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| Dennis Skinner addresses Labour Party conference in 2017 |
In an exclusive interview, DANIEL POWELL speaks to the veteran left-wing MP about Brexit, Sports Direct, triggering Michael Heseltine, throwing shade at the Queen - and never, ever, making friends with a Tory
At Westminster’s grandiose central lobby, Labour’s longest continuously serving MP Dennis Skinner seeks a quiet place for our conversation.
Passing through a corridor, he indicates a doorway that was once a trade union room. The “Palace of Varieties,” as he calls his place of work, has changed since he first became MP for Bolsover in 1970. Settling for the cafeteria, he begins to recall his early days.
“I was the president of the Derbyshire miners, and I had been going down a few times to the headquarters of the NUM on Euston Road, so if it finished early I used to come in Parliament and see what was happening.
“One day they were having a debate on pay policy, so I came in for that, and John Mendelson, who represented Penistone in South Yorkshire, used to give me a ticket. I was under the gallery in those special seats, like it’s almost on the floor.
“I was eating a sandwich and one of the whips came to me and said: ‘You can’t eat in here.’ I said: ‘Oh, can’t you, I’ll have to do it quietly then, secretly’.”
Mendelson also played a role in the development of another prominent icon of the left at this time — by introducing Tony Benn to the radical history of the Diggers and Levellers.
Skinner has proved to be a most valuable MP, recorded as having the second lowest expenses claim and the highest attendance record in the Commons.
On beginning his career, he vowed to adhere to three principles: no pairing with opposition MPs for the convenience of being absent at Commons votes; no leisurely jaunts on fact-finding trips; no collaboration in all-party groups.
“I decided not to pair, and not to go on fact-finding trips — because they’re all with the enemy. Tories, Liberals and members of the House of Lords, which I thought should be abolished anyway.
“It’s funny — they never do any fact-finding tours to Greenland in the winter, but they do find ways and means of getting to Australia.”
“I declared I would never get involved in all-party groups because I can’t see the point in sitting there with Tories talking about pensions.
“At a time like now, they have all-party groups on universal credit — I can’t believe it. I can’t see the point of getting elected as a Labour, socialist member of Parliament and then collaborating with the enemy.”
Although a long-term Eurosceptic, he refrained from aligning with Leave advocates from other parties for photoshoots prior to the referendum, chiding former Labour MP Gisela Stuart as “somebody on our side — buying Boris Johnson an ice cream during the campaign.”
“My opposition to the EU stemmed from the beginning—I’d only been here about a year or so in 1971 when I realised that this was a democratic argument. It’s not just about what later transpired to be using foreign workers for cheap labour, zero-hour contracts dominated by two agencies and no trade union representation,” says Dennis, referring to negative effects EU freedom of movement has had in his Bolsover constituency.
On a former mining colliery site at Shirebrook, where billionaire Mike Ashley opened his warehouse — known locally as “the gulag” — workers from eastern Europe were hired to toil for below the minimum wage in poor conditions.
“Very cleverly, Mike Ashley used to allow one or two of the Unite members to be employed [directly] by him,” he says.
“But the two agencies recruit the rest. He doesn’t answer my letters, he just made it clear that he didn’t want me anywhere near the place, he’d obviously found out who I was. So I’ve never been in the factory, ever — even though it’s in my area.”
On the dispute over whether remaining in the EU would prevent a Labour government implementing manifesto pledges such as rail renationalisation, Dennis is cautious.
“I tend to view that I’m not going to take that risk. Even though we’ve got a decent leftwinger at the head of the Labour Party and a chance of winning power and being prime minister, the truth is under the present arrangement we would have difficulties getting that legislation through in Europe, so the best way is to get out.”
Regarding the subject of another referendum: “When does it stop, is it best of three?”
Labour’s preference is for a snap general election, whereby securing a victory would see them able to negotiate with the EU in a different position to the current Conservative government, propped up by the DUP at a £1 billion cost.
This is not the first time a minority government has had to rely on such support though, as Skinner recalls: “They have signed an agreement and received money, which is the first time I’ve known it. Callaghan ruled from ’76 to ’79 almost without a majority for part of time — he did deals with all kinds of people in order to survive, and some of them were the Ulster Unionists then, the same people who are the DUP now. He would do anything rather than give them money. They all cost a Ronaldo price, a hundred million apiece.
“Part of the European set-up is, that whatever contract the Labour Party of the future would have to observe is giving every single country in Europe a chance to bid for the business. That means nationalisation is ruled out, and that’s why I vote as I do.
“It was heaven sent for Tony Blair because he didn’t have to nationalise anything, whereas Harold Wilson nationalised Aerospace with a majority of one! We sang The Red Flag, and that’s when [Michael] Heseltine picked up the mace.”
The sound of Labour MPs triumphantly singing the classic socialist rallying song angered the Conservative MP into grabbing and wielding the ceremonial mace from the Commons table, before being restrained amid grave disorder – resulting in suspension from the House.
Well known for his caustic humorous jibes at Conservative MPs, Skinner has been expelled from the Commons chamber several times for unparliamentary language.
On one occasion, a speech from chancellor George Osborne on economic growth prompted Skinner to retort: “The only thing growing then were the lines of coke in front of boy George and the rest of them.” After the Speaker Michael Martin ordered Skinner to leave, he returned to his office where “one of his emissaries came up and knocked on the door, and said: ‘The Speaker said you’ve no need to leave the building’ — because I was getting everything together, which is the normal practice when you’re thrown out.
And he says: ‘So long as you don’t go in the chamber.’ So I packed up what I was doing. My guess is he probably thought: ‘He didn’t say the member for Tatton, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he said boy George, and pointed.’
“It was clear to anybody that had been in there that it was about that photo that had been in the Sunday papers — I wasn’t being Machiavellian about it.”
In contrast to the often humdrum business of Parliament, such moments of acerbic wit from Skinner over the years have created a loyal fanbase of old and new generations of leftist Labour supporters. His sardonic comments to the Queen’s representative Black Rod during the annual opening of Parliament over the years have included laconic comic asides such as “tell her to pay her taxes” and “tell her to sell up” during economic recession.
At the 2017 opening, Skinner considered the Queen’s interest in attending horse-racing events for his traditional commentary, causing laughter to resound around the House: “I just knew that week she was due to open Parliament on the Monday. I thought there’s no Ascot on Monday, that’s interesting, I bet she’s very happy. But then Theresa May changed it, and decided that she’d got to come on Wednesday. I thought, I’ll bet she’s furious. So it was pretty clear I’d already got something to say. So I said: ‘Don’t you think you ought to get your skates on, first race is half past two’.”
In 2018 Theresa May cancelled the usual opening of Parliament ceremony, opting for a two-year session while Brexit negotiations continue. Can we look forward to a Skinner quip at the opening of Parliament in 2019?
“I’ll think of something on the day.”
Timing, it seems, may be key to both politics and humour alike.
