Sophy Ridge on Sunday Interview with Caroline Lucas MP Green Party

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SKY NEWS, SOPHY RIDGE ON SUNDAY

SOPHY RIDGE: Well yesterday hundreds of thousands of people marched through London demanding a second Brexit referendum. According to the organisers, a total of a million people were out of the streets. Dozens of speakers addressed the crowds in Parliament Square including MPs, celebrities and campaigners and meanwhile a petition calling on Article 50 to be revoke and for Brexit to be effectively cancelled has reached 4.8 million signatures. Well one of those who spoke to the rally yesterday is the Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, and she joins us here now. What was the atmosphere like yesterday?

CAROLINE LUCAS: It was amazing. I mean the estimates are that there were a million people on the streets and I think one of the things that struck me was that there were so many young people, lots of children, people from all over the country. They were talking about having got up literally at two o’clock in the morning to get there from Scotland, there were people from Northern Ireland, people actually from other European countries, UK citizens who had come back to make sure their voice was heard as well. So it was very positive but also I think very worried.

SR: You spoke at the rally of course, I just want to pick up on something that you said when you addressed the crowd. You said that the Brexit that’s on offer is so dangerous and so damaging and so deeply flawed that it would be profoundly undemocratic not to have a people’s vote. So I understand of course that you feel the Brexit deal is dangerous and is flawed but why is it undemocratic?

CAROLINE LUCAS: Because three years ago people have no idea what Brexit actually looked like so we had no sense of the detail of what we were being asked to vote on and I think there is such a gulf now between what we were told was going to happen, this deal that was going to have the exact same benefits, where it was going to be the easiest trade deal to be done in history, where we could basically still have all of the benefits of being part of the club without paying for that. The reality has turned out to be so very different, no one was talking then about stockpiling food and medicines, no one was talking about turning the M20 into a huge lorry park. I think so much new information has become available now that we didn’t have three years ago that it’s right for people to have that say.

SR; We have travelled to different parts of the country talking to people and I have to say I am always struck by just how well informed people are and so I guess I would come back at this assumption that people didn’t know what they were voting for. Many people feel that they did know exactly what they were voting for, they knew there was going to be an economic hit, they knew that there may be delays at Dover but they thought it was worth it then and they think so now.

CAROLINE LUCAS: I want to make clear that I’m not saying that I think people were somehow stupid or ignorant, I don't think that at all but I do think we didn’t have the detail of the different kinds of Brexit that could be on offer and the very fact that within Theresa May’s own Cabinet there is so much disagreement about what Brexit means, I don't think we in Parliament can presume to know what 17.4 million people who voted for it actually do mean when it comes to the Brexit that they want.

SR: They know they want to leave the EU.

CAROLINE LUCAS: Well I’ve been travelling round the country too and talking with them and I have been struck by how there are 100 different reasons that people gave for leaving the EU but one thing they did want was to have a voice, to have a say and I think there is so much we should be doing to look at how we use a people’s vote if we get it as a kind of catalyst to look at that wide ranging social and economic transformation that the country needs. Also constitutional reform, a sense that people outside of London, particularly around the rest of England, feel they have no voice, no say in the decisions that get taken so I think there were so many issues that were bound up in that Brexit vote, we need to unpack some of those and it might be one way of doing that, to look at how the UK needs to reform but when it comes to the actual decision on whether or not to leave the EU and on what terms to leave the EU, I don't think that you can say you are undermining democracy to be extending it in a sense, going back to the people, to check that they’re happy with that decision. It is a decision of such importance that will affect us for so many generations, surely we should just make sure.

SR: I was quite struck with the interview with the Chancellor Philip Hammond, I’m not sure if you caught it or not but he effectively didn’t rule out having a second vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal if it passes and you of course have been having lots of conversations with the government, you have been in to see Theresa May. I mean what’s your sense, do you think a second referendum might actually happen?

CAROLINE LUCAS: I do think it might actually happen and …

SR: That’s not just wishful thinking?

CAROLINE LUCAS: No, I genuinely think it might because I think it’s the key that unlocks a majority behind any of the other options so you’re right, this coming week they are talking about not just whether or not Mrs May brings back her deal but the indicative votes, so many other options that might be on the table. I don't think any one of those is going to get a majority unless it’s linked to the idea of having public confirmation via a public vote.

SR: So would you vote for any of the options if it meant having a vote afterwards? Would you vote for Theresa May’s deal for example or something else?

CAROLINE LUCAS: With a heavy heart I would accept Theresa May’s deal if it was intrinsically linked in the very same motion to the idea of going back to the people because I think that sense of public consent, public informed consent, which is what I think we didn’t have last time, is so vital.

SR: The big question is, if there was a second referendum what do you think should be on the ballot paper?

CAROLINE LUCAS: Well what I think should be on the ballot paper are options that I think are specific and deliverable and that means remain – we know what that looks like – and we do pretty much know what Mrs May’s deal looks like although there are lots of unknowns but essentially that’s the strongest thing that we have so my preference would be to have those two things on the ballot paper. In terms of ….

SR: In terms of saying there should be an option to leave with no deal, because people would look at that and say hang on a minute, my vote is represented there, lot of people who voted leave will already feel upset at the idea of having a referendum in the first place.

CAROLINE LUCAS: I’ve thought a lot about that issue of putting no deal on the ballot paper but I just think it would be so irresponsible for any government to actually leave with no deal, not least because it would mean contravening all of our national agreements around Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement because if you leave without a deal you end up with a hard border in Northern Ireland, there is no getting around that.

SR: But is that democratic to go back to what’s democratic?

CAROLINE LUCAS: Well first of all I don't think it’s democratic to be selling Ireland down the river, in fact I think it’s massively reckless to be undermining the Good Friday Agreement, the Northern Ireland Agreement and the potential for that hard border and secondly, let’s not forget that Theresa May has had some very strong Brexiteers in that role as Brexit Secretary, she hasn’t put in there Remainers, she’s put in David Davis and then – I can’t remember his name!

SR: Dominic Raab.

CAROLINE LUCAS: Dominic Raab and now Steven Barclay. There are people who have been trying their best to get the hardest Brexit they could and they have ended up with the deal that’s on the table so if that is the view that has got at least some of …

SR: Well they resigned because they would argue they didn’t get what they wanted.

CAROLINE LUCAS: Well she’s had three of them so what I’m trying to say is they should have been able to work out a Brexit that was hard enough for their purposes but was a deliverable one from the EU. Now if in the time available Peter Bone or someone from the ERG can suddenly miraculously come up with a more hard Brexit that is going to be agreed by the EU, put it on the ballot paper but until that time what we don’t want are more unicorns, more fantasies, we want something that is specific and deliverable.

SR: Just finally, the papers are full today of rumours about coups against Theresa May, three names in the frame for caretaker leader, reportedly David Lidington, Jeremy Hunt and … I’m doing what you did now! Michael Gove, goodness me, apologies to Michael Gove if you’re watching. Does the thought of having a new leader of the Conservative party fill you with optimism or alarm?

CAROLINE LUCAS: It fills me with horror to be honest. We’re in this mess because the whole referendum process grew out of a massive row in the Conservative party and David Cameron trying to keep on board those MPs who would otherwise go and join UKIP and yet again we are having another fight within the Conservative party at a time when we’re facing the greatest constitutional crisis this country has faced since the Second World War. I think it is massively reckless and self-indulgent of them. I’m no fan of Mrs May, I think she is almost uniquely incompetent at the job she’s been given to do but the problem is the contradictions within the Brexit proposal itself, about how you get the hard Brexit and you also manage to somehow not have a hard border in Northern Ireland, that is at the centre of this not the position of Mrs May.

SR: Do you feel sorry for her?

CAROLINE LUCAS: On a personal level you bet I feel sorry for her, I wouldn’t be her for a lot of money.

SR: Caroline Lucas, thank you very much .

CAROLINE LUCAS: Thank you.