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

SOPHY RIDGE: Welcome back to the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool where all the talk is about the possibility of a second Brexit referendum caused in part by my next guest, the party’s Deputy Leader Tom Watson.

TOM WATSON: Good morning Sophy, good to be here.

SR: Good to see you here in Liverpool, thanks for being with us. Now we were talking about the prospect of this People's Vote or second referendum, whatever you want to call it, is that something you want to see?

TOM WATSON: Well no, I want the Conference to be able to debate it. One of the things that Jeremy and I said when we were elected three years’ ago is that we want to give the party back to its members and I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the number of constituencies that have submitted resolutions this year, there are over a hundred on this area. They are in a room now discussing what we call compositing and I want the Conference to have a good debate on it.

SR: Are you worried that there won’t be a clear cut vote to put to the Conference floor?

TOM WATSON: There is always a danger when you have resolution based democracy and Brexit is such a binary issue that I think the debate will be, there will be all sides of the argument and when it comes to a second referendum I’m sure that there will be words on offer that will allow the party to come to a fixed view on that.

SR: Do you think some people listening to this will think this is the beginning of the great betrayal? You are listening to Labour members who yes, overwhelmingly support the idea of a second referendum, but what about Labour voters in places like your constituency in West Bromwich who voted to leave the EU and now see this as effectively politicians stitching it up so they don’t get to have their say?

TOM WATSON: Well I can understand why our Conservative opponents might say that but for us …

SR: We’re talking about Labour voters here as well.

TOM WATSON: But our opponents carry towards the debate. What I hope we can do is win an argument, say look, we’re a democratic party, we’ve got half a million members …

SR: It’s not just the Conservatives though, it’s voters that I’ve spoken to as well, Labour voters.

TOM WATSON: Well hear me out because I talk to my electors regularly in West Bromwich and what I’d say to them is as a national political party like the country all flavours of Brexit are on offer and the point is, it’s not just down to me and Jeremy Corbyn anymore to decide what our party is, we are genuinely democratising, it is down to our members to decide and I hope that I can say to my voters, whatever our Conference decides it is a democratic decision and if they vote for a position that means we have to go for a People's Vote then the argument would be we want more democracy. Now let me say though, and I feel I do need to say this, that is not the view that Jeremy and I take. What we have said and still want the Conference to support is that there is a meaningful vote in Parliament on the Brexit deal and if we can’t get a meaningful vote then there should be a general election which would give all my voters in West Bromwich and the rest of the country their say in a general election too. It is very hard to argue against more democracy I think.

SR: So you want to have a general election, we’re going to be having this vote very shortly on Brexit, should it be in the Labour party manifesto then that Labour would offer a People's Vote or a second referendum if that’s what Conference votes?

TOM WATSON: Well we decide our manifesto in the first few days of a general election and there are a lot of things you need to factor in. The prevailing economic climate, there are whole other packages in there and it seems to me inconceivable that if the Labour party democratically decides, Labour party conference decides it wants a manifesto pledge on a People's Vote that we would defy that decision but I am already on the boundaries of talking hypotheticals with you and I think we need to have the debate at the conference and see what our delegates decide to do.

SR: I understand that you want to listen to the debate but at the same time it is fair enough to push you on these things because at the minute we are running out of time aren’t we on Brexit? It is time for people to come forward and openly say what they think so what’s your view then? If there was to be a second referendum should the option of staying in the EU be part of it?

TOM WATSON: Well we said we have to consider it and if the conference sends us that message I think we’d consider it very strongly but for me it is important we can unite around a manifesto commitment as a whole party …

SR: [Inaudible] surely if you are going to have a second referendum?

TOM WATSON: It’s likely but you’d want to put an insurance policy in there because it’s not me that decides the manifesto, we have got a thing called the Clause 5 meeting and we would have to discuss the political landscape when that hits us. Let’s not forget, this could be any day now. After Salzburg on Thursday, there are newspaper reports that leading politicians in the Conservative party are mapping out what a November general election would look like, this country, this government is on the verge of collapse and we could have another general election basically around Brexit and that’s why at this conference it is vital that we unify and that we have a solid programme we can offer the country at the end of it.

SR: A key question, as we are talking about the possibility of a second referendum, how would you vote in it?

TOM WATSON: If there was a second referendum?

SR: If there was a second referendum would you vote to stay in the EU, would you vote for no deal or would you vote for Theresa May’s plan?

TOM WATSON: I voted Remain in the last referendum, I think it is highly likely that I would probably vote Remain in the next one but I would look at what the question is on offer and I would want to know what the deal is that comes out of the negotiations in Europe, if that happens.

SR: Okay, I’m keen to talk about other issues around the Labour party conference, there’s been a lot of talk hasn’t there about mandatory reselection, votes by the National Executive Committee that effectively makes it easier for party leaders to reselect their local MPs. Is this something that worries you?

TOM WATSON: It does make me feel uncomfortable. Believe it or not, what came out of the National Executive Committee is a compromise. My view was that the status quo prevailed, I was with John McDonnell on that one but like I say, we are a democratic party and you’ve got a different view. There is a rule change on the order paper that would have four mandatory reselections and I think that would be very destabilising for the party because we’re potentially close to a general election, maybe any day. What we don’t want is MPs trying to defend their positions in their local areas when they could be campaigning in parliament for social policy that affects the many not the few so I am worried about it.

SR: Are you worried that there might be a bit of a toxic atmosphere in the Labour party? There have been reports today about a Labour MP who is going to be needing armed security as they go round their daily business, I mean this is really worrying stuff isn’t it?

TOM WATSON: It is extremely worrying and we must remember we had a colleague assassinated in the last few years so those security threats to my colleagues, particularly my female colleagues, is very real and very serious. Much of that has very little to do with the activities of local Labour parties or Labour party members, it’s external bodies, Islamists and far right bodies but nevertheless I am concerned. We had some of our younger, newer MPs who sort of faced votes of no confidence and look, parties have got the right to express their disappointment in their MPs if they want to and I always think my own members have earned the right to shout at me when they think I’m doing things wrong and they frequently have done over the last 17 years but if it goes too far and people feel alienated or their morale goes or they are driven out, it stops us aiming for the main prize which is a Labour government for the many not the few, with a transformed political economy that can really give greater opportunity to millions of people that have lost out in globalisation to effect change and over the last 20 years the pie has not been cut enough for them. So let’s focus on what unites us, let’s try and get a manifesto we can be proud of again and let’s get to a general election as a united party.

SR: Calling for the party to unite, the slightly brutal truth is are the membership really going to listen to you because the problem is many of the membership, some of the membership see you as part of the problem, you are the enemy, you’re not supportive enough of Jeremy Corbyn.

TOM WATSON: Well there is always a small number of members who you can never satisfy and with 550,000 members everyone’s got a view but actually my experience of going out and campaigning for the party in all parts of the country is that when we recruited lots of young new members at first it was a bit of a culture clash as more experienced members were quite challenged by that but they’ve worked it out and they’re all getting on.

SR: Are they all getting on? You and I both know there is a split isn’t there, there are divisions between the leadership and the membership on one side and the Parliamentary Labour Party on the other.

TOM WATSON: Well in the Parliamentary Labour Party we have had some bad behaviour from some of my colleagues by actually my take on the Parliamentary Labour Party since the general election is they’re united too. They want Jeremy as Prime Minister, they want the party marching in the same direction and they want us to get to a general election with a programme we can all unite around and be proud of. We are a broad church, we know that to win elections every voice in the Labour party has got to get its voice heard. That’s my challenge, that’s Jeremy’s challenge and that’s what we are going to be trying to do this week.

SR: We talked a bit about the National Executive Committee, another decision that they took was to create a second deputy leader spot reserved for a woman. Are you happy about this? It sounds like your powers are about to be halved.

TOM WATSON: No, actually I’ve been calling for this since the first Deputy Leader election.

SR: Why would you do that?

TOM WATSON: Because gender representation is not strong enough in parliament and …

SR: And in the Labour party.

TOM WATSON: Well we’ve still got more women MPs than all the other parties put together but Jeremy and I want 50% representation at the next election. Actually one of the things that I found very useful as Deputy Leader is to have my own mandate from the membership and I know people are worried about having three people around the Shadow Cabinet table who have their own mandate, I know some people are worried about what they see that could be a damaging one member one vote election with all sorts of different candidates in a second Deputy Leadership thing but I think it is only good for the party and I think it is good for women’s representation and that’s why I argued for it at the NEC.

SR: Do you want the next Labour leader to be a woman?

TOM WATSON: I absolutely do, yes. I don’t want there to be a new Labour leader or even a leadership election any time soon but I think when Jeremy finally stands down as Prime Minister he should be replaced by a woman.

SR: Should there be an all-woman shortlist?

TOM WATSON: No, I think the party has got the rules and we changed the rules to do that but it seems to me that the time is right for Labour to choose a woman to lead us after Jeremy.

SR: Now we talked a bit earlier in the interview of the need for the party to unite, one of the issues that has been extremely divisive is anti-Semitism and perhaps it is one reason why despite the crisis in the Brexit talks, the internal arguments in the Conservative party, Labour has effectively been stagnating in the polls, you haven’t managed to pull ahead because you have spent all this time introspectively looking at some of your own problems so can you tell me how many unresolved cases are there, complaints, when it comes to anti-Semitism?

TOM WATSON: Well first of all let me say we have been too slow and we should have acted more quickly and that’s been acknowledged by Jeremy, John McDonnell and myself and actually now that we’ve reached the point where we have adopted the standard international definition of anti-Semitism, we have also significantly increased the number of staff who are dealing with these backlog of cases. I don't know the exact number because …

SR: Why?

TOM WATSON: Well because there’s a sort of quasi-judicial role play and these things can always end up in the courts and so it’s …

SR: You are Deputy Leader, you have spoken up so strongly against anti-Semitism, I find it really surprising to be honest that you don’t know that. If you care about it surely you should.

TOM WATSON: I do care about it but every individual case is a quasi-judicial case and you can’t expect the Leader and Deputy Leader or front benchers to know the detail of every single case.

SR: Do you know how many people have been expelled over anti-Semitism?

TOM WATSON: I don’t I’m afraid. I have asked for it but the committee that deals with this is very protective because it has to be legally watertight in what it does but our General Secretary assures me that the backlog of cases that she inherited when she took over has now been processed. The committee that looks at it has many, many live cases and I would hope that very shortly they’ll be receiving results on the allegations made against some pretty disturbing characters.

SR: When I interviewed Chuka Umunna on the show a few weeks’ ago, he said that he believed that Labour was an institutionally racist party because of its handling of anti-Semitism, is he right?

TOM WATSON: I disagree with Chuka on that, I think the Labour party is an institutionally anti-racist party and many hundreds of thousands of people have joined the Labour party in order to fight racism. We have made errors of judgement about it and we did have to catch up when the Jewish community was telling us about anti-Semitism and we didn’t act fast enough, I acknowledge that and I’m deeply ashamed of it but I am also very pleasantly confident that, or very confident that the new General Secretary will put this matter right with the changes we are making this week.

SR: Before you go, I’ve got to ask you, you are the Deputy Leader of the Labour party and yet you are not speaking on the conference floor. If that doesn’t suggest a division if you like between the leadership and between the membership then I don't know what else does.

TOM WATSON: Well I hope it doesn’t because I’m speaking all over the fringes, I am doing plenty of media. All I did is say in a very busy year for us because we’ve got all these rule changes going through so there is a special day just spent on that, I gave up my slot so that the leader of the European Labour Party could do a speech because I thought after 30 years of our Labour MEPs in Europe bringing in loads of social policy, they are all going to be out of work when Brexit comes, I thought you needed a valedictory speech but I would love to do as many fringes as I can, I’ve already been talking to hundreds of members, come to some of them if you get some time as well, Sophy, you’ll be very welcome. I’m not going into hiding.

SR: How very noble and generous of you to give up that slot! Tom Watson, thank you very much.