Will Brexit lead to a political revolution?

and welcome Tom Lisa thank you very much indeed both for being here can I just ask you first of all what's your take on on that the a short extension will it get us Lisa and well I think it gets you to No Deal because a short extension makes sense if what you're trying to do is get something passed by the House of Commons and get all the associated legislation through but given that the Prime Minister hasn't budged an inch on any of the requests that have been made of the government over the last four months seems to me nothing will change in that time so a short extension makes sense to me but not without any kind of purpose and so we're back in the same Groundhog Day we've been in for the last few months we're basically running the clock down until we get to the next cliff edge but the next cliff edge does look like it's the final cliff edge you all gonna vote for the deal if she brings it back I voted for it twice I will vote for it again yeah but she would need a period of implementation to get it in fine that's not the same thing though if he needs look if she can get is what she's asked for a period of implementation to implement the deal well not quite the letter is slightly vaguer than that the letter asks for more time there is really no point in having more decision time she's arguing she needs this extension in order to implement her deal you think she's just gonna spin it out and keep trying more more meaningful votes that don't work let me just tell you what I think rather than rather than going through that I think that if you can't take a decision by the 29th of March then frankly there's no point in having more time I mean there is one purpose to have 650 people elected to Parliament from across this United Kingdom and that's to take decisions on behalf of their communities and to be responsible for those decisions and then be re-elected or not be re-elected depending on how the community feels about it extending the time doesn't help anybody doesn't make the decisions easier it doesn't make them go away just take the damn decision back or don't back the deal and live with the consequences these are you've had some contact with the Prime Minister she's still trying to win you over to her site to back the deal when the vote comes back well I don't think she is actually so I've had a number of meetings with her face-to-face and she rang me weekend before last and but it was a phone call that was really about checking in to see if I changed my mind rather than trying to have any kind of dialogue about what she might be able to do to support people like me to vote for it that might be the Prime Minister in full converting mode she's not meant to be that good at it I think I mean she you know she's very pleasant and you know she you know appreciate the fact that she's taking the time to ring round and ask for people's votes and you know it seems to me that that sort of constructive approach would have been really helpful a couple years ago and he still needed now and he's welcome but the problem is that from the first time that I had a conversation with her which was in January I've told her that the reason I can't vote for this deal as it currently stands is because there is no deal the withdrawal agreement is fine but it's a legal text that basically settles some fundamental business deal before we move on to actually negotiate in the future anyway certainty about that well that's that that's the key thing that is the thing that will determine whether I still have jobs in Merk constituency and whether what sorts of jobs those are what people are paid how they're treated all of the things that we've fought for and built up over a hundred years and so I've been clear with us since day one if she wants my vote she has to give Parliament not just a role but a vote on that future trading relationship now it seems to me that's not a big ask actually I mean this is fundamentally going to reset our relationship with the rest of the world and there ought to be right for Parliament to have a say on that but at the moment she's still resisting and for four months we've been going round and round in circles talking about this but with no commitments at all with the last conversation I had with her she said of course parliamentarians have the right to express their views I've been an MP for nearly ten years I do know that I'm allowed to speak in the House of Commons chamber but actually what I want is a vote I think all parliamentarians should be asking for that frankly it's not right that one individual whoever that Prime Minister happens to be I can go off after this Agreement is passed and negotiate our trading relationship with the rest of the world by themselves there has to be a role for Parliament in that process do you agree with that I do agree and I think it will happen I mean the reason I disagree with Lisa slightly on this is because of course she's absolutely right this is a transitionary agreement it doesn't guarantee anything in the future you are absolutely right Lisa but the truth is that the way I mean let's be honest the way that the government has conducted these negotiations for the last two years has demonstrated the failure of a single party approach to such a massive question I mean it's demonstrated it extremely clearly and the idea that we can play party politics with this agreement or indeed with the continued question of euros just for the birds simply not true well particularly because the political parties all of us are completely divided on the issue so could you do it for obvious reasons I mean the public is divided you know if you come to Wigan you'll get a very different view than you know when I went to Stella creasy's constituency and Walthamstow people feel very differently about it and we're reflecting that in the debate which means you've got to take across party really nice and that's why I think that the reality is you know I mean I could agree with almost everything you've said on the Prime Minister's deal and I'm not and I'm not going to be critical of you but the truth is it is a transitional room it buys us two years it doesn't commit us to anything in the future and the truth is that next two years they're going to have to be used by an administration that is willing to talk across Parliament and do the sort of things that we should have done two and a half three years ago of actually getting a group of parliamentarians together from all sides for all parties in fact from all the countries of the United Kingdom and getting us to really talk about what future we're looking at because your point is really valid which is how do we build on 40 years of relationship that we've had with the European Union how do we build on the things that it has added to the UK and how do we get the best out of the future that will be a change status that will be a change relationship and that will not have the same level of oversight and control but can still have very very great cooperation not just with the European Union but with you both want to get to perhaps by definition what you're talking about a softer brexit of the one the Prime Minister's been negotiating the one that she's been talking of her bread law says no but it sounds like if you're gonna seek the consensus of the House of Commons you're having you get a harder break seed are you know i'm i think Breck's is brexit i mean i'm not sure i buy i buy the terms i mean you know once you are not paying in once you are outside the customs union in the single market you know which is but those are the red lines that would have to go if you consulted parliament but that's but that's what this deal does it removes you from all of those but what i'm saying it leaves open the future relationship the future relationship is a very different question and the difference in the question is it you're not you know you're talking about now leaving all those the future relationship is what kind of relationship do you want now you can have customs agreements as we do for example with the United States with Canada with Australia you know there are ways of having customs agreements with other blocks and we you know we do that we have done that in the past room I'm sure we'll do that in the future whether or not we'll do it as formally with the European Union or not I don't know but that's a conversation we need to have what the free trade agreement looks like whether it's as you know as close as Norway's through an f2 arrangement or as remote as Canada's through a sort of seater arrangement that's the sort of conversation we need to be having but that's the conversation that we can't have with one person in number 10 one government view one single identity this is something that frankly there's a reason there's 650 MPs it's because there are communities around the country who do not see things the same way how do where does that take us in terms of how this great consultation might work you're not gonna get the sort of thing you're talking about a fully consultative approach to the future relationship under to resume are you can you could you sell that to lease you could you say that's going to happen all that it's gonna happen under her successor can I can I take you to confidence here Gary I don't think you're gonna get it under either of the front benches I mean what does that where does that take us it takes us into look for exit is a revolution it's a revolution in our relationship with the European Union of course and that's the obvious bit but it's also a revolution in the way we look at how we govern ourselves and how we look at us as the United Kingdom it's a real you know brexit came out of many things but let's be honest it wasn't purely out of whether or not we could you know sell soap to the French it was about how we interacted with those who have power over us how those who have power over us are able to exercise it or not what are our constraints and so on and the truth is that this revolution is now challenging the very structure of our political system the very nature of our party politics and I'm afraid the front benches you know the government of the United Kingdom for the last few years and the opposition of the United Kingdom for the last few years have not adapted to this change circumstance and you know you're nodding Lisa where do you think that takes us what tom is talking about well it takes you to a completely complete reset in British politics I don't even know what that means where where my time is that well in the last in the last few years Parliament has proven itself completely incapable of coming together to search for common ground we set up in a manner that pits us into tribes that are adversarial that challenge and argue and try to beat one another down until one side wins now brexit in my view is is a revolution it's a talk but it's also a tug of war in a very real sense between people largely those who voted to leave in constituencies like mine who felt very much that they didn't have control or agency over their own lives their families their communities the things that mattered and people who had much more of that control and agency and that that latter group the people who largely voted to remain have in the last couple of years lost a lot of that agency and feel very very strongly that they see goes right to the heart of what it means to be them their identity and goes right to the heart of what sort of country we're creating one in which they feel they don't have a place now this tug of war because it's so fundamental and deep-rooted is not going to be won by either side the more that we talk the more the other side will talk back to words and the thing will break you or rainbow I'm talking about benches getting together me more different approach to negotiating solutions to shared challenges and that could happen but the existing party structure I don't think what do you think you after I don't exist in parliamentary structure because there is very little space for for the for that search of a dialogue and consensus in Parliament the closest that you come to it perhaps is through select committees but largely it's entirely absent from that building it's you know even the way that we're set up we're in these individual offices behind closed doors the doors I mean this is you know this is for people who don't don't come into Parliament you wouldn't realize that we very often don't see one another or talk to one another for days except when we're walking through the division lobbies and usually walking through the division lobbies with people who already agree with us I mean the place is just not capable of looking for common ground and that means that the whole thing has to be torn up and and and we got to start again because you know 98% of people I think think that politics is fundamentally broken that the system isn't working God knows who the two percent are that think it is there is a general consensus that this system is not working and when this is over if it's ever over that system is going to have to change it you're not engaging with the idea of a any sort of government of national unity certain people and some of them on select committees of who chair select meters have talked about it in in recent times and isn't that the kind of thing you are probably going to need in order to have anything that looks like indicative votes getting adopted you're not gonna have Theresa May or Horace Johnson who succeeds are taking dictation from the House of Commons in the old old style it would require a different kind of management of the process but you're not dealing Lisa you're not nodding Tom it requires a different management process I'm just not sure that a government of national unity is is what you need what you need is a is a series of structures that enable us to search for common ground and come to a shared collective stronger policy well you know one proposal that Stella Creasy and I put forward that was back by MPs from all political parties and crucially from different factions within the brexit debate was about citizens assemblies so trying to have more tools in the Democratic toolkit that help us to get to better more sustainable decisions and it's that sort of thing that Parliament largely is just incapable of accommodating at the moment but it's gonna have to going to have to get you know get into the 21st century five I'm I'm not gonna get into the details of citizens assemblies because I there's a debate as to how you instruct them but the idea that politics can stay the way it is is simply not true and I think you know that the Select Committee format is an interesting one because it respects the party structure and the fact that people do make a binary choice when they elect people they you have to declare an interest oh well of course I'm chairing I'm carrying the Foreign Affairs Select Committee but the great thing about that the Select Committee is that it's it's really not party biased I mean it's really not you know we've only had one vote and it was one person was against and nine were in favor of the motion you know it was a very it wasn't split on party basis it was split on opinion basis which is fine it's a favor but it's a forced coalition the Select Committee in its in a sense so you suggest it in the sense that people have to have group thing that's not true but people have independent think so you walk in there and you leave your tribal hat of the door if you see it I mean so you know the people who are sitting down around at the Foreign Affairs Committee they may be labour they may be conservative or they may be SNP but that is not the tribe they're representing what they're doing is they're representing the best interests of the house and one of the things that we've done in the Foreign Affairs Committee that I'm you know particularly pleased has worked really well is we go around the country and we take the Foreign Affairs Committee around the country and initially people say well why are you going you know why are you going to Birmingham with the Foreign Affairs Committee should be going to France or whatever an argument was well-known Foreign Affairs is about how British people deal with the abroad that's that's what foreign affairs is and it's not just about how Parliament deals with the abroad it's how British people around the country and too few people exactly as Lisa was saying have that engagement and so what we were able to do is bring people in and I have to say the way that we have of Foreign Affairs is very different because of those assemblies now of course we all have a local sort of assembly when we go into our surgeries and all the rest of it and of course you know I mean I can give you a pretty good impression of what people in Tunbridge or West morning or even bridge thing but I couldn't have done the same for Birmingham and I couldn't have done the same for the Ronda I couldn't have done the same for Southampton and we're doing that now I think pom has got to reach out much more and we've spoken about you know reorganizing Parliament I think a greater weight for the Select Committee structure I think a greater American style perhaps well the American style is actually more divided in a funny way so I'm not sure I'd quite go down that route but because it's much more partisan within you know they're they're the lead members of various committees a ranking you know the ranking Democrat or the ranking Republican whereas our system is different you know you're forced if you want to be the chair of a committee you'll force to see collection from across the house you know if you only get your own party's votes you probably won't win that you almost certainly won't win you've got to you've got to reach out across the house now and I think that's that's the way we're going to look now I think that there's a real opportunity here because actually funnily enough you know for all the challenges the brexit poses it does actually offer a huge opportunity for this which is this is a question so big so different that it really does challenge the very way that we think about politics the very way that we think about engagement and I think that you know one could make arguments about how the last two years have gone that I'm not going to get into right now but let's have a go at that well do you think in a sense this issue of brexit and maybe the particular style of Tereza may though it's possible previous prime ministers might have fallen into the same trap not reaching out trying to do it with one party plus the dup that from the very beginning that would that was the floor maybe she's driven this entire approach to destruction I mean bluntly I think there's two elements of failure and I would agree with you that not reaching out at the beginning and seeing this as a national challenge in the same way you know it's the reason it was a referendum and not a parliamentary vote is because we realized it was a major national question beyond party Beyond and anyways even beyond Parliament that was you know that's one area the other areas we've approached this as though it's a legalistic problem you know it's not a legal problem it's a problem of human relationships of power dynamics and psychology and instead you know on one side we've had ballet who's been you know approaching it like a subway out a lawyer where it's you know detail its you know he's he's been splitting up the record collection in a divorce deal I mean it's just this is not the way you get a future relationship everybody's been so focused on how you split it up that we've forgotten about the fact that you know we're gonna have to have a relationship together for the next thousand years and we've got to find a way of working together for the next thousand years and and if we don't focus on the future if we just focus on how we split up the record collection well guess what it's going to be acrimonious how do our party leaders come out of this well I don't think any of us come out of this well I mean party leaders or otherwise I think the general sense out there in the country is that all of us are making a complete hash of this I'm talking past one and although we're not listening to each other you know when I first got elected ten years ago I used to the BNP was still around you know the EDL was starting to grow and you would always hear these sort of cries of betrayal and traitor those far-right rallies now it's really commonplace to hear that sort of bandied around in the House of Commons and so we are we are destroying our democracy by the way that we've conducted this debate and it's that serious I think people have completely switched off they've completely lost faith in their politicians even people who you know people tend to know their local MP tend to be quite supportive of their local MP compared to the way that they feel about other politicians but even that I think he's starting to change and he's coming under real strain because people are so frustrated and at times angry with our inability to deal with this and I think it's tempting to say that it's all about Teresa may I mean I certainly don't think she should be let off the hook for the way that she's got about this and it's continuing to go about it but actually this is a much more longer term problem with British politics we've seen it on the successive Prime Minister's we've seen it in successive Parliament's we've got a system of patronage that doesn't enable people to make free sort of expressions of their own views and their own experiences and their own constituencies and you know before we had the vote to leave the EU in my constituency we have this very dramatic spike in support for you Kipp amongst people who would never have dreamed of voting for openly racist parties and before that we had years of falling turnout from people who's not just them but their parents and their grandparents had gone out and consistently voted in every general election since they've been given the right to vote people have been telling us for a very very long time that our politics is fundamentally broken and it's not delivering on the things that they want and I agree with Tom I think that this is a moment basically where the thing has collapsed the people have had enough it can't it can't survive and that is therefore an opportunity because if we've learned anything in the last few years it should have been surely that this votes illegally EU is a rejection of the system as it is it's broken we've got to we've got to move on we've got to change it does your leader look like someone who can lead that transformation of British politics Jeremy Corbyn I think he's quite interested in different ways of sort of doing decision making that's certainly true he's got some history around that you know trying to involve the public and engage with the public he's much happier frankly when he's outside of Parliament than he is when he's in it especially at the moment that you give him from the way his handle breaks it well I think he's got a really difficult job on his hands to be honest with you because labour particularly represents some of the most heavily leave and heavily remained voting parts of the country and as a consequence our dilemma is the country's dilemma how do you speak for both and how do you bring people back together so he's had to walk a fine line in a debate that is very quickly been separated into black and white he's dealing in shades of grey and that is a very very difficult thing to do but frankly it's an essential thing to do because you cannot produce a sustainable settlement for this country that doesn't speak for both the 52 and the 48 it's just not possible who's going to lead this democratic revolution in the Conservative Party we'll see Tom I'm afraid you've both been talked of as potential leaders I'm sorry to give you over damning piece of the news but the truth is Gary actually remotely going near this the people who had talked of as prominent leadership contenders someone beginning to talk about it some of the beginnings talked about I'm not gonna going to no I'm not going to because people in camera some people are the sort of names that you would have heard in the in the sort of leadership bubble if you see me are beginning to talk in sensible ways about this now about how we rethink not I'm sensible how sensible they are I don't know I've only had very very early conversations so there's no there's really not much more than that to say could you say candidly that they are truly living that message or just talking it when you look at what's happening in Camden they're talking it at the moment when you look at people signaling from cabinet but Gary's right-wing virtues signaling to Toria Scioscia I'm gonna I get I'm gonna say they're talking into the moat which frankly is better than they were before so absolutely right but also looking at at your party from the outside in I think some of the really interesting sort of noises are coming largely from the back benches so people like muffin Neil O'Brien you I mean there there are you know there is an obvious frustration on the back benches about a generation who are weathered so that old style of politics and actually feels a bit similar in the Labour Party you know if you look at people like Stella Creasy or just Phillips and the way that they approach politics it's a very very different approach to anything that we've seen before and increasingly it feels like there are people who these don't feel this maybe could be have come to Westminster to be part of the system they've come to Westminster to change it under your current party structures they've been talked about in terms of how the membership might come after them and deselect them it doesn't sound like a vehicle your party you know some people might argue for the kind of people you want to see charging ahead and getting at the front well first of all let me say that it feels very different when you spend when I spend time in my CLP in Wigan it feels very different to the narrative that develops in the national media because the membership largely is quite similar to the member the active members that we had before but the newer members who have come in are quite passionate quite enthusiastic they're more likely to set up an energy co-op than sign a petition they want to be part of that change and so there is an opportunity for the Labour Party I think but the political party structures are as broken frankly as as Parliament I mean if you if you joined the Labour Party at the moment you usually do it like I did because you want to change the world and then very quickly you find yourself delivering Sami leaflets six o'clock in the evening and debating Standing Orders and motions that go to conference but then just disappear off into wherever and the levers just aren't there for people to pull and there's a huge frustration around it now we have this democracy review which very quickly then collapsed into a conversation about how to make it easier to deselect your MP which was depressing not just because I don't think most members do want to deselect their MP but because it didn't deliver on any of our ambition or energy that there is and when the dust has settled on this thing if we do manage to get the agreement through if we do manage to sort out the future trading relationship there's gonna have to be a real hard look at the political parties as well and the way that those structures work because they're not fit for purpose either does your party Tom look like it's the vehicle for all this exciting change that you're talking about there's no awful lot of Association bosses who members who sound like they might want to vote for Boris Johnson as the next leader someone I think you occasionally at occasion you've had a case me in the past of criticise well my job was as chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee is to oversee the Foreign Office so yeah I have been critical of the Foreign Secretary that is exactly the role of a committee chair I think you know and we're not talking about little details of his or his approach to very critical of some of the approach that the former foreign secretary across the board and you think he's a quite dangerous figure in some ways look I I expressed myself I think pretty clearly on various individual composite' the journey that your party's going on my point is for those kind of don't buy that area and I don't buy that because I do go to speak to a lot of constituency associations around the country I'm sure Lisa does the same and one of the things that strikes me about the people who are involved in politics in a conservative in the conservative family is that they tend to be the people who are very active in the community they tend to be the sort of people who are involved in you know rotary in the Lions they're that they tend to be the people who you know help set up homeless shelters or help run church based organizations and youth groups they tend to be the sort of people who really want to be engaged and one of the things that really strikes me again and again is actually look you know it is of course true that in some parts of our associations they are a bit more right wing than than the country at large that is hardly surprising it is the Conservative Party membership that there's kind of what you'd expect but actually in most of them I found an extremely open receptive audience of people who are fundamentally interested in the future of our country who have a deep passion for service and who really want to select the right person locally and eventually nationally to lead our country to a better future for themselves for their kids for sometimes for their grandkids I mean that's that's hardly surprising because if you're going to get involved in politics as Lisa puts it quite rightly and Deliver soggy leaflets on the Wednesday evening you know you're not doing it for your health I mean was pretty good exercise actually but you're not you're not doing it for your health you're doing it because you fundamentally think that some things in the country need to change and you think that the country matters and you know I think I have to say I think that the Conservative Party you know it's like all parties has got issues and numbers and issues of membership and that's true but it's fundamentally got a bunch of driven and engaged people who are doing really good things in their local communities and the fundamental purpose of political parties and you know people forget this is that we are supposed to be the recruiting sergeants for public life we're supposed to be going out there as members of political parties and finding the sort of person who you would like to represent you at you know or County Borough and local level I'm that's that's what we're looking for that we're looking for people who have an idea of service who have you know a view that aligns broadly speaking with it with the party ethos but who have fundamentally passionately engaged in service and service of the community um you're both pretty you're smiling at me now which is nice but you're both pretty miserable fundamentally why do I mean in political to very happy here Gary it's a it's a miserable time it is awful I mean it's really awful so I on Monday we were in the chamber debating whether we should allow chemists a Russian access to medication if we leave with no deal in a couple of weeks time I've got constituents who are diabetic my sister's diabetic actually and hasn't slept for months I've got constituents who are on dialysis who've been told to expect some disruption to their treatment I mean these are the things I've got a child actually in in Wigan who is has a genetic disorder which is life limiting and who was in line for a clinical trial in the EU but is now probably not going to get it these are the sorts of things that we're dealing with when we go home and this is the reason why we're all pretty miserable it's not just that the political parties are you know split apart by breakfast it's not just that we can't reach an agreement it's that this is the thing that keeps me awake at four o'clock in the morning and more importantly this is the sort of thing that's keeping my constituents awake at four o'clock in the morning and when they come to me at the moment I can't give them answers so no it's not it's not a good time in politics we're not a happy group of people I think it's fair to say it's true isn't it we call it the brexit face whenever you go and talk to anybody at the moment in politics people are smiling and they you know keep going and then you start talking about brexit and by the time you leave there the coolness of the mouths too started to droop I mean this is this is a moment of really serious national challenge and we've got to take the right decisions I mean I hate say FISA this is this is why I'm supporting this is why I'm supporting the Prime Minister's deal for all of its compromises you know we are sent here from 650 parts of the united kingdom to come and reach the best compromise as we can to try and keep the national dialogue going i mean the focus has to be for me what is the best i can do for the people i on sense serve and sometimes that's not what you would like to see you know many people know I didn't I didn't vote to leave I voted to remain but you've got to look at the world as it is and decide how to act from there and the truth is you know the decision has been taken we are leaving the European Union there are various ways in which we can leave it there are various ways in which I wish we had conducted these negotiations from three years ago but we didn't and I'm here now sitting with you on the 20th of March nine days before departure with a range of options before us but one of them allows me to say I will not close down the m26 putting in danger the jobs and people in West Kennet the difficult is though is that you don't have a party leader and we don't have a prime minister who's prepared to say the same thing and for someone like me to trust her then to go off and negotiate the future of this country on which thousands of jobs in my constituency depend when she's not prepared to do that it's just far too big a gamble it's part of the problem with brexit I think is that we've got a series of choices on offer and all of them are problematic there are no there are no good choices at the moment so I accept everything that you said Tom about you know the need to get some stability and certainty to avoid that prospect of chaos in nine days time but the trouble is what essentially she's asking me to do is to swap the prospects of real serious harm in nine days time for the prospect of really serious decades-long harm in my constituency in a few months time and you know having sat and talked to her about this role for Parliament in what comes next and a vote for Parliament in what comes next and the fact that she's still completely unwilling to even countenance that tells me she's not serious about trying to find consensus about trying to reach out across the house about taking on board the concerns of people like me who say well hang on a minute I've got thousands of jobs in food manufacturing that are at stake if we don't have a close economic relationship with the European Union if we lost those jobs in Wigan that is bigger potentially than anything that happened at the height of the mine closures and we're still dealing with the consequences of that now 25 years later so you know for me this is not a straightforward you know we've got to avoid we've got to avoid the chaos in nine days time because actually to vote through something without any guarantees or any leverage over what comes next just seems to me to be an equally irresponsible thing to do all I'm asking a for is over votes I mean it just doesn't seem that unreasonable and the fact that she said we do it to where the future relationship is it's quite a big thing I know this but Tommy's right that there isn't a settled view in the House of Commons about what should come next you know it's just had a bit of a discussion about a customs union versus a customs arrangement that there isn't that a view and that conversation hasn't really started yet within Parliament let alone with the EU so I'm not asking her to be absolutely crystal clear about what comes next because I think that would be unachievable at this stage but what I am asking for is a reset of the way in which we conduct these conversations and a vote for Parliament at the end of that process I respect and I you know I have to say that I think is going to come whoever's in number 10 and whatever they choose because the reality is the next stage of the negotiations is going to be much more focused on the future for obvious reasons and it's going to have to run through various options and it's going to have to come to various decisions and I think if there's a lesson for anybody whoever sitting in number 10 in the next few months and years it's going to be how on earth you make sure that you avoid these sort of cliff hedges where nobody environment nobody in government and frankly nobody in the world knows what the trading relationship of one of the six top economies in the world is going to be like in nine days time we're a thousand days since the referendum a thousand days from now this will we still be talking about breaks is every night I think we will still be talking about brexit in a thousand time I hope very much that we'll have moved forward with general agreement but the the reason that I think we'll still be talking about it goes back to a point that you made a little bit earlier which is that we skipped straight from this political earthquake in which a lot of people in every community around the country said that they wanted to shake up and fundamentally reset the relationship between the people and politics and we skip straight to the technical and legal aspects in that debate you know free free movement single market access northern island back stop all things that just genuinely for many people around the country they just think you've completely missed the point this is not relevant you are not listening and they were telling us three years ago we weren't listening I think there is just a genuine sense that we're still not and until we start grappling with those major questions we're not going to settle this the levels of control the people in my community I'm sure it's similar if not exactly the same in sounds like Wigan I mean bizarrely sounds like we're going in towns like Tunbridge not a million miles away from each other they are large serious important towns that could easily become if we're not careful dormitories to larger neighbors you know they could easily be sucked out of us by London new by Manchester and the challenges that we're facing is that you know people do want control they really do want control of their lives and their right to want that control but that control is provided by any number of different things including you know having a bus service that works so that you actually when you're older you can actually get out of the house without being able to drive you know having having the ability to allow your kids to go to sports clubs and do any number of different things without you having to be the taxi service you know I mean that and that's just one thing you know there's any number of different areas and I think focusing on that change in the power dynamics of our own country is where the revolution needs to happen because actually what we're fundamentally talking about is not you know how do how does the United Kingdom engage with Europe we've been talking about that the best part of a thousand no 3,000 years sometimes it's gone well 400 years of Roman cooperation it's gone badly 200 years of Viking raids you know you know and we've had these we've had these relationships come and go but what we're now talking about is how do we make sure that the next 7700 years looks much more like the last 70 years than many other bunches of 70 years going backwards thousand days from now still talking about bricks it will be talking about our future illiterate relationships with the world I hope by the way we'll be talking about our relationship with India I hope we'll be talking about our relationship with Canada about how we we won't be sorted nothing is ever sorted Gary that's life if some people say breaks it goes on and on and on and on well discussions as to how we deal with partners around the world goes on and on and on and on we've been talking about this you know that that's the nature of being a nation-state you're constantly talking about your relationship that's why we have a permanent foreign secretary and not one that we appoint and then dissolve you know we you know we're constantly talking about how we engage with partners around the world but the real challenge for us now is how do we how do we change the way we do political discourse so we actually do what we're meant to do which is to give power to people through a democratic system and not give an illusion of power every four or five years when you hire or fire the people that you sent to Westminster Lisa Tom thank you both very much indeed for sharing your thoughts on the reset button and who knows a thousand days from here where both of you will be thank you very much thank you you

Channel: Channel 4 News

Views: 143,029

Keywords: Channel 4 News, brexit debate, brexit, brexit latest, brexit news, brexit 2019, eu brexit, eu, brexit uk, brexit latest news, brexit today, brexit explained, uk news, brexit breakdown, uk brexit, brexit live, theresa may, theresa may brexit, brexit news uk, no deal, no deal brexit, brexit no deal, brexit deal, may brexit, brexit may, latest brexit news, brexit vote, article 50, brexit delay, delay brexit, brexit extension, may

Id: 3BH_DN-fQK8

Length: 39min 7sec (2347 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 22 2019