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LIVE At Castfest: The Brexit Campaign 10 Years On
00:47:02
Adam and Chris look back at 2016 and the EU referendum.
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- [00:00]
Adam Fleming
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk. Hello, we've got a bank holiday treat for you. Do you remember a few months ago, I came up with this idea, shout out to my Brex, where I thought, well, it's 10 years since the referendum on our membership of the EU. Why don't we relive that timeline in real time 10 years later with the benefit of hindsight? Well, I think we did it once and then it got put on the very back, back burner. But we decided to resurrect it as part of Cast Fest. This is our big festival where we got loads of BBC News podcasts together, along with hundreds and hundreds of podcast fans to watch them being recorded at the BBC's historic Maida Vale studios. And so what you will hear now is a expanded version of that gimmick, Shout out to My Brax, as recorded in front of an audience at cast fest on 25 April.
- [00:54]
Chris Mason
Newscast. Newscast from the BBC. Humanity's next great force voyage begins.
- [00:59]
Adam Fleming
We are in the midst of a rupture. Nostalgia will not bring back the old order.
- [01:04]
Chris Mason
Six, seven.
- [01:05]
David Dimbleby
Yeah, it's supposed to be me as a doctor.
- [01:07]
Unknown Participant
Daddy has also a special connotation.
- [01:10]
Dr. Katja Adler
Ooh la la.
- [01:10]
Chris Mason
Thinking about it like a panto helped. Do we play music now or what are we doing?
- [01:15]
Adam Fleming
Hello, it's Adam. Not in the newscast studio, but at the Cast Fest, which we did at the BBC studios in Maida Vale, where we had a load of BBC podcasts and a load of newscasters. And Chris. Chris here, too. Hello, Chris.
- [01:31]
Chris Mason
Hello. We're surrounded by an improbable number of microphone stands, two plant pots between Adam and I, what looks suspiciously like plastic flowers, and then various electric guitars and pianos. And Is that a drum over there? I think it is. My musical knowledge is relatively threadbare, as you can tell, but what a spot for us to be in.
- [01:52]
Adam Fleming
And other familiar things. The newscast mugs, the newscast cushions, and very familiar at talking about Brexit.
- [01:59]
Chris Mason
Yes. Where it all began in our podcasting journey.
- [02:03]
David Dimbleby
Yeah.
- [02:03]
Adam Fleming
Do you remember that, actually, that day?
- [02:05]
Chris Mason
Yeah. So we decided this was back in 2017, wasn't it, that we started June Brexit. Oh, right, okay. June. June 2017. And we'd been kicking around the idea of doing a podcast with our friend Dino, who's since gone off to launch all sorts of podcasts beyond the BBC. One called the Newsagents, apparently never heard of it. And we thought we'd give podcasting a go. And we were very fortunate to rise on two tides. Weren't we really? The prominence and the salience of Brexit as an issue and then the rise of podcasting, because more and more people were. It seems ridiculous this now, but more and more people then, you know, are getting data plans on a phone, which means you're not constantly fearful that you're gonna download something that's gonna cost you a fortune, et cetera, et cetera. And we've been getting away with it ever since.
- [02:54]
Adam Fleming
And why it worked for us as journalists was that we were doing our day jobs, which was reporting for the classic BBC outlets, whether it was the 6 o' clock news or the Today program, or what we call the morning radio bulletins, which is called AM Bulls. Cause we can't just say morning, we have to say am. And then we found that with brexitcast, we could sort of slip it in, into either middle or end of the working day and just build on all the stuff that we had gathered that day.
- [03:17]
David Cameron
Yeah.
- [03:18]
Chris Mason
And I think because one of the things with broadcast journalism as it was until relatively recently in the pre, sort of digital era, the big outlets, that it's still a privilege for me to report on every day Today program or the six and ten o' clock news, you know, when I do a live report on the 6 or 10 o' clock news, a long live is a minute and a half. You know, that's what, 90 seconds? That's about 250 words. You know, there's a limit to what you can. There's a limit to what you can say. And there's a danger in trying to say too much because you'll just leave the audience bamboozled. And the great joy of podcasting is that there's scope to be able to talk for longer and therefore for more of the stuff that gets into our notebooks from the conversations I spend all day having with all sorts of political folk that, you know, in a proportionate and calibrated way you can reflect to an audience that is after a bit more kind of depth and nuance and space for reflection.
- [04:16]
Adam Fleming
Now, if you were listening to newscast very carefully a couple of months ago, you'll have heard me pitch in real time a new classic newscast gimmick called Shout out to My Brecks, based on the great little mix track Shout out to My Ex. Cause I thought, well, it's 10 years since that era of the Leave Remain referendum. Why don't we relive it in real time 10 years later? And we did sort of like one helping of it that day when I came up with it and then we sort of forgot about it. So we're going to resurrect it today here at Cast Fest with an audience of enthusiastic newscasters who I'm sure will love the idea of this gimmick coming back to life.
- [04:55]
Chris Mason
Yes.
- [04:56]
Adam Fleming
So we're going to do a little episode of Shout Out To My Brecks where we go back to 2016 and I think this is how it's going to work. We're going to do kind of like the big picture stuff from the start of the campaign. At the start of our conversation then, I thought it'd be quite cool if we could zoom in on this particular period. So late April, early May that we're in now, but in 2016 years, and then we'll do some more big picture. What do we think about the whole process and the ancient history now? And as part of that, we have secured an exclusive voice note from Dr. Katja Adler.
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Unknown Participant
Mmm.
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Adam Fleming
So that's the format.
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Chris Mason
That's a real tease. I thought we were about to hear Katja.
- [05:39]
Adam Fleming
No, it's to make people keep listening. Staying in Cast Fest till the very end.
- [05:42]
Chris Mason
I see.
- [05:43]
Adam Fleming
Because they'll get a special guest appearance from Katja. Right, let's just remind ourselves the trigger for the referendum was David Cameron in Downing street saying this.
- [05:51]
David Cameron
Three years ago, I committed to the British people that I would renegotiate our position in the European Union and hold an in out referendum. Now I'm delivering on that commitment. You will decide and whatever your decision, I will do my best to deliver it. On Monday, I will commence the process set out under our Referendum act and I will go to Parliament and propose that the British people decide our future in Europe through an in out referendum on Thursday 23 June. The choice is in your hands, but my recommendation is clear. I believe that Britain will be safer, stronger and better off in a reformed European Union.
- [06:42]
Adam Fleming
And of course, that's because David Cameron had just come back from Brussels in a very long, high stakes summit where he'd negotiated with his EU partners to get a sort of new deal for Britain's membership. But there's so many things we can say about that. The main thing that I think about, that looking back at it, was it was a Cabinet meeting on a Saturday morning.
- [06:59]
Chris Mason
It was. I was in Downing street and at
- [07:01]
Adam Fleming
the time that seemed like a really unusual thing, a Cabinet meeting on a Saturday. I remember it being trumpeted at the time, the first Saturday Cabinet meeting in
- [07:08]
Chris Mason
decades, since the Falcons War, I think it was.
- [07:10]
Adam Fleming
But that seems quite quaint to be like, ooh, a Cabinet meeting on a Saturday, considering all the crises we've had since.
- [07:15]
Chris Mason
Yeah. And when you hear that clip, what I'm reminded of is the political arc of the story that had led up to that point. And even if you look at it through the prism of the individual David, now Lord Cameron, that when he had become leader of the Conservative Party, the best part of a decade earlier in opposition, part of his campaigning for that job was to withdraw the Conservatives from what was known as the, or is still known as the epp, the European People's Party, which is the centre right bloc of parties in the European Parliament. So back then, in the mid noughties, the argument going on principally within the Conservative Party, but not exclusively because there was Nigel Farage and Ukip, who were gaining in prominence and salience the argument about the UK's place within the European Union. And then the beginnings from some of a public argument about withdrawal from the European Union, had that heritage. And then building up all the way through the coalition years with the promise that David Cameron had made in the Conservative manifesto of 2015, which he ends up getting a majority for. And therefore arrives at this moment where this big question having sat pretty significantly waxing and waning, but pretty significantly in the UK political debate for a very long time, came to a head.
- [08:42]
Adam Fleming
And I remember being in Downing street that Saturday as well. Cause I was making a piece for the Sunday Politics program, as was then. And then I went across the River Thames to the HQ of Vote Leave, which weren't the official Leave campaign by that point, because they hadn't had the official designation yet. Competing campaigns trying to get the official designation to be that side of the argument. And I remember seeing a load of Cabinet ministers turning up to hit the phones and it was people like Ian Duncan Smith, Theresa Villiers, Chris Grayling. And I'm sure they did a very good sales job to the people that received a phone call from them unexpectedly that Saturday afternoon. But I remember thinking, wow, if these are the biggest hitters this campaign has got, I wonder how well they'll do. Because there's not a lot of stardust here. And if your best stardust was gonna be Michael Gove, I thought, mmm, I'm not sure how much, how much attention and how much cut through these people are gonna get. That then all changed on the following Sunday.
- [09:39]
Boris Johnson
We have a chance actually to do something. I have a chance actually to do something. I would like to see a new relationship based more on trade, on cooperation. But as I say without, with much less of this supranational element. So that's where I'm coming from. And that's why I've decided, after a huge amount of heartache, because I did not want to do anything I wanted. The last thing I wanted was to go against David Cameron or the government. But after a great deal of heartache, I don't think there's anything else I can do. I will be advocating Vote Leave or whatever the team is called. I understand there are many of them. I think that is basically because I want a better deal for the people of this country, to save them money and to take back control.
- [10:32]
Chris Mason
And that was clearly a pivotal moment. But picking up, Adam, on what you were just saying a second ago, I think a central dynamic. It's fascinating hearing these clips again because it transports us back to our reporting at the time. A central dynamic of the campaign and the public argument was the knack that those on the Leave side were able to leverage to turn to their advantage the fact that they were not perceived to be the establishment they could, in inverted commas, they could point to. There's a famous image, certainly for nerds like us as newscasters that I recall, of David Cameron, Paddy Ashdown and Neil Kinnock, I think, all in a telephone, phone center making calls on behalf of the Remain campaign alongside lots of bigger businesses. Not businesses necessarily across the piece, but lots of, if you like, voices of corporate Britain all on the same side of an argument. And the capacity that Leave had to make a compelling argument to enough people that that told you something about how you ought to vote, I think was interesting. One other thing I'm just gonna mention. One of the quirks of the job that I do is that I get asked by people who have written a book to write a bit of the blurb that you see popping up on the front or the inside covers. It's very flattering to be asked. It's not always a romantic process. Cause I get sent a PDF, which I'm then trying to read on my phone or on my laptop at 20 to midnight on the night bus home after the 10 o' clock news. Anyway, recently this book is coming out in the summer. I was reading the memoirs of Lord Elliot of Micklefell, Matthew Elliot, hugely significant figure in the. In the Vote Leave campaign. And it is a fascinating insight into his perspective, not least an element of which you were touching on, Adam. The tensions within the Leave campaign between the outfit that became the official designated campaign Vote Leave and then, as you might recall, Leave eu, which was the, if you like, alternative side of that same argument which had Nigel Farage has
- [12:40]
Adam Fleming
its head, you know, who asked me to write a blurb for their book and I read the whole thing and then they didn't use the blurb.
- [12:45]
Chris Mason
Oh, was it a good book?
- [12:48]
Adam Fleming
It was a good book actually. Michel Barnier. It's fine he had more famous people like the President of France and stuff
- [12:55]
Chris Mason
like that, but you should have seen the speed with which Adam went to the index when he got hold of
- [12:59]
Adam Fleming
a copy and found myself there three
- [13:02]
Chris Mason
times and for some reason went for the letter between E and G.
- [13:08]
Adam Fleming
Also just another thing from my private life. That clip of Boris Johnson is outside his house that he was living at the time in Islington, which I cycle past every single day on the way to and from work. So I think about that press gaggle every day.
- [13:21]
Chris Mason
And so I was sent to Boris Johnson's then house in Islington in North London the morning after the result and there was a huge gaggle of people, journalists like me there, for obvious reasons, given how central a character he'd been in the referendum campaign, the likelihood that the then Prime Minister would resign, which was then going to happen, with all of the kind of soap opera around whether, you know, Boris Johnson would become prime minister, et cetera, et cetera. And I distinctly remember, I'm going to, I'm going to self censor my language a little bit here, even for broad minded newscaster ears. I distinctly remember being stood outside his house and people are cycling to work. This is about half seven in the morning, people are cycling to work. Now granted it is in a pocket of London, bit like anywhere in the uk that is not typical of the country at large in terms of how it would have voted, how it thinks about anything, but in this instance how it would have voted in the Brexit referendum. And two men about 15 minutes apart cycle past in their office finery, suit and tie, looking every inch corporate, whatever they may have been doing, and shouted. Each of them, they used the same form of language. Boris, you. And what followed was the most crude four letter word you can think of. Now, you know, I've heard that word being thrown around occasionally in the context of people heckling, but it just really struck me in terms of the formality of their attire and then their decision to use that particular word. And I thought these next few years are gonna be quite lively because it was that first insight for me of the arguments and the passion and sometimes the anger, which was often very uncomfortable in public life. For a lot of people on all sides, that was to come in the process of delivering the will of the British people the day before.
- [15:16]
Adam Fleming
Let's go back to the timeline, though. So we're recording this episode of newscast here at Castfest on Saturday 25th April. So I thought, why don't we zoom in on that period, sort of late April, early May, so that this feels a little bit more like, oh, it's 10 years since that, a little bit more like we've planned it. So we've gone back to the archives. The newscast team have been looking at old news stories and the BBC website. I had to look back at Tim Shipman's book. He was then the editor, the political editor of the Sunday Times. It's called All Out War. Very detailed account of what was going on. And I was just reminded that 22 April was when US President Barack Obama was here and he did a news conference with David Cameron where he said, oh, these Brexit campaigners who think they're gonna get a trade deal between an independent UK and the us, they've gotta remember Britain will be in the back of the queue.
- [16:08]
Chris Mason
And so began a intense and earnest conversation. I recall this from the day itself, about whether or not that sentence had been planted into his mind and onto his piece of paper in front of him to read out. Because the perception was it would be helpful to the Remain campaign, and people were questioning the authenticity of it because he had used the word queue rather than line, which would be the conventional kind of American Americanism for describing a snaking bunch of people waiting to get into something. And therefore, was it, you know, was it as authentic as. As it was outwardly claimed to be?
- [16:48]
Adam Fleming
But it's interesting, looking back at that moment, because if you're the Remain campaign on paper, that looks like a very useful, helpful, persuasive intervention to deploy against the Leave campaign, who are saying one of the benefits of leaving the EU would be an independent trade policy. But like lots of things for the Remain campaign that looked good on paper didn't quite translate that way into the minds of voters.
- [17:12]
Chris Mason
Yeah. And there was another example that I really starkly remember, which was, I think in the last couple of days, perhaps before the referendum, where there was a news conference, I think it was in Birmingham. George Osborne, the then Chancellor, was in the thick of it. And I forget the precise quote, but the essence of the sentiments he was articulating was his fear for the housing market. Were there to be a Leave vote, effectively appealing to people who might fear that the value of the house might fall, which clearly, obviously, would be something that would be concerning were that to happen. But the way it was digested by a lot of folk was, well, I can't afford a house, and if it gets cheap as a result, that's perhaps no bad thing. And so again, that capacity where, from the Remain campaign's perspective, where the tools of campaigning that had served many of their principal figures well in the past, and of course, the context was two years on from the Scottish Independence referendum, where David Cameron and George Osborne had been, from their perspective, on the side of a successful winning campaign, seeing the deployment of these political arguments that may work or may have worked in previous referenda, or may have worked in the conventional political argument between parties, that in a binary referendum where the winner would win on the basis of the popular vote, might not actually work, and from their perspective, spectacularly didn't.
- [18:36]
Adam Fleming
And then one of the other things that happened in this period we're talking about of late April, early May 2016, was the only intervention in the entire referendum campaign by the then Home Secretary, Theresa May. And she did a speech and an interview with Laura. And I always remember that interview because there's actually a picture of it in the corridor in her office at Westminster. So if you're going to a certain studio, you're reminded of it where Theresa May said along the lines of, I've looked at it, I've looked at all the arguments, the sky will not fall in if the UK leaves the euro, but on balance, I think the country will be safer if we stay in. And so that's the only intervention Theresa May made in the campaign, despite then being the person that would have to deliver Brexit when David Cameron resigned. And also the fact that it wasn't exactly a full throated Remain message, even though she was technically a Remainer.
- [19:27]
Chris Mason
Yeah, but then that, then, I think, became a case study in the politics into which we then entered afterwards, which was that simultaneously the mechanism of the referendum was asking people to come to a view on whether to stay in the EU or Leave, but in many senses asking a lot of people to come to a binary judgment on something they may not have given a vast amount of thought to. I mean, clearly both sides had passionate articulators of their cause, and on the Leave side, there had been a whole generation of politicians who had been making this argument, often going back a while to pretty small audiences, that successfully managed to mount a political campaign that got them to the point where there was a referendum. And they went on to win it. An extraordinary kind of political achievement. But in the middle of all of that were millions and millions and millions of people who were being asked to come to a profound decision about structures of government which are not the sort of thing perfectly reasonably and rationally that grip most people most of the time. And even though, yes, Theresa May's contribution during the referendum campaign was minimal, was barely heard, and then was articulated in a way that wasn't full of passion for the Remain cause, such was the nature of how politics became defined afterwards down those tram tracks to a far greater extent than people defined themselves in a party political sense, at least for a while, that one of the things that I think limited her capacity for movement politically when she became Prime Minister was she was constantly having to convince both those close to her, who were authentic passionate Brexiteers in the first place, and the 17.4 million people who had voted for Brexit, that she truly believed in a cause that she had not herself advocated.
- [21:14]
Adam Fleming
Although it's so interesting going back to that speech because one of the things she does call for in it is for the UK to stay in the eu, but withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, which is now Tory party policy 10 years later.
- [21:25]
Chris Mason
Yeah. And even though our politics has returned to something approaching what we were used to beforehand, granted a very different backdrop, and it's multi party politics, et cetera, et cetera. In other words, we're no longer defined as starkly as we were by the Leave Remain thing. Some of those strands of argument that started then are still absolutely alive, aren't they, in our politics now? Not least what Keir Starmer is contemplating in terms of the UK's relationship with the EU in the coming years.
- [21:55]
Adam Fleming
And then going back to Tim Shipman's book All Out War, he talks about a meeting that happened in this period in George Osborne's office in Parliament with lots of the senior figures from the Remain campaign. And it was about should the Conservative Party authorize so called blue on Blue attacks? In other words, should David Cameron, the then Prime Minister, allow Conservatives to criticize each other across the Leave Remain divide? And they basically said the combination of that meeting was you. Yeah, you can criticize low key Conservatives and B listers, but you can't criticize Boris Johnson or Michael Gove.
- [22:33]
Chris Mason
And this was one of the. You know, so much of politics comes back to the dynamics between human beings and how human beings interact and how relationships are built up and potentially destroyed. The relationship between Michael Gove and his Then wife and David and Samantha Cameron was ruptured by the reality of them coming down on different sides of the Brexit argument, where not only are a collection of people making profound arguments about the country's future, but ones where you can devastate friendships but also spectacularly divide political parties. The Conservative Party in particular, during the referendum period, was perhaps the closest representation within a political party, broadly speaking, of the country at large. In other words, it was divided. And having to deal with the consequences of that afterwards is arguably something you can still see.
- [23:31]
Adam Fleming
And then I just wonder other things that happened in that period. I'm now going back through the timeline. I think this was around about the time when David Cameron gave the speech, which was interpreted by the newspapers as saying Brexit, or we didn't call it Brexit then leaving the EU could lead to World War Three. Now, that's not what he said in his speech. He talked about how the EU had been part of the architecture and the institutions on the continent of Europe that had meant there'd never been a war in Europe. But David Cameron learned that day that you can write one thing in a speech, but what the newspapers interpret is quite a separate thing. And your opponents can then say you are being ridiculously over the top.
- [24:08]
Chris Mason
Yeah. And also then the extent to which an argument that might have been key to the European Union's foundation way back when it was the European Coal and Steel Community, that initial embryonic idea that in the post war years you would try and create political infrastructures which would prevent the major European powers from going to war again. In other words, pool the stuff that is the engine of war that might have been and was widely seen by many at the time to be a sensible thing to do after several decades on and off of the most horrific conflict. But it's not necessarily a sustaining or winning argument several generations hence, involving a country that had always had, to a greater or lesser extent, an uncomfortable relationship with its nearest neighbours within this club. You know, the UK's outlook on the European Union was rarely one where the median position was one of the kind of passion and zeal for some of the federative instincts that you can pick up in Brussels and from some of those countries that share land borders with their near neighbours, that now share a currency and where you can cross from one to the other if you're in Belgium within next to no time.
- [25:25]
Adam Fleming
So that was basically what was happening 10 years ago from the moment we're recording this episode now here at Castfest. Let's scramble the timeline a little bit. What are just other really momentous moments for you as a journalist covering that campaign. And I'll give you some thinking time and I'll tell you one of mine. It was going to Cornwall and filming in a fish market and then packing up the camera kit in the car park afterwards. And Richard Madeley was walking across the car park. So of course we got the camera out doorstep Richard Madeley, who sort of insinuated he was a remainer. And then I was like, what about Judy? And he's like, you'll have to ask her. Which made me think that Judy was a leaver. Please get in touch, Judy, if you'd like to confirm whether that was true or not. But my main takeaway from what people in Cornwall were saying was that loads of people were up for leaving the eu, even though Cornwall was what's known as a net beneficiary of EU funds. So this sort of basic pounds and pence and euros argument wasn't swaying lots of Cornish people because they wanted something different.
- [26:24]
Chris Mason
I think, as well, that point illustrated irrespective of the eventual voting intentions of the Maidley Finnegan household, which I was
- [26:33]
Adam Fleming
speculating about, to be clear.
- [26:35]
Chris Mason
But we know that it divided families, don't we? And we know that in a way that. And divided them with a passion and a zeal that perhaps party politics might not to quite the same extent. Not least because when you have a platter of options at any other kind of election, there might be a way where you can triangulate your views to a point where you're sort of vaguely comfortable with voting in a particular way because it broadly aligns with your institution at that time. Whereas with the EU question, it was that straight. It was binary, wasn't it? There was nothing to distinguish between your vote for one side or the other finally come to with the pencil in your hand, versus the person who'd been campaigning passionately for either cause for such a long time. I mean, for me, the standout moment. Cause it just kind of stopped us all in our tracks was Jo Cox's murder. And being in the newsroom when we heard about what we thought was happening. Because the nature of how newsrooms work is that you get a steady trickle of information and sometimes details aren't quite right or you're waiting for corroboration of key moments. And when you hear that somebody who works in the postcode that you work in and is out there making a passionate case for a political argument, irrespective of what that argument is. And you hear that they've been murdered in the course of doing their work. In the context of this wider debate about the UK's kind of constitutional future, it just stops everything in its tracks. And you go from. And I remember this, that day, you go from this festival of color and argument and passion and anger and farce and ridicule and slogan and rhetoric, and then it stops. And it stops on all sides. And there's a sense of horror and a sense of revulsion and also then a sense of, what, if any, consequence does this have for this momentous decision that the British public are going to be asked to take in a matter of days later? And the campaign is having to work out how they calibrate that and how long you dial campaigning down for, and at what point is it comfortable to start campaigning again? When you do it too soon and it might seem crude, you leave it too long. And are you allowing those who are seeking to suggest that somehow violence should triumph over that battle of ideas, that that would be wrong as well? And we've seen, obviously, other horrendous moments where politicians have been killed in their line of work. Sir David Amos, the Conservative, a more recent example. And yeah, of course, it just stops you in your tracks when the very essence of the thing that we spend our lives reporting on is meant to be the battle of ideas without the horrific violence. So, for me, I know in the nature of a podcast, where we kick around ideas and laugh and joke when we can and all the rest of it, but for me, that was the
- [29:59]
Adam Fleming
moment and just a reminder of the timeline. Jo Cox died on 16 June, and they paused the campaigns until 19 June. So it was bearing in mind that the vote was a week later. That was quite a lot of campaigning time. The campaigns voluntarily gave away as a mark of respect, but the campaigns came roaring back. And then I remember being at the big debate that the BBC staged at Wembley Arena.
- [30:29]
Chris Mason
Yes.
- [30:30]
Adam Fleming
Which is where we're gonna host the next cast fest. No. Okay. Yeah. And that was an amazing night because you talked about it being a sort of festival of democracy and everyone getting involved, having that huge. And bear in mind, it wasn't Wembley Stadium, Wembley arena, the smaller one next door, but having that huge audience of thousands and thousands of people on that enormous stage. It was amazing. And also I was. Because our department in the BBC made it, I was the only journalist allowed actually, in the room itself. So to have that ringside seat was incredible. The weirdest bit, though, was in the Green Room, which was actually in one of the bars above the arena. And the Remain campaign were at one end of the bar. The Leave campaign were at the other end of the bar. And I was in the sort of vestibule bit in the middle. And I had a pint of well known lager. Cause the bar was sponsored by a well known brewery. And Michael Gove sidled up to me to start briefing me on who he thought was winning the debate. And then Liz Truss for the Other side, saw Michael Gove and so ran up to me and started whispering in my other ear. So I felt like I was on this weird, like double date with Michael Gove and Liz Truss with my pint as I was trying to watch this debate. So that was just a few days before the actual vote. And I remember, I think I was
- [31:47]
Chris Mason
in an edit van in the car park. So you got the better ticket.
- [31:50]
Adam Fleming
Yeah, sorry, sorry. I had the vip, like Celine Dion concert experience. You were in the van, you were in the burger van. And then I also remember that night on the way to Wembley, I think Independence Day 2 was being released. A dreadful film, by the way. And there was adverts for that on the bus everywhere. And I was like, I bet Boris Johnson will wrap up the entire referendum campaign by saying, and it will be our Independence Day. And he did, he did, he did. Anyway, that then takes us to the night itself. I was in the studio where they were doing the referendum program, filming behind the scenes. But I unfortunately was not there for this crucial moment where David Dimbleby, the legend, revealed the result.
- [32:31]
David Dimbleby
Well, at 20 minutes to 5, we can now say the decision taken in 1975 by this country to join the Common Market has been reversed by this referendum to leave the eu. We are absolutely clear now that there is no way that the Remain side can win. It looks as though the gap's going to be something like 52 to 48. So a four point lead for leaving the EU. And that's the result of this referendum, which has been preceded by weeks and months of argument and dispute and all the rest of it. The British people have spoken and the answer is we're out.
- [33:12]
Chris Mason
And that is what we call in the trade talking to the archive. Because whilst there will have been a hearty audience of newscasters and others who will have heard that live at 20 to 5 in the morning, far more people will have heard it since. Because it's the commentary on the pivotal moment perhaps in our journalistic careers of what, 25 years or so in reporting on British politics. The single Biggest and most important individual moment.
- [33:38]
Adam Fleming
Do you remember where you were at that point?
- [33:41]
Chris Mason
I was, yes, I do. So I'd spent a couple of hours on Radio 5 live the night before between 10 and midnight, interviewing various folk live, including quite a lot of prominent Leavers, who were Nigel Farage and John Redwood. I think we had on, in the context of that couple of hours, alongside some prominent Remainers and the Leavers at that point. This was before we started getting some of those crucial early results from Sunderland and Newcastle that. That were significant straws in the wind in terms of where things were going. They were pretty much conceding or imagining a world where they wouldn't quite make it. I then, prior to my appointment outside Boris Johnson's house, with the fruity language being shouted, I then actually got a bit of kip. So I was in a hotel in Westminster getting about three or four hours kip. So I was asleep for that moment, actually.
- [34:30]
Adam Fleming
And were you then awake for David Cameron resigning a few minutes or a few hours later?
- [34:34]
Chris Mason
Yes, yes. Yeah. Cause this is the tricky thing, isn't it? It's where the intersection of party politics and a referendum campaign collide, where David Cameron had spent the previous week saying, look, irrespective of the result, I won't resign. Because he didn't want to create the prospect of his resignation being, for some, an incentive to vote for the other side to try and ensure that that happened. But it was always, it seemed to me, obvious that if the Prime Minister who had called for the referendum and then had backed the losing side, you'd be done for. You wouldn't be able to carry on. Even if some felt there was that moment about the old trotters, wasn't there? Was that.
- [35:12]
Adam Fleming
Oh, Danny Dyer.
- [35:13]
Chris Mason
Yes.
- [35:14]
Adam Fleming
That Cameron, he's off sunning himself with his trotters up.
- [35:17]
Chris Mason
Yeah. So there was an argument that was quite good, that that wasn't Paddy o'
- [35:23]
Adam Fleming
Connell level of impressions.
- [35:25]
Chris Mason
There was an argument made from some that David Cameron had sort of run away. He'd called the referendum, he had got a popular mandate, he got a mandate for a referendum in the 2015 election, but he called the referendum and then advocated remaining loses. Obviously, there's a big piece of turbulence, period of turbulence coming as a result of. And then he cleared off. I mean, I think the. And you can understand why somebody would have that kind of view. If you're David Cameron, your capacity to govern, I think at that point, let alone try and deliver the very thing you've just spent the previous umpteen weeks advocating for the opposite of seems to me was always going to be untenable. And that was that.
- [36:09]
Adam Fleming
Right, that brings us up to date with Shout out to My Brax. We've got a live focus group here of our audience here at Kasfest. How did people feel about reliving the referendum 10 years on? And I don't mean from a political point of view, just from listening to a podcast point of view. Yeah. Oh, good, Brilliant. I think it's commissioned because there's 10 more years of Brexit related things we could do in real time.
- [36:33]
Chris Mason
There's a curious. You could certainly feel this at Westminster at the time, and I think probably more broadly around the country, that you have this incredibly intense period before the referendum, arguably an even more intense one politically after it, with the wranglings to try and deliver on what the British people had asked for, whatever, you know, and then arguments about, well, what precisely does the mandate to leave amount to? What does leave actually look like? And then of course, the argument from some others who were seeking to have another referendum. And so I think you went through this intense period where leave remain was the sort of defining, noisy reality of our politics, followed by. And we got an element of this, I think, in the countdown to the last general election where there was a collective sense of perhaps people being sick of it all and we're just glad to talk about anything else. And it's only now 10 years on where we're in a space where parties can just about, and even then often quite tentatively, have an argument about Brexit and the settlement and can it change? Should it change? How should it change, et cetera, et cetera. And it be almost a normal political conversation alongside all of the other policy arguments, as opposed to one that is instantly, as you know, as angry and as binary as some of those post referendum years felt like.
- [37:50]
Adam Fleming
Which brings us to the voice note we've been sent by Dr. Dr. Katja Adler with her up some of where she thinks UK EU relations are at the moment and where they might be heading.
- [37:59]
Dr. Katja Adler
Have your cake and eat it. No cherry picking. Remember those phrases from the Brexit negotiations? They were some. I'll never forget those.
- [38:07]
Boris Johnson
Course.
- [38:07]
Dr. Katja Adler
And that's why I am talking to you from a Brussels food market by the patisserie Stall, where I'm about to buy a piece of cake and eat it. And 10 years on, that's kind of where the UK relationship with the EU is going, with the UK sort of trying to pick and mix its way back into areas of Business where it says, yes, okay, we will get really close to your rules EU in order to get rid of that post Brexit, expensive red tape and trade barriers that are in place because we want to help our businesses. So we've seen the Labour government get more and more and more explicit that it wants to get closer to the European Union. Lots of big words, but actually, indeed, critics will say, look, it's just tinkering around the edges. Still, one thing that has changed enormously and that is the mood music since those Brexit relations. And that's largely because of geopolitics. Where are we now? The UK's best friend abroad, the United States, very unpredictable under Donald Trump. We've got the ongoing Russia aggression in Ukraine and it's in an expansionist mood more broadly in Europe as well. We've got the war now in the Middle east, the energy crisis where the government says, well, it makes sense to work more closely on energy security with our closest partners in the eu and that is bringing the two sides closer together. I would argue it's also making EU member states much more flexible about that. Cherry picking about having the cake and eating it with the eu, with the uk, they want to get closer. Whether the European Commission, that executive are up for that, I don't know. But there is definitely more of an open minded attitude and it's making the UK government feel that the UK public are more open to getting closer to the eu. All of this in theory, but it's those details, the devil in those details that make it hard to have your cake and eat it at the end of the day. So it's definitely a work in progress. I'm off to buy my cake now and I'm getting absolutely filthy looks from
- [40:14]
Chris Mason
the people in the queue.
- [40:15]
Dr. Katja Adler
So it's goodbye for me for now.
- [40:18]
Chris Mason
I was thinking, did I hear noises often, someone saying, stop shouting into your phone, buy that tart au pomme and then I can buy my profiteroles or whatever.
- [40:27]
Adam Fleming
Yeah, I want to know what cake it was.
- [40:28]
Chris Mason
Yes.
- [40:29]
Adam Fleming
Just like I want to know what cake that the Labour government actually want to buy from the eu, because we know the basics of sort of the first slice of cake that they want, like that plant and animal health agreement and rejoining Erasmus, the student exchange scheme and things like that. But I want to, they sort of keep hinting at what the second slice is going to be, but not spelling it out.
- [40:49]
Chris Mason
And it's tricky for them because they have a movement broadly that would be in favour of a closer relationship. But they felt the need politically to not relitigate those central planks of the Brexit argument about the customs union, the single market and freedom of movement, which for those of a get closer instinct, imposes limitations that they perhaps would rather not be there. And then there's a tangle around this idea of a youth mobility scheme, where you get arguments about what it's going to get called, because mobility sounds quite like freedom of movement. And that can be quite tricky politically. And from the UK's perspective, obviously, the EU is a lot bigger than the uk, so there is a prospect that there'd be a greater number of younger folk coming over here than younger British folk going over there. And how does that become something that you can sell politically, et cetera, et cetera. But I think we saw from the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, in her Mays lecture, which is one of the set piece moments for a Chancellor in the year, an argument that leant on a desire for a closer relationship. I guess she's looking through the prism of economic growth. But there's gonna be a summit, isn't there? There's a summit coming up, an annual event now, UK EU summit. There's one coming up in a couple of months. Couple of months time. Where does. Where does labor get to with it? And then where does the question about our relationship with the European Union go in the next five, 10, 20 years? In the context of everything from 2016, it'd be fascinating.
- [42:22]
Adam Fleming
So in theory, our podcasting successors, in 20 years time could be doing what was happening 10 years ago, which would be now, this episode, there's a thought they'd be going, what cake did Catcher have? So that was Shout out to My Brecks, which Chris and I recorded at Castfest, where we got loads of newscast fans at the Medievale Studios to watch us making loads of podcasts. And also, Chris, there was an innovation, wasn't there, where newscasters could become casters?
- [42:56]
Chris Mason
Yeah, this was my favorite part of the whole afternoon. So it was brilliant newscasters to see you all there at Maida Vale on one of the sunniest afternoons of the year. And we were in this incredibly historic building with all of its history throughout the BBC's history, pretty much, but a room, a building without any windows in it. And so we were all people giving up the sunshine to come and listen to us. But I reckon my favorite bit was when we did this, when we had. It was a bit of a lottery, wasn't it? A bit of a sort of tombola where you could pull out a ticket or Pull out a thing and get the chance to do a five minute. Make your own podcast with a topic, either on your own or with a friend or whatever. With. With Adam and I sort of trying to sort of shepherd it along a bit and it was. Oh, it was a blast, wasn't it?
- [43:46]
Adam Fleming
It was great fun. We called it Eurocast. I'm not sure that name really caught on, but you will definitely see that the podcasting bug was caught by many of the people who came to do Euracast. And here is a selection of some of the amazing mini podcasts that they put together.
- [44:02]
Dr. Katja Adler
I am an early riser and Claire goes to bed later, so I find that she rearranges things in the dishwasher.
- [44:09]
Adam Fleming
Do you rearrange?
- [44:10]
David Dimbleby
Do you?
- [44:11]
Unknown Participant
I don't even hide it.
- [44:12]
Chris Mason
I'll do it. I'll do it when we're together. What is particularly for you egregious about what you witness that demands your intervention? My issue is efficiency and space. So I feel like maybe there's a vision that I'm not aware of, but
- [44:28]
Unknown Participant
that things should be. Be closer together so we can fit more in. But then if you're next to someone who's dull and.
- [44:39]
Adam Fleming
Why are you gesturing towards Hans? Sorry, you're getting a lot of grief
- [44:44]
Unknown Participant
here, Hans, you know, then you are.
- [44:46]
Dr. Katja Adler
You are stuck until.
- [44:48]
Unknown Participant
Until. Until Hans, the host, asks you to rotate.
- [44:51]
Chris Mason
Is that what happens?
- [44:52]
Unknown Participant
Yeah, we do rotations. So.
- [44:54]
Chris Mason
So how does that work?
- [44:55]
Unknown Participant
So you get up, do two sets down of chairs, sit down again and the whole table move around. So do between each dish. So you get to speak to everyone that way.
- [45:10]
Adam Fleming
What is this episode going to be about, Sinead?
- [45:13]
Unknown Participant
We want to talk about earwax.
- [45:16]
Chris Mason
Why not? I mean, or why. Maybe I should ask, what is it about earwax that brings you into this podcast?
- [45:23]
Unknown Participant
It's a national obsession. We like to talk about the weather, we like to talk about football, we like to talk about food. And people in the UK like to talk about earwax. Yes. More than most European countries. And the number of people that get earwax removed in the UK is like two and a half million a year.
- [45:43]
Adam Fleming
What should I go to? What should my first thing be to go to if I want to get into it?
- [45:48]
Unknown Participant
So you're down the pub and you're having a quick oh, to go and watch, you mean? Yeah, yeah, go to a hundred match this year, see what you think. The joy of it is that it's a. It's a double. So you can watch the women in the afternoon. Followed by the men's match in the evening. The women is very family, very and then it gets a bit rowdier towards the evening. Definitely go and see 100 match or two. And then if you're feeling brave, go to a county championship match, which is four days. It's a bit drier, but you'll learn a lot more about the cricket and
- [46:16]
Adam Fleming
I will never be stumped ever again in a cricketing conversation.
- [46:21]
Chris Mason
Newscast Newscast from the BBC from one
- [46:24]
Unknown Newscaster
newscaster to another, thank you so much for making it to the end of this episode. You clearly do, in the words of Chris Mason, ooze stamina. Can I also gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? Tell everyone you know and don't forget, you can email us anytime@newscastbc.co.uk or if you're that way inclined, send us a WhatsApp on 440-3301-239480. Be assured, I promise we listen to everyone.
- [47:08]
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