Economic Consequences and Future Outlook

H anniversary ten years since we voted to leave the European Union, How has Brexit been for you? Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage may be a lot wealthier than they were, but they are the exception. A decade has been long enough to establish Britain is poorer and weaker and Brexit is one of the reasons. An economy six to eight percent smaller than it would have been, investment lower, productivity lower, and businesses who were promised an end to red tape drowning in the stuff And yet, the divisive populist politics that help fuel it is far from dead. We've seen the worst of it on the streets of Belfast last week, a horrible stabbing by an asylum seeker whipped up into riots and a house to house hunt immigrs. We've seen its exploitation by Russia in the evidence that arsen attacks on Kirstahmer's home and car were organized by Moscow, then backed by the far right here and even in quiet wealthy Switzerland. Their weekend referendum on whether to have a population cap was the brainchild of their right wing populist partarty. And in Germany, I'm hearing of fresh legal moves to establish that their far right party the AFD, is in breach of the country's constitution because of its commitment to what they proudly call emigration. So, a decade on from the toxicity of the referendum campaign, how worried should we all be about the Fire rights' continuing influence on our lives? and what hope is there of liberal democracy fighting back All list and more to come in today's episode This episode is brought to you by Fuse Energy. Now moving home has a way of revealing a mountain of background tasks and underers to do lists that's dealing with the boxes, the broadband, the change of address forms, and the discovery that you own far too many mugs. 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Call one eight hundred five two six seven seven thir six to learn more. or visit trmpharadio d. com He rest politics with me Roy Stewart and me Alisa Campbell. Today, we are at the tenth anniversary of Brexit and we're really going to get into how did that go. And in the second half, extraordinary news, which is that it seems as though finally, despite all our skepticism, We're on the cusp of a proper deal in Iran. I'm still skeceptical. And you're still sceptical. Let me start you though with Brexit. So Tenathon bit of post traumatic stress. I was a member then of David Cameron's goverment, an environment minister campaigning for Rain. so I was hard enough? Not hard enough. And I was at the Great Royal S in Edinburgh, the Aricultural S Ro Heine and show U all night in my hotel room watching the results, David Dimbleby coming on. And then of course, as somebody who then went to Theresa May's goverment, I was right in the heart of this fight where you and your friend Tony Blair were very much saying, This is ridiculous. We need a second referendum And I was trying to say let's make the best of it and try to get a customs union or a single market compromise out of this. Let me though Just take us back to where I think the fundamental arguments were and how weird that moment was. Fundamentally, you had Brexiteers saying two things. One of them was Singapore on Tims, which is If we leave the European Union, we can deregulate, cut taxes, become more pro business, more pro innovation and Britain will boom like Singapore ori. And the second argument was the global Britain argument. Europe's slow and sclerotic. All the growth in the world is US, China, India, and we need to lean into those places with new trade deals, new relationships and throw off the shackles of this old place. The problem with it is twofold. Number one Britain didn't want to be Singapore on Thames. Turns out, actually if you look at the last ten years we haven't deregulated. We haven't dropped tax in fact, corporation tax has gone up. Why? Because actually we're much more social, democratic and European than anyone want to acknowledge. But it's the Gobal Britain thing, which has been the biggest disaster. Because of course, that story, we can rely on the US. we can do wonderful integrated trade deals with China, looks much bleaker ten years later because we've understood how vulnerable we are to being exploited by our dependence on the US how vulnerable we are to Chinese supply chains, how vulnerable we are to Russia and gas, and how actually in Ukraine in energy crises. in the economy with AI, we need to be much closer to the people right on our borders, which is the European Union. other words, a whole security argument has emerged that has wrecked global Britain. And on the other side, we had Remain and Remain had its fair share of pretty extreme apocalyptic predictions, some of which didn't come true. total collapse of the city of London, World WarII, total inability for Britain to survive. and actually the reality this one I provideite cid. is damaging underwhelming slow decline Maybe three percent, maybe eight percent. So it was neither the heroic, certainly not the heroic future of the Brexiters, nor was it quite the complete extreme catastrophe of the total breakup of the European Union, the collapse of our financial etcetera, et cetera that some on the remains side pricked. Look I think going back, it was a terrible campaign on both sides. I thought the remain campaign, led by Cameron and Osborne was pretty complacent. It allowed itself to be projected as project fear and the Leave campaign was just riddled with Charlatans and chances and liars I did a debate at Bloomberg the other day with Jacob Rce Mmogg, who They can't even bring themselves to admit there's any downside to any of this stuff That's what I find extraordinary. Even though the audience And of course he immediately said, Ohh, we're in London. If you went to Cornwall or Wales, it would be very different I think it is very different. As you know, I' obsessed in audiences of asking them what they think and fair enough people who come to hear me speak might be sort of less leavy than Remaini, but I think the country has decided it's been You know, you're right. it wasn't apocalyptic. But when you say sort of quite casually, well, might be three percent, might be eight percent, threeree percent is bad enough, take that out of your economy. But if you go to the latest analysis by the government's official kind of data people, they're talking about between sixcent and eight percent take out of GDP w between twelve and eighteen on investment, threecent to four percent on productivity, exports down, tape massively up And I thought that I mentioned Rce Mg as you know one conservative on one side of the argument. Michael Hesseltinene, who was our first interviewee on leading four years ago. And who I was just up at the Lake District Book Festival was good firing on all ss. He was amazing. It was this a book about trees. Yeah, but he would talked a lot about remain. Of course did course because he's passionate. But he wrote a piece the Indpendent of the weekend, which I thought was absolutely brilliant. But just think we give this one line Never have so few done so much damage to so many with so little ability to execute what they lied about Where are the peons of praise to Brexit from Johnson, Gogh, Ferraage Cummings and their accomplices, for the land of milk and honey they told as it would deliver. They don't normally hold back from giving their opinions. The reason is obvious their scandalously false prospectus has turned to dustant ashes. They are the guilty men and should hang their heads in shame has all proved to be a con. And yet, very interestingly, as you keep pointing out Farage is actually not very damaging so weird. so he remains very popular. pop is I would delete the very and say quite more people than most of the other leaders, given what he delivered. I mean, given all that, I mean I agree with you on all of that. And there is still a sort of fondness for Boris Johnson out there in the country that you sometimes encounter. If he's not thinking's funny? Yeah, Yeah, I've found it on the train on my way up to Cumbberay And Dominic Cummings, I was talking to someone yesterday, absolutely on our side. But the cliche with Dominic Cummings, they repeat again again is he may be a bit radical, but my goodness, he's right about a lot of things. And the general, he's managed to reposition himself Well as's this kind of profit on technology fence this is service, etc. And Michael Gove if you just mentioned, he did a whole podcast Laying into us in which he Basically the thesis of the podcast is why is Dominic Cummings more right than we are about things and the story was because Dominic Cummings is such a briant historian and so much cleverer than we are etcetera. Why she wasn't so clever, it's because he had sort of different form of intellectual education Oddly at no point does anyone say, Whatait a say, of Dominic Cuming is such an amazing prophet and a genius Why did he decide to lead us into Brexit and inflict all this damage on us? Why is he not judg by that one big slub, Why is Michael Go? Whyor J was?. Well, and the answer in part is this is a form of madness in our politics and in our media that these people who have done so much damage. I mean, Hazilton is right about this. They've done so much damage And in any other political environment, I think they'd be done. think be I think Johnson's finished, I really do think he is. But Gove's moved on back to the world he loves, right wing media, pontificating Comies, I'm not sure what he does, but as you say he sort of parades as this great sort of tech guru. And Farage is kind of still doing the rounds and if you look at the polls, may think he's going to be the next prrime Minister. It is utter madness I must plug Rory. in fact this is literally just off the price. I'm going to give you this copy. I've written the forward, so I declare an interest. The new the newew world has done there's a history of Brexit in two hundred fifty six disasters. and I think we should get the cartooners, Martin Ros. There's Paul Daker Isn't he beautif We go in between the factual analysis, we have these chapters of Brexit bullshitters And I've got to say it's the it's the finest There's Cummingss, there's your friend the genius st at Cubbingss. L absolutely absolutely awful. And then we have can we get the quote from Cumingss? It it' quite interesting. The quote fromums. Would we w one without immigration? No? Would we won without three hundred fifty million pounds for the NHS? No? Would we have won by spending our time talking about trade in the single market? No way. They're all real quotes these. Michael Gove, I think the people of this country have had enough of experts with organisations with acronyisms saying they know what's best or we' nowhere That landed, but this is the best one. I mean, there's Nigel Farage Brexit is a disaster, I will go and live abroad, I'll go and live somewhere else. and he's still sort of, you know But instead he came come up with something else. He decided instead he'd send his donuts to go and live somewhere else. and then he could. for Davis, there' be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside. So they are utterly ashamed. Let me youam. Let me now do the boring thing of playing the devil's advocate, right? Because obviously we agree on this stuff. We were both remain voters. we both think it was the wrong thing to do and Britain would have been better off in the European Union. So what would they say? What they would say, I think and I don't know whether tellell me whether I've misunderstood this and whether Jacob R Smogg said something different. Here are the arguments that they'd make. First argument I think they'd say It wasn't all about the economics. It was about sovereignty and control. So they'd say it's no accident that actually Dominic Cummings' campign was control They would say probably on the economics, and anyway, the economic data is clouded by the massive impact of COVIid, the Ukraine, war and all sort of things that It makes it quite difficult to count. And They they also say the European economy is not doing so well, so what you about? Absolutely, which is what we got from James Cleverly. European economy is not doing so well etca. So I was going through a little checklist and I think The argument doesn't quite work because Fundamentally, the problem of Brexit is On the Singapore on Thames, there was never any public willingness to exploit those kinds of opportunities.. And on the global Britain Globe changed R right, so let me just try those two On Singapore Tempts, look, theoretically, yes. I thought you were going to put their case here. Well, you you've now quickly gone straight back to why they were wrong. let' me try to put their case once more then. Okay. I'll put it in the strongest form. The strongest form would be this, It wasn't done right. So I guess if you're Dominic Cummings or you're Jacob Rmall, what you really think is Act, if you leave the European Union could develop a real niche for yourself being different from the European Union and what would being different from the European Union means Well exploiting all the opportunities. You could cut your corporation tax down, you could change your VAT, you could get rid of all the regulations. and here's the model. The optimistic vision for the next ten years of Brexit, let's imagine a massive Brexiteer got in. What they would say is we could become Tchnology, innovation tests better the world. So let's say AI. they'd say look, European Union has just passed a whole series of very restrictive regulations on AI.othing to do with it. American companies are going to be reluctant to invest because of all these data restrictions, we could become the great Bed and partner for the US. partnering the most exciting Cutting edge AI models. We could do the same on pharmaceuticals, know all their regulations might stop them We could cut taxes massively, we could bring in global wealth. We wouldn't need to worry about state aid rules, so we could do an enormous investment program where we could ve the House on certain kinds of things. We don't need worry about fiscal rules, et cetera.. So that' be the story. What would be your response to that? Well that is kind of what Nigel Farage says, isn't it? He says And because he's the in some ways in this contest the Uber Charlatan because he's absolutely getting away with it unlike Johnson, who's out, unlike all the rest of her you know, rec mo glosses see goes out, etcetera. What would I say to that? There is an argument that says that the politics of the Conservative Party, which is what gave us this mess in the first place thenen went post referendum, whereas you say you have Theresa May doing her best trying to make sense of this. David Cameron's off in the wilderness, Johnson' sitting there trying to sort of you know, wait to pounce, which eventually he does. And so their argent, Faragej's argent is We didn't do we didn't actually do brac it. We haven't had brac it. We haven't really left and now you've got people like you know, Kir Star or Rachel Reeves trying to get us closer. And that's the argument they run But I think that overlooks and this is the argument I tried to have with Jacob Reseemmug. and it was very interesting with Reesason Muog because you know how normally he prides himself on being very polite and very charming. Absolutely, I think because he knew he has no real argument to go on. he went absolutely into to me, you're a liar We can't believe anything you say. It was really interesting. you're right, normally he's super caious Absolutely cautious. And so because I said, as I always do, you know, these people lied and they think they've got away with it. And he came up sort of rather dramatically a bit like Kir Stara with with his, you know, I've got a letter to give to Trump. He said, Ah, I've got notes I've taken notes from Peter Oborard's book and his book has footnotes So he goes through and I couldn't get him off this thing. And this this is Peter Obnen, Chris hasew about Iraq. Not just Iraq, but you know, my life as a journalist he'd come prepared He decided that was the and to be fair and poor on Michel Hussein, who was moderating This audience had comealogue to hear about what we thought of Brexit and it got sort of very I thought that was really interesting.. becausecause Jacob Reese Moggg's normal modus operando is very calm very sort oft doesn't play the man. doesn't play the man. so and that said to me, I was rather quite pleased by it. And I'm so used to being called a liar by Tories that't didn't never bothers me I didn't even really bother rebting with all the public inquiry and all that stuff. because he just said to me You've got no argument And you know when we I then said to the audience, Brexit, success or failure It was a hundred percent failure, one hundred percent So then Jacob Emogg just goes, o, well, this is because we're in Bloomberg and if we went to Cornwall or if we went to South Wales, it'd be very, very different. And it was like this in the referendum. And I'm sort of saying well, are you saying these people who have got no They know the economy, they're all working in the economy. And then he said, yes, and then I gave the figures, eight percent, six percent, whatever it would be. Well, there're very different figures. We're into alternative facts terist. Okay, let me try another argument against Jac Smog, which is Oh good, you're back on my. Okay back on your again which is that actually the fundamental problem is that this vision of Singapore on Thames misunderstood what kind of country Britain is that actually the British public, including Most of the Red Wall Brexit voters are not actually up low tax, highly d reggulated. I mean, let's look at the actual debates. What could you have done by leaving the Europeion? Well, you could have said We don't need to waste billions of pounds meeting EU water standards We can put poo into our lakes. we can sa anyway. We can save all that money and we can put it into something else. You could say Listen, now that we've left the European Union, we can cut our tax rates down at the very minimum. We can get rid of all the workers' protection. We can get rid of all that stuff because we really can become is the f single the f. But the problem that they face is that All the polling suggests there is almost no support amongst the public party. There is support amongst a small group E entrepneur businessmen who love Singapore loved you by. That's why Rishy Sunak was quite interested in this Oviously this was Liz Tustus' fion What did Liz Trus discover over her forty nine days? She discovered There was no support from the public all the markets for turning Britain to that kind of thing. In fact the problem actually Britain isn't Singapore or Hong Kong or even the United States being held back by a European manacle In many ways, our cultural social attitudes are very Scandinavian. They're very sort of European So it turned out that what stopped us doing this wasn't being in the European Union, it was us. But also, if you go back to that cartoon about Cummings It's not for nothing that they decided that the National Health Service. it was a massive lie, but not for nothing that they decided actually money for the National Health Service was the way to win the referendum. Okay,. So right notot cutting the national exactly. So this is why the whole thing is is this kind of network of myths and mythology. So one thing Brce Muog and I agreed on is that I don't seense in the public an appetite to sort of have another referendum anytime soon seense in the public a growing acceptance that Brexit has not been good for the country and therefore this government has to in my view, do more to get us back to that closer position, but politically it's very very difficult. Another paradox. I absolutely resonated with one of their points, right I totally want to grant one of the Brext' points, which is that as an MP, I observed that we were blaming Europe all the time. And there was a problem, I don't know, with sovereignty or accountability Again and again, if the public complained about something to the local council or their MP, they were told we couldn't do it because Europe wouldn't allow us to do it And civil servants would frequently say, you can't do that because European laws won't allow you to do that And I felt that was bad for a democracy, right? I'm standing up as a member of Parliament, you've elected me, I'm going to be a dynam government, I'm going to get. What real issues were whereere that applied? Well, it turns out and this is the problem that firstly that many of those regulations we wanted to keep anyway. And spun is dishonesty, right? So instead of saying The reason why you can't do whatever you want to do on water quality is because of a European Union regulation on clean water. It should drive the quality of water. We would have had to say We We want clean water. We want dirty water. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah Or if they said, Minister You can't plant all these trees because something in the common agricultural policy doesn't allow the use of the single farm payment for that. If they weren't to the European Union, they would have had to be more honest and said the way we've designed our farm support package wouldn't allow you to use it for this right. And the real indicator of why this went wrong is that we haven't I imagine one of the only benefits for Brexit might be that we'd get a bit more accountability and a bit more trust in government. You know If we go back to that fundamental idea that we love, the buck stops here The only advantage of Brexit is we might end up with the situation where ultimately ministers, prime ministers, councillorss are able to say, the buck stops here. I made this decision. It's not the fault of. But instead of which, we've just found another baddy. it's not the European Union. Instead we blame laaws, we blame European Convention on Human Rights. Exactly. move to be blamed civil servants. We moved on to a new set of lies.. let's broaden out to other bits of Europe. So I mentioned in the introduction Switzerland had this referendum at the weekend. now as it happens It lost. But it wasn't you know people said it was a comprehensive defeat for this idea you have a population cap, but it's fifty five forty five. I mean it's like know there's a lot of support, quQite a low turnout. Not a mad idea. It seems to be a perfectly sensible idea on the surface that you decide what kind of population you want and you plan towards it. But the problem is the small print was if you breached the population cap, you would leave all European agreements on moving to peopleactly. Exactly. Switzen would have had to completely reorder its relationship with the European Union And it was interesting how You know, the immigration debate here tends to be about, you know low labour cost people who are working in kind of you know lower end of the economy. There it's about the Swiss saying, why these French Germans taking all our top jobs as scientists and doctors. It's a very different sort of debate. But then the other thing that I think is worth talking about, which I'm going to bring together. We had this extraordinary story I've been worried about this for some time because remember we were in Poland, I was in Poland, Donald Tusk said I'm really shocked that the Prime Minister's house and car get attacked And it's covered in the British media like Liverpool twoI Arsenal one. On the one hand, this, on the one hand, that he thought it was truly shocking The prrime Minister's house and car were being firebombed And it now transpires and there was you know, I haveve regularly criticized the BBC political coverage, but there was a brilliant investigation on the BBC yesterday background to this case of this Ukrainian and Romanian who have now been convicted on these offences And basically they're organized by a Russian dirty tricks. And the far right are instead of This is this is Tusk's point about it. You see it as a football match. So Tommy Robinson, Steven Yaxle Lennon, who's just been in Moscow Putin's Jamborees. and he has been ventilating this conspiracy theory that what this case was actually about was that Kir Starmer was involved in sort of sexual relations with these three Eastern Europeans even posting fake pictures of them together Okay. And if you I don't know if you've been across this, but been quite the idea that Kir Starmer is like a kind of a threesome or foursome Well all that he's that hes he has these Ukrainian rent boys Oh they're men. I'm sorry. They're m. Oh right, okay. And yeah, so it's like, you know, does this really sit with our normal idea of Kir suama? It's quite an interesting thing to do. I don't understand these social media compampanies. I mean, normally you find someone who looks a bit dodgy and then you project these things orr does it work better if the guy seems really respectable and then you're like And and also and it's but the thing about a lot of these conspiracy theories when they start online, they get ventilated is that the more outlandish they are sometimes the Look, Hillary Clinton and the pizza R you know, those are the sort of blood on kerel, all that stuff. So so that's partly all this is about. And so you have you have people I felt this, you know, I mentioned the troubles in Belfast and we had this we talk recently about Henry Novak's murder and the way that Farraage resesponded to that. The instinct of a lot of our political base now on the right is to say whatever happens Our job is to try to turn that into a problem for the government. So why Tusk is right? We should all regardless of our politics, we all should be appalled if Kearers former house where members of his family are living gets firebombed. And listen,isten I want to be wor I don't to't Pompass fed it, but I imagine ten years ago We would all solemnly have stood up in the House of Commons, given condolences, said we stand years ago For example, when Joe Cox was murdered. Regardless Yeah of party ye Absolutely But Nigel Farage did not attack condemn the violence. In Belfast, he said, this is going to happen This is going to happenless you deal with it now The Belfast situation is very, very interesting because horrible, horrible stabbing asylum seeker, stabs somebody, it's filmed, it's horrible. And again, I think ten years ago, yes, there' have been a visceral reaction on so many levels, but you would have at least listened to the police, listened to the politicians for a bit, instead of which, notot least ventilated by people like Elon Musk and people like Tommy Robinson, etcetera. It's whipped up literally into riot and also there's been some very interesting res' the hit list And then the hit list and then the use of checkpoints. I mean, one of the things that's interesting in the reporting you sent me is the sense in which they're using a playbook that goes all the way back to the troubles of Northern Ireland in the eighties and nineties There a lot of points to delay people. and that then stops the police getting and even the firebombing was another thing, I think the word tens of thousands of people displaced from their homes during the troubles through firebombing. So it's as though people are learning from paramilitary techniques. Well, there's some very I think the police are reluctant to sort of load it onto paramilitaries but there's some very interesting reporting in the Northern Ireland press from journalists who live there, who know this stuff inside out who are saying without any doubt in their mind, there was paramilitary involvement in this. But my point, again, you're saying what would have happened ten years ago? ten years ago, most paramilitary activity would have been condemned across the political establishment But no, what you have on the right is, well, you know, they've got a point They've got a point. they are having their jobs being taken. So these what used to be kind of British National Party BNP arrgument Is now with people like Le, Rupert Lowe, the leader of his store, cent to stage in part of our politics? Well, let me see if I can sum it up in the way that I see this. I think what you're saying in both halves is our whole politics is about finding problems. Most of those problems are actually internal to do with us and blaming someone else It's a classic nationalist move. You know, If Scotland's not performing well, it's the fault of London it's not going great It's the fault of Europe If my life's not going well, it's the fault of the immigrants. Yeah. And what we found, if I just sort of I maybe wasn't I'm worried I wasn't structured enough and thinking through the Europe Union. If we go through the little list of arguments they would have made, they would have said ten years ago, Britain was too regulated, too uncompetitive Europe was growing too slowly and politicians weren't accountable. And I think it's possible for us to say All those things were correct but leaving the European Union didn't fix any. O what you could say is there is a point they had a point, whether the point was sufficiently strong, in my view, it wasn't to say let's tear up the whole thing and then pretend that we're going to te the whole Europe. Bea what it turned out what happened is that we left the European Union and we didn't fix any of those things. So it would be a bit like, my life's going badly and I blame my friends or I blame my partner and I imagine if I just leave my partner, don't talk to my friends any everything will be better. Norma Percy, the veteran documentary maker, I couldn't watch the whole thing because watching Gov and Johnson and these people just sort of The whole thing was like a sort of boys game, cameron as well. But the end of Norma Perse's two part documentary on Brexit essentially is Boris Johnson admitting, there was no plan. And that's the worst thing. Final point Germany. There's really something really quite interesting happening there, which and I'd really be interested in your take on it. So Dmitrif, Putin's right hand man, has been busy posting absolute peons of praise to the alternative for Deutschland. and when I posted a reply to one of them. he came back straight away, wararmonger you know, the change is coming It was so they're very on this all the time. So So Kiril Dmitriev, like Jacob Rsmok, has his Alistair Campbell dossier. Well, he. Well it wasn't sort of it was basically saying that the warmongering bureaucrats who opened the border etera, et ccera et ceter They're the ones who need to wake up. Now, what's interesting though is so that's The Russians openly, like JD Vance did in Munich, like Donald Trump, you've now got MagGa and the Russians basically saying in Germany AFD's our party, okay? at a time when the AFD is doing quite well Now, if you're a German person who believes in the Constitution and they've got a Briten Constitution unlike us So there's something very interesting going on, which There are only three bodies that can refer anything to the constitutional Ct. That's the government Bundesark, the elected Chamber and the Bundes Rart which is made up of the lender Okay And there's a debate going on at the moment But the government is weak, the Parliament trick as whether the Bundeshart should not refer the AFD to the Cstitutional Court because there are a lot of their leaders who are on record are saying things which go fundamentally against. So again just to explain to the audience, basically this is about banning. Oning parts of it Ps theFD. So what you would do is you'd use this procedure to say, actually, this is a neoascist organization that is of profound danger to the German Constitution. These were the things that were put in place after the Second World War. You know what are the lessons that how would we have stopped the Nazi Party from rising? Well, we should have said in nineteen twenty nine, the Nazi Party is not a legitimate ocratic political force. It' bned by the cononstitutional court. it can't run. So all that stuff' there. And there are two questions, canan they do it? and should they do it? that could be you Can they do it? yes. And the constitutional court in Germany is respected much more than most institutions are in most countries. And the case that I think would be made and it all depends on there are two Very popular leaders in the lender. There's this guy Udermer who's the new leader in Barton Woodenberg and a guy called Vust in Nord R and Best Failia who one's green, one CDU and essentially if it happens, they are going to have to lead this movement within the Bundersrad. could do it because it's been done before The thing is it sounds extraordinary to us. You ban a political party from standing, but they did it T twice under Ardnau and then they did it twice with the Neo Nazi Party. they' now with they were called the NDP, they're now called D Himart It's been done before, but you have leading figures in the AFD. A of this is you know we've talked before about Martin Sander, this Austriian editarian guy. A lot of this is about remigration. And remigration is about people who generally are not white and generally Muslims, being hundreds of thousands being booted out of Germany, including, it seems, German citizens, includluding if they've been born in Germany and they have a German passport and German citizenship So that says in the Constitution, they're all equal Okay So that policy basically says, no you're not equal because if we get into power, you're gone. And the reason why these lender elections coming up in particularly in Saxony Anhalt are so important is because They have policing powers And the other thing that I read this week they Bjern Hucker, who's this very out there, very, very I can call him a Nazi, a neo Nazi here now and not be sued And not be sued because a German judge has decreed that that is a fair label for him. And by the way, Tiringia, where he is from, that's where Hitler got his first sort of electoral foothold The FD are going to be deliberately holding them one of their main conferences on july fourth twenty twenty six because on july the fourth, nineteen twenty six was one of Hitler's most famous rallies in Weimar. It's kind of deliberate trolleing. But so I think this I think this You know, to us, it sounds like, well, let's say the government tried to ban Tommy Robins and Tommy Rynings Yeah R Ru it L. Yeah. Right. You and I both probably think, that's not going people are going to think. But in Germany, I think it might be a little bit different, partartly because of the history, partly because of the respect of the corps, but also so many of these people are on the record saying things which on the surface are antionstitutional. And then the question story just to fast forward is that if the AFD actually ultimately takes power in Germany and starts pushing ahead with rem migration and eight hundred thousand Germans are expelled from the country. We would then be asking ourselves, shouldouldn't we have taken them to the cononstitutional court and banned them because it's too late by the time they're actually running and the FD That is the argument. That is the argument. And look, even within the people who absolutely lohe the FD, there is that worry Their big worry was you'd take them to court and you didn't win the case But I think if you look at the, you don't have to say it's the whole party So I think they're going to be focusing on Turingia and Brandenburg where they've got some pretty extreme leadership and also on some of the youth organisations. But I think we need to understand that this stuff happening in Europe is linked And the point I made, you've now got Trump and Maga Putin, you've got the hard right here who are all basically pushing the same message that you sort of limp wristed European liberal Democrats, you're done and we're coming for you. And my final thought, which I keep saying again and again, is when you see the same thing happening in America, Britain and Europe, it's probably not about any of the things we think it's about. We think it might be immigration, the European Union economic growth? No, nonsense, right America's growing strongly, it's got strong employment, Europe's not growing. Some countries' got high immigration, some have got lower immigration, some have taken back control, others haven't It's social media The only thing that can possibly explain in such a short time frame thirirty countries with completely different socio economic trajectories, constitutions, structures end up in the same place. I'm afraid of social media. OkayK, R before we get to the break a couple of plugs, you mention James C cleley. He's the former foreign seecretary for the Conservatives, still in the shadow cabinet now, and he is our current guest on leading. And that's good because if people want to hear a pro Brexit argument, don't rely on me to try to ventualquize. listen, James cleleverly. He's quite tough, he's quite clear. He's a Brexiteer And he does his best to call us out and push back against our arguments on Brexit. So want to hear the other side of the story? Listen to James Cleverly, on leading. Pretyalf hearted, I thought. Just restess polit is leading, where you get your podcasts. And another plug finally before the break is part four of our miniseries on reform that we've done in conjunction with the Observer. and this one focuses very, very heavily on mister Farage So just go to the rest is pololitics. com to find that and now we'll have a break, and then we'll come back and talk about Iran Hello dear listeners. As many of you will know, Father's Day is coming up on the twenty first of June. And we know that a good number of you will be wondering what to get your centrist dad this year. And we have the perfect idea. Get him a membership to the rest is politics plus and make the most of our twenty five percent discount on a gifted annual membership. And that gives you access to all these members only miniseries that we're making. It gives you early access to question time. Just head to the rest ispities. com and click on gifts The gift will land straight in your dad's inbox on the day. It's the only present. for centrist dat Hi, this is Garalinka from Goldhangers. The restest is foootball. This episode is brought to you by Wise. It's only when you start moving money between currencies that you really think about the exchange rate, the fee and what might be hidden away in the small print Whether you're living abroad, paying someone overseas or just trying to manage your money across borders, you want a fair exchange rate and easy transfer and no surprises along the way. Wise keeps things simple WS is a smart way to move the currencies you need around the globe. It works in more than one hundred and sixty countries and with over forty currencies. Most transfers arrive instantly. WS uses the mid market exchange rate, like the one you see on Google, with no markups or hidden fees. So when money needs to move, you can see the rate Know the fee and get on with it. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees by downloading the wise app today. Be smart, get wise, T's and T's apply Finally, on day eight of the World Cup, England play tonight. We've assembled a top team to work out how we win it. Harry MagGuire and Mica Richards at the back, Georgia Stanway Jinking in midfield, and it's Shehera and Linka up top. ome and join us on the rest is football on Netflix available right now Welcome back to the Rest of Polologies, with me, Alisice Campbell. And with me Roy Stewart. Roy, you sounded very excited about this Iran deal in the introduction, but I am far from convinced that this is actually a deal in the conventional sense. It's a memorandum of understanding. and it seems to be that the really difficult stuff is now being parked for these negotiations So we're going to have Vance and the Hplist Kushner and Wikov up against the Iranian nuclear scientist again. Yeah. So listen, it's far from resolved, but it's a hell of a big change because it's what we've been waiting for for two months, which is finally The Iranians and the Americans signed a memorandum of understanding with the Pakistanis And they've both said publicly that they've signed off on this MOU. And the key point is that the straits of Hormuz now look like they will reopen. notot immediately And there's many things that could go wrong. could be the Iranians, could be the Americans, could be the Israelis, could torpedo the whole thing. But It feels to me as though And fininally, Trump and Iran actually want to get this done. My mother's theory is Trump wants to get it done before the fourth of july, two hundred fiftieth Independence D celebrations. he doesn't want to be distracted by everyone endlessly grinding on about Hus. That's the Sally Stuart view. The Iranians, listen, they have really enjoyed the fact that despite the American and Israeli bombardments, seventy five percent of their entire ballistic missile launch capacity and indeed their missile stockpiles are still intact Th three quters is still intact. This is some of the largest bombing on world record. The number of targets, they' been doing s of five hundred targets a day. This was the highest precision weapons, the greatest targeting ever And actually it barely took out a quarter of what Iran has So big story there, but nevertheless, the Iranian economy is groaning. They're desperate for the oil exports. Trump's announced he's stopping the blockade and they can go through and Iran's announced stop. Now, how could it go wrong? manyany, many different ways? And I've been talking to friends in the Gulf about this and I've talked to aun of people who were In Pakistan, people who haveve read the MOU, they think that one of the big sticking points, which is Lebanon, may be less than in the past, right? So the big sticking point there was Iran was saying, so long as Israel keeps attacking our allies, Hezbollah in Lebanon, we're not going to sign this deal. And that's why Trump got very, very angry of Netanyahu, because he' just on the cusp of the deal struck Lebon. If you a look at the response for this deal in Israel. The hard Rry figures that we talk about a lot, Spotrich and Bengeir, they' come out and said this is bad for the world and bad for Israel. The politics of this Vinina are really, really tricky. He does seem to have lost that sort of grip on Trump You've put your finger on How important is Israel? You're absolutely right, Israel's furious. They want to continue the war with Iran, they want to continue the war with Lebanon They're being stopped not just Iran and in Lebanon So the question is Is that going to be enough? Will they be able to derail the U S and Iran? They've been able in the past because basically They do things in Lebanon without U.S. permission, the U.S. feels forced to support them and the Iranians are outraged I think though what happened with this deal If finally the US and Iran decided we're going to get beyond the Israel thing. We're going to see Israel as a spoiler. Netanyyahu who tried a last minute attempt to derail with y another attack in Lebanon and actually it just hurried up the MOU which got it out I think the sticking points that could unravel it are firstly that there's a lot of legal argument inside the MEU, liter legal language on a non aggression pact between the U. S. and Iran and on sanctions relief and release of assets. And my guess is, probably not follow through, particularly on the latter. And then what is Iran going to do? if he doesn't lift sanctions, if he doesn't release assets Do they return to war? Well, the gamble is they might not. Or do they just turn the tap off on the streace of him they the. That' the terrible thing about this. He basically Uh have been handed a that they probably I'm not sure they thought of using before. If they thought of it, they never did it But they now realize they can do it with catastrophic consequences and that Trump doesn't have the global support that he thought he would have. So I think look, I think this Dal. Well, we haven't seen it. The memo the memorandum of understanding is pretty short. and a half. Page and a half. The JCPOA was like Hundreds and hundreds of pages backed by incredibly detailed documents So it feels to me a little bit like the Gaza plan that was projected as this is peace in our time But then the detail wasn't there and we're still in a complete mess there. And I think with this I think there's so much that can go wrong and can go wrong quickly. This is fascinating because because if you go back and I know Trump's rhetoric, you've got to So he basically said that the attack was to deal with an imminent threat, o? Well it wasn't. We're going to destroy their missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground. You've pre rebutted that one. It will be totally obliterated We're going to annihilate their Navy. They've done a lot of damage to the Navy. they have. We're going to ensure that their terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack all forces, no longer use their IEDs or roadside bombs Well Well on that one, the key two proxies are Hezbollah Houthis and probably add the Iraqi militia. And actually what we've found oddly is that despite Israel's amazing intelligence operations and attacks on Hezbollah and Lebanon, the Paijra attacks which killed fifteen hundred people. Hezbollah remains surprisingly resilient. and they're now managing to manufacture their own drones. and it turns out they can manufacture them without Iranian backing Furthermore the Hussy who are their proxies in Yemen, Thider M Hali, reminding people they can still shut that down. So they did not achieve the objective on the proxies. Right. So and then let's go into what I think is the big one. I'm going to read the whole thing. To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the arrm forces and all of the police, I say tonight You must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity. Or in the alternative, you face certain death Lay down your arms. You will be treated fairly with total immunity or you will face certain death Finally, it tos the great proud people of Iran tonight. The hour of freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping. When we are finished, take over your government. it will be yours to take This will probably be your only chance for generations. In other words, Reime change. And that has not happened. The regime was toppled in terms of the top people, but the regime is still it's in place. it's stronger. just that final one. There was always a fight even at the top of the Iranian state about where their security lay. Did their security lie on reaching out to the international community, getting support in the UN? getting peace deals in place, making agreements on sanctions or nuclear Did their security lie in Rearming building up massive missile bases, pushing ahead with a nuclear program. And the problem is it's the hard liners who've won because every Iranian will have concluded The one thing that saved them was not being nice, being moderate, negotiating The only thing that saved them is that they buried their missiles a long way underground and they were able to disrupt the straits of Hormz. and the Revolution Guard has been completely vindicated narrowly in their view actually what stops regime change is being armed to the teeth and refusing to cooperate. If you're an average Iran I don't know what an average Iranian is, but if you're a kind of middle of the road Iranian, not a massive fan of the regime, but you're just kind of keeping your head down. What do you think In terms of who has won or lost this. I think the Iranians think that survival is winning and they survived They now have a strength because of the way they've handled the straight offormment that they didn't necessarily have in the same way before They've shown American power to be weaker than the Americans project it. And the Americans keep saying that the great triumph in this, I saw an interview with Pete Hexer, the Secretary of War And the great triumph is that you know they've made sure Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. But that was signed up to in the non proroliferation Treaty, it was signed up to in the JCPOA. And in fact, there were moments when Ayatola Hammini suggested that he thought it was an Islamic to have a nuclear weapon in the first place. Yeah. And ninety seven percent of the stuff was kind of moved out of the country. So I think it's very, very hard unless you are absolutely believing every single word that Donald Trump says you to see this as a victory, even by the objectives he says out of himself. So I think the answer on Iranian people is ninety percent, eighty fivecent, ninety percent of Iranians absolutely hate their regime. They think they're a bunch of violent ratic people who've locked them in a horrible isolated world and they would be hugely relieved if this regime went and Iran could become a normal country. They're totally fed up with the revolutionary guard trying to turn their whole country into a crusade against Israel and the U.S. and they think this nuclear programe is mad and they think that This regime has invited war and horror Also They are so furious with what US. and Israel did. Why? Because what they did is they bombed Iran, they killed hundreds of school children, and they did not topple the regime, right? So all the people who were supporting the Prince, the formmer Sar and everyone. promising that if we're nice to the American and Israel, there's going to be a lovely toppling the regime and a democratic future is going to emerge. It's all nonsense, right? So I think they're in the sort of mind that you would feel in If a government that you really, really hated and that you'd been trying to get rid of suddenly vindicated you in a war against someone else. Yeah Anyway, I think you're right, I think Israel has the potential to be the real difficult thing because the Iranians will be on the lookout for Israel trying to undermine this. The Israelis, it seems to me Netanyahu will be under pressure to undermine it, including from within his own cabinet. And then the question is how Trump reacts and we're talking about a sixty day period where these continue negotiations to go on. And we've also talked a lot about the economy and the impacts on the economy and we'll be doing some more episodes around this. And the honest answer is the economic damage, this is very, very lasting best case scenario, vessels might start moving through the strait next week. but you can see all the ship owners saying we need many, many more assurances before we start sailing our vessels. There's going to be a massive log jam because there are thousands of vessels and it's quite difficult navigating them through There are thousands of sailors who need to be evacuated from these boats. There are certain bits that are ready to move Fertilizer, for example, is ready to move. It's stockpiled in places like Qatar, but it's missed a lot of this year's growing season. So the impact on this year's growing season is dramatic. Oil can be moved relatively more easily Gas is a problem, partly because the Iranians attacked some of these gas fields Some of them will take two months, four months, it's difficult to put a number on it to get going in. some percentage of it won't be able to get going again for some years. And none of these states still quite know. Are Iran going to charge tolls? Are they going to try to charge a million dollars vessel? They said they won't, but there's some weird ambiguous language in the MOU. We don't know whether nobody can model this. Nobody knows whether the impact of your at catery Is it going to be in the best case scenario, okay, there's been a bit of disruption for a few weeks, but we'll be able to get back to where we were within a year or two or is it going to take three years or seven years as your economy contracting seventeen percent this year, ten percent this year. Dubai, I was talking to someone in the UAE who was being very optimistic and saying, listen, you yes, Dubai is suffering, but people wrote us off in two thousand eight. they wrote us off in COVID and we bounceced back, so we'll bounce back again. To be honest, nobody knows and it isn't just the Gulf, as we've said before The Asian economies are shattered by this. the European economies are shattered by this And it's going to take a long time, even in the best case to untangle. Well, there we are. ten years on from Brexit and now a few months on from the launch of the Iran War, both of them pretty difficult big subjects. We've got more difficult big subjects to cover in question time. We're going to talk about defence. We're going to talk about AI and in particular this extraordinary decision by the Americans to say to anthropic, you cannot