27/05/2016 Daily Politics

It has its own parliament, courts and diplomatic corps,

but should the EU have its own military?

Margaret Thatcher didn't think much of them,

and they've been wrong before, could economists be

getting it wrong again about the impact of leaving the EU?

It's been more than six years in the making and has cost

millions of pounds, but will the Chilcot Iraq Inquiry

come to the right conclusions about Tony Blair's culpability?

And it's the Ed and Jez show, the current and former Labour

leaders join forces to make the case for remain.

All that in the next hour, and with us for the duration

Peter Oborne, who writes for the Mail and the Spectator amongst other

publications, and Jenni Russell of the Times.

First this morning, does the European Union have secret

That's the claim on the front page of the Times today.

The plans - drawn up by the EU's Foreign Policy Chief -

apparently won't be discussed by national governments

until after next month's referendum on the 23rd June.

We asked to speak to someone from the European Commission

How strong do you think the story is? It is a terrific headline but

when you read the bit into it, it's about trying to get more strategic

operation between nations in the EU, it isn't really about setting up an

army. I think the fact that there will be more strategic cooperation

can only be a good thing. It means we would be taken by surprise by

events like Syria and Libya. Whether there should be an army in the EU,

whether there is one, no one is pushing for an army. The Germans

have a white paper coming out which they have postponed until July. They

are talking about more strategic operation between nations, not a

standing army that belongs to the EU which is deployed solely by the EU

commission. It's about member states pulling together. Martin Schulz, the

president of the European Parliament, if we wish to defend our

values the majority of MEPs consider we need an HQ for civil and military

operations and trips you can be deployed. John Claude Juncker has

said that such an army would help us to build a common foreign and

national security policy. It would show Russia we are serious when it

comes to defending the European Union. The German defence minister

says that the European army is their long-term goal but firstly they have

to strengthen the defence union. The European Commission last year said

that European defence integration is no longer just a political option

but a strategic and economic necessity. That's what they want.

They might want one in the future but that's not being proposed now,

what they are proposing more coordination. Today we have David

Cameron sending another Navy ship to help with the Libyan migrant crisis.

There is talk of deploying navies together to help prevent Isis from

getting supplies across the Mediterranean. It makes sense and we

should coordinate to do that kind of thing rather than sending off ships

one of the time. There may be an army of the EU in the future but not

imminent. Trashing the story, the Times journalist, on the front page!

We are not always responsible for the stories. I wish I could get away

with that at the Daily Mail! The day the story appears, trash it on live

TV, well done, Jenni. It's a very good story. Is she right to say that

the headline is misleading? I didn't say that was misleading, that is

misleading. I think what we have got here, a load of things which are

going to be announced on June the 24th onwards. The European Union has

gone quiet, the Greek debt crisis will go ballistic, we will discover

proposals for a European army, all sorts of things are waiting until

the British people have voted in blissful ignorance, fuelled only by

George Osborne's dodgy dossiers. They will wait until June 24. Of

course it's very serious, the Times reporting is very good although you

don't seem to think so! It is excellent! We've done that bit,

stick to the substance! Would it be a good thing to have a European

military? Not if it was under control from the European

Commission. What always had to happen, member states who wants to

put their forces into a situation have to agree on a case-by-case

basis. But it would be under the control of the European Council, not

just the unelected commission. That's what I'm saying. Should we

look forward to a Europe when the European Council, the heads of the

European countries, meet in Brussels and have the power to deploy a

European military force? I think that could be a good thing in the

way that we have UN peacekeeping forces. We are under threat from

Russia which may go to the northern Baltic states. Isn't that Nato? We

need a force on the border to show that Europe is serious about it as

well, not leaving it to the American forces. That's what Nato does. I

will give you a lecture later on the security architecture of Europe.

Apologies later! You get muddled up about what the security of Europe

is, it is the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. We need to move on!

We've only got another three weeks of this! Can you not be patronising,

if we have America and the Tramp, we know that America is going to be

much less ready to participate in Nato operations and Europeans have

to do more for themselves. Let that be the last word. Thank you!

Today's question, what did Green Party London Assembly member

Sian Berry say would break up if Britain leaves the EU?

At the end of the show, Jenni and Peter will give us

I think we may have shone very to explain. -- Sian Berry.

Now, earlier this week the IFS predicted that the economic impact

of leaving the European Union could lead to two more

It's the latest downbeat assessment from economists of the prospects

But should we take any notice of protaganists of what is sometimes

Giles has been looking at their record.

So have our clairvoyant economists covered themselves in glory

or have their palms been crossed with silver for little in return?

In 1981, 364 economists complained about Maggie Thatcher's decision

to raise taxes substantially at the height of recession.

The oracular economists, including future Bank of England

governor Mervyn King, said this so-called "monetarist

policy" had "no basis in economic theory".

Turned out their crystal ball was wrong, with the economy

beginning to grow just days after the letter was published.

In 1992, the economic establishment once again coalesced to back staying

They agreed with the Treasury line that leaving the ERM would "put

at risk the hard-won confidence" in the economy.

But on Black Wednesday, Britain was forced out -

and the economy was soon picking up once again.

They clearly didn't see that in their tarot cards.

Many of the same wise men and women were soon calling

for Britain to join the euro during the Blair era.

15 leading economists wrote to the FT in 2001,

prophesising that joining the euro would "safeguard" Britain's

They needed Gordon Brown to save their bacon,

ruling out entry after it failed his five economic tests.

So now we come to the latest prediction, with 198 business

leaders and economists writing a letter to the Times in February.

They say that "leaving the EU would deter investment,

threaten jobs and put the economy at risk".

Will they be on the crystal ball this time,

or will the mists of time once again fail to clear?

Thank you for telling me that getting my masters in economics was

a waste of time! And we're joined now

by professor Tony Yates. He organised a letter to the Times

earlier this month - signed by almost 200 economists -

arguing that leaving the EU would be Why should we believe that, since

you, not personally, your profession seems to have called almost every

major economic event wrong? This isn't really about forecasting. A

great analogy by Giles in the Financial Times where he said that I

couldn't forecast my own weight with any accuracy, 15 years hence but if

I stuff my face with pastries every morning, I guarantee that I'm going

to get heavier. Similar analogy. Everything we have had from the IMF,

the OECD, the Treasury, it is all forecasting? It is couched as a

forecast but merely what you are really comparing is two forecasts,

all sorts of things are known but one thing is different between the

scenarios, leaving the EU and that's something we know about. We can look

at history, how trade and openness has affected economic performance

and we can get a sense of what happened in the past and what will

happen next time. Looking at the Treasury forecast, the long-term

one, the first one in 2013, even though it was disguised and they

didn't actually put the figures, if you do the sums, what the Treasury

forecast said was that if we stay in the EU, we will grow by a lot, and

if we leave the EU, we will grow by a lot, but not as much, that's all

it said but that's not how it was dressed up. I think the point they

made is pretty reasonable." Scenarios, we grow by a lot? -- in

both scenarios. There is a fantastic force of innovation and

entrepreneurialism that will make itself felt in both cases but in one

case you have the restraint on trade, departing the single market,

effectively. What a lot of these reports have assumed, particularly

the Treasury one, is that between now and 2030 we are incapable of

doing any kind of free-trade deals. That's not an economist's call, that

is a political call, and it could be wrong. To some extent that's right.

Economists don't know any more than... It is the most reasonable,

in my view. That we can do no deals? That is the Treasury forecast. They

are saying that likely economic life outside the EU involves erecting not

just tariff barriers, but nontariff barriers. It is the rules and

standards that would emerge when we leave the single market that would

be so damaging. I guess people will take notice of other people if they

got a track record of being right. You were on the monetary strategy

team of the Bank of England up to 2008. Did you see the crash coming?

No, I didn't. Most economists thought we should join the European

exchange rate mechanism. Would you agree that in the end, that proved

wrong? Yes, but I dispute that most did. It was a pretty big consensus,

the Labour Party's economists wanted to, the Treasury economists, many

independent economists, my economic editor wanted me to as well. That

was the consensus and it was wrong. Let me put an analogy to you coming

most hospitals there were many people dying every day, people die.

Still we entrust our health to doctors and surgeons and nurses, the

entirety of medical science, which is accumulated to this point. In

economics, it's hard. It's not a science, like medical science. I

don't want to get into philosophical semantics, there is a business to

control a huge economy of 60 million people and it's difficult. We

haven't done it yet. Here's another, take the IMF, it has been taking the

Treasury line that our economy would be harmed if we left the European

Union. We would grow more slowly, there would be a rise in inflation

and various other bad things would happen. This is the same IMF that

told us, on the very month that this economy was really starting to

recover, that the government was playing with fire on the economy and

that we were effectively... If we carried on we will be heading for

another recession. It was wrong. Well I think they have a point,

actually. But they were wrong. Interesting example because on this,

our letter signatories differ quite significantly, I have had heated

debate with people on the list about whether the coalition were right or

wrong but that is up for debate. If we had a more loose fiscal policy,

when it became clear that we weren't going to be categorised as being

like Greece for example, we would have a stronger recovery. Hold on,

on the month that the IMF said we were going to go backwards and that

Britain was playing with fire, we began the strongest recovery of any

G7 economy. You could say that it could be stronger. Exactly, that's

my point. But the IMF didn't say that on current policy, you will

recover but not as strongly as you could, they said that we wouldn't

recover. Those that on current policy and

given the way we see all the other shocks happening, that's what we

think will happen. Then someone came along nobody could have forecast.

What was that? Whatever it was spurred the economy into life again.

Aren't you worried that the work you do is misused? Last night the

Treasury put out this new announcement, saying that pensioners

would be worse off by ?137 a year if we beat the EU. The main reason it

said that, when you dig down, is that it assumed that because the

pound would fall, inflation would be higher. What is clearly wrong with

that forecast? I haven't yet read that in detail. OK, I'll tell you.

Out of you what's wrong, which is why it is a misuse. -- I'll tell you

what's wrong. There is a triple lock on pensions. They rise by whatever

is higher, including inflation, so if the Treasury report was right,

pensions would rise by the level of inflation. It's a misuse of the

canonic. I don't want to comment on that. -- misuse of the economic.

This is my view, and my letter was both signatories' view, we are going

to get poorer if we left. The prosperity generated... The size of

the pie shrinks, and therefore the size of the pensions would shrink.

Pensioners can wrestle higher share of it. None of the forecasts - the

IMF, the OECD, the Treasury, B none of them say that we will get

poorer. They say we won't be as rich. Every forecast says we will be

richer and if we beat the EU, we won't be as rich as if we stayed in.

That's not poorer. -- leave the EU. There is the short-term cost of

leaving. Tell us a forecast. I've looked at the centre for economic

performance, the Oxford economic scum of the CBI, the OECD, the

Treasury. Tell us one that says we will actually be aura as opposed to

less rich than we would have been. -- poorer. Let me give you my

projection. They're two issues to deal with, where we end up in the

long run and what happened in the short run. What happened in the

short run is extremely dicey. And could be uncertain. I think it is

extremely likely to be negative. What do you think of economists in

these matters? I'm right in saying that these documents produced by the

Treasury in the last few weeks, the Chancellor has excluded the Office

for Budget Responsibility, because he said before he came into power

that the Treasury forecasting was a shambles, it was useless and it was

politicised and there was abundant evidence that it was useless. And so

he invented the Office for Budget Responsibility to bring independence

and authority to forecasting that has been excluded from these last

three disgraceful dodgy dossier is so diverse shambles. The Chancellor

says there is some strategy reason, that the OBR is only there to do

budget forecasts. I don't know what the technical reason is. It is

instructed to do specific forecasts. The Treasury has had to go back to

what it stop doing five years ago. It was attacked by the Chancellor as

politicised and not to be trusted because it had been abused by Gordon

Brown and now it has been abused in exactly the same way by Chancellor

Osborne as Brown and Darling abused their forecasts beforehand. We got

to move on but just a question, Professor. Whether we leave the EU

or stay in, how high do you think the risk now is of a booming

recession? -- looming. There was quite a lot of talk that the world

economy is anaemic and that some economies are slowing down and that

there has been no great recovery and that the business cycle is... I know

business cycles don't die but on average, we are reaching the end of

this one. How high would you rate that? May be 30 or 40 but said John

survey recession. If we wake up and find that we are leaving. -- 30 or

40 percentage chance of a recession. If we stay in? If we stay in,

unlikely. I think we will have very subdued growth for another half year

or so, partly because of the worries about Brexit that have accumulated

over the last few months, partly because of other things weighing

down. Note for -- recession foreseeable? I don't think so.

When all the excitement over the EU referendum has calmed down,

the next big set-piece in the political calendar will be

the Chilcot Report into Britain's role in the invasion and subsequent

The inquiry has served a proxy trial of the Blair government,

as well as the war's cheerleaders in other parties,

the intelligence community, our military leadership

and Britain's special, some might argue too special,

The report will be published on Wednesday 6th July.

So brace yourselves for acres of news coverage.

Will also be prime list of questions and a 90 minute Daily Politics. --

it will also be Prime Minister's Questions.

This is what Tony Blair had to say earlier this week.

We underestimated, profoundly, the forces that were at work

in the region and that would take advantage of the change,

The lesson is not actually complicated, the lesson

It's that when you remove the dictatorship, out come these

forces of destabilisation, Al-Qaeda on the Sunni side or Iran

Our guest today, Peter Oborne, has just published his alternative

findings in his book Not The Chilcot Report.

It's a lot shorter! Much shorter and cheaper! A tenner!

John Rentoul is a long-term defender of Tony Blair's role in the war.

He joins us now to talk welcome. This is not the Chilcot Report but

since we don't know what the Chilcot Report is, how could you write one

that is not the Chilcot Report? I don't know if you noticed but the

Chilcot Inquiry went on for about six years. Oh, I noticed! All of it,

almost all of it, is on public record. There are fascinating bits

of Blair- bush correspondence that aren't but generally speaking, it is

on public record. As was the case with the Hutton inquiry. It was on

public record. So you can look at the testimony given to Chilcot, and

other testimony, and reach a conclusion, and it is 35,000 words.

I think it is quite clear and makes certain arguments. I'm not saying

that Chilcot will agree with me but at least, when he comes along, you

got this book and you can say, well, these are the key points. Do you

fear that the Chilcot Report will be a whitewash? I don't think you will

exactly be a whitewash but what I do think is troubling at the moment is

that it looks like it is spreading itself much too wide. Criticising 40

or 50 different people, reportedly. 2.6 million words, five times the

size of War And Peace. It looks like a bit of Gothic architecture which

is not very clear, not very focused, doesn't deal in an intellectually

lucid way with the problems raised. You concluded the war was illegal.

For sure. Actually not just wrong in terms of foreign policy or morally.

What is the basis of saying that? It is very hard to argue with the

Attorney General's advice in 2003, which was plausible. Or 27 members

of the Foreign Office but it was illegal. We never got the second

resolution to justify going to war. 11 out of the 15 members of the

Security Council but it would not be Beagle. Those are the legal

arguments, if you like. What do you say to that? I don't think Peter

knows what illegal means. It means it wasn't illegal, I think. What

does that mean? There is a very simple test to apply. You can get

into the legal arguments but there is a short cut, which is that for 13

years since the Iraq war, no legal case against the decision has even

been started. That is the beginning and end of it. If it was illegal,

that implies that there is some court in which it can be tried and

it hasn't been. Can I say, I think this really is the less important

point. The point isn't so much whether it was legal or not, it is

whether it was right or not and everything about the Iraq war was

wrong. Iraq was not housing the people who carried out the 9/11

attacks against America. It had no justification. Iraq was a country

that was not a threat to the rest of us and when you see Tony Blair there

saying, "I didn't understand that if I took away the man who had been

controlling this very divided country for 40 years in a barbaric

fashion, that there were going to be destabilising forces that would rise

up and turn it into chaos," you think, "Did you never read a single

history book ever in your life er" the first duty of all states is to

create security. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times just before the

war began said that the danger is trying to take Iraq apart and we

don't know whether Iraq is as it is because of Saddam Hussein or whether

Saddam Hussein is the kind of brutal dictator he is because of the

difficulty of trying to keep together a rhythm, sectarian country

like Iraq. There was nothing I like about Iraq's regime, there is

nothing I like about that dictator but that doesn't mean we understood

in any way how you would run a secure state if you took that system

apart. It was sheer arrogance. I'm going to put that to John in a

moment but I want to come back to the legal point that he may. The

legality is interesting and it will be adjusting to see what the fallout

is when the Chilcot Report is published. Why has nobody attempted

legal proceedings against Mr Black was Bob because it was lawful. I

know you believe that. Their arguments about whether it was

lawful or not. One is in self defence and the other is if there

was Security Council backing for it. Neither applied. Why has nobody

moved on this? This is in the final advice given by Goldsmith. If you

are member of the Security Council... And we have the

International Criminal Court. It was not in 2003 able... And Goldsmith

made... To prosecute a member state for a crime of aggressive war. You

are completely right but it is a technical point. The war itself was

a war of aggression. Would it not be fair to say that as historians look

back at the second half of the 20th century and Britain's foreign

policy, that there is quite a consensus that by far the two

biggest foreign policy mistakes Worsley wears in 56 and the invasion

of Iraq in 2003? -- were Suez. There is no arguing that there were

terrible consequences. Peter and I have been arguing about this for

years. It is his invocation of bad faith on the part of Tony Blair. I

am a defender of Tony Blair in the sense that I regard him as having

been quite a good Prime Minister. You think you made a mistake going

into Iraq? There is a world of difference between making a mistake

and doing so dishonestly. I didn't ask you if it was dishonest. But you

concede it was, in retrospect, a mistake? Of course. It was a

disaster. I don't want to use the mistake word. Bigger than that, you

think? I think it was a reasonable decision to take. I don't think that

the good faith argument by the Prime Minister is sustainable. He was

called disingenuous by a Lord. I thought that was disgraceful. I

going to this in great detail in the book. The statements made to

Parliament and in the media by Tony Blair word not the same as what he

was hearing from... That is not the same as... You have to substantiate

the allegation. You need to let him state the case. But he's not

stating... No, no to talk you don't get to run this. I run this. In

front of the Prime Minister is the intelligence guidance. It is

sporadic, patchy and very, very... And the Prime Minister comes to

Parliament and on the media and says... He takes away the caveats

and makes it firm and clear that there is the threat and he does

possess the weapons and so forth. I'm not saying it is bad faith but

he's misrepresenting the intelligence. That is where the

Fraser disingenuous was used. Do you think it was an honest mistake or,

to use John rental's words, an honest disaster, or did the Prime

Minister tell us things that he really knew not to be true? I think

he probably believed them at the time he said them. I think he

probably thought Iraq was a threat because that's what I've been told

and if the evidence is not there because I believe it to be true, it

doesn't matter if I is saturated. I think that is scandalous because I

don't think his good faith is what we have to question. We have to

question having a Prime Minister who is making decisions that ends up

wrecking the lives of millions and killing hundreds of thousands and

destabilising the Middle East, it is ignorance we have to charge with. It

is not OK to go into a situation treating the rest of the world as if

it is a fairy story, saying, I am going to take away a bad guy and

things will happen. It is very easy to say that in

hindsight. You need to let him talk! They were not the arguments made

against the invasion at the time. I did. Very impressive but I'm glad

that Peter has accepted that Tony Blair didn't act in bad faith. He

misrepresented the distance of weapons of mass destruction. Behave

yourself or you have to go to the back of the class. Lord Butler

calling him disingenuous, after he wrote the report in which he did not

say that, I thought that was a disgraceful way of attacking the

Prime Minister, with the benefit of hindsight. The war was in 2003,

that's when it started and it is still causing tensions to rise.

John, we are going to move on but no doubt we will be back on July the

6th, which will give us something else to talk about after the

referendum. Now, if you're a student

in Scotland you can attend a Scottish university

free of charge. In England, Wales and Northern

Ireland at the moment you pay But a new report from the Sutton

Trust and Edinburgh University shows that Scotland is doing far worse

than England in getting school leavers from poor

backgrounds into university. The Sutton Trust found children

from the most disadvantaged areas are four times less likely to go

to university than those Only 8% of 18-year-old

Scots from the poorest areas enter university,

compared with 17% in England. 90% of all growth in those first

entering Scottish higher education has been through courses in colleges

that are not degree-level. And the report found no evidence

that the SNP's abolition of tuition fees had improved application,

acceptance or entry rates This is what Scotland's Deputy First

Minister, John Swinney, There has been an historical

problem in younger people from deprived backgrounds getting

into university in Scotland. Of course we are seeing significant

improvements in that position. Young people in Scotland are now

much more likely to go to university under the actions of the SNP

government than when we came But there is much more to do in this

subject and that's why the government established

the commission on widening access. Its recommendations are essentially

reflected in the Sutton Trust's report and the government

is in the process of implement This problem is something we have

raised before and we have done some interviews and talked about how this

is in a country which historically has been rather good at getting kids

from poorer backgrounds into prestigious universities.

Now, we asked for someone from the Scottish Government

to come on the programme, but no-one was available.

We are joined in the studio by Dr Lee Elliot Major,

So what's going on here? On the face of it, you would think that if there

were no tuition fees, it would remove a barrier to students from

poorer backgrounds thinking about going to university? Yes, the

tuition fees, only part of the problem. One of the golden rules of

social mobility is that you have to expand educational opportunities to

increase levels of the poorest going to university. There is a cap on

faces and if you don't expand them, there is no room to expand access.

Is there a cap, I didn't realise that. There is no cap in England.

There has been a big expansion. As the camp been a consequence of free

tuition fees, that if the money is going to pay for tuition fees, you

have to put a cap on the numbers to university? Basically it is a

budgetary compromise, if you're not going to charge fees and you have

limited government support for universities, these fees allow you

to expand universities but it is getting the balance right. There are

concerns about the huge debts in England but it doesn't mean that we

are not against these. You may want to charge them, but a lower level

than than in England. The problem is there is a fixed number of places.

Critics have said that the abolition of Jewish and

critics have said that the abolition of tuition fees has been a big hit

to middling -- meaning a lot of upper-middle-class students get

university. There is some truth to that. There is a huge gap in schools

as well, so if you're not getting results in the school system, you

won't get children coming to university because they won't get

the grades. Was it made worse by the Scottish Government, partly to help

to pay for the cost of free tuition fees, whittled away the grants that

were given to students from poorer backgrounds to help them get through

university? If you are from a poorer background, tuition fees are

something you have to break down the road, that could be the elephant

lurking in the room further away but to get through university, you need

some money to be able to survive. That's right, we have a real concern

about the lack of loans in Scotland for people who don't have the money

to see them through a degree course. You are right, we need more loans.

There is some good news, places like St Andrews have places for

disadvantaged students and they've been very successful. One thing we

have said, keep the place is open for talented students from poorer

backgrounds. I was the rector of the University of St Andrews, which I

enjoyed, but it has a huge number of English public school kids. Yes.

Sometimes it is hard to find a Scottish accent, even a posh one!

You want all universities to attract talents from all backgrounds. You

are saying that... St Andrews has done good work in terms of places

for talented kids from poorer backgrounds. The Scottish Government

have said to us before when we've done this that the comparisons being

made between England and Scotland show that England is better at

getting poorer students to university but they are not,

trouble. What do you say to that? We have used a number of statistics in

the report, the overall message is compelling and I don't think anybody

would challenge that. The problem in Scotland is that many kids are going

to colleges rather than university. Many colleges do great jobs but

essentially the poor kids go to college and the rich kids go to

university. Scotland has a real educational challenge on its hands.

Doesn't this surprise you because historically, Scotland, four

universities, England only two, the tradition that in Scotland, the "Lad

of parts", the bright kid went to the high school and then you could

get on to university. Yes, I was surprised because when we grew up,

we understood that Scottish education was supposed to be so much

better than the English state education. Fascinating assembly

children are failing in schools. That's the same pattern in England,

poor children start school and by the time they are three, failed

already hugely behind their middle-class contemporaries.

Everything about our system widens the attainment gap. One thing we

learn about this, you have to put much more of our resources into

preschool education and then into the schools because you're not going

to get pork is going through. -- for kids. I have to say, the picture

behind it, stunning picture of the University of Leicester. -- poor

kids. My word. One of the finest universities! I was listening,

stunned, to the conversation. The first thing we take out of it, Tony

Blair, who was brilliant to bring in tuition fees and the left was

catastrophically wrong, and the paradoxical effect is that there is

more social diversity and more people from disadvantaged

backgrounds going, because of tuition fees, going to English

universities and privileged kids benefiting from the absence of

tuition fees in Scotland. How wrong can the left have been, the

universities, the unions, the educational establishment? LAUGHTER

We have delivered there! I think that the fees are too high, by the

way. That's another issue, thank you.

Now, how to engage young people in the EU referendum debate?

Well, last night, the BBC staged the first

this one in Glasgow in front of an audience of young people.

The panellists were all over 50, naturally, but that

the enthusiasm of the audience, who engaged in some

Me and my mum live in a council house.

My mum is disabled and needs a bungalow, which there are none of

Immigrants are bumped up the list because of this.

Am I right to want to leave, basically?

Emily and her mum need to realise that the UK government are the

The European Union are not some kind of scapegoat for you to keep blaming

Right, we've got to have the shortage now but the

more we let in, the less houses we have to house them.

It's funny that you've got a selective memory.

Just remember how many immigrants like my

family, like a lot of the people in this audience's family have built

Who said young people are interested in politics? -- aren't interested.

A flavour of last night's BBC referendum debate there.

Now, the designated Leave campaign, Vote Leave, have their own ideas

about how to win young people over to their cause.

They've decided to let money do the talking by running a competition

Vote Leave's Robert Oxley is here to explain.

What are you doing? We've produced a website, 50million.co.uk, and if the

public can predict the right results in the European Championships they

will win ?50 million. It is 50 million because that's the amount we

hand to Brussels every day. Based on your dodgy ?350 million a day? Not

dodgy at all, it is the amount debited out of the UK that is given

to the EU. Of course it is more than that, ?52 million and when some of

that comes back there is a big issue. The head of UK cities to its

authority -- statistics authority says that is not genuine. I have

them here. I have been down this road too often, the fact is that we

don't send that amount every week because the rebate comes off first,

it is an abatement, so we don't send that amount of money, that's fact,

isn't it? A year ago the Chancellor said that the rebate was not in the

UK Government's purview to give out. This is a key argument: people want

to talk about how much money goes to Brussels, it is ?350 million a week,

?50 million a day, but when the money comes back, the rebate isn't

guaranteed. The rebate isn't coming back because it never goes out. It

is not actually a rebate, it is an abatement and above the title is the

Fontainebleau abatement. Before we send the money over to Europe, as

our membership fee, we take the 5 billion off, so actually we sent 13

billion. Anyway, giving out 50 million based on the 350. Just

explain to me, what do you have to do to win the 50 million? You go to

50million.co.uk and register, it is free to register and you predict the

result, when, loss, draw, the games in the European Championships. --

win. Not many girls are interested in football. All of the girls are

predicting the results because they can win 50 million. Good point,

Jenni. We will have to stop them now! Have you got to predict the

result of every game? Every game. The goals of a Mac just went all

lose? Win, lose or draw. You can still win ?50,000. There is going to

be a winner in the competition. Given that the government have spent

?9 million of your money and my money is doing a kind of propaganda

campaign, dredging up this Treasury analysis, we need something that's

going to level the playing field and I think this is a great way of

engaging voters. To win the 50 million, how many games have you got

to get right? I have been concentrating more on the campaign

but you have got the group stages, 122 games in total. The key point is

that if someone does not predict every result right, and there is

every chance that they can there is a guaranteed ?50,000 for the person

who goes furthest in the predictor. So if no one gets everything right,

there is still 50,000 for the person who got it most right? Absolutely,

and the great thing is that you don't have to be a league supporter,

you can be a remain supportive. If Lord Rose is the head of the

campaign he can still take part. It is great when we are worried about

the championship distracting from the referendum. I would like to

prove you wrong bike you coming back on the programme and telling us how

many young men have entered your competition and how many women. --

by you coming back. The idea you can engage people by asking them to give

the details of what's going to have an ineffable championship, it is

ludicrous. Did nobody in your office that and think about the

participation in football? -- in a football championship.

This was not just about engaging young people but about engaging all

people. She was talking about this being biased towards men. I'm Rabada

by female friends and mail going to take part in this campaign. We have

an issue in Westminster, that people don't engage in politics. People

say, I haven't been engaged with it, and people are more worried about

the football championship. What you are doing is data mining, isn't it?

We actively want to engage with people. They have to give their

e-mails and some other details. We have to get in touch with people if

they win. I understand that but it is called data mining. Most

publications do it as well these days. How much does it cost you to

ensure the 50 million? That is one for the insurance guys. We are going

to stay within spending limits. The money I have to pay is the ?350

million we pay to Brussels every week. Presumably Vote Leave is

paying for insurance? It is insured. There is this ?50,000 available.

There are premiums. We will be declaring it within electoral

spending. We are making sure we stick in the rules, unlike the

Government. I don't think Jenni or I will be taking part.

Now, a private member's bill is a piece of legislation

As they aren't in government, it's one of the only ways for them

It's decided by ballot, but there's only a limited amount

of time for debate - so it's usually just the top seven

MPs who are successful in getting their bill heard.

Though not necessarily on the statute book.

It happened yesterday and, in a moment, we'll

speak to the lucky MP who topped the ballot.

But there was something different about how the ballot itself

The mother of all parliaments, a place where the grandest

traditions of democracy merge with modern thinking.

They used to use a sort of paper raffle ticket system to pick out

which MP would top the private members' bill list.

But it was decided that was far too outdated,

Now they've opted for something more modern.

Here it is, the private members' bill ballot brought into

the 21st-century, with cutting-edge technology.

Each one of these wooden balls represents the hopes

and dreams of an MP, and it could be your MP.

OK, they're essentially mothballs with numbers

engraved in a goldfish bowl, but this is democracy in action.

It's a little bit like the lottery, isn't it,

You just grind them around a little bit and we will pick out the ball.

We will cross-reference the member's name to the number.

Tradition dictates it is the Deputy Speaker and chairman of ways

This selection process is new but the prestige of coming

high up in the ballot goes back centuries.

Actually private members' bills matter and it makes a difference.

Here is a chance, it's not the government, it's not

the opposition, this is individual members wanting to make legislation.

Are you ever tempted to do a kind of bingo

Well, I think that's always a problem, isn't it?

You pick it up, it's a bit harder with something like 173!

But you know, if we were to pick at number ten, Cameron's den,

we've got a bit of something there, haven't we?

And the SNP's John Nicholson, who came top of the ballot

for private members' bills, joins us now.

Does this mean you are the most popular person in Parliament? I am

unbelievably popular or, at least, I have been for the last 24 hours.

I've never had so much air kissing in my life. George Osborne came

across to see me yesterday. I thought I was about to be hoped in a

manly embrace. -- hugged. I think he is worried about what private

member's bill and going to introduce an impact on him and the government.

When you went into this process, did you have any idea what you wanted to

do? The thought never crossed my mind that I would win, I have to

say. What are the odds? Very low, but you did. I did and I tweeted

asking for ideas and I know that you have done the same on my behalf.

I've got some of the ideas here. Let's hear them. They range from

compulsory voting, looking after the pensioners who have been

disadvantaged, David Chambers says "Jail all MPs for life if they are

caught lying". That would be even more popular. There is a straight

bananas request. Legalise all drugs. Replace the House of Lords and one

of several that I really like from James Melville, which is to force

supermarkets to give away food that isn't sold at the end of everyday.

We've had some, you know, because we asked. We've got tightening up of a

election expenses - that's topical. Automatic voter registration -

that's an interesting one. Proper funding for cycling. That is clearly

not come from somebody in London, where you see all these cycle

highways. Re-nationalise the railways. Make St George's Day a

bank holiday, very fitting for an SNP MP. And a knighthood for Dennis

Skinner. Two of these you couldn't do. You couldn't do proper funding

for cycling. Because it is financial. And you can

re-nationalise the railways because private members' bills cannot

involve the spending of public money. I have been going through my

notes from the House of Commons library telling me what I can and

cannot do. I think I am definitely not going to go for something

splashy that won't go anywhere, like abolish the House of Lords, much

though I would like to, because it will die a death. It is a very

privileged position to win this thing and I want to try and get a

bit of legislation onto the statute books that will do some good and in

order to do that, I'm going to have to build cross bodies abort. Indeed,

because the great risk is that even in number one, you get talked out of

Parliamentary time, filibustering. Last year, of the 20 private

members' world that were introduced, only three made it, and all three

were from Tories. The previous year there were one, two, three, four,

five. And the previous year... Do you have an idea for John Nicolson?

Perhaps you could do something non-contentious like introduce a 50%

tax on all property bought in Britain by someone who is not a

British resident. He cannot touch tax. Even if it is bringing revenue

inquest bob that is exactly what you cannot do. I think automatic voter

registration is interesting. Do you want the try Tony Blair at? To

impeach the former Prime Minister? A happy thought! And MP already tried

that in the last Parliament. Alex Salmond has something on his mind at

the moment. When do you have to decide? I have four weeks to come up

with a name for it and a further couple of months in order to

actually write the bill but, as you know, also, sometimes bills get

picked up by governments. Indeed they do. That has happened a few

times. We will keep an eye on this. Come back and tell us what it is.

Now, they've not been seen together in public since last September.

No, I'm not talking about Johnny Depp and Amber Heard -

I speak instead of the current Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn,

They've been sharing a platform this morning to make

Let's speed our correspondent Tom Bateman. Where you and what are they

talking -- speak to. We are in the centre of Doncaster. Jeremy Corbyn

is getting applause. We got the Labour battle bus that has just

turned up in the last few minutes and, as you say, he and Ed Miliband

sharing a platform together in a significant move for Labour's

attempt to try to rally their supporters, to try to get that

Labour In campaign focused on what they see as a positive message about

the EU. This is a part of the world where there are three Labour MPs,

including Caroline Flint and Ed Miliband, who have stumping local

majorities. Ukip came second in two of those seats. There is concern, in

the same way that many MPs have been reporting they are going back to

their constituencies and hearing about reporting hostility towards

the EU from some traditional Labour voters. Some in the Labour Party

think this is all happening too late but it is part of a push to get the

Labour vote out, so crucial it is in the referendum. Thanks for that.

There they are together. A historic first, here on the Daily Politics.

Angst will bring us up to speed. Mr Corbyn and Mr Miliband gather at

last. -- thanks for bringing us up to speed.

There's just time before we go to find out the andwer to our quiz.

The question was, what did Green Party London Assembly member

Sian Berry say would break up if Britain leaves the EU?

So, Jenni and Peter, what's the correct answer?

The last. No. Couples. London couples. Sian Berry made that claim

about cobbles in London and joins us now. I assume this was a joke? No,

there are three interventions that I've made in this debate. Let's

stick to this one. This was to bring the debate back to the human scale

because there is a lot of talk very big numbers and macroeconomics. Why

would couples break up? Couples are our friends and EU immigrants are

our friends, loved ones and colleagues and I wanted to know how

many couples in London were one partner from the EU and one from the

UK. The answer is 100,000 that is one in of our couples. Why would

they break up? At the moment, EU people can move freely in and out of

the UK. None use browsers partners have to have a minimum income. This

is not a joke? I'm one of the 100,000. I'm married to a Swede. You

said there are 100,000 couples in London where Britain is in

partnership with an EU citizen. I only got married last year. Are you

saying that if we leave the EU, I'm more likely to get divorced? If your

partner hasn't got indefinitely to remain, there is now a minimum

income requirement... Nobody has questioned that any EU citizens

currently here will not be able to remain. Nobody has questioned that,

right? The whole point of this debate, the fact that people who are

on the side of wanting to leave and curb immigration, are talking

about... But it is wrong for you to raise an issue which is right. EU

nationals who are already here will still be able to stay here, whatever

the result. That is covered by everybody in this debate. Nobody is

asking them to leave. It is also covered by treaties. But the rules

are none you people. As soon as we left the EU, new rules would have to

be made. We have to assume that people who are trying to stop

immigration do want to stop these kinds of immigrants. Are you saying

that the Swedes, the Germans, the Spanish, the Italians, the French,

all of them living here now, are going to be deported? Yeah, and

people are very worried that they will be subject to the same

requirements that apply to non-EU people when we become not a man of

the EU. -- member. Both sides have been guilty of scare stories. You

just want to the top of the Premier League on scare nonsense. I'm

raising a legitimate concern... You don't believe this, do you? People

may have to make very difficult decisions. Up in Doncaster, if the

Green Party was a serious party, you would have been anti-Europe and you

would have made a lot of games at the expense of the Labour Party. We

have to leave it here because I've got to go and tell the new wife we

are about to be divorced! The one o'clock news is starting

over on BBC One now. We're off for a week now

as Parliament goes into recess - but I will be back

with the Sunday Politics Thanks for joining us. Have a good

bank holiday weekend. People were afraid of

her political convictions -