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What Next: How to get the best from Brexit
On June 23, 2016, against all forecasts, Britain voted to leave the EU. Drawing on his experiences at the heart of the campaign, Daniel Hannan dissects the result and our reaction. He outlines why Vote Leave won, exploring what people were voting for and what they weren’t. He looks at the immediate aftermath—how it differs from what people expected and what it says about where to go next. Brexit, Hannan points out, is a process—not an event—with three key areas of the UK's relationship with the remaining 27 EU states; their relationship with the rest of the world; and, crucially, their consequent domestic reforms—there is no point to Brexit if they don’t now tackle the threats to democracy of corporatism and lobbying. What Next is Hannan’s blueprint for a successful Brexit. A Brexit that addresses the concerns of the 48% who voted Remain as well as of the 52% who voted Leave, a Brexit that revitalizes British democracy, and a Brexit that will be mutually beneficial for both Britain and Europe.
- GenresPoliticsNonfiction
240 pages, Hardcover
Published February 1, 2017
19 people are currently reading
116 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Hannan
15 books73 followersBritish politician, journalist, and author who is a Member of the European Parliament. He is also the Secretary-General of the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists (AECR). Hannan advocates localism, and he has written several books arguing for democratic reform. He is also President of the Young Britons' Foundation and a patron of Reading University Conservative Association. He is a Eurosceptic and is strongly critical of European integration. Besides politics, Hannan is a journalist; he has written newspaper leaders, a blog for The Daily Telegraph and currently writes for the online news website and aggregator CapX, and has published several books. Born in Peru, Hannan speaks Spanish and French fluently.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 24, 2017
I support leaving the EU, but this book is terrible.
Whilst the author doesn't lie he regularly leaves out information to create a misleading impression. The dystopian future he lays out (of a low tax low regulation future) completely ignores the power balance between individuals and organisations.
It gains an extra star for being an easy read.
Whilst the author doesn't lie he regularly leaves out information to create a misleading impression. The dystopian future he lays out (of a low tax low regulation future) completely ignores the power balance between individuals and organisations.
It gains an extra star for being an easy read.
May 21, 2017
Oh dear. Another fairy tale about how everything will be fine after Brexit because nationalism is such a functional economic and social system.
Don't bother.
Don't bother.
May 31, 2017
In the debate before the Referendum, the author appeared a number of times on television, and I found him to be articulate in advancing a well thought out and logically consistent position. I didn't agree with him, and voted against his advice, but I had to concede that he did have a great deal of clarity. One of the criticisms of the Brexiteers is that they have offered no vision of what Britain would look like outside of the EU and no real plan of how to get there. This criticism is what the book is all about.
It is probably best to show one's hand at the start. In the Referendum, 52% voted to leave and 48% voted to remain. I voted to remain. The current state of opinion is now somewhat different. The remainers have now fallen to 21%, the Brexiteers have fallen to 44% (some may have changed their minds), and 25% take the view that, although we have collectively made a mistake, we have made a decision and the government should implement it. I am in the 25%.
We have decided to leave the EU. What comes next? In many respects, the criticism of the Brexiteers was right. We know what we don't want, but we have been slow to say what we do want. Mr Hannan is attempting to answer the question of what comes next in this book. He details a Britain that remains connected with Europe through trade - free trade at that - but also becomes connected with a wider world through exactly the same mechanisms. This is his central premise - that free trade on a global scale is the key to our future prosperity.
Supporting the premise of free trade are a number of measures to boost the UK as a trading nation, all of which, not surprisingly, take on a Conservative hue. Agriculture poses a bit of a problem for his central argument. It is not difficult to criticise the Common Agricultural Policy of the EU. However, to do so and yet argue for the maintenance of agricultural subsidies for British farmers seems a little inconsistent. The reader is left wondering why it is that free trade is good for all sectors except agriculture? The author doesn't adequately answer this question.
Once we see the flaws in one argument, like a crumbling dyke, the flaws in a larger number become apparent. For example, the UK has an edge in higher education. An edge achieved through the Horizon 2020 programme. However, this edge has also been achieved using the free movement of labour across Europe into the UK university sector. If we are to control immigration - a core principle of the Brexiteers that the author advocates - then surely it will diminish the advantage that British universities have in assembling leading research teams? A more honest appraisal would say that we would be prepared to lose that edge in return for gaining control of our borders. Mr Hannan doesn't make that case. He reckons that we can have our cake and eat it. I reckon that it is pie in the sky.
I became aware of the weakness of the book when the author praised Mark reckless as a deep thinker. Mr Reckless may be many things, but deep thinker doesn't spring to mind. He is noted for having deserted the Tories for UKIP in England, and the deserting UKIP for the Tories in Wales. I'm afraid that these may be the parts of the book that the author would like to edit out should it go to a second edition.
The author is a good writer. He is as good in the written word as he is with the spoken word. Much of what he says is nonsense because the premises by which he views the world are flawed. His description of the world of business is a little alien to someone who has been in business for most of his working life. Mr Hannan could be greatly improved by being forced to hold an actual job rather than inhabiting the academia - think-tank - politics bubble. He seems to have been part of the chumocracy for too long.
I was disappointed by the book. I was hoping for a view of the world outside of the EU that I could sign up for. I wasn't attracted to the world described by this book because it s not a world that I recognise. It is also a world which the electorate, on numerous occasions, have rejected. There is one item of solace. When we do leave the EU, Mr Hannan, and MEP, will lose his sinecure. Perhaps then he may be improved?
It is probably best to show one's hand at the start. In the Referendum, 52% voted to leave and 48% voted to remain. I voted to remain. The current state of opinion is now somewhat different. The remainers have now fallen to 21%, the Brexiteers have fallen to 44% (some may have changed their minds), and 25% take the view that, although we have collectively made a mistake, we have made a decision and the government should implement it. I am in the 25%.
We have decided to leave the EU. What comes next? In many respects, the criticism of the Brexiteers was right. We know what we don't want, but we have been slow to say what we do want. Mr Hannan is attempting to answer the question of what comes next in this book. He details a Britain that remains connected with Europe through trade - free trade at that - but also becomes connected with a wider world through exactly the same mechanisms. This is his central premise - that free trade on a global scale is the key to our future prosperity.
Supporting the premise of free trade are a number of measures to boost the UK as a trading nation, all of which, not surprisingly, take on a Conservative hue. Agriculture poses a bit of a problem for his central argument. It is not difficult to criticise the Common Agricultural Policy of the EU. However, to do so and yet argue for the maintenance of agricultural subsidies for British farmers seems a little inconsistent. The reader is left wondering why it is that free trade is good for all sectors except agriculture? The author doesn't adequately answer this question.
Once we see the flaws in one argument, like a crumbling dyke, the flaws in a larger number become apparent. For example, the UK has an edge in higher education. An edge achieved through the Horizon 2020 programme. However, this edge has also been achieved using the free movement of labour across Europe into the UK university sector. If we are to control immigration - a core principle of the Brexiteers that the author advocates - then surely it will diminish the advantage that British universities have in assembling leading research teams? A more honest appraisal would say that we would be prepared to lose that edge in return for gaining control of our borders. Mr Hannan doesn't make that case. He reckons that we can have our cake and eat it. I reckon that it is pie in the sky.
I became aware of the weakness of the book when the author praised Mark reckless as a deep thinker. Mr Reckless may be many things, but deep thinker doesn't spring to mind. He is noted for having deserted the Tories for UKIP in England, and the deserting UKIP for the Tories in Wales. I'm afraid that these may be the parts of the book that the author would like to edit out should it go to a second edition.
The author is a good writer. He is as good in the written word as he is with the spoken word. Much of what he says is nonsense because the premises by which he views the world are flawed. His description of the world of business is a little alien to someone who has been in business for most of his working life. Mr Hannan could be greatly improved by being forced to hold an actual job rather than inhabiting the academia - think-tank - politics bubble. He seems to have been part of the chumocracy for too long.
I was disappointed by the book. I was hoping for a view of the world outside of the EU that I could sign up for. I wasn't attracted to the world described by this book because it s not a world that I recognise. It is also a world which the electorate, on numerous occasions, have rejected. There is one item of solace. When we do leave the EU, Mr Hannan, and MEP, will lose his sinecure. Perhaps then he may be improved?
August 18, 2018
Great book, all should read, very readable, interesting. OK, why would an an American read a book about Brexit?, A, to understand what happening in the world, and in this case to get the view of it, the story from some one who been at the hart of the thing, a MEP, a leader in the leave campaign.
B. Because the issues and the vision present do pertain to us.
Free trade vs. Tariffs, Local Governance vs. centralized Government, in short, one gains a better understand of events effecting us, but learning about similar questions overseas.
B. Because the issues and the vision present do pertain to us.
Free trade vs. Tariffs, Local Governance vs. centralized Government, in short, one gains a better understand of events effecting us, but learning about similar questions overseas.
November 7, 2016
If I could believe most leavers felt like Daniel Hannan then I would to an extent feel relieved, however you just need to read the comments pages of the Mail, Express or Sun to see how the average leave voter feels. Despite his protestations, leave continues to be dominated by the far right and is focused on immigration to the expense of any other consideration. The liberal world painted here sounds very nice but I don't see it happening in the current climate where the only sound I hear is the march of jackboots.
March 25, 2017
Superb
Brillante alegato por la liberalización del Reino Unido... y de toda Europa. Ojalá lo traduzcan al español y goce de gran difusión.
Brillante alegato por la liberalización del Reino Unido... y de toda Europa. Ojalá lo traduzcan al español y goce de gran difusión.
April 17, 2017
The results of the June 23rd EU referendum were dramatic, and if all the coverage of the leave side you saw tended to focus on the Nigel Farage anti-immigrant campaign, it no doubt created a perception that the vote was the result of an angry nativism that you never suspected was so widespread. Only, of course, it wasn't. Because there was another side to the leave campaign which got rather less coverage in the remain-backing media and which wanted a leave vote on very different grounds. For these people it was Britain's sovereignty, not the colour of its people which mattered. For those with ears to hear, polling both before and after the vote suggests it was this which genuinely drove the result. And one of the most effective and well-reasoned voices of that campaign is Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan, whose oratory during the referendum was the very antithesis of Little England rhetoric. Now, in a book written only months after the vote, he is setting out his stall, reaffirming the reasons he believed we should leave the EU, explaining why the majority voted with him, what the result means and what we should do next.
It's a book that everybody who cares about Britain and Brexit should read.
Hannan, of course, has form in grand political ideas. Together with Douglas Carswell, he penned 2008's The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain, a blueprint to remake Britain. My take on that book was that it was certainly bold and radical, it was well-reasoned and researched and many of the propositions made perfect sense - but it had a couple of failings where policy prescriptions were too simplistic to work. What Next is broader and shallower than The Plan, making it much harder to disagree with, and whilst there are a couple of places where I think Hannan maintains a certain naivitee, these don't detract from the grand sweep of the philosophy.
Most fascinating for me was Hannan's exploration of the campaign itself. Suggesting that Nigel Farage didn't want to win sounds fairly radical, but Hannan's analysis is compelling and it is possible to see UKIP's struggles in the aftermath as those of a party trying to find another source of grievance to win votes. Hannan, however, isn't in the grievance game himself, and his reforming zeal remains as strong as ever. He's willing to concede that the EU may try to scupper a deal out of spite, but he's able to show why this is unlikely and why both Britain and the EU stand instead to gain from a good deal from a bucaneering Britain regaining its freedom of action. The two-tier (as opposed to two-speed) Europe he explores is what many of 1975's remainers really wanted and it's likely to garner a lot of sympathy from those who voted remain on economic grounds in 2016.
For those with an ear to hear, therefore, this book is a genuine must read. It certainly stands to make people a lot happier about the result of the referendum. One only hopes there's a good future for Dan Hannan when his career-long effort to put himself out of a job finally comes to fruition.
It's a book that everybody who cares about Britain and Brexit should read.
Hannan, of course, has form in grand political ideas. Together with Douglas Carswell, he penned 2008's The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain, a blueprint to remake Britain. My take on that book was that it was certainly bold and radical, it was well-reasoned and researched and many of the propositions made perfect sense - but it had a couple of failings where policy prescriptions were too simplistic to work. What Next is broader and shallower than The Plan, making it much harder to disagree with, and whilst there are a couple of places where I think Hannan maintains a certain naivitee, these don't detract from the grand sweep of the philosophy.
Most fascinating for me was Hannan's exploration of the campaign itself. Suggesting that Nigel Farage didn't want to win sounds fairly radical, but Hannan's analysis is compelling and it is possible to see UKIP's struggles in the aftermath as those of a party trying to find another source of grievance to win votes. Hannan, however, isn't in the grievance game himself, and his reforming zeal remains as strong as ever. He's willing to concede that the EU may try to scupper a deal out of spite, but he's able to show why this is unlikely and why both Britain and the EU stand instead to gain from a good deal from a bucaneering Britain regaining its freedom of action. The two-tier (as opposed to two-speed) Europe he explores is what many of 1975's remainers really wanted and it's likely to garner a lot of sympathy from those who voted remain on economic grounds in 2016.
For those with an ear to hear, therefore, this book is a genuine must read. It certainly stands to make people a lot happier about the result of the referendum. One only hopes there's a good future for Dan Hannan when his career-long effort to put himself out of a job finally comes to fruition.
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