Sophy Ridge on Sunday Interview with Dominic Raab

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

SOPHY RIDGE: Our next guest is still in the Conservative leadership race but it’s fair to say this is the week that will make or break his campaign. Dominic Raab, thank you very much for joining us.

DOMINIC RAAB: Good morning.

SR: I want to start off with your chances of actually becoming the next Prime Minister. If you have a quick look to show people how the first round of voting went in the Commons, these are the candidates and this is how everyone did. So you got 27 but you haven’t got enough to get through the next round, you need 33 don’t you?

DOMINIC RAAB: We’ve had extra support coming in so I’ve got a good base and we are well placed to build some momentum. The race hasn’t really started yet because we haven’t had the debates yet, the first one is this evening and we’ll have more later in the week so I’m looking forward to it and we ought to be debating the issues, the vision and what I’m offering is change, a change of vision, a more optimistic vision. I have probably set out more policies from degree apprenticeships to climate change than the other candidates but I also think we need a generational change of leadership. I don’t think that the approach that got us into this mess is going to get us out of it.

SR: So are you going to get enough MPs to get you to that 33 bar?

DOMINIC RAAB: I’m not going to give you my numbers but we are building momentum, there will be further names in the course of this week and I am quietly confident.

SR: But you are pushing in the same pool as Boris Johnson aren’t you and he has got that momentum hasn’t he, amongst Brexit supporting MPs.

DOMINIC RAAB: Oh sure and he is certainly the front runner, he’s the favourite – we know a little bit about the curse of the favourite in Tory party leadership contests – and I’m the underdog but I am going to be the underdog fighting for the underdog whether it’s the worker in the lowest paid jobs that needs a pay rise, whether it’s the kid from the rough background who wants their shot in life or whether it’s the British people who feel that they’ve been written off in this Brexit process. So I’m relishing this campaign and we’re just getting going.

SR: Have you been talking to Boris Johnson in the last week?

DOMINIC RAAB: No.

SR: No text messages or anything?

DOMINIC RAAB: We obviously bump into each other as we go to and from hustings and I’ve got huge respect for him but none of those machinations which I think you were hinting at.

SR: Okay, so if you do get knocked out – and obviously I know you don’t want to think about this – who would you want to be Prime Minister out of these candidates?

DOMINIC RAAB: I’m not getting into that.

SR: No?

DOMINIC RAAB: No, I’m going to run my campaign with the optimism and the vision and hopefully what we’ll see this week is the competing visions and the styles of leadership that the different candidates are showing. We haven’t really had a chance on stage to see all of them together and that’s what I think people will be focused on. This race has only just started and I appreciate there is a front runner here but I am looking forward to this race.

SR: Now I’m going to talk to you about Brexit and it is perhaps the thing that you’ve said has caused the most controversy is that you are not going to rule out the idea of proroguing, suspending Parliament in order to push through a no deal Brexit if Parliament tries to block it. Now Amber Rudd described that as outrageous to me on the show today, Hilary Benn said it would be scandalous, it would be anti-democratic wouldn’t it?

DOMINIC RAAB: Oh I don't think it is something we would want to do and I think it is very unlikely but what’s the real scandal …

SR: But you can’t rule it out?

DOMINIC RAAB: Well I’ll tell you why. No, what’s really scandalous about this is the way that people have been trying to sabotage the will of the people and break their promises left, right and centre to get us out of the EU but the reason I don’t rule things out is I’ve got experience in negotiating – six years in the Foreign Office as an international negotiator, my time as Brexit Secretary. The big mistake we made in these negotiations was in taking no deal off the table and once we start ruling things out we only weaken our chances of getting a deal. I’ve set out my plan for a deal, the other candidates haven’t set out a credible plan but it undermines …

SR: Well they have set out their plans haven’t they?

DOMINIC RAAB: Well I’m not quite clear what Boris’s plan is but in fairness I’ll let him set it out in more detail. What I’m saying is the others have woven or havered on the question of whether we leave with no deal, whether they are flirting with another extension. All of that in fact just reduces our chances of getting the deal that we want.

SR: So you would go to the Queen and ask her to prorogue Parliament? Dragging her into politics in a way that she has avoided for 70 years?

DOMINIC RAAB: I won’t be dragging anyone anywhere but I think the signal that we send to the EU is crucially important and we frankly made too many mistakes stumbling in these negotiations by ruling things out. What I want the EU to know and frankly what I want the people in this country to know is first of all we will keep our promises and secondly they need to know that we are serious about leaving the EU. All those candidates that are going weak at the knees and saying oh well, I’m not sure about this and that, they are sending the message to the EU that frankly they can take us for a ride. We’ve had three years of that, it’s time to get this done.

SR: I thought Brexit was all about the sovereignty of Parliament and you’re saying you’d just overrule Parliament.

DOMINIC RAAB: It’s an interesting point. Normally when the government is in a clash with Parliament it is Parliament sticking up for the people but this time Parliament gave the decision to the British people and now it wants to …

SR: Hang on, I just want to stop you there because we don’t know if people voted for no deal Brexit do we? It’s not necessarily with no deal.

DOMINIC RAAB: In this we gave the people a decision, now Parliament is trying to steal it back away from them and I think that’s a fraud. In terms of what the referendum campaign decided it was very clear, we are leaving the EU. Now we made the case that actually we’d want to leave with a deal but plenty of questions were asked about if you couldn’t get that deal and what the outcome would be so when people voted they voted to leave. We haven’t left yet and that’s why we’re seeing not just the uncertainty for the economy and the damage it’s doing to businesses. Many of them come to me and say we just want to know what you’re doing but also there is this corrosion of public trust and the Tory party will be toast unless we’re out by the end of October.

SR: The Tory party will be toast?

DOMINIC RAAB: Yes and I think people need to wake up to this. We’ve seen from the Peterborough by-election, we’ve seen from the European elections, not just the frustration and the outrage – you referred to scandal, the scandal the people feel that we haven’t kept up on Brexit …

SR: So it could be the end of the Conservative party, is that what you’re saying?

DOMINIC RAAB: I certainly think the Conservatives cannot win an election unless we deliver Brexit.

SR: Okay, now I want to ask you about your comments earlier in the campaign saying you are probably not a feminist so what does feminism mean to you then?

DOMINIC RAAB: Well I’m not sure, I think the label is very ambiguous. Some people argue for gender quotas or positive discrimination, I’m not keen on that but what matters more …

SR: But if you say you are probably not a feminist, you must have ideas what it means, what do you think it means?

DOMINIC RAAB: Well I’m not sure. I think it means different things to different people. I certainly would consider myself a champion of equality and if you look in this race, I am the only candidate, there is not a single candidate who has set out policies to take forward the issue of equality of opportunity. I’m the guy arguing for third trimester scans for pregnant mums so that we cut down on breach births, I’m the one saying that pregnant agency workers should have … I’ve been the one talking about pregnant agency workers having a day one right to go to ante-natal appointments – it’s amazing in 2019 that we don’t have that – and I’m the one who’s backed Maria Miller’s proposal to have six month protection for new mum’s returning to work. Why? Because we’ve seen a doubling of the number of new mums being laid off. So people talk about the labels, I’m talking about what would actually materially advance the cause of equality and I think issues that a lot of women really care about.

SR: So Maria Miller talking about discrimination for mums, do you feel women face more discrimination than men?

DOMINIC RAAB: I think that there’s a real … if you look at the gender pay gap we’ve made real progress but it is clearly an issue for women in their 40s and one of the things that we’ve seen over the last ten years, and I looked at the evidence that the Select Committee had, is a doubling of new mums or pregnant mums being laid off or made redundant.

SR: Do you feel women face more discrimination than men?

DOMINIC RAAB: I think that’s a good example of where they do, certainly.

SR: So do you feel that women face more discrimination?

DOMINIC RAAB: Well it’s not as simple as that, you know that Sophy. Maybe you agree with gender quotas and positive discrimination, I know lots of women who find that insulting and patronising. What I want to do is get to a stage where we don’t really think about gender, we just look at people based on their character, their talents and their ability and that’s why I am a full throated champion of equality and meritocracy but the labels are less important than what you actually do in life and I …

SR: Well let’s look at what you do in life then because for a lot of people feminism is about the fact that women are often working, are paid less than men, they go back home and do the majority of the housework, 60% more than men. Do you more housework than your wife?

DOMINIC RAAB: We are a pretty good team.

SR: Is it 50/50?

DOMINIC RAAB: I’m not sure whether it is exactly 50/50, again we don’t have a box tick approach but I get my boys up in the morning, we divvy up all the usual chores and I don’t have a curtain call about this.

SR: Do you have boys jobs and girls jobs in your house?

DOMINIC RAAB: No, and that’s my point Sophy, I’m not sure that that’s …

SR: You do the cooking and she takes the bins out?

DOMINIC RAAB: Well I do a bit of cooking, she’s the better cook but I certainly take out the bins, but I think that’s a good example where the labels frankly don’t really help you very much. Remember of course that the YouGov Survation polling suggests that the overwhelming majority of women, let alone men and women, do not consider themselves as feminists so I am probably slightly more in tune with the rest of the country.

SR: Amber Rudd said earlier that it bothers her that there are no women left in the contest, does it bother you?

DOMINIC RAAB: We had two women at the last two last time around, I think what matters above all is the quality of the candidates and what they’re offering, I think that probably matters most but we’ve got huge talent coming through the Conservative party at all ranks, parliamentary, ministerial and I’m sure that will go from strength to strength and I certainly would like it to. I am mentoring someone right now who’s a candidate through Women to Win and I think it’s really important.

SR: Does it bother you, the gender representation is less of an issue but does it bother you that five of the six remaining candidates are white men who went to Oxford? And four out of six paid for their education.

DOMINIC RAAB: I’m not sure if this class warfare is a particularly attractive way to go but my background is a bit different from some of the others. My dad was a refugee, my dad died when I was quite young and so my mum raised us as a single mum in our teenage years, I’m a grammar school boy but actually what really matters is what we stand for. I do think there is a risk when you go into marginal seats that the Tory party gets caricatured as the party of privilege, the party of the elite, only interested in looking after the well off and that’s why my tax plan is looking after those in work but in the lowest paid jobs so that’s why I’ve said I’d raise the National Insurance threshold saving the lowest paid workers £460 a year. That’s whose side we’ve got to be on and I think I’m well placed both in terms of my policies but also my background to make that argument.

SR: You say that you are well placed in terms of your policies and your background, how about your record as a minister? You of course were the Brexit Secretary who effectively was Brexit Secretary when the backstop happened, you were Prisons Minister when deaths and assaults in prisons went up, you were Housing Minister when the rate of building new homes went down so …

DOMINIC RAAB: Sophy, you are wrong on all three of those points. First of all…

SR: Interesting.

DOMINIC RAAB: … I argued against the backstop and resigned over it. Secondly I wasn’t Prisons Minister I was Courts Minister and I brought forward the courts reform agenda. I also as Minister for Justice made it clear to the Council of Europe we wouldn’t give prisoners the vote despite all of the attempts to say we would be kicked out of the Council of Europe and what was the last one you mentioned?

SR: Housing Minister from January 2018 to July when new build dwellings were 5% down on the previous quarter.

DOMINIC RAAB: Actually when I was Housing Minister, in fairness a lot of us have been involved in this but we’ve had new dwellings at the highest rate for all but one of the last 30 years and I put forward both the planning reforms, the new national planning policy framework and I also did the lion’s share of the work on the social housing green paper, so I’m proud of my record.

SR: Even though new build dwellings in England in 2018 were down?

DOMINIC RAAB: We tend to judge it by the number of new homes, not just new builds and they were at 217,000, they have just gone up over 220,000, that is the highest in all but one of the last 30 years but we’ve got more to do, that’s why I’m arguing for cutting stamp duty for homes under £500,000, that’s why I said that I would give Housing Association tenants the right to buy, we’ve got to do much better but I’m the candidate who has not just got the experience as you rightly say, but the vision to set out and put some beef on the bones, explain how we’ll actually get there, provide the homes that young people need.

SR: You have had a bit of a tiff on the internet today with the Sunday Times saying that you are not pitching for a Cabinet job with Boris Johnson.

DOMINIC RAAB: It isn’t a tiff, they quite rightly corrected the story because it was inaccurate and I am grateful to them for doing that.

SR: Okay then, very good, smoothing over relationships, I like to see that. Now what sort of Prime Minister do you think Boris Johnson would be?

DOMINIC RAAB: I’m not going to talk about him…

SR: But he’s the front runner, come on.

DOMINIC RAAB: Yes, sure but he can make his own case. He should come on your show and …

SR: Well that’s something that we can agree on.

DOMINIC RAAB: … discuss his plans. Look, I think we need a bit more positivity in politics so I’m going to set out my vision, the approach that I would take and I’ll let the other candidates do the same for themselves.

SR: Would you serve in his Cabinet?

DOMINIC RAAB: I have often said that I wouldn’t do the petulant thing of saying I won’t serve under X or Y. Boris has got huge talents, look he’s a great charismatic character, fizzing with optimism, I just think that when it comes to not just vision but getting things done I would be in a better place and I also think based on some of the issues we talked about before, I am better placed to win over in those marginal seats with my tax plan for the lowest paid, my idea of the aspirational underdog and giving them the chances in life.

SR: Okay, Dominic Raab, thank you very much for coming on the show today.

DOMINIC RAAB: Great to talk to you.