For, as we might expect from so seismic an event, Brexit has already spawned a wide array of novels and ‘the Brexit novel’ has become almost a genre in its own right, with at least one postgraduate research thesis having been written on it, and no doubt more than one. And, whilst I certainly have no pretensions to be a literary critic, I have long been interested in ‘Brexit novels’ both as manifestations of Brexit and as ways of understanding it, having, for example, been delighted to have been one of the speakers at the launch of my former colleague Bob Eaglestone’s edited book, Brexit and Literature.

Brexit Unfoldedis a must-read for anyone who cares about what happened following the momentous decision Britain took in the 2016 referendum. Grey is not a neutral observer, but his analysis is scholarly and balanced. He writes with engaging clarity as he navigates through toxic headlines and political slogans. It will be a long time before this illuminating account is rivalled.” Jonathan Dimbleby, broadcaster and author Secondly, it distracts from and discredits the genuine criticisms and concerns about Freeports. These include issues of economic effectiveness, governance and accountability, value for money, planning laxity, tax evasion, and corruption. It’s absolutely necessary to monitor these and also to monitor whether government promises are kept that no environmental or labour standards will be reduced, whether within Freeports or more widely. None of this is aided by nonsensical claims about Charter Cities.

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Meg Russell and Lisa James’ book is an academic text, whose authors work at University College London’s Constitution Unit and thus bring a very high degree of academic credibility and expertise, and it is based on a major research study of ‘Brexit, Parliament and the Constitution’. As such, it draws on the Hansard record of parliamentary proceedings and a whole swathe of other official documents, secondary sources including other studies of Brexit and media reports, and a wide variety of interviews with participants in the events conducted by the authors (and others). These are all assiduously cited and there is an extensive bibliography, a compendious index, as well as a useful glossary of parliamentary terms. In short, it is a scholarly account but, for a Russian Interference Byline Times leads the way in exposing the anti-democratic influence of the Kremlin over the affairs of other nations The issue about the economic studies is simply that, as the BCG report itself states in relation to trade, although without attempting to quantify it, “Brexit has undoubtedly had a significant impact”. Quantification is useful in estimating the extent of that impact but, fundamentally, the point is that whatever other factors are in play, in a world where economic growth is hard to find, Britain, uniquely, has chosen to make it significantly harder by the addition of Brexit to these other factors. For another way to contextualize the magnitude of estimates of lost GDP growth, such as the NIESR figure of 2.5% for 2023, is to compare them with the latest OBR forecasts of what GDP growth will be: 0.6% (2023), 0.7% (2024), 1.4% (2025). We all owe a debt to Chris Grey. Where the claims for Brexit are shrouded in post-truth, Brexit Unfolded records the truth. This important book is not just a historical record – it is a vital foundation for anyone trying to work out how Britain can move forward.” David Miliband, former Foreign Secretary

Yet the omnipresent Rees-Mogg was at pains to represent the hearing as the work of “the haters of Brexit”, despite the Committee containing four Tory MPs of whom at least one, Bernard Jenkin, is one of the most Ultra of Brexit Ultras. Indeed it turned out, as Martin Kettle noted, that “the unexpected star turn here was Sir Bernard Jenkin, a Conservative MP whose Brexit credentials are unchallengeable, who quietly carved Johnson’s evidence into pieces, leaving him spluttering and humiliated”. Perhaps Jenkin will now join Baker in the ranks of ‘crypto-remainers’, Jacobins turned Girondins. Like all conspiracy theories, it can’t really be proved or disproved not least because, for its advocates, the very fact that there is no evidence for it is proof that it must be true, because ‘of course’ there would be no evidence of a secret agenda. For example, in some versions, Brexit is described as a ‘live experiment’ being conducted by the ‘Babson World Operating System’. There is a real initiative by a spin-off company of Babson College in the US called the Babson Global Competitiveness and Enterprise Development Project. It promotes and supports Charter City-type developments and undoubtedly has a free market and libertarian agenda. But calling it a ‘World Operating System’ is hyperbole, making it sound far more sinister and powerful than it is. It is also surely reasonable to assume that he flip-flopped in the same way during the long period when it was rumoured that he would, or would not, invoke Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol and, subsequently, whether he would pass and make use of the Northern Ireland Bill to pull out of the Protocol in its entirety. Relatedly, we already knew that during the Withdrawal Agreement negotiations at least one senior Tory thought that “the Irish really should know their place”. So, learning now about how the Johnson administration jeered at the Italian response to the pandemic, it hardly strains credulity to suppose that it was similarly contemptuous of the Irish position on Brexit and the Protocol. The NIESR model is, however, a different to another kind of counterfactual model, the widely-quoted ‘ doppelgänger’ produced by John Springford of the Centre for European Reform (CER) and, in fact, it suggests that Brexit has not been as damaging as the CER model estimates. Thus the last iteration of the CER doppelgänger showed UK GDP to be 5.5% lower than it would have been by June 2022, whereas NIESR shows it to be 2.5% lower by 2023.* It should go without saying that either figure may be right, or that the true figure may be even higher than the highest estimate, or lower than the lowest estimate, but for the time being, at least, these are the best estimates available. It should also go without saying that, on any of these estimates, it represents a huge economic hit. To get a sense of its magnitude, consider that in 2019-2020 (i.e. before the pandemic created big distortions in public finances), the UK spent 1.9% of GDP on defence, 4.2% on education and 5.8% on pensioner benefits.

This is a concept with a long history, but its contemporary emergence is associated with development economics – whereby an outside country, or a private corporation or conglomerate, would be granted control of a city or other zone in a developing country and run it on, typically, low tax, low regulation lines. The Hallett Inquiry is beginning to uncover the deep dysfunctions in the way that the government handled the pandemic and, almost as a side-issue, showing some things about Brexit. But the real significance of the Inquiry for Brexit is that the government it is exposing to view is exactly the same government that before, during, and after the pandemic was handling Brexit. So, although it is not an Inquiry into the handling of Brexit, it is surely inconceivable that the way it handled Covid does not also apply to Brexit to some degree.