to the right of the conservative mainstream are gaining ground across europe. perhaps most significant, and to many europeans, most alarming, is the rise of the md — alternative for deutschland — in germany. they're running second in national polls and winning local elections. my guest is peter boehringer, vice chairman of the md. is his party stirring sentiments that threaten german stability?

peter boehringer in munich, welcome to hardtalk. good afternoon, stephen. good to hear you again. well, it's great to have you on the show. and i dare say you are delighted to look at german national opinion polls which put your afd party at 20%—plus in terms of public support. but you know as well as i do that federal elections don't come until 2025. how sure are you that you and the party can keep this level of support up? well, you can never be 100% sure here, especially mid—term. the opposition usually is better off because at the end of the terms, the coalition parties, the government do things that please the people, so that might be difficult. and in afd's case, they usually do a lot of things defaming us. so we're expecting something... on the other hand, well, if they continue governing like this, we shouldn't go down in the polls. the problem is it

looks like it's mostly a negative vote. germans, according to the polls, are deeply dissatisfied both with the state of the economy at present, but also with the state of the main big two political parties — the spd, the socialist party, and the christian democrats. so it's not really like they're very keen on you, they're just not keen at all on the alternatives. well, isn't it like that always when a coalition or a government comes to an end, when it has exhausted itself? it's always like that. you have to have a change of feeling, a mood within the populace, and it's only then that things can change. but, yes, the government does basically all things wrong, so it doesn't come as a surprise that people want change. question only is, what kind of change will they vote? yeah, and again, just one more point about where your support is right now, it is very clear that it

is skewed quite dramatically to the eastern side of germany. if one looks toward the west, there are many states in germany where you are only around 7 or 8% support. well, this was true up until a few months ago, but no longer so. i can say there is no longer a state where we only have 7 or 8%. we are also in the west gaining a lot of support. in western bundesland, we have between 15—23% as well, compared to a 20% average for the whole of germany. so this is no longer true, what people and also the media always say, it's an eastern regional party. no, it's not. people also in the west, and especially in the west, understand that they are governed so horribly. maybe the biggest problem you've got going forward is that your core message to the german people, your core promise to the german people seems to be one that you in no way can really keep.

that is a promise to completely reverse immigration. indeed, in the words of one of your co—leaders, alice weidel, you are going to achieve negative immigration to germany. that's simply not possible, is it? well, that's really a bold prognosis from alice weidel. on the other hand — well, it would be a big success and indeed extremely necessary to bring about and bring back legal state of affairs in the immigration area in germany. we have to stop this immigration, which is 99 or 95% illegal immigration. i've been saying that five and a half years ago already, when we last spoke, and it hasn't changed in any way. the numbers are higher than they were in 2015, even when mrs merkel abandoned the german borders. and it's still 95-99% illegal immigration. so, however you think or talk about re—migration of people, which is a difficult

thing to do, the continuing immigration needs to be stopped. well, yeah, but what you called a bold promise is actuallyjust a fantasy being peddled by your party, cos the point is you couldn't possibly do what you've promised to do in terms of stopping, for example, individual migrants appealing for asylum in germany. you couldn't do that without trashing german national law and also european human rights law. well, we've been talking about that five years ago, and i already then at the time disagreed with that. we want to come back to the legal status. we would not even need to change any law. article 16a of our constitution grants the right to political asylum for individuals that are politically persecuted. and we don't have anybody there. it's...not even i% of those people coming in here, so they shouldn't even be here in the first place. we could send them

back immediately. and this was true for decades, but the governments are not enforcing it, the current governments. as you say... crosstalk we spoke several years ago and you outlined this anti—immigration stand of your parties then. surely you have learned a lesson over the last few years that both the economics and the demographics of germany argue for immigration, not against it. you keep telling the people of germany that you care deeply about the state of the economy. your economy would be in a much deeper hole were it not for immigration. well, this is a very bold thesis, hypothesis. it is unproven. we are losing a lot of skilled labours. we have people leaving germany for good. those are the skilled people. we have to stop that. and on the other hand, well, unskilled people, at least 90% of them come in. this is not the kind of skilled labour force which germany basically needs. it would be a different story if we were in

australia or in canada or even in the us, where skilled people are actually attracted by those states. but this is not happening in germany. it has never happened in the last 20 years. but look at the numbers and look at the experts who analyse the numbers. herbert brucker, head of migration and integration research at humboldt university in berlin, says, quote, "without immigration, the potential number of workers "in germany would decline by 40% by 2060." well, let's resolve the problems of 2060 in 2050. this is so long ago, it's beyond political planning today... ah, so you mean short—term opportunism trumps the strategic interest of your country, does it? well, you can always put it ironically, but that's not what i said. i said this is, from a political perspective, so far away. currently, we have completely different problems, and those people coming in are not skilled labours, not at all. well, unskilled labours, we need too to some extent. that's fine. and if those people can be given

work, that's also fine. but that's not what we are experiencing. this year alone, we have an influx of some 800,000 people. and at the same time, those on social welfare, when it comes, for example, to syrians, which make up a big group, 55% of them are on social welfare — not talking about ukrainians, who, for some other reasons, are even beyond those numbers, above those numbers. isn't the truth, mr boehringer, that what we have here is a policy based not on economics or demographics, it's simply based on prejudice? you're the man who once described germany's muslim population as, quote, "a great danger to our state." and there are other seniorfigures in the afd who absolutely explicitly peddle the so—called great replacement theory, the idea that muslim peoples and populations are coming in to white countries to ultimately try and replace them and dominate the white people. that's what this is

all about, isn't it? it's an ideology you have in the afd. no, here again, i have to disagree. we are not arguing in any way along racist lines or race lines. and by the way, the muslims are not a race. i've already explained that to you five years ago, so we really should stick to that. they are no race... sure, but i talked about prejudice... if you listen carefully, i talked about your prejudice, and to describe the muslim population as "a great danger to our state," it sounds to many ears inside and outside germany as pure prejudice. well, we have had that islam discussion for decades here. currently, we have a different discussion in germany because it's really just the sheer number of people coming in, regardless of religion, that make up our problems here. and this is what afd is really focusing on. we are not arguing regarding the islam or... well, just to be clear, then...

..than maybe we did in the past. well, you... there are many members of your party who say things, and ijust wonder whether you agree with them. i talked about the great replacement theory, which, of course, is one of the foundation stones of white supremacist thinking in many different extremist communities around the world. maximilian krah, who is the lead candidate now for the afd in the next european elections, he said this — "the great replacement sounds like the reality "of angela merkel�*s germany. "this is exactly why the term is taboo, "because it expresses the truth." do you think the great replacement theory expresses the truth? well, first of all, it tells a lot if you declare individual words, which by themselves without a context are not really dangerous, as taboo.

so we shouldn't declare that as taboo. the great replacement, i wouldn't use the word. but looking at the result of immigration and emigration from a country or...to a country, the result is a change of population. and whether you call it replacement or not, it doesn't say anything about whether this is happening deliberately, whether its planned by some world government, which is probably where you're going at. i didn't say that. this is not our problem. we are very pragmatic here. these are the wrong people coming in and they are illegal here for several reasons. we wouldn't have to change a single law to stop 95% of that influx. you talk about the wrong people coming in. i wonder whether you think there are some wrong people coming into the afd. indeed, again, some of your senior leaders, bjorn hocke, for example, the leader of the afd in the eastern state of thuringia, he recently was assessed by a german prosecutor. they said they concluded that he could reasonably be referred to as a fascist. right.

it tells that our opinion, our article 5 of our constitution, that people can say a lot of things even though they are completely wrong, that they uphold in court. and that's what happened here. nobody can defend himself or herself against something like that. and by the way, i already... that, too, i told five years ago. mr hocke is a regional leader. he's not the main figure in germany, but, yes, he is an important figure, but he's not as bad as left extremist media permanently... so... so hang on a minute. ..defames him. i just want to get this straight in my head, then. you're telling me that a court declared that this man could legally be described as a fascist. he is the leader of a significant afd branch... and so could you. and i could call you a fascist, too. no, but ijust want to know whether you're comfortable serving alongside fascists? well, i'm not uncomfortable because it comes from a left

extremist who called mr hocke that. everybody, each of us is called like that for years, for no reason whatsoever. they just do it. and unfortunately, the courts uphold that. it's. .. it's bad. but that's the way ourjudges do it. and i could do the same against the left politician, and he couldn't do anything about it. and when leading figures in thejewish community look at your stance on immigration and a whole host of other matters and express their deep disquiet about the afd, does that give you pause? i'm just going to quote christopher heubner, the executive vice president of the international auschwitz committee — "a majority of voters have turned "their backs on democracy," he said, when you in the afd won an election in the town of sonnenberg recently. "they've turned their backs on democracy, "deliberately decided in favour of a right—wing,

"extremist, "nazi—dominated party of destruction." well, what can i say? he's also one of the persons who seems to have difficulties with democratic results. the person he was talking about has gained in a perfectly fair local election 52%, and hence he got a regional politician, now governing, i think, a town or something, a small town or regional area. nothing else has happened. this is a perfectly democratic process and there's no reason to be worried about whatsoever. we're not doing anything about the jewish community. to the contrary, we are pretty israel—friendly. it's a country which is under heavy attack from muslim neighbours and has been for decades. i don't think his concern was about your specific stand on israel. it was about your underlying values and beliefs. well, it's his opinion, so he's free to declare that. i have another opinion. yeah.

i mean, it's notjust the jewish community, of course. the president of germany, mr steinmeier, has described his deep alarm at where the afd is in germany today. and perhaps even more significant, the head of germany's domestic intelligence agency, thomas haldenwang, has said some remarkable things about the afd — "we see a considerable number of protagonists "in this party that spread hate against all types "of minorities in germany." stephen, it would be helpful if you could let me answer each of those. and there's a lot of... there are many stories, and you throw names in there. our president, well, he's a left extremist. he's written for extremist left brochures a few years ago. he's... he hates afd. he's not neutral in any way.

he has abused...a confessional event... ..celebrating our confession against afd, which he's not allowed to. he should be neutral against all parties. and, well, mr haldenwang is a very special figure. you shouldn't refer to him as the president of the verfassungsschutz. he is the head of the government protection agency. you should really term it like that, the gpa. he's observing his predecessor in office. imagine that. that's how far the verfassungsschutz has come. it's dominated by left extremists these days... well, he's one of the most senior security officials in the state of germany, so every german... which doesn't make things any better. he's a political soldier and he's reporting directly to the even—more—left secretary of the internal affairs, mrs faeser, who is incredibly... she's like the antifa, and she used to write

for the antifa. imagine that — these people are arguing against afd, but i'm not blaming you because that's what you hear from the mainstream media. in order to do your homework, you need to read alternative german media. you must not only listen to the german mainstream media. you will never get a fair picture. and i ask you and your team, did you do any research in the alternative media? just name me two or three alternative media in germany which you did some research before this interview... rather than focus on the media, it's probably wise to focus on things that happen in places like courtrooms — for example, different members of a far—right movement who were said to have toured the reichstag building in berlin, taking photographs, preparing, say the authorities... which has nothing to do with afd. nothing. well, forgive me, but you know as well as i do that one of the people being investigated for what, in effect,

is an allegation of a coup plot is a former afd lawmaker. no longer in office. in office till 2021. i come back to this point about you and whether you are comfortable right now, in 2023, with colleagues who are labelled as fascists and the court defends them and other members of your party... ..members of your party who served in parliament until 2021, now caught up in an alleged plot which amounts to a coup attempt. well, as you said, it's an alleged coup. it's, ithink, people averaging 75 years of age. it's ridiculous that you persecute them like that. that's what i see. but even if they're guilty to some extent, probably it's word crimes, i guess. no harm was done to anybody, as far as i know. it's only plans. ok, you can say plans are dangerous, but it's not our plans. we have nothing to do with that. it's 75—year—old people

and there is no ruling yet. there is nojudge who has given any ruling on that, so we cannot be sure whether anything is true here. let's get to a very specific policy area where you're pushing a very clear change in terms of your messaging to the german people. you want germany right now to stop all of its armed assistance to ukraine, and you want the end of economic sanctions imposed on moscow. at the very same time, according to a recent reuters poll of the german people, 70% of germans still back supporting ukraine. so on this issue, it does seem you're out of sync with the general feeling of the german population. when it comes to polls, we are probably always out of sync because with 20% or 30% of the votes, we always have 70% of the people against us in almost any topic.

here we are, more or less neutral, always said and have been saying from the very beginning — this is not our war. germany did not have — neither by nato engagement or treaties, nor by eu treaties — any obligation to involve itself in that war. there are dozens of wars all over the world, and usually germany does not interfere. here, we are forced or voluntarily interfered. the german government did something which we had not done in decades, or never after the second world war... but to be clear... we sent weapons. we sent german weapons to the ukraine. this has never happened before. actually, i was really very surprised in february �*22 that this could happen... crosstalk some of your colleagues went on a recent trip to moscow. it's fair to say that your party's leadership is warm towards president putin and moscow. no seniorfigure has

gone to moscow. well, five members of your party went to moscow. no seniorfigure. well, it depends what you call senior. they were seniorfigures in your party. they went to moscow. and it is quite clear that if you were to come to power, you would start the process of importing russian gas once again, wouldn't you? well, the russian gas has come in throughout the cold war decades, since the early 1970s. russia at the time, or the ussr, was the archenemy of the west. nobody bothered. and we had this gas coming in, yes. and there will be a time for peace. of course, we are not expecting the gas to come in as long as the war rages. but finally and ultimately, and this is what afd is saying, somebody has to negotiate a peace treaty here, and there is a time after this unfortunate and horrible war. just one final point on geopolitics and the afd. you seem to be very keen to move away from germany's traditional

alliance and partnership with the united states. your leadership seems much warmer notjust toward vladimir putin's russia, but to china as well. and you've described... not you personally, but...afd leaders have described the eu as "a catastrophe for germany and europe." do you think these are positions that the german people really share? it's two different questions. the eu is a catastrophe for germany. i've been saying that for 20 years, and still do, for many, many economic reasons and, in the meantime, also society reasons. there's not a lot of good coming from brussels since 1990, when the european economic union, which we wanted and still want, was exchanged by the eu, which became a monster over the decades, especially with the 2007 lisbon treaty, where this loose agglomeration of nation states became a state in itself, in its own right, which it never should have become. and the euro is also a mechanism for transferring... crosstalk

so that's the one side. and regarding the us, your other question, well, we have good relations with the us and always had. we are probably not 100% transatlantic, as some expect us to be. we try to...act like bismarck did. he tried to have good relations, interest relations, that you need not be friends with. countries are never friends, they only have interests. and, yes, we have interests in the us, but we also have interests elsewhere, and we are trying to be...equal distance to all of them and try to have some sort of relation. and the same holds, of course, with the us as well. but, yes, at the same time, we can be critical towards the us in some respects. but personally, i see the us as very important. mr boehringer, sadly, we're out of time, but i do thank you very much for joining me on hardtalk. thank you. thank you, stephen.

hello. 0n the other side of the atlantic, a major weather story is going to be developing during wednesday because florida is bracing for the arrival of hurricane idalia. this storm has been strengthening, moving northwards over the very warm waters of the gulf of mexico. it's going to make landfall during wednesday in the northwest of florida with a combination of dangerous winds, a life—threatening storm surge, with the potential to cause catastrophic flooding. we will, of course, keep you up to date with that.

here at home, a much quieter weather outlook for wednesday. sunny spells and scattered showers. most places getting off to a fine start. a little bit of mist here and there that will tend to lift and clear, and then a lot of sunshine around, but shower clouds will bubble up through the day. a scattering of showers to take us through the afternoon, the odd heavy one. but there will be some big dry gaps in between. temperatures ranging from 15 degrees in stornoway and lerwick to 19 in london, maybe 20 somewhere in the southeast corner. but those temperatures will drop once again under clear skies during wednesday night. the early hours of thursday, though, will bring outbreaks of rain in across the southwest of england, wales, perhaps northern ireland, turning milder here by the end of the night. but where those clear skies hold on, yes, it will be rather chilly to start thursday. now, on thursday, we'll see this band of rain pushing its way northwards and eastwards, southern parts of england, wales, the midlands, northern ireland, seeing some of that wet weather. much of eastern england staying dry. much of northern england too. and scotland should have a fine day with some spells of sunshine. temperatures north to south, 1a

to 19, maybe up to 20 degrees. now, some showery bits and pieces of rain may still be with us on friday, but increasingly, things will be turning drier. there will be some spells of sunshine. those temperatures typically in the mid to high teens, the low 20s for some. and as we head into the weekend, well, actually it looks as if high pressure is going to build across the uk and where we see high pressure, that tends to mean fine and settled weather. so, yes, as we move through the first few days of september, the weather is really going to be settling down. there will be some good spells of sunshine through the weekend. the vast majority will be dry and it's going to feel a little bit warmer as well. bye for now.

live from london, this is bbc news. florida braces as hurricane idalia is forecast to intensify to a category 4 storm with life—threatening storm surges expected in some areas. in the uk, travellers are being warned to expect further disruption

after a fault on monday saw hundreds of flights cancelled. the uk foreign secretary, james cleverly, has travelled to beijing where he promises to raise concerns over human rights issues. hello, i'm sally bundock. welcome to viewers in the uk and around the world. we start in the us, where hurricane idalia is nearing florida's gulf coast and evacuations are under way. it's expected to develop into a category four hurricane, with catastrophic storm surges forecast. presidentjoe biden has approved an emergency declaration for the state. idalia has caused flooding in cuba and is already lashing parts of florida, but the potential storm surge could come any time through wednesday afternoon.

the state's governor ron desantis, warned that many residents could lose electricity, and said that 25,000 utility