173. Question Time: Corbyn's expulsion from Labour, Belgium's sex education crisis, and how would Blair fare as PM today?

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1:19Welcome to another episode of The Rest Is Politics Question Time with me, Alistair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. Here I am still in New York and I'm going to begin with a question which I think is very topical. So, front of the show doesn't want to be named. Says, what are Alistair and Rory's thoughts on India expelling a senior Canadian diplomat? After Trudeau suggested Delhi may have been involved in the murder of a Sikh separatist leader, so just to remind people of what happened here. It's a pretty astonishing moment. A prominent Sikh activist in Canada was gunned down by two masked men in the street.

1:54And the Canadian government has now said they have credible evidence of the involvement of the Indian government, Narendra Modi's government, in assassinating a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil and have expelled a senior Indian diplomat. Hello, we're talking, we're talking on the main podcast about impunity. We've had situations in the UK where the Russians have wiped out people here. We had a situation up in Manchester where Chinese diplomats were diplomats in quotes, were involved in taking action against their own people on British soil. And I think if you go back to some of the discussions we've had in recent weeks about Modi, I think there is a real worry about the extent to which Modi is becoming more and more, how do we put it, extreme in his positions, and often if you become extreme in your positions, you become extreme in your actions.

2:46And I don't believe that Trudeau would be absolutely well aware of the consequences of him coming out and calling this out. So I suspect when he says credible allegations of a link between the death and the Indian state, I don't think he'd say that lightly. We should point out that India has made clear in their view that what Trudeau is saying is absurd, that it is not true that they wiped out this guy on the streets of Canada. Yeah, well, of course, I mean, this is a very deep issue. And when I was a minister, there was a strong issue about a British citizen who had been effectively kidnapped by the Indian government and was and were credible allegations around his tortures that can seek.

3:27There are very long -standing issues between the Sikh community and the Indian government with the Indian security agencies very involved. And of course, Indira Gandhi was assassinated in her home in New Delhi by two of her bodyguards who were Sikhs who were protesting against the actions that she'd taken against the Golden Temple in Amritsa. And tensions between Punjab and Delhi are very strong at the moment, partly because a lot of the air pollution in Delhi is blamed on crop burning Punjab, etc. So there are many issues in the background, but I think the most important issue is that to assassinate in that way, and a particular sort of brutal public out of the back of a van, machine gunning somebody down the streets in a friendly country, is a step that I would never have expected the Indian government to take.

4:09I mean, that's going into full Russia territory. Yeah, just to give people the issue that's at the heart of this, the guy who's been killed is called Nijar. He'd been campaigning for something called Kalistan, which is the creation of an independent Sikh homeland in the Punjab region. And clearly, that's something that Modi doesn't like. Now, we don't know. We have you and I, and none of our listeners have any clue as to who these people were that gunned him down. But I, in a way that I probably would be a little bit skeptical of listening to Modi's denials. I do attach a certain amount of credibility to something like Trudeau standing up and saying what he said.

4:49Now, Karyad, can you talk about the protests in Brussels happening over compulsory Sikhs education? Well, it's not just in Brussels. This is happening in several parts of Belgium. Have you been following this one, Roy? No, tell us about it. Essentially, what's happened is that there have been a number of arson attacks on schools that have been teaching Sikhs education. And the Prime Minister, Alexander de Kru, he's actually called in the government experts on extremism after I think six schools now have been touched. And this is something called the Evera program. And this is where children in schools are required to take four hours of Sikhs education, split between age 11 to 12 and 15 to 16.

5:38Now, you wouldn't think that was very dramatic or very radical. But it's gone from being voluntary, which it was, to now being compulsory, because they feel that they've got issues of sexual health and sexual education that they need to address. And it's led to a number of schools being attacked. It's led to divisions with some Islamic groups who have complained that this is all about what they call hyper -sexualization of their children. And they've, you know, back to our friend, misinformation, online conspiracy theories, all sorts of nonsense has been flooding the internet that what this program ever is about is actually sort of sexualizing children, teaching children age five to be, you know, sexually active and all this sort of nonsense.

6:23So the government's out there trying to damp down all these rumors. And in the meantime, they're addressing a number of cases of arson. So it's pretty worrying. And the local mayor and one of the areas where this happened has said this is no better and worse or to the terrorism. It is terrorism. Yeah, but it's very striking. I mean, here in the states, I was talking to a group of people involved in the Biden Trump campaigns at the last couple of days. And I was making the point that I saw economics as being central to the fact that the 2008 financial crisis globalization had had such a bad impact on the incomes of many people in marginal bits of the US.

6:59And they came back with two things. And we won this. They pointed out that actually incomes now outside London and the southeast in the UK are somewhere between Mississippi and Alabama. In other words, we have very extreme version of the same thing. But also they said that it's a mistake to see much of what Trump is doing in terms of economics. It's largely culture war stuff. And it, of course, it's very much what the Sweller brotherhood and tendency in the conservative party lent and tune that Boris Johnson was trying to lean into whenever he was sending people out to talk about statues that there is a sense in which something about the modern political landscape means that you can get a long way in politics talking about sex education or transgender issues or in the US issues around abortion, rather than focusing on issues like how you regulate AI or sort out the economy.

7:44Let's bring home Jeremy Corbyn, a new age on Wednesday's podcast, where we said Jeremy Corbyn has a problem with anti -Semitism, but should not have been dismissed from labor due to his status and history within the party. Isn't that like arguing that Louise Rubiali's has an issue with sexual harassment but shouldn't be dismissed for the same reason. We talked a bit about your interview in the Varamedia last week and we talked a bit about it in our trips to Scotland and Bath. The background first, I gave an official Varamedia where I said that I thought it was mad and disgusting that Kisama had effectively de facto expelled Jeremy Corbyn from Parliament.

8:20And I guess I was reflecting on a constitutional point that I care about a great deal and obviously maybe I care about it too much because Boris Johnson did the same thing to me and to 20 other MPs who rebelled against his version of a nodial Brexit. The point is that in the British system there are two reasons why leaders should not be able to expel MPs. One of them is that in a first pass the post system, our parties need to be quite broad coalitions because the electoral system doesn't deliver diversity in Parliament. But the second more important constitutional reason is that we don't have a proper separation between the legislature and the executive and the only way in which we can have a functioning Parliament is if members of Parliament have considerable freedom towards their leaders and are able to exercise it otherwise you end up basically with the kind of elective dictatorship.

9:07But the parties do have rules. Yeah absolutely so I would say that maybe in a choosing Jeremy Corbyn as my hill to die on was an eccentric thing to do. But I still hold to the point which is absolutely there was horrifying anti -semitism in Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party. Jeremy Corbyn equivocated around the report that was produced on anti -semitism and I think Keir Starmel is absolutely right to make it clear that he's going to root out anti -semitism in the Labour Party. But there is a constitutional point which is that MPs should be removed through legal processes, through parliamentary committees but I don't think it's appropriate for them to be removed by their leaders and one of the reasons for that is that actually what it does is very quickly play into the Labour Left to feel that this is an alibi which is being brought together for Starmel to assert his power over the party and obviously I was hit very hard on this.

10:02I got attacked very hard by Mamsa Jewish community who said I was being insensitive to anti -semitism and I was also attacked very hard by the Jeremy Corbyn Left who said that I was giving in to people by saying that there was anti -semitism in Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party. So it's being attacked very hard from both sides and it's a very strange experience on social media to do that. If it's any consolation Rory, I was being attacked for not attacking you enough and I was also being attacked for attacking you too much. So I think it's just one of those issues that it's very hard to have a rational debate but there was another question from somebody called Aaron who just said you know you've kind of half addressed this.

10:38Has Rory read the EHRC report into the Labour Party and Corbyn's response to it? Corbyn was offered a way back in by apologising or withdrawing but he simply refused and I think that is the point. It's not that Keir Starmer was withdrawing the whip kicking out the party because of being Jeremy Corbyn. It was the fact that he would not accept the process that they put in place. I'm afraid we live in a world and we have an unwritten constitution and that means that we have to depend on unwritten rules and conventions and before Boris Johnson. Yeah but the Labour Party has a written constitution.

11:09The Labour Party has a rule. Yeah but aside from the Labour Party's written constitution leaders before Boris Johnson did not act to defact to expel their MPs and the reason why it's a defact to expulsion is that it first passed the post system. If you're stripped of the party whip and you try to stand again it's almost impossible to get back into parliament so we have to be realistic about what's happening here which is going to be very difficult for Jeremy Corbyn now to remain in parliament. And I do think there's a tendency now and this was started by Johnson to say well is the leader right or wrong so his supporters would say in relation to throwing out me and Ken Clark and Winston Churchill's grandson and five cabinet ministers in the rest.

11:45Well all that matters is that we were on the wrong side on Brexit and Boris had to get stuff done had to drive through as no deal Brexit. It's also one of the reasons I'm getting upset at the moment about the fact that Biden is supporting the use of cluster munitions in Russia and Ukraine. When I say I'm completely against cluster munitions people say do you want Russia to win and I'm saying no I'm not saying I want Russia to win. I'm saying that we spend a long time bringing together conventions on trying to stop people doing this sort of thing and sometimes you are able and it's the difficult thing to say in the modern social media age you're able simultaneously to say I profoundly disagree with Jeremy Corbyn there was anti -Semitism and Corbyn say party but also and this is a some of Jonathan Sumpshen who's a judge has said leaders should not be expelling MPs from their parties in this way.

12:29Add us a lot more questions come let's just take a quick break.

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13:45Question for you Rob Wright we have slipped in extrably from cabinet government remember when Secretary of State used to make policy announcements to a presidential style where number 10 and the PM decide and announce everything but our institutions haven't kept pace how can we trigger a review stroke reset of the constitution oh I think if we were having a review stroke reset of the constitution which I think we talked about that in Bath didn't we I'd like to start with a blank piece of paper but on that specific point I guess what the question is about is the the reassertion of parliamentary authority as parliament being the place where ministers set out plans to the country and you know we got criticized a lot for bypassing parliament I don't believe that we did but I think what's changed is the 24 -7 media -age and now social media on top of it is that the policy development process is very very hard to keep a little bit people don't afraid people talk far too much and they talk far too much about decisions as they're being made as opposed to when the decision is made and therefore it makes it very difficult for a policy decision to be made in parliament the truth is we've gone way too far in the wrong direction so for example if you go back to the last budget I don't think there was anything on the day now people Chancellor's used to resign for the slightest hint of the budget being leaked but now it's just become sort of powerful the course of the budget gets sort of trotted out through the newspapers and it totally hollows out the significance of parliament I mean you know it's more and more difficult to make journalists concentrate on what's happening in parliament if nobody's concentrating the standard of speeches drops MPs don't bother to attend the chamber the whole thing feels completely useless and one of the few ways of keeping parliament central is to make sure that the big announcements are made and challenged in parliament absolutely and you can do that by the way even as the all the stuff is going around being dribbled out and leaked out I think as long as the number 10 machine is basically saying well that's not coming from us and you're saying you know we'll set this out next Tuesday and people can blather away all they want but that's when we're going to do it and I hope the care starter if he does become prime minister does reassert that who comes up with Starmer's gags this is from somebody called mark eggy Starmer's inaction man gag was pretty good this is when he called soon that inaction man will he have come up with it himself or will you've got it from a colleague or aid do leaders take these sorts of quits from the public on local visits what what are the best gags can you remember were any of them given to you well give us give I mean so you you were talking about one of your favorite speeches which you selected for hand side as one of your one of the hundred best speeches all time was John Smith John Smith said tell us about his gag it wasn't really a gag I mean that the headline of the speech or what became the headline the speech was John Major the man with the non -midered touch and John had done this whole litany of things that had gone wrong and he said no wonder we live in a country where the grand national doesn't start and hotels fall into the sea because that week the grand national hadn't started the beautiful start and they had to get all the horses back and also a hotel in Scarborough had fallen into the sea which actually is quite sad for the people who's hotel it was but John turned into into a joke and a sort of metaphor I mean it's interesting about speech writing the reason I laughed when I wrote the question that was because I used to ask comedians for jokes for conference speeches and Roy Hutt John but Roy Hutt no don't remember Roy Hutt you must remember Roy Hutt well Roy Hutt used to give us some very very funny very funny lines and some of them were just a bit too near the mark so we used to go through his jokes we use some of them I can't remember what they were we did use some of them but the thing about I don't know if you were like this as a as a speaker I mean Tony Blair is quite a serious guy but for a party conference speech he wanted at least three or four really good laughs and I'm quite good at one line as an I'm quite good at telling funny stories but you know sometimes you do you go out to the professionals anyway what happened was that I can't remember how it got out but somebody told the press that we were using Roy Hutt and all of a sudden there was all this talk about you know we were a joke and blah blah blah blah so you've got to be careful with it but yeah and also the thing about getting them from people the public on local visits keeping your ears open to what people are saying about other politicians is sometimes worth doing because you can get very very good lines from what the public is saying about Finland's former PM so Unimata Kukanan what's your view about Finland's former PM Sanna Marin leaving the parliament so soon after the elections contradicting her own assurances that she'll commit to work as an MP and taking job at Tony Blair Institute this is something that I think is a bit sad in British politics and something that I've always admired Theresa May for doing which is that she's a remained in parliament and she's going to stay for the next election and kept working as a backlash MP and I think that's a really good thing and I was one of things I read about and in politics on the edges that one David Cameron was interviewing me to be an MP he said if he ever stopped being Prime Minister he would continue as the MP for Whitney for the rest of his life and of course he stepped down almost immediately well what do you think about this tendency of people saying they're going to stay on his MPs and then heading out well I can say in my old boss Tony Blair's defense is that he always said that he was not going to hang around in parliament he felt that Prime Minister's hanging around it made it very difficult for the departing Prime Minister but also it could make it more difficult for the Prime Minister who followed so he felt it was the best thing to do I think if you say you're going to stay frankly it's better that you stay but you know the fact the fact somebody like Santa Marian I think she's still only in her 30s I think she's 37 so she's a former Prime Minister age 37 now I assume she could go back into parliament she could go back into politics perhaps she's made a judgment that the things that she's particularly interested in pursuing she can do it better now on a with a more international focus and I guess working for Tony Blair's Institute will give her access and opportunities I think she'd probably have had those anyway as a former Prime Minister I will at least now that she's in London Rory I think she's definitely a very interesting prospect for the for leading so we'll we'll go down that road the fact is leaders are becoming leaders of countries much younger than they used to and I think it means that the idea of people like somebody like her to sort of do a Ted Heath and hang around the finished parliament of the rest of alive I can see why that would have been pretty unappealing it's also partly I'm afraid that politics has become such a brutal and unpleasant business that you know somebody like Gladstone it was a relatively high status low stress shop sometimes it was something that you could imagine him stepping down as Prime Minister remaining on the back bench is giving it a few years coming back in again as Prime Minister I was talking to one of President Obama's aides and he was saying how sad it is to get a sense that President Obama is a bit directionless has slightly lost faith and the ability to really advocate for the center ground in politics that there is a real sense of pessimism and degradation in a lot of these countries and I think one of the recent trees may so impressive is the wind that she just hangs on in there and keeps standing for the kind of things that she got into politics to do but I think for many other people and presumably Santa Marin is one of them and it's presumably true for the ex -Prime Minister New Zealand too that it's just so bizarre and horrible politics and then you're asking a lot for people to to keep slogging away for the rest of their lives but it has it look either has to turn better or worse and I think they're one of the things of your book and one of the things of you know what we've talked about Truss and Johnson it's hard to imagine how our politics is not going to get better in some way you mentioned the the Tory and Labour candidates that you met in when they came out to see you in Jordan and I met them as well at the Ditchty Foundation and I actually was quite encouraged by the sort of people they were the sort of qualities I mean you know you're making very quick judgments because you just only a few small short chats with people but I was pleased that the sort of people that I met former soldiers from the business people doctor differ of that different sorts of people who still felt despite knowing all they know about politics I still want to go in and try and make a difference and I think eventually we will hopefully make a turn turn for the better talking with MPs here's a good question which you maybe have a better answer than I would emailing my MP Tom Billington I'm emailing to us as I'm at a complete loss and disillusioned with this country for the first time in my life I've emailed my MP tulip sedique Labour and I just wanted to know from you what good this really does what can I expect will it actually help it's a good question isn't it now he attached the email he sent to tulip sedique which is that he'd waited for nine hours in A &E before he was seen for a broken nose what do you think but I mean I'd regularly say to people write your MP do you think it does make any difference well it's it's very difficult to know I mean what one of the things is the volumes gone up so woolly white law who was my predecessor's predecessor and my constituency received his secretary said six letters a week and he would reply to them all handwritten in the library I counted on my first year in parliament I received 27 ,000 emails from constituents in a year that's out of only about 70 ,000 voters and how many of those would have been organized lobbies how many of those would have been you know pro -fox hunting or antifox hunting or pro -fracking maybe 30 40 % not as many as you'd think but but you're right there's those and those are weird because you'll receive 300 identical emails which you then have to reply to I mean it's important to understand that once the volume gets up and if you're getting five six hundred in a week it's not reasonable to believe that the MP is actually drafting the replies to every one of those emails so they what you end up with is big teams in your private office drafting and then what I would do is I'd read through the reply and I'd edit it or I'd add something at the beginning of the end or I'd reject it if I didn't like it but the work of the drafting is being done by the people I mean the other thing that was what odd about it is that of course the MPs don't have power of that sort you know we're not allowed to interfere I mean if you chilepsity was to ring up the A &E and say look my constituents stuck at the back of the like and you put them up to the front of the line she would get a pretty shirty response from the hospital and the same truth you know if you intervene on an immigration case the home office writes back it's one of the good things about the British system and says oh we're not having political interference and what goes on MPs don't have budgets MPs don't have power in their constituencies the power of an MP is to vote on legislation and parliament now it is true that when I wrote on behalf of constituents nevertheless what it does do is often make civil servants look for a second time at a case and in perhaps almost half of cases I was very struck that we were able to get things done by making the civil servant look at second time at some injustice that had been done to a constituent that injustice was right it but it did make me wonder is this a sensible way of proceeding because effectively the people who are lucky enough to get into see the MP in the surgery have a 50 -50 chance of having a case turned round those that don't get to see the MP in a following the normal process the normal procedures don't so I had a lot of questions about whether this is a sensible way to run a country yeah I thought one of the interesting parts of our conversation with the two Andes, Andy Burnham and Andy Street, the mayor's of Manchester and the West Midlands, was when Andy Street was saying that he thought actually it was it was harder to be the mayor with a government of the same party and I wonder sometimes whether for an MP is it easier or harder if you're fighting on behalf of constituent because you know you might know the minister but the minister frankly isn't going to give you know too much attention to an individual constituent as you complain whereas an opposition MP might be able to generate all sorts of bad publicity for the minister if they don't and it also depends whether it's a big majority I mean one of the problems is if there's a very slim majority you've lost your majority in parliament then MPs can really exercise often very unfair power and here's a question I liked and I'm going to have a go and then give to you Adam Serifin does Rory think that sortition choosing MPs by random lottery from a pool of volunteers is a violent option for modern roti I'm very attracted by sortition because it's the basis obviously of juries that's how juries are selected and citizens assemblies and it's how ancient Athens worked people were selected by by random lottery I wouldn't necessarily do it even from a pool of volunteers I I'm very interested in what happens you do it from the whole public now I'm not sure I've fully thought that through but I do think there's something really attractive about the idea of a genuinely representative sample of people and being more honest about the fact that in a way what MPs are there to do might be to represent the diversity in our society rather than particular forms of expertise and it will take the power away from the parties which I'd like maybe you were singing the praises of the New Zealand PR system although we did have a few kiwis rebutting back at that but maybe that is the only way to work is if you had constituency MPs but you also had a different sort of MP who had a different sort of role which was not constituency based but which was almost like a sort of a permanent citizen assembly or a permanent jury on the parliament but I I don't think it's as barmy an idea as some people do when we were in bath by the way on the way to the forum I went to do a talk in a in a primary school and one of the children there said to me ask me if I was in favour of keeping the voting age 18 or would I bring it down and I said yeah I would bring it down I bring it down to 16 and this child in front of me arms shot straight up and said why not five and I said well I don't know what you tell me what you think it should be five and she said because well listen to how we've been talking to you we think about these things a lot more than grown -ups do it's quite a good it wasn't fantastic I've got to say it was it was a primary school in Jacob Reese mock territory and the kids I was there for hours the kids were just non -stop sort of questioning but and they knew a lot about climate change and they were very very worried about it and we also had a little bit I didn't even say what I thought about Brexit Rory maybe some of their parents didn't have told them but we had little vote on whether we should go back in the European Union 100 % in favour so very sensible children I'd say so question for you how would Tony Blair's Labour coupe now Patrick Chapman of Tony Blair's Labour was coming to power post this Conservative party would they be successful in implementing change they inherited a decent economy in 97 but it won't be the case now yeah that's a very very good question I think look it's true look Keir Starmer if it becomes prime minister he's not coming into a very benign economic landscape but that's why some of the things that you talked about in your answer on the main podcast about you know how Labour should project themselves at the next election about developing an industrial strategy about having a different sort of commitment to the regions and so forth it's not all about money in the first stage is how I'd put it and I think that's what we did and don't forget for the first two years we did stick to Tory tax spend limits and and then started to signal the changes and they made the changes so I think you can do a lot I think and so I think Tony would have come in and wanted to take on some of the big challenges that we have now I think he probably would make a lot more of science and technology in AI I think probably would want to rebuild relations with the European Union but I was very pleased that even though I'm still raging about Brexit and still don't think Labour have called out the Brexit disaster nearly enough I did sense this week the first signals of Keir Starmer he did interview in the Financial Times where he said you know when it comes to renegotiating the trade and cooperation agreement we're going to have to get something far better than we've got so there's an understanding at least that this thing's got to be fixed my final question we haven't talked about films for a while Joe says what films have really touched you both and what are your favorite films of all the films I've seen recently I think the one that's touched me the most was Bella Kenneth Branagh's Belfast we're about three quarters of the way through the once upon a time in Northern Ireland I do think Northern Ireland lends itself to amazing human drama whether documentary or if a feature film but I thought Kenneth Branagh's film captured something incredibly touching about what it's like to be a child growing up surrounded by these these hatreds and I thought it was brilliant I think film that really touched me which maybe not everybody seen as a film called Call Me By Your Name which is a 2017 love story set in Italy with Timmerci Salome Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah really really beautiful movie um a set and I guess the early early 1980s and all Natalie but it's essentially about a young boy falling in love with a slightly older man and I think just beautifully paced beautifully acted and on literature also I cannot resist saying thank you to you for all your support on the on the sales of book because we've made it number one nonfiction high back politics on the edge sold 44 ,592 copies across all editions the first week so thank you very much for the support well there you go well done no that's a that's a big hit that's a big hit that's that that beats my first week I think so what what what are you reading is we know what you've written what are you reading Tom Holland who does the rest of history podcast and very kindly didn't event me at the barbacan has got me on to these Mcheron spy books yeah yeah you've tried them absolutely brilliant I get slagged off for mentioning the leader because it leads to people turning up but those of us who are 365 day a year people there is a sort of camaraderie and there's quite a lot of sort of book sending around so Martin Martin Martin there are two Martin's but Martin knows which Martin this is this what the one we call Martin high gate cemetery because he does guide he does guided tours high gate cemetery he got me onto the Mcheron novels and they are very very good I mean just quickly for people who've not not read them that they're set in slowhouse and it's kind of it turns being a spy into living in a sort of grimy sort of version of a disheveled kind of regional I don't know social security agency I'm going to give another plug to the book I mentioned yesterday La Piège and I'm going to do it in the context of I'm sure there are lots of people in publishing listen to our podcast honestly an English publisher needs to get hold of it it's a very very good book you don't understand future than what's happening in Ukraine until you really fully understand what you live with Nord Stream so I'm reading that and I'm also reading a a German novel by guy another another book by a guy called Alex Kapus who's not German actually I think he's Swiss but he writes in German very good well thank you honestly very much see you soon bye bye bye