00:00Sir Liam Fox, the former Conservative Defence Secretary, joins us now.
00:05Where to be? There is so much to talk about, Liam.
00:08I don't even know what to reach for.
00:09The fact that you've got Labour MPs married to Chinese spies,
00:12the fact that our military seems to be unable to do anything,
00:16the fact that Sir Keir Starmer seems to be on the side of the bad guys,
00:19not the good side, good guys.
00:21We're an international laughingstock.
00:23What has happened? What has gone on here?
00:26Well, we have a government that doesn't seem to believe
00:29that the first duty of government is the protection of the UK,
00:33its citizens and its interests.
00:35It seems to believe that when there's a crisis,
00:38don't even try to determine any element of leadership,
00:42reach for the lawyers.
00:44I was in Washington last week and there's real alarm
00:47amongst the very pro-British elements in Washington
00:51who are considerable, who are wringing their hands
00:54about the direction of travel of the UK.
00:57They see us as having been given leadership through the Cold War.
01:02They saw what we did in the Falklands.
01:04They saw that Britain would be very, very quick to defend its interests.
01:08And they say, where are you?
01:10What's become of you?
01:12And there's real concern about where Britain stands
01:15on some of the key issues of the day.
01:17When it comes to situations as dismal as they are here,
01:21the first question that's sort of asked is,
01:23is this cock-up or conspiracy?
01:25Do you think it's the latter?
01:27Because I was saying to a good friend of mine,
01:29Niall Gardner, the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.,
01:32if I was sitting in American Congress right now,
01:34I would be subpoenaing all of the legal documents
01:38surrounding the Chagos Island deals.
01:40I would be demanding that Herma and Sands are accountable,
01:44that they give over all the information
01:47of how they got to this conclusion,
01:49who was paid what and who was involved.
01:52Well, I completely agree with that.
01:54And I think there are three key issues here.
01:56The first is, did Lord Herma, the Attorney General,
02:00know that as part of the treaty with the United States
02:04over Diego Garcia, the Diego Garcia base in the Chagos Islands,
02:08that the first clause demanded that it remained
02:11under British sovereignty.
02:12Well, if he didn't know that, then that's incompetent
02:14and he shouldn't be there.
02:16Secondly, if he did know that,
02:18did he get specific approval of the United States
02:21that we could begin discussions about sovereignty
02:24and the legal process to transfer sovereignty to Mauritius?
02:30If he didn't get that specific assurance,
02:32there are real questions to be asked about
02:34whether Parliament was treated appropriately.
02:36And thirdly, as you alluded to there,
02:39who did the Attorney General talk to
02:40or which bits of the UK government
02:42spoke to the United States,
02:44which bits of the US government were they,
02:47what agreement did they get and when?
02:49Because this has big implications for American politics too,
02:52whether there were elements
02:53within the United States political system
02:55who are happy to see parts of America's national security
02:59traded away in order to please unknown forces
03:04in the UN or elsewhere.
03:06The first duty of the British government
03:08is the protection of the United Kingdom,
03:10not to please semi-legal arguments.
03:14See, the way I look at this is I kind of feel in politics
03:18there's no such thing as a coincidence.
03:20And isn't it strange that the guy who I believe,
03:24and I don't want to dig myself a legal hole here
03:26and get in trouble with a barrister
03:27with far more money and influence than I have,
03:30but Philip Sands, I understand,
03:32took Mauritian citizenship.
03:34I also understand that the money
03:36that we're set to pay Mauritius
03:37is going to enable them to become a tax haven.
03:40I also understand that he received
03:42at least part of an £8 million pot
03:44to write this deal.
03:46We now see Mauritius calling for a ceasefire
03:48and not wanting Diego Garcia to be used at all.
03:52This government is obsessed with
03:54bimbling over to China every five seconds,
03:56and there seems to be the long arm of Beijing
03:58in all of this.
03:59And it just so happens that Philip Sands,
04:01Richard Hermer and Keir Starmer
04:03are big old buddies going way back.
04:05I think something smells very, very funny here.
04:08I don't know whether you agree with me.
04:10Well, I think that the problem is that
04:12and I wouldn't go down the rabbit hole
04:13of what individuals have done,
04:15but I think what British policy is,
04:17is not to put UK national security
04:21at the top of the agenda.
04:23Giving sovereignty away to Mauritius,
04:24which is a close ally of China in the region,
04:28it does not make any sense,
04:30but it does follow a pattern of behaviour.
04:32This is a government that is withdrawing Britain
04:37from the international stage,
04:40which if you go to the Gulf, for example,
04:42which I visit frequently,
04:45worries about the level of infiltration
04:49of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood
04:51into our universities.
04:52So countries like the UAE are no longer sending
04:55UAE students to British universities.
04:58They see the UK pulling back
05:00in terms of what's happening in the Gulf.
05:04They've seen what's happened in the Chagos,
05:05and they wonder whether this is British government,
05:08unlike anything we've seen since World War II,
05:11that simply does not want to accept
05:13Britain's responsibilities for leadership in the world.
05:16And that's exactly how it looks to me,
05:17and I think it puts the United Kingdom
05:19and our allies in peril.
05:21It's not as if Iran has actually been
05:23a passive partner in relation
05:25to the United Kingdom's interests.
05:27Their proxies, the Houthis,
05:29have been lobbing missiles at the Royal Navy
05:34in the Red Sea.
05:35They have been attacking our allies
05:38across the region.
05:39They have been backing terrorist organisations,
05:43including the repression of their own people.
05:47And we still didn't want to prescribe the IRGC.
05:50We seem to have a curious blind spot
05:52when it comes to a number of places in the world,
05:55one of them being Iran,
05:56where we've taken, in my view,
05:58a very pusillanimous view.
05:59Now, here's a question for you,
06:01because you might have more insight than I do.
06:03The response from Iran, it seems,
06:07is chucking kinetic in any direction
06:10where there is a Western air base
06:12or a Western military base,
06:14whether that is Azerbaijan,
06:16whether it's Erbil,
06:17whether it's Bahrain, UAE, Qatar,
06:21whether it's Cyprus, in fact.
06:23Now, we clearly were caught wanting
06:26when it came to the attack on Akrotiri.
06:30We weren't in the region.
06:31We didn't seem to be able to defend it straight away.
06:36Now, it's now been agreed that US bombers
06:38are going to be able to fly in
06:39and take off from the US air base
06:42in Gloucestershire, RAF Fairford.
06:44Now, I'm putting these things together.
06:45Someone said to me that what could well happen
06:48if militarily Iran are losing in the Middle East
06:51is they will start activating IRGC sleeper cells
06:54across the world
06:55and start committing acts of terrorism
06:57on the soil of their enemies.
06:59We already saw that Bryce Norton
07:01was woefully defended
07:03when Palestine Action managed to get in there
07:05and start lobbing paint and rubbish
07:07all over our military jets.
07:09So my question now,
07:10there's already going to be a protest
07:12outside RAF Fairford today,
07:14is if the IRGC in Britain,
07:17where no doubt there are sleeper cells,
07:18decided, because RAF Fairford's now going to be engaged
07:21by the Americans,
07:22they wanted to go and cause havoc,
07:25can we defend it?
07:27Well, we should certainly be using
07:28the full force of the law.
07:30If it's illegal to support Palestine action,
07:33then it should be illegal to support demonstrations
07:36in favour of the IRGC,
07:38who are, as we speak, bombing our allies,
07:41who are sending drones against civilian targets,
07:44including UK citizens who happen to be living
07:47in the region and where we know
07:49there are very large numbers.
07:51This is just a government
07:53where the lack of concern
07:56about our national security is mind-blowing.
07:59And let's put this against the backdrop
08:02of the UK's wider problems,
08:04where last year the government
08:06borrowed £140 billion
08:07and £105 billion went for debt interest,
08:11which is twice the size of our defence budget.
08:13This is a country that really needs to get a grip
08:16on its public finances,
08:18or we will find that the biggest threat
08:20to our national security in the future
08:21is our addiction to debt,
08:23not just the aggressive intent
08:25of some of our enemies abroad.
08:28And when did this rot set in,
08:30in terms of defence?
08:31You're a former defence secretary.
08:33It's quite clear that this isn't just
08:35the Labour government,
08:36this isn't just a year and a half
08:37of underinvestment and failure
08:39to make sure we are sort of war ready.
08:42This has been going on for far longer than that.
08:44So my question is,
08:46where does the buck stop?
08:48Well, partly our problem is that
08:50we have had such poor public finances
08:52for a long time
08:54that we've been unable to invest
08:56in defence in the way that we want.
08:58That's number one.
08:59But number two,
08:59there's been a lack of will
09:01of governments to do that,
09:03preferring to raise our welfare spending
09:06rather than our national security.
09:07And it's a question of political priorities.
09:10We took a big cut in defence
09:11at the end of the Cold War,
09:13the so-called peace dividend,
09:14but we never recognised
09:16that that was only due
09:18to the circumstances at the time.
09:19And if circumstances changed,
09:21defence spending had to go up.
09:23And I think this is a key failure
09:26in recent British politics,
09:27which is the failure to recognise
09:29that defence spending
09:30is not discretionary spending.
09:32It's not like welfare spending
09:34or even health spending
09:35or education spending.
09:37When the threat level goes up,
09:39the spending level needs to go up.
09:41The danger is that we have recognised
09:44the increased complexity
09:47and danger of what's out there
09:49in terms of security,
09:50but have been too slow to act.
09:52And I think that that has been
09:54a generic problem for some time.
09:56And I think it's been a more acute problem
09:59under the current government,
10:00where even if they had the money,
10:02there seems to be a big element
10:04inside the current Labour government
10:05that doesn't want to see it spent on defence,
10:08would much rather see it spent
10:09on an increasingly expensive welfare system.
10:12That, in the long term,
10:14will mark a serious decline
10:15and serious danger for the UK.
10:17When you were Defence Secretary,
10:19were you sitting around the Cabinet table
10:20banging it, saying,
10:21we need more money?
10:24And were you ignored?
10:25We did ask for more money, of course.
10:28But at the time, if you remember,
10:29when the coalition government,
10:30as it was, came to office,
10:31we had the worst public finances
10:33since the war,
10:34and we had to make public spending cuts
10:36across Whitehall.
10:38I regret the fact that, at the time,
10:40we were increasing spending on aid,
10:44but reducing spending on defence.
10:45I think that was the wrong decision to take.
10:48Many of us said so at the time.
10:50We did set a path at that point
10:52for increased defence spending
10:53across the decade,
10:54and we did see it.
10:55But I think that while we did that,
10:57we didn't realise that we needed
10:59to accelerate that faster
11:01because of the dangers
11:02that we're facing from
11:04an increasingly belligerent Russia
11:05and increasingly dangerous China,
11:08not to mention what Iran was already doing
11:10through its proxies of Hamas
11:12and Hezbollah and the Houthis.
11:14All of this has been,
11:15I think,
11:16a real problem in the West,
11:18which is that wishful thinking
11:20has driven our defence
11:22and our security policy far too much.
11:25Liam, it's been brilliant talking to you.
11:28Thank you so much for your candour
11:29and your wisdom.
11:30Former Defence Secretary there,
11:32Sir Liam Fox.
11:53Thank you so much for joining us.
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