Author(s): Harry Mount

Current Affairs

Shortly after Boris Johnson was knifed in the back by Michael Gove, a close friend of Boris's said, white-faced, to Harry Mount, 'Brexit is like some horrible curse. It kills everything it touches.' In less than three weeks, from the referendum vote on 23 June to Theresa May's elevation to Prime Minister on 13 July 13, Brexit had morphed into a mass murderer. The Bullingdon boys, Cameron and Osborne had been 'whacked', Mafia style, the Cabinet was drained of blue blood, just 22 per cent of May's Cabinet were public-school educated, compared to Cameron's 45 per cent. And the Notting Hill set - who had holidayed, worked and lived together for thirty years since their Oxford days - were torn asunder by the Brexit serial killer. Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, who had fought the Brexit campaign together, broken bread and plotted with their wives, were ripped apart by Gove's sudden desertion. Jeremy Corbyn, who remained in post before and after the referendum, joined the ranks of the living dead. Shortly after the Brexit result, Labour MPs voted, 172-40, against him in a no-confidence vote. Over the course of two days, twenty-three out of thirty-one of his shadow Cabinet resigned.And Nigel Farage, arguably the only real victor of the referendum, resigned his UKIP leadership within days of the result being announced. The sad and sorry spectacle appeared to resemble nothing less than a scene from The Godfather. In a day-by-day account, Harry Mount gives an insider's tale of those three chilling weeks of mass blood-letting. As events unfolded at a scarcely believable pace he found himself close to the centre of events. He talked with many of the principal combatants, even as he wrote articles for the Evening Standard, the Spectator and the Sunday Times, and it is this unique level of access that has made for a compelling narrative about the referendum which will be seen in years to come as the definitive event that changed the United Kingdom, and quite probably Europe, forever.