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Drax.com. Thank you everyone for coming today to the Spectators Brexit panel. When we were

organising our conference programme, we had various sponsored events where you often have an exercise

where you talk about what you agree should be the conversation points. And then as a moment,

we just looked at the schedule and thought, that's have some fun. And that's why we're in the smaller room.

But we thought that's have it to be about Brexit because it's been, you know, a while.

So the question we're asking is, has Brexit failed? And of course, on a serious note,

you know, we're about one year away from an election. It feels that there are parts of the Tory

party and even the Tory government that don't particularly want to talk about it as much as they used to.

You think about, for example, the recent question time Brexit special. Now perhaps some of this was

not wanting to take part in that programme, but there was no government representative making

the case for Brexit or leave. And you have Keir Starmer talking about closer relations with the EU,

though he gets a little bit scared if you talk for too long about it. And you know, Ed Davey

can I just not want to talk about Brexit. But there is a chance that we go into the next election

where the Labour are talking about closer ties and a question falls to the Tories of, well,

if you don't think that's a good idea, what have you got to show for it? So on that, I'd like to

welcome our panel today. We have Matthew Elliott, former vote leaves CEO, the official campaign.

We have John Redwood, who needs no introduction, I would give you his name. And then we have

Camilla Cavendish, and F. T. columnist and former David Cameron advisor. We have Charles Grant

...