The tumultuous debates and divisions of Brexit and the rise and fall of four prime ministers are just some of the seismic events that have gripped British politics. These recent books seek to explain more recent and dramatic developments.
Sebastian Payne is the author of Broken Heartlands, an exceptional analysis of how strongholds for the Labour Party turned to Brexit and to Boris Johnson. A podcaster and former Whitehall editor of the Financial Times, he is now director of the think tank Onward and a leading analyst of British politics.
His expertise abounds in The Fall of Boris Johnson. It opens with an atmospheric description of a dinner hosted in a private London club for comment writers of the Daily Telegraph. I can confidently write that dinners such as this, in locations such as The Garrick Club, have never been a feature of Irish political life.
Flushed by the success of the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow, basking in global fame, Johnson believed that he was at his peak of political power.
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Payne writes that the dinner, and this self-confidence, led to efforts to rescue a Conservative MP, Owen Paterson, from parliamentary censure. A furious backlash from his parliamentary party led to the first cracks in the aura of political invincibility.
This was the beginning. The account of Johnson and his team seeking to manage the political consequences of the parties in Downing Street is a gripping read. Payne is scathing about the advice offered to the prime minister, and highly critical of his misjudgments. The author is equally complimentary about his role in supporting and arming Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion.
The exit from the high office of which he had dreamed for all his life was not due to his management of the issues that defined his political existence: Brexit, the pandemic or the war on Ukraine. The mismanagement of allegations of sexual harassment triggered a spate of ministerial resignations that slowly and inevitably ended his tenure in No 10 Downing Street.
The last, and fascinating, chapter evaluates the question of “was it always going to end this way?” Payne asks whether Johnson was “ill-suited to the immense role that being prime minister has become?”
The author contends that Johnson believed that he did not have to contend with the consequences of his political actions, that the game was never truly over because of his agility, resilience and scale of personal public support.
That judgment, for now, was wrong. This work argues that Johnson will become part of Britain’s past.
The political life of his successor, Liz Truss, holds obvious appeal to any political biographer. She started as a Liberal Democrat and ended as leader of the Conservative Party.
The writing of Out of the Blue began as she became a serious contender for prime minister. The dramatic conclusion to the book and her career posed a familiar authorial dilemma – should the rush to print trump the opportunity for consideration? This could be prompted by concerns that interest in Truss will wane as her reign fades into the annals of political lore. This is a mistake. Her tenure was both short and deeply consequential.
It is to the great credit of the authors, Harry Cole and James Heale, that the quality of writing is not sacrificed for speed. This is a sharply observed biography. It will not help the reader to understand the consequences of her administration, but it is a lucid explanation of the personal and political journey that shaped it.
Truss is a classical liberal. An aversion to a growing state, a devotion to lower taxation and a commitment to individual rights – these are her enduring beliefs. These beliefs were combined with a combative approach. The authors quote veteran minister Michael Gove who observed “she was a firecracker…and she was very clear at every point about what her priorities were and brooked very little opposition”.
To disrupt was to govern. A rise through the ministerial ranks was derailed when she failed to defend the independence of the judiciary during the bitter Brexit debates. Adroit promotion of trade deals, building support as foreign secretary and a knack for branding through Instagram – all led to her rehabilitation and then triumph in a gruelling leadership contest. Her political philosophy, hardened by London think tanks and a narrow group of political advisers, inspired the mini-budget that ended her government.
A former colleague sums up her thinking as “let’s get the biggest hypo possible, pack it full of adrenaline, and pump it into the heart”. This meant that “either the patient will revive, Pulp Fiction-style, or it won’t”.
The authors conclude that “for a decade Truss had got away with trying to mix principle with pragmatism, alongside unashamed opportunism”. The highest offices of state, in times of great turbulence, require more. A political project aiming to harness the power of the market economy was ended by not understanding the tolerance limits of these very markets.
The local consequences of global markets provide the opening chapter to All In. The author, Lisa Nandy, is the MP for Wigan, who has held many prominent frontbench roles for the Labour Party. Her book argues for the vital role of the state in managing the local, national and global consequences of markets.
The opening chapter is focused on her efforts to prevent Wigan Athletic, her local soccer club, from bankruptcy and disaster. A new owner, based in Hong Kong, purchased the club and immediately placed it into administration.
Her involvement in other local campaigns, including efforts to save a hospital and a pub, are an important theme of this book. However, this work convinced the author that there is no scale of local campaigning that can substitute for an effective national state and for international co-operation.
The chapter A Nation of Winners and Losers focuses on the scale of regional inequality within the United Kingdom. This is the theme that preoccupies Nandy. She is surely correct to argue that the decline of our sense of local place and identity is a cause of erosion to quality of life.
The book points to the disparity in transport investment, where seven times the amount is spent per person in London as against a person living in the northeast of England. Similar issues obviously exist in our country, where the future of rural communities has been a focus of political debate and of successive governments.
The response is not unique to social democrats, it is that “government matters. It must guard, defend and promote the public realm.” This role needs to evolve, Nandy contends. “We need new institutions fit for this stormy age…We need to fundamentally reimagine the role of the state.”
This reimagination consists of accelerated devolution within the United Kingdom, the use of power at the level closest to local communities. This includes the use of citizen assemblies. All In calls for a new “economic statecraft” with a particular foreign policy focus on economic security. Tellingly, this does not involve reopening the Brexit settlement, but rather a more constructive relationship with the European Union.
This book concludes with an appreciation of the Belfast Agreement and the need for British politics to better recognise regional identities and for a country that “can be at ease with the multiple, overlapping identities of its citizens”.
All In is heavily policy focused. The other books are different: personality looms large, not the detail of policy.
Many common threads connect them too. Johnson, Truss and Nandy believe that British politics and, in particular, economic policy require a significant change in direction. They reject a steady, managerialist approach to politics.
Johnson delivered a hard Brexit and wanted to tackle regional inequality with his “levelling up” agenda. Trussonomics aimed to turbo-charge economic growth with huge tax reductions funded by increased borrowing. Nandy argues for big change in political institutions, a “big tilt” back to localism.
A further common ground is that Brexit is the all-pervasive context to these works. It defined the premiership of Johnson, making him a prime minister of the highest consequence. Maybe it also changed his sense of consequence, that quality that Payne incisively notes. After all if he could deal with the intense and visceral fallout of “getting Brexit done” then maybe anything was possible, for him, in his political imagination.
Similarly, the natural evolution of the spirit that formed a hard Brexit was the turbo-charged “go for growth” agenda of Truss. Out of the Blue succinctly summarises the intellectual milieu within the Conservative party that inspired this approach.
Nandy also contends that uneven growth within the United Kingdom was a critical contribution to the Brexit vote.
This collection of books is more than just the first cut of history. They are of a higher quality, very readable and packed with plenty of insight into what has just happened and what could yet come.
Paschal Donohoe is the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and president of the Eurogroup
Further reading
This Sovereign Isle: Britain In and Out of Europe by Robert Tombs (Allen Lane, £16.99)
This book excels in placing Brexit in a historical context. It argues that the United Kingdom and continental Europe had very different experiences with regard to war and occupation. This, combined with the British decision not to join the euro, defined the British relationship with the EU. A lucid, stylish and learned book.
Middle England by Jonathan Coe (Penguin, £8.99)
This is a warm, gentle and beautifully comic state-of-the-nation novel. Beginning with the formation of the David Cameron and Nick Clegg administration and ending with the fallout from the Brexit referendum. It is the last of a trilogy, but it is equally enjoyable as a stand-alone novel.
The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics by David Goodhart (Penguin, £9.99)
A prescient book, arguing that greater economic and cultural openness have undermined valuable local identities and pride. This has fostered a sense of grievance and loss, ripe for exploitation by populism. An interesting companion to All In by Lisa Nandy.
