00:07My guest on 12 Minutes With is British Guionese businesswoman and campaigner Gina Miller.
00:13She made headlines after she successfully challenged the British government in two constitutional landmark rulings after the Brexit vote in
00:202016 and later in 2019.
00:23Thank you for joining us, Gina Miller. To begin with, can you remind our viewers what legal action you took
00:28against the British government over Brexit following the June 2016 referendum?
00:33And can you distinguish for our audiences between your personal stance against Brexit and the legal basis for these cases?
00:40Yes, lovely to join you. My personal opinion then and remains that we should have stayed in the EU.
00:47But that is completely separate from the process, the legal process and the constitutional requirements.
00:53And my case is the first against Miller, one against Mrs May, was because she was trying to trigger Article
00:5950 to leave the European Union to begin that process by bypassing Parliament.
01:04And on the second occasion, exactly the same, Boris Johnson, the prime minister, was going to try and close down
01:11Parliament, what we call prorogation, for a long period of time,
01:14which again would have meant that Parliament would have no say and we would crash out with a no deal,
01:19both of which are prime ministers putting themselves above the law.
01:22So irrespective of my personal support for remaining, this was very much more about the process and ensuring the prime
01:31ministers could not put themselves above the law.
01:33Because we have, ironically, if you remember, everyone talking about parliamentary sovereignty, it was about defending parliamentary sovereignty.
01:42And 10 years on from the referendum, can you paint a picture of where it's left the country, both economically
01:48and politically?
01:49It's been a decade of decline. Unfortunately, there was no plan, which is always something I suspected, that the Brexiteers,
01:59the leavers, had no plan for what would happen if they had won.
02:02And that has unfortunately played out in the fact that there is a confirmation that our economy has been damaged
02:08by around four to five.
02:10Actually, now most economists say it's about five percent GDP.
02:14We have a real lack of foreign investment into the UK.
02:18I mean, there is almost non-existent foreign investment in the UK.
02:21We have instability in our politics.
02:23We have now, instead of the traditional two-party systems, we very much now have a five-party system.
02:30And the country has become more divided.
02:33I mean, Brexit, the whole referendum, the dishonesty and the way the division that was sown has damaged our country.
02:40So it is now a place that is a very much a populist country.
02:44So my view now is about what happens for the next 10 years.
02:48So we have to look forwards. And I'm hoping for a leader now that our prime minister has resigned.
02:55I'm hoping that a new leader of the Labour Party has a plan and a strategy and can give some
03:00clarity on the direction of travel,
03:03on our relationship with Europe in from the point of view of our economy, prosperity, defence, which is so important,
03:10and also tackling the big issues such as AI and the environment.
03:14And before we look forward, just to finish looking backwards, from your perspective,
03:19what are some of the biggest lies about Brexit that never came true?
03:23And in contrast, have any promises?
03:27The biggest lie was about Turkey joining.
03:29Those posters that leave remained that we would have hundreds of thousands of people coming across our border were,
03:35I mean, they were fabricated lies and they were images that were generated that were not true.
03:40The idea that leaving the EU would suddenly solve all our domestic issues.
03:46It was just an excuse, a cowardly excuse for putting off the real hard work that needs to be done
03:52when it comes to the domestic issues that we had
03:55and were deepened after the global financial crisis.
03:58The lies on that it would end immigration, all it's done.
04:02And we can see that, you know, we've had the highest levels of legal migration post-Brexit than we have
04:09ever had,
04:09you know, close to, well, depending on your figure, somewhere between 600,000 and a million people that are ex
04:16-EU.
04:16So the idea when I was going around the country that was being sold by Brexiteers is leave the EU,
04:22stop our migration problems.
04:25It was a lie.
04:26And then the 350 million that we would save for the NHS was a lie.
04:30There were so many of them.
04:33Do you believe that the Labour government has made positive strides when it comes to mending its relationship with the
04:38EU?
04:39And do you think that Starmer's resignation will weaken ties or be an opportunity to strengthen them further?
04:45I have been very disappointed that Prime Minister Starmer was much not clearer on his, what he called about his
04:52realigning.
04:53I don't understand the not agreeing to a youth mobility scheme when we have one with 13 other countries and
04:59restoring that opportunity for our young people.
05:02The idea of not pursuing a much closer relationship in a formal way, to my mind, the door is open
05:09on a Swiss-type agreement.
05:11And I think that's something we should be very clear about.
05:13And I think rather than cherry-picking here, there and everywhere in tiny little steps, I'm hoping the opportunity is
05:20there for the new leader, a new leader to be much bolder and talk about alignment.
05:25As I said, from my personal point of view, I think what is achievable before the next general election, because
05:30we've got reform, you know, lurking over our British politics and possibly a reform-type government after the next general
05:37election, that to me is a Swiss-style agreement.
05:40We have got to do something like that, to make sure that the door is kept open to one day
05:45perhaps rejoining, because that's what I'd like to see.
05:47But I don't think we have the political bandwidth in either Europe or the UK to be talking about that
05:53right now.
05:53And how positively do you feel about the upcoming UK-EU reset talks?
05:58From your perspective, what's lacking in these talks of the EU, both in terms of political will and concrete measures?
06:06I think on our side, it is that the red lines are nonsensical to me, such as, as I said,
06:12I mentioned the youth mobility scheme.
06:14I think it's great that we're going to have some of the changes when it comes to agriculture and reducing
06:19of some of the red tape.
06:20But it's not enough. Our businesses are on the floor.
06:24You know, we need much more. We need a relationship that actually reverses some of the damage when it comes
06:30to the paperwork,
06:31the burden on businesses that will attract foreign investment and will actually stop the drift towards lower regulation where too
06:39many of our politicians on the right want us to go to.
06:41So I think it's really important that we have those closer relationships.
06:45And do you believe that there's a chance that Brexit could ever be reversed?
06:49And if not, why? And if so, in what time frame?
06:53I think the process, you know, we have this is not about surrender when I say that it's not rejoining
06:59maybe sometime in the future.
07:01It's about the reality of where we are. The reality is that there are other people ahead of the queue.
07:05Why should we be given special treatment? And there are other member states who are ahead of other countries ahead
07:10of us.
07:10Secondly, we would have to have, I think, much more of the population in the UK wanting it.
07:17The figures are for rejoined, but I don't believe that there is enough of the population.
07:22It is not a big enough gap yet.
07:25And also the time. We are facing so many crises geopolitically in the world that I don't think we have
07:32a time for our parliaments,
07:35both in the EU and the UK, to be occupied with negotiating a rejoining deal.
07:40It would take out all the energy that's needed elsewhere.
07:43And you decided to take the government to court over its handling of Brexit,
07:47which made you kind of public enemy number one for Brexiteers.
07:51But from your perspective, would you say there's a culture of political apathy in the UK compared to European neighbours?
07:58The one positive, if there is one positive from Brexit, is that as a country, ordinary people in the street
08:05didn't really talk about politics,
08:07as they do in Europe, as you do in your European member states.
08:10Now people are much more engaged.
08:12And that's why we are seeing so many of the new parties that are coming up.
08:17And, you know, Greens Party doing so well, the new extreme right party restore.
08:22People are more engaged.
08:23And that is a positive because actually a healthy democracy requires people to be more engaged.
08:27That said, it is also very divisive politics.
08:31So, you know, there's good and bad to that.
08:33But I think the problem is that we don't have politicians with courage.
08:39We do not have politicians that are spelling out the difficulties of where we are,
08:44not just to do with Europe, because there are so many economic and domestic problems that we have in the
08:50UK.
08:51You know, they're not sort of telling people honest truth about where we are and the hard choices we need
08:58to make to get to a better place.
09:00And that includes increasing, you know, we can't do very much if we don't have money in the coffers.
09:07One of the things we need to do is to ensure that we have we can increase our GDP and
09:12investment from abroad and the markets and investors.
09:16If there was a plan that they could see, not just people in the UK, that sense of stability and
09:23direction of travel would actually increase the confidence that people have.
09:29And at the moment, very few people, be it businesses, investors and the public themselves, have confidence in our politicians.
09:36And you faced a huge torrent of online abuse when you took the government to court over Brexit.
09:41And this led you to be protected by an anti-terrorism brigade.
09:45How dangerous has it been for you to be an outspoken critic of Brexit?
09:49And do you believe that there's still a risk in being this outspoken today?
09:54Unfortunately, you know, it came with death threats and, you know, the vilest people went to prison because of the
10:00death threats against me.
10:02It was not something I ever envisaged.
10:04I mean, I knew there would be a backlash, but I didn't think it would be of such a violent
10:09nature and such an abusive nature.
10:11And I'm afraid as the anniversary, the 10th anniversary now means it, because for a long time, nobody, the B
10:18word was not mentioned by politicians.
10:20It was, they were too frightened to mention it.
10:22Now with the anniversary this week, since last week, they have done and the abuse has increased that I've been
10:28receiving.
10:29And oddly enough, I'm getting it from both sides this time.
10:31I'm getting it from the leavers because they're saying, oh, she's going to try it.
10:35You know, their hatred hasn't gone away.
10:38And I'm afraid the Reform and Restore Party, because they are whipping up all the anti-migrant and the divisions
10:45in our country and the anti-EU settlement sentiment, then that I get a backlash that it has a consequence
10:52for me.
10:52But also the Remainers are not happy with me either because they think we could just rejoin tomorrow, you know.
10:57And so I take a pragmatic line and I believe we have to look at process and we have to
11:06be honest about what that process means to people.
11:08And that tends to be a very unpopular place to be from either side.
11:14But I think it's important that someone fills that gap.
11:17And I will carry on doing that because we cannot get to a better place until we talk about what
11:23is needed.
11:23And I have to say, whatever happens next cannot be sneaked through the back door.
11:29And that's one of the things I think was wrong that the Prime Minister Starmer was talking about, was that
11:35change would be done through what's called secondary legislation so it wouldn't be debated in Parliament.
11:40As I said, and I defended the parliamentary sovereignty, I think any realignment and changes that come in the future
11:46need to be transparent and in the open and debated by Parliament.
11:51It can't be through the back door.
11:53Thank you very much, Gina Miller, for joining us on Euronews.
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