Browse content similar to 01/03/2017. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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It absolutely clear that people from other European countries who are | :00:00. | :00:10. | |
living here have their rights protected. | :00:11. | :00:13. | |
And today the House of Lords upheld that same idea. | :00:14. | :00:16. | |
It's not the vote the Government wanted. | :00:17. | :00:25. | |
It takes away negotiating flexibility, | :00:26. | :00:27. | |
We'll examine the case for and against making promises | :00:28. | :00:32. | |
Also tonight, how can we leave the EU customs union without having | :00:33. | :00:43. | |
Programmes like this took a long time to get over | :00:44. | :00:53. | |
being satirised by Armando Ianucci like this in 1994. | :00:54. | :00:55. | |
So how might he go about doing the same | :00:56. | :00:58. | |
Also tonight, how can we leave the EU customs union without having | :00:59. | :01:07. | |
a hard border between the Republic of Ireland | :01:08. | :01:09. | |
If you set up border checks, you are setting people up in static | :01:10. | :01:22. | |
positions which makes it incredibly easy to shoot at them and as soon as | :01:23. | :01:25. | |
they come out of those checks they will be easy to shoot out. -- shoot | :01:26. | :01:31. | |
at. The Lords have thrown the first | :01:32. | :01:35. | |
spanner into the Brexit works so carefully constructed | :01:36. | :01:38. | |
by the Prime Minister, voting to amend the Brexit bill | :01:39. | :01:40. | |
to tie the Government's hands by giving EU citizens here | :01:41. | :01:43. | |
a guarantee of a right to remain. Now the plain truth is, | :01:44. | :01:45. | |
there is little controversy over the substance: the Government wants | :01:46. | :01:48. | |
the EU residents here just as the Lords do and the Leave | :01:49. | :01:50. | |
campaigners in the referendum did. The issue is about whether you | :01:51. | :01:53. | |
negotiate their guarantee of residence in return | :01:54. | :01:55. | |
for assurances over the rights Or should we make the | :01:56. | :01:58. | |
guarantee unilaterally? It was hard fought | :01:59. | :02:05. | |
in the Lords today. If we are to be concerned about | :02:06. | :02:17. | |
anybody's rights after Brexit, to live anywhere on this continent of | :02:18. | :02:21. | |
Europe, it should be our concern for the rights of British people to live | :02:22. | :02:27. | |
freely and peacefully in those other parts of Europe. Somehow or the | :02:28. | :02:34. | |
other, today we seem to be thinking of nothing but the rights of | :02:35. | :02:43. | |
foreigners. My lords. All our debate has been based on the premise that | :02:44. | :02:48. | |
somehow we will get what we want in the end because there will be | :02:49. | :02:52. | |
reciprocity. But supposing there is sent. Will we really at that point | :02:53. | :02:58. | |
turnaround to EU nationals in this country and say on your way. Will we | :02:59. | :03:03. | |
say take your children out of the schools? Will we say to the elderly, | :03:04. | :03:06. | |
please go away from our care homes? My lords, this idea of it as a | :03:07. | :03:13. | |
negotiating point, which I agree it is being used as, is totally | :03:14. | :03:18. | |
unrealistic and totally unacceptable. | :03:19. | :03:21. | |
Well, the signs are the government will try to overturn | :03:22. | :03:23. | |
But for Europeans here, it's a bit fraught. | :03:24. | :03:26. | |
Most have been here over five years and are already entitled to get | :03:27. | :03:29. | |
permanent residency - but they have to fill out a huge | :03:30. | :03:32. | |
form, go through various hoops, some potentially impossible, | :03:33. | :03:34. | |
and even then there is a good chance of rejection. | :03:35. | :03:36. | |
So some kind of automatic recognition of a right to remain | :03:37. | :03:39. | |
is key, and especially so for those here for less than five years. | :03:40. | :03:43. | |
John Sweeney has been meeting some of those affected. | :03:44. | :03:51. | |
The question is that the motion be agreed to? As many of that opinion | :03:52. | :03:59. | |
will say content. To the country, not content. Clear the bar. Not the | :04:00. | :04:05. | |
dog and duck, but the House of Lords tonight fired the first shot against | :04:06. | :04:07. | |
the government's plans to deliver Brexit. Until the day before | :04:08. | :04:14. | |
yesterday, well, the end of 2015, members of European Union states had | :04:15. | :04:18. | |
a right to live in Britain. Enter the Home Office. The people who work | :04:19. | :04:22. | |
in this building behind me came up with this. It is a native 5-page | :04:23. | :04:28. | |
form you have to fill in and people who have done that say the whole | :04:29. | :04:33. | |
process is a nightmare -- and 85-page form. Brexit is beginning to | :04:34. | :04:38. | |
bite in parts of Britain you would least expect. Welcome to Surrey's | :04:39. | :04:45. | |
stockbroker belt. Cave, originally from France, has applied for for | :04:46. | :04:49. | |
permanent residency repeatedly. Yesterday she got her third | :04:50. | :04:54. | |
rejection letter -- Aurelia cave. I was told I could send a certified | :04:55. | :04:59. | |
copy of this passport knowing they had the original previously. This | :05:00. | :05:02. | |
application was rejected on the basis that they needed the original | :05:03. | :05:08. | |
of the passport. But they had a certified copy? Indeed. Are they | :05:09. | :05:14. | |
making life deliberately difficult for you? I feel like it really, yes. | :05:15. | :05:20. | |
I don't understand the rejection. My kids are British, my husband is | :05:21. | :05:25. | |
British. I never asked anything from them, I just want this card for | :05:26. | :05:29. | |
reassurance and I felt like I was dealt with really unfairly. Aurelia | :05:30. | :05:33. | |
is on the neighbourhood watch committee. Twenty20 coppers came | :05:34. | :05:39. | |
round to talk about a burglary, her youngest son thought the worst. He | :05:40. | :05:45. | |
said, you are not taking my mum, you're not taking my mum. When the | :05:46. | :05:50. | |
police arrived? Yes, because he thought they were coming to get me. | :05:51. | :05:58. | |
Sabine von Toerne is a midwife originally from Germany who has | :05:59. | :06:03. | |
lived in Britain for 13 years. Her eight-year-old boy was born here. | :06:04. | :06:06. | |
She has not been rejected, she cannot even apply. You were training | :06:07. | :06:13. | |
at the NHS and you now work for the NHS? Correct, yes. But that doesn't | :06:14. | :06:22. | |
count? Well, because I have only started work two years ago, in | :06:23. | :06:27. | |
February 2015, and before I was a student, did not have specific | :06:28. | :06:32. | |
insurance, I now haven't got the years together, sufficient years to | :06:33. | :06:37. | |
get by permanent residency document. Did you ever imagine when you first | :06:38. | :06:40. | |
Kenya all these years ago that it would end up like this? No, I would | :06:41. | :06:47. | |
never have imagined this. I basically thought after 1989 that we | :06:48. | :06:52. | |
were free to go wherever we liked. I would never have imagined that I | :06:53. | :06:58. | |
could end up being a second-class citizen and that my rights could be | :06:59. | :07:02. | |
questioned in any way. It makes me sad, disappointed, angry and a bit | :07:03. | :07:09. | |
helpless, although I am trying to do something about it. Are you | :07:10. | :07:13. | |
sleeping? Not always that well. It depends. If I had a very hard day at | :07:14. | :07:20. | |
work I might fall into my bed and sleep, but there are definitely | :07:21. | :07:25. | |
nights where I am kept awake because I am thinking about my future. NHS | :07:26. | :07:31. | |
nurse Joan Pons Laplana has lived and worked in Britain since 2000. Do | :07:32. | :07:36. | |
you consider yourself British or Spanish? My passport says I am | :07:37. | :07:42. | |
Spanish, my heart says I am British. For the last eight months I feel my | :07:43. | :07:47. | |
life has been put on hold. It is a situation where the government don't | :07:48. | :07:51. | |
want to guarantee a right to stay, I feel they took my voice away because | :07:52. | :07:55. | |
I was not able to vote at the referendum. They decided my future | :07:56. | :08:00. | |
without me. For that reason, I feel a bit angry towards the government. | :08:01. | :08:02. | |
John Sweeney there. Nicolas Hatton is the co-founder | :08:03. | :08:05. | |
of the pressure group The 3 Million which campaigns for the rights of EU | :08:06. | :08:08. | |
citizens who live in the UK. And Peter Bone is the Conservative | :08:09. | :08:11. | |
MP who co-founded the pro-Brexit Good evening to you both. Nicolas, | :08:12. | :08:23. | |
you have been here for a couple of decades. 21 years. Are you seriously | :08:24. | :08:31. | |
fearful that you will be deported? No, I'm not fearful. I am not in the | :08:32. | :08:36. | |
risk population I think, but some people are. I think that what we | :08:37. | :08:41. | |
have seen today is a message of hope for Parliament, because finally we | :08:42. | :08:46. | |
have got a majority in parliament, in the Lords to say we can't vote | :08:47. | :08:52. | |
you the rights to stay but we are worried because we never had this | :08:53. | :08:55. | |
before. We never had a message from the top saying yes, you could stay. | :08:56. | :08:59. | |
It could well be overturned and then we will be back to where we were and | :09:00. | :09:05. | |
we will be invoking Article 50 in a couple of weeks and we will not have | :09:06. | :09:10. | |
a guarantee. Exactly. For some people it is quite tragic. They feel | :09:11. | :09:14. | |
they are being rejected by the Home Office when they apply for their | :09:15. | :09:18. | |
card or permanent residents and now they feel what will happen to me if | :09:19. | :09:22. | |
there is no guarantee? Peter Bone, I just want to imagine after two years | :09:23. | :09:29. | |
of negotiations it fails and we crash out, this is a possibility the | :09:30. | :09:33. | |
Prime Minister has talked about and the Chancellor has talked about, and | :09:34. | :09:37. | |
no agreement is reached and one country says we will kick the | :09:38. | :09:40. | |
British back home now, what are we going to do? The truth of the matter | :09:41. | :09:46. | |
is, and we all know, and this is a little bit of a Sherard is that EU | :09:47. | :09:50. | |
citizens here, certainly before the 23rd of June will be allowed to stay | :09:51. | :09:54. | |
and you have already pointed out somewhat that if people have been | :09:55. | :09:59. | |
here for five years they have residency. I saw those hard cases | :10:00. | :10:03. | |
but you know, if they pop down to the local MP he would sort it out | :10:04. | :10:09. | |
for them. It is a 3 million. I suppose the question is, if we all | :10:10. | :10:14. | |
know, and when the Spanish sake, OK Brits, you go home, we will have an | :10:15. | :10:18. | |
argument about Gibraltar and send you home, we will not say a million | :10:19. | :10:26. | |
Polish people have to go back to Poland, why do not guarantee that if | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
you were here before June 23 or much the 15th or whatever, you are | :10:32. | :10:36. | |
allowed to stay? That is a perfectly arguable point. I remember having an | :10:37. | :10:41. | |
arc and with Will Straw who said we will send everybody he. -- I | :10:42. | :10:48. | |
remember having an argument. It is outrageous you said there is no | :10:49. | :10:51. | |
guarantee that people will be sent home. There is no suggestion, is | :10:52. | :10:58. | |
there? But why did the government... You know why. No, I don't. This bill | :10:59. | :11:05. | |
is about invoking Article 50 and the will of the British people to tell | :11:06. | :11:07. | |
Brussels we are leaving, nothing else. Give me the other reason. On | :11:08. | :11:17. | |
the general principle of the thing, there are a million British people | :11:18. | :11:22. | |
in the EU and we are looking after their interests. Lord Tebbit put it | :11:23. | :11:26. | |
rather bluntly. How are we looking after the interests of British | :11:27. | :11:32. | |
people in Spain? To make sure the argument goes we will agree this | :11:33. | :11:38. | |
very rapidly. If the Spanish used our people as a bargaining chip you | :11:39. | :11:43. | |
are saying that we will take Nicolas and others and threatened to send | :11:44. | :11:46. | |
them home that you have just told me we will not do that so we don't have | :11:47. | :11:53. | |
a bargaining chip so why did we just say it? You can make that argument. | :11:54. | :11:57. | |
Theresa May is a very sensible person. She likes to adopt all the | :11:58. | :12:03. | |
eyes and crossed the Tees. Nicolas, you heard Peter Bone say and he is | :12:04. | :12:10. | |
probably right that they will not send people home because we need | :12:11. | :12:14. | |
them to run the health service, does that give you any reassurance? I | :12:15. | :12:21. | |
think Peter might not understand the environment for, the hostile | :12:22. | :12:25. | |
environment at the Home Office for any migrants and foreigners, | :12:26. | :12:29. | |
including EU citizens now. We see this 85 page form. I would fill out | :12:30. | :12:35. | |
the form, no problem. But there is a 28% refusal rate on that form, a | :12:36. | :12:40. | |
rejection rate. We should all be able to stay. It doesn't matter | :12:41. | :12:45. | |
whether we have a certified copy of our passports. The truth of the | :12:46. | :12:49. | |
matter is if someone came to senior researcher in the form is dull that | :12:50. | :12:53. | |
wrongly, I helped them to get it correct. That is about filling out a | :12:54. | :12:59. | |
form -- if the form is filled out wrongly. There are people who were | :13:00. | :13:05. | |
turned down because they did not have a continuous health insurance | :13:06. | :13:10. | |
policy. They may not have been here, the they may have been away for two | :13:11. | :13:14. | |
years. All I am saying that the 3 million figure is wrong but | :13:15. | :13:18. | |
actually, the truth of the matter is, all three of us around this | :13:19. | :13:22. | |
table know that in some time in the next few months there will be an | :13:23. | :13:26. | |
agreement. It is not us who are not agreeing, it is people in the | :13:27. | :13:29. | |
European Union. It is the German Chancellor who does not want to | :13:30. | :13:32. | |
agree with it. If everyone agreed we could settle it tomorrow. Beat you | :13:33. | :13:37. | |
have already said we are going to keep them anyway, Peter, so I come | :13:38. | :13:40. | |
back to this troublesome point I do not understand how that if Spain | :13:41. | :13:46. | |
uses our citizens there is a pawn in their fight with us over Gibraltar | :13:47. | :13:50. | |
and send them back here, are we going to say to Poland you have to | :13:51. | :13:57. | |
take a million Polish people back? Of course not. Would then the art | :13:58. | :14:00. | |
would not be with Spain? It would be. A lot of immigration is a | :14:01. | :14:08. | |
national matter anyway. If we want to talk about Gibraltar, Spain | :14:09. | :14:11. | |
better keep its hands off Gibraltar. My view is Gibraltar should have the | :14:12. | :14:17. | |
protection of the united kingdom but that is another discussion. Do you | :14:18. | :14:21. | |
understand the anxiety and stress that people are feeling because they | :14:22. | :14:26. | |
do not have the certainty. I feel my future will stop in two years' time. | :14:27. | :14:33. | |
I am here to reassure me. My next-door neighbours are Polish. -- | :14:34. | :14:37. | |
I am here to reassure you. The vast majority of people know they are | :14:38. | :14:41. | |
safe. It is only people who are talking up the problem who are | :14:42. | :14:43. | |
creating the anxiety thank you. It is election day in | :14:44. | :14:48. | |
Northern Ireland tomorrow. Such treats are meant to come along | :14:49. | :14:50. | |
only every five years, but the two main parties | :14:51. | :14:52. | |
in the governing coalition And so only ten months | :14:53. | :14:54. | |
after the last election, Sinn Fein pulled the plug | :14:55. | :14:58. | |
on the Executive after a row about the escalating costs | :14:59. | :15:01. | |
of a renewable heating scheme. But Brexit, and deeper differences | :15:02. | :15:03. | |
over the legacy of the Troubles also divided Sinn Fein | :15:04. | :15:06. | |
from the Democratic Unionists. The expectation now is that those | :15:07. | :15:08. | |
two old governing parties will be back as the potential | :15:09. | :15:11. | |
new governing parties post-election. Now in case you'd thought | :15:12. | :15:14. | |
you could peel your eyes away from politics in Northern Ireland | :15:15. | :15:18. | |
as having become prosaic, Our political editor | :15:19. | :15:21. | |
Nick Watt reports. Over the past quarter of a century | :15:22. | :15:39. | |
Northern Ireland peace process has ebbed and flowed. Now after a decade | :15:40. | :15:43. | |
of unbroken power-sharing, the political settlement is facing a | :15:44. | :15:50. | |
grave challenge. Northern Ireland has been transformed beyond | :15:51. | :15:52. | |
recognition since I first reported from here in the days when armed | :15:53. | :15:57. | |
squaddies still patrolled the streets. Now Belfast is a thriving | :15:58. | :16:01. | |
city with gleaming new buildings. But almost 20 years on from the Good | :16:02. | :16:07. | |
Friday agreement, ancient divisions are haunting the selection. Very old | :16:08. | :16:11. | |
memories of the border have been thrown up by the very new challenge | :16:12. | :16:17. | |
of Brexit. Northern Ireland's largest party the DUP supported | :16:18. | :16:22. | |
Brexit. But nationalists voted overwhelmingly in favour of remain | :16:23. | :16:26. | |
amid fears that Brexit could lead to an EU border cutting across the | :16:27. | :16:32. | |
island of Ireland. The former American senator who chaired the | :16:33. | :16:36. | |
Good Friday agreement has told Newsnight he hopes the UK Government | :16:37. | :16:42. | |
will ensure there no return to the hard border of the past. I can look | :16:43. | :16:50. | |
my first days there when it was very difficult to move back and forth | :16:51. | :16:54. | |
across the border. It was heavily militarised and there has been a | :16:55. | :16:58. | |
huge difference now with people moving freely back and forth, | :16:59. | :17:05. | |
reducing stereotypes, reducing the possibility of demonising those who | :17:06. | :17:10. | |
are other in any way. One of the architects of the peace process | :17:11. | :17:12. | |
believes the UK decision to sever most of its links with the EU | :17:13. | :17:18. | |
customs union means a hard border will be unavoidable. The possible | :17:19. | :17:22. | |
return of customs officials at new Borders boasts an seen in decades | :17:23. | :17:26. | |
could be used by dissident republicans to justify their | :17:27. | :17:30. | |
campaign of violence. Of course there is no doubt about it, I don't | :17:31. | :17:35. | |
think it will set of those people who, small as they are and almost | :17:36. | :17:41. | |
dangerous because anyone who plays the game of armed struggle or | :17:42. | :17:48. | |
violence is always a danger. They would see checks on the border and | :17:49. | :17:55. | |
customs offices on the border and the identification of the border as | :17:56. | :17:59. | |
in some way justifying the kind of things they always have in their | :18:00. | :18:04. | |
mind. Tony Blair's former chief of staff issued a more stark warning. I | :18:05. | :18:09. | |
think it would be dangerous if you have a hard border, if you put in | :18:10. | :18:13. | |
blocks along the border people will try to destroy those that will | :18:14. | :18:17. | |
create problems. If you set up border checks, even if they are ten | :18:18. | :18:21. | |
miles one side or other of the border you are setting people in | :18:22. | :18:30. | |
static positions which are easy to shoot out and as soon as they come | :18:31. | :18:33. | |
out the other easy to shoot at. The distance are tiny, they are not | :18:34. | :18:35. | |
compatible to the old IRA but it takes few people to start murdering | :18:36. | :18:39. | |
offices in those circumstances and once they start it's hard to know | :18:40. | :18:44. | |
how to react, you get into the cycle of radicalisation, repression, all | :18:45. | :18:48. | |
over again and that's not what we want. An adviser to the former First | :18:49. | :18:53. | |
Minister David Trimble believes today's so-called soft border may | :18:54. | :19:00. | |
eventually be preserved. It may be a soft border, two or three years from | :19:01. | :19:03. | |
now is when you would want an election when some of these issues | :19:04. | :19:07. | |
might have been amicably sorted out. This is a dreadful moment to have | :19:08. | :19:13. | |
one. Concerns over Brexit will complicate attempts to re-establish | :19:14. | :19:17. | |
the power-sharing executive. If the two largest parties in each | :19:18. | :19:21. | |
community, likely to be the DUP and Sinn Fein once again, failed to | :19:22. | :19:26. | |
reach agreement then the UK Government may be obliged to | :19:27. | :19:30. | |
reimpose direct rule. I think there is every danger we could go back to | :19:31. | :19:34. | |
direct rule and I hope that focuses minds in Northern Ireland, Dublin | :19:35. | :19:38. | |
and London. I think it's a mistake for the British government to stand | :19:39. | :19:42. | |
back quite so far on this issue. That was the problem in the 60s, the | :19:43. | :19:47. | |
British government tried to ignore it, the Home Office was responsible, | :19:48. | :19:51. | |
letters were returned, but this is something to do with us and we have | :19:52. | :19:57. | |
to play a role. The collapse of the power-sharing executive has | :19:58. | :20:00. | |
exasperated Jonathan Powell, a veteran of the Good Friday | :20:01. | :20:07. | |
agreement. I think it's interesting people as different as Martin | :20:08. | :20:10. | |
McGuinness and Ian Paisley were able to make this system worked. Two | :20:11. | :20:14. | |
sworn enemies who played crucial roles in bringing about the troubles | :20:15. | :20:19. | |
yet they were able to make the power-sharing executive work. The | :20:20. | :20:23. | |
real question is can a new generation, who are not themselves | :20:24. | :20:25. | |
involved in the troubles, even if their families had been, can they | :20:26. | :20:32. | |
make a new system work? Northern Ireland's divided communities are | :20:33. | :20:34. | |
heeding familiar songs which has something of a retro feel. Bertie | :20:35. | :20:40. | |
Ahern says people waiting for normal bread-and-butter politics should be | :20:41. | :20:45. | |
patient. I remember when I was a young politician may be in the late | :20:46. | :20:49. | |
70s, an old politician from one of the southern counties said to me | :20:50. | :20:55. | |
that he detected in the 1977 election that the Civil War politics | :20:56. | :21:02. | |
was coming to an end. So, that was the south, I don't expect the north | :21:03. | :21:07. | |
to move. Maybe not a slow but not as quickly either. After three decades | :21:08. | :21:12. | |
of violence the Good Friday agreement was designed to end the | :21:13. | :21:16. | |
conflict by giving all the main parties a seat in government, in a | :21:17. | :21:22. | |
system which defies the usual rules of democratic politics. The | :21:23. | :21:25. | |
agreement was structured in a way to meet the needs at that time. That | :21:26. | :21:31. | |
require power-sharing. It acquired institutions that are unique to the | :21:32. | :21:36. | |
circumstances. When and how those institutions should be altered or | :21:37. | :21:42. | |
modified or changed is up to the people and the political leaders of | :21:43. | :21:46. | |
Northern Ireland. They are the best judges of that. They will make that | :21:47. | :21:49. | |
determination because they are the ones affected by it. I did not | :21:50. | :21:58. | |
expect when I along with my colleagues drafted document that | :21:59. | :22:01. | |
became the Good Friday agreement, we did not expect that that would be | :22:02. | :22:09. | |
written in stone. Northern Ireland's parties have tried to form a more | :22:10. | :22:15. | |
democratic system to sit in cross community opposition. This is a | :22:16. | :22:19. | |
tricky sell at election time. I think the developments with parties | :22:20. | :22:25. | |
are quite interesting, the idea that they would have if not a formal vote | :22:26. | :22:30. | |
sharing agreement across the sectarian divide, is a progressive | :22:31. | :22:36. | |
development. Now they are, some people describe Northern Ireland as | :22:37. | :22:40. | |
almost like two separate electorates, nationalists and | :22:41. | :22:44. | |
unionists but if they cooperate in this way that changes that to some | :22:45. | :22:52. | |
degree. A conflict which once seemed intractable has been largely quiet | :22:53. | :22:57. | |
for the best part of two decades. Nobody is predicting a return to the | :22:58. | :23:01. | |
violence of the past but these elections show that the Northern | :23:02. | :23:03. | |
Ireland political settlement has entered a fragile face. -- says. | :23:04. | :23:10. | |
And Nick Watt is at Stormont for us tonight. | :23:11. | :23:15. | |
The election may not resolve very much, what happens next do you | :23:16. | :23:23. | |
think? If the polls are to be believed then the DUP and Sinn Fein | :23:24. | :23:27. | |
will emerge once again after these elections as the two largest | :23:28. | :23:32. | |
parties. What that means is the onus is on them to restore the | :23:33. | :23:36. | |
power-sharing executive. As things stand it looks pretty difficult to | :23:37. | :23:40. | |
see how they are going to hammer out a deal. What that could mean is that | :23:41. | :23:46. | |
the UK Government on the 45th anniversary of the first imposition | :23:47. | :23:50. | |
of direct rule from London over Northern Ireland at the height of | :23:51. | :23:54. | |
the troubles, that Westminster could once again take charge of all of | :23:55. | :23:59. | |
Northern Ireland. The signs are that James Brokenshire, the Northern | :24:00. | :24:03. | |
Ireland Secretary, is determined to do everything he can to ensure that | :24:04. | :24:07. | |
mammoth step does not have to be taken, so what that means is very | :24:08. | :24:13. | |
serious talks amongst the parties. But they cannot go on forever, the | :24:14. | :24:18. | |
legislation talks about how they can last for a reasonable period of | :24:19. | :24:23. | |
time, it was interesting that Bertie Ahern, the former Irish Prime | :24:24. | :24:26. | |
Minister, said in my interview that perhaps the rules could be tweaked | :24:27. | :24:30. | |
to allow those talks to last as long as six weeks. There is even talk of | :24:31. | :24:36. | |
possibly having a second election to concentrate minds. But I have to | :24:37. | :24:40. | |
say, in the rain here in Northern Ireland I do not truly detect much | :24:41. | :24:44. | |
appetite for yet another election. Thank you. You can see a combines a | :24:45. | :24:52. | |
guide to the parties and candidates in tomorrow's election on the BBC | :24:53. | :24:53. | |
News website. One thing about President Trump | :24:54. | :24:55. | |
that everyone will agree on is that he has smashed | :24:56. | :24:57. | |
the old rules of political communication, he's dispensed | :24:58. | :24:59. | |
with the conventions of political spin and obfuscation, | :25:00. | :25:01. | |
and re-set the relationship Now there is one man who did more | :25:02. | :25:03. | |
than anyone to expose the nonsenses of those old rules, | :25:04. | :25:10. | |
Armando Iannucci, the creator of The Thick Of It, bitingly | :25:11. | :25:13. | |
satirising political spin and the clenched-butt message | :25:14. | :25:16. | |
control of New Labour. And, back in the '90s | :25:17. | :25:19. | |
producing The Day Today, parodying programmes like this, | :25:20. | :25:22. | |
with fake earnestness, Susanna has broken | :25:23. | :25:24. | |
through to the front line, This is the very heart | :25:25. | :25:29. | |
of the conflict. The men here have been fighting | :25:30. | :25:36. | |
nonstop for three days. We drove in at night, | :25:37. | :25:40. | |
straight into the The air now is thick | :25:41. | :25:42. | |
with what they call We are under strict | :25:43. | :25:50. | |
instructions not to With no cover, we run across open | :25:51. | :25:55. | |
space to a nearby house. We found an injured | :25:56. | :26:06. | |
man, we did our best. There was a family | :26:07. | :26:09. | |
sheltering in the back We had no tounge in common | :26:10. | :26:13. | |
but through the universal language of mutual need, | :26:14. | :26:17. | |
I knew she was saying, come, set your equipment up in our refuge, | :26:18. | :26:22. | |
the world must see this mess. These brave people | :26:23. | :26:25. | |
are now sleeping but they know that tomorrow our aerials | :26:26. | :26:27. | |
and transmitters could make this Well, Armando Iannucci is with me - | :26:28. | :26:30. | |
the world has changed since The Day Today, | :26:31. | :26:39. | |
and The Thick Of It, and indeed since Veep - | :26:40. | :26:41. | |
the series he created in the US. For him, the world and comedy? As | :26:42. | :26:55. | |
you look at the world are you laughing at politics? No. I should | :26:56. | :27:01. | |
be but, I am an avid watcher of political shows. It is how you are | :27:02. | :27:08. | |
so good I admit mimicking. I got heavily involved in watching | :27:09. | :27:15. | |
American election coverage until the result and then I actually could not | :27:16. | :27:19. | |
watch television for about a week or indeed read a newspaper. You are on | :27:20. | :27:25. | |
Twitter a lot talking about Donald Trump, we had Tom Friedman at the | :27:26. | :27:28. | |
New York Times on the programme and said if you try to take the guy on | :27:29. | :27:33. | |
he will suck your brain out and I wonder... That is his genius I think | :27:34. | :27:41. | |
the great mistake is to portray him as an idiot. Because he's not. He | :27:42. | :27:45. | |
knows what he's doing and he's very clever, he's a very clever salesman | :27:46. | :27:49. | |
and that is what he has been doing for the last year and a half, | :27:50. | :27:54. | |
selling this model of the successful businessman believes everything he | :27:55. | :27:59. | |
says and is persuadable enough to get a sizeable amount of the | :28:00. | :28:07. | |
electorate to vote for him. How did we get here? Let me put a suggestion | :28:08. | :28:13. | |
to you, you spent the 2000's mockingly controlled and careful | :28:14. | :28:18. | |
politics of new Labour, the message clearly donated, the PC stuff. And | :28:19. | :28:24. | |
the public rebelled against it, they took your message and said... Are | :28:25. | :28:32. | |
you saying I am responsible for Donald Trump? No, but you have to be | :28:33. | :28:38. | |
careful what you wish for. Some of The Thick Of It arose from genuine | :28:39. | :28:41. | |
frustration and anger, in my case that we could go to war with Iraq | :28:42. | :28:46. | |
despite millions of protests on the street and every expert saying it | :28:47. | :28:50. | |
would be a disaster and it proved the case. I took that sense of | :28:51. | :28:54. | |
frustration, the sense that politicians were not connecting with | :28:55. | :28:58. | |
the people and produced something like The Thick Of It which was also | :28:59. | :29:02. | |
looking at the notion that politicians were concentrating more | :29:03. | :29:05. | |
on a smaller and smaller group of people, the middle England, the | :29:06. | :29:14. | |
squeezed middle. The tiny amount of people who can swing an election. In | :29:15. | :29:20. | |
the course of doing that taking for granted everyone else. And as the | :29:21. | :29:24. | |
years have gone by, that group of people we have taken for granted is | :29:25. | :29:30. | |
becoming 85% which is why you get the frustration. You told the | :29:31. | :29:35. | |
Financial Times in 2012, you said all of this, seething anger, | :29:36. | :29:38. | |
everything has become poorer lies to, people do not mind system is | :29:39. | :29:41. | |
being held up to ridicule because it articulates what they are feeling. | :29:42. | :29:45. | |
But you have just given an accountant of people who felt cut | :29:46. | :29:49. | |
off from politics, that is what the populists as people call them, that | :29:50. | :29:53. | |
is the appeal, that is what Donald Trump says, they forgot the rust | :29:54. | :29:59. | |
belt of America. But you do not like Trump and are not a fan, so the | :30:00. | :30:04. | |
people who were left out did not like the things you wanted, they | :30:05. | :30:08. | |
wanted other stuff. People were being left out on the right and left | :30:09. | :30:15. | |
which is why in the UK we have Momentum and Ukip, and the rise of | :30:16. | :30:20. | |
personalities. Instead of parties we have got Jeremy Corbyn's Labour and | :30:21. | :30:25. | |
Boris Johnson conservatism and Theresa May conservatism, we have | :30:26. | :30:29. | |
got factions, nothing which resembles the two or three party | :30:30. | :30:34. | |
system we had in the 50s and 60s through to the 70s. You mention | :30:35. | :30:40. | |
Jeremy Corbyn, one of the things you parodied was the severe control of | :30:41. | :30:48. | |
pagers and people having to give out the line. Nobody would say that | :30:49. | :30:50. | |
Jeremy Corbyn's Labour is controlled. Does it work or does it | :30:51. | :30:56. | |
not work? What happens is you get this frustration with the intense | :30:57. | :31:02. | |
media management, people are hungry for something that is entirely | :31:03. | :31:05. | |
different which is why we go to Boris Johnson because he mumbles and | :31:06. | :31:09. | |
has hilarious hair or Jeremy Corbyn because he wears a vest and has a | :31:10. | :31:14. | |
beard. That has an instant appeal and I can see why it has an instant | :31:15. | :31:18. | |
appeal. Then you get to the point of trying to work out how you can | :31:19. | :31:23. | |
actually control a party and get back into government and that is | :31:24. | :31:28. | |
when the chaos approached the politics does not work. You have | :31:29. | :31:32. | |
lampooned politicians, do you respect or pity them at all, do you | :31:33. | :31:38. | |
basically, because a lot of them are lovely people... | :31:39. | :31:48. | |
I find the most sympathetic characters in The Thick Of It the | :31:49. | :31:55. | |
politicians. It is the strange young people she surrounds herself with | :31:56. | :32:00. | |
who have a degree in PPE from Oxford and very little else who are trying | :32:01. | :32:05. | |
to run her department that I think is the real danger. You took some of | :32:06. | :32:14. | |
the humour to the states with Veep, about a vice president who wants to | :32:15. | :32:19. | |
be president. Is it exactly the same, you, a British guy, from | :32:20. | :32:22. | |
Scotland, you can take the same humour and it works there or did you | :32:23. | :32:28. | |
have to employ lots of writers. I might be deported if I do it now. | :32:29. | :32:38. | |
But it is still going, you are not involved any more? After four years | :32:39. | :32:42. | |
of jet lag and flying backwards and forwards, I think it is a British | :32:43. | :32:46. | |
thing, we only do three or four series of something but in America | :32:47. | :32:52. | |
you are expected to do 29 series of 13 episodes a year and then died. | :32:53. | :32:58. | |
What about news. The Day Today, have you seen any improvements in the way | :32:59. | :33:05. | |
news is covered? What is interesting is the whole business of fake news. | :33:06. | :33:07. | |
The fact that the Internet now allows anyone saying anything to | :33:08. | :33:11. | |
make it look as valid as the Telegraph or the Guardian or the BBC | :33:12. | :33:16. | |
website, because it is there in typeface. That is a real problem. I | :33:17. | :33:22. | |
think what the rise of Trump or his attack on the news may do is provoke | :33:23. | :33:28. | |
people like you into thinking afresh about how you make the news, how you | :33:29. | :33:34. | |
shoulder the news isn't fake. I felt it was interesting the advice he had | :33:35. | :33:37. | |
yesterday following journalists in the White House. -- you had | :33:38. | :33:43. | |
yesterday. People want to come to a place which has a heritage. It is | :33:44. | :33:49. | |
important for the established news programmes to show the decisions you | :33:50. | :33:53. | |
have to make on a daily basis. Could you make a comedy like The Thick Of | :33:54. | :34:01. | |
It now? I think it would be very difficult and I am not inclined to | :34:02. | :34:04. | |
you because I am more interested in trying to energise 16 and | :34:05. | :34:07. | |
17-year-olds into politics. That is the frightening thing. They don't | :34:08. | :34:11. | |
vote, well, they cannot because they are 16 and 17 but 18-year-olds do | :34:12. | :34:16. | |
not vote in the numbers that people over 35 and 40 vote and I think that | :34:17. | :34:20. | |
is because they have been turned off by party politics. It was really | :34:21. | :34:23. | |
interesting in the Scottish referendum having the votes for 16 | :34:24. | :34:28. | |
and 17-year-olds, because it galvanised them and told them their | :34:29. | :34:31. | |
view was important and it made them examine the issues and I only wish | :34:32. | :34:40. | |
that opportunity had been presented to us all in the general election. | :34:41. | :34:42. | |
Armando Iannucci, thank you for talking to us. | :34:43. | :34:43. | |
Blasphemy is one of the most emotive issues in the Muslim world - | :34:44. | :34:46. | |
particularly in Pakistan where it's legally punishable by death. | :34:47. | :34:48. | |
Though no-one there has been executed for it - | :34:49. | :34:51. | |
many accused of it have been lynched. | :34:52. | :34:52. | |
And one man - Mumtaz Qadri - killed a politician | :34:53. | :34:55. | |
who simply spoke out against the blasphemy law | :34:56. | :34:57. | |
and remains a hero to many for that murder. | :34:58. | :34:59. | |
Qadri was executed by the Pakistani state | :35:00. | :35:00. | |
Secunder Kermani went along to the events commemorating him - | :35:01. | :35:05. | |
to try and explore what's behind his popularity - | :35:06. | :35:07. | |
and what it tells us about Pakistani society. | :35:08. | :35:14. | |
Thousands turn out to honour a convicted killer. | :35:15. | :35:19. | |
They're here in support of a man called Mumtaz Qadri, | :35:20. | :35:22. | |
executed last year for murdering a high-profile Pakistani politician | :35:23. | :35:26. | |
who was trying to reform the country's blasphemy laws. | :35:27. | :35:30. | |
The authorities executed Mumtaz Qadri on the 29th | :35:31. | :35:33. | |
of February last year, perhaps thinking the fact | :35:34. | :35:35. | |
it was a leap year would make it harder for his supporters | :35:36. | :35:38. | |
The figure of Mumtaz Qadri and the issue of blasphemy has | :35:39. | :35:45. | |
become symbolic of the tensions at the heart of Pakistan's identity. | :35:46. | :35:52. | |
Earlier in the week we visited the shrine that houses | :35:53. | :35:54. | |
They are also constructing a mosque and a seminary here. | :35:55. | :36:01. | |
Built with donations from the public, it receives | :36:02. | :36:03. | |
a steady stream of visitors of all ages. | :36:04. | :36:08. | |
Mumtaz Qadri was a police bodyguard who shot the politician he was meant | :36:09. | :36:12. | |
But his supporters don't see him as a traitor, | :36:13. | :36:16. | |
rather as someone who died trying to preserve Pakistan's Islamic | :36:17. | :36:19. | |
character, exemplified in their view by a law that holds blasphemy | :36:20. | :36:22. | |
The adoration for Mumtaz Qadri is matched by a hatred of politicians. | :36:23. | :36:53. | |
Today at the rally in honour of Mumtaz Qadri, speakers railed | :36:54. | :36:56. | |
against the Prime Minister and the opposition, portraying | :36:57. | :36:59. | |
For the crowds gathered here, blasphemy isn't just a religious | :37:00. | :37:06. | |
This is a kind of populist movement dedicated to opposing | :37:07. | :37:11. | |
what they see as a more secular liberal political establishment. | :37:12. | :37:19. | |
Dr Ashraf Jalali is one of the leading figures | :37:20. | :37:22. | |
He sees himself as part of the battle for Pakistan's soul. | :37:23. | :38:00. | |
Over the past decade, globalisation has brought Western | :38:01. | :38:02. | |
culture more visibly to Pakistan, with a growing number | :38:03. | :38:04. | |
of shopping malls, seminars and cable TV channels. | :38:05. | :38:11. | |
That has accentuated cultural divisions within the country. | :38:12. | :38:19. | |
This represents the divide which we have in our society | :38:20. | :38:22. | |
and I think that divide is right, you know, with the establishment, | :38:23. | :38:24. | |
Pakistan as a post-colonial state, because I think there are people | :38:25. | :38:28. | |
who feel that Pakistan should become a democratic secular country, | :38:29. | :38:31. | |
and there are others who believe that Pakistan should | :38:32. | :38:34. | |
I think that is a consistently, I think there is no consensus | :38:35. | :38:41. | |
in society but the state, the nature of state should be | :38:42. | :38:44. | |
And the blasphemy law actually sharpens that divide in society. | :38:45. | :38:55. | |
Whilst the religious right complain they are being marginalised, | :38:56. | :38:58. | |
it is often the most vulnerable in society that are affected | :38:59. | :39:01. | |
Mumtaz Qadri's victim was speaking out in favour of a Christian woman | :39:02. | :39:09. | |
sentenced to death for supposedly committing blasphemy in an argument | :39:10. | :39:12. | |
Since he was murdered, she has remained in jail. | :39:13. | :39:19. | |
An appeal due to take place last year was delayed and her family fear | :39:20. | :39:23. | |
judges are too afraid to hear the case. | :39:24. | :39:49. | |
There is also now growing concern that allegations of blasphemy | :39:50. | :39:51. | |
are being used to discredit critics of the state. | :39:52. | :39:55. | |
In January this year, a group of liberal activists were abducted. | :39:56. | :39:58. | |
Many believe the intelligence services were responsible. | :39:59. | :40:04. | |
As crowds gather demanding their release, a counter | :40:05. | :40:06. | |
campaign sprang up accusing them of blasphemy. | :40:07. | :40:10. | |
Since they were freed, none of them have been willing | :40:11. | :40:12. | |
to say who detained then, but one, now out of Pakistan, | :40:13. | :40:16. | |
agreed to speak about the impact of the allegations on him | :40:17. | :40:18. | |
In a society we have any allegation taken so seriously, | :40:19. | :40:40. | |
so in future you say something, you do something, | :40:41. | :40:43. | |
you are already discredited in the eyes of the people. | :40:44. | :40:55. | |
So people see you like this person who has committed blasphemy. | :40:56. | :40:57. | |
Next year, Pakistan will hold a general election | :40:58. | :40:59. | |
and Mumtaz Qadri's supporters are launching their | :41:00. | :41:01. | |
Whilst unlikely to gather many seats, they will make it difficult | :41:02. | :41:07. | |
for anyone to challenge the prevailing notions of blasphemy. | :41:08. | :41:09. | |
We leave you with news that Disney is to feature its first | :41:10. | :41:18. | |
gay movie character, with a love scene no less, | :41:19. | :41:20. | |
The film in question is the live action remake | :41:21. | :41:24. | |
of Beauty And The Beast, Disney's exploration of | :41:25. | :41:26. | |
The character in question is Lefou, the sidekick of the film's alpha | :41:27. | :41:32. | |
And as fans of the 1991 cartoon version will know, | :41:33. | :41:38. | |
this development isn't a huge surprise. | :41:39. | :41:40. | |
# For there's no man in town half as manly | :41:41. | :41:46. | |
# You can ask any Tom, Dick or Stanley | :41:47. | :41:52. | |
# And they'll tell you whose team they'd prefer to be on | :41:53. | :41:59. | |
# No one's got a swell cleft in his chin like Gaston | :42:00. | :42:07. | |
# Not a bit of him's scraggly or scrawny | :42:08. | :42:10. | |
# And every last inch of me's covered with hair | :42:11. | :42:14. |