23/06/2017 Newsnight

I do not think it would be right for me to be the captain that steers our

country to its next dexter nation. We are living through an important

moment in our country's history. That is now statistically...

Notification from Prime Minister Theresa May triggering Article 50.

Mathematically they are... Every vote for the Conservatives will make

me stronger. They don't have an overall majority at this stage, but

the Leave campaign have won. This will go down in our history as our

Independence Day! Not in terms of the way people voted, because all

the we said it would be a close run thing, but in terms of the

turnaround for British foreign policy, British policy towards the

EU, the EU, the British people have spoken and the answer is we're out.

The vote to leave happened in a single day.

The moment of truth delivered one mesmerizing night.

Yet if anyone believed that decision would shut down debate on Europe -

A year on this country feels restless, febrile,

In 12 months we've seen it all - a change of leader, a general

election, attacks on our freedom and our way of life,

and the kind of human tragedy that makes us question the very values

When we voted for Brexit, we chose to steer this country

in a different direction - to tear up, as George Orwell might

say, the human mind and put it together in new shapes.

Yet suddenly the trajectory seems anything but clear.

So tonight we draw breath - we devote this evening,

the Brexit anniversary, to asking if we are the same country

And are we more or less divided on what we want?

But before we reflect on the past 12 months,

we assess the day - Mark Urban has followed

Emily, I think there has been an element of, thank God, we are now

moving on this. The move from Theresa May on citizens' rights was

tabled just before this anniversary day and it at least started

colouring what Britain means by Brexit, but overall it has not been

a very positive reaction, summed up by the person who represents the 27

governments, well, 28 in fact, but in this case, the 27, EU President

Donald Tusk. My first impression is that the UK's

offer is below our expectations and that it risks worsening

the situation of citizens. But it will be for our negotiating

team to analyse the offer line by As a matter of fact,

Brexit got very little time We devoted most of our work

to addressing people's concerns over security, illegal migration

and uncontrolled globalisation. Well, there you have it. He is

saying, well, it doesn't look like it will preserve the rights they

have now, and you might say you do not expect that, if we are leaving

the EU, for everything to be exactly the same, but actually it is the

beginning of the negotiation, and he says we spent most of our time

talking about other stuff, we get it, game on. Doesn't tell you

anything about how negotiations are going in general? What it does tell

you is these two key issues where the EU 27 are absolutely united and

feel very strongly, Citizens' rights and the budget, where they are

determined to see substantial progress, and that will be a tough

initial negotiation. Some people in Downing Street are suggesting there

might be sufficient progress, to use the term coined, on those two core

issues, by October, to start addressing the bigger package, the

future relationship. I think that is incredibly optimistic. I mean, we

can see by the way they are now saying, let's pull apart this offer

on Citizens' rights line by line, bound to happen in negotiations of

this kind, the budget negotiations can be difficult, and all that is

tough and is going to take time, many months I think. I think it will

be a difficult process, a technical process, hard even sometimes to

follow but each tiny twist and turn of negotiations logic will tell us.

I am glad you said that, Mark. The Brexit referendum,

everyone says, revealed It just revealed those divisions

in statistical form. It is a year since

we bought our Brexit. But our flat packed

future did not come with any instructions as to how

to put the thing together, or even what it should

look like when it is So have we done little more

in the last 12 months than lay all the bits out on the carpet

and argue about what goes where? Everything that has happened

since the referendum, I would suggest, has compounded

those divides, rather We have just had a general

election that has seen a big polarisation around age -

we have seen youth turnout increase significantly, and we have seen

the pro-Remain areas mobilise significantly, much in a way

the pro-Leave areas mobilised, but the map of British politics now

is I think one that looks far away from the map of a nation

that is coming together. It is more like a map of a nation

that is being pulled apart. It will strengthen my hand in those

important Brexit negotiations. The fact that Theresa May didn't get

a majority has emboldened those who campaigned to remain to believe

that we can end up, not staying in the EU,

but with a very different I think that were Theresa

May to have got the overwhelming majority

that she hoped for, we would have known more or less

what the UK position was and therefore what the final

deal might be. I think the election puts

everything into doubt. I think parliamentary arithmetic

is not there for the kind of Brexit the Government was

pursuing and I think it is all to I don't understand why

people on the Remain side are feeling emboldened,

because if you look at the parties who are talking about,

for example, staying part of the single market

or having a second referendum, parties

like the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, and the SNP, their vote

share actually went down in the general election, so I don't think

people on the Remain side should feel they have got any form

of mandate from the election. Indeed, there is little

evidence that the public have changed their minds on Brexit

in the year since the referendum. One poll since the general

election suggests a more or less even split between Remain

and Leave supporters, but around half

of Remain supporters, 26% of all voters,

are now dubbed Re-Leavers,

that is they think the Government now has a duty

to deliver on the referendum result

and that leaves just 21%, of so-called hard Remainers,

who want a second I think one key reason why support

from Brexit has gone from 52% last year to I would say

70% now in the polls is because some of the people who are on the Remain

side voted Remain because they feared for the economy, they

believed the Project Fear that the Government was talking

about and actually now they have seen that the economy

is doing well and that Brexit has not led to a collapse in growth

and an increase in unemployment, they are actually quite comfortable

with the decision that So how can it be that

Theresa May does not have a mandate for her Brexit plans

but there is no evidence that the British people had

changed their minds? Well, the answer seems to be

in Labour's extremely nuanced The fascinating thing

about Labour's performance in the election is that not only did

they see their vote go up typically by around

13 points in the most pro-Remain areas, but their vote

also went up by about half that much in the Leave areas and that is what

stopped Theresa May and her team from really converting all of that

pro-Brexit Labour territory into Conservative gains that would

otherwise offset their losses How on earth is that coalition

going to be sustained Because inevitably Jeremy Corbyn is

going to have to stand on the stage at some point and make a firm

position on free movement, the single market,

the customs union and so on. Brexit is not just being built

by Britain alone, but with the other EU members with

whom we are negotiating. Since our election, both

the French President and the President of the European Council

have suggested that the UK could in And they will have noticed comments

this week by the Chancellor Philip Hammond who appeared to contradict

Theresa May's assertion that no deal is better than a bad deal. He, it

appears, has in mind a long transitional arrangement. I think

the transition, and how we get to any final deal is really no in the

frame. The Chancellor Philip Hammond -- really now in the frame. The

Chancellor is saying, what do we want those arrangements to be? I

think the length of that transition is also really interesting. It could

be five years and some are saying up to ten years, making sure that the

transition is smooth, not some knee jerk change. But might at long

lingering goodbye to the EU risk a political backlash? I think a large

portion of the electorate will walk away from this entire exercise

feeling even more disillusioned and more frustrated, and I think and

fear that that outcome would be the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a

populist fire that is already raging. Hardly anyone is suggesting

packing up on Brexit and reversing the decision of a year ago, but the

29th of March 2019 is a date to keep in mind, that is when we leave and

something substantial has to be built. That was David Crossman.

Andrea Leadsom was one of the most prominent Leave campaigners -

she ran for the Conservative leadership in the heady days

after last year's referendum, only to be beaten by Theresa May.

She's now Leader of the House of Commons.

Earlier I spoke to her from her constituency

I began by Haskin what she thought of Donald Tusk's allegation that

Theresa May's proposal risk worsening the

situation of EU citizens. I think it was a generous offer and I think it

is also important that the EU Commission stick to their side of

the negotiations. You would not really expect them to say, thanks

very much, that's wonderful, so I think we will see a lot more of that

in the days to come. Isn't it funny, though, when we have Donald Tusk

saying it is not good enough, and you're the president of EU saying he

hasn't got a clue what the UK wants from Brexit, doesn't that worry you?

Not at all. As I said, when you are in a negotiation you don't

immediately jump around clapping your hands with glee at the first

sign. You do the opposite in fact. You see, that is not enough, we need

more, and that is what you would expect. But this should be a pretty

simple place to start, and we are a Uronen, as you have said, from that

vote, and they can't agree on the first thing they are trying to talk

about. Do you think that is just politics? -- we are one year on, as

you have said. Theresa May give her a very initial comments to the

meeting of the EU Council to explain to them the generous offer that we

will be making, which is right that we should do that. We want to do it.

And of course EU negotiators will start off by saying, you know, we

need to see the detail, it's a good start but... You would expect that.

I think we will see a lot of the negotiations and the sort of

handling of negotiations is going to be a challenging time, but we are

determined to continue with a good relationship with our EU friends and

colleagues. We are weaker than ever before. She has gone to the country,

she didn't get the mandate she wanted and she does not have a

strong position from which to negotiate. That is the blunt truth.

Well, you know, Theresa May isn't of course satisfied with the majority

that we managed to get at the last election, but we are the biggest

party in government. It is not just our opportunity but it is also our

duty to create a government, to take this country forward, to do

everything we can to make a success of leaving the EU. We've done a huge

amount of work on preparations for these negotiations, our hand is very

strong. You've got a negotiating position

which is completely unclear. You're hearing that from

the president of the EU Parliament. We've got a political

system which is unstable, many believe our economy is unfair,

living standards are falling. What can you point to now

and say, that's going well? European politicians are actually

very keen we keep a strong relationship going for and that is

what we going to do. And it's actually the elected

politicians who are the important But come on, Miss Leadsom -

you haven't even got a deal They're laughing at us and saying

they can walk all over Well, that's blatantly

not true, is it? Angela Merkel said it was

an interesting start. We had Mark Rutte saying

he was quite positive We had various different EU

politicians, the elected politicians, saying it's

a good start. Of course it's very

early days, but... It has been a year and

these crucial issues... It would be helpful if broadcasters

were willing to be a bit patriotic - This government is

determined to deliver... Are you accusing me of being

unpatriotic for questioning how negotiations are going,

questioning whether you have the position of strength

that she said she wanted? I'm not accusing you

of anything, Emily. I'm simply saying we all need

to pull together as a country. We took a decision and year ago

today to leave the European Union. You are now a minority Government

but you're reading of the public mood is to push on with the same

plans for Brexit that you always had. Is that right, nothing has

changed in your mind? As the Prime Minister said, we are leaving the

EU. We are not leading Europe. So our negotiation to deliver a strong

deal that works for all of us remains absolutely at the heart of

what we are doing. Do you regret that the election was called? I

don't at all. Of course we don't have the numbers in Parliament, we

accept that and of course we are disappointed about that, but what it

means... The whole direction of Brexit is now up in the air. You

know that. If I can just finished... You didn't get a huge majority. This

was a sign from the country that they are questioning it. Over 85% of

people voted for parties that were accepted the result of the

referendum last year. What we actually now have is a government

that will be listening so carefully across parties, hearing what other

partiesparties' ideas are, working to try to get the legislation

through... Angela M, thank you. -- Andrea Leadsom, thank you.

Whether you took your numbers from the side of a bus,

or read encyclopaedically from the Office for

Budget Responsibility, the Brexit campaign was brashly

and noisily centred around the economy.

A year on the pound has slumped, manufacturing has jumped,

the markets are up but so is inflation.

So what exactly has the prospect of Brexit done to us?

Our policy editor Chris Cook brings his numbers to it.

The economic consequences of Brexit will take years to play out,

but what can we say about what's happened so far?

Now, it hasn't been terribly quick lately, and things have slowed

down a little recently, but behaviour since June last year

it is not markedly different to what went before.

You get a similar pattern if you look at unemployment -

it was drifting down before last June, it's drifting down now.

The biggest economic consequence so far, though,

Sterling dropped down a step in June last year,

and despite recovering a little it remains 12.5% below the position

it held in the month before the referendum.

Cheaper sterling makes imports more expensive, so one consequence

This is the annual rate of change in the consumer price index,

which has shot up to nearly 3%, and that in turn has

Once you take account of that inflation, this graph shows how fast

wages have been growing, and in recent months

we have returned to falling living standards.

This is hardly unprecedented - in recent years sluggish or negative

pay growth has been one of our top problems.

The Brexit vote, though, seems to have rekindled

So are we the same country that voted to leave 12 months ago.

Is the optimism of the Brexiteers and the scepticism of

Should we put those terms to bed once and for all?

Joining me now, journalist Jonathan Freedland and Kerry Anne Mendoza -

editor of the Canary - who voted remain.

Tim Martin - Chairman of Wetherspoons and Robert Toombs

the historian who voted to Leave the EU.

It is a pleasure to have you all here. Tell you wrote frequently for

Wetherspoon news and played as big a part as anyone in this debate. Do

you think you lead your customers in the right direction? I would hope

that we did. In the paper which is read by a couple of million people,

we put the views of Remain and Leave and I think we presented it fairly

and I would like to think that we decided the referendum and the

election. Your editorial voice was very strong in bringing people with

you on the road to Brexit? It is difficult to say how many are

brought. A lot of people think about say something, they do the opposite.

Do you see yourself now as a reliever or would you say that the

defining question is no longer whether we are in or out, do you

feel that we have moved on. We have bigger questions to answer. Theresa

May call the election saying that she needed a mandate to conduct

these negotiations and she has lost that mandate and he said that the

alternative was a Coalition of chaos, that is another broken

promise. Now we have the utter chaos, no Coalition. The

Conservative government in recent years has delivered a zombie economy

and now we have a zombie government clinging onto power. We are told by

people around Theresa May that she has a profound sense of duty and I

think if that is true, she needs to do the dutiful thing and resign.

This, Jonathan, this has become a different debate, it is about values

and austerity, not really about our connection to the EU any more. I

think all roads come back to that. The fundamental question of our

relationship with Europe. That will be the dominant question. We have of

government committed to extricating us from the European Union on a

timetable that now looks realistic. The climate of the country I think

has changed. I can think of a couple of examples. One is the election of

Donald Trump. If you imagine that choice now, leave the European Union

and trade with America, that was one kind of argument when President

Obama was in the White House, now it is a completely different argument.

If you think it was the other way round, it would be a different

answer? It is hypothetical. The climate would have been different.

Young people. They turned out in big numbers and we know that last year

they did not do it incomparable numbers. Had they, we know that

their inclination was towards Remain. Those facts mean that the

climate has changed. One of the most powerful things said was on the

Leave side, David Davis said our democracy has the right to change

its mind, otherwise it is not a democracy. There are these impish

overtures from European leaders saying that the door is still open,

everyone, I can be a dreamer, are they trying to stir up trouble? Or

are they saying, you can treat this still as a democracy and change your

mind again? How do you read that? I think the EU leaders, are thoroughly

committed to the EU as an idea and it is difficult for them to

understand that we might not be. The EU has a record of getting countries

to change their minds once they have voted and it is natural for them to

think like -- that we like the Dutch, the French and the Danes

might change our mind. They are also trying to weaken the bargaining

position of the government. They will not offer us more than they

have to. That is why I think the danger of our present situation is

this appearance of uncertainty. If you are uncertain, then the people

who disagree with you will take advantage. Do you think, Robert,

that the key issue is that we have at a referendum on if we Brexit but

no one has had a chance to vote on the Brexit that will happen? The

negotiations have started, still with the British public completely

in the dark about what Brexit looks like. Shouldn't there be another

Democratic intervention down the line? The thing about another vote

is, the decision was subcontracted to the people to say, do you want to

stay or leave? They voted to leave. They could not have known the exact

terms and the government today cannot know the exact terms. I think

people make too much about what the exact terms will be. It is the

difference between do you want to move house or do you want to move

into this house. Once people decide who has, it is a decision but they

would not buy the next hours without seeing it. They took that risk.

People said, we have not seen the house but we are moving. What you're

pointing to now is still this sense of division in the country and I am

wondering if you think we're any closer to reconciliation now one

year on whether you think post that election it feels wider than ever. I

think it depends on getting decent terms. In that case, it seems to be

that is the only thing that can bring about reconciliation. The

number of people who are determined to stay in the EU is quite a small

proportion of the population and the majority that were either for Leave

or at least lukewarm about the EU and afraid of the economic

consequences, if we get a solution that shows that the economic

consequences are firmly OK, then I think that the fear and the

rejection of the idea of Brexit were largely disappear. I think you're

talking rationally but when you hear a politician aligning patriotism

with support for Brexit negotiations, I am wondering, I

don't know, what you feel? That was incredibly unhelpful. I think the

whole language that this referendum has been conducted and has been

appalling. You cannot call people who voted for Brexit ignorant bigots

and the ones who voted Remain elitists and unpatriotic. There were

legitimate reasons to vote each way and now all other should be working

together. I agree but I want to say something about your reconciliation

point because that was beginning to happen even on the Remain side.

People budget was about to win a majority and she would negotiate

hard Brexit, we were just going to have to get but the programme. Then

there was the result of the election, she offered no other

positive programme. She asked for the mandate and the country said no.

85% of people voted for parties which were in favour of Brexit. You

hear it as a soft Remainer -- Remainer vote. Labour's position was

both at once. It was both Remain and Leave. That is one of the reasons

they did well. That was the reading initially. Actually, only 18% of

former Ukip voters went to Labour. Where was Ukip in the whole thing?

Both the main parties said we are in favour of Brexit and 85% of people

voted for them and you cannot turn around now and say there is doubt

about whether the country is in favour of Brexit. Maybe there is an

element of hypocrisy on both side... You're being very consolatory

tonight. Contrary to popular opinion. The whole Brexit argument

was predicated on the idea of democracy, about taking back

control, but the British public having their say and they do not

think we can then say, it is somehow anti-democratic to give the public

another say... Did Remainers feel they were pulling against the

national mood, was there an embarrassment before the election

that has now changed? You would have been quiet about the fact, maybe not

quite, but Remainers would not felt comfortable saying that they still

disagree. It would sound as if you are trying to turn the clock. The

election shows that everything is up for grabs. You have seen the

trajectory of history. Do you see this as another turning point? Yes.

A sort of turning point or it could be. The problem is of uncertainty.

Democracy is a wonderful thing. Thinking practice of what would

happen if you were to have a second vote. All of our partners in the EU

would say these people do not know what they want, give them a hard

deal and they will vote to stay in. We do not control the terms of the

outcome and to start saying, we have devoted on the outcome means that we

will almost certainly get a bad outcome. What is the alternative. We

will get a terrible deal and we will have to swallow it. There is no

terrible deal we can get, the worst deal you can get is to trade on

World Trade Organisation. It is not a bad deal. We trade with America,

China, India... 44% of our experts do not rely on America. This is

almost the impossible one. I want to come back to a sense of national

mood. We are in a place now where it feels like wave after wave, a period

of national sharks whether it is political earthquakes or security

scares off human disasters, leaving many questioning our values now. Do

you feel as you sit here tonight that there is a bright future for

this country, a sort of cohesive place that we are going? Briefly.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. There is no reason to

think that the country is in a long-term crisis. I agree with Jim,

there is no reason to think that the outcome will be economically

damaging. If we stick to our guns, perhaps that is to military a

metaphor, if we follow a sensible and decent negotiating strategy

there is no reason to think we should not have a good outcome. One

of the big arguments after the referendum and during it was the

notion that there were two tribes in this country, there were the urban

and cosmopolitan people and then there were those who still had

British values of community. We have seen in areas that would have been

labelled classic urban and cosmopolitan areas, we saw them

those are real communities were people really pulled together, there

is no monopoly on patriotism and reddish values on either side. On

that note, we must end. But before we go, legendary cricket

commentator Henry Blofeld today After the exceptional heat, things

have gone back to normal. Just in time for the Wigan. Quite a mixed

picture. Across England and Wales there will be large areas of cloud.

Some patchy rain at times, some