Murnaghan Interview with Damian Green, MP, Former Conservative Minister, 6.12.15

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, in his first conference speech as leader of the Conservative party ten years ago, David Cameron warned his party to stop banging on about Europe but a decade on and with a referendum promised by 2017, not much has really changed has it?  Well it was hoped an agreement about the terms of Britain’s membership could be reached at a key summit of European leaders a bit later this month but that’s already looking very unlikely.  I am joined now by the Conservative MP and former Home Office Minister, Damian Green, he is also a member of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, a very good morning to you Mr Green.  I just wanted to ask you with your former Home Office credentials what  you make of this report that the attack in the Leytonstone tube station in East London may have had a terrorist link?

DAMIAN GREEN: Well it is obviously worrying.  As you say incidentally, all those who criticise tasers, we now have a live suspect.  In any other country in the world he’d have been shot, so actually there are times when tasers are absolutely necessary, they kept people safe and they worked.  Clearly what’s happening now is the police will not just be interrogating him but looking through phone and computer records and hopefully that will garner the intelligence, if he is part of a wider group and that is obviously very urgent.  

DM: Well we await, as you say, the outcome of that questioning and that investigation.  Right, let’s get on with the issue of Europe.  Your leader saying ten years ago he really wanted to move on, you must remember it well, how time flies – stop banging on about Europe.  Well your party is banging on again and how.  

DAMIAN GREEN: But we now at least have an end point in that we’ll have a referendum some time in the coming years and my guess would be, for what it’s worth, next year and at that point we can have a national debate and we can decide and I hope that referendum, which obviously I hope we vote to stay in because it’s overwhelmingly in our economic and security advantage to do so, that will end the debate for a generation like the previous referendum did.  

DM: But how do you think it should be managed though within the party because there are real hurdles there aren’t there?  There are parallels with the Labour party, some parallels, with the Syria vote.  In the end they got a free vote, they all agreed to disagree and campaign accordingly, if it comes to an EU referendum given how deeply held some of the beliefs are on both sides within the Conservative party, how should the Prime Minister handle his senior team?  What should you tell them to do if he recommends one way or the other?

DAMIAN GREEN: I assume that the Prime Minister will have a successful negotiation so he therefore will be leading the in campaign.  From my point of view, if there are people within the government who feel strongly enough to campaign for out then they should be allowed to do so, clearly.  

DM: But stay in post, they don’t have to resign cabinet rank?   

DAMIAN GREEN: I would have thought so, that was the precedent in 1975 and this is a once in a generation vote so therefore everyone will want to express their own views and there are a few people who hold views so strongly.  I hope, and indeed what a lot of the Cabinet members who say they are eurosceptic say they are waiting to see what the Prime Minister comes back with. The fact that there has not been an easy and quick agreement actually shows that this is a serious negotiation, that he is asking for big changes that will change Britain’s relationship with the EU and that’s what we want to see.

DM: I am going to ask you about that in a moment or two but do you think the party can handle this, this is potentially bigger than the 1990s and of course you have got a referendum and the campaign we’re talking about at the end with members of the same party perhaps campaigning against each other, do you think you can all do and reunite around whatever the result is?

DAMIAN GREEN: Yes, I think it requires everyone campaigning on both sides to behave in a civilised and respectful way which I would put as a slight contrast to the way the Labour party is behaving towards itself at the moment.  I’ve done plenty of these debates, not least on your programme, already with parliamentary friends and colleagues and we remain friends and colleagues.  We may disagree on this issue but we are all Conservatives and we need to remain friends and colleagues.

DM: What do you make of the timing of it? When would you like to see a referendum if possible, sooner rather than later?

DAMIAN GREEN: Yes, I think as soon as possible but that means that the Prime Minister has to have had a successful negotiation first and because he’s asking for big things, that is inevitably going to take some time.  I hope he can come to a successful conclusion in the early months, maybe by the summer of next year.  

DB: But do you think he is going to get the biggest thing he needs?  It is all couched in control of the borders isn’t it, the biggest thing he needs now is the ability to suspend or delay payments, in-work benefits, to those coming from the East, there was the Prime Minister in Bulgaria last week, to delay those payments four years and the rest of the EU – we’ve just had a Polish MP saying we support Britain in so much, we want Britain to stay in the EU, we support Britain in so many of its aspirations for the changes within the EU but not on this one.  

DAMIAN GREEN: And that’s going to be one of the difficult areas of negotiation.  In fact interestingly the introduction of Universal Credit solves some of the problems because we will start paying benefits in a different way anyway for unemployment benefit and so on, so people who arrive here won’t be entitled to those.  There is still work to be done on in-work benefits and that is, you’re right, one of the more difficult things that will take months to negotiate but you put it in the context of the refugee crisis and immigration and so on, I think one of the stark things that the current dangerous state of the world shows us is how we make ourselves safer by being part of a wider organisation where we can work collaboratively with other friendly democracies, precisely in fighting terrorism.  Things like the European Arrest Warrant which allow us to get terror suspects back here faster than we would do if we were outside the EU …

DM: I think people can get all the way from Turkey or wherever they originate from, all the way through the Schengen countries right up to the borders of the UK without actually having a passport, that’s not safe.

DAMIAN GREEN: But the point is, we’re not part of Schengen.  We do have the best of both worlds, we have all this co-operation, we’re voting on some more on Tuesday in the House of Commons where the government is recommending that we sign up to an agreement that allows quicker exchange of DNA but at the same time we have our own borders so that’s the best of both worlds that Britain needs and deserves in the EU.

DM: Mr Green, thank you very much indeed, Damian Green there.