Did the unfounded claim that Turkey was about to join the EU swing the Brexit referendum?

Most observers agree in 2018 that the chances of Turkey joining the EU were becoming increasingly remote. But even in early 2016, before the country’s failed coup attempt and the 2017 constitutional referendum, Turkish accession was looking a distant prospect.

Yet as James Ker-Lindsay writes, this did not prevent Vote Leave from claiming towards the end of the UK’s EU referendum campaign that Turkey was poised to join. He argues this unfounded claim played into voters’ existing worries about immigration and may even have swung the result.

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