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00:10welcome to the myers report london reporting it is sunday mark 1st or monday mark 2nd 2026
00:17depending upon where you are um today we have with us uh james bennett our student at the london
00:27school of economics we all know him he's one of the younger people in our organization in our group
00:34and he's a rising political activist we also have ron blake who is a national and international
00:43businessman who has been a part of our group and michael lipper one of the giants in well in the
00:52financial community particularly when it comes to funds okay starting off james uh from what you
01:00can tell in the uk what is the reaction to the us israeli attack on iran well so the official
01:09reaction from the government has been essentially sort of a soft support so the the main two lines
01:15are that they're very that they're supportive of the of the of the us and israel simply due to the
01:21fact that they regard them as allies but they're very clear to make it plain that they were not
01:25involved um in the specific actions that have that have been taken by the us and israel and they have
01:33condemned the iranian retaliation though that's come in the past few hours um so that does suggest that
01:38there is still um a clear alignment there um with the western allies now officials in the uk have sort
01:45of caveated this um by saying um or at least implying that the united states or the international
01:51community um some explanation as to as to the legal justification and the the basis for the decision
01:58making um behind what took uh what took place yesterday um across the rest of the political
02:04spectrum you sort of have from um the globalist center and the left with the the greens and the liberal
02:10democrats um a condemnation of the strikes as being illegal um and they're trying to use the events of
02:17the past few days um as an argument for why the united kingdom should distance themselves from the
02:23united states and israel as allies um and this follows sort of the broad theme of the way that the
02:29populist left and um the uh sort of liberal democrats center left um have tried to advocate for um
02:37decreasing our support for the united states in general since the trump administration came in
02:42uh on the right hand side uh many conservative mps um and the reform party um have criticized the
02:50government response for being too soft um and argued that the support for the us and israel
02:56um should be much stronger um but you also have a lot of people on the right who are concerned
03:01that if
03:01the uk leans too much into um america's actions then it could risk um military action in the middle east
03:10from the united kingdom which is not what anyone wants across the political spectrum um i think many
03:15people are still reeling from what happened in iraq and afghanistan decades later and it's very much
03:21a consistent view across the board that we don't want to get back into war there
03:26interesting so the idea that the iranians could be playing with nuclear weapons that they'd like to
03:32drop on everybody including us in the uk and that they've been killing tens of thousands of their own
03:38citizens have totally repressed women uh and would stone gays to death and uh that doesn't count for
03:47much huh well no it definitely counts for um i meant among the ideological level i meant among
03:55the people who are who are against the u.s action in iran well i suppose this boils down to
04:03the question
04:03of um do what what is the left's long-term aim do they secretly support um regimes like what you
04:10see
04:10in iran but i'm not a leftist so i can't really comment on that okay uh mike and ron if
04:18you have
04:18any questions just pop in okay moving on um we're hearing a lot about rupert lowe and the restore
04:27britain party can you tell us something about them yeah so i mean rupert lowe is the member of parliament
04:34for great yarmouth um in esse in in sorry in east anglia um and he was a reform member of
04:40parliament
04:41from when he was elected in july of last in july of 2024 until march of last year uh when
04:48he was
04:48suspended from the party and there's very different accounts of why that happened um the context leading
04:55up to that uh rupert lowe was beginning to position himself as being like more of a right-wing figure
05:00than reform especially on the key issues such as deportations and and immigration and he'd even
05:07attracted the endorsement of elon musk elon had um more or less implied that he thought rupert lowe
05:13should take over reform uk from nigel farage and that obviously caused a lot of tension with within
05:19the party um especially when many of reform uk supporters were suggesting that maybe that would
05:24be a more credible path forward so that came to a head in sort of february march of last year
05:29where rupert was all of a sudden suspended from the party and that was that um the party alleged that
05:35um rupert had made threats to zee yusuf who was the chairman of the party at the time he's now
05:41the
05:41shadow home secretary um rupert completely denies this and many of his supporters argue that he was
05:47kicked out from the party because he was becoming too much of a threat to nigel farage
05:50um or that he was kicked out because reform thought he was too right-wing now since then
05:58nigel farage has actually sort of updated his position on what went down last year and he said
06:03that no actually he kicked him he kicked rupert out because he was too right-wing not because he made
06:07threats to zee yusuf um so that that was revealed about two weeks ago um also two weeks ago rupert
06:15law
06:15has now officially launched his own political party called restore britain so this has been coming for
06:20quite a while um basically as soon as he got kicked out reform all of his supporters were like please
06:25can you form a party and he said he said for a long time he said for quite a few
06:29months that there was
06:29going to be an alternative eventually so i've kept people waiting there and then and i think over the
06:35summer last year he announced the launch of restore britain as sort of a political movement rather
06:41than a party um it was just drafting policy and and and um formulating conversations with key figures
06:47it wasn't it never positive to act as a as an electoral force um but on february 13th um of
06:55this
06:55year uh he formally announced that he was converting it to a political party um announcing in sort of his
07:01first um policy speeches very radical um policies on things like deportations immigration and
07:11remigration um which is is very is much further much more radical than anything that reform has
07:17proposed so i'll give you a quick rundown of some of their key policies so they want to deport at
07:23least
07:23two million illegal immigrants they believe that there's up to two million people who are in the
07:28country illegally either having entered detected or undetected or here on expired visas uh they also want
07:36to deport millions of foreign nationals um people who are on benefits people who don't speak english
07:43or people who have expressed support for radical islam um basically anyone who they deem to not
07:50for their presence in the uk to not be conducive to the public good now i've spoken to several restore
07:56britain activists and i've asked for what what is the total number of people who you think will get
08:01deported under a restore britain government if they if they just have complete control don't have to worry
08:06about the civil service or bureaucracy or anything if you just give rupert law full control how many
08:11people would he deport and i've heard some people say estimates of as low as two and a half to
08:15three
08:15million and i had one guy yesterday tell me it could be as high as seven million which if you
08:19think the
08:20population of the united kingdom is about 67 68 million that's over 10 of the population so restore
08:26britain's policies on mass deportations extend far beyond anything nigel farage or reform have ever proposed
08:33um and on a proportional level significantly um more than anything donald trump or any of the
08:40republicans in america would do now aside from deportations they also want to institute very
08:45significant net negative migration so essentially more people leaving the country voluntarily than
08:52coming into the country um and so this is this is now reform policy as well but this is only
08:58very
08:58recent so reforms policy sort of since the general election was to have net zero migration so the
09:04number of people um leaving the country voluntarily that's how many people would be allowed to migrate
09:08legally um and this has been the policy for well essentially since the general election uh it's
09:14actually sort of left the front line of their rhetoric um the idea of net zero migration and i i
09:20talked to
09:20david ball the chairman about this um in january and he's the chairman of of what reform of reform and
09:27he was
09:27very clear that no it's still there and now that restore britain have come out as an official party
09:31they've now updated to their policy to net negative to sort of try and match what restore are doing and
09:37many people in restore who are now supporting rupert law's party are alleging that this is proof that
09:42reform are having to be quote unquote dragged kicking and screaming to these more radical positions
09:47um and they argue that it's not at all coincidental that just after rupert law launches a party they go
09:53from
09:54net zero to net negative um there's also a one second james go ahead ron yeah what's the public's
10:02appetite for much stronger immigration control and deportation or is this just a political issue that
10:10really can't get anywhere well no i mean this this is where reform got all their support from isn't it
10:16on the on the immigration issue but i do think i one of the things i do notice is there's
10:21sort of a
10:22significant disconnect within the public between the idea of illegal immigration and legal migration
10:28i think because it's always the small boats and the illegal migrants that dominate the headlines a lot
10:33of people don't realize that uh on a numbers basis and in terms of trying to quantify the uh impact
10:40on
10:41the culture and the economy etc etc legal migration is a much more significant problem but being on the
10:47on the doorsteps in gorton and denton over the past few weeks you get several people who say things like
10:52oh
10:52well i don't mind immigration as long as it happens legally and and they're saying that they're going to
10:57support reform whereas many of the people who support reform uh myself included argue that well not actually
11:03legal migration and many people in the conservative party will argue this as well
11:07that legal migration is a significantly um more serious problem than illegal migration
11:12so i think this is going to be a debate that evolves quite significantly over the next few months
11:18and if rupert law is is able to make some headway in the media in the national conversation
11:23um then it will be interesting to see how that resonate how that very strong uh message of deporting
11:29millions of people um will resonate um with with with the voters uh rupert law is he's a legitimized
11:36figure by the fact that he's he's a member of parliament uh many of the other splinter groups that have
11:41tried to form on the right have not been able to get that legitimacy um but rupert law has that
11:46and
11:46he's very active on social media um he's very he's very well liked among some more younger right-wing
11:53people so it is interesting to see where that will go but i think the debate um sort of among
12:00average
12:00voters is still very young um and i think over the next couple years um as all of these issues
12:07that's
12:08sort of all these what i call second order issues from migration things like radical islam things
12:13like even things like demographic change which is which is now being mentioned on on national tv
12:18news stations um they will start to take a more center stage role in the national conversation
12:23we will start to see polls saying what do people actually think about this specific aspect of the
12:28migration issue what do people actually think about this mass deportations policy what do people
12:33think about banning the burqa what do people think about banning halal these will all become
12:37center stage issues and we will start to see over the next year or two what what people actually
12:42want and that's where we will start to see will reform maintain their dominance will this will will
12:46it start to slip back to the conservatives or will someone like rupert lowe come in
12:51um u.s migration laws as i understand them require that somebody who legally migrates here have the
12:58ability to financially support themselves and to prove that before they're allowed to immigrate into
13:03the country or have a job any kind of rules or regulations like that common in the united kingdom
13:10well no yeah i mean yeah there's stuff written down but the problem is it's not written down
13:14effectively enough to be enforced by a government who doesn't want to enforce it and as a result there
13:18are millions of um foreign nationals in the country who are receiving significant um social welfare
13:24i mean i would argue that reform's most radical policy um on the migration front is to completely
13:30end all benefits for foreign nationals um but i think a lot a lot of people in restore are doubting
13:36whether they will actually be radical enough to do that because that that is a very significant change
13:40um to the welfare bill um but i think restore are very clear that yes um not only will they
13:48end
13:48benefits for foreign nationals but any foreign nationals who have previously been on benefits may be
13:53subjected to removal yeah the other thing the u.s has and i'm asking it just because legal migration
14:01sounds like one number but we have this very perverse capability called chain migration that once
14:08you get one of the family members in they can bring parents grandparents brothers and sisters
14:15into the united the u.s all under that that initial migration which when they say one came in you
14:22might
14:22have really gotten 20 um i don't know if you have that kind of that problem uh to deal with
14:28there
14:29yeah yeah my question of dependence is is is very common not just in the uk but across european countries
14:35as well uh it's actually interesting you mention that because one of the sort of big caveats to
14:40restore britain's sort of wider ideology on these issues is that they they've been very clear that
14:47actually no they want to make it easier for spouses of um british citizens so not spouses of people
14:53migrating but if a british person wants to wants to marry a foreign national then they want to make
14:59it easier for that person to come to the united kingdom and presumably that'll extend to um other
15:05familial relationships um as they develop and release their policies over the coming months but it is
15:11interesting you make that point because that is something that restore britain actually want to lean
15:14into rather than tackle it would seem to me that considering the birth rates of the united states
15:21and which is not that dissimilar but it's actually a little bit better than what we're seeing in
15:26europe and the uk that west as western civilization as western uh industrialized nations have falling
15:34birth rates we need controlled but we we need immigration to maintain uh our whole
15:43economic structure well a lot of people here argue that the best solution long term in order to avoid
15:51all of the all of the cultural um problems that we've had over the past 20-25 years is to
15:57enact a
15:58significant program of radical economic incentives to make it easier for british citizens to have more
16:05children so i think the birth rate among among citizens the citizen only birth rate in the uk is like
16:101.3 or something which is obviously not sustainable long term um but you know many people have argued
16:15that we should scrap the two child benefit cap but only for british citizens um and that's going to
16:20make it easier for them to start families um also you know things like um lowering income tax when you
16:27have a certain number of kids these are policies that are already being enacted in in some eastern
16:32european countries uh and there is a a i would argue a significant faction of the right um that want
16:38to bring that here uh in order to make the uk as you say less dependent on migration because i
16:44think
16:45that the issue of the birth rates has been used a lot by the center left as an excuse and
16:49the center
16:49right as an excuse to the levels of mass migration um how exactly that will be formulated remains to be
16:56seen but it wouldn't surprise me on the topic of restore britain it wouldn't surprise me if they do lean
17:00into that um specific aspect um reform have largely not gone into that for now but there is three years
17:06left so we will see um and i should mention now on the topic of reform versus restore there's a
17:12lot
17:12of feeling in in reform for maybe the more the the elements of reform that are more concerned that
17:18they're just going to be another version of the tories not actually do anything a lot of people in
17:22reform um are hopeful that the emergence of rupert law and restore will sort of act as a pressure
17:28group in holding reform to account on the right and providing some healthy pressure from that
17:34direction so that remains to be seen but i think the third key tenant to restore's ideology restore
17:41britain's ideology is this idea of re-migration i don't know if that's a term that i've seen used by
17:46some of the american government's twitter accounts but it essentially refers to the incentivized or forced
17:53repatriation of um foreign nationals or in some cases ethnic minorities um back to their quote-unquote
18:01homes um now restore britain have um they've directly called for the banning of all halal slaughter
18:10and many of their key activists argue um in support of that that this will essentially incentivize
18:19um muslims to return back to the middle east so that's essentially what many of the more sort of
18:26radical um what many people would consider far-right people within restore britain
18:30um advocating for so this is something that's completely new territory for any political party in the
18:37united kingdom any political party that's even had a chance of being taken seriously and it's a far cry from
18:42anything reform have suggested but it does i think it does represent a almost sort of milestone in the
18:48national conversation of the the expanding of the overton window that these sorts of policies
18:53are incentivizing a certain demographic of people to leave the country um is now is now is now being
18:59pushed by a member of parliament i think that uh trying to shape uh certain religious practices such as
19:07halal slaughter and uh apparently they were also talking about kosher slaughter
19:13is a bad idea uh because that's not dealing that's dealing with a symptom and it creates uh certain
19:22things that are just simply undemocratic uh control the immigration control make sure that the people who
19:30come in are supportive of the of the country of their new home country make sure they do it legally
19:36make sure they're not that they are acclimated that they adjust to the existing culture and are
19:42self-supporting that's the way to do it uh moving on james there was a whole series of i guess
19:5063 uh
19:51elections that were supposed to be cancelled that got uncancelled can you tell us what that's about
19:59yeah so it wasn't it wasn't quite 63 so there's about i think about 130 council elect councils across
20:06um the uk that are having elections on the 7th of may this year um and like they did last
20:14year
20:14the uk government uh wanted to cancel a bunch of them because they knew they were going to lose
20:19when you say the uk government you're talking about the liberal party because they thought
20:23they were going to lose no the labor party labor party excuse me yeah so they cancelled um a series
20:30of
20:30elections in 2025 um and these elections were coincidentally uh many many of them were slated
20:36to go for the reform party um uh they've now tried to cancel a bunch of them again so there
20:42were 63
20:43council elections and four mayoral elections that they wanted to cancel uh they ended up uh just
20:51cancelling 30 of the council elections and and the four mayoral elections many of these were in labor
20:57areas that were predicted to flip to reform coincidence um they used as the defense of this
21:03they said that they were trying to reorganize local government in the area and it wouldn't be
21:08um effective or efficient to have elections at that time um but yeah so they they did that that
21:14happened um about four million second that was they did that arbitrarily
21:20what do you mean but in other words there was no they did they just decided where it's not
21:26efficient so we're going to cancel those elections more or less yeah well not so they either did it
21:32or they didn't no some were going to be postponed by one year and some were going to be postponed
21:37by
21:37two years but bearing in mind that some of these elections that they tried to cancel again had already
21:41been canceled from 2025 um so yeah so that that went through and about four and a half million voters
21:48were um expected to be affected um and in total i think it was they were cancelling about 25 like
21:54a
21:55quarter of the scheduled elections that were meant to go to the polls on may the 7th so a significant
22:00impact on on local democracy um and everyone thought that was that but then uh reform uk announced that
22:08they were going to legally challenge it um and after some backroom conversations the lawyers for the
22:16government um essentially told them that they were going to lose if it went to the courts and so the
22:22government have now completely backtracked on that they've agreed to pay reforms legal fees and all
22:27of those elections are now uncancelled and those voters will be going to the polls on the 7th of may
22:32and presumably um getting rid of their labor politicians how did the public react to that
22:38we're very happy about it even even even the liberal democrats who despise reform they couldn't do
22:44anything but praise the um the legal action that have been taken
22:51okay um the by-elections what the uh results seems that the green party won okay so first off
23:01who is the green party really and what does it mean yeah so i mean as their name would suggest
23:08they sort of have of of historically branded themselves as being left-wing environmentalists
23:15or being very strong on climate action while also leaning into social justice issues um you know
23:21during the conservative governments they were very much made being anti-austerity um a key line of
23:26theirs um on sort of the the new issues that have been very sort of pro-refugee um criticizing uh
23:34interventionism that we saw sort of during the 2000 2010s the very very sort of anti-establishment
23:40but just the left-wing version um but essentially so they they they pulled at about six percent in the
23:46last general election i think which is quite successful for them historically they've normally
23:50pulled around three four five percent but in i think it was september of last year they elected a
23:57new leader called zach polanski who has been very very successful um in messaging and on social media
24:04essentially trying to present himself as being the farage of the left um uh you know advocating for
24:10complete open borders for wealth taxes um for um you know massive support of palestine um huge
24:19criticism of america even suggesting that we could leave nato complete denuclearization um getting rid
24:26of the nuclear deterrent all all of those very very very radical policies but it's been very very
24:30successful particularly among among younger voters um and they are now polling nationally at around 15
24:3716 sometimes as high as 19 i've seen in some polls um they sometimes even poll seconds nationally behind
24:45only reform um but essentially they were um one of the three main parties that were contesting
24:51the recent parliamentary by-election in gorton and denton which is a constituency in greater manchester
24:59and it was being we talked about this last time but it was essentially a three-way race between those
25:04parties they were neck and neck the entire way through um and the green party ended up winning
25:09that election by 12 points so they got 41 reform came in second on on i think it was 29
25:15and then
25:15labor who historically dominated the sea were all the way down in third on 25 so many people have um
25:24just thought from a headline perspective have interpreted the the green win as a significant
25:29voter backlash against labor um on the left um you know the right-wing vote was quite consistent all
25:36the former conservative voters had backed reform um many of the other voters who which were who were
25:42considering backing the splinter groups ended up voting reform on election day but it simply wasn't
25:47enough because there was too much of a left-wing a left-wing vote in the seat and enough of
25:51it went for the
25:52greens well switched from labor to the greens um in order for them to take that seat um but there
25:58were
25:59some issues sort of on a sort of on an integrity level um that we can get election you talk
26:05about an
26:05election integrity issue yeah okay so what were the so but basically what you're saying is if i hear it
26:13right is that uh the uk has some election integrity issues that in some cases may be similar to some
26:21of the
26:21issues we have here am i getting so so yeah so there were there were two sort of main points
26:29that were
26:29made about the election in in gordon and denton so i just want to clarify that no one is disputing
26:35the
26:35fact the green party won they won by 12 points there is absolutely no way that um any of the
26:41issues that
26:41i'm about to talk about would have would have okay one question on that is that win by the green
26:47party
26:49significant or not so significant by the geographic area that it has because the by by elect by
26:56elections are what we would call special elections so that was within one community did that have any
27:03was did that reflect the community or did that reflect possibly a national change so the community
27:10so the the seat itself had a very significant muslim population i think it was about 30 muslim
27:15um and so a lot of people um interpreted the greens victory especially since the greens um you can't
27:22see it broken down by ward but obviously everyone knows where the the surge in the green vote came
27:27from it came in the more muslim areas of gorton rather than the whiter areas of denton um and so
27:32many
27:32people have argued that there's an element of sectarianism there and this plays specifically into
27:37the issue of family voting so this is essentially where like entire families go into the voting booths
27:44together when you say entire families how many people would that be well how do i say this in
27:52the politically correct manner so many just say it say it in simple in the king's english well i don't
27:58have free speech in my country gary so i can't really do that so essentially many of the documented
28:03cases of where family voting was seen on the day uh came from um communities that originate from
28:11a certain part of the world um and you know many many of these were just a husband and a
28:16wife
28:17um but some some of them were like you know five or six people um you know cousins brothers etc
28:22going to the polling booths together um and many i think there were 32 recorded instances of this just
28:30in the polling booths and obviously you have to say if if there were 32 instances that were that were
28:35seen
28:35how many more was when were not seen and were not recorded and also if they're doing that in public
28:41at the polling booths where they're not meant to be doing that then how much more voter intimidation is
28:46happening um through postal ballots um and so that's strong uh postal meaning mail-in ballots
28:54meaning mailing votes so now in response to this reform have now made it party policy to completely scrap um
29:00postal ballots
29:01except for the elderly and the disabled i the people who actually need it how many what percentage of
29:07the what percentage of the uh votes cast were by mail-in ballots uh i mean across the country i'm
29:14not
29:14sure what the national average is but i'm pretty sure in this election it was much higher um i think
29:18it was
29:18about 35 percent which is which is much higher than the normal for for uk elections and um i believe
29:25that
29:25more of those ballots came from um the more ethnically diverse gotten half of the seat um which does
29:32suggest that maybe some of the voter intimidation that was happening in the polling booths was also
29:37happening um behind closed doors in in the house and i will say there was actually an incident on the
29:43day
29:43where a sky news reporter talked about how he tried to ask a woman how she had voted um and
29:50she responded
29:51with oh no no my husband handles all that and he was very sort of struck by that um that
29:57just open
29:57admission of oh yeah no the husband my husband handles all the voting you know for all we know
30:02he's voted for her as well because when it happens behind closed doors there's no way to really verify
30:06who's actually filling in that ballot um and and that's not and that that's caused in my opinion a
30:13very righteous uprising on the right against the practice of postal voting and i'm really glad to see
30:18happening in america as well um and i'm glad that it's now come to the forefront of our politics
30:23as well because it's very undemocratic undemocratic and it completely threatens um the integrity of
30:28the election you know in a high trust society where we where we can um we can trust one another
30:33to be
30:34like right yeah this postal vote is is has been filled in and signed by the person who is meant
30:39to
30:39then it might not be an issue but unfortunately i think um in the uk and in many countries across
30:44the west
30:44we're in a situation now where there's so much cultural tension that we we don't really live in
30:49as high trust of a society anymore and as a result we can't really rely on postal voting we cannot
30:54compromise our democratic integrity for so-called efficiency well you're not on mail and ballots not
31:01only go ahead ron yeah just a quick question i believe it or not i have in front of me
31:06a supreme court
31:06filing that was been driven by the republican party but um one of the local conservative organizations is
31:14been uh supportive and helpful of this about um individual states deciding that they will accept
31:21ballots that are cast but not received after election day does the uk have firm policy that it's
31:28election day vote and that's it or you've got all these mail-in ballots can they count them three weeks
31:33later no not at all no no we're much we're much stricter on that every vote every vote was counted
31:41by
31:414 a.m on election night ron but on that national international survey that we did uh we were the
31:51only country with exception of one that would count ballots that came in after election day and the one
31:59i've forgotten which one it was that did accept it would only accept them for two days to allow for
32:05a
32:05holiday but that's about that was about it the other thing about mail-in ballots is that it absolutely
32:12destroys the chain of custody so yeah there's the issue that we lose that with mail-in ballots you do
32:20lose the potential for the privacy of the vote uh and then you allow for intimidation but also
32:28uh without without a solid chain of custody the vote is certainly at risk mike did you have a
32:35question on this yes uh taking the um issues out and just focusing on organizations
32:48is the green party organization set up differently than say the reform
32:59what would you mean in terms of party structure and in terms of how they operate uh
33:10yeah yeah massive massively different i mean um like all parties function differently because i think i
33:17think in terms of how so the electoral commission allows independent individual parties to govern themselves
33:23there's there's much more lenience so i mean the structure of the conservative party is vastly different
33:28to that of the labor party which is vastly different to that of reform which is vastly different to that
33:32of the greens
33:33and and that and that goes through not just sort of the hierarchy but the chains of command how decisions
33:38are made how people are elected how candidates are chosen uh yeah no it is vastly different
33:43well if that's the case i assume from your comment that uh the greens are more dictatorial uh from
33:59the center or the top can they recreate that approach in other districts
34:12what the way when you say recreate the approach in other districts in terms of how they've managed to
34:19win this election yes well i mean yeah so um constituencies that share the same sorts of
34:25demographics as gorton and denton they will be able to use the same sorts of sectarian tactics
34:31so i mean i'll give you an example in the later days of the campaign they were publishing adverts in
34:37completely different
34:38languages and they were sending leaflets to specific wards where people who were less likely to speak
34:43english lived and those leaflets were in completely different languages and that does and that prompted
34:48um massive accusations of sectarian campaigning across the board from left-wing part from center-left parties
34:55as well so in other parts of the country like bradford or rochdale for example um where there is
35:02um where there were also higher um muslim populations then i'm sure the green party will employ those same
35:09tactics there as well um it remains to be seen how they will try and tie that into a wider
35:14national
35:14platform which it would have to do for a general election uh will that approach work in
35:25other districts that do not have the same population mix well no it won't work um but they will have
35:35other tactics that they
35:36will lean on you know they might lean on the economy all right so therefore looking at this from a
35:43national
35:44standpoint um what is the risk that the green party would gain enough uh in the biased districts uh to
36:00be a
36:01significant player on the national scene yeah so the mrps that have come out which sort of take national
36:11polls what's an mrp i can't actually tell you what it stands for to be honest but essentially it takes
36:17national polls and tries to predict how that would manifest on a seat by seat basis um and many of
36:24them have the green party on as high as like 100 seats um and some of them are as low
36:29as like 20 to 30 seats
36:31um i'm bringing up and there's what is what 650 seats 650 so the current um electoral calculus projection
36:39which sort of takes an average of all of the polls and the mrps has the green party winning 56
36:44seats
36:45and that's just from getting 14 percent of the vote um but if you take um so reform are currently
36:52polling at 28 of the vote and they're on 308 seats um and if you look at um reform in
37:00the general election
37:01they also got only 14 of the vote um so the same as what they're predicting the greens to get
37:06now but
37:07they only won five seats and that's because reforms vote share was very spread out across the country
37:12whereas the greens are going to do much much better in these sorts of areas like gone and denton like
37:18parts of greater manchester like parts of birmingham parts of greater london um towns in south yorkshire
37:24where there's a lot more where there's a much higher muslim population and a lot more ethnic diversity
37:29and sectarian and sectarian and sectarian campaigning tactics will work hence why they're able to get much
37:35a much higher number of seats um even though they've got a smaller share of the national vote
37:41will the greens be able to take their smaller numbers and negotiate with other parties
37:54uh to form a successful coalition well based on the current projections um reform uh would be projected
38:05to win 380 which would put them just 18 seats short of a majority and the conservatives are projected to
38:12win 73 so the current um projection would see a reform government propped up by a conservative minority
38:19partner um in order for the greens to be able to form a coalition they would have to firstly moderate
38:25their policy significantly because um their policies are vastly different from any of the other left-wing
38:30parties um but if they did that and the national polling number shifted enough to um put the greens and
38:36the and the labor um seat share combined seat share above the 326 required to form a government then
38:44yeah that could absolutely happen but right now it's not really if a general election were to happen
38:48tomorrow that's not a possible outcome but three years down the line who knows okay guys uh
38:56james are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of the uk and has it changed over the last
39:03several months um i think i give a different answer every time to be honest but to be like you
39:11have to
39:11have to be optimistic don't you have to be optimistic because there's no point being pessimistic i know
39:15that a lot is stacked against us um but we have three years to the next general election and then
39:21after that we need if we do win we need to make sure that we get it very right um
39:25so yeah i i you have
39:27to be optimistic at the end of the day you you can't go into this being pessimistic ron uh what's
39:34your
39:34view and uh do you want to how do you see that the what's happening in the uk relates to
39:40us
39:41well i think to be honest with you i'm probably more pessimistic than optimistic and that goes right
39:48back to the immigration issue and the control of their budget their need for financing and their
39:54unwillingness to make you know tough changes um we've seen what happened in the debt market when
40:01you had a prime minister that lasted for what 92 days when she tried to put in more probe growth
40:06policies to help stimulate the the uh the economy and they pretty much fell flat on their face and
40:12she went back to being a backbencher i guess uh in terms of this so i'm anxious to hear how
40:18this plays
40:19out and if there can be a government put in place that's a little got we got a little bit
40:23more backbone i
40:24guess would be the way i put it mike you have uh you're you have business interests in the uk
40:33and uh
40:35your family is involved with some uk institutions what is your view as to what the future looks like for
40:42the uk i don't think we have uh a realistic view uh i think the uk
40:54is similar to the us uh from an outsider standpoint the people who come from overseas uh few uh new
41:10york and
41:11perhaps la you know as america i'm i'm afraid the people uh who from outside
41:24views the uk uh will look at the southern part of the country uh particularly london yes uh so
41:38uh uh i would not uh uh put much uh uh power uh into our views uh i think more
41:49importantly
41:51the cast the real thing that has to happen uh is reform of the educational process
42:04uh because without that you're not going to move enough of the people
42:13or no more correctly enough of the votes
42:17uh to make a change
42:21well at some point we will we will be doing a survey of educational systems in different countries
42:27actually we're planning for that for later this year and uh that's a point that we'll look at i think
42:32you're right i suspect in a lot of the western countries that are having immigration issues
42:39that there's been a failure to teach their histories particularly in the modern western nations
42:44uh so are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of britain mike pick your time
42:54okay i am optimistic and i'm some people make you know some of sometimes i've been accused of being
43:02eternally optimistic but i see that uh the optimism for me is coming from the fact that the problems are
43:10being identified and people are making noise about it and when that happens when you've got a problem
43:16identified then you can work toward a solution uh i want to thank everybody be well stay safe
43:25god bless the uk and god bless the united states of america
43:48and i want to thank you so much for the reason why i am so glad to have a solution
43:51um
43:51um
43:52You
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