Murnaghan Interview with Mary Creagh, Labour MP and leadership candidate, 24.05.15

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well a dramatic U-turn from Labour today, the party is officially dropping its opposition to an in/out referendum on EU membership so why did they oppose it for so long?  Well Mary Creagh is the Shadow International Development Secretary and contender of course for the Labour leadership and she joins me now. A very good morning to you, Mary Creagh.  Well that’s the question then, isn’t it, I spoke to you about this before the election and long before the election, no referendum unless there is substantial treaty change.  You’ve changed your tune.

MARY CREAGH:  We have, we’ve lost an election and it’s clear now there is going to be that in/out referendum on our membership of the European Union.  We’re clear that we have to listen to what the British people have said and we want to get on and make the arguments as to why Britain should stay in as a strong and confident member of the European Union, good for jobs, good for growth, good for our economy and good for our environment.

DM: So what you have just said there is that you still don’t personally believe that there should be an in/out referendum then, no need for it but you’ve lost the argument so you have to let the British public have one?

MARY CREAGH:  We have to have it and we have to make the argument for staying in this market of 500 million people.  I also think we should get on and have the referendum sooner rather than later, it is going to cast a very long shadow over British jobs, British growth, British investment and we saw at the CBI dinner last week companies as diverse as Deutsche Bank and Toyota, talking about the danger and the Bank of England gaming what would happen if we left the EU.    

DM: But sooner rather than later, doesn’t that narrow down the time for negotiation?  You don’t think there is really much wrong with the European Union at the moment then, Britain’s membership of it?    

MARY CREAGH:  I’m not clear what David Cameron is negotiating on and I think he is probably being a bit unclear with his own party and with the country about what he wants to see changed.  We were clear that we wanted to renegotiate changes around qualifying periods for benefits, we were also very clear that we wanted less money spent on the EU farm budget and a lot more spent on transport infrastructure, skills and jobs and growth in the European Union because that’s how we are going to succeed in a global race.

DM: Okay this come down to, and let’s broaden it out to your own leadership bid, it comes down to what you personally actually believe in and people want to see that, people within the Labour party and people more broadly than that should you become leader.  So there we are, you’ve discussed an EU referendum, you actually fundamentally believe that there doesn’t need to be one but the British public have spoken so therefore do you believe in so many of the other policies that you went into the election with?  Do you firmly believe in them or are you just changing them because you want to get elected?  The mansion tax, the cut in tuition fees, so many things.  

MARY CREAGH:  I am very clear that we lost the election because we failed to speak to the whole of the British public about how their lives would be better under a Labour government.  I think we had some really good policies, tackling inequality, helping those people who have been left behind in the economy over the last ten, fifteen years but we failed to speak to middle England, we lost votes to UKIP in our industrial heartlands and we lost votes massively in Scotland.  

DM: But the ones I mentioned there, cutting tuition fees and the mansion tax, were they good policies or bad ones?

MARY CREAGH:  Well I think that the mansion tax played into the anti-business message that we had as a party and I think some of the unfortunate language around producers versus predators played into that and it …

DM: Yes, the language but fundamentally don’t you think there should be a tax on wealth?

MARY CREAGH:  I am very open to have a debate on how we tax wealth and I am very interested in how we redistribute wealth so we have a much fairer society where we can have economic competence but we have a society where nobody is left behind and where people feel that they have the ability to have their own home, to raise their own family and to get on in their work. It is clear in this election that too many people feel they are in precarious employment and that they can’t get on so the mansion tax was a symbolic thing.  It was I think almost impossible to administer at a local base.  

DM: Did you make those arguments in Shadow Cabinet then?  Did you say Ed this isn’t going to work?  Two Ed’s, this isn’t going to work?  

MARY CREAGH:  This was something that was presented quite late on in the election and there was no shadow cabinet …

DM: The mansion tax, it was around for ages.  

MARY CREAGH:  It was presented quite late on as the way of funding the NHS and it was presented without shadow cabinet discussion so there wasn’t the chance for that to be discussed but what I’m clear about is we need to make a country that works for everybody, not just a few at the top and that’s absolutely right and Ed Miliband is a good man and I was proud to serve in his shadow cabinet but we’ve got to get on, learn the lessons of what happened.  In 48 of the seats, of the key seats that we failed to win, UKIPs majority, UKIPs vote was bigger than the Tory majority.  

DM: You say you were proud to serve in that shadow cabinet – a shadow cabinet that didn’t get consulted?  

MARY CREAGH:  Well there were certain things that the leader and the Shadow Chancellor wanted to do and we got presented with them.  I think we need an open and inclusive style of …

DM: So were they heavy handed?  

MARY CREAGH:  Well perhaps I can answer the question.  I think what we need is a Labour party where everybody’s voice is heard. Far too much of our time I think was spent looking at key seats, we left behind some places, we didn’t visit them as ministers, shadow ministers, and I think we need to be reaching out to all parties, all areas of the country and there should be no no-go areas for Labour.  And we need to listen to our local government colleagues as well because it’s clear that people are trusted to run council services, education, roads in local areas but when it came to voting for us at the general election they simply couldn’t do it.

DM: Did you sit there in that shadow cabinet when it did meet and when you were consulted, thinking I could do a better job than him?  

MARY CREAGH: No and …

DM: Because that’s part of the reason you lost isn’t it, now we have had the election?

MARY CREAGH: No, I didn’t sit in shadow cabinet and think I could do a better job and my decision to stand for leader was something that I took after our general election loss because I very much wanted to be the International Development Secretary in Ed Miliband’s government.  What I think though …

DM: That was the height of your ambition?  

MARY CREAGH: Yes, on May 6th that was the height of my ambition, absolutely and let’s face it, the pollsters, the pundits, the press, almost everybody got it wrong and I think it’s really important that we listen and learn from this election defeat, that we have a wide ranging conversation, a wide ranging leadership election where everybody’s voice can be heard and that we don’t rush into learning the wrong lessons.   

DM: But people are screaming at the television saying but what do you believe in?  Isn’t this the way politics is meant to work, the public then decide this is what you believe, we either believe in it or can be persuaded to believe in it or not.  You are more or less saying we’ll listen to the public and then make up some policies that will appeal to them to get us elected?

MARY CREAGH: No, that’s not what I’m saying.  What I am saying is that we were all bound by shadow cabinet collective responsibility.  We are in the process of electing a new leader, it is right for us to have a discussion about what went wrong, it is right for us to have a discussion across the party, to rebuild the party and to reconnect with the country and to reach every corner of the country.  I am happy if I can …

DM: But is part of what went wrong the leader, the last leader, was he part of what went wrong?  

MARY CREAGH: I am not going to get into this, you know, putting all the blame onto Ed Miliband.  I think one of the things …

DM: No, but we’ve talked about so many other things, we’ve talked about policies and how you address the public but what about the leader?

MARY CREAGH: I want us to unite around a leader who can reach to every corner of the country and talk about our economic competence, because I think that we failed to defend the last Labour government’s economic record, we failed to talk about the huge investment in public services, in our public buildings, in our public realm, all the things that we did that were good and we failed to explain why we left a big deficit and a big debt which was about tackling the global financial crisis.  That failure to speak out on those issues early on damaged us and damaged our reputation as a party and …

DM: So the lead spokesperson is Ed Miliband so these were his faults, failing to reach out to the entirety of the UK.  Well he particularly failed in Scotland didn’t he?

MARY CREAGH: What I think, I think there is a whole series of very complex reasons as to why we lost.  In a way we lost three general elections, in a way we will only win the next general election if we are united around a common vision in 2020 as to what 2030 looks like and I’m clear it need to be a government that works alongside business, a government that has a reputation for economic competence and a government that can talk about how our society leaves nobody behind, a plan that talks about transport, education and skills and the housing infrastructure and a way forward for the whole of the country, not looking at whether this person gets something or that person gets something, because when we’re divided that’s when we fail.  We need to be winning the race to the top on skills and wages and on job.

DM: And what about the process itself?  Are you winning arguments amongst your colleagues?  You need 35 Labour MPs to nominate you, are you close to that?  Have you got it already?

MARY CREAGH: Well my first backers have come out yesterday which is great news, two new MPs, Neil Coyle the MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark and Tulip Sidiq in Hampstead and Kilburn.  Susan Elan Jones from Clwyd South and there will be more people announcing next week.

DM: So that’s three.  

MARY CREAGH: And Mike Kane who is my fantastic campaign manager, director of Movement for Change, he understands about the community organising, the rebuilding, the reconnecting with communities that we need to do and I just want to say …

DM: So you are confident you’ll be on the ballot paper?

MARY CREAG: I’m confident and the second thing is, we need to reach out to people and there is no such thing as a safe Labour seat.  In large areas of our heartland seats UKIP are now in second place and I think that poses an existential risk to us as a party and if we fail to meet that challenge and our MPs fail to learn the right lesson, we will not survive.

DM: Mary Creagh, thank you very much indeed, very good to see you.