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DERMOT MURNAGHAN:  A request to UKIPs group in the European Parliament to return over half a million pounds of funding looks like being confirmed tomorrow.  The Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe, the ADDE, which includes UKIPs 15 MEPs, has been accused of misusing European funds for nation campaigns on polling for UKIP in the 2015 general election and in the Brexit referendum this year.  Well Suzanne Evans is seeking to be the next leader of UKIP, she joins me now from Central London, a very good morning to you, Suzanne Evans. I know UKIP is saying you haven’t done anything wrong here but if you are asked to repay the money, will you comply?

SUZANNE EVANS: Well obviously UKIP always says it is not like the other political parties, we’re different so we need to be seen to be different as well.  As you said, UKIP is denying these allegations at the moment, I’m not a member of the European Parliament so I have no connection with the ADDE so I don't know what exactly has happened or not, it’s not something on my remit as it were but if I become leader in a few days’ time then absolutely, I’ll want a full investigation into this and I’ll say this too, I think that if there is shown to be wrongdoing it should not be the party that repays that money, it should be those people who were involved in that wrongdoing or who gave authorisation to such payments.  Our members expect us to operate at the top of the party fairly, equally and ethically and if it has been shown that certain people haven’t I’ll be very disturbed about that.

DM: But do you get the irony of the overall broader point vis a vis UKIP and the EU parliament over the years, I mean you have spent so long traducing it for over spending, for being wasteful with UK taxpayers money and even if this money has been used legitimately, UKIP has found ways of getting almost as much money as it can out of the EU in various ways.  

SUZANNE EVANS: Well you’ve got two separate issues there.  Yes, the way the EU spends taxpayers money is absolutely profligate, it is totally wrong and UKIP has quite rightly called that out on numerous occasions but as far as actually spending money that we’ve been given by the European Union legitimately is concerned, I absolutely stand by that 100%.  The British people have elected UKIP MEPs there to go and do a job of work in the European parliament, they know they’re not sending them there to actually support the European Union but they are sending us there to challenge it and so that the money we get back – which of course is not EU money, it’s British taxpayers money and taxpayers money from other taxpayers around the European Union – it is perfectly legitimate that we should have that money and use it.

DM: Now to the leadership, it is said – to put it delicately – that Nigel Farage is not a fan of Suzanne Evans therefore you haven’t got a chance of winning of the leadership.

SUZANNE EVANS: Well I’ve always said that I’m a great fan of Nigel and I was quite delighted to see him quoted in the papers this morning as saying that the problems that we’ve had in South Thanet with the Conservative party allegedly spending far more money than it should have done to fight that campaign, he’d like to – if it comes up for a by-election – he’d like to stand as an MP there again and I’d be 100% behind that, I’d be delighted to see him fight that seat again, why not?  So as I say, I don’t really know what Nigel thinks of me, we haven’t spoken for a while but I am 100% behind him and I hope he will continue to have a fulsome role in the party going forward whoever wins this leadership election.

DM: Well fulsome role in the party, he dominates it doesn’t he?  Even if he left the party, in terms of the public UKIP is synonymous with Nigel Farage whoever wins the leadership.

SUZANNE EVANS: I think that’s certainly been true and absolutely Nigel was one of the founding members so we’re talking about 25 years ago now but what I’ve sensed from the hustings as we’ve been travelling around the country doing the hustings in front of members is there is a real appetite for change now.  I think we recognise that it is time to move on, people are feeling very optimistic and positive about the future under a new leader and that’s been very heartening both for me and I know the other candidates as well.  Yes, Nigel is a huge figure, he will have a role to play going forward but nobody can go on forever and I’m sure that Nigel doesn’t want to cling on to any position, he needs to change his focus as well.  He is obviously doing a lot in the United States now with President-Elect Trump, he’s thinking about possibly a seat in the House of Lords as well so I get the sense that perhaps Nigel wants to move on too and certainly our members are very optimistic about the future under a new leader, which will inevitably take the party in a slightly different direction or will have a slightly different change of tone and therefore a great opportunity to appeal to a whole new set of voters out there.

DM: I just want to raise a couple of points that you mentioned there.  The love-in with Donald Trump between Nigel Farage and other members of UKIP, you have been highly critical, you and I have talked about some of the comments that Donald Trump made on the campaign trail.  Do you think they’re getting too cosy?

SUZANNE EVANS: Well I think actually it’s quite good that Nigel was out there building bridges because Theresa May has said some things about Donald Trump that weren’t exactly pleasant either. There was even a vote here or certainly a debate in parliament about whether or not he should be banned from the country so I was actually pleased to see a British politician out there building those bridges, mending some fences and actually saying, do you know Britain’s great and I am very pleased to hear that I think Donald Trump is going to be meeting the Queen fairly shortly too.  Love him or loathe him, the fact is he was democratically elected to be the next President of the United States of America and I have been as appalled as anybody else, despite my reservations, about the riots and attacks that have been made on the democratic process in the US.

DM: But I just want to raise, Suzanne, you must remember you were appalled by some of the comments he’d made, that he was saying and made about women and yet Nigel Farage says, he endorsed the fact that it was locker room talk, he called him a silver backed gorilla.

SUZANNE EVANS: Well I don’t agree with Nigel’s comments and that’s the great thing about politics, you’re allowed to disagree.  I think President Trump said some reprehensible things but then again so did Hillary Clinton and I made it very clear throughout the course of the Presidential campaign that I would have found it very, very difficult to know which of them to vote for.  People have said to me, oh but Hillary was a woman, shouldn’t you have backed her?  Well no, absolutely not, not for that reason alone.  They say well Hillary had experience of politics, Donald Trump didn’t and I say, well that’s the point isn’t it?  Hillary had experience, she was found wanting on the basis of that experience, it was that actually that I think that meant she lost. I think a better woman would have easily beaten Trump and perhaps a better Republican would have lost to the Democrats had there been a different candidate.  

DM: And do you think the government should use Nigel Farage’s links with Donald Trump and maybe put him in the House of Lords to do that?

SUZANNE EVANS: I think any government has got to put the best interests of its people first so that means out government needs to put the best interests of Britain first.  I think Brexit is a great precursor to that, we could have a super trade deal with the United States of America, a bilateral trade deal.  Trump has already ruled out TTIP, this ridiculous European Union construct which I’m very grateful that seems to now have well and truly hit the buffers.  So I think we have a very positive relationship ahead with America, regardless who’s President.  We have that special relationship, it’s going to take some serious malfunction to be able to destroy that and I think the one good thing about Trump’s presidency is that he has made it clear he wants to keep that, particularly in terms of trade and yes, Nigel Farage may well be able to support and facilitate that as I’m sure will many, many others of us.

DM: Suzanne Evans, thank you very much indeed for your time.