07/06/2016 Newsnight

We're not going to be bullied by anybody, least of all

the unelected, charming though he may be, Jean-Claude Juncker.

The British thing to do is to fight inside the European Union.

With 15 days to go, 2 politicians made their case in 60

minutes of argument, so was there a winner?

It was certainly a chance for Nigel Farage to lead

Do you think your company has outgrown your ability to manage it?

Probably, a long time ago. Also tonight: Is this another,

unacceptable face of capitalism? And why did it take a newspaper,

rather than the authorities to spot I stand with Hillary

because I'm a woman. But why are so many women not

supporting the democrat No one has had a busier

day than Nigel Farage. The man who is not at the helm

of the Leave campaign, This afternoon, he was defending

himself against attack This evening, he was in front

of an audience in one of the set-piece TV

events of the campaign. There was no knockout blow. But it

presented a much better way to see Nigel Farage perform than we have

seen so far. The official Leave

campaign think Mr Farage is unhelpful to their cause,

driving voters away, But the truth is, the Leave campaign

has only started breaking through, since it took a leaf or two out

Mr Farage's campaign book. Our political editor,

Nick Watt, has been looking We will get your take on Nigel

Farage's base in the debate, but a quick summary of how you thought the

IDV extravaganza when? -- ITV extravaganza when. David Cameron

came under pressure regarding the edge rated claims regarding the

effects on the economy, and also the area he does not want to talk about,

immigration, Nigel Farage came under pressure for those comments he made

linking cologne attacks with members of the European Union, and also a

testy in cancer with a black British motor about Ukip's view of those

voters -- testing encounter with a black British voter. The Prime

Minister will be happy, because Nigel Farage has been put centre

stage and the Leave campaign believes he is toxic, but Nigel

Farage is happy because he is back where he believes he should be, on

terrestrial television. Few other things quickly. Midnight tonight,

registration for voting in the referendum closes. If you have not

done it by then you will not have a vote, and so what will we know about

the electorate? We will get a statement tomorrow on the numbers of

people who have registered to vote and the indications are that more

people are registering to vote than registered for the general election,

and it appears that the 18-24 year old age group and people who live

abroad are registering in higher numbers than they did last year and

those are the kind of people who might vote for Remain and that might

be good news for them. If it is a low turnout, below 55%, that is good

for Brexit but if it is 65%, it is good for Remain, but if you go back

about 75% it is good news for Brexit. There is good news for

Leave, as well? Lord Hayward, he is one of the people who got closest to

the general election prediction last year. He is not a pollster? He

analyses them, former Conservative MP, he is a Remain supporter but he

is going to call the referendum for Leave and he will say barring some

unforeseen accident, he thinks that Leave are on course to win and he

says he notices demographics who he thinks should be Remain, they are in

fact Leave, and that is motorway man. We will bring you a bit of that

debate and a bit more Nigel Farage later.

With me now is the former shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper

who supports Britain remaining in the EU and the Conservative

MP Kwasi Kwarteng who wants Britain to leave.

Do you agree on the debate, it was a score draw? The significant thing

that you did not refer to is the fact that Nigel Farage did admit

that there would be tariffs, which he shrugged off the impact, on jobs,

I thought that was a serious point, especially the dismissal of the

pharmaceutical industry is something, we can watch them leave

the country, that would not matter. They are bad guys because they have

been hitting alternative medicine, that was a strange moment. The Leave

campaign are being cavalier with people's jobs and livelihoods. It

might not be Nigel Farage who is hit by this. I will answer your

question. Rather than rerunning the debate. The question is fair, the

Prime Minister made interesting points and Nigel Farage also held

his own, it was a score draw as you suggested. I'm not going to rerun

the debate. We can talk about that later. And now a taste of the debate

right now. So, yes, the reform

goes on, but of course Here is what really

happens if we leave. Of course we would still want

to sell into that single market, so we would still have to meet

all the rules and regulations that Brussels lays down,

but we won't be at the table. We will be like a country

with our ear and face pressed up against the glass,

trying to find out what is happening with the other 27 countries, making

rules that affect our country. I would say that is no way

for the fifth biggest economy We need to be in this organisation,

fighting the British The use of the word quitting came up

quite a lot. We can carry on the discussion for now. Kwasi, Nigel

Farage has basically been excluded by the official campaign, they think

he is to Marmite. He is campaigning in his own way and he makes

outlandish statements which get attention, but I think the campaign

can be run on its merits and the Leave campaign is getting its

message through and the race is tightening. Do you think that Leave

should give him more prominence question not he's a consummate

performer. -- prominence? I'm not going to praise the skies, I will

give him seven out of ten, I thought he made the case about immigration.

I'm the son of an immigrant, it is not about being against immigration,

but it is about control and I thought he did that effectively.

Would you like to see the Leave campaign like to put more weight on

Nigel Farage? The Leave campaign have been shifting to a Nigel Farage

style approach, the cavalier approach to the facts, for example.

The claim about the ?350 million on the bus which is a load of rubbish.

That is not Nigel Farage's claim. That is his style. Also, Turkey

about to join Europe, we know that Cyprus would veto it, Cyprus. It was

official government policy, the policy of your government, as well.

You think that Turkey is about to join the EU? Our million Turks going

to join any moment? -- are a million Turks. We don't need an argument. Do

you think that the Remain side are running out of ideas question mark

David Cameron repeats the lines about the economy and the single

market. Maybe you need another six phrases, things which sound a bit

more positive and reasons to stay. There is a bigger argument about our

place in the world and the influence that we have in the world. If we cut

ourselves off, the reason we as a small island have such impact in the

world is because we are a member, not just the European Union about

other organisations. If we pull out, we cut ourselves off and that makes

us weaker for the future. There are those ardent scum and the other

items we have been there are those arguments and the

other is the Labour Party has been trying to put forward, the likes of

workers' rights which are so important. The most radical Labour

government was 1945, they reshaped the welfare state, and that nothing

to do with the EU. It is regarded, become at the government, as one of

the shining lights -- the Clement Attlee government. That is

absolutely true. The British government has always done a whole

series of things... We will carry on doing so. We can carry on doing all

kinds of things without the EU. What about the parting shot of David

Cameron? Great Britain... Do not fall for Nigel Farage's little

England vision. I don't share that vision and I can't speak for Nigel

Farage. I'm not a little England, my parents have come from Ghana, part

of the British Commonwealth and I feel very connected to other parts

of the world and I spent a year in America. We are very international

in our outlook and I feel it is Great Britain against little England

is false, that is not what the debate is about. It is that national

sovereignty and controlling immigration, and having some control

of our own destiny. Can I have a comment from each of you about where

the state of play is at the moment? This news that Rob Hayward, Lord

Hayward, he's one expert, he seems to be: yet for Leave. -- calling it

for Leave. It is a good thing that more young people are registering to

vote, the clock is still ticking, still time for people to register.

It will be about young people's future, that is what will decide it.

It will be very close. The polls are tightening, and I want as many

people to vote as possible. The idea we want a restricted turnout is

false, I want as many people do indoors whatever decision the

British people make as possible. -- to endorse. Laax. We

Away from the referendum, the most absorbing political

spectacle today was the appearance in front of the Business Select

Committee of Mike Ashley, the founder of Sports Direct.

The MPs wanted to ask him about his unusually brutal

treatment of staff - if you're a minute late,

you lose 15 minutes of pay was one example of his munificence.

He had originally declined to meet the committee,

Our new Business Editor, Helen Thomas was watching

The tough guy of British retail arriving for a showdown

His public image, that of a truculent wealthy boss,

obsessed with profits over the welfare of his workforce.

Instead, Westminster was surprised by a dose of Mike Ashley candour.

Do you accept that the company was effectively paying workers

On that specific point, for that specific bit of time, yes.

This, an admission that the time staff had spent in security checks

at Sports Direct's massive Derbyshire warehouse

If you were a minute late, you got docked 15 minutes pay.

You asked me what I think, I think that is unacceptable.

If one of my kids went to work somewhere and they were two minutes

late and they got fined 15 minutes pay I would not be very

He even issued an open invitation to prying MPs.

Could we turn up unannounced at a date we don't tell you about?

But all I want is fairness and balance.

You will be let in and everything else.

I'm telling you, you will find things wrong, but then let's do it

MPs don't want this kind of planned press tour.

They are interested in an unvarnished look.

The horror stories of fearful employees working through sickness,

of one woman giving birth in the toilet and of

a business overly reliant on zero hours contracts.

That is workers with limited rights and no guarantee of work.

But Sports Direct has not just been taking flak from trade

Investors have also bulked at Mr Ashley's grip on the company

Today, for the first time, a hint that there could be change.

In the boardroom as well as on the shop floor.

You are someone who has created an extraordinary company.

You have created a lot of wealth and a lot of it has gone to you.

You have created a lot of wealth and done something remarkable,

but do you think your company has outgrown your ability to manage it?

Some of the things you have said today would actually lead me

to believe that it has definitely outgrown me.

Mike Ashley did not want to come to London.

Trade unions, politicians and investors, they have all tried

to get him to change the way he does business, none have succeeded,

but today he admitted that as the company has grown,

Sports Direct has failed its low paid staff.

The irony is that it took the kind of media and political circus that

Mike Ashley appears to so despise to hold the company to account.

Today, Mike Ashley, tomorrow BHS bosses will face MPs.

Some of the more colourful parts of British business are being

dragged, like it or not, into the spotlight.

A lot of people look at Mike Ashley, or at recent events at BHS,

or low-tax paying multinationals and wonder whether there

is some kind of problem with capitalism, or capitalists.

But you might also ask, where are the authorities in this?

Are we soft on anti social businesses?

The man to tell us is Sir David Norgrove, chairman

That has the job of assessing the minimum wage, not enforcing it.

He was also chairman of the Pensions Regulator,

which governs workplace pensions, a big issue in the BHS case.

Good evening to you. It's interesting that this happened.

Should the authorities be worried that people think it is better to

hit them by going to read newspaper, rather than reporting them? A lot of

people are. H MRC pinfalls it. More people should go to them and

complain if they think they are not getting the amount of money they

think they should be getting. -- HMRC is responsible for it. What

proportion of that is detected, this below minimum wage payment? It is

difficult, possibly rough estimates are possible. Give me a rough

estimate, it must be a few hundred cases. It is in the thousands, the

complaints that get followed up. The estimate is roughly about .5% of

employees. Are? Page below. -- paid below. Do you think the penalties

are big enough? The penalties have quadrupled over the past few years,

they are real or higher... You can be fined up to ?20,000 per employee.

For example, one employer we know of was fined ?500,000, when a few years

ago they would have only had to pay a fuse house in pounds. There has

been a big increase. -- a few thousand pounds. Thanks to naming

and shaming this has had an effect. Mike Ashley has reached an agreement

with HMRC. We don't know what the agreement is. At some stage it will

be published. Why won't it be public straightaway? You would have to ask

HMRC. I don't know. Don't you find it odd, it should be open justice,

do we sit and negotiate with these people who have done something quite

bad? In many cases they are published. Penalties are published.

The company has to account to local newspapers, or local television when

it has done something wrong. Is it good enough that he pays the money

he should have paid to his staff, and maybe pay some extra, and

doesn't, for example, do a few nights in jail, or have to come you

know, do community service for a couple of weeks... We would like to

see more prosecutions than there are. Criminal prosecutions, we are

talking about four, five. Yes, very small numbers. We want to see more.

I don't want to sound wimpish. Prosecutions are very expensive and

time-consuming. I think this is what makes the public so angry. The idea

that they will go after a false benefit claimants. Would they treat

an employer in the same way as a benefit cheat? Somebody who makes a

false claim... I don't know enough about the net and -- about benefit

claimants. Standing back from the minimum wage commission, do you

think we are a soft touch? The pensions regulation is just catching

up with what has been going on at BHS, a lot of money has been taken

out of the company, the pension is now in deficit, and it is now on a

state sponsored insurance system... I do think life is changing a bit.

As the world becomes more international it becomes more

legalistic, bit more like America, where people play up to the limit of

the rolls. There is a case for us being tougher. We have seen that the

city with financial regulation. -- of the rules. Interesting

reflection. You mentioned in the US, you would see people being

handcuffed and walked out of the office, white-collar criminals,

utterly humiliated. Not named and shamed, not find money, but

absolutely being trashed on television, probably live. I'm not

sure they would lock up people who failed to pay the minimum wage. In

America they have a different system. It is very legislation and

litigation based. And not a lot up to that point. They have a nuclear

deterrent, and nothing which is conventional before that. We have

graduated approach. Maybe we could use the extreme options more than we

do. But there are some advantages in being to have discretion and make

people stick to principles. I don't want to put words in your mouth. But

you think we could not it on to being a bit tougher, don't you? I

do. -- nudge it. Lets get the latest on today's

political news... The man on the left called the referendum, but it

was the man on the right to cause to the referendum to be held after

placing the idea of a UK exit from the EU firmly into the political

mainstream. Will the real David Cameron please stand up. Despite his

role in triggering the referendum, Nigel Barrett has found his role

downgraded after a rival Brexit group, Vote Leave, won the

resignation. He believes they only appeal to a narrow section of the

electorate. They became embroiled with aggressive account is. You are

anti immigration. You are scaremongering. In your campaign you

have gone against people who do not look white. Discrimination. I want

to know what you're going to do about it, that is what I want to

know. If we have an Australian style points system rather than an open

door, actually, there is big support for this amongst the ethnic

minorities in this country, who know that our current open door policy is

damaging all of our communities. Here is our chance, maybe our only

chance as a nation, to get a grip on this issue. The Prime Minister also

came under pressure on one of his weak spots, immigration. I have no

GP. I cannot get onto the housing ladder and I have three children in

one room. The place where I grew up used to a lovely area but is now a

no-go zone. How is this system working for somebody like me? There

are good ways of controlling immigration and bad ways of

controlling immigration. A good way is just what I explained, people can

come here, work, contribute, but they have to pay in before they get

anything out... Difficult encounters for both, but they left reasonably

happy. The Prime Minister avoided debating fellow Tories, and Nigel

Farage returned to centre stage. He regards that as his rightful place

because he said it is his ideas that are driving the Leave campaign. Vote

Leave members say you are toxic. That's why they don't want me in the

campaign. They have no comprehension about how to fight a proper

campaign. Just because they followed my lead, on understanding open

borders, the effects of mass immigration on normal people, now

they followed my lead it will probably lead to a win. Remain as

having a bumpy ride and they agree. They say their opponents in the

official campaign are being controlled whether they like it or

not by a hidden hand. One senior Remains strategist has likened the

influence of the Ukip leader to the dark but largely unseen figure of

Keyzer Soze. Some people are saying that you are the invisible dark

force and was running it. To be compared to Peter Mandelson is a

large compliment. Although Leave have pinched a lot of his ideas,

they are keeping them at the distance from him come because they

believe he repels voters. The official Vote Leave campaign hope

that he will go the way of Keyzer Soze. But the Ukip leader and the

Remain campaign hope to upend the film and ensure he keeps his role in

the referendum movie. It's been such a tumultuous

year in US politics, you might have overlooked

the momentous point the fact that for the first time,

one of the two main parties appears to have more or less

now settled on a woman Hillary Clinton has

certainly made history. Now her fight is to be back in the

White House, not as first Lady, but as first female president. We are on

the brink of an historic unprecedented moment. But we still

have work to do, don't we? One of the striking features of the

Democratic presidential race is that Hillary has not found she

automatically gets backing from women voters. And particularly the

younger ones have been charmed by Bernie Sanders. Is this now the

moment to shed any political misgivings about Hillary and to

rejoice? We can now discuss this. Jill, you

are a supporter of Clinton, do you have any reservations, or is this

the time for women to celebrate her elevation to this point? I do think

it is a moment to celebrate. It is almost eerie that it was exactly to

the date, you know, in 2008 when she made her famous concession speech

when she talked about having made 18 million cracks in the hardest glass

ceiling of all. Now today, these years later, she, as you pointed

out, it will be the first woman nominee of a major US party. That is

history making. But I think you are absolutely right, that for someone

who is more my generation, that is far more meaningful than a lot of

younger women. Can I just ask you, are you supporting her because you

like her politics, and she happens to be a woman, and you are glad for

that, or are you basically excited and supporting her because she is a

woman, this is a feminist thing, this is a gender thing? It is not

the latter, no, it isn't a gender thing. I think she is very well

qualified to be president. And most of the time she has good judgment.

She has the experience to do the job. What we are not mentioning is

compared to whom? I think Donald Trump is getting the attention of

the younger women right now. He has stolen the show, he is the big story

of the year. It's true, he led the news today. Let me put all of this

to Tennessee. You are not so thrilled by Hillary Clinton, why is

that? It is about a lot of things. My generation have been activated.

My friends, people who felt like their voices were completely unheard

by politicians, have registered to vote and showing up because there is

somebody talking about all of the things that are really important to

us. People struggling in this country, people who are being killed

because of the colour of their skin, put in prison, you know, there is a

lot of really serious things going on. Tennessee, just let me ask you

this, when you hear someone in say you should be supporting Hillary

Clinton as a sort of sisterhood thing, does that make you more

inclined to, how does that play, that argument? Obviously, there need

to be more women in politics. There needs to be more diversity in

politics. But, you know, the politics should come first, not the

gender. I don't want Hillary Clinton to be the first female president of

the US. You are going to vote for Hillary, rather than Donald Trump, I

am guessing, correct, so you will rally around? Of course. Just for

women's reproductive rights issues alone, we have to vote for as many

Democrats as we can. It is a crazy time right now in this country.

In terms of the relationship of women with American politics, one of

the criticisms of Hillary Clinton, she talks about feminism and women's

rights, but she has a conservative stance in the Democrat spectrum, she

is not the best person for women, is that fair? I don't think that is

fair. Regarding many issues, like foreign policy, she is more of a

hawk than the progressive wing of the Democratic party, so she is out

of step and her vote on the Iraq war is one of the things that is really

disturbing to younger progressive voters. On women's issues her record

is almost flawless. She has been fighting for reproductive rights for

her whole life, practically. She has worked very hard for better

childcare laws and she wants to raise the minimum wage which would

be very meaningful to women service workers. Does that hold much weight

with you, Tennessee? Do you think of her as not being grateful women? --

great for women? She is a woman and that is good for women, but to use

that to get people to vote for her is inappropriate given all of the

other issues. And we have this other candidate Bernie Sanders who is also

a feminist, being a feminist is not just about being a woman, it is

about where they stand on all these issues. Hillary Clinton has a lot of

critics and clearly if they criticise her ankles you can dismiss

that as misogyny or people who have a difficulty imagining someone in

his role as president who is a woman. She has many more critics

than you might expect. I wonder if you think her critics are basically

misogynists or are they people that raise valid points? The horse was of

her voice, sometimes she has been shouting, people born that outcome

is that sexist or just part of the cut and thrust of ordinary one ticks

question mark -- people point that out, is that sexist or just hard of

the cut and thrust of ordinary politics? I don't actually think

that is the most... Those are the most important criticisms of her,

there are legitimate criticisms of her. She's very slow to apologise

for making mistakes. When she left the State Department it was a

mistake to sign up with a very well-known speakers bureau and

charge millions of dollars for her speeches. It is a mistake for her to

not reveal the text of those speeches. The criticisms of the

Clinton foundation, some of those, I was an investigative reporter for

decades covering money and politics, and some of those concerns concern

me to, but on balance she has a very strong record and I don't think

she's a dishonest and trustworthy or as Donald Trump would say, that she

is crooked. I think she has shown poor judgment. Thanks for joining

us. With less than an hour to go, until voters cannot register for the

referendum any more, we understand the voter registration website has

crashed. A busy night for their computer? We heard that people were

registering to vote in their hundreds of thousands in recent days

and we have been talking to Martin Lewis who runs the money-saving

expert website and he says careful language, the site is crashing in

parts. He says you can get onto the first page, but when you try to

input your information you can't get there and that element appears to be

crashing for some users. If you look at the Cabinet Office website at the

moment, it says as we speak 29,782 people are actually trying to input

their data. How'd you know that? This is live service usage. Our

colleague spotted that at 1015 tonight 50,000 people were trying at

the same time and I think we will hear from Martin Lewis, he says that

is a lot of people. Martin joins us over the internet from money-saving

website. Have you had complaints about this? Yes. Someone tweeted to

say the website was not working very well and they could not get through

and I'd waited out, is anyone else having problems -- I tweeted out. I

looked at the voter registration page, it maxes out at 50,000 people,

that is not a lot of traffic in terms of just viewing a website, but

this is like a transactional website, you have got to put data in

and out that number of consecutive uses at one time being processed,

that is a huge demand on the service and I'm not surprised has crashed.

You don't set up a website for such enormous numbers. The normal traffic

is trivial. This is huge. The real question is, in my suspicion, I

study web traffic, it is like a 200 camel, you get peeks at lunchtime

and in the evening. -- two hunt camel. At 1115 it drops onto 1130,

and I think from 1130 people will find it much easier. If you have the

time, keep trying. There is a democratic question, what about the

people trying between ten and 11, who have got to go to bed because

they have got to get up early, and of course they should have done it

earlier, but they haven't. And we say the voter registration is open

until midnight, but it hasn't been for them. You were to jest they keep

it open for another half an hour? -- you would suggest. They can't take

it into tomorrow. But what about the early hours of the morning? They

could, but I don't see... I don't know the logistics, but I think to

be fair, you want to communicate that this has gone down and keep it

open for at least a morning. When we have deals on the website where

something like this happens can we try to arrange for an extra day or

an extra few hours, because that seems fair. If you drive a half an

hour, they had gone away, and they might have gone to bed right now,

and if they can't register for this, the most important decision in their

lifetimes, then I think they need to be given the opportunity to do so.

You have spoken to the Cabinet Office? We are waiting to hear back

from them, they sing to have a good idea that things are not perhaps

going brilliantly -- they seem. There is a law that it has to be why

midnight? The timetable is set in law and I think it would be very

difficult for them to have any discretion over this. Nick, thanks

for joining us. That is it for tonight. You have 50 minutes to

register in the referendum, but don't bother!

But we leave you with the observation that senior members

of the Conservative party on both sides of the Brexit debate seem

to have all been afflicted with the same strange disorder.

Whenever they appear in public, they mysteriously strike a pose

in tribute to a certain 1950's film star.

It's almost like they're doing it on purpose.

# Take me away # John Wayne

# He stands so high #

Some of the thunderstorms will continue overnight, but most will