UK's Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 25 January 2019
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In little more than two months from now, Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union. That beguilingly simple statement is at the heart of a political crisis which deepens by the day. The ruling Conservative party is riven with splits; so too is the Labour opposition. If Parliament’s Brexit paralysis persists, then Britain will leave with no deal in place, no orderly transition, and the prospect of economic disruption. What will Labour do in this moment of political truth? HARDtalk's Stephen Sackur talks to the UK's Shadow Chancellor, Labour's John McDonnell.
Image: John McDonnell (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker. |
| 0:06.8 | Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it. Welcome to Hard Talk on |
| 0:13.8 | the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. The British people voted by 52% to 48 to leave the European Union back in 2016. Two and a half years on, |
| 0:24.5 | the wounds of that divisive campaign far from being healed have infected Britain's body politic |
| 0:31.2 | and threatened permanent damage. In little more than two months from now, the country's exit |
| 0:36.8 | from the EU club is supposed to be formalised. |
| 0:40.0 | The hope of Prime Minister Theresa May was that it would be done on the basis of an almost two-year orderly transition to a close economic relationship. |
| 0:50.1 | That was the basis of her torturously negotiated deal with the EU 27. |
| 0:54.9 | But that deal was overwhelmingly rejected by the British Parliament, |
| 0:58.9 | dismissed as inadequate by both die-hard Brexiteers |
| 1:02.6 | and those who want Britain to vote again |
| 1:05.2 | with the option to reverse their original exit decision. |
| 1:09.0 | Both the ruling conservatives and the opposition Labor Party |
| 1:11.5 | have been deeply internally divided by Brexit, so British politics is in a state of paralysis. |
| 1:18.4 | And all the while, the clock ticks down to the March 29th deadline when in the absence of |
| 1:24.2 | any alternative, Britain will be out of the Union with no deal, no transition, |
| 1:29.5 | and every prospect of deep economic disruption. Can that be avoided? What will the Labour Party do |
| 1:35.8 | in this moment of political truth? Well, my guest today is Labour's shadow chancellor, John |
| 1:41.5 | MacDonald. Welcome to Hard Talk. This is the end game. We've said it before, |
| 1:45.6 | but it's real now. So, will Labor do whatever it takes to ensure that Britain does not leave |
| 1:52.9 | the European Union with no deal in place on March the 29th? Every week seems to be the end game. |
| 1:58.7 | We keep saying it's the end game and we never actually... We can't say it for much longer because that clock doesn't stop ticking. But even then, as you've seen with the amendments that are going into Parliament next week, it might not be the end game as such. And that's the problem that we've got, the uncertainty that's all the time. And most of the people I speak to in the economic community, whether they be trade unions or business leaders, |
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