The Brexit car crash: using E.H. Carr to explain Britain’s choice to leave the European Union in 2016

This article uses E.H. Carr’s discussion of causation in What is History? as a methodological frame for studying the causes of Brexit. It contends that, in final analysis, the underlying reason why millions of British citizens rejected European Union membership was the conviction that British freedom and independence was at risk. The power of the EU to make British law was never entirely accepted by a significant part of the British political class from the very beginning of Britain’s engagement with Europe. This residual opposition to European integration strengthened as a result of the Treaties of Maastricht and Lisbon, and gained an additional boost from the growing social and economic divides of British society, and the impact of migration from the EU. The Brexit car crash was an accident waiting to happen.