Good morning. At one stage Rebecca Long Bailey, the shadow business secretary, was seen as the favourite in the Labour leadership contest because she is the candidate most favoured by Jeremy Corbyn and his inner circle. But she kept a low profile after the general election, avoiding interviews, and Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, is now seen as the favourite based on polling showing that he is more popular with members.
But Long Bailey has now given her first interview as a candidate for the Labour leadership. She did so after using an article for Tribune published last night to formally announce that she will be a candidate. My colleague Rajeev Syal has written it up here.
In her interview Long Bailey mostly struck a note likely to go down well with Labour members. Two of her answers were particularly revealing.
- Long Bailey insisted that Labour should be pro-immigration. In her Tribune article she said that Labour should never again “put ‘controls on immigration’ on a mug”, as it did in the 2015 general election, and, when asked if that meant she was opposed to any immigration controls, she said the 2015 policy was a “nod towards quite dangerous politics”. She said:
I think we need to have a fair immigration system, but we can’t nod towards quite dangerous politics … And I understand the reasons why that was done in the election campaign. There are concerns… We do need as a party to make a stronger argument, because I don’t think we’ve every set out the economic case as to why immigration is a positive force.
Long Bailey said she did not accept claims that immigration depressed wages. She said that, when the UK left the EU, EU freedom of movement would end. But when asked what should replace it, she said that was the “million dollar question”. When it was put to her that as party leader she should have a response to the million dollar question, she said it was vital to protect the rights of EU nationals living in the UK. And she added:
We need to have immigration to serve our economic needs.
This stance is likely to meet the approval of Labour members who, at the party conference last year, passed a motion saying that freedom of movement should be extended (even though quite what this meant has subsequently become a matter for debate).
- Long Bailey expressed very strong reservations about using the nuclear deterrent – without ruling it out. Asked if she would be willing to authorise the nuclear deterrent as PM, she said:
Any leader, any prime minister, has to be very clear that the security and the protection of the people that they represent comes first, above all else, and that they would do anything that it takes to ensure that the people of this country are protected. And I would be very clear on that.
When asked if that included using the nuclear deterrent, she replied:
Well, if you have a deterrent, you have to be prepared to use it. But I’m not going to be a warmonger foaming at the mouth and saying that I’m going to press a button, because any leader needs to ensure that they assess the situation, they address the consequences of their actions. And of course any country that was considering pushing the nuclear button needed to realise that we were facing nuclear annihilation right across the whole world. But, yes, a leader would need to be prepared to engage in that if they were going to use the nuclear deterrent going forward.
This is probably the right answer for the Labour membership too. They will interpret the “warmonger foaming at the mouth” line as a reference to the former Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson, who is much disliked by Labour activists and who stressed her willingness to push the nuclear button during the election campaign. In the early days of his leadership Corbyn did firmly rule out using nuclear weapons, but the party as a whole backs the nuclear deterrent (not least because a lot of union jobs are tied up with the nuclear submarine programme) and later he became more evasive when asked if he would ever use nuclear weapons.
I will post more on the interview shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Boris Johnson chairs cabinet.
12pm: Downing Street lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Sajid Javid, the chancellor, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, makes a statement in the Commons about the Iran crisis.
Around 5pm or later: MPs begin the committee stage debate for the EU (withdrawal agreement) bill.
6pm: Labour leadership candidates speak at a private hustings for Labour MPs organised by the parliamentary Labour party.
As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. We plan to post a summary when we wrap up.
You can read all the latest Guardian politics articles here. Here is the Politico Europe roundup of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads.
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