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On 23 June 2016, UK voters cast their ballots in a referendum that will live forever in European history books.
51.9% of voters decided to leave the EU, while 48.1% favoured remaining.
The outcome was followed by the resignation of the then UK Prime Minister, David Cameron and a long-lasting period of negotiations that culminated on 31 January 2020 when the UK officially left the EU.
That election day a decade ago held different meanings for different people.
For some, like Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer from the popular podcast, The Europeans, it was an inspiration to start talking more about the EU; for others, like corporate lobbyist Connor Allen, it marked the beginning of a political transition.
Europe after Brexit
Lee and Kraemer, two British friends living outside the UK, started their podcast, The Europeans, some months after Brexit.
“One of the things that hit both of us quite strongly was how the European Union and Europe more broadly were talked about in our domestic British media in the run-up to the referendum,” Lee said.
Lee and Kraemer understood that the EU, with its complicated structure, might appear very inaccessible and started their podcast to raise awareness about what goes on in the European institutions and around the continent.
After almost ten years of podcasting on the EU, Lee argues that Brussels has grown stronger since Brexit: “A lot of people across the rest of the European Union have looked at Brexit and thought, oh, I didn’t know if that looks so good. I don’t think I want to do that,” she told Euronews.
Both Lee and Kraemer believe the EU is far from perfect; however, they also consider it a ‘source of tranquillity’ in the unpredictable political times the world is facing.
“We started this podcast hoping to be able to come up with a definition of what it meant to be European. And I still feel like researching,” Kraemer said. “And maybe that in itself gives me the answer that Europe is so many different things, it’s this tapestry of different cultures, different backgrounds, different opinions,” he added.
The UK after Brexit
Not everyone is as upbeat about the European Union.
Allen, for instance, voted Remain but does not have the same faith in the EU today. “[The UK] is not in a better place because it left [the EU], and it’s not in a worse place because it left,” he said.
According to him, the EU has changed a lot since 2016. “I was in the Remain campaign, we believed that the EU was a bastion of rights and democracy and liberty, whereas now we have political parties being banned all across the member states,” he added.
Euronews’ reporter Shona Murray understands the disillusionment about the EU, but does not believe that Brexit was a good idea for the UK, a position shared by many experts.
“It’s not fair to say that the UK hasn’t had an impact from Brexit. We know that there has been an impact on investment, unemployment, and prospects,” she said.
Shona Murray reported extensively on Brexit across the UK, speaking to British voters, and realised that many of the arguments used by Leave voters in 2016 had little to do with the EU.
“It was a complete and utter rejection of, I suppose, years of maybe neglect in poorer parts of the UK and also just a disillusionment with the government as it had been,” Murray explained.
Looking ahead, in July 2026, the EU and the UK will hold their next summit, which is expected to bring London and Brussels closer together on trade issues.
For more on that, make sure you keep following Brussels, My Love?, and listen to the full episode in the player above or wherever you get your podcast.
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