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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well back now to UK politics and another contender for the Labour leadership has emerged. Owen Smith, the Welsh MP who used to hold the Shadow Work and Pensions brief of course, he’s thrown his hat into the ring now ahead of what promises to be a very big week for the party with a vote on the Trident Nuclear deterrent, that’s tomorrow.  Well let’s speak now to Hilary Benn, the former Shadow Foreign Secretary whose sacking by Jeremy Corbyn seems to have started all this, sparked those mass resignations from the Shadow Cabinet and here we are now.  Good morning.  Why aren’t you going for the leadership, Hilary?

HILARY BENN: Good morning, Dermot.  I’m not and I’m backing Angela Eagle because I think she’s go integrity, I think she’s got a huge amount of experience but above all she has demonstrated extraordinary courage in the last few weeks.  She has stood up and said I am going to challenge Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership because we desperately need new leadership of the party.  We have an unprecedented situation, Dermot, in which 80% of Labour MPs have said we don’t have confidence in our leader and it’s impossible to see how Jeremy Corbyn could take us into a general election in that situation but the decision now rests in the hands of party members and I’m sure they’ll think long and hard about the vote that they cast when the ballot papers go out.

DM: As I said, we’ve got Owen Smith now joining the fray, we knew that for quite a while but he is confirming it.  Would you say, and Owen Smith has said it himself, that it would be better that one challenger took on Jeremy Corbyn?  Would you agree with that and say back at you Owen Smith?   

HILARY BENN: Well I think that would be preferable and that’s why I am backing Angela because I think she is the person who should be challenging Jeremy and she came out first, stood first and Owen has many qualities, he would also make a great leader but we have to see what decision the Parliamentary Labour Party makes, we have the hustings tomorrow.  But it is also not just about that because constituency Labour parties also have the opportunity to make supporting nominations and that will give an indication of the range of support out in the country before the ballot …

DM: But just on the hustings, Owen Smith seems to be indicating, well whoever has got the most support out of that, they should be the sole challenger to Jeremy Corbyn that goes forward, would you accept that?

HILARY BENN: Well I wouldn’t because what I was saying to you is it’s not just about the decision that the Parliamentary Labour party makes although of course that’s hugely important but the party out there has a chance to make supporting nominations and we should test the water there. There will no doubt be a lot of nominations for Jeremy but there will also be nominations from constituencies for others and I hope that Angela gets a lot of nominations and then people can make their own judgement.

DM: You haven’t got much time left but I thought constituency business had been suspended by Iain McNichol partly because of all the abuse that’s going on there.

HILARY BENN: It has except for the purposes of essential business to do with the Labour Party conference and the making of the nominations but you’re right, the Labour party is in a pretty unhappy state and I think …  

DM: But Iain McNichol is talking about violence and intimidation, some of these must be a bear pit.  

HILARY BENN: It’s really very difficult and it is distressing because for all of us who have devoted our lives to the Labour party, have been members a long time, the sort of abuse that is being directed at ordinary Labour party members, whatever the idea was behind a kinder, gentler politics, it’s not what we have seen and I’m sorry that some of those – and it is a minority but some of those who are supporting Jeremy seem to think it is acceptable to abuse parliamentary colleagues, particularly women members of the PLP and others, if you don’t support Jeremy then you get all sorts of abuse and we cannot be a party like that.  Not only do we have to call it out but we need a new leader so we can heal what is clearly a very divided party at the moment.  

DM: So what happens?  Everyone is saying the same thing, including Jeremy Corbyn, that once the result is in, whoever it may be, we’ve got to unite behind that leader.  Do you go along with that, even if it is Jeremy Corbyn?   

HILARY BENN: Well we need to see what the result is but I think for Labour members of parliament who have said I’m afraid we don’t have confidence in your leadership, I suspect people will continue to hold that view.  I mean I served in his Shadow Cabinet …

DM: That hesitation, Hilary Benn, people are going to say is he nearly going to say the S word?  Are you thinking of a split if Jeremy Corbyn …?  

HILARY BENN: No, absolutely not, let’s be very clear about this, there is idle talk in some newspapers.  I’ve been a member of the Labour Party for 45 years, I intend to die in the Labour party but not for many years yet and we are passionate about the values and beliefs of our party and we are staying, we’re not going anywhere and in the end will eventually be sorted out but the fundamental difficulty is we have a leader who cannot command the confidence of those he is meant to lead in parliament.  There’s two parts to the job: you are the leader of the members, that’s true but you also have to lead the people in parliament and that is clearly not working and …

DM: And we see that very divide in the House of Commons on the issue of things like Trident.  Where you’ve got a free vote now, Labour MPs, the majority of you are going to go yes, we want to renew the system and your leader wants to get rid of it.  

HILARY BENN: Well Jeremy has long held the view, and I admire and respect his principles, I disagree with him because I think the first duty of government and indeed of a party that aspires to be in government is to defend the nation and I want to see a world, as he does, with no nuclear weapons. The issue has always been, how do you get there?  Britain giving up ours alone would not persuade any of the other nuclear states to do it, who knows what the threats will be in 20, 30 years’ time?  Nuclear deterrents have helped to keep the peace because it says to any potential aggressor – and what are we talking about here?  Preventing an attack on our country.  Having nuclear deterrents says to them, I really wouldn’t think about it if I were you and would anybody want to live in a world, Dermot, where nobody had nuclear weapons except North Korea?  Well I wouldn’t feel safe in that world and I suspect nor would you.

DM: Okay, well it illustrates the wider point doesn’t it?  If Jeremy Corbyn is returned these things will just reoccur and reoccur and reoccur again, the majority of MPs going one direction but being prisoners then of the leader who they are kind of united around, they won’t split the party, you remain as an ineffective opposition and then get smashed apart in another general election.  

HILARY BENN: Well that is why Angela went out in front and said, I’m going to challenge Jeremy because this situation cannot continue and we need a strong and effective opposition, particularly at a time of great challenge for the country – the consequences of Brexit, what’s happening around the world, what happened in Turkey on Friday night.  We need an effective opposition and if we aren’t effective then the communities that we represent, the people whose support we wish to win will face continuation of what is a right wing Conservative government.

DM: And just the last question, again the one I started with Hilary Benn, you won’t reconsider not standing?  I mean when you resigned people were thinking, oh okay, sorry when you were sacked, people were thinking Hilary Benn will be a very good leader of this party.

HILARY BENN: I’m not and I didn’t take the decision that I did to say to Jeremy that I no longer had confidence in him because I wished to leave the Labour party, I told him that because I believed it to be true and I think you have to be straight and honest about these things.

DM: Hilary Benn, good to see you, thank you very much indeed for your time.