“Prepare for War” - Tucker Confronts Britain’s Most Pro-War Advocate

Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg explains how Britain, which has a combat ready military force about half the size of New York’s police department, must prepare for war with Russia. (00:00) What Is This War and Why Does Britain Need to Fight It? (19:40) Is There Majority Support for War With Russia? (26:18) Is Using Nuclear Weapons Accepted in Christianity? (33:15) Was WWII Good for Britain? (39:08) Is Ukraine a Sovereign Country? Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg is a British politician and broadcaster who served as a Conservative Member of Parliament from 2010 to 2024. A prominent advocate for Brexit, he held senior government roles including Leader of the House of Commons and Business Secretary. He now hosts State of the Nation on GB News. Paid partnerships with: Angel Studios: Watch The Brink of War at http://angel.com/TC American Financing: NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. Average savings based on borrowers who save over $199.99. Call 800-685-5696 or visit http://www. AmericanFinancing.net/Tucker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:34Speaker 01

  Mr. Spahn, thank you very much for having us in your home. It's really pretty. I'm sad to think of it being destroyed in the war you described. What is this war and why do you have to fight it?

• 0:44Speaker 02

  Okay. What I've said is that the United Kingdom needs to be prepared for war, that we are coming under attack in various ways from Russia. We've had murders and attempted murders take place. There was attempted murder in Salisbury, and there was a murder that took place in London by agents of Putin, that Putin has invaded Ukraine, and he is making threatening noises, that some Russian people close to the state, not formally of the state, have talked about the potential for nuclear war. And the way to avoid war is to prepare for it. And if you're prepared for war, it doesn't happen. So that's what I'm talking about. It's the preparedness which I'm worried that we don't have.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  Why would Putin want to threaten Britain?

• 1:31Speaker 02

  Well, he is threatening Britain, really.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Why? I wonder why?

• 1:33Speaker 02

  Why has he tried to poison people in Salisbury? Why have his submarines been poking around near our undersea cables?

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Do you have any sense of why? Why would he want to do that?

• 1:44Speaker 02

  Well, I think he wishes to reassert the power of Russia, which in many ways is now a failing state, that its economy has been in the doldrums for years since the decline of the Soviet Union. It's lost a good deal of territory, which is a very un-Russian thing, that if you go really from the Romanovs taking charge in Russia through to the collapse of the Soviet Union, in most years, Russia expands, and then you get the collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia suddenly shrinks. And it seems to me that that is looked upon by some Russians as a matter of shame and against the historic destiny of Russia. Hence, of course, the reason for activity in Georgia

• 2:29Speaker 02

  and more recently in Ukraine.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Clearly, Russia wants some control over its neighbors. It wants a sphere of influence as a nuclear armed power. But I wonder, and assuming that everything you're saying is true, and we could debate it, it still doesn't explain why Russia would want to pick a fight with Britain. It's got a much larger economy than Britain's. By, I think, basic measure...

• 2:54Speaker 02

  No, no, no, it hasn't got a larger economy than Britain's. It's got a smaller economy than Britain's. It's got a larger military.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  It's got a much larger economy. It has much more wealth and resources and it has a much larger manufacturing sector.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Its GDP is smaller than the UK's.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, but GDP is not, I mean, the only measure of an economy.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  It's a pretty important measure of an economy, no.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  It's one measure we can debate with...

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Russia is an economic failure, that it could have a huge economy, but it's got a small economy because it's deeply corrupt and it hasn't managed to use its resources effectively. And so although the population of Russia is bigger than that of the United Kingdom, very significantly, its GDP per capita is so much lower that the total GDP of Russia is smaller than that of the United Kingdom.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Right. Its inherent wealth dwarfs that of the UK. It's the largest country in the world. But leaving aside that, I'm not in charge of central planning of Russia.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, but inherent wealth isn't very useful, is it? There are lots of African countries that have huge resources that have never been able to use them.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  It depends what your timeline is.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Well, if you go over hundreds of years, they haven't used them.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Russia has consistently been a poor country in spite of its resources.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay. I don't agree, but I will grant you that.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  But it still doesn't explain why Russia would benefit from fighting with the UK. Do you imagine that they want to take your territory?

• 4:17Speaker 02

  Russia has already shown itself to be aggressive, as we saw with the invasion of Ukraine, which was not only illegal in international law, but also against a specific agreement between Russia, the United States, the UK, and Ukraine, that in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons, Russia and the other signatories would allow its territorial integrity to be maintained.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  I... We can debate why that war started. I have a completely different view from yours, but, you know, these are subjective questions. But I feel like we're avoiding the question I have asked you now three times, which is why does any of that add up to Russia threatening the UK? Do you believe in cause and effect? Do you think there's some reason that Russia is mad at the UK?

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Why do dictators attack? They do because they can.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  But you're nowhere near Russia.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  And because they see...

• 5:14Speaker 01

  This is not Belarus.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  But we have the NATO agreement with Poland, which must feel under attack. We know that the Baltic States feel threatened. We know there have been cyberattacks on the Baltic States. So of course we should be concerned about our fellow NATO members, and we have Article 5 of NATO, which would then involve us. And we've got Russians saying bellicose things about the United Kingdom. So of course we should be...

• 5:38Speaker 01

  But do you have any sense of why? I guess it's... So here's the point that I'm attempting to make, and I just think it's important to understand it, whether or not you approve of it, which is that from the Russian perspective, you are helping to fund a war against Russia, and so therefore you're a combatant in that war. They feel the same way about the United States as well, and Germany, NATO. But that is a legitimate perspective. Can you not see that? That there's a reason that they're mad at the UK?

• 6:04Speaker 02

  Russia invaded Ukraine.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Right, but this is not Ukraine. This is the UK.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  That's right. And what the UK is doing is supporting Ukraine and defending its territorial integrity.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Fighting a war against Russia. So you are participating in the war.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  This is exactly the same as America helping Kuwait rescue itself from Iraq.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Right, except Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  But do you believe in territorial integrity of nation-states?

• 6:26Speaker 01

  In my own, for sure. I'm not sure the territorial integrity of someone else's state is worth risking my life for. The question is, should... First of all, can you guarantee it?

• 6:37Speaker 02

  America did. So do you think that was wrong?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  Because the quid pro quo was that Ukraine would have kept its nuclear weapons. So you're saying Ukraine should have kept its nuclear weapons.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Well, there were many subsequent arrangements that were violated on all sides.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  No, this is the fundamental point which we're trying to get away from. So let me put this back to you.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Please do.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  The United States made an agreement with Ukraine, Russia, and the United Kingdom that the territorial integrity of Ukraine would be inviolable on condition that Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Oh, no, you are mistaken. The United States has never pledged to go to war with Russia.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  I didn't say it did.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Okay, then what you're saying is immaterial, actually.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  No, I'm saying it made this agreement with the other parties.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  So there's a treaty that obligates the United States to fight a war against Russia?

• 7:21Speaker 02

  No, it doesn't obligate it to fight a war.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Okay, then it's irrelevant what you're saying.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  I'm saying that if you don't think America has an interest in this, it shouldn't have signed the treaty, and then Ukraine should have kept its nuclear weapons.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  There is no treaty that obligates the United States... I'm speaking with authority on this.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Yes, I'm aware of that.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  To fight Russia on the basis of what Russia did in February of 2012.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  I'm well aware of that. I'm well aware of what was said in relation to the nuclear weapons. It is not an agreement to go to war, nor strictly speaking is Article 5 of NATO. It's not a requirement to go to war. It is a request that can be ignored. It's not an automatic act of war that the member state affected can call upon Article 5.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  I'm aware of that.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  But it doesn't require an automatic response. But what you're saying is that this treaty that was signed, where Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, was entirely pointless.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Well, of course, I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is that there have been many subsequent agreements since, including a verbal agreement, which has been testified to by people who were present, that the United States would not expand NATO to Russia's borders, which is an understandable concern of Russia. You don't want nuclear weapons controlled by another country on your borders. Why would you? And so, look, a lot has happened. There was the overthrow of the Ukrainian government by NATO in 2014. A lot has happened.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  All sorts of things have happened, but...

• 8:35Speaker 01

  My only point is, right now, we're on the brink of a nuclear exchange, and the question is why? And I don't understand why it's in Britain's interest to be at war with Russia.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  What I am arguing is that if we are prepared for war, war becomes less likely. That's the whole basis of deterrence. It's the whole reason...

• 8:51Speaker 01

  But if you stop fighting the war, they will be less likely to nuke you.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Oh, no, that's not true. If you don't support Ukraine, if you allow Russia to take Ukraine, then it moves on to the next object.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  But why is it up to the UK to decide whether or not Russia takes Ukraine?

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Because it's strongly in our national interest and indeed of the United States.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  In what way?

• 9:13Speaker 02

  Because the one fundamental thing of the world order is the integrity of nation-states. If all nation-states are up for grabs for whichever country wants to take it, then why shouldn't China take Taiwan tomorrow?

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know whether the UK can affect...

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Would you be worried?

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Well, I assume that's going to happen, of course.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  So you don't mind nation-states invading each other?

• 9:37Speaker 01

  I mind a lot of things. But it's... The question is not simply, do I think it's wrong? The question is, can I do anything about it? And at what cost to my own population?

• 9:46Speaker 02

  Well, you can.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  So it's a much more complicated calculation than the one you're presenting.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  You can if you project strength. And I'm afraid what the West did towards Russia was protect... Project weakness, that the agreements made over the Crimea by Germany and France made it look to Putin that he could do what he wanted. He then miscalculated with Ukraine and found that the West was not going to go along with that. And it's very important that you don't allow dictators to miscalculate. Same is true of Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein thought that he had had a message from the CIA, and I'm sure you know all of this, that invading Kuwait would not upset the Americans. And that's when you project weakness, you make war more likely.

• 10:31Speaker 01

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• 13:39Speaker 01

  Well, I think if you truncate the story, you can tell yourself that. But you are truncating the story, because that war ended in 1991, the first Gulf War, and then 12 years later, there was another Gulf War, in which more than a million people

• 13:54Speaker 02

  Okay, on the second Gulf War, I share exactly

• 13:56Speaker 01

  And now, there is, 22 years later, another Gulf War, and Iran is using Iraq as a staging base to hit the United States. So, how did this work?

• 14:06Speaker 02

  Okay, on the second Gulf War, I share what I think is your view. I think you supported it at the time, but now I think it was a mistake.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  I thought it was a mistake when I went to Iraq in December of 2003. I knew immediately it was a mistake, and I've been apologizing ever since. Let me do so again. I apologize.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  Because I think it was a mistake, too. I agree with you, that the first Gulf War, I think, was absolutely right, because it was about the territorial integrity of nation-states. I think there's one fundamental

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Well, if it was right, then how did it result in another war less than 15 years later?

• 14:34Speaker 02

  Because the other war was none of our business. It was the internal affairs of Iraq, on a pretext of nuclear weapons that didn't exist.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  But hold on.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  The two wars are completely different. And actually, George Bush Senior got it right, because he had the opportunity to take Iraq at the end of the first Gulf War, and he said, "No, that is not the objective of this mission." The objective of the mission was the territorial integrity of Kuwait. Now, where I think I disagree with you is that the fundamental building block of any form of world order is the nation-state, and that therefore it's in all our interests to protect the nation-state. Because if aggressors can invade one nation-state and get away with it, they will carry on, and then you've got

• 15:23Speaker 02

  no global order at all. Where I think we have made a mistake is in liberal interventionism, which I am opposed to. I think it is not my business how Iraq is managed internally by Iraqis. That is a matter for them, or how Putin manages Russia.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Then why do you keep describing Putin as a dictator, as distinct from Zelensky, who has not been elected

• 15:47Speaker 02

  Well, he was elected.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  In seven years. He's canceled the elections and banned the largest Christian denomination in the country, and imprisoned people for criticizing him. So, he's not a dictator.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  It would be very difficult for me to criticize him on canceling elections. It's exactly what the UK did during the First and Second World War.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  I'm merely saying, if you're not a liberal interventionist, why is Putin's form of government even material? Why do you care?

• 16:08Speaker 02

  It's up to him how he governs Russia. It is my business when he starts invading neighboring countries.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  But the question is not whether or not you approve of one nation's territorial expansion or its need to control its neighbors, which is, by the way, the state of play for all great powers. No country with nuclear weapons will tolerate another nation's nuclear weapons on its border, of course.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Well, that's the Cuban Missile Crisis, yes.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Of course. Well, it's the current Iran War, because Israel, a nuclear Iran power, did not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. And I'm not criticizing anyone involved.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  And this is very sensible. We do not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  I don't want anyone to have a nuclear weapon. I'm just saying that this is

• 16:43Speaker 02

  I want Britain to have nuclear weapons, and I don't mind the United States having them. I don't want anyone else to have them.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  I'm merely saying that we can't be surprised by that response, because that's just the nature of great powers, okay?

• 16:54Speaker 02

  Yes, that must be right.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  My question is, what can you do about it? So, you have said that weakness abets aggression, which is an often-repeated axiom, which sure is entirely true, but it can't be true. But what's your option? So, Britain, right now, has, apparently, a military strength of under 19,000, ready for combat. So, for perspective, you know, there are battles in the First World War in which Britain lost more than 19,000 in one day. So, that's nothing. Russia has one of the most powerful militaries in the world, a standing army of a million and a half.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  Well, that's not necessarily the same as one of the most powerful militaries in the world, is it? A very large number of troops is not necessarily a powerful army.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  No, it's not. That's right. But, and I'm not, and by the way, it's hard to know exactly how powerful the Russian militaries. It's very easy to know how powerful the British military is, which is not at all. So, like, what is this?

• 17:48Speaker 02

  Everyone thought the Russian military was sufficiently powerful that it could roll up Ukraine in a fortnight, and it failed.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Well, they could send hypersonic missiles into Kiev today and end the war. We're relying on Putin's restraint not to do that. They could also nuke Ukraine if they wanted.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  They could, but that would be

• 18:07Speaker 01

  I'm just saying, as a material fact, they have restrained themselves to a land war with people, but they don't have

• 18:14Speaker 02

  Where they were thought to be overwhelmingly powerful, and they've turned out not to be.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Well, they could be overwhelmingly powerful if they wanted to, like, this afternoon, and they decided not

• 18:23Speaker 02

  Well, they used nuclear weapons, but without

• 18:25Speaker 01

  They used hypersonic weapons, which can't be stopped.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  If they took it up to an enormous stage, but actually, in 2022, people thought Russia would walk in and roll up Ukraine within a fortnight. That was all the expectation.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Do you disagree that they could if they wanted to today? And this war, of course, they could.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  Well, I think if they took it to another level, they would risk other people

• 18:46Speaker 01

  If you keep pushing them, they'll do it. And maybe that's the basis of this conversation, which is, why are you pushing them to that point?

• 18:50Speaker 02

  No, I'm not pushing them. I'm pushing us to be prepared, because they are making attacks on the West. And we know this. They are making cyber attacks. They are making

• 18:59Speaker 01

  But do you see a connection between what the West is doing and Russia's attacks on the West, or is this just, what would be the other explanation for why they're doing

• 19:07Speaker 02

  I actually think the reason for Russia going into Ukraine, what allowed them to do it, was our weakness earlier over the Crimea, and that made it look as if we didn't really care. And then it turned out that we did care.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  I never cared, for the record, at all. So, that's my position.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  As you see, I cared, because we had signed a treaty about the nuclear weapons being given up by Ukraine, as had your country, and that as it was overwhelmingly in our interests, expect you to agree with this, for Ukraine not to be a nuclear power. We didn't want small

• 19:42Speaker 01

  You keep referring to an event from 35 years ago that is one small part of a long saga.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no. This is fundamental, because Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Ukraine had kept its nuclear weapons.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Well, Ukraine, being the most corrupt country in Europe, might have already sold those nuclear weapons to bad actors around the world, which is one of the reasons that the United States forced them to get rid of them. I was there for this. I remember.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  I'm not denying this. I'm not denying that Ukraine has had enormous corruption and still does.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  I'm saying, that's why the rest of the world felt Ukraine could not be trusted, not because we didn't want them to have sovereignty, but because

• 20:14Speaker 02

  We wanted to protect their sovereignty and for them not to have nuclear weapons, because we didn't want smaller states to have nuclear weapons. We could live with Russia, and China, and India, and Pakistan, and Israel, and the UK, and France having nuclear weapons, but we didn't want

• 20:27Speaker 01

  But I feel like we're in a cul-de-sac. Right now, we are

• 20:30Speaker 02

  This is fundamental, because you have to go back to why is it in our interest for Ukraine's territorial integrity to be maintained? First of all, because the nation-state is the fundamental of global order. Without the nation-state, there is no global order. I'm not an internationalist. And then, there is the issue of, is America's word worth anything? Do you have an interest? If you persuade a state to give up nuclear weapons, and say that you believe its territorial integrity should be maintained, and you are signatory to that treaty, does that matter? Or do you just sign these things and walk away?

• 21:05Speaker 01

  We have never signed a treaty obligating

• 21:08Speaker 02

  I know you've said that before.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  Well, we haven't, and you keep pretending that we have. So, we have no

• 21:11Speaker 02

  No, I haven't. You're not listening.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  No obligation to be participants.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  You seem to be devoid of nuance, that the two questions are not the same. Just because you've signed a treaty does not automatically commit you to fighting a war.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Doesn't suggest the course of action that you're suggesting. So, the treaty is immaterial to this.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  The treaty is pretty important.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Here's what I'm saying. Let me ask you this question.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  It gives you an interest in the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Let me ask you this question. There's a hierarchy of responsibility that a nation and individual faces. We've got all kinds of obligations, but we have to put them in order of importance. And you seem to be suggesting that a nation's obligation is to something called the international order?

• 21:48Speaker 02

  No.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Over and above the interests of its own population?

• 21:52Speaker 02

  No, I don't agree. No, that's not what I've said. The national interest is my biggest concern.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  And the national interest is served overwhelmingly by the integrity of nation-states.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  Do you have majority support for war with Russia here in the UK?

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Majority support for what?

• 22:06Speaker 01

  A war with Russia.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  Nobody wants to go to war with Russia.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  But that's why there is increasing support in this country for building up our military so that we are able to defend ourselves.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  How would you do that?

• 22:18Speaker 02

  Well, you just spend more money on it. You recruit more soldiers.

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• 23:57Speaker 01

  Slash Tucker. So if you go from a fighting force of under 19,000, which is bigger than Estonia's, which is 5,000, but still somewhat less than the 3.5 million in the Russian army, how much would that cost and where would the money come from?

• 24:12Speaker 02

  Well, there's plenty of money. We're just spending it all on welfare at the moment. We're about to spend £400 billion a year on welfare.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  On welfare? Specifically, what do you mean by welfare?

• 24:22Speaker 02

  Welfare benefits people who are out of work. Some of that's on pensions. But our welfare benefit system has been ballooning. If we could take even a part of that...

• 24:31Speaker 01

  And you could spend that on bombs. So what are you doing? That's a fair point.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  Right. We've got a crazy welfare system. I mean, this country is not being well-run. We are spending much more money than we have, and our defense spending is pitifully low. It's even lower than it seems because we're at 2.7% of GDP.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  Is there a public demand for more defense spending?

• 24:52Speaker 02

  The public is getting increasingly worried. The world is getting...

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Do you think that the average Briton, if given the choice between food and housing assistance or unemployment benefits, would instead choose to forego those in favor of more bombs?

• 25:04Speaker 02

  I think the country at large is deeply fed up with people on welfare who have made it a lifestyle choice.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  I bet that's true. But do you think if you put it up to a vote, a national referendum...

• 25:13Speaker 02

  I think you would find that people want defense.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  And that they'd be willing to reduce social spending?

• 25:19Speaker 02

  I think they want to reduce social spending anyway.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  I think they might rather have the social spending in tax cuts. But people are deeply fed up. Do you know, in this country, there are 6 million wonderful people who we should really admire, who work even though they would be better off on benefits.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm aware. And I would never defend your disease tax codes at all. I agree.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  This is just crazy.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  No, I'm in full agreement with you. The question is, should you take that dividend, that savings, and spend it on a pointless war that you can't possibly win that will only get your citizens killed?

• 25:50Speaker 02

  We won't fight a war if we are defended.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  So to what extent would you have to increase the size of your military to intimidate Russia, which possesses nuclear and hypersonic weapons?

• 26:00Speaker 02

  Putin, it's not a question of intimidating. We're not trying to intimidate Russia because we wouldn't succeed in intimidating Russia.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Now, I'm totally confused. Okay.

• 26:07Speaker 02

  It's a question of being taken seriously.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  What's the difference?

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Putin did not take Ukraine seriously. He thought he could invade it and take it over very quickly.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  What's the difference between intimidating someone and being taken seriously? I thought they're identical concepts, aren't they?

• 26:19Speaker 02

  No, I don't think they are. Intimidation...

• 26:21Speaker 01

  He'll just be impressed by your resolve?

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Intimidation is suggesting that you are intending to be aggressive.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  It's suggesting it's a penalty for messing with you.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  That's right. No, I don't think that is right. I think intimidating is showing that you want to be aggressive, whereas showing resolve...

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Scaring someone off. "I'm armed, back off."

• 26:40Speaker 02

  "I'm armed, so it's not in your interests to do anything."

• 26:43Speaker 01

  That's... Okay, so we're saying the same thing.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  We're saying broadly the same, but I don't think it is intimidating.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  Using different forms of English.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  Because we're not going to intimidate Russia, nor do we want to.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  But you're going to... You want to tell Russia, if you mess with the UK, it's just not worth it. We're scary enough that, like, go pick on someone else. That's...

• 27:00Speaker 02

  Well, ideally, don't pick on anybody.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  But how much do you think you would, from the condition of the British military right now, like, how much would you have to spend? How many people would have to join the British military in order to have that effect on Russia?

• 27:15Speaker 02

  Well, it's a question of building up our overall defense expenditure. The interim target is 3.5% of GDP. Whether that's enough is highly debatable. But it's much more about equipment than it is about numbers.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Okay, so you wouldn't have to have a larger fighting force then?

• 27:30Speaker 02

  I'd be very surprised if you needed it. But it's not going to be a war on British soil. Russia is not going to invade Britain. It's got a long way to go to get here. It's a question about working...

• 27:43Speaker 01

  It could take out your capital city instantly.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  It could, but then we could take out Moscow. I mean, if you want to get to nuclear war... But the reason we don't get to nuclear war is that both sides are armed.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  So you're totally convinced that Russia would never use nuclear weapons under any circumstances, offensively?

• 27:58Speaker 02

  One could never go that far. The whole point of...

• 28:02Speaker 01

  Well, both Russia and the United States, President Trump, are both openly threatening to use offensive nuclear weapons.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Both to use tactical nuclear weapons at the moment.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Low-yield nuclear weapons. They're the same thing. Just...

• 28:15Speaker 02

  And the reason the Cold War strategy worked is because deterrence work. But to make deterrence work, you have to be strong. And there is no deterrent, really, if you go from step one to nuclear weapons in one false group. If your only real defense, if Russia does something in Poland or Estonia, is to go to nuclear war, nobody's going to take you seriously on that. No one's going to go from...

• 28:42Speaker 01

  No one's going to take you seriously if you use a nuclear weapon? I think people will take you very seriously.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  No, no, no. They're not going to take you seriously that you would use a nuclear weapon, because it wouldn't be proportionate.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  So tell me how this plays out.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  You've got to have the interim levels of defense as well. You can't just go from, "We're all pacifists, but if you really do something nasty, we'll nuke you," because nobody will believe that you would use the nuclear bomb in those circumstances, because the level of aggression would not be high enough. So you've got to have...

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Would it be worth using a nuclear weapon against Russia to preserve the world order and to deter territorial aggression against sovereign states like Ukraine?

• 29:19Speaker 02

  I think ultimately, nuclear weapons serve a very useful purpose as being the final threat.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Useful in what way? To what end?

• 29:30Speaker 02

  That the whole Cold War strategy worked. Russia and America did not go to war because both sides realized that the other could wipe them out.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Right. They talked about using nuclear weapons, but is using nuclear... The actual use of nuclear weapons, is that ever justified?

• 29:45Speaker 02

  I think it was justified in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, yes. I think it was justified in bringing the Second World War to an end, yes, unquestionably.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Unquestionably justified.

• 29:53Speaker 02

  Unquestionably, yes. I thought the number of lives...

• 29:56Speaker 01

  So it's justified to kill people who did nothing wrong?

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Well, we're not talking about people who did nothing wrong. The Japanese...

• 30:03Speaker 01

  Well, the populations of crowded cities are not responsible for the war. Women and children get incinerated.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  We were in a state of total war.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Okay, well...

• 30:13Speaker 02

  I think...

• 30:13Speaker 01

  We were not in a state of total war, actually. There were no Japanese troops on American soil. We were not in a state of total war. That's not even close to a state of total war.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  They had attacked American soil, as you know.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Four years before, and then they were losing. But we were not in a state of total war. And... But I'm asking you a theological question, which is, is it ever allowed, under the precepts of, say, Christianity, to kill people who did nothing wrong? To kill women and children?

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Does it meet Aquinas's test of a just war?

• 30:38Speaker 01

  It does not.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  I think it does.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  How?

• 30:40Speaker 02

  Well, are you legitimate authority? Yes, you are. Is it an important cause? Yes, because you have been attacked and you're defending yourself. And is it proportionate? Yes, because it actually shortens the duration of the war.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  That's not the definition of proportionate. Proportionate means that you're responding in a way that is not grandly larger than the initial attack.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  The overall...

• 31:02Speaker 01

  In other words, if you punch me in the face, I can't shoot you?

• 31:05Speaker 02

  The... Yes, but this is different means of killing people.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  But I'm zeroing in on...

• 31:12Speaker 02

  You're not talking about a punch in the face. You're talking about, is it legitimate that I...

• 31:15Speaker 01

  I'm talking about killing people's kids. Nothing to do with it. That's okay because why?

• 31:19Speaker 02

  We were at war with the whole country.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  We were at war with the kids?

• 31:22Speaker 02

  And it ended the war. Yes, Japan was at war with the United States and the United Kingdom. We were at war.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  So if another nation says they're at war with us, it's okay to kill our kids?

• 31:31Speaker 02

  But we don't want to be at war with other nations.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  No, I'm asking an abstract question, and you're clearly fluent. It's not a ridiculous question.

• 31:38Speaker 02

  It's a ridiculous question. Japan had attacked the United States.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  I don't think it's kids attacked the United States.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  Had started a war.

• 31:44Speaker 01

  Why not kill the people who started the war?

• 31:45Speaker 02

  And... Well, we did in the end. We... The Japanese Prime Minister tried to commit suicide, and we spent ages getting him back to good health so we could hang him.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  We also killed tens of thousands of children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and you're saying that's okay?

• 32:00Speaker 02

  Well, I think it was justified. I think the use of nuclear weapons at the end of the Second World War justified.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  So what you're saying as a Christian is, yes, it is okay to kill children who did nothing wrong.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  It was a proportionate response.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  Do you feel that that is a Christian position?

• 32:13Speaker 02

  Yes. I think it meets Aquinas's conditions of a just war.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Really?

• 32:18Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Has any pope since Aquinas confirmed that? Have there been any papal statements saying, yes, under certain circumstances, it's okay to kill other people's kids?

• 32:31Speaker 02

  The Church has preached for centuries that there are conditions of a just war.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  I don't think there's been any statement since 1945. And I'm not Catholic, so, you know, I'm not an expert. But you are, so you tell me. As a Catholic, you think that the Church endorses killing people's kids?

• 32:48Speaker 02

  Since 1945, there's only been one explicitly ex-Cathedral statement by the Holy See, by the Holy Father.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  I guess the question is, if you are willing to kill noncombatants who committed no crime, if you're willing to murder the innocent, then in what sense are you better than the people you are fighting?

• 33:09Speaker 02

  That, once a war is engaged, the whole point of what I'm talking about, to go back to the opening part of your question.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  Can you finish the thought?

• 33:18Speaker 02

  I will come back to it, because it's to avoid war. And you avoid war by being strong. Once you're in war, you are justified in winning the war.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  So you can behave like an animal once the war starts?

• 33:30Speaker 02

  And if the risk to you is sufficient, you can use nuclear weapons. I think that is morally justifiable.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  I mean, even leaving aside the details of America's use of those two bombs, there was no risk to the United States. Japan was in no condition to invade the United States. It had never put troops on our shores, so there was no risk to the United States.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  It attacked you, but it wasn't likely to put troops on your shores.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  It attacked a territory, right? And which is bad.

• 33:54Speaker 02

  It attacked a state. It wasn't a state, there wasn't a state then, of course, you're quite right.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  In December 14. But the point is, we were not at risk from an invasion by Japan, in any sense, okay? It was a defeated nation. We already firebombed Tokyo.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Multiple times.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  You see, that's where, do you think the firebombing of Tokyo was justified?

• 34:13Speaker 01

  I don't think killing the innocent is ever justified, under any circumstances. And I think the basis of Western civilization is justice for the individual. I believe that blood guilt and group punishment are antithetical to our entire civilization. They're the things we fight against.

• 34:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  That's why the Gulag was wrong. That's why what's happening in Gaza is wrong. It's always wrong to kill people who did nothing wrong. And if we don't think that, then on what basis are we administering our own justice systems? That takes such exquisite care to punish only the guilty? I don't even understand what you're saying.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  I think it's very difficult to have fought the Second World War without innocent people being killed.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  I don't know, no one tried. But maybe, I'd never understood why fight the Second World War in the first place.

• 34:55Speaker 02

  Well, that's a very fundamental question.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  How about the First World War?

• 35:00Speaker 02

  Well, let's stick to the Second World.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  No, let's start with the First, which lets us into the Second.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  We were on the Second. The Second World War, Hitler would have taken as much as he could have done, as he was showing. And did you really want him?

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Well, Hitler said that 15% of Poland was once Germany, and it was given to Poland at the Treaty of Versailles. That was German territory, what Germans had. That was his case. And by the way, that was true.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Except, except, except the Polish borders had been cut off by Russia and Russia and Austria.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  Look, I'm not here to, I'm not certainly defending Hitler. I'm just saying, the idea that Hitler just randomly rolled into Poland is a lie, and everyone believes it because they know nothing about the actual facts. But the truth is, Germany had big pieces of it carved off, including part of Prussia, and it was given to this other country, infuriated the Germans. Maybe it shouldn't have, but it did, and that was a justification for it. The UK had nothing to do with it, at all.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  Well, we had a treaty of the lines.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  And they destroyed their empire and their country, fighting this war that they still pretend was a good idea, but it wasn't.

• 35:56Speaker 02

  It was fundamental. It was, it was the classic good versus evil.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Has the UK benefited from it?

• 36:03Speaker 02

  We did the right thing.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Is it a better country than it was?

• 36:06Speaker 02

  To have defeated Hitler, yes.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  So the UK is a better country now, it's a healthier country now?

• 36:10Speaker 02

  Otherwise, we'll be speaking German.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Who cares?

• 36:14Speaker 02

  I do.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  There are a lot of people in Britain who can't speak English. So it would be nice to have, like, at least a European language spoken in your country.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  No, I've seen no advantage speaking German over any other language. We want to speak English, thank you so much.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  But the point is, a war should benefit, if a war is fought with the children of your citizens, which it is, then that war should benefit those citizens.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  And it did benefit this country.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  In what ways?

• 36:38Speaker 02

  It benefited this country.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Can you tell me how?

• 36:40Speaker 02

  But as I said to you, otherwise, Germany would eventually have invaded us. So, Germany.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  We've had 80 years to assess. Tell me the benefits. Now, sitting 80 years later as the grandson of, I'm certain, people who fought in that war, I am?

• 36:52Speaker 02

  Well, my grandfather was too old, he was in the First World War and the Second World War, and my father was too young, so we sort of miss a generation.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  I'm saying, now that we've had, and as a lover of history, why don't you tell me the ways in which Britain benefited from, I'm going to use air quotes here, winning the Second World War? Because from my perspective, it looks like the empire ended, India was lost two years later, the United States took over the world, and has had troops here ever since.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  You lost your sovereignty and your self-respect, and this beautiful country has been destroyed.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  We certainly didn't lose our self-respect over winning the war. I mean, in terms of self-respect, that's a rather ethereal benefit. Our self-respect was hugely maintained by defeating the greatest evil the world has known.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Then why would you allow foreign troops on your soil ever since?

• 37:38Speaker 02

  Because we wanted to stop the Russians.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Okay, but I mean, it's kind of a prerequisite of sovereignty and self-respect, not to have foreign soldiers on your soil for 80 years.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  They're allies, we're NATO together.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Call them whatever you want, but there's still foreigners on your soil.

• 37:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're very welcome here.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  I know, that's the point I'm making.

• 37:56Speaker 02

  But they're part of defending our shared interest, which we have, and our shared interest is the nation-state, and maintaining its integrity, and not having people thinking, because there was a treaty some hundreds of years ago, and Poland once had a bit of it that was Germany, we can now say, we're going to take it.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  I'm merely saying.

• 38:15Speaker 02

  We cannot allow.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  You use the phrase "nation-state",

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  but it has no meaning if the nation-state has no sovereignty.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  This nation-state has sovereignty.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  How can it have sovereignty when it has foreign troops on its soil?

• 38:25Speaker 02

  We were able to pull out of the European Union. That showed us an exercise in sovereignty.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  You, well, that's all I'm saying. I was on your side there, and I feel so sad about what happened. But my point is, if you don't have sovereignty, if you can't make decisions that are rooted in the core interests of your own population, then how are you a nation-state?

• 38:45Speaker 02

  Well, we do make interests that are in the core interests of our population.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Well, you're just telling me that you may need to prepare for a war

• 38:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  on behalf of the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  And why is that in our interest? Because if the territorial integrity of nation-states is protected, there's much less need for us to go to war.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  But what about your own territorial integrity? Aren't you, aren't you getting invaded by people in boats all the time? Why don't you use a military to protect your own borders?

• 39:10Speaker 02

  Oh, look, I'm not going to disagree with you on that. We should definitely be much.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  But you're not calling for conscription or defense buildup of 3% of GDP to go to a military response to an invasion of your own country?

• 39:21Speaker 02

  I think you can do it without a military response.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Why?

• 39:24Speaker 02

  I think the Rwanda scheme would have worked.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  No, but why not? If you're so willing to commit military force and lives of Britons to defending Ukraine, why not commit them to defending your own country?

• 39:36Speaker 02

  Because the small boats is a civil matter rather than a military matter.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Really? What percentage of your population is foreign-born?

• 39:44Speaker 02

  19%.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  19%. How, what was the percentage 20 years ago?

• 39:48Speaker 02

  It was about 8%.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  Okay. What was the percentage 40 years ago? It was 2%. So like...

• 39:53Speaker 02

  Look, I think our immigration policies have been catastrophic. I think we've got it hopelessly wrong.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  But it's not immigration, it's an invasion. And so why not use the military?

• 40:03Speaker 02

  Because, actually, the small boats is not the biggest part of it. The biggest part of it, which is now coming down, thankfully, but needs to be reduced much further, is legal immigration. But you've also got the problem of visa overstaying, which is a massive problem, and we don't even know the details of it.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  So you're already admitting that you're not a nation-state?

• 40:24Speaker 02

  That's not true.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Because you can't control who comes in and out of your own country?

• 40:27Speaker 02

  No, no, what I'm saying is that there are failures in the administration. Every country has...

• 40:32Speaker 01

  How do we define nation-state?

• 40:33Speaker 02

  Well, let's deal with the first point first. Every nation has crime that takes place in it. This is crime that is taking place in this country. This is civilian crime, it's not military crime. There are things you can do. As Donald Trump has shown, you can get a grip on the new flow of illegal migrants. It turns out even in America, it'd be very difficult to remove the illegal migrants who are already there.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Well, we're not even trying.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  Well, there you go.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Just for the record.

• 40:59Speaker 02

  Okay, well, that's, I'm glad you said that, because it's not for me to make any dispassive comments about...

• 41:04Speaker 01

  The UK is not alone in lacking self-respect, or the willingness to protect itself.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  It doesn't stop you being a nation-state, but we have a serious political problem of immigration, which we need to deal with, and particularly of illegal immigration, and we need to be deporting people.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  But I'm just not sure what a nation-state is, because the countries that you have described, Ukraine specifically, which has been completely controlled by NATO and the United States and the US intel agencies, since at least 2014, and we know that, it's on tape. How is that a nation-state? That's a proxy state. That's a country controlled by a larger power.

• 41:34Speaker 02

  Very interestingly, I think, I think you make a very important point about Ukraine.

• 41:39Speaker 00

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• 42:09Speaker 02

  Ukraine was, to a significant extent, in 2022, still Russian-speaking. Putin has created a strong feeling of Ukrainianism by his attack.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  I'm sure, yeah.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  And has strengthened Ukraine as a nation-state. It's a very interesting side effect of what's done.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  That may be right, but I'm merely saying, the pretense that Ukraine is this, like, sovereign country, when it's controlled by larger powers, is grating, because really, the choice is between a Ukraine controlled by the East, Russia, or the West, the United States. That's the choice. No one's actually suggesting Ukraine should be able to make independent decisions. They tried to do that in 2014, and we overthrew the government.

• 42:50Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't think that's right. I think that the American interest is in having an independent Ukraine that makes its own decisions.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Really? What if an independent Ukraine wanted to link up with Russia? Because they have a lot more in common with Russia than they do with most of Europe.

• 43:02Speaker 02

  I think under current circumstances, that is extremely unlikely.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  Well, it is now. You're right. But in 2014, it was moving in that direction, and the US government just kind of overthrew the government.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  Well, you then got the invasion of Crimea at about that time, and so you've got active attack from Russia, which was deeply problematic. But I, I, I think we're, we're beginning to lose the wood for the trees, because the world is built up of nation-states, and nation-states are the legitimate building blocks. They sometimes are badly governed, they are sometimes dictatorially governed, but nonetheless, they have an inherent legitimacy. If you don't believe in the nation-state, what did you replace it with?

• 43:50Speaker 01

  I do believe in the nation-state. That's why I don't believe in NATO.

• 43:53Speaker 02

  So, we agree, we agree on...

• 43:54Speaker 01

  So how is NATO consistent with your, your concept of the nation-state? Here you have a supra-national organization that's over these countries.

• 44:02Speaker 02

  NATO is by far and away the best supra-national organization, because it is a voluntary grouping with no ability to compel.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  So the nation-state retains its nation-state capability within NATO. It's not like the European Union or the International Criminal Court, any of these things, which seek to override your sovereignty by a higher sovereignty. NATO requires the cooperation of states within a structure, but they are always the individual nation-states, except when you're at war, when you agree that your troops may be commanded by an ally. But we've agreed to the command of troops by allies in wartime, long before we had NATO. That's a norm of international affairs for hundreds of years.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you still give up your own sovereignty because you wind up in a place where you're like, you know, really, we have to defend...

• 44:58Speaker 02

  No, you don't, because as we were discussing earlier...

• 45:01Speaker 01

  Ukraine, or Estonia, or...

• 45:04Speaker 02

  Ukraine is not a member of NATO, as you know.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  No, no, but I'm saying, I'm aware of that.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  I know you are. You don't get obliged to, you get asked to. Article 5 is not...

• 45:17Speaker 01

  No, I understand that.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  And that's important.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  But like, we just, let's just reinsert common sense here. I just want to tie a bow on our previous conversation, which is, how specifically did the UK benefit from its heroic victory in the Second World War? Like, what are the material or spiritual benefits? Like, how do you see this country as better than it was in 1945?

• 45:37Speaker 02

  Well, I think if you think of it in terms of peace, there has now been peace in Europe between the major nations since 1945, and in the history of the UK, our prosperity has always depended upon peace.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  So is this a richer country than it was in 1945?

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Much richer, materially, much richer.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Really?

• 46:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, GDP growth from 1945...

• 46:04Speaker 01

  What was the unemployment rate in 1945?

• 46:07Speaker 02

  Well, of course, we're in the war, right?

• 46:10Speaker 01

  It's an unfair question, I agree with that, but...

• 46:12Speaker 02

  We've got much more welfare. I'm not saying we've got no problems, but has our GDP grown in real terms?

• 46:18Speaker 01

  The GDP is not a measurement of national strength or prosperity at all.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  It is of prosperity.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Of course not. It's a measurement of money, of how much money is in the system, but it doesn't account for where it goes.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  Okay, we are better fed, we are better housed, we have conveniences that weren't even thought of in 1945.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  Happier country?

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Happiness is a different concept.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Suicide rate, higher or lower? Oh, it's much higher.

• 46:42Speaker 02

  Well, that actually depends. The thing about suicide is that it depends on the reporting of the rate. In 1945, there's much more stigma around suicide, and therefore, people were much more likely to...

• 46:57Speaker 01

  It was a Christian country, now it's mostly atheist country?

• 46:59Speaker 02

  Yes, I think that's a great tragedy.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the point is...

• 47:03Speaker 02

  I mean, you're an Episcopalian, aren't you? But you don't believe in half the things the Episcopalian Church now says.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  I don't believe in witchcraft.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  No, nor do I, no.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  I'm out on that question.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  You want to come over to Rome?

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Well, I certainly believe in Rome's position on murdering innocents. I'm totally opposed, so I admire that, whether it's in the womb or in Hiroshima. They're against it, and so am I.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  I think the killing of the unborn child is the greatest tragedy of the West.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  But you, bottom line, think, I just want to get this on tape, you think the UK is a stronger, better country now than it was?

• 47:38Speaker 02

  In 1945, yes, I do. I think we have all sorts of problems, I think we have bad governments, I think immigration has been terribly badly handled, I think we have too much state control, but of course in 1945, we had masses of state control, and I think there are huge ways in which we can improve the country. But are we a better country in 1945? Are we a better country for the fact that we defeated Nazism? Yes, I think Hitler was one of the great evils the world ever saw, and it was a good thing to ensure that that was destroyed, because it would have destroyed us otherwise.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm against the Nazis, against Hitler, I don't think was a good thing for you at all, but, you know, I don't live here, so I'll leave it to you.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  I also, I don't think, you mentioned, touched on India, I think it was very unlikely that we would have kept India much longer anyway.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  Because the First World War...

• 48:29Speaker 02

  India was going. The First World War is a different question.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Okay, so without even getting into all of this, I'm just trying to get to the core question here, which is, is it worth it? So Britain lost, I think, just in deaths in the Second World War, 450,000, maybe?

• 48:47Speaker 02

  But let me, the point you've really challenged me on is the idea that being prepared deters war. The experience of the UK in 1914 and in 1939 was that because we were thought to be soft, our enemy didn't take us seriously.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  You joined both of those wars, you were not attacked in either war.

• 49:09Speaker 02

  We joined both of those wars.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  What are you even talking about?

• 49:12Speaker 02

  The Kaiser knew that there was the guarantee to Belgium, and he thought the British wouldn't do anything about it. He thought we weren't interested, we would not do anything. So we, unfortunately, our enemy in 1914 and in 1939, on both occasions, thought we were weak and defeat and would cave, and therefore, felt it was free to...

• 49:37Speaker 01

  So you're saying, in order to protect Belgium, it was worth destroying all of Europe and losing 1.5 million Britons?

• 49:45Speaker 02

  You don't always listen, if I may say so.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  I do, I'm listening carefully.

• 49:48Speaker 02

  What I said was that the enemy felt free to invade because we were seen to be weak. That's not the same as saying it was the right thing to do.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  But you attacked them, they did not attack you.

• 49:59Speaker 02

  Well, we went to help the French.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  You attacked them.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  We had a treaty with Belgium, but we went to help the French, who were falling back remarkably quickly in August 19...

• 50:09Speaker 01

  You attacked the Germans, they did not attack you.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  They attacked Belgium, with whom we had a treaty, on their way through to attack France.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  But can't you take a big picture of you and answer the question? Was it worth losing everything?

• 50:21Speaker 02

  No, because I, I'll happily come to that question, but I'm trying to make a point that you seem to refuse to make, allow me to make, that had we, in 1914, been projecting strength, had the Kaiser thought there was a big British army and the British will take this seriously, he would not have gone through Belgium. And if he had not gone through Belgium, we would not have gone to war. And it is the projection of strength that avoids war. And this is what we should be doing now, we should learn from history, that if your enemy thinks you are weak, then you find you get into war by accident. If you show that you are strong, then the invasion doesn't take place. And if Hitler had thought we were strong, then Poland would not have been invaded.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  Hitler did not want to go to war with the UK.

• 51:07Speaker 02

  He thought we wouldn't do anything about Poland, as we'd done nothing...

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Hitler repeatedly said, "I do not want to go to war with the UK." We acknowledge that?

• 51:13Speaker 02

  As we'd done nothing about Czechoslovakia, he thought we'd do nothing about...

• 51:16Speaker 01

  We acknowledge that Hitler said repeatedly, in public and through diplomacy, "I do not want war with the UK."

• 51:21Speaker 02

  You seem to be putting more trust in Hitler than I would. He said all sorts of things.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  You're saying he said that?

• 51:25Speaker 02

  He signed an agreement with Neville...

• 51:26Speaker 01

  Did he say that?

• 51:27Speaker 02

  I really don't care what he said, because he said, he signed a piece of paper with Neville Chamberlain, saying he would not invade. I'm very surprised you're verging on defending Hitler, I think this is not really what you want to be doing.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess I'm just a secret Nazi. I'm actually not a secret Nazi.

• 51:41Speaker 02

  I'm reassured.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  And hardly a public Nazi. I'm someone who tries to think clearly about cause and effect.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Yes. And this is the point that I think you're missing.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  The cost of the First World War is going unacknowledged by you. So the high school you went to is called Eton. Eton lost 1,100, this is a high school, 1,100 students from, just from one school.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  I think it was 1,200.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  Was it 1,200? Okay.

• 52:04Speaker 02

  We effectively lost a full five-year period, if you have a gauge...

• 52:06Speaker 01

  We lost the entire nation and all of Christian Europe.

• 52:10Speaker 02

  You want to go and speak at Eton?

• 52:11Speaker 01

  I don't think I would be welcome at Eton.

• 52:13Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm sure.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  I doubt it.

• 52:15Speaker 02

  I think you would.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  But here's my point.

• 52:17Speaker 02

  And if you do, you should go to the college chapel, because it is the most moving thing, is you go past this list of names of all the people who were killed, and it is equivalent to a full five-year cohort.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  And you don't think that's a waste?

• 52:32Speaker 02

  I haven't actually answered your question on whether it was right to go to war in the First World War. I think it's a very different question from the Second World War.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  But when you see those boys' names...

• 52:43Speaker 02

  It was terrible.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  But can anyone look at their mothers and say, "Your son died for a good cause, protecting Belgium"?

• 52:51Speaker 02

  Which we'd created, it was always worth reminding the Belgians that, and Queen Victoria's uncle got...

• 52:58Speaker 01

  That seems like a bigger lesson to me.

• 53:00Speaker 02

  I think the lesson is the war would not have happened if we had projected strength.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Who knows? But we know that the war wasn't worth fighting in the first place, and that seems like the overriding lesson.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  I think the difficulty...

• 53:09Speaker 01

  I can draw many lines in the sand, it matters at what point I do that, right?

• 53:14Speaker 02

  If you, if you appear strong, both sides during Cold War, the whole time appeared strong, and therefore, there was no hot war. The lesson I would draw is the appearance of strength is the best guarantor of peace. The Kaiser referred to the contemptible little army that we've sent over in the First World War.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  But why would you even draw the line there?

• 53:38Speaker 02

  Because he thought it was meaningless.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  But why do you care?

• 53:40Speaker 02

  Why was the First World War necessary? In traditional British political terms, it was to maintain a balance of power on the continent, because we felt threatened otherwise, and we felt threatened by Germany in our imperial possessions and by the buildup of the German navy. I'm not clear that the First World War was the right war to fight. I am clear the Second World War was, but what I'm clear...

• 54:08Speaker 01

  Do you see a connection between the wars?

• 54:13Speaker 02

  This is the question really of the Treaty of Versailles. The really interesting thing on the Treaty of Versailles is we make the terrible mistake of letting the French lead the negotiations. Because if you go back to the Congress of Vienna, which was led by Castelray. Castelray's peace treaty with France, Napoleon said, "These are the terms I would have given Britain had I defeated Britain." We were so generous that Napoleon himself said these were as generous as terms as he would have given had he won. And that led to 100 years of peace. So I don't think we make a catastrophic mistake in Versailles. Yes, of course we did.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  But there's a great difference between seeing why things happen and viewing that as a justification.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  I think the critical difference is being willing to apologize for mistakes.

• 55:05Speaker 02

  We would have avoided the Second World War if we had been strong and if we had rearmed earlier. And that's my worry now, is that we aren't learning the lessons of how we got into those two world wars because we are weak and we do not have the defense expenditure that we need.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  And I just, I mean, not to get crazy with alternate history or whatever, but you've just described two wars that killed millions and millions and millions of people, tens of millions of people, and totally destroyed your country and depopulated it in some places. And both of them were initiated in the defense of small, basically irrelevant countries that are not contiguous to Britain. You had no cultural history with you, had no connection to whatsoever. And on the basis of some theory that you keep repeating 80 years later, you destroyed your entire country and got millions of people killed. Maybe that's one lesson.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  We really didn't destroy the entire country. That there was a very large cost. But I think you need to go back, go back to the Napoleonic Wars, with the Napoleonic Wars worth fighting. Is it worth trying to stop a dictator having a commanding position in Europe? And it has usually been seen to be in British interests to stop that happening.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  Do you think that as in business, the cost needs to be part of the calculation, the potential cost? So you're a businessman, right? So you don't, you don't just look at the potential upside.

• 56:22Speaker 02

  And that's absolutely right. And this is why I was going on about the Congress of Vienna, because the Congress of Vienna led to 100 years of European peace. So we got the peace right after we'd got the war right. In the First World War, whether or not we got the war right is an arguable point, but we unequivocally got the peace wrong. And that then didn't lead to, you see, we got the peace of the Second World War right and have had 80 years of peace since, pretty much. The wars that have taken place within Europe have been sideshows. And that allows for prosperity. So if you get stability, that is hugely beneficial for your country.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  So you did a segment on GB News recently, which precipitated this conversation actually, in which you were speaking with a former Labour adviser, whose name I can't remember, but more on the other side of British politics from you. And you, but you're both on agreement that we need to confront Russia. We can't, it's the most important thing to restrain this monster Putin.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  I don't want to confront Russia, I just want us to be prepared. I don't want us to be aggressive.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  Well, the UK is confronting Russia because it's funding, it's funding the, no, it's fighting a war against Russia right now.

• 57:36Speaker 02

  We're helping Ukraine defend its territorial integrity.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  They're fighting a war in Russia.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  Anyway, you can, no, no, no, they're fighting a war.

• 57:43Speaker 01

  You are fighting a war with Russia.

• 57:44Speaker 02

  We are not fighting a war with Russia, but Ukraine is. And we are supporting Ukraine, but we are not directly at war with Russia.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Your citizens haven't died yet in great numbers, but I would argue that the United States and Britain are both fighting a war against Russia.

• 57:56Speaker 02

  If we are, we should do it properly, because I don't think we are.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  And in that conversation, he said, "The first thing we're going to need to do, not in Russia, but here in the UK, is round up people who disagree with the program and put them in jail."

• 58:09Speaker 02

  And I was finding a historical precedent with that, but I can't think that this is necessary, or good, or right.

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Now, the British government did that in the Second World War, immediately.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  It did, in the Second World War. I knew a wonderful man, amazing man. And I gathered his fathers, who was rounded up in 1939 when war was declared, was put in an enemy aliens camp in Shropshire. And he was German, Jewish, and all Germans were rounded up. He was of fighting age. The day he left the camp, he joined the British Army, and he ended the war as a brigadier. Amazing.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, because he sounds like a very forgiving man.

• 58:50Speaker 02

  He was a wonderful man.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  He sounds it. But I'm not talking about people who are rounded up as potential foreign nationals.

• 58:56Speaker 02

  And we can't round up people for their expression of opinions, and people must be free to oppose.

• 59:01Speaker 01

  But the British government has never apologized for violating its own ancient principles by rounding up not simply members of the opposition party, but their families.

• 59:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  And I'm talking to the Mosley's, but also everyone who worked with the Mosley's, all the whole leadership and their wives. And no one's ever apologized for that, and it does raise the question.

• 59:20Speaker 02

  In America, you arrested the Japanese, didn't you?

• 59:22Speaker 01

  Hundreds of thousands of them. Some of them, in fact, I think the majority, I think the majority were American citizens.

• 59:28Speaker 02

  Has America apologized for that?

• 59:30Speaker 01

  Yes, but not enough, as far as I'm concerned. You can't arrest your own citizens because of how they look. Like, that's what we're fighting against.

• 59:37Speaker 02

  Not going to disagree with you on that.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  So if there was an attempt, and there has been an attempt already in Britain to penalize people for opposing a war with Russia, George Galloway was accused of being a foreign agent or something. He's from here, as you know.

• 59:52Speaker 02

  I know George.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. You think he's a foreign agent?

• 59:55Speaker 02

  No, I don't think George is a foreign agent. George is a very brilliant orator and an interesting political figure.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:02Speaker 02

  One of the best orators in modern British politics. His views are completely bonkers, but that's another matter. We don't need to go into George's.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean, it's okay, I'm sure he thinks out of you too.

• 1:00:12Speaker 02

  I'm sure he does, I'm sure he does.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  And you're being very gracious about him as a person, and I, by the way, I

• 1:00:17Speaker 02

  He's charming when you meet him.

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  He's so charming. But the point is, the British government

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  Very good Catholic as well.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  He is.

• 1:00:23Speaker 02

  Great supporter of the old right mass.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  A pro-life leftist.

• 1:00:26Speaker 02

  Rather wonderfully, he met Pope Francis and told him, I heard this on the grapevine, I hope it's true, he told him that he shouldn't be so mean about the Latin mass, so I'm rather pro George Galloway there.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  I am too. But the point is, George Galloway can't live in the nation of his birth because he opposed

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  George should be free to say what he says, what he wants. We should, I'm very worried, as a much broader point, about free speech in this country. We can't simply adopt a First Amendment because with an uncodified constitution, it doesn't work. But we have historically protected freedom of speech through the way politicians have behaved, and we are now attacking freedom of speech. And I'm deeply concerned about that. Of course, if people want to be Russian apologists, they should be free to do so, and they will be ridiculed for it.

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  Thank you for saying that.

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  But they should be free to do so.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  Should journalists be, should Britons be allowed to watch RT or any other news source they want to in their own country?

• 1:01:24Speaker 02

  Of course they should.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  Good.

• 1:01:26Speaker 02

  I'm very against banning things. If you think of Lord Horhor in the Second World War.

• 1:01:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  Germany calling, Germany calling. He was a source of ridicule. And actually, the more people listened to him, the more ridiculous they thought the Germans were. So I would never ban things because you get propaganda broadcast to you and you laugh at it. The British laugh at most things most of the time.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  If we had RT coming through all the time, we'd be giggling at it, thinking, "That's rum old stuff."

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  I think that's a, that's a wise and evolved point. My final question to you is if, for whatever reason, Britain's war and America's war against Russia provokes Russia into responding against the UK and the United States, and I pray that that doesn't happen, but if it does and Britons are killed, will you be able to say to their surviving loved ones, "It was worth it, that your child died"?

• 1:02:23Speaker 02

  This is the most important question. Is a war worth your own life?

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:30Speaker 02

  And the freedom of the United Kingdom is certainly worth my rather elderly life, which won't be much use to anybody. But you cannot say, "This country must be strong and must be ready to go to war," without thinking that if it came to bomb dropping on your house, that is a bomb you would have to accept.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  I just don't understand, given what you've already just conceded, that the government of the United Kingdom is punishing and prohibiting people and ideas it doesn't like. Russia is not doing that. So how is...

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  What?

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  To you.

• 1:03:05Speaker 02

  You can't say...

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  To you.

• 1:03:06Speaker 02

  But in Russia, it's doing it in spades. It's beating people up, arresting them, it's murdering them.

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  In your country?

• 1:03:11Speaker 02

  Well, it's...

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  No, your citizens are under...

• 1:03:13Speaker 02

  Russia has poisoned people in this country.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  Russia has put fewer people in jail in the last year for social media posts than the UK has.

• 1:03:25Speaker 02

  They just accidentally fall out of windows in Russia.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  Look, I'm just saying...

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  And nobody dares say anything really in Russia because they get bullied in their head.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  If you're a Brit, neither of us live in Russia. But if you're a Brit, if you live in this country and your ancestors have lived here for thousands of years, the threat to your freedom comes from your government, not Russia.

• 1:03:41Speaker 02

  I'm not in favor of the way free speech is being policed in this country.

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  So why not try to overthrow your government?

• 1:03:48Speaker 02

  Well, I hope to stand at the next election. We have a democracy that functions.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  But if they're oppressing you, if you can't say what you think, that's oppression.

• 1:03:56Speaker 02

  They're not oppressing anything that I've tried to say. But I think...

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  Wait a second. That's not how free speech works.

• 1:04:04Speaker 02

  No, no, I'm aware of that. But I need to continue. That they are applying laws, to my mind, much too rigorously on people who are saying things that are unpleasant but not dangerous.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  I agree with that.

• 1:04:23Speaker 02

  I'm not saying anything that is bordering on that. I'm not justifying acts of violence. I'm not pointing towards violence. Not doing any of those sorts of things. I think a state is entitled to say that if you put on the internet, "Let's go and string up Mr. X", that that should be illegal. But I don't think it should be illegal to say, "I wish Mr. X were strung up."

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  Exactly. And that's the standard that we have in the United States.

• 1:04:53Speaker 02

  Unfortunately, we have been alighting the two and people have been prosecuting for expressing a desire rather than threatening an action.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  Well, you're being very generous to your own government. Many people have been prosecuted for expressing views that don't touch on violence at all.

• 1:05:08Speaker 02

  There have been completely mad policemen who have gone around to people who've been rude about schoolteachers.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Or praying outside abortion clinics.

• 1:05:15Speaker 02

  Which is dreadful.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  So my question is, why is that not a much bigger problem than anything Russia is doing to you?

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  Because we have a functioning democracy. We'll have a general election and I hope we will have a conservative government that will restore freedom of speech. Because I think people are getting increasingly angry about how their freedom of speech is being...

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  How can it be a functioning democracy without freedom of speech?

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  Well, because the limits that there are at the moment are, to my mind, wrong and should not be allowed. But they are not affecting normal political discourse. You know, that I'm very against people praying outside abortion clinics being arrested.

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  I bet.

• 1:05:54Speaker 02

  I think it's quite improper and is against freedom of speech. But that is not at risk of determining a general election. They are not stopping people from saying, "I think Andy Burnham is a useless prime minister." There's no threat of that. So there's some overzealous enforcement of laws that are meant to stop harassment, which to my mind go much too far. But there has been, as yet, no attempt to stop free political speech.

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  Really? So if I say "free Palestine",

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  If you say "free Palestine"...

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  From the river to the sea? I want Palestine to be free? Which I don't say, but I don't know why you wouldn't say that. I can be arrested for that in the UK. Many have been.

• 1:06:40Speaker 02

  Well, I think they've only been arrested for saying that if they've been saying it in a way that appears to threaten violence on marches. Don't think they've... If you put that on your Twitter account...

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Elderly women have been arrested? I don't think they post a...

• 1:06:52Speaker 02

  Well, I happen to think this has been completely stupid. That they've banned whatever the organization is called.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  Palestine Action, I think.

• 1:07:00Speaker 02

  And then they've arrested elderly people who belong to it, which has made the government look stupid. That's...

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  But what about the elderly people? What about them? Who cares about the government? Look, the government is stupid. I mean, who cares, right?

• 1:07:12Speaker 02

  The reason this matters is that governments have power to stop terrorist organizations. Quite right. They need to have that power. But what they've done with Palestine Action is confuse the people who support it politically with the people who are bad people who want acts of violence. And therefore, they've arrested elderly people who, to my mind, are very silly people, but nonetheless are entitled to their view. I don't think the arrest of people for supporting a political view is right. I do think it is reasonable to arrest people who propose and prepare acts of terrorism.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:07:53Speaker 02

  So we're agreeing on that. But yes, there has been overzealous efforts. And as I say, I think it's made the government look very foolish. And this is one of the great things about having freedom of press and so on, which we still have, is that governments, when they are overzealous, which is in the nature of government, doesn't really work because they get to look ridiculous.

• 1:08:18Speaker 01

  I hope you're right.

• 1:08:19Speaker 02

  I'm not pessimistic about the ultimate success of free speech in this country.

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  Well, I'm rooting for that and I'm rooting for the country itself and I'm rooting for peace. And I hope you don't pick a fight with Russia.

• 1:08:31Speaker 02

  We're not picking a fight with Russia. We just want to be strong.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  And I am grateful for all the time that you have spent graciously.

• 1:08:37Speaker 02

  It's been a pleasure to meet you.

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  Entertaining my nasty questions.

• 1:08:39Speaker 02

  No, they're not nasty at all. I don't have a concept of nasty question.

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:08:45Speaker 02

  Thank you very much.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  Mr. Reese Smoke, thank you. And thank you truly for your graciousness.

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  It's a pleasure. Pleasure, thank you.