A decade has now passed since the United Kingdom cast the ballot that severed its 47-year membership of the European Union, and The Guardian has marked the milestone with a sweeping oral history, told through the voices of the politicians, strategists and officials who lived it.
Presented by the paper’s political correspondent Kiran Stacey and produced by Frankie Tobi, the podcast revisits the 2016 referendum in a series of interviews with key players from both the Leave and Remain camps. Original music was composed by Axel Kacoutié, with Maz Ebtehaj serving as executive producer.
The series was released on Monday 24 August, a date that places it firmly within the wave of retrospectives marking ten years since Britain voted by 51.9 per cent to 48.1 per cent to leave the bloc. The Guardian has accompanied the podcast with a long-form written piece, inviting readers to revisit the campaign, the count, and the political earthquake that followed.
The Campaign Reconstructed
What sets the project apart from the many post-mortems published since June 2016 is its reliance on testimony rather than retrospection. Stacey’s interviews, recorded in recent months, aim to capture how the experience felt from the inside: the late-night strategising, the miscalculations, the moments of genuine surprise on both sides.
Listeners are guided through the referendum as it unfolded, with participants recalling the key turning points that shaped the eventual result. The format leans into the oral history tradition, letting the protagonists narrate their own chapters of an event that continues to define British politics.
A downloadable episode is available, alongside distribution through Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the standard RSS feed, ensuring the series can be reached by audiences well beyond the paper’s regular readers.
Why an Oral History, Why Now
The decision to revisit Brexit on its tenth anniversary reflects both the enduring importance of the vote and the distance needed to assess it properly. For years, commentary was shaped by the immediate fallout: the resignations, the parliamentary battles over Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, Boris Johnson’s election triumph, and the trade negotiations with Brussels.
Speaking to insiders a decade on allows the narrative to settle. It provides space for figures who were once rivals to reflect on what they got right, what they got catastrophically wrong, and what they would do differently if given the chance. It also offers an opportunity to examine how the predictions of both sides have – or have not – been borne out by the intervening years.
The podcast lands at a moment when the country remains divided over the wisdom of the decision, and when questions about the cost of separation, the future of the union with Scotland, and Britain’s place in the wider world remain live political issues. The Northern Ireland protocol, now known as the Windsor Framework, continues to shape relations with Dublin and Brussels, while trade arrangements with the EU have been the subject of ongoing negotiation and dispute.
A Multimedia Companion
For those who prefer reading to listening, the project is supported by a full-length article on the Guardian’s website, billed as “Brexit 10 years on.” The publication has paired the audio series with photography from Christopher Furlong of Getty Images, including imagery from the referendum night itself.
Listeners and readers alike have been invited to continue the conversation. The Politics Weekly UK team – now fronted by Stacey and his co-host Pippa – have asked audiences to send in their comments and questions to politicsweeklyuk@theguardian.com, and to follow the programme’s dedicated YouTube channel for additional content, interviews and analysis.
Why It Matters
A decade on, Brexit remains the single most consequential vote in modern British political history, and the anniversary has prompted a wave of assessment from academics, economists and former protagonists. Stacey’s oral history adds something distinctive to that growing body of work: the human voice, the unfiltered recollection, the texture of an experience that shaped careers, ended others, and altered the trajectory of the country. Whether listeners were Leave or Remain, the series offers a chance to hear how the defining political event of their generation is now understood by those who helped make it happen.
