19/02/2016 Newsnight

As we come on air it's clear that the Prime Minister

There is an EU deal, which David Cameron says gives

the UK special status in the European Union.

Now we will have a referendum, most likly on 23rd June.

David Cameron's renegotiation in Brussels has taken far longer than

anyone wanted, but a night we have a deal. Within the last hour, I have

negotiated a deal to give the UK special status inside the European

Union. I will fly back to London tonight and update the Cabinet at

10am tomorrow. We'll be talking to politicians,

players and hacks on the scene. With the starting gun primed

for the referendum campaign, we are at a big rally for one

of the groups that wants She did something that in our

society is unspeakable. She kissed a black man.

Is To Kill A Mockingbird a book for our times?

We'll be talking to Lionel Shriver about the classic American novel.

The President of the EU has confirmed there is unanimous

support for an agreement between the EU and Britain.

David Cameron will now come home and convene a Cabinet meeting

tomorrow for the first time since the Falklands War in 1982.

Then the shackles will be off and Cabinet ministers who back

"out" in the referendum, now thought to include

David Cameron's ally, Justice Secretary Michael Gove,

The Prime Minister has just been speaking in Brussels.

This deal has delivered on the commitments I made at the beginning

of this renegotiation process. Britain will be permanently out of

ever closer union, never part of a European superstate. There will be

tough new restrictions on access to our welfare system for EU migrants.

No more something for nothing. Britain will never join the euro,

and we have secured vital protections for our economy and a

full say over the rules of the free trade single market, while remaining

outside the euro. I believe this is enough for me to recommend that the

United Kingdom remain in the European Union, having the best of

both worlds. We will be in the parts of Europe that work for us,

influencing the decisions that affect us, in the driving seat of

the world's biggest market, and with the ability to take action to keep

our people safe. And we will be out of the parts of Europe that do not

work for us. Out of the open borders, out of the bailouts, out of

the euro, and out of those schemes in which Britain wants no part.

Joining me is Chris Cook. David Cameron being upbeat, but what is

the deal? Some things we knew about and some details on things we did

not know about. One of the things is we are not going to be bound by the

European Union normal rhetoric on ever closer union. That is what he

means when he refers to special status for the United Kingdom. We

knew they were try to get this deal whereby new arrivals in the UK would

not get benefits in full for four years, only gradually. We did not

know for how long that emergency brake on benefits for migrants would

last. He wanted 13 years but he only got seven. But that was more than

people in Brussels thought he would get. Third, child benefit being sent

abroad. The original deal was this would be indexed down by the cost of

living of the country where the child lives. There was a question

about whether Eastern European countries would live with this, they

would be major losers. He will get it but it will be introduced

gradually, only taking full effect for everyone in 2020. Poland was

most resistant to this and child benefit in Poland is something like

?4 97 people are weak. Yes, but there are countries like Austria,

who have Eastern European migrants with children abroad who might fancy

saving some money. One other contentious thing was the eurozone

block, the idea that we needed a guarantee that we could not be

railroaded into staff if the eurozone voted together for their

interests. They have something we can claim as a win and France can

also claim is a win, the big supporters of us not having

anything. We can cause problems for them if they try to railroad us.

Thank you very much. David Grossman has been following the details. Here

he is. Not much sleep but still much to do.

I was here until five o'clock this morning working through this and we

made some progress but still no deal. David Cameron arrived back at

the summit trying to exude the air of someone with infinite energy and

determination. Good morning. The EU Council president, Donald Tusk, may

look friendly but really he is holding the leaders hostage. His

view is I will not sit you down until you agree that we can agree.

He will keep them here as long as he has to. They have nothing to do up

there. They get bored. These are people who certainly think they are

very powerful and he's keeping them hanging around. It is utterly

deliberate. They cannot get good food, they will not have a good

lunch. Indeed, what was supposed to be in English breakfast to formalise

the agreement was delayed, pencilled in as an English lunch, whatever

that is, before turning into a late afternoon unspecified English meal,

before becoming an English dinner, possibly around 8pm. Dogs dinner,

anyone? Perhaps it was low blood sugar but flashes of annoyance began

to leak out. As time passes, tweeted one senior Czech Republic

negotiator, I am or perplexed by the British approach of non-negotiation.

Quite unorthodox, to say the least. Annoyance, too, that precious time

has been spent discussing Britain. They did Cameron has been warned not

to strike a triumphalist note. -- David Cameron.

My concern is can we, outside the UK, sell this deal as a fair deal

for everybody. If Cameron goes back home saying that he has a big deal

and it is excellent for the UK, I fear that many people on the

continent might ask themselves, is it a good deal for me? One by one,

the leaders started leaving, temporarily, back to their hotels

for a rest and presumably something to eat. Financial are core, a stop

at a Brussels chip shop. The question for David Cameron, how will

the negotiations taste at home. -- for Angela Merkel, a stop at a chip

shop. For many, it serves to remind us of our subordinate status in the

EU. The process has flagged up issues without solution. A lot of

people in Britain, even after 40 years of membership, do not know

that EU law automatically strikes down British law. Again, this

sovereignty deal flags up the problem without solving it. The net

effect is to remind everyone of what a subordinate province we are within

this new entity. At 8:40pm, the leaders at last gathered for that

long delayed meal. Officials handed out a final draft. Getting agreement

to night, though, is only the start of the process. Whilst David

Cameron's attention turns towards the UK referendum, there is work to

do in other nations, two, where European and national parliaments

will now have their say. I don't think a cast-iron guarantee can be

given that what is agreed today is what will come out at the end of the

day. The parliament will play a bigger role, other factors will play

a role. In the end, it is likely a deal will pass because people are

committed to keeping the UK in Europe. As long as there are no

direct conflicts with what the treaty says and key member states

want, it will pass, but there is potentially a rocky

want, it will pass, but there is About an hour after they sat down,

Donald Tusk announced that the deal was agreed, negotiations were over.

I am joined by David from Brussels. What is happening. If I am out of

breath it is because I have run from the Prime Minister's press

conference which is going on as we speak. A little over half an hour

ago David Cameron bounded into the press conference. The British press

were today to ask questions. He was clearly very relieved. He has a

package, not the package he started looking for. If I look at my notes,

one word comes up time and again, "Risk". Risk to our security. He

talks about this relationship to extradite criminals from the UK. And

risk over the economy. He was asked about the fact that his cabinet is

now effectively split. Michael Gove, for example, will be campaigning on

the other side of the argument from him. He talked about that. He said,

I have known Michael for 30 years and he is a friend, but over that

time he has believed Britain is better off outside Europe. He will

now be campaigning for that. He has not given us an indication that June

23 will be the referendum date but it now seems a racing certainty that

if you want to watch the referendum you might have to cancel holiday

plans on that date. We heard him in the press conference saying how much

better this was for Britain and how it would iron out the problems. Any

fond words for the European Union at all? At one point he said, look, I

do not love Brussels at all, I love Britain, but I think Britain's best

way forward in future is to have this new negotiated relationship

with the EU, with a specific clause that will be in a new treaty

whenever it is made, that says that Britain is explicitly outside the

ambition of ever closer union. In that sense, he tried to set himself

out as the outsider from Brussels, despite the fact that he has been

immersed in these discussions over the last two days and before that

with numerous trips. He tried to present himself as the outsider from

Europe, who had to come inside to get the deal he thinks is right for

the British people. To discuss, I'm joined now

by the Labour MP Chuka Umunna, who is supporting Britain Stronger

In Europe, And buy one of the three founding

members of grassroots out. What do you make of the deal?

Notwithstanding the renegotiation, I would have been arguing for us to

stay in any event. I think the things that have been secured do

matter. I don't know about Tom but I was not alive in 1975 when people

last had the vote on this. Many of the older generation that I speak

to, they say they thought they were joining an economic club, not a

political union. He has secured a clear commitment that we will have

an opt out from this notion of ever closer union. I don't think most of

our European counterparts want this United States of Europe. So that was

an easy daughter push. You say regardless you would be heading a

campaign to stay in. Do you think anything here will make it easier to

sell on the doorstep? With the older generation I think the notion of

ever closer union is important. Secondly, let's be clear, this is

not a referendum about whether we join the euro, but about whether we

stay in the European Union altogether. We have a legal

commitment that the euro is the only currency in Europe. There are a

number of currencies. More competition is essential, if we are

to compete with the likes of China. Things that have been secured around

the operation of the benefit system, people do not want a free for all

but they want the thing to operate fairly. The idea that you pay in

first before you take anything is something that appeals. That will

appeal to people, that the benefit system has been reformed. I was not

around in 1975. Not around in 1985! One of the things I hear time and

again is that what people voted for in the 1970s was free trade and a

common market agreement. This renegotiation will not get us back

to that. With the possibility we now know, confirmed by the Prime

Minister that Michael Gove will be campaigning. You presumably expected

that? I did not. I have had conversations with Michael and lots

of colleagues. We have reached decisions at different times. I have

been on this side of the Ottoman for a long time. I gave the

renegotiation a chance but this does not deal with uncontrolled

immigration from Europe, to make sure we have a system that is fair

and controlled. It does not stop us sending ?350 million a week to

Brussels. And it will not allow us to trade globally. Let's be honest,

we would still be a member of Nato, still a member of the UN, still

involved in the GE 20, the G7, the Commonwealth, would still have a

relationship with the United States. Talking about Michael Gove,

interesting you did not expect that. What about Boris Johnson? I cannot

speak for individual colleagues. I do not know when Michael and Boris

reached their conclusions. I have been on this side of the argument

for a long time. It will come as no surprise to anyone that Michael Gove

is arguing for us to leave. What I do not like about this narrative

from those who argue for us to leave is the notion that somehow whenever

Britain wants to get anything done, and you hear hints of it here, we

get trampled by European partners, when nothing could be further from

the truth. People have to stop talking down our country in this

way. British prime ministers, of labour and Tory persuasion, have

managed to marshal a majority on the European Council behind the UK

position many times. Usually we are on the majority side nine out of ten

times. The idea that we get trampled is nonsense. Also the idea that we

do not control our own affairs. I sat through the last Parliament

watching a Tory government introducing troubling tuition fees,

bedroom tax, these kind of things. This is something the EU have no

control over. There were 121 acts of Parliament in the last Parliament

and just four dealt with EU legislation.

In terms of how you will be campaigning, the latest vote for the

Times on the 3rd of February, after the draft agreement, but the outcome

pain at 45, the in campaign at 39 and a lot of undecided. There is not

a lot here to change people's minds, is there? The argument to stay in

the European Union goes far broader. People answering those polls know

that, and yet 45 for out. Polls go up and down. This will be close. It

will be a good moment for our democracy, where we will have a

lively debate. I say bring it on. I agree with the last bit. On

doorsteps in Kettering last weekend, we knocked on doors and there was an

impassioned group of people out there who want to leave the European

Union. I think the debate is welcome to put the question to bed. The

difference is that I think we could be so much better off outside. I

absolutely believe in Britain. Then why keep talking down Britain. I am

not. Save it for the doorsteps. This was supposed to be the big

night when the referendum campaign was launched, the Prime Minister

triumphantly home from Brussels addressing TV crews on the steps

of Downing Street, and the Cabinet David Cameron is still

across the Channel but the out campaigners who'd booked a huge

venue round the corner in anticipation of the starting gun

are agitating anyway. Gabriel Gatehouse joins us

from Westminster. What happened?

There were certainly raised eyebrows, to put it mildly, in the

audience, with almost nobody expecting George Galloway to appear.

Some people walked out, not a huge number. There were some angry

people. I think quite a few of them just wanted their dinner, because

the event was over running. It will be interesting what the campaign to

stay in mix of that. This was supposed to be the unofficial

starting gun for the leaving campaign. When the rally ended,

there still wasn't officially a deal. But this Grassroots Out group

isn't the only group hoping to lead Britain out of the EU. There is a

lot at stake, not least official designation by the electoral

commission and the funding that comes with that. This was an attempt

to unify that movement, or at least to wrest control of it, by Nigel

Farage and David Davies among them, but they were keen to emphasise

their cross party credentials. Labour MP Kate Hoey was on the

speakers list and George Galloway. Most of all, they wanted to bring

across that they are a grassroots movement, an organic movement and

one with a strong antiestablishment favour. -- flavour.

In the shadow of Westminster Abbey, a very polite sort of insurgency.

They queued up in an orderly fashion and hour and a half before kick-off.

Inside, what any European would recognise as a fine example

of that famous British sense of humour.

Grassroots Out say they intend to win this referendum door by door,

Many of these people have their minds made up already,

This is being pitched as a movement of ordinary people

battling an out of touch elite, not just in Brussels

The establishment will be watching this closely.

There is a faint whiff of the Winston versus Big Brother

What they are trying to do is to harness a mistrust of the EU

with a more general alienation from Westminster

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen...

The problem for Grassroots Out is it isn't really a grassroots movement,

It's got only about 5000 followers on Twitter

and most of tonight's speakers were familiar faces

from inside what they themselves dismiss as the Westminster bubble.

Are we going to allow ourselves to be put,

by virtue of these hopeless negotiations, into a permanent

second-tier of a two-tier Europe, dominated by other

There was also a mystery guest, a man whose name was kept so secret

he drew genuine gasps of astonishment from some

And I want you to give a very big, warm welcome to George

Nigel and I agree on hardly anything at all.

But we do agree on at least one thing.

And it happens to be the most important

thing, not only now but in the lifetime of everyone

in this hall and everyone in this country.

It is the demand that Britain should be an

independent, sovereign and democratic country,

and that means leaving the European Union.

There is presumably little that David Cameron

to change their minds, but it is the undecided voters,

perhaps as much as one third of the electorate,

that they need to reach if they are to

turn a Ukip style insurgency into a referendum winning movement.

Gabriel Gatehouse. Now straight to Brussels, where we can hear from

Angela Merkel. We believe that we have given now a package to David

Cameron that will enable him to elicit support in Britain for

Britain remaining a member of the European Union. This was his goal.

There was no doubt about it. It is true that a spirit of compromise was

necessary on our part, but the fact that we wanted Britain to remain in

the European Union justify those compromises, and I don't think it

was any of us felt that this was particularly easy, but... Angela

Merkel talking about compromise, so let's talk about that in Brussels

with Alex Barker of the Financial Times and Valentina Pop of the Wall

Street Journal. David Cameron was selling this is a big win, but was

it? It depends what you judge that on. In terms of the Brussels debate,

the Brussels fight, the diplomacy over the last seven months, he came

out tonight probably better than expected. He gave a concession on

child benefit but, on the main areas he was looking for, ever closer

union, promises of treaty change and an emergency break lasting for a

seven year period, he pretty much came out well. He didn't give away

much. The problem is that he isn't judged on what he can get in

Brussels but what he asked for in the first place, and there, well, he

didn't necessarily find it very well. He thought there would be

treaty change, that he could pitch his demands onto that, that the

Eurozone would be making their own effort to integrate, and that didn't

really happen. So he was pushing his own agenda unilaterally. He was

making all the demands, and that is a more difficult negotiation.

Valentina Pop, Angela Merkel saying there was compromise, and Poland was

one country which was sticking to its guns for a while. I wonder what

the atmosphere is like now among the other countries and what they have

had to concede. What Angela Merkel also said was that the deal

enshrines the flexibility of having different ideas about Europe and

going ahead at different speeds, this principle ultimately of cherry

picking what we like about Europe and what we don't. Obviously, it

will trigger more fights ahead. Already, Angela Merkel was saying

she wants to implement the child benefits indexation that Britain is

implementing, a measure that surely central and eastern Europeans will

not like. This comes on top of a lot of strife and disarray over how to

deal with the block's migration problem. Then what happens is the

other leaders go back to their countries and there is agitation for

exactly what you say. If Britain can get a la carte, the other countries

have to go a la carte as well. Exactly, and he has a lot of fans

among central and Eastern European countries on some issues, obviously

not on the welfare restrictions, but precisely on this idea that the

European Union is not a unified concept, where all of the countries

are heading to, but that you can have all sorts of exceptions and opt

outs ultimately. Alex, as Chuka Umunna was saying, and it was clear

neither camp was going to be swayed, I wonder now, with so many

undecideds, whether this deal will make a big difference, when we heard

the most recent polls putting the out campaign at 55% already. What is

there to say over the relaxed four months? -- over the next four

months. This is a historic moment for stop people have been fighting

for a referendum for 20 odd years. They were often at the margins in

the first place. This has a special momentum of its own, and that is

what David Cameron will want to be riding over the next few days. This

will be one of the most important, biggest, single issue votes held

anywhere in the world in this generation. It is hugely

consequential. That will dominate the debate over the coming days. I

doubt the detail of the actual package will really be picked over

much as the big political drama plays out. Any idea on Boris Johnson

where will he be, in or out? I think his policy at the moment is to veer

everywhere possible. It is quite hard to tell. It will certainly have

changed his calculations to a degree to see Michael Gove on the Brexit

side. Let's see. Valentina Pop, you work for the Wall Street Journal,

and we heard John Kerry earlier making an impassioned plea for

Britain to stay in Europe. Do you think we will hear more American

interventions? I couldn't speak for the US government, but surely we

will hear a lot of economic impact of what Brexit could mean for

Britain and for the transatlantic relationship. Surely, more messages

to come from various corners. Thank you.

Harper Lee has died at the age of 89. She wrote the Pulitzer

prize-winning book in 1960 and after went aground in her hometown.

There was a sudden flurry of interest in Ms Lee last year

when her lawyer chanced upon the manuscript of a sequel

in Harper Lee's papers and Go Set a Watchman was quickly published.

It shocked readers with its portrayal of Atticus later

But To Kill A Mockingbird will be remembered when Watchman

Ladies and gentlemen, Gregory Peck. The world never seems as fresh and

wonderful as comforting and terrifying, as good and evil, as it

does when seen through the eyes of a child. For a writer to capture that

feeling is remarkable. Perhaps that is why one book in the last few

years has been so warmly embraced by tens of millions of people. To kill

a Mockingbird. There is a lot of talk about the

elusive, great American novel, but perhaps it has already been written.

The last person to come as close as anyone to writing it was the equally

elusive Harper Lee. To Kill A Mockingbird appeared when America

was still divided by law over race. Set in the deep south, it was about

a lawyer and a father defending an African American accused of raping a

white woman. They were not wrong, were they? Now he has been charged,

I am going to defend him. Excuse me, Mr York. What kind of man are you?

Old-fashioned manners, poverty and racism. This was the south that

Harper Lee lived in, as her neighbours recalled. A lot of us see

a lot similarities between what she wrote about in things that did

happen in this town, and other people would say the same thing.

They would say, this could have been about our town. We had a person like

Boo Radley. We had people like that. about our town. We had a person like

book special. We find the defendant guilty as charged.

Harper Lee, Monroeville, Al Obama. With tantalisingly few public

appearances, Lee became famous for her invisibility but she caused a

literary sensation last year when an earlier novel, Go Set A Watchman,

was dusted off and published 56 years after Mockingbird. Our courts,

only man could have created them equal. The self-effacing Harper Lee

seems heroic and enviably single-minded. For her insistence on

the primacy of her much loved words. The author

Lionel Shriver joins me now. What age were you? Can you remember

where you were when you read Mockingbird? In the bedroom,

definitely. I was about 14, a good age to read that book. There has

been in total 30 million copies read and sold. What was the appeal of it,

do you think? I don't know the statistics, but I would hazard that

an awful lot of those 30 million worldwide. I don't want to criticise

her when she has just died, but I would call it a morally simplistic

book, but it is certainly morally simple. It is appealing to whites

because they get to play both sides, they are the bad people and the

inroads. It is obvious with whom you are supposed to identify. -- the bad

people and the heroes. It is the brave lawyer sticking up for the

innocent black so-called rapist. And he fights of the lynch mob and his

children make them feel ashamed. It is great stuff, but it is miles away

from the kind of cultural complexity... Desegregation years. I

wonder if it was helped on by Gregory Peck in the film, which came

just two years after the book. I think that had a huge effect on

the popularity of the book. You had female writers of a similar age

writing who did not have anything like the heft in the public

imagination has this reclusive author. In some ways, they were more

challenging authors, and their universe was not so simple. They ask

you to enter into a much stranger universe than the one you get with

Harper Lee. I believe those writers are under red. Let's hit them next.

Do you have a theory as to why she was so reclusive? It's pretty

obvious that success was terrifying. I am sceptical that she would have

occupied, as an author, especially as a character, the kind of position

she seemed to occupy if she had not become a recluse and had continued

to produce. There is something warped about the way that we are so

fascinated and in some ways elevate artists who stop and who have all

the opportunity and turned their back on it. It is dramatic,

intriguing, but is it admirable? And then, Lo and behold, in her 80s,

another book. Well, it is a matter of some controversy whether it

really is another book. Obviously a lot of the press thought it was a

first draft of To Kill A Mockingbird. And some people think

it shouldn't have been published. I don't imagine a great harm was done

to her reputation. Certainly, the advertisement of go set watchmen

meant there were hugely copies of the original book bought. -- go set

a Watchman. But I wonder, looking at how many African-Americans would

have read the book, and actually now when you look at what is happening

in some areas, we do not have Jim Crow but there is some pretty brutal

behaviour going on. That is the thing, this book does not speak to

the present moment in my mind. We don't have the same kind of racism

that we used to. It is more insidious. People are, mercifully,

less comfortable with being covertly bigoted. There are certain kinds of

language we do not hear any more and that is all good. We are dealing

much more in the United States with structural racism, the way things

work, work, not what people say. That is what the black lives matter

thing is about. If you are going to get involved in America's

institutional racism, it has more to do with the drug laws, and the fact

that they are put together in such a way that blacks are

disproportionately put away. Thank you.

Tomorrow morning's front pages, as you would imagine:

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