ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: We’re going to start by taking a look at the day’s newspapers and the new Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is dominating the headlines again with the Sunday Times warning he is facing a mutiny from within his newly appointed Shadow Cabinet over potential air strikes by Britain on Syria.  Joining me now to discuss that and a host of other stories of course are Yasmin Qureshi, the Labour MP and member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Amol Rajan the editor of the Independent newspaper and Laura Sandys makes up our threesome, the chair of the Pro-EU group, European Movement and was until recently you’ll remember a Conservative MP.  Good morning to you all and let’s stay with that story I mentioned there, Yasmin, on the front of the Sunday Times ‘Corbyn hit by mutiny on air strikes’, this could be, if a vote comes, very tricky for Labour.

YASMIN QURESHI: It can be tricky for Labour but I think many MPs across the political divide are concerned about the issue about the strike on ISIS, the reason being I think the conventional establishment narrative at the moment is that most people fleeing from Syria are linked with the fact that Daesh is doing what it’s doing but everyone knows, or a lot of people should know, that 85% of Syrians live in the area which is actually controlled by Assad and most of the Syrian refugee crisis is because Assad is throwing the barrel bombs with nails and chlorine in them and we had on the Foreign Affairs Committee last week heard from the experts, academics and journalists working in this area and they have all virtually said that actually these air strikes that Britain is joining in with the American in Syria on Daesh is going to achieve no purpose at all until we look at Assad, so that’s why …

DM: But hold on, your party prevented attacks on Assad back in 2013.

YASMIN QURESHI: I know, I agree it is one of those confusing pictures, I think that’s the thing about Syria, there’s no definitive answer.  I think we need to look at the whole picture before we take action.  

DM: But back to the British political dimension, Yasmin, it could be as I said a tricky situation for your party, it could split the party, it could split the Shadow Cabinet.

YASMIN QURESHI: I think it is a tricky situation, I agree with you but I don't think it will split the Shadow Cabinet, I think they will be able to discuss these things because what they have said, even Jeremy has said, they want to see the full, to use a colloquial expression, the package, i.e. what the government’s actually full proposal is.  It’s not just Daesh, it’s not the other things to do with whether you help the Syrian civilian population, capacity building …

[On renationalising the railways]
YASMIN QURESHI: I can remember the old days of travelling on British Rail and I think actually it was a good service and you could move from train to train on different journeys, not have to pay anything extra and I think it was a really good system.  

[On the refugee crisis]
YASMIN QURESHI: Can I just say we are very concerned about the fact that we are taking 20,000 people but if you think about some of the surrounding countries, although they have been criticised actually if you look at the facts, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, they have been taking millions of refugees and we are complaining about 20,000.  I agree we have been investing money … Saudi Arabia has taken two and a half million refugees and I was recently having talks with the Saudi Arabian Ambassador, literally four days ago, about this.  They say they have spent a billion pounds in the refugee camps as well so they are putting money in there.  They have said they have taken two and a half million people in the last two years but they say they don’t regard them as refugees, they just call them visitors.  

DM: Yasmin, I want to go to the Conservatives and the European dimensions here, the renegotiation and the EU referendum, whenever that may be and this is the story fronting the Sunday Telegraph saying Cabinet plot to stop Cameron calling a snap vote next year or something like that, take us through that.

YASMIN QURESHI: Well it kind of builds on to the fact that we had a vote in parliament recently where the purdah rules, the government was meant to defeat the issue of purdah and this is a problem for obviously the Conservative party more perhaps than the Labour party about the European referendum and historically there has always  been big unhealthy or healthy pensions in the Conservative party so it will be interesting to see what Cameron decides to do about this, whether he will call a snap vote or whether he will take his time and give a proper time.  

[On the Liberal Democrat conference]
YASMIN QURESHI: Can I honestly say that from my Labour colleagues, not a single one of them has said to me that they are even toying or thinking about joining the Lib Dems.

DM: So you haven’t got a ticket down to Bournemouth then, too expensive.  Yasmin Qureshi, Amol Rajan and Laura Sandys thank you very much indeed for taking us through some of the stories in the Sunday papers today.