ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SOPHY RIDGE ON SUNDAY, SKY NEWS

SOPHY RIDGE: I’m now joined by the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Thanks very much for being with us this morning.  

JEREMY CORBYN: Thanks for inviting me Sophy, a pleasure to be here.

SR: Now it’s very clear that there’s a significant number of people in the country who think you’re the best thing that’s happened to politics for decades, that you’re the Labour leader that they’ve been waiting for but if you go to places like Nuneaton right now it doesn’t feel like there’s enough of them.  How are you going to turn it around?

JEREMY CORBYN: I was in Nuneaton last month and I spent the morning in the hospital there talking to people about the problems the NHS faces in that area and of course down the road in Redditch and in Worcester and the work that’s being done by NHS workers to try and turn it round.  I talked to a lot of people there and clearly what Nuneaton needs, like the rest of the country needs, is a government committed to the NHS,  committed to improving social care, committed to housing opportunities, committed to rights to work for everybody and that applies to the whole country.  I actually was born in the Midlands, I was born in the south and grew up in the Midlands.  

SR: So a bit of a refuting of that champagne socialist label?

JEREMY CORBYN: My first political campaigning was in the Nuneaton by-election many years ago.

SR: You talk about the messaging you got on the NHS but if you look on the opinion polls that simply doesn’t seem to be cutting through. I mean this is a poll that was taken by YouGov after the Prime Minister’s Brexit speech.  You’re 17 points behind in that poll and that would mean a Conservative majority of 108 seats so why is it that your message doesn’t seem to be cutting through?

JEREMY CORBYN: We’re getting it through.  We’re campaigning all over the country, we’re calling out what this government is doing on the NHS and on social care. Talk to any manager in any hospital, anyone trying to run an A&E department, about what it’s like when they cannot find a bed to put a patient in because an older person is stuck in the hospital because the social care system doesn’t pay for it, for them to go home or go somewhere else and that means there’s a whole backlog within the NHS.  The crisis in the A&E departments is a symptom not a cause.

SR: But if that’s right, then why isn’t that being reflected in the polls?  I mean one recent poll said that people trusted Theresa May more than you on the NHS.

JEREMY CORBYN: Well I think they should just think for a moment about what is happening in our NHS and the government’s offer, if it is an offer, on social care is to load the cost onto local authorities, load the cost onto council tax payers which of course produces a completely different level of income in all parts of the country.  Surrey is about to have a referendum on raising council tax by 15% in order to pay for the social care crisis across the county.  I don't know what the result of that would be but quite simply it’s a national responsibility and the responsibility of central government to ensure that those people that need that care, often very frail elderly people, should get it and they don’t get it at the moment.

SR: That’s pretty clear that you want to talk about the NHS, that’s something that you’re comfortable on but …

JEREMY CORBYN: It’s not comfort, it’s a crisis and it’s a crisis that matters to everybody all over the whole country.

SR: But are you not worried at all then about the state of the Labour party in the polls?  You’ve got big by-elections coming up, you’re minus 22 when it comes to council by-elections that have been held since last May, I mean are you just not worried about that?

JEREMY CORBYN: Only three days ago there was a big swing to Labour in one council by-election.  Okay, it varies week to week, I understand all that, of course I want there to be more support for Labour, that’s why we’re setting out our offer on health, on housing, on employment.  We want an economy that works for all, we want fair investment across the country. Why is it £1300 per year per head goes on transport infrastructure in London and the south east, £300 goes in the north east?  Look at that across the whole country.  We’re serious about devolution of power and responsibilities.

SR: Well let’s talk about Brexit now because of course that is something that people can be  concerned with this year.  One recent survey said that nearly half the people don’t really understand Labour’s position on Brexit and I think I have some sympathy for that because I think perhaps over the last four months it hasn’t always been the clearest but now is your opportunity, Mr Corbyn, we’ve heard from Theresa May – what exactly is your party’s policy on leaving the EU?

JEREMY CORBYN: We accept the result of the referendum.  It’s clear, it’s a democratic decision that was made, parliament must reflect that.  We therefore have to negotiate our way out, therefore Article 50 gives us the responsibility and the opportunity to negotiate, one that we have an effective trading relationship with Europe, around half of all our trade is with Europe at the present time.  Secondly, that the important regulations on environment, on the European Arrest Warrant and many other things are actually continued in some form through those various European agencies.  So we will not block Article 50, we will however amend the Bill in order to make demands on market access, in order to make demands on regulation, these things are very important.  There are also over one and a half million British people living across Europe who are concerned about their situation, people living in France and Spain and other countries.  There are also a large number of European nationals living in Britain, 55,000 of whom work in our National Health Service, I think we need to guarantee them a future as well.

SR: Now you mentioned the trading relationship with the EU, Theresa May spelled out this week that she wants to leave the single market.  Now you attacked that position and let’s just have a quick look at how you did respond to Theresa May’s speech: “I think we have to have a deal that ensures we have access to the market.”  Now on that position, the biggest single decision on Brexit, to me it sounds as though your position is exactly the same as Theresa May’s.

JEREMY CORBYN: Well she’s unspecific because at the same time in her speech she threatened Europe with a bargain basement economy on the shores of Europe she said.

SR: Well that’s the Plan B, I’m interested in the market …

JEREMY CORBYN: But it’s not very sensible.  

SR: So on the big decision right now as to whether or not we should be in or out of the single market, you agree with Theresa May?

JEREMY CORBYN: I think we should have a market relationship.  Whether that’s membership of the single market, whether it’s a European Economic Area, whatever form that takes but quite seriously an awful lot of jobs in Britain – Nissan in Sunderland, Rolls Royce and many others rely very heavily on relationships with Europe and the construction or part construction of planes and cars in this country and across Europe and vice versa.  There has to be a continuation of that otherwise the job losses are going to be huge.  The other markets are simply not there as of tomorrow to move into.

SR: You are right of course, so many jobs do depend on the single market but still going back to this point, that you seem to agree with Theresa May that you are happy to be out of the single market on membership terms, but you are looking for the best possible access.  You couldn’t put a cigarette paper between those two views.

JEREMY CORBYN: Well neither of us smokes so that’s not really appropriate but you understand what I mean.  There has to be a market relationship with Europe, whether that is membership of the single market, whether that is some kind of special relationship, there has to be an agreement on that.  I think everybody in the whole country fully understands that.  That has to be a priority because, as I’ve said, the other trade relationships are simply not available but then to go into these negotiations by saying, oh by the way, if you don’t agree with everything I’ve given you in this wish list we’re going to set up a low tax haven bargain basement on the shores of Europe and then you’ll see what we’re really about.  That would be incredibly damaging, not just to all of our industries but also to our public services as well, that surely is not what people want.  People might have voted to leave the European Union, they didn’t vote to cut public services, they didn’t vote to cut wages, they didn’t vote to cut their living standards.

SR: So if things could be as bad as you portray them as, are you prepare then to whip your MPs to support Article 50?

JEREMY CORBYN: What we’re saying is that we will not block Article 50.  The bill, we don’t know when it’s going to come but listen, we’ve got the Supreme Court decision coming imminently and it’s quite interesting isn’t it, that the government has been challenged …

SR: Is that a good thing or not?

JEREMY CORBYN: The government has been challenged in the Supreme Court on whether it should consult parliament or not, we have forced them into a position where they have said parliament will finally get a vote on all this issue.  We will not block Article 50 but we will seek to amend the Bill and we are consulting on amendments to the Bill which will include issues on rights, on protections and on market access.

SR: I’m still not clear whether you are going to whip your MPs or not on Article 50.

JEREMY CORBYN: I will ask all Labour MPs to respect the result of the referendum and allow Article 50 to be opened so we start that two year, probably longer, period of negotiation.

SR: Because for some MPs who believe passionately about remaining in the single market, that’s going to be pretty difficult, particularly coming from a leader who rebelled more than 400 times against his own party’s whip.

JEREMY CORBYN: I fully understand that, we all represent constituencies that have produced different results but broadly speaking there are a number of Labour MPs – me included – that represent areas that voted very, very heavily for remain, there are others who represent areas that voted equally heavily to leave the EU.  We have to represent all of those people.  All of those people need jobs, need homes, need market access to Europe and need a future sensible good relationship with Europe.  After all, France is only 20 miles away from Kent.

SR: So if all these people are reliant on getting the best deal, then you’re still prepared to effectively give the government a green light to wave Article 50 through?  This could be your one chance to Influence Brexit and you’re just saying you’re not going to do it.

JEREMY CORBYN: It’s a chance we’ve got through the amendments to the Bill, through the conditions that are put.  The Bill will go through its normal parliamentary process, it will be announced by the government, we don’t know what the terms of the Bill are going to be yet, probably quite short.  There will then be a second reading vote which will open up the parliamentary process. We will put amendments to that, there will then be a third reading and it will become law if it is carried at a third reading.  

SR: Now I’m interested of course because your Brexit position and your other positions are going to be put to the test very shortly in two by-elections, in Copeland and in Stoke Central.  How confident are you that you are going to win those two elections?

JEREMY CORBYN: Very confident.  We’ve got large numbers of party members active, we had a big participation in the selection meeting for Copeland on Thursday evening and a candidate, Gillian, was chosen and there is going to be a selection in Stoke on Trent next week for the selection of our candidate there.  So we’ve got those two elections and we’re going to put our case out there – on the NHS, on housing, on jobs, on investment, on industry, on the kind of economy and kind of society we want in the future because can it be right that six million people in Britain earn less than the living wage?  Can you really call that a successful economy?

SR: And when you’re knocking on those doors in Copeland and in Stoke, what are you going to say your party’s position is on immigration?

JEREMY CORBYN: What we’re going to say is that those who have come to this country from Europe, who’ve made an enormous contribution to our economy and our society – as I said, 55,000 of them work within the National Health Service and we will say local authorities need that help and support to deal with changes that have happened within their communities – this government cancelled the fund that was available to do that – and that there will be an agreement with Europe in the future after leaving the European Union on what our relationship is.

SR: So for you, for Jeremy Corbyn, unlimited immigration from the EU is fine?

JEREMY CORBYN: We have at the moment free movement but that free movement is often abused by employers who bring in groups of workers to undercut in particular the construction industry but others.  We would end that form of exploitation, we would control the way in which employers work, in which they bring in whole groups of workers to undercut and that is where the anger lies mostly actually.

SR: So unlimited immigration is okay as long as worker’s rights are protected?

JEREMY CORBYN: Workers rights should be protected, those that are working here should be respected and should be thanked for what they do.  We should also recognise this isn’t a simple issue, there are one and a half million British people living and working across Europe and that, I suspect, is going to continue and particularly young people who actually quite like the opportunity of going to work elsewhere.

SR: I’m keen to move away from Brexit for a bit.  You of course want to be the next Prime Minister and I am interested to find out a bit more about what you believe in when it comes to domestic reforms in the United Kingdom.  You have talked quite a lot about a rigged system, about the establishment but what exactly do you mean by the establishment?  Are you part of the establishment?

JEREMY CORBYN: I don’t think I am actually and I don't think those that are in the establishment would really count me as one of their normal members. What I mean by it is the way in which we have a relatively small number of incredibly wealthy people, there is a huge pay and income gap across the whole country in which big economic and investment decisions are made, which are often unfair on the poorest in our country, often lead to deindustrialisation.  But we also have a political system that is not properly devolved across the whole of the UK, we want to see a people’s convention on the constitution in the future, I think that’s important – and an unelected House of Lords, the majority of whose members come from an area very, very near to Westminster itself.  I want to see something that is much broader and much wider and I was talking about this in Glasgow on Friday.  

SR: You also of course talk a lot about equality and fairness, one of the great levellers of course is our education system so I’m interested to know that for you personally, would you like to see the charitable status of private schools abolished?

JEREMY CORBYN: I think it’s a bit odd having a charitable status which actually gives tax relief to what is in a sense a private company running an education system however, what I’m much more concerned about is the way our education system is broken up by the introduction of autonomous academies and free schools that don’t fit in with necessarily following the National Curriculum and don’t necessarily follow national pay agreements for teaching staff.  What I want to see is the family of education through a local authority, something that we should be proud of and very strong about.  But I also want to look at the issues of inequality that start at the very beginning with access to nursery and the quality of nursery education and also the way in which the Educational Maintenance Allowance has taken away opportunities for 16 year olds to stay on at school, well they are going to have to stay on later anyway but in order to do A levels or to go on to college or university.

SR: So is that something that you’d look at then,  abolishing the charitable status?

JEREMY CORBYN: I think we’d have to look at it but it’s not my big priority.  My big priority is to make sure that all our children get the decent quality education that they deserve and next year, for the first time for many decades, there is going to actually be a cut in the schools budget.

SR: You have also talked about renationalising the railways  as being one of the solutions to some of the issues that people are having on the railways, what about the Big Six energy companies?  People are paying an awful lot for heating their homes at the moment, would you like to see the utilities renationalised?

JEREMY CORBYN: No, what I said in the leadership campaign and what we discussed in developing party policy, is the development of localised energy production, energy co-operatives, local energy production where possible very much on the German model.  I think that would lead to lower energy bills and it would also be good for the environment.

SR: And then we of course have this story in the Sunday Times today, talking about one of the errors, a mishap that happened with the testing of the nuclear deterrent Trident.  Are you still of the view that Labour is going to go into the next election with a policy to renew Trident with this failure in mind?

JEREMY CORBYN: Well I think this failure is something that ought to pause everyone for a moment and just think what happened.  We understand the Prime Minister chose not to inform parliament about this and it’s come out through the media some months later.  It’s a pretty catastrophic error when a missile goes in the wrong direction and whilst it wasn’t armed, goodness knows what the consequences of that could have been.  I think we need a serious discussion about that but also let’s look to the longer term future. I’ve been involved in nuclear non-proliferation conferences and discussions for a very long time and I think this ought to be the opportunity in which we pursue a policy of discussion with all of the nuclear weapon states, the five permanent members of the UN as well as those others, in order to bring about nuclear disarmament, in order to bring about our participation in the Non-Proliferation Treaty which after all was a Labour creation in the 1960s.

SR: Let’s talk now about Donald Trump, the new man in the White House.  Theresa May is going to be the first foreign leader, major foreign leader, to meet him as the new President of the United States.  Do you think that she is right to prioritise the special relationship when you consider all those hundreds of thousands of people who marched against him yesterday?

JEREMY CORBYN: Well there were no signs of any special relationship in Donald Trump’s inauguration speech, it was quite the opposite.  It was America first, America only, America inward looking.  I would hope that when she meets Donald Trump she will in no uncertain terms tell him that his misogyny during the election campaign, the way in which he described Muslim people and others of different faiths, the way in which he proposes to build a wall between his country and Mexico is simply not acceptable and not the right way of going forward.  The idea that Donald Trump is suddenly going to roll over and offer some trade deal with Britain that doesn’t have strings attached like investor protection where American companies can come in and run parts of our health service and be protected in doing so, I think she needs to be extremely careful.  We want good relations with the United States obviously but I think Trump and the way in which he behaved in the campaign and the speech he made and those massive demonstrations all over the USA yesterday, as well as in London and in other parts of the world, we need to think about that.

SR: Lots of people are very concerned with what happens with the NATO alliance with Donald Trump in the White House, if for example Russia were to invade one of our NATO allies and you were prime minister, the job you want to do, would you be prepared to commit the UK militarily?

JEREMY CORBYN: I would want us to try and de-escalate the tensions as of now and they are, there are some signs that could happen.  That means building up the positive relationship with Russia.  NATO/Russia talks are important, EU/Russia talks are important and on that, include issues of human rights injustice in Russia, include removal of troops away from the border, include an end to the bellicose …

SR: So is that a commitment?  Would you be prepared to commit troops?

JEREMY CORBYN: Look, it’s a hypothetical question …

SR: But you want to be Prime Minister.

JEREMY CORBYN: I’m not in favour of anybody invading anywhere else and I would do everything I could to bring about a situation where there are reasonable productive relationships between all countries, so we don’t end up in a situation where lives are put at risk and people’s liberties are at risk as well.

SR: Now I just want to end on something slightly different, inspired by your crowdsourcing of questions at Prime Minister’s Questions.  We asked people on social media what questions they’d like put to you …

JEREMY CORBYN: Is this a sort of jam question?

SR: We haven’t got time to go through that many unfortunately but I just wanted to read you this one from Jean from Bath who says, “Do you secretly want a general election in 2017 which you’ll lose and then you could return to a quiet life?”  A few wobbles?

JEREMY CORBYN: No, I’m enjoying it, I love travelling around the country, I love meeting people, I love the zany conversations we have with people, totally randomly, on streets, on buses and on trains.  

SR: Okay.

JEREMY CORBYN: That’s what’s joyful about the job.

SR: Mr Corbyn, thanks very much.

JEREMY CORBYN: Thank you.