Global News Brexitcast

Brexitcast / Global News Podcast Collaboration – Part 1:

Jackie Leonard: I'm a little disappointed. I was hoping I was going to be over in one of your studios visiting Graceland or Disney World or something, but no, just LBH. This feels... this really does feel wreath-ian in here.

Chris Mason: Well, you're obviously here to inform, entertain and educate. This is all good.

Jackie Leonard: OK, right. So welcome to the Global News Podcast with a slightly different flavour today. We are being joined by the experts from Brexitcast.

[Sound effect: Brexitcast theme music plays]

Brexitcast Voiceover: Brexitcast. Brexitcast. From the BBC.

Soundbite montage: - "No one's got a clue what Brexit is." - "Brexit is..." - "I hadn't quite understood the full extent of this." - "We're particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing." - "I met Boris Johnson once." - "The doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters, they are going to get it wrong again." - "Remainers and leavers, that's going to end well." - "A process which I cannot describe as a dog's Brexit."

Jackie Leonard: I'm Jackie Leonard and I am welcoming you to a very special collaboration between the BBC World Service Global News Podcast and Chris Mason of Brexitcast. Well, one quarter of Brexitcast. And for Brexitcast listeners who have somehow missed us, the Global News Podcast is recorded twice a day on weekdays, once a day on weekends. It's a snapshot of the biggest stories of the moment. The World Service has an outward looking focus and that means I can get through entire days without actually knowing what's going on in the UK at all. Obviously, that has been changing a little bit of late.

Now, we have a very big audience – 13 and a half million downloads a month. Its listeners are from all over the world. They are all ages. The one thing that they all have in common: they are clever, inquiring, thoughtful people. But because they live all over the world, they haven't necessarily grown up knowing all about British politics, history, political tradition. They have not necessarily been following every twist and turn of Brexit in the forensic detail that you have. This is where you come in.

So for our listeners who might inexplicably have missed Brexitcast, tell us about you.

Chris Mason: By the way, I wish I'd known about the number of downloads and the number of editions that you do because you've made us look positively tiny and positively lazy, given the amount of output that you guys churn out. So what is Brexitcast? It's an assembly of four political journalists led by Laura Kuenssberg, our political editor, and Katja Adler, our Europe editor. And then there's Adam Fleming, Brussels correspondent, and me as a political correspondent. And we just sit in the studio and talk, in theory, once a week about all things Brexit. And we have become a little more productive in recent weeks and months because of the volume of news that has been about. But as I say, not quite the productivity in terms of the number of podcasts that you manage. Is that a reasonable description, guys, of what we do?

Laura Kuenssberg: I think so. It's Laura here in London as well. And Jackie, thanks for having us. And wherever you're listening in the world, this is quite terrifying, really, because we feel when we do Brexitcast, we basically sit in a cupboard and talk to each other and nobody really pays attention.

Yeah, I mean, Brexit has been in the UK a very long running saga. And we all work in daily news when we have to sort of compress as much as you can into relatively short periods of time. What we do on this podcast is try to untangle it a bit. And I suppose what's unusual is that me and Chris are normally in Westminster where we work full time talking to politicians all the time. And then our colleagues Katja and Adam are in Brussels where they work all the time. So together, it's like the two sides of a very confusing sandwich, I suppose.

Adam Fleming: And it's Adam in Brussels here. And the complaint I get from most people is that they don't like how I pronounce the word Brexit. Because I'm Scottish, I say it with a double G and people would prefer I said Brexit. But I have to try very hard to say that.

Jackie Leonard: OK, if you have any thoughts about how Adam says Brexit, just tweet him. OK, so we were hoping that Katja was going to turn up and I believe she has.

Katja Adler: Yes, she has. The wonders of modern technology and all the rest of it. Yes, I'm here, Katja Adler, sometimes known on the podcast as Dr Adler, just for fun. And yes, I sit with Adam in Brussels, unless we're travelling around, and try and give the full view and also ask the EU's questions to Laura and Chris about what is going on in UK politics too.

Jackie Leonard: Now, Global News podcast listeners will know that we've been promising to do this quite a long time. And every time we had a date to do it, something happened. And so just to get us across where we are right now at five past ten GMT on Friday, the 25th of October. Chris, where are we?

Chris Mason: So we are waiting for the European Union to decide how long the delay, as requested by the British Parliament, but which the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was rather keen to avoid, but now accepts as an inevitability, how long that delay will be. And the reason that that matters, as Katja and Adam will be able to talk about in great detail, is because that will set the framework for British politics over the next few weeks or the next few months. In other words, is there a tearing hurry to try and secure a Brexit deal because the extension is only a couple of weeks, or as it would appear is more likely, it is a couple of months until the end of January, creating a window potentially for a UK general election, something which Mr Johnson wants, but which, as things stand, the opposition parties aren't necessarily in a tearing hurry to endorse, even if they might get there eventually and some more quickly than others.

Jackie Leonard: So, Katja, Adam, it's kind of we're waiting for news from where you are.

Katja Adler: Well, we've sort of stopped waiting because the ambassadors of the 27 other EU countries, the representatives here in Brussels have just come out of a two hour long meeting where they were hearing from the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, where they were meant to be discussing the date at which Brexit would be delayed to for a third time. And Michel Barnier says they had a good discussion, but no decision. So we've stopped waiting for today, but we'll have to wait for a few more days.

And I think this is typical of where we are and have been for three years with Brexit. Every time there seems to be an end date, or we'll definitely know this by then, or the UK will definitely have left the EU by then, whether it's the 29th of March or the 3rd of October, something happens and it's all moved on one more time. And I think, because it's quite an informal podcast, you get messages from listeners or viewers of the television version just going "ah", because everyone is frustrated. But also, uncertainty is costly for businesses in the UK and the EU, and it's very worrying for people as well. So there's this sort of superficial frustration but an ongoing concern as well.

Jackie Leonard: Commentary by sound effect is one of our little things on Brexitcast and not least, Laura, because I think as we were discussing on the podcast the other day, the striking thing about reporting on this whole Brexit saga has been that at every moment where there's a moment of apparent clarity, we have learnt that it's a little mistier in reality often.

Laura Kuenssberg: I think that's right and one of the things, Jackie, because this has been going on for such a long time. I suppose people working on it and living it and understanding it, it's sort of a whole psychodrama. I don't mean to diminish what's happening, but part of the story, it's not just about this enormous political change that the UK is really struggling with going through, which is basically where we've been since 2016. It's a national struggle and tension over what happened in the referendum result.

But I think also for a news story it's a very emotional news story. Does that make sense, guys? It sort of feels like because we are working on it, we are living it, the country's living it, the politicians are certainly living it. And we often have politicians onto the podcast as well, and some of them are in real agony. And it's a curious thing, and a podcast where you've got a lot more time to talk about these things is a great way of doing it because you can't begin to try to get that across in three minutes on the 10 o'clock news.

Jackie Leonard: Well, let's look at some of the questions that people have sent in. We've been inviting questions from all over the world and they have been flooding in and some of them have been overtaken by events, of course, but we will press on with the ones which I think are still pertinent.

So we heard from Nicholas Ward in the US. He had been told by a British friend that the referendum was non-binding. So could the UK government have ignored it? Jason in Cincinnati, who actually picked up my Sharknado reference when I was talking about forces of nature meeting sharks and Brexitcast and the Global News Pod, so we have to include him. He was talking about the nature of Norway's relationship with the EU. And couldn't the UK just do that? They have free trade between Norway and the EU, shared immigration policy. What about their border with Sweden? How tricky is that?

Andrew Farrell, this is quite interesting. He asked about how Brexit is perceived. In the US, he says Brexit's couched in Trumpian, xenophobic language, speaking about a rightward shift. But there were quite a lot of Labour constituencies which voted leave. So he's asking about progressive arguments for Brexit.

And then Jesse in Finland got straight to the crunch.

Jesse (audio clip): Hi there, I'm Colin from Finland, and I would like to ask a question about what was the root reason to vote leave during referendum?

Jackie Leonard: So there you go. A few to unpack there. Shall I have a crack at Nicholas's question about the whole advisory thing?

Chris Mason: Oh, by the way, it's great to hear all of these listeners to your pod in America. We were slightly taken aback last night when a viewer at San Francisco airport spotted Brexitcast on BBC World News. And you just have visions of people having their last drink before boarding a plane and encountering our four faces, which is quite something.

Yeah, that question about advisory from Nicholas. And thanks for your question, Nicholas. So constitutionally, technically, yes, it was an advisory referendum. But politically, Parliament has said we are effectively subcontracting this back to you, the British people, because it's a sufficiently big decision that you should take it. And the promise was we will implement what you say. And of course, part of the nature of the political row since and a contributory factor to why it's become as toxic as it has in certain elements in terms of the anger is that sense from some that that promise was made. And it hasn't yet been delivered upon.

And in fact, the former British Prime Minister Theresa May made that kind of point in a contribution to a debate in the Commons the other day, effectively saying, look, we did promise to deliver this. And with every passing week, we are failing to do that. Let's try and get some sort of deal over the line is the argument from her. Of course, others are making the argument that democracy never stops and you can continue to have discussions and arguments. And of course, some advocate having another crack, having another referendum.

Katja Adler: But I think another one of the problems is that you know what it's like before a general election, right? All politicians promise the earth, don't they? They say you're going to have the best health cases in the whole world, the best roads, the best schools, everything's going to be. These are promises you make before an election. I think what we can't know, nobody can know, is the majority of voters voted to leave the EU. But there is no way of knowing what every single person had in their mind when they voted, why they voted that way and what they wanted out of that vote.

Now, politicians on both sides, whether it's on the Remain side or the Leave side, said stick with our side because it's going to be brilliant. If you make lots of promises, people inevitably are going to be disappointed. And I think the problem that we've seen as you go through this negotiation process with the EU – because the EU also has to decide what it will allow out of Brexit – is that you will have a lot of people who are disappointed or frustrated because the kind of life on the other side of the vote doesn't necessarily look like what they had in mind.

And this is complex for politicians and it's complex for those who voted. And so you often just have a really big feeling in the UK of anger, frustration, dissatisfaction. And if I were a politician, I wouldn't really know how to make everybody happy either at this stage. I don't know if the three of you have an idea.

Laura Kuenssberg: No. I mean, I completely agree. And to think it was a question from the States, there is no way you can get in the minds of more than 17 million people who voted one way. And I think it was just under 17 million people who voted the other way. And I covered that campaign. And we had all sorts of reasons from people all over the country why they were voting leave. Some people were very concerned about immigration. Some people really didn't like the fact that in the UK, EU law was supreme. Some people really didn't like the fact that at that moment, the EU was having a lot of problems.

You've got to remember it was in the situation where there'd been the Eurozone crisis and then the migrant crisis. And so for a lot of people, they kind of looked across the channel and thought, oh, the EU is not working very well. It's not working very well at all. Do we want to be part of that? And there was also a much more old fashioned, what we call Euroscepticism, prevalent among the Tory party about people who really never wanted to be part of the big political project anyway. So they might have been very happy with the economic side of it – used to be called the common market, but the single market where people can trade without borders. But there was a really strong tradition on the right of the country about just not really being very into the whole idea.

Jackie Leonard: But you mentioned the argument on the right, but Andrew Farrell's question from Chicago was saying, is there a left wing argument as well? Because quite a lot of Labour Party voting constituencies voted Leave.

Laura Kuenssberg: There are two parts to that, Jackie. First off, you've got in constituencies, right? So for members of the public, loads of people who are Labour voters voted Leave. In fact, the majority of current Labour seats were Leave voting constituencies. So again, there are all sorts of reasons. It's not a right and left thing. And there's an argument on the Labour left, absolutely, prevalent in some bits of the union movement that says, actually, the EU always acts in the interests of big business. Actually we'd be much better off out.

So that brings us to the point it's not a left and right issue. And that's why our political system, which is based on the idea of one lot on one side on the left, another side on the other – don't forget how oppositional British politics is. I mean, they even sit on two sides of the House of Commons staring each other down. But Brexit is not a simple left and right issue. That's why the two sides, it kind of hasn't mixed. It's like trying to mix milk and water. It just doesn't work. Brexit does not work in the traditional structures of the American province.

Chris Mason: And just a quick word about Theresa May, the previous British Prime Minister, who was condemned for being a bit indecisive. She actually, quite quickly after the referendum, tried to boil down what the Leave vote actually meant. And it became control of our money, borders and laws. That definition of what leave meant set the UK on the course that it's pursued since. Of course, when she then got further into her time in office, she moved away from that a bit.

And just quickly on the Sharknado fan's question about Norway. The Norway relationship with the EU is on offer to the UK if it wanted, but it would involve the UK basically continuing to participate in the single market, which would mean following EU rules on a whole swathe of areas of the economy and national life, which is something that's been rejected by the government. And so Norway's still on offer from the EU if that's where the UK would like to end up. But it's not palatable to the UK at the moment.

Adam Fleming: The other problem with the Norway-Sweden border is even if the UK were to sign up to the single market, even though Norway is in the single market and Sweden is an EU country, because Norway isn't in the customs union – and I'm sorry to use all these terms – it means that there is border infrastructure. There are checks between those two countries.

One of the realities that Brexit has crashed into was a promise that you could have friction free trade still between the UK and the EU, even after Brexit. This cannot work if the UK leaves the single market and the customs union. And in the UK, when the UK leaves the EU, it's very different to if Sweden decided to leave the EU, because if Sweden decided to leave the EU, it would have a customs border on its border. Because of the Northern Ireland issue for the United Kingdom, when the UK leaves the EU and its customs union and single market, the customs line between the single market and UK after Brexit runs through the island of Ireland. And the whole issue of the peace process comes up. And this is one of the big, big realities that Brexit has crashed into. So I'm sorry it gets so complex, but it's not black and white. And this is why, one of the reasons this process is taking so long.

Jackie Leonard: At heart, this is all about human beings and how it affects people. And I know that there are some questions that you can't fully answer yet. We had one from a gentleman who is Greek, currently working in Germany, used to work here in the UK. He's wondering about what will happen to his taxes and his pension. Will he get that? And then there were these people as well.

Isabella (audio clip): My name is Isabella. I'm 17 years old and I come from Spain. I was wondering what will be the consequences of Brexit for prospective EU students entering university in the UK in 2020.

Sigurd (audio clip): Hi, my name is Sigurd and I'm a student currently living in Bergen, Norway. Do you know what will happen to foreign students living in the UK after Brexit? Also, do you know if Brexit will make it more challenging to arrange these programs in the future?

Julia Hempel (audio clip): Hello, my name is Julia Hempel. I'm originally from Germany, but I'm currently volunteering for a charity in North Yorkshire, which supports people with learning disabilities, autism and mental health problems. I was just wondering how Brexit would influence my stay here in the UK. For example, would I need to apply for a visa or could I even be asked to leave the country? Thank you so much for answering my question.

Jackie Leonard: Jackie, I should let you in on one of the secret weapons of Brexitcast. This is also a way of me dodging trying to answer any of those rather tricky questions, but really important ones about people's lives. Adam has his binders where he keeps all of the documents associated with the Brexit process and assiduously reads every syllable. And so I reckon in a slight sort of hospital pass style move, Adam, that those questions had Mr. Fleming written all over them.

Adam Fleming: So if there is a Brexit deal and it goes through, there'll be a transition period which the UK government calls an implementation phase where everything will stay exactly the same as it is now. It's just the UK will be out of the EU legally, and that will continue to the end of 2020 at least, and could be extended to 2021 or to the end of 2022. If it exists and if it is extended, then everything that happens now – whether you're a student or a volunteer, whether you're a German living in the UK or a Spanish person who's lived in the UK then moved to Germany, whatever – everything will stay the same for you.

If there is no deal, that prospect's disappearing now, you're then into your contingency measures. And the government has said that things like Erasmus, the student exchange scheme, if you're starting an Erasmus year in the UK now, you will be okay. Next year, a different matter. And then in the long term, the EU student exchange programme Erasmus is now being opened up to any other country in the world and the UK will just have to negotiate membership of that programme as a so-called third country, an independent country that's not in the EU in the long term.

And of course the UK government has said that as part of its negotiations about the permanent future relationship that it'll have with the EU, education and students is going to be a big part of that because it's a big industry for the UK and important for lots of people in Europe. And of course there will be quite a lot of British people currently working and studying in Europe who will be watching very closely too.

Laura Kuenssberg: Yeah, and of course, that's why I keep talking about the transition period, because it sort of disappeared from the headlines and the discussion because it's been agreed. But that is what gives you your certainty for at least another year that things will stay the same. It's really if there is no deal and the UK leaves without an agreement that actually it becomes a much more uncertain world. Although you could argue the uncertainty is just booted to the end of the transition period, because all of these things will have to be agreed between a departed UK and the rest of the EU.

Jackie Leonard: Quite a lot of our listeners are a little concerned about what the UK is going to look like at all in future years. We heard from one correspondent in the US called David Snyder. Let's hear from him.

David Snyder (audio clip): Hello, I'm David from Indiana in the United States. Could Northern Ireland hold a referendum vote similar to the 2014 Scottish referendum to leave the UK? Upon becoming an independent country, Northern Ireland could then rejoin the EU to avoid the hard border with Ireland. Is this something we could expect to see in the years following whatever deal comes out of the Brexit agreement?

Jackie Leonard: And as well as him, we heard from Joe Hancock, who has been studying politics. He and his class actually came over to the UK in the spring expecting to see Brexit in the wild, like cherry blossoms in Japan or the fall in New England or something. And it just didn't happen for him. But he is also wondering about whether Scotland will get another shot at independence and whether we are likely to see the island of Ireland unified. Let's go to Laura first.

Laura Kuenssberg: So both of those issues are things that Westminster politicians on the unionist side of the argument are very worried about. Particularly if there were to be a Brexit without a formal arrangement in place, what we call a no deal, where things would be more uncertain, potentially chaotic for a while while it all got sorted out. Although some people would agree with that. In that kind of environment, unionists... So, in the UK, just for our listeners, both the Labour Party and the Tory Party and the Liberal Democrats absolutely firmly believe that the union should stay together. So Northern Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales should be absolutely preserved. There's no question that for the Scottish nationalists, the SNP, and also for Sinn Féin, who obviously are in Northern Ireland and in the south of Ireland now too, the kind of aftermath of all of this, the potential chaos there could be if there's a no deal departure, is an opportunity. It's a question. It's an opportunity for them to try to put the questions again about whether or not Scotland should become an independent country and whether or not potentially there could be a border poll on the island of Ireland about whether Northern Ireland should join with the South. So this is something that is very much on politicians' minds, but there is no certainty at all that either of those are things that would actually happen. And remember in the Scottish independence referendum, which was not so long ago, although it feels like a political lifetime, there was a clear majority for staying as part of the UK.

Chris Mason: I reckon just for a free bit of travel advice, if you're planning a trip to the UK to try and be here to coincide with Brexit, I'd get an open return. I think he learned that lesson.

Adam Fleming: On that theme, there's been a wonderful thing doing the rounds on social media this week on Twitter. Someone tweeting, "The year is 2192. The British Prime Minister visits Brussels to ask for an extension of the Brexit deadline. No one remembers where this tradition originated, but every year it attracts many tourists from all over the world."

Laura Kuenssberg: Well, I have to say, I think it comes back down to uncertainty, even if it lasts to 2059. The idea of the uncertainty about what will the UK look like after it leaves the EU, will the UK actually leave the EU is what some are asking, and what will happen to the United Kingdom. Could it break up? Could Scotland break away? Could there be a United Ireland? Whether any of these things actually happen or not, the fact is there is massive uncertainty, and uncertainty is worrying for people. I think it's prevalent across the UK, and it's felt to a lesser extent, but it is felt in the EU as well.

Katja Adler: And on Ireland, there's a really interesting thing that emerged from the negotiations. The UK and Ireland have had a sort of special relationship going back decades and decades and centuries. At the start of the negotiations, both sides agreed to maintain something called the common travel area, which means that Irish citizens have the right to come and work in the UK and live and study, and UK citizens have the right to do the same thing in Ireland, completely independently and separately from the fact that both countries are in the EU. At the start of the negotiations, both the UK and the EU said, "Yes, let's preserve the common travel area." It was important for political and historical reasons. Then everyone went, "What actually is the common travel area? Why does it exist?" And they had to go through all these different pieces of legislation because it had just built up over decades and decades as a thing. It wasn't a distinct thing in itself that you could point to and say, "That's why the common travel area exists." And so that's why the negotiations were a fascinating kind of learning process for everyone about just the wiring that links the UK and Ireland and the EU together.

Jackie Leonard: Poor Jackie is realising, guys, that once us four get going, once we're nattering, there's no stopping us. I am fascinated by this. Because it's something that our listeners are very keen on, and some of them are baffled by the relationship between the DUP and the Conservative Party, for instance, and how that plays into decisions that are made about what happens next.

Laura Kuenssberg: Yes, the Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party. The clue is in the title as far as what their reason for being is, which is preserving the union of Northern Ireland with the rest of the UK, with Great Britain, with England, Scotland and Wales. They were crucial during Theresa May's time as British Prime Minister, because certainly the last couple of years, they propped her up. The Prime Minister needed their votes in order to assemble a majority. The DUP were in favour of Brexit, but at the absolute core of their reason for being is protecting another union, the Union of the UK. And they don't like this Johnsonian vision of Brexit because they think it puts up a barrier between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. To address one of the questions we were talking about a few minutes ago, their fear is that it creates a situation where it might be a slippery slope towards a United Ireland, which is the exact opposite of what they stand for. But they've had this turbocharged role, considering they only have 10 MPs in a parliament of 650, because they have been the difference. No longer because Mr Johnson doesn't have a majority at all, even with them. But they have been the difference between assembling a majority, potentially, and not. And that's a really important, boring, but really crucial point.

Chris Mason: Not boring, not boring at all.

Laura Kuenssberg: Forget about Brexit for a second. One of the reasons why we've got unusual instability for the UK, which I'm sure your listeners around the world must think, "Hang on, Britain's meant to be a stable country. It's meant to be quite sane and traditional and sensible and conventional compared to lots of other countries." But we're living through an era where governments have had either no majority or a tiny majority. In that kind of era, even forget about Brexit, that creates a level of instability. That's kind of at the core of all of this. If a government had a majority, they would have been able to get their Brexit deal through. If Theresa May hadn't had the election in 2017, she might have been able to get it through. But it's like a giant Jenga tower. It's really, really wobbly, even if you forget about all the contradictions and conundrums of Brexit.

Jackie Leonard: Let's talk about a second referendum, shall we? Anna Rosenberg, a listener, said that she can't see there being anything happening without being passed by a second referendum. Ali Mahmood was curious about that as well. He says, "The 2016 referendum happened without any details. So people know more now. So why not give them a choice with two questions?" So you can either stay and leave, and then if leave, with a deal or no deal. Ulrich Penitz in Austria suggested three questions: stay, leave but close to the EU, leave with a hard Brexit. And there's some audio from California as well, I believe.

Cassie McCarthy (audio clip): Hi, my name is Cassie McCarthy and I'm from Boone, North Carolina. My question is, what mutterings and mentions have been said with regards to a second referendum? How likely or unlikely is it? What would the repercussions be? And who, if anyone, is pushing for it?

Jackie Leonard: That would be North Carolina and not California. I wasn't even close. Anyway, you heard the question.

Chris Mason: So to pick up on the thoughts of Cathy and Ulrich and Anna and others, this idea of another referendum has bubbled away as a theme. They call themselves the People's Vote campaign, and they've had some very well attended marches through central London and elsewhere around the UK. But up until now, they've never managed to persuade a majority of MPs that that is a good idea. A big factor behind the scepticism overall amongst MPs is that feeling, regardless of an individual MP's view on Brexit originally, that they kind of ought to deliver the result of the first one. When you speak to people in the campaign wanting another referendum, a lot of them acknowledge that their best chance to make their case is when they can definitively argue that the country has run out of better ideas.

Laura Kuenssberg: I think one of the problems, and one of the reasons that the idea has kept bubbling away, as you put it, Chris, of the second referendum, is that the Brexit vote was so close. The UK voted to leave by 52 percent. So just under half the country says, "That wasn't my vote." It's quite ironic that in the more than three years since the vote, as well as the UK preparing to leave, and by now the EU leaders' assumption is the UK is going to leave eventually, the UK in the meantime has got the largest pro-Europe movement in the EU. It's mad, isn't it? But I think it's because, like we've seen in the US and like we've seen in many countries across the EU in the last three years in elections, politics has become a lot about identity. Who I am, what I believe in, what I identify with, rather than just voting with the same party that your family has always voted for. Brexit feeds into all of this. So there are people in the UK who've suddenly discovered this European identity they never particularly felt before, and they feel it's being stolen from them in the Leave vote. On the other side, there are people who voted to leave and say, "That was my vote. It counts. You can't just discount it. We have to leave as we voted for." This is what makes the debate not just political in the UK, but really emotional as well.

Chris Mason: Talking about North Carolina, I went there on holiday a few years ago and they have divisions of their own there over the recipe for pulled pork. One half of the state insists it's done one way and the other half decides it's the other. So you guys have a referendum about that, then come and tell us about that.

Laura Kuenssberg: I think there's a really profound point here. During the referendum campaign, politicians on both sides, including the then prime minister, both said again and again, "We will carry out what you decide." It was used by the campaign to stay in the EU a lot because they kept saying, "This is going to happen. If you vote this way, it will happen." So there are lots of MPs I talk to who are really worried about doing this at all, but who feel very strongly you can't say to people, "Sorry, that vote doesn't count anymore." That is why it's so fraught. That is why it's never reached a majority in the House of Commons. Also, what would a referendum offer? Clarity. But no question, as the others have been saying, there's a very strong movement pushing for it, but they've never managed to get the numbers in the House of Commons. And I have to say, I'm afraid, Brexitcasters, if we did ever get there, they'd probably then be six months of arguing about what the question would be. Almost certainly.

Jackie Leonard: Katja and Adam, we've seen the marches here and we've seen that there is this resurgence of a European identity. What are people in Strasbourg and Brussels saying about the possibility even of a second Brexit referendum over here?

Katja Adler: At the beginning of the process, there was massive hope on the European side that there would be a second referendum and that the UK would change its mind. When Theresa May asked for a Brexit extension and when it was clear that the UK wasn't leaving on the 29th of March, there were some very prominent leaders like the president of the European Council or the Chancellor of Germany who were thinking, "If we give a long extension, then maybe that will give enough time for the UK to sort of think about it, realise that Brexit's difficult, and just say, forget it, let's stay in." In the meantime, EU leaders are pretty convinced this is going to happen. They'd hoped to give the process to Parliament because they thought MPs would at least want a softer Brexit. But Parliament hasn't been able to come to any conclusions either. Because of this uncertainty, it costs European businesses, and it's costing EU leaders politically at home as well. Their businesses are saying, "Just get on with this now." So they would like to get on with it. Boris Johnson is right when he says EU leaders want to get on with it. But again, they feel they're misquoted by Boris Johnson. If the UK is leaving, they want to get on with the leaving now. But this will not be the end of Brexit. This is Brexit phase one, the leaving part. And by the way, cover your eyes, it was supposed to be the easy part. Phase two will be about negotiating the future relationship, a comprehensive trade agreement between the EU and the UK. That will be very complex because the UK will bang up against really difficult political decisions and trade-offs that are part of trade negotiations, such as workers' rights after Brexit or fishing rights after Brexit or the freedom to trade easily with the EU versus trading with other countries such as the United States.

Jackie Leonard: That's something that Michael Monzon, a listener, was very interested in. He was talking about what happens in the future, that this notion of "get Brexit done" is a little inaccurate. A lot of people seem to be using this phrase as if that's it, done and dusted, and then we'll just get on with our lives as they were before. And of course, as you say, Katja, this is just the easy bit. And then we move on to the next bit. Michael was asking about the sorts of trade relationships that the UK might seek with the USA, with China, and what the mechanics of a bilateral trade deal might actually be from scratch, how long it might take from scratch beyond just the buzzwords. Anyone?

Adam Fleming: Well, I was going to say the thing about "get Brexit done." I mean, one has such mixed feelings about that phrase. You can see the argument when people say, "Hang on, it's not accurate because there's still loads to do after Brexit Day has happened." But then actually, Brexit, the word itself, is Britain's exit from the EU. And if all goes to plan and a deal goes through, that will have happened. So is it accurate? Is it not? In terms of future trade deals, it's very uncertain. If you look at historical precedent, the EU's trade deal with Canada took seven years to negotiate. The EU's trade deal with the Mercosur nations of South America took about 20 years to negotiate. But then you get the argument from lots of people in the UK: "Well, actually, we're starting off the UK and the EU from very similar places. So it should be pretty easy." But then you get people like the EU chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, saying, "Yeah, but this is the first time ever the EU will be negotiating a trade deal for somebody moving further away. Normally, trade deals are about knocking down barriers. This will be about establishing new ones." And of course, there could be an election in the UK where you then have a result that means somebody, the new government, wants to pursue a slightly different trade relationship than the one that's been sketched out now, which is different from the trade relationship that was sketched out by Theresa May when she was prime minister. Is your head hurting yet?

Laura Kuenssberg: There's one other point that you can see MPs worrying about now. Adam told us about that transition period. So if there is a Brexit deal approved by Parliament in the UK and the European Parliament, we go into the standstill. Everything in practice stays the same for at least a year. That can be extended by another two years. But you can see MPs now saying to the Prime Minister, "What happens after that? If this new UK-EU trade deal takes longer to negotiate than three years, then aren't we looking at a kind of a no deal scenario again where the UK just defaults to trading with the EU on WTO terms? What can you do to protect us there?" So this idea that no deal disappears, or that there are no links preserved, that that disappears if this exit deal is approved, isn't 100% right either.

Jackie Leonard: Just to give you a little insight into the behind the curtain on Brexitcast, we have this WhatsApp group where when we're recording, messages are pinging back and forth.

Chris Mason: I feel very excluded.

Jackie Leonard: I know, we should have had you on it, shouldn't we?

Adam Fleming: It's all full of compliments about you, Jackie.

Chris Mason: Yeah, yeah. About who's going to chip in with which question and all the rest of it.

Laura Kuenssberg: Just a quick thought on that "get Brexit done" thing. What was really striking at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, what seems like an eternity ago, it was only about three weeks ago, was that that slogan was all over the place. What's powerful about it is that there are big questions to be asked about the UK's future relationship with the EU as and when the UK leaves, but it's powerful because of that sentiment shared by lots of people in the UK, regardless of their instinct on Brexit, about the extent to which it has dominated the national conversation for three years. What's going to be fascinating, and we don't know the answer to this yet because the UK is still in the EU, is what happens if the UK finally does a deal and Parliament signs it off and a date is set and the UK leaves. Psychologically, how big a moment is that? When the flag comes down in Brussels, when the MEPs come back on the trains and the planes from Brussels and Strasbourg, when there's no longer a UK European commissioner. To what extent do people in the UK think that that is the job done? Clearly, there's a huge amount of technical stuff still to go on about that future relationship. But that kind of gut feeling amongst the population in the UK could play a big role in shaping the political climate that determines how close or not that relationship is between the UK and the EU after Brexit. We don't know what that sentiment will feel like because it hasn't happened yet.

Chris Mason: I think it will be huge. I think it will be massive. Don't underestimate the amount of fatigue in politics and the amount of fatigue and frustration in the public. Once we have left, that will change the landscape if it happens. Now, not for a second am I downplaying how tense, how fraught, how big, how difficult the trade relationship negotiations will be in the future. But I think both political parties, both the big ones, are expecting that as and when we actually leave, we'll be looking at a very different landscape. The Tories certainly hope, and they may well prove to be wrong, but it's possible that you will go back to what politics used to be like before, or we'll move forward to a more familiar environment where the issue between Europe and the UK, which has always been an issue in British politics, is something that bubbles up every now and again when there's a particular clash, and we sort of get off this grisly roundabout that's going at five miles an hour that is just dominating absolutely everything else.

Jackie Leonard: I think it was Mr Barnier who suggested that the door would always be open if we wanted to come back, if the UK wanted to rejoin. Being as we haven't left yet, I realise this is a little precipitate, but if that were to happen, or if indeed Scotland were to leave the UK and wanted to join the EU as its own nation, how long does that take? Adam, you should enlighten listeners to the Global Podcast about your journalistic relationship with Mr Barnier, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, which basically involves you chasing him down the street the whole time.

Adam Fleming: Yeah, two years of chasing him down the street, in the sandwich shop, buying croissants. Although I've noticed that he's very charming to everyone, so I don't think I've earned any extra brownie points. He says the same thing to everyone. "We're working. It's an ongoing process." That's his standard phrase. In terms of the rejoining, well, that's there as an option. If you look at the EU treaty, Article 50 of that treaty is the exit process. That is the ground rules that we've been living our lives by in the last two years. Right at the end, it says, "And if a country leaves under Article 50 and they want to rejoin, please see Article 49." Article 49 is the joining process for any country to come into the EU. In other words, the UK wouldn't necessarily get any special treatment different from, say, Albania or North Macedonia if it wanted to rejoin having left. Article 49, I just love the fact that it's next to Article 50. Worth remembering, when Croatia joined, the most recent country to join, it took 13 years to actually get through the process of joining. So it ain't quick.

Katja Adler: EU leaders who were devastated when the UK voted to leave and have spent a lot of this process just really hoping the UK would change its mind now think Brexit is probably going to happen. So the thing they're now moving their hopes on to is that they talk often about maybe in a generation that the UK will come back. Scotland is another issue because there is a lot of talk in the Scottish National Party about, if Brexit happens, we'll want to hold a second referendum on their part of breaking away from the United Kingdom, and we'd want to join the EU. It will be complicated because you have to take wider EU politics into account. Think about Spain, for example. Spain has got an issue with its region of Catalonia, and there are separatists in Catalonia who'd like to break away and join the EU independently, but break away from Spain. Spain doesn't want to encourage Scotland independently to come into the EU because it worries that the Catalans would say, "If Scotland can do it, we can do it." It's not saying it would be impossible. Nothing is impossible. But certainly the odds are stacked against Scotland in that kind of scenario from an EU political point of view.

Jackie Leonard: Laura, you mentioned fatigue. And frankly, I've been a bit worried. That's just us.

Laura Kuenssberg: Yes, I've been a bit worried about you.

Jackie Leonard: I actually brought cake in today because I am concerned about Chris and Laura and Adam and Katja not getting enough sleep, not getting enough to eat. It's actually lemon drizzle because it counts as fruit as well.

Chris Mason: Oh, I love lemon drizzle.

Jackie Leonard: Not just lemon. Zesty lemon and lime drizzle cake. Steeped in lime syrup and filled with whipped lemon curd buttercream, drizzled with zingy lime icing and a swirl of lemon curd. That's so nice. Chris, maybe you can take it. Chris, can you take it home, put it in the fridge and then bring it to work on Monday?

Chris Mason: I'll bring the packet to work on Monday.

Jackie Leonard: However, moving away from the confectionery, Rich Mauer in Alaska, just one final question. He wondered just how much sheer exhaustion is featuring in what is happening now and what happens next.

Chris Mason: I'm going to dive straight in, if I may, on this because I've got to hurtle across the road to Radio 2 in a minute.

Jackie Leonard: You're a busy man, I get that.

Chris Mason: I'm going to do the very Brexitcast thing where at least one of us disappears before the podcast is actually finished. I think the fatigue thing is quite a big deal. Clearly, plenty of people who have been won over to Boris Johnson's vision of Brexit versus previous British Prime Minister Theresa May's will point to where they think it is a better version of Brexit than hers was. The whole row about the backstop, the Northern Ireland-Ireland border and how you keep that open under any circumstances, yada, yada, yada. But I think also, and Laura, you want to chip in on this, there's also that sense at Westminster now of people thinking, "Yeah, come on, we are three and a bit years on now." That argument that is made that says this has to be delivered, delivering the will of the people as expressed in the referendum in 2016, becomes more powerful, more potent in the minds of some politicians the longer this process drags on.

Laura Kuenssberg: I think that's absolutely right. I think it's also something that the political parties hear back in their focus groups. Obviously in the UK, particularly because we might have an election soon, parties go out, they talk to people, they try to monitor what people are thinking and worrying about and excited about and happy about. MPs hear it from their constituents as well. People say, "What are you guys doing? You're just making a complete hash of this." That's not about what side of the argument you're on. That's just people around the country looking at Westminster and thinking, "What are you guys doing?" It's sort of like people don't necessarily recognize the system anymore. I feel that sometimes. But where I also think it has a role, that kind of fatigue among MPs, is when you're tired, you're less likely to be reasonable. You may be more likely to be grumpy and fractious. What we have seen on both sides in politics, particularly in the last kind of six months, is more and more MPs who really aren't willing to listen to the other side of the argument. Instead of people going, "Okay, time to compromise and come together," I think for quite a lot of people it's pushed them further apart. It's like, "This is such a mess and it's all your fault, so the only way out is to do what I want." People have been getting more and more angry, and when things have gone wrong they've used it as ways to confirm what they already believe, rather than being able to find a compromise.

Chris Mason: So maybe if everybody had a nice long holiday.

Laura Kuenssberg: I lie down in a dark room.

Chris Mason: There's also the threat of violence now against MPs. This is a very worrying development. We've had MPs on Brexitcast telling us about how it feels for them, not feeling safe to open their front doors at night, threats made to MPs' children. This is the height of emotion where it's not just the MPs who are grumpy and fed up and angry at those who don't share their view, but it does spread across to some members of the public as well. I think there was that opinion poll out today, which, did you see that, guys?

Chris Mason: You know, the one that suggested, I mean, I can't quite believe this. I don't know. You have to be very careful with it. I can hear, actually, just as we talk about a very serious subject, I can hear knives and forks and all sorts of things happening over there.

Jackie Leonard: Sorry to heckle. I want some cake.

Chris Mason: I'm heckling you with drizzle cake. There is, I think, actually what is not necessarily been written up very fairly. There is a survey that seems to portray a picture of people being ready to commit violence against MPs. And I think a lot of people have been worrying about whether or not that's been done in an entirely straightforward and accurate way.

Laura Kuenssberg: No, but there's definitely a lot of anxiety around. No question about that. And escorts for MPs leaving Parliament, police escorts for MPs leaving Parliament because of the heightened tensions.

Chris Mason: The cake, I'm distracted by the cake.

Jackie Leonard: The cake is very good.

Chris Mason: So am I.

Jackie Leonard: I'm Jackie. I'm out of the fall. Our attachment to cake, not only is because we love cake, because we do, but because also there was a lot of discussion straight away after the Brexit vote as to whether you can have your cake and eat it. So, you know, this implication.

Katja Adler: There was an editorial justification for our cake consumption is what Katya was setting up.

Adam Fleming: Yeah, of course, there's always a justification, which is can you leave the EU and get rid of the quote unquote bad bits, all the boring bits, legislation and having to sort of make it give up power sharing in Brussels and all the rest of it. So can you leave all of that behind, but keep all the good bits, you know, and that's our excuse for cake, having a cake and eat it.

Jackie Leonard: That was a magnificent segue, Katya. Well done. Thank you very much. We are just seeing Chris disappearing out the door, he's waving, he's eating and leaving. It's a heavy door Chris, but it's fine, open it and go.

[Sound of a door closing]

Jackie Leonard: Okay, so he is heading off. I think that we have possibly used up enough of your time and expertise, so thank you very much indeed. We would like to say thank you to our listeners for paying attention to this. We hope this was an illuminating collaboration between the BBC World Service Global News Podcast and Brexitcast. I'm sorry we couldn't provide concrete answers to everything because we can't. I'm sure people understand the fluid nature of this phenomenon, but I'm sure it helped. Please send your kind thoughts with hashtags to Global News Pod and The Brexitcast, and our normal email address is [email protected]. I really shouldn't have just eaten that piece of cake. Thank you to our editors, Karen Martin, Dino Sophos, producer Judy Frankel, studio manager Tom Rolls, and all the listeners who responded, including the ones that we didn't get around to. I'm sorry about that. If you want to listen to us again, you will find Brexitcast in the UK on BBC Sounds. You will find the Global News podcast and Brexitcast outside the UK in all your usual poddy places. It just remains to thank Chris Mason, Laura Kuenssberg, Katja Adler and Adam Fleming. I'm Jackie Leonard. Thank you and goodbye.

[End of episode]

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