Murnaghan Interview Emily Thornberry, Shadow Defence Secretary, 8.05.16

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now two former heads of British intelligence agencies, as you’ve just been hearing, have warned leaving the EU would pose a security risk.  Writing in the Sunday Times the former leaders of MI5 and MI6 say a vote for Brexit could undermine what they describe as our ability to protect ourselves from terrorists.  Well the Shadow Defence Secretary, Emily Thornberry, is with me now and a very good morning to you.  Your reaction to that, I mean do you go along with these esteemed former heads of two main intelligence agencies?

EMILY THORNBERRY: I think we should take very seriously what people who have no political axe to grind have to say on this and they are experts on it so yes, I think one of the major reasons for remaining in the European Union is to ensure that we safeguard our security.  I think our ability to be able to share information and to be able to work with allies is very important indeed.

DM: Okay, so that’s endorsed.  Let’s say with the issue of security and Sadiq Khan of course elected as the new Mayor of London, do you believe as some of the Conservatives have said that London is a less safe city as a result?

EMILY THORNBERRY: I think that Michael Fallon particularly, my opposite number, has made the most outrageous claims about Sadiq Khan and I think that he should take them back, I think it’s an insult and I’m very angry about it. I’m very angry about the way in which they ran this campaign, I think they tried  to divide London and frankly London came back with a resounding answer which is we are a multi-racial, multi-cultural city and we’re proud of it, we like it that way and we’re not going to have anybody divide us.

DM: So dog whistle, the Donald Trump playbook it’s been termed.

EMILY THORNBERRY: I think that is absolutely right, I think that’s actually what it was and I think they shouldn’t be forgiven, I think they should apologise and I think we should never see anything like that again.  It’s fantastic to have seen Sadiq elected with such an resounding victory on Thursday and also look at Bristol, Bristol has an Afro-Caribbean mayor now who doubled his vote from four years ago.  It’s amazing, it’s such good news.

DM: Let’s talk about Bristol and London because Jeremy Corbyn, your leader of course, went to Bristol to celebrate that event as Sadiq Khan was being sworn in in London, do you think there is a bit of a rift between the two?

EMILY THORNBERRY: What can you do? Go and win two Mayoralties in the way that we did on the same night and you can’t be in two places at once so he went down to Bristol because I think actually there’s not been a lot of attention paid to Bristol but it is an extraordinary result in Bristol to have doubled the number of votes in four years, I mean it is really showing a difference.  People keep saying that Labour can’t win in the south-east – well hey, we’ve had a fantastic result in Bristol, a fantastic result in London, we’ve had great results in Exeter and Southampton.

DM: The major conurbations.

EMILY THORNBERRY: Yes.

DM: Okay, but on the issue of Sadiq Khan, he hasn’t taken long to distance himself, has he, from Jeremy Corbyn.  The Corbynistas, as they are called, are tweeting this morning saying we supported him throughout his campaign and now he says all this about big tents, we’ve got to be a centrist party, we’ve got to appeal to people who voted Conservative, we’ve got to tell people who want to come back to vote for us that the economy is safe in our hands.  

EMILY THORNBERRY: Well who would disagree with that?  Of course we’ve got to be a bit tent, of course we’ve got to appeal to everybody and …

DM: Do you think Jeremy Corbyn is doing that?

EMILY THORNBERRY: Of course, Jeremy wouldn’t disagree with that.  We’ve got to make sure that we stop talking amongst ourselves about ourselves and gazing at our navels and we’ve got to be able to get out there and fight some elections and speak to people about issues that matter.  Sadiq was absolutely right to talk about housing, guess what?  Jeremy Corbyn’s last question at Prime Minister’s Questions was about housing.  Did David Cameron answer it?  No, David Cameron wanted to talk about Islamophobia.  We have the answers on issues that people were interested in, that’s why we have done as well as we have done in many of the places that we have.

DM: So you’re saying that Jeremy Corbyn runs this big tent, one nation, that he can appeal.  You must know the statistics that you’re faced with after the overall election results, particularly in Scotland, that Labour to win the next general election has to achieve a 13% swing in England.  That’s not likely to happen at the moment.

EMILY THORNBERRY: I’m not saying it’s not going to be hard but let’s also put on the table the other facts.  So we did 4% better than we did in the general election, so we are going in the right direction.  Of course Scotland is a big issue, no one is going to pretend that we don’t have big problems in Scotland but I’ll tell you, where we have got to in Scotland now is the SNP have got devolved all the powers that they need, they are now the establishment in Scotland and if things go wrong in Scotland it is their fault, there are no more excuses.  They have falling results in the school, people need to point the finger at the Scots Nats and I think there will come a time when we need to be able to build our fight back.  There was a time wasn’t there when Boris Johnson won the second mayoralty in London and people were saying, oh Labour is never going to win this again and so on.  Well we did and we showed that we can, we can fight back.  We have ups and downs and in London we are currently on an up but in Scotland we’ve clearly got a long way to go.

DM: How eagerly are Labour going to fight for Britain to remain inside the European Union?  We’re reading today that Jeremy Corbyn who we were expecting to rail in four square now behind the campaign, he’s taking a ten day holiday towards the end of the campaign before the vote.

EMILY THORNBERRY: Well I think it’s been pretty full on for Jeremy, hasn’t it, since he was elected as leader.  I do think that when Parliament is not sitting he should be allowed to have a few days off.  We will be campaigning full out to stay in Europe, Labour is a united party on this issue and we will be speaking with one voice.  It is a team effort and for Jeremy to have a few days off I don't think is anything that anyone should begrudge him.

DM: Before one of the most important decisions facing the entirety of the United Kingdom?

EMILY THORNBERRY: And he is going to be campaigning on the issue and he is going to be going up and down the country, as he has been throughout these local council elections, he will be doing it and so will I and so will the rest of the party, it is really important that we stay in Europe.  

DM: I just wanted to ask you, we were discussing Islamophobia earlier, the accusations, what about Ken Livingstone, a man you know well, a friend of yours isn’t he, Ken Livingstone really?  That whole anti-Semitism row, I was talking to him as well after the elections on Friday and he was at it again.  Do you think he’s got a point though, he clearly thinks it’s very important to make that point about the alleged link he says between Hitler and Zionism?

EMILY THORNBERRY: No, I don’t, no I don’t.  I think that Jewish people have played a really important role in the development of the Labour party, they have played a really important role on the left and I think that we have to make it perfectly clear that they are central to the Labour party and remain central to the Labour party.  I think that any examples of anti-Semitism have to be rooted out and I’m really pleased that Shami Chakrabarti has taken the role that she has.

DM: Well Sadiq Khan saying that he doesn’t feel Labour acted quickly enough on it, do you agree with that?

EMILY THORNBERRY: Well I think it took a couple of days but, you know, we’ve done it and we’ve set up this inquiry and we’ve set it up under somebody who is universally respected.

DM: But you still have Ken Livingstone, he could be back in the party and he’s suspended but as I say, he was at it again.  Do you think historically, I mean he says it is historical fact.  

EMILY THORNBERRY: There will be an inquiry, Ken can say what he has to say to the NEC and a decision will be made.

DM: Right.  Now Ken Livingstone has also been, and we’ve talked about this before haven’t we, in the Trident Review or not, he’s certainly had a few thoughts about Trident.  Where are we with Labour’s review about the renewal, the replacement of Trident?

EMILY THORNBERRY: I’m doing a defence review as is Labour party policy, so Labour party policy is that there is to be a review, so when I was given the job I was given the job of doing a review of all of defence. That means looking at the 21st century threats to Britain and how we keep Britain safe because of all jobs that politicians have, we have to keep our people safe above everything else.  As part of that I am doing a review into whether or not we should be in favour of the renewal of the Trident submarines.  That is only a part of it but it is certainly a part of it and I appreciate that when I come out with my review the only bit that people are likely to read will be the bit on Trident.  

DM: Well there you go, thousands of jobs and billions and billions of pounds to be spent on it.

EMILY THORNBERRY: I am doing an interim report which I am hoping to release at the end of May but that’s only an interim and then that’s going to feed into the national policy making process of the Labour party.

DM: But you have given us some intriguing I suppose pointers as to the way you’re thinking.  Do you still believe that technology is developing so fast that submarines may become more or less obsolete because they will become easier to detect?

EMILY THORNBERRY: I think we have to, as part of the review, look at whether or not these boats will be out of date by the time they hit the water in the 2030s and whether they will still be cutting edge technology by the 2060s because this will be the single biggest investment this government will make in anything and for heaven’s sake, we want to make sure it is as effective as it possibly can be.  So it is right to ask these questions.  There are problems I think on the horizon in that billions of pounds are being invested in anti-submarine technology, we need to be confident that if we do buy this new system that we’ll still be able to hide in opaque seas.  We also have to look at a series of other threats.

DM: But didn’t you say it was like trying to patrol the sky with Spitfires?  You are more or less convinced that they will become …

EMILY THORNBERRY:  What I was saying was that … in the defence industry you talk about platforms, so you talk about having this particular type of ship, it won’t go out of date because we can bolt on this and we can add this.  I was talking about the Tornados which are actually relatively elderly planes and they are as elderly as if we had Spitfires over the shores in the 1980s but the Tornados could be absolutely cutting edge technology by adding things to it.  The question is, will the platform, will hiding very large submarines in the sea still work in the 2060s?

DM: I know as part of this review you got in confusion about the DEFCON levels, the Defence Condition levels, you’ve now got Damian McBride advising you haven’t you, he’s very good, I read his book, he’s very good at prepping his charges as he says with all the essential information they should have so now no doubt you’ve got your DEFCON levels as potential Secretary of State for Defence sorted out.  So DEFCON One is?

EMILY THORNBERRY: The Daily Mail in fact wrote out, I had a little card that I was supposed to keep in my handbag.  The point I was trying to make …

DM: So what is DEFCON One?

EMILY THORNBERRY: Let me just make this point, the point I was trying to make is that some people say we should have continual at-sea nuclear deterrent so the submarine should be out at all times, right?  Because if there was to be a time of heightened tension and we were to suddenly have another submarine go out, then that would in turn spiral out tension.  The point I am making is that there are publicly acknowledged and indeed publicised states of readiness in the United States and so …

DM: And do you know what they are, do you know what they equate to? So what is DEFCON One?

EMILY THORNBERRY: So DEFCON One is the absolute we are about to go.

DM: Imminence of nuclear war.  DEFCON Two which the world, the United States has been at that level twice, do you know what DEFCON Two is?

EMILY THORNBERRY: It is the stage below it.

DM: It would be, yes, very good.  

EMILY THORNBERRY: The finger is not above the …

DM: Do you know the official definition?

EMILY THORNBERRY: No, I don't know the official definition of DEFCON One,  DEFCON Two which is the American’s stage of nuclear readiness.

DM: It is armed forces at six hours ready to deploy and do you know when the Americans …?

EMILY THORNBERRY: If I were Secretary of State in the United States then I’m sure it would be important for me to know all the niceties of this but the important thing is we don’t know …

DM: Well it would be very important if you were Secretary of State for Defence here and you had control of our nuclear weapons.

EMILY THORNBERRY: Yes and the point that I’m making is whether or not you should have submarines continually at sea or not or whether you can instead release a submarine or launch a submarine if you need to, if the tension gets to…

DM: But you still don’t know all your DEFCON levels.

EMILY THORNBERRY: I can’t tell you what DEFCON Four is.

DM: Okay, or three?

EMILY THORNBERRY: Honestly!

DM: Well it is important isn’t it?  Would you not accept that it is very important if you had to take the nation to DEFCON Level Three and you don’t know what it is?

EMILY THORNBERRY: Yes, I’m sure that it is important but this morning, on a Sunday morning after the elections I can’t tell you off the top of my head but what I can do is I can tell you when I am Secretary of State for Defence …

DM: You’ll know it.  

EMILY THORNBERRY: I will know it and I will …

DM: You’ll certainly know it probably within about 20 minutes from now because Damian McBride will say read these and learn.

EMILY THORNBERRY: Or keep the Daily Mail in my handbag at all times.  

DM: I’m sure you do anyway.

EMILY THORNBERRY: I’m sure that’s what I always ought to do.

DM: Shadow Secretary of State, very good to see you, thank you very much indeed, Emily Thornberry there.