00:00Well, let's get more on that story with Alistair Jones, an independent political commentator.
00:05Thank you so much for your time. I'm wondering, do you think that all of this could mean the end
00:10for Keir Starmer?
00:12It will depend. If it transpires that Keir Starmer has lied and that he had been informed,
00:18then we can expect his resignation with immediate effect.
00:22If not, it's going to rumble on and on.
00:25Now, bear in mind, in the UK, we've got a series of elections coming up in less than three weeks
00:30in Scotland, Wales, London and across parts of England.
00:35And Labour are expecting to do very badly in those, as are the Conservatives.
00:39And it's just going to be another thing that is going to be counting against Keir Starmer.
00:45But in the short term, I don't see him resigning. I see him carrying on.
00:49If he gets the chop, it might happen after those May elections.
00:52The Prime Minister says he was not told that Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting.
00:59Is that possible?
01:01Yes, it is possible.
01:02Number one is he may not have asked about the vetting because you would assume the vetting was passed.
01:07Otherwise, you would be told.
01:08But also, the Foreign Office has got a bit of a reputation as being a bit of a rogue.
01:14If you go back in the UK to the 1980s, there was a TV series called Yes, Prime Minister.
01:19It was a comedy. But in several of the episodes on there, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was doing its
01:25own thing, ignoring what the Prime Minister wanted, ignoring what the Foreign Secretary wanted.
01:30And sometimes the Foreign Secretary did not even know what his office was doing.
01:33Now, OK, that was a comedy. It was a satire.
01:37But there's a huge grain of truth in it, in that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office does its own thing.
01:43It sees itself as representing the UK overseas rather than the Prime Minister.
01:48So there's always been a conflict between the FCO and other government departments and the Prime Minister.
01:55It's just come to fruition a lot more publicly than ever before.
01:58The Conservative Party had, I think, three Prime Ministers in the five years before they were ousted in elections by
02:05the Labour Party.
02:06Labour came in promising change.
02:08But do you think Britain is actually heading for just another period of political turbulence?
02:13I think we've had political turbulence ever since the Brexit referendum.
02:17It's just got a lot worse at particular times.
02:20So when the Conservatives were in power those five years, yes, huge turmoil.
02:24And we're seeing a bit of it again.
02:26And it's been exacerbated by international affairs.
02:29So the situation in Iran, the closure of the state of Hormuz to some countries, all of that is playing
02:35out.
02:35And it's just making things bigger and more confusing and more complex.
02:39So we've got Andrew, Matt and Windsor, the stories around him as well, of the Epstein files, as well as
02:44Mandelson.
02:45There's just an awful lot going on.
02:47Now, much of this is actually out of the control of the Prime Minister.
02:51And he is having to respond to what is going on.
02:55And what has been interesting is that if you look at opinion polls prior to this happening,
02:59his standing in opinion polls over the last week or so have actually increased quite significantly.
03:06And Labour's position has increased significantly because of Keir Starmer standing up to Donald Trump.
03:11So I think what's happening just now is going to knock him back again.
03:15But as I say, come the local elections and elections in Scotland, Wales and London,
03:19I'm expecting Labour and the Conservatives to do very, very badly.
03:23If he goes, is there a clear successor in the Labour Party?
03:28No. Angela Rayner, the former deputy leader, could be one.
03:33But there's a lot of people in the Labour Party that are not keen on her at all.
03:37There basically isn't one.
03:38So what we would actually see is if there was if he was to be removed or if he was
03:42to resign,
03:43we would see civil war breaking out within the Labour Party.
03:47But there'd be a number of different groups, different persons throwing their hat in the ring, speculating, if you like.
03:53The reality is, at the moment, there isn't a viable alternative to Sir Keir Starmer.
03:58Thank you so much for your time.
04:00That's Alistair Jones, an independent political commentator.
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