Is Nigel Farage really “siding with Jimmy Savile“ by opposing the online safety bill?

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0:32This is a Global Player original podcast. So, Mr Kyle, can I have an apology, please? Sorry? Just one more time? So, Mr Kyle, can I have an apology, please? Yep, that is Nigel Farage demanding a full-throated apology from a Labour frontbencher, Technology Secretary Peter Kyle. The question is, does he have a point? Welcome to the News Agents.

1:02The News Agents. It's John. It's Emily. And just to give you a little bit of context for this, yesterday we were about to do the online safety issue for the podcast and I messaged the Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, who said actually having his first day off since Christmas, could he come on later in the week? He couldn't do Monday. This morning, by the time we got to the office, a row had already erupted, which I think takes a little bit of breaking down, because when you hear it for the first time, you're going to do one of those sorry what's. He's on air and he's being questioned about the petition that has grown up surrounding these age verification checks, you know, part of the Online Child Protection Act.

1:51And he ends up Getting himself into a really odd place. Just have a listen to the exchange. I see that Nigel Farage is already saying that he's going to overturn these laws. So, you know, we have people out there who are extreme pornographers, peddling hate, peddling violence. Nigel Farage is on their side. Make no mistake about it. If people like Jimmy Savile were alive today, he'd be perpetrating his crimes online. And Nigel Farage is saying that he's on their side. I'm sorry. Not the side of children who are... I'm going to ask you to clarify. Do you honestly think to say Nigel Farage is on Jimmy Savile's side?

2:31When it comes to online activity, we have seen unfettered access of adults to children via social media. When we put in the age verification, it stops strange adults getting in touch with children. So make no mistake... This is a major leap. You're going to stick to the fact that you said that Nigel Farage is on Jimmy Savile's side. Nigel Farage is on the side of turning the clock back to the time when strange adults, strangers can get in touch via messaging apps with children. We have now asked to age verify the age in which people can have access to online content so we can protect children from.

3:08So that was Peter Kyle speaking on Sky News this morning, not giving any quarter, not resiling from those comments about Nigel Farage being on the side of Jimmy Savile and others who perpetrate this sort of thing. And you can oppose the Online Safety Act without being on the side of Jimmy Savile. All sorts of people have principled objections to the Online Safety Act. Peter Kyle on social media doubled down on this a bit later. Not surprisingly, Nigel Farage is firing back. Well, this is so absolutely disgusting that it's almost beyond belief. Just how low can a Labour government sink in its desperation?

4:00Yes, of course, they're in trouble. They're well behind us in the opinion polls. But frankly, to say that I would do anything that would in any way aid in the back people like Jimmy Savile is frankly just... It's so below the belt, it's almost not true. But all of this is, of course, deflection. Deflection because we were told from the very start, and by the way, it's not the Labour government that have passed this legislation, it was the previous Conservative government that have passed this legislation, which is why you've barely heard a squeak. I mean, it is a remarkable thing where Farage is keeping his cool and indeed getting his facts right.

4:43It was introduced under the May government originally. It was passed by the May government and it has only just come into effect now under Labour as of Friday. And there is genuine unease. There is genuine unease about parts of this bill and the kind of hoops it makes everyone, all of us, every over 18 year old go through just to get themselves logged onto or accessing sites online. and I guess the trouble with this, I'm going to call it like the new equivalent of Godwin's Law. You know, the way if you're losing an argument, you just go the Nazis. If you're losing an online argument, you just go Jimmy Savile.

5:24It slightly undermines, I think, the Labour government's position or the government's position on this right now, which is take on the debate. Have the debate. It's a really live debate. Nigel Farage may be coming to this from a sort of privacy and free speech place, but he also finds himself where at least 300 ,000 other Britons stand and many young people stand in terms of not wanting to put all their details, not wanting to put pictures of their face or their driving licenses or their credit card details or their passport details online every time to access sites that have previously been free to them.

6:02And so I think it does feel like a nervous response. That's what I keep coming back to. It's a sense of losing a battle and sort of deer in the headlights. Funnily enough, when I came in this morning, I had sitting on my desk some copy that we printed out, I think from a previous episode. The headline was Labour needs to find a radical new approach to tackle reform. And you think, yeah, this is not it. This is radical. This is radical, but it's not it. And I just kind of am left thinking, again, Labour don't know what to do. You know, you had Donald Trump up and we'll come to this in a minute of Donald Trump up in Scotland advising Keir Starmer on how you tackle reform and Farage.

6:46And there is still a kind of uncertainty, a lack of confidence over what you do and what you say to tackle Farage. Yes, everyone in the Labour government wants to bring Farage down a peg or two, but you've got to do it artfully. You've got to do it cleverly. You can't do it so that it plays into Nigel Farage's great strength, which is to come on and look like the voice of reason and cry foul, which is what Peter Kyle has opened up, arguably, with these comments that he made this morning. Yeah, I mean, if you listen in the round, he does move away from aligning Farage directly with Jimmy Savile in his subsequent sort of comments.

7:29But he's essentially making the same point, which is that those in favour of withdrawing the Online Safety Act are basically throwing their lot in with violent pornographers and paedophiles. And I think this is where you're conflating two issues that just don't actually work. People who are asking for more freedom or more privacy or a less draconian response to the website, the Online Safety Act, are not pederasts. and they're not necessarily facilitating more paedophilia. They are coming to this in very different ways, many of them with just genuine fears about what putting more details about themselves online will lead to.

8:16And from the government's perspective, you can see that they just think the importance of this bill, the safety to children, the protection of minors is paramount and anyone who isn't getting behind that is just aligning themselves on the wrong side. So three and a half years ago, you and I were doing a podcast in a very different guise for a different organisation. And the subject du jour was Boris Johnson accusing Keir Starmer of somehow enabling Jimmy Savile by not having prosecuted him when he was director of public prosecution. And it was in PMQs. And it was in PMQs. In the chamber. So he had.

8:58Yeah, he had privilege to say it. Parliamentary privilege. And apparently he'd been put up to it by Reece Smog, who'd said to him, why don't you mention about not prosecuting Savile? And we should explain that Stunberg was the director of prosecution during that time. The Jimmy Savile case didn't come to him directly. There was never any link between his job as a prosecutor and Jimmy Savile's monstrous crimes. But we at that time said this was a terrible smear because... The Boris Johnson one. The Boris Johnson one. And I'm afraid to say that just because you oppose the Online Safety Act, as Nigel Farage does, does not make you an enabler, an apologist for a friend of Jimmy Savile and the heinous things that he did.

9:42I mean, it wasn't just us saying that. Munira Mirza, who worked alongside Boris Johnson, a very trusted member of staff and law member of staff, found it outrageous and quit her job as a result of that, you know, wanted to get him to apologise and he wouldn't pull them back. I think it does tell you something about the state of discourse now. I mean, not always, not everything. You know, we do have a lot of very thoughtful, calm discussions, you know, in Parliament and outside. But it is interesting that, to your point, to the old story on your desk, that Labour, or at least a part of Labour, is thinking we have to fight populists with the kind of rhetoric that they themselves would use.

10:24And that's where it's all going wrong. Because actually, there is a danger that the scales have tipped. And when you listen to Nigel Farage giving his press conference, as he did this morning, he's now in danger of sounding like the grown up. Now, if he had been pressed in a different way, you know, there are a million ways to ask Nigel Farage what your response to child vulnerability is, what your response is to kids who are finding, you know, suicidal material, pornography on the website. You know, if you were in charge of the country, what would you do is a question I don't think he's answered properly yet.

10:59There are a million ways to try and understand what reform's policy would be in terms of protecting vulnerable children. But this doesn't get to the bottom of any of it. Look, we know that the Prime Minister is having a cabinet meeting today, even though it's the summer recess, to talk about Gaza, which is, I suspect, what is on the government grid they want to be talking about. And Peter Kyle, whether he needs to apologise or not to Nigel Farage, was certainly not part of any grid story that they had today. and we should also say you were trying to get him on yesterday we've also tried to get Peter Kyle on today and I just don't think we've been able to make diaries align but I mean what do you do now having said this do you apologize do you wait for this to go away and hope that it quietly bubbles down and it's a silly season story and nobody thinks anything more about it or do you have to address it and say that's not what I meant it's left Labour again in an uncomfortable position with reform seemingly calling the tune and Labour having to react.

11:58And that's not where Labour wants to be. I think that's right. We're going to be discussing in our second half the Trump-Starma meeting yesterday. And you see how delicately he played that. You see how nervous his whole face is of making the wrong gesture or the wrong look or the wrong intervention. I mean, he's been holding it all together, trying to get to the point this week, as you say, a cabinet meeting, which is going to be focusing on starving people in Gaza. And this is such an unnecessary distraction. I'm sure it comes from a place of concern. I'm sure it comes from somebody wanting to protect their bill.

12:40I'm sure it comes from the understanding that if you double down, you somehow show strength. But right now, I think Starmer will be spitting blood that we are not all focusing on what's about to come out of the cabinet meeting on world peace. Well, we'll be back in a moment to review Starmer and Trump in Scotland.

13:08This is The News Agents. So farewell then, Donald. he's going to be on his way back to the united states later today after his four-day visit mixing golf diplomacy goodness knows what else but i suspect he'll think this has been a hugely successful visit particularly and we'll come to this in a minute the deal that he has done with the european union where you can see what america has got from it somewhat harder to see what Ursula von der Leyen takes back to Brussels with her. Yeah, maybe we should start by putting words to some of those really awkward pictures that were on our screens last night.

13:52Vic Starmer, Lady Starmer in particular, flanking Trump and looking like she'd been caught in a hostage video, wanting to be anywhere else. And she manages not to nod, not to look directly at him, not to contradict or even get involved in any of the things that he's saying to reporters on the steps there. And if you imagine the scene, Trump is in the middle with the Starmers either side. And there is this dangerous game going on where Keir Starmer is looking like he wants just to get in the door without anyone saying anything dreadful. But he cannot completely take his mind off what Donald Trump is saying in case he says something appalling.

14:36He needs to step in and correct. I'm sorry, Maitlis, you've painted a wonderful picture, but you've left out a really important ingredient of that doorstep. You could barely hear Donald Trump or Keir Starmer for the bagpiper that Donald Trump had employed, who was right behind. And you could you could see lips moving and you can just about make out the sounds. But all you can hear is some bloody bagpiper. Yeah, I mean, and the other point we're missing out about the doorstep is that you've invited the leader of the country to dine in your house in his country. So Starmer has to make his way not into the official residence in Scotland, not of the prime ministerial sort of, you know, based in Scotland, but Donald Trump's own private quarters for a bit of steak supper.

15:22Kudos to Vic Starmer for keeping a straight face through all of this. Because one gets the impression that she doesn't particularly like to be kind of the decorative addition. Spouse. Exactly. I mean, that's pretty admiring. Everything that she's done in her whole life would suggest that she can't stand anything that Trump stands for. Yeah. And also, but she also understands the importance and also recognises. I know Trump probably fancies me a bit. I'm going to be here. that will just smooth the wheels, oil the engine and make things go a little bit easier. And I think that, you know, I'm sure that was Keir Starmer's calculation as well in saying, come on, Vic, you're coming too.

16:03Yeah, I don't think we know what is inside Vic Starmer's head. And I don't think we can say for certain that Trump fancies her. But I do think we can say that his M.O. and it's sort of, it's this delightful kind of 80s vibe, which is you just have to talk about the ladies, right? The way to flatter a man is to talk well of his wife and it's without any of the creepiness that we now hear. I don't think Trump realises how creepy he sounds when he's praising Vic Starmer as being a woman whose reputation is known throughout America. I very much doubt that, you know? I mean, all credit to her and I think she's doing a great job as a silent spouse.

16:47I doubt that her reputation across America has preceded her. But this is Trump's way of just kind of getting inside Starmer's head. He thinks he's being flattering. He thinks he's being gracious. And Starmer understands that. We have charted on this podcast all the missteps of Keir Starmer and the things that have been handled terribly. I do think that he is handling Trump with some aplomb. I mean, you know, yeah, there'll be those people who say, God, you should have been tougher with him on this and tougher with him on that. But I actually think that, you know, Starmer has built up a rapport with him.

17:17Trump knows that Starmer represents a very different breed and brand of politics than his own. But for all that, there is does seem to be a respect between the two. There is somewhat less respect that Donald Trump has for the mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, who once again, apropos of nothing, came in for a kicking. Will you visit London during the state visit? I will. I'm not a fan of your mayor. I think he's done a terrible job, the mayor of London, but a nasty person. He's a friend of mine, not sure. No, I think he's done a terrible job, but I would certainly visit London. We did, as you can imagine, reach out to Sadiq Khan to ask if he wanted to respond to some of those allegations on the episode today.

18:10And we heard back from a spokesperson for the mayor of London. Sadiq is delighted that President Trump wants to come to the greatest city in the world. He'd see how our diversity makes us stronger, not weaker, richer, not poorer. perhaps these are the reasons why a record number of Americans have applied for British citizenship under his presidency. Ouch. Ouch. Yeah, he's a nasty person. I mean, you know, Donald Trump, anyone who stands up to him, he's a nasty person. Yeah. So did Starmer equip himself well enough, do you think, by jumping in at that point and saying he's a friend of mine? I thought he chose the words right because if he'd said London's great, I don't know what you're talking about, it's an amazing, diverse, vibrant, fantastic city, then you would have opened the door to all the kind of, you know, stuff that Trump has kind of parroted and repeated before about it being broken and no-go areas and Muslim areas and all the stuff that Starmer didn't really want to hear.

19:07So the fact that he was leaping to Khan's defence as a mate, I think probably just got him there. Do you think? Yeah, I think it was just right. I think it was absolutely right. I think if he had said nothing while Donald Trump was saying what a nasty person he is and what a terrible job he's done for London. You look really spineless and it's kind of, you know, you're on the same party. You've known each other for a long time. It would look pretty weak-kneed. I think he did it right. He didn't make a big thing of it. He just said he's a friend of mine. And actually, Trump stopped very quickly after that.

19:38So I think that was a win for Starmer. I think much more uncomfortable for Starmer. And you'll remember Rachel Reeves in the last budget, imposing inheritance tax for farmers, leaving estates above a certain value to their children, which has infuriated farmers up and down the country and has brought protests and tractors into central London. Donald Trump talked about estate taxes for farmers. It's worth listening to what he said, because I think he'll become the patron saint of the National Farmers Union for this. Well, we ended the estate tax. There is no estate tax on farmers. so so when a when a parent leaves their farm because again a lot of these farms they don't make a lot of money but they it's a way of life and they love their way of life and they love that that dirt that dirt is the most beautiful thing they've ever seen they love it i mean their farmers they love doing they they don't know how to do anything else but they don't want to do anything else i speak to farmers i say would you like to live in my penthouse in manhattan And it was beautiful.

20:41No, sir, I want this farm. And what happens is, I mean, we were losing a lot of people to suicide. They'd buy, they'd borrow money to pay the estate tax and they were not able to pay it. And some banks are ruthless. They wouldn't do anything. And they would end up committing suicide. We have totally ended the estate tax in those situations. So there's no estate tax. So when a parent leaves the farm to the kids, they don't have to worry about their local, possibly unfriendly banker coming in and stealing their farm. Yeah, I think there'll be a lot of farmers, as you say, nodding along to that, gratefully, actually.

21:21And Trump didn't stop at that. He said to Starmer, if you want to stay in power, if you want to beat Nigel Farage next time round, it's pretty simple. You cut taxes and you stop the boats. Now, from where Starmer's sitting, nothing is that simple. But I think the fact that Trump is even speaking to him like that suggests that Trump is slightly invested in Starmer now. He's got this trade deal. He's got his second royal visit, his state visit. And there is something that I think genuinely none of us really understand. But there is a warmth that has come now between the two people and the fact that Starmer was chosen to be the first deal that Trump did with a foreign country.

22:04And you only have to look across now and see the deal that the European Union have got with America, which by anyone's calculations is pretty lopsided. It's terrible for the EU. The EU are now paying 15 % on everything, pretty much everything that they export to America. You know, if it's French selling their wines, if it's Germany selling its cars, that is all going to be a lot more expensive for Americans to buy now. And Americans can get their cars into Europe tariff free, zero. So whichever way you look at this deal, it is completely lopsided. It is an absolute victory for Trump. And it makes the EU, I mean, 26, 27 countries look pretty craven, right?

22:52Because they've agreed to something that is not in their interest, except if you look at it in the wider context of keeping Trump on side for security issues, for Ukraine, for, you know, the sort of NATO implications of Article 5, for protection and defence, essentially, because they're not getting a trade deal out of this. They're getting anything but. Yeah, I think that the European Union, I mean, it was a surrender document. And I think the fear of America was such that they thought, oh, God, 15 percent. Well, it could be 30 percent. You realize how much leverage, economic leverage that America has, that Trump has.

23:35And for the first time in the White House, there has been a president who has been prepared to use that in a more bullying manner to get what he wants, which is going to be a huge increase in tax revenue, in effect, by the tariffs being paid on European goods being imported into the United States of America. It also leaves Britain in a competitive advantage. I mean, you talked about German cars. So what are the big German cars that sell in America in large numbers? BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen. The British cars are only going to have a 10 percent tariff. the aston martins the jaguar land rovers and so there is a competitive advantage for britain dare i say it post brexit that means that we our goods are going to go in cheaper now the british haven't got the trade deal completely sorted yet because they haven't got steel and aluminium and there's still a dispute over pharmaceutical products where america wants to be selling far more pharmaceutical products to the uk far more yes a far more farmer i mean i think the The caveat to all this, just as you've said, is that nothing is ever quite what it seems in the press conference.

24:46So we still haven't really got our trade deal signed off with America. And it's possible that the EU won't end up in this exact trade deal afterwards. I think you should also recognise and, you know, world's smallest violin and all the rest of it. But for a lot of Americans, they'll be really pissed off if they're actually having to pay 15 percent on stuff that they love and take for granted, whether it's foreign foods, European foods, European wines, European luxury items, all the rest of it. I don't think it's just the Elon Musk billionaires that love German cars in America. I think a lot of Americans will be really unhappy that they're having to pay more on stuff like that.

25:26So it could still backfire in a way. But to take you back to April and the kind of chaos that ensued after Trump's ha-ha Independence Day, it does start to look like there is something of a plan emerging. I mean, whether that's by default or by design, we don't yet know. But it is not the chaos that it felt like that first week of April. I'd be really interested. I almost want the editors to mark a note in the diary. For us to come back to this subject in one year's time. What's happened? What's happened? And to see how many cars are being sold from America into Europe. My guess is incredibly few of people hankering after a great big Jeep or a Cadillac or any of the big kind of a suburban.

26:15They're huge, great big vehicles on quite small. On tiny little cobbled streets. Exactly. Do we want those cars? I'm not convinced that they will sell even with zero tariffs compared to the tariffs that are on European goods. The other thing I would say about, you know, what this does for America is prices are still higher in America. And Donald Trump hasn't managed to bring them down. The one big beautiful bill has been passed, but it's going down terribly because it seemed to so advantage the super rich. I'm not sure. I mean, yeah, Donald Trump is starting to win, but don't think it's a slam dunk yet.

26:49And, you know, and the other problem that won't go away is Jeffrey Epstein. And that's travelled across the Atlantic with him to Scotland, where he was again asked about drawings. He was also asked about his relationship with Epstein. And by the way, I never went to the island and Bill Clinton went there supposedly 28 times. I never went to the island, but Larry Summers, I hear, went there. He was the head of Harvard and many other people that are very big people. Nobody ever talks about them. I've never had the privilege of going to his island and I did turn it down. But a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island.

27:31In one of my very good moments, I turned it down. I didn't want to go to his island. Trump is desperate to escape any more questions about Epstein. The trouble is, in his desperation, he just keeps making the story more and more interesting and garnering more and more journalist questions about it. Also, when he starts repeating names of people who might have gone there, it almost sounds like he's read the dossier himself that doesn't exist or has nothing in it. He's definitely not in any way. I'm definitely releasing it. I'm definitely not releasing it because I'm not in it. No, doesn't make sense.

28:06Sorry. Still not making sense. We'll be back in a second.