Sunday with Niall Paterson Interview with Barry Gardiner, Shadow International Trade Secretary

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SUNDAY WITH NIALL PATERSON, SKY NEWS

NIALL PATERSON: Trade will soon be the focus of Brexit talks but exactly what kind of trade deal do we want? Joining me now is the Shadow International Trade Secretary, Barry Gardiner. Mr Gardiner, a very good morning to you. We will be talking a lot about trade in just a moment but I just want to pick up that our reporter, political correspondent Lewis Goodall, has been looking at today, Momentum and the influence that it has on the party. What do you make of them?

BARRY GARDINER: Well they are a group of people who have joined the Labour party because they are enthused by the manifesto and that’s a very, very good thing. We are not the largest party, the largest political party in the whole of Western Europe, over half a million members. That’s about democracy in action and that has to be a good thing.

NP: But do you recognise the characterisation of them as Jeremy Corbyn’s Praetorian Guard? This accord that people are being asked to sign in order to gain Momentum approval, what purpose does that serve apart from their own?

BARRY GARDINER: Look, you know, I think it’s a very strange day if politicians become afraid of the electorate, afraid of the people. We have very clear processes in the Labour party, it’s called the manifesto. That’s what we all sign up to when it comes to a general election so I don’t see a problem with people within the party, whether they are from the right or from the left, whether it’s Prospect or Progress or Momentum, actually campaigning on the issues that within the Labour party, within that broad spectrum that we are, they campaign just as everybody else does for the things that they believe in. That’s what a political party should be about, it should be about principle and values.

NP: The criticism has always been that there was always a place for serial rebel Jeremy Corbyn within the broad church of Labour, now there is a feeling on the part of some who are identified variously as centrists or Blairites or whatever, that they are being marginalised or even pushed out of posts that they have held. I presume that is not a characterisation that you recognise?

BARRY GARDINER: Look, on a day when most of our major newspapers are leading with people like Patience Wheatcroft, the Conservative peer in the House of Lords, warning the Prime Minister about bullying when we’ve seen in the papers this week Conservative MPs being threatened with death threats, you’re talking to me about people within the Labour party asking …

NP: It’s two minutes of an interview, Mr Gardiner, okay, you mentioned the polls in the papers there, a really striking poll in the Independent on Sunday today signalling 51% support to remain in the European Union, 41% to leave. What’s your assessment of that?

BARRY GARDINER: My assessment of that is that the referendum was conducted on a 50% plus one basis and that was a very shaky basis to do any referendum because actually if you want to establish the settled will of the population for the next 25 or 40 years, you should have had a threshold. But we are where we are and no politician went out on the doorstep and said to people, look, please come out and vote on Thursday, it would be nice to know what you think. We went out on the doorstep and we said please, you have to vote on Thursday, it’s essential, this is going to shape the future of our country for the next 40 or 50 years and that is why the referendum is now about making sure that we carry out the democratic will as expressed by the people.

NP: But what if that trend continues? What, if as you suggest, we may be brought towards a 60 or 65% of the population wanting to remain within the European Union? At that point doesn’t the issue of a second referendum rather become live?

BARRY GARDINER: Well you see, last week a very important debate took place in parliament and we won a very important vote and that was that Members of Parliament should have a meaningful final vote on the nature of the deal and that is what the government now has to give to parliament. Actually those who campaigned very strongly for leave should welcome that because what they argued for was to take control back from Europe and to give it to the parliament of the United Kingdom. It wasn’t to give it to the Prime Minister, it wasn’t to give it to any faction within her Cabinet, and what we are seeing is now the working out of those two factions in her Cabinet, some who want to go for a Norway style deal, the others who’d like to take us a bit further west to Canada and we are seeing that absolutely drive a wedge through the Conservative party.

NP: Indeed, a wedge which clearly doesn’t necessarily exist within the Labour party, we’ve got a pretty good idea of what you want as an end state – really close alignment with the European Union not in the Customs Union but perhaps a Customs Union, a fair assessment?

BARRY GARDINER: We haven’t swept either the Single Market or a Customs Union off the table, we said we are not fixated on the structures, what we want are the benefits. I think though if you look at the way in which the Conservative Party, they are absolutely riven on this issue of the Court of Justice, the European Court of Justice and whether it is going to have sway over the UK over the next eight years. That is the dividing line within the Conservative party, so is the unity of the United Kingdom. The unity of the United Kingdom demands that Northern Ireland and the rest of Great Britain are treated in exactly the same way.

NP: As we saw on Thursday night there is a growing discontent … there is a degree of growing consternation with the position that the Labour party has. We see the European Union as our greatest ally, we want to continue to trade with them as closely as possible, on terms as closely aligned as possible. We want to see – what was the phrase? – easy movement of EU nationals, the Labour party is not terribly annoyed about ECJ oversight. Simply put, what’s the point of us leaving the European Union if that’s the end state that you want?

BARRY GARDINER: Look, the point is this, we have to preserve our economy and our jobs and in order to do that we need to make sure that we are closely aligned with our major trading partner. When Wilbur Ross came over from the United States and spoke to the CBI just a few weeks ago, he said look, if you want a good trade deal with the USA you are going to have to move away from the alignment that you have, the regulatory alignment that you have with the EU and you have got to align yourselves more with us. The very next week … hang on, hang on because I am answering your question …

NP: You’ve avoided it.

BARRY GARDINER: No, I haven’t actually …

NP: You said a couple of moments ago that the public vote …

BARRY GARDINER: If you let me finish, Niall, I will answer your question.

NP: … the public vote had to be respected. In what way is easy movement for EU nationals, ECJ oversight, trading on the same terms, in what way is that Brexit?

BARRY GARDINER: I am trying to explain to you the importance of alignment is that each country that we seek to do a trade agreement with demands that we align our rules with theirs and therefore it makes sense to say that you have to align your rules with the party with which you wish to have as your major trading partner, that is the European Union. 44% of our trade is with the European Union and that’s why a close alignment with them is necessary, nobody disputes that.

NP: You have picked one model which is just one model of the end state, there is another model which suggests that actually we would be rather better if we could take control of our own laws, if we didn’t have ECJ oversight, if we can actually bring a proper end to freedom of movement for EU nationals, all of those things under your plan wouldn’t be the case.

BARRY GARDINER: No, no. Look, if we … sorry, you have given an alternative view, let me now try and debunk it, okay, because actually what that alternative view is dependent upon is precisely the sort of things that Michael Gove today in the newspapers has come out and said he is going to argue for tomorrow, which is an end to the Working Time Directive. These are the regulations which under that model that you just put forward, all the rights that we have at work, all the security and safety standards, all the environmental protections, they’re the things that go under that model and that is why as a Labour government we would not go down that route, it is not acceptable to us, the labour standards and environmental protections …

NP: We are just about to run out of time. That is a fair position to take but very, very quickly there is a simple way of sorting this out and that is a second referendum in which both those points, those end states can be put to the public. Can you conceive of circumstances in which there is a second referendum?

BARRY GARDINER: Look, what I …

NP: Please give me a yes/no on that one at least.

BARRY GARDINER: The Labour party has not said that we’ll have a second referendum, we will honour the referendum result but we last week got a final vote for parliament on the deal. That is the democratic guarantee that now is there because of Labour members of parliament and eleven Conservatives joining with us.

NP: Barry Gardiner, many thanks for being with us.