The Art of the Impossible

Nothing like it had ever been done before. In January 2019, the Brexit Party was just a name. Over a matter of weeks, the party would be launched, stand candidates across seventy seats and become the largest single party in the European Parliament. Along the way, it fought Establishment quangos, the courts, Parliament, the Speaker and the government – hammering the Conservatives so hard it forced the resignation of their Prime Minister – to win nearly twice as many seats as its nearest rival. It was a success beyond anyone’s dreams (or, indeed, anyone’s worst nightmare). And the inside story of how it happened may serve as a manual of how to – and occasionally how not to – do it. This unique book details the wild ride of the brand-new Brexit Party as it heads from triumph in the European elections to disaster in the general election six months later. Packed with hilarious anecdotes about the reality of setting up a new party, it takes the reader on a journey through building the entire apparatus in an impossibly short time frame; losing key players to enemy action; and facing chaotic scenes created by a cat’s cradle of legal complications – before arriving at the conclusion that politics is much more difficult than it looks.