10/02/2017 Newsnight

Tonight, a Newsnight exclusive with the man who could send

Some people say that you are a bit of a fascist.

Geert Wilders leads the polls in The Netherlands -

Could a win for Wilders embolden populists throughout Europe?

We ask our guests if Liberal Democracy is in permanent decline.

After five years and over ?30 million, the government calls

Not a single prosecution of military personnel was secured,

They told us it was all going to be fine...

Do you seriously suppose that they are going to be so insane as to

allow tariffs to be imposed between Britain and Germany?

So are German car manufacturers as relaxed about Brexit as he was?

Populist parties are growing in strength across Europe,

There's Marine le Pen and the National Front

But there's a critical election before that -

Geert Wilders, who leads the anti-Muslim Freedom Party

He wants to take them out of the EU, and to "de-Islamise the Netherlands"

with a ban on immigration from Muslim countries.

In 2016 he was convicted of inciting discrimination.

The Dutch coalition system means it's unlikely Wilders will be

But he could end up leading the largest party which would chill

European centrists and boost other populist movements

We sent our bear in a duffle coat, John Sweeney, in pursuit.

This is the election campaign video of the Far Right

Unsurprisingly, they believe in freedom,

On Brexit, they say the British did it and the Americans did it too.

Here is the party's leader and sole member, Geert Wilders.

Borrowed perhaps from Dad's Army, suggests that by the end

of the century there will be 4 billion Africans and many will

Wilders links refugees, especially Muslim ones,

"Go and vote" he concludes, "and make the Netherlands ours again".

Wilders is a hard man to track down, but if you go down to the Dutch

parliament, you might be in for a big surprise.

The great man is going to come down those stairs, through here,

into the chamber and that is our one chance to have an natter with him.

into the chamber and that is our one chance to have a natter with him.

Are you going to do to Holland what Mr Trump is doing to America?

I am not Mr Trump, I am my own man, in my own party, in my own country.

But indeed, there is what I call a patriotic spring going on.

We saw the beginning of it with Brexit, that even though

the political elite was making sure the people were afraid to vote

in favour of leaving the European Union, the people

We saw in the United States that despite all the rhetoric

of the elite, Mr Trump won the election.

I hope I can repeat the same thing, because once again the people

It's not only America first, it's also Holland first, and that's

Some people say you are a bit of a fascist though?

Some of them, but it is totally untrue.

Wilders' hostility to Islam has led to death threats, so he is guarded

But his message strikes a chord here.

Around one in five Dutch voters are expected to plump

for the Freedom Party on March the 15th.

In The Hague, I hit the pedals to find out why.

The Valentine's Day tat was out, but love was in short supply.

Geert Wilders, you going to vote for him?

Because I am fed up with all this mumbo jumbo talking

They say, look what we have done, what we have done.

There's a lot of people who have another mind to get out.

When I was young, Holland was the most open and tolerant society.

Because we are a small country and there's an explosion

of people, too many children, too many people...

They have to help them, but it's full, we are fall.

They have to help them, but it's full, we are full.

He is looking what the people are angry about and is saying

Because he is saying things like all people have

He is saying something, but he's not going to do it

because the only thing he's doing is talking bad about

the Muslims and then give them the blame for everything.

But most people don't trust other politics,

so they want to trust him to see what he's going to do.

Wilders must have liked my robust approach, because I get a phone call

Geert Wilders, when did you last go for a walk on your own?

Well, that's something like 12, 13 years ago.

All on my own, drive a car, go and do some shopping,

empty my own mailbox at home, being at my own home is more than 12

I am on a death list from Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, many of that

What's the biggest cause by terror of a loss of Dutch lives

Well, we were lucky to not have the kind of attacks

for instance Germany, Belgium, France and even

the United Kingdom with the London attacks had.

They are entirely innocent in a civilian airliner,

shot down and the prime suspects is Putin's Russia?

I am sure it has to be cleared, I would not bet Russia had

nothing to do with that, but still let's wait

I could be right, the Russians say it's the Ukrainians.

Either way, 193 people died, they're Dutch and it has got nothing

So why aren't you concerned about that as well because there

are other dangers in the world out there, North Korea,

Putin's Russia and there is Islamists extremists,

Islamist fascists, so aren't you a bit obsessed with just one

element of the spectrum here, which is the Muslim spectrum,

while ignoring perhaps, Russian fascists?

The more that we import Islam, I'm not talking about all the people,

I'm not saying once again that all the people are extremist

people, but the ideology and freedom are incompatible.

So we are facing an existential problem here.

If we allow to open our borders, if we allowe to ignore the problems

that we are facing today, let alone later in the century

with the demographic situation in Africa,

Our values, our identity will not be taken away

by the European Union, only but by the Islamistation

So Trump has pushed America first, you have the Netherlands first,

America first, Germany first, Russia first, don't

I think that is a fear some politicians put into our heads,

but they forget telling us that we made a kind of other

totalitarian organisation dominance, which is called the European Union.

You speak your mind in China and in Russia,

you may end up dead, not in Brussels...

I am not saying it is totalitarian to all the citizens

of the European Union, but is totalitarian

You believe in the politics of identity, don't you?

I suppose the people who believe in liberal democracy,

the idea that everybody is equal under the law, it is a different way

People are equal, ideologies, values are not equal.

What I told you before, the cultural relativist,

people who believe all cultures are equal are the proof

of the biggest disease Europe faced in the last decade.

Cultural relativists who say the Islamic culture

is the same as Christianity, and allow them and don't demand from

This is the worst thing that has happened to us.

Many Dutch find his views not just repellents, but dangerous.

So will Geert Wilders take power on March the 15th?

Probably not, as the mainstream parties will do their

But there's no doubting this man is changing what was once the most

liberal country in Europe into something quite different.

So is the talk of populist revolution in Europe overblown?

Or are we mad to ignore the warning signals?

At the moment Geert Wilders is leading the opinion polls

in the Netherlands with 19% of the vote, three points ahead

And in France, Le Pen is also expected to be ahead in the first

round of the Presidential election, on 26%.

So do these parties really have a chance of winning power?

And critically, what is their presence doing

Joining me now, Times Columnist David Aronovitch, Sara Hobolt,

professor of European politics at LSE and Yascha Mount,

Very nice to have you here. I want to put this in context, we have

played around with some of the numbers from the polls, but how

close to power do you believe Geert Wilders is right now? It depends on

what you mean by power? He is close to being the largest party in the

Netherlands, but that does not mean he will win a majority, but it does

mean he will be a power to be reckoned with when it comes to

coalition formation. He cannot be Prime Minister, as it were, on his

own? No party in the Netherlands will win a majority, there will have

to be a coalition. It might be he is the first person to be asked form

back coalition. The other parties have said we do not want to go into

government with you. It doesn't roll out there could be another

centre-right minority government where he is the main supporting

party. We have seen that before between 2010 and 2012 in the

Netherlands where his party was providing the Parliamentary support

and gaining concessions like that. David, you said nothing to worry

about? My concern is a different one. And that is we have managed to

paint what has happened and what is happening in Europe, Britain and to

some extent in America as well, as the revolt of the majority. We talk

about it as if what you have is akin to a revolutionary situation with

the masses coming down the street... Because we call it populism. But

when you look at the continuing demographics of the people who are

supporting these parties, they tend to be declining demographics. They

are older, they tend to have jobs in industries that are declining and so

on. That is the first point. That doesn't mean you should not worry

about it, but you should worry about it for the reasons I suspect my

colleagues will say you should worry about it, and that is the influence

they can have on other parties. I cannot rule out the possibility that

Marine Le Pen will win, but they are pretty much blocked out at about

25%. In some places we get very uptight about that, like in Germany.

We are talking about a party that never gets above 12% in the polls.

That will give them representation, but it will give them any more

representation than the left party had in the last election, and we

never even noticed it. They might be influencing of the mainstream

parties, but be in themselves are not a threat, do you buy that? We

see that reflected in European politics. I worry about them being

able to win majorities. Everybody said Brexit would that happen, but

it did. Everybody said Donald Trump could not be elected, but he did. In

countries like Sweden and Germany, five or ten years ago we had no

populist parties strong in the system. Now the third biggest party

in the polls. You see they do represent the majority of the

population on many questions. For example, most Europeans in every

country that was polled a couple of days ago, believed we should have no

further immigration from the Muslim majority countries whatsoever. Are

we crazy to miss those signals? I understand what he's saying, but

there is a danger in saying we got it badly wrong over Brexit, we were

bruised over Brexit, bruised over Donald Trump. In order not to get

bruised again, we will talk up these other parties. One of the problems I

have is, we had a good interview with Geert Wilders. Yesterday the

today programme we had an interview with Marine Le Pen. I bet some of

the British population cannot name any other politician in France apart

from Francois Hollande and especially in Holland. The Prime

Minister's party might lead Geert Wilders in the party. This party of

Geert Wilders was at this place in the polls in 2013. Do you think the

polls do relate to the coverage these politicians are getting?

I do not believe that Brexit is protected by Eddie one, this was a

close race. Everybody knew that it was close, it is not to say that

nobody knew this was in the balance but in terms of getting coverage,

what we are seeing after the financial crisis is there has always

been populist parties on the right but there has been a step change in

just how popular they are and we're not talking about pluralities but no

party will win an outright majority and been influential, in terms of

setting the agenda and the agenda has shifted in European politics

towards anti-immigration and Euro scepticism but also inside. Our

liberal democracies in Europe actually in permanent decline? There

was a time when that question seemed unthinkable and it not seem long

ago. Do you think so? For a long time people believed that once

relatively wealthy, you have had changes of government, democracy is

safe, the only game in town. I looked at this question. What does

it mean for democracy to be the only game in town? It means most citizens

give great importance to living in democracy, and they don't foot for

people who criticise democracy in a deep way. What that survey shows

that that is not true, in Western Europe and North America. The number

of people who say, democracy, take it or leave it, has gone up very

rapidly... And these are young people. How does that tight end but

the idea that people are in decline who vote for these radical parties?

And from what to watch? One of the key sets of social attitudes in this

country is measurable by, would you mind if your child married somebody

of another race? For years and years you would see a majority in this

country would say no to that. And a majority now say they are not

bothered and it is not because old people change their minds, it is

because younger people never lost that attitude. Does this go back to

the question asked Wilders, that nationalism has become so much in

the body because for years people lived with the idea of a sovereign

nation state and we then start talking in these bodies? That,

again, is a generational question. In a lot of countries. And by and

large again, younger people do tend to see themselves as more

interdependent. Hardly surprising. I think that younger people are much

more polarised so more young people are very used to multiethnic

democracies and interacting with people from different origins but

also young people who fervently reject that so if you look at France

from Marine Le Pen's party and the support for Deutschland, among young

people they are strong and this is a matter of a long-term transition but

many European democracies where divided as monocultural countries

and they have had become multiethnic because of immigration and so on. A

big proportion of the population has made their peace with that and

celebrates that but there is also a big proportion of the population

that says no, what it means to be Dutch as you are descended from

Dutch people and everything else does not quite so the big question

the next 30 years is whether we can get people to broaden their sense of

identity and there is no historical precedent that this can be done.

Does it feel like this is still a protest voice or is there something

able to transform the landscape of Europe? It is clear that the party

system in Europe is under some kind of transformation and that has been

going on for some time because we have seen this loosening of ties

between established left-wing parties and right-wing parties that

had support and we have a much more volatile electoral landscape where

people pick and choose and it is also there for about parties like

those of Wilders can shape the discourse and narrative and appeal

to a broader range of people because they do not have his close ties any

more to the Labour movement or a Christian Democratic movement. Thank

you all for coming in. "If Britain leaves

the European Union then will make Angela Merkel give us

a good deal". That claim was made time

and time again during last The Leave campaign was very

confident that Europe's most powerful political leader

would listen to her most important So are the likes of BMW and Porsche

pushing the German Chancellor Naga Munchetty has been

to Leipzig to find out. The Germans wouldn't want to put up

trade barriers because that would mean that German car workers

would be out of a job. Do you seriously suppose

that they are going to be so insane as to allow tariffs to be imposed

between Britain and Germany? Germany needs us, we

are their biggest market. But now, here in Germany,

the feeling is very different. The automotive sector is concerned

about Theresa May's approach in Brexit negotiations

and their financial impact. Priority number one is keep

the internal market Most of the cars we export,

we export to the European Union, the 27 countries, to Italy

and France, to many parts And the second priority

is our exports to Britain. A hard Brexit but definitely not be

a good solution for both sides. Why is this relationship

so important? The German auto industry has

a lot invested in the UK. It runs 100 production sites,

employing around 9000 people. More than half of all

new cars we sell are built We bought 30 billion euros' worth

of their vehicles last year. That is nearly a fifth

of Germany's automobile exports. There are concerns that the length

of time Theresa May needs to negotiate us out of the EU has

been underestimated Two years for the complex

negotiations of more than 100 parts You could do it in two years

if you take, for example, Stay in the internal market,

stay in the Customs Union, Which the Prime Minister

has rejected. Therefore, as long as these existing

models are rejected, And when it comes to what is most

in Germany's interests, this long-time ally of Angela Merkel

sings from the same hymn sheet Everyone who has a production site

at the very moment in Britain is concerned about the developments

which say that you If the doors to Europe would be

in one or another way partly closed, then production

in Britain would suffer. But while this remains

Theresa May's stance, uncertainty is still

the buzzword among business. Something the auto industry

is getting used to. All of Porsche's car plants,

like this one in Leipzig, However, the UK is its biggest

export market in Europe. So companies like this cannot afford

to ignore Brexit and are mindful Because time creates uncertainty

and uncertainty can affect business. If time is too long until

the negotiations are completed, It is something that many industry

bosses are preoccupied with. It will be a little bit more

difficult seeing exactly what changes will affect the market,

what changes will affect the exchange of persons,

the exchange of goods. But the relationship itself

will be as good as before. However, we have been told

that the bond can be broken. There are alternative manufacturing

hubs vying for a service Eastern Europe is proving

competitive, in places like Hungary, It is not given that

any of our countries, Germany not, Britain not,

will produce in five or ten years as many cars

at home as it does today. And the political precondition,

the trade precondition, is so important and one should

always reflect that if one What consequence does my

decision have on production Theresa May says the UK

economy is a priority. But a UK outside the EU single

market and Customs Union could, it seems, face the very real

prospect of moving down the pecking order when it comes to Germany's

favoured trading partners. Six years ago the Ministry

of Defence set up the Iraq Historic Allegations Team to investigate

allegations of human rights abuse It had a staff of 145 and looked

at well over 3,000 cases. A week ago the lawyer

who represented many of the claimants, Phil

Shiner, was struck off for misconduct and today

the Defence Select Committee published a damning report saying

the inquiry had become "a seemingly unstoppable self-perpetuating

machine, deaf to the concerns of the armed forces,

blind to their needs and profligate Within a couple of hours the MoD

confirmed they were all Colonel Bob Stewart

is a Conservative MP and member Thank you for joining us. You ever

in favour of this investigation? Back from the start, we heard people

like myself, the heard serious complaints about the way they were

being harassed by the Iraq Historic Allegations Team. They sent lawyers

on the ground, they were hassled at home and MPs like myself and now

Johnny Mercer, who did a superb job on the subcommittee, has taken this

up and we have a result. Has this ever been attempted? I think the MoD

made a mistake in the way it was set up. And the Ministry of Defence have

put this right, except, can I say, for those poor devils who harassed

for many years and months. How can we compensate for the anguish they

went through? What should happen? A huge apology to them. And possibly

we should consider some form of compensation. The trouble with this

is there will be many who say that if there are allegations, these

questions, they must be investigated independently? Absolutely. Whenever

we get involved in a firefight with normal fatalities, either in

Northern Ireland or Iraq or Afghanistan, there is an

investigation and if there is something wrong, if there was

investigating, normally military, if they feel there is something wrong,

they are no friends to soldiers who they think have done wrong. Don't

you find that Lord? The military is still investigating itself? The

police have an independent body to investigate allegations. Why is

everything in-house with the military? These people are separated

and there is something else... The people who investigate understand

the circumstances better than civilian policemen, perhaps. His

military investigators and I repeat, if there is something wrong, they

will reveal it. When you have these cases and we know there is a law

firm who still have 80 Afghan citizens who allege abuse and

illegal detainment, what should happen? The Ihat has been closed

down and investigations have been given to the Royal Navy military

personnel to police and check the site. I am not saying that all

soldiers are innocent and we must investigate, I am saying there has

been a lot of harassment of innocent soldiers and that has got to stop.

It has been hugely stuck by the fact that Mr Shiner's company has been

closed. In Northern Ireland with something similar going on. They

have become mixed, judicial as well. Are they right to carry on? This is

clearly what dates to happen in Northern Ireland. What is happening

in Northern Ireland is 10% of the fatality killings involved the

security services. 90% of the investigation is put onto those 10%

and 90% of the killings involved terrorists and only 10% of the

effort is being put into the investigation. That is wrong.

Absolutely wrong. A lot of MPs, including myself, are up in arms. It

will not follow the Way of this one? I hope so because at the moment, the

armed Forces are pretty annoyed, it has to follow. If necessary, we will

have to bring politics into this. We have brought politics into Northern

Ireland before and politics, by that, we have allowed on the run

terrorists to have a passport out of their crimes. And I think, please do

not believe that the Armed Forces need some sort of Amnesty, they have

done nothing wrong. They want to make sure that people who have been

involved in fatalities shootings in Northern Ireland, and I have had

some of my men in that situation, those people who have had an

investigation sometimes they have gone into court and it happened with

two of my men in 78, they have proven they are innocent. Don't

bring this back again. Thank you. Before we go, in these extraordinary

times it somehow seems appropriate and portentous that last night more

than 400 pilot whales washed up on a New Zealand beach

called Farewell Spit. It's the largest mass beaching

in New Zealand for over 30 years. Many of the whales died but hundreds

of volunteers are there attempting Some of them have now successfully

been returned to the water. Just off to bed wondering what is in

store for the weekend? You could be waking up this seems like this

potentially in the morning if you live to the east of