08/06/2016 Newsnight

Tonight - as the voter registration deadline is extended, we ask

what we know about the demographics of how the country will vote.

We speak to the polling expert prepared to put himself on the line

and call it with two weeks to go - and to Labour's Harriet Harman.

And we're in Cardiff conducting our own extremely

Well, I'm just wondering whether I could offer

I've not voted in bureaucrats in Brussels.

He basically said, "It's my business, I can do what I want."

I'm going to come down there and kill you.

The commons select committee hears allegations of death threats

and serial lying from the men who've been at the top of BHS.

We talk to the pensions minister Ros Altman.

Does she understand what went wrong?

An Eritraen man is extradited to Italy on allegations

It's the first arrest of its kind in the migration crisis,

but tonight suggestions surface they may have the wrong man.

Everybody is saying this is my friend, my childhood friend.

He's just a refugee from a camp in Sudan in 2015.

Around this time last night - just an hour before the deadline -

the crashing of the website for voter registration sent those

wishing to sign up for the EU referendum poll into something

Popular wisdom believes late registration favours the Remain camp

- with those for Brexit long energised and already signed up.

Impossible to prove of course - before the 23rd of June -

but when the deadline was extended until tomorrow night,

it led to voices from the Leave camp warning it was on the 'cusp

This referendum is a moment when every

the safe seats of a general election do not exist -

and tonight, we're exploring what that means for the campaigns.

First to our Political Editor, Nick Watt.

Egg dramatic developments since the website crashed last night and we

reported it on Newsnight. The government realised they had to grab

hold of this one quickly, so we will see the introduction in Parliament

of emergency secondary legislation, allowing for what you were talking

about, the extension of the deadline to tomorrow night. The Leave

campaign were initially suspicious, thinking it might be a ruse by the

government to increase the size of the electorate to the advantage of

the Remain campaign. The official vote Leave campaign had been

operating on the basis of a low turnout. Aware of the danger of

appearing like conspiracy theorists, they have come out and say they

wholly were open this. And they have made a virtue of it saying, if you

want to get turkey out the European Union, even more people can vote

leave. We have a defection, we haven't had a defection in politics

for some time. Doctor Sara Woollaston, the independent minded

conservative MPs Totnes has announced that she is moving from

vote Leave to Remain. She is unamused by the vote Leave campaign

that Britain spends ?350 million a week to the European Union, the net

figure is a third of that. The second reason is she says there

would be a penalty on the NHS if we left because it would hit the

economy and of course she is a GP. And looking back at this extension

to the deadline, we don't know, but is there a sense that this would

genuinely favour one side over another? What is your gut feeling?

The government says it is acting entirely selflessly, and doing this

to promote democracy, transparency and openness, but there is no doubt

the smiles were on the Remain ministers today, because as you say

they believe that if you get a higher turnout, then you are more

likely to have voters who don't wake up every day thinking about the EU,

they think of bread and butter, therefore they hope they are more

likely to vote for Remain. It is interesting Remain have been

nervous, this is why I am spending time in the north-west of England

because there is a fear that in some of those natural Labour heartlands

whilst we are focusing on the blue on blue showing within the

Conservative Party, we are perhaps missing out on a more dangerous

story for the Remain site, the inability of the Labour Party, the

bread elite to get out the red grassroots. Thank you.

We will hear from a senior Labour politician in a moment.

But first let's get into the question of what the campaigns

do know about who to target with our Policy Editor Chris Cook.

Lots of elements of this campaign are ageless. Doorknocking,

gladhanding, battle buses. But a referendum is not a general

election. On June the 23rd, the whole nation will be one

constituency. So how are the two campaigns choosing where to fight? I

think this referendum has been more about globalisation than persuasion.

Both campaigns have been focusing heavily on their core areas. This

map shows the distribution of marginal seats that were really

fought over at the 2015 general election. Scotland has loads of

marginal seats. If you look down the east coast of England there are not

many. In London there are a few here and there. The referendum is going

to be very different. Each side will be going to areas where they think

they are strongest and trying to get out the vote in this biggest

numbers. So where are those numbers? Starting with the Leave campaign,

most Eurosceptic areas according to one poll. The East of England, the

area so neglected at the last election, is essential to the

referendum. The Remain, London and Scotland in particular are

absolutely critical if they are going to win. There is a literature

on getting out the vote that was effectively used by President Obama

and his teenager in the election which basically suggests that the

tighter your operation is, the more you contact voters on the day, you

can give yourself another one, two, three points by pushing voters out

of their armchairs into the polling stations. This is rather tough for

the main parties who are fighting in a lot of areas they have neglected

for a long time. This isn't like a general election where the focus is

on a handful of marginal seats. In lots of places, areas that aren't

used to full pelt campaigning at a general election have got huge areas

of activities going on. In some of our best areas, every household in

that parliamentary constituency has been visited more than once. That

probably didn't happen in a general election. You could be forgiven for

finding it hard to follow this campaign. It does not help at the

polls are not trusted. Academics were wrong last year, most of the

forecasts were wrong ahead of the general election. The polls have not

convinced most people that they have got this one nailed down. There are

significant variations between phone polls and online polls, and we all

mode the story of the expert who didn't see Jeremy Corbyn coming.

Before that didn't see a Conservative majority government

coming. And then possibly didn't see President Trump coming. So a lot of

people got a lot of things wrong. Elections are getting more complex

to follow anyway as campaigns get ever less national. Campaigners can

now quietly tailor ads to recipients online and in the posts with greater

sophistication. And it's seriously tough to get any sense of a campaign

where you don't even know what arguments are being put to your

neighbours. Chris Kirk, there. In the moment we will speak to Labour's

former deputy leader Harriet Harman. First, Lord Hayward,

a Tory psephologist who was on John Major's team

in the 1992 election and predicted Tell us what you feel will happen

this time round? As far as I'm concerned the polls are

overestimated how close it will be. As far as I can see there are more

people deviating towards Leave. If you take any particular demographic,

let's say bankers, who should be overwhelmingly in favour, my

conversations and say actually the banking industry, Surrey, which will

should be rock-solid Remain, they are not as solid as people think.

Then you've got Labour areas, they are not as solid as people would

expect. But these are just conversations, and you are at odds

with a lot of other pollsters. And I've been at odds on previous

occasions. I started with the polls and what they are predicting. And

then gone out, discussed it with other people, listened over months

to what people were saying and said, how often am I speaking to somebody

who is actually deviating from what should be the polling Norm? Do you

see yourself as a Leave supporter? I am a Remain supporter. So in saying

Leave are doing better than the polls suggest I am arguing against

my own position. So where are the gaps? Who isn't showing up? You've

talked about the banking community. I think it is pretty general. There

are problems you are going to go on to talk about, the Labour

supporters, the professional community in general. And I think

the campaign has been male dominated. There's been very poor

messaging, we would expect women to be much more solidly Remain because

they genuinely generally vote according to pocketbook issues. Your

assumption is a male dominated campaign tells what, more women to

go with the male voices? And saying there is no messaging being received

by large parts of the community. Whether it is the standard

traditional Labour voter or the female voter, the professional

photo, they are not receiving the message on economic issues. You will

forgive our viewers if there is a lot of scepticism about any pollster

at this point in proceedings telling them what will happen. I have a

history of telling pollsters they are wrong and on this occasion I

think they are wrong. The tendency is more towards Leave at the moment.

It can be turned around for Remain. If the turnout is high and based on

different messaging from where we are at the moment, the result may be

different. One has to remember that within the next few days 20% of the

population will have already voted. Could be as high as 18%. Harriet

Harman, do you accept that the traditional Labour voter does not

look like a Remainer or a Leaver? We have a unified position within the

Labour Party. For people who vote Labour and support baby and share

the principles, it is not much help to them to see Michael Gove slugging

it out with David Cameron, because actually they are not interested.

And their point of view is not what motivates them. And I think the

problem has been that there are Labour arguments for staying in that

our voters haven't been able to hear us putting across. Your voters, 45%

of Labour voters said in a poll at the end of last month they were not

sure of your party's position. That's not surprising bearing in

mind the airwaves have been absolutely dominated by the argument

within the Tory party. You think SNP supporters, Lib Dem supporters or

green supporters would say that? Presumably you would know your

party's position if you were an actual supporter or voter? If you

look at Loughborough University research, it shows not only is it am

elated by men but it is dominated by Tory men, and that is the fact of

the debate so far. Therefore what we need is more ability for women to

hear specific arguments that we certainly want to put forward about

why it is important to stay in. And for people to hear Labour arguments

because we have different arguments. For example on the health service,

we think there are problems with the health service. You can't just say

the Tories are too loud. People will turn round and say Labour has been

nonexistent. We are saying the huge volcanic bust up in the Tory party

is, not surprisingly, grabbing media attention. But if we want balance in

this debate in order to help people make up their mind so that they make

the sort of decision that they really want to make, the balance

needs to not just be between Leave and Remain, it leads to also be

between men and women and also between Labour and Tory. Our

supporters are entitled to hear why we as Labour people are urging them

to vote in. So for example on the health service point, Leave are

saying you've got to leave if you care about the health service. We

are saying actually we think the government are doing things

completely wrong, so we don't agree with David Cameron on what he is

doing the health service, but we say blame the government, not the EU.

That point could have been made very clearly by Jeremy Corbyn if he

wanted to share a Platt with David Cameron. We have been making these

points, but it is difficult to get them through. When I was acting

leader, I set up the Labour in campaign as a separate campaign,

because I felt we needed to get our message across separately. Was it a

missed opportunity? For Jeremy Corbyn to sound alongside David

Cameron and say, we are sharing a platform because it is bigger than

party politics. As Leader of the Labour Party, he wants to put

forward Labour's arguments. I have appeared at some things with David

Cameron, not because I agree with him, but because I want people to

see that Labour is four in. It is important that we have separate

arguments, because we have our own points of view. For example, at

work, we think that the EU guaranteeing maternity pay and

holiday leave, it is important that the EU does that, because we do not

trust future Tory governments to not decide to repeal all of those. We

have just seen Nick, who is in Salford and other areas, safe Labour

seats for ages. You think these places have been ignored, or have

been left off the chart? If nearly half your voters in a poll just two

weeks ago don't know your party's position, that is catastrophic. It

is for us to do make sure they know what our position is and why, and

that they haven't been ignored. This is a different proposition. Normally

it is vote for this person in this party in this area. But we've got

Labour values and principles about why we want to stay in, and we need

to get that across to our voters, and it is to all of us in the Labour

Party to get that idea across. Thank you for coming in.

Well, we know there's a divide between young and old when it comes

to the suggested voting patterns of the EU.

Katie Razzall took the referendum road to South Wales this week -

to look at the generational divide that appears to be emergeng there.

Pettigrew Bakeries in Cardiff caters to all tastes.

Mixing the traditional with the modern, there's so much

But when it comes to the referendum, the choice is down to in or out.

So, for Newsnight's visit, we requested a twist on some

of the bakery's most popular products.

I'm just wondering whether I could offer

Well, well, I feel democracy, really.

I've not voted in bureaucrats in Brussels who I don't even know.

One reason for the generational divide in this referendum may be

that many young voters, like this 26-year-old artisan baker,

see their identity as bound up with Europe.

I've always classed myself as European, so it would be nice

to still go to France and think that we are one

I can't work out which one of them is lying.

I can't work out which one of them's planned for the future.

Whether it's in the Welsh valleys or further afield,

received wisdom in this referendum is that the young are in favour

In the Swansea Valley, we gathered three generations

of the same family, who appeared to some up those divisions.

I'm going to vote to stay in, because I see myself having

a better future in the EU, with the jobs.

I've never had any doubt at all.

I didn't want to go in in the first place.

I know that the Remain campaign had a campaign during this referendum

which was "Persuade your granny onto your side".

I love my youngest granddaughter very much,

I've had no doubt right from the start.

We are being taken over, and we are being told what to do

I see myself having a better future in Europe, like if you look

at things like workers' rights, immigration and free movement

as well, because you look at the way things are now,

it might be that I have to move into Europe to work myself one day,

and it's going to be a pain if I'll have to apply for a visa with every

So I think, for me and my future, it's better to stay in.

And it's my generation that has to deal with the fallout if we go.

I think of you all the time, Charlotte.

Do you know how you're going to vote?

I'm hoping that somebody's going to say something and I'm

It's me that's got to pick up the pieces eventually.

No offence to you guys, but, like.

It's going to be me and my children that have to clean up that

Because we're not part of the EU any more, so we will just be

on the island by ourselves drowning, saying, help us, and the EU's

going to go, no, you're not our problem any more.

Are most of your friends of your age group, do you talk about it?

The ones that are voting are voting to remain.

A lot of young people aren't interested in things

The young could keep the UK in the EU, but only if they

These Cardiff students are keenly political.

Their University Challenge - to get others to follow their lead.

I'm Beth Button, President of NUS Wales, and I'm going to be voting

I am a second year philosophy and politics student,

I'm a third year history student, and I'll be voting to remain.

I'm studying Spanish and Italian, and I'm going to vote Leave.

I'm a fourth year law student at Cardiff University,

and I'll be voting to leave the European Union.

I have a very positive case for staying in the EU.

I think, for young people particularly, there's jobs out

there, there's opportunities for travel, education

We have a lot of power because we are part of the EU.

If were not part of the EU any more, there's no guarantee that we will

The referendum isn't about putting rockets on Dover and propelling us

We are always going to be part of Europe.

And of course, we're going to be stronger in Europe.

It's the European Union that makes decisions and trade deals on our

There is a large democratic deficit at the moment within the EU

and the European institutions, and I think if we left

there would be a lot more opportunity for young people,

if Britain was a more sovereign nation.

I think it's really funny when you use the term,

I'm pretty sure there's a lot of Welsh and angry Scottish people

as well who would say that the UK isn't democratic enough.

This guy said to me, this older man, literally said to me,

you younger generation need to just realise that

you don't have the knowledge and the experience to know what's

You need to let the older people make the decision for you.

And that, for me, really stung, because I thought, actually,

we not only have a right to vote and have a voice in this referendum,

Back in the Swansea Valley, it's too late to change

But would Charlotte and her Remain - supporting husband have more

luck in their local, a traditional mining pub,

where many, but not all, disagree with them?

HE SPEAKS WELSH. Does that mean leave or remain?

I think Cameron, when he did his so-called deal with the EU,

gained nothing whatsoever, and if we vote to remain now,

When we ruled ourselves, we were all using outside toilets.

Now, it's so bloody good, everyone wants to come here.

Could Yarrick and Charlotte persuade the older punters?

As for the people that are coming in, we simply can't afford

But is it not true that the ones that come here to work actually

contribute more into the system

Why do you think it is that your views don't chime

I think it's because I care about different things

They are focusing on immigration, you know, politics, that sort

of thing, our own sovereignty and so on.

I care about our scientific institutions, farming

There aren't enough pints that I could buy them!

Their minds are made up.

So, you know, I think it's just an age thing.

They come from a small, Welsh mining village,

They are not ready to change their minds, which is fine.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion.

Families and the generations disagreeing on the right

This referendum has got them talking.

Ocassionally the serene quiet of a select committee hearing gets

Today - as the BHS family saga unravelled before MPs -

BHS chief executive Darren Topp and his financial lieutenant

Michael Hitchcock called Dominic Chappell- the man

who bought BHS for a pound - a "Premier League liar"

Topp claimed Chappell threatened to kill him when he'd

Mr Chappell denied this - and the claim he owned a gun -

but - pantomime aside - what did we learn today

Here's our Business Editor, Helen Thomas.

In life, BHS's understated styles captured the British

Instead, a tawdry and increasingly lurid slanging match.

At issue: who is to blame for the failure of a story high

street name and the loss of 11,000 jobs.

Lawyers, accountants, advisers, trustees and regulators.

They've all been questioned on what went wrong.

Today was the latest stage of the postmortem.

Dominic Chappell, the man who bought BHS from billionaire retailer

Sir Philip Green for just ?1. It collapsed barely a year later.

MPs were presented with two competing visions of

In one version of reality he was a total liability.

A compulsive liar who didn't understand BHS, and who shouldn't

In the other version, his own, he was a hard-working businessman

whose attempts to turn round BHS were blocked.

Both versions raised questions for Sir Philip Green.

He'll have his turn in Westminster next week.

A trio of BHS managers laid out the case against Mr Chappell.

And if it doesn't smell right invariably it is not right.

Over ?1.5 million Dominic Chappell took out of the company.

If I take out all the expletives he basically said, "Do not

"I've had enough of you telling me what to do over

"It's my business, I can do what I want."

"And if you kick off about it I'm going to come down

So why did a businessman as experienced as Philip Green sell

And why did respected advisers like Grant Thornton and Olswang

One explanation had been that Dominic Chappell had shown he had

But it was suggested today he'd got that money from investors,

not to pump into BHS but instead to higher property off

What we learnt today was that the ?35 million had been earmarked

to acquire another property, not part of the BHS group,

but part of Sir Philip's broader empire, we understand.

And that was the sole purpose of the ?35 million.

So it does put the seller in an intriguing situation

where they were looking for credibility on ?35 million

to bolster the credibility of the buyer of BHS.

But that ?35 million was actually intended to acquire a property

which is not part of the BHS group, but was presumably known

In Dominic Chappell's version, Sir Philip Green should

Do you think he is a successful businessman?

He's been very successful at raising large amounts of money out

of companies by taking huge dividends out of them, yes.

There were shops there that had no heating.

There were shops there that had no air handling.

There were shops there where the staff, bless them,

who loved and adored BHS, came in at weekends to paint,

to replace lights, because no one had given that company any money

And another disagreement over pensions.

Mr Chappell said the stand-off between Sir Philip Green

and the pension regulator hurt his attempts

He has spent the last however many years doing deals and it is a quite

You can't simply go to the pension regulator and say,

I will put ?50 million into this pension scheme,

It just doesn't work like that and it shouldn't work like that.

A defiant Dominic Chappell said today pushed thereby

You should expect Sir Philip Green to vigorously contest much

Indeed BHS's last Chief Executive Darren top told me that he disagreed

with Mr Chappell's assertion that Sir Philip had tipped the business

Mr Topp said that decision was taken unanimously at a BHS board

Mr Topp said business had simply run out of money.

Raising funds against its property had fallen short.

An MP said today that they were getting closer to the truth

One thing seems clear, no one looks set to emerge untainted.

Simon Walker - from the Institute of Directors - joins me now.

Along with Ros Altman the pensions minister. Welcome, both. When you

see this kind of squalid soap opera unfolding, it must make you wince?

It is completely an excusable and absolutely outrageous. What worries

me is that it makes people think that's what petition business is

like. And British business is about hard-working people who have often

mortgaged their houses in order to get companies going. This is as far

from the world of normal businesses in this country as can be. So what

went wrong? Where did the regulations fail here? Everything

failed at every stage. I don't think Sir Philip was the only villain but

as someone said, selling that company to a twice bankrupt racing

driver with no retail experience was the equivalent of giving your keys

to your car to a five-year-old and then saying, you crashed it. It is

completely wrong to have done that. But your report rightly asks, where

were the advisers? One of the most important law firms in the City of

London was standing by them. Rand Thornton, a well-known accountancy

deal was there. Lord Grabban QC is the chairman of Arcadia and seems to

have been extremely relaxed about the sale of BHS. He wasn't even on

the subcommittee, he learned about it five days later. The pension

regulator said she learned about it in the newspaper sometime later.

Everything went wrong. It is a scar on the face of British business, its

damages everyone. If you believe, as I do, that capitalism is worthwhile

and works in the interest of ordinary people, you have a

particular responsibility to say how appalling this is. Dominic Chappell

knew something was going wrong, and he brought the government and you

personally into that meeting by saying he asked to meet you? He did

ask to meet me and I did not think it was appropriate for him to try to

meet the Minister, to go round the back door and bypass the pensions

regulator. Why would it be the back door, if he was worried about the

way the business was being handled, he could see things were not right,

is that not responsible thing to do, contact the pensions minister? Not

at all. The appropriate thing to do is go the pensions regulator and

work out any issues that you have if you've got a problem with your

pension scheme. Don't try and come to the Minister. Do you think the

pensions regulator is the right body to deal with these issues after

everything we have heard over the past few weeks? I do actually, and I

would like to reassure the members of the BHS pension scheme and the

workers who worked so royally, that their pensions are protected by the

pension protection fund. Why did the pensions regulator say that they'd

heard it through a newspaper report when we know that actually Philip

Green had got in touch with them before he'd corrected the head of

the pensions regulator and why, for example, was Philip Green not

allowed to put money into the pension fund to try to increase the

amount that was there? Again I think it is important for business owners

to understand that a pension fund and its liabilities are real

liabilities, and they have lives attached. And there are appropriate

ways to deal with the pension scheme. Because what they should be

doing is going to the pensions regulator and saying, if you have a

big deficit, how am I going to be able to sort this out? How will I be

able to look after my pension, as there are established processes that

the pensions regulator will sit down with any business and say, if you

want to deal with your pension fund and you have a problem, let's sit

round the table and talk about it. It was said that it was not taken

seriously by the pensions regulator when they offered to go in and sort

it out. That is not the case as far as I am aware. And the impression

here has been that the business doesn't understand the

responsibility that they actually have under pensions law for the

pension scheme, and the pension promises they have made to their

members. The business should be going to the pensions regulator. The

pensions regulator will ask for lots of information. If the business does

not supply that information, the regulator cannot do anything. How do

you see Philip Green at the end of all of this? He was appointed a tsar

at the end of 2010. Efficiency tsar. We will have to wait for these

investigations to run. You think he will be in the clear? I cannot

prejudge anything. But I want to reassure people that we have a

pension protection fund. EU law requires us to protect pensions,

whereas previously British law did not. HBOS took eight years and have

not reported fully on what led to the fall of that bank. We cannot

wait until 2025 to work out where the regulators, lawyers, accountants

let us down. So what needs to happen? We need the select committee

to give some findings and come to the truth, otherwise it will damage

the reputation of business as a whole, and we need to know the

answers quickly. The regulators will report back by the end of the year.

An Eritrean man suspected of running a huge human trafficking network

that sent thousands of migrants to Europe has been extradited

from Sudan to Italy - in the first operation of its kind

to bring an African people smuggler to justice for his role

However tonight, suggestions are starting to emerge

that the joint operation - which was based on intercepting

telephone calls - may actually have got the wrong man.

This is meant to be Mered Medhanie as he arrives in Italy to face

An alleged top people smuggler who styled

He was arrested in Khartoum in a joint

operation by British, Italian and Sudanese authorities

Medhanie and his gang are a significant organised

They have been involved with the movement of thousands of

So we would consider this to be a major

disruption of an organised crime group.

But tonight there are growing reports that they picked up the

wrong man and instead of notorious people trafficker, Mered Medhanie,

they have arrested an ordinary Eritreans refugee who happens to

That's according to one prominent Eritrean

rights activist who was actually interviewed the real Mered Medhanie

I don't believe they have the right person.

The person that they have is a 28-year-old refugee

who happens to have the same first name as him.

I have spoken to his sister, spoken to his friends, I

have received over 400 testimonies from people who know the person

Everybody is saying this is my friend, my childhood friend.

He is just a refugee in a camp in Sudan in 2015.

We spoke to two friends of another Medhanie,

Italian authorities, though, who earlier in the day

gave a press conference, still say they have the right

person, and the National Crime Agency here has said it's too early

So what do we know about the man who the police were actually after?

We've been told the real Medhanie was living in Khartoum,

but he had previously reportedly been living in Tripoli,

The smuggling route he allegedly operated goes from Eritrea,

through Ethiopia and Sudan to Libya, where packed boats head off

to the Italian islands of Lampedusa and Sicily.

In one telephone conversation intercepted by authorities,

Medhanie boasts that in the first half of 2014:

Medhanie had teams working in Italy too,

He reportedly charged up to 5000 euros for the whole journey.

One of the smuggling operations British authorities linked

to Medhanie's group ended in disaster three years ago.

Over 300 people drowned off the coast of Lampedusa.

But the search to bring those responsible for the deaths,

And for many others might not be over yet.

We leave you this scene filmed during the flash floods

in Woodcote Road, Wallington in South East London,

following the recent spell of hot weather.

Today's storms have faded away now, a dry start for tomorrow. Early mist

and fog in the West, low cloud in the East burning off more slowly.

Sunny spells widely by the afternoon, warm day