05/03/2017 Sunday Politics

It's Sunday Morning and this is the Sunday Politics.

The Chancellor says that to embark on a spending spree

in Wednesday's Budget would be "reckless".

But will there be more money for social care and to ease

The UK terror threat is currently severe,

but where is that threat coming from?

We have the detailed picture from a vast new study of every

Islamist related terrorist offence committed over the last two decades.

What can we learn from these offences to thwart future attacks?

The government was defeated in the Lords on its

We'll ask the Leader of the House of Commons what he'll do if peers

In London this week a shake-up in education funding could lead

to 70% of schools losing money in the capital.

All that coming up in the next hour and a quarter.

Now, some of you might have read that intruders managed

to get into the BBC news studios this weekend.

Well three of them appear not to have been ejected yet,

so we might as well make use of them as our political panel.

Tom Newton Dunn, Isabel Oakeshott and Steve Richards.

They'll be tweeting throughout the programme.

Philip Hammond will deliver his second financial

statement as Chancellor and the last Spring Budget

for a while at least - they are moving to the Autumn

There's been pressure on him to find more money

for the Health Service, social care, schools funding,

But this morning the Chancellor insisted that he will not be

using the proceeds of better than expected tax receipts to embark

What is being speculated on is whether we might not have borrowed

quite as much as we were forecast to borrow. You will see the numbers on

Wednesday. But if your bank increases your credit card limit, I

do not think you feel obliged to go out and spent every last penny of it

He is moving the budget to the autumn, he told us that in his

statement, so maybe on Wednesday it will be like a spring statement

rather than a full-blown budget. Tinkering pre-Brexit and in November

he will have a more clear idea of the impact of Brexit and I suspect

that will be the bigger event than this one. It looks as if there will

be a bit of money here and there, small amounts, not enough in my

view, for social care and so on, possibly a review of social care

policy. A familiar device which rarely get anywhere. I think he has

got a bit more space to do more if he wanted to do now because of the

politics. They are miles ahead in the polls, so he could do more, but

it is not in his character, he is cautious. So he keeps his powder dry

on most things, he does some things, but he keeps it dry until November.

But also, as Steve says, he will know just how strong the economy has

been this year by November and whether he needs to do some pump

priming or whether everything is fine. He said it is too early to

make those sorts of judgments now. What is striking is the amount of

concern there is an Number ten and in the Treasury about the tone of

this budget, so less about the actual figures and more about what

message this is sending out to the rest of the world. I think some

senior MPs are calling it a kind of treading water budget and Phil

Hammond has got quite a difficult act to perform because he is

instinctively rather cautious, or very cautious, and instinctively

slightly gloomy about Brexit. He wanted to remain. But he does not

want this budget to sounded downbeat and he will be mauled if he makes it

sound downbeat, so he has to inject a little bit of optimism and we may

see that in the infrastructure spending plans. He has got some room

to manoeuvre. The deficit by the financial year ending in April we

now know will not be as big as the OBR told us only three and a half

months ago that it would be. They added 12 billion on and they may

take most of that off again. He is under pressure from his own side to

do something on social care and business rates and I bet some Tory

backbenchers would not mind a little bit more money for the NHS as well.

He is on a huge pressure to do a whole lot on a whole load, not just

social care. There is also how on earth do we pay for so many old

people? There is the NHS, defence spending, everything. But his words

this morning, which is I am not going to spend potentially an extra

30 billion I might have by 2020 because of improved economic growth

was interesting. You need to hold something back because Brexit might

go back and he was a bit of a remain campaign person. If you think

Britain is going to curl up into a corner and hideaway licking its

wounds, you have got another think coming. That 30 billion he might

have extra in his pocket could be worth deploying on building up

Britain with huge tax cuts in case there is no deal, a war chest if you

like. He will have more than 27 billion. He may decide 27 billion in

the statement, the margin by which he tries to get the structural

deficit down, he will still have 27 billion. If the receipts are better

than they are forecast, some people are saying he will have a war chest

of 60 billion. That money, as Mr Osborne found out, can disappear. He

clearly is planning not to go on a spending spree this Wednesday. It is

interesting in the FTB and the day, David Laws who was chief Secretary

for five minutes, was also enthusiastic about the original

George Osborne austerity programme and he said, we have reached the

limits to what is socially possible with this and a consensus is

beginning to emerge that he will have to spend more money than he

plans to this Wednesday. This is not just from Labour MPs, but from a lot

of Conservative MPs as well. People will wonder when this austerity will

end because it seems to be going on for ever. We will have more on the

budget later in the programme. Now, the government was defeated

last week in the House of Lords. Peers amended the bill that

will allow Theresa May to trigger Brexit to guarantee the rights of EU

nationals currently in the UK. The government says it will remove

the amendment when the bill returns But today a report from

the Common's Brexit committee also calls for the Government to make

a unilateral decision to safeguard the rights of EU

nationals living here. If the worst happened,

are we actually going to say to 3 million Europeans here,

who are nurses, doctors, serving us tea and coffee in restaurants,

giving lectures at Leeds University, picking and processing vegetables,

"Right, off you go"? No, of course we are not

going to say that. So, why not end the

uncertainty for them now? will help to create the climate

which will ensure everyone gets to say because that's

what all of us want. That is why we have unanimously

agreed this recommendation that the government should make unilateral

decision to say to EU citizens here, yes, you can stay, because we think

that is the right and fair thing to do.

And we're joined now from Buckinghamshire by the leader

of the House of Commons, David Lidington.

Welcome back to the programme. The House of Lords has amended the

Article 50 bill to allow the unilateral acceptance of EU

nationals' right to remain in the UK. Is it still the government was

my intention to remove that amendment in the comments? We have

always been clear that we think this bill is very straightforward, it

does nothing else except give the Prime Minister the authority that

the courts insist upon to start the Article 50 process of negotiating

with the other 27 EU countries. On the particular issue of EU citizens

here and British citizens overseas, the PM did suggest that the December

European summit last year that we do a pre-negotiation agreement on this.

That was not acceptable to all of the other 27 because they took the

view that you cannot have any kind of negotiation and to Article 50 has

been triggered. That is where we are. I hope with goodwill and

national self interest on all sides we can tackle this is right that the

start of those negotiations. But it is not just the Lords. We have now

got the cross-party Commons Brexit committee saying you should now make

the unilateral decision to safeguard the rights of EU nationals in the

UK. Even Michael go, Peter Lilley, John Whittington, agree. So why are

you so stubborn on this issue? I think this is a complex issue that

goes beyond the rise of presidents, but about things like the rights of

access to health care, to pension ratings and benefits and so on...

But you could settle back. It is also, Andrew, because you have got

to look at it from the point of view of the British citizens, well over 1

million living elsewhere in Europe. If we make the unilateral gesture,

it might make us feel good for Britain and it would help in the

short term those EU citizens who are here, but you have got those British

citizens overseas who would then be potential bargaining chips in the

hands of any of the 27 other governments. We do not know who will

be in office during the negotiations and they may have completely

extraneous reasons to hold up the agreement on the rights of British

citizens. The sensible way to deal with this is 28 mature democracies

getting around the table starting the negotiations and to agree to

something that is fair to all sides and is reciprocal. What countries

might take on UK nationals living in the EU? What countries are you

frightened of? The one thing that I know from my own experience in the

past of being involved in European negotiations is that issues come up

that maybe have nothing to do with British nationals, but another issue

that matters a huge amount to a particular government, it may not be

a government yet in office, and they decide we can get something out of

this, so let's hold up the agreement on British citizens until the

British move in the direction we want on issue X. I hope it does not

come to that. I think the messages I have had from EU ambassadors in

London and from those it my former Europe colleague ministers is that

we want this to be a done deal as quickly as possible. That is the

British Government's very clear intention. We hope that we can get a

reciprocal deal agreed before the Article 50 process. That was not

possible. I understand that, you have said that already. But even if

there is no reciprocal deal being done, is it really credible that EU

nationals already here would lose their right to live and work and

face deportation? You know that is not credible, that will not happen.

We have already under our own system law whereby some people who have

been lawfully resident and working here for five years can apply for

permanent residency, but it is not just about residents. It is about

whether residency carries with it certain rights of access to health

care. I understand that, but have made this point. But the point is

the right to live and work here that worries them at the moment. The Home

Secretary has said there can be no change in their status without a

vote in parliament. Could you ever imagine the British Parliament

voting to remove their right to live and work here? I think the British

Parliament will want to be very fair to EU citizens, as Hilary Benn and

others rightly say they have been overwhelmingly been here working

hard and paying taxes and contributing to our society. They

were equally want to make sure there is a fair deal for our own citizens,

more than a million, elsewhere in Europe. You cannot disentangle the

issue of residence from those things that go with residents. Is the

Article 50 timetabled to be triggered before the end of this

month, is it threatened by these amendments in the Lords? I sincerely

hope not because the House of Lords is a perfectly respectable

constitutional role to look again at bills sent up by the House of

commons. But they also have understood traditionally that as an

unelected house they have to give primacy to the elected Commons at

the end of the day. In this case it is not just the elected Commons that

sent the bill to be amended, but the referendum that lies behind that. It

is not possible? We are confident we can get Article 50 triggered by the

end of the month. One of the other Lords amendments

will be to have a meaningful vote on the Brexit deal when it is done at

the end of the process, what is your view on that? What would you

understand by a meaningful vote? The Government has already said there is

going to be a meaningful vote at the end of the process. What do you mean

by a meaningful vote? The parliament will get the opportunity to vote on

the deal before it finishes the EU level process of going to

consideration by the European Parliament. Parliament will be given

a choice, as I understand, for either a vote for the deal you have

negotiated or we leave on WTO rules and crash out anyway, is that what

you mean by a meaningful choice? Parliament will get the choice to

vote on the deal, but I think you have put your finger on the problem

with trying to write something into the bill because any idea that the

PM's freedom to negotiate is limited, any idea that if the EU 27

were to play hardball, that somehow that means parliament would take

fright, reverse the referendum verdict and set aside the views of

the British people, that would almost guarantee that it would be

much more difficult to get the sort of ambitious mutually beneficial

deal for us and the EU 27. Your idea of a meaningful vote in parliament

is the choices either to vote to accept this deal or we leave anyway,

that is your idea of a meaningful vote. The Article 50 process is

straightforward. There is the position of both parties in the

recent Supreme Court case that the Article 50 process once triggered is

irrevocable. That is in the EU Treaty already but we are saying

very clearly that Parliament will get that right to debate and vote. I

think the problem with what some in the House of Lords are proposing, I

hope it is not a majority, is that the amendments they would seek to

insert would tie the Prime Minister's hands, limit and

negotiating freedom and put her in a more difficult position to negotiate

on behalf of this country than should be the case. One year ago you

said it could take six to eight years to agree a free-trade deal

with the EU. Now you think you can do it in two, what's changed your

mind? There is a very strong passionate supporter of Remain, as

you know. I hope very much we are able to conclude not just the terms

of the exit deal but the agreement that we are seeking on the long-term

trade relationship... I understand that, but I'm trying to work out,

what makes you think you can do it in two years when only a year ago

you said it would take up to wait? The referendum clearly makes a big

difference, and I think that there is an understanding amongst real the

other 27 governments now that it is in everybody's interests to sort

this shared challenge out of negotiating a new relationship

between the EU 27 and the UK because European countries, those in and

those who will be out of the EU, share the need to face up to massive

challenges like terrorism and technological change. All of that

was pretty obvious one year ago but we will see what happens. Thank you,

David Lidington. Now, the Sunday Politics has had

sight of a major new report The thousand-page study,

which researchers say is the most comprehensive ever produced,

analyses all 269 Islamist telated terrorist offences

committed between 1998-2015. Most planned attacks were,

thankfully, thwarted, but what can we learn

from those offences? For the police and the intelligence

agencies to fight terror, Researchers at the security think

tank The Henry Jackson Society gave us early access to their huge

new report which analyses every Islamism related attack

and prosecution in the UK since 1998, that's 269 cases

involving 253 perpetrators. With issues as sensitive

as counterterrorism and counter radicalisation, it is really

important to have an evidence base from which you draw

policy and policing, This isn't my opinion,

this the facts. This chart shows the number

of cases each year combined with a small number

of successful suicide attacks. Notice the peak in the middle

of the last decade around the time of the 7/7 bombings

in London in 2005. Offences tailed off,

before rising again from 2010, when a three-year period accounted

for a third of all the terrorism cases since the researchers

started counting. What we are seeing is a combination

of both more offending, in terms of the threat increasing,

we know that from the security services and police statements,

but also I believe we are getting more efficient in terms

of our policing and we are actually A third of people were found to have

facilitated terrorism, that's providing encouragement,

documents, money. About 18% of people

were aspirational terrorists, 12% of convictions were related

to travel, to training And 37% of people were convicted

of planning attacks, although the methods have

changed over time. Five or six years ago,

we saw lots of people planning or attempting pipe bombs and most

of the time they had Inspire magazine in their possession,

that's a magazine, an Al-Qaeda English-language online

magazine that had specific More recently we have seen

Islamic State encouraging people to engage in lower tech knife

beheading, stabbings attacks and I think that's why we have

seen that more recently. Shasta Khan plotted with her

husband to bomb the Jewish In 2012 she received

an eight-year prison sentence. She's one of an increasing

number of women convicted of an Islamism related offence

although it is still overwhelmingly a crime carried out

by men in their 20s. Despite fears of foreign terrorists,

a report says the vast Most have their home in London,

around 43% of them. 18% lived in the West Midlands,

particularly in Birmingham, and the north-west is another

hotspot with around 10% Richard Dart lived in Weymouth

and tried to attend a terrorist He was a convert to Islam, as were

60% of the people in this report. He was a convert to Islam, as were

16% of the people in this report. Like the majority of cases,

he had a family, network. What's particularly interesting

is how different each story is in many ways,

but then within those differences So your angry young men,

in the one sense inspired to travel, seek training and combat experience

abroad, and then the older, recruiter father-figure types,

the fundraising facilitator types. There are types within

this terrorism picture, but the range of backgrounds

and experiences is huge. And three quarters of those

convicted of Islamist terrorism were on the radar of the authorities

because they had a previous criminal record, they had

made their extremism public, or because MI5 had them

under surveillance. To discuss the findings of this

report are the former Security Minister Pauline Neville-Jones,

Talha Ahmad from the Muslim Council of Britain, and Adam Deen

from the anti-extremist group The report finds the most segregated

Muslim community is, the more likely it is to incubate Islamist

terrorists, what is the MCB doing to encourage more integrated

communities? Its track record on calling for reaching out to the

wider society and having a more integrated and cohesive society I

think is a pretty strong one, so one thing we are doing for example very

recently I've seen we had this visit my mosque initiative, the idea was

that mosques become open to inviting people of other faiths and their

neighbours to come so we were encouraged to see so many

participating. It is one step forward. Is it a good thing or a bad

thing that in a number of Muslim communities, the Muslim population

is over 60% of the community? I personally and the council would

prefer to have more mixed communities but one of the reason

they are heavily concentrated is not so much because they prefer to but

often because the socio- economic reality forces them to. But you

would like to see less segregation? Absolutely, we would prefer more

diverse communities around the country. What is your reaction to

that? Will need more diverse communities but one of the

challenges we have right now with certain organisations is this

pushback against the Government, with its attempts to help young

Muslims not go down this journey of extremism. One of those things is

the Prevent strategy and we often hear organisations like the MCB

attacking the strategy which is counter-productive. What do you say

to that? Do we support the Government have initiatives to

counteract terrorism, of course we do. Do you support the Prevent

strategy? We don't because it scapegoats an entire community. The

report shows that contrary to a lot of lone wolf theories and people

being radicalised in their bedrooms on the Internet that 80% of those

convicted had connections with the extremist groups. Indeed 25% willing

to Al-Muhajiroun. I think this report, which is a thorough piece of

work, charts a long period and it is probably true to say that in the

earlier stages these organisations were very important, of course

subsequently we have had direct recruiting by IS one to one over the

Internet so we have a mixed picture of how people are recruited but

there's no doubt these organisations are recruiting sergeants. You were

once a member of one of these organisations, are we doing enough

to thwart them? If we just focus on these organisations, we will fail.

We -- the question is are we doing enough to neutralise them? The

Government strategy is in the right place, but where we need to focus on

is the Muslim community or communities. The Muslim community

must realise that these violent extremists are fringe but they share

ideas, a broad spectrum of ideas that penetrate deeply within Muslim

communities and we need to tackle those ideas because that is where it

all begins. Are you in favour of banning groups like Al-Muhajiroun?

Yes, it was the right thing to do and I can tell you the community has

moved a long way, Al-Muhajiroun does not have support. Do you agree with

that? Yes, but it is very simplistic attacking Al-Muhajiroun. ISIS didn't

bring about extremism, extremism brought about ISIS, ISIS is just the

brand and if we don't deal with the ideological ideas we will have other

organisations popping up. The report suggests that almost a quarter of

Islamist the latest offences were committed by individuals previous

unknown to the security services. And this is on the rise, these

numbers. This would seem to make an already difficult task for our

intelligence services almost impossible. Two points. It is over

80% I think were known, but it shows the intelligence services and police

have got their eyes open. But the trend has been towards more not on

the radar. That has been because the nature of the recruitment has also

changed and you have much more ISIS inspired go out and do it yourself,

get a knife, do something simple, so we have fewer of the big

spectaculars that ISIS organised. Now you have got locally organised

people, two or three people get together, do something together,

very much harder actually to get forewarning of that. That is where

intelligence inside the community, the community coming to the police

say I'm worried about my friend, this is how you get ahead of that

kind of attack. Should people in the Muslim community who are worried

about individuals being radicalised, perhaps going down the terrorist

route, should they bring in the police? Absolutely and we have been

consistent on telling the community that wherever they suspect someone

has been involved in terrorism or any kind of criminal activity, they

should call the police and cooperate. As the so-called

caliphate collapses in the Middle East, how worried should we be about

fighters returning here? Extremely worried. They fall into

three categories. You have ones who are disillusioned about Islamic

State. You have ones who are disturbed, and then you have the

dangerous who have not disavowed their ideas and who will have great

reasons to perform attacks. What do we do? Anyone who comes back, there

should be evidence looked into if they committed any crimes. But all

those categories should all be be radicalised. You cannot leave them

alone. Will we be sure if we know when they come back? That is

difficult to say. They could come in and we might not know. There is a

watch list so you have got a better chance. And you can identify them?

This is where working with other countries is absolutely crucial and

our border controls need to be good as well. I am not saying and the

government is not saying that anyone would ever slip through, but it is

our ability to know when somebody is coming through and to stop them at

the border has improved. An important question. Given your

experience, how prepared are away for a Paris style attack in a

medium-size, provincial city? The government has exercised this one.

It started when I was security minister and it has been taken

seriously. The single biggest challenge that the police and the

Army says will be one of those mobile, roving attacks. You have to

take it seriously and the government does. All right, we will leave it

Now, Brexit may have swept austerity from the front pages,

but the deficit hasn't gone away and the government is still

Just this week Whitehall announced that government departments have

been told to find another ?3.5bn worth of savings by 2020.

Last November the Independent office for Budget Responsibility

said the budget deficit would be ?68 billion in the current

It would still be ?17 billion by 2021-22.

On Wednesday the Chancellor is expected to announce

that the 2016-17 deficit has come in much lower than the OBR forecast.

Even so, the government is still aiming for the lowest level

of public spending as a percentage of national income since 2003-4,

coupled with an increase in the tax burden to its highest

So spending cuts will continue with reductions in day-to-day

government spending accelerating, producing a real terms cut of over

But capital spending, investment on infrastructure

like roads, hospitals, housing, is projected to grow,

producing a 16 billion real terms increase by 2021-22.

The Chancellor's task on Wednesday is to keep these fiscal targets

while finding some more money for areas under serious

pressure such as the NHS, social care and business rates.

We're joined now by Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Welcome back to the programme. In last March's budget the OBR

predicted just over 2% economic growth for this year. By the Autumn

Statement in the wake of the Brexit vote it downgraded back to 1.4%. It

is now expected to revise that back around to 2% as the Bank of England

has again. It is speculated on the future. It looks like we will get a

growth forecast for this year not very different from where it was a

year ago. What the bank did was upgrade its forecast for the next

year or so, but not change very much. It was thinking about three or

four years' time, which is what really matters. It looked like the

OBR made a mistake in downgrading the growth in the Autumn Statement

three months ago. It was more optimistic than nearly all the other

forecasters and the Bank of England. It was wrong, but not as wrong as

everybody else. We don't know, but if it significantly upgraded its

growth forecast for the next three or four years, I would be surprised.

It also added 12 billion to the deficit for the current financial

year in the Autumn Statement, compared with March. It looks like

that deficit will probably be cut again by about 12 billion compared

to the last OBR forecast. It is quite difficult to make economic

policy on the basis of changes of that skill every couple of months.

That is one of the problems about having these two economic event so

close together. My guess is the number will come out somewhere

between the budget and the Autumn Statement numbers. There was a nice

surprise for the Chancellor last month which looked like tax revenues

were coming in a lot more strongly than he expected. But again the real

question is how much is this making a difference in the medium run? Is

this a one-off thing all good news for the next several years? If

growth and revenues are stronger, perhaps not as strong as the good

news last month, but if they are stronger than had been forecast in

the Autumn Statement, what does that mean for planned spending cuts? It

probably does not mean very much. Let's not forget the best possible

outcome of this budget will be that for the next couple of years things

look no worse than they did a year ago and in four years out they will

still look a bit worse, and in addition Philip Hammond did increase

his spending plans in November. However good the numbers look in a

couple of days' time, we will still be borrowing at least 20 billion

more by 2020 than we were forecasting a year ago. Still quite

constrained. George Osborne wanted to get us to budget surplus by 2019.

That has gone. Philip Hammond is quite happy with a big deficit and

is not interested in that. But what he is thinking to a large extent, as

you have made clear, there is a lot of uncertainty about the economic

reaction over the next three or four years. He says he wants some

headroom. If things go wrong, I do not want to announce more spending

cuts or more tax rises to keep the deficit down. I want to say things

have gone wrong for now and we will borrow. And I have got some money in

the kitty. He will not spend a lot of it now. I understand the

Chancellor is worried about the erosion of the tax base and it is

hard to put VAT up by more than 20%, millions have been taken out of

income tax, only 46% of people pay income tax, fuel duty is frozen for

ever, corporation tax has been cut, the growth in self-employed has

reduced revenues, is that a real concern? These are all worries for

him. We have as you said in the introduction to this, got a tax

burden which is rising very gradually, but it is rising to its

highest level since the mid-19 80s, but is not doing it through

straightforward increases to income tax. Lots of bits of pieces of

insurance premium tax is here and the apprenticeship levied there, and

that is higher personal allowance of income tax and a freeze fuel duty,

but at some point we will have to look at the tax system as a whole

and ask if we can carry on like this. We will have to start increase

fuel duties again, or look to those big but unpopular taxes to really

keep that money coming in to keep the challenges we will have over the

next 30 years. He is going to set up a commission on social care. He has

had quite a few commissions on social care. Thank you for being

with us. It's just gone 11.35,

you're watching the Sunday Politics. We say goodbye to viewers

in Scotland who leave us now Coming up here in twenty

minutes, the Week Ahead. First though, the Sunday

Politics where you are. This week, London schools get

the best results in the country. A little later on today we will be

looking at the shake-up of the way schools are funded which is set

to see 70% of them in With me this week is Labour MP

for Hammersmith, Andy Slaughter, and the Conservative MP

for Twickenham, Tanya Mattias. Let's kick off by asking

about the budget on Wednesday. Let's kick off by asking

need Crossrail as well. We will be poring over the entrails of the

budget next week. Thank you very much indeed.

So the Brexit Bill is back in the Lords next week and the Lib Dems

They've ordered pizza and camp beds to encourage their peers

to keep talking all night, only to be told by the Lord's

authorities that their plans fall foul of health and safety laws.

Laws that they probably voted for. What did you make of David

Liddington's remarks on the Lords amendments, particularly not just

the one on EU nationals, but on what is regarded as a meaningful vote at

the end of the process? Let's be clear, as ministers like to say, the

meaningful vote vote is by far the biggest thing that will happen in

Parliament. It puts EU citizens into a tiny corner. It will decide not

just who is going to have the final say on this, but who the EU is

negotiating with. Is it directly with Theresa May or is it with

Parliament? Who will decide the shape of Brexit, Parliament or

Theresa May? The Lords amendment is just the first chapter. They have

voiced Theresa May to give them a veto on everything she does, and

there is a possible chance in the Commons could uphold this amendment.

The meaningful vote amendment? The meaningful vote amendment. But is it

a meaningful vote if the choice is to either back the deal or crash out

of the deal? That is what the remain supporting MPs or hardline people

who want to remain fear. What they want is the power to be able to send

Theresa May back to the negotiating table. Why is that anathema to many

Brexit supporters? They believed it would crucially and critically

undermine Theresa May's negotiating hand and also create a long period

of uncertainty for business. There is already great uncertainty and

this could extend it. The government's position is in there

was a proper, meaningful vote which Parliament could reject what was on

offer, that would be an incentive to the EU to give us a bad deal? I

think that is the fear. If you are saying to the people you are

negotiating with that that is another authority and Theresa May

will have to go back and have all of this approved, I think it would have

a very significant undermining effect on her negotiating hand.

Things change from day to day. We are talking about 2019 and 2018 at

the earliest, but if the government lost a vote on the Brexit deal,

would he not have to call in someone else? That is why the vote will be

meaningful even if the amendment on this meaningful vote will be lost.

You cannot do a deal on something as historic as Brexit and have

Parliament against you. So, whatever form this vote takes, whenever it

happens, it will be hugely meaningful. Whatever label that is

given and if she lost it she would call a general election. She could

not impose it. To call a general election now you need a majority of

MPs which she will not have, so maybe she will not get her election

after all. It would be very unlike Labour not to vote for an election.

It would be very unlike Labour not to vote for an election.

The elections to Stormont have given a boost to the republicans and put

the long term status of Northern Ireland in some doubt.

Sinn Fein's leader Gerry Adams spoke to reporters

Yesterday was in many, many ways a watershed election,

and we have just started a process of reflecting what it all means,

but clearly the union's majority in the Assembly has been ended,

and the notion of a permanent or a perpetual unionist majority

Is he right? Is this a watershed? The nationalist vote in the assembly

will now come to 39 and the Unionists 38. It is only one member,

but it is significant. This is a very serious moment and because of

everything else going on with Donald Trump and Brexit it is taking a

while for people here to realise just how significant this is.

Talking to someone who only recently left a significant role in Northern

Ireland politics last night, they said they were very worried about

what this means. It is likely there will be a call for some kind of

international figure to chair the talks to try and see if there is a

way of everybody working together. All sides will probably try to

extract more money from the Treasury, but it is a very dangerous

moment. Should we regard Michelle O'Neill, who has replaced Mr

McGuinness as the leader, it is she the First Minister death probably

not quite. An interesting thought. Indeed, the daughter of an IRA man,

a fascinating concept in itself. But there are are still a large amount

of MLAs who will not give Sinn Fein what they need. But what effect does

this have on the legacy of the prosecutions and the great

witchhunts which the British Government has vowed to end. There

is a majority left on the Stormont assembly to end those. But some

would keep them going for time continuing, which is a headache for

Theresa May. You have now got 27 Sinn Fein members, 28 DUP, then the

SDLP bumps up the numbers a little bit. You have got the British

Government transfixed with Brexit which has huge implications for the

border between North and South in Ireland, and the Irish government is

pretty wavering as well and if there is an election there, Sinn Fein

could do well in the Dublin parliament as well. There are a lot

of moving pieces. There are and there is a danger that we look at

everything through the prism of Brexit, but I found Friday and this

weekend fascinating. Theresa May and Scotland were Nicola Sturgeon is

framing Brexit entirely through an argument to have a second referendum

on independence which she wants to hold it she possibly can. And the

Irish situation with the prospect of a hard border with Northern Ireland

voting majority to remain, quite a substantial majority, again a few of

the instability at the moment. That is on both sides. We will be keeping

We will be keeping an eye on it for sure.

Yesterday, US President Donald Trump tweeted allegations

that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had ordered

his phones to be tapped during the election campaign.

"Terrible!", Trump wrote, "Just found out that Obama

had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory.

I'm not quite sure what McCarthyism that is.

He followed up with a series of tweets comparing it to Watergate.

"How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very

The sacred election process, I think at one stage he said it was a dodgy

election process, but now it is sacred.

You are frightened to go to bed at night, you do not know what you are

going to wake up to. Completely uncharted territory here. Little

more than a month ago at the inauguration they were making the

veneer of small talk and politely shaking hands. He saw Barack Obama

and Michelle off on the helicopter. You do not know what is coming next.

Is there a scintilla of evidence to back up Donald Trump's claims? Yes,

there is, although he is very muddled about it all. I will

explain. Remember what happened to Mike Flynn, talking to the Russian

and Ambassador will stop they were listening. Barack Obama does not

sign of warrants, but somebody else did. So why on earth would you not

want to listen to the president elect himself in case he might also

be breaking the law. Does that sound to you like convincing evidence or

just a supposition? I think Tom should go and work for him, that is

the most credible interpretation I have heard for a long time. Start

tweeting the case for the tweet. What is interesting about this is my

theory is he does not really like the idea of being a president. That

wild press conference he gave a couple of weeks ago there was one ad

lib that did not get repeated which was, I suppose I am a politician

now, as if he was humiliated at the idea of being a president. He likes

being the businessman with a swagger tweeting around the clock. And

campaigning again. He keeps going to what looked like campaign rallies. I

disagree with you about him not liking being president. I think he

loves the idea of being the president, but the reality is so

frustrating on every level, finding he does not have unlimited room for

manoeuvre and so many things have been put in place to stop them doing

things he would do in the business environment. We have had two more

tweets from him this morning, I guess when he woke up. Who was it

who secretly said to the Russian president, tell Vladimir that after

the election I will have more flexibility? Who was that? Possibly

Hillary Clinton. Is it true the Democratic National committee would

not allow the FBI access to check server or other equipment after

learning it was hacked? Can that be possible? This was all an issue in

the campaign. He is now a president. Shall I point out the flaw in Tom's

theory. They were not bugging Michael Flynn's phone, it was the

Russian Ambassador's telephone they were barking. Mr Neil, I would never

contradict you on this programme. But if you suspect there was

criminal activity going on, as there was by Michael Flynn, why would you

not want to put on a tap? I don't know. That is it for today.

I'll be back next week here on BBC One at 11am as usual.

The Daily Politics is back tomorrow at midday on BBC Two.

But remember - if it's Sunday, it's the Sunday Politics.