Politics 2016: Jeremy Corbyn, migration and the EU

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35169100

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BBC political correspondent Chris Mason looks at three on-going stories which are likely to loom large in the world of politics in 2016.

EU referendum

So, will it actually happen this year? It can feel more like a neverendum rather than a referendum this whole thing, given we don't know exactly when we'll get our say - only that it will definitely happen before the end of 2017.

What will we be asked? The elections watchdog, the Electoral Commission, says the fairest way to ask the question - so it's not inadvertently biased - is to ask: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?"

It's remain or leave. We last had a say on this on 5 June 1975 - I say "we", of course most of us didn't because we either weren't alive, or weren't old enough to vote.

The youngest voters that time around are in their late fifties now.

"Do you think the UK should stay in the European Community (Common Market)?" was the question asked then.

Just over 67% of voters said yes, with every region and chunk of the UK giving the then EC the thumbs up except the Shetland Islands and the Western Isles.

But a generation on, it's called the European Union, it's got its own currency - or at least 19 countries in the 28-member club do.

Critics say we were sold a cute little puppy in 1975 that has grown into a colossal Great Dane that slobbers all over the continent, lapping up powers that should be left where they belong - in national parliaments, not in Brussels.

Those arguing we should stay in the EU say it might not be perfect, but being in the club gives the UK a global clout we wouldn't have if we left.

So what do you think - it'll soon be your call, quite possibly this year - remain, or leave?

Jeremy Corbyn

Imagine if I'd gone on 5live a year ago today and said: "I like to think of myself as being plugged in at Westminster, so let me let you in on a hunch of mine. I reckon this time next year Jeremy Corbyn will be the leader of the Labour Party."

If I had said it, the editor would have whispered to my bosses: "The boy Mason is a moron, let's send him to be our reporter in Peru where we'll never have to put him on the radio again."

And they would have been right. It would have been a ludicrous thing to say. Jeremy Corbyn himself would have agreed.

His election as leader of the opposition quite simply astonished Westminster.

Now yes, I hear what you're saying - it astonished Westminster because you lot in that bubble are clueless about what's really going on. That might just be a fair cop.

But where does Jeremy Corbyn's election leave the Labour Party?

The bloke who spent his career, until last summer, sticking his finger up at one Labour leader after another, rebelling on this, that and the other, is now running the show.

So what are his big challenges for the coming year? The big one is simple: loads of his MPs think he's a nightmare, loads of his party members think he's brilliant. Reconciling those two things is something of a challenge.

Then throw into the mix the appointments with us, the electorate, in 2016: the Scottish Parliament elections, the Welsh Assembly elections, elections to the Greater London Authority, elections for mayors in Salford, Liverpool, Bristol and London - and elections to English councils too.

In the end, as with any politician, his fate is in your hands.

Migration

It was the biggest single issue of last year. The most arresting news story.

The most compelling picture - that horrible image of the little boy, Alan Kurdi, drowned in the Mediterranean Sea.

It is an issue that combines human tragedy with economics, wealth, opportunity, geography - and so politics.

Or, how to combine a human instinct to be compassionate to those fleeing for their lives, with the hard-nosed practicality of how many people the country can absorb.

The government has promised the UK will accept up to 20,000 refugees from Syria by 2020.

Last month the prime minister said about 1,000 Syrian refugees had already arrived, after planes arrived at Stansted Airport in Essex and in Belfast.

But the questions the migration crisis provoke are as profound as they are huge: in the internet age, where images, stories, videos of life in rich countries are so easy to find, the human instinct to better yourself is fuelled by a certainty of what a perilous journey can offer at the other end - if you make it, if you're accepted.

So what are the implications for countries like the UK, for continents like Europe?

The European Union's instinct for a borderless bloc, the so-called Schengen area of passport free travel, has been questioned.

The UK's not part of Schengen, but that doesn't stop migrants reaching Calais.

And what if, amongst those refugees, are radicalised men and women, intent on causing us harm?

In 2016, the Syrian conflict rages on, and so do the issues it provokes - where compassion meets national security, where war in the Middle East has implications for us right here at home.