Hello and welcome.

My name is Sophia Bash and you're listening to the CER podcast.

Hello and welcome to the podcast.

I'm really very happy that for this last CER podcast of the year,

I am joined by Charles Grant, director at the CEO, Simon Tillford, who's our deputy

director and Ian Bond, Director of Foreign Policy. In this episode, we want to take a look

back at the year 2016. It has been an eventful year for Britain, for Europe, and the Western

world. The CR has published detailed analysis and commentary throughout the year.

You can find our research on our website,

and I don't want to spend too much time going into the weeds of policy changes today.

Instead, I want to ask the three of you, as experts in your fields,

to assess the broader trends and implications of the events of 2016.

So let us start with the big questions, Charles, the British have voted to leave the European Union in June 2016.

Few people, I think, understand how we got to this point and how negotiations are likely to unfold as well as you do.

But taking a broader view at the end of this year, what does the result of the Brexit referendum

mean for Britain and what does it mean for Europe?

Well, some of the reasons that Britain is leaving the EU are part of a broader trend that

is enveloping most of Europe and North America, and some of the

reasons are Britain-specific. The broader general reasons obviously are things like the lack

of growth of living standards of many ordinary working people, concerns about migration and

identity, hostility to elites, and the

evolution of the media in the last few years whereby social media have become very important

...