YouSaid · the spoken record

Sir Graham Brady

lines on the record: 55
first: 2019-02-01
most recent: 2019-02-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I'm very hopeful. We know that EU negotiations normally conclude late in the day. It's when people can see the possibility of no agreement being reached and a deadline is looming that people really take the negotiations seriously. We also know the EU has had an objective of making this look like a hellishly difficult process because they want to deter Italians and even the French and others who might possibly want to leave the EU themselves. They want to demonstrate to the peoples across the EU that it's really difficult if not impossible to get out. So I think they've largely achieved that. This hasn't looked like a straightforward process. But I think both sides recognize it would be infinitely preferable to have an orderly Brexit rather than a more turbulent one. Particular problem, of course, for the Irish. Nearly all of whose trade comes via the United Kingdom and especially true for Irish farmers and the whole food production sector.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Something which broadly everybody could accept. And their proposition in the event that we had no agreement is that we talk about how we secure a transition arrangement, perhaps tied to the payment of some of the money that we've said we will give to the people called”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think there's something that is always missed in these discussions, because if we get to the point where the EU says, okay, no deal, we don't want to compromise, we don't want to reach an agreement with you. If we get to that point when we're asking for a relatively small change, then we move forward, knowing that the Article 50 process is enshrined in law, and we will leave on the 29th of March according to that law, unless something remarkable happens to stop it, the government would then continue, step up its attempts to get all sorts of other agreements. And one of the most interesting things that happened this week, of course, was the everything now has somebody's name attached to it, the so-called Malthouse Compromise, bringing together people from Nicky Morgan on one side of the European debate, people like on the more Eurosceptic side trying to build.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's more straightforward than that. You obviously start working with your own party. And as it was, we were able with the sensible adjustment that I suggested, we were able to get a majority in the House of Commons.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Out to the fastest growing markets in the world and not being confined within the European Customs Union want to see a more flexible relationship.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think it's natural that you would start off trying to build a majority out of your own side of the House of Commons and you're, in this instance, confidence and supply partners and the Democratic Unionists. As I said, we did also win support from some Labour MPs, and that is very welcome. Very difficult, as we've seen, to treat with the current Labour Party leadership for a long time. He wasn't even prepared to talk to the Prime Minister, which hit that possibility rather remote. But I also think there's a lot of deep misunderstanding still in some minds in the House of Commons about what the implication of a customs union is. So the people who want to see new free trade agreements want to see us being able to reach”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, no, crucially, I would only countenance a delay if we already had a deal agreed. And it's just a matter of doing the necessary work to implement it.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I think that there is a crucial difference between the measures that were being proposed earlier in the week by Yvette Cooper, for instance, who was seeking a mechanism for pushing back the Article 50 period, our exit date. And that, I think, would have been deeply counterproductive because it moves off the decision point. And it's as the decision is looming that mines come into sharper focus. And both sides, if they want a constructive outcome, will be prepared to work together to make sure that we get that. And I think it would have been disastrous if we'd had a delay before an agreement was reached. Once we've reached an agreement, and we know the terms on which we're leaving, if we decide that we need another two weeks in order to finish getting the necessary legislation through Parliament, I don't think anybody's going to be too worked up about that, because we will have made a decision. Pushing off the decision is a dreadful idea.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Doing it. Yeah, I think it takes a little bit of time sometimes for people to accommodate themselves to a new reality. The EU side has been saying, we don't know what you guys want. You can't get anything through Parliament. Why don't you tell us what you want? We've now told them what we want. We've told them what can get through Parliament. I think it's now time for a little bit of flexibility and a willingness to treat. And it's in the interests of both sides. They want the United Kingdom to leave in an agreed way, an orderly way, and so do we.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You don't want absolutely right. So the odd thing for something which has only ever meant to last for a week or a couple of months, the way it's drafted at the moment, there is no way of leaving it unless the other side, the EU side, gives us permission to leave. So it strikes me, it's pretty odd, having fought and won a referendum on the basis of taking back control, it would be very odd to leave a treaty that we're allowed to give notice to quit in order to join one that we can only leave with the permission of the European Union. So that's the crucial bit that has to change. Now, there are all sorts of different ways that you could change that and make sure that there is a route out of the backstop. I think for most of the Conservatives who objected to it and for the Democratic Unionists, the crucial thing is it couldn't lock us in to the wrong relationship in perpetuity.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Some people frustrated. What I said is that there is a crucial change that needs to take place, which is that the backstop mustn't be something that can become permanent. Everybody who discusses everybody in the negotiations has been absolutely determined that if the backstop ever is needed, then it should only be temporary and only for a very short period, weeks or a couple of months. Just to be clear.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm sure people have variously described the parliamentary conservative party as the most sophisticated or the most duplicitous electorate in the world. Those could be true at the same time. Both could be true. And I'm sure that there are times when colleagues who would vote to prevent somebody just as they might vote enthusiastically to push somebody's chances. And I guess you get tactical voting in the public as well sometimes.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably a little older than the average age profile of the population, but getting better, I would say, as well. Certainly experience in my own association, we've got lots of very good young people who are involved.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it doesn't make me queasy. I think it's pretty much unavoidable. But I am something of an evangelist for party membership. I think people really ought to get involved. It's very easy for all of us to say, oh my God, this is a shambles. We don't like the way this is happening or that's happening. Well, people can actually step in and get involved in the process. And I think it's a healthy thing if people get involved in political parties.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Indeed, and I have overseen one leadership election and also overseen the vote of confidence in the leader of the party that took place before Christmas. And of course she won that reasonably comfortably, but it could have gone the other way and we could have been into this process over the Christmas period, which wouldn't have been great fun.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's subject to agreement by a lot of people, but I think you want to have an opportunity for people to hear from the candidates in the leadership election, and then you need to have time for a ballot to take place. So I would thought two, three weeks ought to be possible, but it's not in my gift to say that it would be.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I believe it could be done. The party board would have to agree at the time, but I think that is a process that could be made much shorter.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I can only answer part of that question. The chairman of the 1922 committee would be the returning officer for the whole of a leadership election, but is only responsible with the 1922 executive, the elected executive of the committee, only responsible for organising the parliamentary stages, because our procedures are intended to produce two candidates who then go forward to a ballot of all Conservative Party members in the country. So the parliamentary stages can be done really very quickly. And we did that very quickly in 2016 when Theresa May became leader of the party. It was going to take much longer for the election to be concluded in the country. And that's the bigger question, just how much that process could be telescoped to make sure it was done democratically, but done in a sensible timescale.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I know I haven't. I think that, again, might be seen as an attempt to influence the process. But all I can imagine is that it's people who want to encourage things to move in a certain direction whilst retaining a degree of control over the numbers by holding back their own.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Astonishing, isn't it, Dick? Yes, I have seen most permutations of this, as did my predecessor as chairman of the United States The Committee, Michael Spicey. He wrote about it in his diaries, which are available from all good booksellers. I'm not on commission. I think this remarkable thing, it's not so surprising if people write a letter calling for confidence vote in the leader of the party and don't say so. It's meant to be a confidential process, and that's fine. The more surprising thing is the people who haven't actually written and then go on television or radio and say they have. And it's slightly harder to work out the rationale.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I take the view it ought to be a reasonable representation of opinion at the time. And so I did think if somebody had written to me at the beginning of a parliament and then four and a half years later I got another 47 letters, then I might check with the person. The only thing having been through the process does occur to me might be tricky to do that because that would immediately tell somebody that the number had been reached.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'd taken the view that I shouldn't share these things with anybody. The thing which is clearest, I think, the rules are set out in the Conservative Party constitution, but the clearest thing is the statement that any letter sent should be confidential. So I think it's essential to respect that. I also think because of the rather odd nature of this, that the number of letters can clock up over whatever period of time during the course of a parliament and then the threshold might be reached at any point. If I ever gave anything away, it might influence the process. It might either discourage people from writing who are going to, or it might encourage people to think, ah, we're nearly there, we'll write now.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. And so I got back to my office thinking, this is going to be a big moment. And a few minutes later there was a knock on my door and a colleague came and said, the letter I gave you a couple of weeks ago, could I have it back? So it was probably not very good for my heart, I think. Could you show?”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but it's slightly difficult to answer the question because one of the things that took me aback a little bit was that the number of letters fluctuated a little bit because I had some colleagues at various points who'd say, you know, I wrote to you X number of weeks ago. I think the timing is now dreadful. Can I take my letter out again? I have written about this that I had this bizarre experience on the day that the threshold was reached, that somebody gave me the crucial 48th letter, and I went back to my office thinking, right, better start planning something here.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obviously But to answer your earlier question, you implied that I was such a crusty old thing that I would only accept letters, presumably written on vellum. No, I'm prepared to take communications out of the forms. If somebody wanted to text me or somebody wanted to email me or whatever, that's fine. The crucial thing is that I would have to be able to verify that it had come from the person who claimed to send it.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, certainly, as you know, Nick, at various points in the last few months, there's been such intense speculation, and I have been, I wouldn't say hounded, but I've been pursued quite assiduously by members of your profession, wanting to find any shred of evidence or detail that they could. So we've established it as a...”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're a special safe. Well, I've always thought it's wise not to answer too many detailed questions on this subject, thinking of Watergate and so on. So I did want to decline to answer that question when a journalist asked me, which led to them making something up and reporting that I'd moved the letters off-site to a secret location. So I won't be drawn. It's quite useful to have people guessing. I was trying to work out.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was a completely different system. My understanding, what you used to happen, there was effectively an annual meeting of the Conservative Party in Parliament, and that was an opportunity for somebody to put in their nomination to stand as leader. And effectively, the leader was annually re-elected, usually unchallenged. So this sort of change to a system that was going to presume the continuity and office of a leader of the party unless there was suddenly a strong animus for change.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, oddly, the process isn't as old fashioned as you might think, because I think it was introduced in about 1998 when the Conservative Party first had a written constitution created. There was a verse.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's a really important thing that the chairman of the 1922 committee can speak up for backbenchers and backbench concerns to the leader of the party, especially when it's the Prime Minister. And certainly whilst David Cameron and I didn't always see eye to eye, and obviously I guess I started out on the route to becoming chairman of the 22 because of that falling out over grammar schools in 2007. But the thing that David Cameron would always say, and possibly it was the only warm thing he had to say about me, was that I would speak my mind and that I never leaked. So we could have those really frank conversations, normally very friendly ones. Once or twice they got a little bit more heated, but always in private. And I think that is absolutely central to the relationship that somebody doing my job has to have with a conservative.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And through my time in Parliament, it had always been chaired by rather more senior members who had been around for a very long time and were possibly coming towards their final parliament.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I had no idea that it was going to be such a dramatic fork in the road. I certainly hadn't thought at that point that I might stand to be chairman of the 1922 committee in which you...”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or the day that I'd resigned from the front bench, and he said, Graham, you did exactly the right thing. I don't think David would mind me passing this on. He said, I've just had my researchers looking out everything that you ever said on the subject of grammar schools. And if you hadn't have resigned over this, nobody would ever have taken you seriously ever again.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I thought it through very carefully. There was nothing else that I could do. I came into the House of Commons in 1997. One of the relatively few new Conservatives coming in and that great Blair landslide year. And I immediately volunteered to sit on the first piece of major education legislation, the one that put in the ballot arrangements that could have got rid of grammar schools. I'd fought the corner of our grammar schools on the back benches. I was then appointed shadow schools minister and I fought the corner of our grammar schools from the front bench as well. At the time that I resigned, I was actually shadowing Europe. So some people might say I had a lucky escape. But I just thought I could never have looked myself in the mirror if I hadn't remained consistent. Naudley, I had a conversation with David Miliband at the time because I had shadowed him when he was schools minister. And he bumped into me in the car.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Course. I've never said that you can't have a good comprehensive school, and there are many good comprehensive schools. I think it's actually harder to run a good comprehensive school because you've got to educate a much broader spectrum of academic ability within one school, and I think one of the problems you tend to get much bigger schools in order to offer all of the options to every child. So, of course, the most important thing, I'm sure, for most people determining whether they get on or not is a combination of their ability. To push leaflets through doors in Templey because I didn't want to see my school closed down if Labour and the Liberals got in and traffered.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. And I've said before, I was born in Salford, which had changed its education system, had gone comprehensive. If we had stayed in Salford, then I don't think I would have had the same opportunities in life that I did because we moved to Alteringham. And that move, my family was not one of those that had a particular passion for education. It was not to do with that. It was because my grandma had died and we were moving into another house that my granddad could come and live with us in.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there are two things. The big general thing I was 12 when Margaret Thatcher came to office in 1979 and British politics was very exciting. You couldn't be agnostic. You had either to think that she was doing a good thing or not. I thought she was doing a good thing, restoring some self-confidence and faith in our country and turning around the economy as well. And I guess for a lot of us in my generation, the Falcons was also a really seminal political experience as we saw the country being prepared to stand up for something. So that was the big thing in the background.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it happened rather accidentally, but it got to that point. And before I got to the point of resigning, I did stand up in the 1922 committee and set out my concerns and why I thought it was profoundly wrong that we were turning our back on some very good schools, including, crucially, the ones that I still represent in altering them and sale.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that certainly some of the big discussions or disagreements, I can't help but personally remember the events that 12 years or so ago that led to me resigning from the front bench in order to be able to continue speaking up for grammar schools and selective education. Yeah, you quit because David.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Couldn't we be in one of the modern committee rooms in Port Callis House? And we do occasionally do that. But the big problem is room 14 is by far the biggest room available in the House of Commons. And on those occasions that we all want to fit in to participate in something, it's really got to be there.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There can be a bit of clapping and cheering. There's also sometimes a bit of banging of desks, which makes what's about the banging of desks. It's probably way of making the most noise you can make. I think it probably also is partly to do with the big committee room that we use, which has got these oak desks along the length of it. It's a little bit like being in a church or a cathedral. And a lot of colleagues from time to time say, why on earth do we have to have our meetings? And there's terrible old room. It's like being in a museum.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's We'll have to Think it's less orchestrated than that. I think it's a natural instinct from time to time we do like to demonstrate that we are a cohesive unit.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And ever since, it's actually been a rather open channel of communication where you can stand up in the meeting knowing that it's not a private conversation because it will be fed back to the web service.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As a kind of a self-help group where they would get together once a week and say, what's going on? How can we be more effective? A crucial thing, a very smart chief whip, right the way back in 1922, who instead of seeing this as a potential plot going on, he saw it as a great opportunity. And he said to the first chairman of the 1922 communities, he said, would it help if I sent one of my whips to your meetings to tell you what the business for the forthcoming week will be?”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That isn't true, great story as it was. What happened in 1922, the Conservative backbenches gathered in a meeting at the Carlton Club at very different times, and they thought the coalition with the Liberals had gone on for too long, and they voted to say we want this brought to an end. The government had no option but to go to the country, and the backbenchers who had believed the Conservative Party was in a position to win an election outright were proved very much correct. The 1922 general election brought in a very large conservative intake, and I've seen a few of these large intakes on one side or the other over the years. Take a bit of managing. Well, take a little bit of managing, but also I think you see the same thing happening. Members of Parliament who eventually they work out where the bars are and the Chamber of the House of Commons and all those important things, but then they start to think now, what do I actually do? And the 1922 committee was formed by that big intake of new.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When David Cameron's coalition government was formed, a number of people fell into the mistake, even some very distinguished broadcasters did, of saying the 1922 committee, which was formed to bring to an end the previous coalition between Conservatives and Liberals in 1922.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. And I will come back to that because as you know, Nick, I always try to answer your questions. But really, the better description of it as the Parliamentary Conservative Party, and I guess my opposite number in the Labour Party, John Cryer, chairs something called the PLP, the parliamentary Labour Party. We just happen to have evolved in a very sort of British way. And so we have a name that derived from a historical event. Namely. Well, people get this wrong. When the coalition government was formed, lots of people, indeed, including themselves.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think in many ways, I mean, we like the fact that it's called the 1922 committee because it's got a bit of intrigue and it's historical name and it's traditional. Yeah, well, let's pause there because all the...”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'm trying to represent the views, the interests, the concerns of the backbenches to the Chief Whipper and to the Prime Minister and try to make sure that the process of parliamentary government as it happens within the Conservative Party, especially when we're the party in government, isn't just one of broadcast from the top, telling people what they would like us to do, but that it is a dialogue and that we have some representation of our ideas, our thoughts, whether they be entirely cohesive or not. And I suppose what I've tried to do in the more than eight years that I've done this job now with two different prime ministers is, of course, I will give my own views, and sometimes I have very strong views on certain subjects, but I also try to give as dispassionate a view as I can of where feeling is in the interpretive party.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From the outside, it looks, and I think it's also very important to note that I couldn't have got that majority for the amendment that I tabled without the support of Labour MPs who voted for it, without the help of some Labour MPs who abstained and didn't vote against it, and of course bringing the Democratic Unionists back on board as well.”
2019-02-01 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sir Graham Brady One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source