................................................................................ ON THE RECORD ALAIN BEITH INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 30.4.95 ................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: The Tories have been trying to play down the importance of Tony Blair's victory yesterday but in one sense it causes even bigger problems for the Liberal Democrats. Everyone assumes they'll do well in the local elections next Thursday, perhaps very well, but after that we'll all be thinking of the next General Election and the argument goes that a modernised Labour Party makes the Liberal Democrats increasingly irrelevant. Alan Beith, after those celebrations, if that's what they are next Thursday night, you are going to have to face the reality aren't you that there's not really any point in the Liberal Democrats any longer. ALAN BEITH MP: I am glad you are counting on celebrations already, we don't take them for granted at this stage... HUMPHRYS: You expect you are going to win seats. BEITH: We are extremely pleased with the way things are going.. HUMPHRYS: Well then you will celebrate if you win seats.. BEITH: And that will demonstrate the point of course because very very large numbers of people will vote Liberal Democrat, very large numbers of seats will be gained I believe, we've already got a thousand more councillors elected since the last General Election, much of them, of course, during the time when the Labour Party was reviving itself and trying to change its character but the point will be seen, first because in so many places we are actually the people who can beat the Conservatives and the Labour Party are nowhere near doing so in many parts of the country, secondly, we can actually take on the Labour Party in areas where they seem to have hung onto power and used it badly over very many years, and you will see Liberal Democrat gains from Labour in cities and urban areas on that account. HUMPHRYS: Quite possibly, quite possibly, but that's the local elections and nobody disputes that you do well at local elections, usually at any rate, what I am talking about is the next General Election. BEITH: Well interestingly people do usually dispute that we are going to do well in local elections during them, and it's very..... HUMPHRYS: We are standing aside from party politics here Mr. Beith, this is...we are taking the broad view from the high ground here and the fact is yes, you've done well in local elections time after time and everybody expects you to do pretty well this morning, your leader expects you to get another what four or five hundred seats at the very least I'm talking about General Elections. BEITH: And in the next General Election we will build on the successes that we've enjoyed in local elections through the course
of this parliament. HUMPHRYS: You always say that and it never works does it. BEITH: We now have more members of parliament as well as more councillors than we've had at any time in the twenty two and a half years that I have been in the House of Commons and we have a very much changing political situation in which we are actually the only people around whose views are clear and recognised. The Conservative Party is undergoing very
considerable change, mainly in the direction of the tail wagging the dog, that is a section of the party telling John Major which way he has to go. The Labour Party has abandoned or appears to have abandoned traditional beliefs without telling us how it's going to tackle the things that people are talking to us about like education, how are they going to resource the improvements which we all believe are needed, how are they going to tackle the things like the Health Service, where they are creating great expectations without any indication that the resources are they to do it with. HUMPHRYS: Right but what it's done, what the Labour Party has done by your own admission is it's told people we have changed, so what it means is that you can't any longer claim that the Labour Party is a bunch of crazed Left wingers who are going to take us to hell and destruction, you've got to acknowledge that that party is different now and it has marginalised you. BEITH: Well the Labour Party has not changed in very many parts of the country where we are fighting it. Go and look at what Labour government is like in some of the cities of this country.... HUMPHRYS: I'm not talking about local government. BEITH: But that is the Labour Party, these are the people who have votes in party conference, these are the people who will be knocking on any Labour prime minister's door and saying now deliver what we want because that's when they will be in positions of power and we are the people who are challenging them, indeed, if Tony Blair is determined to change the Labour Party he should be privately cheering on all the occasions when
we defeat Labour in the areas where they have acquired this character over so many generations. HUMPHRYS: When people put their cross against their candidate in a General Election they have in their mind as much as anything, probably more than most things, the leader of the party for which they are going to vote and it's going to be Tony Blair in the case of the Labour Party and they know that Tony Blair is a different man to men that have gone before and they know that he has been responsible for dramatically changing the Labour Party from what it was and there are going to be many more changes to come. BEITH: They will see in Paddy Ashdown, a leader
who is quite clearly and recognised to be different, as someone with clear ideas
with a particular kind of experience in life which other political leaders these days don't seem to have. HUMPHRYS: Ah, but they know he is not going to become Prime Minister. BEITH: But they also know that the political world has changed dramatically, we've passed the days in which it is reasonable to hand over to parties huge amounts of power and the Labour Party have been given power on a plate in this way, has very noticeably abused it in town halls around the country, Conservative Government has abused it over now a very long period so that they can no longer distinguish between a party and the position they occupy in government to the detriment of us all. HUMPHRYS: You accept very realistically that Paddy Ashdown is not going to be our next prime minister, therefore, bearing in mind what's happened to the Labour Party, you've only got one role left haven't you, you've only got one job left basically and that is to be the junior partner to the Labour Party, in other words, this old policy, this old cliche, equi-distance is dead, it's gone. BEITH: You can't preserve equi-distance when other parties are moving around with the frequency that parties are, equi-distance is not the concept, the concept is independence, we are an independent political party, we have beliefs which other parties don't seem to have these days, we actually know why we want to do certain things and we've set our policies to do them, we have beliefs in the importance of education, the importance of the environment, the importance of distributing power, and we've set out policies to do these things. If we were not there doing that, they'd be a huge vaccum in politics now. HUMPHRYS: So what I said is basically true then that equi-distance, the old policy, the old concept of equi-distance has gone and because the Labour Party, as you say the parties are moving around all over the place, the Labour Party has moved that much closer to you, therefore, you are closer to them, I mean, that's a simple geometrical logic. BEITH: You know what we are and where we're going. The problem is you don't know where the Labour Party's going, how far it's going. Heaven knows how right-wing it may finish up in the direction it's
going now, and insofar as you know where the Conservative Party is going you know that it's going where people like Teresa Gorman will insist that it goes in order that they behave themselves within the Conservative Party. HUMPHRYS It's perfectly clear to the voters isn't it which direction the Labour Party is moving in. BEITH: It has been moving rightwards but where is it going to settle, and what policies will there be to determine that people get a better education, how will the resources be found? We have answered these questions, we have told people that if necessary we will put up taxation in order to fund the proper education system. That is what people are asking us about, they're not terribly interested in the vague philosophical discussions that the Labour Party has internally - they want to know what parties will do. HUMPHRYS: It's a bit of an insult isn't it to most voters, to most viewers for that matter, to suggest that they don't know which direction the Labour Party's moving in. It's manifestly obvious. BEITH: Nobody knows. HUMPHYRS: I mean we don't have a manifesto, of course we don't, but it's two years to the next election. BEITH: Nobody knows on what policy positions the Labour Party is going to land, and of course the great problem that is then faced is that just as in local government, if a Labour government were to come in without any clear commitment or any clear set of ideas, it would be pushed around and buffeted around by all the circumstances that hit governments with no clear sense of direction. British politics needs a sense of direction - local authorities need it, national government needs it and we can provide it. HUMPHRYS: But there's almost a sense of desperation on your party's part at this stage, isn't it constantly saying, Look we haven't ...(interruption) .... well you don't know until I've finished the question. BEITH: ..... when you say we're going to be celebrating next Thursday night. HUMPHRYS: Well, I'm not talking about next Thursday night, I'm talking about what happens after next Thursday night, about the long term future of the Liberal Democrats when we have Tony Blair - if we have Tony Blair in Downing Street, or indeed before that when it's manifestly clear that he's holding on to the sort of lead that he has at the moment, and I use the word desperation because you're clinging onto this notion that they don't have any policies yet. Well they do have a number of policies and you know that as well as I do, and as well as everybody else does. What they don't have are clear tax and spending proposals which obviously they wouldn't have as they keep telling us, as Tony Blair repeated this morning, because it's another two years to go yet, and when they know what's going to happen then they'll produce them, the goods, right. In the meantime all you can say is, they don't have the policies, therefore we don't know whether we're close to them or whether we're closer to the Tory Party, it's manifestly obvious. BEITH: We cannot determine where they are and what their policies are. We can tell people what we will do and in local government we can set out and do it, and if we're given the power and opportunities to do it on Thursday, Liberal Democrat councillors will do these things, and the same guarantee is there for Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons when the opportunity arises and we have this discussion prior to a general election. We're having it now prior to a local election, in which you accept that very many people in this country will elect Liberal Democrat councillors because they know we can make a difference. HUMPHRYS: Mr Blair has opened a door for you hasn't he. He's offered co-operation. He wants you to walk through that door. He's talked very warmly about co-operating with you. BEITH:: We're in favour of co-operating with parties and discussing in Scotland for example, we took part keenly in discussions about the constitution of Scotland which were open not only to political parties but to other organisations too. We're happy to do that sort of thing in this country, and in the United Kingdom as a whole. HUMPHYRS: But on a national level it's only the Labour Party you could conceivably operate with isn't it after the things you've said about the Tory Party? BEITH: We are in politics to pursue the ideas that we believe in, not to sell ourselves to some other political party. HUMPHRYS: And the Labour Party's ideas are closer to you than the Tory Party's aren't they? I mean you talk about yourselves as a party of the left. BEITH We talk about ourselves as a Liberal Democrat Party, a party which sets primacy in Liberal values, in beliefs in the environment, in beliefs in education and internationalism, things like this which are ... HUMPHRYS: And on all those levels you could support the Tories - of course you couldn't. BEITH: We don't go into politics to support other political parties. If we did we would be members of those parties, of the Labour Party, of the Conservative Party. We are there because of the beliefs we have, and the failure of the other parties successfully to channel - - to channel those kinds of beliefs into policies. HUMPHRYS: But you are a serious party. You always say that you're a serious party, you're not a debating society, you're not interested in ideas just for the sake of ideas, otherwise you could go and set up some little pressure group and that would be absolutely fine. You want some sort of power, otherwise you wouldn't be in politics would you? The way to get that power is to align yourself with another party, one way or another, co-operate closely with another party, even if it's only influencing their ideas. BEITH: They way for us to get power is not to align ourselves with other political parties, but to stand firm for what we believe in - that's what we shall do on Thursday and win many seats. We shall then use the power that the electorate give to us in a trustworthy way to ensure that we get into practice as much as possible .... HUMPHRYS: That's again at local level, but I.... BEITH: The same should apply at national level... HUMPHRYS: Well, oh fine. So at national level, whereas at local level you work with local councillors and you produce solutions for whatever the local area may be, what you believe the solution to be, you'd do that then with a Labour government, or indeed with Labour at this point. You've done a bit of this in the past. Are you saying you'd do a lot more of that, ae you saying that you would be perfectly happy to sit down with your Labour colleagues and say "Right now, your policy on so and so is such and such. Let's talk about that, let's see if we can't reach agreement on that policy, then we'll support you in the House and we'll do this, that and the other". Is that what you're talking about? BEITH: We're in favour of doing across issues in the House of Commons with all those who are elected to the House of Commons, and you should remember of course in local government the Conservative Party and the Labour Party work together against us. This is not just something that we should do, something that all the parties involved in and fascinatingly they work with each other against us. HUMPHRYS: Yes, but I hear Tony Blair saying, "We'd be very happy to co-operate with you, and once we get into power..." what was that phrase, "we won't say we're the masters now". Well, I mean that's the kind of thing that you've not heard from John Major. You must be very pleased with that and surely you then take that next step and say, "Alright we will work with you, much closer than we were doing in the past".. BEITH: Those words are quite significant, and they're not the words we hear in the town halls or the Labour Party all over the country. The phrase "We're the masters now", we've actually heard used, and versions of it used up and down the country, as the Labour Party hangs onto power. HUMPHRYS: He's not using it nationally. BEITH He's got to change a party for which this is a way of life, to take power into the centre where they've got it and make use of it. We're about changing the way the country is run, changing the style of democracy and for that we need to be an independent party. HUMPHRYS: Alan Beith thank you very much. ...oooOoo...