Clean Brexit

by Liam Halligan, Gerard Lyons

In this optimistic and inclusive guide, Sunday Telegraph columnist Liam Halligan and renowned economic forecaster Gerard Lyons cut through the complexity and spin to offer a vision of how Britain, and the world, can make a great success of Brexit.

‘We are linked to Europe, but not combined,’ wrote Winston Churchill in 1930. To Halligan and Lyons, this sentiment rings true. And that if the Article 50 negotiations go well, Clean Brexit argues, the UK could become an inspiration, a source of strength for voters elsewhere in Europe who have long demanded EU reform, but been rebuffed.

From manufacturing, fishing, banking, universities, travel, immigration, Scottish independence and the spectre of renewed tension between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, to ongoing trade and good relations with our EU neighbours and the rest of the world, Clean Brexit provides answers to the questions hanging over all these issues, and many more.

Unashamedly optimistic about Britain’s future, Clean Brexit draws on extensive discussions with leading politicians and diplomats across the UK, Europe and the world to argue that leaving the EU provides an opportunity for the UK to re-invent its economy, while reclaiming our place as a premier global trading nation.

Genres: Politics, Economics, Nonfiction

416 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 2018

About the author

Liam Halligan is a British economist, journalist, author and broadcaster. He was economics and business editor at GB News from its launch in June 2021 to June 2024. Since 2003, Halligan has written a weekly column in The Sunday Telegraph and presents the Telegraph's weekly Planet Normal podcast. He has also worked for The Economist, the Financial Times, CNN and Channel 4 News and is an occasional presenter on Channel 4 Dispatches. He holds economics degrees from the Universities of Warwick and Oxford.

Reviews

[Robharries · Rating 2 out of 5]

I campaigned and voted to leave and this book is fine, it is just being a massive politics nerd there wasnt too much I didnt already know or had heard before.

If you are less down the rabbit hole its a pretty optimistic primer on positive brexit opportunities, but for me it was just okay as I've heard this before.

Nothing wrong with the book mind.

[John Dabin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was an excellent written book. I have read a great deal of books in the last two years regarding the EU. This book just confirmed my belief of the need to leave completely. In particular the economic detail was extremely informative. Sadly for me the PM presumably has not read it.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lucid argument which convincingly promotes optimism in the face of entrenched pessimism, this book is an unabashed challenge to lopsided commentary. Rather than painstakingly detail pros and cons in what would be a vote-rehashing, the authors stress the need to move beyond this stagnant discussion and sketch the possibilities available for a nation able to capitalise. The arguments put forward are, pleasingly, non-zero sum - but their promise and evidential backing are nearly absent in current debate. In this regard, the book has often been a surprise or a welcome reminder. I hope that those who read it will be encouraged (whether they agree with every authorial position or not) to differentiate the current outcomes of the vote (given the febrile political climate and near universal determination to refute reasoned pro-Brexit arguments) from the possibilities provided by a cooler "Clean Brexit" appraisal.

[Ken Sampson · Rating 4 out of 5]

[3 Jan 2020] This a a good, well written book which holds your interest and presents a well organised and meticulously researched and very balanced view of the economics of leaving the EU. It is a book that should be a prerequisite for all those social media commentators who harbour such fearsome partisan grudges about the outcome of the EU Referendum in 2016.

There are two comments I would add. The book was written in 2017 and was written on the assumption that the UK would leave the EU in March 2019 and is therefore entirely without the context of two-years of those politicians who were determined to prevent the government implementing its policy, including hundreds of politicians who promised to implement the result and then reneged on their promise.

The second thing was it’s clear London, middle class liberal bias. Yes they argue that immigration was a component of the influence for some voters, but to deny a link between mass immigration and the housing crisis is nonsensical and counter intuitive.

Otherwise a good interesting book

[Bruce Newsome · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a sad indictment of our current elite, that a book about how to leave the EU, first published in September 2017 – seemingly late, at 15 months after the referendum – has been released in a new edition already, amidst renewed "project fear" about how bad leaving would be.

This new edition benefits from a new foreword by Gisela Stuart, a new preface and a new conclusion by the two authors, and a new afterword by Jacob Rees-Mogg. Their similar pithiness and erudition make their lancing of "project fear" an enjoyable, revelatory ride.

Read more at this link

[Harry Newton · Rating 5 out of 5]

“ well written and structured... if the remain camp had set out their arguments as competently and persuasively as Halligan & Lyons have in this book , As somebody who voted remain at the time we might have won. Now definitely advocating since the referendum having changed my view a clean break Brexit definitely like the rest of the country I have massive Brexit fatigue and just want the job done.

[Laurence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very clear prospectus, perhaps to a degree overtaken by events but lays bare the deception of 'soft Brexit' clearly. Generally well written, if a little repetitive at times.