# Nigel Farage Thinks Britain Has Had Too Many Unifiers

An episode of [The Mishal Husain Show](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1845840408), 24 Oct 2025, 51 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/d4afad24-707c-42c5-afc3-b36200ef6fe2/cb07710e-7690-4784-8f4a-b37f0128558a/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=16eda0d4-f4e8-48ea-8fbb-b36200ef73d1

After successfully pushing for Brexit, political disruptor Nigel Farage announced his retirement. Last year, he returned to frontline politics as the leader of Reform UK, an insurgent party that’s never held national power but is now polling ahead of Labour and the Conservatives. Mishal speaks with Farage about dismantling consensus politics, Britain’s future relationship with the European Union and what he thinks Donald Trump is getting right. 4:02 - “We’ve not had enough change” 7:10 - Working in the City of London in the 1980s 11:46 Alignment with the European Union 13:33 “Everything in life’s about risk” 16:24 “Make Britain Great Again” 21:00 The Bank of England 25:19 “Putin is a very bad dude” 30:15 Immigration and ICE raids 35:12 Economic plans 46:14 Reading to prepare for government Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0Ns_wjGlmjlPz0cded0nTYS You can find the written version of this interview with Mishal’s notes on Bloomberg Weekend: https://www.bloomberg.com/latest/weekend-interview Contact The Mishal Husain Show mishalshow@bloomberg.net Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
[0:08] Speaker 2: There are fundamentally two types of people in politics. Those
[0:12] Speaker 2: want to be something, those want to do something. And
[0:15] Speaker 2: I've always been a person that's wanted to do something.
[0:20] Speaker 1: Nigel Farage Brexit campaigner, disruptor and now UK political leader
[0:27] Speaker 1: who could be prime minister.
[0:32] Speaker 2: You know what, the rank, the title, the position doesn't
[0:36] Speaker 2: interest me at all, doesn't interest me in the least.
[0:39] Speaker 2: I couldn't care less about it. What interests me is
[0:42] Speaker 2: what you can do with it.
[0:44] Speaker 1: From Bloomberg Weekend. This is the Michelle Hussein Show. I'm
[0:49] Speaker 1: Michelle Hussein. Welcome back. Remember the moment when the UK
[0:58] Speaker 1: voted to leave the EU nearly ten years ago now,
[1:02] Speaker 1: and one of the figures right at the forefront of
[1:05] Speaker 1: that was Nigel Farage.
[1:06] Speaker 2: The sun has risen on an independent United.
[1:10] Speaker 1: Kingdom, mister Brexit. Indeed, to many people, you might have
[1:14] Speaker 1: thought that that was a career peak, an end of
[1:18] Speaker 1: the road. They'd achieved what they set out to do.
[1:22] Speaker 1: For him, though, it was the start of something new,
[1:26] Speaker 1: something bigger, it now seems, because he and his party
[1:31] Speaker 1: Reform UK have been having an extraordinary time in the
[1:34] Speaker 1: opinion polls in Britain. These are polls of voting intention,
[1:38] Speaker 1: and for months now Reform has enjoyed a sustained pole
[1:43] Speaker 1: lead over the two parties which have dominated British governments
[1:47] Speaker 1: for the last century, Labor and the Conservatives. Now an
[1:51] Speaker 1: election isn't due in the UK for another four years,
[1:54] Speaker 1: but if this kind of pole lead was to be maintained,
[1:58] Speaker 1: Nigel Farage a very good chance of being the next
[2:01] Speaker 1: UK Prime minister. Faras is someone who has been very
[2:05] Speaker 1: good at spotting political undercurrents. He did that with Brexit,
[2:09] Speaker 1: He's done that in the US in being close to
[2:12] Speaker 1: Donald Trump for a long time, understanding in many countries.
[2:17] Speaker 1: I think what's bubbling under the surface and what other
[2:19] Speaker 1: people might not see. So he is worth paying attention to.
[2:25] Speaker 1: He's someone also who is very recognizable. He's a big
[2:28] Speaker 1: persona people stop him in the street, want to have
[2:31] Speaker 1: their picture taken with him, call him by his first name.
[2:35] Speaker 1: He's regularly pictured having a pint in the pub. Now
[2:39] Speaker 1: I knew this was going to be a tough conversation
[2:42] Speaker 1: in many ways. He's combative. He's someone who you have
[2:46] Speaker 1: to fact check to the best of your ability, and
[2:48] Speaker 1: I think you'll get a sense of the tone really
[2:51] Speaker 1: right from the start of this. But really what I
[2:54] Speaker 1: wanted to do in this conversation is understand what makes
[2:57] Speaker 1: him tick and reveal really what kind of prime minister
[3:02] Speaker 1: he might be. You'll hear us talk about his immigration policies,
[3:07] Speaker 1: about the accusation that he is soft on national security,
[3:10] Speaker 1: what he reads, whether he would govern for the whole country,
[3:15] Speaker 1: and because he has used the words make Britain great again,
[3:18] Speaker 1: ask him what period he looks to in Britain's past.
[3:23] Speaker 1: We started, though, in the present. Welcome Rachel Farrett. How
[3:30] Speaker 1: how are you all right?
[3:31] Speaker 2: Yes, but I mean life is busy.
[3:33] Speaker 1: Well, I want to start with a sense of the moment,
[3:35] Speaker 1: actually because I'm conscious that you are in the midst
[3:37] Speaker 1: of a remarkable few months where your party has been
[3:40] Speaker 1: leading in the opinion polls in a sustained way, which
[3:44] Speaker 1: is why if there was an election today, and we
[3:46] Speaker 1: don't really have that kind of system in the UK,
[3:48] Speaker 1: but if there was an election today, you'd be you
[3:50] Speaker 1: look likely to become a prime minister.
[3:52] Speaker 2: Election tomorrow we'd win easily. But the trouble is it's
[3:54] Speaker 2: a marathon to the next election. We've hit the thirteen
[3:57] Speaker 2: mile mark and we're a mile ahead. So it's a
[4:00] Speaker 2: good thing we've done what we've done. But there's a
[4:02] Speaker 2: long wedd again well.
[4:03] Speaker 1: But also on you personally, the idea of being prime minister.
[4:08] Speaker 1: Are you properly adjusted to this idea because most people
[4:12] Speaker 1: see you this is what you're known for, campaigner disrupt
[4:14] Speaker 1: to someone who brings change from the outside, actually leading
[4:17] Speaker 1: for the whole country is a very different thing.
[4:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the point. We now need change on the inside.
[4:22] Speaker 2: We've not had enough change. We are actupying as a country.
[4:25] Speaker 2: We're declining economically, we're declining societally, we're declining culturally. People
[4:31] Speaker 2: are leaving. We're in real, real trouble. So we now
[4:35] Speaker 2: need a disruptor, not from the outside the change perceptions,
[4:39] Speaker 2: but from the inside to actually change things. But you've
[4:42] Speaker 2: been ready for it.
[4:42] Speaker 1: Yes, you've only been an MP for a year, so.
[4:45] Speaker 2: I've been in politics for thirteen years. I was in
[4:47] Speaker 2: the European Parliament for over two decades. I led a
[4:50] Speaker 2: group in the European Parliament for over ten years. I've
[4:53] Speaker 2: got a lot more experience than Keir Starmer or many
[4:57] Speaker 2: of the other prime ministers we've had in the recent.
[4:59] Speaker 1: Political experience, but not governing experience. You've never been part
[5:03] Speaker 1: of that. You did once say that you did want
[5:05] Speaker 1: to say that you couldn't imagine having a seat around
[5:08] Speaker 1: the cabinet table, that it was not something that attracted you.
[5:12] Speaker 2: Do you know what, the rank, the title, the position
[5:17] Speaker 2: doesn't interest me at all, doesn't interest me in the least.
[5:20] Speaker 2: I couldn't care less about it. What interests me is
[5:23] Speaker 2: what you can do with it. And there are fundamentally
[5:26] Speaker 2: two types of people in politics. Those want to be something,
[5:30] Speaker 2: those want to do something. And I've always been a
[5:33] Speaker 2: person that's wanted to do something. In the past. What
[5:35] Speaker 2: I've done is helped change public opinion, help shift national debate,
[5:40] Speaker 2: and now moving that on to the next logical stage.
[5:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, but I still wonder about the kind of work
[5:45] Speaker 1: that is involved in delivering for a country as the
[5:48] Speaker 1: Prime minister. It involves sitting there with the red boxes,
[5:51] Speaker 1: going through the official government papers.
[5:52] Speaker 2: What do you think I've been doing for the last
[5:53] Speaker 2: twenty five years building but.
[5:56] Speaker 1: Through civil papers every day.
[5:58] Speaker 2: It's different only in human being in this country. Who
[6:02] Speaker 2: has built political movements on a table like this with
[6:06] Speaker 2: a telephone, a piece of paper and a pencil. I
[6:09] Speaker 2: can build things, I can do things. My track record
[6:12] Speaker 2: says that.
[6:12] Speaker 1: Okay, so you're ready for it.
[6:14] Speaker 2: It is the job that you want to do, yes,
[6:16] Speaker 2: I mean, look, it's clearly an enormous job. And the
[6:20] Speaker 2: scale of the problems that we face, the institutional barriers
[6:24] Speaker 2: that will get put before us. You know, I do
[6:26] Speaker 2: understand all of that. I'll tell you what if we
[6:28] Speaker 2: don't do this, then by twenty thirty five I shuddered
[6:32] Speaker 2: to think what this country, genuinely, what this country will
[6:36] Speaker 2: be like. So we have to do this?
[6:37] Speaker 1: Would you govern for all? Because you're not known as
[6:40] Speaker 1: someone who brings people together. You're known as someone who
[6:43] Speaker 1: chooses their issues, campaigns very hard on them, who's often
[6:46] Speaker 1: predicted and made the political weather. But you're not a unifier.
[6:51] Speaker 1: Doesn't a prime minister have to be there?
[6:53] Speaker 2: Well, I think we've had too many unifiers. And look
[6:55] Speaker 2: where consensus politics has got us. Look at the message
[6:58] Speaker 2: got it?
[6:58] Speaker 1: So you would govern as a device fig.
[7:00] Speaker 2: You'd govern as a majority government. You'd govern on a
[7:03] Speaker 2: radical manifesto that says the country needs fundamental reform. And
[7:07] Speaker 2: of course some people won't like it, but that's the
[7:10] Speaker 2: way it is.
[7:11] Speaker 1: Well, we'll talk about the ways that you would reform.
[7:14] Speaker 1: It is the name of your party, but it's also
[7:16] Speaker 1: what you want to do, and we'll talk about that
[7:17] Speaker 1: in a moment. But I want to go back in
[7:19] Speaker 1: time first of all, because you're recording with us here
[7:22] Speaker 1: in our studios in the heart of the city of London,
[7:24] Speaker 1: a place you know well, absolutely, you used to be
[7:27] Speaker 1: a commodities trader, a metals trader. How formative was that
[7:31] Speaker 1: experience to who you are today?
[7:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, My father was a stop breaker for over half
[7:34] Speaker 2: a century. My grandfather was a stop breaker for over
[7:36] Speaker 2: half a century. So a lot of our family had worked,
[7:39] Speaker 2: in fact, on both sides in the city. I was
[7:41] Speaker 2: here in the eighties. I was here in that transformative
[7:44] Speaker 2: period where, let's be frank, what was a bit of
[7:47] Speaker 2: an old boys club through Big Bang became an international
[7:50] Speaker 2: global center deregulation.
[7:52] Speaker 1: Yeah, a city and it's heyday if you.
[7:53] Speaker 2: Like, opening up, innovative, that's just time. It was that
[7:58] Speaker 2: just time. Yeah, and you were actually oh absolutely, I
[8:01] Speaker 2: mean back then I was. But I mean, you know,
[8:04] Speaker 2: bear in mind, we're talking forty years ago. There were
[8:06] Speaker 2: a different set of economic problems. We didn't have the
[8:10] Speaker 2: social problems in that just time that we've got. Now,
[8:12] Speaker 2: that's one aspect of life that's worse. So I was
[8:15] Speaker 2: here when yeah, I mean kind of by the middle
[8:18] Speaker 2: late eighties. I mean it was the most exciting, incredible
[8:22] Speaker 2: and fun place to be.
[8:24] Speaker 1: We did have social problems though, a lot of people
[8:26] Speaker 1: got left us. A lot of people got left behind
[8:28] Speaker 1: in that period and some of them are supporting your
[8:31] Speaker 1: party today. There were mining community socualization.
[8:34] Speaker 2: There were mining communities who had a very bleak time. They,
[8:37] Speaker 2: by the way, had an even bleaker time in John
[8:40] Speaker 2: Major's years when we unnecessarily claoes pits. But what I
[8:44] Speaker 2: mean is we were all British. There was a much
[8:47] Speaker 2: bigger sense of togetherness despite the economic division than there
[8:51] Speaker 2: is in the country today.
[8:52] Speaker 1: And this has been a theme of what you've been saying.
[8:54] Speaker 1: Essentially you look on migration as the source of all
[8:58] Speaker 1: the country's ills.
[8:59] Speaker 2: Well, that's a ridiculos to say, but you just.
[9:01] Speaker 1: Pointed that we were more British in the period.
[9:04] Speaker 2: We have all sorts of problems. We have massive economic
[9:07] Speaker 2: problems now falling GDP per capita being perhaps top of
[9:11] Speaker 2: the list, or they're very ready talked about in Westminster.
[9:14] Speaker 2: Yes there were divisions then you're absolutely right, but the
[9:17] Speaker 2: social problems that we faced today are worst. Look I
[9:20] Speaker 2: think about the city was you know, I can remember
[9:23] Speaker 2: when the phone rang that it occasionally was Paris, occasionally
[9:28] Speaker 2: was Frankfurt, but much more likely to with Singapore or Santiago.
[9:32] Speaker 2: This was a global trading center and I couldn't understand the.
[9:35] Speaker 1: City of London is still a global trading center.
[9:37] Speaker 2: Far less than it was. And I couldn't understand the
[9:41] Speaker 2: political obsession with our next door neighbors that the little
[9:44] Speaker 2: backyard market called Europe. Oh yes, it's the big market,
[9:47] Speaker 2: blah blah blah, but it's fifteen percent of global GDP.
[9:50] Speaker 2: So really, when I saw the Single European Act coming
[9:53] Speaker 2: in eighty six, what are we doing? And then I
[9:56] Speaker 2: saw the British establishment preparing for us to join the EUA.
[10:00] Speaker 2: We joined the exchange rate mechanism and.
[10:02] Speaker 1: Then had to crash out of it two years later,
[10:05] Speaker 1: which I pegging to the deutsch market, which I predicted.
[10:07] Speaker 2: Yep, I predicted it. The very night we joined. I
[10:10] Speaker 2: was in a bar just over there saying this will
[10:12] Speaker 2: never ever work. And this is what really got me
[10:14] Speaker 2: in the politics I couldn't understand what I saw in
[10:17] Speaker 2: my day to day life here. I want I saw
[10:20] Speaker 2: government doing. Were two very different things.
[10:23] Speaker 1: So it was there's a direct link then, between Brexit
[10:26] Speaker 1: and your work in the city here in the nineteen
[10:29] Speaker 1: eighties and the nineteen nineties. You came here at the
[10:31] Speaker 1: age of eighteen, actually straight out of school. When you
[10:34] Speaker 1: look at Brexit today and what has happened in the
[10:37] Speaker 1: last nine years and you say that it's a poorer
[10:40] Speaker 1: country today than it was, do you think it was
[10:43] Speaker 1: worth having the referendum in twenty sixteen?
[10:46] Speaker 2: Do I think freedom is worth it? Yes? Absolutely? Do
[10:48] Speaker 2: I think self governance is governance is worth it? Yes,
[10:51] Speaker 2: of course I do. Do I think the ability to
[10:54] Speaker 2: control your borders is worth having? Yes? I do. Now
[10:57] Speaker 2: have we exercised it?
[10:58] Speaker 1: No, That's why asked the question. Was it worth having
[11:01] Speaker 1: it in twenty sixteen the vote? Given what we know now,
[11:04] Speaker 1: Sterling has never recovered its value. Business investment, which was
[11:08] Speaker 1: rising has been stalled since that. No.
[11:12] Speaker 2: I mean, look, you know, even as Kis Starmer himself says,
[11:14] Speaker 2: the deep seated economic problems within the country pre date Brexit,
[11:18] Speaker 2: even pre date the pandemic, and our response to it,
[11:21] Speaker 2: you know, our productivity problems being perhaps just one very
[11:25] Speaker 2: very good example. I am angry that a conservative government
[11:29] Speaker 2: with a whopping great majority didn't take advantage of it.
[11:33] Speaker 1: And you think you could have done better if you
[11:34] Speaker 1: were prime ministers.
[11:35] Speaker 2: Better, Mars better and I hate to see what's happening
[11:39] Speaker 2: in the city.
[11:40] Speaker 1: So then if you were prime minister, and I can
[11:43] Speaker 1: ask you this question because the way the polls are
[11:45] Speaker 1: looking right now, so today, if you became prime minister,
[11:47] Speaker 1: would you rip up the treaty, the agreement that Kirs
[11:50] Speaker 1: Starmer made with the EU earlier this year.
[11:52] Speaker 2: Well, the whole treaty is up for renegotiation anyway. It's
[11:55] Speaker 2: a very poor treaty. We can do a lot better
[11:57] Speaker 2: than that. We'll have to play hard ball. If you
[12:00] Speaker 2: play hard or you have to mean it.
[12:01] Speaker 1: That's the article I've heard just before from whom well
[12:05] Speaker 1: I've heard this before from okay, from conservatives, not from
[12:08] Speaker 1: people in your party, but from people who believed in Brexit.
[12:12] Speaker 2: They never they never, but they never believed that. They Relatedly,
[12:19] Speaker 2: they belatedly accepted Brexit because if they hadn't, they would
[12:23] Speaker 2: have faced political.
[12:24] Speaker 1: So if Brexit has never been done properly, you, as
[12:27] Speaker 1: Prime minister, would reshape our relationship with the EU.
[12:32] Speaker 2: What do you mean if Brexit hadn't happened The reason
[12:33] Speaker 2: I'm here.
[12:34] Speaker 1: No, I mean if you were Prime minister, what would
[12:36] Speaker 1: you do with the current alignment that we have with
[12:39] Speaker 1: the EU on many areas well.
[12:40] Speaker 2: Look, we've been weak as hell. We've given in. We've
[12:43] Speaker 2: given in, we've given in, We've expected favors in return,
[12:46] Speaker 2: we haven't got any. It needs a tough renegotiation. And ultimately,
[12:50] Speaker 2: even though we've got huge economic problems, they've got some
[12:52] Speaker 2: pretty serious problems too. In fact, the French haven't even bigger,
[12:56] Speaker 2: not just not just economic but constitutional crisis as well. Yeah,
[13:00] Speaker 2: giving away our fish for the next twelve years, things
[13:03] Speaker 2: like that completely outrageous, total betrayal of what people voted for.
[13:07] Speaker 2: But the focus, the focus, and yes, trade with Europe
[13:12] Speaker 2: is important, of course it is, but the real focus
[13:15] Speaker 2: has to be what's happening internally within the UK economy.
[13:19] Speaker 1: So you would rip up the ki Starmer agreement with you,
[13:23] Speaker 1: I think you're saying it needs it needs a rethink, Okay.
[13:25] Speaker 2: But all is done has done is make concessions in return.
[13:29] Speaker 1: That means you would be taking an economic risk right now.
[13:32] Speaker 1: And that's and you have been known all your life
[13:35] Speaker 1: for taking risks right It's in your book.
[13:36] Speaker 2: Everything in life's about risks, and life.
[13:38] Speaker 1: Is about yourself. On being a gambler, can I read these?
[13:42] Speaker 1: I love a gamble, I love stacking up the odds,
[13:44] Speaker 1: and it's only been through taking enormous risks that the
[13:47] Speaker 1: Party and I have got to where we are today.
[13:49] Speaker 1: Is that the kind of prime minister you would be?
[13:50] Speaker 1: A risk taking prime minister?
[13:52] Speaker 2: We need far more risk taking and by the way,
[13:54] Speaker 2: much more broad in the Prime minister. We need to
[13:56] Speaker 2: encourage risk taking in the economy.
[13:58] Speaker 1: You take a risk with the relation with the nearest neighbor,
[14:01] Speaker 1: the big geography that puts this big market on. You
[14:05] Speaker 1: take a risk with that in the interest of it
[14:07] Speaker 1: bad relationship.
[14:08] Speaker 2: You have to take risks to reshape it.
[14:11] Speaker 1: So how would you reshape it? You'd end alignment.
[14:13] Speaker 2: Is that what you're saying, alignments catastrophic, So you'd end
[14:16] Speaker 2: it catastrophic, moronic.
[14:18] Speaker 1: You'd end alignment with the EA's.
[14:20] Speaker 2: Sending us is keeping us firmly hooked back in the
[14:23] Speaker 2: twentieth century, not in the twenty first it makes no
[14:26] Speaker 2: sense at all from any angle.
[14:28] Speaker 1: Is that a yes to the question I've asked, you'd
[14:30] Speaker 1: end alignment.
[14:31] Speaker 2: With the E one hundred plus.
[14:33] Speaker 1: Okay, So this is the point. So you're still a
[14:35] Speaker 1: risk taker. You weren't in your years as a trader
[14:38] Speaker 1: in the city, and you're still going to govern in
[14:40] Speaker 1: that way if you elected Prime minister. I know you
[14:43] Speaker 1: had two really traumatic experiences as a very young man.
[14:47] Speaker 1: You were hit by a car and you ended up
[14:49] Speaker 1: spending two months in hospital, and you were then diagnosed
[14:52] Speaker 1: with testicular when you're in your in your early twenties.
[14:56] Speaker 1: There's another and I know you said that this is
[14:59] Speaker 1: part of why you decided you needed to do things
[15:03] Speaker 1: with your life. But there's a different way that that
[15:06] Speaker 1: story could have gone, which is that you conserve your
[15:09] Speaker 1: energy and you prioritize your family and you think of
[15:13] Speaker 1: all that's close to you. Instead, you had two failed marriages, and.
[15:18] Speaker 2: It's called living. You went, it's called living.
[15:21] Speaker 1: And you campaigned around the country.
[15:22] Speaker 2: Look, I could be a boring so and SOA like
[15:24] Speaker 2: most people in politics. I've lived. I've had some huge successes,
[15:29] Speaker 2: I've had some massive failures. I'm sixty one, I've got
[15:33] Speaker 2: a vast experience of life. I've seen the good times,
[15:36] Speaker 2: I've seen the bad times. I've seen success, i've seen failure.
[15:40] Speaker 2: I think that makes me better qualified to be a
[15:44] Speaker 2: leader than those that have lived steady, what I might
[15:47] Speaker 2: describe as boring lives.
[15:49] Speaker 1: So what have been your big failures?
[15:51] Speaker 2: Well, I've made mistakes personally. Obviously I've had successes too,
[15:54] Speaker 2: but I've made mistakes financially. And look, I've lived the
[15:57] Speaker 2: big I've lived the big Dipper of life. But I've
[16:00] Speaker 2: in the end been very lucky. I'm still here, I'm
[16:03] Speaker 2: still alive despite a couple of goes at not being
[16:06] Speaker 2: I think that's given me a couple of things. Number one,
[16:09] Speaker 2: a pretty rounded life, and number two, I'm not actually
[16:13] Speaker 2: frightened of anything, and that I think is very very
[16:19] Speaker 2: valuable asset given what I may well be facing in
[16:23] Speaker 2: two a three years time.
[16:24] Speaker 1: So let's talk about your political instincts. Then, can you
[16:29] Speaker 1: take those headphones because I want to play you something
[16:31] Speaker 1: that you said at SEAPAC, the big conservative political conference
[16:35] Speaker 1: earlier on this year. You've been close to the American
[16:38] Speaker 1: right for a long time, so you go to these
[16:39] Speaker 1: conferences and this is what you said in February twenty
[16:41] Speaker 1: twenty five.
[16:43] Speaker 3: Suddenly, post November the fifth, America is optimistic, it's upbeat.
[16:49] Speaker 3: It's the beginning of a golden age in America. In fact,
[16:53] Speaker 3: in many ways, that's what we're fighting for. A very
[16:57] Speaker 3: similar agenda to the one that you've just bought for.
[17:00] Speaker 3: I'm the one that you have just succeeded with. You're
[17:04] Speaker 3: going to make America great again, and we, in turn
[17:07] Speaker 3: will make Britain great again.
[17:10] Speaker 2: Thank you.
[17:13] Speaker 1: Well, well, hang on, I've got wait, listen, wait for
[17:15] Speaker 1: my question, which is that you use these words make
[17:19] Speaker 1: Britain great again. And I know that you have a
[17:21] Speaker 1: sense of history, and I know the past is important
[17:23] Speaker 1: to you. Sense of fun.
[17:26] Speaker 2: Say make Britain great again to an American audience, I've
[17:29] Speaker 2: just elected a president of make America great again? Is
[17:31] Speaker 2: quite fun.
[17:31] Speaker 1: So you didn't mean it, of course I meant it.
[17:34] Speaker 1: But that's what I understand what you mean by it,
[17:36] Speaker 1: because you have got a sense of history. I know
[17:38] Speaker 1: your grandparents about the past. Your grandfather had been wounded
[17:42] Speaker 1: in the First World War. What story did they tell
[17:46] Speaker 1: you about Britain's past? What is it that you think
[17:49] Speaker 1: of when you think of when Britain.
[17:50] Speaker 2: We had a stable society. We had belief things that
[17:56] Speaker 2: bound us, perhaps religion being one of them. And by
[18:00] Speaker 2: the way, government can't force people to believe, but there
[18:02] Speaker 2: was a shared sense of religion.
[18:05] Speaker 1: Are you a man of faith community?
[18:06] Speaker 2: Yes, I mean I have to say, struggling a bit.
[18:09] Speaker 1: Do you go to church?
[18:10] Speaker 2: Well, of course, I'm an Anglican. It's been a catastrophe
[18:13] Speaker 2: for twenty five years.
[18:15] Speaker 1: What the Church of englis So you believe, you believe,
[18:18] Speaker 1: but there's no church that you feel like at.
[18:21] Speaker 2: Well, if I was a more regular churchgoer, I probably
[18:23] Speaker 2: would have defected to the Catholics. Probably would have done,
[18:26] Speaker 2: haven't I haven't. I've thought about it a couple of times. No,
[18:29] Speaker 2: I think a sense of community, a sense of family.
[18:32] Speaker 2: I mean, frankly, you know the values around the meaning
[18:37] Speaker 2: of family, community, country. Those things were much stronger in
[18:41] Speaker 2: years that have gone by.
[18:42] Speaker 1: Which is which is the decade you're looking at? That's
[18:44] Speaker 1: what I'm curious about when you say the words when
[18:47] Speaker 1: Britain was great? What is in your mind? Which is
[18:50] Speaker 1: a decade?
[18:50] Speaker 2: Britain was great? Imperially, Britain was great, industrially, Britain was
[18:55] Speaker 2: great in terms of innovation. Britain was great in terms
[19:00] Speaker 2: actually in many ways, I think of taking some very
[19:03] Speaker 2: good things the large parts of the world. Britain was
[19:05] Speaker 2: great in leaving behind some amazing legacies Australia.
[19:10] Speaker 1: I'm wondering about what period when you when you look
[19:12] Speaker 1: to the past, are you thinking about the nineteen eighties
[19:15] Speaker 1: and the period you're really or are you thinking about
[19:17] Speaker 1: the First World War. Britain is a great power.
[19:19] Speaker 2: I think really what we did since six and eighty eight,
[19:20] Speaker 2: I think we were actually fortunate to have our servil.
[19:23] Speaker 1: But we're not going to go back to the seventeen.
[19:24] Speaker 2: Years I've just given you as.
[19:27] Speaker 1: A political leader, when you think of when you want
[19:31] Speaker 1: Britain to go back to because you to make Britain again,
[19:35] Speaker 1: what are you looking to.
[19:36] Speaker 2: I don't want Britain to go back anywhere. I want
[19:39] Speaker 2: Britain to go forwards. And that's really the point, and
[19:41] Speaker 2: it's one of the reasons why you know, I've been
[19:44] Speaker 2: very critical of the Government of the Bank of England,
[19:47] Speaker 2: very critical much of our economic policy. I think we
[19:51] Speaker 2: are stuck in a rut. I think we're stuck with
[19:56] Speaker 2: an old, out of touch globalist mindset about so many things. No, no, no, no.
[20:01] Speaker 2: You can respect your traditions, you can respect your past,
[20:03] Speaker 2: you can have a sense and a feeling of what
[20:06] Speaker 2: history is. I'm not going back anywhere I want to go.
[20:08] Speaker 2: I want us to be in the twenty first century.
[20:10] Speaker 2: We're not there. We're literally but here we are sitting.
[20:14] Speaker 2: I mean, I can see Saint Paul's as I'm talking
[20:16] Speaker 2: to you in the middle of the city of London.
[20:18] Speaker 2: We have a revolution going on, an economic, a money
[20:21] Speaker 2: revolution going on with digital assets, cryptocurrency. It's real. It's
[20:27] Speaker 2: growing very very quickly. And what's happening here nothing literally nothing.
[20:33] Speaker 1: Untested ideas in government, aren't they. I know you were
[20:35] Speaker 1: talking the other day about wanting to have a national
[20:37] Speaker 1: cryptocurrency reserve.
[20:38] Speaker 2: I'm really sorry, we don't know what that looks like. No,
[20:41] Speaker 2: because we're years and years behind the rest of the world.
[20:43] Speaker 2: Go to Miami, Go to Miami, Fly to Miami tonight,
[20:47] Speaker 2: and you tomorrow morning can go out and buy everything
[20:50] Speaker 2: from a Starbucks coffee to a Ferrari with a card
[20:54] Speaker 2: that you've loaded up from an a am in the
[20:57] Speaker 2: stry with bitcoin, ethereum or other currencies, and the world
[21:02] Speaker 2: is changing and we're not changing.
[21:04] Speaker 1: So if you think the bank, and if you think.
[21:06] Speaker 2: About it, there's one more point think about it. Actually,
[21:10] Speaker 2: we have been great innovators, you know, whether it's the
[21:13] Speaker 2: industrial revolution, whether it's the nuclear energy industry, which we
[21:16] Speaker 2: led the world in just a few decades ago. We're very,
[21:20] Speaker 2: very inventive. We're very creative. We're naturally a very entrepreneurial country.
[21:26] Speaker 2: I just believe we've lost a sense of all of that.
[21:29] Speaker 1: So the Bank of England, if you think they're so
[21:30] Speaker 1: out of step with where their focus should be in
[21:34] Speaker 1: your view, would you revoke their independence as Prime Minister?
[21:38] Speaker 2: Well, I think the bigg I mean the bigger mistake
[21:40] Speaker 2: was taking away banking regulation from an organization that have
[21:43] Speaker 2: been doing it since sixteen ninety four, gave it to
[21:46] Speaker 2: a bunch of tick box bureaucrats down in Canary Wharf.
[21:49] Speaker 1: Do you mean the financial conduct?
[21:50] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[21:51] Speaker 1: That so would you disband that?
[21:52] Speaker 2: They are useless? They are arterly useless.
[21:56] Speaker 1: We need a complete Would you do away with them?
[21:57] Speaker 2: We did a radical rethink of what they are, what
[21:59] Speaker 2: they're for, who they serve, what their purpose is.
[22:02] Speaker 1: Isn't the truth though? You? I mean you don't. Really,
[22:04] Speaker 1: it's not a question of who does the regulation. I
[22:06] Speaker 1: think you instinctively don't like regulation or regular don't you
[22:10] Speaker 1: see it as a hindrance, and other people might see
[22:12] Speaker 1: it as the things that protect us from wrongdoing. Actually
[22:15] Speaker 1: your mistakes.
[22:16] Speaker 2: Actually you're wrong. You're wrong, because my argument with crypto
[22:22] Speaker 2: with digital assets is we need a regulated market. Again,
[22:26] Speaker 2: you go back there in the medieval times, it was
[22:28] Speaker 2: all about having a basic framework of rules that consumers
[22:32] Speaker 2: and market users can trust. So I'm not against regulation.
[22:35] Speaker 2: I'm not a complete laisse fair merchant, but you have
[22:39] Speaker 2: to get that balance right.
[22:40] Speaker 1: But I think you are saying, as Prime Minister, you
[22:43] Speaker 1: are signaling that you'd be prepared to do away with
[22:45] Speaker 1: the Financial Conduct Authority, you would give those powers back
[22:49] Speaker 1: to the Bank of England.
[22:51] Speaker 2: I think we need a complete radical rethink. Yes on
[22:54] Speaker 2: many of these things, and the FCA has been a
[22:56] Speaker 2: total failure.
[22:57] Speaker 1: Would you sack Andrew Bailey's Bank of England?
[23:00] Speaker 2: I was debanked, you know, I was debanked. I was
[23:02] Speaker 2: rejected by ten other banks. I was literally being frozen
[23:08] Speaker 2: out of the financial system to the point I might
[23:10] Speaker 2: have had to leave the country, which indeed is what
[23:12] Speaker 2: they wanted and.
[23:13] Speaker 1: That became a big issue. And well, luckily you got
[23:16] Speaker 1: your accounts back.
[23:16] Speaker 2: Well luckily, I'm big enough and ugly enough to fight
[23:19] Speaker 2: my own corner. But there are thousands of people out
[23:21] Speaker 2: there who've been debanked because of excessive rules on anti
[23:26] Speaker 2: money laundering directives or whatever else it may be, who've
[23:29] Speaker 2: got no voice for themselves.
[23:30] Speaker 1: And what about the governor of the Bank of England,
[23:33] Speaker 1: Andrew big Well, he's a nice enough bloke, but would
[23:35] Speaker 1: he keep his job if you were.
[23:37] Speaker 2: Said, a good run, we might find someone new. Really,
[23:41] Speaker 2: he's had a.
[23:41] Speaker 1: Good run, so you are signaling you'd be I'm just
[23:46] Speaker 1: saying this is shade of President Trump at the federal
[23:49] Speaker 1: ry if.
[23:49] Speaker 2: Andrew Bailey wants to get with the twenty first century.
[23:52] Speaker 2: And by the way, there's one encouraging thing, because I
[23:55] Speaker 2: went to see him last month. He'd just put a
[23:58] Speaker 2: limit on the number of state coins any individual can hold.
[24:02] Speaker 2: I said, Andrew, this, this is ridiculous, this is dinosaur like.
[24:05] Speaker 2: Within a week he changed it, So maybe he was listening.
[24:08] Speaker 2: But the Bank of England, the British government, the regulator,
[24:12] Speaker 2: whatever shape that takes, they've all got to understand that
[24:15] Speaker 2: the world is changing, has changed very, very rapidly.
[24:19] Speaker 1: Okay, So the world has changed, not just the financial world,
[24:23] Speaker 1: the world more broadly. And if you were prime minister,
[24:25] Speaker 1: you'd have to have opinions and take advice and formulate
[24:29] Speaker 1: policy on a whole host of areas which you're not
[24:32] Speaker 1: known for talking about, such as social care, how you'd
[24:36] Speaker 1: feel vacancies in the social care sector and national security.
[24:41] Speaker 1: And there are people in the political establishment, labor figures,
[24:45] Speaker 1: conservative figures, including Boris Johnson, who think that you and
[24:48] Speaker 1: your party are soft on Russia.
[24:50] Speaker 2: Oh poor Boris. I feel sorry for I'm really I
[24:52] Speaker 2: guess if you failed that much you have to laugh
[24:54] Speaker 2: it out at somebody. Look, I mean, but I mean
[24:56] Speaker 2: this is of course politics and narratives, isn't it. You know,
[24:59] Speaker 2: just because fourteen thirteen years ago I said in an interview,
[25:05] Speaker 2: I thought Putin was a very effective political operator, but
[25:08] Speaker 2: not a nice human being. Suddenly you're a Putin supporter.
[25:12] Speaker 2: But enough, the year after I said that, the Queen
[25:13] Speaker 2: met him. Whether she was seen to be a collaborator,
[25:16] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[25:16] Speaker 1: I think it's all the accusations come from the fact
[25:19] Speaker 1: that you've said things in the past like no, you think, Nate,
[25:23] Speaker 1: what I'm going to say. You've suggested that NATO provoked
[25:27] Speaker 1: Putin into invading Ukraine.
[25:29] Speaker 2: The endless eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union,
[25:33] Speaker 2: and Kissinger warned about this years ago. We shouldn't have
[25:35] Speaker 2: done it, but that's in the past. We did it.
[25:37] Speaker 2: Putin's invaded. I was really hoping that Trump could bring
[25:42] Speaker 2: Putin to heal and that some kind of compromise could
[25:45] Speaker 2: be struck, as it's just been recently struck with Gaza
[25:48] Speaker 2: and Israel. Clearly that is not going to happen. Obviously,
[25:53] Speaker 2: Putin is a very bad dude.
[25:55] Speaker 1: Simple Why hasn't President Trump put more pressure on him?
[25:58] Speaker 2: Oh, he's putting huge pressure on, his pressure on India.
[26:01] Speaker 2: He's putting pressure on and I think himself, I think
[26:04] Speaker 2: Trump feels that puns met with all of him. And
[26:07] Speaker 2: clearly Putin is not a rational man. He wants to
[26:10] Speaker 2: come to a logical deal. So the idea that i'mselfd
[26:12] Speaker 2: on this is just nonsense.
[26:13] Speaker 1: Well, what put fire under the accusations was very recently
[26:16] Speaker 1: when the former leader of your party in Wales, Nathan Gill,
[26:20] Speaker 1: pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery, taking money from
[26:23] Speaker 1: someone described as a pawn of the Russian secret services.
[26:27] Speaker 2: Appalling, appalling, And he will go to prison for a
[26:29] Speaker 2: long time, at least I hope he does.
[26:31] Speaker 1: He was the leader of your past three three weeks.
[26:34] Speaker 1: But hang on, he's been on. He's been involved with KI,
[26:38] Speaker 1: he was involved in Brexit, the Brexit party, your former
[26:42] Speaker 1: party with. He's been at your years.
[26:45] Speaker 2: I've done it for twenty five years. He was unbelievably
[26:48] Speaker 2: you perhaps don't know this a bishop in the Mormon Church,
[26:54] Speaker 2: I mean, god fearing to a level I've almost never met.
[26:58] Speaker 2: I mean, so uncorrupted. I thought he wouldn't even drink coffee,
[27:01] Speaker 2: and there he was taking money to ask questions. Appaul,
[27:05] Speaker 2: is it just one bad without any shadow of it down?
[27:08] Speaker 1: You can assure voters that there is no one else
[27:11] Speaker 1: like Nathan Gillen reforms ranks.
[27:13] Speaker 2: If there were, if I even suspected it, they wouldn't
[27:17] Speaker 2: be let through the door.
[27:18] Speaker 1: And you're sure that no one else has taken money
[27:20] Speaker 1: from I'm.
[27:21] Speaker 2: Sure that my mother's not the mass murderer. There's nothing
[27:24] Speaker 2: sure as that, you know, I mean, how can you
[27:26] Speaker 2: be sure of anything in life? Well, you know, the
[27:27] Speaker 2: question itself is you didn't know. The question itself is
[27:30] Speaker 2: a stupid question. You know that, and I know that
[27:32] Speaker 2: I believe one hundred percent with all my heart was
[27:34] Speaker 2: nobody else.
[27:35] Speaker 1: Can I just quickly then understand your instincts on Russia
[27:39] Speaker 1: a bit more fully with a few scenarios. So if
[27:43] Speaker 1: you were Prime Minister and NATO jets entered Russian jets
[27:48] Speaker 1: entered NATO airspace, where do you stand on that?
[27:51] Speaker 2: Do you think they should be to shoot them down?
[27:52] Speaker 1: No questions? Whatever? That does? How much that inflames tensions?
[27:56] Speaker 1: Russian needs to be taught to lessons and.
[27:58] Speaker 2: Love trying heart. I'm the only person in the world
[28:01] Speaker 2: I think that stood up in the European Parliament in
[28:04] Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, and do you know what I said? There
[28:08] Speaker 2: will be a war in Ukraine. It's coming. I'm the
[28:11] Speaker 2: only person that got it right. I might have made
[28:14] Speaker 2: one comment once thirteen years ago that said I admired
[28:18] Speaker 2: him as a political operator, but not as a human being,
[28:21] Speaker 2: and I'd never live in Russia. Period.
[28:23] Speaker 1: Okay, frozen assets, Russian frozen acids should be used to
[28:26] Speaker 1: help go on as.
[28:27] Speaker 2: Long as you like. I've made the position perfectly clear.
[28:29] Speaker 1: No, what's the answer to that.
[28:30] Speaker 2: They would be they're in Belgium.
[28:32] Speaker 1: So they should be they should be used.
[28:34] Speaker 2: You better ask the Belgian government, but clearly if they're
[28:36] Speaker 2: there through illegal means, they should see.
[28:38] Speaker 1: Your instincts is as British Prime Minister do.
[28:41] Speaker 2: My instinct is I think Putin's a really bad blow.
[28:43] Speaker 2: And you can and you can sit me here for
[28:44] Speaker 2: an hour, you're going to get nowhere.
[28:46] Speaker 1: You put British troops on the ground in most of
[28:49] Speaker 1: all Ukraine after its cease.
[28:50] Speaker 2: Fire, I'd be very cautious about doing that might put
[28:53] Speaker 2: a un force. When I put the British Army badge
[28:56] Speaker 2: that badged as a British Army, be deeply deeply.
[28:59] Speaker 1: Thought because you'd be worried about them being a target
[29:02] Speaker 1: for the Russian.
[29:03] Speaker 2: Be deeply thoughtful about doing that, and it wouldn't make everything.
[29:06] Speaker 1: You see exactly. That kind of thing is what gives
[29:10] Speaker 1: hearing something caveat is what gives Russia courage.
[29:15] Speaker 2: You are quite right, I'm not a warmonger. Rather like
[29:18] Speaker 2: President Trump, I'm not a warmonger. Those that went before
[29:20] Speaker 2: have been persistent warmongers. I'm not. I happen to think
[29:25] Speaker 2: that what the UN did in career was remarkable, and
[29:29] Speaker 2: still over seventy years on, has held and South Korea
[29:33] Speaker 2: has become just, I mean, the most incredible country, which
[29:36] Speaker 2: by the way, does things far better than we do
[29:38] Speaker 2: in terms of building nuclear energy and much else. That
[29:41] Speaker 2: would be the right way to go forward.
[30:01] Speaker 1: So let's talk about areas then, where your agenda. As
[30:05] Speaker 1: you said in that clip, we heard a moment ago
[30:07] Speaker 1: where your agenda is similar to the Trump administrations, for example,
[30:10] Speaker 1: on migration. Both your party and prisident Trump's Republicans feel
[30:14] Speaker 1: very well what he's done, strongly about that.
[30:16] Speaker 2: What he's done is amazing.
[30:17] Speaker 1: So would you want ICE style raids taking place here
[30:21] Speaker 1: to deport the six hundred thousand people in five years
[30:24] Speaker 1: you wanted to?
[30:25] Speaker 2: I think it's really I think what I think. Let's
[30:26] Speaker 2: see this is again. You know, I was with Tom Homan,
[30:29] Speaker 2: who was his Borders are a few weeks ago to
[30:33] Speaker 2: try and find out what's really going on in America.
[30:35] Speaker 2: It's really interesting. Border crossings are down ninety seven percent
[30:40] Speaker 2: since Trump came to power. But the interesting thing is
[30:42] Speaker 2: about deportations. So they have a thousand ICE squads out
[30:47] Speaker 2: around America knocking on doors saying you're here illegally and
[30:53] Speaker 2: you've got two choices. Number One, you can go. We'll
[30:57] Speaker 2: fund your return. We'll give you a few dollars. We'll
[31:01] Speaker 2: say to you that you can legally if you want,
[31:05] Speaker 2: apply for skills VIASA in the years to come to
[31:08] Speaker 2: come back to America, and if we think you're going
[31:10] Speaker 2: to be a productive member of the economy and of society,
[31:13] Speaker 2: will let you in.
[31:14] Speaker 1: Is that what you want? The ice raids are done
[31:16] Speaker 1: by masked armed men who jump out of vehicles grab people.
[31:21] Speaker 2: That's your media narrative. I've just told you what's happening
[31:24] Speaker 2: and what is really.
[31:25] Speaker 1: If you have masks, don't they and guns and they
[31:27] Speaker 1: do go into work ploce as.
[31:28] Speaker 2: I mean, I would hope actually homes if they didn't
[31:30] Speaker 2: have guns, they'll be mad.
[31:32] Speaker 1: Would you want that here? That's really because this interview
[31:34] Speaker 1: is about what you would do as prime minister.
[31:36] Speaker 2: Do you know how many people have voluntarily left America
[31:38] Speaker 2: in eight months? One point six million. It is truly remarkable.
[31:43] Speaker 2: One point six million people have peacefully with incentives not
[31:49] Speaker 2: just to leave, but potential. I want to understand the potential.
[31:52] Speaker 1: What lessons you're taking for the UK.
[31:54] Speaker 2: For what I'm learning is if you do things well
[31:57] Speaker 2: and do things properly, it can be highly effective.
[31:59] Speaker 1: So is that to yes to ice style raids in
[32:02] Speaker 1: the UK?
[32:03] Speaker 2: It's we're not America. We'll do it our way, not
[32:07] Speaker 2: the America.
[32:07] Speaker 1: So what is that? Does our way involve the army?
[32:10] Speaker 2: Our way will involve border Force doing the job that
[32:13] Speaker 2: they would so desperately like to do.
[32:16] Speaker 1: That's the job they do. Now, how would it be?
[32:19] Speaker 2: Would you use the army now? At the moment border
[32:20] Speaker 2: Force are a taxi service and they hate it, so
[32:23] Speaker 2: you use the army. They absolutely hate doing what they're doing,
[32:28] Speaker 2: which is why say many people resign.
[32:31] Speaker 1: Sad saving people essentially in the channel and bringing them
[32:35] Speaker 1: to short You may see that what you mean by
[32:38] Speaker 1: the teche No, that's what in me. I think that's
[32:39] Speaker 1: what you're referring to.
[32:41] Speaker 2: French Navy. Bring them across, French Navy, bring them acrass.
[32:44] Speaker 2: It's got them all the way. Border Force picked them up,
[32:47] Speaker 2: bring them in. They tuck their passports in the sea,
[32:49] Speaker 2: they chuck their phones in the sea, and we're supposed
[32:51] Speaker 2: to just put up with it.
[32:54] Speaker 1: Really important is to understand how because the numbers you've
[32:56] Speaker 1: said you would deport are really significant six hundred thousand
[32:59] Speaker 1: over five year, which is why I'm interested in the methods.
[33:02] Speaker 2: Look, I think the truth is that most people who
[33:04] Speaker 2: were caught, who were in Britain illegally, if we do
[33:07] Speaker 2: it nicely and do it properly, will accept they have
[33:10] Speaker 2: to go.
[33:10] Speaker 1: It's about nine thousand a year currently, and to meet
[33:14] Speaker 1: your target you'd be increasing that by ten times. Do
[33:17] Speaker 1: you think you can?
[33:18] Speaker 2: I think we can. Of course theory reality, being in government,
[33:23] Speaker 2: I get all of that. I understand all of that.
[33:26] Speaker 2: Is it doable, yes, But there is a very important
[33:29] Speaker 2: message here. Very I mean, in most countries in the world,
[33:33] Speaker 2: if you enter illegally, you are chucked in prison. Literally,
[33:37] Speaker 2: in a majority of countries in the world, illegal entry
[33:40] Speaker 2: means immedia in prison.
[33:42] Speaker 1: So is that what you do? People would arrive and
[33:44] Speaker 1: they would be put in prison immediately detain.
[33:47] Speaker 2: Well, that's what I didn't say, and you said.
[33:49] Speaker 1: It, that's right, said what do you say?
[33:51] Speaker 2: Said, that's fine, I'm not playing games. I'm not playing games.
[33:54] Speaker 2: People would be detained.
[33:55] Speaker 1: And deported dead simple in prison.
[33:58] Speaker 2: There are plenty of X military bases we can keep.
[34:00] Speaker 2: But the point, Look, you know, it's very interesting. Australia
[34:03] Speaker 2: had all this in twenty twelve. They stopped it within
[34:06] Speaker 2: a fortnight. Within a fortnight, no one came illegally you
[34:08] Speaker 2: know why they were taied back to Indonesia. It can
[34:11] Speaker 2: be done. It's about political will, it's about being tough
[34:14] Speaker 2: for a short period of time. It can be done.
[34:17] Speaker 2: It can be done.
[34:17] Speaker 1: You've got a big pledge also to cut significant amounts
[34:21] Speaker 1: of government waste. I know you're rethinking your economic plans,
[34:24] Speaker 1: but there is a figure in your principles, not the
[34:26] Speaker 1: broad print. Well, what about the amounts that it says
[34:28] Speaker 1: in this from last year that you would cut waste
[34:32] Speaker 1: by the tune government waste to save fifty billion pounds
[34:36] Speaker 1: a year. Is that still yeah? That was about That's
[34:38] Speaker 1: still the plan that was about.
[34:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, actually we'd probably go further than that.
[34:41] Speaker 1: I mean, you get more than more.
[34:43] Speaker 2: Malay and Argentina's shown that you can do it, but
[34:46] Speaker 2: you have to work out doing it what the cost
[34:48] Speaker 2: of that is.
[34:48] Speaker 1: You must discover that he couldn't cut nearly as much
[34:51] Speaker 1: as he hoped to. Initially he said to had to
[34:54] Speaker 1: have that, and then it went.
[34:55] Speaker 2: To be fair. Malay has to be fair, Malay has
[34:57] Speaker 2: but look, we're test bedding this in the in the
[35:00] Speaker 2: local councils that we won last May. Well, we've cut
[35:02] Speaker 2: about half a billion so far. You know, it's a
[35:05] Speaker 2: very good start in six months.
[35:07] Speaker 1: What happens if you were elected to government and you're
[35:10] Speaker 1: Prime minister and you find out that you can't find
[35:12] Speaker 1: the savings you want, you're in the process of rethinking
[35:16] Speaker 1: your economic polity kinds of tax cutting plans which are
[35:21] Speaker 1: now having to be rethought. Is that because they were unworkable.
[35:24] Speaker 2: Net zero thirty billion saved, cutbacks and civil service tens
[35:30] Speaker 2: of billions saved. But of course the big one, the
[35:33] Speaker 2: big one, and the thing that I've got to think
[35:35] Speaker 2: out far more fully is the whole explosion of disability payments.
[35:42] Speaker 1: And you are in midster having seriously what I want
[35:45] Speaker 1: to ask you is that you people said about your
[35:48] Speaker 1: plans to spend and to tax cuts that they were
[35:51] Speaker 1: unworkable and they were fantasy economics, and the fact that
[35:54] Speaker 1: you're having to rethink them suggested, well.
[35:56] Speaker 2: I'm not rethinking they were right. I suspect what we
[35:58] Speaker 2: come back will be a lot more out of it
[36:00] Speaker 2: than what you saw there.
[36:02] Speaker 1: More radical in which way more tax.
[36:04] Speaker 2: Well, as I said to you before I came and
[36:05] Speaker 2: did this, I'm going to be laying out some economic
[36:07] Speaker 2: stuff between now and the budget. In terms of speeches.
[36:10] Speaker 2: What is for certain? I tell it what is for
[36:12] Speaker 2: certain with the economy. And we touched on this right
[36:15] Speaker 2: at the beginning. We touched on this place in the eighties,
[36:19] Speaker 2: but we could go more broadly across the country. In
[36:22] Speaker 2: the eighties there was an attitudinal change towards work, towards
[36:28] Speaker 2: having a go, towards risk, which I'm pro. I'm very
[36:32] Speaker 2: pro risk. I'm very pro individuals taking risk. I don't
[36:35] Speaker 2: believe we should protect people from themselves. We should allow
[36:38] Speaker 2: them to go out and have a go. We need
[36:41] Speaker 2: an attitudinal change towards success, towards money, towards business, towards
[36:47] Speaker 2: tax and incentives. And this is stuff that you can't
[36:53] Speaker 2: necessarily write in a manifesto.
[36:55] Speaker 1: Well you're going to have to do though, Well, no
[36:56] Speaker 1: you can't.
[36:57] Speaker 2: You can't attitudeal stuff. You can't. You cannot, right, you cannot.
[37:01] Speaker 1: It's called a contract anymore.
[37:04] Speaker 2: You've been at the BBC all your life. I don't
[37:06] Speaker 2: think you understand what I'm saying. I'm talking about attitudinal
[37:09] Speaker 2: change within society. You can't put any of that in manifestos.
[37:13] Speaker 2: It's about a buzz, it's about a vibe, it's about
[37:16] Speaker 2: how a country feels. And and you know one of
[37:19] Speaker 2: the reasons, and you know you played that tape to
[37:21] Speaker 2: me earlier. You know what is interesting about Trump's America?
[37:25] Speaker 2: And there are bits of it you can dislike or
[37:26] Speaker 2: like or whatever. What is interesting about Trump's America is
[37:30] Speaker 2: a lot more people in America are having a go.
[37:32] Speaker 2: They're setting up companies, they're borrowing money, they're taking risks.
[37:36] Speaker 2: We need to get to that place. And and as
[37:38] Speaker 2: I say, you can't put in a piece of paper,
[37:40] Speaker 2: and one thing, I'm certain.
[37:41] Speaker 1: You're gonna have to inspire people, aren't you.
[37:43] Speaker 2: That's right, That's exactly which.
[37:45] Speaker 1: Takes me back to where I started that are you
[37:47] Speaker 1: going to be someone who brings people together? Because you're
[37:50] Speaker 1: known for turning the fire on people, You're not known
[37:53] Speaker 1: for being someone who I don't know, appeals right across
[37:56] Speaker 1: the country, has a common message that.
[37:59] Speaker 2: I'm there, I think, you know, give me.
[38:01] Speaker 1: An inspirational message. What is great about Britain today?
[38:04] Speaker 2: Even in my time, even in my time in the
[38:07] Speaker 2: European Parliament, where perhaps I achieved some level of infamy.
[38:11] Speaker 2: Was I turning my fire on people? No, I was
[38:13] Speaker 2: just teasing them. I was just teasing them. They were
[38:16] Speaker 2: turning their far on me. I mean, we just had
[38:17] Speaker 2: a party conference seas and where the levels of insightful
[38:20] Speaker 2: abuse that have come from Starmar in his cabinet are
[38:23] Speaker 2: off the scale. I've never behaved like that, not with anybody.
[38:25] Speaker 2: I might have strong opinions, I might express what I
[38:28] Speaker 2: believe in strongly, what I'm against very strongly. I don't
[38:32] Speaker 2: think if you look through my political career that you
[38:35] Speaker 2: will find personal invective. You'll find teasing and not much
[38:39] Speaker 2: more than that. We have to we have to have
[38:43] Speaker 2: a vibe, a buzz that says to young people setting
[38:48] Speaker 2: up businesses, taking risk, even having failures, even having failures
[38:53] Speaker 2: along the way is a good thing, not a bad thing.
[38:56] Speaker 2: And you know something I might succeed, I might fail.
[38:59] Speaker 2: I accept that. Yeah, but I'm going to have a guy.
[39:01] Speaker 1: If you don't succeed as Prime minister, it's not the
[39:04] Speaker 1: same as your personal success. That's about the fortunes of
[39:07] Speaker 1: the country that are riding on that. So we're going
[39:10] Speaker 1: to need more than a vibe.
[39:10] Speaker 2: Well, I think the two are the same thing. We're
[39:12] Speaker 2: in that much trouble. We're in that much trouble.
[39:15] Speaker 1: Well, you as you as one man, and the vibe
[39:18] Speaker 1: you create.
[39:20] Speaker 2: There's a whole movement here now. There's a whole movement
[39:22] Speaker 2: here now, and you've seen and I'm sitting talking to you.
[39:25] Speaker 2: I don't do many interviews these days. I allow others
[39:27] Speaker 2: to go and do it. There's a much broader range
[39:29] Speaker 2: of talent, you know, that has come on the scene
[39:32] Speaker 2: for the party. We're building a mass membership very rapidly.
[39:37] Speaker 1: You see. I know you're a risk taker, but I
[39:39] Speaker 1: think the moment of real risk that exists for your
[39:41] Speaker 1: party right now is that you've had this sustained period
[39:43] Speaker 1: where you've been rising in the opinion polls while you've
[39:46] Speaker 1: been making big promises on spending, on big tax cuts,
[39:51] Speaker 1: and now you're at a point where're having to rethink
[39:53] Speaker 1: your economic policy and it's it's probably going to be
[39:58] Speaker 1: much more like to make reality.
[40:00] Speaker 2: We're going to make bigger propose. We're going to make
[40:01] Speaker 2: even bigger proper.
[40:02] Speaker 1: That's not the signals that your people in your party
[40:05] Speaker 1: are setting out. They're saying you're going to have a
[40:06] Speaker 1: fully costed manifest facing the same realities that other parties.
[40:12] Speaker 2: Well, look, we're in goment.
[40:12] Speaker 1: Maybe you're not special.
[40:13] Speaker 2: We're in government now. We're in government now, in the
[40:15] Speaker 2: local government. You know, we're going to do our damned
[40:18] Speaker 2: list to be in government in Wales next May. We
[40:20] Speaker 2: may or may not succeed, but we're going to do
[40:22] Speaker 2: our damned list. I won't have to be judged by
[40:24] Speaker 2: what we do. I accept that.
[40:25] Speaker 1: So is Donald Trump a role model for you for government.
[40:29] Speaker 2: In terms of standing up for the national interest above
[40:35] Speaker 2: all else. Yes, in terms of keeping promises that you
[40:42] Speaker 2: made the electorate. Yes, there are many other areas in
[40:45] Speaker 2: which we might disagree or might do things. Which are
[40:47] Speaker 2: the areas that there are other areas that might disagree,
[40:49] Speaker 2: social policy, et cetera. We might see things differently. But
[40:53] Speaker 2: the fundamentalism of Trump is you tell the electorate I'm
[40:57] Speaker 2: going to do X, and you actually do it. And
[41:00] Speaker 2: that's what he's doing. And you know, and we might
[41:02] Speaker 2: look at I mean, look, you know, you and I
[41:05] Speaker 2: consider over coup of see and talk about some of
[41:07] Speaker 2: the tariff machinations and say to ourselves, what the hell
[41:10] Speaker 2: is going on, or we could go back to the
[41:13] Speaker 2: thirties and think about tariffs and damage it's done to
[41:15] Speaker 2: the economy or et cetera.
[41:16] Speaker 1: Do you think he's damaging them?
[41:18] Speaker 2: It's irrelevant. No, no, no, no, listen to me. It's irrelevant.
[41:22] Speaker 2: He promised the American public he'd used tariffs as a weapon.
[41:24] Speaker 2: He's doing it, so he is. So is he to
[41:27] Speaker 2: a large extent restoring faith in the democratic system. Yes,
[41:31] Speaker 2: and we will have to if we succeed. There is
[41:33] Speaker 2: a long way to go. As I said said to
[41:35] Speaker 2: you earlier halfway through the marathon, if we succeed, we
[41:38] Speaker 2: must do the same. Because one of the reasons why
[41:41] Speaker 2: reform is doing so well is there is a complete
[41:43] Speaker 2: breakdown of trust. No one believes a blooming thing.
[41:46] Speaker 1: The other parties say, I think you could be part
[41:48] Speaker 1: of that breakdown of trust because this document which said
[41:51] Speaker 1: our contract with you, it's a contract with the voters.
[41:53] Speaker 1: It's the document you stood on last year.
[41:55] Speaker 2: I didn't write it. I inherited it to be fair.
[41:59] Speaker 1: Lead standing there face Your face is right there on
[42:02] Speaker 1: the front.
[42:03] Speaker 2: Came in after it was published to be fair, and
[42:05] Speaker 2: we changed the front page. But look are the principles
[42:08] Speaker 2: right within it? Yes, can we but.
[42:11] Speaker 1: There are numbers in it. It's put forward as a
[42:13] Speaker 1: contract breakdown of trust. And you've been sort of a
[42:17] Speaker 1: breakdown of trust.
[42:18] Speaker 2: You have you seen what the concern is your interview?
[42:23] Speaker 1: If you complain about a breakdown of trust, don't you
[42:25] Speaker 1: have to stick to your I stick.
[42:27] Speaker 2: To I would like nobody in Britain to pay income
[42:29] Speaker 2: tax until they end twenty thousand pounds.
[42:31] Speaker 1: And when do you think you'd be able to deliver
[42:33] Speaker 1: that in government?
[42:33] Speaker 2: I will answer that over the course of the next
[42:35] Speaker 2: few weeks, not today, as I told you before I
[42:37] Speaker 2: came on here. But do I want to want of that? Yes?
[42:41] Speaker 2: Is it realistic immediately we're in government? No, and those
[42:44] Speaker 2: circumstances are changed. Are the principles, aspirations and even the
[42:51] Speaker 2: numbers that are set out there wrong? No they're not.
[42:55] Speaker 2: They're right. But it's all about getting things in the
[42:58] Speaker 2: right order.
[43:00] Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Weekend interview. I wondered if you
[43:03] Speaker 1: get one these days, because you are more in demand
[43:07] Speaker 1: than ever before. According to your team, you're meeting presidents,
[43:10] Speaker 1: prime ministers and kings from the Middle East these days.
[43:14] Speaker 2: I wouldn't comment on that particularly, but King or at
[43:17] Speaker 2: least I remember, and if I do, it, wouldn't tell you.
[43:19] Speaker 2: I wouldn't tell you. I wouldn't do.
[43:20] Speaker 1: You know what I'm it's inaccurate that you're meeting Trstan's
[43:23] Speaker 1: Prime Minister and kings from the Middley.
[43:24] Speaker 2: Do you know what. One of the reasons I've survived
[43:26] Speaker 2: so long in public lives, I'm very discreet and you know,
[43:29] Speaker 2: if I have private meanings with people, I never discuss it.
[43:32] Speaker 1: It's one of your senior supporters and donors who said this.
[43:35] Speaker 2: Well, I don't know who he is or she is,
[43:36] Speaker 2: but well, well I wouldn't comment on it, all right,
[43:40] Speaker 2: I wouldn't comment on it. I don't comment on things
[43:42] Speaker 2: like that, and people trust me because of that, you know,
[43:44] Speaker 2: I keep confidence.
[43:45] Speaker 1: But you are in circles you haven't been in before.
[43:48] Speaker 2: That's fair, That's fair, I mean, that is fair. Yeah.
[43:51] Speaker 2: I think a lot of people around the world think
[43:53] Speaker 2: we are going to win the next election just because
[43:55] Speaker 2: they people that you know, like this country, see what
[43:58] Speaker 2: a mess has got itself into.
[44:00] Speaker 1: See it's a long haul because technically it's not due
[44:03] Speaker 1: for another four years and the current government has a
[44:05] Speaker 1: large authority do you think you can sustain the level
[44:08] Speaker 1: of engagement you need to still be in this position
[44:13] Speaker 1: in four years time. You're not really known for you
[44:18] Speaker 1: stuck at the idea of wanting you ab out of
[44:19] Speaker 1: the European Union, but you've had a number of different
[44:22] Speaker 1: parties over the years.
[44:24] Speaker 2: I stuck at it more than anybody. I've been doing
[44:25] Speaker 2: this since nineteen ninety three. Did I finally retire on
[44:29] Speaker 2: the thirty first of January twenty twenty, Yes, I did.
[44:31] Speaker 1: That was it?
[44:32] Speaker 2: I had done with it. I came back into politics
[44:35] Speaker 2: last year. It was probably the toughest decision in my life.
[44:39] Speaker 2: You know, I turned sixty last year. Life pretty settled,
[44:43] Speaker 2: some good jobs, a company being quite successful in a
[44:46] Speaker 2: variety of areas, first couple of grandkids born. You know,
[44:50] Speaker 2: life was pretty good. So I knew I was making
[44:52] Speaker 2: a big sacrifice coming back into it, and I'm determined
[44:56] Speaker 2: to make it a success. And I think I've been
[45:00] Speaker 2: very you know, we talked about persistent, but I've generally
[45:03] Speaker 2: been pretty consistent in the kind of values and views
[45:08] Speaker 2: and beliefs that have had. And can I sustain it
[45:12] Speaker 2: for four years? Yep? It's a long haul, but yep,
[45:16] Speaker 2: can the government sustain it for four years, I think
[45:19] Speaker 2: very unlikely. And I think, you know, just as you've
[45:22] Speaker 2: seen reform take over the center right of British politics,
[45:27] Speaker 2: I think there's a massive change on the left about
[45:29] Speaker 2: to come. And I think that I think that the
[45:32] Speaker 2: government will be forced by twenty seven into a genuine
[45:37] Speaker 2: austerity budget. I mean, a real austerity budget. Just the markets,
[45:42] Speaker 2: you know, are going to demand that. And I suspect
[45:45] Speaker 2: at that moment the left of British politics splits in
[45:48] Speaker 2: a very very dramatic way. And I think the growth
[45:51] Speaker 2: of the Greens, the Corbynites, the sort of urban left
[45:58] Speaker 2: of politics, those who vote on gaza and religion more
[46:02] Speaker 2: than British issues, all of those things, I think they
[46:06] Speaker 2: will struggle to see our twenty seven.
[46:08] Speaker 1: That's why you think there'll be a general election?
[46:10] Speaker 2: Then I do.
[46:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, I want to know what sustains you. Is
[46:14] Speaker 1: it true you read constantly?
[46:16] Speaker 2: I do read a lot, Yeah, I do read a lot.
[46:18] Speaker 1: What are you reading at the moment?
[46:19] Speaker 2: Well, I'm The last book I read was mister Bellfour's Poodle,
[46:22] Speaker 2: which is about the constitutional crisis between the.
[46:25] Speaker 1: Commons of the Lords early twentieth century.
[46:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, the principles are exactly the same. And by the way,
[46:29] Speaker 2: the Salisbury Convention has been there since nineteen eleven, And so.
[46:32] Speaker 1: How are you interested in that?
[46:34] Speaker 2: Because say we get elected on the manifesto to say
[46:36] Speaker 2: we're going to do X, Y and z. What if
[46:37] Speaker 2: the House what if the House of Lords would have
[46:39] Speaker 2: block us? The what if the civil service would have
[46:42] Speaker 2: block us? These are all the things that we're thinking
[46:44] Speaker 2: and going through at the moment.
[46:45] Speaker 1: You're going back one hundred years to try and find
[46:46] Speaker 1: the answers to that.
[46:47] Speaker 2: Principles don't change over centuries. What else are you reading
[46:50] Speaker 2: over centuries? Principles day.
[46:52] Speaker 1: How do you like poetry?
[46:54] Speaker 2: Like a little bit of poetry? I wouldn't say hugely.
[46:56] Speaker 2: I read. I like biography, I like history. My current book,
[47:01] Speaker 2: which i've really barely started, is written by the former
[47:04] Speaker 2: Prime Minister of Armenia, and it's about how small states
[47:07] Speaker 2: can survive in the big wide world. Sarkasan is his name.
[47:10] Speaker 1: He wrote everything you're reading is kind of part of
[47:13] Speaker 1: your homework if you like for government. Is that the case?
[47:16] Speaker 1: What do you do to actually put your head in
[47:17] Speaker 1: a different place?
[47:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I like to go out walk when
[47:22] Speaker 2: I get time. I like to fish. I like a
[47:25] Speaker 2: day at the races. I like the odd day at
[47:27] Speaker 2: the cricket. There are things I enjoy doing. No, the
[47:30] Speaker 2: truth is, I mean, look, we are living in a
[47:32] Speaker 2: twenty four to seven media environment. I am a political entrepreneur.
[47:38] Speaker 2: Even though I'm trying to shed responsibilities of the party
[47:42] Speaker 2: for the moment, I'm still the main entry point for
[47:46] Speaker 2: most new people that want to give money or stand
[47:48] Speaker 2: as candidates. And so most of my life these days,
[47:52] Speaker 2: believe it or not, is focusing on what's beneath the bonnet,
[47:55] Speaker 2: focusing on the structure of the party, focusing on the
[47:58] Speaker 2: funding of the party, focusing on making sure that across
[48:02] Speaker 2: all the regions of the United Kingdom we're prepared. And
[48:05] Speaker 2: I just sort of say this to you, sort of
[48:07] Speaker 2: towards the end that I don't think anyone's yet really understood.
[48:12] Speaker 2: Next May May the sixth next year is the British
[48:17] Speaker 2: equivalent of the midterms in America. These are elections of
[48:21] Speaker 2: a magnitude and a significance that almost nobody yet understands.
[48:26] Speaker 1: To close, I want to go back to where I
[48:27] Speaker 1: began and the kind of person you're known for, and
[48:30] Speaker 1: the kind of person you'd have to be if you're
[48:32] Speaker 1: to be a great prime minister. What would you say
[48:36] Speaker 1: to someone who worries that you might deport their grandmother
[48:40] Speaker 1: or you might not be a leader for them because
[48:44] Speaker 1: they are not white or they're Muslim. No, what would
[48:47] Speaker 1: you say to that?
[48:48] Speaker 2: There are people give me a message to say the
[48:50] Speaker 2: questions beneath you. But I would also say this if
[48:53] Speaker 2: you the only people that call me a racist tend
[48:55] Speaker 2: to be called Jocasta and have gone to Saint Mary's
[48:58] Speaker 2: Ascot and be upper middle class and very snobby.
[49:01] Speaker 1: Is that to someone who'd be worried about you as surprised?
[49:04] Speaker 1: What is your message of unity? Do you have one?
[49:07] Speaker 2: Our message for unity is if you're in this country legally,
[49:11] Speaker 2: whether you've been a for one generation or one hundred
[49:13] Speaker 2: and fifty generations, if you're paying your taxes, obeying the law,
[49:17] Speaker 2: being part of our community, recognizing there is commonality between
[49:22] Speaker 2: all of us, whilst we're different, things that we share.
[49:26] Speaker 2: You're incredibly welcome, But are we here to be the
[49:29] Speaker 2: dumping ground of the world. Are we here to be
[49:31] Speaker 2: the food bank of the world. Are we here to
[49:33] Speaker 2: have uncontrolled, massive legal immigration changing our culture in dangerous
[49:38] Speaker 2: women on our streets now on that we're going to
[49:41] Speaker 2: get really, really tough, and I think you'll be very,
[49:44] Speaker 2: very surprised how many people from all different backgrounds of
[49:48] Speaker 2: religions from all over the world support that message and
[49:51] Speaker 2: want that as the country that they've either been born
[49:54] Speaker 2: into or chosen to live in.
[49:57] Speaker 1: Nasure Parish. Thank you, thank you, And that's the Michelle
[50:04] Speaker 1: Hussein Show for this week. To make sure you never
[50:07] Speaker 1: miss an episode, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts,
[50:11] Speaker 1: and if you want to leave us a comment while
[50:13] Speaker 1: you're there, I'm told that's a good thing. If you'd
[50:17] Speaker 1: like to see my conversation with Nigel Farash, you'll find
[50:19] Speaker 1: the video online and at bloomberg dot com Slash Weekend
[50:23] Speaker 1: you'll find the written version of this interview with a
[50:26] Speaker 1: portrait of Nigel Faraj and my notes why I asked,
[50:30] Speaker 1: what I did and the context around it. The Michelle
[50:35] Speaker 1: Hussein Show is produced by Jessica Beck and Chris Martlu.
[50:38] Speaker 1: Guest booking by Dave Warren, Social media by Alex Morgan.
[50:42] Speaker 1: Our sound engineers are Blake Maples and Kyle Murdoch. Our
[50:46] Speaker 1: video editors are Laura Francis and Toby Babalola. Our executive
[50:51] Speaker 1: producer is Louisa Lewis. Brendan Francis Newnham is Editorial director
[50:56] Speaker 1: of Audio and Special Projects for Bloomberg Weekend. Katherine Bell
[51:01] Speaker 1: is the executive editor of Weekend. Our music is composed
[51:05] Speaker 1: by Bot Walshaw and we'd also like to thank Will Shaw,
[51:08] Speaker 1: Alana Susnow, Victoria Wakeley, Adam Blenford, Sammasadi and Sage Bauman
[51:15] Speaker 1: and thank you for listening. Come back next Weekend

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