Cover design for Keeping the Light On: A Highland View of Brexit and the EU, by James Miller (Scaraben Press).
On a June morning in 2016, James Miller found himself enduring “a midsummer day’s nightmare”.
He had been working as a poll clerk in a Highland village until 10 o’clock the previous night, playing a small part in the democratic process as the UK decided whether to stay in the European Union or to leave.
Waking in the early hours, Miller turned on the radio and the first voice he heard was that of Nigel Farage, “triumphant and loud”. The vote was for Brexit, by 52 per cent to 48 per cent, with Scotland’s emphatic wish to remain in the EU (62 per cent to 38 per cent) counting for nothing.
Almost 10 years on from the referendum, Miller examines the ups and downs of Britain’s relationship with its European neighbours in his new book Keeping the Light On: A Highland View of Brexit and the EU. His dismay over the outcome is laid bare at the end of chapter four: “I felt dejected, confused, angry.”
Throughout the other 340 or so pages, however, Miller offers a measured, balanced, even-handed analysis of the history of the European project, what membership meant for the Highlands, the painful complexities of withdrawal and what the future might hold for Europe’s progressive social democracy. Along the way he offers personal insights inspired by his own wanderings around the continent.
Some of the unavoidable terminology is not particularly easy to digest, “supranationalism” being one example. However, Miller counterbalances that with elegant, well-crafted sentences. “The plump figure of Winston Spencer Churchill haunts English history as the ghost of greatness past,” he writes at one point (while noting Churchill’s post-war call for “a kind of United States of Europe”).
Miller assesses the impact of European funding on his home region over “a period that seems in retrospect like the ‘good old days’”. He observes: “Many of the piers, harbours and roads in the north of Scotland still sport notices with the blue flag and the 12 gold stars in acknowledgement of this aid.”
It was calculated that EU funding programmes brought an estimated £1 billion to the Highlands from 1975 onwards.
At a Highland Council summit on Brexit in Inverness in 2018 it was calculated that EU funding programmes had brought an estimated £1 billion to the region since 1975. In quantifying what membership gave us, though, Miller emphasises that Euro cash was only part of it. There was also a strengthening of cultural, environmental and educational links, with “free movement of ideas and people”.
And yet sufficient numbers of UK citizens had grown sufficiently disenchanted that Brexit became a reality. Miller speculates that the leave vote had been “one against all grievances”, commenting: “It became the common practice to blame the EU for everything. Wherever people gathered to share their grumbles about the cost of living, unemployment and public affairs, a voice might air the opinion that behind the problems lay the heavy hand of bureaucrats, almost always designated as faceless, in Brussels.”
Dejected, confused and angry he may have felt, but that instinctive reaction to the referendum result does not cloud Miller’s judgement. This is a thought-provoking and often profound book that contains elements of memoir and travelogue along with political commentary, also delving into wider issues of migration and ethnic nationalism.
“When viewed over the span of centuries the political map of Europe has constantly shifted, with frontiers appearing and disappearing, with states emerging and being swallowed up,” Miller points out. No-one can be sure of what lies ahead, but Keeping the Light On illuminates the complicated and divisive story of how we got to where we are.
UK voters opted for Brexit by 52 per cent to 48 per cent.
Originally from Keiss in Caithness, Miller has lived near Inverness for many years. He has written a number of acclaimed books on Highland themes, including Scapa, The Dam Builders, The North Atlantic Front, Inverness: A History, The Foresters, A Wild and Open Sea, The Gathering Stream, Swords for Hire and The Finest Road in the World.
Keeping the Light On: A Highland View of Brexit and the EU, by James Miller, is published by Scaraben Press (£14.99). It can be ordered by email from scarabenpress@gmail.com and will be on sale in bookshops across the north.
A well-attended launch event was held at Waterstones in Inverness.
• Look out for a Q&A feature soon about Keeping the Light On: A Highland View of Brexit and the EU.
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