19/12/2015 Dateline London

Hello and welcome to Dateline London.

Britain's place in Europe - in or out of the EU?

Is Libya the next front in the international

My guests today are: Thomas Kielinger of Die Welt.

John Fisher Burns of the New York Times.

2015 has been a pretty awful year for the European Union -

the economic crisis rumbles on, low growth in the Eurozone,

problems over immigration and secure borders -

and those pesky British trying to rewrite the rules of the club.

David Cameron received some sympathy from other EU leaders this week -

but is he on course to achieve the reforms he wants?

And how far does the British public, or voters across

Is he getting anywhere? The aim was to set the hurdles are so low that

there was no possibility of failing. The times was right when they

characterise these negotiation points as being well within the

margin of the status quo. I think the biggest effort amongst

bureaucrats in Brussels is to conceal their relief at the modesty

of British so-called demands. There is no attempt to get away from the

primacy of EU law. No attempt to get away from employment or social

chapter rules which are committed two when he became leader of the

Conservative Party. So is he getting anywhere, well, yes I think some of

the European friends that he is not saying that what he used to say

about the strength of demands that the UK would have to cease satisfied

in order to argue for a remain filled. It is very clear that he

wants to remain in the European Union. The trouble is in his own

party. People like me who are happy to see what the negotiation will be

of bowl made up our minds, this is no real negotiation at all. We can

make up our minds now. Could it be a cunning plan to encourage reform

from those, Angela Merkel wants changes to, lots of people, a way of

making those changes actually happen because some people to think to do

similar things you say would be posturing. Some of the things he set

out in his letter, you will see immediately when they benefit one

came under challenge, it was pretty much knee jerk reaction, well,

perhaps we can concede on that, so I don't think it is a cunning plan, it

is a very obvious plan to make very small demands, have lots of people

make a fuss about how significant those demands are and then get them

quite quickly and say let's go to the country and argued to in.

Brussels will see it coming to them, if they think they can breathe a

sigh of relief, what about the British voter? I think there will be

huge backlash here is the idea that this is preordained games coin,

Cameron is walking under the sword, taking the whole referendum is

almost anathema somehow, because it is a shadow on the future of Europe.

We tremble to think that we might lose Britain. Angela Merkel, doesn't

want that. So, where do we go? We have no such love for the future of

the EU wants Britain has that. -- sat now. It is like we are watching

a pantomime. In December, the David Cameron bank the table and placed

himself in the corner, because I completely agree with Alex. It is

not how he manages to negotiate, it will not satisfy the British public,

especially those who've already made up their minds because it has been

going on for some time now. In Britain, sorry, on the continent, as

you call us, we don't want to see Britain go, we would be so side. If

you look at the map, Britain is in Europe, last time I checked. It

would be so sad, it would almost be like an amputation. Imagine seeing

Germany or Italy or Spain go. Lots of countries are in Europe and not

in the EE. Norway, Switzerland... -- EU. You need a country like Britain,

a paragon for reform, liberalism, free trade etc... Urging for forward

movement. If you were only is nice to us all the time, I wouldn't have

this referendum in the first place. If the strategy is to keep Britain

in the EU, perhaps holding a referendum is a very risky way of

going about it, but if they simply was strategy to see of UKIP, it has

been a triumph. Well, I think there is something to be learned from what

happened last time we had a referendum, on what was then the

European economic community or common market. When the issue was

for all the differences and time on the issues at hand, the core issue

was national sovereignty, and what happened? In the campaign, the polls

showed it was a close thing. It was a very vigorous campaign. One third

of the then Labour Cabinet favoured the alt option. And what happened on

polling day, 67% of the British public voted to stay in and I have a

feeling, about, the public of this country has well appreciated all the

benefits that have come to us from opening the door to Europe 40 years

ago. And I certainly see it very clearly as a Brit who spent most of

my working life abroad, coming back here, to see how fundamentally this

country has been changed by their opening to Europe. Let's not forget

that hundreds of thousands of Brits retired to Europe, the continent as

you put it, every year. Millions visit the continent. Our high

streets... They have been changed by all of this. I think the public... I

think Mr Cameron expects and understand this, they were once the

game but with the security of staying in Europe. If he is right

then interestingly, the Prime Minister by the end of his tenure

will have had three referendums, one on Scotland, one on the voting

system and one on the EU. He will have cemented the status quo on all

three and what could be more conservative than that! Is this an

irony alert? You mentioned the big picture. Sovereignty. How far do you

think this will be about immigration and chaos on the border? Not

directly related but clearly on the minds of many people. Very

significantly. As you know, the out vote looked like it was leading

quite strongly until recently. The polls reversed. Remaining was

strongly in the lead. Not until the last election but the immigration

crisis, waves of migrants coming into the EU. Effectively the free

movement system and the migration system broke down. That is why the

powers that be both in this country and in Brussels are desperate,

either to had a referendum before June, the next summer and wave of

migration we can expect, or a well after it. They don't want to have it

during a time of the currency of the next move, which I am afraid, feisty

Angela Merkel,... You could say that that makes the case for European

solidarity will stop the British should rest assured. What we're at

the moment is actually really a dent on the Schengen agreement. If not

temporarily... We already have controls of the borders. They only

had to take the train throughout Europe and you see it happening.

It's not as if Britain is alone in being worried about the future, we

are all working on it. It is not going to make them safer to be out

of Europe because Schengen... Do you think Schengen is finished? The

problem with Britain here is that we are not talking about asylum

seekers, we're talking about immigrants who are looking for jobs

and Britain is becoming the success. She is a booming economy. People

continue to come here whatever. That might be also if we decide to pull

out of the EU. Maybe. It has begun to be understood in Brussels and

that is why I think the flexibility lies. People begin to understand

that Britain has immigration problem. Everyone says why don't you

take more asylum seekers, they have beginning to learn that there had

been a million people going to these islands in the last three years

alone. Germany has seen it in one year. There is an understanding in

Brussels, something has to be done. There will be some sort of room... I

think the British public should count its blessings. How ideally

placed we are as a member of Nato, the European Union, with our ties to

the Commonwealth, the attractions that being an English-speaking

country... You're talking about soft power. All this allows us

flexibility in international affairs, not to mention authority in

international affairs, for a country which is after all only 60 million

people. I think we would not, in majority, wants to surrender any

part that. But that is inaccurate. The WTO, many other countries

including Norway, they represent itself at the WTO. We are

represented by the European Commission so we have a lesser

presence at several international table then we would do otherwise. We

will leave it there. Yes, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, we will be

back. The gunmen of Daesh or so-called

Islamic State tried to seize more territory in Iraq this week,

but were beaten back by Kurdish Now another front has opened up -

fighting for some Is a threat from Daesh anywhere -

a threat everywhere - meaning an extension

of the coalition's role in Libya? And what do we think with the

potential for a peace agreement in Syria? That is potentially one of

the big news events that will carry forward next year, the UN saying we

have to get Iraq together. It is actually together and Russia is on

board. Hope is coming strangely from Moscow. Absolutely optimistic. Now

the operation is so diverse and have to look at the collapse in Syria and

Iraq in terms of territories. The Kurds are waging very bravely the

war on the ground on our behalf. We should always talk about the Kurds.

Then there is the beer. I am so struck -- Libya. The emergence of

this... If you look at history, the passions of tribes, you look at the

Libya, the collapse of the state. I think we were right to save the

population of Benghazi. I disagree with people who say this was the

beginning of the end, no, it was very precise. There was going to be

a carnage and we intervened with the UN mandate. And if we hadn't done

that, people would say why did you allow 50,000 people to be

slaughtered. The collapse of the state, we can see, nowhere more than

in Libya can we see the travel politics at hand. Also in Africa,

with Boko Haram. One perhaps good thing that happened after the Paris

attacks, or we all know the air strikes are not going to solve the

solution, we need to sit at the table. Perhaps, it is interesting,

the caliphate, Daesh, or IS, whatever you call it, they want to

do is destroy the agreement of 1916. Perhaps at some point soon, when I

save, we, I save the world, he said that the table and design maps. --

save the world. Without having to send massive trips on the ground.

One thing that seems to underpin that is the question of other at the

Russia analysis of this, Syria, it has perhaps been better and more

accurate than that of the United States, Britain and other places. I

think Russia has a more important part to play than we want to think

and they want to go for the current government but only for the time

being. The Russians are going to change their mind on the future of

Assad. I don't think they can rely on Russian support forever. His days

are numbered. My problem, govern, with the term coalition. What is the

caller should... This is the West, plus Russia, what about the rest of

the Arab world? We can't begin to think about redesigning frontiers

until you have vanquished Daesh. We need them to think that it is their

future, not just the West or the colour lesson. Until that day, when

I see some ground forces in our country -- coalition. I am not

hopeful until that. He spent a lot of time in places in the Arab world,

do you see the appetite for stability? I was on the streets of

Baghdad when the Marines entered from the south-east on what was the

9th of April 2003. I saw people throwing flowers at the tanks and I

felt at the time that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, as long as it

could be accomplished at an acceptable cost, which of course

proves not to be the case, was for the welfare of the people in Iraq

and the Middle East. Of course what we saw, we destabilised, however

unpleasant Saddam was, we progressively destabilised a number

of Middle East regimes, and we have had very little influence on the

chaos that has ensued. To me, the lesson to draw from all of this now

is that the Middle East handle its own dynamic, we have very little

real influence on the outcome, we can try and mitigate some of the

suffering that results, but I think we should be extremely careful about

any further military involvement, and when I hear about training

Libyan armies, we saw what happened when we tried to train Libyan

soldiers here. I think it is very doubtful that we will be able to

train and effective unified Libyan army until the Libyans solve their

own problems. And there is a very grave danger that some of our

trainers if they are going to be putting boots on the ground, they

could fall into the hands of very brutal people. I think the biggest

winner of all this so far with Vladimir Putin... With limited

commitment in the region, he has transformed the picture both

strategically and politically and he does not share our squeamishness

about casualties rates. He doesn't share any western misgivings about

loss of troops or lives on the ground, be them civilian or those...

It looks like we will accept his logic, leaving the strongman in

place rather than the western province of getting the rid of the

strongman which we have exercised with Saddam, and sought to do with

Assad. The difficulty is, in not only is the strongman less of a

strongman than Saddam, he doesn't have the same grip on the country,

but moreover, that Isis and Daesh is not defined in that area, the final

point on that of course being that Putin deals far more robustly with

threat internally. I think having the Russians active in this is

probably the largest single threat to Isis. Whatever we may think about

our military capacity, it is not just the force he has it is the

willingness to use it, but I think we lack. I think you're painting to

positivity picture of Putin. What is it a blunted of clinging on to

assert? Here's is only creating work for mile and that is his most

cynical equation. The bombing campaign which led others to join,

he creates more refugees who all come to Europe causing more

problems. You think Putin minds that? As well as the Middle East is

concerned, I think there is a lot for Putin to game. As I said before,

the days of Assad are numbered. He cannot always rest on Russia to keep

him in power. Russia is coming on board for some kind of solution. His

best decoration is to weaken this union... Russia doesn't manufacture

oil. It sells energy well and as long as it has a seriously disrupted

Middle East, the one thing it has got left to sell, in any meaningful

international quality, it gets bought at its price and that is a

good result for them. I think if we have marginal resources in terms of

money or people to deploy, we should of course mitigate the suffering

across the Middle East, but also attend more to our own national

security. And strengthen our intelligence and Security agencies

still further. I think it is fair to say that if you step back from all

of this, they have done remarkably well in the face of the dangers of

the X filtration of Daesh back to the UK, a Paris type attack here.

Repeated successes by the intelligence and security agencies

demonstrated again this week by the conviction of a young man who

apparently planned a beheading on reverence Sunday. -- Remembrance

Sunday. I think we should thank God for our blessings and put more money

and manpower into domestic security while doing everything we can to

mitigate the suffering. Part of the narrative we have been talking

about, it used to be... A choice between the strongman and some kind

of religious extremism, over the past ten or 12 years was a different

narrative, the possibility of democracy, the flowering of the Arab

Spring, it is very difficult to argue that there is anything in

that. Tunisia is a moderate success, but that seems to be the only one.

Yes, and a lot of people in the West thinking, it was such a more secure

place when they had all these dictators in the Middle East. It

doesn't make them happier of course, but then we have attacks in Paris as

we saw in 2015. I agree with John, we need to defeat Daesh. The world

these to go to the table at some point and intelligence is key. A

final item now. Donald Trump exerts a peculiar

fascination for people not just in the United States

but around the world. What is it that so many Republican

voters find attractive? Will the US presidential election

come down to a contest between The Donald

and Hillary Clinton? He is a remarkable figure. I thought

you were going to have this poisoned chalice. On the one hand, I'd played

on involvement because I have a British passport in my pocket. As

far as I can understand what is going on in American politics, it

has been a bad decade and more with the United States. Beginning with

the attack on the Twin towers, then the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

which have cost lives of many Americans, not to mention tens of

thousands of others in those two countries. A trillion or more

dollars. And an increasing disaffection, unfortunately, across

much of the world for the United States as a result. The consequence

of which, there are a lot of angry and confused people in Iraq. Some of

them find a simple solution being purveyed by Mr Trump, quite

attractive. They will say this, whilst what he said about shutting

the door on Muslims was impractical, obnoxious, divisive, among other

things, if you listen to the second half of what he said, I think it

gave a sort of clue as to why he gets the support, because he said,

let's close the door on to weaken, quote, figure out what the hell is

going on. I think a lot of us would like to be able to figure out what

the hell is going on and find a path through all this, and it is not at

all surprising that the American people have been secure in their own

continent for much of their existence, they are very confused in

their millions, and angry, and they find some solace in what he is

saying. My guess is when the republican primaries come around, we

will find that the polls are once again inaccurate, and that he will

fade, and it will be one of the republican senators who will come

through as the republican candidate. Which again is part and parcel of

this uncertainty, you don't even know who will eventually make the

running because it is so unlikely it will be Trump. But don't bet on it,

you don't know, because this is very persuasive until we know what

happens, it cuts ice with a lot of people. It'll be a long time before

we know what happens, as we just discussed, beginning with the Middle

East, it is a total mess of unpredictability and a feeling we

are shooting moving targets on moving platforms, there is no

certainty to be heard. Nelson said in the battle of Trafalgar, there is

no certainty on the seaside, something must be left to chance. I

wish we had a bit more certainty... He is an extraordinary figure. John

is absolutely right. This second part of that strikes a chord, not

just with Americans, what the hell is going on, a lot of people are

trying to figure it out. The only thing good I say about it, Hillary,

if he is going to run for the republicans, then she is in. It

would make are quite happy. Because she is competent, you can say a lot

of things about her but... We have had a Clinton before of course. We

have got the repair and family in France. Talking about dynasties.

Otherwise, he is a strange figure. What does Germany make of Trump? We

are left speechless. Somehow this behaviour and his outrageous

statements,... Where do you see him figure? I have bad news for you,

both week, sitting around the table and the people who watch Dateline

London, we are not his perfect audience. The effort he is making to

win denomination for his party, he is doing very well, and when you say

he wants to menu at one of those outrageous statements, they are what

means he does best. -- ameliorate. It has been very obvious that many

people don't want him to succeed, and I would suggest to those people

that sneering at him is the worst tactic of all, because when people

sneer and say, this statement has been outrageous or that view is

unacceptable, people who are deeply afraid about their children and

their allies say, actually, he speaks... I thought he had a point,

but now what he says is unsayable, he speaks for me. People said that

about George W Bush. And they were consistently wrong. The lasting

consequence of this will be, you will not be the republican nominee,

you will not be elected, but he does own a golf course, and he may come

into question whether the open golf tournament can be held at Turnberry

as long as he is... That is it for Dateline London this week. We are

back next week at the same time. Goodbye.

If you have not stepped outside today, it might surprise you when

you do just how mild the weather feels. Last night might have been a

record breaker. In North Devon we got down to 14.2 Celsius last