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The Spectator Podcast: A new Europe

On this week’s bumper episode, we say farewell to the EU, look at the most high-profile mismatch in boxing history, and speak to two living legends: actor and director Simon Callow and explorer John Hemming.

First, with the trigger pulled on the Brexit starting gun, we gathered to reflect on the process so far and how divorce proceedings are likely to go. In this week’s magazineJames Forsyth advocates for ‘a Brexit that works for everyone’ and he joins the podcast to discuss this, along with Fraser Nelson and Hugo Dixon, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Remain-supporting InFacts. In James’s piece, he imagines the future, writing that:

“On 29 March 2019 the Queen should have a state dinner and invite the European Union’s 27 heads of state and its five presidents. The evening’s purpose would be to toast the new alliance between the United Kingdom and the EU: one based on free trade, security cooperation and shared democratic values.”

But Hugo Dixon has his doubts:

“I think it is an opportunity, but I think there are lots and lots of pitfalls. The piece that James has written – if it actually ends up the way that James has sketched it, with a deep and comprehensive free trade, and cooperation on foreign policy and defence and security… and, after the macho words, an amicable velvet divorce. It wouldn’t be my first choice, but I think it would be a good second option.”

They also discuss our chances of getting a good deal, ‘crashing out’ without a deal of any kind, and consider the percentage chance of the UK not going through with Brexit at all.

Next, we turn our attention to a clash between two boxers, which represents something much more than that: it is a winner-takes-all brawl between the old guard, boxing, and it’s snappy-dressing younger sibling, MMA.

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