When Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016, most attention turned to the economic fallout and diplomatic disentangling to come. Less immediately visible-but ultimately more transformative-was the way Brexit redrew the country’s political map and unsettled long‑standing loyalties. Old left-right divides blurred, conventional party strongholds fractured, and questions of nation, culture and belonging surged to the fore.
Nearly a decade on, Brexit is no longer just a constitutional rupture; it is a fault line that runs through everyday political identity. It has reordered how Britons see themselves-Leave or Remain, cosmopolitan or rooted, open or closed-and how they think about portrayal, authority and the future of the Union itself. From the Conservatives’ capture of Labor’s former “Red Wall” to the SNP’s shifting fortunes in Scotland and the rise of new insurgent parties, the legacy of that referendum now shapes every election and debate.
Drawing on research and analysis from the London School of Economics and Political Science,this article explores how Brexit has remade Britain’s political identities: who people think they are,whose side they believe they are on,and why those new allegiances may prove far harder to unwind than any trade deal or treaty.
Brexit as a new political fault line reshaping left and right in Britain
Once a largely intra-Conservative quarrel, the EU question has become a powerful axis around which the entire party system now turns. Voters who once identified instinctively as Labour or Tory increasingly define themselves as Leave or Remain,with these identities cutting through traditional divides of class,region and income. In working-class towns that backed Leave, Labour MPs found themselves on the opposite side of the referendum to their own constituents; in affluent metropolitan seats, Conservative representatives suddenly looked out of step with pro-Remain professionals. What emerged was a politics of culture and belonging, where attitudes to migration, sovereignty and globalisation began to matter as much as-if not more than-tax rates or welfare spending.
This new alignment has unsettled party strategies and opened up unexpected coalitions. It has produced:
- Culturally conservative Leavers voting Tory for the first time,despite economic left-leaning instincts.
- Socially liberal Remainers drifting from the Conservatives toward Labour, the Liberal Democrats or the Greens.
- Regionally concentrated blocs, with Scotland, London and university towns consolidating as pro-Remain bastions.
| Voter Type | Brexit Identity | Current Party Pull |
|---|---|---|
| Red Wall ex-Labour | Leave | Conservative / Reform UK |
| Urban professionals | Remain | Labour / Lib Dem |
| Young graduates | Strong Remain | Labour / Greens |
How parties rebranded around Leave and Remain and what that means for future elections
As the traditional left-right script frayed, parties scrambled to recast themselves in the stark moral language of the referendum.Conservatives leaned into a Leave-first identity, fusing promises of sovereignty and border control with a looser economic message, while the Liberal Democrats and SNP elevated Remain as a civic creed, foregrounding openness, cosmopolitanism and institutional trust. Labour tried to straddle both camps, but in many Leave-leaning constituencies it was increasingly perceived as culturally Remain, creating space for insurgent forces like the Brexit Party to claim ownership of “the people’s will.” This realignment was visible not just in manifestos but in campaign choreography: slogans, candidate selection and even backdrops were calibrated to signal whether a party spoke for the “Somewheres” or the “Anywheres.”
- Conservatives: Brexit as proof of democratic renewal and restored control.
- Labour: Ambiguous stance, oscillating between respect for the vote and soft-sceptical Remainism.
- Liberal Democrats: Explicitly pro-Remain, framing Brexit as a historic mistake.
- SNP: Pro-Remain, using Brexit to bolster the case for Scottish independence.
| Party | Brexit Signal | Electoral Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Conservatives | Hard Leave | Alienate liberal urban voters |
| Labour | Split Identity | Lose both Leave towns and Remain cities |
| Liberal Democrats | Full Remain | Struggle beyond Remain enclaves |
| SNP | Remain + Indy | Dependence on Brexit grievance |
These new brands will echo through future contests long after the technicalities of withdrawal fade from the headlines. Voters have learned to navigate politics via identity shortcuts – Leave or Remain as a proxy for values on migration, diversity, expert authority and the nation’s place in the world – and parties now mine these cues to build coalitions that cut across class and income. The risk is that elections become referendums by other means, fought less over schools or hospitals than over cultural belonging, locking parties into narrowing subcultures.Yet the same dynamics could also usher in fluid,volatile alignments: as younger,more pro-EU cohorts expand the electorate and new crises displace Brexit,parties may be forced to rebrand again,this time around fresh dividing lines that make today’s Leave-Remain labels look like a first draft of a deeper conversion.
The social divides behind Brexit identities and how to address them in policy and practice
Fault lines that were once muted in British politics-between graduates and non-graduates, metropolitan centres and post-industrial towns, homeowners and renters-have hardened into enduring political identities. Rather than a single economic split, overlapping cultural and social divides now shape how citizens interpret almost every major issue, from climate policy to immigration. In everyday life this plays out in subtle yet corrosive ways: among colleagues, in families, on local Facebook groups where people increasingly curate information that validates their side of the referendum divide. Politicians and media narratives have frequently enough amplified these distinctions, turning disagreement into a story of incompatible lifestyles and values, with the result that people who share the same bus route or GP surgery feel they live in different countries.
Translating these fractures into constructive policy requires more than targeted spending; it calls for institutions and practices that rebuild shared reference points. Policy designers and practitioners can help by prioritising:
- Place-sensitive investment that visibly improves local infrastructure and services, not just headline growth metrics.
- Deliberative forums where citizens from contrasting backgrounds co-create recommendations on contentious issues.
- Everyday contact spaces-from libraries to sports clubs-supported as social, not just cultural, amenities.
- Interaction standards that avoid framing voters as winners and losers of a one-off constitutional moment.
| Policy Area | Main Divide Addressed | Practical Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Local regeneration | Region & class | Town centres, transport, skills |
| Education & training | Graduate vs non-graduate | Adult learning, vocational routes |
| Civic participation | Cultural identity | Citizen assemblies, local media |
Rebuilding a shared civic narrative beyond Brexit through local engagement and institutional reform
Patchwork efforts to reconnect politics with everyday life will not be enough; local institutions need both resources and permission to experiment. Citizens’ assemblies in market towns, school projects on democratic debate, and neighbourhood forums on planning or climate adaptation can become modest but powerful laboratories of trust. These initiatives work best when anchored in tangible issues people can see on their doorstep, from bus routes to flood defences, and when they are backed by visible accountability from councils, MPs and civil servants. The aim is not to erase the passions unleashed by the referendum, but to channel them into shared problem-solving rather than perpetual trench warfare.
- Local deliberation: structured forums where leave and remain voters co-design policy priorities.
- Everyday institutions: schools, libraries, faith groups and unions as hubs of civic dialog.
- New social contracts: clearer responsibilities between central government, devolved bodies and councils.
- Transparent funding: participatory budgeting for local regeneration projects.
| Reform Area | Local Practice | Civic Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Democratic renewal | Citizens’ juries on local services | Shared ownership of decisions |
| Economic voice | Community input into investment deals | Fairer regional priorities |
| Media and information | Support for independent local newsrooms | Richer, less polarised debate |
| Constitutional clarity | Public consultations on devolution | Reduced center-periphery tensions |
These kinds of institutional changes can slowly loosen the grip of purely antagonistic identities by offering new ways of being politically “for” something, rather than simply “against” the other side. A renewed civic culture will not emerge from Westminster choreography alone, but from embedded practices of listening and compromise in parish halls, city chambers and regional assemblies. Over time, such practices can seed a narrative that treats disagreement as a normal feature of a plural society, while insisting on a common stake in how power, voice and possibility are shared across post-Brexit Britain.
Insights and Conclusions
As the dust of the 2016 referendum settles into a more permanent political landscape, what Brexit has left behind is less a single realignment than a new grammar of political identity.Old party loyalties have been frayed by questions of nationhood, cultural belonging and economic risk that cut across class, region and generation.In their place stand coalitions defined as much by values and worldviews as by material interests.
This does not mean that the pre‑Brexit cleavages have disappeared; rather, they have been reordered and reframed. Arguments over Europe have morphed into disputes over borders, sovereignty, and the scope of the state. Conflicts over “Leave” and “Remain” now echo in debates on immigration, climate policy, human rights law and the future of the Union itself. The labels may fade, but the underlying divides they revealed are proving remarkably durable.
Whether these new identities ultimately entrench polarisation or spur a more imaginative political settlement remains an open question. What is clear is that Brexit has forced Britain’s parties, institutions and citizens to renegotiate how they see themselves and one another. Understanding this remaking of political identities is not just a matter of revisiting a past rupture; it is indeed key to making sense of the choices Britain now faces about its democracy, its place in the world, and the stories it tells about who “we” are.
