Murnaghan Interview with Sadiq Khan, Labour Mayoral Candidate, 13.09.15
ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS
DERMOT MURNAGHAN: I’ve got the Labour MP Sadiq Khan here, he ran Ed Miliband’s campaign you may remember, successful campaign five years ago and he nominated Jeremy Corbyn this time round and Sadiq is now Labour’s candidate for Mayor of London, so you backed the winners in both leadership campaigns. Do you think though that this one, well of course it is different but is it a big experiment for the Labour party, when we hear about this energised based and all these new members, they’re the ones that are going to be running the party now.
SADIQ KHAN: Well the key thing is, whether you voted for Jeremy or you didn’t vote for Jeremy, the reality is he has won a huge mandate over the course of this week and I think he has secured more votes in a leadership contest than any leader for any party ever. I think what we need to do as a party is to unite behind the new leader, give him the support he needs and the big test is going to be next May, we’ve got big elections in Scotland, will we make progress there, big elections in Wales, big council elections around the country and of course, as far as I’m concerned, we’ve got the biggest election of them all in London and the challenge for us in London is to ensure that we’ve got to win for a purpose.
DM: So are you saying you are uniting around Corbyn, you are going to become a Corbynite because there is an interesting parallel here isn’t there? Your nomination was announced before Jeremy Corbyn’s and that was seen as a straw in the wind, okay this is the way the party is thinking, we’re going to go for someone like Jeremy Corbyn. If you win London do you think that will tell us something about the way the Labour party is going?
SADIQ KHAN: One of the things I’ve learned during the course of my campaign over the last three or four months is I have attracted support from across all London, bus drivers have been involved in my campaign, there are people who are cleaners in hospitals, lollypop ladies and dinner ladies but also I’m really proud …
DM: But what about some of the richer people in the suburbs?
SADIQ KHAN: I’m really proud, I’m really proud that there are business people who have supported my campaign, there are those who run their businesses, small businesses, there are those who are running big businesses, I have got support from Neil Kinnock, Oona King and Len Livingstone and the thing is…
DM: There you go, some of the richer people in the suburbs there.
SADIQ KHAN: … London needs a Mayor who is going to be doing it full time, who will roll up his sleeves and make sure we argue when necessary with the government to the investment … we need to work with the government when it needs to bring in businesses to our city, getting infrastructure investment in our city, arguing why we’ve got to stay in the European Union. Look, London’s future depends on us being an integral part of the European Union which is why Londoners should be electing a candidate who is pro-Europe.
DM: But you are saying you are going to unite around Jeremy Corbyn, I mean given what you united around for instance when you were serving under Gordon Brown, you support Britain’s membership of NATO?
SADIQ KHAN: Well look, I do, I do and …
DM: Well you have to stop supporting that now because Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t. Are you going to be saying things you don’t believe in?
SADIQ KHAN: Look, the guy was only elected with a massive mandate less than 24 hours ago, give the guy a chance to form his Shadow Cabinet and set out what the policies of the party are going to be. The key thing is this though, and I want to reassure your viewers, those that are Londoners, I am not going to use the pocket of City Hall to make defence policy or to make foreign policy, what I am going to do is try and improve the life for Londoners, building genuinely affordable homes in London, make public transport affordable today but invest in tomorrow’s public transport. If you do a hard day’s work in London you should get a decent day’s pay. The air quality should be clean enough so it’s not killing Londoners. We want a Met Police service that serves this great city. I’ll work with Jeremy when it’s in Londoner’s interests and there may be tension between us when it’s not.
DM: Ah, well will one of the tensions, one of the potential tensions, come when it comes to the City of London? We saw your predecessor as the Labour Mayor of London come to an accommodation. We know Ken Livingstone’s views, key supporter of course of Jeremy Corbyn and a lot of his people, former aides, working for Jeremy Corbyn but he came to an accommodation with the City of London, he realised just how important it is to the UK economy and in particular to London, there are a huge amount of taxes that the people that work in the City and the businesses that are based there pay. Jeremy Corbyn is going to put up top rate tax beyond 50p perhaps, he’s anti-business.
SADIQ KHAN: I am going to be the most pro-business mayor this city has ever seen. Look, I’ve helped run a business in London, I know the challenges that those who run businesses face – can you pay the wages towards the end of the month, do you have a skilled team working for you, how do you ensure the next generation of your staff are skilled, how do you ensure we stay in the European Union, how do you make sure your staff can get to and from work and have homes they can work in? I am going to be pro-business and I’m going to make sure …
DM: So you are going to tell Jeremy Corbyn to tone it down a bit?
SADIQ KHAN: Look, there may be times that Jeremy and I disagree, there may be times we disagree, I’m sure there will be more occasions where we agree and just like I will fight with the government if I need to, to get the best deal, there may be tension between me and the leadership. I am an independent minded person, the next nine months gives me the chance to persuade Londoners to lend me your vote next May. Give me the chance to serve this great city that gave me and my family the chance to fulfil our potential. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for this great city but I worry about today’s Londoners, my daughters, their friends, my neighbours. We need a Mayor who will be full time, dedicated to get the best out of this great city.
DM: And what about the great party you serve, do you see any dangers of a split? What do you read into those people as I have been discussing with others, those senior members of your party, very experienced MPs and former Ministers amongst them, saying no, we don’t want to be party of Jeremy Corbyn’s front bench team. What does that bode for the Labour party?
SADIQ KHAN: Look, I think we should all be generous and give Jeremy the chance to form his Shadow Cabinet, to set out what his vision is for our party. The two key questions that the leadership candidates needed to answer during the course of the last three or four months were, what is their analysis of why we lost the last general election – two big losses in a row but also, more importantly, what is the route map back to winning in 2020?
DM: So what are your suggestions? The two acute problems from the last elections were the number of voters that Labour lost to the United Kingdom Independence Party, to UKIP and the fact that it won very few seats – and London stood out in this – in the south-east, how can you win those back?
SADIQ KHAN: Some would argue that maybe because of the guy that ran the campaign in London we did so well in London, when the rest of the country was losing seats we not just kept the seats we had in London but made gains. We won a seat back we lost in 1993 to the Lib Dems …
DM: In Lambeth.
SADIQ KHAN: … and we won a seat back lost in 2005 in Ilford North. The key thing is this, we’ve got to listen to the voters issues, what are the concerns that voters have, affordable homes in London …
DM: But can Jeremy Corbyn address those voters in Kent, in Surrey, in Hampshire, it goes on and on, a long list of totally blue counties.
SADIQ KHAN: And that’s the massive job that Jeremy Corbyn has to do. My job over the next few months is to make sure we win the trust and confidence of those who didn’t vote for us in May of this year, to make sure that we have in City Hall a Labour Mayor to show the country what a Labour administration can do, to reassure those business people who were scared of – rightly or wrongly – voting for us last May, to reassure those who left the party to vote UKIP or Conservative or who stayed at home why they should be voting Labour. My job is not simply to make sure that we show that Labour’s electable but Londoners need a Labour mayor on their side and that’s what I intend to do.
DM: Okay, Sadiq Khan, very good to see you, thank you very much indeed.
