Helen Pitt

Yeah.

Or anybody at the airport facing a long queue.

But do you think, you know, if you outlined at the start of this conversation just how cumbersome the red tape is for exporters and importers, particularly the food and drink sector in the UK, wouldn't this closer alignment be good news then for not just for those people, but also for consumers if it eases the flow of goods and potentially makes them cheaper as well?

And I know that you were in Brussels last month for a fairly major UK-EU summit.

What were the vibes like there?

Did it feel like both sides were equally enthusiastic about having a closer relationship?

Really?

I know.

I can't quite believe that it's almost 10 years since the UK voted for Brexit.

But it's interesting, isn't it, that Starmer is feeling more confident now to talk about this closer relationship.

And why do you think that is?

Because for the first couple of years of him being leader of the Labour Party, he was sounding so Brexity in spite of the fact that everybody knew he'd been agitating for a second referendum before he became the leader.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I suppose public opinion has also shifted in the past 10 years, hasn't it?

If you look at most of the opinion polls that have been done in the past couple of months, they all seem to show a similar picture, which is that a majority would now vote to rejoin the EU.

And therefore, he's got more of the electorate behind him when he starts saying things as he did at the start of this month when he said Brexit had done deep damage to the UK economy.

And he said that renewing closer relationships with Europe would mean, quote, a partnership for a dangerous world we must navigate together.

So I wonder if you think that this global pitch, the global instability that we're facing right now is also encouraging him to be more bold in pursuing this closer relationship.

Coming up, is Starmer putting the UK on a path to rejoining the EU?

And just to finish talking again about the kind of broader European picture, obviously Hungary is only one of 27 countries in the EU.