TRIGGERnometry - The Definitive Conversation on the UK Election with Matt Goodwin

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00:00:30.000 Hello and welcome to a very special live interview of Trigonometry.

00:00:35.420 I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:36.640 I'm Constance and Kissin, and with very, very few days left to go before the election,

00:00:41.020 we of course bring in our favourite guest to talk about all things polling.

00:00:44.980 Matt Goodwin, welcome back to Trigonometry for the 178th time.

00:00:49.000 What a time, what a time. This is great, a week out from the election.

00:00:51.680 Yes.

00:00:52.120 Let's get into it. There's so much to talk about.

00:00:53.580 A lot to talk about, not least because one of the things you've been covering,

00:00:56.480 you've been in Clacton with Farage, looking at reforms performance.

00:01:00.180 Today's polls are suggesting that things may not be as good as some people have been predicting.

00:01:04.160 We'll get to that.

00:01:05.300 The first thing we wanted to talk about is the election itself.

00:01:09.180 We've got a clip here of Rishi Sunak announcing the election.

00:01:11.900 Let's watch that before we get into all the analysis.

00:01:13.900 In the last five years, our country has fought through the most challenging times since the Second World War.

00:01:21.100 As I stand here as your Prime Minister, I can't help but reflect that my first proper introduction to you

00:01:27.000 was just over four years ago.

00:01:29.240 I stood behind one of the podiums, upstairs in the building behind me.

00:01:32.880 I told you that we faced a generation-defining moment and that we as a society would not be judged by some government action,

00:01:41.520 but by the small acts of kindness that we showed one another.

00:01:45.320 You met that challenge, and then some, and I have never been prouder to be British.

00:01:51.160 And when I introduced the furlough scheme, I did so not because I saw a country simply in need of desperate help,

00:01:57.160 albeit we were, but because I saw a country whose future hung in the balance.

00:02:02.920 I could be bold and trust in the tens of millions of you at home that you would rise to the moment,

00:02:08.140 or I could accept the inevitable millions of job losses and pick up the pieces.

00:02:13.340 In truth, it was no choice at all.

00:02:16.680 I have never and will never leave the people of this country to face the darkest of days alone,

00:02:22.660 and you know that because you've seen it.

00:02:25.200 As I did then, I will forever do everything in my...

00:02:29.300 So, he announced at this time, you were rolling your eyes a little bit off camera while it was happening.

00:02:34.320 But let's talk first and foremost.

00:02:35.780 I think the interesting thing to discuss initially is, why was the election called now, Matt?

00:02:40.100 Do you think it was an attempt to shoot the reform fox, as people have been saying,

00:02:43.800 you know, prevent reform from doing well, prevent Farage from running at all?

00:02:47.340 Oh, absolutely.

00:02:47.980 I mean, the calculation in number 10, firstly, was you can neutralise Farage and reform.

00:02:52.320 They were going to be the biggest threat to those 2019 Conservative voters.

00:02:55.680 So, you kind of outflank Farage.

00:02:58.040 Secondly, they just got some, you know, reasonable economic news from the IMF.

00:03:01.520 So, they were thinking, OK, we can push this narrative.

00:03:04.360 We're over the worst.

00:03:05.420 Let's just, you know, keep going.

00:03:06.740 Don't let Labour ruin it.

00:03:07.780 And they had the Rwanda plan teed up.

00:03:10.180 So, it was the big, you know, the carrot for voters.

00:03:12.600 If you vote for us, you get the planes taking off in the summer.

00:03:15.660 But, of course, as we now know, a lot of that really backfired.

00:03:19.500 And I think this decision to go early, which, by the way, I predicted on the sub-stat,

00:03:24.120 but this decision will go down in history as one of the really big political blunders of modern time.

00:03:29.360 Is that really true, Matt?

00:03:30.400 Is it not probably more true to say that the Conservatives were screwed either way

00:03:35.040 and they could have called it early, they could have called it later?

00:03:37.840 Ultimately, it was always going to end up like this.

00:03:40.180 I think it was, but I think what's astonishing to me about this campaign

00:03:44.300 is just how flat the Conservative vote has stayed.

00:03:48.460 So, I mean, I was running the numbers on the polling just before I came in,

00:03:52.160 just kind of exclusively for your viewers.

00:03:54.680 Here are the numbers right now, OK?

00:03:56.820 Labour, on average, across all polls, Labour 42%, OK?

00:04:02.760 Conservatives 20%, 22 points behind.

00:04:06.220 Reform 15.3%.

00:04:08.920 What that means, Labour majority of more than 300 seats,

00:04:14.860 bigger majority than 97, Conservatives 47 seats,

00:04:20.180 the Lib Dems on about 12%, they'll be on 60 seats, Reform 3 seats.

00:04:23.600 But the point here is Rishi Sunak actually has had no tangible,

00:04:28.660 visible impact on the Conservative Party vote share.

00:04:31.080 It is basically where it was at the beginning of this campaign.

00:04:33.500 The only thing that's changed is Rishi Sunak has become more unpopular

00:04:37.440 than he was at the beginning of this campaign.

00:04:38.920 And we actually have a clip demonstrating why, Elliot.

00:04:41.440 Let's pull that up.

00:04:43.000 Which one is this?

00:04:43.660 It's the one about D-Day.

00:04:46.780 Prime Minister.

00:04:47.340 Josh, hello.

00:04:47.860 Good to see you.

00:04:48.660 Very nice to see you.

00:04:49.620 Sorry to have kept you.

00:04:50.620 I'm well, thank you.

00:04:50.860 No, not at all.

00:04:51.460 I know you've been in Normandie.

00:04:52.280 Yeah, it all just ran over.

00:04:53.680 Of course.

00:04:54.280 It was incredible, but it just ran over everything.

00:04:56.780 I'm sure it was a...

00:04:57.520 So apologies for keeping you.

00:04:58.660 No, not at all.

00:04:59.260 I'm sure it was a powerful trip.

00:05:00.380 I mean, so pertinent as well this year, you know, considering what's happened in Ukraine.

00:05:03.920 Yeah, which I haven't seen President Biden's remarks.

00:05:05.840 So you've got a prime minister apologizing.

00:05:08.240 This is like, I mean, the optics of this are not good because for people who don't know,

00:05:12.620 he's over in France commemorating D-Day on one of the last D-Days that you can with veterans.

00:05:18.480 And he's coming back and apologizing to a journalist because the D-Day stuff overran.

00:05:23.920 So this is what historians are going to remember about this election, right?

00:05:28.240 They're going to write this election up in terms of that blunder.

00:05:31.700 Why was the D-Day anniversary mistake so devastating for Sunak?

00:05:37.420 Well, you might say it reflected poor judgment about the campaign.

00:05:41.400 I've argued it actually reflected something much deeper and more existential that has run through the Sunak premiership

00:05:47.020 and actually run through the Sunak team, which is one of the most important questions that people can ask.

00:05:54.180 Does this guy actually believe in Britain?

00:05:56.520 Does our leader actually believe in Britain?

00:05:58.500 And the reason I say that is because around Sunak from the very beginning,

00:06:02.340 OK, this is a guy that has had no mandate to be prime minister.

00:06:05.760 He was appointed.

00:06:06.680 He wasn't elected by conservative members.

00:06:09.920 He wasn't elected by voters.

00:06:11.220 He was appointed.

00:06:11.860 He's part of a global financial elite coming from, you know, banking, financial services.

00:06:18.100 We know he spent a lot of time in America.

00:06:20.240 We know that he's sort of the optics of Sunak are much more about his association with international elites than the country.

00:06:29.100 And so by leaving that ceremony, the anniversary early, what I think it conveyed to lots of voters,

00:06:34.440 68% of whom, by the way, told pollsters they thought his behaviour on that day was unacceptable.

00:06:40.220 What I think it really projected was this deeper suspicion about Sunak and actually much of the political elite.

00:06:47.200 Do they really believe in Britain, our collective memory, our history, our identity, our ways of life?

00:06:52.380 And for Farage at that time, that was an enormous gift.

00:06:56.000 So what you then saw in the week after D-Day is a conservative vote share, on average, actually fell further.

00:07:01.920 Reform then started to pick up.

00:07:03.460 They actually peaked at 19% on average in the polls.

00:07:07.760 We'll get back to that later on.

00:07:09.420 But the conservative vote share actually flatlined.

00:07:12.240 And here's the most remarkable statistic for me of this election.

00:07:16.180 All those people who voted for Boris Johnson in 2019, all those people who gave the conservatives an 80-seat majority,

00:07:22.880 all those people who took a punt on Brexit and then Boris and they wanted to get Brexit done, they wanted to lower migration.

00:07:28.580 What percentage of those people are now planning to vote Conservative at the 2024 general election?

00:07:34.800 Remember, when we had that discussion, we said these are the people driving the realignment.

00:07:39.240 37%, just 37% of them are planning to vote Conservative at the 2024 election.

00:07:45.360 So the realignment that we talked about ahead of the 2019 election, we predicted it all on this show,

00:07:51.080 has completely blown apart because Sunak and co have really come fundamentally unstuck from those voters.

00:07:57.840 Matt, so I'm listening to these stats and I'm not being facetious here and this isn't a joke.

00:08:04.060 Look, I can't believe the Tory party is actually going to be able to win that many seats. 0.80

00:08:08.240 If you actually look at what they've achieved of 14 years in government, they've been, to put it bluntly, absolutely useless.

00:08:15.700 They have failed to tackle all of the big issues.

00:08:18.400 They've promised everything, completely failed to deliver, let down every single voter.

00:08:23.840 I can't believe anybody would vote for them.

00:08:25.560 Well, some people will, there are tribal Conservatives, but what we're witnessing at this election is the strange death of the Conservative Party in its current form.

00:08:36.260 The Conservative Party will survive, but not in its current form.

00:08:41.380 Why?

00:08:41.900 Because philosophically, ideologically, electorally, the Conservative Party is lost.

00:08:47.520 It doesn't know what it is anymore.

00:08:49.360 Is it a Southern party?

00:08:50.960 Is it a Northern party?

00:08:52.080 Is it a party for the elite graduate class or is it a party for everybody?

00:08:56.480 Is it a party for the Brexiteers?

00:08:58.300 Is it a party for Remainers?

00:09:00.000 Is it a party for social liberals?

00:09:01.960 Is it a party for cultural Conservatives?

00:09:04.480 These are the questions that the Tory elite class have never really answered since the Brexit referendum,

00:09:11.080 partly because they couldn't really relate to the Brexit referendum.

00:09:15.520 So if you look at, for example, who's going to be left after this election, let's say the polls are right.

00:09:20.180 Now we're either heading into the biggest Labour majority since 1997, perhaps bigger,

00:09:25.640 or we're heading into the biggest error in the history of the polling industry.

00:09:29.520 It's going to be one of the two.

00:09:30.720 Let's assume the pollsters are right and we are heading into the Conservatives on somewhere between 50 and 150 seats,

00:09:36.800 which by any measure would be a complete disaster for the Tories.

00:09:40.020 Who is left?

00:09:40.740 Well, if you look at the analysis of who's left in that situation, it's more Oxbridge educated, southern, one nation, moderate liberal Tories

00:09:49.580 who are even more disconnected from the mood of the country on issues like illegal migration, legal migration,

00:09:57.400 taking on woke ideology, countering radical Islam, all of the stuff that Farage is now talking about.

00:10:02.840 So what I'm saying is this crisis, this identity crisis that's facing the Conservatives, this is just the start.

00:10:09.180 This is just the beginning, because what's going to happen now after this election is they are going to face a sustained attack,

00:10:16.300 assuming Farage is elected and in Parliament.

00:10:18.800 They are going to face a prolonged ideological civil war over the battle, sorry, over the nature, over the soul of Conservatism.

00:10:26.680 That is what is about to start with this election.

00:10:29.200 Labour will win.

00:10:29.900 We all know Labour will win, but what is also going to now commence is this enormous Conservative civil war

00:10:36.880 over what is Conservatism in modern-day Britain.

00:10:40.140 I find it very interesting, the points that you're making, because if we rewind back to 2019,

00:10:45.300 we were making pretty much the exact same points about the Labour Party

00:10:48.820 and saying it's impossible for them to hold this broad coalition of people,

00:10:53.260 which makes me think, is this just a problem for the Conservative Party,

00:10:56.780 or have we reached the end of the line for the two-party system?

00:11:00.960 Well, Labour has certainly done a great job at sort of putting back together a coalition.

00:11:05.080 But by the way, I do think Labour is still very vulnerable.

00:11:07.560 I mean, the counter-cultural take on Labour is, you know, people are not voting for Labour, OK?

00:11:12.680 They're voting against the Tories.

00:11:13.920 We can all sense that.

00:11:14.800 There is no mass public enthusiasm for Keir Starmer.

00:11:17.760 His leadership ratings are actually not that great.

00:11:20.220 He's on plus 10 in the leadership ratings, a net rating of plus 10.

00:11:24.960 Rishi Sunak is coming up to minus 30.

00:11:27.520 And if you want a reference point, Prince Andrew is minus 50, OK?

00:11:31.280 So broadly speaking, you've got a very unpopular Conservative leader,

00:11:35.280 and you've got a not really very popular Labour leader.

00:11:38.800 Everybody is still suspicious about Labour on the economy.

00:11:41.740 Everybody is still suspicious about Labour on immigration.

00:11:44.340 And if you ask people, who do you think is best to manage the big issues facing Britain,

00:11:50.000 they're not saying Labour.

00:11:51.820 Typically, they're saying none of them.

00:11:53.520 I don't think anybody can solve the big issues.

00:11:56.220 Low growth, mass immigration, the lack of levelling up, productivity, all of that stuff. 0.98

00:12:02.900 Housing crisis.

00:12:03.220 Housing crisis, all of that.

00:12:04.680 Housing crisis is enormous.

00:12:07.620 So Labour don't have the big wave of enthusiasm that Blair had in 97.

00:12:12.020 But secondly, their coalition, and they know this because I've talked to them about it,

00:12:16.940 is much more structurally unsound than it was during the new Labour years

00:12:21.520 because they've got a radical cultural left, radical progressives

00:12:25.460 who are basically pretty woke on a lot of issues, very aggressively socially liberal.

00:12:30.360 And then they've got a very large block of votes coming from minority voters,

00:12:34.880 from British Muslims and so forth.

00:12:37.540 Those camps have very different views on these issues.

00:12:40.980 And the professional middle class and the working class also have very different views on these issues.

00:12:45.080 So my prediction is, were we to catch up at Christmas,

00:12:48.200 my prediction is this Labour government that's incoming will quickly become

00:12:52.220 one of the most unpopular governments that we've had in modern times

00:12:58.040 because not only are there all these internal tensions,

00:13:01.440 but when you look at the economy, there's a widespread consensus

00:13:03.680 Labour are going to have very little room for manoeuvre.

00:13:06.080 We've got high debt, low growth.

00:13:07.780 They're going to have to raise taxes. 0.99

00:13:09.140 They are lying to the British people. 0.80

00:13:11.060 They are going to have to raise taxes.

00:13:12.740 I would bet my house on taxes going up during this incoming parliament.

00:13:17.520 And as we know, by overturning the Rwanda plan,

00:13:21.860 by refusing to give us detail on legal migration,

00:13:26.520 migration is going to increase, would be my working assumption.

00:13:30.440 The woke ideology is going to be mainstreamed.

00:13:32.140 We've seen that during this campaign around gender and the easing of the gender transition process.

00:13:39.520 And all of these issues are going to be an enormous gift to somebody like Farage,

00:13:43.340 who will spend the next five years, assuming he is elected,

00:13:47.700 attacking the Labour Party in a way that the established Tory elite class

00:13:51.860 are simply going to be unable to attack Labour.

00:13:54.060 Not least because, based on your analysis,

00:13:56.200 I think the fascinating thing that has been underappreciated and undercommented on

00:14:00.460 is the fact that there is this narrative on the right, certainly.

00:14:04.660 You know, we've got to punish the Conservatives for not being right-wing enough,

00:14:08.000 which is totally understandable.

00:14:10.060 But what you're going to end up with is having punished the Conservative Party, so to speak,

00:14:16.040 a much more left-leaning Conservative Party of fewer MPs.

00:14:20.600 That's what you're basically saying. That's what's going to happen.

00:14:23.040 Yeah, what I'm saying is we now need to have this fight over the soul of Conservatism.

00:14:27.720 We have to have a serious battle over what Conservatism is in this country.

00:14:32.660 And it's very clear to a lot of people in the country,

00:14:35.740 the Conservative Party is no longer reflecting the values and the voice of many people,

00:14:41.100 working-class voters, people who haven't gone to university,

00:14:43.920 older voters, cultural Conservatives.

00:14:46.020 The Tory elite class has completely lost touch with the country.

00:14:49.720 It's presided over, you know, a string of foreign policy disasters.

00:14:54.300 The Liberal internationalists, the Rory Stuarts of the world,

00:14:57.180 they've consistently got things wrong.

00:14:59.400 They've failed to address inequality, both regional and individual inequalities.

00:15:04.800 They've put mass immigration on steroids. 0.99

00:15:07.320 They've lost control of the borders.

00:15:09.220 They've said we've become a self-governing independent nation,

00:15:11.880 and they refuse to leave international courts and treaties

00:15:14.720 that would have allowed us to take control of our borders.

00:15:17.460 They mainstreamed gender ideology.

00:15:19.380 They allowed critical race theory into the schools.

00:15:21.900 I've charted all of this in detail.

00:15:23.960 And then they wonder why Nigel Farage is back.

00:15:26.800 Well, Farage is back because the Conservatives created him.

00:15:30.140 The Conservatives have created enormous space for somebody like Farage to come in and say,

00:15:35.180 this is not the brand of conservatism that is now in touch with millions of people.

00:15:40.640 Look at Trump in the US.

00:15:41.900 Look at Le Pen in France.

00:15:43.020 Look at what's happening in Europe.

00:15:44.600 It is the Tory elite class that are now falling over themselves to attack Farage,

00:15:49.780 who are out of touch, actually, with their own voters.

00:15:52.300 And what I'm hearing out of what you're saying,

00:15:54.240 if the polling numbers remain as they are over the course of next week

00:15:57.960 and it translates into the seat numbers and the seat types that we expect,

00:16:01.840 the Tory party is going to be more liberal, not less liberal,

00:16:05.480 less conservative, not more conservative,

00:16:07.600 as a result of the cull that's about to happen.

00:16:10.380 So you put that together and then, you know, let's play the clip of Nigel Farage

00:16:14.580 basically coming through, you know, going back a couple of weeks now and saying,

00:16:18.380 I'm not like all these people, which is what you're talking about.

00:16:21.300 I'm like the other six.

00:16:22.640 I don't need an autocue.

00:16:23.980 I'm here because I believe in what I believe in.

00:16:26.760 Our politics isn't working. 0.96

00:16:29.240 You've heard these pathetic arguments tonight between the two big parties. 0.95

00:16:32.580 Really, there isn't much difference. 0.90

00:16:33.880 But electorally, Labour are going to win.

00:16:36.720 The debate is who forms the opposition in the next parliament?

00:16:41.000 Who fights for the rights of ordinary British people? 0.63

00:16:43.400 Who fights to control our borders?

00:16:45.400 Who fights for men and women running small businesses? 0.99

00:16:48.560 Reform UK is about to become a political phenomenon, an historic one.

00:16:53.820 So I urge you, join the revolt.

00:16:56.500 And when this happened, when he had made the announcement,

00:16:59.420 I mean, there was a big wave of enthusiasm.

00:17:01.320 You were one of the people, frankly, leading it, talking about, you know,

00:17:05.040 reform are going to make a big impact.

00:17:06.460 And certainly in terms of damaging Conservatives and to a lesser extent Labour,

00:17:10.460 they are going to have that impact.

00:17:12.720 How do you assess their trajectory from that moment to where we sit today,

00:17:16.620 where they're, you know, in one of your polls, you had the reform on 24%.

00:17:20.340 That was an outlier of a poll compared to other companies, admittedly.

00:17:24.480 Today, the average is 15%.

00:17:26.520 Some polling companies have reform as low as 13%.

00:17:29.840 So chart that journey for us.

00:17:32.200 So the first thing to say is Farage is probably the best campaigner of British politics today.

00:17:40.860 He's the most authentic campaigner.

00:17:42.940 He is literally on the streets with ordinary voters.

00:17:45.920 None of it is professional.

00:17:47.360 None of it is slick.

00:17:48.240 None of it is focus grouped.

00:17:50.040 And he is, I've known him for 15 years.

00:17:52.440 He's a better campaigner today than he was in the UKIP days and the Brexit referendum days.

00:17:58.400 When the campaign started, he went on a walk by himself and he made his decision alone,

00:18:07.040 that he wanted to give this a go, not because of personal gain or financial interest,

00:18:15.080 but because he was being approached constantly by people who have been with him for 20, 30 years

00:18:22.840 through that UKIP journey, the Brexit journey, the Brexit party journey.

00:18:26.400 And they were saying, look, you know, Nigel, you've got to do something.

00:18:28.980 There is no alternative to the big parties.

00:18:30.860 And it was a sense of loyalty that led him into the general election campaign.

00:18:35.360 And when he did announce, it quickly became apparent amid a sort of none of the above election,

00:18:39.820 where basically everybody was disillusioned with the options, that he still had enormous cut through.

00:18:45.120 So reform then go from an average of 12% to the peak of 19%.

00:18:50.240 Now, a couple of pollsters, one had them on 20, we had them on 24.

00:18:54.780 What basically happened is Farage realised, and he's always known this, why people were moving to reform.

00:19:02.960 And I've surveyed 3,000 reform voters.

00:19:04.980 Top issue, stop the small votes. 0.89

00:19:07.200 Stop the illegal migration invasion. 0.99

00:19:09.120 Second issue, lower legal migration.

00:19:11.580 So it's really about migration as the issue.

00:19:14.600 He zoomed in on that big time, went all in, chose Clacton because long history of UKIP voting,

00:19:20.700 had elected Douglas Carswell as a UKIP MP, and Farage's team, no Clacton back to front.

00:19:26.660 They know it intimately, right?

00:19:27.860 So if he doesn't win in Clacton, like, he's got big problems.

00:19:30.920 I mean, if you can't win in Clacton, you can't win anywhere, right, if you're Nigel Farage.

00:19:34.640 What then happened is on Friday, June the 21st, Nick Robinson then asked him about Ukraine,

00:19:41.540 and Farage basically suggested that the West had provoked Russia into that invasion.

00:19:47.060 And he then received three or four days of sustained media criticism, much of which was

00:19:55.480 in the mail, which is typically a Tory-aligned paper, and much of which was pushed on by lots

00:20:01.520 of prominent conservative columnists who obviously have an interest in undermining reform and

00:20:05.840 promoting the conservatives.

00:20:07.560 In the aftermath of that, as we're talking today, if you look at all the opinion polls

00:20:11.740 that have been conducted since those comments on Ukraine, the average level of support for

00:20:18.040 reform is actually 13%, not 15%.

00:20:20.500 Wow.

00:20:20.880 So there has been clearly a drop of some sort.

00:20:24.140 Now, whether that's because of undecided voters moving to conservative Labour, whether

00:20:28.820 it's because of voters becoming more uncertain about where Farage stands on these geopolitical

00:20:33.440 issues, we don't know.

00:20:34.380 But what is clear, you know, there is a legitimate question about if your core vote is immigration

00:20:39.020 and that's your battering ram to take on the big parties, you know, then why feed the

00:20:45.520 Ukraine story, right?

00:20:46.980 Why keep it going?

00:20:47.880 You kind of want to neutralize that, at least get the conversation back to, you know, reform

00:20:51.780 want to slash overseas aid by 50%.

00:20:53.740 Very popular in the country.

00:20:55.520 They want a patriotic curriculum for kids, so they're not given woke dogma.

00:20:59.720 Very popular in the country.

00:21:01.020 They want an immediate freeze on all non-essential immigration.

00:21:04.680 Very popular in the country.

00:21:05.880 They want to leave the ECHR.

00:21:07.420 Very popular among conservatives.

00:21:09.080 So, you know, they've got these policies that have cut through, which begs the question,

00:21:12.980 you know, why keep this story going?

00:21:15.260 Whether Farage now in the final week of the campaign can get back to those core issues,

00:21:20.260 I think will determine whether they end up in the kind of 10% to 13% range, which is

00:21:26.100 what UKIP got in 2015 when they won one seat in Clacton, or whether he can keep it in that

00:21:32.700 15% to 20% range, which is going to be hard for him to do in the final days.

00:21:38.980 But look, I mean, even despite all of that, with a new party, small party in the first-past-the-post

00:21:45.220 system, I mean, I would argue he's done pretty well to get this far and to be in the position

00:21:51.880 where the constituency polling suggests he's going to win Clacton.

00:21:54.500 And look, if you're being ruthlessly pragmatic about this, right, as long as he is elected

00:22:00.160 to the House of Commons, that's all that matters.

00:22:02.960 So my working assumption is a seat in Clacton, maybe two or three, a couple of surprises, but

00:22:08.840 certainly a seat in Clacton, five to six, seven million votes nationally, somewhere between

00:22:17.260 50 and 122nd places, most of which, by the way, will be in Labour-held seats.

00:22:22.560 That will allow for our John July the 5th to say, OK, this revolt, that was step one.

00:22:28.760 I'm in Parliament.

00:22:29.740 I'm now inviting Conservatives to join our crusade.

00:22:33.440 We're now the main opposition to Labour across the Red Wall in the northern heartlands.

00:22:37.700 The Tories are finished.

00:22:39.220 He's going to hope and pray they elect a Penny Morden or they elect a Tom Tugendhat or they elect

00:22:43.600 somebody from that kind of liberal, one-nation wing of the party.

00:22:47.080 And if they do, then he's got an enormous open goal for the next five years, a likely,

00:22:52.080 a very unpopular Labour government, a sort of liberal Conservative party, and he'll have

00:22:56.720 the pitch to himself.

00:22:57.720 That's what he will be hoping.

00:22:58.920 And that's stage two in this revolt.

00:23:01.620 So attack the Tories at this election and then pivot and attack Labour and try and finish

00:23:06.880 off the Tories after the election.

00:23:09.520 That's reform strategy.

00:23:10.380 Do you think stage three is then make a pitch to become leader of the Conservative party?

00:23:15.340 Going back to the question, stage one, attack the Conservative party.

00:23:19.880 Stage two, get into Parliament, then attack Labour.

00:23:23.420 Stage three, possibly go for the leadership of the Conservative party?

00:23:28.000 I think Farage is genuinely torn on that.

00:23:31.100 I think it depends, firstly, on who becomes leader of the Conservative.

00:23:34.000 So this is unlikely, but let's imagine you have a Suella Braverman type figure who potentially

00:23:39.920 opens up and says, look, OK, it's time to unify the Conservative family.

00:23:43.460 Under that situation, you could maybe see it happening.

00:23:45.940 I don't for a second think the Tory Parliamentary Party would ever allow Suella to become leader,

00:23:50.060 but nonetheless, you could see it possibly happening under that situation.

00:23:53.900 But never forget, look, there is a misconception about Farage.

00:23:57.400 He instinctively is now an anti-Tory politician.

00:24:02.020 Ideologically, he's a Conservative.

00:24:03.600 I mean, he came of age during the 1980s.

00:24:06.480 He, in many respects, is a Thatcherite.

00:24:09.080 He was close to prominent Conservatives.

00:24:11.920 But he really dislikes the way the Tories have consistently treated him.

00:24:19.620 And I think today, partly shaped by his experience in America, I think he genuinely believes that

00:24:27.700 he can outflank the Conservatives, that he can take over the whole thing without having

00:24:32.680 to ask for their, you know, their invitation to enter the party.

00:24:37.760 Now, whether or not he can, we'll have to wait and see.

00:24:39.880 But one of the interesting things when he announced he was running in this election,

00:24:44.020 which very few people picked up on, but I thought it was interesting, having watched

00:24:47.280 him a long time, is he said two things.

00:24:49.480 He said, firstly, he acknowledged that if he's to build a people's revolt, it has to

00:24:54.300 be broader than him.

00:24:55.760 So he needs other people around him.

00:24:58.260 And the second thing is he said he acknowledges, I mean, he's 60, which is not, it's not old

00:25:03.540 in politics, especially if you look at the U.S.

00:25:06.720 He's got a lot of time left, but he acknowledged for the first time that he needs to start thinking

00:25:11.420 about handing the baton down to a new generation.

00:25:14.380 And if you look at his team, his team are all in the 20s, early 30s.

00:25:19.540 If you look at the ecosystem that's emerging in Britain, in British politics, it's countercultural,

00:25:24.620 it's very young, it's very clever, it's very sophisticated, it's aware of what's happening

00:25:30.040 in other countries.

00:25:31.720 And Farage may actually become a useful bridge into something else that isn't really consumed

00:25:38.760 by Brexit that is more about, you know, the ideological threat to Western states, that

00:25:44.800 is about, you know, taking on identity politics, the housing crisis, that is genuinely about

00:25:50.840 giving Gen Z and millennials a sense that they're now in the discussion.

00:25:55.120 If you look at, for example, at France, you know, Bardella is 28.

00:25:58.300 If you look at some of the people in the Republicans around the Trump team, you know, these young

00:26:04.460 people.

00:26:05.360 And I think probably that is where it could get quite interesting, is if he becomes a

00:26:08.740 springboard.

00:26:09.160 Because just to be clear, I mean, I don't think, I don't think Nigel Farage has the answers

00:26:15.100 to all of the problems facing Britain.

00:26:17.240 But I do think Nigel Farage is asking the right questions.

00:26:20.700 He's the only one during this campaign who has talked about the threat from radical Islam,

00:26:25.340 which has become obvious to everybody after October 7th.

00:26:28.160 But nobody in the mainstream parties has really been willing to talk about that.

00:26:31.780 He's the only one who's really gone outside the Overton window in terms of how to deal

00:26:37.140 with the small boats, how to deal with the illegal migration crisis.

00:26:41.260 He's the only one who's zoomed in seriously on legal migration.

00:26:44.680 And if you look at the reform manifesto or the contract document, it is the only one saying,

00:26:50.680 basically, it wants to completely strip out diversity, equity and inclusion from public

00:26:55.980 institutions.

00:26:57.040 It wants to remove woke ideology from schools.

00:27:00.440 It wants to remove the politicization of public institutions.

00:27:04.240 It wants to adapt the Equalities Act and protect sex-based rights for women and kids.

00:27:09.300 You know, so on all of those issues, whenever I go on social media and I see so many people

00:27:13.080 say, why aren't the Tories doing this?

00:27:15.020 Why aren't the Tories doing that?

00:27:16.080 Actually, if you sit down and you read that reform document, they are actually setting

00:27:20.820 out those issues.

00:27:21.580 So Farage is no longer really a sort of single-issue pro-Brexit politician.

00:27:25.920 If you actually take that document seriously, he's now talking about a cluster of issues that

00:27:31.080 I think reflect his ideological and intellectual evolution.

00:27:35.400 Matt, we look at the Brexit party and before that, UKIP and now reform.

00:27:40.940 It seems to me that we're in the midst of a political revolution.

00:27:43.680 And the reason for that is our political parties, both Labour and Conservative, are no longer

00:27:49.100 fit for purpose.

00:27:51.100 Do we need revolution right across the board? 0.53

00:27:53.840 Do these parties need breaking up because they just don't work for the ordinary person?

00:27:59.060 What we need is an alternative.

00:28:00.580 Because if you look at the post-Brexit consensus in this country that is supported by both left

00:28:06.360 and right, Labour and Conservatives, what is that consensus?

00:28:08.700 Big state, big regulation, big tax, big immigration, big on woke or at least woke adjacent, low growth,

00:28:21.740 no real willingness or appetite to step outside of the elite consensus on any of those issues.

00:28:28.320 So just if you're a Democrat, you don't have to agree with Nigel Farage and reform.

00:28:33.440 But as a Democrat, right, I would say we need an alternative to that consensus.

00:28:37.480 Because if the Brexit referendum in the last 10 years showed us anything, it's that there

00:28:42.340 is enormous appetite in the country outside of London and the university towns for a genuine

00:28:47.540 alternative to the elite consensus.

00:28:50.160 You look at Europe at the European Parliament elections just gone or you look at the direction

00:28:54.200 of America, you know, we have the first big debate coming up with Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

00:28:59.080 There is a serious political discussion going on about the future of Western societies.

00:29:04.540 The UK general election, I found to be utterly woeful.

00:29:08.120 I mean, think about the things we haven't talked about.

00:29:10.920 We haven't had a serious debate about Ukraine.

00:29:13.800 We haven't had a serious debate about Israel-Gaza.

00:29:16.680 We haven't had a serious debate about the long-term growth strategy in this country.

00:29:20.240 Most serious economic analysts, including those on the left, like the Institute for Fiscal

00:29:25.120 Studies, are saying both of the main parties are lying to voters about the state of public

00:29:29.320 finances.

00:29:30.480 Paul Johnson, who I respect, is saying they are not being honest with voters about their

00:29:35.040 taxation and spending commitments.

00:29:37.080 I actually think this campaign has been really grotesque in many ways.

00:29:41.240 I mean, the politicians are not being honest with voters, nor are they being honest about the

00:29:45.180 population explosion, right?

00:29:47.000 I mean, you talk about the housing crisis, very few people out there know what is going

00:29:51.660 to happen over the next 12 years.

00:29:53.280 And if you look at the government's own estimates, 6.5 million more people coming into the country

00:29:57.820 over the next 12 years, 6.1 million because of migration, 92% of our population growth will

00:30:04.040 now be driven by immigration.

00:30:06.420 So we're going to basically need another London in order to accommodate that kind of population 0.99

00:30:12.500 change.

00:30:13.100 That is not me being an alarmist or scaremongering.

00:30:16.840 That is the government's own forecast.

00:30:18.840 Nobody during this election campaign has mentioned that.

00:30:22.340 And also, while they've talked about housing, they've not talked about what is driving the

00:30:26.720 housing crisis, which is mass migration.

00:30:29.500 Again, Farage is the only person who's actually saying that, which is even the Migration Advisory

00:30:33.840 Committee, which is an expert-led, independent body that monitors migration in this country,

00:30:40.360 which is fairly independent, if not liberal centrist.

00:30:44.460 I mean, even they are saying migration is driving up rents, driving up house prices.

00:30:49.080 So throughout this election campaign, I just see mainstream politicians not being honest with

00:30:54.880 the British people about these issues.

00:30:56.140 And one of the interesting points on that is, you mentioned reforms contract.

00:31:00.360 There's lots in there that I disagree with.

00:31:02.060 And I think there's genuine questions about how manageable it is to do all those things

00:31:08.800 at once.

00:31:09.240 I think even Farage himself is sort of indicating that this is kind of a wish list of the stuff

00:31:14.580 we'd like to do.

00:31:15.780 But what I really liked about it is reform I-35 rules, make business easier, cutting taxes

00:31:21.480 for businesses.

00:31:22.780 And, you know, I just, speaking from small, you know, small, limited personal experience,

00:31:27.080 we started the show in a room above a comedy club.

00:31:29.200 Now we have people that we employ.

00:31:31.340 I know that a small business, when you get a tax break, you don't put it in your pocket.

00:31:35.820 You hire another person because you want to expand.

00:31:38.720 That's how you build an economy.

00:31:40.280 It's not by taxing people up to their eyeballs, scrapping net zero.

00:31:45.400 I mean, we don't, you talk about the big things that we don't talk about.

00:31:48.980 Now, that's a conversation that we should absolutely be having in this country.

00:31:52.320 We're not.

00:31:53.060 But one of the things I think is really under-discussed in terms of the politics of this, and it kind

00:31:59.200 of got slipped into our analysis and skipped over a little bit, is Lib Dems, with a fairly

00:32:04.220 small vote share, could be the opposition.

00:32:08.620 And we could end up being in a position where you've got a left-of-center Labour Party that

00:32:12.860 is, to some extent, attempting to fight off its woke fringe.

00:32:16.440 And the opposition, the biggest other party in Parliament, is the Lib Dems.

00:32:21.060 I'm leaving.

00:32:22.540 Lib Dems, somewhere on between 40 and 60 seats, something like that.

00:32:26.340 And people often ask me, why are the Lib Dems going to do so much better than reform,

00:32:30.440 if reform are above them in the national polling shows?

00:32:33.540 We'll never forget the reason is because the Lib Dems are a lot more competitive.

00:32:37.360 Even though they did very badly at the last election, they're still in a more competitive

00:32:40.680 position in many of the seats where they're contesting.

00:32:43.780 But also, they've spent years building up that local concentrated support that reform

00:32:49.140 will now have to do if they're serious about delivering on a revolt.

00:32:53.700 But I agree with you.

00:32:54.740 The Lib Dems will likely have a decent election.

00:32:57.340 The SNP will have, I think, on balance, a disappointing election.

00:33:01.460 But that in itself is significant because Labour will regain Scotland, if the polls are correct.

00:33:06.080 And if Labour regains Scotland, the union is stronger.

00:33:09.060 Scotland won't be having another independence referendum anytime soon.

00:33:11.960 But that, too, will make it much harder for the Tories going forward.

00:33:15.620 So let's say we wake up in the morning of July the 5th.

00:33:18.800 What's the nightmare scenario for the Tories?

00:33:21.160 OK, the nightmare scenario is that the polls are right.

00:33:24.340 Labour's dominant in Scotland.

00:33:25.900 Labour's even more dominant in Wales.

00:33:27.640 Labour's even more dominant in London and the big cities.

00:33:31.840 Labour's even more dominant with the Lib Dems in the university towns.

00:33:35.300 Labour is extending out into the commuter belt in southern England.

00:33:38.620 Labour has taken back every single seat in the Red Wall.

00:33:43.280 So then you're left with a really interesting question for CCHQ and Conservative strategists.

00:33:50.280 Where's the future space for the Conservative Party?

00:33:53.080 So the future space is non-London England.

00:33:56.500 That's the only place they'll have, which means going back into or trying to get back into the Midlands,

00:34:02.100 the northern areas, all of those places that took a punt on Boris Johnson.

00:34:06.100 Well, how are you going to do that if you're a southern Oxbridge Liberal Party that is already saying through its friends in the media,

00:34:12.560 well, the real reason we're experiencing this defeat is because of Brexit, Boris Johnson,

00:34:17.920 Suella Braverman, Rwanda, etc.

00:34:20.680 There's a Rory Stewart view of the world or the George Osborne view of the world, which is very much a 10% view of the world.

00:34:27.340 But nonetheless, they will now convince themselves that actually the answer to this complex dilemma is more Rory Stewarts,

00:34:34.340 more Oliver Letwins, more Ken Clarks, when actually that's exactly what voters rejected through the Brexit referendum and the 2019 landslide.

00:34:41.960 So the only, what I'm trying to say is, the only path forward for the Conservatives is complete renewal around national conservatism,

00:34:50.160 around a conservatism that understands what voters really want in a way that they expressed in 2019,

00:34:59.700 but in a way that the Conservatives really now fully apprehend and respond to.

00:35:03.440 Because if they don't, if they go back to establishment Tory liberalism, they will be blown apart.

00:35:09.080 There will be no future for the Conservative Party in that form.

00:35:13.340 Lower migration, defend the borders, push back on woke, deliver one nation prosperity,

00:35:20.900 accept that you can have affordable, available housing, but you can't have mass immigration at the same time.

00:35:28.440 It's one or the other, right?

00:35:30.020 Unless you want to say goodbye to the Greenbelt and much of, you know, southern England.

00:35:34.160 And be realistic with people about how you're going to drive prosperity.

00:35:37.380 And defend the things that you say you're interested in conserving.

00:35:41.600 Collective memory, history, and identity.

00:35:42.840 Let's stick with the Lib Dems for a second.

00:35:44.340 Never thought I would utter those words in my life.

00:35:46.160 But I feel that given how well we're expecting them to do, actually they deserve a little bit more analysis.

00:35:51.600 What do we know about their view of the various things that we often talk about on the show?

00:35:56.180 Where are they on immigration?

00:35:57.480 Where are they on borders?

00:35:58.520 Where are they on public finances?

00:36:00.580 Where are they on defence?

00:36:01.660 Where are they on all these different issues that people who'd be watching this would care about?

00:36:06.140 Well, the Lib Dems are mainly prospering because the anti-Tory mood is so strong.

00:36:10.720 So what they're prospering from is tactical voting in lots of seats where they are the only competitors to the Conservatives, or they're the main competitors.

00:36:19.140 What are they standing for?

00:36:20.480 I would argue hyper-social liberalism.

00:36:23.000 Ed Davey has said he wants to push the pedal down on the gender stuff in a way that Labour are sort of trying to hold back on.

00:36:30.120 They're instinctively very comfortable with migration, legal.

00:36:34.400 They certainly wouldn't want to leave the ECHR.

00:36:37.200 They are broadly content with the current tax and spending commitments.

00:36:42.900 They worship at the altar of the NHS like everybody else.

00:36:46.200 But I don't think they're a serious political party.

00:36:48.480 I don't think Ed Davey is a serious political leader.

00:36:51.160 I think the strategy through the campaign has been to use stunts to attract attention.

00:36:56.980 But there's no niche issue that they are really able to benefit from because that big call they had at the last election of let's rejoin the EU, well, that's not going to be an issue really for another 10 years, 15 years.

00:37:09.500 It may come back, but not currently.

00:37:11.560 So I think the Lib Dems are mainly prospering, like the Greens and Labour, from an anti-Tory mood because there is no mass public enthusiasm for this alternative because that alternative doesn't really exist.

00:37:23.480 Matt, do you not think that we're being a little bit overly optimistic about Labour's chances in the Red Wall?

00:37:31.200 I mean, let's look at their behaviour historically.

00:37:34.000 They have alienated this voter base over generations, generations to the point where the unthinkable happened and Labour were wiped out in these traditional strongholds.

00:37:47.360 Do you really think the pendulum is going to swing back that quickly?

00:37:50.620 But just be very specific.

00:37:52.460 What do you mean by swing?

00:37:53.580 Right.

00:37:53.860 So what I'm saying is if you look at those by-elections, the Labour vote has often actually stayed pretty static.

00:38:00.660 What's happened is the Conservative vote has collapsed.

00:38:04.440 Much of it has gone over to reform.

00:38:06.380 They're eating about 28% of the Conservative vote.

00:38:10.240 Some of it has gone to Labour, but a lot of it has gone into apathy.

00:38:13.020 Lots of Conservatives are saying, I'm not going to vote at all.

00:38:14.980 I'm sick of this party.

00:38:15.960 I'm not going to vote at all.

00:38:17.720 So the reason Labour is going to win back a lot of those seats is not because there's an upsurge of support for Labour,

00:38:23.720 but simply because Labour's support is staying pretty static and the Conservatives are collapsing.

00:38:28.060 So that in itself tells you a lot.

00:38:30.520 OK, I agree Labour have treated a lot of their voters historically with complete contempt.

00:38:37.480 I think Keir Starmer is very vulnerable.

00:38:40.960 And my personal politics on the table, I'm very concerned about where the country is going under a strong Labour government.

00:38:46.840 Not just because of the things that we usually talk about, migration borders woke,

00:38:50.680 but also because Labour are now going to rewire the constitution to be pro-Labour.

00:38:56.640 Vote for 16-year-olds, reform the House of Lords, devolve more power, strengthen Scotland, Wales, devolved assemblies and parliaments,

00:39:06.140 extend the quangos, extend the unelected, unaccountable government bodies.

00:39:11.740 It's going to be harder for the Conservatives in the future to compete with that.

00:39:17.000 And if the polls are wrong, if we're sat watching the exit poll next week by my friend John Curtis and we find that there's a hung parliament,

00:39:26.880 I haven't completely ruled out proportional representation coming into the mix in British politics over the next five years

00:39:33.220 because the Lib Dems want it, Farage wants it, the Greens want it, a big part of Labour's base wants it, the SNP would support it.

00:39:41.980 I don't think we're done with that debate over electoral reform.

00:39:46.280 By the way, if the Tories get 40 seats, some of them are going to want it.

00:39:50.480 I mean, like I say, the numbers this morning, you're looking at 40 to 50 seats for the Conservatives.

00:39:55.060 My gut instinct is they're not going to do anywhere near that badly.

00:39:59.700 So give us your gut instinct on all the parties.

00:40:01.700 What do you think, just going by party by party, what do you think they're actually going to get?

00:40:06.620 Very solid Labour majority.

00:40:08.880 Bigger than 97?

00:40:12.860 Comparable.

00:40:13.580 Which was overwhelming at the time, to be fair, right?

00:40:16.920 It wasn't like an accident.

00:40:18.100 It was like a huge, huge majority.

00:40:19.920 I think on these numbers, as I say, we're either heading into a polling error on the scale that the polling industry would have to pack up shop and basically go home.

00:40:29.740 It would be devastating if there was anything other than a Labour majority at this point for the polling industry.

00:40:36.280 So I think there will be a Labour majority, a significant, stable Labour majority, at least above 75, 100 seats.

00:40:46.140 At least the Conservatives gut instinct somewhere between 100 and 150 seats.

00:40:53.100 I'd be amazed if they went down to 50.

00:40:54.920 That is, that's an extinction level event.

00:40:57.500 Yeah.

00:40:58.680 100, 150, very weak, divided.

00:41:01.240 Then going into a long leadership contest during the summer, you'll have about 15 people going for the leadership.

00:41:07.180 Lots of those people will be unknown.

00:41:10.340 The Reform Party, one to three seats.

00:41:14.120 Lots of second places.

00:41:15.800 Farage will win Clacton.

00:41:17.700 The Lib Dems, 40 to 60 seats.

00:41:20.400 They'll say they're back, but everyone will know it's just because basically people wanted the Tories out.

00:41:25.460 SNP, disappointing campaign.

00:41:28.540 They'll struggle with Labour re-emerging in Scotland.

00:41:30.780 That's where I think we will end up.

00:41:31.760 Are Greens going to get any seats?

00:41:33.180 They'll get somewhere between one and three.

00:41:35.460 Because this is one of the things that we wanted to talk about.

00:41:38.640 You mentioned the threat of radical Islam.

00:41:40.940 And one of the things that's been boggling people's minds all around the country is you have seen Green Party.

00:41:46.840 So the Greens traditionally are these like hippie, you know, whatever, whatever they stand for.

00:41:53.140 But nobody ever thought that they would have candidates like this.

00:41:57.140 Do not be silent.

00:41:58.540 We will raise the voice of Khazad.

00:42:00.540 We will raise the voice of Palestine.

00:42:02.800 Allahu Akbar.

00:42:03.840 Allahu Akbar.

00:42:04.840 I've never seen Caroline Lucas chanting Allah Akbar on being elected. 1.00

00:42:09.900 So what's going on there, Matt?

00:42:11.380 Well, that doesn't surprise me at all.

00:42:13.240 Green parties are notorious for being a watermelon party.

00:42:16.440 Green on the outside, red on the inside.

00:42:18.780 But they've embraced woke identity politics.

00:42:21.560 They've embraced radical progressivism.

00:42:23.240 So you have an awkward alliance between white graduate liberals like Lucas and minority, radical minority activists like that guy who are given a free pass by the woke, less identity politics because they're a minority group.

00:42:41.120 And they're seen as being oppressed and being seen as victims.

00:42:44.500 We don't need to rehash a lot of the identity politics stuff.

00:42:47.420 But that's why I've become increasingly nervous since October 7th, because it's that alliance between the radical progressive left and radical Islam, which are really feeding off one another. 0.99

00:43:01.440 So the Greens are enabling a sectarianism in politics.

00:43:05.200 And what do we mean by that?

00:43:06.140 Politics being organized along the lines of race and religion in a way we've not really seen since Northern Ireland.

00:43:13.080 And it's becoming embedded in lots of communities, particularly outside of London.

00:43:19.580 So we have a campaign group that's now actively organizing Muslim votes, trying to get British Muslims to vote along the lines of Gaza rather than on the lines of domestic issues.

00:43:29.420 We don't want that in British politics.

00:43:31.000 We want, you know, one nation politics.

00:43:32.640 We want people to focus on national issues.

00:43:35.060 We reject, I reject, divisive, crude, race-based identity politics.

00:43:41.000 We don't want that in this country.

00:43:42.240 The Greens are enabling that.

00:43:44.100 The radical left are enabling that because it fits with their identity politics worldview.

00:43:49.980 I wish we'd had more mainstream leaders, including Keir Starmer, calling that out.

00:43:53.760 But we know that he, too, is enabling that.

00:43:56.240 We've seen the footage of Angela Rayner going to meetings in Northern England, the only woman in attendance, long skirts, falling over herself to placate the grievances of British Muslims. 0.97

00:44:05.580 This is where we're headed, right, in terms of British politics.

00:44:08.400 It's this alliance between radical left activists who are consumed by the binary matrix of identity politics and, on the other hand, minority activists, radical Islamists who are being given a free pass.

00:44:24.100 Is that criticism of Keir Starmer fair, Matt?

00:44:26.400 Because he's come under a lot of pressure from people within his own party because they perceive him to have a pro-Israel stance.

00:44:33.960 Well, I think that's going to, this is what's going to be really interesting over the next five years.

00:44:37.960 Starmer is going to come under enormous pressure from left-wing activists and British Muslims, 90% of whom until recently were voting Labour.

00:44:47.300 He is going to come under enormous pressure to change his stance on Israel.

00:44:53.160 That is especially the case if a second front opens up in the north, which I suspect it will with Hezbollah and a growing conflict with Iran.

00:45:01.500 Prime Minister Starmer will, I suspect, have to go much further than any other prime minister in being hostile towards Israel,

00:45:10.860 being pushed into some kind of formal recognition of Palestine and a two-state solution.

00:45:15.780 And it's going to get very messy.

00:45:19.040 And the people I feel most strongly about are British Jews because next week there will be lots of people in this country

00:45:27.960 watching the election of a strong Labour government led by a man who wanted to put Jeremy Corbyn into number 10 twice

00:45:38.340 with a great degree of apprehension and concern.

00:45:43.340 There will be lots of Jews in Britain who will feel very worried about the direction of travel in British politics next week.

00:45:50.680 And, you know, it is on all of us to make sure their voice as well is heard in this national debate.

00:45:56.440 And the thing that's worrying is that I look at Starmer and I don't think even his wife would describe him as a particularly strong character.

00:46:03.560 Is he really going to have the moral backbone to face down his own party when he can't even say what a woman is?

00:46:10.060 Well, I think the thing that concerns me about Keir Starmer is the inconsistency.

00:46:14.840 You know, so on the one hand, he's speaking for the common people, the working man and woman.

00:46:19.920 On the other hand, he was the guy who campaigned, was very open in campaigning for a second referendum on Brexit.

00:46:26.320 So when the ordinary man and woman voted for Brexit, he didn't want to know.

00:46:29.600 He wanted another referendum until people made the right decision.

00:46:32.840 He has been very inconsistent on issues around the economy, around immigration, around Jeremy Corbyn.

00:46:43.840 I just don't think we really know who Keir Starmer is.

00:46:47.260 I don't buy the media narrative that this guy is a return to moderate, responsible, sensible leadership.

00:46:53.620 I don't think anybody that wanted to make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister, who really put himself that far out in the debate to say that,

00:47:01.020 who was happy to campaign and serve in high office alongside Jeremy Corbyn, I can't take that person seriously because it shows such a lack of judgment.

00:47:10.200 He knew what Corbyn was.

00:47:11.640 He knew all about what Corbyn was.

00:47:13.280 He knew what Corbyn said.

00:47:14.520 He knew what Corbyn believed.

00:47:15.440 And the idea now that he's saying, well, he didn't think Labour were going to win the general election, having gone through 2017, having known how close it was that Labour and Corbyn were, you know, how close they were to power,

00:47:26.520 I do not believe for a second that Starmer thought, well, he won't become prime minister anyway, so I might as well campaign for this.

00:47:32.520 It's a terrible post-hot rationale for what he did.

00:47:36.300 And it's also as well, when you look at the economic crisis that we're facing, do we really want someone who describes themselves as a socialist handling the economy?

00:47:45.500 I'll be honest with you, as someone who has come from a socialist country, which isn't doing too well, the answer is no.

00:47:53.320 Well, I do think there's a case now, the kind of settlement I wanted to see after Brexit is the opposite of what we got, right?

00:47:59.100 And I think Constantine was just referencing this.

00:48:00.840 We should have got into an economy that was business friendly, that was cutting corporation tax, cutting regulation, that was being responsible in the way it was doing that.

00:48:10.000 I'm not saying slash and burn deregulation across the board, but I'm saying you have to make it clear to business there's a competitive advantage for coming to Brexit Britain over the European Union.

00:48:20.980 That should have been step one on day one.

00:48:23.460 It didn't happen.

00:48:24.620 And instead now we've got stuck in this low growth, high debt, big state, very sluggish, slow, overloaded economy that isn't working.

00:48:34.340 So in response to that, we've then thrown bodies at the economy.

00:48:38.800 So we've used mass migration to plug the holes.

00:48:41.420 So let's bring in, in the last parliament, four million people into the country to basically try and keep the whole thing going.

00:48:49.160 Keep consumption going, keep people spending, give business lots of low wage labor, low skill labor.

00:48:56.800 And of course, the problem then is our GDP per capita, GDP per head is going backwards.

00:49:01.560 We're not actually building a productive, dynamic, innovative economy.

00:49:04.980 What we're building is a deliveroo economy.

00:49:07.420 Lots of people doing low wage work, low skill work.

00:49:10.560 It isn't dynamic.

00:49:11.600 It isn't contributing to the economy.

00:49:13.220 You know, I had this guy over recently to our think tank, a Dutch academic, Jan van der Beek.

00:49:22.160 He's done the study on the impact of the kind of migration we have in Britain.

00:49:27.720 But he's looked at the Netherlands and he's looked at a few other European countries.

00:49:31.220 And what he's shown is, contrary to what the elite class tell us, that actually it's driving economic growth and vibrancy and so on.

00:49:40.780 And he's shown conclusively that it's weakening Western economies, that the more you rely on masses of non-European migration, low skill migration, what you're doing is you're basically hollowing out your economy. 0.76

00:49:53.140 And by the way, you're also helping global corporates because they love this, right, because it's feeding their profit margins.

00:49:59.240 And it's also making the elite class in Westminster feel wonderful and lovely because they can go on Twitter and X and they can say, look at me, I'm a progressive.

00:50:07.760 And they win lots of applause from other members of the elite class.

00:50:10.460 But what it's actually doing to the economy is it's costing, in the Netherlands, he's estimated about 80 billion euros.

00:50:17.700 It's costing Western economies an enormous amount.

00:50:21.020 And again, during the selection campaign, we've not had that conversation.

00:50:23.760 We've not even talked about it at all.

00:50:25.020 Nobody has raised that issue except Farage.

00:50:27.820 Again, I'm not here to make the case for Farage.

00:50:30.380 But I am saying Farage and reform are a very useful vehicle.

00:50:34.480 If you want to have that debate, I want to have that debate in this country.

00:50:38.360 I think lots of people out there want to have this debate.

00:50:40.140 And if it wasn't for Farage and reform, we wouldn't even be allowed to have this debate.

00:50:44.060 We wouldn't even be having this discussion.

00:50:45.380 Well, one of the things he said fairly early on that I wanted to ask you about very directly, Matt, is he suggested that by the time of the next election, there will be a Muslim party of Britain.

00:50:54.340 Do you think that's likely?

00:50:56.540 Well, we know it's likely because people have surveyed British Muslims over the last two months.

00:51:02.800 And they found that 40% of British Muslims say they would like a Muslim-only political party in Britain.

00:51:09.660 I've written about this extensively.

00:51:12.200 It's not only that.

00:51:13.300 Half of British Muslims express sympathy for Hamas.

00:51:16.900 A third of them openly say they've got very positive, warm views of Hamas fighters.

00:51:22.800 Younger British Muslims are more radical than older British Muslims. 0.87

00:51:26.800 I find that deeply concerning.

00:51:28.620 Liberals tell us over time they'll integrate, they'll absorb, you know, they'll be absorbed into the wider culture and society.

00:51:35.040 That is clearly not happening.

00:51:37.220 A large number of British Muslims deny that there was rape and murder on October 7th.

00:51:42.920 They exhibit a conspiracy mindset that is not shared by the vast majority of British people.

00:51:47.840 I'm very concerned about all of that.

00:51:50.320 And that, too, speaks to this issue that we can see with the Greens, which is a sort of sectarian-type politics that George Galloway and others are trying to encourage.

00:51:59.880 We don't want that in our politics.

00:52:01.920 We don't want segregation in our communities.

00:52:04.780 I mean, look, if you want to read one book on this, Ed Hussein's book, Among the Mosques.

00:52:08.980 We've had him on to talk about it.

00:52:10.040 Ed Hussein, great, interesting guy, countercultural, brave, right?

00:52:14.100 In that book, he turned up unannounced at, I think it was, a hundred or so mosques across the country.

00:52:20.340 And he makes a very powerful point in that book.

00:52:22.300 He says, if you are young and British and Muslim, you can spend your life completely immersed in Islamic culture, in schools that are overwhelmingly dominated and filled with British Muslims, in your local mosques, in shops.

00:52:38.820 You can live in segregated neighborhoods.

00:52:40.820 You can basically live your entire life without any meaningful interaction with the non-Muslim majority. 1.00

00:52:48.320 Now, when I read that, I found it deeply alarming because, you know, this guy turned up unannounced, was just reporting what he was seeing.

00:52:55.660 When I looked at the evidence at the number of British Muslims who tell pollsters they would like to live a partly or fully separate life independent from wider British society, you're looking at about 20 to 30 percent, which is a significant number.

00:53:11.680 And then when you look at the projections of where we're going between today and 2050, I'll give you one stat so people can think about this.

00:53:20.200 Go online, look at the Pew Research Centre, which is an independent, you know, centrist think tank.

00:53:26.380 Nobody can say Pew is a kind of like right-wing crazy think tank.

00:53:30.320 I think they can, mate.

00:53:31.520 I'm sure they will.

00:53:32.040 And they've done some pretty credible forecasts looking at where all European nations are going to be by 2050.

00:53:38.240 And they make the point that Britain is going to see the largest overall increase in the absolute number of Muslims compared to other European states.

00:53:45.760 And that by 2050, about 20 to 25 percent of Britain's population will be Muslim.

00:53:52.960 It'll be 30 percent in Sweden, about 25 to 30 percent in France.

00:53:57.240 So I'm not saying that to be provocative or to be, you know, alarmist.

00:54:02.820 I'm saying that because if we don't actually start to have a mature conversation about what we're talking about now, about integration, how to make young British Muslim kids feel British, share our culture, share our values, share our ways of life, how are we going to push back against radical Islamism, how are we going to stop sectarianism in our politics? 0.63

00:54:21.340 If we're going to start figuring that out now, we are going to have very big problems down the line where we can already see.

00:54:29.060 We can see those problems in France.

00:54:30.880 We can see those problems in Germany.

00:54:32.760 They're beginning to experience what happens when you don't – well, when you run mass immigration with no serious effort being devoted to integration.

00:54:43.160 Some of my friends, Eric Kaufman, who's been on the show, you know, Eric would say you can't even have integration when you run mass immigration anyway.

00:54:51.300 It's an unsustainable policy.

00:54:53.280 You have to stop inward migration, let the country absorb the demographic trends, you know, wait a significant period of time.

00:55:01.320 And then if you want to continue with some high-skilled migration, that's probably the way that you can just about manage it. 1.00

00:55:07.040 But running what we're doing now, a net migration of 700,000 with no real effort at integration and then calling anybody who raises these questions a racist or an Islamophobe, I mean, that's a policy for idiots. 1.00

00:55:19.240 And unfortunately, you know, the idiots seem to be in charge. 1.00

00:55:22.340 Matt, we've got lots more questions for you, but more importantly, our audience do. 0.99

00:55:25.860 So we're going to take a quick break and then our audience will read you some questions from our locals.

00:55:30.180 And also people are welcome to send in super chats and we will get to some of your super chats and locals questions after the break.

00:55:37.140 See you very shortly.

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00:56:38.600 Matt, coming back to the breaking down of all things British election, we've got questions from our local supporters.

00:56:44.720 The first one from Amy Vals, who says,

00:56:46.360 What is the first policy the most likely incoming Labour Party will implement, and how detrimental will it be?

00:56:53.040 Do they have policies that would be helpful?

00:56:55.480 I think they're going to go hard and fast on votes for 16.

00:57:00.100 I think Labour are going to do what they've always done well, which is use power to cement their power.

00:57:07.200 Conservatives historically are terrible at that.

00:57:09.100 So they'll do probably something like votes for 16, they'll try and get that in.

00:57:13.960 Maybe House of Lords reform, let's see.

00:57:16.160 Oh, overturn Rwanda as well. 0.99

00:57:18.340 That would be a priority.

00:57:19.620 A big symbolic gesture to their activist base.

00:57:22.740 I think Starmer said he'll do that on day one, or at least sign it in.

00:57:26.060 So what are they going to do about immigration?

00:57:29.420 Well, that's a funny thing, right?

00:57:31.280 So Labour's immigration policy, you really need to look at it.

00:57:34.420 It's kind of insane.

00:57:35.620 So they're saying, on illegal migration, they're going to smash the gangs.

00:57:41.040 Okay?

00:57:41.440 Like, no one's been trying to smash the gangs.

00:57:43.180 The criminal gangs who are smuggling people in.

00:57:44.460 They're going to smash the gangs who are bringing people to the dinghies, right?

00:57:48.080 And they're going to say, right, we're going to smash the gangs, but we're not going to have a deterrent.

00:57:52.340 So we're not going to have the Rwanda plan, and we're going to overturn the illegal migration bill,

00:57:57.520 which Rishi Sunak brought in.

00:57:59.080 And what that does is it allows the government to immediately detain illegal migrants and then, over time, deport them back to their countries of origin.

00:58:07.700 So Labour are basically going to remove all of those things.

00:58:10.100 But they're going to smash the gangs with a new border control command post, which already exists.

00:58:16.880 They're just going to give it a new name.

00:58:19.140 Why is that nonsense, right?

00:58:21.200 It's nonsense because if you're just smashing the gangs, you're playing whack-a-mole.

00:58:24.160 Because the only thing you need to cross the channel is a boat, a torch, and a life jacket.

00:58:29.760 But sometimes they don't even have those.

00:58:31.300 So if you smash one gang, there's going to be another.

00:58:33.480 You smash that one, there's going to be another.

00:58:35.580 And then they said they're going to clear the backlog in the home office system of the people who have already made it into the country.

00:58:40.860 And we've got about 127,000.

00:58:42.900 So what does that mean?

00:58:44.020 Well, they're going to process the applications for asylum as quickly as possible.

00:58:47.940 And we know, chances are, they're going to grant approval to like 90% of the class.

00:58:51.840 Well, that's what the Tories did.

00:58:52.820 It's what the Tories did, so they're just going to do the same thing.

00:58:55.200 And what's that going to do?

00:58:56.520 So you've got two big messages to would-be migrants and people smugglers.

00:59:01.700 That basically, Labour's a soft touch.

00:59:03.400 There is no longer a deterrent.

00:59:04.580 And if you make it over, chances are you're going to have your application approved.

00:59:09.020 All of this means that illegal migration crisis in this country is going to get worse, not better.

00:59:13.360 I'd put my house on it.

00:59:14.360 Numbers are going to keep going up.

00:59:15.720 That's going to be a massive problem for Labour. 0.90

00:59:18.640 Legal migration, they said they would like to bring it down.

00:59:22.100 But basically, as we know, Labour are pretty comfortable with mass migration.

00:59:26.220 Most of the official economic forecasts in this country are assuming net migration will stay at least 250,000 a year,

00:59:34.700 which is basically where it was just before the Brexit referendum.

00:59:38.240 So the elite class is assuming mass inward net migration is going to remain at least 250,000, 300,000 every year for the foreseeable future,

00:59:48.340 which is not what voters want.

00:59:51.060 That is depressing to put it mildly.

00:59:53.560 Thank you, Matt.

00:59:53.980 The next question is, is there any political party out there that has a serious, detailed policy proposal on how to deal with the UK's underlying domestic issues?

01:00:04.280 Can you scroll up?

01:00:04.960 Which made us so reliant.

01:00:06.800 Keep scrolling down.

01:00:07.100 On migrant labour.

01:00:07.940 On migrant labour.

01:00:09.540 The Reform Party.

01:00:11.360 The Reform Party is basically the only alternative to the mainstream party consensus on mass immigration.

01:00:20.060 I'm not saying that because I'm campaigning for reform.

01:00:23.400 I'm just saying the only alternative, if you don't think mass migration is a good, beneficial policy, is reform.

01:00:31.020 That is basically it.

01:00:32.100 If you trust the Tories after the last 14 years to lower legal migration, good on you. 1.00

01:00:37.740 Good luck with that.

01:00:38.940 If you trust Labour, who started mass migration with Tony Blair in 2004, good luck.

01:00:44.020 I hope it goes well.

01:00:44.760 But if you want an alternative, the only alternative is reform and frage.

01:00:49.040 I mean, that is it.

01:00:49.600 They're not a perfect vessel, but they are the ones saying freeze all non-essential, non-NHS migration, leave the ECHR so we can control the borders, and push back on woke ideology, which I would argue underpins the elite commitment to mass migration.

01:01:03.860 Keep the questions coming in, especially if you're not on Locals.

01:01:07.040 Send in your super chats and we will read them out after we've done the Locals ones.

01:01:10.480 How many terms will Starmer serve in number 10, given his age and ministerial lack of experience, as Pommi won Oz?

01:01:17.780 My prediction is Starmer will serve one term and he will be ousted by some kind of internal Labour revolt, that he will come under sustained pressure from within.

01:01:30.760 And he'll either lose the next election or he'll be ousted.

01:01:35.560 I don't think he will be serving more than one term.

01:01:38.360 Well, based on what you were saying earlier about the state of the British economy, which all of us can see with our own eyes, as you said, I think very, very quickly people will realise that the thing that was ruining the country was not the Conservative Party.

01:01:51.180 It was the elite consensus.

01:01:54.380 So they're going to be saddled with all the same problems, many of which they will make worse.

01:01:59.600 The question is, what is going to be your protest about the next election against Labour, right?

01:02:05.660 And also briefly on that, I mean, again, I'll go back to the IFS.

01:02:09.100 You know, you can't say the IFS are a right wing think tank, you know, they're sort of centre left.

01:02:13.080 But even they have said, pointed out, Labour have committed to £20 billion worth of public spending cuts that have been factored into the budgets by the Conservatives.

01:02:23.800 So it's not only that we don't have much growth, it's not only that we've got this insane pile of debt that nobody wants to talk about, partly because of COVID and the lockdowns, which we all know were pretty disastrous.

01:02:35.040 It's that they are also already committed to public spending cuts.

01:02:40.320 So if you want the NHS to get better, your local GP to get better, your schools to get better, I mean, it ain't going to happen under Labour unless they break their manifesto commitment, which I think they will, which is having to raise taxes considerably.

01:02:52.920 And we've already got the highest tax burden in this country since the 1950s.

01:02:57.080 But I wanted to ask you a question.

01:02:58.680 Can I quickly ask you a question?

01:03:00.000 Because you've written a lot on Ukraine and Russia, what's your interpretation of Farage's comments?

01:03:08.060 Do you think we should have had an alternative to the mainstream view on that issue?

01:03:12.740 Do you think they were ill-judged, mistimed?

01:03:14.780 I think what happened is he actually made comments which I don't regard as being anything like beyond the pale.

01:03:20.840 I don't agree with Nigel, and we've had him on the show, and there's a clip on our channel.

01:03:24.900 I think that the title is Farage versus Russia or something on Ukraine.

01:03:28.980 And we disagree about NATO expansion.

01:03:31.460 There's a big, long conversation to be had about that.

01:03:34.160 What I think he said in that interview was quite reasonable.

01:03:38.260 I didn't have that much of an issue with it, but that's my personal opinion.

01:03:42.800 But what I also then said on Twitter the subsequent day and got lots of pushback for was that was the first time the media got him on something that his own demographic, his own voters disagree with him on.

01:03:54.360 Because I would say the model, the median reform voter is in their 50s or 60s, 40s to 60s, I'm guessing, probably sees Russia in a kind of Cold War kind of haze, so to speak.

01:04:07.840 I think, you know, we saw the level of support for supporting the Ukrainians after the war started in this country.

01:04:13.580 I'm not saying it's at the same level, but I think the vast majority of British people that I speak to, including people who are interested in voting for reform,

01:04:20.560 they're not that keen in sort of pretending this was some kind of, you know, the West made Russia invade, which is not what he said, actually.

01:04:29.480 But that is kind of how it landed after all the media reporting of it, etc.

01:04:34.260 And so I think he's actually been very consistent on this over a long period of time.

01:04:39.480 As I say, I don't personally agree with his view.

01:04:42.800 But what I think the mistake has been, and I think you alluded to earlier, is that story should not have been allowed to keep going.

01:04:50.160 He shouldn't have been trying to say, oh, Boris Johnson said this.

01:04:53.560 And, you know, getting into all of these arguments, I just think it's derailing to the main message of the reform.

01:04:59.040 And, you know, actually in the break, I checked my Twitter and I tweeted that we were having this conversation saying, is reform sliding back?

01:05:07.100 And someone said, oh, you're only saying that because you want them to.

01:05:09.520 I don't.

01:05:10.240 I agree with you.

01:05:11.120 I think reform are an essential vessel for expanding the conversation.

01:05:15.820 Doesn't mean I agree with every single policy that they're advocating.

01:05:18.680 I don't.

01:05:19.640 But when I look at that manifesto, I look at what they're saying about net zero.

01:05:22.900 I look at what they're saying about cutting taxes.

01:05:24.680 I look at what they're saying about getting the country actually creating wealth.

01:05:30.160 We're losing 10,000 millionaires a year.

01:05:33.840 Now, people in this country hate wealth and they hate, you know, successful people. 0.97

01:05:38.420 I think that's really stupid because they're the ones that pay a lot of the taxes that we then use to look after everybody else. 0.93

01:05:44.280 So I like a lot of the stuff that they're putting out. 0.99

01:05:47.620 Don't agree with Nigel on this particular thing.

01:05:49.440 But I do think letting it run this long was not a smart move just on a purely tactical basis.

01:05:55.360 What do you make of that?

01:05:56.540 No, I agree with much of what you say.

01:05:57.860 I think the only thing I would pick up on is the media.

01:06:01.620 There was clearly a coordinated effort to undermine reform and Farage over the last five days.

01:06:07.020 And that is not conspiratorial.

01:06:08.980 You can go and read the original article saying that Putin, you know, Putin's people had said, no, sorry, Zelensky had said that it was the virus of Putinism had infected, you know, people.

01:06:23.300 And the implication in the newspaper, the original newspaper front page was that Zelensky said that about Farage.

01:06:29.080 And actually, he didn't say that about Farage.

01:06:31.120 They were just talking in very vague terms.

01:06:32.720 I think Mary Harrington has actually written a very nice piece on this in Unheard, where she makes the point that actually, you know, if you look at the realist school of geopolitics that says, you know, on balance, you know, kind of NATO, EU probably did irritate Russia through expansion and so on versus the liberal internationalists who are saying, you know, actually, it's on us to defeat Russia and so on.

01:06:52.460 I think Farage was kind of expressing one side of that debate.

01:06:56.380 I think it's a legitimate view.

01:06:58.020 I think it's an acceptable view.

01:06:59.280 I think we have to have a discussion about how this ends because we seem incapable of talking about where this conflict ends.

01:07:06.500 I don't, my gut instinct is simply saying, well, we're going to beat Russia is not a realistic view, but that's my personal political view.

01:07:15.080 I understand why people say it.

01:07:16.860 But the way in which there was very clearly a coordinated effort among, you know, the sort of the Telegraph and, you know, Tory supporting papers, I thought was pretty transparent.

01:07:26.440 Yeah, no, I agree.

01:07:27.520 I do think, though, that allowing himself to focus on it for that long was probably not the smart move.

01:07:36.100 I agree.

01:07:36.200 That's all I'm saying.

01:07:37.180 But, yeah, look, people should be able to have these conversations.

01:07:40.220 We live in a democratic country.

01:07:41.940 Don't we?

01:07:42.980 We're supposed to.

01:07:44.000 And what that means is that people's views about really major geopolitical British involvement should be ventilated and should be heard.

01:07:54.740 And like I said, I think unlike some of his supporters, Nigel has actually thought about this very carefully and has been talking about it for a very long time.

01:08:02.960 There is a kind of he predicted the invasion.

01:08:04.700 Right.

01:08:05.100 There is a kind of reactive fringe online that is different about that.

01:08:09.820 They're just anti-Ukrainian.

01:08:11.420 I think that's a separate conversation.

01:08:13.280 But I think more broadly what it speaks to is I see this election as a kind of test of, you know, the online echo chamber versus reality.

01:08:21.760 And I think a lot of people across different sides of the political spectrum may be in for a little wake-up call, including people in our space, too.

01:08:30.480 Yeah, I agree.

01:08:30.860 I agree.

01:08:31.280 I mean, I did a Twitter poll yesterday.

01:08:33.540 It said, yeah, how are you going to vote?

01:08:34.900 Labour, Conservative, Reform.

01:08:37.100 Reform's like 70%, which says more about my Twitter following than it does about the mood of the country.

01:08:41.620 And also it says a lot about I think reform has a great online presence.

01:08:45.840 They do well online.

01:08:46.820 It has a great – in fact, the data shows this.

01:08:49.280 Sky have just published the things looking at which of the parties has had more social media impressions and engagements than Reformer, number one.

01:08:56.980 Why is that?

01:08:57.660 Well, I would suggest it's because the guy running Farage's stuff is 23.

01:09:01.100 Like they're very in touch with the zeitgeist.

01:09:03.080 But I agree with you.

01:09:04.540 If I'm right and Reform end up with one, two or three seats, six million votes, a bunch of second places, I would personally say for a new small party that's a good outcome.

01:09:16.100 But there will be lots of people who will see that and say, oh, what happened to the revolution?

01:09:21.040 What happened to 100 seats?

01:09:22.380 Why?

01:09:22.700 Because they're not quite in tune with how difficult it is to actually impose yourself on this political system.

01:09:29.760 I think the point you made earlier about that is 100% valid, though, which is if Farage wins in Clacton, he gets into parliament.

01:09:36.260 And then he has got the opportunity he had before that he has demonstrated he's capable of seizing, which is you're standing in the heart of the liberal establishment right there in their space.

01:09:50.780 And you can punch at them all day long and talk about how they look like low-grade bank clerks.

01:09:55.540 But let me play devil's advocate on that because there are three things he needs to do simultaneously.

01:10:00.500 One, he needs to run a Clacton constituency office and deal with the everyday humdrum of life as an MP.

01:10:07.320 Nobody's picking up the dog poop.

01:10:09.320 Nobody's delivering the newspapers or the GP isn't working.

01:10:13.560 That's not fun stuff, right?

01:10:15.180 It doesn't pay very well either, by the way.

01:10:16.900 The second thing he needs to do while doing that is maintain his national brand, maintain his brand in broadcasting media, print media, continue to drive the revolution in British politics.

01:10:28.960 That ain't going to be easy.

01:10:30.460 And third, he's got his international dimension, helping Trump in November, being active on the campaign circuit in the U.S., doing all of the things Nigel, as an Atlanticist, loves to do.

01:10:42.260 He loves to be in America.

01:10:43.820 So what does all of that say?

01:10:45.100 I'm not saying he can't do it.

01:10:47.540 I'm saying he's going to need to completely rethink who he has around him.

01:10:52.780 He's going to need to have professional, experienced, serious operators who understand what urgent questions and ministers' questions takes to kind of how you table questions in parliament, how you develop policy, how you lobby, how you influence the committees.

01:11:08.700 He's going to need a whole new operation because, in a way, Farage, if he is elected, is going to reach a level, in a way, it's strange to say it, but he's not actually operated at that level yet.

01:11:20.660 Yes, he's been in the European Parliament.

01:11:22.500 It's a very different kettle of fish compared to the House of Commons.

01:11:25.980 He's going to need to really up the game, while also, P.S., building a national infrastructure.

01:11:30.720 I mean, this is a thing people don't understand about reform.

01:11:33.520 This isn't like UKIP, right?

01:11:34.860 UKIP had branches in every seat.

01:11:37.080 UKIP had garden parties, summer parties.

01:11:40.520 I used to go to UKIP conferences when I was writing books on the party, you know, and they would have their own little kind of microculture in these branches where you'd turn up and, you know, they'd be selling fruitcakes because they took the insult that they were cranks and fruitcakes from David Cameron.

01:11:55.960 They embraced that, you know, and they had this whole UKIP culture going on.

01:11:59.880 Reform doesn't have that.

01:12:01.000 Reform doesn't have an apparatus.

01:12:03.360 It doesn't have branches.

01:12:04.340 It doesn't have a national organisation.

01:12:06.140 Somebody said to me during this campaign, they're building the plane while it's flying, and that is actually what's happening with reform.

01:12:14.260 So he's also going to need to come out of this election and say, right, we're going to need, you know, 600 constituency officers.

01:12:20.200 We're going to need, you know, branches, regional chairmen.

01:12:23.120 We're going to need national conferences.

01:12:24.440 We're going to need to encourage Conservative MPs to defect.

01:12:27.340 I mean, this is a serious operation.

01:12:29.060 So the work for Farage, if he's elected next week, is only just beginning.

01:12:36.140 That's a great answer.

01:12:37.080 Thank you very much.

01:12:37.760 The next question is, Matt, your astute analysis about statistical and, sorry, I'll start that again.

01:12:43.080 Matt, your astute analysis and statistical data about immigration has opened many of our eyes to the situation we are facing and has brought most understanding to what needs to be done.

01:12:54.620 Now, however, what about the NHS?

01:12:58.400 Is this a subject that will continue to be ignored as it is a reality too unpalatable for voters and will undermine a leader that tries to tackle it?

01:13:08.520 Claudia.

01:13:10.480 It's a very good question.

01:13:12.000 We need an open and honest debate about the instability of the NHS and how unsustainable the current NHS model is.

01:13:23.240 Unfortunately, the NHS is the closest thing we have to a national religion.

01:13:28.060 We cannot challenge it.

01:13:29.380 We cannot question it.

01:13:30.540 We cannot criticise it.

01:13:32.200 We have to stand in our gardens banging pots and pans and saying how wonderful this organisation is, even though we're giving 190 billion a year to the NHS and social care, but we are getting diminishing returns for that money.

01:13:44.940 We need a frank and open conversation.

01:13:46.640 I think that's starting to come through.

01:13:49.440 I think with the strikes and with some of the policies and ideas, interestingly, Labour have been putting forward, saying we're going to have to reform the NHS in some way.

01:13:57.200 Farage is saying we're going to need to move to a French-based model, an insurance-based model.

01:14:01.640 I think he's right to at least be starting that debate.

01:14:04.660 But absolutely, I completely agree.

01:14:06.420 I think there are some really big taboos that need to be broken in British politics.

01:14:11.880 The immigration one is one. 0.94

01:14:13.400 The NHS is another.

01:14:14.560 We have to be able to criticise and change the NHS or at least say, look, if you can afford it, you should be buying, you should be opting out of the NHS, buying out of the NHS.

01:14:24.540 And then, you know, you shouldn't be paying as much in a way of, you know, financial support for the NHS.

01:14:30.200 I think we're going to have to come up with some kind of alternative solution.

01:14:33.620 Let's go to the next question, which is, given the general trend towards right-wing parties across Europe, does Matt really believe this could be a reform's moment?

01:14:41.480 Or does our electoral system doom them to few, if any, seats, despite a good chunk of the vote?

01:14:46.260 If you look at it through a five-, six-year strategy, yes, Nigel Farage, if he surrounds himself with the right people, if he gets money and manpower, yes, we could do Canada 1993 over the course of two general elections.

01:14:59.180 It starts next week.

01:15:00.640 Farage has to win an election.

01:15:02.220 You then need a five-year strategy for by-elections, local elections, building a party infrastructure.

01:15:07.560 You need to get good people around, famous people, celebrities, people that make the voters look up and say, oh, hang on a minute, that guy's joining reform.

01:15:15.020 That's interesting.

01:15:16.040 You need to do a whole strategy.

01:15:18.280 Yes, it could happen, especially if I'm right with where we're going under Labour and also the hopelessness of the Tories.

01:15:26.180 And if those two things come together, I can't think of another time where Farage has had an opening as big as a potential opening he's about to have.

01:15:35.500 Do you think, because I was thinking about this the other day, we all talk about the shy Tory phenomenon.

01:15:40.940 Do you think the shy reform phenomenon would be even stronger than that?

01:15:46.160 Because it's one thing saying to people, look, I'm going to go vote Conservative.

01:15:50.280 It's quite another saying, I'm going to go and vote for Nigel Farage.

01:15:53.180 Well, so I'm glad you mentioned that because I've been saying, you know, my gut instinct has genuinely been torn, right?

01:15:59.240 I think maybe 60% of me is saying reform, one to three seats, five to seven million votes, a bunch of second places.

01:16:07.900 But there is part of me that thinks I might actually be underestimating the anti-establishment sentiment in the country and reform end up actually outperforming expectations.

01:16:18.020 Like, I am quite conflicted on that, but I think you're right.

01:16:23.380 Maurice Duvage was a French writer in the 50s, and he said, if you want to disrupt a two-party system, the biggest obstacle you face is the credibility gap.

01:16:33.260 You have to be seen to be a credible alternative.

01:16:36.700 If you're not seen as credible, you're not going to go anywhere.

01:16:40.920 Now, what does that mean?

01:16:42.660 It means to get the shy Tories to go reform, they have to believe you're going to win seats.

01:16:47.900 They have to believe you can become prime minister.

01:16:50.200 They have to see you as a credible alternative.

01:16:52.740 To do that, Farage needs to do all the things we've talked about during this interview in order for him to position himself in 28, 29 and say, look, I am it.

01:17:01.800 I am the alternative.

01:17:03.340 Surrounded by other people, competent people, experienced people.

01:17:06.780 Where are all the MPs going to go who are going to lose their seats next week?

01:17:10.040 All those talented Conservative MPs, where are they going to go?

01:17:13.320 I suspect some of them will be hoovered up by reform.

01:17:16.940 If he can get good strategists, if he can get good donors.

01:17:19.840 I know some of the money men are coming back into the mix, by the way.

01:17:23.000 A few people notice this, but during Reform's press releases, there are press conferences.

01:17:28.120 There are serious people in the room with Farage when he's making those announcements.

01:17:31.920 So he is getting people around him that could make a difference, but he's going to need to demonstrate credibility.

01:17:38.180 I can win seats.

01:17:39.280 This party can win seats.

01:17:41.260 By-elections will be key.

01:17:42.920 Watch by-elections over the next year.

01:17:45.060 If those by-elections start being held in Red Bull seats, pro-Brexit seats, and Reform are winning them like UKIP used to win by-elections, this thing will take on momentum of its own.

01:17:54.740 Very interesting.

01:17:56.040 Let's do a few super chats before we wrap up.

01:17:58.620 Someone says, just read Matt's latest substack.

01:18:01.100 I am so annoyed with Farage.

01:18:03.080 To me, he's shot himself in the foot with his Ukraine comments, and his chance to take over the Conservative Party is greatly damaged.

01:18:10.640 This is from someone called Goose Springsteen.

01:18:13.300 So what do you make of that, Matt?

01:18:15.840 I think it's an interesting point.

01:18:18.280 I think we're going to come back and potentially look at Ukraine as one thing that may have made a tangible difference on reform support.

01:18:27.200 Averaging 13% is not good for reform, given that they were averaging 19% a week ago.

01:18:34.320 Now, the polls may be off.

01:18:35.520 Let's see.

01:18:36.000 I don't want to play into any narrative that might or might not be going on in British politics.

01:18:40.800 All I can say as a pollster is there's been a significant shift.

01:18:46.040 Matt, you published a list of Brexit benefits at the weekend, with 10 specifically highlighted that you felt were important in this election.

01:18:54.520 Why aren't these being highlighted better by the media?

01:18:57.720 And this is from Steve Wright.

01:18:58.660 Because I think much of the media class is invested in talking down Brexit.

01:19:07.840 I think being anti-Brexit is now a source of status among the elite class.

01:19:12.780 And I think there is a minority there who are also suffering from BDS, Brexit derangement syndrome.

01:19:18.920 And I think, you know, if you actually look at Brexit objectively, of course there are benefits.

01:19:25.040 I mean, we don't pay into the EU budget.

01:19:26.560 There's one.

01:19:26.960 We're saving ourselves billions of pounds.

01:19:28.580 We're not part of the EU migration pact.

01:19:30.340 We would have had another 120,000 asylum seekers over the last few years.

01:19:35.180 We're an independent, sovereign nation.

01:19:36.820 We can control our destiny.

01:19:38.400 Yes, the Tories have made a hash of it.

01:19:40.000 But we are in control.

01:19:41.560 We're holding the levers.

01:19:42.740 We can build whatever kind of economy we want to build, right?

01:19:46.420 It's up to us.

01:19:47.660 No EU member state can say the same thing.

01:19:50.120 Because they are not operating within a genuine democracy.

01:19:52.700 What makes a genuine democracy meaningful competition over executive office?

01:19:57.320 There is none of that in the EU.

01:19:59.080 We have that.

01:20:00.300 They don't.

01:20:01.160 Okay?

01:20:01.440 Those are the differences.

01:20:02.560 We should be able to say that loudly and proudly that we are, once again, in a democracy, not a perfect democracy.

01:20:09.100 Right?

01:20:09.480 There are problems.

01:20:10.220 We can see that with a betting scandal at the moment.

01:20:12.720 We saw it with, you know, the appointment of Rishi Sunak.

01:20:16.220 But we do live in a democracy.

01:20:17.940 That's one of the biggest benefits for Brexit voters.

01:20:20.260 Matt, I want to squeeze a few more questions in before we wrap up.

01:20:23.560 In the medium to long term, is there a likelihood of the far right gaining traction because of Islamization in the UK? 0.98

01:20:29.960 And by the far right, just to be clear, we don't mean what the media call far right, which is anyone to the right of Jeremy Corbyn.

01:20:35.200 And actually far right parties, which do exist, how do you see that playing out as hello, thrill seekers?

01:20:40.960 In Britain, I don't think the far right will go anywhere.

01:20:45.360 We're not.

01:20:45.940 Our culture is just not open to it.

01:20:48.060 Other European countries, maybe.

01:20:49.640 But then it depends on what parties we're referring to.

01:20:51.960 I think the term far right has become quite meaningless.

01:20:55.860 But, yeah, I mean, it's possible in other European countries.

01:20:58.500 Another question is, anecdotally, I know many unexpected people voting reform who normally just don't bother to vote.

01:21:07.840 How likely is it that the polls haven't picked this up?

01:21:11.240 And this is from Sussy Memes. 0.76

01:21:12.820 Great, great question.

01:21:13.940 Because if you go back to the Brexit referendum, one of the reasons Leave went over the line was because of lots of previously apathetic voters who came out to vote.

01:21:22.680 If the polls are off, that will be one reason why.

01:21:25.220 They're underestimating people who didn't vote previously.

01:21:28.220 Now, when I run a poll, I'm filtering people out in a number of ways.

01:21:33.420 I'm saying, on a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to vote?

01:21:36.420 And if you give me a 6 or above, I'm including you in my final sample.

01:21:41.140 But if you're 1 to 5, I'm thinking you're not really likely to vote and you're going to be excluded.

01:21:46.760 If you say to me, Matt, I don't know how I'm going to vote, or I refuse to tell you how I'm going to vote, or I'm not going to vote, in the end, I'll exclude you from my headline numbers.

01:21:56.060 So you can see through that process how actually the polls could be off, because maybe in the end you're like, oh, to hell with it.

01:22:03.260 I'm going to go and vote reform or whatever, and I haven't picked you up.

01:22:06.500 So that's where you might see some variation on July the 4th that we haven't picked up in the polls currently.

01:22:13.820 Matt, thank you so much for coming in.

01:22:16.180 It's been great.

01:22:16.720 Thank you for having me.

01:22:17.300 I recommend everybody check out your sub stack as well as mine, of course.

01:22:20.200 I recommend yours.

01:22:21.500 We recommend each other, as we all do.

01:22:23.520 Thank you for all your questions.

01:22:24.860 We were able to get in as many as we could, as you saw.

01:22:27.580 But we've got to wrap up.

01:22:28.440 So thank you for being here.

01:22:29.500 Thanks for watching.

01:22:30.200 Make sure you share this conversation with others.

01:22:32.460 And we'll see you again very soon with another brilliant interview.

01:22:35.480 Take care.

01:22:35.840 Take care.

TRIGGERnometry - June 26, 2024

The Definitive Conversation on the UK Election with Matt Goodwin

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