5. What Will Happen to the EU (when Britain leaves)?

John Simpson's World Podcast

Assuming Britain makes the leap… what's next for the UK and for Europe? Will the US help us out? Will the Chinese take an interest? And WTF is happening in France…? With over 53 years as a foreign reporter (including many spent as ‘the BBC Common Market Correspondent’) John Simpson has an idea or two about what we might be facing. On this unmissable episode John and producer Lisa Francesca Nand debate the reasons behind the vote to leave and delve into the possibilities that might befall both the EU and Britain if/when we leave our biggest neighbouring trading block.

On this episode we cover

Does John mind being called veteran

Veteran is better than ‘venerable’

The three Vs of getting old

The UK being in a bit of a civil war state since the referendum

Like Cromwell fighting Charles I

John being the ‘BBC Common Market Correspondent’ in the 70s

General de Gaulle blocking Britain from joining

Being involved from the start would have been a better fit

Lisa having enjoyed being part of Europe

John hating the idea of Visas in Europe

Being a Brit first, a European second

Focusing on advantages and disadvantages of leaving

But this means we have ignored the rest of Europe

John’s experience as a correspondent in Brussels

How we always stood on the edges of the EU

The UK hankering after a lost world position

We saw in the referendum how much support there was leaving

John being ambivalent about leaving

But caring about our standards of living falling

Very few people researched trade agreements, laws and their benefits

‘The metropolitan elite’

People that come to London are not all posh

John being an ex-Cambridge elite

How John thinks everything Lisa says is true (yay!)

We have a representative democracy

In 2016 we allowed people to take the decisions for themselves

People were lied to

The divisions of our society

The result being as a result of austerity and government cuts

Will life get better for the people who felt marginalised?

The people that in favour agree life is going to be rougher

What’s next for France?

The French being the mirror image opposite of us

14.33 – 14.48 edit stop for water break!

The French revolution sanctifying violence

French protests being entirely different to British

France is not collapsing

Workers rights in France being very strong

John missing Paris but Paris being stuck in the 50s in many ways

Will the EU weaken after we leave?

John thinking it was a mistake pushing for an ever closer union

The UK were the strong person of Europe

We had a seat at the table

Travellers in the Third Reich and how we slept walk into Nazi Germany

Are we too sleepwalking into something that is more sinister?

John reporting on the National Front in France

What’s really next for Europe

A quite uncomfortable closer relationship to the US to survive

The Chinese won’t take any great interest in us

Britain will drift for quite a long time