{"id":893715,"date":"2026-06-26T08:17:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T08:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/893715\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T08:17:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T08:17:16","slug":"inside-norma-percys-documentary-brexit-a-very-british-civil-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/893715\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Norma Percy’s Documentary \u2018Brexit: A Very British Civil War\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAs the UK once again awaits a new Prime Minister, attention is fixed on the latest Westminster upheaval, but few political shocks in recent British history match Brexit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tA decade ago this week, the UK voted to leave the European Union. Veteran documentary filmmaker Norma Percy<\/a>\u2019s Brexit: A Very British Civil War relives events with unprecedented access to the movers and shakers from both sides, the Leave camp and their opponents who backed Remain.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOur brief was to find out how Leave did it,\u201d Percy tells Deadline of the BBC<\/a> two-parter. Interviewees include former Prime Minister, David Cameron, whose surprise 2015 election victory forced him to make good on his pledge to hold a referendum on EU membership.<\/p>\n

\n\tBoris Johnson<\/a>, who was then Mayor of London, George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, key players Michael Gove and Nigel Farage<\/a>, and a host of other heavyweight names give their take in the Brook Lapping-produced doc, which is directed by Max Stern.<\/p>\n

\n\tJohnson, who went on to become PM, was the first big name that Percy and her team got on board. It helped that he had just contributed to her Clash of the Superpowers: America vs China doc, also for the BBC, she recalls.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI said \u2018Our next [documentary] is on Brexit\u2019. He just lit up and said, \u2018Now that I could really give you an interview on.\u2019 He said he\u2019d give us ninety minutes, but he was there for almost three hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe former PM surprised the team during filming with his account of deciding which side to back in the divisive Leave\/Remain debate.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe looked at each other in amazement when Boris said, \u2018I didn\u2019t do it to become Prime Minister, I would have been Prime Minister anyway.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe continues: \u201cHe really was wracked as to what to do, and in our interview, his hair got messier and messier for three hours. You really could feel him trying to make up his mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDocumentary filmmaker Norma Percy<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBrook Lapping<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother key scene comes in the second episode. \u201cThere is an extraordinary sequence that starts with George Osborne, when he went out with his economic case and said that if we voted Leave, he would have to make a budget and that would leave everybody much worse off. He said all the things that absolutely terrified the backbench Tory MPs. He thought that would persuade them to go for Remain.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt backfired, and within an hour, 50 of his own backbenchers signed a motion against him and he says ruefully, \u2018That was the moment I lost my chance to be leader of the Conservative Party.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPercy\u2019s approach is to reconstruct what happened inside the room. \u201cReally, our questions are always simple. We have a chronology of key events, and we say, \u2018At that meeting, what did you say and how did you reply,\u2019\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\tContributors know Percy\u2019s films often become the defining accounts of major events, which helps persuade them to take part. \u201cYou can say \u2018It\u2019s really worth taking the trouble to answer our rather detailed questions,\u2019 because [the program] will last. It will be a historical document.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPercy says \u201canyone who\u2019s worth having says no at least three times.\u201d The only notable absentee in the Brexit doc is Dominic Cummings, the influential Campaign Director of Vote Leave. It was not for want of trying. \u201cThe only time he actually answered was when Max [Stern] called him, and he said, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019m on the top of a mountain, I can\u2019t talk to you right now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBrook Lapping is part of Zinc Media Group. Zinc Distribution sells the series internationally and has licensed it to BBC Select for North America and RT\u00c9 in Ireland among others.<\/p>\n

\n\tA veteran filmmaker, Percy has a couple of projects in the works post-Brexit: A Very British Civil War. A definitive series on Donald Trump remains a long-term goal. \u201cTrump is such a moving target. It makes it harder to do a series that will take about a year to make,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\tPercy is confident, however, that it will happen. \u201cWe\u2019re going to get to Trump at some point, but you have to choose the right time. There is a moment when it\u2019s not so raw that people are afraid to talk\u2026 and not so long ago that they\u2019ve forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the UK once again awaits a new Prime Minister, attention is fixed on the latest Westminster upheaval,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":893716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[6531,147227,23127,171,53,25930,362345,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-893715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-bbc","tag-boris-johnson","tag-brexit","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-nigel-farage","tag-norma-percy","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116815426208229903","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/893716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}