EU Referendum, 23 June 2016

Floods, June 2016   

The UK experienced heavy rains on 22 June 2016, prompting the Environment Agency to issue 45 flood alerts and 16 red flood warnings. In London’s St James’ Park, the rain was measured to 44mm in only six hours, which is typically the rainfall for a whole month. South Farnborough recorded 45.6mm of rain in 14 hours (Met Office 2016). The London Fire Brigade rescued about 50 residents from flooded homes during the downpour, and over 550 calls were made due to weather-related emergencies in the capital such as vehicles trapped in floods and properties struck by lightning (LFB 2016).   

Impact on the electoral process  

On the 23 June 2016, citizens were heading to the polls to vote in a referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the European Union. Some voters waded through water in order to reach their polling station (BBC News 2016); long queues formed outside polling stations in London and South-East England, with some being hard to access and others having to be relocated at short notice (Davies 2016). Some voters reported missing the deadline for voting due to trains being delayed and cancelled, either because of the flooding or lightning strikes to power lines (Tran 2016).   

The turnout was 72.2 per cent, higher than at all UK general elections since 2000. The last UK referendum in 2011, on electoral reform, had a turnout of 42 per cent (Electoral Commission 2022;Electoral Commission 2011).   

One study calculated that the floods decreased turnout by 1.6 per cent for every 25 mm (1 inch) of rain but that this worked in favour of the (unsuccessful) “remain” vote (Leslie and Arı 2018).