Murnaghan Interview with Len McCluskey, General Secretary of Unite, 17.01.16

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well now, Jeremy Corbyn has hinted this morning that he could support keeping Trident submarines but without their nuclear warheads.  He’s been warned that scrapping support for Britain’s nuclear deterrent would be barmy.  It’s a key issue of course for the unions who represent defence workers with thousands of jobs potentially at stake.  Well I am joined now by the General Secretary of the Unite union, Len McCluskey, he’s at their conference in Glasgow, a very good morning to you Mr McCluskey.  We all know that the leader, the Shadow Defence Secretary, are against the Trident system, what do you want to feed into Labour’s defence review?  

LEN MCCLUSKEY: Well first of all I welcome the defence review.  It is going to be a comprehensive review and it is going to cover not just Trident and the nuclear programme but indeed the whole conventional elements of defence as well and that’s important.  I think we’re the only party that is doing that so we’ll play our role and obviously we’ll make certain that inputting into that role we prioritise the question of jobs and communities. It is absolutely critical that that is given a priority and I heard Jeremy Corbyn say that this morning, that that is precisely going to be the case.  So we’re looking forward to it, we see it as a positive engagement.  

DM: So is there a compromise possible in terms of keeping the submarines themselves but not having nuclear weapons on board, scrapping those?

LEN MCCLUSKEY: Well there are all kinds of different options that will be debated and discussed but I know, Dermot, that the media at the moment want to obsess on Trident because they think it’s a division with the Labour party.  The reality is somewhat different in terms of as we go forward, the government are going to put a main gate proposal this year to parliament, probably in the summer.  It’ll go through, Jeremy may well give a free vote to Labour MPs, I think that will be sensible so the actual signing of contracts for the submarines will go through.  However the defence review that Emily Thornberry will head up will give us an opportunity to examine a whole range of thing and for the first time in maybe 30 or 40 years we seem to have a political leader who is seriously interested in defence diversification and not just paying lip service to it.  My members and the members of other unions within the defence sector have been proactive about diversity for a long, long time but nobody has taken us seriously so this is a positive development and I am fairly confident that those workers within the defence sector who are concerned and worried at the moment because of all the media hype on this can rest easy in their beds – jobs and communities are going to be a priority.

DM: But really that’s the swords into ploughshares argument.  Let’s look at the steel industry, not unrelated but there are rumours that more jobs, as many as a thousand jobs, may be going at the Port Talbot steel works within the next few days, you can’t find jobs for them.  

LEN MCCLUSKEY: Well therein lies a very good question indeed.  It’s because we have a government who doesn’t have a manufacturing strategy.  Again I hear Jeremy Corbyn talk about the desperate need of a cohesive manufacturing strategy.  The steel industry which is a foundation industry, is key to developing our manufacturing.  You might remember the Chancellor talking in terms of the march of the makers, well that needs a steel industry.  Germany produce four times as much steel as we do in the UK and so we have to persuade this government that they have to have a strategy that protects those foundation industries and allows sustainable growth in our economy.  Jeremy Corbyn is talking about creating a manufacturing task force with senior people within the manufacturing industry, part of that, so that we can put something together to stop the disaster that’s happening in our steel industry at the moment.  

DM: So from your point of view, I mean you are obviously going to tell me but am I hearing this right, Mr McClusky, that your view on Trident is all framed through the issues of jobs and employment?  What about the issue of national defence?

LEN MCCLUSKY: Oh absolutely.  First of all of course we have to have national defence, we have to have a proper comprehensive review of our conventional defence systems as well.  There are all kinds of military experts indicating their concern about the run down in our conventional capacity and …

DM: Sorry to interrupt Mr McClusky, but just to crystallise it, if the jobs could be kept you’re saying then yes, we could go nuclear free?  

LEN MCCLUSKEY: The reality is that in terms of pro-jobs, pro-communities, anything is possible and the defence of our realm and our nation is absolutely critical.  That’s why I believe that Jeremy Corbyn’s initiative with Emily taking up the cudgels is a first class initiative, it’s what many people, independent people in the military have been asking for for a long time.   

DM: Okay, a first class initiative there, is he a first class performer now in your book, the man to take Labour into and win a general election?  

LEN MCCLUSKEY: Absolutely.  I know again we have had all kinds of problems internally in the Labour party, I’ve made an appeal to members of the parliamentary Labour party to recognise what happened last summer.  Jeremy has enormous support within the Labour party and they’ve got to come to terms with that. I’d prefer it if some of the right wing Labour MPs attacked the Tories with half as much vigour as they are attacking and undermining Jeremy’s leadership.  He has been in charge for four months, he has to be given enough time, him and John McDonnell, to develop and alternative strategy that will appeal to the British people and take us away from this dour austerity which has gripped Britain, indeed gripped Europe and nobody wants this.  So the idea that Jeremy Corbyn is allowed time is absolutely critical to put across alternative programmes, an alternative message.

DM: And what about a direct issue for you and your union, the role of Unite members in Scotland in seeing that Ed Miliband didn’t win?  Wasn’t it 65% of Unite members in Scotland voted for the SNP, how does Labour win them back?

LEN MCCLUSKEY: Well it’s a huge challenge.  It makes Mount Everest look like Ben Nevis up in Scotland.  The truth of the matter is, if anybody is going to have a chance of winning Scottish working people back to Labour it’s Jeremy Corbyn and we are already feeling that within our own union.  You are absolutely right, traditionally 80% of my members in Scotland vote Labour, at the last election nearly 65% of them voted SNP.  Why?  Because they felt let down, betrayed by Labour, by Scottish Labour and that was because of the ideology of New Labour and neoliberalism which seemed to suggest that Labour wasn’t on the side of ordinary working people and the SNP stole many of our radical clothes. So Labour has to regain that trust, effectively start again from scratch and I think both Jeremy Corby and Kezia Dugdale – Kezia is doing a great job up here, fresh, passionate and that message needs to go out and we need to persuade not just Unite members to come back to Labour but indeed the whole of the Scottish working class.  

DM: Just on the new Scottish Labour leader, as you mentioned there, Kezia Dugdale, could she start with winning back those defectors to the SNP with an apology for the Blairite past?

LEN MCCLUSKEY: Well I doubt whether Kezia would want to do that but the reality is that we have to recognise why we lost so many seats, so many supporters to the SNP.  We’ve got to send a clear message out to Scottish working people that Labour is under new management and we intend to regain that radical edge that has always been so prevalent up here in Scotland.  Right wing Labour MPs and a right wing media at the moment are trying to suggest that the May elections will be some kind of referendum on Jeremy and Kezia, what utter nonsense, they’ll have only been in office for a matter of months and we’ll need a lot more time to work and regain that trust and put forward alternatives to what this government is doing.  

DM: Okay, General Secretary, thank you very much indeed.  Len McCluskey there from Unite.