Cold Open

It’s the evening of January 3rd, 1973.

A car approaches the Royal Opera House in London, England.

Inside, British Prime Minister Edward Heath allows himself a smile of satisfaction as he straightens his bow tie. After a year of tense negotiations, he’s on his way to a gala to celebrate Britain’s entry into the European Community, or EC, a group of nations that has abolished tariffs on trade between their countries. Britain’s admission to the EC marks a hard-won political victory for the prime minister, and he’s looking forward to the praise he's sure about to come his way.

As Heath’s car pulls up outside the opera house, his door is opened by an official. Heath steps out and waves at the crowd of onlookers, but the smile slips from his face when he realizes he’s facing a throng of protestors. Heath knows that joining the EC was not supported by everybody in the UK. But with the deal done, he expected the protests to end.

Heath then flinches as an object comes hurtling toward him from the crowd, hitting his jacket. The police officers quickly spring into action and hurry him into the Opera House.

When he’s safely inside, a disgusting smell drifts to Heath’s nostrils. He looks at the wet mark where the object hit him.

The stench is horrendous. Heath realizes he’s been stink-bombed. He rushes toward the bathroom to wash off the smell. But even with the odor gone, the insult of the attack lingers, spoiling what he hoped would be his night of triumph.

Britain’s entry into the European Community will split public opinion. While many British will be happy to join the EC, many others would prefer the UK to remain on the sidelines. Those tensions will continue to smolder for the next fifty years. The issue will finally come to a head when one of Heath’s successors as prime minister announces a referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain part of the European Union, and one of the greatest shocks in political history will emerge after the UK votes to withdraw from the EU on June 23rd, 2016.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is June 23rd, 2016: The Brexit Referendum.

Act One

It’s January 23rd, 2013, at the London office of financial technology company Bloomberg; three years before the UK will vote to leave the European Union.

Prime Minister David Cameron walks across the stage to a smattering of polite applause. Officially, he’s here to deliver a speech to an audience of financial analysts. But the British people at home are Cameron’s real target audience. He’s ensured that television cameras will broadcast his words on tonight’s news bulletins, allowing him to use this speech to draw a line in the sand over an issue that’s ripping his Conservative Party apart.

For as long as the UK has been in the European Community, the Conservative Party has been divided over the issue. Some Conservative members were happy to integrate due to the economic benefits and increased security that membership brought. But many other Conservatives were Eurosceptics, they were unwilling to give up British sovereignty and demanded that the UK play no part in the European Community’s plans for a political union.

During the 1980s, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher held the Conservatives together thanks to her forceful personality and the compromises she negotiated with the EC. But divisions increased after the countries of the EC signed the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. This agreement marked the beginning of a broader political confederation, and the new era for the EC brought a new name: the European Union. The Treaty also increased the fervor of Euroscepticism in the UK, and especially within the Conservative Party. Now, after years of infighting and bickering, Prime Minister Cameron hopes to quell the dissent with a major policy announcement.

Cameron takes his place at the lectern on stage, and without a preamble, launches into a speech that he spent days preparing with a team of writers. He talks about Britain’s relationship with Europe and the many positives that political integration brings. This is no surprise, Cameron is known to be pro-EU. But he also addresses the dissatisfaction that many Conservatives feel. According to the prime minister, frustrations exist because the British people have not had a chance to vote on the changes happening in the European Union, and Cameron wants to change that.

"CAMERON: Simply asking the British people to carry on accepting a European settlement over which they have had little choice is a path to ensuring that when the question is finally put—and at some stage, it will have to be—it is much more likely that the British people will reject the European Union. That is why I am in favor of having a referendum."

Cameron makes it clear that a referendum on British membership of the European Union will take place if the Conservative Party wins the next general election. The announcement is shocking. And when the speech comes to a close, the assembled media burst from the hall to report the prime minister’s words.

Privately, Cameron acknowledges that calling a referendum is a risky strategy. If Britain votes to leave, he will have an unwanted policy forced upon him. But he thinks it’s a gamble worth taking. He fully expects that the UK will vote to remain in the EU. And he also hopes that the aftermath of the referendum will see the Conservative Party finally coalesce and reunite, once the Eurosceptics have had a chance to air their grievances.

But Prime Minister Cameron has misjudged the mood of the country. Euroscepticism is growing. The following year, in elections to the European Parliament, anti-Europe parties see a sudden increase in their share of the vote. The UK Independence Party, or UKIP, was founded on the single issue of leaving the EU, and it wins more seats than any other party. Soon after, two Conservative Members of Parliament also defect to UKIP, giving the party its first representatives in national government.

In May 2015, more than two years after Cameron’s speech at Bloomberg, Britain goes to the polls in a general election. The Conservatives win an overall majority. And newly re-elected Prime Minister Cameron stands by his promise and announces that a referendum on Britain’s membership in the EU will be held in June 2016.

Two campaigns will form in what becomes known as the Brexit Referendum. Prime Minister Cameron will reiterate that he does not want Britain to leave the EU, and he will front the campaign to stay. Opinion polls will suggest that the UK will also likely vote to remain in the EU. But Cameron has not accounted for the strength of anti-European sentiment in the country, nor of the machinations of a charismatic and ambitious colleague who will use the referendum as a springboard to power.

Act Two

It’s mid-February 2016, in London, four months before the Brexit Referendum.

Boris Johnson peers at a computer monitor in his office, comparing two documents on screen. Both are articles written by him for the Daily Telegraph. One advocates for leaving the European Union in the upcoming Brexit referendum, the other supports remaining in the EU. Now, Boris must decide which article he’s going to submit to the newspaper’s editor.

Boris is a Conservative Member of Parliament and one of the most influential politicians in the country. He found fame as a charismatic personality on satirical television shows. But since then, he’s served two terms as Mayor of London, unseating a popular incumbent and gaining international recognition when London hosted the 2012 Olympic Games. But Boris has greater ambitions than running the capital city. He wants to run the country. And he sees the upcoming Brexit referendum as an opportunity to increase his profile.

Most leading politicians have already made their position clear on the referendum, and most of them are choosing to remain in the EU. Aside from Prime Minister David Cameron, 25 of 30 cabinet members and the leaders of most other mainstream political parties have joined the campaign to stay in the European Union.

The biggest names advocating for an exit from the EU are Justice Secretary Michael Gove and Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader, who has failed to win an election to Parliament on seven different occasions. Both sides, knowing Boris’s popularity and reputation as a vote-winner, are asking him to join them. But aside from the actual issues surrounding Europe that have torn the Conservatives apart for decades, Boris has his own political future to consider. He could show his loyalty to the Party by siding with Cameron and backing the Remain campaign. Or he could advocate to leave, knowing that he’ll instantly become the de facto leader on that side of the argument.

Boris closes the windows on his monitor and begins writing an email to the editor of the Daily Telegraph. He attaches a file and presses send. A moment of giddiness passes over him when he realizes what he’s done. Boris has thrown caution to the wind and decided to join the Vote Leave campaign.

Boris shuts down his computer and leaves his house, where a gaggle of reporters and cameramen wait for him. He stands on the street, and with cameras flashing and shutters clicking, announces his intention to vote to leave the EU.

"JOHNSON: I want a better deal for the people of this country, to save them money and to take back control."

With his first public uttering on the Brexit debate, Boris invents one of the iconic soundbites of the referendum. “Take back control” becomes one of the slogans of the Vote Leave campaign. And it’s soon plastered on pamphlets and billboards.

The organizers of Vote Leave make full use of their new backer. Boris is as much a celebrity as a politician, and he quickly becomes the figurehead of the campaign to leave the EU. He’s ushered around the country on a London-style red double-decker bus. Emblazoned on its side, a promise to spend the £350 million, Britain contributes to the EU every week on the National Health Service instead. Boris is cheered and celebrated by supporters at every stop. But his informal approach to interviews misfires on several occasions. He’s criticized when he compares the EU to Adolf Hitler. He comes under negative scrutiny again when he claims that American President Barack Obama dislikes the UK due to his part-Kenyan ancestry. But many in the British public forgive Boris's gaffes, praising him instead for his plain speaking and common sense.

But though the Vote Leave campaign gains traction with Boris's leadership, on the eve of the Brexit Referendum, opinion polls still suggest a narrow win for the Remain campaign, with an expected margin of victory of around four percent.

Still, Boris is able to look back on the referendum campaign with some satisfaction. Although he didn’t expect to win the vote, he knows he has increased his already substantial public profile and proven himself as a leader. He expects Prime Minister Cameron to make a gesture of Conservative unity by offering him a cabinet position in the days after the vote, which will then help Boris maneuver himself into position as Cameron’s natural successor. But Boris’s plans will soon be thrown into turmoil. The result of the Brexit vote will stun Boris, Cameron, and the entire nation, and Boris will find himself thrust into power far sooner than expected.

Act Three

It’s 9 AM on June 23rd, 2016 at a polling station in London, four months after Boris Johnson publicly backed the leave campaign.

Newspaper photographers jostle for position to record the moment when Boris emerges after casting his vote to leave the European Union. Boris strides through the polling station door, happily waving to the cameramen, before speeding off to spend the rest of the day on the campaign trail.

At evening, when the vote closes, opinion polls still predict that the UK will opt to remain in the EU. But as districts begin to announce their official results during the night, the tide begins to turn. By morning, the outcome is formally declared. Voters in Scotland and London have voted to remain, as has most of Northern Ireland. But the rest of England and Wales firmly come down on the side of Vote Leave, especially in northern England, an area that typically votes for the Conservative Party’s rival, the Labor Party. In total, 52 percent of voters choose to exit the EU, giving Vote Leave a surprise victory. Later that morning, Boris delivers a speech at the campaign’s headquarters in which he urges the country to pause and take stock.

"JOHNSON: In voting to leave the EU, it is vital to stress that there is now no need for haste, and indeed as the prime minister has just said, nothing will change over the short-term except that work will have to begin on how to give effect to the will of the people and to extricate this country from the supranational system."

But it’s too late to prevent upheaval. Prime Minister David Cameron announces his resignation, and to prevent the further disruption of a leadership contest, the Conservative Party unites around Theresa May as his successor. Boris achieves the promotion he hoped for when he is appointed foreign secretary, but he later quits in protest that the new government isn’t negotiating strongly enough in its exit from the EU. Ultimately, three years after the Brexit vote, Boris himself will become prime minister and accomplish his long-held ambition. He will appoint key Eurosceptics and Vote Leave supporters to his government, and it will be under Boris’s watch that the UK finally and officially withdraws from the European Union on January 31st, 2020.

But the debate over the issue will not end there. The nation’s so-called Remainers and Leavers still argue over the rights and wrongs of Brexit, and it will continue to remold the political landscape of the UK even years after British people took to the polls and voted to leave the EU on June 23rd, 2016.

Outro

Next on History Daily. June 26th, 1953. Lavrentiy Beria, the most influential of Joseph Stalin's secret police chiefs, is arrested and ousted from power.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Katrina Zemrak.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Executive Producers are Alexandra Currie-Buckner for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.