If Brexit is keeping you up at night, this book may not alleviate your fears, but it will certainly arm you with enough information to feel like you have a semblance of control. The author weaves a skillful, engaging narrative spanning the history of eurosceptics, to the failed remain campaign and finally to the difficulties of the exit negotiations. Whilst the future is uncertain, this books helps to explain a lot of the finer details that the media fail to cover, and gives us an interesting behind the scenes look at what is actually happening between the UK and Europe.

This is a solid primer on the practical realities of Brexit--from the process by which it will have to disentangle the UK from EU regulation, through the implications for the ex-pat population and their entitlements to health care and citizenship.

Kenneth A. Armstrong’s ‘Brexit Time’ was written in a relatively brief period of time on sabbatical leave from his post as Director of European Legal Studies at Cambridge University and was clearly completed at some stage before the 15 March 2017 Dutch general election.

The author states his aim as being to explain why, how and when the UK is leaving the EU. These questions are addressed under four headings, namely, ‘Time before Brexit’, covering the UK’s choice to become a Member State and the background to the Referendum; ‘Time of Brexit’, examining the referendum campaign; ‘Time for Brexit’, explaining how the May government responded to the referendum result; and ‘Time to Brexit’, focusing on how and when the UK will actually leave the EU.

Aware that the future will hold many more twists and turns Armstrong has already established an extremely useful companion blog at brexittime.com

Armstrong’s grasp of history is not always assured. For example, referring to Theresa May’s advent as Prime Minister in July 2016, he writes that, “There has been a change of personnel at the heart of government but without the normal mechanism by which such changes occur – a general election.”

In fact in the century before May became PM, on 12 of the 24 times when the premiership changed hands this occurred without a general election (Lloyd George in 1916; Baldwin in 1923 and again in 1935; Chamberlain in 1937; Churchill in 1940; Eden in 1955; Macmillan in 1957; Douglas Home in 1963; Callaghan in 1976; Major in 1990; and Brown in 2007). Thus this state of affairs, however undesirable it may be, is certainly not unusual or abnormal.

Similarly, in twice vetoing the UK’s application to join the EEC (in 1961 and 1967), Armstrong writes that France “was concerned that the enlargement of the EEC – not just the UK, but also Ireland, Denmark, and Norway were expected to make applications – would not only complicate decision-making within the EEC, but also risk diverting its focus from achieving greater ‘internal’ political integration and solidarity towards a more expansive internationalist ‘external’ foreign trade agenda.” This is true as far as it goes but it is difficult not to think that Macmillan got to the real heart of the matter when he remarked to Kennedy that De Gaulle “wants to be cock on a small dunghill instead of having two cocks on a larger one.”

An even bigger lacuna relates to Armstrong’s assessment of why the UK wanted to join the EEC in the first place, as he makes no reference in this context to the role of the Empire-Commonwealth (his first mention of the latter being a reference to the “imports of dairy products to New Zealand” in relation to Wilson’s renegotiation of terms prior to the 1975 referendum). He thus fails to appreciate how decolonisation and Suez (the latter exposing the limits to the so-called ‘special relationship’) played a major role in persuading Macmillan and others of the need to embrace Europe. They feared what might happen if the UK did not draw closer to Europe given that the USA and Empire-Commonwealth seemed much less supportive than hitherto.

Armstrong too seems obsessed with might-have-beens, contemplating, among others, what if Cameron’s renegotiations had secured an ‘emergency brake’ on the numbers of EU migrants coming to the UK?; what if the 2011 referendum had gone the other way and the UK had switched to the AV rather than retaining first-past-the-post?; what if 16 and 17-year-olds had been eligible to vote in the referendum?; what if the Labour Party had campaigned more vigorously and effectively in favour of Remain?; what if the referendum had been held in September rather than June?; and so on.

It is greatly to Armstrong’s credit that all these self-posed questions are answered comprehensively and plausibly. Indeed, the whole book is a model of concision, clarity and subtlety and deserves to be widely read.

Yet still one is bound to wonder why he feels compelled to contemplate every road not taken. It seems to be much more than merely a determination to show that there was nothing predetermined or inevitable about the course of recent events.

Quite early in the book Armstrong states that ‘Brexit Time’ “is not a book about whether withdrawal from the EU is a good or a bad thing. It is objective in its presentation of data and arguments, but necessarily subjective in its interpretation of their significance.”

It is true that in formal terms Armstrong is scrupulously objective in his presentation of the facts but it is difficult not to feel that he wishes a different fork in the path had been taken. After all, as an expert in European law his expertise is in the process of being effectively devalued by Brexit just as much as the pound sterling.

I hope there is some comfort and reward in his knowing that in using that knowledge to such good effect in ‘Brexit Time’ he has produced something of lasting value.