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Saving Britain: How We Must Change to Prosper in Europe
Britain's Brexit voters are right. They have been shamefully neglected. But the answer is to change Britain, not to leave Europe. This book sets out how we can radically improve the lives of people and communities shut out from prosperity.The EU, despite its frailties and strains, is a success story.The advantages of leaving are no gains in trade from deals with protectionist China and the United States can compensate for what is being lost in Europe. Britain is weakening a pillar of the world's diplomatic and trade order at the same time as weakening itself - an act of self-harm, especially when so many countries are retreating from democracy, free trade and progressive values.In Saving Britain Will Hutton and Andrew Adonis set out a bold plan to transform Britain and fight for Europe as a force for good at home and abroad.
- GenresPoliticsNonfiction
256 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 7, 2018
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72 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 26, 2018
A swift read, for it lightly skims a lot of ground at quite a pace, but a highly topical and up-to-date account of where we're at in mid-2018. Early chapters set up some background that led us here, moving on to the current failings, before heading off into suggestions for alternatives. Finally the authors give some attention to a wider future for Europe.
I found chapter 4 most relevant to discussions right now, but the alternative possibilities takes an extremely fleeting high-level fly-by. Still, the tone is hopeful, to try and improve things moving forward, as we should, and as I do on a daily basis at work, and have done for decades.
I found chapter 4 most relevant to discussions right now, but the alternative possibilities takes an extremely fleeting high-level fly-by. Still, the tone is hopeful, to try and improve things moving forward, as we should, and as I do on a daily basis at work, and have done for decades.
January 30, 2019
Now that we approach the last 60 days before March 29 and the (current) demise of our membership of the EU, it was time to read this book. Andrew Adonis has led a fight for the People's Vote but the crucial need if that right is won is to be able for Remainers to articulate to enough people the reasons to remain. I believe that this book goes some way to doing this.
There is a history lesson of our position in Europe, how Farage became the virtual leader of the Conservative Party via David Cameron's poor decision-making. The recent BBC2 TV programme, "Inside Europe, Ten Years of Turmoil" showed how Cameron's exit from a key european grouping, the EPP, was a major mistake that led to him being marginalised by other European leaders. This book also makes that point and then continues to show how the ERG, UKIP and Farage piled on the pressure so that the Referendum in 2016 became a default despite the stupidity of that decision.
The main thrust of this book should have been how the People's Vote can be engineered. It assumes the rightfulness of that approach (which I agree) but we have seen in the last year that British politics is party-based despite the cracks that Brexit cause. Even now, 30th January, 2019, we are not yet close to a People's Vote.
Should one be called (and Andrew Adonis is a clarion for this) then the book offers up many critical issues on which a call to the electorate should be made. Most of this relates to those that voted Leave in the out of London towns and cities that have been hit hard, especially since the financial crash. This is a crucial area for persuasion.
The book also tries to focus on the sovereignty issues that seem to spur so many on. I agree with the thoughts expressed but don't believe that many who are entrenched in such views will be turned around on this argument.
The critical issue that Farage and ERG (and Johnson et al) used to convince was, of course, immigration. Hutton and Adonis show how controlled immigration has been a huge success for the UK, how most of us in the UK come from immigrant stock, how it enriches us and how it can be controlled. They also show how stupid was Cameron for not understanding the problems that uncontrolled immigration would provide (similarly with Blair and Brown) but that there are answers - if people can believe politicians on this.
Overall, the questions are (1) how to obtain a People's Vote, which is not answered and (2) if obtained, how to win over a good proportion of the electorate and then to actively revitalise the UK.
I think that several of the issues raised on (2), like the complications of EU membership, will not be useful in a competition for votes. The arguments have to be better judged for the electorate in the country, not just for politically aware people that read all the newspapers and are commonly involved in dialogues and discussions on the EU and Brexit. There is entrenchment of belief amongst many (who will not be shifted) but enough at the margins that could be swayed by sensible people arguing sensible policies.
This book affirms many of the issues and is a good starter for the referendum should it happen.
There is a history lesson of our position in Europe, how Farage became the virtual leader of the Conservative Party via David Cameron's poor decision-making. The recent BBC2 TV programme, "Inside Europe, Ten Years of Turmoil" showed how Cameron's exit from a key european grouping, the EPP, was a major mistake that led to him being marginalised by other European leaders. This book also makes that point and then continues to show how the ERG, UKIP and Farage piled on the pressure so that the Referendum in 2016 became a default despite the stupidity of that decision.
The main thrust of this book should have been how the People's Vote can be engineered. It assumes the rightfulness of that approach (which I agree) but we have seen in the last year that British politics is party-based despite the cracks that Brexit cause. Even now, 30th January, 2019, we are not yet close to a People's Vote.
Should one be called (and Andrew Adonis is a clarion for this) then the book offers up many critical issues on which a call to the electorate should be made. Most of this relates to those that voted Leave in the out of London towns and cities that have been hit hard, especially since the financial crash. This is a crucial area for persuasion.
The book also tries to focus on the sovereignty issues that seem to spur so many on. I agree with the thoughts expressed but don't believe that many who are entrenched in such views will be turned around on this argument.
The critical issue that Farage and ERG (and Johnson et al) used to convince was, of course, immigration. Hutton and Adonis show how controlled immigration has been a huge success for the UK, how most of us in the UK come from immigrant stock, how it enriches us and how it can be controlled. They also show how stupid was Cameron for not understanding the problems that uncontrolled immigration would provide (similarly with Blair and Brown) but that there are answers - if people can believe politicians on this.
Overall, the questions are (1) how to obtain a People's Vote, which is not answered and (2) if obtained, how to win over a good proportion of the electorate and then to actively revitalise the UK.
I think that several of the issues raised on (2), like the complications of EU membership, will not be useful in a competition for votes. The arguments have to be better judged for the electorate in the country, not just for politically aware people that read all the newspapers and are commonly involved in dialogues and discussions on the EU and Brexit. There is entrenchment of belief amongst many (who will not be shifted) but enough at the margins that could be swayed by sensible people arguing sensible policies.
This book affirms many of the issues and is a good starter for the referendum should it happen.
November 4, 2020
Hutton and Adonis' creation is nothing but a polemic of pre-Brexit Blairite thinking masquerading as a set of solutions to the new Brexit age, argues Bruce Newsome.
The discourse on Brexit is already so ridiculous that a book on the subject can either cut through with clarity or serve your needs like the proverbial hole in the head. Alas, the latest book is both slippery and cutting, both pretentious and tedious, both watery soup and cloying mud, with only about 200 pages of main body text, but so much repetition, contradiction, misrepresentation, and holier-than-thou preaching as to give you a headache. You don't need the book to prove the headache ? the authors already released a precis as a newspaper article, which feels like being beaten over the head by particularly self-righteous teenagers.
Your torturers are Lord Adonis (formerly a minister in Tony Blair's government of no relevance to Brexit) and Will Hutton (a journalist of similar politics). Adonis was last news-worthy around Christmas 2017, when he resigned from the Conservative government's National Infrastructure Commission, where he had focused on railways. He publicized his letter to the prime minister, in which he blamed her Brexit policy. The letter was so packed with hyperbole, prejudices, and fallacies that they deserved their own article at the time. His self-biography in the book claims that "he resigned to fight Brexit." The preface states that the "book was written in an intense collaboration between Christmas 2017 and Easter 2018" ? it is signed on St. George's Day (23 April). It was published about seven weeks later, or nearly two years since the Brexit referendum. Yet this is not a book of careful reflection or research.
Read more at this link
The discourse on Brexit is already so ridiculous that a book on the subject can either cut through with clarity or serve your needs like the proverbial hole in the head. Alas, the latest book is both slippery and cutting, both pretentious and tedious, both watery soup and cloying mud, with only about 200 pages of main body text, but so much repetition, contradiction, misrepresentation, and holier-than-thou preaching as to give you a headache. You don't need the book to prove the headache ? the authors already released a precis as a newspaper article, which feels like being beaten over the head by particularly self-righteous teenagers.
Your torturers are Lord Adonis (formerly a minister in Tony Blair's government of no relevance to Brexit) and Will Hutton (a journalist of similar politics). Adonis was last news-worthy around Christmas 2017, when he resigned from the Conservative government's National Infrastructure Commission, where he had focused on railways. He publicized his letter to the prime minister, in which he blamed her Brexit policy. The letter was so packed with hyperbole, prejudices, and fallacies that they deserved their own article at the time. His self-biography in the book claims that "he resigned to fight Brexit." The preface states that the "book was written in an intense collaboration between Christmas 2017 and Easter 2018" ? it is signed on St. George's Day (23 April). It was published about seven weeks later, or nearly two years since the Brexit referendum. Yet this is not a book of careful reflection or research.
Read more at this link
October 17, 2019
I read it to review it, as you can see here https://www.workersliberty.org/adonis-h
Will Hutton and Andrew Adonis’s Saving Britain: How We Must Change To Prosper In Europe has bold ambitions, which, combined with its left-of-centre slant, distinguishes it from many in the burgeoning genre of books about Brexit. The book, published less than a year before Britain is scheduled to leave the EU, argues that Brexit is part of a project to create “Thatcherism in one country”, that we can and should stop it – and make profound changes in Britain. The authors’ visions and reasoning might sometimes “persuade fatalistic Remainers, and those Leave voters growing more and more uneasy” - their stated aim - but ultimately their 200-odd page manifesto is let down by the limitations of liberalism.
Continued: https://www.workersliberty.org/adonis-h
Will Hutton and Andrew Adonis’s Saving Britain: How We Must Change To Prosper In Europe has bold ambitions, which, combined with its left-of-centre slant, distinguishes it from many in the burgeoning genre of books about Brexit. The book, published less than a year before Britain is scheduled to leave the EU, argues that Brexit is part of a project to create “Thatcherism in one country”, that we can and should stop it – and make profound changes in Britain. The authors’ visions and reasoning might sometimes “persuade fatalistic Remainers, and those Leave voters growing more and more uneasy” - their stated aim - but ultimately their 200-odd page manifesto is let down by the limitations of liberalism.
Continued: https://www.workersliberty.org/adonis-h
December 2, 2018
At long last a POV about Brexit that relies on facts, not assertions. Researched to the hilt, underpinned with data at every point, it traces the real sources of many of the ills laid at Brussels’s door and identifies which belong there and which are of our own making or in our power to resolve. And Yes, it does conclude that Europe has done us much more good than harm. But this is much more than just a POV on Brexit - it’s also a charter for a more modern compassionate inclusive Britain. Not sure I agreed with every suggestion offered, but I certainly came away better informed and thinking hard!
January 16, 2026
Following a talk in Lichfield by Andrew Adonis supporting a people's vote, I was intrigued as to what more this book could tell me. Boy, was I surprised. I have read several books on brexit and this, though realtively short, is one of the best. Not only does it describe the reasons we voted to leave the EU, it also details a credible way forward. Not often you get answers. A good read and a great reference for the future.
June 8, 2019
Practical, sensible and useful. Very well written and very clear. Read it!
July 24, 2020
Some good ideas but I’d extremely time specific and has become dated very quickly
November 12, 2022
Covers a lot of political history, but is so polemical that it feels unreliable (and depressing) as a remainer, and I’m sure makes leave voters quite angry
August 11, 2025
Good book, basically just 200 pages about why brexit was so shit. Well written and I would recommend
September 5, 2019
More of what we already know, ie constitutional reform and a new direction for the UK, yadda yadda.
A shame that Adonis, the co-author has completely abandoned his principles on remaining in the Eu however, which makes this book seem hard to believe. Since he has abandoned his idea of remaining in the Eu and campaigning for a people's vote, he seems to have instead embraced Corbyn's nice happy unicorn socialist Brexit, maybe hoping he can cling on to his HoL salary and expenses.
After these two, long affiliated with the British Labour Party, have accepted and eaten up Labour's manifesto in 2017 which promised to honour the result, it seems like a scam to then write a book about how we must stay in the EU.
A shame that Adonis, the co-author has completely abandoned his principles on remaining in the Eu however, which makes this book seem hard to believe. Since he has abandoned his idea of remaining in the Eu and campaigning for a people's vote, he seems to have instead embraced Corbyn's nice happy unicorn socialist Brexit, maybe hoping he can cling on to his HoL salary and expenses.
After these two, long affiliated with the British Labour Party, have accepted and eaten up Labour's manifesto in 2017 which promised to honour the result, it seems like a scam to then write a book about how we must stay in the EU.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews