Sophy Ridge on Sunday Interview with Jo Swinson

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

SOPHY RIDGE: Well the Conservatives weren’t the only party to pick a new leader this week and the Lib Dems new leader, Jo Swinson, joins us now from Glasgow. Hello to you.

JO SWINSON: Good morning, Sophy, good to be with you.

SR: I could see that you were watching intently along to that Jeremy Corbyn interview so first off, what did you make of what he said?

JO SWINSON: Well I think he’s pretty hopeless and I think there are millions of people across the country who are crying out for leadership, for opposition to Boris Johnson and to Brexit and they are not getting it from Jeremy Corbyn in his role as leader of the opposition. I mean he didn’t even say whether he would oppose a Boris Brexit deal, he said we’ll maybe see what he comes back with, whether or not we are going to like Boris’s Brexit and he has already failed the test of holding Boris to account by refusing to call no confidence in his government so Jeremy Corbyn is bottling it, he can’t make up his mind even now on where he stands and as Liberal Democrat leader I have to take the place and provide the real opposition that our country needs.

SR: I guess what Jeremy Corbyn would say to that is that he is trying to do the right thing, he is trying to unite people who voted in different ways in a referendum. You of course have ruled out any kind of pact with Jeremy Corbyn, now we know of course that Boris Johnson is prepared to take us out without a deal on October 31st. If there is an election before that, are you really saying that you wouldn’t team up with Jeremy Corbyn even if it was to try and stop a no deal Brexit?

JO SWINSON: I’m going to be at a general election arguing that we need a proper alternative to both Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn that can [inaudible] for our country and where the task is to stop Brexit, stop Boris and start renewing our country. That’s what we need to deliver and that’s what your interview with Jeremy Corbyn proved just now, that he is in no position and no appetite to be able to do so it’s the Liberal Democrats who will fight on that ground and I am determined to fight and win.

SR: Congratulations, you battled through the noise from that aeroplane very valiantly there. Are you having talks with Conservative MPs about defecting to the Lib Dems?

JO SWINSON: I have talks with MPs from different parties, we are working together on the People’s Vote campaign to stop Brexit and indeed I have had conversations with people who are understandably very unhappy in their current parties, where you have got the Conservatives going off far to the right chasing Nigel Farage and you have got Labour going off to the hard left and we have already seen Chuka Umunna join the Liberal Democrats and I’m hopeful that there will be more MPs joining the Liberal Democrats but you’ll appreciate why these private conversations have to stay private if they are to be effective.

SR: The Sunday Times is reporting that you are even dangling the bauble of seats in the House of Lords if people defect to the Lib Dems. Is that really democratic?

JO SWINSON: Well that is certainly news to me and not the way in which I operate so I would take that one with a hefty chunk of salt.

SR: Now I wanted to just ask you about something you said earlier this week when you were asked if you would vote to implement Brexit if people voted for it a second time in another referendum and you said no, you said I’m not going to change my view on what I think is right for our country. Doesn’t that make an absolute mockery of a campaign to hold a second referendum if you are just going to ignore the result, why don’t you just be honest and say you want to campaign to revoke Article 50?

JO SWINSON: What I was asked is whether I would agree with leaving the EU and think that was the best for our country and obviously I am not going to suddenly change my view but I think if we had a situation where we had a People’s Vote on a specific Brexit, then if there were to be a vote in that scenario in favour of a specific Brexit deal then I would actually recognise that that was what the country had decided to do. At the moment the difference is and the difficulty is, is that I don't think that there is a majority in this country for any specific type of Brexit. Even Brexiteers can’t agree on one themselves, some of them say that Theresa May’s deal is not good enough because it’s not Brexity enough for them and others who voted Leave in good conscience, listening to what they were told about how we would be leaving with a deal in an orderly manner are appalled at the thought that we might be crashing out without a deal so there isn’t agreement amongst Brexiteers. I don't think that there is any agreement in the country for any specific Brexit proposal and that’s where we need to put this issue back to the people in a people’s vote and I will campaign strongly with the Liberal Democrats to Remain in the EU.

SR: So just to be really clear, we may come to Remain in another vote but would you honour any result of a second referendum?

JO SWINSON: Yes, I wouldn’t stop changing my view about what was right for the country but yes, I would absolutely honour that result.

SR: Okay and if we do leave in October as Boris Johnson wants, would you then campaign to rejoin the European Union?

JO SWINSON: Well first of all I am determined to stop Brexit but in the scenario that we end up outside of the European Union, we need to recognise that that’s not the end of Brexit, that’s the beginning of years and years and years of Brexit negotiations and wrangling. This is not going away from our TV screens any time soon if we do leave the European Union and in that scenario there are going to be decisions day in, day out, week in, week out about what our relationship looks like with the European Union and I will be campaigning and arguing for as close a possible relationship in these circumstances, for regulations to align as much as possible, for beefing up our diplomatic efforts in EU capitals so that we have strong relationships because that is where our best future lies, as members of the European Union and if we cannot be then it needs to be as close as possible to the European Union for strategic, geopolitical interests and for people’s jobs in this country.

SR: There are more conversations about Brexit, I’m sure our viewers will be delighted at that prospect. Now of course you were elected as leader of the Lib Dems this week, I’m just going to have a little look at your voting record when you were part of the government under the coalition. At that time you voted for the bedroom tax, you voted for the introduction of universal credit, you voted in favour of scrapping the Educational Maintenance Allowance, in favour of increasing tuition fees and also capping increases in benefits below inflation. Is that a voting record that you’re proud of?

JO SWINSON: Well I’ve already said that there are things in there that you read out that I think that we got wrong and that we need to learn from those errors and that we shouldn’t have, for example, let the bedroom tax go through. There was a lot of good that we did in coalition, helping children from the poorest backgrounds with more money in schools, introducing same sex marriage, taking people on low pay out of having to pay more income tax but equally we didn’t get everything right and so I think we do need to reflect on what we would do differently and learn those lessons.

SR: In a speech a couple of years ago you said that the Lib Dems must own the failures of your time in coalition and that we should have done more to stop policies such as the bedroom tax as you were just talking about there. Should you personally have done more?

JO SWINSON: Well I think all of us need to consider that and yes, I was in government, there were a lot of things that I fought for and won battles like on gender pay gap reporting that the Tories didn’t want to do, on making sure we were able to clamp down on pay day lenders which Tories didn’t want to do but there were also battles that I fought and lost in government so against employment tribunal fees is an example of that. So there are cases where we fought and we lost, there are cases where we fought and won and of course we look back and we have to reflect and say yes, there are probably areas where I wish I’d done that differently because you are always making a judgement, an analysis of how winnable is this fight and therefore will it work and I think I look back and of course there are things that I regret.

SR: Just finally, we are all very clear of course where the Lib Dems stand when it comes to Brexit, what are you for other than Brexit?

JO SWINSON: Well I think our country is at a moment where we do need transformation. I think our economy is fundamentally broken in the way that it works, or more accurately doesn’t work for people living in poverty and for our planet when we are facing a climate emergency. So I think we need to reshape our economy so that it works in the long term for people and planet and that is partly about the relationship between business and society, it is partly about how financial incentives work in the capital markets for example, there is a lot of change that our country absolutely needs if we are going to have the positive future that we want. Of course leaving the European Union makes all of that harder because we will have less money to deal with things and we will have less influence around the world but whatever the resolution of that, we need transformation within our country.

SR: Okay, Jo Swinson, thank you very much for coming on the programme today.