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SOPHY RIDGE: Our next guest quit the government in order to campaign for a second referendum. Sam Gyimah, thank you very much for being with us.

SAM GYIMAH: Good morning.

SR: It feels with Brexit that sometimes we are just banging our head against a brick wall and not getting anywhere so what’s your view on what would be a realistic way to get us out of this impasse.

SAM GYIMAH: Well thank you. The first thing is I actually resigned because I couldn’t vote for Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement and I couldn’t vote for it because I think whether you voted to leave or remain, no sovereign country can sign a deal where everything the other side wants is an international treaty that is legally binding and everything that we could possibly want is in a document that could be reneged on. I think we have given up a lot and are getting nothing in return, that’s why I didn’t vote for it. And then I began to look at how you solve the Brexit impasse and the more I looked at it, the more I realised actually there is no majority for any Brexit option in Parliament and I know this was called back last December and it seemed to be ahead of the time but if we look at what has happened over the last few weeks, having indicative votes on all the Brexit options, there is no majority for any of them so there is no majority for any Brexit option. What would happen is if Parliament came up with anything, people would regard it as some sort of stitch up so if Theresa May got her way and had a customs union deal with Jeremy Corbyn, those who want a no deal Brexit would say that’s a Parliamentary stitch up, don’t want it. If Theresa May’s deal went through, those who want a no deal Brexit would say it’s a stitch up and I thought if that is all we’re going to end up, with everyone going to feel betrayed, then maybe the answer is to let the people back into the process to actually say that now that we know what the deal should be are they willing to go along on those terms?

SR: You say there is no majority for anything in the House of Commons, which is currently true, but the reason there is no majority is because MPs are just unwilling to compromise from their positions. If you have a listen to what one of your former colleagues, Nick Boles, said after he decided on Monday to quit the Conservative party:

NICK BOLES; I have failed chiefly because my party refuses to compromise. I regret therefore to announce that I can no longer sit with this party.

SR: He’s right, isn’t he? I mean you didn’t compromise either did you, you didn’t vote for anything?

SAM GYIMAH: No, I actually abstained on the options because Parliament wanted to agree with … Nick is a long standing friend of mine but what you’ve got to realise is, every different Brexit path represents a very different future for our country. Those who want a no deal Brexit see the economic future of our country ultimately having a traded deal with Donald Trump, those who feel they want to protect manufacturing jobs in the north want a customs union with the EU so if these are irreconcilable choices about the future in which we directly take the country, you can’t split the difference. You can’t split the difference if you feel that to protect manufacturing jobs in the Midlands, the most important thing is frictionless trade.

SR: So what would you have compromised on then? Aren’t you being just as intransigent as …?

SAM GYIMAH: I think a second referendum was never a Brexit outcome, it’s a process. What none of us knew at the time of the first referendum was what was negotiable, my party set its red lines not even knowing …

SR: What do you want then other than a second referendum? Some people would view that as just a way of saying actually you want to remain but you just don’t want to say it.

SAM GYIMAH: I would campaign for remain in a second referendum versus Theresa May’s deal because Theresa May’s deal takes us out of the EU but delivers no benefits and we have almost got to the stage where we are saying to ourselves as a country we just want to leave irrespective of the deal, irrespective of the outcome, irrespective of the future that represents for us and what I can see is remove our voice, our veto – and I heard Jacob Rees-Mogg saying we could veto this, we could stop this but we are leaving all that we have for an uncertain future. Now if someone would be able to say to me that we could deliver what we said we’d deliver in our manifesto, which is we would have a bespoke trade deal that will not just preserve the current benefits but would put us in a position where we did better, then my position is not very different to John Redwood. When I listen to John Redwood in the House of Commons I agree with him on his analysis of Theresa May’s deal, where we disagree is what do you do about it and what he says is the way to deal with it is to go for no deal and what I see is that no responsible government should go for that option. Now if we had an option that did not require disruption, that would help the most vulnerable people in this country, I’d be willing to sign up to it.

SR: Okay. Now I am also interested to know your thoughts on the direction of the Conservative party. You gave an interview recently with the Evening Standard in which you said, amongst other things, that the Tory party only talks to Brexiteers, it comes across as dismissive with those who are not. Are you worried about the direction that your party is going in?

SAM GYIMAH: Well I think that Brexit has so dominated everything that when we talk it’s as though the views of those who voted Brexit are the only views that matter, we don’t even recognise that even amongst the Brexiteers there are many different views amongst Brexiteers. At one event in my constituency we established that there seven different views within Brexit, they were all Brexiteers but the key thing is that the Conservative party cannot be a one nation party and only talk to half the population.

SR: You have had issues, haven’t you, with your local association? You have faced three attempted deselections and a vote of no-confidence, are people trying to get rid of you?

SAM GYIMAH: Well that’s … to be fair to my association, there is a small cabal that always see every election cycle as a reason to have another go and get rid of me and I’ve got quite used to it, I know who they are and some of what Jess Phillips was saying echoed with me, they undermine things you say, twist everything because that is their objective.

SR: But why are they trying to?

SAM GYIMAH: Who knows? My speculation is that certainly from here and from what some of them are saying, in many ways I am probably a step in modernisation too far for them. I think some of them, this particular group of people, have Tory heads and UKIP hearts but I made a judgement call at the start of this Brexit process, I spent several years implementing Brexit as a minister but then ultimately when I saw Theresa May’s Brexit deal I said this comes to the question of what am I in politics for? And we’ve got to have the guts to say to people the truth that we see. We are now at a point where we are willing to go ahead and so things that we know in some cases are not right because we can’t face telling people that there are contradictions. That doesn’t mean we don’t do it but it means people should be fully aware of all the difficulties and complexities of delivering Brexit. I’ll give you one example that I had challenged with this group of people: the idea of an extension to Article 50. I said Greenland, small Greenland, a population of 50,000, one industry – fishing, it took them three years to come out of the EEC. We are the fifth largest economy in the world, we have been in the EU, which is far more integrated, for 45 years. My argument that the idea that we can negotiate and come out in two years doesn’t work. When I say this they say I am just trying to frustrate the process but I think I am levelling with people on the stark reality of the situation in which we are.

SR: It is interesting hearing you say for some you are a step in modernisation too far.

SAM GYIMAH: I thought you were going to pick up on that.

SR: You were a bit of a rising star under David Cameron weren’t you? You were his Parliamentary Private Secretary, you were a Minister and …

SAM GYIMAH: I wouldn’t put it [inaudible] …

SR: But now you have to step back from the government and join the backbenchers, do you think that the Conservative party has changed?

SAM GYIMAH: Well I didn’t want to be an ex-Minister and I certainly didn’t want to be an ex-Minister at this stage in my career but the country and the party face a very different challenge now. I don't think being a time serving Minister is what I want to be, I want to be out there and able to speak up on the big debates of our time – free trade, the future of the party – and by the time the next election comes, whenever it comes, I want the party to be …

SR: What is your view of the party, putting Brexit aside what is your view on the party?

SAM GYIMAH: I think the next election will be a time for change and unless the Conservative party can present itself as the party of change, we risk losing power to Jeremy Corbyn, that is a fact. If the Conservative party can only speak to half the population and ignore the concerns of the other half, that is a problem. If the Conservative party is a Brexit party then it is a signal for all the young people who have very different views of the future of our country, that will be a problem for us at the next election. If austerity is followed by a chaotic, disruptive, no deal Brexit that will be a stumbling block to us winning power and handing power to Jeremy Corbyn, so yes, we have done a great job in rescuing the economy but I think that the risks to us are great. We need a fresher party, we need a new vision of where we’re going for and we need a vision of hope. What we don’t need is where we are which is just being able to tick the box marked Brexit, whatever it means, just so we can say we’ve delivered. I think that will be letting the country down and a party that lets the country down cannot be elected.

SR: Okay, Sam Gyimah, thank you very much for being with us this morning.