Should Suella Braverman lose whip?

We’ve just been talking about the chaos in Brussels where the police have shut down a national Conservative conference where Nigel Farage has claimed he’s been a victim of cancel culture with the police, Right. Do you think to shut down the event? Well, I’m a great believer in freedom of speech and obviously I’d be interested to hear from the relevant authorities from Brussels what their justification was for shutting down the event. I think what strikes me about it though, is that Suala Braverman was one of the keynote speakers and I had a very quick glance at the roster of other speakers at this event today. And you’ve got people who are pretty unsavoury, very hardline extremist characters, people who have criticised equal marriage, for example, people who have been involved with white supremacist organisations. One individual who appears to be justifying the action of the Christchurch shooter. Why is Suala Braverman palling around with these very hard line extremist people? And why isn’t Rushi Sunak stepping in to do something about it? He’s so weak he should have blocked her from going, or we should perhaps even think about taking the whip off her. You know, it feels like Labour is keen to criticise some of this because at the event, you know what you’ve just done there and we’re through to you again saying it’s an event in the Commons full of far right fanatics. You might not like the views of everyone at the event, but there are people who will be listening to this who support Swalla Braverman, who support Nigel Farage and don’t they have the right to to speak, to be heard. Yeah, but Swalla Braverman is a Conservative Party politician, A backbencher and and the Conservatives are in government. My my question though, is about whether the police were right to shut down the event. Well, I mean that. I mean that’s for the the the authorities in Brussels. It’s a different, it’s a different country. It’s a different country. You know, that event would have gone ahead in this country. It did, I think, last year. But look at the other speakers, people who are justifying, people who have carried out terrorist acts, people who have been associated with white supremacist organisations, politicians who have criticised, in the most graphic terms, equal marriage. Why is Sue Ala Braverman allowed by Rishi Sunak to associate herself with these hard right, extremist, dangerous individuals? So what do you think? What do you think he should do? He should have stopped. Well firstly withdraw the whip. I actually wrote to him over the weekend and raised this I think in one of the newspapers over the weekend saying he should have blocked her from going. He obviously didn’t so he perhaps he should be looking at withdrawing the whip because she shouldn’t be associated with these people. These are these views way outside of the mainstream British opinion. These are dangerous, extremist views. And in many ways, this is the future of the Tory Party, isn’t it? This is where the Tory Party is heading, and Rishi Sunak is too weak to do anything about it. The other big story today is the smoking ban. MPs voting on that later on this evening. Are you a smoker or a vapor yourself? No. Never have been. Actually, never have been. Never smoked in my life. I’ve always hated it. I’ve hated the smell. I’ve hated the everything associated with it. My my dad smoked. So, you know, maybe it was like growing and it smoked lots, lots. So maybe it was growing up with it. So I’ve never smoked and actually I also know it’s one of Britain’s biggest killers, you know, heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, so many devastating conditions associated with smoking. So I’m in favour of the ban. I’ll be voting for it tonight. When the Tories first announced this ban, I actually said to I was actually in a studio at the time like this. And I said to the Conservative who was on the panel, like, you know, I know you’re going to have trouble getting this through Parliament, but don’t worry, Labour MPs will vote for this and it will go through Parliament. But it does sound like a lot of Conservative MPs again are gonna defy Rishi Sunak. Yeah, it does have to keep an eye on that one. You’ve talked a bit about your dad, haven’t you? Previously? I know. Did did he sort of struggle to give up smoking, or was it something that was just always part of his life? Well, I mean, he always smoked. I mean, by the end, I mean, I’ve spoken about his struggles with alcohol, which is another debate. And I wouldn’t ban alcohol. Funnily enough, by the end of his life he did manage to give up smoking. But I, you know, I mean, I’m sure that living in a household, growing up as a child, where, you know, parents were smoking, I mean, God knows how many cigarettes a day. I mean, that’s bound to have impacted me, hasn’t it? And I think if we can stop the future generations for taking up smoking, no parent I know would want their children to smoke. I’ve got two children, two daughters. A 13 year old and a 10 year old would fill me with absolute horror if they were to start smoking. And actually when I was at school in Manchester by the time we were 1213, not me, but there were other kids smoking. We’ve got to take action on this and we’ve got to take action on the way in which these vapes, which are obviously safer than cigarettes, but they’re still got, they’re still not great the way in which these certain of these disposable vapes advertise the children. Now, I want to talk to you a little bit about the economy as well. According to the IMF, the UK economy, it’s going to be growing less than expected this year. You’ve also got a bit of research, I think, about mortgages and repossessions as well. How concerned are you about the state of the economy? Well, growth in the economies have been anemic. And as you know, people are paying more on their mortgage as a consequence of decisions taken by the Conservatives 18 months ago, which crashed the economy. It put pension funds at peril and people’s mortgages soared. And then today you’ve got Liz Truss parading around the studios, asking people to congratulate her for the action she took. Well, I’ve produced my own my own book about Liz Trust Today, 14 Years to Ruin a Nation. You can read all about how your pension fund was in peril, how your mortgage has gone up. But the serious point is that the Conservatives haven’t learnt the lesson. In Liz Truss’s book she’s talking about abolishing National Insurance. That’s exactly the policy Rishi Sunak has adopted. A £46 billion unfunded commitment. Come on, which will put more years up. He has, I mean, public services long term. He’s still said it though. He’s for multiple and he’s got to explain how he’s gonna fund it. Well, he doesn’t. If he says he’s not gonna do it, well, he does, does he? Of course he does. Because the question at the next general election will be what were you gonna get after five more years of the Tories and if they’re gonna have time ambitions the same as your green feature that you haven’t? We have funded it, we have explained how we’re funding that. He’s got to explain how he’s going to fund a £46 billion commitment to get rid of National Insurance. Is it borrowing, putting pressure on mortgages? Is it cuts the NHS and the state pension, or is it more tax for pensioners? Until he explains that, people can conclude he’s making exactly the same mistakes that Liz Trust made. I want to have a look at this because I can see that this is a bit of a gift for you, to be frank, before the local elections to you. That’s for you. Thank you very much. I have to ask though, do you not have a bit of sympathy for, you know, leaders of political parties who are trying to shrug off the legacy of unpopular predecessors? I mean you’re in a shadow cabinet with Jeremy Corbyn, weren’t you? I’ve been in the shadow cabinet for years. I’m, I’ve been a Labour Party politician now for 1314 years or so. But the key thing, Richie Sunak is not in Liz Truss’s pocket. He’s probably hates it’s trust. In her book, Liz Truss talks about abolishing National Insurance, making a speech at the conference in 1997. I made a platform speech with Margaret Thatcher, looking on where Liz Truss leads, Rishi Sunak follows. He’s adopting this plan to abolish National Insurance and he cannot explain where the £46 billion is coming from to fund it. Well, I tell you where it’s coming from. Working families and pensioners are going to pay the price. OK. Thank you very much indeed, Jonathan Ashworth.