- 12 hours ago
Catch up with all the political news across the county with Rob Bailey.
This week we were joined by Labour Chatham and Aylesford MP Tris Osborne and Kent County Councillor Paul Thomas for Restore Britain to chat about immigration and water regulation.
This week we were joined by Labour Chatham and Aylesford MP Tris Osborne and Kent County Councillor Paul Thomas for Restore Britain to chat about immigration and water regulation.
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TVTranscript
00:24Welcome to the Kent Politics Show on KMTV, I'm Rob Bailey.
00:27And this week we've seen two different visions for Britain's place in the world.
00:31Nigel Farage came to Hythe to announce that reform would halt the UK asylum system for up to five years.
00:38In a US podcast, he then suggested charities which help people crossing the channel should face criminal prosecution.
00:45Meanwhile, Prime Minister Andy Burnham has blamed Brexit for a loss of immigration control.
00:50He wants a serious dialogue about our future relationship with the EU.
00:54But what does all of this mean for Kent?
00:55Well first, Chloe Brewster spoke to Nigel Farage in Hythe this week.
01:01This industrial estate in Hythe filled with media this morning as Nigel Farage docked into Kent's to announce his latest
01:08pledge for a future reform government.
01:11Taking his place at the podium, it's easy to note the sheer size of the boat placed behind him.
01:16There is a growing feeling in this country, and a growing sense of anger.
01:22And you can see it down the road in Dover.
01:25You can see it in Portsmouth.
01:27You can see it in Gosport.
01:30And by the way, I don't approve of anybody wearing balaclant, as I never have, and I never will.
01:35But there's a growing sense and a feeling, not just of unfairness, not just that it's wrong, but that frankly,
01:44we treat people who come here illegally better than we treat our own people.
01:51He vowed he'd effectively close down the UK's asylum system for up to five years, with Zia Youssef backing up
01:59claims that Britain is full.
02:01The plan is called Operation Restoring Justice, and will also ban British visas for countries if they refuse to allow
02:08deportation flights to land in their country.
02:11It will also push forward plans to leave the European Convention of Human Rights, and repeal the Human Rights Act
02:17to replace it.
02:18Naturally, people who don't know your party well, that brings up that fear of what human rights will be taken
02:25away from me in the next election.
02:27The ETHR protects things like equality between spouses, for example. Can you reassure that you're not going to...
02:32We're going to give them back liberty and freedom.
02:35You're saying we don't have liberty and freedom now?
02:37Well, actually, I think, frankly, given there are more doors knocked on for what people say on Facebook every year
02:43than there are in Putin's Russia, I'm not so sure that we do.
02:47Look, even if the Human Rights Act was well intended, it has now led to a situation where we can't
02:54even get rid of people who are potential terrorists,
02:58of people who have committed, you know, mass rapes in grooming gangs.
03:02We have to get back that control.
03:04And this happens in life sometimes.
03:06Sometimes something can be very well intended, but it turns out to become a barrier to what's right for even
03:11more people.
03:12And look, when it comes to freedom and free speech, we don't need any European conventions.
03:18We've led for centuries on this sort of thing.
03:22Farage was supported by Kent County Council's reform leadership, who, unsurprisingly, echoed his calls to stop the boats.
03:29Well, I didn't like the balaclavas.
03:31That made me feel very uncomfortable.
03:32But I can completely understand why those people took to the streets to protest.
03:36You know, the anger that is felt by most ordinary people out there, that our borders are no longer secure,
03:42that the boats are arriving in great numbers.
03:44And you can see the boat behind me here is a scale model of one of the boats that arrived
03:49just a few weeks ago, carrying hundreds of people.
03:51I mean, the situation is out of control.
03:53As Nigel said, there is a national security emergency.
03:56A lot of the people on the boats will come here to do us harm.
04:00And at the moment, they're just being let in.
04:02And we're giving them free board, free bed and lodging and pocket money and phones and allowing them to roam
04:07freely around the country.
04:08I mean, the situation is just ridiculous.
04:10Since the start of 2026, we've only seen reform move down the polls.
04:15So will Farage's announcement today in Kent actually leave a lasting impact here at the port of Dover?
04:22Chloe Brewster for KMTV in Dover.
04:25And here with me is Tris Osborne, the Labour MP for Chatham and Ellsford, and Restore Britain's leader at Kent
04:31County Council, Paul Thomas.
04:32Thank you for joining us.
04:34Paul, I want to start with you.
04:35I mean, obviously, we've seen reform.
04:37You're Restore.
04:37I want to be absolutely clear with everybody about that, different political parties.
04:42But obviously, you have immigration policies in common with reform.
04:46And when people watch Nigel Farage talking like that, I'm really interested about the moral dimension of this argument.
04:53Both reform and restore have got a very similar pitch to the public in that they say that what this
04:59is about is restoring Christian values to the heart of British culture.
05:02And your website says exactly that.
05:05The Christians have a political party that represents their views, stands ready to act on them.
05:09We are historically Christian country guided by a Christian morality.
05:12And reform say something very, very similar.
05:15And I just wonder, when you hear Nigel Farage essentially standing up and saying, we don't care where you come
05:21from, we don't care what hardship you've suffered, we don't care how capable we are of helping you, we're just
05:26not going to do it.
05:28How Christian is that?
05:30Well, if you just go back a step back, because you said that we're the same as reform.
05:39Fundamentally, we're not.
05:40Yes, the issues are the same, but then it's the same for the government as well.
05:44But if you look at it, reforms were set up because the Tories weren't doing their job.
05:50Yet now they've taken into themselves people like Robert Jenrick, who set up these asylum hotels.
05:57So you've then, and then you listen to the way that they've spoken, they're the leader.
06:02Why is she not here presenting it on a week where it's their news?
06:06So they're good at the soundbites and the headlines.
06:10But if you look at it, the way Restore are doing it, we've got Henry Bolton as our national security
06:17member.
06:18We're talking about mass deportations, which was where Nigel and Reform decided to get rid of Rupert.
06:26But we're looking at it holistically.
06:28First of all, that we are...
06:29Would you back this asylum ban? Do you think it's a good idea?
06:32We'd do it slightly differently because our attitude is we've got a policy which is just done,
06:37which is restoring Britain's maritime domain, which is to collect them, then detain and deport them once they've been assessed.
06:45So at the end of the day, we can't cope with what's coming in.
06:49We don't know what's coming in.
06:51If you let people in without their passports and who they are, where are you going to end up?
06:57What issues are you taking into this country?
07:00And it's got to stop and it needs to be looked at in a holistic approach, as we say.
07:05Tackle it in the water.
07:07I'll bring us in at this point.
07:10We heard Nigel Farage talking about anger.
07:12I think Paul is reflecting that same idea that there is a lot of frustration with the status quo at
07:16the moment.
07:18How do you respond to that and what are you doing about that?
07:20Yeah, so, I mean, your argument initially about the Christian sentiment,
07:25obviously there's a nasty strain of ethno-nationalism which is coming through this on the right.
07:31And actually, the story that we're about to celebrate at Christmas is one of a refugee, actually,
07:37Mary moving into Nazareth.
07:39But actually, more importantly, around migration,
07:42since Brexit, we've seen the Boris wave where migration peaked at one million.
07:47Net migration, we saw a surge in the boats.
07:49We inherited that crisis two and a half years ago.
07:52And what we've now seen is we're beginning to take control back again.
07:55So we've seen an 80% fall in net migration and we've seen a 40% fall in boat crossings
08:01since the 2022 peaks under the right.
08:05So the direction of travel is very clear.
08:08Migration is falling.
08:09Now, we absolutely do need to fix the system.
08:11So we are looking in our Asylum and Borders Bill around how we can reform the appeals process
08:16so we can get people deported either voluntarily or by enforced action.
08:20And just this week, Shabana Mahmood has said with Eritrea,
08:23if you don't take people back, you won't be allowed to travel to the UK.
08:26So we're already imposing travel bans.
08:28So there's a lot to do.
08:29But fundamentally, since Brexit, we've seen a migration surge.
08:34That's exactly the opposite of what Nigel said that would happen.
08:37And we're now getting back control.
08:38But it will take several years.
08:40And just lastly, on the ECHR, that is a fit.
08:42That is not actually a solution.
08:45We've seen in countries that are signatories to the European Convention that you can control migration.
08:50Denmark is an example of that.
08:52That's just an easy one to put on the table.
08:54It doesn't actually resolve the problem unless you fix the system.
08:57And that is getting people processed quickly once they apply in the UK.
09:03And that's the system which we're designing.
09:05And I simply say to people, judge us by our record in three years' time.
09:08Already numbers are down by 40%.
09:10Paul, you want to come?
09:12You say down by 40%.
09:13I'd like to sort of test that sometime.
09:16But obviously not today.
09:17But we are a Christian country.
09:20And what we're saying is we want to protect the Christian values in this country.
09:25So to allow other religions in to take over, we don't have an issue when people come in.
09:31What religions are taking over?
09:33Come on.
09:34Sharia, courts, unite from a national level.
09:36So that is just not true.
09:37We are an atheist country primarily.
09:39We have a Christian heritage.
09:41Muslims make up about 6% to 7% of the population.
09:44I'm afraid this is exactly the ethno-nationalism I was talking about.
09:47It's trying to pit communities against each other and differ in religions against each other.
09:52No one is trying to take over this country.
09:55We are a plural society.
09:56We worship different gods.
09:58I'm afraid this is exactly what we're seeing from the right at the moment.
10:01And there's no heritage in this country where religion has been used in this way to divide society.
10:07And I'm really concerned by some of those narratives coming...
10:10I would ask you, Paul.
10:12I mean, it says you are a political party that represents Christian views and stands ready to act on them.
10:16But it doesn't sound like there's a charitable position being taken by reform and your position by reform.
10:22Where you get into a lot of this detail, like you've done it there, that's a divisive comment.
10:27We're not...
10:28We're a plural society.
10:31If you'd let me finish.
10:32Yeah.
10:32Because we're all about getting the communities back.
10:37If you look at the work that we've been doing at KCC as an opposition party, where we are working
10:42with the local communities,
10:43using our combined members' grant to do it, we've got multicultural societies in there.
10:48But they're all actively working together to deliver for their communities.
10:52What we're saying is this element that's coming in that nobody knows who they are and what their background is,
10:58and they're being allowed to just run through the country, where you don't know about their cultural differences.
11:06That's what we're pushing back on.
11:07And it needs to be controlled.
11:09As they've said with Restore Britain, they've got...
11:13We're looking to stop that while we assess, collect the people that are in here illegally,
11:19that are creating issues within this country.
11:22And for somebody to say that they don't exist is burying your head in the sand, and we're getting more
11:26of the same.
11:26She's very, very quickly just coming in.
11:27I've never said that.
11:28First of all, you can disentangle migration, where we are getting in control.
11:32You can look at the Home Office figures that are presented on the BBC website, down 40%.
11:35They are the official stats.
11:36That is nothing to do with religious views.
11:38And you can absolutely say that whatever your religious viewpoint, you can stay in this country.
11:44That is the freedom of speech, which we all fight for.
11:46We are running out of time there, but we'll be back very soon with more about water in Kent.
11:50Stay with us.
11:53Stay with us.
12:24you
12:25you
12:55you
13:25you
13:55you
14:25you
15:05welcome back to the kent politics show on kmtv next tonight he's got a famous bucket of water and an
15:10unmistakable boat race so it makes sense that actor danny dyer is involved in a clean water campaign the king
15:16cockney who runs a caravan park in sheppie went to downing street this week to present a petition calling for
15:22water companies to be owned by the public he was joined by
15:25sitting born and sheppie mp kevin mckenna reporter sophie denny was there too not his usual gaffe stepping out of
15:34the east end to knock on one of the most famous doors in the uk actor danny dyer says he's
15:39on a mission to save britain seas arriving in london on a flotilla of boats the actor delivered a petition
15:46alongside kent mp kevin mckenna and the leader of campaign group sos whitstable calling for water companies to be brought
15:53back into public ownership
15:55i'm not safe danny why do you want to save our seas
15:58pretty obvious back in it go on tell us why
16:02delivering a petition directly to downing street here doesn't immediately create any policy change or indeed a debate in parliament
16:09but we do know that the issue of water quality is already on the prime minister's radar
16:14back at the labour party conference in september andy burnham announced his plans to bring water
16:20companies under greater public control angela eagle will present a strengthened water bill to parliament
16:29the centerpiece of that bill will be this the repeal of margaret thatcher's ideological ban
16:40on public ownership
16:43of water companies
16:46but the question still remains how would that improve the situation back in kent kent has been
16:51right on the front line of the failure of water companies to deliver water and our and our season
16:56close to right on that front line of seeing what happens when the sewage treatment doesn't work properly
17:01we've already changed the law around uh water bosses bonuses and the sanctions of being able to send them
17:06to jail for up to two years if they fail that clearly isn't enough it's not just regulation that's why
17:12accountability matters the accountability is that actually comes under direct political control
17:17of the game so that actually andy burnham and the environment minister and actually mps representing
17:23every constituency have a say in this performance on behalf of the people kent has been at the heart
17:28of issues concerning sewage being illegally dumped off its coast with southern water being fined a record
17:3590 million pounds in 2021 for long-term breaches of environmental law in a statement southern water
17:42said they're tackling the root causes of pollution through their investment program and have
17:46already delivered significant improvements cutting instance by almost a third in kent they said they're
17:52spending more than 300 million pounds on reducing storm overflows and upgrading infrastructure
17:57and that recent court cases relate to historic incidents during a period of underinvestment
18:03they said the company has changed significantly and is focusing on improvements the government has
18:08said the bill should be ready in time for christmas but whether this will prevent kent's coast from
18:13continuing to receive some unwelcome sewage related gifts remains to be seen sophie denny for kmtv
18:20in downing street and still with me is tris osborne labour mp for chatham and ellsford and paul thomas
18:26of restore britain um tris i mean danny dyer was essentially banging on an open door there andy burnham has
18:32already said he supports bringing water companies back into public ownership but i think one of the things that
18:36interests me is is that people see this as being a much more black and white issue than it really
18:41is they think it's either privatization or nationalization and of course there are many
18:45different ways that public ownership of the water companies could work from your point of view what
18:51does this mean what is what is andy burnham's vision for how public water companies or how water
18:57companies will be run in future yeah absolutely so uh uh my colleague kevin articulated some of the
19:02measures we've introduced around water companies finding uh people for sewage releases but actually
19:07the models do matter so what we've seen since the 1980s effectively is one model which is a privatized
19:13utility where capital is raised from the markets and then that they're supposed to invest in our grid
19:18infrastructure now we know across kent southeast water being the classic example here where these
19:23companies have basically taken the money off the public and then given it to shareholders and they haven't
19:28invested the infrastructure which is the reason why we've had droughts we've had villages cut off
19:32and that is simply unacceptable so the model that we would like to look at is public interest
19:37companies that's the first one where there's a direct stakeholder engagement with the public
19:41it could be direct public control by mayors in certain city regions we don't have that here but
19:46that's certainly uh an avenue to look at or indeed cooperative models where there's a shared uh private
19:51public uh control where the public perhaps the council owns 51 of the company and is therefore able to
19:58uh engage in scrutiny of that so those are the different models we can look at but one thing
20:03we all have to agree here in kent is that the privatized model certainly in the case of southeast
20:08water has not worked and we've seen huge debt racked up while the services got worse while bills have
20:14gone up and when company ceos have basically been giving money to shareholders and that is not acceptable
20:20when people can't get fresh water out the tap paul this month you sat on the first meeting of a
20:24new
20:24water resilience partnership which has been set up by kent county council um i mean from your point
20:30of view do you think that this move towards public ownership is the right solution to the issues
20:34well first of all since the 1991 water act it's failed we're not getting the customer service you
20:42my concern though if you privatize it the way labor are talking it quite frankly i've got no faith in
20:46in labor delivering on it because if you look at it they say that the mayoral solution to manage those
20:52water companies well would you want the mayor of london to be running it no thank you very much
20:56so but the key issue is that desperately needs to be looked at were the regulations and the licenses
21:03right in 1991 is it a failure on the the successive governments for not implementing those to enforce
21:11the water companies to deliver on those when we spoke about the the water partnership the big
21:17missing thing there there were no mps yet they're all banging on about oh the water issue we want
21:23to stop housing uh the sewerage issue but look if you look back take thames water as an example
21:30i was a developer at the time we developed on a lot of the land surrounding the reservoirs
21:36where did that money go it definitely didn't go back into the infrastructure so it's the investment
21:41that's required and whilst there were a lot of good things came out of the partnership meeting
21:47the bit that still isn't there is when are you going to put the spades in the ground
21:50when are you going to increase the wet well facilities the developers have paid their um
21:55infrastructure charges where has that money been spent the customer has been paying their standing
22:02charges for maintenance and and delivery of service where's that money gone because it obviously has
22:08expected yeah yeah shareholders and that's the model that's the problem with the 1980s 1990s model
22:14it went all into shareholders you made that profit and the public have had to pay for that pleasure and
22:19we've seen that model in southeast water in particular in ken it has not worked the the pipes are bursting
22:25we've seen water supplies cut off for villages we've seen a incredible lack of communication with
22:30residents who are fuming and angry we're not imposing models i think what andy is suggesting is that we
22:36that there are different models we can look at where the where the the shareholder is not the
22:41person that you should be working to you should be working interesting thing i mean the thing that
22:45most people out there will be we will be looking at very carefully as we move potentially to a new
22:50model is is is who pays because as you say there is a huge amount of infrastructure needed to fix
22:55the
22:55leaking pipes there's another load of infrastructure needed to build more reservoirs we haven't had a new
22:59reservoir in kent for decades and we probably need one um who pays and under under these models is
23:06this going to be higher bills is it going to mean um that that councils effectively are using taxpayers
23:13money so higher bills by proxy i mean how does that kind of work so so when it comes to
23:17the national
23:17grid uh so for instance reservoirs that is actually set by governments the government will direct that
23:22and they'll part fund that could be a variety of different models for that it could be a private
23:27public partnership arrangement where there's um where effectively that is allocated to companies
23:32based on their usage um when it comes to fixing the pipes however every water company needs to have a
23:38five-year strategic capital plan which they need to present um and they need to deliver on that that's
23:43the reason why southeast water is in trouble because they actually haven't been doing what they've said
23:47that they were supposed to be doing uh and and the pipes have fallen apart while they've been paying out
23:52fat
23:52dividends to shareholders that's where the model isn't working and that's why people are angry they
23:57pay higher bills they don't get fixed pipes and then they see money going out the door to people in
24:03hedge funds uh and wealthy financial institutions that cannot be a model that's sustainable so we need
24:08to move off of that quickly if you listen to that that's going to take time these mains are perforated
24:15in the ground now the leakages are excessive if you just go for a re-nationalization all across the
24:23country overnight my concern is the framework won't be right why don't we pick one that's failing take
24:30it back into public ownership one pound work it through the system because at the end of the day
24:35the majority of workforce will still be the same people delivering the good service it's where it's
24:40been the shareholders have benefited in the past and the fact that they're not in uk ownership
24:48so at the end of the day do they care providing they're getting their returns customers do not
24:53want to keep paying for effectively a non-service if you find them who pays the customer again over time
25:01because they will always recoup it so you need to sit down and work out properly how you're going to
25:07deliver these knee-jerk reactions with sound bites going to take three four five years in the making
25:13that's no good when you had a hundred year old mate that's still leaking and that's that's an
25:18interesting point isn't it because to most people out there watching this all they want to
25:21know is that next year they won't have taps running dry that next year if they take a trip to
25:25the beach when it's 40 degrees outside they won't find the beach closed because there's been a
25:29sewage release i mean is there an answer to help with that yeah so that's exactly what the
25:34cunliffe review was which is a series of regulatory interventions fines uh for uh major management uh
25:40holding to account on releases including monitoring of sewage release is much better than it was
25:44previously so we can do all of the regulatory changes those have been introduced but fundamentally
25:50the model is the problem you are renationalization is is a difficult one because obviously there's huge
25:56debt liabilities which the government doesn't want to then transfer back to the public books it will
26:00look at special purpose vehicles i think thames water is is an example of that but fundamentally
26:04going forward similar to what we've done with rail companies you could see a position where in five
26:09ten years time they simply transfer as they as they end their license to a more public uh company so
26:15you
26:15don't have to nationalize them wholesale you can simply transfer the company to a different model
26:20there are question marks about how they then raise capital to fund the improvements very expensive to
26:27do that so it's not an easy solution this but i think allowing us to look at different models uh
26:33rather than just one i think is that's all we've got time for today thank you to both of my
26:37guests
26:37for joining us kent tonight's coming up next with all the news from around the county and we'll be back
26:41next week with more politics have a good night