This book has grown out of a paper, of the same title, that I gave at the Annual Conference of the Economic History Society at Royal Holloway, University of London, on 1 April 2017. Some might think that this was an appropriate date to discuss Brexit, and the events of the intervening months have not necessarily dispelled that impression.

Anyone who takes an interest in British politics or history will have realised that 23 June 2016, when the United Kingdom narrowly voted to leave the European Union, represented an important turning point in the country's post-war history. For some this was a moment of liberation, as the nation finally shook off the European yoke. For others, it was a catastrophe, a dark mixture of nativism and nostalgia for a nonexistent past. Certainly, the referendum exposed divisions within British society: friends fell out and families were at war, at least verbally. The atmosphere was quite unlike a general election where, usually, both winners and losers shrug their shoulders and look forward to another contest a few years hence.

This book is an attempt to understand what has led us, as a nation, to this point. I am old enough to remember the UK's accession in 1973, and the previous referendum in 1975, although I did not then have a vote. Over the course of my adult lifetime, the British (or, at least, the 52% who supported Brexit) have moved from engagement with Europe to semi-detachment, and then to outright hostility. This book is an attempt to understand that process.

I am very grateful to Boydell & Brewer for their support in relation to this project. It has been a fascinating exercise to seek to unravel the sequence of events that led to 23 June 2016. It has been all the more intriguing to do so while those events have continued to unfold, with the May government conducting protracted negotiations with their European counterparts and British politicians of all sorts seeking to make sense of the people's verdict. I have, in general, entered into a self-denying ordinance to end my account in June 2016. Subsequent developments will, no doubt, be the subject of much scholarly endeavour in due course: but that must await some form of denouement.