Murnaghan Interview with Sir Eric Pickles MP, Special Envoy on Post-Holocaust Issues, 1.05.16

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, Israel’s new Ambassador to the UK has warned the left is in denial about anti-Semitism.  It’s after the suspension of both an MP and one of the party’s most senior figures, Ken Livingstone, in the last week.  Well Sir Eric Pickles was Communities Secretary until last May, he is now the government’s Special Envoy for  the Post-Holocaust Issues and he is with me now, a very good morning to you Sir Eric.  Do you think this is damaging for the UK what’s going on here?   

SIR ERIC PICKLES: Absolutely, you can’t have one of the major opposition parties sort of at each other’s throats over something as important as anti-Semitism.  You can’t have a former Mayor going round saying Hitler was a Zionist which is plainly stupid and is plainly anti-Semitic.  

DM: As I said we’re hearing from the Israeli Ambassador to the UK from the Labour party in Israel saying it almost beggars belief what they’re hearing.  

SIR ERIC PICKLES: Well the Labour party in Israel has invited Mr Corbyn to go across to look at Yad Vashem, to meet some people on the ground and I would urge him to do so but I think Mr Corbyn has got a problem.  He has been too close to terrorist organisations, he has been too involved in anti-Israeli activity and I think it’s a blind spot and he has kind of given a green light to those people who existed on the fringe of the Labour party to make it mainstream.

DM: What would you say to Mr Corbyn in your view that he has to do to demonstrate that he is completely intolerant of these kinds of things.  There are issues about Mr Corbyn sharing platforms and calling members of Hamas friends and things like that.  

SIR ERIC PICKLES: Well I think that’s right.  He has made a start, a reluctant start by appointing Ms Chakrabarti to look into this but it almost like [inaudible], he needs a six point plan to root out anti-Semitism and he needs to kind of understand that Jewish people in this country are not responsible for what the Israeli government do, that it’s not legitimate to compare Israel to the Nazi regime and it is part of the leader of the Opposition’s job to make people, whether they are Jewish, Muslim, Christians, people of no faith, to feel at home in their own country.  

DM: In terms of the UK and its dealings with issues surrounding the war, I want to get on to the Kinder Transport and the parallels that have been drawn now with these 3000 unaccompanied child refugees within Europe. Now Tim Farron and others of course, the leader of the Lib Dems, was on the programme a minute or two ago saying the government isn’t doing enough here, surely we should take in at least 3000 unaccompanied children from Europe and you said something along those lines before but you voted with the government against it.

SIR ERIC PICKLES: Yes, I did.  I gave the government the benefit of the doubt, it was made easier because they agreed last week to take an additional 3000 from the camps.  Now I don’t have any doubt that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are sincere that their worries in terms of taking young people, kids from Europe, would encourage more people to take those risky journeys across the Mediterranean.  I am not in the government so I will say I myself am not entirely convinced by their argument, I just gave them the benefit of the doubt in this vote and I’m hoping …

DM: So do you remain to be persuaded then?  

SIR ERIC PICKLES: I remain to be persuaded.  

DM: So you could vote against the government if it comes back to the House?

SIR ERIC PICKLES: If it comes back to the House I will give it very serious consideration.  I was swayed last time by what the government did in terms of allowing additional refugees in but I do think people are overplaying the Kinder Transport.  These were people coming out of Nazi Germany where they were at risk, there was nowhere else they could go, they are in European countries that are democracies, that do have systems to look after them but having said that, I would not be averse to seeing unaccompanied children given additional help.  

DM: Okay, well we’ll watch that with interest.  Can I just put something to you, Sir Eric, something I heard, I was talking to Lord Heseltine a little bit earlier in the programme today about the EU referendum campaign and he almost gasped when he described Conservative MPs and ministers who he said owed winning their seats to David Cameron now opposing him on this issue and criticising elements of government policy and indeed his renegotiation with the European Union.  Do you agree in part at least with what Lord Heseltine said?

SIR ERIC PICKLES: Do you know, I think I probably agree in total with what Lord Heseltine says.  We wouldn’t be in government now without David Cameron, I think it is quite understandable why Conservative MPs are playing the man rather than the ball because they don’t actually have much of a case.  We are waiting, and continue to wait, for an alternative to our membership of the European Union.  There isn’t one so all they’ve got left I think is vulgar abuse.  

DM: So what does it mean for putting the party back together again after the referendum whatever the result?  There were those who said that if Mr Cameron and your side wins, he should be magnanimous with those that have been criticising elements of their own departments in some cases, he should be magnanimous and there are others saying there’s a chance to recast the party more in his own image.  


SIR ERIC PICKLES: David Cameron is a big man, he’ll do the right thing, I’m sure that he will be magnanimous and help to pull the party together and I hope that people will get completely behind him because he is one of the great post-war Prime Ministers that the party has had and we should be grateful to him.  

DM: And would he be doing the right thing to resign if the Leave side win?  

SIR ERIC PICKLES: No, I think the Prime Minister should stay on.  I am not with my friend Ken Clarke with this issue, I think we would need him more than ever.  

DM: Sir Eric, good to see you, thank you very much.  Sir Eric Pickles there.