by Owen Bennet
Just across the River Thames, in Millbank Tower, Leave.EU were hosting a referendum party, and the atmosphere was anything but gloomy. The campaign group’s own poll, which had surveyed 10,000 people, showed Leave would win by 52 per cent to 48 per cent. To keep the hordes of activists, journalists and photographers entertained, Mike, Cheryl, Jay and Bobby – formerly of Bucks Fizz – were booked to play. The ghost of BPop Live lived on.
However, Leave.EU’s poll was hardly mentioned by the media, and at just after 11 p.m., Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers added her voice to those calling it for Remain.
One person not convinced that Remain were on course for victory was Iain Duncan Smith, who was not happy with Farage’s earlier comments: ‘He can’t resist opening his bloody mouth,’ said the former Cabinet minister. Duncan Smith had agreed to appear on the early part of the BBC’s coverage and on the way to the Elstree studio from his constituency in Chingford he had a phone call from a local Tory activist with some interesting news. ‘We’re getting turnouts on these housing estates of 80 per cent, we’ve got queuing,’ Duncan Smith remembers being told.
He and I both know that housing estates don’t vote, well, not much, so if you get turnouts of 30 or 40 per cent that’s quite high. Eighty per cent is unheard of and loads of them are having to be shown what to do because they have never voted before. So it was quite interesting actually, that surge in registration was assumed to be Remainers, I don’t think it was. I think a lot of it was Leavers in housing estates at the last moment realising they could vote.
Once inside the studio, Duncan Smith told Labour’s Deputy Leader Tom Watson – who was also scheduled for some air time – what he had heard: ‘Tom is an old friend and I said, “What do you think, Tom?” He said, “I think the establishment is going to get some big surprises tonight because this turnout is happening all over the northern seats.”’
The first result came in at just after 11.30 p.m., with Gibraltar unsurprisingly backing Remain by an enormous margin – 19,322 to 823. Minutes later, Farage arrived at the Leave.EU party on Millbank along with Michael Heaver and Gawain Towler. As the lift doors opened, a media scrum to end all media scrums descended on the UKIP leader and his entourage. Towler said:
Leave.EU in their brilliant media management had allowed what was the fucking wall of Jericho. Someone had been an incompetent fuck and allowed this madness to set in. We came out of the lift and there was this wall. I went out and went, ‘Right, ladies and gentlemen, we need a space.’ It was madness, he came in and it was the worst media scrum I’d ever been in. He enjoys that sort of thing but basically Arron had invited the world’s press and so they all turned up. There must have been thirty TV crews and snappers and others. I’d already pushed a cameraman into a cake. It was absolutely bonkers.
Farage agreed, claiming it was ‘insane, dangerous – actually dangerous’.
Once the media pack had been fought back slightly, Farage gave a speech in which he claimed: ‘The Eurosceptic genie is out of the bottle, and it will now not be put back.’ As he went off to get a drink in the VIP room, Carswell started talking about the Breaking Point poster on the BBC. ‘I think it was fundamentally the wrong thing to do, and let me say why. I think it was morally the wrong thing to do,’ he said, then adding: ‘Angry nativism doesn’t win elections in this country.’
At just after midnight, the Newcastle result was declared. This was predicted as an easy win for Remain. Duncan Smith, who by now was waiting at the back of the Elstree studio to go on Radio 4, barely looked up at the TV screen as the result was announced: 65,405 votes for Remain, 63,598 for Leave.
I was looking at this and I couldn’t quite see the picture and then I suddenly saw the picture and it said ‘margin 0.7 per cent’. I went, ‘What! 0.7 per cent!’ and I whipped the headphones off because I saw Jeremy Vine just walking into a studio to talk about it and I opened the door where they were all discussing stuff and I said: ‘I’m going to stop you for a second, have you seen the Newcastle result?’ He said: ‘Yes.’ I said: ‘You know what that means, don’t you?’ He said: ‘We were forecasting 10, 15 per cent or even more.’ I said: ‘0.7 per cent means they are going to lose this referendum.’ I said: ‘Watch Sunderland.’
The Sunderland result was due shortly afterwards, and although this had been factored in as a victory for Leave, the scale of the win would give a serious indication of whether Brexit was truly on the cards. At just after 12.15 a.m., the Sunderland result was announced: 51,930 (39 per cent) for Remain; 82,394 (61 per cent) for Leave. Watching in his home in Essex, John Whittingdale started to believe Brexit was happening. ‘Sunderland will go down in the history books,’ he said. ‘When Sunderland came in, you thought “Christ, it really is true – the Labour areas are turning out for Leave.”’ Brendan Chilton, who was at the Leave.EU party, was also clocking on to the fact that Labour areas were turning out for Leave:
Newcastle came through and we were expecting Newcastle, because it’s the wealthiest part of the north-east, to be substantially ahead. I looked round and thought, ‘We’ve done it.’ Then Sunderland came through and my initial reaction was joy and jubilation, but then I thought, ‘Gosh, what does this mean for Labour?’
In Vote Leave HQ, there was an almighty roar when the result came through. ‘You could have heard the cheers in Sunderland,’ said Daniel Hannan. Cummings poked his head out of his office in disbelief before going back in to double check his numbers were accurate, while, in Elstree, Carswell got his piece of paper out of his pocket to check the results against what was needed for 50/50. ‘My piece of paper said for us to win 50/50 nationally we had to be at least 53/54 per cent for Sunderland, and it came in at 61 per cent.’
Carswell turned to Amber Rudd, who was on the panel giving the Remain point of view, and said: ‘I think we might just bloody do it.’
As the results flowed in, it seemed Leave was doing better than expected virtually everywhere. Hartlepool, Kettering, Stockton-on-Tees, Merthyr Tydfil, Middlesbrough, Brentwood and Coventry all backed Brexit. At just before 3.30 a.m., it was declared that Sheffield – a city predicted to back Remain, and home to arch-Europhile Nick Clegg – had voted for Brexit. At 4 a.m., with 230 out of 382 declarations in, Leave were ahead by 51.3 per cent to 48.7 per cent. The Leave.EU party, which had moved down to the ground floor of Millbank Tower, was rocking, and Farage – who at the beginning of the evening was convinced his side had lost – decided now was the time to give the speech he had been waiting his whole political life to deliver. After receiving a few hugs and shedding a tear (‘It was just so overwhelming,’ he said), he addressed the room with TV cameras watching on: ‘Ladies and gentleman, dare to dream that the dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom.’ A huge cheer went up and, standing behind Farage, Michael Heaver punched the air as if his beloved Chelsea had just won the Champions League. Farage went on:
If the predictions now are right, this will be a victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people. We have fought against the multinationals, we have fought against the big merchant banks, we fought against big politics, we fought against lies, corruption and deceit, and today, honesty, decency and belief in nation I think now is going to win. We will have done it without having to fight, without a single bullet being fired. We’d have done it by damn hard work on the ground by people like my friend Mr Banks here.
Farage went on, but almost immediately one phrase in his speech was picked up by those watching: ‘without a single bullet being fired’. It was just over a week since Jo Cox had been shot and stabbed to death.
‘I realised as soon as I said it,’ remembers Farage.
If you speak without notes and on an impromptu basis you will sometimes say things in a way you didn’t mean, as I found many times over the years. What I should have said was ‘without donning khaki’. Channel 4 News picked me up on it and I said: ‘Right, I apologise.’ I was thinking about Ireland and the Royal Navy shelling Dubli
n.
Farage, Towler, Banks, Heaver and a few others left Millbank Tower to carry on drinking at Chris Bruni-Lowe’s flat, some having to settle for drinking wine out of milk jugs as there weren’t enough glasses to go round.
Over at Vote Leave, the big roar was saved for the Birmingham result. At just after 4.30 a.m., it was announced that the UK’s second city had voted Leave by 50.5 per cent to 49.5 per cent. A jubilant Daniel Hannan jumped onto a table and began reciting the speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V which the title character delivers before the Battle of Agincourt. ‘Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot / But he’ll remember with advantages / What feats he did that day: then shall our names / Familiar in his mouth as household words…’ Hannan swapped out the names of Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, and replaced them with Vote Leave activists before concluding, ‘… Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d. This story shall the good man teach his son.’ Dominic Cummings also jumped up on a table, but instead of reciting Shakespeare he proclaimed: ‘We did it! We fucking did it!’ before punching the ceiling and causing plaster to fall down on the happy people below.
At 4.40 a.m., the BBC referendum coverage host David Dimbleby stared down the camera and made it almost official: ‘The decision taken in 1975 by this country to join the Common Market has been reversed by this referendum to leave the EU,’ he said. Bernard Jenkin, who had gone back home but returned to Vote Leave HQ to watch the final results come in, found himself being hugged by Iain Duncan Smith. ‘Do you realise it’s been twenty-five years, Bernard?’ said one Maastricht rebel to the other. ‘It’s over! It’s over now!’ replied Jenkin.
Michael Gove, who had gone to bed at 10.30 p.m., was woken by a phone call from a close aide at 4.45 a.m. ‘I don’t know if you’ve seen the news, but it’s good news – we’ve won,’ Gove was told. ‘Really?’ he replied. ‘I suppose I had better get up.’
Also getting a phone call at the same time was Kate Hoey. The Labour MP had nipped back to a hotel room near Leave.EU’s party to get some rest when the result came through. Amid his celebrations at the bottom of Millbank Tower, Brendan Chilton realised his friend was nowhere to be seen. Chilton called her and said: ‘I hope you’re sitting down, love, because Britain’s just voted to leave the European Union.’
While the other Vote Leave supporters were celebrating in London, Gisela Stuart and Matthew Elliott were in Manchester. The Electoral Commission had chosen the city as the place where they would make the official announcement, and the pair had been despatched to represent Vote Leave. The Electoral Commission were not going to announce the final result until every vote had been counted, but the Vote Leave duo had a 7 a.m. train to catch back down to London. It was decided to give the victory speech at 5.35 a.m., and Stuart stepped up to the podium. After describing the result as ‘democracy at work’ and calling for a cross-party approach to negotiating Brexit, she slipped into her mother tongue of German to proclaim Britain an open and welcoming society ‘which will continue to be cooperating with European countries on an international level’.
By 7 a.m., all 382 counts had declared. Leave had secured 17,410,742 votes to Remain’s 16,141,241. On a 72.2 per cent turnout, 51.9 per cent of those who voted had gone for Leave; 48.1 per cent had backed Remain.
As the dawn broke on 24 June 2016, the world’s media descended on College Green opposite the Houses of Parliament. News crews from across the globe were present, and milling around were numerous politicians and activists. David Davis, Iain Duncan Smith, Hilary Benn, Peter Mandelson, Douglas Carswell and many more were all drawn to the patch of grass to give their views on the historic vote. The author also travelled down and, squatting on the floor at the front of a media scrum at about 7.15 a.m., watched as Farage delivered another victory speech. The UKIP leader was flanked by Arron Banks, Andy Wigmore, Richard Tice, Michael Heaver and many more as he called for a ‘Brexit government’ to implement the decision. Farage and his cohort then made their way to Bruni-Lowe’s flat and turned on the television to see what would happen next.
Over at Vote Leave, Gove was also watching the television. At 8.18 a.m., he saw David Cameron walk out of the famous black door of 10 Downing Street, holding the hand of his wife Samantha, and approach a podium. ‘Good morning, everyone,’ said the Prime Minister. After acknowledging the referendum result, Cameron turned to his own future:
I will do everything I can as Prime Minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months, but I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination. This is not a decision I’ve taken lightly, but I do believe it’s in the national interest to have a period of stability and then the new leadership required. There is no need for a precise timetable today, but in my view we should aim to have a new Prime Minister in place by the start of the Conservative Party conference in October.
With his voice cracking, Cameron ended by saying: ‘I love this country and I feel honoured to have served it and I will do everything I can in future to help this great country succeed. Thank you very much.’
Gasps went up in the Vote Leave office, and the atmosphere was one of shock. Many in the room were Conservative activists who had fought hard just a year before to make sure Cameron stayed in Downing Street. Now, they had helped bring about his departure.
Over at Bruni-Lowe’s house, the UKIP gang also watched in silence. As Cameron walked back into Downing Street, Farage said: ‘Well, I do feel for him a bit, I know what it feels like.’ Banks remembers there was a few seconds more of silence, and then: ‘Everyone just threw stuff at the TV and shouted: “Fuck off!”’
CHAPTER 32
With David Cameron on his way out, it was assumed that Boris Johnson would be his successor in Downing Street. Alas for him, he was unable to convince Michael Gove that he was up to the job and, just hours before Johnson’s campaign launch, the Justice Secretary withdrew his support and announced that he would be standing for the leadership himself. However, many of the Leave-backing MPs in the Conservative Party preferred to support Andrea Leadsom, and it was she who was put forward to challenge Theresa May for the leadership. The Tory Party membership would have the final say on who would be the new Prime Minister, but before campaigning had even begun, Leadsom pulled out following a disastrous interview with The Times in which she claimed that her position as a mother gave her ‘a real stake in the country’s future’ compared to her childless opponent. An unopposed May became Prime Minister on 13 July 2016. In her first Cabinet, Boris Johnson was made Foreign Secretary, David Davis was Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union and Liam Fox was International Trade Secretary. The three high-profile Leave campaigners were jointly tasked with carrying out Brexit. Michael Gove was dismissed to the back benches.
Nigel Farage announced he was standing down as UKIP leader on 4 July, claiming that after twenty-two years in politics: ‘I want my life back.’ He spent much of the summer in the United States and even addressed a Donald Trump rally as part of the business mogul’s campaign to be President.
The Labour Party underwent a collective breakdown, with shadow Cabinet members resigning en masse – partly in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s lacklustre leadership during the referendum, but also as the culmination of a year of unhappiness at the way he was running the party. Corbyn, who refused to stand down, was described by more than one Leave campaigner interviewed for this book as ‘the quiet hero of Brexit’.
As for what Brexit itself actually looks like, at the time of writing, it is not clear. In the two and a half months since the referendum, Theresa May has offered little more than the words she said when she first entered Downing Street as Prime Minister: ‘Brexit means Brexit – and we’re going to make a success of it.’
It will be for future authors to make that judgement.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The EU referendum was the most significant political event in UK political history for more
than forty years. Even before the first vote was cast on 23 June 2016, it was clear the country was deeply divided along economic, cultural and class grounds. As this book shows, the various Brexit camps mirrored this division, with some campaigners determined to focus on existential ideas of sovereignty and democracy, while others believed the only way to win was by highlighting the practical effects of being in the EU: uncontrolled immigration.
I would like to thank all of those from the Brexit campaigns for sharing their reflections with me, especially at a time when many were still trying to digest the result and its implications.