Sophy Ridge on Sunday Interview with Lisa Nandy MP Labour

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

SOPHY RIDGE: Our next guest represents a constituency that voted heavily to leave the EU so I am sure she’ll be familiar with the arguments you just heard in that film. She is someone the government hoped might back the Prime Minister’s deal but so far she hasn’t been convinced yet so we are joined now from her Wigan constituency by the Labour MP, Lisa Nandy. Thank you for being on the programme this morning, Lisa.

LISA NANDY: Good morning.

SR: We have just been listening to the views of lots of Brexit supporters and I was really struck by the number of people who raised democracy to me, they feel that this is an affront to democracy that we haven’t left the EU when we said we would. When the dust settles are you worried that Brexit will have fundamentally shaken people’s trust in the whole democratic process in the UK?

LISA NANDY: Well to be honest I think it’s been a long time coming in towns like mine. I think before we had the vote to leave the EU we had a very sudden and dramatic rise in support for UKIP including amongst many people who would never have dreamed of voting for openly racist or far right parties and before that we had a falling turnout which we thought was apathy but actually was a level of frustration or even anger with the political system, that people didn’t really feel spoke for them or understood their interests so I think this has been a long time coming and Brexit was really the final chance to get us to wake up and listen. My worry about the way the debate has gone in Parliament and in politics over the last two years, especially the last few months, is that with attitudes hardening in Parliament as well as public, a number of my constituents feel that not only are they being told that they voted the wrong way last time but they are also being told that they are too stupid to have a say in the future of the country. The view from here couldn’t be more different, there are people who voted remain and leave, having thought very hard about it because they had feelings about the European Union and about the way that politics works that simply weren’t being addressed and we are still not addressing them and I think we are facing a very real breach of trust between politicians and many people who voted in good faith and feel we are just not taking that seriously.

SR: It’s interesting that you say that MPs positions are hardening as well on both sides of the debate. This coming week of course MPs will be voting again on Brexit options, nobody got a majority last time round. Are you worried that while reaching out for a compromise MPs are actually becoming more entrenched in their own positions?

LISA NANDY: I think MPs are very like the public actually and part of the reason that Parliament is gridlocked is that the public are still gridlocked with very different views about what should happen next but actually most people, just like most MPs, I think are willing to compromise, understand that this was a very close vote and although we’re leaving that doesn’t mean that we’re leaving in the hardest way possible. I stood on a manifesto that said we should leave with a deal in 2017 and that was largely accepted by people in Wigan and in many other similar constituencies. The trouble is that what we’ve had is the same as the public, we’ve had people on each extreme, on our side people who support a second referendum because they want to remain and on their side people who want to leave with no deal who have been knocking out all of the compromise options in the middle and as a consequence we’ve got to this point where we can’t move forward. Now last week we saw a bit of movement on that, we started to compromise and the option that most of us came closest – because many of us did compromise – to winning a majority support in Parliament was a customs union and I think, I hope, what you are going to see emerge tomorrow and over the next few days is strong support across the Tory and Labour benches for a form of soft Brexit and then it is really up to the Prime Minister. Is she willing to start listening to those very different views and those very different experiences across the country or she is going to drive this country to the brink of no deal or she going to face a general election.

SR: Listening to what you say now on the customs union and also listening to what Emily Thornberry was saying earlier about a customs union, why is it that you’re unable to vote for the Withdrawal Agreement, which effectively has a customs union in it anyway? If you are trying to find a way through and a compromise solution, why not vote for the Prime Minister’s Withdrawal Agreement?

LISA NANDY: Well going into a transition where you are still able to trade is obviously extremely important and the Withdrawal Agreement passing would allow us to do that, which is why for six months now I have been saying I am trying to find a way to vote for this. The problem is the lack of clarity about the future which is why this week is really important because if we can persuade the Prime Minister to write those assurances into the political declaration that accompanies the Withdrawal Agreement and given that on Friday they accepted an amendment from Gareth Snell and myself and others giving a role to Parliament in those future stages and a vote on what happens next, then perhaps we could start to see some movement. I have to say though that the Prime Minister has caused some problems this week because by standing, saying she will stand down when the Withdrawal Agreement goes through which was said to reassure hard line Tory MPs on her own side, she has actually had precisely the opposite effect on the Labour side because these guarantees that she is currently making, we have no idea whether they will be met by a new Prime Minister. A new Prime Minister obviously wouldn’t be bound by many of those assurances and that has been the problem all the way through this process. The Prime Minister is trying to play it both ways but actually she is going to have to decide: does she take the centre and form a majority consensus across Parliament and the country around a form of soft Brexit and enable us to move on or is she going to continue pandering to a small group of people in her own party? That’s her choice, only she can make it and that’s what I hope they will be able to deal with this week because for all of the talk from the Prime Minister about the need to compromise, there is one person who hasn’t compromised all the way through this process and that’s why we’re in the mess that we’re in and the frustration that you heard in Whitstable is absolutely what I’ve been hearing in Wigan as well and we can’t take much more of this.

SR: So just to really try and pin down now, you mentioned the amendment that you’ve been pushing, giving Parliamentarians a greater say on a new deal, the next phase of talks, so if that amendment goes through would you then be prepared to vote for the Withdrawal Agreement?

LISA NANDY: So the government said on Friday that they would accept that amendment. We weren’t able to move it because the Speaker didn’t select it, just a technical question, the government has said that they will write that into the Meaningful Vote whenever it arises again, if it does. So that was a really, really welcome move from the Prime Minister, very late but still very, very welcome. If we could get this consensus around the customs union written into the political declaration, if we could see the Prime Minister really start to move and accept that these things matter and give some level of assurances around the process of what happens next then yes, but the problem was on Friday she stood at the despatch box lecturing MPs and still saying the reason this hasn’t moved is you when actually what we need to see from her is a completely different approach that understands and respects that towns like Wigan have very different economic situations than even perhaps Emily’s constituency and all of those different parts have to be heard in what comes next. If she could do that, she could start to rebuild trust and people like me would find it much easier to vote through the Withdrawal Agreement and move this country on to those next stages of negotiations.

SR: Emily Thornberry told me a few moments ago that in her heart she wants to remain, what do you want in your heart?

LISA NANDY: Well I’ve always been clear with my constituents, I’ve never lied to them about it, I campaigned for remain, I still think it will be in Britain’s interests to remain in the European Union but I do think we’re at a moment now where we have only the options in front of us frankly. Every option that we’ve had has downsides. Why? Because we had a referendum, we asked people to vote in good faith and as you heard in Whitstable, and I heard at the football yesterday in Wigan, we are breaking our democracy. If we ask people to come forward and express a view about the future of the country and they take it seriously and they participate in what was the biggest democratic [inaudible] in my lifetime and then we say we’d like to try and overturn the result of that before we’ve even tried to implement it, I think the consequences of that will be very, very severe for decades to come and that’s why we’ve got to find a way to come together and work through the middle of this to see if we can find an economic relationship with the EU going forward after we leave that protects jobs and towns like mine but also respects the fact that people came out and expressed a view. We told them that they would be heard and they should be.

SR: Okay, Lisa Nandy, thank you very much.

LISA NANDY: Thank you.