................................................................................
 
                                 ON THE RECORD 
                            JOHN REDWOOD INTERVIEW        
 
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1                                 DATE: 23.11.97
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JOHN HUMPHRYS:                      I was talking to Mo Mowlam a little 
earlier.   Now to the Tories. They've had a rotten week, what with the 
By-Elections and one of their most senior MPs leaving the Party;and people 
like Michael Heseltine ticking off the Leader. If anything they seem to be no 
better off now than they were on May the second.  And, at the root of their 
problems yet again is Europe.  Under William Hague's Leadership the Party has 
become appreciably more sceptical and that's what's made the other lot 
squeal.  Is it now time for the Party's Leadership to accept on Europe that the 
two wings are irreconcileable?  With me is a leading sceptic: John Redwood, 
Shadow President of the Board of Trade - Good Afternoon, to you! 
 
JOHN REDWOOD MP:                       Good Afternoon! 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Now, given this new clarity - if you 
like - from Mr Hague, you must be quite pleased that the more enthusiastic 
Europeans within the Party - not just Parliamentary MPs - but within the Party 
are being sidelined? 
 
REDWOOD:                               I don't want anybody to be sidelined in 
the Conservative Party.  It's always been a broad church and I welcome that but 
I think it is vital that the Leader and the Shadow Cabinet offer the nation 
some leadership and some clarity on this crucial issue of what our 
relationships with the rest of Europe are going to be over the years ahead.  
And, what a contrast with Mr Blair who will not provide that clarity, who one 
day he tells us: we're going into EMU soon; another day he tells us we're not.  
And, then his Chancellor makes a statement trying to be all things to all 
men.  We are giving the nation a clear lead for a reasonable time period ahead 
and we think that will attract a lot of support to our banner.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Now, what you seem to be saying is that 
if you are unpersuadible on Europe - you, whoever you may be: Michael Heseltine 
or Peter Temple-Morris or whoever it may be - tough!  Like it or lump it! 
 
REDWOOD:                               We're not saying tough, we're saying 
Michael and Ken are good Conservatives and they will join us in attacking 
Labour for its broken promises and its many sins and we agree on many other 
principles, but I'm sure Michael and Ken would like a bit more European 
integration a bit more quickly and many of the rest!   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              One of the great understatements, I 
suspect! 
 
REDWOOD:                               But even on that, if you ask Ken or 
Michael Heseltine do they want to go into the Single Currency at this level of 
the Exchange Rate, like many businesses they say: no, certainly not!  Would you 
like to go in, in the first wave?  No, they say, they don't want to go in, in 
the first wave.  So, even there, we've created an interesting coalition within 
the Conservative Party around a clear position.  Labour has all sorts of splits 
and divisions, which it tries to paper over on this crucial subject by not 
having a clear, central view.  But, as they find in Government, they have to 
make decisions so their coalition will crack apart. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But your coalition's a pretty odd sort 
of coalition.  I mean, if you're thinking in terms of what's a decent metaphor: 
a boat sailing along, a big ship sailing - a slightly smaller ship these days - 
sailing along. 
 
REDWOOD:                               It will be bigger - don't worry.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              It will be.  Sailing along in one 
direction and the Captain says: right, this is our policy. And, some very 
senior members of the crew - some of the officers, indeed - say: well, 
actually, we want to go in another direction.  Surely, it's better for you to 
give 'em a boat - a lifeboat - loads of food and all the rest of it and let 'em 
go off in the direction they want to and, then, you can carry on without 
worrying of any possibility of a mutiny below decks?    

REDWOOD:                               No, not at all.  I mean, all parties 
have democratic debate within them, although Mr Blair is trying to stifle it 
out of the Labour Party.  And, I think, in a democracy it is good that a party 
has a debate within itself about the big issues, as well as indulging in a huge 
debate across Party lines, across the floor of the House.  And, so it's a 
strength to the Conservative Party and I think what will happen over the years 
ahead is that people will get sick and tired of a Labour Government managing 
things day by day for the media and not in the national interest and trying to 
suppress debate within its own Party. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Well, but steady on!  I mean, you lost 
the last Election, as you've admitted as everybody in the Party has admitted in 
part because you were bitterly, mortally divided over the biggest issue of 'em 
all: Europe.  Now, you can't go into the next one with that same kind of 
division over the most important issue facing Britain today.  
 
REDWOOD:                               Well, I don't think that is the main 
reason or an important reason why we lost the last Election. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Everybody else does! 
 
REDWOOD:                               Oh, I don't think everybody else does at 
all.  If you look at the Opinion Polls ....
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Your Leader does. 
 
REDWOOD:                               -you will see that we- 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              William Hague does! 
 
REDWOOD:                               The Leader of the Conservative Party and 
I both think that the defining moment when we lost the Election was when we 
came out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism and we didn't win back the trust of the 
British people for a broken economic policy.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And, you didn't lose that interest 
because you were deeply divided? 
 
REDWOOD:                               No.  I don't think that was the main 
reason we didn't win back the trust.  We, then, went on to increase taxes, 
which was very unpopular and if you look at our popularity, it nosedived to 
thirty per cent by about the end of 1992.  We never recovered the trust of the 
British people.  We have now said sorry for that event.  It was a deeply 
damaging event and we now wish to have a fresh start and to offer something 
positive and clear and honest to the British people.  We now have a Government 
which is extremely dishonest, breaking all its promises already; breaking its 
promises on Health waiting lists, breaking its promises on keeping taxes down; 
breaking its promises on Mortgages - five mortgage rate increases already from  
a Party that swept to power saying it was going to keep interest rates down.   
 
                                       So, we believe we now have a chance to 
put a better alternative to the British people and to expose the mistakes and 
follies of this Government.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So long as you can put that alternative 
quite clearly, in a way that you were unable to do in the closing years of the 
last Conservative Government.  And, these noises coming from below decks on 
this ship of yours can't be helpful, can they?   
 
REDWOOD:                               Well, there will always be debate in the 
Conservative Party and I'm glad- 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              A debate is one thing but to toss off 
opposition- 
 
REDWOOD:                               -that we have a democratic Party.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Opposition to the Party's policy- 
 
REDWOOD:                               Margaret Thatcher.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              -is another thing. 
 
REDWOOD:                               Margaret Thatcher won three Elections in 
a row but there was a lot of debate within the Party that spilled out into the 
press.  Do you remember all the rows between 'Wets' and 'Drys'?  Many of them 
went on to the Today programme to give the nation the benefit of their advice 
and to explain why Margaret Thatcher was wrong but that debate within the 
Conservative Party did not prevent us providing clear leadership and winning 
three Elections in a row.  I think, William Hague will exert a lot of control 
and influence over the Party because he is clear and straightforward on these 
issues and he speaks for the overwhelming majority of the Party in the country. 
They were aching for clarity on this European issue and they are extremely 
grateful and pleased that they now have a Leader who's delivering it.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Well, they may have a Leader who's 
delivering it but they have very senior people in the Party who are seeking the 
opposite.  We've heard Michael Heseltine, as you know, criticising Mr Hague for 
having dealt with Peter Temple-Morris in the way that he did for removing the 
Whip and, then, Mr Temple-Morris decided to go for other reasons but 
nonetheless some other reasons.   
                                       But what he said was - Mr Heseltine 
said - Peter Temple-Morris represents a stream of opinion in the Party that we 
should encourage - encourage.  So, in other words, we want to bolster this 
opposition to the Leader's policy on the most important issue.  
 
REDWOOD:                               Now, that's not how I interpret it. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Really? 
 
REDWOOD:                               I think, Michael Heseltine is saying 
there are certain things in his beliefs and Peter Temple-Morris's beliefs which 
will help us win back the trust of the people.  And, those who stay_ 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And you take a slightly opposite 
view -  you and your Leader take ...
 
REDWOOD:                               No, no. Those who stay within the 
Conservative Party, as Michael Heseltine is clearly going to do, have every 
right to put their case to help us win the next election and to explain what 
policies they think would be attractive. Why are you so worried about democracy 
and debate within a party. I mean, you make a very good living out of 
encouraging this debate, but I think you shouldn't obscure the fact that 
there's an awful lot of debate and dissention within the Labour ranks just 
beginning to bubble up, and that is much more important at the moment because 
they are charged with the duties of government, they are unprincipled, they 
lack clarity and yet they are being allowed to get away with all this internal 
dissention, not receiving the same attention as ours does.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              You say they lack clarity, but they 
capitalised very very successfully on your lack of clarity during the closing 
years of your administration.  And you say we have to deliver a clear message, 
absolutely you have to do it, that's the whole point. You asked me why I'm 
making so much of it, I'm making a lot of it because if you look at the history 
of the Conservative Party over the past five years, that has been in part, at 
any rate, the reason for your undoing.  And you've got people like Heseltine 
saying: come on, don't accept the policy that the leadership has now adopted, 
very clearly.    
 
REDWOOD:                               But this leadership is quite strong 
enough to say to Michael Heseltine: well let's hear your views, even better in 
private than public, but sometimes they'll be in public.  Let's hear your views 
and sometimes we'll agree with you Michael and sometimes we won't. Just as 
Michael Heseltine when he was Deputy Prime Minister said that sort of thing to 
people like me.  If we had helpful private suggestions about how the party 
might become more popular, sometimes Michael said to me: yes we agree, and 
other times he didn't agree.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But you weren't prepared to pipe down in 
public were you, because you thought it was important?  
 
REDWOOD:                               Oh yes I did.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                               But, you said so many, many times.  
 
REDWOOD:                               Oh yes I did. I was very careful about 
what I said in public because I did not wish to do any damage to the waning 
Conservative chances in that General Election as you well know.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                               .....Plenty of provocation. 
 
REDWOOD:                               Plenty of provocation from interviewers 
but I didn't rise to it! 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              I certainly won't argue with that.  Now 
you've got to ballot all your Party members I learned this morning on EMU.  Is 
that right?  You're going to ask 'em what they think? 
 
REDWOOD:                               No.  I think that story is slightly 
wrong.  I think that what is got muddled up about, is that William Hague will 
ballot all Party members on the Manifesto as a whole.  In the run up to 
launching the Manifesto, he will want to get the support of all Party members 
for the preferred position of himself and the Shadow Cabinet.  A very 
democratic proposal to do so.  That will obviously include our position on EMU, 
but it will go much wider than EMU. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So that if the result of that ballot as 
obviously you believe it will be is that they support the Manifesto, and 
therefore they support your views on Economic and Monetary Union in a big way, 
how does that lead, where does that leave those European MPs and MEPs, Members
of the European Parliament and would-be MEPs, who are so much more Federalist 
than the Party line is?  Will you then try to shift them to the sidelines - you 
don't like the word - but get rid of them? 
 
REDWOOD:                               William Hague has said that there will 
be a strong central line which we think most people will want to support.  I 
think the Party and the country is yearning for this line, as I said earlier.
Individual MEPs and candidates for the European Parliament will obviously be 
interviewed on their views when they are selected, or when they are chose to be 
at a certain priority on the list system if that is what we now have to face. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              If their views don't square with the 
Party line? 
 
REDWOOD:                               Well, that will be for the individual 
Selection Committees and the relationships between the Constituency Parties, or 
whatever other arrangements are put in place, and the European candidates or 
the European Parliamentarians.  But William has made it very clear that people 
can have a free vote on the issue of Monetary Union within the Westminster 
Parliamentary Party.  He is tolerant of a different view but obviously he and I 
both hope that everyone will join us, because we think we have the right view. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              You see people like David Curry who left 
the Shadow Cabinet over this are worried that what you're doing is you're going 
to alienate voters because you're moving, in their view to an extremist 
position on Europe? 
 
REDWOOD:                               Well, I'm not an extremist, nor is 
William Hague.  I believe in my country and I believe that our country has an 
important role to play in Europe.  I want it to be influential.  I see the 
current Prime Minister destroying our influence, because he appeases, he gives 
in, he doesn't get anything back for Britain or for the rest of Europe that is 
worth having.  We have a Prime Minister that goes to a job summit but doesn't 
come back with a better European model.  We see mass unemployment on the 
continent and this Prime Minister will end up importing it into Britain by 
accepting exactly the same laws here that has created it there.  We're going to 
offer something better. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              John Redwood, thank you very much 
indeed.
 
 
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