Sophy Ridge on Sunday Interview with Steven Woolfe, Independent and former UKIP MEP, 9.04.17

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

SOPHY RIDGE:  He looked nailed on to lead UKIP into its post-Brexit, post-Nigel Farage future, that was until an incident with a fellow party member left him in hospital and led to one of the most dramatic party resignations of recent years.  Now Steven Woolfe is getting back into front-line politics with a new report on immigration after we leave the EU and he joins me now in the studio.  Hello, thank you for being with us this morning.  Before we get on to the immigration report and the future of UKIP, I’m keen to get your thoughts on the really big and important story of the week, Syria.  Nigel Farage and Paul Nuttall have both really spoken out against Donald Trump’s move to launch these air strikes in response to the gas attack, what’s your position?

STEVEN WOOLFE: I think in terms of the general politics of the United States this has actually sowed the seeds of Trump losing the next election because it was absolutely clear that with Bannon and others supporting this kind of America First kind of concept, that meant no intervention in other countries, it meant having an opening with Russia.

SR: So he’s gone back on his word effectively?

STEVEN WOOLFE: I think people will see that not only has he gone back on his word but he actually looks more like the Democrats that he argued so vehemently before but there is an also an important thing that we see here which is the power of Kushner now, in terms of Gary Kushner coming in there and saying it’s me now, I’ve been able to influence my father-in-law to make this decision and there’s one comment that says Bannon accused Kushner of actually being a Democrat and that this would damage.  And I think that’s the long term consequences in the United States.

SR: Moving on, now six months ago you were seen as the future of UKIP, the leader in waiting post-Nigel Farage and then in a pretty remarkable couple of days we saw you knocked out cold on the floor of the European Parliament, you resigned from the party and to be honest we haven’t really heard much from you since so where have you been hiding?

STEVEN WOOLFE: Well I think I needed to take some time out, it was a dramatic and traumatic period for me, I’d worked incredibly hard across the past six years for UKIP, we’d worked really hard through the referendum, spending hours and hours every single day working with some brilliant people and for me to see what had happened in the party at that time once Nigel had resigned, not just myself but there were other decent people like Nathan Gilbey who was attacked in Wales, the way that they treated Diane James, it was a period for me to say no, I’ve got to step back, think about what’s happening and consider how I can support Brexit. This was something that I’d worked on and that is why I’ve now worked with a number of people for a good period of time to produce this report which will be, in my view, a template for this government to achieve what British people wanted – leaving Brexit, keeping immigration, reducing the numbers and having ourselves open to the world.

SR: So this is the report that you’re launching today, saying that you want to get net migration down to 50,000 a year.  Now the OBR, the official apolitical independent analysts, have said that getting immigration down to an even bigger number than what you’re saying would have a huge hit on the economy, £16 billion.  So are you prepared then to see billions of pounds more borrowing in order to get net migration down?

STEVEN WOOLFE: You see that’s one aspect of the reports that the OBR have done but in the research that I’ve looked at I don’t actually believe that will be the case because that takes a view that we’ll have masses of people leaving this country and I don’t believe that those people who have come from the European countries, they are now settled communities, they’ll be here. I think there needs to be a real important training programme going on, we have 826,000 young people aged 16-24 without a job and there’ll be a clear recognition – and Theresa May has already started this, we can see that through apprenticeship schemes and training programmes – that they will be brought back into the system as well so I think they are really putting out, not a fear programme obviously, I think they have just been a little bit too extreme in what would actually happen.  The programme I have got in place would actually have a gentle progression.

SR: There’s another thing that I’m slightly confused about in your report that I’m hoping you might be able to clear this up.  You say in your report there should be no further restrictions on student immigration but also that students should still be included in that target but you still want to get net migration down to 50,000 a year because net immigration of students hasn’t been below that target now for the last five years, last year for example it was 70,000, so your whole target would be used up and more probably, by students.

STEVEN WOOLFE: No, no, no, this is something that I tried to set out in the back of the report with the numbers.  You have to consider also the amount of emigration that we have so if you have emigration which is over 327,000, you take off the students, you add those on asylum, you add those on family reunion, we’re already in a net migration situation so the only number that puts us into a positive net migration situation, the numbers that we have at the moment, is work and those who are coming here to work so that is the area that you have got to target.  My belief is that if we have around 100,000 visas coming in each year, we only have 4,000 highly skilled entrepreneurs now, 96,000 in terms of the …

SR: But we’re talking about net immigration, students coming here last year was over 70,000.

STEVEN WOOLFE: Yes, but what I’m saying is that we had 327,000 in terms of emigration.  Deduct the students from that and you already have net migration which is down below 100,000 there, add on asylum, add on family reunion and you keep creeping up towards that zero point and that is where you’ve got to be looking at the workers coming in and I believe that we can have highly skilled workers into this country with a really dominant and important points based system, a British workers visa system which has at its core a fair, flexible and forward thinking philosophy and an idea of bringing net migration down that will work for our country.

SR: Now I’m keen to talk about UKIP.  We were saying that six months ago you were seen as the future of UKIP and since then things have been very difficult for the party, you had the leader failing to win that by-election that really many people criticised the campaign that was won there, you’ve lost your only MP.  Post-Brexit do you really think there is any reason for UKIP to exist anymore?

STEVEN WOOLFE: Well I believe there should be a reason for UKIP to exist, I wouldn’t have wanted to stand if I didn’t think that and that is because there is a large number of people in this country who don’t trust the Labour party, don’t trust the Conservative party, who actually feel they have been left out or left behind.

SR: But is UKIP serving those people now?

STEVEN WOOLFE: I don't think they are at the moment which is the really sad thing about it.  I think their messages are mixed, take for example on immigration, this is one of the biggest issues, they have got a person who you never even hear about in terms of immigration in charge of that policy.

SR: And that is …?

STEVEN WOOLFE: Actually I think it’s their Treasurer and literally they are not pushing the issues that matter and that’s because they are still fractured, they’re losing members, they’re losing members who supported them, they’re losing votes and that shouldn’t have happened and all of this was caused by the in-fighting that occurred, the desire to drive out decent people in the party and I think now what they can see is that they were duped by an MP who didn’t want UKIP to be at the front of the Brexit campaign at all.

SR: You are blaming Douglas Carswell there, do you think that Nigel Farage also needs to share some responsibility for the in-fighting that really has riven UKIP?

STEVEN WOOLFE: I think everybody has a responsibility and I would probably have to say even myself at that stage because people were trying to argue different positions.  Nigel made a very clear point, he said be careful of Douglas because Douglas wanted to damage the referendum campaign.  Douglas in his own words has said that was one of his intentions now as we see from reports. The real responsibility is those people on the National Executive Committee, all those who were employed by the party for large sums of money, who were duped by that or desired a different person in the leadership and were not willing to listen to those who had greater experience than themselves or who had to face the real politick of the day of having to meet other politicians and having to see what was happening.

SR: What’s your relationship like now then with people in UKIP?

STEVEN WOOLFE: I still have a pretty reasonable relationship with the membership, I get some positive comments all the time.  

SR: The membership but what about the figures within UKIP?

STEVEN WOOLFE: Well within the UKIP kind of politics, I have probably about half a dozen MEPs that I still have lunch and have drinks with, I have a chat with Nigel from time to time, obviously he keeps his distance from me a little bit but for the vast majority of them, sadly no, they see me as some sort of pariah.  It’s a bit schoolboyish but I’ve learnt that that’s something that happens in politics sadly and I think we should have big enough shoulders and broad enough shoulders to move on, I’ve certainly tried to do that and the way I’m looking at it, the sun’s out, we’ve got summer coming, Brexit’s on its way, Theresa May is doing her best and we’ve just got to make sure that we battle against those remainers who seek the negativity about Britain instead of seeing what a great country we are moving forward.

SR: Well the sun is undoubtedly out this weekend, Steven Woolfe thank you very much.