AP News53%
How Brexit broke British politics 50%
By Jill Lawless0%
6/23/2026, 4:04:06 AM
Keywords: Brexit, British Politics, UK Politics, European Union, Boris Johnson, Keir Starmer, Theresa May, David Cameron, Nigel Farage, Anthony Seldon, Chris Grey, Hannah White, Margaret Macmillan, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Conservatism, Europe, United Kingdom, Immigration, Public Opinion, Divorce, Referendums, Politics, Business, Russia Ukraine War
BS Summary: This article contains 23 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice, Appeal to Emotion, and Framing Effect, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 51.3% saturation with 265 hits. Analysis detected 1,607 faulty-reasoning hits from 517 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 50.2% and a BS Rank of 50% (10,997 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 50.20% of the article peer group.
LONDON (AP) — Brexit fractured the European Union, and broke British politics.
The U.K. is about to get its seventh prime minister since June 23, 2016, a decade ago Tuesday, when the country voted 52%-48% to leave the EU after more than four decades of membership.
Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, who called the referendum but campaigned for the U.K. to stay in the bloc, quit the next day.
His successors have all grappled, largely unsuccessfully, with the consequences of that rupture.
The latest is Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who announced Monday that he was stepping down after two years of a sluggish economy, malfunctioning government and a divided and jaded electorate — all legacies, at least in part, of Brexit.
Though the decision has faded from headlines, “the subterranean trace of Brexit” still runs through Britain’s increasingly unruly politics, said Chris Grey, an academic who has studied the fallout from Britain’s EU departure.
“We can see the sunlit meadows beyond.
I believe we would be mad not to take this once-in-a-lifetime chance to walk through that door,” Boris Johnson, a leading Brexit campaigner who later became prime minister, said a few weeks before the referendum.
“It was against what people saw as unrestricted immigration.
It was against what they saw as EU regulations.
And then there was this mix of nostalgia — ‘We fought alone in the Second World War.’
Which was of course not true.
“It was never clearly explained what Brexit might entail.”
Political parties have fractured
Historian Anthony Seldon said Cameron called the referendum hoping it would end arguments about relations with Europe that had riven the Conservative Party.
It didn’t.
“The people who obsessed about it still obsess about it.
Britain’s problems have continued,” Seldon told Times Radio.
During the divorce negotiations, Conservatives who wanted a softer Brexit and closer ties with the EU were pushed out of the party by the triumphant Brexiteer faction.
Johnson succeeded May and promised to “get Brexit done,” and managed to secure a bare-bones trade deal after negotiations that left U.K.-EU relations in the deep freeze.
He was ousted by the Conservative Party in mid-2022 after mounting financial and ethical scandals.
His replacement, Liz Truss, lasted just 49 days in office.
Her successor, Rishi Sunak, thawed the frosty EU relationship without making major changes.
Starmer promised a “reset,” but refused to consider rejoining the bloc’s frictionless single market, which was free of tariffs and other trade barriers.
As he hands over power, Brexit remains unfinished business.
But Brexit remains a minefield that politicians fear to enter.
Even if Britain wanted to rejoin, it would be a long road back to a wary EU.
Grey said that until politicians are willing to face the legacy of Brexit, Britain faces an “undertow of low-grade crisis.”
He likened the U.K. to a person with a nagging illness that saps their energy.
“A chronic thing, in this case perhaps not incurable,” he said.
“But it’s just that they don’t fancy going to the doctor because they know it’s not going to be very nice.”
Speakers
3speakers36%attributed speech332writer words
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Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageBoris Johnson
77 attributed words42% of attributed speech83% writer coverage
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Analysis
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