Lord Adonis: bit of a big-wig.
He's from a different side
of the Labour family than me
but this channel is about chatting to people
I don't necessarily agree with on everything.
Now, he's got a lot to say
on the scandal of privatised rail
and also on the biggie
we'll be talking about forever: Brexit.
This was filmed a few weeks ago,
so a few things have changed,
not least of all my haircut,
Nigel Farage, second referendum call and all that.
We wanted to film it in St Pancras
but, you know, the authorities stopped us.
Put your tin-foil hats on.
So instead we did it in the German Gymnasium,
here in the environs of Kings Cross St Pancras.
I think this was a very interesting discussion.
So you're now the unofficial head
of the Chris Grayling fan club, aren't you?
I tweet my undying adoration of him almost hourly at the moment.
– Absolute adulation! You're a sycophant towards Chris Grayling.
Right, you had some beef with Chris Grayling.
I think that's fair to say. What is it?
The scandal that you've exposed. What is it?
Two private companies – Virgin and Stagecoach –
were due to pay £3.3bn to the taxpayer
for running the East Coast Mainline service,
which goes from King's Cross, through to York
and up to Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
They overbid for the contract.
The whole point about bidding is supposed to be
that the private sector takes on risk.
They went cap in hand to Chris Grayling
and said; "We've overbid and we would like to renegotiate the contact."
What Grayling should have said to (Richard) Branson and (Brian) Souter
when they came cap in hand was:
"If you walk away from this contract,
"I'm going to set up a state company."
Why would he not do that?
Because he thought that would be giving a political point
to Jeremy Corbyn.
Well, actually, his job is to defend the taxpayer.
This isn't a rightwing or a leftwing thing,
this is doing his job and he failed to do it.
So you're saying for party political reasons,
bringing it under public ownership,
that would have effectively legitimised Labour's argument.
So that's your... That is your accusation?
That is my contention and, indeed, it's common knowledge
inside the transport department that when Grayling
went in there as Secretary of State, he said
he wanted the big dividing line with Labour to be nationalisation.
You cannot justify, no one, not even a rightwing Tory,
can justify the Brian Souters and the Richard Bransons
being in the rail industry so that we, the taxpayer,
can gift them billions of pounds.
This is socialism for the rich, surely?
Yeah, well the tragedy is that everyone loses
because, of course, the poor lose because there's
less money to spend on welfare,
which is an important priority,
but also the rail users lose.
The reason they have to pay these huge fare increases
is because the industry is being mismanaged
and the tragedy of what's happening is that
if you're going to take hundreds of millions or billions
out of the industry to give it to Richard Branson and Brian Souter,
then not only is there less money for other public priorities,
but there's also less money for investment in the rail industry itself
and that, I think, is going to set the country back decades.
What, in fact, Chris Grayling has done is more to advance the cause
of nationalisation in the railways than
Jeremy Corbyn and Karl Marx combined
because what he's showing is that the private sector
cannot justify its own existence on its own terms,
which is that it's highly competitive,
it offers better value for money than the public sector
and it offers more choice.
So if it's not doing those things, then why have it?
– Comrade Chris Grayling!
Wasting public money at a time of severe cuts,
which have caused huge pain for people
across the country and damaged our services is scandalous.
Should there be an inquiry into what happened?
Yes. Well, I'm hoping the public accounts committee,
whose job it is to look after the public purse,
advised by the National Audit Office, who are the state auditors,
I hope they're going to be in there looking at this quite quickly.
I think Grayling is going to find it increasingly difficult
to sustain this bailout.
So do you think he'll have to resign? Or should he resign?
Well, I've said that I don't think it's going to be possible
for him to continue when the full facts come out.
You know, we're talking about hundreds of millions
of public money just in this East Coast contract.
He'll have to offer similar terms to all of the private companies
and the cost of that could run into billions.
Now, Brexit. Do you have any strong opinions on Brexit, either way?
I mean, you're a bit of a fence-sitter, aren't you, when it comes to the EU?
Yeah, well, I have a very moderate
and straightforward view on Brexit,
which is that it's a bad idea.
The big issue now, which is a fundamental issue
that's going to dominate British politics for the next 15 months is:
what are the terms on which we're going to leave
and are those terms acceptable to the British people?
Irrespective of whether you were for or against two years ago,
the terms on which we leave are crucial
and when we see what those terms are,
my view, which is as a democrat,
that the British people should then decide on those terms.
It's been posed as a referendum on the deal
but really you just want to stay in the European Union.
No.
No, but on that just quickly. The view, then, would be
that the establishment, as they see it,
keeps holding referendums until they get the right result.
What would that do to faith in democracy?
Well, I don't think faith in democracy is damaged
by holding another referendum.
Even if it's really driven by an attempt to overturn the first one?
No. No, I think it's very hard to argue that
the problem of a lack of democracy is more democracy.
What we're saying is that in this issue –
because the issue is so big –
people should decide on the terms.
The whole argument two years ago was that
we'd be better off leaving the European Union.
There is almost nobody who voted to leave the European Union
who voted thinking we were going to be worse off.
Now, the big test, which it is absolutely right
that the British people should be the judge of is:
are the terms on which we're going to leave,
do they credibly offer a better deal
than staying in the European Union?
Now, we couldn't know that two years ago.
What we had was a load of promises
from the people who wanted to leave
that it would be better and people, you know,
a narrow majority went along with that
but there was no deal on the table.
What we will have at the end of this year,
when Theresa May has had by then the best part of
a year and a half's worth of negotiations,
is we will be able to see the deal.
The amendment past before Christmas of the meaningful final vote
isn't a meaningful vote because there's no way
that parliament in practice, in my view,
could vote against the terms and, therefore, against leaving,
having had a referendum 18 months before.
The only people who can make that decision
are the people themselves.
So, you say to me: "How can you possibly argue, Owen,
"that having another referendum is undemocratic?
"We're giving yet another say to the people."
Then what would you say if remain won by 52%
and then Farage and everybody else said:
"Well, then we'll have to have another referendum."
Because you've just made the point that there's nothing
undemocratic about it. Are we just ... Is it best of three?
Is it best of five? Are we going to have referendums forever.
Do you know, I don't think that there's going to be
much appetite among the British people for another referendum
after we've finally decided what we're doing,
whether we're leaving or staying by March.
There will be amongst so many of those 48% of people
who think that this was stolen from them by a ruse.
There'll be a load of desperados and there will be
about a third of the Conservative party,
which let's be clear, has taken leave of its senses
in a kind of nationalist frenzy over all of this.
If they spend the next 20 years obsessing about Europe
in the way they have done in the last 20 years,
there is nothing more likely to lead
to a perpetual Labour government over that time.
Have you spoken to Jeremy Corbyn about Brexit?
Do you know, though I knew Jeremy well when I lived in Islington
because he was my MP and we used to discuss schools,
indeed we opened one of the special schools in Islington together,
since he became leader of the Labour party
I haven't spoken to him at all.
What do you think of him?
I think he's done a phenomenal job
of putting Labour back on the map.
It's not an open secret that I don't agree with him on everything.
What don't you agree with him on?
I don't think that the state is the answer to everything.
I'll be quite frank. My own view, I believe in ...
He doens't think that. He was asked whether
we should nationalise Weatherspoons
by some young Labour activists and he said no, so ...
Oh, well that's good. I missed that. – So it's not everything.
The only route to a better society
is not only through a party but through a movement
and Labour isn't just a party, it doesn't just spout ideas
and act as a debating club. It is a social movement
and it's a social movement within working Britain
and that's what we've got to mobilise against Brexit
but also for what I hope will be the next Attlee government.
Would you serve as a minister under Jeremy Corbyn's premiership?
If there was a Labour government formed by Jeremy Corbyn
I would definitely serve.
What would you want to be?
I'd want to be transport secretary
to reverse all of this nonsense on the railways,
so I could then get HS2 opened two years earlier
than they're proposing at the moment,
we'd get Crossrail of the north set up,
so we'd link all those northern cities
in the way that we need to do desperately
if we're going to revive the northern economy,
you'd get the Midlands hub done
so that when the new HS2 station is opened in Birmingham
that becomes literally the centre of the country
in terms of logistics and transport.
I'm going to have a great time.
Two or three things on Brexit.
Firstly, I do think the strategy of remain
during the referendum was disastrous.
It looked like an establishment, status quo campaign,
which didn't take into account how angry people are.
Yeah, I agree with that completely.
We absolutely don't want to go into the next referendum campaign
with a Tory prime minister telling us what we should be doing.
No. With a load of corporate titans and so on.
I do think the problem now is in the kind of Stop Brexit
unofficial movement which exists,
you've got Tony Blair – I know he's one of your heroes
but he's certainly not for the rest of the country.
Polling suggests he's one of the most unpopular individuals.
Yeah, I don't think Tony should be leading this referendum either.
No, but he keeps coming out.
I mean, is Nigel Farage paying him to do it?
You know, amongst remainers, let alone leavers,
he's exceptionally unpopular because of the Iraq war
and working for dictators.
Nick Clegg, somebody who's very unpopular
because of tuition fees in the coalition. – Yes, also yesterday's man. I agree with that.
But then, do you not think it backfires?
Because I think there's a systematic failure
to understand the sorts of people I grew up with,
who voted to leave the European Union
because I don't think that's going to work. At all.
Well, do you know who I hope are the two people
who lead the campaign to stay in the European Union next year?
Jeremy Corbyn and Ruth Davidson.
The most popular Tory out there and the Labour leader who has,
I mean let's be frank, a cult following amongst the young
and certainly, given that he has not been
in any way ideological about this issue of Europe
in the last ... In the last generation and has been entirely pragmatic,
I think if he says, as I believe he will,
that the right thing is for us to stay, I think people will take
that view very seriously.
So I can see a way to us winning this referendum.
Do you know who I hope is leading the campaign on the other side?
My good friend Nigel Farage.
Because this idea that Nigel is somehow the anti-elite leader,
how he has got away with that one at all. – Yeah, I agree. I agree.
He is the establishment now.
Ex-city broker, Dulwich College. – Yeah, Dulwich.
The idea that Nigel Farage is an anti-elite leader:
Dulwich College, stock broker, living in whatever it is,
a £4million house and all that, is for the birds.
The difference this time is that now he is the establishment.
Let's be clear, Nigel Farage is in effect prime minister at the moment
because the people that Theresa May could not move
in her reshuffle were the Brexiteers.
They were untouchable because she would have faced
a civil war inside her party if she'd tried to move
Liam Fox, David Davis, even our good friend Chris Grayling.
The reason he is inviolate is because he's a radical Brexiteer.
Justine Greening, who's pragmatic on Europe,
she can be sacked because she doesn't count
but the Brexiteers can't be.
Meanwhile, where was Nigel Farage?
He was in Brussels meeting Monsieur Barnier.
So he is no the establishment.
He is, in effect, prime minister.
He no needs to defend this treaty of leaving the European Union
as the new establishment.
I've missed one key player though in this referendum campaign, Owen.
You.
Oh, no no. Stop this.
When it comes to the campaign to stay in the European Union,
on behalf of the working people of Britain
and particularly the young, Owen Jones ...
I'm not so young anymore, it's deceptive. I've been aged.
– Yeah, but they all think you're young.
–It's a con. It may be a con but it's not quite as big
a lie as the Nigel Farage lie. – No (laughter).
You are closer to being young than he is closer
to being a member of the working class in the real world.
I'm still a millennial.
So, alongside Jeremy and Ruth Davidson,
there will need to be Owen Jones
and you will mobilise the under-35s.
They will come out as never before. – (Laughter)
Everywhere I go, I speak at a lot of university meetings at the moment,
they tell me: "Do you know that Owen Jones
"and what we can do to make him to come and speak here?"
Stop trying to flatter me.
So, I'll tell you why, because there's nothing that the young want more
than to be European. They do not want
to be cast into the mid-Atlantic,
pretending that we're in a love affair with Donald Trump.
That is not the future of this country
and there's no one better than you to tell them that.
Well, that's not true but if there was a referendum
I would, yes, campaign for remain, as I did last time.
I just don't quite see the route there.
But just finally, do you genuinely think another referendum
would do anything other than leave this country
with even more bitter divisions than already?
Because I would say that campaign would be
infinitely more bitter than the last.
Look, let's be clear, it is going to be bitter.
I mean, amazingly, I can't believe it, for the first time
since I've been seriously engaged in politics,
which is 15 or so years now,
for the first time I'm receiving regular death threats.
You know, I get people who send me pictures
of giblets and things like that, which has never happened before.
That's horrendous. I've had the same as well.
Forces have been unleashed which are very, very ugly
and none of us want to see them.
This is Britain. You know, this sort of thing doesn't happen in Britain.
It may happen in Russia, it's not supposed to happen here.
So I don't relish the prospect of another referendum at all
but I do think that the job of leaders
and people who play a part in politics
is to offer their best advice and leadership.
My best view of the situation is that it would be,
for the national interest, a profound mistake
for us to leave the European Union.
Facing this issue, which is the biggest issue facing
our generation, facing that fairly and squarely
is going to be a much better thing to do
than pretending it doesn't exist and trying to move on.
Because do you know what will happen if we do that?
What I think will happen is, quite quickly,
a great campaign will start for coming back in again
because people will say they weren't consulted
on this terrible deal on which they led
and it's in particular going to be led by the young.
And I reckon what will happen is far from ending this
as an issue, I reckon it's going to be only a year or two
before the great campaign starts
for us to rejoin the European Union
and, do you know, I suspect that one Owen Jones
might be at the head of it.
So that's Lord A, or Andrew as he prefers to be called.
Andy? I don't know how informal I can get with him.
That was really interesting, lots of food for thought.
We don't agree on everything but it's important to have
those sorts of dialogue, I think we'd all agree.
I'd love to hear your thoughts,
so do leave your comments,
we'll be getting back to comments videos –
it's been a long few months,
I haven't managed to be on top of that as I should be.
But, we've got loads of videos.
You can click on them there
because Adam's done his video stuff.
We've got loads of interviews to come,
please leave your suggestions, we'd love to hear them.
As ever, subscribe, I'll see you next time.