Browse content similar to 10/03/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Afternoon folks - welcome to the Daily Politics. | :00:37. | :00:39. | |
The government's plans to extend shop opening hours in England | :00:40. | :00:42. | |
and Wales have been defeated - but should Scottish MPs have | :00:43. | :00:45. | |
Should this self-confessed Trotskyite who's been accused | :00:46. | :00:50. | |
of justifying the 9/11 hijackers be a member of the Labour Party? | :00:51. | :00:54. | |
I'll be talking to Gerry Downing, who's just been expelled | :00:55. | :00:56. | |
David Cameron says he'll start making the positive case for staying | :00:57. | :01:05. | |
in the EU - one of his cabinet ministers says he's not impressed | :01:06. | :01:08. | |
with the PM's deal on our membership - we'll have the latest | :01:09. | :01:11. | |
And Tony Blair is the Labour party's most successful leader - | :01:12. | :01:15. | |
but is his record something the party should celebrate | :01:16. | :01:17. | |
All that in the next hour, and with us for the duration today | :01:18. | :01:31. | |
is Tony Blair's former speechwriter - now Times columnist, | :01:32. | :01:35. | |
Phil Collins - welcome to the programme. | :01:36. | :01:37. | |
Now - Phil Collins has spent the morning chairing a meeting | :01:38. | :01:39. | |
of the Labour think tank Demos - the star speaker was a man talked | :01:40. | :01:43. | |
of in some quarters as a future leader of the party - | :01:44. | :01:46. | |
Cameras weren't allowed in to listen to the speech by the Barnsley MP | :01:47. | :01:50. | |
who ruled himself out of last year's leadership race - | :01:51. | :01:52. | |
but journalists were - including sketch-writer, | :01:53. | :01:54. | |
I was pleasantly surprised. I went in with very little expectation. | :01:55. | :02:06. | |
Jarvis has a great back story, he was a paratrooper who raised his | :02:07. | :02:09. | |
children on his own after his wife died but he hasn't been an MP for | :02:10. | :02:15. | |
long and little was known about him. He didn't make a great speech but he | :02:16. | :02:19. | |
made a good speech, much better than what had been trailed to the morning | :02:20. | :02:25. | |
papers, which one of my colleagues described as the EU warned of a new | :02:26. | :02:28. | |
era! It was personal, but his narrative, he spoke honestly about | :02:29. | :02:35. | |
the failings of Labour in government as well as the current government, | :02:36. | :02:41. | |
and set out some of his ideas. It was a Blairite piece of | :02:42. | :02:46. | |
triangulation, but this time between old Labour, currently running the | :02:47. | :02:49. | |
party, and new Labour, he was trying to play himself in the middle. -- | :02:50. | :02:55. | |
place himself. It was the firing gun, but he was keen to say it | :02:56. | :02:57. | |
wasn't a leadership challenge right now. Given he is not that well-known | :02:58. | :03:04. | |
outside political circles, why didn't he let the cameras in? I | :03:05. | :03:13. | |
don't know, 24 hours live from Demos... I don't know the answer, it | :03:14. | :03:18. | |
wouldn't be the organisation that didn't want the cameras, we would | :03:19. | :03:22. | |
love to have them. It was an interesting speech. He is right, we | :03:23. | :03:27. | |
don't know a lot about Dan Jarvis. Anyone who can start a speech with, | :03:28. | :03:33. | |
"I have been to war three times" would be hard to attack. He does | :03:34. | :03:36. | |
things for the party nobody else could do. From the trenches of | :03:37. | :03:42. | |
Helmand to the green benches of Westminster, I liked that line. If | :03:43. | :03:49. | |
he is serious about down the road, he has the raise his profile. Yes, | :03:50. | :03:56. | |
he has to show he can speech, he has ideas, and some of these were | :03:57. | :04:00. | |
starting to be built. He was also distancing himself from a lot of new | :04:01. | :04:06. | |
Labour without totally damning them. Without mentioning Peter Mandelson, | :04:07. | :04:11. | |
he said there were people in new Labour, who were... Intensely | :04:12. | :04:20. | |
relaxed... About people being for the rich. He also said the Labour | :04:21. | :04:24. | |
Party has to realise, we are on the side of the workers and generate | :04:25. | :04:28. | |
help for them through having a successful economy. Was this the | :04:29. | :04:34. | |
starting gun? I don't mean to trigger a leadership attempt this | :04:35. | :04:39. | |
year, but the starting gun for a long march towards an attempted | :04:40. | :04:44. | |
leadership? I think inevitably it is: you don't do a look at me speech | :04:45. | :04:49. | |
if you don't want people to look at you, I don't think it is the start | :04:50. | :04:56. | |
of a coup, but in a sense, it was, here am I, here are my arguments and | :04:57. | :05:01. | |
if there should be a vacancy, don't forget about me! Where would you | :05:02. | :05:08. | |
position him? Would it be right to position him in the centre of the | :05:09. | :05:12. | |
Labour Party? I think the next leader is probably going to come | :05:13. | :05:15. | |
from the soft left of the Labour Party so I think it was an attempt | :05:16. | :05:19. | |
to talk about things like that. There are a lot of things Ed | :05:20. | :05:23. | |
Miliband would have been comfortable saying, it just sounds different | :05:24. | :05:27. | |
coming from Dan Jarvis, partly because we don't know about him but | :05:28. | :05:30. | |
party has the background which makes you think differently. Tactically, | :05:31. | :05:35. | |
it is a clever thing to do, positioned himself with the soft | :05:36. | :05:41. | |
left. This morning he is speaking to labour people, inside Westminster, | :05:42. | :05:47. | |
how would he go down with the broader British electorate? They | :05:48. | :05:50. | |
know next to nothing about him and so repeatedly, of course they will | :05:51. | :05:56. | |
only see it from what they read because the TV cameras weren't | :05:57. | :06:00. | |
there, he was trying to base himself, he spoke about Barnsley a | :06:01. | :06:04. | |
lot, talked about when things were going well when Labour were in | :06:05. | :06:09. | |
government, they saw it on television but didn't feel it in | :06:10. | :06:13. | |
their own bank balances, he is trying to get out into the country. | :06:14. | :06:17. | |
I think at the moment David Cameron is playing PMQ 's on the easy | :06:18. | :06:23. | |
setting. He needs someone to raise his game and George Osborne to raise | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
his game. There is plenty of time before the next election. | :06:29. | :06:31. | |
Last night the SNP joined forces with Tory rebels to block | :06:32. | :06:34. | |
the government's plans to devolve Sunday shopping hours | :06:35. | :06:35. | |
An amendment tabled by Conservative MP David Burrowes removing | :06:36. | :06:39. | |
the changes was carried, despite the PM's personally | :06:40. | :06:42. | |
intervening to try and convince his colleagues. | :06:43. | :06:55. | |
Yes, Nicola Sturgeon's party have helped to shut the door on longer | :06:56. | :06:58. | |
new rules in the Commons designed to stop Scots MP's blocking laws | :06:59. | :07:10. | |
which don't affect their constituents, | :07:11. | :07:12. | |
so called England Votes for English Laws. | :07:13. | :07:20. | |
But EVEL did not apply to proposed changes to Sunday trading yesterday, | :07:21. | :07:23. | |
because other parts of the Enterprise Bill apply | :07:24. | :07:27. | |
Now some English MPs are now calling for it to be extended to prevent | :07:28. | :07:38. | |
Scottish MPs having any say on legislation that does not apply | :07:39. | :07:41. | |
We asked the SNP for an interview but our request was declined. But we | :07:42. | :07:56. | |
will speak to Nicola Sturgeon this weekend. | :07:57. | :07:57. | |
We're joined now by the Conservative MP Philip Davies. | :07:58. | :08:02. | |
So it turns out EVEL wasn't worth the paper it was written on? No, it | :08:03. | :08:10. | |
doesn't deliver what English voters think it is, it delivers an English | :08:11. | :08:15. | |
veto for English laws, basically it stops things being imposed on | :08:16. | :08:18. | |
England against the wishes of England but doesn't mean that | :08:19. | :08:22. | |
English MPs can positively make a difference to England without other | :08:23. | :08:26. | |
people interfering, England has been sold a bit of a turkey, it doesn't | :08:27. | :08:30. | |
deliver English votes for English laws. Was it also a mess to put this | :08:31. | :08:38. | |
particular measure applying to England and Wales into a bill which | :08:39. | :08:42. | |
did have Scottish things in it? Shouldn't have made a difference | :08:43. | :08:46. | |
because you still need on these issues, a double majority, of the | :08:47. | :08:52. | |
whole house, and of English MPs. So whichever Bilby government put this | :08:53. | :08:56. | |
into, Scottish MPs could have torpedoed it in the way that they | :08:57. | :09:05. | |
did anyway. If Scottish MPs who have their own opening hours, more | :09:06. | :09:09. | |
liberal than down here, they have voted against liberalisation down | :09:10. | :09:14. | |
here, if they can argue that that has some connection with Scotland | :09:15. | :09:16. | |
and an impact on Scotland, then almost anything has an impact on | :09:17. | :09:23. | |
Scotland, you could argue. The Sunday trading laws in Scotland are | :09:24. | :09:29. | |
completely deregulated, you can shop at any hour of the day in Scotland, | :09:30. | :09:35. | |
this is all about, as far as I can see, the SNP, in advance of the | :09:36. | :09:39. | |
Scottish elections, trying to show to their voters that they are more | :09:40. | :09:42. | |
effective opposition than the Labour Party are, this is all about the | :09:43. | :09:46. | |
pathetic kind of competition with the Labour Party in Scotland, | :09:47. | :09:53. | |
nothing to do with Sunday trading, they are happy with their | :09:54. | :09:57. | |
deregulated hours in Scotland, it's a political game they are playing in | :09:58. | :10:01. | |
advance of the election. If you wanted to criticise the government, | :10:02. | :10:05. | |
they could put the measure after the Scottish election. None of this | :10:06. | :10:11. | |
could have happened if the amendment had been moved by a conservative | :10:12. | :10:19. | |
colleague of yours. There were 27 conservative rebels, they are | :10:20. | :10:25. | |
principled people, on religious grounds, they felt strongly about | :10:26. | :10:29. | |
this. I have no quibble about that. They voted on this because of their | :10:30. | :10:34. | |
own personal principle and nobody can argue with that. But the SNP | :10:35. | :10:37. | |
were not voting on any principle at all. It's interesting that they | :10:38. | :10:45. | |
can't get Tory votes for Tory laws. Despite the personal intervention of | :10:46. | :10:48. | |
the Prime Minister, who was getting people to talk to them, people were | :10:49. | :10:53. | |
not been persuaded. Every one of them I am sure has a marvellous | :10:54. | :10:59. | |
principled reason, but a disciplined party doesn't do this. Mrs Thatcher | :11:00. | :11:07. | |
lost a three line whip on Sunday trading, when she had a huge | :11:08. | :11:11. | |
majority, this always raises... What were the books doing? Identity | :11:12. | :11:18. | |
anyone would say that her as government wasn't disciplined and | :11:19. | :11:24. | |
effective. This has an issue... Quite poor parliamentary management | :11:25. | :11:30. | |
to lose a vote. You must know that you're going to lose a vote by 30 if | :11:31. | :11:34. | |
you are a whip and then wonder why you went ahead with the boat but | :11:35. | :11:39. | |
that shouldn't get the SNP off the hook by acting in a way that is | :11:40. | :11:45. | |
unjustified. Though they're now be a head of steam of the Tory | :11:46. | :11:48. | |
backbenches to toughen up the English votes for English laws? I | :11:49. | :11:52. | |
hope so, I raised it today in business questions that we need to | :11:53. | :11:57. | |
revisit this and deliver real English votes for English laws which | :11:58. | :12:00. | |
is what being this public think is happening. It is a bit of a turkey | :12:01. | :12:05. | |
and the only thing that has come out of this vote is that now it is | :12:06. | :12:09. | |
therefore all to see that we don't actually have English votes for | :12:10. | :12:14. | |
laws. In the end the only way to secure it is that for a couple of | :12:15. | :12:19. | |
days the building across the road becomes English parliament dealing | :12:20. | :12:22. | |
with English only matters. That's one way around it. I don't have a | :12:23. | :12:28. | |
problem with dealing with it built by Bill, all I want is we have a | :12:29. | :12:33. | |
situation where English and Welsh MPs can vote on issues that only | :12:34. | :12:37. | |
affect their constituents and Scottish MPs can't come down and | :12:38. | :12:41. | |
veto something. I asked that if Scottish MPs want to vote on these | :12:42. | :12:46. | |
things in Westminster, let's bring the powers back from Holyrood to | :12:47. | :12:49. | |
Westminster that will soon sort them out! If we return the power back to | :12:50. | :12:56. | |
dispense to. I think there is a moved south of the border that if | :12:57. | :13:03. | |
the Scots are in complete control of certain major domestic areas, like | :13:04. | :13:08. | |
Sunday trading, the things that affect us in England, that should be | :13:09. | :13:13. | |
down to the people we elect. I think there is, and it's obviously a | :13:14. | :13:20. | |
slight change of heart from Scottish Nationalists, it was clear before | :13:21. | :13:23. | |
the election that they would not interfere on votes of this kind. You | :13:24. | :13:29. | |
can always say there are implications, but as you said, that | :13:30. | :13:33. | |
can apply to anything. This seems a clear breach of something Nicola | :13:34. | :13:37. | |
Sturgeon was pretty candid on before the election. I think it will | :13:38. | :13:41. | |
inevitably mean that we will go back and look at the English votes for | :13:42. | :13:45. | |
English laws to see if it can be toughened up. Will that happen? I | :13:46. | :13:50. | |
hope so, whether the government has the appetite for it, I don't know, | :13:51. | :13:53. | |
but there is a feeling on the backbenches that we have to sort | :13:54. | :13:54. | |
this out. The question for today | :13:55. | :13:57. | |
is all about where David Cameron He's written a piece for one | :13:58. | :14:01. | |
regional paper extolling the beauty of the local area and reminiscing | :14:02. | :14:05. | |
about the trips he's enjoyed there. Unfortunately he'd also spelled | :14:06. | :14:08. | |
the name of one famous beach wrong. Now - yesterday David Cameron used | :14:09. | :14:11. | |
Prime Minister's questions to attack the Labour Party for re-admitting | :14:12. | :14:34. | |
into their ranks someone who the PM said had defended both Islamic State | :14:35. | :14:37. | |
and the 9/11 hijackers. In a moment we will be talking | :14:38. | :14:41. | |
to the man in question. First here is the Prime | :14:42. | :14:44. | |
Minister yesterday. We are protecting counterterrorism | :14:45. | :14:48. | |
policing and investing in our intelligence | :14:49. | :14:51. | |
and security services, as we did | :14:52. | :14:53. | |
in the last parliament. In terms of Iraq and Syria, | :14:54. | :14:55. | |
we are making good progress at pushing Daesh back, | :14:56. | :14:57. | |
this is something we need to do both But I have to say, I was completely | :14:58. | :15:00. | |
appalled to see yesterday that the Labour Party has readmitted | :15:01. | :15:05. | |
someone to their party who says, and I believe, that the "9/11 | :15:06. | :15:08. | |
suicide bombers must never be condemned", and belongs | :15:09. | :15:12. | |
to an organisation that says, "we defend Islamic State | :15:13. | :15:15. | |
in Syria and Iraq." Those are appalling views and I hope | :15:16. | :15:19. | |
the Leader of the Opposition will throw this person | :15:20. | :15:22. | |
out of the party rather who was expelled from the Labour | :15:23. | :15:24. | |
Party again last night was "further evidence that | :15:25. | :15:38. | |
has come to light". welcome to the programme, we will | :15:39. | :15:46. | |
come onto 9/11 and Islamic State in a minute, but the organisation you | :15:47. | :15:54. | |
are part of, Socialist Fight,, says Mr Advocaat marks, support | :15:55. | :15:57. | |
revolutionary socialism, so why do you want to be in the Labour Party | :15:58. | :16:03. | |
-- support, arcs. It has traditionally been the party of the | :16:04. | :16:09. | |
working class. It is linked to the trade unions and organically, it | :16:10. | :16:12. | |
reflects the class consciousness of the class itself. Would it be fair | :16:13. | :16:18. | |
to say that you see being a part of the member party as a tactical move, | :16:19. | :16:21. | |
in your view of bourgeois party like the Labour Party couldn't bring | :16:22. | :16:26. | |
about in itself the kind of changes you want? It can bring about some of | :16:27. | :16:33. | |
the changes, of course, but it cannot actually get rid of | :16:34. | :16:37. | |
capitalism itself, but it can advance the cause of the working | :16:38. | :16:41. | |
class seriously and because of the working class has been in decline | :16:42. | :16:49. | |
now since 1997, I believe, when the GE coefficient shows the balance of | :16:50. | :16:54. | |
wealth flowing from the poor to the rich. Do you work with Labour people | :16:55. | :16:59. | |
at the moment? We have some footage of you on a platform here with John | :17:00. | :17:06. | |
McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor. Are you quite close to John | :17:07. | :17:10. | |
McDonnell? No, I am not a personal friend of his, that was a dispute at | :17:11. | :17:16. | |
my workplace, where I was sacked unjustly and he came to defend me | :17:17. | :17:24. | |
because we admit in the Labour representation committee -- we had | :17:25. | :17:28. | |
met. He stood on a picket line outside the bus garage and it | :17:29. | :17:32. | |
secured my reinstatement and my job, so I think he owed some justice for | :17:33. | :17:36. | |
me and I was very pleased but I am not a friend as such. Do you work | :17:37. | :17:44. | |
with many Labour people? I am a member of the Central Labour Party | :17:45. | :17:49. | |
and I am on the GC. You are a member? Well, I had been until last | :17:50. | :17:55. | |
night. Either way, everybody tells me I was expelled last night but | :17:56. | :17:59. | |
nobody has bothered inform me, no communication whatsoever. The Prime | :18:00. | :18:06. | |
Minister yesterday said that you had defended the 9/11 hijackers and you | :18:07. | :18:10. | |
said that had been taken out of context. Had it? Yes, indeed, and I | :18:11. | :18:18. | |
don't support politically ISIS and I don't support the 9/11 attack in any | :18:19. | :18:22. | |
way whatsoever. What I was doing was to explain the reasons for it and | :18:23. | :18:28. | |
the reasons for the attack are basically what imperialism did in | :18:29. | :18:36. | |
the Middle East. But you did right, of the 9/11 attack, you said it is | :18:37. | :18:42. | |
the "Justified outrage of the oppressed as opposed to the outrage | :18:43. | :18:48. | |
of the oppressor. " The first you say is progressive no matter how | :18:49. | :18:52. | |
distorted and you said "Must never be condemned, that is the entirely | :18:53. | :18:56. | |
understandable motivation for 9/11 and suicide bombers." Yes, well, I | :18:57. | :19:03. | |
would explain it in this way. Back in 1996, Madeleine Albright was | :19:04. | :19:08. | |
asked what she thought of the fact that half a million Iraqi children | :19:09. | :19:14. | |
had died because of the US sanctions and she was asked if she thought the | :19:15. | :19:19. | |
price was worth it and she said, "This is a very hard choice, but the | :19:20. | :19:23. | |
price, we think the prizes worth it." It would be to be appalled by | :19:24. | :19:31. | |
Madeleine Albright's reply and not say the 9/11 bombers should never be | :19:32. | :19:36. | |
condemned. I think you would have to say that in those circumstances, the | :19:37. | :19:39. | |
first thing you have to do is to understand why that happened. It | :19:40. | :19:45. | |
didn't happen because these are madmen or because they are lunatics | :19:46. | :19:49. | |
or because they are bad people, it happened because they were outraged | :19:50. | :19:55. | |
at what had happened to their land. Most of the 9/11 bombers came from | :19:56. | :20:00. | |
Saudi Arabia. But do you still not condemn the 9/11 attack? I wouldn't | :20:01. | :20:11. | |
use the phrase "Condemn", because I think like it was said, I have | :20:12. | :20:15. | |
striven not to laugh that human actions, not to weep or hate them, | :20:16. | :20:20. | |
but understand them, so if you understand them... So you would | :20:21. | :20:24. | |
understand rather than condemn. I would understand the motivation of | :20:25. | :20:27. | |
the people that did that. The article that is referred to is an | :20:28. | :20:32. | |
article that says the ridiculous conspiracy theories about 9/11 are | :20:33. | :20:39. | |
entirely wrong. You attack the conspiracy theories. On Islamic | :20:40. | :20:44. | |
State, the Prime Minister again mentioned that you had supported | :20:45. | :20:50. | |
Islamic State and in terms of tactical military assistance, you | :20:51. | :20:56. | |
do, don't you? No, I don't. I don't support them militarily or | :20:57. | :21:01. | |
politically in any way. Can I put the quote to you, from your group | :21:02. | :21:07. | |
that you are a key member of? You say," you mentioned the Taliban and | :21:08. | :21:17. | |
the Sunni and sheer, Hamas, Gaddafi, Assad, the Islamic State, we give no | :21:18. | :21:22. | |
military support to that, but we recognise the US-led world | :21:23. | :21:26. | |
imperialism is the main enemy of humanity, so we do advocate critical | :21:27. | :21:31. | |
support and tactical military assistance from the working class to | :21:32. | :21:36. | |
all those fighting for the defeat of imperialism, "Referring to all of | :21:37. | :21:40. | |
the groups above, meaning Islamic State. Well if you think what has | :21:41. | :21:46. | |
happened in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Iraq, these countries were | :21:47. | :21:53. | |
all bombed by America. These countries have their infrastructure | :21:54. | :22:00. | |
totally degraded, over a million people killed, apparently, in Iraq, | :22:01. | :22:07. | |
and it has produced absolutely no progressive outlook, this states -- | :22:08. | :22:11. | |
the states have no democracy, they are worse than when it happened. I | :22:12. | :22:16. | |
understand that, very legitimate line of argument and many people | :22:17. | :22:19. | |
across the political spectrum will share that but you say as a result | :22:20. | :22:23. | |
of that, you advocate critical support and tactical military | :22:24. | :22:25. | |
assistance to groups like Islamic State. Tactical support means that | :22:26. | :22:37. | |
we are opposed to the US bombing of them. We would not be for the US | :22:38. | :22:42. | |
bombing, because first of all, US bombing involves the killing of what | :22:43. | :22:46. | |
they call collateral damage, that is a vast number of civilians. And what | :22:47. | :22:51. | |
about tactical military assistance, what would that require or involve? | :22:52. | :22:57. | |
If you analyse world imperialism as the main enemy, you always oppose | :22:58. | :23:02. | |
its actions, that follows logic. You would always be for driving out US | :23:03. | :23:09. | |
imperialism from the Middle East, etc. You have also said that we need | :23:10. | :23:15. | |
to confront the Jewish question. What is the Jewish question? Well, | :23:16. | :23:24. | |
the fact that Israel can commit absolutely heinous crimes against | :23:25. | :23:28. | |
the Palestinians, they can bomb them without let or hindrance and this is | :23:29. | :23:35. | |
presented in the Western media as an attack on terrorists. That is | :23:36. | :23:39. | |
Israel, that is not the Jewish question. It is Zionism, as such. I | :23:40. | :23:50. | |
am interested, because you talk about Zionism a lot. You and your | :23:51. | :23:58. | |
group say that Zionism plays a major role in politics, all the advanced | :23:59. | :24:01. | |
capitalist countries. You say that the Zionists are behind the | :24:02. | :24:05. | |
witchhunt against Jeremy Corbyn. You say that Zionists hold great sway | :24:06. | :24:09. | |
over our three main political parties. You say that Zionism is the | :24:10. | :24:17. | |
vanguard of injecting anti-Muslim hatred into Western politics. You | :24:18. | :24:24. | |
say Zionism is on the vanguard in a capitalist offensive against the | :24:25. | :24:27. | |
workers. It would sound, when you see all that, that for you, the | :24:28. | :24:31. | |
Jewish question is a Zionist conspiracy. Doesn't all that add up | :24:32. | :24:36. | |
to a conspiracy? No, it doesn't. It adds up to something very material | :24:37. | :24:39. | |
and that is the number of millionaires and billionaires of | :24:40. | :24:45. | |
Zionist persuasion within the American ruling class and within the | :24:46. | :24:50. | |
European ruling classes in general. It is their economic and political | :24:51. | :24:55. | |
power that leads to ridiculous situations. You think that Zionists, | :24:56. | :25:01. | |
as you call them, play a key role in that? They obviously do play a key | :25:02. | :25:07. | |
role. They have dual citizenship, most of them. Isn't that very | :25:08. | :25:11. | |
reminiscent of what the Nazis said in Germany in the 1930s, there were | :25:12. | :25:14. | |
these rich Jews controlling the German economy? Indeed, no. Look, if | :25:15. | :25:22. | |
you want to take what Benjamin Netanyahu says, he says that | :25:23. | :25:26. | |
actually the Holocaust was caused by the grand mufti of Jerusalem and not | :25:27. | :25:34. | |
by the Nazis. With respect, I don't have Mr Netanyahu to interview, I | :25:35. | :25:38. | |
have you and I just think that if you list all these things you accuse | :25:39. | :25:44. | |
of Zionism, it sounds very much bulk-macro I don't want to push this | :25:45. | :25:48. | |
too far but I would suggest people listening to this, they will hear | :25:49. | :25:55. | |
shades of the protocols of Zion. I reject totally the protocols of | :25:56. | :26:01. | |
Zion, this is based on the material, political fact of the overwhelming | :26:02. | :26:07. | |
political authority of Zionist politicians within the ruling | :26:08. | :26:10. | |
classes of America and Europe. It is not to do with their actual Jewish | :26:11. | :26:18. | |
origins, as such. You have been listening to this. I suspect you are | :26:19. | :26:24. | |
happy, I mean I am pre-empting this, that Mr Downing is not in a Labour | :26:25. | :26:29. | |
Party now? Absolutely. Outrageous. Tactical support for ISIS, the | :26:30. | :26:33. | |
Jewish question. I am a member of the Labour Party and I'm delighted | :26:34. | :26:37. | |
you are not. I hope they will call you this afternoon to confirm you | :26:38. | :26:40. | |
are not, because there is no place in the party for those kind of use. | :26:41. | :26:45. | |
Nor is their impact on your less toxic but nevertheless non-labour | :26:46. | :26:49. | |
views about social revolution is on. Labour is not committed to the | :26:50. | :26:53. | |
overthrow of capitalism. Trade unions are remedial organisation to | :26:54. | :26:56. | |
get a better deal for their workers and very good they are too, but they | :26:57. | :27:01. | |
are not rubidium organisation so given that alone, you have no place | :27:02. | :27:05. | |
in the Labour Party. You may have the final word. I believe one of the | :27:06. | :27:10. | |
motivations for readmitting me at the time was politicians like Keir | :27:11. | :27:17. | |
Hardie etc said something is very similar to that in the past and the | :27:18. | :27:22. | |
ambition to overthrow capitalism is a very legitimate political | :27:23. | :27:26. | |
ambition, if you take the state of the planet today. You feel that | :27:27. | :27:30. | |
Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party is a more welcoming party feel sort of | :27:31. | :27:35. | |
socialism? I think it should be, if it allows in Ukip councillors who | :27:36. | :27:42. | |
defect and it allows in people from the far right of that nature, I | :27:43. | :27:46. | |
cannot see why you shouldn't allow in people like me. Will you appeal | :27:47. | :27:52. | |
against the decision? I will, of course. Thank you. Don't go away | :27:53. | :27:55. | |
just yet. Now it's 19 days since the deal | :27:56. | :27:57. | |
was done on our membership of the EU But don't worry - | :27:58. | :28:01. | |
there are still more than three And the pace doesn't seem | :28:02. | :28:05. | |
to be slowing. Luckily our political correspondent, | :28:06. | :28:08. | |
Vicki Young, has been keeping up Let's go straight to her, | :28:09. | :28:20. | |
overlooking Westminster. So speeches by the Prime Minister, obviously | :28:21. | :28:26. | |
poor remain, and for Macklin it from Cabinet Minister Grayling for leave, | :28:27. | :28:30. | |
what are they telling us? We are being told by Downing Street that | :28:31. | :28:35. | |
today's speech by the Prime Minister will be 80% positive, they say, | :28:36. | :28:39. | |
talking about what he sees as the economic benefits, before he goes on | :28:40. | :28:43. | |
to one that we are all going to end up paying higher mortgages because | :28:44. | :28:46. | |
interest rates will come under pressure if we do leave the EU. What | :28:47. | :28:52. | |
they have done, the remain side, is dug out a load of quotes for those | :28:53. | :28:56. | |
who are campaigning to leave, which they say shows that people on the | :28:57. | :29:00. | |
other side willing to sacrifice people's jobs in the United Kingdom | :29:01. | :29:06. | |
and they talk about this thing, the Nike tick, you will have seen it on | :29:07. | :29:10. | |
your trainers, Andrew, the idea that if we leave the EU, there will be a | :29:11. | :29:14. | |
downturn but in the long term, we go up and there is a huge recovery. It | :29:15. | :29:19. | |
is insulting to those on the other side and Chris Grayling was asked | :29:20. | :29:22. | |
and said it would be a lively debate. He has talked about | :29:23. | :29:25. | |
sovereignty, about this place. He has been very rude about the deal | :29:26. | :29:29. | |
the Prime Minister got in Brussels after all of the negotiations and | :29:30. | :29:33. | |
says it hasn't achieved anything, that the parliament here isn't | :29:34. | :29:36. | |
sovereign and the EU is in crunching on all parts of our lives, | :29:37. | :29:41. | |
including, he says, things like vacuum cleaners -- encroaching. We | :29:42. | :29:46. | |
have heard from Mr Cameron, Mr Grayling, have we heard from the | :29:47. | :29:50. | |
Queen yet today on Europe? We haven't and as you know, this is a | :29:51. | :29:54. | |
very sensitive subject. You will remember when the Prime Minister let | :29:55. | :29:57. | |
slip and said the Queen had heard them the phone at him when he told | :29:58. | :30:02. | |
her the result of the Scottish referendum -- had purred down the | :30:03. | :30:08. | |
phone. He had to issue a grovelling apology. This story from the Sun, a | :30:09. | :30:12. | |
great story, because we will never know what was said in the room, so | :30:13. | :30:15. | |
we can endlessly speculate. People have tried to put the pieces | :30:16. | :30:19. | |
together, saying if it happened on this date, not only was declared | :30:20. | :30:22. | |
their but also a certain Michael Gove, said the finger being pointed | :30:23. | :30:25. | |
at him but his advisers saying he has no idea where the story came | :30:26. | :30:32. | |
from. The palace is denying it is true, Nick Clegg is denying it, but | :30:33. | :30:34. | |
the editor of the newspaper is sticking to it, saying they have two | :30:35. | :30:39. | |
sources for the story. It goes back to 2011. I think the headline which | :30:40. | :30:43. | |
said the Queen was in favour of Brexit is probably just a twinkle in | :30:44. | :30:48. | |
the eye at that time, so it was a long time ago we cannot establish | :30:49. | :30:50. | |
the facts. I understand the were two sources, | :30:51. | :30:58. | |
but they were both corgi dogs! Now - some people's minds will be | :30:59. | :31:03. | |
changed over the next three months - But what makes someone go | :31:04. | :31:06. | |
from committed europhile Here's the director of the Institute | :31:07. | :31:09. | |
of Economic Affairs, I used to believe in the European | :31:10. | :31:13. | |
dream, a free market, liberal and open democratic | :31:14. | :31:29. | |
brotherhood of man. So inspired was I by this | :31:30. | :31:32. | |
vision that 20 years ago, I even became president of the UK | :31:33. | :31:35. | |
branch of the Young European With every passing year, | :31:36. | :31:38. | |
I've had to come to terms with the European Union as it is, | :31:39. | :31:45. | |
not as I would like it to be. The EU has become a sprawling, | :31:46. | :31:50. | |
inefficient, petty, self obsessed bureaucracy, with a vociferous | :31:51. | :31:54. | |
appetite for controlling nearly every aspect of our | :31:55. | :31:58. | |
lives, however tiny. It is wonderful that we have had | :31:59. | :32:03. | |
peace in most of Europe for over 70 years, but that has not been brought | :32:04. | :32:07. | |
about by Eurocrats issuing directives, stipulating the maximum | :32:08. | :32:13. | |
suction power of a vacuum cleaner. Worse still, the EU has failed | :32:14. | :32:18. | |
to tackle the big issues. Rules around the single currency | :32:19. | :32:22. | |
have largely been observed Only Luxembourg has abided | :32:23. | :32:25. | |
consistently with the convergence And the migrant crisis has found | :32:26. | :32:29. | |
the European Union badly wanting. These might be surmountable problem | :32:30. | :32:35. | |
is if the European Union had To witness the British Prime | :32:36. | :32:41. | |
Minister staying up, negotiating till half past | :32:42. | :32:49. | |
five in the morning, arguing over how he would be allowed | :32:50. | :32:53. | |
to spend about ?25 million worth of child benefit, barely 0.1% | :32:54. | :32:57. | |
of our total welfare spending, It is true that leaving | :32:58. | :33:01. | |
the European Union would involve some uncertainties and even a few | :33:02. | :33:08. | |
risks, but virtually every substantial human achievement | :33:09. | :33:13. | |
involves having the guts And, of course, how Britain would | :33:14. | :33:16. | |
look outside of the European Union It means remaining remember club | :33:17. | :33:22. | |
which has a very different agenda to that of the United Kingdom | :33:23. | :33:30. | |
and merely having a seat around that table, especially if that seat | :33:31. | :33:37. | |
is occupied by a Prime Minister who has deluded himself that the EU | :33:38. | :33:40. | |
has substantially reformed, The referendum will split | :33:41. | :33:44. | |
families, political parties Even my own think tank | :33:45. | :33:51. | |
takes no corporate view But I have reached the personal | :33:52. | :33:56. | |
conclusion that the brave, self-confident, forward-looking step | :33:57. | :34:01. | |
to take is to vote leave on June 23. As if by magic, he joins us here, | :34:02. | :34:22. | |
not far to walk! You were once the president of the UK branch of the | :34:23. | :34:29. | |
Young European Federalists. So I guess you didn't get out much when | :34:30. | :34:33. | |
you were a junk! It felt like a good hobby at the time! Mark's journey is | :34:34. | :34:40. | |
not uncommon. Many people have made this journey, of his generation and | :34:41. | :34:48. | |
older, who without doubt voted to stay in England in 75 and there are | :34:49. | :34:52. | |
either saying, I'm not going to do that again, or I am more uncertain, | :34:53. | :34:59. | |
something has changed. Yes, 40 years of history, also some of the | :35:00. | :35:03. | |
justifications for the EU back then seem like ancient history now, war | :35:04. | :35:08. | |
was a much bigger presence in British life back then and doesn't | :35:09. | :35:13. | |
really feature now in the debate. So we are 40 years on and it's very | :35:14. | :35:17. | |
different stop anyone who has ever had dealings with the EU tends to | :35:18. | :35:23. | |
become more sceptical of it then you were before. I have had some | :35:24. | :35:25. | |
dealings myself and you cannot help being frustrated by its endless | :35:26. | :35:32. | |
delays, the sort of things Mark was saying. I don't myself conclude it | :35:33. | :35:35. | |
is better to come out because you candidly said that there are risks | :35:36. | :35:40. | |
with coming out, I would be interested to hear what you think | :35:41. | :35:45. | |
they are. I think it is true that if you want certainty about where | :35:46. | :35:48. | |
Britain is going to be the next five years you should probably vote to | :35:49. | :35:52. | |
remain, if you care about certainty can you should vote to remain. It is | :35:53. | :36:00. | |
a powerful impulse. I am conceding that out is less certain than in. | :36:01. | :36:06. | |
The risks are, what sort of trade deals can we get and how quickly, | :36:07. | :36:11. | |
what would our relationship with the rest of the European Union look | :36:12. | :36:18. | |
like, would we reform the free-trade arrangements, that is a lot of | :36:19. | :36:22. | |
uncertainty. And big business doesn't like uncertainty. So I am | :36:23. | :36:26. | |
unsurprised that most of the FTSE 100 want things as they are. Unless | :36:27. | :36:33. | |
things are terrible, the status quo is the default option for those who | :36:34. | :36:37. | |
are doing well out of it. So there would be uncertainty... That is an | :36:38. | :36:44. | |
awful lot not to know. Do not also be uncertainty in staying in? I can | :36:45. | :36:50. | |
understand the argument that there would be less uncertainty staying | :36:51. | :36:55. | |
in, because it's the status quo, but the status quo isn't going to last | :36:56. | :37:00. | |
forever, there is uncertainty in the future of migration policy, | :37:01. | :37:03. | |
particularly if Turkey becomes closer to the EU, which is beginning | :37:04. | :37:09. | |
to happen, the number of migrants we may face, we don't know how the | :37:10. | :37:16. | |
Eurozone is going to consolidate itself in the future and exactly | :37:17. | :37:19. | |
what the fallout would be for us. If you vote out you will probably get | :37:20. | :37:26. | |
both sets of uncertainty, we can't kid ourselves we would be isolated | :37:27. | :37:30. | |
from those problems. I think Mark would accept that it is the | :37:31. | :37:35. | |
uncertainty of not even knowing what our relationship on trade would be | :37:36. | :37:41. | |
with you is a huge one and would take is years, there is another risk | :37:42. | :37:45. | |
to, we might end up where we are anyway. That hardly sounds like a | :37:46. | :37:52. | |
risk. They are making the case that actually there is a future for us | :37:53. | :37:56. | |
which is significantly better. It may be the case that the future is | :37:57. | :38:00. | |
not that different. In that case leaving would not be a risk. To my | :38:01. | :38:05. | |
mind, this goes to the confident around the UK, and this clinging to | :38:06. | :38:12. | |
nurse for fear of worse idea. Do you believe that the UK, in the two | :38:13. | :38:17. | |
years it would take to negotiate except from the U, could put in | :38:18. | :38:22. | |
place sensible, pragmatic, improved trade deals with the rest of the EU | :38:23. | :38:29. | |
and the world or do you think that the UK and our government, of | :38:30. | :38:33. | |
whatever complexion, is incapable of doing so? It seems if you don't have | :38:34. | :38:39. | |
confidence that the UK Government could put these things in place, you | :38:40. | :38:43. | |
are probably better off being run by Brussels. If you are confident the | :38:44. | :38:47. | |
UK Government can put these things in place over a two-year period, I | :38:48. | :38:51. | |
don't see what the fear is of leaving. You point to some | :38:52. | :38:59. | |
irritations, but they are quite minor, the jury is out on that one | :39:00. | :39:04. | |
anyway. As we go about our daily lives, in what way does the European | :39:05. | :39:11. | |
Union in pinch on us? You are right, the practically nothing is a side | :39:12. | :39:18. | |
issue, it has not substantially diminished British GDP! But if it | :39:19. | :39:24. | |
goes to the nature of the beast... Whilst there are substantial, | :39:25. | :39:27. | |
serious issues confronting the European Union, the migrant crisis, | :39:28. | :39:32. | |
the stability of the Eurozone, what we have in Brussels is committees of | :39:33. | :39:36. | |
people dealing with trivial health and safety factors, that is not a | :39:37. | :39:42. | |
major impact on the British economy but speaks to the nature of the EU. | :39:43. | :39:48. | |
But today, in what way will it prints your life? Every single | :39:49. | :39:53. | |
product you buy is readily to buy a used ended. Everything you buy in | :39:54. | :39:59. | |
the shop will be dictated... What couldn't you buy here that you could | :40:00. | :40:04. | |
buy in America? There are every conditions about confectionery. The | :40:05. | :40:11. | |
issue is this. What I am worried about is the British government, who | :40:12. | :40:16. | |
often hides behind the figleaf of European Union directives, it is not | :40:17. | :40:20. | |
the case that we have a bunch of civil servants who are secret | :40:21. | :40:23. | |
free-market Liberals, we have our own regulations but they will be | :40:24. | :40:28. | |
ours and we will be able to hold to account the people making those | :40:29. | :40:32. | |
regulations and argue about the pettiness and change them rather | :40:33. | :40:37. | |
than looking across the water to Brussels bureaucracy nobody | :40:38. | :40:39. | |
understands finds impenetrable. Thank you very much. | :40:40. | :40:44. | |
Now as we were discussing earlier, the Labour backbencher Dan Jarvis - | :40:45. | :40:46. | |
seen by many on the centre and right of the party as a future leader - | :40:47. | :40:50. | |
has made a speech this morning setting out his vision | :40:51. | :40:53. | |
His intervention comes amid speculation that a bad performance | :40:54. | :40:56. | |
But is it Jeremy Corbyn's message or his delivery that's the problem? | :40:57. | :41:03. | |
And could another figure from the Corbynite wing of the party | :41:04. | :41:05. | |
do a better job at articulating that message? | :41:06. | :41:10. | |
MUSIC: "I Still Believe" by Frank Turner | :41:11. | :41:12. | |
The conveyor belt moves on and I've just been elevated up to here. | :41:13. | :41:22. | |
I'm Cat Smith, I'm the MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood. | :41:23. | :41:34. | |
And I've just been told that I have two minutes to try and sum up | :41:35. | :41:40. | |
what has happened in the past 100 days, | :41:41. | :41:42. | |
To get ready for today's speech, I went to my favourite local cafe, | :41:43. | :41:51. | |
next to my house, called Jirasol, drank some excellent coffee | :41:52. | :41:54. | |
setting this thing up a year ago, employing six people, | :41:55. | :41:58. | |
doing really well and hopefully expanding in the future, | :41:59. | :42:02. | |
because I fully understand the importance of innovation | :42:03. | :42:06. | |
and supporting very small businesses in order to get underway | :42:07. | :42:10. | |
and the work they do within our community. | :42:11. | :42:12. | |
# Now anybody could take this stage... | :42:13. | :42:17. | |
There is no issue that better illustrates the internationalism | :42:18. | :42:22. | |
that is at the core of progressive politics than our commitment | :42:23. | :42:28. | |
Let's go into that next election with a leader who has got | :42:29. | :42:41. | |
a coherent economic strategy, so we don't see another failure. | :42:42. | :42:47. | |
Jeremy was elected leader of the Labour Party | :42:48. | :42:53. | |
by an overwhelming majority of the members and supporters | :42:54. | :42:55. | |
on the basis of a programme that rested on three pillars. | :42:56. | :43:00. | |
First, a new politics, the creation of a more democratic, | :43:01. | :43:02. | |
engaging and kinder politics in both the Labour Party and society. | :43:03. | :43:08. | |
We are getting there on the kinder bit. | :43:09. | :43:12. | |
Thank you very much for inviting me here today. | :43:13. | :43:16. | |
We're joined now by James Schneider, press adviser to Momentum, | :43:17. | :43:26. | |
the grassroots movement designed to sustain Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. | :43:27. | :43:29. | |
Phil Collins from The Times remains with us. | :43:30. | :43:35. | |
Is Mr Corbyn the best message of his vision? The best messenger? | :43:36. | :43:48. | |
Absolutely. I think part of the problem of politics is a disconnect | :43:49. | :43:51. | |
between Westminster and most people, who don't trust politicians and what | :43:52. | :43:55. | |
they are saying. With Jeremy Corbyn, we have got somebody who doesn't | :43:56. | :43:59. | |
seem like a traditional politician because he isn't. He seemed honest, | :44:00. | :44:03. | |
straightforward and he's clearly on people's side. Use a disconnect, you | :44:04. | :44:07. | |
have a leader who can connect with the several hundred thousand people | :44:08. | :44:12. | |
who have recently joined the Labour Party, no doubt about that, but is | :44:13. | :44:18. | |
there not a huge disconnect between these people and the wider | :44:19. | :44:21. | |
electorate, otherwise you would be doing better in the polls? I don't | :44:22. | :44:25. | |
think so, what we're seeing with the Corbyn project is rather than the | :44:26. | :44:30. | |
traditional thing, PR led, bring your new product and your high point | :44:31. | :44:33. | |
is at the beginning, when it is fresh, exciting, what Corbyn is | :44:34. | :44:38. | |
doing is building a movement over the course of the next four years. | :44:39. | :44:44. | |
There has to be a process of reconnecting with voters across | :44:45. | :44:47. | |
communities which we can now do with this huge membership, we need to get | :44:48. | :44:51. | |
that growing and we need to get people more active in their local | :44:52. | :44:55. | |
parties. At the moment the polls are pretty dire both personally for Mr | :44:56. | :45:00. | |
Corbyn and for the Labour Party. When would you expect to see, if | :45:01. | :45:04. | |
your strategy is right, a turnaround in these polls? I think the polling | :45:05. | :45:10. | |
position will grow and it will get better over the next four years. As | :45:11. | :45:19. | |
the message homes and the opposition to a criticism of the Tory | :45:20. | :45:21. | |
government builds, we will see the polls moving. | :45:22. | :45:27. | |
Currency-macro so not in time for good results for Labour outside | :45:28. | :45:33. | |
London in the May elections. Perfectly in time, we will have an | :45:34. | :45:36. | |
extremely strong ground campaign in councils across the country and will | :45:37. | :45:41. | |
see good results. In May? A good result would be winning the mayoral | :45:42. | :45:46. | |
battle in London. What else would be a good result? Doing well in | :45:47. | :45:50. | |
councils across the country, in Harlow, in Rotherham, across the | :45:51. | :45:55. | |
country, doing well in whales. Does that mean winning seats, net gain? | :45:56. | :46:04. | |
Holding councils, winning councils, advancing the councils, getting good | :46:05. | :46:07. | |
councillors in. At the moment, it looks like the Scottish Nationalists | :46:08. | :46:11. | |
will sweep to power again in Edinburgh and you lose overall | :46:12. | :46:15. | |
control of the Welsh Assembly and between 200 and 400 seats, you will | :46:16. | :46:20. | |
lose, net, in the English local elections. If that was to happen, | :46:21. | :46:30. | |
your strategy would suffer something of a setback. I have not seen the | :46:31. | :46:34. | |
polling that is based on. I expect things to be very difficult in | :46:35. | :46:37. | |
Scotland, I think everybody understands that is going to be the | :46:38. | :46:41. | |
case. I think we stand a very good chance of maintaining the position | :46:42. | :46:45. | |
in whales and will be campaigning councils across the country. I am | :46:46. | :46:49. | |
hearing figures bandied about but I'm not sure. Is it the man or the | :46:50. | :46:54. | |
message? It is both. I think if you had a better messenger, you would | :46:55. | :47:00. | |
have a more articulate exposition of a message that nobody wants to hear, | :47:01. | :47:04. | |
but certainly it is both and the main trouble with Momentum is you | :47:05. | :47:08. | |
haven't got any, no Momentum out of the party into the public at all. | :47:09. | :47:12. | |
You are suggesting something completely unprecedented, which is | :47:13. | :47:17. | |
you go backwards first and gradually this unheralded figure suddenly | :47:18. | :47:20. | |
becomes really popular over time. It has never happened before and there | :47:21. | :47:24. | |
is absolutely no reason to suppose beyond your mere assertion that it | :47:25. | :47:28. | |
is ever going to happen. Why should anybody think that that, which has | :47:29. | :47:31. | |
never happened before, that gradual recovery from a desperately low | :47:32. | :47:36. | |
base, should happen? Let's hear from James Schneider. The Labour Party at | :47:37. | :47:41. | |
the last election had a very difficult position, a lot of | :47:42. | :47:45. | |
building back to do, and I think there wasn't that bank option which | :47:46. | :47:50. | |
would immediately have hugely supported candidate across the | :47:51. | :47:53. | |
country in the leadership election. I think with Jeremy Corbyn we have | :47:54. | :47:57. | |
by miles our best chance to re-energise, as we have done, | :47:58. | :48:01. | |
reenergise the party and reenergise activists and communities across the | :48:02. | :48:04. | |
country and we will see the fruits of that as we go on and get a more | :48:05. | :48:09. | |
activist Labour Party. At the moment, Mr Corbyn's net approval | :48:10. | :48:14. | |
score is plus 55% among Labour voters, exactly what you are saying, | :48:15. | :48:19. | |
he has got them... Sorry, among Labour members, he has got them, but | :48:20. | :48:25. | |
only plus 17 among Labour voters and -24 among the wider electorate. | :48:26. | :48:30. | |
Clearly we have to get the message across and I think what you can see | :48:31. | :48:34. | |
is the people that know Corbyn the best and have seen the most about | :48:35. | :48:37. | |
him like him the most. What we do need to do is make the message at | :48:38. | :48:41. | |
times sharper but I think the message is essentially right. What | :48:42. | :48:46. | |
we are seeing being built is a new economic strategy belt on | :48:47. | :48:49. | |
investment, high technology. These are the things that are going to cut | :48:50. | :48:55. | |
through. How long has he got to begin to show at least in the polls | :48:56. | :48:59. | |
and in the by-elections and local Government elections in the next | :49:00. | :49:02. | |
couple of years, that this is strategy is working? I don't see it | :49:03. | :49:10. | |
being a significant... He is there until the election. Until 2020 | :49:11. | :49:14. | |
election. He has the support because Labour's membership, and lots of | :49:15. | :49:18. | |
people right across the country, want to see a new strategy from | :49:19. | :49:23. | |
Labour and also want to see a new alternative economic strategy and | :49:24. | :49:26. | |
new political strategy for the country and that is the sort of | :49:27. | :49:30. | |
change which Corbyn can bring and is bringing. We interviewed Jerry | :49:31. | :49:42. | |
Durning earlier from Socialist Fight -- -- Gerry Downing. He has been | :49:43. | :49:45. | |
kicked that, should he be allowed to be part of that? I don't know him | :49:46. | :49:52. | |
but I am extremely uncomfortable about the views on the Jewish | :49:53. | :49:57. | |
question. How big roles are you intending Momentum to play in the | :49:58. | :50:02. | |
European referendum? -- how big a role. We need to meet to discuss | :50:03. | :50:07. | |
that, which will probably happened in the second week of May. Only a | :50:08. | :50:13. | |
month before the referendum? It will be seven or eight weeks. Our first | :50:14. | :50:17. | |
priority is the May elections and building for the people's March for | :50:18. | :50:22. | |
health, homes, jobs and education on the 16th of April. And very briefly, | :50:23. | :50:26. | |
in your own view, would you like to campaign strongly to keep us in? | :50:27. | :50:32. | |
Personally, yes, I would like to see a social Europe. I think we are | :50:33. | :50:36. | |
better in Europe, we can deal with tax avoidance, environmental issues. | :50:37. | :50:40. | |
But Momentum as an organisation won't decide until after the May | :50:41. | :50:45. | |
five elections? Probably. Come back and tell us what you think. | :50:46. | :50:48. | |
So much for Labour's future - what about Labour's past? | :50:49. | :50:50. | |
Tony Blair is the subject of a new biography | :50:51. | :50:52. | |
by the investigative journalist Tom Bower. | :50:53. | :50:54. | |
Broken Vows - Tony Blair and the Tragedy of Power. | :50:55. | :50:56. | |
As the title suggests, the book's not got many good things | :50:57. | :50:59. | |
to say about the former Prime Minister. | :51:00. | :51:00. | |
One of Tom Bower's suggestions is that Tony Blair did a secret deal | :51:01. | :51:03. | |
with George Bush to go to war in Iraq - something that was put | :51:04. | :51:07. | |
to the former Prime Minister at the Chilcott Inquiry. | :51:08. | :51:09. | |
During the course of these discussions, | :51:10. | :51:11. | |
do you think you gave him any commitments? | :51:12. | :51:14. | |
The only commitment I gave, and I gave this very openly | :51:15. | :51:17. | |
at the meeting, was a commitment to deal with Saddam. | :51:18. | :51:21. | |
So you were at one that you had to deal with... | :51:22. | :51:23. | |
Absolutely, and that wasn't a private commitment, | :51:24. | :51:25. | |
So you were agreed on the end, but not by the means? | :51:26. | :51:31. | |
So you were agreed on the end, but not on the means? | :51:32. | :51:34. | |
Well, we were agreed on both, actually, as it came to you finally, | :51:35. | :51:37. | |
but we were agreed that we had to confront this issue, | :51:38. | :51:40. | |
that Saddam had to come back into compliance | :51:41. | :51:42. | |
and as I think I said in a press conference with President Bush, | :51:43. | :51:46. | |
the method of doing that is open. And indeed, he made the same point. | :51:47. | :51:52. | |
And we are joined now by Tom Bower, welcome to the programme. Let me | :51:53. | :51:59. | |
come straight to what for many people is the biggest question of | :52:00. | :52:04. | |
all for Mr Blair, did he take us into the invasion of Iraq knowing | :52:05. | :52:08. | |
that there were no weapons of mass destruction? No, he thought there | :52:09. | :52:15. | |
were. Because of the intelligence services? Yes. And so it was a | :52:16. | :52:23. | |
mistake, he made the mistake of believing them, but he did not, us, | :52:24. | :52:28. | |
if I can put it that way? Well, he did not con us about WMD is, but he | :52:29. | :52:34. | |
had corrupted the Government machine which would have tested MI6's | :52:35. | :52:39. | |
intelligence and found it wanting, he short-circuited it, but what my | :52:40. | :52:46. | |
book shows and argues is that the WMDs was the smoke screen, he had | :52:47. | :52:51. | |
believed in regime change from 1998 onwards. Was that the Chicago | :52:52. | :52:58. | |
speech? Before Chicago, when he bombed Iraq with Bill Clinton, so at | :52:59. | :53:03. | |
the 9/11, he wanted to remove Saddam but he knew the regime change was | :53:04. | :53:08. | |
illegal so WMDs, he could show that Saddam had breached UN resolutions, | :53:09. | :53:14. | |
he could say we were going after the WMDs, because unlike Bush, who was | :53:15. | :53:18. | |
allowed regime change, he needed a different excuse. And you think he | :53:19. | :53:24. | |
made an agreement -- an agreement with President Bush for the | :53:25. | :53:29. | |
invasion, in Texas? Long before that. What many of us think is the | :53:30. | :53:35. | |
central part of the Chilcott inquiry, what evidence have you been | :53:36. | :53:40. | |
able to bring to show that there was a Bush Blair deal on the invasion? | :53:41. | :53:45. | |
It is quite clear from all of the memos from the British Embassy | :53:46. | :53:51. | |
before Crawford in April, at the ranch in Texas, that they had agreed | :53:52. | :53:56. | |
on the invasion. The Americans had agreed on it already before the turn | :53:57. | :54:00. | |
of the year in 2001 and the British, through their conversations with | :54:01. | :54:04. | |
Bush and Blair, had agreed they would go along. So Crawford, a ranch | :54:05. | :54:09. | |
in Texas, was not the beginning of the process, it was the end. At that | :54:10. | :54:14. | |
stage, they put the seal on it and the Americans started the plans for | :54:15. | :54:18. | |
invasion. The British were excluded until they formally committed. | :54:19. | :54:23. | |
Blair, as I show in the book, conducted all these things in secret | :54:24. | :54:27. | |
by keeping a very tight number of people involved and it all changed | :54:28. | :54:31. | |
on the 26th of July 2002 when Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, | :54:32. | :54:36. | |
comes back from Washington and says the invasion is on we either have to | :54:37. | :54:39. | |
commit ourselves or not. At that stage, he had to bring in more | :54:40. | :54:43. | |
people to begin preparing and at that stage, it slowly becomes more | :54:44. | :54:46. | |
apparent but he is at all times committed. What is remarkable and | :54:47. | :54:51. | |
comes out in the book is that the Cabinet didn't know until January | :54:52. | :54:57. | |
2,000 and three. Only Jack Straw and Geoff Hoon knew about it but even | :54:58. | :55:02. | |
they were kept away. -- 2003. It was a very tightly kept secret. So he | :55:03. | :55:07. | |
did a deal to go to war than we did not know about? It depends on what | :55:08. | :55:10. | |
you think about when a commitment was made. If that was the case, why | :55:11. | :55:14. | |
go to Parliament and have a vote? Why risk that, if you say he had a | :55:15. | :55:18. | |
commitment and had the wherewithal to put the commitment into effect? | :55:19. | :55:22. | |
He went to Parliament on the eve of war in March 2003. He could have | :55:23. | :55:30. | |
lost the vote and then couldn't have gone to war, so the point stands, | :55:31. | :55:35. | |
why go? He had to carry public opinion. He also had to carry his | :55:36. | :55:41. | |
own party. So therefore the commitment is not worth something | :55:42. | :55:44. | |
until you can get the binding into a resolution of those... It is his own | :55:45. | :55:53. | |
view, which as we said from a long time back, his own view of world | :55:54. | :55:59. | |
politics was as it was. 45,000 British troops were ready on the | :56:00. | :56:02. | |
border of Iraq. The British fleet was already off the coast. So why | :56:03. | :56:08. | |
have a vote in Parliament about whether to go to war and you vote to | :56:09. | :56:12. | |
say, you cannot then say, we haven't even thought about having any | :56:13. | :56:16. | |
troops. Those troops would have had to have been withdrawn. But it was a | :56:17. | :56:21. | |
done deal, he had the Tory party support, so he had no doubt he would | :56:22. | :56:25. | |
get a majority in parliament. There was never a doubt about that. | :56:26. | :56:29. | |
Overlooking it all, I have not finished the book yet, but would it | :56:30. | :56:34. | |
be unfair to say, because it is a very critical book, that you regard | :56:35. | :56:42. | |
Mr Blair almost as... Is this too strong a word? Almost as a | :56:43. | :56:47. | |
charlatan? No, that is accurate. It came as a surprise to people, people | :56:48. | :56:52. | |
always think I start these books without prejudice, but believe me, I | :56:53. | :56:56. | |
was just curious. I just wondered what happened in that ten years of | :56:57. | :57:00. | |
Government. We have had Blair's book, 35 other books all described | :57:01. | :57:06. | |
in great virtues by Prescott, Jack Straw, Blunkett, and I went to the | :57:07. | :57:09. | |
civil servants and the ministers and the generals and the rest and ask | :57:10. | :57:13. | |
them what happened and it is a very different picture to what we, | :57:14. | :57:16. | |
through the brilliance Labour spin, believe. He was surprisingly | :57:17. | :57:24. | |
unprepared for power. Fatally unprepared. It completely threw him | :57:25. | :57:28. | |
off course. Even though he knew he was going to win. And worse, he is | :57:29. | :57:33. | |
an intelligent man but his great weaknesses he was an educated and if | :57:34. | :57:36. | |
you are not educated of Government in history, you make the sort of | :57:37. | :57:42. | |
mistakes he made, and that was the tragedy, that is why it is The | :57:43. | :57:45. | |
Tragedy of Power, because he could have been a phenomenal success and | :57:46. | :57:51. | |
was his own worst enemy. Even among his supporters, there was a huge | :57:52. | :57:55. | |
wasted opportunity. We look back on that day in May 19 97. That is true, | :57:56. | :58:00. | |
the part of the book I agree with is the Government was not prepared for | :58:01. | :58:03. | |
power, I don't think they knew what they wanted to do and in some areas | :58:04. | :58:06. | |
where they did know what they wanted to do, they did the wrong things, so | :58:07. | :58:12. | |
he subsequently had to undo things urgently. The Labour Party hated the | :58:13. | :58:16. | |
subsequent reforms, that is when he became really unpopular in his own | :58:17. | :58:21. | |
party. We need to leave it there, whether you disagree or agree, it is | :58:22. | :58:24. | |
a great read, so thank you very much, Tom Bower. | :58:25. | :58:26. | |
There's just time before we go to find out the answer to our quiz. | :58:27. | :58:29. | |
The question was which beach did David Cameron say he'd enjoyed | :58:30. | :58:32. | |
visiting, but unfortunately spelled its name wrong? | :58:33. | :58:39. | |
Is it Holkham? Yes, he said he had enjoyed visiting Holcombe, but that | :58:40. | :58:56. | |
is in Devon. When the pace is fast or | :58:57. | :58:58. | |
the traffic is slow... | :58:59. | :59:14. |