Zia Yusuf on migrant hotel blunder: 'The British state’s descent into a Monty Python sketch is complete'

0:28The Telegraph tends to do with the Grooming Gangs Inquiry. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And making my debut, I'm Poppy Coburn.

0:46All this week, Camilla is away. She is on a lovely cruise around Turkey. Some people get all the luck, don't they? So instead, I am going to be joined by some very strong and powerful women, plus Jacob Rees-Mogg. Today, I am very lucky to be joined by Poppy Coburn, who is a columnist for The Telegraph and you work on our comment desk. Yes, I do. So I'm used to talking about myself. So hopefully we'll have no trouble today on the podcast. Well, I think the theme of the whole day today is going to be immigration, how it's out of control and what it has to say about broken Britain. And of course, everyone is talking about the story of Haddish Kabatu, the Ethiopian who was meant to be sent back to Ethiopia, but instead went on a very different sort of journey.

1:33Tell me, remind me, what's his backstory? So he arrives in the UK on a small boat and he's placed in the Bell Hotel in Epping of protest infamy. This was obviously the place where it all kicked off a few months ago after this man in particular had been accused of committing a sexual assault on a 14-year-old girl who was living in the local community. He's since actually been convicted for this crime and he was jailed for it. He was jailed for 10 months. Unfortunately, although I suppose fortunately for him, he was released from Chelmsford Prison early after only having served one month of his sentence.

2:12And he recognised that this seemed to have been an error. So there's this incredible story that seemed to have occurred where the police are telling him, you've got to go. You've been signed out of prison. You've been released to remand. And he keeps going, I don't think so. So he comes back four times to Chelmsford Prison. I think there's been a bit of a mistake here. No, no. So he's guided by a prison officer to the local train station. And after this, you know, a story that is horrific takes on this element of almost dark comedy where he's travelling around. He goes from Chelmsford to Stratford.

2:47He then makes his way from Stratford across north-east London. He ends up in Finsbury Park after a two-day manhunt where he's spotted by a member of the public and then re-arrested. And as we speak, he's apparently back in Chelmsford prison. See, I want to laugh at this, but I shouldn't and I can't because he was inside for sexual assault. He is a wrong-un who shouldn't be in the country in the first place, but then shouldn't have been let go. Also, when they let him go, they gave him pocket money. They gave him£76. It's extraordinary. Plus, there's also the detail of what he was wearing. He was easily identifiable because he was in a sort of grey tracksuit type setup and carrying an avocado bag.

3:31Yes. It was a sort of a tote bag with avocados all over it. There's something to this story. We're the most surveilled country, perhaps in the world. There's CCTV cameras literally everywhere. They're on trains, they're on tubes, they're on every street corner, they're in every shop. So the police were periodically releasing photographs as he's travelling around London. You could see at one point, as you mentioned, he picked up this bizarre tote bag, yet was still wearing his grey prison track seat, which again is very identifiable. I first became aware of the story. I have a bit of a personal connection.

4:03My family are from around Chelmsford. I got a text from my mum saying, you know, that man who was arrested for indecently assaulting a child, he's just wandering around outside the local prayer in Chelmsford. You know, it's just everyone, you know, everyone from that local area knew what had happened. They were aware of the riot in Epping. They were aware of how frustrated the local community was. They're aware too of the father of the girl who was assaulted and his feelings, her feelings as she's tried to recover from what's happened to her. To then see photographs of the man that's committed this crime plastered over every newspaper, across all of social media.

4:43You know, it's one of those things that just reminds you of the fact that it's not just the migration system that we focus on in particular. This is a state capacity failure. Yes. Every agency that this man came into contact with was incompetent, utterly, utterly incompetent. The fact is he wasn't even identified in the end by the police. He was found because of a tip-off in Finsbury Park, even after releasing all those images. In, as you say, one of the most surveyed countries in the world. I mean, it's like North Korean levels of CCTV. And the whole point of that is to keep us safe. But it didn't.

5:17It allowed that man to wander free for two days. We need to talk about the political reaction. So inevitably, each side is blaming the other. The Tories say this happened on Labour's watch. Labour says it inherited a mess from the Tories. And we're going to go on later on to talk to reform about how it reacts to it. But we were discussing off air how this, the temptation to just make this about party politics must be avoided. Because as you say, this is state failure. And I think if you go through the various ways in which this went horribly wrong, none of it makes any sense. They all suggest that we are getting basic things wrong because we are starting with the wrong principles.

5:56First of all, why was he here? He arrived on a small boat. He came here illegally. Why, at this point, can we still not detain and get rid of such people straight away? It just seems very strange to me. So the fact that he was here in order to commit that crime. Secondly, the fact that he was housed in the Bell Hotel in Epping, which, as you say, is the centre of so many protests, and we've interviewed some of the pink ladies on this programme. And that is a very important part of this, the fact that so many people have put up at such large cost to hotels. Figures show that the cost of 10-year hotel contracts has tripled from£4.5 billion to£15.3 billion.

6:36And a cross-party committee has said that the contracts are very badly managed. No penalties were applied for poor performance at migrant hotels. I mean, you say you're from the area, Poppy. What is the condition like in those hotels? What is going on there right now with that issue? I think, again, this is just a microcosm of state failure. I mean, I've actually been to the Bell Hotel in Epping. I wasn't going on a pilgrimage. I went for a walk there. But I just so happened to go via the route because it's on the main road leaving to Epping Forest. And it's a site that I think many people are familiar with in town centres across the UK.

7:07You have these kind of pointless, lanyard-wearing, fluorescent-esque guys who are just standing outside the hotel, seemingly doing nothing, acting maybe as scarecrows. You see these iron bars all around the hotel that have been temporarily put up. There's a little gap in between them where people are just walking in and out, in and out. And then, of course, on the other side of the road to the Bell Hotel, there is a massive Union Jack flag. so you can just feel the tensions. You can feel the fact that the agencies aren't working here. You can feel the fury of the local community. I mean, you bring up that it's not a nonpartisan issue.

7:43It's completely true. It's the entire political mainstream that's failed. And it's no coincidence that the two parties, Tories and Labour are both polling at 35 % combined. Because I think people recognise that it's not a case of left-right ideology. It's a case of them not knowing what to do. This report that you alluded to in terms of the cost, the asylum hotels. I actually read through it before we went on air and there's some fantastic little tidbits in this. Even as the MPs are kind of admitting that the scheme is not fit for purpose, that it's costing the taxpayer£15 billion, if not more, when these contracts get new negotiated again, they are still playing lip service to the idea of smashing the gangs, to the idea of making things comfortable enough for those living in hotels, for the idea of making the hotels comfortable for people who have even been refused asylum claims.

8:33So even those who should actually now be leaving, but can't be deported for various structural issues, as we've alluded to. So the whole thing just feels like a big joke. But if they were put into social housing, would that really be any better? No. They would find themselves competing with local residents for the houses. It would probably be harder for the government to monitor them. The cost might be a little bit lower, but it doesn't feel any, it doesn't address the central question of what are they doing here? Why are they here? Why is it impossible for a government to swiftly process and deport someone who has not gone through the normal channels?

9:07And that's the sort of thing that leads to unrest, as we saw earlier last week, with this massive protest outside of a Dublin asylum hotel, City West. This is after someone who allegedly, who was in the hotel, apparently committed a sex crime against a local girl who was 10 years old. And this created a massive storm in the local area. There'd been police officers who had been injured. I think another 20 people have actually been arrested as well in the course of the riot. And this is the sort of thing that happens when people feel there's no legitimate political way to actually express their discontent.

9:43And it's incredibly worrying because when the government does lose control in that way, you end up with fiery riots. You don't end up with just peaceful protests. As we've been seeing in Ireland. As we've been seeing in Ireland. And unfortunately, as we've been seeing in parts of the UK, after what happened in Southport. And I think if I were someone who was hoping to form a new government at the next election, it's not just a case of saying the right things anymore. People, I think, are very fed up with saying, we will get tough, we will take new action, we will smash the gangs. It's all comms massaging.

10:13The actual outcome, which is that people continue to come to the UK, continue to be housed in their local communities against their consent, doesn't change. So you have to almost treat this as like an admin decision. Yes. You've got to get the Home Office working again before you can start coming out with these statements about how you're unlike any other politician. And I think the Labour Party failed to understand that. And whoever comes in to replace them, if they don't understand that, then it's all a massive waste of time. And it's dangerous. It's really dangerous. I'm confused because in Ireland, it seems migration is such a big issue.

10:46And yet the country has just elected a really far left president who presumably is very pro-migration. She's certainly pro-Gaza and all those sorts of issues, too. That's happened because of a series of accidents, again, another state in crisis where they blocked a proper right wing candidate. They chose the wrong consensus candidate. And so people by default ended up voting on a very low turnout for this incredibly left wing leader. And likewise, last week, there was a Carefilly by-election which resulted in Plaid's victory. And again, I'm just thinking, what am I supposed to read from this? I don't.

11:18The solution to Britain's problems plainly isn't independence for Wales. But people kind of have to vote for that because they're trying to send signals to the state that this isn't working. I don't like this. And they're just pressing whatever button sends the loudest signal. Completely. It's like this incoherent anger. I mean, you bring up the Irish presidential elections. Yes, this far left candidate did win. It was also the highest degree of vote spoiling that they've ever seen. Ten times more than the last election. Right. Which, you know, it doesn't get more clear than that. There's no one I can actually vote for that I think is going to change it.

11:49So I'm just going to write like a full letter word on the ballot to let you know in the most succinct way possible that I'm very not very happy with the way the country has been governed. You know, this isn't just a UK specific thing. This is happening all over Europe until politicians can find a way to actually get a handle on this and deliver on the degree of competence. That's the only thing that's going to get people back on side. You have to show people results. I think we've got to the point where, you know, rhetoric or signaling toughness is just it's just not working. anymore. I think it upsets people more, actually, because they can see all of these agencies aren't working.

12:24They can see the prison systems collapsing. Well, and let's talk about that, because that's the final part of this horrible pie. We've discussed the fact that there are illegal migrants to begin with, the fact that they are then put into hotels, which is creating all these community tensions. But also now we have this additional element of the numbers of people being let out of prison by mistake. It doesn't feel like the whole point of prison is that no gets let out, right? But according to government statistics published in July, 262 people were released in error in the 12 months to March 2025, which is 128 % increase from 115 the previous year.

13:02Now, again, I can just imagine, I haven't seen it yet, but how the boring politics will play out in the commons. The Tories will say the stuff's got worse under Labour. Labour will say it's bad because of the underfunded mess that we inherited. I just come back to how do prisons end up becoming ill-disciplined and lax? Of all the places in life. You know, the first question that came into my head when I was looking into this stuff, because we actually got Ian Atchison to write on the comment desk about the early release, specifically in reference to what was happening with Hadesa Kabati. He is a Northern Irish...

13:38Prison's officer. Yes, former prison officer. Yes, yes. Yes. And one of the questions I asked him when I was speaking to him on the phone was, how easy is it for people to get let out of prison in the first place? You think there'd be, you don't just tick a box. And he was like, well, kind of now it is quite straightforward. And it's because, again, there's partly a grain of truth in saying that the prison services have been slashed in funding. They really struggled to keep on good staff. A lot of the young staff are like terribly poorly paid, quite susceptible to corruption issues, which we've seen unfortunately many stories of.

14:13But it still comes down to if you're looking at this from the outside going, again, if prisons cannot operate properly, how could we possibly pretend to, I don't know, create GDP growth on the wider level or get inflation down? If you can't get the basics of the state right, which is putting people in a box and not letting them out until they've realized how to behave again, the whole structure of the state almost delegitimizes itself. Yes. Yes. There's two approaches on the center right here and we'll ask Zia Yusuf about his. But there's a Tory one which is sort of we've got to be very sensible and come up with a coherent plan and be very careful.

14:49And then there's reform, which to me seems to be more like a system reboot. Yes. Is the reform approach really credible? Is that something we could... Is the problem that the state is so broken that it can't fix itself? Do we really want a system reboot? Do we want to take that chance when it could just create more chaos? Because do we actually trust that reform or civil servants or anyone else has a stake in or is capable of reforming this scale of disaster? I absolutely don't think the state can reboot itself. I mean, that would imply that it comes from within, you know, that they kind of look inward and go, this isn't working, we need to come up with a new idea.

15:25You know, if they could have done that, they would have done it 10, 15, 20 years ago when these problems were first being raised. I mean, even the Home Office example, Shabama Mead's predecessor, five times down the line, had been complaining that immigration and enforcement wasn't fit for purpose 20 years ago. I'm quite susceptible to reforms, just smash it up level. But frankly, I'm not seeing any sensible people coming forward with actionable plans of how to do it in a more exact way and going at it with a scalpel. Frankly, so much of it is so dysfunctional. Maybe you do just tear it apart, it seems.

16:02And I think from the, to me, the example of Trump, you don't have to do what Trump did. But the approach he adopted, which I think is correct, is you go back to first principles and you say, I'm going to do this one thing. And then everything flows from that. So the one thing in his case is I'm going to stop people crossing at the Mexican border. And that creates other problems down the line that have to be fixed. Yeah. But if you just deliver on that, you've proven to the voters you'll actually do what you said you will do. It shakes things up because everyone within the system then has to deliver this one thing.

16:31So it sort of imposes discipline upon chaos. But also I think you can then build upon it. So now we've done this one thing there. Can we repeat this experience elsewhere? And I just wonder if the approach of the next government should be that setting one or two things we're definitely going to do, make that happen and see where things flow from that. Control the border, perhaps reform welfare, rather than Labour's general vacuous renewal actually just hammer through one or two things. I think that's clearly what people want as well. I mean, from a Machiavellian perspective, you humiliate your opponents when you do achieve those one, two, three issues that are very basic, but very contentious.

17:12Because, I mean, this is what Donald Trump said. He then got to turn around and say Joe Biden facilitated the invasion at the southern border because he stopped it almost overnight. And I think a reform can do the same thing with the boats, which I understand is slightly more complex because it requires leaving some legal treaties, blah, blah, blah. But if they can get that done in the space of six or so months, then the public are probably going to go, OK, let's just see what they're doing. Because they've achieved what these other two parties have manifestly failed in doing. Maybe we should let them be a little bit more extreme.

17:44Maybe we should let them smash things a bit up. And, you know, if I were Keir Starmer and I was wanging on about visions of renewal and national growth and coming together, messages that are just hitting a brick wall. Nobody responds to things like that anymore. People respond to actual change. If reform can manage to do that, then good luck to them. Well, let's speak to reform. Coming up next, we talk to Zia Yusuf about grooming gangs and what reform is going to do to try to take control of the migration system.

18:26Zia, thank you for joining us. My pleasure. Before we talk about your announcement today, what is your response to the Epping Hotel farce? Well, I tweeted out yesterday that, you know, the British state's transition or descent into becoming a Monty Python sketch is complete, right? I mean, to call it a catalogue of failures would do it a grave injustice. And probably, and of course, it isn't funny because it's so tragic, right? and one can only, your heart goes out to the victims and the victim's family, of course. But you have this guy who's, have you seen the eyewitness account that was, I think, in the Telegraph, well-sourced, where apparently he was trying actively to go back into the prison.

19:07That's right. Because even he, four times, and he was told, no, go to the station. He's a better citizen than the people running the system. He's the only person who actually wants to be deported in the UK. We couldn't manage to do it. Indeed. And we should not lose sight of the fact This is a man who crossed the channel illegally. That should never have happened. It should never have been allowed to have been here. Obviously then committed a heinous sexual offence against a minor. And, you know, as you said, he's probably one of the only people who actually wants to be deported. Let's see if even that happens.

19:37I would not be surprised. Probably as we speak, the human rights lawyer industrial complex is mobilising to try to keep him here. I also said yesterday that Keir Starmer, this is a man who, when he was a barrister, built a career routinely on trying to free men like this man, prevent their deportation. You've had David Lammy pop up on TV talk about how he's livid. I'm not sure what we're meant to do with that. Shabana Mahmood has been almost entirely absent, totally MIA. So, you know, we can focus on this one individual because it is farcical. It is the definition of farce. But, you know, it is emblematic and a symptom of just total and unrelenting catastrophic failure of the British state.

20:22What are you announcing today in terms of grooming gangs? Well, what we've Nigel said today is that clearly Labour have been dragged into this statutory inquiry, kicking and screaming. They never wanted it. Jess Phillips never wanted it. there's clearly been a huge amount of gaslighting going on and the actual victims themselves have lost a lot of them have lost confidence in the process that those aren't my words or nigel's words people like ellie reynolds for example who've just very bravely spoken at the press conference she used the word gaslighting she actually made the point that the the survivors were told that they needed to put questions to potential chair people a full 24 hours in advance and she said why would we need to do that?

21:04Why can't we just ask questions to these people and they answer instantly? Five, obviously, five survivors have now resigned from the inquiry and simultaneously called for Jess Phillips to go. Obviously, Starmer has backed. No surprises who Starmer has backed. Is it the survivors or is it his minister? So what we're saying is one of the reasons why Labour reluctantly agreed to this statutory inquiry. It's because it was an attempt by Labour, a last ditch attempt really to kick this issue into the long grass. You know, in many ways, yet another betrayal of the survivors, who was really, you know, I encourage people to actually go and listen to her speech.

21:44Somebody who, you know, far from being a professional politician, you know, is a survivor of appalling sexual abuse. And she said, you know, they've spent years of their lives trying to get people to listen, trying to get the police to listen, trying to get social workers to listen. And she said consistently they were told to stop attention seeking, go home. And those are the very feelings that were evoked, she said, not just for her but for others in the inquiry, other survivors, as a result of this process, the gaslighting, the seeming attempt to prevent, for example, the ethnicity of the perpetrators of these attacks being talked about, all things that sadly, sadly were entirely predictable given it's a Labour government doing it.

22:23So clearly it's an attempt to kick it into the long run. The statutory inquiry, look, I'm sorry, this is now dead in the water, right? I know they're trying to corral people to say Jess Phillips should stay or whatever. The reality is it is dead in the water. So what Nigel has said is, look, people seem to forget in this country, and it is a theme, I would argue, in British politics, that Parliament is sovereign and Parliament has a lot of power. And Parliament can act as a court. Parliament does have the ability through committees to compel people to attend and to compel truth under penalty of perjury.

22:54That was obviously done in 2009, if you remember, Fred the Shred Goodwin, obviously all the way back to to Kings, of course, where that was done. That power still exists. And so what we're saying is, look, let's get on with this. The victims of this abuse and the survivors have suffered enough. Let's have let's have a parliament act as a court. Let's let the cameras roll so that it's full transparency. So it's not one person's word against the others as to what's being said. And let's do this properly and get it done quickly. And do survivors agree with you? Well, there are clearly some who do already.

23:28I can't claim to have spoken to all of them. I think that if they listen to the case that we're making here, which is that, as I said, frankly, the intent of the inquiry from this Labour government was never, I think, to get to the truth as quickly as possible and make sure justice is served. I think we'll be able to get good support there. I also want to make the point, though, that, of course, one of the issues that the survivors have made, have taken issue with, is the potential chairs of this inquiry. You know, one of them apparently was going to come potentially from a background in social work, one of them potentially with a background in police.

24:03I mean, if you were to choose two places from which it would be least appropriate for a chair for this inquiry to come from, it would be those two places. places. I'm afraid, you know, if you take, for example, social workers, there is evidence that there was a social worker who attended, and I quote here, the wedding of an underage girl to one of the perpetrators, for example. So that's more than just turning a blind eye, as far as I'm concerned. That is actively participating. You had evidence that reports that a police officer, in fact, police officers, plural, again, not only turning a blind eye, but worse than that, actually participating in the rape of some of these girls.

24:43So I think this is clearly an enormous scandal. Again, my heart goes out to the victims and to the survivors. We have to end the circus that is now this statutory inquiry, which, as I said, has now lost all credibility. And what we're offering is a solution which, as I said, makes use of the powers that already exist inside Parliament. What's quite interesting about what you've proposed here is almost an explicitly politicised idea of how you're going to do this inquiry. And I'm not saying that as an attack on what you're doing, because I think what you've kind of recognised here is that these supposedly independent agencies are not quite so independent, which is precisely one of the reasons why the survivors are brought up as an issue, the fact that people had a background in social care, people had a background in policing.

25:28These are two institutions that are supposed to be neutral, non-political bodies, and yet they have not acted in that way. So the idea that you have to do this in Parliament with politicians almost leading the charge on this, what would you say to people who are kind of attacking that as you're making politics of this scandal? Do you think this is the only way you can possibly get the truth out in Parliament with politicians doing the questioning, and you cannot trust these supposedly neutral institutions to carry out that task? Well, I'd say specifically with regards to the people, you know, the police and social care and social work, if it is clear already there is evidence that people from within those organisations not only covered up and turned a blind eye to the systematic abuse and rape of British young girls, but also potentially participated in it, then I'm sorry, they can't mark their own homework, right?

26:22So that's number one. And I think any reasonable person would make that case. The second point to make is what needs to be true now, given where we currently are? Because sadly, this is a political issue. It just is now as a result of what has happened. Lots of people in this country look at this situation and are gravely concerned, A, that we still don't know the extent of what actually happened, which is appalling. And B, ultimately for us to move beyond this and people to get some kind of closure, there has to be a sense of truth telling. There has to be a sense of no stone unturned and an end to this sense of there being a cover up.

26:57And that is what I think exercises the survivors so much. And Ellie talks about this extremely eloquently. The next point to make is what needs to be true to get to the truth as quickly as possible? Number one, you need an entity that has the capability of subpoena, of compelling people to present themselves, to answer questions. And number two, there has to be an obligation to tell the truth with penalty of perjury and criminality if you fail to do so. And I'm afraid, yes, there needs to be transparency, because one of the issues we have at the moment is there's a lot of one person's word against the other.

27:33I mean, you saw that appalling performance from Jess Phillips in the House of Commons. She snaps and loses her temper. As if she's the victim. She speaks as if she's the victim here. And I think that's what a lot of people took great issue with, regardless of your political persuasion. And I'm sorry, Jess Phillips is not the victim here. The victims are the actual victims of the systematic rape and abuse that has happened on these shores, which certain apparatus of state decided to cover up and actively participate in. So all those three things need to be true. And what we're putting on the table is a proposal, which, as I said, ticks all of those boxes.

28:07While you're here, I do want to bring up the issue of Sarah Pochin, who was doing a program on Talk TV where a caller asked her about the ethnicity of people on TV. And she said that it drives her mad to see so many black and Asian people on television. She has apologized. I believe you have accepted her apology, what comments I have read thus far. But what did she mean by that? And how do you respond to it? Well, the first thing to say is I was instrumental in getting Sarah selected as the candidate. I worked really hard to get her elected up in Runcorn and Halesby. Remember, I was up quite late in the morning at the count.

28:48And I'm very glad I did because I think she's a lovely person. And I think she's a brilliant MP for Runcorn and Halesby. And I consider her a good friend. I speak to her most days. So that's the first thing to say. So I know what's in her heart. And that's actually really important because I think intent does match on these things. Number two, she has apologized for that turn of phrase. And I think that's quite right because it was poorly phrased. And those aren't my words. Those are hers. So what I would also encourage people to do is go and look at the context in which she said this. So what she didn't say is that and then with a full stop on it, just to be clear.

29:18Right. This wasn't some random outburst. This was in response to a gentleman called Stuart who had called in to the radio to articulate his concern. I think understandable concern that as a result of the significant overrepresentation of some groups in TV ads and underrepresentation of others, he actually used the phrase life was starting to imitate art. I mean, you can get into how white working class boys, for example, the most left behind in society. We can have that debate. Now, she responded to that. And the first part of her answer was that phrase, which, you know, again, she's apologized for that.

29:51Now, in terms of one of the reasons why we are in a situation, why I think it is relevant actually to talk about the fact that I don't like slicing and dicing the public in terms of demographics. I just don't think it's the best thing to do. But a lot of people do, especially on the left. And generally what happens is people point out how ethnic minorities or something might be underrepresented in very specific areas. But if there is one demographic, if we are going to slice and dice, that is consistently the most left behind by any observable metric, it is white working class boys. Demonstrated by, for example, if you were to take white British boys who are eligible for free school meals, only 14%, 1-4 % of them attend higher education.

30:38That is lower than any other demographic. Right. Similarly, whether it's aged five, whether it's age 15, Welsh 15 year olds have a lower educational attainment than the OECD average, lower than children in Turkey age 15. And yet Turkey is in receipt of millions of pounds of foreign aid at the taxpayers' behest. And one of the and then what happens, Tim, it is the policy response invariably compounds the problem. Right. It creates programs, for example, that actively discriminate against this group even more. Also, we can talk about the civil service internship programs for which white people are ineligible to apply.

31:14We could talk about the RAF, whose own internal inquiry in 2021. Do you remember that? Indicted the RAF for its recruitment practices that were expressly discriminatory on the grounds of skin color and gender. And by the way, the head of recruitment for the RAF resigned in protest because she, to her credit, refused to implement such rules and ended up being vindicated. We've got our own security services who have internship programs, which white people can't apply to. You get my point. And so one of the problems that we have, and again, notwithstanding the fact that Sarah's apologized for that turn of phrases, politicians in this country are terrified to talk about some of these issues because they are concerned it's such a, you know, such a minefield that it could cause a really big backlash.

31:57But I've spoken to... Famously, when she spoke about banning the burqa in Parliament, it triggered your resignation from your past job. So that sensitivity extends even to reform. Let me be crystal clear about something. I'm on the record, and I said this at the time, I'm actually in favour of a ban on the burqa. In fact, across all face coverings, just to be clear. So that was not the issue. We can have a separate discussion about that. That was more just me not knowing about the question and that it was coming, not about a view that I have on the burqa. Reform have consistently been a party that is willing to talk about things that are difficult to talk about in the political arena.

32:39And these things do need to be talked about respectfully and carefully. Those things are true. Let us be really brave and courageous. But that also means – I'll just make this final point. By being the only party that is consistently willing to talk about these issues, it does mean that our politicians will be more likely to sometimes use not the right turn of phrase. In which case, let's be very brave, given that your answer was a good and compelling one, but of course it cleverly shifted us onto the question of discrimination against working class white boys. Go back to the original point she was discussing.

33:09Do you think, as some people do, that actually ethnic minorities are overrepresented in advertising? It's not something I think. There's a study that I think was commissioned by The Independent and published by Channel 4 that shows ethnic minorities are vastly disproportionately overrepresented. White people are vastly disproportionately underrepresented. And by the way, you can also look at other groups. So pregnant women, almost no representation at all. Disabled people, almost no representation at all. So it's not about my opinion, and these are just demonstrable facts. So I think I find quite interesting about the way that you framed this, which I think is correct.

33:44you know that is true that there are certain groups that are overrepresented in advertising there have been studies to back this up you've said that the party is willing to go to places that other parties have not done so before and so you may occasionally get these slip-ups but sometimes I do listen to what reform is saying on issues like integration on underrepresented white working-class boys we have heard that before we've been hearing these stories the last 10 15 20 years what I'm really keen to get to the heart of is what do you actually aim to do with your integration policy? And how will it be different from what the Conservative Party tried and failed to do after 15 years of government?

34:21How are you going to bring a country that's so divided together? How are you not going to default to group identities? Yeah, well, I think that in the end, there will be a group identity. The optimal one, of course, is people getting together as patriots who love their country, right? That's where we want to be. Now, look, we don't live in a perfect world. We're not naive. The first thing I would say is let's stop the problem deteriorating in an accelerating basis. That's the first thing. Like so many of our problems, whether it's the small boats or any of these issues, not only are these problems not improving, they are getting demonstrably worse in an accelerated manner, right?

34:54So number one, we have to stop the boats from coming, right? That's the first thing. And we can have a whole podcast just about that. Number two, we need to take legal migration down to zero on a net basis or potentially less than zero, depending on what the situation is. I think that that latter scenario is increasingly likely to be necessary by the time reform win the next general election, if that's something that the British people choose to deliver the ballot box. Number three, we have to then have a serious immigration policy that does assess applicants in terms of people who want to come here based on this country's assessment of the likelihood that they would integrate successfully in this country.

35:35So let's make sure we do those things really effectively. I do think there are questions to be asked around our education system. And these are not easy things to solve. I'm not claiming that they are. It's obviously a deeply politicized, I would argue, teacher segment. I know that because I get emails from people who are teachers who say, you know, don't please don't share my name with anybody because I'd be fired immediately. You know, for example, if you're a teacher who mentions Nigel Farage or reform in a positive light in a staff room. I mean, we know, you know, our own candidates have been booted off teacher training courses, for example, right?

36:05Just brazenly, by the way. where they literally said it's because you stood for reform. So these are all serious issues. I think we need to remind ourselves as a country, what is it that makes Britain an amazing country? What makes the United Kingdom an amazing country? And start to integrate some of that inside our education system. We've got to sort our universities out as well. I'm afraid many of them, not all of them, but many of them serve more as indoctrination camps these days than any sort of serious higher education faculty that is improving the life prospects of its attendees. But you're not going to be able to answer this question effectively unless you are A, clear on what makes this country a great country and then being proud of those things.

36:49Final thing, one thing that I find very interesting is that on the one hand, everything you're saying about the need for integration, about the need for pride in country, I think that's a very strong and positive message for reform. At the same time, you yourself personally become a lightning rod for a lot of highly racialized attacks. upon yourself, sometimes coming from within reform. How do you feel about that, that you are out there making this positive case for Britain, trying to espouse this post-racial kind of centre-right politics, which I think we'd all sign up to, and yet it actually draws even more bile and it makes you the target of some very unpleasant attacks?

37:26Yeah, well, look, number one, if you're in frontline politics, you're not going to meet a frontline politician who isn't getting some abuse or a lot of abuse from somewhere. So that's the first point. But I understand the point you're making. One of the things that actually, I remember Jordan Peterson talking about this years ago, where he was warning quite prophetically, actually, about what was going to happen if the far left kept sort of trying to slice and dice society into these groups by ethnicity, for example, and making everything about race and trying to find every nook or cranny where races were not equally represented and trying to make that some cause.

38:01He said, there was a real risk that you were going to get some sort of counter reaction to that if they continue. Now, I will say this, that, you know, I wrote a piece for The Telegraph before the last general election. One of the reasons I came into politics is because I felt like as someone who was born here, raised here, you know, didn't come from much. This country has given me huge opportunity. I wanted to do whatever I could to optimize for this country having an amazing outcome. And the risk is that not only we're in this real critical point in this country's history, where there's a real potential bifurcated outcome here, there is an outcome where Britain regains its confidence, becomes powerful and prosperous again, heals a lot of these open wounds that currently exist.

38:44But there's also an outcome, which is currently, frankly, The one that we are currently on a glide path on, which is a zero sum, no growth economy with sectarian politics that I think will trend towards sectarian violence. That's what history teaches. I know that might sound crazy, but if you extrapolate what we're seeing, we're already starting to see that. And I think as soon as people start voting down, and I've just been mourning about this for some time, voting on the basis of ethnicity, voting on the basis of religion, that takes you down an extremely dangerous path. particularly with the first-past-the-post system that we have.

39:19I'm not claiming all of these problems are easily soluble. Some of them are much easier solved than others. We're so far from where we need to be in this country that it's very worrying. But I will say this too, what makes me optimistic is that, and the corollary to all of that, is that if we had a government that actually had the political courage to enact policies that were not actively self-harming and self-defeating for the British people. It might not solve all of our problems, but it would solve quite a lot of them. And as human beings, we're far less sensitive to absolute position than we are to trajectory and velocity, if that makes sense.

39:55So as soon as British people start to feel, and this is what we would hope to deliver in our first 100 days if we win, Nigel's the prime minister, is start to show people that actually it is possible to have a British government that has this crazy radical idea that they should optimise and legislate and enact policies that are just relentlessly and ruthlessly in the interests of citizens of the United Kingdom instead of the reverse. See you, Yusuf. Thank you very much. My pleasure.

40:41Thank you.