Geographies of Brexit and its aftermath: voting in England at the 2016 referendum and the 2017 general election

Abstract

Much has been written since the 2016 Brexit referendum regarding the divides within British society that the vote illustrated – including geographical divides – and their influence on the outcome of the 2017 general election. Focusing on England, this paper explores the extent and significance of those geographical divides at the 2016 referendum, at a variety of spatial scales – concluding that apart from a major difference between parts of inner London and the rest of England these were largely insignificant. Turning to the 2017 general election, analyses show that this return to a predominantly two-party system within England largely involved a replication of the geography of the 2015 general election outcome. A new electoral map of England did not emerge from the divisions that Brexit stimulated: the country is divided along class lines, with London standing out as different from all other regions