416. Question Time: What the Head of MI6 Really Does

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1:28Welcome to the rest of this politics question time with me, Rory Stewart, and with me, Alistair Campbell. Now, Rory, we have some exciting news for our listeners and viewers. We are finally publishing our first ever mini series for members of the rest of this politics plus, and the first episode is out tomorrow. That's if you listen on Thursday, tomorrow is Friday, June 20. That's right, really exciting stuff. And for our very first series, we're answering the question, who is the real JD Vance? New episodes of our series will be dropping every Friday morning for members. So Rory, what did you say?

2:08I enjoyed digging into JD Vance. I read his book for the third time. You became like a Tori, started rereading books. No, I was rereading, which is the labor version of the Tori, you know, you're reading it, indeed. Spote lots of people who knew him, read loads about him, watched him in action. What did you conclude? Well, I think the first thing is how incredibly he's changed. I mean, I'm still sort of staggered by the fact that in 2016, he essentially says that as a Christian, he loves Muslims, immigrants, marginalized people, and on their behalf, he is completely against Donald Trump. And as a Christian, he just wants to apologize for Donald Trump.

2:56And how is better of the list? God expects better than this and how he's changed. I think that's the one thing. Second thing that I think nobody should underestimate is he's still got a pretty good chance of becoming the next president of the United States. Now, lot can change. I mean, goodness knows, I above everyone on the sound that I shouldn't get into the business of predicting elections, but he's certainly a very, very major figure in MAGA. And I think anyone interested in what's going on in the world looking at JD Vance as a great route into American politics. Yeah. Well, it starts tomorrow, the evolution of JD Vance from, as Rory says, never trumped to the potential air to MAGA.

3:35Join the rest of his politics plus at the rest of his politics .com for our cheapest rates. That's the rest of politics .com. And if you'd like to try before you buy, a taster of the first episode will drop into everyone's feed on Friday morning first thing. Okay, Alistair, let's go to our first question. Well, we have a lot of questions both last week and this about what was going on in Northern Ireland, particularly in in Balemina. And I want to relate that to something I was reading last week from my German homework, which was the report by the German intelligence services about the rise of the far right.

4:15So lots of questions about Balemina. Let's go with this one, Rory. What on earth is happening in Northern Ireland? I find it really scary. That's from Toby. So what did you, how much of you follow? What did you make of what was going on in Northern Ireland? Well, just quickly to remind people what happened. There were anti -immigration protests, which turned into big clashes with the police, began after two 14 -year -old Romanian boys were arrested on suspicion of sex, the assaulting a teenage girl, which they denied. So of course, it links in again to what we were talking about on the last podcast, which is this is an immigrant community accused of sex assaulting a teenager.

4:57In this case, two 14 -year -olds. It's also links into this question we talked about in the JD Vance mini -series about communities taking justice into their own hands. By Tuesday night, there were rioters wearing masks, setting buildings and cars on fire. They said a leisure center on fire. People were putting signs outside their houses saying UK or British household. And Balemina is a union as stronghold. So I guess some commentators will be saying that the unionist community has often been very traditional conservative and anti -immigrant, and therefore they're not very surprised that it's happening within that community.

5:43Although, in fact, interestingly, I think the views that community on immigration seem to have changed a lot over time, and just over the last 20 years, many people see it as having become much more friendly towards immigrants. Any way over to you. Yeah, so it is Northern Ireland actually of the entire area of the UK is the least ethnically diverse. So 3 .4 % of the population identifies being part of a minority ethnic group, and that's compared to 18 .3 across England and Wales. The police were very, very clear that this was racist, that what happened in the court led immediately to a reaction on the streets and then the targeting of houses of people, Filipinos, of people from Eastern Europe.

6:31There was then a local politician who said publicly that some of them had been moved from their own safety to this leisure center. I heard an extraordinary interview with an Olympic swimmer who teaches children to swim at this leisure center about what it was like when this mob was trying to get in and they had to evacuate the whole building. And I guess one thing that maybe is worth just reflecting on is that you're talking mainly about young men. Therefore, that is a generation that has grown up in relative peace, thanks to the peace process and what followed from the Good Friday agreement. And I just ask the question, I don't know the answer to this, but whether there is something that makes people from backgrounds that have been used to violence through time, more prone to this kind of violence, I just don't know, but it was a horrible, horrible, horrible thing going on.

7:31And you know, I'm in France, as I say, and I was tracking it on French, German, Spanish, Italian, media. This was sort of, you know, this was an image of Northern Ireland that Northern Ireland has gone very a long way to try to prevent, but it just shows you there are still issues of integration, there's still issues of community. And you know, you made the point about the series of JD Vance that we did about JD Vance. I think the point that he makes by his community is that people eventually sort of ran out of hope. Now he ends up blaming the people as much as he does society or government that will have you.

8:11But you know, I think we do have some pretty deep questions to ask when we have young men going out, literally clearly willing to kill people, set them on fire, burn them down their houses, because they want to other them. We've got a question coming from Heinrich, which is what on earth is going on with right -wing extremism in Germany? And I think that connects quite neatly. You mentioned the report that's been produced by the German security services on this. Dig into that a bit deeper. But just to step back for a second, probably the central theme in right -wing populist politics now is what you'd call identitarian politics.

8:54In other words, it's a politics that says it's all about cultural identity. And in particular in Europe, it's about cultural identity against Muslims. And a lot of the anti -immigrant sentiment is bound up with that. And in places like Germany, it's true or so in France and in Austria and in the Netherlands. But let's just for Heinrich's sake, Constant Germany at the moment. We've got this building sense particularly within the AFD, which is the far -right party in German politics, that the problems of Germany, which range from crime to, let's look back to Rotterham, let's also connect it to Ballymina again, often allegations of rape of miners are caused by immigrants coming into their country.

9:44And that the solution to this is to drive them out, stop anymore coming in and get rid of the ones that are there. And there's a guy called Martin Selner who's one of the great ideologues of all this, who keeps pushing the idea, which has been picked up by AFD leaders in Turingia, has been echoed by people like Alice Vidal, that ultimately it can't be done within the German constitution, it can't be done in the current European Union laws, because of human rights protection and actually what needs to happen is these need people need to be driven out of the country.

10:24And German constitution after the Second World War, after the Holocaust, after the killing of German Jews, and indeed actually killing of German Roma, made it very, very clear that you must not on any account do I identify in politics, you cannot constitute in Germany differentiate between your citizens on the basis of their ethnicity or race, because that of course is the core of what led to the killing of the Jews in the Holocaust. Anyway, I mean, I don't know whether our security service MI5, this is the equivalent of MI5 that released this report. I don't know whether they do such detailed reports like this, I need to check that out, but this one is there's an introduction by the new interior minister, Alice Underdobrant, and actually people mentioned this, if they go to the website of the BFV, there is actually an English translation of this as well, but his introduction says, extremists question Israel's right to exist and call for violence against Jews in our country.

11:28Islamists driven by religious delusion attack people with knives in the streets. Right wing terrorists are plotting to overthrow our free democratic system. We are defending ourselves against the enemies of our democracy with all the means that are disposed on. It's interesting that he framed it in that order, I guess because of the history perhaps and because of what's happening in the questioning of Israel's right to exist at the top, but then when you deep into dig into the numbers, it's pretty alarming. 57 ,701 crimes within what they call within extremist background, and that's a rise from less than 40 ,000.

12:08It's an increase of more than 46%. And of those crimes, almost 3 ,000 were recorded as violent crimes, big rise in anti -Semitism, big rise in attacks on Muslims and Muslim sites. It reports a big increase in interference, cyber attack, disinformation, particularly from Russia, China and Iran. And the numbers, I mean, quite know how they are so precise in their numbers. So the numbers that they call right wing extremists, they now say is over 50 ,000, 50 ,250. And that's a rise of 10 ,000. Those that they identify as being violent is 15 ,300. And then they go through some of the instances that they've had to do.

12:53I mean, you look at, look at the numbers are quite, quite interesting. So one of the things I think that will surprise people is that of those 57 ,000 or 58 ,000 crimes with an extremist background, almost two thirds of them, the extremists are right wing extremists. And again, when we're talking about this massive surge in anti -Semitic crime, 70 % surge, it's a surge to 1 ,776 anti -Semitic criminal offenses, but that's out of 57 ,000, 58 ,000 extremist criminal offenses. So the right wing extremists, if anti -Semitic offenses are about 2000, right wing extremist offenses is up at 37 ,000. So it's nearly 20 times as many going on.

13:46Yeah, yeah. They do say that right wing extremists are essentially as overtaken left wing and Islamist terrorism. But the numbers of those two are rising as well. I think it's almost 40 ,000 left wing extremists, 28 ,000 that they define as Islamist extremism. The other thing that ever is this thing called ice burger. These are people who don't recognize the German constitution and they're growing as well. I remember that famous case of those guys who were sort of planning a coup and the court case is still going on. So you've got these different levels of extremism, but as you say the right is where it is where it is growing.

14:33And the tone of this report was really calling it out. This we talked in the main podcast about grooming gangs and how part of the problem was at the state, tries to downplay big issues and big challenges and big problems. This one was not doing that. Yeah, well, just to finish on this question, the numbers 20 ,000 far -right, dangerous extremists are being pulled towards the AFD. It's become a massive magnet for these people. And again, you know, not to pussy foot around this. Some of these people sing Nazi songs, support SS standard bearers, use Nazi language, talk about remigration, support people who think that you should have a numerical limit on the number of Afghans and that's a few hundred, when they're actually about 100 ,000 in the country.

15:30And what makes the AFD, and we get into this maybe another week, but whereas Le Penz party in France has tried to distance itself from its far -right, fascist ancestry, the AFD isn't doing that. They're pulling in the NPD and other far -right groups very, very quickly. So the AFD in Germany in many ways feels more extreme, more dangerous from this report in elsewhere than things like Le Penz party in France. And yet Dobrind is very, very clear that they're not going to, he does not support outlawing them or defining them as anti -constitutional, even though he does define them as a far -right extreme party.

16:12So I think that debate's going to go on. And it's the old age old debate about whether you give people greater credibility if you try to ban them. But anyway, as an industry report, I recommend people have a read of it. And if you go to the BFV website, you should find it in English. Question here. Tia Kada, the hypocrisy of Trump coming out to declare the murder of Melissa Hortman and her husband as horrific. When he's actively promoting violence in LA as sickening, can you please discuss the double standards? Jacob Brown, what are your thoughts on the assassination? Attempted assassination to democratic state politicians, their families in Minnesota.

16:49Just remind people, the assassination was of Melissa Hortman, who was the speaker in Minnesota. And a democratic state senator was shot and wounded. A man called Vance Luther Butler was arrested and he had a list of names in his vehicle, which included Gaffner Tim Walsh and Congresswoman Ilhan Umar. So he's a heat this guy, security contractor, which I guess is a polite way of saying somebody who's worked around the African Middle East with a gun, providing close protection, defending things, the kind of people that I've worked with closely in Iraq, although a much, much more unpleasant, less regulated version, but also a religious missionary who preached as a pastor at the church and democratic republic of Congo.

17:40Now, although the people who've been targeted to Democrats, Trump came out, I think, quite rightly, to say such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States America. God bless the great people of Minnesota, a truly great place, you know, fine. That's contradictory. But I'd much rather he was saying that and saying the reverse anyway, every year. Yeah, I agree with that, but I found it pretty extraordinary that I didn't see a single word of empathy for the individuals concerned, those that were shot in the two, the other couple, also Democrat politician and his wife who were shot and survived.

18:16And since then, you've had an absolutely determined effort by the Magga crowd to identify this guy as a Democrat. When his best friend was out saying he was a big Trump supporter, very anti -abortion, there is actually, I don't think we should show it because, you know, but just to let people know, there is online a video of him doing this preaching in Congo through a French interpreter and he just looks completely crazed. But I think it underlines, I was talking to somebody yesterday, he was telling me that his daughter had been inspired by my book, you'll be pleased to hear, or it'll get to think about going into politics.

19:02And he was saying he was trying to talk around of it or not to become an MP because he just thinks it's particularly for women, no, it's too dangerous. And you know, yesterday was the ninth anniversary of Joe Cox's murder. Look, I hope that people don't rule it out, but I know people who say that, who say, one, why would you want to do it? Because it's such a horribly existence anyway, you get abused online the whole time, you never get credit, you never get thanks. Most of you don't make it very high up the ladder. But secondly, this hatred and the polarization, and let's not kid ourselves, Trump fuels that polarization all the time.

19:40He was literally doing it the next day with this post about, you know, basically saying that the ICE, the immigration people, needed to focus on these blue states. And you know, as if immigration was kind of a demo, just that we're just going to go after people in democratic areas in case they vote Democrat kind of thing. So I, you know, you'd hope on the back of something as horrible as a murder that the debate would calm down, but it didn't even, even for a minute, it didn't calm down. Yeah, horrible, horrible, okay. Here's you, you managed to highlight this. So I guess we've got to follow through, which is some of the push back on immigration.

20:19So careful swimmer from Reddit, and unless you're not a very careful swimmer, after you manage to give yourself hyperthermia and late Geneva, I don't think you can describe you as a careful swimmer at all. So this is the root question you referred to. The question about immigration served to reinforce my opinion that Alistair just doesn't get it. Open minds, open borders and refugees welcome simply confirms my belief that he's a prime example of the sort of virtue signaling rich liberal who's only experienced immigration as a lovely ethnic restaurant and that nice man who cuts the grass. Do you have a nice man who cuts grass?

20:54He's never suffered a single negative consequence of immigration is literally unable to conceive of any circumstances where anyone who disagrees with him is anything but a racist. He hasn't changed a bit since the Blair government allowed thousands upon thousands of people to come here and set in motion a process that ended in Brexit. Rory was more realistic, but to describe both people as a tiny programme when it's costing us billions of pounds a year in a time of financial crisis shows at best naivety. Well, what do you think about that? Well, careful swimmer, may I respectfully and humbly suggest is somebody who thank you for listening, but I think listens to us and here's those parts of the things that we say that supplement what he or she already thinks.

21:39So for example, you didn't say the boat people was a tiny problem. You said that in terms of the numbers of people coming into the country, it was a tiny proportion. Likewise, it is true the whole point of the fight that we put up against Brexit when we were fighting for the second referendum was open minds open borders because one of the at the heart of that debate was that if we were going to stand the European Union, we had open borders and so far as the European Union was concerned and refugees welcome. I think is just a straightforward way of saying that I do not join those people who want to treat all asylum seekers and all refugees as if they're somehow alien criminal entities that want to take our country away.

22:25And I don't know how you define one's experience of immigration, but I'll give you two experiences of immigration, which partly explain why I feel strongly about this as I do. I grew up for the first 11 years of my life in Keith Lee in West Yorkshire, congratulations to Keith Lee Cougars for their last minute when at the weekend against Rochdale. And I grew up in a nice middle class area and every time I had to walk into town, I had to go through what was essentially an Asian immigrant community in the poorer part of town. And I just felt that the people there were nice people. I was a kid. I didn't really sort of sense their colour.

23:09And what's more, what's happened since then? So my primary school, for example, this goes to the point of an integration. I went to ugly primary school, which when I was there was 100 % white. It's now 100 % non -white. And that is largely because people moved out, it's called white flight. And I think that's sad that we don't have a mixed community in that in that school in that area. And then I moved to Leicester and I think Leicester became the first place in Britain that became majority non -white. And again, I just had a I had a sense of nice people. Yes, they're a bad people. They're a bad white people.

23:44They're a bad black people. They're a bad brown people. They're a bad all colours. And I don't think that that makes me a what is it? Virtue signalling rich liberal. We can have an argument about rich or quite well off. Virtue signalling. I'm not sure I'm a big virtue sign or let you be the judge of that one, Rory. A liberal, yeah, I'm a liberal progressive. And by the way, the other thing, I've never, have you ever heard me call somebody who voted Brexit, whatever reasons they gave? Have you heard me call them racist? I never brought into that argument. That was an argument that was put on us by people like Johnson, by people like Farage and by the right wing press.

24:24So I hope that's a fair and reasonable, disagreeable, agreeable, disagreeably rebuttal care for sure. That's good. It was good. It was good. Do you think I'm a virtue signalling Rory? No, I don't think it's a virtue signalling. I think that our agreeable disagreement is that I I don't think you're any of those things. You may not cut the grass, but I don't think that's really here or there. As Fiona loves to tell people what she wants, ask me to cut the grass. And my reply was, if I wanted to vote the law, then I'd become a fucking gardener. There we are. You see, not that we want to put off the fact that a very large number of our listeners are gardeners and I rather wish I were a gardener, but anyway, you don't want to be a gardener.

25:08Anyway, listen, I think our agreeable disagreement last week goes back to three things. Number one, I think that the numbers of people that came into the country, 725 ,000 at one point, almost a million, and another year, are completely insane. Totally insane. And secondly, I annoyed a lot of people in the university sector by questioning some of the ways in which funding pressures have forced people to take students into universities, some of which I'm afraid are not as high quality as they should be, particularly in the some parts of the sector. And thirdly, I think that you're not changing the public's mind on this anywhere in Europe or the West.

25:50You have to accept that people want controls over both illegal and legal migration and any party that fails to recognize that and bring in a policy to do that is toast and it's just giving sucker to the far right. But I don't think that having this disagreement or the perfectly valid points that you make against me about the economic benefit that migrants bring, or my very strong agreement with you that I think my personal interactions are incredibly warm and make me feel exactly like you that these are often the nicest, most hardworking, committed British citizens that we've got, changes at all for saying those things.

26:32Let's take a quick break and then come back with some questions after the break.

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