Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.
Speaker 2: Does it, does it have any impact upon you that these reasonably intelligent
Speaker 2: group of people actually think that what you inflicted upon
Speaker 2: the country has damaged the country.
Speaker 3: What I think is that the British people voted for, Yes,
Speaker 3: they voted for They respect and democratic result, which you
Speaker 3: have never wanted to do.
Speaker 1: It was a day that changed Britain and Europe and
Speaker 1: Tellias on Alastair, Campbell and Jacob Rees-Mogg go head to
Speaker 1: head on Brexit. Do you think that Brexit has led
Speaker 1: us to the much more multi party politics that we
Speaker 1: are in now.
Speaker 3: Well, the reasons for Brexit is that people felt whoever
Speaker 3: they voted for, nothing changed, Very little has changed in
Speaker 3: the ten years since, and now they're looking at other parties.
Speaker 2: A lot of people who voted for Brexit are disappointed
Speaker 2: that that hasn't delivered a better life for them.
Speaker 1: From Bloomberg Weekend. This is the Mishal Husain Show. I'm Mishal Husain.
Speaker 1: The premise of this podcast the promise, if you like,
Speaker 1: of what we do every week is one essential conversation
Speaker 1: to make sense of the world, but sometimes there's more
Speaker 1: to talk about. Today is the ten year anniversary of
Speaker 1: the UK voting to leave the European Union, an enormous
Speaker 1: decision and one that contributed to the unprecedented churn in
Speaker 1: the number of prime ministers sense a phenomenon that's continuing
Speaker 1: right now given the resignation of Keir Starmer. So what
Speaker 1: did Brexit do to the UK's politics as well as
Speaker 1: its economy? The ten year milestone gives us an opportunity
Speaker 1: to reflect on just that, to look forward as well
Speaker 1: as back. And for this bonus episode, we decided to
Speaker 1: bring to gather two people on both sides of the
Speaker 1: debate who feel as strongly about Brexit now as they
Speaker 1: did back in twenty sixteen. They are Jacob Rees-Mogg and
Speaker 1: Alastair Campbell, who came into our London office to speak
Speaker 1: to an audience of Bloomberg subscribers. Quick final note before
Speaker 1: we hear them. If you want to be in the
Speaker 1: room for one of these in the future, there is
Speaker 1: a link to subscription offers in our show notes. And
Speaker 1: here's what happened when Jacob and Alastair joined me on stage.
Speaker 4: Welcome Now.
Speaker 1: Some of you will remember that it was at Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: not in this building in our old headquarters, where David
Speaker 1: Cameron made the fateful pledge that he was in favor
Speaker 1: of having an in out referendum on the EU ten
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 4: Jacob Rees-Mogg, you were a Conservative MP.
Speaker 1: You campaigned to leave the EU Alastair Campbell. You were
Speaker 1: very much on the other side in twenty sixteen, but
Speaker 1: people knew you already from your work with Tony Blair
Speaker 1: in Downing Street. In the time we have I want
Speaker 1: to look back at the economic impact and the political
Speaker 1: impact of Brexit in the last ten years, and also
Speaker 1: your views on the future and what could or should
Speaker 1: be the future of the UK's relationship with EU.
Speaker 4: So first of all, as the results.
Speaker 1: Came in in June 2016, what did you not appreciate
Speaker 1: that we now know, Jacob.
Speaker 3: Well, the one thing I didn't appreciate was that the
Speaker 3: remain side, who had been quite passive in the referendum campaign,
Speaker 3: would start campaigning much harder after the result than they
Speaker 3: had done before. Very fair, whereas my side thought we'd
Speaker 3: won and stopped and that was a mistake by our
Speaker 3: side and fascinating by the other side. And that's had
Speaker 3: very important consequences because since then you've had much more
Speaker 3: from people who think it was a mistake I think
Speaker 3: the reason they started campaigning after results was they never
Speaker 3: thought they would lose, and they thought it was just
Speaker 3: a few eccentrics like me who were in favor of it,
Speaker 3: and that nobody would in fact vote for it. I
Speaker 3: thought at the time we would win, because the more
Speaker 3: I got away from central London, the clear it became
Speaker 3: that there was a very large base of support for Brexit.
Speaker 3: So that was the one big thing that I have
Speaker 3: noticed is the difference in campaigning since the result.
Speaker 2: Well, when you were asking the question, the thing that
Speaker 2: popped into my head I was in ITV studio. Tom
Speaker 2: Bradby was sitting there talking about this, that and the other,
Speaker 2: and at the very moment when it came up that
Speaker 2: it is now impossible for Remain to win, I saw
Speaker 2: David Davis and Liam Fox look at each other with
Speaker 2: absolute panic in their eyes. The thing that really surprised
Speaker 2: me was that. And Jacob is right, by the way,
Speaker 2: the Remain campaign was terrible. I actually I regret now
Speaker 2: I didn't get that involved in the Remain campaign because
Speaker 2: Cameron Osborne kept telling us it's all fine, it's all fine,
Speaker 2: I don't worry about it. I got involved subsequently and I
Speaker 2: was one of the few who admitted that the People's
Speaker 2: Vote campaign, to my mind, was probably the only vehicle
Speaker 2: we had left possibly to stop what I thought was
Speaker 2: a terrible act of self harm. So I was open
Speaker 2: about that. But I think what genuinely surprised me was
Speaker 2: there was just no plan, that there was no plan
Speaker 2: at all. The lies had been told, the myths had
Speaker 2: been sold, and we had to pick up the pieces.
Speaker 3: I do think Alice, to kind of all people, has
Speaker 3: to be careful about talking about live considering his reputation.
Speaker 2: Well, what's the reputation?
Speaker 3: What's your reputation? High Court judge in nineteen ninety six
Speaker 3: saying you're an reliable witness. That's quite a good part
Speaker 3: of your reputation, isn't it.
Speaker 4: Well stick to Brexit.
Speaker 1: I think there's quite there's quite enough to get in.
Speaker 3: But Alastair brought up this question of lie you did lie? No,
Speaker 3: we didn't, you did you truth? But talking about lives,
Speaker 3: Alastair needs to look at his own record because he
Speaker 3: has done more to damage trust in British politics than
Speaker 3: anybody has written a book about wanted to. This is
Speaker 3: really important.
Speaker 1: I would rather that given that I've set the parameters
Speaker 1: on that we're going to talk about economic impact political
Speaker 1: and do you mind if we turn to econom As.
Speaker 3: Long as Alastair stopped saying we lied and then I
Speaker 3: went talk about his life, I think we can spend
Speaker 3: the whole debate lies, can I.
Speaker 1: Can I tell you what Bloomberg Economics analysis just released
Speaker 1: has been about the economic impact of the last ten years,
Speaker 1: because this is just you know, they've they've crunched the
Speaker 1: numbers as as you'd expect, and in terms of the
Speaker 1: economic impact, this has been their finding that Brexit may
Speaker 1: have already cost the UK economy between two and four
Speaker 1: percent of GDP, that the Central estimate is very conservative,
Speaker 1: two and a half percent of GDP lost over the
Speaker 1: long run, which is equivalent to about thirty billion pounds
Speaker 1: a year in foregone annual tax revenue.
Speaker 4: How do you feel about that?
Speaker 3: Well, that the figures don't actually stack up. So if
Speaker 3: we look at the Bloomberg which is no, there are
Speaker 3: different ways of interpreting figures. So when you look at
Speaker 3: how the UK economy has done, actually we've outperformed Germany,
Speaker 3: We've performed broadly in line with France. Why if we'd
Speaker 3: remained in the EU, would we have performed as the outline.
Speaker 1: Let me put it in broader terms, do you accept
Speaker 1: that there has been any economic hit at all in
Speaker 1: the last ten years compared to where the UK would
Speaker 1: have been had it remained in the EU.
Speaker 3: I think using our economic freedoms has actually helped us.
Speaker 3: And if you look at.
Speaker 4: Our trade, is that a yesterday?
Speaker 3: Well, it's a complete answer if you give mention. If
Speaker 3: you look at our trade, our invisible trade, our services
Speaker 3: trade has been roaring ahead and I think that's been
Speaker 3: partly possible. We've seen our trade with India increase very
Speaker 3: rapidly and invisibles because we're outside the European Union, we're
Speaker 3: no longer confind by its rules.
Speaker 1: So has has been beneficial beneficient? Okay, that's a very
Speaker 1: rare view that you think overall this has been a
Speaker 1: net beneficent yes, okay, and not least.
Speaker 3: Because we got the vaccine early.
Speaker 2: So you people opened Let me just say, Jacob says
Speaker 2: he doesn't want to leave. I'm not going to leave
Speaker 2: this line thing because it.
Speaker 3: Is part of let's go back to the lying thing.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you have a lives record of lying to
Speaker 3: the Commons of sexing up document. You may remember, can
Speaker 3: I just finish the point where you want to talk about.
Speaker 2: The public You have got.
Speaker 3: One point out a single lie to me, You've got
Speaker 3: I can point out a whole.
Speaker 2: Second to talk about the substance because they're so deluded.
Speaker 2: It's still thinking be anything more than happy. Every single
Speaker 2: person in this room poorer.
Speaker 3: That's your true.
Speaker 2: It is true.
Speaker 3: You've made every single This comes simply we opened the
Speaker 3: economy early vaccine justice and you never you're the one
Speaker 3: who destroyed in the British.
Speaker 1: Let me ask Allister Campbell the same question that I
Speaker 1: put to you about the economic impact feweral facts and egame, Well,
Speaker 1: would you accept that the economic impact has not been
Speaker 1: as bad as you thought, given that today the UK
Speaker 1: is still under OECD projections projected to be the third
Speaker 1: third fastest growing economy in the G seven.
Speaker 2: I think that the economic consequences of brex had been catastrophic.
Speaker 2: I think that you could if you take you've given
Speaker 2: a conservative end, if you take some of the other assessments,
Speaker 2: that we're up to eight percent, between six and eight
Speaker 2: percent on the economy. We now have small firms that
Speaker 2: write to me all the time who have literally given
Speaker 2: up trying to trade with the European Union because of
Speaker 2: the red tape that these liars said they would cut
Speaker 2: by leaving Brussels, They've now given up trading with business
Speaker 2: productivity is lower than it would be, our GDP is
Speaker 2: lower than it would be. And what's more, we could
Speaker 2: double We've got a security crisis at the moment. If we,
Speaker 2: to my argument, had not left the European Union, we
Speaker 2: could currently double defense spending and increase the national health
Speaker 2: service by fifty percent without touching any tax.
Speaker 1: If everything that you're saying is true, then why are
Speaker 1: we projected to be the third fastest growing Ye.
Speaker 2: I've never been one of those anti Brexit people who
Speaker 2: thinks that the European Union is some kind of panacea
Speaker 2: or some sort of Europe is not in a good place.
Speaker 2: Europe's competitiveness is too low. But we in wrenching ourselves
Speaker 2: out of the biggest market in the world. We have
Speaker 2: done fundamental damage to every single person and business.
Speaker 3: In this gusty Again, first of all, these figures are
Speaker 3: just wrong. The eight percent is a joke figure and
Speaker 3: assumes that we would have grown as the United States
Speaker 3: has grown. The United States has grown faster because it's
Speaker 3: got cheap energy have grown faster than Germany. What part
Speaker 3: of being in the EU would have allowed us to
Speaker 3: grow even faster than we have when its anchor economy
Speaker 3: has been failing. Activity question finished. An activity question is
Speaker 3: mainly a question in the public sector, where the private
Speaker 3: sector productivity has been marginally increasing and the public sector
Speaker 3: doesn't export the European Union.
Speaker 2: I'm relying on the analysis done by the government, by
Speaker 2: this government and the last government that has been tracked
Speaker 2: that we have taken a substantial.
Speaker 1: Everyone here to do it to the Bloomberg Economics analysis,
Speaker 1: which has a wide range and where everyone can see
Speaker 1: the basis of the figure.
Speaker 3: Elster should just explain how the OBR came to its
Speaker 3: four percent. I'm not talking about the OBI Well, that's
Speaker 3: the key figure, the four percent figure. It's not that
Speaker 3: was a four forecast by the.
Speaker 2: National Bureau of Economic RESAR. That's not It is the
Speaker 2: basic figure.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to ask you I'm I'm going to
Speaker 1: ask you both. I'm going to ask you both to
Speaker 1: this aspect of it for a moment, because we can
Speaker 1: both see that you're never going to agree on a
Speaker 1: common set of numbers, and they are entitled to not
Speaker 1: agree on a common set of numbers. Let's turn to
Speaker 1: the political impact of the last ten years.
Speaker 2: It's been a total triumph.
Speaker 4: Do you hasn't it both of you?
Speaker 2: To triumph both of you?
Speaker 4: We're more respective in the world you're associating.
Speaker 1: You spend your lives working for the two parties which
Speaker 1: have dominated our politics for the last century. Do you
Speaker 1: accept that both of their political fortunes have suffered because
Speaker 1: of Brexit Alastair?
Speaker 4: Do you accept that for Labor?
Speaker 2: Yes? And I'll tell you why. Because they haven't fought
Speaker 2: hard enough to make sure that the public fully understands
Speaker 2: the calamity that was inflicted upon as by these people,
Speaker 2: and they've tried to accept. One of I think Keir
Speaker 2: Starmer's mistakes was this idea that we're going to make
Speaker 2: Brexit work. You can change things at the margins. And
Speaker 2: they've tried very hard to do that with some of
Speaker 2: the vetermin agreements with Erasma, Erse and so forth. But
Speaker 2: they don't want to address the fundamental question. And you know,
Speaker 2: am I allowed to ask the audience a question for
Speaker 2: show of hands? I'd like to know because you know,
Speaker 2: you can read polls, you can read all the stats
Speaker 2: and voices of it. Can I just ask the people
Speaker 2: in this room who thinks I'd be very very neutral
Speaker 2: success or failure for the United Kingdom? Who thinks Brexit
Speaker 2: has been a success for the United Kingdom? Who thinks
Speaker 2: has been a failure?
Speaker 1: To explain, No one in the audience raised their hands
Speaker 1: when Alastair asked if Brexit was a success. Nearly everyone
Speaker 1: had raised their hands for failure.
Speaker 2: You get that, Jacob, You can live in your dream world.
Speaker 2: You get that everywhere in the country, everywhere.
Speaker 3: If I'd been here in the year of the referendum
Speaker 3: and we'd said who wants to leave and who wants
Speaker 3: to stay, we'd have had exactly I found that every
Speaker 3: yard I went from the center of the city of London,
Speaker 3: you've got more supporters for breakfast. I knew if we
Speaker 3: went to Lincolnshire, if we went to Cornwall. And I
Speaker 3: really did find this during the debates, because I went
Speaker 3: anywhere that invited me to speak, and the closer you
Speaker 3: were to the center of the city, the heart of
Speaker 3: the city, the more anti brex that it was. So
Speaker 3: that doesn't surprise me at all that you get that.
Speaker 2: Does it any impact upon you These reasonably intelligent group
Speaker 2: of people actually think that what you inflicted upon the
Speaker 2: country has damaged.
Speaker 3: What I think is that the British people voted for yes.
Speaker 3: They voted respect result that you have never wanted to do.
Speaker 2: I've never wanted to do.
Speaker 1: No. I'm going to bring in some polling by IPSOS
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk in detail about the future
Speaker 1: a bit later, but as a sense of where polling
Speaker 1: stands right now, over half of British adults would vote
Speaker 1: to rejoin the EU if a new referendum was held,
Speaker 1: although that fifty two percent Alastair is probably not as
Speaker 1: large a majority as you would hope for if things
Speaker 1: have been such a disaster in the last ten years.
Speaker 2: I think an awful lot of people just do not
Speaker 2: want to revisit the debate. I do want to revisit
Speaker 2: the debate, and I think it's a debate that has
Speaker 2: to be had. But I under I meet lots of
Speaker 2: people who completely buy my analysis of what's happened, but
Speaker 2: actually just do not want to revisit the debate. And
Speaker 2: I'm afraid that's where I think the Labor Government's.
Speaker 4: Got itself into question, and that is it.
Speaker 1: It's like if a vote was held fifty two percent
Speaker 1: would apply to would apply to join the europe would
Speaker 1: like to see the UK apply to join the rejoin
Speaker 1: the European Union.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean fifty thirty three. I mean that if
Speaker 2: you're looking at that as an electoral thing, that's you'd
Speaker 2: call that a landslide. But look, I don't think until
Speaker 2: there is a debate. Nobody here, nobody in this room
Speaker 2: thinks that we are going to have a referendum in
Speaker 2: the near future. Okay, I would like to be one,
Speaker 2: I don't actually think we're going to have one for
Speaker 2: some time. And two reasons. One is I don't think
Speaker 2: the political debate wants to hear. But secondly, while we've
Speaker 2: got the prospect of people like Jacob getting into bed
Speaker 2: with people like Nigel Farage and Nigel Ferrage possibly come
Speaker 2: in the government, the European Union is not going to
Speaker 2: think about having us back because this debate, this is
Speaker 2: the triumph that Jacob can take some comfort and given
Speaker 2: his views of the world that until the country is
Speaker 2: settled in the view that we should be in the
Speaker 2: European Union, the European Union is not going to have
Speaker 2: us back.
Speaker 1: Okay, before you answered, Jacob, I want to take you
Speaker 1: back and put the same question to you that Aliet
Speaker 1: answered a moment ago about labor. So how the impact
Speaker 1: on your party, which fractured to some extent and has
Speaker 1: been in power repeatedly since then.
Speaker 3: It's been very divisive for the Conservative Party since the
Speaker 3: early nineteen nineties that there's been a pro European anti
Speaker 3: European wing and that has made room for reform to
Speaker 3: grow out of the Conservative Party and led to a
Speaker 3: lot of divisions in.
Speaker 1: The last party failed to actually handle Brexit properly.
Speaker 3: And Asta made the point that there was no plan
Speaker 3: for leaving. That was a deliberate policy and decision of
Speaker 3: David Cameron, and it seems to me it was a
Speaker 3: deeply responsible that if you give the country a referendum
Speaker 3: and you're the prime minister, you ought to think you
Speaker 3: could lose.
Speaker 4: As someone who was arguing I knew what.
Speaker 3: I wanted to do, but I wasn't in government. I
Speaker 3: was a backbench MP and that was the difficulty. That's
Speaker 3: the difficulty with referendums is that you don't have the
Speaker 3: party that wins the referendum then implementing the policy. You
Speaker 3: have the party that is government in government doing it.
Speaker 3: Who may disagree with the referendum, and that was the
Speaker 3: position we got into, David Cameron going and Theresa May,
Speaker 3: who was a remainer, taking over. And so yes, there
Speaker 3: were lots of ideas of what we should do when leaving,
Speaker 3: but we weren't the government of the day. We were
Speaker 3: just arguing for those points.
Speaker 2: But that gave them an extraordinary advantage that leave could
Speaker 2: mean whatever any of the leaders said that it meant.
Speaker 2: And that's why there was such a catalog of lies
Speaker 2: because Johnson said one thing, for Ars said another one. Michael,
Speaker 2: it was like listening to King Herod on childcare. Well,
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you should get back getting to
Speaker 2: the modern world, Jacob. I know it's difficult for but
Speaker 2: I think that I think that, And that's not an
Speaker 2: antihistorical point. The list of your Peter Oburn list is
Speaker 2: so debunked and so discredited bothered. I've never seen anything
Speaker 2: in my life unlike the right I believe in free speech. Now,
Speaker 2: if I can return pretty well heeled, if I can
Speaker 2: return to help miche try to put Oh, he's got
Speaker 2: footnotes in the book marvelous not to be true. I'll
Speaker 2: tell you something about the book that I would recommend
Speaker 2: you should get this for your book club, because this
Speaker 2: is what Brexit's actually about. Jacob's dad, William Rees-Mogg, wrote
Speaker 2: a brilliant book in nineteen ninety seven time for readed
Speaker 2: the time. It's called The Sovereign Individual. It was a
Speaker 2: guide to the rich and powerful about how to become
Speaker 2: more rich and more powerful. And it was written as
Speaker 2: a note to investors. And that is what you interviewed,
Speaker 2: Eilon Musk. That is what a lot of this is about.
Speaker 2: It is about the rich getting more rich, the powerful
Speaker 2: getting more power, and it's about people being conned by
Speaker 2: clever people like Jacob and clever people by like Nigel
Speaker 2: Farage into voting for.
Speaker 3: Something that's are the only ones who are clever, the
Speaker 3: ones who wanted to rejoin. My father believed that if
Speaker 3: everybody in the world got rich, of the whole world
Speaker 3: got richer, that free trade it is indeed, and there's
Speaker 3: very strong evidence for that. So I'm more than happy
Speaker 3: to defend my father and do would you want me
Speaker 3: to come onto this chart because I think this is important.
Speaker 4: You can say something about this chart.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's very Yes, Minister-ish, because it absolutely depends on
Speaker 3: the question you ask. So if you say this, would
Speaker 3: you like to rejoin the EU, Yes, you get a majority.
Speaker 4: Just from asking that question.
Speaker 1: I mean there's thirty three people who.
Speaker 3: Said say yes. Because people always hanker for what they
Speaker 3: haven't got. But if you ask would you like to
Speaker 3: join the euro and would you like your contributions to
Speaker 3: go up on the latest budget proposals coming from Brussels
Speaker 3: to thirty six billion pounds, the answer is very different.
Speaker 3: When you say to people do you want your trade
Speaker 3: rules made by a foreign country or international organizations? The
Speaker 3: answers are different. So yes, this is a headline figure,
Speaker 3: but it's not the full picture. And if we had
Speaker 3: a debate where I agree with Alastair's unlikely that we
Speaker 3: will have the new referendum, I think this would all
Speaker 3: change during the course of the debate.
Speaker 4: Part of me is.
Speaker 1: Very perplex that people like you from the Conservative Party,
Speaker 1: who essentially the ethos is to conserve institutions, to believe
Speaker 1: in representative government rather than the will of the people
Speaker 1: in this kind of format, that you ever thought that
Speaker 1: a referendum was the right way to make a big
Speaker 1: decision like this. There's something almost revolutionary about it.
Speaker 3: No, there isn't Dice sets out why he thinks the
Speaker 3: referendum should be the preferred way of making constitutional change
Speaker 3: after nineteen eleven Parliament Act, when we no longer have
Speaker 3: I think referendum is the right way to make serious
Speaker 3: constitutional changes when you have a factor unicameral system.
Speaker 4: The mandate for the twenty sixteen one lot.
Speaker 3: It's a good question. It's the same as the Scottish referendum.
Speaker 3: It's a generation, is what has been said about Scotland.
Speaker 3: As the last one was last one was.
Speaker 2: Fifty years there's got to be a clear desire for
Speaker 2: it now. I think that desire will grow. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, unless what I've realized since kind of
Speaker 2: being half in half out of politics, Unless within the
Speaker 2: political parliamentary system itself there is real pressure for something,
Speaker 2: it's less likely to happen. And that's why I have
Speaker 2: been disappointed that Labor and the Lib Dems have basically
Speaker 2: kind of given up. They don't they've given up almost
Speaker 2: in calling out the damage it's being done, which is
Speaker 2: why desid are allowed to sort of parent the nonsense
Speaker 2: that they do.
Speaker 3: I disagree with the send half of that, but I
Speaker 3: don't disagree with the first half. I think there isn't
Speaker 3: an appetite to revisit this. But I'm also not sure
Speaker 3: that EU will exist in twenty years time. It's got
Speaker 3: major financial problems, it's trying to increase its budget, it's
Speaker 3: got strains within it economically, and it's got strains within
Speaker 3: it culturally in relation to mass migration.
Speaker 1: Would you accept this as stumble that the immigration was
Speaker 1: a big part of the debate in twenty sixteen, and
Speaker 1: since then you can see that in so many other
Speaker 1: European countries. So I mean those tensions have they've been
Speaker 1: shown not to be they weren't whipped up. They exist
Speaker 1: in other places, sure, because of the world that we're in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but net migration trebled since the referendu trebled.
Speaker 4: So I were under the prime minister that Ja.
Speaker 2: Johnson, So what I accept, and this government actually has
Speaker 2: managed to get it down to sort of more acceptable
Speaker 2: level over time that could become damaging to our economy
Speaker 2: as we get older and older and older, and we
Speaker 2: tried to find the workers that we're going to going
Speaker 2: to need to look after us and so forth. But
Speaker 2: I think that the look the rest This is why
Speaker 2: I say the rest of Europe is facing a lot
Speaker 2: of the same challenges. Part of the problem with the
Speaker 2: Brexit debate has always been this sense of our sort
Speaker 2: of great British exceptionalism. We do these amazing big things,
Speaker 2: like we're leaving the European Union. You watch the French
Speaker 2: will follow and the Dutch will follow, and none of
Speaker 2: them have followed.
Speaker 3: That was a major part of our debate.
Speaker 2: They have looked at us, including even the far right
Speaker 2: like the penn They have looked at the damage we've
Speaker 2: done to ourselves and said, no, this is not the
Speaker 2: way to go. What I think is going to happen.
Speaker 2: So I don't talk about rejoin. I talk about join
Speaker 2: because I think Europe has to change as well.
Speaker 1: And I only Blair, your old boss, says that is
Speaker 1: not really an argument right now, because the UK wouldn't
Speaker 1: do it from a position of strength.
Speaker 2: Enter of course, we've given up so much of the
Speaker 2: advantage we did have the rebate, we'd weren't in Sheng
Speaker 2: and we weren't in the euro We've given up all that.
Speaker 2: We've given away.
Speaker 3: So much, so are accepted if we joined, we'd have
Speaker 3: to take all that.
Speaker 2: I'm accepting that it would be a very very difficult negotiation.
Speaker 2: Which you've made a lot harder, because because I think
Speaker 2: it's going to be a very different Europe that I
Speaker 2: want to see a Europe that has Ukraine in it.
Speaker 2: I want to see Europe that even has Turkey in
Speaker 2: it because of their military strength, which we're going to need,
Speaker 2: particularly as the Americans seem to be sort of, you know,
Speaker 2: deserting us on that front. I want to see Norway.
Speaker 2: Iceland's having a referendum coming up about whether to revisit.
Speaker 2: I think we've got to think of Europe not as
Speaker 2: you know, and I would get rid of the whole
Speaker 2: kind of you know, the power of the veto. We've
Speaker 2: got to have a very different Europe. But I think
Speaker 2: that the only In fact, I made a note this
Speaker 2: morning because I've become a bit of a fan of
Speaker 2: the Pope since his in cyclical on AI. I still
Speaker 2: don't do God, but.
Speaker 4: He said, you'll have to have that in common.
Speaker 2: Then I think it's wonderful, and AI it's wonderful.
Speaker 3: It's very important. I agreed with I agreed with the
Speaker 3: bits about how mankind needs to keep control of AI.
Speaker 3: Then you have to understand the human person.
Speaker 2: Is well with his fears about growing in equality. But
Speaker 2: yesterday in the Spanish Parliament he said, I encourage you
Speaker 2: all to nurture the process of the European Union, which
Speaker 2: is not merely a counterweight to other powers, but a
Speaker 2: gift to humanity. Did you agree with that?
Speaker 3: It's not a infallible statement. I don't have. Father is
Speaker 3: only infallible when he speaks on a matter of faith
Speaker 3: and morals ex capil. That was not faith or morals,
Speaker 3: was not ex cathedra. And I could point past the
Speaker 3: ninth saying that actually the European Union is the apostate
Speaker 3: state and is eternally damned. That would be perhaps a
Speaker 3: little bit spicy.
Speaker 2: Yes, it would, it would, Yeah, anyway.
Speaker 1: My point hang on, I want again on the on
Speaker 1: the politics. Do you do you think that Brexit has
Speaker 1: led us to the much more multi party politics that
Speaker 1: we are in now? And Jacob, do you regret that
Speaker 1: your party not only regarded itself as the natural party
Speaker 1: of government but actually historically has more than often been that.
Speaker 3: I think the parties managed to come too close together,
Speaker 3: that you had Dave Cameron wanting to be the out
Speaker 3: of Blair and people feeling that it didn't.
Speaker 4: Matter how they wasn't a real conservative change.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that. I'm just saying he accepted a
Speaker 3: lot of the changes under Labor ninety seven to twenty ten,
Speaker 3: and that and Labor had ex acepted a lot of
Speaker 3: changes Margaret Thatcher made, which I may think is quite right.
Speaker 3: So we have a degree of common ground. But I
Speaker 3: think one of the reasons for Rexit is that people
Speaker 3: felt whoever they voted for, nothing changed, and that therefore
Speaker 3: they needed to vote for fundamental change. They found that
Speaker 3: very little has changed in the ten years since we
Speaker 3: are still massively overregulated, we still have too big a state,
Speaker 3: and now they're looking one.
Speaker 4: Thing about regulation.
Speaker 1: Though it was you were in the government Boris Johnson's
Speaker 1: government the moment that the UK actually left the EU
Speaker 1: at the end of twenty twenty, and at that moment
Speaker 1: all those EU regulations that you were so angry about
Speaker 1: for ages, they were put into UK law.
Speaker 3: That's right. And I had a bill that I introduced
Speaker 3: to the House that would.
Speaker 2: Have not really the government.
Speaker 3: Going back to your Today programmed days.
Speaker 2: Oh, I take that, miss ow.
Speaker 3: I had a bill that I introduced Apartment was going
Speaker 3: to get rid of six thousand EU regulations. And I'm
Speaker 3: sorry to say that Richie Souna when he came in
Speaker 3: bind it, which was a great mistake.
Speaker 4: The future.
Speaker 2: We've touched on this a bit about the parties.
Speaker 4: Yes, the parties.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I think this kind of atomization. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure it's directly related to Brexit, but I think Brexit
Speaker 2: played a part in it because I actually think people
Speaker 2: who vote A lot of people who voted for Brexit
Speaker 2: are disappointed that that hasn't delivered a better life for them,
Speaker 2: beyond the symbolism and the flags and the sort of
Speaker 2: fake debate about sovereignty and so forth. So I think
Speaker 2: that what's happened is that they've done well. We did labor,
Speaker 2: we did the Tories, and then we did this big thing,
Speaker 2: and for millions and millions of people in this country,
Speaker 2: their lives are still pretty crap, and so they're they're
Speaker 2: looking around. And also I think that tribalism has broken down.
Speaker 2: Now you can argue that's a good thing or a
Speaker 2: bad thing, but people just I think we now have
Speaker 2: a generation below my generation, in fact, even below my kids'
Speaker 2: generation that is thinking I don't know, I don't I
Speaker 2: can shop around with, you know, just as they shop
Speaker 2: around on alevision just so they shop around for dates.
Speaker 2: You know you can do. You can just shop around
Speaker 2: and they're thinking in politics, I'm going to go and
Speaker 2: so I think we've got the the and the other
Speaker 2: thing that's happened. It's very interesting to me. Nisael Fragi
Speaker 2: used to be a big fan of proportional representation. Now
Speaker 2: in this atomized politics he's working out I could get
Speaker 2: there with twenty five.
Speaker 4: Think Jacob that he could be the next prime minister.
Speaker 3: Nigel Farat it's not impossible on the poling that he's achieving.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think John Curtis has said that that's
Speaker 3: not impossible.
Speaker 4: Who I greatly responded, you would you join him? Have
Speaker 4: you considered joining reform.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to join reform, but I hope that
Speaker 3: the generals and Reform.
Speaker 4: Will work together as in a formal pact.
Speaker 3: Is that what I'd like, just to have a pre
Speaker 3: election packed a coupon election and to work together. I
Speaker 3: think it could be very successful. I think that Reform
Speaker 3: would bring something to the Conservative Party, the charisma of
Speaker 3: Nigel Farage, but that the Conservatives have depth and policy
Speaker 3: making strength that Reform lacks, and Reform remains basically a
Speaker 3: one man band.
Speaker 1: And would you therefore be looking to him to do
Speaker 1: what to rip up the current and any agreements, any
Speaker 1: the current agreements with the EU and start again. That's
Speaker 1: what That's pretty much what he told me when he
Speaker 1: came on the podcast.
Speaker 3: I really agree with that that. I think that leave
Speaker 3: men leave, we are out. We should not be making
Speaker 3: new agreements. The neur asthma scheme is bonkersly expensive. It's
Speaker 3: five times the price of the Churing scheme. Really crazy
Speaker 3: to waste money in that way when we're short of
Speaker 3: money for defense.
Speaker 1: Alastair, the Bloomberg Economics, when they model different scenarios for
Speaker 1: the future, joining the Single Market for goods, joining the
Speaker 1: Customs Union, and having a series of Swiss style arrangements,
Speaker 1: none of them deliver a comparable boost of the economy
Speaker 1: compared to the assessment on how much has been lost
Speaker 1: to GDP. When you look at Keir Starmer and his
Speaker 1: two likely challenges, Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham. They've all
Speaker 1: these senior labor figures have got a slightly different position
Speaker 1: on the EU. How much does that disappoint you?
Speaker 2: They've got a slightly different positions.
Speaker 1: Slightly different position on how they feel about rejoining when
Speaker 1: they rejoin, whether they whether they want to have the
Speaker 1: debate now or not.
Speaker 2: Whether we're in a very very strange place. Because of
Speaker 2: course I guess I was the Prime minister west streeting
Speaker 2: is able to be much much more open and as
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that we wanted to sort of back
Speaker 2: in asap, but he's obviously decided that's his position. It
Speaker 2: all disappoints me, to be absolutely frank, because the thing
Speaker 2: that disappoints me most of all I genuinely worry if
Speaker 2: this labor government is not a success. I think our
Speaker 2: politics is going to a very dark place. You mentioned
Speaker 2: Europe in one of the trends around Europe is that,
Speaker 2: you know, the populist radical right is kind of on
Speaker 2: the march.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Jacob may think that's a good thing. I think it's
Speaker 2: a terribly dangerous thing. I think that what we've seen
Speaker 2: just in the last few days and exacerbated, sorry to
Speaker 2: mention your first interviewee again, exacerbated by the influence that
Speaker 2: Elon has on our sort of social media landscape. I
Speaker 2: think what we've seen in Belfast and in Southampton recently,
Speaker 2: that is to me, the politics of reform and restore.
Speaker 2: And one of the problems we have in the way
Speaker 2: that we talk about deal with these people. We treat
Speaker 2: them as kind of, you know, normal mainstream politicians. I
Speaker 2: don't believe that they are. I think they're extremists. I
Speaker 2: think they're dangerous. I think breaksit was a vehicle for them.
Speaker 3: I don't agree with that. I actually think we're very
Speaker 3: fortunate in this country that we don't have that type
Speaker 3: of extremist that has been rising on the continent. I
Speaker 3: think that Nigel Farage is within the normal bounds of
Speaker 3: British political life. I think our politics is actually pretty stable.
Speaker 3: Our electoral system works, our democracy works. It changed government
Speaker 3: when it thought a government had failed. That is a
Speaker 3: proper process, and so I'm more confident about the stability
Speaker 3: of our political service.
Speaker 4: Right, one last question to close.
Speaker 1: It's twenty thirty six and we are all gathered again
Speaker 1: to mark twenty years since for exit. What do you
Speaker 1: think the relationship with the EU will be then, Jacob.
Speaker 3: I think it will be a friendly third party relationship.
Speaker 3: I think you will no longer be hankering for us
Speaker 3: to return if it still exists, and that we will
Speaker 3: be thriving outside the class, the dead hand of EU
Speaker 3: regulation will have made trade deals globally. We've got the CTPPP,
Speaker 3: We've got so many opportunities globally, so I'm very excited
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 2: I mean, the trade deals that were promised, they were
Speaker 2: a big part of the lies, and.
Speaker 3: They're not that happening.
Speaker 4: All of which we'd have the relationship in twenty thirty six.
Speaker 2: Well, the truth is, I don't know what do you
Speaker 2: hope for. What I hope for is what I described
Speaker 2: earlier Europe where.
Speaker 4: Having rejoined or some other kinds of.
Speaker 2: Joined, a totally different organization in which is possible, for example,
Speaker 2: to have different levels of membership, in which is possible
Speaker 2: for the Western Balkans to be in on one basis,
Speaker 2: for Ukraine to be on an the other, for the
Speaker 2: Turks to be part of very much of a defense alliance.
Speaker 2: But there's Europe part of European defense for the Norwegia and.
Speaker 4: Two very different missions.
Speaker 3: It's not happening. David Cameron couldn't get anything out of
Speaker 3: his renegotiation.
Speaker 4: Which a very different, a very different kind.
Speaker 2: Of twenty years. You have to look ahead, Jacob.
Speaker 3: Sixway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so from the here and now we're also looking
Speaker 1: into the future. I'm going to take a deep breath
Speaker 1: and very thankfully leave the stage now and thank you
Speaker 1: both very much. Indeed, Alastair Campbell and Jacob Rees-Mogg thank you.
Speaker 4: And that's where we left it.
Speaker 1: I really did need to breathe deeply afterwards, but Jacob
Speaker 1: and Alastair were fine with each other off stage and
Speaker 1: taking pictures for their socials before they left. If you're
Speaker 1: new to the show and enjoyed what you just heard,
Speaker 1: please do scroll back for other episodes because we go
Speaker 1: in depth every single time, from Gary Lineker on football
Speaker 1: and media, to David Dimbleby on UK politics and Anthony
Speaker 1: Scaramucci on the US. Plus, we have Steve Hilton coming
Speaker 1: up soon who wants to be governor of California, and
Speaker 1: so to the team. The producers are Jessica Beck and
Speaker 1: Chris Martlew. The video producer is Andy Hayward. Social media
Speaker 1: is by Alex Morgan, audio mixing by Richard Ward, our
Speaker 1: music is by Bart Warshaw, and the executive producer is
Speaker 1: Louisa Lewis. Special thanks for this live episode go to
Speaker 1: Susie Jackson, who looks after our subscriber events and at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Weekend thanks to Brendan, Francis Newnham and our executive
Speaker 1: editor Katherine Bell, And until next time, goodbye,