‘He's reversing the referendum!’: Another Starmer Brexit betrayal

0:04The Telegraph.

0:10Camilla: Keir Starmer wants to hand yet more power back to the EU. Not content with giving away our fishing rights, he now wants to align us on food standards and emissions. And he doesn't even want to let Parliament have a vote. This man isn't respecting the Brexit referendum and won't be happy until we're back in the Brussels fold. And the first official report into the inquiry into the Southport killings has been released, attributing some of the blame to Axel Rudakabana's parents. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tominy. And me, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

0:52Camilla: First on the Daily Tea, a shameless plug. Tickets are now available for the Daily Tea Roadshow, as Tim and I are calling it. We're going on the road. We've got a series of podcast recordings in key battleground towns ahead of May's local elections. We're going to be in London on the evening of Monday the 27th, Cardiff on the 28th, Warwick on the 29th and Worthing on the 30th. If you want to come to watch, please do ask us questions. Come and see us in the flesh. Get your tickets now. There are details in the episode description. Jacob Rees-Mogg, we have a special guest in the studio. We had a little bit of a, let's just call it a logistical nightmare this morning.

1:28Camilla: And Lara, my 12-year-old, has come into work with me. And I just was going to ask you about school dinners. Do you know what the government is planning to do about school dinners? I don't, but can we ask the expert what is happening to school dinners? Well, I hear that they're planning on getting rid of fish and chips. And this makes me very disappointed because that is my favourite thing on a Friday afternoon. And if they do get rid of that, the smile on my face will turn into a frown. Yes, that's right, because you do come back saying we've had fish and chip Friday. So what the government in its nanny statism is doing, Jacob, is saying we can't have deep fried foods.

2:06Camilla: We can't have deep fried fish and chips. You're an advocate, no doubt, as a good Catholic of eating fish on a Friday and instead bringing in some kind of breaded version and maybe putting the chips in the oven. Well, it'll all be disgusting, as most school food is. And I think if you've got something people actually like, you should carry on serving it. As Nanny always says, a little bit of what you fancy does you good. And you shouldn't necessarily have deep fried food all day, every day. But once a week, when do you any harm, and I'm on Lara's side, I think it's a monstrous outrage of a government that hates England and therefore wants to stop something that is very English.

2:40Camilla: Are you considering launching a protest at school about this, Lara, if your lunches are changed? Yes. Right, we will see you on a picket line somewhere soon in leafy Hertfordshire. Thank you for joining us on The Daily Tea. You are now relinquished from your responsibilities for an hour while I film this podcast, and then we shall reconnect. On to more serious fare. On to a, let's call it this, some kind of French lunch featuring foie gras and l 'escargot because Keir Starmer seemingly doesn't like British food anymore. He wants to align back with Brussels. You've heard about these Henry VIII.

3:15Camilla: What are Henry VIII powers, Jacob? Well, what are Henry VIII powers? It comes from an act of parliament passed towards the end of Henry VIII's reign, which was to give royal proclamations the same authority as an act of parliament. Oddly, it didn't work, even with a very powerful king, and the Act was repealed in the reign of his son, Edward VI, but it's used as a term to refer to the government legislating by decree rather than through primary legislation. And secondary legislation does get put before Parliament but doesn't necessarily have a vote and can't be amended. So you can't change what's being done and it's very, very rarely stopped.

3:56So it's essentially the government wants to rule by decree. Why? because what they're proposing is very unpopular. It's the renaming marmalade type stories that they will just try and push through with nobody noticing.

4:07Camilla: It's extraordinary, this, the timing, because Paddington has just swept the board at the Olivier Awards on Sunday night and now we've got this marmalade maybe in jeopardy because of the naming of it and we're not aligned to EU rules. We've done quite a few podcasts in the past on Starmer's great Brexit betrayal. Why does this look more serious? Because he has flirted, let's be honest, as the Romaniac-in-chief, as the shadow Brexit secretary under Jeremy Corbyn. We know where this guy's allegiances lie, but until this point, I thought there were red lines that weren't going to be crossed. We will not rejoin the single market or the customs union.

4:42Camilla: The Prime Minister is sticking to that, but this is looking increasingly like a reversal of the referendum, isn't it? Of course it is, and not doing it through a proper parliamentary process so that not only do you not have a referendum to reverse it, You don't even have a number of parliamentary votes to reverse it. You try and push it through so that we have to follow European regulations and pay for the privilege. We will be giving the EU, if this all goes ahead, billions of pounds a year to pay for the privilege of taking on their regulations. It's also going to be very economically damaging because if you take AI, AI regulations in Europe have killed the AI industry, which in the UK is working.

5:21If you take gene editing, we have a successful beginnings of a gene editing business. We can possibly have wheat that when turned into bread and turned into taste is less carcinogenic if you burn it, which they're not allowed to do in Europe. So actually, Keir Starmer is potentially making greater risks to British consumers through carcinogenic food that we can stop and Europe can't because of its crazy regulations. Then you get on to the marmalade things. It's this detailed...

5:50Camilla: Just explain the marmalade thing for the uninitiative. The marmalade is that marmalade will have to be relabeled citrus marmalade rather than just calling it marmalade. This is ridiculous. This is absolutely completely ridiculous. This is the kind of thing that made people vote for Brexit. Absolutely right. So thank you, Keir Starmer, because you're reminding people why we hate the European Union, why it's a dreadful, undemocratic organisation. Well, 48 % of the country didn't hate the European Union. I'm not so sure about that. You see, the argument was, if you don't leave your kneecapped... Yes.

6:17It wasn't that we love this organisation, It's so good for us. And over the last few years, the European Union has been as difficult as possible to try and drag us back in. And we should have gone much further and faster in deregulating, looking at things like AI, whereby not following Europe, we're in a better position. So British airlines are going to be able to fill up with fuel more easily than continental airlines. Why? Because when they fly to Dubai, they can take a whole tank load of fuel to fly back with, which they won't use entirely on the return flight. So they need less supplies in England.

6:55And the continent, EU green rules, means that you can only fill up with the amount of fuel you need to fly back with because they say that carrying excess fuel is environmentally unfriendly. friendly. So our airlines are going to be better off in this crisis around fuel prices and fuel supplies than continental airlines because we are less heavily regulated.

7:16Camilla: It's shades of us being better off when it came to the Covid vaccines. Absolutely right. Day after day, there are little things that make us better off than continental Europe because we're more flexible and we're less heavily regulated. Starmer wants to change all this. Why though? What's the motivation? Because we've got this, we've got this demand for dynamic realignment with the EU, which I'm not sure is at the top of anybody's electoral priorities list right now, by the way. I just think it's really interesting. Where the hell has this come from? Maybe it's been brewing for years and years and years and since he took power.

7:49Camilla: Point one. Point two, we also had the Chancellor Rachel Reeves in her Mays lecture recently saying, the only way we can grow is if we align with the EU. And I thought, well, how do you do the maths around that? I mean, I get that there's a history there of a degree of economic incompetence. But how can you say in one breath, you can be proud of being the fastest growing economy in the Eurozone, stroke G7, whatever, and then say the best way to grow further is to pin ourselves to these people who aren't growing as well? Well, it's clearly stupid and economically illiterate that the European Union has been growing sluggishly for the last quarter of a century.

8:24And this, as far as I can tell, is mainly to do with very high energy prices. that's the green agenda that has pushed business from Europe to the rest of the world because it's simply not competitive. If you think in 2000 our electricity prices for industrial purposes were broadly the same as those in the US, they're now four times more. ChatGPT, I think it is, has said they won't set up a data centre in the UK because our electricity is too expensive. We are killing business. We can't deal with these data centres.

8:50Camilla: We won't have the energy. This whole data centre dream, we simply don't have the fuel to power it. Well, we could. We could frack and use the fuel that we've got sitting underneath us, but the government won't do this because it's ideologically opposed. Are you all right with fracking in the backyard of Rees-Mogg Towers in Somerset? I'd be absolutely delighted. Seriously? Oh, yeah, yeah. What, drill baby drill? Even on your doorstep? Even in my back garden. Threats of mini-earthquakes? The mini-earthquake stuff is nonsense. The seismic activity, there's a great report put out in 2012 that goes through all of this, is equivalent to actually less than a rock fall in a disused coal mine.

9:29The problem is you talk about two on the Richter scale, and people think San Francisco earthquake or the tsunami in Japan. That is the level of a lorry going past your front door. These sorts of levels are happening the whole time, and it's just because they're linked to fracking. There's that thing they're doing down in Cornwall with hot water springs. Yes. That requires fracking and creates exactly the same seismic effect. But because it's green energy, everyone says, oh, that's lovely.

9:57Camilla: We'll get on to Viktor Orban and the lack of his future political career in just a minute because it's linked to the EU. But can I just ask you one thing? Because I do. Look, I'm frustrated as a Brexiteer that we didn't maximise these post-Brexit opportunities and that we now have this slow creep back into seemingly being in the EU with none of the benefits and all of the obligations. You, as Mr Leave, you must be so frustrated with your own government. We've got this story today. We've got Nigel Farage and co absolutely making hay with the Boris wave, saying it's cost every household 20 grand.

10:33Camilla: The combination of not maximising Brexit and letting hundreds of thousands of people into this country when we said that it would mean that we take control of our borders. The whole thing is, it's not just disappointing, it's embarrassing. It's extremely frustrating because I introduced the retained EU law bill, which would have removed every single piece of EU legislation from this country. Yeah, but then didn't Kemi Badenock sort of block that and said, oh, we can't have this bonfire of the bills? Well, Rishi took over as prime minister. Yes. And Kemi was in charge of the bill and Rishi didn't want to do it.

11:07I mean, this is the prime ministerial decision. Okay, so it wasn't Baynock, it was more soon. I wouldn't blame her personally. I would blame the Prime Minister. But there's one good piece of news, which we're forgetting. If Keir Starmer does all this by decree, it can be undone by decree.

11:21Camilla: Oh, I thought you said it couldn't be undone. No, no, no, no. Think of Trump when he gets in and all those executive orders. That's what they were reminding me of, these Henry VIII powers. That's right. And that's really potentially exciting because people like me, more importantly people like Kemi and Nigel, should be saying loud and clear to the European Union, you agree what you like with Starmer. If we get in on day one, we will issue the statutory instruments that repeal all these statutory instruments, which will be through Parliament in a very routine way. Yes. Are you saying a collective we?

11:54Camilla: Are you doing a royal we there? Are you saying that this will be a Farage? We as small C Conservatives. Badenock mashup. I mean, I think that's what we're moving towards. Yes. We've got to bring the right together. But there's nothing in it for the EU because a new government can get rid of the whole jolly lot. What Stammer doesn't realise is if he did this properly and by primary legislation, I shouldn't be advising him via the Daily Tea, but if he were to do that, it would be very hard to remove. If, on the other hand, it's simply done by secondary legislation, secondary legislation in normal circumstances can be undone by secondary legislation.

12:28Camilla: OK. Reform and Conservative leader. We know they listen. Scrap a lot. Scrap a lot. Cut this up for socials so we can get the message out there. And it's really important. They should make that commitment. That is to say, Kemi Baden-Ock and Nigel Fowler should make the commitment today. Yes. That they would repeal on day one any regulations that came in by this undemocratic and improper cheating method. Have they got momentum on their side when it comes to refighting the Brexit wars? what do you make of Orban's ceremonial unseating last night in Hungary? I mean it wasn't a close thing. He was absolutely trounced.

13:11Well he'd been in office for 16 years. Yes. And anyone who's been in office for a long time will have failures as well as successes, will make policy choices that other conservatives wouldn't make. I mean I was always very nervous about his closeness to Putin. I thought that was a mistake. I could see why Hungary was very nervous about cutting off its energy supplies, because Hungary is very dependent on Russia for energy. But the hostility to Ukraine, I think, was problematic. And there must have been people in Hungary who were worried not so much about things he was doing because he closed the borders.

13:46He stopped illegal migration. He stood up to the fanatics in the European Union. He was in favor of more children being born, all sorts of sensible conservative policies.

13:56Camilla: A policy you can support as a father of six. Indeed, very much so. And yet, on the other hand, inevitably over 16 years, things go wrong and things are done that you and I would raise eyebrows about. He was simply too right wing. What was his commitment to freedom of the press? At what point does populism go too far and become, well, as it's turned out, unpopular? Yes. But if that trend continues, because I do think it's interesting that we are trying to prophesize what might happen when it comes to the next general election and the circumstances could be very, very different. What if immigration continues to come down, down and down?

14:33Camilla: Then Nigel Farage can't be using this whole we need to deport everybody and rescue Britain from the clutches of, you know, foreign intervention. That might not be relevant come 2029. I mean, the Boris wave thing, it's fresh in the memory now, kind of, in another three years. I mean, do you buy that 20 grand per family, Boris? No, no, those figures are always nonsense. Well. They are. The OBR came up with an equally stupid figure that said on balance, immigrants had contributed to the economy. The OBR figure was nonsense because they attributed no cost to dependents. Well, if you attribute no cost to dependents, of course, you're going to come up with a wrong figure.

15:13I also think people don't think like that because it's not a direct cost to you. What cost do you notice at the moment? When you fill up your car with petrol, it's costing you more.

15:24Camilla: Yeah. Food is costing more. Food is costing more. Going out in restaurants is costing more. Your council tax has gone up. Costing more. Energy bills, regardless of this whole£300 saving that nobody's seen. That's right. All of those things you notice. but you don't notice the bit of your tax that's going to pay for somebody who came here 20 years ago and is now retired you just don't it's not a no um you also notice i think people flooding in on small boats illegally and i'd be astonished if that ended between now and the next election because the government has no policy for dealing with it well i think people notice at large the changing face of their communities tony diver the political editor was in last week talking about this exclusive polling that the Telegraph had carried out, and more than half of the population said they felt they didn't recognise their country anymore.

16:13Camilla: And some of that can be attributed to your beloved former Prime Minister's absolutely relaxed attitude towards open borders. In a way, when he said we're taking back control of our borders, he actually, Boris Johnson, was lying to the public. No, I don't think that's right. Oh, Jacob, come on. I simply don't think he was lying. Well, he's just naive and ignorant. Something went very badly wrong, but it didn't go badly wrong because he was trying to mislead people. It went badly wrong because post-COVID it was thought that nobody in this country wanted to work anymore. Yes. Well, something went wrong with those health care visas, right?

16:51Camilla: They got people in to prop up the NHS and care homes in a desperate struggle to get people to staff these organisations, even as people, particularly the elderly and the vulnerable, are dying. and then I think he doesn't realise A, how many people are coming in and B, how many dependents are coming in plus Ukraine and Hong Kong. That's right. Ukraine and Hong Kong, which are very justifiable and the country was in favour of and that's heading towards half a million people. So it's a big chunk of the people come in from Ukraine and Hong Kong. But it is, post-COVID, it was thought that nobody wanted to work anymore.

17:23They got used to working from home or shirking from home. Some had taken early...

17:29Camilla: I write a column from home on a Friday, am I a shirker? No, but writing a column is slightly different. Yes. You don't necessarily need to be chatting to people. Indeed, they're probably a distraction. Maybe. And therefore, there was a feeling that to have any economic activity, you needed to bring people in. It turned out to be wrong, and you're absolutely spot on. Far too many dependents came. To go back to the OBR figures, why the OBR figures are so stupid, because if you just exclude dependents, you have no idea of whether it's an economic cost or an economic benefit. The Boris Waver tack line, though, is a great line for Farage and reform.

18:02Camilla: It keeps on reminding people of how the Tories let the country down on immigration. There's this perception that, OK, Tony Blair started this and the Conservatives gave it rocket fuel. And I don't think you'll ever be able to escape that. Do you think it's as good an tack line as it was? We're two years into a Labour government. People are feeling poorer every day. They see the small boats continuing to come. Well, he can't attack Labour if the numbers are going down. So he's going to have to attack someone. and the easiest target is Johnson. Let's be honest, you know him much better than I and I know him quite well.

18:32Camilla: He was intensely relaxed about immigration. He was London mayor. He had a lot of black and brown people supporting him. He liked that. He liked to bask in the glory of having immigrant support and he continued that into number 10. There's nothing necessarily wrong with it. He should have just been a bit more honest with the electorate. You see, where I disagree with you is that I don't think he was ever dishonest. I think that it was always clear that his personal view was that he was relatively open. But Boris is always very responsive to his voters. Boris has always understood as part of his political strength.

19:07Camilla: You're putting it as a strength. It could be. He just can't bear to be disliked. And therefore he's saying, come on in. No, but I don't think that's right. I think he recognised that controlling migration was really, really important to his voters. It was a bit dishonest to say we will take back control of our borders to see this massive surge in small bolt arrivals and legal migration post-2019. You have to admit that. I think the legal migration is directly our responsibility as the Conservative government. But I think it was a mistake in the circumstances of Covid, which is when it really happens, rather than a desire not to take back control.

19:46Camilla: But you don't think he was kind of like an internationalist? and born abroad and with Turkish heritage and had been Foreign Secretary and just didn't mind immigration. Even after he's gone, the pressure is for more migration because the OBR and the Treasury are saying that's the only way to keep the economy going. And I sat in Cabinet subcommittee meetings where the only two people who were arguing against more migration were Suella and me because our voters didn't want it and we were on the side of our voters. And other people were taking the line they'd been fed by their departments, all of whom I was actually sent along by my department to argue for more migration for business.

20:27And you said no. Of course I said no. It was a ridiculous idea.

20:31Camilla: I bet civil servants loved you when you were shaking. Had they known what I was going to say, I'm not sure they'd have allowed me to go to the meeting. But that's another matter. And so you're personalizing it to Boris. It wasn't Boris. there was a system-wide view that without this migration our economy was taste. And my view is that that was utter nonsense and it became nonsense quite quickly and we were slow to react. So Rishi finally tightens up in 2023, which Stalin is now getting the benefit of with lower numbers. I also would strongly defend Hong Kong and Ukraine. Yes, although we did find out the Telegraph reported this morning or I think at the weekend that quite a few thousand people had come in on those visas that weren't Ukrainian or from Hong Kong.

21:17And we saw today that several thousand people have come in under the EU settlement scheme, I think also in your paper, who are from nothing to do with Europe. They just have a family relationship and five years later they're claiming they can come under the resettlement programme. That's a racket.

21:33Camilla: Let me ask you this. Do you think Churchillian Boris, as he likes to style himself, as the biographer of the great former prime minister would be more supportive of President Trump in the Strait of Hormuz, which has now become the most famous strait since the last strait that was once in the headlines. But this Hormuz situation where Donald Trump is now saying, right, help me barricade this place. We've got the Iranians, they've forgotten where they've put their mines, Jacob, so that's a problem. They've dropped mines into the straits and now they don't have a navy to go and find them. We've got some Iranian in a toll booth saying, can I have a million quid every time a ship comes through?

22:11Camilla: Our prices are going up at the pumps, and now Starmer is reticent to help. I think Starmer's getting this completely wrong. You don't need to support Donald Trump's war or the policy that he's followed to recognise that it's in the British national interest to support the President of the United States, whoever that happens to be. We're looking weak, ineffectual. We look as if we've got no Navy left. The one ship that's gone out has had to go in for repairs already. We can't stop Russians coming through the channel. Apparently, international law stops us doing anything. We've had to ask the French for ships, the Germans for ships.

22:48I mean, the country just looks so weak. And this is a real warning to us. We need to focus on defence and get our act together. And this sort of wishy-washy behaviour from Starmer, failing to support the ally who defends us.

23:04Camilla: Well, this is strange. When you mention international law, why has the Attorney General, Lord Hermer, been so quiet on the issue of the very fundamental breach of international law currently going on in the Strait of Hormuz? You could make a very cogent argument, not least because the Prime Minister's new buzzword is resilient. Britain needs to stand on its own two feet. OK, great. Well, militarily, we can't do that. can't really do it from energy security either because of the lack of a willingness to drill baby drill by the man who once drilled into a piece of stone, Ed Miliband. Strange. He must have put his pneumatic drill away.

23:40Camilla: And then we have this situation where surely Keir Starmer, regardless of his very public kind of disagreements with Donald Trump, could say, look, we're not supporting the war, but we must get these tankers through these straits and therefore I am going to help him to do that because I want the cost of energy, fuel, gas, oil to come down for British people. So, of course, we're going, oh, and by the way, me and Lord Hermer are very concerned about the breach of international law going on. As far as one can tell, Hermer and Starmer only believe in international law when it's damaging to Britain, when it costs Britain money.

24:15They don't seem to have any interest in international law when it might work in our favour.

24:18Camilla: Although you've won the Chagos argument. Oh, that's very good news. Now, is that deal as dead as a dodo? Is it a dead parrot? What is it? Well, how long do you think Starmer lasts? I don't know. May the 8th, 9th, 10th? I don't know, to be fair. Nobody wants to replace him right now. Do you think our heroine, Angela Rayner, flame-haired, comes in, the bodicea of our time, comes in, and says the first thing I want to do is hand over the Chagos Islands to the greedy Mauritians? Not if she's got any sense. So the deal's dead? I think so. I think Starmer doesn't last. If Starmer goes, Hermer goes. Well, how long are you giving Starmer?

24:58I mean, I don't know. You're the expert. No, come on.

25:02Camilla: You're embedded into political circles. Well, but I'm surprised. If he'd been a Tory leader, he'd have been gone by now. Well, I know, but you are awful to your leaders. We are, yeah. And also, you know, Angie's under investigation. That's a Dick Emery phrase, isn't it? Oh, you are awful. Oh, you are awful. Well, look, old Angie's got her tax affairs being thoroughly investigated as we speak. Streeting's got the small issue of being on the smallest majority in Greater London and therefore might not have a seat and won't have to chicken run. And he's part too right-wing anyway. Andy Burnham hasn't got a seat, tried a chicken run and failed.

25:31Camilla: He was kept firmly in the coop. Yes. Bridget Philipson is currently being trashed because she's putting a career ahead of the publication of trans guidance. Al Cairns is apparently being lined up to be the next Prime Minister. The only trouble is nobody's heard of him. No. Who else is there? Have I missed someone? You missed out Ed Miliband. Ed Miliband! Who's very popular. Your money's on Ed, isn't it? Well, I think it's between Ed Miliband and Angela Rayner. And I think Angela Rayner's tax affairs don't matter. What? I know. They matter to me and they matter to you. But I think she is in the position of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, that whatever is thrown at her and them, their supporters think, well, they just say that about her.

26:12They just do.

26:13Camilla: Oh, so she's got a little Teflon coating. I think she's got Teflon coating. I think she could get the support within the Labour Party. I think the right would hate it. I think we would be outraged. We would think it was scandalous, et cetera, et cetera. But I think she'd get away with it because the left think it's just the right wing press having a go at the wonderful Angela and it's not fair and she's an amazing person, et cetera, et cetera. And like Donald Trump, what did he say? He said he could shoot somebody in New York and his supporters wouldn't care. What was that effect? Can I ask you something as an old Etonian who sends five of his six children to Eton and the other one to a very nice private girls school.

26:51Camilla: And indeed, you're a man who is a scholar of Oxford. Whether you are worried about Rainer's lack of formal education when it comes to her qualification to be prime minister? No, I'm not. I don't think that degrees necessarily make you a good leader. Some of our most intellectual leaders haven't necessarily been great politicians. Not actually as prime minister, but if you think of Keith Joseph and Oliver Letwin, both extraordinarily clever man, but not necessarily politically adept. Harold Wilson, perhaps the most academically qualified prime minister we had, not somebody I would think of as an enormous success as prime minister.

27:29And Churchill, who didn't go to university at all, and didn't do particularly well in his army entrance exams, or in his Harrow exams, turned out to be a wonderful leader. I'm not saying Angela Rayner's Winston Churchill, of course I'm not. But I wouldn't say that was automatically a disqualification. Also on Trump, he's criticised.

27:50Camilla: Shock, horror, Jacob, are you okay? Do we need to, should we get a crucifix in here and start genuflecting because this is outrageous? Trump has had a pop at the Pope. On Saturday, as Iranian and American negotiators met in Pakistan for talks, Pope Leo urged the international community to, quote, end the madness of war. He also denounced the use of Christian language to justify war. who's sounding very much like Tim Stanley, the Pope, but then they are very closely aligned. Is Tim Stanley not the Pope? Tim Stanley is the Pope's representative in Victoria. And by the way, he's having a very lovely holiday, if anyone's wondering why he's not here.

28:28Camilla: Oh, look at this in Capitals. Pope Leo is weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy. I could read it all out, but it's a very chunky Truth Social post basically absolutely giving Pope Leo a kicking. This is thoroughly unchristian, Jacob. Well, there's always a way that the Holy Father could retaliate if he wants. I was looking up earlier this morning, Regnans in Excelsis, the papal bull of 1570 by Pius V, excommunicating Elizabeth I, which is quite fruity. I mean, it says, she, having seized the kingdom, has monstrously usurped for herself the place of supreme head of the church. Elizabeth the pretended Queen of England the servant of crime has found a refuge as it were for all the most pernicious Well to be fair poor old Elizabeth at first she was a Protestant through and through because her mother was and then her mother was executed and she wanted to honour her memory I'm not sure she was that Protestant in some ways anyway but that's another Popes used to be quite fruity in their response to secular leaders who they didn't agree with Pope Leo has perhaps behaved in a more forgiving way he's been more willing to turn the other cheek and has reminded us of why our religious leaders are on a higher plane than our secular leaders.

29:43Camilla: Nevermore have we wanted an amusing gif from Pope Leo directed at Donald Trump and hurling abuse. So you think it's better for the Catholic, the head of the Catholic Church, to stay stum in the face of this horrendous maligning? Well, the Pope will be Pope longer than the President is President, Deo Valente. Good point. Won't he? I mean, he's got it for life. Yes. And Donald Trump hasn't. Right. And the Pope has over a billion followers. Donald Trump doesn't have anything like that number. So the Holy Father is in a very strong position and is quite rightly preaching Christian doctrine. And I'm not somebody who is advocating Christian conservatism.

30:26I'm strongly conservative and I'm a great believer in the teaching of Holy Mother Church. But I'm not sure that the two meld together very well. I'm not sure the Christian Democrats of old in Europe were the type of politicians that were particularly attractive. And Christianity can very easily become a cloak for humbug.

30:45Camilla: Coming up next, we're going to completely change tack, Jacob, and talk about the findings of the Southport Inquiry, but particularly the blame that has been attributed to Axel Rudiger-Barner's parents.

31:09Camilla: So Jacob, we have got today the first official report from the inquiry into the Southport killings. People probably don't need to be reminded that that was when Axel Rudakabana killed nine-year-old Alice Da Silva Aguilar, Elsie Dot Stankham, who was seven and six-year-old B.B. King. They were attending a Taylor Swift themed dance workshop on July the 29th, 2024. The attacker was 17. He seriously wounded eight other children and two adults. And then he was sentenced to a minimum of 52 years in prison. So we have this inquiry to try and unpack the failings of the PREVENT program, which is meant to have stopped attacks like these, but also to delve into the background of how it came to pass that a teenager would carry out such a brutal murder of such very young vulnerable girls.

32:06Camilla: Now one of the key findings in all this is that the inquiry has held that his parents should have morally done more to stop their son. so we heard during the court case and beyond that Rudic Abana had had knives delivered to the house by Amazon that his father and mother had repeatedly reported him to the authorities he was expelled from one school after making a call to the Samaritans saying he wanted to take a knife in to attack somebody who was bullying him he then is put in another school he has to leave there he's effectively ends up in a borsal his behavior is becoming increasingly erratic now at the time all of this was being reported I did think to myself as a parent often you look at it from the perspective of the parents of the girls and you think there for the grace of God go I anyone could have a child in a dance class in a summer holiday and this happens it's just the most unthinkable thing I've never thought there for the grace of God go I when it comes to being the Ruda Cabanas because I just wouldn't have got into a situation where one of my children is taking delivery of knives from Amazon on my watch.

33:22Camilla: But then maybe I'm putting myself on some kind of parental pedestal and not understanding the challenges faced by these parents in the face of increasingly erratic behaviour by their son. It's very difficult, isn't it? It's much easier to identify the official failings, that lots was known about him and none of it was brought together and therefore nothing actually happened. And Prevent kept on looking at it and then forgetting about it. So the official failings are easy to identify and say, this is what should have happened instead. And there are processes that just failed and there seemed to have been carelessness in the approach.

34:05With the parents, it's difficult because you and I are fortunate in having children who don't seem to be likely to behave in this way. We've just had Laura on, who's absolutely brilliant at introducing the programme, and I think you should have her on more often. But they had a child who was extraordinarily difficult, who was known to the police, who was regularly being faced with the police, with authorities, who were doing nothing. So you have an incident where the police are called to the family home because Radhikabana has flooded the bath and won't turn the taps off, has locked himself in a room, the parents can't get into him.

34:45If we had a child like that, what can you do beyond calling the police?

34:49Camilla: Well, no, look, I think very, very respectable families end up having problem children, some of whom go on to commit criminal acts. I mean, in this case, it is so extreme because what he has done is really on a par with sort of James Bulger's murder. It is a child killing children. And the violence of the attack, which we don't need to go over now, but, you know, colleagues in the newsroom who had to cover this and cover the detail of it. This was maniacal and heinous and horrendous and disgusting and appalling. And it rings alarm bells in my head because a parent knows their child better than anyone.

35:32Camilla: and let's look at some of the evidence here of what little the parents actually did. I mean, first of all, they're constantly defending this child in the face of the absolute indefensible. The parents were found to have allowed their son to, quote, exert control over them rather than setting boundaries, partly out of fear he would be taken into care or custody. Well, I'm sorry, rather he be taken into care or custody than go out and commit these murders. their actions meant key information was actively concealed from professionals limiting agencies ability to assess the risk properly the inquiry says the parents motivation was to avoid intervention by the authorities even though this ultimately contributed to a far worse outcome i mean the authorities certainly failed everyone involved but the parents basically were trying to in trying to protect their son, they left an entire troop of young girls at serious risk of harm and three of them died.

36:35Camilla: In a damning conclusion, Sir Adrian Fulford, who is the chair of the inquiry, said, if Rudicabana's parents had done what they had morally ought to have done, he would not have been at liberty to conduct the attack and it would not therefore have occurred. This terrible event could have been and should have been prevented. but no parent is going to think that his child is capable of that but I think deep down the father knew he was taking delivery of knives from Amazon but just look at the authorities critical information sharing failures meant key warnings were lost or not acted on across agencies a misunderstanding of autism led to his behaviour being wrongly attributed to autism spectrum disorder contributing to inaction his violent online activity was never examined And they do then blame Alphonse Rudakabana.

37:25But authorities tend to do that. When they've bungled, they're always looking for somebody else to blame. The parents were found to have allowed their son to exert control over them. Now, I think that's quite an important point, that parents aren't always as in control of their children as they might think they would like to be. Children can very often be in control of parents, particularly if you've got a big, physically big child who you can't any longer pick up and carry to his room.

37:59Camilla: I mean, physically restraining him, Mr and Mrs Rudicabana would have struggled with that. Would have struggled to do. But I'm saying I agree with everything you're saying to a certain extent. This is like the argument about parents who can't get their children into school and people say, well, why don't you just like wrestle them into the car? It's like, no, of course you can't do that. But this was about them actually actively turning a blind eye because they didn't want the authorities to be involved. But the authorities were involved. I don't think that excuse washes because the authorities were involved at every step of the way.

38:33He took knives into a school and the school was aware of this and nothing happens.

38:39Camilla: Okay, but let's imagine this scenario. Imagine a scenario where one of your six children is found, God forbid, taking knives into school. You and Helena are then called in. Let's theorise what we would do. What would you actually do?

38:57So hard, I know. You would effectively police your child as if you were running a prison, wouldn't you?

39:06Camilla: You'd have them on some kind of house arrest. You would be monitoring and curfewing them. You would not be letting them alone on a computer. And you would monitor everything that came into the house and you'd be switching off the internet and you'd be doing all sorts of things. Yeah, well, they didn't do any of that. They didn't police parcels. They didn't police his social media use. Meanwhile, this kid is downloading al-Qaeda manuals, looking up sick videos of, you know, mass murders. I'm sorry, but again, if my son was doing that, I really think I would know about it, but maybe I'm being naive.

39:36I think you are being naive. It amuses me as a parent, as my children get older, how they tell me of things that they did when they were younger that I had no idea was going on, or things that happened to them that I had no idea was going on.

39:49Camilla: One of the boys was searching for really sick material online and you're saying you and your wife wouldn't have a handle on that. I control their hours and I can control the ratings on things, but if they'd worked out how to get around any controls I'd put on or they were using somebody else's computer... OK, let's put it this way. Would you have a situation in the Rees-Mogg household, because we wouldn't in the Tom Lee household, where you've got children disappeared from view for hours and hours on end on computers into the small hours of the morning? No, no, no. You'd just take away the computer.

40:23Their machines all switch off overnight and I have control of that.

40:26Camilla: But this, again, the Rudicabanas didn't do this. No, look, I'm not saying the Rudicabanas are free from blame at all. Don't want to make that argument. I think they have a deep responsibility and deep responsibility for their child. That's an interesting point which we might come back to. But I think the authorities saw all the signs. And it's the authorities who should come in and say, look, we're arresting you. We're taking you away from your home because you've been in school with a knife. I would not expect if any of my children took a knife into school, I would not expect them to be home at the weekend in the normal way.

41:02I would expect the authorities to be saying this child needs to be put into emergency care. Clearly the parents are incapable of looking after this child. Yes. And incapable because he may have been beyond their abilities. Yes. And may have been beyond any of our abilities.

41:17Camilla: Yes. That Rudokabana is an evil man. Yes. And if you've got an evil child, what do you do? And the authorities didn't act. The other question is child. The word child, I think we're very confused as a society. over when you are a child and when you cease to be a child. 17 is in some ways very grown up and in other ways is still technically a child. Don't forget at the time there was a concern that he couldn't be named because he was minor. Absolutely. So you can be criminally liable at 10. 10. But there is a big difference between 10 and 17, of course. I was saying to Alfred, who was 10 in February, that his last 24 hours to commit a crime and get away with it.

42:01Camilla: Well, there you are. Unfortunately, he didn't want to. I know, but it's mad having had Lara in here. Lara, as a 12-year-old, could be found criminally liable of anything. Yes. And there was that debate going on at the time of the Bolger killing. This is an almost adult... That's right, that's right. ...carrying out crimes against six-, seven-, and eight-year-olds and nine-year-olds. And I think at 17, you ought to be fully criminally liable. I don't... Particularly if Labour's talking about giving the vote at 16. Yeah. You can't have the vote at 16 and not be fully criminally liable. I also want to raise the question of drugs, because were there drugs in the Raducobanu household?

42:39There is so much evidence on cannabis creating mental breakdown that leads to violent disorder. And Peter Hitchens has been brilliant on exposing this over years and years and years. Yes. Has he been tested for drugs? Do we know if there was any drug involvement? Was there any drug involvement in the family? Was that part of family life?

42:58Camilla: Actually, we don't know if there's that much evidence of drugs, but I think it's a really, really good question. And the issue of cannabis psychosis in the under-18s. It's one thing to be a cannabis user when you're in your 20s. When your brain isn't properly formed, awful things can happen. Well, it's fundamental, and it seems as if the Nottingham murderer... Yes, of Aldo Calicane. ...was a cannabis user. and I think this is a societal failing that we're not willing to face up to the evidence or look for the evidence. So why don't we know? Well, we don't know because he almost certainly wasn't tested when he was arrested.

43:34Those are the sort of things we need to know and again, to your point on do you blame the family? Well, I certainly do if drugs were going on in the family but I don't want to accuse them of something there's no evidence for.

43:45Camilla: I mean, if they allowed him to do drugs in the house, Is that any worse than then allowing him to download an al-Qaeda training manual? I mean, in a way, that's a drug in itself, isn't it? He's being radicalised willfully online. Actually, I think it probably is because you and I could look at an al-Qaeda training manual because we wanted to talk about it in public and thought we ought to know what was in it. There could be a legitimate purpose for it, whereas there can't be for taking cannabis. Let's also reflect on what the families of the victims have previously said. They've called for Ruda Cabana's parents to be, quote, held to account for their son's crimes.

44:23Camilla: Jenny Stancom said in a joint statement with Elsie Dot's father, David, they didn't report their concerns, they didn't act, and in doing so they failed not only as parents but as members of our society. And funny enough, Merseyside Police did previously consider charges against his parents, but in June last year a spokesman said the evidence against them did not reach the threshold. They also spoke to the inquiry in November and they prompted the force to confirm its detectives would examine their transcripts. This was the other very disappointing thing. Alphonse gave a pretty mealy-mouthed response, I think, in the face of the scale of the crimes, the horrific nature of the crimes.

45:08Camilla: There was this kind of sense that they didn't quite understand. I mean, to be fair, they've now been forced into hiding. He's got a brother who's been forced into hiding. There's no winners here at all, is there? No, of course there isn't. And obviously they have failed as parents. Yes. Just utterly. What is success and failure as a parent? But they brought up, brought into this world, a creature who is evil. Yeah, they raised a monster. They raised a monster. And they must take responsibility for that. They can't get out of that responsibility. There were, on the other hand, lots of other signs that were picked up by the authorities.

45:46and the authorities are impartial, are not emotionally involved and should be applying the law without that. You hope your child will be better next time.

45:59Camilla: Yes, they should be overruling the parental emotion in all this. Of course they should. The parents saying we don't want him to go into care and being objective in saying this kid is clearly very, very unstable. You put the point, I was trying to make much better than I put it actually, That is to say that parents are always subjective about their children and protective of them, and we think that they are marvellous. In this case, the absolute opposite was true. And the parents were at fault in not acting and clearly in the way they brought him up. But the greater fault is with the objective authorities who had power, who had steps they could take, and who the whole way through seem to be muddled and to have ignored incredibly strong warning signs.

46:45Oh, have a second. Taking knives into school, planning to kill somebody who'd bullied you, doesn't that set off every alarm? And where are we with the mental health acts? That if you're going into school at his age or at any age intending to kill people, shouldn't you be sectioned? Yes. And put in a safe home? Yes. We seem to have given up on that completely. We allow people, whether they're mad because of cannabis or whether they're mad and dangerous anyway, it doesn't really matter. We need to have a system where dangerous people are sectioned and protected from themselves and, more importantly, protecting others.

47:23Because, I mean, you're so right to concentrate on the poor families who have suffered and will never, ever get over this loss. We'll think every year, what would my child have been doing now?

47:34Camilla: Yes, it's beyond comprehension. It's beyond comprehension. Right, we will be back tomorrow, 5pm Oh, and I'm back with you