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This article frames Brexit as the consequence of social and demographic fissures running through the United Kingdom, thereby arguing that Britain’s exit from the European Union is symptomatic of a specifically English rather than British crisis of national identification. It shows how such internal faultlines within the UK’s society intersect with the evocation and employment of various kinds of border imagery and border discourses in the run-up to the Brexit Referendum in 2016. For the main part of the analysis, the article sets out to broaden the by now well-established genre of “BrexLit” (Shaw, Everitt) by focusing on what could be called “Pre-BrexLit,” that is, novels written well before Brexit became a term, let alone political reality. By way of three exemplary texts—Julian Barnes’s England, England (1998), Tony Saint’s Refusal Shoes (2003), and Rupert Thomson’s Divided Kingdom (2005)—the analysis retraces how literary accounts of how to establish, maintain and control borders—both real and metaphorical, mental and physical, external and internal—prefigure some of the divisive issues around which the Brexit struggle would revolve, while at the same time avoiding the necessarily contentious and biased labels attached to post-fact Brexit literature.

He said: \"The themes, characters and Northumbrian location are all close to my heart and I'm looking forward to developing a series which has the promise to be funny, entertaining and thought-provoking,\" Great Meadow's credits include Channel 4's Bradford Riots and BBC1's Messiah. Robert Cooper, co-founder of Great Meadow and former BBC Northern Ireland head of drama, said: \"[Tony Saint] is the most exciting new writer in British television. Coun Hunter had doubts over whether the principle of the series could work in reality. She said: \"Personally, I can not see independence working because there is no way we could raise enough funding to be selfsufficient.\"

[Tony Saint]'s is a droll vision of a world of virtual politics: seamless council misspending and wishful thinking in the public sector, where what one appears to do is more important than what one does. His underclass isn't revolutionary or dangerous, being too ghettoised and coshed into retail submission, though the crazed energy of its vandalism is, in its own way, a valid social comment. In the public sector this vandalism has its corollary in slacking. \"I didn't join the Antisocial Behaviour Unit so I would come face to face with it,\" moans [Spence]. Neither did [Roger], who has worked out a strategy of volunteering for new departments \"when there's bugger all to do and bale out at the first rumble of work . . .\"

This was an unpromising start. There was certainly nothing wrong with the singing. Assuming Le Caprice didn't cater to a mainly deaf clientele, I wondered whether the problem lay with me. Having expected the money to come raining in, I'd employed a laid-back collecting method. Perhaps more aggressive tactics were required, so I approached the next sleek black limo as it pulled up a few yards from the entrance, shaking the hat and the few coins inside it with renewed vigour as the troupe broke into Angels We Have Heard On High. Passing them on the way out came one of the partygoers. I was excited to see it was Robert Harris, one of the country's bestknown novelists. He descended the club's steps to the delightful sound of The Hartley Voices singing Once In Royal David's City. Buoyed up by one of my own favourite carols and the sight of folding money in the hat, I approached, offering the compliments of the season and telling him we were collecting for some of the neediest in society. With a quick hand motion, he dropped in a coin which I couldn't see but which gave a light tinkle as it landed. 'Well,' he said, making a face. 'The Chancellor's in but . . .' he gestured at my top hat, 'if he puts his hand in there, it'll only be to take half the money out of it.' Enough of the boulevards of power, we decided. The Establishment had revealed its true Scrooge- like nature and we wanted to find out whether the common man would restore our faith in the generosity of the British people. And so off to the East End, where we settled on a well-known watering hole; The Pride of Spitalfields, just off the celebrated Brick Lane, in search of respectable takings. With our experience so far suggesting that carol singers were about as welcome as an Al Qaeda gift box, I entered the packed, smoky pub and sought out the landlady, with a hint of trepidation.

[Tony Saint]'s novel creates a murky world in which corrupt immigration officers all have their addictions, and lawyers tout for easy legal aid work from illegal immigrants. It's a potent, pulpy mix that revolves around the marriage arranged for a small-time gangster's runt son. Gambling, mourning, the psychology of footwear and a complex picture of race relations emerge as subtly sketched themes.

It began with contrite [Saint Tony], a goodly, understanding man who shared our concern about the poll ratings, was bemused by incandescent rage of the fuel protesters (how can anyone hate us? We're Labour, for God's sake) and who was prepared to acknowledge anabundance of mistakes without actually saying the word 'sorry'. Perhaps this was what he meant by having a dialogue with the public. Contrite Tony then begat Matey Tony, the chummy youth who wanted to share his William Hague drinking joke - a joke, which like the fizz Mr Hague's father used to produce, has becomeflat through repetition.

The man she was up against - in this characterisation at least - combined shop-floor toughness with an over-inflated sense of his own, and Parliament's, dignity. [Michael Martin] was played by Brian Cox as a bit of a bully, peremptory with junior staff and fiercely protective of the privileges he'd risen to. \"As long as I'm sitting here, members of Parliament will get every ounce of respect that they're due,\" he growled when [Heather Brooke]'s requests for details of expenses started to become a nuisance. He couldn't see that everything he was doing contributed to their eventual disgrace. Politicians themselves might quibble with some of the spin given to their devices and arrangements here: I doubt that the revised rules on designating what was a \"main home\" were introduced with quite such knowing, nod-and-a-wink underhandedness. Or that the demands were pressed quite as comically as suggested here. \"I can't be expected to live in a house with an Artex ceiling!\" wailed one MP, insisting on the legitimacy of a claim for redecoration. But the broad truth of the thing was incontrovertible and [Tony Saint]'s script was full of deadpan comic bounce. Alex Jennings had a lovely part as the head of the Fees Office, unwillingly pressed into Martin's two-prong defensive strategy against impertinent outsiders. \"I really have no experience of being a prong,\" he said plaintively, shortly before being volunteered for the hopeless task of defending Parliament's position in front of a tribunal.