02/07/2016 Dateline London

Hello and welcome to Dateline London.

Which British political party is in most trouble -

the Conservatives, whose leader will not stay, or Labour whose

And Britain's vote to leave the European Union -

but how, when, and with what consequences?

My guests today are: Marc Roche of Le Point and Le Soir,

Stephanie Bolzen of Die Welt, Polly Toynbee of the Guardian

and Iain Martin former editor of the Scotsman now with CapX.

Both the Conservative and Labour parties face leadership elections

With both parties also deeply divided - which is in a worse state?

Labour where Jeremy Corbyn is unwilling to quit as leader -

or the Conservatives where David Cameron

Let's start with the Conservatives. I don't think anyone saw this

coming. Incredible, seismic, historic. I

think this will sound slightly outlandish. I think the

Conservatives, bizarrely, despite every thing that has happened with

Michael Gove knifing Boris Johnson, the Conservatives are in rather a

good place. You can see what is happening, which is very going to

have a ferocious leadership battle and then they're going to coalesce

around the winner. At the moment that looks like trees are made,

possibly Andrea Leadsom or Stephen Crabb, and the Tories will do what

they've done so often in their history. They are reimagining their

future and reinventing themselves. They will have a new leader and that

leader will go off and try to do the deal with the EU. The Labour Party

is facing something quite different. It is facing an existential crisis.

It is almost certainly dead already, past tense. In Scotland. It has Ukip

on its tail in the North of England. And Wales. And Wales. And it

struggles in the South and a strong in London. So what is the point of

the Labour Party. I think people this weekend, Labour people who I

know, I really thinking they will have to do something very, very

radical, beyond just changing the leader. They need to build a new

movement and encourage moderate Labour voters to join us something.

I wonder if there are people within Labour who say they admired the

Conservatives because they get on with it and knife people. I'm not

making that up. They are really good at knifing people and conspiracies.

They have a profound self interest, those who finance them, those who

support them. They know exactly who they are and what they are for.

They are for power and money. They don't seem to cohere around a

single idea, do they? Labour thinks it is for the people

you don't have the power and the money, therefore the people left out

of power and money unless Labour is in power. If you dig about what they

did last time it was a huge filter the public sector, tremendous

improvement in the NHS, schools, nurseries for the first time. In a

minimum wage, there is a long list of Labour's achievements and that is

what Labour is. Social solidarity. Do you worry

about the other thing people say? Do you worry they want some people in

the Labour Party wants to make a point, they don't want to be in

Government? The Tories interestingly went

through a stage like this when they appointed Iain Duncan Smith and

William Hague as a catastrophic leader, because they were so bitten

by this virus. This anti-law of virus. What will be interesting to

see whether this virus remains of whether they really do. To Theresa

May was nominally on the remains side but the fire still burns in the

belly of an awful lot of the Tory party that just says we want out,

out, out, and every sort of way. What kind of art, we don't know.

They never had a plan but it is for brochures.

Do think the party now needs somebody who campaigned for

brochures the four Brexit? Possibly Andrea Leadsom?

It is a little harsh to say there are only interested in power and

money. They are interested in the nation, so there is something in the

traditional... I don't think thereof the same but there is a long and not

necessarily noble, but long tradition of the Tories believing

that the country does need a Government and that out of this

chaos a Government will emerge. The Tories are a lot less sentimental

about these things. If you look at all of the tear-stained attempts to

resign from the Shadow Cabinet last week, this is getting rid of the

worst Labour leader in the history of politics. It is an absolute

no-brainer that the guy should go. The SWP has taken over the Labour

Party. This is a national emergency and there are grown-up people,

members of the Shadow Cabinet crying or finding it difficult to resign at

this point... That is quite unfair. You had the

most spectacular multiple resignations of virtually everybody

that has ever happened in any party and can say they were have

reluctantly. They did it with glee. And they were weeping for the state

of the party. He is still there. If he doesn't

step down over the weekend somebody will come forward, probably and

illegal, and will challenge. That. The readership process which is

necessary. I am wondering how you're watching

this great events? Fantastic. As a journalist or a

citizen? Thursday just before 12 o'clock I

was watching the press conference by Boris Johnson with six minutes to 12

and he said the sentence, I'm not going to be the one who is going to

stand up for this leadership election. Everything that was

happening between Thursday morning and Friday lunchtime there was a

very funny cartoon in the Telegraph saying to university students

talking to each other, and one saying, I am studying politics.

Because covers Thursday morning until Friday lunchtime. It is just

so brilliant in a way. Because it is so dramatic. It is Shakespearian.

When you come from Germany, where politics is dull, it is very

entertaining. We liked German politics but that is

a whole other discussion. It is a French farce. Treason,

Shakespearian tragedy, I think it is unfortunately not the time to have

that because Europe is facing a real crisis. I feel personally I hope to

Theresa may makes it because she will bring... Shears remain but

Eurosceptic. She is very highly thought of in France, the way she

saw the Calais problem. She is a moderate, and I think she will bring

stability and finally push on this button of article 50. Which the

British seem petrified to push. You have two. The people are

decided, let's go on with it and let's leave the Europe.

I do think in the course of the conversation we plunge Drayton to

the particular agonies of the political parties to say nothing of

Ukip itself splitting and abiding. Total chaos.

They're the only one who united. They are one member and he agrees

with himself. All of that but it is quite fitting

that at this cataclysmic moment, the most shocking thing that has

happened in this country since the Second World War it is quite fitting

that all of politics should be thrown up into the air. Disquiet

right that every party should be seized by Nexus then shall crisis.

-- seized by an existential crisis. I feel unwelcome in your country

because of the attacks on foreigners, Poles, Muslims who are

your own citizens. It is disgusting. And that is not coming in a vacuum.

It is the leave campaign and Thai immigration which has created this

problem. Let's move on to that. The vote to

leave the EU was clear that when can this happen? How difficult will the

process be? Could Scotland actually bring it to a halt? Let's discuss

that and pick up on that point. How sour do think the political

atmosphere is, because we have had... Police are saying they are

getting more reports of basically racist attacks on people because

they are foreigners. Do you buy into that?

To an extent. The same applies to the financial markets. People need

to be calm and responsible. There are risks and the attacks you

describe are completely apparent. I think quite a lot of people who

voted leave our as appalled by it as remain boaters are and a lot of

people who voted leave, like myself, distance ourselves at the time from

the notorious for Irish poster. The breaking point poster.

-- the notorious Nigel Farage poster. Leave is not one unified

bloc and I think the point is, the difficulty lies at the extreme.

Between the remain boaters who cannot accept that they lost and

think it will be picked which it is not. Brexit in one form or another

will happen. That is very clear. And those on the other side, the leave

means leave side, led by Ukip, who will look for betrayal and treachery

everywhere. In between that is the great mass of the country, many

people from both political parties, large parts of the media, public

servants, who recognise that Britain is going to leave the question

becomes, how do we read in an orderly and civilised fashion?

Why is there no plan? You had the whole campaign to have a plan to

leave will stop them is no plan? You don't know what to do, you don't

even want to push the article 50 to start negotiations. And more than

anything you put Europe in a mess. The good news with Europe is that we

can go on with other things, go on with political union, we are free

now from the British. I tell you who put Europe in this

mess. It has been up current since the disaster of the single currency

which has been a social catastrophe in southern Europe. An economic

failure. It has been apparent since then and then further through the

migrant crisis and the pressures on borders that the European Union

needed at some point in the last five years, post-Eurozone crisis, to

change into something fundamentally different. And it did not.

Nobody said that Europe is biopic. No body has said it does not need

reform. Everybody gets infuriated. This is true across Europe. But I

don't think that there was an honest campaign. People were lied to and it

is very good... If Boris Johnson and Michael Gove both crash and burn

they deserve it. They live, they relied on the promises they made,

they lied in disgraceful doubling in and Thai immigration is stuff that

was going on. They did it themselves. The piece that Michael

Gove wrote in the Daily Mail was a shocker and I think unfortunately

the pollsters are telling us that without doubt, immigration,

antiforeigner sentiment was what motivated.

This is the London media bubble. Wait a minute. This is what the

polls does tell us. It could not win the economy and the switch to

migration that was the key point. You say that as though the boaters

are stupid. The reality is the polls happen pointing to this for years.

But no one asked the British voters about this experiment one

immigration. That Britain was comfortable with immigration,

Britain has throughout its history integrated and adapted to historical

change but there is something very different between that and 350,000

people a year. I am afraid the sour mood we're

talking about here is the same now on the continent. The reaction you

are seeing now are very very harsh. Just yesterday the Slovakian took

over the presidency and the kind of comments received from this part of

Europe by the Hungarian Government, the Ontarians I going to probably in

the autumn a referendum on immigration. -- Hungarians. There

was a referendum in the Netherlands on something Europe related. The

main reason we saw why people voted for leave was control. This feeling

is the same on the continent. And that is why it is about the euro,

and the joint currency and about immigration. That is why it is not

just the turmoil that the UK is in but Europe is in the same terror

more now. Can I pursue this point? Pauly said,

and this is common now, people are calling politicians liars and saying

they actually lied. Was this referendum, then, giving that we've

got thousands of people marching this weekend to say we want to stay

in the EU and some of them are saying we were so badly misinformed

and there is something wrong with the vote, do you take that view or

do you take The View that actually people voted on back of control and

it is an overwhelming majority in favour so this is a perfectly

reasonable democratic exercise? Some people are saying it was not a

reasonable democratic exercise. It was democratic.

A lot of which the thinking going on. -- wishful thinking. In Europe a

lot of headlines are saying there is going to be in exit from the Brexit.

Let's be clear about what the remain campaign did.

I am a pro-European but anti-EU Budget if I wanted to stay in the EU

over the appalled by how they are run the campaign amid no positive

case for the European Union. You talk about lies, look at the

complete garbage from the Chancellor of the Exchequer couple of years ago

promising instant tax rises. Where are they, they're not going to

happen. -- a couple of weeks ago. He said he is going to have to

abandon his... I think it is an appalling tactic to say that by 2020

we had to be in surplus. It was unthinkable. Real top posterity. Now

he himself has had to abandon that because there is no chance even with

his extreme austerities, of doing it. This shows that what the remain

people said, and it was called Project fear, is probably true.

Everyone is expecting us, the Government of the Bank of England is

expecting us to go into a period of recession. We hope it is not as bad

as feared. Maybe we will weather it. It is very frightening. Lots of

people jobs will go. What is really frightening is that

there will not be any progress in the negotiation between Britain and

the EU until the French and the German election. That leaves us

until November. Another year. A complete vacuum for everyone. And

this is... If you say it often enough that it

is frightening and terrifying and there will be a disaster, economic

history tells you that it can be self-fulfilling. Those of us who

weren't favourably been recognised that there are risks. The risks in

terms of the global economy even without Brexit but if you look on

the positive side, behind-the-scenes at what is happening, look at the

lobbying. Germans are being incredibly sensible about this. Look

at the lobbying from the German car industry. Look at the way in which

the city which was warning it was going to go to Paris, which is not

going to happen. Look at how the city has reacted to the result. I

was bigotry CEO the other day who told me, and a friend had told me

that this was the end of the city and now says, well, actually there

are opportunities in London as well. -- I was speaking to a CEO.

Halle as a desperate employment need for skill. I have been talking to

employers, sometimes who are exporters. You'd think that is good

but actually they are saying no, we have to import a lot of materials

and we have to push our price is 10% because of the fall in the sterling

has been so sharp. It is the Brexit who will suffer,

not London people, not the city. This will take two or three years.

It is going to require reasonable negotiations. There is a reasonable

deal to be done, compromises will have two be made by the next by

Minister. But I think we are only ten days into this. And already we

have seen that the prediction of a massive financial crisis or crash

was overblown. I am not sure about that.

The question in the end is, is there going to be something, a solution

being found for different stages for the UK? Which might be something

that Norway has. You have already had leaks from the German treasury

that they have some plans. What you could do. Because the German

Government is... There seems to be a distinct lack of

them here. They have had their plans. 27 to

decide what is going to happen. The German Government wants Britain to

stay. You can also ask the question, maybe we have to find something

different. Different tiers and systems of membership. And keep

Britain on board. Is there any possibility of having

our cake and eating it? We can both be in the single market...

The French will not want... The politics in this country as

such, with Ukip sitting there ready to pounce on Tory and Labour voters,

if there is any betrayal at all of us pulling up the drawbridge and

controlling your own immigration, is that a possibility?

It is not surprisingly it on the 24th of June at all came out and

they said no, you won't get anything. In is in and out is out.

On the same day, the first ideas were...

It is perfectly possible that you end up with something like Britain

as a member of the EEA but with some concessions on migration and

actually it is not true that free movement is a condition of EEA.

You can Budget in all sorts of ways. There are quotas on migration.

-- UK and fudge it. It is possible to have a concession

in free movement which there are quotas and possibly go back to the

free market situation. But only of the British people

continue paying into the big Budget. You see no wiggle room. Do you see

any wiggle room with Scotland, where the First Minister saying, we might

take a different tack because we voted to stay?

We would welcome Scotland with open arms. And Northern Ireland joining

with the Irish public, open arms. Scotland is Europe and wants to be

part of Europe. If they are independent they will be joining and

they will be a head of the queue. Not at the bottom. Why do you keep

saying, wants to be part of Europe? This illustrates the problem

perfectly. Many of us who voted to leave the European Union are proud

Europeans who believe in European civilisation. The European Union

is... 50 years of peace.

We gave prosperity. That was Nato. It is France and Germany making

peace together. Now you're talking about compromise

and trite and eyes risk. What for? What was this madness for if we end

up with some sort of watch where we're not in there. I got really

strongly yesterday when we had powerful memorials about the Battle

of the Somme, amazing. Young men dressed up as the soldiers who died,

all over the country. It was incredibly moving, designed by an

artist. And we all felt very deeply. Everybody across Europe lost people.

We lost 20,001 day and everybody was saying, never again. Deeply felt as

it is in France and Germany and everywhere. And suddenly here we are

with the one thing that has delivered peace. We're international

isms all over Europe, trade Europe, trade barriers, trade wars possibly.

The EU was there to stop that. You think that moderately those

don't feel what you feel when they see those pictures? Of course they

do. Absolutely not. I will tell you who has got it wrong. Your model

built by growth federalists has failed. It has failed. Created a

single currency... It is a success. The row is still

there. The still one of the richest parts of the world. Everyone wants

to be in Europe. It is a success. We are the great

upholders of democracy. You look at European democracy and think, what

an achievement. And the more people we race within it the more solid it

becomes. We are the beacon of the world for civilisation and Britain

doesn't want to be part of it. Let us pick up that point about

democracy because you could say, if you came from planet Mars and

Spectator columnist that in the past couple of weeks, we've had a Prime

Minister who said he will stay and isn't, a chance of who said he's

going to introduce an austerity Budget and won't, you've

characterised Michael Gove and the leave campaign as liars. We've got a

political class which people for the last days which people of not been

happy with. I've using anything in the past few weeks than they should

think, this is great. Yes. In Europe. France, Germany,

those countries will create the cause and ideas. To put...

Britain is in Europe. You're talking about the European Union. It is

culturally impossible. Of course we will trade and cooperate. Our

neighbours and friends. There is a deal to become that can satisfy both

sides of people are calm and reasonable. The European Union

project has had it. I am surprised about your idealism

because I'm not so sure everybody now on the continent is talking

about not pushing integration forward. They are not going to push

integration forward. We can't know that the British have

gone because they have gone. We can go forward with great success.

As you just said we have an election in Germany next year and France

other is a limbo everywhere. There is a very significant body of

opinion in France that does not want the Europe that you want.

The polls show that if there was a question, the French would vote to

stay. How far as the shaken of German

politics now? Angela Merkel seems this coming voice. German politics

are making advances. Yes, of course. And Angela Merkel is

the centre of it. Everyone is blaming her now because she has been

treating the Greeks very badly. Many people think. In the Euro crisis.

And also she has opened the floodgates for the refugees. So a

lot of people say she is to be blamed, that Brexit happened at all.

Isn't that the point? Isn't that the point that the European Union is a

moving target. And so, people of that it is all very risky to go to

leave but it was also risky to stay in because we do not know what the

European Union will look like, particularly given the dissension in

the East? Of course. You can see the forces at

work here. Exactly the same on the continent. And you will see many

clubs to be built. Belgium, France, Germany and on the other side the

Eastern European states. There was a deeper and deeper gap between these

two and the continent is actually split as well so the UK's third

between remain only. The continent is split between east and west.

Don't let us forget that we brought those countries and to bring them in

within the remit of democracy and the Conservatives were strongly for

bringing them in because we did not want them to fall back under the

Russian influence. We are creators and protectors of democracy. That

Britain is decided... OK. We will leave it there.

That's it for Dateline London - you can comment on the programme

on Twitter @gavinesler - and also engage with today's guests.

We're back next week at the same time.

Make a date with Dateline London.