hello and welcome to cross talk were all things considered i'm peter lavelle when british voters said yes to leave the e.u. the clock started ticking towards march twenty nine which brags that looming it is clear what members of parliament are against but it's not clear is what they support time is running out as a compromise still possible. breaks that i'm joined by my guest ken livingstone in london is a former mayor of london and in brussels rick ross a look he is an independent journalist and lancaster we have mark garnett he is a senior lecturer in politics at lancaster university all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate you can let me go to you first because you were in the belly of the beast there in london which you used to be

a mare of and i still hear good things about your tenure there we've gone through a tumultuous two years of extremely to mulcher was weak and we have no resolution whatsoever when the voters went to vote on brags that they were not to add they were not asked to folk vote on a plan that was supposed to be the government the new government of to resume to resolve she has been unable to do that her own party doesn't support her but the plan and then they've come around and said that they support her to continue her. time at ten downing street so what is been the last two years about because we're there in the same position we were two years ago go ahead can in london well the problem is this that when david cameron was the prime minister and decided to call this referendum he did no work about what would be the consequences he didn't. mish

in an economic study i think he merely did it because you care the far right party he was attracting a lot of tory voters with their campaigning for break same and so he called the referendum as a way of undermining their support network their vote went down he got reelected but he hadn't commissioned any work about what would be the impact of leaving and therefore we've had these last two and a half years of people stumbling around now able to build a consensus in the simple fact is there isn't a majority in parliament for any single option so you've either got to have another referendum or you've got to have a general election this could be no point in this parliament where they submerge for cheap or anything even in norway deal would most likely not get a majority because that would still allow the free movement of migrants ok look let me go to brussels because you guys you're in brussels looking into the u.k. here and we had a number of prominent. politicians basically say don't look at us you may dismiss

yourself it seems to me that to resume instead of crossing the aisle in the house of commons to deal with labor she's actually going to brussels and asking you guys to bail her out she can find consensus within or hold her own party why is she think the e.u. after everything that's been said and done might rescue her they're not go ahead luke. she won't be rescued by the europeans that she met in the different capitals and by the commission we should values a very sympathetic guy but. really out of it so now we have to force without agreement on the twenty ninth of march what next well i think there is a need for a transition period if it's our break that it doesn't need to be on the first of april it's not april fools we don't need a kale spirit so two years or twenty one month is enough i think to negotiate

tariffs and a minimum of the things that will avoid having if it is heartbreaks it. won't mean chaos in the coming years so we should look for example at switzerland mr livingston mentioned the hallway of course that's type of deal but. switzerland has borders with france germany austria italy and there is no problem for trucks at the border so even with sixteen thousand trucks a day from the continent to the u.k. and vice versa it is not impossible to solve maybe there will be some some delays for a few months but not much and certainly not for people well you know that's let me go to market that's part of the scaremongering campaign that i see so much on british television over the last few days watching particularly channel four it's pretty easy to know who they're rooting for market we can brought up what one of the things that is being bandied about in that's the second referendum i find that

amazingly problematic because if you can have a second referendum i know you have a third or a fourth or a fifth or a tenth i mean it's debasing the democratic process here and it is the it is the establishment that is doing that because i have to say personally. resume has always been a remainder why was a remainder allowed to spearhead the brags that the british people voted for this doesn't make any sense to me and she's still in the driver's seat mark go ahead. right well lot lots of very interesting things. to take the point about the second referendum to put the argument for those who support second referendum there were people right at the beginning of all this said mr livingston quite rightly identified mr cameron as the person who's started all this and at the beginning of it one of the people who've ended up being the leading city is johnson actually

said that there should be two referendums that there should be one on the principle of whether he leave or stay but then there should be one on what kind of manner of leaving that we go for and mr cameron actually rejected that because he wanted to scare people into not voting for leave he wanted people to think it was a once in a lifetime vote and that if he voted to leave then that was it and that would be left for the government sort it out so the argument then would be the british public has only really custard opinion on the principle of that this wouldn't really be there in a second referendum it would be a new referendum on a different subject what kind of broke sit do you want and then there would be an option perhaps of people to remain and what's really i think becoming hilarious if you take a cynical view of politics in britain is that the reason may the moment just.

choose they was defeated by a really unprecedented majority in the house of commons two hundred thirty votes and now what she's doing it really is tantamount to asking those m.p.'s to think a second time so she's saying m.p.'s should be able to think more than once but the british public shouldn't be allowed to think more than once and then you look at other things that there are people who have joined the electorate to whose futures are going to be affected by this two and a half years is really not a tremendously you know you can't say that this is a. a immediate second thoughts this is people have had quite a long time to digest the consequences of the first referendum and again if you look at mrs mae herself she called a snap general election within two years of the two thousand and fifteen general election in other words she wanted the public to think again so i mean and then finally because you have some range of very interesting questions why she's still

in the driver's seat while she's still perhaps sitting in the driver's seat but i think the house of commons is about to grab the steering wheel from her certainly they're operating some of the instruments within the car because she has herself it's not just mr cameron she herself i think made mistakes and the wiser remainer in charge of this well she was the compromise candidate because i mean what else would have been more divisive unfortunately the compromise candidate hasn't delivered in my view you know can i i've heard about the parliament taking the reins in because there there are many tories in there are labor rights that you know are are of like mind but because of the aisle they're not being able to come to the fore i mean what is the possibility that parliament might take a a much more proactive approach because you know when to resume says breaks it mean bragg's it what does that mean because it certainly doesn't mean bragg's it ok go

ahead can have it what the real problem we had used in the referendum and one side was saying you'll be a disaster if we leave the other so i was saying if we do leave it will be a huge boost to our economy the truth is no country has ever walked away from such a large economic block like this before our economy over the last two and he has been limping along but if we look at the past that gives an indication of what would happen in the year and the late one nine hundred fifty s. when what was then called the common market was set up sixteen percent west germany imported came from britain for. steen years later while we remained out that went down to eight percent it was hard then we joined seven years later it's eighteen percent but both of your trade is going to be with your neighbors now if we do believe we have a major restructuring of the economy to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs because you will lose many but if we stay in then we've got to i think reform the

too bureaucratic it's not as open and democratic as it should be so i think leave or remain that's fine but all these stupid deals about staying in the not having a nice i own what the policy should be i mean it's ridiculous it's better to i the stay and continue to have your vote of what happens or leave and rebuild your economy you know look through the way that to resume is essentially presented her plan that she continues to back it's like saying a woman is a little bit pregnant i mean what does that really mean i mean i've read what those five hundred some odd pages i don't really understand it looks like intentional obstructionism to me go ahead look. well for many people including in the ukip of course. the idea is that mrs may wanted it to fail i don't think it is probably the case she really believed that she could deliver the supply and that the the brits were would i mean at least the westminster would vote for it

would accept it they didn't so that the force is there in front of us on march twenty ninth and frankly i don't think again that the the heartbreaks at us presented if we have a transition period and we need to transition period during which of course there would be a freeze the situation wouldn't change with now that there would not be new tariffs imposed they would keep the same thing and they would install the systems to be able to have a smooth traffic in both directions and that they would look at what they need to introduce into four fabs don't forget for example that seventy percent of the meat eaten in the u.k. comes from the republic of violent of course arlen need some agreement with the u.k. so ok you know there are one trade open i think you know it's necessary we got to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on break that stay with our.

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welcome back to cross talk were all things considered on peter lavelle term and you were discussing brags that. ok let's go back to mark mark there's another we have on this program criticize the government the british government under to resume and the there are countless complaints against her during this whole process but one of the things that kind of strikes me is that she's really had the interest of the conservative party at heart not the e.u. not the u.k. she's more interested in perpetuating her party's. time in power it seems quite selfish and on top of that agreeing with what luke just said on the first part of the program i mean if there was even the very thought of this so-called hard brags that it'll be just be u.k.

under a w t o rules wow everyone that's not so exciting that's the reality and it's known ok it's fine to bowl it's learnable they've had no intent they did never anticipated a plan b. of what could go wrong it shows me they didn't have their heart in it ok i guess that's what mark has kind of like two questions go ahead mark. yes. well in terms of the certainly what mrs may has stirred i think is to put her certainly she puts her party first but what she did was what she wanted to do was almost to deliver her party a big general election victory in two thousand and seventeen but what that would have durban would have been to a free her from these persistent city is if say she did her one hundred seat majority for her conservative party she would have been a heroine for the conservative party but she would also have made life very much

easier for herself in plotting the course that she in which she knew that she was going to be upsetting at some point these very determined city is who have shown time after time that they will vote against their own party so i think mrs may has had a plan the first thing that you would say over all of this is that she's shown that she is a very flexible person and that one she's developed a plan and she really can't see any alternative you can't budge from it and the other thing you question you asked before why is a remainer in charge of all this well what she did as soon as she became prime minister she again prioritising her party and tried to keep her party happy she began to talk as if she was in fact a very hardline city and she started talking about red lines and talking the same confrontational language about the e.u. which really i think has wrecked our relationship with the fact that no british media commentator seems able to talk about the without talk about winning and losing battles and she started doing all that kind of thing and that i think has

completely changed the terms of the debate which has taken the ground from and herself in that the hard line but city is think that she is warming the country up for a hard breath set whereas what she was doing was as he rightly say she was playing party games and unfortunately i think the public is getting more and more annoyed with all this and it's affecting labor as well as the conservatives it's bringing. whole political class and they're a terrible shadow and they seem to be less popular than ever before which was very hard to imagine how they could make themselves less able to the default that there is polling after the public is really running out to patients with the politicians yeah can i go completely agree with mark i mean no one's reputation hasn't been untarnished by this whole affair i mean watching it i mean i love watching parliamentary debates it's very entertaining and i sometimes learn something but i have a good chuckle ok with the way people throw things back and forth at each other but

you know the the the what is a day the nine hundred pound gorilla in the room is that there is a considerable number of people in the labor party and obviously in the conservative party they do not want to see jeremy become prime minister and i think that's an important puzzle to this this whole quagmire that has been created because i mean watching may staring across the aisle jeremy carbon told you everything you need to know that may is not going to reach out no way period ok that's her average you've got to rigidity and that and again it's selfish it's pure selfish behavior defending herself and her party a party that voted against her when her own plan was presented ok that is not someone that's going to find solutions go ahead can well the simple fact is that a majority of labor m.p.'s their constituents botticelli because working to house people just like the working class people who stopped voting democrat and voted for

trump here they're angry because we used to have a million good jobs in manufacturing now we've only got two million people over the last forty years have seen their lives get worse and then they've been allowed to blame you for that the truth is we've had forty years of labor and tory governments that neglect economy our. they've allowed our manufacturing to be wiped out they kept to ever the financial sector ones we've seen a massive growth in our financial sector and almost all the wealth there is being created over the last decade it's gone to the richest two percent so that fueled back the situation which is jeremy corbyn for the first time in nearly forty years we have a genuine socialist reader he's made it absolutely clear feed becomes prime minister we're going to crack down on the tax dodging we're going to stop all this money laundering the city will be the financial sector will be brought under real rules

and controls because we estimate here in britain something like one hundred twenty billion pounds is lost in tax avoidance and evasion and if we clamp down on that we can do all the things we want in terms of building council houses expanding our n.h.s. better schools and so on but the establishment will do everything to stop someone like jeremy corbyn coming to power and making them pay their fair share of tang's you know let me go to look at in brussels you know i am a conservative but all of the policy issues that can just mention i am on board one hundred percent if jeremy's a socialist so be it i back those policies because he's challenging the status quo and the establishment that has become so amazingly rich at the expense of everyone else i'm not a socialist ok but i believe in those words are and i believe in a policy like that look does the european union look on and learn any lessons about

what is one of the reasons why people voted to leave the u.k. they are they being introspective and wondering you know maybe it could happen to other countries in the e.u. first very very similar reasons i'm sure the yellow vests agree go ahead luke. well very good that you mention the yellow face because as ken livingston said we have lost a lot of industrial jobs but not only in britain also on the continent it's been terrible the d. in the stylization that both gone through because of the policies of europe because of the policies of europe are troubled now they start speaking the commission as of early industrializing europe incredible you know after we've sent to china and southeast asia all our production i mean this is incredible it's the same guys so they haven't learnt yet and when you see michael having to face the yellow vests and the yellow fests also spraying to to belgium to germany to other places i mean

that is a lot to fair for these people in the traditional parties in europe and i would welcome also a kick in the thing you know in the whole mess the violence that things evolve a little bit in process and it's valid for all parties for all sites really you know mark what is what's going to happen in your mind between what is it seventy two days now what's going to happen during this seventy two day period because we have not already mentioned a number of possible scenarios let me kind of ask you very specifically about a second referendum because i think that's what everybody i think the cowards in the establishment think they may be with the. targeted media because the obviously the establishment media is for remain they want one more shot at it here what it what is the possibility of that go ahead mark. well i think the campaign is obviously is got

a lot of enthusiastic support but unfortunately for them the opinion polls i think the only chance of a second referendum being called would be if the government whoever is in charge at that time just has no alternative because the opinion poll if the opinion polls move decisively towards remain if it moves decides. simply towards a second referendum then the would in the way the public would get the establishment out of its dialogue there's no sign of that happening at the moment and this i can't see any way really in which there's no politician i think who because of the rage the actual you know the really deep rooted rage that would be would be generated by that kind of take amongst those who want us to leave i really don't think any politician is going to take that risk so i think the what what's going to happen in this period first of all i do think the house of commons will force and jeremy corbin was saying this morning. thursday morning was saying that

the reserve may not have talked to reason unless she rules out. i think one way or another the house of commons does have the power to do all kinds of things that it will kind of put some block on no deal and then i think the house of commons is going to get very very heated again next week when the. mrs may suppose come forward with her supposed plan b. i think something big is going to happen over the next few days over the next week but certainly before the end of february. then something big has got to be happening to break this logjam people are people out there in the public and in parliament are really getting frustrated with all the delays it can't go on yeah i mean i'm i understand about the press ration i'm i'm really tired of talking about it personally ok but it is topical can you know we had just heard from mark that if you know public opinion polls were so demonstrated that there is such a remain sentiment there then what do you need

a government for if you're just going to rely upon public opinion polls what is government worth then go ahead. well we've never had a government this sing competent in my lifetime or a parliament so undecided so i think it's a lot of people saying give it back to the people the opinion polls show the spin a small shift in favor of remaining so you could have had a second referendum it might be fifty two percent three mine and forty eight percent believe and that's largely because big business has been on radio and television predicting real problems in a disaster if we actually leave but if we do leave then a tory government could have a massive restructuring in our economy in which workers rights would be diminished wages would would go down wealth would shift even more to the rich but if we had a labor government under jeremy corbin i think you'd see a real creation of hundreds of thousands of new jobs in new areas like

a green technology i create providing proper care for our elderly most of whom now are just living alone and often not seeing more than one person wait i said it would be a big shift but the real problem we face is over the last forty years in candy quality call inequality ok we have to end on that point where brown out of time many thanks to my guests in london brussels and lancaster and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t. see you next time and remember. it was a set up of as you know my back want to know what it is when there's. a house but a car. there so your hydro alaska's buskers got plenty of that but if you

describe the media with us as the local grocer then it will be on a month all of those it doesn't but that's on us. so i says you know you're not. you're not just on the most wanted i'm already but it was but. i remember we're going to go. there for it up as well i must. get it. but those were the. one of the problems i just this is where this part of. my body and we've got a bomb i just bought that already it will be a ship with three and in the. years implementing. guilt of that no amount of economic activity going forward will ever provide the tax revenues sufficient to pay down the step we're past the point of no return

we've gone through the debt looking glass this means only one outcome that central banks will continue to print to keep the interest going on this insurmountable pile which means wealth and income gap are guaranteed to increase which means the g.l.a. show movement is going global and the global insurrection is upon us and that's a guarantee. to get up off the ground or begin to. herd them freeze on the sounds of an mit grown man mislead essentially. wish to do away from the officers. of his group. did they kind of lunge for the web

in one smith's and then when it happened on three swung at concerts he didn't i never saw any contact with. any kind went back to where they were so the answers back here they're fine again fifteen feet apart at this point and that's when the officer has gone even beyond three. journey said scientists stall on saving a key cold war era nuclear arms treaty with the u.s. about to pull the plug on the agreement that has russia warns washington the move could threaten global security saying it's ready for dialogue. and american born iranian t.v. i'm a visit.