations.

But for trade, defence and democratic solidarity we have only one natural and enduring partner and that’s the people next door.