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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: In winning the Labour leadership election Jeremy Corbyn has achieved what was unthinkable just a few months ago. His challenge now will be to unite the party he leads so can he avoid a split?  Well Peter Hain was a Cabinet Minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and he is soon to become a Labour peer.  He has also just written a book called Back to the Future of Socialism which is out tomorrow and I am glad to say he joins me now.  A very good morning to you.  Well mentioning the Blair and Brown years which you were a key part of, one thing’s clear about the election of Jeremy Corbyn is that this is an unequivocal break with Blairism.

PETER HAIN: Yes, that is certainly how Jeremy has positioned himself but the fact is, for people like myself who didn’t vote for him, he has got an overwhelming mandate, a huge mandate from party members, party members voting in the new one person, one vote system for the Labour party that’s never been there before to this extent, party members voting for him and giving him a huge mandate and that has to be respected by everybody in the party and we now need to move forward together and to work together for a Labour victory next time because what is being done to Britain, not just the poor and disabled of Britain but also our economy, is extremely destructive by this Tory government  and we need a Labour party that is united and strong.  We have got many, many more members, thousands of members signed up over the past few months of this Labour leadership campaign and I hope they will join us in a huge crusade to take on the Tories and bring back the values of justice and decency and equality and fairness to British society which are being destroyed by David Cameron and George Osborne.

DM: So if you, Mr Hain, were still in the House of Commons, you would not then be one of those refusing to work in a senior position for Mr Corbyn?

PETER HAIN: Well I’m not in the position … I am about to become a backbench member of the House of Lords so that question doesn’t arise but what I think is important is that as Tom Watson, the new deputy leader of the Labour party said today, that everybody gets behind Jeremy, whether they voted for him or not and that we work on a policy programme which his capable of winning over not just those supporters on the left of British politics which Jeremy Corbyn very successfully appealed to including many thousands of young people turned off the political establishment, not just those but also those on the centre of British politics who voted Tory last time and left the Labour party.  We need to reassemble a broad coalition capable of beating the Tories which I think is possible.

DM: Okay, I want to ask you about that in a moment or two but let me rephrase the hypothetical question of if you were still in the House of Commons, clearly you’re not but what about those of your colleagues, senior colleagues, who have openly said within the last 24 hours that they do not want a senior position under Jeremy Corbyn, do you think they are mistaken to do that?

PETER HAIN: I’m not going to comment on any colleagues, I have always supported my Labour colleagues when I was in the House of Commons for nearly a quarter of a century, a lot of talented Labour MPs including those who have made their own choices on this matter and decided they don’t want to be on the front bench.  People make individual decisions for all sorts of reasons, I understand those reasons but …

DM: But aren’t they in danger of splitting the party, Mr Hain?

PETER HAIN: I don't think there’s any appetite for splitting the party whichever wing of the party you’re on.  Labour’s a democratic party, you’ve got to respect the mandate that Jeremy Corbyn has got.  It’s a huge mandate, he’s got more votes on the first ballot from the Labour party than any other party leader in British politics including David Cameron, including the Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, including Nicola Sturgeon.  He’s got a huge mandate and that has to be respected.  Democracy’s democracy, for a long time successive party leaderships, those that I served under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband, have asked the membership to back them and back the democratic decisions of the party, that I think is what should happen now.

DM: You referred and you’ve written about the task facing the Labour party, winning back those five million lost votes, some lost to the Conservatives, four million of them of course under Tony Blair and you say to appeal to those people you don’t need a wild programme, an irresponsible programme, an unelectable platform of tax and spend.  Well isn’t that just what Jeremy Corbyn’s got?  

PETER HAIN: Well we’ll need to see what programme he comes up with.  He says he wants to consult on policy, he wants to operate an inclusive leadership, I think that’s very good and very positive because a lot of grassroots members haven’t felt involved enough and that’s why party membership has collapsed over the years as it has in other parties.  There is a massive disillusionment with all the major political parties, Tories, Labour, Liberal Democrats in particular and we’ve got to harness the energy that came into this leadership campaign but we also have to adopt an economic policy which yes, rejects the austerity, the savage cuts, the idea that the way to get the deficit down and the national debt down is to cut and cut and cut. That doesn’t work, it hasn’t been working in the last parliament, whatever the Tories say about their plan and so we need a policy that is anti-austerity and Jeremy is right about that, but we also need one that is credible and can be delivered in a very difficult global environment and that people will vote for and that can’t be just imposing taxes on a scattergun basis.  It has to be done on a just basis and a fair basis that people can support.  

DM: And what about Europe, I know an issue very close to your heart.  Mr Corbyn says he won’t rule out campaigning for a no vote because of Mr Cameron’s stance on workers’ rights.

PETER HAIN: Well we have to be very clear as a Labour party, all of us who supported Labour at the last election including Jeremy and every other Labour MP who was elected on that manifesto was on a manifesto to stay in Europe, for Britain to stay in Europe.  It’s vital for our national security, to make us strong rather than isolated and weak.  There are millions of jobs dependent on our trade with Europe.  We get so many benefits from travelling into Europe, students being able to study easily in Europe and their students coming to our universities, paying fees to do so and also people working in Europe so there would be a catastrophe for Britain if we left Europe and I want to see Labour – and I’m pleased to see Tom Watson, the deputy leader of the Labour party, newly elected, endorsing this position this morning – I want to see Labour leading the campaign to keep Britain in Europe and whatever the negotiations and however they come out and I hope that the government gets a good deal for Britain, we want Britain to stay in Europe.

DM: All right, Mr Hain, thank you very much indeed, Peter Hain there.