Tim Shipman

It is now more than eight years since the referendum on whether or not Britain should remain in the European Union. The decision to leave has probably been the single most significant political issue in Britain throughout my lifetime, and even though it is now a few years since Boris Johnson’s government finally secured the final departure, its reverberations are still being felt.

From the outside it might seem simply to have been a fairly straightforward binary option, with followers of either side campaigning against adherents of the other. Oh, if only it had been that straightforward! This is the fourth volume in Tim Shipman’s comprehensive, and admirably non-partisan account of the Brexit story. I believe that he had initially intended that three books would be enough, but that was before the unfolding pantomime or farce of the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss premierships, which have merited a separate volume of their own, to be published shortly. But even this final volume was delayed because of British political events. It had originally been scheduled for publication back in the summer of 2024, to follow very closely on the heels of the previous volume. However, Rishi Sunak’s sudden decision in May 2024 to call a general election meant that the book had to be held back for further developments to be addressed.

If I hadn’t lived through these events (and working in Whitehall, and regularly attending Parliament as part of my role as a civil servant, I found myself at times uncomfortably close to the unfolding drama), I might struggle to believe that the country that proudly considers itself to have the Mother of all Parliaments could really have been reduced to such farcical political stagnation. Shipman’s third volume followed the struggle that Theresa may’s government encountered as it tried to secure parliamentary agreement to some form of deal with the European Union. For once British xenophobia was misplaced – while the EU was legitimately negotiating to ensure that its interests weren’t unduly harmed by any deal that might eventually be agreed with the UK, Theresa May’s bitterest enemies turned out to be in Parliament, many of them in her own party.

The fourth volume picks the story up with Theresa May’s government continuing to tear itself apart over different options to try to advance a negotiated deal. Perhaps may’s problem was that she was too strictly ruled by a sense of decency. Although she had favoured remaining in the EU, on becoming Prime Minister she was determined to respect the outcome of the referendum, as a consequence of which she moved far to quickly to trigger Article 50, which set the whole juggernaut process in motion.

Unfortunately, her ability to snatch defeat from the very jaws of victory also led her to call an election in 2017, in the belief that this would give her a larger parliamentary majority and enable her to push the relevant EU Exit legislation through. She misread the situation and ended up with a hung Parliament, forcing her into a political alliance with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland MPs.

I remember being amazed at the time by May’s resilience. I don’t know how she managed to keep getting up each day and returning to the political fray. Shipman recounts how tortuous a process it was to keep coming up with new alternative suggestions for a pragmatic deal with the EU, each of which would then be shot down by either the official Opposition or, more frequently, by rebel factions within May’s own party. Eventually even that seemingly adamantine resilience was broken, and she acknowledged failure, resigning as Tory leader to enable Boris Johnson to become Prime Minister.

Now cushioned by the passage of a few years on, it still seems to stretch one’s credibility to remember that Boris was ever Prime Minister. It is also bizarre how readily one forgets some traumatic events. While the issue evoked great bitterness and seemed capable even of precipitating the country into civil war, I had forgotten about Boris attempt to prorogue Parliament, essentially suspending it to prevent it from blocking his plan to leave the EU without a deal if necessary. Shipman’s analysis of the legal arguments of that issue for both sides is very clear, rendering an exceptionally complex issue fairly accessible to the lay reader. At the time, I think that my colleagues and I felt that things couldn’t become much stranger. Little dd we know!

It is also odd to read a history of events before the COVD pandemic swept the world. How innocent those days now seem! Of course, Johnson’s premiership will probably now be remembered primarily for the ignominy with which it ended, with Johnson being deposed by his own party (a recurring trope for the British Conservatives). For most of his time in 10 Downing Street, however, his time as leader has to be viewed through the prism of Covid, with most of the world transformed through the medium of lockdown.

Politics remained chaotic, however, with Johnson initially reliant upon, but then fatally falling out with, Dominic Cummings, whom he had appointed as backroom manager at No.10. The handling of the pandemic, and the subsequent ‘Patygate’ investigations are too tedious, and potentially triggering, to dwell on at length here, but they led to Johnson’s departure, and the emergence of Liz Truss as Prime Minister, an appointment that would have stretched credulity a few years previously even further than the appointment of Johnson that preceded it.

Shipman performs admirably here, preserving his non-partisan approach, and also struggling to avoid allowing hindsight to colour his depictions. I find it harder to remained unbiased about La Truss. During her first ministerial appointment, as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Education, I was briefly her Correspondence Manager. In that role I had a weekly meeting with her, at which we discussed her responses to ministerial post, but had to be introduced to her anew each time as she could not recall who I was. After this had happened four or five times, her PS exasperatedly explained, ‘He’s still your lead drafter.’ Obviously, I realise that that anecdote might be as much a reflection on my utter blandness and failure to register on her awareness, but I understand from colleagues that they all similarly failed to gain her attention.

Shipman despatches Truss fairly quickly, just as the Conservative Party did, dwelling longer on the relative stability that attended Rishi Sunak’s period at the helm. Sunak emerges as an essentially decent, but also politically naïve, man. Hardworking and capable, but lacking the sufficiently sensitive political antennae to understand the flow of public opinion. Shipman’s description of his announcement of the election, standing outside and seemingly oblivious to a monsoon-like downpour is marvellous.

Taken together, the four volumes represent a massive undertaking for the reader, but they are very rewarding. It is fascinating to read such a detailed account of such a tempestuous period.… (more)

It is now about eight years since the referendum on whether or not Britain should remain in the European Union. The decision to leave has probably been the single most significant political issue in Britain throughout my lifetime, and even though it is now a few years since the final departure, its reverberations are still being felt.

From the outside it might seem simply to have been a fairly straightforward binary option, with followers of either side campaigning against adherents of the other. Oh, if only it had been that straightforward! This is the third volume in Tim Shipman’s comprehensive, and admirably non-partisan account of the Brexit story – he had initially intended that three would be enough, but that was before the unfolding pantomime or farce of the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss premierships, which have merited a separate volume of their own, to be published shortly.

This third instalment follows the ups and downs … well, let’s be serious, the downs and further downs of Theresa May’s attempts to bring Brexit to fruition, and the stalemate that befell parliament. I worked in Whitehall throughout the period covered in the book, and I was simultaneously struck by how much I recalled in pellucid detail … and how much I had forgotten (although it is possible that that reflects the subconscious activation of mental health defence mechanisms). Certainly, reading it again brought back traumatic memories of ‘Meaningful Votes’ and the sheer intransigence and perverseness of characters on either side of the issue. I do remember wondering at the time how Theresa May managed to keep going, and still turn up at Parliament for what seemed to become a daily mauling. Whatever one thinks of her views, her resilience and dignity under unprecedented pressure were phenomenal.

She did seem to have a considerable knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I remember being in a high level meeting with the Senior Leadership Team of the Department for Education in April 2017 when the news came through that she had called a sudden general election. At that time, her party was riding high in the polls from the local council elections that were imminent around much of the country, and she thought it might be a good opportunity to capitalise on that, and enhance her parliamentary majority. The Opposition at that time was led by Jeremy Corbyn, and his campaign for the local elections had started with a series of ‘car crash’ interviews by him and some of his senior colleagues within the party. What May failed to take into account were the fact that over the last few days, Corbyn and his colleagues had actually improved their campaigning performance, and the fact that the local election schedule meant that the parliamentary elections would have to be deferred longer than usual. I think that campaign exhaustion set in with the public, who showed little appetite for, or interest in, an elongated campaign period.

The outcome was disastrous for Theresa May, and when ballots were counted she found that her previous slender parliamentary majority had been eroded. In order to maintain her government she was required to enter into a ‘confidence and supply agreement’ (essentially a coalition) with the Democratic Unionist Party from Northern Ireland. Having already struggled to secure any practical agreement across Parliament to support her Brexit measures, this left her vulnerable to further dissent within her own party, and pitiless ridicule from the opposition parties facing her. From there on, two years of political stalemate (given the soubriquet ‘Erskine Mayhem’ by one constitution commentator) set in, and the British parliament, hitherto viewed with respect all around the world, descended into farce.

Shipman has drawn on a vast selection of sources, including an impressive journalistic archive and his own (often unattributed) conversations with most of the leading participants. Even though we all know the outcome, the book is gripping throughout, presented almost like a Shakespearean tragedy. At times hilarious, there are also episodes that provoke fury at the utter incompetence of leading figures on both sides of the issue, who frequently displayed emotional illiteracy or an utter incapacity for empathy.

The bitterness and personal enmity (not to mention the Shakespearean similarities) continued throughout, as manifested in the bizarre machinations within the struggle to secure the Conservative leadership. Machiavelli, Iago and Bosola would have been in their element within that farrago of pledges and sleights of hand, as different attempts to resolve the impasse were bruited and then forsaken.

The ‘what if’ counterfactual novel has become very popular over recent years, with works such as Robert Harris’s Fatherland or the late Philip Roth’s the Plot Against America exploring alternative historical outcomes. I feel sure that within a few years we will start seeing novels considering alternative outcomes of the Brexit.

Tim Shipman’s book is both informative and entertaining, proving once again how much stranger fact can be than fiction. Regardless of the political complexion of the government, I have always believed that it is in everyone’s interest that we have a strong opposition. Shipman makes clear that, following the as yet unhealed internal divisions within the Conservatives following their post-Referendum leadership contest, the Government seemed holed below the waterline, and offered an easy _target for Her Majesty’s Opposition. Only there was no Opposition. While the Conservative tore themselves apart following David Cameron’s resignation, they did at least manage to appoint a new leader within a matter of a few weeks. Meanwhile, the Labour Party, having gone through one painful leadership contest that resulted with apparent rank outsider Jeremy Corbyn emerging as runaway winner, chose to plunge itself into a second contest, rendering the same result but with an even bigger margin, although it took several months to do so. All of which makes the Labour resurgence in the 2017 general election such a surprise.

The clear lesson from Shipman’s book is the enduring peril of political hubris. Labour centrists refused to believe that the party could appoint a genuinely socialist leader, while Theresa May failed to acknowledge the possibility that she would not be returned to Downing Street with a Thatcheresque landslide majority. As in a Greek tragedy, in which the oracle has offered its occluded prophesy, both those conceits would be punctured in the most brutal fashion. Unfortunately, amusing though such outcomes and fractured vanities might appear in the abstract, the consequent uncertainly was painful for Britain, and indeed Europe, to live through.… (more)

Halloween has passed without us leaving the EU (thank goodness) and appropriately enough I finished Tim Shipman’s ‘All Out War’ today.
It’s a compelling and meticulous account of the Brexit Referendum that’s extremely readable despite the complexity of the events being relayed. It’s a fascinating book and achieved for me the author’s intended aim of giving readers on either side of the debate a better understanding and appreciation of the motives of the other side.
Perhaps unsurprisingly (given that the author is political editor of The Sunday Times) it does a much better job of explaining the Tory side of the story than it does the Labour one. The Conservative players are fully formed characters with motivations and personalities, whilst Labour is more or less portrayed as a big dysfunctional blob. Not sure if this is bias on the part of the author or just a result of Labour players being less willing to talk to him, but it cost the book a star for me.
Nevertheless, it’s a book I throughly recommend and I’ll be diving into the sequel very soon.

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