What Went Wrong with Brexit? - Peter Foster in conversation with Alex Hall Hall

What has Brexit done to our economy?

What is it liable to do to us in the future?

What can we do about it?

Peter Foster is one of the UK's most respected business journalists. He is public policy editor for the Financial Times, a world-renowned source for rigorous, authoritative and objective coverage of Brexit. There were 5 million views of its devastating video report on Brexit earlier this year.

In this webinar Peter Foster will talk to Alex Hall Hall about his first book, What Went Wrong With Brexit (and What We Can Do About It?) published by (Canongate, September 7th). It sets out in graphic detail the economic consequences of Brexit since 2016, with vivid case studies of UK exporters battling new Brexit paperwork and red tape.

It explains why these impacts are far from over, but set to inflict further, deepening harm as EU and UK diverge. New post-Brexit trade deals offer at best minimal compensation for massive damage to trade with our major trading partner – the EU.

Foster supplies a detailed briefing on mitigations potentially achievable within the current UK/EU trade deal, subject to negotiation, with strings and usually at a price.

His conclusion is stark: tweaks to Brexit available within the bounds of current Tory and Labour red lines, although welcome and beneficial, “will have limited overall economic impact”. Labour is currently as disingenuous as Conservatives about our future economic prospects, failing a fundamental rethink of our relationship with the EU.

Foster stops short of telling us what to do. But he shows convincingly how politicians' current red lines set narrow limits on what we can hope and expect: the truth is that there is no such thing as 'making Brexit work'. Foster's book is a compelling call for a national rethink. It could mark an inflection point in our natuonal debate. In this Grassroots for Europe webinar, we invite you to join us and help progress this conversation.

Alex Hall Hall, a former UK diplomat and ambassador who resigned in protest at the dishonesty of post-Brexit UK government positions, and subsequently a fearless public critic of Brexit and other current abuses of post-truth government, will discuss with Peter Foster how our reckoning with Brexit must also set us on a path to a more truthful politics.