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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now the US Presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton, has become the latest high profile figure from the United States to wade in on the EU debate.  She’s followed Barack Obama’s lead giving her backing to Britain remaining part of the European Union.  Now the American president has been accused of hypocrisy by some Eurosceptics after his very public intervention over the last few days.  I’m joined now by the Labour MP Chuka Umunna who is part of the Britain Stronger In Europe campaign, a very good morning to you Mr Umunna.  Let’s talk about President Obama and his right to intervene in our EU referendum debate, some are saying it could backfire, people don’t like being told what to do by foreign leaders.

CHUKA UMUNNA: Well of course that’s something those who argue for us to leave say about Barack Obama’s intervention because from their point of view what he said wasn’t welcome but he wasn’t very clear, this wasn’t about instructing us on what we should do on 23rd June but as a close ally and big friend of the United Kingdom, giving a view and I don't think, we can’t on the one hand if you like really embrace and almost boast about our special relationship with the United States and then on the other hand, when you have things like this come up and the US President expresses a view on what it will mean for British influence abroad, say oh we’re just going to dismiss what he says.  So I’m not necessarily saying it is going to be decisive but I think people voting on the 23rd June will want to know what he thinks and to be honest, I’d much rather from the Remain campaign’s point of view, I’d much rather we have the likes of Barack Obama and others as we do have, arguing for Britain to remain in than Marine Le Penn who is apparently flying in from France to support the Brexiters.  

DM: Indeed, we’re going to talk to Nigel Farage about that but more broadly, there’s a suspicion that this isn’t necessarily from people who have made up their mind either way that you guys are connected, so to speak, so David Cameron is asking Obama to weigh in, Hillary Clinton has now joined in, we’re just looking at the shots of Marine One, the Air Force helicopter ferrying the President to the airport there at Stansted before he boards Air Force One and is heading for Germany, a G5 summit taking place, Mr Obama will meet Mr Cameron again at that tomorrow but Chuka Umunna, the sense is you are getting the business leaders, you’re getting the political leaders, you’ve lined them all up there and you are trying to browbeat, you’re trying to blackmail people.

CHUKA UMUNNA: I don't think so, not at all.  What you see there, and you’ve put a point of view which is pedalled by those who wish us to leave which is the conspiracy theorists if you like, there’s a broad swathe of opinion of different independent organisations who’ve argued it’s best for Britain and British people for us to stay in the European Union and they’re now telling us that you’ve got say the likes of Len McClusky, the leader of the biggest union of the country UNITE in cahoots with that well known socialist at the IMF, Christine Lagarde and of course the other socialists of the CBI, all of this being orchestrated by President Obama at the behest of Len McClusky’s new best friend, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Number 11 Downing Street.  Of course that’s fantasy, that’s ludicrous but what you’ve got is a broad swathe of independent organisations, a broad swathe of foreign leaders who we respect, who are saying look from the point of view of the British people we think this is the best thing for you to do, to remain a member of the European Union because that’s how you keep the Great in Great Britain.

DM: Well you mentioned respect there, let’s talk about comments from the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson who referred to Mr Obama’s heritage as part Kenyan, being some of the reason he suspects, Mr Johnson suspects, that he might not like the UK and is further quoted as calling him weird.  

CHUKA UMUNNA: Well I think what Boris Johnson said was disgraceful and embarrassing.  I think for any Londoner watch our Mayor of London raise the issue of the President of the United States ethnicity and then very publicly have to be slapped down by that President for doing so, I think for Londoners is an embarrassment but worse than that is the suggestion that if you don’t particularly like colonisation and you don’t think that that was a very good thing in the past – and look, I am part Nigerian, Nigeria was a former colony of the UK and I don’t think colonialisation is terribly defensible – somehow to hold that view means that you love Britain less or you have less respect for the United Kingdom.  That was essentially the suggestion in what Boris Johnson said which I think a whole swathe of Britain’s diaspora communities from Commonwealth countries who have come to settle here, people who have got a background like mine, find deeply offensive and I actually think is what it illustrates is that this man is simply not fit to hold the office that he clearly aspires to which is the Prime Minister of our country.  This kind of divisive rhetoric is indefensible and since this campaign has started, the EU referendum campaign has started, I think it has exposed Boris Johnson and I think it has shown that he is simply not fit for the office that he aspires to take.  Of course there is going to be a change in Prime Minister before the general election.  

DM: Or maybe sooner than many people might expect.  Your leader though, Jeremy Corbyn, you have been four square behind the campaign since it started, plenty of people in your party asking for Jeremy Corbyn to do more to prevent a Brexit so he’s made one speech, one big speech.  Is he going to do more after the May elections, is he really going to roll the sleeves up and get involved?  Have you spoken to him about it?

CHUKA UMUNNA: Yes, I have spoken to him about it, he is going to do more.  I thought his speech was fantastic, I was very, very pleased with it and in some sense because he’s not being an evangelist for the European Union …

DM: Well you said he wasn’t wholeheartedly involved in it.

CHUKA UMUNNA: And he wasn’t at the outset but he has looked on balance at what we believe, the values that we hold dear as a Labour party, we want to see a more equal, more democratic, more environmentally sustainable world – he’s looked at this on balance and come to the view, quite rightly, that we can best advance the progressive causes that we believe in by being part of this European club as opposed to sitting on the sidelines, working with people like Nigel Farage, Marine le Pen and others.  He knows that if you care about the things that we care about in the Labour party the best way to advance that is through British membership of the EU.

DM: Would you call for the entire leadership, which of course you are not now part of, the entire leadership to mobilise the Labour party operation?  You’ve got a formidable ground operation as we saw from the general election – okay you lost but you get the vote out, perhaps not in the places that matter for you to win the general election but you get the vote out and on this it’s bulk votes, you can get particularly that young vote if you try.

CHUKA UMUNNA: Yes, younger voters who in much greater numbers voted for Labour at the last general election are going to be important but also I lead the Labour campaign, the Labour In For Britain campaign in London and if you look at the ten most pro-EU areas in the country, five of them are in London – Lambeth, Southwark, Brent, Haringey and there are others like Tower Hamlets, Merton etc where we have a huge number of people who favour our membership but we’ve got to get them out to vote, that’s the absolute key thing here.

DM: Okay, thank you very much indeed, Chuka Umunna.