January 11, 2019

As the row over Brexit gets worse and worse by the day, and outrage, offence, accusation and malice sweep like a remorseless bush fire across the country, I am reminded of a brilliant poem written in 1919 – and what a chilling centenary we may be about to see. WB Yeats wrote The Second Coming about the destructive nature of the movement for Irish self-rule. The first verse alone is worth repeating:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Those last seven words kill, and journalist David Laws (left) has written a novel about the “passionate intensity” which sparks political assassination. The fateful day of Britain’s exit from the EU is dawning, and a vicious conspiracy is about to make all the previous months of political bickering seem like a garden party in comparison. Inadvertently, a journalist called Harry Topp has embedded himself at the heart of the plot, and he blunders on in search of a lifetime scoop, blissfully unaware of what is unfolding around him.

Laws is a seasoned press man himself, and so his account of the cynical world of newspaper journalism is vivid and authentic. We can only hope that this fascinating novel of what happens when ideals and passionate beliefs spur men and women into madness is just a work if entertaining fiction and not a prophecy. Exit Day is published by Matador, and will be out on 28th January.