 Okay, we're back on a Wednesday with Carlos Suarez, he is not in Mexico City, in fact he is not in London, he was in London and now he is in his old haunt in Austria, in Innsbruck, Austria with hundreds of friends he has there from ten years of visiting. Hi Carlos. Hello, so good to see you, Jamie and Aloha, I can almost say welcome from tomorrow and it's almost midnight here in Austria of course, but it's a pleasure to connect with you. I did just arrive today from spending the last few days in London, but look forward to the conversation again, never a dull moment in what's happening in the world and today we're going to talk a little more about the continuing saga of Brexit and maybe what's unfolding and maybe where things will go in the future because it seems to be a train in motion but with so uncertainty and well just a lot of turmoil. Yeah, so you were there, I mean I really, you're in good position to tell us what's happening and what people think in London, can you give us a handle on how it was, how it is? You know, I mean of course you have to understand the context because this referendum now almost three years ago in June 2015 was also very divisive in the sense that you had a generational divide, younger populations generally wanted to remain and did not support the referendum to exit the Brexit, it tended to be more popular with older, but also rural and urban divide, the urban areas tended to support remain, they wanted to stay, you know, favored staying in, and so a city like London, its majority remained, they were very much not in favor of Brexit, Brexit is now seeming to move forward as an inevitable and acceptable process but still divisive, still unclear, but again just to underscore in London, I mean again you're not going to have the massive wave for exiting, but there nevertheless you still have strong, grow Brexit of political leaders, the parliament that brings together all of the country of course has been hashing this out for now the last two years and has not yet been able to reach withdrawal agreement and just to make it clear today, I mean the latest development today is that you have the EU leaders gathering in Brussels at Theresa May, the Prime Minister there once again presenting her case, she has not gotten a fool for yet, but basically asking for one more extension, the original date was as you recall 29 March, well that's gone, here we are in April and right now the latest is that they are scheduled to leave this Friday 12 April, but more likely we're, you know, we speak now they are finishing dinner without May, they're discussing at the EU leaders and they're likely to consider a longer term extension that can be anywhere from about nine to 12 months we're told now and so it may be that the EU leaders will simply request a longer extension, the Prime Minister, Theresa May, is actually requesting 30 June, she wants it a few more months but they're saying look why don't we just make it longer and you figure it out and as soon as you do get an agreement that you can pass, you can actually leave a little sooner there, there's a lot of wheeling and dealing going on, but it remains to be seen, you know, the EU leaders themselves, all 27 of the other member states must agree to this and then you have Theresa May who has already tried to offer her own head and resigned and she can't seem to leave yet or he could get agreement for her to leave, but by most measures she is the lame dust, she's going to agree to stay on until whatever agreement they can have and basically at that point once they deliver an agreement he would then be replaced by some subsequent, you know, transition so a lot of uncertainty remains but you know we still see most indications are that there's going to be an exit, whether it's going to be the soft one or the harder line one, again anyone's guess at this point it's still up in the air. Well one thing that I noted this morning in the Washington Post was an article about how Macron and France, he came up with the notion and I think this is going to be popular among the commissioners of the EU, that Britain, as a condition of any extension, loses its seat as a commissioner on that commission. I guess that's leverage, it's also an appropriate sanction for all this delay, I mean they've been very patient I would say and they're running out of patience so what effect would that have going forward if Britain is no longer UK is no longer on the commission? Yeah and the commission is one of the EU itself is a complex set of institutions, one of the most important which is sort of an administrative executive one is the EU commission and each of the member states, all 28 members have a commissioner and often they have a particular portfolio let's say and usually the important kind of important one but essentially what that tells you if it does go through and it is certainly a proposal as you said the president of Macron and France has put forth it would be a signal that hey okay you're pretty much now out of the top layer decision making, it sort of whittles the way at their power and of course once the Brexit doesn't happen we have to understand too that once an agreement is made and they finally okay we're going there's still a transition period that's going to happen and approximately 21 months although that could also be flexible and could be extended even more but that period of transition is really when they're then they're going to go on to continue negotiating what is going to be the future agreement perhaps a different trade arrangement a different trade deal a lot depends on what created what exit they have what brings it because the main issue there are several but among them is the European Union really is what we might call a customs union it is basically a single market where all the countries are able to make trade easier they can exchange without tariffs without customs but the European Union once you leave you're not going to have access to that most likely and that's what's expected the UK will be gone and so what will their relationship be what kind of agreement and again that's what i got next set of discussions right now they're just deciding how can we leave do we leave you know with a hard cleaning break or do we leave with some sort of maybe partial access so these are the kind of tough to detail sections but yeah like you said just now what was the proposal from my phone what that suggests is they are growing in patience they basically are ready to cut the loose and also they they want to I mean on one hand they want to see it stable and maybe not chaotic but they also want to make sure that it's not without pain without recognition that hey if you are going to go well it's going to be you're going to be in a situation where you will no longer be making the rules you'll no longer have to see the table and that's happening probably sooner than later you know I can't help but think that given all the trouble that the EU has you know it's it's having all kinds of economic difficulties political difficulties things are swinging to the right this this whole notion of nationalism is is popping up in various members of the EU and you get you get you know get supremacists in some countries and the whole thing is becoming very divisive in the EU itself and I can't help but think that the leaders of the EU really want Britain to stay around they really really wanted to stay there for the solidarity of the EU group as against Russia who would love to see the EU fall apart economically and geopolitically but my question is you know some of the people on that commission some of the people in the EU some of the leaders are willing to give the UK way into 2020 you know no longer to figure this out and I'm thinking I'm thinking they would like to be generous this way because they really want the UK to see the disaster involved in Brexit they really want you know the UK to change its mind they don't want Brexit at all and I think they think that the more time they give Brexit the more time the UK will see the era of its ways in Brexit what do you think well I think there are some who would agree that including some of the politicians in the UK and we have to understand that while right now most of the wills suggest that it's going to happen there is always a scenario still theoretically they could back out they could have a referendum for example another at a national level and you know people knowing today what they know versus what they knew almost three years ago would this be a different outcome it's a very messy proposition because for some it would be losing faith obviously for the the prime minister and for her for party which has some of the more hard-line Brexiters they would not go for it and then they are maybe threatening that this would create massive chaos on the other hand you know what what if it is a situation where the people say you know what a second thought and from what we know now and like you said from the EU perspective certainly their first preference would be no don't leave you know we can you know we are better off working you know to address your concerns and challenges and I think more more to the point what you spoke to is really this Brexit is simply one of several crises the EU has been facing in the past years particularly the last five six years maybe the last 10 years especially sovereign debt crisis well we had years ago the so-called dregs this and also major problems in Italy and Portugal and Ireland where they could not meet their sort of debt obligations and they had to effectively get bailed out especially Greece in addition you saw what now three four years ago the massive migration crisis I can remember talking with you from here in incerque where there was a huge flow in the year 2005 a million migrants mostly from Middle East also Africa and that was a major challenge for the EU where to put them how to deal with it and now Brexit comes along and it's one more you know crisis so it is challenge you know for us to sit back it's easy to say look why don't you just forget about it go back to where you were and work it out but you know it's not that easy there there you know the EU I'm sorry you say we have to understand was always a skeptical reluctant partner they joined the early 70s to what was then the European community they were not one of the founding members like the original six you know France Germany Italy and the Benelux so they came along and they were always kind of like the reluctant partner they didn't want to join the euro currency what they never did they were reluctant to join even like to join military defense issues because they have their own powerful military so for some it's like they were never really full fledged members anyway they never adopted the euro as currency that's right no no they never did and they opted out the same with Denmark and Sweden but those are small countries that you know aren't big players Britain and of course the pound sterling used to be the currency of the world that the international finance evolved around and to them it was a very symbolic issue but also symbolically in the sense that they want to control their monetary policy in a way that once you adopt the euro you no longer do basically the central bank in Frankfurt Germany the european central bank then controls your currency the british have always been very very reluctant to give up that power but again back to your main point obviously there could be a scenario where they chose to stay out right now the most betting is that that's not in the card but i can tell you there are there is sentiment that why don't they just figure it out and realize the cost is so high the uncertainty uh but i you know there are definitely those who are very firmly in favor of the exit who would say i've watched we have to do it and you know we'll figure it out we'll get over this we've had crisis before it was a few years and we'll work it all out i also can't help but think carlos that this is an example of nationalism it's an example of divisiveness not only among the parliament but among the people you know it's similar to what we have in the us yeah and i can't help but think russia you know who is not only active in the us to try to change public opinion and change voting and change the views of legislators and affect government affect democracy it's also busy busy in europe in many places in europe including the uk but what you have is a divisiveness one way or the other i'd also like to add that a few a few weeks ago a friend of mine sent a video of a fellow that was giving a speech at oxford and he was not an oxford student or faculty at all and he was a a townie if you will from a local town around oxford and he was he spoke in a cockney dialect you could tell he was not you know of the upper class in britain but he was he was doing two things one is he would say we have a problem here repeated that many times he's apparently very popular among a number of people in britain and the problem was around the muslims around the migrants but also the muslims who are you know full citizens and he had the second part is he had movie clips of demonstrations by the muslims and against the muslims in that part of the uk and i guess that area around oxford and he was saying that and he was showing these clips and they were very nearly violent people were yelling at each other you know you wouldn't see this in the us or at least you wouldn't see it now these days seems like we may see it later but not now and there was a there was a real tension about the relationship of the muslim groups parades demonstrations would have you and and the you know the the old the older folks in the in the in those towns so what i'm saying is i think they have a they do have a problem i think he's right they have a social problem and i think i think it must be one of the factors that lead people to vote for brexit they want to close down migration immigration don't you think yeah well of course and i mean there are a lot of things packed in there and at first just to be very clear even the brexit referendum was one in which we know there was direct influence from russian crime control and carry out a sort of a polarization not a lot different from what they did in the u.s election and what they've done in many others let's also remind our viewers though that the united states has its own history of intervention and other elections as well although of course we do it for the right reasons but there's been a lot of manipulation and then the history of the u.s its own share of elections i guess influencing but that aside the reality is that i think this brexit fits into a larger pattern of of friends that we've seen and and we often hear the term globalization what we know to be the movement of people of goods that you know of the flow right of ideas and money but there's another notion globalism which is maybe a different way of explaining it it's more the belief the idea that the interdependence that's created by globalization is a good thing more than ideology maybe even an ideology of belief because the reality is that globalization obviously has winners and losers you know as a as a whole the economy wins we have you know trade expands well but the reality too is that there are losers there are many who are left out or who are disconnected and i think not only in brexit but in the u.s the election of trump but in many other places you see a disconnect between the elite and the map is who are you know obviously feeling frustrated and angry then you have the use of social media and the use of populist you know national leaders who will stir up a lot of emotions and you know today it's quite bad to see in the uk a place that has had generations of immigrants now mind you the numbers have grown for them too in recent years and then you've got added to that terrorism that is very real it's not abstracting that pair of bombing my point here is that you you have got immigrants who've been there for generations integrated fully assimilated british british citizens suddenly they they are living in a world that's very different than it was 10 15 20 years ago where you you couldn't feel the fear and distrust and so you have this anger this sense of frustration that's now being you know used everywhere and leaders are tapping it and and so it's gotten uglier the dialogue the polarization of you know of everything the civil you know civic order if you will it it helped us explain and understand what's happening in brexit what how do we make sense of you know the trump phenomenon and the rise of a lot of these anti-immigrant groups in in holand and hungry and elsewhere in italy they've got a new right in government so it is this notion of globalism which again it's the losers and the winners that are suddenly duking it out and you know the reality is that again back to brexit it's a generational divide it's also an urban rural divide it's also an education those who supported brexit uh or maybe to put it differently those with less education with only a high school or less were more likely to support brexit those who had you know more university education more specifically graduate and so on are obviously going to speak differently and see globalization as something to to harness and to win from but we have to appreciate there are winners and losers the winners are broad and diffuse the losers are usually very specific and targeted and narrow and they often don't have the recourse to you know fight back or to you can't just retrain and suddenly be a you know a rocket scientist if you've lost your job at the factory unless they're going to literally come in and give you another job you are out of job and that you know that that presents a real immediate challenge those are all globalism it's all it's almost a prize in the sense that we thought that the uk uh aside from problems they've had with northern island over the years you know was a was a sedate place everybody you know was very respectful of each other and they could do good government they could agree on things um and they were you know sort of an efficient democracy i maybe maybe i'm my myopic about that but that's my impression over the years now we don't see that and we we see a real similarity between you know the ineffectiveness of their government right now it's quite ineffective locked up and the ineffectiveness of congress really locked up can't do anything um and it's really a slide that that's parallel yet the other thing that uh that that strikes me is that people in this country are losing confidence or have lost confidence in the government well certainly that must be happening in uk too they see their parliament ineffective can't reach a decision can't solve this huge important problem they must be all of them must be losing confidence in no absolutely no there there's a total rejection of the political establishment and that's another aspect of this both the rise of this globalism idea the rejection of those who somehow are out of touch and it's reflected in the fact that they can't figure out how to solve this i mean more than two years now negotiating president they haven't figured it out um and so most many people even those maybe educated and supportive of the remains or whatever they're just frustrated that the leaders can't seem to figure it out um and again there there's many angles to it i mean some of it is that the dialogue the narrative has just gotten more pronounced and ugly some of it is that we live in this age of the 24 seven noon cycle and and the use of social media that people want to live by sound bites they want to make complicated things sound easy and and sort of push these very uh you know black or white scenarios where if you're in or you're out well wait there's some there's something in between uh and and and again just look at the instantaneous news that we get that uh you can see how quickly political leaders can be ridiculed or or obviously embarrassed by some statement or just taking out of context it's a tough time to be a political leader and these issues of especially involving trade and economics i mean the results are are not or or let's be changes in them don't have results that are immediate time and yet the losers are more immediate and they're very narrow and and so it's very difficult to to find an easy answer out you know there was a there was a piece this morning Carlos on national public radio about hate speech on social media i found it very interesting and i and i've seen i've seen this on the internet too in in pot podcasts where these guys study exactly how social media works and about how you know the short of real limitations on what you can say and how these communities are developed on on social media we have in in the u.s and probably in europe too of social media communities that are clearly designed for and populated by hate speech and i think that's got to be that's got to be part of it there just as it is part of it here Carlos we're going to take we're going to take a one minute break we come back i'd like to you know you and me put our heads together be completely rational see this from the 50 000 foot level and solve the problem together right now right here today on think tech okay we'll be right back hey aloha stand energy man here on think tech hawaii where community matters this is the place to come to think about all things energy we talk about energy for the grid energy for vehicles energy and transportation energy and maritime energy and aviation we have all kinds of things on our show but we always focus on hydrogen here in hawaii because it's my favorite thing it's what i like to do so we talk about things that make a difference here in hawaii things that should be a big changer for hawaii and we hope that you'll join us every friday at noon on stand the energy man and take a look with us at new technologies and new thoughts on how we can get clean and green in hawaii aloha hello i'm dave stevens host of the cyber underground this is where we discuss everything that relates to computers that's just kind of scare you out of your mind so come join us every week here on think tech hawaii.com 1 p.m on friday afternoons and then you can go see all our episodes on youtube just look up the cyber underground on youtube all our shows will show up and please follow us we're always giving you current relevant information to protect you keeping you safe aloha okay we're back we're live global connections and we're talking with carlo suarez in innsbruck austria we love to talk to him everywhere he travels and we're talking today about brexit a very interesting discussion especially now when it's on page all around the world so carlo suarez we're going to come back and and solve the problem we have a few minutes um so let's let's extract all the heat and all the hate and let's see if we can figure out what exactly is in front of parliament economic issues customs trade issues what kind of issues are there and how should they be resolved well on one hand at its core it's really what relationship will the uk have with the e u if it's separate assuming it does in other words will it be a complete total break where they have to then negotiate separately with individual you know places like the uk with the us or will there be there are several models there's a norway model uh which is one that's been given where norway is not a member of the e u however they have access to the market they pay they pay good access to that but in return gives them reduced you know tariffs and and more ability to sell and buy so kind of like you have some of the benefits and not all now that's not a good option for those who seek the hard brexit the hardliners if you will but the fact is we're seeing now more and more given this payoff of the last couple years that of harder brexit maybe or one in which they don't really have a defined relationship is costly and and it already has cost them you've got uh for example japanese car firms like nissan that went to the uk to set up a plan because part of the single market means they can then sell the car in spain and portugal and holand with no tariffs suddenly now they would have to pay 10 of the value of the car and that could go up well even in the last month nissan has decided not to continue any investment in the uk so examples like that are going to be a bounding where you know why would you set up in the uk if you don't have access to the market part of it is that there's a lot of other complex issues including for example the rights of movement and of workers as we speak today actually they have a process where just reading in fact today that let me confirm it here something like 400 000 european nationals that is people not from the uk but from other parts of europe who reside in the uk and work and live have now applied uh there's a process that will allow them to stay indefinitely so you can continue working continue saying sort of like almost like an amnesty of sorts i mean they don't call it that but it just means look if you registered you apply you could keep your job keep your residency in other words you're not going to be kicked out uh 400 000 similarly there are hundreds of thousands of uk residents in spain and holland and frets who will do the same uh and so there's what's going to happen with that now what's not clear what still needs to be negotiated is the rights of work will there still be this capacity because the uk depends heavily on a lot of you know brain power and hard work you know polish plumbers and other you know construction workers from romania whatever it might be but also brave surgeons and then and academics and if they don't have the ability to work uh that becomes a challenge so there's those kind of technicalities the other we've talked about this in another of our shows was the the heart of the border issue with the northern ireland and the republic of ireland that is one of the more sensitive issues because if they don't have access to the single market because in union they will have to probably set up some border checks for any good that go between that border and there are many concerns that that's going to bring back the days of the troubles the violence of northern ireland because it's now been 20 years since the good friday agreement things have settled into a nice comfortable existence but could that be disrupted there's that element too again we have yet to see if it's going to be the heart or the softer and uh i you know what i hear you saying when i when i hear you saying is uh if i made you king they don't have a lot of kings in europe anymore but if i made you king you what you would do is um you would you would have a brexit but after the brexit it would look like look a lot like there hadn't been one you would try to emulate what was going on before you know to maintain the relationships maintain the benefits on both sides um and the people who you know are so interested in having a brexit now they somehow would be satisfied like comes base you know they would somehow be satisfied but in fact it wouldn't be a brexit it would be an an emulated you know let's go back to the way it was a little bit of that and you know what i feel sorry is the younger generation those that are today let's say 25 30 35 they are the future of let's say the uk and the decisions are being made by these old timers that are angry and frustrated and they're out of jobs and they're in these rural areas i think it's a bit unfair because they're not going to be around in 20 30 40 years whereas the young generation who they have only grown up in a world of knowing themselves as europeans and having the you know mobility and flexibility and they're almost being penalized partly because they don't show up to vote that's always a problem with you know young populations but um here i go back to my own i have to confess i am a globalist that's why i'm here at the moment and and i just think it's one of these things that it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle you know we live in an interdependent world and yes okay you're angry you look to travel this is to be honest uh we live in a world where transnational trans global issues are just the reality and and can't somehow create these barriers in the walls very easily without a car one last question carlos one last question and we only have a minute left at this point um is this um you know um so you're you're an academic in mexico um and of course the united states is watching this closely but my question to you is why should we care what happens in break so they let them do whatever kind of michigas they want to do um does it matter to us why do we care yeah well it may matter to some more than others and i think it matters because what happens there if it falls apart in the worst-case scenario and maybe europe continues in a spiral downward it does have an impact on our relationship with the transatlantic alliance now you can already say that some of that has been damaged by maybe the the trump policies themselves but i guess another way to put it is simply to say that just as europe has an interest in the uk not melting down and vice versa the uk needs a strong edu to help it survive i think similarly the united states and us as citizens of the world if you will need uh the world to figure out how to solve its problems and issues and you know that's not an easy act but um if it goes sadly i think it can affect us all in different ways that we might not may not realize yeah absolutely we we're all in this together we are a global a global world and we have to care for each other we have to be concerned about every nation every nation must care about all nation thank you so much arlos it's great to talk with you i'll see you in two weeks thank you more wherever you may be aloha