Five leadings lawyers, historians, educationists, & economists speak up for #Brexit and tell B4B listeners why they think the UK needs to leave the EU including the single market and the customs union and some of its legal institutions too.
In this special B4B documentary you will hear from the lawyer Baroness Deech, the historian Professor Robert Tombs, the educationist & author Dr Joanna Williams, the political Labour historian Richard Johnson, and economist Dr Graham Gudgin.
In a crunch week for Brexit we hope their arguments will convince you as to why the Prime Minister, Theresa May needs to embrace the views of the hard Brexiteers in her Cabinet and ensure Brexit does mean Brexit and that she does not opt for a soft Brexit, in name only.
Deech told us:
I am a great supporter of human rights, we have nothing to worry about in this country. Aren’t our human rights much better protected by our own judges by our own Supreme Court? Would you rather, if you were a minority or someone with a Human Rights problem, wouldn’t you rather be in this country than in Spain, Hungry or Poland or Austria? Their Human rights are going down the tube we are alright here.
Tombs told us:
We shall be a European Country (when we Brexit) as we always have been, we shan’t be an EU country, but we will have close, political, strategic and economic relations with Europe and close cultural relations with Europe. I hope we will have closer relations with other parts of the World. We have very wide global connections, we have stronger relations with Australia for instance than some European countries and I think this is something that will remerge. I hope after we leave the EU we will remain European and become even more global.
Williams told us:
We have been discussing education, schools and Universities but I think every cultural institution seems to be dominated by Remain supporting people, and I think if you look at the attention that gets given to the Remain argument in the media it is not surprising, as their natural sympathy seems to be with that side of the argument. I don’t think Theresa May has shown any signs of being capable of actual delivering Brexit, or having any interest in delivering Brexit.
Johnson told us:
Outside of these trading institutions, including the Customs Union, we can forge humanitarian trade policies which are focused on restoring connections with former countries in the Commonwealth and so on. From a moral perspective I think we have an obligation to be engaged with these countries around the World in Asia, Africa, in the Americas, and Australia and try and have an outward looking partnership with these countries which we just can’t do if we stay in the Single Market or the Customs Union.
Gudgin told us:
The British Government says with impeccable logic that we can’t sort out the NI Border until we know what the trade deal is and Brussels has insisted on putting that cart before that horse. We will end up eventually with a free trade agreement similar to Canada’s but hopefully saying more about financial services which are important to us. That is how we will end up, but it is going to be pretty horrible until that point because we can see what the EU is doing.
