Fantastic Kingdom: A Stranger’s Notes On A Contrary Country Author: Helene von BismarckISBN-13: 9781399824385Publisher: John Murray Guideline Price: £25According to Salman Rushdie, who knows about viewing the UK from the outside: “The only people who see the whole picture are the ones who step outside the frame.” With that in mind, historian, author and political commentator Helene von Bismarck, who grew up in Russia, Germany, Italy and Belgium, is perfectly placed to deliver a state of the post-Brexit address to Great Britain and Northern Ireland.That being said, she does warn the reader early on that the United Kingdom is a “bewildering, complex, and wildly contradictory place” and that nothing in her time as a British media commentator has changed her opinion that “Brexit caused considerable harm to the United Kingdom, to the European Union, and to the now extremely fragile remains of the Western Alliance”.To flesh out a knowledgeable treatise that will have some nodding their head and others shaking theirs, von Bismarck looks at our neighbour from various angles. Britain’s island status allowed some to claim that Brexit was a “logical consequence” of history and geography. Napoleon never put a relative on the British throne and no Nazi or Soviet flags ever flew over Westminster, but not everyone in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland “would agree their history is one of freedom from foreign subjugation”. Her Nations chapter notes that while the EU may be a convenient bogeyman, for others in the places mentioned above, it’s always been England.It’s not all negative, though. The UK made Rishi Sunak, a child of immigrant parents, its prime minister in 2022 and Kemi Badenoch, a black woman, leads the Conservative Party. These are but two politicians from minority backgrounds in positions of power, although The Times had to publish an article “affirming the Englishness” of Sunak after a podcast asked whether a “brown Hindu” could ever be English.[ Growth, Democracy, or Climate Action? The New Political Trilemma of Advanced CapitalismOpens in new window ]Von Bismarck admires the resilience of, and the global fascination with, the monarchy, pointing out that a Netflix drama about the Belgian royal family seems unlikely. She also states, perhaps reassuringly, that “it is not a forgone conclusion that Nigel Farage will end up in Downing Street” but given the changes in the international environment brought on by the unpredictability of Donald Trump and other factors, “the decision to leave a trading bloc on its doorstep looks more than ever like an act of self-harm”.Pat Carty is a freelance critic