‘Rule Britannia’: the forgotten Daphne du Maurier novel that predicted Brexit
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(Credits: Far Out / IISG)
Every so often, authors can prove to be immensely sagacious. There have been numerous occasions when fiction has predicted the future, from George Orwell depicting CCTV in 1984 to Ray Bradbury inventing wireless earphones in Fahrenheit 451. Aside from these prominent instances of perspicuity, there have been others that Nostradamus would have been proud of. One of the most astounding is that Daphne du Maurier once predicted the Brexit referendum.
It might seem improbable that someone, even a writer of du Maurier’s fine ilk, could have predicted the bleak socio-economic trappings of Brexit, but it does make sense considering the context in which it materialised. The book that predicted our 2020 withdrawal from the European Union is 1972’s Rule Britannia, a largely forgotten work despite it being her last.
The influential Rebecca and Jamaica Inn author began work on the 318-page novel in the early stages of 1972. It saw her break from her celebrated convention of gothic romances and mysteries as she had conceived the idea of writing a funny work that mocked “everything”. Furthermore, du Maurier saw the humourous spirit as a faciliatory means of sketching a portrait of what the UK could have looked like in the middle of the decade amid political, social and economic upheaval. Reportedly, she was even pleased with Rule Britannia as a compelling piece of satire.
Yet, in a tale as old as time, the absurd nature of the book did not resonate with most reviewers, with it panned for either being too outlandish or tedious. Even the great Georgy Girl author Margaret Forster, who biographised du Maurier, described Rule Britannia in 1993 as “the poorest novel she ever wrote”.
Per the author’s desire to mock up a vision of what the UK might have looked like later in the decade, the brilliantly named Rule Britannia is set in a near future in which the UK’s recent withdrawal from the European Economic Community (EEC) has brought the country to the verge of insolvency.
Notably, the EEC was created by the 1957 Treaty of Rome with the aim of promoting economic integration among its member states. It was later renamed the European Community when it became integrated into the first pillar of the newly formed EU in 1993.
The story is set in the small Cornish village of Poldrea and follows the 20-year-old Emma, who lives with her grandmother, Mad, and her six adopted sons, all aged under 18. One morning, Emma is awoken by the sound of aeroplanes. She finds that an American warship has anchored in the bay and that hostile US Marines have disembarked, who eventually kill a farmer’s dog.
In a wholly bewildering scene, the Prime Minister eventually reveals in a TV announcement that due to the continent’s economic and military failures, the UK and the USA have merged as a nation, USUK. The new country declares a state of emergency, with communication cut and roadblocks installed. To the inhabitants, Emma and her family, the Marines appear more like an invading force than coequals.
While it would be easy to meander into a discussion of du Maurier’s portrait of the US’ trusted liberal internationalism – at its peak at the time of writing – the rendering of the withdrawal from the EEC is most fascinating for a contemporary British reader. Of course, the scene she sketches describing a union of the two countries is primarily unbelievable, no matter how much the UK seemingly attempts to become a little US in the post-Brexit years. However, the description of the disastrous effects of pulling out of the EEC resonates today.
For all of the ridiculous aspects of the novel, it must be noted that at the time of writing, Britain was deep in a sclerotic economic state and dubbed “the sick man of Europe” by commentators. While the phrase abounded until Margaret Thatcher was elected as Prime Minister in 1979, ironically, it would not fully rear its head again until after the Brexit vote was cast in 2016. It has since become popular once more due to the adverse effects of withdrawal from the EU, which were felt in the cost of living crisis, industrial action, and political unrest, all of which were aspects also inextricable from the country in the early 1970s.
What is particularly interesting regarding du Maurier’s writing of the novel is that Parliament’s European Communities Act 1972 was enacted and ratified in October of that year, allowing the UK’s membership of the EEC to come into effect on January 1st, 1973. Therefore, when penning Rule Britannia, du Maurier was predicting the withdrawal from a situation that hadn’t yet been fully entered, a bold move.
While the US hasn’t invaded us yet, hats off to Daphne du Maurier for predicting that withdrawal from the EEC would produce ill effects, no matter how floundering the UK was at the time. This inclination sheds light on how people thought about joining it back then, which wasn’t dissimilar to the opinion which prevailed in 2016.
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