The book covers the age of referenda: the vote on Scottish separation and Brexit. Stewart makes good arguments for the continuation of the Union, building a cairn at Gretna for people to bring a stone as a tangible token of their desire to maintain Great Britain.
Brexit proves to be the end of his political career. He has seen too many vulnerable farming families to support the end of farm subsidies, he writes, which he suspected would be the outcome of a Leave vote. (And so it is proving, with an added twist of the knife in the “family farm tax”, which would not have been possible had we remained in the single market.)
The title Middleland comes from a recognition that the North of England and the South of Scotland, what James VI and I called the Middle Shires, are historically neither English or Scottish, but several distinct kingdoms with their own language and culture. Rheged, for example, encompassed modern Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway. Many of us in rural Dumfriesshire would have been happier if devolution had followed pre-Norman boundaries, rather than leaving us at the mercy of an urban, socialist central belt.
And the author makes plain his view – again and again – that Cumbria is often ill-served by Westminster. Kemi Badenoch should draw from this enjoyable book as she conducts her policy review and tries to redefine conservatism.
★★★★☆
Middleland is published by Jonathan Cape at £22. To order your copy for £18.99, call 0-330 173 5030 or visit Telegraph Books
