31/05/2014 Dateline London

There's a full bulletin of news at the top of the hour.

Hello and welcome to Dateline London.

The European Union ` ready for reform?

Egypt elects a new president, except a lot

And from Boko Haram to honour killings, the way Islam is viewed

around the world ` or is it the way women are viewed around the world?

My guests today are Alex Deane of Conservative Home, Nesrine

Malik, who is a Sudanese writer, Abdallah Homouda, who is an Egyptian

The headlines in Europe have been full of stories

about the successes of Eurosceptic parties, so does this herald

Or, with mainstream parties still in the vast majority in the EU

parliament, has the news coverage been a bit excitable?

We have heard of the `` earthquakes in France and here. I think for the

UK it is significant. I am Eurosceptic myself, and I think it

is profoundly significant for the Conservative party. The threat to

the Conservative party for the upcoming general election is great.

A ball from the terrible graph `` a poll from the Telegraph say that

people who voted UKIP are going to vote for them come the general

election. So for the Tories, we have to respond to this. The narrative on

our side, and I think in France and Germany, but most of all for the UK,

the narrative has been complacency, thinking your voters will come back.

It is just a protest vote? Exactly. But if you look at the local

elections, voting for local councils, people know what the

services are that they get, and they like or dislike them, but the

analysis there suggests the UKIP vote went down. Yes, then

comparatively to last year. But the number of people prepared to put

across in the box for a significant election... Not only did they add

hundreds of councillors to the account, but Nigel Farage's standing

is one in which he is no longer peripheral or fringe, he is

increasingly central in the attention he commands, be a time he

gets, and he looks like a grown`up, not someone protesting at the side

of the pitch. What do you reckon to this, do you see this as a political

earthquake in Britain? I am not sure whether people are voting for the

same thing that other people suspect they are. I do not think it is about

Europe. I have been listening to a lot of UKIP voters over the past few

weeks, and the fact it is a European MEP is a proxy for the frustrations

with domestic policy. What I find fascinating if I do agree that

mainstream parties are disenfranchising a whole swathes of

the population. But those people are on the side of UKIP voters,

working`class people, immigrants, people who are vulnerable economic,

we are all on the same side, but UKIP has managed to turn white

working class people against everyone else also alienate it by

mainstream politics. So this is the problem, mainstream parties have

alienate the voters who will not vote for UKIP, so you have people

who are disillusioned with mainstream politics but cannot and

do not want to vote for UKIP, so that is the sad situation that you

have so many people who do not agree with UKIP, but do not agree with

mainstream parties. Where do they go? Would you agree with one of

Nigel Farage's criticisms that they are all the same, and that is

something that voters often say that strikes a chord. They are all the

same and they look the same and they are from the same social and ethnic

backgrounds, the front, there is something clever

going on, which is the maintenance of the politics of grievance, I am

outside the mainstream and different to them, at a time where his party

is now mainstream, commanding majorities in national polls, and he

has become a mainstream figure. At being able to maintain that

narrative of being outside is a very clever, which may take them a

significant way. Marine Le Pen a similar. Exactly the same. She did

extremely well with the same sort of public disenfranchise, people afraid

of immigration, afraid of this widening gap between the poor and

rich. This is a very important issue, also in Britain. A side of

France, Britain and Greece, mainstream parties have one. If you

look at Italy, 47% endorsement, and in Germany, another triumph for

Angela Merkel. Is this a wake`up call for Europe for mainstream

reform? Everyone agrees that Europe has two reform, not to the British

line to destroy Europe to get a free market, but we cannot go on the way

that it was created that everyone agrees and there will be some sort

of sovereignty given back to the state. What Cameron once, I think

there will be an agreement along these lines. At the moment, there is

a feeling that we are angry at Europe, but without Europe we do not

exist. Without Europe, the world will not look at Europe and the

country as the same is. Britain can have a delusion of grandeur about

going alone, but the fact is, without Europe, Britain does not

exist foreign investment... That is absolute nonsense! What a shame we

have to fall out over this! Forget it if you want to go alone. You will

become Norway. With the highest quality of life in the world! That

of a country of Churchill and the Empire. I would like to start from

where Alex mentioned, the politics of grievance. The two schools of

thought, Europhiles and Eurosceptics. I think the European

citizens feel that the drive towards the European unity has neglected

national interest and it came at the expense of national interest in a

way which made them try to make a point and say, stop here and

rethink. Obviously that he `` obviously the crisis... 26% in

France and 6% only in Paris, this shows that the debate in the capital

does not go very far to the country. That are similar in London. There is

a very important point about turnout, and it is a correlation

between large turnout and voting for mainstream parties and lower turnout

and voting for fringe parties. The UK's turnout is in the bottom seven

of all European countries that have voted, and I think that where there

is uninterested, plugged in populous, people are more informed

and they will vote more for mainstream parties than when people

are disenfranchised and unplugged. This idea that you should tempt

voters by saying, if only you knew more, you would vote for our party.

We're not saying you should do that, it does not make it not true that if

the new more the wooden vote. But you cannot tempt them by saying

that. The fact is, what is the economic programme of UKIP? How do

the track jobs and foreign investment? By banning gay marriage!

All I know are those rules. They are extremely unattractive to London

liberals, but they are not seeking to speak to them. I am no defender

of UKIP, it is deeply deductive, and as long as we come out, all economic

things will be well. As long as we failed to challenge them on the

central debate about Europe, they would be able to do that. But I'm

afraid it is worse in your country because all the mainstream parties

did not display Euroscepticism at all, leaving a swathe of fertile

ground for the National Front. The National Front also `` always does

well when you have a weak left`wing government. This is nothing to do

with Europe. Let us move on to other democratic matters.

Sisi has, to no`one's surprise, been elected President of Egypt, but with

many people choosing not to vote, where does this leave Egypt now `

Democracy? It was a foregone conclusion, and what you would

expect in Egypt's in the battle place. Turnout is something nearing

45%. It does not look bad in any democratic country, by the way, but

in Egypt's we see things differently because when people know that their

favourite candidate is going to win, that is an impediment to many

people. But a number of liberal idealists and obviously the Muslim

brotherhood and their allies have decided... It of his `` if it is 45%

turnout, it is good enough to get a candidate winning. The other

dilemma, two points actually, I had some trepidation with this, I felt

that the Egyptians, while going about democracy, are still hanging

to the old idea of one person. This way, most of the people leaning

towards him as the hero they wanted to have to secure the country and

get it working. As strongman to discipline? Yes, in that sense a lot

was given to the other candidate who only got 3% of the vote. I did not

see that as good. I was hoping that the margin of winning could be as

close as possible. Unfortunately it came as wide as it could be, ever.

But he is a very respected man, his unfortunate situation is that

Egyptians do not understand that when you live under a regime like

barbaric, `` like President Mubarek, and undermined in every possible way

and survived, that is winning. In Britain he would be considered a

hero! In hours country, they wanted someone who is clean and not

touched. The problem of general al Sisi is proving that running a

military is useful in running a country. What we are seeing is

presumably a free and her on, but not a democracy. Well, you know, it

reminds me of the Burke, who was a great president. The fact is that

unlike you, I believe that military are the worst rulers because they

are fundamentally corrupt all over the world, and because they take the

money of the state for their own good. That is a problem of the

military as an industry. Has he been able to cut this chord with this?

The military don't control the Egyptian. Even if they don't there

is a fear, my fear is that it spells the death of politics in Egypt for a

long time, even if they don't control the Egyptians or the

industry they're still the end game. What happened with Morsi because

people didn't like how he was governing and came out in their

millions and the military stepped in, that scenario is not a

possibility when he is in power. There is no ` that is the worry.

Turkish friends of mine have said that the constant use of the

military to overthrow failing democratic governments means that

the country for many years couldn't grow up because it's like your

father rescuing you from making mistakes. Absolutely. The same thing

may be happening in Egypt. Turkey's moved further down that process. It

seems the process has stopped in Egypt. It's what I mean when I say I

fear the death of politics because it's stunted now because they've

gone back to another father figure from the military. What is really

worrying, if you watch Egyptian media over the past couple of months

the level of hysteria in supporting Sisi is... Absolutely no neutrality

at all. Actually an interesting bit of trivia is that the second

candidate came actually third after the second poll was for spoiled

ballots. Sisi came first. And spoiled ballots. Spoiled ballots are

being unhappy with the system you are in. I would want to have none of

the above box, reopen nominations. Although of course I always vote

Conservative. Were I not doing that I might consider ticking that box

myself. The involvement of military in any democratic process, and that

takes me some of the way towards your pessimism. I look to evidence

with that with the fact tourism is suffering and the Egyptian pound is

slumping. Those things are negative. But there are a couple of cautionary

notes that may be worth making. The first is this electorate has had

seven elections in the last two years. Talking about turnout in the

European context, there is a certain amount of voter fa treeing.

Secondly, it's `` fatigue. Secondly, if the person in command running is

backed by the military but also by the voice of business, also every

celebrity you have ever heard of and the other side boycotts, it's not

necessarily a condemnation of democracy in Egypt that people

didn't go in droves to vote the other way when a large number of

people were telling them don't bother to vote. Let's move on. We

are running out of time. A woman faces the death penalty in Sudan for

marrying a Christian man. Boko Haram kidnaps girls in Nigeria. Do these

tell us anything about is slam, or given the recent rapes and murders

of young girls in India or does it tell us much more about how women

are still viewed in some parts of the world. People have said this is

unjust, let her go. I was there when it happened and the interesting

thing has been Sudanese people themselves have had enough. They see

the fact the Government is instrumentalising religion to flex

muscles and to pretend it's a Sharia Government. Coming back to your

question, is this related to is slam? Over the past couple of weeks

we have had killings in California, incidents in India and Pakistan and

now in Sudan. It's obviously a global problem. However, there is a

spot of Islam, tribal values, political des pottism is where Islam

enables this kind of behaviour. People will say, I say to them, it's

not about Islam at all and people don't agree on ` and even Sudanese

people are standing outside the court with signs saying, people have

freedom to believe whatever they want, which is a big thing in a

dictatorship in Sudan. But then the answer to that is, if it didn't

exist in religion, you wouldn't be able to instrumentalise it in the

first place. I think even though there's been a lot of sort of very

mature debate about the fact that politics and Islamic governments

cynically use Islam and enable individuals to use apostasy cases to

sort out grievances, you still need to be able to sort out the

fundamental problem which is the fact that Islam and politics in the

Arab world and in Sudan are in an unfortunate bind and it needs to be

separated. Is this also true in Egypt, not obviously this case, but

we have seen the treatment of some Christians who have complained? The

treatment of Christians is different from the treatment of someone

accused of apostasy. In Egypt even under the Muslim Brotherhood, they

allowed a ` a different kind which is not acceptable either: Problem is

this has nothing to do with Islam. It is being instrumentalised. In

Islam you should understand that jurisdiction is associated with a

time and a place and circumstances. It was at a time when Islam was

under threat, small minority. In a different mill ennia `` mill enyum.

own affairs which is wrong, as well. This is a kind of militant brand of

Islam in power trying to create a utopia.

the Muslims of the Bias Borough of the Western world. The respect of

women, the respect of diversity, that is my belief in England,

Germany and France. The extent to which we have bent over to try to

matter of great interest within the understand and `` display sensitive

matter of great interest within the Church of England but to many people

in Britain doesn't matter because we have moved on, is that... That's

what I am saying. How do you think this is resolvable? The point was

made about when outside people criticise, particularly governments

that feel besieged and they're taking a tough stance... It becomes

a proxy for a sovereign debate. The way forward is mus lems themselves

and `` Muslims themselves and Sudanese people stand up for it

themselves. Will it change the Government's mind? It will and has.

There have been three incidents in the past five years where the

Government has passed sentences of lashing of women and for execution

and because of local pressure, national pressure and actually a

deep distaste for this kind of thing, have not been enacted. It's

interesting in the next week or so our Foreign Secretary and Angelina

Jolie and others are going to be at a conference talking about the way

in which women are attacked and sexually abused as a weapon of war,

it's wider. Taking the point that everybody has made about Islam and

women it's wider than that. Women are systemically mistreated in lots

of cultures around the world and every time it happens it's wrong.

But there is a problem with Islam and it's one we need to grapple

with. I believe women are equal to men and that simple statement

shouldn't put me at odds with individuals, but if it does I am

content with it. My fear is that there are many people who lead our

country and elsewhere who are so keen to get on with others and show

cultural sensitivity and not fall out with them that they don't make

simple statements like that and point out that certain cultures in

this world, Sudan not least, are repressing half the population. I

don't want to single out Islam, there are problems with everyone who

is militant or is dogmatic or he is backward. It's a coincidence, isn't

it... What I would like to tell you incident in Sudan which was not

related to apostasy at all and the trial of a woman for wearing

trousers and she was a journalist ` these are things which are really

bothering us and people are moving forward to put an end to that.

Unfortunately, the Islamic streak which can be radicalising even in

Britain and the West is not helping. OK. That's it for this week. We are

back next week at the same time. You can comment on the programme on

Twitter. Thank you for watching. Goodbye.

Good morning. A nice day on the way for most of us today. I don't think

it's going to be completely sunny nor is it going to be a scorcher but

at least it's looking bright and it's going to be warm in the

sunshine too. For most of us the weekend is not looking too bad.

Tomorrow, particularly across eastern parts of the country, it's