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00:00Is the party over? What on earth is going on with Nigel Farage?
00:04For more than 20 years, Nigel Farage has been a political constant.
00:07Parties have collapsed around him, allies have come and gone, controversies have seemingly bounced off him.
00:13And yet somehow he always emerged with another pint, another camera crew, another political party, sometimes, back in the centre
00:19of our politics.
00:20But this week something does feel a bit different, wouldn't you say, Helen?
00:23The Reform UK leader is facing mounting questions over a £5 million donation from a crypto billionaire, Christopher Harwin, who's
00:31based in Thailand.
00:32A £270,000 payment for promoting a gold investment company. He did used to be a metals trader.
00:39I'm not sure you need to promote gold, do you? Isn't that a surefire hit?
00:43Yeah, well, I understand that. In my cash for gold quest, I understand it's doing pretty well.
00:47And there are questions over his property portfolio. It turns out he owns five properties.
00:53And he's had a run of by-election disappointments. He's had five losses on the trot, having been trumpeted as
00:59a potential winner.
01:01So this is all raised doubts about whether Reform's local election surge and poll lead is actually translating into national
01:08power.
01:09Normally, it feels like you can't move for Nigel Farage popping up saying things, but he's both not been very
01:14visible recently.
01:14And when he has said things, he's looked unusually rattled.
01:17He's snapped at interviewers. He's told journalists to back off with their questions.
01:22He's said that some things are none of the public's business, which, you know, it's an interesting take.
01:27And it's definitely the case that there's rumours around Reform that actually the party members themselves aren't very happy with
01:34some of this absence of answers.
01:36Today we're asking, is Nigel Farage's luck finally running out?
01:40And if so, what does this tell us about the difference between being an insurgent and being treated like a
01:46potential government or prime minister in waiting?
01:51I should declare that I've only been in one room with him, and that was a pub that we both
01:56happened to be in called Speakers in Westminster once.
01:59But beyond that...
02:00Did you click glasses?
02:02We really didn't. We stayed, well, I certainly stayed in a different bit of the pub.
02:06Kept a wary distance.
02:07What about you? Have you ever been in the room with Mr. Farage?
02:10He's a bit of a bogeyman, because everyone's aware of him, but I know surprisingly few people who've, like, shaken
02:16the guy's hand.
02:17But I have been in one room with him entirely by accident, and it was specifically a lift.
02:21A few months ago, and I went to cover a press conference he was giving on scrapping the two-child
02:29benefit cap,
02:29and I got stuck in the lift with Nigel and some of his entourage.
02:34It was quite a small lift, and let me tell you, his team really go for it on the Lynx
02:39Africa.
02:39So I was sort of blinded by the gases.
02:43In a contained space?
02:44In a contained space.
02:46I'm not sure how lawful that is.
02:47And also, I was wearing a huge backpack, so every time I turned to try and press the button...
02:50And you're not a small person, I should just say.
02:52I sort of squatted one of them.
02:54So it probably wasn't my finest hour, and they probably thought, who on earth is this...
02:58Like, this tourist, probably.
03:00They didn't know they were in the presence of a huge celebrity.
03:02Of a podcast host.
03:03Yeah, exactly.
03:05Yes, and then he went on to talk about the two-child benefit cap.
03:09And this is pre, just to contextualise this a little bit, this is pre any Conservatives
03:13coming on board.
03:14This is very much reform in their heyday, riding high last summer, when they were doing these
03:19kind of interesting press conferences all the time.
03:23So quite different feeling to a year ago, because he was, you know, he was even in this
03:28very small lift, he was quite a big figure.
03:31Although I did dwarf him, I want everyone to know, both intellectually and physically.
03:37But he cuts quite a different figure, exactly, as you say, just at the moment.
03:42He seems a bit rattled.
03:45He seems a bit on the ropes.
03:47And I think what we really want to talk about today is what does that mean going forward for
03:53reform?
03:54They've been riding high in the polls.
03:55It was only six weeks ago that we were all talking about their huge May election win.
04:01And yet, here we are feeling like they've hit the buffers.
04:04So before we get further into that, we'd love it if you followed us on Instagram, where
04:07you can find all the best clips of the show.
04:09You can find us at intheroom.pod.
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04:20email us on intheroom at independent.co.uk.
04:23So yeah, it is looking a bit troubling this week.
04:25But we've got to remember that Nigel Farage has survived more near-death experiences than
04:29most people in modern politics.
04:31Literally.
04:32He's been in a plane crash, has he not?
04:34That was during the referendum?
04:37Or UKIP?
04:38Maybe UKIP.
04:382015 UKIP campaign.
04:40Well, this is actually a really interesting point.
04:41It is hard to pinpoint which sort of uniform he was wearing at any given time, because
04:47he has come and gone from UKIP, the Brexit party, during the referendum it was leave.eu,
04:53and now reform.
04:54He is this kind of comeback kid.
04:57So I think one of the things I do want listeners and viewers to keep in mind is that even
05:02if
05:03things are looking a bit ropey for him now, this is kind of classic part of his cycle
05:07of peaks and troughs, where, who knows, it is entirely possible he could just leave
05:14reform for a bit and then come back in a year.
05:17He has a habit.
05:18I think he's done that seven or eight times.
05:20That's been his playbook, isn't it?
05:21He sort of kind of gets fed up, strops off, comes back, reinvents himself, sometimes with
05:25a new party, sometimes not with a new party.
05:28Pretty much same old politics, though.
05:30Yes.
05:30Although this is the first time he's done it with a seat in the House of Commons.
05:34So he's the MP for Clacton.
05:36And I think what he is realising is that with great power comes great scrutiny.
05:42So now he's in the Commons.
05:43People are paying quite a lot of attention to particularly his income.
05:47It was only in 2017 that he publicly declared that he was skint.
05:51He's not that now, that's for sure.
05:54So he was being propped up by Aaron Banks at the time.
05:56He was a very prominent donor to UKIP and Leaf.eu.
06:02And now he has had this £5 million donation from Christopher Harbourn.
06:06He has got, I think, maybe £80,000 that has come in from his cameo appearances.
06:11We talked about that a little while ago.
06:13He has his GB News slot salary.
06:16He has his MP salary, which is £98,000 a year.
06:20And he has this £270,000 that has come in from gold bullion, which has a great piratey five to
06:30it.
06:30So, yeah, he's declared something like £2 million income as a sitting MP.
06:35I think one of the interesting problems for Farage now is that, you know, you and I have experience of
06:43working with a politician who is described as Teflon.
06:47We had that with Boris Johnson.
06:49And there is well-documented information about his financial arrangements and money he was accepting and receiving, you know, either
06:57in cash or donations in kind.
06:59And Nigel Farage is now under this particular media glare.
07:04And for some people, there will be a sense that it doesn't really matter.
07:09He is not a hypocrite.
07:11He doesn't go off to other people for their income.
07:13And that was some of the criticism of Keir Starmer, that in accepting suits and glasses and so on from
07:21Lord Ali, having been so aggressive towards Boris Johnson, his predecessor, that it was some of that kind of hubris
07:28playback.
07:29People are quite divided.
07:30People either think, I don't really care.
07:34This is all factored in.
07:35It's priced in with Nigel Farage.
07:37Of course, he was going to get money one way or another.
07:41It's not important to me.
07:43And they're all at it.
07:44And on the other hand, people think this just feels wrong.
07:49Is he going to start asking questions about crypto?
07:52So is he going to be making decisions about, I don't know, gold or indeed property in Kent?
07:58Because it turns out he owns five houses and has only declared for two of them, I think.
08:04So we should be, not just so the independence lawyers can sleep easy in their beds at night.
08:08We should be clear that nothing, you know, there's no accusation here that he's done anything technically wrong.
08:15Yes.
08:15So the question is, during this, one of these interesting lulls in Mr Farage's decisions about whether he wanted to
08:22be an MP, whether he wanted to do anything else, he accepted this £5 million.
08:28Technically, the argument is that he didn't need to declare it.
08:32And that's certainly what reform have been doing in the defence of the decisions so far.
08:37The question is that actually he is now being investigated by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner.
08:41The outcome of that investigation is also not known yet.
08:45The way that he has responded to this scrutiny and criticism is very thin-skinned, quite fragile.
08:51He's changed his story a few times about what he's done with the money, why he needed it.
08:56It started off being about security.
08:58But then he's also said he couldn't do some events because he can't pay for security.
09:01There's this very large property portfolio that's come from seemingly nowhere.
09:06It's murky at best.
09:08And he also said he was gifted it as a reward for Brexit.
09:11I didn't get £5 million, I can tell you.
09:13So, arguably, I was less instrumental than him.
09:18You'll be careful what you claim credit for.
09:19Yeah, yeah, quite.
09:20But also, you're right in that some of these defences, though, it's not just that the story changes, it's how
09:26you do it.
09:27And he's lost some of that kind of charm or roguishness that people think, oh, yeah, there's a sort of
09:35humour to it.
09:36Whereas he seems genuinely quite agitated and cross.
09:39One of the things that I wanted to ask you about is, obviously, you were Deputy Cabinet Secretary, so you
09:45dealt much more with donations and expenses and so on from the government side with ministers and so on.
09:51What are the worst possible scenarios for Nigel Farage in this kind of investigation?
09:56Is it possible he could be on his way out and there could be a by-election in Clapton?
10:00I think that's really quite unlikely.
10:02And you're absolutely right to remind us all that there's a difference between the rules as they apply to government
10:06ministers and as they apply to MPs.
10:08And if you're a government minister and an MP, which is most of them, you have to bear in mind
10:12both of these rules.
10:13So, the facts are that, actually, if you're an MP, as long as you declare your outside earnings, then sort
10:20of it's up to you.
10:21And the idea is that the accountability comes from, you have to declare it.
10:25And if you're happy to stand up and say, yes, I've done that, so what of it?
10:29If you get over £300 from a single source within 28 days, that's what you need to declare.
10:33You declare it in your register of interests.
10:35It's quite common for people with the best of intents or, you know, not even reading anything into their intents
10:41to get this wrong.
10:43There's been various things where, like, exactly what is the value?
10:45Is it £300 if I took tickets to this thing and they were face value of £250, but I also
10:51got a pizza and some drinks?
10:53People do trip up over this and you are going to be very heavily scrutinised.
10:57So, I think the really interesting thing, and this is perhaps where what is happening to Nigel Farage now,
11:02is that for most of the time, for most MPs, it doesn't really matter.
11:05No one's really paying attention.
11:07It's up to you.
11:08If you haven't fully declared something, provided you're not, like, right in the white heat of scrutiny,
11:14you're probably going to get away with it.
11:15And what's different from what seems to really change for Nigel Farage is that he's lived this kind of outsider,
11:22maverick, anti-establishment, underdog, campaigning, good soldier, I'm just one of you kind of personas for such a long time.
11:30And then now, because reform are doing so well in the polls and they seem to be treated in a
11:35slightly different way,
11:36he hasn't caught up with the fact that, actually, he now is going to get looked at and people are
11:41going to ask questions and demand answers,
11:43and it's all quite different.
11:44So, to your question about what could happen, well, the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner will decide whether he's done anything wrong
11:50or not.
11:51My guess is he wasn't in Parliament, so it's arguable that he should have declared it.
11:57So, I'd be really surprised if the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner does more than kind of potentially a little wrap on
12:03the wrists,
12:04or maybe you should have next time think about this or that or whatever, or think about the perception or
12:09something like that.
12:10But that isn't going to mean him losing his seat.
12:13I think there is a question for some of these kind of more contested people that at some point they
12:19might get a recall petition.
12:20So, you don't need a very large number of voters in a constituency.
12:23This was an innovation under the coalition government that you can, as constituents, if you're really fed up with your
12:29MP,
12:29you can petition to have them recall to the seat and basically run that election again.
12:34I think that's 10,000 people.
12:36Which is a small number of people in the scheme of things.
12:38But when we were talking about this earlier, you said that you thought it was really unlikely that any of
12:42the main parties would actually,
12:44even if, you know, it's better to have Nigel Farage there with this kind of odour around him than to
12:48actually try and get him deselected.
12:50Yeah, so it's actually perfectly straightforward to rally enough people, I think, to sign a recall petition.
12:56Or indeed, you know, this Parliamentary Standards Commissioner might say you are suspended for more than 10 days,
13:02in which case that automatically triggers a by-election.
13:07The question is for the other parties is do you really want to have a by-election?
13:12It's all about Nigel Farage on his home ground.
13:15You know, we've been talking a bit about how it feels like reform have hit the buffets.
13:19This could be the sort of galvanising force, a campaign that's all about him for six weeks.
13:25How wonderfully self-indulgent.
13:27Who do you put up against him?
13:28It really is like taking the battle to him.
13:32So what do you reckon? Is Nigel Farage so Teflon after all?
13:35I've been looking at a lot of the comments about this under articles and what people are saying online.
13:40And the internet is not the country.
13:43I've told you so many times to not read comments.
13:44I've got to get to that comments section.
13:46Interestingly, I think he's never set himself up to be a sort of Christ-like figure and to be pure
13:54and that he would never accept money and that kind of thing.
13:57I think a lot of this is factored in.
13:59And I remember this with Boris Johnson.
14:01People don't mind it so much.
14:03So long as there is not a perception of dishonesty.
14:06And I think that's where he has to be very careful.
14:08Get your story straight.
14:10And then I think people can just decide for themselves whether they believe you or not.
14:14The challenge, I think, is that the other political parties get very overexcited that Teflon Farage is not so Teflon
14:22after all
14:23and this is all sticking to him.
14:24And they think that's good news for them.
14:27The reason he still has support is because people are fed up with how things are going in their lives
14:33and across the country.
14:34And that's what actually needs addressing.
14:36And my fear for all these big figures, £5 million, £270,000, all that flying around,
14:43is that the other political parties and particularly the government aren't actually getting the job done
14:49and getting change that people want.
14:51And so long as that is not happening, people don't really care, I think, about Farage's personal finances.
14:59But these are huge sums of money.
15:01Doesn't it make him sound like entirely out of touch?
15:04I think that, in a way, the numbers are so big that, I mean, there will be people who think,
15:10yes, I don't like this, it sounds unfair, it sounds murky and I don't understand it.
15:14And it just doesn't sound right.
15:16And it so dwarfs his parliamentary salary.
15:20On the other hand, I think these numbers are so big and so nebulous.
15:24And there's a sense that everybody's at it because there are many wealthy MPs in Parliament
15:29and there's always something coming out about someone's expenses because, as you say, it's easy to make mistakes.
15:36I just wonder whether it's priced in.
15:39And as much as it is bad for him and his specific things are crypto and gold, which all feels
15:45a bit dodgy in cameo and that kind of thing.
15:50Putting that element of it aside, I think people just think it's all part of the same Westminster problem.
15:56And he's one of those creatures, which is bad for him.
15:59It's not the money and the expenses.
16:01It's that he looks like an insider.
16:03He doesn't look like an insurgent anymore that can bring change.
16:06Isn't it also bad, though, that he looks like he can't handle the criticism and he can't handle the scrutiny
16:12and he's very thin-skinned?
16:13That, I think, has come across quite a lot.
16:16For someone who likes to have a go at everyone, he seems remarkably thin-skinned about himself.
16:20Like, he's just hiding at the moment.
16:22He didn't show up at the spectator party.
16:25He hasn't been around and about in Westminster.
16:27The kind of, like, Farage high on his horse, you know, going around telling everybody else what to do, has
16:32been noticeably absent in the last few weeks.
16:34Yeah, and long may that last on a personal level.
16:38But I think it depends how much attention you pay to this.
16:42I think lots of people won't have noticed, and Reform are still merrily putting out videos featuring him and him
16:48attacking Andy Burnham and him attacking Kemmy Baden-Ock and, you know, essentially him doing the same old stuff.
16:56I think that, you know, losing some of that charm is a problem.
16:59But I do wonder whether a lot of this is Westminster getting quite overexcited.
17:04Nigel Farage, he's going to be the next prime minister.
17:06No, he isn't.
17:08He's actually just like the rest of them, and he's on the way out, and he's in a massive amount
17:11of trouble.
17:12I think things will probably just ride quite steadily for a while.
17:16We're picking up on things that perhaps people across the country aren't, because Westminster can just be a bit more
17:22sensitive.
17:23And you are right, compared to a year ago, when the sort of summer party circuit was jam-packed with
17:30Reform people being incredibly overexcited, that's calmed down a bit.
17:35Do you not think there is a thing here where part of Nigel Farage's problem, and maybe part of Reform's
17:40problem, is they haven't kind of caught up with their own popularity yet.
17:44So they still see themselves like these scrappy underdogs, and they haven't quite got the reality that people are now
17:50seeing them differently once you start to lead the polls.
17:52You do get kind of shoved into a different level in terms of what people expect of you if they
17:58start to think, actually, these people might be serious and might be involved in the next government and all of
18:02these things that Reform have been telling everyone.
18:04So now they've kind of moved into a different level, and they haven't quite internalised that yet.
18:09Yes, I've got two thoughts on this.
18:10So there was a very interesting YouGov poll out this week that said that 61% of Britain's now seen
18:16Reform UK as a, quote, main party, which is up from 19% two years ago.
18:23So it's a big step change in they are a main player.
18:27It's obviously very hard to argue yourself as an insurgent if two-thirds of the public now see you as
18:33one of the main parties.
18:35It's a similar challenge.
18:36You know, I don't think we should conflate the two people, but Andy Burnham has got this slight problem of
18:42coming in as a, I don't know if outsider is the right word, because he has spent so much time
18:46in Westminster previously, but as quite an independent-looking figure and as someone fresh and new.
18:51And then he's literally about to become the establishment.
18:54So put a pin in that for now, for future episodes.
18:58I think the problem for Reform is, you're right, I mean, they're leading the polls, but they are yet to
19:04win a by-election, pending one in Clacton, obviously.
19:08But I think that speaks to their organisation.
19:11So we've obviously been speaking about Nigel Farage and his finances and how he has declared or misdeclared expenses.
19:19But I think so much of this boils down to how Reform itself as an organisation runs.
19:26They've taken on a load of what I would call Tory dross, which is a former Conservative minister.
19:32Technical term.
19:33Yeah, because see it out there, you'll be like Boris Wave, Tory dross, we're going to get hats made.
19:39Right. And he's changing his team quite a lot.
19:43So Lee Anderson is now the chairman.
19:45David Bull has gone.
19:47I've seen they're doing a smattering of hires on their policy teams and on their comms teams and stuff like
19:52that.
19:52But, you know, they are not running themselves that well as campaigners because some of these by-elections, they really
19:59ought to have won and they didn't.
20:01Similarly, they should know how to declare things.
20:06So this is just, this is basic stuff, but you should have a few people in there who have got
20:12some actual political experience.
20:14And I mean the practical stuff, things like declaring your expenses properly in Parliament.
20:18There's a lot of former Conservative MPs in Reform.
20:21Many of whom have been through the ringer on their expenses, so should have been able to advise accordingly and
20:26they haven't.
20:27And sometimes that, you know, that does show a bit of a misstep between here we are, we're a campaigning
20:34organisation.
20:35We are, we're outsiders and we're bringing the change you want.
20:41But the rubber hits the road eventually and they are not actually, I think, running themselves brilliantly as a campaigning
20:48machine.
20:48Because, although they're doing well in the polls, that is not translating into seats.
20:53And they're also not quite getting it right on the kind of small P political parliamentary stuff, for example, where
21:00he should just be declaring this stuff properly.
21:03It's not difficult.
21:04Everyone is learning about it.
21:06Why turn it into this expose?
21:08It's odd, isn't it?
21:09Because it would be much more on brand for him to have, or previous brand anyway, for him to have
21:13just owned it and said, so what?
21:15It's the sort of ducking and hiding bit that I think is, feels particularly problematic.
21:19The interesting mistake that Farage has been making in the last few weeks, exactly as you said earlier, is he
21:24can't quite make up his mind on, for example, why he got this £5 million donation from Christopher Harbourn.
21:31Was it for his private security? Was it a gift for getting Brexit done?
21:37Was it just a load of money and he wasn't going to become an MP, but he did own a
21:42controlling stake in Reform UK at the time?
21:45Who knows?
21:46But you just think, why wouldn't you, you know, for the rules and the legal bit, be totally clear, and
21:54then also have your communication straight.
21:56And that's what he's good at. He's good at, like, getting a message and hammering it, except when it comes
22:01to him, it turns out.
22:02Because sometimes, actually, and this might sound odd, the answer is to over-declare even if you don't have to,
22:06because you look better, in a sense, because you're just owning your own decision-making.
22:10So, tactically, coming across as thin-skinned, I think, is problematic.
22:17So, Farage's real problem, though, isn't this scandal? It's the reform of finding out the difference between protest and power.
22:23Do you think he's still going to be the leader of reform in a year's time?
22:27Ooh, good question. I mean...
22:30Put you on the spot there, Watson. Come on.
22:31I think the last 20 years is basic data points. Quite possibly not, because this is something he likes to
22:38do.
22:38He likes to come and go, announce he's leaving, and then be like, only kidding.
22:44He's like Serena Williams coming back to Wimbledon.
22:46Which is a great thing, by the way.
22:48Which is a great thing, yeah. Sorry.
22:49Take her name out of your mouth.
22:50Sorry. Sorry, Ms. Williams.
22:54It's a really good question. Someone said to me the other day, it's very chaotic internally at reform.
23:00You've got these old conservatives that have come on.
23:04Do you remember Zia Yusuf left last year and then came back a couple of days later?
23:09They're very emotional, aren't they?
23:10They're very emotional.
23:11All that is to say that, from the outside anyway, that all looks very chaotic.
23:16Who would want to be part of that?
23:17But my impression is that Nigel Farage really thrives off that kind of chaos.
23:21He likes people fighting with each other internally.
23:23I'm only smiling because I'd love to know which is this organised political party that everyone's comparing.
23:30It was ever thus.
23:31But some people hate it, and he seems to really like it.
23:35There's a strong possibility that, you know, the reason he is basically coining it with these various donations.
23:42Coining, yeah.
23:43He's in the Midas touch, as people say.
23:46He's getting all this money, and it's because he wants to go away and spend it for a while.
23:51Of course, what people forget with the Midas touch, the story is actually quite dark, and he ends up sad
23:57and alone because literally everything, including his wife and children, turn to gold when he touches them.
24:02Just a little fable there for Nigel to keep in mind.
24:08In terms of whether I think he's going to be leader in a year or so, there's been this persistent
24:14rumour that he doesn't really want to be prime minister, that he wants to crush the Conservative Party because he
24:19hates them.
24:19I'd say the feeling is mutual, and that he essentially models a lot of his thinking of the Reform Party
24:28in Canada, which eventually achieved great electoral success.
24:31But the original leader did not become prime minister.
24:35He did not end up leading the party without success.
24:37He got it going.
24:39Nigel Farage is 62.
24:40He seems perfectly content with his life, but if he was claiming to be skinned less than 10 years ago,
24:47you can see a scenario where he's quite happily building himself a war chest to either go off to Spain
24:55and have a nice life, or he is going to do this properly.
24:59And with him, you never know.
25:00Nigel Farage has this snake-like ability to keep shedding his skin, essentially, and he gets tired almost of the
25:08kind of latest iteration he's in, whether that's UKIP, whether that's Leave.eu, whether that's Brexit Party, whether that's Reform.
25:15And he kind of shrugs it off and he disappears and he says, I'm going away.
25:19And then he sort of regenerates and he comes back a year or so later and says, it's me, I'm
25:26back.
25:26I've got a great new skin.
25:28He's got a great new skin.
25:29And then, again, you know, it feels like the wheels come off.
25:33Things get tired.
25:33He gets sick of the people he's working with and it's time to go.
25:38And I wonder whether we are in one of his skin cycles.
25:42And the word is, is that he's been having a lot of meetings on how does the cabin office work,
25:47how does the stay actually run.
25:48Maybe it's that that's broken him.
25:49Yeah, and it's possible you just thought, oh my God, that sounds absolutely terrible.
25:54Terrible.
25:54It's possible.
25:55But I think this also gets to one of my central arguments that I like to bring up a lot.
26:00We talk about leaders all the time, but the team around them is so important.
26:05He's got some interesting policy people and comms people, I'm sure.
26:08I hope he's getting a few better kind of practical people on the ground to keep his machine running.
26:15But he has also got, you know, Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman and Danny Kruger.
26:22And those people, you know, for better or for worse, have experienced government.
26:26I wouldn't say they've done an amazing job, but obviously I was with them.
26:29So I'm going to have to take some of the rap myself for that too.
26:34But he must be looking around and thinking, which of these people is capable of taking this on after me?
26:42Who do I have confidence in to do a good job here?
26:45Who in this team, because it can't be me by myself, is competent and able to, you know, from day
26:52one, put our 100-day plan in place and 1,000-day plan in place?
26:56And they need to have some pretty serious hires and arguably fires.
27:00There's also something I would like to point to and just, we talked about his money situation and that kind
27:06of financial scrutiny.
27:07We've talked about him as a communicator and whether he's even likely to stick around just for his own personal
27:15wants.
27:16I do also think he's made a few strategic mistakes recently.
27:21I personally think it was a mistake to take on some of the, quote, Tory dross.
27:27It's actually worked out really well for Kemi Badenock.
27:29That moment when Robert Jenrick defected, there'd been big questions about her leadership up until then.
27:37And suddenly the entire Conservative Parliamentary Party has coalesced around her.
27:41That's right. I hadn't put that together before. You're absolutely right.
27:44Because she also had this, I don't know if people remember, she did this kind of amazing expose.
27:48She did, it was very dramatic.
27:49Yeah, where she was like, I see you, Robert.
27:52And so he did not get to have the kind of glorious defection, the surprise defection anyway.
27:57Or because some poor soul had left something on a photocopier.
28:00Yeah, they left his resignation letter on a photocopier.
28:03Why were they photocopying it, while I think about that?
28:06Hold on.
28:09Her spidey senses are tingling, everyone.
28:11Not a credible story.
28:13So I think, I see why he was saying, I want to take on some people with government experience.
28:17That's the big criticism that reform were facing at the time, was that they didn't have enough government experience.
28:22I just think they were hiring the wrong people, personally.
28:25No offence, Robert Jenrick.
28:26Although a bit.
28:28Secondly, I think some of his rhetoric recently has been a mistake.
28:33I think the pure cold rage comments that people remember is dangerous for us.
28:40He has a very specific line he doesn't want to cross, which is where he thinks he stands differently to,
28:46say, Tommy Robinson.
28:46And I think that his comments could be perceived as asking people to go a step further, physically a step
28:55further, than being a keyboard warrior or being angry about something.
29:00It's dangerous stuff.
29:02Just a side note, I think one of the interesting changes he has made is that normally the summer is
29:06when politicians kind of pack up and go away for the holidays.
29:10The last two summers, reform have dominated the agenda.
29:13They had these big press conferences, if you remember.
29:16The government was putting out the odd press release on sort of planning or environment.
29:19And meanwhile, journalists were flocking to different parts of the country to see Nigel Farage unveil his latest innovation.
29:26He has been way ahead of the government, way ahead of the other political parties on essentially the mood of
29:32the public.
29:33And I think he got it wrong in the last couple of months.
29:38I also think they were wrong not to stamp down on the sexist comments from the by-election candidate in
29:46Makerfield.
29:47It's not just that Andy Burnham ended up having lots of women vote for him then.
29:52I mean, Rupert Lowe's work at Restore on the Rape Gang Inquiry, for example, has been very powerful with women
30:02on Facebook, for example.
30:04You can see these groups where women are talking to each other.
30:07And I think that reform come off as laddier and misogynistic, essentially.
30:15And I'm not sure they've clocked that in time and they should have just squashed that immediately.
30:20And the other thing is, this is a straightforward policy question, really.
30:25But I think their plans to deny indefinite leave to remain for people who've been here for decades,
30:33contributing to public services through their taxes and actually working in public services,
30:38we're talking about nurses and carers and stuff like that, was a mistake.
30:42You only have to look to the response to the Windrush scandal in 2017 when we were both in government
30:48to know actually the British public hold fairness very strongly in their hearts and they just got that wrong.
30:55It's very hard to shout the kind of patriotic fairness, we're proud to be British sort of slogans
31:05and then look like you're having a witch hunt.
31:07There's a few actual mistakes that they're now having to make up for.
31:12The only thing I would say, contrary to that, is it's quite likely reform will dip in the polls.
31:18They'll probably be overtaken by Labour, maybe even the Conservatives.
31:22It's narrowing all the time.
31:25This will trigger a great amount of navel-gazing in Westminster with people thinking,
31:30oh, actually, they're done.
31:31We were saying, obviously, six months ago, Nigel Farage is going to be prime minister, but I've forgotten that tweet.
31:37Don't show it to me again.
31:39And he, you know, reformer done, Farage is done.
31:43I don't think if you're trying to make the case that you're an insurgent party,
31:46it's the worst thing in the world at this stage in the kind of electoral cycle to dip
31:51and then to try and have a resurgence after the summer.
31:54You don't want to be leading all the time, particularly because they need to get their head straight
31:59because their poll lead is not translating into seats.
32:02I don't think there's talk of reform being in trouble, Farage being in trouble.
32:06With timing in mind, I think it's unlikely Andy Burnham goes for this early election that people are talking about.
32:11I think it would be madness, but that's my view.
32:15What would your advice to Andy Burnham and Kemi Badenok be about how to handle both the dip
32:21and where the absent Nigel Farage now?
32:23We are in a weird situation where basically all the political parties this summer need a revival.
32:30Andy Burnham is coming in as a fresh leader, so he will want to have a big poll bounce with
32:34Labour.
32:35Kemi Badenok is being talked up as a very popular leader, but it's not quite translating into polls yet.
32:41So she needs to show she can lift the Conservatives up.
32:44You know, as we've just been discussing at length, reform could be in some trouble
32:49and they will want to show they haven't kind of hit the buffers and are slowing down.
32:52I have no idea where the Lib Dems are.
32:54In fact, I think Andy Burnham coming in is very, very bad news for Ed Davey.
32:58And I think we could see a potential leadership contest in the Lib Dems because they need someone
33:02who isn't just going to get them eaten up by the Labour Party.
33:06And same goes for Zach Polanski and the Greens.
33:09They've been very quiet recently.
33:12And in fact, we've seen his personal approval ratings tanking.
33:17So we're in an interesting situation where five main parties, this is including SNP and Plaid,
33:23are fighting to kind of renew themselves and to represent themselves to the public.
33:31I think Andy Burnham and Kemi Bainok have slightly different problems with Nigel Farage.
33:40Burnham is the big player in this because, as we discussed on Tuesday,
33:46Kemi Bainok and Reform, they are struggling to work out quite how to play Burnham at the moment.
33:54Do they paint him as more of the same because he worked for Brown and he's a Blairite and a
33:58Corbynite
33:59and all the rest of it? Or a dangerous socialist.
34:01Or a dangerous socialist. I mean, it's quite hard.
34:03As Nigel Farage is discovering, it's very hard to have both.
34:07He can set the stage for how lots of this stuff is seen,
34:12not least because he is going to be our prime minister.
34:15Kemi Bainok essentially needs to keep doing what she's doing.
34:19It's a bit of a head scratch on the Conservative Party in general.
34:22I personally would have a big reshuffle.
34:23I think she's got some quite weak people in key positions.
34:26No one knows who they are.
34:28Don't give the public time to get to know who they are.
34:30Just put in really good people now to give the kind of fresh new people
34:34an opportunity to have two years in post before an election.
34:38I would be thinking where Farage is getting it wrong.
34:42The sexism stuff is a really good example.
34:44The fairness stuff is a really good example.
34:46You can make those kind of core Conservative values alongside their work on the economy.
34:51For Andy Burnham, I think he can do a better job of fighting Farage than Keir Starmer did
34:57just because he can speak more directly, he can speak more plainly.
35:02He's a better communicator.
35:03I think it is a mistake to constantly go after Farage's financial affairs and scandals.
35:10And the reason I say that is because it's not that I don't think he should be scrutinised.
35:15The media should do that and they should have a really powerful outrider,
35:19like an Angela Rayner-style person who's just bashing him every day.
35:23But I think if Andy Burnham is using the precious time that he has to speak to the country,
35:28talking about what a bad man Nigel Farage is, it misses the point of why Farage is popular at all.
35:34He needs to crack on with his own agenda, lifting living standards,
35:40rebalancing wealth as he would see it, getting on with his day job, protecting the country.
35:44etc. I think it is falling into a trap to go after Farage personally.
35:51It's interesting though, isn't it?
35:53Because we saw this week from Andy Burnham him going much, much closer to the kind of language
35:59that's been used on migration and particularly exporting criminals
36:03than we've seen from the Labour Party full stop in a long time.
36:06So there was a tweet about a criminal that should have been extradited that hasn't been.
36:10And it was interesting because Andy Burnham tweeted this kind of this,
36:13you know, we need to get these people out of our country and said that he would get the
36:18foreign secretary and the home secretary to explore all options.
36:22Now you can read that in one of two ways.
36:24Firstly, it was a very, very clear sign that he's sticking very hard to the rhetoric on migration
36:28that he used in Makefield, which did help him by all accounts with some of the people
36:32who were otherwise naturally sympathetic to some of the reform arguments.
36:36But it also, I felt, I read it, cynic though I am, as a very strong message to the sort
36:42of people
36:43who are thinking about becoming his foreign secretary, his home secretary, his attorney general.
36:47This isn't going to be the same kind of vibes that we've had from Keir Starmer and Richard Hermer
36:52with much more respect for international law and human rights and the kind of classic,
36:56more to the left agenda.
36:58It did feel like a very, very strong signal that he wants to hold a much harder line.
37:03I mean, closer to Siobhan Mahmood, actually.
37:05Well, and again, he can, Burnham can essentially win the immigration debate by sticking to this
37:11fairness line.
37:12So he will, I imagine, find the idea of deporting people with indefinite leave to remain who
37:19have jobs here, who work in the NHS, say, who've been here for decades, gross, and he won't
37:25want that to happen.
37:26This specific case is a really good example of it's completely unfair for a grooming gangs
37:32leader to leave prison and then just be able to be living in the UK and he should be deported
37:39back to Pakistan.
37:41And it's one of those litmus test cases where people think, yeah, I don't want this guy
37:45here.
37:46And I think that is what he can do really well.
37:50He's good at communicating and he can make a really, really strong fairness case that people
37:56will basically agree with.
37:57And regardless of political party, if you'd like to keep up with the show, you can send
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38:22This podcast is part of the Independent Podcast Network and produced in association with Next
38:26Chapter Studios.
38:27Our executive producer is Rod Adahali.
38:29And a special shout out to our content editor, Maya Ranushka, our video editor, Vali Raza,
38:35and our videographer, Dan Faber.
38:37See you again.
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