:00:00. > :00:18.Jeremy Corbyn is the most unlikely leader of one of Britain's big two
:00:19. > :00:21.He was elected Labour leader by a party electorate swollen
:00:22. > :00:24.by an army of new, mostly young, radical members.
:00:25. > :00:28.Anti-capitalist, anti-war, anti just about everything
:00:29. > :00:35.My guest is Peter Mandelson, Lord Mandelson, one of the architects
:00:36. > :01:12.What does Jeremy Corbyn mean for Labour and for Britain?
:01:13. > :01:13.Peter Mandelson, welcome to HARDtalk.
:01:14. > :01:23.Do you now feel like a stranger in your own political house?
:01:24. > :01:26.I don't feel like a stranger, but I do feel very worried indeed
:01:27. > :01:35.Look, the hard but simple truth is that a far-left figure, a far-left
:01:36. > :01:38.leader like Jeremy Corbyn, with his views on the economy and public
:01:39. > :01:41.spending, on national security, defence, his anti-Americanism and
:01:42. > :01:44.all the rest, with those views, we are not going to be able to
:01:45. > :01:55.construct an election-winning coalition at the next election.
:01:56. > :01:58.And it grieves me to say it because I love my party much more
:01:59. > :02:02.But we are, I'm afraid, in danger of being written off
:02:03. > :02:08.The man has been in charge of the party for less than two months and
:02:09. > :02:13.you've decided that he has no hope of ever winning a general election.
:02:14. > :02:15.Well, my fear is that Labour supporters, Labour voters, let alone
:02:16. > :02:22.the rest of the country, are being disenfranchised by his leadership.
:02:23. > :02:24.I mean, they are people who have voted
:02:25. > :02:29.Labour, want to vote Labour again, but can't vote for Jeremy Corbyn.
:02:30. > :02:40.47% of people who voted Labour in the general election this year
:02:41. > :02:43.say they do not see Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Ministerial material
:02:44. > :02:51.Now, at 47% of Labour voters, I emphasise, that is a very,
:02:52. > :02:58.very worrying, life-threatening reality that we have to face.
:02:59. > :03:02.We'll talk about his policy propositions in a minute,
:03:03. > :03:05.but you just seem to have missed out one rather important element of the
:03:06. > :03:09.Corbyn story, which is that he won a stonking 60% of the vote in the
:03:10. > :03:16.He drew in hundreds of thousands of new members to the party.
:03:17. > :03:19.This is a man who has a mandate of extraordinary power
:03:20. > :03:25.I do not deny for one moment that he speaks to a real chunk
:03:26. > :03:31.of left-leaning, left-thinking people in this country.
:03:32. > :03:34.But it's your party and your party declared that it wanted
:03:35. > :03:38.But my party also wants to be elected to government
:03:39. > :03:46.Yes, he speaks to that chunk of left-wing opinion
:03:47. > :03:51.in the country, but that's only 5-10% of the electorate as a whole.
:03:52. > :03:59.If we want to be elected again as the government of this country,
:04:00. > :04:02.we have to get 30%, 35% of the country, not 5-10%.
:04:03. > :04:04.Now, that is the reality that we've got to face up to.
:04:05. > :04:07.Just on one point of detail about that election.
:04:08. > :04:10.I don't want to spend too long on it, but there were a lot of rumours
:04:11. > :04:14.that you tried very hard to find a way of stopping the Corbyn express
:04:15. > :04:16.train, including at one point telling the other three candidates
:04:17. > :04:18.in that election that they must pool their resources,
:04:19. > :04:23.At one point, even saying to them, all of you pull out
:04:24. > :04:25.because that will render the election null and void.
:04:26. > :04:31.You read it on the front page of the Daily Telegraph.
:04:32. > :04:33.I'm just asking if there's any truth in it?
:04:34. > :04:37.Would it have been better if that election had been stopped?
:04:38. > :04:41.I don't think it was possible to do that
:04:42. > :04:45.because the election had begun with the acting leader, Harriet Harman,
:04:46. > :04:48.sort of throwing open the windows and doors of our house and saying,
:04:49. > :04:52.We don't care who you are, where you come from,
:04:53. > :04:56.or how you voted in the past, we want you to vote for our leader.
:04:57. > :04:58.Now, of course, she changed her views as the
:04:59. > :05:06.Let's look at one or two facts about this too.
:05:07. > :05:13.Jeremy Corbyn fought rather a good campaign.
:05:14. > :05:16.I mean, he caught a popular mood, a sort of antiestablishment,
:05:17. > :05:18.sort of anti-elite sentiment or mood that's present not just
:05:19. > :05:29.He was faced with alternative candidates who were, let's face it,
:05:30. > :05:32.a bit sort of business-as-usual, a bit sort of buttoned up
:05:33. > :05:41.But also, and I say this with an element of self-criticism,
:05:42. > :05:45.the modernisers in the Labour Party had failed to modernise themselves.
:05:46. > :05:49.We had failed to renew our own offer to our own party.
:05:50. > :05:52.So, you know, we are all at fault in a sense.
:05:53. > :06:01.He did seem to offer a rather exciting alternative,
:06:02. > :06:03.even though it wasn't an election-winning alternative,
:06:04. > :06:11.Although - just bear this in mind, if you will, Stephen - I mean, the
:06:12. > :06:16.votes of the actual party members, as opposed to the sort of ?3 people
:06:17. > :06:20.who signed up and the affiliates who were sort of harvested by our big
:06:21. > :06:24.super-union, the number of votes that he got
:06:25. > :06:27.in the actual party were fewer than the total votes that the other
:06:28. > :06:35.When you say things like that, Diane Abbott and other allies of Corbyn
:06:36. > :06:39.say, this is a man - Peter Mandelson - who is sort of in denial.
:06:40. > :06:42.You cannot accept what your own party has done
:06:43. > :06:46.I've heard her say this and, yes, they did elect Jeremy Corbyn
:06:47. > :06:49.and we have to face up to the consequences of that.
:06:50. > :06:51.But it was not quite the stonking great mandate that you
:06:52. > :06:56.have characterised it as and we have to...
:06:57. > :07:00.What we have to do in the party is go back to our party membership and
:07:01. > :07:05.engage them in a very serious debate about how we are going to become,
:07:06. > :07:08.or remain, a genuine party of government, rather than be relegated
:07:09. > :07:18.What you seem to be engaged in right now is planning, developing strategy
:07:19. > :07:25.I mean, this is a leaked memo that the New Statesman
:07:26. > :07:28.got hold of, purportedly from you, which says, "Nobody can replace him
:07:29. > :07:32.- Corbyn - until he demonstrates his unelectability at the polls.
:07:33. > :07:35.It would be wrong to force the issue before the public have
:07:36. > :07:43.issued a verdict, but we must be ready when that happens."
:07:44. > :07:46.and he judges that really, he is not the election-winning leader that he
:07:47. > :07:49.has presented himself as and he chooses to take himself off,
:07:50. > :07:56.And what we have to be ready with more than anything else is serious,
:07:57. > :07:58.new, fresh policy ideas to win support for in the party
:07:59. > :08:07.We haven't done enough of that for a very long time.
:08:08. > :08:15.So you're saying with, what, London mayoral elections coming up, with
:08:16. > :08:18.Scottish elections coming up, both of them significant tests of where
:08:19. > :08:21.Labour stands next year, you're saying that right now, Labour people
:08:22. > :08:23.should be developing plans on the premise that Labour will do
:08:24. > :08:26.very badly and thinking about how a new leader can be
:08:27. > :08:36.What I'm saying is that people in the party should judge him by what
:08:37. > :08:45.He said he was going to be a guy who believed greatly in equality,
:08:46. > :08:48.for example, and then appointed the top four posts in his Shadow
:08:49. > :08:55.He said he was all for open debate and yet
:08:56. > :08:58.when he faced defeat on the issue of Trident at our party conference,
:08:59. > :09:03.he promptly closed down the debate and transferred it to Scotland.
:09:04. > :09:05.He said he wasn't going to be a sectarian leader
:09:06. > :09:09.and yet the appointments he's made to his own top staff are people who
:09:10. > :09:15.have the barest connection with mainstream Labour Party thinking.
:09:16. > :09:18.One of whom, the head of policy, has described hard-working
:09:19. > :09:27.Labour MPs as 'Tories' and urged people to vote for their opponents.
:09:28. > :09:30.Now, this is not quite what people thought they were getting
:09:31. > :09:37.And therefore, he has to be judged as much as anything, Stephen, on his
:09:38. > :09:40.competence and his professionalism and how consistent he is being with
:09:41. > :09:44.what he first advertised himself as during the campaign.
:09:45. > :09:48.Understood, and I think it's pretty plain where your judgment lies.
:09:49. > :09:51.But I'm keen to ask you again about this notion of preparing - both in
:09:52. > :09:54.terms of personnel and policy - for post-Corbyn Labour, which you say
:09:55. > :09:57.could be as early as next year because if the results
:09:58. > :10:03.go against him next year, you think that will be the end of him.
:10:04. > :10:07.I haven't actually put a time limit on it, but we do have to prepare...
:10:08. > :10:17.No, chiefly, we have to prepare by thinking through our policies.
:10:18. > :10:20.We are not going to win re-election as a party in this country
:10:21. > :10:25.We've tried that, it didn't succeed the first time,
:10:26. > :10:32.We had to undertake the sort of renewal of our policies, our outlook
:10:33. > :10:38.We have to do that now, just as we did in the 1990s
:10:39. > :10:43.Now, I'm not saying that we should go back to the same policies
:10:44. > :10:49.I'm not saying that we need the same team or the same apparatus as we had
:10:50. > :10:55.in the 1990s, but we do need something as strong and potent and
:10:56. > :10:58.appealing to the country as a whole if we're going to succeed in winning
:10:59. > :11:08.Do you see anybody active in the party today who,
:11:09. > :11:10.in your words, will be 'ready, should the eventuality arise'?
:11:11. > :11:12.Stephen, it's not a matter of individuals.
:11:13. > :11:17.We all have to play our part in working out our new policies,
:11:18. > :11:20.reconnecting ourselves with the electorate in this country,
:11:21. > :11:28.demonstrating convincingly that we remain a serious party of
:11:29. > :11:33.government, and organising - both amongst our own grassroots as a
:11:34. > :11:35.party, but also, in those communities and neighbourhoods
:11:36. > :11:40.And everyone in the party has a responsibility to
:11:41. > :11:47.Just one element of policy, arguably the most important for any party,
:11:48. > :11:54.I mean, the polls showed that Ed Miliband
:11:55. > :11:56.lost primarily because people didn't trust him and the Labour
:11:57. > :11:58.Party with managing the economy.
:11:59. > :12:01.Now, Jeremy Corbyn's taken the party in a different economic
:12:02. > :12:03.He's got very strong, clear policies.
:12:04. > :12:06.People's quantitative easing, nationalisation.
:12:07. > :12:15.And he talks about nationalisation of the banks, of the railways,
:12:16. > :12:17.and changing the whole sort of energy economy in this country.
:12:18. > :12:20.And he's not very keen on markets and he's not keen
:12:21. > :12:24.on private business, and therefore, he's not keen on
:12:25. > :12:26.the overwhelming source of jobs that people undertake in this country...
:12:27. > :12:35.If you were asked today, who do you trust more to manage
:12:36. > :12:37.the British economy - George Osborne and the Tories or
:12:38. > :12:40.Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell and Labour - what would you say?
:12:41. > :12:44.I would say that it is a very, very bad and sad day for this country...
:12:45. > :12:45.No, that's not answering the question.
:12:46. > :12:47...when we do not have a serious
:12:48. > :12:48.opposition, a serious alternative to
:12:49. > :12:54.It's not just a problem for Labour, the fact that we're looking future
:12:55. > :12:58.defeat in the eyes, it's a problem for the country as a whole.
:12:59. > :13:02.This country and its democracy needs a credible, effective opposition, an
:13:03. > :13:05.alternative government, and we are not offering that at the moment.
:13:06. > :13:08.So if I pursue the logic of what you are saying,
:13:09. > :13:13.you are saying that right now, with Labour in the state it's in,
:13:14. > :13:15.offering the policy propositions it is offering, you would rather have
:13:16. > :13:19.the Tories in power than Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell?
:13:20. > :13:22.No, I'm saying I want a Labour government.
:13:23. > :13:25.I want it elected at the next election and the only
:13:26. > :13:27.possibility of that happening is if we get credible, serious
:13:28. > :13:33.policies which mainstream people in this country can vote for.
:13:34. > :13:39.Does it ever strike you that Jeremy Corbyn has achieved something
:13:40. > :13:41.that, certainly in the latter years of New Labour, you,
:13:42. > :13:47.He's energised a whole group of new people into politics.
:13:48. > :13:51.I'm just looking at one recent Ipsos Mori poll.
:13:52. > :13:55.Overall, it wasn't very good for Jeremy Corbyn, but it did show
:13:56. > :13:58.that while only 20% of over-55s approve of the way Corbyn started
:13:59. > :14:07.his job, 57% of 18-34s thought he was doing an OK job.
:14:08. > :14:10.He is attracting young people, and also,
:14:11. > :14:12.people who had felt disenfranchised from politics altogether.
:14:13. > :14:14.And you and your politics failed to do that.
:14:15. > :14:16.I think that's a really, really good point.
:14:17. > :14:26.We looked like more of the same towards the end
:14:27. > :14:32.We also had a tendency - and I'll be frank about this -
:14:33. > :14:37.to come across to many people as sort of valueless pragmatists,
:14:38. > :14:40.rather than idealists, people who were really working for change.
:14:41. > :14:51.Partly, it's being in government for so long.
:14:52. > :14:54.Secondly, when Blair left Downing Street in 2007, he sort
:14:55. > :14:59.He was succeeded first of all by a leader in Gordon Brown who
:15:00. > :15:03.chose not to emphasise New Labour or the achievements of the government
:15:04. > :15:10.But also, didn't generate the new policy ideas with
:15:11. > :15:16.He was then, in turn, succeeded by another leader,
:15:17. > :15:24.Ed Miliband, who spent a lot of his time telling people what a terrible
:15:25. > :15:27.disappointment - almost a betrayal - the New Labour government had been.
:15:28. > :15:30.But whilst he was busy burying us, he didn't generate or produce any
:15:31. > :15:37.alternative or new policies of his own.
:15:38. > :15:40.And I think people just looked at this and said - where are they
:15:41. > :15:44.They're not New Labour, but what are they?
:15:45. > :15:47.Yeah, I mean, that answer rather delicately poured a lot of the blame
:15:48. > :15:51.onto Gordon Brown, but people who used to be close to you like Matthew
:15:52. > :15:53.Taylor, Geoff Mulgan, they've thought about this very hard and
:15:54. > :15:56.they say one of the big problems that Mandelson, Blair and others
:15:57. > :16:00.have to own up to is that your style of politics was top-down,
:16:01. > :16:03.centralising, secretive, not transparent, and that the British
:16:04. > :16:06.public and indeed the Labour Party became absolutely sick
:16:07. > :16:13.Well, I don't accept that and there's no evidence amongst
:16:14. > :16:25.I don't believe that the public tired of or rejected what the
:16:26. > :16:39.If they felt as strongly as you characterised the voters then
:16:40. > :16:41.as feeling, they would have elected a Conservative majority government.
:16:42. > :16:48.I mean, they didn't re-elect us, that's true, but they didn't give
:16:49. > :16:50.David Cameron and the Conservative Party a majority either.
:16:51. > :16:56.I think they were sort of left somewhat in suspension between
:16:57. > :16:59.a Labour Party that had become a Labour government that, to them,
:17:00. > :17:03.had become less exciting than it had been when it started, a Labour
:17:04. > :17:05.government which they weren't absolutely sure
:17:06. > :17:08.what it stood for any more under Gordon Brown, and a Tory party and
:17:09. > :17:11.a leadership who they didn't really like and didn't want to see becoming
:17:12. > :17:18.And that's why you got the result that you did in 2010.
:17:19. > :17:28.Let's come back to 2015 and the future.
:17:29. > :17:33.And the result was a massive defeat for us in 2010.
:17:34. > :17:35.And as you've characterised it, a leadership now which is taking
:17:36. > :17:48.I will leave the Labour Party when I am taken off this Earth in my
:17:49. > :17:51.Well, there is another option, actually.
:17:52. > :17:59.I was thinking of the Labour Party divorcing itself from you.
:18:00. > :18:03.I mean, Michael Meacher, the late Michael Meacher,
:18:04. > :18:09.said after one of your explosions of anger at Jeremy Corbyn, he said that
:18:10. > :18:13.your words were 'close to treachery'.
:18:14. > :18:16."Many think Mandelson is bringing the party into disrepute and
:18:17. > :18:18.on those grounds, he could be expelled".
:18:19. > :18:21.And he was then immediately repudiated in saying that, both by
:18:22. > :18:25.But my point is that there are people...
:18:26. > :18:28.Well, there are people inside Labour who
:18:29. > :18:32.disagree with my politics, who don't like New Labour, you know, who don't
:18:33. > :18:36.There are plenty of people in all sorts of parties who disagree
:18:37. > :18:41.I mean, do you ever think - I've become toxic to my own party?
:18:42. > :18:44.But the point I'm making to them is very, very simple.
:18:45. > :18:48.You know, we have to decide whether we are
:18:49. > :18:51.going to be a party of government again or whether we're simply going
:18:52. > :19:01.And if you want to become a party of government, then you've got to
:19:02. > :19:14.People may not like it, but I'm afraid it's reality.
:19:15. > :19:17.But if they indicate they want to be a party of protest, then don't
:19:18. > :19:19.you owe it to yourself, to the country,
:19:20. > :19:24.to create a new left-of-centre alignment or join the Lib Dems, or
:19:25. > :19:29.People like me in the Labour Party - and there are very many people who
:19:30. > :19:32.think like me, who want the party to be re-elected to government in this
:19:33. > :19:35.country - have got to go out and re-persuade, re-convince people in
:19:36. > :19:37.the Labour Party that if we want to be re-elected,
:19:38. > :19:47.Let me, if I may, end by turning to one specific policy area which you
:19:48. > :19:50.are very involved in at the moment and the Labour Party is navel-gazing
:19:51. > :19:53.You are one of the leaders of the Stay-In campaign
:19:54. > :19:56.when it comes to the future British referendum on the European Union.
:19:57. > :20:02.Do you worry that such is the volatility of the electorate at
:20:03. > :20:09.the moment and it seems the sort of frustration with politics as usual,
:20:10. > :20:13.that this is a time when the public could be persuaded to take the risk,
:20:14. > :20:15.if you see it that way, and leave the European Union?
:20:16. > :20:21.Not just in our country, but in many others across Europe.
:20:22. > :20:27.There is the volatility that you describe and it's true, there is a
:20:28. > :20:29.great risk that when the referendum comes, people determine their vote
:20:30. > :20:40.not on the basis of whether we should stay in the European Union or
:20:41. > :20:43.not, but how happy they are with the government or the Prime Minister, or
:20:44. > :20:47.what they don't like about a host of other policies that they want to
:20:48. > :20:51.protest against, and use the referendum as an opportunity to do
:20:52. > :20:54.so. So it's a very big problem for us. It is.
:20:55. > :20:56.The message you represent, if I may say so, is the message
:20:57. > :20:59.of defending the status quo and a sort of negativity.
:21:00. > :21:01.Saying, you know what, you may not like the European Union
:21:02. > :21:05.very much, but it's better than the alternative, going it alone.
:21:06. > :21:07.The message is certainly that the benefits that the European Union
:21:08. > :21:13.gives us - greater prosperity, greater safety, greater influence
:21:14. > :21:17.in the world - all those are true, the benefits outweigh the cost.
:21:18. > :21:20.Of course we don't think the European Union is perfect
:21:21. > :21:25.And the Prime Minister is right to argue and work for reform.
:21:26. > :21:29.But in the meantime, the benefits of our staying in
:21:30. > :21:33.and that's why we should remain in the European Union.
:21:34. > :21:36.The problem for you is that inside your own party, the one that you're
:21:37. > :21:39.insistent you're going to stay in, the message is that the reform
:21:40. > :21:43.Europe needs is to be a much more social Europe, a Europe with more
:21:44. > :21:54.regulation in many areas, when Cameron's going to Europe
:21:55. > :21:57.and saying, we need less regulation, we need to be more open.
:21:58. > :22:00.I'm sorry, I don't think it is as simple as that.
:22:01. > :22:02.The Labour Party does have a pro-European view and Jeremy
:22:03. > :22:06.Corbyn has had to accept that if he were to move against Britain's
:22:07. > :22:09.continued membership, there would be a heck of a ruckus, there would be
:22:10. > :22:13.He knows it, which is why he's shying away from it now.
:22:14. > :22:16.When you look at the dynamic, and the polls suggest it's going to
:22:17. > :22:20.be very close, what do you believe Cameron needs to bring back from
:22:21. > :22:22.this so-called renegotiation process with European leaders to convince
:22:23. > :22:28.the public that he's got enough to vote Yes to stay in?
:22:29. > :22:32.I think he has to satisfy British public opinion that Europe is not
:22:33. > :22:36.on some inexorable course to ever-closer union,
:22:37. > :22:39.to sort of creating some sort of United States of Europe.
:22:40. > :22:41.I don't happen to think for one moment that people
:22:42. > :22:53.But he's got to satisfy the British public that that is not the case.
:22:54. > :22:57.Secondly, he's got to do something on the pool that we have
:22:58. > :23:00.in this country through the working of our welfare system for many EU
:23:01. > :23:03.Incidentally, the same number of British people go
:23:04. > :23:06.out to other member states of Europe to work there.
:23:07. > :23:18.But the last thing he has to do and this is very, very important indeed.
:23:19. > :23:23.He has to get a satisfactory way of conducting a relationship as a
:23:24. > :23:25.country which is outside the euro, that doesn't use that currency,
:23:26. > :23:30.We must not have our interests and our rights and prerogatives
:23:31. > :23:33.within the single market compromised by people who are taking decisions
:23:34. > :23:35.against those interests within the Eurozone, that's very important.
:23:36. > :23:37.Are you absolutely convinced you're going to win?
:23:38. > :23:47.I think on balance, we will win because we have stronger arguments.
:23:48. > :23:58.I think that is showing every day of the campaign so far.
:23:59. > :24:02.But it is going to be a huge battle and one which all those who
:24:03. > :24:04.care about our future prosperity and security in this country, have
:24:05. > :24:10.Lord Mandelson, thank you very much for coming on HARDtalk.