ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: The idea of a multicultural Europe has failed, those were the words of Slovakia’s Prime Minister last week.  It’s after reports of a series of sex attacks blamed on migrants across the continent, even the German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she’ll back new stricter laws on asylum seekers after mass assaults in Cologne on New Year’s Eve.  Well I am joined now by Clare Short for her thoughts, the former International Development Secretary, who resigned over the Iraq war, she’s in Birmingham and a very good morning to you.  There seems little doubt that a large number of migrants were involved in these attacks in Cologne, do you think then – taking on board what the Slovakian Prime Minister has had to say, that the idea of a multicultural Europe has failed?

CLARE SHORT: No, of course, that’s too crude and I invite everyone to have a look at Der Spiegel online and get more balanced reporting.  It does seem as though there was a pattern of drug selling and pick pocketing and assaulting women to distract them while you steal things around the Cologne station and it got way out of control and the police couldn’t control it and a lot of the people were speaking French which suggests North African not Syrian, so clearly there is a problem, clearly some awful things went on but to suggest this is a complete crisis and change in European policy is to exaggerate.  Remember we had riots in ’81 and ’85 and we’ve seen Oliver Letwin saying terrible things about British inner cities, there is now a hysteria.  I’m sure it will change the numbers that Germany is willing to take in from Syria but that was coming anyway and then Germany and France and all the rest, because Britain is a little bit ahead on working to integrate minority populations, everyone needs to do better and what we want to do of course is bring the war in Syria to an end rather than just deal with people being displaced from their country.

DM: Indeed but just the parallels you drew there, Clare Short, with the events that took place in the 80s in the UK, those riots – and you know a lot more about them than most – were about racism and poverty weren’t they?  Are you saying that’s really the link to Cologne?

CLARE SHORT: I think that’s there.  It is suggested that, I mean there are always these drug dealers and pickpockets around the Cologne Station and then there are always massive events on New Year’s Eve in all the cities of Germany, so the numbers were much bigger and some of the sexual assault is deliberate to … I mean it’s horrible but it’s to distract women while you steal their phone and steal their bag and steal their purse and then it all got to such a scale that it was ugly and vile but it isn’t something brand new because some Syrian refugees have come.  I mean that is what is being suggested and that is false if you look at the detailed accounts.  

DM: But it is being pointed out that many of the perpetrators, the alleged perpetrators, seemed to be young men and there is no denying the figures that say there are an awful lot of young unaccompanied men who have come in to the European Union and forget religion and race, that that kind of demographics is going to cause problems.  

CLARE SHORT: Absolutely and that’s the bigger question of how we deal with asylum claims across the world.  I’ve thought for years and said for years the fact that we have a system where you have to arrive in order to apply means that you get young unaccompanied men, you get people smugglers controlling who arrives, the whole of the Geneva Convention needs to be renegotiated so that people are properly looked after near where they are fleeing from and then in an organised way families are brought and settled.  The system is chaotic, it’s run by criminals, that’s who the people smugglers are and it means young men risk their lives coming across the ocean and there are young men not in families and this isn’t healthy for anybody.  It’s a chaotic and badly organised system and governments keep just erecting barriers to people staying rather than renegotiating the Geneva Convention and having a more sensible system.  

DM: That sounds like a direct endorsement of Mr Cameron’s – perhaps not on the number but on Mr Cameron’s policy, direct flights to the UK from the refugee camps, no people smugglers involved and concentrating on families in great need.  

CLARE SHORT: I personally think that the renegotiation needs to be that.  Wherever people are fleeing from there must be automatic funding of camps, money for the UNHCR – actually at the moment the money for Jordan and all the countries surrounding Syria where they’ve got millions, far more than Europe and they are not well-funded, that should be done but then we should in an organised way take families in a proper, systematic way.  That’s what Cameron is doing but he is not advocating renegotiating the Geneva Convention which means when people arrive all our countries have duties to process them, if we rearranged the system anyone who arrived would just be sent back to a safe camp and decent numbers spread all across Europe could be taken in a proper way.  So we’ve got a system which encourages criminals to organise who can arrive and young men to arrive alone and it’s a cruel system as well.  I think while they won’t settle down and look at how to do the thing better, of course as well as dealing with refugees and asylum seekers batter, we need to bring to an end the war in Syria and we’re nowhere near that.  We’ve got a muddle of policy and contradictions amongst the allies of western powers and Britain pretending that simply bombing over the border in Syria would solve it was false, so we’ve got a bring problem there which isn’t going to be solved in the short term.

DM: Just a quick thought, Clare Short, on Jeremy Corbyn.  He says he’s made your party stronger after his reshuffle, how do you think he’s doing?   

CLARE SHORT: I’m afraid, I mean Jeremy is a nice guy but obviously he comes from the protest Left of the party and I think he’s making serious mistakes.  He’s got to see where he comes from and then be inclusive and have people from all traditions uniting and working together.  I mean there have been people in the PLP who have been denouncing but now his group have been sectarian about this reshuffle and they are making a big mess and they are all at fault in my view.  

DM: Great talking to you, thank you very much indeed, Clare Short there, the former International Development Secretary.