Browse content similar to 18/09/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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My thanks to Greg Hands, Tom Brake and Neil Coyle, | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
Will Jeremy Corbyn be able to reunite the Labour Party if he's | :00:00. | :00:13. | |
If Theresa May facing a backbench rebellion over her Brexit strategy? | :00:14. | :00:26. | |
And does Tim Farron have any chance of staging a Lib Dem comeback | :00:27. | :00:29. | |
Back with me now is Helen Lewis, Isabel Oakeshott and Tim Shipman. | :00:30. | :00:42. | |
Also, following on from our interview with Labour MP Peter Kyle, | :00:43. | :00:44. | |
who's complained that some Corbyn supporters are trying | :00:45. | :00:46. | |
to deselect him, we can speak to the national | :00:47. | :00:48. | |
organiser for Momentum, James Schneider, who joins | :00:49. | :00:50. | |
James, there is mounting evidence that one of the purposes, one of the | :00:51. | :01:04. | |
purposes, of Momentum is to get more Corbyn friendly Labour MPs elected. | :01:05. | :01:11. | |
Are you still denying that? There is not mounting evidence that Momentum | :01:12. | :01:16. | |
is campaigning for the. We are not campaigning for the selections. The | :01:17. | :01:21. | |
one person who is apparently going to appear in a documentary tomorrow | :01:22. | :01:28. | |
calling for Peter Kyle to be deselected isn't a member of | :01:29. | :01:34. | |
Momentum. So you would urge all Momentum supporters in Brighton and | :01:35. | :01:38. | |
Hove to back Mr Kyle, the sitting MP? That is not what I'm saying, I'm | :01:39. | :01:43. | |
saying selections are a matter for local party members and affiliates | :01:44. | :01:46. | |
and it is their right to decide what they would like to decide. Momentum | :01:47. | :01:54. | |
is not campaigning to reselect any particular MPs. So why was Mr Sandel | :01:55. | :02:00. | |
addressing a group of Momentum supporters, telling them how to go | :02:01. | :02:05. | |
about deselecting anti-Corbin Labour MPs? He was invited by one local | :02:06. | :02:12. | |
group. In a big organisation which is very, very active, 150 groups, | :02:13. | :02:18. | |
18,000 members, tens of thousands of activists, people have democratic | :02:19. | :02:22. | |
debate and get invited for talks, that is normal. One meeting does not | :02:23. | :02:26. | |
dictate national policy. Are you telling us today that Momentum, at | :02:27. | :02:34. | |
the local level, is not and will not be involved in any efforts to | :02:35. | :02:39. | |
replace sitting MPs? What I'm telling you is that the selections | :02:40. | :02:42. | |
are a matter for local Labour Party members and affiliates. It is their | :02:43. | :02:46. | |
right to choose through the mechanisms laid down by party | :02:47. | :02:49. | |
conference and the National Executive Committee, to do that, | :02:50. | :02:56. | |
that is completely normal. What I am saying is Momentum is not | :02:57. | :02:59. | |
campaigning for any deselection. Even at a local level? Momentum is | :03:00. | :03:06. | |
not campaigning for deselection. Are you telling me Momentum is not | :03:07. | :03:10. | |
involved in trying to get rid of local MPs at local level, is that | :03:11. | :03:15. | |
what you are saying? Andrew, what I'm telling you is that selections | :03:16. | :03:19. | |
and elections within the Labour Party are the democratic right for | :03:20. | :03:24. | |
members and affiliates. We are not trying to interfere with that, one | :03:25. | :03:32. | |
way or the other. There may be members of Momentum who are members | :03:33. | :03:35. | |
of the Labour Party who take a particular view on their MP, for | :03:36. | :03:39. | |
example myself, I am a member of Momentum and the Labour Party, I | :03:40. | :03:44. | |
take the view on my MP, I really like my MP. Who is your MP? Keir | :03:45. | :03:51. | |
Starmer. So his position is safe from Momentum? All MPs' positions | :03:52. | :03:58. | |
are safe... We have got Len McCluskey of Unite saying it is time | :03:59. | :04:02. | |
to get rid of MPs who have been overcritical of Mr Corbyn, Mark | :04:03. | :04:08. | |
Sandell lecturing Momentum on how to unseat sitting MPs, Clive Lewis | :04:09. | :04:13. | |
describing deselection as simply democratic selection. Have you not | :04:14. | :04:19. | |
had the memo yet? Andrew, selections, as I keep on saying, are | :04:20. | :04:26. | |
the democratic right of local party members and affiliates. I am not | :04:27. | :04:30. | |
trying to stop anybody having those rights, those rights are extremely | :04:31. | :04:34. | |
important in a democratic party, but what I'm not going to do is be | :04:35. | :04:37. | |
goaded into saying something I don't think, which is that Momentum should | :04:38. | :04:41. | |
be organising for deselection is because that is not what we are | :04:42. | :04:46. | |
doing. You are not being goaded, simply questioned. Is it correct | :04:47. | :04:50. | |
that Momentum would like to have, or plans to have, what it is calling an | :04:51. | :04:56. | |
engagement officer in every constituency Labour Party just to | :04:57. | :04:59. | |
keep an eye on what is going on? Can you tell us what the engagement | :05:00. | :05:04. | |
officer would do? It is half true. If you look at the guidelines on | :05:05. | :05:10. | |
Momentum's website, to be a verified local Momentum, you need positive | :05:11. | :05:14. | |
engagement with your local Labour Party, local trades union branches, | :05:15. | :05:18. | |
community and activist groups, so each group has Labour Party | :05:19. | :05:21. | |
engagement officers so that people are making sure they are taking part | :05:22. | :05:26. | |
in the party, we want people to be as involved in the Labour Party as | :05:27. | :05:30. | |
they can be, to be campaigning and part of a Democratic Party. Thank | :05:31. | :05:40. | |
you, I know this was short notice, thank you for joining us this | :05:41. | :05:41. | |
morning. Let's move on because we talked | :05:42. | :05:44. | |
about Labour at the beginning. To the Lib Dems. Theoretically, the Lib | :05:45. | :05:46. | |
Dems, at this point, given what is happening to Labour, given Mrs May | :05:47. | :05:49. | |
and grammar schools, there could be an opening for the Lib Dems, but is | :05:50. | :05:54. | |
there any sign of it? At the moment the thing that Tim Farron could do | :05:55. | :05:58. | |
to get noticed would be to go skinny-dipping off Brighton beach | :05:59. | :06:01. | |
because it might get him some press attention. He gave quite an | :06:02. | :06:03. | |
interesting speech which I'm afraid I read on my mobile phone rather | :06:04. | :06:08. | |
than watching in person, which tells a tale itself. This is | :06:09. | :06:25. | |
a guy trying to rebuild locally, get councillors elected again, being | :06:26. | :06:28. | |
relatively successful at that, they just got a 38% swing in athletes the | :06:29. | :06:31. | |
other day against the Labour Party, but it is a long road back and at | :06:32. | :06:34. | |
the moment they are not exploiting the national opportunity they have | :06:35. | :06:36. | |
got. I think the problem they have got is their grassroots network is | :06:37. | :06:38. | |
so depleted, the opposite situation to the Labour Party. They do not | :06:39. | :06:41. | |
have the kind of infrastructure any more, there are no resources, human | :06:42. | :06:44. | |
or financial resources, they don't have the people to go out there and | :06:45. | :06:49. | |
knock on doors. Tim Farron, a great and lovely guy, but he doesn't | :06:50. | :06:53. | |
provide the most charismatic of leadership and they really deep to | :06:54. | :06:57. | |
find something to pin a revival on, and at the moment it isn't there. I | :06:58. | :07:02. | |
am more upbeat than these two, it is a long road back that there is a | :07:03. | :07:06. | |
space down the middle between their Labour is and the Conservatives are, | :07:07. | :07:11. | |
it is very authoritarian at the Home Office which opens up a space for a | :07:12. | :07:15. | |
Liberal party. They have only got eight MPs, if they had more, we | :07:16. | :07:19. | |
would be paying more attention to them. Attention is one of the | :07:20. | :07:22. | |
problems, getting attention is difficult for them, there will not | :07:23. | :07:26. | |
be that many senior journalists at the Lib Dem conference. Then never | :07:27. | :07:31. | |
used to be. We are going way back to where it Lib Dems used to be a long | :07:32. | :07:33. | |
time ago. But it is worse, if you look ten years ago at least they had | :07:34. | :07:50. | |
a reasonable cohort but I don't think the number of MPs is the | :07:51. | :07:52. | |
issue. To get attention you have got to be spiky, punchy, pumping out | :07:53. | :07:54. | |
controversial press releases, they are not doing that. But they have an | :07:55. | :07:57. | |
advantage over Labour, they are used to talking to people who disagree | :07:58. | :08:00. | |
with them, there are relatively few friendly ears for the Lib Dem, and I | :08:01. | :08:03. | |
think there are some signs of resurgence but it is a long road | :08:04. | :08:08. | |
back. There is a new Tory group campaigning for hard Brexit. It is | :08:09. | :08:12. | |
fair to say that the longer Mrs May waits to trigger article 50, the | :08:13. | :08:18. | |
more Tory divisions will come to the surface? I think that is fair | :08:19. | :08:23. | |
enough, absolutely, but I have some sympathy with her position of | :08:24. | :08:29. | |
leaving it until she has got her ducks in a row. Once Article 50 is | :08:30. | :08:33. | |
triggered, there is a limited time frame to work out the negotiations, | :08:34. | :08:37. | |
and you had an interesting guest earlier, we had David Liddington who | :08:38. | :08:42. | |
spent so long on the European diplomatic circuit, and his view is | :08:43. | :08:47. | |
that you do need time to work all this out before you press the button | :08:48. | :08:53. | |
on it. So not this side of New Year? But you cannot leave it forever | :08:54. | :08:56. | |
because there are European elections coming up, it would be ludicrous to | :08:57. | :09:00. | |
be in a position where we are re-elected MEPs. I will out myself | :09:01. | :09:10. | |
as a moaning Remainer. Nigel Farage this morning said people voted to | :09:11. | :09:13. | |
get out of the single market. Did they? Again, no one knows what | :09:14. | :09:17. | |
Brexit means. We will talk more about that as autumn progresses. | :09:18. | :09:20. | |
Jo Coburn will be back on BBC Two tomorrow at noon | :09:21. | :09:24. | |
with coverage of the Lib Dem conference in Brighton. | :09:25. | :09:26. | |
I will bring Tim Farron's speech on Tuesday. | :09:27. | :09:30. | |
And I'll be back with more Sunday Politics live from the Labour | :09:31. | :09:33. | |
conference in Liverpool here on BBC One next Sunday at 11am. | :09:34. | :09:35. | |
Remember, if it's Sunday, it's the Sunday Politics. | :09:36. | :09:42. |