Sunday with Niall Paterson Interview with Shami Chakrabarti Shadow Attorney General

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

NIALL PATERSON: Jeremy Corbyn this week travelled to Geneva to address the UN on human rights and with him was his Shadow Attorney General, Baroness Chakrabarti and she joins me now. Shami, as you prefer to be called, a very good morning to you.

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: Thank you.

NP: It is International Human Rights Day today, as you told me in the break, thank you, are we doing enough as a nation of influence?

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: I don't think we are and the world is facing the biggest refugee crisis since World War Two and frankly we are not doing enough on our own doorstep as your very powerful film from Oldham shows. We’ve got people in this country, one of the wealthiest countries on earth, who are going to be worried about food and shelter and warmth this Christmas and that is just completely unacceptable from a human rights perspective.

NP: So what do we do?

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: Well I think we need to pause and fix Universal Credit as a matter of extreme urgency so that people like Rachel don’t freeze or starve or worry about their kids this Christmas and on the world stage we’ve got to put human rights at the heart of our foreign policy as well as our home policy and we’ve got to encourage other nations who are our allies to follow suit.

NP: You mentioned foreign policy there, I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions, we obviously had the Israeli Ambassador to the UK in the studio a little bit earlier on, the situation as regard Jerusalem, it is pretty troubling but at the same time why shouldn’t, as Mark Regev suggested, why shouldn’t Israel have the same right as any other sovereign state to choose its own capital?

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: Here’s the problem. Jerusalem is of course loved and cherished by people in Israel, by Jewish people over the world but it is loved and cherished by Christians and Muslims too and for the Palestinians there will be no Palestinian state without East Jerusalem, so what Donald Trump has done this week is to light the matches in a tinderbox, a wonderful symbolic but hostile act and I have to say I was very surprised that Mr Regev thought that this could in any way contribute to peace as opposed to more problems in that region and therefore in the world. There were people who have been shot and killed already and it has only been a few days.

NP: Let’s turn to Brexit because of course it’s been a big week in Brexit discussions. Labour is fond of saying that it likes to keep quite a lot on the table but I want to try and narrow things down a little bit. We now know that Labour is in favour of a status quo transition period, back in June your leader sacked three front benchers for voting in favour of staying in the customs union and single market. This week we had Kier Starmer saying continued membership of the customs union and the single market should be back on the table, what is your party’s policy?

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: Our policy has always been that we want the closest possible relationship with our friends across the Channel. At the same time we respect the referendum result but it is much easier for us than it is for the Conservatives because we are more united about the kind of country we want to be. We respect human rights, as do people elsewhere in Europe, we want workers protections as we currently get from the EU, environmental protections and so on. So we will have to deliver these in cooperation with our European allies, yes outside the current treaty arrangements and in a new treaty but we are far less divided than the Conservatives about what that is going to look like.

NP: But it does seem to be that you keep saying things to appeal to all people, to remainers, to Brexiteers.

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: No, no.

NP: Just on the issue of customs union and single market, is it the Labour party’s view that it would be better to remain in the customs union and single market or not?

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: We want something like that. It won’t be the customs union and the single market because those things are currently delivered as part of the EU family which we will be leaving but we want the closest possible relationship and of course the Good Friday Agreement was one of the greatest achievements of the last Labour government and we would never have jeopardised that in the way that the Conservatives have and have for 18 months.

NP: But that construction that you are using there, the closest possible relationship with the European Union, there are plenty of people watching this today who voted to leave the EU who say that’s not what I voted for.

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: Well I don't think people voted to not be friendly and to not work closely and not to have a great trade deal with the EU.

NP: Plenty of people voted so that we didn’t have regulatory alignment.

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: Well do they want environmental protections, do they want workplace protections, do they want human rights protections? I believe they do, certainly we do and that is the case that we took to people in the general election and that we will keep taking to them including in the next election.

NP: All of which makes the issue of a second referendum a very interesting one. Jon Ashworth told me on this programme that there was no appetite for it, Diane Abbott has been telling her constituents that she is going to push for one – what is the party position on that?

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: The party position is that sovereignty was about parliamentary sovereignty and the Conservatives have been spurning that consistently and have been dragging the …

NP: Do you want a second referendum or not?

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: No.

NP: You don’t?

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: I don’t.

NP: Jeremy Corbyn has said that it remains an option but you haven’t made up your minds yet.

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: Well I personally don’t think that in/out referendums deliver the most sophisticated or unifying debate. Maybe others will disagree and that will happen one day but I think what we need is a general election and I would like to see it sooner rather than later so that we can help people like Rachel in Oldham and all over this country.

NP: I bet you do want to see a general election sooner rather than later and at that point you’d have to flesh out exactly what your position is but you keep maintaining yours is a government in waiting. Okay, freedom of movement, Jeremy Corbyn back in May said it would end when we come out of the EU, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Kier Starmer again both have equivocated on the topic. You said on this show in June we couldn’t have complete control of immigration, again what’s the party policy?

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: There will be no free movement as currently exists within the EU Treaty because we will be outside it but there will have to be movement and people in this country want movement, their kids want to go and study, their kids want to go and work and our NHS needs nurses and doctors so there will be movement and it won’t just be with the EU, it will be with people who want to come and contribute to this country from all over the world.

NP: This week the Labour party has been laying into the government for not having agreed on the end state, the relationship that we will have with the EU at the end of this process. What is Labour’s ideal end state? And you can’t use the words a jobs first Brexit.

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: As far as I’m concerned the ideal end state would be the closest diplomatic, security and trading relationship with our nearest neighbours.

NP: That sounds a lot like EA rights.

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: These are technical terms that you’re using, that politicians and lawyers sometimes use but I think we need to think about outcomes. That means human rights protections, workplace protections, consumer protections, environmental protections, very close cooperation and not the deregulated offshore tax haven that too many people in Theresa May’s cabinet and party still want.

NP: And what do you make of the Defence Secretary’s comments this week about killing Jihadis?

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: I was very disappointed in that. Let’s be clear, if you are on the battlefield you have to fight whoever is opposing you on the battlefield.

NP: He seemed to be suggesting there is a kill list.

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: He seems to be … indeed. If he is suggesting targeted assassinations of criminals who should instead be brought to justice, that is appalling and we do not want to hear a Defence Secretary abrogate the rule of law because the rule of law is what brave men and women who join our armed forces and put their lives at risk, that’s what they do it for, for the rule of law at home and abroad.

NP: A very, very final question, it is only a yes/no. Much has been made this week of the Momentum contract, that document that the campaign is insisting that parliamentary candidates sign to gain their support. Would you as the former head of Liberty sign something like that?

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: Well I’m not a parliamentary candidate so nobody is going to come to me to sign any contract.

NP: But if you had to?

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: What, to sign my support for Jeremy Corbyn? I don't think I need to sign any piece of paper to demonstrate that I have great faith and confidence and shared values with my leader.

NP: Shami Chakrabarti, thanks for being with us.