Two Tribes - Chris Beckett

 I generally read for pleasure, not for learning or stimulation. So it was a surprise to find this book made me think about the Brexit issue in a different way.

Beckett gives us a snapshot of the two sides through the lens of a historian looking back from a very different world in the 23rd century. The historian is studying diaries of two Brexit contemporaries: on a middle-class Londoner and the other a small-town hairdresser. This is also a story about two people from different backgrounds who meet, are strongly attracted to each other, and attempt to form a relationship -though each is lost in the other's social world.

After finishing this book (and previously enjoying the Eden Trilogy by the same author) I looked him up, expecting hime to be a sociologist. Actually he's a psychologist and social worker, who now lectures in social work. So... close.

Through the dialogue and events, Beckett shows us his take on the attitudes of mainstream Brexit supporters and opposers, neither coming out as squeaky clean.

If Brexit supporters responded to the "take back control" slogan because of lack of trust for non-British decision-makers then I have to admit that, after several years where the UK government had done its utmost to dismantle the instruments of social support (NHS, policing, social care) I was only too willing to trust decisions to somebody else (anybody else!).

During the historical narrative we gradually discover the (all too plausible) chain of events leading to the present day (c2350): climate catastrophe, armed conflict between different UK factions and subsequent Chinese intervention (by invitation), current stability maintained by high-tech surveillance with wealthy decision makers, privileged intelligentsia, and a disadvantaged and poor working class. No surprise there.

Science fiction at its best.