Sophy Ridge on Sunday Interview with Sir Alan Duncan Foreign Office Minister

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

SOPHY RIDGE: Now it’s been another fractious week for the Conservative party and the next few days could be crucial. The world in Westminster is that if she can make it to Thursday then the Prime Minister is almost certainly safe until October, which is quite a low bar. The Conservative party is, it’s fair to say, really far from strong and stable right now but preparing to mount a defence of the government is the Foreign Office Minister, Sir Alan Duncan. Thanks very much for being with us today. Theresa May has been out defending her Chequers deal, are you confident she is going to be able to unite the Conservative party behind that plan?

SIR ALAN DUNCAN: The only thing to do is to back the Prime Minister and give her the maximum latitude and support. We’re into the art of the possible here, a good deal is not about one we think on the back of a piece of paper is the best theoretical one, the deal is the one we can get and the Prime Minister is being steadfast and practical and delivering the result of the referendum but having to wrestle with a small or almost non-existent parliamentary majority, people who keep on telling her what to do while the main focus has to be all of us in a united way backing her to try and get a deal with the EU which is in the interests of the UK.

SR: So what would you say then to those people in the Conservative party who are not backing her, as you would say it? David Davis for example, writing in the FT, saying under this plan the UK wouldn’t be running its own economy and if we can’t determine our own laws it wouldn’t be a functioning democracy. I mean that is some pretty scathing words there from the man who was supposed to be in charge of Brexit.

SIR ALAN DUNCAN: Well I think the first thing to appreciate, beyond the obvious complexity of this is if we walk away and supposedly step onto WTO rules, that the economic cost and pain is likely to be very severe. In the long term we’d be able to get trade deals and things like that which will add to economic activity but if we don’t have access to our closest market and our largest market, that will set us backwards both in terms of economic performance but also in terms of the very practical things like just getting lorries across the English Channel. So we have to give the Prime Minister maximum support and I think that any of those who think that they can either criticise her, challenge her or anything like that must realise that they are playing with fire and that they will end up destroying themselves.

SR: Do you think they could also end up destroying the Conservative party as well, Theresa May warning that it could mean Jeremy Corbyn is Prime Minister?

SIR ALAN DUNCAN: I’d like to think that the Conservative party can never be destroyed but it would certainly damage it very, very severely for possibly a very long period and yes, there is the serious danger that if Jeremy Corbyn were to be Prime Minister I think the country would face economic difficulty anyway but if anyone thinks that an elected [politician should] choose something, ought just to stop and think what would happen if Jeremy Corbyn were Prime Minister compared to them standing as a Conservative candidate and becoming a Conservative MP to see certain things in the interest of the country, Jeremy Corbyn would represent the opposite of that. So I urge all my parliamentary colleagues to look strategically at the moment of history we’re in, the broader political agenda we believe in and of course the practicality of getting a Brexit deal which is and must be in the long term economic and political interests of the country.

SR: I’ve been listening to what you’re saying and it seems to me as if you’re not really telling people to get behind this Brexit plan because you think it is a great future plan for this country, you’re just saying look, the alternative really is worse and it is the plan that we’ve got and you just need to hold your noses and back it. That’s not something that’s exactly going to excite members of your party, if you were hoping to take advantage of the opportunities of Brexit, is it?

SIR ALAN DUNCAN: Look, logical purity is not on offer in this, the real world of politics and our negotiation with the EU. It is invariably and inevitably going to involve an element of compromise and we’ve got to look at what is going to work in the interests of the country and that I think is exactly what the Prime Minister and her Cabinet at Chequers did and then in publishing the White Paper, explaining what they want to see to the people properly and in Parliament. So this is a negotiation and no negotiation is a perfect process but those who just think we can somehow flip back to a former world by getting ourselves and becoming fantastically prosperous need to understand that the world is far more interdependent, supply chains etc, etc and you cannot sacrifice those things and do economically well and so that’s why we need a sensible agreement with the EU. So we’ve got to get stuck into those negotiations now and the best interests of the country are served by getting the agenda the Prime Minister has published, get traction and grip in our negotiations with the EU so that we can deliver a workable process of departure but retaining a process that we can [inaudible] economically.

SR: Before you go I want to talk to you about Donald Trump because earlier this week on Friday you said that his visit was so far a success. Do you still think that?

SIR ALAN DUNCAN: Yes, that’s exactly what I said and I was absolutely right. It was in terms of the organisation and everything and although there was the Sun interview, by the time he gave the press conference in Chequers with the Prime Minister he had obviously amended the emphasis of some of what he was saying so yes, I was absolutely right and I’m glad that we held it together in a calm way and showed proper hospitality to the President of the United States. I think he enjoyed his visit and I think there have been some good political benefits. It was preceded by him going to NATO and now we hear that the French will put 2% on their defence like us, so behind the scenes and all the press conferences and the drama and the did he say this and did he say that, there have been some very important items on the agenda which in turn will now lead to his meeting with President Putin in Helsinki tomorrow on which I hope the discussions here in the UK will have had a measure of scene setting influence.

SR: There will be people listening to you who think that we shouldn’t offer proper hospitality as you put it, to the US President. This is a man who has talked about sexually assaulting women, who has locked children in cages, who has talked about immigrants infesting the US. I mean did the Prime Minister raise any of that with him?

SIR ALAN DUNCAN: Well on the Marr programme she replied as a feminist, as she put it, saying that her views had been made clear in the past. He is the President of the United States and in the real world of politics and international diplomacy it was the proper thing to do and I think we did it very well and I think it will have benefits which will be to the advantage of the people who elect us.

SR: Now one of the things that Donald Trump said that perhaps wasn’t entirely helpful to Theresa May was that Boris Johnson would make a good Prime Minister. As someone who has worked with him in the Foreign Office, do you agree with the President?

SIR ALAN DUNCAN: Well we have got one Prime Minister and we should stick with her otherwise I think we will be in a very unstable position. I spent two years working with Boris, I thoroughly enjoyed it, we had a very good working relationship. I said quite early on there was only room for one showman in the Foreign Office and it clearly was not going to be me so my mantra was very simple, loyal to Theresa, loyal to Boris and by and large stay out of the news and do your job and that’s what I did and I had a very good constructive and cordial working relationship with Boris.

SR: I wonder whether now that Boris Johnson has left the Foreign Office you may be the showman now that he’s vacated that role. Any chance do you think of the number of letters going into the Chair of the 1922 Committee hitting the target that would mean there was a vote of no confidence in Theresa May?

SIR ALAN DUNCAN: Anyone who thinks they might write a letter needs to stop and think about what the effects eventually would be. Actually I think she’d win any vote of confidence hands down if ever it were to come about but the very fact that people think they might do this is utterly destructive, utterly unnecessary and they should back her to the hilt.

SR: Thank you very much, Sir Alan Duncan there.