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I get
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welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway and me gatri
it's all over bar the shouting although
shouting there will be Jeremy Corbin won
an even bigger Landslide Victory despite
the 240,000 people being deprived of
their votes for one reason or another if
you'd asked me as Jeremy did I would
have said as I did before he ran in 201
15 go for it you have nothing to lose
and everything to gain but even I who
have known him for nearly 40 years
couldn't have imagined that in just 12
months he would have built the biggest
political party in Europe and have if
you had the purged over half a million
voters for leader of the labor party how
did it happen well I have my own ideas
but our first guest did better he wrote
a book about it called the candidate
Jeremy Corbin's improbable path to power
he's Alex nuns and he joins us on the
sputnic now Alex how did this man 67
been in Parliament 30 years find his way
through the thicket of blairite
obstacles and Total Media hostility to
the place he is now well it's it's
fairly unlikely isn't it I mean if you
imagine the monkey the famous monkey
hitting keys at random on a typewriter
it's easy to imagine that monkey doing
the complete works of Shakespeare then
coming up with a plot that ends with
Jeremy Corin very good way of putting as
the leader of the labor party so uh
nobody expected it Jeremy Coran didn't
expect it nobody on the left expected it
in uh in May
2015 after the general election John
McDonald Jeremy Corbin's great Ally
current Shadow Chancellor um wrote an
article for labor briefing a magazine of
the labor left um in which he said this
is the darkest hour that socialists in
Britain have faced since the fall of the
Atley government in 1951 so the darkest
hour for socialist in Britain since 1951
in May 2015 3 months later Jeremy Corbin
was leader of the labor party and how
that came about I think well I think it
all goes back to the financial crash in
2008 but I think that had there were
three processes that went into Jeremy
Corbin's Victory they they were all
influenced by the crash but they were
all distinct um the biggest one was in
the labor party itself and that that was
a turn against new labor turn against
blism among the party members which is
conveniently overlooked quite often by
the media and by the the labor right the
fact that as soon as Jeremy Corin got
onto the ballot he had support from the
membership it wasn't all just Outsiders
coming in and overwhelming the the
old-timers um the when when the Corbin
campaign started phoning up members
doing phone canvasing in the first three
weeks of the campaign they were already
in the lead according to their own
internal data they thought it was too
good to be true they couldn't believe it
in fact John lansman who was you know
influential in the Corin campaign said
they didn't even tell Jeremy because
they thought you know let's not get his
hopes up because you know this must be
wrong um so that was happening that was
a very profound and decisive shift
against new labor within the party
itself but then there was that might not
have been able to find any expression if
it hadn't been for uh a a historic shift
in the trade unions over the past 15
years but especially the last five years
where they've been um engaging in a
conscious project to reshape the labor
party and that's to do with the way that
Blair treated in the way that they were
turfed out of their own party
effectively made into an opposition
within the party they created um and
also changes in the the the British
economy they used to be part of a
corporate economy they were booted out
by Thatcher so they basically the unions
have less to lose so they were more
willing to back a left a left candidate
which is you know quite unprecedented in
in labor party history because the
unions are usually very cautious and
then the third element of it are the
social movement activists the anti-war
activists the climate activists and more
dynamically recently the anti- austerity
activists that have been uh campaigning
since the financial crash into the
consequences of the financial crash were
imposed upon the people least to blame
for it um and they would normally they
grown up despising the labor party they
would not naturally have have gone into
the labor party except for this strange
rule change which was brought in for
completely different reasons which
allowed anybody to vote for3 pounds
which was transformed it opened up the
load party allowed those people to come
in um plus the fact that there was a
candidate in Jeremy Corbin who nobody
could question his commitment they'd
seen him on protest they'd seen him at
their events for for for decades and he'
been Central to the all Liv I was in at
the birth of new labor and long before
that too but always their project was
one Member One vote which for them meant
the abolition of Trade union power
Affiliated power in the labor party and
they always had the idea of us style
primaries where as you've just put it
more or less anybody can vote three
pounds more or less nothing in the US
you can do it for nothing uh and they
thought that that would strengthen them
it's the biggest boomerang in in in
labor history isn't it well I mean it's
Yeah ironic is a is an understatement
it's it's quite extraordinary they they
just assumed if you look in in into the
reasons behind that change for the three
pound votes which was the Blair rights
project it wasn't millerand went Ed
millerand went went along with it he he
introduced it but it was their project
he did it at their behest
um and yeah they just assumed that there
there was this reservoir of Centrist
Proto blairites out there who who just
would come in and and refloat the new
labor ship if only they could be given
access to Labour party internal
elections obviously if you
allow um part political activists to
take part in the process you're going to
get political activists they didn't seem
to anticipate that and and uh worked out
well for for the in fact the the Blair
rights are there in Parliament still
that's where they are and that seem to
be the only place no island where they
in Parliament and in the media I mean
the media is still faithful to the
articles of faith of blism if not
entirely for Blair himself and in the
party machine which is extremely
important which has been a small machine
of late though now labor has 58 million
in the bank uh so that machine can
become much bigger and uh should I Demar
only uh in one respect to your analysis
you date the beginning of the collapse
uh as the crash in 2008 I would say it
was the war in 2003 the Confluence of
the disaster that the Iraq War became if
it had prospered uh none would have
called it treason as they say uh and
Then followed by the economic collapse
and the total failure of Labor to to
provide an answer to it so you've now
got neocon foreign policies neoliberal
domestic and economic
policies equaling a total failure of uh
a systemic failure of new labor and it
was those two streams coming together
that swept Jeremy to power yeah I agree
um and also the the privatization they
introduced into the NHS and education
and other things which is completely
against the grain of Labor politics and
just alienated members and made people
frustrated even people on the right of
the labor party even the old right you
know the sort of the tradition in labor
party which comes from Roy Hatley and
people like that they were opposed to
the dogmatic insistance by the Blair
rights that you had to have markets in
public services but I agree it the the
anti-war movement the marketization and
the financial crash which was the end of
the whole new labor deal that you could
allow the city to run free as long as
they cut the government in on some of
the rewards that was proved to be a
catastrophic Gamble and I think you know
it's it's hardly surprising that they
were so discredited probably the more
surprising thing is it took so long you
have a we with wordss my friend which is
why it's such a good uh book Let's uh
before we get too carried away remind
the viewers of some Salient facts Jeremy
Corbin won a landslide Victory and by
the way if the 240,000 purged had been
allowed to vote his score would have
been closer to 80% than
62% uh but the national executive of the
labor party is once again in the hands
of people hostile to him and the media
hostility has gone through the roof so
what does all this mean for the future
well I think we saw in the coup which
just happened in this Summer that they
thought the labor rights thought that
those three centers of power which are
their centers of power the media the
Parliamentary party and the party
bureaucracy would be strong enough to to
overthrow Jeremy Corbin they were
they're completely bewildered and
shocked that it turned out not to be so
if they had if they had read my book
which they couldn't have done because it
hadn't come out but if they had read my
but before they launched their coup they
might have learned about how Jeremy
Corbin became leader in 2015 and they
could have predicted from that that he
would survive the coup in 2016 because
his sources of power were different his
sources of power in the movement that
coalesced around him in the trade unions
and in the party members as distinct
from the movement um and those prove
stronger than than the forces opposed to
Corin so far but it's it's a constant
battle and it's going to continue to be
a constant battle we just saw at this
labor conference uh this past week we
saw um the NEC expanded itself to
include two more anti- Corbin likely to
be anti- Corbin uh representatives from
Scotland and Wales to completely obviate
all the work that went in over the
summer to get a Corbin majority on the
NEC that's I think a very bad defeat
which is going to be is going to have
long-term consequences because it now
means that the NEC can probably block
Corbin's Central aim really which is to
democratize the labor party and allow
the members to have a Ser policy
and uh change the currently undemocratic
rules where you require something of the
order of 45 members of parliament to
nominate the leader so God forbid if if
Jeremy uh fell under a Clapham Omnibus
no left-wing candidate could possibly
get into the race under the current
rules but they said that about Jeremy
Corbin I know they're probably not going
to make the same mistake twice trust me
morons as they called themselves would
not make the same mistake again so
that's very important for the future
Germany is
67 and uh he does cycle uh something God
forbid could happen to him and it would
mean that it all of this had been for
nothing it would be a return to the
status quo ante well it would be a it
would be a huge defeat but on the other
hand the movement which has grown up
around Corbin which didn't exist a year
a year ago year and a half ago coherent
way no it was disperate it was loads of
forces and then Corbin gave it a focus
it came together um and it's not about
Corbin it's this movement was there but
it just needed something to do um and
that's now far stronger than it was I
mean it's far stronger this year than it
was last year the coup has galvanized
that movement brought people together I
was just at the momentum conference in
Liverpool the world transformed
conference which was happening alongside
the labor party conference and you know
it's genuinely quite exciting to see
people coming together and for and
everybody there knows that it's not just
just about Jeremy Corbin that they have
to do stuff themselves they have to
build in communities and so on and so
forth if if all that energy and
excitement is turned into concrete
action then I think yeah so by the next
coup attempts it would be even a bigger
Force to protect absolutely and even if
it doesn't even if it although the the
purged will not be reinstated by this
current uh NEC so that's that's a
quarter of a million people that paid
their money to the labor party and got
excluded okay the ones on the £5 but a
lot of people joined and were cut off by
the six month exclusion date they're
going to become eligible yeah it's a
fantastic book I wish you all the best
uh with it the publisher is our
books.com that's where to buy it or
books.com thanks Alex nuns for joining
us on the Sputnik coming up next it's
the tor's turn as they gather in
Birmingham for their annual conference
don't miss
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it welcome back to Sputnik Kenneth Clark
the best leader the tor's never had in
some people's eyes says that prime
minister Theresa May doesn't know what
she's doing on the biggest of all
British questions brexit now these may
be clouds no bigger than Liam Fox's hand
but they could be harbingers of great
storms to come joining us now is the man
who really is the best leader the tor's
never had at least in my opinion former
Minister and London Merl candidate Steve
Norris now these clouds Steve uh they
may be no bigger than Liam Fox's hand
which trust me is not a big hand it's a
Donald Trump siiz hand uh but they
nonetheless could be harbingers of great
storms to come because the Tories do
have some difficulties ahead well of
course the Tories were split entirely as
were other parties between leers and
remainers uh there's no question that
when Mrs May said brexit means brexit it
unfortunately gave rise to the whole
question but what does brexit mean uh
you know and there's another issue which
is that she doesn't have a large
majority in Parliament um she has now
got us dread carefully she's clearly
made no friends among the Cameron
Osborne Brigade and that's more than
just the two of them so this is going to
be quite a testing time for her I
suspect personally incidentally I may
say I'm really delighted there's a
grown-up in charge I think that she and
Philip Hammond are political grown-ups
uh that they're more concentrating on
the real issues on making sensible
decisions which are in the country's
best long-term interest perhaps you know
maybe she's not going to be telling us
Sushi thinks ought to win Britain's Got
Talent but personally I think that's a
bit of a step forward so it'll be
testing but as of yet I'm in Theresa's
Camp definitely well she's grown up in
the sense she's rather older than recent
Prime Ministers I I'll grant you that
but there is some sense in which these
divisions and books are coming out now
which are exacerbating these divisions
and more to come we understand uh as you
say there is no definition yet you and I
were both I think for brexit but you and
I probably have very different views of
what Britain should look like and what
its relationship to the European uh uh
Mainland should be in the future so
where do you think she is
headed well personally actually just
I'll just say that I don't think you and
I would be far apart on where we think
Britain should be in its relations with
the rest of Europe because you know this
idea that our leaving the European
Union's corrupted bureaucracy um is the
same as us somehow turning our backs on
Europe is offensive and ludicrous you
wouldn't want that neither would I I I
think what she's going to find whatever
her instincts uh is that the only option
available is what we now call hard
brexit and I'll tell you why first of
all let's get rid of the idea that hard
means aggressive tough difficult you
know and all of those sort of rather
unpleasant words any more than soft
means oh let's just shake hands and love
each other you know the reality is that
if the rest of the EU is not or if the
EU as a body is not prepared to move on
us taking back control of our borders
and given that that was clearly what
over 17 million people were telling us
in the referendum then it seems pretty
clear that there is no point in trying
to subsequently negotiate our continued
membership of the single market so the
obvious thing for us to say is look
we're out we're out of the single Market
uh the single Market of course uh
excluding the UK sells as much to the UK
as it sells to the United States of
America last time I looked the US wasn't
actually in the single Market neither
did it have open borders so here's the
deal we're not going to impose any
tariffs unless you do first now I saw
yesterday for example the head of Jaguar
Landrover a major uh Automotive producer
in the UK saying he was very worried
about the implications for hard brexit
let me tell you he's not half as worried
as the bus of Mercedes Benz BMW Audi
Volkswagen Porsche remember that the UK
is home to 20% of the German Auto
Industries exports 20% so you know my
view is that there's no point in trying
to negotiate with the remaining 27 we'll
be doing that till you and I are long
gone it's a ridiculous proposition we
just have to say we're out now what's
our future relationship going to be is
it Gat tariffs which average 3 to 4% um
because frankly if it is remember that
the currency fluctuations are going to
be much more significant than that
that's has much more to do with the
competitiveness of your Imports or
exports uh or are we going to go for
some completely tariff free regime where
you know you want to trade with us you
sell far more to us than we sell to you
uh and if you're happy to do that we're
perfectly happy to do it I think hard
brexit by which I mean we leave is
actually the only practicable way
forward and when Mrs May has discussed
it you and I I know what she now does
she studies she reads all the evidence
she comes to her own conclusion she may
find that difficult incidentally when
she's trying to run 20 government
departments but that's her method and I
think on this as you rightly said the
most important question in Britain right
now she'll study it she'll read
everything and she'll come to the
conclusion this is the only practical
Way Forward well I I'm with you in every
particular on what you just said
although I make this caveat and I know
because I know you very well that you
agree that uh free movement of Labor is
what we are Keen to stop not people uh
we're not against people because they're
foreign or I'm married to uh one we're
I'm talking about the labor Supply if
you flood the labor Supply then you
drive the price of Labor down this is
simple economics uh well I I again I'm
with you because uh you know my own view
is that when you take back control of
your borders you most certainly don't
shut them that would be absurd it would
not only be inhumane but it would also
be against our own national interests we
need skills we need uh tourists we need
all sorts of people to come here and
enjoy coming to the UK whether they're
coming to settle or merely coming to
visit I couldn't agree more about that
and just to say that the real tragedy in
terms of importing uh effectively cheap
labor is that that cheap labor itself
that migrant labor is being exploited
let's be clear and in the process is
making profits for employers but at the
expense not only of those exploited
migrants but of other people of our
citizens in this country all colors all
colors or from wherever they came who of
course are not they haven't seen their
wages rise in five or six years this is
an old convinced Tory saying this you
know I still believe that the the
divisions in our society have to start
to close and that this is one way in
which we've got to make sure that
happens that's what that 17.4 million
people in my view were arguing for they
weren't saying we never want to see any
more migrants or we never want to see a
foreigner again it wasn't jingoistic it
was saying look my job you know I'm I'm
trying hard to raise a family I haven't
seen an increase in pay for 5 years it's
because of this cheap labor which of
course we know is being exploited indeed
uh how are the Tories doing otherwise uh
it's a bit like U uh um apart from that
Mrs Lincoln how did you enjoy
secondate but how I mean do you feel
that may is a kind of gentler kind of
Tourism a more hard edged kind of
Tourism to Cameron what what actually is
she well well I think well I think
she's it really is true that you know
what you see is what you get she's a
daughter of Parson um she was educated
at grammar school brought up in a
perfectly straightforward middle class
household succeeded in her own chosen
business area in banking with the bank
of England and Barky and other people uh
who got into po politics for really good
reasons she's somebody who I think wants
the best for the country uh she's
dedicated she's hardworking even to the
point perhaps of not necessarily having
a great or original sense of humor she's
not a particularly warm person she
probably knows that I think you're going
to see uh does make her closer to the
people than Cameron you think because
that's what one of the suggesting
actually yeah I mean I actually think
she will be that's the irony you know
because David Cameron tried so
desperately hard to be one of the call
me dead you know the infamous Andrew
Neil line which he you know still
ruthlessly uses but there was an element
of that I used to I remember saying to
to to Emma my wife um hey if I ever take
you on a three star holiday on ryion a
to meorc you know you got the right to
divorce me you can have the lot you know
what poor old Samantha had to put up
with God these were all poses but they
were they were unconvincing weren't they
because plainly David Cameron and his
wife were
from a gilded uh 1% of the population
and all their friends were if they
weren't in the noting Hills set they
were in the chipping Norton set do you
think May represents in class terms in
Social terms a different segment yes
very much very much she had she she
represents the category I certainly fall
into and millions of people I know do
which is um you know coming from Fairly
humble background but going to a decent
grammar school then to a good University
and then making your own way in the
world and that's fair very very
different from the you know from the
sort of uh Notting Hill uh trust aarian
Brigade um uh she will have nothing to
do with that does that make her better
well only time will tell um she's still
untried um Andrew ronley wrote a very
good piece when he said that she's
enjoying a honeymoon but but it's perhap
masking that uh one of her weaknesses
which is that if she if she stayed in
the home office for six years by
studying every document that went across
her desk reading every single piece of
data and not allowing anything through
that she wasn't happy with you can maybe
do that with one department but let me
tell you as a minister a former minister
in a department uh and working in four
departments all together you can't do
that with 20 Departments of state it
just won't work so we've got to see
whether or not she can translate this
great I think this great sense of I'm a
straightforward person you know she says
I I lunch with journalist but I don't
gossip must be a great
lunch but you know what I mean um um
when you when you know you're going to
see a more serious uh a more committed
kind of government um whether it's more
successful only time will tell person
only time for one more question is the
lack of a a mandate uh going to
handicapper isn't there ineluctably
going to be pressure for an earlier than
2020 general election exactly yeah well
the lack of parliamentary majority is
clearly concern for her particularly
because her radical reshuffle of
government did make some enemies and you
and I know there's nothing worse than a
former Minister who's disgruntled about
having lost the job and given it to
somebody that he regards as less than
his equal um but whether she'll go for
that early election I'm not sure you
know that's out of her character she's
not an opportunist she says I have a
mandate I'm going to deliver it my own
view is that whilst there will be people
saying to her strike while labor is
let's face it as weak as it is uh and
basically wipe them out um that might
sound attractive but she's not a risk
taker and unless she really is driven to
that by perhaps uh opposition in her own
party I suspect she'll run the full
term well we'll see and I hope you and I
are both still around to see how it all
plays
out Steve Norris thank you for joining
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us and now it's your turn to tell us
what you think through the portals of
social media what ratling gu so we're
discussing labor and the Tories this
week and on the first Ricardo Picasso
has to say the following in his first
weeks as leader he transformed the party
back into a labor movement and euroman
and activist says the Tories have no
mandate they only had 24% of the votes
76 of the English and nobody in Scotland
and that's all the tweets we've got time
for which alas means that that's the end
of the show you can stay in touch with
us though on social media on Twitter at
rtor Sputnik or on Facebook Sputnik on
Russia today it's goodbye from me gatri
and from me George Galloway it's been
marvelous
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