31/05/2016 Newsnight

Think you understand what it is to be in the EU? The league campaign

wants you to think again. -- the leave campaign. You cannot have a

single currency without political union. There has to be a United

States of the euro down. Chris Grayling argues for Vote Leave, Emma

Reynolds votes remain. I'm going to build a wall

and Mexico's going to I'm going to bomb the BLEEP out

of them. Foreign policy under a President

Trump - stability or stupidity? One of his advisers joins us live.

And when will things get better regain for Labour? The party has mac

-- the party's ideas man thinks he may have the answers.

For months, the Remain side in the referendum campaign has

challenged the Leave side to tell us "what does out look like?"

on its trading relationships, win friends and influence people

But it's also fair to ask "what does in look like?"

The EU won't stand still, there is the risk that it could pull

us in a direction we don't want to go.

That was the thrust of a speech by Chris Grayling today,

one of the leading Cabinet members arguing for us to leave.

We'll test his arguments shortly, but first here's David Grossman,

We are on a journey into the future but the Prime Minister tells us we

have a choice to make between the certainty of remaining in the EU and

the risk of leaving. The leave sides say the equation is the reverse, it

is staying inside a fast changing EU that is the biggest risk of all.

Chris Grayling, the leader of the House Commons was outlining those

risks in a speech today. He says one of the biggest is that Europe is

marching now towards increased integration and we will have no

choice but to follow. We have a new list of EU social policies which

will be an integration across the eurozone. These are going to be EU

laws passed in the normal way. There is no treaty change or another

option to create Eurozone- only laws. We have no opt out, we will be

affected. This deeper integration will happen even faster because of

what is going on in the Eurozone. There has to be a single Government

structure for the Eurozone. You cannot have a single currency

without political union. There has to be a United States of the

Eurozone. A key report sets out a vision to complete your's economic

and monetary union. That vision is for fiscal union within the

Eurozone, but the remain campaign says that while affect us as much

because we're not in the euro and we have an opt out. I don't think the

public believes that, because we build out our island and Portugal.

Despite assurances, we ended up bailing out Greece as well. --

bailed out Ireland. The more rich European countries bailing out the

Eurozone, the less they have to get involved. A further crisis could

push up the number of migrants coming to Britain from the EU, say

Vote Lead bust up and that will happen if more and poorer countries

join. Government policy supports Turkey joining the EU. David Cameron

has been clear on this in the past. I will remain your strongest

possible advocate for EU membership and greater influence at the top

table of European diplomacy. The remain campaign say this is not

remotely likely. They seek to play the immigration card and say that

Turkey will be joining the EU, look at all these immigrants who will

come here, which conveniently ignores the fact that Turkey will

not join any time soon, and the UK had a veto on it taking up

membership. However unlikely it may appear today, no one can rule out

that Turkey and the four other candidates for joining, Albania,

Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, will not end up in the EU.

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Council, said last year

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

security policy, and to collectively take on Europe's responsibilities in

the world. The more the EU purports to exert itself militarily, the more

it distracts from Nato, which has guaranteed security in Europe since

World War II. The EU is notoriously divided when it comes to foreign

policy, so we don't want them pretending and posturing in the area

of foreign policy, where it never delivers and distracts from Nato,

the real shield we have to protect our security in Europe. The truth

perhaps is that there is no truly safe road. Voters have to decide

which risks they have to accept and which they would prefer to turn away

from. David Grossman there. We are joined by Chris Grayling, Leader of

the House of Commons, and by Labour MP Emma Reynolds, a former Shadow

Europe Minister. Chris Grayling, in your speech, there is a slightly

long quote: If we go to remain in the EU, it would be EU rules that

determine minimum wage, that said how our pensions worked, to govern

our schools system and rules that would tell us how our health service

should work. Do you have any evidence that that will happen? Not

only that, it is on the European Commission website as a consultation

they are running, called The Social Pillar, it was in Jean-Claude

Juncker's speech last year, and it sets out in detail plans on all of

these areas and talks about this being a legal document it is the

next stage in the integration process of the Eurozone. It says,

for the Eurozone, voluntary, for outside the Eurozone, not optional.

We have no opt out and there is no mechanism for Eurozone- only

lawmaking. Unless there is a change to the E -- to how the EU works, and

there is none on the horizon, there is no opt out. The proposition I

read out is is a statement the -- is a statement that says we will not

have to do this. There is no option for us to opt out. It all applies to

us. Correct? This is a false premise of your speech today, with respect,

Chris. We already have, for example, the banking union which only affects

Eurozone countries. In fact, we have the euro, which only affects

Eurozone countries. We have opted to come out of Schengen, the open

borders system. There is a history of variable geometry and opt outs

from the UK and states such as Denmark on many policy areas, and it

seems odd to me that you should be suggesting that somehow the EU will

make laws to do with skills, the national minimum wage or the health

service, when there is absolutely no prospect of that. The reason is, the

risks of leaving, the economic risks, are so huge and well

documented that this is, frankly, a distraction technique. My point is

simple. We have no opt out from European social legislation. At the

moment, everything passed by the European Parliament applies to us.

So where is the opt out? Can they not pass a law saying, this applies

to Eurozone countries and not to the UK? Of course they can. They can do

that and it doesn't cover us. Not without treaty change. I am talking

about their passing a law and did not applying to the UK. They can

pass a law that doesn't apply to one state. If your country begins with

the U, you don't have to follow this law. Well the treaty is clear -

social legislation of this kind applies to every European Union

member, including the UK. Their wrist now operates -- there is no

opt out. Is it true that this will apply other than voluntarily? The

commission in Brussels is putting various things in the cupboard.

You're suggesting he knows that this law will apply to us and is lying

when he says it won't. I think the European Commission is playing down

what is going to be happening after our referendum. You are making a

very basic constitutional point and implying that Jean-Claude Juncker

does not understand it or is being mendacious. I think the European

Union is trying not to do anything controversial in the run-up to the

referendum, but there is no opt out. Emma Reynolds, it is true that we

have 13% of the vote in the Council of ministers. There are things the

EU can do that may apply to us whether we like it or not. It is

worth saying we have a veto in a number of areas, foreign policy

being one of them. What often happens at EU level, and Chris will

know this, is that at ministers meetings where a lot of important

decisions are made, there are votes, because these decisions are made in

a collaborative and cooperative way. In 97% of cases in which there are

votes, and it is not often, nine out of ten cases, we get our own way. On

that point, when we have opposed the European Commission in a vote in the

European Council, we have never been on the winning side. Right, but it

is only 13% of cases where we lose. These cross my desk all the time. We

say, we don't want to do this, but it is the best we can get and it

still needs ?80 million extra in costs. That crosses my desk every

week. In the modern, interconnected, global world, we have decided to

pool our sovereignty to be stronger, because many of the challenges with

which the EU helps us, climate change, cross-border time and

terrorism, trade with the rest of the world, we are strengthened in

our endeavour to do that by being a member of the EU. I think we

understand the geography of the Big Apple book. Another argument is that

you could have a lopsided European Union, because there will be a

country called the Eurozone, and Britain

will be a small country at the edge of that that will be outvoted and

essentially a passenger. Do you accept that that is unsatisfactory?

I don't accept that is going to happen. There are nine member states

outside the Eurozone. We are the biggest state outside the Eurozone.

Your party leader, Chris, the Prime Minister, when he came back in

February with his re-negotiation, got a guaranteed that any decisions

made about the single market which affect all 28 member states, we

would preserve the integrity of the single market, so anything the

Eurozone could do in the future that would affect that, we would have a

say. If we leave, we won't. It is the ability to say to everyone in

the Council, we don't like that, could you discuss it again? It gave

no more power than that. The whole point about this is, in the February

document, the nine member states that are not members of the

Eurozone, seven of them, not the United Kingdom or Denmark the other

seven all signed up to a commitment to the Eurozone. If that document

were worth something, that commitment is there, they have to

join. The incidentally, it does sound like Scotland and England,

what you would end up with. Is that a dysfunctional situation that you

would end up with? It would be like the EU next to the Eurozone,

Scotland next England. The British public needs to decide whether to

vote to stay in something that is going to take on the characteristics

of a United States. We will be bolted on to an emerging Eurozone

Federation that will dominate the decision making. Their decisions

will be what matters, our national interest will be of peripheral

importance. Why talk down our involvement in the European Union?

It was the Conservative Government in the 1980s that pushed the idea of

the sickle market, which has been hugely successful. The idea that

somehow we don't get our way in Europe and we are somehow a social

outcast is absolutely not true. We are one of the biggest member states

and we are powerful. I would like to leave it there. Emma Reynolds, thank

you very much. Chris Grayling, I would like to ask you more

questions, if I could. Your colleagues in the Leave campaign,

Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, will flesh out policy. They are

apparently going to visit that we would immediately end the

application to UK law of the European Charter of fundamental

rights. Is that right? US site has said that nothing would

change if we vote to leave. Voting to announce the European Charter of

fundamental human rights would take us in breach of current treaty

obligations. The Charter of fundamental rights is not supposed

to apply to the UK. It would be a change in our arrangement with the

EU. It is part of the process of disengagement. I do not want a

situation where the European Court of justice with a loosely worded

document, that is starting to write UK laws in areas such as asylum, we

should start that process of disengagement. You have got to make

your mind up as a campaign, is something going to change on the day

after we leave or is nothing going to change for two years, because we

have had both of those lines coming from your campaign. Others might

take it as a serious breach of our commitment to the EU to say

unilaterally, we are not going to respect the right of the European

court of justice to make provision for the Charter of fundamental human

rights. Of course the campaign is the government and these are things

that the team campaigning to leave believe that we should do. We cannot

make commitments for government. We can say what we think should happen.

So it is not the case if we voted to leave that the application to UK law

of the Charter... The Vote Leave team believe that is what should

happen but of course we are part of broader government as it is their

decision. Vote Leave is not the government, it is a campaign saying

this is what we should do to stop so tax or spending promises, these are

all things that people are just saying. There are things that we

could take back control of. Do you think it is likely that after we

vote to leave, do you think the UK would take the step, to announce the

right of European judges to preside over us in the way they currently

do? To start the process of limiting the ability of the European Court of

Justice to make new decisions for the UK as we negotiate our exit is

surely sensible. And with that leads to a happy divorce procedure or

annoy other nations and lead to a more dark and difficult period as at

Wii outside the EU represent 17% of exports so they will want to have a

sensible discussion about how we continued to collaborate in trade

and in terms of security where they depend on our security services for

many of the protections they provide to their citizens. Liam Fox

yesterday brought up the situation of Gibraltar, and said it would

remain sovereign whether or not the UK is in the EU. You think that

Spain might be required, just to close the border with Gibraltar? My

view on Gibraltar is that we've got to use all are diplomatic leverage

with Spain to make sure that does not happen. We have the issue of

Spain and Gibraltar long before we joined the EU. You will be engaging

with a complicated trade negotiation and if Spain says we do not like

this Gibraltar situation and will shut the border, just while we talk

about this, but could make our life more difficult. Legally they cannot

do that at that stage anyway. And with Gibraltar we have got to work

with the Spanish to make sure that Gibraltar is properly protected.

They cannot shut the border the day after we vote to leave and we have

got to make sure that in what happens beyond, we protect the

interests of Gibraltar and its people.

Five words: President Donald Trump's foreign policy.

What exactly would his foreign policy be?

He has helpfully spelt it out a little.

Somebody criticised me the other day because they asked me

what I'd do and I said, I'm going to bomb the shit out of them.

I'm going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for it, right?

We cannot continue to allow China to rape our country,

It is the greatest theft in the history of the world.

It is likely that there will be more to it than that.

But interestingly, North Korea appeared to endorse him today,

calling him a wise politician and a far-sighted candidate.

Well, to help us understand what it is a Trump

we are joined by one of his foreign policy advisors, Walid Phares.

You listen to that montage reselected. Do you really think that

man is that to be the leader of the United States in the Western world?

Of course and thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain a bit

more. You look at the montage and listen to it on one hand and then

listen to his foreign policy speech a few months ago and realised the

general guidelines, interpretations, are found more so in that piece on

foreign policy than in a montage. Of course many of the things he said

need explanation and we are trying to clarify as much as we can. Just a

quickfire round. You're not in favour of water boarding personally?

I am a defence lawyer, I am against torture in general but the debate is

not about that specific issue of torture. We had a debate in Congress

and still is water boarding considered to be torture and that

debate is not over. Mr Trump said later, that he would work within the

laws and that would mean going to Congress to debate not just this but

many other points. Just another, you agree that China, as I understand it

it has freely traded with the United States in a rules -based way, has

been engaged in the biggest theft in the history of the world? These are

statements made at rallies and of course the strong but we have seen

similar strong statements made by another president who was a

Hollywood actor and became one of the most famous president of the

United States, Ronald Reagan. Or perhaps from other candidate, the

language used is strong. He means that we have a major Rob, a

significant problem with China, but once selected he is willing to sit

down and try to resolve these issues. With American foreign

policy, and populist politicians, either they go the way of getting

the hell out of the world and save our own troops, keep them at home,

isolationism, and the other to go around the world beating up the bad

guys and showing how strong we are. Of those options, isolation or

intervention, which side does Donald Trump fall on? That is a good

question and we get this all the time because of the statements he

makes. This is a new phenomenon, he's not an isolationist, he likes

to cut deals with many countries and engage in building coalitions with

the right partners on the one hand. Of course on the other hand he wants

American interest to come first, as every leader does. I think you could

define him as being functional. One level is allies and partners and

another level, other countries in the world. A glorious way to not

answer a question! You can barely tell us if his instincts are

isolationist or interventionist, extraordinary. These concepts

basically our old concepts, look at liberal democracies across the

world, it is difficult to say if the country or presidency or

administration are fully interventionist fully isolationist.

There may be areas where a democracy may not decide to go and other

instances for example, President Obama said they would not intervene

any more after the war in Iraq and he has just intervened in Libya. So

it is the decision-making process in the country that will decide. That

will be the case with Donald Trump. Thank you very much for talking to

us. By the time the Soviet Union

disintegrated in the early '90s, it was so sclerotic and inefficient,

that it was a wonder it had To many of us in the West,

it's even more extraordinary that so many Russians

support President Putin, You know, cracking down

on the media at home and taking Well, if you want some insight

into the Russian mindset, try the works of Svetlana Alexievich,

who won the Nobel Prize Her new book, Second Hand Time,

has just been published in English. It's an exploration of the collapse

of the Soviet Union and the psychological

effects of that event She's been speaking

to Gabriel Gatehouse. Only a soggy can understand another

Soviet person. I would never talk to anyone else. -- only associate.

Svetlana Alexievich is a collector of other people's stories, a

chronicler of the life and death of the Soviet Union. Svetlana

Alexievich is from Belarus, one of the 15 states that emerged out of

the ashes of the USSR. She's very much a Soviet writer. Her lifelong

obsession has been to probe the psychological effect of the collapse

of the Soviet empire on its people. I do not know how I'm going to

survive, what should I hang onto a when I close my eyes I see him lying

there in the Coffin. But we were so happy. Why did he decide that death

was a beautiful thing? The Nobel committee called her work polyphonic

writing, her books are made up of hundreds of interviews, collected

and edited over a period of years. It is nonfiction, but in this

decision of the great Tolstoy novel. -- in the tradition.

Svetlana Alexievich, her work focuses on the events that preceded

and precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Chernobyl

and in her latest work, Second Hand Time, the trauma of the collapse

itself. We are the ones who went to the camps, who piled up the corpses

during the war, who dug through the nuclear waste in Chernobyl with our

bare hands. We sit atop the ruins of socialism like it is the aftermath

of war. We are run and defeated. Our language is the language of

suffering. Svetlana Alexievich is no apologist

for the Communist regime but her books are infused with a deep sense

of empathy for people who sold way of life suddenly disappeared. --

whose whole way of life. In five years everything can change

in Russia. In 200, nothing. The 1990s were turbulent times.

Russia ditched Communism and got capitalism instead, all the glitz of

the free market. But for most it was a time of economic catastrophe. It

was freedom but not the freedom they had hoped for, materially or

psychologically. We dream and meanwhile we lived our

Soviet lives by a unified set of rules that applied to everyone.

Someone stands on the podium, he is lying, everyone applauds. Everyone

knows that he is lying and he knows that they know that he is lying.

Still he says all that stuff and enjoys the applause.

For Svetlana Alexievich, perestroika was a once in a generation

opportunity that she says has now vanished.

There was a moment before Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency for

a third term where it looked like the spirit perestroika had returned.

Thousands came out into the streets in the biggest demonstrations since

the 1990s, but the protests fizzled out, and not just because of the

riot police. Do you really think the only thing holding all this together

is fear? The police with their clubs? You're wrong. The victim and

the executioner have an agreement. That's something left over from

Communist times. There is a silent pact, a contract, a great unspoken

agreement. The people understand everything, but they keep quiet. In

exchange, they want decent salaries, the ability to buy at least a used

Audi. Democracy - that's funny word in

Russian. Putin, the Democrat. That's our shortest joke.

Back to UK politics now. The old rule is that divided political

parties can't win elections. That adage will be sorely tested

at the next one as both main parties Conservative in-fighting is the more

engrossing right now, Is it at the start of a long march

back to Downing Street, Tomorrow the party launches

a new group, called Labour Together, that sees

itself as trying to plot At the helm is one of the party's

big thinkers, Jon Cruddas. He wants to find a way

for Labour to re-engage He'll tell us how, after we hear

from our Political Editor Nick Watt. As a new dawn was breaking over

London's Southbank half a generation ago, the Labour Party embarked on

its longest unbroken spell in Government. The weather is more grim

today, and the prospect of power seems further away than ever. After

a false start, a new group has been established to try and rekindle that

spirit. I had never seen a Labour Government in my lifetime. I was 17

before they came to power, and in that time, I watched the north-west,

where I was growing up, becoming increasingly angry and divided, with

huge problems of unemployment, derelict shops in the city centre,

and families really suffering. I don't want my baby to be 17 before

he sees a Labour Government, and that's why I think we need to stop

his long-term set of challenges and decline that the party has had. In

public, Labour has engaged in something of a civil war in recent

months, with endless plots to replace Jeremy Corbyn. Members of

Labour Together who have been pained by the inviting agree that he is

unlikely ever to be Prime Minister, but they believe that Jeremy Corbyn

is here to stay, which means that the work on charting a course back

to Government needs to begin now, with Labour members across the

country building confidence. We need to prove that we understand the

needs of managing budgets properly and working within the priorities

that are set to rise. Labour Together says it is not forming a

Tony Blair tribute band, but its values are from the new Labour era.

The group does say that Labour became so disconnected in office

that it now has its work cut out to win back the trust of voters. Labour

Party members wanted something different, that lost us to make

elections in a row. Jeremy has brought in hundreds of thousands of

new members who are on asset under resourced they are people we can use

to connect with people out there, but we don't do it by shouting at

the voters but by debating with him and campaigning. We will rebuild

credibility from the ground up in this party, that is how politics

works. They were called champagne socialist... Labour knows the party

will only secure a comfortable Commons majority if it wins back

voters from the Middle England parliamentary seats, such as

Stevenage. When new Labour's 1999 success was celebrated, eventually

it was done in some style. Jeremy Corbyn may be a harder sell in such

seats. We have a job to do to reshape the Labour Party so that it

speaks to everyone across the country. Jeremy's reading on that

process. You get the right person for the right moment, often, and I

think Jeremy's very open approach to things will help us to reshape our

party. Where we go to for the future, who knows? The new group is

wholly aware of the weaknesses of Jeremy Corbyn and his predecessor as

Labour leader, but it says that the period of sniping and plotting is

now over. We need to get back together and focus on the people of

this country and how the Labour Party makes life better for them.

Sadiq Khan's in recent victory in London has encouraged the party as

it works out how to chart a route back to power. David Cameron was

forced to pay tribute to the new Mayor when they appeared together on

the campaign trail. London is not Great Britain. Winning back the

country's cautious voters may be a far harder challenge.

I spoke to Jon Cruddas, who is leading the Labour Together group

that launches tomorrow. He is on the sunny West coast of Ireland, where

he is having a breakfast Jon Cruddas, does Labour need another

group to pontificate on the fate of the party? We have had various

groups. If you had as many votes as groups, you would be on your way to

victory. I don't look at it like that. I think it is healthy and a

positive contribution for the future of the party. We needed because we

have had two terrible election defeats, so all ideas need put into

the mix in a spirit of goodwill and pluralism. I think it will make a

positive contribution in the next few years. People are saying that

Jeremy Corbyn isn't going anywhere before the next election. Do you

agree with that? Is he potentially not going to be leader by the time

of the next election? I don't think he's going anywhere. The results of

a few weeks ago have put paid to some of the simplistic assumptions

of leadership challengers. I think we have to make contributions to the

future of the party. We are duty bound to do so, and we should

respect Jeremy's mandate and the office of the leader of the Labour

Party. There is a gap between the voters and Jeremy Corbyn.

Emigration, the economy, welfare, these are things were Jeremy Corbyn

and his supporters, who will keep him that, are in a very different

place to a lot of people thought of as corn Labour voters. I think that

is right. -- call Labour voters. We have a few years to work through a

positive policy programme. You can see of the last few months that they

are beginning to tighten their operation around the leadership of

the party. I think there are grounds for optimism. Your analysis is that

Jeremy Corbyn is 1 million miles from the people who need to vote for

you, if that is the case, tell me one reason why you will close that

gap and win the next election. I don't know if we will win the next

election, I just think that everyone in the party should make a positive

contribution to the future of the party. I know the difficulties we

face. Arguably, we have had the worst defeat in our history. I don't

think I am being overly optimistic. I am saying we need to positively

contribute to the future. We need to talk about Europe a little bit,

because there was an interesting poll this morning that indicated

that something like 45% of Labour voters were confused, really, as to

what the party's position was in the forthcoming referendum. Does that

surprise you, that people basically don't know where the party stands on

this issue? Not at all. If you come to my constituency in east London,

you would have a lot of conflicting views about where the party stands.

There is a long way to go. It will be a turbulent few weeks. I see from

the opinion polls that the Brexit case is growing, it seems, in terms

of the supported is getting in the country, so we will see how it all

shakes down. It doesn't surprise me. You are not surprised that people

don't know where the party stands on what is such an important issue?

That is a pretty poor state of affairs, isn't it, if people are

confused about that? I am not surprised about some of the opinion

polling we are seeing on the European question. It is not to say

that the Labour Party is not united in support of remaining in, it is

just to say that there is a lot of confusion out there about the Labour

position. Can I ask where you are on the EU? A lot of the public

confusion might be because a lot of Labour people seem confused. Are you

clear about your opinion on how to vote in the referendum? Yes. I will

be voting, I think, to stay in. I think we have heard enough about the

democratic reform of Europe. We haven't heard enough about

challenging the corporate stitch up, but to me, it is such a big bet to

leave that I will be voting in favour. You really don't sound

terribly sure, with respect. You said you think you will vote to

stay. Do you not know? Yes, I do know how I will vote. I will vote in

favour of remaining. If you could have the status quo or we leave,

you, Jon Cruddas, would vote to? It is a false choice. It is not a

politician's answer, but I want to see the positive case for staying on

with a much more aggressive reform agenda. That is what I think you

will see put out over the next few weeks by John McDonnell and Jeremy

Corbyn, and I think it will be welcome across the country and will

strengthen the case to remain. Jon Cruddas, nice to talk to you. That

interview, brought to you by the Irish tourist board! That is all for