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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: I am joined by a man who has been tipped as perhaps a future leader of the Labour party, Stephen Kinnock, a very good morning to you Mr Kinnock.  It would be much better given the situation that Faisal has described and that you know very well if Mr Corbyn just stood down voluntarily wouldn’t it?

STEPHEN KINNOCK: Well that’s got to be a decision for Jeremy to take but what I think is absolutely critical is that we understand now that everything has changed.  This Brexit vote puts us into completely unchartered territory.  I think we need a national unity approach to this where the Labour party is at the table working with the Prime Minister on negotiating our exit from the UK because this is about …

DM: But let’s just get to that issue, should he go?

STEPHEN KINNOCK: Yes, I believe he should.  I think that what we need now is a hard-headed negotiator.  Jeremy is a man of enormous integrity and decency and he has been very effective as a campaigner on issues that he has got a real interest in campaigning on for many, many years in parliament but that’s not …

DM: But isn’t one of the reasons he should go his lacklustre performance during the referendum campaign?

STEPHEN KINNOCK: Well what I said, Dermot, on issues that are close to his heart.  It doesn’t seem that the EU was, I think it was a lacklustre and half-hearted campaign so there is an issue of accountability for the failure of our campaign but there is also an issue of capability.  The job description has changed, these Brexit negotiations are going to dominate British politics for the next three, five, ten years and we need a Leader of the Opposition who really understands that in terms of how the EU is going to work and also ensuring that we’ve got a co-ordinated approach in terms of a national …

DM: Okay, you’ve got a co-ordinated approach and there seems to be this critical mass building amongst the parliamentary Labour party that he should there, so we’ve got the who there, yes he should, we’ve got the why but what about the how if he refuses to go?  How do you get him out?

STEPHEN KINNOCK: Well my understanding is that there will be this vote, debate in the PLP, the parliamentary Labour party, on Monday, the vote on Tuesday and then it will be up to Jeremy to decide what to do.  He is of course very welcome to stand again but there will be some trigger …

DM: But he has to get the nominations.

STEPHEN KINNOCK: Yes, he has to get the nominations, it will be possible that there will be somebody standing to trigger a leadership election.  We have to see what happens on Wednesday or Thursday, this is moving so fast but the critical point is a general election is coming, in my opinion the new leaders of the Conservative party will have to call a general election to get a fresh mandate this autumn.  The big question Jeremy has to answer is does he honestly believe he is the right leader of our party to take us into that general election, particularly in the context of a monumentally complex task of negotiating these Brexit negotiations.

DM: But it is not just about Jeremy Corbyn and his personality and his politics is it, I mean there are plenty of those who share Jeremy Corbyn’s beliefs and his approach. You may get rid of the man but somebody else of his type may step into the post, I’m thinking of the Shadow Chancellor.

STEPHEN KINNOCK: I think that we need to see that this is a time for unity and not division and for compromise not intransigence and we need somebody at the top table for these negotiations who is going to be able to take a national unity approach.  Now whoever is thinking of standing for the leadership of the party needs to be framed in that context.  The job description has changed completely, these are extraordinary times, unique and unprecedented and the leader of the Labour party has to reflect that.

DM: But you know and I know that the membership rules lock someone like Jeremy Corbyn at the moment into the party against the parliamentary party’s wishes.  After that referendum campaign, indeed after the general election result, are you saying to the Labour party wake up and smell the coffee, we need to address those now millions of voters who seem to have deserted us?

STEPHEN KINNOCK: The membership, if we are talking now in the context of a leadership election the membership has to see and understand that the world has changed.  They elected Jeremy with a thumping mandate …

DM: But the [inaudible] has changed.

STEPHEN KINNOCK: Well 16 million people voted to remain in the EU, of those millions and millions of them are Labour voters and will continue to be Labour voters.  We of course have to set out a clear agenda for what these Brexit negotiations should look like: in or out of the single market, what do we do about immigration and security, what do we do on jobs and growth?  We have to set  out an alternative vision because this is about the jobs and the livelihoods of the people we were elected to represent.  We need to ensure that there is a Labour voice in these negotiations and whoever we elect as Labour leader, if Jeremy does stand down, has to be capable of taking that on.

DM: But you want somebody don’t you who is going to be a winner, somebody who has got to stand as it looks like now against Boris Johnson who can stand for the centre.  Boris Johnson may represent taking the Conservative party to the right, there is a real opportunity it is said for a party of the centre so who might that be?

STEPHEN KINNOCK: Well Boris Johnson is the man who said that the EU is trying to achieve the same things as Adolph Hitler but by different means – is he really the man to be leading these negotiations?

DM: I’m asking for an opinion Mr Kinnock, who have you got to take on Boris Johnson?

STEPHEN KINNOCK: Well it’s going to be up to the candidates. We’ve got some very strong and talented people in the parliamentary Labour party and they’ve got to set out their stalls.  What they have to do is set out their stalls in the context of this completely changed reality.  There is a pre-Brexit politics and there is a post-Brexit politics and we need a post-Brexit leader of the Labour party.

DM: Yourself?

STEPHEN KINNOCK: [Laughs] Look, I am not a candidate and there are lots of very, very talented people in very senior positions.  I’ve only been an MP for one year, the key thing now is to look at what the candidates have got to say, set their stall out and what I think is very important is that they frame that in the context of Brexit.

DM: All right, Stephen Kinnock, thank you very much indeed.