ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now Labour isn’t of course the only party currently engaged in a fairly ferocious leadership battle. The race is also underway to elect Nigel Farage’s successor as head of UKIP and just like Labour, the contest has exposed ideological fault lines between the leading figures in the party with two of the most high profile being barred from running.  That’s left the MEP for the South East of England, Diane James, as the clear frontrunner for the job and she joins me now from Gloucester.  A very good morning to you Diane James, just answer this question: there are a lot of people asking what is the future for UKIP now the job is done?  Britain is to leave the European Union, some of your supporters have returned presumably to the Conservative party and others.

DIANE JAMES: Well what we have achieved, Dermot, so far is a huge proportion of voters in the UK indicating that quite firmly, and the government needs to take note, that the UK should leave the European Union but we haven’t got any ink dry on any agreement that actually takes us out and that if anything is what UKIP is about and what its future is.  You said we are a single issue party, the single issue at the moment is delivering a democratic outcome according to a democratic vote back in June.

DM: So you are going to police the Brexit process, what does it have to look like for you, to satisfy you and your supporters?

DIANE JAMES: Well the red lines we’ve already mentioned haven’t we?  There are issues such as removing freedom of movement, no single market membership in the future, complete freedom for the United Kingdom to form its own trade deals and complete freedom for the House of Commons as a sovereign nation government to decide its own legislation.  I think it’s pretty clear and I think that’s what voters understood back in June.  

DM: But you are therefore saying to your supporters – and have you made this explicit, did you make this explicit during the campaign, you said it there ‘No single market’, well no single market everyone accepts, or maybe you don’t, everyone accepts will damage the British economy, even those that want to leave in other parties say well we might just maintain access to the single market.  You are saying we have to go, have you levelled with your supporters this is going to have an economic downside?

DIANE JAMES: Well I think, Dermot, let’s look at what Project Fear forecast and I don't think a single issue that they identified was going to be negative has actually happened.  We have got better employment figures than we were told, we’ve got better economic prospects than we were told, we’ve got countries lining up wanting to do deals with us and regretfully we can’t actually do much about putting the details together on those deals because we are still a member of the European Union but everything that was negative according to the forecasts, according to the Project Fear people, hasn’t come to pass and in fact what is the outlook for the United Kingdom is a lot, lot more positive and exactly what the Brexiteers, what the Leave campaign actually forecast would be the case.  

DM:  I know if you win the leadership you have got big ambitions to expand the party, let me ask you about your vision and particularly when it comes to gender.  We’ve had Nigel Farage in the past haven’t we saying that woman are worth less than men to employers in the City, we’ve had Godfrey Bloom saying, well so many things, where do I begin and end with that? The previous leadership has been pretty good at alienating female voters.

DIANE JAMES: Well the very, very big first outcome result which will overturn exactly what you have just described is if UKIP makes me, a female, the first leader after Nigel Farage so then we’ll just completely disregard all of those criticisms about chauvinism, about misogynism and such.  What I’ve looked and identified around the country with all the meetings that I’ve been doing is this level of talent that we have at branch level, at county level, wherever I look and so therefore I will not just be focusing as we have done in the past on the MEPs in terms of making them spokespersons, I intend for instance having deputy spokespersons and generating and nurturing the next generation of people that will represent the party on programmes such as this, this morning, this Sunday.  What I am looking at is really, really broadening the appeal of UKIP as a party, broadening it across age groups, across cultures, across faiths if you wish, across society and making it, as it has already been remarked upon, the third major party in Westminster politics.  If I can make it second then I’ll be doing even better.

DM: I have been reading some of your UKIP blogs, you could bring back imperial measures couldn’t you, pretty soon?  You’d like to see the government do that?

DIANE JAMES: Sorry, could you just say that again?  I didn’t get that one, I’m sorry.

DM: Imperial measures, pounds and ounces, could we start bringing those back pretty soon?

DIANE JAMES: I think I heard what you said, I’m sorry, all of a sudden the line quality has deteriorated.  No, Nigel has stood down, he’s given his reasons, I don’t intend being either Nigel-like or Nigel-lite, I’ve made that abundantly clear.  Nigel has a role still to play in the future of UKIP, I’m hoping when I have the opportunity to discuss with him, and I want to have that discussion in the next few days, that we’ll be able to realise what sort of contribution he can make to the party in the coming months and certainly year, if not further into the future but he’s the one person that really puts the fear of God, and I don’t mean to blaspheme for a moment, into some of the other politicians and the fact that for instance the Lib Dems have had to go back to Nick Clegg to actually fight their aspect in terms of EU membership and Nigel really, really did carpet Nick Clegg in those debates if you’ll remember.  So if we are going to put big beasts up I’m more than happy to deploy Nigel as long as he’s willing to do so.

DM: All right, we got a very interesting answer there, we’ve got a bit of a dodgy line there Diane James because I asked you about imperial measures and got an answer about Nigel Farage.  Well I suppose he certainly does like his pints so maybe we did address that.  Thank you very much indeed and our apologies to Diane James and thank you very much indeed for coping with the slightly dodgy communications there.