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SOPHY RIDGE: In November Anne-Marie Trevelyan quit the government over Theresa May’s Brexit deal and in her resignation letter she raised concerns about the Irish backstop and also the fishing industry and I’m pleased to say that she joins us now. Thank you very for being with us, so has the Christmas break made you change your mind?

ANNE-MARIE TREVELYAN: I’m afraid it hasn’t, no, there’s been no change to the Withdrawal Agreement documentation or indeed the Critical Declaration documentation so my view still stands. At the moment it just isn’t something that as a Brexiteer and someone who believes that we must respect the will of the people through that referendum order that we were given, this doesn’t do that.

SR: As someone who is quite plugged into the Conservative benches, do you have any indication that people are changing their minds?

ANNE-MARIE TREVELYAN: No, not really. It’s been really interesting actually, the chat over Christmas and we keep trying to get our heads down but we all of us want to leave on the 29th March with a deal, a framework for sorting out the logistics over the transition period if we possibly can.

SR: So no-deal is not something you’d like to see?

ANNE-MARIE TREVELYAN: Well I’d rather not but I’m also very focused on making sure that preparedness is actually in place, that is one of the challenges I’ve been pushing the Prime Minister for a while now both publicly and privately, saying are you sure everything’s in place? Because the challenge I get coming back from my constituents be it the fishing community, as you mentioned, the farming community, small businesses – my constituency has no big Jaguar Land Rover companies but has lots of small businesses, some of whom trade with the EU – is the question of is it ready? And they are saying to me well we don’t know, we don’t know and no deal seems really scary but actually – and as the Civil Service articles written recently have shown – the Civil Service, you know, the best in the world ours, is preparing. I think the challenge we’ve got is that the Prime Minister has been slow to make sure that business is [ready] to try and reduce that anxiety knowing that much like the Millennium Bug crisis – you probably aren’t old enough to remember – but we were told the world was going to end but the reality is that the Civil Service is prepared and all that can be put in place will be and businesses need to know that, so I think that’s a critical part and once we get through this week’s noise and fireworks, to actually make sure that businesses do know what’s what, if they are having relationships there.

SR: For some time though, you are somebody who backed Brexit, we’ve just heard from Chris Grayling, the Transport Secretary, who made the point that if you don’t back the Prime Minister’s deal there is a concern amongst many people who supported Leave that Brexit might not happen or it will be much, much softer than you would like it to be. Is that not something that you are concerned about?

ANNE-MARIE TREVELYAN: So the reality is that the statute that’s in place at the moment is to leave on 29th March either with an agreed deal, which is what the Prime Minister has been negotiating, or if one can’t be reached by then, on a no-deal basis and then we can continue the conversation afterwards but we will have stepped away from all those EU connections. There is a lot in the Withdrawal Agreement that is fine, it’s like a basket of all the legacy stuff wrapped up in one so it’s much easier if we can do it in a one [inaudible] but some of it is just not acceptable because it won’t deliver Brexit.

SR: But at the same time though, if you look at the papers today, there are lots of stories, in the Sunday Times for example amongst others, MPs who are absolutely opposed to the idea of a no-deal Brexit talking about bringing in new legislation to stop it happening.

ANNE-MARIE TREVELYAN: Well that is a great challenge and some of the activities we’ve seen this week in Parliament with trying to so dramatically change how Parliament works that everything becomes completely unstable, is indeed as the Prime Minister said, into unprecedented and uncharted territory but that must not stop us from remembering we gave the people a referendum. Now it is a fairly blunt tool, I don't think any of us would disagree with that, but having done so if we don’t respect the result that they sent back to us, it is an order and it is not a nice idea for us to continue to discuss. It was a very clear order and we must make sure that we actually leave the EU and the Withdrawal Agreement as it stands will not do that because of the Irish backstop so it needs to be something that the Prime Minister goes back to the EU and says I’m afraid Parliament says this isn’t acceptable, this is the area of concern, please fix it. We’ve got nearly three months to do that but then to decide, this isn’t for the Prime Minister, this is out of her control. I think that’s the frustration, it’s all kind of been dumped on her head but actually the EU have to decide whether they are okay with a no-deal position on 29th March or whether they would rather make some amendments now so that bulk of the Withdrawal Agreement which is absolutely fine, can be put through.

SR: Okay. I am interested to talk to you now about the future of the Conservative party as well because it has been a really bruising couple of years …

ANNE-MARIE TREVELYAN: It has.

SR: … and you have been fighting like cats and dogs to be blunt. You have spoken before about worries about young voters being switched off from the Conservatives and you have even said your own son might not vote for you.

ANNE-MARIE TREVELYAN: No one ever let me finish that sentence.

SR: Go on then, I’ll let you finish it, are you still worried that he might not vote for you?

ANNE-MARIE TREVELYAN: I think he probably might now but the problem was that he was a few days off being able to vote in the 2017 election. Now to finish the sentence it was because I’m probably not right wing enough for him.

SR: Oh, interesting.

ANNE-MARIE TREVELYAN: But of course that wasn’t chosen but it is a really good question. There are an extraordinary number of really focused young people interested in politics. I think the challenge they’ve had is to try to get to grips, they are arriving in politics at this monumental point and at a point where we are using a tool that is used very, very rarely – perhaps just as well – the referendum, and trying to understand what it means so if having used the referendum, which is a direct order rather than normal politics which is you elect your MP and you let them then make their judgement and if you don’t like the way they make judgements you chuck them out next time round. The referendum is something else so they are caught in this trying to understand what normal politics looks like alongside this dramatic and indeed …

SR: But the Conservative party itself does not look good at the minute, does it?

ANNE-MARIE TREVELYAN: Well I think all parties to be honest, the Labour party is equally split in the way it is trying to find how it goes forward with a very hard left core sitting on the front bench and all those who have the wisdom and experience of the Labour party for the last 30 years sitting behind them on the back benches. I think maybe that reflects how having a referendum generates huge political energy and we must make sure that we harness it carefully and that it goes forward so that our country can do as well as it can.

SR: Okay, thank you very much.

ANNE-MARIE TREVELYAN: A pleasure.