Welcome to F.T. Politics, the Financial Times's podcast on British politics.

I'm Sebastian Payne and in this week's episode we'll be discussing Theresa May's approaching Big Brexit

speech in Florence and the government's decision to lift the public sector pay cap.

I'm delighted to be joined by our political editor George Parker, White or Editor James Blitz, political commentator

Miranda Green, and our employment chorus one and Sarah O'Connor.

Thank you all for joining.

Next Friday, Theresa May is off to Florence what is being billed as her next big speech on the

UK's departure from the EU.

This follows on from her Lancaster House speech in January, where she defined Brexit as

leaving the single market and going for Global

Britain.

As we reported in the FT this week, the Prime Minister will use this speech to discuss a

transition deal and the so-called divorce bill of how much the UK will have to pay

the EU after departure day.

Mrs May is hoping to use this speech to unblock the negotiations and move on from departure

talks to the future relationship between Britain and the

block. But will it work? So George Parker let's just start with a bit of background

of the Brexit speech and how we got there. Since the June election, Mrs May seems to be taking a bit more of a pragmatic approach

to Brexit dictated by the fact she doesn't have a big majority.

And we've heard Philip Hammond and David Davis and many other cabinet ministers

actually have quite a practical protest saying we need to have a transition so after March

2019 the status quo essentially remains that's what it sounds like she's going to be

...