Sunday with Niall Paterson Labour MP Debate Caroline Flint, Lisa Nandy, Clive Lewis

SKY NEWS – SUNDAY WTH NIALL PATERSON – 10.00 – 24.09.17 – DISCUSSION WITH LISA NANDY, CLIVE LEWIS & CAROLINE FLINT, LABOUR MPs.

NIALL PATERSON: You might not realise it with all the giddy excitement at this conference but the Labour party isn’t actually in power and by the time of the next election it could have spent more than a decade in opposition. To talk about the long road back to government we are joined now by three of the finest backbenchers in Labour party ranks – Clive Lewis, Caroline Flint and Lisa Nandy. I’m on your Christmas card lists now I’m sure! Clive, let’s start with you, party unity is going to be a topic, it’s always a topic when it comes to this particular political movement, how unified behind the leader is the Labour party at the moment?

CLIVE LEWIS: I’d say most of the members are obviously, the vast majority of them. I think in the PLP it is probably a little shakier and I think you have to understand why. We have just been through quite a bruising two years and politics is going through vast changes, the country’s going through vast changes, the world’s going through vast changes and there is a transition taking place. It’s a wobbly one, it’s shaky and it’s been quite bruising but I think what this conference is about is drawing a line underneath that and saying we’re a party, a government in waiting and how do we now begin to define what is the future and the offer that we are going to put out there to people for the challenges of the 21st century.

NL: What are the risks, Caroline, if that line is not drawn underneath, underscored, highlighted and then repeated?

CAROLINE FLINT: I think what is clear since the general election earlier this year is that Jeremy actually ran a very good campaign, I think he capitalised on a disastrous campaign and lead by Theresa May and for all intents and purposes Jeremy is our leader and will continue to be our leader I think into the next general election. What we have to show is that despite the wins that we won in 2017, we didn’t win the election, we haven’t won an election since 2005 so we have to prove that we are a government in waiting and to do that we have to make sure that we are in touch on things like Brexit but also we are looking beyond that to the other policies that actually people want to hear about and talk about that affect their families in future. I think a number of the different discussions this week are going to be about Brexit but there are a whole load of other areas on education and health that we need to talk about too.

NL: We’ll move on to policy in a couple of minutes but Lisa Nandy, I suppose the question is exactly how that unity within the party is brought about, be it by changes to the rule book or by permitting those dissenting voices to exist within the broad church of the party.

LISA NANDY: We have always been a broad church and we’re at our best when…

NL: Is it getting narrower these days?

LISA NANDY: Well I don't know really, we were quite narrow under Tony Blair, you only had a very narrow range of voices at the top of the party but then you did have people like Jeremy Corbyn on the back benches providing a challenge and I think actually the Labour party is stronger for that because it means that we represent a much broader spread of opinion within the party. I suppose I’m a bit more optimistic than Clive though, I feel like the election really did settle the question of leadership not just within the membership but within the PLP and the reason that it did that is because we all had the experience of going out knocking on doors day after day, new members and old, alongside members of parliament. We got to know one another in what is essentially a new party and I think it’s built a level of trust that will take us forward and reminded us crucially of what happens when we start focusing on the issues of what matter to the people and not just the issues that matter to us and that’s the challenge for this conference and going forward, is not to descend into in-fighting or start trying to reopen tired questions of leadership or rule changes but to start thinking about …

NL: But you are already there. At an NEC meeting you had a Corbyn supporter saying there are Labour MPs who deserve to be attacked, there are MPs up and down the country hearing murmurs from the CLP about deselection, that doesn’t scream unity to me.

LISA NANDY: I don’t accept that because I’ve read the newspapers this morning, I’ve seen absolute nonsense written about a number of people, including myself, about things we are supposedly saying and doing but when I get here the mood is very positive, the people I meet from a broad spread of the party are very supportive and positive and focused on what we can do to get the Tories out. We’re neck and neck in the polls with the Tories, we’ve got a mountain to climb there’s no question about it but the idea that any of us should be talking about infighting or what’s happening within the Labour party at the moment seems to me astonishing.

CAROLINE FLINT: I think a lot of the discussion about deselection is right, a relatively few number of voices is overblown and I understand why the media want to seize on it every time someone makes a comment on that or even on a leadership bid but I think actually in terms of the rule changes that are happening this week, on the threshold for nominations and what have you, if that’s going to happen that’s going to happen. What I would say, and this is my personal view, is I do think as a party we should recognise the importance of the different constituent parts – the trade union movement, the PLP, members but I also actually feel that full members should have more of a say in the leadership of a leader to the party than those who register for £3 or £5 or whatever.

NP: What do you see as the role of the PLP moving forward? As I said in my introduction, perhaps I hammed it up a little but we have got three of the most talented people within the Labour party sitting on the back benches at the moment so what is the role of the PLP to get yourselves into Number 10?

CLIVE LEWIS: I think the role of the PLP … the PLP has historically played a role where in the terms of a parliamentary route to a Labour government is at the vanguard of that and that’s not changed, it’s still the same but I think what has happened is that the party has shifted. We now have one of the largest social democratic parties in the Western world and I think the rule changes are to reflect those changes and to reflect a growing demand for democracy within I think our party and society at large. The role of the PLP will always be one of partly leadership but partly I think what it does in parliament to drive forward that policy agenda that is democratically decided by the whole of the Labour party - the Labour movement, the trade union movement, the membership – and the PLP has a role to play in that. So I don't think we are being pushed out of the way, it’s just a rearrangement of how things operate and the influence of different sections that the Labour party has and I think that’s quite clear.

CAROLINE FLINT: I think Members of Parliament have an additional role because at the end of the day we are elected by voters who come from all sorts of backgrounds and for me, as someone who has been a party member since 1979, a very long time, and seen a few things in those decades, our party has to avoid just focusing internally on what’s going on inside and look outwards. There is a lesson for us from every election. One of the things about Tony Blair is the fact that we won elections because we had a broad appeal across the country so when you talk about a broad church within the Labour party it is about how do we make sure we have that broad church of support across the country as well. MPs have an important role in that because we have to go out there and listen to our constituents, act on behalf of our constituents, whether they vote Labour or Tory or Green or anything else and represent as best we can those views. That is a very important aspect of what we offer and give to the party.

NP: Lisa, do you feel on the biggest political issue of the day, on Brexit, do you feel that there is sufficient distance between the party position and the government position right now?

LISA NANDY: Well I feel we are leading the government position actually and that’s probably the best place of all to be. I actually feel very optimistic about where we are on Brexit, there is a very live debate within the Labour party that reflects the debate that has happened within the country. We represent both heavily leave and heavily remain constituencies and so if we can get this right in Labour we can get the right offer for the country and actually this deal, this transitional deal that Kier Starmer set out a few weeks ago that Theresa May has now agreed to, seems to me exactly right. You protect jobs, you have no cliff edge, you take time to work through and think things and the compromises we are prepared to make …

NP: But you still have a commitment to push it back by two years.

LISA NANDY: Not necessarily …

CAROLINE FLINT: Well we’re leaving, we’re leaving aren’t we? That’s the cliff edge, we are leaving.

LISA NANDY: But that doesn’t have to mean that you throw jobs, workers’ rights, environmental protections off the edge of that cliff, not to mention the border with Northern Ireland and we do need time to get that right and actually a number of my colleagues – Clive included – signed a letter to the Observer this morning that said we should be looking to remain in the single market for the foreseeable future permanently. Now I don’t happen to agree with Clive about that, about setting out that we have that red line above all else at this stage in the negotiations but it doesn’t mean that I disagree with him ideologically on the point about protecting jobs, the question is how best we do that.

NP: Following on from our discussion about unity and bringing everyone together, how do you square that circle, that you’ve got at least a third of party members who would frankly probably at the very least be dissatisfied with continued membership of the single market, if not absolutely livid about it?

CLIVE LEWIS: It’s a difficult issue and I think what you have to understand is that we’re a democratic party and democracy is a flexible, moving, living entity and there is always going to be debate on major issues and Europe is the most major issue of all in living memory for me. So I see no contradiction in being a unified party working together for a government but also being able to have the debate and move the position – if you think about the country it’s moved since the Brexit vote, we’ve had a general election since, it’s moved … I think it has and that’s what the Labour party is doing and this is why I am in agreement with the front bench although I would like to see it go further and I think it is partly my job and the job of members and those who want to see us have the strongest possible relationship with Europe, to keep pushing that boundary and I think Labour is moving with public opinion and there is nothing wrong with people inside the party pushing Labour to move that way forward.

CAROLINE FLINT: I think to be honest Clive and other colleagues should be more honest when they talk about the campaign for the single market and that’s full membership of the single market. You cannot leave the European Union and be a member of the single market and the customs union, you just can’t do that. So it would be more honest if they just said campaign to not leave the European Union and of course there is a party that is supporting that and it’s called the Liberals. There has to be an honesty about this, I am entirely at one with Labour’s front bench in the recognition that we are leaving the European Union, that there will have to be transition plans – I was saying that a year ago – and also that we will have as much access to the single market as we can and the customs union but there has to be change to freedom of movement. I am afraid the 30-odd people who signed the letter seem to be denial about that and I think they should be more up front and honest which I think is a principled position which is a campaign to stop us leaving the European Union.

NP: Lisa, any thoughts?

LISA NANDY: Having said that we are completely united!

CAROLINE FLINT: Well it’s true, it’s true.

LISA NANDY: Here’s where I agree with Caroline. I agree absolutely that we’ve got the position right within the Labour party that we accept the result of the referendum despite the fact that the vast majority of us didn’t want it and that now our job is to get the best possible deal that we can but to be honest I think that most of the people who signed that letter, Clive included, hold that position. We both campaigned very hard to stay in the EU, we lost that and now we’ve got to work out how we get the best future for Britain and it is a question of strategy and not of ideology.

CAROLINE FLINT: How can we stay in the single market and not leave the European Union?

LISA NANDY: We don’t know, that’s the honest answer.

CAROLINE FLINT: You can’t be.

LISA NANDY: No, there can be a negotiation …

CAROLINE FLINT: But you don’t accept changes to freedom of movement do you?

CLIVE LEWIS: No and I’ll tell you, listen …

CAROLINE FLINT: Therefore you do not respect the vote.

LISA NANDY: But the letter does, the letter actually does say that …

[All talking at the same time]

NP: Let me just make another point, on occasion, on occasion sometimes it appears that the Labour party is divided and you don’t take advantage of clear attack lines given by the Conservatives, would you agree?

CLIVE LEWIS: No, not at all but …

NP: But isn’t the simple fact that at some point the party is going to have bite the bullet, it is going to be absolutely crystal clear about what its position is, not just for the transition period but what happens after that point.

CLIVE LEWIS: Yes, yes indeed, it will and the issue of freedom of movement on which Caroline and myself have vast differences of opinion …

CAROLINE FLINT: What’s our vast differences of opinion?

CLIVE LEWIS: Well I actually believe in freedom of movement.

CAROLINE FLINT: So you don’t think that we should manage migration?

LISA NANDY: Surely you can agree on whether you disagree or not!

CLIVE LEWIS: In Europe we have the freedom of movement and when you are talking about managing migration it ultimately always comes back down to – and you are not going to like to hear this but it always come back down to something the left in this country have much difficulty with but ultimately it is about racism. That’s what it comes down to, it’s about racism.

CAROLINE FLINT: No it’s not.

CLIVE LEWIS: Yes it does and I’m afraid to say that … Managed migration with the rest of the world, yes, but with the European Union it is a retrograde step.

CAROLINE FLINT: No, Diane has said that she recognises and Jeremy has said and I am absolutely at one with them on this, that there has to be some recognition that there needs to be some changes to the way that we handle movement from the EU and that is not …

CLIVE LEWIS: And you can do that within the European Union because the European Union is already discussing this.

CAROLINE FLINT: No, because the thing is Clive, the thing that you do not accept is that people do not want to have our migration settled by 27 other member states, they want us to have the right to decide that. You don’t want any control.

CLIVE LEWIS: This is a very important point, you want to take back democracy from Europe and hand it over in a trade deal to Trump and the corporates and their migration policies?

CAROLINE FLINT: No, you’re twisting it Clive, you don’t want any immigration controls.

CLIVE LEWIS: No, I do want immigration controls but not within Europe and …

NP: I think it is fair to say that there is a conversation that will continue within the Labour movement. Lisa Nandy, Caroline Flint, Clive Lewis, thank you all very much for being with us.