 Thank you very much. I'm Daniel Kelly, Chairman of the UK Group here in the Institute. This panel, where are we, and where are we going? We've got three very distinguished speakers and I hope that I know a little bit more at the end of this session than I do at the moment. So why don't I first invite us in to Creighton to address us? I would come here because some people down there may not be able to see. Thank you. I'll keep my introductory remarks short, I think, because I think it's much more interesting to get into the panel discussion and the questions. I think my friend Neil summed it up when he said that, you know, sort of the more that happens in these Brexit negotiations, the more things stay the same. And I think we've seen that over the last two plus years, where despite, you know, grand statements, announcements, new plans and multiple European councils and summits, we actually aren't a whole lot further along than where we started from. There is enormous uncertainty about where this is going to end up. I don't think there are too many people in the room who could really make a certain prediction. And I suppose in the sphere that I spend most of my time in these days in the commercial world working with business who are trying to navigate this and understand where we are, they have absolutely zero certainty. They are scrambling to prepare themselves. It's slightly easier, I think, for multinationals and for larger corporates, but for small and medium sized enterprises, they just have no idea what's going to happen come the 29th of March, 2019. They are trying to prepare, but the cost implications of those preparations are quite great. And so there is a lot of concern and deep worry. In terms of the positions, I suppose, from the two negotiating sides, I mean we've seen consistency which I think nobody could have anticipated two years ago from the EU side. We have seen a complete unity of purpose. We've seen absolute clarity in terms of the priorities, the intentions and I suppose the bottom line of the EU side. And that has been, I suppose, from an Irish perspective very welcome because it has ensured that the Irish question of the border and the future of the Good Friday Agreement and the peace process has been to the forefront. And tactically, and you know, in politics we are always talking about tactics, that has been a smart position from the Irish government and one which was completely underestimated by the UK negotiators. So at every stage throughout this process, any time I'm in London, probably two, three times, next week I'm in London three times separately. It's kind of crazy. So I'm in London a lot and every time I speak to colleagues either from my political contacts or in the business world, they just can't comprehend this and at every stage they have underestimated this sort of solidarity and this sense of belonging and togetherness amongst the EU and particularly towards Ireland. It doesn't solve our problem though because no country potentially will be impacted by no deal at the end of this process as much as we will. So there's a huge threat from a bilateral trade point of view and a huge threat to multiple sectors in this country which I don't believe we're prepared for. It's very difficult to prepare. There's so much the government can do. There's so much the businesses can do but ultimately if it occurs and if it looks likely to occur as the next few weeks go on, we will certainly have to ramp up our planning. As I said on the UK side, this is a negotiation which is characterised by and this hallmark has been an internal negotiation. So this is elements of the Conservative Party and elements of British politics negotiating with each other rather than negotiating bilaterally with the European Union and this is why we have not progressed. Yes, we've made progress on some of the less contentious issues but it's why we have not ultimately arrived at any sort of clarity around the backstop question around the single market customs union and the future relationship and I suppose we'll get into it in the panel discussion but I like Alan Dukes I'm a pessimist when it comes to these negotiations I have to say and I don't believe and I know Dan O'Brien from the Institute has written consistently and I've had many discussions over the last year with him about this, the incompatibility of the two positions, the incompatibility of on the one hand the European Union position around both the Irish border and around the integrity of the single market and customs union and the UK position which is at least verbally signing up to the backstop. Certainly not substantively and not as yet in any sort of binding legal text but constantly sticking to the view that the UK must leave the single market and customs union must be in a position to negotiate bilateral free trade agreements, take control of regulation and so on. Those two positions are incompatible and unless there is a very considerable movement on one side or the other in the next few weeks there will not be a deal and that's why I'm somewhat pessimistic. I think there is a fudge that can be found and historically that's what the EU has done. I was there at EU council meetings at General Affairs Councils right throughout the financial crisis and that is how we dealt with the financial crisis. At every step it was a fudge and it had to be by necessity. I'm not sure that that will be possible given the vitriol and given the intensity of the debate in the UK. I'm just not sure that it can be possible and equally I'm not sure that it will be compatible with the EU's priority of maintaining solidarity and cohesion within the bloc. So that is the existential question that we face over the coming few weeks. It is ultimately I think an existential question that will face the Irish government more than any other and I'm happy to elaborate on my thoughts on that in a few minutes but it's one that will essentially see two very, very opposing positions come head to head and if one side or other does not give or cannot give and does not ultimately find a way to fudge, it's probably the only word I can use to describe it, the fundamental red line position then I think we are facing no deal and I'll leave it there and I'm happy to elaborate as we go on. Thank you. Thank you. Now Dr. Kirsty Hughes who is director at the Scottish Centre for European Affairs. Okay, thank you very much for that and good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Is this Mike? Okay, yes. You're worried about the chair going down a crack or something. It's a metaphor. It's a metaphor for where my first sentence or question which is where are we going next and as the previous speakers have already said we're facing extraordinary levels of uncertainty given the short time scale ahead till next March. Is there going to be a deal? Will it pass? Is there going to be a deal but it doesn't pass? Will there be no deal and then what will happen? Or might there just, and I'm one of the more hopeful on this, might there even be no Brexit? Is that still possible? And it's interesting to note in case you didn't spot this one that a cross-party group of Scottish politicians have succeeded in getting a Scottish Court reference to the European Court of Justice to ask whether Article 50 can be unilaterally withdrawn or not. There's also this huge groundhog day to Brexit. We just seem to go round and round and then the same issues come back up and I think by the start of September I was saying well at least things are going to go somewhere this autumn and then another month or so later and we still don't know. The levels of uncertainty are maybe not going to go down that much by December but I think some of the scenarios will know which ones we look like we're heading into. If there's a deal and it passes through Westminster and European Parliament, European Council, Brexit is actually going to happen. But that means surely that there is at least an Irish backstop. We don't know still, we won't know what sort of future relationship. There could still be a cliff edge in December 2020 but it'll be a different cliff edge because there will be an Irish backstop and we don't yet know how much that Irish backstop if there's some sort of fudged customs union deal may actually implicitly or explicitly tell us about the likely future UK relationship with the EU. I think it's maybe stating the obvious but I think we have to really remember that what in sense is driving Brexit is not just that vote over two years ago. I think that UK politics is in many ways imploding. It's failing. At the very least it's in a chronic crisis and depending where these Brexit scenarios go next we could soon be tipping into a very acute crisis. It's quite extraordinary to see that the tourists despite the fact that they're almost imploding but not quite despite the levels of infighting despite the self-harm of Brexit are ahead of Labour in the polls. It's quite extraordinary to see Labour in the last two years in many ways of being really an effective opposition partly because they accepted the Brexit vote and partly because of the Eurosceptic leadership of the Labour Party. If you followed the UK media you might not notice that the SNP is the third party in Westminster because that seems to get very little attention let alone the potentially quite crucial question of which way they may vote on any deal. It's also interesting to note that whereas it used to be if you looked at the Scottish polls on Brexit that Labour and Lib Dem voters were more remain it's now actually the pro-independence voters the SNP and Green voters in Scotland who are more pro-remain even than the Labour and Lib Dems that sort of 80 and 90% for the Greens and now strongly support of people's vote something that's Nicola Sturgeon and the leadership of so far been Luke Wormann but seem to be edging backwards slowly towards supporting. Another thing to note for this autumn and I was checking the latest YouGov polls if you take out the don't knows almost three quarters of the UK public according to these polls don't think there's going to be a deal in time to leave by next March. Now I think there probably is going to be a deal but I think that's absolutely fascinating when you think of what's going to happen if there's a deal. We'll finally see May and the EU 27 speak from the same song sheet if you like and say this is the deal it's the best in the circumstances we is urging all MPs to back it. Where will public opinion swing on that and how might that impact on whether this thing goes through Westminster or not whether Labour depending how soft it is might Labour abstain or even vote for it how many Brexiters will vote against I would expect the SNP to vote against unless it's completely soft but can we rule them out abstaining and in all this discussion coming back to the South Harm Port point if there was some sort of goods free trade area even if not as frictionless as checkers dream if dreams are nightmare it ignores the services sector I mean the degree of self harm that is going on here 20% of our economy the competitive bit of it and so on is somehow just being hung out to dry. Very briefly a couple more points what happens if the deal doesn't pass at Westminster I think at that point we tip as I say from chronic to acute crisis I think there are two possible options that might be a general election there might be a no confidence vote at Westminster or there might be a second EU referendum but again that would need to get enough votes at Westminster there's to my mind a less likely option of Theresa May at that point going back and trying to negotiate something different but what would the EU say there's a deal and that's it it's possible to imagine some of the Tory rebel remainder MPs might prefer to vote for a people's vote not for a general election it's possible to imagine majority at Westminster for either of those things so you reject the deal you reject an election you reject a people's vote the crisis gets ever more extreme at some point surely you must have an election but if you have an election it may not change anything it's quite remarkable that the Tories are still ahead in the polls you might get a Labour minority government what all the SMP and Lib Dems who are still there as a very small force party demand at that point at the moment the British public of 54% remains 77% of them think the negotiations are going badly yet in some polls there's still only 50-50 support for a people's vote so I think it's a very hard political dynamic to predict whereas Ireland in all this it's clear that Ireland has played this very bad hand we dealt you with a great level of diplomatic and political skill and strategy and I think great restraint as well there's going to be a lot of pressure I think obviously even if from standing back a bit but there will be a lot of pressure to try and get Westminster to pass the deal there may be the sort of statements we've heard from the EU before that there is no plan B that there's a deal or no deal times running out I do remember that back in the second Irish referendum Brussels saying there was no plan B but there was a plan B but I wouldn't encourage anyone on Brexit to be sure there's a plan B last couple of comments I think as we've heard in some of the speeches already there's maybe a lot of similarity in Scottish and Irish interests, Scotland is the most pro-remain bit of the UK but of course as we get towards the deal it might be different Ireland and the EU26 as well will be wanting Westminster to vote for a deal but if we're looking for a people's vote I think the route to that has to be through first of all rejecting the deal it has to be through a worsening of the crisis if there's a deal and an Irish backstop Scotland is going to say they want that too however inappropriate that may be in many ways and they're not going to get that but they may certainly ask for that and Scottish independence is another topic for another day but to think that Brexit won't impact on those political dynamics in Scotland is not serious it's not necessarily going to shift things overnight but I think it's not serious so I think either we see that there is a deal and it passes Theresa May in some sense succeeds and that means at least we shuffle out of the EU and out of your way but we're still a very big player having a huge political crisis on the edge of Europe trying to negotiate a future trade deal with you so it's not an end to uncertainty and crisis especially not for those of us in the UK if she fails then there's very big risks ahead as the crisis turns acute but there is also actually slightly more hope in my mind at this stage in the process with failure than success thank you I now invite Sebastian Gerholt who is the Senior Advisor to the CDU CSU in the Bundestag good afternoon thank you very much first of all for having me here today I particularly thank the Conrad Adler Foundation for obviously nominating me for this event and thank the IIEA and the Scottish Centre on European Relations for agreeing on having among those a journalist, a lonely member of staff from the Parliamentary Group from Berlin I'm very happy to be here as I have a strong personalisation to all three of these nations Germany, Scotland and Ireland as you will see as I go along so that gives me the opportunity to apologise for my rocky English I'll just cling on to my notes a bit more than the other ones and hope I'm Model 3 so the question we were asked today I was asked today where are we and where are we going well where are we we are in a mess and I'm sure we can all agree on that I'd like to start with good news though as usual I think one should the Brexit process has encouraged my wife who has been living in Germany for 15 years from Countdown originally to become German so that's the good news for me and with her come tens of thousands of Brits who live in Germany and we are very grateful for this influx into our community in Germany well the rest I'm afraid pretty much are bad news Brexit is bad for the EU we are losing economic, political, military power to the extent it's bad for the EU because we've got a shift of political balance away from the common sense stability and growth orientated northern nations towards the Club Med quite frankly that is also bad for Germany because it's bad for the EU it's bad for Ireland as most of you will know a lot better than I do and I believe it's catastrophic for the United Kingdom but who said that decision and as has been said here before we respect the vote as it was cast we'll be very tempting to think about and talk about why we are there particularly for me as a historian who obtained his degree at last university 20 years ago but I'm not going to waste my time about that because at the end of the day it's futile but it has got a lot to do with a demise of political culture I believe and of political leadership in the United Kingdom a failure of the elites of the country to uphold an idea I believe that many of them were actually committed to but it also I think raised the question also got to do with the fact how we as a European Union in the future deal with different approaches to European integration as I'd like to come to later because we certainly did not manage that very well with the United Kingdom it is true that we've heard complaints from London since the Treaty of Maastricht about the type of integration they were unhappy with and I think the European Union should should try and take up this question as well where are we going I thought I'd not get around at least casting an attempt of an answer to the four of the frequently asked questions would there be a deal yes I believe there will be a deal I would say 80% chance there will be a deal I've just come from Birmingham where I was kind of hunting with Felix Dane and I still believe there will be a deal I think it's more likely not sure but likely second question would be a good deal for the island of Ireland yes I believe so I'd say 95% probability it's going to be a good deal it's not going to be like it used to be there is no good Brexit that's certainly true it's not going to be as good as it used to be but I don't think the impact on the political situation in particular will be disastrous I think you for the fair chance of getting out of that quite well and I'm really also very pleased how the Europeans and the Germans as well have stood by your side in this process will there be a second referendum I personally don't think so I think we've got maybe a 25% chance maybe 30% and it's been talked about before we need a number of incidents on the way that would lead us to the opportunity of a second referendum and I can't see all of those happening yet and the fourth question will the European Union collapse for the next 10 years no it will not no matter what the outcome of all this is the European Union will still be there in 10 years I think it's late enough in the process no matter what the outcome is what do we actually take away from Brexit what's the lesson we learn how can we do things better in the future simply firstly I think we need to prevent we need to counter populism left and right and possibly centre that means simply good hard political work means you have to talk to constituents you have to listen to constituents you cannot taboo the obvious but you need to stand up against nonsense and I think that is also something that has not happened to the extent that would have been desirable in the United Kingdom over the past 10 years and elsewhere and elsewhere I work in parliament I know what I'm talking about and the second thing I believe we need to address the Christian of the final destination of EU integration the ever closer union was a good idea and has taken us a long way look where we are, the level of integration we've got today I believe when people agreed on the ever closer union it was not foreseeable and not foreseen how far that was taken for a couple of decades only but I believe we need to respect national cultural identity across Europe and we need to respect those who want less than others and need to address this question I'm not saying we need to stop now or we need to stop in five years time but I believe you should start thinking about that and the institutions who have organised this event today provide a room for that for discussion for an intelligent discussion also in a protected environment that's not necessarily in the tabular newspapers so I think that's something we need to think about and talk about no matter what the outcome of the Brexit process is because that will be the question the European Union simply has to deal with over the next 10 years and what we certainly need to do if we want the European Union to do well in the future we need to always respect common sense for example we should never disconnect risk and responsibility think about financial matters but also about a lot of other matters if we go along those lines I think the European Union has got a bright future ahead of itself what we also need I think is again a more positive narrative of the European Union and various suggestions have been made Europe that protects I think Europe is European Union has more been about creating opportunities for people opportunities for good education opportunities for excellent business, for trade opportunities for economic growth for stability and peace I would rather use the phrase Europe can provide opportunities and I think if that's the twist we get to the European narrative for the next decade I think we'll be doing well thank you very much thank you very much we have about 13 minutes or so questions so if you have just to identify yourself what are the questions if you just mentioned my question yeah, Francis Jacobs the question to Kerstin if the words would be for people as well what would be the question would it be a binary question or would it be a multiple choice question and secondly you noted the likely possibility of the article that you drew what would happen then to the UK's current opt-outs and relays okay you've got a mic here, yeah sure very good questions I think Remain has to be on the the voting sheet if we're going to have a second referendum and I don't know if we can get a vote through Westminster for a second referendum but I suspect you can only get one through if it does remain on the ballot sheet but obviously Labour have been very unclear on that but if Labour couldn't provoke a general election might they nonetheless do it might a vote for a second referendum lead made then call a general election instead you know these so it's all very unpredictable I agree personally I'm not in favour of a three way vote people have suggested it could be the deal if there is no deal and Remain but I think that risks giving you no majority on the first vote and so already if you voted to stay in the EU and overturn the first result is going to leave bitter divisions even with the majority in England it's not going to resolve the problems of English identity and the Tory politics that drive a lot of this so I would rather see just a deal or no deal whichever it is and Remain in the EU certainly I heard John Kerr in Glasgow this week at a Glasgow Brexit summit who's very strongly of the view that article 50 can be unilaterally withdrawn I know that legal opinion varies on that and I've always thought politically anyway if Brexit was to be halted it would need the political support of the EU 27 and I don't see how you win another referendum if some of the members of the EU are saying we don't really want you back or we want you back without your existing opt-outs and that's why I think if we're to stop this we need to stop it now some people in the UK as you know say we should have a soft Brexit then we can rejoin I can't see the UK rejoining without its opt-outs not for a very very long time of course there's also a possibility that a people's vote would then deliver another leaf vote that would then certainly have to be respected it might also deliver a Remain vote 49.5% to 49.5% very torn nation again all the EU 27 want us back at that point so I'm not saying it's just a magic wand but I think in terms of the destructive power of Brexit it's one we shouldn't give up on yet and just sorry one last comment I think what has happened in the UK in the last three months is a much more attention being given to a people's vote people who a few months ago might have said 20%. Thank you the lady over here Yes Hello my name is I am the member of the Institute I just want to ask about the Good Friday Agreement everyone appears to talk about it that how important it is that it's not compromised in all this process but no one really explains what are the elements which are so important in that Good Friday Agreement where they cannot be negotiated I feel like people assume that everyone knows what is Good Friday Agreement I'm only 16 years old in Ireland but I try to read about it and what I find out that is that you can correct me if I'm wrong that people can the Good Friday Agreement say people can either choose to be Irish or whatever Scottish or whatever they should be respected on that until themselves they decide whether they want to choose which side of the border they want to be and no one is addressing any Let me answer that for you myself and I'll do it as quickly as I can Northern Ireland was very unsettled at the time it was established in 1921 and it was very unsettled because an element in the population was not treated equally with the other element in the population there was a very nasty and it was an exceedingly nasty war there's no other word for it it was brought to an end by the two governments essentially and the essence was that there would be equality in Northern Ireland for both Catholics and Protestants and the deal really is very simple as long as there is equality for the minority the minority are happy enough to stay within the United Kingdom but if that equilibrium between the two sides is lost and that's the real danger then unfortunately we could go back not to the way it was in the immediate past but we could go back to a society which might be very unequal I don't want to go into any more detail if you don't mind next one here Donald Adam Sebastian Gerholt you speak for me and I thank you for what you said I have to say I don't agree I can understand it I don't agree with the pessimism voiced by our own Irish politicians here today it seems to me that there will be a deal on Brexit that both the British and the EU economies will continue to manage and bump along it may not be as good as it could have been predicted but I don't believe it will be as bad there won't be any Armageddon in store my question is this none of you who have spoken today mentioned two words very common in the English language and that is Jeremy Corbyn there is an alternative to Theresa May although her weakness is her strength I believe and she'll certainly I think carry on for some time but surely there's the prospect of a Labour Government in the UK and that that will have a consequence on Brexit if you want to answer that question Sure I'm not as sanguine as you about the economic damage one of the figures I've quoted repeatedly but it should be taken very seriously as the National Institute for Economic and Social Research in London did a very detailed look at the Canada trade deal South Korea and so forth and how less integrated Canada's services trade especially is the Angus trade with the EU than the UK and suggested that under a Canada style deal UK services trade with the EU would fall 60% one example if we have a Canada style deal we can't expect the car manufacturers to stay and so on so on Jeremy Corbyn I think it's quite extraordinary that the Tories are 6% or so ahead in the polls at the moment I think if there was a second vote a people's vote you couldn't just say you were going back to the status quo you'd have to tackle some of the inequality and poverty that drove part of that vote so if Jeremy Corbyn suddenly had a sort of blinding revelation that actually the EU wasn't such a terrible thing and could offer a change to the status quo and a fight to stay in the EU I'd be seriously interested but I think at the moment there's nothing for a Labour Government that we might be and what Jeremy Corbyn wants to do is going to be made much more difficult by Brexit though of course they seem to think they can negotiate an almost soft Brexit but I'm one of the minority of people I think seem to be in a minority in the UK who think a soft Brexit is not sustainable I can't see how the UK could stay for a long time in a situation where the EU decided to trade policy, its regulatory policies and so forth so I'm not sure there is any easy way out here and in that sense I do agree with Neil Richman there are no good Brexit Thank you, would you like to add? I'm interested to have a chat with Donald to understand the basis for his optimism but knowing Donald I'm sure it's a very valid perspective on Jeremy Corbyn I actually wrote my column The Times last week about Jeremy Corbyn that's The Times of London not The Irish Times, clarify contentious of him I I mean it's just an imponderable I mean Jeremy Corbyn is a more hardened Euro skeptic than the people who delivered us Brexit David Cameron and Co Jeremy Corbyn has voted against every single step of not just European integration as we understand it today we've talked about ever closer union and the deeper political integration but every step of it he opposed the single market he is fundamentally opposed to the liberal economic model upon which global economics global trade and the European Union are based so I mean this is a guy who believes in his heart and soul that this is a terrible thing and I feel sorry for some of the people who I respect and admire in the Labour Party the moderates who are the majority at least in the parliamentary party not in the momentum movement and so on because he doesn't represent them he doesn't have the support as we know, as we understand of his parliamentary party and that is why British business has been so quiet about Brexit they are afraid to speak up about the potential for Armageddon and there is real potential for Armageddon it's on our doorstep as far as I'm concerned they are afraid to speak up about it because they are afraid of what might come in place of Theresa May if she loses a vote of confidence and it triggers an election in the UK they are worried about a John McDonnell Chancellor, exactly a collectivist wealth tax Marxist agenda and these are people who laud this is what we are dealing with at the top of the Labour Party so there is no opposition there is no alternative because there is nobody in a senior position in the Labour Party advocating it, it is a tragedy and I genuinely believe that whatever had happened in the vote in 2016 and I think it was inevitable and I was one of the few people who predicted it I knew Brexit was going to happen because I was watching this circus in the UK for the previous number of years in the Conservative Party through the Conrad Adenauer Stiftung and through the EPP originally and so on so I knew I saw what was happening but I actually think that there could have been a huge amount of damage limitation in the last two years if there were an actual opposition in the UK and we saw even the pathetic fudge last weekend at the Labour Party conference where still we see no leadership, a complete dearth of leadership from the main opposition party and unfortunately for the SNP in the Westminster context they cannot fill that vacuum and clearly as we saw in the last general election the Lib Dems who are the only sort of option if you're a moderate pro-European voter in England now also can't fill that vacuum the only people who could potentially give that leadership or the Labour Party and they can't with their current leadership so it's catastrophic as far as I'm concerned very sad and actually as you can probably see quite emotional actually talking about it because unfortunately for all of us we are the recipients of this dysfunctional politics in the UK at the moment I'm sorry we have to come to an end because we've reached the end of our time there are four or five of you who wanted to ask questions I'm sorry we just didn't get around to it thank you very much indeed all three