Sophy Ridge on Sunday Interview with Nick Clegg, former Deputy PM, 4.06.17

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SOPHY RIDGE ON SUNDAY, SKY NEWS

SR: We are joined from Sheffield by the former Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg. An horrific terrorist attack, seven people killed, 48 injured, it’s the third terrorist attack in as many months, what is your reaction to it?

NICK CLEGG: Well like anybody else I am shocked, angered and my heart goes out to obviously the families and friends of those who died and the numerous injured and who are being treated in hospitals in London as we speak. I think perhaps what is the most difficult message to communicate in the immediate aftermath of these heinous acts of violence is the one I think Cressida Dick communicated very well just earlier this morning and I’m sure the Prime Minister will repeat which is that the best riposte to the men and women of hatred and violence is to carry on with our normal lives as quickly and as normally as we can. It might sound banal but normality is the best answer to those who want to turn us upside down and inside out and want to inflict their abnormal perverted ideas and their hatred on society so I think the message from Cressida Dick that a) her services, her police services have responded very rapidly and bravely and effectively but also the wider message to the community that we must try and pickup normal life as readily as we can from where we left it. I think that’s a very important message at this time.

SR: Some people watching this programme will think surely now is the time for politicians to wake up and start doing something differently.

NICK CLEGG: Of course there will be a time to look at everything from police resourcing to the powers that are on the statute book to the covert operations of our intelligence services, police and so on. My experience receiving as I did for five years briefings week in and week out on the work of the police and the intelligence services is that they thwart huge numbers of potential and planned attacks but as we know we live in an open and democratic and free society, we can never completely hermetically seal ourselves off from the risk of attack, particularly such a brutal but primitive one as people driving a white van across a bridge and then jumping out with knives. As Cressida Dick said, we prevent a lot of these attacks but we mustn’t imagine we live in a world where we can prevent all of them and yes, of course you’re right, we need to look constantly at the resources, the powers, what kind of additional initiatives we can take as a society to make ourselves safer, I’m sure everyone would agree with that but what we mustn’t do, because that’s what the terrorists want, is to become paralysed by the fear that they want to instil in our hearts and that is what we must not allow, we mustn’t allow them to succeed with that.

SR: You of course have always been a champion of civil liberties as a Liberal Democrat but at the same time we have three people here who although used relatively primitive methods it seems in this attack, were still organised together, were still working together and it appears that the security services didn’t anticipate it. Do you think the security services have got the powers that they need to try and prevent as many potential attacks as possible from happening?

NICK CLEGG: Yes, I think they do and certainly in the discussions that I had with them year in, year out, we always gave them the extra money and indeed, controversially I remember I supported legislation as Deputy Prime Minister for the Investigative Powers Act in 2013 to make sure that the data that we need from international internet providers is still available to us and actually it was David Davis who sought to take the then coalition government to court to object to that. So even though I am of course a liberal and believe you need to always act proportionately and with balance, I have always taken measures – we passed the legislation in the last year of the coalition government which allows us to keep people out of the country who are returning from Syria and Libya and elsewhere, confiscate their passports if necessary so we put new powers on the statute book where we felt that was necessary and didn’t put disproportionate powers on the statute book where we thought that was neither necessary nor effective.

SR: In your time in the coalition government when you were of course privy to some of these security briefings, did you ever change your mind when it came to that balance between ensuring civil liberties but also protecting people? Did you go on a journey yourself?

NICK CLEGG: Like everybody else I don’t think you should seek to play party politics with something as fundamental as the security of our nation. There is always a debate in a democratic society about where principles of privacy and proportionality lie as opposed to providing more powers to the state, that is the nature of democratic debate but most of the time we arrived at operational decisions which were driven by the evidence. There was for instance evidence that we needed to fill a gap in the law to make sure that we continued to have access as quickly as possible to data which was owned and generated by internet service providers elsewhere and we acted on that. That was as I say controversial and as I say the objections to that measure came from different parties so I think this cuts across party political divisions and there were, as you will remember, the so-called Snoopers Charter which I objected to then and still do now but I think on the whole it is very, very important always to work together across party lines particularly at moments like this, to reassure the public that proportionate effective well-resourced measures are being taken wherever they can to keep us safe.

SR: Talking about working together across party lines and not scoring political points on as important an issue as terrorism, national campaigning has been suspended today, do you think that’s the right call and do you think there is an argument perhaps that the general election should be delayed?

NICK CLEGG: No, I don’t at all. I think it is absolutely right that all the parties as I understand it and the leaderships of all the parties have said that national campaigning is being suspended today. Local campaigning including in places like this will carry on I guess in a respectful low key manner but I think it is incredibly important that we don’t suspend our democratic debate and our democratic process, that is what they want. These people who inflict such random brutal violence on us, they hate our values, they hate the joy and the carefree fun that people were having in Borough Market and the pubs and restaurants there, they hated the youngsters going to a concert with their mums and dads in Manchester to watch Ariana Grande, they hate our democratic values, they hate our freedoms, they hate our small l liberalism if I can put it like that. We mustn’t allow them to have their way by suspending our way of life which is the very way of life that they want to attack in the first place. So I think a respectful change in tone for a short period of time today is entirely appropriate but I think it is essential that we don’t allow democracy to be held hostage by the vile terrorists who perpetrated this act last night.

SR: One final quick thought from you, Mr Clegg. We are waiting to hear from the Prime Minister after that meeting of Cobra, the government emergency committee. You’ve been in the room on those occasions before, without giving away any state secrets what’s the tone like, what kind of things happen in those meetings?

NICK CLEGG: My experience obviously having sat in numerous Cobra meetings is it is an exceptionally effective mechanism whereby all the different arms of the state, police, intelligence services, local authorities, the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence, are brought together in one place, in one operational location under the authority of the most senior members of the government and quick decisions are taken in order to make sure everybody is on the same page, information is fully shared. If any decisions need to be made or resources need to be deployed, that can be done under the full authority of the government there and then so it is an unusually effective nucleus for operational decisions to be taken but I should stress that the politicians nine times out of ten in Cobra are there to make sure that those who are the professionals, the people who know what they’re doing, the police, the intelligence services and others, have the wherewithal and the means and support they need to get on with their job. You don’t actually want politicians getting under the feet of the operational professionals at a time like this, you do want the professionals to make sure by way of Cobra and other means that those who are pursuing the investigations now have everything they need to do so and that really is the operational function of Cobra and in my experience it is a very effective part of the Whitehall machinery.

SR: Nick Clegg, thank you very much for your time this morning.