TRIGGERnometry - Lord Andrew Adonis: "No Deal Brexit is a Fraud"

Episode Date: December 1, 2019

A live recording at the Battle of Ideas event on 3rd November 2019  Support TRIGGERnometry: Paypal: https://bit.ly/2Tnz8yq https://www.subscribestar.com/trigger... https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@failinghuman) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everyone and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissing. And this is a show for you. If you're bored with watching people argue on the internet over subjects they know nothing about. At Trigonometry, you don't pretend to be the experts. We ask the experts. Our brilliant guest this week is an arch remainer who we're very grateful to have here. Lorded Donis, welcome to Trigonometry. Great to be with you. Thank you very much for coming on the show. Let's get cracking. We usually ask our guests to tell us a little bit about them. but I think everybody knows who you are and what you stand for. So we are where we are now in this position.

We're having an election, pretty much over the issue of Brexit. Just for anyone who doesn't know exactly what your position is, what is your view of Brexit? Do you think it should be reversed? Do you think we should have a second referendum to do that? What is your view? I think it should – well, I say it reversed. It hasn't happened.

I don't think it should happen. But I don't think it should happen democratically, and we're having an election now and all the parties of the centre and the left and about a third of the Conservative Party if people were actually able to express their views inside that party don't want it to happen and so what they want to see happen

is a referendum held with a straight choice between Boris Johnson's latest deal which is the second version of a treaty for leaving the European Union against remaining and what I'd like to see happen I think is perfectly credible indeed is what I think will happen is that there will be a majority in the next Parliament against leaving on these terrible terms,

as there was in the last Parliament, that since we can't constantly just do nothing, I mean, there's a limit to how long you can literally tread water and not deal with health, education, infrastructure, or there's other things which are of huge concern to the country. At this point, we'll have to bite the bullet. Biting the bullet means calling a referendum, and that will probably be held next spring on the straight choice

between the Boris Johnson deal and staying in the European Union. And I think actually, even if Boris Johnson is Prime Minister on the 13th of December, since if you're looking at the most likely incredible outcomes of the election, it's very, very hard to see how the Conservatives can win an overall majority, but it is possible they could be the largest party in the next Parliament. It's possible Labour will be the largest party in the next Parliament. But if the Conservatives are the largest party in the next Parliament, but don't have a majority, I still think that Boris will end up with a referendum.

And I know Boris Johnson quite well, because when I was Transport Secretary, I worked with him closely as Mayor of London. I know him well enough to know that he couldn't give a fig about the European Union. I mean, he was in favour of staying before he was in favour of leaving. He was in favour of being in the customs union in the single market before he was in favour of leaving them. He's perfectly capable of holding two completely contradictory views at the same time. If the deal, the only thing he's really concerned about and has been all the way through is becoming and remaining Prime Minister. And if the deal for becoming and remaining Prime Minister in December and January is moving towards a referendum on the EU, then I think that's what he'll do. So at the moment, it's all very fought because we're in a closely fought election campaign.

And people think that, as they always do, people tend to catastrophize, I think that the worst is going to happen and that, therefore, the game is a very important. over. It's not remotely over at the moment. I would say we're roughly at half time in this. I mean, this is going to be very reassuring. Members of the audience who want to see us move on and all that. But I would say we're roughly half time in this great battle over membership of the European Union. And my best judgment at the moment is that we're still end up staying. One final point about it is one of the constant problems with leaving the European Union is that whether you're in favour or against leaving. And I respect that people hold different views. It's very, very hard to do. It's a hugely complex thing to do. It's taking the egg out of an omelette.

it's nearly half a century worth of diplomatic trade, commercial, legal processes which have gone into our relationship with the European Union. But not only is it very hard to do, which is what the government has found, but it is impossible to do without self-harm because it goes to the heart of our whole trading, commercial and security relationship with Europe. Any move away, particularly from free trade, which is inevitable if we leave the European Union is inevitably going to involve harm. And the reason why at every stage there's been a vote in the House of Commons on it is that when MPs, true to their Berkian principle, of being

representatives and not just delegates, when they're actually faced with the job of having to vote this thing through, which they know, because they are reasonably well informed and they can read the words on the page and see what it means, is going to harm their constituents. There's always so far been a decisive majority against it. And my view is that that will be the same in the next Parliament is the last one. Before we go any further, can I just credit you with an excellent use of the word fig? It was absolutely superb. You realised it was early in the morning you didn't drop the F-bomb, so congratulations on that. Secondly, before we go any further, why are you so opposed to leaving the EU? Because the thing, it rapidly gets very contentious. You know, Ramona, you know, racist. All these terms are bandied about. And I think it's really important for people to understand why

Is it such a bad thing in your opinion to leave? I've been in politics for 30 years now. And most issues in politics are matters of degree. They're not matters of fundamental right or wrong or huge mistake that you would make on behalf of the country. But about once a generation, you get an issue that's fundamental. Now, most fundamental issues in human affairs you can recover from. You can fight a war and you can still recover from the war. but that doesn't mean it necessarily the right thing to do.

And when you face one of these fundamental issues, the thing in my experience to do is fundamentally to oppose it. And as I look back over the last 150 years, I would say this is up there with the three or four biggest mistakes that we could have made as a country. The two others, just to set them in the right kind of context, the two biggest mistakes we made as a country in the century and a half before this were not granting self-government to Ireland,

in the late 19th century, which was a catastrophic mistake, which we're still recovering from today, and which in our generation, and indeed in the lives of many of those who were here today, was terrorism on the streets of London. I live by Regents Park. Every day I pass the bandstand when I go my walk first thing in the morning in Regent's Park, which has a plaque to the 12 Royal Green Jackets who were killed when a bomb exploded

in the middle of the afternoon concert on a Saturday afternoon by the IRA. That is a direct consequence of us not getting policy on our. Ireland right in the 19th century and we had an opportunity under Gladstone to create a self-governing Ireland within the United Kingdom and if we done it then we wouldn't have had all these terrible consequences which blighted so much of the 20th century we got that wrong the other big mistake we got wrong catastrophic mistake was going into the first world war which everybody thought would be one of those short wars that were over by Christmas and ended up as a massive conflagration which then caused the second world war and what was essentially a civil war in Europe for 30 years

Let me just pause you there because you talk about the fundamental issues. But Francis and I both voted Remain on the referendum, but isn't the fundamental issue here democracy? I grew up in Russia in the Soviet Union where we didn't have it. And when I see a vote that went through, I didn't vote to leave, but most people did. Isn't the fundamental issue here respecting the wishes of the people? Even if, as you say, and I may take or may not, some people think that it will be damaging to their constituents. But have we not had a parliament that actually doesn't represent the wishes of the people? Well, the people can't betray the people. That is a fundamental principle of

democracy. And democracy is not about one vote at one moment and then no votes ever again. That is generally speaking how... But I'm not saying I'm opposed to the second work. What I'm saying is we need to implement the results of the first. No, but that is the answer to your point. The answer to your point is this whole business of Brexit is itself a process. When we had the referendum, three and a half years ago, people couldn't know what Brexit would mean, not because they were stupid or because they were ill-informed, but because there was no proposal on the table.

The only proposal for Brexit on the table three and a half years ago was four words on the ballot paper, leave the European Union. There was no plan behind it. There was no agreement even amongst the people in favour of Brexit as to what it should mean. Some thought it was compatible with staying in the single market in the customs union, including the Prime Minister at the moment, who said so in the referendum campaign. Other people said that we should leave.

some people said that we would maintain freedom of movement, which is fundamental to the whole concept of the European Union, whether people can travel freely across borders or not. Other people said that we couldn't. As that has come to be worked through, and as it has remained deeply controversial within our democracy, the right thing to do was, as I still believe we will, to hold a further referendum. Shouldn't the questions on that then be given that we voted to leave, either we leave on the withdrawal agreement that Boris Johnson's negotiated or we leave with no deal? and those should be the two options.

Well, obviously not, because the majority of people, according to opinion surveys, and the majority of MPs are actually in favour of staying in the European Union. But we had the first referendum already. But again, we couldn't judge staying in the European Union against a specific deal, whereas this time we can and the right thing to do. I mean, why would you want to constrain the options you're putting to people when there's, by far, the most popular option out there is one that's absolutely credible,

which is staying in the European Union? So I completely agree with you. This is a fundamental democratic principle. The fundamental difference between the European Union and the Soviet Union, which you referred to, is one is a democracy and one is not. You know, when I always forget all these foreign secretaries. They come and go so far. There was one called Hunt, wasn't there, recently, who's now so receded into the distance. When he, in trying to carry favour at a Conservative Party conference, likened the European Union to the Soviet Union,

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Union, who was a solidarity activist in the 1980s against the Soviet Union, made the fundamental point that there is a difference between an empire and a democracy. And it's because the European Union is a democracy that it's proved to be, it's a club of democracies, it's 28 democracies, it's a club of them. It's because it's proved to be so viable and so successful that we should be staying in it and not leaving it. And so we talk about Brexit and we're going to talk about leaving But what are the implications for the ordinary Working person on the street? How will it impact them?

How, and most importantly, how will it impact the economy? Well, somebody in, when we were having our warm-up before while we were waiting for Constantine to negotiate the M-25. I'm a former transport secretary because when I was doing transport, there were new problems on the roads and the trains all around on time. This was before, you can transfer. what is before and after Chris Grayling.

Before Chris Grayling. But when we were doing our warm-up, somebody said, it's going to take 10 or 15 years to recover from this either way. Well, it will take more than 10 or 15 years to negotiate and to try and make stable leaving the European Union. And that's accepted by everybody, because the formal act of leaving,

which is what we could do in the next few months, simply begins a huge process of negotiations over trade deals, security pacts, political relationships with the European Union and so on, which will be at least 10 years just in pure negotiations and probably more. And since my judgment is, and all I can give people is my judgment is it won't be stable, and it will lead to loss of jobs, to weakness, international weakness, and possibly very serious weakness, not least vis-à-vis Putin's and post-Putin's Russia. I think what will happen in 10 to 15 years as we go through this process,

the next generation of politicians will put membership of the European Union back on the table in a serious way. So I think that is deeply unstable and is a recipe for the next generation having to be overwhelmed by this issue of Europe. However, if we stay in the European Union, nothing changes. Nothing changes at all. It's not to say that there won't be some resentment. There'll probably be 10, 15% who will think that we should continue to campaign for leaving. But can I give you a prediction? If we stay, because of course it doesn't require any further negotiations at all,

if we stay. We're still members. We continue on exactly the same terms. The whole thing goes away. If we stay, my prediction is that no Prime Minister in the lifetime of anyone here, whether they're Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, some new party that's created is ever going to call another referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union. People will look back on the Cameron May Johnson experience and they will say this is the third rail of British politics. You touch it and you're dead. So we will not go there again. We've had a lot of Remainers on the show. We've had a lot of experts for Brexiteers on the show.

One thing they would say is that you're misjudging very badly the mood of the public in the country in terms of how strongly people feel about leaving and equally how little they care about the economic impact. A lot of people are quite comfortable losing out. Some of the polls in the last couple of years show that over three quarters of levers would be happy to lose out financially if it meant, for example, controlling immigration. So if everything stays the same, the mood in the public will continue to sour, I would put it to you.

Well, unusually, I've been, for people expressing views on this, I've actually been speaking to the public a lot directly about it. I've done nearly 200 meetings up and down the country campaigning on Brexit, most of them in leave areas over the course of the last year and a half. So I've met a very large number of people

who've been affected by it, and I've been to all other communities. I know with these communities well too, because I'm a former school minister and transport minister, and in both of those jobs, I travelled the length and breadth of the country and I know these communities in fine in fairly fine detail

and what's clear to me from all of that experience is that in leave areas there is a group of people who are politically active who are passionate about leave and that's clearly the case. I would put that at 10 to 15% of the electorate in all these cases. In remain areas it's much lower than that. However, the reason why there was a vote of 52%

which in those communities was in some cases 55, 60, 65% wasn't to do with leaving the European Union. It was to do with misgovernment at home, the combination of austerity, no proper plan for jobs and community renewal in these areas, deep poverty and a deep sense of alienation from their own government, which is predominantly an issue to do with London, Westminster and the quality of representation within the UK not to do with the European Union. So where I agree with you is if the deal is stay and do nothing, we will go round and round in circles on this issue and it could well come up again in the form of Brexit. We can't do that. It's, you know, one of my friends here in the audience

when we were warming up before described himself as a socialist and said I wasn't. Actually, I am a socialist. I do believe in radical social change and I believe in creating much, much stronger, a much stronger state and social institutions partly to deal with this big issue of alienation, inequality and poverty, which bedevils our society. So what we actually need is to remain and reform. And the reform should be fundamental. And it's the reason why I'm on the left and not the right in politics is what we should be doing is remain and a reforming government like the Atley government of 1945, which set up the welfare state, set up the NHS, invested in our public services in a big way. That's what we need. And what led to Brexit was this really toxic combination of Brexit plus austerity with the government calling the referendum three and a half years ago being a conservative government with Cameron. Osborne that was actually itself, the agents of austerity, which particularly in areas that voted leave, which tended to be the poorer parts of the country, these became the same thing in people's mind, the European Union and austerity. What we've got to do is to break that

connection, and that's partly a campaigning issue, making it clear that you don't have to have EU and austerity, but it's also a question of policy. What we need to do is to remain, and at the same time, dramatic reform to invest in our public services and austerity, to take power much closer to people because England is one of the most centrally governed large nations in the world which particularly in areas more distant from London is deeply resented. It's different in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

where they have devolved assemblies very tellingly in the case of Scotland and Northern Ireland they voted heavily against Brexit. So it needs a big new policy offer and that's what's also at stake in this general election. Look, I spend a lot of time telling you what's wrong with the world so let me tell you about something that's actually right.

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Avocado green mattress.com slash trigger. And we're going to touch on no deal for a second because I think, and I consider myself politically aware, but there's a lot of people, you know, they're going about their day and they're trying to make it through. the week, they've got families and they hear terms like no deal or, you know, you know, a Norway agreement, all the rest of it. What is the no deal Brexit and how will that

impact on the lives of ordinary people? Well, it's a fraud, the use of the word no deal. What does no deal mean? It means no treaty of any kind. I mean, it must mean, no. The word no means none. No agreement with the European Union at all. Now, there's virtually no one who says they support

no deal that actually supports that. You know, when we debate, as I have done, for hundreds of hours now in Parliament, the different options on Brexit. Most of those on the right of the Conservative Party, the Ian Duncan Smiths and all that lot, plus the Brexit people, don't actually support no deal at all. Because if there's no deal at all, planes don't fly, the ports don't operate, no real to leave and come into the country, because all of those arrangements are governed by deals. They're governed by treaty.

What they're talking about actually isn't no deal, it's a different deal. It's a deal that's much more limited that doesn't involve a customs arrangements, arrangements over the transition of goods, which are tariff-free and arrangements for international driving licences. A whole lot of things it might not cover, but it must cover a whole set of quite important and complex issues, like the operation of the ports, the international aviation system, which is governed by treaties, which we're part of because we're part of the European Union. all of those things will be necessary and those Boris Johnson, Michael Gove all these people are actually negotiating Brexit when they talk about no deal

they still accept that we're going to need a deal covering all those things. So there is no such thing as clean Brexit no deal Brexit. It's a different Brexit and a different deal that would be needed and what that is is what we will get into debating if there happens to be an overall Conservative majority. I guess France's question is, if we were to have that kind of deal, what would be the impact?

Why is it so bad? Why is it so scary? What's the problem with that kind of deal? Well, nobody knows what that deal is, because no one's set it out at the moment. I mean, we're looking, we're peering into, as the good book says, peering into a glass starkly. We don't know because no one has set it out. The reason they won't set it out is because it is almost all of the elements would be very bad. So, for example, if they don't involve a trade deal, and one of my friends in the audience said before,

that we had enough of this, we should walk away and start negotiating afterwards. If there is no trade deal, you are immediately facing tariffs on British goods going to our largest markets in the European Union and vice versa, are between 10 and 150 percent overnight. That happens overnight. You are faced with customs declarations and customs forms costing between 50 and 100 pounds apiece, which people will have to start filling in immediately. I mean, this is not, you know, it seems as if you can do it, and it's cost-free until it happens. The point at which it happens, I can assure you as a parliamentarian, there will be a huge and dramatic change in opinion. And that's before you get

to the issue of Ireland, because no deal in Ireland means immediately there have to be border arrangements between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which breaks the Good Friday Agreement. The Good Friday Agreement is not only an international treaty, but it's the bedrock of peace in Northern Ireland, which only a generation ago we didn't have. So I don't, no deal has not been defined. If it were defined, most people who look at this and actually understand

what's going to happen would find it horrific. And even people who glibly, and it's very easy to be very glib and populist and say it's all going to be fine, you know, it's Dun Kirk and all that. The moment it actually happens, there will be a massive social revolt.

It doesn't matter whether it's Boris Johnson, whether it's Nigel Farage, whether it's Jeremy Corbyn in number 10. They will have to sort it out PDQ. And I've been in politics long enough to know that even if people, voted for something which turns out to be a catastrophe, they don't somehow think that, oh, that's all right, we voted for it. They expect the people who are there, who are in charge, to sort it out. And in particular, they will start saying that they were lied to.

Because the people who say that no deal is going to be fine, we can weather it, it's done, Kirk and all of that. When it is not fine, when their prices go up in the shops by 10 to 50%, when there's a big shortage of goods, when bombs start going off in Northern Ireland, they will not say, oh, well, we voted for this. They will say we were lied to. It now needs to be sorted out. And you began by saying, why do I think this is such a big issue? This is a colossal issue. This goes to almost everything that matters to us as a political community, whether we can actually get terms of trade, relations,

a system in Northern Ireland that works. All of these things have been very elaborately and painstakingly put together over the last, well, 70 years now, since the European Union started in the ashes of the Second World War. And we shouldn't throw it all up in a fit of absence of much. And we've just touched on Northern Ireland, and I've got a lot of friends from Northern Ireland, and they are absolutely enraged with what is happening. And in particular, they feel that the arrogance with which the English have treated them. If Brexit happens, do you think we're going to see a

return to the bad old times? Well, it depends what Brexit happens. If Brexit were to happen according to Boris Johnson's latest deal, nothing changes in Northern Ireland. Because the The deal, which is part of the reason why it's so controversial with the Brexit party and the right wing of the Conservative Party, is if Brexit happens according to Boris Johnson's latest deal, then Northern Ireland, rather like Hong Kong, becomes one country, two systems. Because what happens in Northern Ireland under Boris Johnson's own deal is that European law continues to apply. The Northern Ireland continues to be part of the customs union and the single market to all intents and purposes. It's slightly gilded in the deal by saying it would still be part of the United Kingdom customs union. in fact, actually, there will need to be customs declarations down the Irish Sea and all of that, because Northern Ireland will continue to operate according to the treaty, all of the trade and economic terms and conditions of membership of the European Union so that you don't have to have a border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, but that won't apply between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. So for Northern Ireland itself, do I think the Boris Johnson deal would lead to a term of the troubles? No, I don't. Because to all intents and purposes, Northern Ireland remains part of the European Union. I do think, though, and this could be a cause of problems down the line, is it will put on the table in a big way the issue of the creation of a single Irish state.

Because if you've got one country, two systems and most of the economic and commercial and immigration rules, which is a large part of public policy, which govern Northern Ireland, are set by the European Union, by the consent of Northern Ireland, they would prefer to have happen rather than have a hard border in Ireland. If that happens, you do then quite quickly get to the question, well, why? why remain part of the United Kingdom? I mean, it's a very, it becomes an existential question quite quickly. So my view is that if the Boris Johnson deal goes through, it's only a matter of time and probably quite a short period of time before there will be a referendum in Northern Ireland about creating a single Irish state.

Now, I don't welcome that. It's not because my view on Northern Ireland is that the people of Northern Ireland should decide what happens to it. I don't take the same view over Scotland, I think it would be a catastrophic mistake for Scotland to become independent because we all share one island together. The arguments are different in Ireland. What I do worry about from Ireland,

because I'm a historian and can see the long view on this, and also I go to Northern Ireland a lot, is that in Northern Ireland, majorities aren't enough. That's what the genius of the Good Friday Agreement, is that whereas most of politics is governed by simple majorities, where you have a fundamental nationalist, unionist cleavage without a basis of shared consent between the two, if you try to make these big existential questions to decide them by simple majorities,

that is what leads to violence, conflict and terrorism. That is what did lead to violence, conflict and terrorism two generations ago. So what really worries me is if we make this issue of the creation of an Irish state, if it were to become a majority view in Northern Ireland, it's been a minority view up till now, but if it would become a majority view, that is not enough because the unionist community in Northern Ireland is not going to say, hey, there's now 55, 60% that are in favour of created a United Island, so we're going to go along with it. I can tell you, if you meet guys like Sammy Wilson and Nigel Dodds and Arlene Foster, they are not somehow going to say, oh, that's all hunky door.

We've now got a majority for United Island. We're going to go along with it. What you will get is the breakout of really extreme unionist politics, which will lead to paramilitary activity and all of that. So the best thing to do, the best thing to do in Northern Ireland, as in my mind in the whole of the United Kingdom in relation to Brexit, is simply not to do it. Simply not to do it at all. We would be better off. We would avoid a massive national car crash by doing it. And that is also true of Northern Ireland, though there won't be an immediate crisis because Boris Johnson's deal essentially keeps Northern Ireland both in the United Kingdom and in the European Union.

Well, other than the Northern Ireland issue, what are your concerns with Boris Johnson's? deal? Why won't you accept that as the democratic will of the people implemented through a compromise in that way? Well, if it was the democratic will of the people and we had a referendum, of course I would accept it. But why is it that my strong advice to people in this election and in a referendum would be not to do it, is that not only is it worse than the status quo because it removes us from our main trading bloc. Our security is all based on very close intimate relations with. But that is what people voted for, to be removed from. that trading block. Hold on. We're going round in circles. I'm saying it should be after an

election and another referendum. So if they vote for it, then I would accept it. But why is it, my advice is that they shouldn't do it, is that it would both be worse. And it's also a leap into the unknown. And that a crucial thing to understand about the Boris Johnson deal is that it doesn't actually have any deal beyond the end of what's called an implementation period, which is at the end of next year, at the end of 2020. The only deal in relation to our whole commercial trade, economic and security policy vis-a-vis the European Union, the only deal in this 500-page document, the only deal is to agree a transition, which is till the end of next year, it can be extended by two further years, during which we will negotiate the actual deal. I mean, just think about that for a moment.

Is it sensible, just as a matter of general precaution, not leaping into the unknown until you know where you're going, Is it sensible to give up all of the, whether you'll leave or remain, to give up all of the known benefits of remain, the known benefits of being in the European Union, for an intermediate status where you have no idea what's going to happen afterwards. Surely the right thing to do, which is, by the way, what we were also promised in the referendum three and a half years ago, is not to take this huge decisive step of leaving the European Union until you know what your long-term relationship with the European Union is going to be. Now, we talked a lot a moment ago about Northern Ireland. The reason why this document is 500 pages, which is a legal treaty, about 400 pages of that are to do with Ireland. Because in the case of Ireland, because of the Good Friday Agreement, it wasn't the European Union, and indeed to be fair, the British government, didn't think it was sensible or indeed even safe to agree to an arrangement in respect of Ireland that expired at the end of next year. Because they thought that was too dangerous. That is the reason why we had the backstop. We're now we've got the permanent set of relations. What's essentially happened is that there have been two negotiations. One is a long-term agreement about the status of Northern Ireland, which is that to all intents of purposes, Northern Ireland will remain in the European Union,

but only a very short-term deal in respect to Great Britain, which expires at the end of next year, or maybe is renewable for another two years after that, during which period all of the long-term relationship will be negotiated. Now, the right thing to do, if this you were buying a house on this basis, or doing any other personal deal, you absolutely would not agree

to giving up, you know, moving house and going into temporary accommodation until you could see where you were going to be moving thereafter. And that is the root of the arguments against Boris Johnson's deal. And Lord Adonis, you describe yourself as a socialist and we've got socialists in, or credit to you. You've done a wonderful job in Venezuela.

Well done. Great stuff. Well, he supports them. So, yeah, he does. Okay, so I think that's called guilt by association, isn't it? I mean, on that basis, on that basis, General Pinochet

and Boris Johnson are all part of the same political family as well. It doesn't quite work like that, isn't it? Nice to see Francis pissing over and off for a change. No, well, that was a joke, but no, he's never denounced in Venezuelan government. But anyway, we're moving on, that's not the point. The point is, you described just a sociist, we've got socialists in the room.

There are lots of people on the left of the left of the Labour Party who said that you can't be truly socialist unless you support Brexit, because true socialism will never happen under the European Union. Do you ascribe to that notion? There aren't lots. They're very few. Most of the left of the Labour Party are in favour of staying in the European Union. This organisation called Momentum, which is the one that was set up in the wake of Jeremy Corbyn's victory and all of that, the great majority of Momentum activists, indeed a lot of them come to my meetings, when these meetings I was talking about earlier, are in favour of staying in the European Union, and a lot of them passionately in favour of saying the former chief executive of Momentum is an ardent pro-European campaign.

Indeed, I know her very well. She has an Italian husband. She's got relations across the European Union. She's a sort of classic product. As am I. You know, my dad is Cypriot. I came a generation ago. I can assure you all of these communities which are very strong in London, but of course a present across the United Kingdom are passionately against my community.

The Cypriot community will literally be divided by Brexit. I'll have a whole load of relations who won't be able to come in and out of the country until we know what the long-term deal is and whether it involves visas and all of that. So the situation as it is on the left is of overwhelming opposition to Brexit. There is a small group who have this view that you can't do some forms of nationalisation inside the European Union. Actually, because I'm pragmatic, there's no evidence that that's true. most of our European partners have larger nationalised sectors than we have because they didn't go through a Thatcherite period.

Transport is my particular area. France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, all these countries still have state railway companies. Most of their railways are still run by state companies. Indeed, the irony is a lot of those state companies have been bidding for contracts to run railways here in order to extract some of the profit from the way that we privatised our railways under the Tories 20 years ago.

So being pragmatic, and most of them, by the way, have state-owned water and electricity companies as well, which we don't have at the moment. And they do all of that within the European Union. So whilst it is true that there is a requirement to put contracts out to tender and things of that kind, which actually I support, because I think you should always see what choices are available. Across most of Europe, they have much larger nationalised sectors than we have. In the utilities, which is the main area of debate inside this general election, in the utilities, they mostly on the continent have, state run, not privately run enterprises, that's absolutely compatible with membership of the European Union. And that's the reason why most people on the left don't have a problem with EU membership.

So on the subject of the left on the Labour Party, it seems to me, we mentioned Jeremy Corbyn briefly, that always ends up well. I voted for the Labour Party the last election. And it was the first election, I believe, in recent times when more working class people voted for the Conservatives Party than did for the Labor Party. There is a lot of resentment among working class people about the Labor Party becoming the party of the kind of metropolitan university-educated elite. Jeremy Corbyn, shall we be charitable, say he's been unclear about his position on Brexit. What do you make of the Labour Party and Brexit in the current time?

Well, all political parties are social coalitions. and that's right because the aim of politics and the democracy is to bring people together and to try and create consensus not to divide them. So I'm proud of the fact that there's a strong middle class

component in the Labour Party and of course a strong trade union and working class component. The job of the party, the Labour Party is supposed to be the People's Party is to bring people together. Do I think we have strong enough social support?

Clearly not. I mean, somebody said before that we defied the polls in the last election. Well, we did do a lot better by the end of the election at the beginning, but it's very important that my Labour friends understand that we lost the last election.

We didn't win it. We had 55 fewer seats than the Conservatives at the end of the last election campaign, and we polled two and a half percentage points less than the Conservatives, which by historic standards is about the division between winning and losing parties historically. What we did in the last election was to turn catastrophe into a narrow defeat. What we've got to do this time is to turn narrow defeat into victory. And what does that require? as it always does in politics, having a broad social and political appeal. And that means we've got to have a very

strong appeal in working class communities where all these as we've been talking about earlier, disaffection, extreme poverty, extreme inequality. The absence in many of these communities have a real plan for jobs and community renewal. We need to get all of that right too. But if you're sitting in a more affluent part of London, for example, at the moment where leaving the European Union is also existential. You know, what's going to happen to the, you know, London is a city which has 15 universities. It has one of the most international higher education sectors in the world, possibly in the world. All of that is in jeopardy. All of it is in jeopardy with Brexit.

So we need to be able to bring together all of these different parts of the community and to speak to them all. And it's perfectly compatible. It is absolutely compatible to be able to say in Middlesbrough, we need a really big plan for jobs, investment and dealing with poverty in Middlesbrough, whilst at the same time saying in parts of London, we don't want Brexit because we don't want to be having visas required for people to travel between Britain and the continent. These aren't incompatible policies. We need to be very strong in saying all of them and building a broad social coalition. And I believe it's possible for us to do that. But my point is Jeremy Corbyn hasn't done that. He hasn't done that. I know a lot of working class

people who feel utterly alienated by his position on many issues and his lack of clarity. on the issue of Brexit. I know many metropolitan liberal types who are deeply alienated, who voted Labor entire life, because the position on Brexit has been so muddled, so unclear, and a lot of people feel that it's actually dishonest. He's tried to

play both sides, and he's got none. To be fair, I've been, probably, as you kindly said at the beginning, one of the more active remain campaigners both nationally and inside the Labour Party, I made myself very awkward with the current Labour leadership, including Jeremy personally, by campaigning really hard,

last year in the party for us having a second referendum at a stage when the party didn't when he didn't want to commit one. And at the party conference last year, that was the big issue was whether we would commit to holding a second referendum with a remain option. That is now party policy. That is at the heart of our manifesto for this election. Now, I don't myself believe in thought, please, politics. I don't believe that it is incompatible to be a member of the Labour Party and to be a Brexit. I think it's perfectly possible. We discussed it earlier to be Labor and to be in favour of Brexit. I certainly don't think we should have some kind of doctrinaire test that to be a member of the Labour Party, you have

to be a Remainer. What I do think is right, what I've been campaigning for, is that we should give the country the choice, which also means giving Labour Party activists the ability to campaign for people to have the choice. And Jeremy has committed to that. So what I was seeking to do all of last year, which is that we should be committed to a second referendum with a remain option and on the back of that we should have a big reform plan for the country that is the party's manifesto in this election i am certainly not going to be out there saying and therefore every Labour party member must sign in blood that they are a remainer that's not my kind of politics at all and so you're saying that it's about essentially labor winning hearts and minds

my question to you would be how is labor in particular jeremy corbin going to be able to do that when he can't even unite his own party where we see people defecting Well, actually, that's simply not true. Look, the fact is because sometimes because of the way our rather Tory media reports things and the BBC, which has been doing a great job, you would think that there was riot and rebellion inside the Labour Party. Large numbers of Labour MPs have been to deselect and that. Do you know how many Labour members of Parliament have actually been deselected for this election? I think Francis was referring to people leaving.

I'll come to them in a moment. Hold on. The answer is none. None. not a single Labour member of Parliament has been deselected. Do you know how many Conservatives have been deselected as they've imposed their extreme Brexit option on? Well, it was 21 of whom 10 have now been re-admitted,

but it's significantly more. All of the things which the right claim that the left have been doing, which is intolerance, not allowing broad spectrum of opinion, all that they've been doing to themselves. Now, it's true that a few Labour MPs have left. It's a handful who left. It's Chuker, it's Chris Leslie. I mean, it's literally, it's a handful.

Luciana Berger. But far more conservatives have left. You know, I was doing a thing two days ago with Dominic Grieve. Dominic Grieve, who is, by the way, I think has played an absolute blinder in last years. In terms of parliamentarians, I have a real respect for who are doing the books job of being representatives, not delegates, saying the right thing for the country and doing all of that. He's up there. He is having to fight in Beaconsfield at the moment as an independent because he's been expelled from the Conservative Party. So I don't think as a Labour Party person

I need any lessons in intolerance from people in other political parties or commentators when the real intolerance we're facing in British politics at the moment which is deep and bitter intolerance is on the right with Farage in the Brexit Party

and a Conservative Party more intolerance of divergent views than at any time in my lifetime whereas Jeremy Corbyn actually has maintained the Labour Party as a broad church. He himself of course has a very clear view where he is personally, but he has not been, you know, I mean, I don't mind describing myself

as historically a Blairite. I think that the Blair government is one of the best things that's happened to this country, particularly look at what's happened since. I mean, let's bring back Tony Blair. I mean, let's have a lot more of that rather than what we've had since. You're really misjudging the middle of the country there, believe you mean. And I'm happy to have an argument. But look, the Blair rights inside the Labour Party are overwhelmingly still inside the Labour Party. And I have no hesitation in saying that what we want is a Broad Church Labour Party, I'm content with Jeremy Corby's leadership in this election, provided he operates a broad church policy. And as we've discussed on Europe, which has been the most contentious issue inside the party, he's, in fact, compared to how the last three leaders of the Conservative Party have played it, he has been God's gift to broad-mindedness, tolerance, and pluralism in politics.

I'm giving as good as I get. No, you are doing a good job. This is, and that was a party political broadcast. Anyway, so. Let's do a couple more minutes before we open up to questions. So what would you say to people, so off the top of my head, people like Philip Collins, who, you know, you all know well used to write speeches, Blair's main speechwriter, comedian Matt Ford, you know, people who were staunch

labor people and felt that the party was moving a direction that was unacceptable, and they had to renounce their membership. And in Phillips Collins' case, it was of anti-Semitism. Well, I think that they were mistaken in terms of leaving the party. Do I think that there's a problem of anti-Semitism inside the Labour Party? I think there is. Why is there a problem with anti-Semitism? Because there are some members of the party who have been tolerant of anti-Semitic views and anti-Semites.

My own view is very straightforward, is that those people have no part in any mainstream political party, and that includes the Labour Party. And that has come under the spotlight, and there is an inequalities in human rights investigation into whether the party has handled that properly. And I think anyone who's been responsible for tolerating or excusing or allowing anti-Semites to play a role inside the party, I think that is a fundamental issue. And it needs to be to be sorted out. But do I think that we should all those of us who don't hold those views, which is the overwhelming majority of people inside the Labour Party, Labour MPs, Labour members, Labour members of the House of Lords like myself, do we think we should therefore leave our own party? I think that's a category. I think it's the anti-Semites and those who hold those views who should be leaving the party. But isn't that the problem, the other one is that they haven't left the party. As you say, they have been tolerated. And it seems to be that the people who are leaving feel like it's either them leaving or staying in a party where those anti-Semites are allowed to remain.

Yeah, well, as I say, I think that's a category error. The anti-Semites are the tiny majority. Those of us who don't hold those views and find them repugnant are the overwhelming majority. and in any organisation it shouldn't be the overwhelming majority that have to leave their party because of misbehaviour by a minority. My point was something else, which is those people who are leaving feel like the party leadership is not addressing that issue robustly enough. Would you agree with that? I think it wasn't addressing it robustly enough.

I think it is now, is my view in response to that. I think at the time, and some of the people you mentioned are friends of mine. I completely respect their points of view. But it's always been my view of politics that you should stay and fight, and you certainly don't leave until you've lost. And on this issue of anti-Semitism, we haven't lost. On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of people who hold these views who hold our views, which is that we find it completely repugnant and unacceptable. We're the ones who have come through.

And to give a specific example, Margaret Hodge, who is absolutely in the lead on these issues, is fighting the next election as the Labour candidate in Barking and Dagenham, and she, as you know, was extremely critical for the leadership on these issues. So I understand what they're saying, but we're the majority, they're the minority, and it should be the minority, which in the case of anti-Semitism is a tiny minority, it should be them that leave the party. It shouldn't be the rest of us. And do you think Corbyn, in his leadership, has condoned anti-Semitism?

Well, that's a matter for the European, for the Equalities and Human Rights investigation. The answer is I don't know. That's a very equivocal answer there. The truth is I don't know. That's the reason why the investigation has been set up. But if people have condoned it, that is totally unacceptable. I've got not sighted hesitation. Okay.

Do we have a fourth roaming, Mike, or do we need to give one of these up? We've gone. Fantastic. Perfect. Well, before we crack on with questions, can we just thank Lord of Donors for giving us this time and coming out? Whether we agree with everything or not. So, gentlemen, there, please. Thank you.

And then we'll go there and we'll go there. We'll take three at a time and then get some answers. Thanks for an interesting discussion. About a second referendum, I agree with Lord Adonis that if a clear majority of the public now wants to remain, it would be kind of crazy to go to fly in the face of that. But does he not accept that every election, every referendum involves a large degree of chance, it depends on the weather, depends on last minute political events, it depends on the charisma of the people involved? And if a second referendum happens and it's 52-48 the other way, it's not. going to feel like the country's changed its mind. It's going to feel like the coin's been flipped until the answer, a remainers want, is provided. So would he be prepared to

require a two-thirds supermajority for a second referendum if the first one's going to be overturned? And that would close the door to further referendums. No, is the answer to that. Because we have to, we have to make a decision. And so, though, I would hope it's, I'd much rather it was a bigger majority than that. The fact of the matter is we've got to decide. And if we start putting artificial things, rules in like that. What happens if we get into the zombie situation where there's a majority, but it doesn't meet the super majority,

what do you then do? Do you go adopt the minority position because you haven't got the majority position? So as it happens, I would have supported a larger majority for the first referendum before you started this process. We have now got to decide, and I think it would be very dangerous to put artificial majorities

in that could mean we're in a kind of zombie land where we're incapable of acting as a country. And in the situation we're now in, we can't not act. It's very important to understand that. We're in a very different situation from three and a half years ago. Three and a half years ago,

we didn't need to start this process. So if you hadn't reached your super majority, it wouldn't have mattered because you just don't start the process of leaving the EU. Now, we are about to leave. 31st of January. We're leaving. So if you have a zombie situation

where you have a majority, but it's not the super majority, what do you do? Do you leave or not leave? So though I would have agreed with you from the beginning of the process, not to start the process without it. We are in a desperate crisis situation at the moment.

We've got to decide as a country, and I would not put any impediments in the way of being able to decide, and unfortunately a supermajority could be just such an impediment at the moment. I do agree with you. Of course, there are lots of chance factors in elections. That...

Oh, the third referendum... The crucial thing to understand about our system is that what we've got, which is part of the reason we're in this situation at the moment, is we have what is basically a parliament democracy, which is now, over the course of the last 50 years, we've grafted certain elements of direct democracy onto it. Now, you can have a debate about whether that was a good idea or not a good idea, whether it's good idea to have referendums at all. But under our system of government,

which is fundamentally different from, for example, Switzerland, referendums are only held because Parliament calls them. The only reason there was a referendum three and a half years ago is because David Cameron and a majority in Parliament called it. We don't have the initiative, which they have in Switzerland, which enables the people themselves to call referendums, which is the reason why they have five to ten referendums a year. Now, one thing I am pretty sure of is that after this second referendum, there is not going to be a third referendum in any hurry, because you won't get a parliamentary majority and a prime minister is prepared to call it. So we're not in a situation where you end up with neverendums because always a minority in the

country can call it. Under our system, only a parliamentary majority by statute can call a referendum, and that requires essentially the leadership of the governing party, which means the prime minister to agree. And as I say, after a second referendum, I can't see any Prime Minister in the short term agreeing to another referendum on leaving the European Union. If we do leave, actually, I think there is a reasonable chance that a Prime Minister in 10 or 15 years might call a referendum on going back in, but that's another matter. We had a question at the back there. Somebody had the hand up? I saw you first. Yeah. Hi, thank you. That was a really interesting discussion. There were a couple of things that

you said. I'd like to tease out to get you to elucidate a little further on. The first thing was you talked about us being approaching the half-time stage in the Brexit debate. I'd really appreciate some clarity when exactly you think the kick-off whistle was. Was it 2016? Was it in 1975? Was it 1973? Was it one or other of the occasions when DeGall rejected our application? I think it was actually 1066 as it happens, but we're not necessarily a half-time on that one. Sure, sure, but the point is, I mean, you appreciate that whatever happens in two or three years the debate about Britain's relationship with Europe is going to be continuing. And the second point that you said, you said,

nothing changes if we stay in the EU. Well, unfortunately, as you know, given the way the EU works with sort of more and more powers being transferred by successive treaties, we've kind of seen how that has happened over the years that we've been a member of the EU. And even if there's a certain Eurosceptic tension in numerous member states, which maybe slow the process down, that, you know, again, this issue of Britain's semi-detached relationship,

relationship with Europe by not being in the Euro, by not being in the Schengen zone, and frankly being unlikely to join either, even if we do remain somehow in the EU. How do you envisage, I mean, how do you relate to this idea of nothing changing? It seems to me that a lot of the underlying tensions are going to remain here and remain unresolved. We don't have to join the Euro or Schengen. Simple answer. We don't have to join them. The fact that some of our European partners have set up a single currency is a matter for them. We have, because of the brilliance of British negotiations in times past, including John Major, who did a fantastic job at the Maastricht Treaty, we're not required to join. We can choose as a country. It's very important not to

scarify people. There is no treaty obligation on us whatsoever to join the Euro, but we have a right to join it if we wish to do so in the future. I think the general point was even if we don't join the Euro, we nonetheless preserve the tensions that we currently have in our society. Look, what relationships in human affairs do not involve tension? I mean, let's be fair. Of course it involves tension.

The whole, we're talking about a union between 28 nations which share our continent. Of course that's going to be tense. Even if the European Union works 10 times better than does at the moment, you would still have tension. The issue isn't whether there's tension, because there's inevitably going to be tension in any relations of that kind.

The question is whether it's manageable and advantageous for us. This is the crucial point, because there is no perfection in human affairs. Is it, given the choice we face, advantageous and manageable for us to stay in the European Union, definitely. It's definitely advantageous. It's definitely manageable. And do not scarify people with phantoms which may or may not emerge. It may be that at some point in the future we face another big issue in our relation to the European Union about a further act of integration.

It may, it may not. We have faced them in the past and we've managed to negotiate our way through perfectly satisfactory. It's perfectly satisfactory for there to be a block of members of the European Union that have a single currency and for us not to. That is not a reason why we need to give up free trade, which is essentially the big benefit that we have inside the European Union at the moment. I'm not saying there won't be tension, but I do say that that tension is manageable, and I certainly think it's advantageous for us to stay rather than to leave. There was a gentleman in the front row who was next. Can I just say every battle of ideas session I've been to, someone has complained about a lack of female voices. So if you're a woman, please put your hand up so we don't look sexist.

All right, so we'll go to you, madam, at some point. Gentleman down here at the front row, please, guys. Hi, yeah, thanks for a great discussion. Andrew, you and I are not going to persuade each other on Brexit. But in the spirit of agreement on this Sunday morning, I'd just like to mention that I'm a big, big fan of HS2. Good, right, it's on there. There were many fewer of them than there were supporters of the European Union.

Another non-controversial subject. So basically, my question is, when do you think it will actually happen? I know that, you know, and how do you persuade the rest of the country to get behind HS2? Oh, I'd love to do a whole thinking session on that. The answer is it's happening at the moment. If you go only a mile away from here to Houston, the whole of the Houston area at the moment is one massive building site because HS2 is being constructed at the moment.

It's the same in the centre of Birmingham. So the issue isn't whether HS2 happens. The legislation has passed, the money has been allocated, it is being built between London and Birmingham. The actual issue, though, Boris is trying to elide it because he's trying to appeal to people who are four and against in the way that Boris always does. He tries to appeal to both sides by pretending he doesn't have a view on either side. Well, you can't carry on doing that forever. The issue actually on HSTO isn't whether it's built from London to Birmingham is whether you're going to stop it in Birmingham.

Now, it would be ludicrous to build a high-speed railway line, which goes halfway up the country. You know, it obviously needs to go between the three largest metropolitan centres of the country, which is its whole purpose, which is London, Birmingham and Manchester. The fourth largest is Leeds, which is the reason why it should have a branch going across there. My own view is that the dynamic is such that it will be built that way, because it will seem to the public to be so ludicrous, to have a high-speed line with high capacity, very fast journey times on that, which stops in the Midlands. So I think it will happen.

What's at stake really is whether we have an integrated plan, which we're very bad at doing an infrastructure, an integrated plan in one go to do London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, or whether in classic British fashion, we half build it, we get to Birmingham, we have a 20-year pause while we have a massive national rowbours, and then we build it up to Manchester and Leeds. I think that that would be a mistake. And that's what I've been saying very firmly personally, actually, because I have a relationship with him to Boris, is that it's absolutely, you could have taken a decision before not to do HS2, that I think that would have been a mistake. But to half build it and to leave people stranded in Birmingham on these high-speed trains, is the height of folly.

I think we can all agree that being stranded in Birmingham would be a dreadful thing. It's a dreadful thing if you want to go to Manchester. Tell me here. Then go to you, madam, then to you, madam, and then to you, sir. So leaving aside whether or not leaving or remaining is a good or bad thing, one of the so-called advantages that the Leave campaign had

is that they were able to paint a vision of how Britain could be better, whereas the Remain campaign kind of stuck with this status quo narrative and how bad it would be if we left. But the fact is that the status quo is not going to stay the same. It never has stayed the same. And the European Union's got issues around tax policy, around the stability of the euro, an army, foreign policy, etc. All of these things that it wants to integrate and improve upon. and obviously we can all see the trend that where the EU wants to be is as a grand super state. So why haven't the Remain campaign embraced that and promoted the advantages and how great that would be and how we could be a global player?

Because that is a perfectly respectable position to have. But the reason why so many people don't feel infused is because instead it's adopted this position of how terrible it's going to be for the economy if we leave. So why not embrace that vision as a super state Europe? This episode sponsored by IP Vanish. IP Vanish protects every device you own, your phone, your laptop, your smart TV. If it connects to the internet, it should be protected. IP Vanish encrypts your connection and masks your IP address, helping keep your browsing

private at home and on public Wi-Fi. Stream with added privacy. Browse securely. Connect with confidence. Right now, save 83% off the two-year plan. Get started today at IPVanish.com slash audio and take control of your privacy with IPVanish. Because I don't agree with your premise. That's the reason why. It's not correct. I do. I make the argument for the European Union in the way that Churchill made it in 1945 as a kind of, and the words kind of a crucial, a kind of United States of Europe. It's a kind of federation. And I believe in that. I believe in peace, prosperity, very close partnership, including shared institutions between the nations of Europe. And actually in the economic sphere, those are highly integrated. We have. the world's most integrated and effective and largest free trade and single market zone.

Indeed, in history, no other group of 28 countries has managed to have not just tariff-free, but essentially regulation-free trade in the way we have. Now, I don't like the term super-state because it's intended to be pejorative. It is a quasi-federation in the same way as, you know, because there's no one standard form of federation for your study political science, a whole different sets of ways that countries can work together at a supernational level. However, does that mean, because that is a very successful quasi-federation, which has hugely boosted the peace and prosperity of Europe, indeed, in the case of peace, largely established it in the last 70 years, that therefore, teleologically,

because we're using these conceptual ways of thinking about it, that must mean full integration in terms of armed forces and a further big leap forward in terms of, of creating a single economic policy for the whole of Europe and all that. The answer is that's total rubbish. Just take the issue of the European army, just to take that one as one, which is a kind of bogey. There are only two seriously functioning armies in Europe. That's Britain and France. We're the only countries that spend enough on defence and have a sufficiently large armed forces

to be able to mobilize significant forces. And indeed, the one that people say will be the linchpin of this, which is Germany, if there were to be a European army, Germany resolutely refuses to invest more than a much smaller proportion than we do of their GDP on defence because they want to spend it on other things. Now, I know Germany quite well. I can assure you that Chancellor Merkel and her likely successors are not going to be leaping to double German defence spending. They actually are quite happy piggybacking on France, Britain and the United States to maintain their defence. So it's very important not to sort of believe all this stuff that comes out of Nigel Farage and all of this. that because the current European Union has certain elements of a federation about it, we're therefore going to be having all of these bogeymen.

It's not true. As it happens on the concept of a European army, on the concept of it, I don't myself have a problem with it. We have a NATO army essentially at the moment. That's what, how everything we do at the moment in terms of our defence is based on NATO. Now, NATO involves a very, very high degree of integration between the forces of France, Britain and the United States. States, including under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, an absolute requirement to come to the

defence of all of the other members. An attack on one is an attack on all. The loss of sovereignty involved in that is much greater than anything involved in the European Union. I don't have a problem with it. It works. It's a club of democracies. We share the same values and all of that. But in fact, it's not actually the case that we're going to get a European army or seriously on the agenda, because that isn't where the politics of Europe is. Where? is the politics of Europe at the moment. It's seeking to maintain the peace and stability of the existing European Union, which means two things in particular, where we have a massive and huge interest. The first is seeing that the current European economic zone functions effectively.

We have a huge interest in that. And the second, to be blunt, is seeing that an out-of-control semi-fascist Russia, which is on our borders, and is a real and present danger to us. It's already invaded one European country, Ukraine. It could easily invade others that we keep them at bay. Now, the European Union, together with NATO, have been doing a good job of that over recent years. We need to sustain that. We shouldn't be scarifying ourselves by a whole lot of phantoms of things which are simply not going to happen, but which could lead us to making big, big mistakes about withdrawing from existing areas of integration and cooperation which are working very effectively. As someone who works with a Russian, I couldn't agree more.

I don't think, Constantine, I don't think he's an agent of President Putin. A lot of people on the internet do, believe me. You, madam, please. And then we'll go to you, madam, and then to you, sir. Thank you. I grew up in Hartlepool, which was one of the strongest areas for voting to leave the European Union. It was a very strong labour seat. but in recent years I think people have got a bit fed up with the arrogance of politicians

in fact some years ago when Hartlepool was forced to have a mayoral election they elected the football mascot a monkey and of course in the last election well people were very upset when Peter Mantleson was parachuted in I mean he did have some connections with the area but of course he was an outsider. And more recently, they voted in the last election.

A Brexit candidate was elected. But even more than that, in the last local elections, Labor actually lost control of the local authority. And I just wondered, do you think it's realistic of the Labour Party to think that they can win back these seats with the promise of jump tomorrow, as you were saying, a great programme of reforms an investment in these poorer

four are areas. Well, I think it's the only way, isn't it? Because what politics is about in a democracy is seeking to deliver things that people want. And what people want in Hartlepool is they want more investment and a serious economic plan. It's the only way.

Do I think it's realistic to do it? Yes. I think it is realistic to do it. And indeed, though you're absolutely right about what's happened in Hartlepool, you're completely right that Labor did lose the local authority and hasn't been

strong enough on the ground. That's not true of a lot of other communities in the north, where labour has remained very strong. You know, for example, the city of Manchester, the largest single metropolitan area in the north. There's almost no non-Labour members of Manchester City Council. Andy Burnham is the mayor of Greater Manchester. There is a sense of there being a proper plan for Manchester, including the area I'm most interested in, which is education and transport. You know, Manchester is the biggest and strongest university outside London, has more students apparently anywhere west of Moscow. So I'm bringing these things in because apparently Constantine likes these parallels.

And there's a big transport plan and all that. So my view is, and part of the reason for that is Labor has had a good plan, a reasonably good plan for Greater Manchester, including creating a mayor, a single integrated authority, a big transport plan and all that. We haven't had a good enough plan. I'll be quite frank with you for Hartley-Paul and some of the coastal communities. And we need to get much better at that. But when you say, do I think it's realistic?

Yes, I do think it's realistic. But also there's no alternative because there's no other way of rebuilding labour in these communities other than addressing what are the real existing problems that they face with credible plans. The woman by the door there, yeah. Yes. I think the best thing really about Brexit is that it's kind of opened up a lot of political questions that had been really closed down for a generation really.

You mentioned already, you know, a United Island, there's Gibraltar, but also things like the House of Lords, First Past the Post, regional government. And, you know, I think that the mood of the country is not that they want any kind of new system handed down to them from government. It feels like there's a real desire and a real appetite for a big process of democratic debate and renewal. And I just wonder whether you think that's right? And if you think there's any ways that we can, you know, foster that? Well, I completely agree with that. But it doesn't require leaving the European Union.

Indeed, leaving the European Union would make it harder to deal with that. So, for example, the House of Lords, I think the House of Lords is, at the moment, is a democratic monstrosity. You know, I mean, I was appointed by a Prime Minister 15 years ago and have no more legitimacy than that. I'm strongly in favour of an elected House of Lords. And I also think it should have a strong regional component and should have. to bring the nations and the regions of the country together, a bit like the second chambers in Germany and the United States. So I certainly do, I think it's right to open up those issues.

I think we need much stronger devolution. We need to hand a lot more power down to local governments and regional and city governments in England, because England is essentially run almost like a colony from London at the moment. We need to reform second chamber. All of those things, I think, are correct. And you may be right that Brexit has had the effect, the Brexit argument has had the effect of opening them up in a bigger way than before.

I would accept that. But I don't think the right thing to do is to leave the European Union. I think the right thing to do is to stay in the European Union, but address those issues. And it's a wake-up call to the political class that they do need to be addressed. I mean, the House of Lords reform has been on the agenda for a century, and we never actually managed to do any of it. It's about time we actually got real and did it. A gentleman in the middle there.

I've been a Labour voter all my life. I won't be voting Labour. in this coming up election. And the reason is purely down to leadership, or should say lack of leadership. The whole Brexit issue with Corbyn, and the anti-Semitism is unbelievable. If you can't get that right in his own party,

I genuinely don't see how he could ever lead a country. My question to you is, if we had somebody like, say, Kier Stama, leading Labour now, do you think the polls, the whole dynamics of this situation were being a completely different place? Well, Keir is a friend of mine. I think he'd be an excellent. leader of the Labour Party, but you can only have one leader at a time. And we are in a general

election campaign at the moment, and the choice which faces the country. It's a real choice is do you want, as the Prime Minister on the 13th of December, Boris Johnson, with all that comes with him, or Jeremy Corbyn, my judgment is... Well, the polls are pretty clear on that, aren't they? But the real poll is on the 12th of December. My friend here was asking me, saying, you know, and that is the choice that we face. My judgment is that the better thing for the country, the better policy for the country, the better leader out of those two, and that's the choice that we face, would be Jeremy Corbyn. Do I think in due course, Kirstarmer would make a great leader of the Labour Party? I completely agree. He would.

This is the biggest open goal that we've ever seen for Labour. The one thing you can't do in your own situation is to say, I wish we weren't here because we've done five things differently in the past. Do you know, I wish we'd done five things differently in the past, but we are where we are. The choice facing the country now in an election which is now underway, that is the choice. And we all have to make judgments on that basis. That is the choice which the country faces. And given both the people involved and the policies which underlie those people too,

I think that the right government for the country on the 13th of December would be a Labour-led government, not a Tory-led government. And this issue of Brexit is absolutely central to that. Do we have anybody else? Yes. So if we could pass it down to the man in the hat. Hello, thanks very much. I'm really fascinated by one of the points that you made earlier on concerning what's actually inside the Brexit debate. I took on organising London intellectual dark web group because I wanted to meet people who were across the aisle from me. I found over this 10 years since I got a smartphone in 2009 that I abandoned my habit of reading lots of different newspapers. I want to find with talking with people across the aisle is that the idea of Brexit has become superordinate. And the discussion on any other issues to do with housing, transport and all the other issues,

really faded into the background. And a few months ago, I started asking people, would they rather, we left the European, Brexiters, would they rather we leave the European Union, or would we rather have the time and effort spent in dealing with housing or transport or all the other issues? And I've really been astonished at their, not that they haven't thought about it, but they're astonished that there could be an alternative to take up our political time outside of Brexit. Why is it that you think that the Brexit issue has become so superordinate to taking up everything that all of these other issues that actually inform it, such as austerity, have been sort of largely abandoned in the background? Because in a real existing situation, it is.

I like the words, I haven't used before, but we need another word for this Sunday morning thing, superordinate. I've never used that word, but I like it. I take superordinate to mean overwhelming. Yeah. The reason why people are treating it as an overwhelming issue is because it is an overwhelming issue. You know, the European Union Withdrawal Act, which is one of nine, nine pieces of legislation which are needed to prepare the way for leaving the European Union.

That's before we get to these trade deals and everything else coming down the line. That was debated in the House of Commons and the House of Lords for 300 hours, which is longer than any piece of legislation has been debated in the history of Parliament. So when you say that the issue is superordinate and people treated as if it's superordinate, the reason they treated as if it's superordinate is because it is superordinate. How much time has Parliament spent debating housing policy in the last three years? Well, we had a debate in the House of Lords and housing two weeks ago. The debate lasted two hours. Those are the relative ratios of the time Parliament is spending. Until Parliament itself, which is our political class and our political institutions,

themselves can find a way of moving on, we are going to be overwhelmed. And unfortunately, it also has the effect, which I think has been deeply damaging to our politics, but which you were so hinting at in your remarks, which is that every other issue is seen through the prism of Brexit. Now, let me say, I think that is a complete mistake. It's part of the reason why I'm so much against Brexit. Brexit. The way of dealing with the housing crisis is, hey, presto, to deal with the housing crisis. It's to start building council houses again in a big way. It's to start getting into the business of regulating the private rented sector.

It's to give people a fairer deal. It's to end the two child policy, which is monstrous inside universal credit. That means a lot of people can't even afford decent quality housing at all. That's the way you deal with it. It's not by somehow doing Brexit, because then it's going to, I don't know what, you know, the chain of argument, which then goes on. is then we're going to give a wake-up call to the political classes what my friend said a few moments ago and all that hinting it's going to do. It won't. What it will do is Brexit will lead to more Brexit

because as I said, once you've got your first instalment of Brexit, you've then got your 10 years of trade negotiations. So you'll get even less housing policy. So what I am trying to do with lots of other people in politics at the moment is to stop this paradigm. So we're using all these words today, this paradigm, which comes to see all the things. the issues facing the country in the context of whether we do or don't leave the European

Union. What we should do is to not do that and instead address directly all of these other issues. And my view is if we'd done that first time round, because this was the fundamental mistake made by Cameron, because it was Cameron himself who put this right at the centre of politics, if instead we'd put housing, the NHS, education, inequality, apprenticeships, all of those issues which fundamentally affect the whole future of the country. We'd put those at the centre of politics. We wouldn't be having this debate about the superordinate issue of Brexit in the first place. Okay, we can take one more question.

From the gentleman over there with his hand up. Yes, sir. This is my friend of socialism. Yes, indeed. He's intent on thinking that I'm in a fundamentally different tribe from him. Well, I think you've been great today, I might say. But I'd just like to ask what you think now in the light of it. experience and so forth about your academy schools education policy was it radical enough because

now there's talk about you know labor going on to abolishing the public schools getting rid of eaten personally i'm all in favor of greater equality in society this is what but but you know there's this question of sort of whether you should uh build people up or destroy things down and i don't like personally the idea of destroying eaten how do you how do you feel about this um Were your earlier policy radical enough, or is the prospective one maybe too radical? Well, coming back, because the fundamental issue which you're dealing with in the public service at the moment, is austerity or not austerity. And it really comes into sharp relief when you look at the issue of education. There were some elements of the Academy's policy, which were controversial in the Labour Party.

They were to do with how you run schools, and I'll come back to those in a moment. But the biggest element of the Academy programme, the biggest element by far, was massive investment in state education. The Academy's programme was part of a programme which was called Building Schools for the Future, which was investing in the rebuilding renewal of every school in the country. It was very bold, which when we left office in 2010 was £8 billion a year. When I first started working for Tony Blair in 1998 and we got going on this serious education policy, we were spending as a country 800 million a year on the building and renewal of school buildings. So we, in that Labour government, increased by tenfold, tenfold, the national spending on school buildings.

Now, my own view is that there's nothing more important in a society than the quality of its schools. That is what renews a society and nurtures the next generation. And we should be spending properly on school buildings. One of the biggest things that happen with austerity, was a cut in the school building program. It was cut immediately from $8 billion to $3 billion, and it's now running under $2 billion a year. That is the difference the Labour government makes

and what austerity has meant. Now, you said were we radical enough? The academic policy, the controversial bit of the academy's policy, which was essentially closing seriously failing schools and reopening them with new leadership, that's what essentially it was. It was always controversial because it involved change. And for some of the people

who've been responsible for running the previous schools, of course it was controversial with them. But actually, you know, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Those schools have been phenomenally successful. Those of you who live in communities, which have got the original academies that were set up schools like Mossbourne in Hackney, I could go down the list. There are very, very few people who'd want to move back to what we had before. Were we radical enough? No, what I wanted to move on to, and I see as the next big issue in education, is what happens to people who don't go to university.

Because in our country at the moment, people who go to university get a pretty good deal. there are controversies there about tuition fees and all that. But nonetheless, we have first-rate universities. People do well. They have high earning power. We have a terrible apprenticeship system in this country. We don't have a proper system of training and career development for the 60% of 18-year-old, 60% who don't go to university. And the thing I was desperate to move on to in 2010 was to try and create and wait for it, because with some of my people who don't like Europe, you won't like this, but I'm going to say it anyway, to create in Britain an apprenticeship system like the Germans, because the Germans have a fantastic.

The Germans and the Dutch is not just the Germans. The Germans have a brilliant apprenticeship system which invests as much in 18-year-olds who don't go to university as those who do. That's the next big and bold and new frontier I wanted. And I still think we need to be doing it. And just to wrap up on these remarks, if we weren't doing Brexit, and I could get back to the things I really love, which is partly transport. I'm a bit of a train nerd, I'm afraid, but also education.

Those are the things I'd be doing. And we need to put them right at the centre of debate. You know, the proposition I'd like to put before people is why is it that we do not in this country spend as much on every 19-year-old who doesn't go to university as those who do go to university? At the moment, we spend four times more on those who do go to university than those who don't. Surprise, surprise, where do we get big disaffection? People who don't have decent earning power. People who are disaffected. It's by and large in those who don't get the opportunity to go to university.

That's what we should be sorting out as a country. not this absolutely terrible off the edge of a cliff Brexit business, which is making it even harder for us to deal with housing, build HS2. By the way, the no-deal preparations alone would have built half of my HS2 line alone. You know, all of these contracts with ferry companies that don't have fairies and all of that. So stop Brexit, build HS2, build houses, deal with the education crisis, have a proper apprenticeship system, and then we'd be much, much better off as a country. Lord Adonis, I love how in the question about education, you went from education to apprenticeship, to Brexit, to HS2 and back to the trains.

You've covered everything. Very, very quickly, literally in 10 seconds. The last question we always ask on trigonometry is what's the one thing that no one is talking about that we should be talking about? Actually, it's housing. At the moment, we have a housing crisis greater than any time in the last 50 years. We have people living millions of people, millions of people in this country, our fellow citizens, living in slum conditions at the moment. That is an absolute scandal at the heart of our society. And if there's one thing we sort out in the next 10 years, it should be that.

Fantastic. I think we can all agree. Lord of Donuts has been absolutely brilliant. Please give them a round of applause. Thanks. It was great to do it. And I promise if I become transport sector again, I am sorting out those problems on the M25. And thank you so much.

Subscribe to us on all the usual channel, which have been absolutely brilliant. And enjoy the rest of the battle of ideas. See you again. Bye. Thank you. Bye-bye. IP Vanish protects every device you own, your phone, your laptop, your smart TV. If it connects to the internet, it should be protected.

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