Britain at the Crossroads’, 29 March 2018

Home , Andrew Marr, Countdown (game show), David Starkey, Dead Ringers (comedy), Eddie Mair, Evan Davis

THE BBC AND BREXIT

SURVEY OF A DAY OF SPECIAL RADIO 4 PROGRAMMES: ‘BRITAIN AT THE CROSSROADS’, 29 MARCH 2018

Table of Contents

Introduction: Britain at the Crossroads ...... 3 Executive Summary: Britain at the Crossroads ...... 4

PART 1: GLOBAL STATISTICS ...... 6 1.1 Airtime ...... 6 1.2 Speakers ...... 7

PART 2: INDIVIDUAL PROGRAMMES ...... 12 2.1 Today ...... 12 2.2 The Long View ...... 14 2.3 Dead Ringers ...... 16 2.4 The Channel ...... 23 2.5 World at One ...... 35 2.6 The Brexit Lab ...... 38 2.7 The EU After Brexit ...... 40 2.8 The World Tonight ...... 42 2.9 Conclusion ...... 44

PART 3: IMPARTIALITY ANALYSIS: ...... 45 Today ...... 47 Why Nifco?: ...... 47 In detail: Today from Teesside ...... 50 Presenter/BBC Correspondent Input ...... 53 Conclusion: Today ...... 59 The Long View ...... 61 Analysis: The Long View ...... 65 Conclusion: The Long View ...... 71 World at One ...... 76 Conclusion: World at One ...... 78 The Brexit Lab ...... 80 Conclusion: The Brexit Lab ...... 82 The EU after Brexit ...... 83 Conclusion: The EU after Brexit ...... 86 The World Tonight ...... 89 Conclusion ...... 90

APPENDIX: FULL TRANSCRIPTS ...... 93 Today, 6am ...... 93 The Long View, 9am ...... 131 Dead Ringers, 9.45am ...... 143 The Channel, 9.48am ...... 144 World at One, 1pm ...... 148 Dead Ringers, 1.55pm ...... 157 The Brexit Lab, 4.30pm ...... 158 PM, 5pm ...... 168 Dead Ringers, 6.30pm ...... 176 The EU after Brexit, 8.30pm ...... 177 Dead Ringers, 8.58pm ...... 194 The World Tonight, 10pm ...... 195 Dead Ringers, 10.43pm ...... 198

Introduction: Britain at the Crossroads

On March 29, 2018, one year before the UK’s projected departure from the EU, BBC Radio 4 mounted an unusual broadcasting project called Britain at the Crossroads. This was a group of eight otherwise unconnected programmes – starting with Today and concluding with to The World Tonight – each containing specially-produced material about Brexit.

It turned out in one way to be a red-letter day. For the first time since the EU referendum in June 2016, and possibly ever, the Corporation, in The Brexit Lab, produced an entire programme which examined as its main theme some of the potential benefits of leaving the EU. But in almost every other sense Britain at the Crossroads was more negative about Brexit. By a heavy margin, the speaker and word-count totals were dominated by those who wished to remain in the EU; out of 92 contributors during the day, only 15 (16 per cent) were confirmed withdrawalists.

This bias, as is detailed in Section 3, was, however, much worse than the headline statistics suggest. The key findings include:

 The Long View, presented by Guardian pro-Remain columnist Jonathan Freedland, who heavily distorted history to suggest that Britain has been dependent on ‘Europe’ since the Norman Conquest and was now leaving on the basis of long-standing xenophobia  The Today programme had a 3-1 imbalance of speakers against Brexit. This negativity was compounded by the highly-negative approach of the presenters and correspondents, and a huge inbuilt skew through the choice of mounting an outside broadcast from a Teesside company strongly opposed to leaving the EU’s single market.  The EU after Brexit, was ostensibly a look at the EU’s prospects following the UK’s departure, but it failed to do so. All the contributors were Europhiles, and the keynote guest was Jean-Claude Trichet, one of the EU’s greatest champions. The growing ‘populism’ in EU countries was virtually ignored in favour of pro-EU comment.  Five special-edition strands of the satire show Dead Ringers were deeply skewed in their portrayal of supporters of leaving the EU as xenophobic idiots

Thus, in summary, The Brexit Lab uniquely swam against the tide of anti-Brexit, pro-EU opinion, by which it was swamped. ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ turned out to be yet another episode in the BBC’s seemingly relentless determination to undermine and discredit the Brexit process.

At the same time, it failed to even begin to analyse or draw audience attention to the deep historic and structural problems in the European Union, or to explore dispassionately the reasons why Britons voted to leave the EU.

Executive Summary: ‘Britain at the Crossroads’

On March 29, 2018 BBC Radio 4 broadcast a day of programmes about Brexit designed to reflect the issues involved one year before the EU departure date.

Eight separate programmes were involved: special editions of Today, The Long View (a historical discussion programme), The World at One, Dead Ringers and the World Tonight, along with ad hoc commissions The Channel, The Brexit Lab and The EU after Brexit.

News-watch transcribed and analysed all the programmes. With the exception of The Brexit Lab, the word-counts and speaker totals established by the survey found a heavy bias against Brexit.

 Only 15 speakers out of 92 during the day were confirmed withdrawalists.  49 were in favour of remain, pro-EU or critical of the government’s approach to the negotiations with the EU  28 supported Brexit or were anti EU  The overall word-count was 15,554 from those who broadly favoured Remain (the 49 above) against 6,889 from those making contrary points.  In Today – which accounted for one third of the day’s output – the bias was much worse, with only eight guest contributors pro-Brexit against 26 negative about it, or positive about the EU.

But, as noted in the introduction, the textual analysis shows that the bias was much worse than the figures. Of most concern, as is established in Part 3, was that BBC presenters and correspondents, especially in the Today programme, seemed on a mission to highlight every possible snag in the Brexit process, and played down or ignored the opportunities.

The sequences which explored the future of the EU contained heavily pro-EU comment from BBC correspondents, and guest speakers – though pointing out some structural problems – were at core in different ways all strongly in favour of the EU. Entirely missing were any commentators calling for drastic reform – or withdrawal – who were part of so-called ‘populist’ or ‘right-wing’ movements within the EU.

The Brexit Lab, though clearly – and possibly uniquely in BBC history – an attempt to examine post-Brexit opportunities, was announced by the BBC immediately before transmission to be a ‘strongly personal view’ from the freelance journalist Iain Martin.

Overall, despite the exploration in The Brexit Lab, ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ was deeply skewed against Brexit. This has been the case in all eight News-watch surveys completed since the EU referendum. It is a matter of major national concern that the BBC is breaching its Charter requirements towards impartiality in this way.

PART 1: GLOBAL STATISTICS

News-watch monitored the seven programmes listed by the BBC Media Centre’s press release of 18 March1 in their entirety along with all six short sketches from Dead Ringers.2 All material pertaining to Brexit, or to Britain’s relationship with the EU more widely, was fully transcribed, and assessed both quantitatively and qualitatively.

All eight programmes were logged and their component elements were timed, including, where applicable, non-Brexit/EU content. Given that the programmes differed significantly in genre and approach, statistics have also been compiled both for the strand as a whole, and for the individual programmes within it.

1.1 Airtime

In total, ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ delivered 4 hours and 47 minutes of EU content, or 79% of the 6 hours of available airtime across the 8 surveyed programmes.

Five of the programmes focused exclusively on Brexit or the EU. Only those in Radio 4’s core news cycle (Today, The World at One and The World Tonight) carried content on other news themes.3

Programme Available Airtime Brexit Airtime Percentage Today 121 min 93 min 77% The Long View 39 min 39 min 100% Dead Ringers 11 min 45 sec 11 min 45 sec 100% The Channel 13 min 45 sec 13 min 45 sec 100% World at One 48 min 30 min 45 sec 64% The Brexit Lab 36 min 30 sec 36 min 30 sec 100% The EU after Brexit 55 min 55 min 100% The World Tonight 34 min 45 sec 7 min 20% Total 6 hours 4 hours 47 min 79.7%

1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2018/r4-year-out-from-brexit?lang=gd 2 Dead Ringers was announced to be part of the ‘Britain at the Crossroads strand’ in an announcement before The Long View at 9am on 29 March 2018. Radio 4’s PM also carried content marking a year before Britain’s departure from the EU. The material was transcribed and is assessed later, but given that it was not mentioned in the BBC press release, nor in any of the announcements preceding programmes in the strand, it has not been included in the statistical section of this survey. 3 Today, The World at One and The World Tonight were assessed according to their ‘feature’ airtime, a distinction established by News-watch during its surveys between 1999 and 2017, to minimise the impact of repeated content (bulletins and newspaper reviews) and non-news items (weather, trailers for other programmes, Thought for the Day) on airtime calculations. 6

Today, The World at One and The World Tonight differed greatly in the prominence they gave to ‘Britain and the Crossroads’. Today devoted more than three quarters of its available airtime to the theme, The World at One approximately two thirds, but the World Tonight only a fifth.

The World at One was extended from 45 minutes to an hour, the extra space being used to present the first in a new series by former Europe Editor Mark Mardell, entitled ‘Brexit: A Love Story?’. The six editions of Dead Ringers, broadcast throughout the course of the day have been treated as a single entity for the purpose of the table.

The Brexit Lab, presented journalist Iain Martin, had a duration of 36 minutes and 30 seconds when retrieved through BBC iPlayer, but the version broadcast live on Radio 4 on 29 March was approximately ten minutes shorter. Given that the documentary was the only sustained attempt during the day to assess the positive opportunities of Brexit, the longer edit has been used in both airtime and speaker calculations.

The chart shows how Today contributed the most airtime to the strand, with 93 minutes of feature coverage. The World Tonight contributed the least, delivery just 7 minutes of Brexit-related content.

Minutes of Brexit/EU Coverage by Programme 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Today The Long View Dead Ringers The Channel World at One The Brexit Lab The EU after Brexit The World Tonight

1.2 Speakers

92 guest speakers contributed to ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ across the eight surveyed programmes. In keeping with News-watch’s standard monitoring approach, only external guests were coded.

The variations in programme genre raised three coding issues which require additional clarification: first, the Dead Ringers impressions were excluded from speaker categorisations, given they were not comparable to the ‘real’ speakers who were featured in the other programmes. Second, actor Ian Hart served as narrator in The Long View and was therefore excluded from the calculations as he offered no personal view. Third, journalist Iain Martin, presenter of The Brexit Lab, stated that he had voted Leave in the 2016 referendum; however, given that ‘Britain a the Crossroads’ also included high-profile Remain-supporting presenters, Jonathan Freedland and David Aaronovitch, presenters were kept separate, to maintain the integrity of News-watch’s long-term methodology.

With these provisos in mind, News-watch coded each contributor according to the opinions they provided on Brexit or the EU, and the results were as follows:

49 speakers (53%) offered a negative opinion on Brexit, a positive opinion on the EU (or former EEC), pushed for remaining part of the customs union or single market post-Brexit, or called for a second referendum. 28 speakers (30%) Offered a positive opinion on Brexit or spoke negatively about the EU (or former EEC). This included some speakers who had supported Remain in the referendum, but who had since committed to pushing forward the Brexit process.

15 speakers (16%) offered a neutral, factual or mixed view on the EU or Brexit.

Only 15 guests were firm withdrawalists who had voted or campaigned for Leave during the 2016 referendum (or, in the case of three archive clips, opposed Britain’s EEC membership in the 1970s). This cohort thus represented just 16% of the contributors featured in the day of programming.

26% of the speakers were UK politicians, divided along party lines as follows:

UK Politicians Speakers Words Conservative 13 4,498 Labour Party 6 2,190 SNP 2 676 Liberal Democrats 1 491 Crossbench Peers 1 77 UKIP 1 25 Total 24 7,957

As the table shows, representatives of the Conservative Party dominated the political discourse, with more than double the appearances of their Labour counterparts, although only four of the 13 Conservatives had actually advocated Britain leaving the EU in the 2016 referendum. There were also archive recordings of Enoch Powell and Neil Martin, who expressed opposition to 8 joining the EEC in the early 1970s, in Mark Mardell’s ‘Brexit, a Love Story?’. Ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage gave just one brief soundbite, amounting to 25 words, and there was no input over the course of the day from the pro-Brexit DUP.

The most substantial Labour contribution was from former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who spoke 1,020 words in an interview on the Today programme, defending his government’s record on immigration from the EU accession states, and stating that ‘it’s not too late’ for Britain to reconsider its decision to leave the Union. A clip of this interview, in which Mr Blair suggested that the likelihood of preventing Brexit had recently increased, aso featured on The World Tonight.

Unusually, bearing in mind the rarity of left-wing withdrawalist voices on BBC news and current affairs programmes4 ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ featured two appearances from left-wing opponents of EU membership. The Today programme carried a 65-word soundbite from Labour MP Frank Field, who spoke briefly about the Brexit timetable; and Mark Mardell’s ‘Brexit, a Love Story?’ included a 35-word archive recording of Labour’s Douglas Jay, who said that the effect of the UK joining the Common Market under the terms being offered would be ‘economically disastrous’.

The rest of the speakers (accounting for 74% of the total contributors) were categorised as follows:

Other Speakers Total Words Business, Economics, Finance 30 6,797 Academics/Scientists 8 3,603 Artists 7 1,057 EU Institutions 1 1,097 Civil Servants 3 961 Campaigners and Pressure Groups 2 944 Think Tank 2 810 Politicians from EU Member States 3 730 General Public 7 339 Journalists 1 303 Charities/Community Organisations 4 261 Total 68 16,902

The figures show that voices from business, economics and finance outnumbered all other categories by a significant margin. There were more business speakers than UK politicians (30, compared to 24), although the politicians in total were awarded slightly more space (7,957 words to 6,797).

4 News-watch’s paper, ‘BBC Bias by Omission – Leave and the ‘Left’ 2002-2017 found that, over the course of 30 separate surveys and 6882 speakers discussing EU matters, only 14 (0.2%, or 1 in 500) were left-wing advocates of withdrawal. http://news-watch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/News-watch-BBC-Bias-by-Omission-Leave-and-the-Left-2002-2017.pdf 9

Word count figures were compiled for each guest speaker, using the full transcripts of each programme to explore how much space each was provided.

Today accounted for just over a third of the total words spoken by invited guests, and The Long View and The EU after Brexit accounted for roughly a fifth. The Channel allocated the least amount of space to external contributors, just 2% of the total words spoken. (Dead Ringers has been discounted, as the ‘speakers’ were impressions of politicians, rather than the politicians themselves.)

Words from Guest Speakers, by Programme

World at One, 1744 words, 7%

The Brexit Lab, 4011 words, 15% The Channel, 475 words, 2%

Today, 8720 words, 34% The EU After Brexit, 5074 words, 19%

The Long View, 5339 words, 21%

The World Tonight, 627 words, 2%

The word count data were also analysed to assess the overall balance of views expressed across the raft of programmes. The results were as follows:

15,554 words (62%) were from guests who offered a negative opinion on Brexit, a positive opinion on the EU or the former EEC, pushed for remaining part of the customs union or single market, or called for a second referendum.

6,889 words (28%) were from guests who offered a negative opinion on Brexit, a positive opinion on the EU, argued against remaining part of the customs union or single market, or opposed a second referendum.

2,416 words (10%) were from guests who offered a neutral, factual or mixed view on the EU or Brexit.

As such, broadly pro-EU/Anti-Brexit speakers received more than twice the space of those making a positive case for Brexit, or speaking negatively about the EU.

Word Counts- All Programmes

2416 words

6889 words 15554 words

Remain Leave Neutral

Further, only 4,460 of the 6,889 words spoken in favour of Brexit (or critically of the EU) came from ‘firm’ withdrawalists who had voted or campaigned for Leave during the referendum. This group therefore accounted for just 18% of the words spoken by guest contributors across the ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ strand.

The next section presents statistics for each programme individually, and where necessary provides further detail on particular coding decisions.

PART 2: INDIVIDUAL PROGRAMMES

2.1 Today

Overview Today is Radio 4’s flagship news and current affairs programme, broadcast for three hours each weekday morning and two hours each Saturday. It has a weekly audience reach of 7.15 million.5 The edition on 29 March 2018 was co-presented by Mishal Husain from the Nifco car-parts factory in Stockton-on-Tees in the North East of England and Sarah Montague, from the BBC studio in London.

Airtime Today devoted 77% of its available feature airtime on its 29 March edition to Brexit. This was a high proportion in historical terms (the long-term average for EU content on the Today programme in News-watch surveys between September 2002 and November 2017 stands at 7%). However, it devoted slightly less time to Brexit than in the edition broadcast exactly a year previously, where 84.4% of Today’s airtime had been devoted to discussions surrounding the triggering of Article 50.

Only four non-Brexit themes received feature coverage on Today that morning: a three minute report on news that a senior Labour Party official, Christine Shawcroft, had stepped down amid a row about anti-Semitism in the party; two reports on the resignation of the Chairman of the Parole Board over the handling of the case of convicted rapist John Worboys totalling 14 minutes and 15 seconds; a report on the US decision to expel sixty Russian diplomats in the wake of the poisoning Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury; and a three and half minute discussion with the winner of the Ted Hughes poetry prize.

Speakers 46 guest speakers contributed to the 29 March edition, exactly half the number featured to the ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ strand in total. There were 15 interviews and 31 pre-recorded soundbites, including five speakers who posed questions to correspondent Matthew Price.

Guests were categorised according to their positions on Brexit:

5 http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2018/rajar-2017-q4 12

26 guests offered a negative opinion on Brexit, a positive opinion on the EU, pushed for remaining part of the customs union or single market, called for a second referendum, or posed a question which bolstered the potential negative aspects of Brexit. (57%)

8 guests offered a positive opinion on Brexit, spoke negatively about the EU or posed a question which bolstered potential positives of Brexit. (17%)

12 guests offered a neutral or factual opinion, or posed a question which bolstered neither the pro or anti-Brexit case (26%)

Today carried over three times as many Anti-Brexit speakers as Pro-Brexit speakers. 6 of the 8 guests who offered a positive view on Brexit were ‘firm’ withdrawalists, in that they had campaigned or voted for Leave during the 2016 referendum.

Word counts The word count figures represent the amount of space given to each guest.

Word Counts - Today 6000

4970 5000

4000

3000 2336

2000 1414

1000

0 Anti-Brexit Pro-Brexit Neutral

The longer interview with Leave-supporting Dr Liam Fox at 8.10am meant that the space differential between Pro and Anti-Brexit contributors was less pronounced than the overall headcount figure. However, Pro-EU/Anti-Brexit voices were still given more than double the space of Anti-EU/Pro-Brexit speakers.

2.2 The Long View

Overview: The Long View is a regular fixture in the Radio 4 schedule with a state of aim of exploring ‘moments in history which illuminate a contemporary debate’.6 The programme was presented by Jonathan Freedland, columnist and writer for The Guardian, who has, in print, referred to Brexit as ‘a hot, sticky mess’ and demanded the 48% who voted Remain ‘must have a voice’, given his belief that the vote was evidence of the political system failing.7

The 29 March edition of The Long View was extended from 30 to 45 minutes and included input from five guests, as well as narration from actor Ian Hart.8

Three of the guests were academics: Dr Erin Goeres, Lecturer in Old Norse Literature and head of Scandinavian Studies at University College London; David Reynolds, Professor of International History at Cambridge University, and Professor David Andress, Professor of Modern History at the University of Portsmouth.

In May 2015, David Andress was signatory to an open letter challenging the ‘Historians for Britain’ campaign that called for a renegotiation of Britain’s EU membership.9 David Reynolds has argued that, despite the modern EU being ‘ponderous and at times frankly stupid’, the UK should have engaged seriously in alliance diplomacy, and built coalitions for reform rather than ‘shouting from the sidelines’.10 Erin Goeres, in her appearance on The Long View, spoke about the ‘rhetoric of nostalgia that has bled into the Brexit debate,’ noted that ‘military conquest is certainly not something we have experienced under the EU’, and blurred lines between the geography of Europe and the politics of the EU, by suggesting, ‘Britain has always been a part of Europe culturally, linguistically, politically, it’s just to what degree should we negotiate that.’

Two further interviewees offered contemporary views that were more directly political in tone: Conservative Leave advocate Kwasi Kwartang, and Eloise Todd the CEO of Best for Britain, a pro-Remain campaigning group backed by billionaire George Soros.11 The two guests were fairly evenly balanced in terms of space allotted, with Mr Kwartang speaking 888 words, and

6 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/longview/ 7 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/09/brexit-political-system-failing-48-per-cent-theresa-may-corbyn- betrayed 8 Mr Hart has been excluded from the totals presented here; he served as a narrator, reading excerpts from historical documents which served as a springboard for discussion, but made no direct points on the EU himself. 9 https://www.historytoday.com/various-authors/fog-channel-historians-isolated 10 http://www.historyandpolicy.org/case-studies/case-study/david-reynolds 11 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5764591/Best-Britain-backed-George-Soros-plans-stop-Brexit.html 14

Ms Todd 838 words. However, with Kwasi Kwartang as the only Leave supporting interviewee, his pro-Brexit opinions accounted for just 21% of the total words from the five invited speakers.

The Long View: Words Spoken by Guests

David Reynolds, 818 words Kwasi Kwartang, 888 words

Dr Erin Goeres, 637 words Eloise Todd, 838 words

Professor David Andress, 1027 words

The historians have been shaded differently in the table, to indicate that the contents of their contributions were not always overtly political: portions of their allocated airtime given to providing narrative explanations of the three chosen ‘turning points’. However, as Section 3 explores in detail, all three of these ‘turning points’ were selected to emphasise the importance of European unity, and, pointedly, none of the three historians utilised their knowledge to argue that Brexit might be a positive, forward-looking decision for the country.

This was clearly the consequence of specific editorial decisions concerning the choice of guests and the three historical events, whether taken by Jonathan Freedland himself, or in concert with his production team.

2.3 Dead Ringers

Performers from the Radio 4 comedy impressions programme delivered six two-minute sketches broadcast at intervals throughout the day, featuring ‘imagined voicemail messages from key players in the Brexit negotiations.’12 Three impressionists – Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens and Duncan Wiseby – imitated the voices of nine politicians: Theresa May, David Davis, Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbot, Nigel Farage, Michel Barnier, Jean-Claude Juncker, Angela Merkel and Donald Trump. The six editions were as follows:

Sketch One, 9.45am David Davis leaves a voicemail message for Theresa May, focusing mainly on the implications of Brexit for the Irish border. David Davis was presented as naïve: believing Ireland to be ‘a magical place full of whimsy’, but taken to an ‘abandoned farmhouse’ and electrocuted by men who had placed his feet in a bucket of water and attached bulldog clips to his genitals.

Sketch Two, 1.55pm Diane Abbot leaves a voicemail message for Jeremy Corbyn. The main target of the sketch was Labour’s inconsistent Brexit policy. Ms Abbot noted that Owen Smith had been sacked for stating that Britain should have a second referendum, despite her having taken a similar position and remained in post. She outlined a convoluted ‘a Britain both out of the single market and the customs union, whilst inside a customs union and single market. So we are inside the outside, trading freely and not freely, as a member and not a member of the EU’, and noted ‘it’s so simple.’ Towards the end of the sketch there were references to the Anti-Semitism row engulfing the Labour Party.

Sketch Three, 4.57pm Nigel Farage leaves a message for David Davis, who is ‘unable to come to the phone right now, as Barnier has me in a headlock’. In the first section of the sketch it was revealed that Mr Farage, rather than being in a busy pub, was using a sound-effects CD he had bought ‘from a Russian’, and there were references to the 2016 referendum being won by ‘shadowy billionaires’ and ‘that Cambridge data whatsit firm’. The second half of Mr Farage’s message focused on the issue of the ‘iconic blue passport’ being made in France, and issues surrounding the Common Fisheries Policy, with Mr Farage suggesting that both issues could be solved simultaneously by replacing the current burgundy passport with fish.

12 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2DlFhZD2bCDfCTgsl6pGWJ1/six-brexit-sketches-to-help-you-see-the-funny- side-of-it-all 16

Sketch Four, 6.30pm A message from the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier to Brexit Secretary David Davis. The premise of the skit was that Mr Barnier’s claims that Brexit was ‘a sad milestone in EU history’ were belied by the sounds of a celebration going on in the background, replete with ‘a conga line passing through’. Mr Barnier flattered the UK for having brought ‘so much to the European project’, with ‘the spirit of generosity and compromise’, only to suggest he was mistaken and actually talking about Finland.

Sketch Five, 8.58pm German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leaving a voicemail for EU President Jean-Claude Juncker, said that the British had humiliated themselves in the negotiations, singling out David Davis as having poor negotiating skills. In contrast with the view from the EU portrayed in previous edition, Mrs Merkel was keen to ‘find a way to make the UK stay’, her reasoning being that ‘hating Britain is the glue that prevents the entire EU project crashing down’, and she expressed her fear that Britain would make a success of Brexit. The sketch ended with her suggesting that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg could ‘fix it’ so that Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable

Sketch Six, 10.43pm Theresa May leaving a message for US President Donald Trump, to remind him that it’s exactly a year to Brexit and to assert that Britain can rely on the ‘special relationship’ with the US. She explained that she is looking forward to a ‘new era of free trade between our two great nations’, including inedible biscuits, overpriced medicines and chlorinated chicken. Midway through her message, President Trump picked up the call, at first mistaking Mrs May for adult film actress Stormy Daniels, and then suggesting that Theresa May ‘is such a great porn name’. He noted that he has ‘bigly plans’ for the NHS, which Mrs May agrees to sell to him.

As explained in Part One, the politicians lampooned by the Dead Ringers team were been excluded from the speaker and word count totals for the survey as whole, given that their input could not be fairly compared to contributions from real-life guests. However, statistics have been compiled separately for each ‘contributor’ and are presented on the chart below:

Dead Ringers - Word Counts

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

Theresa May David Davis Jeremy Corbyn Diane Abbot Nigel Farage Michel Barnier Jean-Claude Juncker Angela Merkel Donald Trump

Brexit Secretary David Davis received the most space, appearing in three of the six sketches, first leaving an extended voicemail for Theresa May, and then, in subsequent editions, acting as recipient of messages from Nigel Farage and Michel Barnier. Despite being awarded so little space elsewhere in the ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ strand (just a short 25 word contribution to The World Tonight), an impression of former UKIP leader Nigel Farage accounted for the second largest amount of space, indicating that Mr Farage is still seen as a pivotal figure in the Brexit negotiations, despite UKIP receiving a sharp decline in coverage in the mainstream news and current affairs programming monitored by News-watch since the referendum.13

Dead Ringers, as with all parody, depends on a level of audience familiarity: its targets are individuals whose voices, mannerisms and opinions are well-known, and the humour is created by exaggerating established perceptions, or playing on well-worn stereotypes. It also relies on familiarity with current ‘big topics in news and current affairs – audiences will only understand and appreciate the jokes if they are aware of a particular theme through its coverage in serious news programming.

Studies into the persuasive impact of satire discount the idea of immediate attitude change following exposure to a humorous message, with audiences being likely to dismiss its contents as ‘just a joke’.14 However, research also provides evidence of a potential ‘sleeper effect’:

13 In the last News-watch survey of Radio 4’s Today programme, undertaken in October-November 2017, of the 183 speakers on EU matters, there was only one appearance from UKIP, a short 76-word soundbite from leader Suzanne Evans, equating to 0.2% of the words spoken on the EU during the survey. http://news-watch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/News-watch- Winter-2017-Survey.pdf 14 Nabi, R., Moyer-Gusé, E. and Byrne, S. (2007). All Joking Aside: A Serious Investigation into the Persuasive Effect of Funny Social Issue Messages. Communication Monographs, 74(1), p.41 18 memorable messages may encourage audiences to think about issues more over time, which can increase the persuasive effect and influence on attitudes.15

On Dead Ringers, the jokes tended to fall into a number of clear categories:

‘Little Englander’ stereotypes The sketches lampooning David Davis and Nigel Farage were predicated on links between anti- EU sentiment and xenophobia, an association repeated regularly on BBC news and entertainment programmes over the last two decades.16

In his Dead Ringers incarnation, David Davis was cast as the ‘Brexit Bulldog’, noting that it was just ‘one year to go till we march up to Johnny Foreigner’, while explaining that he only speaks two languages, ‘English and slightly slower, louder English for when I’m on holidays.’ At one point he referred to an imaginary EU national as ‘Pedro’.

Similarly, the script for Nigel Farage featured the former UKIP leader referring to an EU border guard as ‘Fritz’, stating that he didn’t ‘bloody well care’ about the Irish, and stating that unless the Brexit issue was sorted he would ‘unleash the kind of hell not seen since my local introduced Peroni on tap’ – the inference that he would dislike the Italian beer on account of its nation of origin.

Personal Attacks The Dead Ringers sketches also used their characters to ‘say the unsayable’, using mimicry to make strong personal attacks, or, conversely, to make a particular target seem foolish by implying ignorance.

Michel Barnier, for example, referred to David Davis’s ‘stupid, grinning, gappy-toothed face’, adding, ‘But I am being rude and unprofessional, and I really should not – because that is your department’. Similarly, Nigel Farage called David Davis an ‘old snaggletooth, inbred embarrassment’. Mr Farage was later mocked for having adopted a ‘salt of the Earth Englishman’ persona, while relying on Russian billionaires and the services of Cambridge Analytica to secure the Leave vote in the referendum.

15 Ibid. p.49 16 See, for example, News-watch’s reports on the BBC’s ‘How Euro are You?’ (October 2005) in which Andrew Marr and Dara O’ Briain invited audiences to undertake a quiz to ascertain their level of support for the EU. The programme used blunt cultural stereotypes throughout, with the most Eurosceptic category referred to as ‘Little Islanders’. http://news-watch.co.uk/wp- content/uploads/2015/03/How-Euro-Are-You-Newswatch-Analysis.pdf 19

Prominent Conservative Brexiteer Jacob Rees Mogg also came under fire, with jokes at his expense bookending the six editions. In the first sketch, Theresa May noted that she was unable to come to the phone ‘as Jacob Rees Mogg has rung for his elevenses’ – presumably a combined reference to his social class and the prime minister’s perceived subservience to the pro-Brexit wing of her party. Nigel Farage complained to David Davis that he had let the EU ruin the fishing industry, noting that ‘soon the only wet fish left in the country will be Jacob Rees-Mogg’. In the final skit, an imagined conversation between Theresa May and President Trump, at the suggestion that selling the NHS to Mr Trump would make her ‘the most hated and reviled politician in Britain’, Mr Trump responded, ‘There would still be Jacob Rees-Mogg’, at which point Mrs May concedes to the deal.

By contrast, there were relatively few jokes aimed at the European Commission or EU leaders, and the quips were less personal in tone. They also tended to simultaneously criticise Britain or its government. For example, Angela Merkel began her message, ‘I’ve had a difficult time recently, but it could be worse, I could be Theresa May,’ and said later, ‘Yes, I know they are belligerent and small-minded, but that is the point: without Britain to hate we’ll all end up squabbling with each other.’

Only two brief sequences were aimed squarely at the EU institutions: first, EU bureaucracy was mocked in the answerphone message of EU President Jean-Claude Juncker, ‘I can’t come to the phone right now, as doing so would directly contravene the EU Directive 8976/456 subsection 923/83 paragraph 7, appendix 2’; second, Angela Merkel revealed that her darkest fear was, ‘what if Britain actually makes a success of Brexit?’.

The Impact of Brexit The sequence of sketches also included material focusing on the possible material effects of Brexit, and these were unremittingly negative: the hard border in Northern Ireland potentially ushering a return to terrorism; that ‘taking back control’ meaning that Britain would be doing exactly what the EU said for the next two years; that the NHS could be sold to the Americans; that any future trade relationship with the US would lead to a drop in food standards.

The ability of the British negotiating team was criticised frequently. Angela Merkel said, ‘it would have been so easy just to humiliate the British and make them look like idiots, so far better that you allow them to do it for themselves’, and Michel Barnier suggested that he had avoided David Davis’s ‘little traps’ and left him ‘flat-footed every time.’

Theresa May, meanwhile, referred to herself as ‘a strange grey-haired lady’, and was positioned by the narrative as being so ineffectual that she was forced to remind President Trump who she actually was. The notion of a trade deal with the US was pilloried, ‘Of course, 20 there are those claiming you won’t give us a good trade deal, based on nothing, as far as I can see, but every single decision you’ve made as President’.

Conclusion It is difficult to deconstruct jokes semantically in the same way one might analyse news and current affairs. Mimicry as a comedic genre is multi-layered: audiences may focus on of the skills of the imitators, gain pleasure from assessing the impressions for accuracy, or simply enjoy suspending their disbelief and hearing familiar voices articulating points that their real-life counterparts would never (or could never) make.

In addition to the impressions themselves, Dead Ringers also depends on the topical: audiences recognise issues and themes made salient by ‘serious’ news and current affairs. There is a symbiotic relationship – for audiences to be ‘in’ on a particular joke, it must reflect news themes that have gained traction elsewhere. So, for example, the impressions of Nigel Farage and Angela Merkel referenced the alleged influences of Cambridge Analytica, ‘Russian billionaires’ and Facebook on the 2016 EU Referendum and US Election. Dead Ringers could, alternatively, have satirised Remain having spent significantly more than Leave on its campaign17, or mocked the BBC for carrying anti-Brexit advertisements on its overseas website,18 but because these issues have been downplayed or ignored by mainstream news programmes it would be difficult for them to resonate as readily with the Radio 4 audience.

Similarly, the David Davis sketch focused on the potential of a return to sectarian troubles in Northern Ireland. A paper for the Policy Exchange has argued that concerns over the Irish border have ‘disproportionately dominated discussion over the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU’ and that, ‘arch-Remainers have used it to scaremonger about the threat to the Good Friday Agreement and peace in Northern Ireland.’19 But Dead Ringers acted in concert with its ‘serious’ counterparts to echo and amplify a strong anti-Brexit message.

There were further textual imbalances at play: the British speakers tended to lampoon themselves or each other, but EU speakers, in turn, tended to attack the British, which left little space for any critique of the EU or its institutions.

17 https://capx.co/remain-not-leave-had-an-unfair-advantage-in-the-eu-referendum/ 18 During the referendum campaign, the BBC ran advertisements from Britain Stronger in Europe focused on George Osborne’s claim that Brexit would cost each household £4300 on its international websites, visible to up to 2 million British ex-patriots living on the continent. See: http://news-watch.co.uk/bbc-passes-the-buck-over-pro-eu-website-ads/ 19 https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Getting-over-the-line.pdf 21

A year prior to the current survey, News-watch monitored the Today programme in the week that Article 50 was triggered.20 On 4 April 2017, Today carried a report on The Craft of Comedy, an annual conference held in Llandudno.21 Correspondent David Silitoe reported that, in a room containing approximately one hundred comedy writers and performers, only one person admitted to having voted Leave – writer James Cary. Mr Cary said that being pro-Brexit ‘is not a widely-held view within the comedy community,’ and when asked by Mr Silitoe if this was a good or bad thing, he replied:

I think in a sense it’s a bad thing, because you would hope that there would be a range of views, within those people who are writing comedy and aspiring to write comedy. I think it’s because Brexit is associated with conservatism and patriotism and nationalism, which are all things which comedians generally find distasteful. I think what some comedians are realising is that if you are very much a London based . . . that England and London are two very, very separate places. People in London should be a little bit careful about seeing England as, as backward and nationalistic or patriotic or racist.

Certainly Dead Ringers made these precise associations, particularly in the stereotypes used in the portrayal of David Davis and Nigel Farage. If the straw poll taken at the conference in Llandudno is representative of views within the comedy industry more widely, then the inclusion of Dead Ringers within the ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ strand was not editorially neutral. Rather, it was a decision guaranteed to produce sketches dwelling on the negatives of Brexit and presenting audiences with an almost entirely pessimistic view of both the ongoing negotiations and the personalities involved in delivering Britain’s future outside the EU.

20 http://news-watch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/News-watch-Today-Programme-Article-50-Survey.pdf 21 BBC Radio 4, Today, 4 April 2017, ‘The Craft of Comedy’ Conference, 7.42am 22

2.4 The Channel

Overview The Channel was a series of five essays running through the week. The edition broadcast on 29 March was Episode Four, entitled ‘The Shared Sea’, written and presented by Dr Renaud Morieux, a Cambridge historian.

Dr Morieux focused on Turner’s painting Calais Pier. He explained that he had first encountered the painting more than twenty years ago as he began a year of study in London. He said that following ‘a dispiriting walk’ along the Thames, ‘whose sprawling and empty banks were nothing like the quays of the Seine’, he had paced The Strand, ‘close to tears’ and entered the National Gallery to find Calais Pier on the first floor.

He introduced the National Gallery’s deputy director, Dr Susan Foister, who provided background on the painting, noting that Turner had crossed the Channel for the first time in 1802, during a break in the Napoleonic Wars, and Calais Pier was based on sketches he made on this journey. She suggested that for Turner the crossing would have been ‘extraordinary and exciting’, and it was therefore easy to understand why he had felt so inspired. She spoke about the unconventional framing of the scene, and the artist’s use heavy brushstrokes to give a feel of the waves and spray.

Dr Morieux noted that this was ‘a scene without bounds’ and, with the horizon disappearing into the sea, ‘it’s impossible to spot the point at which the passengers first crossed into French from English waters. There followed a 1689 text from Sir Philip Meadows, concerning countries having a 60-mile jurisdiction, or, alternatively, ‘as far as a man can see from shore on a fair day’, neither of which is feasible in terms of Dover and Calais. Dr Morieux said this raised important questions:

Where do you draw state boundaries at sea? Where does England stop, and where does France begin?

Dr Moriux spoke of options considered by legal writers since the Classical period: tracing a demarcation line in the deepest part of the seabed, or the 18th century principle of territorial waters, which extended as far as the theoretical range of guns fired from the coast – although he noted this couldn’t be applied in the narrow Dover Strait or between the Channel Islands and Normandy, where the territorial waters overlapped.

He explained that Turner’s painting was subtitled ‘An English Packet Boat Arriving’, and that a regular traffic of light ships had sailed back and forth twice weekly, delivering mail, passengers and horses. He said that, despite the potential risks of the crossing, and a decade of war,

Turner was among the many thousands of British men and women who stormed across the Channel to visit France, rekindling a tradition of peaceful interactions which was never totally severed between the two countries.

There followed an unattributed reading from a passage by John Carr (1732-1807) in which he noted that the ‘Two greatest nations under heaven whose shores almost touch, and, if ancient tales be true, were once unsevered’ call each other’s natives foreigners, with jealousy, competition and warfare producing an artificial distance and separation ‘much wider and more impossible than nature intended.’

Dr Morieux noted, however, that ‘this doesn’t mean that all British and French people saw each other as enemies’ theorising that the border of the English Channel ‘can be thought of a shared space, a natural connection between England and France’. He said the maritime frontier was not a dividing line, but ‘a zone of interaction with its own history and culture’. He said that relations between communities in Southern England and Northern France often operated outside the rules laid down by governments in wartime and peacetime.

Trade was never confined by national borders. In an age of high customs duties, merchants would constantly move their activities between France, England and along the country's bordering the North Sea, adapting to the legislation in the different states.

He spoke of 18th Century English smugglers carrying out their illicit trade, unmolested by the French government, from Dunkirk. He said,

For these people, choosing between the two countries or even defining themselves by using national categories of belonging did not make sense.

Dr Susan Foister described Turner’s painting in more detail, pointing out a ship in the middle distance crowded with people, and a fishing boat buffeted on the stormy sea.

There followed a reading of a passage by Ravel, who spoke about fishing crews – often children or infirm old men – facing poor weather, and claimed that fishermen are ‘the friend of all nations’. Dr Morieux said:

The sea was represented as the privileged space of peaceable exchanges between peoples in which rivalries between states and national antagonisms dissolved. The Channel was a cosmopolitan space in which French and English fishermen would put their own lives at risk to rescue one another.

Dr Morieux relocated his narrative in the present, noting, self-referentially, that, ‘For some categories of travellers, for example, the French academic teaching British history in England, crossing the Channel has never been easier’. He spoke about his travels by Eurostar and said that for people like him, the maritime border was ‘materialised only by the ritual of passport control’, but for others the border is still a lived reality. He drew comparisons between the current refugee crisis and the 40-50,000 French Hugenots who migrated to England to flee Louis XIV’s religious persecution in 1685. Dr Morieux also spoke of Isaac Minet a French Calvinist from Calais who escaped to England in 1686 and settled in Dover, setting up ‘an incredibly successful business’, with dozens of Minet Packet Boats darting back and forth across the Channel. He noted that for generations of migrants the Channel was ‘a passage to sanctuary, protecting them from political or religious oppression.’

Dr Susan Foister observed that an enormous amount of Turner’s composition was given over to the sky, in the main dark and stormy, but with a rather beautiful break in the clouds, with sunlight catching the observer’s eye. Dr Morieux ended his essay with, perhaps, a veiled reference to contemporary politics:

The weather’s changing rapidly, is the storm clearing or the weather worsening? It’s for the viewer to decide, the painter seems to say.

Analysis The Shared Sea was 13 minutes and 45 seconds long, and featured just one external contributor, Dr Susan Foister, Deputy Director of the National Gallery. She spoke 475 words, but made no clear political point and was therefore categorised as neutral.

In keeping with News-watch’s established methodology, Dr Renaud Morieux was classified as the programme’s presenter, and his 1,504 words were excluded from the statistical totals. Similarly three readings of historical texts by an unnamed speaker, totalling 253 words, were deemed to be part of the ‘fabric’ of the programme.

However, Dr Morieux’s argument was not strictly neutral in terms of the wider debates surrounding Britain and the EU. His central argument was that the Channel exists not as a barrier but as a ‘shared space’, facilitating trade, travel, or the escape from persecution. He focused firmly on cooperation between the ordinary communities of France and England, even in times of war.

In 2013 a group of academics formed a group, Historians for Britain, who, in a letter to The Times, called for ‘a better deal between Britain and the EU’, in the form of a ‘looser, freer relationship’ which would be in Britain’s interests, but also in the interests of the European Union

25 itself.22 A subsequent article from the group, published in the journal History Today argued that Historians for Britain were not hostile to Europe, and that ‘in an ideal world Britain would remain within a radically reformed European Union.’23 Although this suggests that the group were advocating a Eurosceptic ‘reform’ agenda (as opposed to calling for British withdrawal) the article prompted a response from a group of 282 other academics, who penned an open letter to History Today:

Political, social, cultural, and economic life in Britain has always depended on, drawn upon, and given back to Europe. Since prehistory, migration into and out of these islands has defined their population and created generations of families with strong connections to Europe and elsewhere . . . We think that a history that emphasises Britain's differences and separation from Europe (or elsewhere) narrows and diminishes our parameters, making our history not exceptional but undernourished. Britain's past – and, therefore, its future – must be understood in the context of a complex, messy, exciting, and above all continuous interaction with European neighbours and indeed with the rest of the world.24

Dr Morieux was one of the signatories. And, indeed, the narrative he constructed for The Shared Sea echoed closely the perspective outlined History Today letter. An article in the Financial Times in May 2016 quoted Dr Morieux on his opposition to Eurosceptic analyses of Britain’s relationship with the continent:

[The Eurosceptic narrative is] too narrowly focused on political history and on the nation- state. The lives of ordinary people, shaped by trade and migration or simply survival, suggest personal identities and experiences were much more fluid than a stress on British uniqueness might suggest.25

Eurosceptic academics contest this interpretation, noting that ‘a certain separateness from Europe is in Britain’s historical DNA’.26 Cambridge historian David Starkey has claimed, ‘England’s semi- detached relationship with continental Europe is neither new nor an aberration. Instead it is deeply rooted in the political developments of the past 500 years.’27

Those tuning in to The Shared Sea without prior knowledge of the disputes within academia may have taken Dr Morieux’s perspective as that of a neutral expert. Certainly, there was nothing to caution listeners (as there would be later on that day in an announcement before Iain Martin’s The Brexit Lab) that they were being presented with a ‘personal view’, or a contested interpretation of history.

22 The list of signatories to the 2013 letter has been removed from the Historians for Britain website, but an archived copy shows that by June 2016, just before the referendum, 42 academics had pledged their support to the campaign. academicshttps://web.archive.org/web/20160325213415/http://www.historiansforbritain.org/supporters/ 23 https://www.historytoday.com/david-abulafia/britain-apart-or-part-europe 24 https://www.historytoday.com/various-authors/fog-channel-historians-isolated 25 https://www.ft.com/content/86c8faa8-1696-11e6-9d98-00386a18e39d 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 26

Although The Shared Sea was the only edition of The Channel to be formally included in this survey, News-watch also analysed the other four programmes in the series, to understand its wider context, and to assess whether alternative perspectives and opinions were presented to listeners across the other four editions.

Monday 26 March - From Landscape to Seascape Professor Sanjeev Gupta of Imperial College London spoke about the geological history of The Channel. He noted that the chalk of the white cliffs of Dover had come to symbolise Britain’s national identity, ‘hard-wired into our culture and psyche’. He noted that, more recently, ‘in countless cartoons’ they had been used as a backdrop as ‘a leap into the unknown as we consider our future in Europe.’ He said that the idea of the Strait of Dover as an ‘impermeable boundary that has existed forever’ seems very real, but that ‘landscapes are deceptive’. He explained that 20,000 years ago there existed a mighty river, the conflux of the Thames, Rhine and other north-west European rivers, flowing towards the Atlantic. He noted that 10,000 years on, due to climate change, low-lying plains were engulfed by marine water, Doggerland was flooded, and Britain became the island we know today.

Professor Gupta then looked back 450,000 years to when our ancestors were able to walk a ridge of chalk which stretched from Dover to Calais, he said, ‘Geology does not respect national boundaries’, and noted that the chalk cliffs are also found on the French side of the Dover Strait, ‘though our neighbours don’t make such a big deal about them.’ He spoke of topographic maps of The Channel, which reveal networks of valleys caused by previous from ‘mega-floods’ from the overspill from a giant frozen lake extending from Norfolk to Denmark. He said these flood events had transformed the geography of northwest Europe, and when sea-levels rose during warm intervals, ‘Britain, once a promontory of Europe, became insulated by interglacial waters, it became an island.’ Professor Gupta then interviewed to Nick Ashton, Curator of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic collections at the British Museum, who spoke about tools and artefacts from the pioneer populations who first moved to Britain. Professor Gupta concluded his essay:

Standing here at Dover, it seems remarkable to think that were it not for a chance sequence of geological events, we would still be bound to our continental neighbour by this narrow sliver of chalk. I’m struck by the ‘what if?’ question – what if the chalk ridge hadn’t breached, what if this gaping hole, the Strait, hadn’t been triggered by tumultuous processes. The trajectory of Britain’s story would have been quite different, indeed, would it even have been Britain’s story? That seems unlikely. Such counterfactual imagining of history is, of course, unprovable, thus unpopular amongst academics, yet, it should give us pause for thought. The Channel, this moat, defensive to a house, is but a fluke of geology.

Tuesday 27 March - Literary Passages Dominic Rainsford, Professor of Literature in English at Aarhus University, Denmark, began his essay from the Dickens Museum in London, and interviewed Dr Cindy Sughrue, the museum’s 27

Director. They looked at an illustration of Dickens as a Colossus, looming over the English Channel, stepping from London to Paris. Dr Sughrue noted that Dickens had first travelled to France in 1837 and was ‘a quintessential Francophile, fluent in French’, and had a huge audience there.

Professor Rainsford explained that Dickens had crossed the Channel some thirty times, trips associated with ‘trauma and dislocation’ – followed by a reading from Dickens’s essay The Calais Night Mail, including the lines ‘Malignant Calais! Low-lying alligator, evading the eyesight and discouraging hope’, which referred to the seasickness the author had endured.

Professor Rainsford spoke of a letter in which Dickens had suggested the French tended to take advantage of English visitors, ‘albeit in a way that’s more waggish and droll than malicious’. He said Dickens’s writings showed how comfortable the author felt in France, once the cultural readjustments of the crossing were passed. He explained that Dickens had offered ‘high praise’ to the citizens of Boulogne and their character ‘which is so easily, so harmlessly and so simply pleased’. Professor Rainsford said,

Dickens is an Englishman for whom France is not really very foreign – at least, no more foreign than England. There’s an anti-xenophobic sense of being at ease with the whole preposterous world in these texts.

Dr Sughrue showed Professor Rainsford a travel bag once owned by Dickens, used in a trip to Italy and Switzerland in 1844. Professor Rainsford said that Dickens had written about passing through customs as he crossed into France, ‘and it was actually quite complicated’.

Professor Rainsford said that Dickens’s essays were highlights in a ‘long history of cross-Channel literature by authors great and small’, he said that some texts stood up for Frenchness or Englishness, ‘but there’s also a lot of Channel literature that offers a much more fluid, eddying or stormy sense of identity.’ He said that ‘probably the greatest’ Channel novel was Victor Hugo’s Travailleurs de la Mer, an author had spent a lot of his life in the ‘ambiguous and disputed’ Channel Islands.

Professor Rainsford ended his essay with a look at a current author, ‘a good cross-Channel compromise between Englishness and Frenchness’, Julian Barnes, whose work is more appreciated in France than at home, who in his 1998 novel England, England, ‘he presents a kind of daft apotheosis of turn-of-the-Millennium bankrupt nationalism’ and revolving around a ‘mad entrepreneurial scheme’ to fit everything English that a tourist could conceivably want to experience, onto the Isle of Wight:

Distinctions between reality and fakes disintegrate, the phony Britain prospers, while the real one decays, and meanwhile the outside world, in particular the new Europe, manifests

copious indifference. There’s a vision for us: England shrunk to a tiny theme-park island, within the strip of sea that once embodied so much national pride and power.

Professor Rainsford concluded by noting that Julian Barnes’s novel was just partly the expression of a particular author, at a particular time, and the work also falls into the ‘turbulent space of Channel literature as a whole’, with the body of water imposing its will over successive generations, and washing over the transient dilemmas of sailors, passengers, poets, novelists, French, English, Europeans, and ‘over those who would cling, in the storm of nature, to the very idea of a world defined by human institutions and identities.’

Wednesday 28 March – Cross Channel Journal Writer Alba Arikha, born in Paris and living in London, reflected on her experiences of crossing the Channel and compared them to the accounts of others. She noted that French feminist and socialist Flora Tristan had set sail to England in 1837 on one of several voyages, and had many things to say about England’s social inequalities, its weather and its people. An extract from her journal said:

I am told that more than 15,000 Frenchmen live in London, to say nothing of the Germans and Italians. Recent events have brought an influx of Spaniards and Poles as well. It is worthy or remark that the English call all foreigners ‘Frenchmen’ no matter what their country of origin.

Ms Arikha also referred to novelist Marie-Anne de Bovet who wrote about boarding a steam ship from Calais to Dover in 1889 and being subjected to the ‘barbaric idiom’ of English, on a rough crossing over the Channel.

Ms Arikha reported from an area behind Kings Cross station, which had been one of the poorest in London when Madame Tristan had written on poverty. Ms Arikka noted that the area had nowadays been gentrified, women were allowed in the House of Commons, and not all foreigners are French – although their large numbers in the capital had earned it, according to Emmanuel Macron, the sobriquet of ‘the sixth largest French city.’ She hypothesised that Madame de Bovet would be ‘astonished to hear’ that the Channel crossing had become as easy as hopping on a direct train from London to Paris, but ‘would probably scoff at the news that English, that barbaric idiom, is now spoken by 1.5 billion people around the world.’ Ms Arikha said the English Channel probably looked the same as 150 years ago, but:

It’s symbolic status as a drawbridge or bearer of potential invasion has become something altogether different – although this may be about to change again.

Ms Arikha recalled her first visit to London in 1981, and remembered that she ‘didn’t particularly want to go’ as she was 15 years old, rebellious, and didn’t see the point. She noted that a large contingent of passengers, mainly men, rushed to the bar as soon as they set sail, and her mother 29 had noted, ‘They’re English’. Ms Arikha noted that they visited a restaurant where, for dinner, they were served spaghetti on toast, and pudding was tinned fruit with whipped cream, ‘None of us had ever eaten anything like it before.’ She recounted seeing followers of the New Romantic youth subcultural fashion on the Kings Road, and noted that, while other countries she had visited there were things that she could relate to France, in England there was nothing she could relate to in any way. She said she decided to become a punk on her return to Paris and to listen to English music, which would leave an indelible mark. She spoke of, ‘an atavistic connection, an invisible thread that linked us all, and I was part of it’. She said that The Channel has, for centuries been viewed as ‘both link and divider’, and quoted historian Jean-Louis Dubroca who said, in 1802, ‘Nature has placed England and France in a geographical location which must necessarily set up an eternal rivalry between them.’ Ms Arikha said she liked to think that the eternal rivalry had ebbed:

The ‘moat’ – as it’s described by John of Guant in Richard II is perceived by its Gallic neighbours to be no more than an inconvenient puddle, or ‘sleeve’, as they call it. Living in France, I didn’t give a second thought to La Manche. When we travelled across Europe, it was often by train, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland – there was no ocean separating us, no Martello Towers built to defend against the potential invasion by Napoleon and others. England stood as the Imperial island, slightly isolationist, slightly superior with its own identity, but most importantly an unequivocal part of Europe. Not an easy part to reach, a difference which made it all the more exotic and pleasurable for many, though some would beg to differ.

There followed a reading of comments from author Victor Hugo who called London, ‘lugubrious and hideous, it is a vast and dark city. Arriving here, one only wants one thing: to leave.’ Ms Arikha noted that Victor Hugo had left to the Channel Islands which ‘were like fragments of France which fell into the sea and were gathered up by England.’

Ms Arikha returned to her own history, explaining that she had married an Englishman and acquired British citizenship, that her children had been brought up here, and that she now writes her own books in English. She said that she was French by birth, but had a ‘rootless, mixed- cultural upbringing struggled several continents and languages’, and it should have been easy to adapt, but it wasn’t. She said that the gap between her first impression and actual belonging proved hard to bridge:

I didn’t understand the English mores, or how to navigate them. I spoke with a strange accent, as years in New York had left me with an American lilt. Being married to an Italian at the time didn’t make matters easier either, as we tended to socialise with the euro set.

She explained she had shunned London and mourned Paris, and spent a lot of time flitting between the two capitals, and it had become easier to do so with the Eurostar, ‘the efficient answer to my displacement conundrum’, through 37 miles of tunnels through London and Kent emerging into a changed landscape at the other end. She noted that, in 1996, Julian Barnes 30 had published a collection of stories Cross-Channel which included a character reflecting on ‘the banality’ that in his lifetime Paris had become closer than Glasgow, Brussels than Edinburgh. Ms Arikha noted:

That proximity will not change, but with Brexit on the horizon, our perception of it might.

Miguel de Beistegui, Professor of Philosophy from the University of Warwick who said that Channel can represent two sets of things: protection, a fence or wall; second, to think of the Channel of a ‘hyphen’, bringing Britain and continental Europe together. He added:

Another image that one could use to define that particular conception would be that of the skin, the membrane which surrounds Britain as a kind of living organism, through which Britain as a living body exchanges information, ideas, culture, goods and services with the outside world and continental Europe, in particular.

Ms Arikha said she believed her internal borders needed redefining, she had created a new life for herself in London, a new house, a new husband. She stated the mores, once intimidating, no longer held barriers. She said the English Channel had become a reassuring presence, one she could relate to, rather than avoid. She concluded by noting that her 23 year stay in London had outlasted her Paris years, and her temporary base has become her home.

Friday 30 March - Making the Crossing Christine Finn, who covered The Channel for local press and TV through the 1980s-90s, reported from a cross-Channel ferry, the Cote des Dunes. She noted that 30 years ago as many as 12 million passengers took the ferry each year, and ten years later the figure topped 20 million, even though the Channel Tunnel had opened since. She asked, ‘What is it about watching the white cliffs recede and then appear on either side that wins out over underwater speed and efficiency?’ There followed a brief interview a passenger visiting France to purchase food and wine, and other who said they preferred the sea journey to the train. Ms Finn spoke about her childhood in Dover, and her cross-Channel school trips, and explained that, later, as a reporter, she would take the ferry over to cover the Beaujolai Run or booze-cruises.

She spoke also about ‘non lander’ passengers, who don’t leave the ferry, but insist it is a nice day out ‘with none of the foreign palaver – a mini cruise where they can buy duty free on board and even take their cars to go nowhere and back.’ She said this seemed to be a particularly British concept, and she had never met continentals doing the reverse.

Ms Finn explained that she had been born in Jersey, 15 miles from the Normandy Coast, ‘perfect for a spot of lunch or a game of boules’, and a culture where ‘the whole point was sampling France on a daytrip.’ She described how her family had moved to East Kent in the late 60s, ‘just as the Common Market momentum was building’ and she recollected school trips to Calais, 31

Boulogne and Le Touqet, over by hovercraft and back by ferry. She said that France was familiar and accessible, but that each outing was an adventure. She described Kentish locals making the crossing to do a monthly shop and returning with French staples, foreign to a small seaside town. There followed a conversation with two men who explained that they crossed to buy ‘booze and fags’ once every three or four months, visiting the same shops each time.

Ms Finn explained that, as a cub reporter, the Channel was part of her patch, reporting on new ferries or Tourist Board-sponsored visits to cheese and wine shops. She described a British ‘invasion’ of France, with people buying not just groceries but second homes, fanning out from where the ferries docked, but said that the Beaujolai Run was, it’s claimed, a form of French revenge, a way to market the first flush of red wine, not considered the best, ‘to a county not known for its wine connoisseurship.’

She spoke of cross-Channel charity swimmers and canoeists, and looked back to William the Conqueror and Julius Caesar and the problems they faced making the crossing in bad weather. Ms Finn turned her attention to the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry disaster, which claimed 193 lives, and described how she had witnessed Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand sign the deal for a fixed link between France and England. She explained that it was not a given that this would be a tunnel, a bridge had been a possibility, and the link had generated concern for ferry companies and also her local readership who were concerned about rabid foxes.

It also revealed an island population, out of conceptual kilter with the continental one. In France, the fixed link would join existing nodes of transportation, be expensive. In Kent, with its memory of impending invasion, a fixed link was more a threat.

She recalled an interview with an unlikely contender who proposed a viaduct from Edinburgh to Dover, via London, with a six-deck railway line and trains reaching speeds of up to 500mph, financed by a consortium of 23 nations. Ms Finn explained that the eventual tunnel was 31.4 miles long, and how she had visited a construction site near Sangatte being promoted as a tourist attraction. She noted that 10 workers, eight of them British had died in the building of the tunnel, and that Folkstone and Ramsgate losing their ferry crossings, as the main operators pooled their resources.

Ms Finn said that by the time the two halves of the tunnel met, she was working in television. She said Britain, it seemed, had started to get used to the idea of being joined to the continent and was counting down the days to the breakthrough on 1 December 1990. She said that when the tunnel finally opened, it quickly became just another way to get from A to B, ‘with delays to grumble about, and report upon.’

Ms Finn noted that the ‘non lander’ ferry she was reporting from would soon be back in Dover, 32

Where this generation’s Channel story has been highlighted by the artist Banksy’s bright blue riposte to Brexit: a single fallen star off the European flag.28

Ms Finn explained that she had left Kent to study archaeology at Oxford in 1992, in the week that the ‘biggest archaeology story in decades’ broke in Dover, with the discovery of a Bronze Age boat during road development work. She said she had visited the site to find one of her former colleagues struggling to show the significance of ‘a collection of dark, sodden planks.’ She said that no matter how many times she arrives back in Dover, she can’t help thinking of the ancient boat, reaching the white cliffs, 3,500 years ago. She concluded with the observation, ‘its elemental survival seems an enduring legacy of that compelling desire, by any means and for whatever reason, to make the Channel crossing.’

Conclusion The five essays approached the Channel theme from an array of standpoints: art, literature, music, culture, geography and geology. They intertwined historical accounts and contemporary texts, often lacing their narratives with personal autobiography to address the Channel and the myriad reasons for making the crossing – trade, tourism, education, immigration and asylum, shopping and leisure.

Cultural differences were raised, but ultimately downplayed: England was lightly mocked as a country of poor cuisine, its countrymen bearing a capacity for drink, but lacking in connoisseurship, but conversely both Alba Arikha and Renaud Morieux also spoke of having left France to set up home in England. There was also a clear emphasis on cultural exchange, travel and migration, Christine Finn, born in the Channel Islands, spoke of frequent cross-Channel visits for work and leisure, and Sanjeev Gupta stressed that Britain had once been a peninsula of the European continent joined by land, and that, were it not for a fluke of geology, Britain’s story might be quite different.

Brexit was rarely addressed directly, but it underpinned each edition. Sanjeev Gupta spoke of ‘a leap into the unknown’, Christine Finn referred to an artwork showing ‘a single fallen star off the European flag’, and Alba Arikha hinted that the Channel’s symbolic ‘drawbridge’ status could be revived. Dominic Rainsford selected a passage from a novel by Julian Barnes which envisaged ‘England shrunk to a tiny theme-park island’ – echoing post-referendum concerns of British isolationism. None of the presenters made positive points about Brexit, and their recurrent focus on cross-Channel interchange and enduring links acquired a political tenor, given current debates on the future relationship between Britain and the EU.

28 The artwork actually depicted a workman, chipping away at one of the twelve golden stars: http://time.com/4770403/new- banksy-mural-brexit-dover/ 33

Of course, alternative readings might have used exactly the same material to stress that Britain has maintained positive trading and cultural relationships with France for centuries before the EU existed (which, after all, in its current form is only 26 years old) and will continue to do so after Brexit, but this perspective was wholly absent.

As such, despite their historical and cultural scope, the five essays had a restricted purview, a consequence of both the selection of presenters, and of the theme itself which, by its very nature, emphasised continental connections between England and France, and downplayed links between Britain and the rest of the world.

2.5 World at One

Overview The World at One airs on Radio 4 at on weekdays. The programme describes itself as ‘Britain’s leading political programme’ and ‘required listening in Westminster’29 The 29 March 2018 edition was extended from 45 minutes to 1 hour, with the extra space given over to the first in a series of podcasts by former BBC Europe Editor, Mark Mardell. The World at One has a weekly reach of around 3.52m, with an average of 1.67m listeners each day.

Airtime The World at One devoted 30 min 45 seconds of its feature airtime to Brexit/EU discussion on 29 March, accounting for 64% of the programme’s available space.

There was also a single bulletin item on the theme, a report on Theresa May’s UK tour to mark a year before Britain leaves the EU, positioned fourth of eight items in the running order. It reported that the Prime Minister had painted an optimistic picture of life outside the EU with more money being available for hospitals and schools. The report also noted that Labour had sought to play down remarks by the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry, who had said her party would ‘probably back’ Mrs May’s final deal.

Over the course of the programme, The World at One delivered a series of reports from member states, looking at ‘how the Brexit process is being perceived abroad’. Chris Paige reported from Ireland, Lucy Williamson from France, Jenny Hill from Germany and Adam Easton from Poland. In the UK, political editor Laura Kuenssberg interviewed the Prime Minister, the focus mainly on whether there would be a Brexit dividend for the NHS. The programme ended with the first in a new series of twelve podcasts, ‘Brexit, A Love Story?’ presented by former Europe Editor Mark Mardell, which looked back to 1973 ‘a milestone on the journey’ in Britain’s relationship with the EU.

Three non-EU stories were also given airtime in the edition: a ten minute item on the Anti-Semitism row within the Labour Party; a three minute item on a vote by investors at GKN, Britain’s biggest engineering group, on whether to accept a hostile takeover from Melrose; and a three-and-a- half minute report on the Australian cricket ball-tampering scandal.

29 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/newswatch/history/noflash/html/1960s.stm 35

Speakers Ten guest speakers contributed to the World at One on 29 March 2018, representing 11% of the contributions to the strand as a whole. Only one speaker, Theresa May, spoke about Brexit directly, the others were all archive recordings, or speakers providing reminiscences on the politics of 1973, when Britain acceded to the EEC. Theresa May’s appearance was also the only live interview, all other contributions were pre-recorded soundbites.

Guests were categorised according to their positions on the EU, EEC or Brexit:

5 guests offered a positive opinion on the EEC (there were no guests speaking in favour of the European Union as it is today, or against Brexit)

4 guests offered a positive opinion on Brexit or spoke negatively about Britain joining the EEC in 1973. Three were coded as ‘firm’ withdrawalists, although given that all were archive recordings, they had actually opposed Britain joining the EEC in the first place.

1 guest was coded as neutral – an archive recording of Irish President, Michael D Higgins, speaking in Gaelic and making a point about the closeness of the UK and its nearest neighbour.

Although in terms of headcount, there appeared to be an approximate balance in those expression of positive and negative sentiment towards the European project, an analysis of the space given to the various contributors illustrated a significant disparity.

Word Counts of Pro-EU and Anti-EU Sentiment in the World at One

615

1121

Pro-EEC Anti-EEC/Pro-Brexit Neutral

As the chart illustrates, Pro-EEC opinion (64.2%) heavily outweighed the Anti-EEC/Pro-Brexit contributions (35.2%), a ratio of close to 2:1. The neutral contribution from Michael D. Higgins, just 8 words in length (0.5%).

The majority of pro-Brexit space came by way of Laura Kuenssberg’s interview with Theresa May (480 words). The other three anti-EEC speakers, archive soundbites of Labour’s Douglas Jay, and Conservatives Neil Martin and Enoch Powell, accounted for just 35, 51 and 49 words respectively, these brief clips were offset, in the Mark Mardell package, by 1121 words of pro- EEC opinion from Edward Heath, his private secretary Lord Armstrong, former Vice Chair of the Conservative Party, Sarah Morrison, composer Edward Gregson and French President Charles de Gaulle.

2.6 The Brexit Lab

The Brexit Lab was a one-off documentary presented by Iain Martin, journalist from The Times. The version broadcast live on BBC Radio 4 on 29 March 2018 was 26 min 45 sec in duration, but the version retrieved from BBC iPlayer for the purpose of transcription was almost ten minutes longer, at 36 min 30 sec. As this was the only programme in the ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ strand to assess the positive opportunities of Brexit, the analysis presented here is based on the longer edit.

The programme was distinguished immediately from other programmes in the strand by a preceding continuity announcement:

Now on Radio 4, how could Britain change after Brexit? With exactly a year to go before the UK leaves the European Union, are we thinking hard enough about what might come after any deal with the EU? In a very personal view, Iain Martin explores opportunities for policy experimentation post-Brexit.

Iain Martin, in his opening commentary, explained that he had voted Leave in the referendum, because he thought ‘the potential upsides of Brexit heavily outweighed the negatives.’ His statement raised coding questions, given that News-watch’s standard methodology has always treated BBC presenters and correspondents separately from external speakers, even when their personal opinions on Brexit or the EU are widely known.30 However, given that two prominent Remain-supporting journalists, Jonathan Freedland and David Aaronovitch, also presented programmes in the ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ strand, it was decided to maintain the long-term integrity of the monitoring statistics and record Iain Martin as a presenter rather than a contributor.

Speakers

15 guest speakers contributed to extended iPlayer version of The Brexit Lab, and were coded as follows:

4 speakers were identified as being pro-Remain or opposed to Brexit.

11 speakers offered a generally positive of Brexit, or one particular aspect of it.

30 See, for example, anti-Brexit LBC podcasts by James O’Brien, who presented editions of BBC2’s Newsnight during the 2016 referendum and subsequently. http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/james-obrien-parts-ways-with-bbc-newsnight-rather-than- wind-neck-in-on-brexit-and-trump/ More recently, on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, 22 May 2018, presenter Kirsty Lang, in a discussion on an alleged lack of comic novels being published in the UK, said to her guests, 'We live in dark times, don't we, as you say, global warming, war in the Middle East, Brexit, Trump, does writing comedy feel frivolous do you think?” She failed to appreciate that for those who voted Leave, Brexit is seen as a bright opportunity, or at least less ‘dark’ than remaining part of the EU. No announcement was made prior to the programme to suggest that Ms Lang’s clearly partisan views were ‘very personal’. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b39v0x

None of the contributors were coded as neutral, factual or unknown.

This is the first sustained imbalance towards pro-Brexit opinion recorded by News-watch in its two decades of monitoring BBC news and current affairs. In airtime terms, those offering positive opinions on Brexit accounted for 68% of words spoken, and those speaking negatively, 32%

Pro and Anti-Brexit Opinion in The Brexit Lab, Word Count

1279

2732

Anti-Brexit Pro-Brexit

Most remarkable here is that Iain Martin did not create a pro-Brexit programme by simply assembling a collection of staunchly anti-EU guests and providing them with a platform. Only 2 of the 11 speakers coded as being positive on Brexit were ‘firm’ withdrawalists – economist Gerard Lyons and Conservative Michael Gove – who had campaigned for Leave in the 2016.

Rather, Mr Martin managed to elicit positive opinions on Brexit from guests who might ordinarily be expected to raise negatives. Even those who were coded as speaking from an anti-Brexit position (journalist Paul Morley, Stephen Gethins from the SNP, Labour’s Caroline Flint and Conservative Oliver Letwin) offered far more nuanced opinions than the chart suggests – primarily because the framework established by Iain Martin allowed them to look beyond their own personal misgivings about the referendum result and consider potential positives.

2.7 The EU After Brexit

Two regular BBC Radio 4 programmes, The Bottom Line and The Briefing Room combined to produce a special hour-long programme, ‘examining the economic and political future of the EU once Britain has left’31

The programme was co-presented by former Newsnight and Today presenter Evan Davis, and David Aaronovitch, a journalist who has previously tweeted, ‘Guys, this Brexit thing? Let's not do it’32 referred to an appearance by Nigel Farage in the European Parliament as ‘donkey-braying in triumph over the defeated continentals’33, and presented an opinion piece on Newsnight in which he argued that the majority of people who support Brexit will be reduced to zero as older voters die.34 However, in contrast to the preceding programme, The Brexit Lab, Mr Aaronovitch did not make his personal opinions explicit, nor was there any sort of indication from the continuity announcer that he was presenting a personal view.

Speakers The EU after Brexit featured seven guest speakers, who were coded as follows:

6 speakers were Pro EU. These were: Jean-Claude Trichet, former ECB President; Daniela Scharzer from the German Council on Foreign Relations; Jeroen Dijsselbloem, former Dutch Finance Minister; Lorenzo Bini Smaghi from Societe Generale; Matt Regan from Dutch pharmaceutical company, Novo Nordisk; and Teofil Mureşa from Electrogroup infrastructure, a telecoms and energy infrastructure company based in Bucharest, Romania.

1 speaker was coded as neutral. Justyna Zając, Professor of History and International Relations at the University of Warsaw explained the Polish perspective on French President Emanuel Macron’s plan for political and economic integration, and Poland’s opposition to a two-speed Europe. She also explained a point of contention between the European Commission and over the politicisation of the courts and media. However, her contribution was primarily a factual overview of the current situation, and she expressed no clear personal opinion.

31 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p062rq5y 32 https://twitter.com/daaronovitch/status/873454413674934272 33 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-anger-is-so-great-we-must-have-a-new-vote-wx6s953z7 34 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-42574540/viewsnight-the-brexit-generation-is-dying-out 40

In total, the guests delivered 5,074 words, 4555 words from pro-EU speakers, and 519 words from the neutral speaker. Jean-Claude Trichet was given the most space, with an interview amounting to 1,097 words.

Opinion on 'The EU After Brexit'

519

4555

Pro-EU Neutral/Factual

As the chart illustrates, the 55-minute programme carried no anti-EU or pro-Brexit opinion at all.

2.8 The World Tonight

Overview The World Tonight broadcasts for 45 minutes each weekday evening, beginning with a bulletin sequence and followed by interviews, correspondent packages and discussion. The BBC press release for the ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ strand stated:

Over the next year The World Tonight is following four very different businesses as they prepare for Brexit and the opportunities and problems that it will pose. On 29 March Paul Moss will introduce listeners to the four firms that we’ll be hearing from at regular intervals across this critical year.

However, on the 29 March, for reasons unknown, the advertised package failed to appear, and no explanation was provided for its omission. Listeners were instead presented with just two Brexit-related items, a bulletin report and a seven minute feature which represented just 20% of the available airtime.

The bulletin item focused on Theresa May’s tour of the UK’s four nations. It reported that Mrs May ‘believes the UK has a bright future after it leaves the European Union next year’, and that more money would be available for hospitals and schools after Brexit. However, the story was positioned eighth out of ten in the running order, indicating that her remarks were considered low priority. A correspondent report by Chris Mason noted that the day was ‘loaded with symbolism but little else’.

At 10.33pm, presenter James Coomarasamy explained that Radio 4 had been marking a year to the day that Britain would be leaving the European Union, under the banner ‘Britain at the Crossroads’. There followed short clips of ‘some of the voices we’ve heard during the day’ – Theresa May, Tony Blair and Nigel Farage, played to the theme tune of the television soap opera Crossroads – a programme perhaps best remembered for its cheap production values, and perhaps an indication that The World Tonight wasn’t taking the strand entirely seriously.

The montage was also disingenuous: only the comment from Tony Blair had been broadcast as part of the official strand (a soundbite from Today in which he argued Brexit ‘doesn’t have to happen’). Theresa May had featured during the day (but with different content), but Nigel Farage’s only prior inclusion up to this point was being lampooned in a Dead Ringers sketch. The montage therefore suggested a degree of balance that had not been reflected by ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ itself.

There followed a package from correspondent Alan Little, who reported from Kent, ‘a county that voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU’, where he spoke to two pro-Brexit guests and three speakers who offered a negative perspective on Brexit.

The World Tonight gave feature space to five other stories: Russia expelling 60 US diplomats in response to measures taken by Washington to the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury (10 min 30 sec); French tributes to a 85-year-old holocaust survivor murdered in her Paris apartment (4 min 45 sec); a prison riot in Venezuela (6 min 30 sec); China’s improvements to its environmental record (3 min 45 sec); and whether Hollywood actor Sean Penn had written the ‘worst ever novel’ (2 min 15 sec).

Speakers 8 speakers contributed to The World Tonight. They were coded as follows:

4 guests spoke in favour of the EU or against Brexit

4 guests spoke positively about Brexit.

No speakers were coded as neutral.

As well as being balanced numerically, the four guests on each side of the Brexit debate were almost exactly matched in terms of the space they were given, with a differential of just nine words in favour of the pro-Brexit speakers, resulting in a ratio of 51:49.

Pro-Brexit and Anti-Brexit Sentiment on The World Tonight

309 318

Anti-Brexit Pro-Brexit

As such, the World Tonight offered the day’s most balanced coverage in terms of the space offered to each perspective, but engaged with the ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ strand the least.

2.9 Conclusion

The title ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ implied a choice of paths, a suggestion of forward momentum. But a significant proportion of the day’s coverage was either focused on the past, or concerned not with Britain, but with the EU.

Almost exactly a quarter of the coverage concentrated on purely historical angles – the Long View, the Channel and ‘Brexit: a Love Story’ in combination accounted for 1 hour and 11 minutes of the 4 hours and 47 minutes of Brexit-related coverage (24.7%). A further 1 hour and 4 minutes (22.3% of the total airtime) focused primarily on an EU rather than British perspective – reports on the World at One from Ireland, Poland, France and Germany, and the full 55-minute ‘The EU After Brexit.’ As such, almost half of the allocated airtime (47%) was awarded to programmes that appeared to be at variance with the strand’s stated purpose and remit.

Only The Brexit Lab explored potential post-Brexit opportunities, but it accounted for just 12.7% of the strand’s airtime, (and for those listening live, the shorter edit meant this decreased to just 9.6%). A scheduled item on the World Tonight, which promised to look at the opportunities (and problems) of Brexit through the eyes of ‘four very different businesses’ failed to materialise.

There were significant editorial failings: the strand was poorly executed, both in its selection of themes and in its imbalance of guest contributors.

PART 3: IMPARTIALITY ANALYSIS:

In its press release about March 29 headed BBC Radio Four marks a year out from Brexit, 35 the BBC media centre said that this day of special programming:

. . . will go beyond the detail of the negotiations, and the drama of Westminster politics, to explore Britain’s future role and place in the world - and that of our European neighbours.

Gwyneth Williams, Controller of Radio 4, says: “A year before Britain is due to leave the European Union we want to consider what this moment might mean in the broadest terms. We have reshaped our schedule and, drawing on Radio 4’s flagship news programmes with analysis from our current affairs and documentary teams, we will attempt to assess its significance in terms of culture, politics, history and economics.”

The release added that The Long View programme ‘will consider moments in history when Britons faced a new and uncertain future after a break from the established order’.

It described the Brexit Lab programme as:

. . . Iain Martin talks to policy-makers, experts and campaigners about the ideas which could come to fruition after 29 March 2019 - both in the short and long term. From the way we work to the environment, he asks how we could do things differently if the UK is no longer bound by EU rules, and asks how much appetite is there for new ideas across the political spectrum.

The release further added:

. . . The EU After Brexit, where Radio 4’s Bottom Line and Briefing Room combine in a special hour-long programme to look at the future of an EU without Britain. Evan Davis meets Jean-Claude Trichet - formerly president of the European Central Bank- and is joined by a panel of business leaders from across the EU. David Aaronovitch will look at the EU’s political future - asking what a more deeply integrated bloc on its doorstep means for the UK.

There was also reference to special EU-related content in Today, The World at One and The World Tonight.

The aim of this mainly news and current affairs programming was presumably to showcase the BBC’s range, depth and impartiality in its coverage of the unfolding Brexit debate. This was an unusual project in that so many programmes were included – the relevant content totalling almost

35 http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2018/r4-year-out-from-brexit

45 five hours – and a special effort was made in all of the separate offerings to include original, bespoke content.

The programmes Dead Ringers and The Channel have not been included in this section of the analysis, because they are dealt with in Parts 1 and 2.

The BBC, in mounting the project, clearly accepted that there was a need to look at the opportunities of Brexit as well as exploring the difficulties involved. This can be deduced through the framing and content of The Brexit Lab, which was focused on some of the potential positive outcomes. And direct evidence of this from the BBC itself is that Ric Bailey, the Corporation’s Chief Political Adviser, and Today presenter Nick Robinson, in an edition of Radio 4’s Feedback programme on April 20, 2018, both confirmed that the BBC’s journalistic role included the need to look ‘optimistically’ at Brexit outcomes. Mr Bailey further claimed that The Brexit Lab was an example of this36.

Another central aim of the programming in correspondent packages in World at One, and in the hour-long EU After Brexit programme, was to explore the impact of Brexit on the EU itself.

It is shown in parts 1 and 2 that statistically, the majority of the output disproportionately conveyed the views of those who believed that Brexit was a mistake and that the EU, which was mainly functioning well, would continue to prosper without the UK.

Next – to supplement the statistical data, and based upon it - follows a content analysis of each news and current affairs programme in the order in which they were broadcast.

36 The transcript of the programme is here: http://isthebbcbiased.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/%27Feedback%27 46

Today

The fulcrum of the Brexit content – which, in the programme as a whole, made up more than 75 per cent of the available airtime – was an outside broadcast hosted by presenter Mishal Husain from the Nifco car parts manufacturing plant in Eaglescliffe, Teesside. She interviewed the managing director, and there were sequences which included question and answer sessions about Brexit with employees. There were other related features involving people on Teesside, and the business news sequences were also hinged heavily on contributors from Teesside and the North-east. Another element of the Brexit-related content was input from politicians in Westminster and commentary about Brexit from the British nations by a mixture of relevant Members of Parliament, local business and community figures, academics, and BBC correspondents.

A fundamental issue relating to bias is the choice of Nifco as the lens for examining Teesside’s unfolding attitudes towards Brexit, and its post-Brexit prospects.

Why Nifco?: The company, a maker in the UK of parts for cars assembled in the UK, and also exported principally to EU countries, is multi-national and Japanese-owned37. It has consistently declared that its preference is for Britain remaining in the EU or in the EU single market and customs union. The UK managing director, Mike Matthews, was a strong opponent of leaving the EU in the 2016 referendum. His reasons were primarily that his company is dependent on so called ‘frictionless trade’, that is, tariff-free access to the EU single market. After the referendum, while on the surface accepting that Brexit would go ahead, he became deeply scathing of the government’s handling of the negotiations and continued to push the need for a different approach38. He confirmed on the March 29 programme that his concerns about tariffs still stood.

Unquestionably, the choice of Nifco as the fulcrum for the programme led to a strong structural negativity towards Brexit. As noted above, Mr Matthews predictably warned that leaving the customs union would be a major problem for the company and would put the 650 jobs in the plant at risk. Mishal Husain introduced further doubt about the company’s future by asking what would happen if Nissan withdrew from the UK (despite this not being a firm prospect). Mr Matthews doubted that this would happen but said that 35 per cent of the company’s sales were to Nissan. In separate items, one worker at Nifco said he wanted Brexit to proceed, but others

37 Company profile: https://www.nifco.com/en/company/overview.html 38 He had laid out his opinion in the Northern Echo newspaper in August 2017: http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/business/15448147.Mike_Matthews__Just_what_is_the_plan_on_Brexit_/. 47

– perhaps unsurprisingly given the stance of their boss and his repeated warnings about job losses – said they did not support it.

This led to Remainers and the Remain perspective having a strongly disproportionate presence on the programme, despite the fact that Teesside as a whole had voted (as high as 70:30 in Middlesbrough and 65: 35 on average) to leave the EU.

Could another focal point have been chosen which was more likely to have engendered a more balanced, less predictable, and more interesting (in terms of the issues involved) perspective on the likely impact on the region of Brexit?

The Teesside region, which employs around 135,000 people, is no longer predominantly a manufacturing centre, as it was in the days of steel-making and related heavy engineering and construction. The main employers are today engaged in sectors such chemical refining, high tech, and the transport of hazardous chemical loads. Partly as a result, despite the problems of the area, Teesport has become the UK’s largest exporting port.

Linked to these current economic realities, a vigorous and widely-supported local campaign to make Teesside the UK’s first free port post-Brexit was launched in January 2018, two months before this edition of Today. The free port opportunity for the UK was laid out soon after the EU Referendum by the MP Rishi Sunak in a paper for the Centre for Policy Studies39. Supporters from across the entire local enterprise community, including the chief executives of 50 leading local businesses and two Members of Parliament, claimed the scheme – spearheaded by the Teesside Development Corporation (STDC) – would generate at least 1,000 local jobs post- Brexit, stimulate trade with the rest of the world and have a very positive impact on the local economy, enhancing it by up to £1bn a year. Interestingly – in terms of talking points for Today – the project is dependent to an extent on Brexit. This is because the strict EU tariff and customs regime has heavily restricted the development of free ports across Europe, and those that do exist are less successful and lucrative than those elsewhere in the world.

A letter40 proposing the project, coordinated by the Conservative Teesside Mayor and chair of the STDC, Ben Houchen, was sent to Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond on January 19. It was widely covered by national media outlets, including the BBC itself, which broadcast a short (2’20”) ‘personal view’ of the potential advantages from Ben Houchen on January 29. The free port campaign was also the subject of a brief three-minute package on the Today programme by Ross Hawkins on February 13. A Teesside MP raised the campaign at Prime

39 https://www.cps.org.uk/files/reports/original/161114094336-TheFree portsOpportunity.pdf 40 https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/free-port-teesside-backed-mayor-14184805 48

Minister’s Question Time at the beginning of March, and Brexit secretary David Davis had pledged to explore the idea during a visit to the area41, though he also attracted criticism from a local Labour MP for not being enthusiastic enough about the proposal42. An up-to-date development was added by that as the Today programme aired, steps were being taken to buy the land – on the recently-closed Redcar steelworks site – required for the free port. The project was thus under active consideration throughout the period this special edition of Today was being put together (the release announcing the programme was published on March 13).

Nifco, by contrast, is simply the 93rd largest company in terms of turnover in the North-east region43. Its stance on tariffs and predictions about its future trading prospects are of relevance to the Brexit debate, but nothing else signalled it out as a programme choice other than its location and the negativity of its managing director. In the event, nothing he had to say was new; he had been part of Project Fear and what he was still saying publicly can be seen as a continuation of it.

By contrast, the campaign for a free port was supported by some of the largest businesses in the North-east area, including multi-national concerns and some of the most colourful and controversial business figures and even by Mr Matthews of Nifco44, who told the local press that it would be a ‘boon’ to the area. Its relevance was increased in that Teesport, as well as being Britain’s leading export handler, is also the fourth largest port in the UK, and its main traffic is petrochemicals and related products. This sector of local economy has proved more resilient than others such as steel-making, and is seen to be a cornerstone of future economic growth. Already, one of the biggest local companies, Bulkhaul Ltd (33rd of the North-east major companies), has developed strong trading links outside the EU because of its speciality of transporting chemical loads and its joint owner, Steve Gibson – who also is the main shareholder in Middlesbrough football club – has argued vociferously that the future economic well-being of the region post- Brexit will depend on such projects.

Overall, choosing the free port bid as the main focus of the programme would have allowed the programme to formulate programme items with a much broader range of guests relevant to the Brexit debate and more in touch with local realities, including (for example) Ben Houchen – a Conservative mayor in a predominantly Labour area – Steve Gibson, who had partially fallen out with the Labour party because on its equivocation over Brexit, as well as voters in the area

41 https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/brexit-secretary-david-davis-look-14208670 42 https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/brexit-secretary-david-davis-look-14208670 43 List of top 200 companies in the Evening Chronicle, Newcastle: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/business/business- news/who-north-easts-largest-200-13912009 44 http://www.investmiddlesbrough.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Free port-letter-to-Chancellor.pdf 49 who had opted for Brexit in the hope it would trigger new forms of economic independence and regeneration.

In detail: Today from Teesside As detailed in part 1, the headline statistics were that 77 per cent of the programme was devoted to Brexit-related topics, an unusually high total.

Today contained exactly half the speakers on Brexit/EU themes during the Crossroads programming, and their contributions added up to 8,720 words, more than double the entire equivalent contributions in The Brexit Lab.

The breakdown in terms of their allegiance was that there were more than three times as many anti-Brexit speakers than ones in favour:

 27 were Pro-EU or anti-Brexit (58 per cent)  8 speakers were Anti-EU or pro-Brexit (17 per cent)  11 speakers offered a neutral or factual opinion. (24 per cent)

Of the totals, 15 of the speakers were interviewees and 32 were recorded soundbites.

Nine interviewees advanced views that were anti-Brexit or pro-EU and only three – Liam Fox, John Longworth and an employee of Nifco – were pro-Brexit or anti-EU. The interview word counts were 3,672 from the nine interviewees in the former category and 2,063 from the latter, the bulk (1,573) from Liam Fox.

The scale of this imbalance can be seen through the summarising the points made by guest contributors.

The first two categories are soundbites and then interviews with those who were broadly for Remain, against Brexit or pro-EU:

Soundbites: Georgia (at a Teesside youth centre) was worried that the value of the pound would go down post-Brexit; Brandon, also at the centre, was concerned whether the UK would still be able to trade ‘with the market’; and his colleague James wondered how the NHS would be impacted. Karen Errington, a hotel owner, warned that the hospitality industry could be hit hard by EU labour not being as easily available; Naomi Clayton of the Centre for Cities, argued that all parts of the country’s trade and economic well-being would be hit by Brexit; a vox pop

50 male in Stockton market said he hadn’t got a clue about Brexit and was worried about it for his children; a second male in the same sequence warned that prices of foods were going up because of Brexit; an actor in a sequence about the potential impact of Brexit on the arts community, said you could be British and European; a solicitor in a law firm, Jennifer Gallagher, expressed concern that UK citizens would be limited in how long they could stay in EU countries; another lawyer suggested that health cover in EU countries for EU citizens would end; former Conservative minister Nicky Morgan suggested that she would vote against her party whip because she had to do the ‘right thing’ (in opposing Brexit); father of the House of Commons Ken Clarke suggested that he would vote against Brexit (‘the right thing’) rather than being terrified of ‘right wing newspapers’; Katy Haywood, of Queen’s University Belfast, warned that without customs union, there would be a hard border between the UK and Ireland; Anthony Soares, of the Centre for Cross-Border Studies, argued that leaving the EU on the terms wanted by the government was ‘magical thinking’; Aiden Gough, of Intertrade Ireland, argued that changes to the border would make trade harder; two unnamed speakers at a conference in Ireland about the border issues said that there was a contradiction in what would happen next; and finally, in another question and answer session, solicitor Laura McNaney expressed concern about what would happen post-Brexit to children of EU citizens who were in local authority care; and Tom Courts, a communications worker, was worried about those from the UK who wanted to work in EU countries in areas such as snowboarding training.

Interviewees: Sonia Laud, from Fidelity International, claimed that there was a big economic downward trend because of Brexit and that investors were staying away from the UK; Mike Matthews managing director of Nifco, (as he had done during the EU Referendum campaign) agreed with Mishal Husain that leaving the EU, if it led to more difficulties in selling products in Europe, would be ‘business suicide’. He warned that coming out of the EU without a deal would disrupt his business. He said it was very difficult to predict what was going to happen and confirmed that he was very worried about the job security of his 650 staff. Ms Husain asked what would happen if Nissan pulled out of the UK. Mr Matthews said that 35 per cent of company business was with Nissan, and though it was unlikely they would move, if they did, Nifco would probably follow. Tamara Rojo, artistic director of the English National Ballet warned that her company relied heavily on European dancers and if they needed visas in future it would make things ‘really difficult’. Jo Swinson, Liberal Democrat spokeswoman, denied that she was going over old ground in wanting a second referendum about EU membership, and warned that leaving would have a negative effect on jobs and the economy. She claimed that crashing out without a deal would be catastrophic and maintained that a vote on the exit terms was vital. Labour deputy leader John McDonnell denied strongly that shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry had indicated that Labour would support the Brexit terms so far negotiated by the government and said that Labour wanted to remain much close to the EU’s customs union than was currently being proposed. Frankie, an employee of Nifco, explained that he had voted to 51

Remain because he was scared that his job would be lost if he did not. Sonia, also from Nico, said that the UK leaving the single market would be shooting itself in the foot (though there was now a need to get on with Brexit). Tony Blair, former prime minister, denied that his relaxation of immigration controls in 2004 had been a mistake – and had led to the vote to leave the EU - and had been necessary to meet the demands of the economy. He maintained that EU nationals had done a ‘fantastic job’. He said a ‘wholly new’ approach to immigration because it was good for the country because it brought ‘energy, vitality, high-skilled people’. He pointed out that a lot of Brits also worked in Europe. Mr Blair denied it was too late to ‘think again’ on Brexit, and it was vital for the people to have a vote on the terms of a new deal. Stephen Gethins MP said it remained to be seen how SNP MPs would vote on the Brexit deal but argued that Scotland had voted Remain and that his party wanted to stay in the single market.

These are highly compressed but, the break-down illustrates the extent of the anti-Brexit focus. Next is a summary of the equivalent opinions of those who supported Brexit or were anti-EU. Pro-Brexit soundbites: Tim Martin, of Wetherspoon’s, denied that Brexit was a ‘huge task’ for hospitality businesses, and indeed that 90 per cent would have ‘nothing to do’ as they did not trade with the EU. He also noted that New World wines already came into the UK and asked where the extra barrier would be. He contended that the reality was sinking in that the EU was ‘a huge protection racket’. In the same sequence about the difficulties facing the hospitality trade because of Brexit, vox pop female two wanted Brexit to go ahead as quickly as possible. In the 6.49am sequence about Brexit and the arts, an actor (in a sequence from a play) maintained that you could be ‘British and European’. Malcolm, an employee of Nifco, said he had voted for Brexit and now wanted it to go ahead. Jacob Rees-Mogg, in a report by Nick Robinson about opposition to Brexit in Parliament, warned that if Brexit was thwarted, there would be a collapse in confidence in the democratic process, and would show that democracy was ‘worthless’. Later, he implied that he would welcome ‘no deal’. In the same sequence, Frank Field MP – who was said by Mr Robinson to want to wait for a deal on Brexit to protect his car-worker constituents – suggested that a phased approach was needed towards reaching a deal.

Pro-Brexit interviewees: John Longworth, of Leave Means Leave, argued that there should be a clean break with the EU and no transition period. He wanted a ‘candidate-style’ exit deal which would cover 95 per cent of trade, and he argued, be achieved very quickly. He denied that businesses were not getting what they were promised and said that the vast majority simply wanted to leave. He was cut off at that point. Malcolm, an employee of Nifco, who had voted to Leave the EU, said he wanted to get on with it as quickly as possible. Liam Fox, international trade secretary, said that in future, Britain would have the ability to negotiate its own trade deals and would have its own seat on the WTO. He wanted a more open trading environment that took more people out of poverty. The difference on March 30, 2019 would be the freedom to make trade deals. The transition was necessary to smooth the path out of the EU. He accepted 52 that many changes would not happen until 2020. He denied that the UK would become a vassal state. He believed the UK would negotiate a deal acceptable to Parliament because for trade reasons, the EU needed to make one. Dr Fox claimed that Labour’s demand to continue negotiating with the EU until Parliament reached the deal it wanted was unrealistic. He maintained again that a deal would be struck. He added that it was unclear what policies that the Labour party was actually pursuing. Dr Fox pointed out that the EU had a declining share of UK exports and that future growth would be outside the EU. He ruled out the possibility of an extension to the transition period. He said that 40 trade deals with 70 countries could be rolled over after Brexit. There were 14 working groups in place with 21 countries discussing future agreements.

Liam Fox spoke 1,573 words in his exchange and it made up almost one third of the Brexit- related dialogue by contributors on the Today. He was able to advance, against tough questioning from Mishal Husain, clear arguments that there were trade opportunities for the UK outside the EU, that Brexit negotiations were going well and on a clear timetable, and that Labour policy was incoherent.

But that, effectively, was the only substantial support of Brexit during the programme. John Longworth’s contribution was only 312 words (approx. 2 minutes and 10 seconds), and was abruptly cut short by Ms David. In the time available, he was able to put only brief points about the benefits and ease of leaving the EU.

Presenter/BBC Correspondent Input An important aspect of this special edition of Today was the role of BBC presenters and correspondents. Their contributions are not included in the word counts by News-watch, because it is assumed that they are broadly ‘neutral’ in their approach. However, on March 29, although what the presenters said is not included in the word tallies in Part 1, their input contributed heavily to programme bias. Throughout, there was a heavy skew towards identifying difficulties with Brexit, as is established in the summary analysis which follows:

Mishal Husain: Ms Husain presented most of the material about Brexit. Her approach was not impartial. She stressed throughout as the major theme of programme the problems of Nifco; accepted without significant challenge managing director Mike Matthews’ contention that the car trade component trade was at serious risk post-Brexit, and asked if he would be ‘reassured’ if the UK stayed in the EU customs union; herself introduced the idea that the company’s plight could be made even worse if – also because of Brexit – Nissan abandoned its UK operations; reminded the audience before the ‘front’ page interview with Shadow Chancellor John

McDonnell at 7.10am that the nature of the trade deal with the EU ‘really mattered’ to Nifco because it was where their products went; she then made only limited efforts to challenge Mr McDonnell on what Labour policy towards Brexit was; at 7.19am, she again told the audience that Mike Matthews was very worried about his company’s future trade with the EU, and then spoke with a selection of company employees who mainly amplified that concern; at 8.10am, before interviewing International Trade Secretary Liam Fox in the morning’s main interview, Ms Husain repeated how Nifco was facing uncertainty over the Brexit timetable; with Mr Fox, her main questioning was about the uncertainty of the departure timetable, the possibility that leaving would take longer than was being projected and that meanwhile the UK would be a ‘vassal state’, that trade deals with the rest of the world would not help Nifco, and that the government’s own assessments showed that Brexit would not help Teesside; at 8.35am, she suggested, by her line of questioning of Mr Blair, that the Brexit vote had been caused by fear of immigration; then asked Mr Blair what he thought the odds were for now remaining in the EU, allowing him to respond without further challenge that they were high; at 8.42am, she stressed that the Northern Ireland border was one of the ‘trickiest’ aspects of the Brexit negotiations and threatened both trade and peace; and at 8.52am, before interviewing Stephen Gethins of the SNP, she reminded the audience that Scotland had voted by a ‘substantial margin’ to stay in the EU, and did not challenge him why his party wanted to stay in the single market.

All the above was clearly designed to draw attention to the problems of Brexit, to challenge the alleged positives. She let Mike Matthews, Tony Blair and John McDonnell off the hook in that she did not challenge their pro-EU and anti-Brexit observations in the same way she challenged the equivalent pro-Brexit assertions of Mr Fox.

In the introduction to a feature about the arts community at 6.49am, Ms Husain deliberately stressed the importance of the arts sector to the national economy, and worked with BBC arts correspondent John Wilson to stress that jobs in the sector were at risk because of the ending of free movement.

On the positive side in the steps towards Brexit, she made only a few points. She highlighted that John McDonnell appeared to have a different policy position on Brexit from shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry, and challenged Tony Blair over his record in encouraging immigration.

John Pienaar: Mr Pienaar’s bulletin contribution, which ran throughout the morning, fitted with the overall negative drift of the programme by concluding that agreement on the Irish border issue remained elusive, tough trade talks were still ahead and that the whole process looked ‘less predictable and well-choreographed’ than Theresa May’s journey that day. 54

Matthew Price: Mr Price had a pivotal role in the programme, presenting three features in which he answered what were projected to be key local concerns about Brexit. In his first question and answer session at 6.10am, three issues were chosen which underlined uncertainties relating to the value of the pound, the NHS and the logistics of trade. At 7.43am, Mr Price addressed young people at a Teesside law firm. Their questions were also negative about future prospects, and Mr Price suggested in response that university fees in EU countries could triple for UK students, and that EU healthcare for UK citizens could be under threat. In the third sequence Mr Price – again dealing with negative concerns - observed how complex disentangling the UK from the EU was and that it was clear people did not understand Brexit. He repeated that outcomes were unclear, for example whether a UK citizen who worked as a snowboarding instructor in France might lose the right to work there. Striking about the selection as a whole was that despite this being an area which voted strongly to leave the EU, none of the selected issues focused on the positive potential of Brexit.

Dharshini David: In the two sections of business news, presenter Dharshini David stressed heavily Brexit negativity, and thus was not impartial. In addition, as is outlined in Part 1, the sequences contained more contributors who had strong reservations about Brexit than those who saw opportunities. At 6.15am, Ms David, focused first on the service and hospitality industries, suggested that 50 per cent of service sector exports went to the EU (thus clearly implying they would be affected by Brexit), and drew attention to that there were worries in the sector about shortages of labour because EU citizens would no longer be able to work in the UK. She claimed that future restriction of immigration ‘is one of the biggest worries for the industry’, a fear that was echoed by her first guest, a hotel owner from the area. Another guest contributor Naomi Clayton, was introduced simply as spokesman for ‘Centre for Cities’. Ms David did not tell listeners that this body is funded primarily by the Remain-supporting trust of David Sainsbury, which has argued that leaving the EU could have an equivalent impact on the UK to the 2007 economic recession, a component of ‘Project Fear’. Ms Clayton was predictably negative about the post-Brexit prospects for Teesside. A sequence of vox pops from Stockton-on-Tees market followed, and though the Teesside region had voted strongly ‘Leave’ in the EU referendum, the selection of commenters chosen for broadcast (presumably edited by Ms David) were much more ambiguous, and contained many negatives. She asked her next ‘expert’ guest, from the local Chambers of Trade, what his worries were about Brexit, and he stressed that businesses which traded with Europe did not trade with the rest of the world. The final contributor from the hospitality sector, Tom Hetherington, observed that – separate from Brexit – businesses were struggling under the burden of excessive regulation, and introduced a highly-qualified more positive note by stating that Brexit was not so far the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back.’

A hospitality industry spokesman then suggested that the sector was facing difficulties, but added that Brexit was not yet the straw that had broken the camel’s back. Ms David riposted that the although people in the North-east had voted for Brexit, the government’s impact studies had shown the area would be ‘disproportionately affected’. This seemed designed to the breaking of the camel’s back might be imminent. She then brought in James Ramsbotham, of the North- east Chambers of Trade about his Brexit-related worries. She observed in the link to him:

. . . the unemployment rate at around 6% in the north-east of England is amongst the highest in the UK. Many people here voted for change, hoping that things would get better, but the government’s leaked impact studies suggest the region will be disproportionately hit

Ms David said that worries among business owners included the impact of Brexit on staffing issues and regulation. He warned that a further major concern was that the businesses in the area which traded with Europe did not trade with the rest of the world and thus did not understand what the impact of Brexit would be. There were two positive notes towards Brexit in the 6.15am slot, though each was heavily qualified, if not completely squashed by the prevailing gloom and Ms David’s commentary. One was with Tim Martin, the chairman of Wetherspoon’s, the second with Mr Ramsbotham. Mr Martin, contributing a 100-words soundbite to the sequence on the hospitality industry, claimed that the EU was a racket, that 95% of hospitality businesses did not engage with ‘Europe’ and that New World wine currently entered the UK despite the tariff regime. But Ms David immediately countered Mr Martin’s assertion. She said that the industry was not just talking about new world wine, ‘but a whole new era’. Given that Mr Martin’s contribution was an edited sequence, her link was thus arguably designed to reduce the impact of his pro-Brexit claims. Ms David also immediately followed Mr Martin’s pro-Brexit remarks with the anti-Brexit observations of Naomi Clayton outlined above. The sequence was thus constructed to ensure that the main positive points about Brexit were cumulatively swamped by the Remain perspective.

The second positive point was that in the sequence with Mr Ramsbotham, Ms David – after the various negative Brexit points – suggested that ‘some parts of the economy’ were thinking about the opportunities, and one locally might be that Teesport could become a free port. Mr Ramsbotham explained the possible impact of free port status, but immediately said that this would only happen if the UK ‘crashed out of the single market and the customs union’, thus heavily qualifying the prospect.

In the next part of the business news section, her guest, city analyst Sonia Laud, in tandem with Ms David – who observed that the transition deal was still on the table (with) ‘much to be filled in’ – remarked on the deteriorating economic climate, with Ms Laud adding after Ms David’s

56 concerns that investors seemed to be staying away from the UK until uncertainty relating to the Brexit deal was resolved.

The second business news slot at 7.15am, as already noted, was a short interview of 312 words with John Longworth, of Leave Means Leave. Mrs David asked whether the current EU exit deal involving transitional arrangements was ‘in the interests of corporate Britain’ and whether he was ‘losing out’ because he wanted a clean break. After Mr Longworth’s qualified response – that he was worried that the proposed terms could lead to the UK being a ‘vassal state’ of the EU – Ms David suggested that from the ‘running a business’ perspective, a transition period was required to sort out the many details involved. Mr Longworth asserted that this was not the case, a transition period simply introduced more uncertainty – a deal covering 98 per cent of trade could be done very quickly. Ms David then claimed that in the North-East, businesses approached by the BBC were changing their minds about Brexit because what they wanted in terms of certainty was not being delivered. Mr Longworth protested that this was not the case, but Ms David contradicted him and abruptly closed the interview ‘because we’re out of time’. Thus overall, Mr Longworth was able to register that he believed a deal could be reached more quickly and simply than was projected, and that he was opposed to a transition period. Ms David terminated the interview insisting he was both wrong and out of touch with business opinion in the North-east, and claimed they now wanted to reverse any support the might have had for Brexit.

Nick Servini: He presented a report from Wales hinged on more Brexit negativity.: that a row had developed between the Welsh and UK governments over powers currently held by the EU which would revert to the UK after 2019. Mr Servini pointed out that there were around 20 areas of reversion, said the Westminster approach was that they should initially go there, but the Welsh Assembly disagreed and wanted more say in the process. The talks, he pointed out, had been going on for ‘months and months’ and no solution had yet been reached – as was also the case in Scotland.

Sarah Montague: Ms Montague’s interview of Liberal Democrat Jo Swinson opened with a link stating that her party were still hoping to stop Brexit. Ms Montague first asked how a second referendum would go, then interrupted to suggest that polling indicated that the majority of people did want Brexit. Ms Swinson maintained otherwise, but Ms Montague put the same point to her again. Ms Swinson responded that the government’s handling of negotiations was shambolic and thus a referendum was needed. On balance, Ms Montague, challenged some of Ms Swinson’s claims, but the latter still had ample space to lay out a clear case why she believed a second referendum was necessary.

Nick Robinson: He reported at 7.49am that the government’s plans to steer Brexit through the House of Commons were in for a very choppy ride, concluding that there was a ‘great cloud of unknowing’ about the future of the Brexit plans and whether Brexit ‘really will mean Brexit’. He pointed out that the government was facing pressure from a combination of the Labour party and Conservative Remainers. His report contained 220 words of opinion from prominent Conservative party Remainers Nicky Morgan and Kenneth Clarke, who explained between them that Parliament must be centre stage in the Brexit process, that the agenda on Brexit was driven by the ‘right-wing press’ and that they would likely rebel against the government. Against that, Jacob Rees-Mogg spoke 86 words to the effect that the will of the people must be honoured. A fourth MP, Labour’s Frank Field, said that he still wanted Brexit, but for the sake of his constituents, would prefer it be phased. This, claimed Mr Robinson, was because he wanted ‘frictionless trade’ with the EU. Mr Robinson also spoke to former clerk to the House of Commons, Lord Lisvane, who suggested that if the government lost the EU vote, a general election could not be called. Overall, the purpose of the feature was to stress that the government was facing acute difficulties in the passage of a Brexit deal, to the extent that it could lead to crisis point. He assembled a range of opinion which supported his contentions, with only a minor note of qualification from Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Chris Morris: He presented a package at 8.42am which suggested as its central theme that difficulties with the Northern Ireland border could scupper the EU Brexit deal and lead to a return to violence. He made these points by choosing three highly-biased contributors who both in this programme and elsewhere have placed great weight on the difficulties sorting out border- related issues. There was no-one in the sequence who believed otherwise. Mishal Husain prefaced the item with a comment that it was one of the trickiest parts of the EU negotiations, and Mr Morris continued in that vein. His first guest, Michael Gallagher from Derry City and Strabane Council, stressed the complexity of the border and said the need was for a ‘frictionless’ approach, otherwise trade would be hit. Mr Morris chose to visit for this report, and for his choice of spokesman, a council area heavily dominated politically by Sinn Fein – which remains opposed to Brexit45. Mr Gallacher, in ‘frictionless’ used a word frequently used by Remainers as a form of shorthand or circumlocution for the need to stay in the single market46. Mr Morris then chose as his principal guest Katy Heywood, a sociologist who has argued in The Guardian that in effect, the best solution to the border issue is for the UK to stay in the customs union, and she repeated those arguments in her contribution. Mr Morris effectively amplified this partisan stance by pointing out that the British government’s aspirations for wanting to be outside the customs

45 Sinn Fein holds 16 of the seats, compared with 7 for the DUP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derry_and_Strabane_District_Council 46 For example here, as outlined in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/19/backbench-mps- motion-force-vote-eu-customs-union 58 union and a trouble-free border had been said by Brussels to be ‘magical thinking’. His other main guest was Anthony Soares, from the Institute of Cross Border Studies, a partisan organisation which has argued that Brexit will be fundamentally damaging to the UK47. Mr Soares was predictably negative about the problems of the border. Mr Morris concluded his package ended on a predictably negative note: that the border question kept being kicked down the road but there was now not much road left. In conveying such one-sided negativity, he ignored the very different, and much more positive perspective of figures such as the Labour MP Kate Hoey, who has written that the Irish border issue is being used by Brussels and the Irish government as a tool to keep the UK in the customs union48. Overall, in this sequence, the selection bias was worsened because Mr Morris did not explain properly to the audience that his contributors were partisans against Brexit.

Conclusion: Today A major part of the imbalance in this special edition of Today was structural. As already noted, problems started with the selection of Nifco as the lens through which to examine post-Brexit attitudes and prospects for the Teesside area. This became the springboard for a core of negative Brexit-related comment. The programme editors seemed to have been curiously oblivious to the possibility that if the managing director of a company warns that he does not want Brexit, employees are unlikely to be candid in expressing their views on the national airwaves.

The second major raft of bias was the overall approach of the various BBC figures involved. Led by Mishal Husain, almost every item sought in different ways to emphasise and exaggerate Brexit ‘uncertainty’. Using Nifco as the lever, Ms Husain, for example, warned on multiple occasions that there was a fear that being outside the single market would hit businesses prospects. Other examples were that Dharshini David, although she included two significant sequences of pro-Brexit business comment (from John Longworth and Tim Martin), nevertheless worked hard to undermine their contributions. Nick Robinson’s piece on the Parliamentary obstacles to Brexit gave most airtime to those who were trying to undermine the progress of relevant legislation, and Chris Morris in Northern Ireland selected contributors who all favoured retention of the EU’s single market – and failed to tell the audience that this was the case.

47 http://crossborder.ie/site2015/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/BP3-with-Executive-Summary.pdf 48 https://brexitcentral.com/leo-varadkar-needs-stop-hypocrisy-remember-irelands-true-friends/

A few instances of Brexit-related opportunities were mentioned by presenters, and the apparent ambivalent perspective of politicians opposed to Brexit was mildly challenged on a number of occasions outlined above, but their terrier-like pursuit of Brexit negativity heavily swamped this. The third element of bias was simply that the programme put on the programme contributors who by a heavy margin were against Brexit or wanted to make pro-EU points. It is not suggested that balance in such contexts should be achieved by the application of rigid binary choices of guests. The debate about Brexit is multi-layered and complex. But the analysis in Part 1 and above shows that contributors who had serious reservations about leaving the EU, or wanted to attack the government’s approach to the negotiations, were heavily dominant.

The Long View

The programme comprised of three alleged historical ‘turning points’ for Britain: in 1066 at the Norman Conquest, when a group of Anglo-Saxons fled their homeland to found a new idealised colony because they opposed the French invasion; in 1805 when the Napoleonic Wars were at their height and Britain allegedly saw ‘the European system’ was essential in the battle against Napoleon; and in 1940 after Dunkirk fell, when Winston Churchill allegedly wanted and needed union with France in order to defeat Nazism, thus foreshadowing and advocating his support for a more unified ‘Europe’.

Presenter Jonathan Freedland, who presumably had a role in choosing the three ‘turning points’, then brought in a range of historians who each argued in different ways that past British ties with ‘Europe’ were surprisingly strong, that Britain had benefitted (or potentially benefitted) from those ties, and indeed that they were needed for survival. In each section, comparisons with the approach to Brexit were invoked (both by Mr Freedland and his guests). This appeared to be the editorial fulcrum of the exercise.

The programme’s two commentators, Eloise Todd, a strong supporter of remaining in the EU, and Kwasi Kwarteng MP, a Brexiteer, were invited to comment on aspects of the historical interpretations by Mr Freedland.

The three supposed ‘turning points’ can be summarised as follows:

 The defeated Anglo-Saxon elite at the Norman Conquest had an idealised view of a ‘pure’ country to the extent that many of them left afterwards in a flotilla of 300+ ships to found a new colony in Eastern Europe. They eventually arrived in Constantinople, then capital of the Byzantine Empire, and were later granted land in the Crimea, where they settled. It was claimed that their views of wanting a ‘pure’ Anglo-Saxon land were at odds with reality and that they were blind to that ‘foreign’ Norman influences actually enriched eleventh century culture. A parallel was drawn, that their outlook in wanting to ‘go back’ - was similar to that of those who had voted for Brexit;

 In 1805/6, during the Napoleonic wars, the UK was dependent for survival against Napoleon’s harsh trade blockade imposed by the Berlin Decree on recognising that it needed to work with ‘Europeans’ and the ‘European system’ to defeat Napoleon. It was postulated that the then British foreign secretary, George Canning, would have been aghast at the idea of Brexit;

 Winston Churchill, at the darkest point of the Second World War after Dunkirk, advocated – in line with the vision of the ‘father of the European project’, Jean Monnet – that the UK’s survival depended on a merger with France and closer ties with ‘Europe’. Further, it was implied, this foreshadowed his acceptance of the need for the EU, something, it was claimed, that if it was known to them would horrify today’s supporters of Brexit.

In more detail from the programme transcript, Jonathan Freedland, as presenter, first worked with historian Dr Erin Goeres, a lecturer in Scandinavian studies at University College, London, to help her advance a theory that after the Norman Conquest, a group of Anglo-Saxons had left the England to establish an ideal ‘English’ colony (Nova Anglia) free of French influence. A very recent article on this49 suggests the colony may have been in the Crimea. Dr Goeres compared these alleged reactions of Anglo-Saxons a thousand years ago – without challenge from Mr Freedland – directly with the ‘rhetoric of nostalgia’ that had ‘bled into the Brexit debate’. It was, she claimed, evidence of emotional connection ‘to an ideal of a land’ rather than more critical understanding that sometimes ‘you can’t turn the clock back’. Mr Freedland reinforced the importance of Ms Goeres’ theory - and stressed that Eurosceptics wanted to go back to a 1950s ideal - in his first question to Kwasi Kwarteng in stating:

I mean, starting with you Kwasi Kwarteng, listening to this amazing story, people of that first Eurosceptic generation do tend to invoke a previous, pre-EU, pre-Common Market era when they talk about leaving as if somehow we might go back to a 1950s Britain, do you recognise that picture?

Mr Kwarteng rebutted the suggestion by stating that the ‘vote for Brexit was not entirely a retro, nostalgic expression of a bygone era’. But his second guest, Eloise Todd, of the Best for Britain group (which has openly compared the Theresa May government to the Titanic sinking 50) claimed that young people had voted for Brexit because they saw it as a deeply cultural issue and wanted to be ‘open to Europe’. Mr Freedland then picked up another theme he had identified about the Norman Conquest – that when William the Conqueror was being crowned, the crowd had been unnerved and resorted to violence after they heard ‘alien tongues’ being spoken. He suggested that older voters had opted for Brexit because they ‘found it disconcerting (that) there were people in the centre of town or on the bus speaking a language they didn’t understand’. Mr Kwarteng again did not take on this point directly, but said he would not explain the whole vote in those terms. Mr Freedland then observed:

49 By Dr Caitlin R.Green, whose primary research interest is early immigration and trade: http://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/05/medieval-new-england-black-sea.html

50 Interview in the Evening Standard: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/best-for-britains-eloise-todd-meet-the- woman-fighting-for-another-brexit-referendum-a3805646.html

Eloise Todd, how much is it part of your understanding of what happened that it was driven by a kind of nostalgic longing like those people, a thousand years ago, who wanted to form a New England a bit like the old one?

Ms Todd responded that the UK did not have to leave the EU and so the need now was to discuss properly what Brexit meant. In response to Mr Freedland’s summing-up question of what had happened to the Anglo-Saxons ‘who had been left behind’, Dr Goeres further elaborated her theme, proffering that the Anglo-Saxons had failed to understand that the Norman invasion would actually enrich their culture. She said the Anglo-Saxon world of Sutton Hoo had disappeared and was replaced by an enriched medieval culture of new languages, new art forms and new literature. She repeated, too, the point that discomfort about hearing a foreign language ‘goes back to the point of nostalgia for a place that is an ideal rather that reality’. Moving on to the next ‘turning point’, during the Napoleonic wars, Mr Freedland first noted that people were wrestling with ‘these issues’ (discomfort at hearing foreign tongues) a thousand years ago. He brought in historian David Andress who argued – without challenge from Mr Freedland - that against Napoleon’s attempted blockade of the UK, the government saw themselves ‘as an integral part of the European system’ and sought allies across Europe. They wanted to beat Napoleon ‘in the interests of the European system – and they understood themselves to be part of it’. This was to prevent the whole world falling into tyranny. Mr Freedland commented at this point that the Continental System was something that had been heard before, Britain was being ‘Brexcluded’. He later suggested that Britain had ‘asserted its right to sit at the centre of the European system’. With that observation, he asked Kwasi Kwarteng if George Canning (the then British Foreign Secretary) would have been amazed that the UK was now voluntarily taking itself out of the single market, ‘the trading market of Europe’ when he had been prepared to use military might to ensure that the UK was at the centre of the European trading system. Mr Kwarteng said he had a different view – Britain would continue to be engaged in Europe after Brexit. Mr Freedland then suggested to Eloise Todd that the ‘fractious difficult relationship that is the subject of such intense argument in Britain now in 2018, has a long history’. Ms Todd replied that over 100 years had melded its traditions (with those of ‘Europe’) so that Britain was ‘highly influential’ in the EU. She claimed that Britain was now setting itself up as an external interlocutor between Europe and the rest of the world. She added:

. . . but in actual fact taking ourselves out of this very powerful set of countries working together and taking ourselves out of the single market which actually was a British Conservative invention, will actually not lead us to be this more powerful country outside the big blocs of the world, but rather more of an irrelevance.

Mr Freedland suggested to Kwasi Kwateng that this was the key point – Britain would be deprived of a seat at the table of the EU. Mr Kwarteng said there could be dialogue with the EU without being a member. Ms Todd disagreed. Britain had lost its military might and would now lose its influence. Mr Freedland then suggested to Mr Kwarteng that, ‘free of European

63 union directives’, some employers were going to start restricting workers’ rights, which is why ‘people have been alarmed about leaving the EU’. Mr Kwarteng rebutted this by saying that such battles were ‘fought out’ in the domestic environment and were nothing to do with the EU. Mr Freedland put the point to Ms Todd. She claimed that workers’ rights emanated from the EU, and that the danger was now that competing in international markets would drive such standards ‘right down’. Britain would in any case to keep the rules in order to trade with the EU, and in future would have no say in their framing. Mr Kwarteng suggested there would be no crisis. The UK would gradually develop its own system.

For the third ‘turning point’, the plan to merge the UK with France after the fall of Dunkirk was chosen. Mr Freedland commented that a remarkable plan was hatched ‘as we contemplate Britain contemplating its relationship with the rest of Europe’. Historian David Reynolds said the government began to think of a close and permanent relationship. Mention was made that the plan involved building a free Europe after the war, and common citizenship against the ‘power of the enemy’. Mr Freedland suggested it would be shocking for Eurosceptics to know that Churchill, a man ‘lionised’ for his Euroscepticism, had called for such a merger. Mr Kwarteng said not. The circumstances of 1940 were exceptional – and the EU was not the heir of the proposed Anglo-French union, but rather of a very strong German state. The historical context was entirely different from today. Mr Freedland asked Ms Todd how this altered the perspective of Britain’s relationship with Europe. She replied that Churchill realised it was vital to be close to (European) colleagues and allies in trade as well as militarily. Churchill was acting in the best interests of his country – the contrast was that the current government’s approach to Brexit would lead to all citizens being worse off. Mr Kwarteng responded that this discussion had already been held. The need now was to move on.

Mr Freedland finally asked Dr Goeres what part history had played in the debate about Brexit. She replied:

I think looking back at history is a good reminder that we don’t stand at a unique moment. We have seen from all of these examples that Britain has a long and complicated relationship with Europe, it is an issue that is revisited time and time again. Britain has always been a part of Europe culturally, linguistically, politically, it’s just to what degree should we negotiate that.

Mr Freedland suggested that the relationship had always been uncomfortable. He noted that there had been a group called Historians for Brexit. David Andress said that in the Napoleonic period, Britain wanted to ‘remain part of this jostling European process’ and could not conceive itself of working in the world without being part of a European concert of nations. Yet British greatness was based on Empire, ‘to the fact of dominating and exploiting tens of millions of people all around the world’ He said the UK was simply not in that position any more. The UK could not take by force any more, it had to cooperate and collaborate. Mr Freedland said: 64

David Reynolds, the bit of history you talked about with us, of 1940 and Britain standing alone, it’s entered the mythology it’s in some ways the sort of founding narrative of modern Britain, it was a big part of the Eurosceptic case that Britain had stood alone, didn’t need the rest of Europe and could stand alone again. What’s the reading you have of that 1940 episode in terms of Britain’s relations with Europe?

Mr Reynolds replied that he was not so keen on using history as an analogy.

Analysis: The Long View Central points arising from the programme content about the history and its linkages to the present are:

1. What is the strength and veracity of the theories about Nova Anglia presented by Dr Goeres? And was it legitimate to elevate this obscure episode to the level of a ‘turning point’ in national history?

The historical record relating to this alleged exodus of Anglo-Saxons is actually very thin and based on sketchy references in two chronicles written considerably later51. Both sources state that the expedition went through the Mediterranean to Constantinople, and after a while in the Byzantine royal court, those involved were granted land in the Crimea and settled there. But not enough detail is recorded in the accounts to be certain about the numbers involved, who led the expedition, or even when the exodus took place, let alone to know with any certainty the intent of those who supposedly decided to flee William’s rule en masse. Another issue is that evidence of Anglo-Saxon seafaring potential on this scale is lacking. The idea that a huge navy of 350 sea-going vessels (the alleged numbers involved) capable of passage through the treacherous currents of the Biscay seas could have been mustered or built without the knowledge of the Norman invaders is scarcely credible. One respected historian who assessed the Nova Anglia story pronounced that it was ‘fantastic’ (unbelievable)52. There is separate evidence of Anglo- Saxons being in the Byzantine court during the late 11th century, but these accounts do not mention a mass exodus of the type described by Dr Goeres. Travel to these areas was not uncommon in this period, as the Viking presence in the Black Sea and the mounting of the first crusade in 1095 also testify. Overall, however, the Nova Anglia story is almost unverifiable and at best unproven. To class it as a national ‘turning point’, complete with parallels to reactions in Britain today is thus absurd. The suspicion must be that Dr Goeres, Mr Freedland and the programme editors chose it as a fulcrum of the programme only because it could be used to

51 The evidence is outlined here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_(medieval) 52 Shepard, Jonathan (1973), "The English and Byzantium: A Study of Their Role in the Byzantine Army in the Later Eleventh Century", Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought, and Religion, New York: Fordham University Press, 29: 53– 92, ISSN 0362-1529

65 suggest that the regressively idealistic hopes allegedly behind the expedition could be compared with the attitudes of those who voted for Brexit. Tin other words, the alleged ‘facts’ supported the partisan opinion.

2. Did the Norman Conquest enrich the Anglo-Saxon culture in the ways contended by Dr Goeres?

With the benefit of hindsight, it can be seen there was enrichment in some areas such as building techniques and architecture. But elements of the more immediate impact were much more painful than Dr Goeres projected. For example, the historical narrative of the invasion and its aftermath by Marc Morris in his landmark 2012 book The Norman Conquest, has been said to be an account of ‘sheer terror’53. It is pointed out that the first phase of the Norman rule – when, according to Dr Goeres, those who founded Nova Anglia decided to leave England - culminated in 1069-70 in the Harrying of the North, which involved the killing on a slash and burn basis of perhaps 100,000 of their countrymen (five per cent of a population of an estimated two million). In some quarters, this has been described as ‘genocide’54. And the forced imposition on a culture of a foreign language, as decreed by King William, would today also be classed by many as another form of heavy repression rather than cultural enrichment. Dr Goeres is, of course, entitled to her opinions. The important point here is that a historian was chosen for this programme with strongly- held personal interpretations which Mr Freedland both failed to challenge and used in turn to push that the Brexit vote was based on unfounded and ignorance-led xenophobia.

3. A third issue is whether the violent disturbances at Westminster when William was crowned were triggered by the speaking – as was outlined in a reading by Ian Hart and Mr Freedland then later put in a question to Mr Kwarteng – of ‘alien tongues’ and a language ‘they did not understand’.

The words read by Mr Hart came from an account written in the 12th century by the monk Orderic Vitalis, in which it was actually said:

And the armed guard outside, hearing the tumult of the crowd in the church and the harsh accents of the foreign tongue, imagined that some treachery was afoot, and rashly set fire to some of the buildings.

Does this mean what Mr Freedland claimed it did, that the speaking of alien tongues in itself led to a violent over-reaction? An alternative interpretation could be that the imagined intensity (and presumably volume) of the response, combined with being ‘in harsh accents’ was

53 http://www.marcmorris.org.uk/p/reviews.html 54 For example here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrying_of_the_North 66 misinterpreted by Norman bodyguard. Another account of what happened at William’s coronation by the historian Walter Thornbury, follows a similar thread55:

At the opening of the ceremony one of William's prelates, Geoffrey, the Bishop of Coutances, asked the Normans, in the French language, if they were of opinion that their chief should take the title of King of England; and then the Archbishop of York asked the English if they would have William the Norman for their king. The reply on either side was given by acclamation in the affirmative, and the shouts and cheers thus raised were so loud that they startled the foreign cavalry stationed round the Abbey. The troops took the confused noise for a cry of alarm raised by their friends, and as they had received orders to be on the alert and ready to act in case of any seditious movement, they rushed to the English houses nearest the Abbey and set fire to them all. A few, thinking to succour their betrayed duke, and the nobles they served, ran to the church, where, at sight of their naked swords and the smoke and flames that were rising, the tumult soon became as great as that without its walls. The Normans fancied the whole population of London and its neighbourhood had risen against them; while the English imagined that they had been duped by a vain show, and drawn together, unarmed and defenceless, that they might be massacred.

This version – which accords with and synthesises the most of the sources describing the coronation – does not blame difference of language at all for the triggering of the violence. It says clearly instead that the loud volume of the response was the reason – the king’s bodyguard panicked and mistakenly feared the eruption of noise was the beginning of an insurrection. In this area, too, therefore, the historical record was heavily contorted by the programme in a particular direction to support the claim by Mr Freedland that violence at King William’s coronation was caused by similar xenophobic thought processes as those he suggested had influenced the Brexit vote.

The second alleged historical ‘turning point’ focused on Napoleon’s blockade of Britain imposed via the Berlin Decree in 1806 after the defeat of the French fleet by the UK at Trafalgar in October 1805. The core theory advanced in the programme was that, in essence, Britain had fought Napoleon in tandem with, and to promote, ‘a European system’ which, it was insinuated, had parallels with the EU. Further, that, in that context, the then foreign secretary George Canning would have been startled by the idea of Brexit. David Andress, the historical expert in this section, argued –without challenge from Mr Freedland – that Britain at this stage saw itself as ‘an integral part of the European system’ and wanted to defeat Napoleon ‘in the interests’ of this system. Mr Freedland picked this point up and amplified it by then suggesting to Kwasi Kwarteng that Mr Canning would thus be ‘amazed today’ if he had heard that Britain was voluntarily taking itself out of the single market, the trading market of Europe’.

55 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol3/pp401-411 67

An alternative interpretation based on hard historical fact is that in 1806, there was no concept in foreign policy terms of a united Europe, or a formal trading alliance with it. Britain – against a background of a booming economy stoked by the first phases of the industrial revolution - conducted its trade and economic policy throughout this period under the mercantile system, the core aim of which was to enrich the country and the British Empire through protected trade with its colonies. The urgent need to protect British trade and trading routes was arguably the prime reason why Britain had bitterly fought Napoleon from the beginning of his attempts to conquer Europe. Trade by Britain with European countries was not tariff-free in this period and smuggling was rife to avoid the duties on both imports and exports. Engagement with Europe at diplomatic levels was thus arguably mainly pursued from 1798 onwards not to be part of a ‘European system’ but to defeat Napoleon, to ensure British ports remained open to trade with the Empire and other parts of the world, and prevent him creating a rival European empire. After the Berlin Decree, it is estimated that British trade with Europe fell significantly, but smuggling increased sharply (so actual levels were unknowable), and trade with other parts of the world, particularly the Americas, boomed and more than compensated for reductions elsewhere56.

When Napoleon was finally defeated at Waterloo, the Congress of Vienna largely restored pre-Napoleonic national boundaries. The treaties which were agreed confirmed that in this period, there was no attempt, formal or otherwise, to create a unified Europe, either politically or economically, although there was trans-national diplomacy (the ‘Concert system’, led by Lord Castlereagh and Prince Metternich). The Congress, with the benefit of hindsight, was remarkably successful: the previous 100 years had been dominated by internecine European wars; the next 90 were largely peaceful. Also relevant here is that free trade as a national economic policy was not pursued by Great Britain until 25 years later, and even then, it was focused largely on countries within the Empire rather than Europe.

Mr Andress is clearly entitled to his views but whatever the ‘European system’ was in 1806, there is strong counter-evidence against the inferences drawn from Mr Andress’s words by Mr Freedland about George Canning being involved in the 19th century predecessor of an EU ‘single market’ in the all-out struggle against the Decree of Berlin. Britain was fighting for national survival against the territorial ambitions of Napoleon, which arguably reached their apogee in terms of momentum after his crushing victory at Austerlitz in 1805. Its primary concerns in trade terms were focused on expansion within the British Empire, not in Europe, though as peace returned, trading links with European countries grew once more. In summary – linking back to the core points made by Mr Freedland and Mr Andress – the parallels drawn were at best

56 The economic consequences impact of Napoleon’s ‘Continental System’ are outlined here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_System

68 speculative, but also appeared to be the rather contorted anti-Brexit imposition of a 21st century perspective on very different early 19th century realities.

Mr Freedland, after Mr Kwarteng had observed that Britain would continue to be involved in European trade, and be in dialogue with its European partners after Brexit, then asked Eloise Todd whether the ‘fractious difficult relationship’ (with ‘Europe’) that was so intense in 2018 had a long history. In reply, she replied that Britain had melded its traditions with those of Europe and was thus highly influential in the EU. Taking itself outside this framework and the single market would not lead to more power, but would make the UK an irrelevance. Mr Kwarteng rebutted this, saying that the UK could maintain dialogue with European countries without being a member of the EU.

Overall, in this section, Mr Freedland worked with Mr Andress and Ms Todd to suggest that leaving the EU and especially the single market, went against the grain of a relationship with ‘the European system’ which had been in existence since 1805/6. They attempted to show that there was strong historical evidence to support this, and had one-sided space to do so – there were no counter-views from an appropriate historian. Mr Kwarteng clearly rejected the argument, but chose not to rebut directly the alleged historical facts, relying instead on his simple contention that Brexit would not end the UK’s relationships with European countries.

The third alleged ‘turning point’ made interpretations about Winston Churchill’s attitudes towards European unity during 1940 which have frequently been made on BBC programmes. For example, it was claimed – by Today presenter Nick Robinson during the referendum campaign in the programme series Europe: Them or Us - that a proposed union between the UK and France after the fall of Dunkirk, an idea briefly considered by Winston Churchill and his war cabinet, was unequivocal evidence that Mr Churchill was not what today would be regarded as a ‘Eurosceptic’, and that he also seemingly favoured more unity among European nations.

Mr Robinson projected the fraught saga of the proposed formation of the France-UK union, dubbed ‘Frangleterre’, in May 1940 as evidence that Winston Churchill was the ‘father of a United Europe’ and post-war was an advocate for what became the European Union.

But this was highly partisan pro-EU opinion. Other interpretations suggest a very different picture, as is established in a series of detailed posts on the News-watch57 and Is the BBC

57 http://news-watch.co.uk/them-or-us-re-visited/ 69

Biased?58 websites, and is detailed in the book The Great Deception59, about the history of the EU. The desperation plan was actually framed by the real founding father of the EU, Jean Monnet, who at the time was in London with the exiled Charles de Gaulle and working for the British government on the war effort. It fitted with Monnet’s long-held aspirations of creating a unified European government.

Churchill – very much on the back foot, having just become Prime Minister in the War Cabinet and being in the midst of dealing with the fall-out from Dunkirk – agreed, out of respect to Mr de Gaulle and on the basis of diplomatic courtesy, to consider the proposal. He immediately rejected one of Monnet proposals, that there should be monetary union between the two nations, and also limited the duration of the agreement. On that basis, it was hurriedly put in turn to the French government as it struggled to deal with the Nazi invasion. Monnet’s plan was immediately thrown out by the French, and never saw the light of day again.

After the war, Churchill did agree that some kind of European unity – and at the very least, increased cohesion between European nations, especially France and Germany – was essential as a bulwark against the Soviet threat. But he also repeatedly made it very plain that he did not see the UK being part of such a process, because he believed that British national interests revolved primarily instead around Commonwealth countries and the international Anglosphere, especially the United States.

Nick Robinson, in his assertions about Frangleterre, as already noted above, painted a very different and sharply partisan picture. But it was this perspective which was picked up by Jonathan Freedland and his historian guest, David Reynolds. The latter suggested that the War Cabinet had begun to think of a ‘close and permanent’ relationship without stating the origin of the idea or making it clear how grave the situation was at the time. Mr Freedland, for his part, suggested that it would be ‘shocking’ for Eurosceptics to know that Churchill had proposed such a plan. Kwasi Kwarteng immediately rebutted this, but Mr Freedland then asked Eloise Todd how this changed assumptions about Britain’s relationships with ‘Europe’. Ms Todd asserted that the plan was evidence that Winston Churchill knew it was vital to be close to European allies in trade as well as militarily. Churchill, she claimed, knew where Britain’s best interests lay, in contrast to the current Government, which had adopted a path which would result in Britons being worse off. Mr Kwarteng had the final word: he said this discussion (about where Britain’s best interests lay) had already been held.

58 http://isthebbcbiased.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/%27Europe%3A%20Them%20or%20Us%27 59 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Deception-Secret-History-European- ebook/dp/B01DLVZA2W/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= 70

Conclusion: The Long View In this programme, three historians were chosen to take part who together projected that that Britain’s dependency on ‘Europe’ was complex, culturally enriching, deep-rooted, essential for its survival and over almost a thousand years old.

Presenter Jonathan Freedland, a highly-partisan Guardian columnist who is strongly opposed to Brexit and highly critical of the government’s negotiating stance60 , combined with one of the guest commentators and the three historians to emphasise the importance of these links. In the later programme, The Brexit Lab, it was pointed out prominently in the continuity announcement that presenter Iain Martin (who favoured Brexit) had compiled a ‘very personal view’. This was not the case with Mr Freedland, even though his pro-Remain and pro-EU opinions were centre- stage from the outset.

As is established above, Mr Freedland worked throughout to use the alleged historical facts as a springboard to suggest that the Brexit vote was hugely negative because it was based on geriatric prejudice and racism, and because it flowed against the projected tide of historical evidence. His drive towards establishing this anti-Brexit perspective was so strong that even suggested that George Canning would have been aghast at the current prospect of leaving the ‘European’ market.

This was not, it can be deduced, a live programme and it had been edited to give these perspectives about ‘Europe’ and Brexit maximum impact, both by the choice of alleged ‘turning points’ and the selection of contributor material.

In terms of balance, it seems that the editorial approach of the programme was to discount the contributions of the three historians and Mr Freedland himself, and to give roughly equal airtime to the pro-EU Eloise Todd (838 words) and the pro-Brexit Kwasi Kwarteng (888 words), a differential of around six per cent.

In summary, Mr Kwarteng:

 Rejected that people had voted for Brexit for reasons similar to many of the Anglo- Saxons who had left England to found a new ‘pure’ colony;

60 For example, in this deeply excoriating article written on March 2, 2018, presumably as The Long View programme was being prepared: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/02/theresa-may-brexit-mess

 Denied that the Brexit vote had been based on people being disconcerted by hearing ‘foreign tongues’ spoken on buses or in the centre of town, and that this fear of the ‘alien’ had been present since the Norman Conquest’;  Asserted that Britain would not be excluded from ‘Europe’ after Brexit, the relationship would simply be different but still ‘engaged’;  Denied that Britain would lose its ‘seat’ in ‘Europe’ because there could still be dialogue when it was outside the EU;  Rejected claims that Britons would be worse off post-Brexit because they were outside the EU.

The counter-claims from Ms Todd were:  Young people had voted for Brexit because they saw it as a deeply cultural issue and wanted to be ‘open to Europe’;  (In response to Mr Freedland’s inquiry as to whether the Brexit vote had been based on the same kind of longing of the Anglo-Saxons had to create a New England ‘a bit like the old)’ that the UK did not have to leave the EU and so the need now was to discuss properly what Brexit meant;  (In response to an observation by Mr Freedland’s that the UK’s current ‘fractious’ relations with ‘Europe had a long history) that over 100 years had melded its traditions (with those of ‘Europe’) so that Britain was ‘highly influential’ in the EU. She claimed that Britain was now setting itself up as an external interlocutor between Europe and the rest of the world. She added: ‘. . . but in actual fact taking ourselves out of this very powerful set of countries working t and taking ourselves out of the single market which actually was a British Conservative invention, will actually not lead us to be this more powerful country outside the big blocs of the world, but rather more of an irrelevance’. She then added that in leaving the EU, Britain would lose its influence;  That workers’ rights emanated from the EU, and that the UK – in competing for international trade – would have standards in this arena driven ‘right down’, and would have to adhere to some EU rules without having a future say in their framing;  (In response to Mr Freedland’s inquiry as to the extent to which Churchill’s alleged support for European unity altered the perspective on the British relationship with ‘Europe’), that Churchill believe it was vital to be close to European colleagues in trade as well as militarily. Churchill was acting in the best interests of the country, whereas the government’s pursuit of Brexit would lead to all UK citizens being worse off.

As can be seen, each of the two contributors reacted mainly to the pro-EU/anti-Brexit points made by Mr Freedland, and to a lesser extent commented on the historical arguments made.

However, giving these two roughly equal airtime to put a range of sharply contrasting conflicting points emphatically did not create a balanced programme.

The bias emanated from:

A warped approach to interpreting history: Steps towards European ‘unity’ – and, in tandem, the concept of what became the EU – only seriously emerged after the First World War. The European Union itself has tried to re-write history to provide evidence otherwise, but the over- arching determinants of political and economic policy from the 16th century until 1918 related to nationalism and mercantilism. Attempting, as the programme did, to impose the twentieth century concept of a desire for such ‘unity’ on previous eras, and then to project that forward into the present, is simply not a valid form of interpretation and introduced what boils down to a game-show mentality into what can be reasonably deduced through historical methodology and inquiry. If thousands of Anglo-Saxons did leave Britain in the 1070s or 1080s for what turned out to be the Crimea, it cannot even begin to be proved from the highly fragmentary available sources what their motivation was. The claims in the programme that they were driven by similar thoughts to those behind the Brexit vote – pushed hard by Mr Feeedland and Dr Goeres – are unsupportable, and are ‘evidence’ only of a strong bias on behalf of both of them, as well as the programme editors, towards finding new ways of showing why the Brexit vote was ill-advised.

The selection of these three alleged examples as ‘turning points:’ Both Nova Anglia and ‘Frangleterre’ are at most small footnotes to national history and the evidence related to each is so tenuous and ambiguous that deducing major trends from them – as was attempted in the programme – is impossible. The second historical example posited that there was a ‘European system’ in place in 1805/6 but what was this? The inference was that it was a precursor to European ‘unity’ of some kind, of which the UK government wished to be part. But an alternative explanation of British (and of individual European nations opposed to Napoleon) foreign policy throughout this period was that it was designed to beat Napoleon at all costs – by any means possible. The British government also wanted to protect and reinforce the nation’s mercantile interests. None of the episodes thus stands up as a ’turning point’ of the nature deduced. On the other side of the coin, the programme could have chosen much more important points in history when Britain emphatically distinguished itself as separate from Europe as it pursued foreign policy objectives: for example, in 1940, after (rather than before) France had sued for peace with Nazi Germany; and in 1822, at the collapse of the Congress system, when George Canning as foreign secretary, began his policy of non-co-operation with European powers61. The

61 Canning said: “Our foreign policy cannot be conducted against the will of the nation…. Europe's domain extends to the shores of the Atlantic, England's begins there” - H.W.V. Temperley (1925). The Foreign Policy of Canning, 1822-1827. p. 342. 73 programme could – and should – have avoided completely examples from medieval times from which evidence is too scant to permit valid comparisons of the type attempted. It is impossible to know from the outside the extent to which Jonathan Freedland and the programme editors had a role in choosing the three turning points (see below), but irrespective of this, they could have ensured from the outset that key moments were chosen which could have led to more balanced discussion, and didn’t put Kwasi Kwarteng as the sole defender of Brexit on the back foot in every response.

The selection and stance of the historians: As already noted, each guest historian had a particular controversial perspective. They claimed in different ways that links and alliances with Europe were vital in different ways for British survival. Dr Goeres was particularly partisan in her speculation, and also in stating that there was a clear parallel in attitudes between the present and the past. The approach of David Andress in strongly stressing Britain’s role in the ‘European system’ also put a disproportionate weight on a ‘pro-Europe’ perspective. The third historian, David Reynolds, was more circumspect, in that he refused at the end of his section to speculate about the relevance of Churchill’s attitudes to current Brexit-related events. But earlier, he had painted the ‘Frangleterre’ scheme as a vital moment in the framing of the course of the war. An overall qualifying issue here in the discussion of bias is that it is impossible to know from the outside the extent to which these contributions were shaped and edited by the programme editors. For example, any caveats expressed might have been edited out. It is important to note that these contributions totalling around 2,500 words also contained elements of necessary explanation and were thus not wholly biased. But together, they provided a programme framework which was biased, and the extent of this was amplified by Mr Freedland. Nothing was included that suggested that any of the historians disagreed with Mr Freedland’s approach and the impression given to the audience through the contributions by the historians was thus strongly one-sided - and only countered by the various responses of Kwasi Kwarteng and by Mr Reynolds’ refusal to personally draw relevance from Churchill’s actions with the present day. Jonathan Freedland’s approach to presentation: Mr Freedland was unquestionably a deeply biased presenter. He worked with the three historians and Eloise Todd to amplify the partisan pro-‘European’ and anti-Brexit perspective created by the programme in the ways already outlined above. His explanation and questions totalled 1851 words and were the fulcrum of the programme structure. As a result of his input a framework was created which suggested that the Brexit vote had been xenophobic, ignorant and against the tide of history and common sense. It was said at the beginning of The Brexit Lab programme as a warning to the audience that presenter, who was pro-Brexit, had compiled a ‘deeply personal view’. No similar caveat was

74 included about Mr Freedland’s starkly pro-EU views in advance of The Long View. It is hard – given the level of bias involved – to understand why not.

Mr Kwarteng, as is outlined above, did undoubtedly provide some counterweight to the main pro-EU thrust of the programme, and to an extent defended voters against the charges of xenophobia and ignorance. But he did not have – or if he did, did not use except in the Churchill section – historical knowledge to rebut the historical evidence, relying instead mainly on that he knew what voting intentions were based upon.

As such, his perspective was heavily swamped by the input of the three ‘experts’, combined with that of Mr Freedland himself and Ms Todd. Mr Freedland robustly challenged Mr Kwarteng’s perspective; in contrast, with the three historians and Ms Todd, he worked with them to amplify their points about the importance of ‘Europe’.

Overall, this edition of The Long View programme – on a day when the BBC ought to have been providing carefully measured and balanced programmes on the Brexit theme – was a crude attempt to batter the audience with anti-Brexit propaganda, made almost risible by an inappropriate and inept use of history.

World at One The bulletins outlined that the government had pledged more money to vital services when the UK left the EU. There was also mention that Labour were playing down their support for Mrs May’s exit deal.

There were four reports from BBC correspondents about the impact of Brexit, filed from four EU countries, Ireland, France, Germany and Poland.

Chris Paige reported from Ireland. He noted that in 1973, when Ireland had joined the EU it had been one of the poorest nations in Europe, and had been at the nadir of the Troubles, but had now ‘formed new relationships’ (other than the UK) and was one of the richest. There was concern in Ireland that Brexit would impact the Republic more than any other state ‘bar Britain itself’ and there was thus ‘frustration and trepidation’ about ‘continuing uncertainty’. He concluded:

Several years before Irish independence, James Joyce wrote a play caIled Exiles, in which a character mused, ‘If Ireland is to become a new Ireland, she must first become European.’ More than a century later, Ireland is directing its gaze towards the continent more than ever.

Reporting from France, Lucy Williamson noted that Emmanuel Macron had put the EU at the heart of his plans and wanted a multi-speed Europe with closer ties between Eurozone members. There had been Gallic eye rolling over Brexit and calls for the UK to ‘get off the fence’. She said Mr Macron also wanted EU reform and was concerned that without this, dissent would grow. He believed that following Brexit, French influence would increase in Brussels, particularly as Angela Merkel’s hands were tied by her own difficulties. Ms Williamson said that Mr Macron also wanted to boost the defence capabilities of the EU, but acknowledged this would be difficult without the UK, so separate defence agreements had been concluded. She concluded that Mr Macron’s gaze was fixed towards Europe rather than across the Channel.

From Germany, Jenny Hill suggested that Mrs Merkel was politically weakened but the EU was still her priority and her first trip had been to see Emmanuel Macron. She was a passionate defender of the European project and her country ‘was perhaps the one most upset by the UK’s decision to leave’. Ms Hill observed that the UK was a ‘critical trading partner’ of Germany and the business lobby and car industry were nervous because the UK was a vital market. She added that even so, Germany’s red lines were set in stone – Britain would not get ‘preferential treatment’. She said that Mrs Merkel might want a close future relationship with the UK but ‘it would not be as close and friendly as it had been’. She claimed that Germany had wanted stability and was baffled by the UK’s decision to leave.

Ms Hill concluded that Germans still asked her why Britain was leaving, but meanwhile Mrs Merkel had pledged money to plug the UK’s contributions gap and Brexit was now regarded as ‘just another challenge’ alongside issues such as digitalisation. What counted most was the integrity of the EU.

From Poland, Adam Easton said that most politicians there were disappointed by the Brexit vote. The country felt the EU should be a strong and independent group of nations which supported free trade and disliked protectionism. Some Poles were now worried about the status of the 1 million of their countrymen now living in the UK and who sent home n estimated $1 billion a year. Some of the worries had diminished because their rights had been secured, and so too had funds to Poland from the EU. Mr Easton claimed there was guarded optimism about the future because once the UK left, Poland would be the fifth largest EU member and able to exercise more clout. He said 87 per cent of Poles supported EU membership, the highest rate in Europe. Some felt, though, that the EU was exercising Soviet-style control and Poland did not like the EU’s immigration and law-related policies. Mr Easton concluded:

This government is the most Eurosceptic since Poland joined the bloc in 2004, but it also knows the benefits membership brings – most of all, access to the single market for Polish companies. That trade, and EU cash, is fuelling the country’s economic growth. For the government, being inside the club strengthens Poland’s standing in the world.

In an item about Mrs May’s UK tour in which she had stressed ‘there were real opportunities’ (of Brexit), political editor Laura Kuenssberg pressed her on whether there would be a Brexit dividend. Mrs May said there would be.

Mark Mardell then presented the first part of a 12-part series called Brexit: A Love Story? He noted that the opposition to membership of the EEC in 1973 had been drowned out by celebrations including music by Edward Gregson – who had written a stately and triumphant composition to reflect what Britain felt at the time. Mr Mardell stressed that Edward Heath thought that joining was a triumph, and his first guest, a friend of Mr Heath’s at the time, Sarah Morrison, explained that he had told her that she should understand why joining was necessary - because of the death of members of her family in the two world wars. Mr Mardell observed that those in government – despite alarm in some quarters – hesitantly decided that there was no alternative to joining. Charles De Gaulle had opposed UK membership during the 1960s, but his successor George Pompidou concluded the UK shared ‘the idea of Europe’ agreed the UK could join. This was despite fears of rising prices in the UK. There were clips expressing concern from Douglas Jay and Enoch Powell, the latter of whom warned the EU would lead to more, not less, government. There was a clip from the MP Neil Martin, who warned about the EU being federalist project. Mr Mardell’s next contributor, Lord Armstrong, the former Cabinet secretary who had been part of Heath’s negotiating team, claimed he did not know what Mr Heath thought 77 about the impact might be on British sovereignty. Mr Mardell pressed on the point of whether Mr Heath had ever said joining meant ‘giving up sovereignty’. Lord Armstrong claimed the understanding was that Britain was joining primarily an economic community and that there might only be concessions in that arena. Lord Armstrong said he believed Mr Heath was not imagining a community of 28 as opposed the nine who were joining in 1972. He added:

I don’t think he would have begun to think about having a euro at that stage, or about having a European Central Bank. But he would have said that sovereignty by itself isn’t anything, it’s what you make of it.

Mr Mardell commented that in the build-up to joining, the backdrop was that the UK was no- longer self-confident, it was the sick man of Europe, beset by economic woes. A million were unemployed, big iconic companies were going bust and there were waves of strikes. He contended: And, from a distance at least, Europe feels like a debate within the elite, not the burning concern on the streets. And it seemed that debate had come to an end, the conclusion. At least it seemed so. In fact, it was only just starting.

Mr Mardell claimed that a ‘critical point’ was when Jean Monnet ‘the father of the European project’ had watched in the House of Commons as it voted, on the basis of the agreement brought back by Mr Heath, by a ‘larger than expected majority’ (of 112) to join. Lord Armstrong said that Mr Heath had been moved by the victory and had played to his family in celebration that evening a Bach prelude which he said suggested that the UK was ‘back in Europe’. Mark Mardell speculated whether this ‘remarkably cold man’ had shown disdain for speaking directly to the British people, whether he had a burning passion to join which he could not communicate, or whether he simply did not see the need to explain. Mr Armstrong observed that Mr Heath did not easily show emotional feeling. Mr Mardell queried whether this was the fault of one man, or maybe the ‘European project generally’. Lord Armstrong claimed that the arguments for joining the EEC were ‘overwhelmingly strong’. Mr Mardell said the charge against Heath was that he misled the British public, downplayed the loss of sovereignty and spoke as if the market was an economic club not a profoundly political project. He asked if this was fair. Sarah Morrison responded that it was baloney, there was no question of deception.

Conclusion: World at One It is impossible to judge whether the Mark Mardell segment was impartial in terms of the series as a whole on the basis of analysis of one instalment of 12 parts. However, the BBC presented March 29 as a day of broadcasting about Brexit, and it is thus reasonable to assess issues of how it fitted in to that context.

He included soundbites from three figures – Enoch Powell, Douglas Jay and Neil Martin – who opposed joining the EEC in the 1970s. Together, as is noted in Part 1 (p. 21-22), they spoke 135 words, each fearing in different ways that British independence would be compromised.

Ranged against this were 1,121 words from Sir Edward Heath, Lord Armstrong, Sarah Morrison and the composer Edward Gregson. Each expressed views which supported the UK joining the EU, or Sir Edward’s approach towards the negotiations. Lord Armstrong claimed that Sir Edward did not believe that joining the EEC would compromise the United Kingdom’s sovereignty.

In terms of March 29, the input from Mr Mardell’s series introduced another significant component of pro-EU opinion, with only a small element of counter views. The drift of Mr Mardell’s presentation was that the UK had joined the EEC because it was in his estimation ‘the sick man of Europe, beset by economic woes’, and this bolstered the weight given throughout the day of the need to be within ‘Europe’, whether the EEC or EU.

The four items from EU countries by BBC correspondents added to the overall negativity about Brexit on World at One. Each report noted that there were differences within the various countries to the future direction of EU policy, but all stressed that the EU was beneficial to member countries and would remain so after Brexit. According to the BBC correspondents, France and Ireland’s gaze was towards ‘Europe’ rather than the UK, a weakened Angela Merkel was determined that the UK would not get ‘preferential treatment’, and the Polish government was benefitting above all from access to the single market, and this, it was claimed was ‘fuelling economic growth’.

The Brexit Lab This was announced immediately before transmission as Iain Martin’s ‘very personal view’ about Brexit. To summarise its content, it was first suggested by Mr Martin that EU recycling policy was over-prescriptive and inefficient. Michael Gove then said that the EU agricultural policy was wasteful and gave too much money to large landlords; he advocated that in future, the UK could focus on making agriculture much more environmentally friendly. A Greenpeace spokesman agreed about there being negative elements of the CAP, but also warned that his organisation’s support in steps towards Brexit was not guaranteed. A fisherman looked forward to full access to UK territorial waters, but Iain Martin suggested that this was not being guaranteed by the government, and Stephen Gethins of the SNP said that his party wanted strongly the UK to stay in the EU customs union to help fishermen sell their produce in European countries. Mr Martin touched on an aspect of immigration policy by stating that there would be a need, once Brexit happened and free movement ended, to create more UK apprenticeships. Caroline Flint cautiously accepted his point, but also pushed that immigration was still needed. Nicole Badstuber, of London University, argued that leaving the EU would allow the re-nationalisation of UK railways, something she said was not possible now because of EU rules regarding separation of track and train operations. The hard-left Jeremy Corbyn supporter Paul Mason warned that his party wanted to stay as close to the EU as possible, and this might affect future policy towards the railways. Mark Littlewood, of the IEA, saw Brexit as an opportunity to create a more flexible Labour market and end the importance of the EU’s Working Time Directive. Sir Oliver Letwin, who was working on behalf of the government on legislative continuity, said that most EU regulation would pass into British law. He argued that most of the requirements would still be necessary post-Brexit, though elements would diverge gradually over time. David Halpern, of the Behavioural Insights Team, was more bullish about regulatory change and believed that, for example, it would be possible to be more creative and clear with food labelling. Finally, the Brexit-supporting businessman Gerard Lyons argued that Brexit would reinvigorate elements of the City, especially the tech sector, despite claims to the contrary. He argued that EU regulation created a regulatory environment akin to walking up an escalator the wrong way. He further contended that the EU was missing trade expansion opportunities because of its focus on regulating, controlling and centralising.

On top of this were the 2,206 words delivered by Mr Martin himself, a mixture of explanation, commentary and opinion.

He told the audience at the outset of his stance: . . . I'm on a trip around the country to find out what Britain could start doing differently after we leave the European Union. I voted Leave because I thought the potential upsides of Brexit heavily outweighed the negatives. Not only was I convinced of the benefits of returning sovereignty to the UK's Parliament, I was genuinely optimistic about the opportunities for Britain to strike out in a different direction. That doesn't mean I think the 80

fundamental challenges we face as a country are somehow instantly solved by Brexit, of course not. . . we might find that Brexit offers us all sorts of exciting chances for fresh thinking about how we solve problems.

After the sequence examining recycling and agriculture, he opined: Few would have predicted at the time of the referendum that the natural environment would be at the leading edge of government thinking post-Brexit, but that is how it is turning out. There’s a wave of excitement about the possibilities offered by a green Brexit The signs are that the UK will take a bold approach, going further than the EU on the environment.

On fisheries, he was much less upbeat. He declared: One area that looks vulnerable to watering down or disappointment after Brexit is fisheries. The has already upset leaders of the fishing communities by agreeing to abide by the common fisheries policy for the duration of the transition period. That means foreign fleets fishing in British waters, as now.

On railways policy, he said: . . .not everyone agrees that the way the railways are run, a part public, part private partnership, makes sense. Maybe one of the most surprising possibilities of life after Brexit is that we could go in a different direction on rail policy. Are we about to go back to the future, are we about to recreate British Rail? . . . Re-nationalising the railways is one of the main priorities of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader. The idea has a lot of public support. Recreating a state monopoly on railways is easier to achieve after we leave the European Union. That prospect is exciting some on the left, others see it as more complicated.

On working time regulation, he pointed out: . . .Mark Littlewood director of the free market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs takes a different view, he wants the government to get cracking on making labour markets, that’s hiring and firing, yet more flexible. . . (and after Mark Littlewood’s contribution) perhaps Brexit provides an opportunity to go further, in providing greater scope for individual choice in the way we work.

However, this was soon juxtaposed with: That sounds pretty ambitious, but others pour cold water on the idea of a great experiment. The former Cabinet minister, Sir Oliver Letwin, who campaigned for Remain has been going through current EU rules and regulations, with politicians from other parties to see what red tape could be jettisoned by consensus.

He then brought in Mark Halpern, of the think-tank Behavioural Insights Team, observing: Is that it? Surely there’s more that could be done to change the way the UK designs its laws, can’t we aim a little higher? What are the possibilities? How could we ensure that any new regulations improve everyday aspects of business and consumer behaviour?

Turning to prospects for the City of London, Mr Martin said: During the referendum campaign much of the City was for Remain, fearing Brexit would cost London its global lead. Of late, I have to say I’ve detected a shift, and a new confidence that the City can continue to prosper. Now let’s go inside the cafe of the Royal Exchange to meet Gerard Lyons. He voted to leave, and even founded Economists for Brexit. I want to ask him, can the City do well after we leave the EU? And might it even be an opportunity for the City of London to do more for British business outside the capital?

He concluded the programme with: Brexit is happening, and soon. As we’ve heard, there are risks involved with this experiment, but it opens up important opportunities and options. This is a chance to make our own decisions. With some imagination and gumption, we will make a success of life after the European Union. Brexit will be what we choose to make of it.

Conclusion: The Brexit Lab Overall, there were 11 anti-EU speakers, of which four were also definitely pro-Brexit. There were contributions from two Labour figures, one Conservative and one SNP spokesman who were pro-EU and heavily qualified in their acceptance of Brexit.

In summary, this was unquestionably a pro-Brexit programme. Ian Martin’s commentary stressed new opportunities and most of the comment looked at changes and opportunities that would emerge as a result of leaving the EU: better agricultural practice, a different fisheries policy which might help UK fishermen more, ‘greener’ environmental policy, a new focus on UK apprenticeships, a fresh look at how the rail network was operated, less restrictive and more realistic employment law, a reduction in restrictive legislation, more sensible food labelling, and a City of London able to compete better because it would be freed of restrictive EU regulation, and a review of regional investment policy.

But Mr Martin’s substantial editorial input was not unalloyed pro-Brexit partisanship. He was careful to balance many of his opinions with contrasting viewpoints and there were no extravagant claims from him or any of his interviewees that Brexit would create a new Nirvana. Indeed, all the claims made about the future were heavily qualified by practicality. This was not the Brexit equivalent of Project Fear, when economists had queued up – and were given BBC airtime to do so – to make gloom-laden predictions about massive rises in unemployment and long-term recession if there was a Leave vote. Rather, it was narrow, forensic presentation which pointed out glimmers of light in the post-Brexit universe rather suggesting there would be a sudden new dawn.

The EU after Brexit

The purpose of the programme, according to co-presenter David Aaronovitch, was to explore how the EU would develop without the UK. He claimed that the EU would still be there post- Brexit and would ‘remain hugely important’ to the UK. Fellow presenter Evan Davis suggested that a theme that would be explored would be moves towards further federalism and how the ‘pressures of populism’ would be dealt with.

The first interview was of Jean Claude Trichet, former governor of the European Central Bank, who Mr Davis said was a ‘committed European’ who had been instrumental in developing EU policies over 20 years. Mr Davis first noted that Greece was now growing its economy. Mr Trichet used this as a springboard to contend that the EU’s financial problems were now largely over and that in terms of economic performance, it was now superior to the US. Mr Davis asked about the impact of austerity. Mr Trichet responded that work still needed doing on some economies and better management introduced. Mr Davis observed that he sounded ‘very optimistic’ about the euro and asked if it was ‘comfortably progressing’. Mr Trichet thought it was but some repairs needed doing to the roof while the sun was shining. Mr Davis then raised Emmanuel Macron’s proposal for greater integration in the Eurozone and a unitary budget. Mr Trichet rejected the latter but supported the former and argued that the current financial measures to deal with budgetary emergencies were adequate. Mr Davis raised how the EU was dealing with populism. Mr Trichet argued that the euro had never been so popular, that in France, the pledge to leave the EU had been electorally ‘catastrophic’ and that protectionism and were not solely an EU phenomenon. In the next phase of questioning, Mr Trichet agreed that the UK’s perspective would be a loss to the EU but claimed there would be no economic impact because the Eurozone was now growing faster than the UK economy.

The next stage of the programme was a report by BBC correspondent Adam Fleming covering three different visions for the future of the EU, the first from Emmanuel Macron, the second from the Visegrád group of eastern European members, and the third from the Northern European group. Mr Fleming outlined first that Mr Macron’s vision was for a more integrated and ‘reformed’ EU, including changes in defence policy, and the creation of a Eurozone Parliament, budget and finance minister. Mr Fleming noted that Mr Macron believed he had a cast-iron platform for advocating such change through his election victory. Mr Fleming added that Angela Merkel was ‘wary’ about some of the ideas and was worried about a transfer of wealth from richer to poorer countries, but claimed she could be persuaded of the possibility of the EMF having more powers to raise and spend money across the EU.

Mr Fleming said the Visegrád group were, in contrast, chafing at the ‘constraints’ of the EU. Poland was making changes to the judiciary that the European Commission did not like and Viktor Orban had delivered anti-Brussels propaganda that would make ‘even a British Brexiteer blush’. He noted that the countries still wanted to be part of the EU in other respects and said they could have to face the music in the 2021 budget round because Brussels wanted to make spending grants conditional on full acceptance of EU rules.

Finally, Mr Fleming said the Northern European group would miss the UK’s pragmatic role in insisting that the EU focused on ‘what it did well’. They were not so keen on changes in the Eurozone and wanted more powers to be retained at national levels.

Stage 3 was hosted by David Aaaronovitch, and was made up of interviews with representatives of the each of three EU groups identified by Mr Fleming: Daniela Schwarzer, director of the German Council on Foreign Relations, Justyna Zając, Professor of History and International Relations at the University of Warsaw, and Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who was Dutch Finance Minister for five years.

Ms Schwarzer confirmed that Germany supported elements of the Macron plan but said there were differences in the approach to the Eurozone. Key areas were the Eurozone and the Schengen area, where more needed to be done to protect external borders and defence. Changes would go ahead and the challenge for France and Germany was to bring other countries on board in that.

Ms Zając said Poland was opposed to Mr Macron’s view of the Eurozone and would not be joining, and also raised the prospect that his plans would lead to a two-speed Europe, which would marginalise Poland and other countries. She asserted that for Poland, the most important points about EU membership were the single market and the four freedoms, movement of people, goods, capital and services. Mr Aaaronovitch asked if Poland wanted more integration across the EU. Ms Zając replied that Poland wanted nations states strengthened and no further augmentation of the powers of the Commission. She also stressed that Poland was sticking to the judicial reforms it wanted, despite opposition from the Commission. She added that the Visegrád countries did not have a unified strategy.

Mr Dijsselbloem also said that the eight states in his grouping were opposed to closer integration. He said there was more concern about weaknesses in the Eurozone, including over-dependency on banks and poorly developed capital markets. Mr Aaronovitch suggested that there was more to the Macron plan – it postulated that unless change happened the EU would be prey to populism and ‘loss of mission’. Mr Dijsselbloem said he wanted change related to security, safety, migration and external borders. These mattered more than the economic changes. He added 84 that the French had always been focused on monetary union but the Macron plan did not address other issues such as competitiveness. Mr Aaronovitch raised the issue of border security, then, again, its link to the rise of populism. Mr Dijsselbloem said that on both the economy and external security, the EU had not got it right. This now needed addressing.

Evan Davis then spoke in Stage 4 of the programme with three EU commentators, first observing that in some Brexit minds, being in the EU was like being shackled to a corpse because it had a shrinking part of the world economy and could not adapt to changing conditions. His interviewees were Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, chair of the French bank Societe Generale, and a former board member of the ECB; Matt Regan, Senior Vice President and Head of Europe for Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk; and Teofil Mureşa, chair of Electrogroup Infrastructure, a telecoms and energy infrastructure company based in Bucharest in Romania, but with operations across Europe.

Mr Davis’s questioning if the three men allowed them to contend the EU allowed cross border trade and more market opportunities; that EU rules were helpful in creating a level playing field for trade; that there were currently differences across the EU in terms of trade (in, for example, the framing of mortgage terms) but in time, they would reduce towards ‘full harmonisation’; and then that they wanted great financial integration and a unified monetary policy akin to the US. Mr Davis observed that an area where ‘Europe’ has made enormous strides’ and had been ‘very dynamic’ was in East and Central Europe. They had moved from being poor and cut off from western supply chains – ‘a remarkable story as to progress’. Mr Muresa agreed but claimed that EU projects such as motorway building needed to be better managed.

Mr Davis suggested that the EU could by part of history when the old world should be looking for new markets. Mr Smaghi disagreed and said the EU could negotiate deals with countries such as China. He added that he wanted the EU to have a completely integrated capital market to improve competitiveness. Mr Regan also did not agree that the EU was outmoded. Mr Davis asked if the UK leaving the EU would make a difference. Mr Muresa said it would hurt both parties, but it also depended on whether it was a ‘hard’ Brexit. Mr Regan said the UK had been a very valuable voice in the EU and Europeans wanted a sensible departure agreement maintaining as much as the status quo as possible. Mr Smaghi observed that creating a European capital market would now be more difficult because London had been the best candidate for that. He warned that the implications of leaving had not been properly worked out and it would be difficult to keep existing relationships.

Conclusion: The EU after Brexit This programme underlined that the BBC has no intention of properly scrutinising the EU. At the outset, it was said that the UK’s departure was only minimally important to the EU, and that its main past role had been that it had ‘resisted greater integration’. The cast assembled by programme editors were all strong Europhiles, and they were given more or less free rein to express their views. Two of the contributors (those from Poland and the Netherlands) suggested that there might be structural differences in store about the degree of future integration and how the Eurozone was run, but these were presented as only limited problems. Differences between the plans of Emmanuel Macron of France and Germany were also pinpointed, but these were also downplayed.

It boiled down to that the broadcast was a pro-EU echo chamber in which the union’s most significant and pressing structural, economic and political problems were either ignored, or underplayed. In the case of the main interviewee, Jean-Claude Trichet, he brazenly claimed – without a challenge from Evan Davis – that they did not exist.

As the programme was prepared during March, the reality was that there were numerous EU- related issues not properly explored by the programme which suggested major fault lines in future development, on top of Brexit itself, which would remove c. £19billion a year from EU revenues and take the union’s second largest economy and third most populous country out of the equation.

In Austria, for example, a Chancellor had been elected who strongly opposed central elements of EU policy, and in Italy, a general election had been held (on March 3) which had brought to power parties determined to break Eurozone spending rules, and also – against EU rules – to expel tens of thousands of immigrants. In Hungary, prime minister Viktor Orban was holding talks with the new Austrian Chancellor to explore their common concerns about the EU immigration requirements. In Catalonia, there was continued deep agitation for self-rule against the EU’s hard-line insistence that secession from Spain should not happen.

None of these individually added up to a major revolt against the EU regime, but each was symptomatic of a deep unease which was being expressed in the ballot box throughout the EU and was a significant indicator of accumulated troubles in store.

A summary of the gravity of these issues for the post-Brexit EU was written by commentator Peter Oborne as this analysis was being completed. He wrote:

The ineluctable truth is that Italy is now a ticking time bomb, and I fear it is only a question of time before it explodes, with consequences for the continent which are impossible to 86

predict. How ironic that the founders of the EU’s predecessor, the EEC, were driven in part by a desire to prevent a repeat of the terrible bloodshed of the two great wars of the 20th century, but their hubristic attempts at political and economic union have instead created division and hatred. Europe is not just creaking – it is falling apart62.

The presenters made brief references to this so-called ‘populism’ or ‘hard right’ resistance to rule from Brussels, but did not explore with any conviction what was involved.

A genuinely sceptical and penetrative programme entitled the EU After Brexit could have looked at big structural issues, such as the impact of the UK’s departure on the post-2021 EU budget; the strains that the EU’s controversial immigration policy and Free Movement principle was putting on electorates within the union (as had been expressed in Austria in and Italy); and at the pressures on the eurozone in countries such as Greece and Italy caused by an inevitably decentralised currency management policy.

Rather than embarking on such analysis, the programme asked at the outset – as the keynote contribution – one of the EU’s greatest and most ardent champions (Mr Trichet) for a health check. He delivered a response of uncritical praise and almost unbounded optimism, dismissed opponents of the EU as irrelevant and repressive, and claimed that the EU’s economy was in rude health.

A subsidiary seam of exploration in the programme was that within the EU, there were elements of disagreement about the way forward. It was pointed out that Emmanuel Macron’s vision of a more integrated EU and Eurozone was not fully shared by Germany, and, in turn, Eastern and Northern European countries also had more fundamental reservations, particularly with regards to being subservient to France and Germany.

Between them, the presenters suggested, by way of mild devil’s advocate questions, that some believed that being in the EU was similar to being tied to a corpse, and that it was backward looking and not making trade deals in the expanding parts of the world economy.

There were also brief references to that the forces of ‘populism’ and ‘nationalism’ were ranged against the EU but there was no attempt to explore why or to examine the level of threat posed by these forces post-Brexit.

Neither Evan Davis nor David Aaronovitch challenged to any significant extent the pro-EU views which were projected to them by the interviewees.

62 Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-5773311/PETER-OBORNE-Forget-Brexit-Italy-trigger-collapse- EU.html#ixzz5GaLp2NA5

Conversely, entirely absent from the programme were any ‘populists’ or those who thought that the EU needed truly radical change.

This could have been a radical examination of whether the EU single market and customs union – as many contend – drastically needs revision because in reality it is a too restrictive in terms of trade with areas outside the EU; whether the Eurozone is as healthy as Mr Trichet (one of its main advocates) contended, and whether the moderate reforms suggested by Mr Dijsselbloem went far enough; and how ‘populism’ could actually challenge the legitimacy of the EU.

The World Tonight

This was trailed as part of the special programming about Brexit, but it contained only one relevant item, a short feature from Kent.

Alan Little, reporting from the village of Reculver in Kent, suggested it had been a ‘great symbol’ of waves of European settlement into the UK, first the Romans, then Angles and Saxons and finally Normans. Steve Barrett, a local fisherman said he wanted the UK to take back control of its waters and leave the EU while remaining open for business. He feared the UK was being betrayed by the negotiations underway. He claimed that those who said he did not know he was voting for were ‘idiots’. He wanted a clean Brexit. Jonathan Isaby, of Brexit Central, said that leaving the EU would bring many benefits from world trade. Mr Little asked whether such views were a leap of faith based on ideology rather than evidence. Robert Saunders, a historian, commented that there was a mistaken folk memory of British ships trading the world. Mr Little then commented that a local fruit company relied on labour from Eastern Europe because no- one local applied. Workers at the factory feared they would be cut off from their markets. Carol Ford, a company director, confirmed both labour and trading issues. A digital company MD said she also relied on international workers, and were ‘petrified’ about the future.

BBC correspondents appear determined to emphasise that British history was rammed full of constant immigration and the ‘enrichment’ through it of culture. Alan Little’s introduction reflected this reinterpretation of history. His first interview sequence reflected views of those who had strong hopes that Brexit would be beneficial. Jonathan Isaby, for his part, suggested that the UK would benefit from being able to trade in more world markets, but Mr Little immediately qualified this by asking whether it was based on a ‘leap of faith’ rather than hard evidence. He then brought in a historian, who said that the idea of Britain’s ships trading with the world was a ‘mistaken folk memory’, a company director who was worried about the ending of Free Movement and tariffs, and finally a high-tech company MD who was ‘petrified’ by issues such as the ending of Free Movement.

In word counts, there was a broad balance between the two perspectives, but in terms of editorial structure and presenter input there was not. Mr Little first sought to suggest that ‘waves of immigration’ had been an omnipresent part of British life for centuries, then said that hopes of a brighter trading future might only be based on a ‘leap of faith’. Against a fisherman and someone whose comments he said were based on ‘faith’, he brought in three ‘experts’, a historian, a company director and a managing director who claimed between them that the idea of Britain trading in markets other than ‘Europe’ was mistaken, that labour supplied through immigration

89 was vital to economic well-being, and that Brexit – by hampering trade with the EU – was a major threat to economic well-being.

Conclusion The BBC trumpeted this Radio 4 programming on March 29 as an examination of the prospects for Brexit one year before its scheduled date. Considerable production and editorial effort was clearly deployed to that end as was also evidenced by the project warranting a dedicated press release.

The analysis presented in this report shows that the main focus translated into showing primarily how difficult Brexit was proving to be; how leaving the single market would be disastrous for British trade; how the EU – projected as being loved by almost everyone but the British – would go from strength to strength without the UK; and how leaving the EU was against centuries-old cooperation with ‘Europe’.

The Brexit Lab was the only programme out of the seven63 mentioned in the BBC press release announcing the special programmes which was deliberately designed to explore potential opportunities generated in leaving the EU. Presenter Iain Martin – pointedly and uniquely said by the BBC to be delivering a ‘very personal view’ – looked optimistically towards new developments in trade deals, farming, fisheries, railway management, food labelling, working time directives, and environmental management.

His editorial approach, however, was not of unqualified optimism, and Mr Martin was careful to include also a number of more sceptical voices.

The analysis above, together with that in Parts 1 and 2, shows that ranged against this sole Brexit-positive contribution was a battery of much more negative material. The imbalances in speaker and word count statistics in part 1 are one strand of evidence of this.

Leading the charge in terms of content were the historical distortions concocted by the strongly pro-EU commentator Jonathan Freedland in The Long View. This was a determined attempt to re-write British history to make the decision to leave the EU look xenophobic and perverse, countered by only one voice, the Conservative MP Kwasi Kwarteng.

63 Seven programmes were mentioned in the April BBC press release, but on the day itself, Dead Ringers was heavily trailed as being part of the special programmes, making the eight in total analysed here. 90

Close behind in its Brexit negativity was the Europhile-dominated comment about the EU’s future contained in The EU after Brexit. The programme gave heavy precedence to these voices, and in doing so virtually ignored the main problem facing those who run the union: that increasingly – as was clearly reflected in the vote for Brexit, along with recent elections within countries such as Austria, Hungary and Italy – opposition among voters to the EU is growing to unprecedented proportions to the extent that speculation about its future viability is now strongly in play.

The Today programme, which was the platform for one third of the day’s EU-related output, was also heavily out of kilter towards the anti-Brexit perspective. As is established in the main analysis, the choice of the Nifco plant as an outside broadcast venue generated built-in structural bias, and was a perverse choice out of touch with post-Brexit economic aspirations on Teesside. This was compounded by a heavy imbalance of speakers and by the partisanship of Mishal Husain, Nick Robinson and other presenters and correspondents. Most of them exercised editorial choices and expressed views which made their reservations about Brexit unduly clear. If any of them have any optimism about leaving the EU, they did not convey this to the audience in the same way they showed their reservations.

World at One had relatively limited coverage on the theme of the day, but what it did carry in correspondent reports from a variety of EU countries closely echoed the Europhile approach of The EU after Brexit. Mark Mardell’s contribution in Brexit: a Love Story? accepted and reflected that there were reservations about joining the EEC in 1972, but the main weight of the programme was towards showing that joining the EU was a triumph of diplomacy, and advantageous to the UK at a time when it had become - in the words of Mr Mardell – the ‘sick man of Europe’.

The World Tonight carried only one 7-minute sequence on, Brexit, the package by Alan Little from Kent. He, too, felt obliged to suggest heavily that leaving the EU was counter to the main trends of British history and to introduce personal comment which doubted the optimism of his main contribution from a pro-Brexit figure.

The overwhelming bias against Brexit and pro-EU in all but The Brexit Lab of the programmes just described was further compounded by the multiple sequences of Dead Ringers and individual edition of The Channel (as well as the series as a whole), both of which are analysed in Part 2.

An additional important point is the extent of bias by omission. The BBC in these programmes about Brexit-related issues could have examined the EU thoroughly from the perspective of those who believe that as a concept and a project, it is in serious difficulties. For example, they could have looked at widespread claims current as these programmes were prepared that the EU 91 single market was in reality a protection racket to exclude non-European goods64; that the Eurozone was in serious difficulties because of intrinsic flaws in it construction and operation65; that the EU was fundamentally anti-democratic66; and that the EU’s share of world trade was in long-term decline because it was not dynamic or flexible enough and too focused on regulation67.

They chose not to, and these perspectives were glimpsed only incompletely and fleetingly in points made by figures such as Tim Martin, of Wetherspoon’s (on Today), or Kwasi Kwarteng (in The Long View).

Clearly, effort was made in all the programmes to include pro-Brexit and anti-EU opinion, but in most programmes – all but the Brexit Lab– this was swamped by the editorial process, a combination of structural choice, the speakers chosen to appear, and the predominantly negative approach of presenters and correspondents towards Brexit.

Also relevant here in considering impartiality, is that News-watch has established in a series of reports since the EU Referendum, that the BBC editorial machine has remained disproportionately focused on illustrating his difficult Brexit is likely to be. Clearly there are difficulties, and clearly the government is deeply divided about the way forward.

But in the two years since the 2016 vote, The Brexit Lab is the first programme broadcast by the BBC in the hundreds of hours of BBC output tracked by News-watch which set out as its main purpose to explore the potential benefits of leaving the EU. The fact that it was placed in a day of special programming which much more emphatically and determinedly showed the disadvantages is an indicator of the serious bias involved.

It boils down to that the BBC is working flat out to show the negativities of Brexit – and at the same time, is deaf to the weaknesses of the EU. March 29 confirms yet again that in its editorial approach to presenting the issues related to the UK leaving the EU, the Corporation is in serious breach of its central Charter requirements to maintain impartiality.

64 As described in January 2018 by former IEA chief researcher Ryan Bourne, now Professor in the Public Understanding of Economics at the Cato Institute, Washington DC: https://capx.co/the-eus-customs-union-is-a-protectionist-racket/ and here: https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/bouncing-customs-union-would-be-betrayal-brexit 65 Professor Thorsten Polleit, chief economist of Degussa and at the Mises Institute in Austria outlined (August 2017) the fundamental flaws in the EU’s economic policy here: https://mises.org/library/mario-draghi%E2%80%99s-fatal-conceit and spoke to the Daily Express on the same theme here: https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/844970/European-Union- German-economist-predicts-EU-euro-collapse-Brexit 66 As was ruled in Germany in the Federal Constitutional Court when the Treaty of Lisbon was scrutinised: https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/EN/2009/bvg09-072.html 67 AS was argued by MP Andrew Bridgen on February 22: https://brexitcentral.com/ignore-economic-scaremongering-brexit- just-keep-calm-carry/

APPENDIX: FULL TRANSCRIPTS

Today, 6am

SARAH MONTAGUE: Good morning this is today with Sarah Montague in London and Michelle Hussain in Stockton-on-Tees. The headlines this morning a senior Labour official has stood down in a row about anti-Semitism in the party. Theresa May is marking a year until Britain leaves the EU with a whistle-stop tour of the UK.

MIKSHAL HUSAIN: And to mark that anniversary we've come to a car parts factory on Teesside before the referendum its managing director warned that leaving the EU would be business suicide. Today, however they voted, his staff just want the process over with.

UNNAMED MALE 1: The one thing that nobody likes is change and when we get to that point where we leave we want to be certain.

UNNAMED FEMALE 1: It’s all anybody ever speaks about.

UNNAMED MALE 2: Get on with it please! Just sort it out.

MH: We’ll be talking to the four main parties, hearing from every nation of the UK, and answering the questions of young people here in the North East about the effect of Brexit. First the BBC News is read in London by Neil Sleat.

6.00 Bulletins NEIL SLEAT: Exactly one year before the UK is due to leave the European Union, Theresa May is touring the country pledging to make Brexit a success for everybody. She will use her trip to tell voters they will thrive living outside the EU whether they voted to leave or remain. Her message could meet some resistance in Wales and Scotland where the devolved governments have accused Westminster of trying to claw back power. Our deputy political editor John Pienaar reports. JOHN PIENAAR: England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales in a single day -the symbolism is obvious enough: the UK's leaving as one, and Theresa May's message is suitably upbeat. ‘I’m determined our future will be a bright one’ she said, ahead of today's whistle-stop tour. The prime minister pledged to defend the integrity of the UK which, as it prepares to leave the EU, she described, perhaps pointedly, as the world's most successful union. Even so, ministers are still working overtime to convince the devolved administrations they won't lose out after Brexit. The Prime Minister also set out a vision of economic prosperity at home and influence abroad, trading freely with friends and partners across Europe and beyond. But with obstacles like elusive agreements on managing the Irish border and tough talks on trade still ahead, the route to Britain's final exit still looks in many respects far less predictable and well-choreographed than Theresa May's rapid journey today.

6.08am Newspapers MISHAL HUSAIN: And a very striking page, front page on The Express – ‘One Year to Brexit’ – a large photograph of the white cliffs of Dover in glorious sunshine and the quote is from Boris Johnson, he’s written an article inside the Express ‘Our national journey out of the EU is almost over and a glorious view awaits’ he says. Inside, in the piece, he says it is exactly a year from today that Britain will be out of the European Union and re-engaging with the rest of the world. The lead story for the Times is what it calls a border shambles: the Home Office has lost track of more than 600,000 foreigners who should have left the UK, this is according to a report that came from the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration yesterday - it has found that the exit check system is so unreliable that there were no departure records for 88,000 non EU citizens whose visas have expired, also more than 500,000 non-visa travellers including those from the US, Australia, Argentina and Brazil. The Times says it’s the equivalent of about one in twenty people whose leave to be in the UK expired between 2015 and last year.

6.10am One Year to Brexit MISHAL HUSAIN: With one year to go to Brexit we've come this morning to a factory just outside Stockton-on-Tees in the north-east of England. It is a 24 hour operation here, 7 days a week, which is why you can hear the sound of the machinery whirring away. They make plastic components for carmakers here including for Nissan, Ford, Honda, Toyota, Jaguar Landrover everything from the moulded pocket on the inside of your car door to the panels on the side of the seat, to the fixing for child seats. And while we’re here this morning, we’re also going to try and explain what you need to know for the year ahead, to the moment that we leave the EU and we’re going to do that with the help of our chief correspondent Matthew Price who's here with me, and you've been gathering questions Matthew, on a range of Brexit-related issues. MATTHEW PRICE: Absolutely, good morning, yeah. We’re going to hear a lot about the uncertainty that the people in this factory feel during the programme, and in fact, the BBC's internal surveys show us that people as a whole understand less about the Brexit process now than they did even just 6 months ago. So they’ve got a lot of questions, we’re going to hear some of them this morning. First I've been to a local youth centre in nearby Hemlington where one man asked a question our research shows is a really big one for everyone.

JAMES: My name’s James, I’m 20 years old and I’m a youth worker with Hemlington Links, I live in [place name unclear] and my question is about the NHS – how is Brexit going to affect the NHS?

MP: Key points on this: British politicians decide NHS policy, they decide what we spend on health, that's not going to change. Leave campaigners have always, as we know, argued that money freed up by not paying into the EU budget could be spent on the health service but think tanks, while they agree with that, also say if the economy takes a hit after the UK leaves there could be less money to spend on the NHS. And then there's the question of staff. Depending on the final agreed immigration policy, it could be more difficult for nurses

94 and doctors to come from EU countries, but we do have a skills-based visa system that could help make up for any shortages. So that's the NHS. There is another big question that many have and it's about how the pound in their pocket is going to be affected.

GEORGIA: I’m Georgia, I’m 20 years old and I’m from Middlesbrough. Erm, my question is, is what is going to happen with the value of money with leaving the EU. Obviously we heard that the value of the pound will go down so everything will become more expensive when going abroad and everything.

MP: In short, Georgia, in short Mishal, it's impossible to predict what’s going to happen to the value of the pound. We know it dropped substantially after the referendum, it's pretty much stayed at the same level against the euro since.

MH: We will be talking to the International Trade Secretary, Matthew, later in the programme, do the big questions about the tariffs, exports, you know, trade deal with the EU, how do those resonate with the people you spoke to?

MP: Well, they do, those questions are being asked around here as well.

BRANDON: Hi, my name’s Brandon, I’m a youth worker apprentice, I’m 20 years old, I’m from Middlesbrough. My question is, if the UK leave the . . . Europe, would we still be able to trade in the market?

MP: The short answer is: not in the way that we can now, it's not going to be the same. Theresa May acknowledged that earlier this month, she said our access to each other's markets will be less than it is now. The government wants a deep trade agreement, although the two sides haven’t hammered out all the details, a chaotic Brexit is less likely than perhaps some thought it was maybe a year ago. But still there’s a lot of work to be done.

MH: We’ll be going through more of the questions later on in the programme, Matthew Price, thank you.

6.14am Business News

SARAH MONTAGUE: And factories like the one Mishal is in, in Stockton today actually only account for a small part of the economy. Dharshini is there too, to take a look at how other sectors might be impacted, as well as looking at the rest of the Business News. Dharshini good morning.

DHARSHINI DAVID: Good morning Sarah, and thank you. Yes it's a bit like the activity here, much of the noise over the economic impact of Brexit has focused on trade in goods. There's been relatively little discussion about the impact on services, and those make up about 80% of our economy. And even then the attention has been on banking. Yet the service sector takes in a vast variety of businesses from communications, to real estate, transport to hospitality. I've been exploring what lies in store for the service sector across this region. Hexham in the heart of Hadrian's wall feels like a rural oasis of Northumberland calm, a million miles away from the Brexit frenzy of Westminster or Brussels. Yet almost half of the services exports here go to the EU. With just a year to go to Brexit how are business owners, particularly hospitality industry, feeling?

UNNAMED FEMALE: (phone ringing) Hello, the Rat Inn, how can I help you? You’d like to book a table for tonight?

KAREN ERRINGTON: I'm Karen Errington and I run the Rat Inn at Anick with my partner Phil. It’s an historic pub, it dates back to 1750, and nobody really knows where The Rat got its name from, it used to be called The Board Inn, but there’s a few interesting theories. One of them, which I quite favour is the historical one, that it came about during the Jacobite Uprising and the landlord who was here ratted on some of the defectors.

DD: Now, we’re sitting here with a year to go to leaving the EU, what kind of things are on your mind?

KE: Well, the obvious one is the staffing issue. The hospitality industry in this country is shored up with foreign workers, lots of EU workers. We’ve seen, in the ten years we've been here, when we used to advertise for staff, we used to get a lot of applications, whereas now they’ve gone right down almost to zero, it’s really hard to get staff.

DD: Workers from the EU make up a quarter of staff in hospitality, meaning restrictions on immigration is one of the biggest worries for the industry, and across the service sector. But some, like the boss of Wetherspoons, are more relaxed.

TIM MARTIN: Tim Martin chairman of the world's grooviest pub company. People are getting a bit too carried away and it's been built up into a, a huge task for companies but I don't think that's reality. Funnily enough I don't think it's always anything to do whatsoever for most companies, 90% or more of companies don't even trade with the EU at all. New Zealand wine, the good old sauvignon blanc comes into the country now, so where's the extra barrier? The reality is, and this is slowly sinking in, reluctantly sinking in, is the EU is a massive protectionist racket.

DD: But we're not just talking about new world wine here, but a whole new era. If businesses fail to prepare, are they preparing to fail?

NAOMI CLAYTON: My name’s Naomi Clayton, I’m policy and research manager at Centre for Cities. All parts of the country are likely to be negatively impacted by the increased cost of a doing trade, both in goods and services and the concern is that whilst the initial shocks may not be as great in places like Middlesbrough and the northeast, we've already got quite significant unemployment in those places, there's been lower levels of growth recently in those places, and they might find it harder to respond.

DD: Stockton-on-Tees market, otherwise known as the Queen of the North which is preparing to leave the EU with the blessing of 62% of her inhabitants. But are they ready for what lies ahead? You’re running a really successful business here . . .

VOX POP MALE: Yes, and I haven’t got a clue about Brexit.

VOX POP FEMALE: Haven’t got a clue.

DD: Are you with you concerned at all, or are you looking forward to it.

VPM: Only for my children.

DD: What worries you in particular?

VPM: I really do. I just think Theresa May hasn’t got a clue. 96

VOX POP MALE 2: Price increases have already started to creep up now, and they’re blaming it on Brexit, before we even come out of it. Bananas, stuff like that’s already going up in price, and they’re saying it’s to do with Brexit, and it hasn’t even happened yet.

VOX POP FEMALE 2: Go into Brexit?

DD: We’ve got a year until Brexit.

VOX POP MALE 2: (words unclear)

VPF2: I just wished it would, get on . . . get on with it.

DD: Meanwhile, it’s dinner time, back at the Rat Inn.

KE: So what do you fancy?

UNNAMED CUSTOMER: I’m thinking trout, because fish is the test of a chef, isn’t it, we’ve got to make the chef work.

KE: Oh, is it a test?

DD: Brexit may be relatively new on the menu, but Tom Hetherington, who runs the Northern Restaurant and Bar Exhibition says that those in the industry are used to having a lot on their plates.

TOM HETHERINGTON: It’s a very regulated industry anyway, it's one of the cruel quirks of the hospitality industry that everyone who goes into it does it for the love and the passion and the food and the drink but actually it's incredibly paperwork-intensive you're dealing with fire and knives and alcohol and temporary staff and staff from overseas. It's a mass of paperwork, licences and leases. I think the industry has been having a very, very challenging time anyway with rates increases, and the minimum wage increases, and apprenticeship levy, but so far Brexit doesn't seem to be the straw that’s broke the camel's back.

DD: Tom Hetherington there, who runs the Northern Restaurant and Bar Exhibition. Well, Brexit may not be the straw that breaks hospitality’s back but it is of course only one element of the services industry. How could other parts of this area be affected? Well, the unemployment rate at around 6% in the north-east of England is amongst the highest in the UK. Many people here voted for change, hoping that things would get better, but the government’s leaked impact studies suggest the region will be disproportionately hit. James Ramsbotham is the chief executive of North East Chambers of Commerce, he’s here with me, good morning to you.

JAMES RAMSBOTHAM: Good morning.

DD: Er, we were hearing there from some of the business owners in this area, some are worried about regulations, some are worried about staffing issues. What about other industries, I mean, financial services for example, a big employer in this area as well?

JR: Absolutely, there’s a whole range of, of the service sector that people don’t always think about, and financial services is big, particularly now with Fintech, where the sort of more advanced financial services are really growing outside of London. But also then there’s a whole mass of other businesses that work around the world, engineering, architects, all 97 sorts of consultants advising in a whole variety of ways, and so many of those that currently trade with Europe don’t trade with the rest of the world, don’t really understand what the impacts are going to be.

DD: Indeed, we do tend to forget about the so-called invisible sector. We focus a lot about the risks of leaving the EU, but some parts of the economy are thinking about the opportunities, I’m thinking here about Teeside Ports in particular in this area, which is making an application to be a free port. Explain why, how that works, and why that mean you safeguard some jobs here.

JR: Well, the whole idea of a free trade zone is that you can have an area within a country which is effectively outside the customs arrangements, so that businesses can come in, can do things there, and then send their goods out again, without having to go through any customs restrictions. Hong Kong, Singapore, Panama, places like this are really successful. Clearly, there is no value in doing that if you’re inside the single market, inside the customs union, but were we to crash out of both of those, then places like this, and particularly Teeside offer very significant advantages.

DD: That’s just one example of what many economists are referring to as building up resilience, looking at how we can kind of future-proof the economy. What other things can be done around here, what is being done?

JR: Well, there needs to be a lot more done about training people, right the way across every single sector, because we have been relying so much on migrant labour from Europe, and clearly we hope that won’t get more difficult, but we have every reason to believe it will. There’s all sorts of other things, the rules and regulations that businesses need to look at really hard. I mean, many service sector business trading around Europe are going to have to think about registering for VAT in every country, they’re going to have to look at all the contracts to work out just what the changes are going to be, and there is still so much uncertainty, it makes it really hard.

DD: So, just briefly if you will, the transition period – it does matter to businesses?

JR: The transition matter— transition period matters hugely, and not only to service sector businesses, particularly to those exporting goods, because there are so many regulations, things that people don’t know about, certificates of origin, customs declarations, there’s a lot of training to happen, there’s a lot of systems to be prepared, there’s a huge amount of work to be done.

DD: James, good to talk to you, thank you. Let’s talk to our markets guest now, this morning it’s Sonia [audio fades out, so speaker not full named, but presumably it’s Sonja Laud, head of equity at Fidelity International] . . . Sonia, we’ve got a year to go to Brexit, good morning to you. Erm . . .

SONJA LAUD??: Good morning.

DD: Transition deal on the table, much still to be filled in, how are the markets feeling at the moment about it all? Because, of course, we’ve seen the FTSE in particular, at some of its lowest levels the start of the millennium recently?

SL: Yeah, absolutely. I think obviously we have seen a very big downward trend right after the referendum which then very quickly was reversed, but then, ever since, you’re quite right, I think, it’s slowly sinking in that there is still a lot to be sorted out, there’s a lot 98 of uncertainty, and this is why, actually, the UK market has not really participated in what has been a very strong global market backdrop, all throughout 2017 and early into 2018. And it seems that investors are pretty much just staying away until we know more about not only the transition deal but obviously what will come afterwards.

DD: And this, of course, all happens against a backdrop which is already looking quite vulnerable. I’m thinking in particular of one of the drinks suppliers to pubs around the country Conviviality which, last night, there were various rumours that it could be in trouble, so lots of cracks appearing even as we think about what lies ahead?

SL: Yeah, I think the story about this clearly links to the weakness in consumer confidence. I think ever since the inflation numbers have come up and obviously, we have seen a lot of talk about this, what the implication is, but it seems that consumer confidence and consumer spending really is the most affected, because what we have seen is that real incomes have been stagnant or slightly down, and obviously that is not a good combination to enter consumers into the shops.

Moves on to discuss a cyber-attack on Boeing, and GKN/Melrose bid.

6.29am Bulletins

NEIL SLEAT: Exactly one year before the UK is due to leave the European Union, Theresa May is touring the country pledging to make Brexit a success for everybody. She’ll use her trip to tell voters they will thrive living outside the EU whether they voted to leave or remain.

NHS trusts in England has warned that levels of patient care will continue to fall below acceptable standards over the next year NHS providers said there were not enough beds and staff shortages continue to be a problem.

6.31am One Year to Brexit, Nifco

MISHAL HUSAIN: The Nifco factory at Eaglescliffe near Stockton-on-Tees is our home for this morning's special programme to mark one year to Brexit. The machinery that you can hear never sleeps, the plant runs on three shifts every day of the week. The morning shift has just begun work, and it may well be that something made here is inside your car: the coffee cup holder perhaps, or the trim around the windows and doors. They supply everyone from Nissan to Jaguar Landrover and have 650 employees working at this plant. Two years ago, in the run-up to the referendum, the managing director Mike Matthews said leaving the EU would be business suicide, but in this part of the country most people voted to leave. Mike Matthews is with me now, good morning.

MIKE MATTHEWS: Good morning, Mishal.

MH: Where do most of the products made here go?

MM: Most of the products made here in NifcoUK end up in vehicles within mainland Europe.

MH: Not to the rest of the world. 99

MM: Not to the rest of the world, no.

MH: So when you said that you thought leaving the EU was business suicide, is that what you were worried about, what the effect on trade with Europe?

MM: Absolutely. For me, you know, if we do anything that consciously erm, damages business prospects, you know, we essentially take a course of action that’s going to make us uncompetitive, in business terms, for me, that’s business suicide.

MH: Do you still feel that way? Because we’re two years on, this factory is clearly doing well?

MM: Well, I think what you see in manufacturing, you don’t see very sudden changes, it’s all about long-term planning, long-term investment, and that’s where the real risk and the real challenge will lie for the UK. If we come out of Brexit (sic) and we don’t have a deal that enables us to become, well, achieve the same level of profitability and the same level of competitiveness that we had prior to Brexit.

MH: But if the government comes back from Brussels with the outline of a future trade deal, a free trade deal, will that safeguard this plant then, will that reassure you?

MM: If we get a deal where we don’t have, you know, import tariffs and export tariffs, amongst other things, and the bureaucracy that goes along with closed borders, that would be great, you know, that’s what manufacturing really needs.

MH: How confident are you that that will happen?

MM: Well, you know, I think the government got a very difficult job, I think nobody denies that, and whether or not they would share all of the innermost details of their complex negotiations, nobody really knows. So that really is a question that’s very difficult to answer.

MH: Does that mean that today, as you look out here, and you’ve got 650 people working on this plant, you know, families are depending on them, are you worried?

MM: Yes I’m worried. Yeah. I haven’t heard a clear sign that we’re going to be in a position, post-Brexit, that enables us to be as competitive within Europe as we were prior to Brexit.

MH: And what would happen, because you supply, you know, so many different (word unclear) what would happen if, for example, the big Nissan plant at Sunderland up the road . . .

MM: Well . . .

MH: . . . moved elsewhere?

MM: Erm . . . Nissan represents about 35% of the sales for, for the erm . . . for NifcoUK, erm, I can’t imagine Nissan moving but if they did we would probably, in my view, we would probably lose those sales because margins are so tight everywhere, and everywhere, you know, is competing for the same business, we’ve got a tremendous number of competitors, and I would suspect if we saw a UK business move into mainland Europe, eventually, as I have seen over the years, I would see the supply chain go with it.

100

MH: Mike Matthews, thank you, we’ll be hearing from some of your staff later in the programme.

MM: Thank you.

6.38am Brexit and Wales

MH: Like England, Wales voted to leave the EU two years ago, but in recent month the main political debates surrounding Brexit in Wales has revolved around a row between the Welsh and the UK governments about what should happen to EU powers after Brexit in devolved areas. Nick Servini, BBC Wales political editor is on the line. Which other powers that the Welsh government is most interested in and most concerned about, Nick?

NICK SERVINI: Yes, well these are the kinds of powers that have been tucked away in Brussels for decades, and now that Brexit is going to happen, there’s been a real focus on where they should lie. So, the classic example is agriculture, but there’s been a feature really of the debate, which is, I’m sure would have been quite strange for people, in that we’ve been talking about this seismic event Brexit, and yet a lot of the discussion has been around things like, for example, the devolution of food labelling, the regulations governing chemicals for example, and the argument from the UK government is that, okay, in time – and after months and months of talks – from a Welsh perspective they’ve whittled it down to powers in just over 20 areas, in Scotland it’s a bit more, the argument from the UK government is, ‘We haven’t got time to, at this stage, get together, put together a permanent solution, so what we need to do, on a temporary basis, is hold these powers in Westminster in order to protect trade around the UK,’ and that is why, I think, Theresa May will drop off in Wales today, as well as elsewhere in the UK to talk about the integrity of the UK market. Now, the principle is that the devolved administrations agree with this, but they’re saying they need more of a say in how those temporary arrangements are put together, there’s been something of a Groundhog Day-feel to the talks, they’ve been going on for months and months, where, by either Carwyn Jones, the First Minister of Wales, with Nicola Sturgeon, has had these discussions with Theresa May or their deputies, and at the end they come out saying, ‘Look we’re edging closer to a deal but nothing as yet’ and it’s been quite repetitive and still going on, still no solution in . . . that’s been set out yet.

MH: Nick Servini, BBC Wales Political Editor, thank you.

6.40am Newspapers

SARAH MONTAGUE: In the Daily Express, writing to mark one year until Brexit, the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, says Britain will re-engage with the rest of the world. He says we’re heading to Brexit like an unstoppable express and we can’t arrive soon enough. He concludes by saying that our national journey out of the EU is almost over, and a glorious view awaits. But in its editorial, the Guardian takes a more pessimistic approach, it says the troubling reality is that outside of the EU, Britain will be worse off in economic terms under every scenario. It asserts that leaving the EU will not enhance Britain’s place in the world it will damage it.

101

6.49am The Arts and Brexit

MISHAL HUSAIN: You can see British manufacturing in action in this factory this morning and get a sense of other parts of the economy, through all the maintenance, transport, IT and other services plant like this uses. But the fastest-growing sector of the UK economy is arts and culture. Surveys have suggested people who work in the arts were overwhelmingly against Brexit, but now, as John Wilson, presenter of Front Row explains, they’re having to engage with the idea, practically and creatively.

JOHN WILSON: In Glasgow, theatregoers have become scriptwriters and performers for a project that puts Brexit centre stage. Conversations, discussions and arguments between pairs of local people on opposing sides of the Brexit debate were recorded and then set to music by composer Finn Anderson. (voices singing ‘Take Back Control’)

FINN ANDERSON: We’d been meeting every Wednesday morning to have tea and coffee at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow and chat about Brexit and chat about what it means to be British and Scottish, and what that means for all of these different people, and we’ve brought all of that research into the room and then slowly crafted that into a script and songs.

ACTOR: Keep Britain British, that’s what I always say.

ACTOR 2: You can be British and European.

JW: And the resulting piece, ‘Come Hell or High Water’ was performed at the Citizens Theatre by a cast of nonprofessionals. So, a political harmony of sorts on stage in Glasgow, but two years ago, the EU referendum revealed the arts establishment to be wildly out of step with public opinion. In the run-up to the vote the Creative Industries Federation, which lobbies on behalf of the cultural sector, polled its members and found that 96% were Remainers. When I hosted the live Front Row debate a few weeks later, many creative types were in a state of shock. Rufus Norris, the director of the National Theatre was in the audience for that programme. He said the referendum had been a wake-up call, and he announced that he would be leading a project that would give voice to those whose stories hadn’t been heard in places like the National Theatre. The result was ‘My Country, a Work in Progress’ made with the poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. Two years on, and Rufus Norris says that with Brexit looming, the commitment now must be not only to tell stories about the nation, but to take those stories to the nation.

RUFUS NORRIS: We’re called the National Theatre, we have to be national and we have to make theatre, the clue is in the title. Those are the two things that we have to do. We’ve done more touring in the last twelve months than we’ve done in the history of this organisation. The Brexit vote made it very, very clear to us that if we are going to be valid as a National Theatre, we’ve got to be getting out there.

JW: But the success of the creative industries has to be seen in an international context. Britain exports cultural products and creative skills, and there is two-way traffic. The workforce survey recently found that 75% of creative businesses in the UK employee EU nationals. Uncertainty over post Brexit freedom of movement is worrying for Tamara Rojo, the Madrid-born dance star, artistic director of the English National Ballet, and former guest editor of the today programme.

TAMARA ROJO: There is 23 nationalities in English National Ballet, the reason why the majority of them are European nationals is because it’s simpler, it’s easier than trying to 102 bring somebody from outside the European Union. If suddenly everyone from the European Union needs visas, it’s going to be really difficult. And we already know that other European institutions are no longer approaching British companies to meet, to match, and to try and find funding, because they don’t know if the British companies will be eligible anymore, so . . .

JW: That’s already happening?

TR: That’s already happening. It’s not good enough to say, ‘Don’t worry about it’ – of course we worry about it. So there is a lot of unanswered questions.

JW: Some would see that political uncertainty as a creative challenge. Surely art can thrive in times of adversity. Rufus Norris.

RN: I’m sure that very, very informative and illuminated work is going to come out of this whole period. Whether or not Brexit, the current tumult is feeding that or not, it’s very hard to say, in the middle of it. Certainly it’s a very, very lively time.

JW: And are you looking for a great State of the Nation Brexit play in the next few years, are we going to see a David Hare or a Lucy Prebble, or a Lucy Kirkwood, or a Tom Stoppard, possibly, if he can be persuaded?

RN: If they can be persuaded. I hope so. The reality is that those things don’t usually come from where you expect them to come from. The one thing that I’m learning is that if you think anything is a safe bet then you might as well close the show now, because that’s just not the way it works. And fortunately, it’s not the way that artists work.

JW: So far, art made in response to Brexit has been pretty thin on the ground. The best art always asks questions and makes us think in turn. Martin Creed won the Turner prize in 2001 by turning the lights on and off in a gallery. Maybe that should go back on display. It’s a vivid minimalist metaphor for a divided Britain, you know, on-off, in-out, Remain-Leave. In the meantime, Tate modern is about to reinstall another Creed piece, it’s a large neon sign that reads ‘Everything is going to be Alright’ – and it is. Isn’t it?

6.54am Brexit and the Liberal Democrats

SARAH MONTAGUE: Well, with a year to go before Brexit, the Liberal Democrats are, still, holding onto the hope that it can be stopped. The Party’s deputy leader, Jo Swinson’s joined the Grassroots Coordination Group, which works across parties to campaign for a second referendum, and she joins us in Westminster now, good morning to you.

JO SWINSON: Good morning, good to be with you.

SM: How do you see a second referendum working, if you can get one?

JS: Well, it’s not about going over old ground, this is about saying that there’s a lot of new information that people did not have back in June 2016, what Brexit’s actually going to look like, how the government has approached it, what that will mean for people’s jobs, for the money in their pockets and indeed for our public services such as the NHS which people can now see with their own eyes are under threat because of the exodus of doctors and nurses from EU countries. And it’s about saying once, once those details are becoming

103 clearer, as the government comes towards the end of the negotiations, then it ought to be up to the people to decide what, what path the country takes . . .

SM: (speaking over) Indeed . . .

JS: . . . and there is still a real chance that we should be able to choose, if that’s what we want, a different path and not go down the Brexit route.

SM: Indeed, although one of the things and it’s very hard, you know, we all know . . . have to take what the polls suggest with a pinch of salt, but what John Curtice, the pollster says that, actually, if you look at what the polls are suggesting about what people want from a second referendum, they want a decision on, if they want one at all, it’s whether you leave on the negotiated terms or without any deal at all – both of which, of course, are leaving, which is not what you want.

JS: Well, I think it makes much more sense to have a vote on whether or not you leave on the negotiated terms or whether you remain in the European Union. If people don’t like the terms on offer, I mean the idea of crashing out without a deal would be so catastrophic for our economy that it doesn’t really bear contemplation, so, you know, there is an increasing momentum, I think, for people recognising that the public having the final say and having a vote on that deal makes much more sense than just leaving it to politicians in Westminster. I mean, this process started with democracy and it really ought to end with democracy rather than a political stitch up.

SM: Where’s that recognition coming from that you’re saying, because the polls certainly don’t suggest that people do actually want a second referendum?

JS: Well, I’ve certainly seen polling, and you know, you just need to look at what’s been happening with some, you know, serious political figures over the last couple of weeks. I mean, Owen Smith from the Labour Party obviously sacked by Jeremy Corbyn for this, but, you know, breaking ranks and saying, ‘No, actually, what we need is the ability for people to look at the deal that’s on offer,’ and right, fair enough, if people say, ‘That’s a good deal, I think the Conservative government have negotiated this well,’ then, then fine, they should say ‘Fair enough, go ahead with it’, but you know, if it comes back and the shambles we’ve seen that the government is making of these negotiations, if that deal comes back . . .

SM: (interrupting) Okay.

JS: . . . and people look at it and do not like it, they’ve got to have the opportunity to reject it.

SM: (speaking over) Very . . . very quickly, it’s the timing though, it’s a year to go until we leave?

JS: Well, there’s certainly time to do it within a year, and so this is still absolutely a possibility and that’s why, you know, the Liberal Democrats, we’re launching the biggest campaign that we’ve ever run outside of election time to build that momentum for people to have the final say, and we are finding a lot of people very interested in that idea.

SM: Jo Swinson, thank you.

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7am Bulletins

NEIL SLEAT: Exactly one year before the UK is due to leave the European Union, Theresa May is touring the country pledging to make Brexit a success for everybody. She will use her trip to tell voters they will thrive living outside the EU whether they voted to leave or remain. Her message could meet some resistance in Wales and Scotland where the devolved governments have accused Westminster of trying to claw back power. Our deputy political editor John Pienaar reports.

JOHN PIENAAR: England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales in a single day -the symbolism is obvious enough: the UK's leaving as one, and Theresa May's message is suitably upbeat. ‘I’m determined our future will be a bright one’ she said, ahead of today's whistle-stop tour. The prime minister pledged to defend the integrity of the UK which, as it prepares to leave the EU, she described, perhaps pointedly, as the world's most successful union. Even so, ministers are still working overtime to convince the devolved administrations they won't lose out after Brexit. The Prime Minister also set out a vision of economic prosperity at home and influence abroad, trading freely with friends and partners across Europe and beyond. But with obstacles like elusive agreements on managing the Irish border and tough talks on trade still ahead, the route to Britain's final exit still looks in many respects far less predictable and well-choreographed than Theresa May's rapid journey today.

7.09am Labour and Brexit (Extracts)

MISHAL HUSAIN: With one year to go to Brexit, we’re on the factory floor this morning at a company in Teeside. It makes plastic parts for car interiors, the pellets go into one side of the machines around me, the moulded products emerge at the other end. What is in a future trade deal with the EU really matters here, because that is largely where their products go. But when it comes to the promise meaningful vote on the EU deal in parliament, how will Labour act? The party has set out six tests for a Brexit deal to satisfy, including keeping the exact same benefits as membership of the single market, but yesterday the shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry said that if ministers put what she called a ‘blah, blah, blah divorce with no detail’ to a vote, it would probably pass Labour’s test. Well, John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor is in our Westminster studio, good morning.

JOHN MCDONNELL: Good morning, good morning.

First question is on fresh anti-Semitism row in Labour.

MH: Let’s turn to Brexit, because we’re broadcasting today from this factory to mark one year to go before we leave the EU. What did you make of your colleague Emily Thornberry saying yesterday that if what the government presents to Parliament is as she suspects, then it will probably meet your six tests?

JM: Look, Emily was being asked by a number of journalists the same question, and she, well, she responded in her personal way, with a level of good, old-fashioned British sarcasm, and said, exactly as she said, look, for goodness sake, you know what our position is, we set out six tests, if those tests are not met, and to be frank, they’re not being met at the moment, we would not support a deal, we would say to the government, ‘get back ground that negotiating table, and negotiate an effective deal’, at the moment that isn’t happening. 105

MH: (speaking over) But what she said, Mr McDonnell, what she said was, ‘We have our six tests, if you hold up blah, blah, blah’ she was referring to the deal that comes up . . .

JM: (speaking over) Yes, she was being . . .

MH: . . . ‘to the six tests, it will probably pass’, now from the point of view of the government . . .

JM: (speaking over) No, she was being sarcastic in her response to a journalist . . .

MH: Really . . .

JM: She was being sarcastic, in Emily’s style. What she . . . what was said very clearly, and you got it from me, and you had it from Keir Starmer, you’d get it from Jeremy, as well as Emily, we have six tests. At the moment, those tests are nowhere near being met. We hope the government, and we’ll assist them if necessary in making sure they do, but at the moment we’re saying, if they don’t meet those six tests, we will not vote for the deal, we expect the government to do what Parliament was instructed to do, to go back negotiate a proper deal.

MH: So, but, actually if, if the government . . . it’d be immense relief, wouldn’t it, for the government to hear what Emily Thornberry said, and, and to know that it . . .

JM: (speaking over) She was being sarcastic in response to a question.

MH: . . . if they put together . . . if, if they put out something that is anodyne enough . . .

JM: (laughs)

MH: . . . it will meet your tests.

JM: No it will not, how can it, do you want me to go through tests? Does it ensure a strong collaborative future relationship with the EU – that cannot mean an anodyne deal. Does it deliver, as they promised, and as David Davis promised in Parliament, the exact same benefits as membership of the single market and customs union . . .

MH: (speaking over) So you are sure then, you, you are sure then that you will end up voting down that deal?

JM: No, I think, I think if the government are sensible, and they negotiate properly and if it was us negotiating, we would get a deal that met the six tests. But at the moment, they’re nowhere near that, so we’re saying to them, get serious now, get down to the detail. We’re halfway through, but actually we’re more than halfway through because a deal has to be negotiated effectively by the autumn. So we are talking about September, October. We’ve literally only a few months ago now, they’re nowhere near getting a deal that protects our jobs and our economy. Now, we’re saying . . .

MH: (speaking over) Alright but (fragment of word, or word unclear)

JM: . . . is if you don’t get that deal, if you don’t meet those six tests, get back round the table, that’s like any other negotiation.

MH: Okay, and in order to allow time to get back round the table, does that mean that the parliamentary vote has to take place in the autumn?

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JM: Well, that’s what the government is indicating because you have to remember, the European Parliament has to have a vote on this as well, that’s why we’re just (fragment of word, or word unclear) there’s a sense of urgency here that the government doesn’t seem to understand, and at the moment it’s not just the negotiations with the EU that are bogged down, it is chaos in Parliament at the moment, the government is being defeated on the Withdrawal Bill almost on a daily basis in the Lords, it’s in chaos because it cannot bring the customs and trade bills back because it can’t rely upon its own backbenchers to vote for it . . .

MH: (speaking over) And when it comes, when it comes to that moment, the meaningful vote in Parliament, will you allow Labour MPs a free vote?

JM: We’ll vote in the normal way, which is on the basis of the parliamentary system, which is about parties coming to view and expecting their MPs to vote (word or words unclear due to speaking over) that view.

MH: (speaking over) So it will be whipped then, you’re saying it will be a whipped vote, and Labour . . .

JM: (speaking over) Well, obviously . . .

MH: . . . MPs will not be allowed to vote with their conscience?

JM: As you get nearer, as you get nearer the vote, decisions will be taken on the whipping arrangements in a normal way. I’d expect political parties to operate in the normal way, but actually, let’s take the customs and the trade bills that are going through at the moment, Labour is saying to the government, ‘Bring back those bills, because we think we can get consensus on the floor of the House of Commons with a number of amendments’, the government are terrified of its own backbenchers and can’t even bring those bills back yet.

MH: We will be talking to the International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox at ten past eight, John McDonnell, thank you.

7.16am Business Update

SARAH MONTAGUE: Well, a year today businesses will be embarking on the transition period, and Dharshini is in Stockton with Mishal, looking at how they’re preparing for the year ahead. Dharshini?

DHARSHINI DAVID: Thanks Sarah, yes, we’ve got a bit of breaking news for you, before we get into that, which actually highlights the challenges already facing companies. Conviviality, that’s the company that supplies drinks to 23,000 pubs and restaurants and also runs the Bargain Booze retail chain has called in the administrators. This is after it failed to raise the money needed, after being landed with a large tax bill. That breaking news for you. But back to Brexit now, because businesses across the country are able to look beyond the noise of the debate to the future. They now know that they’ll get a 21-month transitional adjustment period, and what the government is aiming for, which is what it calls an ambitious trade deal with managed divergence, but is that in the interest of corporate Britain? John Longworth is Co-Chairman of Leave Means Leave, he was previously head of

107 the British Chambers of Commerce, a role he stepped down from during the referendum campaigning period. John, good morning to you.

JOHN LONGWORTH: Good morning.

DD: Er . . . you won the referendum, but when it comes to the deal itself, you’re losing out. This isn’t what you’re looking for, you were looking for a clean break?

JL: Well, it will be a clean break and if we have to wait an additional few months in order to have that clean break, then it’s a price worth paying. But I still believe at the moment that the government could have a deal with the European Union which would not require a transition period, the transition period being quite dangerous period of time for the UK because will be a rule-taker, we’ll be a vassal state in the European Union.

DD: But the reality is, and we are sitting here in the middle of a very complex factory, the reality is, if you’re running a business there’s a lot more at stake, I mean, you’ve got to think about things like customs, rules of origin, public procurement for example in the public sector, regulations in industries like chemicals, those kind of things cannot be sorted overnight, they do need a transition period?

JL: Well no, they don’t, I mean we are actually on the same rules as the European Union, so nothing has changed, we don’t . . . the transition period just introduces additional uncertainty for business. What the government needs to do right now is set out, very clearly, what the post-Brexit economy will look like and all the good things that will happen to give business confidence. Strike a candidate style deal with the European Union, which the EU have said that they would accept, and therefore could be done quickly, it will cover the vast majority of products, 98% of products will be covered, and we could then get on and leave within a few weeks, so the transition period . . .

DD: (speaking over) John, on the ground here . . .

JL: . . . need no longer than a few weeks.

DD: On the ground here, the North East of England, talking to many business owners as we have been, many have said, ‘We voted out, but we’re not getting what we were promised, it doesn’t look that bright, we’re changing our minds’, you haven’t delivered really have you?

JL: Well, I don’t think they’re saying that at all. I mean . . .

DD: (speaking over) They’re telling us that.

JL: What businesses are saying to me, and there are lots of business members of Leave Means Leave, very simply, what they’re saying is, even those who voted Remain, ‘Let’s get on and leave’, most people in this country, most of the surveys show now, the vast majority of people in this country want to just get on and leave and have the benefits of Brexit. So actually, that’s not what businesses are in fact saying, what they want to know . . .

DD: (speaking over) Well, they’re telling us something different. We’re out of time, John, we’re going to have to leave . . .

JL: . . . what they want to know is what the government are going to do . . .

DD: (speaking over) it there, thank you. Thank you. 108

7.19am One Year to Brexit

MISHAL HUSAIN: If you have a Nissan, a Honda, a Ford, a Toyota, among other brands of car, then the fittings around your seats, doors, windows or dashboards might well have come from where we are this morning, the Nifco car parts factory just outside Stockton-on- Tees. It’s a 24 hour operation, the morning shift are now an hour into their day, and the 650 people who work here can turn pellets of plastic into finished items within 24 hours. The boss here is very worried about trade with the EU in the future, but most people who live in this region voted to leave. I sat down with a group of Nifco staff yesterday, Remain and Leave voters amongst them, to ask how they see the year ahead. Peter, Sonia, Tina, Frankie, and first, Malcolm.

MALCOLM: I voted to leave mainly because I felt Brussels had too much power.

MH: Frankie, what do you think?

FRANKIE: I’ll be honest, I didn’t really pay attention to it all through school and everything, it was more when it came about I thought, ‘Oh god’ – didn’t want to waste a vote, and then looked into, well, do I want to stay, do I want to leave, and then I mainly voted on the impact it would have, obviously within work, I was pretty scared of, if we came out, what the impact would be on Nifco, from a selfish point of view, as my job and my work.

MH: And therefore you voted to Remain.

F: Yeah.

MH: And how do you feel now?

F: Obviously I work in the warehouse, sending stuff out, we can see a change already, so it is quite . . .

MH: Is demand dropping do you mean?

F: Yeah, dropping.

MH: Sonia, what do you think about the outlook for your livelihood and your job after Brexit?

SONIA: I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sure. In my point of view, I think if we absolutely come out of the single market, we’ll be shooting ourselves in the foot.

MH: I wonder what you all feel the politicians ought to be saying to you, explaining to you? Tina, what would you like to actually have spelt out about what you need to know about what happens in a year’s time and further down the line.

TINA: (laughs) Why did you ask me? To be honest, it doesn’t matter what we think, you know, what we want them to do, they’ll do what they want to do. So, I just sit back and just let it all happen.

MH: Peter, you’re in an unusual position here, because . . .

PETER: Yes.

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MH: . . . you are a Polish national and you didn’t have a vote in the referendum.

P: (speaking over) Correct. I think from people living from outside the UK important is the assurance of certainty about being able to live in a country after the change.

MH: Do you think you’ll stay in this country?

P: At the moment yes. I think my wife is a bit uncertain, I mean, we’ve been here for thirteen years, we earn the right to be able to apply for British passports, from my perspectives I personally don’t feel that’s necessary, my wife wants to have a little bit of reassurance so she thinks we should start, so that’s what we’re starting our application for. Erm . . .

MH: To become British citizens.

P: Yeah.

MH: In one year’s time, we will be outside the EU. Can you sum up for me how you will feel on that day?

T: I would say relief.

M: I was about to say the same thing, relief that it’s all over.

T: A relief that it’s probably going to be all . . . everyone’s . . . like, just relief that it’s all . . . not over with, but we can sort of then crack on and build Great Britain back up again.

F: We can go forward.

T: Yeah, go forward, build Britain back up . . .

F: We can go forward.

M: Yeah, everybody needs to get behind Brexit, needs to push it forward, and when we get to that point, we should all say, ‘This is a new beginning’, let’s make the best.

T: I agree with that.

S: Yeah.

MH: You can say that, Sonia . . . .

S: Yeah.

MH: . . . as someone who voted for Remain, you can say . . .

S: Yeah.

MH: . . . ‘I want to get behind Brexit’?

S: Yeah. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what the country decided that they wanted, we just have to say well . . .

T: Get on with it.

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S: You know what I mean? Move forward.

M: I must admit I thought once, once we’d left, that would be it – I didn’t realise that there would be a transition period. The one thing that nobody likes is change, and when we get to that point where we leave, we want to be certain what we’re moving into.

MH: I feel there’s a sort of weariness from all of you, at Brexit. Is that right? Does it, does it feel as if it’s commanded so much attention and airtime and debate, Frankie?

F: Yeah, I think it’s all anybody ever speaks about, I think once we get the date of whenever it is of, ‘Right, we’re out now’, I think we can then sort of crack on and say, ‘Right, this is what we’ve got to do now,’ so as I say, if we do have to, in the warehouse produce different paperwork to go outside of the EU, that’s what we’re going to have to do, that’s what you’re going to . . . it’s what England voted for, so it’s . . . let’s just roll with it.

P: It’s difficult to go towards this change or appreciate this change, you know, because there’s a level of uncertainty, where are we going to? And it might be a positive change, it might be a negative change, until the deal is done you never know.

S: Every time you go on the television it’s Brexit this, Brexit that, and you just, you just get a bit sick of . . . hearing all about it, just keep thinking, ‘get on with it, please, just sort it out!’

MH: Your family, did everyone vote for . . . Remain?

S: No, my erm . . . my youngest son, he voted to come out. But at the end of the day it was his point of view, right, so I listened to what he had to say, but there’s no division in our family.

MH: Do you think that Brexit is going to be good for the UK? Tina?

T: Hopefully.

MH: Frankie?

F: I’d like to think so yeah, hopefully, yeah.

S: Probably not at first, but it’s like everything, it’s the settling in period isn’t it. You know, in years to come, years down the line it probably will be.

MH: Malcolm?

M: The further we get out of Brexit, the better the country will be. That initial changeover will be difficult, and we might feel some pain.

T: It’s like everything, isn’t it?

MH: But what if that pain is personal to you? What if one of those carmakers who get the parts that you ship out of this factory just decides to close up their plant and move it somewhere onto the continent, and that will have an immediate effect on demand for your goods, how will that make you feel, Malcolm?

M: Erm, well upset obviously, because I don’t want to see anybody lose their jobs. (words unclear due to speaking over)

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MH: What if it was your job that went?

M: Erm . . . I would just have to take it on the chin. I would be upset, but I still wouldn’t change my views.

S: I would just think, well, there’s nothing I can do about it, or anything else anybody can do about it, so you’re going to lose your job, you’re going to lose your job, aren’t you?

M: That’s it, ups and downs in everything isn’t there.

F: If you did, you’d just have to run with it, and . . .

T: Just brush yourself down and get on with it, and look for another one.

F: Yeah.

T: Because there’s nothing you can do about it. There’s nothing at all you could do about it.

MH: Thank you all very much. Sonia, Malcolm, Frankie, Peter and Tina.

7.30am Bulletins

NEIL SLEAT: Exactly one year the UK is due to leave the European Union, Theresa May is touring the country pledging to make Brexit a success for everybody. She will use her visit to tell voters they will thrive living outside the EU, whether they voted to leave or remain.

7.41am Newspapers

MISHAL HUSAIN: let’s have a look at today’s papers, and most of them feature stories about Brexit with you to go until the UK leaves the EU. The Times says the government’s hoping the country won’t look very different the day after Brexit, however it cautions that a transition agreement is not a foregone conclusion, saying it will happen only if everything else is agreed. The Telegraph quotes the shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornbury as saying Labour will probably vote in favour of the final Brexit deal, adding that she expected the divorce deal to pass Labour’s threshold for an acceptable agreement. On its website, the New European says Brexit could still be stopped, it claims that any number of events might get in the way of withdrawal or at least shape the way the UK leaves. The Spectator says the Brexit Secretary David Davis is hopeful the UK will get pretty substantively close to a free trade agreement with the EU by October, reporting on an interview with Mr Davis at an event hosted by the magazine, notes that he highlighted the big fight in the coming negotiations won’t be tariffs, where both sides were pretty much agreed they didn’t want them, but on the issue of standards.

7.43am Young People’s Questions

MISHAL HUSAIN: The questions many of us have about Brexit aren’t only about what the government is negotiating for the country as a whole, but what it might mean for our

112 own lives - holidays, travel, opportunities. Our chief correspondent, Matthew Price is with me on the factory floor this morning, having gathered some questions from the younger people here in Teeside, what have you heard Matthew?

MATTHEW PRICE: Well, Mishal, a short drive away from this factory you get to Stockton-On-Tees, and I was there yesterday, talking to some young adults who work at a law firm. And here’s the first of their questions.

JENNIFER GALLAGHER: Hello, my name is Jennifer Gallagher, and I’m 25 years old and I’m a trainee solicitor. Will UK citizens be restricted to a limited period of stay in EU countries, post-Brexit, if there are visa requirements implemented upon British citizens, and that may affect being able to study abroad or work abroad?

MP: Now, in Jennifer’s case, she’s going to qualify in January next year, that’s just before we leave, so the answer for her she can go wherever she likes in the EU to work and train. Her right to remain until the end of 2020. But then the rules are going to change. Brits are going to have fewer rights to work and live in the EU, and the same’s going for EU citizens coming to the UK. Both sides, though, do say they want to keep visa-free travel going after Brexit, but it is a matter for negotiation.

MH: Now, she’s out of university, what about those who are teenagers and who are wondering if after 2021 they’d be able to apply to an EU university and pay lower fees?

MP: Well, I’m sure they’d be able to apply, can they pay lower fees, we don’t know yet, and a quick example, if at the moment you want to do a university course in the Netherlands, annual tuition fees for EU students start at a little over 2000 (no denomination given) if you’re not an EU student in the Netherlands going to work, er, university, those fees go up at least three times to €6000. Erm, so much is going to depend on the deal, but of course, I guess it also depends on whether individual countries want to attract British students by offering lower fees.

MH: What about holidays and what you might . . . services you might need if you’re on holiday.

MP: Yep, so there’s a question from another person working at the law firm.

KATIE NEARY: Hello, my name’s Katie Neary, and I’m 25, I’m a legal support officer. My question would be will Brexit mean an end to the European Health Insurance Card for us?

MP: So, this is about the system that operates right now in which we can get access to healthcare across the bloc, whether we go on holiday or live in another EU country. Both sides in the negotiations are saying at the moment that they do want reciprocal healthcare access to continue. Switzerland, for instance, is a non-EU member, but it is part of the scheme, so it’s possible it could continue. At the moment, we just don’t know. There was a joint report produced by the UK and the EU which went some way to guaranteeing things but there are concerns that perhaps people living in other countries will lose rights if they move, so UK citizens who move from Germany to Portugal to carry on working there, will they take their rights with them, we just don’t know at this stage.

MH: Matthew, thank you.

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7.49am Westminster and Brexit

MISHAL HUSAIN: For the next few months the Brexit focus will remain the work of the EU and UK negotiating teams. The Irish government wants an answer to the border issue by June, the aim is for an agreement on our withdrawal, the transition period and the shape of a future deal by October. If that sounds tricky, what happens next here at home might be more so when we get to what’s been promised as a meaningful vote for our Parliament. What will it entail and what happens if the government fails at the Westminster Parliamentary hurdle? It’s a question that Nick has been exploring.

NICK ROBINSON: Standing under Big Ben, the tower that holds the bell is unrecognisable, covered in scaffolding, the bell itself is silent for now. But the most passionate Brexiteers are determined it will be heard again at 11pm in a year’s time, the moment that Britain leaves the EU. That will depend on what happens inside. Here in Parliament. It will depend on whether Theresa May can make sense of her most famous of all soundbites, ‘Brexit means Brexit’ – it may have sounded banal to you, but in here it was a signal – a Remainer was saying to other Remainers, ‘We have a duty to deliver the referendum result, to make sure Britain does leave.’

TOUR GUIDE: Alright, boys and girls, so here we are a central lobby, this is the heart of Parliament.

NR: For now, all is calm in Parliament. The schoolchildren are shown round and taught what this place is all about. But all here are preparing for a mighty parliamentary battle this autumn, when the government’s promised to give MPs and peers vote on any deal Theresa May brings back from Brussels. Just listen to two views from opposite ends of the great Brexit debate in her own party: passionate Tory Remainer, Nicky Morgan and the shop steward of the Brexiteers, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

JACOB REES-MOGG: If Brexit weren’t to take place, I think there would be a collapse of confidence in our democratic processes. It would show that democracy is worthless – it doesn’t matter how you vote, the establishment will carry merrily along anyway.

NICKY MORGAN: Parliament will insist on being front and centre of the most important decision that is going to be taken, that’s going to affect’s place in the world for decades to come.

TOUR GUIDE: So who does Parliament work for? Not the MPs. Who does Parliament work for? The MPs work for someone. Not the Queen.

CHILD’S VOICE: Us.

TOUR GUIDE: Us. That’s right. The MPs work for us.

NR: That is one thing MPs can agree on, they are sent here to work for us. What divides them though is what working for us actually means.

NM: Colleagues are talking about getting the balance right between voting on behalf of the constituency, country and party, in a way I’ve never heard before.

NR: Nicky Morgan is the Tory chair of the Treasury Select Committee. She has already demonstrated her willingness to defy the party whips, and the party line.

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NM: There will come a moment where people think, actually, you know what, I’ve got to do the right thing, I’ve got to do right for my constituents, so for me their jobs and security of people in my constituency, but I’ve got to do the right thing for the country because I have a feeling that in the next 40 or 50 years we are going to be doing lots of programme like this, where people will say, ‘Well, where were you on the night of the meaningful vote? How did you vote? And why did you make the decision that you thought was right for the country?’

TOUR GUIDE: And here we are in the heart of Parliament then, between the House of Commons and the House of Lords, what are the MPs here to do for us?

CHILD: Make laws.

TOUR GUIDE: They want to make laws, that’s right.

NR: MPs may make laws, but they don’t make deals. The Prime Minister does that. But they have been promised a meaningful vote on any deal that Theresa May brings back from Brussels. Irony of ironies, it took a vote in the Commons, a vote in which Labour combined with Tory Remainer rebels, to secure that promise. A vote which, as you might recall, and those rebels the label ‘Mutineer’ – splashed across the front page of the Tory-backing Telegraph. Chief amongst them, Ken Clarke.

KEN CLARKE: MPs should follow the long-standing constitutional principle that in the end their duty is to cast their votes in what they believe to be the national interest, not just to be terrified of the right wing newspapers or to feel that they’ve got to go opinion polls.

NR: That there will be a vote on any deal Theresa May makes is not in doubt. What is though is pretty much everything else. Walk around any corner here, and you’ll hear gossip and speculation, and, oh yes, plotting about what the vote might mean and what it might lead to. So what’s the view of the expert? The former clerk to the Commons, Lord Lisvane. If Parliament votes to reject a deal the Prime Minister does with the EU, what then?

LORD LISVANE: It’s not necessarily a flat rejection. That is possible, but I think it’s quite likely. I think much more likely is that there will be conditions or riders attached by means of amendment. But, of course, that depends on how the numbers pan out in the Commons.

NR: People who’ve memories of Callahan and Thatcher might assume a defeat on something important, like a deal with the EU, would trigger an election – not so?

LL: What prime ministers can’t do anymore under the Fixed-term Parliament Act is simply decide, ‘I’m going to have a general election’ and go and ask her majesty for a dissolution.

NR: That, of course, is not what the government whips will say. They’re preparing to do what government whips have always done down the ages, warning their potential rebels that any defeat might be the end for the Prime Minister, the end of her government, a vote, in other words, to put Jeremy Corbyn into Number 10. That, says Nicky Morgan, won’t put her off doing what she believes is in the interests of the country.

NM: Relying on MPs to be scared, particular over something as important as Brexit, is a really bad way to get loyalty amongst colleagues.

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NR: You have been prepared to vote with the Labour Party, should the Tory whips be prepared for you and others like you to do that again?

NM: I don’t think it should be ruled out.

NR: There is, as yet, no agreement amongst Remainers on how to maximise their chance of beating the government. Some favour a vote on a customs union, others on a second referendum, or, as they prefer to present it, ‘A people’s vote’ on the deal the Prime Minister does. But one simple proposition is winning wide support just now. MPs must be offered more than two options, more than ‘take it or leave it’, more, in other words, than ‘take the deal, or leave the EU with no deal at all.’

JRM: Well, I make no bones about the fact that leaving without a deal is better than leaving with a bad deal. And that many deals are worse than leaving without any deal at all.

NR: If Parliament voted ‘no’ and the result was no deal, Jacob Rees-Mogg would have a smile on his face?

JRM: Any tears that came from me in those circumstances would be crocodile tears.

NR: But not all Leavers are so keen on ‘no deal’. Labour’s Frank Field may have campaigned to get out of the EU, but many of his Birkenhead constituents work for Vauxhall, a car company owned by the French and dependent on frictionless trade all over Europe. He still backs Brexit, but he’s willing to delay, to wait until the right deal can be secured.

FRANK FIELD: I don’t think we should pay any attention to the timetable. Nothing else any government, the government has said on timetabling has proved correct. And I think what we’ll probably see is sectional agreements made, for fishing, for cars and for so on, and they will, could be ticked off quite quickly, and I would have thought the others would go on over the deadline.

TOUR GUIDE: And you guys have come a very long time today, to Parliament, you left at 6.30 this morning, and you have got someone here that works for you, and your area of the country.

NR: What, though, does working for us mean when it comes to Brexit? That’s what MPs are contemplating in the weeks and the months to come. And as I leave Parliament, I still find myself in that great cloud of unknowing, unsure whether Big Ben will ring in a year’s time, at 11pm, not knowing whether Brexit really will mean Brexit, and believe me, it’s not just me that doesn’t know, it’s everybody here – not least Theresa May herself.

8am Bulletins

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NS: Although March 29, 2019 is the official date the UK will leave the European Union, EU leaders are not starting their countdown to Brexit just yet. Our Europe Editor, Katya Adler reports.

KATYA ADLER: Brussels believes it’s misleading to speak of there being a year to go now until Brexit for two reasons – the time left to negotiate a withdrawal agreement is far shorter than 12 months, according to the European Commission, which says talks must be wrapped up by late autumn this year, to allow the European and the British Parliament time to vote on any deal. But also, while the UK officially and legally does leave the EU next March, it is then expected to enter a so-called transition or implementation period, where most aspects of EU membership will be maintained, including paying into the EU budget. That phase ends in December 2020, which is when Brussels really feel the UK walks out the door.

8.10am Interview with Liam Fox

MISHAL HUSAIN: This time next year, we will wake up to a countdown. On 11pm on 29 March, 2019 – midnight Brussels time – the UK will no longer be a member of the European Union, ending a journey that began 45 years ago, when we joined what was then the European Economic Community. For some it will be a moment of sadness, for others jubilation as Brexit is delivered, or at least starts to be delivered, because at that point, assuming we enter a transition period, we will still be paying into the EU budget and retaining most of the current arrangements for a time. That gives some certainty to a business like the one we’ve come to this morning, it makes moulded plastic interior parts for car makers including Nissan and Toyota and 80% of what comes off the production line here ends up on vehicles on the continent. So what will happen between now and the end of next March, and then by 2021 when the transition period, assuming it is agreed in the next few months, comes to an end? To help us answer our questions this morning, Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary is in our Westminster studio, good morning Dr Fox.

LIAM FOX: Good morning.

MH: What will be different in practical terms when we wake up on 30 March 2019?

LF: Well, as far as trade goes, we will have the ability, which we don’t have at the present time to negotiate future trade agreements with countries outside the European Union, we will also have an independent seat on the World Trade Organisation will give us an ability to shape the global trading environment in a way that we want to see, which is a 117 more open and more liberal global trading environment to ensure that free trade brings the benefit to the next generation that we’ve enjoyed including taking a billion people out of poverty in the last generation.

MH: But those trade deals that you’re talking about, they won’t be able to enter into effect until the end of the transition period, so what will be different in practical terms on 30 March 2019?

LF: Well, you’re quite right, we won’t be able to implement them, but will have the ability to agree them. Erm, and that means that we have taken back control over very important area of policy . . .

MH: (speaking over) I mean, that’s different in your life, I’m sort of wondering about the rest of us, the ordinary citizen, what will be different for us on 30 March 2019?

LF: What will be different is that we will have control over all areas of our national life, for example, we’ve got the ability to take back control of our laws, that, for me, was the main reason why I voted to leave and campaigned to leave.

MH: Not during the transition period?

LF: Well, the transition period is there to ease our path out of the European Union, so that people have predictability. And, you know, for many others, we campaigned to get that, but we didn’t want it done in a way that might be damaging to the country, we want to ensure that the vote of the British people is upheld, but it’s upheld in a way that is to our . . . maximally to our national benefit.

MH: That’s why I’m asking about what changes in practical terms, because isn’t it the case that what changes in practical terms, this glorious future that your colleague Boris Johnson has written about this morning, that change actually happens at the end of 2020?

LF: For most of the practical issues, that will be the case, because we, as I say, we are wanting to leave the European Union, but we’re not going to do it in a way that damages our economy or our national interests, and, you know, people would have been very critical of us were we to have the so-called cliff edge, we’ve decided that that is not in Britain’s interests, and we are bringing the country together because we said that we will respect the democratic view of the people, but we’ll do it in a way that actually gives maximal coherence to government policy and doesn’t give an unexpected change that people would find upsetting.

MH: (speaking over) Okay, so the . . . indeed, so then (fragment of word, unclear) to avoid the unexpected change, what we have between now and the end of 2020 is will still be paying in, we’ll still be taking the rules, we won’t be setting them, which is why Jacob Rees- Mogg has said that in effect we’ll be a vassal state in that time. I’m sure you wouldn’t share those words, but you acknowledge the point?

LF: (speaking over) I absolutely . . . I absolutely wouldn’t share those words, and I would say that what we’re doing is carrying out the will of the people to leave the European Union, which we shouldn’t question, we must accept, but we’re doing it in a way that is providing the least risk to the United Kingdom, and giving as the maximal opportunity to implement changes that we may have to make.

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MH: The moment that Parliament is waiting for is that meaningful vote on the deal. What will happen if MPs take that opportunity and vote the deal down?

LF: Well, we have to wait and see what the deal is, and do we think that we’ll get a deal, and my view is yes we will. And why do I think that we’ll get a deal that will be acceptable to Parliament? Because, if you look at what’s happening in terms of trade between the United Kingdom and the European Union, we have a 17 billion surplus in services with the European Union, the European Union has a 102 billion surplus with the United Kingdom, so it would be very damaging to businesses in Europe not to come to a deal. And therefore I think that the economic well-being of the people of Europe, of the businesses of Europe, of the workers of Europe will ultimately take precedence in those negotiations, over the politics of ever-closer union.

MH: Right. But that’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking what happens when, at the moment, you put that vote to the Westminster Parliament and MPs voted down because Labour has said they would want the effect of that to be that you go back to Brussels and negotiate again. What will happen?

LF: Well, as I say, I’m certainly not going into a negotiation on the basis that we’re not going to succeed. And I think that would be damaging (fragments of words, or words unclear due to speaking over)

MH: (speaking over) No, I’m not asking that, I’m saying, you do succeed, you get a deal, you bring it back to Parliament for that meaningful vote, what happens if MPs don’t like it? And, for whatever reason, they voted down? Will you go back to Brussels?

LF: Well, we are not going to accept that premise at the present time, we believe we’re going to bring a deal that Parliament will want, and no government would go into a negotiation with its alternative being available to the people it’s negotiating with. We’ve got to maintain confidence in this. If we go into a negotiation with the European Union talking about our failure to get it accepted by Parliament, that weakens our own case.

MH: So will, will we leave anyway then? If MPs vote it down, will we leave anyway?

LF: We’re going to leave the European Union, we will want to get the best deal, we believe we’ll get a deal that Parliament will accept, and I was very encouraged by some of the words from the Labour Party yesterday, that they believe that they’re likely to accept a deal that the government will come to. We’ve been very exhaustive discussing these issues, we’ve given a long time for implementation, we believe that Parliament will be with us, and we are going to implement the will of the British people and a year from today we were believing the EU.

MH: John McDonnell has said Emily Thornberry was being sarcastic when she said that, that that’s not the position of the Labour Party?

LF: Well, we’ll wait and see, it’s unclear from day-to-day what the Labour Party actually does mean and I wasn’t very clear yesterday which of them was speaking for the Labour Party, but we’ll see. And we believe that it’s in the economic interests of the UK to get a good deal, we believe it’s in the economic interests of the European Union to get a good deal. Britain has done very well since the referendum, our employment is at an all-time high, our exports are up 11%, our manufacturing is up, our foreign investment into the UK is at an all-time high, money is coming into this country in terms of tech investment, we should

119 be very confident about where we are and very confident that we can come to a good economic deal that’s in the interests of the UK and Europe.

MH: (speaking over) Okay, but let me, let me give you a perspective from where I am this morning on Teeside. Unemployment in this area is higher than the UK average, people’s health is worse than the average for England, there is a high level of people with no qualifications, or qualifications below the national average, the business that I’m in this morning, when I asked the managing director of the business about trade with the rest of the world he said, in this industry, localised supply chains are what it’s all about, so products manufactured here are never going to end up in China or Korea, they’re going to end up in Europe or in the UK, because the distance really matters, what would you say to him?

LF: I would say, looks at what’s actually happening in our trade. Back in 2006, 58% of Britain’s exports went to the European Union, today only 43% of our exports go to the European Union. The IMF says that 90% of global growth in the next 10 to 15 years will be outside the European continent, that’s where the growing markets are going to be.

MH: (speaking over) Okay, but for this, for this business, if . . . you know, if you’re a carmaker, with a plant in China, you’re not going to bring your moulded seat panels from the UK. You’re just not, it’s too far, it’s too expensive?

LF: Well, it’s up to the United Kingdom to be able to compete in those markets, and we are increasingly competing in those markets, otherwise our exports would not be up. Last year global growth was about, and trade was about 3.7%, Britain’s exports were up 11.5%, we’re getting an increased share already of the global markets and we need to be ambitious about where we go. And, you know, when you look at the performance of the UK economy, it is actually much stronger than anyone predicted it would be, our trading performance is stronger . . .

MH: (speaking over) Although some of . . . some of your own impact assessments for this, for this region for the North East, the North East of England suggest the adverse impact of Brexit on people here.

LF: Well, my department’s estimates are that global trade will continue to expand, and Britain’s share of that will continue to expand, and all regions of the UK are actually improving, Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, all have increase in exports over the past year.

MH: On, on the transition period, is it possible that it may extend before the end of 2020?

LF: No, I don’t think that’s likely to happen, I think that the European Union have made it clear that that’s where they see the end of the process being, I think that we understand that we need to get the British public’s support, and that an extension would not be popular. We need to (fragments of words, unclear due to speaking over)

MH: (speaking over) But you can’t rule it out, can you? You’re not able, at this moment, to rule that out?

LF: Well, I think the European Union are ruling it out. I think they’ve said that they don’t see that there’s a case for that.

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MH: Okay, but is the UK government, can you, as a member of the UK government rule it out? From your side?

LF: Well, I wouldn’t like to see that, and nor would I support an extension. I think we have to implement the will of the people, I think we’ve given ourselves sufficient time to do that, we’re making all the preparations required, and I think the public would see an extension beyond 2020, given that it would be a number of years since the referendum, I think they would find that too slow. We’re going to leave the European Union, we’re going to make a great case for Britain’s global role, we’re already seeing that put into practice, all the predictions of doom and gloom made at the time of the referendum have proved to be wrong, Britain is on a much more optimistic and confident note than . . .

MH: (speaking over) Right, so that . . .

LF: . . . anyone predicted.

MH: . . . so that, if that date, the end of 2020 is, you know, is, is inked, how many trade deals would you have ready to go at that point?

LF: Well, that depends on the negotiations we have, and how successful we are. Of course, we will have a number . . .

MH: (speaking over) (fragment of word, or word unclear) is a hand— a handful?

LF: Well, we’ll have . . .

MH: (speaking over) More than that?

LF: Well, we will have arrangements that we will be able to roll over from the European Union’s agreements, we hope to have, there are around 40 of those, we hope we will have all of those in place by the time we go again (words unclear due to speaking over)

MH: (speaking over) Is that 40 coun— is that 40 countries?

LF: No, there are about 70 countries and about 40 agreements, so if you want to be technical, the number of free trade agreements, a number are called EPAs, a number are association agreements, they’re very different.

MH: (speaking over) Right, so how many would be ready to go, would you have worked on, signed, and be ready to come into effect at the end of 2020?

LF: (speaking over) We hope, we hope that all of those ones will be ready, because they are extensions of what we have at the moment, of course, we require the agreement of the countries involved, we’ve spoken to all the 70 countries involved, they’ve all given agreement that they would like to see that in place, but we’d also want to see new agreements for the United Kingdom, taking advantage of being able to negotiate beyond the European Union’s borders, we’ve already begun discussions with Australia, with New Zealand, with the United States about the scope of those future agreements, we’ve got 14 working groups in place with 21 countries at the present time, I do hope to make as much progress as possible, because we need to have a confident and optimistic agenda for Britain’s future.

MH: Dr Liam Fox, thank you very much. And there will be more about Brexit all day on Radio 4, with a special schedule of programs under the theme ‘Britain at the Crossroads’, 121 there are special editions of The Long View, the World at One, and the World Tonight and a Bottom Line/Briefing Room mash-up bringing together figures from politics and business across the EU.

8.34am Bulletins

NEIL SLEAT: Exactly one year before the UK’s due to leave the European Union, Theresa May is touring the country. She has pledged to make Brexit a success for everybody.

8.35am Interview with Tony Blair

SARAH MONTAGUE: There’s no doubt that one of the reasons people voted to leave the EU was immigration. There was one of the largest peacetime movements of people in Europe in the decade after 2004, when 8 Eastern European countries joined the EU. A million people moved to the UK in that time. And one of the reasons they moved here was the UK was one of the few EU countries not to impose restrictions on freedom of movement. It was a decision taken by the then-Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who joins us in the studio now, good morning to you.

TONY BLAIR: Good morning.

SM: Now your institute is actually coming up with proposals to affect how immigration works in the EU today, but before we come onto that, do you accept that that decision was a mistake because it led to the . . . some of the feelings that led to vote for Brexit?

TB: I mean, I accept the politics are completely different today than they were back then, but it’s just important to explain the decision in 2004. 2004, as you say, you had the countries from Eastern Europe joined the European Union, very important that they did so, particularly with what’s happening in Russia today. From that moment people were entitled to move freely round the EU. What we could have done is put in transitional arrangements for a period of years which would have prevented them working, (fragment of word, or word unclear due to speaking over)

SM: (speaking over) Which all other countries bar two others, Sweden and Ireland, chose to do.

TB: Right, so if you take, for example Germany, they put in . . .

SM: (speaking over) Hmm.

TB: . . . place those transitional arrangements. Now, what we believed at the time was that if we did that since our economy was extremely strong, people would be free to move anyway and they’d just move and work without the necessary permits. In Germany, this is precisely what happened. So, you know, you can carry on arguing about the decision . . .

SM: (speaking over) Okay.

TB: . . . in 2004, but actually the . . .

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SM: (interrupting) So, so, so (fragment of word, or word unclear) so perhaps your argument would be then, it wasn’t a mistake what we did, but we didn’t sell it to the British people well enough?

TB: No, I think it would be actually simpler than that, it would be to say, obviously, if I’d still been in office post-the financial crisis when the debate around migration changed, we probably would have been in a different position taking different types of decisions, but the point is that if you look at the EU migration . . .

SM: (interrupting) So what, so Gordon Brown, your successor should have done what?

TB: No, it’s not a question of what Gordon Brown should have done, or anyone else should have done . . .

SM: (speaking over) Well, that was the time of the financial crisis?

TB: It’s simply that at the time in 2004, right, we prioritised the economy over controlling migration, because that was . . . the economy was in a very strong position, we actually needed the workforce from Europe. And, by the way, on the whole that workforce from Europe has done a fantastic job in the country. The paper we’re publishing today, incidentally is not just about European migration. If you want to handle, handle the immigration question, you’ve got to handle all of immigration. And remember, the posters with Nigel Farage were in front of Syrian refugees, they weren’t in front of European migrants. So I actually also think that the biggest concern that people have about immigration is not actually immigration from Europe, once we do this, the analysis today, we see that most of these people are people we need, they’re either highly-skilled people . . .

SM: (speaking over) Okay . . . but I . . .

TB: . . . students, or low-skilled people in, in employment where we actually need those people to come and work here.

SM: (speaking over) So . . . so I come back, though, to my question about what could, you know, given the time again, what you would have done differently, I mean, there were huge numbers, a million came from the Eastern European countries in the decade after 2004. Your argument seems to be that was fine, we needed them, erm, perhaps in the latter years we should have tailed it off a bit?

TB: No, it’s, it’s . . . you could, for example, now, under the, under the immigration rules, if we wanted to enforce them in the same way they do for example in Belgium or France, we could cut European migrant numbers now. The point is, if you’re going to deal with immigration, you’ve got to deal with the whole picture to do with immigration. And what we are saying today in the paper we’ve put out from the Institute is that you need a wholly new approach to immigration, where you understand that immigration is a good thing for the country, it brings energy, vitality, high-skilled people, but people are anxious about controls. And, by the way, if you look at the picture on immigration today, we get more migrants from outside of Europe than we do inside . . .

SM: Indeed.

TB: . . . Europe. And just incidentally, to say . . .

SM: (speaking over) And we, and we always have done, but it’s the bit . . .

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TB: (interrupting) Right, and just to say, yes it’s true that we got a lot of European migrants into Britain, erm, it’s also true that a lot of Brits went and worked in Europe. So, you know, free movement of people as a general principle, I think there’s nothing wrong with it, if you want . . .

SM: (speaking over) So . . .

TB: If you want to control it more, you can do.

SM: So you want this idea of ID cards, universal E-identity?

TB: E-identity, because you have the technological capability today to give people their own digital identity, so if, for example, you’re accessing services or benefits, or you’re looking for a job, then you would produce your identity, and if you want to control immigration, that is the only way of doing it, that is where, you know, significant numbers of European countries are moving to. If you take a country like Estonia . . .

SM: (speaking over) (fragment of word, or word unclear) in terms of what you, what . . . what I know you want, which is the UK to think again on Brexit, it’s too late for that, isn’t it?

TB: No, it’s not too late. It’s not too late until we leave, and the reason for that is very, very simple. Until we know the terms of the new relationship, and the Prime Minister made a very important commitment on Monday, she said when we get the Withdrawal Bill before Parliament, we will also have the terms of the new relationship with sufficient detail so that we know exactly what the future looks like. At that point, that’s when you know what the alternative to European Union membership is. Sensible thing is to take a final decision once you see the terms of the new deal. And the extraordinary thing we’ve been brought to in this country is for people to say, ‘No, you decided that June 2016, doesn’t matter what the terms are, doesn’t matter even if there are no terms, you’ve just got to leave.’ What people like me are saying is, ‘No, we keep this, you know, under debate until we actually see the terms of the new relationship, and then we can decide whether those terms are better than what we have now.’

SM: If you were to put odds on the UK leaving the EU what would they be?

TB: Erm, I mean, I . . . I think they’ve, they’ve gone up in the direction of . . . I believe when the government puts a proposition before Parliament, if it has this sufficient detail, they will have to resolve what I call the Dilemma with a capital ‘D’. You’re either going to keep close to Europe for reasons of the economy, in which case you’re going to be aligned with Europe’s rules, in which case I think a lot of people will say, ‘Well, why are we leaving?’ or you’ll do what the Liam Foxes of this world want, which is to move to a clean break with Europe . . .

SM: (speaking over) So (fragment of word, or word unclear) more or less likely?

TB: I think it’s more likely we can stop it now than it was a few months ago, I always say to people the likelihood is it happens, but it doesn’t have to happen, and the . . .

SM: (speaking over) Tony Blair . . .

TB: . . . first place that is going to decide it is Parliament and MPs should vote according to their conscience.

SM: Tony Blair, thank you very much. 124

TB: Thank you.

8.42am Irish Border and Brexit

MH: The Irish border has turned out to be arguably the trickiest aspect of the negotiations so far. In a year’s time it will be our land border with the EU, and part of its external frontier. The Irish government wants an answer in the next three months as to how border arrangements can be kept as they are now, with the issue not only trade but also the Good Friday Agreement. Our Reality Check correspondent, Chris Morris has taken a trip along the border.

CHRIS MORRIS: The biggest Brexit conundrum of all starts next to a small stream on Ireland’s northern coast. This is where the Irish border meets the sea, before twisting and turning for more than 300 miles south and east. There are more border crossings between Northern Ireland and the Republic than along the whole of the EU’s border with Eastern Europe. And I’ve decided I’m going to drive across all of them. Okay, so we are on our way, we’ve taken on a local guide who is going to try and show us the border round here, hello.

MICHAEL GALLAGHER: I’m Michael Gallagher, I’m the senior economist Derry City and Strabane District Council, with special responsibility for Brexit. We’ve a map with us and we’re, I’m still getting lost, and I’ve lived here all my life. (laughs) So we’re now in (word unclear) village, this is us now in the Republic of Ireland. So this marks the border, that was the old customs post, this road takes you to Derry, that road takes you to Derry, so . . .

CM: There’s three crossings right there?

MG: Yeah, yeah.

CM: I’m confused (sound of tape fast-forwarding)

MG: This is us now, we’ve just crossed the border.

CM: I think that’s about eight crossings we’ve ticked off so far, and we’ve been going for about fifteen minutes.

MG: Have you sandwiches?

CM: I’ve got sandwiches in my bag. (sound of tape fast-forwarding) There’s another on there?

MG: There’s another one left there, and there’s another one right.

CM: 22. Okay. I give up – there are too many border crossings, and that is kind of the point, it is practically as well as politically impossible to imagine a hard border being reimposed here.

MG: What we’re looking for is this frictionless border, this full alignment, which means that you don’t require a border. Firms in Northern Ireland that are producing ready meals, which are going straight down to the Republic of Ireland, chilled ready meals – what does it mean for them if they are held up for hours and hours? You’ve seen the border here today, if these trucks were being held up, where would you actually physically put them? As in all these things, it will be a political solution. 125

CM: Right, well we’re back on the road, having decided to miss out a large chunk of the border, and we’re heading for Armagh, but on the way time for a quick fact check with Katie Haywood from Queen’s University, Belfast, on the three options for the border that the UK and the EU are currently considering. Option 1 – a future free trade deal so comprehensive that it maintains the invisible border we have at the moment.

KATIE HAYWOOD: That would be wonderful, that would be what the EU and the UK would like to see, however, if it doesn’t entail some form of customs union between the UK and the EU, there will be a harder Irish border.

CM: Option 2 – using smart technology to mean there’s no border infrastructure at all.

KH: Technology will be a tool in minimising the visibility of the border, but it’s not a solution in and of itself. The reason why the Irish border is an issue is because it’s at the heart of the Good Friday, Belfast Agreement of 1998.

CM: And Option 3 – the backstop, if all else fails, the UK pledges to maintain full alignment in Northern Ireland with EU rules and regulations south of the border.

KH: The backstop option isn’t what either the EU or the UK want. Politically, it seems that’s not on the table.

CM: We’ve arrived in Armagh in the sunshine there’s a busker, people sipping coffee, not a bad place to sit and think. So what is the British plan to deal with this border? Some kind of customs arrangement that isn’t a customs union? Alignment with some single market rules and not others? The trouble is, previous UK proposals have been dismissed in Brussels and Dublin as magical thinking. Enjoying the sun with me is Anthony Soares, from the Centre for Cross-border Studies.

ANTHONY SOARES: My own piece of magical thinking would be, okay, let’s do that, let’s leave the single market and the customs union, but let’s do it in name only. We do so, but we still follow, one hundred per cent, all the regulations. It is magical thinking, because that would involve the European Union having to employ a lot of trust in the UK in saying that it will follow all those regulations, it will obey the customs tariffs set by the European Union.

CM: When you hear people saying, actually the solution is quite simple and concerns about the border are exaggerated, there are technological solutions, what do you think?

AS: The problem here with our border is that the chief constable of the police service of Northern Ireland said this repeatedly, that any infrastructure at this border will immediately become a target for attacks by dissident Republican groups. The UK is a co-guarantor of the 1998 Belfast Good Friday Agreement. And if the UK does anything to upset that agreement, then it is going to encounter serious political problems.

CM: He’s right. You can’t ignore the politics. Just down the road in Newry, we’ve driven through one neighbourhood with the union flag on every lamppost followed by another with the Irish tricolour flying everywhere. Totally unremarkable if you live here, but striking if you’re an outsider. Local businesses, though, have to focus on practicalities. This is Intertrade Ireland, funded by authorities on both sides of the border to help small businesses. Aiden Gough is director of strategy.

AIDEN GOUGH: We questioned businesses four times a year, and what really surprised us was that only 2% of businesses were actually starting to plan for Brexit. For many small

126 businesses, small and micro businesses, the local market is an Northern Ireland market, it is already a cross-border market, and if that border becomes harder in any way, it will impose additional costs.

CM: Could you see a future in which a border with some kind of checks can actually work?

AG: That’s difficult in that that is the big conundrum, and if somebody can come up with that answer, it would be great. But I’ll give you an example: if a small business now, that’s trading into the South for instance, has to fill in, say, rules of origin certificates, one business we’re working with £750,000 to their costs, it would wipe out their profits overnight.

UNNAMED SPEAKER: Welcome to ‘Brexit and the Irish Border’ an engagement . . .

AG: There’s certainly plenty of people talking about it and the mood in this conference in Belfast was pretty gloomy.

UNNAMED SPEAKER 2: We’re going to be outside, but we want all the access and the lack of friction that’s implied by being inside.

AG: And we caught up with Katie Haywood again.

KH: My biggest concern actually is that it’s been so highly politicised that we’re back to a situation in which you have the competition between British and Irish on this, and that never works in Northern Ireland, that always produces conflict. So I think we’re looking at a scenario where we will have a mix of outcomes, much, much more than technological solutions.

CM: (sound of Satnav) Well, we’ve now driven past the last road crossing and reached beautiful Carlingford Loch, the other end of the border. There’s a freight ferry docking at Warrenpoint, just across the water. The border question keeps getting kicked down the road, but everyone knows, when it comes to the Brexit negotiations, there’s not a huge amount of road left.

8.53am Scotland and Brexit

MISHAL HUSAIN: We’ve been hearing opinion from different parts of the country this morning with one year to go to Brexit. Two years ago, Scotland voted by a substantial margin to remain in the EU. The SNP and Scottish government argued that Scotland’s been taken out of the EU against its will. Well, Stephen Gethins is the SNP MP for North East Fife, and Westminster spokesperson on international affairs and Europe, he’s in our Dundee studio, good morning.

STEPHEN GETHINS: Good morning.

MH: When it comes to that meaningful vote in Parliament, is it clear to you how SNP MPs will vote?

SG: Well, it’s not clear to me what the government’s position is at the moment, I mean, we still have very significant questions to be answered - what happens to EU nationals who contribute so much to our health service, what happens to education funding, which is, you know, I’m in the Dundee studio at the moment it’s particularly important in this part of the 127 world, what happens to our fishing communities who’ve been let down in the past. And you’re right, we’re almost two years on from the EU referendum with significant questions that remain unanswered, and even the government’s own statistics telling us that our GDP will take a hit of up to 10% as well.

MH: Right, but from what you’re saying it sounds as if it is possible that if the government comes back with something that satisfies you, you may be able to vote in support of that deal?

SG: Well we have to see what the government comes back with. Look, Scotland voted overwhelmingly to Remain. The Scottish government have set out a compromise, which is to remain part of the single market, part of the customs union. Now that we’re in a parliament of minorities, we all have to work across party, and the reason that we’re sitting here discussing a parliamentary vote, and it’s not a foregone conclusion is that we sit in the Parliament of minorities, and actually, one thing I say gently to my Labour Party colleagues is sometimes I wish they’d step up to the plate a little bit more in terms of putting more pressure . . .

MH: (word unclear) But they have set tests, haven’t they, they, they’ve made it clear, they’ve set six tests, so there is something against which to judge the government’s deal. Have you set your tests?

SG: Well, yeah we have. We’ve said look, we want to remain part of the single market and part of the customs union, and this is really important . . .

MH: (speaking over) But we know that’s not, we, we know that’s not the government’s plan, which is why I’m saying it, if you’re saying that, then can’t you say now . . .

SG: But sorry . . .

MH: . . . there is no way we could vote for the government’s deal?

SG: Can I just, look . . . and actually, sorry, I’m sorry to say this, but this is a culture that really frustrates me at Westminster. At Westminster, there’s a majority, I think, a majority in favour of the single market. The government does not have a majority again. Now, in parliaments across Europe and in the devolved administrations were we have a parliament of minorities, it means that you have to talk to each other, you have to negotiate, you have to take on board the different concerns of the parties, and that’s where there needs to be this cultural change. And you’re right, Labour have to get, get up to speed with this as much as the Conservatives, but when you’re facing devastation to your economy to the extent of 10% that’ll hit our public services, that’ll cost people jobs, I have a responsibility and other MPs have a responsibility to do all that we can to offset these devastating cuts that the UK government itself thinks will be happening.

MH: Stephen Gethins, SNP MP for North East Fife, thank you very much.

8.57am Brexit Questions

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MISHAL HUSAIN: Well, here in the North East of England this morning, we’ve been trying to answer people’s questions about Brexit, or at least we gave that job to our chief correspondent, Matthew Price and he’s been making a valiant effort to do so all morning.

MATTHEW PRICE: Trying! Erm, we’ve had a lot of broad questions, haven’t we. So, let’s take a listen to one which is incredibly specific, I guarantee most others won’t have thought about this or even perhaps known about it, because in its focus it throws up just one example of how complex disentangling ourselves from the EU is.

LAUREN MACNANEY: Hi, my name’s Lauren Macnaney, I’m 26 years old and I’m a trainee solicitor. So, my main question would be: what is going to be the impact upon children who are currently in the UK who are non-British EU citizens, in terms of particularly those who are in Local Authority care, and what the impact would be.

MP: So very niche as I said, very specific, it’s about children in Local Authority care, who are non-British EU citizens – the figures don’t tell us how many there are, but Lauren says there are several in this area alone. These children might have lost all contact with their parents, they don’t automatically acquire British nationality, what happens to them when they turn 18? Do they have to leave, do they get kicked out? Lawyers argue as of now such children don’t have any rights. Most of the questions, of course, as we said our broader, as is this final one about Brits going to the EU.

TOM COURTS: Hi, my name is Tom Courts, I’m 27 and I work with communities across Stockton on Tees. I’m asking this question because I’ve got a friend who works abroad, she does seasonal work in France, she’s a nanny and also does a bit of snowboarding teaching, erm, and my question is: how will Brexit affect her and her work.

MP: As in: is she actually going to be able to go from the UK to France on a relatively occasional basis, and get short-term work permission?

TC: Absolutely, she goes once a year over summer, I’m wondering whether Brexit will stop her doing that on a recurring basis?

MP: Now, I think we’re going to have to assume that this sort of casual movement for work will, to some extent, be restricted. Right now, we’ve got the right to work in any country in the European Economic Area and Switzerland without a work permit, and that stays the same, as far as we’re told that the moment, till the end of 2020. The question is, are we heading towards a system with EU countries that looks more like the current arrangement for working in a non-EU country, most of which we need a work permit for. If we want to restrict the number of people coming here to pick fruit, let’s say, erm, surely the French might say, well, we don’t want British snowboarding instructors going over and taking work off us.

MH: So that’s a snapshot of views from this part of the north-east. In the broadest terms, what do we know about what people want to know about Brexit?

MP: The BBC carries out internal research to see what audiences make of certain issues. People are concerned about the impact on the NHS, they are concerned about the way it’s going to affect the pound in their pocket, their jobs. One of the most striking observations before we leave, one year before we leave the EU, is the growing number of people who feel they just don’t fully understand Brexit.

MH: Matthew thank you. 129

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The Long View, 9am

ANNOUNCER: As you’ve been hearing, it’s exactly a year to go before Britain leaves the EU, and we’ll be marking the day with special editions of The World at One and World Tonight, a mash-up of The Bottom Line and the Briefing Room, as well as a number of very funny voicemails, tasty little morsels of levity courtesy of the Dead Ringers team, with the first one coming up in about 40 minutes. But we begin today’s Brexit focus on Britain at the Crossroads, with a special edition of The Long View.

JONATHAN FREEDLAND: In this special day of programming on Radio 4, we’re taking the long view of Brexit, by looking at three different moments when Britons stood at the crossroads. And we start a millennium ago, which is why we’ve come here to the British Museum in London, in the gallery that houses the Sutton Hoo Collection, a hoard of Anglo- Saxon treasure, and we can see behind these glass cases plates and bowls, swords and shields, and there a fine Anglo-Saxon helmet of a fearsome warrior. And on hand with m here in the British Museum is Dr Erin Goeres, lecturer in Old Norse Literature and head of Scandinavian Studies at University College London. And Erin Goeres, we’re surrounded by this marvellous Anglo-Saxon collection, but this is an era that, once we get to the 11th century, is coming to an end.

DR ERIN GOERES: Of course, this is the year that every British schoolchild knows, the year 1066, where the Anglo-Saxon kingdom is riven apart by a succession crisis with the death of the last major Anglo-Saxon king, Edward the Confessor. In January 1066, Edward the Confessor’s successor, Harold Godwinson only ruled for 10 months, it was a time of great internal strife as aristocratic families jockeyed for position, and then finally, in the autumn the King of Norway invaded up in the North and three weeks later the Anglo-Saxon army had to rush down south to meet the invading Norman army, led by Duke William of Normandy. Exhausted, they were defeated. And when we say that 1066 is this year of change, in fact, he was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, December 25.

JF: And on hand to give us an account of that is the actor Ian Hart who’s currently shooting the third season of the BBC’s Anglo-Saxon drama The Last Kingdom. And Ian Hart, you’ve got an account of that dramatic Christmas Day in Westminster Abbey?

IAN HART: This is from the 12th century of ecclesiastical history of Orderic Vitalis. “So, last, the English assembled in London for the coronation of the King. And in the presence of the bishops, abbots and noblemen of the realm of Albion, Archbishop Ealdred consecrated William, Duke of Normandy as king of the English, and placed the royal crown on his head. But at the prompting of the devil who hates everything good, a sudden disaster and portent of future catastrophes occurred. When Archbishop Ealdred asked the English, and bishop of Coutances asked the Normans , if they would accept William as their king, all of them gladly shouted out with once voice, but not in one language that they would. And the armed guard

131 outside, hearing the tumult of the crowd in the church and the harsh accents of the foreign tongue, imagined that some treachery was afoot, and rashly set fire to some of the buildings. Only the bishops and a few clergy and monks remained, terrified, in the sanctuary, and with difficulty completed the consecration of the king who was trembling from head to foot. The English never again trusted the Normans who seemed to have betrayed them.”

JF: So, a thousand years ago, misincomprehension between the people of these islands and the people of the continent, they don’t understand each other. But the people who are unsettled by the arrival of this French-speaking king, they’d make a radical move, Erin Goeres?

EG: We have stories of an emigration of some members of the Anglo Saxon elite, it took William a little while even after the coronation to really get a good grip on power. He had to crush rebellions in the north and the east of the country, but once all that settle down and the dispossessed, if you like, Anglo-Saxon elite realised that there was no help coming, that they were going to have to pay higher taxes to this new foreign overlord, once they realise that Norman Princes and noblemen were taking over control of the kingdom in their place, they upped and left and tried to establish a new Anglo-Saxon England somewhere far, far away.

JF: So, this is a kind of Brexedous. And Ian Hart, you have an account of that?

IAN HART: This is from the 14th Century, Saga of Edward the Confessor. “William the Bastard took possession of all England and had himself acknowledged King and consecrated with the Crown, he became the greatest of princes. And yet, his rule was thoroughly to many men and chieftains in England. They left their ancestral estates and fled away from the country with a great army. They were led by three earls and eight barons, foremost above them was (name unclear, sounds like Sigarthur’, research suggests name is ‘Siward’) Early of Gloucester. They had 350 ships and a force both large and splendid. First they travelled past Brittany and on past the coast of Spain, and there they travelled east through the streets of Gibraltar and arrived at the two islands, Majorca and Menorca. After that they heard of a great strife in Constantinople, and that a heathen army had surrounded the city both in ships and on land. They’d travel to Constantinople and fight off the besieging army saving the life of the Greek Emperor Alexius. Emperor Alexius invited them to take up residence there and to join his bodyguard, but it seemed too insignificant of a fate to grow old there without a kingdom to rule over, and the Emperor said he knew of another land, that lay north over the sea, one that had belonged to the emperors of Constantinople in olden times, but it then had been conquered by the heathens. And when the Englishman heard this they agreed that they and their heirs should possess it, free of tax and tributes, if they could win it from the heathen men. And they conquered the land and drove away all the people who had previously lived there. After that, they settled that country and gave its names. They called the land England, and gave names of places in England to the cities that were already in that country. They called one London, and another York. The country lies six days’ sail to the north-east of Constantinople, and those people have lived there ever since.”

JF: Well, it’s a remarkable story Erin Goeres, but what do you think was the sentiment or emotion that was driving them to leave these shores?

EG: Well, the word in the Old Norse that’s repeated over and over is (word unclear) which is ‘ancestral estate’ it has links to family, to ancestry, to a sense of belonging to a land, and that is what they feel has been taken away from them, by the Norman Conquest, and

132 that is the word that is repeated when they go and they set up their new colony, Nova Anglia – New England. And I think what we see there, and particularly in the naming of new towns in New England, after towns that are left behind they set up new political structures, but ones that are like Anglo-Saxon England, they bring in their old religion as well. And I think what we see there is a sense of nostalgia, it’s this sense that an ideal home can be recreated somewhere else. And I think it’s not so much an exact historical parallel to now, of course, military conquest is certainly not something we have experienced under the EU, but I think what we see is a similar rhetoric, there’s a rhetoric of nostalgia that has bled into the Brexit debate and it is a sense of the emotional connection to an ideal of a land rather than perhaps a more critical understanding that sometimes history changes and that sometimes you can’t turn back the clock.

JF: Now, on hand here to react, not only to the history of a thousand years ago, but to the three different historical moments we’re looking back on are the Conservative member of Parliament Kwasi Kwarteng and Eloise Todd, who’s the CEO of Best for Britain, a pro- Remain campaigning group. I mean, starting with you Kwasi Kwarteng, listening to this amazing story, people of that first Eurosceptic generation do tend to invoke a previous, pre- EU, pre-Common Market era when they talk about leaving as if somehow we might go back to a 1950s Britain, do you recognise that picture?

KWASI KWARTANG: One thing you didn’t mention was my constituency, I represent Spelthorne, which is just west of London, near Heathrow, Staines is the main town, and now, in my constituency, 60% of people voted for Leave, many were elderly voters. But they didn’t talk about the spirit of 1940 or the 1960s. There was, I think, you’re quite right to suggest a strong cultural sense of national identity, people felt proud of their country and they felt that the character of Britain was something that was dear to them and that it was an independent country and they didn’t square that frankly, with EU membership. But I don’t think it was an entirely sort of retro, nostalgic expression of a bygone era. Yes, there was a bit of that, but there were thousands of other reasons why people voted to leave, lots of it was forward-looking in terms of the kind of future that they wanted for their children, and also, you know, Leave voters felt they wanted what they thought would be an independent country. And I think one of the interesting things about this program is that we are talking about culture and history, and one of the failings, I think, of the Remain campaign was the fact that they couched everything in terms of economics, and that was one of the reasons, I think, that a lot of people wanted to vote to leave, because they did respond to the cultural arguments, they did respond to a sense of national identity, they did respond to history. And, you know, the economic argument didn’t have the breadth to capture that. And it didn’t appeal to people’s imaginations.

JF: Eloise Todd what about that, that the Remain side, your side of the argument was not sufficiently sensitive to these issues of history and culture and belonging?

ELOISE TODD: I think it’s true that there was an overt focus on economics during that campaign, but what’s really interesting is in the two years since the referendum, young people across this country who voted in around 70% of cases to stay in the European Union see this as a deeply cultural issue. They want to be open to Europe, they want to be open to opportunities overseas. So actually, for that generation the positive vote to stay in the EU and make the most of those opportunities is a cultural decision.

JF: I want to pick up one thing which we heard before that reading, which was that the people in that crowd at Westminster Abbey were unnerved by hearing alien tongues, language that they didn’t understand, and Kwasi Kwartang, that did come up on the

133 doorstep, you would sometimes see it, perhaps you might say older voters, other people saying they found it disconcerting there were people in the centre of town or on the bus, speaking a language they didn’t understand.

KK: I think you’re quite right, that there had been a lot of cultural change, a lot of immigration, a lot of multicultural diversity that some people were disconcerted by. That was a feeling that people experienced. I wouldn’t explain the whole vote in those terms, but I think clearly we have to acknowledge and be honest that there has been a lot of change, and some people are slightly unsettled by it.

JF: Eloise Todd, how much is it part of your understanding of what happened that it was driven by a kind of nostalgic longing like those people, a thousand years ago, who wanted to form a New England a bit like the old one?

ET: I think the truth is that people voted Leave for many different reasons, some genuinely didn’t like the EU. But many, many others were voting for a better future in Britain and I think what we might have with 2018, 2019 is a similarly relevant historical year for us which is a battle not of the military kind, but a real battle of ideas, a battle for the truth, actually, of what Brexit would give for our populations. We don’t have to leave in a year’s time, actually, we have a year left of a democratic process, so it’s really important that these ideas and the truth of what Brexit will mean for families around the country, will it bring that better future, is actually discussed in the next year.

JF: So Erin Goeres, you’ve told us this remarkable story of these people, the Anglo- Saxon elite, if you like, who couldn’t swallow living under a Norman king and upped and left, what happened to them in the end?

EG: Well, we don’t actually know, because they disappeared from the pages of history.

JF: And what about those people who were left behind, who didn’t engage and take part in this Brexedous but stayed here under a Norman king, what happened to them, and to, if you like, the Anglo-Saxon world enshrined here in the British Museum.

EG: Well, the Anglo-Saxon world certainly changed and much of it, in the form that we see here in Sutton Hoo, disappeared. The Normans conquered, yes, but they brought in new languages, new art forms, new literature and in fact, arguably, enriched mediaeval cultural milieu. And the linguistic milieu. And, in fact, the point about people today being uncomfortable about hearing different languages, again, I think goes back to the point of nostalgia for a place that is an ideal rather than a reality.

JF: People were wrestling with some of these issues a thousand years ago. And we’ve heard how, for some, they resolved them by leaving. But we are off on our own journey, we’re heading into the late 18th century. We’re taking the long view of Brexit, telling the story of three moments when Britons stood at the crossroads. We have come further into central London, around Hyde Park Corner. We are inside the Wellington Arch in a small room surrounded by replicas of sections of the giant statue that stood atop this arch, and inside the arch, Wellington’s own boots – the most famous Wellington boots ever to have been. It’s all to commemorate victory in the Napoleonic Wars, but, of course, before that hard-won victory came, there were moments when Britain and England felt alone, and one of the country’s most famous poets put pen to paper and Ian Hart, you have that.

IH: It’s called November 1806 by William Wordsworth:

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Another year!—another deadly blow! Another mighty Empire overthrown! And We are left, or shall be left, alone; The last that dare to struggle with the Foe. 'Tis well! from this day forward we shall know That in ourselves our safety must be sought; That by our own right hands it must be wrought; That we must stand unpropped, or be laid low.

JF: On hand inside this triumphal arch is Professor David Andress, who is Professor of Modern History at the University of Portsmouth, and author of ‘Beating Napoleon’.

DAVID ANDRESS: Well, the Wordsworth poem that you’ve just heard is written at the end of 1806. Britain finds itself really alone against Napoleon, Napoleon having defeated Russia, defeated Austria, defeated Prussia, and a real sense around the country that Britain was fighting on alone, but at the same time, an absolute commitment to continue that fight, to recognise themselves as an integral part of the European system, and to seek allies wherever they could find them across Europe and pursue an eventual victory against Napoleon, not just in the interests of Britain, but in the interests of the European system, that they understood themselves to be part of. It’s a sense that there is a balance to be kept otherwise there is nothing to stop the whole continent, and in European eyes, therefore, the whole world falling into tyranny.

JF: So there’s a general threat, but there is a specific move by Napoleon Bonaparte that poses a direct threat to Britain and its economy?

DA: Yes, given the situation that they find themselves in after 1805/6, when Britain is dominant on the seas and Napoleon is dominant on land, the next move is a form of mutual blockade. Napoleon creates what comes to be called the Continental system in ’06 and ’07, which is the idea that Britain can be excluded from trading with the whole continent of Europe.

JF: We’ve heard of that, of Brexiters before, this is Britain being ‘Brexcluded’ – forgive me. But Ian Hart, you have an account of this first move.

IH: This is Napoleon’s Berlin decree, November 21, 1806. “The British Isles are declared to be in a state of blockade, and trade in English goods is prohibited. And all goods belonging to England, or coming from her factories or her colonies are declared lawful prize. No vessel coming directly from England or from the English colonies, or will have visited these since the publication of the present decree, shall be received in any port.”

JF: So, Britain being excluded, shunned and out of European trade by Napoleon Bonaparte. Dave Andress?

DA: This is clearly a very aggressive move by Bonaparte, attempting to control the whole continent. And what we’re going to see over the following few years is that, in practice this breaks down completely, that there is a very complex economic relationship between Britain, which is the Britain of the Industrial Revolution, of an enormous expansion in trading and manufacturing power, and the continent of Europe. And eventually, for example, it will be Russian refusal to participate in the Continental blockade which will force Napoleon into his disastrous invasion in 1812. But long before that, in all four corners of the continent,

135 people were actively circumventing this blockade, actively seeking to trade and doing millions of pounds worth of trade with Britain every year through and passed the blockade.

JF: In what we would now call ‘sanctions busting’ in effect?

DA: Absolutely and obviously something the British state was very keen on doing, they’re very concerned to pursue every means they can of breaking the blockade, partly this involves making sure they have control of trade outside Europe, through the unparalleled power of the Royal Navy. It also involves a series of episodes in which very aggressive military action is taken against European powers that might be cut off from the continental system.

JF: And Ian Hart, you have an example of that?

IH: This is from the Foreign Secretary, George Canning, in correspondence with a colleague in October, 1807, after a British naval bombardment of Copenhagen had forced Denmark to surrender its fleet, at the cost of several thousand civilian dead. “We must not disguise from ourselves, we are hated throughout Europe. And that hate must be secured by fear. We have a maritime war in our power, unfettered by any consideration of whom we may annoy, and must keep no kingdom short of its existence, no spoilter short of his spoil. In the midst of all this, it is our business to show what England as England is whenever the true balance of the world comes to be adjusted we are the natural mediators for them all.”

JF: So there’s George Canning then, Foreign Secretary, asserting Britain’s right to sit at the very centre of the European system. Listening to that, Kwasi Kwartang, don’t you think George Canning would be amazed today if he heard that Britain was voluntarily taking itself out of the single market, the trading market of Europe, when he was prepared to use military might, naval might in order to make sure that Britain was right there in the centre of that trading system?

KK: As you won’t be surprised to know, I have a slightly different of the history. But I think George Canning, you’re right, when you say that he was very much involved in fostering the balance of power, he was very interested in Europe, he was very engaged in Europe, he was forming alliances, he spoke a number of European languages and he was someone who was very interested in what was going on in Europe and I think we will continue to do that.

JF: What we think of, surely Eloise Todd, when we hear about Napoleon Bonaparte, the leader of France and the ruler of many of the nations of Europe at that time, whacking Britain so hard is that it suggests, doesn’t it, that actually the history shows there’s this fractious difficult relationship that is the subject of such intense argument in Britain now in 2018, this has got a long history?

ET: It’s true, we’ve had a set of different traditions but what we’ve done over the course of hundreds of years, and more recently in the last 40 years of the European Union, is to meld those different traditions, and also what we’ve seen is the British being highly influential within the European Union, and what we’ve got now is a situation in which I fear that parallel with the past is that the British government believes, perhaps, that they can once again be this kind of interlocutor between Europe and the rest of the world, but in actual fact taking ourselves out of this very powerful set of countries working together and taking ourselves out of the single market which actually was a British Conservative invention,

136 will actually not lead us to be this more powerful country outside the big blocs of the world, but rather more of an irrelevance.

JF: And that, surely, Kwasi Kwartang is the key point. Plenty of Conservative policymakers and other policymakers over the recent decades have indeed thought there was a particular role for Britain, it needed to have a seat at the table in the EU. Won’t it be a loss to our country to be deprived of that (fragment of word, or word unclear due to speaking over)

KK: Well I think that there is a way in which we can have dialogue with the EU without actually being a member of it.

JF: Eloise Todd?

ET: In terms of foreign policy we’ve always had this kind of loose connection with European countries, because we haven’t got a fully integrated foreign policy within the European Union and nor should we. But the truth is that actually it’s about what leveraged we have, what influence we have and I think if we look at the past when we had this huge military might and huge economic night with all of our influence around the world, we don’t have that today, in fact a lot of our economic strength comes from being within this bloc, and being an English speaking part of that bloc actually country with different traditions, different legal traditions that actually pull all of those countries more in our direction, and that’s what we lose.

JF: David Andress, you’ve told us how the blockade that was attempted by Napoleon was broken. What though was the effect on the domestic economy, and perhaps society, as a result of this period of this continental system from which Britain was being excluded?

DA: Well, there’s a very complex picture taking place, Britain is in the middle of the Industrial Revolution its empire is expanding enormously, so it’s able to maintain its position in the world through both economic and military strength. But that does come with an enormous strain, during these years of war. And one of the things the social elite are definitely doing is limiting workers’ rights, limiting the position of working people within society, from the turn-of-the-century, 1799 and 1800 all workers’ organisations are made illegal, there’s an ongoing campaign to paint any kind of resistance to government policy as treason, and by 1811, 1812 what we’re going to see across the country is an outbreak of actual armed revolt by workers that goes down in history as this rather strange episode called Luddism, when they break things, but is in fact a mass protest against having their rights stripped away against people being impoverished as one of the ways in which British industry is maintaining its levels of profit through these difficult years.

JF: What’s the relationship between that and this Napoleonic attempt to exclude Britain from the European economy?

DA: They’re part of a whole picture, in which Britain is struggling to maintain profitability, struggling to keep open its avenues of trade, struggling to compete on price, for example, in American markets, all of these things are pushing employers to seek any way they can of cutting back on labour costs. And that actually means taking away rights, literal legal rights that workers had enjoyed for centuries, taking them away by statute and then sending the army in to make sure people couldn’t ask for them back.

JF: And there were, of course, howls of protest at that, including one from a very famous source, and Ian Hart, you have that. 137

IH: This is Lord Byron to the House of Lords, February 1812, opposing new penalties for Luddite frame-breaking. “Is there not blood enough upon your penal code, that more must be poured forth to ascend to Heaven and testify against you ? How will you carry the Bill into effect? Can you commit a whole county to their own prisons? Will you erect a gibbet in every field and hang up men like scarecrows?

JF: I mean, Kwasi, Kwasi, no one’s foreseen the army going in now to break strikes, but that has been an argument that’s been made that actually outside the European Union, free of those directives, some employers and going to start restricting workers’ rights, and that’s one of the reasons why people have been alarmed about the prospect of us leaving the European Union.

KK: Well, the issue of workers’ rights is an issue of domestic policy, and actually, I think David’s point about a quite repressive government that existed in the early 19th century, that was a lot about domestic politics. And one of the things that David didn’t mention was the fact that you had to manage a currency, paper currency, there were debates about going back to the gold standard which obviously appreciated prices, it was a world of real turmoil, but it was, again, it was fought out in a domestic political environment, not with the EU.

JF: So, Eloise Todd, nothing to fear about workers’ rights, even after Brexit, because these are things that the country, its own elected governments can decide, regardless of the EU?

ET: Actually, most of our health and safety workers’ rights and equality legislation is from a bedrock of European legislation. Now, Britain really is at a crossroads. The choice for us is really, do we want to keep up with those rights that have been decided together with many different countries or do we want to compete more globally and compete, for example, with American companies to try and get American markets, Chinese markets, and that would potentially really dry standards write-down. And then we have another conundrum, if we would Brexit, in order to keep trading across the channel to our closest neighbours, will actually be compelled to actually copy and implement a lot of those rules anyway, which we’ll therefore no longer have any say in. So really, the crossroads is more of a conundrum for the UK right now.

JF: Kwasi Kwartang?

KK: I mean, you’re quite right to say that we will be competing globally, as we have done, and when you say that, well, we’re going to have to submit, if you like, to the standards of the EU, you can’t have it both ways. I mean, we’re certainly not going to be both complying with some EU regulations and then painting a picture of a Singapore-type bonfire of workers’ rights. I mean, it’s going to be one or the other. I suspect, and this is often overlooked, that Brexit is more of a process than an event, I think we will start off being fairly closely aligned, and then we will develop differently.

JF: David Andress, Napoleon proposes his blockade to exclude Britain, how does this stand-off resolve in the end?

DA: Well, the one-sentence answer is that it costs millions of lives to bring the situation to a successful resolution.

JF: For the third of our historical acts, we’ve come here to Westminster, in some ways closing the circle, Westminster Abbey just behind is where William the Conqueror was crowned, but facing us is a very modern day spectacle, a group of protesters against Brexit 138 waving the blue and gold flag of the European Union. There is, not far from us in Parliament Square statue of Winston Churchill, we are talking about May 1940. And here, standing with those on College Green, is David Reynolds, Professor of International History at Cambridge. David Reynolds, in a way of the three turning points of pivot points we’ve discussed, this is perhaps the best-known, now seared into the contemporary British imagination. Just talk us through what policymakers and, of course, Winston Churchill were thinking about?

DAVID REYNOLDS: Well, 10 May 1940 is the day when Winston Churchill finally becomes Prime Minister, he finally gets the job he’s always wanted, just as the bottom drops out of his world. That’s the day when the Germans finally begin their offensive on the Western Front, they don’t do it through France, they throw everything into a surprise attack through the Ardennes, and within a few days they’re going for the Channel, what we know, in our history, as Dunkirk. And Churchill is absolutely taken aback by this, he spends the first few days trying to build a cabinet, he’s, you know, he’s trying to create a coalition government, he’s not even leader of the Tory party, and he’s got to put the Tories and Labour, Liberals all the rest of it, together, thinking about domestic politics is really important. Then on 15 May, at 7.30am in the morning he gets a phone call, he does not respond well to phone calls at that time in the morning, but this is a real shock-horror thing, it’s the French Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud, it’s almost Peter Sellers-like, you know, he speaks down the phone, he’s clearly really agitated, in English she says, (French accent) ‘We are defeated, we have lost the battle’, and Churchill is just incredulous, you know, five days in, how can we have lost the battle? So he flies over to France the next day to have a meeting with the French high command and find out what is going on.

JF: And Ian Hart has an account of that, which is from Churchill’s war memoirs.

IH: Everybody was standing. Utter dejection was written on every face. The General talked, perhaps for five minutes without anyone saying a word. When he stopped, there was a considerable silence. I then asked, ‘Where is the strategic reserve?’ General Gamelin turned to me and with a shake of the head and a shrug said, ‘Aucune’. There was another long pause. Outside in the garden of the Quai d’Orsay, clouds of smoke arose from large bonfires. And I saw from the window venerable officials pushing wheelbarrows of archives on them. The evacuation of Paris was being prepared. Past experience carries with its advantages the drawback that things never happen the same way again, but now there was no strategic reserve. ‘Aucune’. I was dumbfounded. I admit this one of the greatest surprises I have had in my life.

JF: He is dumbfounded, David Reynolds?

DR: They had put everything on the expectation that our strategy for winning the war would be to fight with France for four years, or however long it took, just like 1914-18 – that’s what he meant by past experience as a guide. And in that process, Britain would gradually build up its strength, the French would have an army, the British would provide the air force and the navy, we could fight a long war that way, particularly with all Britain’s imperial reserves and wealth and so on. Then suddenly, the French Prime Minister’s saying ‘It’s all over’, and everything that has to be rethought on the spot. That’s the context in which there is a discussion about whether maybe we should try and find out what terms might be an offer. That’s only a quick phase and it’s one that Churchill’s stamps on, very pre-empturally (?) because by 3 June we know we’ll get a third of a million men off the beaches.

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JF: But we are now deep into ‘darkest hour’ territory here, for Winston Churchill. And in that darkest hour, planners around him come up with an idea that I think is little-known and yet remarkable, as we contemplate Britain contemplating its relationship with the rest of Europe.

DR: They are still clinging onto the hope that maybe the French alliance can be continued. On 16 June they come up with the idea of a declaration of Anglo-French unity, of union between France and Britain. Now, at that point it is kind of crazy, it’s in a last effort to stop the French signing an Armistice, but it’s rooted in the conviction that the British government had once the Second War (sic) begins in September 39, maybe it started again because we didn’t give the French enough support. Maybe now what we need to do is think in terms of a really close and permanent relationship with the French. And so, on the 28 March 1940 there’s an Anglo-French declaration, pledging the two countries to ‘community of action’ a nice euphemism at this stage, for security, for reconstruction, for building a free Europe after the war, looking ahead to that post-war future. And so the declaration on the 16 June 1940 is a kind of last fling of that hope that maybe the British and the French can do something fundamentally different now.

JF: Ian Hart, you have that declaration?

IH: At this most fateful moment the United Kingdom and the French Republic make this declaration of indissoluble union and unyielding resolution in their common defence of justice and freedom against subjection to a system which reduces mankind to a life of robots and slaves. The two governments declare that France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations, but one Franco-British Union. The constitution of the Union will provide for joint organs of defence, foreign, financial, and economic policies. Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain; every British subject will become a citizen of France. The Union will concentrate its whole energy against the power of the enemy, and thus we shall conquer.

JF: Kwasi Kwartang, no figure in British history is more lionised by all sides, but especially by the Eurosceptic side of British politics than Winston Churchill, the great British bulldog, and there he is, calling for merger between Britain and France, the declaration says there won’t be two nations anymore. Surely that is a shocking fact for Eurosceptics and particularly their view of Winston Churchill?

KK: I don’t think that’s true at all, I mean, if you look at the specific circumstances of 1940, they were absolutely extraordinary, and you were facing a Nazi menace and the Nazis had carried all before them. Now, there are some Eurosceptics who would say that the EU isn’t the heir of the Anglo-French union, but it’s the heir of a very strong German state. The reason why it was created in the first place was to bring Germany and France together in order to stop war between Germany and France, which had happened three times, the 1870, the 1914 and also in 1940. So, the historical context couldn’t be more different than today.

JF: Eloise Todd, when you hear that, of the man voted the greatest ever Britain calling for a union between Britain and France, does that alter your perspective on Britain’s relationship with Europe?

ET: I think the parallel for today is that lesson that Churchill brought us, is we need to be close to our colleagues and our allies, and while, in the past, in 1940, that was very much about the military situation, today the parallel is we must be close economically, and with partners that we can benefit from, that can be our customers, as well as we can trade with 140 them the other way too. And the fact that there was perhaps this feeling that they had taken their eye off the ball with France, so there was this rush to become a union all together, which didn’t ultimately happen, but shows the strength of the thinking. And I think the biggest difference between the course of action that Churchill talk and the course of action of the government today is that everything that he did was about what was best for the country, and what was best for us, in that moment in time. And this, now, to contrast with Brexit is perhaps the first time a government in living memory has pursued a course of action that they know will leave all the citizens worse off.

JF: What about that Kwasi Kwartang, that this is something not in Britain’s national interest?

KK: Forgive me, we had this discussion 20 months ago in the referendum, we had four months in which people were debating what to do. Now, I have a totally different view of Brexit, I think actually, most people now just want the government to get on with it and to move on, they don’t want to fight this battle endlessly, they don’t believe that staying in the EU definitely is a) the right course of action, and b) they don’t think it’s possible now. The people have decided, the government is there to affect the result of the referendum, and that’s exactly what the government is doing.

JF: David Reynolds, as we can still here, these protesters against Brexit, take us back to 1940, we heard that proposal, even a declaration, what happened to that plan and what happened to this conundrum, this existential dilemma really, confronting Winston Churchill?

DR: Well, the plan went up in smoke in a day or so, because France signed an Armistice with the Germans, so Churchill’s aspirations and his conviction that France mattered was one side of the story, he now had to think about future options. And the chiefs of staff had said, ‘The only way now we’re going to win this war is with the United States’, he knows that we need allies if we’re going to win the war. The United States is the one that’s on his radar. The one that’s not on his radar, and will matter as much, is one that he absolutely abhors – Soviet Russia. But the moment the Soviet Union comes into the war, in June 1941, Churchill welcomes it with open arms, he tells his private secretary, ‘If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.’ And the lesson of history is often not that there’s a pre-prepared answer we can look back to, but actually that we have to think on our feet, we have to identify the new context and say, ‘Okay, where do we go from here?’ And that’s what Churchill did, and that’s why his leadership was so important in 1940 and 41.

JF: Let’s broaden out a little bit. History has played a big part in this Brexit debate, it’s raging right now with these protestors in Westminster. Erin Goeres and David Andress our historians from earlier have rejoined us here on College Green, and Erin Goers, start with you, history is often very contested, what role do you think it has played in the debate about Brexit? But perhaps more importantly, what role should history play in this today?

EG: I think looking back at history is a good reminder that we don’t stand at a unique moment we have seen from all of these examples that Britain has a long and complicated relationship with Europe, it is an issue that is revisited time and time again. Britain has always been a part of Europe culturally, linguistically, politically, it’s just to what degree should we negotiate that.

JF: But it seems like it’s almost always been an uncomfortable relationship, there’s always jostling and jockeying and arguing, David Andress? I know there was a group called

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Historians for Britain that was on the pro-Brexit side, I think you signed a letter on the other side of the argument, can history play an important role in this discussion?

DA: Well, I think one of the important things we have to remember is that people don’t really learn very much history. They learn a lot of things that they think are history, they think they understand where we’ve been in the past, because they vaguely remember things they were told at school, or politicians or newspapers use historical reference. But in the context that I was talking about earlier, a couple of hundred years ago one of the things that you absolutely have to recognise is, on the one hand, Britain absolutely wants to remain part of this jostling European process, it cannot conceive of itself working in the world without being part of a European concert of nations. And on the other hand, when we look back and talk about British greatness, its prosperity, over the intervening two hundred years, it’s absolutely connected to the fact of Empire, to the fact of dominating and exploiting tens of millions of people all around the world. We’re simply not in that position any more. We were the America and China combined of 200 years ago, and we no longer live in a world where we can expect to take anything by force, we have to cooperate and collaborate.

JF: David Reynolds, the bit of history you talked about with us, of 1940 and Britain standing alone, it’s entered the mythology it’s in some ways the sort of founding narrative of modern Britain, it was a big part of the Eurosceptic case that Britain had stood alone, didn’t need the rest of Europe and could stand alone again. What’s the reading you have of that 1940 episode in terms of Britain’s relations with Europe?

DA: Well you see, I’m not so keen on the idea of using history as analogy, I’m not so keen on the idea that it’s a source of lessons we can pull of the shelf and say, ‘Ah, this is a 1940 moment’ or whatever it is. For me, history is a way of thinking, and what one is trying to do as a historian is understand, if you like, complex situations from the past, what’s the elements that went into decision-making then, all the different factors and that’s then a way of helping people to open up their thinking about the situation is now, what kind of factors should be taken in, how should leaders respond, don’t go for the quick fix, ask yourself . . . don’t ask for the lessons from history, say, ‘Well, what’s the story we’re in now,’ and then try and make some sensible judgements.

JF: David Reynolds, Erin Goeres, David Andress, Kwasi Kwartang, Eloise Todd, and our actor, Ian Hart, one year before Britain stands again at the crossroads. Thank you all for taking the long view.

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Dead Ringers, 9.45am

THERESA MAY: You’ve reached the office of Theresa May. I can’t come to the phone right now, as Jacob Rees-Mogg has rung for his elevenses. Please leave a message after the beep.

DAVID DAVIS: Prime Minister, David Davis here, your Brexit bulldog. Just one year to go till we march up to Johnny foreigner, bold as brass and tell him, ‘We are Great Britain, the land of Shakespeare, Dickens, Chessington World of Adventures. We’re proud, we’re independent, and we’re doing exactly what you tell us for the next two years – take that Pedro. No doubt you’re wondering what I’ve been doing all week. Well, I promised everyone there would be no change to the Irish border, I do not want a hard border, truth be told, I don’t like anything hard, that’s why I only speak two languages English and slightly slower louder English for when I’m on holidays. But of course, I get all the usual complaints from Barnier’s mob, ‘You’ve not thought this through, why are you in your pyjamas at four in the afternoon? You can’t just make a wish and magically solve this problem’, ‘Ah,’ I thought, ‘wrong. According to my Ladybird books Ireland is a magical place full of whimsy, all I’ve got to do is find the end of a rainbow, wish on the Blarney stone, and hey presto, I’ll fix the border and every other Brexit problem up to and including Liam Fox.’ So, off I go on at leisurely drive. And here it is, one rainbow, and blow me, what do I find at the end of it, but a bunch of jolly leprechauns, well, I assumed they were leprechauns, PM, there’s one bore more than a passing resemblance to Michael Flatley, and the other was brandishing a magical baseball bat. Long story short, PM, they’ve taken me to their most magical fairy grotto inside this abandoned farmhouse, put my feet in a magical bucket of water and attached magical bulldog clips to my genitals. They muttered something about this being what hard borders will get you. I’m trying not to move because if I do the magic won’t work. (buzzing) Ooh! I think I can feel it starting to work, ah, yes, I’m definitely getting a tingle, er . . . I’ve got a very good feeling about this, PM, Brexit bulldog out.

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The Channel, 9.48am

ANNOUNCER: We continue our examination of Britain at the Crossroads with The Channel - a series exploring the space between Britain and Europe. Today, historian Renaud Morieux explores the fluid border that is The Shared Sea it begins in front of Turner's famous painting of Calais pier.

RENAUD MORIEUX: I first encountered this painting more than 20 years ago as I began a year of study abroad in London. After taking the Eurostar, which had just opened to the public, and a dispiriting walk along the Thames whose sprawling and empty banks were nothing like the quays of the Seine. I paced up and down The Strand. Close to tears, I walked up the steps of the National Gallery. I found Turner’s painting of Calais Pier on the first floor. I’ve come back to look at it again, with the gallery’s deputy director, Dr Susan Foister.

DR SUSAN FOISTER: This painting really represents a great opportunity for Turner because in 1802 we know that he crossed the Channel for the very first time, the journey took him about three and a half hours, we don't know if it was as stormy looking as this painting, but he certainly made sketches at the time and then he based this painting on his journey. So he was taking the opportunity that was offered by a break in the Napoleonic Wars, in 1802 there was the Peace of Amiens, but he wasn’t going to be able to do this again for very many years, because the Napoleonic Wars broke out again, immediately. So for him, this first Channel crossing must have been extraordinary and exciting, and you could understand why he wanted to make this painting, why he felt so inspired.

RM: And what about the framing of the picture, the kind of scale?

SF: What Turner does is he takes you right into it, almost into the waves, into the sea with him, because he doesn’t frame his painting in quite the conventional way that other painters do. So everything is much closer to you and then the thing that he brings to your attention is the way in which he paints as the artist, so the way in which you can see the brushstrokes and the thick white paint of the waves right in front of you, that's very much Turner. Some of the critics, they wanted something that was a bit more sober description and that wasn't what Turner wanted to give you, he wanted to give you a feel of the waves and the salty spray and so on.

RM: This is a scene without bounds. The horizon disappears into the sea, it’s impossible to spot the point at which those passengers first crossed into French from English waters.

ANNOUNCER: Bodin confirms that the prince whose country abuts upon the sea should have 60 miles jurisdiction from the shore. Another doctor will tell us that so much of the sea appertains to the land as far as a man can see from shore on a fair day. But this will not serve our turn, for if a man may see from Dover to Calais, I suppose the like may be done from Calais to Dover. And whose shall the sea be, betwixt.

RM: The view expressed by Sir Philip Meadows in 1689 raises important questions. Where do you draw state boundaries at sea? Where does England stop, and where does France begin? Since the classical period legal writers had considered many options. You could trace the demarcation line in the deepest part of the seabed and allocate one half to one country and the other to the other. You could say that state extended as far as a distance visible to the naked eye. At the beginning of the 18th century, a new principle was invented – that of territorial waters, which extended as far as the theoretical range of guns

144 fired from the coast. But this couldn’t be applied to the narrow seas between Dover and Calais, or between the Channel Islands and Normandy, where territorial waters overlapped. Deciding where to place the border between England and France remains a matter of convention and not everyone agreed. Turner’s piece is subtitled ‘An English Packet Boat Arriving’. The regular traffic of these light ships had linked the cities of Dover and Calais into the 17th century, sailing back and forth twice weekly, bringing mail, passengers or horses. In fine weather, the trip could take three hours. In the event of a storm, there was no guarantee of reaching the other side at all. But however inclement the weather, and despite a decade of war, Turner was among the many thousands of British men and women who stormed across the Channel to visit France, rekindling a tradition of peaceful interactions which was never totally severed between the two countries.

ANNOUNCER: THE fact seems at first singular. Two of the greatest nations under heaven, whose shores almost touch, and, if ancient tales be true, were once unsevered, call the natives of each other foreigners. Jealousy, competition, and consequent warfare have produced an artificial distance and separation, much wider and more impossible than nature intended by the division which she has framed.

RM: Britain and France were at war for much of the period between the so-called glorious revolution of 1688, when William of Orange ascended the English throne, and the battle of Waterloo of 1815. But this doesn’t mean that all British and French people saw each other as enemies. Nowhere was this more obvious than on the Channel coast. Rather than a border that separates the English Channel can be thought of as a shared space, a natural connection between England and France. The maritime frontier is not a dividing line between states, but a zone of interaction with its own history and culture. The coastal populations of southern England and Northern France, living in close proximity to that indefinite ever-changing zone that is the Channel were in constant contact throughout the 18th century. Their relations often operated outside the rules laid down by governments in wartime as well as in peacetime. Trade was never confined by national borders. In an age of high customs duties, merchants would constantly move their activities between France, England and along the country's bordering the North Sea, adapting to the legislation in the different states. Throughout the 18th century, hundreds of Englishmen locally called (with French intonation) ‘smuggler’ carried out illicit trade from Dunkirk, their holds laden with silk, spirits and cash which they landed at Dover, Deale or Ramsgate. They were given passes by the Dunkirk town authority and by the French government allowing them to travel unmolested by French privateers because their trade was benefiting the state and impoverishing the enemy. For these people, choosing between the two countries or even defining themselves by using national categories of belonging did not make sense.

SF: The main focus of the painting is a little bit in the middle distance It's this boat with darker sails, which is very, very crowded with people and that seems to be the ferry boat of the sort that Turner himself crossed over the Channel on. And then just in front of it is a fisher boat, which looks as though it might be about to crash into the passenger ships, so you can imagine people there getting a bit alarmed and then there's another little boat with fisherman in it just to the right and they’re having to sort of push away because the sea is so stormy. And then on the right-hand side you've got the wives of the fishermen and they’re sitting around, gutting fish essentially and Turner paints this beautiful still life in the foreground of these large skate.

ANNOUNCER: If one casts one's eyes on the crew of a fishing boat, one sees a great number of children or young people and poor old men whose infirmities or declining years prevent from being employed elsewhere, and who find in this activity a source of 145 subsistence which is advantageous to the nation's. The tender charity of people of distinction could vouch for the fishermen. They might consider that the danger of storms and the fury of winds that they experience along the coasts is more than sufficient without adding the danger brought by the enemy. This poor fishermen would become beyond any doubt, the friend of all nations.

RM: In making the fishermen out to be a poor wretch, weak and oppressed Ravel was describing him as the European equivalent of the so-called noble savage. The danger of storms was equated with the hazards of war. The sea was represented as the privileged space of peaceable exchanges between peoples in which rivalries between states and national antagonisms dissolved. The Channel was a cosmopolitan space in which French and English fishermen would put their own lives at risk to rescue one another. Coastal populations were, no doubt, victims of the war’s that divided France and Britain throughout the 18th century. But their peacetime dealings were never completely interrupted by war. Conventions guaranteeing the rights of fishermen to carry on the trade unharrassed by warships date back to the 15th century. Every frontier certainly raises the question, not only a physical distance but also mental distance. But in the case of the English Channel, where the state boundary is blurred and invisible, the problem is different. For some categories of travellers, for example, the French academic teaching British history in England, crossing the Channel has never been easier. When I look out the window and twist my head as the Eurostar emerges on the English side, I’m a glimpse a seagull, but I can’t hear the waves nor smell the sea, nor taste the salted wind. The painting of Calais Pier reminds me of my first trip to England, when I crossed the Channel on board a ferry, between (place name unclear) in Normandy and Portsmouth. The Channel has now withdrawn into a fantasy from my childhood, and a fossil from 18thcentury archives. The sense of foreignness that you get from travelling long distances and slowly moving away from home is certainly not as acute when you travel at 300 km per hour. People like me, the maritime border is no more. It is materialised only, by the ritual of passport control. But the maritime border was, and still is, a lived reality for many people. Today’s refugee crisis is not new. Besides the 40 to 50,000 French Huguenots, who migrated to England after 1685, fleeing Louis XIV’s religious persecutions, and many were left stranded on the French side. Those thousands of men and women who refused to recant their protestant faith were marched to the Mediterranean, where they were sentenced to row in the galleys alongside convicted criminals and slaves. For these people, crossing the narrow seas remained a distant dream. But misfortunes did not always discourage them, and many succeeded at the first or fourth attempt. I’m thinking about Isaac Minet, a French Calvinist who hailed from Calais. After several unsuccessful attempts he finally managed to escape to England in 1686. He settled in Dover. In the following years, barely 21 miles from his birthplace, Isaac set up an incredibly successful business. Throughout the 18th century dozens of Minet packet boats darted the Channel. It was quite possibly one of Minet’s ships that Turner embarked on in 1802. For generations of migrants, such as the emigres who fled the French Revolution, or the European revolutionaries who fled authoritarian regimes in the 19th century, the Channel was a passage to sanctuary, protecting them from political or religious oppression. Let’s take one last look at Turner’s painting.

SF: An enormous amount of the composition is actually given over to the sky, and it’s very, very dark and stormy especially on the left-hand side, and then there’s this rather beautiful break in the clouds which shows blue sky directly above the two boats, and you can see sunlight, I think, being reflected on the light sail, right in the middle which catches our eye.

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RM: The weather’s changing rapidly, is the storm clearing or the weather worsening? It’s for the viewer to decide, the painter seems to say.

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World at One, 1pm

Introduction

MARTHA KEARNY: The World at One. This is Martha Kearny with an extended edition of the programme, we’ll be on air till two o’clock to look ahead to Brexit, exactly one year away, as part of Radio 4’s special coverage, ‘Britain at the Crossroads.’ We’ll hear how the Brexit process is being perceived abroad, as Theresa May travels this country to extol the benefits of leaving.

THERESA MAY: I think they’ll be real opportunities for the United Kingdom. I think there’s a bright future out there, and yes, I think Brexit is going to deliver, a country that will be different, but I think there are real opportunities for us as an independent nation for the future.

MK: And we’ll have the first of a new series, where Mark Mardell looks at how the UK fell into and out of love with the EU, in ‘Brexit: a love story.’

Moves on to other headlines.

Bulletins

ALLAN SMITH: Theresa May has told the BBC that Brexit will mean there is extra money available to spend on the government’s priorities such as the NHS and schools. Mrs May, who is in Newcastle as part of a tour to mark a year before Britain leaves, said she believed Britain had a bright future outside the EU. Our assistant political editor, Norman Smith, reports.

NORMAN SMITH: Theresa May today paints an optimistic vision of Britain after Brexit, and while the Prime Minister does not directly refer to a Brexit dividend, she nevertheless promises there will be more money for the NHS and schools. She also suggests there’ll be greater scope to trade with countries outside of the EU, which will boost jobs and prosperity. Asked if leaving the EU would be worth it, Mrs May said Britain would be a different country, but there would be real opportunities and a bright future. Meanwhile, Labour has sought to play down remarks by the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry who said the party would probably back Mrs May’s final deal. The chancellor, John McDonnell, said Ms Thornberry was being sarcastic, and the government was still nowhere near meeting Labour’s conditions for support over the final Brexit deal.

1.17am Brexit

MARTHA KEARNEY: With one year to go before Britain leaves the European Union, radio four is broadcasting a number of programs today under the theme ‘Britain at the Crossroads’. The aim is to go beyond the detail of the negotiations and to explore Britain’s future role and place in the world, and that of our European neighbours. A little later in the programme, we’ll be launching a new 12 part series called ‘Brexit: a love story’, with each episode looking at one event during the UK’s membership of the EU, and asking whether the tensions which ultimately led to us choosing to leave the EU were evident from the beginning. But first we’ll hear from some of our European correspondence on how the Brexit processes being perceived abroad. Chris Paige is in Ireland.

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CHRIS PAIGE: During his state visit to the UK four years ago, the Irish president, Michael D Higgins, invokes an ancient saying during a speech in Windsor Castle.

MICHAEL D HIGGINS: Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine

CP: He said it was most often translated as, ‘We live in the shadow of each other’, but, he observed, the word for shadow could also mean shelter. The links between the UK and its nearest neighbour are forged in families, culture and commerce. That’s why Ireland wants the post-Brexit relations between the EU and Britain to be as close as possible. The issue of whether there’ll be checks on the border is a critical one for businesses, but it’s not just a money matter. One of the basics of the peace process has been that people in Northern Ireland who identify as Irish should feel freely able to do so. The invisibility of the frontier helps to enable that. Despite the current crisis at Stormont, Northern Ireland has changed perhaps more than any other part of the EU during its time in it. When the UK and Irish Republic joined in 1973, the conflict was at its height. London and Dublin were at odds on how to deal with it. But Ireland’s economy was heavily dependent on Britain, its currency was pegged to sterling. Some commentators argue that the simultaneous entry of the two countries into the then-EEC paradoxically marked the most decisive break between them. The smaller nation formed new relationships and it went from being one of the poorest countries in Europe to one of the richest. But nonetheless, Brexit will affect the Irish Republic more than any other state bar Britain itself, and there’s a sense of trepidation and frustration at the continuing uncertainty. Several years before Irish independence, James Joyce wrote a play called Exiles, in which a character mused, ‘If Ireland is to become a new Ireland, she must first become European.’ More than a century later, Ireland’s directing its gaze towards the continent more than ever.

MK: Chris Paige. And later on, we’ll hear reports from Germany, France and Poland.

1.24pm Brexit and France and Germany

MK: And now for the next in our series of postcards to mark one year to go before Britain leaves the EU. We’re hearing from some of our European correspondents on how the Brexit process is being perceived abroad. Lucy Williamson reports from France.

LUCY WILLIAMSON: If it wasn’t clear from his election campaign it was unmistakable once he’d won. Emanuel Macron walked out to his victory rally last year to the sound of the EU anthem, and told France that Europe was their destiny. The EU is at the heart of Mr Macron’s plan for France, and reform, he says, is imperative. In many ways, the UK’s exit should make that easier, it’s been a key opponent to Mr Macron’s vision of a multi-speed Europe, and closer ties for Eurozone members. And Brexit is seen by some as a chance to remould and unite the EU’s remaining countries. There’s been more than a bit of Gallic eye- rolling here over Brexit, ‘About time you got off the fence’ seems to be the dominant theme of editorials and cartoons. But the EU has its critics here too, and without real reform Mr Macron believes their number will grow. London’s departure will also boost French leadership in Brussels, especially with the German Chancellor tied into political compromises at home. But Brexit presents a problem for France too: the UK is the only other heavyweight military power at the EU table, the only other nuclear power besides France and the only other permanent member of the UN Security Council. Emanuel Macron wants the EU to be more active in defending its strategic interests, but that will be very difficult without British skills and capacity. Paris and London already have their own defence agreements and their mutual importance was underlined this year at a summit between the two leaders, but

149 when it comes to France’s place in the world, there is little doubt that President Macron’s gaze is fixed towards Europe, not across the Channel.

MK: Lucy Williamson. And now for the perspective on Brexit from Germany, here’s Jenny Hill.

(speaking in German, includes voice of Angela Merkel, no translation given)

JENNY HILL: Angela Merkel is back in business, sworn in for a fourth term as German Chancellor. She is weakened, but after months of political uncertainty her new, albeit rather fractious, coalition government is in place. And Mrs Merkel’s made her priorities clear. The first date in her diary: a trip to Paris to meet the would-be great reformer of the EU, Emanuel Macron and to discuss life after Brexit. Like her French counterparts Angela Merkel is, like most Germans, a passionate defender of the European project. Her country, perhaps of all the member states, the most upset by Britain’s decision to leave. I recall German MPs with tears in their eyes as they absorbed referendum result. Germany is losing a political and economic ally, but also a crucial trading partner. Its business lobby is nervous, so is the mighty car industry. The UK is a vital market. Even so, Germany’s red lines are set in stone – Britain won’t get preferential treatment. (Angela Merkel, speaking German, not directly translated) In her first address to Germany’s new parliament, Mrs Merkel spoke of the need to negotiate a profound, detailed trade agreement with the UK. She wants, she said, not for the first time, a close and friendly relationship. But that alliance cannot, will not be as close and friendly as it is today. Germany values stability, most here are still baffled by Britain’s decision to leave. Almost every time I meet a new German, I’m still asked why. But this too is a nation of pragmatists. Mrs Merkel’s already promised more money to plug the EU budget gap once Britain contribution ends. In Berlin, what was once unimaginable is now just another challenge, alongside migration, digitalisation, global conflict. Britain matters here, but it’s eclipsed by a greater priority – security the integrity of the EU.

MK: Jenny Hill.

1.32am Theresa May’s Tour of the UK

MARTHA KEARNEY: With 12 months to go before Brexit, and with English local elections just a few weeks away, Theresa May has been travelling across the UK to spread her message that there are real opportunities to be had. She’s made a whistle top tour of the school in Newcastle, a cashmere scarf factory in Aire, and other visits around the country are scheduled. Our political editor, Laura Kuenssberg is travelling with the Prime Minister, and asked if she agreed that some people who voted to leave the EU were frustrated at the pace of change.

THERESA MAY: I understand, because I understand why people voted for leaving the European Union. For a lot of people, immigration, taking back control of our borders was part of it, taking back control of our laws, taking back control of our money. This was part, all part of why people voted to leave the European Union, and we’re going to deliver on that. But we need to make sure that we do it in the way that is best for the United Kingdom, that’s best for people’s jobs, for people’s futures, and that means a smooth process.

LAURA KUENSSBERG: It means people having to be patient.

TM: It mean, but it means a smooth process, but what I can say is we, we will leave the European Union on 29 March 2019, that’s in a year’s time. There will be a period of implementation, as we put in place the changes necessary for our future relationships, for 150 our future economic partnership particularly. But, but what is important is that gives certainty to business, it gives certainty to people about what the arrangements are going to be, as we moved that brighter future.

LK: Now, Brexit included a big promise on the NHS, you’re now making a big promise on the NHS, how will that be paid for? Will it be, will it come from a Brexit dividend?

TM: Well, first of all, what I’m clear about is we do want a multi-year funding settlement for the NHS, and, as I say, a long-term plan for the NHS, so that the NHS can have a greater certainty looking ahead to the future, and can make plans. But some reform will be needed as well, yes (words unclear, due to speaking over)

LK: (speaking over) How will it be paid . . .

TM: Yes, it will be partly about money, but we’ll be doing that, we’ll take our balanced approach as we have to know already, and since November we’ve already announced a further £10 million going into the NHS. Our balanced approach of dealing with the economy, of dealing with our debt, of putting money into our public services while we ensure that we are helping to keep taxes low, as low as possible for families, is the approach . . .

LK: (speaking over) But you’ve made a big promise on the NHS, now, some of your colleagues believe the extra cash could come from the so-called Brexit dividend, do you believe there will be a Brexit dividend, or might there have to be tax rises for the NHS, it’s what some people are calling for?

TM: Well, what we’re going to do on the NHS is we’re going to work with clinicians, with NHS leaders, with others, to look at what the plan for the NHS on a longer term should be. We want to provide a multi-year funding settlement, but as we go through that we’ll do that as part of our normal processes, once again taking that balanced approach to how we deal with this. Now, you ask about money from the European Union, of course, when we leave the European Union we’re no longer going to be sending . . . spending vast sums of money, year in and year out, sending that money to the European Union. So, there will be money available here in the UK for us to spend on our priorities, priorities like the NHS and schools.

LK: So, do you believe there will be a Brexit dividend? Would you call it that?

TM: Well look, there’s going to be money that otherwise we would have been sending to the European Union, that we’re going to be able to spend on priorities in the UK.

MK: Theresa May talking to Laura Kuenssberg, and now, our final postcard from abroad, on how the Brexit processes being perceived. This, from Adam Easton in Poland.

ADAM EASTON: It’s fair to say most Polish politicians were disappointed when Britons voted to leave the EU. That’s because Poland is losing something of a kindred spirit, one that also believes the EU should be a group of strong, independent nations, and one that supports free trade and dislikes protectionism. Unlike Paris or Berlin, London was also not afraid to be critical of Moscow, even before the Skripal poisoning. Indeed, Poland’s governing Law and Justice party and Britain’s Tories are sufficiently similar, they belong to the same political group in the European Parliament. Some of the public here were also disappointed, or perhaps concern is the right word, about the status of the 1 million Poles living in the UK. Those workers sent home an estimated $1 billion a year. Some of that worry and disappointment has diminished with time. The rights of Poles already in the UK have been secured. So too have the funds in the current EU budget, which is crucial for Poland because 151 it gets more money than anyone else. Warsaw is looking towards a future without Britain with guarded optimism. Once the UK leaves, Poland will become the fifth largest member, able to wield a little more clout if it chooses. 87% of Poles support EU membership, the highest rate in Europe. After five decades behind the Iron Curtain, many people here felt they were returning to their rightful home. But that’s not to say people here like everything about the EU. There’s a slowly growing feeling among government supporters that an interfering Brussels is starting to remember Soviet-era Moscow. And Warsaw is at loggerheads with the EU on many issues, notably migration and the rule of law. This government is the most Eurosceptic since Poland joined the bloc in 2004, but it also knows the benefits membership brings – most of all, access to the single market for Polish companies. That trade, and EU cash, is fuelling the country’s economic growth. For the government, being inside the club strengthens Poland’s standing in the world.

1.37pm Brexit, A Love Story?

MK: Adam Easton. It’s a little-known fact that I fellow presenter, Mark Mardell is one of the most romantic people in the BBC, often seen around the building with bunches of red roses and heart-shaped boxes of chocolates. So we’ve asked him to combine that natural ardour, with his passion for European stories. Mark’s new series, ‘Brexit: a Love Story’ starts today. It examines the UK’s 45 year relationship with the European Union, as we prepare to leave in a years time. It’s also going to be available as a podcast.

MARK MARDELL: It was quite a moment: January 1, New Year’s Day 1973. The Daily Mail, priced three new pence, had a special front-page.

ANNOUNCER READING DAILY MAIL: For 10 years the Daily Mail has campaigned for this day. We have not wavered in our conviction that Britain’s best and brightest future is with Europe. Europe here we come!

MM: Yes, in those days, the Daily Mail was in favour of the Common Market, and the Today programme unwittingly revealed what they thought joining Europe really meant.

DOUGLAS CAMERON: A very good morning to you from Douglas Cameron, here on the Today programme. (Music: La Marseillaise)

MM: Ah, the French, who for so long argued we weren’t really European. Of course, there was passionate, long-standing opposition at home too. But at this moment it was rather drowned out by the sounds of celebrations. (Music: Fanfare for Europe) That’s Fanfare for Europe, written by the composer Edward Gregson, he was 27 at the time.

EDWARD GREGSON: From what I remember, I had a phone call one day saying, ‘We’re planning to do a big concert at the Albert Hall and it’s a celebration of our entry into Europe, and what we want to do is to start the concert with a specially composed fanfare saying right, boom, boom, this is it, let’s make a song and dance about it.’ And so, obviously, the nature of what you wanted to write for an occasion like that was a kind of big statement so it sounds quite stately and triumphant, which is kind of, I think, symbolic of what Britain felt at the time, actually, about going into Europe.

MM: I Mark Mardell, and this is ‘Brexit: a Love Story?’ There’s a question mark there, a big one. Was the UK’s relationship with Europe ever really amorous, ever less than lukewarm marriage of convenience? We’ll be examining some snapshots from that 45 year 152 relationship, hearing the inside story told by those who were there at the critical points, asking if the future was written in the past. Sometimes looking at those moments under odd lights and at curious angles to see what we can learn about ourselves now. So, let’s step back, 45 years ago, the UK joined the six: France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. We were finally in, in the Common Market. It had been a rocky road with many missteps. The road ahead would be no less tortuous and twisting. Many political careers would be left like so much wreckage on the highway, before we eventually took the slipway marked ‘Exit’ in 2016. We’ll look at those twists and turns and ask if the ending should have been such a surprise. Perhaps the love affair was doomed from the very start. And while 1973 wasn’t at the very start, it was certainly a milestone on the journey. The leader of the opposition, Harold Wilson, condemned the spending of £350,000 on celebrations as an outrage. But for others, like Edward Gregson, this was a new beginning for a new generation.

EG: Coming up, being brought up in the 60s, we had a totally different view about Europe, because I’d already travelled to a number of countries in Europe when I was a student, so Europe became less of a kind of Alice in Wonderland world, and more of a kind of . . . something which we could identify with. And, and certainly for me and my generation, I think, it was an exciting time knowing that we were going to, in a sense become Europeans, if that’s the right phrase to use.

MM: For one man, this moment was a glorious triumph, a climax to a lifelong desire. The Prime Minister, Edward Heath, had no doubts that Britain’s destiny lay within the European Economic Community, to give the Common Market its formal name at that time. Intense, intellectual, musician, bachelor, sailor, Heath was not cut of the common cloth. Sarah Morrison, former vice-chair of the Conservative party began a lifelong friendship around this time. She knew this famously cold man perhaps better than anyone else. But their first serious encounter was when Heath quizzed her on, to him, the central question, her European credentials stop

SARAH MORRISON: Almost one of the first conversations that I remember having with him was after the veto. He said, ‘You of all people ought to understand about Europe.’ I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Well, after all, your father was killed in the last war and your grandfather was killed in the one before that, just start thinking.’

MM: Heath had always been driven, serious even as a student. His first trip abroad at the age of 21 was no jolly jaunt, it took in the Nazi Nuremberg Rallies, where he met some of Hitler’s henchmen. The experience deepened his fierce opposition to appeasement.

EDWARD HEATH: it was really a terrifying oppression, there was a control of great masses of people.

UNNAMED INTERVIEWER: So you felt very conscious of the Nazi menace?

EH: Oh, very much so.

MM: After the war, Europe tried to pull together, to the alarm of many British politicians who attempted to thwart the project for years, before those in government reluctantly, hesitantly, decided there was no alternative, they’d simply have to join. Only to find de Gaulle blocking the road. The leader of the free French in the war, the president himself was no fan of the project, except with France as its master. To the British joining, he said ‘non’, not once but twice. The UK showed, he said:

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CHARLES DE GAULL (Actor’s voice) Deep-seated hostility to the construction of Europe.

MM: His successor as French president, George Pompidou, was more accommodating. Top secret talks began. The conduit was Lord Armstrong, Britain’s most distinguished civil servant, then Heath’s principal private secretary, in hush-hush negotiations with his French opposite number, Michel Guber (phonetic), painful, slow, and then a breakthrough.

LORD ARMSTRONG: The negotiations between Pompidou and Heath lasted for two days, and there was some point that Heath and Pompidou had been discussing, where there was some disagreement about a figure or something, and they decided to remit the matter to Guber and me, so we left the dinner after the coffee, and went and had a meeting upstairs. I had Peter Thornton with me, and he said, rather disarmingly, ‘I could say more in detail about this, if you would like me to do so?’ And Guber looked across at me and said, ‘Nous non-voulons pas’, and I knew then that we were on the right course. And sure enough, the following day, Heath and Pompidou agreed.

MM: So when the French didn’t want any more to be said, when the agreement came, what was his reaction when he . . . did you tell him that night?

LA: I told him that night, of course, yes. He was greatly relieved. I don’t think he was counting his chickens at that stage, because he still had to talk to Pompidou about a number of things, but I think at that point we felt that this might be going to go the right way and not the wrong way.

MM: But the most important chicken to be counted was Britain’s true purpose. Pompidou said the crux was whether the UK shared the idea of Europe. Having decided it did, or at least Mr Heath did, led to a rather awkward joint TV appearance.

SM: I remember teasing him, when he and Monsieur Pompidou were on British television, on the news, sitting on plastic chairs with thin stems and they both like misshapen eggs that were about to fall out of rather badly-made egg cups. And I saw Ted not long after and I said, ‘Well, in future if you want anybody to take Europe seriously, let alone you and your friend Monsieur Pompidou, for god’s sake don’t look like figures of fun sitting on stalks overlapping at the edge and about to fall off, you couldn’t listen to a word you said, because I was so worried whether you are going to fall off those ghastly chairs.’ Ted said, ‘How typical of you to fix that,’ he said, ‘totally unimportant’. I’m happy to say, not all that long afterwards, when Madame Pompidou came to lunch or dinner with Ted, and I said something about that, she said, ‘Ooh, I said exactly the same thing, you were quite right’, so I was thrilled. And I said to Ted, ‘There you are, it wasn’t only me’, and Ted just said, rather acidly, ‘Well, I suppose you’re not always wrong.’

MM: The debate that had raged for years had been fierce, among the politicians, indeed, among the civil servants. The Treasury was against it, it would damage the balance of payments, prices would go up. There were fears about the English language, about the relationship with the Commonwealth, but it was the argument about food prices which really struck home.

DOUGLAS JAY: The effect of this country joining the Common Market under present conditions and on the terms which we could now reasonably hope to get would be economically disastrous to this country. In this first place . . .

ENNOCH POWELL: Because you see, in the Common Market, the central government or organisation of a Common Market is going to manage those countries more and more as the 154 years go by. So I fear that in the Common Market, we should have more government as time went on, and not less government.

MM: Labour’s Douglas Jay, and Conservative for a little while longer, Enoch Powell. And from Conservative MP Neil Martin, speaking in 1970, the big question – where would it all end up?

NEIL MARTIN: . . . that if we sign the Treaty of Rome, we are getting on a moving staircase from which there is no escape, and when you get off the top of the moving staircase, you land up in a United States of Europe, a country called Europe, where Britain will be . . .

MM: Lord Armstrong feels that was not a great concern of Heath’s at the time.

LA: I can’t really say I know what he would have thought on the issue of sovereignty.

MM: You never discussed it, you never said, ‘You do realise, Prime Minister, this does mean giving up sovereignty?’

LA: We didn’t know what it meant really, to that, to that extent, we were joining a primarily economic community and we were clearly sharing sovereignty in certain aspects of that. I don’t believe that he envisaged a community of 28 as opposed to the 9 we were creating in 1971. I don’t think he would have begun to think about having a euro at that stage, or about having a European Central Bank. But he would have said that sovereignty by itself isn’t anything, it’s what you make of it.

MM: And while these big issues were debated intensely, there was a bigger issue as the backdrop. The country was no longer the self-confident, proud master of Empire, we were the sick man of Europe, beset by economic woes. After all, there were a million unemployed, big iconic companies were going bust, there was a pay-freeze and a wave of strikes. And, from a distance at least, Europe feels like a debate within the elite, not the burning concern on the streets. And it seemed that debate had come to an end, the conclusion. At least it seemed so. In fact, it was only just starting. But a critical date in the calendar of our story was October 28, 1971. The father of the European project, Jean Monet, sat watching in the gallery of the House of Commons as the British Parliament voted to join the six. The fractious debate breached party lines, some Tories defied Heath and it was pro-market Labour rebels who gave the Prime Minister his big majority, bigger than expected, 112. He said, ‘Millions around the world would rejoice’, and left the chamber to cheers.

LA: He was clearly very moved by that. I think there was a sense of fulfilment, but what I remember particularly vividly is that after that vote he came back to 10 Downing Street, there were lots of parties, celebrations going on around the place, to all of which he was invited, and to all of which he went, briefly, but before he went to any of them, he went upstairs in the house at Downing Street, where his father and his brother and sister-in-law were, and I was there and one or two other people, and he sat down at his clavichord and he played the First Prelude from the 48 Prelude’s and Fugues by JS Bach. And it was saying something about how he felt about being back in Europe stop it was a very moving moment.

MM: And you were moved as well?

LA: (sounding emotional) Very much so . . . I still am to think about it. For him, music, and particularly that music, was obviously tied up in his mind with, with the political side of it.

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MM: And explain to me, I’m not a musician, you are, like him – what did that piece of music mean?

LA: It’s very . . . orderly. It’s very beautiful, it’s very . . . plain and clear. For him that music had meant, for many years, a very great deal, and I think it was part of his sense that we should be back in the centre of things in Europe.

MM: That too is very Heath. Years later, Sarah Morrison sat listening to him play.

SM: And I’m sitting on the sofa, and he was playing the piano, and after a bit I said, ‘Aren’t we going to go on,’ you, talking about whatever we were talking. ‘Shh, I am talking to you.’

MM: Did he show equal disdain for talking directly to the British people? Was this famously cold man possessed by a burning passion which he couldn’t communicate to the country? Or perhaps it wasn’t like that at all. Perhaps he didn’t see the need.

LA: I don’t think he was very good at conveying that sort of emotion, but I don’t know that Ted Heath himself did much by his own words, as it were, to, to encourage it. I don’t think he was that kind of man. He, he didn’t easily display emotional feeling.

MM: I suppose some would say that was the fault of, not just one man, but the European project generally?

LA: Well, obviously, there were people who didn’t want to go in, but . . . I think he felt that the intellectual arguments, if that’s the right way to put them, the political arguments were overwhelmingly strong.

MM: No small talk, no soaring rhetoric, but always the music.

EH: This is a powerful organ, certainly for the size of this chapel, when you’ve got everything out, a chord or two, you can hear how much there is in it. (plays organ) Bring out a little more. A little more still. Soft pedal, open-aired.

MM: Soft-pedalling, indeed. It’s the big historical charge against Heath, that he misled the British people about what we were getting into, downplayed the loss of sovereignty, spoke as if the market was just an economic club, not a profoundly political project. It’s an accusation which has grown in power and saliency, repeated again and again, right up to the 2016 referendum. Is it fair?

SM: I look upon that as complete baloney. We’d had the de Gaulle veto, it had been on the agenda, so the idea that he was deceiving is complete nonsense.

MM: Even as celebrations for the love affair were in full swing, there were plans for divorce in the offing. The man known as Wedgy – Anthony Wedgewood Benn, proposed what was considered an off-the-wall idea, a plebiscite on British membership. Next time, the 1975 referendum on ‘Brexit: a Love Story?’

MK: Well, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a cabinet secretary in tears before. The next episode of Mark Mardell’s series, which will look at the 1975 referendum will be on the program and available as a podcast in two weeks. And you can describe to ‘Brexit: a Love Story?’ from your usual podcast provider, and then each episode will just download onto your device as soon as it’s ready.

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Dead Ringers, 1.55pm

JEREMY CORBYN: You have reached the voicemail of Jeremy Corbyn, I can’t come to the phone just now as I’m liking things I can’t see on Facebook. (beep)

DIANE ABBOT: Jeremy, it’s Diane. I just wanted to reassure you that you have my full support for your visionary stance on Brexit, unlike that treacherous snake in the grass, Owen Smith. A shadow cabinet member publicly stating that Britain should have a second referendum, thinking they can remain in their job, who does he think he is, me? But to be fair Jeremy, when I said exactly the same thing back in November it was a vastly different situation because as we all know, I haven’t a clue what I’m talking about, and cannot be held accountable for anything I say and do, whereas Owen Smith is guilty of being dangerously competent and should be told to go and join the Tories. And to those Labour Remoaners like Chuka Umumna, who say we should be offering the country an alternative to Brexit, I say we are – we offer a truly socialist Brexit, with a Britain both out of the single market and the customs union, whilst inside a customs union and single market. So we are inside the outside, trading freely and not freely, as a member and not a member of the EU. It’s so simple. We’re a party of the many Brexits not the few. Can I just say Jeremy, people are being so unfair to you for liking that anti-Semitic mural on Facebook. I accidentally liked one of Tony and Cherie’s holiday snaps on Instagram once, and it still gives me nightmares. Be reassured, as we begin our Brexit journey, I’ll be there at your side every step of the way, remembering to keep at least ten paces back, as per our agreement regarding personal space.

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The Brexit Lab, 4.30pm

Note, this is from iPlayer, - possibly an extended version from that actually broadcast, need to check against TV eyes version.

ANNOUNCER: Now on Radio 4, how could Britain change after Brexit? With exactly a year to go before the UK leaves the European Union, are we thinking hard enough about what might come after any deal with the EU? In a very personal view, Iain Martin explores opportunities for policy experimentation post-Brexit.

JULIE FOURCADE: Right Ian, it’s a working plant, we need to observe health and safety. It's quite warm out there but nevertheless I’m going to have to ask you to put full PP on, so you’ve got steel toe capped boots, so just to keep you protected out there.

IAIN MARTIN: So I’m now putting on the full George Osborne outfit, the hi-viz jacket, steel toe capped boots and I’m just about to go off and see this plant. The reason why I'm donning the high viz gear is that I'm on a trip around the country to find out what Britain could start doing differently after we leave the European Union. I voted Leave because I thought the potential upsides of Brexit heavily outweighed the negatives. Not only was I convinced of the benefits of returning sovereignty to the UK's Parliament, I was genuinely optimistic about the opportunities for Britain to strike out in a different direction. That doesn't mean I think the fundamental challenges we face as a country are somehow instantly solved by Brexit, of course not. But if we can move beyond the divisions of the aftermath of the referendum we might find that Brexit offers us all sorts of exciting chances for fresh thinking about how we solve problems. In this programme I'm going to be exploring some of these possibilities. One area of policy where we may have the potential to introduce dramatic change is in waste and recycling. The European Union sets the rules here, perhaps we can do better at utilising the end product of our consumer-driven economy. Looking up at this massive facility here, it looks like something which could house a 747 jumbo jet, in terms of sheer scale it must be on a par with St Paul's Cathedral. What goes on here at the Greatmoor Energy from Waste Facility is that the company FCC, on behalf of Buckinghamshire Council, turns household waste and business waste into energy which can be used to power our homes. Funnily enough it began operations in the week that Britain voted to leave the European Union. I’m going to go inside, have a look at how it works and ask whether it provides a model for how Britain should be thinking about energy and waste after Brexit.

JF: Okay, so what we have here is this is the grate, and you can see the actual combustion on the waste.

IM: Julie, we’re standing in the turbine hall, how much energy is being produced at the moment?

JF: There’s 29 Megawatts of power being produced by the turbines. We then use around two megawatts of power within the plant, so running the lighting and air conditioning and after that all electricity is then exported to the (word unclear) which is around 27 Megawatts.

IM: How many homes does that then supply energy to?

JF: It would be around 40 to 45,000 homes-worth of power that we’re producing here today.

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IM: Greatmoor handles energy from waste, which is non-recyclable. But there are fewer than 40 plants like this in the country. The majority of our waste either goes to landfill or is exported overseas to be processed and turned into energy. Since the late 1990s our waste and recycling policy has been increasingly determined by directives set in Brussels. The think tank Policy Exchange produced a report last year with the support of FCC which calculated that the EU's proposed circular economy package will impose a £2 billion of costs on the UK as well as introducing unrealistic targets for recycling. Julie Fourcade is director of external affairs at FCC.

JULIE FOURCADE: We aren’t recycling in the UK at the level we should be. There are very good reasons for that, we measure our recycling by weight - we question whether that's the right way to be measuring recycling. Could we perhaps look at a carbon metric or different ways of measuring our results, but most importantly fixing the back end of the market. It's one thing to collect single-use plastic bottle, it's a very different thing to get it re- manufactured in this country into something useful and we want to see much more of that in these shores, creating jobs and creating infrastructure and then when it comes to the waste, the waste comes to plants like this, we want to see much more clever use of that waste. We’re a landfill business in part, but we believe there are much better uses for that waste. We believe we should be using it here to generate energy that's what we have, we have a capacity gap in this country, we don't have enough of these facilities to treat the waste that we have and going forward, yes, to have much more use of these plants to look at heat as well as energy generation.

IM: This seems to be one policy area where there’s quite a lot of potential, Julie, for things to be done differently?

JF: Our belief as a business and our hope is very much that this does give us a chance to take a step back, to have a look at how we manage our waste and our recycling in the UK and to do some really clever and creative things to maximise the resources that we have. You know, we have huge amounts of plastic, it's been all over the papers recently, we could and should be doing better. This does give us the opportunity to have a look at that within our shores and to maybe think about other solutions than simply following a European trend, as good as that is, it does give us the flexibility that we would love to see maximised now so that we can make best use of our resources here in the UK.

JOSHUA BURKE: I’m Joshua Burke, I’m a research fellow in the energy and environment team at the London based think tank, the Policy Exchange. If we leave the European Union before the circular package is adopted, then the UK has a lot more scope to define its policies going forward. So one of the things that our report, ‘Going Round in Circles’ recommended was looking at ways we can deal with waste in the most cost-effective way, and the least cost to the consumer. And what we tried to emphasise was that placing more emphasis on reducing waste and re-using waste was perhaps a more suitable way to go.

MICHAEL GOVE . . . you buy your way out of your responsibility towards others and the planet, erm that would be a (words unclear)

COMPERE: Can we just thank the Secretary of State once more (applause)

IM: I’ve just arrived at County Hall in London at the Green Brexit conference being hosted by an organisation called Prosperity UK which was set up to explore ways in which Britain might make a success of leaving the European Union. The delegates here have just heard from Michael Gove who's speaking at the moment and we are just about to go and 159 talk to the environment secretary. Michael Gove, as environment secretary, you’ve now assembled this rather bizarre, extraordinary coalition of interests, ranging from Greenpeace right through to farmers, all seeming to expect that Brexit is going to deliver something for them. It can’t really deliver for them all, can it? Someone’s going to be disappointed post- Brexit.

MICHAEL GOVE: Well, what's really remarkable about the European Union is that it has in its common agricultural policy the one policy which unites in opposition everyone from farmers, landowners and land managers through to environmental groups of the deepest green hue and that's because the common agricultural policy has both been bad for farmers in terms of compromising the effective running of their businesses, it’s also been bad for the environment because it's incentivised and encourage an approach towards the use of our landscape that has been environmentally damaging.

IM: So what do you anticipate policy after Brexit looking like once the CAP is gone what is in its place?

MG: Well, at the moment the Well, one of most important things I think is that we continue to use public money in order to support activity in the countryside, in our rural environment, but the nature of the activity that we support, the way that we support it changes. So, at the moment the common agricultural policy basically just hands over cash on the basis of the size of someone's estate. And what it means is that, in essence, we are subsidising the already wealthy. I think that that’s wrong, in principle, what we should be doing is shifting our support so that it goes to people who provide a degree of public goods. The most important of those are environmental services, making sure that we have not just the quality of the soil and the quality of water in our rivers, that all of us would like to see but also the restoration of habitats so that we can see wildlife returning in greater numbers and in greater health than ever before.

IM: Few would have predicted at the time of the referendum that the natural environment would be at the leading edge of government thinking post-Brexit, but that is how it is turning out. There’s a wave of excitement about the possibilities offered by a green Brexit The signs are that the UK will take a bold approach, going further than the EU on the environment. That means Gove really has made some unlikely friends, including Greenpeace. Dr Douglas Parr is head of policy and chief scientific adviser at Greenpeace UK.

DR DOUGLAS PARR: Overall we were worried about the environmental impact of Brexit and what it would mean for a whole suite of areas but there is unquestionably opportunities that come in certain sectors which have a pretty poor track record in particular in agriculture and fisheries where if we got the right politics and the right policy we could do a better job than has been done before. We’re very positive about the kind of language that Michael Gove has been using about raising standards rather than lowering them, about reconfiguring for public good the sphere of agriculture. So, there is opportunity to do things differently and do things better. I think it’s also worth saying though, there’s a huge amount at stake over the next 12 months, and this future is by no means guaranteed.

NEWSREADER: Tonight, on Reporting Scotland, anger from Scottish fishing leaders after it’s confirmed Britain will not take back control of UK fishing grounds on day one of Brexit.

FISHERMAN: I mean, we’ve had politicians up here making promises, and these promises have been broken. So we can’t deny we’re not disappointed (sic).

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IM: One area that looks vulnerable to watering down or disappointment after Brexit is fisheries. The has already upset leaders of the fishing communities by agreeing to abide by the common fisheries policy for the duration of the transition period. That means foreign fleets fishing in British waters, as now. But once that’s over, could we transform the way we fish our waters? Michael Gove again.

MICHAEL GOVE: Of course, during the transition period we remain, as it were, quasi- members of the European Union. But once we’re out then we’re very clear that being outside that transition period and outside the, fisheries policy, provides rich opportunities for us to have a fisheries policy that puts marine conservation first, ensures stocks can return to health, across all of the waters (words unclear) United Kingdom will then be responsible, and that also means that coastal communities can revive, and that our fishing industry can recover the capacity that it’s lost all the time that we’ve been in the CFP.

IM: There’s a tussle between the two governments - Westminster and Edinburgh over who will get to decide policy. The SNP has long campaigned for reform of the common fisheries policy. Now that is a possibility what would they see in its place? Stephen Gethins is the party’s Brexit spokesman at Westminster.

SG: We’d like to see a fishing policy that was set in Edinburgh rather than London, you know, closer to the industry. I’m somebody who is very pro-European, but I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I don’t think fishing policy has been a success in the European context. I think for those of us who are in favour of the European Union, and actually, to be fair to the EU, they been open to this, we need to criticise where the EU was not successful. But the fishing industry also relies on access to the single market, you know, the fish, shellfish that’s landing places like Mallaig in the West Coast, or Peterhead, or even Pittenweem, my own constituency that finds its ways to restaurants, not just elsewhere in the UK but also in Paris and Madrid and elsewhere, relies on that single market, as do the fish processors in terms of seasonal workers too. There’s an opportunity here to do things better.

IM: The SNP has long been in the unusual position of being pro-EU while opposing a central policy of the EU. That is the common fisheries policy. And here we are now, in the unlikely situation of the party thinking out loud about the extra powers Scotland might get from Brexit. Some of the party’s leading figures have other ambitious demands, even envisaging a new migration policy.

SG: There’s a strong argument for Scotland to have its own immigration system, and actually, it would give us a competitive advantage. Look, Scotland is a country that has a lot of emigration as well as having immigration. You know, people who go elsewhere in the UK, elsewhere in Europe, elsewhere in places like Canada, the United States, emigration is good for the economy, and in Scotland education, food and drink policy, the energy sector, all these really important areas benefit from immigration.

IM: During the EU referendum we heard a lot about the points-based immigration system in Australia. What is less well known is that individual Australian states and territories can sponsor their own visas for business and skilled migrants. Maybe Holyrood could copy that system? Assuming it could reach agreement with a future government in Westminster. (sound of railway announcements) I’ve come to South Yorkshire to Doncaster, an area where 3 in 4 voters voted to leave the EU. This is a part of the world where concerns about immigration were a major factor. But what about in 5 or 10 years’ time? What do people want a government to be doing when we’re outside the EU?

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VOX POP FEMALE: A lot of people my maybe a little older, go back to the years when we were self-sufficient to a certain extent, you know, we could cope and grow and buy and make our own, our own things. And I think a lot of people think that we can do that again.

IM: And do you think the government needs to be doing more on skills and training?

VPF: Oh, absolutely. Without doubt. I mean, my partner he did a four-year apprenticeship, like my brothers and my uncles, they did a proper, not 6 months and sent out and . . . they had proper, proper apprenticeships, and that’s what I think they should bring back, you know, technical colleges and . . . rather than sticking with this, ‘You’ve got to have a degree, you’ve got to have a degree, you must have a degree’, and this that and the other, and . . . stupid degrees, you know, how long does it take a caterpillar to go through a field of cabbages, or something like that (laughs)

IM: So, we’ve just come from the station at Doncaster to the brand new high-tech gleaming High-Speed Rail National College. I’m going to go and talk to Caroline Flint a local Labour MP and some of the students who just enrolled here a few months ago. I’m (word or words unclear) establish if, post-Brexit This kind of college is the future for training and skills.

UNNAMED MALE: I’ll see you down in class when you’re done.

STUDENT: There’s a massive shortage of, like, qualified, skilled people in this sector, so this is perfect really, bringing people through for HS2 in time. I don’t think bringing people in from like outside, in Europe or whatever is the right thing to do. Create talent here, yeah?

IM: Of course, we could have improved skills and training before Brexit, but the end of freedom of movement and a new immigration policy makes it more urgent.

UNNAMED MALE: See, we have a high-speed train here.

CAROLINE FLINT: Called the Dolly Star.

UM: Called the Dolly Star, yeah, and all the equipment that you see here has been donated by . . .

IM: Caroline Flint, we're here in the cab of a high-speed train in Doncaster near your constituency. What responsibility do you think employers and the private sector in particular have? Has there been a tendency to just think well we don’t really need to take this so seriously because we can simply import labour from the European Union rather than putting in the training and the work to help people locally?

CF: I think there has been some of that and clearly in the sort of more low skill-sector of our economy employers finding it easier to import labour. In doing so I have to say some evidence suggests that has kept wages down, but also the conditions of work – zero hour contracts and so forth have been expanding in in the last 10 years that has been I think a result of that easy access.

IM: What, on this training and skills agenda, what would you like to see a future government do?

CF: Well, I would very much like to see more of what we are witnessing today at the National Rail College, the High-Speed Rail College here in Doncaster. It is about addressing where the jobs of the future are and there's no doubt when it comes to transport and high- speed rail, but other innovation in this sector there is money to earn for a start, both fir 162 employees and companies, but also it allows us to think about what we can do to build the infrastructure we need in this country to bring communities like Doncaster and other areas, the small towns if you like of Britain, together to be able to access some of the other jobs that are available to them as well, which is not really there for them today. But also it’s about how we boost our productivity so we are at the cutting edge of technology, we’re pushing the boundaries, we have an export market as well. And I think in areas like engineering, which applies to rail, to energy and other sectors, we know there’s a massive skills shortage, and if we don’t answer the question about why more of our young people aren’t getting the opportunities to do high level apprenticeships here in Doncaster, then we’re not going to be able to face the future and take communities like Doncaster and elsewhere with them.

IM: Having seen the future of rail at the High Speed Rail College in Doncaster, I’m now back at King's Cross station in London, with its impressive new concourse it's a symbol of the renaissance of the railways in Britain. But not everyone agrees that the way the railways are run, a part public, part private partnership, makes sense. Maybe one of the most surprising possibilities of life after Brexit is that we could go in a different direction on rail policy. Are we about to go back to the future, are we about to recreate British Rail? Nicole Badstuber is an expert on rail policy at University College London.

NICOLE BADSTUBER: At the moment EU rail policy requires a separation of track and train, so the infrastructure and the train services have to be run by independent companies. So, it’s sort of a quirk that the EU Commission has been pushing the adoption of a model as we have here in Great Britain at the moment to all EU member states, So, since the early 1990s, it’s been pushing the liberalisation of the rail market, so opening up to private companies running the services with these four EU rail packages, the last one which came into force at the end of 2016.

IM: So if a future government outside the EU decided that it wanted to recreate the old British Rail model, well post-Brexit it can do that now?

NB: Yeah, Yes so if it isn’t bound by current EU rail policy, it could recreate a monopoly. We could create a fully unified railway, or governance structure, as they do in Switzerland.

IM: Do you think though, for those of us who remember the old British Rail and some of the problems it had on safety, investment, all the rest of it, to say nothing of British Rail sandwiches, do people really, really want to go back to the old monopoly model of British rail? Is it a sensible thing to do?

NB: The public generally is in favour of that, surveys indicate three quarters of the public want the railway sector to be brought back into public ownership. And I think looking back at British Rail, it’s probably not the best benchmark for a modern railway that was in the public sector.

IM: Re-nationalising the railways is one of the main priorities of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader. The idea has a lot of public support. Recreating a state monopoly on railways is easier to achieve after we leave the European Union. That prospect is exciting some on the left, others see it as more complicated. Paul Mason is a journalist and thinker who has close links to the Labour leadership.

PAUL MASON: The question for the left is what form is it going to happen in. And here there are two conflicting priorities really working throughout . . . I would argue not just Labour but all the progressive parties in the UK. One is being outside the European Union a 163 bit, a little bit, gives you some leeway to do things you couldn't do inside the single market. But the other is you lose the protections especially for working people that the single market has afforded. So, for me, the art of being Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell is to do as much as you can, close to Europe.

IM: But then there are real dangers and difficulties as you describe it, for a potential future Labour government being too close to the single market to the extent that it can't do enough of the kind of things you want?

PM: Well, I think that's the dilemma and I think the strategic leadership that the Labour leader who takes this decision is going to have to show, is how much of their own programme are they willing to compromise to get close to the single market. And remember the trade-off is not simply a negative-sum game. Suppose Europe said, ‘you can have a special deal that gives you almost kind of associate status of the single market, but you have to take the following rules’ - well that might be quite hard for a Labour government if it, if it, if it mandated that the, for example, the railways couldn’t be re-nationalised as a single monopoly, or the water companies, or National Grid had to do certain . . . they might try and mandate the break up – because that’s what Europe does – it mandates the break up of things. Now, you might have to accept that, to get something that's actually quite important to the Labour movement and that is to be able to take rules which we want to take those rules on the Labour market, because they’re actually very good rules and the point about them is they’re inviolable.

IM: The fear that robust and popular employment rights and protections might go by the wayside after Brexit in bonfire of regulation prompted many on the left to campaign against Brexit, Mark Littlewood director of the free market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs takes a different view, he wants the government to get cracking on making labour markets, that’s hiring and firing, yet more flexible.

MARK LITTLEWOOD: I don't think there is a public appetite yet in that area but who knows in future there might be. It is true that Britain in comparison to our EU neighbours has a more flexible labour market, but that's not a reason to rest on our laurels. I would like it to be more flexible still and I think if we were to roll ahead say 5 years into the future it might be that discussions about the working time directive are increasingly a moot point, because I would say that what we're going to see is a big continuing upsurge in self-employment, at the controversial cutting edge of this at the moment are issues around, say, Uber and Deliveroo – are these people employees or are they contractors, or are they self-employed? Zero hours contracts is another issue at the cutting edge of that. So I would anticipate in 5 or 10 years’ time where it will be will be increasingly common to be self-employed at which point the working time directive just doesn't apply, that the interesting thing is to look at how we will regulate and hopefully not restrict those markets. And I suspect the EU will have a much more restrictive approach and the individual member states of the EU will, than your median political British government.

IM: And what does that mean in terms of protections such as maternity or paternity leave?

ML: Let's suppose that in its wisdom the state has stumbled across exactly how each worker needs to be treated and exactly how much paternity and maternity pay or leave is appropriate to each and every person in the workforce, and that is ascribed to them by law in their contract of employment. Might it be possible to allow them to sell those rights away? If they are your rights to take whatever it might be, three weeks, three months off in

164 the various different circumstances, well fine let’s . . . give you that right, let’s endow you with that right, but let’s make it yours to sell. I don’t see why employees can go back and say, ‘If you give me a pay rise of x, I’m happy for my paternity rights to be removed from my contract of employment.’ So, you could retain the present rules, the present rights structure if you think you’ve got that right, or perhaps you don’t even think it’s generous enough. But whatever you think the endowment of rights should be it does seem to me that you should give workers the ability to trade them, not just be endowed with them.

IM: Littlewood admits changing the law post-Brexit, to make it easier to sell your employment rights sounds like a challenging sell. But perhaps Brexit provides an opportunity to go further, in providing greater scope for individual choice in the way we work. Could we see a more profound shift in the way the British economy is organised? Developments in technology, life sciences artificial intelligence and driverless cars are going to transform the way we live. They also pose questions about how we choose to regulate or liberate these industries of the future outside the EU. Mark Littlewood again.

ML: I think that actually in Britain, despite what people say about the rise of Corbynism and the rest of it, there is an underlying tendency in the UK electorate and in our political psyche to be a little bit more buccaneering, enterprising, liberal, open-minded, seeing the upsides of these new technologies than I think you would typically find on continental Europe. But if that can come to the surface, and that becomes our broad philosophical approach, then a sensible, relatively light-touch regulatory environment is what will follow as a matter of public policy.

IM: That sounds pretty ambitious, but others pour cold water on the idea of a great experiment. The former Cabinet minister, Sir Oliver Letwin, who campaigned for Remain has been going through current EU rules and regulations, with politicians from other parties to see what red tape could be jettisoned by consensus.

OLIVER LETWIN: I do think that over time, depending on the exact nature of the relationship that gets struck and the degree of flexibility it gives us, there will be opportunities for adjusting somewhat the way in which we do certain kinds of things, which may, cumulatively and incrementally come to matter. But I think beyond that, actually the main challenges we’re going to face are the same ones that we face now, and the main challenges in the field of regulation are not actually about the regulations themselves, they’re actually about the extent to which first of all we enforce regulation in an intelligent as opposed to an unintelligent way, so instead of being clunky and bureaucratic we’re imaginative and work with the grain and make thing that the regulations are trying to make happen happen, rather than just making people miserable and be interfered with. And secondly the extent to which, over time, instead of resorting to regulation as the solution to particular problem, we resort instead to more intelligent and emotionally intelligent ways of persuading people to do the things that we think it’s necessary for society that they should do, which is of course where the whole question of ‘nudge’ and behavioural science comes in.

IM: So you don’t think there are huge swathes of regulation or rules that can be thrown out of the window post-Brexit?

OL: No, in a word I don’t. I would have said roughly that just on the basis of hunch and guesswork 18 months ago. Having now been working on it for rather more than a year, I think I can now say that with some confidence and knowledge. The kinds of change that one can make are going to be evolutionary and incremental and not massive and sudden.

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IM: Is that it? Surely there’s more that could be done to change the way the UK designs its laws, can’t we aim a little higher? What are the possibilities? How could we ensure that any new regulations improve everyday aspects of business and consumer behaviour? David Halpern of the Behavioural Insights Team, is an expert on behavioural science and has worked at the heart of Whitehall.

DAVID HALPERN Suddenly there’ll be new possibilities, and instead of us just saying, ‘Well, we know the answer’, we’ll have the possibility to say, ‘Well, what would be the best way of doing it?’ Quite often what happens, particularly when you get to regulatory matters, it is presumed you will have a long laboured discussion and negotiation and eventually settle on a single solution. Whereas quite often we don’t really know where that solution will in fact be effective, and it seems a very strange thing for a parliament to say, ‘Well, why don’t, instead of introducing one law, we should introduce more than one variation of this and figure out which is more effective.’ That might sound crazy, but it might actually lead to better kinds of outcomes. I’m going to give you a trivial example, where . . . what’s the right . . . food labels, a classic regulatory solution, which numbers you put on the side of the box, most people don’t read any of them. We have done lab work to test what are more effective, so particularly, different kinds of traffic lights, it actually turns out a four- colour works even better than a three-colour, at the moment that’s quite a complicated thing to do, because you end up in infraction in terms of Italian olive growers saying, ‘Well, wait a minute it looks like we’re getting a red and we’re not happy with that.’ It does open some new choices, and it might sometimes not be a formal regulatory approach. So can you achieve equivalence in some other way? If one thing came out of Brexit, we became more empirical and experimental and we spread that, that would be a very good development.

IM: I’ve been to different parts of the country, and I’m now back in London, in the heart of the City. The engine of the British economy as financiers see it. But any programme on the future of Britain has to take very seriously what the City says. It’s the beating heart of global finance. I’m standing outside the Royal Exchange, where it all began in the 16th century, founded by Sir Thomas Gresham in the 1560s and opened by Elizabeth I, where market traders first came together to do deals. Over the road as the Bank of England. During the referendum campaign much of the City was for Remain, fearing Brexit would cost London its global lead. Of late, I have to say I’ve detected a shift, and a new confidence that the City can continue to prosper. Now let’s go inside the cafe of the Royal Exchange to meet Gerard Lyons. He voted to leave, and even founded Economists for Brexit. I want to ask him, can the City do well after we leave the EU? And might it even be an opportunity for the City of London to do more for British business outside the capital?

GERALD LYONS: It’s not just leaving the EU, it’s what you do once you’ve left. And probably the most interesting and positive aspect for the City since the referendum was the fact that so many of the big tech companies decided to go ahead or continue with their large-scale investment in London. Because finance and technology are becoming very intertwined. And now there is great recognition across the globe that outside of Silicon Valley, London is becoming the tech centre. But certainly, when you look at it from a financial perspective London is really taking . . . or stolen the march, should we say, in terms of Fintech. Now, we need to continue to do that through a regulatory environment and through an environment where we continue to attract skilled labour from across the globe. So I think London is in a very positive position. The way I would describe being in the EU was it was like walking the wrong way on an escalator. This changing global economy with technology, networks and globalisation and so much growth coming from across the rest of the world was in contrast to the EU which almost wanted to go the other way - regulating, controlling, centralising. 166

IM: Away from the city in the broader economy, do you really think that there is a duty or responsibility, post-Brexit to give back something, to some of those areas that voted Leave? To really change policy and shift things in a direction in favour of non-London UK?

GL: I think we need to face the reality of the situation. The UK is a very imbalanced economy, that was highlighted at the time of the global financial crisis. The European Commission, once every three years produces a detailed report of the 263 regions of the European Union, three of the top five are in the south of England. Four of the top ten are the South of England. London and the Southeast is probably the most competitive region by a long way of the whole of Western Europe, and that’s why we need the City in some respects. But at the same time, as the Commission said, the UK has a very heterogeneous profile, i.e. we have some very underperforming and poor performing regions – Northern Ireland, West Wales and the Valleys, Cornwall, the Scilly Isles, and also South Yorkshire. So we need to almost get all the ‘i’s right – innovation, which I think we do well on, more infrastructure spending, more investment, and getting the incentives right. And the great thing about leaving the EU is that we have this ability to have an enabling environment that addresses the domestic regional issue as well as positioning the UK globally.

IM: Making this programme has made me more excited about the possibilities than when I began. Not only is Britain a very adaptable country with a long history, but outside the London bubble there does seem to be a real determination to get on with it. Labour’s Caroline Flint clearly thinks there’s no time to lose.

CF: I’m not, for one minute underestimating the challenges as we move forward. It may be 10 years or so before we can look back in all honesty and see, you know, how things have worked out. But we can’t wait 10 years to make the best of it. I just hope that we can address more fundamentally the problems of our own making and how we resolve them because one thing for sure is as we leave the European Union we can’t blame them anymore.

IM: So how much is possible, once the UK leaves the EU? Oliver Letwin says we shouldn’t get our hopes up.

OLIVER LETWIN: Well, I don’t think we should exaggerate this, because I think the whole Brexit debate has been huge damaged by both sides to it, claiming vastly more either from the one side, disasters looming, or on the other side Elysium beckoning. And I don’t think that leaving the EU is going to have any very dramatic, sudden effects one way or the other.

IM: Isn’t that unduly pessimistic? For Michael Gove there should be no limit to our ambitions.

MICHAEL GOVE: European law, as Lord Denning once pointed out is like a stream or a flowing river. It goes upstream it ensures that all sorts of little tributaries, which you thought were insulated from EU law become irrigated by EU law, so actually, it’s only once you’re truly outside that you can begin to explore the full range of possibilities that come from being a truly independent nation.

IM: Brexit is happening, and soon. As we’ve heard, there are risks involved with this experiment, but it opens up important opportunities and options. This is a chance to make our own decisions. With some imagination and gumption, we will make a success of life after the European Union. Brexit will be what we choose to make of it.

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Dead Ringers, 4.57pm

DAVID DAVIS: You’ve reached David Davis, I can’t come to the phone right now as Barnier has me in a headlock, please leave a message.

NIGEL FARAGE: No, no, no, let me speak after the beep. David, you old snaggletooth, inbred embarrassment, it’s Nigel Farage here, slayer of the liberal PC consensus, keeper of the Brexit flame, owner of a lonely heart. I’m ringing from the snug at the Fox and Lion as you can hear, that’s because I’m a salt of the earth Englishman with a pint in his hand, a moistened lager-stain down my (word unclear) and a pocket reeking of pork scratch— (sound effects of pub cut off suddenly) –ings. Damn! Never buy a sound effects CD from a Russian. Now, where was I? Oh yes, I’m outraged, you have bottled Brexit, you took something that was good and pure, where a plucky band of idealists defeated the political elite with nothing but hope in their hearts and oodles of cash from a few shadowy billionaires to chuck in that Cambridge data whatsit firm. I hate Facebook, I do, nine years is too long for a man to wait for a friend request. Now I feel betrayed and used, like a UKIP leader’s wife. First, you let the EU ruin our fishing industry, soon the only wet fish left in the country will be Jacob Rees-Mogg, and we can’t eat him because he’s too valuable to kill. You’ve seen The Shape of Water? That’s him and me, I’m the woman. Next comes the news the symbol of our freedom, the iconic blue passport will be made in France. You might as well punch the Queen and deadleg David Attenborough. Well it stops right here, I’m going to solve all of our problems at one stroke, replace the burgundy passports with fish. Every UK citizen will be given a British fish, cod for the English, Flanders for the Welsh, hake for the Scots, and whatever the Irish want, don’t blood well care about them they’re Irish after all. At every EU customs port Brits will bring out the fish in their pocket, slap it on the desk, and say ‘There you go Fritz, try and read the barcode on that’. Now, get it sorted or I will unleash the kind of hell not see since my local introduced Peroni on tap.

PM, 5pm

5pm Bulletins

JIM LEE: Theresa May has said leaving the European Union will mean there is extra money available for the NHS and schools. Mrs May was speaking to the BBC during her tour of the UK to mark one year until Brexit. More details from our political correspondent, Chris Mason.

CHRIS MASON: A day loaded with symbolism, but little else, gave the main protagonists in the debate around Brexit an opportunity to restate their vision, to look beyond the slog of day-to-day negotiation to what they see the country’s future looking like. The Prime Minister hopped from Scotland to northern England, Northern Ireland to Wales, and then back to London and told the BBC extra money would be available after Brexit to spend on priorities like the health service and education, as the UK would no longer, as she put it, be sending vast sums every year to Brussels. Labour warned time was running out to negotiate a good deal with the EU.

5.08pm A Year to Brexit

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EDDIE MAIR: In a year’s time the UK is due to leave the European Union. Later in PM tonight, Chris Morris from the BBC’s Reality Check will be answering our listeners’ questions about Brexit. Now though, Chris has kindly agreed to answer a couple of my questions, starting with: how far has the process got?

CHRIS MORRIS: Has it really only been a year since we triggered Article 50? It feels like forever, but I mean, let’s first remember what was said 12 months ago, because it did set the tone for what was to come. First, Theresa May and then the president of the European Council in Brussels, Donald Tusk.

THERESA MAY: The Article 50 process is now underway, and in accordance with the wishes of the British people, the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union. This is an historic moment from which there can be no turning back.

DONALD TUSK: This is about damage control, our goal is clear: to minimise the cost for the EU citizens, businesses and member states. We already miss you. Thank you and goodbye.

CM: ‘Thank you and goodbye’ and to be honest, he’s sounded pretty miserable about it ever since, and the EU still sees Brexit as a lose-lose situation, with no real winners, but triggering Article 50 a year ago did set us off on what most people describe as the most complex negotiation in modern history.

EM: But it appeared, from the outside at least, that not much was happening in those negotiations?

CM: To begin with, certainly not, because, don’t forget, British politics was turned on its head when Theresa May suddenly decided to call an election, made a bit of a pig’s ear of the campaign, and ended up relying on the votes of DUP MPs from Northern Ireland in Parliament and losing her overall majority. And then, when the election dust settled, the Brexit process entered what felt like a sort of process of verbal sparring, lots of sniping, lots of posturing about what was and what wasn’t going to happen, about Ireland, about citizens’ rights, and most of all about money, about the divorce bill.

BORIS JOHNSON: The sums that I have seen, that they propose to demand from this country seem to me to be extortionate and I think ‘go whistle’ is an entirely appropriate expression.

DAVID DAVIS: You want the other side to compromise, I want them to compromise. We’ve made quite a lot of compromises on the citizens’ rights front. We have been . . . we’ve made all the running, we haven’t always got that back.

LEO VARADKAR: Our only guiding light is the Good Friday Agreement, which clearly states that the constitutional status of Northern Ireland not be changed without the consent of the people of Northern Ireland. And this is fundamental to our position. I am surprised and disappointed that the British government now appears not to be in a position to conclude what was agreed earlier today.

CM: So, the Irish Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar there, proceeded, of course, by Boris Johnson and David Davis, and there were some sticky moments, but eventually, over the months we have got some more, the negotiations have made progress, what do we know now? Well, from the European summit last week we know there’s been agreement in principle on a legal text on the divorce bill for £39 billion, says the government. A broad agreement on the rights of citizens after Brexit, although a lot of people involved aren’t yet 169 certain what that really means. And, importantly, an agreement on a 21-month transition period after Brexit Day, hard for some Brexiteers to swallow, but the idea behind that is that this is such a complicated process it gives more time for governments and businesses to get all their ducks in a row, because, don’t forget, the one thing we haven’t even started yet is the negotiation on a future trade and security partnership.

EM: What else is still to be sorted?

CM: Well, this is the Reality Check, if you like, because if we’ve done maybe three quarters of the withdrawal agreement, it’ll come as no surprise to you that the last quarter is the really difficult bit. The Irish border in particular, how do you keep it as open as it is now, with no border infrastructure whatsoever, once we’ve left the single market and the customs union. There are some very clever minds working on that, and no one’s come up with a solution yet. And as I said, the trade negotiation, the future, the aim is to come up with a broad political declaration by October, but it’s clear that detailed trade negotiations are going to have to continue long after we’ve left.

EM: And there’s all the politics too?

CM: There is. I think there are two broad things to bear in mind. One: nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, this mantra we hear time and time again, but it does matter, because it means that if one thing gets stuck, the Irish border for example, the whole withdrawal agreement, including the transition, could disappear. And the other is, I guess where we started, with the precarious nature of the government’s majority in Westminster. And there are going to be some hairy moments, what happens if Parliament votes down a withdrawal agreement, perhaps on the issue of customs, perhaps on the issue of fishing, we saw Scottish Conservatives last week kicking up a fuss about what was being said about fishing. And it’s interesting, one of the things I think that was a bit messed this week, because it was the day that all the Russian spies were being expelled all across Europe, but Keir Starmer, Labour’s Shadow Brexit Secretary gave a speech in which he said, well look, if the withdrawal agreement is voted down, we are going to put forward an amendment saying, ‘it’s up to the whole of Parliament, not just to the government, to decide what happens next’, they will not accept the idea that if you vote it down, then you leave with no deal. So there’s some big political moment coming up.

EM: Chris, for now, thank you, Chris Morris, back answering listeners’ questions a little later, plus your regular Thursday Brexit briefing before 6 o’clock.

5.14am Bulletins

JIM LEE: Theresa May has told the BBC that extra money will be available after Brexit to spend on priorities like the health service and education. She said the UK would no longer be sending vast sums every year to Brussels.

5.30am Bulletins

JIM LEE: On a tour of the UK to mark a year until Brexit Theresa May has said leaving the EU will free up money for the NHS and schools. She said the funds would come from no longer paying vast sums to Brussels.

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5.35pm Brexit Briefing

EDDIE MAIR: Every Thursday, we bring you our Brexit Briefing – the things that are important about Brexit that we might have missed. Chris Mason is in London and Adam Fleming is usually in Brussels, but this week they’re both in London, because they performed at the BBC Radio Theatre a live edition of their award-winning podcast. It was the Brexitcast Arena Spectacular, do try and listen to it. Starting is off on our Brexit briefing, here’s Chris Mason.

CHRIS MASON: Yesterday marked 366 days until Brexit, tomorrow 364. But being 365 days today, means today has been asked to shoulder its fair share of symbolism, if not very much else, as far as leaving the European Union is concerned. In a brief quiet moment amid the flurry of saying rather a lot about not a lot, a spot of arithmetic. When we leave what is now the European Union, we will have been members for 46 years, two months and 29 days.

ADAM FLEMING: The European Commission, which runs the Brexit talks on a day-today basis is celebrating this auspicious moment by being closed for the Easter holidays. The chief negotiator, Michel Barnier marked it by giving an interview to French radio though, where he stuck to his script, saying the UK’s red lines meant the best it could expect was a free trade agreement with the EU, you know, the usual. He also commented on a story that had been orbiting earlier this week, that the UK would be thrown out of the EU’s satellite positioning system, Galileo. He confirmed that Britain would be able to negotiate access, but wouldn’t be given any top-secret data that was only available to member states.

CM: To the Brexit Central website, and some ‘On year to go’ words from Brexit secretary, David Davis, ‘We are one year away from a moment that will go down in history,’ he says, ‘March 29, 2019’ will be the day on which, after decades of membership, several years of consternation and many months of negotiation, we’ll finally leave the European Union. Mr Davis adds, ‘if the past year has taught us anything, it’s that though there will be, inevitably, bumps in the road ahead’, there is always a way through. In fact, this year has made me more of a determined optimist than ever before, he said.’

AF: And whatever happened to the famous letter by the Prime Minister that kicked all this off? Theresa May’s missive triggering Article 50. Well, The Telegraph has tracked it down to the archives of the European Council, in a safe deposit room accessible to only five staff. It’s stored in an acid-free folder in a box, with all the letters of accession from the countries that have joined the EU, ironically, there it will stay for 30 years until it’s transferred to an archive in Italy.

CM: As you’ve heard, the Prime Minister is on a masochistic mission around the UK, you know the genre – appear in a series of apparently mutually exclusive places to pop up in in the space of a single day, amazing what’s possible with planes and not staying anywhere very long. Anyway, another event today requiring big thoughts rather than a big travel bill, the UK in a Changing Europe conference at the QE2 centre in Westminster, entitled ‘Article 50 – One Year On’ with it, a report. Professor Anand Menon, the group’s director says that at this, the halfway point between us legally starting the journey to Brexit and actually leaving, uncertainty reigns, this is having negative consequences, he claims, for business and key sectors including agriculture, fisheries, aviation, the environment, higher education, the health service and financial services. The report also says that demographic changes are pulling public opinion in a pro-European direction. It claims that by 2021 the electorate will be 52:48 in favour of Remain; by 2026, it’ll be 54:46 Remain, as a result of rising education, rising ethnic diversity and what it calls, ‘generational change’.

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AF: And finally, nothing to do with Brexit Day itself, just some general Brexit news. The Irish government this week announced a loan scheme to help businesses there that have to adapt as a result of the UK’s departure. Companies with up to 500 employees will be able to apply for loans worth up to €1.5 million repayable at a rate of 4%.

5.40pm Listeners’ Questions

EDDIE MAIR: Chris Morris, the BBC’s Reality Check correspondent is here to answer PM listeners’ questions about Brexit. Chris, let’s start with money, we’ve had a question which asks, ‘What is the financial cost of the Brexit process so far’, and a more specific one from John Eames, who asks, ‘What’s the estimate of the final cost once the divorce bill has been paid, alterations have been made to our modes of government etc?’

CHRIS MORRIS: I mean, it’s really hard to be precise, I don’t want to disappoint John right at the beginning, but I mean, let’s just take one thing we’ve been looking into recently, which is the civil service, we know that there’s been specific cost there to prepare for Brexit, two new departments, the Department for Exiting the European Union, the Department for International Trade, we know that thousands of extra civil servants have been taken on in places like the Department for the Environment, Food and Affairs, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and there is an estimate that in this financial year just about to start, there’s probably going to be about £2 billion of spending just on the civil service preparing for Brexit. I mean, obviously, the big cost going forward is going to be the divorce bill we were talking about earlier in the programme, up to £39 billion says the government, with payments which will stretch for decades into the future, small ones, when you look at things like pensions and so on. The EU says, or there are those on the EU side who say it could even be higher than that, because obviously, no one can be quite certain how long people are going to live, so that’s a slight unknown. Other costs: things like setting up some of the regulatory agencies that we currently share with the European Union for things like . . . well, there are things like chemicals and pharmaceuticals that we want to stay in, but there are plenty of others that we may well leave and we’ll have to set up some system of our own. All of that though, of course, has got to be put in the context of what Brexit does to our economy. In the short term, most economists, not all, but most economists think we’re going to take a hit. In the longer term, I think the forecasts are almost pointless, we don’t really know, so, I think you’ve got to put it in that context, but there are certainly some short-term costs involved in changing the system.

EM: We’ve had lots of questions about UK citizens living on the continent, and concerns about their future status, including this one from Ian Barker. He says, ‘Please can you ask the excellent Chris Morris about’ . . . is this why this question was chosen?

CM: I put this one in deliberately, yeah.

EM: ‘Please can you ask the excellent Chris Morris a question regarding Brits contemplating moving to an EU country. If you bought a house in France prior to leaving but didn’t take up French residency, would you be able to opt for residency during the transition period, and would you then have the right to remain resident after transition’, come on Mr Excellent.

CM: Yes, well. I mean, you’re right, we get an awful lot of very specific questions from people about specific cases, and it’s sometimes difficult to answer, because unless you know every single detail you don’t want to give the wrong information. But I think Ian’s question, 172 the excellent Ian’s question, gives me a chance to say a few things. The two sides if you like, the negotiating teams, the politicians, say the issue is basically settled on citizens’ rights. The four million or so people involved, for them it doesn’t feel like that at all, because there are still a lot of . . . devil’s in the detail. So Ian asks, if you’re living in France, could you still apply for residency during the transition after Brexit? In theory, yes you could. Er, would you have the right to remain a resident after transition? In theory, again, yes. And I say, ‘in theory’, because the problem is it’s not clear how each individual country will actually implement what’s been agreed in principle. For example, here in the UK, the government says there’ll be a new category called settled status, that people can apply for to stay indefinitely, and eventually apply for citizenship, and the form to do that, it’s supposed to go online towards the end of this year, but in France for example, where Ian asked this question, we don’t yet know what system they’re going to implement, nor do we know that in Germany, so the whole system is still breeding a lot of uncertainty.

EM: A lot of people asking about travel. Jo Widdel in Malta wants to know if she’ll need a visa in future.

CM: And again, it’s unsatisfactory. The honest answer is we don’t know yet, because it still has to be negotiated. We’re waiting for the UK government to publish details of a new immigration bill, it was originally due to have happened late last year, and now we may not get it until late this year. And what’s most likely is that whatever system the UK decides to impose on EU citizens once free movement ends is likely to be reciprocated by the EU for UK citizens. And there could be our bit of extra administrative hassle, maybe a small amount of money each time, maybe an online permit. I think both sides would like to avoid that if they can, but as long as your residential status in Malta is in order, I don’t think much will change. But until we know the details, it’s really there’s some vital bits of legislation the UK is got to produce, only then will we know the detail about how some of these things will work in practice.

EM: John Brankin lives in Spain and has not applied for residential status, he says, ‘Through my father, I’m entitled to an Irish passport, would it be in my interest to obtain one?’

CM: Again, I don’t know how long he’s lived in Spain, whether he has permanent residency, but given the uncertainty we’ve talked about, I guess all I could say is if it was me, and I wanted to make my life in another EU country, and I had the possibility for extra insurance to get a passport for another EU country, Ireland or elsewhere, I would do that, I think I’d grab it with both hands. I don’t have any Irish blood, my ancestors are from Wales so for me it would be, I don’t know, Llanelli, not Llanzarote (sic)

EM: That you. That was excellent. John Peppard has another Ireland-related question. If there is no hard border after Brexit, then non-UK citizens will be able to travel to the Republic, and then Northern Ireland, and then any part of the UK without any passport or immigration controls. How will this issue be resolved without a hard border?

CM: Well, of course, they can do that at the moment, I mean, anyone, in theory, if they have a Visa to get into the Republic of Ireland can travel into Northern Ireland and then, and then get to mainland Britain. What’s going to change is that if there are restrictions on travel from the European Union then, for example, if you’re from Poland or Bulgaria, again, you could fly to Dublin, drive up to Belfast and get a ferry across to England. What would be different though is that once they’re in the UK, they won’t have the permission to work or to settle, and I think this is a really important point, because a lot of people, when they think

173 about the new immigration system, they think it’s going to be policed by lots of people in uniforms at border posts with guns, in fact, I think the way the system is going to work, is it’s going to rely a lot on people like landlords and employers to check that the people they’re doing business with have the right to be here. So it’s going to be . . . it’s going to complicate, actually, and add to administrative costs for some businesses, but I think that’s the way the system is going to work. We’re not going to shut the borders off.

EM: This is Chris Morris, answering PM listeners’ questions about Brexit. Next, Catherine Long, who says she is allergic to a preservative which is sometimes used in cosmetics, which has been banned from leave-on products by the EU. She wants to know, will they stay banned in the UK, when the UK leaves?

CM: It’s amazing, the detail of questions you get, isn’t it, but for someone like Catherine, obviously, it’s really important. I mean, it’ll certainly be in place to start with, because there will be this 21 month transition, if everything goes to plan, when all rules and regulations stay the same. And then, to begin with what will happen is that all EU law is automatically being brought back and will become UK law. After 2020 though, and the end of transition, in theory, those laws can be changed. How likely is this one to change? I would have thought fairly unlikely, I mean, the government has said it wants to make many EU rules and regulations, or UK rules and regulations as closely aligned with the EU as possible, to make it easy for business and so forth, but, of course, a new Prime Minister, new government in the future could have different ideas. They may want to diverging much more dramatically, so, I would have thought, no change to begin with, but no guarantees.

EM: We’ve had at least seven questions about European Health Cards, such as this one from Steve Cameron who asks, ‘What will happen to the Health Card after Brexit?’

CM: Okay, so there’s two categories of people. If you’re already living in another EU country, some of the people, the citizens we’ve been talking about, then your EHIC card will essentially continue to work when you go elsewhere in the EU. But for people who live in the UK and want to travel, we don’t know the answer, it’s got to be negotiated. Again, not that satisfactory, but I mean, for example, the UK has some reciprocal health insurance deals with other third countries like Australia and New Zealand, you would have thought that good sense will prevail and the same will happen with the European Union. Until we know, one of the many, many little details that has got to be negotiated over the next few months and years, we can’t say for sure.

EM: Andrew asks, ‘Parliament has been promised and meaningful vote on the final deal, what happens if Parliament rejects it?’

CM: So, I think this is going to be one of the big moments of the coming 12 months, and we discussed it a little bit, actually, earlier in the programme, but there will be a vote in Parliament, possibly early . . . later this year, very unlikely, but possibly early next year, if Parliament decides to reject it Labour is now saying, and it’s going to produce an amendment soon to the EU Withdraw Bill to try and enforce this, it should be up to the whole of Parliament, all MPs to decide what happens next. There have been suggestions, the opposition will probably say threats from some on the government side, Lord Callanan, the Brexit Minister was one, saying, ‘Well, if you vote down the Withdrawal Bill, then you’re essentially voting for us to leave with no deal.’ Labour is now saying ‘That’s not acceptable, the whole of Parliament has to have a say in that.’ I think that’s going to be one of the big political debates, there are going to be some big parliamentary moments coming up, and that’s going to be key.

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EM: Titus asks, ‘Would it be possible to add a clause to allow the UK to revoke Article 50 during the transition period, and, like the prodigal son,’ he says, ‘be accepted back to membership?’

CM: During the transition, no, because er . . . we will have legally left by then, we will legally, if things go to plan, we will legally leave on the 29 March next year, in a year’s time, and then, during the transition, if you like, the economic effects of that will be put on hold, but once we’ve legally left, no, there will be no way back. So, for those who would like to turn things around, who are hoping that Article 50 may be revoked, it seems to me it’s back to that previous question: the best chance of that happening, although there are competing legal arguments about how easy it is, is to do that in Parliament. And I think that’s where those kinds of decisions are going to be made. But, in a year’s time, and this is one of the reasons why some Brexiteers are swallowing hard and accepting the idea of a transition, in a year’s time it will be too late for that decision.

EM: Another listener wants to know, finally, ‘In the event of a second referendum, does the current UK legislation governing referendums allow for anything other than a Yes/No style vote.’

CM: It does, yes. I mean, a second referendum, if one were to be held, doesn’t have to be a Yes/No, there’s an Act of Parliament called the Political Parties and Elections and Referendum Act 2000, which basically is the way you carry out a referendum, but it doesn’t rule anything out. What it says is that you then have to pass another piece of legislation to specify what you want any individual referendum to be about. So the question could, in theory, say anything, it’s just at the moment there is no sign, or very little sign of any meaningful moves towards a second referendum being held.

EM: Chris, thanks very much for answering all those questions, and our thanks to you if you took the trouble to send one in.

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Dead Ringers, 6.30pm

DAVID DAVIS: You’ve reached David Davis, I can’t come to the phone right now as, well, long story short, I’m disguised as a nun and on the run for a crime I didn’t commit. Please leave a message after the beep.

MICHEL BARNIER: David, the (word unclear ‘special’?) Michel Barnier, it is great to communicate with you like this, by which I mean communicating without having to see your stupid, grinning, gappy-toothed face. But I am being rude and unprofessional, and I really should not – because that is your department, wah, wah. So, one year to Brexit. Well, this is quite a moment for calm and sober reflection. (sound effect of party begins) Will you keep it down, Jean-Claude, (exhales) sorry David, Juncker and some of his staff here have joined me in my office to mark this sad milestone in EU history. That noise you hear is not a conga line passing through. No one here in Brussels wants to see Britain go, nobody. You have brought so much to the European project, you’ve brought, erm . . . erm, what was it, you brought the spirit of generosity and compromise based on a willingness to understand other countries’ points of view. No, that was Finland. We love Finland, Finland rocks. No, Jean-Claude, I will not tell him to go and boil his bottom. You must excuse Jean-Claude, he loves your British comedy with its wonderful grotesque characters: Monty Python, The League of Gentlemen, UKIP. David Davis, despite everything, we have both conducted ourselves with the greatest of respect, you laying out your red lines, setting your little traps for me, and me skilfully avoiding them and leaving you flat-footed every time. So I look forward to 12 moments of negotiations conducted in a spirit of mutual respect, with Britain aware that should you change your mind the door is always ajar. John-Claude has balanced a bucket of iced water over it especially. Toodle-pippings, must go, time for Jaegerbombs and it is my turn at the karaoke. I want Europe and ‘The Final Countdown’.

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The EU after Brexit, 8.30pm

EVAN DAVIS: Welcome to The EU after Brexit, a special hour-long programme combining Radio 4’s The Bottom Line, and The Briefing Room. We’re examining the economic and political future of the EU once Britain has left in exactly a year’s time. Just what is the new vision for Europe?

DAVID AARONOVITCH: Hello, and welcome to this special program in which The Briefing Room and the Bottom Line, the regular occupants of the 8 o’clock Thursday slot, have come together in analytical harmony at a significant moment.

ED: It’s 365 days and 3 hours to Brexit, give or take a leap-second and the odd minute or two. You’ll hear some familiar elements of both our programs in this our, but we’ve combined forces on one main theme.

DA: Which is that we British often discuss Brexit as though it was all about us, but it isn’t. The European Union will still be there after March 29, 2019, and will still be hugely important to us. So for this hour, we’ll be talking about them. How people in the EU think the union might develop with the UK not there. Our absence will make a difference. The UK is almost 13% of the EU population, we put money in, shaped vital policies like the liberal single market and the enlargement of the Union, and resisted others like greater integration.

ED: So, what effect will our absence have? And, regardless of Brexit, the EU faces some pretty big decisions. It’s in the middle of a debate about how to reform the working of the euro – should it integrate more, create a political union to supplement the currency union, or should it slow down the drive towards federalism? And how should it cope with the pressures of populism, a major electoral force in many EU countries, and one that often comes with a Eurosceptic slant.

DA: In a few minutes, I’ll be looking at the political vision for the EU, once Britain has left. Do President Macron’s calls for deeper political integration stand any chance of being heeded? We’ll also be getting the views of three businesspeople from the continent. How do they see the economy progressing?

ED: But first, let’s spend a few minutes hearing from one of the most senior voices in Europe, Jean Claude Trichet. Now he’s played a huge role in shaping the modern EU over two decades. He was at the French treasury when the Maastricht Treaty was signed, setting the continent on the path for the euro; he was governor of the French Central Bank in the 90s as the euro got going, and he was President of the Central Bank for eight years, including during some of the worst years of the financial crisis. Today, he is chairman of a prestigious, Brussels-based think tank, Bruegel. He tends to relatively conservative economic thought, he worries about too much public spending and debt, but is, above all, committed European. A more establishment perspective from the EU, you will not find. He is taking pride in the fact that the eurozone has survived its great crisis, and the economy there is now growing at a reasonably comfortable pace. So, earlier this week, I went to meet him in Paris, to ask how he sees the eurozone and EU developing. First I asked him whether he thinks the euro is now a stable peace of the international currency architecture.

JEAN CLAUDE TRICHET: Well, first of all, I would say that we had a difficult period, which was associated with not only the financial crisis which started in the United States of America and spread everywhere, but also because we had our own crisis, which was the sovereign

177 risk crisis and that, of course, put, I would say, approximately 35, 37, 40% of the euro area GDP in a situation of sudden stop of financing. So it had an impact on the real economy, those countries had lost creditworthiness, and they had to regain their creditworthiness. And I have to say, we are now in a period where creditworthiness has been regained, very largely, and real growth is there, since several years. You might not know that, because it was not advertised very much, but growth in the euro area in ’16 was superior to growth in the United States of America. We posted 1.8% growth and the US 1.5%.

ED: And even Greece is growing now, Greece has had . . .

JCT: (speaking over) And Greece is growing too.

ED: . . . a year of growth, which is good.

JCT: And last year, also, we grew quite well, 2.5%, and the United States of America, 2.4. So . . .

ED: (laughs)

JCT: . . . two successive years, growth is there. So, it is there because the countries that were in difficulty are now back, as you just said.

ED: You will know, though, that there are one or two potential crises. And one has to look at Italy, a country that people say is too big to save and too big to fail, for the eurozone, where it starts with a pretty difficult fiscal background, and where you have an election where the people who dominated the election are the people who are saying ‘We’re fed up with austerity, the government should be spending a lot more’, now, is that the next shot, is that something that you lose sleep over?

JCT: Italy is one of the countries where hard work has to be done, that’s absolutely clear, and the Commission was very clear on that, very recently singling out Italy and grace and some other countries as having a lot of homework to do in structural reforms, a lot of surpluses of the north of Italy is wasted in the south of Italy, so management of the country as a whole is a very, very important issue, which has to be improved, and of course, you have the legacy of the past, with a level of public debt outstanding, which is very elevated.

ED: You’re coming across as very optimistic about the euro, are you satisfied that with the growth that, as everybody agrees, is better than expected, and the euro zone is comfortably progressing, that this is the time to do the difficult homework, as you refer to it, they’ve got to do it now, because you can’t wait for the next recession to do that . . .

JCT: (interrupting) Fu— fully agree, the metaphor you know, it is when there is sunny weather that you repair the roof. One of my problems, when I was president of the ECB, was that the most important countries in Europe, we are saying we don’t apply the stability and growth pact, we do . . .

ED: (laughs)

JCT: . . . not want to recognise that we have a lot of rules that we should respect. So I . . . of course, the lessons that we have drawn from the crisis, the wake-up call of the crisis, has been from that standpoint very useful, if I may, but it has been very, very heavy cost to be paid.

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ED: But look, reform is on the agenda for the eurozone, Macron has his proposals, the European Commission has proposals, the basic choice is: you integrate more, in order to make it work better. You maybe have a finance minister and a budget for the eurozone, maybe you have some of the stronger countries making guarantees that will ultimately protect some of the weaker countries. Do you believe in that agenda?

JCT: First of all, I was the first to call for a finance minister of the euro area, which might be a little bit paradoxical, for a central banker. But I think that it’s wrong to think that the European (sic) would have a system whereby that would pool the totality of their budget.

ED: Right, because this is the crucial one . . .

JCT: (speaking over) It does not exist in the . . .

ED: (speaking over) No . . .

JCT: . . . US . . .

ED: (speaking over) Well . . .

JCT: . . . No, no, no, no.

ED: You’re not even going to get to where the US is in the eurozone, are you?

JCT: (speaking over) Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it does not exist in the US, it does not exist in Canada, it does not exist in Switzerland, it doesn’t exist in Germany. So, in the federal state, you don’t have one single signature. So I have to say that, from time to time, I hear things that do not fit exactly with our own, you know, very special (fragment of word, or word unclear due to speaking over)

ED:(speaking over) No, but I can’t, I can’t let you get away with that. Would you envisage that the Germans will extend greater guarantees over the borrowing of some of the southern countries, over the next ten or fifteen years?

JCT: (speaking over) It, it, it, it, in my opinion it is not the way things are going. You know, when five countries out of the fifteen – because it’s a minority of countries – had problems in the crisis, as you know, we created a fund to help them. And that fund what financed by all others, not by Germany alone, by all others. You can imagine a number of possibilities, but not considering that all the debt of country X would be guaranteed by all others . . .

ED: Okay.

JCT: It’s not only a problem of Germany, it’s a problem of all tax-payers in . . .

ED: (speaking over) Indeed.

JCT: . . . Europe, they cannot imagine to take the risk of others without having the capacity to control others, so it’s, it’s really a matter of common sense in a way.

ED: (speaking over) Right. Something you’re saying that’s very interesting is, maybe a eurozone finance minister, maybe more integration in some respects. I just look around at what’s happening in European elections, and you see very Eurosceptic parties doing very well. Even in France here, they did pretty well in that first round. I mean, they didn’t get through in the second round, but everywhere . . .

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JCT: (speaking over) That is true.

ED: . . . you see the scepticism. Now, how do you respond to that scepticism, because you’re sounding like one of these great Brussels technocrats who says the way to respond to the public voting against it all is to pursue it a little bit faster and (laughter in voice) a little bit more . . . a little bit more ruthlessly, and then the public will just have to fit in with our . . . our vision . . .

JCT: (words unclear, speaking under)

ED: . . . rather than us fitting in with theirs?

JCT: If I may, Evan, it is true to a limit, it is true that we have in all advanced economies, and evidently in continental Europe and in Ireland too, we have populism, we have a wave of nationalism, protectionism, and populism. Vast waves exist, of course, in continental Europe, but the big mistake which is made by some observers is to consider that wave is entire European, entire Europe, and it is not true. The euro has never been so popular in continental Europe . . .

ED: (speaking over) What?! But the Five Star Movement in Italy . . .

JCT: (speaking over) No, no, no . . .

ED: . . . is, is, was at one point . . .

JCT: (speaking over) Precisely, sir . . .

ED: . . . saying, they were saying they’re going to take (fragment of word, or word unclear) come out of the thing . . .

JCT: (speaking over) You give me the best . . . argument for me. Five Stars decided before the election that they would not ask for leaving the euro, that they would not ask for leaving the European Union, and that, the reason why, they had a very good reason, because they could see what happened in France, leaving the euro proved catastrophic in terms of . . .

ED: For the . . . National Front . . .

JCT: . . . of popular . . .

ED: (speaking over) The Front National, yeah.

JCT: . . . popular support.

ED: But populism is a very powerful force on the continent at the moment, and it must provide a huge challenge to the, kind, of the European establishment, has it made you think at all about how you structure the vision of the European Union?

JCT: (speaking over) No, I . . .

ED: . . . has it made you question anything about (word or words unclear due to speaking over)

JCT: (speaking over) No, no, I fully agree with you, of course. We have exactly the same frustration of our population, associated with the rise of India, China, the emerging world, which creates call for restriction our productive sector. We neglected that it would have a 180 big, big bearing on part of our middle-class, or the lower middle class, the less educated part of our population, and we should have devoted much more energy to that particular problem, of frustration of a large part of our population. It’s the most important political problem that we all have to cope with, but could be solved through cooperation, intimate cooperation if you are speaking of trade, then you better negotiate trade with 27 countries than alone.

ED: Look, let me ask what effect . . . because we’re not talking Brexit, but we’re talking about the EU . . .

JCT: Yeah.

ED: What effect does Britain leaving the EU have on the remaining EU? It feels as though the British have been on your side, your personal side, of the economic argument. They tend to take more market view, they support structural reform and tend to be a little bit more fiscally conservative. Is the European Union going to change when the British aren’t there arguing for all of that?

JCT: I would say it’s more than that, I mean, I consider the UK as a sanctuary of market economy; the sanctuary of freedom and liberty; the inventor of representative democracy. It’s a loss in terms of values, in my opinion, it’s not a loss taking into account the dimension of the UK and the dimension of the European Union, it is not something that will hurt us in terms of, of growth and so forth, in the present period, we see to which extent we are growing faster than the UK. One of the arguments before was, ‘We are growing faster than(word or words unclear due to speaking over)

ED: (speaking over) The EU. Yeah, the Europ—

JCT: (speaking over) Union and so forth.

ED: (speaking over) Yeah, yeah.

JCT: So, I think these arguments are not the real ones, the real ones are in terms of value, and in terms of obvious, obvious similarity, obvious, I would say, convergence of interests. Strategy, geo-strategy, not on the economy, geo-strategic interest. So er . . . it’s a pity.

ED: Jean Claude Trichet, thank you so much for talking to us.

JCT: Thank you.

ED: Thank you.

DAVID AARONOVITCH: So much for the economics. Now let’s talk about the new politics of a Britainless EU. We asked the BBC’s Brussels correspondent, Adam Fleming, for an introduction to the attitudes of the main players.

ADAM FLEMING: Emmanuel Macron laid out his vision for a reformed EU in an epically long speech at the Sorbonne last year. It included all sorts of proposals, from making sure that every EU teenager could speak to languages, to having an EU defence intelligence academy. But lots of his proposals were about reforming the eurozone. He wants a budget for the eurozone that would raise money and then spend it in eurozone countries, he wants a euro zone finance minister and even a parliament to represent the eurozone. So he’s got a massive vision, particularly for economic and monetary union. Macron thinks that the world needs the EU and its values, and its way of doing things, he 181 also thinks the EU is an amazing way for the individual member countries to protect themselves. He also thinks he has got a cast-iron mandate to do all of this, because this is the platform he ran on in the election, and hoovered up loads of votes as being unashamedly pro-EU and pro-reforming the EU. Angela Merkel is quite suspicious of some of Emmanuel Macron’s big ideas, especially for the eurozone. Her big worry is about something called a transfer union – in other words a big redistribution of money from richer countries in the EU in the event of a crisis. She would like countries to stick to the rules that exist now, although she could be convinced on the idea of a European Monetary Fund which could raise and spend money across the EU, in a bigger way that happens now. Although a lot of the focus on Germany is actually, in the short term, because we’re about to have a big debate about the MFF – the Multiannual Financial Framework – which is the seven-year budget cycle which will kick in from 2021, after the UK is well gone and left the EU, and that’s about to be a big political debate about its priorities and how it works. Then we come to the Visegrád Group, who are often portrayed as the troublemakers – that’s the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. The last two, in particular, have been really chafing against the constraints of the EU, Poland making some big changes to its judiciary, which are very unpopular in Brussels, and have triggered the first ever use of the EU’s internal discipline procedure, and Viktor Orban of Hungary who delivers the kind of anti-Brussels propaganda to every single Hungarian household in leaflet form that would even make a British Brexiteer blush. However, they want the good stuff from the EU, for example, on everyday things like product standards, a big debate last year was whether Eastern European countries got lower quality chocolate and ready meals just because they were in the East rather than being in the West, although they could have to face the music soon because there’s a big discussion in Brussels at the moment about whether the next budget cycle from 2021 should link EU funds to sticking to the EU rules and behaving well. Then, there’s a group of countries that will miss Britain and the role it has played for being pragmatic, businesslike and focusing on what the EU does well but just doing it better, the person who is taking on that mantle is the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte. And recently his finance minister was joined by the finance ministers of Finland, Denmark, Sweden Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ireland to say, ‘Let’s hold our horses on all these big reforms to the eurozone, do we really need to be ambitious, couldn’t countries just stick to the rules that exist now?’ And there was a really good example the other day when the European Commission proposed a new way of taxing digital companies, taxing what they do online rather than their profits, and some countries like the Netherlands, Ireland and Luxembourg said, ‘No thank you,’ because they jealously want to guard individual member states’ rights when it comes to things like taxation.

DA: Adam Fleming. In the first instance, as Adam just said, the biggest test of the Macron strategy will come in Berlin. Daniela Schwarzer is director of the German Council on Foreign Relations and she’s in a studio in, appropriately, Paris. Daniela Schwarzer, erm, Macron in his speech to the Sorbonne last autumn used this memorable phrase, ‘The Europe we know is too slow, too weak, too ineffective’, does Germany share that opinion?

DANIELA SCHWARZER: The German establishment pretty much share the view that the EU needs to be reformed, in particular in times of Brexit, the EU has to prove that it’s worthwhile maintaining and needs to be developed further. And policymakers in Berlin are generally very happy to see a leader in Paris who actually wants to take things forward in Europe, however, obviously we on our side in Germany had some trouble in getting our own government into place, so Paris had to wait for a while and now, slowly, Germany is formulating its answer.

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DA: So, by and large you think the German politicians agree with Macron’s analysis, governmental politicians do. And do you think that now that the coalition government has been formed they can give some kind of practical expression to that?

DS: Yes, and they already have done so. The government works on the basis of what we call a coalition treaty, which is a pretty long document, and it actually starts out with a chapter on the future of Europe. That shows you how important this whole topic is seen. Whenever I talk to policymakers in Berlin, people are very aware that the EU is under tension and that there are forces driving the EU apart, and that it is in Germany’s core interest to actually bring the EU forward in order to maintain it as a group of 27 member states and a single market and a currency union, and the address where Berlin will first turn to is really Paris.

DA: Does that mean that Germany largely subscribes to the idea that greater integration within the EU is the way to travel?

DS: Indeed it does, though there are differences to the view in Paris. First of all, we are facing a situation in the EU at the moment where we have two unfinished fields of integration. One is the eurozone, where we are pretty sure that if another crisis hits we won’t be totally resilient so there needs to be some additions in terms of banking union, in terms of fiscal dimensional and also in terms of economic policy coordination. France and Germany don’t agree on all the bits and pieces, but they share the view that more needs to be done. And the other area is the Schengen area, so basically, the area for justice and home affairs, we have drawn down borders and we haven’t done enough to protect citizens, to worry about our external borders, so for the whole of the EU, and that’s the other area where unfinished integration actually creates a popular backlash, where people are unsatisfied, they feel threatened, they feel they are not governed properly, and that in addition to that defence, because of the changes in the transatlantic relationship, Europe gets more attention on the issue of defence. And so, Germany does agree, we need to move forward, then when it comes to details there will be different views in Paris and in Berlin, but that’s pretty natural for the Franco-German relationship, that you start out from different positions and then there are long negotiations and finally, a compromise.

DA: Daniella, suppose the Macron plan doesn’t get any traction, or the French don’t go through with it. What do you think then would be the consequences?

DS: Europe would move forward in certain policy areas, possibly with a smaller group of countries, so a more differentiated and more complex picture would emerge, er, maybe less transparent than the EU was today, but I don’t think that Europe would simply not move ahead at all. The big challenge for France and Germany is not only to forge their own bilateral compromise but really to bring others in very early and, you know, not table a joint view of where Europe should go, but start as of now to bring in central and Eastern Europeans, to bring in the Nordic countries, to talk to the other Mediterranean countries, because Europe no longer functions that way, that France and Germany hammer out a compromise and then take the others along. There has already been a letter of eight smaller countries, and that’s the new dividing line which adds to the north and south and east and west, the small and large country line, a letter where they speak about their reservations of a possible Franco-German compromise on deepening the eurozone, so you can see that there are lots of sensitivities and this is something that Germany is, is traditionally more inclined to see and more inclined to invest political capital into. So, I think that will be part of Berlin’s role, to take Paris along and make the French talk to the Central and Eastern Europeans and really bring them into a broader, EU-wide debate.

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DA: Daniela Schwarzer, who, as you’ve just heard, talked about the importance for the Macron plan of a dialogue with the more recently acceded countries of Eastern and Central Europe – like Poland. Justyna Zając is a Professor of History and International Relations at the University of Warsaw and speaks to us from there. Justyna Zając what does Poland think about Emanuel Macron’s plan for economic and political integration?

JUSTYNA ZAJAC: Well, actually, Poland is not in favour of this plan, because Macron’s plan considers and focuses a lot for the eurozone and he proposed to create, like a Finance Minister, for example, on the eurozone budget, so Poland is not in favour of this product because actually, Poland is not part of the eurozone, and this government is not going to accept the euro in the near future. And it’s clearly stated from the Ministry and from the Prime Minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, that the project of Macron is to create like, two-speed Europe, and Poland always said that it’s against of (sic) the two-speed Europe, because it would mean marginalise of the central Europe, including Poland. In fact, for Poland, what is important about the European Union is that . . . is always underline that the EU is economic product, it means that it is very important the single market, and these four freedoms, the free movement of goods, the free movement of capital, and services and people.

DA: Does the Polish government believe that there should be, however, greater integration within the European Union as a whole, including the eurozone and the non- eurozone?

JZ: Actually, not . . . this is more complicated, sure, from Poland and Polish government, the ruling party, it’s very important to keep serenity of the states, so is what the government underlines, is to keep and rather to strengthen the intergovernmental institutions within the European Union rather than to give more power to the institutions like European Commission.

DA: So what does Poland think about, for example, integrated border security with, let’s say, a uniformed European Union force at the outer borders of the European Union, would they be against that?

JZ: I’m not sure whether the government has got a clear position on this issue, but, for example, when we talk about the security and in the context, for example, of immigration, that is a very important issue, I guess the immigration crisis, so the government believes that there immigration policy, asylum policy, it should stay in the hands of the Polish state.

DA: What about the problems of the European perception of the domestic policies of the Polish government, particularly the politicisation of the courts and the media. How does the Polish government see itself resolving these issues in terms of its relationship with the European Union?

JZ: Ah, this is another problem, a big issue, because the European Commission in December last year, December 2017, decided to launch this Article 7 of the Treaty of the European Union against Poland and it was because of a violation of rule of law by Poland and it was referring to this reform of judiciary in Poland. So there were talks in last weeks, between the European Commission and between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, and they are still in talks, but the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jacek Czaputowicz, he stated very clearly that Poland keeps this reform and is not going to change anything, because this reform is right, and that it’s not against the values of the European Union. So, my prediction is that it will be another problematic issue, between the European Commission and Poland,

184 as well as, for example the immigration crisis that is also problematic between those two sides.

DA: Some of those things you’ve talked about, Poland has in common with what they call the other Visegrád countries - Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia - is there a kind of unity between those countries about how to deal with inside the European Union, or are they more different than we realise?

JZ: I would say that those Visegrád countries, they don’t have common strategies in face of the European Union, this what, they have . . . they have the same goal for example, like, with immigration crisis. But I just don’t see that they really have the same long-term interests vis-a-vis the European Union. So I believe that the Visegrád countries, they can have the common tactics, but not the common strategy, vis-a-vis the European Union, because their long-term interests are different.

DA: Justyna Zając. So, it sounds like the Poles will take a lot of persuading, but even more critical will be the positions of the group of eight smaller countries of the EU, mostly the Scandinavians and northern Europeans. Down the line from The Hague, I’m joined by Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who was Dutch Finance Minister for five years, until last Autumn. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, we’ve heard Jean Claude Trichet supporting measures for integration, including a European Finance Minister. Does that appeal to the Dutch?

JEROEN DIJSSELBLOEM: No, not really, because I think it’s become a huge symbol of deeper integration, but what is a Finance Minister without sufficient mandate, without budget et cetera. And I think it doesn’t help for the real weaknesses in the eurozone.

DA: Which, according to the Netherlands, what?

JD: The weakest point still in the monetary union is our dependency on banks, a lack of well and truly deep developed capital markets, so rather on the market side and the private economy side, than on the public economy side. And we’re trying to fix it and trying to set up pots of money and budgets on the public side to cover our risks on the private side. And I don’t think that’s the right approach.

DA: Now, the Macron vision, as it was laid out in the autumn was not, obviously, just about money, it was also, essentially, about the whole of the European project and its need for greater integration and for greater energy. And what he effectively said was, unless we do do this then in that case we run pray to populism and we lose our sense of mission. Is there anything about that which resonates with you?

JD: I think that he made a very strong point on the issue of security, safety, migration, outside borders, all of those topics are even higher on the priority list of our peoples, in all of our countries, than the economy at the moment. And it’s interesting to see, if you read the speeches of Macron, he actually puts more emphasis on those topics than on the, let’s say the Minister of Finance for the eurozone.

DA: The headline of what you’re saying is that the economic aspects of Macron’s integration vision are less important and less significant than the other ones, than the ones for security and borders?

JD: I think, politically, that is the case. Also, from his perspective, he puts more emphasis on security-related issues. Within the economic issues, he has the right priorities, because both President Macron and his Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, but all the 185 emphasis on ‘Let’s finish banking union, let’s create that capital markets union, let’s make our economies more competitive, let’s raise investments,’ and those are the right priorities. And they see the other topics, the Minister of Finance and the eurozone budget much more for the future, further down the line.

DA: So, in a sense, insofar as the Macron vision went to beyond matters of security, he hasn’t yet persuaded countries like the Netherlands of the viability or the need to go there?

JD: Well, there is a very consistent French thinking about the monetary union and that it requires a political union and therefore a Minister of Finance, and a eurozone budget. But it doesn’t address the lack of competitiveness in our economies, it doesn’t involve the private economy, it doesn’t look at the issue of why should so many private risks in our economy be buffered by public money, this is what happened in the eurozone crisis, and having a Finance Minister, it’s become a symbol, and our priority should be to get the really strong banking sector to fund our economy and to diversify the funding of our economy.

DA: And looking at this question of security, one of the things that’s come out is the idea that the European Union itself should have its own border force, uniformed border force, European Union border force, operating at the outer borders of the European Union. Is that something that, erm, the Netherlands would support?

JD: I think it’s crucial. We have built the European Union with some big, brave steps in the past, one of which was creating the Schengen zone, which has no longer internal border controls, but if you do that, you must establish outside border controls, you cannot take away inside borders without establishing and protecting the joint outside border. We have a joint interest to protect the outside border, we cannot ask and depend on Greece to do it on its own, we cannot leave the Italians to deal with that on their own, so it is a joint responsibility, and let’s get rid of the to boo that there is on having a European agency with European uniforms.

DA: Does that mean that Brussels should have more power when it comes to policing the borders of the EU and security matters?

JD: I think this is a clear example where doing it really jointly supernational if you want, under the control of the Commission and democratically supervised by the European Parliament, I think this is a very strong example.

DA: You’ve seen the rise of populism in the Netherlands and in other EU countries, it’s one of the things that the Macron vision was designed to address. How do you think the European Union should deal with the democratic deficit that is perceived between the governed and the ruling class in Europe?

JD: Most of our voters are not as concerned about the democratic legitimacy, which is rather an abstract discussion, they are very much concerned about two key issues in their lives: one is security, and the other one is prosperity, or the perspective of prosperity. And for a very long time, the EU contributed to both, and it was undisputed. And both have been hampered badly in the last 10 years, due, of course, to the crisis which started as a financial crisis and became a debt crisis in the eurozone, and secondly migration. And, in both cases, we entered into a big project with lots of ambitions, but didn’t get it right. We didn’t set it up in a solid way, we entered into the monetary union, but didn’t complete it, with having bank supervision jointly and strict rules for banks, et cetera. We entered into the Schengen zone without establishing the outside border control, jointly. So, on both fronts we need to do better and deliver for our voters. 186

DA: Jeroen Dijsselbloem, thank you very much indeed.

ED: Okay. Well, a lot to digests there, institutional and political. But frankly we know you can sit down and try to design the European political project for as long as you want, but to make it fly the economics and business side has to flourish. So let's now take a look at where the EU is going in economic terms as a place to do business. In some Brexit minds here in the UK, by being a member of the EU the UK is shackled to a corpse, to use rather unpleasant metaphor. The argument goes that the EU is a shrinking proportion of the world economy and is ill adapted to adjust to changing conditions. So, do my guests agree? For the rest of the hour, I am joined by three European business leaders from very different backgrounds, to hear their views. And first of all, joining us down the line from Rome is Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, who’s chair of the French bank Societe Generale. I call it a French bank Lorenzo, but you have branches all over Europe?

LORENZO BINI SMAGHI: Yes, especially in Eastern Europe but also in Africa and we are a global bank, investment bank. We’ve branches in the US , in Japan, Asia and so forth (word or words unclear due to speaking over)

ED: Okay, so an international bank with a French base, and . . .

LBS: (speaking over) And London, and London.

ED: And London, of course, (laughs) and we might come to talk about . . .

LBS: Yes.

ED: . . . financial services. You are also, actually, on the executive board of the European Central Bank, which must have given you some insight to how things . . .

LBS: (speaking over) Yes.

ED: . . . work at that level.

LBS: Yes, from 2005 to 2011.

ED: Just in a, in a nutshell, how is business going at Societe Generale at the moment?

LBS: The European economy is doing well, so banking is improving, we have a lot of regulation to adjust to, and then of course, we are competing with the US banks all over the world, that’s one of the main challenges.

ED: Okay. Let me introduce my second guest, Matt Regan, Senior Vice President and Head of Europe for Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. Matt, it’s primarily diabetes-focused drugs, is when you make your money, correct?

MATT REGAN: Well, we’re a global pharmaceutical company, Evan, and we’ve obviously domiciled in Europe, in Denmark, and yeah, we’re on a mission to defeat diabetes, and other chronic illnesses.

ED: And people will hear from your accent that you originally, in fact, were from the Republic of Ireland.

MR: That’s correct, Evan, I’m from the west of Ireland, County Mayo.

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ED: I was surprised in preparing for this programme, Novo Nordisk, its market capitalisation, the value of its shares, it’s like $100 billion or something, this is a pretty big global pharmaceutical player. My third guest is Teofil Mureşa, now he is chair of Electrogroup infrastructure, which is a telecoms and energy infrastructure company based in Bucharest in Romania. And you in fact created this company yourself, Teo?

TEOFIL MURESA: Yes, tomorrow will be 21 years, we will have an anniversary, when I founded the company from the scratch, from the zero.

ED: How big is it now?

TM: Now it’s a company with more than €100 million of turnover, and an EBITA of €20 million, consolidated figures, with 500 employees and more than 300 engineers.

ED: Right, so tell is what you do, because for an infrastructure company, 500 employees is obviously very small, so what are you focusing on?

TM: We are a builder in infrastructure, telecoms, energy, civil works, renewables, but also the second vertical is to invest in infrastructures. We have our own infrastructures in telecom, fibre-optical networks covering Rumania and Bucharest, and we continue to invest in, of course, small infrastructure, but in so-called cross-sector, where two or more industries have something in common.

ED: Okay. And is it just in Romania, or . . . you’re spread around a bit, I think, aren’t you?

TM: Starting three years ago, we opened subsidiaries in Poland, Germany, Belgium and we started also with the subsidiary in the UK, which now is on standby.

ED: Okay. Now, listen gentlemen, we’ve had our debate here about the EU and its merits, and its disadvantages. I want you to tell me what you like about it, or what you don’t like about it? Lorenzo, why don’t you start with the financial services background?

LBS: Well, I like to be in the EU because, well, it’s simpler, we have same rules throughout Europe, same regulation, the same supervisor, so things have improved enormously over the last few years, and now unfortunately, we’re going to have a . . . to . . . what, what I don’t like is that somebody’s getting out and the . . . it’s making my life more complicated because we have to deal with different rules from now on . . .

ED: (speaking over) Now, you’re banned from talking about Lorenzo . . .

LBS: (speaking over) Yes, yes . . .

ED: . . . because we’re trying to get away from Brexit, (laughs) (word or words unclear)

LBS: (speaking over) Right, right.

ED: Matt, come on, what do you like about the EU? We’ve heard it makes it simpler, because obviously there’s a smaller number of rules across jurisdictions, what about you?

MR: Yeah, I think certainly in the pharmaceutical industry it has definitely been a force for good, you know, we have cooperation across the EU, and the regulation of medicines. Obviously, free trade and being able to move across borders without restrictions, that has been hugely positive . . .

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ED: You mean people or, or, or . . . the goods.

MR: Goods and services, but also people was going to be my third one, Evan, because again, in a global pharmaceutical market, it’s very important to have access to the very best talent, so the movement and access to talent. And I would say just having a predictable environment is extremely important in our industry, where you’ve got very long cycle times, very long development cycles, so that predictability has definitely been a tremendous force for good in our, in our market.

ED: Come on Teo, now, I had a Romanian taxi driver the other day who was telling me everybody in Romania hates the EU, and (laughs) but I’m guessing a lot of the business people don’t?

TM: I clearly say I like being in EU. EU can offer us a bigger market, opportunities to expand our services in other markets. After we were for many years with the last technologies in Romania, we can apply, we are working for big companies, multinational companies in Romania, using the same technology, now we can expand in other markets.

ED: You’re all, all three of you, are positive about . . . none of you have said, ‘I don’t like (laughter in voice) being in the EU,’ what I find quite interesting is, in this country, we hear two different competing versions of what the EU is. One says its club, run for big business, the other one says the EU is creaking, it’s bureaucratic, it’s inflexible, and gets in the way of business. Lorenzo which of those, would come closer do you think to the truth.

LBS: You know, in all countries, you have the bureaucracy, because you need rules. You often hear people complaining and using as an example the fact that in Europe, we regulate about everything. For instance, the size of cucumbers, or the size of bananas. And then I, you know, I was so struck by this that I wanted to look and Google ‘EU regulation cucumber’ and indeed, you have a regulation which establishes the size of cucumbers and the shape and everything. And then I ask myself, can this be really unique to the EU. So I Googled, ‘US regulation cucumber’ . . .

ED: (laughs)

LBS: . . . and you have a regulation on cucumbers, which is even more detailed. So, it’s true, I think it’s true that we have a lot of regulations, but I think it’s part of a . . . a market, of a single market, which has to defend producers and consumers. You know, if you want to have a level playing field, you need these regulations.

ED: But, can I just ask any of you, we hear this wor— these words, ‘single market’ all the time, most British people probably now know the single market is . . . really a kind of collection of harmonised regulations, it’s, it’s not about customs procedures as much as harmonising the regulations so we’re not blocking each other’s trade with different rules. Do any of you really think of Europe as a single market, or do you still think there’s Germany, France, Italy, Romania? I mean, how do you, in your thinking about Europe, do you think of it as a series of countries or as a single market? Lorenzo?

LBS: Well, I think it depends a lot on the sector. But certainly, if I think about banking, a mortgage in Italy is different from a mortgage in the Netherlands, is different from a mortgage in Romania. So, you have national regulation and legislation on top of the European level playing field, so Europe tries to have a level playing field, but there are still differences, of culture, tradition, and of er . . . of civil law, also, in particular. So, it’s a process, I would say . . . 189

ED: (speaking over) Ahh . . .

LBS: It has started, it’s going on, and I think it’s gone, you know, harmonisation is going to take some time . . .

ED: So, it’s a process, not a thing. Teo?

TM: I’d like to highlight something, why EU need fiscal integration. Right now, it seems like there are two Europes in one. The north of Europe, where the efficiency, technology, productivity is the main focus and south of Europe where agriculture, hotels . . .

ED: (laughs) Tourism.

TM: . . . location, tourism, yeah . . . it’s the main focus. So, productivity in the south is just a fraction of the productivity in the north. So we really need to have a fiscal integration and more integration in general in Europe, so that . . . can compete as an entire market.

ED: Right.

LBS: What I would say is you need the possibility to compete. If I can think about comparing it to the US, you would find that, you know, probably Florida compared to Massachusetts is more attractive in terms of tourism and agriculture also, but they live in the same environment, in the same monetary environment, the financial environment, and political environment, of course, and if there is a shock in Florida, Florida, a mechanism of transfers from the north to the south, from the south to the north, that avoid a crisis making the thing explode. And that’s what we are missing I think, that’s what Teo was probably mentioning. Maybe not something like Italy, but something that is reducing the centrifugal forces in case of a crisis.

MR: Yeah, Evan, maybe if I could just come in here. For me, Europe is still a series of single countries, with their own culture, their own history, in many cases their own language. I’ve been fortunate enough to live in seven different countries, and, you know, people are all proud of their own background., But I think when it comes to the regulation of medicines, for example, the European Union has brought tremendous benefits, because now you get a single license through the European Medicines Agency, and that speeds up access for patients, because once you have a great innovation, you can go through one regulator and then you have regulatory approval, and then it becomes a discussion, then with the individual countries.

ED: But do you all want it to go further, do you want more integration, and more level playing field, more harmonisation of rules or . . . mutual recognition of each other way— each other’s way of doing things? Teo?

TM: Yeah, I think for countries like Romania, countries from East Europe, it was a very good point to have European regulation. So, I can see the regulation is not bad, but Europe is over-burdened by regulation and in this period of time we need speed, we need to move faster in competition with other countries, with other regions, with other continents.

ED: The one area that it feels like Europe has made enormous strides, where it’s been very dynamic and . . . is actually, Teo in East and Central Europe, because when we think of how poor those countries were, when they came in, what, 14 years ago, and your country came in a bit less than 14 years ago, when you think of how poor they were, how completely cut off they were from Western supply chains, Western technology, I mean, it’s been a

190 pretty remarkable story, as to progress? Maybe Romania, not as much as Poland and the Czech Republic, I don’t know?

TM: Yes, but in a way it could be explained, because Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, entered in EU in years before Romania, but, of course, it’s a huge opportunity for a country like Romania, you know, to get education, know-how, markets, almost overnight. Even for me, you can imagine, I started to learn English eight years ago, and it was, I think, first time I visited a foreign country, ten years ago, and . . .

ED: (interrupting) First time you visited a foreign country?

TM: Yes, exactly.

ED: (laughter in voice) That’s remarkable, isn’t it? (laughs) How old are you now, by the way?

TM: Er, 52, 52. But, what I want to stress is, in countries like Romania, where EU want to implement different project, they look at the beginning, they said, ‘You really need this project’ at the, at the end of the process, that is not good. And between beginning and the end, the lot of milestones, lot of processes, as Lorenzo mentioned, I think this is the key, we really need to be helped with this kind of milestone in our processes.

ED: Sorry, so give me an example of what, the point you’re making there.

TM: For example, the building motorways in Romania, because there is a big, big problem in this. Okay, can find, or government can find money, from different institutions, and to organise then everything, and deliver the motorways. And even after 10 years or 20 years, the motorways are in the same stage, but there are not controlled milestones doing the process. Some of the things, it’s not the culture of the corruption, because of the lack of expertise.

ED: Many people say the EU is history, it’s the old world, and where businesses should be looking is the newer markets, the Indias and Chinas which are growing at much faster rates, the emerging markets, even the United States is . . . is growing faster. And just wonder whether there’s anything in that argument.

MR: Yeah, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that, Evan, I mean, if I look at our business, Europe is still almost 20% of, of our business. And yes, there are other parts of the world that are growing, certainly China, India for sure, are very important businesses for others as well, but also the sophistication of the healthcare system is much more developed as well, within Europe. So, I think it is very important for innovation-driven companies that they are heavily focused in Europe and in the US.

ED: Lorenzo?

LBS: Take China, certainly China is going to grow and is a much more interesting market than Europe, so the point is, how do we do business with China? In order to do business with China, we have to sit down at the table and discuss with them. ‘I give you this, you give me that’ and the point is that I think it’s better to be at a table representing 500 million people, European, with the biggest market in the world and negotiate, you know with some assets on your side, against the Chinese or against the Americans then having many, many less (laughs) much smaller markets.

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ED: (laughs) Right.

LBS: What we don’t have is still yet, still we don’t have a fully integrated European capital market, and that’s where we need to work, because that’s where size, first you get size at home, and then you become competitive, and you go abroad.

ED: But let’s ask, let’s ask, if Brexit going to make a difference, not to Britain, to the rest of the EU? What effect, what hole does the UK leave, Teo, come on, do you think it makes a difference if the UK leave?

TM: You know, depends of what kind of Brexit will be – will be a soft Brexit or it will be a hard Brexit. In any trading, historically, in any trading, if a part go away will hurt both.

ED: Matt?

MR: Er, I think the UK was always a very valuable and sensible voice in the debate within Europe, and what I’m picking up, more and more, and this is from cabinet ministers as well, that I’ve spoken to, all across Europe, is that Europeans want a sensible agreement with the UK, in so far as we can maintain as much of the status quo as possible around trade, around people, talent, and also predictability as well.

ED: Lorenzo, what’s your take, what does the Britain leaving, what hole does it leave? I mean, obviously, you’re a big player in London and in the financial services sector generally?

LBS: I mean, the great opportunity of creating a European capital market, a deep and liquid capital market is made much more difficult because London was certainly the best candidate, where to locate this market. Not having London, having to recreate on the continent will be much more complicated I think. So, so we’re all looking, I mean, the incredible thing is that it’s, you know, it’s one year from now and we don’t know how this agreement will be made, we don’t know what it will contain, we all hope and, you know, hope is not necessarily a good strategy . . .

ED: (laughs)

LBS: . . . because when you get into the detail . . .

ED: (laughter in voice) It’s not a stragegy (laughs)

LBS: . . . erm, but it’s, you know, er, a lot of people in the UK saying, you know, ‘We haven’t seen the effects yet, because we are all hoping there will be no effects.’ But my impression is that it’s very difficult to replicate the regulations and the, the concept of the internal market by being outside. It’s very difficult. I think we are going to realise this in the coming months, that it’s going to be very difficult to keep the relationships with the UK and changed . . .

ED: Hmm.

LBS: . . . while the UK is outside. If you don’t accept the European Court of Justice, if you don’t accept free movement. Equivalence is not the same as mutual recognition, and . . .

ED: (speaking over) Yeah, so that . . .

LBS: . . . so on and so forth.

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ED: . . . that’s . . . that’s been the British proposal on financial services . . .

LBS: (speaking over) Yes, yes . . .

ED: . . . to make the rules equivalent but not actually the same . . .

LBS: (speaking over) Yes, but then who recognises the equivalence? That’s the point. So we are trying to design something which looks like what we are abandoning, but is different, and you know it’s kind of a different equation to solve, and we’ll see, let’s hope that we can make it.

ED: We’ll leave it there, my guests, Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, chair of the French bank Societe Generale, Matt Regan, senior vice president and head of Europe for the Danish pharmaceutical company, Novo Nordisk, and Teofil Mureşa, chair of Romania’s Electrogroup Infrastructure. Thank you to them, thank you to all our guests for the last hour, because that’s it for this special programme. This was meant to be the hour that steered us away from Brexit, to look at the future of the rest of the EU, we haven’t entirely managed to avoid the ‘B’ word, but I think what has come across though is a sense that it’s not just the UK that’s making some fundamental decisions about itself at the moment. Consciously or sometimes unconsciously, Europe I doing the same. From David and from myself, goodnight.

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Dead Ringers, 8.58pm

JEAN-CLAUDE JUNCKER: You’ve reached the office of the EU president, I can’t come to the phone right now, as doing so would directly contravene the EU Directive 8976/456 subsection 923/83 paragraph 7, appendix 2. Please leave a message after the . . . skol!

ANGELA MERKEL: Jean-Claude, it’s Angela. Goodness, sorry I haven’t been in touch, I’ve had a difficult time recently, but it could be worse, I could be Theresa May. First, I must congratulate the Commission for how you’ve gone about the negotiations, it would have been so easy just to humiliate the British and make them look like idiots, so far better that you allow them to do it for themselves. (laughs) That David Davis, he is to negotiating what Kraftwerk are to sing-along party anthems. But now stage one is over, we must look forward to the next 12 months and that is why I am asking you, no, I’m begging you, as crazy as it sounds, please find a way to make the UK stay. Yes, I know they are belligerent and small- minded, but that is the point, without Britain to hate we’ll all end up squabbling with each other. Heating Britain is the glue that prevents the entire EU project crashing down around our ears. But I also have a much deeper fear – no, not the one about being trapped in a sealed room, slowly filling with water and scorpions – even worse, what if Britain actually makes a success of Brexit, oh, no, nein, nein, nein. So from Monday, John-Claude you must be totally focused on getting Britain back in the EU. Yes. All it requires is for Vince Cable to be swept into power before March 2019. Tell Mark Zuckerberg to fix it, or I’ll unfriend him.

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The World Tonight, 10pm

Introduction

JAMES COOMARASAMY: Also on the programme, Allan Little travels to Kent to ask what will Britain look like after Brexit.

10.02pm Bulletins

JIM LEE: Theresa May has said she believes the UK has a bright future after it leaves the European Union on this day next year. Mrs May, who’s been visiting England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland told the BBC that Brexit would mean there would be extra money available for the NHS and schools. Our political correspondent, Chris Mason, reports.

CHRIS MASON: A day loaded with symbolism, but little else, gave the main protagonists in the debate around Brexit an opportunity to restate their vision, to look beyond the slog of day-to-day negotiation to what they see the country’s future looking like. The Prime Minister hopped from Scotland to northern England, Northern Ireland to Wales and then back to London, and told the BBC extra money would be available after Brexit the spend on priorities like the health service and education, as the UK would no longer, as she put it, be sending vast sums every year to Brussels. Labour warned time was running out to negotiate a good deal with the EU.

10.33pm Brexit – Britain at the Crossroads

JAMES COOMARASAMY: Now, all day on Radio 4, we’ve been marking the fact that exactly one year from now, the United Kingdom will be leaving the European Union. And here are some of the voices that we’ve heard over the course of the day, under the banner ‘Britain at the Crossroads.’ (Theme tune to ‘Crossroads’)

THERESA MAY: Some were predicting great problems if people voted for Brexit – I said, ‘The sky won’t fall in.’ Now, what I’m charged with as Prime Minister is delivering on that Brexit vote.

TONY BLAIR: I think it’s more likely we can stop it now than it was a few months ago, I always say to people the likelihood is it happens, but it doesn’t have to happen.

NIGEL FARAGE: One year from today, we will leave the European treaties, after a period of 46 years, and we will be an independent, free, self-governing nation.

JC: Theresa May, Tony Blair and Nigel Farage, as if you needed me to tell you. Well, the Prime Minister said today that Britain will be a different country after Brexit, but what sort of country that’s far from clear. Our special correspondent, Allan Little, has been to Kent, a county that voted . . . overwhelmingly voted to leave the EU, to hear how people there view the future.

ALLAN LITTLE: I’m in a little fishing boat called Razorbill, sailing along the coast of Kent. And looming out of the mist, I can see the twin towers of a ruined mediaeval church. It’s a place called Reculver, which was first settled by the Romans in the first century A.D. after the conquest of Britain. Later on, it was settled by the Angles and Saxons, who came from what is now Germany. But the twin towers were built by the Normans, who came from what is

195 now France. It’s a great symbol of successive waves of European settlement, each of which left its lasting impression on the island of Britain.

STEVE BARRETT: I’d walk away tomorrow, I take back control of our waters, I’d say to all these countries in Europe, ‘We’re open for business if you want to do it, but we’re out of here.’

AL: Razorbill, the boat, is operated by Steve Barrett, who’s been fishing these coastal waters for the last 40 years.

SB: I think we are going to be betrayed, because . . . the way it’s looking at the moment, on paper we’re leaving but we’re not, we’re still going to have all their rules and regulations and we are still going to be paying in to them and . . . we need to walk away, that’s what we voted for. And do you know what annoys me more than anything? Is these idiots who say to me, ‘Oh, you didn’t realise what you were voting for when you voted to leave’ – I can assure you I did. I voted to leave. I didn’t vote for what we’re getting at the minute. And . . . it is so frustrating, I just don’t think we’re going to get a clean Brexit.

JONATHAN ISABY: There’s examples, you know, British culture, the British legal system, you know, these are facets that make us . . .

AL: Jonathan Isaby, the editor of the pro-Leave website Brexit Central, is showing me a large illustrated map, which details many benefits he thinks will be enjoyed by Britain once it leaves the European Union. It’s a vision of a new Britain, radically transformed, no longer merely European, opening new and as yet untapped markets around the world.

JI: As Britain stands tall again on the world stage, you will see that confidence growing, erm, I think as a society we will be thinking more globally, rather than simply on a European level. But certainly, you know, the opportunities are there when we are able to enter into new trade deals with countries all around the world, both old friends from the Commonwealth, and new allies from across the, the . . . growing economies from other parts of the world. You know, that can only be a good thing.

AL: But is this anything more than a leap of faith, based on ideological conviction, rather than evidence? Where are these new and untapped markets? What will Britain sell them that it can’t sell already? Robert Saunders is an historian, and the author of a recent book on the 1975 referendum, when Britain joined the EEC.

ROBERT SAUNDERS: There’s often a claim made that Imperial nostalgia lies at the heart of the Leave campaign. I’ve actually never believed that, I don’t think that’s true. I think a greater problem is perhaps Imperial amnesia, that there is a vague folk memory of British ships buccaneering across the seas, trading with the world, and we tend to forget that that was possible because the British Empire policed the sea lanes, because British power opens up markets and that this is something very much more difficult to do as a medium-sized power in Europe, than it was when Britain was global Britain.

AL: In packing house of AC Goatham, a company which grows and sells apples and pears, the staff are sorting the freshly-washed produce. Kent may be the garden of England, but the fruit is picked and processed by migrant European hands. When the company advertises for local workers, almost no one applies, so it recruits instead in Eastern Europe. Here, some fear that that Brexit vision will cut Britain off from the workforce it needs. Carol Ford is one of the firm’s directors.

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CAROL FORD: If we don’t have the ability to freely move goods, people, services, then we are not going to be able to pick these orchards, it’s as . . . it is as simple as that. And that’s fine, if that’s what everybody wanted and everybody voted for, then that’s absolutely fine. We do not have the workforce here in the UK that we need to have to be able to pick the fruit, to be able to harvest the fruit. We as a business . . .

AL: Standing next to Carol Ford in this orchard is Sue Nelson, another Kent businesswoman, who runs the Breakthrough Funding Group.

SUE NELSON: We deal with a lot of tech digital companies and our clients, we know that 31% employ international workers, because they’ve got the digital skills that they need, we don’t have them here. They are petrified that after Brexit, all those people are going to disappear, because trust me, France, Belgium . . . will love to have those people back, because they’re highly, highly skilled. And I, and I guess it’s the same with you . . .

CF: Completely.

SUE NELSON: Your, your er . . . your fruit farms abroad would be, would love to take all your workers who, who come here.

AL: Two years ago, Britain voted to loosen ties across the channel where Steve Barrett fishes for skate and Dover sole. His county, Kent, was overwhelmingly in favour of the journey which Britain will soon embark. That journey will redefine Britain’s place in the world. It is the most fundamental reorientation of the country’s relations with the world beyond these shores in more than 40 years. No one knows what kind of Britain will emerge in the years that lie ahead, but the journey begins a year from now. There is no return ticket and the destination remains unknown..

JC: Allan Little reporting from Kent.

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Dead Ringers, 10.43pm

DONALD TRUMP: You’ve reached the President of the World, I’m not here, because I’m on important golf business, please go away.

THERESA MAY: Donald, it’s Theresa, the strange, grey-haired lady whose hand you grabbed. I’m calling to remind you, it’s exactly a year to Brexit. 364 days, or to use the American terminology, 38 Scaramuccis. As Britain throws off the shackles of the EU, we know we can rely on our special relationship. Just as you were so quick to stand by us over the Skripal poisoning. Of course, there are those claiming you won’t give us a good trade deal, based on nothing as far as I can see, but every single decision you made as president. Well, I’m excited about this new era of free trade between our two great nations, as we welcome in your inedible biscuits, overpriced medicines and sweatpants in XXXXXXXXXXXXXL. And if British public didn’t panic after a nerve agent was released on the streets of Salisbury, I’m sure they’ll take chlorinated chicken in their stride.

DT: Stormy, is that you? I still love you, baby. Remember that night in Reno with the dwarf dressed as Elvis and that stripper called . . .

TM: (interrupting) Mr President, it’s Theresa May.

DT: Hey, that’s such a great porn name, Theresa . . . May, so hot.

TM: No, no, Theresa May, the British Prime Minister. I’m calling in regards to Brexit, one year to go.

DT: I bigly love Brexit, Nigel Farage, Piers Morgan, Baron Silas Greenback, all very fine people. Anyway doots, I was meaning to ring you, I expelled those 60 Russian diplomats like you begged me to do, now it’s payback time The Donald gets what he wants. I got bigly plans for your NHS.

TM: The NHS?

DT: Trump Towers, Trump Casino, Trump NHS – it’s got a nice ring to it.

TM: But Mr President, selling you the NHS would make me the most hated and reviled politician in Britain.

DT: There would still be Jacob Rees-Mogg.

TM: Fair point. Deal.

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