Book excerpt: Since its publication in 2003, The Great Deception has taken on the role of the Eurosceptics' bible, with the third edition helping to fuel the debate during the 2016 EU Referendum. This fourth edition celebrates the moment when the UK broke away from the European Union, having been extensively re-edited to incorporate newly available archive material, and updated to include the tumultuous events of recent years. The Great Deception, therefore, tells for the first time the inside story of the most audacious political project of modern times, from its intellectual beginnings in the 1920s, when the blueprint for the European Union was first conceived by a British civil servant, right up to the point when the UK resumes its path at as an independent sovereign nation after 47 years of membership of the European project in its various guises. Drawing on a wealth of new evidence and existing sources, scarcely an episode of the story does not emerge in startling new light, from the real reasons why de Gaulle kept Britain out in the 1960s to the fall of Mrs Thatcher and the build-up to the referendum campaign which had its roots in the Maastricht Treaty. The book chillingly shows how Britain's politicians were consistently outplayed in a game the rules of which they never understood. It ends by evaluating the post referendum negotiations and asking whether this is the end of an episode or just a new beginning.