Much of the Sunday shows were taken up by Labour’s upcoming leadership contest. Jess Phillips, the MP for Birmingham Yardley who has been a thorn in the side of Jeremy Corbyn over the course of his leadership, spoke to Marr about her stance on the EU. Marr asked her if she would be minded to rejoin:
“If our country is safer, if it is more economically viable to be in the EU, then I will fight for that regardless of how difficult that argument is to make”
Labour leadership candidate Jess Phillips on her EU policy#Marr https://t.co/oqs9t2X72N pic.twitter.com/msRj2BlVRQ
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) January 5, 2020
JP: You’d have to look at what was going on at the time… The reality is, if our country is safer, if it is more economically viable to be in the EU, then I will fight for that regardless of how difficult that argument is to make.
I would ‘absolutely’ take action to protect British lives
In the context of the Soleimani case, Phillips told Marr that she would be prepared, under the right circumstances, to commit British troops abroad if it meant saving the lives of British citizens:
“I would absolutely take action to protect British lives” if there is a “moral and legal case”
Labour leadership candidate Jess Phillips talks to #Marr about whether she would ever support military actionhttps://t.co/Ts2I3TkqfN pic.twitter.com/6BpIcUaUUw
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) January 5, 2020
JP: What we have to make sure is that when we take action, it is legal, it is proportionate, and that there is a moral case for it. And if those questions can be answered, then I would absolutely take action to protect British lives.
Emily Thornberry: Labour manifesto ‘just wasn’t convincing’
Thornberry is also one of the several runners and riders to have declared that she will run. Ridge asked her about what had gone wrong in the party’s election campaign last December:
"It just wasn't convincing."
Labour's shadow foreign secretary and leadership candidate Emily Thornberry says she thinks Labour's election organisation was done badly and the party's manifesto had too many policies in it.#Ridge
For more, head here: https://t.co/q8b0n0clyp pic.twitter.com/nCXEGvBcdp
— Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge (@SkyPoliticsHub) January 5, 2020
ET: We weren’t sufficiently clear about what our priorities were… There was too much in [the manifesto]. It just wasn’t convincing… We won’t get the opportunity to serve if people don’t believe us and don’t believe in us.
Sir Keir Starmer – ‘We all have to take responsibility’ for Labour’s defeat
Andrew Marr spoke to Sir Keir Starmer, who is the current favourite to be next leader after an opinion poll of members put him on 31 per cent. Marr asked if the blame for the defeat should lie squarely with Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell:
"We all have to take responsibility for this, it's a devastating result" – Sir Keir Starmer reflects on Labour's performance in the general election#Marr https://t.co/Vf0OVKizCR pic.twitter.com/ZoUVZgebKz
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) January 5, 2020
KS: We all have to take responsibility for this. It’s a devastating result for the Labour party, for Labour MPs… candidates who should have been Labour MPs, for the millions of people who desperately needed change… So it’s beyond sorry – it’s devastating.
Voters wanted ‘clarity and leadership’ on Brexit stance
As Shadow Brexit Secretary, Starmer was a key figure in slowly manoeuvring Labour towards backing a second referendum. Starmer was unrepentant in his sympathies towards remaining in the EU, but said that he felt the ambiguity of Labour’s message had been costly:
"We should have taken a stronger position one way or the other" – Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer says "people wanted clarity" on Labour's Brexit position#Marr https://t.co/Vf0OVKizCR pic.twitter.com/3nqEvjKJdc
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) January 5, 2020
AM: Do you think you would have won this election, or done much better, had you gone in… as a clearly Remain party?
KS: I think people wanted clarity and they wanted leadership. What was coming up on the doorsteps… was not so much people telling me ‘I don’t like Labour’s position’, but they had bought the idea that if you voted Tory you’d ‘get Brexit done’… We hadn’t destroyed and wrestled that phrase to the ground.
Lisa Nandy – Labour has ‘patronised’ people
Lisa Nandy, the MP for Wigan, has also formally announced that she will run for the leadership. Speaking to Ridge, she agreed that a key problem had been ‘trust’ in the Labour party. She went on to emphasise the disconnect between the increasingly metropolitan party and its heartlands:
'Labour in recent years has become a very paternalistic party' – @lisanandy says the Labour party has been guilty of patronising its supporters and needs to get back to helping working people affect change in their own lives. #Ridge
More here: https://t.co/q8b0n0clyp pic.twitter.com/Rh9aS48VZ2
— Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge (@SkyPoliticsHub) January 5, 2020
LN: Labour in recent years has become a very paternalistic party. We commission think tanks to write us reports in central London, we sit behind desks in Westminster or Victoria Street commissioning opinion polls and focus groups, and then we tell people that ‘we’re going to fix it’… I think that is a way of patronising people.
Dominic Raab – The US have a right to exercise self-defence
Friday’s targeted drone strike in Iraq which killed General Qasem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s notorious Quds Force, was in response to an earlier attack on the US embassy in Baghdad, which in turn was instigated by Iranian-backed fighters. The Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab spoke to Sophy Ridge about the ongoing situation:
'The only people that would gain would be Daesh and the terrorists that would exploit the vacuum' – Foreign Secretary @DominicRaab says the UK is looking to deescalate the tensions between Iran and the US in the Middle East #Ridge
For more, head here: https://t.co/BODG4cx9Ye pic.twitter.com/xV0iw1Vj0E
— Sky News (@SkyNews) January 5, 2020
DR: [Soleimani] was a regional menace and we understand the position that the Americans found themselves in, and they have a right to exercise self-defence… We now want to see de-escalation and stabilisation of the situation, and a war in fact, is in no one’s interest.
The PM and I ‘are in regular contact’
Raab also defended the Prime Minister for not cutting short his holiday in Mustique to deal with the tensions in the Middle East:
'The government has a very clear strategy and message' – Foreign Secretary @DominicRaab defends Boris Johnson, who has faced criticism over his failure to cut short his Caribbean holiday to address soaring tensions in the Middle East. #Ridge
More here: https://t.co/4ddjTwwM8p pic.twitter.com/z56Yr4p0x9
— Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge (@SkyPoliticsHub) January 5, 2020
DR: The Prime Minister is in charge. In fact, I’ve been in constant contact with him over the Christmas break… The whole government is working very closely together… and he’ll be back in the UK tomorrow.
‘There is no magic wand’ for British prisoners
Raab also appeared later on the Andrew Marr Show. Marr asked him if he had given up on diplomatic efforts to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other British nationals currently imprisoned in Iran:
#Marr: Have you given up on securing Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release from Iran?
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab: “No, not at all”https://t.co/OopMgE5BsY pic.twitter.com/BhxT7ScNtb
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) January 5, 2020
DR: This is no magic wand we can exercise… All of our dual-nationals, Nazanin included, are at the forefront of our thinking on Iran… Of course, we will continue to pursue their release, but we cannot keep stepping back and allowing this aggressive behaviour to go unchecked.
‘We have very serious concerns’ over Cyprus case
In a case that has incensed campaigners, a Cypriot court has found a British teenager to have lied about being raped by 12 Israeli nationals while she was on holiday there. The victim says that she retracted her claims under duress, and the judge has come under fire for his handling of the case. Raab pledged to do his best to bring her home:
“We have very serious concerns about her treatment throughout this process”
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab talks on Cyprus rape claim case#Marr https://t.co/HgRGwlUZKq pic.twitter.com/5kNWCrbtj3
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) January 5, 2020
DR: My first priority is her welfare, to get her back home safe and sound… We’ve made very clear… that we have very serious concerns about her treatment throughout [this] process.
Emily Thornberry – We are taking ‘a major lurch towards war’
The Shadow Foreign Secretary also gave her verdict on the killing of General Soleimani. Thornberry sharply criticised President Trump and told Ridge that Friday’s actions made the chances of a war in the Middle East much more likely:
"We are taking a major lurch towards war".
Shadow Foreign Secretary @EmilyThornberry says the US killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani means UK citizens in the Middle East are in danger from an Iranian response.#Ridge
For more, head here: https://t.co/vly9P2l0cb pic.twitter.com/7k7hCgUZ3P
— Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge (@SkyPoliticsHub) January 5, 2020
ET: We are taking a major lurch towards war, and we are doing that because the President is reckless and hasn’t thought through… what he’s doing. But it seems to me quite clear that the Iranians are going to counter attack, and it means that our people… are of course under threat.
UK should ‘say no’ to the US for once
Thornberry also said that it was up to the UK to try and exert some influence on the US by convening a session of the United Nations’ Security Council to highlight the international opposition to another war:
"This must stop."
Shadow Foreign Secretary @EmilyThornberry says the "illegal" activity of both the US and Iran should be condemned/
She says there needs to be an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, and the UK needs to "say no to the Americans for once".#Ridge pic.twitter.com/KXJD4fieb4
— Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge (@SkyPoliticsHub) January 5, 2020
ET: Why aren’t we saying that there should be an emergency meeting of the Security Council in order to bring the world together and say ‘This must stop’. The illegal activity both of America and Iran must stop… We need to… actually say ‘no’ to the Americans for once.
HS2 figures have been ‘fiddled’
And finally, Lord Berkeley, who was the deputy chair of the government’s review of HS2, has argued that the project has been the subject of a level of creative accounting, which he says has amounted to Parliament being deceived:
Former Deputy Chair of HS2 Review, Lord Berkeley has accused those in charge of the project of 'fiddling the figures'.
A statement from the Department for Transport said: 'Lord Berkeley's report represents his personal view.'
More here: https://t.co/Pmf03Bpirq pic.twitter.com/LbpoB8gwtD
— Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge (@SkyPoliticsHub) January 5, 2020
LB: The project is completely out of control financially… They’ve fiddled the figures to improve the benefit-cost ratio… I believe that Parliament has been misled because the costs were clearly known to the Department of Transport, and I believe ministers, three or four years ago.
Comments