Autumn of Chaos
TALKING POLITICS
Catherine Carr
4.7 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 24 July 2019
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Boris Johnson is off to see the Queen to become her 14th (!) Prime Minister, but where might he be taking the country this autumn? We try to work through the various Brexit scenarios, from a renegotiated Withdrawal Agreement to a crash no-deal exit. Can the backstop be changed? What is a 'standstill' arrangement? Will Macron force the issue? Plus we explore whether an early election or a second referendum can really provide a way out of the mess. Something's got to give - what will it be? With Helen Thompson, Catherine Barnard and Chris Bickerton.
Talking Points:
Can you change the backstop?
- Deep changes seem unlikely, though maybe some changes around the edges would make it more sellable.
- If the DUP won’t swallow it, will Johnson have to essentially sacrifice Northern Ireland to get a deal?
- But cutting out the DUP presents a problem for parliamentary arithmetics.
- The things that Johnson wants to discuss are in the withdrawal agreement. Europe is not open to talking about these things.
What is GATT Article 24 5b?
- This is the idea that you could have a “quick and dirty” free trade agreement ready to go on the 31 Oct.
- The trouble is that the law gets in the way: the EU has to agree with it.
- From the EU perspective, any agreement will require that the UK addresses citizens rights, money, and the backstop.
- The idea that there’s some kind of standstill option is a unicorn.
There’s a change of leadership in the EU as well. Does it make any difference?
- The instability in German politics deserves more attention.
- The Franco-German relationship is in a worse place than it was in March.
- If the German position is weakened, this could strengthen Macron and the harder line.
When will the moment of truth come?
- The sequencing here is incredibly complex.
- At some point, Johnson’s government will have to make a choice. Will it be over an election? Over no deal?
- A confidence vote isn’t a last resort for Tory remainers, but it’s very close to it.
- We also need to think more about the legal realities of a no deal Brexit.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Further Learning:
And as ever, recommended reading curated by our friends at the LRB can be found here: lrb.co.uk/talking
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello my name is David Ronsman and this is Talking Politics. By the time you hear this |
| 0:10.0 | Boris Johnson will have been to Buckingham Palace and the Queen will have made him her 14th |
| 0:14.4 | Prime Minister which is quite a thought. That's what he's doing today, we're going to |
| 0:18.1 | talk about what is he going to do in the autumn. |
| 0:26.0 | King Politics is brought to you in partnership with the London Review of Books. As politics |
| 0:30.7 | speeds up slow down with a subscription to the LRB where Brexit and Trump are only part |
| 0:37.4 | of a picture that includes, well everything else, read relevant pieces and subscribe at |
| 0:43.4 | a special rate at lrb.co.uk forward slash talking. |
| 0:53.5 | We have our crack team with us, Helen Thompson, Chris Fickett and Catherine Bernard. So we |
| 0:58.7 | have expertise in political economy, European politics, European law. Doesn't mean we know |
| 1:02.9 | what's going to happen in the autumn either but we're going to give it a go. We left it |
| 1:07.0 | last week with the geeky cliffhanger of the backstop. So let's start with the backstop |
| 1:12.5 | because when you look at the various decision trees and pathways laid out in the newspapers |
| 1:16.9 | there is a simplified version of it which really does revolve around the backstop. Can you |
| 1:20.8 | change it or can't you change it? If you can change it there are paths that open up. |
| 1:25.8 | If you can't change it it's a pretty different set of options. I think we probably have been |
| 1:32.6 | assuming that you can't change it. Is that right? Is there anything about the backstop |
| 1:37.4 | that is amenable to negotiation? It isn't quite a binary question because the question |
| 1:42.6 | of like can you change the deep substance of the backstop and then there's a question |
| 1:47.5 | of can you make some changes around the edges that make it more politically sellable? |
| 1:54.2 | Perhaps more politically sellable for the incoming Prime Minister than it was for the previous |
| 2:00.3 | Prime Minister because if it's the case that Boris Johnson comes to the conclusion that |
... |
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