:00:25. > :00:29.The subjects for our discussion this week are the newly raised terror
:00:30. > :00:32.alert and containing the potential threat from Islamic State.
:00:33. > :00:34.Immigration ` what NATO should decide at its
:00:35. > :00:41.My guests today are Owen Jones, author and columnist with
:00:42. > :00:48.Benedict Paviot from the television channel France 24.
:00:49. > :00:50.And Michael Goldfarb of America's Globalpost.com.
:00:51. > :01:01.David Cameron has raised it to "severe", acting on advice from the
:01:02. > :01:04.security services that an attack is "highly likely".
:01:05. > :01:07.He's worried at the prospect of British Muslims being radicalised
:01:08. > :01:14.in Syria and then coming back to the UK.
:01:15. > :01:22.How worried should we be? We know around 500 Britons have gone to
:01:23. > :01:28.Syria, of which 200 have returned. The concern is this. We have had 13
:01:29. > :01:32.years of so`called war and terror, which can divide into three
:01:33. > :01:33.components. A crackdown on Civil Liberties across the Western world,
:01:34. > :01:40.components. A crackdown on Civil Liberties secondly, generalisations
:01:41. > :01:45.about Muslims fuelled by sections of the media which have done nothing to
:01:46. > :01:49.deal with the disaffection of swathes of particularly was on
:01:50. > :01:54.youth, and also foreign interventions which have ranged from
:01:55. > :01:59.disastrous to catastrophic. No one is saying we shouldn't monitor those
:02:00. > :02:03.returning from Syria. It is an Orwellian world, because the year
:02:04. > :02:10.ago, we will boarding uprising against Syria's dictatorship, and we
:02:11. > :02:13.have had a lot happening in a short space of time. We need to be killing
:02:14. > :02:21.also with these external issues. Firstly, the NATO ally with Turkey,
:02:22. > :02:28.with a semi`porous border with Syria, in which many of these
:02:29. > :02:32.British fighters and people are passing through too easily, but we
:02:33. > :02:38.have to deal with allies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which deal with
:02:39. > :02:41.the former head of MI6 pointing out that ISIS would not have managed its
:02:42. > :02:48.victory without support from within Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Originally,
:02:49. > :02:55.Qatari military aid was going to Syria with CIA complicity. Unless we
:02:56. > :02:58.deal with those issues, Saudi Arabia has gotten away with it for far too
:02:59. > :03:03.long, and helping export international terrorism. It is
:03:04. > :03:12.having an impact on all western countries. Should we be worried?
:03:13. > :03:16.They wouldn't go to Syria if they weren't already radicalised. The
:03:17. > :03:30.radicalisation presumably is training in Syria. I have been here
:03:31. > :03:33.before. I'm not worried. In the US, I came across a link or judicial
:03:34. > :03:40.watch, which is a Conservative online website which claimed it had
:03:41. > :03:48.proof that jihadis were crossing through Mexico into the southern
:03:49. > :03:51.United States. Did you fail your creative writing class? You spend
:03:52. > :03:58.all day dreaming this stuff up. But it is out there for the most part.
:03:59. > :04:05.Enough Civil Liberties has been overrun in the last 13 years. I
:04:06. > :04:11.think it is likely, and if we know 500 guys have gone over, or 700 or
:04:12. > :04:15.800, then presumably, the security services know when a comeback. If
:04:16. > :04:19.they know when they come back, they presumably know what they are up to.
:04:20. > :04:27.I am less concerned. This is more about trotting up this idea of IAS
:04:28. > :04:31.is being this horrible bogeyman. `` idea of is not expect. If you are in
:04:32. > :04:36.Syria and Iraq, it is a dreadful force, and it is a blight on
:04:37. > :04:45.people's lives. But I'm not sure it is here. `` Islamic State. Do you
:04:46. > :04:49.think this tells us anything about the real day`to`day threat from
:04:50. > :04:56.people who have travelled to Syria to fight? Know, and Theresa May
:04:57. > :05:00.herself said she does not think there is any evidence to suggest
:05:01. > :05:07.there is an imminent terror attack. Why are you raising the terror
:05:08. > :05:11.threat level? They would say they do it on advice. But there is no
:05:12. > :05:15.evidence, so I think there is a fundamental understanding ``
:05:16. > :05:23.misunderstanding of the Islamic State threat. Al`Qaeda was based in
:05:24. > :05:29.exile from its home territory in the Middle East in Afghanistan and
:05:30. > :05:38.Pakistan, and if it was to attack Western targets, Islamic State is a
:05:39. > :05:44.localised military force that has a national and regional agenda, which
:05:45. > :05:48.is to expand into Syria and Iraq. The West thinks everything is about
:05:49. > :05:53.itself, but in this instance, it is not. It is about the failure of the
:05:54. > :05:58.modern state. It is about the anarchy and breakdown of the modern
:05:59. > :06:02.Arab state. It is not really something people are thinking of
:06:03. > :06:11.taking back to the UK or the US. Even if they go home? Even if they
:06:12. > :06:14.go home, if you listen to the foreign British was fighters, the
:06:15. > :06:18.odd idiot will say they want to raise the black flag, that it is
:06:19. > :06:28.more about animals and vision, it is more about an Arab vision. `` about
:06:29. > :06:34.a Muslim vision. Some people are going to the situation don't speak
:06:35. > :06:43.the language. I think that disconnect between the pen Arabism
:06:44. > :06:47.him `` pen` Arabism of it means there may be more of a cross
:06:48. > :07:01.pollination between the two. Looking at it from a French perspective, is
:07:02. > :07:13.there much of a read on the streets about this? If you mean that Arab
:07:14. > :07:22.youth in France, yes. There is a real problem in France in the
:07:23. > :07:26.suburbs which doesn't have the nice connotation in the UK. It is a
:07:27. > :07:31.problem, because there is already a problem of integration, and that is
:07:32. > :07:37.something Britain and France have in common. They are not just two powers
:07:38. > :07:43.dealing with empires and coming to grips with that for their own
:07:44. > :07:49.personal history. Two French people for real `` feel threatened? Do they
:07:50. > :07:56.think there is a terrorism threat they could explode on their street?
:07:57. > :08:05.Not yet, I don't think. There was the attack in Belgium. There have
:08:06. > :08:11.been some serious incidents, one where a person rang our TV channel
:08:12. > :08:16.and spoke to one of our colleagues, and there was killed by French
:08:17. > :08:24.police. He had previously killed some French soldiers and killed some
:08:25. > :08:28.Jewish children. There is a problem. There is a problem of jihadis. The
:08:29. > :08:33.French interior minister, newly appointed, and also the one in the
:08:34. > :08:36.previous government, told me yesterday that France things they
:08:37. > :08:42.have a bigger problem, because we think there are 900 French people
:08:43. > :08:46.who have gone to Iraq or Syria. I would say about the British diet, I
:08:47. > :08:51.think there is probably some intelligence we are not party to
:08:52. > :08:55.that they are basing this on, and France has two levels. `` about the
:08:56. > :08:58.British threat. One thing that has not been mentioned is what is
:08:59. > :09:03.happening next week, the NATO summit. Britain is hosting the
:09:04. > :09:12.biggest ever meeting. Even the police chiefs know they have 110
:09:13. > :09:18.VIPs. Will get to later. `` we will get to that later. Let's come to the
:09:19. > :09:21.question of immigration. It does weaving. We have had these figures
:09:22. > :09:26.this week that show the net migration figure is still way off
:09:27. > :09:35.being met, and is falling further away. The government thought they
:09:36. > :09:38.would get net migration down. We're now in a situation where a quarter
:09:39. > :09:48.of children born in this country are born to mothers who are born abroad.
:09:49. > :09:52.Migration is a poisonous issue. Yet they know they have to engage in it.
:09:53. > :10:00.We have to separate the first and second discussion. There is one
:10:01. > :10:06.thing about war and terror and jihadists, and then there is the
:10:07. > :10:08.issue of immigration, which is a separate issue. In terms of
:10:09. > :10:13.immigration and the concern people have, I think the point I would make
:10:14. > :10:19.is this. In Britain, and in other countries, it has been a source of
:10:20. > :10:24.deflected anger. We have an economic crisis, the longest fall in living
:10:25. > :10:30.standards in this country since the 1860s, we have job insecurity, a
:10:31. > :10:35.housing crisis because successive governments refuse to build council
:10:36. > :10:39.housing and social housing. And because of that, and because of the
:10:40. > :10:43.failure of a less progressive narrative to answer those concerns,
:10:44. > :10:47.it becomes easy to say, I can't get an affordable home, so why is it
:10:48. > :10:52.being given to them? They don't deserve it. It is the politics of
:10:53. > :10:56.envy. They are assiduously promoted in this country in terms of low paid
:10:57. > :11:00.workers against the unemployed, private against public sector
:11:01. > :11:06.workers, and they get angry at anyone except the people in power.
:11:07. > :11:12.This is the same with immigration here and in France. We should make a
:11:13. > :11:16.separate distinction, I agree. It isn't just Britain. This is one of
:11:17. > :11:21.the big problems with the discussion we turn to having this country. It
:11:22. > :11:28.is just America, where it reflects this. The economy is terrible and
:11:29. > :11:35.these people are getting jobs. The outgoing refugee commissioner of the
:11:36. > :11:39.UN showed us the statistics. More people are on the move at this
:11:40. > :11:47.moment than any time since World War II. 50 million people will stop ``.
:11:48. > :11:53.They are displaced by war or economic immigrants. That will that
:11:54. > :11:57.everybody's shores. It will not be possible to keep them out of Britain
:11:58. > :12:01.or out of the United States or France or anywhere. Where we can
:12:02. > :12:07.bring back to earlier question, and this is not meant to be insulting or
:12:08. > :12:13.give a free pass to people who choose to go out and fight with
:12:14. > :12:16.Islamic State, it is true that the second generation, when they arrive
:12:17. > :12:22.in the country, many will not feel at home or comfortable, even though
:12:23. > :12:25.there were born on the soil. The hole for nominal of being black
:12:26. > :12:36.British. You are English and you were born in England. `` the whole
:12:37. > :12:41.phenomena. When they feel like a minority, you can find social
:12:42. > :12:45.problems. They can be things like chopping people's heads off in
:12:46. > :12:52.Syria. The whole issue of immigration has been collapsed into
:12:53. > :13:02.the foreign fighters issue. Let's look at the numbers. Immigration
:13:03. > :13:07.over the past year has risen by 38%. Let's look at the numbers. Two
:13:08. > :13:12.thirds of those are good immigrants, people nobody who has a problem with
:13:13. > :13:23.and actually Western Europeans, not even Eastern European. 68,000 of
:13:24. > :13:28.that number is from Europe. 68,100 from Romania and Bulgaria. And
:13:29. > :13:36.asylum seekers constituted 23,000. That is a tiny number. 23,000 from
:13:37. > :13:40.Africa and Asia. When people say, 238,000 people I hear, the
:13:41. > :13:45.government has missed its target. Most of those people are Western
:13:46. > :13:49.European economic migrants that IKEA entirely legally because Britain is
:13:50. > :13:54.part of the EU. Even in your country, the debate is now open
:13:55. > :13:58.about free movement within the European Union. It is only a debt
:13:59. > :14:04.used in Europeans, or is the discomfort more widespread? `` is
:14:05. > :14:14.the debate only about Eastern European 's. There are parts of the
:14:15. > :14:24.EU where people are throwing themselves into situations where
:14:25. > :14:30.they are dying. What was interesting to hear from the French minister
:14:31. > :14:33.yesterday is that he spent some time with Theresa May and speaking
:14:34. > :14:37.specifically about immigration, and he is going around the capitals of
:14:38. > :14:40.Europe. He is speaking to its German counterpart today. He's speaking to
:14:41. > :14:43.his Italian counterpart. He is speaking to its German counterpart
:14:44. > :14:45.today. He's speaking to his Italian counterpart. He's gaining consensus,
:14:46. > :14:48.because what France wants to do is for an EU coordinator to look at
:14:49. > :14:52.this issue of immigration, one of the things I was surprised by
:14:53. > :14:59.yesterday is he was almost bending over backwards to tell the French
:15:00. > :15:03.media how France take its share of responsibility whether it was about
:15:04. > :15:07.Calais, but the Britain should take its own responsibility and not place
:15:08. > :15:11.all foreigners because it is on French soil. These people want to
:15:12. > :15:16.make it to the UK. By the way, one of the reasons it is much easier for
:15:17. > :15:20.an immigrant to come here being in the UK is because in France, at any
:15:21. > :15:28.moment, with you are on the beach in a bikini, you should have your ID on
:15:29. > :15:31.you. Single passport or your identity card. This is not true
:15:32. > :15:38.getting the United Kingdom. That is the big change. `` this is not true
:15:39. > :15:41.yet in the United Kingdom. This is about affording people their
:15:42. > :15:47.dignity. I've seen people from Eritrea with their children, and you
:15:48. > :15:51.want to afford them dignity and give them food and shelter, and he was
:15:52. > :16:00.saying the EU needs to look at this before it sets about doing for the
:16:01. > :16:03.countries that need a Schengen visa. Was seen as an unacceptable
:16:04. > :16:09.infringement on people's writes in the UK. That is historic. In terms
:16:10. > :16:15.of the incentive they are backlash, it will not be dealt with on a
:16:16. > :16:20.social and economic level. Won we won't have time for that, but you
:16:21. > :16:25.have made the point. Let's move on to NATO. The leaders are meeting in
:16:26. > :16:28.Wales next week would be crisis in Ukraine top of the agenda. NATO and
:16:29. > :16:31.the Ukrainians say Russian soldiers have crossed the border to fight.
:16:32. > :16:37.Conjecture, says Moscow, which is not much of a denial. What should
:16:38. > :16:40.the West do? President Obama may not have a strategy, as he candidly
:16:41. > :16:48.admitted, for deal with Syria. Does he have one for dealing with Russia?
:16:49. > :16:58.Probably more sanctions. Something has to be said. No one knows
:16:59. > :17:01.anything. He is president in a time when no one can say they can
:17:02. > :17:11.actually know anything. In March of this year, a meme I went through it
:17:12. > :17:19.the press saying in the initial stages of this conflict, Russia is
:17:20. > :17:23.rapid, what can we do? We have war in Ukraine. Suddenly he backed off.
:17:24. > :17:38.The first round of sanctions don't abide any backed off.
:17:39. > :17:45.like years researching together. Nobody knows. When NATO gets
:17:46. > :17:51.together, the Secretary General, a Danish man, he has been making
:17:52. > :17:56.warlike sounds all week long. I read be curious to know what the Danish
:17:57. > :18:00.newspapers make of a former Danish Prime Minister trying to create the
:18:01. > :18:06.possibility of real conflict. I think that people will sit around
:18:07. > :18:11.the room and say, more sanctions, a red line, such as it is, will have
:18:12. > :18:17.to be if they push closer to Kiev. Who is going to do anything? The
:18:18. > :18:22.wood has `` they would have to ask Britain, the French, are you willing
:18:23. > :18:31.to risk a serious war? The strategy has to be to look earnest and have
:18:32. > :18:35.more sanctions. Is France willing to risk the serious prospect of
:18:36. > :18:42.conflict? Arguably, this is what NATO is for, to defend the borders
:18:43. > :18:47.of Eastern Europe from Russia. The borders have certainly changed.
:18:48. > :18:52.France does not want war. Diplomacy and hard knocking of heads together.
:18:53. > :18:59.We do not want warlike sounds. Some people would say that rather than
:19:00. > :19:04.the ISIS thread, this is a bigger threat. The vocabulary used is
:19:05. > :19:07.interesting, not just by the outgoing Secretary General of NATO.
:19:08. > :19:13.They have been holding back from using the word invasion. We are
:19:14. > :19:19.talking about an incursion. It is a very long border. We thought we had
:19:20. > :19:25.finished with the cold war. But if NATO is going to take on this kind
:19:26. > :19:31.of prospect, God knows, we do not know if we are going down that
:19:32. > :19:36.route. I agree. What will be decided at the NATO summit, it will be more
:19:37. > :19:40.sanctions. But we have to be very careful that leaders do not bounce
:19:41. > :19:46.us into some other more terrible prospect. The extent of the
:19:47. > :19:51.sanctions will be interesting. It has been said that the sanctions
:19:52. > :19:54.will hit the faltering economic situation in the Eurozone. The
:19:55. > :20:00.amount they will tolerate will be limited. Obviously war with Russia
:20:01. > :20:09.is unimaginable. We should forget about that. Do we just accept that
:20:10. > :20:17.Ukraine... ? It is not a NATO country. It wants to be. I would
:20:18. > :20:22.imagine that Putin will not tolerate that. No one doubts the pernicious
:20:23. > :20:27.role of the Putin resume. That does not lead the European governments
:20:28. > :20:32.off the hook either. The shelling of civilian areas, the civilians
:20:33. > :20:38.fleeing to the Russian border. I have no truck with the Putin regime.
:20:39. > :20:43.That has to be opposed. But let's not forget what the Ukraine
:20:44. > :20:47.government is doing. The UK could have sanctions right now. They could
:20:48. > :20:55.stop lots of Russians who have lots of assets here. They will not.
:20:56. > :20:59.Exactly. It would make large properties in London more
:21:00. > :21:08.affordable. It will resolve the housing crisis. Does NATO serve any
:21:09. > :21:12.purpose? Not when it comes to this kind of conflict. If you have a
:21:13. > :21:17.Bosnia situation, where there is genocide and ethnic cleansing, and
:21:18. > :21:23.very clear security threat for mainland Europe, and also a very
:21:24. > :21:28.clear aggressor, then yes. But in this situation, it sure the
:21:29. > :21:33.limitations of NATO. There is a big Russian minority within the Ukraine.
:21:34. > :21:37.Putin is not helping by not admitting at all that there are
:21:38. > :21:45.Russian soldiers. At one point, the Russian spokesman said, there are
:21:46. > :21:51.Russian soldiers on holiday. They are on holiday, but they are in
:21:52. > :21:59.uniform. It is a short cut to the Crimea. They were not on bank
:22:00. > :22:06.shares. `` deckchairs. We are always looking at it from our side, NATO.
:22:07. > :22:11.Ukraine is not a member state, so it is not necessarily under NATO's
:22:12. > :22:16.protection. In the case of Bosnia, I can remember the 18 months before
:22:17. > :22:22.NATO acted. That was when the murdering was going on. If you look
:22:23. > :22:26.at it from the Russian side, you have to understand, the Russian
:22:27. > :22:32.mentality, as I understand it, it is so what. They have a Millwall
:22:33. > :22:40.mentality. Nobody likes us, we do not care. I think that when you're
:22:41. > :22:44.dealing with Putin, you have to understand, he does not really care
:22:45. > :22:49.what NATO says. Was that our mistake? We thought that if we
:22:50. > :22:53.should respect for him as the leader of Russia, he would somehow become
:22:54. > :22:57.more western? Is that the misunderstanding? When he was
:22:58. > :23:04.shelling Chechnya, what was he doing? The West was not demanding
:23:05. > :23:09.that he stopped. The former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, supported him.
:23:10. > :23:16.He is working for a number of dictators at the moment. Let's not
:23:17. > :23:23.pretend that Putin is a bogeyman the West has always opposed. Any kind of
:23:24. > :23:26.conflict is kind of seen as not on our patch, something that will not
:23:27. > :23:33.threaten mainstream Western security. I think that is the sad
:23:34. > :23:37.fact. It is not something that anybody feels worried about, no
:23:38. > :23:43.matter how many people die or how many countries are destabilised.
:23:44. > :23:47.There is not a big threat of pollution. This NATO summit is also
:23:48. > :23:53.meant to deal with cyber warfare and redefine the notion of what NATO
:23:54. > :23:57.stands for. We have these major problems, the withdrawal of Afghan
:23:58. > :24:03.Eclipse. What a mess that country is in. `` at the withdrawal of troops
:24:04. > :24:05.from Afghanistan. And finally, flying is getting
:24:06. > :24:08.more dangerous, and it's nothing Two incidents this week where
:24:09. > :24:11.flights have been disrupted because passengers fighting over
:24:12. > :24:13.the right to recline. Do you dread the prospect
:24:14. > :24:34.of the person in front I do not understand this. Yesterday,
:24:35. > :24:40.I flew on Ryanair, and you cannot recline your seat. A stewardess gave
:24:41. > :24:51.the game away this morning on the radio. She said that you can
:24:52. > :25:00.actually block it and stop the person reclining. Thank you for that
:25:01. > :25:08.explanation. You can jam a book or a bottle of water. I do recline. I
:25:09. > :25:13.agree. Or you can just get your flight diverted, as they did. That
:25:14. > :25:18.is an extreme level to go to. If there is a serious side to this, it
:25:19. > :25:24.is about conflicts in enclosed spaces. Are we getting more
:25:25. > :25:30.intolerant? Everybody knows that is the point. The airlines are trying
:25:31. > :25:35.to squeeze more in. It is only a quarter of an inch. I am not the
:25:36. > :25:44.tallest person in the world. If I cannot cross my knee, I am not going
:25:45. > :25:51.to be able to relax. It is about the airlines cramming a sin. I will be
:25:52. > :25:53.avoiding flying with any of these people.
:25:54. > :25:55.That's it for Dateline London for this week.
:25:56. > :26:22.I will be back next week at the same time, Goodbye.
:26:23. > :26:30.Hello. As August draws to a close, much of the month was cooler and
:26:31. > :26:35.wetter than average. For the final weekend, things are looking decent.
:26:36. > :26:39.Lots of dry weather in the forecast and sunny spells. It will not be dry
:26:40. > :26:40.everywhere. We have