ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: The moment Abu Qatada’s plane left British air space this morning, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, must have been breathing a sigh of relief. The five Home Secretaries who failed to deport him must have shared her sentiments and in a moment I’ll speak to one of them, former Home Secretary Lord Reid. A very good morning to you, Lord Reid, your thoughts as Abu Qatada flew off into the night sky, was it hat’s off to Theresa May, she succeeded where I failed or a sense that you started the process and it was always going to take a long time?

LORD REID: Well there’s a bit of both. I mean full credit to Theresa May because she stuck to her guns. When one avenue proved to be a cul-de-sac she found another avenue diplomatically so it would be churlish not to give her credit for this and she will be very pleased this morning. A lot of people will, as you said, be giving a sigh of relief but more importantly, I think the British public will feel this is the end of what has been an over-long saga where British laws have been in the eyes of many, abused rather than just used and at least during that period the consecutive Home Secretaries have doggedly pursued this and we have now got the objective that we wanted.

DM: But is it a vindication I suppose of everything that all the Home Secretaries put in of going through the due legal process? Okay we might not have liked the ways some of these laws were configured but nevertheless the signals we would have sent out internationally if Abu Qatada had just been stuck on a plane before the legal process was seen through could have been damaging for the UK?

LORD REID: Absolutely, I think you’ve hit the button there. It is always more difficult in a democracy. Why? Because politicians have to prove that they are acting within the law and have to constrain themselves, that’s the difference between a dictatorship where things are done at the whim of a politician and a democracy where we operate under law but it can mean that it can be frustrating and every legal process is open to misuse as well as use and I think there is a growing feeling in this country that there has been a prolonged misuse of this which is why I’m delighted that Theresa May has said that the whole process will be investigated and proposals brought forward if it is found that there are modifications needed to our laws. So at the end of the day we’ll be a little bit safer with Abu Qatada out of the country.

DM: But does it have full blown implications for relationships with various courts, in particular with the European Convention on Human Rights? There are has been talk of leaving it, giving up on it.

LORD REID: Well politicians have to operate within the law but it is also politicians who make the law. Now you can’t change the law during a court case because it’s rather like trying to service your car whilst you are driving down the motorway, it is even probably more difficult than that, but now that the process is finished it’s up to politicians – including politicians in this country – to look at this process, to learn what lessons can be learned and to bring forward any modifications that are necessary, have them debated through the democratic processes of the country in Parliament and amend them. Theresa May has said she is going to do that and I’m delighted and so are the other Home Secretaries because in a sense, although you mentioned five or six Home Secretaries, although you can portray that as a failing, actually it is not an embarrassment for this country because it was the consistent application of the objectives of governments, different Home Secretaries, different parties, to protect the people of this country and it has now been done and it has been done inside the law so we have proceeded with resolve, with endurance and done it within the rules.

DM: And Lord Reid, can I ask you about events within your own party? I’m sure you won’t mind me terming you a Labour grandee now and of course you know Scottish politics inside out, Scottish Labour politics. What are the implications of what has been going on in Falkirk for the Labour leadership, for Ed Miliband? Is this a problem for him or is it an opportunity for him to crack the whip and say I control the Labour party?

LORD REID: Well in a sense, Dermot, it is both. Let’s be quite clear, I’m not going to join in – nor I think should anybody – in demonising trade unionists or indeed trade unions. There are millions of good people in this country, some of which produce this programme, that are members of trade unions and they are protected and given a voice they wouldn’t otherwise have. This is a problem with one or two trade union bosses and it is the nature of the alleged misuse of that power that is being investigated. Ed Miliband, I think, in five weeks Labour has suspended the selection process with these allegations that went wrong, it has frozen the membership, Labour has suspended two people at the middle of it, they have opened an inquiry, concluded an inquiry, referred it to the police. Now if you contrast that speed of action over a period of weeks with for instance how long it took David Cameron to get rid of a man who is now charged with perjury, corruption and so on, I think it has been decisive. Given due process, Ed Miliband has acted decisively.

DM: But the problem, I mean they are on collision course aren’t they? Len McClusky and Ed Miliband are writing separately in the papers today, we’ve got Len McClusky in the Mirror and he is very clear, he wants to change the character of the Labour party, he thinks it has gone too far down the Blairite route and that in actual fact Ed Miliband and others have been parachuting people in to constituencies for years so why shouldn’t he do it?

LORD REID: Absolutely, you’ve got to the essence of the problem. This is not just an organisational problem, this is a discussion, debate, it is a challenge between those who want to take, like Len McClusky, who want to take Labour back to the 70s and the 80s, where it represents one sectional interest, it becomes a weak echo of every industrial demand of a few trade union bosses and Ed Miliband and the rest of the Labour party who want us to move forward, reach out across sectional interest to every part of the country, across class, across geography and if that is the debate, I know what side I’m on and it’s on the side of Ed Miliband and I hope that every single member of the Labour party gives him full support for his declared intention of reforming the way in which we relate to trade unions so it can’t be misused by trade union bosses.

DM: Lord Reid, thank you very much indeed for your time and your insight there.