:01:26. > :01:36.to turn our backs on the EU? One politician claims leaving the
:01:36. > :01:36.
:01:36. > :37:32.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2156 seconds
:37:32. > :37:37.European Union could end up costing Politics in the South East. Coming
:37:37. > :37:41.up later, similar towns with the same problems but why did Labour win
:37:41. > :37:47.seven out of eight county council seats in Hastings but only one out
:37:47. > :37:49.of eight in Thanet? Joining me in the studio today is Conservative MP
:37:49. > :37:53.for Rochester and Strood Mark Reckless and Labour Peer Lord Bassam
:37:53. > :38:03.of Brighton. Welcome to you both. A year ago this month, the government
:38:03. > :38:06.backed Portis town scheme -- Portas Towns Scheme was launched. This
:38:06. > :38:12.week, the television programme Mary Queen of the High Street highlighted
:38:12. > :38:17.the efforts made so far in Margate. The programme, starring Mary Portas,
:38:17. > :38:21.did not go down well with former members of the Town Team, who
:38:22. > :38:26.complained about the way they were portrayed. Roger Gale called it a
:38:26. > :38:30.vanity project for the presenter. Do you think this was a vanity project
:38:30. > :38:34.or an actually deserving way of spending government money? It was
:38:34. > :38:38.trying out a new idea to revitalise some of our town centres and there
:38:38. > :38:41.are 12 of them and I guess it will have worked in some and Mary Portas
:38:41. > :38:46.will have, without good ideas and the local authority will have been
:38:46. > :38:51.able to implement them. In sorry that has not worked in all of them
:38:51. > :38:55.but I hope people visit Margate. danger is that you have a high
:38:55. > :39:03.profile celebrity who gets involved with a relatively small amount of
:39:03. > :39:06.money and it becomes hijacked by her. She has a reputation in if
:39:06. > :39:14.people are complaining it has not been followed up, I suggest Mary
:39:14. > :39:20.Portas listens to what they are complaining about and sorted out.
:39:20. > :39:25.is funny that Brighton should need it? What can you do with �100,000?
:39:25. > :39:29.It is a bit of a gimmick. I don't begrudge her involvement. It is a
:39:29. > :39:33.good thing because it focused on retailers and that is a good slice
:39:33. > :39:37.of Brighton and Hove business. I don't get it has had the impact it
:39:37. > :39:43.needs to and if we are serious about city centre regeneration we need to
:39:43. > :39:47.have a long-term plan and invest properly.
:39:47. > :39:51.Euroscepticism appears to be alive and well in Kent and Sussex. Nine of
:39:51. > :39:54.our MPs, including Mark, voted in favour to an amendment on the
:39:54. > :39:57.Queen's Speech on the EU referendum earlier this week was that we'd
:39:57. > :40:04.leaving the European Union cost us more than we would gain? Joining us
:40:04. > :40:10.from Oxford is the Lib Dem MEP Catherine Bearder. You obviously
:40:10. > :40:14.have a vested interest with the EU. You claim you would lose half a
:40:15. > :40:19.million jobs in the region if we lost the EU for the boy did you get
:40:19. > :40:24.that figure? It is not my figure. It is the Department of business that
:40:24. > :40:30.came up with this figure. It is very difficult to come up with a figure.
:40:30. > :40:37.We have a lot of inward investment from outside Europe who come to the
:40:37. > :40:41.UK, knowing that they understand English air and the rest. But it is
:40:41. > :40:48.into the European market, which is a free market. If we were to read draw
:40:48. > :40:51.from that, we would lose that inward investment. We would then not have
:40:51. > :40:59.trade deals with all of the countries in the European Union,
:40:59. > :41:05.that is not just trade deals, such as tropical timber or anti-dumping
:41:05. > :41:07.deals that we have with other countries. Just getting back to that
:41:07. > :41:11.statistics because that is the headline that was bandied around
:41:11. > :41:16.this week. You said yourself it was difficult to pin it down. That is
:41:16. > :41:21.one of the problems you have. Departments of skills, business and
:41:21. > :41:28.innovation except later from a 2006 report. It is hard to say. The BBC
:41:28. > :41:35.have also tried to get the figure. It is more than just jobs. It is the
:41:35. > :41:40.cultural funding, the cultural mixing, the right fork Brits to go
:41:40. > :41:43.and live on the mainland in Europe, as it is for Europeans to comment
:41:43. > :41:48.working. In Kent, or that any grass in the South East region, there are
:41:48. > :41:55.people from all over Europe who like to live in Kent and commute to work
:41:55. > :42:05.in Paris or Brussels or wherever. So it is's leaving would cut us off. We
:42:05. > :42:06.
:42:06. > :42:09.get a lot of funding, committee funding and cohesion funding.
:42:09. > :42:13.your constituency, Mark, in Rochester, one and a half million
:42:13. > :42:18.pounds of European funding has come in in the last four years. Do you
:42:18. > :42:25.want to throw that away? We have paid far more into Europe than we
:42:25. > :42:35.get back. �19 billion more last... Kent does not pay �19 billion was up
:42:35. > :42:37.
:42:37. > :42:40.I think they pay more than of a disproportionate amount. Vince Cable
:42:40. > :42:45.cited the study. When people have looked into this study and gone and
:42:45. > :42:47.spoken to the author of it, he said that is quite wrong, we won't lose 3
:42:47. > :42:54.million jobs or half a million. It might be quite positive and I have
:42:54. > :42:58.been misquoted! You cannot use it for those purposes. The risk is, are
:42:58. > :43:02.you going to risk it, even if it is half that number? Is that what you
:43:02. > :43:08.really want for this country or are you actually going to see we are
:43:08. > :43:12.part of a bigger unit and jobs for this country are as vital for this
:43:12. > :43:16.country as they are for the rest of Europe. Are we going to see... What
:43:16. > :43:25.are you going to say on day two when you're outside the European Union?
:43:26. > :43:34.Can I finish? Can I make that point? I will let you answer. I would like
:43:34. > :43:38.to trade freely with the whole world. Rather than being tied to one
:43:38. > :43:43.dying economy, I would like to trade with the emerging countries of China
:43:43. > :43:53.and India. I would like to negotiate our own free-trade agreements with
:43:53. > :43:54.
:43:54. > :43:59.them, which put British interests first. We would like access to their
:43:59. > :44:05.trade and service industries. are also big fan of staying in,
:44:05. > :44:09.aren't you? I think it is important that we have a trading nation ship
:44:09. > :44:13.with Europe. It is on our doorstep. This assertion that the Tories have
:44:13. > :44:16.with Europe is bizarre in the extreme. We should because of
:44:16. > :44:21.treading on jobs and growth. The notion that we are somehow going to
:44:21. > :44:24.create a referendum in four years time, we don't know when the issues
:44:24. > :44:32.with you by going to be. It is a bizarre thing to raise as an issue
:44:32. > :44:34.now. I've read in the Guardian this week, the CBI director-general, he
:44:34. > :44:37.is incredibly critical of this government's approach to Europe. He
:44:37. > :44:42.says they are obsessed, they should concentrate on the real things that
:44:42. > :44:51.real economy. Those are the right things for us to concentrate on.
:44:51. > :44:54.What about voters? What about your voters? You guv put it on number 11
:44:54. > :45:00.as the list of priorities. Is it something you genuinely concerned
:45:00. > :45:04.about? Number two is immigration and it is because of the relationship
:45:04. > :45:09.with the European Union that these people from Poland and other Eastern
:45:09. > :45:11.European countries are able to come here and next year we have
:45:11. > :45:17.barbarians and Romanians coming here. We should control our borders,
:45:17. > :45:22.we should decide. You are sounding like Nigel Farage at this point!
:45:22. > :45:26.People should be allowed to vote on that. Who would staff our hospitals,
:45:26. > :45:31.pick our fruit. It is a huge part of the economy in Kent. If we don't
:45:31. > :45:34.have that... We should train people locally. The people who are
:45:34. > :45:37.unemployed, we should be training them. We should not be going
:45:37. > :45:42.straight to the easy option of thing in people from abroad. We should
:45:42. > :45:48.invest in our own people. Of course we should train local British
:45:48. > :45:54.workers but we benefit enormously from our mothership of the EU. The
:45:54. > :46:02.change, culturally, of our country over the last 30 years has been
:46:02. > :46:09.beneficial. If we throw away those trading links with Europe, and we
:46:09. > :46:13.cannot overnight build trade legs with China and India, , it will be
:46:13. > :46:17.seriously damaged. Opinion is beginning to shift. It might be the
:46:17. > :46:24.11th of 10th concern at the minute. People are beginning to worry that
:46:24. > :46:27.we are sleepwalking out of the union. There are a few things I need
:46:27. > :46:31.to put across was up the migrants that come from the rest of Europe
:46:31. > :46:36.are net taxpayers. They are a benefit to this community. They pay
:46:36. > :46:40.in, they do not take out and there is a surplus. There is a report out
:46:40. > :46:44.this week that demonstrates that. The other point I want to come back
:46:44. > :46:48.on once we can negotiate trade deals with China and the rest of the
:46:48. > :46:56.world. We are a country of six T 5 million people. What sort of clout
:46:56. > :47:00.do you have when you're with China? Do you want to be a trading partner
:47:00. > :47:03.with half a billion people and have that sort of clout? That is what the
:47:03. > :47:10.European Union does put up it is the world's biggest market. We'll be
:47:10. > :47:13.crazy to cut ourselves off from that and to invite something from the
:47:13. > :47:16.rest of the word question my crew spent 20 years negotiating with the
:47:16. > :47:22.rest of the world. We have to leave it there but thank you for joining
:47:22. > :47:25.The Labour Party celebrated in Hastings two weeks ago when they won
:47:25. > :47:30.seven out of eight seats on the East Sussex County Council. Across the
:47:30. > :47:33.county border, in than it, where the district council is Labour run, the
:47:33. > :47:36.party was inspected to take seats from the Conservatives. It ended up
:47:36. > :47:41.with only one. UKIP took the other seven. Hastings and Thanet are
:47:41. > :47:44.similar areas, relatively impoverished seaside towns with a
:47:44. > :47:52.strong working class presence. Why did the Labour Party do well in one
:47:52. > :47:59.and badly in the other? Lucinda Adam went to find out.
:47:59. > :48:02.Hastings and Thanet. To seaside resorts and two of the most deprived
:48:02. > :48:05.parts of the South East of the Southeast will stop both had label
:48:06. > :48:08.led councils and both were key targets for Labour to win back
:48:08. > :48:13.county council seats at this month's elections will stop in
:48:13. > :48:18.Hastings, Labour has elevated a landmark victory, taking 42% of the
:48:18. > :48:22.vote and seven out of eight county council seats. But in Thanet they
:48:22. > :48:29.failed to make any gains. Holding just one seat while the other seven
:48:29. > :48:34.gave UKIP its strongest victory. In local by-elections, held last week,
:48:34. > :48:41.UKIP gained a second seat on Thanet are strict council and one on
:48:41. > :48:46.Bradgate town council in a war -- in a ward that had been a Labour
:48:46. > :48:51.majority. That left Labour in deepwater. Why are the party's
:48:51. > :48:58.fortunes so mixed? Like Thanet, unemployment in Hastings is three
:48:58. > :49:05.times the national average. Both areas suffer from a seasonal jobs
:49:05. > :49:12.market, older people and other cancers will stop success in
:49:12. > :49:15.Hastings is put down to a strong majority on the council, achieving
:49:15. > :49:20.goals to regenerate the town. have a council that is proactive in
:49:20. > :49:23.tackling the jobs and we have here. They started out an apprenticeship
:49:23. > :49:29.programme. They were looking to do 101 hundred days. They exceeded
:49:29. > :49:35.that. They got 160 apprenticeships in 100 days. We are looking to do up
:49:35. > :49:40.the town 2 billion best in the town. They have ordered over 600
:49:40. > :49:43.properties to do up the front edge. In Thanet, UKIP said that progress
:49:43. > :49:51.on regeneration project has been sluggish. Labour councillors have
:49:51. > :49:55.not supported expansion at the airport. The airport is a major
:49:55. > :50:01.regeneration opportunity. You don't need the brains of Lloyd George to
:50:01. > :50:08.know that. They are against it. They are doing everything they can to
:50:08. > :50:12.restrict the operation there. Since KLM went in, 42 new jobs have been
:50:12. > :50:16.created. We have a world-class airline operating there. The
:50:16. > :50:22.majority of the people in Thanet really want the airport to be a
:50:23. > :50:29.success. When the former Conservative leader of Thanet
:50:29. > :50:32.council was jailed before polling day, Labour should have capitalised
:50:32. > :50:37.was stop a series of defections and infighting has caused trouble and
:50:37. > :50:41.destruction fall leaders. infighting in Thanet has been a
:50:41. > :50:44.problem. It has been a consequence of having a minority administration
:50:44. > :50:49.which has been virtually controlled by the interests of only a handful
:50:49. > :50:53.of councillors in key positions. That has caused a great deal of
:50:53. > :50:57.squabbling. We had a lot of time in council meetings arguing about
:50:57. > :51:02.issues that have nothing to do with the business of local council.
:51:02. > :51:07.win confidence and their votes, campaigning was widespread in
:51:07. > :51:10.Hastings. In Thanet, Labour focused its efforts on Margate and it was
:51:10. > :51:14.UKIP who knocked on doors elsewhere. There will not be a
:51:14. > :51:22.street in Thanet that has not been visited by one of our now elected
:51:22. > :51:27.members. I certainly did not see any Labour. Labour did not even put out
:51:27. > :51:31.a leaflet in my ward. There was no targeting at all. Nobody knew who
:51:31. > :51:39.the Labour candidate was. The only Labour councillor who won in Thanet
:51:39. > :51:42.admits the party was complacent in targeting traditional Labour areas.
:51:42. > :51:46.You are not putting the same effort into some of your strongholds. When
:51:46. > :51:51.a party like UKIP has come along with a message that chimes with a
:51:51. > :51:54.certain set of voters, it causes problems with all sort of parties,
:51:54. > :52:00.which is what happened here. It is a wake-up call that we need to be
:52:00. > :52:04.talking to the voters in all seats, not just certain seats will stop to
:52:04. > :52:12.similar areas but to print stories for Labour. What does the party have
:52:12. > :52:19.to do to win back voters in Thanet? Its popularity here might be washed
:52:19. > :52:23.away for good. Joining us now is the Labour group
:52:23. > :52:26.leader Gordon Cowan. You have had a few weeks to think about this. What
:52:26. > :52:33.has happened there? Was it a missed opportunity or did you just take
:52:33. > :52:43.Labour supporters for granted? Thanet, if you look at the results,
:52:43. > :52:45.
:52:45. > :52:51.the UKIP was 8% in 2009 and 39% in 2013. In actual fact, the Labour
:52:51. > :52:58.vote held up. In fact, it increased by 2%. Well we had with that? Don't
:52:58. > :53:05.of course not. We wanted to win. We wanted to get 20 plus on Kent County
:53:05. > :53:08.Council. We did marvellously well. We got 13. I don't beg anyone would
:53:08. > :53:11.say that was doing marvellously well. Those votes in Thanet have
:53:11. > :53:14.cost you the opposition on Kent County Council. If Labour are going
:53:14. > :53:19.to get back into power in two years time, Thanet is the kind of place
:53:19. > :53:25.for the need to win seats. It is, absolutely. This particular time, if
:53:25. > :53:31.you go back to 2009, it was the Conservatives that had control of
:53:31. > :53:37.Thanet. They had control of the Thanet District Council. Labour was
:53:37. > :53:41.one of the heartlands that they want to win. Labour only got one seat out
:53:41. > :53:48.of the aid on offer. If you look at the results and you look at the
:53:48. > :53:52.percentages, Labour's vote held up. But we did not quite get as many
:53:52. > :53:57.votes as we would like to to get more councillors on Kent County
:53:57. > :54:00.Council. Where do you go from here? All eyes are on the general election
:54:00. > :54:05.in two years. What do you do locally as a party? It sounds like you are
:54:05. > :54:10.not doing well enough to get the seats, to get that springboard to a
:54:10. > :54:13.general election victory. We have to listen to the electorate and the
:54:13. > :54:18.electorate have a clear message out this time. They have given a clear
:54:18. > :54:22.message out. That message is more of a message to the central government
:54:22. > :54:26.that, quite frankly, whether it is immigration, whether it is the
:54:26. > :54:33.Europe in and out situation, people want answers. They want real
:54:33. > :54:35.answers. We have got to try and get that message out. We will be
:54:35. > :54:39.relaying that message to Ed Miliband. We have to get a clear
:54:39. > :54:43.understanding about Europe and the direction we are going. You seem to
:54:43. > :54:53.be blaming the Conservatives for you not winning enough seats in Thanet!
:54:53. > :54:53.
:54:53. > :54:59.Is it that you would not talking to people and showing that they would
:54:59. > :55:02.do well by voting for you? We sent out at least two leaflets to every
:55:02. > :55:07.single door within the Thanet area. It was not about not knocking on
:55:07. > :55:14.doors. The overall picture, throughout the country, was one of a
:55:14. > :55:24.protest vote from UKIP, not just in Thanet but everywhere. You work
:55:24. > :55:31.
:55:31. > :55:34.campaigning in Hastings, will you take the credit? Politics in Thanet
:55:34. > :55:37.seems a bit scrabbled up. The Tories don't do enquiry well. There are two
:55:37. > :55:40.Tory groups on the district council. Clearly there
:55:40. > :55:43.organisational issues to be addressed. Results for Labour were
:55:43. > :55:53.patchy in some parts of the country. We made tremendous progress in
:55:53. > :55:55.
:55:55. > :55:58.Hastings. Gordon makes a good point that we did hold the vote in Thanet.
:55:58. > :56:06.It is a minority led thing on Kent County Council. Labour has that
:56:06. > :56:09.patchy results. We have two years to go, what does Ed Miliband learned
:56:10. > :56:14.from the Thanet, Hastings comparison? What does he do? If
:56:14. > :56:19.those votes go the same way, you will not get into Number Ten.
:56:19. > :56:24.have to get our message is absolutely right for politics
:56:24. > :56:26.nationally and, not dilute them, but make sure they work locally. We have
:56:26. > :56:33.district than our local organisation. We need to make sure
:56:33. > :56:36.that people get onto the doorsteps and we need to make sure that
:56:36. > :56:40.Thanet, I know they have a good track record, we need to make sure
:56:40. > :56:44.that they are not far behind them. This is not covered tool for you as
:56:44. > :56:49.a party either. There is a wide expectation that Nigel Farage mate
:56:49. > :56:53.juice to stand for election in Thanet because he did so well. Who
:56:53. > :56:59.are you more scared of? UKIP or Labour? If Labour are pleased that
:56:59. > :57:03.their vote held up in Thanet, that is all right. That is good news for
:57:03. > :57:07.the two Conservative MPs there. The message I take is that you have to
:57:07. > :57:10.be out there on the doorstep and I am campaigning this weekend and the
:57:10. > :57:13.message in picking up such on the doorstep is that people are
:57:13. > :57:17.concerned about immigration, particularly the remaining and
:57:17. > :57:21.barbarian immigration next. On Monday, I'm going to Romania, I have
:57:21. > :57:24.a meeting with the Romanian Prime Minister and I will see what I can
:57:24. > :57:30.do to limit that. Coming back to Thanet, it sounds as though the
:57:30. > :57:39.calibre of local councillors, most of whom were conservative, have got
:57:39. > :57:42.into quite a lot of trouble, they are going to UKIP. Labour have
:57:42. > :57:47.pretty much given up as a campaigning force there. At a
:57:47. > :57:50.parliamentary level, I think the strong Conservative representation
:57:50. > :57:55.with Roger and Laura and I think they will be brooding on our results
:57:55. > :57:58.and we will have a strong position. Two people disagree with you there
:57:58. > :58:08.but I will have to move on. It is now time for a round-up of the
:58:08. > :58:10.
:58:10. > :58:12.week's other political events with Brighton's binmen are back at work
:58:12. > :58:16.but their unofficial strike action over pay has two wars disputes
:58:16. > :58:22.between the city's Green councillors, with calls for some for
:58:22. > :58:25.people to resign. The Deputy Prime Minister told Stephen Lloyd that the
:58:25. > :58:29.governor to look into decision to downgrade local maternity services.
:58:29. > :58:34.I will ask the secondary estate for help to discuss this matter
:58:34. > :58:39.further. Parliament has been called to clamp down on live animal exports
:58:39. > :58:43.that we started at the Cannes's port. It is bad for an all welfare
:58:43. > :58:48.and bad for the local economy. Sussex Police have it started a
:58:48. > :58:54.drive to recruit more Eastern European line which bidders to
:58:54. > :59:00.become committee support officers. It builds a very good link with us
:59:00. > :59:02.as a law enforcement institution. And it is the most littered
:59:02. > :59:07.shoreline in the county, but Shakespeare Beach does not have many
:59:07. > :59:14.visitors will stop environmentalists say it is rubbish from abroad that
:59:14. > :59:18.is being washed up on the tide. What do you think about the idea of
:59:18. > :59:24.these funded police community liaison officers to deal with
:59:24. > :59:26.migrants question Mark there are particular issues, we have to insure
:59:26. > :59:30.that all committees are policed properly. I would like to see is
:59:30. > :59:33.investing more in our young people here and particular ensuring that
:59:33. > :59:38.next to me that see the sort of numbers of people coming from bog
:59:38. > :59:42.area and Romania that we have seen from Poland and others. We heard
:59:42. > :59:49.about chicks babies but Brighton out as six four letter in the country.
:59:49. > :59:54.-- Shakespeare Beach. One of the MPs would like the government to do more
:59:54. > :59:57.to promote antilitter campaigning. What we think? That is a gimmick.
:59:57. > :00:03.I'll prefer to see the local council do its job and clear up the plastic
:00:03. > :00:07.and glass on the beach and increase its recycling rate, which is