Browse content similar to 02/06/2017. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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a web permit. She said she always followed immigration laws | 0:00:00 | 0:00:00 | |
a web permit. She said she always followed immigration laws but | 0:00:00 | 0:00:01 | |
a web permit. She said she always followed immigration laws but has | 0:00:01 | 0:00:01 | |
followed immigration laws but has not | 0:00:01 | 0:00:01 | |
followed immigration laws but has not clarified | 0:00:01 | 0:00:01 | |
followed immigration laws but has not clarified the issue | 0:00:01 | 0:00:02 | |
followed immigration laws but has not clarified the issue -- | 0:00:02 | 0:00:02 | |
not clarified the issue -- work permit. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:03 | |
Now on BBC News, it's time for HARDtalk. | 0:00:03 | 0:00:08 | |
Welcome to HARDtalk. | 0:00:08 | 0:00:09 | |
I'm Stephen Sackur. | 0:00:09 | 0:00:10 | |
Britain's opposition Labour party | 0:00:10 | 0:00:12 | |
is at war with itself, preoccupied with a challenge | 0:00:12 | 0:00:16 | |
to Jeremy Corbyn's leadership from within the Parliamentary Party | 0:00:16 | 0:00:19 | |
and riven by accusations of plotting, intimidation | 0:00:19 | 0:00:21 | |
and treachery. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:26 | |
And all this after the Brexit vote exposed the disconnect | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
between Labour and its core working-class voters. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:37 | |
My guest is veteran Labour MP, Frank Field, one of the few loud | 0:00:37 | 0:00:40 | |
pro-Brexit voices in his party. | 0:00:40 | 0:00:43 | |
Are we now witnessing the slow death of Labour? | 0:00:43 | 0:00:48 | |
Frank Field, welcome to HARDtalk. | 0:01:13 | 0:01:15 | |
Thank you. | 0:01:15 | 0:01:17 | |
Here's a puzzling fact, it was David Cameron | 0:01:17 | 0:01:20 | |
who put his career on the line for remaining inside the EU | 0:01:20 | 0:01:24 | |
and it was David Cameron who had to resign after the Brexit vote, | 0:01:24 | 0:01:30 | |
the Tory party appeared to be in disarray but the party | 0:01:30 | 0:01:33 | |
which right now is suffering complete meltdown and chaos | 0:01:33 | 0:01:37 | |
after the Brexit vote is your party, the Labour Party - why? | 0:01:37 | 0:01:40 | |
I think there are a number of reasons. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:42 | |
The Tories clearly understand power and the movement of power rather | 0:01:42 | 0:01:46 | |
more than we do and they were rather quick in moving from one | 0:01:46 | 0:01:50 | |
Prime Minister to another. | 0:01:50 | 0:01:55 | |
There was a folding of the candidates in the Tory | 0:01:55 | 0:01:57 | |
opposition so that helped. | 0:01:57 | 0:02:03 | |
In the end Theresa May took over, it was quick and it was decisive. | 0:02:03 | 0:02:07 | |
And she has built a new government... | 0:02:07 | 0:02:09 | |
And your party, if I may say so, has never looked more useless. | 0:02:09 | 0:02:13 | |
No, not only...not even responding to what the government's new agenda | 0:02:13 | 0:02:18 | |
is - I mean, they have set an agenda in two areas, | 0:02:18 | 0:02:24 | |
the first one, which is a major one, is the acceptance that we are going | 0:02:24 | 0:02:27 | |
to leave Europe. | 0:02:27 | 0:02:32 | |
How and what we mean by that, it is of course part | 0:02:32 | 0:02:41 | |
of the debate, but we are a party of re-moaners, as we ought to be | 0:02:41 | 0:02:44 | |
called, we just... | 0:02:44 | 0:02:45 | |
Your party? | 0:02:45 | 0:02:46 | |
Yes, absolutely. | 0:02:46 | 0:02:46 | |
That we should actually have another referendum on this - | 0:02:46 | 0:02:49 | |
it is over, it is finished, we've moved on, we now | 0:02:49 | 0:02:51 | |
have the opportunity and the duty to seize on how we now shape | 0:02:51 | 0:02:55 | |
Britain's future, in friendship with the EU, but outside the EU | 0:02:55 | 0:02:57 | |
and looking actually to a world stage rather | 0:02:57 | 0:02:59 | |
than a much narrower one. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:01 | |
If I may, how could it be that just 4% of Labour MPs favoured Brexit | 0:03:01 | 0:03:06 | |
in that long campaign and yet 52% of the electorate favoured Brexit? | 0:03:06 | 0:03:09 | |
Why did that disconnect occur? | 0:03:09 | 0:03:15 | |
It is a long-standing one in that if you go back historically, | 0:03:15 | 0:03:18 | |
the Labour Party has always been this coalition between working-class | 0:03:18 | 0:03:21 | |
interests which were then thought to be represented by the trade | 0:03:21 | 0:03:24 | |
unions and what they called the intellectuals, the Fabianites | 0:03:24 | 0:03:30 | |
of the Labour Party, who joined together, | 0:03:30 | 0:03:37 | |
and there was a trade-off between the two of what the policies | 0:03:37 | 0:03:46 | |
would be, and if you look, certainly to the '60s, | 0:03:46 | 0:03:48 | |
when our vote began | 0:03:48 | 0:03:51 | |
to unwind, because you talked about sort of the slow death | 0:03:51 | 0:03:54 | |
of the Labour Party, my worry is that it will be a fast | 0:03:54 | 0:03:58 | |
death, unless we act decisively. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:00 | |
But the decline has been there, in the sense that those who once got | 0:04:00 | 0:04:04 | |
these idealistic objectives of what politics is about, | 0:04:04 | 0:04:06 | |
a crucial part that affects the flavour of any agenda of how | 0:04:06 | 0:04:10 | |
governments perform and so on, have become the dominant one rather | 0:04:10 | 0:04:14 | |
than actually trying to represent those class interests, | 0:04:14 | 0:04:17 | |
and now we have moved, really, for many Labour supporters, | 0:04:17 | 0:04:23 | |
which the Brexit vote showed - it is not a classist issue so much, | 0:04:23 | 0:04:27 | |
although there is, but we are fed up with having the big stick | 0:04:27 | 0:04:30 | |
of globalisation walloped on top of us, and our living | 0:04:30 | 0:04:33 | |
standards pushed down. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:34 | |
There is this huge new agenda which is about identity, | 0:04:34 | 0:04:36 | |
about country, about place, about borders... | 0:04:36 | 0:04:38 | |
And, a word you have not yet used, it is about immigration, | 0:04:38 | 0:04:44 | |
and many of your opponents inside the Labour Party | 0:04:44 | 0:04:46 | |
who categorically disagree with you about the future of Britain | 0:04:46 | 0:04:49 | |
and the future of your party say that you and others who supported | 0:04:49 | 0:04:53 | |
Brexit manipulated misleading arguments about the nature | 0:04:53 | 0:04:56 | |
of immigration in the UK today. | 0:04:56 | 0:05:04 | |
Well, if that is true it is because they were not listening. | 0:05:04 | 0:05:07 | |
I mean, I have been accused of being a racist from the early | 0:05:07 | 0:05:10 | |
2000s onwards by raising the issue. | 0:05:10 | 0:05:12 | |
We cannot have this level of immigration - the effect that it | 0:05:12 | 0:05:15 | |
has on the country and its identity but also on the labour interest, | 0:05:15 | 0:05:18 | |
which are generally speaking - not always - but generally speaking | 0:05:18 | 0:05:21 | |
the most vulnerable in our society. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:24 | |
That's my interest, standing up for those groups. | 0:05:24 | 0:05:27 | |
Right up to the last election when we staged a meeting | 0:05:27 | 0:05:30 | |
within the Parliamentary Labour Party over immigration, | 0:05:30 | 0:05:33 | |
and I asked Ed Miliband, "Do you not see a link between us | 0:05:33 | 0:05:37 | |
letting five million people in and wages pushed down, | 0:05:37 | 0:05:42 | |
shortage for houses, cannot go to your school and so on?" | 0:05:42 | 0:05:49 | |
And there was growling from some members who disapproved and Ed got | 0:05:49 | 0:05:52 | |
up and said he could not see any link at all. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:54 | |
So that is how related we were to the real world | 0:05:54 | 0:05:58 | |
and certainly the world where our voters are, | 0:05:58 | 0:06:02 | |
and half the voters were taken out in the election when we lost those | 0:06:02 | 0:06:05 | |
seats (CROSSTALK) and that's the future... | 0:06:05 | 0:06:07 | |
When you mention the core interests of working people surely | 0:06:07 | 0:06:09 | |
the fundamental core interest of working people | 0:06:09 | 0:06:11 | |
is to have a strong growing economy and if you look at the sorts | 0:06:11 | 0:06:14 | |
of indicators that come from business, from the CBI, | 0:06:14 | 0:06:17 | |
from Chambers of Commerce and from people who actually run | 0:06:17 | 0:06:19 | |
businesses, they all say that the levels of immigration | 0:06:19 | 0:06:21 | |
reflect the needs of British industry, British businesses | 0:06:21 | 0:06:23 | |
for workers, skilled workers, unskilled workers, hundreds | 0:06:23 | 0:06:25 | |
of thousands of them that come from the EU and, | 0:06:25 | 0:06:28 | |
frankly, half of them come from outside the EU - | 0:06:28 | 0:06:30 | |
that is what has made the British economy successful over | 0:06:30 | 0:06:33 | |
the last decade. | 0:06:33 | 0:06:38 | |
The success has been bought at a price about pushing down wages. | 0:06:38 | 0:06:44 | |
I'm actually after the whole cake, not half the cake, and clearly | 0:06:44 | 0:06:47 | |
the idea that you can put walls up and nobody comes in is absurd | 0:06:47 | 0:06:51 | |
but moving into a system where one has, like the Australian system, | 0:06:51 | 0:06:54 | |
you are actually designated what you need and you fill those | 0:06:54 | 0:06:57 | |
vacancies, and you just don't have a rush. | 0:06:57 | 0:07:01 | |
We've had the rush here in this country. | 0:07:01 | 0:07:07 | |
On these sets of figures you've given, of real success | 0:07:07 | 0:07:10 | |
in the British economy, it is great to hear, | 0:07:10 | 0:07:13 | |
God, no one is more pleased than I am | 0:07:13 | 0:07:16 | |
to hear the success news on the economic front but there has | 0:07:16 | 0:07:19 | |
been a real economic price to be paid and that is being paid... | 0:07:19 | 0:07:22 | |
The further down the ladder you are, the bigger the price | 0:07:22 | 0:07:25 | |
and the more higher up the ladder you are, the bigger the advantages | 0:07:25 | 0:07:28 | |
of being in this open market. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:30 | |
The interesting thing is, when you described to me | 0:07:30 | 0:07:32 | |
what you believe are the lessons of Brexit for the left in the UK, | 0:07:32 | 0:07:36 | |
you know who you sound like? | 0:07:36 | 0:07:37 | |
You sound like most of the senior figures in Ukip, you know, | 0:07:37 | 0:07:40 | |
when you talk about an Australian points system to control | 0:07:40 | 0:07:43 | |
immigration, when you talk about culture and identity | 0:07:43 | 0:07:45 | |
and national sense being at the heart of Labour's political | 0:07:45 | 0:07:50 | |
future, you are actually using the language of Ukip. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:52 | |
Is that where you want Labour to go? | 0:07:52 | 0:07:54 | |
No...well, first of all, I think you are being really kind | 0:07:54 | 0:08:00 | |
on Ukip, because looking at the state they're in now... | 0:08:00 | 0:08:03 | |
They are in about the same sort of state as the Labour Party. | 0:08:03 | 0:08:07 | |
Which gives us some relief. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:08 | |
The thing we must fear is the revival of Ukip. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:13 | |
And Ukip, I say took, but it's wrong to use this language, | 0:08:13 | 0:08:17 | |
they weren't our people, but these are people who previously | 0:08:17 | 0:08:20 | |
had voted Labour, almost a million of them, crossed over to support | 0:08:20 | 0:08:23 | |
Ukip last time. | 0:08:23 | 0:08:24 | |
If they get another million of our voters, we are finished | 0:08:24 | 0:08:27 | |
and they begin to move into pole position, and I think the danger | 0:08:27 | 0:08:31 | |
for us is that they begin to talk... | 0:08:31 | 0:08:37 | |
I do not recognise anything that I've said that they have been | 0:08:37 | 0:08:40 | |
saying, | 0:08:40 | 0:08:41 | |
but I am not playing the game, if you say guilt by association. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:45 | |
I am interested in the ideas, what's moving the electorate, | 0:08:45 | 0:08:47 | |
what the electorate are actually after, the form of representation | 0:08:47 | 0:08:50 | |
they wish, and if Ukip does reform itself about identity, | 0:08:50 | 0:08:55 | |
place, about borders, which is controlling the numbers, | 0:08:55 | 0:09:00 | |
as you rightly say, and then becomes the English party, | 0:09:00 | 0:09:03 | |
the outlook for us is grim beyond belief. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:05 | |
Labour needs to compete on that territory? | 0:09:05 | 0:09:06 | |
Yes. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:08 | |
To itself identify as the English party? | 0:09:08 | 0:09:11 | |
We have never done it in the past for crude, feeble... | 0:09:11 | 0:09:14 | |
It could not run more counter to the ideology of, | 0:09:14 | 0:09:17 | |
for example, Jeremy Corbyn, your party leader, who is, | 0:09:17 | 0:09:19 | |
if anything, he is an international socialist to his core. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:25 | |
That's the weaknes of Jeremy's position, which needs to be made | 0:09:25 | 0:09:28 | |
plain during this contest for the leadership, that he has | 0:09:28 | 0:09:30 | |
ideas about the effects of globalisation on poorer | 0:09:30 | 0:09:32 | |
working-class people in this country. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:34 | |
He has made a really good stab at that and it is part of the debate | 0:09:34 | 0:09:38 | |
but because, as you say, he is this internationalist, | 0:09:38 | 0:09:40 | |
there is no way he could deliver protection for those very groups | 0:09:40 | 0:09:43 | |
he says are so hard treated. | 0:09:43 | 0:09:50 | |
So while half of Jeremy's story is a good one and he has begun | 0:09:50 | 0:09:53 | |
to shift the agenda, there is no way that if he had | 0:09:53 | 0:09:57 | |
power, he would actually satisfy our vote or, | 0:09:57 | 0:10:01 | |
given his stance, win an election. | 0:10:01 | 0:10:05 | |
You made that very plain. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:08 | |
You are being rather polite with me but you said recently there is not | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
a cat in hell's chance of Labour winning with Jeremy at the helm | 0:10:11 | 0:10:14 | |
so we better get into this burning issue for Labour of the leadership | 0:10:14 | 0:10:18 | |
challenge and where the party is heading. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:20 | |
There are many people inside the party, let alone outside | 0:10:20 | 0:10:23 | |
it, who believe this leadership challenge represents the death | 0:10:23 | 0:10:25 | |
throes of Labour. | 0:10:25 | 0:10:31 | |
You have already said that there is an existential crisis. | 0:10:31 | 0:10:34 | |
Is Labour dying? | 0:10:34 | 0:10:35 | |
Yes. | 0:10:35 | 0:10:37 | |
I think the main parties themselves are dying... | 0:10:37 | 0:10:39 | |
Let's leave the Tories to talk about it for themselves... | 0:10:39 | 0:10:41 | |
I am not trying to move it around. | 0:10:41 | 0:10:44 | |
And, of course, we are. | 0:10:44 | 0:10:47 | |
You only have to look at the long-term decline of our vote | 0:10:47 | 0:10:50 | |
and the unwillingness of those who are called leaders to actually | 0:10:50 | 0:10:52 | |
pay some attention to why our vote goes down rather than up. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:55 | |
The aim of political parties is for the vote to | 0:10:55 | 0:10:58 | |
increase not decrease. | 0:10:58 | 0:11:00 | |
When it goes down you think there is something actually wrong | 0:11:00 | 0:11:10 | |
here, and that is the long-term crisis for us which has been | 0:11:10 | 0:11:13 | |
disguised at the last election. | 0:11:13 | 0:11:14 | |
If you look at the results of the referendum, we have now got | 0:11:14 | 0:11:17 | |
a Parliamentary party which I think is backward-looking, which has | 0:11:17 | 0:11:22 | |
fantasies about being what Europe should have been about, | 0:11:22 | 0:11:29 | |
all the old stuff we get from them but it is backward looking politics | 0:11:29 | 0:11:32 | |
and we have a dozen Labour MPs, who have seats. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:39 | |
If you take Stoke, it has three or four Labour members, | 0:11:39 | 0:11:43 | |
Stoke voted by 72% to leave the EU. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:50 | |
And this is just typical of huge swathes of Labour seats, | 0:11:50 | 0:11:55 | |
what are Labour MPs who were then candidates, going to say to those | 0:11:55 | 0:11:58 | |
voters when, in fact, on this fundamental issue, | 0:11:58 | 0:12:00 | |
which is about reorientating the direction of the country - | 0:12:00 | 0:12:06 | |
what are they actually going to say - that I am still a Europhile, | 0:12:06 | 0:12:10 | |
I want to go back? | 0:12:10 | 0:12:11 | |
Are you suggesting to me that Labour Party politics | 0:12:11 | 0:12:13 | |
in the immediate future is going to be completely defined | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
by this Brexit issue? | 0:12:16 | 0:12:17 | |
I think politics generally, we are going to have | 0:12:17 | 0:12:19 | |
to respond to it. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:21 | |
To reshape the machinery of government, to begin to respond | 0:12:21 | 0:12:24 | |
to what the results of that referendum were. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:27 | |
So of course a lot of the stuff coming down the chute, | 0:12:27 | 0:12:30 | |
so to speak, towards the House of Commons for us to be debating, | 0:12:30 | 0:12:33 | |
and hopefully shaping and reshaping, is going to be about the nature | 0:12:33 | 0:12:36 | |
of our exit from Europe and how serious we are. | 0:12:36 | 0:12:38 | |
How do we actually protect people? | 0:12:39 | 0:12:40 | |
Can we, actually? | 0:12:40 | 0:12:43 | |
And I think we should start from the idealistic goal | 0:12:43 | 0:12:46 | |
that we want, actually, control of our borders, | 0:12:46 | 0:12:48 | |
therefore free movement. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:52 | |
But we also want access to the free market. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:54 | |
People say it... | 0:12:54 | 0:12:54 | |
You are in a bind. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:57 | |
Because I want to get to the mechanics of where Labour | 0:12:57 | 0:12:59 | |
goes from here, and the mechanics right now are that there | 0:12:59 | 0:13:02 | |
is a challenge to Jeremy Corbyn coming from Owen Smith. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:05 | |
He says that he isn't really ideologically very far | 0:13:05 | 0:13:07 | |
from Jeremy Corbyn, but there is a question of competence. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:09 | |
He is competent, Jeremy Corbyn is not competent. | 0:13:09 | 0:13:13 | |
You have a problem, because you have just told me that Jeremy Corbyn | 0:13:13 | 0:13:16 | |
doesn't have a cat in hell's chance of appealing to the British public. | 0:13:16 | 0:13:19 | |
But Owen Smith wanted to remain in Europe, | 0:13:19 | 0:13:21 | |
and you are telling me that Europe defines the party's future. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:24 | |
So you haven't got a candidate you can back in this race. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:27 | |
Yes, but surely at some stage reality will break in, | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
and the Labour Party will realise we are going to leave Europe, | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
and get down to that policy. | 0:13:33 | 0:13:37 | |
You have talked about Europe, and what Labour need to do to react | 0:13:37 | 0:13:40 | |
to the result of the referendum. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:42 | |
But you are a member, you are a veteran MP. | 0:13:42 | 0:13:47 | |
There are people in constituencies across the country having fierce | 0:13:47 | 0:13:49 | |
arguments, accusing each other of treachery, | 0:13:49 | 0:13:51 | |
of intimidation, of plotting. | 0:13:51 | 0:13:52 | |
The party is at war with itself. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:55 | |
What is going to happen to give Labour a semblance | 0:13:55 | 0:13:58 | |
of competent leadership? | 0:13:58 | 0:14:02 | |
Nothing immediately. | 0:14:02 | 0:14:03 | |
This will go on for some time. | 0:14:03 | 0:14:07 | |
And then I do believe, before the election, | 0:14:07 | 0:14:09 | |
the trade unions will move. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:11 | |
Sadly I think the stewardship of Jeremy's, interesting | 0:14:11 | 0:14:13 | |
from lots of ways, about wielding social protest, and so on, | 0:14:13 | 0:14:16 | |
will then be brought to an end. | 0:14:16 | 0:14:21 | |
You think Corbyn will beat Smith easily, do you? | 0:14:21 | 0:14:24 | |
I think, on the showing at present, I will be voting for Smith, | 0:14:24 | 0:14:28 | |
but I think Corbyn will win. | 0:14:28 | 0:14:30 | |
I hope I am wrong. | 0:14:30 | 0:14:31 | |
This is the absurdity of Labour today. | 0:14:31 | 0:14:33 | |
Everything you have said in this interview suggests you couldn't vote | 0:14:33 | 0:14:36 | |
for Smith, because on a key issue, which as far as you are concerned | 0:14:36 | 0:14:39 | |
is Europe, he is on entirely the wrong side of the fence | 0:14:39 | 0:14:42 | |
from you. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:48 | |
And get you're saying you are not going to vote for him because Corbyn | 0:14:48 | 0:14:52 | |
is even more useless. | 0:14:52 | 0:14:53 | |
True, but the key thing is that Smith actually wants to win. | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
Not just this contest, but the general election. | 0:14:56 | 0:14:58 | |
He won't be able to win the general election holding the views | 0:14:58 | 0:15:01 | |
he currently has. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:02 | |
He will shift, if he serious about winning, and I am interested | 0:15:02 | 0:15:05 | |
in having somebody who is actually interested in winning. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:07 | |
Never mind winning, you may find yourself out of a seat. | 0:15:07 | 0:15:10 | |
Because Momentum, a grassroots movement on the far left | 0:15:10 | 0:15:13 | |
of the party, which backed Jeremy Corbyn, has made it plain | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
that those MPs such as yourself who have turned | 0:15:16 | 0:15:23 | |
against Jeremy Corbyn and want him out, you will face a challenge | 0:15:23 | 0:15:26 | |
in your constituency. | 0:15:26 | 0:15:27 | |
Some neighbouring constituencies of yours are already at war | 0:15:27 | 0:15:29 | |
over this issue. | 0:15:29 | 0:15:30 | |
How will you react if your own constituency tries to topple you? | 0:15:30 | 0:15:33 | |
Well, we will do our best to prevent that happening, | 0:15:33 | 0:15:37 | |
as a group of people. | 0:15:37 | 0:15:39 | |
I have been down this road before. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:40 | |
In the '80s. | 0:15:40 | 0:15:42 | |
In the '80s, and all the polls show that if I actually stood | 0:15:42 | 0:15:46 | |
as independent-Labour, joining the Labour group | 0:15:46 | 0:15:47 | |
in Parliament afterwards, I would win on that basis. | 0:15:47 | 0:15:55 | |
Hang on, so if there is mandatory preselection, | 0:15:55 | 0:15:57 | |
and you don't get preselected, you are saying you'll stand | 0:15:57 | 0:16:00 | |
against the official Labour candidate? | 0:16:00 | 0:16:01 | |
Providence willing, and I am here to stand in the election, | 0:16:01 | 0:16:04 | |
I will be in that election, whatever happens. | 0:16:04 | 0:16:05 | |
So you are - even though you have been a loyal Labour member for many, | 0:16:05 | 0:16:09 | |
years and in the '80s you stayed in Labour when others left, | 0:16:09 | 0:16:12 | |
you are saying you are prepared now to contemplate a split. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:15 | |
No, I am not. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:18 | |
What I am saying is I am prepared to actually win the Birkenhead seat, | 0:16:18 | 0:16:22 | |
and join the Parliamentary Labour Party in Parliament. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:25 | |
Yes, but you are also saying if you're not going to stand | 0:16:25 | 0:16:28 | |
for official Labour you will stand for something else. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:30 | |
This is the absolute number where Labour is today. | 0:16:30 | 0:16:37 | |
There are many people like yourself who are saying if Corbyn wins, | 0:16:37 | 0:16:42 | |
and his cronies and associates dominate the party, we will have | 0:16:42 | 0:16:45 | |
to create a sort of de facto split. | 0:16:45 | 0:16:47 | |
We will become an alternative Labour, a sort of - | 0:16:47 | 0:16:49 | |
I don't know how you would put it, semi-official Labour. | 0:16:49 | 0:16:52 | |
Is that what is going to happen, a split which isn't called a split? | 0:16:52 | 0:16:55 | |
I have no idea what is going to happen, and what people | 0:16:55 | 0:16:58 | |
are plotting, because I am not involved in that. | 0:16:58 | 0:17:01 | |
According to the papers there is lots of plotting going on. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:03 | |
Have you not heard any of these rumours? | 0:17:03 | 0:17:05 | |
Well, I have heard the rumours. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:07 | |
What I am interested in is the source of them. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:09 | |
The key thing is, if we were going to be elected in Parliament, | 0:17:09 | 0:17:13 | |
and claimed that we should have the short money, | 0:17:13 | 0:17:15 | |
because the vast majority of Labour MPs re-elect their own leader, | 0:17:15 | 0:17:18 | |
is whether the Speaker would regard our leader | 0:17:18 | 0:17:20 | |
as the leader of the opposition, and therefore to in a sense stand up | 0:17:20 | 0:17:23 | |
at Prime Minister's Question Time and lead the attack on behalf | 0:17:23 | 0:17:26 | |
of the opposition parties. | 0:17:26 | 0:17:29 | |
Would it be our leader, or does that legal advice | 0:17:29 | 0:17:32 | |
to the Speaker say that it has to be Jeremy Corbyn? | 0:17:32 | 0:17:36 | |
If it is us, and the Parliamentary Labour Party | 0:17:36 | 0:17:38 | |
is in a much stronger position... | 0:17:38 | 0:17:44 | |
For a man who claims he hasn't thought about this very much, | 0:17:44 | 0:17:49 | |
you seem to have a great deal of the detail of what might happen | 0:17:49 | 0:17:52 | |
if you and the Parliamentary party did decide to disassociate | 0:17:52 | 0:17:55 | |
from the official Corbyn leadership. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:58 | |
But I don't want to get hung up on legalities. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:01 | |
I just want to ask you this one final question on this point. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:07 | |
In the 1980s you saw senior Labour figures like David Owen, | 0:18:07 | 0:18:10 | |
Shirley Williams, walk away and set up the SDP. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:13 | |
In the end, after a short burst of optimism, it failed. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:16 | |
Do you think, even if it is not you, that some of your colleagues | 0:18:16 | 0:18:22 | |
in the Parliamentary party will try a similar manoeuvre over | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
the next few months? | 0:18:25 | 0:18:26 | |
They would be foolish to do so. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:27 | |
They should do what I am doing. | 0:18:27 | 0:18:29 | |
We should actually fly under Labour colours, | 0:18:29 | 0:18:31 | |
even if there are two of us actually in the ring, | 0:18:31 | 0:18:34 | |
and win the seats, and come back and reform | 0:18:34 | 0:18:36 | |
the Parliamentary Labour vote. | 0:18:36 | 0:18:42 | |
And in the process, of course, we will get a new leader. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:45 | |
Now, I do want to ask you about something rather specific, | 0:18:45 | 0:18:47 | |
and in a way it is impressive you have managed to make a lot | 0:18:47 | 0:18:51 | |
of noise in Parliament about one specific issue, | 0:18:51 | 0:18:53 | |
even when your party is in total meltdown, | 0:18:53 | 0:18:55 | |
but you have. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:56 | |
You have led a Parliamentary committee which has been | 0:18:56 | 0:18:58 | |
at the forefront of the issue of the collapse of the retail chain | 0:18:58 | 0:19:01 | |
British Home Stores, BHS, and the role in that collapse | 0:19:01 | 0:19:04 | |
of Sir Philip Green, who owned it for a long time | 0:19:04 | 0:19:07 | |
and then sold it for the princely sum of ?1. | 0:19:07 | 0:19:09 | |
It now turns out the company is riddled with debt, | 0:19:09 | 0:19:11 | |
and can't afford its pension scheme. | 0:19:12 | 0:19:13 | |
You have described Sir Philip Green's role as indicative | 0:19:13 | 0:19:15 | |
of the unacceptable face of capitalism. | 0:19:15 | 0:19:17 | |
What exactly do you mean by that? | 0:19:17 | 0:19:22 | |
Unfortunately it is not my phrase, I wouldn't mind having it. | 0:19:22 | 0:19:25 | |
It was a joint enquiry. | 0:19:25 | 0:19:26 | |
Iain Wright, the Chair of the Business Select Committee, | 0:19:26 | 0:19:28 | |
and I join together to do this because we have common interests, | 0:19:28 | 0:19:31 | |
which actually do - these initial stages overlap. | 0:19:31 | 0:19:33 | |
What I mean by that is that, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, | 0:19:33 | 0:19:39 | |
the only show in town is what people call capitalism. | 0:19:39 | 0:19:44 | |
And therefore it is very important that capitalism, so-called, works. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:48 | |
Is it actually as the Prime Minister says, she wanted to work | 0:19:48 | 0:19:51 | |
for the many, all of us? | 0:19:51 | 0:19:55 | |
Or is it for the actual few? | 0:19:55 | 0:19:57 | |
And I think, both in Sports Direct and in BHS, we got examples | 0:19:57 | 0:20:01 | |
here of corporate behaviour which most people out there think | 0:20:01 | 0:20:03 | |
is totally unacceptable. | 0:20:03 | 0:20:10 | |
And therefore we are doing a report, a follow-up on our reports, | 0:20:10 | 0:20:13 | |
so it's not going to go cold in any way. | 0:20:13 | 0:20:19 | |
But of course, it does also shift to the Prime Minister, | 0:20:19 | 0:20:21 | |
and her great strength is actually thinking about concrete issues. | 0:20:21 | 0:20:24 | |
She isn't, thank God, somebody who wants to spend her time | 0:20:24 | 0:20:30 | |
thinking what the nature of capitalism, and how | 0:20:30 | 0:20:32 | |
would I define a fair system? | 0:20:32 | 0:20:34 | |
She will be concerned about making the present system, | 0:20:34 | 0:20:40 | |
shoving it along, with all her authority, to make it | 0:20:40 | 0:20:43 | |
a fairer system. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:47 | |
And she has now got on her desk two reports, both about Sports Direct | 0:20:47 | 0:20:51 | |
and British Home Stores, saying this is a challenge | 0:20:51 | 0:20:53 | |
to what you said, the sort of society your administration, | 0:20:53 | 0:20:56 | |
your stewardship, is actually going to create. | 0:20:56 | 0:21:00 | |
The big point, about what it says about capitalism, | 0:21:00 | 0:21:03 | |
in a minute. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:04 | |
But just on the specifics, you and Sir Philip Green are now | 0:21:04 | 0:21:11 | |
locked in a pretty jarring war of words. | 0:21:11 | 0:21:13 | |
And he has listened to what you have said about him, and he has actually | 0:21:13 | 0:21:17 | |
now got his lawyers involved, accusing you of defamatory and false | 0:21:17 | 0:21:19 | |
allegations, demanding a full apology. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:21 | |
So here's your opportunity. | 0:21:21 | 0:21:22 | |
Are you now going to apologise for the things you have said about... | 0:21:22 | 0:21:25 | |
No, I am not. | 0:21:25 | 0:21:27 | |
He says he is going to sue me, I'm really happy to discuss it. | 0:21:27 | 0:21:32 | |
He knows that if he wants to pursue this we will go to court. | 0:21:32 | 0:21:38 | |
The first thing I wish - I will ask for is trial by jury. | 0:21:38 | 0:21:42 | |
So it won't only be me on trial, and that would therefore be another | 0:21:42 | 0:21:45 | |
front open to put pressure on him to do the decent thing. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:49 | |
Which is, given the unbelievable amount of loot that he and Lady | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
Green and their family have out of BHS and the Arcadia Group, | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
that he stumps up handsomely so that no pension is made worse off. | 0:21:56 | 0:21:59 | |
That is the goal. | 0:21:59 | 0:22:02 | |
But isn't the point, like he says, that this war of words isn't helping | 0:22:02 | 0:22:06 | |
the pensions regulator get a deal, which Sir Philip Green has said | 0:22:06 | 0:22:10 | |
he is ready to be a part of, to actually get some money to those | 0:22:10 | 0:22:13 | |
pensioners who have lost out big-time? | 0:22:13 | 0:22:15 | |
It is appropriate that New Labour gave him his knighthood, | 0:22:15 | 0:22:21 | |
because it is spin, it is wonderful staff. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:25 | |
He talks about it as voluntary, it is voluntary engaging | 0:22:25 | 0:22:27 | |
with the regulator. | 0:22:27 | 0:22:29 | |
The regulator is investigating. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:32 | |
By law, she is compelling him to actually talk to her. | 0:22:32 | 0:22:34 | |
She is demanding access to accounts and movements of money, | 0:22:34 | 0:22:37 | |
of capital, since 2002. | 0:22:37 | 0:22:39 | |
I mean, the screws are on him, | 0:22:39 | 0:22:44 | |
big-time, from the pension regulator. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:47 | |
The idea that somehow it is terrible old me shouting in the wings, | 0:22:47 | 0:22:50 | |
and he is voluntarily running around trying to get the pensions, | 0:22:50 | 0:22:53 | |
if you want to believe that, do believe that. | 0:22:53 | 0:22:56 | |
At the end of the day, we will see what the agreement is. | 0:22:56 | 0:22:59 | |
Yes, well, what I want to do is actually reflect, | 0:22:59 | 0:23:03 | |
at the end of this interview, on what we might tie together | 0:23:03 | 0:23:06 | |
from the discussion we have had about Brexit, and indeed even | 0:23:06 | 0:23:09 | |
the collapse of British Home Stores. | 0:23:09 | 0:23:11 | |
You introduced this notion that what is at stake here is the nature | 0:23:11 | 0:23:14 | |
of capitalism in Britain today. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:16 | |
It just seems to me that the Labour Party, | 0:23:16 | 0:23:18 | |
the party of the left, the working classes, | 0:23:18 | 0:23:20 | |
has abdicated its role in that debate. | 0:23:20 | 0:23:23 | |
It is ironic, is it not, that Theresa May walks | 0:23:23 | 0:23:26 | |
in Number Ten Downing Street talking the language of defending the many | 0:23:26 | 0:23:30 | |
against the privileged few, defending the workers' interests | 0:23:30 | 0:23:34 | |
against the overpaid corporate losses, and Labour, | 0:23:34 | 0:23:36 | |
today, isn't even in the argument. | 0:23:36 | 0:23:41 | |
No. | 0:23:41 | 0:23:45 | |
I mean, the weaknesses that most people would have cheered if she had | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
been a Labour Prime Minister, I am not disagreeing. | 0:23:48 | 0:23:51 | |
I'm just underscoring the importance of the question, | 0:23:51 | 0:23:53 | |
how desperate our position is. | 0:23:53 | 0:23:57 | |
That we are so irrelevant to the conversation going | 0:23:57 | 0:23:59 | |
on with the electorate, but also how power is exercised | 0:23:59 | 0:24:02 | |
in this country, that a Prime Minister has got the total | 0:24:02 | 0:24:04 | |
freedom to shape what her stewardship will be about. | 0:24:04 | 0:24:10 | |
Frank Field, that's it for now. | 0:24:10 | 0:24:13 | |
Thank you very much for being on HARDtalk. | 0:24:13 | 0:24:15 | |
Much appreciated. | 0:24:15 | 0:24:17 | |
Hello there, good morning. | 0:24:47 | 0:24:47 |