This book was originally written for a French audience, unfamiliar with the details of recent British political history but interested nonetheless in making sense of what was happening on the other side of the English Channel. I have therefore included more material on recent British events than some readers in the UK may find strictly necessary. As I worked on the manuscript, however, it became clear to me that to tell the story properly, and to explain why the negotiations between the UK and EU have proved so difficult, a recital of British history alone was not enough. The book is therefore just as much about Ireland and the European Union as it is about the turbulent relationship between the UK and Europe: it’s about why the EU developed in the way that it did, and is reacting to Brexit in the way that it is. It’s about the ways in which the intertwined histories of Britain, Ireland and the rest of Europe are shaping the Brexit negotiations of today, and about the impossibility of predicting what will happen tomorrow.
My hope is thus that British readers, many of whom are already familiar with the work of Hugo Young, Tim Shipman and others, will find a fresh perspective in these pages, and that the book will help other English-speaking readers to understand where Brexit came from, and why the process of extricating the UK from the European Union has proved so fraught.
I am extremely grateful to Stuart Proffitt for helping me to improve the English-language manuscript in numerous ways. The usual disclaimer applies more than it usually does. I also thank Rebecca Lee, Claire Péligry, Ruth Pietroni, Corina Romonti, Ben Sinyor and everyone at Penguin who helped get this book published so quickly.
Dublin
19 December 2018