441. The Reality of Farage’s Mass Deportation Fantasy

0:00Thanks for listening to the Restisted Politics. Sign up to the Restisted Politics Plus to enjoy ad -free listening and receive a weekly newsletter. Join our members' chat room again early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestistpolitics .com. That's therestistpolitics .com. The policies of this are toxic and they're toxic everywhere. There is really deep, disquiet amongst the public about immigration. There is nothing you can do on this that is going to stop Nigel Farage whipping it up and saying that you failed. There is a very big problem. Failure to really deal with this asylum crisis is leading to the growth of these popular parties.

0:34They're doing so in order to divide, in order to fan hatred rather than to address it. There's been a massive missed opportunity with this... Hold on, Rory, you've said this several times now and I've not really pushed back on it. The rest of the politics is powered by fused energy and fused and now offering 20 pounds credit it and free trick plus membership if you switch to a fixed tariff before the end of August. They've listened carefully to their customers and the number one request was gas tariffs. So now at last you can switch both your gas and electricity to fuse. One supplier, one bill, one less quokmire to navigate.

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2:10Welcome to the rest of politics with me, Royce should. And with me, Alistair Campbell. And Alistair, we are both in two of the great deep water ports of the world, aren't we? We are. I don't know what you're saying, but what do you think? So I'm just off Scapperflow, the greatest natural harbor in northern Europe, at 100 square miles, I think you'll see where the British fleet used to be, where the German Imperial fleet was sunk, where the Royal Oak went down, I'm on Rossay just looking towards Ortony mainland, and you are? I am at the risk of riling up the environmental campaigners who work, I massively support.

2:45I am in Singapore via Bosnia. So I've been I've been a bit sort of flying around a bit But yeah, I'm in Singapore. We're gonna talk actually about flags in our discussion of all things populist and forogist when we when we talk about the UK in part one and this place is absolutely festooned with flags because they've just celebrated their six -year anniversary and really want to dig into Bosnia, which I think is is is something that dear to both our hearts where you've just been for some time and maybe we could pick up on Singapore next week when we've had a bit of time to skid around. Yeah, you're at least reasonably close to the political action in the UK.

3:23What's your take on what's been going on with boats, flags, asylum hotels, Farage, etc. Well, quick summary of for people, I mean, I think most UK listeners will be deep, deep into this. But Farage is now on 33 % of the polls, The telegraph article yesterday suggested the Tories, which when I was in government was up at sort of 350 seats could be down to 22 seats in the next election. I mean almost disappear. And Frashe had a night of Frashe had a reform has announced his new big policy on immigration, which is, I was about to say straight out of the European populist playbook, and it echoes a lot of that, but it's closest to Trump.

4:07It is about asylum seekers will be detained in military camps. They will be, there will be different bill of rights for British citizens compared to foreigners. There will be immediate expulsions to places like Rwanda. He's going to leave the European Court on human rights in a century. There will be a big challenge to the legal system, to the judges in order to take radical extreme action. And at the same time, there is really deep disquiet amongst the public about immigration and we can get into the the realities of it but there's no denying that immigration now seems consistently in the polls to be number one on the public's mind and well ahead of things like the NHS.

4:5070 % of people think emigrations too high, 70 % of people think that Kierstalmer's government is mishandling the migrant crisis and this is then led to these big demonstrations outside hotels, housing and And the Adams Eekers people will be aware that we haven't managed in Britain to sort out asylum reception centers properly in the way they do in countryside Germany so that asylum seekers in Britain of which we had about a hundred thousand asylum applications in the last measured year end up in hotels were 400 under the Conservatives reduced under labor but still 200 people have been demonstrating outside those hotels called Southport riots was a big example of violence but in this case it is the research since the St George's flag which is now appearing at the traditional flag of England over you.

5:34Yeah I want to apply a bit of perspective to this because I think there was a difference. I'm not denying immigration is a big issue. I'm not denying that the small boat's issue has become a symbol of that and politically it is unbelievable difficult. But just to give you a sort of illustration, one of our producers sent me a message just before we started saying forage is speaking live at the moment. He's being watched by three thousand people on YouTube. Now that is a fraction of what you and I get if we do a life. And that's not to boast about our popularity, but it is to illustrate that I still believe that Farage is as much a phenomenon of an increasingly right -wing media that it is of genuine public opinion.

6:19And when you have those polling figures, it's no wonder, given the way that this debate has been covered in recent months that people are saying, labor have messed it up, that this is the biggest issue. Because if you read the mail, the sun, and now the times in the telegraph, which frankly aren't that far from the mail and the sun in terms of the way that they cover these issues, then don't be surprised. And likewise, I've got to say, I hate slaying off the BBC, but we're going to be talking about the Lib Dems in Q &A because we said that we'd look at some of Ed Davies speeches, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

6:53But one of the points that one of the Lib Dems strategists made to me is that your criticism and my criticism as well that the Lib Dems don't provide cut through. It made the point, it's very hard when, in politics, the most significant social media platform is essentially now post -Muska kind of right wing fanzine for a lot of these populist politicians. And he said, and where the BBC are just literally hanging on every single word that Farage says, in my view, because the papers are pumping up the way that they do. Let's just go through some of the issues that we're talking about that are fueling this.

7:31Small boats we talked about recently. And I accept it's very, very difficult when the government say they're going to smash the gangs and the numbers are still up. I can sort of sense where you're going and we'll get a bit of a grieve or disagreement going here. So let me put the case against you and then give you a chance to respond. So you said, I think quite rightly that Rishi Suner set himself up for failure by saying that he was going to what it was that was stop the boats. Stop the boats? Yeah. Yeah. And then we had Kier Salma saying he was going to smash the gangs. We're now more than a year into Kier Salma's government and the number of people emerging on boats 28 ,000 so far today 2025, 46 % increase on 2024.

8:12So at the very least, But the public's perception is that both conservatives, since 2019 and Labour over the last year and half, have kept telling them that they're going to smash the gang, stop the boats, and the reality is that the number of people arriving continues to be very, very high, and will probably end up with, let's say, 40 ,000 crossing the channel this year. Right, but just on my own perspective. So if you followed our media and listened to some of our public politicians, you would think that Britain was the most asylum -friendly country on earth. We take about two -thirds of what most European countries do.

8:48If you add all of them up together and all the kind of so -called illegals and all the rest of it, you're about 0 .15 % of all the people in the UK right now. To follow this debate, particularly when we get into the issues, if you know they're all here to kind of take our jobs, take our women, all these kind of profoundly kind of anti -Muslim often racist tropes. Then I just think we've got to try to get some perspective into this. So let's just take one of the issues that has really driven this up recently. That's the case of this woman Lucy Connolly or as Badenlok Generic, Philp and Farage and the Press Caller, Kierstharmer's political prisoner.

9:24This is somebody who went through a legal, a police investigation, a legal process and she pleaded guilty to a crime and she was jailed. Unless you remind people what she did. Now you can argue, as it happens I don't think necessarily it was a good thing that you went to jail for this. But just to put it in the context, what she said, this person who's now been sort of projected as a as a latter day kind of mother Theresa, mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care. And this is something when you look through her social media posts before that, this is not was not exactly out of character.

10:01Now, as I say, I think that jailing somebody for something like that, you go and have a word and you say, you know, you realize what you're doing down Anyway, but that's not the point. I don't say jail sentence. Sorry because it is it's just before good Just just if I could just come in on that because I think there I strongly agree with you I mean, it's an unbelievably offensive and unpleasant thing to say But our jails are completely overfilled. We've got absolutely no room for burglars for people who are robbing people on the streets for fun, crime. I can't see that it's helping the public to put her away for that number of months.

10:35No, I'm talking here about the politicization of this, the weaponization of this. To call her Kierstarm as political prisoner, as Farage does, as the Tories do, even cleverly, who I thought was better than this, was sort of making the same sorts of noises. Is to say that Kierstarm has decided this woman should go to jail? She was investigated by the police, she went to court, she pleaded guilty, she went to jail. They made a comparison, Philp, Genric, forage, and a lot of them. They made a comparison with this guy, Ricky Jones, who was acquitted. He who said that the anti -immigration protesters were disgusting fascists, we need to cut their throes and get rid of them.

11:13Now, he pleaded not guilty and was cleared by a jury. You can have views about both cases, but the politicians do not decide that. And the minute you start saying this one's right and this was wrong, you basically are roading the rule of law in this country. Although it does sound like they said basically the same thing, both of them were making threats saying they wanted people to be killed. Yeah. Can I just lean into this one step more then? I think we need to find a way of saying that there is a very big problem, really big problem that needs to be dealt with in Britain and in Europe. And that is that we need to find a active, successful legal approach to dealing with asylum and immigration, because if we don't, we're going to end up with these far right parties and drop in politics.

12:03And that we need to find a way of saying, there's a point here. We do have a political system that people increasingly don't trust. We do have this completely unnecessary phenomenon where I think 12 people have died so far this year I think a woman in her 30s died just last week on the French coast trying to get in one of these boats and that we can solve it and I think I'd love to just maybe just move on at some point to talk about what we could do to solve it, what more labor could be doing to come up with a proper legal solution to this because where Faraj is going is full on Trump. I think his policy basically is to create such an unpleasant extreme environment that people don't come.

12:45And that's why, you know, there will probably be on day one, he would imagine you arrest 50 people and drop them off in one of the most unpleasant places in the world. You break all the laws, you take on all the courts, you do the full Trump. Yeah, that's why I think we're going to be very, very wary of where this is going. And look, for Arge is a lifelong opportunist. But I think when you see generic, philp, badanok, and as I say, even James Clevley, sort of basically saying, that was a good sentence, that was a bad sentence, that was a bad sentence, that is not their job. And then when you have our media playing into this, and so this whole thing about two -tier policing, we have, I would argue, you have two -tier policing for quite a lot of our lives, and it's been two -tier policing against black people, a one -period against Irish people, against Chipsies, and all that sort of stuff.

13:30So I just think we've got to throw this in perspective into this debate. And take the hotels you said in your introduction, these being these big protests, some of these places where they've been advertising protests, as one of the journalists who was covering it said, they barely filled the pavement. Now I'm not denying people feel strongly. So, Epping. Epping, the protests began because an Ethiopian guy was accused, he denies it, was accused of sexual assault. And this plays into another right -wing trope that these men are here to kind of attack our women and their culture lets them do that and so forth.

14:09Sorry, what, quickly on that one, I think this is really important because this has been so central to the rhetoric isn't it? You notice Farage keeps saying protecting our women. Generic was saying, I'm worried about my daughters. Yeah. I mean, this is really becoming more and more central the whole thing. It's not just anti asylum seekers, anti Muslim. It's this idea that they're coming to get our women, keeps coming back. And there's been a new group set up, one of these groups that sort of emerges out and nowhere and they're all saying this is just sort of, you know, ordinary people coming together, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

14:39So last week you had a hundred women's rights group, rights groups, rape crisis England, refuge, writing a letter to Keir Starmer and Ivette Cooper, basically saying that they were allowing the whole issue of violence against women and girls to be hijacked by this anti -migrant agenda. go back to Southport. Remember the data about the number of the men who protested and violently after Southport and domestic violence. This idea, I'm not denying there aren't bad people. Tell us about that. Sorry, I've missed this, that a very large number of the men who were protesting had themselves been convicted of domestic violence.

15:18There was a very very, I think it was something like 40 % of people who'd been in trouble with the police and in trouble with the law over the protests had a record for or known to the authorities for domestic violence. So let's stop pretending that every person who's in one of these hotels is some kind of wannabe sex offender. But that's what happens when perspective is lost, when facts go out the window, and when people actually like forage, now like generic, now like film, don't see their job as politicians to try to resolve problems they'd see it as trying to exploit it. Now where I think you're right about Labour, they at the moment, I think, are fighting raw politics with very difficult complicated policy.

16:04And they've got to understand the policy is incredibly important, but the politics are what is driving this now, and that is where they've got to be cannier. It strikes me that sometimes it's they're really missing the point. I mean, when they say that by the end of the year, they will have closed five hotels when there are 200 of them. It's not relevant. Nobody's interested in that kind of reduction. And I think that there's been a massive missed opportunity with this deal with France. They missed the point. I don't know whether it was the French, Mr. Point, or the British, Mr. Point. But the whole idea, if you remember, was that anybody who arrives from France has come from a safe country.

16:43And what should happen is we should... And they should do it now, there's still a chance to do it. They've just got to get there with the French. Let's say that from the first of October, anybody who arrives on the British coast will be returned to France. And you just do it on the first of October, you do it with the first 50 people, you get all the media there, there will be a huge effort. I don't know why you've said this several times now, and I've not really pushed back on it, but we've got a lot of people saying, why would slash should the French take on what is a British problem in part because of Brexit, for us never wants to talk about that and the media never wants to challenge on it, but partly because of the Dublin Convention and I'll withdraw from that.

17:25But also, frankly, because they, you talk to French politicians, they'll say, why can't you people have identity cards? You know, there are other things that we could do. Why should the French take the table over? Well, because it's going to be in Europe's interests to do it and in France's interests. So firstly, in the very short term, of course, what we should be doing is promising to take a set number of genuine asylum seekers from France in an orderly control way. So we say to France, we will take, for example, 25 ,000 asylum seekers from France a year and they will focus on the people that most need.

17:58I've tended to say things like female judges fleeing the Taliban as opposed to young men jumping on a boat and paying people's muckers. But the biggest story is that through this deal with France, you could end it overnight. If every single person who landed was immediately sent back, nobody would come in. Nobody would pay 10 ,000 euros to get an abode. If as soon as they landed, they were sent back to France. And once you've established the principle that there is a safe third country, and obviously France is a safe third country, that is then what France, Germany, and the European Union can use in its negotiations with Turkey, with Kenya, which they're going to have to do because the only way they're going to be able to deal with a migrant crisis in Europe is through safe third country agreements.

18:39in other words saying people crossing the Mediterranean are sent back. Yeah, but I mean, look, this is an issue. Because of the way our media and our politics covers this, this is seen as an issue that's really sort of unique to Britain. It's not. You've got Italy, you've got the same problem, you've got Greece, you've got the same problem, we're in Cyprus, you have the same problem. Which is why we need to... We could just not... I think this precisely in my point, right? That we are facing exactly the same problem, and it's the same problem in all these countries, which is the failure of the governments to come up with a safe third -country solution.

19:08failure to really deal with this asylum crisis is leading to the growth of these populist parties. So it's not in Europe's interest for Farage to become the next Prime Minister in Britain, and it's not in Britain's interest for the AFD to take care of it. So what we need to prove with the UK, France, and this is why this one -in -one out thinks so silly. It doesn't work if you've got a limited number. It only works if you say everybody who arrives gets back. So the French have gone 98 % of the way there, but because of their failure on the last 2 % not to have the courage on that. They're screwing the whole system.

19:39Yeah, but you just imagine how, you mentioned the AFD, we just imagine how the restaurant bravo and las uinala, lapenna, bar dela would play there. The policies of this are toxic and they're toxic everywhere. But what I worry about is that we are losing perspective, we're losing any sense of fact. And I had a woman write to me last week and she said, it's all right, it's all very well for you. I bet you don't know, live near of one of these hotels. As it happens, we do could live quite near one. added to which those I think that the way that this is being whipped up to be bigger than it actually is, it is a problem.

20:14I agree with you about that. Governments need to do better at resolving it. I agree with you about that. But the fact is, and I said this to one of the Labour team the other day, there is nothing you can do on this that is going to stop Nigel Farage whipping it up and saying that you've failed. So your politics on this has to be much more about taking the fight to them about what sort of country we want to be. This leads me onto the thing about the flags. I've got nothing against people flying flags, as I say, I just ride in Singapore, they're everywhere. I actually think the flag is a, you know, it's a perfectly nice thing.

20:48It's perfectly about when it binds people together. But let's be absolutely frank, and again, this has been very good reporting on this, a lot of the people who are funding, who are organizing this flag stuff, they're doing so in order to divide, in order to fan hatred rather than to address it. And I just think we've got to call this out. Too much of the labour narrative to my mind has been actually about saying, yeah, yeah, you're right. That was so wrong about the island of Stranger's speech by Gears Dharma. We respect coming an island of strangers. Once you say to Nigel Frage, yeah, you're right, but immigration is the biggest issue.

21:26Don't be surprised that he then gets great of ventilation to go out and make more of it. And also, I guess, don't be surprised that if Dharma runs an election campaign saying the Tories are completely incompetent on dealing with these small boats, but vote for us and we'll smash the gangs and we'll sort it out and you fail to do so, then you get you get bitten. I agree, I agree. But there are things Labour can do and maybe you're right that the trick is to talk about it much less and get on with it. So let's sort out if they can. A courageous, proper deal with France. They almost got that with Macron.

21:56They were so close. They just needed that last inch because he's already agreed to the principle of sending people back across the channel. Let's get the ID cards. Why are they not pushing ahead with the ID cards? An ID card could help with so many things. Why are they not building proper asylum reception centers? This is not an issue in Germany. In Germany, there are bigger asylum reception centers. they're not using hundreds of hotels in town centers to house migrants. So these are all things where I'd like to see a Labour minister, whoever the sector state is. If it Cooper. If it Cooper, to say, you know, I'm going to resign in 12 months unless I achieve the following things and tell us what they are.

22:32Just to go about breathing on the flags, and this is just, you know, I've not read this in any newspaper, but it came from the Hope Not Hate organization. They say the co -founder and organizer of Operation Raise the Colors is somebody by the name of Andrew Curian, but like Tommy Robinson he likes to use a different name and calls himself Andy Sachson. Formerly a bodyguard for the English Defence League leadership, currently running secures of a Britain first, previously jailed in connection one of six men convicted after a 59 -year -old man was crushed to death by a car following a violent racist brawl.

23:07How is he describing the times? a painter and decorator from Wolverhampton and a father of five without any mention of that. Now maybe they didn't know, maybe they didn't know, but my point is I just think we have to be very, very careful. It's so easy to whip this thing up and you've just got to be careful about where it goes. A labour to my mind should be addressing the problem, fixing it with policy, but on the politics, calling it out. There'll be a lot of people out there hearing claims that what we need to do is leave the European Convention on Human Rights. But leaving the ECHR itself wouldn't solve anything.

23:42Because doing any of the things that Farage is talking about, not just in contravention of the European Convention, but in rights, they're on contravention of the Convention on Torture, the Convention on Children, the Convention on Refugees. We would have to leave the European Council, we'd have to leave all these international conventions. In other words, we'd have to go full -trupp. These ideas being put forward by Farage, and actually being sort of endorsed, it seems, by quite a lot of conservative MPs, to are taking you down a full route of complete confrontation with the courts, rejection of the root of law, illegal action.

24:16And that's also why the populists and Europe are so dangerous, because even those that don't claim to want to leave the European Union, the policies they're talking about in migration would draw them into direct confrontation with the European court and justice and basically destroy the European Union if they pushed ahead. So I wish people covering this were a bit clearer that it's not that there's some easy thing called the ECHR, which if you just amended a bit, all this becomes easy. It's the entire international legal framework you'd have to trash and you don't need to do it. There are solutions that don't involve doing that.

24:47But this goes back to the point I made recently, the guy that I was talking to, the plastic conference who said that, you know, numbing down and dumbing down. When was the last time you saw an explanation on, in or on much of our media about what the ECHR is, for us uses it where sort of reminding people, you know, our stances, you're at bad Britain good, fly our flag, not their flag. And I've said to you before and I'll keep saying, the Ferrage should be challenged way more on Brexit, way more on the lies that he tells, way more on the nonsense that he talks. And also on the fact that basically like Trump, it's all a game and it's a game about his personal advance and his personal advancement through up the political poll.