Get out! Blair declares war on Starmer

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1:49Camilla: Tony Blair has come out swinging saying Keir Starmer has no plan for the country. The former PM says we should stop the boats, cut welfare, stop net zero. I can barely believe I'm saying this, but could Tony Blair be right? He also says we shouldn't rejoin the EU. I obviously agree with him. And doesn't it say everything about Labour that their most successful leader is now basically a Tory? Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tomini. And me, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

2:28Camilla: Jacob, you're here in the 30-degree heat in a double-breasted suit. How do you cope with heat waves and your wardrobe, can I ask? Well, first of all, we're the Telegraph, aren't we? So it's not 30 degrees. But it is outside. It's 90. Oh, you're in old money, darling. Don't we still stick to English? What is it? Actually, 30 divided by 5 is 6, multiplied by 9 is 54. Thank goodness you've done that maths. At 32, it's 86. 86 is fine. So you don't ever take off that jacket even when it's blazing outside? I did once when I was in the UAE and we had lunch outside and it was over 100. I love that. The one time Jacob Rees-Mogg took off his jacket.

3:08Camilla: So that's when the mercury hits 100. It was over 100. OK. But you haven't taken your jacket off once during this heat wave? No, certainly not. Why would I? What was it in Mad Dogs and Englishmen? Though the English are a feat, they're quite impervious to heat. You see, I don't know what's more disturbing, you walking around in a double-breasted suit in this weather or me imagining you in a T-shirt and shorts. I think this will upset all our listeners and viewers if we come up with such visions. Do you ever loosen the tie, just a little? No, I've always thought my head might fall off if I took my tie off.

3:38Anything might just sort of drop onto the ground. So I think one has to keep on the tie for security reasons. Keeping up appearances, full cufflinks and the whole shebang.

3:45Camilla: Love that. Now, this is surprising. I'm going to say the unthinkable. because, let's be honest, I've never been a fan of Tony Blair, but I quite liked this 5 ,700-word essay. I liked it because it was attacking Starmer, obviously, but I thought he actually came up with some quite sensible statements. What did you think? Well, I've printed off to bring in his ten-point plan and I agree with much of what he says. The ten-point plan is the real meat of it. The other parts are Blairite spin to some extent, that he does the normal stuff about how much he greatly respects people he thinks are complete morons and he does the things about saying...

4:29What do you mean by that?

4:31Camilla: He greatly respects Brexiteers even though he thinks they're stupid. Is that what you're saying? I can't remember who he greatly respected, somebody or the other, but as soon as you say greatly respect, when politicians say that they greatly respect somebody, it means they think so-and-so is a moron or said something deeply stupid. With the greatest respect, you're an idiot. That's right. So there's a lot of that in the early days. And he says how much he thinks Burnham was brilliant when he was a minister in his government. Nobody remembers Burnham in his government, do they? It was a nice condescending touch.

5:00He was quite a competent...

5:01Camilla: I liked Burnham when he was very much under me. He was junior. And now he's saying the last 40 years were pointless. I think he's lost his head, basically, was what he said. So there are those sorts of political bits that make up the first part of it. and his pseudo-defence of the European Union, which is quite interesting, because he then concludes that we can't possibly rejoin if the EU remains a highly bureaucratic, anti-technology state. Well, hold that thought, because we're going to come on to the whole Brexit shebang later. But this is important to his recommendations, because his key recommendation is in relation to AI and how important AI is going to be and how you make your position as a nation by embracing AI and technological change, which I think is completely right, and I don't think we should be frightened of AI.

5:45Camilla: I mean, the central political thrust is, as far as I can tell, as follows. You can only win from the centre. This is what I proved. Labour has got to be blue to have mass appeal to both the blue wall and the red wall that were lost, frankly, to reform at the last local elections. Basically, he's saying it's the definition of madness to be faced with those results and to have Starmer the least popular prime minister in history and respond to that by going further leftwards. Now, that is a very right-wing premise, frankly. That's what the average Tory, the average reformer, even a restorer would say.

6:23Camilla: This is crazy. So he's actually aligning himself with the right and not the current left on this, because the current left that keep on plugging ever more progressive policies in order to keep up with the Polanskys of this world will be looking at this. And we've already heard Corbynister Richard Bergen, bless him, The last thing we need is to be lectured by Blair. Well, maybe you do need to be lectured by Blair, mate, because he's the only real successful Labour prime minister that you've had in your own living memory, mate. He's the only Labour leader other than Harold Wilson who managed to be re-elected, and he's the only Labour leader who ever managed to win three convincing election results in a row.

7:05So he knows how to get elected. He had a very mixed record in government.

7:11Camilla: Not that he'd let you know that. No, but devolution, which has been a disaster. And I think if you ask Blair, he would agree that it hadn't worked and he probably would rather not have done it. He went into the Iraq War, which did a lot of damage to the standing of politicians in the esteem of the public. Nobody trusts politicians now, at least in part because of the Iraq War. Economically, he never allowed Brown to be too socialist. Now, spending ripped out of control in the end, and Brown, by the time he became prime minister, had no control over it. But he refers in this to non-doms and things like that.

7:50He defended those things which the left doesn't like that make an economy work. Yes. He wasn't too ridiculous about workers' rights. So the Tories had two years of employment before you had rights kick in. He reduced that to one year. We put it back to two years. Labour's now taken it down to day one. Yes. That's the hard left approach that Blair always recognised was fundamentally anti-business. And that's his first point is that the private sector needs to lead the growth and that they will.

8:21Camilla: And also it's a very Ian Duncan Smithian point to make that in order to have a social justice agenda, you need to have economic prosperity. So his whole positioning is we start with growth. You see, this is what the Chancellor had pledged and, of course, hasn't fulfilled at all. Blair is saying you start with economic growth, then you've got some money in the coffers, then you can spend it on nice socialist things. But you can't get there until you've got the money via, by the way, a capitalist system. And that's exactly what he did in the early years of his administration when he stuck to the Tory spending plans and the economy grew and there was lots of money then to spend.

9:01And I think they then spent it pretty badly. But you're absolutely right. When he was in government, that's how he operated.

9:06Camilla: Air to Thatcher. Yeah, to Thatcher. It's very interesting. He viewed himself as the heir to Thatcher and Cameron viewed himself as the heir to Blair. I think much better to be the heir to Thatcher than the heir to Blair, as it happens. Absolutely. He's massively speaking Faragean language too in this, right? He's basically saying that the priority should be the goal of cheap energy over clean energy. He's talking about taxes getting higher and higher and how they must come down. He's talking about increasing defence spending. I mean, I may be being unfair actually to Badenock. This is Bainockism.

9:38Camilla: This is Faragean. It's not quite as Faragean on the welfare front, although they've reverse ferreted on their wanting to scrap the two-child benefit cap. Now, Robert Jenrick's come into the fray. Robert Jenrick is getting everything wrong in reforms economic policy. It's really unfortunate. Hang on. He's advised Farage to keep the two-child benefit cap. So I invited him to go for the triple lock being continued and this really silly, cheap political trick of no tax on overtime. Why do you think that's cheap? Because it just doesn't work. Really? It's so obvious. It becomes an anti-avoidance scheme or an avoidance scheme par excellence.

10:19You put everybody on the minimum wage for their first 40 hours and then you pay them quadruple time for the next two hours. it's such an obvious tax avoidance opportunity is it anybody who begins to think about tax system

10:34Camilla: you used to work in the city and i didn't i thought it was quite an innovative idea that might inspire people to do longer hours it's been tried in other places it doesn't work because it just becomes a big avoidance scheme and it's a gimmick when what we need is proper reform tax system which everybody knows who thinks about it for a moment requires fewer exemptions and lower rates and then it's a simplified tax system for everybody. That's what Nigel Lawson did. Nigel Lawson got rid of all these bells and whistles on the tax system, which just increased the tax code and create avoidance opportunities.

11:06And I'm afraid Generic's going the wrong way in cheap political headlines, but not really well thought through economic policy. And to be fair to Blair, I think he's more sensible on this. He's talking about stopping the triple lock, recognising that it's unaffordable, opening up a subject that existing politicians, currently active politicians, shy away from, talking about putting the non-DOM status back, criticising the national insurance rise. This is very good stuff from Blair.

11:36Camilla: He also talked about Britain's strength on the world stage. I thought this was the most interesting aspect of his evisceration of Starmerism. Because, of course, Never Hear Keir thinks that his legacy is going to be leading the coalition of the willing and being this hugely accomplished international statesman. But actually, and I think probably most people on the right can agree with this, powerful nations have a habit of getting what they want and less powerful nations don't. What is power derived from? From the strength of a country's economy and the strength of its military capacity. He's basically saying that Britain has been diminished on the world stage, not enhanced by Keir Starmer.

12:17Those lines absolutely leapt from the page because they are true and they're an explanation of the post-war settlement. It's really interesting that Blair should be saying this because Blair has been one of the people who's been in favour of international organisations, who has believed in pooling sovereignty and all that went with that. In this pamphlet, he recognizes really, really importantly that Donald Trump is merely saying what was the reality of all other American presidents. And everybody may be clutching at their pearls and taking the smelling salts in horror at this. But actually, that's been the post-war reality.

12:57But power comes from economic and military strength. and the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, the United Nations, all these bells and whistles are completely irrelevant against raw power. Didn't usually quote Chairman Mao, but did he not say that power comes from the barrel of a gun?

13:15Camilla: Yes. And that's true. And what Blair goes on to recognize is the economic and military power is with America, will be with China and will be with India. He thinks China's already there. And that those are going to be the three powers. and then you're going to go down a major way before you get to the middle powers in countries like ours. Middle power? I know. I don't like you saying that. But that's what Blair is pointing out. Dare I say it's recognising a truth that has been obvious since... Universally acknowledged. Universally acknowledged since Suez, really. I also thought his analysis of left and right was quite interesting.

13:58Camilla: Let's first of all discuss his assertion that you can only win power from the centre. Now, I'm not sure what the centre is anymore. Is he saying you can only win power if you lean into the views of the so-called silent majority of this country? Because I would imagine that the so-called silent majority thinks the following things. We should be prioritising cheap energy over clean energy. We should be bringing the welfare bill down. We should be having business-friendly economic policies in order to ensure that as many people are in work as possible. We shouldn't be clobbering employers. We should be reforming completely the NHS because it doesn't seem to work very well regardless of how much money we pour into it, and so on and so forth.

14:47Camilla: Is that what Blair thinks centrism is? Blair thinks centrism is whatever he happens to believe this morning. Otherwise you couldn't possibly have 0.8 of his 10 points. Take effective, i.e. whatever it takes action to solve the illegal immigration issue. Now that means pulling out of the European Convention of Human Rights. So Tony Blair is now so centrist that he wants to resolve from the European Convention on Human Rights. Well that's not centrism is it? That's not centrism. Blair is a wonderful magician. Chameleon. Pretty digitator. You know he's a conjurer. he likes to appear out of nowhere in a new position.

15:30What he is saying in the 10 points is really properly right-wing. It's things people like me have been saying for 20 years. It's not centrist unless I've suddenly become a centrist too and heaven forfend you've become a centrist.

15:47Camilla: Heaven forfend. I love it how you're saying that you're the one who was once a Tory. I haven't been a member of a political party in my life. No, but you're definitely the right of me. How ridiculous. I think most of your readers think you're always... I'm not on the right of you when it comes to quasi-religious matters and abortion and things, thank you very much. I think your readers think you are always right. Well put. Yes, so this is a manifesto for the right. Manifesto for the right. I mean, I think already being broadly endorsed by Rishi Sunak, who isn't necessarily hugely of the right.

16:14Is he of the right? But other than digital ID, which I'm not keen on...

16:21Camilla: I wish he'd dropped that, by the way. What's he thinking? He likes state control. He's an authoritarian. He's basically become an authoritarian Tory. Yes. I quite like this as well. Yes, Britain needs radical change, because that's Farage language. We need a reformation or a revolution, slightly away from the conservative view of let's conserve things but improve them. He's basically saying we need radical change, i.e. we do need to smash up the system a bit. but the difficulty, brackets, not just in Britain, is that too often the sensible people aren't radical and the radical people aren't sensible.

16:57Camilla: That's a good look. By the way, do you think he's written this? Yes, I think he has written it because when I was reading it, I could hear it in his voice, which always seems to me... There are some brilliant speechwriters who can write in somebody's voice but I think this is very important to him. Frankly, as a retired Prime Minister, he hasn't got that much else to do. He's got time to write things. That point was made. It's all very well sniping from the sideline. Have you got time to do a 5 ,000-word dissertation, Tony Blair? Come on. Well, how long would it take you to write 5 ,000 words?

17:26About five minutes. There you go, you see. I'm a journalist.

17:28Camilla: He's got a property portfolio to manage and a wife. Well, so no, I thought it was very much in his voice. I really like that line as a good oratorical line that the radical people aren't sensible and the sensible people aren't radical. I think it's also true. I think that when we talked about putting the grown-ups in charge, you found that you had people who were theoretically sensible but had no idea what to do. I think when you look at Rishi's administration, he was sensible but in no way radical, actually did nothing as prime minister. Liz Truss, who I'm an admirer of, was too radical and not sensible enough.

18:07And this has been a real problem for us.

18:09Camilla: I mean, it's interesting that he's identifying ways for the left to be radical, whereas actually, as you say, the failure of successive Tory governments has been that it wasn't radical enough at all, that it kind of adopted this bizarre Blairite into Cameron sort of, I don't know, strangely fence-sitting liberal soup of policies rather than actually sticking its neck out. I agree, not in a Trussian way, not in a great ideas but bad execution way. It just appeared to want to constantly maintain a status quo that was failing the public. Well, I'm really interested that Blair has given up the net zero ambition.

18:50Camilla: Yes. Because that has been the consensus view of British politics to the enormous damage of our economy since the early 2000s. And the key fact, bear in mind, is that in 2000, UK GDP per capita was 90 % of that in the US. It's now 60%. Electricity prices in 2000 were broadly the same as the average in the US. They're now four times higher. High energy is making us poor. I normally say cold and poor, but today it's making people hot and poor. But also, isn't it a bit rich for Blair now to be saying, oh, yeah, I really back the Home Secretary, Shibana Mahmood's, immigration crackdown. I really back the idea of actually ending the net zero legacy.

19:33Camilla: This is your legacy. Mass migration into the UK post-1997 and what somebody once described, who was it, as all this green crap. Sorry to swear in front of you, sir. This was all Blairism on steroids. This was all Blair. And he wanted open borders to reform the country in a Blairite image. So this is not a great conspiracy theory. Blair wanted millions of people to come into this country because he hoped that they would be Labour supporters. And he believed in Cool Britannia and a new Britain. The fundamentally socialist thing about Blair is that he thought of 1997 as a year zero. And the socialists always think of their coming to power as a year zero.

20:17And they want to forget everything that happened before. And part of his way of utterly changing the country was mass migration. So you're quite right. But the fact that he has now come around saying that we must do whatever it takes to stop illegal migration means that he's finally got it.

20:36Camilla: Has he gone pro-fracking? He didn't mention fracking. But Lord Moynihan, who I had on my GB News show, sent me a very interesting report by, of all places, Berkeley University. That's one of the most left-wing universities in America that has concluded that fracking and other forms of sort of shale gas exploration has added to the US economy, wait for it, three to four trillion dollars. I say that in the style of Dr. Evil. You could possibly be evil. Good Catholic girl like you. It's extraordinary though, isn't it? It is absolutely extraordinary. and I've been an advocate of fracking for a long time.

21:16We've discussed it before. You said, would I like it in my back garden? I'd love it. Just think of all the money I'd get in from the drilling rights. Anyway, we need to use all our resources. Back to Prometheus. Energy, the control of fire, has been essential to the development of mankind. And we, in the last 20, 30 years, have been the first sets of governments in history who have decided to make energy deliberately expensive. And it's making us poor and is having very damaging effects on people's standards of living. This regulation, the 2021 regulation, is an outrage because it is the government saying your life must be less comfortable.

21:53Now, what on earth is the point of being in government to make people miserable? This green agenda is so disgraceful because it's about the establishment who've already got their air conditioning. Yes. Keeping it on.

22:04Camilla: It's people in air-conditioned white halls saying you can't have what we've got. Absolutely right. building tower blocks to force people to live in because the state has always been obsessed by tower blocks and they're not allowing air conditioning in those tower blocks. It's a monstrosity. And I'm glad to say that voters are fed up with this. Do we agree with Blair when he says, at present there are the Greens offering radical leftism, there is reform offering radical rightism, the Tories are offering reform light, the Lib Dems are being Lib Dems, i.e. finger in the wind. Well, I liked his point about the Lib Dems because I think it was completely true and fair.

22:41I think Tony Blair is now offering Tory lightism, that it is a very Tory agenda that he is offering. It's pretty close to the reform agenda. It seems we've got a very interesting coalition of Nigel Farage, Kemmy Baden-Ock and Tony Blair. The three of them would not admit to this, but their policy precepts are very similar.

23:05Camilla: Very similar. Well, coming up next, we're going to discuss Makerfield. Yes. And the policy precepts of reform and restore, among other things, Jacob. But before that, earlier, Jacob, I spoke to John McTernan, who was Blair's political secretary, to find out what he made of his old boss's intervention. What's Tony up to? He keeps on sticking his oar in, doesn't he? Do you know what? I mean, 5 ,000 words. Come on, Tony. They're really well argued, really well written, really provocative, and everyone's talking about them. True. That's the point of being a think tank. Which is what Tony Blair Institute is and produce reports that no one talks about and no one reads.

23:42Camilla: He's now basically trashing Labour's entire policy platform before the UK's gaze. It's not useful to Starmer this, is it? Well, let's be clear. Keir Starmer's on borrowed time. The public made clear what they wanted on May 7th and Andy Burnham standing in the make-it-feel by-election being let to stand by the Labour Party. Well, there's not much choice. It's a signal the Labour Party understands that they need to make a change at the top. And what Tony's done, I think very helpfully, is said, you know Andy Burnham? He was an excellent cabinet minister. Also, you know one thing about him? His policy of re-industrialising the North?

24:22I back that fully. The only policy he actually attacks that's being discussed around the potential leadership race is he attacked West Streeting's policy. So it's quite interesting. in my reading of it, Tony Blair, TB, backs AB.

24:36Camilla: Oh, that's how you're seeing it. Because there's some warm words about streeting, but you think this is an endorsement of Burnham. Well, look at the attack on Wes's specific policy on taxation, corporate, capital gains tax. So look, I think... He says basically this has been suggested before and rejected many times for good reason. The problem... Equating CGT with income tax. There's a technical reason for it, which is basically you don't make any increase in tax revenue in five years. And if you don't make it in five years, the OBR won't score it. So therefore, why make the change? But in reality, Tony loves the Labour Party.

25:13He stuck with the Labour Party through the Corbyn years. He's just trashed it.

25:16Camilla: I mean, he's trashing it. No, he loves the Labour Party. He's openly criticising Starmer and everything he's come out with in the last two years. So Keir Starmer has halved the Labour Party's support in two years. So Tony Blair's in line with public opinion there, isn't he? I mean, do you kick a man while he's down like this, John? Well, where I come from in Scotland, you kick a man until he stays down. Do you? John, I'm never going to get in a fight with you. Crumbs. How long do you think Starmer will last? You're assuming Andy Burnham wins Makerfield. Is that a given, John? Yeah. No, it isn't.

25:52Camilla: I think he wins it on the bounce. Does he? Boom, boom, boom. Does he? Because people in that area know him from growing up. They know him from the rugby league teams he supports. They know him from his kids being around there. They know him from where he currently lives. They also know him from taking the tram to Wigan. They know him from the things he's done. Fair enough. And all the infrastructure investments that have gone on. Some might resent him for using this seat as a stepping stone to Downing Street. Some might think, hang on a minute, Josh Simons only five minutes ago campaigned for Starmer to be prime minister.

26:26Camilla: Now he's stepped aside because he was looking into the past of journalists who were investigating Labour together, which was a nefarious and preposterous thing to do. And the good people of Makerfield just have to stand back and let Burnham use this as a CV-enhancing extension to his political career. What I think I love about your imagination is you're conjuring up a voter who's going, do you know what? I really like what Andy's done for Wigan. I really like what Andy's done for Greater Manchester. I really like what he's done for football fans, standing up against the deep state and giving the rights to victims so that that can extend to the victim of the horizon, post office scandal.

27:03All the kind of people who've been at the wrong end of the power of the state. Andy's forced to change from outside parliament. He's forced to change. I really like the man. I like his policy. I like what he stands for. But the thing I'm not really sure about is if I vote for him, is that I vote for against Keir Starmer because I really want to keep Keir Starmer. in part the one thing I really care about Wigan and Wigan would be devastated if there was any threat to Keir Starmer so I'm going to vote against Andy Burnham so I can make sure we keep Keir Starmer in office Well hang on a minute John

27:33Camilla: actually that voter probably doesn't exist if Burnham wins the clock is ticking for the current Prime Minister and everybody in number 10 knows that Maybe then he can come back in a couple of years time with his own think tank a 5 ,000 word essay on what Andy Burnham's doing wrong Maybe he could do a Cameron and come back in a couple of years as a foreign secretary, but he's got to spend some time on the naughty step. John and I were so excited to be together, fighting the cause of left and right, that we actually have an extended episode. It's a Sunday showdown. It's going out on Sunday, so you can listen to the full chat then.

28:21Camilla: All this Brexit stuff, if I may call it that casually, Jacob, is significant when it comes to looking ahead to the Makerfield by-election on June the 18th. Because Blair was quite critical of the notion that we should rejoin the EU. He kind of issued a stark warning saying, be careful what you're doing here. What you're rejoining is not what you left. We need to do this very, very carefully. Again, by the way, basically echoing the sentiments of Brexiteers. Of course, Brexiteers would rather we didn't rejoin at all and think it's for the birds and that it would be an assault on a democratic vote that was meant to be a once in a lifetime thing.

28:58Camilla: But at least it's good to hear an avid Remainer talking in sensible terms about this. Yes, it's very interesting what Blair was saying. It was very critical of the European Union and its failure to implement the Draghi reforms to deregulate. Yeah, just talk us through the Draghi report, because people look at that and think it's the name of a coffee maker. It probably is, probably one bought by Mr. Morrill. It might be Nonghi, carry on. OK, it's all much the same. But the Draghi report suggested major deregulation, recognised that regulation was harming growth in European economies. Blair particularly focuses on AI, which is being regulated out of existence in the European Union.

29:41The precautionary principle, which the EU is so guided by, has had a terrible effect on economic growth. And he's saying be careful of that. But he's also saying, which I think is a more fundamental point, is that you've got to work out what you want to do. And then you work out how you do it. And rejoining the EU is working out how to do it before you've worked out what you want to do.

30:01Camilla: Right. Putting the cart before the horse. That's right. That's absolutely right. I think it's fascinating that you and I probably didn't admire Blair much when he was prime minister, but he's a very thoughtful commentator on what is going on. And that makes it interesting, even if you don't necessarily agree with him. But he's looking at it in what, to my mind, is a very clever way and a very practical way of thinking what the job of a politician is and how you should go about setting out policy. I didn't agree with him. I admired him as a politician. I was reading this 5 ,000-word essay thinking to myself, if we must have a Labour government, it would be better to be under Blair right now than Starmer or whatever's coming next.

30:45That, I think, is true. Though one doesn't want to get too rose-tinted spectacles about it, he savaged the Constitution by nonsense with the Supreme Court, with devolution.

30:57Camilla: Although we like the Supreme Court when it rules that women are women and men are men. Well, we think Parliament should do it, surely. Yes, we do think that. that. Yes, we do think that. Yes, occasionally. Reminding me of the importance of British sovereignty. Occasionally the Supreme Court actually upholds the law, but sometimes it decides to be deeply political, especially when it was under Baroness Hale. Spider brooch fame. I was in that ruling. Okay, fair enough. So we don't want to look back at Blairism as if it was all bells and whistles, but compared to what we're currently living with in the UK, come on.

31:29Blair was economically not that left wing when he was Prime Minister, he was a constitutional vandal. He was a constitutional

31:39Camilla: socialist. And so that's what we should remember. And the constitutional vandalism has had a long term effect and has made government very difficult because power has been given to random people. Yeah. And he's the quango king. Let's just pass the buck to arm's length bodies. And we saw this in Covid. Oh, it's not the Department of Health's fault. It's PHE or whatever it is. It's Public Health England. It's this person. It's this person. But back to the Brexit issue then. This is quite interesting. I want to get your reaction as a key and prominent lever to the latest polling on Britain's relationship with the EU supplied by YouGov.

32:12Camilla: The public were asked, to what extent would you support or oppose each of the following? Rejoining the European Union, all Britons, 56 % support, 35 % oppose. Now, it's not going to surprise anyone to know that those on the Remain end of the wedge are massively supportive of re-entering the EU. Those on the Reform end of the wedge are massively opposed to re-entering the EU. But listen, I'm saying to you now, Mr Brexit, that 56 % of Britons support rejoining this institution, that you fought tooth and nail to leave. I'd say first of all an awful lot of polls before we left gave a strong lead to remaining and they turned that to be wrong.

32:58Camilla: Sure. But I'd also point out that when you add in would you want to rejoin the European Union if that meant joining the euro or Schengen and returning to free movement of people the answer flips over. So I think rejoiners look at this and they think if we had exactly the same vote as we had in 2016, we might just win. If you had a vote on no rebate, the euro and Schengen, we will not vote to rejoin. Do you agree that if Burnham wins Makerfield, which voted 65 % leave, having pledged, although he's flip-flopped a little, on wanting to have a closer relationship with Brussels, that that would signal the end of the kind of Brexit remain divide in some Redwall heartlands?

33:46Well, let's just look at what he said, because I noted it down. In September 2025, he said, I want to rejoin. I hope in my lifetime I see this country rejoin the European Union. I'm absolutely clear about that, using the Stalper phrase.

33:59Camilla: Oh, no, we've got now, let me be clear in a Mancunian accent coming. Now, he says, I respect the decision that was made at the referendum, and it's going to undermine everything I've said about strengthening democracy if we don't respect that vote. So he has gone from rejoin last September in his lifetime and being absolutely clear about it to saying it wouldn't respect democracy if we were to rejoin. So I think if Makerfield voted for Burnham, it is most clearly not a referendum on rejoining the European Union. It is whether they are gulled by somebody who has been completely dishonest. I mean, I think those two statements are so bad, actually, because politicians have a poor reputation for telling the truth.

34:45This man is saying two completely contradictory things a few months apart because that's what the audience wants to hear. The first audience cheers him. It's very popular. Then he's standing in a leave seat. And I think that Andy Burnham is just lying. And it's not a word I use lightly about other politicians. But I think this is deeply, deeply dishonest of him. he is trying to mislead the people of Makerfield, and I think that's quite improper.

35:10Camilla: Do you think he's going to win Makerfield? It depends, really, on whether the right unites or splits. Well, it doesn't look like that. Even reform can't unite within the party. We've got Zia Yusuf having a go at Robert Jenrick for apparently miscommunicating the party's ICE-style deportation plans. So reform or internally at war, I might be overstating it, but that's what it looks like on X. You've then got Restore to the right of reform. They're apparently polling at 7%. That's very damaging to the reform vote. I think you're already seeing tactical voting by Conservatives because the Conservative vote seems to be tactically supporting reform.

35:49And I think Conservative voters are actually ahead of the party in this. I wanted us to do a deal to stand aside in Makerfield and for reform to stand aside in Aberdeen South. I think Aberdeen South now becomes a really interesting opportunity for the Conservatives. We should pour everything into that. The right should definitely unite behind the Conservatives in Aberdeen South. And that would be a real boost for the United Kingdom. We'll have to see what happens with Restore. It looks as if a Restore vote is a wasted vote, is a vote that becomes self-defeating and puts in somebody who has been of the hard left, has been a Blairite, doesn't really know which way is up, who would then almost certainly become leader of the country.

36:30So the restorators in Makerfield have a big responsibility and should think about the interests of the country rather than Rupert Lowe's immediate vanity.

36:39Camilla: Yes. Do you think he's vain? I mean, what's this all about? We've got Rupert Lowe and Nigel Farage who agree on the fundamentals of almost everything. They've had a little hissy fit with each other and they're really going to, what, keep on having this standoff if it means that somewhere like Makerfield goes to Labour? I think Rupert has some reasonable complaints about the way he was treated by reform. So I don't think it's all vanity. But I think he ought to realise that in this contest, he is doing nothing but promote Andy Burnham. And you're comfortable doing a deal with reform, but would you be comfortable doing a deal ever with Restore?

37:18I don't think Restore is yet registering in such a way that that comes about. And there have been some reports in the papers about some rather strange people who are supporting Restore. and I would need to know more about that.

37:30Camilla: Because if Restore were folded into reform and then the Tories were folded into reform, you then may have the, as Cameron once described, UKIP supporters, you may have a fruitcake and loony fringe. Oh, the Strabismus lot. Well, I don't know who they are, but you would then have to reconcile what your old Romaniac, quite wet friend Simon Hall with the further reaches of Restore's appeal on the right? Well, you have to unite the right. You always have to... Can you unite Simon Hoare and Rupert Lowe? There are always people on the fringes of any party who do not agree with each other on various bits and pieces.

38:11I think the Tory party has moved very firmly to be ideologically almost identical to reform. There's very little difference.

38:18Camilla: So Blair's right, they are reform-like. Well, I think that the Conservative Party is the Conservative Party and the Tory party and reform are both very conservative. They're part of what I would call the Tory family. And Simon is on the left of that, but I think can live with it. I wouldn't be too worried if the more extreme extremes dropped off the edge. I don't think that would be a bad thing for British political life. The latest polling puts Reform 124, the Conservatives on 19 and Labour on 17. This is interesting. This is getting interesting now. I've been hearing it increasingly as I've been going around my travels in the so-called Westminster bubble.

38:54Camilla: just a growing mention of the idea of an early general election. What's your instinct? What's your spidey sense on that? Because we had had a situation where Burnham was quite repeatedly calling for a general election when you lot were churning out prime ministers like smarties. I wonder if he wins Makerfield, immediately challenges the prime minister, quickly realises he doesn't have a mandate for this unique brand of Blairism, Brownism, Corbynism and Starmerism that he's claiming to be a proponent of. The country turns around and says, sorry, who the hell are you? You don't represent me because I'm not in Greater Manchester.

39:37Camilla: And everything kicks off fairly rapidly and he has to have a general election, probably feeling, and maybe quite rightly, that he gets a bit of a bounce on a honeymoon and that's Labour's best chance of keeping reform out. First of all, I think there should be a general election with a change of Prime Minister and I think there should be a by-election if an MP changes party. I think those should become constitutional norms. You're saying that now. You didn't say that. I did. I can point to a speech I made in the House of Commons in 2011. So when Johnson went, you called for a general election?

40:07I said in 2011 that when there was a change in leader, there should be a new election. And I've never changed that position.

40:15Camilla: All right. Thank you, Jacob. Carry on. It's in Hansard. I don't know if it's in Hansard. The context of it was this was on the Fixed-Town Parliament Act. Yes, of course. And I said I didn't support the Fixed-Town Parliament Act because I thought the constitution was evolving to a point where with a very personal mandate for leaders, they ought to renew it if there's a new leader. All right. Conservative inconsistency shock. And I've never changed that for you. Thank you, Jacob. Carry on. So you think there should be one, but will there be one? Now, this is where it's very interesting because your bounce will be short.

40:47So if he wants an election, when he kisses hands, he should ask the king for dissolution straight away. But he won't do that because he'll want to see if the polling holds up. Because he's an opportunist. Every day he delays, it becomes less likely that he wins. And then you have the by-election in Manchester for the mayor of Manchester.

41:08Camilla: Yes. Which Labour would almost certainly lose. It's still under first past the post. To reform. Or to the Greens, who knows. OK. But it's unlikely. and therefore at the point at which he should do it, he probably won't do it because he won't have the evidence to do it. And as soon as he wins, he loses something. And as soon as he hasn't done it, it becomes too late. So either he has extraordinary political courage, takes the huge gamble and says to the king, OK, I've kissed hands, I'll be your prime minister, but I need a general election, which the king would grant, or he delays, in which case it's too late, as with Gordon Brown in 2007.

41:47He needed to do his election immediately and he'd have won.

41:50Camilla: Do you think he's got the kahunis? I'd be very surprised because he's also got 400 Labour MPs who are earning£100 ,000 a year near enough who will be saying, we don't want an election and who in the leadership campaign, he will be promising that he will not have an election. No. You wouldn't want to be a Labour MP in that Angela Rayner, Tameside region of the country, which has just gone turquoise. On 17 % of the vote, Labour ends up with, what, 50 MPs? I don't know. If he gets a bounce, of course it goes up. Yeah. But there is no prospect of Burnham getting to the 33 % that got them 400 MPs. But it's going to be a mess, isn't it?

42:37Camilla: Don't you think we're going into super hung parliament territory? I say super because I think this could be split in all sorts of directions now. I think between now and the general election, which I still assume will be in three years' time, the right comes together. On that hopeful note, Jacob... Hope springs it down. You and I have come together for this podcast, as ever, and it's been a joy, and you'll be back with me tomorrow. I'm back tomorrow, yes, indeed. 5pm.

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43:36Camilla: In uptown New York City, underdogs created a sound that changed music forever. And we called it Salsa. And one label captured that sound like no other. Espanía! Espanía! Espanía Records. I'm Rosie Perez. And this is Our Thing, the birth of Salsa in Nueva York. An original podcast from Futuro Studios. Premiering May 26. Follow wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere.