Hello and welcome to AUK column interview. I'm Charles Mallett. I'm pleased today to be joined by Lord Deeben, who has spent many years as a government minister, then known as John Gummer. Lord Deeben, thank you very much indeed for joining me and welcome to UK column. Thank you.
Now, I got in touch with you because you over the years have been a close personal friend of the recently deceased Mike Lynch. And in particular, you've spoken out about the extradition situation that he found himself subject to back in 2023 as a result of the Hewlett Packard autonomy fraud case. What I'd like you to do, please, is just to explain to the audience your view of the situation as it unfolded. Well, I was concerned about this
before Mike Lynch was involved. It was an agreement between the British government under Tony Blair and the Americans, which was a one way extradition system which enabled the Americans to insist upon the extradition of individuals from Britain. But there was no reverse. We couldn't insist upon extradition from the United States.
Now, the problem with this is not only that there is no reciprocity, it is that it could be used and later, when it happened to Mike Lynch, was being used for commercial purposes. The American legal system is very different from our own. It has quite a number of the elected judges and prosecutors, people who may have other
interests. So it is always difficult to have a rest, a reciprocal arrangement, but to have one that doesn't allow us to get the benefits of being able to extradite people whom our courts need is of course unacceptable. But the trouble here is that Mike Lynch was the most important shareholder and the creator of a very successful software business. And he was haunted by Hewlett Packard. He didn't go to them. They weren't in the business of selling it.
But Hewlett Packard came after them and offered them, after considerable due diligence, when everything was open to them, offered them a sum of money, which was accepted. Indeed, it was accepted because the shareholders who were other than Mike and he didn't have a majority of those shares. The shareholders thought this was an extremely good deal.
It was done by a British firm under British law, and yet Hewlett Packard decided that they would try to have the real trial in the United States. Now, this was after the British Serious Crime Unit, the fraud organization that we have, had investigated the claims of Hewlett Packard and had said there was no case to answer. And then for year after year after year, Mike Lynch was living under the shadow of being
extradited. And it was a shadow because I think it's true that 100% of people who are extradited would be found guilty in a commercial case like this. Indeed, well over 90% of people who are head up in this way in the United States are found guilty. Only North Korea has a more universal situation. So you will understand why he was very concerned about this. He was to be taken to an organiser, to a situation in which it was almost impossible for him to win.
And the reason they have such a high proportion of success is because people are so frightened of losing that they do plea bargaining. It's a thing we don't know of in Britain and it's really nothing to do with justice. What you do is to say, yes, I'm guilty. And you say that because they promise you two years in prison rather than 20 years, or they promise you a fine of $100,000 instead of $1,000,000 or whatever may be the deal.
Deal always differs depending on the circumstances of the person concerned. Now Mike was not prepared to do that. Mike was an honest, decent, straightforward man. His whole life had been spent in being, without doubt, the probably the most remarkable figure in software industry in the whole of Europe. Only in Silicon Valley could you find people who would compete with him in his abilities. And he wasn't going to say he was guilty, because he knew he wasn't.
Ultimately the British came and in a charmingly informal but still firm way, took him to the airport and accepted the extradition. Now, during all this time, people who knew the case were fighting it not only in the courts but in but in the public arena. And I, for example, raised it again and again in all sorts of ways. And I'm ashamed that home secretaries did not say, look, this is just not true, just not
sensible. And it wasn't just because we felt strongly about Michael, though of course, one's friendship, Matt and Lord. It was also because the Americans are already using their power to get advantage commercially. What they do is to threaten things like this so that people are afraid not to do what they want. They use it to extend American
commercial interests. America pretends to be the great free enterprise economy, but of course it is one of the most protective protectionist economies there are. And it's protectionist in two ways. It uses all sorts of excuses to stop people buying businesses in the United States. You can't buy an airline, for example. You can't buy most the very large numbers of things because it's called national security.
And if it's not there to, I'm told that you can't export into America for for some kind of health reasons. So, for example, no one who grows lemons can export into the United States, into any state which is contiguous to a state that grows lemons. Now, what more, what more protective and protectionist system could you have? So America uses its own internal laws and also its outstretch through tax and through every other way of using laws beyond its own rights to protect its businesses.
Because in the end, it believes that somehow or other globalization is actually the extension of American hegemony. And So what has happened here is just one example of that. And many of us felt that using the extradition rules in order to cow businesses, which is what it was about cowing the business and Mike thought it. Now I have to say I had very little hope that he would win because with those sort of figures last 90%, how should he have won?
And he won because the case was so clear, it was so clearly proved, and he was so clearly honourable and honest that the jury said that on no single one of the 14 counts Hewlett Packard dug up, no one of them was he guilty. Now, the sad thing is that Hewlett Packard, we understand, we'll try to proceed beyond the grave if you can think of anything more unpleasant or anything that further underlines what I've said about the way America uses these things.
So I have 3 very simple desires. First of all, to get the law changed, we can't go on like this. This is not acceptable. We are a sovereign state and we certainly didn't take back control by stupidly leaving the European Union. But the fact of the matter is we do believe that we make our own decisions and they is no position for a non reciprocal arrangement with anybody. Secondly, there should be no provision with a system which plays into the American legal system which just isn't like
ours. And I'm saying that in the most delicate way, but it certainly isn't like ours. And the third thing is that I hope people will realise that Hewlett Packard is not a company with who 1 wishes to deal. Because it's clear that what really happened was that Hewlett Packard bought this company having sorted, as I say, not that it was offered to them, but that they wanted it and then they mucked it up. And that I'm afraid, is one of the problems with some kinds of businesses.
They, they know they can't do it themselves, so they buy something and then they impose on that, build business the ways which they run things. And very often those are the very reasons why they've not been able to do this themselves. And I fear, and I begin to sound rather anti American. I'm not at all, but I fear that American companies are very often like that. Some are not.
I've got a very good example where Molson Coors has bought a business near where I live and it's been at absolutely remarkable. It has recognised that it was a really good business. It has allowed it to continue as it was, but it has provided the money which was necessary for this expansion, which is exactly how you should deal with these things. But I'm afraid Hewlett Packard, in order to save the face of senior management, decided that they would pursue Mike Lynch in particular.
Now, Mike Lynch had a few days, literally, of release and relief, relief from his terrible audience, just a few days, and was then trapped. I have to say that if I were running Hewlett Packard, I would understand perfectly well that this is the moment in which you remove yourself from this whole saga. And if they don't, then I for one will never buy anything from them. Indeed, I think you've made your position clear on that.
And I think there's a number of things to pick out from that sort of opening statement just to go back to the way in which the law could or should be changed. Of course, he was talking about the Extradition Act 2003, which was effectively crafted by the Ben Blair government. Due to what extent do you consider it the case that in fact the, the the sort of nine principles by which any situation should be judged were were simply failed.
And the I think the two I'm I'm really thinking of are excessive delay because of course this this took place 12 years after the the deal had effectively gone through. And then also forum in that if justice could be served by a trial in the United Kingdom, then it then it should have done and and so is it. Is it a case that the law should be done away with and and reinvented, or simply that that what is written down should actually be adhered to
correctly? Well, I don't think that this is a law between equals. And I think what you just said shows that the truth is that when push came to shove, the British government was not prepared to enforce those two principles. And I fear that British governments very often aren't because the Americans bring pressure to bear unconnected with this particular agreement. What they do is to remind Britain about the special relationship on military matters and all sorts of other things.
They they constantly use the strength of the mightiest country on earth and people give way to them. So I fear that whatever you do to the Act in order to make it more likely that governments will stand by those elements, the more that you have to doubt whether they will be brave enough. And so I come back to the matter of principle. I'm in favour of reciprocal arrangements for extradition, but they have to have two
elements. First of all, they have to be reciprocal, and secondly, the rules have got to be of a sort that mean that neither side is prepared to lean on the other, because otherwise it will cease to be a reciprocal arrangement. In other words, you can keep things like those elements you raised. If the United States knows that, not only would we insist on it as far as our people are concerned, but we would insist on it and as in terms of our
relationships with them. So they would then put themselves into a position in which they would have to use the same things when we asked for reciprocity this way. But you see, they wouldn't and we know they wouldn't. So my answer is no reciprocity, no agreement with that reciprocity where I live, both do it. Now the awful thing is that the Americans said they couldn't give reciprocity because their Constitution did not allow it.
But what the blazes are we doing, having reciprocity with a country that won't do it with us on the basis that their Constitution, in order to protect the freedom of its people, doesn't allow it? Well, if their Constitution doesn't allow it, our unwritten Constitution shouldn't allow it. Absolutely. Fair enough.
And I think sort of beyond that really from certainly from the way you've described the situation at the start, in actual fact, it looks much more like the leavers really are being pulled by corporations rather than government. So even if there were reciprocity, what by what mechanism are corporate interests checked, as it were in in the within political sort of circles?
Well, the truth is that Britain has many failures, but in general corporate interests are much less powerful here and in America corporate interests are much more powerful. And you see that very clearly. First of all, you see it in the way in which corporations engage in elections. Never be allowed to use your money in the way that Elon Musk is using is now in the American elections in the United Kingdom.
And secondly, you know it when you see a company like Exxon Mobil, which managed by using money to hold up the battle against climate change for some 20 years, even though its own scientists, and this is after all public knowledge, its own scientists had shown that climate change was happening and that it was the use of fossil fuels that were making it for 20
years. They kept America from taking the steps that he'd ought to take, which is the reason that it's going to cost us a great deal more money, be very much more painful in order to battle for our own existence. Because of Exxon Mobil, that is what happens in America. So the reciprocity becomes not only a lack of reciprocity with the government, but it means that we have a non reciprocal arrangement with American big business. We're very interested in protecting their own position.
And just to sort of go back towards Mike Lynch and, and what he became subsequently involved in which which was at least from the funding point of view and, and advisory dark Trace, which deals with cybersecurity in, in the AI dimension. Now the set up and the continuing conduct of that company is is very, very closely aligned with the intelligence and security architecture of the United Kingdom. How do you perceive that relationship in terms of its
correctness? I suppose for want of a better term. Well, I am not as familiar with the post arrangements that I am with the ones we have been talking about. I merely said that Dart Trace owes a huge amount to that brilliance that we've now lost. That the contribution to British economy as well as security, that Mike Lynch as an individual May was absolutely outstanding.
And even if we hadn't lost a friend, even if we hadn't lost somebody who was economically valuable to us, we've lost somebody who's LED the British software industry and our understanding of modern technology in a way which no one else has. So we've lost somebody who made one of the biggest contributions to our nation of anybody in the
last 30 years. So we ought to stand up for him and the way in which he was treated by organisations like Dark Phrase or To Be Looked At really Carefully, because they owe everything to him, just as Hewlett Packard could have owed a great deal to him if they'd known how to run that business.
Absolutely. Now, something that's rather more sensitive, but, but I think it must be asked, given the circumstances that you've described, the backdrop to and the situations surrounding the deaths of, first of all, Stephen Chamberlain, then Mike Lynch and associates aboard the Bayesian. Coincidence, it must be said, does seem like the least plausible explanation. What do you think about that? Oh well, I have a view that says that fate sometimes deals the
most amazing of both. You really don't have to go very far into history to see the most amazing things happen. People avoid wars via whip stitch, create wars by the tiniest of decisions. I I think there is nothing to say that this is anything other than a coincidence, but it is a terrifying and terrible coincidence and of course it leaves deeply wounded people behind.
And what an awful thing to happen to the daughter who had just got into Oxford, who had a beautiful future ahead of her, also a lovely girl, as well as somebody who had another 30 or maybe 40 years even of contribution to Britain's and those other people who were on that boat too, who were people who were making real contributions to life. I feel very deeply saddened, of course, for the dead, but even more so for those who are now living and have to live with
what has happened. But I think what happened was genuinely a coincidence. And just to, to sort of tie that off, what, what to what degree do you have confidence in any investigation into deaths on both sides of the, well, sorry, both sides of the Mediterranean, I suppose I should say. But but the the the UK and indeed the Sicilian investigation. Oh, I, I see no reason to be other than sure of the British 1 and I think the Italian 1 is
probably likely to be perfect. But I have no reason to, to criticize that. I'm, I'm not somebody who goes around being suggesting that there are all sorts of hidden businesses at at work. I know which ones are at work, which is why I quoted a number of them. Those are real objective, proven things. I don't think we need to get into any kind of view of of, of hidden hands to deal with this case.
There are no hidden hands. I think there's the absolutely direct hand of American business determined to get what it wants at any cost of anybody. And that is not a thing that we should have in this world and it's not a thing that Britain should be complicit in. And that is why I blame two home secretaries for not actually saying no, not here.
And particularly when we had had a case in Britain of someone prosecuted and found guilty of dangerous driving, driving without Duke, but I think dangerous driving in fact, who managed just to sit in the United States and saying she
wasn't coming here. We knew from an absolutely clear example which had meant the death of a young man, we knew that this agreement was entirely 1 sided and entirely unacceptable, and we should have chosen used any opportunity to make sure that it didn't mean that Mike was exported to America to stand trial. Absolutely. Don't tell me then, with all this in mind, how do you push your campaign forward on on the extradition front? What are what is your plan in the immediate future to deal
with this? Well, hoping to liaise with David Davis in the House of Commons. He's been extremely good in the House of Commons. It's the thing that both houses will have to try to put together. We'll try to try to use as much of our efforts as possible. It's not going to be easy because the moment that a government thinks of doing it, then all those pressures are turned on them.
I mean, after all, we went to war in Iraq when it should never have been because a government feared saying to the United
States we won't. I've always honoured those prime ministers who have stood up and said no, we were saved, after all, from being at war in Vietnam because a British Prime Minister said no. And I voted myself against the war in in Iraq. And it was quite clear that all that was happening was that Tony Blair was proposing something because it was what the Americans wanted.
I think if he had said no, first of all, there would have been no parliamentary backing for it because his party would not have been whipped. And, and I think if you'd said no, there might well never have been that war in Iraq which was so disastrous and left us with a mess which we're still having to clear up. So we have to be willing to be
independent. And no, we are though a generation away from from that time, with the whiff of conscription and talk about national service in the air, with apparently looming threat from either Russia or Iran or or goodness knows where else do you see that there is a realistic chance of becoming involved within a kinetic action in the
next couple of years? Well, I think one of the problems that we've now got is that we have a situation in which if the American, if the American election goes one way, then the United States will be saying things which are quite inimical to a proper association between us in Europe.
And, and then it seems to be perfectly reasonable for putative presidents to talk about the world in a way which we would not be able to because of our relationship with the United States. So I think we're in a very difficult position at the moment.
Let's put it at the at the very least thing We're in a very difficult position, and we must hope that the United States does recognise how important it is not to go down the false ways of pretending that that the battle in the Ukraine isn't a battle for freedom of all of us. Pretending that climate change isn't happening and therefore you don't have to do anything about it, but pretending that you can have a relationship with Russia which condones their manifestly militaristic and
imperialist intentions, that is an impossible position, it seems to me, for the United States to take up. And yet there is one candidate who seems to think, but that's how it should go forward. So we must pray that that doesn't happen. Yes. I mean, I think, you know, we'd all be encouraged that there was greater effort going into talks of or the pursuit of peace, but we seem to be where we are at the moment now, just we're, we're sort of closing down in terms of time.
But what I do want to just deal with, because you've now referred to it a couple of times. And of course, until last year, you were the chairman of the Climate Change committee. It, it is still, despite the, the, the, the sort of prevalent narrative, it is still a contentious topic. And I think the particularly the the fundamental underpinning of the, particularly the pursuit of what's called net zero and indeed the focus on emissions of
carbon dioxide. So what I would ask is, is how do you explain the proposition that approximately 3% of overall emissions of carbon dioxide, which are anthropogenic, can affect the climate in such a way that 97% of biogenic emissions seem not to be able to? Well, it's very fact. First of all, I don't say that. That's what almost every scientist in the world, every single major scientific institution says. That's the first thing.
Secondly, historically we can go back a million years into the ice and you can see that the there has never been a time in which the temperature has risen as far as past since as it has in the last 100 and 5200 years since the industrial revolution. So first of all this is a non analogous situation. Thirdly, if you think about how it is we know that the Earth became cool enough for first of all reptiles, then mammals, then
human beings to emerge. It was because the bushes and trees that also emerged earlier on took out of the atmosphere carbon and laid that carbon down as they died in what became, over the millennia, oil, coal and gas. No one, no one at all denies that. If you then use that and put it back into the atmosphere, it wouldn't be surprising, would it, if the atmosphere heats up, given that it got cool when you took it out.
So thirdly, it is quite clear from our scientific understanding of history that this is happening. And the fact of the matter is no serious scientist now denies climate change. And as you look across the world and see the effect of climate change, and you know it never happened before except when we put this carbon into the atmosphere, then you'd be frankly absolutely ridiculous to suggest anything other than this. There is no evidence that counteracts the fact that we are
creating climate change. We have to stop doing it. And when we do, we will take a long time to reverse the damage that we're doing. And the terrible thing is that we who have grown rich from what we've done, are giving some of the poorest people on earth lives which are intolerable because of what we're doing. So there is a battle that's on. And I shall go on fighting that battle till my dying day, because I've got 10 grandchildren.
And the sort of world we're leaving them is a world in which in which they will find it very difficult to live. And those who suggest that we should not take these steps are the people who are really betrayed us. And I've just finished, while I talk about a wonderful comment once which was made to one of these major deniers by Tristan Gale Jones, a member minister. He said look, if those who deny climate change are right, all we've done is to clean up the
atmosphere. If they're wrong, we buggered up the future. There's no doubt about where the precautionary principle takes us. But we don't need to do it because of the precautionary principle. We should do it because of the facts. Yes, I mean, I, I would, I would have to agree to to disagree, and certainly I would push back on the assertion that all scientists believe the same thing. Well, 97% of those who are qualified support what I have said.
I'm sorry, you can't say that and be taken seriously. You really can't. I'm not prepared to say this is not a sensible position. When the head of every single scientific equivalent to the Royal Society says one thing, you are not in a position to say the opposite and be taken seriously. You can't be taken seriously. And if your organization doesn't see that, then you've joined the group of people who only don't take it seriously because it's
inconvenient. There is no case that you've got there's nothing else in science that is as sure as this. So really, don't expect to be taken seriously. Well, I think I I will still continue well. I'm very sorry. I mean, it's like it's, it's about a, a serious position of suggesting, well, something much as the the the Haitians were eating, were eating pet dogs, which they were stealing. Like you've got yourself into that position if you're saying that you really do.
I mean, it's just not a sensible position to be here. The the fundamental question of how a 3% contribution outweighs that of a 97% contribution to emissions is something that I haven't really heard satisfactorily resolved. Well, you can go to any scientist who is a climatologist and they'll go through it with you. The fact that you're not a scientist of any of that amount and you say that as it's another of the excuses, it's the one they used. They each one one by one, they
are destroyed. This one has been destroyed. I don't want to go through the total details of it would be here back to us. But the fact of the matter is no serious scientist supports what you've said and therefore it's no you. In the end, you have to look for the best advice, and if I want to mend a motor car, I do not ask somebody who sells newspapers or treating dark houses or is an expert on archaeology to tell me how to
mend a motor car. If I want to find out about climatology, the climate, I ask people who are experts in the climate. I know of no respectable expert in the climate who will support you. For technical reasons beyond the control of either of us, the connection with Lord Dieben was lost at that point, and I must make it very clear that it certainly had absolutely nothing to do with the divergent of views towards the end of the
conversation. So it just remains for me to thank you, the audience, very much for joining me and also thank you to Lord Dieben very much for a frank exchange of views and certainly a terrific insight into the state of play with regard to extradition and in particular the relationship with the United States and indeed the wider corporate interests and influences. There will be notes posted alongside this interview with [email protected]. Thank you very much for watching.