29/05/2016 The Andrew Marr Show

Through most of this campaign on our European

future, the Remain camp led by the Prime Minister have

dominated the headlines, with blood-curdling warnings

about the economic danger of leaving.

But this week, the Leave campaign has put itself

The issue that's cutting through is immigration.

The EU immigration story really started back in 2004

when a surge of migrants arrived here from Eastern Europe.

The man in charge then, who is today a passionate advocate of Remain,

is Tony Blair the former Prime Minister.

And as gloves come off over immigration, one of the most vocal

opponents of EU membership and a likely contender in any Tory

leadership campaign, former Defence Secretary Liam Fox joins me.

Also here, reviewing our papers, a man who knows all about

the turmoil the euro has caused but nevertheless wants us

to stay inside the EU, Greece's former

Speaking of Greece, have we in this country too often treated it

as a sun-soaked holiday destination and not thought enough about

That's the theme of a new play starring Elizabeth McGovern

I caught up with a dressed down Lady Grantham at

And there's music from the Nashville singer who created what might have

been John Peel's favourite album ever, Laura Cantrell.

And alongside Yanis Varoufakis, one of Fleet Street's

leading Eurosceptic voices, The Daily Mail's Amanda Platell.

But first the news from Christian Fraser.

Two senior Conservatives have publicly challenged David Cameron

to accept the failure of his manifesto pledge

The Prime Minister promised to reduce net migration

The current figure is more than three times that amount.

Boris Johnson and the Justice Secretary, Michael Gove,

who both support the Vote Leave campaign, have written an open

letter, saying the promise to slash net immigration to the "tens

of thousands" is not achievable as long as the UK

They say the failure to keep this promise is corrosive

Downing Street described the move as "a transparent attempt

to distract from the fact that most economists think that leaving

the single market would be disastrous for jobs,

Iraqi government forces have made gains in their offensive to drive

so-called Islamic State militants from Fallujah.

Large numbers of troops have been deployed near the city and have

taken the town of Karma, which was the front

It comes just days after Washington said an Islamic State

commander was killed, along with dozens of militants,

A man has been killed in Poland and a child is on life support

in a French hospital after a series of lightning strikes across Europe.

The child was struck during a birthday party

According to local authorities, 11 people, including eight children,

were injured while trying to seek shelter under a tree.

The 100th anniversary of the Battle of Verdun,

the longest of the First World War, will be commemorated

As many as 800,000 soldiers are believed to have been killed

or wounded during the 1916 battle, which became known

The French President, Francois Hollande,

Angela Merkel, are expected to call for European unity when they lay

Now the front pages, you would expect lots of politics and you have

got them. David Cameron, to which to care about immigration, says Priti

Patel. We will talk about that later. I cannot show you the front

page of the Sun, but here is page two, all about the referendum. It is

about the shoot out after the poll. This is a pretty tough letter

because it suggests he undermined deliberately public trust by the

tens of thousands. On the Daily Mail,, this one takes a slightly

different view. The Observer, a massive boost for the Prime Minister

is over 600 economists reject or accept. That is the story that

Number Ten say the other stories are there to divert us away from. Yanis

Varoufakis and Amanda Platell, it is great to have you here. It signifies

a retreat from the Tories who are for the Leave campaign away from

what I consider to be their strong issue, sovereignty. They have

retreated to the Ukip agenda of scaremongering about migration. This

is very interesting because the two campaigns were against each other.

The Ukip campaign and the Tory campaign. What they have found...

This campaign has been running for some weeks now, the Leave campaign

have lost the argument on the economy so now they are thinking,

they had regrouped last week, we have one month to go, what can we

win on? Immigration. Their weakest argument from where I am standing is

migration. The fact they are treating simply shows panic and a

descent to an abyss from which I do not believe they can recover. It is

what a lot of people in this country really care about in terms of stress

on the NHS. Of course these are genuine concerns, but what I am

reading today in the paper is grabbing. To be clear, there was a

meeting earlier this week and this is a change of tack. Absolutely,

they realised they lost the argument on the economy. The euro is in the

perilous state, but they didn't win it, time is running out, so you go

back to what your strongest points are. In the Sun you have Michael

Gove having slagged off David Cameron in the Remain. He said the

five key facts David Cameron cannot answer, and it is immigration,

immigration, immigration... All of them are immigration. The force of

this letter is that it is true in that the tens of thousands promise

could not possibly be technically met ever so for the Prime

Minister... To go to the Prime Minister and say you have made a big

mistake... The Tories cannot say they didn't support this claim, they

supported it at the last election. Your point is an excellent one. The

worst enemy of the Remain campaign has been David Cameron, promises

that he has delivered that cannot be fulfilled. The forge that he came

back from Brussels, presenting it as a reformed, I am a supporter of

Remain but I wish David Cameron was not campaigning on my side. Very

good. Where are we going next? The Economist is next. A very brief

comment against my own lot. It was once said that if you laid every

economist in the world end to end, they still wouldn't reach a

conclusion. Indeed! But there was something worse to say about us. The

Royal economic Society, of which I am a member, these are the very same

economists to whom the Queen addressed a letter with a

devastating question, why didn't you see it coming? They spent three

months concocting the longest apology in the history of social

science. To have those same economists with wonderful predictive

powers... We don't trust you that much, with all due respect. You

shouldn't, we have never predicted anything! That is also true. There

is so much mud slinging, the knives are out of the back pockets, and you

see John Major saying he is savaging boorish Brexit. He is calling them

liars. What happens at the end of all of this? Do you take the view

that whatever happens in the vote there will be a leadership challenge

quite quickly? If I were to bet on it, yes, cause there is such mutiny

in the way the Government have used their resources to create this fear

campaign at the start of the election, and these people used to

be friends. Michael Gove and David Cameron used to be great friends,

you cannot go back from that. Also I have met up for drinks, I have to

say, with a number of these people who claim they are the ones who want

David Cameron out, who claimed they already have the signatures they

need. On John Major's point, if I may add, John Major is completely

right. The Treasury's figures are dodgy, not worth the paper they are

written on, but where John Major... He is highlighting the fact the

Leave campaign is also based on dodgy statistics. Let's face it,

this is a one-off event, it has never happened in the history of the

world for a country like Britain to leave the union like the European

Union. To pin down what this will mean for mortgages, the value of the

pound and so on, it is not based on scientific facts. The discussion

should be about sovereignty, about the effect of the Brexit on Europe,

on the British people, this is the discussion we should be having. I

think I have just found an economist I trust. I am going to stick however

with the Tory infighting story because my colleague John Pienaar

had an interesting chat with a Tory backbencher who said these are the

numbers, we are going to have this challenge, and that connects to

Priti Patel who was also going for the jugular. She was one of David

Cameron's proteges, she is going for broke now, distancing herself from

the leadership of the Tory party because these people suspect they

have a good chance of getting David Cameron up pretty quickly. It is a

sad fact that monumental referendum boils down to a Tory infighting

tussle about who will replace David Cameron. The Prime Minister has

already declared he doesn't want to be Prime Minister for much longer. A

lot of these campaigns are not Tory at all, the Labour Leave campaign,

the Remain campaign and so on. None of the big hitters are at the heart

of the opposition are actually putting their heads up. Yesterday at

UCL we had more than 1000 people and we try to do exactly that, to bring

the radical case for participating in the referendum from our Remain...

To actually animate it and have something to say that goes beyond

tactics. There are people on the left in this country arguing Brexit

should be supported because it will split the Tory party. This kind of

mindset, it is very petty, just as petty as the Tory side. This is a

significant juncture in the history of Europe and we should be worried

about its effect on the generations to come.

We are showing the Tony Blair interview in a little bit of time.

Blair is all over the papers as well of course, making his case. His main

argument seems to be if you have any concerns don't believe because there

is a devil that you know and a devil that you don't know. Beforehand, I

pleaded that David Cameron should not be trying to help the Remain

campaign. If that is so, imagine how much more it is pertinent in the

case of Tony Blair. Having Tony Blair on your side in any campaign

is a glass of poison. And you have picked up a story in the Sunday

Telegraph about the Chilcot inquiry. Yes, I am surprised by this issue,

whether he should be tried and imprisoned or or not. I think the

best outcome... From the point of view of history and humanity would

be for Tony Blair to be forgotten and treated with the contempt it

deserves. We have failed to forget him on this programme yet, I take

your point. Any last stories before we crashed out of the paper review?

There was this wonderful thing on Britain's Got Talent, a guy who used

to do magic tricks on the guy who used to do magic tricks, Burma

railway. It was absolutely fantastic, wonderful English heroic

patriotic music and there was this 96-year-old former card trick

magician. It was great TV. Tonight we are both going to be watching Top

Gear. We are both petrol heads. I'm looking to see how the BBC can

recreate the chemistry of the previous lot.

Now the weather, and I'm indebted to The Times for reminding me how

the American poet James Lowell described May - not just

a capricious month, "a pious fraud, a ghastly parody of real Spring".

So, for a weather forecast, delivered entirely in verse,

Wishful thinking! I have something much more corny. Sunshine, sunshine

in the sky, see-through clouds to tickle your eye. And the sunshine

will be tickling the eyes through the course of this afternoon. For

most other cities looking fine out there. It was quite grey over

eastern areas and on the North Sea coast, quite gloomy this morning

first thing, but now the sunshine is out and it promises to be a

beautiful and sunny Sunday. There are some showers in the forecast,

across northern and central parts of Scotland,

possibly even a thunderstorm. Showers across the hills in Wales

but temperatures widely in the 20s today. Cooler on the North Sea

coast. On bank holiday Monday, many of us have the day off with sunshine

around in western and central areas of the UK. We have been forecasting

Miss for the last few days, and we are expecting rain fall into East

Anglia, London and into Brighton later in the afternoon. Once again,

the vast majority of the UK should enjoy a fine bank holiday Monday

with lots of sunshine. Tuesday, back to work, and we are expecting some

rain but some areas will remain sunny in the west. Back to you. Rain

on Monday, there we go. Immigration became the main

theme of the Vote Leave Perhaps not surprising,

with the release of official figures showing net migration to the UK

at 330,000 last year. There's no escaping that statistic,

and it stands in contrast to David Cameron's target

of reducing immigration Now the Leave campaign have written

to the Prime Minister urging him to accept that this pledge has not

been met and is "corrosive One of the leading figures

on the Leave side, the Conservative former

Defence Secretary Liam Fox, is here. That letter that your side has sent

to the Prime Minister is a statement of fact, isn't it? No government

inside the EU can guarantee that immigration will fall to tens of

thousands. No Conservative MP who was elected at the last election can

fulfil our pledge to the British people, including me, if we stay

within the European Union. One of the points that people have failed

to grasp is that I am quite sure that the Prime Minister wanted to

get restrictions on free movement to meet that target, but it wasn't on

offer. There is no reform EU and it is a fantasy. Was this ignorance or

deceit? The Prime Minister wanted to get that change and we all wanted it

but now it is totally clear that if we stay in the EU, with free

movement, and we saw 184,000 net EU migrants coming to the UK last year,

that will not be a pledge that we can meet. It is impossible when you

are planning public services to be able to deal with those numbers and

have school places predicted, NHS, housing, all huge issues for real

people. Downing Street said today it was a distraction but

it is not a distraction. It is a huge issue for many people facing

implications of immigration in their real lives. Your party went in to

the election on a manifesto that was not true. No, it was entirely

possible to get that, but only if we admitted the renegotiation was not

going to achieve what we wanted because our European partners would

not change course and they will not change course on anything. They are

progressing the European army plans and everything suggests ever closer

union is still on the cards, so our choice as a country is between

getting control and taking our destiny into our own hands, or ever

closer union, ending up in what is likely to be much closer to a single

European state. That is not the future that I want for my country.

Brochures stuff in the papers today. Blue on blue. Do you think the Prime

Minister should carry on after the referendum? Do you think you should

lead any negotiations with the rest of the EU if we vote to leave? If we

vote to leave, my personal view is the best thing would be for the

Prime Minister to stay on. We will have to have a government position

before we enter into negotiations under article 50. We need a period

of stability. Whatever our views have been touring the referendum, we

need to put to bed those personal views and understand that stability

for the country is most important. 50 of your colleagues have put their

names down for a challenge after this vote. They may or may not have.

I have heard these stories on and off for 24 years. Whether it is true

or not I don't know, but it would not be wise in my view. If we decide

to leave, and there will be a period of uncertainty about the

government's negotiating position, we don't want to add to that. So you

would say, just stop it? My view is that we should stick to the issues.

There are big issues at stake for this country in the referendum so

don't turn it into an internal Conservative Party debating society.

I want to leave the European Union because I one control of our own

lawmaking, sovereignty is key for me, and I want control of our own

money that we are handing over to Brussels. And I want control of our

own borders which is much more important to me

than what happens inside the Conservative Party. So forget this

stuff about coups and what happens to David Cameron and concentrate on

the issues? Concentrate on the very big issues affecting Britain and our

future. People have to ask themselves, if you are not in the

European Union already, would you choose to join it? If you would not

choose to join, don't choose to stay because you are joining for the next

generation. Can I give two cheers for the European migrants who come

in here? Overwhelmingly hard-working people who keep up our public

services, you see them in hospitals and in the private sector in hotels

and restaurants and in the agriculture sector. Up and down the

country, very often doing jobs that British people no longer want to do

for that money. I don't have a problem with migration. I have a

problem with uncontrolled migration. I would like to have overall control

of migration on a points system like the Australians but we can't have

that because we are committed to total free movement.

It is that uncontrolled element, the fact we cannot control the impact on

public services, which is a very real problem. Not something that

Goldman Sachs and those funding the Remain campaign have got to worry

about because they probably don't use them. Ordinarily hard-working

people in this country face problems as a result of this huge increase in

our population, driving our housing policy, the NHS, demand the school

places. I don't have a problem with migration, I have a problem with

uncontrolled migration. Another is too high? I want to control that

number. After Brexit, if that happens, we would be taking migrants

from the EU. I want a decent human immigration policy that determines

what we need in this country and that matches with the supply of

labour that comes from overseas. Not just the EU, but other countries,

Canada and Australia, who are being discriminated against because of the

EU migrants and policy. At that point, could we get down to tens of

thousands? I think it is possible to do it. You have to take tough

decisions but we have an economy that is doing very well. We are

acting as a magnet for migration. When the liberal wage comes in, if

we still have open borders in terms of migration, that will be a much

bigger number, given the continuing failure of the eurozone and what it

is doing to young people's futures across the continent. Nonetheless,

we have needed migration to this country. Your colleague Sarah

Williston, on your side in this debate, she has said that if you

meet a European migrant in the NHS, they are more likely to be healing

you than to be a patient. I don't have a problem with migration, I

have a problem with uncontrolled migration and the pressure it puts

on public services. For every 10% increase in the life of the

population, that is 80% reduction in wages. It is very hard to see how

you get a high wage economy and at the same time have open borders and

uncontrolled migration. Priti Patel has said today that the Prime

Minister is too rich to get this message. He doesn't understand what

life is like for too many people in this country. I don't agree with

that. The Prime Minister entirely understands that. He has committed

us to membership of the European Union on terms that I simply cannot

access. He would have liked to have a restriction on the numbers coming

into Britain but our European partners will not wear it. The idea

that we can influence them in changing the core elements of ever

closer union, that is simply a fantasy. I have a problem with ever

closer union because the logical end point is union and that is not what

I want for this country. You are quite worried about the Gibraltar

situation at the moment as well. The one thing that you never do in any

campaign is to play with security and the sovereignty of the people of

Gibraltar has always been guaranteed by the United Kingdom. To pretend in

any way shape or form that that policy would change if we were in or

outside the European Union is inexcusable. Who has done that?

Remain campaign suggested that Gibraltans of 40 might be at stake

and that is inexcusable. -- Gibraltar sovereignty. The Prime

Minister needs to say that the sovereignty of Gibraltar is a

question we would not tolerate inside or outside the European Union

and that sovereignty is guaranteed by the UK. And you think we need

that statement? We need that clarity. The slightest inference

that we might hand over the sovereignty of Gibraltar to Spain if

we are not inside the European Union is completely unacceptable. There

are limits to what you can and cannot say in any campaign and that

goes way beyond acceptable limits. This requires personal intervention

by the Prime Minister to get that clarity? I think he is the only

person with authority to make the government's position clear and

unequivocal. Gibraltar is protected by the UK and will continue to be

protected. We need a clear statement. Liam Fox, there is much

more to talk about and luckily you have agreed to join us on the sofa

of shame at the end of the programme but thank you very much indeed for

now. As chatelaine of Downton,

Elizabeth McGovern was one of the best known faces on our TV

screens for six years. Now, in a new production

at the National Theatre, she plays a very different American

wife from Lady Grantham. Sunset At The Villa Thalia

is a drama set in Greece during the colonels' coup

of the '60s and the political It's a play, I almost guarantee you,

you're going to hear a lot I caught up with Elizabeth

between rehearsals at the National and we began by discussing

the Downton phenomenon. The more adaptable we are, the more

chance we have of getting through. Edith has risen from

the cinders in the hearth to be kissed by her very own

Prince Charming. What more

can we ask? A long and happy life together just

we two to watch the children All drama comes from throwing people

into an enclosed space and then watching the friction that ensues

so in that respect Downton is very much like any other great TV

show or piece of theatre. You sound like you

are a genuine fan. There are other eminent

members of the cast Well, I am of the school of thought

that I have only to be grateful for the kind of impact

that Downton Abbey had. It is very rare that someone works

on anything that takes It is so good of you to stay,

Mama. It has made you a big,

big star both in this country To me the most interesting thing

about your career You were big, big in Hollywood,

with all the greats in Hollywood, you could have gone right to the top

and you walked away. I don't think I perceived the course

of my career as consciously walking away from anything as much

as being drawn by interesting work that I couldn't resist that led me

to other places and that continues It has made me very happy

and always very passionate about what I am doing but it may

lead back to Hollywood one day. Because Hollywood is this great

sticky magnet of money and glamour and fame and you did

move away from it. I think you talked about the cult

of personality that you didn't Yes, that was not the kind of work

I was ever drawn to doing. You are now a Chiswick High Street

girl? Elizabeth, this is a play set

in Greece in the 1960s and '70s. Just give us a little sense

of the underlying theme. Two couples meet on holiday

on a Greek island. One British, one American,

and they encounter of course the local population,

so it is an exploration It is an exploration of the British

and the American imperialistic way of taking advantage

of the countries that they visit, unwittingly and with

the best intentions. It is about many, many things

which makes it a very I suppose it is something that

all of us have done, which is go somewhere beautiful

and treat it like a backdrop, not like a real place,

not being interested enough in the people that have lived

there for generations. And even the extension

of that is somehow to want to own it, to want to buy,

to want to take it home with you. A lot of the play touches

on the American tendency to infiltrate these governments

with the excuse of the Soviet Union as the enemy and to try

to control their politics. So this is back in the day

of the colonels' coup The American guy clearly works

for the CIA and interestingly She's an actress and he's a writer

and there's a lot of Anglo-American The British are rather

complacent about how they are better people

than the Americans. The Americans do all these terrible

things in Chile and so forth but the British sit back and enjoy

the sun and patronise the locals. That is one of the things

about the play that I am There are these two couples that

have an initial love affair - the artist and intellectual,

and the other couple are the people that do the hard knocks

of protecting the world that They say to these artists

and intellectuals, "Listen, I am creating a world

by being in the CIA, by protecting your right to freedom

of speech and all the things we take for granted,

and then you turn around and criticise me for what I am doing

but I am actually creating the life This is also about the close

connection between the theatre It is a point the American character

makes very unequivocably, how theatre and democracy emerged

in Greece at the same time and shares the same kind of space

with storytelling and getting ourselves into other

people's heads. It is the democracy that the CIA

protects that creates the world of the theatre and the two were born

at exactly the same time, Elizabeth, it has been

a privilege talking to you. Tony Blair wanted us

to join the euro. He's always been one of the most

outspoken defenders of Brussels in this country, but these days

he is followed everywhere by the shadow of the Iraq

war and seems to have fallen out permanently

with his party's leadership. I spoke to Mr Blair a little

earlier this morning, and I began by asking him whether

the current level I think people's concerns

about immigration are completely Indeed, this is a worldwide

phenomenon so it's not the rest of Europe,

And I understand why people think the

levels are too high, but the fact is that, one,

the biggest problem we have is

non-EU migration, and secondly, the reason why

the Leave people have now

really focused on immigration day after day is because they have

don't think they can really dispute, is that

if we did vote to leave, the

economic after-shock would be severe and directly measurable in jobs and

living standards and business confidence.

Coming back to immigration however, those people

who are worried about it may be right, and it

may be that actually this

country cannot absorb this level of immigration from the rest

It was nearly 200,000 people from the EU last year, close

I also think we have got to understand what we are

Are we saying that we should leave the European

Union and then put out the people who have

They get to stay anyway because of the Luxembourg compromise.

Right, but if you look at how the UK functions

going forward, some of

these people play an absolutely fundamental part in services like

the National Health Service, and even if we were to stop all EU

immigration, you've still got the other issues to do

with immigration so I don't discount it is an issue.

It's really important issue, but it's not going to go away as an

issue if we leave the European Union.

But it is a really important issue that, while we are inside the EU, we

can do nothing about. We have uncontrolled immigration from the EU

as long as we remain in the EU. You have free movement of people in the

EU but it also applies to British people working in Europe. It is

uncontrolled in both directions. My point is that inside the EU we have

nothing we can do about big net migration. You have to accept there

is nothing you can do about free movement of people, but even outside

the European Union, if we want access to the single market a like

Norway has had to renegotiate free movement of people sell levels of

migration are higher in Norway and Switzerland. When you look at this

rationally, yes immigration is a big issue, it won't be solved by leaving

the European Union. In fact in some ways, as David Blunkett has been

pointing out, we will lose the ability to cooperate with other

countries in dealing with immigration from outside of Europe.

If Turkey joins, and you are big to using us for that, people will look

ahead and say this will go on and on. Is there any limit in your mind

for immigration into this country from the rest of Europe? There is no

possibility of Turkey joining in the near future. If Turkey ever meet the

accession terms, it is a vote that we have a veto on in Britain. To

raise Turkey in this context is again to demonstrate why what they

want to do is raise the general fear of migration because when you look

at the particular facts, their case just doesn't stack up. We are always

told things won't happen and then they do. You yourself said it was in

Turkey's interests to join the EU and you are a big advocate for that.

As was David Cameron, so we can assume in due course they will join

the EU. I always will be an advocate for us to apply to Turkey the same

rules we apply to everyone else, but the reality is there is a

possibility -- there is into possibility of Turkey joining in the

short term. But this is a vote for very long time in the future. In the

medium term, Turkey and maybe other countries will join. What I'm saying

is the level of immigration into this country almost limitless. It is

not limitless because it only applies to the country in the

European Union. If people make this decision on the basis of Turkey, it

would be making it on the basis of a hypothesis that if it ever does

happen, it will not happen until a long period of time. We have areas

with overcrowded A departments, people feel there are already too

many people coming into this country, and if we vote to remain

that will carry on. If we vote to leave, these problems will still

remain. In the end, you take the NHS... You then have to renegotiate

all of the trading arrangements that Britain has. It is an important

point, Andrew, because if you renegotiate those trading

arrangements, and remember half our trade goes into the European Union

so it is essential to do that, number one that will be an agonising

process and it will cast a pall of uncertainty over the British economy

for many years, but secondly, if we want access back into the single

market we will be renegotiating many of these things. A lot of people on

the other side of the arguments they will go through World Trade

Organisation rules so it is not certain. When they say that, that is

when anyone who knows about these things knows they have lost the

argument completely. The idea we would put our economic future into

renegotiating our trade arrangements with the rest of the world through

the WTO, that is an organisation that has one of the hardest tasks in

the world. They have for years been trying to get a global trade round

together, unsuccessfully. The notion that it is some simple manoeuvre to

put our trading relationships through the hands of the WTO, to

anybody who understands these things, it doesn't bear thinking of

and they must know that when they are saying these things. It sounds

like for you immigration at any level is a price worth paying for

economic growth. I fought the last election in 2005 on immigration.

Some of the legislation I put through the House of Commons work

cutting down asylum seekers, I am sensitive to the issue of

immigration and you have to be in politics today. I am opposed to

their answer to it, which is to get out of Europe. It doesn't deal with

non-EU immigration, and doesn't even really deal with EU immigration. But

EU immigration is not controlled in a literal sense, nobody can control

that. My question is, 180,000 this year, if it was half a million next

year, and millions a year after, if it carries on growing, what is your

message? My messages very simple. There is a problem of migration

generally, if you actually break down the figures on EU migration,

then many of these people come in on short-term contracts and then will

go back out again. Many of these people work in vital public

services, and we also get the benefit. The reason we can travel

around Europe without restrictions is because of the free movement of

people. Many people don't because they cannot afford to. Priti Patel

has said today the Prime Minister is too rich, living a luxury lifestyle,

and out of touch with communities. I'm sure she would include you in

not. I'm sure she would but the idea that the people supporting the Leave

campaign are people living in diminished economic circumstances,

come on! We know the people who are bankrolling the Leave campaign,

these people are not exactly your ordinary person. The argument about

elite or not elite. This is a debate, probably the most important

decision we will make since World War II by the way, and the fact is

these people are focusing on immigration because on the economy

it is now clear that we are going to suffer a deep after-shock if we

leave the European Union. And when you get, I think the Economist

newspaper has a pall of economists, 88% said leaving would be a

disaster. I cannot think of any issue where 88% of economists have

ever agreed. This is the thing we have got to work out and understand.

This is a question about whether we would leave Europe, not whether we

join. If we were in a situation where we weren't in the European

Union, that is a debate. We have these interlocking economic

relationships. You break that up and how can anyone argue you won't have

a problem afterwards economically? These people say they care about

people's living standards, and those in the poorest members of our

society, they are the people who will suffer. Many of those people

feel strongly about immigration and do feel it is too high and feel no

reassurance because you cannot tell them anything that will change if we

stay in. Lots of things will change in the way that we handle the

immigration question. Yes, lots of things will change, but no, it is

true, if you are ports of Europe there is this free movement of

people and it works both ways. When David Cameron said he would get

immigration down to the tens of thousands, that must have been

nonsense. No because the majority of immigration into this country is

non-EU. But if you can't deal with the numbers coming into this

country, you cannot say tens of thousands, can you? He has

negotiated an arrangement on benefits and so on. The evidence is

that people who come in from the EU contribute far more in taxes than

they take on benefits. You told us it was in our national interest not

to join the euro. Wow, you were wrong about that. We never put the

issue to the British people because the economic place was ambiguous.

You guys said all of this is about the euro, well I went back and

checked, no we didn't. I said unless there is a clear economic case to

join the EU euro, we will do it. But all those people who said this is a

politically driven and eventually catastrophic system have been proved

right, and look what has happened across the south of Europe. Greece,

Italy and Spain. This has been a disaster of policy. My point is

people like you were in favour of it. We were never in favour of

Britain joining the euro because in the end the economics didn't stack

up. Politically I said it was always important to position ourselves as

if in principle you were in favour but the economics weren't right. You

said it was in our national interest to join. I never said that, I always

said we shouldn't join unless the economics were right. The case for

leaving Europe is a different case because even if you disagree with

the euro, you surely don't disagree with Britain being part of the

single market, because the single market, which was a British

achievement under Thatcher, is essential for British jobs and

industry. Should Britain never join the

eurozone? There is no reason to take a position for the next 100 years

but there is no remote possibility of Britain joining in the

foreseeable future. In a few weeks, if we vote to leave the EU, what is

the future for Britain five or ten years out? If we voted to leave, we

would suffer an immediate shock to our economy. We would create years

of uncertainty, because we would have to renegotiate all the

complicated trading arrangements we have with the rest of Europe. That

is not some hypothetical risk, it is something that you can and will see

directly in people's jobs and living standards and in business's ability

to work with confidence. It is an enormous economic problem. I don't

think anyone can really dispute that. The question is whether that

pain is worth the gain. What is very difficult to see is what the gain is

that people say is so important. I know you can't talk about the

Chilcot Inquiry and all of that, but after the ghastly episode of the

Iraq war, are you seriously in favour of us going into Syria to

confront Isis in Syria on the ground? I am in favour of

confronting Isis on the ground but we don't need to do it with our own

troops and boots on the ground. What the Americans have been doing with

the support they have been given has had a huge impact on the fight

against Isis. This is a global problem today. It is not just Isis

in Syria. You have got Isis in Libya, Boko Haram, Al-Shabab, groups

in the Philippines and Thailand. At the core of this problem we have got

Isis, the so-called Islamic State, in Syria and Iraq, moving into a

hideous vacuum created by the Iraqi war, created by the civil war, and

ultimately created by decisions that you talk. If you take the countries

on the critical list today, Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, in only one

of those cases have you got a government that is capable of

fighting terrorism and is, that is recognised as internationally

legitimate, including by both Saudi Arabia and Iran, and whose Prime

Minister turns up in the White House. That is Iraq. I understand

the issues and we will debate them when we get to Chilcot, but the idea

that this all comes from the decision to remove Saddam Hussein,

you have got to go back into this and look at the roots of it. The

problem is that you plan and thought you were going to war but you didn't

tell us. Chilcot will deal with all of these things. Will you accept

Chilcot's verdict on this as a fair assessment after all this time? It

is hard to say that when I haven't seen it. Of course you don't see the

report until it comes out, so let's wait for that point. When you go

back and you look at what was said, I don't think anyone can fiercely

dispute that I was making it very clear what my position was. What

makes it important when it does happen is that we have a full debate

and I look forward to participating in that. Make no mistake about that.

It is really important that we debate these issues, because we have

got huge problems. People want to focus in Iraq, but look at all of

the Middle East and all over the world and debate the right policy to

deal with it. I hope we can persuade you to come back and sit in that

chair and debate it at length when the Chilcot Inquiry report comes

out. You said it would be a terrible risk for the British people to elect

an extreme government, and you seem to be talking about Jeremy Corbyn.

Do you think Jeremy Corbyn is a risk and do you want to see him

as Prime Minister? I wasn't talking about Jeremy Corbyn, by the way. I

was talking about the general populace in the world today. The

word Jeremy Corbyn had been in the question so it was associated with

it. That is the way it goes. But what I was talking about, and this

is a whole other interview, was the insurgent movements of left and

right. I think they are driven by a great deal of anger and populism

that is able to ride that anger but they don't really provide answers to

the problems that we face. Let me ask you about Jeremy Corbyn

directly. I know there is history here but nonetheless, somebody

trying to create a new economic policy for new times, trying to

address the angry, trying to think of new Labour policies, not policies

for New Labour. Are you being disloyal to him? I am not being

disloyal. Let's see what the policies are. I don't disrespect him

as a person or his views. Will you vote Labour with him? I will always

vote Labour because that is just the way I am. In the end, what is always

important in today's world, which is so uncertain and predictable, is

that I understand how these movements are moving politics in an

extraordinary way today and you can see it across the Atlantic and here

and across Europe. Personally I would like to see the centre, and by

that I mean the centre-left and the centre-right, get its grip back and

its traction back on the political scene because I believe lots of the

solutions to the problems we face today are less about ideology and

far more to do with practicality and understanding modernity and the way

the modern world works. Very last question. Many of the people who

supported you all the way through feel you have become too rich and

disconnected and you have trashed the brand. If you are reading stuff

in the press about what I do nowadays, don't read and believe it.

Look at my website and see what I actually do. I spent 80% of my time

on unpaid work. I have literally spent weeks in the Middle East on a

Middle East peace process. I have two foundations and I employ 200

people and I have to raise and make the money for all of them. What we

do is good and exciting work around the world but you will not read a

bit of it here. If you want to know what I do, go and read the facts.

Tony Blair, thank you very much. That was Tony Blair talking to me

earlier this morning. Before we go on, let's hear

from Nicky Campbell and what's coming up immediately

after this programme. Join us from Oxford at ten o'clock

by Wilt be asking one big question, did man create God? We have gathered

together the various theologians and writers, people of various faiths

and none. Join us at ten o'clock on BBC One. Interesting question.

And I'm joined once more by Liam Fox and Yanis Varoufakis.

You describe Tony Blair as a part of poison, and having watched that

interview, what do you make of it? It was very hesitant. He made some

good points. I agree that exiting the EU is not the same thing as

entering. As a young man, I campaigned against Greece entering

the European Union and the eurozone in particular of course. But to get

out would not necessarily get you to where you would have been if you had

not entered. That is a good point. But everything else, coming from

Tony Blair as supportive of my side of politics, it is a kind of

poisoned chalice, a kind of poison. People wonder about you, because you

have seen the misery caused by the Euro in your own country and by

migration, but you are telling us to stay in. That seems odd. Nobody can

accuse me of being a lackey of Brussels or a European loyalist. The

reason I am doing this, just to be sick thing is that I do not buy the

scare campaign of Remain, that if you get out, there will be

Armageddon the next day. That is nonsense. What I do fear is that the

European Union as it is, under the weight of its hubris and malignancy

and democratic vacuum, is disintegrating. Brexit would cause

an exhilaration of this disintegration, and you cannot

escape it. This situation will create a deflationary vortex and a

toxicity that will consume your country, even if you vote to leave.

This is why I am imploring you to stay in, and fight with us to change

the European Union, because you can vote to check out but you can not

change it afterwards. I said in the European elections one third of

citizens will vote for parties that want to leave or destroy the

European Union. I said what do you say to that and he said to me that

if one third want to destroy than two thirds don't and we will

continue as we are. That is my problem. Those in control of the

European project are set on a course that they set in the 1950s and they

are not changing trajectory. One of the things that I hope for is that

if Britain chooses to live, it will deliver such a shock to those

controlling the European system that they understand they must change

direction for their citizens. They will double down and they will

collapse in the same way they did in the 1920s and 30s, and that collapse

will drag you down with them because Britain is so intertwined with the

European Union. A Brexit vote is not going to create a cushion between

you and a deflationary Europe that is necessary, to shield you from it.

You mentioned ever closer union, Liam Fox, and we have a message from

Number 10 to say that Samantha Cameron had flunked the remote

control at the television set because David Cameron has got us out

of that. Ever closer union will continue. The eurozone needs to

integrate to diminish the risk that the Euro poses to monetary

stability. They are going to go down that road. It doesn't matter what we

think will stop that is the direction they have chosen. Ever

since I came into the House of Commons 24 years ago, I have been

told Europe is coming in our direction. It isn't. It is

continuing the path of integration that I think is foolish and

dangerous. Until the European Union is run for its citizens and not a

self-serving elite, the danger will be to us and to the continent and to

wider stability. We have to get control and we have to leave. We are

completely out of time. Thank you both very much indeed. That is all

we have time for. Next Sunday Boris Johnson will be here to argue the

case for Britain to leave the EU. But we leave you now

with some fine music. The late great John Peel once said

that Laura Cantrell's debut album in 2000 was his favourite record

of the last ten years From that album, here

is Laura Cantrell Enjoy the rest of the Bank

Holiday weekend! # I met a guy in a west coast town

Had four walls to bring him down # And he sometimes speaks

of you # Late at night he'd reminisce over

the lips he used to kiss # Two seconds of your love

is all I need from you # Two seconds of your time,

that's enough to say we're through # Two beats of your heart,

enough to know we'll never part # Two seconds of your love,

that's all I ever want # Two seconds of your time,

that's enough to say we're through # Two seconds of your love

enough to know we'll never part