Executive Director on Inside London

Executive Director Uta Staiger appeared on Austrian national TV ORF 3 on Thursday 1st June 2017 to discuss the upcoming British general election and its consequences for Europe.

The European Institute's Executive Director, Dr Uta Staiger, took part in a panel discussion on Thursday 1st June on the forthcoming general election in the UK, hosted by the Austrian national state broadcaster, ORF 3.

On the special programme, 'Inside London', the panel discussed the different potential scenarios for the election on June 8th, and their effect on the upcoming Brexit negotiations. The channel's chief editor Ingrid Thurnher chaired the debate, which also included Stephan Shakespeare, CEO of YouGov, Jo Murkens, Associate Professor of Law at the LSE, the Austrian ambassador to the UK Martin Eichtinger, and ORF correspondent Bettina Prendergast.

The conversation covered a variety of issues, from polling data to the salience of migration, the questions of Scotland and Ireland in a Brexit settlement, May's aspiration to strike a trade deal before the Art 50 process comes to an end, and the consequences of the electoral system.

Among others, Dr Staiger commented upon the factors that could explaining Theresa May's unexpected and significant drop in the polls. She discussed the continuing invocation of the "no deal scenario", arguing that this is best understood as an opending gambit in an increasingly acrimonious preparatory phase to the actual negotiations.

The panelists also discussed the linkage between security issues and free movement, with Dr Staiger stressing how ill-founded a conjunction of the two in the current context is, and how security cooperation after Brexit will be the real test.