00:00Rupert Lowe, we love a plot in politics.
00:02We love a tryst and illicit meeting.
00:05You met with Robert Jemmerich.
00:07What was on the menu?
00:09Well, look, Martin, it's a pleasure to be back
00:11with my old ex-MEP colleague from the West Midlands.
00:16It's been some time since I was...
00:18There was an attempted political assassination attempt against me
00:21which could have landed me in prison with no basis to it.
00:25But anyway, here I am. I'm in rude health.
00:28I'm actually enjoying a bit of a parliamentary recess,
00:30getting a dose of reality down in the country
00:33and keeping my feet firmly on the ground
00:35and out of the what I call loony bin of Parliament.
00:40But look, I mean, I had lunch with Robert Jemmerich
00:44probably three months ago at my club
00:46and I simply had lunch with him at his club.
00:50I've always said, since my political assassination,
00:54which was very clumsy and arguably somewhat unchristian,
00:58I have all options open.
01:02And I have to confess, I was not expecting to be politically taken out
01:06like a sort of wing forward takes out the scrum half if he can.
01:13But I'm now free.
01:16I've got lots of options open to me.
01:18I'm not plotting to do any badness to anybody else.
01:24What I'm intent on doing, and I think I've made this clear,
01:26is changing the way Britain's governed by 2029.
01:30And I've now got to turn my mind to finding a way to do that.
01:33I personally, having witnessed, having come from the real world
01:37and having now witnessed the way Parliament operates,
01:40the way the civil service operates,
01:42the way the front bench operates,
01:43the way the Labour government is basically surrendering
01:48vast tracts of British sovereign territory
01:51with absolutely, you know, almost with a smile on their faces.
01:54They speak with forked tongue.
01:57So I think collectively,
02:00the British people who care about the country
02:02have to now find a solution
02:04to changing the way we're governed by 2029.
02:08And that's what I'm turning my mind to.
02:10So talking to the Tories, I talk to all the Tories a lot.
02:14You know, they knew that the attempt
02:16to politically assassinate me was a farce.
02:19OK.
02:19Ruben, can we stop dwelling on that, please?
02:25You've made that point now about five times.
02:28But rather than being cold-shouldered, Martin,
02:30I've been talking to them.
02:32There's some great young Tories.
02:34OK, good.
02:35And let's talk about what that might look like.
02:37You've been quite critical of the Conservatives in the past,
02:40although you are naturally a Conservative by heritage.
02:43What is it?
02:44Is there anything particular about Robert Jemmerich
02:47that's caught your eye as a kind of man
02:49you might like to work with?
02:51Well, I think there are some very able Tories.
02:54A lot of them are young.
02:55I mean, I've got huge amounts of admiration
02:58for Jack Rankin, for Katie Lamb,
03:01some of the young Tories.
03:02But there is this overhang of Cameronite,
03:05what I call Lib Dems.
03:07So as I said to Robert,
03:09and I think Robert is a bit like a sort of Catholic convert.
03:13He's almost more Catholic than the Catholics now
03:16because he, as you know, voted to remain
03:17and he did all sorts of things that I wouldn't approve of.
03:20But I think we've got to find somehow a collective solution.
03:24And what that means, and what I've been trying to do,
03:27is effectively unite right-wing thought through policy.
03:31And that was my issue.
03:33We need policy, Martin.
03:34We have to have a plan.
03:36We have to have, if you like,
03:38a detailed road map to changing the way we're governed.
03:44And that's not going to happen
03:45by just what I call shallow rhetoric.
03:47That's got to happen by plan.
03:50So I'm now exploring all options.
03:53All options are open, Martin.
03:54That's the message.
03:55That's the message.
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