11/11/2017 Dateline London

This is dateline London. This week,

two ways to shuffle your rivals out

of the door. House arrest in a

luxury hotel, was 6500 kilometre

flight of shame. To discuss whether

Saudi Arabia sora perjure a power

grab this weekend, and whether the

resignation of the British cabinet

minister Priti Patel was a mist

opportunity for Prime Minister

Theresa May, I'm joined by Ian

Martin, columnist for The Times Of

London,, who is his column to clear

out the old lags and bring some

fresh talent into her government,

Agnes Poirier who endeavours to

explain Brexit to the folks back

home, Nazarene Malik, Sudanese

journalist and reader of the rooms

for us on the Saudi political mask,

and Jeffrey Coffman, the North

American broadcaster who will bring

an American perspective. A warm

welcome to all of you.

Last Saturday will live long

in the memory of Saudis and of those

who observe the country.

A day of high drama began

with the resignation

of Lebanon's Prime Minister,

not in Beirut, his own country's

capital, but in Riyadh.

Some suggested he had been summoned

to the Kingdom and ordered to resign

after the Saudis found out he'd met

a representative of

the supreme leader of Iran,

Saudi Arabia's regional rival.

That same evening, the Saudis shot

down a missile fired

by Houthi rebels from Yemen,

a reminder of a far less successful

bit of foreign meddling where Saudi

intervention has singularly failed

to end the rebellion.

Then, a little before midnight,

in a country where politics

is usually conducted well out

of sight and change

agreed by consensus,

news of an anti-corruption purge

which snared serving government

ministers and past ones,

and even members of the country's

extensive royal family.

The Attorney General tells us

this is only phase one.

Nesrine, a phases ordered,

it is said, by King Salman's

son, the Crown Prince.

What is he up to?

Too much, the heir

to the throne is very much loved by

the media because he has presented

himself as a moderniser but he's

also young and rash and part of a

generation of Saudi princes kind of

brought up in the bubble of royalty.

There are three generations of Saudi

royalty, the old generation, the

generation of the King, who remember

what it was like not to be royalty.

They are in their 70s and 80s and

they have some perspective. The

second generation of Princes go to

Sandhurst and Ivy League

universities and become diplomats,

very dedicated and westernised, and

then there's the millennial

generation of Princess, much more

dangerous because they've left the

whole life in a bubble and don't

have the perspective of being

ordinary citizens fighting for a

monarchy and they don't have the

exposure to the outside world that

gives them perspective and the

Prince's Sun is very much of that

generation. The danger is the

disconnect between what he's doing

and his tactility and perception of

it because he hasn't had any

real-life experience either as a

politician or an individual. That's

where he's coming from as a

reformer, quote, unquote. Within the

Saudi establishment because things

have happened so quickly, he feels

he needs to do a pre-emptive perch

because he has set aside the

previous heir to the throne who is

under house arrest at the moment. So

this is a sort of pre-emptive coup

that he has done to make sure that

there is no movement on behalf of

the old regime to get him out of the

picture. Which would have been very

possible because he's young, he

hasn't had amassed huge network of

patronage at within the royal family

or the Saudi establishment. And

people against him are some very

influential people. His assets are

open to rationalisation, so that's

not a great position of them to be

in. He's trying to pre-emptively

consolidate power within the hands

of him and his coterie, and in doing

so he stressed and a bus

anti-corruption and clever foreign

policy, -- he has stressed it up. He

has dressed it up as anti-Iran

movements. So he has taken three

things, anti-Hezbollah, anti-Shi'ism

manifested as being anti-Iran, the

perch within the royal family and

his sort of pivot towards

modernisation and technology -- the

perch. But all these are dressed up

consummate editions of power.

Completely. This would corruption,

that implies that that is said is

not corrupt

a Saudi royal that isn't

corrupt!

It's a very, very big Royal

family, a lot of people.

My point is

there is no rule of law by

transparency or accountability.

And

is a different economic and

political culture. Nine this word of

corruption has been used

conveniently by Vladimir Putin in

the past and used by China. It's not

really about that. A lot of

double-dealing and illegal payments

have gone on in the country for a

long time. So we are talking about

political...

You could have

substituted North Korea for much of

what you just said about

consolidating power and eliminating

threats to power.

What makes this

particularly dangerous is that two

things happening simultaneously are

conflated. You've got the domestic

situation, that centralisation of

power away from a diffuse leadership

in which there are a lot at stake

holders, towards a centralised

reformist model, as NBS is trying to

do now. Simultaneously it is also

about Iran and the Saudis. This is

where it gets dangerous. Globally.

Because you essentially have NBS,

backed by Trump although not by Rex

Tillerson, so the US administration

is split but Trump is very much

endorsing what this prince says and

would probably love to do it in

America.

Is close to the Crown

prince and has been an interlocutor

for him. Rex Tillerson warned about

the proxy wars.

That warning was

aimed at Trump. Trump tweeted that

the Crown Prince knows precisely

what he is doing, and the fear is

that Trump, Binyamin Netanyahu in

Israel, and I Crown Prince taking on

too much, and the target is Iran and

building up some sort of conflict

with Iran.

Is that why, Agnes, the

president of fans rushed there? They

still take an interest in local

affairs there.

He was a friend of

many French presidents. Resident

Macron was in Abu Dhabi for the

opening of the Luke Wright Museum

and did a surprise visit and spent

time with Mohammed bin Salman, MBS.

I could not put better than Nesrine

did on the domestic stage but what

is perplexing and frightening to see

from the West is that new

configurations of Israel, Trump and

MBS on Iran. It could fizzle out as

it sometimes does in the least but I

think there is a risk of conflict

there, and again, 11 years later,

flying the northern border of

Israel, and Israel, Lebanon is

against this hostage, the playground

of regional politics. We don't know

where he is, he was born in Riyadh.

He is a national. Adam think France

can do anything. Macron went there

and said, please can you do

something that what could the West

do? We could do something that we

have Trump.

The West is morally

compromised because the West has

sold so many billion dollars worth

of arms to Saudi Arabia, used them

against Yemen, in the last two

years, even more from the US...

That

is the leverage, we are told that...

Commit is the Prince, full-back.

I

think the reality is that these arms

are so important that they employ

people in the US and Canada so that

renders governments impotent. They

dare not stop the arms sales because

of jobs.

It is not by accident that

the British view is that Yemen is a

proxy war and it would be a bad

thing for the region if Iran, which

is effectively running the war in

Yemen, if Yemen. That, and Saudi

eventually fell in some way or that

was regional disruption, I know it

is a dirty war, a terrible mass but

there is logic behind it as well

which is trying to block the

progress of the Iranians.

In this

view that there is a moral

responsibility and behalf of the

West to contain a waterfront

befuddling.

Not much different from

when they played a colonial role.

We've fallen into this mindset, when

there is trouble in these countries

what can we do as if we were some

kind of moral arbiter.

In Yemen,, it

certainly hasn't been an unqualified

success.

It is possible it could be

a quagmire. This is went because

people feel there is something that

needs to happen. I think the best

case scenario is that it turns into

Dubai, and mandated Royal family and

rate. But this too much water under

the bridge in terms of

radicalisation and sectarianism so

to get to a Dubai situation there is

a lot that needs to happen and it

could get messy.

OK.

Wednesday was a very long

day in Downing Street.

The Prime Minister Theresa May

wanted to be rid of Priti Patel,

a Cabinet colleague,

who'd failed to disclose the full

extent of her freelance meddling

in Middle East politics whilst

she was supposedly

on a family holiday.

Unfortunately, Miss Patel,

who just 48 hours before had been

given a dressing down and told

she could stay in her job

but who now faced more

damaging revelations,

was 6,500 miles away, in Uganda.

She was ordered back to London.

It took many hours before

her plane touched down,

she was whisked to Downing Street,

in through the back door

of Number Ten, the Prime Minister's

office, and then out

of Government altogether.

Iain, what had she done wrong?

And what do you think the way that

this has been handled tells us about

the state of play in the British

government?

The Priti Patel story at

least shows that Britain is a world

leader in producing files. People

will remember Fawlty Towers... This

is the government equivalent --

farce. She had been effectively

freelancing in foreign policy terms,

and why she had felt able to do that

is very revealing about what is

wrong with the state of the

government. The UK Parliament looks

like Hogwarts and is in fact a

school, very like a school. The

politicians know that the

headmistress is devoid of all

authority, and in those

circumstances you get chaos. People

don't fear the sack or the

withdrawal of patronage in the way

that they would with a stronger

Prime Minister. So she's in a

difficult position. Conventionally

she should, and I would urge her to

radically clear up the cabinet and

bring in new people.

Is she waiting

because you talk about authority and

the budget is coming, it's the most

important political stage apart from

Brexit...

Brexit isn't going well,

there's a budget come on November

22, the scope for manoeuvre is

limited. If she did go for the bold

reshuffle, it could be the last

thing she did in office.

She would

be reshuffling herself out of her

job.

The lack of authority means she

can't do it. Ultimately it comes

back to what those of us thought

after the botched election which

went wrong and left with no majority

in June, the UK effectively needs

new leadership, the Tories need new

leadership, a big question mark over

who it would be but almost anyone

would have more authority than the

current incumbent.

Anyone apart from

Boris Johnson who was widely fancied

but has had a difficult week, this

plays into the debate about foreign

affairs. While Brexit is going on

he's been caught up in a row of a

British Iranian prisoner.

He has

left it to Iran to decide on the

fate of the British Foreign Minister

which is amazing.

He should be off

there later this week to visit.

He

is known internationally, yes, but

for being a clown. There are some

people who still look up to Britain

but also in despair because I didn't

report on the Priti Patel story. Too

many things happening, active head

of the British government at the

moment.

To the European leadership

expect a change of government in the

UK or is that brinksmanship.

The

problem is that she is very weak.

I

think it is too late to show

strength. She's lost that.

It is in

the interests of the Tory party to

have her there, they like to be weak

until they get rid of her.

The Tory

party and a lot of Brexiteers, and I

speak as someone who voted for

Brexit, there's a lot of dilution

here, the Tory party can't decide

who replaces her,...

The phrase was,

holding on to nurse for fear of

someone was.

I don't think it can be

Boris Johnson, this mess with Iran

vindicates the claims made by

Michael Gove lost it when he said Mr

Johnson didn't concentrate on the

details and could not be trusted

with highest office. This seems to

vindicate him.

He said that the

woman who was being held, whose

family say she was on holiday at the

time, she is got joint citizenship,

he said you was training

journalists. This has been flatly

denied by the authorities and by her

family and gave some in authority in

Iran the excuse to say this is not

far short of being a spy.

Classic

Boris 's language but at some point,

I would've thought, considering the

mass of British politics at the

moment, if Britain is to find a way

to Brexit with the EU and things

looked quite promising one month

ago, less so now, I think it will

require someone with a bit of

authority. Interestingly Angela

Merkel and Macron have done quite a

bit to prop up Theresa May. Probably

because they feared getting Johnson,

or they were worried about dealing

with. If it is not Johnson and it is

someone else at least someone else

would have the authority.

This is

the crazy thing, observed from the

outside where a lot of people look

up to Britain, you think, how, in

this most civilised of democracies,

is the playing field is so devoid of

anyone that can be promoted into a

position of power? The fact we're

talking about Boris Johnson, Priti

Patel, Theresa May, Jacob Rhys Mogg

had this moment when some people

thought he could be proposed as...

A

backbencher, quite eccentric.

The

point is that Brexit has sucked the

air out of the room in British

politics and everything has become

infected with Brexit. Let's go back

to the original sin, why is Theresa

May weak. Because she is in a

minority government. Why? Because

she called an election to strengthen

her mandate because of Brexit. Why

are Boris Johnson and Priti Patel in

those positions? They are Brexit

loyalists. Why are we in dire

straits, in negotiations, if people

are deluded, it has affected

everything.

I can see the situation

is sub optimal, that is a polite way

of putting it, but I think something

really interesting is happening

here. It is chaotic but how could it

be otherwise if effectively the

dominant worldview of the British

ruling elite or most of it, the

governing elite of the last 40, 50

years about Britain operates, its

relationship with the EU and people

is leaving the EU, not leaving

Europe, it is geographically

impossible to do that, thank

goodness. In those circumstances its

ruling elite's worldview rejected by

the majority of British voters who

want self-government. In those

circumstances of course it produces

turmoil. Britain is having to

rethink its place in the world.

You

are conflicting two things. You are

conflating Brexit, the actual

technical aspect of it with the

chaos that has ensued. The fact that

I is that Brexit hangs over British

politics and drugs if does not mean

Brexit is wrong. It just means the

politicians who lobbied for it don't

know what they are doing.

Both the

main parties are split. The country

is still split right the middle. My

hope was that someone would emerge

who could unite moderates and force

some sort of compromise.

At one

point it looked like Theresa May

until the general election changed

that.

I am not from Britain but I

live here. And I agree, it is not

about whether you are for or

against, it seems almost inevitable

that it will be suboptimal. But as a

polite word! I won't say on air the

other words that I can think of.

LAUGHTER

You have such weak leadership. We

haven't even mentioned Jeremy

Corbyn, ...

Ambiguous about his own

attitude to Europe in the past.

Exactly. Given the floundering

leadership of the Tory party he

should be up a huge amount and he is

not. It is really reflective of this

absolute vacuum of strong

leadership, let's be clear, in the

next year the future of the country

for two generations will be

determined, this departure from the

EU, Trump, whatever he is, there are

term limits, getting out of EU will

affect the grandchildren of today's

people in a way we can't imagine and

this is being handled by people with

no vision and no moral authority and

no road map.

I agree with you. It is

very, very difficult to do this, one

of the most difficult things Britain

has done since 1945, without a

functioning Prime Minister infested

with authority that people of

different views can rally behind and

have some faith in, that they are

trying to get the best possible

deal.

Which is why I agree that

there needs to be a change.

Agnes,

do you think, that given this

domestic circumstances of which

people like Angela Merkel and Macron

are well aware, given the

destabilising effect Brexit could

have if mishandled, when the point

comes will that make them much more

willing to offer meaningful

concessions? Because it is not in

Europe's interests of this to go

pear shaped, to use a British

expression.

The EU doesn't have too

much to lose, or to fear from

Brexit.

Really?

I think there is one

solution, reverse, you can reverse,

guys.

Not going to happen.

In when

you's time, I think a strong leader,

strong British Prime Minister will

say, look, or the British

Parliament, will say, well

actually...

In defiance of the

British electorate?

If the message to voters who voted

to reject a political elite is that

that they don't regret it, they

don't regret it...

Let's have a

second referendum.

Make it

best-of-3! On the Eurozone, you

said, the EU, because we are in

Europe, has nothing to lose. The

Eurozone is run effectively, the

debts machine runs out of London.

75%-80% of the activity, the sobs,

the foreign exchanges, the stuff

that makes the Eurozone go round is

London. Some of that of course can

go to Frankfurt. It's can go to

Paris. But the German finance

ministry really does understand the

potential risks of dislocation.

Which is why I would hope, in the

end, and Macron and Angela Merkel

can facilitate some kind of deal.

But sometimes I accept that European

history happens by accident.

What

deal to Britain want? What style of

trade agreement do they want? Like

the Canada one? Like the Norwegian

style? Make your mind. And then we

can start discussing it. For

concessions, it's not a negotiation.

And nor is this! We are out of time.

Jeffrey, Agnes, Nesrine, thank you

all.

That's it for Dateline

London for this week -

we're back next week

at the same time.

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