18/12/2015 Newsnight

This programme contains scenes which some viewers

I have just been to see her Majesty the Queen and I will now form a

majority Conservative government. Corbin! The Kurdish tabla just three

years old was washed up on a beach. His lifeless body showing the

brutally tragically human side to this refugee crisis. Donald Trump is

calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the

shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.

We look back on a year which redefined British politics,

world migration, sexual identity and more.

This is our last programme of the year, so we thought

we'd do things a bit differently, asking our guests tonight how

they would define what this year has changed

won their first election in more than two decades.

The year Labour chose a staunch Socialist as their new leader.

And the year Germany opened her doors to a million

migrants, who made a treacherous voyage across the continent

Perhaps you'll remember the attacks in Paris,

which opened and closed a year in which Isis made its presence felt

right around the world and hastened a change of British

But it was also the year identity politics began to dominate as never

before - be it the race riots in Baltimore, the banning

of the Confederate Flag, or the transformation

Tonight, we try and cram 365 days into 30 minutes.

We begin with a look at the political year at home.

You face a stark choice, the next Prime Minister walking

through that door will be me or Ed Miliband.

These six pledges are now carved in stone.

We don't want to replace the Tories with Tory light.

We need to replace the Tories with something better.

I said I would stand for a full second

term, but I think after that, it will be time for new leadership.

Here it is, ten o'clock, and we are saying

that the Conservatives are the largest party.

Mhairi Black, Scottish National Party, 23,000...

I'm sorry, there's too much noise, too many

Achieving that dream of getting Labour out and getting the Tories

But I think this is the sweetest victory.

I am standing down as leader of Ukip.

And therefore, I announce that I will be

resigning as leader of the Liberal Democrats.

I am tendering my resignation, taking effect after this

afternoon's commemoration of VE Day at the Cenotaph.

The next Prime Minister, Jeremy Corbyn.

What my heart says is, I should really be without politics.

Well, get a transplant, because that's just daft.

People are saying all kinds of bad things about us.

Jeremy Corbyn, 251,417 votes, which represents 59.5%.

The government defeated on its cuts to tax credits,

The simplest thing to do is not to phase these

changes in, but to avoid them altogether.

I brought him along Mao's Little Red Book.

We are here faced by fascists.

Not just their calculated brutality,

but their belief that they are superior to every single one of us

And that is why I ask my colleagues to vote for this motion

Let me introduce our panel of familiar names then:

Germaine Greer, Danny Finkelstein, Lord Finkelstein, Gary Younge

David Cameron saying he was going or Jeremy Corbyn said, I don't care,

what do we make of this? In that package, there was an extraordinary

late flowering of Mick is Mo from candidates -- match and. Nicola

Sturgeon felt like the most powerful and strength -- strong person in

that moment. After the election, there was something that needed to

express a notion of where part of the left was and how that part of

the election that existed certainly end my experience and on social

media suddenly had not translated into what the candidacy was under

was a moment to be seized. He seized it with that straight talking or the

idea of massive change, I do not know. Did straight talking land

David Cameron and Corbyn in power? The big political item is we should

pay attention to the fundamentals moving politics and not be so

influenced by things going up and down. Afterwards, everybody said,

look at that amazing headstone and everything on it and what a

ridiculous mistake, that did not settle the election. It was big

things about the economy and political leadership. And if we

learn from the election results to keep our analysis to those very big

things, we will be able to predict better what will happen in the

future. Gary, you have been out of the country for ten years, what is

your sense of UK politics? With Corbyn, I thought there was an

entity that had been missing from a lot of British politics before,

almost like everything had to be road-tested and this was somebody

who spoke his mind and stored for more than office. When I look at the

British election in Chicago at the time, it seems to me a much more

confused picture on what you are painting. I was Scotland, London,

England, Ukip doing well but not well enough to win a lot of seats.

It seems like... I try to explain to people in America and I said it was

a very, very fragmented country. Do you think the left will be

vindicated in their choice of Jeremy Corbyn? Well, vindicated is a funny

word to use here. I think what the young people were voting for and

hoping for and what they were agitating for was opposition. They

wanted proper opposition, principled, eloquent, determined

opposition. I am not at all sure it is a bit much to ask of Jeremy

Corbyn. Because the first test he faced was not singing the national

anthem. At the Cenotaph or wherever it was. And instead of saying,

excuse me, I am a Republican number one, and they do not believe in God

so don't ask me to stand here and pretend that I am one of you because

most importantly, I am not one of you. In fact, I have another group

of supporters. It is nothing to do with electability. Everybody talked

about Labour as if it was a government waiting to be collected.

It is not collectable but it has to be done. Speaking your mind is the

easiest thing in politics, anybody can speak their mind but it is

whether you can get anybody to agree. Skill in politics is to

retain the core of things you believe and to add people to your

cause. I very much question whether Corbyn has that ability and the

reason you conducted focus groups is to find out what other people think

and not invented in your own head and assume everyone agrees with you.

The things people dismiss from Tony Blair consulting public focus groups

and being guided by the public, that is the job of a politician. Anybody

can say what they think. It is a very interesting point about

opposition. Is that this man, the Lords, essentially providing

opposition to the government as we saw over tax credits and in David

Cameron's response to what is happening? Do you think we are

missing that voice of opposition strong enough? I think on the

question of democracy, and the question of opposition. But as what

Corbyn came from, a sense that within the Democratic posters, that

had not been radically expressed. Serious questions remain about

whether the system we have is accurately reflecting the will of

the country. The Lords, it has gone on an extraordinary journey. To

imagine a space in which the opposition becomes the unelected

chamber and that is what we look to. To hold the check and balance, it

puts democracy in a very strange place. This could also be remembered

as the year that everybody got it wrong. If we had started in this

place last year, we would not have called it the way we had. Quite.

There needs to be a moral centre to politics. You do not back -- get

that from a focus group, you do not get that from a poll, it you get

that from standing for something more than power and Corbyn offers

something that people want which is somebody who believes in their cause

-- in their core in something. That had been lacking. I am saying the

job of a Democratic politician is to accommodate other principles and

express their own and any great political leader succeeds in doing

that and that is a job in a democratic system. At the end of

this year, we are talking more about Jeremy Corbyn than the Conservatives

winning the election of the SNP in Scotland. Or about Ukip. That has

dominated more than any other political moment this year? It has

been extraordinary because just about everything that happened has

been interpreted as evidence of splits in the Labour Party. You

believe that democracy has to have a centre. Politicians have to have a

moral core, I think. I am not sure whether they have or not. The bit of

Tony whether they have or not. The bit of

lying which is something he is fairly famous for!

lying which is something he is truth all the time. My

lying which is something he is consensus in a country as big as

this with as many different streams, religious, cultural and so on is

nonsensical. What you have is accommodation, negotiation and

compromise. It is what the British have always been good at. With a

caveat about have always been good at. With a

when you look at the Conservatives now, who is up and down? I do think

a good point is to understand this has been a

a good point is to understand this Cameron and that is such a banal

point to make because he won Cameron and that is such a banal

general election, it seems strange to make it. The political

conversation always to make it. The political

people forget that. He has now won to make it. The political

Minister in history so to make it. The political

fourth in terms of winning to make it. The political

does express something about the country. You have not mentioned

anything about country. You have not mentioned

him! We all know the candidates and it is too early to say. Stay right

here, we will be back. 2015 was also a year in which images

had the power to change policy. A three-year-old Syrian boy washed

up on a Turkish beach seemed to stop the world in its tracks

and redefine our response This was a year framed -

in grim symmetry - And a reminder that Isis was no

longer contained within the Middle And then came the rise

of one Donald J Trump. But here's something

to jog your memory. We will continue to do everything

in our power to help France seek the justice that is needed,

and that all our countries He has set his party and his country

on a collision course with the mighty

institutions of the EU. You can see all these

discarded clothes here. They are stuck outside in the cold,

with no idea how long Murder and mayhem across three

continents, as Isis It is a great honour for us

to announce that we have reached an agreement on the

Iranian nuclear issue. For two days, a new force has gone

to work on Syria's battlefield. My message to the French people

is simple - we stand Donald J Trump is calling

for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering

the United States. I am very, very proud and humbled

that our son is up there. Let's go back to Danny,

Germaine, Gary and Josie. Perhaps the policy define this year

was Angela Merkel opening the door to migrants. Do you think she will

be vindicated? How do you think history will view that decision? I

do think she will be vindicated. There was this moment across the

continent when large numbers of people came out. I have only just

come back to the country. They came out with nappies and food and there

was this very human moment. It wasn't clear that it was there

before. It had a kind of human relationship to these migrants. What

happened prior to that was quite shameful in terms of the migrants

that had been left to drown off the coast of Libya. European racism

killed those people. Had it not been that the Ukip, this sense every

government had that they had to look over there right shoulder for bigots

and racists, if they hadn't done that, they wouldn't have died. I

cannot agree that, the idea they were killed European races, it is

too simplistic. We cannot solve this problem entirely by taking refugees.

I am completely sympathetic with the idea Europe must take refugees, I

understand that completely. But you could see by the number and what

they are fleeing that you cannot solve the problem in that way. We

have problems we're not going to be able to solve. We think there is an

endgame. We always talking about if we do this, what is the endgame?

They're just lots of action is where we do the best we can in the

circumstances we have. We respond as human beings, or we have a security

response and we try to help as best as we can in very difficult

situations. Why do you think so many countries did not take refugees and

Britain shamefully taking very few? It is not so much the right because

you are assuming that that policy has a fairly limited appeal. It is

an overall feeling that human beings have about strangers, which

unfortunately is deep in people. It is within people. What I was

disagreeing with is the reason why people died in this situation was to

do with European racism, but it is not it is to do with the wars they

have fled. Compassion and refuge sits deep in people. It is not

everybody didn't want to take as many refugees as Germany would do...

It has been an interesting manipulation of the public, who saw

a picture of a young boy who died and felt one thing, saw pictures of

attacks in Paris and felt the shift. It has been a year where people

haven't been comfortable knowing which side of the fence they are on?

It has been an awful year, everything that has gone wrong has

gone wrong. We cannot sort ourselves out over Syria, we cannot make sense

of any of it. This evening, there was a plea on behalf of of an

adviser to Bashar al-Assad, for people to come and talk to the

government. Why won't people talk to the government? In the end we will

have to talk, bombing will not get us anywhere. Bashar al-Assad does

not think bombing will not get him anywhere. We should let him speak to

us occasionally, before we decide that. OK. Before Angela Merkel

deciding they would take a million migrants, I'm not sure how that will

be for her. She is normally cautious, thoughtful rather dull

politician, but she manages to keep the boat steady and get us to some

decisions we thought we would never arrive at. I think the situation is

too volatile. We have already had Robins for Turks in Germany. Now

this new wave of migrants might just be the last straw that breaks the

right wing camel's back. But the right wing camel is an irritable

creature. Let's talk about the rise of Donald Trump. Some would say his

role model, Vladimir Putin! You think there is anything in that

comparison in these big beasts? No! They are both quite eccentric,

outspoken characters. To that extent they are quite similar. I would

actually put Donald Trump more in a box with Marine Le Pen and other

European far right characters whose base is terrified by

cosmopolitanism, by the outside world. He talks about the Chinese

being cheats and Muslims have to go away. I think Donald Trump is part

of a global expression of fear of the outside world. Do you get the

sense of how to build an audience and what underpins his sense in all

of this? Vanity. He is the most distorting Selvie stick of an event.

We have to engage it because it is the American political process, but

I try not to think about Donald Trump. The good thing about Donald

Trump, he is limited, even though it is shocking. You are still saying

that? I think it is possible to see people from extreme groups taking

over parties, but not possible to see them winning broad, democratic

elections. I don't think he will win an election. He represents a

constituency that fears that. Often does it for understandable,

democratic reasons. But that is limited and it will mean he can get

to a certain point but no further. The old by-election was the same

phenomenon, it was limited. I mentioned identity politics, who

could have foreseen the stepfather of the world's most googled person,

Kim Kardashian would come out as woman of the year.

as Glamour magazine's Woman of the Year.

in race relations over allegations she'd lied about her racial

2015 saw gay marriage legalised in Ireland and across the US,

Once again, forgive the brevity. religion should

MUSIC: Take Me To Church by Hozier.

I actually don't like the term African-American.

Yes, I do consider myself to be black.

Bruce has lived a lie his whole life about who he is.

He/she wanted the limelight that the other female members

of the family were enjoying, and has conquered it just like that.

This theme emerging of self-determination. Do you get to

choose, define your own gender? I don't imagine... It depends, a bit.

I am interested in intersex, so far from being transferred it, I think

intersex is an important state of life and should be allowed to exist.

But what do we do with intersex children. We give them what we think

is appropriate genitalia. I want to bring you back to that question when

Caitlin... Are we interested, really? She was a seminal moment. If

she calls herself a woman, does it make her a woman in your book?

she calls herself a woman, does it but I don't mind her calling herself

a woman, I could call myself a cocker spaniel. For indigenous

people for example, you don't get to choose who is part of your group,

you get consulted. I wanted to be Jewish, but I couldn't. This whole

idea of whether an operation could reassign your fault gender identity?

I guess the people who are having these operations believe they can

and that on some level, one has to take that. People have the right to

call themselves what ever they want. You have to take that at face value.

How they categorise themselves is a different thing. It is a tricky

thing, which actually, generation early, I think younger people are

much more comfortable with the grey areas than I certainly am. It's is

something one has to engage with sensitively. Do you think it is a

generational thing where we step back and everyone defines their own

gender, or even their own race? I think race and gender are different.

In terms of gender, we are talking about... And it is easy to do this,

to be anecdotal on it, but for the people I know who are transsexual,

that is their reality, they live through it and they wouldn't be

having the debate, they have the right to define themselves. It is a

fact of their existence and a fax of them being alive. Let me read this

quote, race is not coded in your DNA and should be viewed like gender or

religion. Do you think you can put race, gender and religion in the

same group? It was interesting when you said you wanted to be Jewish,

because I am. It is not a race, it is a people. It is a mixture of

ethnic background, ideology, position. It is not just a simple

thing. I am sympathetic to the idea she can choose her own people, her

own grouping. Are you comfortable, if you like, and ethnically white

woman, calling herself black? You can call yourself what are the

wants, but it has to make sense. In the way that Caitlin is a woman does

not make sense to Jermaine Greer. In Australia we have had interracial

relationships were all of the stolen children generation came from. If

you claim to be aboriginal and therefore entitled to some of the

special treatment aboriginal people get, it is down to the community to

accept you. If you have had the same experiences, regardless of whether

your parents were white or black, whatever. If you have lived as an

aboriginal person answer that the discrimination, they will accept

two. Let's not trip so far from common sense that people can claim

political rights as a black person when they not from Matt raised... It

is the same with women. She was trying to take a political position.

Would you say it is true for women, a man who has been through an

operation can become a woman. That is your phone and you are not

getting out of this question! One of the things Rachel did was make it

clear what a nonsense race is. It is a social construct. Unfortunately

for her in that definition, you look at black people being shot by the

police and so on, it is not an abstract conversation it is a real

thing that is happening. It is in those challenges. When we talk about

trans people, being murdered in jail, hanging themselves in jail, it

is not a debate, it is a reality. At the heart of all this, is the same

argument for the writer not to be oppressed or speak out about and

oppression you feel. Do you get a sense of where identity politics

will take us? How you find your gender, race or even if you say

migrants against refugees. What is your sense of what is coming towards

us? It is very hard to tell. What is happening in identity politics is a

year in which these extraordinary events have occurred, and Caitlin

brought it quickly into the public discourse. Normally you tell the

stories and they set on the margins for a while before they enter

society. It feels like this is a year in which they have. The result

of that, I don't think I am qualified to predict. Thank you very

much. Well perhaps 2015 will be

remembered for being the year Despite the balmy climate,

the Christmas jumpers have been out in force and we wanted to send

you off with the full festive Merry Christmas from all

of us here, goodnight.