Brexit and the Blitz: Conflict, Collective Memory and Populism

816/2026 Eric Melander

On 23 June 2016, the electorate of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Britain's relationship with the European project has a long history, and deep historical factors may have played a role in shaping the outcome of the referendum. I show that past civilian experience and collective memory of war is one such factor. Combining geo referenced data on bombing during the Second World War and district-level results of the EU Referendum, I show that districts with a greater number of bombing events exhibited higher Leave vote shares. This pattern is robust to controlling for other salient predictors of support for Leave and to using technical details of Luftwaffe technology to instrument for bombing. Collective memory is an important moderator; bombing predicts Leave vote shares only in districts where war graves and memorials from the Second World War are most prevalent. The same is not the case for war graves or memorials from other wars. Lastly, evidence from individual-level surveys suggests that Second World War-rooted Leave rhetoric was effective in swaying voters in high bombing intensity areas.

Global Economic History