Hartlepool had one of the largest majorities in the entire country in favour of leaving the European Union
A decade on from the crunch vote, how did Teessiders vote in the 2016 EU referendum?
2026 marks the tenth anniversary year of the referendum on membership of the European Union. On Thursday, June 23, 2016, Teessiders went to the polls in numbers not seen in any other vote this century, as all five local authorities in the Tees Valley voted decisively to leave the EU.
Neither of these factors were unique to the region – across the country as a whole, the last nationwide vote to see a turnout higher than 2016’s vote on EU membership was the 1992 general election. Additionally, out of the then 380 local authorities, a significant majority voted to leave the EU. In the North East, 11 out of 12 areas voted to exit the membership bloc, with only Newcastle narrowly voting to remain.
In Middlesbrough, voters backed the leave campaign by a hefty margin – 65.5% wanted out, with a 64.9% turnout across the local authority area. In neighbouring Redcar and Cleveland, the strength of feeling for being out of the EU was even stronger, nearly a two to one margin, with a turnout of just over 70%.
Darlington was the most remain-friendly area in our region, and even there 56.2% of voters voiced their desire to leave, at a turnout of 71%. This turnout was near-identical to the neighbouring Stockton Council area. However, in Stockton, voters were even keener to get out of the EU, with 61.7% of voters backing the Brexit cause.
In spite of all these hefty votes for an exit from the EU, nowhere was the leave cause clearer than in Hartlepool, where a striking 69.6% of people who voted put a cross in the box to exit the EU, on a turnout of 65.5%. Out of the nearly 400 voting areas across the country (which has now reduced due to local government reorganisation), Hartlepool was the thirteenth strongest leave-voting authority in the land, with more than two out of every three voters backing Brexit.
A decade on from the crunch vote, how did Teessiders vote in the 2016 EU referendum?(Image: Getty Images)
While referendum turnouts across the region’s local authorities were all lower than the UK’s overall 72.2% turnout, this is hardly surprising. The pattern of less people going out to vote in the Tees Valley compared to the overall country mirrors what typically occurs at general elections.
Meanwhile, local elections get even lower turnouts locally and across the country – Middlesbrough’s mayoral race the year before the EU referendum saw a 52% turnout. Turnout fell to 27.8% by the time of the 2023 mayoral election in the town. In the first Tees Valley mayoral election, held in 2017, less than a year after the EU referendum, turnout was just 21% – this figure was 30.8% in 2024.
To put the strength of feeling about the EU referendum in perspective, neither Middlesbrough, nor Hartlepool constituencies have seen a turnout of more than 60% in a general election since the turn of the century. While constituencies do not match up exactly to local authority areas, the pivotal 2016 vote saw a turnout of around 65% in each of those council areas.
As the country marks a decade since the vote to leave the EU, over the course of this year the Local Democracy Reporting Service will be speaking to politicians, local people, and business owners about Brexit – how they voted in 2016, would they vote differently now and whether people in this region think that Brexit has been a success or failure.
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