Sunday with Niall Paterson Interview with Emily Thornberry Shadow Foreign Secretary

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SKY NEWS, SUNDAY WITH NIALL PATERSON

NIALL PATERSON: Theresa May seems to have survived, at least for now, a coup attempt by her former party chairman, but we have been doing some digging of our own. Exclusive research for this programme found that more than half of Brits think she should go before next election and a third think she should resign immediately, however slightly more than that think she should be leading the party into the next general election. And when asked if her departure would be good or bad for Brexit talks, well the number are a little more comforting for the Prime Minister with only 18% saying it would improve the situation, 42% of people back her. Well we are joined today by Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry, a very good morning to you. Theresa May resigning would be bad for Brexit – I suspect I know the answer to this question but do you agree?

EMILY THORNBERRY: I think she should resign, I think there should be a Labour government, I mean there’s a surprise. I think it would be in our interests to have a government that could reset our relationship with Europe and that would be a Labour government, I think the Tories are in all sorts of trouble here and the basic problem is it doesn’t really matter who their leader is, they don’t know which way they’re going, they don’t know what it is that they want to achieve, there is definitely a chunk of them who want to have no deal at all which would definitely be contrary to the British interests and there’s another lot who think, well I’m not quite sure and actually want to spend their time fighting over who should be the next leader. She doesn’t have enough authority, she can’t lead her party, it probably would be better if we got another leader, we need to have somebody who has some authority who can drive through the Brexit negotiations, in my view that’s Jeremy Corbyn.

NP: You must wake on Sunday mornings at the moment with a sense of delight, perhaps even glee. Lots of the papers full of talk of insurrection, of back benchers stabbing the leader in the front and it doesn’t involve Jeremy Corbyn.

EMILY THORNBERRY: There’s a bit of that but actually my main thing is that we are getting so close to the negotiations, we’re running out of time and we’re sixteen months on, seventeen months on and the Tories still have no idea where they’re going and I think they are doing so much harm to our country and actually that’s the big thing for me, is … and leaving that aside, they are so wrapped up with fighting over Brexit and what it is they want to do, they can’t even answer any of the other major problems that are happening in this country. All the life is sucked out of them in terms of Brexit.

NP: So perhaps fresh blood is required then at the top of the Conservative party.

EMILY THORNBERRY: Well some ideas.

NP: Well if it happens, the person most likely – according to the polls at least – to take over is Boris Johnson, in the Labour ranks you perhaps know him as well as anyone, having been the Shadow for a considerable amount of time. What’s your assessment of what a Boris Johnson premiership would look like?

EMILY THORNBERRY: I don't know, because I don't know what their ideas are. I’m sorry to keep going back to that but that’s actually what politics ought to be about. You can have a fresh face but if you don’t know where you are going then it doesn’t really matter who it is who’s in charge.

NP: This has been by all accounts a pretty disastrous week for the Conservatives, let’s just take a look at the latest YouGov polling when it comes to the leadership and as things stand, despite that catastrophic speech to conference, despite all the infighting, who would make the best Prime Minister – Theresa May is still in front of Jeremy Corbyn, I mean that must be concerning.

EMILY THORNBERRY: I think we are going from a bad place, we’ve had two terrible years. I think things have definitely turned round since the general election or even during the general election, we had a fantastic conference, it was really enjoyable, it was very energising. I think that we’re moving forward so I think everything is to play for and I think that as time goes on Jeremy’s leadership will become increasingly clear and increasingly important for the country.

NP: Certainly that appears to be the view of the European Union, the story that emerged over the past couple of days is that the EU is holding back channel conversations with the Labour party, what’s going on there?

EMILY THORNBERRY: We have always had conversations with the European Union, ever since the Brexit vote, we’ve been completely open about it, everybody knows, we explained what our position is. Again, unlike the Tories, people do know what our position is, we do publish it, we make it clear, we are united around it and we are quite prepared to fill in the details when speaking to the European Union. Their biggest question is: ‘What’s the government doing?’ and that’s one that we just can’t help them with because we really genuinely don’t know because the government doesn’t know.

NP: Part of the narrative that the Labour party has been putting forward at the moment is that you are a government in waiting so can you just be very clear about what your position is on Brexit? We know that there is agreement as to remaining within the single market, the customs union during the transitional period, what is your view for the potential for the UK remaining in the single market once that transition period has finished?

EMILY THORNBERRY: I think that we have to start with ‘we are leaving’, there is quite a lot of chatter in the newspapers today about the possibility of being able to stop it. No, we are leaving and the Labour party proceeds in good faith, we have to leave. We will then, when there is a general election … what we want is the Article 50 to go ahead, for them to do as little damage as possible and then for the Tories to have an interim period, if there’s no general election where there’s no change to the status quo and so that for a couple of years we can then do the negotiations properly and we hope that during that period there will be a general election because during that period there will be a Labour government come in and we will reset out relationship with the European Union.

NP: But it remains a point of significance, a question of significance to ask whether or not you believe, if you were sitting at the negotiating table talking to Brussels, whether you could envisage a scenario in which membership of the single market continues after we leave the European Union. I mean Anas Sarwar, the man who could lead Scottish Labour, has come out and said that he will be campaigning for just that, what is the Labour party position?

EMILY THORNBERRY: The Labour party position is that we have our six tests. We have to be able when we leave the European Union to be able to say that we have delivered on a number of things and that does include things like changes to our immigration policy, it means being proper internationalists, it means remaining in many of the institutions …

NP: It seems the immigration policy would appear to rule out continued membership of the single market.

EMILY THORNBERRY: Well these are the things that need to be negotiated. What I am saying is that we would go into negotiations and we would say them these are the things that we need to do, this is what we need to deliver for the British public, you have a problem, we have a problem, let’s sort this out together. Let’s not shout at each other anymore, let’s not do any more posturing, let’s talk as friends and get ourselves through this because there are certain things that the British public absolutely needs.

NP: Obviously we have had a succession of Labour MPs asked this very question, just yes or no can you envisage circumstances in which the United Kingdom remains in the single market after we come out of the European Union?

EMILY THORNBERRY: We have not taken anything off the table but we are clear that …

NP: So it remains a possibility?

EMILY THORNBERRY: … we are clear about what it is that we want to be able to achieve and that will be difficult within the single market, of course it will.

NP: Can we talk about events in Spain, in Catalonia and you said a little earlier this week that we believe disputes over sovereignty should be resolved in accordance with rules and laws. Specifically what did you mean by that, that this was an illegal referendum that shouldn’t be held?

EMILY THORNBERRY: It’s contrary to the constitution of Spain to have a referendum in these circumstances, it shouldn’t have happened but equally, the Spanish government should not have over-reacted in the way that they did and the pictures that we saw simply mean that the positions are more and more entrenched and you see yesterday demonstrations across Spain, the people saying for heaven’s sake sit down and talk. That’s what’s needed and again, let me come back to if there was a change of government in Spain, if there was to be a socialist government taking over in Spain, many of the people that I’ve spoken to say that would be able to reset the relationship between Spain and Catalonia.

NP: And it is absolutely fair to separate out the violence from the vote itself but clearly it is, as you said, a vote that shouldn’t have gone ahead so in similar circumstances if the Scottish government were to hold a similar vote, you would decry it.

EMILY THORNBERRY: Look, it has to be done through negotiations, it has to be done through agreement, that’s the way we do things in Britain and that’s the way it should be done across Europe and that’s the way it should have happened in Spain.

NP: I want to turn briefly to Donald Trump because of course the Labour party has made its view clear of Mr Trump. The latest set of tweets that we had overnight again – you roll your eyes but he is the leader of the United States – on North Korea once again, ‘Presidents, their administrations, talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid’, he goes on and you know, this is the kicker ‘Sorry but only one thing will work’. What does he mean?

EMILY THORNBERRY: Well he is playing games, he is using intemperate completely inappropriate language in very dangerous times because the difficulty will be how will North Korea interpret that? And there could be a miscalculation, a misunderstanding that could lead us into terrible circumstances. This is not the way for the leader of the free world to behave. You kind of feel as if they are beginning to play good cop, bad cop where Tillerson is saying one thing and Donald Trump is saying something else but this is not the way that we should be proceeding, we shouldn’t be proceeding with a President who is putting himself forward as – and I think some people in the administration are saying it’s a deliberate policy that he’s putting himself forward as crazy. I mean, what?

NP: Do you not worry though as the government in waiting that at some point you will have to deal directly with Donald Trump and at that point does the tone change?

EMILY THORNBERRY: I wouldn’t ever change my tone with Donald Trump, I would make it completely clear the way in which I disagree with him, I disagree with him on a very large number of things. I would say how appalling it is that he is trying to undermine the Iranian nuclear deal for example or Paris climate change.

NP: I am getting the impression of you as Hugh Grant in Love Actually, not dancing through Number Ten, I’m sure that would be a sight to see, but standing up to the US President with references to Beckham’s left foot. There is a gulf though between fantasy and reality and the reality of the situation is that we need to maintain some form of relationship with the United States.

EMILY THORNBERRY: But the United States is not just Donald Trump, there are many good people and good people of good will in the United States and we make friends with them and we work with them but we make it clear to Donald Trump, some of his utterances are completely unacceptable and totally different to our values and what a shame it is that Theresa May feels it necessary to hold his hand.

NP: I’ve just invoked the image of you as Prime Minister so I have to ask the question: do you see any circumstances in which you could be dancing through the halls of Downing Street?

EMILY THORNBERRY: I think the only thing that’s going to happen next is that Jeremy Corbyn is going to be Prime Minister and I really hope that I will have the huge honour of being the Foreign Secretary and that would be the best job for me.

NP: Not even a second job perhaps as Deputy Leader of the party? There’s been an awful lot of discussion about there being a female equivalent to the current deputy.

EMILY THORNBERRY: Yes, this sort of talk happens but it has absolutely nothing to do with me. I want to be Foreign Secretary and I want to do a good job in opposition and I want to then be prepared to being able to fix so many of the problems in terms of our position, in terms of our negotiations, our relationships with other countries. I think we could be a much more powerful voice in the world than we are at the moment and I would love to have the opportunity of being able to do that.

NP: Emily Thornberry, thanks very much for joining us this morning.