Has Kemi Badenoch saved herself?

0:13This is Political Coancy with Ed Balls and George Osborne.

0:28So we are live in the studio in Shoreditch. I've just dashed over from Good Morning Britain, where I've been presenting, and we've had huge breaking news overnight. While we are recording, it is now expected that the ceasefire will begin based on that signed agreement between Israel and Hamas. Donald Trump on his social media last night, Truth Social, was posting, I'm very proud to announce Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first phase of the peace plan. Great day for the Arab and Muslim world, Israel, all surrounding nations and the United States of America. Blessed are the peacemakers.

1:04I think blessed are the peacemakers means him with a Nobel Prize decision happening yesterday. But, you know, I'm not going to seek to relitigate for the third week running whether or not the British decision with France and other countries to recognise the state of Palestine contributed to this and to the momentum. However, it is a big and significant moment. Well, Donald Trump thinks it doesn't because he didn't mention Britain or France, although he did quote from Jesus, didn't he? It's worth remembering also, isn't it? A week ago when we were recording this podcast, news was just coming in of the terrible attacks in Manchester at Heaton Park on the synagogue there on Yom Kippur.

1:43And we've heard about the brave people who died trying to defend other people's lives. And we've also had protests from, I guess, what you would loosely call pro-Palestinian supporters in Britain and the prime minister intervening. So it's been a pretty intense week. But now we've got this good news. I don't think anyone would say it's anything other than good news. I guess the big question, which we simply can't answer today, is this yet another of those moments, which we've had a couple already since the original attacks on October 7th a couple of years ago, where hostages are released, Palestinian prisoners are released.

2:20there's a kind of temporary ceasefire. It's obviously fantastic news for those who get their liberty back, but it doesn't really advance things in terms of the relationship between Israel and its neighbours and particularly the situation in Gaza and the fighting breaks out a few weeks later. If this happens, the significant thing will be there will be no more Israeli hostages left in Gaza. And that will, A, be of course a relief to all the people who wanted their loved ones out, including their bodies in some cases. But it will also remove an Israeli justification for having such a heavy and aggressive presence in Gaza.

2:57Every hour which passes where this stays on track is an hour which allows you to become more hopeful. But frankly, releasing the hostages, prisoner release from Israeli prisons, the aid going in, but then the Israeli withdrawal within Gaza, that's part of the agreement, onto establishing a post-Hamas regime for managing the territories and steps after that. I mean, this is fraught with dangers. I think the thing you can say is neither the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu or Hamas wanted this to be the outcome, and both of them from a position of weakness have been forced by international pressure, domestic pressure, President Donald Trump.

3:37You can pick your explanation, but for Neither is this comfortable, but it is the most significant step forward since the early 1990s. And let us hope it lasts. And I think we can guarantee we're going to be talking about this and coming back to this subject for the coming weeks as this unfolds. But, you know, you just really, really hope for everybody that this is a moment of progress. It does. There's an interesting question we should return to as things develop. Could another American president have delivered this? I mean, did it require Trump's kind of bullying and imposing his will and pushing Netanyahu around and essentially pushing the Gulf states to push Hamas around to get there?

4:21Would an Obama, a Biden, George Bush have got there? Who knows? Interesting. I mean, you know, lots of things the American president does I'm not a big fan of, but pretty interesting. If he wins the Nobel Peace Prize tomorrow or in a year's time, that will be because the answer to that question is yes, I guess. We today, though, are going to talk about three things. We're going to start by reflecting on the end of the Conservative Party conference. Kemi Baden-Og's big speech yesterday, packed full of policy after a pretty tumultuous few days. And we're going to ask, is the Conservative Party coming back?

4:55Is Kemi Baden-Og secure in her leadership? Is her strategy working? Do we know what her strategy is? That's where we're going to start. Then we're going to turn to the European Convention of Human Rights. So the Conservative Party has now committed itself, alongside Nigel Farage's reform, to pulling out of the European Convention of Human Rights, which Britain has been a member of since the days after, years after the Second World War. We're going to look at that convention. Why has it reached this point? And what about the charge that there are activist judges? This is Robert Jenrick's charge at the Tory Party conference.

5:32Is there any truth in that? And where does the Labour government? of course led by a human rights barrister who's also been weighing in in the last week or so on activist judges the role of the ETHR and so on it's become center stage in the battle over immigration and we're going to take a look at the issue and then finally we have a quick look at the China spy case been on the front pages of the newspapers murky hard to understand what's going on, a war of briefing words within Whitehall going on. But the Conservatives jumping on this, the Telegraph and the Mail have got the bit between their teeth as Parliament returns.

6:11We're going to not tell you what is going on, because I don't think we really know. I'm not sure anybody quite knows what is going on. But we're going to ask, why is this happening? And what does it tell you about the state of British politics as Parliament returns? But we're going to start with the Tory conference. And they've been in Manchester all week. Stronger economy, stronger borders was their strapline. A Conservative Party, which is moving on from election defeat, where unfortunately they didn't really manage to deliver either of those. Kevin Badenock, though, made a speech yesterday, which is, I think, very unusually for a Conservative Party leader in recent, I was going to say weeks, months, but maybe years, has splashed the newspapers approvingly.

6:53She's got really good write-ups in the papers today. It has been quite a conference, just to give you a little reminder of what's been going on. I think the first thing to say was just how empty the hall was. I mean, it's a key moment for the Shadow Chancellor, really this kind of central plank of what they're trying to do here in conference and the whole series of announcements and then not actually that many people there to listen. This is one of the chocolate bars that your press office very kindly was giving out earlier today. Why can't you spell Britain? Why can't your party? You want to be in government, you've got to spell Britain!

7:22Wow. Typos. You've got to make sure never skimp on sub-editors. Yeah, exactly. Never skimp on sub-editors. Conference, the next Conservative Government will abolish stamp duty on your own. Conservative values, opportunity, aspiration, optimism. We are the party of hope. We are the party of the future. We can! And we will. Mel Stride's peroration there. Finding his voice as our shadow chancellor. You know, the second conference in opposition is a really tricky one. We were talking about this in anticipation a week ago. And maybe you can remember the kind of 2011 Labour conference. I can certainly remember the 1998 Tory conference, because the first conference in opposition has a kind of novelty factor to it and usually a leadership contest and a sort of drama.

8:15By the time you're into the second and I'd say next year's conference, the third year in opposition, it's just very hard going. And of course, what the Conservatives experienced, particularly most of these leading Conservatives have really only known government given the long period that the Tories were in office, is the absolute lack of interest that most of the rest of the world shows in an opposition conference early in a parliament. And so I think some of the early coverage of the conference, and we heard some of it there, was there aren't enough people here. The businesses haven't turned up.

8:46Halls are empty. Kind of some self-inflicted errors like spelling Britain wrong on a chocolate bar they were handing out were picked up on. But I think if you set all of that aside and you put that context that it's very hard in opposition early on to attract attention, I think the Tory high command and Kemi Badenock in particular would be pretty happy with the conference. Think of all the things they avoided. There was not some big defection to reform. There wasn't, which most people had expected, that reform would have something up their sleeve. There were 20 councillors on the morning of Kevye Badenock's media round, hour by hour, dripping out, defecting.

9:21But 20 councillors out of thousands. No Tory MP crossed the floor to reform. You know, there were definitely hiccups along the way. Robert Jenrick's remarks in Birmingham about not seeing any white faces, you know, was thrown at various people. But I wouldn't say it like massively overshadowed the event. And there's always something like that going on at conference. Generally speaking, they landed the big policies, the big policy announcements. They weren't necessarily front page of the newspapers, at least until Kimmy Baden-Württembert's speech. But they landed those. They landed an economic message as well as the message about the European Convention on Human Rights, which we've been telling them they need to do more on the economy.

9:58And I thought there were a lot of parallels with the Labour conference. Both conferences, their leaders went in in quite a weak position with lots of talk of leadership, with lots of speculation that the conference would be quite difficult. And I think Keir Starmer, as we discussed, emerged stronger from his Labour conference. And I think Kemi Badenoch emerges stronger from her conference. And both of them have the same challenge, which is, OK, they're more secure in their party, but they still have reform looming over them, low poll ratings. And there's not yet any sign, though it's very early days with the Tories, that there's been some big change as a result of this party conference.

10:37I think that's right. After both conferences, the media mood is they did better than expected, a better speech. But has it really changed anything? The polls are still bad. Was the country listening? You've got a big budget. And then the May elections coming up, which still look to be pretty tough for both Keir Starmer and for Kemi Badenoch. But I think there's another kind of parallel. Both leaders were saying, I need more time. Give me more time. Let me stick to the strategy. and it will deliver. And I think in both cases, people were saying, well, okay, but do we know what the strategy really is?

11:13What is the strategy you're actually pursuing? That was the big question about Keir Starmer's conference and in some ways, the whole Labour government in the first year, but also for Kemi Badenock. I mean, if you think, what is the Badenock strategy? She said that she wasn't going to chase reform, but actually in her announcements, it feels like she is chasing reform. She said she wasn't going to have loads of policy for the first one or two years. And there's clearly been a big change of thinking. And now they pumped out lots of policy at this conference. She said that it's going to be about economic stability and competence.

11:45And then she gets the big cheers for announcing a 10, actually, by 2030, 20 billion pound a year tax cut abolishing stamp duty without really showing how she's going to pay for that. She says by welfare cuts and tackling fraud. But, you know, the government at the moment is trying to find 30 billion tax increases for this budget. So my question to you is, if you are a young person at the moment wanting to get involved in politics, would you choose the Tories? If you're a donor, are you going to give to Kemi Badenok's party? If you are a former Tory voter who voted Lib Dem at the last election or maybe voted Reform at the last election, Are you at the moment saying, I know what they are for and I trust the Conservatives and therefore I'm going to switch my vote back?

12:30Is that change happening? Or despite it being quite a good conference for Kemba Badenock, is this still a Conservative party which has got a badly damaged brand and doesn't quite know how to turn it around? I guess the TV pictures I saw from the conference did not yet kind of exude the normalcy you want to see of a party about to govern. with lots of young people, men and women representing the whole of Britain, which you did get in the build-up to the Tory win in 2010. You did get in the build-up to the Labour win in 2024. It still looks a little bit odd and eccentric, but there will be people buying in at the bottom of the market, young activists who will become MPs, who will become future leaders of the Tory party who were there, including a rather striking fellow who um i think was over seven foot tall and seemed to attract quite a lot of the pictures i've got to say he is very tall we've moved away from the seaside conferences but we still have some seaside attractions the very tall man uh anyway it was lovely to see him in there by the way i mean i think at some point we ought to reflect upon his political views it is well i saw him being interviewed he was very much in favor of kemi badenock's speech he looked quite striking when he was standing next to kemi because she's not the tallest person in the world.

13:45Anyway, I think they did achieve a couple of things. They definitely see, and I agree with them, that there's a gap in the market for being the fiscally responsible party that's prepared to tackle public expenditure because Labour have this year been unable to do that. And they resuscitated an old Cameron device of sharing the proceeds of growth, which was, you know, as the economy grows, big question mark, can you get growing. But as the economy grows, some of the money is used to pay down debt and deficit. It's good to hear that language returning after a 10-year absence. And some of it will be used to reduce taxes.

14:23Cameron actually shared the proceeds between tax reductions and public service expenditure increases. So here they're going just for tax cuts. But nevertheless, they've got a kind of golden rule, courtesy of one eBalls, who presumably invented that term a while ago. And I think by separating out the announcements on the European Convention and immigration, which we'll come on to in this podcast, and doing that in a separate speech, it allowed Kimi Badenoch's main speech to be more about the economy. So I think that was successfully executed. Although it's a massive tax cut commitment. Yeah. And it's not all clear where the money's coming from to pay for that.

15:00No. I mean, it's a very big tax cut. And of course, it's a tax cut that the biggest beneficiaries of will be the people with the biggest houses if it's ever implemented. And it has lots of caveats when you look into it. Well, it doesn't apply to second homes, but there's still going to be a heavy stamp duty charge. I thought it was a slightly unusual. I mean, is that the biggest tax that's causing a problem in Britain, stamp duty? I mean, you can claim it's too high. You can certainly say, you know, and I'm responsible for it, that it's at the top end. It's too expensive on expensive properties.

15:31But it got her chairs in the hall and she needed that. I think what it has as an advantage is it's simple and easy to understand. I know they weighed up inheritance tax versus stamp duty, and I think they went for stamp duty because it's a younger person's time. There was definitely a move to kind of we've got to engage with younger people. And so they want to get into the kind of home buying classes that, you know, famously Margaret Thatcher formed an alliance with. It's also notable that quite a lot of the old gang are kind of rallying to the cause. So quite a lot of people I know who worked with David Cameron and myself have rejoined in various positions.

16:09So Stephen Gilbert, who was our director of strategy, has rejoined with a role for the leadership. And so I think that is all reflected in, you know, that bringing that experience in means that the whole thing has looked pretty professional. And as I say, went without a hitch. I think the question of which I think is the key one you ask is that, well, what's the actual strategy? Who are they trying to win over? And if you speak to them, I think of previous. So Margaret Thatcher would have had like Essex man, Tony Blair, Mondeo man. And then there were like Worcester women and Florida families all these over the years.

16:44You know, who are they trying to win? And I've got a rather surprising answer when I've asked that question, which is, well, we don't actually need that many people to win, which is the opposite of where I would be thinking at this point in the cycle. The answer you get from the Tory high command at the moment is you don't actually need any more like 35, 36, 37 percent, let alone 41, 42 percent to win a general election. They're currently polling less than 20 percent. Right. They're currently polling 17 percent and the Labour Party on 20 percent. So both parties write down. But, you know, Margaret Thatcher used to get into the 40s and Tony Blair did and David Cameron got into the high 30s.

17:20But they're saying, well, if we are in a multi-party democracy now, if reform is here to stay and the Liberal Democrats are stronger and maybe Corbyn's party and the Greens are going to be around, you don't need 40 percent or even 35 percent. You know, Labour got the biggest majority, one of the biggest majorities in its history last year on 33 percent of it, which was barely more than Jeremy Corbyn got when he was heavily beaten by Boris Johnson. What they're saying is we can win on a high 20s share of the vote. We can be more targeted in our appeal. We can essentially be more right wing is what they tell me.

17:59They say that is true to Kemi Baden-Ock's instincts, who's a more right wing leader than the Tory party has had in recent years. Many of the leaders of recent years. But doesn't that mean they write off all those Tory liberal Democrat marginal seats? Well, I think that it has three bigger disadvantages, this approach. So first of all, you are massively narrowing your options. You're not entirely sure if this strategy doesn't land, you haven't got anywhere else to go. You're narrowing your options in a hung parliament of who you can deal with. If it is a multi-party system, then you want to be building alliances and building potential voter coalitions because that is a feature of European democracy.

18:37And, you know, you fundamentally are, you know, displaying right at the beginning of things a bit of a lack of ambition. a multi-party system appears to have emerged in the last few years. There's no reason why you can't put it back in its box and aim at least to be the strong Conservative Party that hoovers up and marginalises the new forces that have emerged. Let me just take you to, I thought, a really interesting moment during the conference. Robert Jenrick clearly challenging Kemi Badenock, but staying loyal and not seeking to deviate from... I mean, his supporters saying explicitly not doing an Andy Burnham.

19:13But this was a moment when Andrew Rosendale, shadow Foreign Office Minister, MP since 2001, MP for Romford. Mr. Romford. Exactly. Kind of at the crux or the cutting edge of the reform challenge. He's not worrying about the Liberal Democrats in his seat. He'll be worrying about reform. And he was asked about the Conservative strategy towards reform. And this is what he said. By and large, there's not a lot that Nigel says that we really disagree with. And certainly the public out there feel the same way. They want the right of centre to work out a plan, Conservatives and Reform. If that's possible, and I think it is possible, then we should look at that option.

19:52If we're saying, look, the only type of government that's acceptable to us is purely Conservative government and we're not prepared to even consider working with people of like mind in other parties, then we may have a very long wait before we get back into power again. That was somebody on Kemi Badenock's front bench openly disagreeing with her strategy on reform. We should be doing a deal. We need to get close to them. Forget the Lib Dems. No thought of moving to the centre ground. I'd listen to that and think to myself, is she in control? Well, I've known Andrew since we were both in our late 20s.

20:25In Bokkaratán in Florida, in the Florida panhandle, as delegates of what's called the IDU, which is the kind of gathering of conservative parties around the world. as a guest of Governor Bush of Florida at the time. And, you know, to be fair to Andrew, I think he's been pretty consistent on the kind of reformish end of the Tories, if you can, you know, retrofit a bit of history. And I don't think it's surprising what he's saying. If you know Andrew, I would say he's saying what everyone is saying privately, isn't he? I mean, all the senior Tory leadership, and I don't know whether Kemi ever says this privately, but certainly immediately below her, lots of the shadow cabinet will openly discuss Could we do a deal with reform?

21:06Maybe we'll come to, you know, cross a bridge after the election. We probably won't do one with reform before. And in a multi-party system, you've got to keep your options open. I mean, it would be an interesting, you know, would a Labour leader to stay in office do a deal with the Greens? Yes. Would the Labour leader do a deal with the Liberal Democrats? Self-evidently, yes. You know, we did a deal with the Liberal Democrats. Would they do a deal with Corbyn's party? I mean, that would be pretty painful. But if the alternative was letting the Conservatives in reform in, maybe. I mean, the feature of a multi-party democracy is you have to get into bed with some strange people.

21:39So the Conservatives leave the centre, centre-right ground in order to join reform in a struggle for those votes to the right. That is the strategy. It may work in Romford. What Andrew Rosendahl is saying is we need to be open to an alliance with reform. And certainly his personal views are probably close to or perhaps identical to Nigel Farage's. I think if we had Mel Stride being interviewed, he would say, no, no, no, look. I mean, he quite explicitly, didn't he? He said he said some very candid things in fringe meetings. He first of all said, well, if I was doing the budget at the moment, if I was a Labour chancellor, I'd put up a penny on income tax, not all these small taxes that Rachel Rees is looking at.

22:19I thought that was pretty sensible, something we've both talked about on this podcast. And then he said, like, it really helped if the Labour government can stop the boats because it's going to make it difficult for us to be reelected until they are. And I thought that was pretty honest and true. But I think he would say the big difference between him and other conservatives and reform is the economy. You know, reform is big spending, big borrowing, taking risks with Britain's international reputation in markets and ultimately big taxing because they'll have to. and it's only the Conservative Party that is now in the space of saying there have to be reductions in public expenditure even if lots of that money is used to reduce taxes.

23:04But we are prepared to spell out the things and of course it's Farage is going around saying spend more money not spend less and being the pro-business, pro-fiscally conservative, pro-economy party is a bit of a gap in the market for them if you feel Labour have not delivered a convincing economic story and reform are heading left, not heading right. So that is a strategy for differentiating from reform rather than coasing up, which is what Andrew was suggesting was the right thing to do. Of course, the other thing which Kemi Baden-Ock did this week, saying that they would leave the ECHR, she actually went further and said that it wouldn't be possible to stand as a candidate for the Conservatives at the next election if you are disagreeing with that strategy of leaving the ECHR, which I think would be quite challenging for quite a lot of the people who you were Conservative MPs with back in the day.

23:51Like Michael Foot telling young Tony Blair and Gordon Brown that they could only stand for Parliament if they agreed to leave the EU and leave NATO, which they signed up to in 1983. But, you know, once they were in, they got a chance to change their party's policy. If you go back and study the manifestos of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in 1983, you'll see a marked difference in the stance they took both on leaving the European Union, the European community as it was at the time, and on unilateral nuclear disarmament. I think Gordon Brown, the rather more experienced politician of the two, back then was not putting any of that nonsense on his manifesto, whereas Tony Blair, just being selected to stand just before the election, signed up.

24:33And there we are. Surely the lesson from that is Tony Blair was prepared to say and do what was required to win. Well, I mean, both Gordon Brown and Tony Blair One of my first jobs when I was about 22 working for the Conservative Party was getting hold of a copy of Tony Blair's election address in Sedgefield and saying, ha ha ha, he wants to take us out of the EU, which with the way things actually turned out, it's a little bit ironic. Well, we're going to talk about the ECHR and Robert Jenrick and the judges. And we'll do that after the break.

25:12So, welcome back. We're going to talk about the European Convention of Human Rights and, more widely, the judges and the judiciary and the contribution they're making to our society at the moment. Our peg, of course, is not just Robert Jenrick's attack on the judges at the Conservative Party Conference, but also Kemi Baden-Ock's decision that conservative policy is now to leave the ECHR. And of course, that is a bit of a journey. A year ago in the Hustings in the leadership election with Robert Jenrick, she called quitting the ECHR, which was Jenrick's position, a distraction from bigger worries.

25:46She said leaving the ECHR wasn't a silver bullet and that she was determined to take a pragmatic approach. But a year on, she has decided or been persuaded. And I don't know whether this is intellectually persuaded or politically, her concluding that she can't take on reform without aligning herself with them on this position. She's come out for ECHR withdrawal. This is what she said at the conference. We need to stop the boats. Today, after months of work and detailed planning, I'm announcing that the next Conservative government will take Britain out of the ECHR. This is not a decision I take lightly, but our country is our home.

26:26It's not a hotel. Nothing will stop me restoring control of our borders. Yes, in government, we tried to control immigration. We passed law after law, and each time they were overturned in the courts. We have looked at every other solution. This is the only way. And I'm brave enough to do what needs to be done. No, look, if you read, as I have, the David Wolfson report. So David Wolfson is a senior respected lawyer who served as a law officer in the last government. A big feather in his cap is that he resigned from the Tory government in protest at Boris Johnson's behavior over party gate. So he's a person of honor and integrity who's prepared to do difficult things.

27:08And he has produced a report, which is what you might imagine from a kind of leading silk. It kind of reads as a law judgment, which comes to the conclusion that Britain should leave the ECHR if, and to my mind, this is the crucial thing, if you want to meet the five tests which Kemi Bajanok set him. And those five tests were tests around sovereign control of borders, sovereign control of issues of justice and fairness and prosperity in things like the benefit system and allocation of social housing. And so he says, well, having seen these tests, the only way they can be met is by withdrawing from the ECHR.

27:49Yeah, I think it's true in the sense that if those are the tests, then you have to withdraw from all these international agreements because international agreements by definition mean a sharing of sovereignty. And it's very similar to the arguments around leaving the European Union, which is, well, OK, if you ultimately want parliament in charge, then you're not going to be part of any international agreement. Incidentally, we share sovereignty with NATO very happily and lots of Tories talk about that because an attack on one is an attack on all. we sign up to that and so we give up our sovereignty of declaring war and pass that to NATO.

28:24Where I kind of find fault with the Wolfson report and is really how it was set up and you know I think to be fair to Kemi Bednock she has done it in exactly the way we've tried to advise the government to do things which is commission a serious person, lay the ground, don't just rush into it and so on. So she's done all that but fundamentally I just disagree with the tests Because not included in those tests are how can Britain maximize its influence in the world? How can we promote democracy and freedom in newly emerging democracies or democracies under threat in Eastern Europe? How do we entrench British values in the legal systems of other countries?

29:03Remember, this was very much a British creation, the ECHR, originally. And those are other tests. And you have to balance all these things. And there may be annoying judgments from the ECHR that come along. And that's the nature of sharing sovereignty. You don't always get your own way. But you get lots of other things in return. And what Wilson's report doesn't do is set out all the disadvantages of leaving, all the things we're going to lose, all the tests that if we had set would have been failed. And it still comes down to a balanced judgment. And I thought the one thing where he kind of leaves the door open, because, of course, we're almost certainly three and quite possibly four years away from a general election, to quote from him in paragraph 13 of his report, if there was significant reform of the ECHR or the jurisprudence around it or the court and the way that applies the convention, then this advice, i.e.

29:59his own advice, will be reconsidered. And so I think the challenge now for defenders of the East HR, myself included, and the current government is, well, can reforms be made? Because at the moment, the political consensus that's existed for 70 years, including one of the main parties in Britain, the Conservative Party, being behind the East HR is obviously fraying. And at the moment, if there isn't that reform to the existing system, at some point, there'll be a conservative slash reform government that will take us out. I think you're right to say fraying rather than broken. I mean, there is a new consensus, actually, between the two main parties, between the cabinet and the shadow cabinet, which is that the status quo isn't working, that the Refugee Convention and the UN, the ECHR...

30:48Which is a different thing, we should say. There's also this UN Convention on Refugees. But very related, a rules-based way of managing the asylum and immigration system in the world. The European Convention, which kind of clearly applies in particular around these migration issues, but much more widely drawn up after the Second World War, they aren't fit for purpose and have to change. That the status quo isn't enough, that you need to have reform. And that is what Keir Starmer is saying as the Labour Prime Minister, Article 3 and Article 8 around the right to your security and to family life.

31:21Those need to be looked at again at the international level, but also in the way they're applied here in the UK. And I think there was a really interesting parallel with Brexit here. Point one, be careful what you wish for. Those people who thought Brexit was going to deliver secure borders or a more prosperous economy or a Britain revived in the global economy in terms of our trading relations, it doesn't feel that way so far. No, it actually delivered less border control. I was trying to avoid saying that because I was trying to kind of find my way towards the consensus. But the second thing is that simply saying you can't leave the ECHR and end up like Russia and Belarus, the only European countries outside the ECHR in Europe, isn't going to be enough because the political momentum from reform and the Conservatives is to demand change.

32:11So you have to talk about reform. you also have to know that when you go after that reform and of course David Cameron and you reached that position on the European Union we can't defend the status quo we need to go after reform you have to know that when you argue for reform internationally or domestically that you can deliver it and it's going to work because the thing which gives power to those who say you've got to leave is saying we're going to reform them and then failing or not succeeding because then people say, well, in that case, we've got to leave. So when Keir Starmer says, and when David say, when you say, when I say, look, the status quo is not enough.

32:50These 20th century treaties are going to be updated for the 21st century world, a world of much greater mass migration. We need reform. We have to know that it's possible to deliver that reform, because if not, you can be pretty sure in the next 10 years, we are going to be bounced out, whether that's by Nigel Farage or by Kemi Badenoch or whoever. I think Kemi Badenock probably agrees with us. She would like to have the reform to actually get our grip. She cares about our borders rather than the sort of principled sovereignty argument. And she knows that whether it's in Northern Ireland or our standing with the rest of Europe or in the world, or actually the huge complexity of putting a Bill of Rights in place in the UK in order to replace the ECHR if you leave, these things are a nightmare.

33:36They're a minefield. It's why she said it's not a silver bullet. It's why she was dismissive of Robert Jenrick. But if this government is going to make it possible for a conservative leader to reach the conclusion that you said David Wolfson would like to, which is that a reformed ECHR can be made to work, we need a massive international effort of diplomacy. Because if not, we are going to end up being out. The status quo is not going to work here. Let's get on to that. I mean, I think you're absolutely right. And I think misunderstood at the time of Brexit was how others would react and how other governments fighting off populists are not particularly keen to reward populism.

34:16That was why it was so hard to secure a decent trading relationship with the EU post-Brexit. And it required a Labour government to do that. That, by the way, is one of the things that would be at risk if we pulled out the ECHR. And very much unfinished business. And if you're the German government, you don't want to encourage AFD. And so you're not necessarily going to treat with a British government that's pulled out of the ECHR. But it does beg the question, so who is going to lead this reform? There's an intriguing kind of opportunity here, isn't there? I mean, Keir Starmer is Nixon in China, to use a classic political phrase.

34:49Richard Nixon was the man who went to negotiate with Mao Tse-tung, but he was trusted to do so because he had been such a kind of red baiter. He'd been very anti-communist when he'd been in Congress and been vice president to Eisenhower. So he sort of had the credentials that people thought, OK, this isn't the guy giving in to China. It's a guy who can negotiate with China. And I'd say in a similar context, no one's going to say Keir Starmer doesn't care about the European Convention on Human Rights or he doesn't know about human rights. He is the human rights lawyer who can do the Nixon in China.

35:22This is a clip from him recently on the Today programme. I do think we need to look again at the interpretation of some of these provisions. And we've already begun to do that work, Nick, in some of our domestic legislation. We do need to look at that. That's what's called Article 3, isn't it? It's Article 3 or Article 8. They're the two that are most immediately in play. But it's more than that. It's the refugee conventions. It's the torture conventions. It's conventional the rights of the children. I'm not going to tear all that down. I believe in those instruments. I believe in the rule of law, and I think they matter.

35:54Keir Starmer has had a better time on the international stage than the domestic stage. This would be an amazing achievement. If someone's got to pick up the mantle, you know, there are dozens of countries involved with the UCHR. Britain could lead this effort, a trusted British prime minister in this space. The challenge has got to go out to the judges as well. People think, and many lawyers listening to this will say, no, no, no, judges need to be completely above all this. But they're not above all things. For example, there's a riot. They are very quick to act and they hand out very long sentences.

36:26Their courts sit through the night. They respond to society's demand for a response. And I think if you are judges in the UK or indeed judges of the European court, I think it'd be a mistake to say we are not going to listen to the people who say take Britain and indeed take other countries out of that. That would be a mistake. Look, independent judges have to be sensitive to the political context in which they work, because if not, that political context can be ripped up. And we saw Robert Jenrick in his conference speech standing there waving a judge's wig, saying he's got a list of the 35 judges who are now sort of in hock to left wing causes, saying that he wants the Conservative Party to retake control over sentencing policy.

37:14I mean, I think for the judiciary and for our wider politics, that is one direction things could go in, a populist assault on the independent judiciary. And as I said earlier on the ECHR, you can't respond to that by simply defending the status quo. I think what Jenrick is doing is awful. It worries me. I was very heartened to see the Times editorial this week saying Jenrick is wrong on this and that challenging the independence of the judiciary is the wrong way to go. You saw Lord Sumption saying we cannot move in a Trumpian politicisation of the judiciary. But that doesn't mean that they are kind of separate from the political context.

37:54And I think there is three elements to that. One is international reform, where the judges and the legal world needs to join that cause. Secondly, there is the role our parliament takes. And I think that there is more that our parliament can do to frame parliament's view of how the ECHR and those key clauses, three and eight, should be enacted in British law. That is absolutely appropriate for the elected parliament to do that. In fact, it already happens and it happens on the basis of legislation in UK law, which sets the framework and the guidelines and does so in a rather loose way. and the right thing to do while you pursue international reform is also to look at what parliament can do and this is primary legislation to say how you should think about the rights the human rights of an individual against the other important tasks of government around national security around managing our borders you can't see human rights and the echr has had something which happens entirely separate from the wider legal and judicial framework which parliament legislates for.

38:58And I think at the moment, it's too weak, and it needs to be legislated for. But then it also comes to the judges themselves and how they operate. And, you know, I disagree with Robert Jenrick. But I don't think that means we shouldn't have a conversation about the way in which the judiciary functions. I totally agree. I mean, if you take a small example, and many wider problems, but the judgment that prisoners should be allowed to vote from the ECHR was something that David Cameron just resisted. And I remember these conversations, awkward conversations with the then cabinet secretary, Jeremy Hayward, who was saying to the prime minister, we have to comply with the law, prime minister, and you can't instruct civil servants not to comply with the law.

39:39That's fundamental to a nation built on the rule of law. But Cameron said, well, I am not going to allow prisoners to vote. And we ended up with a situation where there was a compromise where prisoners on release, on license, were allowed to vote, which was a small concession in the direction of prisoners voting. But the European Court itself backed off because it had run into, you know, not just a prime minister, but the House of Commons at the time made it very clear that they weren't happy. And everyone kind of calmed down and we moved forward. I do think the judges have a responsibility. Just if we take a particular area, immigration law, there are other aspects of law that are relevant here, welfare and housing and so on.

40:19But if you take immigration law, you know, I have heard from senior judges say that some of the junior immigration tribunals, you know, they are staffed by judges, junior judges who are immigration lawyers who then become immigration judges. And, you know, maybe the balance has gone a bit too far towards identifying always the rights that someone might have to stay or have a, you know, appeal. or you've now had two governments. You've had the Sunak government and the Starmer government pass through parliament and sign with other countries agreements to deport certain people. In the case of Sunak to Rwanda, in the case of Starmer to France.

40:58And in both cases, serious efforts by serious governments with democratic support have been frustrated by rulings from quite junior courts. If I was part of the senior leadership of the judiciary, I think I would look at the way these courts are staffed and the judges are trained and just take a more kind of balanced view of what is in the interests of society and the judiciary and the independent application of the rule of law. and not get ourselves into a situation where the only people who've got an answer to what are clearly some very frustrating judgments and nonsensical judgments to any ordinary person is let's leave this whole convention and have nothing to do with it.

41:42You know, I think the judiciary have to help. And I think on the international stage, Keir Starmer has a tailor-made role. That's right. But it's important to put this into proper context. And to remember, by the way, Robert Jenrick's got his list of 35. That's 35 of over three and a half thousand judges. Judges who are a delivery organisation. They have a role every day in public service to make decisions. Their morale matters. the sort of generic attacks and the impact that has upon morale, but also individual judges in the newspapers also has an impact. So, of course, there are road judgments.

42:22In the case of the initial Epping Hotel decision, that was made by a judge who was then completely reversed by the appeal court. However, that is our system. We have appeals which mean that occasionally when things go awry, they're brought back into line. The number of times you actually have a judgment which is not then overturned by the appeals court is tiny. It's a tiny number of times when actually you have somebody's human rights overriding an immigration decision which doesn't get overturned on appeal. And often it is the case and has been. The thing which went wrong was the Home Office improperly resourced, all that money being spent on Rwanda rather than on the actual immigration system, getting things wrong and clogging up the system or kind of poor decision making.

43:12But I think there is also a point. Why is the appeal system so slow? Why is it bugging up the system so much? Is the judicial system putting enough resource into the appeal system? Are they prioritising the appeals which actually kind of bung up the wider asylum hotel system? Is it illegitimate for the government to say to the judiciary, with your independence, we need you to get on and do these appeals more quickly because of the huge amount of public money and public anger which is being caused by what's happening in the asylum hotel system? And I think at that moment, if the judiciary turns around and says, hang on a sec, you know, we're independent, you can't talk to us about that.

43:54That is the sort of kind of status quo defence, which ends up feeding political reaction. I think what Generic is doing is undermining morale and making things worse. I think the attack on the independence of the judiciary is not where the equilibrium of British society is. But we need reform. And that might be reform of judicial processes. And I think, you know, the good judges understand that and want to get on and do that. But you can't do this in a way which makes the independent judiciary like a pawn in a political argument where they can't actually respond and defend themselves properly.

44:32Because in the end, you know, that is going to destroy the morale of an important part of the delivery arm of the British state. Yeah. And I think so. You know, we're saying to the judges, help. Don't think this is an argument that is only being done to you, that you are big players in it. And actually, the president of the Supreme Court here, Lord Reid, is actually a very sensible person who's rode back on some of the more recent judicial activism and seems to me like a good person to lead the domestic changes that are required. The new Justice Secretary, David Lamme, has a huge opportunity. But as you said, Keir Starmer, Keir Starmer in the end.

45:08This would be a great, you know, if you're looking for legacy and something that's going to help you massively domestically with your politics and something you are. Everyone says there are lots of things he can't do because he wasn't in Parliament for 30 years. Well, one thing he can do is go and renegotiate the European Convention on Human Rights. He, I think, understandably, given his legal background, has been reluctant over the last few years to step into this space. But he and Richard Herman, his close lawyer colleague over many years, who is now the Attorney General, they have a massive opportunity and responsibility to lead this.

45:45And they can be trusted by the judiciary to do it. But, you know, the political imperative for them to do this now is huge. The status quo is not good enough. Of course, we have this conversation while Keir Starmer is currently embroiled in a massive legal dispute of his own. The collapse of the China spy trial, the unseemly, I would say unprecedented, given this is a national security issue, outbreak of a briefing war in Whitehall in Westminster involving the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, the prime minister, the former cabinet secretary, former attorney generals is wild. and so he needs to sort out the China's spy legal crisis before he can get on and solve the wider legal crisis about the future of human rights in our country and we have a quick word to end with about the China's spy trial next.

46:51Welcome back. This is going to sound like one of those audio books of a John le Carré novel, because we are now into the world of espionage and a quite extraordinary series of events that have been played out very much in public. And that in itself is, of course, unusual in this world. And that is that the Crown has dropped two very high profile espionage cases against two individuals, one of whom worked in the House of Commons and who were alleged to be spying on behalf of China. and the reason why the trial has collapsed or the charges have been dropped, it didn't actually get to trial but it was very close to getting to trial, was, and this is not my judgment or judgment of commentators, but the judgment of the director of public prosecutions who was leading the prosecution, a guy called Stephen Parkinson, was that the government has failed to provide witness statements that describe China as a sufficient enemy of Britain that would then stack up charges of espionage against these two individuals.

47:59And they've gone public with that after lots of days of speculation and lots of people asking why on earth the director of public prosecutions has dropped this case. And that was causing a lot of anger, particularly in Parliament, where one of the individuals worked, who was alleged to be spying. and the person sort of currently getting it in the neck although i imagine he's pretty cross about that is jonathan powell who is uh kirsten as national security advisor used to be tony blair's chief of staff and uh people are saying it must have been him and he must be trying to suck up to china or uh you know britain wants to have better economic relations with china which has definitely been a an objective of the this labor government and that's why they're not prepared to call China an enemy and because they aren't prepared to do that the case can't go forward.

48:51Anyway the whole thing is a complete mess I think it's fair to say and there's quite a blame game going on isn't there in Whitehall in the very upper echelons of the government at the moment. Well I think the starting point is who knows what is going on? I mean why has this case clapped? Well China because they're listening in on it. I guess they do but you know we had We had yesterday. That's a joke. That's, well, maybe not. We had, first of all, frustrated by all of this speculation, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, the DPP, publishing a letter to the select committee saying that the reason why this case has had to be dropped, it was the CPS who originally charged these guys, it's been dropped because the government wouldn't give them assurance that in the witness statement, they would say China was an enemy of the state.

49:45Keir Starmer, the prime minister, then gets involved and says, hang on, he said, it is clear that this must be not about what the government thinks now, but what it thought two years ago, because that's when the offences occurred. He says, I, as a former DPP, I know that's what the law says. And there aren't sufficient statements that China was considered a threat by the Conservatives two years ago. Simon Case, the former Cabinet Secretary, has then appeared on the front page of The Telegraph today to contradict his former boss, the Prime Minister, and say, no, there are myriad examples of people from the security agencies, ministers saying two years ago China was an enemy.

50:27And so, well, if he's right, and Keir Starmer's right, why would the CPS have decided now to drop this case? Is it a legal argument that somehow they haven't got a sufficiently strong witness statement which would work? Or is it more political, which is a charge from the Conservatives, that number 10 in the Foreign Office don't want in 2025 to write down something about China, whether that's now or two years ago, which would lead to a huge diplomatic row with China at a time when the government is prioritising the economic and investment relationship with China. And then two days ago, on the front of the Telegraph was a story, The Splash in the Telegraph, written by Ben Reilly-Smith with other colleagues, MI5 blindsided by blocking of China spy case, which quotes from, their sources are multiple political figures.

51:28So this is not civil servants. This is, I guess, political advisors or ministers who have now told the newspaper about tensions between the Home Office and the Foreign Office. Home Office and MI5 figures were blindsided and pissed off. Dan Jarvis, the security minister, when he was told the case was being dropped, feels like he's been hung out to dry. Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, is deeply frustrated by the failure to bring the case to trial. I guess this must be Home Office political figures telling the newspapers that they are furious with the Foreign Office and Number 10 because the agencies haven't been told, the Home Secretary's not been told, the security minister has been hung out to dry.

52:16I mean, on a matter of national security, to have this degree of external laundering of internal debates. I mean, it's astonishing and so unseemly. What is going on? Well, I guess it had to be an external route because there was a case coming. And the central question to my mind is who made the decision? Who made the decision? you know because presumably the dpp the director of public prosecutors we've got no reason to believe he's lying do we um it'd be extraordinary if he was he's saying the government failed to provide witness statements despite months of requests that's what he's saying of a sufficient strength of that china was a threat and uh the starmer defense which is well yeah but this all happened a couple years ago so what was the status quo then doesn't really stack up because now everyone's come out with the kind of things that Rishi Sunak and the Tory government were saying.

53:15Tom Tugendhat was saying, the head of MI5 was saying. There's loads of examples. So it must have been a decision. And by the way, there may be a very good reason for it. I'm more sympathetic in these cases too. There may be an overriding national interest. And someone would have made the decision. And frankly, if you think about how the British government operates, that would ultimately be a prime minister's decision. The cabinet secretary who's been rather silent in all of this, I suspect would be involved normally, certainly would have been back in my day. If Jonathan Powell feels unfairly treated, which is what we heard, I'm sure he would have somehow been in the room.

53:54The head of the foreign office, Ollie Robbins, the permanent secretary of the foreign office, obviously the foreign secretary. I mean, there are a string of people senior enough to be involved in this decision. I think it probably would come up to the prime minister or at least the attorney general and at the moment you've just got this very embarrassing situation of the top of the kind of security establishment of the uk all having a row with each other in public uh it doesn't really speak to deterrence uh and you know don't come and spy on britain as a message that is currently being broadcast around the world But you can't allow it to be resolved in a rolling in front of the newspaper public row.

54:36You've got to get a grip. But what can they actually do now? I mean, they can't restart the case, can they? At a minimum, they've got to find out internally what the facts are and then set it out clearly, quickly to Parliament. Somebody has to, and as you say, because this is about the agencies, the Home Office, the Foreign Office, the National Security Advisor, the Cabinet Office, has to be gripped by somebody very senior who has to say, we can't have this going on. There has to be a clear statement of what's happened. It can't be a briefing war. I mean, it may be only the Prime Minister can sort this out.

55:16Although I would say that the senior Lord Officer, Richard Hermer, might be the right person to set out the government's decision. I think if I was Prime Minister, I'd say this is one for my Attorney General to, you know. Well, you might do all that. Because actually the Starmer intervention hasn't been very helpful in the last couple of days. And I think if you're Prime Minister, you might want to say, I don't necessarily know all the twists and turns of this, so I'm going to send out my Attorney General. The problem is the Attorney General has a responsibility to defend, doesn't he, the Crown Prosecution Service, which is an important part of his world.

55:49I mean, you could ask the cabinet secretary to do it. Yes. You could. I mean, you could ask your chief of staff to do it. Morgan McSweeney. What about the what about our friend? The new chief secretary to the prime minister. Darren. What's he for? I mean, there's been this big reshuffle which said he's the guy to sort out the prime minister's problems. He was a massive problem for the prime minister right in front of him. you know what's dan jones for if he's in for sorting this one out you know get darren in knock heads together come up with a common line find out the truth i saw darren on tiktok doing a funny career ladder i don't know if anyone's seen this tiktok thing where you stand on this guy's got a literally one of those ladders he puts in the street and then uh you climb up on the ladder and then he climbs up and then he has to guess your job in 20 questions and um Darren Jones turned up on this ladder and Mr.

56:47Career Ladder couldn't actually guess his exact title but sorting out messes I think would be a kind of short shorthand for what his job is isn't it and this is a bit of a mess let me give you a slightly more conspiratorial view of what might be going on here oh because we love a conspiracy yes it's usually cock up sometimes it's conspiracy never forget it might be a conspiracy this all came out at the beginning of September Dan Jarvis, who by the way is a totally straight guy, he'd hate the idea his views are being represented in the papers in this way did the statement explaining what was going on, had a conversation with Chris Philp in Parliament about whether China could be categorised in a particular way, that was a month ago why has this suddenly exploded into the newspapers over the last couple of weeks what happened between that moment and um these events don't know the removal of peter mandelson as the ambassador in washington right multiple questions who's he the george smiley character i'm lost why is mandel's questions you know how did he get appointed right who knew what when when he was originally appointed?

58:06Was he straight with the cabin office about his dealings with Epstein? Did people try to brush it under the carpet? You might have thought after the party conferences, parliament returning, the focus for attention in parliament as it returns would be what on earth happened with the Peter Manson appointment? Who said what to whom? Instead, what's happened, we have a different argument about China spies, which we know the speaker is furious about, which has been all over the newspapers. You mean they've thrown, this is classic Le Carre, isn't it? We've burnt a couple of agents in order to protect Peter.

58:45It's a dead cat on the table, bounced. I mean, everybody's been, the mail and the telegraph, they're all, that's the thing they want to know about. What went on with the China spies, as opposed to how on earth did Number 10 and the Cabinet Office have this huge screw-up over the appointment? And then the subsequent sacking of Peter Mandelson, who sacked him? How was it done? What was he told? I just wonder whether somebody thought, somebody thought, I don't like the idea of Parliament massively scrutinising the whole mess of the appointment of the American ambassador. Let's have a row about China's spies.

59:28conspiratorial yeah i mean they've they've got a new series haven't they of le carrie books which his son has written the first of in the le carrie kind of name and now he's invited other authors to uh write in that genre a bit like the kind of james bond books now written by you know obviously not ian fleming anymore i think step forward edward bottles explain why a month after this came out there's suddenly this massive briefing war in whitehall with all these political sources picking a fight between the home office mi5 and the cps and the foreign office why would you choose in such an unseemly way to have such a massive diversionary tactic unless you needed a massive diversion just saying so it's not the soldier it's not sailor it's not the tinker it's the tailor it's darren with with the lead piping in the cabinet room right That is all for Political Currency this week.

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