The Real Reason Britain Left the EU (And Why Farage Could Be PM)

It has been almost 10 years since the British people voted by a fractional margin to leave the European Union. Today, we are all still living in the wake of that decision. Our guest on Downstream this week is Tom McTague, whose new book Between The Waves takes a deep dive into Britain’s fraught relationship with the EU. Rather than re-litigating the question of whether Brexit was good or bad, right or wrong, McTague set out to discover how history unfolded in the way it did, and how Brexit came to be.

In conversation with Aaron Bastani, McTague argues that the path to Brexit was paved by a small cast of zealous actors: chief among them Enoch Powell, as well as his political heir, Nigel Farage. They ask: how did the dissolution of the British Empire shape Britain’s relationship to Europe? How did the Labour party switch from being Eurosceptical to the pro-Europe party? And how much did Nigel Farage, the bookies’ favourite to be the next prime minister, learn from Enoch Powell?