Summary

The third chapter of Part I: In the World is titled “Fences: A Brexit Diary.” The chapter opens with Smith walking past the local primary school in her neighborhood in northwest London and noticing a change: a strengthened fence around the outside of it. When Smith complains to the school over email, she is told that the fence was installed to prevent pollution and create privacy. Still, she worries: “Was our local school also to become a place behind a fence, separated, private, paranoid, preoccupied with security, its face turned from the wider community?” (22).

Two days later, while Smith is in Northern Ireland, the U.K. votes to leave the European Union. From Northern Ireland, Smith is able to see how Ireland and Scotland became victims of political rifts within the...