Taking Control: Sovereignty and Democracy After Brexit
Cunliffe, P et al, Polity Press, £15.99

GIVEN the relative lack of serious attempts to understand Brexit — both the vote and why it was important for the future of the UK — any new book taking that as its object of analysis is most welcome. In addition, this book seeks to explore what “taking control” might mean through proposing a renewal of sovereignty and the nation state.

The authors correctly identify that the principal cause of the vote to leave in 2016 was the hollowing out of the political sphere and the growing gap between rulers and ruled under neoliberalism. Voting leave gave expression to a large section of the working-class’s anger at being ignored by both major parties for 40 years.

Furthermore, they situate this gap — which they call “the void” — as inherent to the European project, which they see as predicated upon the European elites’ desire to end the post-war settlement without having to be held responsible for decisions that would have been unpalatable to many voters. This necessarily involved the reduction of national sovereignty and the attendant ability to present what should have been contestable as inevitable — Thatcher’s “there is no alternative” writ large.