Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, The Spectators' Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Cindy U

and I'm joined today by Katie Balls and James O'Sithe. Over the weekend, the EU rubber-stamped

Theresa May's withdrawal deal. Katie, how did it go? Well, there was some fanfare. I don't know if the

UK population really looking that much, but in general it went fairly smoothly. There was, I think, less than an hour of discussions on the day that she actually signed it off. And then everyone agreed with this deal. Theresa May gave a press conference. In her statement, she talked about the fact that, you know, the British people just want the government to get on with this. And she talked about, you that you know the British people just want the

government to get on with this and she talked about you know what she sees as a big pro of her

deal so taking back control of borders you also have number 10 making the claim that it takes

back control of law you know that it gets rid of the ECJ and it also allows trade but I think

those are much more widely disputed so the focus really is

on immigration in this and in general it did seem like the EU leaders stayed fairly on script so we saw

lots of um you know the EU 27 basically saying this is the best Britain's going to get as a deal

it's not going to change if you change leader this deal is not going to change going to get as a deal. It's not going to change.

If you change leader, this deal is not going to change.

And it's certainly not going to improve, which I think is I'm trying to be helpful to Theresa May.

But there was one person, he went a little bit off script by the name of Emmanuel Macron.

And we know the French being probably one of the kind of loudest voices against Britain's

favour in these talks.

They have seen many opportunities there.

And they've all wanted to show that Brexit cannot be successful.

And Macron gave an interview in which he suggested that in any future trading agreement, so when the UK ends the transition

period, it could go into the backstop agreement, which everyone loves, it hopes not to do that

because they hope to have negotiated a future trade agreement by that point. He suggested that

in order for the UK to leave the backstop, they would have to agree to give the EU access to fishing waters.

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