Contemporary · Europe · Politics

2016

Brexit referendum

June 23, 2016

By 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent, British voters chose to leave the European Union in a referendum that stunned even many of its advocates. David Cameron resigned by morning. Sterling fell off a cliff. London woke up European, Sunderland woke up sovereign, and a country that had thought of itself as pragmatic discovered it had a populist heart.