Universality begins with a long first section written in the style of a journalistic ‘long read’. It recounts the tale of a crime which took place at an illegal rave on a Yorkshire farm, in which the leader of a radical anarchist movement is bludgeoned with a gold bar by a young man called Jake. In the article, presented as a kind of moral parable about class and wealth based divisions in our society, we are introduced to Jake’s mother, a populist ‘anti-Woke’ columnist who goes by the name of Lenny. We additionally meet Richard Spencer, the owner of the farm whose gold bar was used in the crime. He’s a wealthy banker who is presented as symptomatic of the ills of capitalism.

The Accidental Immigrants is set on the Mediterranean island of St. Mira. It’s an independent country with historic ties to Greece but also a sizeable post-colonial British presence. In the wake of financial crises and an ineffective centrist government, it has also recently seen the rise of a nativist political party, the ‘Firsters’. When a bomb goes off at a British military base on the island just weeks before a general election, everything falls into place for a whitewash for the Firsters. Our focal points on the island are Tess, a translator with both St. Miran and British roots, and her partner Arlo, a Brit teaching the ‘Life in the UK’ course to St. Miran residents who want to emigrate to his home country. As the Firsters sweep to power, and immediately introduce new laws targeting foreigners on the island, Tess and Arlo find themselves strangers in the land they have made their home for years.