00:00One of the consequences of the recent conflict in the Middle East is strikes on countries like
00:07the Emirates and Dubai. Well, live from Dubai is the deputy leader of Reform UK, Richard Tice.
00:13Good morning, Richard. Very good morning to you, Mark, from Dubai, where I am over here for a few
00:21days expressing my solidarity to the UAE leadership and friends, as well as being with my fiance.
00:29And I can tell you, Mark, that there is utter bewilderment, disappointment and almost despair at the feeble performance of
00:41the UK's political leadership in not showing any support, assistance, both to the US and Israel, but also to the
00:53Gulf states that have been attacked by the Islamic regime of Iran.
00:58Well, I can't imagine, Richard, that you agree with Tony Blair too often.
01:03But the front page of today's Mail on Sunday, now Blair delivers a stinging blow to the prime minister over
01:10the war in Iran.
01:12And a similar such headline in the Sunday Telegraph, Blair rebukes Starmer over failure to back Trump's war.
01:20Blair has said you've got to show up for your friends and he's right, isn't he?
01:24On this thing, he is correct.
01:27And there is just astonishment how weak the prime minister has been.
01:33And, you know, look at what President Trump has said.
01:36We don't need people who show up after the war is won.
01:39Well, you know, that's that's the harsh reality.
01:42Our reputation has been absolutely shattered.
01:45We've been left humiliated on the international stage.
01:49We're now considered an unreliable, weak ally.
01:52I think both amongst the US administration, but also amongst our our Gulf partners.
01:58And as I say, in meetings with government officials, discussions with ambassadors, with people from France and Italy.
02:07It's absolutely true astonishment how fast we have fallen.
02:12And, you know, when others, the French, the Canadians have expressed support.
02:17And then there's genuine questions about what about the quality of your kit?
02:21I mean, does you destroy a work or does it need a bit more welding?
02:24Does it need a bit more WD-40?
02:27It's you know, we've almost become a laughingstock, I regret to say.
02:30You always have to worry when you're diplomatically outmaneuvered by the French.
02:35It's definitely a low point.
02:37What do you think the president means when he says that he won't forget Britain's lack of support at the
02:43early stages of this war?
02:45What could the implications of that be?
02:48Well, potentially very serious because you want to be able to rely on your friends at moments of real national,
02:57international importance.
02:58And if you're asked to use your friends' bases, whether it's in Cyprus, whether it's in Diego Garcia, you would
03:08expect it to be an instant.
03:09Yes, of course.
03:10Especially if it was just for the refueling of jets.
03:14It actually doesn't matter what it's for.
03:17Yeah.
03:17It's the fact that you're either partners and allies that can be trusted in times of need or you're not.
03:23And now we have sunk to the low where we've got our allies thinking, are we pandering to Islamist extremists
03:31who vote Labour or who vote Green as opposed to doing the right thing on the international stage?
03:38And people look at the crowds attending the sort of pro-Islamic regime march in central London yesterday in utter
03:46astonishment.
03:47This is a regime that murdered tens of thousands of their own people just a few weeks ago.
03:53And those marchers, that's essentially what they're doing.
03:59They are supporting a brutal, murderous, deeply anti-Semitic regime.
04:04And it is a stain on the reputation of the United Kingdom around the world, what is going on on
04:11our streets and in our political leadership.
04:13And I'm here to try and give confidence to UAE leaders that actually things will change post a general election,
04:23where a reform government will reverse all of this weakness and this nonsense.
04:27And this isn't the Iraq War 2.0 and those imaginary weapons of mass destruction.
04:33Of course, we were talked into that illegal war as a result of Alastair Campbell and his sexed up dossier
04:41and New Labour lies.
04:43We've paid a price for that, including the proliferation of terror groups like ISIS.
04:48This is quite a different story.
04:50This is an Iranian regime which, over four decades, has murdered millions of people both at home, in Iran and
04:58overseas, with the sponsorship of global terror.
05:02They're not exactly the good guys.
05:03Why do you think the Prime Minister was so keen when he addressed British Muslims in Parliament this week to
05:09stress that Britain did not participate in the early stages of this war?
05:15It's unimaginable, but he's essentially pandering to the Islamist extremists in and around the hard left of this government, and
05:27it's truly disgraceful.
05:29The reality is that the Iranian regime is the biggest sponsor of terrorism, not only in the Middle East, against
05:38our allies, but also around the world.
05:41And even the Prime Minister himself has admitted that there's some 20 plots against Iranian dissidents, British citizens, British Jews
05:50in the last 12 months or so.
05:53Are they seriously suggesting that we should wait until there's another terrorist outrage in the UK that could happen literally
06:00any day, any week, before we're willing to do anything?
06:03I mean, actually, the best form of defence, when you know you're under permanent threat from the Iranian regime, is
06:10to join the attack and to militarily, completely and utterly wipe out their military capability.
06:18That, I believe, is what the US and Israel's objective is, and we should fully support that.
06:23We cannot have the mad mullahs in charge of nuclear weapons, long- or medium-range ballistic missiles.
06:33It's just as simple as that.
06:36Can the Prime Minister's actions be defended on the grounds that the early stages of this war did not involve
06:42self-defence and were therefore illegal?
06:45And might the Prime Minister be mindful of what happened in the Blair years and the legacy of the Iraq
06:53war?
06:53And the idea that we did pay a very high price for a US administration that didn't have a plan
07:00for post-war Iraq and the argument that actually maybe Trump doesn't have a plan for Iran either?
07:07I know, completely wrong.
07:09If you're under permanent threat, that also means literally by definition, you're under imminent threat, because imminent is part of
07:17permanent.
07:18And so, of course, it was legal to defend ourselves by essentially degrading the military capability and the terrorist capability
07:28of the Iranian regime.
07:30And that's why we should have given support to allow our bases to be used by the US, and that's
07:37why we've had our reputation completely trapped.
07:40But, Richard Tice, not too many people think Donald Trump has a plan for what happens next, and perhaps that
07:46was weighing on the Prime Minister's mind.
07:50The simple plan is to degrade totally any potential nuclear capability and long-range ballistic missile capability.
08:00Let me just recommend to all of your listeners and viewers, just go back to the Marco Rubio clip from
08:052015, which is on social media,
08:09when he predicted that if you showed weakness in the negotiation of what was then the JCPO negotiations with Iran,
08:17they would use the monies in order to fund their ever-growing military ambitions.
08:22And that's exactly what they did over the subsequent 10 years to get to the point where we are today.
08:27And Marco Rubio back then said, at some point, an American president is going to have to make the difficult
08:32decision
08:32to go in and degrade and take out that capability.
08:37And here we are, 11 years later, and his words have been proved completely and utterly prescient,
08:43and that's why the right thing is to do is to degrade that capability.
08:48Richard, if Reform UK win the next election, which the polls suggest they have a chance of doing
08:54whenever that comes to pass, what will Reform UK do with defence spending?
09:01Well, we're the only party that, at the last election, we said you had to get to 3% defence
09:06spending of GDP within six years.
09:09And because we live in a dangerous geopolitical world, that's probably not going to be enough.
09:15But also, however much you spend, you've also got to spend it well.
09:19And we've got a bad track record of military procurement.
09:23So we would dramatically improve that.
09:26And yes, we're going to have to spend more, but also use it as an opportunity to back great British
09:33defence technology,
09:35innovation and companies so that we can not only supply and support our own brave armed forces,
09:43but actually it's an export opportunity to our allies as well.
09:46We've been very good at that historically, and we should promote and do a lot more of it.
09:49And as the business spokesperson for the Reform UK party, Richard,
09:55you'll be aware that should you win the election, the cupboard will be bare.
09:59We've had the Chancellor trumpeting the fact that we might get 1% growth in the next year or two,
10:04which is hardly anything to celebrate.
10:07With that in mind, which departmental budgets will have to shrink in order to accommodate this extra defence spending?
10:17Are we taking it out of the NHS, schools or policing?
10:21You're taking it out of scrapping net stupid zero, which would save between £25 and £30 billion a year.
10:29But that won't happen straight away, will it?
10:31That will take a few years to feed through, Richard.
10:34Wrong, Mark. It would absolutely happen straight away.
10:37The vast amounts being spent on net stupid zero needs to stop immediately.
10:41You don't need to pay £20 billion a year of voluntary interest on all of the QE printed money.
10:48And we've clearly said there have to be major reductions in the welfare bill.
10:52We shouldn't be paying welfare to foreign nationals who supposedly came to the UK because we needed people to come
10:58and work.
10:58Well, the clues in the name work. If you come and work, in the nicest possible way, please return to
11:05your home nation.
11:06The idea that we pay benefits to foreign nationals is ridiculous.
11:10We've got to dramatically scale down our foreign spending.
11:14There are huge savings.
11:16If that's not enough, would you look at the education budget and the health budget?
11:23Mark, that will be enough.
11:24And then you, alongside that, you deregulate the daft amounts of regulation that we've got everywhere.
11:30We want to be smart and safe regulations, of course.
11:32Let's get rid of the daft, the dither and delay.
11:35That will incentivise businesses to invest, to mobilise, to take additional risk.
11:41That will create some growth.
11:43And that is the way to get us back to the sort of levels of growth that you and I
11:47remember in the 80s and 90s.
11:49I think you're that odd, Mark.
11:50When we were growing at 2.5% to 4% a year.
11:53I remember it's doable and it's important to think on those terms again.
11:57To aim high, we can grow.
11:58But you need a business-friendly environment.
12:01Before we go, Richard, how worried are you about the short-to-medium-term outlook for the economy?
12:07Do you agree with your colleague, Nigel Farage, that an economic crash could provoke an early general election?
12:14100%.
12:14We are very concerned about it because we're borrowing £140, £150 billion a year.
12:21There's no growth whatsoever.
12:22In fact, I think we're now in a per person we're in recession.
12:27And we've got to turn that around.
12:29One of the measures I've just been talking about there, if you cut wasteful spending, cut unnecessary regulation whilst keeping
12:35smart and safe regulation,
12:37then you can start to create some growth again.
12:40Only then can you do performance-related tax cuts in order to keep the balance right with the bond markets,
12:46who basically at the moment, they are in charge.
12:50And this government's got no idea how to create growth whatsoever.
12:53Whether the OBR has just been dramatically scaling back its growth forecasts, we think they're still quite possibly too high.
13:01Indeed, there was an insolvency expert on the BBC Question Time show this week, and he said he's never been
13:06busier.
13:07It breaks my heart, Richard, to see what's happening to the country.
13:10I know you share that.
13:11Before you go, you're in the Middle East.
13:13You're with your lovely fiancé, the brilliant international editor of Talk, Isabel Oakeshott.
13:18Congratulations on your forthcoming nuptials, by the way.
13:21Can I ask you how the situation is there?
13:24Because it's got to be very stressful for the family and for the locals there to get these sirens, to
13:29have to go into the basement.
13:30What's the latest in terms of just how people are feeling in Dubai at the moment?
13:35Well, I was at a dinner party last night with people from a range of nationalities, and people are resilient,
13:41they're determined, they're getting on with their lives.
13:44People are on the beach today.
13:46And the feeling amongst the expat community is we crack on.
13:53Dubai is an incredible place, Abu Dhabi, the UAE is.
13:56And, of course, everybody wants this to end.
13:58But the hope is that, actually, all of that uncertainty with Iran that's always existed will then be removed.
14:07And, as I say, there is just bewilderment that the UK has proven to be an unreliable ally.
14:15There's also a sense, I have to tell you, that people feel they're probably still safer here than walking the
14:21streets of London under the risk of a stabbing or a mugging on a Saturday night.
14:25Because, in Dubai, crime is not tolerated.
14:29This is a cultural decision that's been made by the authorities.
14:33And why should that be a controversial thing?
14:35Crime shouldn't be tolerated in the United Kingdom either, but it is.
14:39Richard, a pleasure and a delight to have you on the show.
14:42Stay safe in the Middle East.
14:43Richard Tice is the Shadow Business, Trade and Energy Secretary and Deputy Leader of Reform UK.
15:03You
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