'She's in a bit of a pickle' | PMQs analysed

Time to pick over the bones of PMQs with Natasha Clarke. Natasha, a question for you. Go on. How can someone who never makes a mistake own up to their mistakes? I feel like I'm Kimmy Bishnock's spokesperson here. I'm going to defer you back to her for that one, James. I have no idea. But yeah, she obviously had a rough ride on that one for exactly the reasons why you were saying she didn't want to go on it in the first place, right? Because she was in government. They voted, they campaigned to remain, the Conservative Party did, the government at the time allowed cabinet ministers to be for and against. And then she presided over this Brexit deal, which, as Andy Burnham pointed out, she can't even say whether it's a good deal or not. So, of course, she's on the back foot and feels unable to take responsibility for what the Conservatives played their part in it. And I'm sure, you know, other people will agree that she can't really seem to do that at all. While remaining committed to the suboptimal deal that they negotiated. So she can't admit that it's suboptimal and neither can she admit that improving it or abandoning it altogether would be preferable. She is in a bit of a pickle on this. Shall I make the pickle even tarter? Do you think Kemi Badenoch realises... And I could be wrong about this because it's only just occurred to me. Do you think Kemi Bader not realises that she is currently already campaigning to renegotiate our settlement deal with the European Union? Is she already campaigning on that? Yes. Well, there you go. She's messed up her own position already. If we were to leave, as she wants, the European Convention of Human Rights, then we would absolutely have to renegotiate our settlement deal with the European Union. I don't think she realises that. Does she? No, she probably doesn't. She probably doesn't realise that her own position to leave the UCHR is absolutely that. It's a reopening of negotiations. It's a return to the deal that the Tories signed. And she probably is not either informed enough or bright enough to have clocked that herself. But it's important to remember that she never makes mistakes, although when she does, she owns up to them immediately. Indeed, James. And she showed really that this, I mean, it was a very spicy Prime Minister's question, we should first say, a real debate coming alive there. And I think we've got a bit of a taste already of what the next election might look like, if indeed, as you're potentially hinting there before the break, that you think that that might come a little bit earlier. And Andy Burnham has been very careful. He has said that he won't be changing the manifesto. And as you say, the manifesto goes up until the time of the next manifesto. So up until the end of of the Parliament. It's in Andy Burnham's whether he wants to bring forward that and have an early general election. But you're right. The statistics are on the government side or on Andy Burnham's side on this one. Most of the polling has shown that people do want a closer relationship with Europe. And at least some of the polling I was looking at earlier today, James, showing that most people want a closer relationship, whether that means a customs union, single market. And that's exactly what the Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, was calling for today. and sort of reaching out to Andy Burnham from across the dispatch box saying... We will work with you on this one. Now, Andy Burnham's not going to have a manifesto commitment to join the single market and the customs union tomorrow, but it could be. And Andy Burnham twice as well in that prime minister's question session. That we just watched, refusing to rule out the idea of another referendum. So we could be seeing it come into another manifesto for the next Labour Party, or it could be a referendum. And I don't think Andy Burnham has quite figured himself out exactly what that looks like yet. Which is why you were absolutely on the money a few, just before PMQs, when you talked about starting a conversation does not necessarily need to involve conclusions. It is, and it was quite a bold political move given. The toxicity with which the debate is always imbued by the people that won the referendum but are desperate that we all stop talking about the thing that they supposedly won. He has definitely kind of let the cat out of the bag, as it were. He's definitely reopened the conversation. And of course, I think you've made this point obliquely. It could be that he can claim a mandate for... rejoining the single market, if it's in a manifesto for a general election, he wouldn't necessarily need to go to the people again for a specific referendum, whether it was non-advisory or advisory, like the last one. Exactly. And that's kind of what Angela Rayner was suggesting on Sunday. She was kind of saying that she believed that it would be on the cards for the Lex Labour manifesto and she wouldn't get into whether there is or is not going to be a referendum. But I think Andy Burnham has left the door open. And you heard his comments earlier this week. I think he would like there to be a potential option. I think it will be very difficult. To have another referendum, go back into the European Union without another referendum. But I think Andy Burnham and what he kept saying at Prime Minister's Questions today is he wants a new deal. That's absolutely what the British public want, according to that polling. And actually, it was very helpful for his argument to name all of the list of those business organisations that agree with him. You know, you've got ASDA, you've got Morrison's, Marks and Spencer's, the CBI, all of these business groups that want us to have that closer relationship. But that's a lot more of an easier argument to make if we're not going right back in to the European Union. Maybe he doesn't need a referendum in order to do so. Some people would disagree. Kemi Bejanor will probably say, well, this isn't what the British public voted for. On the other hand, Andy Burnham will say, well, they didn't vote for anything either. What the Brexit deal looked like wasn't on the ballot paper at all. So for Andy Burnham to make that argument, I think he could probably put that in a Labour manifesto and just about get that over the line without having to have another referendum. He took the tiny, tiny bit uneasy, though. I mean, clearly he will have backbenchers whose constituents will still be susceptible To the Brexit propaganda, you know, the idea that this would be somehow... ...denying what they voted for, despite, of course, as you point out, the fact that nobody, literally nobody, voted for what they got in the end. People like Daniel Hannan insisting that the single market membership would be unaffected. People like Boris Johnson insisting that freedom of movement wouldn't even be compromised. People like Nigel Farage insisting that we could be like Norway, where, of course, freedom of movement is in place, as members of the European Economic Area and, indeed, the Schengen Area. So, despite the fact that it's all a load of nonsense, if Brexit taught us anything... People will fall for a load of nonsense if it's dressed appropriately, and Labour MPs in so-called Red Wall constituencies have inherited voters who prove themselves to be most susceptible to that kind of bovine propaganda. So he will be worried. I mean, you know, it's not going to be popular with everyone in his own party. No, you're right there, James. It's not going to be popular with everybody in his own party, including his own constituents, who we've heard some voices from Makerfield over the last week. People there are slightly concerned with Andy Burnham reopening this debate. And I think as Kemi Badenoch made the good point that Parliament and politics was paralysed around sort of 2017, 18. Parliament unable to get a Brexit deal through and unable to get support across the House of Commons. And I think all of Westminster will be absolutely desperate not to go back to that paralysis that we saw. And there is a risk, and Andy Burnham knows that there is a risk, of reopening this argument. But I think what he's doing is looking at those polls, looking at where the support for the British public is, and again doing what we've talked about before. We thought that Keir Starmer might do open that on the grounds of growing the economy and making the case that it will make us better off if we get this closer relationship to Europe. But just on your point about migration, I was at the Reform Press Conference earlier this week with Nigel Farage. He very much is going to make migration a key part of this. You were there? At the Reform Press Conference. Yeah, I was. There was absolutely no one else there. I know. I was trying to work out who it was. It was you, was it, that turned up for that? It was me, yes. Extraordinary. Yes. It was extraordinary. There are a good 60 or 70 seats, James, that were totally empty. But I asked Nigel Farage about migration because I think he's going to make this a really big part of the next Brexit debate if and when it happens. Well, he's not got anything else. He never has. He's not got anything else to hang his hat on. Exactly. But actually, I think there is a really interesting argument going on in government about legal migration at the moment and those ILR, the Leave to Remain changes that Andy Burnham was talking about. He said, I back Shabana Mahmood on making those changes. But behind him on the Labour backbench is lots of people very worried about what that means for care workers and changing the rules retrospectively. Opening up freedom of movement is going to be a really, really difficult debate. And if Andy Burnham wants to go into the single market, the EU have been pretty clear they're not going to do that without a freedom of movement change. Yeah, quite a good column today in the Eye newspaper about precisely that issue with regards to the retrospective changes to care workers who are already here looking after people like my mum. Indeed, the column is about my mum because it's a column by me. Plug over, I promise. But it is an issue that many Labour MPs And indeed, trade unions are deeply concerned about. I think we can see Sheila Fogarty now. Are you in the same studio or is it going to be a split screen or are we going to do it like a Zoom call? No, I'm sitting right next to Natasha Clark, right where we belong together. We belong together, Sheila. In the Commons, near the Commons anyway. Yeah, I mean, we're waiting. It's probably going to come in the next few minutes. It's always hard to pin down the exact time, isn't it, Natasha, as to when the speech starts. But just so people can manage their expectations, it will be an hour or so, the budget speech. Thank Kemi Badenoch will be responding to it. A little of that as well. But the all-important thing to watch, apart from the content of the speech, I think, you is the response and the forecasts that follow it by the Office for Budget Responsibility this year. very Thankfully, they haven't leaked it this time. It's already on the up, Sheila. But the markets will be watching that very closely, James, as well, much. while we pour over the content of the Healy speech, which is in the next few minutes. So at which point you will introduce it, and I will sort of just sit here. For half an hour. You can put your feet up. Twiddling my thumbs, drinking tea. And see what's going to happen to your pension, your bank accounts, your business if you have one, your minimum wage if you earn one. I mean, these are some of the things on the agenda, aren't they, Natasha? The potential increase of surcharge taxes for banks. It seems to me, you know, every... Every big political moment is also an attempt to tell a story. It is. And we know that Keir Starmer wasn't particularly good at that. And Andy Burnham is a lot, lot better at that. Would you agree with me that the story he will want to tell, I mean, he hinted at it in PMQs, will be that he's attempting to create a balance where he is pro-business and pro-worker, pro-working people going out to work every day and trying to make ends meet. That's the story he wants to be able to tell. Yeah, absolutely. Cost of living and breathing space. That's the word that you're going to hear a lot about in the next hour or two from John Healy. He's going to say breathing space again and again, because it's what the government wants to do to give cost of living help to people. And, you know, all of these little changes, you know, the Conservatives, the opposition have mocked, you know, the idea of taking some pennies off gherkins. But actually, all of these little changes do add up to a lot of money. And actually looking at sort of, I was looking at my electricity and gas bill earlier today, working out how much it's going to be. All of these little things do add up. And I think, yeah, I think they will all add up and make a little bit of a difference. But you're right, the other focus in this budget is going to be on businesses and making Britain a better place to grow. And I understand Prime Minister's questions has finished now. So it's only a matter of time before John Healy takes to his feet to deliver what will be his first budget speech. He was Defence Secretary, of course, until not that long ago. And he's coming for some criticism, not least from some of his former cabinet colleagues for really essentially sticking with the Keir Starmer-Rachel Reeves plan on things like defence. for example, because he can do no other, really. Yeah, exactly. And he is in a really tight bind because he resigned over this issue. As you say, he made such a big political stand about the idea that Keir Starmer wasn't properly funding defence. And you remember that scathing resignation letter that he wrote. And actually now he's in the job. He's in the hot seat. He's obviously got to look at all these figures and look at where best to fund defence from. And at the moment, I understand, I understand from speaking with Wes Streeting last week, the defence secretary, there is going to be more money for defence. The chancellor has said that. The treasurer. We don't exactly know what that will look like. It's about the setting out of that funding.