ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: I’m joined from the TUC down in Bournemouth by the man at the centre it seems of this row between Labour and Unite, he is of course the General Secretary of the Unite union and he is standing alongside Billy Hayes there, listening to what he was saying, it’s Len McCluskey, very good to talk to you Mr McCluskey, do you feel that you are owned an apology from Ed Miliband?

LEN McCLUSKEY: No, Unite is not looking for an apology from anybody. We are obviously pleased that the Labour party have now concluded that no wrong-doing took place in Falkirk. That was our position right from the outset, we were subjected to a deluge of media hysteria, especially from the right wing press who accused us of everything. But we always knew we had done nothing wrong and that is precisely why I called for an independent inquiry, if people wanted to genuinely know what had happened but we’re pleased at what happened and it’s time now to move forward. It’s time for us to unite in our movement and make certain we produce the type of policies that will attack this government and offer the British people some hope.

DM: But Mr McCluskey, I mean you say the criticism came from the right wing press, you know it didn’t. I mean the Labour leadership launched the investigation, put you under special measures, said things were going wrong. I am just reading a tweet here from the Labour MP John Mann saying, being not very nice about you, saying Len McCluskey regards employers as the enemy, how would he know? He hasn’t had one since 1979. Presumably meaning a job, so there is bad blood with senior Labour figures as well, not just the right wing press.

LMcC: No, it wasn’t just the right wing press, you are perfectly correct, Dermot, in making that point and I believe the Labour leadership made some false accusations and got it wrong but that’s now been put right and so I’m not looking for an apology. It’s time as I say for us to move on. Our members are more interested in what’s happening to them, it’s still a situation where this government has us on a path to poverty and Ed Miliband’s challenge now is to genuinely demonstrate to ordinary working people, including trade unionists – there are after all six and a half million of us – that he is on our side and that he can offer a different alternative, that he can offer hope, hope to our one million kids who are without a job, one and a half million people on long-term unemployment. He’s got to give hope and that’s the challenge now.

DH: I’m sorry to harp on about this issuing an apology but if you think about it in your personal life, if a mate of yours accused you of something – and you are meant to be friends with the Labour leadership – accuses you of something, it’s clearly a false accusation, don’t you just say sorry mate and move on. Tom Watson is saying it would be a very gracious act if Ed Miliband apologised.

LMcC: Well Dermot, I know you are going to get me to demand an apology but that’s not going to happen. I am the general secretary of the largest union in Britain and my members are more interested in their jobs and their security. This outrageous situation has developed and at the moment with zero hours, there are millions of people being forced on to zero hour contracts. Is that the type of Britain we want? That’s what I want Ed Miliband to deal with, I’m not looking for apologies, forget about my personal hurt feelings, who cares about that? The truth of the matter is we have to move forward and demonstrate to ordinary people that we are going to fight for them. That’s what the trade union movement is all about, that’s why we are here in Bournemouth this week making certain that we can give hope to people, that we can give a voice to people and my message to Ed Miliband is his challenge now is to close the deal with ordinary working people and make them understand that he is on their side, hopefully in his speech on Tuesday he might touch upon policy issues that separate Labour from this disastrous Conservative government and give people the hope that we are looking for.

DM: He is also likely to touch on this issue, isn’t he, of the union’s relationship with the Labour party and some commentators saying it is his Clause Four moment. Do you think he is barking up the wrong tree there, that this is not an issue with your members and not an issue with the wider public?

LMcC: Well it certainly isn’t an issue with the wider public, I mean you don’t ask the public if they interested in the links within the Labour party and the rules and the procedures, nobody’s interested in that. But of course Ed had indicated that he wants a different relationship, he doesn’t want to end the link with the trade unions, he wants a different relationship and we’ve welcomed that because the status quo wasn’t working, it wasn’t working for us and it certainly wasn’t working for anybody else so we are going to engage enthusiastically in that and we’re going to try to get to a situation where his vision of tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of ordinary trade unionists playing a more active role within the Labour party comes to fruition. We’d be delighted with that because that’s what we want our party to be. There are enough people in parliament at the moment representing the rich, the Tories do that very well, they represent the spivs and the speculators who got us into this crisis, Labour has to represent the rest, the other 99%, and we are going to work with Labour to create a unity that will make certain that the British people will understand who is on their side.

DM: If you don’t hear from Mr Miliband some of those policies that you want to hear, could you potentially go the same way as the GMB and think, well maybe we don’t need to give the Labour party so much money if they want to loosen those ties?

LMcC: Well we are going to listen to the proposals. The GMB has made a decision, Paul Kenny is a good close friend of mine and they have made a decision about how they believe it should go. We’re going to wait to see what the proposals are, we’re going to have an input ourselves, we want to see what the timeline is, whether there is any transitional period so all of us, all unions, will have to debate and discuss this and see this opening up but I hope to God that Ed Miliband and the Labour leadership don’t just concentrate solely on this. Their challenge is to take on this government at every single level. Our health service is being privatised before our very eyes, the bedroom tax is causing untold misery to millions of people. We want Labour to concentrate on those issues, provide the type of policies that enthuse people, give people hope and then Ed’s vision of thousands and thousands of ordinary trade unionists joining the Labour party may have a chance of working. It’s the policies that matter.

DM: It sounds to me, reading between the lines Mr McCluskey, as if you are kind of putting him on notice for this speech here. I mean it’s a big deal, I mean he’s not just coming down to Bournemouth to smooth over the cracks, you want to hear substantive proposals to help your membership and the membership of other unions.

LMcC: Well Dermot, I’m not putting Ed Miliband on notice, he will already have done his speech over the weekend but of course whenever the Labour leader speaks we want to hear the types of policies that give hope to people. I keep using the word hope and that’s because of this path to poverty that we’re on at the moment. I look at the slapping of backs because of some recovery, people best get out into the real Britain because out there people are desperate, they are worried about their future, they are worried about their kids’ future. Wonganomics might be okay for George Osborne but for ordinary working people who are having to borrow on payday loans – and our research tells us that’s gone up three times from £200 to £600 on average our members are borrowing, the ones we’ve been actually tracking in the last two and a half years. What type of Britain do we want? So Ed Miliband has got to tell us, he has got to enthuse people every time he speaks and not just here in Bournemouth, whenever he speaks he has got to give us some hope so that people can fight for a better world, a better society and a better deal for ordinary people.

DM: Okay, Mr McCluskey, good to talk to you, thank you very much indeed for sparing the time. Len McCluskey there, general secretary of the Unite union.