00:00:53.140Yeah, but the world's in a messy, messy place.
00:00:55.920And I suppose we ought to start there then, hadn't we, ladies and gentlemen?
00:00:59.080So obviously, over the weekend, all of these months and even years of escalations between America, Israel and Iran have come to a head.
00:01:09.580And we've seen an exchange of missiles and explosions and casualties from both sides.
00:01:15.820Of course, the Ayatollah of Iran is now dead.
00:01:19.500And I know that Firas did a RealPolitik segment yesterday talking all about the actual geopolitical situation between all of the nations engaged in it.
00:01:30.560But what I want to go through today is what should Britain's position be?
00:01:37.640How engaged in this conflict should we get?
00:01:40.700And I think that in order to come to a definitive point on this question, we have to begin by looking at where do things seem to stand right now?
00:01:52.600What is the objectives of the American administration in the Israeli position?
00:01:57.180What is the position of Iran and how long do we expect this conflict to go on for?
00:02:02.360So shall we begin by looking at Trump making this recent statement on how long, sorry, the mouse is out there, how long this conflict is expected to go on for?
00:02:59.620There is every chance that this conflict could go on to last for a very, very long time.
00:03:04.720And this comes from a man as well who said that he would manage to round up the conflict in Ukraine and Russia within the first day of becoming president.
00:03:13.980And it doesn't really seem like America is done with that war yet either.
00:03:17.900And so all of a sudden there seems to be a lot of plates spinning.
00:03:23.160I want to say one thing because we are talking about Donald Trump and he is the president at the moment.
00:04:27.740It's not the Trump who is making a value-free analysis on the matter.
00:04:32.980I think the thing that most people are concerned in terms of U.S. intervention is more what the state Iran is going to be after the fact.
00:04:41.700And the inevitable instability you get when you bomb Middle Eastern country is that lots of Islamists just spawn out of the sand and start causing problems around the rest of the world.
00:05:38.380And if you can understand, if the regime gets toppled, there's always the possibility of multiple groups hiding in the mountains and waging guerrilla warfare afterwards.
00:05:51.660So I think that's one of the key worries about this.
00:05:55.340I think you're on the money with the notion that it's to be against China.
00:05:59.300But I think it's part of a broader effort to expand the U.S.'s sphere of influence and to deny Russia and China the sort of other parallel sphere of influence.
00:06:11.920But based on many decades of conflict now in the Middle East, we do have a precedent for, as we're saying here, massive destabilization of the region, refugee crises and, you know, many, many people flooding into Europe, which is not something that America has to consider being, you know, wedged between two vast oceans.
00:06:33.120But also we have to guard the borders.
00:06:36.620But as well, we seem to be governed by people who give no heed to such sensible notions.
00:06:42.620And so there is the concern as well, the pragmatic concern as to whether or not the EU would actually defend the borders of Europe should all of these refugees come in.
00:06:55.040Or are we going to have another Angela Merkel situation?
00:06:58.100And so I was quite surprised in many ways to see how torn many of Britain's political parties turned out to be when it came to what should be done on the question of Iran.
00:07:11.200Let's just listen to Faraj speaking here.
00:07:15.000Look, a British sovereign base is under attack.
00:07:18.200Are people nervous about getting involved in foreign wars given the extent of 20 years in Afghanistan and then giving it all back to the Taliban?
00:07:33.260Because, yes, they do pose a threat to the whole of the Middle East, to the world and indeed to us as well.
00:07:39.500And it's a cause that I personally felt very strongly, you know, for many, many, many, many years.
00:07:46.240The world would be a better place without these ghastly people.
00:07:49.160I mean, I only wish that Faraj felt quite as strongly about demographical replacement in Britain.
00:07:56.260But seeing as that seems to be off the table to him, and there is, of course, something to be said, and we'll get into it later, about the airbase in Cyprus and all of that.
00:08:04.720But for now, the point is that Keir Starmer, who is actually the Prime Minister and not Nigel Farage, has really been dragging his feet on this issue.
00:08:13.120Of course, it took a long time for him to grant access to the Americans to use the airbases.
00:08:18.820And this has certainly frayed the diplomacy between the United Kingdom and between the United States as well.
00:08:27.160And as we see here, as Starmer said, it was my duty to judge what is in Britain's national interest, and that is what I have done, and I stand by it.
00:08:35.200And so Britain, for the time being, is not going to involve itself more heavily in the conflict.
00:08:41.040And I just want to make it absolutely clear that is also my position on the matter.
00:08:46.040I don't want to see Britain getting dragged further into the Middle East.
00:08:51.100Because ultimately, as well, though Trump can, you know, get very, very angry about the fact, and it goes on to say in this conversation that he had with Harry Cole,
00:09:01.560Donald Trump has suggested that Keir Starmer is pandering to Muslim voters by refusing to back his war against Iran,
00:09:08.300warning that Britain is no longer such a recognisable country anymore.
00:09:12.060In the withering assessment of Sir Keir's recent performance, the president also said Britain is,
00:09:16.600it's repeated that twice, sorry, and one that to stop people from coming in from foreign lands who hate you.
00:09:23.660And he declared that he never thought he would see the once most solid of all special relationship in such peril amid the biggest rupture in UK-US relations in decades.
00:09:36.560And the, sorry, are you going to say something, Josh?
00:09:39.900I was just going to point out as well that it feels in many ways like we've just kind of looked our way into Starmer making a very pragmatic foreign policy decision
00:09:52.680and actually coming to the right decision for the wrong reasons.
00:09:56.980Because I do think that there is undoubtedly, and obviously we're not privy to, you know, British intelligence and what exactly inform their decisions in all of this.
00:10:06.780But I would be very surprised if the high Muslim presence in the United Kingdom and particularly in the last constituencies that are actually voting Labour
00:10:18.140haven't had something to do with this moral equation.
00:10:23.220Well, I mean, it also doesn't make sense because the Muslim population of the country isn't that high.
00:10:29.460I mean, you look at somewhere like Russia that has a higher percentage of its population than a Muslim and also a larger population.
00:10:35.640So more Muslims generally, and they were able to wage campaigns in Syria and the like, and it was no problem for them.
00:10:45.000One thing that is interesting is that there is a very different approach towards Russia and towards Iran right now.
00:10:54.060And several people think that this has to do with more and wider infiltration of Muslims in the UK.
00:11:04.620Because if you listen to Keir Starmer and other European leaders, when it comes to Russia, that's when they become war hawks.
00:11:11.040But when you listen to them about, let's say, regimes like the IRGC, they aren't that war hawkish.
00:11:21.340But I think it's more coming from enthusiasm for being close to Europe from the sort of British left, isn't it?
00:11:30.440In that continental Europe is very concerned about Russia, particularly Eastern Europe.
00:11:35.480And they take it very seriously because they think, oh, well, we could be next.
00:11:39.380And so I think it makes more sense to interpret it through that lens than, you know, we're secretly being run by Islamists.
00:11:47.940Even though there is a bit of a problem with them in the home office, but it's not to the extent yet.
00:11:53.360You also don't see that many Islamists in Eastern Europe.
00:12:26.680So when Trump says Starmer refuses to back the war against Iran, what sort of thing does he have in mind?
00:12:35.320Using bases and things for bombing because I don't think the vocalized intention yet has been to get boots on the ground because you get bombed down.
00:12:44.400Well, I think there's a possibility of it.
00:12:48.520But the point is that there is a lot to consider with this.
00:12:51.220This is clearly a war that is going to go on for quite a while.
00:12:55.520It's going to probably, as it already is doing in, you know, less than a week of it, redefining long-term political alliances.
00:13:04.780And has the potential to obviously have far-flung ramifications in ways that we just can't anticipate.
00:13:12.000So we have here Marco Rubio giving some sort of an explanation as to why this all happened so suddenly in the blink of a weekend.
00:13:20.480The second question that's been asked is, why now?
00:13:25.840The first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States.
00:13:35.220The orders had been delegated down to the field commanders.
00:13:38.060It was automatic and, in fact, it bared to be true because, in fact, within an hour of the initial attack on the leadership compound, the missile forces in the south and in the north, for that matter, had already been activated to launch.
00:13:52.600In fact, those had already been pre-positioned.
00:13:55.300The third is the assessment that was made that if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties.
00:14:04.680And so the president made the very wise decision.
00:14:06.760We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.
00:14:09.760We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces.
00:14:13.060And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed.
00:14:21.260And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that indeed.
00:14:26.340Terrible place to hold a press conference that hallway.
00:14:28.980It has the dramatic lighting that I see.
00:14:31.340But one thing I want to note is because some people play this video and there is also a previous response to another question where he was saying, and it's important for context, that within a year and a half, the Iranian regime would have access to more missiles and longer range.
00:14:56.860And obviously there were raids in Iran not too long ago either.
00:15:00.540And we were told that a lot of Iran's capacity to fight back against Israel and America had been, you know, mitigated then.
00:15:08.500And actually that most of the threat had been neutralized.
00:15:11.560And so based from previous statements we've had from Americans, you know, the American administration in previous months, this does all of a sudden seem like a contradiction in the narratives.
00:15:21.160I will say we've gone from Iran being a neutralized state that isn't going to present any threat to suddenly once again in a mere matter of months, they posed a threat to the entire Middle East and American interests.
00:15:34.360I think one way of interpreting that is that their initial bombing might have hit their targets, but it didn't do enough damage or it was easy enough to rebuild that they were able to have capability again.
00:15:44.660That would be one way in which those statements could be consistent.
00:15:47.740But at the same time, I think that they had their minds set and any excuse.
00:16:09.980But the other point as well that I just want to add is the fact that if we go down this route of being involved first in Iran, it will not stop there.
00:16:19.800We've obviously already seen Israeli forces going into Lebanon.
00:16:23.280Other countries all across the Gulf states are going to get embroiled in it as well.
00:16:27.480And though I've just taken this tweet here where it talks about the fact that Israeli officials say that after Iran, Turkey is going to be the next major threat to its existence.
00:16:58.120Do we see, sure, we're in the year 2026 now.
00:17:01.700But when we get to the year 2036, could we see ourselves at war with Turkey as well to fulfill Israel's geopolitical interests in the region to shore up its own?
00:17:12.960And sure, I appreciate the fact that they have their own sense of self-preservation.
00:17:17.760But my point is that so should we in all of this as well.
00:17:22.540And it's not necessarily the case that what is always good for Israel is always good for us.
00:17:27.980And in fact, as bizarrely, Kiyos Dahmer himself has shown as well in this recent turn of events, what is good for America is not necessarily also good for us as well.
00:17:41.600So I want to say about this here, I think that this is much more targeted to, in general, the Muslim Brotherhood.
00:17:47.520And this rivalry now, the rising rivalry between Israel and Turkey has to do with the extent to which Erdogan and the current Turkish regime wants to develop nuclear weapons, but also wants to position themselves as the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.
00:18:12.400And if Iran falls and that will fill that, Turkey will fill that vacuum.
00:18:16.680But it is also painting a target on their own backs to a certain extent, because not even the Islamic world is necessarily a fan of the Muslim Brotherhood.
00:18:37.740And then so obviously we get to things from the British perspective.
00:18:41.040Now, the Telegraph are already putting out articles basically invoking World War II nostalgia, saying that Starmer's response to the United States and Israeli strikes on Iran was more Chamberlain than Churchill.
00:18:53.380And it goes on to point out in this article, you know, this writer here, Jake Wallace Simons, goes on to say, well, Kemi Badenoch was very clear, saying,
00:19:02.120I stand with our allies in the U.S. and Israel as they take on the threat of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
00:19:07.720Nigel Farage has demanded damn the evil regime and called on the prime minister to back the Americans in this vital fight.
00:19:14.200But what did Keir Starmer have to say about this?
00:19:17.520After several hours, we found out, and it says that the prime minister's statement highlighted that Britain had played no role in these strikes, and he talked about de-escalation.
00:19:28.220And true, he condemned the Iranian regime as utterly abhorrent, but he's used far stronger language before about Elon Musk's grok or the Southport riots.
00:20:11.420When you're a leader of the opposition party, you can be a bit more liberal with your rhetoric.
00:20:16.780But which I understand in this case from Starmer may have an extra reason to be concerned about this because he is the PM.
00:20:28.340Another thing that he could be concerned about, which I think is a valid concern, is that when we see escalation in the Middle East, there do follow, sadly, there do follow terrorist attacks around the world.
00:21:07.120And he may be saying, I want to take some distance in order to prevent a terrorist incident happening in the UK.
00:21:16.500This is a charitable interpretation for why he may be doing it.
00:21:20.660And truly, we don't actually know Starmer's motives in all of this.
00:21:24.400But towards the end of the article, he points out, compare all this with the cousins of our culture.
00:21:28.440In Israel, 20,000 reservists were called up while missiles rained down on Jerusalem.
00:21:33.540In the bomb shelters, crowds were filmed dancing and singing out for the love of their people and the dream of a free Persia.
00:21:40.440On the streets of Tehran, meanwhile, amid the carnage and trepidation, people cheered on American and Israeli jets and danced defiantly in the streets.
00:21:49.380They know the price of liberty and are prepared to pay for it.
00:21:53.120Imagine if Britain had not lost its way.
00:21:55.800So there are a lot of things I want to say about this.
00:21:59.140The first of which is that this entire article is very much centred in its language around defending Jews, defending Israel, and all of these sorts of things.
00:22:10.400Very little concern or consideration seems to be put into it as to actually protecting British members of the public.
00:22:21.160The framing of it coaxes this like it's one grand crusade and it all is against them.
00:22:30.620And even in the way that he argues it here, I'm not suggesting that there aren't obviously good Iranians who don't want to be free from the regime.
00:22:38.540But there's no admission of the fact that actually there is the regime does still have some power in Iran.
00:22:46.300And then they will fight tooth and nail.
00:22:48.500And as I say, this is going to be a very, very long war.
00:22:52.220And if this is going to be a very, very long war, the British military is in a really, really sorry state.
00:22:59.940We can see here, as Callum puts up, the current state of the Royal Navy, which currently consists of two aircraft carriers, six destroyers, and about seven frigates, as well as 10 submarines, which you can't see on that graph because they're underwater.
00:23:13.200I knew you were going to say that, but I'm happy you did.
00:24:12.860And also HMS Duncan is being sent to Cyprus now, or should be.
00:24:18.400And of course, as you say, Stelios, the Greeks are also deploying multiple warships to protect Cyprus as well.
00:24:23.760I want to say one thing very, it's a bit funny, but I say yesterday that, you know, Greece should stand by Cyprus, which is the least, one of the least controversial statements ever made by a Greek.
00:24:34.840And I still have people accusing me of getting 7K to write this.
00:24:42.980Yeah, that's just mental retardation, Stelios.
00:24:45.800I mean, is it a Greek island anyway, Stelios?
00:24:48.520Imagine I got 7K to say the least controversial thing I could say.
00:24:54.900It's like saying, yeah, I hate Turks, I've been paid off.
00:24:58.880Yeah, I literally had someone say, Greek shouldn't die to give Turkey to Bibi.
00:25:05.480Just, who, do you know what you're talking about?
00:25:10.500There was a conflict over Cyprus between Greece and Turkey, for those in the audience who don't know.
00:25:16.160It's just, you know, the way that leftists take the white versus black dynamic in the US, especially in the early 19th century, and they apply this everywhere.
00:25:27.520There are people here who do this with, you know, the Jews and the anti-Jews.
00:25:33.240It's just the only way they view the planet.
00:25:45.940So, yes, I am all in favor of intervention insofar as it means defending our own RAF bases on the island of Cyprus.
00:25:54.240But it is very obvious that even though Keir Starmer is currently prime minister, of course, he is not ahead in the polls.
00:26:01.860And the Starmer government is very, very frail.
00:26:04.360And so all of this can change very, very quickly.
00:26:07.080And with reform at present being the incumbent party that seems to be the one that will have the majority and probably form the next government, we could see a much more full-throated committal to Britain's part in the conflict in the coming years or months, however long Starmer's government lasts.
00:26:29.560And the problem with all of this is that Richard Tice was, as reformed deputy leader, was straight away saying that, well, our position should, of course, be that we're taking in all of the Iranian refugees and obviously we'll vet these refugees for anti-Semitism as soon as they arrive here.
00:26:50.840It's like, Richard, there seems to be a real poverty of consideration.
00:27:14.660Or that the British government doesn't care about Britain enough.
00:27:17.420One argument would be that perhaps they should take a stronger stance because especially one of the main reasons why, if they're afraid like now to do something about the grooming gangs because they're afraid of retaliation.
00:27:33.180And there are powerful lobbies and obviously not all people from these groups are the same.
00:27:41.460I'm not putting all eggs into one basket, but especially when we're talking about regimes that are incredibly destabilizing of that region, but also are funding terrorism.
00:27:51.920Their pernicious influence could be one of the reasons why, let's say, governments that are a bit cocked, can we say this on YouTube?
00:28:06.320Are a bit cocked, are afraid to do things about things like the grooming gangs.
00:28:12.340So that could be an extra argument that, for instance, some Americans could give because on the one hand, every time Rubio Vance comes here and they talk about to the EU, we're usually clapping in with good reason.
00:28:28.640But there could also be another side of it is that it's not that lots of European leaders may be afraid.
00:28:38.800Yeah, they could be afraid of the very pernicious influence of particular groups, let's say, or regimes.
00:28:46.480That's the question is that Trump, Rubio and other people could have the argument that, listen, you say your government,
00:28:55.720you criticise your governments for not doing enough on that front, but we're actually doing something to topple the regimes that are actually causing the problem to an extent.
00:29:09.400But if all of these regimes just, again, I'm just very cautious and, well, I'm mostly cautious of time, but I'm also cautious of the fact that we're going to end up in the position of great destabilization.
00:29:21.940And Farage had to basically come out and say, no, we won't be taking any more refugees from the conflicts and basically just covering over Tice's previous comments.
00:29:31.940But ultimately, and I agree with Rupert Lowe on this one, Britain has enough problems and we should not be bombing Iran because, I know, I know.
00:29:40.540But because really, and this is my key point, in the United Kingdom, in Britain, we probably have about two decades, three decades left at the most generous time given to actually have sovereignty in our own country, right?
00:29:58.860The demographic situation right now is absolutely on the precipice and we, rather than going around the world fulfilling the political objectives of Israel or America, we have to deal with our own domestic problems now.
00:30:14.020And that means, as Rupert says here, basically, for the time being, just doing away with foreign regime change around the world.
00:30:22.800And what's more as well, we've seen time and time again that even when these foreign regimes fall and some Western power comes in to try and remould them in a more Western, liberal, enlightened frame, it doesn't work.
00:30:37.200Because they're not from the same inheritance and they don't want it.
00:30:41.280Ultimately, it comes down to the point that we shouldn't be entangled in permanent alliances with any nation on Earth.
00:30:49.220We should always try to put our own particular interests first.
00:30:53.180And this war, frankly, I don't believe meets that criteria.
00:30:56.940It seems that the Israelis have acted very, very hastily in their own defence, banking on the fact that the Americans would naturally be drawn into the conflict to support them.
00:31:07.660And that really, off the back of that, it was kind of taken as a bit of a given that the rest of the nations of Europe would start dancing to America's tune as well and giving them any backing and just saying, yes, Donald, how high, Donald, in all of these particular ways.
00:31:36.600And so Rupert Lowe's position here is far more sensible.
00:31:41.280And though people will try and say, ah, yes, well, but that position of non-intervention and, you know, not getting involved and not allowing, not using the air bases to also strike around, because at the moment our RAF are only being used for defensive purposes and not actually engaging in offensive manoeuvres on Iran.
00:32:01.880But if we start doing all of these things as well, how long before more commitment is demanded from us and more commitment until you find that we're all so at war in Lebanon and then Turkey and on and on it goes.
00:32:15.160And frankly, we're not in a state for it and we don't owe it to the rest of the world to do this either, right?
00:32:22.100We are more, we should be looking after our own interests.
00:32:25.720That means building back up our defence and ensuring that our nation, our people survive here in our own homeland.
00:32:32.740That's my position on the subject and, anyway, we are running over on time, so I'll draw it to a close there, but I think that we should stay out of this.
00:32:42.620All right, I'll just go through some of the rumble rants, and there's a lot of them, so thank you.
00:32:55.680G'day, to be honest, we wouldn't have the Islamic problem if we're being a bit more selective about who we let in instead of just being like, oh yeah, come on in.
00:33:03.680Yeah, absolutely, and this is not just true for the Middle East, but this is true for every country around the world,
00:33:10.700that all of a sudden our ability to express a sovereign will as a people, as a British people,
00:33:18.440has been diluted and obscured by the fact that we now have to give moral consideration to many, many ghettos and diasporas
00:33:27.480that have, you know, taken residence here in Britain, and that care absolutely nothing for us,
00:33:33.580but demand that we care about all of their conflicts around the world.
00:33:37.780And he also says, I've heard this theory, this is also to hurt Russia with Iran sending supplies to Russia for the war.
00:33:44.560Also, half of our problems will be solved if the government actually punished everyone equally.
00:33:53.480Why are the British bases under attack? Are they being used as a staging ground for the United States attacks on Iran?
00:34:00.300Well, I believe, if I have my chronology right, these were actually attacked before Stammer gave license to America to use our bases, so...