'Essential reading for anyone anxious to understand the background to the Brexit debate' Tablet With all the political infighting in British politics over Brexit dominating the news cycle, we almost forgot who we were negotiating with. Now, in Blind Man's Brexit, we get to see and hear exactly what was going on in the corridors of power in Brussels, and how the EU comprehensively outmanoeuvred the UK government. When Lode Desmet met Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's representative on Brexit, about filming a fly-on-the-wall documentary on the negotiations, he could never have imagined the unique access he would be granted and the extraordinary story that he would end up filming. As the cameras rolled, Lode sat in on private conversations with chief negotiator Michel Barnier and saw first hand how Theresa May's government's negotiating positions were knocked back time after time. The results were aired in the BBC documentary series Brexit: Behind Closed Doors. Written with distinguished political commentator Edward Stourton, who also provides a British perspective on events, Blind Man's Brexit goes beyond the documentary to reveal a staggering and unprecedented failure of diplomacy on one side and contrasts the very clearly defined aims and goals of the EU side. Many books have attempted to tell the story of what happened, but this one has completely unfiltered access to events as viewed by the EU, and shows exactly why, how and where the Brexit negotiations went so spectacularly wrong, resulting in our departure from the EU being delayed beyond 29 March 2019 as the UK was left in limbo and its political system in disarray.

Brexit is the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. The relationship between Great Britain and the European Union is a long and complicated one, the UK opted out of a membership in the EU (or then European Economic Community) back in 1950, set up a rival group known as the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) in 1961, applied for EU membership in 1971 where it became an "awkward partner" for decades only to withdraw at midnight on 31 January 2020 at which time it became a fully sovereign country again Historical Dictionary of Brexit contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 300 cross-referenced entries terms, persons and events that shaped Brexit. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Brexit.

This book shows that political narratives can promote or thwart the prospects for international cooperation and are major factors in international negotiation processes in the 21st century. In a world that is experiencing waves of right-wing and left-wing populism, international cooperation has become increasingly difficult. This volume focuses on how the intersubjective identities of political parties and narratives shape their respective values, interests and negotiating behaviors and strategies. Through a series of comparative case studies, the book explains how and why narratives contribute to negotiation failure or deadlock in some circumstances and why, in others, they do not because a new narrative that garners public and political support has emerged through the process of negotiation. The book also examines how narratives interact with negotiation principles, and alter the bargaining range of a negotiation, including the ability to make concessions. This book will be of much interest to students of international negotiation, economics, security studies and international relations.

This book is the first detailed analysis of how the EU responded to Brexit. It is an important reference point for future studies of the Brexit negotiations. The authors conducted in-depth interviews with key institutional players in Brussels and in several member states to document how the EU handled the first-ever exit of one of its members. The Brexit shock came at a time when the EU had barely recovered from the Euro crisis and was struggling to manage an unprecedented inflow of refugees. The immediate fear was that Brexit might be the final straw that broke the camel ’s back. Eurosceptics were jubilant, and Europhiles were distraught. In reality, the EU reacted to Brexit with resolve and a determination to protect the polity. The book argues that getting the process right was crucial. The EU mobilised its collective capacity to negotiate effectively and with one voice.

'Thoughtful, witty, occasionally comic, often effortlessly profound - not a conventional journalistic memoir.' Sunday Times 'If you value the perspective and judgment of one who has covered, often from the frontline, the major events of the past four decades, then snap up a copy.' Mail on Sunday 'A book brimming with surprises and insight.' - Nicholas Coleridge ------------------------------------------------------------------- Edward Stourton was born into a life of privilege. The son of expat parents in colonial Nigeria, Ed was sent back to Britain to be educated by Benedictine monks at Ampleforth, at the time when, it was latter revealed, the school and monastery were the setting for serial abuse cases. He then went up to Cambridge, where his life as an undergraduate gave him access to a network of future ministers, judges and newspaper editors. As a young journalist, he reported first from party conferences and picket lines and then from war zones, witnessing the events making international headlines, from Haiti to Hong Kong, before returning home to join the infighting on BBC Radio 4's Today. During this time, the Empire has given way to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, men-only clubs have been replaced by Me Too, and instead of a choice selection of voices on a handful of radio and television channels, we have millions of voices on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. The world has changed, and so has Ed. Brought face to face with the author of his obituary and his own inevitable mortality, Ed is prompted to reflect on the life he has led and the events that have shaped him. In Confessions, he describes this remarkable journey with candour, humour and the insight that only forty years' experience of writing and reporting can provide. 'A searingly honest insight into the life of one of our great journalists. Hugely entertaining too.' John Humphrys

The British referendum on the membership of the European Union on 23 June 2016 was a cataclysmic event in British and European politics. Years later the consequences are still unknown. This collection seeks to answer the key questions relating to the consequences of Brexit and the future of Britain. Will Brexit affect the British constitution? Is Brexit likely to lead to the breakup of the UK – with Scotland and Northern Ireland seeking independence? How will Covid-19 delay lingering political questions brought on by Brexit? These key questions and more, relating to both domestic and foreign policy, are answered by a range of contributors including expert academics, policy-makers and Members of Parliament and addresses both European and British policy-making.

Investigating the 2016 EU Referendum in the UK, The Language of Brexit explores the ways in which 'Brexit' campaigners utilised language more persuasively than their 'Remain' counterparts. Drawing parallels with effective political discourse used worldwide, this book highlights the linguistic features of an increasingly popular style of political campaigning. Concentrating on the highly successful and emotive linguistic strategies employed by the Brexit campaigners against the comparatively lacklustre Remain camp, Buckledee makes a case for the contribution of language towards the narrow 52-48% Brexit victory. Using primary examples, what emerges is how urging people to have the courage to make a bid for freedom naturally invokes more grandiloquent language, powerful metaphors and rousing partisan tone than a campaign which, on balance, argues that it's best to simply stick with the status quo. Examining the huge amount of discourse generated before, during and since the June 2016 EU Referendum, The Language of Brexit looks into the role language played in the democratic process and the influence and impact it had on electors, leading to an unexpected result and uncertain future.

Examining novels by celebrated authors, some neglected and some brand new texts, Arin Keeble offers a detailed analysis of the ways novels from around the world have represented terrorism in the early twenty-first century. Over five chapters, he uncovers a movement away from event-based narratives toward depictions of terrorism as a violent symptom or feature of twenty-first century world-systems and neoliberalism. Beginning with the early literary response to 9/11 and the 9/11 novel genre, the book moves through more recent depictions of the endless 'war on terror', state terror, white nationalist terror and historical narratives of terror that resonate in the current political climate. In doing so, it examines the changing ways literature has sought to make sense of both the reasons why terrorism occurs and the effects it has on victims, survivors and international and intercultural relations.

Wikipedia's first twenty years: how what began as an experiment in collaboration became the world's most popular reference work. We have been looking things up in Wikipedia for twenty years. What began almost by accident--a wiki attached to an nascent online encyclopedia--has become the world's most popular reference work. Regarded at first as the scholarly equivalent of a Big Mac, Wikipedia is now known for its reliable sourcing and as a bastion of (mostly) reasoned interaction. How has Wikipedia, built on a model of radical collaboration, remained true to its original mission of "free access to the sum of all human knowledge" when other tech phenomena have devolved into advertising platforms? In this book, scholars, activists, and volunteers reflect on Wikipedia's first twenty years, revealing connections across disciplines and borders, languages and data, the professional and personal.

The power of gender difference, not gender equality, is a secret source for success. Some smart businesses are starting to wake up to this fact. This book explores why and how. Properly valuing brain gender diversity in the workplace is one of the biggest and largely untapped sources of competitive advantage for modern businesses. Recent advances in neuroscience provide the key to unlocking it. Modern research shows that there are gender-based differences in the brain – it’s just not as simple as a binary between a ‘male brain’ and ‘female brain’. In fact, our brains are like a mosaic where many of the tiles are available in thousands of shades on a spectrum between pink and blue. The problem is that our workplaces tend to be governed by structures, processes and cultures that are practically pure blue. All the brains in the business that are elsewhere on the spectrum cannot thrive as they might, so sources of productivity, creativity and agility go untapped. Anyone who manages people needs to understand how the brain works and the impact it has on how people work together as teams. Anyone who wants to unlock the talent and productivity of all of their people needs to understand how recent findings around male- and female-type brains should shape the way they manage. Leading applied neuroscientists and international corporate coaches Kate Lanz and Paul Brown show you why and how to access all the brains in your business.