Frank Field MP - Former Minister for Welfare Reform, UK HARDtalk

were on show, ready for any potential terrorist incident. Of

course, we will bring you much more as soon as we have it. Time now for

HARDtalk. The Labour Party is at war with

itself. preoccupied with a challenge

to Jeremy Corbyn's leadership and riven by accusations

of plotting, intimidation And all this after the Brexit vote

exposed the disconnection between Labour and its core

working-class voters. My guess is that when Labour MP,

Frank Field, one of the few loud Brexit voices in his party.

Is this the beginning of the end for Labour?

Frank Field, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. A puzzling fact, it was

David Cameron who put his career on the line for remaining inside the EU

and he had to resign after the Brexit vote, the Tory party at Pitt

to be in disarray but the party who is suffering complete meltdown and

chaos is your party, the Labour Party, why? There are number of

reasons. The Tories clearly understand how and the movement of

power rather more than we do and they were quick moving from one

Prime Minister to another. There was a folding of the candidates in the

Tory opposition so that helped. It was quick and it was decisive. She

has built a new government... Your party has never looked more useless

if I may say so. Not even responding to what the government a new agenda

stock they have set an agenda within two areas, the first of which is a

major one, the acceptance that we are going to leave Europe. How and

what we mean by that is part of the debate. But we just... We should

have another referendum on this. It is over, it is finished, we now have

the opportunity and the duty to seize on how we in our shape

Britain's relationship with Europe. We are looking to a world stage

rather than a narrow one. How could it be that just 4% of Labour MPs

favoured Brexit in that long campaign and yet 52% of the

electorate favoured Brexit. Why did that disconnect occur? It is a

long-standing one in that if you go back historically, the Labour Party

has been this coalition between working-class interests which were

thought to be represented by the trade unions and what they called

the intellectuals, the Fabian Knights of the Labour Party. There

was a trade-off between the two of what the policies of would-be and if

you look, certainly to the 60s, when our boat began to unwind because you

talked about sort of the sword death of the Labour Party, my worry is

that it will be a fast death. -- the slow death. Those who once got these

idealistic objectives of what politics is about, a crucial part

that affects the flavour of any agenda and how governments perform,

have become the dominant one rather than trying to represent those class

interests and now we have moved for many Labour supporters, which is the

Brexit vote shows, is not a class is issue but we are fed up with having

globalisation push down. There is a huge new agenda about identity,

country... It is about immigration and many of your opponents inside

the Labour Party who categorically disagreed about the future of

written and of your party say that you and others who supported Britain

manipulated misleading argument about the nature of immigration in

the UK today. If that is true it is because they were not listening. I

have been accused of being racist since the early 2000. You cannot

have this level of immigration because of the fact it has on the

country and its identity and also the Labour interests which are

generally the most vulnerable in our society. Right up to the last

election when we staged a meeting within the Parliamentary Labour

Party over immigration, and I asked Ed Miliband, I do not see a link

between a 35 early and people in and wages push down, shortage of houses,

cannot go to your school and soured and there were growling from some

members who disapproved and aired got up and said he could not see any

link at all. So that is how related we were to the real world and to our

voters. Half our voters were taken out when we lost those seats. The

court interests of working people that the fundamental of that is to

have a strong growing economy and if you look at these sorts of

indicators that come from business, CBI, Chambers of Commerce and people

that run businesses, they all say the levels of immigration reflect

the needs of British industry, British businesses will skilled

workers, hundreds of thousands that come from the EU and frankly from

outside of the EU. This success has been bought at a price of pushing

down wages. I... Clearly the idea that you can put walls up is absurd

but moving into a system where one has, like the Australian system, you

are designated what you need and you feel those needs. And you do not

have a rush. Your sets of figures, it is great to hear, to hear these

success on the economic front but there has been a real economic price

to be paid and that is being paid... The further down the ladder you are

the bigger the price and the higher up the ladder, did he go the

advantages of these open market. When you described to me what the

lessons of Brexit are, you sound like most of the senior figures in

Ukip, when you talk about and is shown in point system to control

immigration, culture and identity and national sense being at the

heart of Labour's political future, if you are actually using the

language of Ukip. Is that when you want Labour to go? I think you are

being very kind to Ukip... They are at about the same stage as the

Labour Party. Remain and I say took because it is wrong to lose this

language, but these are people who previously voted Labour, almost a

million, crossed over to support Ukip. If they get another million of

our voters, we are finished and they begin to move into pole position and

I think the danger for us is that they begin to talk... I do not

recognise anything that I said that they have been saying but I am not

playing the game of guilt by association. I am interested what

electorate are after, the form of representation are after and if you

keep ours reform itself -- Ukip, controlling the numbers and borders,

and then becomes the English party then the outlook for us is grim

beyond belief. Labour needs to compete on that territory? We have

never done it in the past for crude, feeble... Account to ideology,

Jeremy Corbyn, your party leader, an international socialist to the court

is a counter position. That needs to be made plain, that he has ideas

about the effects of globalisation on poorer working-class people. He

has made a really good stab at that and it is part of the debate but

because, as you say, he is his internationalist, there is no way he

could deliver protection for those groups so hard treated. So while his

story is a good one at heart and he has begun to shift the agenda. There

is no way that if he had power, he would actually satisfy our boat or

given his stance win an election. You made that very plain. You are

being rather polite me but he said there is not a chance in hell of

Jeremy winning the vote. There are many people inside the party, let

alone an outsider, who believe this leadership challenge represents the

death throes of Labour. He said that there is an existential crisis, is

Labour dying? Yes. I think the main parties themselves dying... Let's

leave the Tories to talk about it themselves. I am not trying to move

it around. And, of course, we are. You only have to look at the

long-term decline of our boat and the unwillingness of those who are

called leaders to pay some attention to the fact our vote goes down

rather than up. It is to increase not decrease. When it goes down you

think there is something actually wrong here and that is the long-term

crisis for us which is in this disguised. If you look at the

results of the referendum, we have now got the Parliamentary party

which I think is a good-looking, which has fantasies about being a

Europe should have been about, all the old stuff you get from them but

it is backward looking politics and we have a dozen Labour MPs who have

seats. If you take Stoke, it has three or four Labour members, Stoke

voted by 72% to leave the EU. And this is just typical of huge swathes

of Labour seats, what a Labour MPs who were then candidates, going to

say to those voters when, in fact, on this fundamental issue, about

reorientate either direction of the country about saying that I am still

a Europhile? Are you saying it is going to be defined by these Brexit

issue? I think politics generally, we are

going to respond to it. To reshape the machinery of government, to

begin to respond to what the results of that referendum were. So of

course a lot of the stuff coming down the chute, so to speak, towards

the House of Commons for us to be debating are hopefully shaping and

reshaping is going to be about the nature of our exit from Europe and

how serious we are. How do we actually protect people, can we

actually, and I think we should start from the idealistic goal that

we want, actually, control of our borders, therefore free movement.

But we also want access to the free market. People say it... You are in

a bind. Because I want to get to the mechanics of where Labour goes from

here on the mechanics right now are that there is a challenge to Jeremy

Corbyn coming from Owen Smith. He says that he isn't really

ideologically very far from Jeremy Corbyn but there is a question of

confidence. He is competent, Jeremy Corbyn is not competent. You have a

problem because you have just told me that Jeremy Corbyn doesn't have a

cat in hell's chance of appealing to the British public at Rohan Smith

wanted to remain in Europe, and you are telling me that Europe defines

the party's future. So you haven't got a candidate you can back on this

race. Yes, but surely at some stage reality will break in and the Labour

Party will realise we are going to leave Europe and get down to that

policy. You have talked about Europe and Labour need to do to react to

the result of the referendum but you are a member, you are a veteran MP.

There are people in constituencies across the country having fierce

arguments, accusing each other of treachery, of intimidation, of

plotting. The party is at war with itself. What is going to happen to

give Labour a semblance of competent leadership? Nothing immediately.

This will go on for some time. And then I do believe, before the

election, the trade unions will move. Sadly I think the stewardship

of Jeremy's, interesting from lots of ways about wielding social

protest and so on, will then be brought to an end. You think Auburn

will beat Smith easily, do you? I think on the showing at present I

will be voting for Smith but I think Auburn will win. I hope I am wrong.

This is the absurdity of Labour today. Everything you have said in

this interview suggest you couldn't vote for Smith because of a key

issue, which as far as you are concerned as Europe, he is on

entirely the wrong side of the fence from you, and get you're saying you

are not going to vote for him because Corbyn is even more useless.

True, but the key thing is that Smith actually wants to win, not

just this contest but the general election. He won't be able to win

the general election holding the views he currently has. He will

shift if he serious about winning and I am interested in having

somebody who is actually interested in winning. Never mind winning, you

may find yourself out of a seat because momentum, a grassroots

movement on the far left of the party which backed Jeremy Corbyn has

made it plain that those MPs such as yourself who had turned against

Jeremy Corbyn and want him out, you will face a challenge in your

constituency. Some neighbouring constituencies of yours are already

at war over this issue. How will you react if your own constituency tries

to topple you? Well, we will do our best to prevent that happening.

There is a group of people -- as a group of people. I have been down

this road before. In the 80s. In the 80s. And all the polls show that if

I actually stood as independent Labour, joining the Labour group in

Parliament afterwards, I would win on that basis. Hang on, so if there

is mandatory reselection and you don't get reselected you are saying

you'll stand against the official Labour candidate? Problem is

willing, I am here to stand in the election, I will be in that

election, whatever happens. So you are, even though you have been a

loyal Labour member for many years and in the 80s you stayed in Labour

when others left, you are saying you are prepared now to contemplate a

split. No, I am not. What I am saying is I am prepared to actually

win the Birkenhead beat and join the Parliamentary Labour Party in

Parliament. Yes, but you are also saying if you're not going to stand

for official Labour you will stand for something else this is the

absolute number where Labour is today. There are many people like

yourself who are saying if Corbyn wins and his cronies and associates

dominate the party we will have two create a sort of de facto split, we

will become an alternative Labour, a sort of... I don't know how you

would put it, semi- official Labour. Is that what is going to happen, a

split which and called a split? I have no idea what is going to happen

and what people are proposing because I am not involved in that.

According to the papers there is lots of plotting going on. Have you

not heard any of these rumours? Well, I have heard the rumours. What

I am interested in is the source of them. The key thing is if we were

going to let in Parliament and claimed that we should have the

short money because the vast majority of Labour MPs are elected

-- re-elected their own leader, is whether the Speaker would regard our

leader as the Leader of the Opposition, and therefore to in the

sense stand up at Prime Minister's Question Time and leave the attack

on behalf of the opposition parties. Would it be our leader or does that

legal advice to the speaker say that it has to be Jeremy Corbyn? If it is

us, and the Parliamentary Labour Party is in a much stronger

position... For a man who claims he hasn't thought about this very much

you seem to have a great deal of the detail of what might happen if you

are in the Parliamentary party did decide to do is associate from the

official Corbyn leadership, but I don't want to get hung up on

legalities. I just want to ask you this one final question on this

point. In the 1980s you saw senior Labour figures like David Owen,

Shirley Williams, walk away and set up the SDP. In the end, after a

short burst of optimism, it failed. Do you think, even if it is not you,

that some of your colleagues in the Parliamentary party will try a

similar manoeuvre over the next few months? They would be foolish to do

so. They should do what I am doing, we should actually fly under Labour

colours, even if there are two of us actually in the ring, and win the

seats and come back and reform the Parliamentary Labour vote. And in

the process, of course, we will get a new leader. Now, I do want to ask

you about something rather specific and in a way it is impressive you

have managed to make a lot of noise in Parliament about one specific

issue even when your party is in total meltdown, but you have. You

have let a Parliamentary committee which has been at the forefront of

the issue of the collapse of the retail chain, Redditch home stores,

VHS, and the role and that collapsed of Sir Philip Green, who owned it

for a long time and then sold it for the princely sum of ?1 -- BHS. It

now turns out the company is riddled with debt and can't afford its

pension scheme. You have described Sir Philip Green's role as

indicative of the unacceptable face of capitalism. What exactly do you

mean by that? Unfortunately it is not my phrase, I wouldn't mind

having it. It was a joint enquiry. The chair of the business Select

Committee and I join together to do this because we have common

interests, which actually do, these initial stages overlap. What I mean

by that is that since the fall of the Berlin Wall the only show in

town is what people call capitalism. And therefore it is very important

that capitalism, so-called, works. Is it actually as the Prime Minister

says she wanted to work for the many, all of us, or is it for the

actual view? And I think both in Sports Direct and in BHS we got

examples here of corporate behaviour which most people out there think is

totally unacceptable. And therefore we are doing a report, a follow-up

on our reports, so it's not going to go cold in any way. But of course it

does also shift to the Prime Minister. And her great strength is

actually thinking about concrete issues. She isn't, thank God,

somebody who wants to spend her time thinking what the nature of

capitalism and how would I define a fair system? She will be concerned

about making the present system, shoving it along with all her

authority to make it a fairer system. And she is now got on her

desk two reports, both about Sports Direct and British Home Stores,

saying this is a challenge to what you said, the sort of society your

administration, your stewardship, is actually going to create. The big

point about what it says about capitalism, in a minute. But just on

the specifics, you and Sir Philip Green are now locked in a pretty

jarring war of words. And he has listened to what you have said about

him, and he has actually now got his lawyers involved, accusing you of

defamatory and false allegations, demanding a full apology. So here's

your opportunity, are you now going to apologise for the things you have

said about... No, I am not. He says he is going to sue me, I really

happy to discuss it. He knows that if he wants to pursue this we will

go to court. The first thing I wish... I will ask for is trial by

jury. So it would only be me on trial, and that would therefore be

another front opens to put pressure on him to do the decent thing, which

is, given the unbelievable amount of loot that he and Lady Green and

their family have out of BHS and the Arcadia group, that he stumps up

handsomely so that no pensioner is made worse off. That is the goal.

But isn't the point, like he says, that this war of words is on helping

the pensions regulator get a deal which Sir Philip Green has said he

is ready to be a part of the actually get some money to those

pensioners who have lost out big-time? It is appropriate that new

Labour gave him his knighthood, because it is spin, it is wonderful

staff. He talks about it as voluntary. It is voluntary engaging

with the regulator. The regulator is investigating, by law she is

compelling him, to actually talk to her. She is demanding access to

accounts and movements of money, of capital, since 2002. I mean, the

screws up on him big-time from the pension regulator. The idea that

somehow it is terrible old me shouting in the wings and he has

voluntarily running around trying to get the pensions, if you want to

believe that, do believe that. At the end of the day we will see what

the agreement is. Yes, well, what I want to do is actually reflect at

the end of this interview on what we might tie together from the

discussion we have had about Brexit, and indeed even the collapse of

British Home Stores. You introduce this notion that what is at stake

here is the nature of capitalism in Britain today. It just seems to me

that the Labour Party, the party of the left, the working classes, has

abdicated its role in that debate. It is ironic, is it not, that

Theresa May walks in Number Ten Downing Street talking the language

of defending the many against the privileged few, defending the

workers' interests against the overpaid corporate losses, and

Labour, today, isn't even in the argument. No, I mean, the weakness

is that most people would have cheered and she had been a Labour

Prime Minister, I am not disagreeing, I just underscoring the

importance of the question, how desperate our position is, that we

are so irrelevant to the conversation going on with the

electorate, but also how power is exercised in this country, that a

Prime Minister has got the total freedom to shape what her

stewardship will be about. Frank Field, that's it for now. Thank you

very much for being on HARDtalk. Much appreciated.