Brexit

I think I am finally beginning to understand why Brexit has happened. In the past, I have only been a casual observer of all things political and have rarely engaged in politics and when I have it has been very superficial. I tended to read science, medicine and all things neurological, with an occasional novel during my summer holiday. What has changed? For someone living in the UK Brexit has been all-consuming and has stimulated me to make an effort to upskill myself to try and understand the issues at hand.

I have therefore spent the last 3 years consuming books and literature in a way I have never been motivated to do in the past. The list below is a selection of some of the books that I read that have influenced my thinking.

Through this process, I have come to realise that the principal reasons behind Brexit are (1) an abreaction to inequality, which in itself is related to global economic and geopolitical changes, (2) a democratic scotoma (blindspot), (3) national bullying and (4) empire. From a personal perspective, all of these are beyond an individuals control.

I, therefore, have no insights to offer except what I have gleaned from these books; so I would urge you to read some of them. The issue I have is that a populist revolt and Brexit were/are predictable events that our politicians should have seen coming and done something about. Is it not their jobs to anticipate social unrest? Brexit has been decades in the making.

As a neurologist and MSologist, I have an obligation to make sense of Brexit and to try and mitigate the impact Brexit is going to have on the NHS and how we manage people with MS. I suspect that my recent focus on the social determinants of health and our #ThinkSocial campaign has arisen as a result of wider ‘political’ reading in relation to Brexit.

1. Capital in the Twenty-First Century — Thomas Piketty*
2. The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone — Kate Pickett*
3. The Health Gap: The Challenge of an Unequal World — Michael Marmot*
4. Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About The World — And Why Things Are Better Than You Think - Hans Rosling
5. The Growth Delusion: The Wealth and Well-Being of Nations — David Pilling
6. Rule Britannia: Brexit and the End of Empire — Danny Dorling
7. Peak Inequality: Britain’s ticking time bomb — Danny Dorling
8. Injustice (revised edition): Why social inequality still persists — Danny Dorling
9. All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain’s Political Class — Tim Shipman
10. The Euro: And its Threat to the Future of Europe — Joseph Stiglitz*
11. Adults in the Room: My Battle With Europe’s Deep Establishment — Yanis Varoufakis
12. And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe’s crisis, America’s economic future — Yanis Varoufakis
13. The Global Minotaur: America, The True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy — Yanis Varoufakis
14. The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking and the Future of the Global Economy — Mervyn King
15. National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy — Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin*
16. The Establishment: And how they get away with it — Owen Jones
17. Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class — Owen Jones
18. The Silk Roads: A New History of the World — Peter Frankopan
19. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion — Jonathan Haidt
20. WTF? — Robert Peston
21. PostCapitalism: A Guide to Our Future — Paul Mason
22. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable — Nassim Nicholas Taleb
23. The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy — Michael Lewis
24. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine — Michael Lewis
25. Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World — Niall Ferguson*

* my recommended short-list