Bell Sovereign Territory

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-78590-891-0
Verlag: Biteback Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 400 Seiten

Brexit is unravelling. Amid the turmoil of plots, government defeats, resignations and riots, the United Kingdom's choice to leave the European Union and make its own way in the world has left the country more fractured than ever. At the heart of the chaos is Alan, a special adviser to a government minister; Mitra, a Labour MP; Jenny, a TV news producer; and Davey, a UKIP activist. Each will struggle to keep control of their own lives as they navigate a political environment that becomes more aggressive and unpredictable by the day. This sweeping novel takes its characters from the streets of Westminster to decaying towns, from the dingiest of pool halls to the heart of No. 10, and finally brings them all together for a debate in front of a live audience during the 2019 election. That night, there is more at stake than just politics; at least one of them is in real danger. Will they all survive - and if they do, will they be able to start draining some of the poison from the political world they now inhabit?

Andy Bell works for ITN and is the political editor on Channel 5 News. Over the past decade, he has reported on elections, resignations and scandals. He has also worked for the BBC and Sky News, covering Barack Obama's road to the White House, war in Gaza and famine in east Africa. Andy previously worked as the BBC's Paris correspondent and the foreign affairs correspondent for Radio 4's Today programme.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bell, Andy

Leseproben

PROLOGUE

NOVEMBER 2019

They had been live for nineteen minutes. In the old gym, now grandly rebranded as a sports hall, the broadcast was underway. On the temporary stage, raised just a foot or so off the polished floor, three men and two women stood behind lecterns. They gazed out at the noisy, restless room and tried to appear confident. Some succeeded better than others.

They were faced by an audience of about 150, who were banked up in a dozen rows of temporary seating. The overall impression was of bodies jammed in too closely. Many were agitated, others sat still but tense. None were calm.

Afterwards, veterans of live-debate programmes working that evening would say that from the start they had sensed something different. There had seemed to be too many people contemptuous of the hapless producers trying to impose some control. Too many of the audience had appeared ready to insult and mock those around them. An intangible sense of threat had hung in the room. Perhaps the atmosphere inside had been stoked up by the presence of the demonstration outside. That uninvited crowd, or mob, had set the tone for all those coming into the building.

The young producer of the programme had felt it but had pushed the worry down. The ministerial special adviser watching from the side of the room had felt it but had trusted that the necessary security had been put in place. A young man in the audience had felt it too, but he had grown so used to a heightened level of aggression that he hardly felt it strange. The candidate behind her lectern had been aware of it too but had had no choice but to remain on the stage.

Later, no one would be able to tell the investigation that they had spotted the precise nature of the danger. A general sense of foreboding had not been enough to prompt anyone to intervene. Everyone knew that emotions had become more intense, but that was politics now, wasn’t it? You just had to accept that people argued in that way and that meant danger always crackled in the air of any debate. So the programme had begun as planned, nineteen minutes ago, broadcast live to a country enduring this winter election. It was as if everyone there had decided this process, set in motion so long before, simply had to play to a conclusion. So they had all watched and waited, sensing the approach of some undefined threat, but unwilling to stop it. The spell had only been broken when the police had erupted into the room.

JUNE 2016

The man on the screen summoned the attention of his unseen audience. ‘The people of Britain have voted and…’ he allowed himself the hint of a dramatic pause. ‘We’re out!’

The words fell into the room where Alan Jarvis sat. He imagined the announcement proclaimed across the country from millions of televisions and radios, springing up on phones and computers; history delivered in a sound bite.

‘Oh, bollocks.’ It was Alan’s boss who spoke. For the last two hours the apprehension in the room had been building, like a slowly rising tide. Now they knew. Britain was leaving the EU.

‘What an absolute fucking disaster. What happens now?’ Alan’s boss had just made it into the Cabinet. A Cameron loyalist and supporter of EU membership, he had campaigned hard for Remain, not just because he believed in the cause but because he thought he could expect promotion in a post-referendum reshuffle. His beliefs and his self-interest had coincided happily. Now he was staring at double disappointment.

They sat in the sitting room of his small Bayswater flat. There was the minister and his two aides, Alan and Kieron Gould. The minister’s wife had gone to bed not long after midnight, reassured by early results. Soon enough, she would hear the truth.

‘Cameron will quit, I suppose?’ Alan didn’t hesitate.

‘He’ll be gone by breakfast. Statement in front of No. 10.’

The minister groaned. In a couple of articles he had been singled out as a rising star. In the new universe, would he even have a place?

‘So who will it be? Boris? May? Not Gove?’

‘I guess Boris has to be the favourite…’ Alan watched the faces coming and going on the screen. A few looked delighted. Most looked stunned.

‘God help us. What do you think, Kieron?’

‘It’s amazing to think the same man announced the result on TV when we joined, isn’t it?’ Kieron was looking at the presenter on the screen. Alan heard the light Welsh accent and thought, not for the first time, how his colleague so often seemed to have no sensitivity. ‘Almost like history unravelling?’

‘Kieron…’ The minister was plainly irritated too.

‘My money’s on Theresa. Everyone’s had a shock. Time for a steady hand. Boris is too risky.’

‘He’s just won them the referendum.’ Alan could sense the exasperation in his own voice. Even at this moment, he couldn’t stop himself trying to get the better of his colleague and rival. ‘He’s a hero to half the parliamentary party. If Boris makes it to the last two, he’ll walk it with the membership. They’re all over sixty and all Leavers.’

‘Well, I’m going to have to work out who to back. I suppose there’s no chance George will have a go?’ The minister was watching the screen. A prominent Leave-supporting MP had appeared. He was being careful not to look triumphant, but Alan knew the man. He knew that underneath that studied, statesman-like decorum, the MP would be relishing not just the result but the chaos that might flow from it; the chaos that might present a man like him with opportunities.

This time Alan and Kieron were in agreement. Both shook their heads.

‘I know,’ said the minister. ‘This is as much Osborne’s defeat as Cameron’s.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘Do you know what that idiot pollster of his said to me when I asked him if we should be worried? “The thing about David”, he said to me, “is he’s a lucky general.” A lucky general. Well, his luck just ran out spectacularly, and mine with it.’

Alan sat silent. There was a muffled shout from the television. On the screen a small crowd was cheering and waving in some half-empty town hall. Another small crowd watched them, sullen. Another result for Leave.

‘Come on,’ the minister said. ‘Help me draft a statement. A holding statement. Something to get us through the next few bloody awful hours.’

Davey couldn’t remember being so happy. He was still reeling from seeing Nigel, his face unhealthily shiny in the artificial light but his smile a mile wide, announcing that this would forever be known as our Independence Day!

They were all jammed in this strange cafe or club or whatever it was at the bottom of Millbank Tower. Yes, the same Millbank Tower where Tony Blair and his army of traitors had first set up ‘New’ Labour to throw the country open to as many immigrants as possible from the bloated EU. The irony had been remarked on several times, so many times that it was no longer interesting. But no one cared about that now, with the result confirmed and Britain – his beautiful Britain – escaping the European chains.

‘Davey boy! You little beauty, come here!’ Max grabbed him in a full-body, beery hug. ‘I knew we’d do it; I just knew it!’ Max’s sweaty face topped a white shirt and what looked like a regimental tie under a dark blazer, although it wasn’t. Overall, most of the other twenty- or thirty-something males in the room were wearing something similar. It wasn’t exactly a uniform, but it came pretty close.

‘I know, I know, it’s brilliant.’ In fact, Davey had never really expected them to win. Of course, he had had his hopes, but most nights – or early mornings – he had fallen into bed believing that the forces ranged against them were simply too strong: the big-party machines, the BBC, the beautiful people, business. The history was all against them. In every British referendum, the people had voted to stick with the status quo. Would they really take such a brave leap this time? He had kept quiet about his fears. It wasn’t good to sound defeatist, even if he suspected a number of his fellow UKIP activists had felt the same. Despite that though, they had carried on, done their duty and in the end the people had astonished them.

Max had been one of those campaigning with him over the past few weeks. He suspected Max had never had any hidden doubts. In fact, it seemed that the more the facts stacked up against the cause, the more tightly Max was ready to hold to it.

‘A bunch of us are going with Nigel to the green opposite Parliament after this. We’ll make sure the best pictures for the morning bulletins are us celebrating – not any Tories.’ Max was shouting above the din of cheering, singing, laughing. A Conservative MP wormed his way through the tight-pressed crowd. He was a backbencher and a well-known...