Hello and welcome to our fifth Beyond Brexit podcast. Although we call this series Beyond

Brexit, this particular podcast feels like it should be called Brexit has begun as we move into a new era in Europe.

To discuss this, I'm joined today by Kevin Ellis, chairman and senior partner of PWC in the UK,

Neil Sherlock, head of reputational policy, and Andrew partner of PWC in the UK. Neil Sherlock, head of

reputational policy and Andrew Sentence, PWC's chief economic advisor. So Neil, shall

we start with you? Now you've had a chance to reflect a bit on Theresa May's speech

on the 29th of March. What were the key takeaways for you? What new did we learn? I think very interestingly, it was a very conciliatory tone. It reached out to people in Europe

and indeed within the UK as well. I'll come back to that point in a moment. I think very interesting.

The tone was we want to reach agreement, we want to do a deal, we want to avoid a cliff edge,

we want to find a new arrangement with you consistently in both the letter and the speech and the follow-up interviews.

The primers was talking about a, use the phrase that she used, a deep and special partnership. Kept repeating that phrase, kept reusing that, talked about our closest neighbour,

very much trying to land the message, I think, in Brussels and in the capitals.

And of course, she'd spoken to many leaders overnight.

This is about working together.

This is about finding a new relationship

because we have so much in common

and reuse that phrase you've used before

that we're leaving the EU

but we're not leaving Europe.

Yes, absolutely.

The tone was important.

Yeah, the tone was really, really important, very clear.

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