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SOPHY RIDGE: Now power sharing in Northern Ireland is teetering on the brink of collapse this weekend. Deadline after deadline has passed with no deal between the two main parties but also with no sign of a breakthrough on the horizon so there is a very real chance of direct rule from Westminster being imposed so potentially not the ideal time you might think for the new Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, Owen Smith, to ease himself into the job. We can now speak to him from his home near Cardiff. Owen Smith, thank you for coming on the show this morning.

OWEN SMITH: You’re welcome.

SR: There’s lots to talk to you about your Northern Ireland brief which we’ll come to but of course many people will remember you as the man who challenged Jeremy Corbyn last year. You said that his leadership at the time was a cataclysmic failure leaving Labour teetering on the brink of obscurity, well it doesn’t quite seem that way after the election does it? Why did you get him so wrong?

OWEN SMITH: Well I think in keeping with a lot of people in this country my view, Sophy, was that Labour wasn’t going to get close to winning with Jeremy as our leader. I’ve said previously I was clearly wrong about that because we did very well at the election, gained 30 seats, almost 30 million votes. I wasn’t anticipating that and Jeremy in that regard absolutely proved me wrong and proved many people wrong and we are now in with a chance of winning an election. The Tories are clearly riven right now, they could collapse at any moment and Labour needs to stand ready to form a government.

SR: If you had won that leadership election do you think you’d have done as well as Jeremy Corbyn did?

OWEN SMITH: I don't know, I hope so, I hope I might have even got us to win but I can’t know that, Sophy. Look, Jeremy has clearly galvanised young people in this country, we’ve seen that not just in the election but since. I met people during the election who hadn’t voted ever, certainly people who hadn’t voted for a long while, who felt Jeremy was speaking to and for them and that Labour was speaking to and for them and I don't think any of us can argue with that and therefore I think he has earned the right to try and get Labour into power and earned the right to be our next Prime Minister.

SR: Now one of the things that you were perhaps most passionate about during that leadership campaign was Brexit and the UK’s relationship with the EU. I’m just going to read to you a couple of things that you said in March, ‘My view is absolutely crystal clear that we should be members of the single market’ and then you said, ‘When we leave the single market we will have a lesser level of benefits that we currently enjoy’. But when you have a chance to vote in favour of staying in the single market this week, you abstained. So did you sell out your principles for a front bench job?

OWEN SMITH: No, I think my view hasn’t changed, I still believe that Brexit is a bad decision for us as a country and is going to leave us worse off, that’s my personal view but Jeremy Corbyn has asked me to do a very important job on the front bench for Labour in Northern Ireland, at a point at which Northern Ireland is central to British politics and therefore I think my duty is to get on and try and do that job and to work as part of, as I say, a Labour government in waiting.

SR: At the same time though you have said some pretty strong things about that single market membership in the past so I do just want to stay on this for the moment because you said that it was the biggest fib that the government was telling right now, that we are going to be able to continue to enjoy exact same benefits outside the single market as we currently enjoy. I mean that is Labour’s position now, so why is it a fib when the government says it and not a fib when Labour says it?

OWEN SMITH: Well look, my view Sophy is that we are going to find out over the next couple of months that the government can’t deliver on what they promised, which is to give us the exact same benefits as we currently enjoy in the single market and the customs union and at that point I think the country may well find itself looking down the barrel of a Brexit that is going to leave us worse off and some of the arguments that some of us have made in the past and will continue to make within the Labour party respectfully with our colleagues, may well feel a bit more relevant then.

SR: So in other words you must disagree then with the leadership position. The leadership for example, John McDonald the Shadow Chancellor calling on the government to negotiate a deal that retains the same benefits that the UK has a member of the single market, the Labour manifesto that pledges to negotiate a Brexit that retains the benefits of the single market – you think that’s impossible, that it’s not going to happen?

OWEN SMITH: I think it’s for the government to prove that that can happen, I think they are the ones who have said they are going to give us exactly the same benefits that we currently enjoy and they are the ones who need to prove that they can deliver that. Labour has said that we want to make sure that the jobs are prioritised, we want to make sure that investment in this country is safeguarded and I think all of those things are not irreconcilable with the view I hold and I will continue to hold those views and to make that argument within government.

SR: It’s easy though just to throw the whole thing onto the government, that they’ve got to prove it, that it’s all in their court but actually a responsible opposition should …

OWEN SMITH: Not really, they’re in power.

SR: But a responsible opposition that says that you are a government in waiting, that you are preparing for another election, don’t you need to get this stuff sorted out as well?

OWEN SMITH: Well I think you have articulated, Sophy, already what Labour’s position is, it’s for investment and jobs to be safeguarded, it’s for the government to deliver on their promise of the exact same benefits that we currently enjoy and I think we have got to hold their feet to the flames on this. Labour isn’t in power yet, Labour wants to be in power but crucially, it is the Tories who have led us to the brink in respect of Brexit, it is David Davies who is making such a Horlicks of the negotiations and it is over the next couple of months when we really get down to the nitty-gritty of what Brexit is actually going to look like, are we going to see the extra money for the NHS, all the lies that were told, that we will I think be able to properly hold the government to account and show the country what Brexit might mean.

SR: Let’s talk about Northern Ireland because deadline after deadline has been missed to try and form a government there. How concerned are you about the future of power sharing?

OWEN SMITH: Very because it’s very clear to me talking to all of the parties in Northern Ireland that whilst some progress has been made and negotiations are not happening today but will be ongoing as I understand it tomorrow, there is still a big gulf between the parties and there is still a big gap in terms of that crucial ingredient, trust. Because whatever the issues on the table, unless the parties trust one another to work together or at least have got sufficient transparency as to the other’s motives and intentions, then we won’t get power sharing back up and running, that’s the lesson of history in Northern Ireland. I was there as an advisor when we were trying to do something similar when direct rule was reintroduced back in 2002-5 and it is a very, very difficult job to rebuild trust once it’s been lost.

SR: You talk about the gulf between the parties, if there isn’t an agreement then the government has a choice – order another election or impose direct rule again. Which choice would you make?

OWEN SMITH: Well I think either choice to be honest are pretty ugly choices for Northern Ireland so I’m not sure that I would urge James Brokenshire to take either of those choices as you outline them. If you get into direct rule it’s very easy to introduce but the devil’s own job to get out of it and another election, well if we think we’re sick of elections in GB, they are truly sick of them in Northern Ireland so I don’t detect any appetite for that. I think the Secretary of State is going to need to find a third way of some sort but I think crucially he is going to need to get his government to redouble their efforts. The truth is, the Tory party I think view Northern Ireland as a problem that was solved, they haven’t concentrated on it over the last seven years, David Cameron barely went to Northern Ireland, Theresa May I think has only been once to Northern Ireland, she’s hardly met with the political parties. They need to pull their finger out frankly and offer a bit more energy into all of this if it is going to be resolved because without that, maybe it does require the Prime Minister to become directly involved and without that sort of engagement then history again tell us it wont be resolved.

SR: Do you think the relationship between the Conservative party and the DUP is impacting the situation in Northern Ireland at all?

OWEN SMITH: I don't think anybody can say but that that is happening because all of the parties in Northern Ireland who aren’t the DUP worry that the DUP now have extra influence, they have the ear of the government and I don't think anybody can argue against that. I’ve heard the Tories trying to spin that this is an entirely separate process in Westminster and in Stormont but the reality on the ground is that it is making it more difficult for trust to be restored. Now I hope that that can be surmounted, I hope that the parties can get past that but for the Tories to say that that isn’t an issue frankly is being a bit disingenuous.

SR: Okay, Owen Smith, thank you very much for coming on the programme today.

OWEN SMITH: Thank you.