 You're very welcome to the launching of this status report on Brexit which follows on from a volume that Paul Gillespie and I edited here four years ago which we called Britain, the United Kingdom and the EU the end game and what we've tried to do with this is to bring you up to date on what has happened since then in on the various headings, I hope you've all got a copy and you can see in the index itself what's covered. The book is edited by Paul Gillespie and by Andrew Gilmore and myself and the various chapters are mostly by members of the UK group in the Institute joined with a number of others two at least of whom are on the platform. Before I introduce the speakers I just want to thank the staff of the Institute and particularly Andrew Gilmore and Sophie. I never get your name right. Where are you Sophie? Is she here? There you are Sophie. Thank you very much for all of the work they did in putting this publication together. There's a lot of work and the staff at the Institute worked to do this and I want to thank them for it. So we have four presentations of about five minutes each and then we'll take a discussion and a question and answer session on the usual rule the Chatham House rule and the first to speak will be John Palmer. John Palmer was for many years the European editor of the Guardian newspaper. He's well known in this Institute and he's a man I think who understands what happens in Brussels and who understands what happens in the British Labour Party as well as any person I've ever met. It's always a pleasure to hear him and John is going to try and say a little something about what has happened in the UK on the whole. John you're very welcome. Thank you Daffy. I never knew you lived such a sheltered life. Great pleasure to be here and thank you for the invitation. As I say make reference in my contribution to this report it was St Paul who said now we see through a glass darkly but at the end of time all will be clear in a letter to the Galatians and I think on that principle the end of time might be as far as the British election is concerned somewhere and the end of time therefore around Friday afternoon at four o'clock if not with the opinion poll at the end of the counting. This is an incredibly tense and incredibly difficult election to call out but it takes place against this background of a Brexit crisis which is really only just beginning. If you think you've been through the Brexit crisis I bring you bad news. It's going to get much much worse much much worse unless there is a change of government. A change of government doesn't mean to one party it might mean to some alliance of parties or coalition of parties I don't know. All I know is whatever I would like the outcome to be nobody is able to call it with any authority whatsoever especially with the latest trends in in the polls. But the fact is that on the assumption that Florence Johnson forms the next government next week sometime we begin a turbulent process that seems to me only likely to lead to the well-known crisis of deal or no deal whatsoever in a mass of relatively few months towards the end of next year. People don't fully understand that the Commission will not even be in a position to begin negotiations till they've secured a new mandate for those talks and this in a new constitutional setting unlike the previous negotiations on the exit terms which were essentially in the hands of the Commission with a broad mandate this is a shared competence negotiation in which member states can play an active part in the specifics of the of those negotiations. Therefore it's very hard to see serious talks much beginning before Easter and very soon after that a very few months after that there would have to be a decision to call for an extension of article 50 yes again rather than end up this time de facto in a no deal outcome. A no deal outcome which it might be very difficult at the eleventh hour of the eleventh minute to secure an escape when there are so many other parties now in the negotiating process not it's not simply with Michel Bernier and the President of the Council much more complex negotiation. The question is what will the British government's stance be at the moment that stance in the hands of the Prime Minister is to go for all the advantages of free trade with the European Union with the minimum or zero undertakings to observe common standards regulation single market customs union etc. In the in the my opinion naive belief that because it would hurt both parties and it would hurt both parties seriously if there were no negotiations that some magic formula will be found. I don't think it will. I would not exclude the possibility that Johnson at the last minute would do another swerve the car back onto the other side of the road and try and soften the deal by giving significant concessions. I wouldn't rule it out I have no evidence that he will do this don't get me wrong but I know him personally and I've been worked with him haven't helped me for some years he's quite capable of doing that kind of U-turn. The last things I want to say concern the future of the UK itself in that scenario. Firstly I think we could expect if there is a Johnson victory the Scottish situation to rise to red hot temperature with a demand for an early referendum on Scottish independence as opposed to if there were to be a minority government it's very clear from what the SNP are saying they would go for a formula of looking favorably at the idea of a referendum after a period of some years after some passage of time. Thirdly there is going to be a massive pressure to form a to forge a new constitutional convention strangely enough this is not only coming from people who have exhausted patients with a no written constitution Prime Minister himself is talking about the idea of a new constitutional convention in order to restrict the judiciary further from the kind of intervention that it made a few months ago on the illegal proroguing of parliament. Thirdly there is now believe it or not a serious opinion poll putting support in Wales for independence independence at 30% roughly speaking which has not been seen I don't know since when and fourthly there is a huge pressure from the big cities in England to push through a re-equilibration and a recasting of the power relationships and the decision-making relationships within England itself as far as Northern Ireland is concerned it could be I don't exclude this I've stopped predicting anything as far as election results are concerned if it's really tight really tight it could be that two or three new members of parliament from the from the north of Ireland who are willing to take their seats swing the balance it carries on those tiny or could carry on those tiny margins so I think in one sentence to conclude it's going to be a very rough ride I think that the European Union will endeavor to find a solution that keeps Britain more or less a consistent with key social environmental trading relations I fear they will not succeed in that endeavor even if the Prime Minister himself were personally minded to do so at the end of the day thank you very much John our next speaker is Paul Gillespie Paul is a member of the UK group in the Institute he's also a director of the Constitutional Futures after Brexit group in the British Irish Studies section in University College Dublin and of course he's a former foreign editor of the Irish Times Paul's going to talk to us about Scotland thank you very much the chapter is entitled between two unions between the European Union and the United Kingdom and Scotland faces a fateful choice in the incoming years which may be indeed accelerated as John was suggesting during this time Sturgeon made an interesting straightforward remark about the election that you said it was Scotland's chance to escape Brexit and put our own future in our own hands and that's putting it very clearly and that linkage is what we've described in several of the studies we've done in the UK group is that the UK is facing in this fateful time a dual sovereignty crisis which has its external aspects vis-a-vis the European Union and its internal aspects vis-a-vis the very future of its own Union until the Scottish the Scottish issue is a real swing issue in the middle of that we quote in the chapter Tom Divine very well-known Scottish historian who makes the remark about the UK's own future that it's fate its fate will be determined by what's happening in England and that when he also refers to another well-known analyst in Scotland Michael Keating said that such unions break up not from the peripheries but from the centres and it's very important therefore to examine including obviously from an Irish point of view the what is happening in this union in our next-door neighbour and on our island and to think prudentially and in an anticipatory way and in terms of preparedness about what might happen and in Scotland the polling evidence shows that after the referendum on the EU in 2016 there's been a slow but steady shift in attitudes towards independence from around the mid 40s towards 50 plus in favour of independence and if you analyse this in terms of age you find that something like 25 percent of people over 65 are in favour of independence but it's a very very different amongst younger age groups where it's predominantly the drift is there when you ask Scottish people what they expect 70 percent of them expect Scottish independence in the near to middling term the and you can play with these figures and analyse them but that's steady drift is there it's it's interesting looking at if you like the psychology of the Scottish and this and the way the SNP has managed this they've played a medium to longer term game it's it may some things may accelerate but they they believe that they're in a position to make this demand for an independence poll and to see it delivered on and of course as John was saying the bargaining will go one of two ways if it goes towards a conservative led government we see an acceleration of the pace and of the of the radicalism of this issue and an awful lot will turn on how hard or soft the Brexit turns out to be the problem of course there the harder the outcome the more the surge towards an independence vote the harder the border potentially between an independent Scotland and England might be so it mirrors and reproduces some of the issues we've had in Ireland in the work we've done in in in UCD in this project of constitutional futures we've produced a brochure on it which is available also online we've talked about two major drivers of change in in in the internal arrangements of the UK the first is that issue of the harder or softer Brexit the whether or not policy in the in the UK converges with the with the EU regulatory system or diverges from it and that's still the major issue driving a policy making as we see it and the second though is the extent of the centralization of power within the UK whether it's and the effect of Brexit on that and there's been a re-centralizing effect very marked one coming through the Brexit crisis and John's reference there to the item in the conservative manifesto saying that you want to look at the judicial review issues and indeed look at in a wider setting would tend to reinforce that the so-called Henry the 8th powers that are being invoked in dealing with trade arrangements and in dealing also with the question of where you locate decisions about about Brexit within the UK system bear that out so if you combine these as we've done in a in a in a mapping exercise in in our project on constitution in futures drawing on the work we've done in this in this institute we come up with a mapping of four potential outcomes constitutionally within the UK and they range from the most radical the two most radical the first of which is break up by way of Scottish independence and by way of major constitutional change potentially in Ireland with the knock-on effect to Wales if it goes that way that's the one perhaps them you could say the most radical outcome there's another radical outcome which would head that off and requires will and capacity to do that and that's some kind of federalization of the UK in which you would inscribe the constitutional shared powers by agreement into a document and in which you you you deal and centrally deal with the all the issues around the governance of England that John again has referred to in between those there is what we call a reformed or reimagined union which is something that would be aimed at particularly perhaps by if there was a labour-led minority government or a differentiated union in which you they would accept that the northern Ireland might go a different way and Scotland might go a different way I haven't time to go into this in great detail but where it's the kind of thing we need to do to think so seriously about the future of the UK so it's better to understand the future of Irish policymaking vis-a-vis the European Union but also Irish policymaking vis-a-vis the future of this state itself and that can range from there's been a lot more talk about this that's something this is something we anticipated in our work in the Institute it's now being mapped at the beginnings of a mapping one can think about something that ranges from a proper re-establishment of the Belfast Agreement institutions and an elaboration of those a filling of those out east-west and north-south through confederate arrangements through the urge towards some kind of unity referendum and and then if you go in that direction you have to think about the very shape of such a changed Ireland now this is these are mappings we need to do and think about I know the politics of this and the urgency of this and the whole the timescale of this is a matter of high politics in this Ireland but what we're trying to do in this work both in this in this Institute and in other work is to try and give some but people an overall mapping of it so as to better handle the turbulent change that's on its way thank you thank you Paul our next speaker is Dan O'Brien Dan O'Brien is the chief economist in this institution and as you all know a very distinguished journalist with a long record of good work that thanks though so given that everyone is going to talk about the only uncertainties I thought I'd talk about a little bit about uncertainty affects economics in general secondly specific issues around Ireland and Brexit economically since the since the referendum and finally then speculate a little bit on the scenarios coming down the line so as an economic forecaster there's almost a golden rule more uncertainty means damage to economies that consumers businesses if there's political uncertainty or uncertainty around policy or tax that tends to dampen economic activity and that that has always been a kind of iron rule of economic forecasting it does seem to have broken down a bit and this gives some reason for optimism that maybe Brexit won't be as disruptive and maybe say that more out of hope than than expectation but we take a whole range of things government formation in Europe has taken longer in recent times as Spain has gone without a government very difficult in the economic data to see that uncertainty from the lack of government in Spain feeding into the Spanish economy governments have become less cohesive in many countries minority governments confidence and supply arrangements ourselves here again doesn't seem to have had a negative effect on the Irish economy that we've had a weaker minority government kind of arrangement populists coming to power the United States the ultimate case and again doesn't seem to have fed into a negative shock for the United States economy having such a certain lead uncertain certainly around its leadership and then of course there's Brexit so let's you know look at what what the implications of Brexit for the Irish economy explicitly since since 2016 it certainly if I had been forecasting in 2016 I would have thought that there would have been a marked negative effect of the Irish economy via two channels first of all just the uncertainty effect would cause businesses to maybe say let's hold off on investing in plant and machinery or putting our money in the factory or for office that really didn't materialize in the aftermath of the referendum the second channel was via the exchange rate so before the referendum and after the referendum was a very sharp weakening and sterling for Irish exporters to the British market that was always going to make their goods more expensive in the British market so you'd anticipate that a loss of competitiveness via the exchange rate would have dampened Irish exports to the UK could I just draw your attention to page 115 here in the report and you don't need to be an economist to see the trend Irish exports of goods and services to the UK over the past 15 years you'll see the trend line there and look at 2016 very difficult to see any sort of reflection point around the referendum around that period of exchange rate depreciation sterling depreciation so seems to be have been very little impact or discernible income impact for Ireland for Irish exporters into the UK market around that period so again maybe reason for hope that if there is a further depreciation of sterling in the times ahead that it may that exporters may be able to whether that and manage that finally to just build on some of the particularly John's John scenarios from an Irish perspective there seems to me to be four scenarios two under a Labour led administration and two under a Conservative led administration let me put these in a border of disruption for the Irish economy so a Labour led administration that puts a new deal to a referendum and the British people reverse the decision there's no Brexit very least disruptive possible outcomes Labour led administration negotiates another deal with the EU probably involving the customs union again that will be a lot less disruptive than the current proposed arrangement the third scenario under a Conservative led government is that as John suggested there's a swerve next year Britain leaves on January 31st but during the transition period over the course of next year there is a swerve and there's a further transition potentially per year or two years and that means that really nothing changes for anyone for at least two to three years from now can potentially longer and then of course there's the possibility that with a much more pro-Brexit Conservative parliamentary party that there is a demand that there is no extension of the transition period which must be decided by the middle of next year and then we face the no-deal scenario I think all of the hope in the world is not going to wish away that there will be very serious implications if we get to the end of next year there is another there is no deal thank you then our final speaker is Dr Katie Hayward from Queen's University in Belfast and she's working full-time with the group called the UK in a changing Europe on the implications of Brexit on Northern Ireland and on the Irish border. Thank you very much Dahi. Hello everybody. So I'm going to talk specifically about Northern Ireland and where things stand for Northern Ireland in light of all this uncertainty and so there are three things to bear in mind when it comes to what Northern Ireland needs to sustain peace and the first is stability the second is a normalization if you like of politics and political decision-making and then the third is economic development now if we look back over the past 21 years we see that economic development isn't great normalization is yet to happen but we have had stability and unfortunately of course that's been underpinned by a close British Irish relationship and unfortunately Brexit puts that under pressure somewhat and I mentioned this in the in the chapter so in light of all of this where does this leave us what are the prospects well one way of thinking about what the phase we're coming into is really a time between times so that's why the phase transition period is a good one because we know actually uncertainty continues in many regards and one thing we've learned over the past couple of years is that uncertainty isn't just a condition it's a force in and of itself so I'm just completing a third report for the Irish Central Border Area Network looking at the impact of Brexit in the central border region and one thing that's come out from this research is the fact that uncertainty has an impact and it's meaning that Brexit has already had a very direct and tangible effect particularly in the border region so we know uncertainty isn't just a vague environment it's actually a force and that's worth bearing in mind and so Northern Ireland faces uncertainty from all quarters and it also faces uncertainty even in the very nature of the protocol itself so just to take it at the biggest and the biggest front we see from Northern Ireland the uncertainty comes from the fact that the UK is making huge decisions right now and it has to decide which gravitational pull it's going to lean towards is it going to lean towards the US which means of course a hard Brexit and we know that that's very much top of the priority reportedly so for the Conservative government and maybe the next one too or the gravitational pull towards the EU which of course would make things a lot easier for the British Irish relationship and for Northern Ireland going forward also of course the UK itself has already been very clearly described UK itself faces uncertainty and the position of Northern Ireland in the UK does feel to be somewhat insecure in light of what's happening and the pressure that's being placed on the Union as a part of the result of Brexit and again I discuss this in the chapter a wee bit and what we see if we have some uncertainty in the Union itself this leads to increased polarization within Northern Ireland so a destabilizing factor is exacerbated by the sense that the Union of the UK is under pressure and that's worth bearing in mind then to turn to the protocol so it is a remarkable achievement in many ways partly because to get the protocol the EU breached two of its red red lines the first is the red line about not discussing the future relationship for the UK was out the protocol is about the future and it's there in black and white the second red line that was breached was about not to compromise the integrity of the single market and customs Union and although the EU disagrees with me I think actually there is a risk to the integrity of a single market and customs Union I would be very wise to bear that in mind when it comes to thinking about how the EU will be alert to what happens at the edges of Northern Ireland in the future into the future and the protocol brings certainty in many ways it really does help to avoid a hard-bodied with hard Irish landlord to a certain extent but in another way uncertainty is written into the protocol firstly we don't know what goods are going to be designated as being at risk and therefore which will be subject to controls moving from east to west and so that uncertain and unknown and also uncertainty is written to the protocol in the form of the consent mechanism so the fact that Northern Ireland MLA's whether they're sitting in Stormont or not we'll get to vote on whether Northern Ireland will align to continue to be aligned to the rules of the EU to avoid the hard border or whether Northern Ireland will revert to relying back with GB whatever GB is doing at that particular time so there is a prospect I know we wouldn't have this protocol if it was seen as a very likely one but it is there is a prospect or a possibility that we could be dealing with the question of a hard Irish landlord at some point down the line 8 16 20 however many years so that means uncertainty is there in protocol so looking ahead how do we deal with all of this with this huge sense of instability and uncertainty as a force affecting politics and society and economics in Northern Ireland right now I'm going to suggest three things and they're very they're not they're not radical but if you get them right it will go a long way to helping things the first is sensitivity to Unionism and Unionist concerns so one thing that has been reminded of doing this writing up this report for the central border region is that of course and it's obvious borders are about lines of distinction and borders are about distinction that has practical legal effect and it's also about distinction that has highly symbolic effect as well this is also true of the Irish sea border so if the Irish sea border is seen to be more important as it will be with the protocol in place that has practical effect the extent of which is almost you know it's almost a side point the symbolic effect of that can be is highly significant too and we need to be sensitive to that and it needs to be handled very carefully and a second suggestion recommendation is in relation to representation so there are mechanisms for representation for representing Northern Ireland's views vis-a-vis the implementation of the withdrawal agreement through the drug consultative working group through the Specialised Committee there are many concerns that Northern Ireland has and they can be articulated and represented to Brussels through an imaginative use of these mechanisms they have to be spelled out and we have to have an ask but I think there's a possibility there of not just having same old same old we can have stakeholder representation civic representation in these groups that could have in these forums that could have meaningful effect if they're properly used and then finally information so one thing that is very obvious is that people are not don't feel informed they feel anxious about this this withdrawal agreement and about Brexit more generally of course information can be sometimes alarming but it's empowering too and I think there's a very there's a you know a very pressing need for information to be disseminated and clearly articulated and with that I want to commend the Institute for Publication of this report and they keep up the good work thank you