06/08/2016 Dateline London

Hello and welcome to Dateline London.

Is it conceivable Republicans could dump Trump?

And could the Labour Party really vote to replace Jeremy Corbyn?

Plus what the humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo means

My guests today are Abdel Bari Atwan who is an author

and commentator on Arab Affairs, Agnes Poirier of Marianne,

Michael Goldfarb of Politico Europe and

We are all well aware of the failures of opinion polls,

but in the United States the past week or so has seen a huge

swing away from Donald Trump, and even allies like the former

House Speaker Newt Gingrich have begun to criticise the

Republican nominee for crass comments about the family of a

Muslim US serviceman killed in action.

Given the discontent in

the Republican party is it at all possible that

Some people would like to, but it does not seem this is even possible,

does it? I don't know that it could happen. But a week ago, in the best

polling website I know of, based on all the polls that have been

circulating, they had Trump at a 50.04% probability of winning. That

was precisely a week ago, today he's down to under 30%. Clinton has had

this enormous rise and she is close to 80% probability in their reading

of the polls in one week. I'm not sure you can return from that. I'm

sure the grandees of the Republican party would love to dump him. They

have a huge problem. He may play fast and loose with many facts about

himself, but one of fact, when he says I got the most votes, you got

the most votes. He was an open Republican presidential primary,

nobody hinted that he bought the 40 million votes that went to him. If

they were going to dump them, they would be repudiating their own

process. This is a huge problem. I don't think they can do it. What

they've got is they are literally riding a tiger and they seem to be

riding it to a cutter stuff fixed in November as of now. A catastrophic

defeat -- defeat for Trump, the party or his people? He has endorsed

Paul Ryan after saying he wasn't ready to do so, the Speaker of the

house of representatives of the top Republican in the country. He

finally has his endorsement. This is the thing. Polling or change back

and forth, but a week ago, Trump was likely to take the critical swing

state of Ohio and it is 18 electoral college votes. A critical swing

state. Now it's winding towards Hillary Clinton. They are concerned

all happened down ticket. My guess is if Trump goes to defeat, they

will not mind. People like Ted Cruz Marco Rubio who ran him second and

third in this process, they are in their 40s. They are thinking if

Trump goes down badly, I have a chance to run for president again in

2020. But it is the Senate they may lose. If they lose that and Hillary

Clinton is elected, then the country can really change direction. I think

that is what Republicans are thinking about. We are spectators

are very degrees of interest. Some are alarmed, some are amused. What

do you make of this? Part of us, because we are experts and therefore

not to be trusted in any way whatever, we have looked at events

in the last year or so and thought that all our conventional wisdom is

been turned on their heads. Therefore, we got into the mode of

thinking any catastrophe is possible and anything is possible.

Essentially, is like that strictly come dancing when voters kept voting

John Sergeant spike and despite the judges think he could not dance. --

back in. They've said it over Brexit and over Jeremy Corbyn who we will

be coming to and we've lost confidence they would not even said

over Trump, particularly last week when the polls turned. However, it

has to be said he is a spectacularly bad candidates, a bad candidate from

almost every... Not from conventional points of view only,

but from unconventional points of view. It would be reassuring to me

as a member of the metropolitan elite and an expert of the

Establishment is just for once they think was going to run either way.

He speaks like a pollster! What do you make of all this? America is a

huge mess, to be honest. You have the Republican -- Republican

candidate who is a threat to national security and he is going to

destroy the country. And the Republican hierarchy wants to get

rid of him and they are looking for a contingency plan, a plan B to

remove him, find somebody else, just three months before the election.

Then you have the Democratic candidate who is actually

investigated by the FBI, because of the e-mails and is kind of things

and what will happen if she charged for example for argh was charged for

wrongdoing. It is unbelievable. But for those in the Middle East, OK,

that is fantastic, because maybe leave them to be involved am busy

with their problems, because not all problems, because they made a huge

mess. Let us let them suffer because of this. Personally, I wish Trump

Wentz, to be honest. -- went. It could be the end of the world. Your

endorsement will be very heavily... Not for the advantage over the

United States and its people, but for our advantage. Because we have

suffered a lot because of the American intervention in our part of

the world. We will all suffer from Trump. Suffer like us? When shall we

suffer alone here? You are being suicidal. No, I am explaining how

much we are suffering from American policies. Do you think your views

are shared widely? Yes. Seriously, a lot of people in the Middle East in

particular are saying if Trump comes, let's Trump,... Many people

don't like Hillary Clinton? They don't like either of them. They say

let Trump come, what is he going to do more than George Bush, for

example? What is he going to do more than them? Fight terrorism? It could

be much worse. Eddie you stand on this? I hang hearing Michael said

that he might actually face a catastrophic defeat, it's the best

news, the best thing I've heard in weeks or months! That would be

fantastic. That would be the only possible Pope. For the world. What

is interesting... But if he is the choice of the American people... I'm

on the side of life, not death. But if the American people decide to

elect him, what is the problem? You talk about democracy, people's

choice... Valent -- Vladimir Putin has made Trump into an unwitting

agent. It's extraordinary what has happened with the two of them.

Vladimir Putin is a career intelligence officer, they identify

weaknesses in people and exploit them. He started complimenting

Trump, Trump fell into the trap saying, oh, Vladimir Putin is a

great leader, we will have a great relationship. Putin is a guy who

invaded tee-macro countries and killed. Imagine, he is serving

Russian interests, not American ones. And the guy who runs the CIA

said this guy is not only mad, and qualified, and fits, he poses a

security threat. Not only to America, but the world. And I

believe him. There are two Russian emigres who have written essays

recently, one in the New York Times. And today, in the same paper, there

was another one. I trust Russian emigres have left Putin behind. They

don't see the connection quite as intensely as we do. Their view is

Putin accuses him of the useful idiot rather than as an actual

agents. I'd just like to pick up the point about experts. We can laugh

about Trump, and when I say catastrophe, that is this week. We

will see what the polls say. Experts have the butter pudding across. I

know you want to make another point, but of Americans focused on this

race? They tend not to get bothered until September. That's the

convention was about. We talk about bumps come you get a bump when you

come out of your convention if you have done it right. Trump did not

get one. There was a historic low of people who said they could not vote

for him. In other words, they watched and said, no, constant hits.

But I think everybody to be serious for a second has to consider why the

Trump phenomenon happened. Because those who voted for him are a

legitimate force. There are good analogies, not entire analogies to

me, about what happened with Brexit. For decades, America has been

heading toward this moment. The Republican party and its -- in its

modern iteration has been based on a not too subtle call to racial

antagonism. It's a white person's party, which is not to say that all

of Trump's support comes from angry white men, which is too easy. The

economic situation of the average American worker has over the last

two decades gone retrograde. People are angry. They are incoherent in

their anger. The media has deteriorated, even the mainstream

media talks to people as if they are idiots, and so when you come to this

moment, it's important to understand Trump, we can laugh at him, Abdel

can condemn the Middle East to Trump presidency, and we can all have a

chuckle. But deeper question is that the US is still the sole superpower

and American society is very, very divided and very degraded. We have

to be careful about that. Jeremy Corbyn and his rival for

the leadership of the Labour Party Owen Smith squared up

for a debate this week. But is there really any realistic

prospect that Labour Party members could replace as leader

a man elected overwhelmingly And is a formal split

in the party now likely since in obvious ways

it is split already? Replacing? Will they? Probably not.

-- replace him? It is the remarkable the degree to which people are not

listening to each other any more. Really, really remarkable. I watch

these discussions, particularly with people who are keen on Jeremy Corbyn

and I see no cut through of what you might call traditional arguments

about consequences, if you do this, then this will result and so on. So

on the whole it will be better not for you to do it and do something

else. And some of the scenes at the debate they had this week between

Owen Smith and Jeremy Corbyn were really interesting from the point of

view of what the people and how the people in the hall were reacting and

how people reacted thereafter. I could see a lot of things from

people who are ordinary Corbyn and supporters and I mean by that but

they are not actually Trotsky its. But that is not the basis of the

support. I just have a sense that they either are disconnected from

consequences, that is to say they will not see what the polls are

telling them very clearly, without any kind of ambiguity whatsoever,

they keep on insisting they are saying will say something else or

they think we don't care. We just want this thing, is the biggest

thing, is the nicest thing that's happened to us, we would really like

it to happen and we will put our heads down and not notice what is

going on. That point about people not listening to each other is a

worldwide phenomenon in which we've touched on a different ways. But

it's true, isn't it? We can go back to Trump. Can talk about Facebook or

Twitter politics. It is rather scary. With Corbyn, I've got the

outside's point of view. What's he is trying to do is extraordinary.

Because he wants to remain it in the party rather than run the country.

He wants to make the party of social movements which is not the Labour

Party. The Labour Party's main aim is to be a party of Government.

There is a complete discrepancy between what the party is and what

its leader wants. Do you think it has been discredited by Government?

People looking back at the Tony Blair years and goes back to the

heart of David's point, you get those who say well, he did the best

he can with the social measures and other people who said he lied to us

about Iraq and it was all the disaster? I'm an outsider, I can

see... Of course there is Iraq, but Iraq seems to obliterate everything.

One day perhaps in a century from now, Blair will be remembered for

what he did. Apart from the Iraq war. David Cameron will be rendered

for Brexit. -- remembered for. It is a tragedy, Labour is not the

official opposition in Britain anymore and it worked up into the

Commons. What you make of Jeremy Corbyn and actually, again it is the

same thing as Trump in comic is profoundly popular with a big

section of Labour voters. He was elected by the Labour voters. He won

a huge majority of the Labour supporter members and we remember,

when he was elected, the membership of that Labour Party tripled. So he

is not coming by a parachute into the Labour Party, we have to admit

that. The second day, the Labour Party is divided. The Conservative

Party is divided. Britain is divided. So where is the problem?

There are huge numbers of British people who are unhappy with the

establishment. Disgruntled. Those people vote for Jeremy Corbyn. And

to be fair to him, he should be listened to. When he was leading 2

million demonstrators in London, people thought he was mad. He

wasn't. I think it will be 3 million by next week. Amnesty want? 100,000.

They proved they were right. They were right. Look at Iraq now. Look

at Saudi Arabia, look everywhere. We have to listen to this manner. He

never had a rest, from day one. The media, the establishment they were

all against him. He never had a chance to breathe. Let us listen to

him. He was elected by a democratic means. So we have to listen to him

and seriously, we have to give him a chance. He has been given a chance.

It is a very important point, because that was an astonishing

events. On Monday I was on a similar march of 2000 people. There were a

million people, that was the beginning of a coalition. How many

went on the next March and the one after that and the one after that?

This is the point about Corbyn. He has a safe seat in Islington. He has

never, in his entire political career, prior to becoming leader had

to persuade anybody except is voters in a safe Labour seat. He has no

persuasive skills. That is what has come up. The essence of political

leadership, not back Benesch barracking, but the essence of

political leadership is to be able to convince people outside your

comfort zone. And he is very, very bad at it and that is why Labour is

sinking in the polls. We may return to this in coming weeks.

Aleppo has been a trading centre for centuries.

Now Syria's biggest city is a humanitarian disaster.

If it falls to the forces of the Syrian Government,

what will be the consequences for the Middle East?

Maybe you could bring us up-to-date with the situation as using it? And

I I saw in the past week the barrel bombs for the chlorine gas have

allegedly been dropped on people? -- filled with chlorine gas. It is

changing, why, simply because Turkey is getting out of it. American

administration realised that, Islamic State which is bombing

Paris, Brussels, Orlando, everywhere. This is a very ill

effects. Is a recognised admission that they going to ground in Syria.

They are concentrating mainly on rooting out radical Islamic

organisations or fighters in the whole of Syria. Aleppo is actually

the Stalingrad of the whole situation of the Middle East. It is

the mother of all battles. If they manage to root out these radical

organisations, they could actually turn to plan B, which is the

political solution, and I believe that there is an American and

Russian understanding to put an end to those particular people in that

part of the world. Take other radicals and keep Assad in power?

Yes. The priority now is to find these radical Islamic organisations.

Now, Turkey, after the military coup are turning their backs to the west

and are going to Moscow. The president will meet Vladimir Putin

in the next week. It seems he's going to say, OK, I have had enough,

if my country is going to be destroyed and dismantled, I want to

get rid of all the policies toward Syria. There will be a human

catastrophe, there are 250,000 Syrian besieged in Aleppo. Those

people could be massacred, we don't know yet. Turkey sealed its border

completely. Today, Kurdish forces managed to capture an area and will

control the Syrian Turkish border. This is the problem, this human

catastrophe is coming. Those people, they do not know where to go. In the

past, Turkey opened its border for those people. They have 2 million

Syrians there. Now, both of sealed completely. Unfortunately then, I am

sad to say, we are witnessing or about to witness a human catastrophe

and that is it. And that has profound consequences for the whole

of the European unit that, most obviously, simply the humanitarian

disaster we will be witnessing? Absolutely. Those people are not

allowed to go to Turkey. The people are living in terrible conditions

there and I mean, it seems that we are so worried about what is going

on in Europe, we have lost the plot of what is going on in Syria and we

are absolutely obsessed by blocking and eradicating the Islamic State

and we forget about the people, but what can we do? And we still talking

to the about this? It's also the end of the Obama administration in a few

months. Germany and friends have general elections in eight months'

time and there will be a period, a longer period of low before we get

together again and there's the question of the cessation of

hostilities. Where have we got to? Where has that gone? The latest

things I've seen all week is Aleppo being cut off. There has been a

fightback. So long as there are weapons aplenty on the ground, let

the Russians wants to commit even more, they lost a helicopter this

week, five Russian soldiers were killed, we didn't see in the West,

but I saw pictures coming out of the Middle East. Their bodies were

abuse. These are all things that will affect decision-making in the

Kremlin. The fight never seems to run out of steam. In the way that...

When I was in Bosnia after two or three years of civil war, vicious

war, people were exhausted. And so when the opportunity came to finally

have discussions, all sides were ready to stop. People are not ready

to stop yet and I don't quite know where this ends. If Hillary Clinton

is re-elected, you may see a research, because she certainly

disagreed with Obama about his red line that he didn't enforce. If she

is re-elected in November, that's a whole new cards to play in this. We

said after the Balkans that we wanted to try and help such

situations not occur again. For five years, since 2011, the West's

approach toward Syria has been one of minimum involvement, despite what

Barry says. I know, according to you, the West is to blame for

absolutely everything. Don't interrupt me, let me finish. This

is, if you like, the expression of whether logic takes you. When we

didn't go in in 2013, when we let President Assad used chemical

weapons and so on, when we failed to interdict the Islamic State and it's

taking of those all. We sent a message we were not there.

Eventually, the Russians were there helping Assad. We now have a

situation in which no one can win, we have no strategy of dealing with

all saving the people of Aleppo, rather than in the West moaning

about refugees who were forced out as a consequence of our own neglect

of policy. In the region. The whole disaster has now come pretty much as

people predicted it would if we stood back from it. I understand the

reasons why we stood back from it. It looks pretty likely that we will

assist with the taking of most of the Islamic State territory in Iraq

fairly soon and quite a lot of it in Syria. The question will then become

for the next president, it will be, and for the rest of the countries,

what then? I don't agree with his analysis on Syria at all. Add in the

Turkish president is far more interested in what is going on in

his country at the moment which is hardly surprising. After he has done

that, he will look at the situation in Syria, but his policy will not

change enormously. To be honest, if Hillary Clinton is coming and

decides to intervene in Syria this could ignite the third World War.

Because they have their forces and bases there, the Russians, and they

are giving cover to President Assad and that is why his force is moving.

We have to be very careful here. The Russians are there.

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