Matthew Taylor

Sunday Shows Round-up: Sir Keir Starmer – Three month Brexit extension is ‘doable’

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Jeremy Hunt – We face risk of ‘losing Brexit’
Andrew Marr was joined by the Foreign Secretary ahead of a critical week for the government. Although the Brexit deadline day has been enshrined in law as the 29th of March, the difficulties in securing a viable withdrawal agreement have prompted calls for the UK government to seek more time for negotiations. With the Commons soon set to vote on whether the UK should seek to extend the Article 50 process, Hunt told Marr what he felt this could mean for the future of Brexit:

JH: This is a very important moment for us. There is a risk, and a possibility, that we end up losing Brexit if we get the votes wrong in the next couple of weeks, and I think that’s something most MPs know in their hearts that would be a very big mistake.

Consequences would be ‘devastating’ for the Conservatives
Hunt went on to warn that jeopardising the government’s withdrawal agreement could ultimately lead to the downfall of not just Brexit, but also his party:

JH: If you want to stop Brexit, you only need to do three things – kill this deal, get an extension [to Article 50], and have a second referendum. And within three weeks, those people could have two of those things… and quite possibly the third one could be on the way through the Labour party. And so we are in very perilous waters… If it fails… the consequences for us as a party would be devastating.

We won’t ‘close our ears’ to Islamophobia
Hunt also responded to accusations that the Conservatives were institutionally Islamophobic. Concerns have been raised by the party’s former Deputy Chair Baroness Warsi, especially in the wake of 14 members being suspended in recent days for discriminatory remarks made on Facebook:

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JH: When it comes to Islamophobia, I don’t pretend that we don’t have identified instances… I have a lot of respect for Sayeeda Warsi… We’re engaging with her. We’re not going to close our ears to what she says, but as I say, we are determined to do something.

David Davis – Withdrawal agreement is ‘dreadful’, but potentially ‘rescuable’
Marr also sat down with the former Brexit Secretary, who wasted no time in disparaging the government’s Brexit deal. Davis once again cited his concerns over the backstop proposal for the Irish border. He then went on to criticise Remain-sympathising Cabinet ministers for throwing away the government’s negotiating leverage:

DD: It’s a dreadful deal on many, many counts, but I would love to be able to vote for it, if [the Prime Minister] get the ability to pull out [of the backstop]. At least then it’s rescuable…
AM: …The Prime Minister has said that if you don’t vote for this deal, you may get to a position which is not Brexit at all.
DD: …After the defeat by 230 [votes], clearly Brussels was shocked. You could see that, and the tenor of the language changed… And then all of a sudden, three Cabinet ministers said ‘You’ve got to take no deal off the table’… and then [the language] went back to being hard again.

UK will get a ‘Trump moment’ if Brexit not delivered
Davis went on to warn that the UK could see a rise in populist parties if the government did not follow through on the result of the referendum:

AM: If the Commons does not deliver on the referendum, what happens next? You call it a ‘democratic disaster’. What do you mean by that?
DD: Britain will get its Trump moment. What happens is the British people… will see a government [and] Parliament, walking away from a question that they themselves put to the people. Now, that will absolutely undermine belief in democracy in this country, and certainly belief in the established traditional parties.
AM: Could your Tory party survive that?…
DD: It would be massively damaged, there’s no doubt in my mind.

Sir Keir Starmer – Three month Article 50 extension is ‘doable’
Sophy Ridge’s first guest this morning was the Shadow Brexit Secretary. With the possibility that Article 50 could be extended, Ridge asked how much extra time Labour would find acceptable:

KS: …This is not a policy of choice… This is now necessary because of the position we find ourselves in. In my discussions in Brussels it seems that a delay or extension of about three months is probably doable. Beyond that it becomes much more difficult. So we need to look at that sort of period for the first instance.

‘I would vote Remain’ in second referendum
Labour made the headlines last month when it stated that it would back a second referendum if the alternative was a choice between Theresa May’s unamended withdrawal deal and a no deal Brexit. Starmer outlined what he would hope to see in a second referendum:

KS: We’ve got to where we are… If there’s a public vote, that would operate as a lock, if you like, on any deal Theresa May gets through. If that is the position, then in my view the default ought to be Remain. If we are in that situation… I would personally vote Remain.

Shamima Begum should be returned to UK
Ridge also raised the case of Shamima Begum, the teenager who left the UK to join ISIS in 2015, and who has since been discovered living in a Syrian refugee camp. Begum, whose British citizenship was revoked by the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, reportedly saw her third child die on Saturday. Starmer, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, argued that Javid had been wrong to block Begum’s return to the UK:

KS: I think the Home Secretary also should have really looked at what powers were available to him… If on analysis, it was found there wasn’t enough evidence [to prosecute], the Home Secretary could have said ‘What about a prevention order?’, which limits what an individual can do back in this country. So actually, had the interests of the child been taken properly into account, I think we would see this was a wrong decision and a rushed decision.

Matt Hancock – The NHS must play ‘full part’ in stopping knife crime
Ridge also spoke to the Health Secretary about the increase in knife crime that is taking place across the country. Hancock said that it was his desire for the NHS to help tackle the problem as directly as possible:

MH: The truth is with knife crime, you can only tackle it if lots of different people come together. It isn’t just an issue for the police, although they’re very important. I want the NHS to play its full part in making sure we rise to this challenge… not least because when these young people, these children arrive in hospital, that is a moment you can intervene… The idea this can only be tackled with the strong arm of the law is wrong.

Dominic Raab – EU has shown ‘total intransigence’
Ridge interviewed the other former Brexit Secretary, asking if he felt able to support the government’s withdrawal agreement when it next comes back before the House. While Raab was hopeful that negotiations currently being conducted by the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox would prove fruitful, he also felt that the EU had not been prepared to make a meaningful compromise so far:

DR: I think we need to remember the original deal was voted down with the biggest parliamentary defeat in history – 230 votes. Parliament and MPs then supported the Prime Minister to go back and make legally binding changes to the backstop, and support the Malthouse Compromise. And what we’ve seen from the EU is pretty much total intransigence… I think in the absence of any change it’s difficult to see why the result on the vote would be different.

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