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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well now, it’s been another week of bitter conflict between the Labour leadership and the party’s MPs at Westminster.  This morning there are yet more allegations of intimidation and harassment against a Labour MP who resigned from Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet, which Seema Malhotra claims culminated in the illegal and unauthorised entry into her office in Westminster.  Now a new poll out today shows the Labour leader still has the overwhelming support of the party’s membership and is on course to win this summer’s leadership contest against his backbench MP, Owen Smith and Mr Smith joins me now from his Pontypridd constituency and a very good morning to you, Mr Smith.  First of all what do you make and what have you heard from Seema Malhotra about these allegations of illegal entry into her office?

OWEN SMITH:  Well I don't know anything about it, Dermot.  I’ve seen the stuff in the papers this morning, I think it’s for Seema to talk about that.  I think the key thing is, look, we need a positive debate in the Labour party now about the future of our party, that’s why I am standing.  My grave worry, as you will know Dermot, is that the party might split about and that having been a great force for good in Britain for a hundred years and more we could cease to be that and my worry has been that we are not looking at the moment like a government in waiting, we don’t look like a credible powerful opposition and one that people can imagine running the country and I think that’s what we’ve got to be because the Tories with their austerity programme have been causing damage in my constituency and constituencies like mine across Britain and it’s time for Labour to really get up off its knees and start fighting back against the Tories and I know that’s what Jeremy wants too but I’m not sure he can do that.  I am saying to Jeremy I think it is time for us to hand the flag on to a new generation of Labour leaders to take that fight to the Tories.  

DM: You know Jeremy wants that, you don’t think he is capable of it but do you believe that Jeremy – and indeed John McDonnell who has been saying it again today – really want to stop this infighting, the attacks that are going on, you are saying that many of them are coming from the Corbyn side, those attacks are causing that feel about Labour, that it really isn't fit to govern?

OWEN SMITH: Well I hope they do both want all of these things, I’m sure that they do.  Look, we all want the Labour party to be a powerful opposition to the Tories, we all want us to be a united opposition but we haven’t been in recent months, we’ve become more and more divided, more and more fractious and some of that is about concerns about Jeremy’s leadership and whether he is really a leader of men and women.  He is a principled man and someone who’s got deep Labour values but our question is can he take the Labour party to where we need to be, which is in power?  Because without winning elections, without Labour being a serious party of government again, then all the principles are just hot air, if we can’t put them into practice through winning power to exercise it on behalf of people then what’s the point of being in this game?

DM: But just on that, Mr Smith, would you like to see a more full throated denunciation of some of the abuse that is going on from Jeremy Corbyn?

OWEN SMITH: I would but I’ve said that before, Dermot and I think the time is now frankly in this leadership contest for us to start talking about what it is we want to do.  I’m very clear, we need a Labour party that is saying to the country we’ve been floating the banks and floating finance for a long time here, we need to start floating the people.  I want to talk about my plan for a British New Deal to spend £200 billion on new schools, new hospitals, FE colleges, skills, Sure Start centres, that’s the sort of language that Labour voters and Labour members I think are crying out for from a Labour government and we have not been good enough at sketching out what our manifesto, what our prospectus for winning back power – we weren’t good enough in the last period of opposition, we haven’t been good enough recently, it’s time for Labour to get back on the front foot.  We’ve got a really radical right wing Tory government here, they are hiding behind some of our language but the truth is austerity cuts and more cuts and now Brexit, leading our country in crisis, we have never needed a more powerful opposition and we’ve never looked further from power.  

DM: Well let me ask you about Brexit because you want a second EU referendum and this is about political will.  It is only a month ago when it was clear from the United Kingdom that the people want to leave the EU, why do you want to thwart that?

OWEN SMITH: Well it was a very marginal decision and I completely respect that people who voted on either side of it did so in good faith but I think a lot of people now feel they were fibbed to, they were lied to by some of the Brexiteers, this 350 million quid a week we were meant to get for the NHS, an end to immigration, all of these things were lies obviously and I think it is now right for us to say, the Labour party should be arguing for a proper debate, a proper negotiation, a tough negotiation on behalf of the British people to make sure that we know exactly what the terms of the deal will really be as opposed to what was promised and at the end of that we’ve got to have the courage to say to the British people, we trust you once more to say is this what you wanted, is this what you imagined Brexit was going to look like for Britain or is it not?  And people I think in this country will respect a Labour government that says we trusted you last time and we will trust you again in 18 months or two years’ time, either in a second referendum or at another general election in which we’re arguing to stay in the European Union.  I firmly believe we are better off in Europe but I respect the views of those who said no, I also respect them to rubber stamp the deal when the moment comes.  

DM: All right, there’s another question coming your way about political will and it’s within your own party.  As you will accept, Jeremy Corbyn won overwhelmingly last year when he was elected leader of the Labour party and all the polling is telling us now he is going to do it again, why do you think you can thwart that?

OWEN SMITH: Well because I think I’ve got the ideas and the energy and I think I’ve got something to say about what the future of the Labour party looks like.  The truth is, we’ve got massive challenges in this country, Dermot, challenges of productivity, challenges of communities feeling that they have been going backwards for a long time under successive governments and Labour when we are at our best we are united and we’re telling a hopeful story about the country and I think we can do that.  I know what we need, we need investment in this country, we need a new deal that is going to pump billions of pounds into communities.  The Northern Powerhouse, it’s a great idea from the Tories but at the moment that’s all it is, let’s make it a reality, let’s turn our northern cities into real powerhouses of our economy, let’s invest in the bits of Britain that we keep reading about that feel left behind. That’s what Labour can do and if I am given a chance to lead our party that is what I will turn us into, a party that giving people a sense of hope, a party that is firing their aspirations and ambitions.  

DM: But a big part of Labour’s revival has to be renewing its appeal in Scotland after what happened at the general election, do you think that can happen?  And let’s just look at our vote for Trident, again the Scottish people voted overwhelmingly for the Scottish National Party in the general election and it is explicit, they don’t want Trident, you do.  

OWEN SMITH:  Well I am just being honest with people, Dermot, about that.  I’m someone who firmly believes we want a world, all of us in Labour, without nuclear weapons.  I’m a multi-lateralist, I’m a Bevanite on that and lots of other things, we all want to get rid of all of the bombs across the world but I don’t believe that the way to do that is to unilaterally get rid of ours first.  I know the argument, the argument is that we would encourage others to do likewise but I’m afraid I think that’s a bit naïve and I’m afraid that securing the defence of the realm, securing the security of the British people has to be uppermost in our mind and the world to me, I don't know about you Dermot, but every day I pick up a newspaper and it looks more volatile, more unpredictable, more dangerous so I don't think it’s the right moment for us to just get rid of our defences, I think it is the time for us to stand strong in the world, to look out to the rest of the world and say let’s be in the vanguard if you like of getting rid of nuclear weapons, let’s use ours as a bargaining chip to get everybody to start thinking once more about how we collectively get rid of nuclear weapons across the world.  That’s been Labour’s policy more or less since the 1950s and I think it should be our policy going forward.  

DM: Okay, good to talk to you Mr Smith, thank you very much indeed.  Owen Smith there.