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British Eurosceptic voters before and after Brexit

Les électeurs britanniques eurosceptiques avant et après le Brexit
Paolo Chiocchetti

Abstracts

This article explores the evolution of Euroscepticism within British public opinion before and after Brexit. First, it contextualizes recent trends in the longue durée of UK-EU relations, reconstructing a comparable time series of polling evidence on the strength of opposition to EU membership from 1955 to 2024. Second, it zooms in on the period between the 2019 and 2024 general elections, identifying the continuities and changes affecting mass attitudes toward Europe. The analysis shows that Eurosceptic voters emerged from Brexit victorious, weakened, but resilient. The underlying, latent divide over Europe continues to structure voting behaviour and undermine the stability of the political system in the United Kingdom.

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Introduction

  • 1 Harold D. Clarke, Matthew J. Goodwin, and Paul Whiteley, Brexit (Cambridge, Cambridge University Pr (...)
  • 2 Luca Augé, ‘Johnson and ‘Let’s keep Brexit done’: the instrumental use of the UK’s policy on Europe (...)
  • 3 David Cutts et al., ‘Brexit, the 2019 general election and the realignment of British politics’, Th (...)
  • 4 Patrick Diamond and Jeremy Richardson (eds.), ‘British policy-making after Brexit’, Special issue o (...)
  • 5 Christopher Prosser ‘Fragmentation revisited: the UK General Election of 2024’, West European Polit (...)

1A decade ago, Brexit emerged as the most salient, divisive, and transformative issue in British politics. Having gathered strength since the early 1990s both within the Conservative party (European Research Group) and on its right (United Kingdom Independence Party), right-wing hard Euroscepticism came to the forefront of the political agenda in 2015–16, as David Cameron called for an in-or-out referendum on EU membership and ended up narrowly losing it.1 The ensuing drawn-out, chaotic power struggle to determine the actual meaning and outcome of Brexit, which pitted Leavers against Remainers, voters against parties, parliament against government, government against courts, and the UK against the EU, kept it a burning issue for three-and-a-half years, until Boris Johnson’s triumph in the 2019 general election paved the way to “get Brexit done” and finally withdraw from the EU on 31 January 2020.2 The process was accompanied by an unprecedented level of electoral volatility, sustained demonstrations, the emergence of widespread and intensely held Brexit identities, and a deep realignment of partisan preferences and along European attitudes.3 After 2020, the challenges of redesigning UK-EU relations and tackling Brexit legacies have continued to retain the attention of politicians, policymakers, and scholars.4 The issue itself, however, seems to have largely disappeared from the priorities of parties and voters. In his analysis of the 2024 general election, for instance, Christopher Prosser identifies an “almost complete absence of Brexit as an issue during the campaign”, while noting a “persistence of the Brexit realignment” in terms of voting patterns.5

2Despite a wealth of primary data and an extensive secondary literature on British mass attitudes toward European Union membership, a proper comparison of their evolution before and after Brexit is still missing. Have they shifted since the actual withdrawal in 2020? Are there more continuities or discontinuities? And how did they contribute to the overall (in)stability of the British political system? To fill this gap, I examine the polling evidence on British Eurosceptic voters from 1955 to 2024, focusing on hard Euroscepticism. In the first section, I review the relevant literature and present my methodology for the measurement of mass Euroscepticism. In the second section, I explore the whole arc of the relationship between the UK and the EU, including the pre-membership, membership, and post-membership sub-periods. In the third section, I zoom in on the period between the 2019 and 2024 general elections, highlighting the specific features of the post-Brexit years. In the fourth section, I discuss the complex effects of hard Euroscepticism for the stability of the British political system after 2019. In the conclusion, I summarize the main findings and their implications.

Measuring mass Euroscepticism

  • 6 Ben Clements, ‘European integration’, in British public opinion on foreign and defence policy: 1945 (...)

3Primary evidence concerning mass attitudes toward European integration, both in the UK and across EU member states, is extensive. Opinion polls by public organisations, polling companies, and researchers have been regularly tracking them since the 1950s, asking questions about EU membership, trust in the EU and its institutions, national vs. European identities, and support for specific policy areas. On the basis of this wealth of data, a large scholarly literature has summarized, compared, and investigated trends over time and space.6

  • 7 Sara B. Hobolt and Catherine E. De Vries, ‘Public support for European integration’, Annual Review (...)
  • 8 Some respondents may view membership as abstractly good but nevertheless undesirable or as abstract (...)
  • 9 Christopher J. Anderson and Jason D. Hecht, ‘The preference for Europe: Public opinion about Europe (...)
  • 10 Sara B. Hobolt, ‘The Brexit vote: A divided nation, a divided continent’, Journal of European Publi (...)

4This notwithstanding, a reasonably reliable, continuous, and comprehensive time series on British hard Euroscepticism covering the entirety of the pre-accession, the membership, and the post-Brexit period is yet to be compiled. Two problems can be singled out. Firstly, much of the data and literature focus on broad indicators of support for European integration, rather than the narrow support for British membership of the EU. On the one hand, many surveys – including Gallup (1972–2000) and the Eurobarometer (1973–2019) – frame the issue in the abstract terms of EU membership being a “good thing”, “a bad thing”, or “neither good nor bad” for one’s country.7 Such formulations do not adequately capture concrete attitudes toward EU membership and the corresponding voting intentions in the event of an in/out referendum.8 On the other hand, much of the recent literature focuses on composite measures of the “European mood”, which do not distinguish between hard and soft forms of Euroscepticism and Europhilia.9 Secondly, most studies tend to explore only a subset of years, thereby failing to fully capture long-term continuities and discontinuities.10

  • 11 Aleks Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart, ‘Introduction: Researching Euroscepticism in European party syst (...)
  • 12 Edward Fieldhouse et al., British Election Study Internet Panel waves 1-29, 2024, https://www.briti (...)
  • 13 This criterion led to the notable exclusions of surveys by the National Opinion Poll company (1965– (...)
  • 14 The exact questions asked were the following: “Are you in general for or against making efforts tow (...)

5To fill this gap, I reconstruct a consistent time series of British attitudes toward EEC/EC/EU membership from 1955 to 2014. The focus is on the so-called hard Euroscepticism – the outright opposition to the European integration project – rather than softer forms expressing a qualified reluctance to further integration steps.11 To enhance the internal consistency of the results, I choose to restrict the sources used to a minimum number of high-quality, non-overlapping pollsters: these are periodic surveys by the United States Information Agency (1955–57), the polling company Gallup (1961–75), the polling company Ipsos (1977–2012), and the British Election Survey Internet Panel (2014–2024).12 Additional sources, available occasionally until 2015 and systematically afterwards, are therefore excluded.13 The polls selected all ask broadly similar questions on this issue.14 Invalid responses (‘don’t know’ or ‘would not vote’), which make up in average 18 per cent of the total, are excluded.

  • 15 Edward Fieldhouse et al., British Election Study Internet Panel waves 1-29, 2024, https://www.briti (...)
  • 16 However, the survey does not include Northern Irish respondents and is still liable to small levels (...)

6For the latest decade, I rely on the individual-level data of the British Election Study Internet Panel (BESIP), an ongoing longitudinal survey running in 29 waves from February 2014 to July 2024.15 This allows to dig behind the headline figures and produce descriptive statistics for a variety of additional questions and categories. As above, invalid responses, neutral respondents, and non-voters are excluded from the totals, producing a binary split between opponents (Eurosceptics, Leavers) and supporters (Europhiles, Remainers, Rejoiners) of EU membership. Wave-specific post-stratification weighting is applied to the raw data, leading to a sample which seems to be fairly representative of the British electorate.16

Eurosceptic voters in the longue durée, 1955–2024

  • 17 Paolo Chiocchetti, ‘A quantitative analysis of legal integration and differentiation in the Europea (...)
  • 18 Stephen George, An awkward partner: Britain in the European Community (Oxford, Oxford University Pr (...)
  • 19 Anthony Forster, Euroscepticism in contemporary British politics: opposition to Europe in the Conse (...)
  • 20 Gary Marks, Carole J. Wilson and Leonard Ray, ‘National political parties and European integration’ (...)
  • 21 Ben Clements, ‘European Integration’, in British Public Opinion on Foreign and Defence Policy: 1945 (...)
  • 22 Harold D. Clarke, Matthew J. Goodwin and Paul Whiteley, Brexit (Cambridge, Cambridge University Pre (...)

7British membership of the Franco-German European integration project – the 1952 European Coal and Steel Community, the 1952 European Atomic Energy Community, and the 1958 European Economic Community, later consolidated into the European Union in 1993 – has always been reluctant and contentious. At a diplomatic level, the country joined only in 1973, after having sat out the initial steps of the 1950s and seen two accession applications vetoed by Charles de Gaulle in 1963 and 1967. Once inside, it often sought to slow down, prevent, and reverse new integration steps or to negotiate special arrangements and legal exceptions for itself, most famously in periodic renegotiations of its financial contributions to the EU budget and in the five opt-outs from the Maastricht Treaty.17 It thus earned the reputation of an “awkward partner” and of an “Eurosceptic state” within a largely Europhile organization, in Stephen George’s famous formulations.18 At an elite level, Eurosceptic ideas ranging from mild hostility to further integration to the pursuit of an outright withdrawal from the EU were influential in both the Labour and the Conservative parties, more within the former until the 1980s and within the latter since the 1990s.19 This was in marked contrast with the situation of most other member states, where mainstream parties typically embraced European integration wholeheartedly and abandoned hard Euroscepticism to ideologically extreme parties on the far left and far right.20 At a mass level, public opposition to EU membership was consistently sustained, and at times majoritarian, in opinion polls.21 When asked to confirm their opinions in an actual in-or-out referendum, a large majority voted to “stay” on 5 June 1975 (67.2 per cent) but a narrow majority voted to “leave” on 23 June 2016 (51.9 per cent).22

8My reconstructed time series allows a consistent examination of the long-term evolution of British mass opposition to EU membership (share of opponents over valid responses) from 1955 to 2024 (see Figure 1 below).

Figure 1. Opponents of EU membership, 1955-2024

Figure 1. Opponents of EU membership, 1955-2024

Source: own elaboration from Fieldhouse et al. (2024), Gallup (1976), Ipsos (2016), and Merritt & Puchala (1968).

9Opposition remained high for most of the period, averaging 41 per cent of valid responses. This level, however, experienced ample shifts over time, ranging from 13 to 71 per cent. Initially very weak (13 per cent in February 1955), it briefly soared during Macmillan’s first accession attempt in 1961–63, peaking in February 1964 (53 per cent), but quickly dropped to extremely low values in the following years (13 per cent in May 1966). After Wilson’s second accession attempt in 1967, however, opposition became a majority (51 per cent in May 1969) and remained so, with few exceptions, until 1974: Heath’s successful accession attempt in 1970–72 did not dent this advantage. On the contrary, Wilson’s renegotiation of UK commitments in March 1975 had a large but short-lived effect: opposition suddenly dropped from 55 per cent in February to 35 per cent in April 1975, just in time to lose the referendum, but had already fully recovered by October 1978 (53 per cent). It continued to grow until March 1980 (71 per cent) and kept a large lead until March 1983 (60 per cent). In the following years, Thatcher’s diplomatic successes in Brussels and Labour’s conversion to the idea of a social Europe finally seemed to reconcile the British public with EU membership, and opposition steadily dropped until June 1991 (30 per cent). However, the progressive change of heart of right-wing elites – including Thatcher herself – after 1989 and the deepening of European integration started by the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 gave hard Euroscepticism a new lease of life. Values swiftly climbed up to 46 per cent in October 1993 and continued to oscillate around that level for the next three decades, with frequent majorities in 2000–01, 2011–14, and 2016. Johnson’s withdrawal from the EU in January 2020 led to a short-lived resurgence of a Eurosceptic majority, but voters wishing to stay out have been slowly declining ever since.

10Broadly speaking, these data confirm the permanent uneasiness of British voters with the European Union: when outside, they want in, but when inside, they seriously consider getting out. Attracted by its trade benefits but repelled by its economic costs and political constraints, they seem to seek a (looser, differentiated) form of integration which is rarely on offer. When forced to a binary choice on EU membership as it is, their responses are clearly influenced by a variety of conjunctural factors, including the state of UK–EU relations, party cues, satisfaction with the government, and national economic performance, but never permanently settle for either of the options. This allowed skilful prime ministers (Wilson, Thatcher, Blair) to temporarily soothe Eurosceptic concerns through diplomatic concessions and economic successes, but it ultimately scuppered the plans of a less skilful and lucky one (Cameron).

Eurosceptic voters after Brexit, 2020–2024

11The period between the December 2019 and the July 2024 general elections brought with it a mix of continuity and change for British hard Euroscepticism. Four main developments can be highlighted.

  • 23 The exact question is “as far as you're concerned, what is the SINGLE MOST important issue facing t (...)
  • 24 A clear indication of this is the level of polarization of responses to the “most important issue(...)

12First, after four years at the top of voter’s concerns, the conflict over Brexit quickly lost its salience. The BESIP survey regularly asks voters an open question about the most important issue for voters; the results are reported in Figure 2 below.23 Still negligible at the 2015 general election (3 per cent), mentions of the European issue quickly soared in 2015–2019, peaking in March 2019 (75 per cent) and slightly declining up to the 2019 general election (52 per cent). They however swiftly collapsed by June 2020 (4 per cent) and almost disappeared at the 2024 general election (1 per cent). This development suggests that the actual withdrawal from the EU spelled the end of Brexit as an electorally salient issue, as voters moved on to prioritise other issues: initially health (during the COVID-19 pandemics), later the economy and immigration. It would however be naïve to think that this gives more room for manoeuvre for political leaders, as the two leading issues in the July 2024 survey, the economy (40 per cent) and immigration (20 per cent) seem to have become inextricably linked to Brexit in the minds of many voters.24 On the one hand, Rejoiners tend to associate the weak economic performance of the country with the fallout from the withdrawal, pressuring the government for the negotiation of more ambitious cooperation deals with the EU. On the other hand, Leavers already angry at the post-Brexit surge of non-EU immigrants might be further triggered by an easing of barriers to the free movement of EU citizens.

Figure 2. Most important issue for voters, 2014–24

Figure 2. Most important issue for voters, 2014–24

Source: own elaboration from Fieldhouse et al. (2024).

13Secondly, Euroscepticism in all its forms has indeed markedly declined since Brexit. The BESIP survey allows one to distinguish two distinct measures: a narrow measure of hard Euroscepticism, encompassing all voters preferring to “leave” or “stay out” of the EU in a hypothetical referendum, and a broader measure of soft Euroscepticism, encompassing all voters preferring to “protect our independence” over “unit[ing] fully with the European Union” on a 11-point scale (the latter responses are also recombined in two categories). The results are reported in Figure 3 below.

  • 25 What UK Thinks: EU, Should the United Kingdom join the European Union or stay out of the European U (...)

14The weight of hard Eurosceptics initially increased from the December 2019 general election (48 per cent) to May 2021 (54 per cent), reflecting the shift of some Remainers tired of relitigating the issue; however, the lead turned negative in December 2021 (49 per cent) and continued to decline up to the July 2024 general election (42 per cent), as former Leavers became increasingly dissatisfied with the practical implementation of Brexit. The results are consistent with the overall polling evidence from other sources, which point to a consistent and widening majority of Rejoiners from July 2022 to July 2024.25

  • 26 Ben Clements, ‘European integration’, in British public opinion on foreign and defence policy: 1945 (...)

15More dramatic was the evolution of the broader measure, which captures a generically hostile attitude toward European integration. At the beginning of the series in March 2014, soft Eurosceptics had an overwhelming lead (73 per cent) which, according to other sources, had been in place since 1996.26 This swiftly changed during and after the 2016 referendum campaign, even if a small lead was maintained until December 2021 (53 per cent); afterwards, they became a minority and continued to slowly decline until the July 2024 general election (45 per cent). Interestingly, all degrees of opinion shifted in a pro-European direction, with a particularly sharp drop of radical Eurosceptics and an even stronger rise of radical Europhiles.

  • 27 What UK Thinks: EU, Should the United Kingdom join the European Union or stay out of the European U (...)
  • 28 What UK Thinks: EU, If the UK had to adopt the euro how do you think you would vote if there was a (...)

16Altogether, the post-Brexit period saw the continuation of a progressive pro-European reorientation of British public opinion initiated by the 2016 referendum. However, the new mood remains vulnerable to changes in the political context and in the potential offer on the table. On the one hand, subsequent polling during the first six months of Starmer’s unpopular new Labour government shows a stabilization of opposition to EU membership around 44 per cent.27 On the other hand, alternative questions can restore a Eurosceptic majority: for instance, if the obligation to adopt the single European currency is mentioned (57 per cent in July 2024) or if rejoining the EU is compared to three options outside of the bloc (63 per cent in total in June 2024: 28 per cent preferring a closer, 19 per cent the same, and 16 per cent a more distant relationship).28

Figure 3. Eurosceptic voters, 2014-27

Figure 3. Eurosceptic voters, 2014-27

Source: own elaboration from Fieldhouse et al. (2024).

  • 29 Joris Frese, Juho Härkönen and Simon Hix, ‘Brextinction? How cohort replacement has transformed sup (...)

17Thirdly, the decline of hard Eurosceptics since 2019 was driven not so much by ideological change (the so-called “Bregret”), but rather by demographic replacement and relative mobilization. The BESIP dataset allows an estimation of how respondents switched their Brexit voting intentions between the two general elections; the raw results, reweighted according to the 2019 levels, are presented in Figure 4 below. The data show very little direct switching from leave to rejoin (2.9 points), almost compensated by the opposite change from remain to stay out (2.4 points). Net losses toward a third residual category (“don’t know” and “do not vote”) are also broadly similar for Leavers (-1.0 point) and Remainers (-0.8 points). This results in an overestimation of hard Eurosceptics in 2024, which would appear to weigh 46.6 per cent of valid responses rather than the 42 the per cent mentioned above. The most likely explanation of this discrepancy is demographic replacement: the fact that voters which left the sample (mostly because of death or emigration) tended to be against EU membership, while voters which entered it (young people reaching the voting age, British citizens returning from abroad, naturalizations) tended to be for it. Indeed, Frese and colleagues have estimated that generational replacement alone, without accounting for migration and naturalization, can explain roughly one third of the change.29 Another possible explanation is the differential mobilization of members of the residual category. The BESIP survey, and opinion surveys in general, are intrinsically poor at capturing the opinions of abstentionists and indifferent voters: such persons rarely agree to participate, and those who do cannot be automatically assumed to behave in the same way as the corresponding segments of the population. As a consequence, it is impossible to establish with certainty whether changes in survey responses within the residual category reflect real trends of the underlying population or are instead mere illusions created by differential response rates. Comparing the BESIP sample with actual election results, however, there is some indication of actual net flows from the residual group to Remainers in 2016–19, explaining part of their early gains, and of a certain reluctance of Leavers to express their opinion in 2019–24, explaining part of their late losses.

Figure 4. Flows in Brexit intentions, 2019–24

Figure 4. Flows in Brexit intentions, 2019–24

Source: own elaboration from Fieldhouse et al. (2024).

  • 30 Pauline Schnapper, ‘Le pouvoir des idées: discours travaillistes sur le Brexit, 2021-2023’, Observa (...)
  • 31 Mata Miori and Jane Green, ‘The most disproportionate UK election: How the Labour Party doubled its (...)

18Fourthly, the decline of the salience of the Brexit issue has not much weakened the new ideologically polarized coupling of European and partisan attitudes. The evolution of the share of opponents of EU membership within the electorates of major parties is shown in Figure 5 below. In 2014, hard Eurosceptics tended to vote for right-wing parties but still represented sizeable minorities in all left-wing and centrist parties. The aftermath of the 2016 referendum changed this, decisively driving Leavers toward the former and Remainers toward the latter. Between the 2019 and 2024 general elections, despite an overall pro-EU shift of the electorate, this division persisted. Hard Eurosceptics somewhat declined among Reform (from 96 to 89 per cent) and Conservative (from 87 to 77 per cent) voters but remained stable among Labour (from 13 to 16 per cent) and withered among Green (from 23 to 13 per cent) and Scottish Nationalist (from 12 to 6 per cent) voters; only among the Liberal Democrats did they show clear signs of recovery (from 6 to 18 per cent). Interestingly, the dramatic U-turn on Brexit of Starmer’s Labour, which quietly dropped the advocacy of a second referendum, accepted Brexit, and embraced hard red lines for future agreements with the EU,30 failed to win over many Leavers, even though it probably played a key role in its election triumph by favouring the split of the Eurosceptic vote between Conservatives and Reform UK.31 When asked to identify Labour’s stance on the above-mentioned 11-point scale ranging from European unity (0) and British independence (10) in July 2024, the average perception of voters was 3.8: a shift to the centre compared to December 2019 (3.2), but still clearly on the pro-European side.

Figure 5. Hard Eurosceptics by voting intention, 2014–24

Figure 5. Hard Eurosceptics by voting intention, 2014–24
  • 32 See also James David Griffiths et al., ‘The Brexit realignment amid electoral volatility: The role (...)

19Altogether, four years of post-Brexit troubles revealed more continuities than discontinuities in mass attitudes toward Europe. While the salience of the issue all but disappeared, few voters changed their minds and the realignment of European and partisan preferences remained strong, showing the persistence of this divide as a crucial latent variable structuring voting behaviour.32 Like in 2019, hard Euroscepticism in 2024 was overwhelmingly associated with right-leaning parties (Reform UK, Conservative) and almost absent among centrist and left-leaning ones (Liberal Democrats, Labour, Green, Scottish Nationalist Party, and Plaid Cymru). At the same time, despite a temporary bump in 2020–21 linked to unwillingness of some Remainers to keep challenging a fait accompli, the share of hard Eurosceptics continued its slow decline started right after the referendum and reached just 42 per cent at the 2024 general election; this fall was due to a combination of demographic replacement and relative mobilization. While the two polarized camps forged in 2016 maintained their cohesiveness and refused to give in on the membership question, however, underlying broader attitudes toward European integration experienced a profound transformation, shifting from hostile to favourable and warming up across the entire spectrum of opinions.

Hard Euroscepticism and political (in)stability

  • 33 Keith M. Dowding and Richard Kimber, ‘The meaning and use of ‘political stability’, European Journa (...)
  • 34 For an application of the concept to party system change and electoral volatility see Peter Mair, P (...)

20Did the partial decline of hard Euroscepticism since 2019 make the British political system more or less stable? It is difficult to give a clear answer to this question, for two reasons. On the one hand, political stability is a polysemic term referring to a variety of distinct phenomena, such as the absence of violence, governmental longevity, regime persistence, and the regularity of actors’ behaviour.33 This, in turn, can be applied to different dimensions of the overall political system, such as the regime type, its specific norms, public policies, elite behaviour, and mass behaviour.34 Thus, any variable will inevitably produce stability in certain areas and instability in other ones. On the other hand, political outcomes are always the result of an intricate interplay of multiple causal factors, structural invariants, and chance, in which the specific contribution of a single variable is hard to disentangle and conclusively substantiate. For our purposes, a tentative assessment can be however sketched by comparing the pre-Brexit (1997 to 2019 general elections) and post-Brexit (2024 general election) periods and focusing on four aspects: voting patterns, government longevity, European policy, and elite dissensus.

  • 35 However, they remained quite willing to switch back to UKIP or the Brexit Party at appropriate junc (...)
  • 36 On the other side of the Brexit divide, similarly, the growing partisan fragmentation of left-leani (...)

21At the electoral level, rising Euroscepticism initially contributed to the increased volatility and fragmentation of electoral results, fuelling the rise of single-issue parties and encouraging party switching between other parties. After the Brexit referendum, however, its effects were reversed, as Leavers flocked en masse to the Conservative party in the 2017 and 2019 general elections.35 In the 2024 general election, finally, the previous tendency toward volatility and fragmentation largely reasserted itself. Thus, the impact of Euroscepticism varied depending on the context and party reactions; in the post-Brexit period, its decline was accompanied a growth of Reform UK among disappointed right-wing voters. The trend has since continued, with Reform UK growing from 2 per cent (2019 general election) through 14 per cent (2024 general election) to around 30 per cent (May 2025 opinion polls).36

  • 37 Matt Beech and Simon Lee (eds.), Conservative governments in the age of Brexit (Cham, Palgrave Macm (...)

22At the governmental level, the electoral polarization over Brexit was a central factor behind the instability of the post-referendum Conservative governments, leading to the early demise of the Cameron II (July 2016), May I (June 2017), and May II (July 2019) ministries.37 Despite the decline of the salience of the European issue and a large Conservative parliamentary majority, however, governmental stability did not reassert itself in the post-Brexit legislature, which saw the succession of three separate ministries (Johnson II until September 2022, Truss until October 2022, and Sunak until July 2024) and frequent reshuffles. These developments were caused by factors not connected with Euroscepticism (political scandals and policy errors).

  • 38 Federico Fabbrini (ed.), The law and politics of Brexit, volume II: The Withdrawal Agreement (Oxfor (...)
  • 39 Stefano Fella et al., ‘UK-EU Summit’ (Briefing Paper No CDP-0108), House of Commons Library, 20 May (...)

23At the policy level, the pre-Brexit rise of opposition to EU membership increasingly constrained the room for manoeuvre of British politicians in European affairs, ultimately succeeding in pushing the country out of the EU and to a fairly distant relationship with the bloc.38 Its post-Brexit decline, on the other hand, failed to produce any major relaxation of the isolationist line carried out by successive Conservative governments, opening up a growing gap between a Eurosceptic parliament and a Europhile silent majority of voters, which mirrored and reversed the pre-2016 situation. After the 2024 general election, this has encouraged diplomatic initiatives toward selective re-integration (Keir Starmer’s ongoing “reset”), which however remain cautious and of uncertain magnitude.39 Crucially, such steps risk disappointing the expectations of Rejoiners while reigniting the hostility of their opponents.

  • 40 For an in-depth discussion see Stefan Telle and Paolo Chiocchetti, ‘The United Kingdom and dissensu (...)

24At the elite level, the growth and radicalisation of Leavers up to 2019 led to a “destructive dissensus” among political elites over both Europe and the core principles of British liberal democracy. 40This subsided after 2019, as most political actors accepted the broad outlines of the Brexit settlement and many elements of the traditional, majoritarian British conception of democracy were reasserted. The decline of anti-EU sentiment accompanied this process, but did not necessarily promote it.

25On balance, the post-Brexit decline of hard Euroscepticism had contradictory effects, clearly favouring electoral instability, accompanying (but not necessarily promoting) elite consensus, and not significantly affecting the governmental and policy domains. Its continued relevance, however, sustains the ongoing ascent of Reform UK, whose potential victory might indeed lead to radical changes after the next general election.

Conclusion

26In this article, I have shown that Eurosceptic voters emerged from Brexit victorious, weakened, but resilient. On the one hand, opponents of EU membership managed to secure a large parliamentary majority for Johnson’s Conservative party at the general election of 12 December 2019, saw their dreams fulfilled with the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union on 30 January 2020, and convinced Starmer’s Labour party to accept the status quo and “make Brexit work”. On the other hand, they remained a minority of the British electorate, continued to decline among opinion poll respondents, and sparked a profound pro-European reorientation of broader attitudes toward European integration. Outright opposition to EU membership (hard Euroscepticism) remained cohesive and highly polarized along party lines but suffered the blows of demographic replacement and relative mobilization, with young voters, new citizens, and previously apathetic voters rallying to the cause of rejoining the EU and disappointed Leavers leaving the battle through death or non-responses; it thereby declined from 48 per cent in December 2019 to 42 per cent in July 2024. Broader hostility to European integration experienced a much sharper fall, from 55 per cent in December 2019 to 45 percent in July 2024. In retrospect, the 2016 referendum represented the crest and turn of a Eurosceptic tide which had been growing since the early 1990s, not the harbinger of a permanent sovereigntist majority. The backlash against the outcome of the referendum immediately overturned the lead of Leavers in opinion polls and – despite a short-lived recovery in 2020–21 – continued to eat away their share during the latest parliamentary term. The process, highlighting the problems, costs, and failures of Brexit, gradually turned the British public from moderately Eurosceptic to moderately Europhile.

27Is the electoral decline of hard Euroscepticism destined to continue? Since July 2024, its decline seems to have stopped. While the current direction of demographic replacement throws bleak long-term shades on its future, the slow adaptation of voters to the new post-Brexit realities might still end up counteracting this shift, and the outcome of diplomatic negotiations, the relative performance of the British and European economies, and the agency of party leaders, the media, and civil society groups will also play a role.

28With regard to political stability, the effects of mass Euroscepticism are contradictory and highly contextual. At the same time, the persistence of the Brexit divide continues to structure British political competition and nourish the support for right-wing Eurosceptic parties, with potentially explosive future consequences for the Conservative party and for the country as a whole.

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Fella, Stefano et al., ‘UK-EU Summit’ (Briefing Paper No CDP-0108), House of Commons Library, 20 May 2025, https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CDP-2025-0108/CDP-2025-0108.pdf.

Fieldhouse, Edward et al.Electoral shocks: The volatile voter in a turbulent world (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2021).

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Ford, Robert, Bale, Tim, Jennings, Will and Surridge, Paula, The British general election of 2019 (Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).

Ford, Robert and Goodwin, Matthew, Revolt on the right: Explaining support for the radical right in Britain (Abingdon, Routledge, 2014).

Forster, Anthony, Euroscepticism in contemporary British politics: opposition to Europe in the Conservative and Labour parties since 1945 (Abingdon, Routledge, 2003).

Frese, Joris, Härkönen, Juho and Hix, Simon, ‘Brextinction? How cohort replacement has transformed support for Brexit’, European journal of political research 64.3 (2024), pp. 1519-1532.

Gallup, George H. (ed.), The Gallup international public opinion polls: Great Britain 1937–1975: Vol. 1 & 2 (New York, Random House, 1976).

George, Stephen, An awkward partner: Britain in the European Community (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990).

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Gowland, David, Britain and the European Union (Abingdon, Routledge, 2022).

Griffiths, James David et al., ‘The Brexit realignment amid electoral volatility: The role of party blocs in the 2024 General Election’, Parliamentary Affairs (2025), advance online publication, https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsaf016.

Guinaudeau, Isabelle and Schnatterer, Tinette, ‘Measuring public support for European integration across time and countries: The “European mood” indicator’, British Journal of Political Science 49.3 (2019): 1187-1197.

Hobolt, Sara B., ‘The Brexit vote: A divided nation, a divided continent’, Journal of European Public Policy 23.9 (2016), pp. 1259-77.

Hobolt, Sara B. and De Vries, Catherine E., ‘Public support for European integration’, Annual Review of Political Science 19.1 (2016), pp. 413-432.

Hobolt, Sara B., Leeper, Thomas J. and Tilley, James, ‘Divided by the vote: Affective polarization in the wake of the Brexit referendum’, British Journal of Political Science 51.4 (2021), pp. 1476-1493.

Ipsos, European Union membership – trends, 15 June 2016, https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/european-union-membership-trends.

Kenny, John, ‘The formation of British attitudes towards the Common Market: 1957-72’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 61.2 (2023), pp. 434-450.

Laffan, Brigid and Telle, Stefan, The EU's response to Brexit: United and effective (Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).

Łazowski, Adam and Cygan, Adam (eds.), Research handbook on legal aspects of Brexit (Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 2022).

Leruth, Benjamin, Startin, Nicholas and Usherwood, Simon (eds.), The Routledge handbook of Euroscepticism (Abingdon, Routledge, 2018).

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Malloy, Brandon, Ozkok, Zeynep, and Rosborough, Jonathan, ‘Is Brexit an outlier? Euroscepticism and public support for European integration’, European Politics and Society 25.2 (2024), pp. 286-309.

Marks, Gary, Wilson, Carole J. and Ray, Leonard, ‘National political parties and European integration’, American Journal of Political Science (2002), pp. 585-594.

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Notes

1 Harold D. Clarke, Matthew J. Goodwin, and Paul Whiteley, Brexit (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017); Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin, Revolt on the right: Explaining support for the radical right in Britain (Abingdon, Routledge, 2014); Karine Tournier-Sol and Chris Gifford (eds.), The UK challenge to Europeanization: the persistence of British Euroscepticism (Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); Maria Sobolewska and Robert Ford, Brexitland (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020).

2 Luca Augé, ‘Johnson and ‘Let’s keep Brexit done’: the instrumental use of the UK’s policy on Europe in Conservative Party management’, Observatoire de la société britannique 31 (2024): 55-79; Federico Fabbrini (ed.) The law and politics of Brexit, volume II: The Withdrawal Agreement (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020); Adam Fagan and Stijn Van Kessel, The failure of remain: Anti-Brexit activism in the United Kingdom (Montreal, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2023); Robert Ford, Tim Bale, Will Jennings, and Paula Surridge, The British general election of 2019 (Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021); Brigid Laffan and Stefan Telle, The EU's response to Brexit: United and effective (Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023); Meg Russell and Lisa James, The parliamentary battle over Brexit (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2023); Paul Whiteley, Harold D. Clarke, Matthew Goodwin, and Marianne C. Stewart, Brexit Britain: The consequences of the vote to leave the European Union (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023).

3 David Cutts et al., ‘Brexit, the 2019 general election and the realignment of British politics’, The Political Quarterly 91.1 (2020), pp. 7-23; Edward Fieldhouse et al.Electoral shocks: The volatile voter in a turbulent world (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2021); Sara B. Hobolt, Thomas J. Leeper, and James Tilley, ‘Divided by the vote: Affective polarization in the wake of the Brexit referendum’, British Journal of Political Science 51.4 (2021), pp. 1476-1493; Bryan Schonfeld and Sam Winter-Levy, ‘Policy or partisanship in the United Kingdom? Quasi-experimental evidence from Brexit’, The Journal of Politics 83.4 (2021), pp. 1450-1461.

4 Patrick Diamond and Jeremy Richardson (eds.), ‘British policy-making after Brexit’, Special issue of Journal of European Public Policy 30.11 (2023); Federico Fabbrini (ed.), The law and politics of Brexit, volume V: The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2024); Adam Łazowski and Adam Cygan (eds.), Research handbook on legal aspects of Brexit (Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 2022).

5 Christopher Prosser ‘Fragmentation revisited: the UK General Election of 2024’, West European Politics (2024), pp. 1-13.

6 Ben Clements, ‘European integration’, in British public opinion on foreign and defence policy: 1945-2017 (Abingdon, Routledge, 2018); Catherine E. De Vries, Euroscepticism and the future of European integration (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018); Sara B. Hobolt and Catherine E. De Vries, ‘Public support for European integration’, Annual Review of Political Science 19.1 (2016): pp. 413-432; Stuart Smedley, British public opinion and party policy towards European integration, 1973–2016 (Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2025).

7 Sara B. Hobolt and Catherine E. De Vries, ‘Public support for European integration’, Annual Review of Political Science 19.1 (2016), pp. 413-432.

8 Some respondents may view membership as abstractly good but nevertheless undesirable or as abstractly bad but without alternative; moreover, a neutral option is allowed. In practice, the question tends to strongly underestimate hard Euroscepticism. For instance, considering only Great Britain (without Northern Ireland) and excluding neutral and invalid responses, Leavers were 47.2 per cent of the BESIP sample (December 2016) – lower than but close to the actual referendum results in June – but respondents considering membership ‘a bad thing’ were only 38.6 per cent of the Eurobarometer sample (October 2016). See European Commission, Eurobarometer 86.1, September-October 2016, https://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.13542; Edward Fieldhouse et al., British Election Study Internet Panel waves 1-29, 2024, https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/;.

9 Christopher J. Anderson and Jason D. Hecht, ‘The preference for Europe: Public opinion about European integration since 1952’, European Union Politics 19.4 (2018), pp. 617-638; Isabelle Guinaudeau and Tinette Schnatterer, ‘Measuring public support for European integration across time and countries: The “European mood” indicator’, British Journal of Political Science 49.3 (2019), pp. 1187-1197; Michele Scotto di Vettimo, ‘Measuring public support for European integration using a Bayesian item response theory model’, European Union Politics 23.2 (2022), pp. 171-191.

10 Sara B. Hobolt, ‘The Brexit vote: A divided nation, a divided continent’, Journal of European Public Policy 23.9 (2016), pp. 1259-77; John Kenny, ‘The formation of British attitudes towards the Common Market: 1957-72’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 61.2 (2023), pp. 434-450; Brandon Malloy, Zeynep Ozkok and Jonathan Rosborough, ‘Is Brexit an outlier? Euroscepticism and public support for European integration’, European Politics and Society 25.2 (2024), pp. 286-309; Stuart Smedley, British public opinion and party policy towards European integration, 1973–2016 (Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2025).

11 Aleks Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart, ‘Introduction: Researching Euroscepticism in European party systems: A comparative and theoretical research agenda’, in id. (eds.), Opposing Europe?: The comparative party politics of Euroscepticism, volume 2: Comparative and theoretical perspectives (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 1–27; see also Benjamin Leruth, Nicholas Startin and Simon Usherwood (eds.), The Routledge handbook of Euroscepticism (Abingdon, Routledge, 2018).

12 Edward Fieldhouse et al., British Election Study Internet Panel waves 1-29, 2024, https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/; George H. Gallup (ed.), The Gallup international public opinion polls: Great Britain 1937–1975: Vol. 1 & 2 (New York, Random House, 1976); Ipsos, European Union membership – trends, 15 June 2016, https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/european-union-membership-trends; Richard L. Merritt and Donald J. Puchala, Western European perspectives on international affairs: public opinion studies and evaluations (New York, Praeger, 1968), pp. 281-318.

13 This criterion led to the notable exclusions of surveys by the National Opinion Poll company (1965–1973), which cover a period similar to but shorter than those of Gallup, and by a large variety of pollsters after 2015, which can be found on the website of What UK Thinks: EU (https://www.whatukthinks.org/eu/). The trends and levels of both, however, are quite similar to the results used here.

14 The exact questions asked were the following: “Are you in general for or against making efforts toward uniting Western Europe, including Great Britain?” (USIA 1955-62), “If the British government were to decide that Britain’s interest would best be served by joining the European Common Market, would you approve or disapprove?” (GALLUP 1961-67), “If an opportunity occurs for Britain to apply to join the Common Market would you like to see us try or drop the idea altogether?” (GALLUP 1968-69), “On the facts as you know them at present, are you for or against Britain joining the Common Market?” (GALLUP 1971-1972), “If you could vote tomorrow on whether we should stay in the Common Market or leave it, how would you vote or wouldn't you vote at all?” (GALLUP 1974-75), “If the question in the referendum were: ‘Do you think that the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?’ how would you vote?” (GALLUP 1975), “If there were a referendum now on whether Britain should stay in or get out of the European Union, how would you vote?” (IPSOS 1977-2012), “If there was a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, how do you think you would vote?” (BESIP 2014-16), “If you do vote in the referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, how do you think you will vote?” (BESIP 2016), “Which way did you vote in the EU referendum?” (BESIP 2016), and “If there was/were another referendum on EU membership, how do you think you would vote?” (BESIP 2016-24).

15 Edward Fieldhouse et al., British Election Study Internet Panel waves 1-29, 2024, https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/.

16 However, the survey does not include Northern Irish respondents and is still liable to small levels of statistical error and systematic bias.

17 Paolo Chiocchetti, ‘A quantitative analysis of legal integration and differentiation in the European Union, 1958–2020’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 61.5 (2023), pp. 1337-1359; David Gowland, Britain and the European Union (Abingdon, Routledge, 2022).

18 Stephen George, An awkward partner: Britain in the European Community (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990); Stephen George, ‘Britain: Anatomy of a Eurosceptic state’, Journal of European Integration 22.1 (2000), pp. 15-33.

19 Anthony Forster, Euroscepticism in contemporary British politics: opposition to Europe in the Conservative and Labour parties since 1945 (Abingdon, Routledge, 2003).

20 Gary Marks, Carole J. Wilson and Leonard Ray, ‘National political parties and European integration’, American Journal of Political Science (2002), pp. 585-594.

21 Ben Clements, ‘European Integration’, in British Public Opinion on Foreign and Defence Policy: 1945-2017 (Abingdon, Routledge, 2018).

22 Harold D. Clarke, Matthew J. Goodwin and Paul Whiteley, Brexit (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017); Robert Saunders, Yes to Europe!: The 1975 Referendum and Seventies Britain (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018).

23 The exact question is “as far as you're concerned, what is the SINGLE MOST important issue facing the country at the present time?”; answers are aggregated in up to 13 categories through manual (waves 1–25) or AI-based (waves 26–29) coding.

24 A clear indication of this is the level of polarization of responses to the “most important issue” question according to Brexit intentions: the economy is a priority for 48 per cent of Rejoiners but only for 27 per cent of Leavers; immigration is the primary concern for Leavers (42 per cent) but a minor one for Rejoiners (5 per cent).

25 What UK Thinks: EU, Should the United Kingdom join the European Union or stay out of the European Union?, 15 January 2025, https://www.whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/should-the-united-kingdom-join-the-european-union-or-stay-out-of-the-european-union/.

26 Ben Clements, ‘European integration’, in British public opinion on foreign and defence policy: 1945-2017 (Abingdon, Routledge, 2018).

27 What UK Thinks: EU, Should the United Kingdom join the European Union or stay out of the European Union?, 15 January 2025, https://www.whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/should-the-united-kingdom-join-the-european-union-or-stay-out-of-the-european-union/. See also Dylan Difford, ‘How do Britons feel about Brexit five years on?’, 29 January 2025, https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51484-how-do-britons-feel-about-brexit-five-years-on.

28 What UK Thinks: EU, If the UK had to adopt the euro how do you think you would vote if there was a referendum on EU membership tomorrow? Stay out of/rejoin the EU, 15 January 2025, https://www.whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/if-the-uk-had-to-adopt-the-euro-how-do-you-think-you-would-vote-if-there-was-a-referendum-on-eu-membership-tomorrow-stay-out-of-rejoin-the-eu/; What UK Thinks: EU, Should Britain rejoin the EU, remain outside but negotiate a closer relationship, remain outside with the same relationship as now, or remain outside and negotiate a more distant relationship?, 15 January 2025, https://www.whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/should-britain-rejoin-the-eu-remain-outside-but-negotiate-a-closer-relationship-remain-outside-with-the-same-relationship-as-now-or-remain-outside-and-negotiate-a-more-distant-relationship/.

29 Joris Frese, Juho Härkönen and Simon Hix, ‘Brextinction? How cohort replacement has transformed support for Brexit’, European journal of political research 64.3 (2024), pp. 1519-1532.

30 Pauline Schnapper, ‘Le pouvoir des idées: discours travaillistes sur le Brexit, 2021-2023’, Observatoire de la société britannique 31 (2024): 81-93; Aluce Tihelková, ‘Luring back the Red Wall: Examining Keir Starmer’s discourse strategies to regain Labourʼs heartlands after 2019’, Hradec Králové Journal of Anglophone Studies (2023), pp. 136–144.

31 Mata Miori and Jane Green, ‘The most disproportionate UK election: How the Labour Party doubled its seat share with a 1.6‐point increase in vote share in 2024’, The Political Quarterly 96.1 (2025), pp. 37-64.

32 See also James David Griffiths et al., ‘The Brexit realignment amid electoral volatility: The role of party blocs in the 2024 General Election’, Parliamentary Affairs (2025), advance online publication, https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsaf016; Christopher Prosser, ‘Fragmentation revisited: the UK General Election of 2024’, West European Politics (2024), pp. 1-13.

33 Keith M. Dowding and Richard Kimber, ‘The meaning and use of ‘political stability’, European Journal of Political Research 11.3 (1983), pp. 229-243.

34 For an application of the concept to party system change and electoral volatility see Peter Mair, Party system change (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997).

35 However, they remained quite willing to switch back to UKIP or the Brexit Party at appropriate junctures, for instance during the first half of 2019 (voting intentions and European elections).

36 On the other side of the Brexit divide, similarly, the growing partisan fragmentation of left-leaning voters was briefly checked in 2017 but resumed afterwards, with Europhile minor parties (LibDem, Green, SNP, PC) growing from 19 per cent (2019 general election) through 22 per cent (2024 general election) to around 26 per cent (May 2025 opinion polls). See Paolo Chiocchetti, ‘The divided left in the UK: Partisanship, ideology and class after Brexit’, in Gesa Stedman and Jana Gohrisch (eds.), Affective polarisation: social inequality in the UK after austerity, Brexit and COVID-19 (Bristol, Bristol University Press, 2023), pp. 11-32; Wikipedia, ‘Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election’, 4 June 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election.

37 Matt Beech and Simon Lee (eds.), Conservative governments in the age of Brexit (Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).

38 Federico Fabbrini (ed.), The law and politics of Brexit, volume II: The Withdrawal Agreement (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020); Federico Fabbrini (ed.), The law and politics of Brexit, volume V: The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2024); Brigid Laffan and Stefan Telle, The EU's response to Brexit: United and effective (Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).

39 Stefano Fella et al., ‘UK-EU Summit’ (Briefing Paper No CDP-0108), House of Commons Library, 20 May 2025, https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CDP-2025-0108/CDP-2025-0108.pdf.

40 For an in-depth discussion see Stefan Telle and Paolo Chiocchetti, ‘The United Kingdom and dissensus over liberal democracy in Europe’, in Ramona Coman, Claudia Bădulescu, Thomas Christiansen, and Marta Simoncini (eds.), The Palgrave handbook of dissensus over liberal democracy in Europe (Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, forth.).

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List of illustrations

Title Figure 1. Opponents of EU membership, 1955-2024
Credits Source: own elaboration from Fieldhouse et al. (2024), Gallup (1976), Ipsos (2016), and Merritt & Puchala (1968).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/docannexe/image/14647/img-1.png
File image/png, 43k
Title Figure 2. Most important issue for voters, 2014–24
Credits Source: own elaboration from Fieldhouse et al. (2024).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/docannexe/image/14647/img-2.png
File image/png, 51k
Title Figure 3. Eurosceptic voters, 2014-27
Credits Source: own elaboration from Fieldhouse et al. (2024).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/docannexe/image/14647/img-3.png
File image/png, 52k
Title Figure 4. Flows in Brexit intentions, 2019–24
Credits Source: own elaboration from Fieldhouse et al. (2024).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/docannexe/image/14647/img-4.png
File image/png, 12k
Title Figure 5. Hard Eurosceptics by voting intention, 2014–24
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/docannexe/image/14647/img-5.png
File image/png, 70k
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References

Electronic reference

Paolo Chiocchetti, “British Eurosceptic voters before and after Brexit”Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique [Online], XXX-3 | 2025, Online since 15 September 2025, connection on 15 December 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/14647; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/14qkm

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About the author

Paolo Chiocchetti

Paolo Chiocchetti is Lecturer and Researcher in British Politics at the Centre for British Studies of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His research focuses on British public opinion, European integration, and Western European radical left parties. He is the author of the monograph The radical left party family in Western Europe, 1989–2015 (Routledge, 2017), the edited book Competitiveness and solidarity in the European Union: interdisciplinary perspectives (Routledge, 2019), the special issue External differentiation: a new trajectory after Brexit and Ukraine? (West European Politics, 2025), and many peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.

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Copyright

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The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) may be subject to specific use terms.

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