Perceptions of the state of health services and the Brexit vote

Abstract

The reasons behind the Brexit have been extensively analysed. Different studies have focused on factors as diverse as age, education, ethnicity, income, social class, unemployment, religion, immigration, and the support for parties and leaders, amongst others. No work has however studied the impact of perceptions of the quality of health services. This void is surprising because the Brexiteers repeatedly (and misleadingly) promised that 350 million pounds a week would be spent on the National Health Service (NHS) should the exit option triumph. As people who perceive health services to be bad might benefit from a better endowed NHS, we expect them to show a higher propensity to vote leave. Our results provide strong support for this, even when a wide array of controls is considered. This finding constitutes an original contribution to a crucial international political issue and stresses the importance of perceptions and fake news for voting behaviour.