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SOPHY RIDGE: Joining us in the studio now is Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry, thank you for being with us this morning.  Let’s talk about Theresa May’s interviews first shall we because she has said that she will not raise VAT but she hasn’t ruled out raising other taxes including National Insurance and income tax, so what’s Labour’s position then?  Can you guarantee that those three taxes will not go up under Labour?

EMILY THORNBERRY: Let’s just start off by just being clear about what she’s saying.  She’s saying that she has no plans to raise income tax on middle incomes and lower incomes, now that to us is code because that’s the code the Tories used before the first time they came in when they then went ahead and increased VAT.  So she has ruled out increasing VAT but she is not ruling not raising taxes for lower and middle income people.

SR: So what about Labour then?  Can you say right now that Labour won’t raise VAT, national insurance or income tax if you were in power?

EMILY THORNBERRY: We have to wait for the manifesto I’m afraid, I’m not here to reveal what’s in our manifesto.  

SR: But then you can’t criticise Theresa May for not saying it.

EMILY THORNBERRY: Oh no, no, no, because I think if you are going to say something you come on and say it and she has come on and said something and she has come on to say that she won’t be raising VAT but she had not said that she will rule out raising income tax on middle and lower income people.  This has been on for the whole week, she has been asked this and she has been avoiding questions and finally she is coming out with this code.  This means something and this is important.  Now for me to come and to tell you that I’m not the Shadow Chancellor and that you should listen to the manifesto is fine, it’s straightforward and it’s honest.  

SR: Well it might be fine and straightforward for you but we want to know.

EMILY THORNBERRY: We have got a few weeks to go in this general election and you …

SR: So there are no guarantees from Labour that …

EMILY THORNBERRY: Oh stop, stop, stop, I’m not saying that.  I’m saying wait for the manifesto and then when you see the manifesto it will be clear.  Do you know what we are going to do though, we have asked for the Office of Budget Responsibility to look at our manifesto, it will be fully costed and the government won’t agree to it, we can only do it if the government agree.  We said your manifesto, our manifesto, you’re going to tell us that ours doesn’t make sense, we will say it does, the public will go ‘Who can we believe?’  How about looking at the OBR, that’s a government body, they are independent, let them look at the two manifestos and see who is telling the truth on this.

SR: Now you pointed out that you are not the Shadow Chancellor which is true of course so let’s talk to you about your brief of foreign affairs because clearly if Labour win the election, if there’s a Labour government, you are going to be playing a pretty key role in that.  Top of your in tray potentially will be North Korea where tensions have really been rising this week, threats on either side, we can have a look at something that you said about that situation, “We cannot afford blind loyalty to the Trump administration if they are leading us down the path of war.”  Is Donald Trump leading us down the path of war?

EMILY THORNBERRY: Well if you look at the rhetoric on both sides, I think it is extremely worrying and if people keep talking up in the way that they do, then the worry is that you do stumble into war.  People just need to back off, Donald Trump needs to back off on this rhetoric and look at practical ways in which we can defuse the situation and indeed ensure that the North Koreans do not develop a bomb that they can land in America.  So there used to be six nations that were discussing this, it was China, led by China, it was Japan, North and South Korea, America and Russia and there was actually some progress at that time and those talks stalled.  We need to go back to that, we need to make sure that these countries come together under the leadership of China, with America playing an important role, and talk to the North Koreans and get them to back off.

SR: You say yourself that those talks stalled, that is the point isn’t it?  There have been talks before, it’s come to nothing and you have a state where you have a rogue nation who has threatened to wipe countries off the map, including the UK.

EMILY THORNBERRY: It didn’t come to nothing, there was progress made and the point, Sophy, is what’s the alternative?  Military action is not going to work in North Korea, Clinton looked at this, Bill Clinton looked at this and realised that you couldn’t.  Most of their military assets are underground, it’s not clear where they all are, they have chemical weapons, they have biological weapons, South Korea, their capital is only 20 miles from the border.  If you start bombing North Korea you’re in serious, serious trouble.  

SR: So Labour’s policy then is strategic patience, hoping for the best?

EMILY THORNBERRY: No, it’s not, it’s engagement.  It’s engagement and it’s doing things in a practical way, it’s not allowing ourselves to get involved in more and more rhetoric which could mean that we could stumble into war which no one will win.  It’s very serious this, we have to be serious and we have to be prepared to sit around a table and work out how to do it and the engagement of China is very important to that.

SR: Are there any red lines when that policy has to change?

EMILY THORNBERRY: No, we have to start by putting people around a table, keeping them there and making sure that …

SR: So no red lines?

EMILY THORNBERRY: Listen, listen to what I’m saying, we have to begin the negotiations.  At the moment there are no talks and we need to restart those talks and we have to be able to find a way through this because the current path is leading us to war and that is very worrying indeed.

SR: Let’s talk about Syria as well, one of the great foreign policy challenges for all politicians at the moment.  Labour has said that you want to see a political solution to that, does that political solution rule out Assad playing any role?

EMILY THORNBERRY: I think it begins with everything we do has to be measured against are we getting any closer to peace.

SR: But on the Assad point, it does feel that is the important point here.

EMILY THORNBERRY: Well no, peace is the important point, peace is the first important point.

SR: Of course, no one would disagree with that but I am just trying to work your position on this.

EMILY THORNBERRY: I think if you begin with the measuring stick of does it bring peace any closer, then I think if we focus in on Assad then the parties, it will be much more difficult to get people to start talking.  I can’t see Assad having any long term future in Syria but I don't think in the short term that should be our priority.  In the short term we need to get all these, all the regional powers are now involved, we have troops massing on borders, we have the Iranians massing troops, there are rumours that the Americans may be coming in to Jordan, we’ve got the Turks fighting the Kurds in the north of Syria.  Things are beginning to get more and more serious and what we don’t want is a shooting war.  I have said this right from the start, we have to get the parties engaged in Syria at the moment to back off, to back off and to disengage and to be involved in negotiations.  

SR: So just to be clear, you are saying if necessary, in the short term Assad could be part of the political solution in Syria even though he has attacked his own civilians?

EMILY THORNBERRY: I don’t want Assad to be leader of Syria but I want peace first and foremost and so we have to get the parties to disengage and it will be a long process.  Listen, nearly half of Syria is outside Syria at the moment, this is how bad it is.  We have all the regional powers in the area involved in some way or another, a lot of them fighting their own proxy wars, and multi-level, multi-layered civil war going on and ISIS as well, so to focus on one person in those circumstances is not to be looking at the main game.  The main game is get people to disengage and start serious negotiations and work out the very complicated way in which you can find a conclusion.  It doesn’t make headlines, this sort of stuff is quite boring but it is real and it is substantial and it is the way in which you get progress.  You have to do that, you can’t just talk up rhetoric, this isn’t the time for any sort of brinkmanship.  You just need some statesmanship involved.

SR: Is it the way to get progress …

EMILY THORNBERRY: It is the way.

SR: … because if you look at the negotiations that have already been attempted, endless meetings, endless attempts to get people around a table talking to each other and yet Assad and potentially Russia have effectively just ignored it all.  Assad has gone on slaughtering his own people and hundreds of thousands of people have died.

EMILY THORNBERRY: There has been progress for example on chemical weapons, the UN chemical weapons inspectors got rid of 1300 …

SR: They didn’t get rid of all of them as we saw.

EMILY THORNBERRY: They didn’t get all of it, they didn’t get all of it and the work needs to continue and that’s what’s important. As I say, this is slow and difficult work, peacemakers have a hard job.  You can hit headlines by saying I’m going to send in some bombers, I can’t stand for this, I am going to get involved in military action but measure it against are we getting any closer to peace by this action?  If someone can show me, if someone can prove to me that military action can bring peace, fine but everybody knows you need a political solution and the question is when are we going to get it.

SR: On Trident, another issue that Labour has been wrestling with I think it’s fair to say, for years.  I’m interested in your personal view as Shadow Foreign Secretary because I kind of feel I am still slightly muddy on what it is.  Jeremy Corbyn says effectively he doesn’t agree with renewing Trident even though it is the party position, the party says that they think Trident should be renewed.  What do you think personally?

EMILY THORNBERRY: I think that the party has decided that we continue to renew Trident and the decision has been made and generally the public seems to be in favour of us having a nuclear deterrent.

SR: What’s your view though?

EMILY THORNBERRY: I think we need to look at 21st century threats and I don't think that Trident is a top priority for me. I think that the biggest threat from Russia is things like cyber-attacks, and I was saying this a year ago, actually the cyber capability of Russia is in terms of 21st century and that’s a more immediate problem for us and the way in which they tried to undermine democracy in the West through their propaganda, through funding all sorts of organisations, that is the way in which actually … this is the modern stuff.

SR: So you personally disagree then with the party policy on Trident?

EMILY THORNBERRY: I am not getting involved in any more fights about this.  Party policy is party policy, my view is that we should not take our eye off the main game which is that the real threat from Russia is actually much more modern, much more subtle, much more nuanced and real now.

SR: Let’s talk a little bit about the overall picture of the election campaign because by any measure the polls for Labour have been difficult, disastrous some could say.  Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of Labour’s sweeping win in 1997 so I’m interested to know what could Jeremy Corbyn learn from Tony Blair?

EMILY THORNBERRY: I think that the important thing about that election and this election and indeed all of them, is we need to get away from personalities and we need to talk about the way in which we can really change people’s lives and the only way you change people’s lives is not on the colour of Tony Blair’s tie or anything else, it is about what can you actually do to make the country better?  What is this government doing to make the country better?  Let’s see what they have actually achieved since they were elected, what’s happened in the last six or seven years that they can say we’re proud of?  What legislation has Number Ten promoted that has made Britain better?

SR: So you can’t think of anything then?

EMILY THORNBERRY: This is what a general election ought to be about.  Hold the government to account and what does the opposition promise?  What are the things that the opposition can do to this country that will make the country better?  And we’ve been talking about for example a 20 point plan today in order to make workers lives better.

SR: Okay, Emily Thornberry, thank you for your time.