MIchAEL ANWYLL
Author of the book series 'Anwyll on Law and Defence'
Featured Books
In 1933, Germany did not simply abandon democracy. It was undermined from within: by emergency powers that became the normal way to govern, by political extremes that agreed on nothing except that the centre must fail, by courts and police that seemed to treat opponents differently, and by ordinary people who learned to look away.
Echoes of Weimar asks whether Britain is seeing any of the same warning signs today, and what can be done while the question is still hypothetical. It is not a claim that Britain is Weimar. One chapter is given over to the differences, and to the evidence that cuts against the authors' own argument.
Drawing on history, law and current events up to October 2026, Michael and Paul Anwyll examine:
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how Article 48 turned an emergency safeguard into government by decree
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the pandemic regulations and what they revealed about Parliament's control of ministers
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arrests for online speech, the policing of protest and the use of terrorism law
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the return of antisemitism, disorder on the streets, and France's deadlocked parliament
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war talk in Europe, and what preparing for conflict does to liberty at home
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the paradox of tolerance, and the eleven things the law should do now
Written for general readers, with full footnotes and legal references, it ends with a practical question: what can citizens do to keep the habits of a free country alive as the last witnesses to the 1930s pass away?
A standalone volume in the Anwyll on Law and Defence series.
The past is not just history. It is a warning.
Since February 2022 Europe has watched a war of artillery, drones and factories in which the capacity to produce more, faster and for longer has become an important source of military advantage. Russia has increasingly placed its economy on a war footing. Poland, the Baltic states, Germany and the Nordic countries have substantially increased defence spending, industrial capacity and preparations for national defence. The United Kingdom has published a Strategic Defence Review, a Defence Industrial Strategy and a Defence Investment Plan, each emphasising greater pace. Whether the British state can mobilise its industry, procurement system and alliances quickly enough is the question this book addresses.
The book therefore begins somewhere unusual for a work on procurement law: in the 1930s and 1940s. Germany and Britain both had to turn peacetime economies into war economies, deciding how to pay for mobilisation, who would build what, who would own the designs, and what would happen when the fighting stopped. Their answers were very different, and the consequences are instructive.
It then turns to Russia, Ukraine, Britain and its allies, and to the competing demands now being placed on Western industrial capacity, including the war with Iran and the resulting pressure on scarce air-defence interceptors across multiple theatres. It examines what the Procurement Act 2023 can – and cannot – do in a crisis, noting that requirements, approvals, assurance and manufacturing often take longer than the law itself and that the Act already contains important defence and crisis flexibilities.
The book then proposes three reforms: defence mobilisation markets allowing assured and price-tested suppliers to be called off rapidly under pre-agreed rules; royalties that reward firms for sharing designs, technical data and know-how for second-source production; and collaborative procurement built around common equipment, qualification and intellectual-property rights so that allied factories can supply allied forces.
If you ever wanted to talk with some confidence about the law relating to illegal migration then this is the book for you.
By March 2026 nearly 20,000 foreign offenders liable to deportation had not been removed. Of the people who crossed the Channel in small boats between 2018 and 2025, more than 53,000 had been refused asylum at first decision, yet only about 9,700 small-boat arrivals had been returned by June 2026. So what stopped the rest?
‘Stop the boats’ and ‘deport foreign criminals’ sound like instructions a determined government could simply carry out. Neither is. Each describes the last step in a long chain of decisions, and the chain can break at many points: a judge, a missing travel document, a country that will not take its own citizen back, a queue of 139,000 appeals, a person who stops reporting, or a mistake inside the Home Office. Some of those breaks are failures. Many are the law working exactly as Parliament intended. At present nobody can tell which is which.
Michael Anwyll follows people from the Kent coast through asylum, refusal or protection, and sometimes crime, to the deportation order. He tests each obstacle against one question: would leaving the European Convention on Human Rights change it? He compares Denmark and Australia, the two countries cited on every side of the argument, and measures the main reform proposals, including leaving the ECHR and setting aside the Refugee Convention, against how much of the problem they would actually reach.
The book includes:
• plain-English explanations of Article 3, Article 8 and the automatic deportation rules
• eleven real cases, from the 2006 foreign prisoners scandal to Abdul Ezedi and Khairi Saadallah
• 15 charts and diagrams built from official Home Office, tribunal and UNHCR figures
• ‘Back at the bar’ boxes that test familiar claims against the evidence
• full notes, bibliography, and tables of cases and legislation
This illustrated General Reader Edition sets out the same law, figures and sources as the main edition, rewritten for anyone who has argued about boats and deportations and wants to know how the system really works. It does not tell you whether Britain should stay in the Convention. It shows you what to find out before deciding.
If Britain stopped being safe, where would the British go, and who would let them in?
British law and politics treat the United Kingdom as a country people flee to, never from. Asylum systems abroad presume British claims are unfounded. No foreign state keeps a lifeboat for 69 million Britons.
Indefinite Leave? asks what happens if that assumption fails.
The book tests twenty-two scenarios, from emergency powers that are introduced and never switched off, through bank runs, the end of cash, digital ID and civil conflict, to the break-up of the Union, foreign occupation, conscription and nuclear attack. Each one opens with the Andrews family of Gloucestershire as they meet a possible future, then sets the story against current law, real precedents and the practical obstacles facing any Briton who tried to leave.
For each scenario, the questions are: How could it begin, and what could stop it? When does concern become danger, and when does staying become riskier than leaving?
Could Britons legally claim protection abroad, and which countries would actually take them?
How likely is it over the next twenty-five years?
Drawing on the Refugee Convention, European and UK law, and the experience of Hong Kong, Iran, Afghanistan, East Germany, Ukraine and the Channel Islands under occupation, the book ends with a likelihood matrix for every scenario, a country-by-country guide to the routes open to British citizens, and a calm chapter on preparing without panic.
The scenarios are not forecasts, and most are unlikely. The point is to show how much of the security we associate with being British rests on institutions, laws and international arrangements that most of us never notice, and why they are worth keeping in good repair.
Author
Michael Anwyll has more than forty years’ experience in the public and private sectors, primarily in defence and national security, and writes on topical subjects to both inform and encourage others to debate from a position of knowledge.
He spent several years running an international law program in Asia and recently retired to focus on his writing.
He holds a:
BA (Hons) in Business Administration from the University of Sheffield,
MSc in Engineering Business Management from WMG at the University of Warwick,
LLM in IT and Telecommunications Law from the University of Strathclyde
Currently reading an LLB with the Open University, as well as being a qualified pilot flying light aircraft.
Last updated October 2026
Get in Touch
Whether you're interested in my legal defence works or my humorous travelogues, I'd love to hear from you. Reach out for enquiries, collaborations, or simply to say hello.
MichaelAnwyll@gmail.com
United Kingdom