May 1940. A German victory seems inevitable. As soon as the army is out of contention, the government and the king become diametrically opposed on what political path to take. The government flees, the king stays.

An all-important moment in time, a tragic misunderstanding, or just two fundamentally irreconcilable visions on how the country should engage with the Germans?

The conflict will continue to sting, burn, ripen throughout the occupation. The rancour runs especially deep between Leopold and his foreign minister Paul-Henri Spaak, the king’s generational peer with whom he had become so close before the war, and who has become a key player in world politics since. 

It will take ten years for the conflict between them to come to a resolution. Not with a compromise, but with a referendum that forces every Belgian to choose sides and that pushes the country to the brink of civil war.

The clash between Spaak and Leopold is a confrontation not just of two figures who made different choices during the war, but of two different personalities with opposing world views. It’s the Big Bang that would eventually clear the way for our contemporary democracy.

After Unsung, a razor-sharp dissection of the political state, Vincent Stuer (political spokesman and speechwriter) wrote Rexit! together with Valentijn Dhaenens and Bruno Vanden Broecke. Together they get under the skin of the historical figures of Spaak and Leopold III.