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

SOPHY RIDGE: This week President Trump fired the starting gun on a trade war that spared neither friend nor foe – 25% tariffs on steel, 10% on aluminium and despite months of frenzied lobbying from Brussels and Whitehall, no exemption for the EU so not great timing for Theresa May’s dream of a buccaneering free trading global Britain. Well joining us in the studio now is a man who’ll be charged on delivering on that vision in a Labour government, the Shadow International Trade Secretary Barry Gardiner. Hello, thanks for being with us.

BARRY GARDINER: Morning, Sophy and may I just say how nice it is to see you back, that’s the first thing and also, because it is a year on, to pay our respects to those who were the victims of the London bombing attack last year, the terror attack last year.

SR: Absolutely right and I think we can all endorse that statement from you certainly. I want to talk to you about Donald Trump because of course he slapped these hefty tariffs on steel and aluminium, 34,000 jobs depend on the industry in Britain, are those jobs at risk now?

BARRY GARDINER: Certainly I think those companies will feel the outcomes of those tariffs. The whole point of the President doing this is to try and increase the costs for American businesses to buy British steel and European steel, that has to have an effect on our jobs here. There are certain parts of the market that we supply into America which are highly specialised, there are companies like Sheffield Forgemasters, companies like Liberty Steel, which actually do very high grade speciality steel. I think what we’ll see as a result of the tariffs being imposed is actually their market share will probably not suffer because America has to buy that, they don’t have many other options but …

SR: But it’s others who may be more at risk.

BARRY GARDINER: But of course the embarrassing thing for President Trump is as the costs of steel in America go up, because they are paying this extra 25% tariff, so also jobs in America will be lost in those industries which are producing goods that need steel.

SR: Let’s talk about the UK as well though because at a time when a trade war could be kicking off, is it really the right time for Labour to have a policy of leaving the single market, making it harder to do business with our biggest trading partner?

BARRY GARDINER: Well actually that’s the reason that we have the policy that we have on a customs union, a new customs union with the European Union in which we would be still negotiating trade agreements as part of a 500 million strong consumer bloc and …

SR: But let’s get real though because I want to pick up …

BARRY GARDINER: This is real.

SR: But I do want to pick up on what you were saying about the customs union, I know that’s your policy of course but it will be harder to trade if you leave the single market won’t it?

BARRY GARDINER: I’m sorry, I need to make this point because actually trading in goods and the tariffs and the quotas that are applied to goods that are coming in to the European Union and into the UK, the common tariffs that we apply and the tariffs between ourselves, which would be zero in a customs union, means that that trade in goods would continue uninterrupted and that’s precisely why we have this policy and the Tory’s red line is actually going to make it much, much more difficult because they’re the ones who will be isolated, they will be minnows trying to compete against whales. They will be a 70 million strong consumer market against America’s 500 million.

SR: Okay, because you just said the trade in goods will be uninterrupted in a customs union, let’s just have a look at this slide. This is what Michel Barnier, the chief negotiator for the EU, says are the total checks that will be needed if we leave the EU. Now this looks really complicated but basically the two things in red are the checks that will be removed if we are still in the customs union, all the rest if we leave the single market are still going to apply so I don’t understand how you can sit here and say that there will be uninterrupted trade in goods if we leave the single market.

BARRY GARDINER: Look, there’s two elements, this is a slide we can go through every single one of these element, you’ve made it as complicated as possible … no, you have, you have made it as complicated as possible so your viewers get the view that actually …

SR: This is from the EU, the point I am trying to illustrate is there are multiple rules and lots of different regulations which you will …

BARRY GARDINER: It is a table which Barnier produced in order to deal with what the government’s proposals had been which was for this maximum facilitation agreement which actually our own civil servants would cost £20 billion a year to British industry.

SR: I want to talk about the customs union and the fact that the customs union doesn’t just completely erase … there are still barriers to trade if we’re in a customs union.

BARRY GARDINER: If you have a customs union it deals with the issues of quotas and tariffs between yourselves which are reduced to zero and it deals with the common setting of quotas and tariffs towards any goods coming in from outside the customs union. It also means that you, the UK, and the EU would negotiate together, you would determine, we would be co-decision makers in any trade negotiations with third parties that we had and that is the critical thing here when we’re looking at people like Trump and the way in which he is moving towards a protectionist market. What we’re saying is that we would be part of that strong bloc able to stand up to people like President Trump and we would not be isolated in the world. The issue of standards and regulations, the regulations are what our governed by the single market, standards of course apply to goods and we would need to maintain the standards but the regulatory regime does not apply other than for its sanitary and phyto-sanitary controls, does not apply to goods in the same way.

SR: Now as Shadow International Trade Secretary, you are going to be in charge if Labour is in power, of winning trade deals around the world. Would you be happy to see immigration go up if that was a prerequisite to get a trade deal with places like India or China?

BARRY GARDINER: Let’s … we don’t know what sort of deal we’re going to end up with and if we do have the privilege of serving as a government, we don’t know yet whether we would have done the negotiations or whether in fact those negotiations would have been done by the Conservatives and we would be left picking up the pieces, so it is a completely hypothetical situation and …

SR: If negotiations aren’t wrapped up by the time of the next election …

BARRY GARDINER: Who knows? If you listen to the sort of blue on blue noise that’s going on this morning between Tories attacking Tories in the newspaper, we could have a general election later on this year. But I want to try and respond to the perfectly proper question that you’re putting and that’s what would the movement of people look like in a new situation. As the Conservatives wish to negotiate it, as the Conservatives wish to …

SR: But let’s talk about you though, I know you want to talk about the Conservatives but let’s talk about what Labour would do, I think people want to know that as well. Are you comfortable …

BARRY GARDINER: There are two scenarios here, there is the scenario in which we have negotiated with the European Union what we would want to do, we would want to negotiate managed migration, fair rules, management of migration, reasonable management of migration coming into this country so that we are sure that the immigration that comes into this country is …

SR: I understand but it’s a simple question though, are you comfortable with immigration going up?

BARRY GARDINER: We will always set our immigration policy to benefit jobs and the economy. The mistake that the Conservatives have always made on this is that they said they would set an arbitrary target for their immigration figure and they would then let the economy bear the consequences. We’ve said that what you do, the sensible thing to do is to say what does our economy need, let’s make sure we have the skills to match those needs.

SR: So in other words then, if it did mean we get a good trade deal with India, you would be happy to relax these requirements?

BARRY GARDINER: Trade has always fluctuated and so has migration into this country. We need to have the skills that we need to produce the benefits to our economy.

SR: I’m still getting confused about your argument here.

BARRY GARDINER: No you’re not actually, you just don’t like it, it’s not …

SR: No, no, that’s not true, come on, I’m just trying to unpick …

BARRY GARDINER: I don't know why you’re confused about it because I’m being quite clear, what I said is our immigration figures will always fluctuate, they always have and they’ll fluctuate in terms of the needs of our economy. Now you asked a specific question about India, the irony here is that the Prime Minister, Theresa May went over to India I think twice last year and …

SR: But I’m asking about your policies, are you happy, would you be happy with immigration going up?

BARRY GARDINER: When she went over there the Times of India ran a headline that said you want our business but you don’t want our people, this is a problem, this is a problem for our trade because what we need to do is to ensure that companies who want to come here from India and China and the rest of the world, who want to invest here, are able to bring their people here in order to prosper in our economy. We need that, that’s a benefit to us and we must recognise it, in exactly the same way as we should be recognising the benefits of the highly skilled migrant workers who are now being told that they are now deported from the country because of their tax irregularities under a criminal [terrorist?] piece of legislation, this is extraordinary what is going on. The Home Affairs Select Committee has been looking at that and Sajid Javid needs to as well.

SR: Now before you go, I can’t help but ask you about Labour Live, this festival of the summer, reportedly struggling a little bit with ticket sales.

BARRY GARDINER: I’m going.

SR: You’re going, so there’s my first question done and my second question, last week we had Jonathan Ashworth on who’s sort of suggested he might be up for performing a bit of Englebert Humperdinck if he was asked, apparently that’s a favourite with is kids.

BARRY GARDINER: Wow!

SR: We hear you’re a bit of a champion whistler, will you be doing a turn at Labour Live?

BARRY GARDINER: I haven’t been asked to do that yet.

SR: Yet, I like that, yet.

BARRY GARDINER: I don't know about Englebert Humperdinck but my wife always says she wants to see me doing Elvis impressions so, hey, who knows?

SR: Thanks very much for your time this morning, Mr Gardiner.