Well You Did Ask: Why the UK Voted to Leave the EU

Description

The UK's vote to leave the European Union shocked the world - not to mention many people in Britain. What it revealed about our country is at least as significant for the future of politics as Brexit itself. Drawing on more than two years of intensive research by Lord Ashcroft Polls, Well, You Did Ask explains how voters came to make the most momentous political decision of our time - how they saw the choice before them, what they made of the campaign, its personalities, claims and counterclaims - and why they ultimately chose to take the UK out of the EU. As the country sets about negotiating a new relationship with Europe, it also offers a colourful and revealing look at what our continental neighbours think about Britain and the British. To think clearly about what the referendum result means, we first need to understand how it came about. The answers are in this book.

Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, author and philanthropist. He is founder and chairman of the board of Crimestoppers, a member of the board of the Imperial War Museum and a trustee of the Imperial War Museum Foundation, chairman of the Trustees of Ashcroft Technology Academy, chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University and treasurer of the International Democrat Union. From 2005 to 2010 he was deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. His political works include Smell the Coffee: A Wake-Up Call for the Conservative Party; Minority Verdict; Project Blueprint; What Future for Labour?; What Are the Liberal Democrats For?; It's Not You, It's Them: Research to Remind Politicians What Matters; Degrees of Separation: Ethnic Minority Voters and the Conservative Party; They're Thinking What We're Thinking: Understanding the UKIP Temptation; Small Island: Public Opinion and the Politics of Immigration; Europe on Trial; Cameron's Caledonian Conundrum; Project Red Dawn: Labour's Revival (And Survival); Pay Me Forty Quid and I'll Tell You: The 2015 Election Campaign through the Eyes of the Voters (with Kevin Culwick); The Unexpected Mandate: The 2015 Election, the Parties, the People - and the Future; and Call Me Dave: The Unauthorised Biography of David Cameron (with Isabel Oakeshott). His research is published at LordAshcroftPolls.com.; Kevin Culwick has been the director of Lord Ashcroft Polls since 2010. He was formerly head of opinion research for the Conservative Party, having previously worked in the polling industry and in politics. He is the co-author of Pay Me Forty Quid and I'll Tell You: The 2015 Election Campaign through the Eyes of the Voters (with Michael Ashcroft).