You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

These are surely the most exciting of political times for my guest today.

Ian Duncan Smith is a veteran

British Conservative Party politician who once led his party and who has long been a powerful

voice advocating a British exit from the European Union. He describes the June 2016 referendum result,

a narrow win for the leave camp, as a moment of joy,

hope and renewed optimism about Britain's future as a leading nation in the world. Since then,

of course, things have become complicated. Brexit hasn't yet happened. British politics and the

Conservative Party in particular have been hamstrung by deep division.

But now, a Prime Minister's in place who is committed to delivering Brexit on October the 31st.

Come what may, Boris Johnson is ready to embrace a no deal, no transition Brexit, if necessary.

And it may well be, given the ampas between London and

Brussels, which runs very deep. But what would a no-deal departure from the EU mean for Britain's

politics and economy? Well, Ian Duncan Smith joins me now. Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you.

If I may, let me begin by quoting to you the words of an EU official in Brussels

uttered just a couple of days ago. A no-deal exit now appears to be the UK government's central scenario.

Would you agree with that? Well, in the sense that the government's made it pretty

clear that they think that the existing withdrawal agreement is dead, unless there is major

surgery to it, and the government is set out at a starting point, which is the end of the backstop,

then they're not prepared to discuss it. Now, I suspect that they're open to other discussions,

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