00:07my guest on 12 minutes with is british guillenese businesswoman and campaigner gina miller she made
00:14headlines after she successfully challenged the british government in two constitutional
00:18landmark rulings after the brexit vote in 2016 and later in 2019 thank you for joining us gina
00:24miller and to begin with can you remind our viewers what legal action you took against the
00:29british government over brexit following the june 2016 referendum and can you distinguish for our
00:34audiences between your personal stance against brexit and the legal basis for these cases
00:39yes lovely to join you um my personal opinion then and remains that we should have stayed in the eu
00:46um but that is completely separate from the process the legal process and the constitutional
00:51requirements and my case is the first against miller one against mrs may was because she was trying to
00:58trigger article 50 to leave the european union to begin that process by bypassing parliament and on
01:05the 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 which again would have meant that parliament
01:16would have no say and we would crash out with a no deal both of which are prime ministers putting
01:21themselves above the law so irrespective of my personal support for remaining this was very much
01:28more about the process and ensuring the prime ministers could not put themselves above the law
01:33um because we have ironically if you remember everyone talking about parliamentary sovereignty
01:38it was about defending parliamentary sovereignty and 10 years on from the referendum can you paint a
01:45picture of where it's left the country both economically and politically it's been a decade of decline
01:51um unfortunately there was no plan which is always something i suspected that the uh brexiteers the
01:59leavers had no plan for what would happen if they had won and that has unfortunately played out in the
02:04fact that there is a confirmation that our economy has been damaged in by around four to five actually now
02:11most economists say it's about five percent gdp um we have a real lack of foreign investment into the
02:17uk i mean there is almost non-existent foreign investment in the uk we have instability in our
02:23politics we have now instead of the traditional two-party systems we very much now have a five-party
02:29system um and the country has become more divided i mean brexit the whole referendum the dishonesty
02:36and the way the division that was sown has damaged our country so it is now a place that is
02:42a very
02:43much a populist country so my view now is about what happens for the next 10 years so we have
02:49to look
02:49forwards and i'm hoping for a leader now that our prime minister has resigned um i'm hoping that a new
02:56leader of the labor party has a plan and a strategy and can give some clarity on the direction of
03:03travel
03:03on our relationship with europe in from the point of view of our economy prosperity defense which is
03:09so important and also tackling the big issues such as ai and the environment and before we look forward
03:16just to finish looking backwards um from your perspective what are some of the biggest lies
03:21about brexit that never came true and in contrast have any promises
03:27um the biggest lie was about turkey joining those posters that leave remained that we would have
03:32hundreds of thousands of people coming across our border were i mean they were fabricated lies and they
03:37were images that were generated that were not true um the idea that leaving the eu would suddenly
03:43solve all our domestic issues um it was just an excuse a cowardly excuse for putting off the the real
03:50hard
03:51work that needs to be done when it comes to the domestic issues that we that we had and were
03:56deepened after the global financial crisis um the lies on that it would end immigration all it's done and
04:02we can see that you know um we've had the highest levels of legal migration post brexit than we have
04:09ever
04:09had you know close to um well depending on your figure somewhere between 600 000 and million people
04:15that are ex-eu so the idea when i was going around the country that was being sold by brexiters
04:21is leave
04:21the eu stop my um our migration problems it was a lie and then the 350 million that we would
04:28save for
04:29the nhs was a lie um there were so many of them do you believe that the labor government has
04:34made
04:35positive strides when it comes to mending its relationship with the eu and do you think that
04:40starmer'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
04:52about his realigning i don't understand the not agreeing to a youth mobility scheme when we have
04:57one with 13 other countries and restoring that opportunity for our young people um the idea of
05:03not pursuing a much closer relationship in a formal way to my mind the door is open on a swiss
05:10type
05:10agreement and i think that's something we should be very clear about and i think rather than cherry
05:15picking here there and everywhere in tiny little steps i hope i'm hoping the opportunity is there
05:20for the new leader a new leader to be much bolder and talk about alignment as i said from my
05:26personal
05:26point of view i think what is achievable before the next general election because we've got reform
05:31you know lurking over our british politics and possibly a reform type government here after the next
05:37general election that to me a swiss style agreement we have got to do something like that to make sure
05:43that the door is kept open to one day perhaps 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 and how positively do you feel about the upcoming uk eu reset talks um from your perspective
05:59what's lacking um in these talks with the eu both in terms of political will and concrete measures
06:06i think on our side it is that as i the red lines are nonsensical to me such as as
06:11i said i mentioned
06:12the the youth mobility scheme i think it's great that we're going to have some of the changes when
06:17it comes to agriculture um and reducing of some of the red tape but it's not enough our businesses
06:22are on the floor you know we need much more we need a relationship that actually reverses some of
06:29the damage when it comes to the paperwork the burden on businesses that will attract um for an
06:34investment and will actually stop the drift towards lower regulation where too many of our politicians
06:40on the right want us to go to so 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 and if not why and if
06:50so
06:51in what time frame i think the re the process you know we have this is not about surrender when
06:56i say
06:57that it's not rejoining maybe sometime in the future it's about the reality of where we are
07:02the reality is that there are other people ahead of the queue why should we be given special treatment
07:07and there are other member states who are ahead of other countries ahead of us secondly we would have
07:12to have um i think much more of the population in the uk wanting it the figures are for rejoined
07:19but i
07:19don't believe that there is enough of the population it is not a big enough uh gap yet um and
07:26also the time
07:26we are facing so many crises geopolitically in the world and in the world that i don't think we have
07:32a time
07:32for our um parliaments both 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 and you decided to take the government to court
07:45over its handling of brexit which made you kind of public enemy number one for brexiteers and but
07:51from your perspective um would you say there's a culture of political apathy in the uk compared to
07:56european uh neighbors the one positive if there is one positive from from brexit is that as a country
08:04ordinary people in the street didn't really talk about politics as as they do in europe as you do in
08:08european member states now people are much more engaged and that's why we are seeing so many of the
08:14new parties that are um coming up and you know greens party doing so well the new extreme right
08:20party restore um people are more engaged and that is a positive because actually a healthy democracy
08:25requires people to be more engaged that said it is also very divisive politics so um you know there's
08:32good and bad to that but i think the the 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 not just to do
08:45with europe because there are so many economic and domestic problems that we have in the uk um you
08:52know they're not sort of telling people honest truth about where we are and the hard choices we need to
08:58make to get to a better place and that includes um increasing you know we can't do very much if
09:05we
09:05don't have money in the coffers uh one of the things we need to do is to ensure that we
09:10have we can
09:11increase our gdp and investment from abroad and the markets and investors if there was a plan that they could
09:18see not just people in the uk that sense of uh of stability and a direction of travel would actually
09:26increase the um confidence that people have and at the moment very few people be it businesses
09:32investors and the public themselves have confidence in our politicians and you faced a huge torrent of
09:38online abuse when you took the government to court over brexit and you this led you to be protected by
09:43an anti-terrorism brigade um how 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 unfortunately you know it
09:55came with death threats and uh you know the violent people went to prison because of the death threats
10:01against me it was not something i ever envisaged i mean i knew there would be a backlash but i
10:06didn't
10:06think it would be of such a violent nature and such an abusive nature and i'm afraid as the anniversary
10:13the 10th anniversary now means that because for a long time nobody the b word was not mentioned by
10:19politicians it was they were too frightened to mention it now with the anniversary this week since last
10:25week they have done and the abuse has increased that i've been receiving and oddly enough i'm getting it
10:30from both sides this time i'm getting it from the leavers because they're saying oh she's going to
10:35try you know their hatred their hatred hasn't gone away and i'm afraid the reform and restore party
10:41because they are whipping up all the um anti-migrant and the divisions in our country and the anti-eu
10:47settlement uh um sentiment then that i get a backlash that it has a consequence for me but also the
10:53remainers are not happy with me either because they think we could just rejoin tomorrow you know and
10:57they're so i i take a pragmatic line um and i believe we have to look at process and we
11:05have to
11:06be honest about what that process means to people and that tends to be a very unpopular place to be
11:13from either side um but i think it's important that someone fills that gap and i will carry on doing
11:18that
11:19because we cannot get to a better place until we talk about the what is needed and i have to
11:24say
11:25whatever happens next cannot be um sneak through the back door and that's one of the things i think
11:30was wrong that the um prime minister starma was talking about it was a change to be done through
11:36what's called secondary legislation so it wouldn't be debated in parliament as i said and i defended
11:41the the parliamentary sovereignty i think any aligned realignment and changes that come in the future
11:46need to be transparent and in the open and debated by parliament it can't be through the back door
11:52thank you very much gina miller for joining us on euronews
