Starmer’s EU reset is aimed at the conference room. Meanwhile Farage and the hard right mine ethnic resentment on the streets
What story does Britain tell itself about Brexit, 10 years after the vote that transformed the country? Watch TV or read the papers and you find one of two viewpoints: from the common room or the conference room.
The common room story is about chums and how they fall out. Friendships forged on hallowed playing fields and over Cotswold kitchen suppers, then dashed on the rocks of ambition. The new BBC documentary Brexit: A Very British Civil War is the latest in the genre, recounting what Dave said to Boris said to Michael said to Dom. It oohs at the deals struck over sets of tennis, and aahs at the then prime minister threatening dissenters with: “I will fuck you up for ever.” This is David Cameron as box office: the Scarface of the Bullingdon Club. And Brexit, you understand, was simply an Oxford fracas that got out of hand.
Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist
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Starmer’s EU reset is aimed at the conference room. Meanwhile Farage and the hard right mine ethnic resentment on the streetsWhat story does Britain tell itself about Brexit, 10 years after the vote that transformed t...
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