Starmer does nothing as Trump threatens trade war over Greenland

0:28The Telegraph Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tominy. And me, Tim Stanley.

0:44Camilla, we were all poised at the press conference for Keir Starmer to do a Hugh Grant. Yes. And finally say something meaningful about the special relationship and the pressure it's under following Trump, imposing tariffs on those countries that oppose his pledge to take over Greenland. Retaliate? Oh, no, actually not. Instead, I wasn't quite sure what the point of the press conference was. It was classic Keir Starmer, say what you see. He just described the current situation. I know. You have spoken to this before. Would you like a cup of tea, Keir Starmer? Let me tell you how you make a cup of tea.

1:16No. Also, this reiteration of the common man. How does this affect ordinary people? And it's like, well, we know that is the case further down the line. but what are you actually going to do about this now? Here's the Prime Minister appearing to rule out retaliating against America on trade. A tariff war isn't in anybody's interests and therefore what I want to do is to avoid a tariff war because it will be businesses, workers and families across the country that will be hit by a trade war and therefore I will do as I've set out, which is to engage with our European allies, with President Trump.

2:00And Chris, in response to the second part of your question, I spoke to President Trump yesterday, as I think you all know, and I'll no doubt speak to him again in coming days. Continue there. We took our office's talk all the time. But we must find a pragmatic, sensible, sustained way through this that avoids some of the consequences that will be very serious for our country. At this point, Keir Starmer reassured us that he doesn't think Trump's about to invade Greenland. Can I go to Ben Reilly-Smith, Telegraph? Ben. Mr Prime Minister, Donald Trump and his team enter military action in Greenland.

2:35Do you think that's a genuine possibility? Do you think Donald Trump is genuinely considering military action? Look, I don't, actually. I think that this can be resolved and should be resolved through calm discussion, but with the application of the principles and values that I've set out in terms of who decides the future of Greenland. Let's bring David Blair into the conversation, the Telegraph's chief foreign commentator. Lovely to see you in the studio. Thank you. Because Tim raises a good point here, and the most urgent question really is, are you going to have a face-to-face with Trump about this?

3:11Because there's a perfect opportunity at your favourite place in the world this week, Davos. Davos. Get out there. So my understanding is Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is due to go. Yes. The Prime Minister isn't due to go. Yes. Weirdly, Nigel Farage is going. Right. Right. So nine tenths of Keir Starmer's time is spent overseas at summit. The one summit he should go to and literally everyone else is going to. Keir Starmer has decided to sit out. David, what did you make of the press conference? You're right. He described the problem. He didn't set out what the United Kingdom proposes to do in response.

3:47I have a bit of sympathy for him in the sense that it's not actually much that he can do. You know, refraining from taking the option of retaliating with tariffs was, I think, a reasonable decision. That positions the United Kingdom to be the mediator between the EU and the US on this issue. But it would help if he actually took the opportunity to go and see the president face to face this week. It seems odd that he's not doing that, although he did, in fairness, speak to Trump yesterday. day. But the question is, even if all this is resolved, and I think the odds are that it will be in some form, once this is over, is anyone actually going to trust America to come to Europe's defense?

4:29Does the Atlantic Alliance actually mean anything now that you have the two components of it, America and Europe, imposing tariffs upon one another in a way that simply hasn't happened before? Are we talking here about a loss of trust in America or a loss of trust in Donald Trump. How much of this is just one emperor has gone a bit Caligula, but we expect that when he goes, which is not that long off, three years, everything will go back to normal? That's a vital question. How much of this is down to Trump and how much of it is structural? I think there's quite a lot of structural change happening at the moment.

5:05Right. Explain that. So why are we drifting apart in ways that are not just caused by Donald Trump? It is a fact that America's geopolitical interests are more and more focused on the Pacific. That's due to the economic center of gravity of the world moving to the Pacific. And it's due to the extraordinary challenge posed by China, which is even bigger than the challenge posed by Russia, simply because China's economy is the second biggest in the world. It's only 20 to 30 % smaller than America's. Whereas Russia's economy, by comparison, is only a bit more than half the size of the United Kingdom's.

5:41We have half their population, but almost twice their GDP. I love how we're always the comparator now for loser nations. I know. And also, Russia has been spending so much money on defence, it's unreal. Well, that's right. So they blow huge shares of their small economy on defence. And I recall America pivoting that way under Obama. This has been a long time coming. It's been a long time coming. And under any American president, they would have to be shifting resources towards the Indo-Pacific. Plus, every American president for decades has complained about Europe free-riding off America's defense umbrella and underspending on defense.

6:20And they've been right. No one seriously questions that now. Trump's achievement, and it's a real achievement, is that he's frightened the Europeans into actually doing something about it. So now you have every European country meeting the 2 % target for NATO defense spending. And you have three or four European countries actually outspending America when it comes to defence as a share of GDP. So Poland, the Baltic states are spending more than America is now. That huge change has come about because of Trump. But the logic is that means America thinks that it needs to do less in Europe. And we Europeans have to take that position further and become much more accustomed to looking after ourselves.

7:03The EU, David, is promising to activate its anti-coercion instrument, also being called a trade bazooka. What on earth is that and how on earth will that work? Well, it's never been used before. It was designed for extreme circumstances where a big country was trying to blackmail the EU. And the big country everyone had in mind was China. But instead, for the first time it's been invoked, it's been invoked against the United States, which is another indicator of the extraordinary times in which we live. And that gives the EU leverage. But the fact that Britain is not doing anything comparable gives Starmer the opportunity to be a mediator.

7:46It's worth noting again on trade to reinforce this theme of it's not just Trump, that Joe Biden's whole trade policy was made in America, which meant using tax breaks and subsidies to blatantly bribe American companies to move from Europe to the United States. And one wonderful ironic example of this is the EU pressured America for years to go electric on cars and to go green. And they finally got a president and said, I will do it. And he did it gangbusters. He threw subsidies and tax breaks at American built electric cars. And suddenly the EU had to pivot towards saying, please don't do that.

8:28So when the engine of America turns against you, you really do feel it. But my point is this, this is the direction that America has been moving against free trade, against globalization towards onshoring for some time. And there are overlaps between Trump's economic populism and the Democratic Party's. I don't think we're ever going to get a Democratic president in the future who says, and I will be quite glad for American jobs to go to Europe. No, of course. That's not going to happen. In the same way that I doubt we're going to see one who will say in the future, you don't have to spend 2 % of GDP, or we don't have to worry too much about China anymore.

9:04This is clearly the direction of travel. I know, although I was saying to Tim earlier, there is a contradiction at the heart of complaining about taking the lying share of defence spending and then behaving as if you have more military might than anybody else precisely because you have taken the lead on defence spending. You can't have it both ways. You can't complain that you're the leader of the free world because of this spending supremacy and then be treating Europe with such contempt in terms of the threats against Greenland. So when you said about the mediator role that we play, is that because Macron's been more aggressive in his response to this and it's seen as if there is a special relationship, then it's for Keir Starmer to play the role of peacemaker because he is perceived to get on better with Trump than anyone else in Europe?

9:52I mean, I say that because one would imagine Maloney probably gets on the best with Trump. I don't know. She just isn't powerful enough a figure to try and be a brokering agent. I think that's right. Right. And it's Britain's traditional role to be the bridge across the Atlantic and to heal these kinds of transatlantic divides. Now, we never had one quite as bitter or as extraordinary as this. And no one would have imagined that it was even possible. But now that it's happened, it is part of the job description of a British prime minister more than any other European leader to try and solve this.

10:23And I hope that Starmer understands that. I think probably at some level he does. Does Trump understand that? Does Trump understand? I think he probably does. I think he probably does. that if there's any European leader that he wants to deal with and try to settle this with, it will be through Stama. Of course, he has to deal ultimately with Denmark. But having the British helping, you can see why that might be valuable. As you have said, China is emerging as the biggest threat. America under Trump has been a little bit irritated by being distracted, in inverted commas, for those who are listening, by Russia and Ukraine.

10:56He would really like to focus on Asia. Fine. But what a lot of people are asking is, how does Greenland fit into this? Because it's not in the Pacific. So explain to us, how does this realignment of America's interests lead to Trump saying, and I want Greenland? There's two points here. The first is Greenland has enormous reserves of critical minerals, which is crucial in America's struggle against China, actually not Russia. That's really crucial for the China angle. But the second point, Tim, in all frankness, is Trump's public reasons for why he needs Greenland make no sense at all. When he says we need to deploy more troops, we need to do more to protect what he sees as an exposed flank in the Atlantic Alliance, he can do all that anyway.

11:40There's an existing agreement, the 1951 defense agreement between America and Denmark that allows him almost free access to Greenland. So for example, the Americans in the Cold War had 17 military bases in Greenland and almost 10 ,000 personnel. They closed 16 of them and they withdrew all but 200 personnel who are left at the one and only base that's left on Greenland. If they wanted to reopen any of those bases or return any of those troops, they can do it. They can do it tomorrow. Right. The existing agreement allows them to do that. And by the way, when it comes to mining critical minerals, if they want to do that, Denmark and Greenland will give them the licenses.

12:21It's fine. It's fine. So his public reasons simply make no sense because everything he says he wants, he's already got. Right. What's he playing at then, David? I think what he wants really is territory. He wants to be able to plant the American flag in the map and say... I think I'm enough bloody territory. You would have thought so. You would have thought so. It's massive. Yes. It's just insane. That's right. You would have thought so. And as I discovered the other day, I don't know, you may already know this, 40 % of the current territory of the United States was purchased. The Louisiana Purchase, the Alaska Purchase being the most famous ones.

12:58So he wants something comparable. That's clearly what it is. There's a possible solution. I wrote about this last week. What you could do is you could convert the existing base and the 16 closed ones into American sovereign territory. So you could make them into sovereign base areas. That's the technical term. Just as to this day, Britain that has sovereign bases in Cyprus. And it works. And if you can make it work in a very small and crowded island like Cyprus, it would be much easier to replicate that kind of thing in a huge and basically empty island like Greenland. And then you would allow him to plant flags in the snow and say that he's gained territory for the United States.

13:38And I suppose if he's empire building, he can claim it's still in line with America first because it's benefiting America's interests. I would add this isn't the first time actually The Americas behaved like this. There's a reason why it has Hawaii, right? That was once an independent territory with a nice monarchy. The Americans just took it. They took the Philippines. They took Cuba. Then they realized they didn't have to run Cuba directly. So they left but said to the Cubans, you will welcome us back if you operate in any way that contradicts our financial interests. And for 30 years, that was actually written to Cuba's constitution.

14:11As you said in the Cuban constitution, America has the right to invade us. Really? I didn't know that. If we meddle with their money. Is that right? I don't know. So the period in which America didn't behave like this, really, was sort of really post-First World War until the present. So there's an argument for saying they're going back to behaving in an imperial way. And, of course, it's new empire versus old. There's a reason why Denmark has Greenland. It's basically a colony, or was. I know it's more self-governing now. But there's a case for saying what's happening is not new. It's a reversal to an old order.

14:43But there is another motivation that we have to consider, which is that Trump didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize. He seems to think Norway itself hands over the prize. It's in the gift of the Norway government because he has written a letter to the Norwegian PM Jonas Garstor saying his plan to take over Greenland was motivated by being snubbed for the Nobel Peace Prize. He said...

15:10You have to breathe heavily into the microphone. Considering your country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped eight wars plus. Plus is in capital letters. I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace, although it will always be predominant. We can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. So having been denied the peace prize, he's now going for the war prize instead. Some people have suggested the obvious thing to do is just give him a peace prize. Invent a peace prize. But this is the second... I've been presented to him by a beautiful lady in swimwear.

15:47In a bikini. But this is the second time he has done something extraordinary and outrageous on a result of not getting this bloody peace prize. Because, of course, Maduro and this whole assault on Venezuela because the person replacing Maduro had won the peace prize. That was tragic from her point of view. So the leader of the opposition got the peace prize, not Trump. He then, having carried out the coup, said that he wouldn't support her becoming the new leader of Venezuela. So in an obvious bid to change his mind, she has actually handed her prize over to him. But the committee has asserted that you can't do that.

16:27Once the prize has gone to you, it is your prize. You cannot just hand it over. You get the impression that Trump wasn't ever very good at sports day. He was very good, but he was very good at sports day. He was quite an athletic young man. What, throwing shot puts and things? I don't know about that. I don't know if he'd be great in a 100-metre sprint, but who knows? He went to a military academy. He was pretty trim. What's with the insecurity about this prize, David? Come on. But why does he want to be in the club of Nobel Peace Prize winners? Yeah, globalists. Yeah, well, you know, Yasser Arafat got the Nobel Peace Prize.

16:58Do you want to be associated with him? Barack Obama. Henry Kissinger. Barack Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. He got literally nothing. Exactly. Just because he was nice. Yes. Yeah, Henry Kissinger. When he got the Nobel Peace Prize, you know, parody died. Yeah. That was it. But this is what we're all trying to figure out is how much of this is just personal vanity and craziness. And even some people whisper dementia. Or is what he's saying a reflection of the future travel of the United States? And maybe he's doing it in a crazy way. It's going back to my first question. Maybe he's doing it in a crazy way.

17:31But actually, this is a new geopolitical reality we all have to deal with. I think it's a lot more the latter. Now, Greenland is a specifically Trumpian thing. No other American president will be behaving the way he is towards Greenland. But America's weariness with Europe, its impatience with European free riding and the strategic imperative to focus ever more on the Indo-Pacific is real and it's got nothing to do with Trump and any American president will be behaving in much the same way. Although when we look at J.D. Vance's behaviour throughout all this, both Venezuela and the Greenland assault, what are we to extrapolate from that?

18:09Because he has been notably reticent to voice that much public support for Trump in this. I'm only saying that because he does look like he is set to be the next U.S. president. So what's your analysis of that? I think Vance is a bit different because Vance is a convinced isolationist. in the way that Trump isn't. Vance has really thought it through. And he really does believe that the United States should avoid foreign entanglements as much as possible. And so for him, I can imagine he wouldn't see Greenland as being a vital interest for all the reasons that we've just discussed that he will be very well aware of.

18:47For him, he could probably rationalize the Venezuela intervention because America has a special interest in its own hemisphere in its own region. But beyond that, in J.D. Vance's world, America must just stay out. And this is not popular at home. No. The American public does not see the link between acting in Venezuela, acting in Greenland, and driving down the cost of living. I think their skepticism is probably quite sensible. It's very interesting that after Venezuela, Trump invited a whole load of oil barons to the White House to say, go ahead, you can invest in Venezuela. And they seem to have said, we don't want to do that.

19:26And they don't want to do it because actually, unless you occupy Venezuela, I guess is the implication, and impose a regime change, if we go back there, we might get an oil contract, but then our property will just be stolen again by the next government. Venezuela is too unstable for that kind of heavy investment. So the public and even business cannot see the logic of what Trump is doing. And the right wing base is very uncomfortable about it too. And J.D. Vance, his path to the Republican nomination is holding on to the Trump, more isolationist wing of the party. And I think that's one reason why he's gone a bit quiet during all of this.

20:03So we've talked about the person who might be the next president. Let's talk about the person before you go, David, who might be the next prime minister, Nigel Farage. To be fair to Mr. Farage, Tim, he was rather more equivocal about his relationship with the US president when he spoke outside parliament this morning. We know that Trump does use a degree of bluff. It's part of his negotiating tactic. You can never completely predict what he will do. But no, I don't think recipient tariffs at this stage would make any sense at all. I think he's wrong. I think what he's done is wrong. I don't think you turn on your allies.

20:39Farage, first of all, is in a difficult position here as Donald Trump's bestie because there'll be many reform supporters who think that this assault on Greenland is an aberration. Let's deal with that first and then get onto the issue of whether Farage should be in Davos at all, which seems contrary to his criticisms of the globalists. He's now becoming one. He's aping one. He's going because he wants to see the Donald. David? He's going, I imagine, because he wants to present himself as the future prime minister of Britain. And he understands that the movers and shakers of the world will be there.

21:14And though many of them he happens to despise, he still goes, just as he goes to the House of Commons from time to time, even though it's filled with people he despises. So I can see from his point of view, it makes sense to go. He may even have a word with the Donald in the absence of Keir Starmer. Who knows? And he can say something publicly like he used to do in the EU, which says, I'm here, but I don't like you. Yes. We'll trend on TikTok or whatever. There's a way of playing this to his advantage. I bet he does that, gives a speech saying, you're all out of touch. You don't know what you're doing.

21:45Everyone hates you. Yes. But is this close alliance with Donald Trump now going to be troubling? Yes, it is. It always was a problem. Reform staked its... One of the things that it staked its credibility on as an emerging movement was, we have access to the people that run America. Yes. You don't. Yes. I think maybe my first ever front page was the photo of Trump meeting Farage in 2016. at Trump Towers with the gold doors. It looked like a heist movie. I remember that. It was broken into a bag. And they both in caps. And I was in America covering it. I didn't do the photo, but I wrote the story.

22:19And so there was that sense of this came out of nowhere. Well, Farage knows him. And ever since then, that's one thing that's kept Farage on the front pages and has kept him relevant in politics, even during fallow moments when Farage wasn't doing so well was his connection to Trump. But the problem always was that if your political movement is based upon nationalism, Well, the national interests of America and Britain will occasionally diverge. So the whole notion of an alliance of nationalists is built on sand. Because at some point, by the very nature of nationalism, there's going to be an argument between you.

22:55And what do you do then? And if Farage is part of Farage's credibility is built upon, I know the leader of the free world. What if the leader of the free world starts behaving like an arse? Yes. How do you explain it? And if your voting base is patriotic, they're going to be angry if you're associated or aligned with a man who's behaving in a way that undermines British interests. It's always been a difficult rope for him to walk. David Blair, thank you very much indeed for joining us on today's Daily Tea. Thank you. Well, let's ask these questions of Nigel Farage's newest MP, Andrew Rossendale, who's going to speak to us having defected from the Conservatives over the weekend.

23:41Andrew Rosendale joins us now. Thank you for being here. Nice to see you. Andrew, of all the defections to reform, yours to me feels the most like a raven leaving the tower, because you are Mr Conservative. I'm old enough to remember when you were elected for Romford 25 years ago, 2001, and you campaigned that year with Margaret Thatcher, and you campaigned with your staffie, who was called Spike, is that right? Indeed. Good memory, Tim. I didn't just look this up, I remember it. Wow. Who wore a Union Jack coat. So this is why I say, given how Conservative you are, this really does feel like a big win for reform.

24:23And is it difficult for you to walk away from your party? Tim, I joined the Conservative Party at 14 in Romford. So I've been a member 45 years. I've been an MP 25 years. Of course, it's hard. Of course, I feel sad. Of course, I had grave doubts as to really did I want to do this. But ultimately, I always think to myself, why did I get involved in politics? I never woke up one morning thought, oh, I want to be an MP, or I want to be in government. I just believed in this country. I was deeply patriotic ever since I was at school. And so when Margaret Thatcher came along, I saw somebody that inspired me as a teenager.

25:04And so I joined the party. I believed in her. I believed that she stood up for Britain. And that's why I got involved. So I think today, would I join the Conservative Party today if I was 14 or would I join reform? And I think to myself, reform actually stands for what Margaret Thatcher stood for. Standing up for your country, small estate against woke political correctness. She wouldn't be going along with so much of what the Conservative Party allowed in those 14 years. And the calamity of what we've got today with this dreadful anti-British Labour government, we need to get them out. And I've called for months for some kind of coming together of the right.

25:50Kemi clearly has rejected those calls. Well, so has Farage. Nigel has as well. But the difference is, Camilla, we caused it. Our 14 years of failure caused this. reform would not exist if we'd been conservative in office, if we'd seriously been proper conservatives and done radical things to put the country in a better place. We failed. We didn't do it. So the next election, I firmly believe, is going to be make or break for this country. We need to get Labour out or, God forbid, some sort of left-wing, progressive, green, liberal, SNP, Labour alliance. So I've argued, as you know, Camilla, for the two parties to start talking.

26:35I went to see Robert Jennerick in September. I saw Kemi privately in October. I pleaded with them both to speak to Nigel. I said to them both, talk to Nigel. Our country is more important than any political party. Robert said, well, OK, I gave I actually gave Robert Nigel's mobile number and Robert said, I'll talk to Nigel. Kemi said, no, I don't talk to him. She was quite negative about any type of. But I said, please, because actually after the next election, we may have to work together, we may have to work before the election for the good of the country. Ever since then, I've been calling for us to try to come together.

27:14It's been rejected. The latest Shagos betrayal, the way Robert was thrown under a bus last week, I was very, very upset about that. You say that Robert Jenrick was thrown under a bus last week. I mean, in a way, he had been lining up at the bus stop for that bus for months, right? He had been lining up since September, according to Tim Montgomery, who has helped to smooth his exit from the Tories into reform? And secondly, why the timing? I would imagine you were mindful of Nigel Farage standing up last Thursday as he pulls Jenrick like a rabbit from his magician's hat and says, May the 7th is a deadline.

27:50If you're defecting, do it now. So at what point over this weekend do you decide, right, that's it? Because I understand you were campaigning with Tory activists on Saturday morning. Yes, yes, I was. And all my Tory activists are also people that believe in what reform stands for. And that's the problem. You've got two parties now, certainly in my constituency, where everybody's conservative with a small c. And that's the basic problem we've got there. The right is divided. So onto your question. So I was in the chamber when the news came through that Robert had been sacked and that he'd been actually thrown out the party.

28:29Now, someone who has been by far the best shadow cabinet minister and the most active and energetic and the person that's articulated, I think, real Conservative values in the last 18 months since the election. To discard someone like that so easily, I said, why didn't Kemi have him in? Why didn't she see him herself? Why didn't she plead with him to stay? He's needed. We need Robert in the party. She said she did. The chief whip apparently phoned him. Well, hang on. She says, because I interviewed her on Friday night, it went in the Sunday Telegraph, that she did reach out to him and she did have meetings with him.

29:06And she did ask him, Robert Jenrick, what is it you want? But ultimately she concluded what he wanted was her job and he couldn't have it. So he jumped ship. So it's wrong to suggest that she and others didn't try and keep Robert Jenrick in the party before they discovered his planned defection speech. But what Andrew is saying is that he has left because of the way she handled Rob. I get that. So even if she had to do what she did, perhaps something about the way she went about doing it has actually encouraged more conservative conservatives to think about leaving. And then the counter narrative to that is just because we're playing devil's advocate here.

29:47She says, well, what was I expected to do once I discovered the defection speech? was I supposed to, quote, wait until he stabbed me in the face? Andrew. So if you know someone is going to do something you don't want them to do, but it's a good person you care about and you need, you don't chuck them under a bus, you plead with them, you try and persuade them, you talk to them. The first thing you do is to phone them personally. You don't do it via a third party. In any walk of life, I think you would do that. and I just disappointed the way it happened. Now, ultimately, if Robert was going to go to reform, it should have been treated by the party as something that they were sorrowful about, but they didn't.

30:32And I'm afraid the party's done it to me. The most appalling statement they put up, which I'm really upset about, because I don't run down any of my former colleagues. I've only ever said good things about Kemi. She's really tried hard. She's done a lot of good things. she has moved the party in a better direction. I've never said anything negative about my friends and colleagues in the Conservative Party. But I have enough, really, about all what's going on. We're not really changing in the radical way we need to change. And the thing for me, Camilla, and you know this, I've always been championing the overseas territories.

31:08And the idea of giving away British sovereignty of any of the king's islands, I find appalling. And denying self-determination of the Chagossian people. But that's our policy in government. We started this whole thing. Now, Labour's carried on with it and made it far worse, but we should have repudiated that entire policy. And as a shadow minister of foreign affairs, I argued that we should repudiate that policy. We should offer the Chagossians self-determination as we do to Gibraltar and Falklands, all the other overseas territories, but we still didn't make that our policy. Now, if the Conservative Party can't put all the stops out to rescue British territory and stand up for the self-determination of British people, what's Conservative about our party anymore?

31:54So I can't justify that, having spent 25 years campaigning for the Shagos Islands to stay British and for the Shagosian people to be given self-determination. So there's only so much I can put up with. And I think I've been patient. And I've just basically this weekend, I thought after Robert, after Shagos and other issues as well, where we're just too weak, not conservative, really, the way we've approached things. and we've caused a lot of this mess in 14 years. You know, we didn't do the things we should have done. Immigration, net zero, the woke agenda. We sucked it all up. We actually need a government that's going to be patriotic, stand up for Britain and actually inspire the British people again.

32:36And I think Nigel's the man to do it. Did Nigel phone you over the weekend then to seal the deal? Yes. Well, there was no deal before, Camilla. You see, I want to make this clear. Yeah. Nigel and I are friends. 25 years I've known him. I knew him before anyone else in Parliament. In fact, I was the first person to take Nigel into Parliament and show him round. He was a brand new MEP. He was UKIP. And he brought a petition to give me about the weights and measures with a butcher from Hornchurch. Can you believe? Vintage. And he came and we had a cup of tea in the Buja room and I showed him the chair.

33:09Never been in there before. And ever since then, we've been on good terms. You know, we've kept in touch. When I was ill, years back, he wrote me a lovely letter. And we've always been friends. So, yes, since he became an MP, we've met, we've had lunch, we've chatted, we've had a laugh, as you do with Nigel. He's a great guy to be with. And yes, he knows my politics and his are pretty much the same. And of course, you know, we said, you know, I could join reform. He's talked about it, but I've never said I would. He knows I'm a committed conservative and a committed Margaret Thatcher supporter, just as you've said.

33:45So, you know, it was hard. But out of the blue, he phoned me Saturday night. And he said, look, come on, you've got to make up your mind. You can't be sitting around. You know, what are you going to do here? And after the way Robert was treated, I thought to myself, well, I don't want to be in that position. It's better I make a clear decision now. I consulted a few very close friends on Sunday. This is how late it was. It wasn't until Sunday afternoon that I spoke to close friends. and they said, Andrew, you've just got to decide what you're doing. And I thought, well, I'm going to go with my heart and do what I think is right for the country, for Britain, but also for Romford because I know my constituents will be almost overwhelmingly supportive of making this decision because they've been telling me to do it.

34:30Well, if that's the case, have a by-election. So the only election I'm worried about is not distracting ourselves with multiple by-elections at great cost. The general election in two to three years' time is what we should all be focusing on. By-elections would be a total distraction. What matters now is planning to prevent the calamity of a progressive left-wing government. We should focus on getting ourselves organised, working, bringing the right together, working together to ensure that after the general election, we have a government that's actually going to start sorting this country out, reforming Britain for the better.

35:06if we get distracted with things like that, I think we're wasting time and money. I want to confirm something for the record. There was a very young man on Twitter called Charlie Simpson, who I think on Saturday said you were going to defect and your team denied it. And then when you did defect on Sunday, he said that he called it correct. What's the truth of that situation? So the same Charlie Simpson did the same thing at party conference, announced that the next day I was going to do it. He just stabbed in the dark on that. He was completely wrong. There was no chance I had any intention of doing it then.

35:43He did the same on Saturday. But it wasn't correct because I hadn't spoken to Nigel. I was out campaigning with my own conservative candidates. So he just got lucky the next day. It all happened within the next 24 hours. It really started when Nigel phoned me and put it on the line. He didn't demand. He said, look, it's up to you. Oh, boy, he said, it's up to you. But he said, if I was you, you've got to make a decision because after what's happened to Robert, you could be next. So if you want to come over, do it quickly because, you know, you may be chucked out yourself. Because I've been pretty much open on the record about, you know, being fairly supportive of Nigel.

36:21I've been asked, you know, would he make a good prime minister? And I've said he would. You know, would you work with reform? I said I would. So I suppose, you know, and Robert said the same. Robert called me and said, look, if they've done it to me, they'll do it to you. So I thought, well, I'm going to just have to make a decision. All right. I mean, I find it quite funny, the positioning of Robert Jenrick as the victim in all this. You're walking in on a private argument here. Can I also ask, because there have been a lot of articles over the weekends by One Nation Tories saying, well, hey, we're getting our party back.

36:52I just wondered if you were conscious of that and if that informed your decision-making in any way, this sense that Kemi might be about to reposition the party back to the centre, away from those Thatcherite ideals that you hold to? I don't know what's in her mind. What I do think is that the one-nation wing of the party rode behind Kemi at the leadership election, and that's essentially why she won. I'm worried the Conservative Party could finish up like the French Republicans or the Danish Conservatives, where they become a small sort of centrist party, pro-business, free market, but actually not really representing the broad masses of the people.

37:34And that's where I fear we're heading. If you look at the old party of Jacques Chirac, they're nowhere to be seen anymore. They're very small. So I'm worried we're going to head in, or Conservative Party, we're heading in that direction because they've lost the core vote. Of course, some people say that by people like you defecting, you abandon the Tory party to that fate. because once all the right... And I've thought about what Kemi did and I feel it makes right-wingers feel unwelcome in the party in some ways. Well, if they all then leave, it is the party of Mel Stride and Kenneth Clarke because there are no right-wingers to push back against it.

38:06But Tim, I tried very hard in the last six or eight months on this very issue to talk about these core subjects to make the Conservative Party almost more reform than reform. That's what I'd have done. Now, Robert Jenner would have done that. Oh, yes. He would have absolutely dealt with central office, changed the culture of the party, adopted much more radical conservative policies, very similar to reform. And he did on it straight away. We don't have this long gap of waiting to talk about what policies we're going to adopt trying to keep the party together, which is a mistake. Hang on a minute, Andrew Rossendale.

38:41Hang on a minute. I love this rewriting of history. You're referring to the Robert Jenrick of the last 18 months, not the Robert Jenrick of his entire political career. where he was nowhere near you 25 years ago when you were in the right-wing trenches fighting for Brexit. You know, this is preposterous, this idea. If we're talking about Thatcherites, Robert Jenrick was over in the One Nation camp, aligned with Camerooni politics, talking about fighting elections from the centre, voting for Remain, albeit, he now says, reluctantly, signing letters accusing those who voted for Brexit as betrayal, and now you're saying he's thought more Thatcherite than Kemi Bainock, who's been aligned with your thinking all along.

39:27I mean, I'm sorry, but that's not quite accurate. He wasn't in the trenches with you. It's absolutely true that during those years, although I always liked and admired Robert, his politics and mine were not aligned. The same with Liz Truss, actually. And I spoke to her recently, and some people change their views. Some people see, especially when they're ministers and they see the blob taking control, and this is what happened with Liz and Robert, they realise that something's not right and they have a change of opinion. And I think in the case of Robert and of Liz, although I don't think the two of them get on actually.

40:04Well, he's just denounced. I know. He's denounced Liz Truss, said she should be thrown out. She tells us she'll never be welcome in the Reform Party. But the one thing they've got in common is that I think they are genuine converts to the right side. Now, I've always been consistent in my views. You won't find me changing my views in my entire 25 years in the party. But with Robert, yes, he had to change his, but I honestly believe he's genuine. The energy of Robert and the determination to fight for the right things was truly inspiring to so many of our members. So he was pivotal. We needed to keep him on board, and they didn't.

40:39They were quite happy to throw him under a bus because I think it means that Kemi has no real chance of any serious opponent now. So Robert was the one person that could have potentially taken over as leader. You know, if these local elections are disastrous in May, then Kemi's got problems. But now there's no Robert. Well, you know, who is there? So I think there's been politics being played as well. Well, let's talk about one very important policy because I'm afraid your defection has been slightly eclipsed by the war of words and tariffs over Greenland. Now, many in reform have long been sympathetic towards Donald Trump and regarded him as a fellow traveller.

41:16How do you explain that position and that history if what Trump is now doing is not either in Britain's national interests or the interests of the Western Alliance? So, look, a lot of what Donald Trump has done, I admire. I think he's an incredible president, but he's not a politician. He doesn't think like a politician. So I know about Greenland. I've been to Greenland. I've been to Denmark many times. The Greenlandic people, it's a bit like Shagos Islands. I mean, they have self-determination and you can't just walk in and take a country. You know, hypocritical of Starmer. One minute he's giving away the Shagos Islands, next minute he's defending Greenlandic sovereignty.

41:57So, yes, it is part of the Danish kingdom. It's not part of Denmark. It's part of the Danish kingdom with the Faroe Islands and Greenland. And they actually have MPs that sit in the Danish parliament but they're not part of Denmark. So ultimately, it is Danish sovereign territory and the people of Greenland are the people that must decide. Now, I think that if the President of the United States is concerned about security and defence and needs to have more bases in Greenland or arrangements with the Danish government to secure the Arctic, the far north, absolutely right, I mean, we're NATO allies, I don't really understand why America needs to own Greenland And clearly it isn't right that the United States should be trying to grab a part of Danish sovereign territory.

42:44Any more that it's right that we should be handing British sovereign territory over to Mauritius. You're echoing Nigel Farage's statement about this only this morning outside Parliament. He's due to go out to Davos, the wisdom of which we could discuss, Andrew, as he has previously criticised that summit for being a kind of forum for jet-setting globalists. but never mind. Now, Keir Starmer might not go, which as Tim has pointed out earlier on on the Daily Tea, is curious considering he... Out of character. It's out of character for him to reject the air miles on this occasion. But if Nigel Farage ends up being in the same room as Donald Trump, as we think he may be, is it now incumbent on him to take the US president aside, have a quiet word and say, look, mate, this isn't going to wash?

43:31Well, I think actually Nigel's already spoken to the President of the United States about the Shagos Islands. So, you know, it's great that Nigel has that close relationship. And Nigel's been very clear about this. This idea of America going on on Greenland is absolutely wrong. And I hope that Nigel will express those views to the President if he meets him. But I also want him to raise Shagos again because this is humiliation for our country. You know, when we look back that we're giving away British terrorists, is such an important vital for security, you know, trashing the sovereignty of those islands and denying self-determination.

44:08So I hope Nigel, and this is his great ability to talk to people, and I hope that he can talk to Donald Trump and make him see sense on both those issues. Andrew Rossendale, really great to speak to you. Thank you so much for coming into the Daily Tea. I think giving us your first sort of proper broadcast interview. Is that right? We appreciate it. I think Chris Hope has beaten you too. Oh, GB News! Heavens sake. How damn they're the damn chopper. But it's great to see you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be back tomorrow at 5pm.

44:59Thank you.