Brexiters who argued they’d be more “free” didn’t really understand the philosophy of freedom

The pro-Brexit campaign played heavily on notions of freedom. Politicians urged voters to vote to leave the European Union to “take back control of our lives,” and “take back control of this great country’s destiny.”

But such statements rely on a grossly oversimplified depiction of freedom, says Alexis Papazoglou, a philosophy lecturer at Royal Holloway University of London. In the fuller sense of the idea, the UK and its people had more freedom within the EU.

In a blog post for the London School of Economics on the subject, Papazoglou explains how the 20th-century philosopher Isaiah Berlin set out two forms of liberty: negative freedom and positive freedom. Negative freedom is the freedom from external constraints, while positive freedom is the freedom to do things according to your will. And in arguing the UK should leave the EU, campaigners disproportionately emphasized negative freedoms.

Leave campaigners insisted that the UK would be freer outside the EU, as it would no longer have to abide by the constraints imposed by EU law (which can be seen as an increase in negative freedom). But the UK and its people also gained freedoms from EU membership.

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