Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: There are fundamentally two types of people in politics. Those
Speaker 2: want to be something, those want to do something. And
Speaker 2: I've always been a person that's wanted to do something.
Speaker 1: Nigel Farage Brexit campaigner, disruptor and now UK political leader
Speaker 1: who could be prime minister.
Speaker 2: You know what, the rank, the title, the position doesn't
Speaker 2: interest me at all, doesn't interest me in the least.
Speaker 2: I couldn't care less about it. What interests me is
Speaker 2: what you can do with it.
Speaker 1: From Bloomberg Weekend. This is the Michelle Hussein Show. I'm
Speaker 1: Michelle Hussein. Welcome back. Remember the moment when the UK
Speaker 1: voted to leave the EU nearly ten years ago now,
Speaker 1: and one of the figures right at the forefront of
Speaker 1: that was Nigel Farage.
Speaker 2: The sun has risen on an independent United.
Speaker 1: Kingdom, mister Brexit. Indeed, to many people, you might have
Speaker 1: thought that that was a career peak, an end of
Speaker 1: the road. They'd achieved what they set out to do.
Speaker 1: For him, though, it was the start of something new,
Speaker 1: something bigger, it now seems, because he and his party
Speaker 1: Reform UK have been having an extraordinary time in the
Speaker 1: opinion polls in Britain. These are polls of voting intention,
Speaker 1: and for months now Reform has enjoyed a sustained pole
Speaker 1: lead over the two parties which have dominated British governments
Speaker 1: for the last century, Labor and the Conservatives. Now an
Speaker 1: election isn't due in the UK for another four years,
Speaker 1: but if this kind of pole lead was to be maintained,
Speaker 1: Nigel Farage a very good chance of being the next
Speaker 1: UK Prime minister. Faras is someone who has been very
Speaker 1: good at spotting political undercurrents. He did that with Brexit,
Speaker 1: He's done that in the US in being close to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump for a long time, understanding in many countries.
Speaker 1: I think what's bubbling under the surface and what other
Speaker 1: people might not see. So he is worth paying attention to.
Speaker 1: He's someone also who is very recognizable. He's a big
Speaker 1: persona people stop him in the street, want to have
Speaker 1: their picture taken with him, call him by his first name.
Speaker 1: He's regularly pictured having a pint in the pub. Now
Speaker 1: I knew this was going to be a tough conversation
Speaker 1: in many ways. He's combative. He's someone who you have
Speaker 1: to fact check to the best of your ability, and
Speaker 1: I think you'll get a sense of the tone really
Speaker 1: right from the start of this. But really what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do in this conversation is understand what makes
Speaker 1: him tick and reveal really what kind of prime minister
Speaker 1: he might be. You'll hear us talk about his immigration policies,
Speaker 1: about the accusation that he is soft on national security,
Speaker 1: what he reads, whether he would govern for the whole country,
Speaker 1: and because he has used the words make Britain great again,
Speaker 1: ask him what period he looks to in Britain's past.
Speaker 1: We started, though, in the present. Welcome Rachel Farrett. How
Speaker 1: how are you all right?
Speaker 2: Yes, but I mean life is busy.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to start with a sense of the moment,
Speaker 1: actually because I'm conscious that you are in the midst
Speaker 1: of a remarkable few months where your party has been
Speaker 1: leading in the opinion polls in a sustained way, which
Speaker 1: is why if there was an election today, and we
Speaker 1: don't really have that kind of system in the UK,
Speaker 1: but if there was an election today, you'd be you
Speaker 1: look likely to become a prime minister.
Speaker 2: Election tomorrow we'd win easily. But the trouble is it's
Speaker 2: a marathon to the next election. We've hit the thirteen
Speaker 2: mile mark and we're a mile ahead. So it's a
Speaker 2: good thing we've done what we've done. But there's a
Speaker 2: long wedd again well.
Speaker 1: But also on you personally, the idea of being prime minister.
Speaker 1: Are you properly adjusted to this idea because most people
Speaker 1: see you this is what you're known for, campaigner disrupt
Speaker 1: to someone who brings change from the outside, actually leading
Speaker 1: for the whole country is a very different thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the point. We now need change on the inside.
Speaker 2: We've not had enough change. We are actupying as a country.
Speaker 2: We're declining economically, we're declining societally, we're declining culturally. People
Speaker 2: are leaving. We're in real, real trouble. So we now
Speaker 2: need a disruptor, not from the outside the change perceptions,
Speaker 2: but from the inside to actually change things. But you've
Speaker 2: been ready for it.
Speaker 1: Yes, you've only been an MP for a year, so.
Speaker 2: I've been in politics for thirteen years. I was in
Speaker 2: the European Parliament for over two decades. I led a
Speaker 2: group in the European Parliament for over ten years. I've
Speaker 2: got a lot more experience than Keir Starmer or many
Speaker 2: of the other prime ministers we've had in the recent.
Speaker 1: Political experience, but not governing experience. You've never been part
Speaker 1: of that. You did once say that you did want
Speaker 1: to say that you couldn't imagine having a seat around
Speaker 1: the cabinet table, that it was not something that attracted you.
Speaker 2: Do you know what, the rank, the title, the position
Speaker 2: doesn't interest me at all, doesn't interest me in the least.
Speaker 2: I couldn't care less about it. What interests me is
Speaker 2: what you can do with it. And there are fundamentally
Speaker 2: two types of people in politics. Those want to be something,
Speaker 2: those want to do something. And I've always been a
Speaker 2: person that's wanted to do something. In the past. What
Speaker 2: I've done is helped change public opinion, help shift national debate,
Speaker 2: and now moving that on to the next logical stage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I still wonder about the kind of work
Speaker 1: that is involved in delivering for a country as the
Speaker 1: Prime minister. It involves sitting there with the red boxes,
Speaker 1: going through the official government papers.
Speaker 2: What do you think I've been doing for the last
Speaker 2: twenty five years building but.
Speaker 1: Through civil papers every day.
Speaker 2: It's different only in human being in this country. Who
Speaker 2: has built political movements on a table like this with
Speaker 2: a telephone, a piece of paper and a pencil. I
Speaker 2: can build things, I can do things. My track record
Speaker 2: says that.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're ready for it.
Speaker 2: It is the job that you want to do, yes,
Speaker 2: I mean, look, it's clearly an enormous job. And the
Speaker 2: scale of the problems that we face, the institutional barriers
Speaker 2: that will get put before us. You know, I do
Speaker 2: understand all of that. I'll tell you what if we
Speaker 2: don't do this, then by twenty thirty five I shuddered
Speaker 2: to think what this country, genuinely, what this country will
Speaker 2: be like. So we have to do this?
Speaker 1: Would you govern for all? Because you're not known as
Speaker 1: someone who brings people together. You're known as someone who
Speaker 1: chooses their issues, campaigns very hard on them, who's often
Speaker 1: predicted and made the political weather. But you're not a unifier.
Speaker 1: Doesn't a prime minister have to be there?
Speaker 2: Well, I think we've had too many unifiers. And look
Speaker 2: where consensus politics has got us. Look at the message
Speaker 2: got it?
Speaker 1: So you would govern as a device fig.
Speaker 2: You'd govern as a majority government. You'd govern on a
Speaker 2: radical manifesto that says the country needs fundamental reform. And
Speaker 2: of course some people won't like it, but that's the
Speaker 2: way it is.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll talk about the ways that you would reform.
Speaker 1: It is the name of your party, but it's also
Speaker 1: what you want to do, and we'll talk about that
Speaker 1: in a moment. But I want to go back in
Speaker 1: time first of all, because you're recording with us here
Speaker 1: in our studios in the heart of the city of London,
Speaker 1: a place you know well, absolutely, you used to be
Speaker 1: a commodities trader, a metals trader. How formative was that
Speaker 1: experience to who you are today?
Speaker 2: Yeah, My father was a stop breaker for over half
Speaker 2: a century. My grandfather was a stop breaker for over
Speaker 2: half a century. So a lot of our family had worked,
Speaker 2: in fact, on both sides in the city. I was
Speaker 2: here in the eighties. I was here in that transformative
Speaker 2: period where, let's be frank, what was a bit of
Speaker 2: an old boys club through Big Bang became an international
Speaker 2: global center deregulation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a city and it's heyday if you.
Speaker 2: Like, opening up, innovative, that's just time. It was that
Speaker 2: just time. Yeah, and you were actually oh absolutely, I
Speaker 2: mean back then I was. But I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: bear in mind, we're talking forty years ago. There were
Speaker 2: a different set of economic problems. We didn't have the
Speaker 2: social problems in that just time that we've got. Now,
Speaker 2: that's one aspect of life that's worse. So I was
Speaker 2: here when yeah, I mean kind of by the middle
Speaker 2: late eighties. I mean it was the most exciting, incredible
Speaker 2: and fun place to be.
Speaker 1: We did have social problems though, a lot of people
Speaker 1: got left us. A lot of people got left behind
Speaker 1: in that period and some of them are supporting your
Speaker 1: party today. There were mining community socualization.
Speaker 2: There were mining communities who had a very bleak time. They,
Speaker 2: by the way, had an even bleaker time in John
Speaker 2: Major's years when we unnecessarily claoes pits. But what I
Speaker 2: mean is we were all British. There was a much
Speaker 2: bigger sense of togetherness despite the economic division than there
Speaker 2: is in the country today.
Speaker 1: And this has been a theme of what you've been saying.
Speaker 1: Essentially you look on migration as the source of all
Speaker 1: the country's ills.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a ridiculos to say, but you just.
Speaker 1: Pointed that we were more British in the period.
Speaker 2: We have all sorts of problems. We have massive economic
Speaker 2: problems now falling GDP per capita being perhaps top of
Speaker 2: the list, or they're very ready talked about in Westminster.
Speaker 2: Yes there were divisions then you're absolutely right, but the
Speaker 2: social problems that we faced today are worst. Look I
Speaker 2: think about the city was you know, I can remember
Speaker 2: when the phone rang that it occasionally was Paris, occasionally
Speaker 2: was Frankfurt, but much more likely to with Singapore or Santiago.
Speaker 2: This was a global trading center and I couldn't understand the.
Speaker 1: City of London is still a global trading center.
Speaker 2: Far less than it was. And I couldn't understand the
Speaker 2: political obsession with our next door neighbors that the little
Speaker 2: backyard market called Europe. Oh yes, it's the big market,
Speaker 2: blah blah blah, but it's fifteen percent of global GDP.
Speaker 2: So really, when I saw the Single European Act coming
Speaker 2: in eighty six, what are we doing? And then I
Speaker 2: saw the British establishment preparing for us to join the EUA.
Speaker 2: We joined the exchange rate mechanism and.
Speaker 1: Then had to crash out of it two years later,
Speaker 1: which I pegging to the deutsch market, which I predicted.
Speaker 2: Yep, I predicted it. The very night we joined. I
Speaker 2: was in a bar just over there saying this will
Speaker 2: never ever work. And this is what really got me
Speaker 2: in the politics I couldn't understand what I saw in
Speaker 2: my day to day life here. I want I saw
Speaker 2: government doing. Were two very different things.
Speaker 1: So it was there's a direct link then, between Brexit
Speaker 1: and your work in the city here in the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties and the nineteen nineties. You came here at the
Speaker 1: age of eighteen, actually straight out of school. When you
Speaker 1: look at Brexit today and what has happened in the
Speaker 1: last nine years and you say that it's a poorer
Speaker 1: country today than it was, do you think it was
Speaker 1: worth having the referendum in twenty sixteen?
Speaker 2: Do I think freedom is worth it? Yes? Absolutely? Do
Speaker 2: I think self governance is governance is worth it? Yes,
Speaker 2: of course I do. Do I think the ability to
Speaker 2: control your borders is worth having? Yes? I do. Now
Speaker 2: have we exercised it?
Speaker 1: No, That's why asked the question. Was it worth having
Speaker 1: it in twenty sixteen the vote? Given what we know now,
Speaker 1: Sterling has never recovered its value. Business investment, which was
Speaker 1: rising has been stalled since that. No.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, you know, even as Kis Starmer himself says,
Speaker 2: the deep seated economic problems within the country pre date Brexit,
Speaker 2: even pre date the pandemic, and our response to it,
Speaker 2: you know, our productivity problems being perhaps just one very
Speaker 2: very good example. I am angry that a conservative government
Speaker 2: with a whopping great majority didn't take advantage of it.
Speaker 1: And you think you could have done better if you
Speaker 1: were prime ministers.
Speaker 2: Better, Mars better and I hate to see what's happening
Speaker 2: in the city.
Speaker 1: So then if you were prime minister, and I can
Speaker 1: ask you this question because the way the polls are
Speaker 1: looking right now, so today, if you became prime minister,
Speaker 1: would you rip up the treaty, the agreement that Kirs
Speaker 1: Starmer made with the EU earlier this year.
Speaker 2: Well, the whole treaty is up for renegotiation anyway. It's
Speaker 2: a very poor treaty. We can do a lot better
Speaker 2: than that. We'll have to play hard ball. If you
Speaker 2: play hard or you have to mean it.
Speaker 1: That's the article I've heard just before from whom well
Speaker 1: I've heard this before from okay, from conservatives, not from
Speaker 1: people in your party, but from people who believed in Brexit.
Speaker 2: They never they never, but they never believed that. They Relatedly,
Speaker 2: they belatedly accepted Brexit because if they hadn't, they would
Speaker 2: have faced political.
Speaker 1: So if Brexit has never been done properly, you, as
Speaker 1: Prime minister, would reshape our relationship with the EU.
Speaker 2: What do you mean if Brexit hadn't happened The reason
Speaker 2: I'm here.
Speaker 1: No, I mean if you were Prime minister, what would
Speaker 1: you do with the current alignment that we have with
Speaker 1: the EU on many areas well.
Speaker 2: Look, we've been weak as hell. We've given in. We've
Speaker 2: given in, we've given in, We've expected favors in return,
Speaker 2: we haven't got any. It needs a tough renegotiation. And ultimately,
Speaker 2: even though we've got huge economic problems, they've got some
Speaker 2: pretty serious problems too. In fact, the French haven't even bigger,
Speaker 2: not just not just economic but constitutional crisis as well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: giving away our fish for the next twelve years, things
Speaker 2: like that completely outrageous, total betrayal of what people voted for.
Speaker 2: But the focus, the focus, and yes, trade with Europe
Speaker 2: is important, of course it is, but the real focus
Speaker 2: has to be what's happening internally within the UK economy.
Speaker 1: So you would rip up the ki Starmer agreement with you,
Speaker 1: I think you're saying it needs it needs a rethink, Okay.
Speaker 2: But all is done has done is make concessions in return.
Speaker 1: That means you would be taking an economic risk right now.
Speaker 1: And that's and you have been known all your life
Speaker 1: for taking risks right It's in your book.
Speaker 2: Everything in life's about risks, and life.
Speaker 1: Is about yourself. On being a gambler, can I read these?
Speaker 1: I love a gamble, I love stacking up the odds,
Speaker 1: and it's only been through taking enormous risks that the
Speaker 1: Party and I have got to where we are today.
Speaker 1: Is that the kind of prime minister you would be?
Speaker 1: A risk taking prime minister?
Speaker 2: We need far more risk taking and by the way,
Speaker 2: much more broad in the Prime minister. We need to
Speaker 2: encourage risk taking in the economy.
Speaker 1: You take a risk with the relation with the nearest neighbor,
Speaker 1: the big geography that puts this big market on. You
Speaker 1: take a risk with that in the interest of it
Speaker 1: bad relationship.
Speaker 2: You have to take risks to reshape it.
Speaker 1: So how would you reshape it? You'd end alignment.
Speaker 2: Is that what you're saying, alignments catastrophic, So you'd end
Speaker 2: it catastrophic, moronic.
Speaker 1: You'd end alignment with the EA's.
Speaker 2: Sending us is keeping us firmly hooked back in the
Speaker 2: twentieth century, not in the twenty first it makes no
Speaker 2: sense at all from any angle.
Speaker 1: Is that a yes to the question I've asked, you'd
Speaker 1: end alignment.
Speaker 2: With the E one hundred plus.
Speaker 1: Okay, So this is the point. So you're still a
Speaker 1: risk taker. You weren't in your years as a trader
Speaker 1: in the city, and you're still going to govern in
Speaker 1: that way if you elected Prime minister. I know you
Speaker 1: had two really traumatic experiences as a very young man.
Speaker 1: You were hit by a car and you ended up
Speaker 1: spending two months in hospital, and you were then diagnosed
Speaker 1: with testicular when you're in your in your early twenties.
Speaker 1: There's another and I know you said that this is
Speaker 1: part of why you decided you needed to do things
Speaker 1: with your life. But there's a different way that that
Speaker 1: story could have gone, which is that you conserve your
Speaker 1: energy and you prioritize your family and you think of
Speaker 1: all that's close to you. Instead, you had two failed marriages, and.
Speaker 2: It's called living. You went, it's called living.
Speaker 1: And you campaigned around the country.
Speaker 2: Look, I could be a boring so and SOA like
Speaker 2: most people in politics. I've lived. I've had some huge successes,
Speaker 2: I've had some massive failures. I'm sixty one, I've got
Speaker 2: a vast experience of life. I've seen the good times,
Speaker 2: I've seen the bad times. I've seen success, i've seen failure.
Speaker 2: I think that makes me better qualified to be a
Speaker 2: leader than those that have lived steady, what I might
Speaker 2: describe as boring lives.
Speaker 1: So what have been your big failures?
Speaker 2: Well, I've made mistakes personally. Obviously I've had successes too,
Speaker 2: but I've made mistakes financially. And look, I've lived the
Speaker 2: big I've lived the big Dipper of life. But I've
Speaker 2: in the end been very lucky. I'm still here, I'm
Speaker 2: still alive despite a couple of goes at not being
Speaker 2: I think that's given me a couple of things. Number one,
Speaker 2: a pretty rounded life, and number two, I'm not actually
Speaker 2: frightened of anything, and that I think is very very
Speaker 2: valuable asset given what I may well be facing in
Speaker 2: two a three years time.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about your political instincts. Then, can you
Speaker 1: take those headphones because I want to play you something
Speaker 1: that you said at SEAPAC, the big conservative political conference
Speaker 1: earlier on this year. You've been close to the American
Speaker 1: right for a long time, so you go to these
Speaker 1: conferences and this is what you said in February twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five.
Speaker 3: Suddenly, post November the fifth, America is optimistic, it's upbeat.
Speaker 3: It's the beginning of a golden age in America. In fact,
Speaker 3: in many ways, that's what we're fighting for. A very
Speaker 3: similar agenda to the one that you've just bought for.
Speaker 3: I'm the one that you have just succeeded with. You're
Speaker 3: going to make America great again, and we, in turn
Speaker 3: will make Britain great again.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, well, hang on, I've got wait, listen, wait for
Speaker 1: my question, which is that you use these words make
Speaker 1: Britain great again. And I know that you have a
Speaker 1: sense of history, and I know the past is important
Speaker 1: to you. Sense of fun.
Speaker 2: Say make Britain great again to an American audience, I've
Speaker 2: just elected a president of make America great again? Is
Speaker 2: quite fun.
Speaker 1: So you didn't mean it, of course I meant it.
Speaker 1: But that's what I understand what you mean by it,
Speaker 1: because you have got a sense of history. I know
Speaker 1: your grandparents about the past. Your grandfather had been wounded
Speaker 1: in the First World War. What story did they tell
Speaker 1: you about Britain's past? What is it that you think
Speaker 1: of when you think of when Britain.
Speaker 2: We had a stable society. We had belief things that
Speaker 2: bound us, perhaps religion being one of them. And by
Speaker 2: the way, government can't force people to believe, but there
Speaker 2: was a shared sense of religion.
Speaker 1: Are you a man of faith community?
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean I have to say, struggling a bit.
Speaker 1: Do you go to church?
Speaker 2: Well, of course, I'm an Anglican. It's been a catastrophe
Speaker 2: for twenty five years.
Speaker 1: What the Church of englis So you believe, you believe,
Speaker 1: but there's no church that you feel like at.
Speaker 2: Well, if I was a more regular churchgoer, I probably
Speaker 2: would have defected to the Catholics. Probably would have done,
Speaker 2: haven't I haven't. I've thought about it a couple of times. No,
Speaker 2: I think a sense of community, a sense of family.
Speaker 2: I mean, frankly, you know the values around the meaning
Speaker 2: of family, community, country. Those things were much stronger in
Speaker 2: years that have gone by.
Speaker 1: Which is which is the decade you're looking at? That's
Speaker 1: what I'm curious about when you say the words when
Speaker 1: Britain was great? What is in your mind? Which is
Speaker 1: a decade?
Speaker 2: Britain was great? Imperially, Britain was great, industrially, Britain was
Speaker 2: great in terms of innovation. Britain was great in terms
Speaker 2: actually in many ways, I think of taking some very
Speaker 2: good things the large parts of the world. Britain was
Speaker 2: great in leaving behind some amazing legacies Australia.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering about what period when you when you look
Speaker 1: to the past, are you thinking about the nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: and the period you're really or are you thinking about
Speaker 1: the First World War. Britain is a great power.
Speaker 2: I think really what we did since six and eighty eight,
Speaker 2: I think we were actually fortunate to have our servil.
Speaker 1: But we're not going to go back to the seventeen.
Speaker 2: Years I've just given you as.
Speaker 1: A political leader, when you think of when you want
Speaker 1: Britain to go back to because you to make Britain again,
Speaker 1: what are you looking to.
Speaker 2: I don't want Britain to go back anywhere. I want
Speaker 2: Britain to go forwards. And that's really the point, and
Speaker 2: it's one of the reasons why you know, I've been
Speaker 2: very critical of the Government of the Bank of England,
Speaker 2: very critical much of our economic policy. I think we
Speaker 2: are stuck in a rut. I think we're stuck with
Speaker 2: an old, out of touch globalist mindset about so many things. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: You can respect your traditions, you can respect your past,
Speaker 2: you can have a sense and a feeling of what
Speaker 2: history is. I'm not going back anywhere I want to go.
Speaker 2: I want us to be in the twenty first century.
Speaker 2: We're not there. We're literally but here we are sitting.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can see Saint Paul's as I'm talking
Speaker 2: to you in the middle of the city of London.
Speaker 2: We have a revolution going on, an economic, a money
Speaker 2: revolution going on with digital assets, cryptocurrency. It's real. It's
Speaker 2: growing very very quickly. And what's happening here nothing literally nothing.
Speaker 1: Untested ideas in government, aren't they. I know you were
Speaker 1: talking the other day about wanting to have a national
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency reserve.
Speaker 2: I'm really sorry, we don't know what that looks like. No,
Speaker 2: because we're years and years behind the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: Go to Miami, Go to Miami, Fly to Miami tonight,
Speaker 2: and you tomorrow morning can go out and buy everything
Speaker 2: from a Starbucks coffee to a Ferrari with a card
Speaker 2: that you've loaded up from an a am in the
Speaker 2: stry with bitcoin, ethereum or other currencies, and the world
Speaker 2: is changing and we're not changing.
Speaker 1: So if you think the bank, and if you think.
Speaker 2: About it, there's one more point think about it. Actually,
Speaker 2: we have been great innovators, you know, whether it's the
Speaker 2: industrial revolution, whether it's the nuclear energy industry, which we
Speaker 2: led the world in just a few decades ago. We're very,
Speaker 2: very inventive. We're very creative. We're naturally a very entrepreneurial country.
Speaker 2: I just believe we've lost a sense of all of that.
Speaker 1: So the Bank of England, if you think they're so
Speaker 1: out of step with where their focus should be in
Speaker 1: your view, would you revoke their independence as Prime Minister?
Speaker 2: Well, I think the bigg I mean the bigger mistake
Speaker 2: was taking away banking regulation from an organization that have
Speaker 2: been doing it since sixteen ninety four, gave it to
Speaker 2: a bunch of tick box bureaucrats down in Canary Wharf.
Speaker 1: Do you mean the financial conduct?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: That so would you disband that?
Speaker 2: They are useless? They are arterly useless.
Speaker 1: We need a complete Would you do away with them?
Speaker 2: We did a radical rethink of what they are, what
Speaker 2: they're for, who they serve, what their purpose is.
Speaker 1: Isn't the truth though? You? I mean you don't. Really,
Speaker 1: it's not a question of who does the regulation. I
Speaker 1: think you instinctively don't like regulation or regular don't you
Speaker 1: see it as a hindrance, and other people might see
Speaker 1: it as the things that protect us from wrongdoing. Actually
Speaker 1: your mistakes.
Speaker 2: Actually you're wrong. You're wrong, because my argument with crypto
Speaker 2: with digital assets is we need a regulated market. Again,
Speaker 2: you go back there in the medieval times, it was
Speaker 2: all about having a basic framework of rules that consumers
Speaker 2: and market users can trust. So I'm not against regulation.
Speaker 2: I'm not a complete laisse fair merchant, but you have
Speaker 2: to get that balance right.
Speaker 1: But I think you are saying, as Prime Minister, you
Speaker 1: are signaling that you'd be prepared to do away with
Speaker 1: the Financial Conduct Authority, you would give those powers back
Speaker 1: to the Bank of England.
Speaker 2: I think we need a complete radical rethink. Yes on
Speaker 2: many of these things, and the FCA has been a
Speaker 2: total failure.
Speaker 1: Would you sack Andrew Bailey's Bank of England?
Speaker 2: I was debanked, you know, I was debanked. I was
Speaker 2: rejected by ten other banks. I was literally being frozen
Speaker 2: out of the financial system to the point I might
Speaker 2: have had to leave the country, which indeed is what
Speaker 2: they wanted and.
Speaker 1: That became a big issue. And well, luckily you got
Speaker 1: your accounts back.
Speaker 2: Well luckily, I'm big enough and ugly enough to fight
Speaker 2: my own corner. But there are thousands of people out
Speaker 2: there who've been debanked because of excessive rules on anti
Speaker 2: money laundering directives or whatever else it may be, who've
Speaker 2: got no voice for themselves.
Speaker 1: And what about the governor of the Bank of England,
Speaker 1: Andrew big Well, he's a nice enough bloke, but would
Speaker 1: he keep his job if you were.
Speaker 2: Said, a good run, we might find someone new. Really,
Speaker 2: he's had a.
Speaker 1: Good run, so you are signaling you'd be I'm just
Speaker 1: saying this is shade of President Trump at the federal
Speaker 1: ry if.
Speaker 2: Andrew Bailey wants to get with the twenty first century.
Speaker 2: And by the way, there's one encouraging thing, because I
Speaker 2: went to see him last month. He'd just put a
Speaker 2: limit on the number of state coins any individual can hold.
Speaker 2: I said, Andrew, this, this is ridiculous, this is dinosaur like.
Speaker 2: Within a week he changed it, So maybe he was listening.
Speaker 2: But the Bank of England, the British government, the regulator,
Speaker 2: whatever shape that takes, they've all got to understand that
Speaker 2: the world is changing, has changed very, very rapidly.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the world has changed, not just the financial world,
Speaker 1: the world more broadly. And if you were prime minister,
Speaker 1: you'd have to have opinions and take advice and formulate
Speaker 1: policy on a whole host of areas which you're not
Speaker 1: known for talking about, such as social care, how you'd
Speaker 1: feel vacancies in the social care sector and national security.
Speaker 1: And there are people in the political establishment, labor figures,
Speaker 1: conservative figures, including Boris Johnson, who think that you and
Speaker 1: your party are soft on Russia.
Speaker 2: Oh poor Boris. I feel sorry for I'm really I
Speaker 2: guess if you failed that much you have to laugh
Speaker 2: it out at somebody. Look, I mean, but I mean
Speaker 2: this is of course politics and narratives, isn't it. You know,
Speaker 2: just because fourteen thirteen years ago I said in an interview,
Speaker 2: I thought Putin was a very effective political operator, but
Speaker 2: not a nice human being. Suddenly you're a Putin supporter.
Speaker 2: But enough, the year after I said that, the Queen
Speaker 2: met him. Whether she was seen to be a collaborator,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's all the accusations come from the fact
Speaker 1: that you've said things in the past like no, you think, Nate,
Speaker 1: what I'm going to say. You've suggested that NATO provoked
Speaker 1: Putin into invading Ukraine.
Speaker 2: The endless eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union,
Speaker 2: and Kissinger warned about this years ago. We shouldn't have
Speaker 2: done it, but that's in the past. We did it.
Speaker 2: Putin's invaded. I was really hoping that Trump could bring
Speaker 2: Putin to heal and that some kind of compromise could
Speaker 2: be struck, as it's just been recently struck with Gaza
Speaker 2: and Israel. Clearly that is not going to happen. Obviously,
Speaker 2: Putin is a very bad dude.
Speaker 1: Simple Why hasn't President Trump put more pressure on him?
Speaker 2: Oh, he's putting huge pressure on, his pressure on India.
Speaker 2: He's putting pressure on and I think himself, I think
Speaker 2: Trump feels that puns met with all of him. And
Speaker 2: clearly Putin is not a rational man. He wants to
Speaker 2: come to a logical deal. So the idea that i'mselfd
Speaker 2: on this is just nonsense.
Speaker 1: Well, what put fire under the accusations was very recently
Speaker 1: when the former leader of your party in Wales, Nathan Gill,
Speaker 1: pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery, taking money from
Speaker 1: someone described as a pawn of the Russian secret services.
Speaker 2: Appalling, appalling, And he will go to prison for a
Speaker 2: long time, at least I hope he does.
Speaker 1: He was the leader of your past three three weeks.
Speaker 1: But hang on, he's been on. He's been involved with KI,
Speaker 1: he was involved in Brexit, the Brexit party, your former
Speaker 1: party with. He's been at your years.
Speaker 2: I've done it for twenty five years. He was unbelievably
Speaker 2: you perhaps don't know this a bishop in the Mormon Church,
Speaker 2: I mean, god fearing to a level I've almost never met.
Speaker 2: I mean, so uncorrupted. I thought he wouldn't even drink coffee,
Speaker 2: and there he was taking money to ask questions. Appaul,
Speaker 2: is it just one bad without any shadow of it down?
Speaker 1: You can assure voters that there is no one else
Speaker 1: like Nathan Gillen reforms ranks.
Speaker 2: If there were, if I even suspected it, they wouldn't
Speaker 2: be let through the door.
Speaker 1: And you're sure that no one else has taken money
Speaker 1: from I'm.
Speaker 2: Sure that my mother's not the mass murderer. There's nothing
Speaker 2: sure as that, you know, I mean, how can you
Speaker 2: be sure of anything in life? Well, you know, the
Speaker 2: question itself is you didn't know. The question itself is
Speaker 2: a stupid question. You know that, and I know that
Speaker 2: I believe one hundred percent with all my heart was
Speaker 2: nobody else.
Speaker 1: Can I just quickly then understand your instincts on Russia
Speaker 1: a bit more fully with a few scenarios. So if
Speaker 1: you were Prime Minister and NATO jets entered Russian jets
Speaker 1: entered NATO airspace, where do you stand on that?
Speaker 2: Do you think they should be to shoot them down?
Speaker 1: No questions? Whatever? That does? How much that inflames tensions?
Speaker 1: Russian needs to be taught to lessons and.
Speaker 2: Love trying heart. I'm the only person in the world
Speaker 2: I think that stood up in the European Parliament in
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, and do you know what I said? There
Speaker 2: will be a war in Ukraine. It's coming. I'm the
Speaker 2: only person that got it right. I might have made
Speaker 2: one comment once thirteen years ago that said I admired
Speaker 2: him as a political operator, but not as a human being,
Speaker 2: and I'd never live in Russia. Period.
Speaker 1: Okay, frozen assets, Russian frozen acids should be used to
Speaker 1: help go on as.
Speaker 2: Long as you like. I've made the position perfectly clear.
Speaker 1: No, what's the answer to that.
Speaker 2: They would be they're in Belgium.
Speaker 1: So they should be they should be used.
Speaker 2: You better ask the Belgian government, but clearly if they're
Speaker 2: there through illegal means, they should see.
Speaker 1: Your instincts is as British Prime Minister do.
Speaker 2: My instinct is I think Putin's a really bad blow.
Speaker 2: And you can and you can sit me here for
Speaker 2: an hour, you're going to get nowhere.
Speaker 1: You put British troops on the ground in most of
Speaker 1: all Ukraine after its cease.
Speaker 2: Fire, I'd be very cautious about doing that might put
Speaker 2: a un force. When I put the British Army badge
Speaker 2: that badged as a British Army, be deeply deeply.
Speaker 1: Thought because you'd be worried about them being a target
Speaker 1: for the Russian.
Speaker 2: Be deeply thoughtful about doing that, and it wouldn't make everything.
Speaker 1: You see exactly. That kind of thing is what gives
Speaker 1: hearing something caveat is what gives Russia courage.
Speaker 2: You are quite right, I'm not a warmonger. Rather like
Speaker 2: President Trump, I'm not a warmonger. Those that went before
Speaker 2: have been persistent warmongers. I'm not. I happen to think
Speaker 2: that what the UN did in career was remarkable, and
Speaker 2: still over seventy years on, has held and South Korea
Speaker 2: has become just, I mean, the most incredible country, which
Speaker 2: by the way, does things far better than we do
Speaker 2: in terms of building nuclear energy and much else. That
Speaker 2: would be the right way to go forward.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about areas then, where your agenda. As
Speaker 1: you said in that clip, we heard a moment ago
Speaker 1: where your agenda is similar to the Trump administrations, for example,
Speaker 1: on migration. Both your party and prisident Trump's Republicans feel
Speaker 1: very well what he's done, strongly about that.
Speaker 2: What he's done is amazing.
Speaker 1: So would you want ICE style raids taking place here
Speaker 1: to deport the six hundred thousand people in five years
Speaker 1: you wanted to?
Speaker 2: I think it's really I think what I think. Let's
Speaker 2: see this is again. You know, I was with Tom Homan,
Speaker 2: who was his Borders are a few weeks ago to
Speaker 2: try and find out what's really going on in America.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting. Border crossings are down ninety seven percent
Speaker 2: since Trump came to power. But the interesting thing is
Speaker 2: about deportations. So they have a thousand ICE squads out
Speaker 2: around America knocking on doors saying you're here illegally and
Speaker 2: you've got two choices. Number One, you can go. We'll
Speaker 2: fund your return. We'll give you a few dollars. We'll
Speaker 2: say to you that you can legally if you want,
Speaker 2: apply for skills VIASA in the years to come to
Speaker 2: come back to America, and if we think you're going
Speaker 2: to be a productive member of the economy and of society,
Speaker 2: will let you in.
Speaker 1: Is that what you want? The ice raids are done
Speaker 1: by masked armed men who jump out of vehicles grab people.
Speaker 2: That's your media narrative. I've just told you what's happening
Speaker 2: and what is really.
Speaker 1: If you have masks, don't they and guns and they
Speaker 1: do go into work ploce as.
Speaker 2: I mean, I would hope actually homes if they didn't
Speaker 2: have guns, they'll be mad.
Speaker 1: Would you want that here? That's really because this interview
Speaker 1: is about what you would do as prime minister.
Speaker 2: Do you know how many people have voluntarily left America
Speaker 2: in eight months? One point six million. It is truly remarkable.
Speaker 2: One point six million people have peacefully with incentives not
Speaker 2: just to leave, but potential. I want to understand the potential.
Speaker 1: What lessons you're taking for the UK.
Speaker 2: For what I'm learning is if you do things well
Speaker 2: and do things properly, it can be highly effective.
Speaker 1: So is that to yes to ice style raids in
Speaker 1: the UK?
Speaker 2: It's we're not America. We'll do it our way, not
Speaker 2: the America.
Speaker 1: So what is that? Does our way involve the army?
Speaker 2: Our way will involve border Force doing the job that
Speaker 2: they would so desperately like to do.
Speaker 1: That's the job they do. Now, how would it be?
Speaker 2: Would you use the army now? At the moment border
Speaker 2: Force are a taxi service and they hate it, so
Speaker 2: you use the army. They absolutely hate doing what they're doing,
Speaker 2: which is why say many people resign.
Speaker 1: Sad saving people essentially in the channel and bringing them
Speaker 1: to short You may see that what you mean by
Speaker 1: the teche No, that's what in me. I think that's
Speaker 1: what you're referring to.
Speaker 2: French Navy. Bring them across, French Navy, bring them acrass.
Speaker 2: It's got them all the way. Border Force picked them up,
Speaker 2: bring them in. They tuck their passports in the sea,
Speaker 2: they chuck their phones in the sea, and we're supposed
Speaker 2: to just put up with it.
Speaker 1: Really important is to understand how because the numbers you've
Speaker 1: said you would deport are really significant six hundred thousand
Speaker 1: over five year, which is why I'm interested in the methods.
Speaker 2: Look, I think the truth is that most people who
Speaker 2: were caught, who were in Britain illegally, if we do
Speaker 2: it nicely and do it properly, will accept they have
Speaker 2: to go.
Speaker 1: It's about nine thousand a year currently, and to meet
Speaker 1: your target you'd be increasing that by ten times. Do
Speaker 1: you think you can?
Speaker 2: I think we can. Of course theory reality, being in government,
Speaker 2: I get all of that. I understand all of that.
Speaker 2: Is it doable, yes, But there is a very important
Speaker 2: message here. Very I mean, in most countries in the world,
Speaker 2: if you enter illegally, you are chucked in prison. Literally,
Speaker 2: in a majority of countries in the world, illegal entry
Speaker 2: means immedia in prison.
Speaker 1: So is that what you do? People would arrive and
Speaker 1: they would be put in prison immediately detain.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what I didn't say, and you said.
Speaker 1: It, that's right, said what do you say?
Speaker 2: Said, that's fine, I'm not playing games. I'm not playing games.
Speaker 2: People would be detained.
Speaker 1: And deported dead simple in prison.
Speaker 2: There are plenty of X military bases we can keep.
Speaker 2: But the point, Look, you know, it's very interesting. Australia
Speaker 2: had all this in twenty twelve. They stopped it within
Speaker 2: a fortnight. Within a fortnight, no one came illegally you
Speaker 2: know why they were taied back to Indonesia. It can
Speaker 2: be done. It's about political will, it's about being tough
Speaker 2: for a short period of time. It can be done.
Speaker 2: It can be done.
Speaker 1: You've got a big pledge also to cut significant amounts
Speaker 1: of government waste. I know you're rethinking your economic plans,
Speaker 1: but there is a figure in your principles, not the
Speaker 1: broad print. Well, what about the amounts that it says
Speaker 1: in this from last year that you would cut waste
Speaker 1: by the tune government waste to save fifty billion pounds
Speaker 1: a year. Is that still yeah? That was about That's
Speaker 1: still the plan that was about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually we'd probably go further than that.
Speaker 1: I mean, you get more than more.
Speaker 2: Malay and Argentina's shown that you can do it, but
Speaker 2: you have to work out doing it what the cost
Speaker 2: of that is.
Speaker 1: You must discover that he couldn't cut nearly as much
Speaker 1: as he hoped to. Initially he said to had to
Speaker 1: have that, and then it went.
Speaker 2: To be fair. Malay has to be fair, Malay has
Speaker 2: but look, we're test bedding this in the in the
Speaker 2: local councils that we won last May. Well, we've cut
Speaker 2: about half a billion so far. You know, it's a
Speaker 2: very good start in six months.
Speaker 1: What happens if you were elected to government and you're
Speaker 1: Prime minister and you find out that you can't find
Speaker 1: the savings you want, you're in the process of rethinking
Speaker 1: your economic polity kinds of tax cutting plans which are
Speaker 1: now having to be rethought. Is that because they were unworkable.
Speaker 2: Net zero thirty billion saved, cutbacks and civil service tens
Speaker 2: of billions saved. But of course the big one, the
Speaker 2: big one, and the thing that I've got to think
Speaker 2: out far more fully is the whole explosion of disability payments.
Speaker 1: And you are in midster having seriously what I want
Speaker 1: to ask you is that you people said about your
Speaker 1: plans to spend and to tax cuts that they were
Speaker 1: unworkable and they were fantasy economics, and the fact that
Speaker 1: you're having to rethink them suggested, well.
Speaker 2: I'm not rethinking they were right. I suspect what we
Speaker 2: come back will be a lot more out of it
Speaker 2: than what you saw there.
Speaker 1: More radical in which way more tax.
Speaker 2: Well, as I said to you before I came and
Speaker 2: did this, I'm going to be laying out some economic
Speaker 2: stuff between now and the budget. In terms of speeches.
Speaker 2: What is for certain? I tell it what is for
Speaker 2: certain with the economy. And we touched on this right
Speaker 2: at the beginning. We touched on this place in the eighties,
Speaker 2: but we could go more broadly across the country. In
Speaker 2: the eighties there was an attitudinal change towards work, towards
Speaker 2: having a go, towards risk, which I'm pro. I'm very
Speaker 2: pro risk. I'm very pro individuals taking risk. I don't
Speaker 2: believe we should protect people from themselves. We should allow
Speaker 2: them to go out and have a go. We need
Speaker 2: an attitudinal change towards success, towards money, towards business, towards
Speaker 2: tax and incentives. And this is stuff that you can't
Speaker 2: necessarily write in a manifesto.
Speaker 1: Well you're going to have to do though, Well, no
Speaker 1: you can't.
Speaker 2: You can't attitudeal stuff. You can't. You cannot, right, you cannot.
Speaker 1: It's called a contract anymore.
Speaker 2: You've been at the BBC all your life. I don't
Speaker 2: think you understand what I'm saying. I'm talking about attitudinal
Speaker 2: change within society. You can't put any of that in manifestos.
Speaker 2: It's about a buzz, it's about a vibe, it's about
Speaker 2: how a country feels. And and you know one of
Speaker 2: the reasons, and you know you played that tape to
Speaker 2: me earlier. You know what is interesting about Trump's America?
Speaker 2: And there are bits of it you can dislike or
Speaker 2: like or whatever. What is interesting about Trump's America is
Speaker 2: a lot more people in America are having a go.
Speaker 2: They're setting up companies, they're borrowing money, they're taking risks.
Speaker 2: We need to get to that place. And and as
Speaker 2: I say, you can't put in a piece of paper,
Speaker 2: and one thing, I'm certain.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to inspire people, aren't you.
Speaker 2: That's right, That's exactly which.
Speaker 1: Takes me back to where I started that are you
Speaker 1: going to be someone who brings people together? Because you're
Speaker 1: known for turning the fire on people, You're not known
Speaker 1: for being someone who I don't know, appeals right across
Speaker 1: the country, has a common message that.
Speaker 2: I'm there, I think, you know, give me.
Speaker 1: An inspirational message. What is great about Britain today?
Speaker 2: Even in my time, even in my time in the
Speaker 2: European Parliament, where perhaps I achieved some level of infamy.
Speaker 2: Was I turning my fire on people? No, I was
Speaker 2: just teasing them. I was just teasing them. They were
Speaker 2: turning their far on me. I mean, we just had
Speaker 2: a party conference seas and where the levels of insightful
Speaker 2: abuse that have come from Starmar in his cabinet are
Speaker 2: off the scale. I've never behaved like that, not with anybody.
Speaker 2: I might have strong opinions, I might express what I
Speaker 2: believe in strongly, what I'm against very strongly. I don't
Speaker 2: think if you look through my political career that you
Speaker 2: will find personal invective. You'll find teasing and not much
Speaker 2: more than that. We have to we have to have
Speaker 2: a vibe, a buzz that says to young people setting
Speaker 2: up businesses, taking risk, even having failures, even having failures
Speaker 2: along the way is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Speaker 2: And you know something I might succeed, I might fail.
Speaker 2: I accept that. Yeah, but I'm going to have a guy.
Speaker 1: If you don't succeed as Prime minister, it's not the
Speaker 1: same as your personal success. That's about the fortunes of
Speaker 1: the country that are riding on that. So we're going
Speaker 1: to need more than a vibe.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the two are the same thing. We're
Speaker 2: in that much trouble. We're in that much trouble.
Speaker 1: Well, you as you as one man, and the vibe
Speaker 1: you create.
Speaker 2: There's a whole movement here now. There's a whole movement
Speaker 2: here now, and you've seen and I'm sitting talking to you.
Speaker 2: I don't do many interviews these days. I allow others
Speaker 2: to go and do it. There's a much broader range
Speaker 2: of talent, you know, that has come on the scene
Speaker 2: for the party. We're building a mass membership very rapidly.
Speaker 1: You see. I know you're a risk taker, but I
Speaker 1: think the moment of real risk that exists for your
Speaker 1: party right now is that you've had this sustained period
Speaker 1: where you've been rising in the opinion polls while you've
Speaker 1: been making big promises on spending, on big tax cuts,
Speaker 1: and now you're at a point where're having to rethink
Speaker 1: your economic policy and it's it's probably going to be
Speaker 1: much more like to make reality.
Speaker 2: We're going to make bigger propose. We're going to make
Speaker 2: even bigger proper.
Speaker 1: That's not the signals that your people in your party
Speaker 1: are setting out. They're saying you're going to have a
Speaker 1: fully costed manifest facing the same realities that other parties.
Speaker 2: Well, look, we're in goment.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're not special.
Speaker 2: We're in government now. We're in government now, in the
Speaker 2: local government. You know, we're going to do our damned
Speaker 2: list to be in government in Wales next May. We
Speaker 2: may or may not succeed, but we're going to do
Speaker 2: our damned list. I won't have to be judged by
Speaker 2: what we do. I accept that.
Speaker 1: So is Donald Trump a role model for you for government.
Speaker 2: In terms of standing up for the national interest above
Speaker 2: all else. Yes, in terms of keeping promises that you
Speaker 2: made the electorate. Yes, there are many other areas in
Speaker 2: which we might disagree or might do things. Which are
Speaker 2: the areas that there are other areas that might disagree,
Speaker 2: social policy, et cetera. We might see things differently. But
Speaker 2: the fundamentalism of Trump is you tell the electorate I'm
Speaker 2: going to do X, and you actually do it. And
Speaker 2: that's what he's doing. And you know, and we might
Speaker 2: look at I mean, look, you know, you and I
Speaker 2: consider over coup of see and talk about some of
Speaker 2: the tariff machinations and say to ourselves, what the hell
Speaker 2: is going on, or we could go back to the
Speaker 2: thirties and think about tariffs and damage it's done to
Speaker 2: the economy or et cetera.
Speaker 1: Do you think he's damaging them?
Speaker 2: It's irrelevant. No, no, no, no, listen to me. It's irrelevant.
Speaker 2: He promised the American public he'd used tariffs as a weapon.
Speaker 2: He's doing it, so he is. So is he to
Speaker 2: a large extent restoring faith in the democratic system. Yes,
Speaker 2: and we will have to if we succeed. There is
Speaker 2: a long way to go. As I said said to
Speaker 2: you earlier halfway through the marathon, if we succeed, we
Speaker 2: must do the same. Because one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: reform is doing so well is there is a complete
Speaker 2: breakdown of trust. No one believes a blooming thing.
Speaker 1: The other parties say, I think you could be part
Speaker 1: of that breakdown of trust because this document which said
Speaker 1: our contract with you, it's a contract with the voters.
Speaker 1: It's the document you stood on last year.
Speaker 2: I didn't write it. I inherited it to be fair.
Speaker 1: Lead standing there face Your face is right there on
Speaker 1: the front.
Speaker 2: Came in after it was published to be fair, and
Speaker 2: we changed the front page. But look are the principles
Speaker 2: right within it? Yes, can we but.
Speaker 1: There are numbers in it. It's put forward as a
Speaker 1: contract breakdown of trust. And you've been sort of a
Speaker 1: breakdown of trust.
Speaker 2: You have you seen what the concern is your interview?
Speaker 1: If you complain about a breakdown of trust, don't you
Speaker 1: have to stick to your I stick.
Speaker 2: To I would like nobody in Britain to pay income
Speaker 2: tax until they end twenty thousand pounds.
Speaker 1: And when do you think you'd be able to deliver
Speaker 1: that in government?
Speaker 2: I will answer that over the course of the next
Speaker 2: few weeks, not today, as I told you before I
Speaker 2: came on here. But do I want to want of that? Yes?
Speaker 2: Is it realistic immediately we're in government? No, and those
Speaker 2: circumstances are changed. Are the principles, aspirations and even the
Speaker 2: numbers that are set out there wrong? No they're not.
Speaker 2: They're right. But it's all about getting things in the
Speaker 2: right order.
Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Weekend interview. I wondered if you
Speaker 1: get one these days, because you are more in demand
Speaker 1: than ever before. According to your team, you're meeting presidents,
Speaker 1: prime ministers and kings from the Middle East these days.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't comment on that particularly, but King or at
Speaker 2: least I remember, and if I do, it, wouldn't tell you.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't tell you. I wouldn't do.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm it's inaccurate that you're meeting Trstan's
Speaker 1: Prime Minister and kings from the Middley.
Speaker 2: Do you know what. One of the reasons I've survived
Speaker 2: so long in public lives, I'm very discreet and you know,
Speaker 2: if I have private meanings with people, I never discuss it.
Speaker 1: It's one of your senior supporters and donors who said this.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know who he is or she is,
Speaker 2: but well, well I wouldn't comment on it, all right,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't comment on it. I don't comment on things
Speaker 2: like that, and people trust me because of that, you know,
Speaker 2: I keep confidence.
Speaker 1: But you are in circles you haven't been in before.
Speaker 2: That's fair, That's fair, I mean, that is fair. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people around the world think
Speaker 2: we are going to win the next election just because
Speaker 2: they people that you know, like this country, see what
Speaker 2: a mess has got itself into.
Speaker 1: See it's a long haul because technically it's not due
Speaker 1: for another four years and the current government has a
Speaker 1: large authority do you think you can sustain the level
Speaker 1: of engagement you need to still be in this position
Speaker 1: in four years time. You're not really known for you
Speaker 1: stuck at the idea of wanting you ab out of
Speaker 1: the European Union, but you've had a number of different
Speaker 1: parties over the years.
Speaker 2: I stuck at it more than anybody. I've been doing
Speaker 2: this since nineteen ninety three. Did I finally retire on
Speaker 2: the thirty first of January twenty twenty, Yes, I did.
Speaker 1: That was it?
Speaker 2: I had done with it. I came back into politics
Speaker 2: last year. It was probably the toughest decision in my life.
Speaker 2: You know, I turned sixty last year. Life pretty settled,
Speaker 2: some good jobs, a company being quite successful in a
Speaker 2: variety of areas, first couple of grandkids born. You know,
Speaker 2: life was pretty good. So I knew I was making
Speaker 2: a big sacrifice coming back into it, and I'm determined
Speaker 2: to make it a success. And I think I've been
Speaker 2: very you know, we talked about persistent, but I've generally
Speaker 2: been pretty consistent in the kind of values and views
Speaker 2: and beliefs that have had. And can I sustain it
Speaker 2: for four years? Yep? It's a long haul, but yep,
Speaker 2: can the government sustain it for four years, I think
Speaker 2: very unlikely. And I think, you know, just as you've
Speaker 2: seen reform take over the center right of British politics,
Speaker 2: I think there's a massive change on the left about
Speaker 2: to come. And I think that I think that the
Speaker 2: government will be forced by twenty seven into a genuine
Speaker 2: austerity budget. I mean, a real austerity budget. Just the markets,
Speaker 2: you know, are going to demand that. And I suspect
Speaker 2: at that moment the left of British politics splits in
Speaker 2: a very very dramatic way. And I think the growth
Speaker 2: of the Greens, the Corbynites, the sort of urban left
Speaker 2: of politics, those who vote on gaza and religion more
Speaker 2: than British issues, all of those things, I think they
Speaker 2: will struggle to see our twenty seven.
Speaker 1: That's why you think there'll be a general election?
Speaker 2: Then I do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, I want to know what sustains you. Is
Speaker 1: it true you read constantly?
Speaker 2: I do read a lot, Yeah, I do read a lot.
Speaker 1: What are you reading at the moment?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm The last book I read was mister Bellfour's Poodle,
Speaker 2: which is about the constitutional crisis between the.
Speaker 1: Commons of the Lords early twentieth century.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the principles are exactly the same. And by the way,
Speaker 2: the Salisbury Convention has been there since nineteen eleven, And so.
Speaker 1: How are you interested in that?
Speaker 2: Because say we get elected on the manifesto to say
Speaker 2: we're going to do X, Y and z. What if
Speaker 2: the House what if the House of Lords would have
Speaker 2: block us? The what if the civil service would have
Speaker 2: block us? These are all the things that we're thinking
Speaker 2: and going through at the moment.
Speaker 1: You're going back one hundred years to try and find
Speaker 1: the answers to that.
Speaker 2: Principles don't change over centuries. What else are you reading
Speaker 2: over centuries? Principles day.
Speaker 1: How do you like poetry?
Speaker 2: Like a little bit of poetry? I wouldn't say hugely.
Speaker 2: I read. I like biography, I like history. My current book,
Speaker 2: which i've really barely started, is written by the former
Speaker 2: Prime Minister of Armenia, and it's about how small states
Speaker 2: can survive in the big wide world. Sarkasan is his name.
Speaker 1: He wrote everything you're reading is kind of part of
Speaker 1: your homework if you like for government. Is that the case?
Speaker 1: What do you do to actually put your head in
Speaker 1: a different place?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I like to go out walk when
Speaker 2: I get time. I like to fish. I like a
Speaker 2: day at the races. I like the odd day at
Speaker 2: the cricket. There are things I enjoy doing. No, the
Speaker 2: truth is, I mean, look, we are living in a
Speaker 2: twenty four to seven media environment. I am a political entrepreneur.
Speaker 2: Even though I'm trying to shed responsibilities of the party
Speaker 2: for the moment, I'm still the main entry point for
Speaker 2: most new people that want to give money or stand
Speaker 2: as candidates. And so most of my life these days,
Speaker 2: believe it or not, is focusing on what's beneath the bonnet,
Speaker 2: focusing on the structure of the party, focusing on the
Speaker 2: funding of the party, focusing on making sure that across
Speaker 2: all the regions of the United Kingdom we're prepared. And
Speaker 2: I just sort of say this to you, sort of
Speaker 2: towards the end that I don't think anyone's yet really understood.
Speaker 2: Next May May the sixth next year is the British
Speaker 2: equivalent of the midterms in America. These are elections of
Speaker 2: a magnitude and a significance that almost nobody yet understands.
Speaker 1: To close, I want to go back to where I
Speaker 1: began and the kind of person you're known for, and
Speaker 1: the kind of person you'd have to be if you're
Speaker 1: to be a great prime minister. What would you say
Speaker 1: to someone who worries that you might deport their grandmother
Speaker 1: or you might not be a leader for them because
Speaker 1: they are not white or they're Muslim. No, what would
Speaker 1: you say to that?
Speaker 2: There are people give me a message to say the
Speaker 2: questions beneath you. But I would also say this if
Speaker 2: you the only people that call me a racist tend
Speaker 2: to be called Jocasta and have gone to Saint Mary's
Speaker 2: Ascot and be upper middle class and very snobby.
Speaker 1: Is that to someone who'd be worried about you as surprised?
Speaker 1: What is your message of unity? Do you have one?
Speaker 2: Our message for unity is if you're in this country legally,
Speaker 2: whether you've been a for one generation or one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty generations, if you're paying your taxes, obeying the law,
Speaker 2: being part of our community, recognizing there is commonality between
Speaker 2: all of us, whilst we're different, things that we share.
Speaker 2: You're incredibly welcome, But are we here to be the
Speaker 2: dumping ground of the world. Are we here to be
Speaker 2: the food bank of the world. Are we here to
Speaker 2: have uncontrolled, massive legal immigration changing our culture in dangerous
Speaker 2: women on our streets now on that we're going to
Speaker 2: get really, really tough, and I think you'll be very,
Speaker 2: very surprised how many people from all different backgrounds of
Speaker 2: religions from all over the world support that message and
Speaker 2: want that as the country that they've either been born
Speaker 2: into or chosen to live in.
Speaker 1: Nasure Parish. Thank you, thank you, And that's the Michelle
Speaker 1: Hussein Show for this week. To make sure you never
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Speaker 1: like to see my conversation with Nigel Farash, you'll find
Speaker 1: the video online and at bloomberg dot com Slash Weekend
Speaker 1: you'll find the written version of this interview with a
Speaker 1: portrait of Nigel Faraj and my notes why I asked,
Speaker 1: what I did and the context around it. The Michelle
Speaker 1: Hussein Show is produced by Jessica Beck and Chris Martlu.
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