Brexit Expert: 'The Information Was There... Leave Voters Just Didn't Read It'
31 March 2017, 13:34 | Updated: 31 March 2017, 14:59
Ian Dunt, Brexit expert, said he's not surprised by the EU's stance - because the information was always there. Leave voters just didn't read it.
Ian Dunt, author of 'Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now?' and Editor of politics.co.uk, was in the studio with James O'Brien after the EU announced its strategy for Brexit negotiations.
EU President Donald Tusk has said that "sufficient progress" needs to be made on the UK's departure from the EU before opening the door for trade talks.
This comes after numerous European leaders rejected Theresa May's timetable to hold parallel talks about Britain's exit and future relationship.
Ian Dunt said that the EU's stance on Brexit comes as no surprise - because the "information was out there" and "it was credible", but Leave voters just didn't read it.
He said: "This is the funny part. This is just the stuff that they've always said was the rules. When they say 'well look, you're not going to have any bilateral talks with EU member states during the negotiations' - we knew that was going to be the case."
James said: "Well you did - a significant number of people didn't. Including a lot of prominent Leave campaigners."
Ian responded: "Yeah, but the information was out there, it was credible. Anyone who was saying otherwise, was either ignorant of the reality of it, or was making it up.
"One of those people, of course, was David Davis, who is now the Brexit Secretary, but during the campaign was saying that the first thing that Britain would do, if it voted to leave, would be to go into bilateral trade negotiations with Germany
"Which is illegal. And yet, he was either quickly educating himself, or quickly starting to tell the truth about the situation he was dealing with."
