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Ten years on from the EU referendum, we asked people how their voting experience had affected their relationships with friends and family.
Some spoke of painful family divisions that emerged between leave and remain voters, while others shared how, despite their political differences, they were able to move on with magnanimity.
Here are some of their responses.
‘We still loved each other, but disagreed’
Al Moore, 58, who lives in London with his family and voted remain, says he “slightly resents” his late father’s leave vote.
“My father voted leave as a protest vote against [what he believed was] German supremacy – against the interests of his own children and grandchildren,” he says. “Like so many Brexiters, Dad has since died and left us in this mess – and I slightly resent him for his vote.”
Al, who works in data science, says that while he was still close to his father after the referendum, “it was a subject we didn’t address much. We still loved each other, but disagreed, that’s all.”
Al says he voted remain “for myself, for my children, for Britain’s interests, to maintain peace in Europe, and to help maintain European competitiveness against the superpowers”.
He adds: “So much of what we feared has come to pass: a fractured Europe has some very extremist governments and is struggling against US sanctions and interference. Ukraine next door has been invaded, and our response to that is not unified. Britain is floundering alone, particularly since its ‘special relationship’ with the US is not working in our interest at the moment. I think the UK is worse off for it.”
‘It broke the family relationship’
Sally*, 55, who lives in south Wales, says the “family rift” between those who voted remain and leave is “as strong as the day of the referendum”.
“My mother-in-law voted for Brexit,” says Sally, who works in computing. “It broke the family relationship because she says she did it to protect her grandchildren and is oblivious to the fact that her vote denied them opportunities that were available to me and my husband.
“We can’t talk about it at all with her, because I suppose we’re entrenched on our side, and she’s entrenched on her side. She can’t be open about how she sees the world, and we can’t be open about how we see the world, because it’s such a divide. We’re not estranged, but it does make spending a lot of time with her quite difficult.
“We had a rule that we wouldn’t discuss it, but when she pressed the buttons one day, we ended up having a massive argument about it.”
Sally, who lived in the EU for several years before returning to the UK, adds: “Brexit was the ultimate demonstration of how banal slogans, austerity and prejudice can be weaponised by self-serving politicians, funded by foreign untraceable money. The UK and Europe are weaker since we left.”
‘I felt like an outlier – it was exhausting’
Jane*, who lives in Greater Manchester, found the EU referendum “painful” and “lonely”.
“I voted remain – unlike my late husband, late mother, both sisters and most nieces and nephews and my stepson,” says Jane, who is retired. “I felt like an outlier. I was a lone voice, and it was a very painful, difficult, lonely and exhausting time. I tried my best to persuade everyone that voting leave was a massive mistake – would you really want to be in the same club as Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson et al? But I failed.”
She says relations with her late husband were tense during the EU referendum campaign, and almost immediately after the vote he realised he had made a mistake.
“My husband and one of my sisters both said: ‘Oh God, what have we done?’ They both believed, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that they could make their protest [against David Cameron] and remain would still win,” she says. “My husband was embarrassed and kind of angry with me. My sister was awkward around me and kept saying: ‘I’m so sorry, why didn’t I listen to you?’ My thoughts were: ‘Well, you didn’t listen to me, and it’s too late now.’ Perhaps my patience was wearing a bit thin.”
Jane says the referendum vote also brought into “sharp relief” how different politically she was from her other sister.
“It was around that time that I realised how far to the right she had moved,” she adds. “I think it was always there, but it wasn’t until Brexit that I fully saw the extent of it. It made me realise how different my values are from those of most family members, and this inevitably affected how we all feel and relate.”
‘Our friendship was more important than this event’
James*, 60, who is a retail director from East Sussex, says that he believes “people can disagree without falling out”.
He cites the experience he had with his friends of 35 years – a couple – whom he and his partner were on holiday with in Italy during and after the referendum result. Both couples voted by post.
“In the days leading up to the vote, they shared with us that they had voted leave for reasons of sovereignty,” says James. “I was shocked and appalled because I thought they thought like us. On the day of the vote, I was mortified that we were leaving and [felt] completely shocked. I could not believe it.”
But despite this, James says, their friendship never got off track.
“The holiday ran for another week at least,” he says. “I suppose it was tense for a couple of days because I was quite upset and worried about the result, but we put it behind us.
“I’ve always been someone who can see the other person’s opinion,” he says. “I think people need to be able to talk about things without falling out and to listen to each other and be prepared to compromise.
“I firmly believed our friendship was more important than this event. We agreed to disagree, and we are still the best of friends now. People can disagree without falling out.”
*Names have been changed
