Jeremy Corbyn on delivering change

Mandy Rhodes: Jim Murphy told me that Labour had lost in Scotland in the 2011 Scottish Parliamentary election because people couldn’t answer the question ‘what does Labour stand for’. What does your Labour party stand for?

Jeremy Corbyn: Hope – We need to be the party that give people hope for a better future everybody wants and needs - an affordable home, a secure job, better living standards, reliable healthcare and a decent pension. My generation took those things for granted and so should future generations.

Do you think that without the energy that was created around the Scottish referendum and the SNP’s clear anti-austerity message in the election, that you may not have found such a receptive environment for your candidacy?

JC: There is a discontent with an increasingly unequal society and a political system that seems to be able to find money to bail out banks and wage war, but not ensure that children can get enough to eat. You can see that right across Europe - so it isn’t unique to Scotland or the UK. 

What characteristics do you think you need to be a leader?

JC: The ability to listen, a belief in democracy and the determination to what is right for the people you represent. 

You were the only one of the four contenders for leadership that was able to answer positively the question posed during one of the TV debates about Nicola Sturgeon’s characteristics that you shared. Why do you think the others couldn’t be honest?

JC: That’s really a question for them. 

Why, after 32 years as a Labour backbencher, would you want to put yourself forward to lead the party

JC: We needed a candidate who would put Labour on a clear path of opposing the Tories’ war on the poor and the public services we all rely on. 

Under whose leadership of the party have you felt most ‘at home’?

JC: John Smith. 

Do you think you need to want to be Prime Minister to want to lead a political party and can they be mutually exclusive?

JC: I’m intent on leading Labour back into Government because I want to see a fairer and better country.  It’s not about really about me – it’s about delivering change.

They say that a great test of leadership is bringing on the leaders that can take over from you and yet the Labour Party never seems to have an obvious leader-in-waiting. How would you change that?

 JC: We are all leaders, each and every one of us in the Labour Party and in the Labour movement. Every time we convince someone to vote Labour, every time we challenge prejudice, every mind we challenge through well-reasoned argument, every injustice we stand up to, that is leadership. It changes the world. The bigger and more democratic we become – the smaller issues about leadership will seem. 

What will be your first major task now you are leader?

JC: Leading the attack on an austerity which is a political choice by the Tories rather than an economic necessity. 

How will you reunite the party after what has often been a very divisive leadership campaign?

JC: My leadership will be about unity, drawing on all the talents working together at every level of the party.

For a lot of commentators it is strange that Scottish Labour has a less left wing leader than the leader of the UK party. Do you agree?

JC: I’m afraid I’ve been more focussed on the job I’ve just been elected to than speculating on what commentators might find strange. 

Kezia Dugdale wasn’t initially particularly encouraging about the idea of you becoming leader. Does that matter?

JC: Kez will lead Scottish Labour I’ll lead the UK Party. But I know from talking to her that we both plan big changes.

Scottish Labour leaders of old would hate it when the UK leader would come up to Scotland and inevitably ruffle feathers with their thoughts on the SNP and the question of independence. Jack McConnell told me that when Tony Blair came up in 2007, that is what helped put the final nail in the coffin for Labour in that election. Will you campaign in Scotland for the Scottish Parliamentary elections in 2016 and do you think you will help or hinder?

JC: I will be campaigning in Scotland.  I’ll be campaigning for Labour everywhere. 

You’ve received a lot of personal attacks during this campaign, how have you dealt with that?

JC: By carrying on and standing up against injustice, it’s the principle that always driven me in politics, and it’s what my party exists for.  I don’t reply to personal attack I prefer to focus on what really matters to people in our communities

Do you think New Labour was the cause of the party’s demise in Scotland?

JC: First of all Labour isn’t dead in Scotland. There isn’t one single reason for the problems we face – but there is certainly an argument that some elements of the New Labour project, the closeness to big business and the Iraq war, for example, played a part. 

Tony Blair in particular has been scathing about you as a potential leader of the party. How did you view his intervention?

JC: Tony is as entitled to state his views as much as any other member of the party. I was busy campaigning. 

Kinnock and Miliband were hung out to dry by their depiction in the media. How can you avoid the same fate?

JC: I’ll be making a case for investment in our future – I’m not going to stop that because it will upset the proprietor of a newspaper. 

What will your message be to Scottish voters who previously voted Labour but have turned to the SNP?

JC: We got a fairly clear message from the Scottish people in May that Labour needed to change – my election shows that we have.