TRIGGERnometry - Lord Andrew Adonis：＂No Deal Brexit is a Fraud＂

00:00:00.000 hello everyone and welcome to trigonometry i'm francis foster i'm constantin kissin and this

00:00:08.380 is a show for you if you're bored with watching people argue on the internet over subjects they

00:00:12.780 know nothing about the trigonometry you don't pretend to be the experts we ask the experts

00:00:18.020 our brilliant guest this week is an arch remainer who we're very grateful to have here lord adonis

00:00:23.880 welcome to trigonometry great to be with you oh thank you very much for coming on the show um

00:00:28.780 let's get cracking we usually ask our guests to tell us a little bit about them but i think

00:00:33.520 everybody knows who you are and what you stand for uh so uh we are where we are now in this in

00:00:39.620 in this position uh we're having an election or pretty much over the issue of brexit uh what just

00:00:45.860 for anyone who doesn't know exactly what your position is what is your view of brexit do you

00:00:49.540 think it should be reversed do you think we should have a second referendum to do that uh what is

00:00:54.180 your view i think it should well i say it reversed it hasn't happened i don't think it should happen

00:00:59.020 and i don't think it but i don't think it should happen democratically and we're having an election

00:01:03.780 now and all the the parties of the center and the left and about a third of the conservative party

00:01:09.940 if people were actually able to express their views inside that party i don't want it to happen

00:01:14.600 and so what they want to see happen is a referendum held with a straight choice between

00:01:20.460 Boris Johnson's latest deal which is the second version of a treaty for leaving the European

00:01:26.120 Union against remaining and what I'd like to see happen I think is perfectly credible indeed is

00:01:30.620 what I think will happen is that there will be a majority in the next parliament against leaving

00:01:36.360 on these terrible terms as there was in the last parliament that since we can't constantly just do

00:01:41.980 nothing I mean there's a limit to how long you can literally tread water and not deal with health

00:01:46.180 education infrastructure there's other things which are of huge concern to the country at this

00:01:51.460 point we'll have to bite the bullets biting the bullet means calling a referendum and that will

00:01:56.420 probably be held next spring on the straight choice between the Boris Johnson deal and staying

00:02:02.540 in the European Union and I think actually even if Boris Johnson is Prime Minister on the 13th

00:02:09.640 of december since uh if you're looking at the most likely and credible outcomes of the election

00:02:16.480 it's it's very very hard to see how the conservatives can win an overall majority

00:02:20.400 but it is possible they could be the largest party in the next parliament it's possible

00:02:23.400 labor will be the largest party in the next parliament but if the conservatives are the

00:02:26.500 largest party in the next parliament but don't have a majority i still think that boris will end

00:02:31.640 up with a referendum and i know boris johnson quite well because when i was transport secretary

00:02:36.340 worked with him closely as uh as mayor of london i know him well enough to know that he couldn't

00:02:40.260 give a fig about the european union i mean is the he was in favor of staying before he's in favor of

00:02:45.240 leaving he was in favor of being in the customs union in the single market before he was in favor

00:02:49.540 of leaving them he's perfectly capable of holding two completely contradictory views at the same

00:02:54.700 time if the deal the only thing he's really concerned about and has been all the way through

00:02:58.400 is becoming and remaining prime minister and if the deal for becoming and remaining prime minister

00:03:03.760 in uh in december and january is uh is moving towards a referendum on the eu then i think

00:03:09.960 that's what he'll do so i it's at the moment um it's all very fought because we're in a a closely

00:03:15.640 fought election campaign and um uh people think that as they would do people tend to catastrophize

00:03:21.720 to think that the worst is going to happen and that's therefore uh the game is over it's not

00:03:25.480 remotely over at the moment i would say we're roughly at half time in this i mean this is

00:03:29.800 going to be very reassuring members of the audience who want to see us move on and all that

00:03:32.620 I would say we're roughly half time in this great battle over membership of the European Union and my best judgment at the moment is that we'll still end up staying.

00:03:40.820 One final point about it is one of the constant problems with leaving the European Union is that whether you're in favour or against leaving, and I respect that people hold different views, it's very, very hard to do.

00:03:51.460 It's a hugely complex thing to do.

00:03:52.880 It's taking the egg out of an omelette.

00:03:54.420 it's nearly half a century worth of diplomatic trade commercial legal uh uh processes which

00:04:03.040 have gone into our relationship with the european union but not only is it very hard to do which is

00:04:08.700 what the government has found but it is impossible to do without self-harm because it goes to the

00:04:14.000 heart of our whole trading commercial and security relationship with europe any move away particularly

00:04:20.860 from free trade which is inevitable if we leave the European Union is inevitably going to involve

00:04:26.720 harm and the reason why at every stage there's been a vote in the House of Commons on it

00:04:31.340 is that when MPs true to their Burkean principle of being representatives and not just delegates

00:04:37.680 when they're actually faced with the job of having to vote this thing through which they know

00:04:41.980 because they are reasonably well informed and they can read the words on the page and see what

00:04:45.400 it means is going to harm their constituents there's always so far been a decisive majority

00:04:49.960 against it and my view is that that will be the same in the next parliament as the last one before

00:04:53.340 we go any further can i just credit you with an excellent use of the word fig it was absolutely

00:04:58.460 superb you you realized it was early in the morning you didn't drop the f-bomb so congratulations on

00:05:03.480 that uh secondly um before we go any further why are you so opposed to leaving the eu because the

00:05:10.840 thing it rapidly gets very contentious you know ramona you know you're racist all these terms

00:05:17.160 are bandied about and i think it's really important for people to understand why is it such a bad

00:05:22.820 thing in your opinion to leave i've been in politics for 30 years now and um most issues

00:05:28.460 in politics are matters of degree then they're not matters of of fundamental uh uh right or wrong or

00:05:35.360 or huge um a huge mistake that you would make on behalf of the country but about once a generation

00:05:42.520 you get an issue that's fundamental uh now most fundamental issues in human affairs you can

00:05:48.260 recover from uh you know you can fight a war and you can still recover from the war uh but that

00:05:53.020 doesn't mean it's necessarily the right thing to do and when you face one of these fundamental

00:05:56.680 issues the thing in my experience to do is fundamentally to oppose it uh and as i look

00:06:02.620 back over the last 150 years i would say this is up there with the three or four biggest mistakes

00:06:08.700 that we could have made as a country the two others just to to set them in the right kind of

00:06:12.380 context the the two biggest mistakes we made as a country in the in the in the century and a half

00:06:18.500 before this were not granting self-government to Ireland in the late 19th century which was a

00:06:24.360 catastrophic mistake which we're still recovering from today and which in our generation and indeed

00:06:28.600 in the lives of many of those who are here today was still was terrorism on the streets of London

00:06:32.480 I live by Regent's Park every day I pass the bandstand when I go my walk first thing in the

00:06:37.000 morning in regents park which has a plaque to the 12 royal green jackets who were who were killed

00:06:41.800 when a bomb exploded in the middle of the afternoon concert on a saturday afternoon

00:06:45.960 by the ira that is a direct consequence of us not getting policy on ireland right in the 19th

00:06:53.520 century and we had an opportunity under gladstone to create a self-governing ireland within the

00:06:58.440 united kingdom and if we'd done it then we wouldn't have had all these terrible consequences

00:07:02.320 which blighted so much of the 20th century we got that wrong the other big mistake we got wrong

00:07:06.080 catastrophic mistake was going into the first world war which everybody thought would be one

00:07:09.920 of those short wars that will be over by christmas and ended up as a massive conflagration which

00:07:13.280 then caused the second world war and what was essentially a civil war in europe for 30 years

00:07:17.500 now so let me just let me just pause you there because you talk about the fundamental issues

00:07:21.840 but uh francis and i both voted remain on the referendum but isn't the fundamental issue here

00:07:27.640 democracy you know i grew up in russia in the soviet union where we didn't have it

00:07:32.140 And when I see a vote that went through, I didn't vote to leave, but most people did.

00:07:38.380 Isn't the fundamental issue here respecting the wishes of the people, even if, as you say, and I may take, I may not, some people think that it will be damaging to their constituents.

00:07:48.320 But have we not had a parliament that actually doesn't represent the wishes of the people?

00:07:52.560 Well, the people can't betray the people.

00:07:54.680 That is a fundamental principle of democracy.

00:07:57.480 And democracy is not about one vote at one moment and then no votes ever again.

00:08:02.140 So that is, generally speaking, how...

00:08:05.040 But I'm not saying I'm opposed to the second vote.

00:08:07.060 What I'm saying is we need to implement the results of the first one.

00:08:09.100 No, but that is the answer to your point.

00:08:11.060 The answer to your point is this whole business of Brexit is itself a process.

00:08:15.880 When we had the referendum three and a half years ago,

00:08:18.160 people couldn't know what Brexit would mean,

00:08:20.740 not because they were stupid or because they were ill-informed,

00:08:22.880 but because there was no proposal on the table.

00:08:24.760 The only proposal for Brexit on the table three and a half years ago

00:08:28.620 There was four words on the ballot paper, leave the European Union.

00:08:32.540 There was no plan behind it.

00:08:34.180 There was no agreement even amongst the people in favour of Brexit as to what it should mean.

00:08:37.880 Some thought it was compatible with staying in the single market in the customs union,

00:08:41.520 including the Prime Minister at the moment who said so in the referendum campaign.

00:08:45.040 Other people said that we should leave.

00:08:47.020 Some people said that we would maintain freedom of movement,

00:08:49.220 which is fundamental to the whole concept of the European Union,

00:08:52.360 whether people can travel freely across borders or not.

00:08:54.700 Other people said that we couldn't.

00:08:55.980 as that has come to be worked through and as it has remained deeply controversial within our

00:09:01.120 democracy the right thing to do was as i still believe we will will to hold a further referendum

00:09:07.320 shouldn't the questions on that then be given that we voted to leave either we leave on the

00:09:12.400 withdrawal agreement that boris johnson's negotiated or we leave with no deal and those

00:09:16.220 should be the two options well obviously not because the the the the majority of people

00:09:20.800 according to opinion surveys and the majority of mps are actually in favor of staying in the

00:09:25.260 European Union but we had the first referendum already but again we couldn't judge staying in

00:09:30.120 the European Union against a specific deal whereas this time we can and the right thing to do I mean

00:09:34.340 why would you want to constrain the options you're putting to people when there's by far the most

00:09:38.560 popular option out there is one that's absolutely credible which is staying in the European Union

00:09:42.500 so I completely agree with you that this is a fundamental democratic principle the fundamental

00:09:47.040 difference between the European Union and the Soviet Union which you referred to is one is a

00:09:50.840 a democracy and one is not you know when um i always forget all these foreign secretaries they

00:09:56.600 come and go so fast there was one called hunt wasn't there recently who's now sort of receded

00:10:00.380 into the distance when he in trying to carry favor a conservative party conference likened

00:10:05.400 the european union to the soviet union donald tusk the president of the european union who was

00:10:11.680 a solidarity activist in the 1980s against the soviet union made the fundamental point that

00:10:17.340 there is a difference between an empire and a democracy and it's because the European Union

00:10:21.920 is a democracy that it's proved to be it's a club of democracies it's 28 democracies it's a club of

00:10:26.880 them it's because it's proved to be so viable and so successful that uh that we should be staying in

00:10:33.780 it and not leaving it and so we talk about Brexit and we're getting you know talk about leaving but

00:10:39.820 what are the implications for the ordinary working person on the street how will it impact them how

00:10:45.980 and most importantly how will it impact the economy well somebody in when we were having

00:10:50.140 our warm-up before while we're waiting for constantine to negotiate thank you for bringing

00:10:53.620 that up again i'm a former transport secretary because when i was doing transport there were no

00:10:59.120 problems on the roads and the trains all around on time this is before you can transport is before

00:11:05.160 and after chris grayling before chris grayling um but uh when we were doing our warm-up somebody

00:11:11.020 said it's going to take 10 or 15 years to recover from this either way well it will take more than

00:11:15.200 10 or 15 years to negotiate and to try and make stable leaving the European Union and that's

00:11:21.300 accepted by everybody because the formal act of leaving which is what we could do in the next

00:11:27.500 few months simply begins a huge process of negotiations over trade deals, security pacts,

00:11:34.780 political relationships with the European Union and so on which will be at least 10 years just

00:11:39.580 in pure negotiations and probably more and since my judgment is and all I can give people is my

00:11:43.780 judgment is it won't be stable and it will lead to loss of jobs, to weakness, international

00:11:49.560 weakness and possibly very serious weakness, not least vis-a-vis Putin's and post-Putin's

00:11:56.300 Russia. I think what will happen in 10 to 15 years is as we go through this process,

00:12:00.200 the next generation of politicians will put membership of the European Union back on the

00:12:04.260 table in a serious way. So I think that is deeply unstable and is a recipe for the next generation

00:12:10.360 having to be overwhelmed by this issue of Europe.

00:12:13.300 However, if we stay in the European Union, nothing changes.

00:12:17.000 Nothing changes at all.

00:12:17.760 It's not to say that there won't be some resentment.

00:12:19.360 There'll probably be 10%, 15% who will think

00:12:22.700 that we should continue to campaign for leaving.

00:12:25.340 But can I give you a prediction?

00:12:26.580 If we stay, because, of course,

00:12:27.820 it doesn't require any further negotiations at all if we stay.

00:12:30.460 We're still members.

00:12:31.600 We continue on exactly the same terms.

00:12:33.340 The whole thing goes away.

00:12:35.760 If we stay, my prediction is that no prime minister

00:12:38.920 in the lifetime of anyone here,

00:12:41.340 whether they're Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem,

00:12:44.040 some new party that's created,

00:12:45.680 is ever going to call another referendum

00:12:47.880 on Britain's membership of the European Union.

00:12:49.560 People will look back on the Cameron, May, Johnson experience

00:12:53.140 and they will say this is the third rail of British politics.

00:12:56.080 You touch it and you're dead.

00:12:57.720 So we will not go there again.

00:12:59.200 We've had a lot of Remainers on the show.

00:13:01.340 We've had a lot of experts, Brexiteers on the show.

00:13:03.700 One thing they would say is that you're misjudging very badly

00:13:07.700 the mood of the public in the country in terms of how strongly people feel about leaving and

00:13:13.520 equally how little they care about the economic impact. A lot of people are quite comfortable

00:13:19.240 losing out. Some of the polls in the last couple of years show that over three quarters of leavers

00:13:26.480 would be happy to lose out financially if it meant, for example, controlling immigration.

00:13:31.000 So if everything stays the same, the mood in the public will continue to sour, I would put it to.

00:13:37.240 Well, unusually, I've been, for people expressing views on this,

00:13:41.080 I've actually been speaking to the public a lot directly about it.

00:13:43.300 I've done nearly 200 meetings up and down the country campaigning on Brexit,

00:13:46.600 most of them in leave areas over the course of the last year and a half.

00:13:49.580 So I've met a very large number of people who've been affected by it,

00:13:51.780 and I've been to all of the communities.

00:13:52.860 I know all these communities well too,

00:13:54.020 because I'm a former schools minister and transport minister,

00:13:55.780 and in both of those jobs, I travelled the length and breadth of the country,

00:13:59.060 and I know these communities in fairly fine detail.

00:14:03.240 And what's clear to me from all of that experience is that in leave areas, there is a group of people who are politically active who are passionate about leave.

00:14:14.600 I mean, that's clearly the case. I would put that at 10 to 15 percent of the electorate in all these cases.

00:14:18.860 In Remain areas, it's much lower than that.

00:14:21.380 However, the reason why there was a vote of 52 percent, which in those communities was in some cases 55, 60, 65 percent, wasn't to do with leaving the European Union.

00:14:30.900 It was to do with misgovernment at home, the combination of austerity, no proper plan for jobs and community renewal in these areas, deep poverty and a deep sense of alienation from their own government, which is predominantly an issue to do with London, Westminster and the quality of representation within the UK, not to do with the European Union.

00:14:53.100 So where I agree with you is if the deal is stay and do nothing, we will go round and round in circles on this issue.

00:15:00.220 And it could well come up again in the form of Brexit.

00:15:03.700 We can't do that.

00:15:05.240 It's, you know, one of my friends here in the audience when we were warming up before described himself as a socialist and said I wasn't.

00:15:10.020 Actually, I am a socialist.

00:15:11.220 I do believe in radical social change and I believe in creating much, much stronger, a much stronger state and social institutions, partly to deal with this big issue of alienation, inequality and poverty.

00:15:22.360 which bedevils our society so what we actually need is to remain and reform and the reform should

00:15:29.320 be fundamental and it's the reason why i'm on the left and not the right in politics is what we

00:15:33.220 should be doing is remain and a reforming government like the atley government of 1945

00:15:37.980 which set up the welfare state set up the nhs invested in our public services in a big way

00:15:42.320 that's what we need and what led to brexit was this really toxic combination of brexit plus

00:15:50.160 austerity with the government calling the referendum three and a half years ago being a

00:15:54.560 conservative government with cameron osborne that was actually itself the agents of austerity which

00:16:00.380 particularly in areas that voted leave which tended to be the poorer parts of the country

00:16:04.020 these became the same thing in people's mind the european union and austerity what we've got to do

00:16:08.960 is to break that connection and that's partly a campaigning issue making it clear that you don't

00:16:13.480 have to have eu and austerity but it's also a question of policy what we need to do is to remain

00:16:19.320 and at the same time dramatic reform to invest in our public services and austerity to take power

00:16:25.480 much closer to people because england is one of the most centrally governed large nations in the

00:16:29.860 world which particularly in areas more distant from london is deeply resented it's different

00:16:34.740 in scotland wales and northern ireland where they have devolved assemblies very tellingly

00:16:38.080 in the case of scotland and northern ireland they voted heavily against brexit so it needs a big new

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00:17:17.300 And we're going to touch on No Deal for a second because I think, and I consider myself politically aware,

00:17:24.020 but there's a lot of people, you know, they're going about their day and, you know,

00:17:27.400 they're trying to make it through the week.

00:17:28.800 They've got families and they hear terms like No Deal or, you know, you know, a Norway agreement, all the rest of it.

00:17:34.520 What is a no-deal Brexit, and how will that impact on the lives of ordinary people?

00:17:39.060 Well, it's a fraud, the use of the word no-deal.

00:17:41.640 Because what does no deal mean?

00:17:43.540 It means no treaty of any kind.

00:17:46.160 I mean, it must mean no.

00:17:46.940 The word no means none.

00:17:48.660 No agreement with the European Union at all.

00:17:51.780 Now, there's virtually no one who says they support no deal that actually supports that.

00:17:56.980 You know, when we debate, as I have done for hundreds of hours now in Parliament,

00:18:00.720 the different options on Brexit,

00:18:02.160 Most of those on the right of the Conservative Party, the Ian Duncan Smiths and all that lot, plus the Brexit people, don't actually support no deal at all.

00:18:10.800 Because if there's no deal at all, planes don't fly, the ports don't operate, nowhere to leave and come into the country, because all of those arrangements are governed by deals.

00:18:21.520 They're governed by treaty.

00:18:22.420 What they're talking about actually isn't no deal, it's a different deal. It's a deal that's much more limited, that doesn't involve customs arrangements, arrangements over the transition of goods which are tariff-free and arrangements for international driving licences.

00:18:39.580 a whole lot of things it might not cover but it must cover a whole set of quite important and

00:18:44.780 complex issues like the operation of the ports the international aviation system which is governed

00:18:49.380 by treaties which are which we're part of because we're part of the european union all of those

00:18:53.740 things will be necessary and those uh uh boris johnson michael gove all these people are actually

00:19:00.060 negotiating uh brexit when they talk about no deal they still accept that we're going to need

00:19:06.320 a deal covering all those things so it's there is no such thing as clean brexit no deal brexit

00:19:11.920 it's a different brexit and a different deal that would be needed and what that is is what we will

00:19:18.520 get into debating if there happens to be an overall conservative majority but i guess france's question

00:19:23.640 is if we were to have that kind of deal what would be the impact why is it so bad why is it so scary

00:19:30.420 what's the problem with that kind of deal well nobody knows what that deal is because no one's

00:19:34.520 set it out at the moment i mean we're looking we're peering into as you know as the good book

00:19:39.000 says peering into a glass starkly we don't know because no one has set it out the reason they

00:19:43.920 won't set it out is because it is almost all of the elements would be very bad so for example if

00:19:49.120 they don't involve a trade deal one of my friends in the audience said before that we had enough of

00:19:53.440 this we should walk away start negotiating afterwards if there is no trade deal you are

00:19:57.280 immediately facing tariffs on british goods going to our largest markets the in the european union

00:20:04.080 and vice versa are between 10 and 150 percent overnight that happens overnight you are faced

00:20:11.280 with customs declarations and customs forms costing between 50 and 100 pounds a piece which

00:20:16.380 people will have to start filling in immediately i mean these are this is this is not you know it

00:20:21.280 seems as if you can do it and it's cost free until it happens the point at which it happens i can

00:20:26.440 assure you as a parliamentarian there will be a huge and dramatic change in opinion and that's

00:20:32.300 before you get to the issue of Ireland, because no deal in Ireland means immediately there have to

00:20:37.320 be border arrangements between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which breaks the

00:20:41.500 Good Friday Agreement. The Good Friday Agreement is not only an international treaty, but it's the

00:20:44.940 bedrock of peace in Northern Ireland, which only a generation ago we didn't have. So no deal has

00:20:53.900 not been defined. If it were defined, most people who look at this and actually understand what's

00:21:00.220 going to happen would find it horrific and even people who glibly and it's very easy to be very

00:21:04.240 glib and populist and say it's all going to be fine you know it's dunkirk and all that the moment

00:21:08.560 it actually happens there will be a massive social revolt it doesn't matter whether it's

00:21:13.240 boris johnson whether it's nigel farage whether it's jeremy corbyn in number 10 they will have

00:21:17.980 to sort it out pdq and i've been in politics long enough to know that even if people voted for

00:21:23.320 something which turns out to be a catastrophe they don't somehow think that oh that's all right

00:21:26.860 we voted for it they expect the people who are there who are in charge to sort it out and in

00:21:32.060 particular they will start saying that they were lied to because the people who say that no deal

00:21:35.920 is going to be fine we can weather it it's done kirk and all of that when it is not fine when

00:21:40.980 their prices go up in the shops by 10 to 50 percent when there's a big shortage of goods

00:21:45.980 when bombs start going off in northern ireland they will not say oh well we voted for this they

00:21:50.800 will say we were lied to it now needs to be sorted out and you began by saying why do i think this

00:21:55.360 such a big issue this is a colossal issue this goes to almost everything that matters to us as

00:22:01.120 a political community whether we can actually get terms of of trade relations a system in northern

00:22:06.960 ireland that works all of these things have been very elaborately and painstakingly put together

00:22:11.760 over the last uh well 70 years now since the european union started in the ashes of the second

00:22:17.240 world war and we shouldn't throw it all up in a fit of absence of mind and we've just touched on

00:22:22.000 northern ireland and i've got a lot of friends from northern ireland and they are absolutely

00:22:27.280 enraged with what is happening and in particular they feel that the arrogance with which the

00:22:32.700 english have treated them if brexit happens do you think we're going to see a return to the bad

00:22:39.360 old times well it depends what brexit happens if the if brexit were to happen according to

00:22:44.580 to boris johnson's uh latest deal nothing changes in northern ireland because the the deal which is

00:22:51.100 Part of the reason why it's so controversial with the Brexit Party and the right wing of the Conservative Party is if Brexit happens according to Boris Johnson's latest deal, then Northern Ireland, rather like Hong Kong, becomes one country, two systems.

00:23:02.500 Because what happens in Northern Ireland under Boris Johnson's own deal is that European law continues to apply.

00:23:08.860 The Northern Ireland continues to be part of the customs union in the single market to all intents and purposes.

00:23:13.180 It's slightly gilded in the deal by saying it will still be part of the United Kingdom Customs Union, but in fact actually there will need to be customs declarations down the Irish Sea and all of that because Northern Ireland will continue to operate according to the treaty all of the trade and economic terms and conditions of membership of the European Union so that you don't have to have a border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

00:23:34.760 But that won't apply between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. So for Northern Ireland itself, do I think the Boris Johnson deal would lead to a turn of the troubles? No, I don't. Because to all intents and purposes, Northern Ireland remains part of the European Union.

00:23:50.180 I do think, though, and this could be a cause of problems down the line, is it will put on the table in a big way the issue of the creation of a single Irish state, because if you've got one country, two systems, and most of the economic and commercial and immigration rules, which is a large part of public policy which govern Northern Ireland, are set by the European Union, by the consent of Northern Ireland, because they would prefer to have happen rather than have a hard border in Ireland.

00:24:16.580 If that happens, you do then quite quickly get to the question, well, why remain part of the United Kingdom?

00:24:23.060 I mean, it becomes an existential question quite quickly.

00:24:27.320 So my view is that if the Boris Johnson deal goes through, it's only a matter of time and probably quite a short period of time before there'll be a referendum in Northern Ireland about creating a single Irish state.

00:24:37.340 Now, I don't welcome that.

00:24:38.740 It's not because my view on Northern Ireland is that the people of Northern Ireland should decide what happens to it.

00:24:43.800 I don't take the same view over Scotland where I think it would be a catastrophic mistake for Scotland to become independent because we all share one island together.

00:24:51.140 The arguments are different in Ireland.

00:24:52.680 What I do worry about from Ireland, because I'm a historian and can see the long view on this, and also I go to Northern Ireland a lot, is that in Northern Ireland, majorities aren't enough.

00:25:03.360 That's what the genius of the Good Friday Agreement is that whereas most of politics is governed by simple majorities, where you have a fundamental nationalist unionist cleavage without a basis of shared consent between the two, if you try to make these big existential questions to decide them by simple majorities, that is what leads to violence, conflict and terrorism.

00:25:25.780 And that is what did lead to violence, conflict and terrorism two generations ago.

00:25:30.760 So what really worries me is if we make this issue of the creation of an Irish state, if it were to become a majority view in Northern Ireland, it's been a minority view up till now.

00:25:40.220 But if it were to become a majority view, that is not enough because the unionist community in Northern Ireland is not going to say, hey, there's now 55, 60 percent that are in favour of creating a United Ireland.

00:25:50.320 So we're going to go along with it. I can tell you, if you meet guys like Sammy Wilson and Nigel Dodds and Arlene Foster, they are not somehow going to say, oh, that's all hunky-dory.

00:25:59.740 We've now got a majority for United Ireland. We're going to go along with it.

00:26:02.640 What you will get is the breakout of really extreme unionist politics, which will lead to paramilitary activity and all of that.

00:26:11.200 So the best thing to do, the best thing to do in Northern Ireland, as in my mind, in the whole of the United Kingdom in relation to Brexit is simply not to do it, simply not to do it at all.

00:26:22.960 We would be better off. We would avoid a massive national car crash by doing it.

00:26:27.360 And that is also true of Northern Ireland, though there won't be an immediate crisis because Boris Johnson's deal essentially keeps Northern Ireland both in the United Kingdom and in the European Union.

00:26:36.220 Well, other than the Northern Ireland issue, what are your concerns with Boris Johnson's deal? Why won't you accept that as the democratic will of the people implemented through a compromise in that way?

00:26:48.680 Well, if it was the democratic will of the people and we had a referendum, of course, I would accept it. But why is it that my strong advice to people in this election and in a referendum would be not to do it, is that not only is it worse than the status quo, because it removes us from our main trading bloc, our security is all based on very close and intimate relations with the European Union.

00:27:08.900 But that is what people voted for, to be removed from that trading bloc.

00:27:11.800 Hold on, we're going round in circles. I'm saying it should be after an election and another referendum. So if they vote for it, then I would accept it. But why is it my advice is that they shouldn't do it is that it would both be worse. And it's also a leap into the unknown. And that a crucial thing to understand about the Boris Johnson deal is that it doesn't actually have any deal beyond the end of what's called an implementation period, which is at the end of next year, at the end of 2020.

00:27:36.580 The only deal in relation to our whole commercial trade, economic and security policy vis-a-vis the European Union, the only deal in this 500-page document, the only deal is to agree a transition, which is to the end of next year, it can be extended by two further years, during which we will negotiate the actual deal.

00:28:00.280 I mean, just think about that for a moment.

00:28:02.240 Is it sensible, just as a matter of general precaution,

00:28:05.180 not leaping into the unknown until you know where you're going,

00:28:07.780 is it sensible to give up all of the, whether you'll leave or remain,

00:28:11.080 to give up all of the known benefits of remain,

00:28:14.500 the known benefits of being in the European Union,

00:28:16.980 for an intermediate status where you have no idea what's going to happen afterwards?

00:28:22.340 Surely the right thing to do, which is, by the way,

00:28:24.500 what we also promised in the referendum three and a half years ago,

00:28:27.000 is not to take this huge, decisive step of leaving the European Union

00:28:32.340 until you know what your long-term relationship with the European Union is going to be.

00:28:36.900 Now, we talked a lot a moment ago about Northern Ireland.

00:28:39.660 The reason why this document is 500 pages, which is a legal treaty,

00:28:44.140 about 400 pages of that are to do with Ireland.

00:28:47.560 Because in the case of Ireland, because of the Good Friday Agreement,

00:28:50.460 it wasn't the European Union, and indeed, to be fair,

00:28:53.240 The British government didn't think it was sensible or indeed even safe to agree to an arrangement in respect of Ireland that expired at the end of next year because they thought that was too dangerous.

00:29:05.020 That is the reason why we had the backstop and now we've got the permanent set of relations.

00:29:08.880 What's essentially happened is that there have been two negotiations.

00:29:12.040 One is a long-term agreement about the status of Northern Ireland, which is that to all intents and purposes, Northern Ireland will remain in the European Union.

00:29:18.940 but only a very short-term deal in respect to Great Britain which expires at the end of next

00:29:24.520 year or maybe is renewable for another two years after that during which period all of the long-term

00:29:30.940 relationship will be negotiated. Now the right thing to do if this you were buying a house on

00:29:35.340 this basis and or doing any other personal deal you absolutely would not agree to giving up you

00:29:42.300 know moving house and going into temporary accommodation until you could see where you

00:29:45.980 are going to be moving thereafter and that is the bed at the root of the arguments against

00:29:50.460 boris johnson's deal and lord adonis you describe yourself as a socialist and we've got socialists

00:29:55.760 in all credit to you've done a wonderful job in venezuela well done um uh great stuff um my uh

00:30:02.440 well he supports them so yeah he does okay so uh i think that's called guilt by association isn't

00:30:09.000 it i mean on on on that basis on that basis general pinochet and boris johnson are all part

00:30:14.460 of the same political family as well.

00:30:15.700 It doesn't quite work like that.

00:30:17.440 Nice to see Francis pissing over and off for a change.

00:30:20.480 No, well, that was a joke,

00:30:22.040 but no, he's never denounced the Venezuelan government.

00:30:23.780 But anyway, we're moving on.

00:30:24.600 That's not the point.

00:30:25.600 The point is, you described yourself as socialists.

00:30:29.420 We've got socialists in the room.

00:30:32.200 There are lots of people on the left of the Labour Party

00:30:35.640 who said that you can't be truly socialist

00:30:37.480 unless you support Brexit,

00:30:39.660 because true socialism will never happen

00:30:41.780 under the European Union.

00:30:43.240 Do you ascribe to that notion?

00:30:44.460 There aren't lots. There are very few.

00:30:46.520 Most of the left of the Labour Party are in favour of staying in the European Union.

00:30:50.960 This organisation called Momentum, which is the one that was set up in the wake of Jeremy Corbyn's victory and all of that,

00:30:55.600 the great majority of Momentum activists, indeed a lot of them come to my meetings,

00:30:59.080 these meetings I was talking about earlier, are in favour of staying in the European Union

00:31:03.020 and a lot of them passionately in favour of staying.

00:31:05.420 The former chief executive of Momentum is an ardent pro-European campaigner.

00:31:09.900 Indeed, I know her very well. She has an Italian husband.

00:31:13.300 She's got relations across the European Union.

00:31:14.920 She's a sort of classic product, as am I.

00:31:18.740 You know, my dad is Cypriot.

00:31:20.200 I came a generation ago.

00:31:21.860 I can assure you all of these communities, which are very strong in London,

00:31:25.500 but, of course, are present across the United Kingdom,

00:31:27.580 are passionately against my community.

00:31:30.120 The Cypriot community will literally be divided by Brexit.

00:31:32.280 I'll have a whole load of relations who won't be able to come in and out of the country

00:31:34.700 until we know what the long-term deal is and whether it involves visas and all of that.

00:31:38.680 So the situation is, as it is on the left, is of overwhelming opposition to Brexit.

00:31:46.220 There is a small group who have this view that you can't do some forms of nationalisation inside the European Union.

00:31:54.400 Actually, because I'm pragmatic, there's no evidence that that's true.

00:31:59.620 Most of our European partners have larger nationalised sectors than we have because they didn't go through a Thatcherite period.

00:32:05.380 France you know transports my particular area France Germany Italy Spain the Netherlands

00:32:10.380 Belgium all these countries still have state railway companies most of their railways are

00:32:14.480 still run by state companies indeed the irony is a lot of those state companies have been bidding

00:32:18.820 for contracts to run railways here in order to extract some of the profit from the way that we

00:32:23.840 privatized our railways under the Tories 20 years ago so being pragmatic and most of them by the way

00:32:30.100 have have state-owned water and electricity companies as well which we don't have at the

00:32:34.140 moment and they do all of that within the European Union so whilst it is true that there is a

00:32:40.280 requirement to put contracts out to tender and things of that kind which actually I support

00:32:45.160 because I think you should always see what choices are available across most of Europe they have much

00:32:49.040 larger nationalized sectors than we have in the utilities which is the main area of debate inside

00:32:54.260 this general election in the utilities they mostly on the continent have state-run not privately run

00:32:59.460 enterprises that's absolutely compatible with membership of the European Union and that's the

00:33:04.640 reason why most people on the left don't have a problem with EU membership. So on the subject of

00:33:09.060 the left and the Labour Party it seems to me we mentioned Jeremy Corbyn briefly that always ends

00:33:14.340 up well. I voted for the Labour Party the last election and it was the first election I believe

00:33:23.240 in recent times when more working class people voted for the Conservative Party than did for

00:33:28.740 the Labour Party. There is a lot of resentment among working class people about the Labour

00:33:35.780 Party becoming the party of the kind of metropolitan university educated elite.

00:33:42.160 Jeremy Corbyn, shall we be charitable, say he's been unclear about his position on Brexit.

00:33:48.240 What do you make of the Labour Party and Brexit in the current time?

00:33:53.980 Well, all political parties are social coalitions, and that's right, because the aim of politics and a democracy is to bring people together and to try and create consensus, not to divide them. So I'm proud of the fact that there's a strong middle class component in the Labour Party and, of course, a strong trade union and working class component.

00:34:10.620 And the job of the party, you know, the Labour Party is supposed to be the People's Party, is to bring people together.

00:34:15.760 Do I think we have strong enough social support? Clearly not.

00:34:19.020 I mean, somebody said before that we defied the polls in the last election.

00:34:23.120 Well, we did do a lot better by the end of the election than at the beginning.

00:34:25.840 But it's very important that my Labour friends understand that we lost the last election.

00:34:29.540 We didn't win it.

00:34:30.840 We had 55 fewer seats than the Conservatives at the end of the last election campaign.

00:34:35.120 And we polled two and a half percentage points less than the Conservatives,

00:34:38.840 which by historic standards is about the division

00:34:40.780 between winning and losing parties historically.

00:34:43.580 What we did in the last election was to turn catastrophe

00:34:47.820 into a narrow defeat.

00:34:49.940 What we've got to do this time is to turn narrow defeat into victory.

00:34:53.920 And what does that require?

00:34:55.240 It requires, as it always does in politics,

00:34:57.400 having a broad social and political appeal.

00:35:00.300 And that means we've got to have a very strong appeal

00:35:02.540 in working-class communities,

00:35:04.240 where all the issues we've been talking about earlier,

00:35:06.080 disaffection extreme poverty extreme inequality the absence in many of these communities of a

00:35:12.500 real plan for jobs and community renewal we need to get all of that right too but if you're sitting

00:35:17.440 in a more affluent part of london for example at the moment where leaving the european union is

00:35:23.860 also existential you know what's going to happen to the you know london is a city which has 15

00:35:29.900 universities it has one of the most international higher education sectors in the world possibly

00:35:35.900 in the world all of that is in jeopardy all of it is in jeopardy with brexit so we need to be able to

00:35:42.460 to bring together all of these different parts of the community and to speak to them all and

00:35:47.680 it's perfectly compatible it is absolutely compatible to be able to say in middlesbrough

00:35:51.880 we need a really big plan for jobs investments and dealing with poverty in middlesbrough whilst

00:35:57.100 at the same time saying in parts of london we don't want brexit because we don't want to be

00:36:02.380 having visas required for people to travel between Britain and the continent. These aren't

00:36:06.500 incompatible policies. We need to be very strong in saying all of them and building a broad social

00:36:11.400 coalition. And I believe it's possible for us to do that. But my point is Jeremy Corbyn hasn't done

00:36:16.120 that. He hasn't done that. I know a lot of working class people who feel utterly alienated by his

00:36:21.860 position on many issues and his lack of clarity on the issue of Brexit. I know many metropolitan

00:36:26.920 and liberal types who are deeply alienated who voted Labour entire life because the position

00:36:32.460 on Brexit has been so muddled so unclear and a lot of people feel that it's actually dishonest

00:36:37.520 he's tried to play both sides and he's got none well to be fair I've been probably as you kindly

00:36:43.400 said at the beginning one of the the more active remain campaigners both nationally and inside the

00:36:48.180 Labour Party I made myself very awkward with the current Labour leadership including Jeremy

00:36:52.560 personally by campaigning really hard last year in the party for us having a second referendum

00:36:57.380 at a stage when the party didn't want when he didn't want didn't want to commit one and at the

00:37:01.660 party conference last year that was the big issue was whether we would commit to holding a second

00:37:06.760 referendum with the remain option that is now party policy that is at the heart of our manifesto

00:37:11.360 for this uh for this election now i i don't myself believe in thought police politics i don't believe

00:37:16.820 that you it is incompatible to be a member of the labour party and to be a brexit i think it's

00:37:21.300 perfectly possible we discussed it earlier to be Labour and to be in favour of Brexit I certainly

00:37:25.540 don't think we should have some kind of doctrinaire test that to be a member of the Labour Party you

00:37:29.580 have to be a Remainer what I do think is right what I've been campaigning for is that we should

00:37:33.720 give the country the choice which also means giving Labour Party activists the ability to

00:37:39.180 campaign for people to have the choice and Jeremy has committed to that so what I was seeking to do

00:37:44.440 all of last year which is that we should be committed to a second referendum with a Remain

00:37:48.720 option and on the back of that we should have a big reform plan for the country that is the party's

00:37:54.840 manifesto in this election i am certainly not going to be out there saying and therefore every

00:37:58.740 labor party member must sign in blood that they are remainer that's not my kind of politics at all

00:38:03.440 and so you're saying that it's about essentially labor winning hearts and minds my question to you

00:38:09.320 would be how is labor in particular jeremy corbyn going to be able to do that when he can't even

00:38:13.800 unite his own party where we see people defecting well actually that's simply not true look the fact

00:38:22.260 is because sometimes because of the way our rather tory media reports things and the bbc which has

00:38:27.920 been doing a great job you would think that there was riot and rebellion inside the labour party

00:38:30.900 large numbers of labour mps have been deselected do you know how many labour members of parliament

00:38:36.700 have actually been deselected for this election i think francis was referring to people leaving

00:38:41.860 I'll come to them in a moment. Hold on. The answer is none. None. Not a single Labour member of Parliament has been deselected. Do you know how many Conservatives have been deselected as they've imposed their extreme Brexit option on? Well, it was 21 of whom 10 have now been readmitted, but it's significantly more.

00:39:03.220 what all of the things which the right claim that the left have been doing which is intolerance

00:39:07.600 not allowing broad spectrum of opinion all that they've been doing to themselves now it's true

00:39:11.760 a few Labour MPs have left it's a handful who left it's Chukka it's Chris Leslie I mean it's

00:39:17.400 literally it's a handful Luciana Berger yeah but far more conservatives have left you know I was

00:39:22.880 doing a thing two days ago with Dominic Grieve Dominic Grieve who is by the way I think has

00:39:27.100 played an absolute blinder in last year in terms of parliamentarians I have a real respect for

00:39:31.280 who are doing the Burke's job of being representatives, not delegates, saying the right thing for the country and doing all of that.

00:39:36.400 He's up there. He is having to fight in Beaconsfield at the moment as an independent because he's been expelled from the Conservative Party.

00:39:43.320 So I don't think as a Labour Party person I need any lessons in intolerance from people in other political parties or commentators.

00:39:52.560 When the real intolerance we're facing in British politics at the moment, which is deep and bitter intolerance,

00:39:58.060 is on the right, with Farage and the Brexit Party

00:40:00.900 and a Conservative Party more intolerant of divergent views

00:40:04.680 than at any time in my lifetime,

00:40:06.760 whereas Jeremy Corbyn actually has maintained the Labour Party

00:40:09.700 as a broad church.

00:40:11.120 He himself, of course, has a very clear view of where he is personally,

00:40:13.880 but he has not been, you know, I mean,

00:40:16.120 I don't mind describing myself as historically a Blairite.

00:40:19.260 I think that the Blair government is one of the best things

00:40:21.080 that's happened to this country, particularly look at what's happened since.

00:40:23.320 I mean, let's bring back Tony Blair.

00:40:25.560 I mean, let's have a lot more of that rather than what we've had since.

00:40:28.060 You're really misjudging the mood of the country there, believe you me.

00:40:32.860 But look, the Blairites inside the Labour Party are overwhelmingly still inside the Labour Party.

00:40:38.820 And I have no hesitation in saying that what we want is a broad church Labour Party.

00:40:43.260 I'm content with Jeremy Corbyn's leadership in this election, provided he operates a broad church policy.

00:40:49.140 And as we've discussed on Europe, which has been the most contentious issue inside the party,

00:40:52.420 he's in fact, compared to how the last three leaders of the Conservative Party have played it,

00:40:57.560 He has been God's gift to broad-mindedness, tolerance, and pluralism in politics.

00:41:06.720 I'm giving as good as I get.

00:41:09.340 No, you are doing a good job.

00:41:11.180 You're brilliant.

00:41:12.200 And that was a party political broadcast.

00:41:13.900 Anyway, so...

00:41:15.520 Let's do a couple more minutes before we open up to questions.

00:41:17.560 So what would you say to people, so off the top of my head,

00:41:21.540 people like Philip Collins, who you all know well used to write speeches,

00:41:26.180 He's Blair's main speechwriter, comedian Matt Ford.

00:41:30.080 You know, people who were staunch Labour people

00:41:32.860 and felt that the party was moving in a direction that was unacceptable

00:41:37.240 and they had to renounce their membership.

00:41:40.000 And in Phillips Collins' case, it was of anti-Semitism.

00:41:42.500 Well, I think that they were mistaken in terms of leaving the party.

00:41:46.000 Do I think that there's a problem of anti-Semitism inside the Labour Party?

00:41:49.420 I think there is.

00:41:50.280 Why? Why is there a problem with anti-Semitism?

00:41:52.220 Because there are some members of the party who have been tolerant of anti-Semitic views and anti-Semites.

00:41:57.980 My own view is very straightforward, is that those people have no part in any mainstream political party, and that includes the Labour Party.

00:42:05.280 And that has come under the spotlight, and there is an Equalities and Human Rights investigation into whether the party has handled that properly.

00:42:13.300 And I think anyone who's been responsible for tolerating or excusing or allowing anti-Semites to play a role inside the party, I think that is a fundamental issue and it needs to be sorted out.

00:42:26.360 But do I think that we should, all those of us who don't hold those views, which is the overwhelming majority of people inside the Labour Party, Labour MPs, Labour members, Labour members of the House of Lords like myself, do we think we should therefore leave our own party?

00:42:40.160 I think that's a category error. I think it's the anti-Semites and those who hold those views who should be leaving the party.

00:42:44.780 But it's not those of us who hold the mainstream and sensible views.

00:42:48.060 But isn't that the problem, Roderick, is that they haven't left the party. As you say, they have been tolerated.

00:42:51.580 And it seems to be that the people who are leaving feel like it's either them leaving or staying in a party where those anti-Semites are allowed to remain.

00:42:59.740 As I say, I think that's a category error. The anti-Semites are the tiny majority.

00:43:04.360 Those of us who don't hold those views and find them repugnant are the overwhelming majority.

00:43:10.680 And in any organisation, it shouldn't be the overwhelming majority that have to leave their party because of misbehaviour by a minority.

00:43:16.640 My point was something else, which is those people who are leaving feel like the party leadership is not addressing that issue robustly enough.

00:43:26.960 Would you agree with that?

00:43:27.720 I think it wasn't addressing it robustly enough.

00:43:29.600 I think it is now, is my view in response.

00:43:32.400 I think, and at the time, and, you know, some of the people you've mentioned are friends of mine.

00:43:37.160 I completely respect their points of view.

00:43:39.300 But it's always been my view of politics that you should stay and fight and you certainly don't leave until you've lost.

00:43:45.100 And on this issue of anti-Semitism, we haven't lost.

00:43:48.040 On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of people who hold these views, who hold our views, which is that we find it completely repugnant and unacceptable.

00:43:57.180 We're the ones who've come through.

00:43:58.280 And to give a specific example, Margaret Hodge, who is absolutely in the lead on these issues, is fighting the next election as the Labour candidate in Barking and Dagenham.

00:44:08.360 And she, as you know, was extremely critical of the leadership on these issues.

00:44:13.360 So I understand what they're saying, but we're the majority, they're the minority, and it should be the minority, which in the case of anti-Semitism is a tiny minority.

00:44:22.820 It should be them that leave the party. It shouldn't be the rest of us.

00:44:25.680 And do you think Corbyn and his leadership has condoned anti-Semitism?

00:44:29.980 Well, that's a matter for the European, for the Equalities and Human Rights investigation.

00:44:34.680 The answer is I don't know.

00:44:36.140 That's a very equivocal answer there.

00:44:37.920 Well, the truth is I don't know.

00:44:39.620 That's the reason why this investigation has been set up.

00:44:42.100 But if people have condoned it, that is totally unacceptable.

00:44:45.600 I've got not a slightest hesitation.

00:44:47.500 Do we have a fourth roaming mic or do we need to give one of these up?

00:44:51.080 We've got one. Fantastic. Perfect.

00:44:52.540 Well, before we crack on with questions, can we just thank Lord Adonis for giving us his time and coming out, whether we agree with everything or not.

00:45:01.840 So, gentlemen there, please. Thank you. And we'll go there and we'll go there.

00:45:05.900 We'll take three at a time and then get some answers.

00:45:08.720 Thanks. Thanks for an interesting discussion.

00:45:12.120 About a second referendum, I agree with Lord Adonis that if a clear majority of the public now wants to remain, it would be kind of crazy to go to fly in the face of that.

00:45:21.420 but does he not accept that every election every referendum involves a large degree of chance

00:45:27.180 depends on the weather depends on last minute political events it depends on the charisma of

00:45:30.300 the people involved um and if a second referendum happens and it's 52 48 the other way it's not

00:45:38.220 going to feel like the country's changed its mind it's going to feel like the coin's been flipped

00:45:41.260 until the answer remain as one is is is provided so would he be prepared to require a two-thirds

00:45:48.740 super majority for a second referendum if the first one's going to be overturned and that would

00:45:52.340 close the door to further referendums no is the answer to that because because we have to we have

00:45:57.600 to make a decision and so though i would hope it i'd much rather it was a bigger majority than that

00:46:02.500 the fact of the matter is we've got to decide and if we start putting artificial things rules in

00:46:07.280 like that what happens if we get into the zombie situation where there's a majority but it doesn't

00:46:12.600 meet the super majority what do you then do do you go and adopt the minority position because

00:46:17.560 we haven't got the majority position so though as it happens i would have supported a larger

00:46:22.120 majority for the first referendum before you started this process we have now got to decide

00:46:26.760 and i think it would be very dangerous to put artificial majorities in that could mean we're

00:46:30.640 in a kind of zombie land where we're incapable of acting as a country and in the situation we're now

00:46:35.500 in we can't not act it's very important to understand that we're in a very different

00:46:39.800 situation from three and a half years ago three and a half years ago we didn't need to start this

00:46:42.760 process so if you hadn't reached your super majority it wouldn't have mattered because

00:46:46.200 You just don't start the process of leaving the EU.

00:46:48.380 Now we are about to leave 31st of January.

00:46:53.180 We're leaving.

00:46:54.200 So if you have a zombie situation where you have a majority but it's not the super majority, what do you do?

00:47:00.440 Do you leave or not leave?

00:47:02.020 So though I would have agreed with you from the beginning of the process not to start the process without it, we are in a desperate crisis situation at the moment.

00:47:12.220 We've got to decide as a country, and I would not put any impediments in the way of being able to decide.

00:47:19.220 And unfortunately, a supermajority could be just such an impediment at the moment.

00:47:22.820 I do agree with you. Of course, there are lots of chance factors in elections.

00:47:26.260 The third referendum.

00:47:27.600 Oh, the third referendum. The crucial thing to understand about our system is that what we've got,

00:47:32.120 which is part of the reason we're in this situation at the moment, is we have what is basically a parliamentary democracy,

00:47:35.880 which is now over the course of the last 50 years we've grafted certain elements of direct democracy

00:47:41.640 onto it now you can have a debate about whether that was a good idea or not a good idea whether

00:47:45.400 it's good to have referendums at all but under our system of government which is fundamentally

00:47:48.920 different from for example switzerland referendums are only held because parliament calls them the

00:47:54.420 only reason there was a referendum three and a half years ago is because david cameron and a

00:47:57.580 majority in parliament called it we don't have the initiative which they have in switzerland which

00:48:02.560 enables the people themselves to call referendums which is the reason why they have five to ten

00:48:06.900 referendums a year now one thing i'm pretty sure of is that if after this second referendum there

00:48:12.720 is not going to be a third referendum in any hurry because you won't get a parliamentary

00:48:16.200 majority and a prime minister is prepared to call it so we're not in a situation where you end up

00:48:21.700 with neverendums because always a minority in the country can call it under our system only a

00:48:26.960 parliamentary majority by statute can call a referendum and that requires essentially the

00:48:32.300 leadership of the governing party which means the prime minister to agree and as i say after a second

00:48:37.140 referendum i can't see any prime minister in the short term agreeing for to another referendum on

00:48:42.420 leaving the european union if we do leave actually i think there is a reasonable chance that a prime

00:48:46.080 minister in 10 or 15 years might call a referendum on going back in but but that's another matter

00:48:50.120 we had a question at the back there somebody had their hand up i saw you first yeah hi thank you

00:48:55.680 that was really interesting discussion um there are a couple of things that you said i'd like

00:48:59.520 to tease out to get you to elucidate a little further on the first thing was you you talked

00:49:05.540 about us being approaching the half time stage in the brexit debate i'd really appreciate some

00:49:11.480 clarity when exactly you think the kickoff whistle was was it 2016 was it 1975 was it 1973

00:49:18.400 was it one or other of the occasions when de Gaulle rejected her application i think it was

00:49:22.740 actually 1066 as it happens but you know but we're not necessarily half time on that one sure sure

00:49:27.920 But the point is, I mean, you appreciate that whatever happens in two or three years, the debate about Britain's relationship with Europe is going to be continuing.

00:49:36.800 And the second point that you said, you said nothing changes if we stay in the EU.

00:49:41.080 Well, unfortunately, as you know, given the way the EU works with sort of more and more powers being transferred by successive treaties, we've kind of seen how that has happened over the years that we've been a member of the EU.

00:49:52.020 And even if there's a certain Eurosceptic tension in numerous member states, which maybe slow the process down, that, you know, again, this issue of Britain's semi-detached relationship with Europe by not being in the Euro, by not being in the Schengen zone, and frankly, being unlikely to join either, even if we do remain somehow in the EU.

00:50:11.440 how do you envisage I mean how do you relate to this idea of nothing changing it seems to me

00:50:17.860 that a lot of the underlying tensions are going to remain here and remain unresolved

00:50:22.140 we don't we don't have to join the euro or Schengen simple answer we don't have to join them the fact

00:50:28.040 that some of our European partners have have set up a single currency is a matter for them we have

00:50:33.420 because of the brilliance of British negotiations in times past including John Major did a fantastic

00:50:38.540 job at the maastricht treaty we're not required to join we we can choose as a country it's very

00:50:43.260 important not to scarify people there is no treaty obligation on us whatsoever to join the euro but

00:50:50.220 we have a right to join it if we wish to do so in the future uh that's a matter of course point was

00:50:55.580 even if we don't join the euro we nonetheless preserve the tensions that we currently have

00:51:00.500 look what relationships in human affairs do not involve tension i mean let's be frank of course

00:51:07.180 it involves tension the whole we're talking about a union between 28 nations which share our

00:51:13.280 continent of course that's going to be tense even if the european union worked 10 times better than

00:51:17.760 does at the moment you would still have tension this isn't whether there's tension because there's

00:51:21.380 inevitably going to be tension in any relations of that kind the question is whether it's manageable

00:51:25.520 and advantageous for us this is the crucial point because there is no perfection in human affairs

00:51:30.820 is it given the choice we face advantageous and manageable for us to stay in the european union

00:51:36.880 definitely it's definitely advantageous it's definitely manageable and do not scarify people

00:51:42.780 with phantoms which may or may not emerge it may be that at some point in the future we face another

00:51:48.600 big issue in our relation to the European Union about a further act of integration it may it may

00:51:53.100 not we have faced them in the past and we've managed to negotiate our way through perfectly

00:51:57.720 satisfactorily it's perfectly satisfactory for there to be a block of members of the European

00:52:02.180 Union that have a single currency and for us not to that is not a reason why we need to give up

00:52:06.360 free trade which is essentially the big benefit that we have inside the european union at the

00:52:11.000 moment i'm not saying there won't be tension but i do say that it's meant that that tension is

00:52:15.660 manageable and i certainly think it's advantageous for us to stay rather than to leave there was a

00:52:20.880 gentleman in the front row who was next can i just say uh every battle of ideas session i've been to

00:52:25.300 someone has complained about a lack of female voices so if you're a woman please put your hand

00:52:29.000 up so we don't look sexist all right so we'll go to you madam at some point uh gentleman down here

00:52:33.200 the front row please guys hi um yeah thanks for a great discussion uh andrew you and i are not

00:52:38.640 going to persuade each other on brexit but uh in the spirit of agreement on this sunday morning

00:52:43.300 i'd just like to mention that uh i'm a big big fan of hs2 and you're yeah you're one of the many

00:52:49.980 many fewer of them than there are supporters of the european union another non-controversial

00:52:54.220 subject um so basically my question is uh when do you think it will actually happen uh i know that

00:53:01.020 you know and um how do you persuade the rest of the country to get behind hs2 oh i'd love to do

00:53:06.920 a whole thinking session on that uh the answer is it's happening at the moment if you go only a mile

00:53:12.740 away from here to euston the whole of the euston area at the moment is one massive building site

00:53:17.420 because hs2 is being constructed at the moment it's the same in the center of birmingham

00:53:20.740 so the issue isn't whether hs2 happens the legislation is passed the money has been

00:53:24.920 allocated it is being built between london and birmingham the actual issue though boris is

00:53:28.880 trying to elide it because he's trying to appeal to people who are for and against in the way that

00:53:32.420 boris always does he tries to appeal to both sides by pretending he doesn't have a view on either

00:53:36.160 side when you can't carry on doing that forever the issue actually on hs2 isn't whether it's built

00:53:40.860 from london to birmingham it's whether you're going to stop it in birmingham now it would be

00:53:45.160 ludicrous to build a high-speed railway line which goes halfway up the country you know it

00:53:50.380 obviously needs to go between the three largest metropolitan centers the country which is its

00:53:54.460 whole purpose which is london birmingham and manchester the fourth largest is leeds which is

00:53:59.320 the reason why it should have a branch going across there my own view is that the dynamic is

00:54:02.980 such that it will be built that way because it will seem to the public to be so ludicrous

00:54:07.840 to have a high speed line with high capacity very fast journey times which stops in the midlands

00:54:13.760 so i think it will happen what's at stake really is whether we have an integrated plan which we're

00:54:18.960 very bad at doing an infrastructure an integrated plan in one go to do london birmingham manchester

00:54:24.820 leeds or whether in classic british fashion we half build it we get to birmingham we have a 20

00:54:31.900 year pause while we have a massive national row about it and then we build it up to manchester

00:54:36.360 and leeds i think that that would be a mistake and that's what i've been saying very firmly

00:54:41.140 personally actually because i have a relationship with him to boris is that it's absolutely you can

00:54:46.180 you could have taken a decision before not to do hs2 i think that would have been a mistake

00:54:49.540 but to half build it and to leave people stranded in birmingham on these high-speed trains

00:54:54.940 is that is the height of folly i think we can all agree that being stranded in birmingham would be

00:54:59.600 a dreadful thing it's a dreadful thing if you want to go to manchester

00:55:05.400 gentlemen here then we'll go to you madam uh then to you madam and then to you sir

00:55:11.320 so leaving aside whether or not leaving or remaining is a good or bad thing one of the

00:55:18.140 so-called advantages that the leave campaign had is that they're able to paint a vision of how

00:55:23.500 britain could be better whereas the remain campaign kind of stuck with this status quo narrative and

00:55:29.340 how bad it would be if we left but the fact is is that the status quo is not going to stay the same

00:55:34.960 it never has stayed the same and the european union's got issues around tax policy around the

00:55:40.580 stability of the euro, an army, foreign policy, etc. All of these things that it wants to integrate

00:55:47.220 and improve upon. And obviously, we can all see the trend that where the EU wants to be

00:55:54.460 is as a grand super state. So why haven't the Remain campaign embraced that and promoted the

00:56:00.320 advantages and how great that would be and how we could be a global player? Because that is a

00:56:04.820 perfectly respectable position to have. But the reason why so many people don't feel infused is

00:56:10.100 because instead it's adopted this position of, well, how terrible it's going to be for the economy if we leave.

00:56:15.120 So why not embrace that vision as a super-state Europe?

00:56:19.660 Because I don't agree with your premise. That's the reason why it's not correct.

00:56:23.720 I do. I make the argument for the European Union in the way that Churchill made it in 1945,

00:56:29.220 as a kind of, and the word's kind of a crucial, a kind of United States of Europe.

00:56:34.060 It's a kind of federation, and I believe in that.

00:56:36.600 I believe in peace, prosperity, very close partnership, including shared institutions between the nations of Europe.

00:56:44.160 And actually, in the economic sphere, those are highly integrated.

00:56:47.520 We have the world's most integrated and effective and largest free trade and single market zone.

00:56:54.760 Indeed, in history, no other group of 28 countries has managed to have not just tariff-free, but essentially regulation-free trade in the way we have.

00:57:03.240 Now, I don't like the term super-state because it's intended to be pejorative. It is a quasi-federation in the same way as – because there's no one standard form of federation if you're studying political science, a whole different sets of ways that countries can work together at a supranational level.

00:57:19.060 However, does that mean, because that is a very successful quasi-federation, which has hugely boosted the peace and prosperity of Europe, indeed, in the case of peace, largely established it in the last 70 years, that therefore, teleologically, because we're using these sort of conceptual ways of thinking about it,

00:57:37.980 That must mean full integration in terms of armed forces and a further big leap forward in terms of creating a single economic policy for the whole of Europe and all that.

00:57:51.600 The answer is that's total rubbish.

00:57:53.180 Just take the issue of the European army, just to take that one as one, which is a kind of bogey.

00:57:57.300 There are only two seriously functioning armies in Europe.

00:58:02.020 That's Britain and France.

00:58:03.240 We're the only countries that spend enough on defence and have a sufficiently large armed forces to be able to mobilise significant forces.

00:58:10.340 And indeed, the one that people say will be the linchpin of this, which is Germany, if there were to be a European army,

00:58:16.680 Germany resolutely refuses to invest more than about a much smaller proportion than we do of their GDP on defence because they want to spend it on other things.

00:58:26.660 Now, I know Germany quite well.

00:58:28.200 I can assure you that Chancellor Merkel and her likely successors are not going to be leaping to double German defence spending.

00:58:34.580 They actually are quite happy piggybacking on France, Britain and the United States to maintain their defence.

00:58:41.340 So it's very important not to sort of believe all this stuff that comes out of Nigel Farage and all of this,

00:58:46.680 because the current European Union has certain elements of a federation about it.

00:58:50.540 We're therefore going to be having all of these bogeymen.

00:58:53.720 It's not true.

00:58:54.620 as it happens on the concept of a European army on the concept of it I don't I don't myself have

00:59:00.520 a problem with it we have a NATO army essentially at the moment that's what how all everything we

00:59:05.560 do at the moment in terms of our defense is based on NATO now NATO involves a very very high degree

00:59:12.560 of integration between the forces of France Britain and the United States including under

00:59:18.080 article 5 of the NATO treaty an absolute requirement to come to the defense of all of

00:59:23.580 the other members. An attack on one is an attack on all. The loss of sovereignty involved in that

00:59:28.840 is much greater than anything involved in the European Union. I don't have a problem with it.

00:59:32.980 It works. It's a club of democracies. We share the same values and all of that.

00:59:38.200 But in fact, it's not actually the case that we're going to get a European army seriously on the

00:59:42.900 agenda because that isn't where the politics of Europe is. Where is the politics of Europe at the

00:59:47.520 moment? It's seeking to maintain the peace and stability of the existing European Union, which

00:59:53.440 means two things in particular where we have a massive and and huge interest the first is seeing

01:00:00.660 that um that the current european economic zone functions effectively we have a huge interest in

01:00:08.100 that and the second to be blunt is seeing that an out of control semi-fascist russia which is on our

01:00:14.560 borders and is a real and present danger to us it's already invaded one european country ukraine

01:00:20.140 it could easily invade others that we keep them at bay now the European Union together with NATO

01:00:26.500 have been been doing a good job of that over recent years we need to sustain that we shouldn't

01:00:31.700 be scarifying ourselves by a whole lot of phantoms of things which which which are simply not going

01:00:37.860 to happen but which could lead us to making big big mistakes about withdrawing from existing

01:00:42.640 areas of integration and cooperation which are working very effectively as someone who works

01:00:47.220 with a Russian, I couldn't agree more.

01:00:50.160 I don't think Constantine,

01:00:51.360 I don't think he's an agent of President Putin.

01:00:53.420 A lot of people on the internet do believe me.

01:00:56.780 You, madam, please.

01:00:57.860 And then we'll go to you, madam, and then to you, sir.

01:01:00.980 Thank you.

01:01:01.860 I grew up in Hartlepool,

01:01:03.460 which was one of the strongest areas

01:01:05.040 for voting to leave the European Union.

01:01:08.220 It was a very strong Labour seat.

01:01:12.020 But in recent years,

01:01:14.060 I think people have got a bit fed up

01:01:16.840 with the arrogance of politicians.

01:01:19.600 In fact, some years ago,

01:01:21.120 when Hartlepool was forced to have a mayoral election...

01:01:24.240 Like the monkey.

01:01:25.020 ..they elected the football mascot a monkey.

01:01:29.020 Indeed.

01:01:29.220 And, of course, in the last election...

01:01:32.860 Well, people were very upset when Peter Mandelson was parachuted in.

01:01:37.380 I mean, he did have some connections with the area,

01:01:39.860 but, of course, he was an outsider.

01:01:42.720 And more recently, they voted in the last election

01:01:45.820 a Brexit candidate was elected but even more than that in the last local elections Labour

01:01:52.220 actually lost control of the local authority and I just wondered do you think it's realistic

01:01:57.600 of the Labour Party to think that they can win back these seats with the promise of jam tomorrow

01:02:04.520 as you were saying a great program of reforms and investment in these poorer areas.

01:02:13.000 Well, I think it's the only way, isn't it?

01:02:15.280 Because what politics is about in a democracy is seeking to deliver things that people want.

01:02:20.280 And what people want in Hartlepool is they want more investment and a serious economic plan.

01:02:24.540 It's the only way.

01:02:25.820 Do I think it's realistic to do it?

01:02:27.100 Yes, I think it is realistic to do it.

01:02:29.340 And indeed, though you're absolutely right about what's happened in Hartlepool,

01:02:32.580 you're completely right that Labour did lose the local authority and hasn't been strong enough on the ground.

01:02:39.880 That's not true of a lot of other communities in the north where Labour has remained very strong.

01:02:46.140 You know, for example, the city of Manchester, the largest single metropolitan area in the north.

01:02:51.460 There's almost no non-Labour members of Manchester City Council.

01:02:54.660 Andy Burnham is the mayor of Greater Manchester.

01:02:56.780 There is a sense of there being a proper plan for Manchester, including the area I'm most interested in, which is education and transport.

01:03:02.960 You know, Manchester is the biggest and strongest university outside London, has more students than apparently anywhere west of Moscow.

01:03:09.880 So I'm bringing these things in because apparently Constantine likes these parallels and there's a big transport plan and all that.

01:03:15.860 So my view is – and part of the reason for that is Labour has had a good plan, a reasonably good plan for Greater Manchester, including creating a mayor, a single integrated authority, a big transport plan and all that.

01:03:25.860 We haven't had a good enough plan, I'll be quite frank with you, for Hartlepool and some of the coastal communities and we need to get much better at that.

01:03:35.340 But when you say, do I think it's realistic? Yes, I do think it's realistic, but also there's no alternative because there's no other way of rebuilding Labour in these communities other than addressing what are the real existing problems that they face with credible plans.

01:03:50.860 The woman by the door there, yeah.

01:03:53.120 Yes, I think the kind of the best thing really about Brexit is that it's kind of opened up a lot of political questions that had been really closed down for a generation really.

01:04:04.860 So you mentioned already, you know, United Ireland, Gibraltar, but also things like the House of Lords, first past the post, regional government.

01:04:14.980 And, you know, I think that the mood of the country is not that they want any kind of new system handed down to them from government.

01:04:26.200 It feels like there's a real desire and a real appetite for a big process of democratic debate and renewal.

01:04:34.860 And I just wonder whether you think that's right and if you think there's any ways that we can, you know, foster that.

01:04:41.560 Well, I completely agree with that, but it doesn't require leaving the European Union.

01:04:45.520 Indeed, leaving the European Union would make it harder to deal with that.

01:04:48.180 So, for example, the House of Lords, I think the House of Lords is at the moment is a democratic monstrosity.

01:04:54.320 You know, I mean, I was appointed by a prime minister 15 years ago and have no more legitimacy than that.

01:04:59.040 I'm strongly in favour of an elected House of Lords.

01:05:02.700 And I also think it should have a strong regional component and should help to bring the nations and the regions of the country together, a bit like the second chambers in Germany and the United States.

01:05:14.120 So I certainly do think it's right to open up those issues.

01:05:17.440 I think we need much stronger devolution.

01:05:19.620 We need to hand a lot more power down to local governments and regional and city governments in England because England is essentially run almost like a colony from London at the moment.

01:05:28.300 We need a reformed second chamber.

01:05:29.560 All of those things, I think, are correct.

01:05:31.880 And you may be right that Brexit has had the effect,

01:05:34.880 the Brexit argument has had the effect of opening them up

01:05:37.400 in a bigger way than before.

01:05:38.640 I would accept that.

01:05:40.040 But I don't think the right thing to do is to leave the European Union.

01:05:42.440 I think the right thing to do is to stay in the European Union

01:05:44.340 but address those issues.

01:05:46.120 And it's a wake-up call to the political class

01:05:48.740 that they do need to be addressed.

01:05:50.520 I mean, House of Lords reform has been on the agenda for a century

01:05:53.140 and we never actually managed to do any of it.

01:05:55.840 It's about time we actually got real and did it.

01:05:57.920 The gentleman in the middle there.

01:05:59.580 Hi there.

01:05:59.880 I've been a Labour voter all my life

01:06:02.640 I won't be voting Labour

01:06:04.440 in this coming up election

01:06:05.780 and the reason is purely down to leadership

01:06:08.000 or should I say lack of leadership

01:06:09.560 the whole Brexit issue with Corbyn

01:06:12.640 and the anti-Semitism is

01:06:14.500 unbelievable, if he can't get that right in his own

01:06:16.640 party, I genuinely don't see how

01:06:18.440 he could ever lead a country

01:06:20.420 my question to you is

01:06:22.640 if we had somebody like say

01:06:24.460 Keir Starmer leading Labour now

01:06:26.400 do you think the polls, the whole dynamics

01:06:28.700 of this situation would be in a completely different place well i i care is a friend of mine

01:06:33.460 i think he'd make an excellent leader of the labor party but you can only have one leader at a time

01:06:37.540 and we are in a general election campaign at the moment and the choice which faces the country it's

01:06:41.160 a real choice is do you want as the prime minister on the 13th of december boris johnson with all

01:06:47.200 that comes with him or jeremy corbyn my judgment is pretty clear on that aren't they in terms of

01:06:53.160 But the real poll is on the 12th of December.

01:06:56.560 My friend here was asking me, saying, you know, and that is the choice that we face.

01:07:00.460 My judgment is that the better thing for the country, the better policy for the country, the better leader out of those two,

01:07:05.980 and that is the choice that we face, would be Jeremy Corbyn.

01:07:09.920 Do I think in due course Keir Starmer would make a great leader of the Labour Party?

01:07:13.480 I completely agree he would.

01:07:14.980 This is the biggest open goal that we've ever seen for Labour.

01:07:18.220 Well, the one thing you can't do in any situation is to say, I wish we weren't here because we've done five things differently in the past.

01:07:25.540 Do you know, I wish we'd done five things differently in the past, but we are where we are.

01:07:29.120 The choice facing the country now in an election which is now underway, that is the choice.

01:07:34.080 And we all have to make judgments on that basis.

01:07:36.960 That is the choice which the country faces.

01:07:38.800 And given both the people involved and the policies which underlie those people too, I think that the right government for the country on the 13th of December would be a Labour-led government, not a Tory-led government.

01:07:55.060 And this issue of Brexit is absolutely central to that.

01:07:58.680 Do we have anybody else? Yes. If we could pass it down to the man in the hat. Jared.

01:08:04.180 Hello, thanks very much. I'm really fascinated by one of the points that you made earlier on concerning what's actually inside the Brexit debate. I took on organising London Intellectual Dark Web Group because I wanted to meet people who were across the aisle from me.

01:08:19.500 I found over the 10 years since I got a smartphone in 2009 that I abandoned my habit of reading lots of different newspapers.

01:08:27.660 And what I find with talking with people across the aisle is that the idea of Brexit has become superordinate.

01:08:33.520 And the discussion on any other issues to do with housing, transport and all the other issues really faded into the background.

01:08:40.340 And a few months ago, I started asking people, would they rather we leave the European Union or would we rather have the time and effort spent in dealing with housing or transport or all the other issues?

01:08:55.420 And I've really been astonished that they're not that they haven't thought about it, but they're astonished that there could be an alternative to take up our political time outside of Brexit.

01:09:08.220 Why is it that you think that the Brexit issue has become so superordinate to taking up everything that all of these other issues that actually inform it, such as austerity, have been sort of largely abandoned in the background?

01:09:21.780 Because in a real existing – in the real existing situation, it is – I like the word which I haven't used before, but we need another word for this Sunday morning thing, superordinate.

01:09:33.760 I've never used that word, but I like it.

01:09:35.500 I take superordinate to mean overwhelming.

01:09:38.220 Yeah. Well, the reason why people are treating it as an overwhelming issue is because it is an overwhelming issue.

01:09:44.620 You know, the European Union Withdrawal Act, which is one of nine, nine pieces of legislation which are needed to prepare the way for leaving the European Union.

01:09:54.220 That's before we get to these trade deals and everything else coming down the line.

01:09:57.340 That was debated in the House of Commons and the House of Lords for 300 hours, which is longer than any piece of legislation has been debated in the history of Parliament.

01:10:09.120 So when you say that the issue is superordinate and people treat it as if it's superordinate, the reason they treat it as if it's superordinate is because it is superordinate.

01:10:16.940 How much time has Parliament spent debating housing policy in the last three years?

01:10:21.620 Well, we had a debate in the House of Lords and housing two weeks ago.

01:10:25.060 The debate lasted two hours.

01:10:27.340 Those are the relative ratios of the time Parliament is spending.

01:10:31.180 Until Parliament itself, which is our political class and our political institutions,

01:10:34.880 themselves can find a way of moving on, we are going to be overwhelmed.

01:10:39.540 And unfortunately, it also has the effect, which I think has been deeply damaging to our politics,

01:10:44.060 but which you were hinting at in your remarks,

01:10:46.020 which is that every other issue is seen through the prism of Brexit.

01:10:50.220 Now, let me say, I think that is a complete mistake.

01:10:52.100 It's part of the reason why I'm so much against Brexit.

01:10:53.940 brexit the reason the way of dealing with the housing crisis is hey presto to deal with the

01:11:00.100 housing crisis it's to start building council houses again in a big way it's to start getting

01:11:04.740 into the business of regulating the private rented sector it's to give people a fairer deal it's to

01:11:08.880 end the two child policy which is monstrous inside universal credit that means a lot of people can't

01:11:13.180 even afford decent quality housing at all that's the way you deal with it it's not by somehow doing

01:11:19.160 brexit because then it's going to i don't know what you know the chain of argument which then

01:11:23.440 goes on is then we're going to give a wake-up call to the political class is what my friend

01:11:26.620 they said a few moments ago and all that hinting it's going to do it won't what it will do is

01:11:32.160 brexit will lead to more brexit because as i said once you've got your first installment of brexit

01:11:36.380 you've then got your 10 years of trade negotiation so you'll get even less housing policy so what i

01:11:40.540 am trying to do with lots of other people in politics at the moment is to stop this uh this

01:11:48.640 paradigm so we're using all these long these words today this paradigm which comes to see

01:11:53.400 all the issues facing the country in the context of whether we do or don't leave the european union

01:11:59.340 what we should do is to not do that and instead address directly all of these other issues and

01:12:05.400 my view is if we'd done that first time round because this was the fundamental mistake made

01:12:10.380 by cameron because it was cameron himself who put this right at the center of politics

01:12:15.100 If instead we'd put housing, the NHS, education, inequality, apprenticeships, all of those issues which fundamentally affect the whole future of the country, if we'd put those at the centre of politics, we wouldn't be having this debate about the superordinate issue of Brexit in the first place.

01:12:33.440 OK, we can take one more question from the gentleman over there with his hand up.

01:12:37.780 Yes, sir.

01:12:38.180 This is my friend, the socialist.

01:12:39.960 Yes, indeed.

01:12:41.080 Who's intent on thinking that I'm in a fundamentally different tribe from him.

01:12:44.920 Well, I think you've been great today, I might say. But I'd just like to ask what you think now, in light of experience and so forth, about your academy schools education policy. Was it radical enough?

01:12:59.520 Because now there's talk about, you know, Labour going on to abolishing the public schools, getting rid of Eton. Personally, I'm all in favour of greater equality in society. But, you know, there's this question of sort of whether you should build people up or destroy things down. And I don't like personally the idea of destroying Eton.

01:13:20.860 how do you how do you feel about this um were your what's your earlier policy radical enough

01:13:26.900 or is the prospective one maybe too radical well coming back because this the fundamental issue

01:13:32.560 which you're dealing with in in the public service at the moment is austerity or not austerity and it

01:13:36.520 really comes uh into sharp relief when you look at the issue of education uh there were some

01:13:42.820 elements of the academy's policy which were controversial in the labour party they were to

01:13:45.180 do with how you run schools and i'll come back to those in a moment but the biggest element of the

01:13:49.320 academy programme, the biggest element by far was massive investment in state education.

01:13:56.000 The academy's programme was part of a programme which was called Building Schools for the Future,

01:13:59.860 which was investing in the rebuilding renewal of every school in the country. It was very bold,

01:14:06.120 which when we left office in 2010 was £8 billion a year. When I first started working for Tony Blair

01:14:13.600 in 1998 and we got going on this serious education policy, we were spending as a country £800

01:14:18.440 million a year on the building and renewal of school buildings so we in that Labour government

01:14:24.840 increased by tenfold tenfold the national spending on on school buildings now my own view is there's

01:14:33.440 nothing more important in a society than the quality of its schools that is what you know

01:14:38.020 renews a society and nurtures the next generation and we should be spending properly on school

01:14:43.700 buildings one of the biggest things that happened with austerity was a cut in the school building

01:14:47.520 programme it was cut immediately from eight billion to three billion and it's now running

01:14:51.820 under two billion a year that is the difference a labour government makes and what austerity has

01:14:57.800 meant now we said were we radical enough the academy's policy that the controversial bit of

01:15:03.660 the academy's policy which was essentially closing seriously failing schools and reopening them with

01:15:08.540 new leadership that's what essentially it was it was always controversial because it involved change

01:15:12.400 and for and for some of the people who've been responsible for running the previous schools of

01:15:16.360 course it was controversial with them but actually you know the proof of the pudding is in the eating

01:15:20.800 those schools have been phenomenally successful those of you who live in communities which have

01:15:24.340 got the original academies that were set up schools like Mossbourne in Hackney I could go

01:15:28.200 down the list there are very very few people who'd want to move back to what we had before

01:15:32.140 were we radical enough no what I wanted to move on to and I see as the next big issue in education

01:15:38.760 is what happens to people who don't go to university because in our country at the moment

01:15:42.840 people who go to university get a pretty good deal there are controversies there about tuition

01:15:46.620 fees and all that but nonetheless we have first rate universities people do well they have high

01:15:50.160 earning power we have a terrible apprenticeship system in this country we don't have a proper

01:15:54.780 system of training and career development for the 60 percent of 18 year olds 60 percent who don't go

01:16:02.420 to university and the thing i was desperate to move on to in 2010 was to try and create and wait

01:16:08.260 for it because with some of my people who don't like europe you won't like this but i'm going to

01:16:11.180 say it anyway to create in britain an apprenticeship system like the germans because the germans have

01:16:16.680 a fantastic the germans the germans and the dutch it's not just the germans the germans have a

01:16:21.800 brilliant apprenticeship system which invests as much in 18 year olds who don't go to university

01:16:26.180 as those who do that's the next big and bold new frontier i wanted and i still think we need to be

01:16:32.460 doing it and just to wrap up on these remarks if we weren't doing brexit and i could get back to

01:16:36.800 things i really love which is partly transport i'm a bit of a train nerd i'm afraid but also

01:16:41.160 education those are the things i'd be doing and we need to put them right at the center of debate

01:16:47.860 you know the proposition i'd like to put before people is why is it that we do not in this country

01:16:51.920 spend as much on every 19 year old who doesn't go to university as those who do go to university

01:16:58.020 at the moment we spend four times more on those who do go to university than those who don't

01:17:03.680 surprise surprise where do we get big disaffection people who don't have decent earning power people

01:17:08.380 who are disaffected it's by and large in those who don't get the opportunity to go to university

01:17:11.620 that's what we should be sorting out as a country not this absolutely terrible off the edge of a

01:17:17.740 cliff brexit business which is making it even harder for us to deal with housing build hs2 by

01:17:24.120 the way the no deal preparations alone would have built half of my hs2 line alone you know all of

01:17:31.220 these contracts with ferry companies that don't have fairies and all of that so stop brexit build

01:17:35.760 hs2 build houses deal with the education crisis have a proper apprenticeship system and then we'd

01:17:41.240 be much much better off as a country lord adonis i love how in the question about education you went

01:17:46.280 from education to apprenticeship to brexit to hs2 and back to the trains you've covered everything

01:17:51.540 very very quickly literally in 10 seconds the last question we always ask on trigonometry is what's

01:17:56.260 the one thing that no one's talking about that we should be talking about actually it's housing

01:18:00.320 at the moment we have a housing crisis greater than any time in the last 50 years we have people

01:18:06.640 living millions of people millions of people in this country our fellow citizens living in slum

01:18:12.240 conditions at the moment that is an absolute scandal at the heart of our society and if there's

01:18:17.060 one thing we sort out in the next 10 years it should be that fantastic i think we can all agree

01:18:21.340 lord adonis has been absolutely brilliant please give him a round of applause thanks it was great

01:18:27.520 it was great to be with you

01:18:28.220 and I promise

01:18:29.340 if I become

01:18:29.860 transport sector again

01:18:30.580 I am sorting out

01:18:31.280 those problems

01:18:31.660 on the M25

01:18:32.220 and thank you so much

01:18:34.720 subscribe to us

01:18:35.720 on all the usual channels

01:18:36.620 you've been absolutely brilliant

01:18:37.500 and enjoy the rest

01:18:38.480 of the battle of ideas

01:18:39.380 see you again bye

01:18:40.140 thank you bye bye

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TRIGGERnometry - December 01, 2019

Lord Andrew Adonis：＂No Deal Brexit is a Fraud＂

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