10/07/2016 Sunday Politics Northern Ireland

Jeremy Corbyn will be challenged for the Labour Party leadership

by his former shadow cabinet colleague, Angela Eagle.

So what makes her so sure she can win?

She's the favoured candidate of Tory MPs, but will Theresa May win over

the party's grassroots to become the next Prime Minister?

And if she makes it to Number 10, what will her premiership be like?

We'll hear from May-supporter, Chris Grayling.

And after two tumultuous weeks following the referendum result,

a leading Remain campaign insider gives us her candid account

And coming up here: Tony Blair's legacy both in the Middle East

And the war within the Labour Party, and the chance too that

the Conservatives could go the same way.

And with me - Janan Ganesh, Helen Lewis and Isabel Oakeshott to

help guide us through the political maelstrom - they'll be tweeting

throughout the programme using the hashtag #bbcsp.

The battle to take over from David Cameron as Conservative Party

leader and Prime Minister has rapidly moved into its final phase

- a vote of Conservative Party members who must choose

between the Home Secretary and remain supporter Theresa May,

and the business minister and Leave campaigner Andrea Leadsom.

Speaking at the launch of her campaign, Theresa May said

she wanted to unite the Conservative Party - and the country.

If ever there was a time for a Prime Minister who is ready

and able to do the job from day one, this is it.

We have immediate work to do, to restore political stability

To bring together the party and the country.

And to negotiate a sensible and orderly departure

But more than that, we have a mission to make Britain

a country that works, not for the privileged and not

for the few, but for every one of our citizens.

I've been joined by the leader of the commons, Chris Grayling,

who was one of four cabinet ministers to campaign to leave

the EU but who is now supporting Theresa May -

Why are you supporting Mrs May as a Leaver? The key thing is having a

person who is right for the job. David Cameron chose to step aside, I

regret that. We need someone to step into his shoes in whom I have

confidence that they will deliver Brexit. I have known Theresa for a

long time. She is a determined politician. Having got a mandate

from the public to deliver Brexit, she will do that. What assurances

have you sought from her? I have sought assurances that she means

Brexit is Brexit. The country has spoken. The country has given us a

clear direction to follow. The next Prime Minister has to follow that

Matt and I am confident that Theresa May is committed to that. But Brexit

can mean one of several things. They're of a. So what do you say to

Tory twos, who were on your side, that she will water down the Brexit

terms? That is not right. It is not just me, we have a range of Tory

Leavers who are backing her, because we think she has the weight and

experience to deliver. But I am not sure what assurances you have got

that she will deliver as you would want her to. For example, can you

guarantee to our viewers that she will not settle for a British

version of Norway's relationship with the EU, or Switzerland's

relationship? We have said all along that we want a UK solution. It is

not about trying to replicate someone else. We have a clear

mandate to end the principle of unfettered free movement in the UK

from elsewhere in the European Union. We saw Lily 200,000 people

arrive in the UK last year. The British public want that to change.

Theresa May palmist "Control of free movement. That needn't be the same

as the end of free movement. What does she mean? That is what we

campaigned on for four and a half months, taking back control. What I

find unacceptable is that we cannot control the flow of people into the

country. There will be times when we need to recruit particular skills

and we need to allow people to move within businesses. We need to have a

managed system. It is all about control. It is about our government

being able to decide when, how and where the number of people who can

come and live and work in the UK. But for some EU citizens, would

there still be an automatic right to compare? It will depend on what our

rules are. The whole point is that it is about control. At the moment,

we cannot set limits on the number of people who live and work here.

The clear mandate from the British public, something that Theresa

recognised and said so in her opening speech last week we have to

take back control of our migration. But we don't know what that means.

It means our parliament being able to set limits on the number of

people who can live and work here. What sort of limits? That will be

decided depending on whether we have skills needs, housing shortages and

circumstances. None of us think we will erect barricades at Dover and

nobody can ever live and work in the UK. But it is fundamental that

ultimate control should reside with our government. Why do you trust has

me on free movement when after six years at the Home Office, she

couldn't even get non-EU debt migration below 100,000, which was

the promise, never mind overall net migration? First of all, we spent

five of those six years in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. She was

not stopped from doing anything. We have just passed our first

conservative only immigration act that will allow us to close the bank

accounts and taking away the driving licences of people who overstate.

One of the problems is people who come here legitimately for a short

time, but never go. But she was so far out. Net migration was three

times the target she agreed to six years ago. Why would you trust her

to get it right when so far, she's got it wrong? If you look at the

flow of migrants from inside the European Union, she had no ability

to control that. But she has not controlled those from outside. We

have just passed our first Conservative only immigration act.

There have been limits to what we could do in coalition. As Theresa

May herself said the other day, it is difficult because people are

constantly looking for new ways around our system. I believe the

acts we past two months ago will make a difference. Were our borders

safer under Mrs May than they were in 2010? Our borders are safe in

terms of counterterrorism. What has she done to make us safer? A huge

amount has been done to protect our borders. In Calais, we now have a

much better system of border control. We have been able to resist

enormous pressure from people who want to come in illegally. What has

she done to make British borders safer? She'd traduced new measures

on the immigration front -- introduced new measures. She

negotiated international agreements so that Abu Qatada was ported to

Jordan. In my view, she has done a huge amount to improve the security

services. As Home Secretary, she is responsible for MI5. They have done

a fantastic job protecting us. Will she rule out a second referendum?

There is no question of a second referendum. One of her supporters,

Dominic Grieve, says people can change their minds. We are all clear

that there is not going to be a second referendum. We can't just say

to the British public, we don't like what you said, so we are going to

ask again. Those of us who campaigned for Leave would not serve

in a government that chucked away the first result and decided to have

another go. Speaking of the campaign, do you regard the promises

vote leaves made during the referendum as sacrosanct? I said to

you that a campaign group can only make recommendations. But you made a

number of promises. You promised explicitly that the status of EU

citizens already here would not change. Mrs May is not promising

that. I cannot conceive of a situation where we want to end the

rights of EU citizens who are here to not remain. There are always

individual circumstances... But she is talking about them being a

bargaining chip. You said during the campaign, there will be no change

for EU citizens already lawfully resident in the UK. Mrs May is not

saying that. For those who have been more than five years in the UK, that

is legally the case. But we want to make sure we can protect our own

citizens in other EU countries. It is right that a UK Government should

have its own system. But during the campaign, you never said there will

be no change to EU citizens here, provided the EU looks after our

citizens over there. That was never a condition. Now are you saying it

is? I don't think there will be any change on either side. Everyone will

take a grown-up approach might it would be too damaging to do

otherwise. But we must look after the interests of our own citizens.

So why doesn't she say that? She says she doesn't want to agree

anything until she sees how they treat our citizens. Are you

comfortable with the line she has taken? The only people who support

her on this are the BNP. She has said what I have said. I am

expecting all it is except those who have committed criminal offences to

be able to stay -- all EU citizens. That is right and proper, but we

must make sure we can look after the rights of new cases and is. Has Mrs

May guaranteed to you that we will be out of the EU by the next general

election? She has said we will trigger article 50 around the end of

this year. There is then a two-year time frame and the next general

election is 2020. So I can't see any circumstance in which we would not

leave by then. Gone by 2020. Chris Grayling, thank you.

After a protracted campaign of resignations, a massive vote

of no confidence from his MPs, and an attempt by his deputy

to negotiate some sort of compromise deal with the unions,

it's now clear the Jeremy Corbyn will face a leadership challenge.

Some suspected it might fizzle out, but Angela Eagle has finally

announced she will go for the top job after all, saying she wants to

explain her vision for the country. It comes after Labour's deputy

leader Tom Watson called off a debate over Jeremy Corbyn's future,

saying there was no realistic prospect of reaching a compromise

because of this to Corbyn's refusal to stand down. That provoked an

angry response from Unite leader Len McCluskey, who said Tom Watson's

actions today can only look like an act of sabotage, fraught with peril

for the future of the Labour Party. So what happens now? Angela Eagle

needs to get the backing of 20% of MPs and MEPs. The magic and Amber is

currently 51. There is also the prospect of another senior Labour

figure like Owen Smith throwing his hat into the ring. The big question

remains over whether Jeremy Corbyn automatically gets onto the ballot,

or whether he needs to get 51 nominations himself, a difficult

task, given that the Labour leader lost the vote of no-confidence among

his MPs by 172 votes to 40. But if he does get on the ballot paper, it

is Angela Eagle who has the difficult job. Over a quarter of a

million people voted for Mr Corbyn in the last Labour leadership

election. Nearly 60% of the vote. Since the EU referendum, nearly

130,000 people have joined the Labour Party. But it is unclear how

many of them want to help or hinder Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.

Jeremy Corbyn appeared on the Andrew Marr programme

a little earlier on BBC One - and was in no mood

Why time-limit a leadership when I've been elected

by a very large number of members and supporters

an election somewhere results in a different leader,

But I would be irresponsible if I walked away

from a mandate that I was given and a responsibility I was given.

I ask colleagues to respect that as well.

Why are you challenging Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership? I

think it's clear that he has lost the confidence of MPs in the

parliamentary party. Tom Watson, Howard deputy leader, who has his

own mandate Rosie Winterton, the Chief Whip, John Quire, the chair of

the Parliamentary Labour Party and a friend of Jeremy's, have been going

to try to say to him that he needs the confidence of the Parliamentary

party to continue. He's not listening. You can't leave behind an

office door. Maybe he is not listening because he has a huge

mandate from the party membership. As Labour leader, he has won every

by-election and he has won the London mayoral election, the largest

party in the local governor elections. Why wouldn't he carry on?

We lost seats in the local government elections when we have a

Conservative government. We should be doing better. Polling shows that

we are 7% behind the Conservatives, even after all the tumult they have

been through and more importantly, we lost the EU referendum.

That was not his fault. No, but he wasn't connecting with Labour voters

and he did not put the argument across, and so I think we need a

strengthened Labour Party and an opposition which can unite so we can

heal the country. Unfortunately I don't think Jeremy Corbyn can do

that job. Other than Trident, what are the major policy differences?

I'm on the left, any party IDs will be anti-austerity, what has happened

in our heartlands, they have been hit by six years of Conservative

cuts -- any party I lead. That is Jeremy Corbyn, that is his position,

as well, what are the differences? I want to be a strong united

opposition to get into government. Jeremy was asked in that interview

three times whether he thought he could win a general election and he

did not say yes. For our supporters and for the people we came into

politics to represent, we need a Labour Party that can position

itself as a strong united opposition and win a general election. In your

view that is having a leader as a winner, but what are the major

policy differences? I don't think Jeremy has managed to get across a

strategy for winning. I'm on the left and my politics came out of

what happened when I was growing up when my parents, they were prevented

from fulfilling their opportunities because we had Labour governments I

was able to fulfil mind, and I want a Labour Party that can deliver

that. Jeremy does not talk about that. We will move on. He is the

incumbent leader, should he not be on the ballot against you as a

right? The Labour Party rules and the way it is done, and Jeremy

Chardy know this, Tony Benn challenged Neil Kinnock in 1988 --

Jeremy should know this. It is not clear he had to do this. Neil

Kinnock can't remember if he had to do this, or whether he did it to

show the strength. Putting aside the roles, most people watching this

programme, not just Jeremy Corbyn fans, they will find it strange that

the man who won the leadership fairly and decisively, now

challenged by you, is not automatically allowed to defend his

title? That is not clear from the Labour Party rules, the National

executive committee will make a decision on that. Anyone who aspires

to lead the Parliamentary party who can't get 51 members, 20% of the

Parliamentary party, to back them, they are not going to be able to do

the job properly and we are in challenging times, the Brexit vote,

a government which has gone missing in action. We need a strong lead

from the Labour Party if we are going to protect our communities who

are going to be the hardest hit. Nothing of that lead is coming from

Jeremy at the moment. You are the self-styled party of fairness, don't

you think it will offend against natural justice against most

people's idea of fairness if the incumbent who is challenged by you

is not allowed to fight you in an election? Work that seem incredible?

Forget the rules, just offends against fairness. I don't know what

the outcome is going to be of the decision-making process. I'm ready

to fight a leadership challenge and have debates about the future of our

party with anyone, Jeremy or anyone else who seeks to stand. Len

McCluskey, the most important person in the Labour Party, perhaps. Not

say that. I have a lot of respect him, but that is a big perhaps. He

says keeping Jeremy Corbyn of the ballot would cause lasting division

in the party. It would. This is not about the Labour Party being split,

this is about it being an effective and united opposition to make our

democracy work so we can challenge is Conservative government which has

done such damage with the Brexit vote. I want to say that if you

think we should have a strong and effective Labour Party and a strong

democracy, challenging the Conservatives, join the Labour Party

now. Do it today, you can do it online. 130,000 new members have

joined Labour since the referendum. Who are they? The Labour Party

nationally knows who they are. Have they been vetted? I have no idea at

what the Labour Party office are doing about the new members. But it

is important that people who think that we need a strong opposition,

jaundiced battle now, joined the Labour Party, make us stronger --

join this battle now. The 130,000 people who have joined already, they

should be allowed to vote? That is a matter for the National if sect of

committee to decide, they were in the past. -- National executive

committee. There is no point in them joining if they can't. We opened up

the ?3 membership which was a feature the last campaign. 150,000

people are going to be picking the next Conservative Prime Minister, we

have had nearly that number joining in the last week. Jeremy Corbyn

would say he won by over 235,000 voting for him. You expect to be the

only challenger? I have no idea. What about Owen Smith? We have

spoken, but not recently, I've got no idea, I'm concentrating on

launching my campaign which I will be doing tomorrow. It would be

absurd for you and Owen Smith or someone else from the middle of the

party, the moderate left, to split the anti-Corbyn vote? We have got to

get on with doing our planning and see what happens in the future. I'm

concentrating on getting my campaign up and running, launching it

tomorrow, and joining a battle to have a stronger and united Labour

Party which can give hope back to our country. You voted for the Iraq

war. Do you regret that? I do, and if I had known what I know now, I

would not have supported it. The important thing from the Chilcot

Report is that we learn the lessons of that so those mistakes can never

be made again in the future. John Prescott this morning, he also voted

for it, he says he now regards the war as illegal. Chilcot has not said

that. I'm asking you. It is important that we learn the lessons.

Do you think it was illegal? The evidence at the time and the

Attorney General's opinion at the time was not to that effect and it

is no good trying to second-guess what happened subsequently. We need

to learn the lessons and we need to make sure that if anything like that

happens in the future we have more robust ways of testing these

assertions, but I also think we have a country divided at the moment. You

have said that. Very uncertain about the future. You have said that. We

have got to address those problems. I understand that. But forgive me,

we have not got much time, they will be a motion before Parliament next

week holding Tony Blair for contempt of Parliament because of Iraq, how

will you vote? I have not seen the motion yet. We have got to make

certain that we don't spend our time in Parliament exacting revenge and I

think Tony Blair has been put rightly through the mill about the

decisions he took, the Chilcot Report did that, and I think we

should... We would be far better at learning the lessons and making

certain that we don't fall into the same mistakes if God forbid they

should be a future occasion where these decisions are made. -- there.

Final question, you talk about uniting Labour and the country,

taking on the Tories, but if you lose and Jeremy Corbyn wins or the

reverse, isn't there a clear indication that your party could be

heading for a serious schism? Either way. We need to heal the party under

effective leadership, so we can have a chance of winning the general

election which might come much sooner than we all think. And that

is my main aim with launching this leadership campaign. If he wins, you

will accept the result? You have to accept the result of any... You

would go back into the Shadow Cabinet? You have to accept the

result of any democratic process but I'm focused on winning this and I'm

not going to speculate about what happens afterwards. Angela Eagle,

busy summer head, thank you. It's clear the battle inside Labour

is about to get nasty - in the last hour, the MP

who initiated the vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn,

Margaret Hodge, had this to say I'm beginning to think he's

actually a devious man, who is more concerned

with destroying the Labour Party than he is with creating a force

that can win an election in such difficult times and which

will unite the party. There we are. We have heard from

Chris Grayling and Angela Eagle and Jeremy Corbyn this morning. Helen,

whatever the outcome, it looks like this ends badly for Labour. It is

very interesting. In the new statesman we did an issue about

whether Labour should split, and we said, no, but are now talking to

Labour MPs who are openly talking about this, people who are tribally

Labour and are not metropolitan, they are saying this cannot be sewn

back together. The big question, if Jeremy Corbyn gets on the ballot and

gets 50 MPs, I think he will win, but if he doesn't get on, that

becomes a case of his faction splitting off, so the battle is...

Everyone is imagining a split, but it is who gets left with custody of

the party. Control of the Labour brand, which is powerful. The union

funding is on a downward slope, already, the trade union is going to

reduce that further, Labour have had very little success with big donors

under Jeremy Corbyn. There is a fundamental force at work. The

party's grassroots once a different Labour Parliamentary party and the

Parliamentary Labour Party would like a different grassroots. One or

the other has to go its own way. You can't reconcile them. The texture of

the grassroots has changed in the past year, since the party was

opened up by Ed Miliband to new members. It might be changing in the

other direction even as we speak 130,000 new members since June, the

equivalent of the size of the Tory party, it is possible the bulk of

those people are people that might be, since the referendum campaign,

might want a party that is moderate. We don't know that. Angela Eagle is

taking a punt on the idea that those are relatively centrist voters, but

what I'd take from her and Owen Smith, is not a massive amount of

enthusiasm for running for this big ship, they don't radiate glee at the

prospect of becoming leader, so I wonder if the idea is to have an

interim leader who is moderate and then before 2020 and onto someone

who they think can win a general election. It is a big part on her

part. She sounded so miserable. -- punt. She sounded very depressed

about the idea of launching aided ship contest and that is because

there is no resolution to this. -- launching a leadership contest. If

she wins it is a pyrrhic victory, but if she loses, it won't be

resolved, and it feels like it will not be resolved until the next

general election, when the public and determine what kind of Labour

MPs they both like to fight for that election. It could be a bloodbath.

Last year it was quite lively, and this year, there might be a lot of

screaming at the Labour Party conference. It would be worth the

price of admission to both party conferences this autumn.

The referendum result came as a shock to many, not least those

Lucy Thomas was deputy director of Britain Stronger In.

In an exclusive for the Sunday Politics, she talks to fellow

campaign insiders about how the referendum was lost.

We are absolutely clear now that there is no way

Right up until the end, we thought Remain could win.

I'm Lucy Thomas, and I was deputy director of that campaign,

and one of those that was there from the beginning.

This is the story of what we did and why,

but why, in the end, it wasn't enough.

So let's go back to where it started.

We launched Britain Stronger In Europe on a cold October morning

Cue the usual jokes about our organisation.

We set out to persuade people that Britain was stronger,

safer and better off in Europe than we would be out on our own,

and that leaving was a leap in the dark, a risk

As a nation of Eurosceptics, we always knew it would be tough,

but I'm not sure we were prepared for what the early research showed.

When we presented that and we discussed it

with you and the team, I think everybody sort

God, this is going to be harder than we thought.

So we built a campaign based on numbers.

It's the economy, stupid, and it had been proven to work

in the Scottish referendum and the general election.

One of the reasons why some of the specific warnings

would have bounced off people was because it sounded

like scaremongering, because it wasn't evidence.

It was just saying, if we vote to leave,

it will cost this many jobs or this much growth

And people said they were crying out to hear from the experts.

to economists, scientists to defence chiefs, they all spoke

for themselves, and the weight of expert opinion was overwhelming.

if the UK was to leave the European Union.

Material slowdown in growth, notable increase in inflation.

In a sense, we were the victims of our own success in the early

part of the campaign, because we landed our economic

We pushed the Leave campaign from Norway to Canada to Albania,

and then finally pushed them entirely off the single market.

Of course, what it meant was that that was the moment

Nigel Farage's approach to this referendum, and to make it

Imagine what will happen to public services...

When I first saw their PPB, the one with all the arrows

implying that millions of people from all sorts of countries

including Turkey and possibly other countries that aren't in the EU

are going to come and move to Britain, and I showed

that to focus groups, it was very powerful,

because it captured the anxiety and fear and emotion

people have at the prospect of being overwhelmed

and these are all terms I would hear in the focus groups.

and the literature that was used off the back of it was very powerful.

I also knew, of course, that it was purposefully choosing

So we always knew that immigration was a problem,

around this table, that lots of the discussions were heard.

Some wondered, was there more we could do to get EU leaders

to show more flexibility on free movement, maybe?

But to others, that meant fighting the rest of the campaign

on immigration, when we needed for it to be back on the economy.

If you could solve the problem of free movement, it would have been

If you can't solve the problem of immigration, moving

on to immigration might make things worse, not better.

But given what we did know, it made sense to stick to the economy.

But it became clear that for some people,

that economic risk didn't mean anything.

I spoke to one man in my constituency who was out one day,

He was voting to leave because of all those concerns

"I understand your concerns about that.

What do you think about the argument that leaving would be

he said, "What do I care about the economy?

There are lots of people in Britain who do feel passed over,

They don't see what the future could hold for them or their children,

This referendum was a chance to attach that anger to the EU.

Shouldn't Labour have been able to reach out to those voters?

The brutal truth is that the leader of the Labour Party did not

campaign with authenticity, passion, conviction

He said he was for Remain, but it was on quite a narrow basis,

in terms of what the broader argument could be.

Polling took place during the campaign that showed half

that our official position was for Remain.

So I think more could have been done, yes.

And whether it was true or not, the Leave campaign was determined

The power of the 350 million a week can't be overstated.

In focus groups, it is quite unusual for floating voters who aren't

interested in politics to have internalised a campaign fact

or number so that it comes out spontaneously, and it did.

When we would say, have you noticed that some people are saying that

isn't actually true, people would say, "Vaguely,

but it's still a very big number, isn't it?"

In the final debate, just days before the vote,

the Leave campaign came armed with their catch-all phrase

Taking back control of our country and our system.

We can take back control over our laws.

We can take back control over our taxes.

We can take back control over our borders,

They were being presented with a simple solution, which was,

if you think this is a problem and migration is putting pressures

on our public services and jobs, we can take back control.

The way I would put it was that we had a complex truth

up against a simple lie, and we see what happened.

And what happened will be talked about for decades.

Though we built the biggest ever cross-party, cross-sector campaign

with over 40,000 volunteers, we didn't win the day.

This was a campaign where experts were dismissed

and conventional wisdom thrown out of the window.

Many doubt if campaigns will ever be the same again.

And Matthew Elliott from Vote Leave will be looking at how their

campaign won the referendum on the Daily Politics. Isabel, having

looked at that and seen what they are now saying, I now find myself

surprised that Remain lost by only four percentage points. Right. The

bottom line is that their big argument on the economy, they went

grossly over the top at the beginning. They tried to create what

pollsters call a settled view, which then becomes difficult to dislodge.

But in doing so, they went so far over the top that their claims

became unbelievable, and simply adding more experts to its got no

response from the electorate. Secondly, and more importantly, they

had no answer on the immigration question. I think the majority of

people who voted Leave, whether or not they would admit it, well, in

their heart of hearts, voting so because of immigration, and Remain

had no answer on that. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist or

even a psephologists work-out that immigration was going to be the big

issue. We have spoken about it on this programme months before the

campaign began, and yet even by the end of the campaign, they still had

no answer to the immigration issue. That is the legacy of years of

British politics, when no one will make a positive case for

immigration, or a case for the trade-off, where you say we accept

immigration because of the economic benefits. The economic argument

failed because people didn't feel that all these years of prosperity

in the City of London had any translation to the real economy. So

when we said it would be terrible for the City of London, people

thought, what has that got to do with me? Was there anything Remain

could have done to have won? I think a different renegotiation in January

or February by the Prime Minister Cold War which secured some tangible

concession on -- by the Prime Minister, some negotiation which

achieved a concession on immigration would have done it. People didn't

feel they were getting that, and therefore, it was very interesting.

It wasn't the internal dynamics of the campaign that was at fault. The

reason they didn't have a answer was because Cameron didn't come back

with something solid. So it was Angela Merkel what lost it? Yes, and

I am sure she is now bitterly regretting not giving Cameron

something. The other thing is that I know that when the Britain Stronger

In Europe campaign had their early meetings before the campaign

officially began, they had a discussion about identifying five

positive things about being in the EU that we can sell to voters, and

they couldn't come up with any. That was again part of the problem. They

failed to put a positive case, it was just Project Fear. It was also

David Cameron what lost it, because for years, to get selected in the

Tory party, you had to be Eurosceptic. He then had a career

saying it would not be a problem if we leave, and then pivoted to say

the sky would fall in. A lot of voters concluded, that is typical of

the political elite. Making it up as you go along.

It's just gone 11.35, you're watching the Sunday Politics.

We say goodbye to viewers in Scotland who leave us now

Hello and welcome to Sunday Politics in Northern Ireland.

The Chilcot Report has left a stain on Tony Blair's reputation and led

to calls from some families of Iraq war veterans for him

But how is he viewed here, 18 years after the signing

With their assessment I'm joined from London

by the DUP's Ian Paisley, and here in Belfast by the SDLP's

And with their thoughts on all of that, I'm joined

by the business journalist Paul Gosling and the political

It took seven years to complete, and for many its conclusions are set

to go down in history as Tony Blair's legacy.

Sir John Chilcot's report into the Iraq war only confirmed

what many had long claimed - that there was no "imminent

threat" from Saddam, and the intelligence case

for going to war was "not justified".

Tony Blair has apologised for any mistakes made, but not

I did not mislead this country. I made the decision in good faith, on

the information I had at the time, and I believe it is better that we

took that decision. I acknowledge all the problems that came with that

decision. I acknowledge the mistakes, and accept responsibility

for them. What I cannot do and will not do, is say I believe we took the

wrong decision. So how will history

judge Tony Blair here? The former Prime Minister's

negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement was widely hailed as one

of his greatest achievements. Joining me now from London

are the DUP MP Ian Paisley, and here in the studio the former

SDLP leader, Alasdair McDonnell. Ian Paisley, the DUP

voted in support of the decision to go to war -

what's your reaction to the report? I think we have two bought a number

of things in context. Obviously Saddam Hussein was an incredibly

wicked person, and Tony Blair brought him before Parliament --

brought before Parliament evidence that was not evidence at all, but

people took his word, and the style in which he led the Government,

nobody else really got all the information, and that has now been

totally exposed. I mean, he really is a Marmite Prime Minister, on one

regard the most successful Labour Prime Minister, and now he seems to

be becoming the most disgraced Prime Minister the Labour Party ever had.

I think that now... The good thing about this is that Parliament will

never go to war again on the time that they went to war in Iraq. And

indeed the way decisions are taken, I mean, look how Syria has been

handled. It now is very inclusive of the whole Cabinet administration,

and includes Parliament in decisions which previously the Prime Minister

only would have made. So with the benefit of hindsight,

was it in fact a mistake What do you want me to say? Everyone

was shown evidence, and with the exception of a handful of members of

Parliament, everybody accepted that the Prime Minister was telling the

truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We were moments from

war. Do you think you were duped, then?

I think everybody was stupid. -- was duped. I think that is what

Chilcot has indicated. Whether or not Tony Blair was doing this in

good faith or not, what he presented was false. And people took a

decision on a false premise. Do you agree with Ian Paisley on

that point? No, the evidence was always wobbly,

and there were doubts the SDLP resolutely opposed -- that SDLP

opposed going to war, and we voted against it in Parliament. And quite

simply, you know, it was a major mistake, and where I look at it

today the hundreds of young British servicemen dead, and there are

200,000 Iraqis dead. Quite frankly, even though he wasn't a nice person,

Saddam Hussein was not as big a threat to the world as that. That is

serious, serious damage as a result of the instability in Iraq.

But you could only go with the evidence that was put in front of

Parliament, and at the time people believed Tony Blair.

The evidence was flimsy because there was never any proof of the

weapons of mass destruction. What we were dealing with was Saddam Hussein

was a bully, he goaded Britain and he goaded America and they lost

their temper with them. And basically charged off into a war,

unprepared, the British military were unprepared in many cases, and

left in a situation where many young 18-year-old, 19-year-old soldiers

were basically left vulnerable and lost their lives.

Ian Paisley? I think we all agree that the world

is much more unstable as a result of what has happened. And that is a

huge consequence that everybody's got to live with. But the point and

the essential point is, how Parliament is used to take these

decisions. It would have been previously that the Prime Minister

and the Cabinet would have made a decision and gone to war. Now that

Parliament is sucked into being participants in the process, on one

hand that weakens Parliament because we cannot hold somebody to account

if we have been a participant in the decision. But that is where we now

are, but all decisions about Britain increasing troop movements in the

Middle East for example, in Syria and other places like that, we are

now brought into those decisions and we -- and is that where we want to

be? In response to the Chilcot Report,

Colonel Tim Collins said about Tony Blair: "It may well

be he was actually drunk on his self-importance,

having had successes in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, and having

brokered the Good Friday Agreement he genuinely believed

he could do no wrong." Does that mean we need to reassess

his role in our peace process here? I don't think so. I think Tony Blair

was almost -- there are almost in my mind two Tony Blair 's. He brought

us to peace out of all belief... That hasn't changed with the Chilcot

findings? There is another Tony Blair that

charged off to war in Iraq, but I fundamentally disagree with. It is

two different personalities, almost. I think he did a massive amount of

good. I felt, over the years in the early 1990s, when it was difficult

to get peace and stability here, yet he managed with Bertie Ahern and

Bill Clinton aiding and abetting, to pull us all together. He spent an

awful lot of time here, more time than all the other British prime

ministers combined, and we've got to be honest and recognise that, that

there are people live in Northern Ireland today in Belfast today as is

well thought of Tony Blair's effort, but that's it's very uncomfortably

and does not justify the Iraqi situation where basically he should

not have been in Iraq. Do you agree, Ian Paisley, or do you

think that given what we have now discovered in Chilcot, we need to

now look again at his role in Northern Ireland?

I think there's going to be constant revisionism about all political

leaders, that's the nature of politics, as more evidence comes

out. First of all, because Tony Blair was so successful I think it

did not and arrogance but almost an issue of infallibility, that he

could do no wrong. So I am more in the Tim: zero, because he was on a

crest of a wave, he thought he could do anything. But now we are found --

finding that the foundation on which his legacy was built is starting to

crumble. I do agree he played a significant

role in the Good Friday Agreement, but we have to remember that as we

start to go into this, we now have the on the run letters being

exposed, we have the fuel fraud that has come from that and the fact that

there's been an agreement done on that side, all that criminality is

still going on. That's part of his legacy.

We need to turn to other issues. The seeming civil war that has

broken out within the Conservative Party in Westminster, and the Labour

Party. What is your assessment? I'm very concerned at the

instability that has flowed in the last few weeks, and is largely

flowing from the European referendum. You know, at this time

we need stability, and I am deeply concerned that the leaders for the

excellent campaign have all jumped ship and disappeared. What we badly

need is people who, when something like that is approved, they won the

vote, and therefore they should have stayed the course and ensured that

their Brexit plans, they saw it through. I am horrified personally

at the prospect of Britain exiting Europe, because it is bad for

Britain, it is bad for Europe, it is bad for the island of Ireland as a

whole and particularly bad for Northern Ireland. You don't sign up

to the old maxim that England's misfortune as Ireland's opportunity?

Quite simply, we are all stuck with each other. And I think this is one

of the things that flowed from Tony Blair's investment in the 1998

settlement, but quite simply we recognise that we are neighbours,

the Irish Republic and Britain, and in the north here we are stuck

somewhere in the middle half, foot in each camp. We have to get on with

it, and quite simply instability in Irish politics over the last few

months until they get -- got a Government together was bad for

everybody. That instability is now affecting Britain, the Conservative

Party is in a state of flux, the Labour Party is almost imploding in

itself. Ian Paisley, if you did have a say in either of the two political

contests, who would you be in favour of? The person who left the stage

when he was most required is of course the Prime Minister. Did he

have any alternative? He told us all along that he would implement the

will of the British people, and in a fit of pique, four hours after the

result was determined, you walk out. So it was not helping the -- the

instability. We knew that Cameron was leaving... We do seem to have

two big political parties imploding in front of our very eyes, you

couldn't make it up. Fact is stranger than fiction. So how do you

see things unfolding in the next couple of months? The issue of who

leads the Conservatives is entirely a matter for the 150,000 members of

the party, they must decide who will be their best leader and of course

the leader will be a member of Parliament, and that leader will be

the first among equals and will be the Prime Minister for the

foreseeable future. It is at the Conservative Party, I am not going

to come down on one side or the other. We will work with whoever the

Conservative Party put forward, and we've

already got working relationships with both Theresa May and Andrea

Leadsom, Andrea's been over to speak with the association meetings,

Theresa May has been a good friend in terms of giving us very good

security briefings. And either one of them will make a fine leader.

With regards to the Labour Party, what I'm saying is that Jeremy

Corbyn should have led his party from his heart during the campaign,

if he had done what we knew he wanted to do, that is be a leave

campaigner, I think the outcome would have been different also. Very

interesting to hear your thoughts. With me are Sam McBride

of the News Letter, and the business Let's have a word about Tony Blair's

achievements, and the findings of the Chilcot Report. It's fair to say

probably that Tony Blair's achievements in Northern Ireland

have won him more plaudits outside Northern Ireland than within. The

sort of creative and be a good -- ambiguity in things like the on the

run letters is still an issue that comes up time and time again. So

yes, it's certainly harmed his legacy, I think a lot of people here

probably had mixed emotions anyway. Paul, you are a former Labour Party

councillor in Leicester, Tony Blair was Labour's longest serving Prime

Minister. What do you think grassroots Labour Party members will

make of the Chilcot findings, and his big success? I think the current

problems within the Labour Party, the conflict between the

Parliamentary party and the membership, are reflected in that as

well, which is that I think most members of the Labour Party would

not be surprised by the Chilcot findings, and they would have

expressed extreme scepticism about the claims Tony Blair made at the

time. But it is enormous regret that if Tony Blair had not taken the

country to war with the United States to Iraq, his legacy would

have been a very positive one. And above all it would have been the

peace settlement in Northern Ireland. And that is, his position

of history will always be a leader who lied his way into war in Iraq,

and went in to support the United States and actually very much like

Brexit, didn't have a contingency plan about the outcome. How do you

see become -- the contest is going in the Labour Party? You do have a

civil war which is effectively between the Parliamentary party on

the membership, and you cannot see a positive outcome from that, I cannot

see Corbyn leading it, and I cannot see Angela Eagle being accepted by

the leadership. The onus has been on Corbyn losing the support of his

MPs, in fact he never had it. Quick word on the Conservative

Party; do you think Andrea Leadsom is a credible candidate? It's pretty

extraordinary that anybody who has been in Parliament for such a short

period of time could be Prime Minister for -- in such -- without

going to an election, but that's the way we are.

Well, the Secretary of State, Theresa Villiers, has rejected

a call for an All-Ireland forum to consider the implications of Brexit.

In an interview with our Political Correspondent Gareth

Gordon, she also described a lower UK-wide rate of Corporation Tax

as an opportunity for Northern Ireland.

Here, first of all, are her thoughts on the idea of a new forum.

It's obviously going to be very important for the UK Government to

work with the Irish Government on matters of mutual interest in

relation to Brexit. And also it's important for the Executive to be

involved in those discussions. But actually I think the current

North-South bodies are working very well, and so I haven't seen a case

for a fresh body to be added to the current structures, but I would

absolutely encourage both sides of those North-South bodies to engage

in these issues just as the UK and Irish Government would do on the

East-West contact. I am not persuaded we need some new structure

to have this conversation, but it is absolutely vital that the

conversation takes place. The UK Government, Northern Irish

Government, -- Irish Government, Northern Irish Executive. The plight

of corporation tax seems to have been pulled away with the

Chancellor's announcement he was going to lower the rate across the

UK? Is that a blow for Northern Ireland? Now, it is a big plus I

think because the advantages generated by the 12.5% rate the

Executive wants to deliver is not necessarily addition in relation to

the rest of the country, in Great Britain, it is actually to enable

Northern Ireland to compete on a level playing field, complete with a

lower corporation tax rates out of the border, but also with countries

around the world. Actually there is an advantage in the idea put forward

by the Chancellor of reducing the UK Main rate, because it makes 12.5%

for Northern Ireland is more affordable for the Executive to

deliver. Let's hear what Sam

and Paul make of that. The Secretary of State saying this

would be good for the Northern Ireland economy. Do you buy that?

Know, and I don't accept her argument that we don't need to have

a hard border. We are already seeing a lot of investment, we are

releasing questions over the future of the US investment conference, and

I'm hearing people in business expressing unhappiness about the

difficulty in planning future investment programmes.

The Secretary of State says George Osborne's plans to reduce

the UK's main rate of Corporation Tax is good news

I understand what she's saying, it does make it more affordable, but I

can't say that Sinn Fein will agree to going down to a 10% weight, and

with a 12.5% rate, than actually what is the real benefit going to

Northern Ireland when you by getting a 1.5 or 2.5 advantage of Great

Britain, it doesn't make sense. I've got a lot of sympathy, purely

because I think some of the commentary around this is a bit

pedantic. Arlene Foster is not at all rolling out North-South

cooperation, she said that clearly has to be North-South corporation,

it is down to what for -- form that takes.

Thanks both - and let's just pause and take a look back

at the political week in 60 seconds, with Stephen Walker.

The idea of an all Ireland forum after the Brexit vote failed to get

DUP support. It wasn't discussed with me at any stage over the

weekend, or indeed before. And it wasn't discussed today. But one

cross-border plan on children's health care they get the go-ahead.

It's going to be brought in over the next five years, so by the end of

next year all urgent cases will come to Dublin, and by the end of 2018,

all cases will. There were married critical voices of the Chilcot.

Yellow macro -- the Chilcot Report. It is a damning indictment of Tony

Blair. The economy minister promised a smooth transition out of the EU.

There will be no crash landing. But that didn't stop one investment

conference being called off. You macro it has been postponed directly

as a result of the Brexit vote. -- it has been postponed directly as a

result of the Brexit vote. And Sam and Paul are

with me for a final word. You were at the meeting

when Martin McGuinness announced that a US investment conference

planned for Belfast and Derry for October has been postponed

indefinitely because of Brexit. The Secretary of State says that is

not the reason. How big a blow is that? Basically Northern Ireland is

far too dependent on foreign direct investment coming in, and if we can

get investors to even look at Northern Ireland, in particular at

Derrey, it really does show the damage inflicted by the Brexit

position. The Secretary of State would say we can now buy into the

bigger global platform will be on not just looking at a shrinking

European market. Where is the evidence of that? It is simply

another promise that has no obvious foundation, and that was the problem

the whole way through, that actually we didn't know what the outcome of

the Brexit campaign was going to be. And we still do not. Sam, there's an

awful lot happening in Northern Ireland, the adjustment --

adjustment with Brexit as it affects Northern Ireland specifically, and

it's all against this background of febrile developments both within the

Tories and within Labour at Westminster. And also it should be

noted down south where Ender Kenny is under increasing pressure and is

no guarantee he will still be in post next year. I think there is a

great deal of political instability at the moment, and that is going to

feed into this, but the business stuff is more immediate. Firms

pulling out of his best when conferences, that of sort stuff, but

is more alarming because there will be some sort of Government whether

we like it or not very soon. Now back to Andrew in London.

for London will look after the franchise in a few years' time.

And with that, it's back to you, Andrew.

So, will Angela Eagle succeed in replacing Jeremy Corbyn? And our

senior Tories discussing plans for a centre ground party with the Lib

Dems? Or questions for the week ahead.

And joining us is the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron.

Welcome back. Will the Liberal Democrats campaign to rejoin the EU,

come the next general election? We have to see what am I of the land

will be. It could be October, it could be made 2020. But just like

every other Liberal leader since 1955, I believe, I will have in my

manifesto a question that there are a commitment that Britain is better

off at the heart of Europe. Chris Grayling said to us this morning

that he thinks he will be -- we will be out by the next election. If it

is October, all bets are off, but if the parliament goes its term and we

are out of the EU and into the 2020 election, would you like your party

to have a commitment to rejoin? I want to be part of Europe and I

would like to be part of the European Union. If you had asked the

12 months ago, I would not have predicted that we would have left

the EU. I would not have predicted that Jeremy Corbyn would lead the

Labour Party or that David Cameron would have resigned. In four years'

time, the lie of the land could be very different. But I am trying to

work out if you feel so strongly about it, will you accept the

referendum result, or will you try to get us back into the EU? I accept

the referendum result. At the moment, the trajectory is towards

Brexit and we have to accept that. I have no time for MPs who say we

should be undoing the result. That does not mean I give up my campaign

for Britain to be in the EU. As has been said by others, you have an

election, and if you lose, you accept it, but you don't give up

your principles. So I hope it will remain in the EU and I hope it will

be the choice of electors if that is the case. Politicians must not force

that on people. But didn't we just vote to come out? The 52% were very

clear over what they voted against. That was all they were asked to do.

They were not asked to vote for one of the five or six potential exit

strategies, whether it be for access to the single market, some level of

free movement, or whether it is the almost North Korea option but a

handful of people prefer the UK to have. It seems to me to be right

that the British people, before we leave the EU, are given the choice

as to what they want. So you want a referendum on the terms of

departure? Well, nobody has voted for what comes next. People voted to

leave the EU, but it seems right to me that having made the choice two

weeks ago, the British people should also be allowed to choose what is

the next step. That sounds like a referendum on the terms to me. Which

I am not in favour of, because we have seen that people are busy. We

have representative democracy for a reason, and some decisions are

better thrashed out by people elected by voters to do that, rather

than putting everything to a referendum. But Tim has a point.

There is no problem with people campaigning for another referendum.

In 1975, we had a referendum and it wasn't like all the anti-Europeans

accepted the decision. They carried on campaigning for another 40 years.

So it could be another 40 years before he gets another referendum.

He is a young lad. Who knows? I would be about Gladstone's age by

them. I agree with you in one sense that we don't want to go to the

public with a referendum on every issue. The problem is that this

government, in a chaotic way, has established that principle, which

means that it would be wrong and anti-democratic for the MPs to then

overturn what the electorate have done. That means that in terms of

endorsing what happens next, and the 52% may have 52 the ideas of what

exit looks like. That is fine, but Britain needs to choose what happens

next. And they need to choose whether they prefer the status quo

before Article 50 is invoked. Oh! Well, I think there was a real

danger that MPs will, over a course of time, basically diluted Brexit

and not deliver it properly. I thought it was interesting that

people like Chris Grayling or arguing that Brexit is safer in the

hands of Theresa May. Why is he during that when she was a Remainer?

Because he says she has the backing of the majority of Tory MPs. Of

course, in Parliament, most MPs are for Remain, and he says that only

Theresa May can push through Brexit, which is counterintuitive, but makes

sense when you think about it. Surely no government can agree to a

referendum on the terms, because Europe would then say, so you need

another vote? You are getting nothing. It would be like Congress

announcing a referendum on a trade deal with another country. Why would

that country do a deal when it is subject to domestic politics? So I

think another referendum is unlikely, but I fear that the

entirety of the next parliament will be taken up by the process of

extrication. What did you say about article 50? If the legal

interpretation that once one has invoked article 50, the matter is

out of our hands, that is like jumping out of a plane without being

sure whether you have a parachute. It seems to me that the bridge

people should be allowed to check the safety of the parachute. That

means, do we know what we are going into? If we decide collectively that

we should be in the single market, for example, as many Brexiteers

believe, then for us to press the button to leave the European Union

without any guarantee that we would have that access would be foolish to

stop are you saying we need another referendum before we press article

50? We will need to check the legal advice, but I would not want us to

be in a legal position where there is no turning back. But the issue is

whether you need a vote of parliament to trigger article 50. To

my mind, that is a detail. What I am really bothered about is whether the

UK puts us in a position where there is no turning back and we have to

settle for whatever bad deal we might get. But once you trigger

article 50, that is it. The problem is, if you have done that, my

understanding is that there is and then an opportunity for us to

negotiate. We get what we are given, and it might be a really bad deal.

My job is to make sure to get a good deal. The discussions now might all

be over exit over the next few years. It is going to move on from

being stuffed for the political classes, as people experience the

fact that they have less to spend on holiday, that their savings are

worth less. People will begin to realise the reality. Let me ask you

this. There is an indication from the Sunday Times... Do you want to

rebrand your party? Do you think that the term Liberal Democrats is

tarnished? No, I don't. Our party has nearly doubled in size since the

last election 13 months ago, and it has gone up by another 16,000 in the

last fortnight. There is a movement among young people joining the

Liberal Democrats, who see the chaos in the other two parties. How about

the Labour Democrats? If you look at the other parties, we are now the

marketplace where progressives and moderates from other parties can

safely gather. We are open to talking to others in other parties.

One of the good things from the referendum, not the result, was the

fact that many of us shared platforms with people who we

discovered we agree with more than just on the European Union. Have you

got any Tories in your cross hairs? I have talked to lots of people.

Answer the question. That would not be fair. I have talked to loss of

people. Politics is really fluid. Do you buy this realignment? For it to

happen, the Lib Dems would need both Andrea Leadsom to be the Tory leader

and Jeremy Corbyn to stay as the Labour leader. It requires a lot to

happen. If Leadsom did become Tory leader and Jeremy Corbyn were

strengthened as Labour leader, you have not just a centrist party

potentially, but a very big centrist party. What I would issue as a

warning is that that party would still be subject to all the

squabbles that any existing party suffers. Were I and Tim to join, for

example, there would be a debate about what centrism means. Is it

social democracy or something more economically liberal? Does it mean

commitment to the European Union, or honouring the referendum and getting

out? It would be no less prone to internal disagreements. Dubai the

story this morning that there were 20 Tory MPs threatening to leave if

Andrea Leadsom should become leader? I didn't buy that at all. It sounded

like 20 years he fits to me. In relation to a realignment, it is

interesting, what will happen to the UK Independence Party. Tim said the

Lib Dems world where the marketplace is, but think about all those people

that voted, for a righty of reasons, for Brexit, and what happens to

Ukip. I think we will see that rebranding under a different name is

some kind of people's party, and that could pick up a lot of Lib Dem

and Labour votes. Is Tim Farron right to be confident with the

position the Lib Dems are in? Last man standing, possibly the token

male leader after all this. The joy for the Lib Dems is that they have a

clear position and they are most gunning to be a majority party. They

can have a focus that other parties don't have. We shall see. We have

run out of time. The Daily Politics is back at midday on BBC Two all

this week. I will be back here on Sunday on BBC One at 11 o'clock.

Remember, if it's Sunday, it is the Sunday Politics.