1. Leaving Europe

McGowan presents the outcome of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union as a major point in the history of modern Britain. The result for leave was so unexpected that the David Cameron led government had not just not made any contingency plans, but had even prevented Whitehall departments from contemplating such a scenario. The vote for Brexit catapulted the UK government into a period of uncertainty and doubt. Rarely has British politics been more interesting, rarely has the nature of the British state looked so precarious. ‘Brexit means Brexit’ became the mantra of Theresa May’s government, but this objective was much more complicated than the government was even willing to concede in public. McGowan outlines many of the truly fundamental questions that have arisen about the nature and type of Brexit, the government’s Brexit strategy, the role of the Westminster parliament and the devolved administrations in the process of exiting the EU as well as stressing the point that Brexit threatens the very foundations of the United Kingdom.