‘It’s outrageous!’: Nigel Farage on Starmer’s ‘crazy’ migrant deal with Macron

0:02The Telegraph.

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1:11Finally, we have an entente cordiale to sort the migrant crisis in the channel. One in, one out. Macron, Starmer side by side making this huge announcement which, as far as I can tell, isn't going to stop the boats at all. And we've got the Reform MP, Lee Anderson, never shy with his views, telling us about what he thinks of everything from Margaret Thatcher to the small boats crisis. And after that Jake Berry defection, why he wouldn't accept just any old Tory into the fold. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tomini. And me, Gordon Rayner.

1:59Gordon, I'm back. You are. I've been in Marbella. I know you have. It's been lovely. Do you know what? When you're not working, you do look at working and you do look at it as really getting in the way of fun. Yes, well, having spent three weeks in America not long ago, I can sympathise. Yes. It definitely felt a lot nicer than being at work. Although some people might be listening to this going, did you call this work? And in a way it isn't, because what fun we've had this week. Macron's here, as you said earlier, in his Cuban heels. He's with Keir Starmer, a one-in-one-out migration deal. We're determined together to end this vile trade.

2:38There is no silver bullet here. But with a united effort, new tactics and a new level of intent, we can finally turn the tables. So I'm pleased to announce our agreement today on a groundbreaking returns pilot. For the very first time, migrants arriving via small boat will be detained and returned to France in short order. In exchange for every return, a different individual will be allowed to come here via a safe route, controlled and legal, subject to strict security checks and only open to those who have not tried to enter the UK illegally. This will show others trying to make the same journey, that it will be in vain.

3:35Why are they calling it one in, one out? Because as far as the public is concerned, that isn't progress. Also, isn't it 17 in, one out? because it's a 17th of the number that come every week that we are then sending back across the channel. So I don't understand. So it's 6 % of the total number of crossings. The total number of crossings hit 44 ,000 last year and they're definitely going to surpass that this year. So really you're only sending back about 2 ,500 people. It's just a trial. The French will probably go, actually, non, because we're paying them 500 million seemingly for nothing. We've got one dinghy that was attacked with a knife and that was just about it.

4:18So I don't think anyone's got any confidence. And then while this little show, this little Entente Cordiale, or as the King said, Entente Amicable, is playing out on the Downing Street stage, Nigel Farage once again is stealing the headlines here, Gordon. Yes, there is always an accident of timing, isn't there, with these? It's always remarkable in politics how often stuff happens just at the wrong time. And what's happened just at the wrong time today is that 300 people have crossed the channel just before they've announced this deal. Nigel Farage is out in the channel on a fishing boat, live tweeting all of these migrants coming across the channel.

5:02And it's not great for the government, is it? channelling his inner Captain Birdseye and he's made the point that he's spotted one boat with 78 illegal migrants on board. Only four of them are women and children. And as he has trolled the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, are you watching at Darren P Jones? And that's a reference, of course, to Jones going on question time and saying with a straight face that most of the people coming here illegally by dinghy were women, children and babies. Can I just say something which I'm sad to say, I think is now controversial in our political debate. I did a visit to the border security command in Dover a few weeks ago to see what we were doing to process these applications, to return people that are not allowed to be here, to make sure that you're catching people trying to come in when they shouldn't come in.

5:49But let me tell you, when you're there on the site, seeing these dinghies put together by these organised criminal gangs, which are clearly not safe, and when you see that the majority of the people in these boats are children, babies and women who have been... No, they're not. No, no, no. You have got to take... No, look, I get this is... North of 90 % of them are adult men. Let me be... No. Yes. And the other thing that Farage has done very well is that he has very straightforwardly just sort of effectively done a bit of reportage to the British public, saying, here's what I've seen happening today.

6:29And what he's seen is this boat with 78 people on board being escorted halfway across the channel by the French Navy. It gets halfway across, then Border Force takes over, helping them to get to Britain. And then as the French hand over to the British, to Border Force, they say, oh, by the way, we lent 40 life jackets to these people. Can we have them back so that presumably they can give them to the next lot of migrants? And look, nobody's saying that we want these boats to sink or anything like that, but anyone looking at that is just going to think, this is crazy. This is madness. It's total madness.

7:03Well, our ever-intrepid Home Affairs editor, Charles Hymas, was on the boat with Farage. Where else would he be? And he has sent us this recording of what Farage said to him. We had Border Force, Hurricane of Border Force boat come out and wait on the 12-mile line. Border Force then launched two inflatable ribs of its own. The French boat then launched their rib. We then saw another huge boat arrive coming out of Ramsgate, and that boat's employed just to pick up the empty dinghies, can you believe? And we then saw 78 people climbing up onto the Border Force vessel. 78 people, one woman, three children, and 74 young, undocumented adult males.

7:46And what we saw was the sheer size, scale, cost of the operation. what we also saw was how calm and controlled. Almost as if there's two governments just agreeing that this is the normal practice and it can continue. Frankly, it's outrageous on the very same day when Starmer is going to accept some ridiculously bad deal. It's almost as if the French are telling us what we can do, as if we've lost a war. Well, we haven't. We voted Brexit to get back control of our borders so that we could choose who comes into the country. And I just sense that there is a growing sense of, not frustration, but genuine public anger at what's going on.

8:27And what do you think the governments need to do about it? What would be your prognosis? They absolutely have to declare a national security emergency. We have no idea who these 74 young men were this morning. Some could be terrorists, some will commit sexual crimes, and they will. We know that from a Casey report. Others, oh, within 48 hours, will probably be working illegally in the economy. perhaps for crime gangs or what else. And this is making our country less safe. The first role of government is to protect its people. We cannot allow these people just to walk through our streets this week.

9:01It's also total madness to think that we should all be sort of championing a deal which basically doesn't even touch the sides. Pardon the pun, it is literally a drop in the ocean. Oh, we might return over 2 ,000, but you know what, it's just a trial and maybe we want. It's total and utter lunacy. We talk a lot about Faraj being very visible and we talk about Tory MPs criticising Kemi Badenoch for not being very visible and about her saying, well, we need to formulate policy, we need to formulate policy. There is nothing to stop Kemi Badenoch doing this sort of thing. Yeah, get out on a boat. Going out there, saying to people, here's what's happening, here's my phone video of what I've just seen.

9:45She doesn't do that. Oh, Jenrick would do it. That's the trouble. is generally going to board a vessel any day soon with the white cliffs of Dover in the background convincing us all he's a patriot. I think you can bet your bottom dollar he will. The Telegraph, as ever, was on the case this morning. Our international crime correspondent, Max Stevens, has been in Graveline. Do you like that pronunciation, Gordon? Near Calais. And he sent us this report. I am here on Graveline Beach, which is approximately 26 kilometres south of Calais. This morning at quarter to five, we saw an inflatable dinghy crammed with approximately 60 or so migrants attempting to make the crossing over the English Channel.

10:28The party set out just as dawn was breaking. As far as we could make out, they were mostly young men of East African origin. All were wearing orange life jackets. It was expected that today would be a significant day for crossings. The height of the waves is approximately 0.2 feet in height. Generally, smugglers are reluctant to make the crossing where there are waves one foot and above. The wind speed was very, very low and completely clear skies for navigation. Here in Gravelines, we believe the migrants had camped in the sand dunes overnight, approximately 300 metres from the shore. According to French police intelligence, there were approximately 18 crossings made from beaches around Calais and Dunkirk, which were stopped at the source, crucially.

11:17We understand that maybe four or five have made their way through. Those I've spoken to here in Gravelin admit there is a big problem with migrants. The deputy mayor, who's responsible for security and safety, told me that there can be as many as 300 migrants leaving from this beach on a single day. He also poured scorn on Macron and Stammer's proposed deal of one in, one out, saying it definitely will not work. Also in Graveland, a second attempted crossing was made at around the same time as the first. It's a quarter to five UK time. Approximately 20 migrants had boarded a dinghy, which they had put on the canal that runs through the centre of town.

11:55But this got stuck in the mud. We saw two men trapped up to their waist. Rescue teams were eventually hauled them out using a rope. One was shouting, I'm dying, I'm dying, as they pulled him out. There are likely to have been other departures or other crossings made, or attempted at least to be made, from beaches such as Ouisson, Rue Maud and Sangat. Well, joining us now from Westminster is the Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp. Thanks for joining us, Chris. We've obviously had this announcement today about the government's deal, supposedly, with France. this big song and dance they've made about Emmanuel Macron agreeing to this one-in, one-out deal.

12:37Do you understand what it means? Well, of course, firstly, if it is as we suspect, it's not one-in and one-out at all, because the proposal that's been floated is that about 50 migrants per week will get sent from the UK back to France. That's about 2 ,600 a year. But of course, in the last year, 44 ,000 illegal immigrants, crossed the Channel and came to the UK. Now, so 2 ,600 is only one in 17 of arrivals. So it's not one for one, it's one for 17, which is about 94%. So if 94 % of illegal immigrants crossing the Channel are allowed to stay in the UK, that is not going to be any kind of deterrent at all.

13:21And the numbers will keep flooding in. This year so far has been the worst in history for illegal crossings. And this deal, frankly, will make no difference whatsoever. So why are they calling it one in, one out? Do you understand that? Well, they're calling it one in, one out because for every migrant that the UK send back to France, France will send one in the other direction who can stay in the UK. So it's one in, one out in that sense. But when you look at it in terms of how many, what proportion of the illegal immigrants coming in get returned. It's only one in 17. And if you've got a 16 out of 17 chance, 94 % chance of staying in the UK, if you cross the channel on a small boat, 94 % chance, most people are going to take that.

14:04So it won't have any deterrent effect at all. It's not going to work. Are the French taking the Michael, or maybe I should say taking the Michel, because we've given them 500 million pounds. I'm not sure what we've got in return. Yeah, well, I think the French should be doing a lot more, frankly, to stop the migrants on the beaches. And then they should also, in my view, be intercepting boats at sea as well, not just in 300 metres of water, but frankly, anywhere. They could, I think, stop this entirely if they wanted to by doing that. Now, their neighbours in Belgium have done this. They are doing a much better job at intercepting on the beaches and also intercepting at sea and returning the migrants to Belgium.

14:46And when the Belgians started doing that a couple of years ago, the number of embarkations from Belgian shores dropped by 90 percent because people knew there was no point in attempting to embark from Belgian shores if they would get taken back. And I think the French should be emulating their Belgian neighbours. And that actually would serve French interests as well, because if they did that, if they stopped everybody, as I think they could, then migrants, illegal immigrants, would not bother coming to France in the first place. Who want to come to the UK would not bother coming to France in the first place.

15:18They wouldn't be camped around Calais and Dunkirk in these kind of swallied camps run by people smugglers. So they would all go off somewhere else. So actually, I think it serves France's interest as well as ours just to completely stop this. We saw some very interesting reportage from Nigel Farage today, who was on a boat in the middle of the channel observing what was going on. Do you think your leader, Kemi Badenock, has missed a trick by not doing something like that herself? I think what Kemi was doing today was giving a very serious speech here in London about how we're going to reform the welfare system, including stopping foreign nationals from claiming benefits, which would actually reduce the pull factor.

15:58So Kemi was busy developing and delivering serious policy. And that is what you would expect of someone who's leader of the opposition and a credible next prime minister, developing and delivering serious policy and serious ideas. That's what Kemi was doing today. And she was right to do that. Why don't you take us through what else the Conservatives would do if they got back into power to get these numbers down? Obviously, a lot of people listening to this will say, well, you had 14 years, you didn't do it. You weren't in the job then, so we won't sort of lay that at your door. What would you do if you were Home Secretary to get these numbers down?

16:34Well, we would introduce a 100 % removals deterrent, meaning that not just 6%, but 100 % of illegal immigrants arriving over the Channel would get removed without judicial process, no appeals, no activist judges, none of that nonsense, would get removed either straight back to their home country, if safe, or to a third country such as Rwanda, but it doesn't really matter where, immediately. Now, the Australians did that about 12 or 13 years ago when they had a similar problem. They used a little island called Nauru rather than Rwanda, but the principle was the same. And what the Australians found with their operation Sovereign Borders is that within, I think it was a very short space of time, like a few months, less than six months, the crossings stopped completely because illegal immigrants didn't bother attempting the crossing knowing they would wind up in this little island called Nauru.

17:21So we would do that. Now, we had that ready to go just after the election. If you remember, there were a number of court challenges. You asked why it wasn't done. There were a number of court challenges. The Strasbourg Court in June 2022, then the Supreme Court in I think it was October 2023. We passed a law called the Safety of Rwanda Act to basically give the government the legal power and override the courts, prevent the courts from interfering. Then the early election happened, unfortunately, and then Keir Starmer cancelled it. The first plane to Rwanda was due to take off. I think it was on July the 24th last year, about three weeks after the election.

17:57But Starmer cancelled it just before it was due to take off. And what has happened? The numbers have surged. And this year so far, 2025 so far, has been the worst year ever. So the main thing is we would reintroduce that 100 % removals deterrent. So then we're not relying on the French. Obviously, it would be good if the French did more, but we can't rely on that. We've got to have our own solution, and that's what the Rwanda deterrent would have been. And we would reintroduce that immediately if re-elected. Don't you also have to make some legislative changes? I know you're not going to write the manifesto now, but could you just confirm whether you would consider the following?

18:33Leaving the Refugee Convention, yes or no? Yes, everything's on the table. And including clarifying in domestic law how those obligations should be interpreted. Because, of course, people who are in genuine need, who have come here either legally or directly from a place of danger, would want to protect. But people who come from France, which is a safe country, should not be able to avail themselves of that kind of legal protection. OK. Considering tearing up the Human Rights Act. I'd do more than that. We've already said we would repeal the Human Rights Act, tear it up in relation to immigration matters.

19:13And in fact, I forced that to a vote in Parliament just a few weeks ago, but Labour unfortunately voted against it. So as far as I'm concerned, when it comes to immigration matters, the Human Rights Act has to go. Okay, and then leave the ECHR? Yes, under active consideration. It's being looked at by Lord Wolfson, a very eminent KC, senior barrister at the moment. He's going to report back by party conference, and we'll have more to say then. So that is under active and careful consideration. But we're going to think about it properly. We're not going to shoot from the hip. We are going to think about it properly.

19:43And that's why Lord Wolfson, David Wolfson, is doing this piece of work. All right. Well, thank you for clearing that up, Chris Philp. And thank you for joining us on The Daily Tea. Pleasure to be here. Thank you. Coming up. Well, as Camilla mentioned earlier, there has been another defection to reform from the Tories. This time, former party chairman Jake Berry has joined the Turquoise team. Our political correspondent, Don Penner, has been speaking to the Reform MP, Lee Anderson, and he'll bring us the highlights of that interview next.

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23:01Welcome back. Let's discuss all things reform now. It's the reform hour, Gordon, which we always have, don't we? We're having a moment for reform. It does feel like it. Again. And Don Penner, our political correspondent, is in the studio because you interviewed Lee Anderson. Hi, Don. Hello. And we will speak about Lee Anderson in just a moment. But can we please talk about Sir Jake Berry? Because he has defected from the Conservatives to reform, which is significant because he was a Tory party chairman. Besties with Boris Johnson. It's pretty astonishing, not just because of the timing. So, Sir Jake is the second former Tory cabinet minister in the space of two or three days after David Jones, the former Brexit minister and Welsh secretary, also jumped ship to reform earlier on this week.

23:49and then almost completely out of nowhere, it must have been about 20 past nine last night that we got the news as well that in an article for another newspaper, Sir Jake had declared, I was Tory party chairman, albeit only for six or seven weeks under Liz Truss. But he now sees that the Tories, to his mind, are as bad as Labour. He said that they were responsible for big failures on tax, big failures on immigration, and in his words, reform is the only remaining hope. Is this very damaging for the Tories or I'm guessing that there'll be Tory MPs who are just saying these are people who are desperate for attention, they're not MPs anymore, they're missing being important?

24:29It's not even that, is it? It's probably that they haven't got any electoral hope under the Tories so it's a last chance to lose because he'll be hoping to stand for reform, right? Yeah, I mean, that is far more... As an MP? Yeah, well, I would imagine that's far more troublesome for the Tories because if lots of people think my only chance of getting re-elected is to jump ship, then that is a problem for them because then more might follow. I don't know. What are you hearing, Tom? So, as you said, Gordon, there are a lot of Tories who are dismissing this latest defection, saying, well, this is just Sir Jake wanting to cling to relevance, hopping on what they see as a reform bandwagon.

25:04But that is a reform bandwagon that has long overtaken the Tauras in the polls. If we believe reform's membership numbers, they have significantly more members now are far bigger grassroots, are more enthusiastic grassroots for the Tauras. And it was interesting the reaction of fellow sort of former Red Wall MPs who, like Sir Jake, represented those northern constituencies where, especially under his old mate Boris Johnson, the Tauras did very well. But the Tauras lost almost all of those seats at the election last year. And they were saying, it's sad that Sir Jake has defected, but it is understandable because in seats like that, the Tory brand is just so damaged, at least for the time being.

25:45They lost almost all of those Redwall, Heartland seats. And in those seats, it is reform. I read a stat last week, and I think one of three people who voted the Tories and Boris in 2019 at the height of the Brexit wars would now want to back Nigel Farage. It is a lot of the same voters. So in isolation, is this a particularly damaging defection? Not really. As part of a wider drip, drip, drip of defections and the wider trend and what it says about reform hopes versus Tory hopes, it could well prove very damaging indeed. I think they need a biggie. They need somebody like Jacob Rees-Mogg or Priti Patel or someone like that.

26:26And because they are very conservative conservatives, they're least likely to happen, but most likely to have the most impact precisely because they are lifelong conservative members and supporters. Yeah, I suspect that there will be people who will now say that because Jake Berry was so close to Boris, that people will now say, oh, is Boris going to join reform? I can't. That's not going to happen. I don't think. I don't think he's going to return to the break. I heard something interesting last week. The theory goes that in North East Somerset, which may be up for a by-election because Dan Norris is currently being investigated by Labour, that was Jacob Rees-Mogg's old seat.

27:03He's considering whether to contest it for the Conservatives, but maybe Aaron Banks is considering contesting it for reform and therefore if Jacob steps back, he hasn't quite joined reform, but he's facilitated reform, which could be interesting. Anyway, on to Lee Anderson, that other great reform MP. He was well ahead of the curve. He was well ahead of the curve in that he joined reform from the Tories the best part of a year and a half ago. And February 2024 was that almighty row of his comments about Sir Sadiq Khan and the Labour Mayor of London. Lee then became the first reform MP, their first man in the Commons, was reelected under a reform ticket at the election last year.

27:46and I had a chat with him for the Telegraph Politics newsletter, which was half an hour, quite unlike I think any other political interview that I've done because when you speak, for example, to a cabinet or shadow cabinet minister, there is just that real sense of them being quite scripted, quite media managed and sort of knowing on certain things where to draw the line. None of those three really applied with Lee, who is very straight talking, very, he will give you a direct answer to a direct question. And I think any doubt about his authenticity that people might have had in terms of is he signed up to the reform project, I think that's long gone.

28:27He clearly lives and breathes it. Shall we just be reminded of how unscripted he was in the House of Commons on Wednesday? Does the Prime Minister understand that that demand today is even greater than it was back in 2016? And that we demand, the country demands, that you say to the French President... Will you shut up? Don't be so disrespectful. He has a reputation for hating the media and hating interviews, doesn't he? Do you get the feeling he's got over that? I would think so. And I mean, there was a bit of, oh, hi, Dom. Nice to be here. He wasn't completely enamoured with the thought of spending half an hour with a journalist.

29:04But I think what he genuinely did enjoy, considering that Telegraph readers and Daily Tea listeners and newsletter subscribers had submitted these questions, He enjoyed the back and forth of engaging with, oh, Philip has this question, Caroline has this question, etc, etc. So he did enjoy that sense of engagement, I think, more than he would maybe a more conventional interview. People's politician. Right. Well, let's get into the clips because we want to hear what he had to say to some of your very straight questions, Dom. So you started off by asking him a good question. This is something that is playing in the minds of Telegraph readers and listeners and watchers for those on YouTube.

29:43Is reform serious? Last election, Dom, we had 4.1 million people vote for us in this country. Just in May, just a few weeks ago, we had hundreds of thousands of people again vote for Reform UK. We won 10 councils. We got nearly 700 councillors, two mayoral ships as well. We won a by-election this year. So, you know, we're only going one way. The trajectory is up. You know, we're a growing party, we're a start-up party, we're learning. you know there's bumps in the road there's going to be casualties as you know on the path to victory in 2029 we're developing policy behind closed doors and that will be released you know as the election gets nearer and nearer but people say you can't be a serious party you know the other parties have got you know tons of experience of being in government and we see it at local level as well where these where the main two parties have got tons of experience of running local councils but experiencing what done?

30:39Making a complete hash of things. The country is in a right state at the moment and that's due to 14 years of a Tory government, I was part of that for five years and now the Labour Party, the Labour government are actually making it worse. It's time to get some fresh people in. I'd walked to Westminster Hall today and I got mobbed by about 15 young lads from Birmingham, 17, 18 year old, six formers, Every single one was a potential reform voter, definitely reform supporters, and two of them were actually members. So the young people in this country are rebelling. They're bad enough. They love Nigel.

31:14They love Nigel Farage. He's got a huge following on TikTok and on his social media. They want something different. I've always thought that politics is pretty simple. You just go home at the weekend, listen to your constituents, listen to your friends, listen to mum and dad, listen to your family, to your neighbours, and then the following week you come back down to this madhouse and you say what they're saying. It's dead easy. Really interesting, I think, Dom, that he said there we're developing policy behind closed doors. That's something which obviously Kemi Badenock is doing. It's her big thing.

31:46She says we don't want to just come out and say here's all our policies. We actually need to ask people what they want our policies to be. And there is a lot of criticism of her by Tory MPs. They think that she's not being visible enough because she's sort of going away and thinking too much. Reform is doing both, isn't it? So Lee Anderson is saying we're doing this policy development. But at the same time, you've got Farage and Lee Anderson and people going out there selling policies, knowing what they stand for. Couldn't Kemi Badenock also do both? And that has been one of the massive criticisms of Kemi Badenock during her first eight months in charge.

32:24There is this sense that she just isn't visible. and in many cases she's not even giving an idea of, oh, if I were in power, I would do X, Y, Z. Whereas Nigel Farage has been very good at that without tying himself down, as Lee said in the interview, to the sort of policy commitments that might not look so smart or might be so timely in three or four years' time. I think what reform and managing is almost the best of both worlds, whereas Bade Nock, it feels like there are neither at times. It's funny, isn't it, as well, because Johnson had said, I think last week, you know, stop mentioning Farage, the Tories are making a mistake.

33:00And then Badenot keeps on doing this thing about describing Farage as somebody with a fag and a pint. And then Lee Anderson has that kind of like, you know, publican kind of vibe about him. He even does his GB News show from the pub. But actually that's what appeals to the public about them. So she's almost like playing up to their strengths there. Having said that, there are concerns, aren't there, Dom, about how they might perform in government, and you ask Lee Anderson that. There's going to be some talent come through in the next election. We're going to have some decent people that stamp for election, that get in, you know, successful business owners and people that's worked in, you know, a whole range of industries.

33:35Why would you have somebody being a health secretary that hasn't got the first idea of how the health service works? It's the same with all the cabinet positions. I mean, and then they flip them after a year, 18 months and put somebody else in thinking... I mean, look at the Labour cabinet at the moment. Not one's run a business. What would your dream cabinet job be? That's a good job, that's a good question. DWP, Works and Pensions. Well obviously anything that involves reform never strays far away from migration and small boats and you asked him about what the details of their policy would be, how they would stop the boats.

34:12We've got to leave the East HR which is a reform policy, we've got to have our own Bill of Rights and we've got to get tough with the French, you know, and we've seen it just this week, well, over the last two or three weeks, over 2 ,000 came in one week. You know, I've always said pushbacks. I've been to France, I've been in the migrant camps, I've spoke to the migrants, and they're not genuine asylum seekers, you know. I think the penny is finally dropping with some of the wets in the chamber. They're economic migrants, they're coming for a better life, they're coming for a life of crime, a lot of them, and we know that some of them are going to commit crimes, sex crimes, murders, acts of terror.

34:47What the hell are we playing at? I would like to see our Navy in the Channel patrolling our shores, protecting our borders. And the Border Force, instead of picking them up and bringing them to the UK, they should be picking them up and taking them straight back to France. And if that means upsetting the French, then so what? We've given them over£500 million so far. And what have they done with that money, Dom? They bought one Stanley knife and they slashed a boat last week and stopped about 30 migrants coming over. A complete waste of money. There is clarity there, Dom, isn't there? Net zero migration, leave the ECHR.

35:20Right, lovely jubbly. At least we know where you stand. It might not be practical, but at least it's clear. What's interesting about Lee Anderson in this little political journey he's been on, it's not been in a straight line, let's be honest, it's been a little zigzag, Dom. He was a Labourite, then he became a Tory briefly, now he's in reform. He represents that sort of J.D. Vance-ian type figure of on one hand being robustly right-wing on immigration, the economy and, I would say, the culture wars. And yet, of course, he does lean left economically. And you asked him about the relationship between reform, the Tories and Thatcher, and his response was actually quite interesting.

36:00When I first came to Parliament, I thought, you know, I'd done the right... I knew I'd done the right thing by my constituency. But I expected a different parliamentary party. I expected them to be, you know, the Tories of old, of Thatcher's days. And they weren't. I spoke to some of them in the Tea Room and in the Chamber and I thought, well, my goodness, why are you even in this party? You should be sat across there with the Labour lot or the Lib Dems or the Greens. It's a bittersweet for me, for Thatcher. We hated it in... Of course, with Ashfield mining community. My dad was a miner and my granddad, great granddad.

36:37I followed my dad into the pit, so I had 12 years underground. And we lived in a community that was absolutely devastated by the pit closures. And, you know, I mean, literally overnight, a whole community was just wiped out. And, you know, with the coal mine goes the social club, goes the cricket team, the rugby team, the football team, the brass band, the welfare grounds. Everything goes. It kills the community. And this is what Thatcher didn't get in the Tory government at the time. For Nigel and Richard living in the South of the country, the 80s was loads of money, weren't it? They were making, you know, loads of money.

37:12Many years later, I forgave her after I met a chap in our local marketplace, when I was campaigning for the Labour Party in 2015. And this is the moment I forgave Thatcher. And I asked him which way he was voting. And he was 80-yard, he was an ex-coal miner. He says, I'm voting Conservative. I said, well why, you're an ex-miner, you know, trade unionists, Maggie shut all the pits, right to buy, if you work hard you can have your house. In Ashfield, probably 5 % of people owned their own property at that time, it was beyond most people's wildest dreams to actually have a mortgage and own your property.

37:48So he bought his house and he says to me, he says, young man, he says now, he says I I sit on my settee, look through my window, look at my greenhouse. He says, I look at my fish pond and my new fence and my lawn and my patio. He says, I look round my house. He says, that's all mine and my miss. He says, that's thanks to Maggie Thatcher. He says, when I die, I will die happy because that's going to my children and grandchildren and I'm no longer worthless. And that's the most powerful story I've ever heard. And then the penny dropped then. Really interesting. Do you think Keir Starmer understands that?

38:21I think there have certainly been signs at times that he does. I think that if you compare Labour's absolute hard left and far left economics in the Jeremy Corbyn years, Sir Keir Starmer has been far keener to paint Labour as a party of home ownership with the 1.5 million new homes pledge as the party of business. in practice in Labour's first year in government, we've seen a lot less of that£40 billion in tax rises, lots of signs that that 1.5 million homes target already just isn't going to happen. But I think what Lee Anderson did seems to instinctively understand in communities like his in that so-called red wall, which is so much talked about, but at times it feels like it's so little understood.

39:06That sense of wanting to get on in life, that sense of aspiration, and they are what we would probably call small c conservative values but really they are just general hopes and dreams that people have for them and their families and with Anderson on the front bench and a lot of what Farage is saying about re-industrialising those towns and cities it feels like ahead of what would be a very very long lead up to that next election reform does seem to have a head start in understanding it the question is would they be able to act on it Labour has promised a lot so far delivered a little reform could easily fall into the same trap.

39:40Don Penner, give your newsletter a plug, please, as you did this for the newsletter. Yes, so I am lucky enough to be writing the Telegraph Politics newsletter every day, which goes out to both our wonderful Telegraph subscribers and also non-subscribers can register. So as well as getting a few Telegraph articles every week, they can get the newsletter in the inbox. It lands at about 1pm every day, lots of fun Q &As with people from all across the political spectrum. It was Lee Sinandi last time, it was Lee this time. And my analysis and a digest of this is what's happening in politics at the moment, this is what it means for you, this is where it might all be going.

40:18Love it. Don Penner, thank you very much indeed for joining us on The Daily Tea. Thank you. We'll be back tomorrow, 5pm.

40:50We'll see you next time.

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