Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Emanuel Center and to this spectator debate on Brexit,

deal or no deal. It's pretty remarkable that first off, we're meeting on budget night,

and nobody, including Ken Clark, wants to talk about the budget.

We didn't miss very much.

But also, we should have a political debate and find queues snaking down Marsham Street.

We've sold out a thousand-seat venue to come here to talk about politics.

But with what a panel.

We have tonight a former chancellor, Ken Clark, a former Brexit secretary, David Davis, the former

chairman of Leave campaign, Gisela Stewart, the author of the best book on Brexit, Liam

Halligan, and the best political journalist in London, James Versaith.

Please join me in welcoming them to the stage.

Thank you. Thank you. Now, technically, our panelists are supposed to give a five-minute speech, but they said back in the green room there, that that would mean 25 minutes and there was too much to discuss so

we'd rather get stuck into it so I'm gonna start asking questions then we're

gonna throw it open to you guys I'm sure all of you have got I've got questions

to ask and so I guess David Davis my first goes to you there is the op there's

not much optimism of getting a good Brexit deal.

In cabinet last week, even Philip Hammond was saying that this would not be good,

it would just be better than the alternative.

The Prime Minister says there's a bad deal as better than no deal,

but it's difficult to work out, isn't it?

How bad a bad deal has to get to qualify as a bad deal?

Oh, I think we've shown it already.

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