My guest is Peter Foster.

Peter Foster is the public policy editor of the Financial Times, where he covers all aspects of

UK policy, including the implementation of Brexit.

He has a new book out, his first book, in fact, called What Went Wrong with Brexit

and What We Can Do About It.

Welcome to the podcast, Peter.

Thanks, Paul.

Right, we're going to talk more about the subtitle of your book,

what we can do about it rather than relitigate the past seven years. And you say at the very

beginning of your book, there is now seem to be space emerging for a rethink. Why do you say that?

I think it's a combination of things. The polls in the UK would suggest

that there's a pretty high chance we're going to get a different government, a Labour government,

who doesn't have ownership of the Brexit process in quite the same way that Rishi Sunak does.

Clearly, he's not Boris Johnson or Liz Truss, but nonetheless, he's custodian of a party

that is responsible for the very kind of hard form of Brexit that we've got. I think you can also see

the polls shifting in the UK in terms of attitudes to Brexit, although neither political party

really wants to talk about that. And then there's a couple of inflection points coming up.

There's the implementation review of the trade and cooperation agreement in beginning of

2026, make of that what you will.

Perhaps we'll discuss that.

And generally speaking, I think we're now far enough ahead, far enough past the pretty bitter divorce

negotiations for somebody to try and force something of a reset, were they minded to do so?

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