 Ladies and gentlemen, it's now my very great pleasure to introduce Peter Sutherland. I've been very lucky in that I've known and worked with Peter Sutherland for a very long time. I first knew him when he was a very young attorney general. He afterwards went on to become our commissioner in Europe. And I think something that's not said often enough and it's never said in Britain about the influence of individual Britons, individual English people in particular in Brussels that an individual from a particular country or from any country can actually make a huge influence in Brussels. When Peter Sutherland was our commissioner, he was responsible for the changes in legislation which allowed competition on European air routes and which led, for example, to Irish success stories like Ryanair. He was also responsible for what has become the Erasmus program, which has enabled youngsters and universities all over Europe to spend a year or whatever in another university. And I think we in this country and people actually all over Europe, oh Peter Sutherland, a great deal of thanks for those achievements. Since then he went on to do other things as we know. He went to the GATT, he negotiated the origins of the World Trade Organization, the WTO, which unfortunately has not done much work since he left. He went to work with Goldman Sachs, Allied Archbanks, and now he's the UN Secretary-General, Special Representative for Migration. So it is a great, great pleasure for me to introduce Peter Sutherland. Thanks, Sutherland. Well, first of all, let me say that it's a pleasure to be here. I say that genuinely and I've said the same thing before about IIEA. I think it fills a vital niche in Irish life. It allows for real debate on real issues of great importance and obviously the subject of today's discussion is a classic of its kind. But the contributions that have been made since the foundation, I'm glad to see Brendan here, have been considerable and it's a pleasure therefore for me to be here with you. I'm going to reflect for a couple of minutes a little more broadly than on the direct impact of Brexit, were it to occur. Because I want to preface my remarks by a couple of comments about Britain's attitude to Europe and the distinction that can be drawn between that and our own because that distinction may well play a part in many subsequent negotiations after Article 50 is invoked if the Brexit referendum actually takes place. I do so with great sympathy for the United Kingdom for which I have considerable respect and where Irishmen have been treated well. I was chairman for a time 13 years of BP. When I was asked, I was a bit taken aback not merely by the fact that they hadn't obviously recognized the incompetence that they were endowing themselves with but by the fact that an Irishman was at the time their biggest company becoming its chairman. I never heard a reflection in all the time that I was there on my provenance which I've always proclaimed with some pride. I admire Britain in many respects. We've had our vicissitudes in the past but it has been a haven of democracy. It has stood for the rule of law. It has been a vital part of the continent of which we are all members and I deeply hope for both utilitarian reasons and for matters of principle that Britain remains part of the European Union but that does not blind me to the fact that Britain has a very very different attitude to European integration to the one that I dearly hold myself and which is shared by I think most of my countrymen. I remember once reading Lord Canning saying in 1827 when he was Prime Minister of Britain and the collapse of the concert of Europe as it was called was taking place which was an attempt to create a structure between European countries to avoid wars and create harmony and rules and so on that came out of the Congress of Vienna and he said and it always stuck in my mind the quotation let's celebrate he said the collapse of the Congress of Vienna he said from now on every nation for itself and God for us all now he should have said and God help us all because what was to come was of course a century of the most dreadful pain and suffering but it was a reversal to a world of balance of power and balance of power has always been understandably part of British foreign policy that you should never have any one European state and there's a logic to this with great power because it inevitably leads to conflict so Britain's foreign policy for centuries has been balancing power in Europe and that attitude and an attitude to national sovereignty in Britain is entirely understandable in the context of a country which for a thousand years has not been invaded which sees understandably with the terrible acts that have been perpetrated on the continent most recently by Hitler and Stalin a threat on the other part of Europe for which they do not wish to be they don't wish to be implicated in it and they wish to remain a part this is part of the psyche maybe it goes back some of it to the reformation but whatever the causes there is a different attitude which has been reflected in Europe around her poems since Europe around her poems started to European integration in Britain we on the other hand have a totally different approach and partially because of our relationship with Britain as Tom Kendall, that great Irish patriot who died in Flanders put it to be truly Irish we will have to be European first and in a way and I don't say this in a disparaging sense it was to escape the economic straitjacket that a relationship which was entirely virtually based on economic relations with Britain have created for us and the difficulties that this included even under Anglo-Irish trade agreements for our agriculture as well as everything else that from the date of our inception as a state to the date of our accession to the European Union we were tied with an umbilical cord that was not always comfortable to the United Kingdom so Europe had been part of Europe particularly as a small country sharing in sovereignty with big countries having our Prime Minister having the opportunity to and meet almost on a weekly basis with the Chancellor of Germany or whatever was not merely a heavy experience but it changed attitudes so attitudes here are different and they're reflected in policies and I hope our policy of favouring ongoing European integration remains part of what we believe in and if that means a location saying uncomfortable things to our great friends in the United Kingdom or taking positions which are not the same as theirs then we must do it we must now reside from a commitment which is vital to the future of our country which is Europe a Europe that's going through turbulence which is so extreme caused by the financial crisis the so-called austerity the Greek problem the immigration problem the rise of racist and xenophobic parties all over Europe the increase of nationalism of a varying kind in parties all over Europe the great English European how it was said that Europe was at the European Union an integration process was a mechanism for taming sovereignty a taming nationalism and I agree with that that's exactly what it is and anyone who is unfortunate enough to have to read some of the tabloids in Britain occasionally let alone regularly see the outburst of this variance in much of this Brexit debate not just in Britain but in other places so it's worth it the other quote I want to give to you allegedly was made by a senior representative the most senior representative of Britain in the senior when the treaty was being created but that has been questioned somebody else said that it was actually invalidated chess in Brussels that this was the place that he said it but it's still relevant he said, Monsieur, I have followed your work with interest and sympathetically I have to tell you that the future treaty which you are discussing A, has no chance of being agreed B, if it were to be agreed it would have no chance of being ratified C, if it were to be ratified you would have no chance of being applied and please note that if it were applied it would be totally unacceptable to Britain you speak of agriculture which we don't like of power over customs to which we take exception of institutions which horrify us Monsieur le Président, Monsieur Orvoire a bon sens and he stood up and walked out and maybe it's an example of the debate which we are now having and the second question is this like everybody else with any degree of remote humility I have to admit I haven't been clear what way the referendum is going to work out the opinion mode suggested would be very close the bookies seem to think still it seems to have gone bump back up today to 70-30 or something that it would be fine but if you think to the average taxi driver you are certain that they are already half out so I have no idea what the result would be the most one can say is that we are living in a time of terrible risk and I'm therefore just going to concentrate on something which is already probably being fully covered here and anyone who is bored stiff with the subject which you would be very wise to be please feel free to leave halfway through my speech but I'm going to talk about all I think will happen after the decision is taken on Brexit on balance today and I'm manic depressiveness on balance today I think but actually would probably stay because when you get somebody for whom I have so little regard as Farage making a statement that we will continue the fight after we lose you begin to think maybe he really is beginning to lose and when you get some other politicians with names which certainly reflect reputations which have not been helped by their absurd utterances such as those of Boris Johnson and his ridiculous connection between European integration and the actions of Hitler however he may have couched it you begin to wonder how anyone is likely to be led by such meanderings of course he's not alone in that but the meanderings are virtually all in my opinion on one side rather than the other when the decision to withdraw is taken and I'm going back to my attorney general time which is so long ago that it may be an imperfect legal construction it seems to me inevitable that Britain is going to be faced with and Ireland with the consequences of a very prolonged period of negotiation I was involved as director as he said as director general of Gatton then the first director general of the WTO in the most complicated trade negotiation ever so I think I can claim that I know a little bit about trade negotiation and what is going to happen after the decision is notified which Cameron has already said he will do immediately incidentally there is no legal requirement to notify the day after a referendum that a decision has been taken to leave it could be that the sanction of parliaments delays could delay that but he has said and it seems to me to be politically wise that if the people speak you respond by doing what the people have asked so once the notification of departure is given we move into a situation of uncertainty an uncertainty which is profound as to what will happen next the council of 27 remaining members of the European Union will then have to by consensus which can be interpreted as unanimity agree the guidelines for the commission in a negotiation which will follow with the United Kingdom as to how the relationship will take place following withdrawal Article 50 as no doubt has already been said today has a finite two-year period during which negotiations take place it can be extended but only again with unanimity this puts the United Kingdom in negotiating terms in an extreme situation of vulnerability if for an example of negotiations which will be highly complicated about how the relationship might exist after Brexit take anything like the sort of period that past experiences might dictate would be likely I think you were talking about periods significantly in excess of five years but nobody can tell that if one side capitulated up to the desires of the other obviously it could be very much more rapid but one can only look at the difficulties of the negotiation and the different subjects which I'll shortly touch on to come to the conclusion the likelihood is that it will be a very prolonged period and I may indeed be very optimistic in suggesting the number of years that I did it could be significantly more than that the minute that decision to withdraw is taken and the minute the negotiations therefore begin the entire economic prospect of the United Kingdom in the short term and inward investment in Europe will change this is the fifth biggest economy in the world it is in a situation where it has been advised by the IMF the OECD the governor of the Bank of England the president of the United States and every objective observer and every head of government that has spoken in the subject that this would be a disastrous decision on the other side you have Boris Johnson Lord Lamont Lord Lawson and a number of others I don't know which way I would vote but the bottom line is that the conclusions of those who have carefully researched this is that the immediate effect of the uncertainty before we even get to the probable outcome of negotiations will be devastated it will also have very serious effects on its closest trading partners the most important of all and not just on one side is Ireland because obviously there will be concern about the access to the British market that will be available at the end of the negotiations I think myself that we can be sure of one thing a drawbridge is not going to be pulled up to stop trade between European countries and the United Kingdom overnight but the conditions under which the trade will be conducted in the future may well as a result of the negotiations and the uncertainty about those conditions are important it also may well be the case that in the financial services sector the conclusion will be reached may already have been reached that financial services and the operation of the single passport is unlikely to be part of any final solution and that therefore the conclusion might be that the location of financial sector participants whether it be in banking, investment banking insurance or fund management will be deeply concerned with the prospect of a prolonged negotiation with very serious potential for the non-inclusion in any related internal market condition that may exist after the negotiations between the United Kingdom and Britain in the meantime the United Kingdom which like ourselves would have virtually abolished its internal trade negotiation capacity because all trade negotiations have been conducted on their behalf by the European Union since joining the European Union will be scurrying to try to create in an independent sense a negotiated trade agreement with the 60 plus free trade agreement partners that the European Union has and which Britain will lose as soon as it leaves the European Union this is an absolutely formidable challenge a formidable challenge for which one must even allowing for the great repute and justified reputation of the British Civil Service be very concerned about the capacity to link into and to deal with the challenge that it presents now the result of all of this is that according to I think the best paper on this matter which has been written by Pyrrhus the former head of the Council of Legal Service there are seven different alternatives for Britain in the negotiations which will take place some of them are of less importance in my view than others but the main ones I think probably are the Norwegian model the Norwegian model which is the EEA will require the United Kingdom to accept and apply all of the regulation of the European Union including its competition policy and all of the a key communitaire in regard to goods it will require Britain to accept the principle of free movement of people and it will require Britain to contribute to the budget of the European Union more or less in some equivalent to what it contributes today well when that deal is brought back to Westminster if that were to be the route that is taken one might imagine that some of the political reaction might be what's this all about we've done now and agreed to now everything that we were complaining about and telling people to vote against in the Brexit referendum what will Parliament do on the other hand you could say that today the British Parliament if you were to take the Labour Party at face value and I remember Ed Miliband giving me a statistic which was overwhelming and it was over 90% of his members he told me were firmly in favour of staying in if you were to take all of them at the half of the Parliamentary Conservative Party who would want to stay in almost at any cost there's an overwhelming majority who don't want Brexit in a Parliament which will have to ratify whatever deal is done one can foresee chaos in this situation and severe political trauma in the United Kingdom the second alternative that is generally referred to as being viable is the Swiss alternative the idea of rejoining what Britain after all created after and here again the relationship with Switzerland is in a very bad place at the moment between the EU and Switzerland because the Swiss were obliged to allow free movement of people and recently had a referendum that restricted that free movement the European Union is now talking about their reaction to this and how this is incompatible with the relationship that exists between Switzerland and the European Union and their access to the internal market again Switzerland makes a substantial contribution to the budget of the European Union again Switzerland for access to the internal market is obliged to apply the regulatory framework that is applicable to the members of the European Union again this model which is produced regularly or was until its failings became increasingly evident even in an appallingly unsophisticated debate conducted in the British media it's clear that this will result in a position which is a contradiction of the very decision that the majority of the British people have taken in a referendum if they decide in favour of Brexit so also it will not include financial services the Brexit types make the case that Britain receives more exports than to the European Union than go the other way and therefore Germany has an overwhelming interest for example in maintaining an open free market and undoubtedly Germany does want and we all want an opening free market but the other side of that debate is not referred to in these commons and the other side of the debate is that Britain exports substantially greater services particular financial services than it takes from others its economy is significantly based on financial services and services more generally these will be excluded on the models that we're talking about as they will be excluded if a third route which some say is simply rely on WTO routes rely on the WTO well reliance on the WTO is fine in terms of aspects of tariff policy and some but not all aspects of non-tariff policy but it does not work to cover services and in my opinion services are going to be a key in this negotiation what effect this is going to have on commerce, on investment well it can have both negative effects and positive effects amongst the positive effects from a knowledge point of view is that the financial services sector is going to be under such challenge if Britain leaves Europe that it is certainly going to see how it can accommodate its position in a member state that is part of the union rather than being outside it I'm not saying that Ireland would be first in the list of choices but there are very different and numerous aspects of the financial services sector and there is no doubt that the fear that financial services will lose out which on most scenarios it most definitely will must have a serious impact so we have a series of different approaches some say we can join a customs union like Turkey or we can have a free trade agreement like the one that has just been conducted with Canada by the European Union incidentally an agreement which excludes services as indeed is the case with the Turkish situation there is no doubt therefore in my mind that the high probability and nobody can say anything with certainty on this in regard to a negotiation with that precedent is that it will be impossible to simply ditch the requirements of free movement of people application of the regulatory laws of the European Union of which you are not a member and therefore cannot influence or make financial contributions all of them are very likely to be required in the context of whatever new relationship may develop subsequent to Brexit I say that recognizing that there will be a great deal of support including from this country to finding a way for Britain to maintain its economic relations with us and with other parts of Europe but to do so at the price of destroying the essence of membership to take a step which would create not merely a Europe ala carte but a Europe which is implicitly disintegrating before your eyes where you can be a member of the European single market without being a member of the European Union is in my view inconceivable I don't believe that it can happen in fact the fear of the precedent factor that may result from a company a country leaving the European Union at a time of such turbulence the internal management of the European Union may well influence a situation which the Minister for Finance in France last week made clear negotiations are not going to be easy we're not just simply going to wave goodbye to a member of the European Union on the basis that there is no price to being out of the Union but enjoying all of the benefits of being part of its single market so we're faced in Ireland and really I think I'm not one of those who believes that in the end of the day although it is possible that the negotiations would be so terrible they'd end up with a physical border again being erected between the Republic and Northern Ireland I don't believe that that will happen but on one of and indeed he refers to it in his paper on one of Pyrrhus' hypotheses that could be a result I don't think it will happen I think that a way will be found but I do think that what is happening here is something which is deeply damaging to Ireland north and south I'm amazed that one political party in Northern Ireland is so imbued with a sense of exceptionalism that it is in favour apparently of Brexit it'll be devastating to all sectors of the community both in Northern Ireland in Northern Ireland in particular whilst there may be advantages in terms of foreign direct investment here I certainly don't balance them in any way against the huge uncertainties and damage that those uncertainties will bring if we have this very prolonged period of negotiation with Britain so the outlook at the moment is deeply worrying as I've said no matter what the vicissitudes of our history with Britain we've a huge interest in Britain remaining in the European Union and not just because they're our biggest trading partner they also have a similar attitude to globalization and opening of trade opportunities which are essential to our inward investment flow they were the most supportive of all the states that I remember during the period when I was in the WTO when we were trying to create it the United Kingdom John Major at the time was immensely supportive and governments of left and right have always taken that position in favour of trade in Britain so we have that common interest they have been responsible for not being part of Schengen something I regret I wish we were in Schengen I don't agree with our opting out of anything but I can understand that the common travel area with Britain is an important part of the life of our country in a way which made that decision an extremely difficult one how it could have been accommodated I'm not going to go into now so where do we lie we lie in a situation where the evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of Britain taking the decision to remain in the European Union the case has not been explored in a manner which I would have expected and articulated in a way which is clear in the United Kingdom and admittedly while I've been talking about the intricacies of trade policy is a particularly opaque subject but as every independent commentator has come to the same conclusion about it how could one come to a different one with a wave of an imperious want saying that there'd be no problem we'll get everything we want as soon as we decide to leave it's just utterly unreal the UK accounted for 2.7% of the world's export of goods last year let's not exaggerate the clout that that gives the United Kingdom in its negotiation either with the European Union or the 60 other countries whose special relations it will lose as a result of the European Union bilateral agreements being withdrawn from its purview it has 6.8% of the world's services in 2014 that compares to 26% for the European Union as a whole in terms of services and 14.9% in terms of goods the negotiating position of Europe whether it be in transatlantic trade agreements or in any other trade agreements is infinitely stronger than that which Britain alone will hold when it now has to recreate its negotiating position with the rest of the world it's clear that half well first of all three quarters on the last survey I've seen of foreign direct investors into Britain went into Britain on the basis of the access which it gave to them to the European Union three quarters half of the total value of UK equity markets are owned by non-UK entities these are investing in a country based on that country's involvement in the European Union no wonder that Sterling dives even when Boris announced that he was going to be running on the Brexit side if that can shake Sterling imagine what might shake such Sterling in the event of a decision being taken imagine the disruption that this will have in terms of competitive advantage when in fact you end up in a situation which will obviously immediately impact us in terms of the sale of goods and services so I've nothing to say that is remotely constructive about the possibility of Brexit I'm absolutely convinced that Ireland's interest if Brexit were to occur I can't even believe that anyone could believe that it would be in our interest to leave the European Union quite the reverse we should bind ourselves even more strongly to it and the thought of recreating past relationships and recreating any form of dependency on any one economy would be absolutely wrong to us for us I'm not saying however in terms of the old Irish refrain thank God we're surrounded by water nobody's surrounded by water anymore we need Britain in I remember years ago being amazed in a Sunday independent poll which said when asked the question who are your favourite people we said not the British we said the English not the Americans not anybody else and I think the average Englishman and the average Irishman get along very well and I hope that we continue to do so in the fellowship of what I believe to be a noble undertaking namely the integration of people whilst maintaining our own individual identities within the European Union which has brought us to a stage where our dependence is not exclusive as it was for so long thank you very much indeed thank you very much indeed Peter I think Peter is willing to take a few questions if there are any Ronan, Tynan good to see you again Peter first I must begin by congratulating you on the sterling work you're doing as the UN Special Representative of Migration I mean it is one of the big moral issues of our time and you certainly have done the nation and the European Union and Europe's on the service in that role so thank you very much just in relation to this I'm based in London myself and thankfully I will have a vote in the upcoming referendum but the one thing that does perturb me having attended quite a few debates most recently in the London School of Economics as well is that you never get a full-blooded positive from an economics point of view because obviously politically it's not on in Britain about the benefits of the European Union 78% UK economy 73% in the European Union only a quarter of intra-EU trade is based on services so potentially it's suggested Britain if Cameron got the single market he did get his agreement that there would be an attempt to achieve the single market services which is on the way the UK would gain 7% you made the point about the surface in the city 19 billion exports on the import I mean it's a stunning economic success and how Brexiteers get away this constantly putting down the British economy suggesting Britain is almost this poor almost irrelevant state instead of the powerhouse and dominant power that it is and I'm just going to finish on this thing because you're an expert on non-tariff barriers and it's something I'm constantly trying to bring home to people because it came home very forcefully during John Major's premiership when the European Union issued a directive on the decibel levels of lawnmowers and this produced an explosion of criticism in Britain ministers were door-stepped and they even began demanding an inquiry until it was discovered that Whitehall Mandrans had not only agreed to it but had actually written that actual directive because the Germans had introduced had virtually silenced their lawnmowers and this posed a lethal threat to the British lawnmower making industry but almost silently with no fanfare no publicity until it became discovered that they had completely reversed it by getting an agreement to the decibel level which protected British lawnmower makers I'm sorry for going on a bit about that now but once again we see the powerhouse grits achieving amazing success they never get credit for and it's just amazingly almost a secret positive story that never gets told, thank you all I can say is that it never will be told the reality is that people switch off when you get into the key economic issues this is an emotional issue fed by decades of misreporting stories without foundation about straight bananas which I think emanated from one of the people that I've been referring to fairly constantly now talking about having to sell bananas in groups of three or something of something that Heseltine attacked them on the television for you can't win in this if you have as you have with a significant group of the tabloid media and two at least of the broadsheet media in Britain a visceral presentation of every issue in emotional nationalist terms rather than logical terms there's no way that the debate will be conducted in a manner which is other than a straightforward emotional reaction the result is that the vote that is anticipated people are very worried that young people won't vote because young people would vote to stay in that old people will vote and old people will want to go because they are sold on a past one famous British commentator who's unfortunately dead because he'd have helped in this argument Hugo Young made the famous comment that the problem with the UK was reconciling a past that it cannot forget with the future that it cannot avoid and I think that's spot on but we all have a touch about this but unfortunately in the presentation of this in Britain there's been too much of that and too little of the obvious logic but the obvious logic is unfortunately around complicated things like those which I was trying to talk about and you're never going to be able to sell that politically people aren't interested they're interested in flags the noise of lawn mowers et cetera all if it goes to prove their visceral dislike of government in Brussels which of course itself is a ridiculous simplicity yep I've got one over here first if I may and then I'll go to can Espy always gets preference I was very interested in your introductory remarks about the relationship between Britain and Ireland in the European setting and you invoke what I would call the power question the relationship of dependence which you've finished on as well in my view that's a power question and the balance of power if you like in Britain and Ireland shifted with Europeanization there's no advantage putting it in that much more multilateral setting what seems to be in the event of a Brexit there is the danger from the Irish point of view of re-establishing that relationship of power rather than of interdependence and negotiated interdependence with Britain there would be many of the pressures of scale many of the pressures of economics and politics including the pressures running through and unionism to draw us back towards that orbit one temptation would be to be very soft in the negotiation of the Brexit transition particularly in the short term as against the longer as against the longer term need to put if necessary in a very hard-nosed way Britain through the political trauma you described that would arise from the contradictory outcomes of the decision and the Irish policy dilemma would be whether to hold out for that five-year transition going through that trauma let them go through the trauma they need to go through in Yugo Young's terms if you like which could include risking the breakup of their own political system that also has huge impacts on us so we are I don't want to, the question is what would your comment be about Irish policy hard-nosed as against soft-nosed going through this transition if the objective is towards a somewhat deeper European union to hold itself together to hold the euro together but also bearing in mind that in order to do that it may be necessary to have regard to those who have lost out to globalization around the system including in Britain the people who have been left behind by these recent economic changes so that a deeper union would have to be in my view to gain legitimacy a more social union well, the sting in the tail of your question would open up a major debate the earlier part of your question was really precisely the point that I was raising at the beginning and end of what I was saying I won't go down, not because I wouldn't like to, I won't go down I don't know about social policy and how we should develop that because it's too big to try to handle I believe so passionately both individually and as an Irishman in the vital importance of European integration that there can be no compromise on the support of any position that the United Kingdom might take in negotiations which fundamentally undermines that therefore in the negotiations on free movement before the renegotiation concluded I certainly said and publicly that we couldn't compromise on that and therefore I think our position we have a natural sympathy which I think is good and understandable for Britain I think this is a question of classic diplomacy we have to stand absolutely firm and not be afraid to say it on basic principles of the European Union and in regard to the Brexit negotiation to be prepared to stand on that even if it is inconvenient for our friends at the same time where that is not the case we should try of course to be helpful but as I tried to say Europe is the fundamental issue for Irish foreign policy and the support of Europe is key if this Brexit negotiation is to in any way undermine that then our position has to be which is independent and sometimes inconvenient to our relationship with the UK but I hope that doesn't happen this will have to be the last one Mr Southerland my name is Bob Hannah first of all I'd like to thank you for your wide-ranging and reasoned analysis I promise you a short question my question relates to your former time as a general if Britain leaves the European Union are there specific implications for Ireland that the only other common law jurisdiction will have left Europe thank you I don't believe so I believe that we have been and the United Kingdom has been in some areas of the Justice and Home Affairs portfolio unduly defensive about the common law system and the implied suggestion that it is superior to the civil law processes I just don't believe that I'm not an expert on civil law procedures and so on I'm not sure that a sort of defensive Western Bullock defending the common law system in some places it should be defended in others perhaps not but I don't see that it should worry us but maybe I'm missing a specific subject which you know more about than I do but my own view is I wouldn't worry about that at all I think that there is a sort of a sense you certainly get it in London that the legal system here is so much superior to everyone else that I'm not so sure that we can say the same about either there or here thank you very much I want to thank first of all all of you for coming earlier today and staying which is very important and I think that we were very well rewarded for having stayed today for the contribution from Peter Sutherland and I want to thank him very warmly for agreeing to speak here today and for managing his personal arrangement so that he could be here he is a member of the Commitade of the Institute we are very privileged to have him as such I'm very proud to work with him just say to say to him as somebody who has fought I think something like 30 in referendum campaigns and created three civil society organizations that I just wish there were somebody like him in Britain who was championing the yes side there isn't such a person and I think this is its great weakness because it requires somebody with something in here very strongly beating I think the passion with which you spoke Peter came across so honestly so transparently and with such great force that it could not but move your audience I just wish there was somebody like that in the UK at the moment unfortunately there isn't I just want to say one other thing about your comments which about the squaring of the circle is perfectly clear that there isn't any answer to Britain's demands on the one hand the requirements of the treaties on the other member states there isn't but you are right in saying that there's a mentality in the United Kingdom at the moment which on the Brexit side believes that there is and it reminds me of that wonderful phrase that entered the English language that was actually in a penny dreadful whereas you know at that time they had these serials which appeared every week written by different authors who tried to make the matter almost impossible to solve for the guy writing the next series and as you remember the famous one was the guy being tied to the railway track shackled and weighed down with chains and the train was about 10 feet away from him at full speed and he said let's see what happens to that next week and as you remember the opening line was with one bound Jack was free well that mentality is working now with one bound Jack except that he won't I would hope Peter that you will continue your work in the United Kingdom to energize, motivate and may I say inspire the side that is campaigning to keep Britain in the European Union for all of the reasons that you advanced were very grateful to you and I hope that the applause that you have received from the audience is the sort of recognition that you deserve so thank you