Britain's Brexit Befuddlement
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 5 July 2018
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The UK still doesn't know what kind of future trading relationship it wants with the EU, more than two years after voting to leave and with less than nine months left to go.
Ed Butler and BBC politics correspondent Rob Watson explore the difficult choices that London politicians still refuse to face up to. Audrey Tinline looks at one of the most vexing issues in the negotiations - the Irish border. And Ed speaks to Allie Renison of UK business lobby group, the Institute of Directors, about what kind of a deal her member companies would like to see.
(Picture: British Prime Minister Theresa May stands at an EU press conference podium; Credit: JP Black/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello there, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:09.8 | Coming up, Brexit, blues. More than two years after Britain voted to leave the EU, UK politicians |
| 0:16.7 | and businesses are struggling to agree what exactly they voted for. |
| 0:21.3 | There's a sense of paralysis, really. People aren't making big decisions because they |
| 0:26.4 | literally don't know what's going to happen. And this has an effect on sort of wearing down |
| 0:31.1 | the economy. Yes, it's crunch time in Britain. Will Brexit happen at all? That's |
| 0:35.8 | today's Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:41.0 | Britain's departure from the EU is formally meant to take place in just nine months from now. |
| 0:46.2 | But there is still plenty of confusion. What do we actually know? Well, there are plans for a kind |
| 0:51.7 | of delay after March 2019, a transition period, |
| 0:54.9 | they're calling it, but what that whole final deal will look like ought to look like, |
| 0:59.5 | what Britain even formally wants remains as shrouded in mystery as ever. |
| 1:04.4 | Partly this is because, according to some observers, factions within the British government |
| 1:08.7 | are unable to agree with themselves. |
| 1:11.7 | The head of the release of a long-promised UK government white paper on the whole subject, |
| 1:16.3 | Europe's top Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier sounded, well, a bit baffled himself. |
| 1:20.8 | We are waiting for the UK white paper and I hope it will contain workable and realistic proposals. |
| 1:29.6 | But let me mention once again that the time is very short. |
| 1:33.4 | We want a deal. I'm working for a deal. The time is short and I'm ready to invite the UK |
| 1:38.7 | negregation to come back in Brussels next Monday. |
| 1:42.4 | European negotiator Michel Barnier. |
| 1:44.4 | So what is the British government actually saying and doing at the moment? |
... |
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