18/01/2017 Newsnight

Was Theresa May's upbeat speech about a mutually beneficial EU

Judging by the reaction of EU leaders today,

The French boss of the IMF told Newsnight has this warning.

When you belong to a club, whatever that is, either sports or

intellectual, whatever, the members of the club have a degree of

affinity and particular terms under by they operate. Somebody outside

the club sport or intellectual or whatever have a different access.

is was both the EU Trade Commissioner

and the head of the World Post election chaos

in Gambia tonight - the defeated President refuses

to go, thousands flee fearing bloodshed, as Nigerian and Sengalese

military forces prepare What's it like to watch

on as your country is under threat? And could Trump be

a tyrant in the making. Eventually he stands alone,

offering the addled, distracted and self-indulgent

citizens a kind of relief from democracy's endless

choices and insecurities. Now that the Prime Minister had laid

out her vision for Brexit, skills in diplomacy and negotiation,

both from British politicians and civil servants,

are at a premium. Obviously someone forgot to tell

that to the Foreign Secretary, who, in comments made in India,

appeared to throw shade Boris Johnson compared

the French President to a character in a WWII movie administering

"punishment beatings" after, apparently, an aide to Hollande said

that Britain shouldn't expect a better trading relationship

with the EU after Brexit. Maybe it's a good thing

that the Foreign Secratry isn't in Davos where all the talk

is about the manner of Brexit. Our economics editor Kamal Ahmed

is in the swiss resort this evening. Lots of reaction to Theresa May's

speech, but what is the news in Davos about it? Well, I think

Kirstie, today here in Davos we had the sort of day after the party. I

think the speech itself, while not made here by Theresa May, went down

pretty well. There is this idea at least we had some certainty all the

nods and winks about being in or out of the single market were over.

Theresa May made it clear Britain was coming out of the European

Union, but today, a bit of the hand over, the day after. We have had

news today from banks here, HSBC based in London and the Swiss bank

UBS they will be moving jobs or are looking at moving them from London,

on to the European continent, because Britain would be out of the

single market and that would mean that some of their service, they

provide from London, would have to be provided from within the European

Union, and as you say, Kirstie, noises off from the Foreign

Secretary, some negative reactions from France, to the comments by

Boris Johnson and really a negative thought today, from Davos. Don't

forget here, most businesses supported Britain remaining in the

European Union. So it is a particular type of cohort you get in

Britain, which doesn't mean they speak for the whole of British

business. Earlier today I interviewed the head of the

international monetary fund, Christine Lagarde who has been

negative about Brexit in the past, and I started by asking her if the

yuck leaving the single market -- UK leaving the single market would be

You have to look at all the parameters.

You have to look at the monetary policy, the exchange rate,

You have to look at the engines for growth, whether that very

solid UK consumption which has held the economy together,

and better than we had thought, will last.

Whether investment, both domestic and from the rest

of the world, will persist, or whether there will be

a significant reduction, and under what terms the exports

will eventually take place between the UK

What I know for sure is that there's a lot of work to be done

in the coming weeks, months and possibly years.

Risks to economic growth, then, for Britain and

for the European Union through this process?

Uncertainty is always a risk, and we know where

As you pointed out, the UK is still in the European Union,

and trade and movement of capitals and operations of banks

are still being conducted under the same pattern

What it is two years after the trigger has been pulled -

Before the referendum, the IMF was very clear

that the results of a Brexit vote, you said yourself, would go

The UK economy has defied expectations,

Were you wrong when you said that before the referendum?

I think what has been extraordinary is firstly the action

of the Bank of England, which has sort of instantly taken

hold of the situation, decided remedies,

and supported the economy in a very, very vigorous and efficient way.

What has also been quite remarkable is the behaviour

The way in which, with confidence, they've continued to consume

Now, we are still of the view that, particularly on the investment

front, and on the export or trade front, there is still yet to come.

And by that I mean, once uncertainty clears, and if people feel

that their ability to set up shop in the UK and operate throughout

the geographical area that is the European Union

is not working as well as it did, their investment

In the same vein, if exports are subject to significant tariffs,

restrictions and so on, the ability of the UK

to activate that trade engine is going to be reduced.

So while we have upgraded our forecast for 2017,

We are still of the view that it will not be positive

Can I just put a quote to you by the Maltese Prime Minister,

Joseph Muscat, who said that any UK-EU deal necessarily needs to be

inferior to membership of the European Union.

You know, when you belong to a club, whatever that is,

either sports or intellectual, whatever, the members of the club

have a degree of affinity, and particular terms

Somebody outside the club, sports or intellectual or whatever,

have a different access, and I think he's referring to that.

So it would be a less good deal for Britain?

It would certainly be different, and if being part of a club

is optimising and leveraging your membership,

We're here at Davos, a big debate that you've been very

closely involved in for many years about equality, about elite,

about the way the world operates and economies operate,

does it give you a sense that it's all a little bit ridiculous?

That we are speaking here in this resort,

where you can look out there at business people

This is just totally out of touch, is it not, with the real world?

Everyone is talking here about inequality, but actually,

it's just completely out of touch, and it's slightly ridiculous.

The world looks at this and thinks, you just don't get it.

I think it was your former Prime Minister, Winston Churchill,

who said that it is better to chat-chat than to war-war,

and whether you talk economics or whether you talk military,

people have a tendency to confront, to have adversarial debates,

and if they are here to talk, to have a dialogue,

to confront their views to other people's views,

who don't necessarily look like them.

You have a lot of NGOs present here, you have a lot of young leaders,

a lot of global shapers, who are not the ones that

you've just portrayed, and there is huge value in that.

So, easy to criticise, and value to be had from people

actually confronting their views and trying to make sense

of the negative and positive narratives

Our Prime Minister, Theresa May, has criticised what she calls

Do you think of yourself as a citizen of nowhere?

You know, what defines your citizenship is your language,

your culture, your background, your education, your family roots,

the smell of the trees in the morning.

But can you see the critics might say, for someone like you, the head

of the International Monetary Fund, you live a different life,

I have to care for far more people than my community,

and what I'm trying to do is to help the entire community,

Some of them have rock bottom GDP per capita.

Others are 50 times better off, but we have to care for all of them,

because our mission is stability, and without stability,

whether it's in defence terms or economic terms,

But what if all the diplomacy and negotiating skills the UK can

muster don't get us a trade deal with the EU, and we have

to fall back on membership of the World Trade organisation?

In a moment, I'll be talking to Pascal Lamy,

But first here's our policy editor Chris Cook.

This week there has been renewed talk of the prospect that Britain

will end up relying on its membership of the World Trade

Organisation and no other special deals as the basis of its trading

relationships with the world. Theresa May's speech yesterday

contained one very big strategic decision, she wants a comprehensive

free trade deal between the EU and the UK unlike anything like anyone

else has. She don't want a an off the shelf model. That means that

puts more pressure on that two-year negotiation process, it is more

likely we won't reach a deal, or in her term, we will take no deal

rather than a bad deal. And no deal means operating on WTO terms.

That is usually presented pretty bleakly. The WTO would for example

force the EU to place 4% tariffs on British car importser customs checks

on sales to the EU and difficulty for British far many companies

selling drusing into Europe. Why? To understand it may help to know where

the WTO came from. It was a body that was only set up in the 1990s,

but, its roots are in talks that took place in the 1940s. And those

talks were themselves aimed at preventing repetition of problems

that occurred in the 1930s. Before the Second World War, there

was a trade war, in 1930 the US passed the tariffs named after the

legislators who proposed them and other countries replied in kind. The

WTO's predecessor emerged from talks aiming to stop that from happening

again. Why then, would a body whose founding purpose is to reduce

tariffs force the EU to raise them against the UK? The EU is a member

of the deal and it has no real special deal with the UK at the

moment. Then what the WTO will force the EU to do is treat the UK like it

treats any trade partner hand would mean increasing tariffs to the UK.

The idea is to stop tit-for-tat 1930s style trade war, unless we cut

a proper deal, the EU has to treat us like stranger, and so will places

like South Korea, countries with whom we had trade o deals by via EU

membership. . That might seem odd but it has worked. Average tariffs

round the world from falling from 22% in 1937 to 5% now. The problem

is, these days, modern trade barriers are less likely to be

tariff, it just isn't the '30s any more. The modern WTO took its

current shape at talks in 1944 in Marrakech but while its achieved in

reducing tariffs is important and helpful, it hasn't been so good as

preventing other sorts of rules and regulations from getting in the way

of trade. These so-called non-tariff and technical barriers are much more

important than tariffs In we went the rules there is no provision for

cooperation between regulatory agencies which is important, if you

look at the pharmaceutical sec store where we are continually producing

new drugs you need to make sure they are being accepted and approved by

agencies, particularly at the EU level to be able to put on the

market. The WTO in short isn't good at

reducing the admin hassle of selling is across the border or stopping

local laws or approval processes that might hobble foreign companies.

That is why countries strike free trade agreements.

Pascal Lamy is a former EU trade commissioner,

and was director-general of the World Trade Organisation.

He joins us now from Davos. Good evening. We will come on to talk

about the WTO possibilities in a moment, but first, in July last

chair, as far as Brexit negotiations were concerned, you said it would be

complex and nasty. Do you still hold that view? Yes. It's going to be

complex, bumpy and nasty, like any trade negotiation. We know that by

experience, unless we invent the first ever trade negotiation in

history which would be a love affair. I don't really believe it

can happen. Except Theresa May is determined to invent something. She

doesn't want an off-the-shelf deal like Norway. She wants a bold and

ambitious free trade agreement with the EU. How would that work? I think

that's what we have to do now, now that the UK has decided to leave the

internal market, as you just said in your excellent summary. The UK will

be a third country, like Mexico, Korea or Japan. So UK has to

negotiate the terms of access to the EU market, and the EU has to

negotiate the terms of access to the UK market. Its seven for the size of

the EU market to one, which is the size of the UK market. It's going to

be complex, long, it's probably a good thing, a better thing than

going to the WTO tariffs, but it will take time, and inevitably,

trade will be less open than when the UK was a member of the internal

market. It may have to go back to the WTO. What Christine Lagarde was

saying was, if you are outside the club, you are not going to get as

good a deal as if you were inside the club. No one wants to give

Britain such a good deal. I wonder what you think about the idea of

some companies like UBS shifting to Paris and beyond. Certain different

areas, such as financial services and the car industry, might strike

separate deals within the EU. What do you think of that? There will be

no separate deal. It is a single undertaking. You have to to agree on

everything before you agree on anything. There's no deal that would

be a sector deal. This would be toughly negotiated on both sides. As

you just said in your programme, the main difficulty for the British

exporter to the EU continent, whether goods or services, like

financial services or accounting, will be that the UK will have to

match EU regulations and standards, without having any say on the

regulations and standards. That's a big problem for the future. On the

question of how all this operates, because we have to true God Article

50 and negotiate their way out. -- trigger article 50. And then, the

idea would be that simultaneously you do your fresh deal. Is that

possible? Know. I don't think it's doable simultaneously. It can start

simultaneously, but any trade negotiation of this kind is very

complex and will take a long time. I am convinced this is not doable in

two years. And yet David Davis, our chief negotiator, says it will be

done by the end of 2018. Do you think, knowing the complexity of all

this, that the UK has a sufficiently high octane negotiating team? Very

difficult to say. What I know is that, like any other EU member, the

UK disbanded its trade expertise when it was transferred to the

European Union, so they have to reconstitute a whole body of trade

experts and trade negotiators. This will inevitably take time, and by

the way, be pretty costly. At least, that's what I'm told by my friends

in the consulting and the legal business. So how long do you think

it would take to strike a new deal with the EU? I don't know of any

trade negotiation that lasted less than five to seven years, which

means that there will need to be a sort of interim arrangement which

will have to be negotiated before we move to the new trade regime. So

Theresa May is a saying, I don't want a bad deal. What if there is no

deal, and then we fall back on WTO rules? With this tariff of, for

example, 10% on car imports to the EU, will it apply to Britain

automatically? That's a possibility if there is no deal, as you rightly

say. You go back to the WTO rules, but those rules are worse for the

UK, and for the EU into the UK, than a good deal. So that's ad? This

notion that no deal rather than a bad deal is something all trade

negotiators have been saying all the time. If you have an option between

going back to the WTO rules, or the ideal, which is full of pain, you

will choose the full of pain. You know Boris Johnson. Do you think you

should be one of the lead people in negotiations, given what he said

today that so offended so many French? Look, what Boris Johnson

said today leads me to wonder whether it's Donald Johnson or Boris

Trump! It is a clear embarrassment for all of these high-flying

diplomats in the Foreign Office, and they deserve all of our compassion.

Thank you very much indeed, Pascal Lambie.

Is the military about to be deployed to enforce the election

Tonight, the Nigerian Air Force and Senegalese troops are on standby

because of the outgoing president Yahya Jammeh's refusal to relinquish

Today, the UN said at least 26,000 people, mainly women and children,

have fled the country across the border into Senegal.

The Gambia, a small state in west Africa sandwiched by Senegal,

normally calls itself the "Smiling Coast" -

its sunny beaches making it a popular tourist destination.

But the fear of violence and military strikes is now hanging

As locals are fleeing over the border, China has

evacuated its citizens, and tourists are being

It's basically that we are going to evacuate everyone back home tonight.

President Yahya Jammeh seized power in 1994 at the age of 29.

He's survived several coup attempts to rule for the past 22 years.

Last December, he lost the presidential election

to a candidate backed by a strong opposition coalition.

Despite initially conceding the result and appearing to hand

We hereby declare a state of public emergency,

throughout the Islamic Republic of the Gambia.

The President-Elect, Adama Barrow, is due to be sworn in tomorrow.

The regional bloc of West African States, Ecowas,

has repeatedly warned it would launch military action

if Jammeh refuses to step down before the ceremony.

Jammeh once said he would rule for a billion years if Allah willed it.

We are about to see if his faith in himself will be trumped

Steve Cockburn is from Amnesty International and is in Senegal.

Today is the deadline given by the international community

for President Jammeh to step down from power and pass

So far he has refused and mediation efforts have failed.

This evening, the President of Mauritania has flown

into the country as a last ditch effort to try and find a peaceful

solution to the crisis, and at the same time forces

led by Senegal and Nigeria have been preparing to launch a military

intervention in the country if that peaceful process doesn't succeed.

He's -- she's an interventional development writer based in the UK.

-- International. Are your family all OK? Yes, they are all treating

the crisis from different points of view. How are they treating it? What

are they doing? Today, my mother decided she needs to stock up on

rice and gas. They've been to work and come home early, and got various

groceries ready to sit it out. Are they fearful? I would say they are

uncomfortable, but not fearful. We've been through this before. It's

tense. It's not entirely in 81? Yes. It's not entirely clear what will

happen, but they have confidence that the Senegalese will come in and

sort it out. You've been living with this president for a very long time.

What has it been like? It's an odd mix, because basically, loads of

things have been happening under the radar that have been terrible, like

people who have had plastic melted on their genitals. You've heard of

people disappearing, and journalists just not turning up for work the

next day. So there's all this against a backdrop of a president

who has also done things like spread water, so there's been renewed wells

for portable water across the country. So this mix of absolute

control for doing things for development, but not enough to make

people become independent of view. He is clearly digging his heels in.

What will shift him? The Nigerians or the Sangha Lee's? Loads of things

are happening. His ministers are deserting him, so his support is

draining away. What will shift him now is military force. We heard this

morning that the top brass in the army were supporting him, but you

think they are not? It's not entirely true. This is according to

my family, but there's basically two factions in the Army. There's the

soldiers, who rejoiced to the election, and there's some who are

staying loyal. There are some who are ditching their uniform in the

streets. The Gambia is a small place, so everybody is related to

everybody else. It comes through to you that you have a personal choice,

and some of the soldiers are making the choice that they would rather

not continue to support him. Ecowas have acted very quickly. Why is it

so critical for them to get a hold in the Gambia? The Gambia is a test

case. We have had a coups and countercoups in the West Africa for

a long time. Since the war in Cote d'Ivoire, we have had elections in

Nigeria, and Ghana, successful and peaceful elections and changes of

power. In the Gambia, there's not been one single successful peaceful

change of power since I was born, so it's time to make that happen. Thank

you very much indeed. President Obama gave his final press

conference from The White House this evening, and ranged over subjects

from Chelsea Manning to the Israeli Palestinian conflict,

warning his successor over any Emily is in Washington,

watching the final chapter of the Obama Presidency,

and preparing to report on the next. In his last press conference,

President Obama conceded that Donald Trump was unlikely to take his

advice, given that he had won his election on an anti-Obama platform,

but he warned the new, that perhaps he would be hit by the complexities

of the role once in office, and his thinking might shift on issues like

health care and jobs. He described phone calls between the two men as

constructive and lengthy, and said that the best advice he could give

was to try and rely on those around him. He said it was not a job for

one man alone. Perhaps the most memorable moment was his rebuff to

Trump. Trump has already hinted that he might move the press corps

outside the White House, and he insisted that the reporters covering

his administration were an essential facet of a functioning democracy.

Have a listen. You're not supposed

to be sycophants, you're You're supposed to ask

me tough questions. You're not supposed to be

complimentary, but you're supposed to cast a critical eye on folks

who hold enormous power, and make sure that we are accountable

to the people who sent us here, And you have done it

for the most part, in ways that I could appreciate for fairness,

even if I didn't always agree It will be understood as a rebuke to

Trump who has picked those very public, personal fights with

individual reporters and their news organisations, he Haslam Bassited in

the past, for fake new, a term has almost weaponised for anything he

doesn't like very much. This was the last time that Obama will speak in

public as President. He leaves office with near record approval

ratings and a flurry of last minute activity which might suggest an

awareness of the many things he still leaves undone, so what will

his legacy be like? We look back at the last eight years.

We will go out and remake America and then we will change the world.

When you study anyone and understand why they do it, you become more

sympathetic, when you study Obama you try not to -- it is hard not to

become a fan. The description he left from behind

was true, you can't say that he didn't do anything, they certainly

did a lot, but the actions they took, it wasn't enough to make a

difference. Think we got more change than a lot

of people thought possible. There were 28 million more people insured

in this Cundy than there were in 2008. We are fighting to keep that

right now, today as I talk to you, trying to make sure that people can

keep their health care, there has been change in that, in marriage

equality, there has been change all over this country when we think how

marginalised people have been. There is more change that needs to happen.

You cannot underestimate how bad the cards he inherited in terms of the

economy, and nobody gets credit. No politician in history has got credit

for averting a disaster, but, Obama the technocrat, the hard nosed

technocrat, who passed the largest stimulus in US history. People talk

about him unwilling to bend, but he did get Republicans to vote for that

which is why it passed which is why there wasn't a second great

depression. And his first two years in office he passed more legislation

and did more major things really than any other progressive President

has done, in living memory, and part of the problem that that caused was

that there was a counter attack. We're not going to give up. We are

going to fight. We are going to get rid of him in 2012.

But that coalition of lejs Kated, rural people who are kind of losers

in the globalisation game, is exactly the same coalition that put

Donald Trump into the White House. It is just a straight line, you can

see it. The Democratic Party at the grass

roots has really been decimated under Obama, they have lost most of

state house, the legislature, the party under Obama in some sense has

hollowed out and it is going to be very hard for them to come back from

that. On January 20th, I will become the first President of the United

States to serve two full terms during a time of war. I wouldn't

give him a great score on foreign policy, he has two successes, Cuba

and Iran, they will survive. The Trump presidency, but the rest, I,

you know I worked on a lot of other issue, on Isil. Syria, and Ukraine,

and he wasn't as strong as he could have been.

I would give Obama poor marks on Syria, I worked on Syria in the

State Department for several years and I think there were several

points when he had Obama done much more than he did, things really

could have changed. He had legitimate reasons for avoiding

getting more involved but unfortunately you ignore unpleasant

parts of the world as your peril. You can't contain a conflict like

Syria. We have Isil as a result of Syria and Isil by the way not just

in that region but we have seen attacks in many other country, in

Europe as well. We had the migration crisis. We went into rack, and it

didn't work. We tried persuasion, in Egypt and it didn't work, we tried

limited intervention in Libya and it didn't work, we didn't intervene in

Syria and it didn't work. I mean, really, the person who said the

thing you have to be is lucky, is probably got the answer.

If we could recognise ourselves in one another. Bring everybody

together. Democrat, Republican, ints, Latino Asian and native

American. Black and white. Gay and straight. Disabled and not. The

first time I went into the White House, when Barack Obama lived

there, that was the first thing that came to mind, my ancestors, built

that house, that house that for so long we had to enter the back door

of for so long we were not allowed in the dining rooms of, let alone in

the Oval office, so for a lot of us having a black man in the White

House represented hope. That is not a great legacy on race

but that is not Obama's legacy, that is an American legacy on race, if

people are tired about hearing racism I guarantee we are far more

tired of dealing with it. At the end of the day people confuse

identifying racism with actual racism. That doesn't mean race

relations have got worse it means people have become more aware.

I am asking you to believe, not in my ability to bring about change but

in yours. Yes, we can. Yes, we did. Yes we can. Thank you, God bless

you. May God continue to bless the United

May God continue to bless the United States.

Ahead of the inauguration, feelings about Donald Trump are running high,

and tonight we bring you the second of our two polarised

"animated" perspectives on the incoming President.

Last night, Roger Kimball, editor of the US literary

magazine, The New Criterion, exhorted Trump to bring it on.

Tonight, the former editor of the New Republic,

the British American author and blogger Andrew Sullivan, who has

As Donald Trump began his march through American democracy

toward the White House earlier this year, my mind kept drifting

to a passage I read years before as a graduate student,

from the first book on politics ever written.

The passage is from the dialogue where Socrates and his friends

are talking about the nature of different political systems.

How they change over time, and how one can slowly

Socrates says something pretty shocking - tyranny is probably

established out of no other regime than democracy.

Democracy was defined as a political system which maximises two things -

Everyone is equal, and everyone can do whatever he or she likes.

And the longer a democracy lasts, Socrates says, the more

Its freedoms multiply until it becomes a many coloured cloak,

Man are interchangeable with women, and all their natural

Foreigners can come and work just like citizens, children

Teachers are afraid of their students, the rich

Soon, every kind of inequality is despised.

The wealthy are particularly loathed.

And elites in general are treated as suspect,

perpetuating inequality and representing injustice.

It's when a democracy is evolved into this, Plato argues,

that a would-be tyrant will often seize his moment.

He is usually of the elite, but is in tune with the times,

given over to random pleasures and whims, feasting on food,

He makes his move by taking over a particularly obedient mob

and attacking his wealthy peers as corrupt.

He is a traitor to his class, and soon his elite enemies find

a way to appease him or are forced to flee.

Eventually, he stands alone, offering the addled,

distracted and self-indulgent citizens a kind of relief

from democracy's endless choices and insecurities.

Too much freedom seems to change into nothing but too much slavery.

And offers himself as the personified answer to all problems.

To replace the elites and rule along on behalf of the masses.

And as the people thrill to him, as a kind of solution,

a democracy willingly impetuosly repeals itself.

But the music world is today mourning the death of the Nigerian

If you've never heard of him, that's because he never

performed on screen, and he quit the music business years

before he even found fame to become a born again Christian,

and pretty much ignored his subsequent feting by the legion

of western musicians who he profoundly influenced.

So we'll leave you instead with Talking Head's David Byrne

and the Atomic Bomb band, performing Onyeabor's song

Fantastic Man on the Jimmy Fallon Show in 2015.

# I want you try to tell me how you feel about me, girl

# Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me

Good evening. With high pressure sitting across the country any

changes in the weather for the next few days will be slow. So we start

with a frost again, in clearer areas than the south. Some fog and frost

and fog where we see the breaks further north. But, the breaks will

be limited we think across Northern Ireland and Scotland, mostly dry,

east of the Grampians that is the best chance of drier, brighter

weather or sunshine once the fog clears, perhaps fog. There could be

low level fog as you can see in Lincolnshire, East Anglia and the

Midland. There is no strength in the sunshine or in fact no wind as well,

to move it on. But in the south, after a hard frost, should be

sparkling sunshine again. But a nice day, we may see that extend into

parts of Wales as well, through the course of Thursday, that is in

contrast to Wednesday. But, as I say, there will be be a lot of

cloudy, but dry weather. Friday, perhaps a few more breaks in

the cloud, indicated in Inverness, temperatures not so high and as we

head further south