[[MICHAEL

ON CAM]]

Well Nicholas, do you think that the risk of, you know, the U. S. repatriating assets
back to this country is greater if...as a Brexit or if Trump becomes president?

[[NICHOLAS ON CAM]]

Well maybe both can happen. I think if there is a vote for Brexit, it will trigger what
people call on the marketplace, a risk of behavior. It will enhance a perception of
political risk in the UK, but also by implication in other places including the US. So
you could imagine people integrating the possibility of a trend victory as more likely
after breaks after Brexit vote because it.because it shows that this sort of nonmainstream politics has traction.

[[MICHAEL ON CAM]]

Well Jill was talking about how Brexit would lead to a two-year process in which
Britain has to renegotiate trade agreements. What kind of agreements do you think
Britain can get with Europe and other parts of the world if it leads?

[[NICHOLAS ON CAM]]

So the two year process is to negotiate a new relationship with the European Union
and that includes trade, but it's not clear that everything will be settled in two
years because we are talking about very complex processes and if you look at the big
trade agreement that the U. S. had negotiated in recent decades it typically has taken
more than two years.

[[MICHAEL]]

Long time.

[[NICHOLAS ON CAM]]

So two years is just the beginning that would be a very protracted period of
uncertainty for a number of commercial regulatory attacks relationship that the UK
has with number of partners as a consequence of their exit from the European
Union. And I still was saying people hate uncertainty so that would probably be one
of the main drivers often-negative impact.

[[MICHAEL ON CAM]]

Well, what do you think are the chances that Britain could get a deal with the EU like
in Norway and Switzerland have?

[[NICHOLAS ON CAM]]

Well the deal with Norway is different from the one with Switzerland. Norway is
part of what is called the European Economy Area. That means part of the single
market, it has a passport that we were talking about before but it also has to accept
all the regulations and pay into the EU budget so it's not clear whether the UK will
want to have that sort of deal because it comes with strings attached. Switzerland
has a looser relationship but that also means at their financial firms, for example,
have less access to the EU market and it's likely that the EU negotiators will not be
punitive but certainly be unforgiving with the UK. So it won't give any special
privileges just for the sake of a UK relationship. So it's going to be a tough
negotiation in any event.

[[MICHAEL ON CAM]]

Why do you think the Europeans would be so unforgiving to Britain if they left?

[[NICHOLAS ON CAM]]

Well, they don't want to set an example. If Britain leaves and get a very good deal, it
will give ideas to others and Europeans collectively don't want an unraveling of the
union further and this blow- that would be a break...so that will drive incentives.

[[MICHAEL ON CAM]]

Okay, well thank you Nicholas and Jill please stay with us. It's time now for a short
break but when we come back we'll continue our discussion with an Oxford
university researcher and a social media write. Plus as Andrew promised, we'll
explain what cats have to do with Brexit. Stay with us.

[[ANDREW ON CAM]]

Joining me to talk about that hash tag and the role of social media in this campaign
are two social media experts. We have Rosie Arnold she's a writer, editor, and
blogger with Venn Digital and she joins us via Skype from Manchester. Also joining
us via Skype, Slava Polonski, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute. Slava,
starting with you, you wrote this paper how, this article, how cats against Brexit can
save the UK...tell us how can it?


[[SLAVA ON CAM]]

Well I believe that cats really can save the EU and that might be the last hope for the
remain count in this past week before the vote on Thursday. In the past few months
the Remain count has been losing the battle online. Weve seen Brexit supporters
have been dominating every single social media platform. They've been much more

out there, theyve been more passionate.much more overrepresented in every

single Twitter, Instagram, Facebook discussion...but now the cats. The cats come
into play and they are really more of the most unlikely supporters of Bremain vote.


[[ANDREW ON CAM]]

And you think they can have that much power to influence the vote?

[[SLAVA ON CAM]]

Yes so... I mean the whole thing started on Saturday when a professor from
University of Strathclyde posted this picture of his really sad cat saying, "I'm sad I
don't want to leave the EU". And this whole chain reaction started after this. There
was a meeting in the Parliament in London where employees got together and they
thought well maybe this is our last hope maybe this is a puuurfect" strategy
support the Free Meowment of citizens in the EU as they set and then the whole
thing just started accelerating and we've seen over thirty million people chipping
into this. Averaging over seventy six million impressions on Twitter with the
hashtag cats against Brexit. If you compare that to what an ordinary internet user
would usually get if you chip into the discussion... something like thirty four likes on
Instagram... maybe one comment on Twitter... it's even less where most of the
content gets just ignored. This is a huge successfully remain count, especially
because it's so emotional and it's reaching the people who have been and thus far
just confused by all these different. apparently factual, apparently irrational
arguments.

[[ANDREW ON CAM]]

I noticed some puns there, which I love, so thank you for fitting the cat puns on
things. We've been using them on our social media. Rosie, Slava talked a little bit
about some of the terms and some the analytics. You wrote something and you said
that might give us a clue to how this turns out.

[[ROSIE ON CAM]]

Yeah and I was basically looking at the Tweets and Facebook posts mentioned.
Which is a really short space in time to see whether there was more positive or
negative response. Yeah it's the same as what Slava was saying that there is a little
bit more support for Brexit but...Well it's quite interesting was that females-women-
only made up twenty one percent of the content. So they were a lot less vocal about
their feelings on whether to stay or go. I thought that just surprised me a little bit
but what is great to see is cats against Brexit because it just shows that it doesn't
matter what we put out there in terms of factual evidence. That there's always the
way back to the fun side of things and I think the campaign has gone a bit stagnant
so this has been a really... wave of fresh air. So we'll just wait and see. For me, I think

people are still really undecided even based on the social analysis it's really close to
call and people still don't know, I think.