Richard Burgon MP is the worst ‘politician’ I have ever met.

As we sit in the inauspicious surroundings of Mill Lane Room Six, he barely makes eye contact with me – the least daunting interviewer a politician could ever be so lucky to field questions from – and is uncomfortable, awkward and seemingly petrified of saying something salacious that Varsity would subsequently use to bring the already feeble Labour Party to its knees.

Fortunately, I am finding his approach refreshing and deeply endearing – we have all had enough of politicians who have no imagination other than that fed to them by their teleprompter.

Yes, Burgon is unpolished and far happier talking to a group of people about the necessity of redistributing wealth than trying to hypnotise a journalist into liking them through eye contact. Importantly, however, he has – unlike a typical politician – the ability to deliver truly inspiring rhetoric, dominated by an organic zeal for social justice and developed from continuous interaction with those who are at the diametrically opposite end of the economic spectrum from the bankers who hoard wealth in our society.

Burgon, a former Johnian who spent 10 years as a trade union lawyer before becoming the MP for Leeds East in 2015, is one of the small clan of Labour MPs who nominated Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leader in 2015. And he remains a firm supporter, adamantly disagreeing with my description of the Labour Party as being marred by resignations, rebellion and a general state of disarray.

“Labour is holding the government to account”, he says. “Labour has forced U-turns by the government on a whole host of issues relating to welfare. This is a period of great uncertainty for all political parties and political ideologies. Brexit obviously is on people’s mind at the moment. We have UKIP wanting to represent some of ‘the 52 per cent’ and the Liberal Democrats wanting to represent some of the ‘other 48 per cent’.”

“Theresa May can’t be given some sort of blank cheque to turn Britain into a bargain basement tax haven off the shore of Europe”

In contrast, he is keen to emphasise that “what Labour stands for is not representing the 52 or the 48, but representing the 100 per cent, or rather the 99 per cent of people who are low earners, middle earners and some who consider themselves to be fairly well-off, who don’t get a fair enough deal under the way society and the economy is run, whether we are in the EU or out of the EU.”

But I remain confused as to how Labour can represent both factions of the referendum electorate, particularly in light of Corbyn’s imposition of a three-line whip ahead of Wednesday’s vote to trigger Article 50. Burgon is quick to clarify the position: “The vote on Article 50 is not a vote about whether you think Britain should leave the EU or stay within the EU,” he explains. “It is a vote about whether or not you think the outcome of the referendum is valid or not.”

He presses on before I can interrupt: “I think as a party of democrats we’ve got to be clear that every vote is of equal value – I think it is wrong to patronise the 52 per cent and wrong to dismiss the very valid concerns and worries of the 48 per cent.” Growing increasingly passionate, he is clear in his belief that it is time to “start talking about the 99 per cent – let’s start trying to bring people together.”

“At the same time,” he says, “Theresa May can’t be given some sort of blank cheque to turn Britain into a bargain basement tax haven off the shore of Europe, and that’s why Labour will be fighting to win progressive amendments on the type of Brexit that we have.”

Alan Johnson: ‘It’s about sensible Brexit or stupid Brexit’

It could be said that this vision, of a Brexit that empowers the global capitalist clique, is not a realistic possibility. Burgon responds forcefully: “I don’t trust the Conservatives with workers’ rights, I don’t trust Conservatives to manage the economy in the interests of the majority.” He issues a powerful warning, noting that, “if Theresa May gets her way, then they will use Brexit as a smokescreen to create a society that is worse for the majority. That’s what they did with the banking crisis of 2008.”

Turning away from Brexit, I draw the conversation onto another of Corbyn’s recent controversial announcements: his call for the implementation of a wage cap ratio policy. Again, as I challenge the feasibility of this idea, Burgon is quick in his reply as he explains his belief “that the scope of human ability isn’t so great that it can be viable that in the first two and half days of 2017, some of the top bosses in the country each earned what it takes the average worker the whole year to earn. The grotesque levels of inequality between the super rich and the very rest of us haven’t always been so stark – something needs to be done”.

“Wanting to become the next generation’s Boris Johnson isn’t what I think 18-year-olds should be doing with their spare time”

We move to his time in Cambridge, as I allow him a moment to reminisce about his stint as Chairman of the Cambridge Universities Labour Club (CULC) which, as ever, involved the enjoyable task of challenging perennial CULC rivals the Cambridge University Conservative Association (CUCA) for the title of Cambridge’s most influential political society.

The challenge for Burgon is different now. No longer can he roll his eyes at the ostentatious elitism of event such as ‘Port and Policy’ or ‘Chocolate & Cava feat. Croquembouche’. Instead, he calls on CUCA “to come door-knocking in my constituency”. This would, in his view, lead them to “find out just how out-of-touch and distant they are.”

After all, he says, “wanting to make the majority poorer, wanting to wither away the state, wanting to support a party which attacks the most vulnerable [and wanting] to become the next generation’s Boris Johnson isn’t what I think 18-year-olds should be doing with their spare time.”

It is clear that Burgon is a man who has enjoyed spending some time, in the long distant past, savaging CUCA before. And his talent for that particular pastime is no more evident than when he dismisses their very purpose.

“I think they should have far better things to do,” he smiles, “than drinking port and worshipping Margaret Thatcher.”