My guest is Tom Bakthag.

Tom Bakthag is the editor of the weekly magazine, The New

Statesman, and the author of a new book called Between the Waves, The Hidden History of a Very

British Revolution, 1945 to 2016. Welcome to the podcast, Tom. Thanks so much for having me.

I really appreciate it.

Right.

So first things first, why write this book on this topic and at this time?

Well, the first thing I get to say, I guess, is that I started it quite a few years ago, about four years ago now.

A time when, you know, Brexit was still very much in the news. Britain had only left

the EU a few months before, I think, when I actually began putting pen to paper on this

subject. So it was still very fresh in my mind. But the real reason was actually a number of books

that I'd read at that period, which kind of came together

to influence my thinking. There were some books in the States about the conservative revolution

there that were really influential on me. There was one called Before the Storm, and it charted the decision of the Republican Party to nominate Barry Goldwater

in 1964. And this is the beginning, the opening of the story. And it says, the Republican Party

has done what no party in America thought was ever possible. It's nominated an ideological conservative.

And then it charts how he'd gone on to lose this crushing landslide defeat to Lyndon Johnson.

And everybody in the United States said, well, if this only proves that if you become a conservative party,

the Republican Party is doomed to defeat

permanently in American politics. And of course that didn't happen. And the arc of the story

is one of this rising tide of conservative ideology in the States, culminating in the victory

of Ronald Reagan. So I suddenly thought, God, that is very similar to the Eurosceptic story in Britain.

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