Murnaghan Interview with Emily Thornberry MP, Shadow Defence Secretary, 26.06.16
ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS
DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Let’s stick with that theme, the future of the leadership of the Labour party and I’m joined by Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Defence Secretary. Have you come on here to tell us you are resigning from the front bench?
EMILY THORNBERRY: No, I am not going to resign from the front bench. I like Pat and I respect Pat but I think he’s wrong, I think that we have got ourselves into a position as a nation where the Brexiteers wanted to leave Europe but they had no plan as to what would happen next. I think we had a Tory government that allowed us to have a referendum with no Plan B. I feel like they have led the country into a dark wood and they have just abandoned us there and that the UK now needs some leadership. I feel it is incumbent on the opposition to do that, I think it’s really important that our people are looked after, that any negotiations that happen look after our people as well. I think that what happened in the referendum was that half of the country felt that the current system does not look after them. They are not getting what they ought to get out of our country, so whether that’s housing, whether that’s people competing for their jobs, whether that’s access to services and we need to make … and the tragedy is that many of those things could have …
DM: But what can you do as a party to deal with it? What do you say to your Shadow Cabinet colleagues? You have been sitting around the table discussing policy, discussing the referendum with them, well many of them – and we hear many more – many of them have resigned or been sacked and many more are to go, what do you say?
EMILY THORNBERRY: I think the first thing I would say is I am quite surprised. We had a Shadow Cabinet meeting on Friday in which we discussed at length the referendum and we didn’t really hear any of this from the Shadow Cabinet. I mean I explained that I was not going to be in a position to be able to launch my defence review at this stage because obviously the effect of Brexit is such that we will have to look again at defence because it obviously will have a big impact on that but it was also because I want to make sure that we have as unified a party as possible.
DM: I can sit here and say, well you actually don’t, we can all see it now, you don’t have a unified party, you don’t even have a unified front bench.
EMILY THORNBERRY: Well I would appeal to people within the parliamentary Labour party to think of the country and to think of the importance of a united Labour party that is the alternative to the government.
DM: But they would say, and some have been on here saying they are thinking of the country and they are thinking for the sake of the country that you’ve got the wrong leader, he is not going to get elected and he is not going to be able to offer effective opposition.
EMILY THORNBERRY: But it is odd isn’t it? There were dire warnings about what would happen at the local council elections and yet at the local council elections we got as good, if not better, results than we had done during the last parliament and we won all the mayoral elections and obviously in London a whopping great majority, fantastic results in Bristol and so all the doomsayers at that stage were proved to be wrong.
DM: So does he look like winner then to you, Jeremy Corbyn? Do you think he could take on Boris Johnson?
EMILY THORNBERRY: He doesn’t have the same style as me, he doesn’t have the same style as a lot of politicians but do you know what, when he said – and he has been criticised for this from a lot of people, when Jeremy said I give the European Union seven and a half out of ten, I think that he spoke with an authenticity and a reality, he spoke for the British people because there were a lot of British people who voted to remain who would only give it that.
DM: But it maybe helped to sink the remain camp.
EMILY THORNBERRY: No, because I think if David Cameron had stepped aside a bit and allowed a bit more of a Labour voice to come forward, it would have engaged better with the majority of the …
DM: But reports tell us that Mr Cameron’s team begged Jeremy Corbyn to get involved with him and he refused.
EMILY THORNBERRY: No, he didn’t want to share a platform with him because our approach to Europe is different and our approach to Europe we think spoke better and more straightforwardly to our voters and therefore we did not … David Cameron had made this all about him, it was all about his fantastic deal, all about his leadership, I can answer this and let me say that and standing outside Number Ten. If we had had a bit more of an authentic Labour voice speaking to our voters I think that that might have shifted things a bit and I’ll tell you what that means, when you’re asking me what kind of leader Jeremy Corbyn is, actually am I saying that Jeremy Corbyn is a better leader than David Cameron? I think I probably am. As I say, it’s a different style, it’s not one that the Westminster village is used to and it’s not one that I adopt but it is …
DM: But are you horrified at what your front bench colleagues are doing and those that have the pen poised now on the resignation letter, are you saying stop, you’re destabilising a great leader who is going to be our next Labour Prime Minister?
EMILY THORNBERRY: I’m saying that now is not the time to further destabilise the country. I say that the markets are tumbling, the pound is going through the floor, people are lost, our country is lost. We do not at this stage – at this stage – for the Labour party to go through internecine warfare. We must raise our eyes above our tummy buttons and look towards the country and work out what it is that is best for our people.
DM: You’ve got to be in power to make a difference, does Mr Corbyn look like a winner? Let me term it differently, is he the best leader you could have?
EMILY THORNBERRY: Jeremy Corbyn is the leader, he is a good leader, he has had good election results and I think that …
DM: Is he the best leader?
EMILY THORNBERRY: Well let me think. I don’t think for example Obama is available. There are other people one could think of but Jeremy is the leader, he was elected with a 60% majority a year ago, less than a year ago, a 60% majority of our membership and the membership if there was an election tomorrow, and of course it would be for them to decide who our next leader is, they would vote for him in increased numbers. That is the reality, it is our duty as the front bench to make him as good a leader as he can be and for us to be a team.
DM: If he decided to stand down because he’s got this vote of no confidence, people voting with their feet – present company excepted – from the front bench of his party, if he decided to stand down would you persuade him, try to persuade him to reconsider?
EMILY THORNBERRY: He is not going to stand down, that is a stupid question. Sorry but it is a stupid question, he is not going to stand down. He has been elected less than a year ago on a huge mandate, the one electoral test that he’s had, the straight electoral test on the local elections he did well, we did well as a party. We have now got our country turned upside down and inside out with no idea of where we are going now, we do not go for a leadership challenge now.
DM: So do you think he can win back those voters who in the referendum campaign, on that single issue, said no we don’t want to go with your point of view? Labour supporters – and it was a single simple message – saying we are so concerned about immigration, we are so concerned about the number of people coming to this country quite legally and putting so much pressure on our public services and Jeremy Corbyn told them time and time again, it’s good for you, they are free to come. Is that a good policy to stick to?
EMILY THORNBERRY: So there are two things I want to say. The first is I think we have to learn from the Scottish referendum. When the Scottish referendum happened instead of us reaching out to our Labour voters after the Scottish referendum we got involved in all sorts of fights in the Scottish Labour party and I think that that was wrong and looking back on it a lot of people regret it and I think we should learn from that so that’s number one. Number two, in relation to immigration, I think that again in all of this fuss how much did people hear of the speech that he made yesterday on where we think where the future ought to be for us in our relationship with Europe and again he said we must look again at the aspect of immigration … You asked me a question, let me answer it.
DM: Well I’m going to rephrase it, that you are fundamentally out of touch with huge swathes of Labour supporters who don’t live in the Metropolitan bubble.
EMILY THORNBERRY: I think that there are people wherever they live who feel that they are left behind. I spoke on the day of the referendum to a guy who said I’m thinking of voting out Emily because I have got two grown up sons and they can’t get anywhere to live and I think that there is either too many people in this country or we’re not building enough houses.
DM: And if Jeremy Corbyn did go would you serve under a new leader if asked?
EMILY THORNBERRY: I will always do what I think is best for the Labour party and I believe the Labour party is the best party to be in government and I will always put all my efforts into ensuring that we get the best Labour government that we can.
DM: Shadow Defence Secretary, thank you very much indeed, Emily Thornberry there.
