アンドリュー・マー 29/5/2016 ヴァルーファキス、フォックス、ブレア (Andrew Marr 29/May/2016 Varoufakis, Fox, Blair)

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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 pot 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 leave, 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