In an interview with the National Public Radio series "Fresh Air" broadcast in the United States on 5 September 2017, le Carré told host Terry Gross that one of the reasons for writing the novel was "to make a case for Europe" in the wake of the 2016 British referendum, which resulted in a slim majority voting in favour of leaving the European Union. One conversation in the novel sounds like an emotional case for Remain and against Brexit: "'So was it all for England, then?' [Smiley] resumed. 'There was a time, of course there was. But "whose" England? Which England? England all alone, a citizen of nowhere? I'm a European, Peter."