00:00So what do you think about the fact that there has been a legacy announcement with an Irish government that is suing the UK on legacy for the former conditional amnesty plan when it has operated a de facto amnesty?
00:15I'm just wondering what you think of the principle of that.
00:18Well I think a number of things about that Ben.
00:21The first is I never felt that that action by the Irish government was appropriate at all.
00:26And I didn't really understand why Westminster needed to bring Dublin into discussions about legacy.
00:36However, within the agreement that Hilary Benn has signed, I understand that there is provision for greater cooperation between the Irish authorities and the UK authorities on legacy.
00:47And what I really need to see from that is the Irish government being honest about the collusion that we know existed between the Garda and the provisional IRA at times.
00:59To be honest about the fact that there were criminals who were not extradited from Ireland to the UK during the Troubles.
01:06And for a much more open and honest debate about what was happening during the Troubles than I think has previously happened.
01:15But that almost suggests that it's okay for the Irish government to jointly preside over legacy.
01:19First of all, is there not a sovereignty issue?
01:21There is Ben and that's why I said I didn't see the need to bring Dublin into that conversation.
01:27However, what I have wanted to see for some time, what I've spoken about for some time,
01:32is the need for people to be held to account for having colluded with terrorists during the Troubles.
01:41And so I hope that that part of the agreement bears fruit.
01:46And the legal case before Strasbourg hasn't even been dropped?
01:50No, it hasn't been dropped.
01:51And if Hilary Ben wanted to bring Dublin into the legacy agreement,
01:57I should have said that it would have been a precondition of having that conversation to drop that action.
02:01Of course, they wouldn't even have been able to bring the case if we hadn't been in the ECHR.
02:07And your party is now committed to leaving the ECHR.
02:12Is that actually going to happen?
02:13No, that's entirely right.
02:15Now, we have brought forward the most extensive analysis of why the UK needs to leave the ECHR that anybody has done.
02:25Lord Wolfson, who is King's Council, has done this 200-page document which looks at how the UK needs to leave the ECHR
02:35in order to be able to control its borders, in order to be able to take care of certain legacy issues,
02:40in order to be able to protect welfare, prioritise British citizens for British services.
02:48And it's true to say that once we have left the ECHR, as future Conservative government is committed to do,
02:57it would not be possible for another country to bring such illegal action against it.
03:01The Unionist fear is that when, if you do leave the ECHR, Nationalist Ireland will go berserk,
03:08and that there'll be an opt-out for Northern Ireland and another Irish seaborder.
03:12So, that won't be the case, that in David Wolfson's report, he's very clear that we can remain committed to the peace process
03:21and to the 1998 agreement, and have the whole of the United Kingdom leave the European Convention on Human Rights,
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