ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, the newly elected leader of UKIP, Paul Nuttall, says he can win Labour voters over to his party. It is a threat of particular relevance to MPs in the North of England perhaps where a large majority of people voted to leave the EU in the referendum, a lot of Labour MPs there of course.  I am joined now by Angela Eagle, the Labour MP for Wallasey, who stood against Jeremy Corbyn in the party’s leadership race and a very good morning to you.  How worried are you about UKIPs performance so far and Paul Nuttall’s ambitions?

ANGELA EAGLE: Well nobody should ever take their own safe seats for granted.  I never have taken my seat for granted, I campaign all year round but I think we have to get this into perspective.  Paul Nuttall stood in Bootle as a Conservative in the council elections this century and did very badly, he a right wing Conservative, he’s on record saying he wants to privatise the NHS and get competition in which Labour voters are not going to be impressed by.  He actually thinks that employment rights are a waste of time and he said maternity pay was actually mad and counter-productive.  Now what is exactly mad about allowing a woman who’s pregnant to go off and have her baby and get back to work afterwards?

DM: So do you think you have to have a bit of a policy examination, you have to get on the front foot as Labour and say to people who voted Brexit thinking perhaps that UKIP had a better message than your Remain campaign in there, who may be tempted to stay with UKIP, you’re going to say look at their economic policies, look at their social policies, do a forensic examination of that and that will hold them?

ANGELA EAGLE: Liverpool actually voted 60% to Remain by the way, people don’t understand it’s a more nuanced thing but …

DM: But this is the thing about the more urban centres isn’t it?

ANGELA EAGLE: But actually what we’ve got to do is say we understand that people are hurting in communities, particularly in places where there have been huge cuts due to austerity, where people have seen their job opportunities dwindle or they are working twice as hard for the same money or even less.  We know there has been a 10% fall in real wages since 2008 so we’ve got to recognise that but there are Labour responses to that that aren’t about right wing economics and right wing social policies, we have …

DM: So you do agree with that, you are going to point those out and put those front and centre, the other message from UKIP?

ANGELA EAGLE: Well there are solutions to the housing shortage, we have to build more affordable houses that people on modest earnings can aspire to live in and go and live in and then we’ve got to allow them to have job opportunities, economic opportunities to increase their wages.

DM: It’s interesting that you touched on housing there because we have been skirting around the issue and we have to cut to the quick here and talk about immigration.  I talked about perhaps a policy swap here and a lot of people’s analysis of for instance pressure on housing are too much immigration, that puts pressure on social housing in particular and indeed the overall housing stock.  More people equals more demand for accommodation, do you think that Labour can continue with its current policy on immigration as espoused by the leader?

ANGELA EAGLE: I have to say, the first thing to say on all of this is that not every problem in our country is created by immigration.  UKIP would like to persuade people that it is and they always go to that politics of grievance and division.  Most of our communities I don't think want to see us dividing either along either race lines or religious lines, they want to see how we can unite as communities and make our society better, that’s the Labour way.

DM: But could you defend free movement of people’s within the European Union or within the new arrangement that the UK comes to?

ANGELA EAGLE: Well we don’t know what the new arrangements are going to be because …

DM: But would you like to see that?

ANGELA EAGLE: Look, we’ve got a government that won’t tell us what their plan is so that’s why it’s important that as the Brexit negotiations go on we have some attempt – and so far Theresa May hasn’t done this – to try to bring our country back together.  I’ve never known people so angry, the 52% of people are on one side, the 48% of people who voted to Remain think they are not being listened to and we’ve got a Prime Minister who sent precisely the wrong signals out of her speech in Birmingham saying we were going to go for hard Brexit, which implies an economy that’s less wealthy and it implies fewer jobs and fewer economic opportunities.

DM: Just to nail down that, you know, you’ve examined the Brexit vote, you know what a lot of that was about – not all of it but a lot of it was about migration within the European Union …

ANGELA EAGLE: Some of it was, some of it was and I have to say …

DM: But would you say to voters, because it seems to be that Labour is still saying then that we will alleviate the conditions in some areas created by these movements of people, they need more cash, they need more social housing, they need more money put into health and education and libraries and all that infrastructure or let’s control it?  Because that seems to be the conclusion that many people have come to.

ANGELA EAGLE: Nobody is against controlled immigration, very, very few people are in favour of completely open borders everywhere and in fact when we were in the EU what we did say was that there should be free movement of workers.  We were never in the Schengen arrangements which allow free movement of people, we signed up to free movement of those who have already got jobs and there is quid pro quo in that, many, many Brits work abroad in the European Union, do very well and come back, there is that exchange in our scientific communities which benefits all of our economies, so we’ve got to see what we can do to bring about the best possible soft Brexit.  Unfortunately the current government are not telling parliament what is in their minds, we are finding out with leaks what different bits of the government want to do and it is getting more vicious by the minute.  What Theresa May ought to do is come to parliament with a plan so we can have a proper debate and try to heal the divisions in our country, make the best of the situation that we find ourselves in and get the best possible deal for our economic policy and for our future in Europe.

DM: I want to keep focusing on the party who are the official opposition, who were in government only six and a bit years ago, seem to be nowhere.  Look at the Richmond by-election, there an opportunity to make that very argument, who made it?  The Lib Dems.  

ANGELA EAGLE: Well look, it used to be a Lib Dem seat …

DM: But losing your deposit, you had fewer votes than you have members.  

ANGELA EAGLE: Clearly the issue there was about who could beat Zac Goldsmith and most people there obviously wanted to see Zac Goldsmith punished, some because of the disgraceful mayoral campaign he ran that was racist and others because they couldn’t stand the fact that he had been a Leave voter.

DM: So an opportunity for Labour.  With that analysis in the old days if you had a nice centrist like Tony Blair or Gordon Brown …

ANGELA EAGLE: I agree that it’s painful when you are not involved as a challenger in any by-election but I think you have to recognise that the Lib Dems held that seat until six years ago and it was Zac Goldsmith that took it off them.  They were always in a better position to squeeze the vote.

DM: I’m not talking about you winning it but that was a pathetic performance.

ANGELA EAGLE: Look, in by-elections obviously our vote was squeezed because our voters felt that getting rid of Zac Goldsmith was more important than voting Labour in that particular constituency.

DM: But Labour we were told only six or seven years ago were the natural party of government.

ANGELA EAGLE: Politics is dynamic and if you do not reinvent your appeal to the British people and answer their issues and questions, then you are going to have difficulties.  That is what we have to …

DM: And you accept you haven’t done that?

ANGELA EAGLE: We are in the middle of doing it.  We are in opposition, we have now lost two elections and we have to make certain that we go back to the basic questions which brought us into existence.  We are never needed more now, look at people that work, they are not earning reasonable wages a lot of the time and a lot of the benefits of economic activity are going to those who own rather than those who work to create the wealth.  That’s why the Labour party came into existence in the first place, we’ve got to redouble our efforts to say how do we create a society where those who work and create the wealth can actually benefit from a fair amount of it?  That is the policy work that is going on now for the Labour party, that is how we will ensure that we appeal to more than just our core voters but to voters up and down the country.

DM: Which brings us to leadership, we have been talking about other leaders, you were talking about the Prime Minister, we have been talking about Paul Nuttall, have you revised your opinion of Jeremy Corbyn?  You obviously thought he was pretty hopeless when you stood against him, has he got better?

ANGELA EAGLE: Look, I think in the aftermath of the Brexit vote there was a great deal of emotion and anger.  The Labour members have given him a mandate and that is what we will work with.  He has just made a speech in Europe saying that we have to ensure that we redouble our efforts to provide Labour answers to the real problems and issues that are causing the rise of the populist right in Europe, that is what we have got to do.  That is our historic role and he is right to identify it.

DM: I am fascinated by what you said there about a lot of anger and emotion, did that cloud your judgement?  Are you saying it is that that made you stand against Jeremy Corbyn?

ANGELA EAGLE: No, I think there was an anger and emotion about the Brexit vote in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, there was shock and I resigned because

DM: And Jeremy Corbyn didn’t do enough during the campaign.

ANGELA EAGLE: My comments are on the record and are well known but I accept the democracy of the party.  The party has made a decision and we are now working together to do that policy work to ensure that we can appeal to the electorate up and down the country, not only our core votes, to see off any threat that UKIP are offering in our northern heartlands but also to make sure that we can take our appeal beyond just Labour out into the country as a whole because that’s the only way you win elections.

DM: But what do you say to those senior figures, front bench figures within your party who say look, we’ve got to bite the bullet, we’ve got to go for a progressive alliance, in seats that Labour can’t win perhaps the Lib Dems or indeed others, maybe the Greens, have a better chance so don’t stand there …

ANGELA EAGLE: The Greens have one member of Parliament.

DM: Okay, let’s stay with the Lib Dems, we may be seeing some kind of realignment and what about in Scotland where you haven’t just got the squeeze, you’ve got a three-pronged attack on Labour heartlands.  What about a progressive alliance as Clive Lewis is talking about?

ANGELA EAGLE: Well I don’t agree with the analysis that we have to have a progressive alliance in that way, partially because it doesn’t actually win us an election.  If you add up Lib Dem votes with Green votes and you look at where they are in particular constituencies, I think it wins us four seats or something, so it doesn’t do the job. We have got to remake our appeal to the electorate and voters by talking about the things that they care about most – about whether they have somewhere to live, whether they can have a job that pays, whether they can start a family, whether their children can have better prospects than they have. These are the basic bread and butter issues of politics and that’s what we have to concentrate on, not adding up false bits of votes that are not Tory and somehow thinking that you can cobble together an anti-Tory alliance.  The only Green MP in the House of Commons, Caroline Lucas, her main opponent, the only way she will lose her seat is if we have a Labour seat there, that is not the basis from which to have a progressive alliance.

DM: But in our system it’s not about the number of seats you have, look at UKIP and their one MP and their four million plus vote during the general election, but a lot of those votes cost Labour seats, they let other parties in, we all know that’s the way it works.  You’ve got to go on a full scale offensive against that UKIP vote and what we’re seeing at the moment in UKIP voters who say they are switching, the vast majority of them go back to the Conservatives.

ANGELA EAGLE: Yes, UKIP are a party of the right and what we’ve got to do as a party of the progressive side of government – and this is an issue …

DM: Are you giving up on them?  Do you not think you can win them over, the UKIP voters?

ANGELA EAGLE: No, the UKIP voters – UKIP is a party of the right, what we’ve got to say to UKIP voters is those right wing approaches: privatising the NHS, thinking that employment rights are somehow a nice to have but can be abolished because they’re ‘mad’ to quote Paul Nuttall, that is not in the best interests of working people or their communities up and down our country and neither is the politics of division and grievance which sets one group of people against another.  We can only work together and make progress as a country now if we bring the 48% together with the 52% and chart a way forwards for our country which is in the best interests of our own economy but the people who live in our societies up and down the country.  You don’t do that by setting one bit of the country up against another and I think it is to the eternal shame of the Conservative party that they have divided the country and the Prime Minister has shown no interest so far in leading the country to unite it in the aftermath of the most divisive thing that’s happened in post-war politics.

DM: And you are going for the 100% then so Jeremy Corbyn …

ANGELA EAGLE: Well I’d like to!  

DM: That would be something, that really would, that would be Chinese then getting 100% of the vote.

ANGELA EAGLE: Well no, I think opposition is an important process in democracy but 100% is always a bit …

DM: But a serious question, is Jeremy Corbyn the man, is he at the van of that movement, does he look like a unifier, a uniter?

ANGELA EAGLE: Look I’m not here to have some sort of commentary on how Jeremy is doing as leader, we’ve got to do this policy work …

DM: But there seems to be a bit of an open goal there for the Lib Dems, it’s going round in a circle, it’s back to what the Lib Dems took advantage of in Richmond.  Okay, you say it wasn’t Labour territory but there’s another by-election coming up where Labour are nowhere, in Sleaford, there’s talk about the Lib Dems perhaps taking that, UKIP doing well.  Labour used to the party of government, are the official opposition and you’re not making an impact.

ANGELA EAGLE: Well it’s clear that we have a big task ahead of us and I think it’s a task that if you look across Europe that other parties of the centre left have got as well, it’s not unique to the UK.  In fact if you look at the opinion poll ratings of the Labour party they are a lot higher than the ratings of a lot of our sister parties but it’s clear that we have to remake social democracy and democratic socialism for new times and as I said earlier, the key issue for us is how can we create a society where those who do the work and generate prosperity get a fair share of it?  That is the question that brought the Labour party into existence in the first place but we have to have 21st century answers to that age old question.

DM: Angela Eagle, very good to get your thoughts, thank you very much indeed.