How Nigel Farage Won Brexit
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Summary
Ted Cruz joins me in the studio to talk to me about Brexit and what it means to be an independent nation, and why it's so important to have our own country. I think you'll find a lot of similarities between what we're fighting for in the UK and what we are fighting for here in America.
Transcript
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When Nigel Farage told the European Parliament that the UK would leave the European Union,
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We are joined by a now unemployed member of the European Parliament, Nigel Farage.
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And Senator Cruz, I have to thank you for not only being a number one podcaster in America,
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but also apparently a very good booking producer because you brought your friend Nigel along.
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So Nigel came and joined the Republican conference for lunch.
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He was talking about his incredible leadership and bringing that about.
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And so I walked up to him afterwards and said, well, look, we're doing this podcast.
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I am so glad that you were able to come because this is going to sound like a very stupid question.
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But I thought in 2016, the UK votes for Brexit.
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I, you know, I spent most of my business life before politics working for American companies.
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So I know a lot of Americans, a lot of smart, well-off Americans.
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And they've never quite got what the European Union was.
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And a member state that joins it gives up its sovereignty, gives up the authority of its
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Supreme Court to another court somewhere else, accepts the fact that most of its laws, rules
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and regulations are made somewhere else, and that the electors in a general election cannot
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You effectively become, we became a satellite of this new entity called the EU.
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The people who run it, the commissioners, are not voted for by the people and can't
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And, you know, 30 years ago, 30 years ago, I looked at this and thought, what the hell?
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I mean, what did we fight two world wars for if it wasn't for us to be free, independent,
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And Brexit, I'll tell you what Brexit is in one word, independence.
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There's a kind of parallel over here, I think, because it's not just that there's this fight
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for sovereignty, this fight for having your own nation that's going on in the UK.
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It's actually really interesting because, you know, the other side call us nationalists.
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It's, you know, we're all very narrow, minded, and we hate everybody around the world.
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And the truth of it is that actually what's going on here is there is a movement, a movement
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of those of us who believe that the nation state, run democratically, is the right model
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And within that framework, we trade with each other, we cooperate with each other, we share
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defense, intelligence, and do many other things with each other.
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And I find it fascinating that it's almost like a family of us coming together who are
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fighting back against, and, you know, it is called globalism.
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And they want to do away with the nation state.
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They want us to be ashamed of our countries rather than proud of them.
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And they want a massive transfer of power from democracy to bureaucracy.
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And the great thing is, the great thing is, and it started in 2016.
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But, you know, trends, fashions, whatever it is, we always follow you guys.
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And the reason we're sitting here talking about this, and three and a half years went
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by, is because the establishment refused to accept the result of the referendum.
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And we have had the most titanic political battle in our country since the 17th century
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to make sure the will of the people actually got obeyed.
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On the 31st of January, at 11 p.m., I was there in Parliament Square.
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And, you know, you guys think the English are very reserved.
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You're saying perhaps a pint or two was flowing.
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Well, I think I was certainly downwind of a couple.
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I don't think it's just an historic moment for the United Kingdom.
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Listen, this is the beginning of the end of the European Union.
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Do you think this will lead to other countries leaving?
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And with the end of the European Union, we get the end of the globalist project.
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Now, that doesn't mean they won't always keep on fighting.
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They will, because you will always get, you know, through history, mankind, those that
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So let's stop for a minute and let's go back to how this came to pass.
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When did you arrive in the European Parliament?
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And take us back to the beginning of the Brexit movement, not today, but where it got started.
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We're talking about a pretty old country over here.
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Look, in the United States, when we say take us back, it's to 7.30 a.m.
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Now, there is a very bad joke, I'm going to tell you.
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I asked a restaurateur in Strasbourg once, I said, do you get many Germans there?
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Oh, he said, you know, they pop by once every 25 years or so.
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You know, this endless battle over territory between France and Germany led to two world wars, led to hundreds of millions of deaths.
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And the thinking post-war was we need to get the French and Germans together around the table to break bread.
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And the truth of it is, the more business, the more trade we do with each other, the less likely we are to hate each other and fight each other.
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So the original concept that we have a Europe that comes together was absolutely right.
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Unfortunately, those innocent beginnings turned into the attempt to build a new state.
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They want their own air force and all the rest of it.
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And so what they've done is the ancient nations of Europe are now being consumed, having their identities taken away, their democracies taken away.
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And Mrs. Thatcher, Mrs. Thatcher, who initially had gone along with the European project, believing that it was about trade.
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And, you know, I mean, listen, when Margaret took over the United Kingdom, we were a socialist country.
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It's almost hard to believe the state we got into.
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Well, and as she explained then, the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money.
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Which is a message, by the way, Bernie Sanders and some American politicians could do to learn.
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No, listen, if Bernie is the nominee, then you guys are just going to walk it in November.
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But I will say, God help us if he wins in November.
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Yeah, but the truth is, and we're seeing this across the whole of the Western world, that the left parties are going further left.
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But actually, the middle of our countries looks at this stuff and says, do you know what?
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Well, you know, I actually, this brings up an interesting point.
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I want to get to something where I think you agree on most of it, but I think you disagree a little bit on some of the particulars.
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And that is moving past Brexit to the Huawei controversy.
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In 1988, Margaret Thatcher sussed what the European project was.
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Because the European community was about to change its name to the European Union.
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She blew the whistle, and they got rid of her because of it.
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Because all the big business, all the big banks, and all the big money wanted it to go in that direction.
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And ever since she was gone, the Conservative Party in Britain ceased to be conservative.
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It's a word you used earlier that I think goes really to the heart of what this is about, which is who's in charge.
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And the most fundamental notion, the American Constitution begins with the words, we the people.
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And look, as I look at the EU, the sense I make of Brexit is the British people should decide the laws for Britain,
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and not the damn French, and not the Germans, and not anybody else.
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And of course, what we haven't even mentioned is we lost control of our borders as well.
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So in the early 90s, I joined, I started, I hope to start a rebellion.
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And the rebellion was against the entire British establishment.
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But it was against the Conservative Party as well.
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Like, when you started it, how much of a, with all due respect, of a loon did they think you were?
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Oh, people used to say, I don't know what you're smoking, Nigel, but I'd like some of it.
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And I think at many times during that period, you know, beginning to look a bit like the patron saint of lost causes.
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But I first got elected to the EU chamber in 1999.
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So nearly 21 years, I was there until January the 31st.
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And we just slowly but surely developed momentum.
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And in the end, in the end, in 2014, in the European elections, I led UKIP.
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It was the first time since 1906 that a party had won a national election that wasn't Labour or Conservative.
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And he could see that I was destroying his Conservative party.
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And so in the end, in the end, in an effort to save himself and to save the Conservative party, he said, we'll give you a referendum.
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Because they didn't give you the Brexit that the people voted for.
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And so then we had to refight the battle again in 2019, which I did.
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And within six weeks of founding it, I won the European elections.
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And the Conservative party got less than 10% of the vote.
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And the very next morning, before the results were out, Theresa May resigned as Prime Minister.
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So I can say with some, you know, sort of quite a boast, I suppose, that I have got rid of two British Prime Ministers.
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And, you know, at the moment, he's keeping all his promises.
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At the moment, the negotiating position is right.
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I mean, so, Nigel, help an American understand why Brexit matters to the man in the street.
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What's different in your life as a result of Brexit?
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Well, first and foremost, you know, if you believe in your nation and if you believe in your flag and if you believe in your identity and you believe in your history and you believe in what your grandparents' generation did for freedom and liberty, not just in your country, but in the rest of Europe too.
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If you believe in your country, then the desire to be independent, the desire to be free is something, Ted, you can't put a price on.
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Now, if I'm running a small business, and don't forget Napoleon called us a nation of shopkeepers once.
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Well, 200 years ago, the French thought it was an insult to say the British were full of entrepreneurs.
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But if I'm running that business, all right, every rule and regulation that affects me from employment law to health and safety at work to environmental law, whatever it may be, all of that law has been coming to me from the European Union.
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And there's no political party I can vote for at elections that will change that.
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There's no accountability that they could possibly have.
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Now, with Brexit, we can have proper fights, proper arguments, proper debates about how many people should come into our country, what we should do with environmental law.
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You know, and to think that, you know, Westminster, that amazing palace of Westminster, that we, and called by so many, the mother of parliaments, had given all that away.
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Well, and Nigel, look, this is a consistent pattern in Britain, in the US, leftists hate democracy.
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Because when the people can choose, they don't choose what the leftists want.
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So they want an institution they can dominate of faceless, soulless bureaucrats to govern and rule.
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But also about their sort of supposed moral authority.
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Because they think they're better people than us.
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They genuinely think they're better people than us.
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They know better how to run our lives than we, the peasants.
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When Brexit happened, it was so interesting because Americans loved it.
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And I thought, all right, tell us about your farewell speech.
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So I've done two farewell speeches because the first was in 2016 after the referendum.
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I thought, well, maybe today they'll treat me with some respect.
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I got up and 500 people started booing and jeering.
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And that was when I thought, I'm going to let it.
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And that's when I said, when I came here 18 years ago, I said to you, I would lead a campaign
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Well, I said, you're not laughing now, are you?
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But the last, last speech, which we knew was the end, was properly the end.
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And I thought, look, you know, let's leave, let's go, sort of a little bit cheerfully.
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And the humorless, faceless, ghastly bureaucratic woman who was in the chair cut my microphone off.
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And it's almost like you're holding a cross up to vampires.
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So anyway, she cut the microphone off, which has never happened to me in 21 years there.
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Senator, I want to know from your perspective as an American, as an American senator, what Brexit means for us.
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Because I think we were cheering it on in many ways because so many of the frustrations you're describing we feel here in America.
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Look, I think it is a powerful statement of sovereignty and of independence.
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It is shaking off the yokes of a tyrannical government that's not listening to the people.
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And, you know, I think back to when you had the referendum and Barack Obama came over there and lectured the British people.
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You talk about thinking you're someone's intellectual better.
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Barack Obama, just like the Mandarins that run the EU, believed he was the moral and intellectual better.
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And I remember thinking, gosh, that can't be good for the forces that want to stay in the EU to have Obama condescending and hectoring the British voters.
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It was the way it was there was a big BBC interview and it was the way he just looked down his nose at the country that has been your closest friend and ally for a hundred years with whom we've spent much blood and treasure, you know, and been through some tough times and some good times together.
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We would go to the back of the line if we dared to leave the EU.
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So I was rooting for Brexit, but I kept my mouth shut at it because it wasn't my responsibility.
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This is a determination for the British people.
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If they choose to leave the EU, that's a decision of national sovereignty.
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But who am I to tell them how they should decide this?
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We wouldn't appreciate Boris Johnson coming over and telling us how to run our country.
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Cameron thought it was the absolute ace card in the pack.
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In fact, the British people were revolted by Obama.
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And I think he sort of added about 1% to our score.
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I mean, look, you know, we're the biggest investor in the USA.
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We're the biggest overseas investor in your country.
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You're the biggest overseas investor in our country.
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I know we sound a bit different, but we share a language.
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Not everyone can have as refined an accent as the Americans have.
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And we have an amazing shared history together.
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Although there is the complaint from my fair lady of why can't the British teach your children
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But without the two of us, NATO wouldn't even exist.
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And going on, there's some real work to do on organizations like NATO.
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And so there's so many opportunities now between us.
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You know, we should be buying Levi's jeans and Harley Davidsons without tariffs.
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And you should be buying Jaguar Mordercars and Scottish whiskey without tariffs.
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Despite my being joyous at where we are and with Brexit, and I now want to go out around
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the rest of Europe and spread the rebellion, because I now want Europe to leave the EU.
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It could be Italy or Greece the next time we have a serious economic downturn, because
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Because they've got a devalued currency, effectively.
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So it's very good for them selling motorcars into America and everything else.
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Well, you were also sharing the frustrations of the Eastern European countries.
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The West of Europe, led culturally by the French, has become fanatical about multiculturalism
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and a whole series of very, very woke type issues.
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Listen, these Hungarians and these Poles are very traditional countries, very Christian
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I mean, goodness me, these countries have suffered under communism, Nazism.
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And millions of their people have been exterminated.
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Soviet tanks are a real memory for an awful lot of those citizens.
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And suddenly, you've got bureaucrats in Brussels telling them who can sit on their high court
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about what to do about gay marriage and many other issues.
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So, you know, you've got the economic north-south split.
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All I do know is that the phenomenal opportunities that we've got to bring back together the English-speaking
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I mean, this is what Churchill used to talk about.
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He was absolutely right then, and it's absolutely right now.
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But I do fear that Boris Johnson's decision to allow Huawei into helping to build our new
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There's no such thing in China as a private company.
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You know, this is a communist state, a communist dictatorship.
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And so Boris's decision on Huawei at the minute has put things on hold.
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I mean, for example, there is no date in the diary for Boris Johnson to come and visit Trump
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Now, this should have been happening very, very quickly.
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I even worry that with Huawei on the scene, whether Congress at the moment would even pass.
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Because the issue, I mean, it should be separate, but I'll be.
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Huawei is this giant telecom company that is owned and controlled by the Chinese government.
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The Chinese government is investing billions in building a global surveillance network.
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And they come to countries all over the world, and they offer incredibly cheap telecom equipment.
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And it's a little bit like the drug dealer that shows up at a junior high and says,
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And the reason they're doing it, they're not doing it to make money.
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They're doing it to install surveillance equipment.
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Britain, unfortunately, just announced that they're going to install Huawei equipment on some
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One of the big problems with that, so there is this thing called Five Eyes.
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Five Eyes is an alliance of five countries, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia,
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And we share the most sensitive intelligence and security.
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So if we intercept communications between the Russians and the Chinese, we share that amongst
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Now, here's the problem from U.S. national security perspective.
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If Huawei equipment is installed in the U.K., we've got a serious problem sharing our intelligence
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And listen, we are strong friends of the British.
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But I hope the British government reverses its decision on Huawei.
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And if they don't, I think we will have to reevaluate the Five Eyes relationship.
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And I'll tell you right now, four eyes are better than six eyes.
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I'm going to make sure through British media and British conservative politicians understand
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We love and trust the British, but we're not interested in having our most sensitive
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intelligence intercepted by the Chinese and read by the Chinese communist government.
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And I'm sorry, we haven't even gotten to the most important issue.
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I know this is the one we've been on the edge of our seats about.
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Oh, look, you know, Harry, he's not had the easiest of lives.
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You know, the mother dying and some tough things happening.
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He held some very distinguished positions, captain general of our Royal Marines and many
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I'm sorry, if you're born into wealth and privilege in the royal family, you're also born
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And they told the Queen they wanted to keep the royal titles, go to the West Coast to
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LA and make money, not do any royal engagements.
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They wanted to, as we say in England, have their cake and eat it.
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And the Queen, at nearly 94 years old, has put her foot down and said, God save the Queen.
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And said, you no longer can call yourselves His and Her Royal Highness.
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You no longer effectively are members of the royal family.
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Now get on an airplane and go off to the West Coast, go off to Vancouver Island, go off to
00:26:06.980
We couldn't have our monarchy being devalued like this.
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Let me ask you, on a personal level, how genuinely pissed do you think they are at each other?
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Oh, listen, the Queen is old enough to have lived through our disastrous short reign of
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Edward VIII, who, of course, as we found out later, was a Nazi sympathizer and many other
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And the royal family got rid of him, banished him.
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And I think she takes the view that Harry and Meghan, if they stayed in the United Kingdom,
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And for anyone that's watched The Crown in a couple of years' time, this will be the
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Well, I will say, though, seeing them pal around with Hollywood liberals, I apologize for the
00:27:00.460
All right, well, now that we've at least touched on the most important topic, I think we have
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Nigel Farage, thank you so much for being here.
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Senator, thank you for having such illustrious friends and giving the vantage of a U.S. senator
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We'll have to cause a little bit more trouble on future episodes.
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This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security
00:27:36.620
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