 Last week, Labour lost 52 seats to the Conservatives, nearly all of them in lead voting constituencies in the Midlands and North of England. These losses have been blamed for the main on Labour backing a second referendum. It's a policy which my guest today, Ian Lavery, had long warned against and Ian kept his Wandsbeck seat in the north-east of England by the closest of margins on Thursday, I think down from an 11,000 majority to 1,000. So many of your predictions came true as it were. I'm also joined by Ash Sarkar, contributing editor at Navarra Media, lefty superstar. How are you both doing? Well, I've been doing what I've been calling the self-flagellation roadshow, where basically I go on telly and someone new yells at me. So I've got someone from the right comes up and yells at me and I've got to drink down my cup of sick. And then John Rental pops up looking like a centrist Tim Westwood and yells at me some more. But the good thing there is that it's given me the time and the space to really think through what it is I got wrong from small to big. Small thing that I got wrong and this turned out to be crucial for thinking about how the campaign was going is that because polls were wrong in 2015, polls were wrong in 2016, polls were wrong in 2017, I thought polls must be wrong in 2019. And the only thing that matters is the direction of travel. And then that turns out not to be true. So in terms of where I thought the campaign was at and where we were actually at were two massively different things. Second thing that I got wrong is that Boris Johnson learned the lessons from 2017 and the left didn't. And that meant that we were unable to identify the things we got right and we were unable to identify the things that could have been improved on. So there were certain things where I thought that we'd absolutely nailed down the argument on the economy and then we could stretch into some of the more transformative goals, particularly on things like a four day week. And that wasn't able to happen in the way that I'd anticipated. And the big thing missing was that between 2017 and 2019 we could have used the movement for political education outside of our own circles didn't necessarily happen. And the third thing, which obviously I now look back on with a deep sense of regret is the Brexit issue. Now I think had Labour not shifted to a second referendum position, we still would have lost this election. However, there would have been, I think, a more even geographic spread of the loss of vote share, which could have yielded a different result in terms of the numbers of seats lost. The other thing that is different between shifting to a second referendum position and not shifting to a second referendum position is who you're sending a message to in terms of importance. Now, of course, Labour's base has hugely remained supporting. It's got a huge amount of support from young people, BAME people, who are both from working class backgrounds as well. And it was really important to say that no, this party has a home for you. And this is something which Navarra Media's very own Craig Gent wrote in a recent article, which I encourage everyone to read, is while the Conservatives and Brexit Party found the confidence delivered by winning the referendum for their own cynical purposes, Labour became the party of steady on, asking lead voters to gamble their sacred victory in order to appease a bunch of hard remainers who never accepted that they lost. And worse yet, appeared to think that their votes ought to have been worth more than the votes of leavers. And I think that Craig, who is both a very thoughtful writer, very kind and empathetic writer, and also an unflinching writer, gets it right. I think the move towards a second referendum position after the intensely polarising European election without a strategy to shore up the lead vote proved to be fatal in those red wall seats, I do think, however, not shifting would have come with huge drawbacks as well. And perhaps one of the big problems is that the case for not having a second referendum, for sticking with the customs union, that's being the compromise. The heart of the lead party never seemed to be quite in it, not all the time. There's plenty of issues to debate as we go on in the show there. First of all, I want to say, you know, Ash has been in the TV studios getting harangued, I suppose, by centrists and right wing journalists. You've just come from the first PLP meeting since the general election, that's the meeting of MPs and Labour Lords. How was it? It was very, very, very uncomfortable. I gave a speech, Jenny for me, outlined the processes for the leadership contests in the early next year. Jeremy gave a speech, he got polite applause and unfortunately a number of the members of the PLP severely attacked, brutally attacked, I've got to say, Jeremy Coben. You know, the reality is politics is a brutal business. But we've got a man like Jeremy Coben who, how I see, is one of the most inspirational individuals I've ever met. On a number of fronts, not just, I mean, he's not the man that Tony Ben was in terms of the way in which he could articulate and speak in greater, greater. But as an individual, I promise anybody that he's one of the most decent men I've ever met in my entire life. He's got more energy than most young people will ever have. He's more principled. And to see him, to be blamed really, not just at the PLP, but to be blamed by large swathes of the media, lots of people, lots of MPs from all sides of different parties including the Labour Party. Quite frankly, it's not annoying, it's quite frankly I'm emotional about it because it's attacking a man who all his life is fought for the underdog, whether it be right across the globe or whether it be in the south-east or whether it be in the south-east. This man is a fantastic man. And it really was, for me, it's been heart breaking since the election because none of us expected this by the way. I did predict something along this line, but I didn't expect it to be as bad as this. But I think to blame Jeremy Coben is absolutely irresponsible. It's an attack. Again, that would be honest, you know, the reality isn't. There's not many people in this country ever suffered the abuse from the general public, from the media, from all sides of the political spectrum than Jeremy Coben has. And you know what, that manifesto was the best manifesto that any political parties ever produced. The manifesto are called the book of hope. We went on a tour of the leave constituencies and very well received. And to think now that there's a huge attack on the manifesto itself, for being a shopping list, a Christmas list, not credible. I mean, what's not credible about trying to take people out of poverty? What's not credible about getting rid of homelessness? What's not credible about paying people decent wages? What's not credible about the re-nationalization of the real way, the water industry, real mail in water? I mean, what's not credible? I'm not even left weighing ideologies, man. And to think that this was a shopping list, it disturbs me. I think people are saying, you know, Michael, they're saying that perhaps we shouldn't have offered hope to people, or perhaps we shouldn't have offered too much hope to people. Well, I've been up and down this country. I've been up and down the leave, not just the leave constituencies, but, you know, that's huge issues in many of these constituencies I've voted leave. And we've got to begin to understand why they voted leave in the first place. And we kind of just say to people, we'll offer you a little bit of hope, but not a lot. That manifesto, shopping list, no. Book of hope? Yes. Try to transform society for good. And what comes with that, of course, is if you want to break the establishment, you've got to be ready for the huge, most vicious attacks. And I think that's what we're seeing. I think this was a rerun of the 2016 referendum. Have a look at the statistics. I mean, you can make what you want out of any table of statistics, but, you know, we out of 60 seats were lost. Six in Scotland were, I'll remain, six in Wales were all leave, and 45 out of the 48 in England were leave constituencies. The average swing was around about 11, 11.5% away from the Labour Party to the Tories. You know, people are terribly, terribly, terribly disenfranchised from politics. And I think we should have listened to what the people said in 2016. It's called democracy. And the party was seen, wasn't it? To be a Remain Party, we seem that all junctures within Parliament to try and challenge the fact that the 17.4 million people had actually been on the winning side. And we try to put amendments in. We try to put reckon amendments in to try and scope our Brexit. It's been the biggest mistake, in my view, that the Labour Party has ever made in its history. There's a consequence of that and other issues. We've got the situation which we'll find we're selling the dead. So there's one place where I would disagree, and that's saying that, you know, in hindsight, we could have respected the vote stuck with it and would be in a much better place. I think that what Labour tried to do is go from one compromise option, which was the soft Brexit customs union option, to what they deemed was another compromise option, which was second referendum with Remain and the customs union negotiated deal on the ballot. And in neither case, I think, was able to start doing really hard work of persuading either its own base within the party. So the work of persuading a heavily Remain-leaning membership, why that was not going to be possible considering the composition of its electoral coalition. I think some individuals in the Labour Party did it. But I think that in terms of that conversation happening loudly, consistently from the start, and that real hard work of persuasion didn't quite happen. And I think one of the reasons for that is lots of people were still in shock over the 2016 referendum. I was still in shock about the 2016 referendum. The full weight of it hadn't quite sunk in. Then when it came to being in parliament and voting against Theresa May's deal, voting for extensions, is that in the absence of a really compelling story, and this is where I think you're right, in terms of, well, if we're saying that we're respecting the referendum result, but at these quite basic junctures of where an opportunity to get the first stage of a withdrawal bill over and done with, we're voting it down rather than either supporting it or abstaining, it muddies the story that's trying to be told here. And then there was a shift to second referendum with the expectation of there would be at least a constellation of interests from people who were supporting parties which were largely in favor of a second referendum with the option to remain, is that that shifted the Liberal Democrats into a position where they were essentially the Brexit party but in yellow and supportive of remain where there was no option that they would countenance bar the most extreme version of what they wanted. And it was able in lots of ways to solidify and entrench this idea of Brexit as a culture war where it was a zero sum game, either one side completely won or the other side completely lost. And I think in terms of Labour's two attempts to shape some kind of compromise, it was neither able to depolarize Brexit as an issue and would have been punished severely as well, electorally had it picked either side without that work of persuasion. I think this debate will continue as the show goes on. I kind of want to talk. You might still be in shock. Can you imagine the 17.4 million people who for the first time have voted and then they believe politicians were just totally ignoring them. That's shock and that's the reality of things. I think at times we've got to put our cards on the table here. It's all right if we had to pick the remain side which would have showed up many of the seats in the south in London with 30,000 majorities because you know the argument that was given is that we could lose lots of seats in London. The vast majority of people in London who were making that argument had majorities in excess of 30,000. My argument always was we've got to make sure we look at what's happening in the areas where we've got majorities of you know I think we had 45 offensive and defensive seats in the East Midlands where we needed to show it up because there were marginal seats and there was the problem with the Tory party and the Brexit party and we got it wrong I'm afraid and people need to understand that there's life outside of London, there's life outside of the M 25 and that's where we went wrong. We abandoned people by the way, we really did and I've got to say Ash I think the issue didn't just happen with Brexit. This happened many years ago I think in the Blair Government there was a I think we lost 5 million voters during the the period of the Blair Government which is a lot of good things. I've got to put that on right or done a lot of good things but we began to lose the working class communities right from there and we shouldn't like discount. I think that it's just happened in the last since 2016 because it hasn't. I want to move on in a moment to your stomping ground in the northeast. First of all you're watching the Variety, you're watching Tiskey Sour. As you know this show this organization is only possible because of your kind donations. If you are already a subscriber thank you very much. If not please go to support.Navaramedia.com and donate the equivalent of one hour's wage a month or give us a little post-election bonus. This Thursday we have Navaramedia's Christmas Party so to get tickets for that go to buytickets.at forward slash Navaramedia. I invited Ian Lavery on the way up in the lift but he's going back and took a constituency on Thursday evening. I hope that you get to find Michael and what this place is. It will be easier to find than what this place is. I want to talk about Wandsbeck and the northeast in general. As you were saying you think that many people in the political class have failed to look beyond the M25 and we'll be the first to admit Navaramedia is within the M25 but most of our guests live within the M25. I'm so M25 I've got the initials of a London neighbourhood tattooed in my ribs. I am guilty as charged. I wanted to ask you what do you think the Labour Party or the direction of the Labour Party or the political class in general have misunderstood about the north-east? Democracy. Democracy. I think democracy is the simple answer to all of this. I think a lot of people not just in the north-east because it isn't just in the north-east. I think we lost... The north-west and the north-west. I think it's right from the east midlands to the west midlands and the Yorkshire and Humberside and the north-west and the north-east. Then you've got a completely different political spectrum with regards to Brexit. In Scotland it's not really strange. You've got London, the rest of the country, right up to Scotland and then it changes again. This is rather strange in political terms. It really, really, it really is. But I just think that quite often in politics, during this campaign I've sat in rooms with some of the brightest people in mind. At times I've just said for heaven's sake you should hear yourselves. Why have we not just got a simple message? Why do we not make things much less complicated instead of talking about trillions of dollars and millions of pounds in the economy which is all very important. Why don't we target things that might other people certainly understand. I always keep seeing emotion, emotion, emotion. And I think that's what we had to do. I think the campaign was very good by the way. I really do. I think the offer was brilliant. But I think there's that distrust that we ignored the voters in 2016. And I think that incensed people. You know what, my view was that we should leave. But I couldn't agree to leave with any of the bails that were put before the comments because it would have been disastrous. It would have been catastrophic for people in my area. I mean, the general figures were each individual would lose £2,400. If I stood on a manifesto in my constituency, I anywhere saying, I want you to vote for me but you're going to lose £2,000. I would get hammered. But the way in which things will polarise, I've never seen, I've never experienced before. It's like Brexit means Brexit. And when you mentioned, you know, I wanted a chap's house here that year. Not on his door, right? What a decent fella he actually was. 40-year-old, blind in one eye. Nice house in an area, council area, not far from where I live. Blind in one eye, severe epileptic. And he says, Ian, I'm not sure who I can vote for. He says, I think you're an excellent MP. I'm really pleased to meet you. I'm pleased you're sitting in my house. He says, but you know, I've got, I'm blind in one eye. I'm struggling. I cannot make ends meet. I've been blind in one eye. I'm not voting liberal. Because I'm not voting liberal. But I think I made vote Brexit. What can you say? What can you say? And it's this polarisation which went right through, I don't think we ever expected what did happen. But certainly I predicted that there would be huge losses. But not on this scale, I really didn't. It's about trust in politicians. And it's about messaging. You know, you can have the best manifesto, which we did have. If you kind of get it through to individuals, if you kind of get that messaging into their sitting room to say, this is how we're going to change your life, then it's very difficult. So it's about the messaging, how you, how you get the narrative across, how you, and you know, not one on people's doors is great because you get the opportunity to speak to people. I had some great conversations with people. And they didn't have a clue what the, the, the, any politician was. They didn't have a clue about, you know, anything not any of the parties. But they were saying, we've got to get it doing. Brexit means Brexit. So, I mean, one thing that struck me during the campaign is that the polarisation of this country is on way more issues than simply Brexit. And one of the things that came up, and this is intimately connected with the sort of attacks that Jeremy was under night and day from the establishment media and the right wing papers in particular is that Jeremy was being attacked as a proxy for the values of multiculturalism and diversity. And I'll give you one example of where that became really clear to me. Is that I knocked on a gentleman's door in one of the most deprived but also least diverse bits of North Yorkshire. So it wasn't one of those bits of Yorkshire where you've got a very strong Pakistani and Bangladeshi community. It was very, very racially homogenous. And he told me that he couldn't vote for Jeremy because he would let those Muslims and foreigners take over. And so that was going back to all those things, those 13 pages in the Daily Mail, the national security, terrorist sympathiser. And simply because of Jeremy stepping down after this leadership election, that's not going to go away. Already seeing articles and newspapers like from Melanie Phillips saying that Islamophobia is a completely bogus concept, that Islamophobia isn't a form of racism because it's not irrational. And in fact to suggest that Islamophobia exists as a distinct form of oppression is itself anti-Semitic. Is that what we're going to see is that Jeremy leaving front bench politics is not going to mean that those sort of attacks go away. Because that sort of connection between a left-wing transformative economic project and its leadership and the values of multiculturalism, diversity and anti-racism is that that's right in the sight lines of an incredibly divisive nativist and hardline right-wing. That's what we're up against for the next five years. I totally agree with you. My constituency, I think I'll not be far away. Ash, when I say that it's 99% 99.0% white. I don't know your constituency was a cold play concert, but do you go on? Well, when you're not on people's doors, people raise immigration. One man raised it with his, you know, just before the election and he said there's a school where they've got to learn 230 odd languages and that's just not right. And this man was a very educated man. I said, well, where was that? And he says, well, in London and this is like Warnsback. You know what, you'll not believe this. I mean, the multi-culturism, in my view, I've learned lots and lots in the last two elections. It's been a hell of a journey for me, you know, because I'm like a working-class lad from the pits. And I've never experienced multi-culturism. Never experienced it because we haven't got it. It's a huge issue in the country, you know, because it's split again. And people who haven't enjoyed multi-culturism like we've got here in the south and like we've got, you know, the Midlands and people who haven't enjoyed it are frightened of it. They're really frightened of it. It's a daily mail and it's the media outlets, it's the right-wing press and, you know, the Muslims are going to check over the world and people on the doorstep, we haven't got that in the northeast. I went to Wolverhampton and it was absolutely wonderful, 200 people there all, you know, part of the BAME community. They were brilliant. And I went to Peterborough during the bi-election at Peterborough, there's been a mosque. I don't have a church that often, by the way. You've probably gone to mosques more often than I have, you've put me to shame here. I've only been to one. I didn't know really what it was because it doesn't bother me what religion you are, what Koleiyski, it never even comes into it for me. And I went to a mosque and it was one of the most unbelievable feelings I had and I'm not kidding you by the way. And I tell everybody this, it was so warm. The people were absolutely fantastic. You know, there was the elders there and there was the younger families. The only thing I couldn't understand and I'm sure I might get criticized for this was the fact that the men and the women were separate. And I think that's obviously part of the culture and that's fair enough by the way, that's the way it is. But I left, when I went to Park Park, I was with two women and I said I'll see it inside. It was a Friday night, I said I'll see it inside. So we went one way and they went the other. And I went in there. So I've been in the mosque once and it was absolutely amazing. So emigration comes up on the doorstep it absolutely does and it always has done with the white working class by the way. It always has done. But in reality that just being fair to this rubbish about multiculturalism what's going to happen but generally it's the most warm thing. If I could like change where I live it would be to a more multicultural society because it's so, so much better. And I'm saying that as a cool man who people don't know what I'm talking about in my area when I say that but I'm missing it man we're missing something huge right up north people are frightened of it and it shouldn't be frightened of people with a different colour scheme well all the same man and this is the sort of thing that's coming up on the doorstep and it's futile it's wrong but try to explain that to people I'm guessing in all sorts of trouble but I think that there are three ways in which the left can deal with the issue of anti-immigration and xenophobic sentiments one is panda to it the second one is that sort of very rigid very uncompromising and very moralising way of dealing with it and the third thing which I think the Labour Party since Corbyn has come in has certainly attempted to do and it needs to be built on is persuade people and I think viewing it as the beginning of a conversation and a persuasive aim is something which the left in general needs to get much better at and I'm talking about also people who I consider my comrades in the anti-racist movement so on and so forth is that when all you've got is a hammer everything starts to look like a nail and having different tools having different tactics at our disposal is going to be so so important in these next few years and I think that in terms of anti-racists on the left we do need to come up more quickly with persuasive strategies we need to build an anti-racist social majority even in areas which haven't experienced a great deal of migration or diversity and it's not just a sudden thing half my family from Bradford is one of the youngest most diverse places in the country similar with Manchester similar with Liverpool so I think it's less about north and south and a little bit more about metropolitan and town I think one of the big problems by the way in society is exactly what you've said there you know Arsh it's not necessarily north and south it's about the metropolitan areas and the towns and the villages I think you're right that goes for Brexit it goes for lots of other things as well because you know when we talk about immigration or what we're talking about child poverty or pensioner poverty it's as if people in the north think that that doesn't happen in London well it absolutely does we've got huge pockets of people in London one of the richest cities if not the richest city in the world we've got massive problems with poverty with pensioner poverty with child poverty with family poverty with in-work poverty and I think you're right we've got to get this right and not generalize on things really I think we've touched on a bunch of issues about how we will win back these areas and that's what I want to sort of move on to because I suppose I mean it's quite clear that your main explanation for why we lost so many seats in the north of England and the midlands and all around England was because of our Brexit position but in five years time Brexit is going to be a done deal it will be over and you could be very optimistic about that and say oh without this second referendum issue Labour can win these seats back incredibly easily or you could say that a whole new bunch of challenges will become apparent once the Brexit crisis or Brexit drama is complete and we might get another shock all over again in 2024 because there's another issue that we haven't quite realised that we haven't got quite right I don't want another shock man my constitution is too delicate for that kind of thing before I get you to answer that though you're watching Tiskey Sour I'm not going to ask for your money again what I am going to say is if you go on Twitter and tag Tiskey Sour we will go to some of your questions and comments as they come in and at the end of the show Ian how do we win back seats in the north east trust investment equality there are three of the simple issues I think trust is most important because you know we have got a massive London centric problem when I say a problem it is a problem but we've got an issue in the Labour Party where we've got nearly 500,000 members we've had 20,000 joining 20,000 new members since the election I finally joined the party congratulations three weeks ago you've been honoured for ages I really have at least my canvas which is one more number in the left wing superstar that Ashley is I'm claiming that credit still not got my card though so we see him it's in the post it's too late to cancel it now we've got a huge challenge and you've knocked this right off me what I was saying there so we're talking about how we win back the parts of England that we've lost in this election we've got to listen to people we haven't got the divine right it cannot be a London centric party it cannot be a party that just determines policy for the whole of the party the whole of the country based on what happens in this wonderful city of London and we've got to make sure that we listen to people we've got to make sure that the investment is in these areas we've heard about the northern powerhouse it hasn't produced a single big project certainly not in my area we've got to make people's lives better I mean the Labour Party manifesto was to be fair though and I suppose this is why it's challenging because you can't fault the Labour manifesto for not offering enough investment for these parts of the country how many people has read the Labour Party manifesto have you read it I skimmed it because I made a video about it have you read it from back to front I read sort of the first I read it back to front what's on page 35 oh that's just not good he's expecting me to be a hafiz a hafiz is the name of someone who can recite the Quran and he wants me to be a manifesto hafiz the point I'm making is that the manifesto was brilliant but it's how you like how you get the individual policies in that manifesto into the sitting rooms into the living rooms a lot of people who are totally isolated disenfranchised from society we are like suggested that it was a hammers under the home type people we need to get into their sitting room people who get up in the morning who are just managing who don't want to rock the boat in any way shape or form the same people on benefits the same people suffering having to use food banks and they don't want to lurch into that sort of unfortunate position so they're not happy but they're just managing and they think that if we don't rock the boat things will be ok how do we get the message we can't keep just knocking on people's doors as a party and saying hello army and labour from the Labour Party who did you vote for last time who were you voting for this time because the reality is we're not getting the right results we're not getting the right data we've got to engage with people we've got to discuss with people and not just six weeks before the election we've got to be seen in these communities and campaigns we've got to have community organisers that's the key to it community organisers so if you've got problems in your maternity ward at the hospital if the ANE is looking to close if you kind of get an appointment with the GP we've got to make sure apparently your hand is coming out in the sound I can't help it it's a very inspiring way of speaking I think it's just coming out in the end I don't believe that can you tell that you learn how oratory in a trade union it seems like you've brought me hard one day anyway the truth is we've got to be in the community we've got to be seen in the community we've got to have and I think the community organisers by the way is a fantastic way forward I think we need to set that up by the way this project of ours changing the world, transforming society isn't a two year project it's not Michael it's not called the struggle for Northern it really isn't it's a struggle and we get not back you dress yourself down again and then you fight back because what we've got to offer if we can get that into the sitting room into the living room, the different people different organisers we'll win an election hands down Brexit's bug out every year now and you know I'm on your shoes rather than the word I would rather use we're not actually regulated by OFCOM I'm not normally like that I swear I've got an absolute potty mouth so I'll say it for you Brexit, fuck it I like the idea of a lavery for every living room and this being the centrepiece of the next campaign one thing that I will add to what you're saying because it's not a contradiction at all is across the country Labour's support comes from working age people like that is still solid that is still core so ages 18 in this election it was 39 is the crossover point from majority Labour support to majority Tory support in the previous election it was 45 was the crossover age so still commanding the majority of working age people still have a huge amount of support for the asset poor young and where there's been most trouble has been from people in older age brackets and also homeowners and it's no good saying well what we're going to do is wait for our support to age into those brackets and dominate demographically because if you look at the constituencies that were lost is that you've got lots of those young people moving out of those towns into metropolitan areas in order to look for work so this is a place in which the changing face of who the working class is and what it's like to be working age in this country is overlapping with the sort of age distribution of Labour's core support and is overlapping with this problem of geographic spread and who's where and where you need to show up a vote and where it's concentrating a bit too much so I think that presents a set of factors which need to be responded to in a way which is very thoughtful and very strategic because that goes beyond Brexit and that goes beyond a lot of the things that we're talking about in terms of how do you have a political project which is both economically transformative and a home for those progressive social values which we really hold dear and it's going to be tricky I don't have any answers for precisely how it is you do that I do think that building community power in places where it's been decimated since that show came in in 1979 is of utmost importance but I imagine that there's going to be a lot more ideas to come in terms of addressing those issues with age distribution and with geographic spread I just want to say we're going to take your questions in a while so start putting them in the comments now and our producer Fox will start collecting them if you want to tweet your questions put the hashtag TiskeySaron and put them up on Twitter I think you're right as I said I think the community organised and when you look at the election results where we have had our community organised in units you see huge differences is that true? someone done an analysis yet because there is a big community organised unit and they've been in some constituencies my inside source of the community organised unit says that where the community organised unit was active and Gerdji had smaller decline in vote share and of course where the community organised unit was doing a spectacular job in Putney I think that in terms of the tactics which were used in Putney in particular the work that they were doing on housing the work they were doing in Clyde House which is a block which was completely you know affected by damp you had water dripping through the light fittings residents saying they were concerned it was going to be the new Grenfell the community organised unit made it a priority to hold that dodgy housing association to account and also make it a centrepiece of Labour's campaigning and so I think that showed a model of how you can build trust in communities that don't traditionally trust Labour and so if community organising is just a fancier word for having rallies not going to work, if it's that slow work of building trust and addressing needs real needs in the community outside of an electoral cycle that is definitely something that can be done not just in much policy areas, not just in London but in the north in the midlands, in towns and in villages too if we're going to be successful it hasn't just got to be working in London but I think you're right I've done lots of community organising events and we've got some brilliant community organising teams out there we've got a good, fantastic community organising team at Headquarters and done lots of good work really enthusiastic people and the idea of community organising is have these big rallies and then everybody goes home for a cup of tea and say hey Ian, leave me that big fat lad he was a good speaker we've got to have a spin off from it and the whole idea of community organising is getting community champions people signed up, people who signed up and don't know people who do the campaign and that's required to make sure we get a return of Labour seats we did a great community campaign in Putney you guys won it it was Laboury I want to talk about the future of the Labour Party can I just, I've got to say there was great million Ash turned up outside Putney real sorry Tube Station and it was like blind and down were rain it was black, it was foggy and it took me two hours to get there and I was asked to speak and I got up Ash was slightly late and I said I'm pleased to be here I've troubled in this bloke heckles he says get on with it he says get on with it, we've got to get away with canvassing but it was brilliant Putney that night that was with 200 people they had canvassing just before the election that was apparently 700 people had put me but when you look at the Midlands where we needed to win when you look at Yorkshire and Humberside the North and North East we had fantastic teams on the ground but the teams were 5 and 6, 10 and 20 and that's the big difference it's very good honestly by the way how do you do that though how do you build the membership in what is the CLP membership in your seat for example the CLP membership is in my constituency about 800 compared to a London constituency I've got to say that the campaign team for me this year was absolutely brilliant the people who came out it was cold you know freezing cold up in the North East and the amount of people that came out was some of them every day 3 or 4 sessions a day they were remarkable but we didn't have these wonderful 700 700 year we kind of just keep seeing we're going to take Ian Dope and Smith and we're going to take Boris Johnson and have thousands of people there on the side have a rally and then nothing happens and there's nobody in the areas where we need them in the offensive areas where we need to make sure we shore up the vote but it's got to be more than getting your canvases out and you get out of the vote operation let's go on to the Labour leaders super quick because I want to get well and this got to be the community organising thing it's actually about building social institutions which are there all the time not just in the electorate we're talking about the leadership election now putting my foot down people in the comments are asking Ian Lavery are you standing for leader of the Labour Party deputy leader of the Labour Party I've got to be honest I've been overwhelmed by the support of her the requests of her, the emails on Facebook for both leader and both deputy leader of the party all I would say is that this isn't about me I'll I'm not saying politicians should never say never but I'm waiting to see who the runners and the riders are because I think we have got a good array of talent we really have I think for the Labour Party leader this time I'm afraid I've got to say it almost definitely should be a woman it really should be a woman it's time we had some sort of equality at the very very very very top of the party so I would think that we should be in the rule book what can I do you say Michael but it's a shame that we cannot have an all women shortlist for the leader of the Labour Party so as far as the leader of the Labour Party is concerned I would say that because the deputy leader is concerned I'll be in discussions with people and I'll continue to discuss things Are you ready to endorse anyone for leader of deputy leader I think I made a mistake I made a mistake in endorsing Andy Burnham too early on in the race in 2015 against Jeremy Coleman and it wasn't against Jeremy Coleman Jeremy hadn't a great stand so very early on I had discussions with Andy I had discussions with him and he gave us some guarantees with the trade union movement and I supported him straight away it was a mistake because in hindsight I would have voted for Jeremy anyway so I'm going to wait I'll discuss it with people and we have got a project to keep at to ramp up I'll wait and see who the runners and the riders are I like a bit of the horses I like a bit of the dogs but the good thing is you've got to understand who the riders and who the runners are So the subtext there is that he's waiting for my local constituency MP Bambos Charalambos to throw his hat in the ring just so we can one day say Bambos Charalambos leader of the opposition What criteria are you going to judge by other than a woman what else do you think they have to prove I think they've got to prove honesty strength they've got to be strong in the political vision they've got to have an understanding about what the Labour Party was actually formed for Do you think their Brexit position matters? I think the Brexit they've got to get through who puts up they've got to explain they've got to be supported whatever they did in terms of Brexit because it's going to be important by the way it really is because we've got to cross that barrier you know the thing with the Brexit position Jeremy trying to keep the country together and I think that was the right thing to do although that caused problems both sides they're leaving on the remain side but we were together and I think that's important what we've got to do the leader and the Debley leader understand where we are at this moment of time and they've got to have a plan of how the Labour Party can come to power in five years time I'm not buying this as a 10 year project sorry a 10 year in the wilderness for 10 years I'm not buying that you know what the way that Boris Johnson the racist, the misogynist, the liar the way that hey governs this country you'll be critical in the next few months in the next couple of years huge issues facing this country a lot sooner than five years time a lot sooner than 10 years time so we've got to get the right person the strong person and you know one of the most important things Michael is that we continue to fight for the people who would benefit from a transformational government from a transformational manifesto like we have produced in the 2019 I think they're key issues carrying on the project keeping a hold of the mantle keeping a hold of the book of hope the policies that's in there and continuing with that that's really important to me I'm going to look through the hashtags carry on I'm going to let you guys continue without me I now have to run off to spend some time on Sky News with none other than Guido Forks this time and you can tell by the smile how much I've been looking forward to it so I will not keep myself away from that company any longer Ian, a pleasure as always I really like a little odd couple double act little and large and I'll see you in Putney I'm going to take that as a compliment right? I'm going to take that as a huge compliment some of the tweets Ben tweets on the hashtag Titski Sour Corbinism's major mistakes have come out of compromises in particular mandatory re-selections his views on foreign policy and indeed the eventual second referendum policy agreed. Do you think that Corbin and Corbinism has compromised too much? I think that's something to be said in that but you've got to understand Jeremy Corbin as an individual he's got fantastic left-wing credentials which he wouldn't compromise on he's a very principled man which he wouldn't compromise on his principles but we've had a lot of issues in the party since Jeremy since we tried on the establishment and Jeremy's role is to try and keep the party together and we've already mentioned the length of the night, the difference probably between the south and the north but I think at times there is a need for a leader like Jeremy to compromise because he doesn't like confrontation he's not a confrontation You want the next leader to be a bit more confrontational though because if you're taking on the establishment within the party or outside of the party sometimes you might need someone who's a bit more decisive if he's willing to pick a fight Of course I'm very close to Jeremy and I've been with Jeremy and I've said it on numerous occasions Jeremy, why on earth did you not react to that? Why did you not stand up for yourself? Jeremy always says Ian, the lower they get the higher the bar I raise that's admirable Ian will not get in the gutter with these people and I've always said Jeremy, I'll get in the gutter and he says that's not acceptable neither so you've got to understand Jeremy's politics and lots of people support this, I mean during the TV debate it's a question of trust Jeremy what do you think about it it was an open goal to have a go at Boris Johnson but Jeremy wouldn't I was at Leeds with momentum and they were screaming, tell him Jeremy and I was saying Jeremy's just not going to do this Jeremy will not Jeremy is a very principled man and he wouldn't get in the gutter so the new leader might have different characteristics to Jeremy perhaps might need different characteristics to Jeremy so who knows but Jeremy's Jeremy mandatory reselection was also in that I'm at a reselection that was discussed in the democracy review we discussed at the conference in 2018 we came up with the new rule on the trigger ballots the trigger ballots were fine they obviously could show up with the election all I would say about that is that if you're an MP you should be accountable to the people who you represent and you should be afraid of democracy there was a huge debate in the party and there was a compromise quite often when you've got a party of 500,000 people quite often you've got to try to compromise it could be an issue in the leadership election it could be the case that members want to go for someone who's not willing to compromise on something like open selections well I think the trigger ballot system which we've got in place now under the rules if people if the sale pays wanted rid of the the sit-name pay wanted on the trigger ballot system to bring them into an open selection that could do that the argument is that it makes a negative fight why not but at the end of the day I think the sale pays we've got the power to do that Caroline Bell says can confirm Wandsbeck was bloody cold but it was worth it loved the team we had out day after day in hail, snow and wind who's that? Caroline Bell tough cookies in the north Caroline Bell it says on my notes Caroline Bell but it might be Caroline Ball it was Caroline Ball hello Caroline how are you she was brilliant out real, ill and shying and not going on people's doors engaging people in conversations and that's what we had they were brilliant honestly we didn't have the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds like we had in Putney but the dedication, the passion, the commitment was there in its entirety it was brilliant man Hekatonika Sakaran how does Labour gain the trust of pensioners? I mean Labour has a problem with older voters do you know what Ash mentioned before like the age group who voted for the Labour Party so what we're seeing at the younger level that huge percentage now support the Labour Party then when you move into like middle age we've still got a huge percentage I think after 44 it's swimming to the Conservatives after 44, 45 then after 55 it's unbelievable it's like a convert once you reach that point of 45 you jump on another convert you're not sure and then when you jump from the next one to 55 and above you're not a Labour supporter I've asked the million names I've asked all these experts can they explain this there's nobody to come up with any explanation but we've been very supportive we had the triple lock in place for pensioners we offered lots of things for the pensioners at this election and it is very difficult to break down exactly how we can bring the elderly vote for the one of a better term Do you think it's about culture or do you think it's that they own homes because there's lots of arguments about Labour losing the working class or are they actually people who own homes so they're benefitting from the time it's when you get to a certain age what you want in life is security and if you feel at that time that you're okay how does Labour offer security that's going to be a big challenge for the party the public presumably didn't think Labour offering security I think one of the most important things at this election is the policy on the real living wage of £10 or no and that gives security to people in work it gives hope to people in work and that would particularly 16 year olds right up to 21 and then the way through that would be give people dignity in work give them fair pay in work give them the opportunity especially for older people how do people secure it well what you do is you make sure for example what we did two big policies apart from the triple lock apart ensuring that the pensions remained as they were and there would be increased with inflation all of that sort of stuff we did say that we would support the Waspie women we did say that we would support the miners through the mine workers pension scheme these were additional things that we did propose for elderly people and it is a massive issue but we did guarantee a lot of things for elderly people do you find that in your constituency that if you're not going to do on it someone older you presume they're probably going to vote conservative and if they're younger you think they'll vote Labour to be honest it's the first time in my life that you've had a large number of conservatives in the constituency like we see it now my majority is normally unshakable 10.5-11.000 it doesn't matter the shocks either way normally but I think a lot of people this time will not tell you they're voting Tory a lot of people so might but a lot of people will not tell you they're voting Tory but they're voting Tory this time there's a big debate I suppose both in the media and among Labour politicians was it Brexit or was it Corbyn most of Corbyn's critics say actually the main issue on the doorstep wasn't Brexit it was people didn't trust Jeremy Corbyn to become Prime Minister some of the polls back that up I don't know what you think about that particular debate if you have a look at the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn there were initially it wasn't Brexit and it wasn't about Remain or Leave and it wasn't about Brexit this is what a lot of the right-wing media were saying and right-wing MPs they now have lost that argument the now the Remain argument is being lost they really have and anybody with any sense any common sense will understand the reason why we've lost the seats in the north is because of the the issue of Brexit but there was the issue of how the press are being so successful in demonising what is a thoroughly, thoroughly decent individual you say I kind of open somebody's door and I know them and they say I cannot vote for the Labour Party this time why? it's Jeremy for example and they are absolutely wrong in what they're saying it's what they've read it's what they've heard it's what they see in the Daily Mail I'm very very close to Jeremy and as I've said probably a hundred times already remarkable individual is but it just shows what sort of influence the press can have on individuals that you know running up to an election everybody doesn't watch the television everybody doesn't watch or participate on Facebook or Twitter a lot of people read they still read the media particularly the ALLE people still read the tabloids and the red tops it's been difficult Jeremy's had a real rough time that's essentially one of the arguments as to why older people are so Tory at the moment it's because they read the Daily Mail and the Sun because younger people don't read the newspapers Sarah asks if a left wing candidate wins leadership do you think the right of the party will treat them the same way as they treated Corbyn well you know I'm appealing to the Labour Party this toxicity in our party and there has been problems when you've got a party of 500,000 members it's very very difficult very very challenging however the alternative could be that we would have a party of 5,000 members and there wouldn't be a problem we wouldn't have a party so we've got huge challenges in my view is we should be comradely we should be respectful we should listen to what each of that have got to say if you and I have got completely different views so what I still think are a smashing individual and hope you think the same about me we might disagree but we've got to we've got to have the debate we've got to have policies and we've got to move forward because you know we might disagree but while we're disagreeing we've still got homeless people out there we've still got people who haven't got food in that belly we've still got kids who are going to school and we've still got the 5 billionaires at the top of society in this country have got more money than 14 million of the poorest people in the society so we can debate it we've got to be constructive we've got to get over that but we should always remember what we're there for and that's the better lives of people who really need not just the people who need to bump up but people right across society we've got to transform society for everyone that's what we stand for final question if the next lead of the Labour Party is as left wing as Jeremy Corbyn we can expect them one to be as much as you'd like there to be a peaceful coexistence within the Labour Party we can expect there to be attacks from centrist or right wing MPs we can also expect there to be just as many attacks potentially from the media and from the newspapers and Corbyn entered this election damaged often because of missed portrayals in the media but you know it's unquestionable that sometimes when people were knocking on doorsteps people were worried about Jeremy Corbyn the polls bear that out what do you think the next leader of the Labour Party can learn from this experience how can the next leader of the Labour Party if they are left wing and if they are subject to all of these attacks come out stronger than Jeremy Corbyn did well I think you mentioned before you asked me what I thought to be the leader of the Labour Party and they've got to be terribly strong they've got to be terribly focused they've got to have that resilience they've got to have this understanding that they're going to be absolutely scrutinised if not torn to shreds in the press because the press we've got now Michael and I'm sure you agree with this if they haven't got a story on it they'll make something up and it quite often sticks we need to have somebody who who continues and understands the pressures are going to be under but doesn't let them affect the vision of the future and the vision of the future what the Labour Party actually stands for at this moment of time it's going to be very difficult for anybody by the way to achieve that but that's what's required thank you so much for joining me this evening Ian thanks well done for all your campaigning on the campaign even if it didn't go quite the way we were all hoping tomorrow night you will have a very different perspective on whether or not Labour should have adopted a second referendum because Paul Mason won't be in the studio I won't be hosting it will be Aaron Bustani but it will be a show not to be missed so tune in tomorrow at the same time as ever Navarra Media Titski Sour is only possible because of your kind donations if you are already a subscriber thank you very much if not please go to support.navarramedia.com and give us the equivalent of one hour's wage a month we have a party on Thursday you can see us all there let me find the particular website for it I can't find the website for it I'll tweet it later this evening and it's coming up on screen potentially fabulous good night