Transcript of Peter Hain interview

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Andrew Marr interviewed Shadow Welsh Secretary Peter Hain on June 26th 2011.

ANDREW MARR:

The Labour Leader Ed Miliband gave his party a stern talking to yesterday. It had lost touch. It must change, it must become more open to the wider public beyond its activist base. A mass movement, he said, couldn't be built by central control. But there's one area in which he's keen to take more power to himself, and that's in selecting his own shadow cabinet. Like a football manager, he wants to choose his own top team. Will his MPs back him? Well Peter Hain is in charge of the project to overhaul the Labour Party and he joins us now. Welcome.

PETER HAIN:

Good morning, Andrew.

ANDREW MARR:

Good morning. Now you've come through with a series of concrete proposals that are being discussed and it seems that at the heart of these is the notion that Labour parties locally, in your own town and village or wherever they are, have got to open out much more to the people around them; and if they want to have debates at party conference, they have to get signatures and show that it's a popular issue.

PETER HAIN:

Yes, that's one idea that Ed Miliband's put forward. What we're embarking on here is a really serious transformation of a political party, the biggest one undertaken in living memory, because politics has changed and we're a party (like the others are) that are still stuck in the past. People don't relate, they don't join parties. There's been a catastrophic decline in all political parties. So we're transforming the party locally and we're transforming it nationally, to open it up to the public and to individuals who feel they want to make their contributions to our policy and to our future.

ANDREW MARR:

Okay, so give me some… If it's so big, give me some examples of what that means.

PETER HAIN:

Well take those seats which resisted the national swing against us last year. I mean we did terribly in the last General Election, but seats that should have gone to the Tories with multi thousand majorities like Edgbaston in Birmingham or Oxford East were retained by Labour. Now what happened there? Something pretty important. The MPs concerned mobilised hundreds and hundreds of local supporters who then were in the middle of their communities, and we were able to build a movement that resisted the national swing. So what we're embarking upon here is creating an entirely new political movement capable of …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) But is this saying more people need to join the Labour Party or what?

PETER HAIN:

Obviously we'd like more people to join …

ANDREW MARR:

Yuh.

PETER HAIN:

… and 65,000 people have joined since the last General Election. We're the only growing party.

ANDREW MARR:

But that wouldn't be a transforming change.

PETER HAIN:

No it wouldn't, it wouldn't because what we need to do is make sure our local parties embed themselves in their local communities and then at a national level to run the kind of campaign that Barack Obama ran in beating all the Right Wing fixing and the dirty tricks he faced from the Republicans to storm that election. (AM tries to interject) I think we're in a much better position to win the next General Election than people may suppose if we transform our party in the way that Ed wants to do.

ANDREW MARR:

So what you're saying really is that Labour parties - not just the Labour Party, but local Labour parties - were too inward looking, were thinking about themselves and their own navels and not really what was going on around them?

PETER HAIN:

Yes, we were stuck in our own structures, and that has been true for a long time and New Labour didn't manage to change that. Indeed it became in some ways more inward looking. So what Ed wants to do is open the party up. So, for example, those groups out there in civil society who want to change and want to oppose this very Right Wing reckless government that the Tories are leading can look to Labour not to join Labour in the way the trade unions do, for example, or affiliate, but to actually have a link with us, put their ideas in, maybe speak at our National Policy Forum, maybe come to party conference and have their say without having to join up to the party.

ANDREW MARR:

Money, however, is crucial to all of this and 90 odd per cent of your money is now coming from the union. I think 36 per cent in the last quarter came from one single union. Hardly any major individual donors. If the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats push through these or put through these new changes to the law, which make £50,000 the maximum possible single donation, the Labour Party is scuppered, isn't it?

PETER HAIN:

Well the Tories and Liberal Democrats are pretty ruthless in trying to rig British politics in their favour. They have gerrymandered the parliamentary boundaries …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) Everybody does that a bit.

PETER HAIN:

Not in the way that they're doing it. They've broken the whole tradition of the way the boundary commissions determined on a basis of consensus what seats were represented around Britain and they're fixing that. Now they're trying to address the question of political funding, as you say, which could damage union funding. Now this is not a few barons deciding to contribute to the party, like a few rich people contribute to the Tories. This is millions of people paying small amounts of money across the country through their political levies to the party, and that's what makes us a much more democratic party than any of the others.

ANDREW MARR:

I come back to the question: what do you do if this £50,000 limit is put in because it will end your union funding and you're so dependent on the unions at the moment?

PETER HAIN:

Well if they do that - and it would be a blatant political fix - if they do that, then what we will do is actually drive this project that I am leading for Ed Miliband even further. You know Barack Obama didn't have just have large donors.

ANDREW MARR:

(over) That would be good for your party, wouldn't it, because it would relieve …

PETER HAIN:

(over) Well of cour… We're going to do that anyway.

ANDREW MARR:

Yuh.

PETER HAIN:

But we see our partnership with the trade unions as really important because we have a reach into workplaces that none of the other parties do, and we want to extend that and we want to extend into the communities. But I think once we have essentially thousands and thousands of supporters linked to the party as well, they will want to contribute - in small amounts perhaps but they'll add up to large amounts too - so that we get alternative sources of funding.

ANDREW MARR:

So you're saying turn it into a genuine mass membership party if we can't get the union money. Because you cannot be happy, presumably that - you know there's all sorts of strikes coming up and lots of disputes about the disputes - that a third of Labour Party funding is coming from one single union?

PETER HAIN:

Well I'm pleased that we're getting funding from whatever sources we can …

ANDREW MARR:

Sure, but …

PETER HAIN:

… because we're up against a big mountain of funding that the Tories get from rich people. But what we're trying to do is create a mass movement. I don't think a mass membership party is on the cards in the way that we used to talk about it, Tony Blair talked about it once. We want to create a mass movement in which the boundaries between the party members and our structures and people outside, whether in communities or in workplaces, are broken down. We look outward rather than inward. If we can do that, as Obama showed, then we can be a powerful political force regardless of the Right Wing fixing that we're having to face.

ANDREW MARR:

Ed Miliband's putting his proposals to change the way in which the shadow cabinet is selected, so that he can choose his own shadow cabinet tomorrow. Is that going to go through, do you think?

PETER HAIN:

I'm sure it will. There are a few voices against it, but I think everybody believes that the old system is obsolete and …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) And is that … Sorry.

PETER HAIN:

… and he should be able to pick the best team, as he said, like a football manager does.

ANDREW MARR:

We have noticed that shadow cabinet people have not been coming out in huge numbers in support of the leader over the last few weeks and months. Is this a response to that?

PETER HAIN:

No, it's not. It's something he's been thinking about for quite a while. He just feels the old system where shadow cabinet members have to look behind their backs all the time to see whether they can win a popularity contest or to buy a lot of pints in the Strangers Bar at the House of Commons to win votes … The best way to do this is to pick the best people. He's got a good team, but in the future he wants the very best team - the team that's able to take on and beat the Tories - and that's why he's driving it through. This is an example of Ed Miliband being prepared to be tough. I think people are underestimating him. I think he's getting into his stride. His speech yesterday showed that and I think he's going to get stronger.

ANDREW MARR:

And finally we're on the edge of huge waves of strikes by many of the people contributing money to your party. What's your message to those people? Should they not go on strike? Should they talk? What's the message?

PETER HAIN:

Well of course there should be talks and negotiations, and one of the things that's led to this situation is the government's reckless and arbitrary attack on public sector pensions without being willing to negotiate. I mean here's Michael Gove coming on your programme and he's urging parents to break strikes, so that's not a responsible way of resolving these situations. I don't think political leaders in opposition or in government should either applaud strikes or condemn strikes. I think what we should be trying to do is resolve strikes. I used to be a trade union national official. This will …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) So you won't urge people to go to work on Thursday?

PETER HAIN:

I don't think it's for us to urge people to do anything. I think people only go on strike if they really feel they've got no option. Teachers and others are not strike happy people. And what this government should do is withdraw their unilateral reckless attacks on these workers and actually get round the negotiating table like everybody wants them to do and resolve the dispute. In the end, that is what will have to happen.

ANDREW MARR:

Peter Hain, thank you very much indeed.

PETER HAIN:

Thank you.

INTERVIEW ENDS

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