Why is Reform threatening to jail the boss of Vodafone?

0:00Bite into a stacked sandwich made with Hero Bread. And the only thing you'll think is delicious. You won't think it has up to 19 grams protein, 11 to 32 grams of fiber, or just 0 to 5 grams net carbs. But it does. Hero Bread. No compromises. Just loaves, buns, tortillas, bagels, and noodles packed with flavor. Right now, get 10 % off at Hero.co with code IHEART. That's H-E-R-O dot C-O, code IHEART. All figures per serving of Hero Bread. See Nutrition Facts on Hero.co. This is a global production. Zia Yusuf, one of the more fevered members of the reformed front bench, is threatening the board of Chex Notes Vodafone with jail time.

0:45Under a reformed government, if Vodafone do this sort of thing, the board of directors are going to jail. Chilling stuff. It's pretty sinister. What he does is to go from stage one all the way through to stage ten in one tweet. He is, you know, almost an addict to the likes and the clicks and the reposts. But I don't know whether it drives political success. Honestly, stop tweeting. Zia, you're going to have a better week. You will have a better week if you just stop tweeting just for seven days. Vodafone is aiding and abetting the invasion of Britain. They have handed thousands of free SIM cards to illegal migrants in Calais, knowing that they were about to break into Britain.

1:27They even added six months of free data for them in case their free taxpayer-funded hotel isn't enough. I've written to the CEO of Vodafone demanding they end this disgusting practice immediately. I told her and the whole board of Vodafone that a reformed government will immediately make aiding and abetting illegal entry into the UK a strict liability criminal offence. Now, that means prosecutors won't have to prove intent, only that they took the action. Put another way, under a reformed government, if Vodafone do this sort of thing, the board of directors are going to jail. That is Reform's shadow Home Secretary or Home Affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, accusing Vodafone of actively assisting illegal migrants in France in their efforts to break into Britain via being given free SIM cards.

2:24And as you heard, threatening them with jail time. This comes after Zia Yusuf called a former Conservative Defence Secretary a traitor. is this good politics or is Zia Yusuf going slightly mad? Welcome to The News Agents.

2:47It's John. It's Lewis. And this is the second time this week that we have found ourselves talking about Zia Yusuf, who, for those of you who didn't listen to our episode on Tuesday or aren't familiar with him, this is a guy who used to be the reform chairman. He has been hailed multiple times as a rising star of the reform movement. He's a young guy, made a lot of money in business, a lot of money in the city, a lot of money in America, has been very, very successful, and then made this transition to politics where he has become, I think it's fair to say, one of the more fevered members of the reform front bench, even though he's not actually a member of Parliament.

3:22As John said earlier this week, he got in trouble and received what Nigel Farage said was a ticking off for accusing the former conservative former conservative defense secretary ben wallace of being a traitor to his country despite the fact that ben wallace is a former serviceman himself in the scots brigade served in the northern ireland served in uniform accused him of being a traitor because he dared had the temerity to criticize reforms at one of reform's policies on illegal migration. And now today, only two days later, is threatening the board of Chex Notes Vodafone, one of our biggest telecoms companies, with jail time because he says there are over 2 ,200 Vodafone SIM cards which have been given by Vodafone to the charity Care for Calais.

4:13Care for Calais is a a charity which operates in northern France, giving humanitarian assistance and aid to those trying to make the transition. And Youssef is saying that this scheme that Vodafone have set up, which includes these 2 ,200 sitcom cards ending up potentially with, ending up with Care for Calais, which may themselves end up in the pockets, in the phones of migrants. He's saying that that is enough to constitute aiding and abetting their illegal entry into Britain and therefore under a reform government would face jail. I mean it sounds almost facetious to say this but you know if you could make a case that you can turn sim cards into rubber dinghies and that they can climb aboard them I can see how you make the case that it is aiding and abetting.

5:04What about people who give refugees food because surely if we starved them to death then they wouldn't be able to get on boats and therefore and therefore maybe that's the next press announcement and therefore maybe you are aiding and abetting people who are refugees uh by feeding them by giving them food which is what other people uh do and there is a sort of line obviously there's a line i think that you know we are all agreed that the crossing of small boats is terrible. It needs to stop. It needs to, you know, the people smugglers are trading and enriching themselves on human misery. It has to come to an end.

5:48You have to take every measure possible to stop it. And Lewis, I know you've done reporting from Calais years ago. This is a problem that's been going on for a quarter of a century now. I did reporting from Calais when I was Paris correspondent. This is an ongoing problem. But what do you do with the people who are there in abject poverty and living in the most miserable, grotty, terrible conditions? And let's do a little bit of a fact check on this. We've been looking into this this morning. Some of the journalists have as well. Is there a kernel of truth to what Yusuf is saying? Well, it certainly is true that this figure that he cites of around 2200 Vodafone SIM cards appears to be genuine.

6:28Care for Calais itself has reported distributing that number of Vodafone SIMs among the material assistance that it provides to people who are in Calais and the surrounding areas. It should be stressed that this is not something that Vodafone is doing just for this charity or as if they're just funneling these SIM cards specifically to be given to these people. It is part of a wider scheme called Charities Connected, through which registered charities can apply for free mobile connectivity and data sims specifically to tackle what the company calls digital exclusion. So this isn't public money.

7:06It's not a government scheme. It's just something that Vodafone itself apparently does as part of a much wider charitable effort. So that scheme does exist. where Yusuf's claim becomes a lot shakier is his claim that as you say John they are actively assisting illegal migrants to break into Britain because that implies something much more specific i.e that Vodafone is knowingly deliberately perhaps providing equipment for the purpose of facilitating unlawful channel crossing or that as Yusuf says there even if that's not the intent that somehow that should imply kind of criminal liability. Now, there's no evidence in particular at all.

7:51There's no evidence that Vodafone are doing that. And as I say, giving an asylum seeker, as you say, John, giving an asylum seeker a SIM card isn't remotely equivalent legally to people smuggling. It's nowhere close, right? It's nowhere close whatsoever. On that basis, as you say, many of these charities or just individuals which go down to the south coast or the northern coast of France and provide some assistance or sucker or whatever it is, they would be guilty under this regime or under this idea, basically, of people smuggling and being held that libel. So he's making a considerable leap of logic to suggest that simply the act of providing these SIM cards, which is simply part of a wider charitable scheme, it's not what Vodafone are doing specifically, they're giving some to Care for Calais, they're giving some to lots of different charities.

8:40The idea that that in itself represents basically an act equivalent to people smuggling or at least aiding and abetting illegal entry into Britain is far fetched to say the least. The statement that was released also just said the board of Vodafone will go to jail. You know, I will make sure that the CEO and the board go to prison. Sorry, you don't decide who goes to prison. We've got an independent judiciary in this country which will decide whether someone has broken the law or not and will then decide for themselves what is the appropriate punishment that should happen if a prosecution is brought.

9:23I think there is something that, again, smacks, and we've talked about this earlier in the week, of that sort of Trumpian, right, you're going to prison and it's as clear cut as that. And you think it's not as clear cut as that. I'm sorry. We have a, you know, there is legal process. And governments do not decide who is going who are going to be imprisoned in that way. And it's again, you know, this is someone who is the shadow home affairs spokesperson, the shadow home secretary. If you believe that reform are in effect the opposition now in this country. And you think that's not the way it works.

9:58No, indeed. And I think this is this does build on from the conversation we had on Tuesday. today look if of course if they're a reformed government um parliament could change the law so that this sort of activity basically almost any assistance whatsoever of um aiding those trying to get into the country would be illegal and you could do that parliament could do that um and therefore you could in that situation make an argument that this sort of activity would become illegal and i suppose vodafone would probably stop it as would any company because they would be so afraid of prosecution. And of course, you could make an argument to say, well, maybe Vodafone, as part of these charitable enterprises and whatever, maybe they should make sure that they have an idea about where these SIM cards are going and so on.

10:45But he's making, as you say, John, a much sort of bigger argument, which is, and this is something that he's doing a lot, Yusuf constantly invokes the language of reckoning. He's constantly invoking the idea that something or someone, i.e. he and reform are coming and there's going to be some massive reckoning with the establishment. It's chilling stuff. It's pretty sinister. You know, there's a reason why Home Secretaries or incoming Home Secretaries or people who want to be in government don't just start throwing around the threat of prosecution to companies or to individuals or to the media class or the political class or whatever, because that's just not how things are done in the UK.

11:26That's not what Home Secretaries are for. Home secretaries are there to maintain order, stability and peace and make sure that the police have their resources. They are not there to sit atop of a political witch hunt or of using the mechanisms of the state to threaten and bully and to coerce in the name of a kind of wider political objective. And that is the difference I think we hear and see from Yusuf and from reform. And just on, you mentioned Ben Wallace, John, we had an episode or half an episode on Tuesday talking about that. And we saw lots of reform figures, including Farage, saying Yusuf had gone too far.

12:07I know Yusuf hasn't deleted that tweet calling at the time of recording, calling Wallace a traitor. Right. So whether Farage gave him a ticking off or not in constantly, constantly pushing and pushing and pushing the boundaries and inflating and making this debate more and more intense. He hasn't listened. Yeah. And look, you know, it is polling day in Clacton today. And there's obviously limits to what we can say about voting because, you know, the polls are open. They'll close later on. We'll know what the result is tomorrow. And we'll be analysing that, of course, on the newsagents. But it's kind of very odd timing to be, you know, just putting out a policy saying, right, the chair, the CEO and the board of, you know, Vodafone, one of our most successful innovative companies in this country.

13:00You're all going to prison unless you do X, Y, Z. And it's just that threatening, hectoring, bullying tone that I think just, you know, I'm sure there are those people online who are going, yeah, give me more. You know, why don't we just defenestrate them? Why don't we just hang them up and put their heads on pikes and do something really unspeakable to these people. But I just don't know whether that is where the majority of British public opinion is. And look, you know, there is undoubtedly, this is where I agree with Zia Yusuf and Nigel Farage, there is undoubtedly a problem of illegal immigration into this country via the small boats.

13:38And any measures that can be taken to smash the people smugglers, good job. It's a brutal, hideous, vile trade. but that doesn't mean that some of these people you know if you if in a freezing winter you give blankets to someone who is shivering to death in calais are you aiding and abetting illegal immigration into this country i think that's the point and this is the thing and i think this is why it's worth our returning to this today and returning to this time as i say yeah you said's achieved a lot in his you know he's still quite a young man he's achieved a lot he's achieved a lot in business people have written him up as being impressive and we've interviewed him on this show and i found him an interesting person to talk to didn't like didn't agree with his politics didn't much care for his politics but you know we had an interesting and spirited conversation something quite dark i think seems to be happening to him or at least he is um choosing to pull on you know deeply dark reflexes in his politics and in the politics of his movement i mean i think this is such and we've got to be so wary of this tone right because what he's doing is as ever and you see this from some other reformed people as well the distinctive move is always to turn disagreement into complicity right yeah it's like it's not merely that these people are wrong about immigration or it's not merely that um that these companies have made a decision that he dislikes or operating a charitable enterprise that he dislikes or there's something about that charitable enterprise one of the consequences he dislikes it's that the executives are accomplices it's not that they should just stop doing what they're doing it's their accomplices of a wider crime against the british people overall and therefore they should go to prison like it's the politics constantly of the language of persecution and prosecution it's identify the enemy establish complicity threaten consequences rather than just saying what some other politicians might have done in this situation, which is to say, look, I've been made aware that these SIM cards are being used potentially by people involved or if he's got evidence that people smugglers are using or whatever.

15:46You know, you could say, I think this is something the company might want to have a look at. But what he does and what they do for the sake of likes and of clicks is to go from stage one all the way through to stage 10 in one tweet. And that's the sort of politics I think we've got to be really really wary of because we go from a politics which is basically about betterments and yes identifying problems and yes calling things out and yes having you know harsh words sometimes but to go from that to a politics as i say of persecution is a dangerous thing quite and look let me just give you uh the statement uh that vodafone have given us because we contacted them This morning, they say their programme provides mobile SIMs to registered UK charities against strict programme criteria for distribution to vulnerable people in the UK.

16:35Participating charities regulated by the Charity Commission distribute the six months connectivity to those they identify as being in need. All calls, texts and data are for UK use only. so the idea that they're getting these sim cards and then ringing up people smugglers in wherever it happens to be in belgium or you know parts of kurdistan or wherever it happens to be is wider the mark and i think it's just important that that is clarified as well can i um maybe make one suggestion for one sim card might be a good idea to do with one sim card might be a use of sim just take it out mate just take it out for a couple of days honestly stop tweeting just just honestly it's a lovely day it's going to be it's been a lovely week just go and go and catch the rays take the sim card out swallow it maybe just just get rid of it and i guarantee zia mate you get zia you're gonna have a better week you will have a better week if you just stop tweeting just for seven days a bit of advice from the news agents completely unsolicited unwanted and doubtless unheeded also i i think it's good that you're now going into counseling business uh lewis and i think that there is a space there uh for you he won't do that because i think he He thinks that this is, you know, he is almost an addict to the likes and the clicks and the reposts and all the rest of it.

17:56I hate people like that. And there are so, you know, and that is what drives him. But I don't know whether it drives political success or not, because I think that political success means reaching out to people who aren't spending their day scrolling through X or Insta or wherever it happens to be liking this or liking that. Well, let's put it, we can distill this whole section of this episode into a sentence, which is that generally speaking, politicians shouldn't be threatening people with jail unless they've definitely done something illegal. And even then, don't go around just doing it every day or every week, because you know what?

18:34That's not the sort of society that any of us particularly want to live in. Lewis, can I give you a piece of advice now? Because, you know, I'm older and wiser, obviously, than you are. Well, you're older. don't start saying we can put this whole discussion into one sentence our podcast will go out of business if it is just a simple tweet the news agents just become we don't approve of those sort of simplistic tweets we need 20 minutes to digest the discuss dissect all right lloyd grossman that's a 90s gag we'll be back just after this

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20:51Isn't she great? Is Caroline great? Yeah! You know, when she goes on television, Fox, like, I mean, they dominate. They dominate when she gets up there with that beautiful face and those lips that don't stop up up up like like a little machine gun. That is Donald Trump talking about his press secretary, Caroline Levitt, who has announced that she is going to be stepping down from that post. she's got a two-year-old and she's just recently given birth to a second child and I think she's reached the conclusion that with two small children and another one in the Oval Office it was probably time to think how many toddlers can I deal with at any one particular time so Caroline Levitt is going to be no more I've got to say she has been brutally effective I mean if not always the most honest person with some of the things she's stood up and said at the podium but she has done a real job of work for Donald Trump in that role and you wonder who is going to be the articulate voice of Trump in future without her there yeah I mean she's a fascinating person isn't she and it sort of feels like um the end of a bit of an era she's been so synonymous with this second term term and the sort of Trump uh restoration and it feels to me that that has been um because in a way she's a good embodiment of why politically speaking at least trump has felt so much more confident in second in his second term that he has found himself and found his style of governing because in his first term as you know best john you know for many years at least he was finding his way and still in so many ways being forced to at least sometimes act and govern like a more typical Republican president, i.e.

22:42you would have a more typical White House press secretary, right, who at least had some of the traditional functions and acted, not always, but sometimes at least like a more traditional White House press secretary. What Levitt does in so many ways is that she realised that this was not about being a voice to the press or a voice even for the administration to the press. It was about basically being a presidential avatar, Right. It was basically about this key to success for a Trump press secretary was to be seen by the president each day, every day, conducting political theater against the press as part of his warfare against the press, both for the president, but also for the wider MAGA movement as well to feast upon and to enjoy.

23:29And as part of that, she disseminated, she dissembled, she lied for the president daily, routinely, but she did it extraordinarily. And from that point of view and for Trump has been a great success, if not for the wider discourse or America's democratic health. So if you look at some of the things that have happened on her watch, I mean, the briefing room, the people who are there in the White House briefing room have changed fundamentally. The people who've got seats in the briefing room and who can make a noise are very different from when I was there in the first term because it was all, you know, conventional media.

24:08And it's now podcasters who are kind of from a particular angle who are there to be cheerleaders or propagandists for Donald Trump. The Associated Press, which is the main news agency in the US that I mean, you know, if they make a call, you know, Minnesota has been won by the Democrats. you would think, OK, AP have called it. We can go with that. And AP were banned because they wouldn't call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, as Donald Trump decreed it would now be. So she has made pretty fundamental changes since she has been there. And as you say, Lewis, in the first term, you know, I remember having an interaction with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was then his press secretary.

24:53and I mean one of our cameramen had been attacked at a Trump rally when Trump had turned on the press and someone got up onto the press riser where we were filming and knocked this guy Ron over you know came up from behind him and just knocked him flying and I went and saw Sarah Huckabee Sanders and said you've got to protect us from physical attack I don't I'm not you know I'm not saying the president shouldn't say these words but if he does he's inciting people to attack us and I then the set went on to say you know god it must be crazy at times your job how do you survive and without a second's hesitation she said bourbon and she wasn't joking wow really yeah and she just said bourbon and there were a number of occasions where i saw sarah huckabee saunders at events where maybe bourbon had been taken uh because i think it was just relentless whereas i think that caroline Levitt is absolutely cold, clear minded, knows exactly what she's doing and why she's doing it.

25:51Well, I suppose as well. I mean, that's reflective of her age, right? I mean, she's 28. She's 28. She has literally been, you know, she has come up through the political world and the communications world in the Trump era. And when I think of her as the propagandist that she is, I mean, you know, you might argue all press secretaries are like that to some extent, except not, because most press secretaries and people doing those comms jobs don't actively want to lie to the press. Like sometimes they may be forced to mislead or they may be forced to pretend that they know less than they do. Or sometimes they're not told everything precisely.

26:26So don't have to mislead. This is a person who was entirely comfortable with misleading. And I think that this is the because that's what that she did not see her job as in any way servicing the requirements of the press. Her job was to service the requirements of the president. And this is what I think when I think of the difference, say, I mean, the one I was actually thinking of was not Huckabee Sanders so much, but of course, famously Sean Spicer. I mean, his first press secretary and everyone remembers those first press briefings. And I suppose what I think of when I think of the difference between, say, Spicer and Levitt and what that speaks to in terms of the transition of politics and communications in that time is that Spicer, it always seemed to me, you know, it was like he was a sort of.

27:09he looked like a conventional press secretary serving an unconventional press presidents right and sometimes at least looked embarrassed and uncomfortable yeah yeah yeah by what he was being asked to do and and and by being forced to misrepresent facts and misrepresent the truth for the president's bidding in order to do the president's bidding it seems to me that levitt's significance is that she never accepted there was a conflict between those things and that Trump's version was the message and that she was, she looked like someone who had grown up in a period, which is true, grown up in a period where Trump's politics and Trump's way of doing things had become the conventional model.

27:52Whereas Spicer was still sort of finding his way in those early days when the Trump style was still so nascent and so new. And so I think in a way, Leavitt is the press secretary for our age because it is the age that Trump created. So, I mean, yeah, I think that's absolutely spot on. The other thing that I mean, I noticed about Sarah Sanders when she was the press secretary was that when Donald Trump had made kind of really offensive remarks about women, she really struggled with trying to explain away that sort of stuff. Caroline Levitt didn't care. I mean, yeah, fine. Well, as Donald Trump, he's having a joke, he can say what he likes.

28:31And, you know, didn't feel there was never she you never I've never seen her at the podium in that briefing room looking anything other than comfortable with what she's having to say. Anyway, it's worth having a little bit of a play of the greatest hits of Caroline Levitt. What did the president mean when he called her poor piggy? Look, the president is very frank and honest with everyone in this room. You've all seen it yourself. You've all experienced it yourselves. And I think it's one of the many reasons that the American people reelected this president, because of his frankness. Oh, okay.

29:06So you're a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion. What do you want me to do? Yeah, because you're a left-wing hack. You're not a reporter. You're posing in this room as a journalist. And it's so clear by the premise of your question. and you and the people in the media who have such biases but fake like you're a journalist you shouldn't even be sitting in that seat any questions for patty um or for me no i have a question no anybody okay we'll see you all later so if there were peaceful protests on saturday for the military parade president trump would allow that of course the president supports peaceful protests what a stupid question rakel what a stupid question i i there's nothing snowflake about caroline levitt but let me try a snowflake explanation on you and there she is she's just had her second child um she is with the president of the united states in turkey at the nato summit and she finds out two days ago that there was a switch of planes and she was left on the plane that could have been blown up now would that make you just think he doesn't love me that much and frankly it's not completely ideal is it's not completely ideal and i i say it half seriously because i think that it probably wasn't the reason why she left but you can imagine an awful lot of people thought what the actual fuck was going on here that we were put on the plane we were left on the plane that was to be the target of an iranian attack while donald trump was on a decoy plane well i mean i suppose if anyone is well positioned to kind of you know suggests that there's decoys and lie about particular planes and who's on which plane and so on it would be her but i suppose that's the that's the sort of natural end point for isn't it in the end even she was lied to well it'll be interesting to see who replaces her and whether they can match what has been a formidable performance even if truth and honesty hasn't always been best served with her in the role we'll be back in just a moment

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