Thomas Raines
Good evening, everybody. I’m Tom Raines. I’m the Head of the Europe Programme here at Chatham House. Thank you to everyone who’s joining us today for this discussion with Lisa Nandy. I hope you’re all safe and well wherever you are.
This discussion is part of a new series of online events. We’re trying to seamlessly transfer our programme of events online, so we hope as many of you as possible will be able to join us, over the coming weeks, from wherever you are, and I hope that we’ll be able to gather again in person in not too long. Lisa Nandy is one of the three candidates for the leadership of the Labour Party. She’s been MP for Wigan since 2010, and has had a number of front-bench roles since she’s been in Parliament, including being Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Shadow Children’s Minister and Minister – Shadow Minister for Civil Society. She’s also the co-founder of the think tank the Centre For Towns, and, you know, I cannot help but admire a Politician who founds a think tank, being a think tank employee myself. And that was setup to ensure priority is given to the viability and prosperity of Britain’s towns, and I think Lisa has become well known as a champion of the particular needs and interests and challenges that towns face.
So we had originally scheduled this meeting before the severity of the current crisis was really apparent. We are meeting, obviously, online today, in quiet extraordinary circumstances, with the UK, and many other countries around the world, under lockdown, and the planet facing a health and economic crisis, which – without a real parallel in modern history. But our original theme of internationalism, I think, is still very relevant. The coronavirus has demonstrated how extraordinarily interconnected we all are, but also, some of the limitations of global co-operation, and we’ve seen actually, relatively little co-ordination between states, as they’ve been trying to get to grips with the challenges that this outbreak has created.
I want to give Lisa an opportunity to make some opening remarks before we have a bit of a wider conversation and then bring in everybody’s questions. I hope we can get in lots of issues about where Britain stands in the world, lots of questions about how the Labour Party should be approaching foreign policy issues, but I think we might have to start with the situation that we find ourselves in today. Lisa, can I ask you, how do you feel that this current global challenge and the way that it’s affected Britain’s economy, what does that tell us about how we should think about internationalism?
Lisa Nandy MP
Well, I think that coronavirus has exposed a lot about this country. It’s exposed a lot of our strengths: the power of our communities, the bravery of our public sector workers, the ability of most Politicians, – if not all, to leave behind tribalism when it really matters, and pull together in the national interest. It’s also exposed an extraordinary lack of resilience in our domestic affairs. We’ve got too many people in insecure work, we’ve got cash-strapped public services, we’ve got families with little in the way of savings, and a care system that is creaking at the seams. But I think the element that I wanted to focus on today is the weaknesses that it’s exposed in our international relations, because I think, with a few notable exceptions, Chatham House being the obvious one, that very little attention has been paid to this so far during the coronavirus crisis. And I want to argue that this is a really dangerous moment for the world, when we choose either to pull together, or we break apart, with serious, immediate and very devastating long-term consequences, should we fail the test.
I spent – I did a lecture, earlier last year, talking about the rise in populism and nationalism, which has propelled strongman leaders to power across the world, and against that drumbeat of othering, and the weakening of global co-operation, it’s not a surprise, I suppose, that far-right populists have sought to capitalise on the coronavirus pandemic, scapegoating migrants and foreigners: whether it’s Salvini, who referred to the migrants landing from Africa, and where the presence of the virus, he says, was confirmed, or whether it’s Hungary’s National Security Advisor highlighting a so-called link between coronavirus and illegal immigrants, or whether it’s the way in which Trump referred to ‘the Chinese virus’. We’re starting to see this happen, in many countries across many continents, and borders are closing, the EU resettlement programme of Syrian refugees has been halted, and yet health experts are making a different argument.
The World Health Organization Director-General said, “In our fractured and divided world, health is one of the few areas in which international co-operation offers the opportunity for countries to work together for a common cause. The greatest enemy we face is not the virus itself, it’s the stigma that turns us against each other. We must stop stigma and hate.” Because he’s right, in a global world, hate is the precise opposite approach that we need. We need trust, and the humility to recognise that the global health emergency can’t be solved by one country. If this crisis has taught us anything, it’s that we’re only as strong as our most vulnerable, and abandoning the vulnerable now is not only a moral failure, but the one way in which we would make a global crisis worse. So, we should be treating as urgent the need for 70 million people in refugee camps worldwide, who have limited access to running water, cramped conditions and no testing, where social distancing is a privilege.
Food distribution is under threat there, aid organisations are really struggling with whether to go in and risk bringing the virus, or whether to walk away. State funding has been in decline for some time and now, of course, there is much more pressure on emergency resources, as charities deploy those resources elsewhere. And the risk in Europe is very great right now. On the Greek island of Chios, there are 6,000 people in a camp meant for just 1,000. There are 30 toilets and one shower for every 200 people and when this crisis hits in the Middle East and Africa, where social distancing is far more difficult, it’s very difficult to see what will happen. What are the prospects for people living in the West Bank, and particularly Gaza, where health services and medical supplies are virtually non-existent? This is why a global response is needed, but instead, it seems to me that the world has taken a distinctly isolationist turn.
You referenced, in the opening remarks, the few signs that we’ve had of a co-ordinated international response. It was only last week that the G7 eventually had a phone call together, which is in stark contrast to the 2008 global financial crash. What’s more worrying to me is how many countries have opted for unilateral action on the economy and on health, and sometimes bringing us into competition with one another, most starkly in the suggestion that the USA is trying to monopolise access to a potential vaccine, turning the idea of ‘America First’ into an idea of ‘America Only’. And the lack of a common approach to testing, containment and economic measures is starting to have an impact on public trust. I can feel it here in Wigan already, because measures that vary so widely between countries are not readily trusted or understood by the wider population.
Now, in 2008, the two big superpowers did step up and work together, with some problems, but they did largely work together, in order to reduce the impact on the world. The USA, at the time, drew its legitimacy from its domestic governments. It was a supplier of global public goods. It had the ability, but it also had the will to muster and co-ordinate a global response to the crises. Under Trump, this has disappeared. And while China is keen to be seen as a global leader, publicly committing aid to other countries and broadcasting its apparent success in fighting the virus across the world in a wide variety of language, there’s very little sign that this – its actions are aiding that global security and co-operation.
There are important health lessons to be learnt from what happened in China, but one of those is how the control of public information actually slowed down its response and in Serbia, offers of help from China are actually turning the country against its neighbours. The President there dismissed European solidarity recently as ‘a fairy tale’, saying the only country that can help us is China.
This crisis is going to test every country, every institution and every leader and for Britain this is really serious. The old world order, where we knew our place, is disappearing fast. The Axis is broken down, international co-operation is harder, and the world is more fragile as a result. And I suppose what I wanted to say today is that this is a call to arms, to restate our commitment to global alliances, because something has gone really badly wrong when every country thinks they’re different and every country thinks they’re special, in the face of a global pandemic.
To restate our commitment to care for the vulnerable and the oppressed: the Syrian refugees, those in Gaza, they cannot and must not be abandoned. Now is not the moment to downplay our values, but instead to demonstrate them. And, finally, to win the argument for ethical intervention. It really saddens me that this last point is something that needs to be said in the Labour Party. But we’ve just been through a contest where a deputy leadership candidate has pledged that Labour will hold a full ballot of members before we will take action in government to safeguard people’s lives, and where a leadership candidate wrote onto a pledge card that he would ban illegal wars, consciously reopening old wounds on Iraq, and by doing so, making it much harder to win the argument that in so many other instances, intervention, whether it’s military, whether it’s diplomatic, whether it’s aid-related, matters. And we must never be a party, or a country, that is prepared to ignore the problems on our doorstep and what coronavirus has shown, I think quite starkly, is that the whole world is now on our doorstep.
So I’ll just finally close with saying this: is that I’ve learned, in recent years, that progress is not inevitable. For my generation – I was 171/2 when I saw my first Labour Government. It was a time of Robin Cook’s ethical foreign policy; it really did feel like progress was coming and that it would always come. And what I’ve learnt, as the world has unravelled in the last decade, is that if you want a better future, you have to go out and fight for it. Now, I’m making the case today that that is an essential part of our fight against coronavirus, to go out and stand up for these values, for an internationalist world, for a transformed, more resilient, more compassionate, outward-looking, self-confident Britain. That is the way that will defeat not just this crisis, but others to come and there will be others, in the future, and this is a fight that we’ve got to win.
Thomas Raines
Lisa, thank you very much. There’s lots in there for us to bring into the conversation. You brought a real focus on those who are vulnerable, particularly to the current situation, who won’t necessarily get the help that they need about the wider kind of geopolitical context in which this challenge is happening, and the particular challenges that that creates – about the challenges this creates for the UK specifically, and then some interesting points at the end about what this means, in a Labour Party context. So there’s lots there that I would like to bring up, and I see that there’s also lots of questions coming in, so please keep those coming. I suppose there’s a couple of things, which have been notable about the responses. It’s right that there has been, you know, quite a lack of co-ordination compared with, certainly, the example in 2009 and the G20 Summit and, sort of, co-ordinated response, in economic terms, to the financial crisis. But what we have seen, at least on a national level, is an extraordinary level of, sort of, state intervention in social and economic life. And I was wondering what you think could be the lasting effects of that in the UK and internationally? Does this create opportunities, in a way, for, sort of, state-based responses to public challenges, which have been harder to win a public argument for in the past?
Lisa Nandy MP
I think there is a potential that we come out of this a profoundly changed country, and with very different international relationships as well. I think there’s a potential for this to go very badly wrong if we get our response wrong, and if we continue down a path where you have different countries trying to pursue different strategies and leaving open the prospect, then, of populist leaders exploiting those tensions and those divisions, and I think we’re in a really dangerous moment. But there is a much more positive scenario on offer. I mean, you rightly said that the package of state intervention has been quite unprecedented. I mean, it’s unprecedented – it would be unprecedented coming from a Labour Government, but to see this coming from a Conservative Government that is very suspicious, even in Conservative terms, about state intervention is quite extraordinary. And I think credit to them for recognising that this is the moment when we have to step forward, and we have to make sure that people have the support that they need, in order to take the actions that are in line with government guidance, and get control of this crisis.
And I think that most of all, the lasting impact of this will be that we may come to understand that where we’ve starved public services of funding, where we’ve spent the last three years frankly insulting our closest neighbours across the European Union, and breaking a lot of, or weakening a lot of, the international alliances that we have, I think we may start to understand the very real problems that that presents, and start to put some of that right. I mean, one good example of this, I think, is the organisation CEPI, which was setup after the Ebola outbreak, in order to try to get better, faster funding for vaccines.
It was a recognition that that wasn’t going to come from the private sector alone, and that governments and NGOs had to work together, in order to make that happen. And I – you know, I think that’s an organisation that many people would never have heard of before now. The World Health Organization has shown real leadership in helping to deal with this crisis and helping countries to learn from one another, not just looking at the very narrow health implications, but looking at the wider economic context of this as well. And so perhaps this is the moment where we can restate our commitment to those international institutions that have been under threat. We could come out of this profoundly changed as a country and a world. And my own view is that we have to, because if we don’t learn from this, there will be another of these crises and we cannot ever again find ourselves in a situation where we’re as unprepared as we are now.
Thomas Raines
Do you – that’s obviously, I suppose, not the optimistic, but the positive, outcome that could come after this crisis, that we think about international co-operation differently, that we prioritise resilience. On the flipside, what do you worry about, in the next few months, in terms of what the downside of that could be? You mentioned, you know, concerns about the approach of the United States, about tensions potentially between the US and China. What do you see as the, sort of, main risks that the UK Government and other international partners should be working to avoid?
Lisa Nandy MP
Well, I think if you listen to Macron, I think that the desire to try and pull together as a world is there, and to co-ordinate action amongst different countries. And I think the United Kingdom needs to step forward and make sure that we play our part in making sure that that happens. Because if you contrast that to the approach, for example, that Trump has taken in America, I think there is a very, very real prospect that we become in very stark competition to one another. And if you look at the vaccine issue and the search for a vaccine, that would be a disaster, for all of us, including for the United States, because as I’ve said in the opening remarks, we’re only as strong as our most vulnerable. So I think there’s a moment where Britain needs to step forward and show that level of global leadership. That’s not a particularly party-political point. You know, the government has been overwhelmed by this, and understandably, because of the scale of it, and the fact that Britain hasn’t really dealt with a crisis like this before. And, you know, any government in this situation would be trying to get on the front foot, and trying to make sure that they cover all of the many things that we just haven’t had to deal with before. But we do need that international response.
I suppose just on a very more basic level, one of the things that concerns me is that with social distancing and self-isolation measures in place, and I think most people are trying to do the right thing, and making sure that they observe them, I think there is the potential for it to cut us off from one another at precisely the moment when we need to be much more connected. And, you know, even just going out of the house – anyone who’s been into a public space recently, will know that people are looking at each other with real caution. It does something to you psychologically, I think, living through something like that, and that is one of the reasons why the response from charities, the arts and culture organisations, is really, really important.
There’s this thing called Joe Wicks, which you may or may not be familiar with. If you don’t have a primary school-age child you will be forgiven for not knowing what this is. But it’s a PE class that a Personal Trainer does on YouTube every morning, and across the country. Many children and parents, including me, unfortunately, are joining in with this thing, and it’s enabling people to connect to one another and to take part in communal activities in a different way. Now, these things really, really matter, because those populist strongman leaders prey on people’s insecurities and fears about one another, and we’ve got to make sure, over the next few weeks and months, that we stay connected, and that we find every opportunity to bring out that sense of humanity.
Thomas Raines
Great. I do want to come onto some broader issues, which you raised in your – the end of your remarks about, sort of, Labour’s position on foreign policy. And you mentioned some of the, sort of, divisions that there have been in the party on different – and which are visible in the different candidates for the leadership and the deputy leadership. What do – you know, is possible to find a foreign policy, which the current Labour Party, given its membership composition, given its parliamentary composition, can unite around?
Lisa Nandy MP
I think we’re less divided than it might appear in some respects, although the Brexit issue really, really did test the Labour Party, and it was the sign of a very geographically divided country, in that there were areas of the country where large numbers of people voted ‘Leave’, other areas of the country where large numbers of people voted ‘Remain’. And as a consequence, it was very unusual for people who were either ‘Leave’ or ‘Remain’ to meet one another. And I think it exposed, in the Labour Party, a real failure of the way that we operate, because you had Members of Parliament who represent ‘Remain’ areas off pursuing a second referendum that seemed inevitable and right in their parts of the country, and Members of Parliament, who represented areas that voted very strongly to leave, strongly opposed to that because it seemed absurd and offensive in their parts of the country. And what we’ve never managed to do was actually bring people together, and despite some credit to Jeremy Corbyn for trying to find a middle ground, there was no real attempt from the Shadow Cabinet or from any of the collective leadership of the party to push very strongly to bring people together and to forge a path through that would find us a way to stay very close to the European Union, but outside of it. And I think we’ve got to learn from that, because there is a real battle on our hands.
More broadly than coronavirus, we’ve left the European Union now, we don’t know what the terms on which we’re going to continue to trade, but we have left, and in that scenario, we’ve got to go out and win the argument that the country’s future lies with Europe. We are outside of the European Union, but on everything from national security to the fight against climate change, the refugee crisis, and on trade and jobs and environmental protections, on all of these things, our future has to lie with Europe. And we’ve got to go out and win that argument in the country.
I think there is a good chance that you’ll see Labour pull together and do that, but there are – there have been other tensions in recent years as well. At the start of this contest, I talked about what Labour’s approach to internationalism should be, and one of the things that I said is, we need to rediscover our values, and a value-based foreign policy. That’s one of the reasons why I was so upset by the suggestion that we wouldn’t intervene without, in conflict, without the – a full ballot of Labour members, because an ethical foreign policy requires you to stand up for people who are being oppressed in other countries around the world. That is a core Labour value. And where I think we got it wrong, in recent years, for example, on issues like our approach to Russia, is that the leadership of the Labour Party decided to stand with the Russian Government, which has an appalling record on LGBT rights, Muslim rights, oppressing the rights of other minorities, against the Russian people. We should have been standing with the Russian people against an oppressive Russian Government, and not the other way round.
Thomas Raines
I guess that’s one of the challenges that, you know – some of the support that Jeremy Corbyn drew was because he was perceived to have a very ethical approach to some foreign policy issues, and has obviously been a champion of some causes like the Palestinian cause, for example. But some of those values’ divides, I guess, exist within the Labour Party, as well as more widely within the country. I wanted to just, to step out of the Labour Party dimension. You sort of talked there where you mentioned around, you know, representing a constituency like Wigan, and the sort of differences, the geographical differences between different parts of the country, and, you know, a lot of your campaign and your policies, over the last few years, has been about articulating the challenges and economic and political and social needs of towns like Wigan. And I guess I was interested in wondering what’s the international dimension of that, sort of, domestic political challenge? So if – what’s the foreign policy that serves the interests of your constituents in Wigan? What’s the, kind of, international parallel to that domestic agenda that you have, which is about, sort of, you know, improving the social and economic opportunities of people in different parts of the UK?
Lisa Nandy MP
Well, I mean, there’s sort of two parts to that answer – to that question. The first part is really that the challenges that I’ve – I and others at the Centre For Towns have been articulating, in relation to the UK, are absolutely true in other countries around the world. It first started to dawn on me that this was the case after the vote to leave in 2016. And I’d just gone over to Germany to meet with progressive leaders in Berlin to talk about what the prospects were for continuing to co-operate in a world in which the UK was outside of the European Union, and just helping them, really, to understand what had happened. Because for a lot of those sister parties across the EU, that was a moment of real grief, and, you know, the sort of response that I got from Politicians over there was that this would never happen in Germany. “The UK is a bit of a basket case, you know, but it’s – we don’t have the same problems here.”
And it’s true that support for the European Union is a lot stronger in other European countries, but I then got on a train and went to Cottbus, just an hour outside of Berlin, which is a very similar place to Wigan, in lots of respects: a post-industrial town with a government that’s tried to use subsidies, in order to attract companies there, but the companies leave when the subsidies dry up. So you get young people leaving, and an aging population, and a settlement in which older people feel very, very angry that they’ve been stripped of their family, their infrastructure, you know, their thriving high streets, their future. And the sentiment there was very much starting to turn against the European Union. You could see far-right Politicians seeking to prey on all of that, and young people who were still there feeling very disillusioned. And the, you know, not very long after the – during the last Presidential elections, I went over to America and found exactly the same issues going on in the ‘Rust Belt’ of America.
So the first thing is that we’ve got to start getting a grip on an economic model that hasn’t delivered for places outside of the major urban centres, in every country in the world. Because if we don’t do that, then we’re laying the ground for people who would seek to divide us. But I suppose the second question, and probably more what you were getting at, was that – second part of it is that there is a parallel, in terms of the growing inequalities between countries, and regions of countries, around the world. And I think climate change is a very good example of that, where you can see the impact of climate change much, much more strongly felt by people who are poorer, who live in less developed nations, and who are currently shut out from the levers of power across the world, so lack the means to make themselves heard at a global level, in order to get the action that they need.
Now, that is almost exactly parallel to what has happened within the United Kingdom and within many of those countries. And the response is the same, we’ve got to plug people back into the levers of power. That slogan ‘Take Back Control’, which caught the mood in towns like mine, like no other slogan in my lifetime, I think that’s very much felt in countries that don’t have the ability to make the change that they need urgently themselves. And this, I suppose, is an argument for those international institutions that are currently under attack. But it’s also very much an argument not just for accepting those institutions as they are, but for Britain playing its part in reforming and strengthening those institutions. And particularly for making those institutions far more democratic and far more responsive to people than they’ve been in the past.
Thomas Raines
Lisa, that was great. Thank you very much. I want to bring in some questions and there’s been lots that have come through, so I’m going to throw a couple of these at you, and please keep coming them – sending them through and I’ll try and ask what we can. I’m going to resist the temptation to make the first question on foreign policy about Tony Blair, which is one of the ones that’s at the top of this list. But there is one question here which is, I suppose, related directly to some of the points that you made about bringing people together on Brexit, which is from Bryan Cartledge, which says, “Despite the EU’s disappointing response to the current crisis, would a Labour Government led by you apply to re-join it?”
Lisa Nandy MP
Well, I think that argument is gone, if I’m honest. I think that one of the big problems that Labour has had, in the last few years, is that we were fighting the last battle that had already gone, and not focusing on the one ahead of us. I mean, I campaigned – people may know this about me, they may not, but I believe in the European Union. I would rather see Britain in the European Union, and if there was an opportunity to vote to be in it, I would vote for that, again, as I did in 2016. But when that argument was lost, and it was quite comprehensively lost in many parts of the country, it was the moment when we should have pulled together and thought about how we protected close economic ties, close political co-operation, with the people who are geographically nearest to us, and therefore, are always going to be incredibly important to us. And if we’d done that, I think we would be in a far stronger position as a country than we currently are now.
The next battle is not whether you re-join the European Union. Of course, future generations will decide whether they want to do that, and they may well decide that they do wish to do that. But the next battle is about winning the argument that our future lies with Europe and that is the battle that we’ve got to go out and win, and I said it before in this leadership contest, that is not a battle that is going to be won behind the despatch box. The lesson, of the last few years, is that we should never have allowed it to get to the point in this country where lifelong socialists, in many, many parts of the country, felt that the European Union was part of the problem and not part of the solution. So we’ve got to get out into the country and win that argument with the people, especially where it’s hard.
Thomas Raines
Right, thanks very much. So, another question has come in from Sam Johnson, which is about the integrated foreign policy, security and defence review, which the government is doing at the moment. One of the ideas that’s been floated is around the role of the Department for International Development. Obviously, the position of – and the department of DFID was created by a Labour Government and Labour’s, you know, long been a champion of the 0.7 commitment. What’s your view on the independence of DFID? One of the proposals that have been floated is that the Department for International Development should be, kind of, swallowed up as part of the Foreign Office and – so that it better aligns with other aspects of Britain’s foreign policy. What’s your view?
Lisa Nandy MP
So I think DFID independence is really important. It gives aid and mutual assistance state support a very strong role within the Cabinet and I think that’s really important. I also – I’m Chair of Labour Friends of Palestine & the Middle East, and I’ve spent the last ten years reasonably involved in those issues, as the Vice-Chair and then Chair for the last eight years. And one of the things that is clear is that DFID has a very good reputation, amongst many refugees, and oppressed people across the world. And that is really important, especially when you’ve had foreign policy interventions, for example, the Iraq war, that are still felt in those areas. I was very opposed to the Iraq war, and I think the damage that it has done has been – in the way that Britain is perceived, by many people in the world, is undeniable. And so I think it’s really important that there is a strong and an independent voice for DFID and I am very troubled by the direction of travel, within the Tory Party at the moment.
I think there’s also a real problem with the way in which trade has become an economic gain, has become the overriding mantra for most government departments. And if you look at a world where Britain is refusing to do close trade deals with our European partners, then that raises some very troubling prospects indeed, for Britain’s commitment to human rights. And so this is the moment, I think, where Labour really have to step up and step forward, and start to defend some of those institutions and the values that lie behind them, over the next few months.
Thomas Raines
That allows me to seamlessly bring in another question that we’ve had, which is from Karin Lubker, which is about, “If Trump wins a second term, how would the Labour Party plan to manage US-UK relations?” You mentioned there about your criticism of some of the way in which the government has approached the powers of an independent trade policy. How would you approach relations with the US under Trump, and how would that fit into a larger, sort of, progressive vision of an independent UK trade policy?
Lisa Nandy MP
So I think that the row that we’ve been having over Huawei shows the problems that the UK is going to face moving forwards. So, the first thing I would say is that a Labour Party, Labour Government led by me would be seeking the closest possible relationship with the European Union. It’s important, on a domestic level, in order to protect things like the minimum wage, health and safety laws. These are, you know, hundred years of Labour rights that we’ve fought for in the Labour movement and if we want to defend those things, working closely with the European Union offer is our best opportunity. But it’s also because we’ve seen the dangers, I think, of chasing a trade deal with the US.
It might have seemed sensible, with a different leadership, but America’s taken a distinctly protectionist tone, in recent years, and we’ve – if Trump wins a second term, there’s no sign at all that that’s going to disappear. So, we need to be in a much stronger position, in terms of the relationship that we have, so that we can stand up for our values and make sure those values permeate that relationship. There was some suggestion, a while ago in the Labour Party, that we shouldn’t be – even be talking to the Americans. I have to say I think that’s a nonsense. Of course we should be talking to the Americans. They’re one of the world’s superpowers, and they have the potential to have an enormous impact on the United Kingdom, as we’re seeing with the coronavirus pandemic at the moment. But the relationship that we have has to be based on our values, and it’s one of the reasons why I said, at the start of this campaign, that we shouldn’t be seeking to do trade deals with countries that won’t sign up to the Paris Agreement. Climate change is an issue that threatens us all, and we should be using our leverage, as a country, in order to level up those provisions across the world, rather than allow them to be reduced.
Thomas Raines
Thanks very much. I’m going to keep the questions coming. So there’s one here from Chris Doyle, which is about Labour’s position on Syria. Obviously, that’s been a divisive issue, at various points, in terms of how to – how the UK should respond to the humanitarian crisis in Syria. It’s obviously split parts of the Party. What’s your view on how the UK should approach that, and would you do things differently to the current UK Government’s approach?
Lisa Nandy MP
So I think there are three things that we need to do first, and actually, Chris is – I think I know Chris and Chris’s question is…
Thomas Raines
You may do. He’s – yeah.
Lisa Nandy MP
…a good opportunity to say that I’ve actually been surprised at how little this has come up during the Labour leadership contest. I think I’ve been asked 50 times what my view of Meghan Markle is. I don’t actually think I’ve been asked about Syria more than once. So it’s, you know, it’s something that Labour is – we’re going to have to fight to make sure remains on the political agenda, especially with what’s happening with coronavirus. There’s a very real prospect that the world just forgets, and we can’t allow that to happen.
So, I think the first thing to say is that I am very concerned about the fact that the EU settlement programme has been suspended. I do understand that the government and governments are trying to take measures, in order to alleviate the pressure on parts of government, in order to free up resources for coronavirus. But it strikes me that this is going to be a really hard thing to get back up and running, particularly given the way in which some leaders are seeking to exploit this crisis at the moment, to argue for closed borders. So, the first thing that we’ve got to do is make sure that as soon as possible, that resettlement programme gets back up and running.
The second thing is obviously aid, and making sure that aid gets into Syria. One of the things that the World Health Organization said recently was a very real concern about the fact that as countries are closing borders, that that’s making it hard to get aid and equipment across borders and into countries that need them. And that is obviously very true of getting – you know, of making sure that aid gets to the Syrian people as well. And I think the third thing is just, in terms of the very urgent diplomatic response that’s needed, and needed from the UK, in conjunction with other countries, is about the issue of people fleeing across borders and then being pushed back into danger. And that is something that has been horrifying to watch over the last few months, and too little has been done, in order to try and put pressure on those governments, in neighbouring countries, to make sure that that doesn’t happen and that people are brought to safety.
Of course, you know, I’m aware, having worked with refugees before I came into Parliament, that one of the difficulties is that the criticism is always levelled at the UK about what we’re doing. And that’s one of the reasons why I think we’ve got to live our values, and we’ve got to make sure that even during the coronavirus crisis, that we do what we can to make sure that we share that responsibility with other countries as well, and step up ourselves and walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
Thomas Raines
We’re running relatively short on time, so I’m going to try and get in a couple of final questions. There’s a question here, which is at the top of the Q&A list with the most likes by – from Hugo McNeill Love, which is, “What are your thoughts on the government’s response to COVID-19 so far?” So you’ve touched upon this a little bit in your remarks at the beginning, but it would be interesting particularly, I think, maybe to focus on the international dimensions of that.
Lisa Nandy MP
Yeah, so I think, I mean, in terms of the domestic approach, I think that the government has done a number of things that are welcome and virtually unprecedented. Particularly the huge economic package that the Chancellor announced last week, and the way in which he worked with not just the CBI, but the TUC, in order to make sure that those concerns were brought into the plan, at the earliest stages, rather than what we’ve seen, for the last few weeks, which is the government unilaterally building a plan, which they then announced, which then unravelled, and that they then have to revisit. The concern I have is that that is causing a very real collapse in trust among the public, and people questioning whether the advice that they’re being given is the right one. And so, I’d like to see a much quicker response to that, and a much more cross-party approach.
One of the things that I asked for this week was a national COBRA to be established, so that we can have the widest possible voices in the room, including people from the Labour Party, to get this right in real time. And I can’t honestly see what the argument is for not having Gordon Brown in the room at the moment, trying to build this national plan that we can all stand behind. Having dealt with the financial crisis in 2008, and then foot and mouth as well, seems to me, we should be drawing on the widest range of expertise. And that obviously would enable the UK to learn lessons for the international response that is needed.
The biggest concern that I have about the way in which the UK is working internationally is that we seem to be following a very different approach. At least, certainly in the early days we followed a very different approach from other countries, and I think Jeremy Hunt was right to say that there is a real problem with the amount of testing that the United Kingdom is doing. If you listen to South Korea, if you listen to the World Health Organization, they will say that testing, testing and testing is the most important thing that you can do. And the government has rightly taken action on social distancing, in the last few days, but without knowing where this virus is, we’re going to have real problems in getting it under control.
Thomas Raines
Thank you very much. So we’re coming towards the end, but I want to just bring in, if I can, just very quickly, a couple of short questions. We have a community platform that we run for young people in Europe and Africa to talk about international political issues, and we’ve got some questions from some members of our community there, which I wanted to put to you at the end. So the first one is just on the role of young people. How can the UK better engage young people in politics, at home and around the world? That’s from Adam Obamba in the Côte d’Ivoire.
Lisa Nandy MP
So, it’s a brilliant question because it’s something that, to which there is no simple answer, and that most of us, including me, have been grappling with for a very long time. I think, from my experience of working with young people here, the answer is that young people need real power, otherwise there is – involvement is tokenistic. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve always been in favour of votes at 16. I think we should be seeking to build – bring the widest range of people in to decision-making, rather than shut people out. But there are better ways as well that you can get young people involved, I mean, from an earlier age. So, one example is the UNICEF programme, the Rights Respecting School, where young people, from a very young age, from five – as young as five, are given the right to make decisions about the running of their school. They make those decisions collectively, so that they’re not just learning about how political systems work, but they’re actually being given the right to use that power, and by using it, to understand the consequences of getting it wrong. Democracy is hard, there’s no question about it, and you have to take people with you, and giving young people the tools that they need to navigate that at a young age is really important.
And a few years ago I went to Tunisia in the middle of the Arab Spring, and I met young people from right across the region, who’ve been very involved in their own countries. Bravely, often, because their families didn’t want them to be involved because there were political implications of them getting involved in – personal implications of them getting involved in politics. But they were determined to do it, because they wanted to be – the way that they put it to me, is they wanted to be free and they wanted to know what freedom felt like. And freedom means you have to have control, and power, over your own life and the future of your life, your community and your country. So, I suppose, in the end, the answer to this is about power, and about more programmes like the one I went on, where we can bring together young leaders from other countries, and help to give them a voice, and give them the tools that they need to start making change.
One of the big frustrations a lot of those young people had was that generationally, they were very shut out of power, and older people were making decisions about a world – you know, some of those decisions right ones, but often about a world that has gone. And those young people were saying, “We’ve got a huge stake in the future, and yet we’re not being empowered to make those decisions too.” And I’m determined that that’s going to change, and that the Labour Party that I lead will play a part in making that happen.
Thomas Raines
Great, thank you very much. Now, in the last minute, this is a chance to perfectly summarise your message, and it’s a question from Madeleine Ledaru in Romania, who said, “What is the UK Labour Party’s message on international co-operation in our current time of coronavirus?”
Lisa Nandy MP
That we’re here, and that we believe in working with people across the world, in order to raise us up together. It says, on the back of our pledge card, our membership card, in the Labour Party, that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, and that couldn’t be more true now, globally. Not just with coronavirus, but with climate change, with the mass movement and displacement of people around the world. All of this is more important now. It feels more important for me than it ever has been in my lifetime, and I am determined that Labour is going to live up to its internationalist values.
Thomas Raines
Lisa, thank you very much. Thank you to everyone who joined us. You’ve managed a setting sun in Wigan. It’s got progressively darker in the background as we’ve gone, and you’ve been undeterred. Thank you for all of those answers on so many different topics. We really appreciate your time. Thank you to everyone who logged in and watched and listened and proposed questions. Sorry I couldn’t get through everybody’s. Please keep an eye on future events here. We have lots going on, despite not being able to meet in the building. And I hope, Lisa, we can welcome you back to Chatham House sometime when we are back open in person.
Lisa Nandy MP
Lovely. Thanks so much, everyone. Cheers.
Thomas Raines
Alright, take care. Thank you. Bye, bye.
Lisa Nandy MP
Bye.
