9: #9 | Silly Summit Season

This week the guys talk about the upcoming summit that's turned out to be something of a damp squib. Paddy Brussels makes a timely return while Aarti Shankar, policy analysist with Open Europe, makes her pod debut. In the first half we discuss with Paddy Brussels: 3:50 Brussels being fed up with brexit 5:10 How the summit has petered out as being relevent to brexit and why the UK backstop position doesn't work 7:53 Is a no deal a realistic proposition. 8:37 Can Merkel get support for her position on asylum? 9:10 And we talk about an imperfect backstop versus none at all. 10:11 Ireland's allies in a new, non UK Europe. In the second half we talk to Aarti Shankar and we talk about: 13:41 Why people voted to leave the EU (immigration unsurprisingly pops up) 17:10 Will there be a second referendum? 18:13 What role will the UK parliament have in deciding a final deal, and whether the pro EU Tory rebels aren't rebels at all. 21:16 How the EU summit is now a damp squib 22:30 Why the UK backstop proposition doesn't work but equally why the EU aren't being realistic in negotiations 26:15 Why are the EU backing Ireland so strongly? 27:54 Is a no deal scenario a bluff and will the final timeline in October actually be pushed back? 30:17 How frustrated are UK businesses? Follow Aarti on twitter @rtshankar and check out more work from Open Europe here: https://openeurope.org.uk