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“I recommend our diplomats and ministers read this book: it will provide them with an intellectual backbone. On the big calls [Bootle] has a spectacularly good record.” Dominic Lawson, The Sunday Times

“Bootle is right on every count.” The Guardian

HOW BREXIT WILL WORK FOR BRITAIN AND EUROPE

Making a Success of Brexit and Reforming the EU is the extensively revised and expanded post-Brexit edition of the acclaimed The Trouble with Europe. Following Britain’s vote to leave the EU and the ensuing uncertainty in both Europe and the UK, here, one of Britain’s best known economists Roger Bootle, charts a way forward for all.

For Leavers and Remainers alike, this book analyses the choices the UK faces about its relationship with the EU – and the rest of the world. It discusses the key issues concerning a ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ Brexit, Free Trade Agreements, the Single Market and the Customs Union, as well as the principles and pitfalls of the negotiating process.

Meanwhile, with or without Brexit, the EU faces an existential crisis. It needs to choose between three different paths: radical reform, further integration or break-up. This book assesses the costs and benefits of each, concluding with a version of how the world would look without the EU.

Bootle’s exemplary outline of the origins and historical context of the EU is retained from the previous edition, where he acknowledges the remarkable achievements of the EU, before laying out the shortcomings which have led to the parting of the ways with Britain.

This is the essential read as the Brexit negotiations progress.

Reviews

The Sunday Times
I recommend our diplomats and ministers read this book: it will provide them with an intellectual backbone. This will be the essential vade mecum if and when a referendum campaign takes place. The part of Bootle's book in which he analyses the pros and cons of British exit from the EU will be the most influential.
Financial Times
Maps out a fresh start for UK-EU relations. Bootle writes with energetic prose and makes some good points. His discussion of European monetary union is cogent.
Guardian
Bootle is right on every count.
Rt. Hon. Nigel Lawson, former Chancellor of the Exchequer
Roger Bootle perceptively analyses what is wrong with the European Union as presently constituted, both politically and economically; what reforms are needed to make it wise for the UK to remain a member; and how we can most sensibly conduct ourselves outside the EU, should those reforms not be undertaken. It is essential background read- ing for any future in/out referendum.
Daily Telegraph
An outstanding, grown-up account of the failures of the European Union. Bootle is certainly no little Englander, but his argument is calm, conversational, rigorous and - quite remarkably for an economist - entirely free of bafflegab. Engaging and absorbing, here is an eye-opening book that will inspire you to think through the issues clearly - with- out starting a saloon-bar brawl.
Jeff Randall, Sky News business presenter
As I have come to expect from Roger Bootle, he gets to the heart of the matter with crystal-clear analysis and punchy comment. It's the best book yet on the European Union's dysfunctionality.
Independent on Sunday
Brilliant, albeit radical solutions. One of the most thoughtful accounts that I have yet read about the European question.
The Week – Business Books of the Year
This is a credible plan for life outside Europe and deserves to be widely read.
David Marsh, co-chairman of OMFIF, and author of 'Europe’s Deadlock'
A well-informed and rigorously-argued book.