“Brexit Unfolded - How No One Got What They Wanted"
A review by John Cole
The author has a heavyweight academic reputation, having previously been a professor of Organisational Studies, both at Cambridge University and latterly Royal Holloway College London.
As might be expected, the book is comprehensive, dispassionate, highly informed and insightful. At the same time it remains very readable.
The author does not dwell on the ins and outs of the referendum itself but accepts the result as “given" (although at one point he refers to the “Leave" team as having “fluked" it). Hence most of the book is a chronological telling of the story that unfolded. Three themes quickly emerge: first that what Brexit meant had not been clearly defined at the time of the referendum and so it became necessary to agree a definition, if for no other reason that there was serious negotiating with the EU to get on with.
The second theme emerges from the first, that efforts to define what Brexit was to mean quickly showed up the lack of comprehension on the part of nearly all “Leave" campaigners of UK/EU relations and the complexities of trade policy. Time and again ministers are shown to be out of their depth.
Thirdly, the whole process of leaving the EU was incredibly rushed – Grey implies far more than was desirable. Possibly the haste was induced by a desire on the part of “Leavers" that “Remainers" be allowed no opportunity to overturn the June 2016 vote. Leavers were aware that they had “fluked" it and looked to get the job done before any counter-revolution could be organised. They might well lose their prize if there were, for example, a “People's Vote". Any sane government would have used the onset of the Covid pandemic as a good reason to seek a negotiating extension with the EU. Surely that would have been granted. Instead, Johnson and co. drove forward relentlessly. In consequence the legislation surrounding UK's exit was very poorly scrutinised in parliament whilst at the same time the government's handling of the pandemic was disastrous.
“The people of the country have had enough of experts" said Gove, in the lead up to the referendum. Chris Grey to has credit has made great use of experts in writing this book and it is abundantly clear that Brexit policy post 2016 could have been far far better if successive Conservative governments had made use of the informed and dispassionate expertise that was available. However, both May and Johnson chose to ignore the best advice that was available and rather allowed themselves to be driven to increasingly extreme positions by the swivel-eyed ideologues of the European Research Group (ERG).
One is never quite sure how much research the ERG carries out. Rather than being interested in evidence-based policy they give the impression of preferring policy-based evidence. “My mind is made up – please do not confuse me with the facts". The author points out that in consequence the ERG urged on to government solutions to practical problems that had no earthly prospect of functioning. The first collision with reality rarely killed off the notion; it would reappear a few months later - a sort of zombie idea. A depressing part of this book is the consistent failure of cabinets and the ERG to learn from experience. Policy-making had become a matter of faith. If you believed fervently enough, for example, that workable technical solutions existed to the Northern Ireland / Irish Republic customs border then the solutions would manifest themselves. Hence by a strong enough act of faith one can dispense with May's “Backstop" or Johnson's “Sea Border".
If it were not so dispiritingly awful one might smile at the simple pantomime nature. All the children in the audience being encouraged to clap, manifesting a belief in fairies, that Tinkerbell might live.
Politicians and the political system do not emerge well from this book. The narrative is littered with examples of poor judgment on the part of May and Johnson in particular and ministers in general. Most readers of “Yorkshire Bylines" will be familiar with their woeful shortcomings and so I shall pass on to the opposition parties.
Grey has Jeremy Corbyn marked down as a “Lexiter" (exiting the EU from the left) and this would explain Corbyn's not so much half-hearted as quarter-hearted support for Remain. Counterfactual historians might reflect what would have happened if from June 2015 onwards a strong, vigorous Dennis Healey (1970 vintage) had been leading HM Opposition. Would the liars of Brexit have got away with it?
(Since for balance we need heroes as well as villains, Grey gives us two - Yvette Cooper and Hilary Benn. I add in two of my own – Dominic Grieve and John Bercow)
The final chapter of Grey's book is thematic and pages 255-258 give a thought-provoking section headed The Politics of “Authenticity". Essentially this is an insight into the culture wars that Brexit, if it did not initiate, greatly ratcheted up. Gove's snide remark about experts fitted well with the resentment of those who had not been to university but had had fingers wagged at them by “prissy moralistic do-gooders" who insisted on political correctness and did not allow them to say what they really wanted to say. Hence Johnson and Farage were blokes you could have a beer with. The metropolitan elite were a distant, uncomfortable race. Tellingly, “authentic" people not only vote to “take back control" but show their control by avoiding where possible wearing anti-Covid masks.
In years to come, if historians are wishing to understand and write up Brexit in the period after 2016, they will find Chris Grey's book an invaluable treasure trove.
