ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, the UKIP leader Nigel Farage has claimed this morning that women could be at risk of rape by migrant men if Britain stays in the European Union.  He told the Sunday Telegraph that the nuclear bomb of the campaign would be the possibility of sex attacks like those that took place in Cologne over the New Year.  Well I’m joined now by the Labour MP and Leave campaigner, Kate Hoey, she’s one of the founders of Labour Leave and a very good morning to you, Kate.  You agree with a lot of what Nigel Farage says about elites in Europe and things like that, do you agree with him about this?

KATE HOEY: Well I’d like to read the context he said that in.  The reality of course is what he’s probably talking about, and I’m not here to defend Nigel Farage at all, but I think the context is about open borders, we need to get control of our borders and I think he was probably referring to what had happened in Cologne but that …

DM: The argument is that even if under Schengen rules they still can’t come to the UK if they settle, these asylum seekers and migrants, if they settle in other countries they might eventually get EU passports and then they would be free to come to Britain.

KATE HOEY: The draw for the United Kingdom is that, we can see that, nearly all the migrants do want to come and end up in the United Kingdom, apart from Germany so I think what he was saying is that once they are accepted in another country after a period of time, they would get a British passport whether we are in Schengen or not, they would get an EU passport and then they’d be able to come to this country but, you know, we’re going to get people saying all sorts of things in different ways.  The key issue for me is about democracy and whether we want to be able to run our country in the way that we want to.

DM: But just that idea that migrant men are more likely to be sex attackers.

KATE HOEY: Well there are cultural differences, I think that was referred to in your paper review there, that people have a different attitude in different countries to women and in the United Kingdom we have a very clear view that women are equal and we abhor anything that is in any way sexual abuse of any kind so I don’t really think it matters wherever people come from if they behave in that way, they should be treated by the law.  

DM: Just your thought on the broader Leave campaign, this is about the strange bedfellows that the campaign on both sides seems to be making.  This from the Mail on Sunday today, an investigation has found that BNP members, English Defence League members, have got involved in different ways in the campaign, you can’t be comfortable with that.

KATE HOEY: The Mail on Sunday must be having a big argument with the Daily Mail, I think the two editors don’t particularly like each other and they are taking opposing views but all campaigns that have volunteers will get odd people joining them.  I think nearly all of us who stand for election sometimes find people joining your campaign and you think oh my goodness, do I really want them?  The reality is that we can’t stop individuals but nobody wants, all of us on the Leave side have been perfectly happy to appear on platforms apart from with people who would be seen as coming from the extreme right.  

DM: I don't know how you have been campaigning on the ground, campaigning with Conservatives who want to …

KATE HOEY: This is such an important issue that absolutely crosses the party political divide and we’ve seen the Prime Minister campaigning with Sadiq Khan.  I’m prepared to go on platforms with really anyone within reason who wants to see getting control back of our country and wanting to see us becoming an internationalist country being able to trade with the rest of the world and getting the money that we spend now, nearly £10 billion just simply goes to the European Union and we want to be able to spend that in a way that our governments … and to be able to kick out our governments.  You can’t kick out the unelected European Union commissioners but we can kick out our governments and one of the things that worries me about Labour at the moment, there is almost a feeling …

DM: I wanted to ask you about that.

KATE HOEY: There’s almost a feeling amongst some of the leadership of the Labour party, not Jeremy because I put him in a slightly different category because I know where his heart lies on this issue, but it’s that they almost feel there is never going to be a Labour government again.  So they say oh dreadful if we left the EU because it will be a Conservative government and they’ll do all these things.  Well I’m in the Labour party because I want to see a Labour government and I find it quite depressing really that so many of our, not our ground support because what we’re finding is that nearly 40% of Labour supporters …

DM: 43% of them don’t know the official position.

KATE HOEY: Labour voters and Labour supporters, there is actually a huge gap between what they’re saying and the leadership at the top.

DM: Where does Jeremy Corbyn’s heart really lie?

KATE HOEY: Well I spent, I’ve been an MP for 27 years and every single lobby I’ve been in opposing treaty after treaty after treaty, Jeremy has been with us.  We are a small group in parliament but we are reflecting out there Labour voters and Labour supporters and I’ve been campaigning around the country but I was in my own constituency yesterday and I genuinely was just so delighted to find in really staunch Labour estates people particularly from the Afro-Caribbean and Asian community coming out and saying they wanted to leave because they know that this is going to give us an equal and fair immigration system that allows people from the Commonwealth to be able to come in on an equal footing. At the moment we can’t allow that to happen.

DM: But you think Jeremy Corbyn is a Leaver?

KATE HOEY: Oh Jeremy is in his heart of hearts. I think it’s very good that there’s a secret vote because I wouldn’t put it past Jeremy to be actually voting to stay.  He has said all the things that we say, that the EU is dysfunctional, that it’s corrupt, it’s working on the interests of the multinationals, it’s not interested in social Europe anymore.  The difference that I would have with Jeremy is he now, he understands because he’s leader, is that he thinks we can reform it.  We can never reform it.  David Cameron didn’t try very hard and he got nothing.  

DM: So he is just saying that because he’s the leader?

KATE HOEY: He’s in a very difficult position because he has a Shadow Cabinet who are strongly in support of staying in and he wants to keep the party at that level together but my worry is that the disillusioned voters who have gone to UKIP in thousands and thousands, if we continue with being seen as one track supporting the EU, we may lose those voters forever.

DM: But the one thing that Jeremy Corbyn is in control of, of course, is the army of ground troops, not those that just voted for him but the formidable Labour campaigning machine.  The Labour party has a huge UK wide, well okay we can leave out Northern Ireland but UK wide machine.  Do you think Jeremy Corbyn is not pulling the levers and saying get the troops out there and get the yes vote out?

KATE HOEY: I think there’s a difference again from what’s happening at the top level and what’s happening down on the ground.  I think if you were to go round and look at lots of constituency offices, I think you’ll find lots of Remain leaflets sitting in corners because there are not that many activists out there. Perhaps a few of the activists but the supporters that we get out to work in general election campaigns are not loving going out and knocking on doors and saying please vote to stay in this wonderful EU.  It’s just not happening and …

DM: But they are not being told to do it either are they?

KATE HOEY: Well they are being asked to do it but it’s not happening because there is this disconnect. I think we’ve got a couple of weeks before the referendum and I really do think that Labour needs to recognise that things are not what they think they are on the ground.  

DM: What about this argument, not just from Jeremy Corbyn but from senior union leaders, and we’re about to talk to one in a moment or two, about this EU elite who you describe them as who have brought in so many employment rights, maternity rights, health and safety, holidays, hours worked.

KATE HOEY: Oh I know, it all sounds wonderful but first of all everything is enshrined in British law  so if we vote to leave it all stays there in law, everything we’ve got at the moment unless a new government was to get elected and say we want to get rid of those and then we could have a democratic right to kick them out or vote them in but so much of what they’ve said didn’t come from the EU, it came from hard work of campaigning trade unionists and Labour people over the years.  We had equal pay before we even joined the Common Market.  Yes, there’s been a few things added but we have actually got better rights and if we had a Labour government we could have even better rights but we won’t have a Labour government unless we get recognised that we are getting away from our supporters and we’re losing them because of this ridiculous position we’ve taken on the European Union.

DM: Kate Hoey, great to see you, thank you very much.  Kate Hoey there from Labour Leave.