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SOPHY RIDGE: Now if she is going to have any chance of getting her deal through, the Prime Minister needs to win support from right across the political spectrum from the ERG to union bosses and one of those who she hopes to convince is the Labour MP, John Mann, who joins us now from his constituency in Nottinghamshire. Thank you very much for being with us. So will you back the Prime Minister’s deal?

JOHN MANN: Well a day is long time in politics so things can change but as it stands it is likely I will vote for the deal, yes.

SR: How many other Labour MPs do you expect to vote with the Prime Minister?

JOHN MANN: Well I don’t expect, if I do I don’t expect to be the only one. I’d be surprised if it was anything like enough to get this deal through but things can change and you need to remember, I voted leave in the referendum but more importantly I voted to trigger Article 50, I voted for the referendum in the first place and every single Labour MP with the honourable exception of Mike Gapes did so and the manifesto that I stood on, the Labour manifesto this time said we are going to see through the will of the people and the referendum decision to leave the European Union. So the choices are stark. There are some choices, a general election which Labour wants is an option and I will support that option to have a general election but I don’t see that getting a majority in Parliament and whether that will resolve things, whether there would be a Labour government with a large enough majority to see things through is also equally not known. Labour could be in power just like Theresa May is with a minority government but that’s an option, that’s an honest option. There’s the option of having a referendum, I disagree with that option. We have given the people a vote and that’s not what our manifesto said so that would be breaking our manifesto but that’s a clear option. The other option is Anne-Marie Trevelyan’s so-called no deal. That’s a bit of a false option, there is no such thing as no deal. The no deal option actually means thousands of deals into the future with the European Union. I’ll give you one example, I have raised the small matter of the Grand National on the 6th April – with a no deal, unless we have a deal with the Irish, then no Irish horses will be coming to the Grand National and if we don’t have a permanent deal also with Ireland and the Irish government or the European Union, then British horse racing collapses because there will be no Irish horses ever here again. There will be with no deal, thousands of deals with the European Union. If you go on holiday to Spain then there is a deal that will have to be done over healthcare, there is a deal over repatriating bodies if someone sadly died over in say Spain, there is a deal over how you get through customs, a deal over whether you can take your dog there or not. There are thousands of deals so no deal is actually the wrong term and I think the mess and chaos and uncertainty that will cause negotiating all those thousands of deals is the worst option other than putting it off, because my constituents are saying get on with it. The worst of anything would be delaying Article 50 for me.

SR: I am just going to pick you up on one thing that you said in that answer, which is about a general election, that you would be happy for there to be a general election because there will be some people in the Labour movement who’ll be looking at what you perhaps are going to be doing which is to vote for the Prime Minister’s deal and think that that is the one thing that makes a general election less likely and they are right aren’t they, they would be right, you are effectively propping up a Conservative government.

JOHN MANN: Well it’s not propping up the Conservative government, it is trying to get a structure of a deal through. There’d be a confidence vote, there could have been one put already and when there is there will be a general election. Labour doesn’t have the votes to do that so something is going to have to happen for that to get through but that is a perfectly honest position, we could have a general election every year if necessary. I’m not sure the public uphold the my voters, a general election is least welcome option, 8% of them who were polled, 5000 responded and 8% favoured a general election so that’s not where they’re coming from but a general election is one option but the Conservatives are not going to vote for a general election. Intriguingly, and the reason I’m comfortable with that is of course in a general election Jeremy Corbyn made clear that the Labour party will be going for Brexit, delivering Brexit in the general election and the intriguing thing is if there was a confidence vote, some of the Labour MPs who are most ardent about a second referendum at all costs will be voting for a general election where that’s not going to be an option for the Labour party so that’s actually an intriguing dilemma for them. We’ve put an amendment though on this to the government on labour law, environmental protections and health and safety, major red lines for us and the union leaders have all commented on that. I believe the Prime Minister even talked to them about it and they said that the problem with it is it is not legally binding. Well that’s incorrect because with the Withdrawal Act that has to happen for this all to be seen through, then a legally binding commitment to guarantee existing rights on workers’ rights and environment protection, on health and safety, indeed I think on [inaudible] quality as well, is eminently possible and there is a majority to do it. I’m hoping that the government says that they will back it and they’ll put it in but even if they didn’t, we can put that in and that to me is where this discussion, this debate, if you like the negotiations, need to take place to commit to get it through the hurdle that the two main parties said we’ll see through Brexit because that’s what the British people voted for. That’s where I think this needs to go next. There’s not much time but there is enough time and at some stage I think that those kind of deals, i.e. agreement of what’s got a majority, will hold people together. Bringing people together in this country is now absolutely vital, the south that generally voted remain and the north that generally voted to leave.

SR: And a quick thought from you before we end. You were talking there about trying to get an agreement and you went in to see the Prime Minister this week, did she give you any indication that she was likely to accept any deal request?

JOHN MANN: Yes and specifically understanding that the legislation, not just a promise from the Prime Minister but the legislation on the Withdrawal Act, will need to meet those requirements. It is not just guaranteeing the existing standards because our workers’ rights, our environmental protections are higher than the European Union’s, it is also ensuring that they improve theirs but government would be legally bound to bring those proposals so that the House of Commons, Parliament can vote on them. This is vital stuff, don’t forget Sophy, there is the possibility that there could be at some stage, perhaps immediately or perhaps in the next couple of years, a minority Labour government in the same position as Theresa May. Now if that minority Labour government, even a majority Labour government with a small majority, spends the entire time trying to construct Brexit, has it got those guarantees legally in place? In my view it is vital to do so but we have leaving the European Union a country that competes with the highest standards and not the lowest standards in terms of pay and conditions. That’s the kind of Brexit I want to see, that’s the real choice – do we have a race to the bottom and try and undercut everyone else in the European Union on pay and conditions or do we have a race to the top and we do it based on the highest conditions, the highest standards, being the best in the world? That’s the opportunity that Parliament’s got and I want to see the government continue in the next 48 hours to be responsive to specific demands. One of my colleagues I know is in discussion with others over the whole issue of equality law. Let’s have the highest standards but let’s have it legally binding in the Withdrawal Act and let’s have that guarantee before Tuesday, that will move us on. Will it get the Prime Minister over the line? I suspect not but it takes a lot nearer towards that.

SR: Okay, John Mann, thank you very much.

JOHN MANN: Thank you.