The Politics Society were delighted on Monday 18th September to welcome back to Elstree Mr Goldsmith (OH) to speak about his book “How to Lose a Referendum, The Definitive Story of why The UK Voted for Brexit.” We were also very pleased to be joined by his co-author, Jason Farrell, the Senior Political Correspondent at Sky News. They spoke for twenty-five minutes, then answered a series of insightful questions in the Old Refectory from an audience of HABS student and students from the Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Girls. As ever, the beneficial partnership between the Politics Societies of the two schools was strongly evident in this event.

Clearly the authors had undertaken a significant amount of research into this topic, tracing Britain’s relationship with what was then the European Coal and Steel Community back to the 1950s. They spoke with passion and expertise on the long and short-term reasons both for David Cameron calling the 2016 Referendum and then for his side losing the Brexit vote. The presentation included some wonderful stories, such as that of Russell Bretherton, an Oxford don who was sent instead of a senior government minister in 1955 to inform the UK of how negotiations of the Spaark Committee on the document that would become the 1957 Treaty of Rome in 1957 were progressing, rather than being charged with asserting any kind of influence. The authors also examined Margaret Thatcher’s role in creating the Single Market and unwittingly encouraging European integration, as well as the machinations which led to Boris Johnson backing Vote Leave in 2016 much to David Cameron’s frustrations.

We thank Mr Goldsmith and Mr Farrell for giving such a gripping and well-planned presentation, that will encourage many to reflect more deeply on the 2016 Referendum and the on-going debate about the implications of and the lessons to learn from Brexit.
 
Copies of “How to Lose a Referendum, The Definitive Story of why The UK Voted for Brexit.” are available in many bookshops and on Amazon:
 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Lose-Referendum-Definitive-Brexit-x/dp/1785901958