511. Is Blair Undermining Starmer on Iran? (Question Time)

Thanks for listening to The Rest is Politics. To support the podcast, listen without the adverts, and get early access to episodes and live show tickets, go to the rest ispolitics.com. That's the rest is politics.com. Blair has strongly, strongly given the impression that he would have been much more strongly behind what Trump and Israel are doing in Iran than Kirstama. If you are any former Prime Minister, but I would argue particularly Tony Blair, in this context, where a late

Prime Minister has got a particular difficulty with the American president, then there is no such thing as off the record. We need some way of saying to the US, we're distancing ourselves, we're not gonna be your lackeys anymore. You've just strengthened Russia's hand by pushing up the oil price. You've weakened Ukraine but

Patriotness sells out, you've weakened our own economies. With respect, you tell us to look after ourselves, stand on our own two feet, be proud national Europeans. Our priority is this, we're not having anything to do with this.

Welcome to the Rest is Polities Question Time with me Alistair Campbell. And with me Rory Stewart. And as with the main episode that we did live yesterday, we are going to be focusing entirely on Iran. We have had a thousands of questions from you. And it is such a consequential An amazing and and actually I mean, even on the live show we got a huge amount of questions, but we've also had people sending them in by, I guess, email

all different social media platforms, Discord. I mean it's it's been incredible. I wanna start though with Jennifer who's a Trip Plus member. Thank you Jennifer very much. Thank you. Thank you for subscribing. From New Molden. What do you make of Alastair's former boss commenting on Starmer's reluctance to join the Orange Man and his seemingly impulsive war in a run? There's a lot of adjectives going on here, Jennifer.

I know that post Brexit the unspoken policy of ex Prime Ministers not commenting on their successes seems to have gone out of the window, but to me it seems particularly vicious to kick Starmer when he's already down, especially when on this occasion most British people believe he's right.

Has being on the orange man's board of peace gone to Blair's head, or is he now Board of Peace? Okay, well I'll put the case of the defence, then I'll put the case of the prosecution. Very good. In a good sort of, you know, fancy balance. So the case for the defense is that Tony is adamant he didn't say the things that the headline said he said.

In other words, the headlines were Blair rebukes Starmer, Blair admonishes Starmer, Blair says Starmer weak and he says he said none of that. What he did say was that in an ideal world Britain would be alongside the American in these foreign policy adventures. And that he suggested that he personally, had he been Prime Minister, would have been squarely behind the US in this particular way. Well I don't even know that he said that. No what he what he hasn't done is denied

saying some of the things that he's reported as saying because he's assuming and this is where I make the case for the prosecution. If you are any former Prime Minister, but I would argue particularly Tony Blair, in this context, where a Labour Prime Minister has got a particular difficulty ongoing with the American president.

then you are a very, very skilled, very, very experienced politician. There is no such thing as off the record. There is no such thing as Chatham House rule. It said in the papers it was a Chatham House event. There's no such thing. Sure. So my sense is that as much through body language and tone, he gave enough to the mail, the telegraph, etcetera. Whoever was taping the thing. to run the headlines that they did. And just to sorry in very, very basic terms.

the story seems to be that Blair has Strongly, strongly given the impression, whether he exactly said this or not, that he would have been much more strongly behind what Trump and Israel are doing in Iran and Kirstama and if he'd been in charge, the implication at least was that Britain would have opened up these air bases, got behind it.

And the suggestion is that he's worried that Starmer hasn't done enough to support the US. And that and that's Trump's line too, which makes it even more complicated because Trump also has been going around saying that you know, Starmer's not exactly Churchill, you know, we used to be a great ally and has basically been insulting Starmer, saying he's not been strong enough with the thing. Right. And that is why in my view Tony should have been a lot more sensitive.

whatever he said and however he said it to the notion that there would be people in that room. This was a Jewish news fundraiser. This is a very, very pro-Israel audience.

Israel is much more in favour of what's happening in Iran than the UK or Europe or indeed the United States public opinion. Why's why is Tony speaking at a fundraiser for Jewish news? Probably because he's, you know, supports the some of the causes that they support and uh I've I've said to you before, one of the reasons I actually don't mind him being involved in the Board of Peace,'cause I think he is one of the few people who genuinely has access to all of the sides in this debate.

and does at least care about the future of Gaza in a way that I'm not convinced that Kushner and Whitkoff and and Trump remotely do. But I just I just felt when I when I got the the pig on my phone, I just thought oh God. I mean Keir Starmak can do without this. And to be fair, John Major would not be tempted to do that kind of thing. He's been much more careful, hasn't he?

I mean the interventions from people like Major were very, very limited in control. Certainly when we were in government. I mean you you were not worried about Boris Johnson. Yeah. Until Boris Johnson. Yeah. That's because he had been very loyal with Cameron and May. And with Johnson he thought he'd completely overstepped the mark on Brexit.

When Major decided to do it, it was he was putting the boot into somebody he thought was a terrible prime minister. So very, very odd. Rishi Sunak's come out in favor of what Trump's doing or seems to have done, judging by the headlines in the newspapers. This episode is powered by Fuse Energy. Most of us are buying energy in the dark, not knowing what it costs.

You wouldn't do that with your weekly food shop, but with energy you're often charged first and only find out the number later. When you don't have that clarity, you usually end up paying more than you should, which is what Fuse Energy is working to change about how energy works.

The average household switching to Fuse can save around£200 on their energy bills. Fuse handles the practical side. The app shows what you're spending day by day and what that actually means for your bills. For listeners to the show, there's an added benefit. Use the code POLITICS when you switch, and you'll receive a free TRIP PLUS subscription. Switch to Fuse Energy and save around two hundred pounds on your energy bills. Use the code Politics for a free TRIP PLUS subscription

fuseenergy.com slash politics. I think you've always got to be careful with these things because they they there is something, I mean forget Johnson and and Trust, but the sort of serious foreign prime ministers Tony, John Major, etcetera, Theresa May. They will think very, very carefully before intervening in a domestic political, a live domestic political issue. Partly because when they do, it should carry weight and have impact. They shouldn't become kind of rent a quote.

And it's perfectly clear to me that Tony did not imagine And this is where I think he made a mistake. He did not imagine that this was going to become a big thing in the newspaper. So he sort of indicated, Yeah, well basically I'm probably more on the American side than the British government is not a good thing. Would they not be sang?

Come off it. Alistair, for God's sake. I mean, every time a minister said to you, Oh, I didn't realise it was gonna be a big thing in the newspapers, you would say, Grow up, you're a senior politician. You know exactly what you're saying. And the idea the idea that Blair with all his experience gets to say, ooh, what I thought it was Chatham House Rules. I don't know if it'd be a big thing. I think that was the that was what they that was then sort of put out there.

Look, I don't think he would want he would not have wanted the set of Sunday newspaper headlines that we got. He would not be wanting to make Kearstarmer's life even more difficult. Now there is a case Matt Kelly, the editor of the New World, he's he's done his whole podcast and this is the best sort of PR gift to to Keir Starmer going because Tony Blair is seen as you know, negative vis a vis Iraq and this is Keir Starmer doing something different.

I think number ten could have done without it, no doubt about that. And I also think, maybe to go to the the you know, the the point that Jennifer's making, I do think you and I argued about the way that they got there, but I do think Kirstam has ended up in broadly the right position for the UK. He doesn't want to be falling out with Trump. Now he has fallen out with Trump. They had a phone call that apparently went reasonably well but not great.

Trump does think that asking for the use of a base is not that big a deal when you're an ally, and he thinks that being told you can't use a particular base at a particular time was a really bad move by the Brits. But Can he get over that? Kearsam and I tried to rebuild that relationship. Ed Miliband being very much against using US bases and John Healy being in favor.

And then a lot of briefing coming from people close to Starmer saying he decided one thing on Thursday these are people that's uh close but who are not on his side, saying he decided one thing Thursday, Friday and then he changed his m mind on Saturday, and then you have other people in Downing Street saying The US didn't request on Thursday Friday, so he only agreed to it on Saturday. It doesn't seem to me as though those stories feel like

a clean, clear decision tree. They feel like an almighty disagreement within the cabinet about what they're gonna do, and a lot of uncertainty about what US was requesting, when they were requesting it, what's going on. Here's another fact that was interesting to me. Which is just how much these bases are being used anyway. Yeah. So the Daily Mail did some pretty good reporting on what was happening in Prestwick, which is owned by the Scottish Government. So they discovered that at this base

Prestwick Airport, in the build up, so the implication is not after the operation started. There were already ten F thirty five's American F thirty five's the big attack aircraft, two A ten Warthogs. two C seventeen A's. To make the story even more complicated. Uh it appears that the US was just using all these bases anyway. So him saying

one day you can't use them the next day you can use them for defensive purposes. I I also still don't quite really understand what that means. I mean, does that mean to defend US missile bases and radar stations from Iranian attack. In which case are you saying it's not justifiable for the Iranians to attack US radar stations if they're defending themselves? My my understanding of what they didn't agree to was British assets being used in the initial attack.

attacks on Iran. So no British planes flying. Correct. Right. And now does that mean that there weren't British assets that are used under our everyday twenty four seven defence arrangements with the US? Probably.

Which is the point that you were making. So actually there was one of the I saw on the one of the I think it was CNN they were filming from Fairford and talking about whether they could use this base and you could see stuff coming and going and you're thinking, That is not a civilian aircraft I'm looking at there.

I do think on this I think we've got to be really careful to I mean, I said last week I thought you were being quite harsh on Key and quite unfair. I think we are in this very very weird political environment. So yesterday, for example, Rachel Reeves stands up in the House of Commons and makes a statement about the economic impact.

the level of coming from the Tories and from reform and from the Lib Dems of, you know, you're making a complete mess of this and you haven't done this and why aren't you doing this? There's no sort of understanding of just how tough this is right now.

And likewise for Keir Starmer, I mean, you and I weren't at the National Security Council meeting. It is terrible if somebody is briefing out of that. Sure. Truly terrible. Sure. Rightly, Theresa May sacked cabinet ministers who were briefing out of that. So and I think what usually happens whenever you're reading a partial

tendentious account of meetings, it's always worth asking who benefits from the way that this is being projected. Now, because Keir Starm is kind of public enemy number one in the eyes of most of the right wing in the of our media. He becomes the one who is slighted and projected as being weak in this context. I don't know.

I n what I do know is that there was a pretty robust discussion about all of the consequences, which you would expect. If you go through what we've just just go through all the things that we talked about yesterday.

On the main podcast, of all the things where we said, did Trump even think about this, even think about that? I would hope that the British National Security Council would think through consequences for environment, consequences for desalination, consequences for oil, consequences for the sort of geostrategic alliances that we have. Does that mean then that because Minister A says one thing and Minister B says another?

something else. A minister C, or even worse, may I suggest, an official, starts to brief the media. And Tim Shipman, the journalist who who wrote it, Tim Shipman who's he's written these books that sort of chronicle the Tory years and but I think we've got stop pretending that just because you're Tim Shipman, I'm not maligning Tim Shipman in any way here, but It doesn't mean that you have got a full account.

And just because you've written it under Michael Gove's banner in the Spectator does not mean it's all accurate. No, I don't think it's a hundred percent accurate, but it is also true that certainly when I was in government Uh Tim had a lot of people on Speed Dell and there are lots of MPs who'll be talking to him and giving him Which is which is just but Can I can I just make a point this really'cause g having been involved in one or two of these war situations.

It is a time when you have to have absolute grip on the communications. Yeah. You can't have people. I'm always amazed when I see these T V reporters and this and it and I got a WhatsApp from this mess this minister and I got a WhatsApp from that minister and I got a this and a that and the other.

What the hell are they all doing? No, I agree. If you're in this situation you have to have an agreed approach and then you stick it's completely shocking. And as you say, Gavin Williamson was fired for doing this, but I was really struck as a minister how angry I remember Tim Shipman getting very angry with me because I wouldn't talk. Um, and him saying, you know, I don't see how you're presenting yourself as a

insurgent candidate running to be the Prime Minister if you're not talking to journalists. So the deal, which Liv's Trust benefited from, is the more that you have a good relationship with them, the more they promote you. And so if you are

Westreeting or your Angela Rayner or I don't know, your Shabana Mahmoud, you're thinking, Well these connections help to boost my stock. We have to remain with the big story and not get caught into the weeds of this too much. And I think there are two big stories. One of them is this is an illegal. it doesn't make any sense in international law. But it's also, uh, as Tally Rong would say, right, it it's it's not just a crime, right? It's stupidity. This is uh this is something which is going to

go badly wrong. Do you think Trump has heard of Tallehall? Yeah, he thinks about him a lot. Yeah. So the key point here is that it's going to almost certainly create a repressive regime in Iran, it's going to Shake the economies of the Middle East, it's going to make Britain's economies struggle, Europe's economies struggle, and it's achieving next to nothing. That's the big story. Should a British Prime Minister be supporting this trend of war? Absolutely not.

Not least because the way that Trump and Etniahu has done it is flagrantly undermining international. Should he be saying it in the terms that you've just said? Because that's where that's where you and I disagree. No, no, I don't think he should be saying it in those terms. I think what he should have said And I think it's a difficult line, but it's got to be the line going forward for all these guys, right? Which is to say to the US You've said from the beginning that

You want to retreat from Europe'cause you want to focus on China. You want us to focus on our own backyard. You want us to take on Russia and guess what we're doing it? You've taken fifty billion dollars out. We've taken responsibility for that. You want us to be sovereign?

You want us to be independent, you want to stand on the other side. And by the way, you've just strengthened Russia's hand by pushing up the oil price, you've weakened Ukraine by taking patriot missiles out, you've weakened our own economies. So, with respect, you tell us to look after ourselves, stand on our own two feet, be proud national Europeans.

Our priority is this. We're not having anything to do with this. I mentioned yesterday's book. You can't read it'cause it's in German, but uh uh this honestly has got to be translated into English. It's a really important book, I think. the grown up land, Germany without America. But I was I found this amazing account. This is when Merkel was Chancellor and Jared Kushner was in the little team and they were doing all the small talk before the big meeting started.

And this guy, Christoph Heusgen, who is an advisor to Angler Merkel, and he's he's having this discussion with with Kushner. And Kushner says as follows. We're business people. In business, one day somebody's your friend and the next day they're your enemy. That's how our foreign policy is going to work.

Well, I'm not sure. No, Alistair, you you've you've talked a lot about um middle powers and response we both have and and what that narrative could be. And you've been challenging me on this response. I don't think it's just a question for the UK. And Nick Osler, who's a Trip plus member, has a question on this. With three years left of Trump's chaotic presidency, should Starmer and other world leaders stop tiptoeing and start calling out his childish, unpredictable, and dangerous actions?

The usual strategy of ignoring insults and hoping flattery works doesn't seem to be preventing real damage to the world order. Has the time come to speak plainly about the Emperor's lack of clothes? in a way speak to the different challenges that are that are posed to

People like us who can say what we want and say what we think, and people who are actually involved day to day in the art of statecraft and trying to build alliances. But I I think, for example, just two quick examples that relate to this. We talked on the main episode yesterday about this school. that's been hit in uh that was hit on the day day one and a hundred and fifty people killed, many of them very, very small children. Trump is lying about it. He is now he's basically saying

Oh well we think it was Iran. He's the only person who's saying that. He was actually to be fair to a reporter, he was r directly challenged about it yesterday. And he said, Oh well there's a report, we'll see what the report is. But I think there comes a point where other leaders actually have to step up and say, Look, if we cannot even tell the truth about mistakes that are being made in this war, then we cannot possibly Tell the truth about the bigger picture.

And so I think those sorts of things and maybe we're off to Spain tomorrow to see the Prime Minister of Spain. Maybe it's the sort of thing that that he could do. But I I I think this th it really does speak to just how hard this is when you know

If you have a go at Trump, he's going to make you pay a price. Yeah. You've got to balance that all the time. It it is also fascinating because I think we're also learning that of course we're very dependent on the US, but the US is actually quite dependent on us. It's no accident that he went ballistic when the Spanish Prime Minister didn't let him use his air bases or that he put so much pressure on Starmer to let him use British airbases. The idea that the US can just

do what it wants around the world isn't quite true. It does depend on allies. And that gives the allies more leverage than they realise. Yeah, well and they will get more of that leverage if they if they come together. We've got to do two things. We've got to be able to not be dragged into whatever mad adventures

Trump or his successors want to pursue if they're not in our interests. And secondly, we've got to slowly be able to become more independent of the US, stand on round two feet, tech, AI, defence, etcetera. And we need a narrative. We need some way of respectfully saying to the US We're distancing ourselves. We're not gonna be your lackeys anymore. You don't get to help yourself to Greenland. And we're gonna start separating ourselves from US AI tech defense.

What's the best communication strategy for that? What's the best way of articulating that? And we've got to do it together because if we don't do it together and we don't have a joint

statement from Europe, UK and Canada. What he'll do is he'll divide and rule. What we'll find is when it suits him, he'll offer a nice trade deal to uh Keir Starmer and make Starmer feel he's got a special relationship. And when it suits him, he'll sit down with Mayor The Gem Chancellor in the in the White House and Metz will say supportive things, and goodness knows, he may even be able to get Mark Carney to say supportive things.

And he will do this again and again and again. You know, if Spain comes against him, he'll punish them on tariffs and trade. So uh what I'm looking for Is is there a narrative And is the narrative the one that I'm trying to sell, which is you told us that we needed to stand our own two feet.

And this is us standing on our NT feet. I I think that is part of the narrative, but I I think the bigger narrative goes to something else we've talked about in the last few weeks, which is values. What I really liked about the Modi Carney statement was that it was essentially a response to what Trump's doing without talking about Trump. It was this really long, detailed agreement that they reached across so many different aspects of their economy.

and their their business landscapes and and and I think it was a really, really, really impressive piece of work. And I think we need something really big on that front. So for example, whether there is a case to be made for the revival of human rights Whether there is a case we made for the revival of international law.

A new definition of international law where somebody like Keir Starmer gets together with a Khani, possibly with the Australians, possibly with the Koreans, and says, you know, we're all being challenged in this, let's redefine what it is. And if the Americans want to be part of it, fine. If they don't

And are you imagining that we try to hold together a pretty consistent coalition of joint statements, or is it going to be little ad hoc on this one, Korea, Canada, Britain, on that one, France, Germany, whatever? I mean, how's this going to operate? Well I think uh Th partly this is a result of the kind of the the pace of the world that we're in.

So for example, um yesterday he had a situation with five uh women Iranian footballers who have been decided they they want to stay in Australia, okay? So that becomes a s that becomes an issue which Trump decides to get involved in'cause he's a way of saying Iran bad, America good.

So I said to the Australian Prime Minister, You've got to help these people out. That could happen in any country in the world. I think it makes more sense that Albanese, rather than sort of thinking about that on the hoof, is thinking, right, well, What would we do if this was Canada, if this was Britain, if this was Korea, if this was New Zealand?

And we start to kind of think through some of these scenario planning situations.'Cause the thing we know about Trump is he does operate according to to impulse. He just sees that situation. Women, football, World Cup's coming down, I've got to get involved. And and I suppose there are two big pictures that all these leaders can begin to develop. Number one is more independence from the US. So define the ten things that

Very hard. Defence is hard, AI is hard, quantum's hard. Very hard. But if we're gonna do it, what's that five, ten year plan? What are the steps we're gonna take to get there? And I suppose the second thing is what are the new rules? Because we need some rules. We need some laws, we need some norms, we need some

idea of how things operate. And and we'll know consistently that those are the two things with Trump. Yeah. He will be weaponizing any form of dependence and he'll be breaking every form of norm. And just on before we go to the next question on on the on the kind of military thing, I was just looking last night

So and it is honestly your old party, Roy, they are pretty nauseating the way they're sort of blaming Keir Starmer for the state of our armed forces. So nineteen ninety three, high to the Cold War, we had A combined armed forces across the three services of 321,000. Okay. By the time we got to the Iraq war, we're on 207,000. And we're now on 125,680. So we have more than half Well more than halved our armed are through Army, Navy, Air Force.

The height of the Cold War. And that that's just a fact that that we are now going to have to deal with and address. in a way that means really difficult decisions for government. So so a guy called Tom Sharp was writing in the telegraph about trying to think about a wood a UK naval response is. And it's completely astonishing, you know. It's basically one ship that they're all talking about called HMS Dragon, one ship which is going next week.

There's one submarine, one working attack submarine, which was recently in Australia, which hopefully is beginning to steam its way back. There's an aircraft carrier, HMS Prince Wales, but it ain't going anywhere at the moment because we're not really sure how to defend it. There's only one out of two of those. We are supposed to have a non combat evacuation ship, but that is in extended readiness in Gibraltar and extended readiness seems to be

a spin phrase for not operating. And the last one of our four mine hunters made it back without a crew, uh, carried by another vessel back to the UK, and that's the end of all our mine hunters. So, what can we actually do in Hormos? We can't do any mine hunting because we don't have any mine hunters. We can't do any civilian evacuation. We haven't got a civilian evacuation ship. Our single submarine is

Pottering over from Australia. We hope, we don't know, it's under the water. Our aircraft carrier can't move, and this thing called HMS Dragon appears to be the entire British Navy. Your fault. Your government's fault. All our faults. Yeah. All our faults. No, but it but it's a fact and and that's that's where we are gonna have to face up to that. So when you say what's the s what's the overall strategy, there has to be a defence strategy that's part of this. Now

We both said Trump had a point in saying NATO countries have to step up more than they are. But even by their own definition of what stepping up means, they're not going to fill that gap.

No. Anytime soon. No, no, no. Right, Roy, Irene from Toronto. We had a lot of response to a the talk about Churchill in the main podcast. Eighty years ago, Churchill said in his Sinews of Peace speech. It is not our duty at this time, when difficulties are so numerous, to interfere forcibly in the internal affairs of countries which we have not conquered in war. Has our duty changed? If it has, in what circumstances?

Can we justify that interference? It is an amazing speech by the way, when you go you I I went back it's just I mean You talk about kind of s the stuff of history. There is so many elements to that speech. so interesting about him is that we forget how experienced he was. He'd be by the time he's speaking out in the thirties, let alone after the war, he's already been home secretary

Chancellor, Colonies Secretary, First Lord of the Admiralty. I mean he's been in and out of cabinets of all the colours for almost thirty years. And He's also a guy who made his whole career about very clear big ideas. values were right at the heart of this. So when he's talking about Hitler, and and this is why I'm interested in how he would deal with Trump, my guess is he wouldn't just keep quiet, flatter, keep his head down, and try to do things in the background.

he would find a way of articulating clearly values British interest alliances and framing what he thinks the future of that relationship over the next twenty, thirty years isn't I I so I'm what I'm looking for in the Churchill moment is somebody who can say to the US, look, of course you are gonna be a very, very important ally for us for the next twenty years. But equally

the w world in which you tell us what to do and we're just a mini me for the United States is over. And we're now going to explain what that new world could look like where we stand proud and tall and we're better allies for you as a result. Yeah, I o I also think he would in relation to Ukraine and I mean there was Trump yesterday, did a phone call with Putin And k i the top line when he came out was he's trying to be helpful.

He's trying to be helpful. He's basically giving the Iranians all the intelligence they need. Right. But particularly for Putin, because his oil price was in in the toilet. Yeah, yeah. No, it's absolutely brilliant. Sanctions are being lifted, his revenue's going up, Russia's getting richer, all the missiles that could be fired.

And he gets to play every which way. He can be like, This is what she should do and meanwhile under the table Putin can screw him over. Exactly. So I think Churchill would have been onto that and I think he would have been onto the impact, the worrying impact upon Ukraine and why it was in our interest as the UK and Europe to be very much on on that side. So she's sign of desperation and weakness though. The example and Churchill did point to this, the example before the war.

was some of his colleagues absolutely desperate to try to get Mussolini's advice on how to deal with Hitler and hoping that if they were nice to Mussolini and Abyssinia, he'd somehow help them against Hitler. And Churchill was saying consistently, You're out of your mind. But it doesn't work like that. Yeah. You know the famous picture of um

Stalin and Roosevelt and Churchill, where Churchill's sort of sitting down. He looks quite bored and he's sitting down his ship. That's Tehran. That's Tehran. Yeah. So I mean this the way that Iran is part of this this story. But he also he had this wonderful thing, he said this is where the meeting where he realised that he was sitting between the great Russian bear and the great American buffalo.

While Britain was resembling the poor little British donkey. So the his his observation about the special relationship was much as it was as much a plea for the special relationship as opposed to it's become known as a definition of the special relationship. Anyway, I think to yeah, Churchill, I don't know. He also he also did he he was the one who said that whenever you go to war you end up

at the mercy of malignant fortune, ugly surprises, and awful miscalculations. Which again I don't think Trump thinks in those terms. Well let's take a quick break and then I think what we should do maybe is come back what's happening on the ground in Iran because as I say we tend to look at this from ten thousand feet and actually right at the heart of this is the experience of people uh in Iran at the moment. Cool. See you in a bit. This episode is brought to you by Wookiee.

And I'm speaking to you, I'm wearing a whoop device on my wrist at the moment. Politics teaches you fairly quickly that attention is finite when attention is drawn to the loud and urgent. It's easy to miss the deeper patterns shaping outcomes. And that applies to health as well. You keep going.

You meet demands, you get through the day without noticing that the cost is quietly all adding up and taking a toll. Whereas whoop exists to bring the background picture into focus, this thing on your wrist is there showing you how your body responds to everyday life, to sleep, to recovery, to strain, and how those rhythms and trends emerge over time. If you want to better understand what

how you can feel and live at your best for years to come, head to join.woop.com slash TRIP and get started with Whoop today. You can sign up for a free 30 day trial so you can try Whoop risk free and see what you learn. Now just a quick pause in the podcast to mention our sponsor, Nord VP.

March is the month of forms and figures, tax returns, renewals, end-of-year accounts, transactions containing more of our money and identity than we realise. And as we're doing that, a cyberattack occurs on our Every thirty nine centuries. In the UK, hundreds of cyber enabled crimes are reported each day. With around four point five million pounds lost daily to Cyberstone.

And this is only gonna become more true with AI. We think of security risks as big and dramatic, but increasingly not. They're creeping in through the ordinary, an email that looks plausible, a link that feels routine. That's why I've been using NordVPN to close the gap. NordVPN encrypts your internet connection, hides your IP address, and protects your bank details and passwords, so you're not assuming everything online.

To get the best discount on your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN.com slash Restispolitics. You'll get four extra months free on the two-year plan, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee. The link is in the episode description. Ving firar 70 år av resor som är svåra att släppa taget om, och det gör vi med massor av erbjudanden som är omöjliga att motstå. Boka redan nu på wing.se, de bästa resorna försvinner först.

Welcome back to the Restless Politics question time with me, Roy Stewart. And me, Anister Campbell. And Rory, as if by magic, Lorcan of London said what is actually unfolding inside Iran right now. I love the way that our listeners assume that we will Uh we'd be bluffing if we said we completely knew because internet's down often. Telephones down often. It's really difficult talking to people in Iran. An Iranian friend of mine managed to get through to his mother yesterday.

Another one of my neighbors uh managed to talk to someone in Tehran. So what am I hearing from them? And there's a random anecdotal. Uh first thing is Their experience is they think that the US is mostly striking military sites, ballistic missile sites.

Israel seems to be, but how on earth they differentiate an Israeli bomb from a uh an American bomb? I have no idea. But anyway, this th their understanding is that it's Israel that's mostly hitting the government offices and Uh, one of the things that you will realise when you go to Tehran is that these government offices and go even go to Shiraz are right in the middle of town.

and there's residential neighborhoods all the way round. It it's not actually quite like hitting Whitehall here. It's much, much more integrated into civilian life. Uh second thing.

We talked about yesterday what's happened in the uh leadership change. So the Iranian people overwhelmingly detest this regime. Eighty, ninety percent of the Iranian people want to see this horrible regime gone because for almost half a century they have been ruled by an increasingly brutal, cynical, repressive theocratic regime,

But there isn't any credible opposition on the ground. And so they are stuck in this horrifying situation where they're being forced to choose between a regime they hate and American and Israeli bombs. And that's a really difficult issue because As an Iranian nationalist, you don't want either of those options. I was talking to somebody who works with the Iranian diaspora here and in different parts of Europe.

who said the worst thing about what's going on is that we we feel we're we're going through two wars simultaneously. We feel that the regime has been waging war on us. And now we feel that we, despite being opponents of the regime, are being put into exactly the same basket as the regime because we happen to be Iranian.

And when you and Hexha certainly took it. Absolutely, Hexes basically said, you know, the ones that the the the ones who are Iranian and still still think they're gonna live, they're our target. Well that again, that one could come back to haunt him in a in a tribunal down the track. But if you imagine that the no, there will be, I mean it's impossible to know, but let let's let's say you're right, eighty, ninety percent. Let's say there's sort of ten, fifteen, twenty percent.

Totally support the regime, totally locked up. That means you've got 80% saying not for us. They are now feeling like they are on the receiving end of a massive American-Israeli war. And that is psychologically, I'd have thought, pretty crushing, knowing how to get it. Another thing I think that's so interesting when when we talk about this is people talk about what Iranians think or Iranian public opinion. But it's a massive country of almost a hundred million people.

It would be like saying, you know, what are the British things? And of course, as we found out with Brexit, you could talk to one group of good British friends and they could be like, No, no, no, no, no you know, all these Brexiteers and maniacs and you talk to another gr group of British friends and it turns out fifty two percent of people are voting for Brexit. Again, if I was to you know, let's say I was an American journalist interviewing you about Nigel Farage,

You might be a bit tempted to be like, he's an idiot, nobody likes him, nobody supports him. No you won't you might not. Well maybe you wouldn't. But anyway. The but you see the basic point. The part of the problem when we're talking to Iranians is who are you talking to? Are you talking to somebody from a wealthier, more educated background living in a city and those people have hated the regime for forty years. Are you talking to someone in the kind of villages that I was walking through?

which are poor, conservative, nationalistic, propagandized, who traditionally have been the base of the regime? Are you talking to ethnic groups? So

One of the things we need to think about is that there's these persistent rumors that Trump and the CIA have been flirting with the idea of arming the Kurds. Kurds less than ten percent of the population of Iran, right? So it's predominantly a Persian country, located up in the the northwest on the western edges of the country. that would be a terrifying thing to do. I mean the Kurds have been very badly treated by the Iranians, terribly oppressed but

the idea that arming a ethnic group and starting a civil war. I think he's backing off that. The other thing that I find incredible about the way that Trump conducts himself in this, w th this is his genius as a sort of political operative. You have serious journalists today who have Whose framing of this is well it looks like Trump is going to decide when this is over and he's going to declare victory on his terms.

And they're already shaping the debate like that. Yeah. Which of course is what then allows him to do it. Just on everyone bringing a sigh of relief. So I was listening to today programme this morning and oil price is down because Trump has said it was extraordinary Trump communication.

Uh, I think it's gonna end very soon. When? Well, you know. We haven't won enough yet. We've won, but we haven't won enough yet. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Which which means I think at some point we should get on to a very interesting question, which is that even if the war ended tomorrow

My reckoning is that consequences of this are gonna be with us for a very long time. This is a shattered region now. The way that the w literally the media around the world allow him to dictate an agenda, as you say, based on just a couple of throwaway remarks, which are probably not thought through. Just on Trump, by the way, there's some very good polling I saw. I mean, Trump, as we fa as the Mooch and I found in Belfast and Dublin, he's really not popular right now.

But if you go through it according to how you voted in the twenty twenty four election, so Lib Dem, if you're a Lib Dem, seventy-nine percent define themselves as very anti Trump. Labor 75, Greens 74, Conservatives 45, Reform 12. Now, I think this is a really big problem for mister Mr. Farage. Mr Farage, he went off at the weekend, he was gonna have a meeting at Maro Lago with Trump, he he got stood up, poor chap.

But I think that Farage has locked himself into a position alongside a deeply unpopular American president.

And Keir Starmer, whatever people say about him, on the politics of this, which are fiendishly difficult, has ended up broadly, I think, where British people feel pretty comfortable with the position that he's now landed in. Just to finish up with Lorkan on what's happening on the ground in Iran, uh you you you talked about uh the different leadership candidates. So you you raised last week uh Ali Laranjani, who's the national security advisor.

Uh we could have talked about Mohammed Bagr uh Ghalibat, who's the Speaker of the Parliament. And those were the kind of two secure people were uh thought uh you know really were at the key of this regime, running it day to day. And now we've had Khameni's son, which have a Khameni take over. Um The bottom line on these three figures is they are regimes through and through and through. I mean, anyone who hopes

that this is the beginning of a new reform and a new pragmatism. This is instead people who I think absolutely buy into Hameni's fundamental position. And Hamini's position is the same as Xi Jinping's position. They both looked at what happened to the Soviet Union and they thought what happened is Gorbachev was too soft. The biggest moment of danger for regimes. is when you reform. Yep. Uh how many had us another uh Iranian wrestling statement where he used to say that

when your opponent is pushing you hard, what you must never do is step back because they just occupy that space and push you further back, right? And they will all That's one of Putin's judo principles as well. Very good. Well they will have all concluded. that um they were too restrained in their response to Israel and the US last time around.

that Hezbollah in retrospect should have launched a hundred thousand missiles into Israel straight after October the seventh, that they should have hit back at the whole Gulf and launched all their drones after the first two strikes, that they gave the impression to Israel and the US that they were weak and they gained nothing from it. That everybody who had said to them, Listen, if we keep our heads down Maybe they won't come after us. What they've actually heard from Netanyahu and Trump is

We will not stop till we've wiped you out. And if someone says to you we will not stop till we've wiped you out, what possible incentive is there to restrain yourself in any way at all? Is it also the case if you go through the three uh shall we go uh how many how many how many two yeah Are they becoming less and less Theocratic So these are all... This is... slight nuance because um this depends whether you buy into sheer theology, right?

So certainly true. Ayatollah Khomeini was a really major theological scholar and and um in some ways Shia Islam feels a bit like the Catholic Church, except the Pope like figures. who are these sources of emulation, uh are often profound theologians. And the the great example is Sistani, who's basically the the big figure sitting running this from Naja. And Qom, which is the kind of holy city in Iran, is where they all move through. But don't underestimate the fact that when we say

That Mujtaba Khamini is not a great theological scholar. The guy has almost certainly memorized the entire Quran from one end to the other. Uh and could certainly spend nine or ten days lecturing you on detailed surahs and theological implications. I mean would we take that as a mini series? Nine hours with odd culture because he is a very, very senior l learned cleric. He's just not up at the top level. But it you know, it's I don't know, it's it's he's maybe he's uh

First division footballer, not a not a Premier League footballer. Okay. Okay. So the I the original Ayotolla Homene, he he was he was Champions League. Yeah, well we we have these weird phrases like we have these weird phrases of Grand Ayatollah, sources of emulation. And and one of the things that happened after Homini died is that

they did two very odd things at the same time. They broke the connection between the um theological, religious authority and the political by allowing Grand Ayatollah Sistani in in who's actually located in Iraq.

from the political, but they strengthened the notion of the wulayate haki, which is the the government of the jurists. They actually made the clergy stronger. within the regime. Are you a are you quite attracted to their face? I mean if you if you I I my my family have been Christians for generations.

What's this? Where where do you where do you where do you fall down? I know it's all to do with Mohammed and Brahman. I think for those of us who are not Muslims, who are Western Europeans, there's always something very attractive about Shia Islam because um it's tended to have much more relationship to a Sufism, to mystical traditions, towards intellectualism. It's got more clerical authority. Traditionally it was actually less radical.

And it was always slightly on the back foot. Um but but one of the problems that we're dealing with here is that at the heart of it, going back to its foundation story, is the idea of martyrdom, because the break was when the son in law and cousin of the Prophet Muhammad

was killed at Karbala. Uh the Sunni tradition takes over. And the Shia tradition is from this martyr tradition, which is why you see All these great images of Imam Ali, Imam Hussein dressed in martyrs' robes, and which is why you now have this situation where For the ten twenty percent who support the regime, Mujtaba Khamini has now become something called a Shahid Zendeh, so he's a living Shahid, he's a living martyr. Because of the loss of his father, his mother, his wife, his wife.

Is that related to the Shahad drone at all? Yeah, yeah, it's the same. It's the same. It's the s it's the same same word. Yeah, it's the same drone. Well that's good. I think I think there's a book in here, Aurie. Yeah, very good. Why I became a Muslim by Roy Stewart. Well the final thing for lessons you really want, Roy Mutahade has written the great book. Also a bit shout out to Valinasser, who's just written a great piece today in the New York Times uh looking at nationalism in Iran.

and why he thinks the regime has actually grown stronger, not weaker, uh, thanks to the attacks. And uh shout out again to my friend Gerard Russell, who's very kind. He's been very patient with me as always. He's a great guy. He's a great guy.

Now listen, let's get down to grubby politics. Alfie in Surrey wants to know: do we think that Netanyahu will now win the next Israeli election? Golden, what do you think? He's in a better place than he was. And really the assumption was before October the seventh that he was finished, right? And he's uh his opinion polling was terrible. Then he got the b he was getting the blame for the October seventh attack. But it's really interesting watching the opposition figures in Israel.

feeling that they have to say they support what Netanyahu is doing in relation to Iran. I think public opinion is sort of nearly eighty percent of Israeli opinion is behind this Iran thing. I mean i it's a sign in a sense that Israel is now operating in a completely different

media space from the rest of the world. I've never seen such a dramatic difference between what Israelis assume, which is they just take it for granted that what they're doing in Iran is completely justified, makes perfect sense.

Well actually the vast majority of the American population is horrified. Yeah. And I watched Channel Four News last night and Krishna Guramurti was interviewing Benny Gantt who's, you know, big military figure, but also kind of much more centrist, moderate sort of political figure. Rydyn ni'n ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud.

And Krishna held his ground, but it basically is there's a guy who is politically opposing Netanyahu, who is essentially giving him a complete blank check. on the legality, because he supports Taking down their regime. uh if before this podcast went out Trump announced a massive new phase or if he suddenly announced the war was over. But one thing I think that we can be pretty confident of

is that even if Trump stops his military operations, in a sense the war will not be over because the way in which senior Israeli figures are talking is that they will go back and back and back into Iran whenever they want. They can go back in three months' time, six months time, nine months time, three because what they're going to do is attempt to perpetually degrade the military infrastructure and probably

degrade the entire state structures and government structures of Iran. They would much rather have a failed, weak state that's not a threat to Israel.

than have a coherent nationalistic state. Yeah. Now Ru I think for a final question, we ought to be allowed to have a little dig at the following people Nigel Farage, Richard Tyson, Jacob Reesemog. Louis H. from London. Could you challenge some of the Brexit supporting politicians like Farage, Tyson, Rees Mogg, with a simple question about sovereignty?

They argued that Brexit was about taking back control from the EU so Britain could act independently. Yet many of them are now arguing the UK should automatically follow the United States in the Iran crisis because of security dependence. How do they reconcile demanding sovereignty from Brussels and

while advocating alignment with Washington. Lewis has a very, very good question. Very good. I know that in Boris Johnson. Absolutely extraordinary. I mean, Boris Johnson absolutely just out there again and again, saying anybody who remotely questions what the US is doing in Venezuela or Iran

is a lefty bedwetter. And clearly what we should do is get right in behind the US. No, it's very interesting. It's as though the right, uh, really wasn't talking about sovereignty at all. One almost gets the impression that their world view is they don't like being told what to do uh by the French and the Germans, but they want to be told what to do by the US and Israel. Well they didn't as I said yesterday, they didn't want to be told by Barack Obama.

to stick with the European Union as the better way to get a trade deal for the UK. So they want to be told what to do by right wing. Right wing governments in the US and Israel, yes. Yeah. Even if they are people who clearly like Trump offend so many people in Britain very, very deeply. Interestingly, I also think they're gonna become increasingly promodi. So you can see there's a Conservative MP representing a Harrow constituency who's just got this medal from the Indian government.

But I wouldn't be surprised if we don't find out. I mean I'm I'm teasing them about being too pro US, too pro Israel. I think within five years time they'll be knee jerking to the Indian position on the world too. It's it's very interesting. Well I think we should be cautious because I think it's an exciting idea. But remember that India was engaged in the extrajudicial killing of Canadian citizens on Canadian territory not very long ago. And Modi has been on the app

Absolutely on a very weird side on the Russia Ukraine conflict. He's not been providing support to Ukraine. He's been buying Russian oil like billio, filling Putin's coffers. India missed its chance to step up for the rules based order. It invited Putin famously to come visit them. So I would make the core of an argument for a values rules based order. Probably I'd go to

New Zealand before I went to India. Hold on. No, Rory, you must see Alexander Stubb, the triangle of power, and he goes global global west, global east, global south. And he said in our interview that maybe it should have been a rectangle. Ah. The fourth corner of the rectangle has to be Europe. Very good. Okay. Very good. And do you think it's gonna be them?

But it's gotta be Europe. And but you've got to work on how on earth we hold Europe together. What's so sad is that again and again You, yeah, I've given you the job. Again and again There's this splintering. Exactly the moment where you want m And Macron Macron going off to Cyprus. I mean, it was a quite a good thing to do. An attack on Cyprus is an attack on Europe, but it sort of looked like, you know

Don't worry, the French will look after you even if the Brits won't. It's it's really weird. And and also they were not as supportive of Spain as they should have been. It looked like

You know, Metz was kicking the the Spanish. So And they're not very supportive on the on the enlargement that we talked to Marta Kos about in Ukraine where, you know, we've got to get Ukraine in, we've got to get the Balkans in and you know interesting Serbia, your friend Eddie Ramar in Albania writing op ed saying they're prepared to sign up. for the single market without full membership or

Some sort of outside. But yeah, we need if if this is gonna happen, and this is of course what Europe's enemies are betting on. from the US to the rest of the world is that Europe will always be too divided and too incapable of developing a Which is why they're trying which is why they're trying to exacerbate the divisions, not least by backing the AFT in Germany, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Uh so I I I wonder if the Americans are quite conscious of just how loath Trump is in much of Europe at the end. So these pieces that you and I are writing for the the newsletter, link in the description below. And thank you to everyone who's been signing up for newsletters. We have a huge rise, the number of people.

And I I just actually got three friends in the Gulf writing in saying how interested they'd been in some of the recent newsletters. Excellent. So anyway, I've so I've written about the Mooch and I going to Dublin and to Belfast and kind of what that whole Irish story says about the way that the world is changing. Really interesting, by the way. I am absolutely convinced that the

The question on a United Island or a New Ireland as they like to t to call it, is is moving moving away at the moment. Moving away. Yeah. It it it's a Brexit. Feels less likely. To me. It feels it feels like the Republic is less kind of passionate about it. Um, interestingly, the audience in Belfast, eighty percent said that Brexit had made them feel more European. Right.

So I think and yet but paradoxically a bit like Scotland makes you feel more European but doesn't necessarily mean the United Kingdom. Good. Well I look forward to reading that very much. And thank you for uh question time. And uh let's see what we're doing next week. Um but I think even if the Cuba Exactly. Think about Cuba. Could well be going into Cuba, but even if the bombing

stops instantly. Um, I think the long term impacts of this we're only just beginning to see he has shattered that region. And I think he's probably had a really serious impact on the economies of Europe. I mean w one of the things we we don't talk about enough is when Rachel Reeves looks at what's gonna happen as oil prices go up, fertilizer prices go up, cost of living goes up, unemployment going up, growth goes down.

And that's repeated right the way across Europe. That's a gift, unfortunately, to the far right going to the elections. And for that too, we have to thank Mr. Donald Trump.