- Baroness Ludford, LibDem (House of Lords)
- Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, SNP (House of Commons)
- Seb Dance, Labour (MEP)
- Jeff King, Professor of Law at UCL
- Davor Jancic, Lecturer for European Law.
- Maxine Mawhinney, Moderator of today, BBC News
Each of the candidates presented their cases initially, and then they jointly answered questions. All of them were overly sceptical about Brexit, so at least one did not have to listen to political scum like Farage and the likes.
Here a few points from today that I found extremely interesting and noteworthy:
1) Baroness Ludford: "The EU Parliament has the nuclear bomb of being able to reject he final Brexit deal."
2) Baroness Ludford: "People voted for departure. People did not vote for destination." This means, there is no mandate for leaving the Single Market, as this was never on the table.
3) Baroness Ludford: People should be able to vote for the final deal. The process started with a referendum, it should end with one, too (My personal point of view: one referendum was quite enough. I am not sure if I can cope with another one).
4) Tasmina Ahmed-Sheik: "We must always acknowledge contributions EU migrants make, not just financially, but also culturally."
5) Tasmina: "I am not ready to put my faith into this government to negotiate any deal, let alone a good deal."
6) Jeff King: "European Parliament is the gold standard of parliamentary involvement in international treaty negotiations."
7) Jeff: "Parliaments need to be listened to. To rely on executive grace in a time like this is almost unbearable."
8) Jeff: "The EU scrutiny committee ought to have scrutiny reserve power. It would improve accountability function."
9) Seb Dance: "We need to have a national discussion that involves everyone - the devolved assemblies, cities, Parliament, everyone."
10) Seb: It's the EU now that holds all the cards in the forthcoming negotiations. "We shouldn't imagine that we're entering negotiations between equals."
11)Seb: "The reality is, once we trigger Article 50, the ball will be entirely in the EU27's court."
12) Davor Jancic: "European Parliament is a serious player: it has right of consent. EP previously rejected agreements struck by EU."
13) Davor: Role of national parliaments in EU27 is greatly neglected & could prove stumbling block in Article 50 deal.
14) Davor: "When the UK leaves the EU, it also leaves a partnership club where international standards are made."
15) Seb: "The UK Youth Parliament should also have their say in the negotiations since young people are the most affected."
16) Tasmina: "Labour needs to get its act together for the sake of unified Hard Brexit opposition."
17) Seb: "The fact that the UK Government has closed so many options has forced the EU to do the same."
18) Seb: "EU institutions unified on the main negotiation points despite some differences between Member States & EP groups."
19) Seb: "If Le Pen wins and we have a fascist government in France, the EU is doomed."
20) Maxine Mawhinney: Representatives from the Conservatives, UKIP, and Labour Leavers were also invited but did either not reply or did not have any interest!!
