Brexit: Why can’t we break the conspiracy of silence?

Brexit has crashed and burned - taking the country with it. But no one in English politics wants to talk about it - despite the rolling misery of this failed populist experiment. This week on the Lowdown I am joined by a journalist who does want to talk about it: Peter Foster of the Financial Times, whose latest book What Went Wrong With Brexit: And What We Can Do About it, is out today.

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We discuss the strange political Omerta that has descended on Brexit and the sullen response of the brexiteers who are witnessing the failure of their pet project in real time.

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And as an added bonus!

Below is ny take on a dreadful book, The Case for the Centre Right, edited by David Gauke and Rory Stewart, and out later this month. It is dreadful because nowhere do Gauke, Stewart or any of the other “big beasts” of moderate conservatism acknowledge their complicity in the triumph of extremism in the Tory party, or offer any ideas about how it might be beaten. (There’s a paywall but you can jump it with a free trial.)

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Conservative "moderates" opened the door for extremists

Before the purge: David Gauke and Boris Johnson in 2019 (CREDIT: GETTY)

Like a rabbi leading a gaggle of mourners to the Wailing Wall, David Gauke has collected a band of distraught Conservative moderates. As they bemoan the collapse of the centre right, one question rises through their sobs.

What the hell just happened?

They failed, that’s what happened.

They failed because they could not contain the extremist right and failed to even realise they had a duty to fight extremists until it was too late for them - and this country. They failed because supposed moderate conservatism was nowhere near as moderate as they flattered themselves into believing. They failed because their policy of austerity economics created the stagnation that helped push millions into voting for Brexit. They failed, and are still failing, not only because they cannot accept the faults in their past, but because they have no chance of taking back their party in the future.