An easy to read guide to how Brexit will change Britain
'Highly recommended' - Nick Cohen, Observer/Spectator
Britain's departure from the European Union is filled with propaganda and myth but the risks are very real. Brexit could lower our global status, diminish our quality of life, and throw our legal system into turmoil.
With the help of constitutional and trade experts, Ian Dunt, editor of Politics.co.uk, explains why exiting the EU is likely to:
- make the UK poorer
- leave industries like pharmaceuticals and finance struggling to operate
- threatens to break up the United Kingdom
The book deals with the trade and legal cliff edge that Britain will face unless it can secure a transitional deal with the European Union, why the odds are stacked against the UK government in its negotiations with Brussels, and how the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is not the cure to leaving the EU that the Brexiters believe.
This is the first full public exploration of Brexit, stripped of the wishful thinking of its supporters in the media and Parliament. It is the real picture of a country about to undergo a sharp and self-inflicted isolation. This book is for people who still believe in evidence and in experts.
It is the perfect accompaniment to All Out War by Tim Shipman which looks back at the referendum campaign. Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now? looks forward to a volatile future.
'Excellent. A must-read. Harass every MP until they read Dunt's book' - AC Grayling
Reviews
I would strongly recommend Ian Dunt's excellent guide to what happens next.
Dunt has taken the extraordinary step of asking a set of experts what they think about matters of law.
This is one of the few books of the set to face forwards rather than backwards and it is all the better for that. I learnt a lot, which I find often happens when I have the humility to listen to experts.
Philip Collins, Prospect Magazine
Admirably brief and necessarily brutal.
Whatever your position during the referendum, you ought to read Dunt because he is willing to face uncomfortable facts. The only country in the world with absolute sovereignty is North Korea. Everyone else must make compromises. The only question for us is how bad a compromise we must endure.
...As for all the favours the right expects the US and Australia to give us, Dunt imagines, perfectly plausibly, the reality will be US trade officials telling our hastily assembled team of novice trade negotiators:
The UK is in a position of unique and historic vulnerability. Its economy is facing the most significant shock since the Second World War. It has no time. It has no negotiating capacity. But Washington wants to help. It is prepared to rush a trade deal through Congress. It could take less than two years. But for this to be achievable, the UK needs to accept all of its demands. The Americans slide a piece of paper across the desk. The British team read the demands: they are horrendous. But they have little option but to capitulate. The only way to protect what remains of the British economy is to sell off British sovereignty.
Nick Cohen, The Spectator
