Murnaghan Interview with Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Leadership candidate, 12.07.15

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: When Jeremy Corbyn announced he was joining the Labour leadership race he was seen very much as the outsider, there were doubts that he would even get the 35 nominations from MPs needed to become an official candidate but now of course he is a major player in the contest.  He’s got substantial union backing and is in second place at the moment behind front runner Andy Burnham, and Mr Corbyn joins me now from Newcastle, a very good morning to you Mr Corbyn.  Do you think that some of those MPs that nominated you, some of them openly admitted they wouldn’t be voting for you and they only wanted you on the ballot paper to have what they called the debate, do you think they might be regretting that decision now?

JEREMY CORBYN: No, I’m sure they’re not.  They honestly took part in the discussion, honestly nominated in order to ensure that there was a wide ranging debate in the party and that is now taking place.  We have had hustings all over the country, we’ve got another one this morning here in Newcastle and there is a fantastic response from party members who don’t all agree with everybody and everything of course, but at least the debate is taking place.  We had what looked like a thousand people in Leeds yesterday.

DM: What about the nature of that debate?  Let me put some – and I’m sure you’ve read the comments of your colleague Tristram Hunt, the Shadow Education Secretary, who said Labour needs a summer of hard truths which it’s not been having and he said because of the nature of the debate, the inward looking nature of the debate, the speed at which the Labour party is becoming irrelevant, presumably looking at you, is terrifying.

JEREMY CORBYN: Well I don’t agree with Tristram’s last comments at all but the earlier part, he’s quite right.  Many of us thought there should not have been a leadership contest this summer, instead we should have spent six months or so having a serious discussion about the direction of the party and particularly the economic policy that we follow but we’re having a series of hustings around the country, we’re taking part in many debates, there is going to be probably 20 or 30 of them altogether and many issues come up – economy, social policy, party directions and party membership.  The party membership has already gone up to 250,000 and is rising very fast, people want a strong Labour party, they want a strong party that is dedicated towards decency and social justice in our society and let’s have that discussion, let’s have that debate but above all let’s transform Labour into a social movement that can bring about those changes.  We live in a very unequal, very divided society.  The budget this week is going to make it more unequal and more divided and particularly the attacks on young people in that budget, Labour needs to be there saying sorry, we can do things differently.  Let’s value our young people, let’s cherish their achievements, let’s give them opportunities.

DM: You mentioned the budget, there must be parts of it – again Tristram Hunt has said it’s a land grab in parts on Labour territory, particularly that £9.20 minimum wage, national living wage by the year 2020, that’s way above what Labour was promising before the election.

JEREMY CORBYN: Well it’s a very clever play on words by George Osborne. You call something a living wage, pretend it’s a living wage, tell everybody it’s a living wage then at the same time reduce the level of tax credits which would be available when that wage is released, is reached, so that you actually end up being worse off as a result of the policies that he’s put forward.  Everyone should have a decent living wage and the living wage should be something that people can live on.  I’ve always been part of the living wage campaign, indeed my union NUPE, when I was a union organiser, were the people that first ever campaigned for a national minimum wage. It’s a Labour achievement.

DM: So characterise Labour under a Jeremy Corbyn leadership, just a broad characterisation.  An anti-austerity party, we know that, in the mould of the Scottish National Party or, looking overseas, at Syriza in Greece?

JEREMY CORBYN: Well let’s not put labels on people.  What we need in this country is dealing with the issues of inequality and poverty, therefore we need to do two things.  One is to ensure that we have a welfare system that does deal with poverty, does eliminate destitution but the other side of it is we need a growing economy.  We have an economy which is reliant largely on the housing market and the financial services sector for its expansion but we have huge manufacturing skills, we have huge skills that could be harnessed in green energy projects, many, many other issues like that.  I want to see an economy that grows in a sustainable way so that we end up with an expanding tax base which can of course then service the very necessary public services that we need in this country.

DM: There are those that say, Mr Corbyn, that if you became leader it could split the Labour party, as happened in a different form of course in the 1980s.  Could you envisage a party that you led accommodating people like Tristram Hunt?

JEREMY CORBYN: Look, the Labour party is a very broad church and always has been a very broad church.  I understand that and I get that, I’ve been in the Labour party all my life, I’ve never been in anything else.  I’ve been an MP and still am an MP and hope to remain so and I was a party organiser voluntarily before I became an MP and a councillor.  I understand there are huge differences and debates but what unites the party is a hatred of inequality, a hatred of injustice and a determination that we should provide housing for everybody, a determination that our young people should get work, our young people shouldn’t be saddled with unsustainable debts, those are the things that unite the party.  We founded the National Health Service, we founded the welfare state, we achieved so much in this country that has made this country such a good place for some people. It needs to be a good place for all people.

DM: Isn’t there part of you though, Mr Corbyn, given your decades of campaigning in particular for equality, that says this is the Labour party, isn’t it about time in the 21st century that we had a woman leading it?

JEREMY CORBYN: Well that’s up to the party members to choose.  It is essentially a political decision and it’s the politics that one decides on of what you want but no leader is a dictator.  We wanted greater democracy in our party and greater democracy in the Labour movement so that we can re-discuss and re-debate and I hope change significantly some of our policies, particularly the economic direction of the party.  In the last election we were offering a form of austerity lite, albeit we did very well on zero hours contracts and a number of other issues but we were in effect offering austerity lite.  I think what we need to say is let’s not choose an arbitrary date to go into budget surplus, let’s instead look at the issues of the questions of poverty, the question of waste that poverty brings about and the need for economic expansion rather than an arbitrary date for budgetary surplus.  Even the US has gone for investment rather than austerity and they have much lower rates of unemployment than we do.  Other European countries are beginning to do the same.  Surely the lessons from Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal is that if you go for austerity heavy is what you end up is a declining economy, high levels of unemployment, lower levels of taxed income and then the situation goes on a worse and worse downward spiral.

DM: Last question on international affairs and we’re hearing today that Harriet Harman and the Shadow Defence Secretary, Vernon Coker, will be invited along to the National Security Council to discuss Syria and it may well be a prelude to an attempt to get Britain involved in a bombing campaign that crosses the border of Iraq with Syria.  Do you think Ms Harman should attend that meeting?

JEREMY CORBYN: If she’s invited and wishes to attend that’s absolutely fine but I am not persuaded at all that a bombing campaign on Syria will actually achieve what it is intended to do, that it could then be followed by a pressure for a mass descending ground force and it will take us straight back to Iraq and all the horrors of that.  I think we have to examine very carefully where ISIS came from, ISIL, where they came from, where they get their money from, where they get their arms from and what has brought them about so perhaps we need to be looking at the finance they get, look at the arms they get and look at the relationship of us with a number of other countries in the region to whom we sell very large amounts of arms, who also have a terrible human rights record such as Saudi Arabia.

DM: Good to talk to you Mr Corbyn, thank you very much indeed.  Jeremy Corbyn there, live from Newcastle.