AI in campaigning and leadership tensions

How does a banana trigger a CIA backed coup Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order What do LED lights say about the future of humanity I'mt Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow Hello, good morning. It's Wednesday, june tenth Overnight, masked men burned vehicles and houses and blocked roads in and around Belfast hours after Elon Musk, Tommy Robinson and others urged people to take to the streets in anti immigration protests We'll be hearing from the Prime Minister and other party leaders on what happened later today. I'm Anne McKlbvoy from Politico. And I'm Sam Coates of Sking New The protests took place in the wake of a sickening attack, knife attack on Monday night in a residential predominantly Republican suburb of North Belfast. The attack was on a local man in his forties. He's now in a serious condition in hospital with injuries to his eyes, his face and his back But the angle now at the heart of the political debate is the immigration history manner of the arrival of his potential attacker A Sudanese citizen granted leave to remain in the UK in february twenty twenty three who arrived from Paris via Dublin common travel agreement between Northern Ireland and the Republic The individual was taken into custody and charged with attempted murder on Tuesday evening, and he'll appear in court today. Kir Stahmer has condemned the attack. He's also said he has no tolerance for the abhorrent scenes on the streets that it unleashed The debate today, however, will focus on the immigration status of the man arrested Reforms ia youv talking about treacherous ory and labour immigration policies and pointing to reforms party policy of a total ban on visas from Sudan the Tories Chris Phelp saying that the case could show the government's lack of border control is endangering the public. We're eight days away from a make or break by election, An and you can see politicians really wanting to have this debate vigorously and prominently Just as last week they were talking about the fallout from Henry Novak's murder is again, a complicated debate. usf suggesting that Try policy was to blame You know, we're talking about tory policy in twenty twenty three when the suspect was given indefinitelyave to remain. But of course at that point, Sa Braman was home secretary and Robert Genrick was treasury spokesman. now of course, both on the same side asf Zia Yussef, of course, they're a massive fan of people imported from the Tory party. and one suspects that there's a little bit of that vibe at least it will be read into it. evenven the Soueela Braman said ories precisely because I was fighting for changes that I couldn't do within my old political home But making a lot of this, I think today will be the party to the right of reform UK. that's restored Britain Monjel Farage looks to sweep in and sees a limelight on this, he will answer questions about all of that in a press conference that he hopes to do to use to reinforce his opposition to indefinitely to remain. Yes, Nigel Farage holding his first press conference in the Makerfield constituency since the local elections over a month ago The reform leader uncharacteristically quiet, I think we could say, since the story of that controversial five million pound gift from the donor Christopher Harbourne emerged There he is out in the full limelight today alongside the by election candidate there Rob Kenyon just eight days ago before that moment and it does seem events in Belfast will very much be echoing across the IrishCe. The names of all the boelection candidates available in the show notes to this podcast quuite noticeable the manner of Nigel Farage's intervention today compared to last week Last week, Nigel Farage wanted to make a lot of the Henry Novak case that he did so by what he called an emergency announcement. It was a live streamed video But of course, that wasn't a press conference and there was no ability to ask questions. whereereas today, it's a proper press conference where people are able to go along. And I think that distinction is important to note partly because of the weirdness of the way that he did it last week. This week, you can see the debate in the domestic sphere, but it's also got an international to mention because I think there will be concern in quite a lot of circles It's all being amplified by Elon Musk, the world's richest man who was amplifying Tommy Robinson last night in support of the protest in Belfast. He was retweeting, reposting a message from Robinson that only by protesting repeatedly and loudly will there be any change. So that dimension, I think is going to work its way through the political system. as well. Recap on how the suspect arrived in the UK in playaybook this morning, as you say, Sam, he arrived via the common travel area allowing for free movement between the UK and Ireland coming from Sudan via France. The Shadow Home Secretary Chris Phel is saying in the mail that this is a back door. And there's also a quote in that piece from the former Home Office Director of Immigration Enforcement pointing out that the CTA, that common travel area is an often abused route and has been for a long time. It isn't clear what you could do about it without installing a hard border himself is calling for a review of border security measures rather than the common travel area itself. Yeah. the common travel area, one area of where the politics is going to go to indefinitelyave to remain, which we'll talk about in a moment, the other My goodness, we're going there, right The common travel area is one of those sort of third rails of UK politics, something that when politicians touch, they often get a bit of an electric shock because of the complexity and the deep seated nature of the politics around that. So the common travel area, I'm sure most listeners to this podcast know, it's the lack of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland U because of the history, the troubles and the need for there not to be any physical infrastructure on the border to avoid giving paramilitaries a target. The lack of a hard border was a cornerstone. Good Friday agreement the Belfast aggreement of nineteen ninety eight. So it's part of the peace deal in Northern Ireland not to have any physical infrastructure on the border. But that means since Brexit, yes, there is a literal actual open border between a part of the UK and the EU and there is no infrastructure to check people who are coming through, of course, the debate around trade is a slightly different one. and there is something of a border Northern Ireland and the rest of Great Britain, but this is about people, this political. issue. even at the height of the Brexit Wars end No serriious party was actually talking about border checks in any big way. It was both the EU and the UK goovernment position and the opposition parties appeared to rule that out very early on in the Brexit talks because it's just seen as a big no no because of the potential impact on the peace process which is why I think I'm really fascinated to see First of all, that Chris Philip has gone anywhere near it at all and then to watch how the different actors and I'm thinking here actually, some of those on the right and the far right, you know, does this become an issue that they start to talk about But it's something, I think, in the muscle memory of Westminster politics that people will recoil from going too far on. But you know, I might be wrong But I don't think people want to do this. All of this part of the sort of really complicated ecosphere that it exists politically because this attack took place in Northern Ireland and you've been looking a little bit about the sort of cultural and political background and what's going on in Belfast? Yeah, the deeper social and political questions that this raises after that night of violence that followed the attack, very well aired, I thought in a piece in the telegraph by Acherson pointing out what an especially complex mix of sectarian divisions and sectarian history that you refer to also Sound and the failures to deal with frustrations in the populations, both sides of the sectarian divide, in fact there from a spike immigration, particularly in those hard pressed areas that Atchson is describing in the north of the city And what that foregrounds is this fisscile mix of factors that's spilled over into violence and our right intimidation on the streets last night and his analysis is that the place is still very hardwired for sectarian politics in a way that it's just harder. to intuitively grasp from the mainland And secondly, the migration demographic change, which are challenging enough in many communities in the backdrop to so many stories that we've talked about on the podcast over the last couple of years, just has this extra lair in Belfast in that particular part of the city, the worst multiple deprivation indicators at all, he says in in a lot of the UK, high levels of worklessness, poor health outcomes, and some of the most segregated housing stock in the UK schools split overwhelmingly along religious lines and interfaces and so called peace lines that uneasily carve up neighborhoods. So that really does put it into context that we're looking here at a place where he says, identity is not just a matter of how you feel about yourself and your values. It's about where you can walk safely after dark and so many factors have come together in the worst circumstances in this case. And alongside that is just the fact that the man charged to appear in court today is Sudanese and that is the fact that UK politicians want to use in order to pivot the debate back to kind of more familiar territory and away from the Northern Ireland specific issues, I think I'm because they want to put immmigration and all of their differing positions on indefinite leave to remain, because this individual had been granted indefinite leave to remain back on the table. And you can sense that you know particularly I suspect Nijgel Farage and reform want to get the issue of immigration up the agenda again because it's actually been declining since some of their interventions Back early in the autumn, back then it was item number one according to the UGv tracker of, you know, what people think is the most important, but it's gone down kind noticeably below the economy now and I think a bit of the poll number drift for reform UK is linked to the fact that immigration isn't quite the subject with the salilience that it had six months ago. So you can see a sort of political strategy in what they're doing, but also just the fact that right now it does feel like there's a bigger presence to the right of reform from Rupert Lowe's Restore partarty, which is campaigning hard in Makerfield, which I think is prominent feature of social media, particularly the X platform where Elon Musk gives Rupert Low, his's enthusiastic backing all of that, I think, is behind the sort of Nugel Farrage re emges today. Yes, that restore versus reform feud is absolutely is the kind of thing that is gets much more attention and is yeah, it's a real moment for Rupert Lowe, this kind of story. In fact, he was telling my colleague Sam Bluitt that he is aiming to stand candidates in every single seat at the next general election. if we remember, when we last heard that kind of claim and it was greeted as a bit of a wow was when reform were making that pledge. So Lowe clearly believes that he is on a roll. He says that he's not having a vendetta with Nigel Farage, but he did tell My colleague, I don't work with people who try to send me to prison for nothing. would you ruled out a pact to unite the fragmented right. So that is also a kind of area of politics, I think that is is changing pretty fast. that's a big pressure point on Nigel Farage The overall picture here is that immigration still remains very salient. There' been two big attempts and I'm talking here in the national picture r than specifically Northern Ireland. Sam. there were two big attempts to deal with that. One was with the takeback control message of Brexit. and it did, in fact, I just went back through the polling and attitude surveys this morning role for a while in the wake of Brexit and probably that perception that the government had got back more authority over this issue. But if we look what' happened in the last couple of years, massive attempts by this government to manage down immigration and to get more of a grip on the asylum issue and a bit more noisilyince Shivana Mahmouud took over as homeome seecretary And yet so many people heading, I think towards sixty percent. stillill think it is too high and a very large proportion of them think that immigration is rising when in fact it is falling So I don't think you could say that whatever has been attempted so far has actually dealt with that underlying public anxiety on the issue. No. and that's why highlighting of the different policy positions is the sort of name of the game today So a lot of this will revolver around the promise by reform to abolish indefinitelyave to remain, which I think Nigel Farage would want to sort of front and center today But also enite a debate as a row within labour over what they're doing. if you remember in the autumn Home Secretary Shabana Mahud said that she wanted to extend the period before people can qualify for indefinitely to remain and set it at s ten to fifteen years, depending on people's occupation income contributions, which is probably the big kind of internal spat in the Labour Party, Angela Rayna, former depbuty Prime Minister the retrospective changes to indefinite labor remain un British U so I think you've got a sense that sense there that this is a potential brewisee for the government and you can see a potential opportunity for for opposition parties. All of this plays into the Maker field by election and you were around there yesterday. Can you give us any updates from that front line? I think everybody is working very hard on the doorsteps Andy Burnham out and about at an event with police that we mentioned yesterday, very, very controlled his public appearances at the moment, given that he Given that his forte is the ease with which he deals with the public and journalists and questions, I'm quite struck that sort of full control campaign mode is underway I came across a really remarkably curious tale from the Labour but' part of the Labor campaign team yesterday and Labour activists believe that some of their rival parties are using AI glasses when they're out canvassing. Right. And as I'm sure you better than anyone else are aware as are resident tech know it all Companies like Meta glasses with tiny little recording devices in them and then the ability to project display material onto a screen. So you basically, a little bit like kind of something Tom Cruise would wear, you can see data and also what you're seeing is going or being recorded onto a hard drive. Now, in theory, one day there could be a moment where politicians are out canvassing They can use facial recognition to identify an individual, use the kind of big AI data sets to supply the canvaser with the best lines tailored to that individual to persuade them over to their political cause. Now, I'm not quite sure we're there with the futuristic vision. I'm not sure the technology is quite quite there What's triggered, I think, concern in labour circles, is the idea that their rivals are using these glasses and just in the process of doing so are recording their interactions with voters. So everybody's sort of just at the stage of checking electoral law and checking with the police about what's legal, what's not I'm less sort of bothered about the legality around some of this stuff. I am, however fascinated that I feel like we've seen a glimpse into the future. of electioneering and campaigning which is just going to be tech enabled U and yeah, this idea of tailored messages to persuade me based on what big data knows about my preferences Uh is uh is is is is a is a reality that we might just have to get used to. I'm not sure I love it, but it's probably where we're going. Well, if you remember, that's pretty much what Morgan McSweeney predicted to me a couple of weeks ago. He was at a big global security conference and I sort of button hold him on this question, he was speaking on how political campaigning was being very rapidly changed by AI and exactly the kind of example that you've used there with the glasses, but frankly, it could be any technology which is just able to take in suck in masses of real time data. about what voters are on thinking some and then sort of spit it out but also in this iterative AI era kind of make prompts to the parties about what they should do or say about it. And one thing he was pointing out is I think the scale of it is the hardest thing for us to grasp if you're used to covering campaigns operational limits on how many demographic groups you could target. He used a figure of around thirteen before he just you got too confused to follow it up, but he was pointing out in an AI driven campaigning world, you would simply be able to have as many groups micro groups as you want and as you point out say exactly to each person, pretty much each small group of voters, would get a message that was tailored for them. And where did that leave any sense of national cohesion, which I did think was a very challenge there One thing just before we close, I did see the financial Times picking up a scenario that you'd laid out actually yesterday, quite presciently And that would be in the wake of all of this, Makerfield, not yet fully AI enabled, but possibly some signs there But either way, back on in the real human world, Kia Starmer planning to tell ministers they'd have to quit if they backed Burnham or anyone else. in a prospective labor leadership contest That was interesting because I think you'd heard something to that effect too. Isn't it odd when you end up arguing as Prime Minister, that a contest would be bad and destabilize the government. So you make clear you don't want one And then if one looms, you say, well, the cabinet would have to resign or that's what your place people are saying. And that would pull the government apart anyway Strange days indeed. Yeah Interesting odd story in some ways, you know, K Stala reminding the world of the existence of collective responsibility in government. I love that this is being presented by his allies as evidence of his strength but equally as you sort of intubate If there's suspicion that there's even more beyond the hundred labor MPs who said they should go.