Hi, everyone. Welcome to the latest episode of the UK in a Changing Europe podcast. I'm delighted

today to be joined remotely by none other than Tom McTagg, well-known author, well-known journalist,

and most recently the editor of the new statesman. Hi, Tom. Hello, thanks for having me on. No, it's an absolute pleasure. And actually, you know, as we were chatting beforehand, we originally invited you on because you've written a really, really interesting book. And I'm not just saying that. It's interesting in so many ways. We'll get on to that. But actually, since we've sort of agreed to do this, there's so much gone on in the area of what the Labour

Party is doing and thinking and talking about EU policy. I'd like to talk about that as well.

But start with a book. And here's a nice easy start up for 10. Sell it to people in 30 seconds.

It is the long and under explored part of the Brexit story, why Britain voted to leave the

European Union, having spent so long sort of in this uncomfortable relationship with Europe.

And I think it also tells the story of those who fought against British membership of the

European Union, who for most of post-war British history, were on the losing side. They lost

against Edward Heath. They lost in the 1975 referendum. They lost over and over and over again, and yet they won in 2016.

And I think trying to understand that story tells us a lot about history and tells us a lot

about how politics actually works. And it's not just who wins elections.

And if nothing else, it's a tribute to persistence, isn't it? Because these people just did not give up.

They kept hammering away. And I mean, we'll come back to the story because the thing that sticks in

my mind about the book, it's like a work of, it's like a detective, a work of sort of detectiveness.

I can't think of how you express that. But you sort of, there are all these wonderful characters

who meet, you know, they might

meet in Algeria in the 50s and then they pop up again somewhere else. If you can, just talk

us through a couple of your favourite characters that you uncovered because my God, the book is so

full of these people. Yeah, it's, thank you. It's a good question. I mean, two well-known characters,

I guess, who I was fascinated by,

and I didn't know as much about before I started researching this about sort of almost five years ago now,

...