Margot James: Tories should lobby DUP for change on equality rights in Northern Ireland
8 min read
From influencing the DUP on equalities, to transforming marginalised communities and balancing Brexit for business, Margot James tells Emilio Casalicchio why now is a time of opportunity
The deal between the Conservatives and the Democratic Unionist Party sparked fear among campaigners that LGBTQ rights were up for grabs when it was signed in June. Indeed, the Prime Minister was forced to reassure her own party that there would be no backsliding on equality issues – and later had no choice but to accept a landmark change allowing Northern Irish women free abortions in England to head off a rebellion from her backbenchers.
But Margot James, the first openly lesbian MP in the Conservative party, believes the £1.5bn deal presents an opportunity. Far from offering a threat to LGBTQ rights on the UK mainland, James thinks the pact between Theresa May and the DUP could act as a boost for equality in Northern Ireland. “I would hope that would open up some channels of communication whereby we could lobby for change,” she says, in her sleek eighth-floor office overlooking the rooftops of Westminster’s Victoria Street.
Once hailed as the ‘new face of modern conservatism’, James notes that she wouldn’t have been “so sanguine” about the deal if there was any prospect of rights being rolled back in either Northern Ireland or Great Britain as a result. But she adds: “I see it as a slight opportunity to try to win round the DUP to an understanding of why equality is important and why women’s rights, particularly in respect of abortion, are important. I haven’t had time to raise it yet but it’s something I would like to pursue.”
Going further, she adds: “I know quite a number of the Northern Irish MPs, and we should take advantage of our relationships with them to see if we can’t secure some sort of timetable to a better environment in Northern Ireland for women and LGBTQ people.”
James rose up the ranks in the Conservatives in the mid-2000s to become vice-chair of the party for women’s issues and a Kensington councillor, before being elected MP for Stourbridge in 2010. It wasn’t long before the former businesswoman got her first footing on the ministerial ladder as a PPS for Lord Green in the then-Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Things began moving fast after the 2015 election, when she became a government whip and then, when Theresa May became Tory leader last year, took over from Anna Soubry as minister for small business. The new role suits James – who sold her PR firm for £4m to fund her political career – just fine.
A stern portrait of her heroine, the champion of business Margaret Thatcher, hangs on the wall directly opposite her desk. She recounts the moment she first met the former prime minister as an a-level politics student, taking the day off to celebrate outside the Palace of Westminster when the Tories won their 1979 landslide. “She came out and a great thrill spread among the crowd,” James says with a smile. “I’d got to the front, and she came out and shook hands with the people in the front row, and she shook my hand.” A photo of the prized moment, first printed in the Mail on Sunday, sits just below the Thatcher portrait in James’ office. Her love for the Iron Lady was so strong that when Thatcher was ousted from Downing Street in 1990, James quit the party for 14 years. She says she felt “a real sense of loss” when the baroness died.
Channelling the optimistic spirit of her hero, James is driven by a mission to ensure business can thrive as the engine for growth in the UK. She sees her job as a chance to reach out to neglected areas of the country and see them transformed into hubs of productivity. “I really did want to do something towards empowering people at the lower-paid end of the economy,” she says. “And improving their skills, life chances and so forth.”
Key to this is the industrial strategy she has been working on – a blueprint for fixing the sluggish productivity levels in the UK; the worst in the G7. Handing people new skills, chaining industry together with better transport links and making cash more readily available to start-ups are all elements of the grand vision laid out by the government at the start of this year. James – who campaigned for Remain in the EU referendum – sees the plan as a sort of healer for some of the ills that may have motivated voters to back Brexit in 2016. It was predominantly areas with low-skilled and less well educated blue-collar workers who delivered the blow for Europe at the ballot box. As the LSE described them in a blog post, “social groups that are united by a general sense of insecurity, pessimism and marginalisation”. In other words, exactly the kinds of groups James has in her sights. “We’re looking to give those parts of the country a boost so that they’ve got the same opportunities as the parts of the country that are prospering more,” she explains. “That is really important to the people who voted for leaving the EU and where they are, feeling they have been left behind.” And the mission is distinctly personal. James sees her own constituency, where a massive two thirds of the electorate voted for Brexit, as a prime target.
It all sounds optimistic enough, but the hope of delivering transformational change to the economy is matched – if not outweighed – by the worries about whether Brexit will harm business and the ‘left-behind’ areas further. And being the sounding board for small businesses desperate for an idea of what the future landscape will look like is surely no bed of roses. “I think the concerns businesses have about access to the single market and frictionless trade is reflected in what I hear from small and medium enterprises just as much as what my colleagues in this department hear from the large employers as well,” James says.
She insists she is not caught between two opposing worlds: that of business calling for a soft Brexit, and that of the government on course to leave the trading areas and impose strict immigration rules. But she doesn’t shy away from the fact that worries are running high among small businesses. “The critical issue really - the thing we have got to get right - is balancing the need to control immigration with the need to maximise access to the single market and free and frictionless trade,” she says. “Those two goals are difficult to reconcile but we have got to work hard.”
Naturally, when it comes to the answers – on guarantees for migrant workers already here; the future relationship with the single market and customs union; and protections for small businesses trading across the Irish border – James is a little more hazy. But she rejects a claim by the Institute for Government that customs arrangements after Brexit could cost small firms £4bn in red-tape disruption to their supply chains. She argues it is “a bit premature” for the thinktank to offer a “ballpark figure of that nature” before knowing what the exit and future trade terms will look like. “Any restriction on [free trade] is going to be an initial problem,” she concedes. “But I’m confident that if we can negotiate the right sort of deal we will be able to keep those problems to a minimum.”
Despite proposed solutions being thin on the ground in a negotiation that appears to be stuttering if not stalled, James insists there has been no lack of clarity from government and that business has not been left in the dark. “I know businesses want certainty and I sympathise with that,” she says, before adding, firmly: “I think most businesses I talk to are willing to concede that they would rather get the best possible result than rush into something that is sub-optimal just so they can get some certainty.” She notes that firms have a “clear line of communication” to Downing Street and that their viewpoint is “now to the fore”. Nevertheless, she admits to finding the slow pace of exit negotiations “frustrating”, as she is eager for the government to get on with talks about the future trade relationship.
Either way, James says she has no reason to believe the UK will not be ready for Brexit when the ticking clock of Article 50 reaches its final seconds. In words that could offer some reassurance to all the entrepreneurs under her watch, she insists: “All I can say at the moment is I haven’t heard of a good reason why we shouldn’t be in shape by March 2019, to have a clear path that we will then have a period of time to implement, so that issues can get ironed out before we finally agree the terms of our departure.”
Small business owners will be pleased to have a Remainer on their side putting their case to the Tory leadership. But Theresa May is facing domestic pressure from all corners over Brexit, while being up against a virtually immovable EU. James certainly has her work cut out, and no doubt will channel the steely determination of Margaret Thatcher to make sure her voice is heard through Brexit. Meanwhile, small business will be watching on with baited breath.
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