10/12/2017 The Andrew Marr Show

So, Theresa May's best week,

I guess, since she became

Prime Minister, getting that first

Brexit agreement.

But this leaves open

the biggest question of all -

what kind of relationship

are we going to have with the EU?

What kind of country

are we going to be?

At last, the Cabinet are going

to settle down to discuss it.

About time, because, as with Labour,

right now, it's clear as mud.

David Davis, the Brexit Secretary,

and Sir Keir Starmer,

his Labour opposite number,

are both here, promising straight

answers to straight questions.

Ian Blackford, the SNP's

Leader at Westminster,

His call this morning for Labour to

join his party in a pledge to stay

inside the single market.

And I've been talking

to the Hollywood screenwriter

and West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin,

on his first film as a director,

Molly's Game, with its

star Jessica Chastain.

And reviewing the news, Gina Miller,

the anti-Brexit campaigner,

the broadcaster Iain Dale -

he's pro-Brexit - and observing them

both, Anushka Asthana,

political editor of the Guardian.

But first, the news

with Tina Daheley.

Good morning.

The Foreign Secretary,

Boris Johnson, is due to meet

the Iranian president,

Hassan Rouhani, this

morning on the second day

of his visit to the country.

He'll continue to press

for the release of Nazanin

Zaghari-Ratcliffe -

the British-Iranian aid

worker who's been held

prisoner in the country

since April, 2016.

She denies charges of trying

to overthrow the Iranian government.

But she faces the possibility

of a further court appearance today,

after Mr Johnson appeared last month

to contradict her claim

she was on holiday in Iran

at the time of her arrest.

More than 20 Arab League countries,

including close allies

of the United States,

have urged President Trump

to reverse his decision to recognise

Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

After three days of violence

and protests in the Gaza Strip

and West Bank, they say the move

is a dangerous violation

of international law.

The Arab League will now ask the UN

Security Council to condemn the US

President's declaration.

The equalities watchdog

is to conduct its own review

into the Grenfell Tower fire.

71 people died in the blaze,

in west London, in June.

The Equality and Human Rights

Commission is expected to consider

whether the Government and the local

council failed in their

duty to protect life.

It will publish its conclusions

in April, before the full findings

of the official inquiry are known.

Students in England

are being encouraged to study

for undergraduate degrees in two

years, rather than three.

The Universities Minister,

Jo Johnson, says that

students taking shorter

courses will save thousands

of pounds in tuition fees

and living expenses,

even though universities would be

able to charge nearly £2,000 more

per year than the current maximum

of just over £9,000.

A spell of heavy snow is forecast

over parts of Wales,

the Midlands and parts of Northern

and Eastern England.

The Met Office has issued an amber

weather warning for up to 10cm

of snow at low levels,

with up to 20cm on higher ground.

There are fears that some rural

areas could become cut off.

Wrap up warm.

That's all from me.

The next news on BBC One is at 1pm.

Back to you, Andrew.

Thank you, Tina.

Now to the papers.

The most important political story I

think on the front of the Sunday

Telegraph, Cabinet Brexit truce

threatens to unravel, basically

about the Irish agreement, a picture

of Theresa May putting a shoe on top

of the Christmas tree. Sunday Times,

a near naked bloke who had been

swimming in the Serpentine. The

Observer back to Brexit, EU gets

tough over trade deal, saying other

non-EU countries will try to

persuade the EU not to give us a

good deal, no names. People in the

snow. What else? The Mail on Sunday,

shouting match between Philip

Hammond and the new Defence

Secretary in the House of Commons,

Downing Street, and Theresa May

apparently had to separate them.

Just what the country wants to hear!

Sunday Express, gold plated trade

deal, it demands. You very often do

not get serious stories on the front

of the red tops, but this is a real

story about the working conditions

of people working for Amazon. Shall

we start with the front page of the

Sunday Telegraph, Anushka, an

interesting story?

Theresa May at

least ended the week in a good

place, partly because of the deal

appearing to be all things to all

people. According to this, Downing

Street have told senior Eurosceptic

ministers, suggesting Michael Gove

and Boris Johnson perhaps involved,

not to worry about the words full

alignment we were talking about last

week. It does not mean anything in

EU law and it is completely

meaningless, apparently, according

to some of the aids, it was just

done to please the Irish government.

Dublin looked at the words and

thought, great, a clear agreement

from the British Government.

This is

part of the problem. It is very

clear the words could be read in

different ways. The question is, how

will they be read in the next stage?

The interesting thing is, they

started off with regulatory

convergence, then regulatory

alignment, then alignment.

Full

alignment.

That means more like the

European economy rather than the

Japanese economy. Our economy

converges more with European style

economies than the Japanese. That is

meant to give comfort to Brexiteers,

hard Brexiteers.

Do you think it is

possible people Breen proved these

words -- people are being briefed,

these words do not mean anything?

A

lot has changed this week.

Certainly, Theresa May's position

has changed. A lot of us thought we

could for circumstances where the

Government could fall over this.

Within days, she got the DUP and

Irish government and the EU on side,

with a little bit of help from

George Younger, it has to be said,

and that was partly because EU

government claim that were putting

pressure on the Government to get

this done -- help from Mr Juncker.

This is an interesting... Dan Hodges

has gone from a Labour commentator

to slightly Conservative

commentator.

He will be on the phone

right now!

This has been Theresa

May's best week, he says, we have

seen the Prime Minister we thought

we would get. She has been a

conciliator this week, a diplomat.

She has kicked some of these things

into the long grass but that is what

happens in the EU, you agree on what

you can.

Let us talk more about the

Prime Minister. A lot of praise

about how she has soaked up

punishment, kept going, two hours

sleep before Brussels during the

breakfast deal, she has not given

up, where other people, perhaps more

tough looking politicians, they

might well have folded.

The toys in

the 1980s, we bulls wobble but they

do not fall down. You can knock her

down, but she comes back. I think

she has now recovered her mojo a

bit. She needed to. You have not

seen any of the hard Brexiteers,

Owen Patersons, Iain Duncan Smith's,

they are not that happy, but they

have not denounced this, Anna Soubry

Nicky Morgan on the other side is

saying, this is great. She has kind

of united a very divided party.

They

wobble but they do not fall down! I

like that. The front page of the

Observer, you are a lawyer, what do

you make of the argument about the

full alignment?

I have to say, I

agree with Iain.

Excellent.

The full

alignment, you can take it, if it

means falling into line, going on to

the Irish saying Fintan O'Toole,

article saying we have basically

agreed we have to stay in the single

market and Customs union, come what

may, by the back door. If that is

the case, nobody is going to be

happy. But I have to say that this

is only the start. It was a fudge to

get over the line because we needed

to to get to the real detail. Phase

two, that is when we will find out

what is going to be agreed.

The

Observer is quite gloomy about phase

two?

What interesting about this story on

the front page, we expected

resistance from the EU member

states, it is the non-EU member

saying, you cannot give the UK a

special deal in a third country

status because we will not put up

with that. The EU and non-EU member

saying the UK cannot have a special

deal. The end of the column on page

one, Lord Coe saying, there might

not be enough time for an

off-the-shelf Canada deal. The

detail will be in a very tight

timeline.

Can we talk more about the

Fintan O'Toole common in the Irish

Times? -- column. The clearest view

from Dublin saying the Irish

government has saved Britain from a

hard Brexit, that is effectively his

argument.

It is, the last line of

the article is really interesting,

he says, if the deal is the dream of

a clean Brexit is off the table...

Northern Ireland must align with

Southern island who are part of the

EU, all of the EU rules and

regulations -- southern Ireland. The

UK is in alignment with the EU,

therefore...

135 common agreements

underpinned by EU law. If you have

to align with all of them, if you

don't, then that presumably means

the break-up of the union, that

seems to be the two choices the

article is pointing to.

The key

thing is you have all four sides,

Irish government, EU, Britain,

Northern Ireland, they all want the

same outcome, a frictionless border.

You would hope in the end reasonable

people would be able to get to that

outcome.

How worried are people in

the Conservative Party?

It leaves

you in a situation where you are

slightly more likely to get a softer

Brexit because the soft Irish border

will be replicated in Dover- Calais

or you are more likely to get WTA

rules. One MP was saying there are a

lot of Conservative MPs who are

quite moderate on Europe and they

are behind the PM because they want

the bespoke deal. In the end, if it

comes to a choice between WTO and

staying in the European Free Trade

Association, a lot of Conservative

MPs would choose the European Free

Trade Association.

Dan Hodges argues

that makes it less likely we would

crash out.

Another big political

story I mentioned in the papers

review, the extraordinary bust up

between Philip Hammond and Williams,

does it really matter?

It does

because politics is about

interpersonal relationships and we

saw that when Margaret Thatcher met

Gorbachev. Here you have two very

senior government ministers at each

other's threads, Philip Hammond

essentially his people allegedly

briefly against the new Defence

Secretary, calling him, stupid boy,.

I would not be happy with that. They

apparently confronted each other in

the voting lobby with the Prime

Minister a few feet away and her PPS

said to them, it was not fisticuffs,

a verbal fight.

Air turns blue.

They

were hauled into the Prime

Minister's office and she gave them

a dressing down and quite right.

Interesting week for Gavin

Williamson. He gave an interview

saying all terrorists have to be

killed and should not be allowed

back into the country, cosying up to

the Daily Mail, and you wonder if if

it is the first part of a leadership

bid. He has enemies and fans. The

Chancellor, I'm afraid, again, he

has not covered himself in political

glory here.

Another big story this

week, Anushka, the two year degree

proposal from Jo Johnson.

- and

grab. Students can forget the lovely

three years having fun. They are

trying to ramp up the number of

people doing fast tracked two year

degrees. The Russell group have not

offered them so far because they do

not get enough money. They are

trying to find ways to make it much

broader.

Hardly anyone has picked up

on this idea since the election, in

the Conservative manifesto, 0.2% of

students have gone for it, either

because they are lazy or because

more likely the universities are not

offering the degrees because it is

expensive.

That is what it appears

to be, universities are not putting

them out there because there is a

limit on how much they could charge.

The Government are saying it is not

good enough, people are paying a

lot, they should be able to do it in

two years.

Nearly out of time, Boris

Johnson in Tehran, just a

possibility later today we will see

Boris Johnson and this poor woman

stuck there for all of this time,

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, on the

forecourt of Tehran airport coming

home.

I wish that was going to be

the case. Such a tragic story. This

trip was diarist a couple of years

ago, this visit today. It is good it

has brought it to the floor and he

can talk about it on humanitarian

grounds. It is heartbreaking.

He is

working jolly hard on it now.

He

should have apologised, come forward

first when he made the blunder. But

he is now working hard. Her husband

seems to have faith in him.

We need

to hope she is back home. One of the

story, Iain, the Palestine Jerusalem

story, we will hear Aaron Sorkin on

that later, this is a really

dangerous moment.

It is unfortunate

the Palestinian president is now

refusing to meet Vice President Mike

Pence. It would have been an ideal

opportunity for him to explain in

words of one syllable four letters

why the Prime Minister have made the

wrong decision. Donald Trump has

been skilful Forder -- for domestic

politics. He says, I am different, I

fulfil promises. Domestically, it

has worked for him. In terms of the

impact on the area, we don't know,

he has thrown up the cards in the

air, we will see the consequences.

In a small number of syllables and

limited words, you have covered a

great deal of subjects for us. Thank

you very much.

And so, to the weather.

Proper winter in the north,

you lucky people.

Wet and bracingly cold down here.

And apparently, more snow

on the way this morning.

With more, here's Stav Danaos

in the weather studio.

It's been very severe, the weather

this morning across parts of Wales

and into Central parts of England as

well. VB prepared amber warning

remains in force. Best stay home,

and it looks like there will be

significant price risk. Let me show

you the snow radar, you can see

where the heavy snow has been.

Sennybridge has seen totals around

23 centimetres, in fact the latest

recording is 28 centimetres. It will

keep falling across central and

northern parts of Wales, in towards

the Midlands, gradually easing down

through the afternoon. Gale force

winds in the south and south-west up

to 80 mph so this could cause

disruption as well. Some very wild

weather across parts of England and

Wales. Meanwhile in Scotland and the

far north of England, sunny and very

cold. This gradually clearing away

eastwards in the overnight period,

turning cold again with the

significant risk of ice in many

places, temperatures as low as minus

macro 12 Celsius across northern

Scotland.

Much too early to ask silly

questions about a white Christmas.

Thanks.

So, we've been talking

at length this morning

about that UK-EU divorce deal.

The Irish border was,

of course, the big problem -

a point that hasn't been lost

on the Scottish National Party.

Its Westminster leader

Ian Blackford joins me now.

You have issued an appeal this

morning to the Labour Party, what

have you asked them to do?

We have

now reached the end of phase one and

it's about the kind of deal that can

be put together which will protect

the economic interests of the people

of the United Kingdom, about jobs

and living standards.

So what do you

want them to do?

We want them and

others to get behind us. If you look

at the agreement has come forward

about full alignment in order to

deal with the Irish question, the

simple answer is to stay within the

single market and Customs union.

The

Liberal Democrats want the same

thing but the problem is during the

referendum campaign people were told

that if they were voting to leave

the EU, they were leaving the single

market, again and again.

Many would

say during the campaign even on the

Leave site that it would not be

necessary. It is about the threat

coming clearer to jobs and

prosperity.

Let's look at what

people were saying during the

referendum campaign itself.

The British public would be voting,

if we leave, to leave the EU

and leave the single market.

Should we come out

of the single market?

I think that that almost certainly

would be the case, yes.

Do you want us to stay

inside the single market, yes or no?

No, we should be outside

the single market.

I had Michael Gove in that chair

and I said, "After Brexit,

will we be in the European single

market, yes or no?",

and he said, "No."

He was right.

So we won't be in the single market?

Yes, absolutely.

We would be out of the single

market, that's the reality.

Britain would be quitting,

quitting the single market.

So you can't really say that voters

didn't know what they were voting

for. They were voting to leave the

single market and they did so. Time

and time again I was asking people

in that very chair and they said we

are out of the single market, that's

what people voted for and therefore

it is breaking trust with the voters

to stay.

I don't agree, there were a

lot of untruths told in that

campaign, let's go to the bus that

set about 350 million for the NHS.

The simple fact is there was not a

conversation with the people of the

United Kingdom looking at job

losses.

I have already had that

conversation on the screen.

In the

Scotland there is a threat of 80,000

jobs lost, we have lost the banking

authority already, there's a clear

threat to living on jobs. Nobody,

when we talk about parliamentarians

of the House of Commons and I will

even say some Conservative MPs, have

got to be careful because if we

going into a hard Brexit without the

protection of the single market and

a customs union, there is an

economic threat to this country

which is unparalleled in recent

times.

Your real position for

Scotland is that you want to stay

inside the EU, is that still the

case now that the actual agenda of

the EU is becoming more clear?

Martin Schultz in negotiation with

Angela Merkel said he wants a new

constitutional treaty for the United

States of Europe, explicitly and

army, Treasury and Chancellor and

the rest of it, and anyone who

doesn't like it will have to leave

the EU.

What we are doing is

concentrating on what's in front of

us at the moment, which is the

negotiations of the UK and

protecting our people. I would

remind the Prime Minister we are

talking about four nation states

within the UK. What she should do is

call the First Minister of Scotland

and Wales into these negotiations.

She also has to understand the

people of Scotland and Northern

Ireland voted to remain in the EU.

We asking her to respect the wishes

of those people by staying in the

single market and Customs union. The

question for Jeremy is is he going

to come with us to protect the jobs

and living standards of people in

this country.

I doubt it. Let me ask

about the Irish border issue and the

sense of convergence being the

answer, how important is that for

Scotland and why?

It's a massive

issue. At the end of the day it's

about the living standards people

have post Brexit. The UK has now

signed up to have full convergence

with southern Ireland and the rest

of Europe. What I'm saying to the

Prime Minister and everyone else is

the single market and Customs union

is the pathway to doing that.

Very

briefly, do you think the Irish

agreement, the convergence, means in

effect we stay in both those

organisations?

I believe it will be

ultimate, now you can debate that.

The EU is making it clear through

the transition deal we will remain

in the single market and Customs

union and that will create the

pathway for us doing it over the

longer term.

Ian Blackford, very

interesting, thanks for joining us.

Coming up later this morning,

Sarah Smith will be asking Northern

Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire

how the Government got the DUP

onside with the Brexit deal,

and the Shadow Foreign Secretary,

Emily Thornberry, about what Labour

wants in the Brexit negotiations.

That's the Sunday Politics

at 11am here on BBC One.

Up to now, Labour's answers

on the really big questions

about our future after we leave

the EU have been pretty

vague and contradictory.

Well, the time for

that has now passed.

Sir Keir Starmer, the Shadow Brexit

Secretary, joins me now.

Do you accept you have been very

clear to know about where you want

to end up?

No, we have said we want

to partnerships that retains the

benefits of the single market and

the customs union.

Can I explain to

you why I think you have not been

clear? You've had your deputy leader

Tom Watson, who has said we can stay

inside the single market perhaps

input -- and you have said this week

you have not been sufficiently clear

on the point of the single market.

My problem is I always get very

technical and legal about this and

I'm not going to do that, so let's

be clear. The benefits of the single

market and Customs union are no

tariffs and an alignment of

regulations and standards, and that

means that for goods and services we

can trade successfully in the

future. That's what we want, that's

what we mean by the benefits and to

some extent the model doesn't

matter.

Can I try and... What you

want is you accept you cannot stay

inside the single market because of

the referendum result but you want a

new treaty which gives you as many

of the benefits of the single market

and Customs union as can be

negotiated, is that true?

The way we

put it is we would start with viable

options, staying in the customs

union, and the single market variant

which means full participation in

the single market is so it's a bit

more than that. We want the full

benefits and we're clear what the

starting options will be. But the

developments this week show we are

right in our approach because one of

the reasons we advocated that course

is because it's the only way to

achieve no hard order in Northern

Ireland. At some point I put David

Davis in the House of Commons on

Tuesday, you cannot sweep the

customs union of the table on the

one hand and say you don't want a

hard order in Northern Ireland and

that is exactly the conclusion of

the negotiations this week.

I want

to come onto your position in the

second but this hard border

question, we have this new word -

full convergence - of relations on

the EU and the UK, but we are told

this morning that that's not legally

meaningful and that actually it may

not mean much in the end.

Well, the

document was released on Friday, it

commits to no hard border meaning no

infrastructure and no related checks

or controls. That's an absolutely

clear commitment. Just let me

finish, if you don't mind.

A

fallback position.

A commitment to

the north-south co-operation and

what's written into the document is

these are commitments come what may

in all circumstances.

The document

also says no customs union and no

single market.

You pushed me on that

fallback position so let's deal with

that. Having re-read the small

print, I am clear that fallback in

the first position in fact will

collapse into one, which is

alignment. I have been saying over

and over again...

So you think this

is the real deal?

This is the real

deal, you cannot have no hard border

if you don't have alignment.

You are

saying that because the European

Commission also said that?

They

issued their own assessment of the

agreement reached. Remember, they

are on the other side of the

negotiating table and said they did

a mapping exercise of the

north-south cooperation agreement

and they are clear the biggest

single risk is divergence to those

agreements because they are based on

EU law. They then went on to say

what the UK has said is their aim is

to solve this with an EU UK

agreement, then the EU said, "This

intention seemed hard to reconcile

with the UK's communicative decision

to leave the internal market and

Customs union".

But with respect,

they would say that.

They say we do

not say how option one isn't

essentially the same... The Tory

party realise this collapses into

one way forward, which is alignment

and convergence.

So for a lot of

people this is confusing but let me

be clear, you really think the

agreement Theresa May struck this

week means Britain will in

perpetuity stay close to the single

market and Customs union?

Yes, I

think that's the right thing and I

think we should hold her to that

because that goes to the heart of

the question, what sort of Britain

do we want to be? Do we see Europe

as our major trading partner or do

we want to rip ourselves apart from

that?

So you want a new treaty

giving full access and benefits of

the single market and Customs union,

and you have said it's a bit like

Norway style treaty for the

21st-century.

Yes.

The two things

the EU has made clear what that

involves is paying money in, would

you accept that?

Norway pays money

in, actually on a voluntary basis

but there may have to be payments,

to be negotiated.

But the other

thing as you know is the four

freedoms and you have said again and

again that freedom of movement is

off the table, after we leave we

have left. Can I ask you a subtly

different question, what maximal

cross-channel migration in both

directions be part of that's

negotiation or not?

Whatever the

rules are would have to be

negotiated and you are right to push

me on this because I've said freedom

of movement cannot stay the same,

the status quo is not an option,

that means it's got to be

negotiated, and you and others push

back against me and say you cannot

have the benefits of the single

market if you don't accept freedom

of movement. Now we have the EU and

UK agreeing to an approach which

says we must retain alignment we are

to solve the position in Northern

Ireland.

So that means people moving

across those borders in both

directions?

Let me make this point

because what is set against me every

time I put this argument is you

can't have that, it's and therefore

you have got to give up on the

benefits of the single market and

Customs union. What's clear is the

benefits are integral to Northern

Ireland.

I want to say one more time

on this question of migration

because we are moving back and

forward between the EU and UK. It's

about real people watching this

programme. What Labour in that

treaty negotiated system whereby

people living in the EU could live

and work here freely and vice versa?

That would have to be negotiated. Of

course we would want people to come

from the EU to work here and people

here to go and work in the EU, the

basis of that would have to be

negotiated.

Easy movement, if not

free?

Of course.

And after we have

left the EU, under your negotiation

we would still be mapping, copying

and pasting, whatever, sticking

close to EU regulations when it

comes to carrots, car engines,

whatever it might be?

What underpins access and benefit is

a level playing field. If you want

those benefits, you have to stay on

the same level playing field. The

Labour Party does not want to

deregulate.

The answer is yes?

Yes,

we are comfortable staying on a

level playing field.

In the future,

they change, the vacuum cleaner

regulations, and we change with

them, even though we do not have a

vote?

Yes. Let me explain. If you're

making vacuum cleaners in this

country and you are selling to

Europe, you have to do it otherwise

you cannot sell into the market. We

have a choice about whether we stay

aligned or not does not mean we have

to exercise that choice in a way

that makes it more difficult to

trade, we can choose to stay

aligned.

After the negotiation, we

carry on paying money and, easy

movement of people, the people who

voted to take our money back and cut

immigration, they will not be happy,

and we are going to copy and paste

and follow the EU regulations, even

though we do not have a vote, that

is by any standards the worst of all

worlds, you have backed yourself

into a very pleasant corner.

I do

not see how it is the worst of all

worlds to continue to trade

successfully in Europe, and to have

a solution that works in Ireland,

3600 people were murdered over 30

years in Northern Ireland, very good

book published earlier this year...

We are going widely off subject.

Remember the dead, serious

questions, having no hard border and

trading successfully with Europe, it

is a choice we are entitled to make.

We have a choice and we can choose

that.

We will take their regulations

without a vote, carry on with big

migration back and forward and we

will pay money for the privilege,

that has been described as being a

vassal state of the EU.

How we

negotiate is a matter store for

negotiation, not cut and paste, but

we do have a choice, stay aligned so

we can trade successfully or tear

apart? I say we should stay aligned.

We are talking about what sort of

Britain we are going to be, what the

next 40, 50 years are going to look

like, and I do not think anyone

voted to make it harder to trade

with Europe.

Your own colleague

Barry Gardner has described the

position as a vassal state, and that

will be Labour's position?

The

position Barry Gardner laid out was

at the beginning of last summer.

It

is where you have ended up.

We did a

huge amount of work over the summer

as you know developing our policy,

we came up very clearly saying

transitional arrangements will be

needed and on the same terms as now

and that we should have as viable

options on the table staying in a

customs union and a member of the

single market and every Labour

spokesperson since then has said the

same thing. I appreciate looking

back you can find minor differences,

but since the summer, it has been a

unified voice from Labour.

I am not

unfortunately a mind reader, but I

suspect you would like to stay in

the single market and the customs

union and you know that would be the

best available option to us right

now because we would have votes and

so forth. Can I ask you, would it

not be more honest and

straightforward and infuse many of

your own supporters if you were able

to say, yes, let us get rid of the

obfuscation, weasel words, I would

like to stay inside the single

market and the customs union?

I have

said we want the benefits of both

and I have said the viable options

are staying in a customs union or

variant of the single market, I do

not want to get technical.

Not

exactly the same thing.

Everyone

knows you would have to sign a new

agreement, you cannot stay in

exactly the same agreement, you need

a new agreement, a variant of what

we have got,

but do want full participation of

the single market? Yes. The benefits

of the customs union? Yes. Do we

need to negotiate? Yes. That is the

Britain we want to live in.

Very big

choices. Jeremy Corbyn has said the

idea of a second referendum is on

the table. Is it?

At the moment, it

is clear we have to get through this

phase of the negotiation and the

Article 50 agreement. We have never

called for a second referendum, we

are focused on what...

The leader

has said you have not taken a

decision which means you might call

for a second referendum, yes or no?

We have not called a second

referendum.

I am asking about the

future.

It is hard to know what will

happen, things are moving so fast,

but we are not calling for it.

Thank

you very much.

Now, Molly's Game is a new film

based on the true story

of an underground poker master

called Molly Bloom.

West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin's

debut as a director

is about the murky world of illegal

gambling, Russian dirty money

and American mafias,

all of which confronts Molly

with a profound moral dilemma.

I caught up with Aaron Sorkin

and Jessica Chastain,

who plays Molly, to discuss why

he chose this particular

story for his first film.

I wasn't going to wait before

I put a plan in place.

I will be hosting a game in this

suite every Tuesday night.

Let's play.

Slow it down.

Big players don't like fast games.

Sarcastic dealing, cool.

Molly Bloom is what got me

to choose Molly Bloom.

I read her book, which

is a terrific write -

I would recommend it

to anybody - but then

it was meeting Molly.

In that first hour that I met her,

it started to become clear to me

that I was talking to someone

who didn't realise it but she was

a real-life movie heroine.

She does the right thing

when doing the wrong thing,

that sense of integrity,

that sense of character

and that sense of decency.

Especially nowadays,

when you come across it,

it feels like just a cool glass

of water in the middle

of the desert.

She's encouraged to blurt out

the names of lots of people

whose secrets she knows,

lots of powerful men,

and she refuses to do so.

In the end, why do

you think she refuses?

It's not about protecting

powerful men, the film,

it's about not giving any more

of herself away.

The film really explores patriarchy,

and you see it in her family,

you see it in her industry

and you see it in the government.

And Molly gives so much of

who she is away throughout the film.

She changes everything

about the way she looks,

she's jumping through these hoops,

adhering to the rules

laid out by men.

And at the end of the movie,

she says, I'm not doing it any more.

This is my name, this is who I am

and I'm going to stay true to that.

First buy-in, 250,000.

That's going to make noise.

I was the biggest game

runner in the world.

You're not taking

a percentage of the pot?

No.

Keep it that way because you don't

want to break the law

when you're breaking the law.

Am I breaking the law?

Not really.

We're able to find out

for sure, aren't we?

Laws are written down.

Despite the cocaine and the drugs,

and the dirty money,

the poker games and the sexual

allure and the violence,

is this, in the end,

an old-fashioned moral story?

Everything you described comes

from the man cave that Molly has

created to serve this industry

where men make all the rules.

So I think it's really

a timely film right now.

Also, when you think of what women

had to do to find success

in an industry dominated by men.

And for her at the end of the film,

to stay true to who she is,

it's absolutely a moral tale.

When you're making a film,

you've written presidents,

you've written the Social Network

and now you're bringing

in the Russian Mafia.

That can't not be a political

statement at this moment.

It would have been a political

statement no matter what year

the film was released.

As it happened, this film suddenly

became more relevant

than anyone expected it to be.

I'll even tell you this -

many of the Russian mobsters

who Molly inadvertently lets

into her game, she did not know

that they were connected,

as we say, in the US.

Many of them lived in Trump Tower.

And your characters in the West Wing

have this golden way of speaking

which owes a lot to JFK,

I guess, and that era,

and the writers around there.

And we now have a president

who communicates by tweet.

Can I put it to you that, actually,

whatever you think of Donald Trump -

and I suspect you're not a huge

supporter - he's a very,

very effective modern rhetoritician?

Well, effective at what?

I don't think there's a grand

strategy behind what he's doing,

I don't think he's playing 3D chess

while the rest of us

are playing checkers.

I think that we are seeing a guy

just lob spitballs, and what he does

best and what his base likes him

the most for

is that he's an excellent stick

with which to poke

their enemies in the eye.

You come from an American

Jewish heritage.

Do you not at least applaud the move

to Jerusalem as the capital,

the American embassy

going to Jerusalem?

A lot of people in Israel

are really, really delighted.

No, I am not delighted

that he did that.

It was absolutely unnecessary.

There is no upside to it.

It will very likely cause

violence around the world.

A lot of that violence is going

to be directed toward Americans.

It was an empty gesture

designed to appease a very,

very narrow group of supporters.

Of course, Israel is

applauding it, and of course,

we all support Israel,

but it was a reckless and stupid

thing to do.

Jessica, Aaron, thanks very

much for talking to us.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Now, the main event -

in his first interview

since the Brussels deal,

the Brexit Secretray,

David Davis, joins me.

Before we get going on this week's

events, I have to ask you, no easy

way of talking about this, an issue

about your own integrity when it

came to some of the things you have

said about impact assessments, you

told me you were doing lots of

impact assessments, really important

to work out what will happen after

Brexit, then you told the House of

Commons something else. Both clips

you, the first earlier in the

year...

We continue to analyse the impact

of our exit across the breadth

of the UK economy covering more

than 50 sectors, I think

58 at the last count,

to shape our negotiating position.

Has the Government undertaken

any impact assessments

on the implications of leaving

the EU for different

sectors of the economy?

Not in sectors.

On the motor sector?

No.

Financial

services.

The answer

will be no to all of them.

Did the impact assessments exist or

not? Using the word impact does not

make an impact assessment. Let me be

clear, the impact assessment has a

proper meaning almost in Law,

certainly in civil service, and the

better regulation task force has

guidelines. What we have done is

analysed each sector and said, how

big is it? How big is it question

how much does it depend on European

markets? That has been the focus.

There are 850 pages of that.

You

were wrong in the House of Commons,

they do exist?

No. The people asking

for this were aiming at was the idea

of a forecast of the impact, the

forecast of how much would this

industry lose under this scenario,

those do not exist.

That is the kind

of thing people would hope the

Government had done. You're going

into this really important

negotiation, people want to know

what the Government's view of the

impact on the car industry might be.

We know what the effective

regulatory barriers are, that is the

important thing. We will no doubt

later come to the arguments of

convergence and so on. How do we

deal with that? What do we need to

negotiate? When we started we were

looking at possibly doing

negotiation sector by sector. We

will not do that so there is no

point doing one forecast here...

Why

not question at uber-the forecast do

not work. Look at what people have

forecast for the outcome of the

Brexit referendum. -- why not? The

forecast do not work.

They said the

economy would come down. It has

improved. Best employment ever.

Lowest unemployment in my lifetime.

Way off topic. Do you not accept you

gave the impression the detailed

impact assessments were being done,

had been done, eye watering the

detailed, meticulous, they existed?

No. Sectoral analysis is not the

same as an impact assessment.

We are

conducting a broad range of analysis

on the macroeconomic and sectoral

level, to quote, understand the

impact of leaving the EU on all

aspects of the UK, including

agriculture. That is an impact

sectoral assessment of the kind you

said did not exist.

That is what

they have got. 850 pages of sectoral

analysis. That is the size, the

employment, the dependence on

Europe, availability of other

markets, that is the data, that is

done. No one has said anything

different. Throughout the course of

18 months, sectoral analysis is the

phrase I have used. Alice in

Wonderland. No, Gulliver's Travels.

Were you loose in your language at

least?

I have answered questions on

this thousands of times. I have used

the term sectoral analysis many

hundreds of times.

How much will it

cost to leave the EU?

It is very

complex.

Again, I gave you that

figure not that long ago and you

rolled your eyes and you shut your

head and you laughed and you said,

no, absolutely not, just a guess. If

billion was a guess, bloody good

guess.

If you want precision, I

said, that sounds sort of made up.

Pretty accurate question at

the

reason it was sort of made up was

because at that stage we were going

through the line by line analysis.

-- pretty accurate? We did not know

what the outcome would be.

When did

you know?

Let me finish. A week or

so go, quite recently, we did not

complete the line by line analysis

until we went into the final round

of negotiations.

An awful lot of

money, can you point to one occasion

on which a government minister of

money, can you point to one occasion

on which a government minister ever

warned the British public this is

what it would cost to leave the EU?

From the beginning, in the Lancaster

House beach and indeed actually I

think maybe in the conference

speech, certainly Lancaster House

speech, the Prime Minister said we

would meet our obligations.

No one

knew what that meant.

We had not

done the numbers, the opening bid

was 100 billion plus, on the front

of the Financial Times newspaper.

Nothing like 100 billion. You have

had Keir Starmer on here promising

effectively a Labour government

would continue paying large sums of

money. We are not going to do that.

Can I ask about the sums. 40 billion

is roughly four years of net import

at the moment so forth four years of

payments...

It won't quite work like

that.

But at what point in this

parliament will we start to get

money back? Hardly any will come

back this Parliament?

If we have the

two-year transition period, that

will carry on as now, so 20 billion,

which is a guess. But we haven't

done the profile of that yet, it may

go on for many years but quite small

sums.

Let's go onto this year...

This week's negotiations.

It feels

light-years!

Is the question is

whether that full convergence quote,

full alignment I beg your pardon, is

real or not.

It's an important

distinction. You were the rate in

the earlier about using words.

I

corrected myself, full alignment.

And it was changed from no

divergence, that's the point. Let me

explain. No divergence would have

meant taking cut and paste rules. It

covers agriculture, road and rail,

water... It is unlikely to have much

impact on health or indeed

education. But the ones it does have

an impact on, we are not looking to

create a circumstance where animal

welfare is worse in Britain than

elsewhere. Or where safety of food

is worse or pollutions of waterways

so we will need the outcomes but not

do it by just copying or doing what

the European Union are doing. And to

put it plainly to you, because Keir

was reading out the union comments

on it, when the same point was put

to Michel Barnier on Friday, he said

no, you don't understand, this does

not mean membership of the single

market or the customs union.

But if

I put it in very simple terms, if

they have a rule on carrots, in due

course I will rule on carrots will

be aligned. Their carrots and our

carrots will be broadly speaking the

same carrots.

Full alignment means

outcome. Northern Ireland is next to

the Republic of Ireland...

And it

will have next to regulations, very

similar.

There will be some

similarities. The Prime Minister

made this out in her Florence

speech, she said there will be areas

where we want similar outcomes and

will have similar methods to achieve

them, there will be areas with

similar outcomes but different

methods to achieve them, and areas

where we want different outcomes and

will use different methods.

Let's

stick with what we know, in this

agreement you have all signed up to

full alignment, it involves

agriculture. David Jones your junior

minister was worried about this

because he pointed out before you do

a free trade deal with America they

have insisted we have to have

agricultural norms that apply to

them as well.

You say that, we

haven't yet started that negotiation

so it's a bit hard... I mean,

there's an awful lot here, I saw it

in your earlier comment as well, of

assuming what the other side says in

the negotiation at the beginning is

the outcome. You can see an example

this week in the Japan agreement

where there are agricultural...

There's no way Europe and Japan will

be the same.

Nonetheless the US

Commons secretary Wilbur Ross has

said any deal with Brussels might

hinder a relationship and it's

necessary we remove any unnecessary

regulatory divergences with the US,

which seems to go against the spirit

of what you have aggrieved this

week.

He said maintain the

regulations, that's not we are going

to do, we are going to bring back

control.

They will be aligned, fully

aligned in fact.

If you look at any

free trade deal anywhere in the

world, look at the Canadian one with

Europe, what you see is agreements

on where product standards normally

comply. Sometimes you see other

things, in the free trade deal

between Europe and Canada they say

they will not go below the minimum.

What the House of Commons and what

the House of Lords, what the

parliament will decide in the future

is what's good for this industry but

what's good in terms of both the

market in Europe and the rest of the

world and they will make those

decisions independently with full

sovereignty and even light of what

the consequences will be.

The

Chancellor of the Exchequer has said

that under all circumstances we will

pay the money to the EU. Can I ask

you whether this agreement this

week...

It is conditional on an

outcome, I'm afraid that's not

right. I have this -- it is

conditional on a trade outcome, but

also the other elements of the

treaty which will be security,

foreign affairs and other things.

So

in the unhappy possibility but it's

a possibility if we get onto the

trade side of the negotiations,

phase to -- two, and the EU don't

give us what we want and they have

us over a barrel and we hate it and

we say we are not having any of

that, in those circumstances are

committed to the regulatory

convergence, committed to paying the

money?

No deal is no deal. Let me

finish, you want the answer.

Otherwise you will be coming back to

me later saying you only said this.

Number one, no deal means that we

won't be paying the money. Some of

these areas...

So the Chancellor is

wrong about that, OK.

It's been made

clear when ten already so that's not

new. One of the things we have had

as a major objective, Major

negotiating objective of the British

government, we don't normally lay

out red lines, that's one of the

things I have said, that we want to

protect the peace process and also

we want to protect Ireland from the

impact of Brexit for them. So this

was a statement of intent more than

anything else.

Here is the crucial

question, that promise on full

alignment that we have made not just

of the EU but also in specific terms

to the Irish government in Dublin,

if we don't get a deal, does that

promise gets torn up?

I think if we

don't get a deal we will have to

find a way of making sure we keep

the frictionless border as an

invisible border in Northern

Ireland. We do it at the moment. At

the moment there are different tax

and levy regimes north and south of

the border, we manage that without

having border posts and we will find

a way of doing that.

The Taoiseach

thinks he has that in his pocket, he

may be watching this. Can you look

in the camera and say we commit

ourselves to that.

We commit

ourselves to maintaining a

frictionless invisible border,

that's what we undertake.

Even with

no deal?

Even with a WTO deal, we

will find it. I strongly recommend

reading our paper was published, we

published 14 papers this year.

Tell

people, is a technical solution?

It

could be a solution using trusted

traders so that people can cross the

border but they will be notified and

there will be audits of them. All

sorts, and also large allowances to

small companies. There are

possibilities we can do which nobody

has engaged on yet.

Transitional

period about two years.

Two years.

Is the case that during that

transitional period we are still

negotiating or not?

We would expect

the substance -- substantive trade

deal to be struck.

There will be

tinkering going on?

Yes.

In real

terms, because there has to be an

implementation phase, we have about

eight months to do an incredibly

complicated trade deal that took

Canada seven years?

It's not that

complicated, it come back to the

alignment point. The first thing is

we want an overarching trade deal

which has no carrots so you don't

have to negotiate every tariff. --

that has no tariffs.

Let me push

back one more time on this because

it comes to the kind of arrangement

we want to have once we have finally

left the EU which the Cabinet is

finally going to discuss before

Christmas. What is your vision of

that?

It's not just my vision, it's

what we have been discussing

already, before the Florence speech,

before the white paper was

published, which is an overarching

trade deal which includes services,

with individual specific

arrangements for aviation, nuclear,

data, a series of strands am most of

them based on where we start now. As

Michel Barnier has said, the thing

is how we manage divergence, that's

the point. So that it doesn't

undercut the access in the future.

Going further forward. So if the

basic deal, I'm being very crude

about this but it is Canada plus the

city?

Plus plus plus would be one

way of putting it.

The French want

to steal as much of the city as they

can.

That's your words.

Appropriate,

grab, whatever. It's perfectly

possible that would make a very

difficult negotiation and cannot be

done within eight months so if it's

not finished within eight months,

what happens?

I don't agree, it's

more like a year than eight months

but we cannot sign this until after

we actually leave, it may be

one-minute or one second after we

leave but the formal technicalities

mean we can't do that. We have about

a year which is why this week was

important. If we had gone through

this week...

I have another this

week question.

Then we really would

have been com pressed and I would be

saying it is difficult to do. So the

odds against a WTO agreement have

dropped dramatically.

And that's the

meaning of this week. Let me ask

what Michael Gove meant when he said

this can be looked up again at the

next general election, if we don't

like the deal David Davis has

struck, don't worry... That wasn't

helpful, was it?

It's a statement of

the obvious, any new government is

elected on a mandate of its own. We

were elected on the mandate the deal

was delivered, any other government

might not be. That would be the

consequence. Go back and renegotiate

or whatever. But it's a statement of

the obvious.

And what you want is

Canada plus plus plus.

What we want

is a bespoke outcome. We will

probably start with the best of

Canada and the best of Japan and

best of south Korea and add to that

the bits which are missing, which

are the services.

Thank you.

That's all for this week.

Next week, we'll be back

with our final show before

the Christmas break.

My guests will include a man tipped

by many to be the next James Bond,

the actor James Norton.

Plus, much more.

Until then, goodbye.