Sophy Ridge on Sunday Interview with Iain Duncan Smith Conservative MP

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

SOPHY RIDGE: Now getting EU leaders to sign off the Brexit deal is the easy bit, the real battles will start back at home and one backbencher who might prove decisive is the former Conservative party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, who joins us now. Thank you very much for being on the show.

IAIN DUNCAN SMITH: Sophy, good morning.

SR: So first things first, just to be clear, can you support Theresa May’s deal?

IAIN DUNCAN SMITH: Well I haven’t seen the final bit of the deal and whether anything has changed or not but what I saw over the last week and a half to two weeks makes it very, very difficult for somebody like me to support this deal. It seems to me that far too much has been given to the European Union and far too little that seems to ally itself with our commitments both at the Lancaster House speech which she made and, more importantly in some senses, the manifesto pledge we made at the last election and those were very clear that we’d take back full control of our laws, our borders and our money and there are real issues in this. The number one issue of course is the backstop in Northern Ireland which cedes huge amounts of power to the European Union both to the Courts of Justice but also to the very fact that Northern Ireland will be treated differently from the rest of the UK and we will be stuck if we go into the backstop in the customs union, obeying all those rules and regulations. So there are many other issues as well but those are immediately what were in the paper and don’t appear to have changed. There’s another one too, Sophy, which is quite important. I was looking again at the reports and I noticed that in the area where the government talks about ending freedom of movement, I have to say having written a paper on this, I don’t really think that’s correct because it now talks in there, buried in there, that there would be social security co-ordination between us and the EU. I think when you strip out the language what that actually means is that we are prepared to cede to the citizens of the European Union an almost immediate right to claim benefits and this has caused huge damage to many, many on low incomes who are competing with them when they find that they come in on very low salaries and claim all the benefits. It costs for those on low incomes for the UK taxpayer, it cost us about £500 million in the last year of records. So these are very, very big issues and questions whether we really are going to seriously think about ending freedom of movement.

SR: I just want to really pin you down on the specifics of my question. You say it has been very difficult to support the Prime Minister’s deal, as it stands will you vote for it or against it?

IAIN DUNCAN SMITH: I certainly won’t be voting for it and I am more likely to vote against it but as I say, I will see what comes back, if anything has changed. I don’t believe anything much has changed, in fact I think there is one area which makes it even more difficult which is that we seem to have ceded the right of Spain to have a say over what Gibraltar’s future trading relationship will be, whether it’s exactly the same as the UK’s. Now that’s been dressed up a bit but the reality is when you peel it away, Spain is now saying that they have a major concession and I seriously wonder whether if that is the case, we haven’t in a sense abandoned Gibraltar as well as we have abandoned so many other things in the course of this negotiation.

SR: Okay, I mean Number 10 are denying that, they say that it’s just a statement of what was already agreed but I just want to take a quick step back because the deal on the table proposes that we would end free movement of people, that they hope to be able to conduct their own trade deals, they hope that the backstop in Ireland will never come into force and there might be technological ways of solving that border problem. I know it’s not perfect, it’s not exactly what you wanted but don’t you have to compromise. Surely this is the kind of deal where eurosceptics years ago would have bitten the PM’s arm off to get.

IAIN DUNCAN SMITH: Well not really, no. You say compromise but we have compromised, many of us have compromised. If you think back to it, back in December where I think it all went wrong, we were persuaded at the time to compromise over the fact that we gave the EU a commitment to 39 billion and also we agreed to this ludicrous backstop which is very damaging to the union. Now that was all done on the basis that it wouldn’t be legally binding and that we would immediately move the trade negotiations which we would then complete before we had the vote on all this. Well we never did move to trade negotiations and they are binding, as you have seen now in the withdrawal agreement, the only binding legal text is the withdrawal agreement and in it you have the backstop and it is bound in that we will pay them 39 billion, not hinged on whether we get a trade deal, bound in. And so the big problem is there have been major compromises made and we fully understand, I fully understand you need to compromise but to compromise and give away all of the important things that the EU wants without actually getting anything other than a general statement about what might happen to us, is really, really damaging. And let me just come back to this backstop, Sophy, because it’s really, really important. The backstop, we are assured now by the Prime Minister, that the EU does not want us in the backstop. We are assured that we don’t want to be in the backstop, in fact the Chancellor said it’s a terrible, terrible mess, the backstop and we are told categorically now because the Irish say they will not ever, ever have a hard border regardless of what the deal is. So if all those assurances are that we will never go into the backstop, well in hell’s name is the backstop sitting as a legal text which means if we leave without any agreement, without a future trade deal, we are bound to go into the backstop or they will force us into extension of the [inaudible] which will cost us tens and tens of billions of pounds so I really don’t think that it’s any good to give us reassurances and that we should have these bound in to the withdrawal agreement.

SR: Briefly Mr Duncan Smith, because we are running out of time, Dominic Raab, the former Brexit Secretary, suggested that the deal on the table is worse than remaining in the EU. Do you share his view? What would be worse, staying in the EU or adopting the deal on the table?

IAIN DUNCAN SMITH: Well I don’t want to stay in the EU, I campaigned and voted to leave the EU. I don’t believe that so far this deal delivers on what the British people really voted for – take back control of your borders, your laws, your money – and I think it has ceded too much control. I believe the government needs to go back and say things like the backstop, we simply cannot agree it and you must take all of that reference out and things to do with the Court of Justice. That would make this a better deal but right now the balance is definitely tilted against this being a deal I’m afraid that delivers on what the government said they would deliver which is leaving the European Union and setting out to be able to do our own trade deals. We won’t be able to do our own trade deals if they are bound in to the customs union and that is the single one of the most important things that people voted for.

SR: And just finally Mr Duncan Smith, we heard this week didn’t we that the prominent Conservative MP and Brexiteer John Hayes was to be given a knighthood, lots of speculation there that there was possibly dealing by Number 10. I just wondered, has the phone been ringing for you, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, perhaps that would make you back the deal?

IAIN DUNCAN SMITH: [Laughs] It’s not April Fool is it? Can I just say, when it comes to John Hayes, he’s an old friend and he has been a loyal Minister of the government and I have to say he deserves a knighthood, I am over the moon and very happy for him and his wife Susan and I give them my fullest congratulations as do by the way all of my colleagues. He’s a really good man and I think if you can’t accept generously that an award is given to a good decent person then I think that says less of us. I am absolutely over the moon about it but there’s nothing for me, don’t worry!

SR: Okay, Iain Duncan Smith, thank you very much for being with us this morning.