ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: So then, the Prime Minister has been under attack this morning from two of the most prominent figures of the out campaign.  Michael Gove and Boris Johnson say remaining in the European Union could threaten Britain’s security.  It’s a direct challenge to David Cameron’s position that Britain will be stronger, safer and better off in the European Union.  Well Yvette Cooper was the Shadow Home Secretary until September, she is now leader of Labour’s Refugee Taskforce and she’s an Ambassador for the Britain Stronger In Europe campaign and she’s with me now.  A very good morning Ms Cooper, so you are with the Prime Minister on this one and think Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are plain wrong, Britain is safer you think within the European Union?

YVETTE COOPER: I think we are definitely safer being part intelligence sharing networks, working Europol, it’s why you have had the former Chief of Police Hugh Orde and also former Head of MI5 Jonathan Evans, both saying how important it is for us to be part of those security partnerships but I think what’s going on here is you’ve just got an increasingly hysterical battle for the future of the Tory party and they are trying to hijack the future of the country, we cannot let them do that.  This has got to be about our future as Britain and why we’ll be stronger in Europe and not get sucked into a battle between Old Etonians about their political party.

DM: So as Labour, you are secretly enjoying it all then.  Are you wondering, like many people, how could the government knit itself back together again after all this and what more to come?  

YVETTE COOPER: Well they have obviously got very deep divisions over Europe on this.  I think they are increasingly though starting to become really quite hysterical.  Some of the things we’ve had in the papers this morning, somehow the idea from Michael Gove that Europe, the EU is responsible for the rise of fascism in Europe.  They’ll be blaming the EU for the rise of Donald Trump and the Ku-Klux-Klan in the States next.  There is a kind of really unbalanced approach now rather than talking about the facts and instead what we have from Boris Johnson has just been wiffle-waffle about what the future might be in terms of trade.  We need some answers from them about what the trade deals would be, about whether or not we’d have higher tariffs and what the impact is going to be on us.

DM: Just about the Gove article on the rise of fascism, I mean he is talking more about the eurozone and we can see what’s happened, let’s take one specific example, what’s happened in terms of the relationship between Germany and Greece.  Do you not think that that relationship and the bitter feelings amongst many of the Greeks has fuelled in part the rise of the far right there?

YVETTE COOPER: I do think there is a problem with the eurozone, I’ve always thought that and I think Britain was right not to be part of the euro and I don’t think we should ever be part of the euro because I think it is flawed.  However, we are outside the euro and it’s not the EU that’s responsible for arguments between Germany and Greece about what their fiscal policy should be.  I think Germany got it wrong on a series of things, I think they should have worked together in a different way but how does us pulling out change that or help that or help us in any way?  The issue for the British people is, are we going to see more tariffs on our cars because we’ll be outside the single market or are we going to be inside the single market, which some of them say, but then we’ll have to accept the EU’s rules but not have any say in them?  I just don’t see what is the benefit for Britain in their plan to pull out.

DM: But the problem for the British people who have to decide is I don’t think they believe anyone, do they?  Figures are being bandied around, they’re being plucked from the air on both sides and look at the campaign you’re in, Britain Stronger In Europe, ahead of it Lord Rose seems to say one thing one day and something different the next.  He said, for heaven’s sake, wages will go up if we leave the European Union and everyone goes hurrah, we’d better get out then and then he’s leading the campaign!

YVETTE COOPER: Yes, you see I don’t agree with him on that.  I don't think that makes sense economically because I think the problem is if we pulled out, what seems to be the most likely thing is they want us to have a free trade deal with the EU.  What that’s likely to mean is you would have tariffs.  Now the common tariffs that you get for other countries who have trade deals with Europe are things around maybe 10% on cars.  That’s going to push up the cost of goods, it’s not going to push up the cost of wages.  I think we should be working across Europe actually to stop the undercutting of wages, that’s one of the things, the important things that Europe can do in terms of protecting workers’ rights and that’s why I think there is a Labour case for being part of Europe.  I know some of the Tories want to pull out because they want to get rid of some of those workers’ rights but I don’t.

DM: In the general election you did share some of that analysis about wages but I want to ask you overall, having disagreed with Lord Rose on that, and he’s been on this programme saying leaving the EU and the idea that companies would up sticks and disappear was a red herring and he’s forgotten the name of the campaign he is meant to lead for heaven’s sake, do you think his heart’s really in it?

YVETTE COOPER: Do you know what, if we just make this as all about individual personalities and so on, that is what the Tories are doing here and they are making this a battle over personalities and over who is going to be the next leader of the Tory party.  It is actually I think deeply dangerous.  So you think about what are the issues: if we are part of Europe – and it’s not perfect but if we are part of it, we can get better trade deals, we can have better chance of our goods being exported all across Europe, we can have better protection for workers’ rights right across Europe so that we’re not undercut just by other companies in Britain but by other companies across Europe as well by undercutting workers’ rights.  

DM: Just what you were saying about the Labour analysis of this debate and it being at the moment dominated by the Conservatives, so when are we going to see the big battalions of the Labour party holding their big pro-EU rally with all he front bench and the leader there?

YVETTE COOPER: As you know, the Labour party is strongly supporting the case for being in Europe …

DM: So when’s the rally planned?

YVETTE COOPER: Look, I hope that Jeremy will do some more things campaigning on Europe, I think it’s really important that he does.  We have obviously had Alan Johnson who I think is doing a brilliant job leading the Labour In campaign, a lot of work that Hilary Benn and Chuka Umunna have been doing as well, and we’ve also got to have far more, from all sides, far more women’s voices as part of this because it’s looking like a very male campaign.   

DM: I’m already seeing the rally, I’m already seeing it, you’ve described it for us but is it actually going to happen led by Jeremy Corbyn with all the prominent figures, past and present, of the Labour party there, plenty of women to the forefront, saying we want to stay in the EU?  

YVETTE COOPER: I don't know about rallies, I think it’s about campaigning on the doorstep, talking to people across the country.  Certainly I think everybody in the Labour party should be campaigning for this because so much of our future is at stake here, whether we are going to have the right kinds of partnerships to protect our national security, the right kinds of economic arrangements to support British jobs and workers’ rights.  So many things about our future depend on this so the Labour party has to be at the party and that includes the whole of the Labour leadership …

DM: So you hope Jeremy Corbyn gets involved in more events, you hope he does?  He has given no indication to you or to anyone else that he will?

YVETTE COOPER: I haven’t talked to him about it but I really hope he does because I think it’s so important, I think he needs to.  

DM: So you think he hasn’t been doing enough so far?   

YVETTE COOPER: I think everybody needs to do more.  Look, this campaign has just begun going and so far it has just been dominated by this internal Tory party row.  That is dangerous for the future of the country, it is also … I just think they are playing games. You saw Boris Johnson this morning, he’s playing games, he’s not serious and I’m baffled frankly as to why anybody takes him seriously at all.

DM: I’ve got to talk to you as time runs out of course about the issue with refugees, with migrants, particularly in Greece, those scenes we’ve been seeing over the past couple of weeks on its border particularly with Macedonia.  Now this also might have a bearing on how Britain votes in the EU referendum, what do you think Britain as a current member of the European Union, a senior member, should be doing and should it be doing more to deal and help out with that situation?

YVETTE COOPER: I think we have to do more.  This crisis has been driven by the terrible events in Syria, that is what is still driving so many people to leave. You’ve got Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan taking most of the strain but you also have more people arriving across in Greece in particular now.  There are a whole series of things that we need to do which includes stronger action against the smugglers gangs and the boats that keep coming across putting lives at risk.  

DM: We’ve been hearing that for years.  

YVETTE COOPER: Yes and it’s not happening enough, it’s really not happening and much more needs to be done.  

DM: So what should we be doing?  Attacking their bases and holing their ships?

YVETTE COOPER: Well you need much more action against these criminal gang networks and that includes patrols, there has been talk of NATO patrolling in the waters between Turkey and Greece but also this is about coordinated police action, it’s why Europol in the end is so important.  You need that coordinated action to go for the gangs but you also need massive humanitarian aid into Greece.  I’ve been calling for a long time for Europe and for Britain to be putting some of our aid budgets into Greece now where there is a terrible humanitarian crisis growing.

DM: So diverted parts of the aid budget or an increased amount, in addition to what we’re already doing?

YVETTE COOPER: From within the aid budget there is a lot of flexibility.  We rightly have an expanding aid budget, I think some of that should be going into Greece as well and Europe, the EU should be doing more to help Greece as well but there is also more that needs to be done to get proper checks in place, as to whether people are refugees or whether they need to return to a safe home and for each country to do its bit, to take more people, take more refugees.

DM: Ah, well this is the point isn’t it?  We’ve talked before about children but given the numbers building up there and suspicions that Assad and Putin are weaponising the refugee crisis in Syria, whatever the cause is, more and more people seem to be coming this year than last year.  Perhaps the situation might be even worse in a year’s time, should Britain say look we’ve got to do our bit just numerically, in pure numbers?

YVETTE COOPER: I do think we have to do our bit, we have to do more and that’s why in about ten days’ time the House of Lords is going to be voting on a proposal by Alf Dubbs that we should take 3000 child refugees, lone child refugees from across Europe.  We know that 10,000 lone child refugees have just disappeared in the continent.  

DM: It’s still not a lot though and you have mentioned this before.  I mean the numbers are growing exponentially it seems.

YVETTE COOPER: I think the first thing we should do is to help the child refugees, I think we should also do more to help for example those who have family in Britain who could look after them and there’s more that we should do there but every country should do more and in the end, part of the reason for having the EU is for countries to work together on international crises, cross border crises like this.  I think more of that cross border working needs to be done but the reason for us doing our bit is not in the end because we are part of the EU but it’s actually because of the humanitarian values that Britain has always had.  We have always had compassion for those who are fleeing conflict and persecution, we shouldn’t turn our backs on those important values now.  

DM: Ms Cooper, good to see you, thank you very much indeed.  Yvette Cooper from Labour’s refugee taskforce, amongst other jobs.