Assessing EU Immigration’s Influence on Britain’s Decision to Withdraw from the European Union In 2016

This thesis examines the influence that immigration, particularly EU immigration played on Britain’s decision to vote leave in the 2016 referendum, and impending withdraw from the European Union. This was done by contextualizing how the United Kingdom adopted a continental immigration policy via the EU, and how this gradually changed in the last 20years. Findings show that EU immigration into the United Kingdom had consistently and exponentially risen during this period, which had left a large segment of the British population feeling like they needed to show their sentiments towards this, and subsequently voting Leave in the referendum.Secondly, this study thoroughly examines how the Brexit campaign, including the methods used by both the Leaveand Remain camps – analyzing the discourse, main points of debate and the critical use of immigration by both sides during the campaign, and how this subsequently shaped the opinion of British voters and the referendum results. Findings show that broadcast media and printmedia specifically had a huge role to play in the referendum and its outcome. Lastly, this study looked at how Brexit has shaped emerging trends in Europe regarding immigration and the rise of far-right politics, and the dangers that this can pose to the future of the Europe Union. It is evident that there has been a notable rise in far-right politics in Europe, whereby, far-right parties use Brexit as an example to follow to ‘reclaim’ their country back from the European Union.