Murnaghan Interview with Tom Watson MP, Labour Deputy Leader, 13.03.16

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well Labour isn’t winning back the voters who switched to the Conservatives at the last general election, that’s the warning from two of its own prominent MPs, Gloria Del Piero and Jonathan Ashworth.  The party under Jeremy Corbyn will face its biggest electoral test yet in May with elections in many places around the United Kingdom.  Well I’m joined now by Labour’s Deputy Leader, Tom Watson.  

TOM WATSON: Happy Sunday, Dermot.

DM: Happy Sunday to you, a very good morning to you Deputy Leader.  Well let’s continue with that research carried out by Gloria De Piero and Jonathan Ashworth, a lot of it was done not in Labour’s so-called heartlands but in the so-called Blair constituencies that you won in the 90s, some of them in the south, held throughout the early noughties and are now lost and the voters are telling your researchers they have no inclination to come back.

TOM WATSON: Yes, Gloria and Jonathan are very experienced political campaigners and what they’re really showing is we’ve got a long way to go and you would expect that after two election defeats.  The cumulative impact of losing that trust in two elections means we’ve got to work much harder in this parliament to build a policy programme that people trust and are attracted to and we’re all committed to that.  

DM: But who do you think is articulating that policy programme to win these, they must be softish Labour voters, back?  Is it the current leadership, is it Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell – he’s just been on the Marr Show this morning, or is it people like Dan Jarvis and Rachel Reeves.  

TOM WATSON: Well this weekend we’re celebrating the centenary of Harold Wilson’s birth, I’ve had cause to read a lot of my Labour history since being elected as Deputy Leader and one thing that Harold managed to do was capture the spirit of the age but hold his party together by bringing these different ideas into a creative process and certainly that’s what I’m trying to do as Deputy Leader.

DM: Is that what Jeremy Corbyn is trying to do?

TOM WATSON: I think Jeremy has actually freed up a political debate that we’ve not had for a long time in our party and you see with John McDonnell, he’s trying to set out some big tenets of our economic thinking over this week but you’ve also got other people like Dan who are trying to look at maybe where Labour went wrong.  He did a speech on the economy this week where he said that Labour didn’t focus on inequality enough and I agree with him on that.

DM: But just staying with the Wilson parallel there, the fact is that he was the leader, became the Prime Minister several times, he led, he articulated that triangulation or whatever we want to call it but you are saying Jeremy Corbyn is standing back, he’s freed up others to have the debate.

TOM WATSON: No, I’m saying that the genius of leadership is that you can allow people to express difference of opinions as long as they maintain their personal relationships, he was a man who managed both Tony Benn and Roy Jenkins in his cabinet and what Jeremy is doing, he has very forthright views but he is pulling a team of people together who may have different approaches but if we can synthesise that into an election winning formula then we’ll be …

DM: But you accept that Dan Jarvis for instance has a perfect right to say what he said but when the likes of Ken Livingstone came out and was very, very rude about him, comparisons to Jimmy Savile running things and stuff like that.

TOM WATSON: Ken Livingstone finds himself in a unique position in that he is historically close to Jeremy Corbyn and so these utterances get more media coverage and I was incredibly disappointed by that and I know Jeremy is too and that was very unhelpful because what we’re trying to do is make sure that all our members and our MPs and our representatives stick to talking about policies and issues and don’t slug it out with personal insults.  

DM: Okay but it is the people who articulate the policies.  What do you read into these reports that those that want to see Jeremy Corbyn gone, don’t want to see him remain as leader, that they are on manoeuvres now because they feel they have to strike before the party conference when there may be a rule change about the ballot paper that means a former leader would have to appear on that, if Jeremy Corbyn were removed that would be he – you know what I’m talking about.

TOM WATSON: Well yes, this is the great irony of politics isn’t it, in that there are people in the party who are trying to change the rules in order to try and protect Jeremy’s position and they might just be precipitating a challenge to his leadership because of that.  Of course that’s not common sense and I just hope that those people that are holding those different views can calm down a bit. The fundamentals are both Jeremy and I were elected last September on a very large mandate from our membership, they decide who the Leader and Deputy Leader of the party are and they do not want after nine months another leadership challenge and I hope that those MPs on all side of this argument will pay heed of that.

DM: But on the pure issue of the rules themselves as they stand, you’re saying leave them alone.  So if Jeremy Corbyn were to go he could resign himself then if the MPs don’t nominate him he would not be on the ballot paper?

TOM WATSON: Well those rules have stood the test of time and I think  if you have got one political faction trying to change the rules in the way they’re doing, it does create uncertainty and insecurity amongst a lot of people and I think it is actually unhelpful that they are pushing them at this time.

DM: Now onto the issue of Europe, you are very clear about that.  Do you feel Jeremy Corbyn is campaigning hard enough?  Like yourself he is a remainer as is the party policy but we don’t see an awful lot of Jeremy Corbyn on the stump, as John McDonnell was saying today he is going to be.

TOM WATSON: Actually I think we do.  I’ve done a lot of events with Jeremy in the last few months where he always talks about  Europe and in terms of the Labour campaign, we’ve got our best communicator leading the campaign, Alan Johnson, who is doing a very admirable job at sort of marshalling our resources and our arguments.  

DM: Again, leaving others to it, it seems to be a regular feature.

TOM WATSON:  It is part of the art of leadership that you can delegate responsibility and I was very keen that he did that with Alan as well because he’s the great communicator but what he’s also done is pledge not to share a platform with David Cameron because of course some of the issues that we believe need to be addressed in this campaign, David Cameron has problems talking about – the social Europe, the protections for workers that are given in the Social Chapter that was a John Major legacy, David Cameron can’t talk about because it causes difficulties with his right wing MPs.  We are going to be talking about a workers Europe and a social Europe and Jeremy is going to be …

DM: Is it also a legacy of the Scottish referendum campaign when you got tarred with that Tartan Tories brush because you campaigned and led the campaign for Scotland to remain within the UK?

TOM WATSON: There is no doubt that the legacy of the Scottish campaign has helped dictate some of the decisions we’ve taken on the European campaign and we do not want to be tarred with the same brush as David Cameron on this so we are going to be running our own distinct campaign within the Labour party, talking to how Europe supports British workers.  We’re going to do that because David Cameron can’t.  

DM: And how big a factor do you think migration is going to play in the ultimate vote on June 23rd?

TOM WATSON: I think some of the people in the out campaign would rather have this referendum on migration and free movement of labour and that would be a shame because it is actually taking away the national debate that we require about the future of Europe but there is no doubt about it, that will be a feature of that.

DM: And refugees, you have been critical of the government’s approach to the refugee crisis in the past, you still haven’t said though how many more refugees perhaps Britain should take.  

TOM WATSON: Well that is actually one of the discussions that is taking place at  a European level now.  We’re not in government, we’re not party to those discussions but I would say that when you’ve got mass movement of people because of war, famine or climate change, then you can only address that at a global level and Europe was very, very much part of that.  It’s pretty clear to me that as a result of climate change we are not going to end movement of refugees very easily.

DM: To cut a long story short on that one then, should Britain bear its fair share, if it remains within the EU should it take more migrants, more refugees?

TOM WATSON: Of course it should bear its fair share but what I can’t say to you this morning, Dermot, is what is Britain’s fair share.  We need to negotiate that.

DM: Let me just ask you a quick question about the Mayor of London, the contender from the Labour side Sadiq Khan.  He said he feels his opponent Zac Goldsmith is trying to smear him with association with terrorism based on some of the people that he shared platforms with in the past.

TOM WATSON: Well I sincerely hope that that’s not the case.  You know, actually I very great respect and regard for Zac Goldsmith, I’ve worked with him on Child Abuse inquiries and I know that it’s not in his nature to smear opponents but I also know how sometimes campaign teams around candidates can misbehave and take negative campaigning to a new level and it certainly seems to me that Sadiq Khan is being set up so that a very negative campaign can be run against him in the last four weeks of the campaign and I think that would be a huge disservice for Londoners and would not be a fair way of going about what is a battle for London.

DM: You mentioned there the sex abuse campaigns, Zac Goldsmith and you have been prominent in asking for investigations into these allegations of historical sex abuse, are you unapologetic about getting Lord Brittan’s name involved and getting him interviewed by the police?

TOM WATSON: Well actually it wasn’t me that got him interviewed by the police, it was a woman who alleged that he had sexually attacked her and the police have been cleared in an independent inquiry in the way they handled that inquiry. There are a number of allegations against Leon Brittan that are currently being investigated by the police and are the subject of the Goddard Inquiry, I myself have been in front of the Home Affairs Select Committee to answer for the things that I’ve said.  I’ve given an apology to Lady Brittan for repeating a negative allegation made against …

DM: But it is about the pressure you put on the Metropolitan Police and this came to the same Home Affairs Select Committee, evidence given by DCI Settle by the Metropolitan Police who said they were sent into a state of panic by what you said and hauled Lord Brittan in for questioning as a result.   I mean you leant on them.

TOM WATSON: Well the Head of the Met Police has denied that and the Department for Public Prosecutions has denied that and actually the evidence shows that the decision to arrest Lord Brittan was made before I wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions so on that one I think  you are a little factually incorrect.

DM: Well it was DCI Settle saying it to that committee that there was a state of panic within the Metropolitan Police and they acted instantly to question Lord Brittan.  That’s all I know.

TOM WATSON: I remember the interview but he was also asked were you not surprised that Tom Watson’s letter arrived before the decision was made?  And I think he used the phrase ‘Fair point, well made’.  So even DCI Settle seemed to admit that.  

DM: And that was the only contact you had with any sources within the Metropolitan Police?

TOM WATSON: Yes, well all my letters and correspondence to the Met Police has been published, yes.

DM: Okay, now this has a bearing on that in terms of dealings with the Metropolitan Police and others, you were very vocal about the whole process, the phone hacking, that led to the Leveson Inquiry and onwards.  Out of that was supposed to come a new press regulator, there is a formative one – IPSO replacing the PCC, we don’t want to get caught up in too much jargon here but do you think that is sufficient and that is as far as it seems to be going?

TOM WATSON: Well Leveson, the first part of Leveson addressed whether we needed a new set of regulatory arrangements and frankly there is a tussle at the moment about how we go about that, the industry is taking one position, the campaigners are taking another.  I hope that we will get to a point where there is self-regulation that implements in full the Leveson recommendations.

DM: And a Labour government would legislate for that?

TOM WATSON: Well I would much rather that industry and campaigners establish a system that is robust on the minds of the public and not get to legislation but there is a second part of Leveson which seems to have been forgotten, which examines the relationship with the media and the police which I think probably needs to take place.  My Shadow Cabinet colleague, Maria Eagle, leads on this but there has been lots of investigative journalism that has pointed to police corruption that may have been involved in some of the elements of the tabloid press that I think still needs teasing out and so Leveson is not over and there are still lessons that can be learnt there.

DM: Deputy Leader, thank you very much indeed.  Tom Watson there, the Deputy Leader of the Labour party.