Heather Stewart
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Appearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
I think the political and the economic world we're living in is hugely shaped by Brexit.
It's cast a really long shadow over both the major political parties in this country, which are now at risk of not being the major political parties for much longer, over the sort of general tenor of debate, I think, and the extent to which we're polarised.
So I think it's been really, really significant and we're still feeling the impact of it 10 years on.
It was an extraordinary moment, really.
And not to reminisce too much, as you say, but I was on the early shift, the 4am shift, and I sort of arrived in the office to this turmoil because it was not what was expected.
And it was a huge blow to the sitting government.
The leadership of both parties had said to the public, we really, really want you to do this.
And the public had sort of shrugged and said, we are not going to listen to you.
We want to do something different.
And so it wasn't clear on that first morning quite what the changes would be.
And particularly it wasn't clear how long it would take to extricate ourselves from the EU and to decide what sort of relationship we were going to have with them.
But it was really, really clear that it was a real jolt to the establishment.
Lots of people who felt that they knew what they were doing, they knew how to do politics, they knew what the public wanted, were proved completely wrong.
And it was a real shock.
I vividly remember sitting in front of my computer, waiting for David Cameron to come out onto Downing Street.
And of course, he had said, I'm not going to resign.
And then shortly thereafter, off he goes.
And I really remember thinking, gosh, this is an extraordinary moment.
I think it was so unclear during the campaign what approach to Brexit the Leavers wanted to take.
You know, Vote Leave worked really hard not to be pinned down, really, on any of the details about what kind of trading relationship do they want with the EU?