437. Question Time: Farage vs Corbyn: The UK's Next Prime Minister?

Is Starmer too afraid to take on Farage? What does Germany’s turn away from Israel signal? And, how much should kids know about geopolitics? Join Rory and Alastair as they answer all these questions and more. The Rest Is Politics Plus: Join with a FREE TRIAL at therestispolitics.com for exclusive bonus content including Rory and Alastair’s first ever miniseries, early access to episodes and live show tickets, ad free listening, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members chatroom. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. Fuse are giving away FREE TRIP+ membership for all of 2025 to new sign ups TRIP+ gets you ad-free listening, discounts, and early access to episodes and pre-sale tickets for live shows! To sign up and for terms and conditions, visit ⁠https://www.fuseenergy.com/politics⁠ Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It's risk-free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee ✅ For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [email protected] Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Josh Smith Assistant Producer: India Dunkley, Evan Green Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor, Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alastair Campbell?

  Coming up on the show today.

• 0:01Rory Stewart?

  This is probably the biggest opportunity we have to demonstrate that we can control immigration while doing it legally and humanely.

• 0:11Alastair Campbell?

  I think that Labour's probably got another year to 18 months and they've got to engage better on that with the public. Robert Jenrick, who's trying to sort of vie with Farage for the same space by doing sort of snappy Instagram posts. He said, "Do these politicians and these civil servants live near these asylum hotels?" You, Robert Jenrick, until quite recently, were the [bleep] minister in charge of this. Fact, the numbers currently is a lot lower than when the Conservatives are in power. The rest is politics is powered by Fuse Energy and Fuse are now offering £20 credit and free trip plus membership if you switch to a fixed tariff before the end of August.

• 0:54Rory Stewart?

  They've listened carefully to their customers and the number one request was gas tariffs. So now at last you can switch both your gas and electricity to Fuse. One supplier, one bill, one less quokma to navigate.

• 1:08Alastair Campbell?

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• 1:14Rory Stewart?

  Today's political climate is full of talk about control and clarity. Well, Fuse have quietly exercised some, at least when it comes to your energy bill.

• 1:22Alastair Campbell?

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• 1:37Rory Stewart?

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• 1:44Alastair Campbell?

  So go to fuseenergy.com/politics to switch your gas and electricity to Fuse and get your £20 credit and free trip plus membership.

• 1:58Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 2:01Alastair Campbell?

  And I must thank NordVPN because on my Grand European Tour with Fiona, I was away from the Hawthorns for West Bromwich against Burnley, but I managed to watch it. There you go.

• 2:13Rory Stewart?

  I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Creve, and of course, the thing flashed up, saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN. And it was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely, people can do all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying if you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks.

• 2:37Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think, are you not already sort of proud of me that I managed to do this? Or should I say Fiona managed to do this?

• 2:43Rory Stewart?

  I'm incredibly proud of you. That's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com/rusthispolitics. That's nordvpn.com/rusthispolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 3:00Speaker 02

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• 3:37Rory Stewart?

  Welcome to the Rest is Politics Question Time with me, Rory Stewart.

• 3:41Alastair Campbell?

  And with me, Alastair Campbell. And Rory, you said on the main episode, you were going to be nice about Yvette Cooper. Well, we've had a lot, a lot, a lot of questions about all that's going on on the immigration front. Let me just give you a few. Hayley Bright, not everyone protesting immigration can be lumped into the fire right category. Many of us are simply concerned about our children and community amid rising levels of crime squeeze public sector. Do you understand the legitimacy of these worries? Shaun Trainor, with the one in one out treaty being applied without having received parliamentary approval, are you worried that Parliament's role in our democracy is being undermined? Marion Bennie, why Starmer so reluctant to call out and fact check Farage? I might have a go at that one in a minute, but where do you want to start, Rory?

• 4:24Rory Stewart?

  Let's start with the deal itself. I think begin by massive praise for Yvette Cooper pushing ahead with this. This was something that was trailed in their policy before the election. And it gets to the nub of the issue, which is, as we've often said on the podcast, France is a safe country. There is no humanitarian reason why you would need to leave France and move to the United Kingdom. And doing it with people smugglers in very, very unstable, dangerous craft threatens people's lives. And also, of course, is being used by the far right to stoke massive anxiety and is contributing to the possibility that we could end up with Nigel Farage as a very, very major force in government.

• 5:09Rory Stewart?

  So you've got to deal with it. And the correct way to deal with it is a deal with France which says, everybody who lands in Britain on a boat will be returned to France. That's the positive bit. Praise to Yvette Cooper. The negative bit, I'm afraid, I'm going to have a bit of a go at your friend, President Macron here. Because France somehow is missing the whole point of the thing. They're saying that they'll take people back up to a certain number. Now, that's exactly misses the whole point. The whole point is deterrence. If every single person who arrives on a boat was automatically returned to France, the numbers would cease, right? There'd be no point you getting on a boat anymore. That's what happened with the EU-Turkey deal.

• 5:52Rory Stewart?

  Furthermore, it's ridiculous for France to say every time you return someone to us, you take someone from us, because again, if the policy works, nobody would be coming to the UK, then they wouldn't be taking anyone from France, and then France wouldn't have any incentive to collaborate. The real structure, which is what Yvette Cooper and I think the British government wanted to push for, says everybody returns back to France, but Britain will undertake to take a set number of asylum seekers from France every year regardless of how many people arrive. And final thing, if Macron can develop the courage and the detail to get this right, and I think Germany should get behind it, the European Union should get behind it, we have a model for what could happen in the Mediterranean, for dealing with immigration

• 6:37Rory Stewart?

  in the Mediterranean, because we would have proved that there is a legal, court-approved, perfectly reasonable method of dealing with this kind of illegal migration, and it could then be extended to safe third country return from people arriving on the European borders.

• 6:54Alastair Campbell?

  Interesting. The reason you were, I gave you the, the, the open door to mock me over my calls to some of the securacrats about Palestine action was because actually we said last week we were going to talk about immigration, so I was talking to people in the, in the Home Office and elsewhere, and it's really interesting that you say that, because I think one of the things they feel at the moment is that largely because of our media and because of populists like Farage and now Robert Jenrick, who's trying to sort of vie with Farage for the same space, is that the government feels they're not getting remotely a fair deal on this debate at all. Just to give you one example, the, the moment, virtually every day you pick up the right-wing

• 7:37Alastair Campbell?

  newspapers and they're covering these, this relates to Haley's question, not everyone protesting immigration could be lumped into the far-right category. These are people often presenting themselves as concerned mothers, outside hotels that are currently housing asylum seekers. Now, fact, the numbers currently being held in asylum hotels is a lot lower than when the Conservatives are in power. Is that a fact that the government has been able to land with the public? It would seem not. Much, much harder when you do have the media that we've got and the populist politics that we've got. This relates to Marion's question. Why is Starmer so reluctant to call out and fact check Farage? Very good example this week.

• 8:21Alastair Campbell?

  Farage posted a video purporting to be of men with brown skin arriving on a beach shouting allo Akbar. And Farage saying, these are the sort of people that Starmer's sort of letting into our country. Turned out it wasn't our country at all. It wasn't 2025, it was years ago. And then Jenrick, I'd be fascinated, Rory, what you think about Jenrick's positioning. Because what Hayley's question relates to, Jenrick did a social media post and he's becoming like Liz Truss. He thinks he can become leader of the Conservative Party by doing sort of snappy Instagram posts. And he turned his Instagram post, presumably at the Mail on Sunday's request, into an article headline.

• 9:03Alastair Campbell?

  I care more for my daughter's safety than the rights of foreign criminals. That's why I support every peaceful protester outside an asylum hotel. If you want to study populism at its most venal, there you have it. I care for my daughter's safety more than the rights of foreign criminals. Find me a parent who doesn't. But what he's saying is, and in his video, he said, do these politicians and these civil servants, do they live near these asylum hotels? No, they don't. Well, I assume that includes you because you, Robert Jenrick, until quite recently, were the fucking minister in charge of this.

• 9:45Alastair Campbell?

  And the policy pursued by Yvette Cooper, as your former colleague Rory Stewart seems to acknowledge, is at least beginning to work better than the expensive gimmicks and the bullshit you came out with.

• 9:58Rory Stewart?

  But I do think there's a very interesting question about all these leaders. Yvette Cooper, Macron, in the sense that they had an incredible opportunity here with this big summit between Macron and Starmer to come out with a really big, bold, courageous statement, which is every single person now arriving on British shores will be sent back to France. It would have been a fantastic headline and achievement. I'm very confident it would have stopped the issue overnight. So why didn't they do it? Why did they both?

• 10:32Rory Stewart?

  Miss the opportunity by going for a sort of technocratic fix. And this is where I think the flaw is that they're not doing spectacular courageous stuff when all the world media is looking at them, which allows them to appear decisive. They get into these sort of slightly overly detailed, half-hearted things, which in the end run the risk of being the worst in all worlds because somehow the French government doesn't get it. The point of this needs to be to stop this. And the way you stop it is every single person who comes over is returned.

• 11:04Alastair Campbell?

  This is what we said at the time when this deal was done, is that it's a step. I think nobody should project this as the sort of, you know, the thing that's going to end.

• 11:11Rory Stewart?

  But they shouldn't do it as a step.

• 11:13Alastair Campbell?

  No, but wait a minute, Rory. The point I was going to make, we said at the time that we wondered whether the European Union, the Commission and all the member states would buy this because there was a worry amongst some of the European Union member states that this would be basically France able to lob its problems further south to some of the countries that are already dealing with this. So I think having got the principle accepted, I hope that what then happens that this is taken to the to the next stage. So I agree that it's it's not the, I think one of the points that Yvette Cooper does quite well, she doesn't, and this is in direct contrast to when General was in charge, she does not say, we're doing this and this is going to sort it. She says this is really quite difficult, really quite complicated, involves a lot

• 11:58Alastair Campbell?

  of international cooperation, and that is what we're building. And I asked them at one point last week, I'll send it to you, you can have a look at it, I asked them to send me a kind of catalogue of all the different things that they've been trying, that they've been doing, the different initiatives, the different meetings, et cetera. Nobody can say she's not putting the work in. And I think that is part of the battle because where, you're right, and listen, I really worry about this issue because I think that Farage, he's becoming

• 12:23Alastair Campbell?

  Ever more reckless, I think, in his exploitation, because I think he will be feeling slightly under pressure from Jenrick. And I'd be fascinated to know what you think of Jenrick's kind of transition from this sort of Cameroon figure to this sort of, you know, list truss on steroids, Instagram guy wandering around, making ever more kind of extreme statements because he knows that's what plays into this kind of right wing Conservative Party vote that he wants to have when Kemi Badenoch falls off her perch. But I think that Labour's probably got another year to 18 months to carry on with this style, to do this sort of detailed stuff, and at the end of it, to be able to say, look, it's not perfect, but this is the progress that we've made. Bearing

• 13:08Alastair Campbell?

  in mind that their opponents, including the press, and it is amazing, if you think about it, Roy, if you read The Sun, The Mail, The Telegraph, The Express, The Times, et cetera, you would think that there had been no asylum hotels until Keir Starmer became Prime Minister. When in fact, Labour have got fewer people in fewer hotels than was the case when they were elected. Now, that's a communications issue and a political issue, and they've got to engage better on that with the public and better at challenging reform and at challenging Jenrick, who's clearly decided this is his issue.

• 13:41Rory Stewart?

  This is the big challenge for everybody who cares about the Progressive Centre, because here's an opportunity, this is probably the biggest opportunity we have, to demonstrate that we can control immigration while doing it legally and humanely. This is the opportunity, if we can get this right with France, which is to say, everybody arriving in Britain from France will be returned to France. And by doing so, who's going to pay 15,000 euro to a people smuggler if every single person who arrives gets sent back? In fact, what they found with Turkey when Greece did this, is you only have to return the first hundred people,

• 14:24Rory Stewart?

  and the thing stops almost immediately. If we can get this right, we can prove that we can do it while respecting the European Court on Human Rights, European Court of Justice, the Refugee Convention, the Convention on Child Rights, the Convention Against Torture, all these things. The next stage to that would then be Europe making a deal with, for example, Kenya or Senegal, or another EU-Turkey deal to do the same thing in the Mediterranean. Because what they will have established is exactly what the far-right keep claiming, from Farage to Trump, to the AfD, which is, we've got to ignore all international law. We've got to rip up the European Convention on Human Rights, because the only way to

• 15:07Rory Stewart?

  deal with this issue is to break the law, break all international conventions, and take the world back to where it was before the end of the Second World War. So, Britain and France got to get this right, and then Europe's got to get this right, because it's in Europe's existential interest, actually, to make sure Farage doesn't end up leading the United Kingdom, and that the AfD doesn't end up leading in Germany. It's on 25%, even though the German economy isn't in the trouble it might be in in two or three years' time. So, yeah, I think the stakes couldn't be higher, but because of that, we need to hear the courage. And final point to you, I still don't quite get why Starmer is not calling out Farage more.

• 15:49Rory Stewart?

  There should be huge possibilities in saying, no, you're lying about your crime statistics. I mean, you see people, oddly, people like Fraser Nelson, the ex-editor of The Spectator, very much on the right, seems to be more consistent in making the arguments for multi-ethnic Britain, making the arguments around crime, than some of the Labour leadership is. I mean, given it's a progressive government, why are they not, why are they not finding this huge opportunity to stand up for the values that most Labour voters deeply care about?

• 16:22Alastair Campbell?

  Well, it's important to know this, I said ages ago, even before they got elected, that Labour should have a team of people, including MPs, who basically get on with their day jobs, they're MPs, they're doing their constituency stuff, et cetera, but give them the job of taking down Farage and taking down Reform. And you see bits of it. There's a guy, Mike Tap, in Dover, I think, does quite good stuff on social media, but, you know, with all due respect to him, I, how many of our listeners would have seen that, been aware of it, don't know. Here's someone that made that big speech, really going for Reform. Um. But that was a one off. I didn't see the sort of campaigning coming through on

• 17:03Alastair Campbell?

  the back of it that said, right, we say you're going to be a you're a big threat to the country. This is how we deal with big threats to the country. We take them down. And I think I still think they're in that mode of not quite deciding whether if they go after him very, very hard, it somehow plays into his hands. But I think if you you cannot allow somebody like Farage to get away with constant misinformation, with constant polarization, with constantly getting, you know, this line that all of these people are decent people. Some of them are decent people. Some of them are decent people with a genuine concern that you have to address. You've made that point. They have to sort the issue. But where it is being whipped up by the Tommy Robinsons

• 17:48Alastair Campbell?

  and and and their ilk. And you've got to call it out. And then the other thing to bear in mind, we're going to talk about Corbyn in a minute. Jeremy Corbyn's always been a leader who doesn't really like having people to the left of him. Okay. And that's why he's going to be quite comfortable in this position that he finds himself in now. Nigel Farage wants people to the right of him. He wants the Tommy Robinsons, Stephen Yaxley Lenins. He wants to be able to say, they're not ours. I think Labour should be saying, I'm sorry, you actually, you're part of the same tribe on this. And call that out a bit more. And, you know, and repeat my point, which I'll repeat probably in vain till the day I die. Um, that the other way that Farage

• 18:30Alastair Campbell?

  has got to be hit hard. The one thing you've done with your life and your career, you gave us Brexit, and look where it's got us. So are we really going to give you over the whole country?

• 18:41Rory Stewart?

  Well, and I think that I think everything you say, I mean, Labour MPs I talk to, and admittedly, they may be more on the centre left of the party, it would be complete music to their ears. They're horrified because what they see is that everything from the statements on immigration to the Palestine action stuff all feels to them as though Labour is chasing Farage votes rather than standing up for the values that most Labour MPs profoundly believe in. And one of them obviously would be consistently talking in defence of minorities. And that's also, I think, why they were quite worried, why some of the positions the government took on on trans issues too, because as one of them was saying to me last night.

• 19:24Rory Stewart?

  There is a very, very strong belief, rightly or wrongly, in the Labour Party that if you start attacking one group of minorities, it doesn't stop. You should stand up for minority rights, full stop. Here's a question for you from Tom Yardley, Trip Plus member from London. In the scenario where Labour became as unpopular as the Tories were prior to the last election, it's coming down to Corbyn versus Farage. Who would you vote for? There we are, Alison, go on, we're putting you on the spot here.

• 19:53Alastair Campbell?

  No, Rory, Tom Yardley did not pose that question to me. He posted to both of us, so Rory, who would you? No, I would, I would, um, look, I, I have, I, I've, despite being expelled by him, I did at one point vote for Jeremy Corbyn to be Prime Minister. I voted Labour.

• 20:10Rory Stewart?

  Not a complicated question for you, no.

• 20:12Alastair Campbell?

  But I, you know, what I would say, I don't think that is going to happen. I don't think that is going to be the choice. But I do think, this is what's so interesting about what's going on, is that we are on the cusp, certainly, and maybe we're already in it, of becoming a kind of European-style, multi-party democracy in, in a first-past-the-post system. So it's not impossible that somebody could end up becoming Prime Minister, and including with a majority in some scenarios, by getting a quarter of a very low turnout. So I've answered the question very directly, Mr Stewart. Who would you vote for? Corbyn or Farage?

• 20:56Rory Stewart?

  It's a pretty horrible choice, isn't it? But probably narrowly, I'd go with Corbyn. And not just because of his beautiful ears. Now, Alison, on, on this, just, just, just remind us for a moment, because this European story is very interesting, isn't it? As you've reminded us on France, but I'm not sure everybody's fully taken this on board. Basically, the French equivalent of Conservatives and Labour. Kind of almost disappeared.

• 21:19Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 21:19Rory Stewart?

  And were replaced by a centre, a far right and a far left. And that's happened in other European countries too. Just, just a quick reminder on that, because I do think it's relevant to your point about European democracies.

• 21:31Alastair Campbell?

  Take Germany, the biggest country in the European Union. So they've currently got another grand coalition. So the two main parties have now come together to form a government. Right, but nobody should read from that, that that's basically the public saying, you know, we really support the two parties. This has happened because they're the only two that could come together and form a majority. We've talked a lot about Holland, where the Vilders is a very, very, very, very powerful force. And he's the kind of, you know, the Farage of the Netherlands. Even in the kind of Scandinavian democracies, we've seen, we've seen coalitions forming between parties that you wouldn't necessarily expect to work together. So I think that, that is a sort of European trend.

• 22:14Alastair Campbell?

  One of the other things I read this week was actually about the, the, the numbers of parties, you know, when you put them into the different families, the, the numbers of parties on the far right is still growing. I mean, it'd be very, very interesting to, to see what goes on with Corbyn. Because of course, I think Labour's response on this has to be very careful and quite clever. Because I think part of them think, well, you know, and their initial line was, well, the guy has been rejected twice. Well, okay, but he got almost forty percent of the vote. And Labour and Tory between them in the polls right now are around about that, if not slightly below it.

• 22:56Alastair Campbell?

  The other thing I think Labour should be careful of is, is to understand that Corbyn is going to become, in terms of when he gets this party up and running, if he does get up and running. You can have Farage to the right, Corbyn to the left. Corbyn, in previous elections, the media has been trying to kill him. Because he might have become prime minister, okay. This time, the media will be using him like they're using Farage now to try to undermine the Labour government. That's a very different dynamic.

• 23:28Rory Stewart?

  Couple of quick things. I mean, firstly, there's an interesting parallel, as you've just pointed out, with Germany and this not, not the Wagenknecht party on the far left, but De Linde, which has just brought in a charismatic young leader, maybe their equivalent of Zara Sultana, and is now up, I think, well up above 10% in the polls. A second thing, what an very strange party this new Jeremy Corbyn party is. Jeremy Corbyn, of course, collects around him a very, very diverse group of people, including these people like Andrew Murray, who grew up, I think I'm right in saying, in sort of proto-communist Trotskyite bits of the Labour Party. And when they're interviewed by people like the New Statesman, it's absolutely extraordinary.

• 24:13Rory Stewart?

  I mean, they talk in this incredibly complicated jargon about their party's procedures and their mechanisms. So what one of them says, we have to aim to support extant popular institutions, organised labour, cooperatives, anti-war groups, and build new ones, bill payers' unions, boycott campaigns, to lay the foundations for an effective socialist electoral challenge. And then Murray replies, "An umbrella alliance would fail to articulate a coherent oppositional politics, while a centralised party could struggle to incorporate independent forces. A party with an affiliation model might be one way of squaring the circle, but whereas

• 24:53Rory Stewart?

  Schneider envisions largely extra-parliamentary organisation, Murray hopes this has, anyway, goes on and on and on in this kind of way, "an incredible parliamentary bloc that could use its national profile to mount a genuine systemic challenge. Its main goal should not be to create such forms of associational life, rather than using the party to reconstitute the working class. The party could create the space for the working class to reconstitute itself."

• 25:22Alastair Campbell?

  Ah, well.

• 25:23Rory Stewart?

  When you were coming into Labour politics, were you somewhere on the fringes of your world, people talking in this highly kind of theoretical, I mean, it's almost, he sounds like a sort of, he sounds like a German philosopher at times, right?

• 25:35Alastair Campbell?

  My newspaper, The New World, one of my fellow columnists, Paul Mason, who flirted with Corbynism for a while. But he's become like a lot of people who dip their toes into this sort of politics. He's come out absolutely horrified and he's written a very good column this week analysing the education of people like Andrew Murray, James Schneider, who you mentioned, Seamus Milne, Corbyn's right hand man. Seamus Milne went to Winchester, Schneider went to Winchester and according to Paul Mason, the school that Andrew Murray went to, the current's annual fees are forty five thousand pounds. So, and this is, if you go back to the 30s, Paul's very interesting on this as well, you go back to the Communist Party of Great Britain,

• 26:17Alastair Campbell?

  which is kind of back in the 30s where these guys would probably be, it was full of public school educated, kind of, you know, intellectuals who were telling the working class what was good for them. And of course, these people wouldn't really understand the lives of the working class much at all. And then the other thing you've got to say about Jeremy Corbyn, when he was leader of the Labour Party, he, he was kind of doing his own thing, but he was, he was a lot more constrained than he will be with this. And my point about not wanting anything to the left of him means that this thing is going to be wide open to all sorts of kind of people that ultimately, I mean, God, he got in enough trouble with getting selfies with dodgy people, but this time it's going to be, but we'll have to see.

• 27:01Rory Stewart?

  I think the other thing that most listeners in Britain will be aware of, but maybe international listeners won't be aware of, is that a large core of his MPs seem to come from this independent group, which were predominantly Muslim candidates who ran against Labour candidates in, in often Muslim dominated constituencies. This is an alliance which will have highly progressive people who are very much in favour of transgender issues, you know, might get Clive Lewis sympathetic towards them, Labour MP, or, but on the other hand, it's going to have Muslims who's maybe much more conservative in their social values.

• 27:39Alastair Campbell?

  I got sent this from somebody I don't know. Um. Who've emailed me on my website and it's a voice note from a young man called Jacob Stokes. And I've checked out with him. He's happy for us to to use this. I'd be really interested to be your reaction. I've edited it down a little bit, but. He's a young guy, early twenties from the north of England, currently studying in the south of England, but just just have a listen. To this, because I think this speaks to what we've been talking about in this episode so far about. Immigration, about Farage and how he exploits it and and also about Corbyn and Labour.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  I think I record this because I'm disillusioned, disenchanted and probably distraught. By the way that the UK seems to want to do politics, either on the far right with Farage and the weaponisation of. Immigration, the lack of care for detail, the lack of care for complexity. Typical populism and the proposition that we'll leave the ECHR and become brothers in arms with. Russia and Belarus as the only three nations to opt out of the ECHR. And then on the far left, we've got Corbyn promising to re-nationalise everything that ever existed and to.

• 28:57Speaker 03

  Bring about world peace and bring about human rights across the world. For me, as a person who genuinely believes in the centre ground, I don't relate to either of those parties. I don't relate to either of those people and either of those people's history. What I do relate to is rational debate, a rejection of populism and a true belief in the centre. But come three years' time, when the UK goes to the ballot box, who the fuck do I vote for? I can't vote for Labour, massive failure, failure in communication, a pandering to the far right, a government that seemingly changes with the wind. A reactionary government that cannot communicate what it actually believes in. I can't vote for the Tories.

• 29:42Speaker 03

  Ten years of failed leadership, a no-deal Brexit and. A tendency to appease the far right in their own party. Reform, neither say anymore. Of course, I won't vote for reform. And then you've got Jeremy Corbyn's new party, which fragments the left and makes it more likely for a reform government based on the polls. So where the hell do I go? Where the hell do many people that I do genuinely believe we represent? Not just me, but the fact that Rory and Alistair have the most popular political podcast in the UK. Where the hell did those voters go? We cannot wait and let this pass us by.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  And now I'd love to step out of my door and create a movement, but the reality is I don't have that leverage. But you, you two do. You both have that leverage. Please, I beg you, create a party for the centre ground and let's fight.

• 30:40Rory Stewart?

  I mean, it's very, very powerful and he's, he's right, isn't he? Um, because it's everything that this podcast has been about from the beginning. Um, and look, none of this is easy. Because setting up a new party is shattering and often humiliating and painful. I went through a horrible experience trying to run as an independent in London and I really, you know, I felt that it was something that was probably not something you could do in a year. It felt to me more like something I'd have to keep chipping away at over 10, 15 years before you'd really get into position. Um, but part of it, it's just a small part, um, is this question of how does the centre ground act boldly? You know, we, we talked about migration as an example.

• 31:25Rory Stewart?

  I think that's an example of how we could answer his challenge, you know, explain how you can be humane, respect European court and human rights and deliver. Uh, and stop giving the impression that the only people who can do things are the far right. I think this is the risk. I mean, Trump's created this world which Farage is feeding into, which is we're the only people who can get anything done because we just ignore international norms, we ignore courts, we can just crash it through. But yeah, it's the big challenge of our age, isn't it? And, um, I, I don't know. I mean, how do you struggle with this? You presumably continue to believe that the Labour Party can be the vehicle to do that.

• 31:59Alastair Campbell?

  Well, funnily enough, I had, I had an exchange with Jacob after he sent the voice note, not least to ask his permission that we could, we could use it. Um, and I, I think I do, yeah. And, but I think that, I think the Labour Party really, really needs to listen to what he's saying. He's 23, I think. And obviously coming from quite a left wing family, left wing background, but feeling that what he sees of the Labour Government so far is not inspiring him. And it's the old Harold Wilson thing, you know, the Labour Party is a moral crusader or it's nothing. I sense of him that he will get re-inspired, he'll get re-engaged if he's re-inspired. And what's inspiring him at the moment is a sort of a mixture of fear and anger, and as he says, he's distraught. And he's looking to us to think, well, you guys have got a

• 32:44Alastair Campbell?

  lot of listeners and, you know, people seem to like your podcast. I've got to be honest, whenever people say to me, as they often do, please get back, please get engaged, please do this, please do that, there's a part of me that feels kind of moderately flattered, but inside I feel a sinking. Because it's the point that you make, it's like, well, how? It's bigger than anything that we're talking about. The things we're talking about are big, but to do that, and I really, maybe this is the tribalism, when Corbyn is asked, you know, Neil Kinnock has this line, it's going to become, you know, Nigel Farage Assistance Group. Now, up to a point, that's obviously clearly right, but Corbyn's answer to that

• 33:26Alastair Campbell?

  is, well, I'm the only one out here who's constantly attacking the Reform agenda. That will be his argument.

• 33:32Rory Stewart?

  His argument would also be that he's partly there because Zara Sultana was suspended by Labour.

• 33:39Alastair Campbell?

  And he was expelled.

• 33:40Rory Stewart?

  And he was expelled. And that if, and this is the point Labour MP was making me yesterday, that when you guys were in, you actually tolerated what Corbyn was up to, and I suppose what Tony Benn was up to and the rest of them. You didn't do this. That in some ways, this is a problem of Starmer's own making, that had he not been suspending and expelling them, they wouldn't have found it necessary to make any party.

• 34:02Alastair Campbell?

  Anyway, listen, I want to thank Jacob, he's given us lots of food for thought. I'm not going to promise that we're going to play voice notes every week, but if people do want to communicate in that way, that's fine. I just found his message, it just arrived out of the blue, I found it very moving, actually.

• 34:20Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, it was very moving. And look, one small thing, just for Jacob, I am wondering now, increasingly in terms of my own personal life, whether the answer isn't for me to re-engage with politics at a much more local level, so much less kind of grand, national, international. But think about, you know, I keep banging on about the importance of mayors and local democracy and citizens' assemblies, and I'm beginning to wonder whether I shouldn't be trying to make that work. At a much more local focus.

• 34:48Alastair Campbell?

  Cumbria.

• 34:49Rory Stewart?

  Cumbria, that's right, Cumbria.

• 34:51Alastair Campbell?

  Are you dropping, are you dropping a very large hint here, Rory?

• 34:54Rory Stewart?

  No, this is just the beginning of a thought process, Alice, the beginning of a thought process.

• 34:58Alastair Campbell?

  When I, when I, when I put this to you a few weeks ago, you said, no, that's not happening.

• 35:03Rory Stewart?

  No, I, I'm, I'm beginning to shift, I'm beginning to think, but of course it's, it may be all pie in the sky because, you know, how on earth does one run as an independent against all these big parties?

• 35:12Alastair Campbell?

  Well, they're not, the point Jacob's making is they're not as big anymore.

• 35:17Alastair Campbell?

  They're not, they're not the same things. Anyway, thank you, Jacob. Let's, let's take a break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about, are we about to see the world's first 100 year old president?

• 35:32Rory Stewart?

  Right, good. See you then.

• 36:08Alastair Campbell?

  Welcome back to the Rest of the Spotlight's Question Time. Me, Alastair Campbell.

• 36:12Rory Stewart?

  And with me, Rory Stewart. Now here, Alistair, I'm going to catch you up on the niche question. Test your general knowledge. With the news that Cameroon president Paul Bia is running for another term in his 90s and will be 100 at the end of this term, do A and R envisage still podcasting when they hit three figures? I, I guess I'm pushing you more to talk about Cameroon than about our future podcasting in 50 years' time.

• 36:39Alastair Campbell?

  I, I think it's highly unlikely that I will be alive. But Cameroon, so you think you can trick me, do you? Well, I, I've met Paul Bia.

• 36:49Rory Stewart?

  What? When did you meet Paul Bia?

• 36:52Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, one of those big sort of EU-Africa events with TB, because he has been in power for a long time, Laurie.

• 37:00Rory Stewart?

  Oh, you mean he's not one of these guys that first stood for politics in his 90s?

• 37:05Alastair Campbell?

  No, he's not one of these guys that I've consulted or advised either. Would I have advised him to put his name forward right now? I'm not sure. What's happened here in Cameroon, there was a guy, I think the main opposition guy, a guy called Kamto, he was ruled out. The electoral body decided, no, I'm sorry, Mr. Maurice Kamto, you can't run. But the president, he was cleared to run for his eighth term. And it means he's now 92. The election is next year. He'll be 93. It's a seven-year term, so he would be 100 if he got to the end of that term. I just hope nobody tells Donald Trump.

• 37:45Rory Stewart?

  As African minister, Cameroon largely featured because there's an Anglophone, an English-speaking part of Cameroon, that has a very, very difficult, fractious relationship with a French-speaking part of Cameroon and where there have been huge human rights abuses and demands for independence. In fact, actually, we should next week talk about Trump now signalling things on Somaliland. But I'm very struck that His Excellency Paul Bia became Prime Minister in 1975. He's the second-longest-ruling president in Africa after the president of Equatorial Guinea.

• 38:18Alastair Campbell?

  Yep.

• 38:19Rory Stewart?

  And the longest-consecutively-serving non-royal national leader in the world, the oldest head of state in the world. And I'm very struck by his remarkably black hair, given his advanced age.

• 38:29Alastair Campbell?

  What does Karamouchi call it? Latin dictator, Latin dictator brown?

• 38:35Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, so I suppose maybe we're being a little bit flippant because presumably it is a very, very worrying and sad for Cameroon and its development and its future that somebody is sitting there since 1982 and is trying to extend themselves into another term.

• 38:50Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, it's pretty absurd and... But there we are. There are plenty of absurdities in the world and that story adds to them.

• 38:58Rory Stewart?

  Okay, next one for you. Will Cave, Trip Plus member Somerset. Hi Rory and Alistair, can you comment on Chancellor Metz's decision to discontinue military aid to Israel? How will this affect Germany's post-war relationship? Will America plug the gap? Or is even Trump beginning to sense that he has something to lose by continuing to supply weapons to the prior state?

• 39:19Alastair Campbell?

  Well, this is a big deal. He hasn't, as it were, suspended all arms to Israel. He's done what Britain did a while back, which is essentially saying, we're not sending any arms to Israel, which might be used in Gaza, which when Keir Starmer did it, he got criticised on both sides. Israel saying this is sort of rewarding Hamas and people on you know, the sort of progressive side of politics, basically saying this doesn't go far enough. But this is a really, really, really big deal for Metz to do this. And it's not without controversy. He's actually, you know, he's only about 100 days in and he's starting to come in for a lot of internal criticism because of this. So the Minister President, that's like the sort of Prime Minister, as it were, of Hesse,

• 40:02Alastair Campbell?

  one of the lender, a guy called Boris Rhein, as in the river. He has very, very, very strongly criticised it. Said that our support for Israel should be unconditional, that the security of Israel is what they call the Staatsrepublik, the Republik der Deutschen Landes

• 40:22Rory Stewart?

  And sorry, just to state the blinding obvious. I mean, it would be bizarre for any country to say their support for any other state was unconditional, except in the case of Germany because of the Holocaust.

• 40:34Alastair Campbell?

  Exactly.

• 40:34Rory Stewart?

  And therefore that sense that they have this immense moral obligation towards Israel.

• 40:38Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 40:39Rory Stewart?

  Germany's position though is such a major problem because France Saudi brought together this.

• 40:48Rory Stewart?

  Plan for Gaza, which Canada and the UK joined. But there's no European Union vision. Basically, the truth of the matter is that there is the Trump Netanyahu vision, which increasingly looks like the annexation of the whole of Gaza and pushing the Palestinian population out and the end of any two-state solution, the creation of Greater Israel. And then there's what ought to be an alternative peace plan, but that's being stymied because Germany won't come on board. I mean, that's the big obstacle to getting a common European position, isn't it?

• 41:19Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I guess, I guess one of the reasons why those who are very, very much on the Israel side, of course, the Israeli government, but also their allies in different parts of politics, and my God, Roy, have you seen how many American politicians have taken their summer holiday in Israel? It's quite amazing, the Republicans, including Johnson, the Speaker, who shut down Congress early. But I, so I think what others are trying to work out is whether this is a step by Mertz. But he's certainly had a backlash already. And of course, the other thing that's happened this week is Australia. So you, you know, you were saying recently, Roy, that you thought it would be so much stronger if Britain and France had done the Palestine recognition move together.

• 42:03Alastair Campbell?

  And I think what Macron would say is that he wanted to be seen as the leader of this move. So it's gone France, United Kingdom, then Canada, and now Australia also come out. So a lot of the, these kind of key middle countries, as it were, and of course, in the UK and France's case, members of the United Nations, permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. So they go to UNGR, United Nations General Assembly in September, and they would argue there'll be momentum behind this. And I think what some in Germany are thinking, I have my doubts, I've got to be honest, is Mertz kind of eventually moving in that direction. I don't think we're going to see that, but this is a big, big deal, what Mertz has done, and he's already facing a backlash.

• 42:45Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, but just imagine a different world for a second, just before we go into the last question, which is where actually a very detailed, consistent plan was worked out behind, between all these major countries and released together. Because the problem with what Macron's doing is it sounds great on the surface, but what he's actually created is a situation where every single one of these countries has set different conditions for recognition.

• 43:12Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah.

• 43:12Rory Stewart?

  Different nuances on what they're doing. So it doesn't actually end up being. A block, it's a divided, disunited series of people grandstanding, all of them using the opportunity to play to their own domestic audiences. But what it isn't is where the West needs to be in the absence of America, which is confident people really getting that balance between the big picture and the detail and doing it together. It's the only hope that Canada, Australia, UK, Europe, and I'd hope Japan, South Korea and others can really have of shaping the world in the future is if they stop this business of endless sort of individual statements, little bilateral statements, but actually start to rebuild

• 43:56Rory Stewart?

  an idea of what their vision is for Palestine, or their vision is for tariffs, what their vision is for nuclear weapons, what their vision is for AI. Right, okay, last question for me. Bertie, Trip Plus member Manchester. As a young person, he's 13, where do you think the line should be, if there is one, for how aware children should be in geopolitical affairs on subjects such as Israel, Palestine, et cetera? And reminder quickly that question time is being released for non-members on A Level's Results Day for school students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Now, what's your view on how deep one goes into? I mean, I'm struggling with this with Sasha and Ivo because they're always either hearing fragments of podcasts and they're hearing Shashana and me debating Israel, Gaza, and

• 44:41Rory Stewart?

  the eight-year-old keeps popping in and saying, who are the good guys, who are the bad guys? And they've developed increasingly extreme views on Donald Trump, which they share with everybody they meet on an American bus.

• 44:52Alastair Campbell?

  Well, they're big fans, are they?

• 44:53Rory Stewart?

  No, unfortunately, for their relationship with people in the South of the United States of America, they seem to believe that Donald Trump is about as evil as they get.

• 45:02Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, well, good for them, good for them. Well, Bertie, the first thing is, as a young person, as you know, Rory, I think politics and citizenship and engagement should be taught in primary schools. And I've written a book to that effect, available in all good bookshops, and I've written one for people of your age as well, Bertie, Alastair Campbell Talks Politics. And one of the reasons why I think Jeremy Corbyn

• 45:26Alastair Campbell?

  Uh. To go back to that subject, he's thi- this is another threat to Labour. When you look at the polling, he's very popular with the sixteen and seventeen year old demographic, a certain section of it. So the fact is, it's, I think it's in all of our interests for young people to feel that they should be engaged in politics. I'm horrified sometimes about how little, you, I I met somebody the other day, a a young British kid, knew nothing about the history of Northern Ireland, nothing. Didn't even know there'd been a peace agreement. And I thought, God, you know, we put in all that bloody work, you don't even know what we did. So I think that sort of stuff, we should be teaching our kids pretty young.

• 46:07Rory Stewart?

  I agree. I and I think there's also, obviously, one of the things traditionally that that new voters can bring is the very basic questions to our complacency. So maybe to sort of wrap together some of the themes of the last couple of episodes. I think people like Bertie are the people who should be asking us why we are taking for granted that Putin's not going to invade the Baltic, or that America's going to provide a security guarantee, or that the AFD is not going to win in Germany. I I think that our politics has become very complacent, and I think young voters asking, I mean, I feel this with, um, you know, when

• 46:47Rory Stewart?

  I'm debating with Sasha about this stuff, that of course, he asks very sensible questions, you know, why on earth are we doing this? Why are we still dealing with this country? Why are we recognizing them? Why are we allowing them to do this? Why are we not, you know, if you say plastics is such a problem, why aren't you doing anything about it? If you say that AI has great benefits but also huge risks. And of course, I don't have good answers to those questions, because of course, one operates in this sort of cozy little world of talking to people who are in the system. Um, and and that, of course, is the appeal of the far left, it's the appeal of the far right, but it's where I think young people have got a point.

• 47:22Alastair Campbell?

  And also, I I think the the other big, big factor in this is the is the media's role. I mean, I I I'm I'm getting increasingly horrified by the way that the the mainstream media covers Trump. And I understand it, they want access, but when you see these little, he ne- he very rarely gets properly challenged.

• 47:43Alastair Campbell?

  And the reason maybe because these journalists think, well, if I really go for him and really push back and really try to get under his skin, really try to probe him on some of the sort of corruption, some of the lying and some of the double dealing and the rest of it, they just stop getting any access whatsoever. And that's part of how autocrats and authoritarians operate. But surely the role of media in that space is not to pander and play along, it's to challenge it. So I would say to Bertie, be engaged, be interested, be involved. And actually, I think one of the most important things people can think at the moment about is actually trying to do what they can do to improve journalism as well. Because I

• 48:24Alastair Campbell?

  think the decline of good journalism is a big, big, big part of the mess that we're in.

• 48:31Rory Stewart?

  Yeah, yeah, but there's still a lot of good stuff out there. We've just got to work out how we defend it and support it. I mean, there's some amazing reporting, but you're right, it's it's it's under so much pressure, isn't it? I mean, I keep my final depressing thought is there are exceptions. I mean, I think The Economist, as the editor, has been emphasizing to me, is still very well funded, still has a good set of foreign correspondents, is still doing well, but so many other bits of the media landscape, their revenues are falling, they're losing their foreign correspondents, they're losing their strings. I mean, all these countries where I used to operate, where there were always three or four really good foreign correspondents who were asking serious questions, getting into detail, they've

• 49:16Rory Stewart?

  all gone. And and there's less and less space for this. I think I was joking to you that a friend of mine who was an Africa correspondent for one of the big British newspapers, because they're doing it all on page impressions. So his editor basically only promotes things that get a lot of likes and retweets. He basically couldn't get them to print any of his stuff about droughts in Kenya. They just wanted to know about some new early hominid proto-nander tools that had been found in the Rift Valley, because that would get, you know. Two million retweets because people are more interested in early hominids than they are in drought.

• 49:52Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah, no, it's pretty charming. One sort of sliver of nostalgic good news. I've had, I decided this week, Roy, I wasn't going to do anything apart from the podcast. I've been sort of vaguely trying to not work all the time. So I've not been doing any other stuff, but I had a whole wave of bids asking for me to talk about on the radio and the television and newspapers about this, apparently this new wave, this trend on TikTok of romanticized videos about the new Labour era. And some, somebody's called Charlie, who, one of these accounts, she's engrossed by the Blair Brown, Mandelson Campbell psychodrama.

• 50:35Alastair Campbell?

  But I looked at a few of them. They were actually very, they were very sort of affectionate, I thought. So I think people are looking back and thinking, maybe that wasn't such a bad government after all.

• 50:48Rory Stewart?

  That's, that's social media for you. It's amazing what kind of remakes they can do. Going to make Robert Jenrick into the leader of the Conservative Party.

• 50:55Alastair Campbell?

  Well, yeah. All right, Roy. Lovely to talk to you.

• 50:59Rory Stewart?

  Bye bye. Thanks again.

• 51:00Alastair Campbell?

  See you soon.