Groundhog Deal

Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2020

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As EU trade talks go down to the wire of Transition’s end on Dec 31, was Boris Johnson and Ursula van der Leyen’s dinner a deux really the failed last chance to avoid No Deal? Does the EU Parliament have enough time to pass a new trade arrangements anyway? Does everything really depend on what Boris Johnson himself wants? And what happens if you want to take a ferret into the EU in 2021? Special guest Tom McTague, staff writer at The Atlantic, joins the IfG Brexit Team over an Eleventh Hour meal deal. “On Europe, you could argue that Johnson is the most powerful Prime Minister we’ve seen since Thatcher.” – Tom McTague “We voted to take back control. The big question for next year is, what are we taking back control of?” – Maddy Thimont-Jack “Labour has to strike a balance between saying ‘I told you so’ and not looking like they want Britain to fail.” – Tom McTague “This is a defining moment for the EU too. They’ve shown almost national solidarity towards Ireland and French fishermen.” – Tom McTague Presented by Hannah White with Maddy Thimont-Jack, Joe Marshall, Jess Sergeant and Joe Marshall. Audio production by Alex Rees See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing. I'm Hannah White and stepping into the presenter's chair for this week, and it really is quite a week.
0:10.3	Because Brexit means, well, actually we still don't know. With just 21 days to go until the UK leaves the Brexit transition period, a future trade deal has yet to be signed.
0:20.7	Last night, Boris Johnson dined with EU Commission President Ursula Bontellion to try and break
0:25.9	the impasse. We'll look at what this dinner date meant for the Brexit talks.
0:30.6	But there has at least been some Brexit progress. The EU and the UK have agreed a way forward
0:35.7	on the Northern Ireland Protocol, which means the UK is no longer threatening to break international law. A good thing. I think we can all agree. We'll take a closer look. And whatever happens, whatever is or is not signed on December the 31st, the UK will leave the transition period. But are we ready for whatever comes next, deal or no deal,
0:55.1	on the first day of 2021? To make sense of all of this, I'm going to be joined in the studio by a
1:00.5	rolling cast of IFG experts who between them have thought more, read more, talked more and
1:05.8	tweeted more about Brexit these last few years than is probably good for them. With me throughout is Maddie
1:11.6	Timot Jack, who leads our Brexit team. Hi, Maddie. Hi, Hannah. Now, you've watched every episode of
1:16.5	the Brexit box set. Are you still gripped as we reach the day anymore? I mean, I think yes is the simple
1:22.0	answer. I am very much closely watching what's going on. And I really do want to see this sort of process through,
1:31.5	see what we end up with in the end. Although I also think I probably can speak for quite a lot of people listening that, you know, it has been for long years. I think everyone is getting
1:35.8	quite tired. I have been regaling the team with stories of my Brexit dreams recently. So I do
1:41.7	think that we'll all be looking forward to sort of seeing some kind of
1:44.6	resolution hopefully over the next couple of weeks. And a big welcome to our guest today, Tom McTague,
1:50.3	whose staff writer at the Atlantic. Hi, Tom. Hi there. Thanks for having me on. How are you feeling
1:55.1	about the looming deadline? I never know how to feel, actually. I think my emotions go up and down.
2:03.0	Sometimes I think, oh, just rip the plaster off and let's get on with it.
2:06.1	Let's see what's going to happen.
2:08.4	And other times I think, no, you've got to keep going.
2:10.8	You know, it would be ludicrous to stop for some artificial deadline.
	...

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