Ten years after the UK voted to leave the European Union, the origins of the campaign that helped bring about Brexit are recalled. The seeds were sown in 2010 when Daily Express journalist Patrick O'Flynn returned to his office after the political recess. The fallout from the global financial crisis was still reverberating, and the EU was in turmoil.
As the paper's chief political commentator, O'Flynn had spent his summer brooding over Britain's struggling relationship with Europe. He saw that Brussels had hijacked hundreds of thousands of decisions from Parliament, from burdensome red tape to costly laws. An army of unelected Eurocrats, he believed, now decided everything from farming to fishing to food safety.
The Express Takes a Stand
O'Flynn suggested to editor Peter Hill that the Express should become the first national title to advocate for Britain leaving the European Union and campaign hard to make it happen. At the time, this was radical thinking, viewed by the majority of the political class and Fleet Street as way off beam
. One Fleet Street veteran told O'Flynn, It's a nice idea. Of course, it'll never happen.
But O'Flynn, who died of cancer at age 59 in May 2025, knew Express readers. He strongly suspected many people had had their fill of the faceless EU superstate. The EU was failing and nothing good for Britain was going to emerge from it,
he recalled. I knew our readers were intensely Eurosceptic. Frankly they did not like being ruled from Brussels. Now that the EU economy was so obviously failing, with the eurozone debt crisis in full swing, it was clear to me that the one pragmatic reason in favour of EU membership was fast disappearing.
Campaign Launch and Reader Response
On November 25, 2011, under the front page headline Get Britain out of Europe: we want our country back
, the paper declared: From this day forth our energies will be directed to furthering the cause of those who believe Britain is Better Off Out.
The leader column continued: The famous and symbolic Crusader who adorns our masthead will become the figurehead of the struggle to repatriate British sovereignty from a political project that has comprehensively failed.
A petition was launched asking readers for support. Many in Britain's political and media establishment mocked the crusade as a fringe
issue. Even Hill was initially sceptical, but he later said at O'Flynn's funeral that it was the perfect campaign
, though it came as a shock when Brexit actually happened.
The response from readers was extraordinary, with 99% of those who got in touch backing leaving the EU. Within a few months, more than 375,000 people had signed the petition for a referendum on EU membership. On January 8, 2011, the paper launched another broadside under a front page cartoon of the iconic Crusader mascot towering above the White Cliffs of Dover.
From Campaign to Referendum
As a result of years of campaigning, David Cameron made a manifesto commitment in the 2015 general election to renegotiate the UK's membership of the EU, followed by an in-out referendum. Cameron, who hoped the promise would help his party stop banging on about Europe
, was swatted away by Europe in his attempts to renegotiate. The EU elite never thought Britain would vote Leave.
On June 23, 2016, the Express published its Referendum front page – a union flag emblazoned with the headline Vote Leave Today
. A lacklustre Remain campaign deployed Project Fear
but failed completely. Six years after O'Flynn's initial idea, the country voted 52% to 48% in favour of Brexit, on a turnout of 72% – the highest ever for a UK-wide referendum.
Aftermath and Legacy
Two days after the vote, O'Flynn wrote in the Express: It has been the greatest privilege and honour of my life to play my part. And together we have done the greatest thing that any of us will ever do. We have, as the now famous slogan goes, got our country back.
He added: We must now prove that the fears of the Remain voters are ill-judged… We do not want to be Little England but truly Great Britain trading with the world and serving as a beacon for democracy and freedom. This isn't the end of all Britain's problems, just the start of being able to tackle them ourselves. And it feels great.
Ten years on, the Express continues to campaign for a Proper Brexit, vowing not to give up because, as the paper states, we know you won't.
