 Well, good afternoon everyone. It's delightful to welcome so many of you here to this first Seminar from Cells, the Centre for European Legal Studies here at Cambridge, and I'm particularly delighted to welcome as our guest David Gork, who's incredibly well known to all of us. Now it's usual in these circumstances to read off an extensive biography, but actually I think you'd be more interested here to hear him talk than me, but I just want to highlight a couple of things. He, of course, was a marvellous Lord Chancellor and lots of people have always said he was a Lord Chancellor and Law Officer who took his job incredibly seriously and was deeply popular because he took the job so seriously. But he's also a man with a very fine sense of humour. If you follow him on Twitter, he probably will make your day. Indeed, one of the first tweets I saw from David was him in a very nice swimming pool with a very large unicorn floating behind him and which was of course coincided with one of the many peaks and crops of the Brexit debate. And indeed today he has helped me pointed out that the time has come for Boris Johnson to perhaps write two columns. Now David's very kindly going to talk for 20, 25 minutes or so and then we'll take questions. If you have questions for him, would you be so kind as to put them in the Q&A box? And Marcus Gehring and I will have a look at those questions that are coming in and try and get as many questions as we can to David. So David, first of all, many, many thanks for your time. I'm hugely grateful to you. The floor is yours. Well, thank you, Catherine. A great pleasure to be here and thank you everyone for attending, if that's the right word, this seminar. Before turning to where we are now in the negotiations and speculating on what is going to happen next, I think it might be helpful just to put all of this in some context. Because it seems to me that the story of Brexit over the last four years needs to be understood, going back to the time of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister and the tension, not just within the Conservative Party, but if you like within the sort of Thatcherite part of the Conservative Party that has never properly resolved itself between on the one hand, the internationalist, free trading, economically liberal pro-business parts of Thatcherism, if you like, that delivered us the single market under Arthur Cofield, that did much to reform the UK economy, to welcome foreign direct investment and so on. With, at the same time, a more nationalist, suspicious of the outside world and outside interference, a view that places much greater priority on sovereignty and regulatory autonomy. And clearly those two instincts, both of which existed within Margaret Thatcher herself, are in tension with each other, but for a very long time there hasn't really been that recognition of the tension between those instincts in parts of the Conservative Party in particular. And that has been a cause of all sorts of problems. And I would identify, if you like, for failures of understanding that has occurred, generally amongst those who have been on the Eurosceptic side of the argument, but not exclusively, that have led to us being in the very difficult position that we have been for the last few years, really, since the referendum resolved. There is that, first of all, that failure to recognise the tension between being a free trading internationalist country and wanting to have regulatory autonomy. Second, I think there has been a failure to understand EU thinking in this area. Third, I think, has been a failure to understand the relative negotiating strengths, the weight, if you like, between the two sides, the EU and the UK. And fourth, and I'm not going to dwell on this, although this point has been absolutely vital to the history of Brexit, has been the impact of this debate on Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and the implications for the border on the island of Ireland. And I think a failure to understand all those points has resulted in, first of all, the Brexit vote, and then the fact that we have run into the difficulties that we have in terms of reaching a deal and why this process has been much, much more difficult than many people would have believed in 2016. First of all, just returning to this tension between internationalism and free trade and sovereignty. One of the reasons why I think there has been this failure to understand what is on the face of it, something that is perfectly straightforward and obvious, is because we go back to Margaret Thatcher, who was seen as this great figure for bringing down trade back. She was a voice for economic and liberalism, but she was also a voice for sovereignty. And the debate of the 1980s, if you like, the point at which modern Europe skepticism was born was at the time of the De Laws agenda, which was about a more interventionist European community, as it then was, it was about the EU, as BC, as it was, intervening in environmental issues and social issues. And, you know, you have the Bruse speech in 1988, where Margaret Thatcher talks about, you know, essentially, you should roll back the frontiers of the State to have them reimposed at a European level. eroskepticism at that point was born as a sort of free market or was remade as a sort of free market free trading dogma if you like an ideology and that to quite powerful arguments had very significant appeal within the conservative party. I think you also have to play in that the other battle going on between the sort of the law's interventionist approach which the Labour Party of course adopted and you're welcome to law, to TUC conference and what have you. You also had the debate going on at the same time about Britain's membership of the ERM and ultimately Britain's membership of the euro, the single currency. Or again, the sort of thatcherite position was sceptical about the ERM and strongly opposed to the UK joining the euro and I think history pretty well vindicates that position, that it was right that we stayed out of the euro and joining the ERM I think history relates was a mistake and there were very significant consequences for that. So you had a sort of boost in the intellectual confidence of euro scepticism who very much a minority view, the establishment position was we should join the ERM and perhaps not quite so strongly but still the establishment position was that it was inevitable that the UK was going to join the euro. So on that side of the argument I think the euro sceptics were vindicated and on the right side and that gave them a great deal of confidence. I also think that one of the reasons why there was a failure to understand the sort of trade off here is that there was a very simplistic view of what free trade was about that it was simply about tariffs and quotas and that's relatively simple and you just sort that out and frankly the EU wasn't terribly enthusiastic it was claimed about bringing down tariff barriers with the rest of the world that we were protecting Italian shoemakers and what have you and there was a sort of sense that the EU was holding us back from going out and getting trade deals with the rest of the world. Now there's lots of reasons why that view was flawed but I think it was sincere that you know there wasn't a real understanding of what trade really meant and what free trade and making progress on free trade really meant and I think you can make a contrast with the position in the European Union that brings me to the sort of second failure which is the failure to understand the European Union's attachment to the single market and the single market governed by rules and you know the essence of the single market is you know we will bring down our trade barriers with other countries but those countries have to comply with similar rules. We will not have unfair competition we will have rules that will protect us from that but essentially this is a way in which we can bring down trade barriers and again remembering that you know for a sophisticated economy more than half the cost of trade barriers tends to be non-tariff barriers and you do need to have some kind of coordination on the rules those non-tariff barriers rules and regulations and the European Union properly understood that and that is very much at the heart of the EU's approach and they consider the single market to be vital to their economies and they believe that the single market has to be backed up by those rules that protect from unfair competition and that commitment has been something that has been underestimated not just you know recently and not just in truth by Brexiteers I think that commitment was underappreciated underestimated by David Cameron where he sought to renegotiate our terms of membership in advance of the referendum he sought to change the rules in terms of freedom of movement. The EU take a pretty theological view about those four freedoms being strongly interlinked and freedom of movement of labour was or people was not something that they were prepared to concede and that came as a surprise in truth it shouldn't have done but again you know we are surprised and we have been surprised many times since that the EU were really committed to this I think at times they take it too far I when I was a little chancellor and Catherine thank you for your kind remarks about that one of the things that we were trying to do in our negotiations was make progress on civil judicial cooperation something that predated the single market something that was clearly to the advantage of both the UK and the European Union as a whole but the EU took a pretty theological view that civil judicial cooperation was something that was now part of the single market and that therefore we shouldn't make concessions or they shouldn't make possessions on that particular area that was how they viewed it so we have not I think ever really understood how strongly committed they were to that and related to that given how strongly they felt about it we have I think consistently overestimated our negotiating strength it doesn't give me any pleasure to say that I'd love to be able to say that we can help get our way but we are 60 65 million people they are 490 million people yes they sell more to us than we sell to them but as fractions of their economy you know it is it is significantly more important to us our trade with the EU than it is than our businesses to them and that sadly regrettably is the real world that we've had to live in and that's again not been a point that I think people have been willing to take on board and then the fourth failure to mention is this issue of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and you know in a world where we say right we are going to depart from European Union to the extent that there has to be a border between Great Britain and continental Europe but we also say that they can't be a border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland because that undermines the Union of the United Kingdom and we also say that there can't be a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland because that raises issues do with the Northern Irish peace process and the Good Friday Agreement or Belfast Agreement and then we also say that you can't have a border between the Republic of Ireland and continental Europe because the Republic of Ireland is part of the European Union and it hasn't voted to leave European Union you've been faced with this logical conundrum finding a way to solve that has been immensely difficult and not everybody engaged in this process has been prepared to engage in this question and that that was a huge difficulty for Theresa May when she was in office and I think one could say that you know all these tricky issues all these I think failures or to appreciate the real world the situation that we're in the United Kingdom has gone through a very painful burning process over the last four and a half years which has left us in the position that we're in you remember after the referendum people were saying that we can have all the same benefits of EU membership we'd still be able to have that so access to EU markets in much the same way as we had before but we'd also have complete regulatory autonomy and and that was never possible and that that offer that was made you know that was the that was the offer put to the British people in the 2016 referendum it was a view that was maintained you know afterwards by many of those who were Brexiteers who were now in government it was David Davis after all who said you will have the exact same benefits all of that was something that was never going to be delivered I think for the most part people believed that they thought they'd be able to get those things because I don't think they had appreciated the points that I had particularly run through but there was always going to be a trade-off between regulatory autonomy and access to European markets and many people have been extraordinarily slow I believe in recognizing that then you throw in the complications of the Northern Irish border and what you were faced with and what Theresa as Prime Minister was faced with was that there was no conceivable negotiable logical deal that could be reached with the European Union that would satisfy those who had many of those who had campaigned for Brexit because there wasn't a willingness from those who had campaigned and supported Brexit to to face up to some of those hard realities and particularly when you had the leaders of those campaigns you know unwilling to accept compromise positions as we saw after the checkers proposal was put forth there was much wrong with that checkers proposal and you know whether it was ever really viable is you know an interesting point but it was a genuine attempt to try to find a way through this approach through this challenge of wanting regulatory autonomy and also wanting to maintain access to European markets the unwillingness to engage with some of those inconvenient trees meant that the the leading Brexiteers were never satisfied with any deal that Theresa was able to get that they voted down the deal on a number of occasions those the numbers voting against diminished over over time because they feared that they might lose Brexit altogether but there was no winning of hearts and minds amongst those Brexiteers that they maintained that strong position and you know we we ended up with her losing office Boris Johnson coming in essentially promising again that you can get everything that we know will will defeat the doomsters and gloomsters and we'll get a fabulous deal he eventually gets a deal but essentially surrenders on Northern Ireland so he goes back to the position that the EU had offered back in February 2018 which is essentially a Canada style agreement with level playing field provisions they were always there but that was for Great Britain Northern Ireland would essentially remain within the EU customs then so he gets his deal the oven ready deal the withdrawal agreement but that doesn't deal then with the longer term relationship about what is going to happen going forward and and you know where we have got to now is we're still left with this sort of fundamental problem that any deal is going to disappoint those people who listen to the promises that were made by vote leave in 2016 and wish to judge on that basis so can you deliver a Brexit that keeps the union together keeps Northern Ireland and Great Britain essentially together can you deliver a Brexit which is good for business maintaining good access to European markets can you deliver a Brexit that gives us the sort of regulatory sovereignty the autonomy that that was promised and the answer is that you can't you can't do that you are going to have to find some compromises we've had the threat to walk away from what's already been agreed on on Northern Ireland but let's assume that that if a deal is reached that that will be put to one side so you will have Northern Ireland in a different position from Great Britain and the more we diverge the bigger that issue will be for business this is going to be a very thin deal if a deal is reached it'll be a very thin deal nothing for services still disruption at the border for goods difficult for complex supply chains yes if we reach a deal zero tariffs and zero quotas but I come back to what I was saying about how important non-tariff barriers are and there's non-tariff barriers are going to be there so you know bad for business compared to what we have the status quo and on sovereignty I mean look this if we have a deal it will be a very hard Brexit but if you really really want to sort of pick a fight on this and we know that people like Nigel Farage will you will be able to say well we have signed up to certain provisions not to compete on on a social and environmental and the outstanding issue is state aid it is to my mind bizarre that a conservative government wishes to make a fight on having the freedom to subsidize loss making businesses but that seems to be the issue that is now at the heart of this but if we get a deal you know the reality is we are going to have to make some further concessions on this I don't really see it as a concession in terms of from the interests of the taxpayer I think it would be a good thing that we had a robust and independent state aid regulator that prevented the government wasting taxpayers money but nonetheless this doesn't fit with the narrative of sort of pure Brexit sovereignty view of things and you can see that the Brexit part of the former Brexit party MEPs are already gearing up to cry betrayal if there is a compromise so we are left or Boris Johnson has left with a difficult choice he has got two options really he can give the deal even at this late stage I think a deal is possible the fact that Michelle Barnier has said this afternoon that they're you know they're prepared to negotiate over legal texts that in a way is a concession the UK government can claim a victory there but the last few days have really all been about theatrics it's all been really about you know both sides wanting to to demonstrate they're tough as everybody says and you know no doubt everyone listening to this webinar has heard a hundred times you know we have the two outstanding issues three if you count governance but essentially state aid and fish I tend to buy the view that state aid that fish is in the end something that will be resolved it is such a small part of the UK's economy and the EU's economy that however difficult it might be and politically it is there the just will find a compromise in this area but the the real issue is on on on state aid I don't believe that the EU were just going to let us you know let us go do what we want they will want reassurances that we will have a robust state aid regime the more we dig in on this issue the more they wonder why and what we're up to it's also a case the the case that the internal market bill has damaged trust between the parties so that that is also an issue and they will want to nail down any provisions there and have strong governance to properly enforce whatever is agreed but ultimately this comes down to a decision for the prime minister does he conclude that better to get a deal that although there'll be disruption there'll be less disruption that failing to reach a deal will be portrayed as incompetence that it will be a political failure at this point and therefore he needs to to concede on this particular point or does he feel that in fact that opens up vulnerability from the other side he'll be criticised for the thinness of the deal from from the Labour Party and some business groups but he could also be criticised by Nigel Farage for conceding on state aid and whatever it might be that there'll be Brexit purists out there recognising that if he gets a deal he's going to have to go out there and sell it and he'll no doubt declare it's a fabulous victory and a great triumph but then he'll have to live with the consequences and he'll be held to account whereas if he doesn't get a deal he'll be able to blame EU intransigence and say it was all their fault and I tried everything and and to so extent amongst many in the electorate he'll be able to escape responsibility he'll be able to say well I tried my best to get a deal I look like there's reasonable here but you know the EU you just can't deal with them they're just so insistent on having it their way that's why we have to get out of this organisation politically I suspect in the short term that is the easier option for him but in the longer term the consequences will be pretty serious and if we don't get a deal I think it will be acrimonious I think it'll be hard to rebuild our relationship with the EU in the short term and that will have real world implications for businesses for livelihoods and so on so I very much hope that he does decide to get a deal but I think it's quite finely balanced and Catherine you made reference earlier I was tweeting Robert Peston had a very interesting piece talked to a number 10 inside who said look I don't think we don't we don't know because I don't think the Prime Minister has yet made up his mind he is in two minds as to what he's going to do so my suggestion was that he he write two columns and see which one he finds most persuasive and I don't know what the answer to that is I think it's pretty finely balanced I've always been a bit of a pessimist on this because I've always wondered whether the Prime Minister would really want to take responsibility for a deal because you know he would then have to go out and sell it and as I say that is not the deal that many people who voted Brexit or many people who campaigned for Brexit thought they were going to get back in 2016 so I lean ever so slightly towards him clumping for no deal but I guess we will know in the next week or two thanks very much thank you very much indeed that was absolutely fascinating some questions are coming in I will give the audience a chance to put some more questions in the Q&A but I wonder if I could just start with a very basic question did the Brexiters who were advocating leave and ran the Vote Leave campaign did they actually understand EU law? I'm not sure that they did I mean you know there's there's a slight risk in sort of characterising everybody in the same way but I think you know whether it was EU law or EU policy I mean I think that you know come back to that sort of driving force that the EU is a rules-based organisation it believes it has to be a rules-based organisation when you when you've got 28 members as if they've had 27 now and you know that sense that it is only on the basis of rules which are enforced and respected that you can have the buy-in towards bringing down trade barriers the trade barriers in some cases you just require rules to provide clarity but in other cases you require rules to protect from what is seen as unfair competition and if you don't have protection against unfair competition you just won't have the political buy-in for a project that is essentially about bringing down trade barriers and I think that that concept and that sort of viewpoint wasn't properly understood. I think you know I think in all honesty you know some of us who were campaigning for remain didn't fully understand it in the way that we maybe now do and you know quite what drives the EU and why it operates in the way that it operates. I don't think there was a widespread understanding of that amongst the British political class. And if Theresa May had got a deal through Parliament on one of those three about nail-biting evenings would her deal have stuck or would you have been kicked out anyway and we would be back where we are now? I think there was a risk of that. For those of us you know in all honesty for those of us who wanted you know what we would see as a sort of pragmatic close relationship particularly economically with the European Union one thing that you know was was was widely criticised but was actually quite important here was the backstop the Northern Ireland backstop and that was one of the reasons why the likes of the ERG load the backstop so much because they could live with most things if they thought well you know let's get this agreement through and then if we down the line replace Theresa May with somebody else then when it comes to the you know the future relationship we can negotiate the type of great agreement that we want yeah we can we can just play a waiting game get the withdrawal agreement out of the way we will have left the EU that'll be very hard ever to reverse and then we can sort out our relationship in future but the problem for them of the backstop meant that in fact they couldn't be sure that they would ever be able to do that because he was still left with the Northern Ireland border and unless you have confidence that you would be able to you know make use of alternative arrangements you know whatever it whatever they might be on the Northern Ireland border the ERG feared that they were going to be traps and in all honestly to some extent for those of us who wanted trade with the EU to be frictionless or as close to frictionless as possible the Northern Ireland backstop was a guarantee that that was going to be able to carry on so so in in in that sense had had the may deal got through with the Northern Ireland backstop it was it was it was maybe not watertight but there were reasons to believe it was still going to be there for some time. Thank you I'm going to come to the questions as loads have come in as you would expect just building on the Theresa May issue Adam Faraday asks does David Gault believe that the Theresa May ministry could have played its hand any better than it did or was it inevitable once the UK voted to leave on the basis of vote leave arguments things would turn out as messy as they have. I think there was a point of inevitability it wasn't quite the point where we voted to leave although yeah it was always going to be difficult I think the point where she had lost her majority was the point where I think it was pretty well inevitable that it was going to end up in a very very messy way I mean you know you always hoped that that wasn't going to be the case but I yeah I can remember sort of waking up and whatever that Friday morning was in in June in 2017 thinking I don't really see a way through here and I think that yeah I think that was that was that was the point where it was always impossible I mean the other point where you know I remember being sort of very depressed by it all was was was after the collapse of the checkers idea and David and Boris resigning from the cabinet David Davis and Boris Johnson resigning from the cabinet I think that point as well sort of demonstrated quite how in my view unmanageable the Conservative party was by that point and how unwilling the leadership of of most of the leadership of the of the leave campaign was to kind of face up to what I felt were the hard choices and the real trade-offs that were going to be made with with the honorable exception of Michael Gove I have to say but you know by and large they weren't prepared to face up to that and so I think that you know if you can if you can make something even more inevitable that made it even more inevitable but but yeah so I think you know we're always going to be faced with this the reality of of incompatible claims if you like incompatible objectives from from from the leave camp but once you know once you sort of stripped her of a parliamentary majority you know I think you know with a parliamentary majority of her reputation and the political capital that might have bestowed she might have been able to you know force through a relatively soft Brexit at that point thank you just Estelle Wolff has asked going back earlier from the backstop do you think that there was originally expect and expectation that Ireland would be swept along with the UK and leave the EU with the UK such the Irish border she wouldn't arise or was not now and not considered at all um I mean there might have been some people who you know in their sort of wildest dreams with a thought that that could have happened I didn't I don't think anybody serious in government as far as I was aware ever thought that that the Republic of Ireland would would would just sort of you know join us that there would be an Irish exit from the EU um as well um I think there was just um if you like a dismissal of the issue of uh oh it'll all be fine oh it's just remain as creating difficulties oh there where there's a will there's a way um oh technology will be able to sort all this out I'm sure it'll be fine that was essentially it not engaging in the details just you know where there's a will there's a way this is just a sort of bureaucratic nonsense these problems could always be sorted and that was that was the that was the mindset I honestly don't think there was anybody at serious levels I'm sure I'm sure you can find some conservative back benches who you know after after a drink or two in the smoking room would be as well of course you know it's just join us um I personally never heard that but I wouldn't be surprised if that was said but I you know I I don't think anybody in a position of seniority would ever believe that Patrick Elias asks given your view that no good deal was really ever possible and this was presumably obvious to Theresa May why did she take such a blink of view that she would not push for a second referendum particularly she felt that the true position had never properly been disposed of British public was she taking the politically easy option now I think it was it was sincere I mean it would just explain my own position I mean for a long um you know for a long time my view was um that we should try to find a kind of you know least worst option of some you know a pretty soft Brexit to you and you know I think there are real downsides in not implementing a referendum result um uh and you know in the end I reluctantly came to the view that the choice was become so polarised that it wasn't possible to deliver a soft Brexit that had you know relatively limited economic calm that I believe it was polarised between a very hard Brexit quite possibly an ideal Brexit or staying in and in those circumstances I came to the view that we'd better to have a second referendum um and you know sir and I regret that we we haven't had a second referendum but I think it's completely reasonable to believe that you know one should try to implement that referendum results and you know she she was she sincerely wanted to do that I think she felt it would have undermined trust in democracy um I'm not completely I'm not being naive I'm not discount that you know it was it would have been impossible thing for the Conservative Party as well um to to have another referendum but uh but I think she was sincere I mean there was a there was a point where I had a conversation with her thinking what it must have been around February of um of 2019 uh where I said I think look you know put your deal you know get get your deal through the House of Commons by accepting a referendum on it but you know she she she wasn't she wasn't having it I mean I I would have felt somewhat conflicted because I'm I would um you know I felt duty bound I think to have campaigned to remain if there'd been a second referendum but um and we've had to resign from the from the government but I um but you know I did think that uh yeah there was a point by the time um you know we were sort of losing votes I remember I've got my chronology wrong maybe actually it was um maybe it was February 2019 actually yeah but I think I would have um you know by the time we were losing votes in that way I think things were looking pretty desperate thank you um I've um Matthew Banks um asks would you agree that one of our main problems with Europe is one of identity that the UK has never fully embraced membership we seem to always use language of us and them I've greatly enjoyed your talk he says but even your language is full of us and them them being 27 us being one as a result negotiations always go because we do not truly see ourselves as European I think that's true I mean to be fair you know when I say them and us you know that's where we are now we are 27 and one and we we we have left and you know since 2016 we've uh you know there's been a mandate for us to leave so it has become uh very much a them and us and certainly the negotiations now are of that um uh nature and uh and I don't know in fact on Twitter I'm used to being used to being a sort of you know EU shield so um so that sort of uh uh makes a change but yeah I know I think that's right and the UK never really um uh bought into the European projects in in in the way that that many of the politicians at least have been in the political classes of uh of of the other EU member states have done and to some extent it was a much greater extent than this country that the people of those EU member states as well so um that that is true and I speak as someone who doesn't you know happen to come to this um from a sort of deep ideological sort of romantic view of the European Union you know when I entered Parliament in in in 2005 I saw myself very much as a as a as a Eurosceptic and it was it was more on the kind of pragmatic issues of you know how do you keep trade barriers down um that that calls me to change my position if you like um but no there there's not been that romantic attachment if that's the right word but you know ideological idealistic um attachment to to the project within within the UK and it always struck me that the best argument that the Leavers had which actually was not one really that they particularly made it was is look there's the you know the it's not so much about now but it's the long-term destination of the European Union they're ultimately going to create a much closer relationship than will ever feel comfortable uh within and you know we should get out now in friendly terms but that's where we should go that always struck me as as as a much more sensible argument than we did hear from them but no it's it is right there isn't that strong attachment within the UK and and maybe maybe it was always inevitable that you know something like this was going to happen building on that uh Richard Barfield asks why do you think Brexit became uh or has become a religious war with both sides of politicians talking past each other yeah good question I think um I think partly I mean on the on the you know on the the long list of of of things that we know now that we didn't know then you know I talked about a few of those is is one how divisive a referendum can be um that you know one and I'm sure there'll be people listening to this saying well you should have made that in the first place and maybe that's fair um but the you know the bitterness that came from the referendum campaign um was immense uh I think social media makes it worse um uh I think you you know we have become very triable about this and each side can hear what the other side is saying about them so you know one one side thinks that the other lot think that they're all racists racists and bigots and you know the other side thinks that the other you know the other side thinks that they're all you know aloof metropolitan you know arrogant types and and the longer it went on particularly as there was this great you know impasse that we we went through in in 2019 uh the the the more bitter it became um and to some extent you know people were talking about different things you know some were talking about economics and others were talking about you know culture and and a sort of sense of you know the nation changing much faster and that their views weren't really being understood and respected so it has become an enormously bitter process and I didn't think that that's going to disappear very quickly and you know I don't think it's going to heal very easily um I mean to some extent you know because covid is so dominated 2020 we've talked a lot less about Brexit but whatever where we go in this however we finally resolve it we're going to be talking about Brexit very considerably over the next few months and you know there's a point I mean you know just think how uh you know live an issue the Iraq war continues to be and how it excites you know great feelings that was 17 years ago for the vast vast vast majority of people in this country they weren't directly affected obviously there were families that sadly lost loved ones but you know for the vast majority there was no direct impact and yet it's still very much a live issue and people feel very very strongly about it and I think that's going to carry on with Brexit I'm afraid and and of course Brexit is you know it isn't just an event you know there's a process of the nature of our relationship with the European Union our closest trading part there is going to be a huge issue in British politics forever you know absolutely forever that's not going to go away what do you think would have happened if the 2019 general election hadn't taken place a really good question um I mean you're still you're still left with the Corbyn conundrum say you had people like me who would have been willing to serve in a national government but not in a national government led by Jeremy Corbyn um and you know we would have you know if there'd been a sort of short-term fix of bring you know everyone together and take a bill through for a second referendum and you know do the sort of Theresa May deal versus uh remain um there might be you know we probably weren't very far away from a parliamentary majority for that by the end um but you're still left with this problem there was no parliamentary majority for a government led by Jeremy Corbyn um and then of course I mean you know with what no one could have anticipated is is is Covid came along so you know it's hard to see that we could have had a general election in 2020 um so and and indeed these were being exactly the circumstances where you probably want a um a national government so I mean but but my I said you know the really interesting question is what would have happened had um there not been a general election and had Jeremy Corbyn not being the leader of the Labour Party I suppose that's it there's an easier answer I think you know if if Keir Starmer had been leading the Labour Party this time uh last year I I think I think a national government would have been formed thank you um we're getting close to the end of time but there's some other good questions here so I just want to flag them up Pedro Shilling uh the uh Caballo says thank you for your presentation any take on financial services considering the lack of any substantive agreement during the June deadline reluctance at the EU is shown in considering equivalent decisions showing in considering equivalence decisions um yeah briefly on this one look whether there's a deal or no deal there's nothing very much there for financial services you know there's some equivalence uh for 18 months or so on clearing but nothing much else um so I think from the first of January you know we were going to very much in a sort of post-EU uh no equivalence world uh the difference I think is that if there is a deal then it is possible that things like equivalence for financial services could be built up again um potentially reasonably quickly so so I think you know we could we could see things uh in future recover to some extent but deal or no deal for the time being there's not going to be very much for financial services at all um what kind of state is the UK going to be I imagine the questioner has in mind particularly the internal market bill but perhaps more widely um I think it's really it's going to be a crucial decision this Boris Johnson makes because is he going to um if he decides not to compromise on state aid then I think he is committing the Conservative Party to a particular trajectory and therefore frankly the British state to a particular trajectory uh he will it'll be acrimonious to Parcher he will blame the European Union for every problem that occurs from here on in um he will seek to maintain that leave coalition support that he achieved in 2019 uh he will be very focused on those red hall seats he'll be slashing the cash uh to help in those areas but I think he will also have to have an agenda which is all about the culture wars um and it will be you know very nationalists if you like anti-establishment very unconservative government if he goes down that route if however uh he goes for a deal uh then I think he's on a different trajectory um and although I think there'll still be a bit of that but he'll still want to keep hold of those red hall seats um I think they'll also be a it'll be a more balanced picture um but but yeah there are some strongly anti-establishment voices in number 10 uh and I worry the direction that they take the country in terms of attitude to the civil service to the rule of law uh uh and to some extent to the media and the BBC um and it's a sort of very aggressive potentially populist and nationalist government um Robert Moore says you say correctly my view that the EU is like to become something that would be unacceptable to the UK where do you think the EU is actually heavy? Yeah it's interesting I mean I mean without the UK it is possible that the EU will integrate much more rapidly than they otherwise would have done I think in in truth the euro zone and I'm you know I'm not a big fan of the euro but I think the euro zone requires close integration um so they probably are heading in in that general that general direction um you can argue that the world is is forming you know more adversarial trading blocks that again forces the EU together although um assuming that that that Joe Biden wins the American presidency that might change the dynamic um but a lot of these things are you know when it comes to sort of close integration they are quite hard to do um you know it's not necessarily a done deal that in five years time that the EU will be much much deeper than it currently is um it is it is fraying a bit in the edges in terms of you know how does it deal with the likes of Hungary and to some extent Poland um so I think you know I'm a little cautious about predicting where they're going but but I assume that the you know post UK that the EU will perhaps have a little bit more momentum to to close integration uh one an anonymous attendee asks uh regulatory divergence will we do it and in what areas um I'm not I'm not sure um I think I think I think um it's not clear to me where the areas where we will look to diverge um massively so again coming back to financial services you know one issue there is uh ESG and you know the EU got you know lots of regulations they want to do in that area but I can't see the UK wanting to sort of distinguish itself by by by taking a deregulatory approach to that and indeed what you know the Treasury is saying that they want to be at the forefront of these things um I think one of the problems for Brexiteers has been to identify you know where the great regulatory gains are where are the regulations that we could um that we can make so um I'm sure they will want to demonstrate some divergence in some areas but again we come back to that trade-off you know what that that trade-off you want market access the more you um diverge the harder it's going to be you've also got the issue with Northern Ireland the more you diverge with Great Britain the greater the bite with Northern Ireland last question um which may um pose a challenge for you um is um Matthew Banks asked what are your feelings on the current incumbent of your previous position is it something you consider allowable that position has become increasingly political do you consider based on the orthodox understanding of the role that any individual could do the role with this current government's rhetoric um well one I would say is is is this I mean first of all I think um you know my successor Robert Buckland I think is is is is a really good guy um and you know he really does care about the the the law and the rule of law what I would say and I have said this in the past is that um if the government in which you know if in my time as law chancellor uh the prime minister had insisted on putting forth something like the internal market bill which obviously blatantly um breaches international law uh I would have advised against doing that and if that advice had not been taken um I would have resigned from the government um and obviously Robert has taken a different different approach on that note we have just come to the end of our time can I thank you warmly for your fantastic uh contribution thanks so much for speaking so uh frankly so clearly and actually putting quite a lot of this in the context we're really very grateful to you thank you too for the excellent questions from um our wonderful audience um for those of you who are interested in hearing more Martin Dunn is talking tomorrow on how to negotiate a trade deal something that we may have something to learn from and then on Wednesday Anu Bradford is going to talk about the Brussels effect which ties in very neatly with what David's been saying about the fact that um even once we're outside the um EU of course we'll still be in the EU's orbit and if we want to sell any goods into the EU single market we're going to have to respect uh EU rules um which is something else at no stage I recall did anyone say in the context of the referendum so um thank you to talk about later on but thank you David for your time I'm hugely grateful to you and good luck with your new job thank you very much it was a pleasure lovely to see you and thank you to our audience