In Dreams of Leaving and Remaining, award winning journalist Meek meets farmers and fishermen intent on exiting the EU despite the loss of protections they will incur. He reports on a Cadbury’s factory that s to be shut down and moved to Poland in the name of free market economics, exploring the impact on the local community left behind. He charts how the NHS is coping with the twin burdens of austerity and an ageing population. Through his journey he asks what we can recover from the debris of an old nation as we head towards new horizons, and what we must leave behind. There are no easy answers, and what he creates instead is a masterly portrait of an anxious, troubled nation. Instead, he demands that we reconsider the power of the stories that we tell ourselves about who we are, a nation’s alienated from itself.