569. Farage’s Foreign Funding Scandal and Germany’s Far-Right Breakthrough

Let's look at the same week in two different countries. Here in Britain, masked men in black shut down two of the country's busiest ports, protesting about small boat crossings despite the actual numbers falling. Reforms conference beginning with two senior officials forced to resign over yet another corruption scandal for Nigel Farage. And in Germany, voters propelling the pro-Russian, anti-EU AFD to the cusp of power in Saxony-Anhalt, where it could become the first far-right party to run a German state since the era of the Nazis. This isn't just a British story or a Germany story. Right-wing, xenophobic nationalism is on the march across the world. But can it be stopped in Europe? Or are we entering another period of our history to be defined by right-wing extremism? This episode is powered by Fuse Energy. £100. That is what one message to a friend could earn for you. Fuse Energy. Fuse Energy has one aim. Keeping energy prices down for everyone. 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And I must thank NordVPN because on my Grand European tour with Fiona, I was away from the Hawthorns for West Bromwich against Burnley, but I managed to watch it. There you go. I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Creef. And of course, the thing flashed up saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN. And it was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely people can do. It's all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying. If you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks. Well, I think you're not really sort of proud of me that I managed to do this. Or should I say Fiona managed to do this? I'm incredibly proud of you. That's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN.com slash Restless Politics. That's NordVPN.com slash Restless Politics. And the link is in the episode description. Welcome to the Restless Politics with me, Alastair Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. And we are going to focus on the hard right, both in Britain and in Germany. We're going to start in Germany after this extraordinary election in Saxony-Anhalt. And then the second half, we're going to talk about the brilliant TV exposure of the, to my mind, clear law breaking going on in reform. And we're going to talk a bit about the conference that they had and also about these, the media call them protesters. I call them far right thugs who were trying to shut down our ports. Absolutely brilliant, Alastair. And I think a lot of this is about what are these parties? What's the culture of these parties? And the way in my mind that they're just eroding everything that we cared about with democracy. We do seem a bit different today. We're devoting the whole episode to two big stories about the far right in Europe. And we're starting with Germany because there's this. There's this extraordinary election in Saxony-Anhalt, which is the smallest of the 16 lender, 2.1 million people, but they had the world's media there this week because this was reckoned to be possibly the first time since Hitler's time that there would be a minister president of a German state, a prime minister, as it were, of a German state who came from the hard right and the AFD, the alternative for Deutschland, they got a massive 43, almost 44%. Doubling their support. And the CDU, the Christian Democrat Party, which is headed nationally by Friedrich Merz, the chancellor, and locally in the state by Sven Schulze, they saw their support more than half. So pretty seismic. And to get our heads around this, we're joined, very happy to be joined by Paul Ronsheimer, who is a senior executive at Bild Zeitung. He actually presents one of Germany's biggest podcasts called Ronsheimer, which unlike. And if he looks a bit exhausted, it's because he's been doing it daily from Saxony-Anhalt for the last few days. So, Paul, we're very, very pleased to have you with us. Right around the world, essentially, there are headlines saying that this election of the smallest of the lender is seismic. Is it being overstated or do you think this really is as significant as people literally right around the world are saying? And Paul, would you mind just giving us the figures and reminding people who haven't followed the details of exactly what's happened? Yeah, I think it's really significant, not only for Germany. And you could see that in Magdeburg, which is the capital of Saxony-Anhalt. We saw CNN, New York Times. Everybody was there, I think, for the first time ever. And I mean, if we see the numbers, it's the AFD up to 43, 44 percent. You have the CDU down to 17. We have never seen something like that in Germany before. And I would say all the politicians in the past. Five, 10 years would always argue that can never happen because the AFD as the right wing populist or extremist party, the CDU and the now Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that he could have the AFD. And now they are double. If you see Ulrich Sigmund, if you see the people behind Ulrich Sigmund, I mean, you always have to be very carefully with kind of simply calling. The AFD, the new Nazi party, because historically this is too simple. But if you see people around Sigmund and what they said in the past, this is really worrying for many people here in Germany. And at the same time, it shows that all the arguments from the CDU, SPD against AFD. And also, I mean, the mainstream media talking about the AFD, that people are not listening anymore, that commentators comparing it. Yeah. And telling people, you know, look back in our history and that people are fed up with it and that they're not listening to these arguments anymore. To step back, why should people care about the AFD? Tell us who the AFD are, why they're interesting and what this tension is between the story around the man that has dominated the election in Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Sigmund and the other characters. Is it a party we need to be worried about and why? So the AFD came up in Germany in 2016. First as an anti-euro party during the euro crisis. Listeners remember the crisis in Greece and the bailout. So that were the first steps. But after the big migration crisis in 2015, the AFD became bigger and bigger. And it was already during the time of Angela Merkel, you know, having the biggest opposition against the migration. But not only that, it's not only a populist party, you could see in Italy or France or other European countries, it's also a party with right wing extremists, it's a party with fascists inside. For example, the party now in Saxony-Anhalt was Ulrich Sigmund. You have people around him 15, 20 years ago, they were in kind of use fascist groups and were really having extremist ideas. This is one thing which is worrying for many people here in Germany. And then there is also like lots of politicians inside the AFD appraising. Russia and Putin, like very pro-Russian, pro-Putin party. We have people in Magdeburg, you know, they would go to the Russian embassy for Putin's birthday. They would go to Russia right after the full scale invasion against Ukraine. they would argue that they could understand what putin did so i would say and these two things really extremist politicians and advisors inside the party and then the pro-putin part of it this makes dangerous and this is why people are worrying that this could change germany and that this in magdeburg and saxony anaheim could only be the beginning because if we see the numbers now and we have a new poll which came up today you see that the cdu the party of the chancellor is only at 19.5 percent anymore and we see the afd coming up to 29 so there's a big gap and people are worrying this what happened now there could be the beginning and that is what the afd hopes of a blue wave in germany and we've got these two other elections coming up in a couple of weeks time in mecklenburg for pomeran which is very afd strong and then in where maybe the social democrats are a bit a bit stronger but paul i was this is like a reverse a return leg i was on your podcast last week and i told you this story about when i was when we were traveling in mecklenburg for pomeran and i met a woman who told me about how she yearned for the old days of the of the ddr the old east communist east germany and she talked about how we had greater freedom i was absolutely i don't know if you know the word gobsmacked but i was absolutely gobsmacked by that but then listening to a lot of the afd politicians there is this kind of nostalgia for communism from a very very right wing as you say borderline fascist party there is this nostalgia and we maybe have to explain there is kind of or there were kind of two parties in the western part of germany and then in the eastern part and where you traveled and where the election was this is a party where you have a lot of nostalgia and you have a lot of people and that's why it works so well for the afd who would tell you on the street why russia isn't that bad we should make peace and we should understand putin you know all the arguments from the pro-russian side and you have also a lot of people who would argue you know in the past we had a better life and i mean if you see the numbers it's not true but it's emotions it's feelings and the afd did a very smart election campaign i mean you could see ory siegmund you know would always have these kind of positive emotions and would say we have to change we we shouldn't give the money to ukraine anymore um we don't we don't want migrants anymore and we don't want to give the money to ukraine anymore and we don't want to give the money we have to change the landscape and this what what he argued helped him and he was very different to others inside the afd if we would compare it for example to björn hacke who was the face of the afd in the east before in thuringia he was much more people would say dark and a bit evil and you know he wouldn't smile that much but ory siegmund showed that you could also win an election it was a very for for the people there positive emotion one of the things that is also striking is as you say they began as an anti-euro party and quite a lot of their policies sound like they're not compatible with schengen so in practice quite a lot of what they're pushing for if they took power would be a real threat to the survival of the european union a germany that was committed to leaving the euro disrupting schengen would would hit the fundamentals of the european union absolutely i mean we could see that there was an interview with alice vital just three weeks ago and she would argue that the afd still wants to leave the euro zone i mean that they want to get out of euro this was kind of surprising because if you have the numbers the afd has right now up to you know 29 eight to ten percent more than the party of the chancellor you would think they would go a little bit more so not to fear a lot to you know also tell people look you know if we would take power and not everything would change and and and if you talk to experts in germany everybody or like most of them would argue it would be a big danger for germany as an expert oriented nation you know to leave the euro but she still said that in this interview and this shows how different this party is in these days compared also to le pen compared to other parties in the eu because le pen didn't want to work with the afd in brussels you know they would argue this party the afd is too extreme for le pen so i think this shows a lot two questions about what happens now so that the numbers have fallen so that to get a majority the afd need three of the other mps to support them and it's a secret ballot to choose the minister president which i find very very strange so first question do you think there will be some cdu elected representatives who will back ulrich siegmund to be minister president and second question does friedrich mertz survive this the head of the afd and others would go public and say they talk with members of the cdu during these days we don't know any names we don't know if that's true i personally haven't heard anything about it i was in magdeburg i also talked to many cdu politicians there i don't know a name maybe it's just strategy tactic of ulrich siegmund during these days we will see i mean it's absolutely possible in the past there were if we go back 10 years there were lots of cdu politicians switching to the afd so i think there is a possibility and probably it will also be important to see what happens in inside the party you know in which direction the cdu goes in saxony anhalt because um we see now the now prime minister swen schultze will probably resign as the head of the cdu there so we'll see what happens if this will not be successful they need the bsw the bündnis sarah wagenknecht it's a party which was funded just before the general elections two years ago also very pro-russian i mean sarah wagenknecht comes from the left wing the links party but now is leaning more towards possible coalitions with the afd so the right wing populist right wing extreme together with left-wing populist left-wing extreme and this is right now if he wouldn't find mps from the cdu his only chance but then he has not a big majority so it's a big danger it's a section even if you go on in the next months and years um will be very problematic for him to find majorities second question you ask about friedrich merz and i talked a lot with people here in berlin lately in the past days i mean there is literally nobody who would argue that friedrich merz has a big chance to survive as the head of the cdu that's what i'm hearing during these days there is always you know a possibility of course i mean he is the elected chancellor and i mean if if he doesn't want to leave nobody can really force him but there is discussions about several prime ministers like marcus söder and bavaria henrik wüst in nordrhein-westfalen boris rein in hessen these are the major ones we need to get the spd back in power i hear that from from politicians inside the party they're now trying to make a plan during these days because they are waiting for the next elections in mecklenburg-vorpommern in berlin so if this was the election i think the discussion would be already there also public but you know they don't want to risk the next elections in two weeks and also for them yeah they need a strategy so still i would say they don't have it yet paul how are we meant to understand merz's failure is he the german equivalent of kia starmer that the basic problem is he doesn't know how to communicate so it's not really about the policies i mean of course there's policy problems he's got a coalition maybe he's not getting through his radical reforms but fundamentally he hasn't captured the imagination of the german people so maybe the argument is as it was with britain listen we might as well try again this guy's useless we don't know whether the next guy is going to be any better but he can't be worse well you're absolutely right um that people would criticize his communication skills just before the election in mecklenburg and he would say they are woodburger you know people didn't understand what he was doing there they didn't want him to to campaign what is a wood burger we're talking about angry people angry people yeah sorry should have translated that angry citizens so this is his equivalence of hillary clinton calling trump voters deplorables or something yeah i mean people are really upset about that yeah and this happens and and people would criticize um you know he he comes back from holidays they're not really a strategy what to do next now after the elections you could see him inside the Anand in our house, the headquarters of the party. And, you know, he would describe the situation as it is, but there's no plan. So people are like, okay, but you're the head of the CDU, you're the chancellor, you know, what should we do now? We want answers from you, you know. And it's not only inside his party, if you talk to people inside the SPD, they're fed up with him, because they feel like, you know, we can't really govern with this chancellor. They've been criticizing him a lot. And you hear that from every side. So, but I wouldn't say it's only communications. I mean, it's not only what he says publicly, but it's also internally. He's not what Angela Merkel would do. She would be on the phone with all the people inside the party all the time. She would find, you know, to try to find out what's going on inside the party. And she would find, you know, to try to find out what's going on inside the party all the time. She would find, you know, to try to find out what's going on inside the party all the time. And for Friedrich Merz, people say, you know, he is not the right man at the right time. Paul, we've had Gerald Knauss on the podcast a couple of times, who's the immigration researcher and real campaigner. And he's always been of the view that the political establishment has to face up to the fact that this is an anti-constitutional party. They seem scared to make that case. Is that debate as alive in Germany as Gerald would like it to be? Or is it just a matter of time? Well, now that in one part of Germany, they're over 40%, does that become impossible to start to argue that they can be tackled, as it were, through the courts? Well, it's very hard now. If you have a party, you know, with 43, 44%, I don't see it. I think the problem is that politicians from the CDU and the SPD and the Greens would always argue how dangerous the AfD is, but wouldn't do anything because they were scared. They were like, okay, you know, if we go to the court, if we start an so-called AfD-Verbotsverfahren in German. AfD ban. Yeah. If you're trying to ban this party, that the AfD would only go stronger. But the problem is, also during this campaign, so you would argue on the one side, you know, this party is so dangerous. And, you know, it's back to 1933 and look at the people inside the party. There's more and more people arguing, okay, but if you say they're so dangerous, why is there, why are you not trying to ban them? So it's a logical question, you know, at the end, and I don't see it to happen. I mean, imagine, you know, on the streets, if you have a party with up to 29, 30% in whole Germany. On the other hand, if you could also argue, you know, shouldn't matter if they have 30 or 10%, right? There are two things that confuse me about the AfD. One is that Alice Weidel is a great expert on China, lived in China, speaks Chinese, did her doctorate on China. But she doesn't talk about the second China shock. She doesn't really take an interest in probably the most devastating thing in German politics, which is the impacts of Chinese industrial policy on Germany. And the second thing is, I don't understand the AfD's complete refusal to enter into coalitions, and what their long term strategy is here. They're never going to get more than 50% of the vote. So how can they have a political strategy of no coalition? Yeah, the China shock to zero is a very interesting question. And it's not only that she's not criticizing China, you could see her joining events in the Chinese embassy, you could also see her defending Chinese policy. If people discuss with her, she would always argue, we need to have good ties to everybody, to the US, to Russia, to China. And, you know, if we don't criticize them that much, we can have a bigger business, you know, we can have cheap gas and oil again, you know, we could export in a much better way with China. And she would go on with a Germany first policy. But at the same time, and I mean, this is very interesting for us, because if you see that they also try, you know, to have good ties with Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and Elon Musk congratulated Ulrich Zygmunt and Donald Trump showed the statistics from Magdeburg. So it can't really work with all of them, right. And the second about coalitions, there was different strategies in the past. And now I think they just want to be as big, as possible. You could also see experts arguing in the past 5-10 years, there's no way the AFD would reach 25%, you know, then they argued, there's no way they could reach 30. Because, you know, this is impossible. So the AFD would argue if it goes on like this in Germany with economy, migration. And also I have to say, you know, I travel a lot in Saxony, it's a lot about Ukraine and Ukraine help and Russia. You know, we talk, we talk about reforms in Germany. And at the same time, we give a lot of money to Ukraine. So people would argue, how can that be? Is it fair? Is it not fair? So there's big topics. And yeah, so they think they can get like way higher than 30%, maybe 35, maybe higher, you know, that's, that's a strategy. And then, and I think that's still the case, they want to destroy the CDU, you know, they want to have maybe a small CDU with people who would do a coalition with them. Or, you know, they would change the whole party. And they would more go into the direction of the AFD. I think that's, that's their strategy. You did a two part documentary about Saxony-Anhalt. You did something very interesting, because often people say politicians don't listen to the people. And you set yourself up in this town with a table and just and a couple of chairs, and you just got people to come and talk to you. If you had to boil down, and I was struck actually, by the very, very kind of varied things that they were saying, but you had to boil down what you heard from the people on that square in Saxony-Anhalt, what's their, what is the big thing that kind of unites them and is making them turn towards the AFD? The big thing is, we are fed up what we've seen in the past years from the CDU and the SPD. There was many, many people telling me, you know, during the last elections, I gave my last vote to Friedrich Merz. Actually, it's interesting, Friedrich Merz in Saxony-Anhalt, people liked him a lot when he was in opposition, you know, like, they liked him a lot as somebody, you know, we have to change Germany, we have to reforms, have to be tough in migration, but they're disappointed. And now they're like, okay, you know, we tried everything. We tried Merz, we tried Olaf Scholz before we voted for Angela Merkel, but we are fed up. We want something else. We don't really believe that the AFD will change or make our lives better. But now it's a time for something else. And that's what I heard a lot. And they don't care that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are sitting there rubbing their hands at it. No, and this struck me a lot. You know, I mean, I'm a war and crisis reporter, and I travel a lot to Ukraine. And you know, I saw, the war from the front line. And now people would argue there, there's different arguments, they would say, look, you know, we know, we know who the Russians are, they were here before. So we don't want to have a war with them. We are afraid of the Russians. This is one argument I would always hear. The second is, why do we have to pay so much money for Ukraine? We don't understand that. And the third thing is, and also, I mean, the AFD did a lot of propaganda in this direction is, you know, if we have good relations with Russia, our economy, you know, will work much better than now. I mean, talking about gas. Well, Paul, thank you so much. And we'll maybe talk to you again, because this is a long running thing. We'll maybe keep in touch as these other lender election. Come through. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for having me. And was also great to have you on our podcast. Thank you, Paul. Bye bye. So Rory, before we go to the break, I know how you love to do a plug. I'm going to do a plug today. But it's a plug with a difference. As you know, I have a book coming out on October the 22nd. And it is going to be announced to the world on Friday. The title of the book. So you're not going to tell us now? Well, you know, so stop pretending. But what we're doing, if people go to the episode description, they will see there is a very exciting competition there. If you can guess the one word title of my book. Now, the publisher's got this idea. We give you a signed copy. I'm going to do so much better than that. We'll decide when we go. But it's time. Every reply will be timestamped. And because of that, we'll know when the first one comes in. Because I'm incredibly generous, there'll be more than one. Get something out of this. So one word, like, might I suggest, Middleland by Rory Stewart. IMR that we talked about recently. Cause so there's one, does that kind of two words i'm going for two words with that with the apostrophe over there but but breads by paul mason new book which i've just been reading so one word and it will be out on october 22nd we're also going to be doing a mini series on it um so we're very excited about that well done on getting a book written i mean that's one of the things i've noticed with a podcast is it's quite a finding of time to write a book yeah well i did it over the summer on the move throughout europe but anyway i'm very very excited about it i think it's going to be good i think it's really and i think i'm going to get to interview you a bit apparently you are yeah we're going to do very much yeah and think about alistair i mean could this be about football could this be about dogs could this be about politics you know there's a hell of a lot of directions you could go without one word yeah and by the way i'm ready for the insults i got one last night an event i was doing and somebody came up and said i've got it it's liar but fine so you can do that do whatever you want okay could be burnley could be blair could be lots of these could be trees yeah see yeah so this book one word so to enter go to the link in the episode description you've got till midnight thursday to get your guesses in thank you very much take a break a better help ad imagine carrying a backpack every day every conversation every mistake every expectation you probably wouldn't notice how heavy it was until someone asked if you wanted to put it down sometimes feeling better starts exactly like that better isn't one size all better is personal it's therapy tailored to you to help lighten what you've been carrying match with a therapist who truly gets you visit betterhelp.com rest politics did you know that psoriatic arthritis may progress over time and could cause permanent joint damage if left untreated listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away trim fire gusokumab 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seven-day return policy at carvana.com welcome back to the rest is politics with me alistair campbell and with me rory stewart now alistair firstly thank you very very much for um pal and the fd i want to move us though on to reform in britain and obviously we'll have a chance to talk about whether reform is the afd or not but let's let's start with this scandal i have become as you keep mocking me totally obsessed with this amazing documentary so a huge shout out i mean for anybody listening who wants to be a journalist this is an unbelievable thing an undercover reporter spent nearly 12 months pretending to be the son of an american billionaire and he's been a billionaire from wyoming and going to meetings with more and more senior reform figures in order to see if they would be willing basically to take money illegal money from an american donor you're not supposed to take money from american data right and it's a hell of a thing and actually at some point i'd love to have more of a chat with him even if we don't do it on the show because the guy had to change his credit card his social media account his name and he must have been terrified going into these meetings in britain that somebody would know him under his real name and come up to him and stop him anyway he pulled it off brilliant but the thing that's frustrating me is that when we did our live show i asked for a show of hands of how many people that actually watched the documentary the weekend at the festival hall yeah and look our live show audience are like the most motivated i would have thought people to get into politics this kind of thing you just thought so and barely 10 of them have watched it and that is a big problem they were aware of it though they were aware of the story they're aware of it but i think one of the problems is that you only see why it's so killing for reform when you watch the full half an hour that if you just pull out as you know their questions were raised about whether a permissible us donor could finance 33 000 pounds of polling it sounds very minor the real story is what it shows about reform and in particular what it shows about its moral and intellectual center lack of yeah so the moral and intellectual center i think this this winds you up less than it does me because you despair of reform so much you're not even interested in this problem but i'm very interested in it um but james you say i have no morals no no i'm just saying that you basically have written them off so much you you can hardly be bothered to even look into that's not true anyway i might the reason i just haven't watched it i've watched it twice you've watched it eight times the reason i'm so wound up is this guy james or he was somebody who represented people who want to say that the far right is not a kind of dangerous populist movement but instead it's morally serious it's christian it's rejecting these corrupt elites and there are lots of particularly young men getting behind that story you'll see them at cambridge university you'll see them unfortunately in churches around the country they're people who think that they're not just unpleasant racist people that they're people who are standing up for christianity morality virtue seriousness and here is this guy james or who is a cambridge professor who got this extraordinary profile on the financial times with a glamorous picture of him on the front cover who is able to talk about hegel who reaches out to jd vance and it's a reminder that when these parties come and this has been true for right-wing parties throughout history they often have these figures at the fringes who give a sense of real kind of intellectual seriousness and respectability that this man is meant to be austere concerned with truth justice in the british way and professor of ethics and divinity yeah and that's why when you see him sitting in his fancy suit with his hair swished back hitting the cocktails talking about how he doesn't care about the electoral commission he's going to get around the law he's going to go on signals so people can't see his things against transparency against truth against being honest with the british public or even his own boss deliberately circumventing the law in order to lie to the british people and promote his party look at that and see the moral quality of this man and see the moral quality of all these people you cannot allow danny kruger james or jd vance to present themselves as great moral exemplars they are revolting human beings who are using their ability to talk about hegel to endorse very dangerous destructive anti-democratic politics which is corrupt your point about people not knowing unless they really immerse themselves in it and i think you're right about that because what happens is it you know the the documentary explodes you've got lots and lots of coverage then within 24 hours it was nigel farage has denied any wrongdoing you know focus on the alleged wrongdoing not what he's saying about it um and then of course there was their conference going on what have you but last night rory we're going to talk about ukraine in q and a this week last night i was doing this event with luke harding who's just written this book about ukraine and the it's called betrayal it's the betrayal of trump and putin but also he's got a very big section on nathan gill and on the fact that the russians essentially turned nathan gill into an agent and he's now serving 10 years in jail former colleague of nigel for a colleague of nigel farage in the european parliament very leading figure leader of the party in wales we had about 350 people in the king's place i asked for a show of hands of these people who'd paid money to come and hear somebody talk about a book about russia and ukraine who had heard of nathan gill it was about a third of the hands who had heard of nathan gill it was about a third of the hands who had heard of nathan gill it was two-thirds and i said who has heard of profumo every single hand went up nathan gill is serving a jail sentence as an elected british politician for helping russia and taking in the war against ukraine and taking money and this very edgy so so what and that's that's down to the media they covered it as a one-day wonder there's been such a degradation of our politics that we've normalized bad behavior so so much and we've become so polarized so i was talking to um a relative who is sympathetic towards reform whose response was as you go guess what the defense was when i forced them to watch this document they all do it yeah exactly all the politicians do it and and the great one was and of course they go after reform much more than they would after a mainstream which is bullshit i mean what damage was kia start did kia starmer get for just taking a pair of glasses exactly so they're five million quid we don't even talk about five million quid anymore you've totally got it they're all up to it so what is it that we see in this documentary what is it that we see in this documentary what is it that we see in this documentary What we see is that it shows something deep about the values of this man, James Orr, and I think actually the values of Danny Kruger too, who incidentally, while posing as the great Christian moral figure, refused to condemn his colleagues when they lied about Kemi Badenoch during the elections. He just wouldn't come out and say that the whole story that she had been- White lives don't matter. Yeah, thought white lives don't matter. And he totally refused to clarify, condemn or do anything. In this case, what's wrong with what happened? What's wrong with what happened is this, reform commissioned a poll, a guy called Dan Jukes commissioned a poll. And the point of the poll for them is to put it on the front page, the Telegraph and other newspapers showing that people are supporting reform at a critical moment before elections. So it's really important, part of their PR strategy. They then arrange for the poll to be paid for by this American donor from an American company. In order to do so, we have them admitting, that this isn't legal. We have them going on to signal because they want to conceal any chance of anybody seeing him. We have him saying that the electoral commission is useless and they're never going to catch them. So what does this represent? It represents complete lack of transparency, not being honest with the British people, deceiving the British people, deceiving the electoral commission, breaking the law. And then this incredible kind of Henry II Beckett defense, which is, "Oh, Nigel doesn't want to know about it." And the undercover journalists keep saying, "Does Nigel know about it? If I meet him, if my dad meets him?" "Well, I don't know about the details, but of course, you know, he knows." And they start inviting the guy to donor conferences. And then he says, and this is the killer, he says, "It's explicitly because we cannot get donations from UK domiciled donors." But also, one of the key moments in the film is where he does meet Nigel Farage during the Clacton by-election. So there's an election that's being called because of this 5 million donation from a Thailand crypto billionaire. He's only having that election allegedly to allow the Clacton people to be his jury rather than a court where it should be. And Nigel Farage is clearly aware because he says, "Boom, it worked for a pretty small investment." Okay. And then goes on television, our television, and says, "I wasn't really listening." Two questions about judgment. Imagine if any other politician had done that. Well, apart from the wrongdoing, simply a question of political judgment. This is a by-election, which was dominated by the news or the allegation that posh George Cottrell had illegally siphoned money through his mother to pay Farage, which they were denying. And in the middle of that very by-election, while that story's breaking, the journalist from this amazing production company, Verbatim, must have been thinking, "Well, we're never going to be able to get our meeting now, given that they're already mad and scandal." He's prepared to sit down with someone who says, "Let me just clarify, this is my dad's American money. So, I'm not going to be able to get my money. I'm not going to be able to pay my family. I'm not going to be able to pay my friends. I'm not going to be able to pay my family." Is that okay with you? And by the way, they've since then, so when reform now say there'll be an investigation, so Dan Jukes and James Orr get suspended, pending a full inquiry, investigation, blah, blah, blah. As far as I understand it, listening to all the blather they've come out with, as they keep changing their line, the investigation is going effectively to be into the TV program, and they're talking about it being entrapment. Okay. Now, the first thing is, it is legitimate under the code of Ofcom and everybody else to expose wrongdoing using subterfuge. You should give up if you don't find it, but clearly from the word go, given that they're saying in interviews with him being secretly recorded through his buttonhole, they're admitting that they want to try to circumnavigate, circumvent the law. Because they can't get UK dollars to help people. And then the second thing that I think is really important, James Johnson, whose polling we used, we used his poll before the last election, their big line now is that this poll was not, quote, commissioned by them. Well, who did commission it? Because James Johnson, he's also on camera, essentially saying that they're using this device to pay him. So the poll is done, commissioned, we're going to get this guy to pay you for it. Now that is, I've spoken to somebody who knows electoral law inside out, who says that if it is the case that Orr and Dukes have organized for this poll without the treasurer of the party, knowing where that money is coming from, they are potentially in breach of the law. Let me just tell you about the criminal offenses that they might, the police might have to consider. The main one is entering into or furthering an arrangement which facilitates or is likely to facilitate the making of donations by an impermissible donor. Now you've seen the film 27,000 times already. Do you think that might fall into that category? Look, I would certainly say as a legal expert that it certainly gives that impression. Okay. So the second section 61 offense of the PPERA, which is the act that we're talking about, is a person deceiving their treasurer about a donation. So the treasurer will have to be called to give evidence out of thought, which can include an official not telling the treasurer about a donation with intent to deceive. So that means unless we discover that James Orr, Dan Dukes and Nigel Farage have told the treasurer about this impermissible donation, they have committed a criminal offense. Just to go back to the basics and what the barrister explains very well in this documentary that I'm endlessly promoting is what's the point of all this? And let's just step away from the law back to the purpose of this. The whole point of our electoral laws is to prevent foreign citizens from funding British parties. And this entire arrangement is in a way to get an American billionaire from Wyoming purportedly to support reform because reform can't get money out of UK domiciled donors. So that's all we have to remember, that the whole law was written for that purpose. We believe that British politics should be funded by UK domiciled donors for a good reason, because we don't want Russians giving money, Chinese giving money, or even far-right donors from Wyoming supporting our parties. And that would be normal in any country, right? Britain's not unusual, you can't do it in the States. Imagine the outrage in the States if it turned out that some British woke left-wing donor was funding the Democratic Party in the United States, completely illegal, people would go to jail. Look, I'm not a legal expert, but I have studied this particular bit of the law, and it's very difficult to believe watching that documentary that these people have not broken, certainly, the spirit of the law. And if people have broken the law, then people should, in my opinion, go to jail. Let's then move on to two other things which get coverage, but which aren't made part of the story. So in the reform conference, an activist stood up and started asking questions about corruption and farrage. And climate. And climate. She was grabbed by the hair, half pulled on the ground, appears to have been hit with a stick and dragged out of the thing, right? And what are the responses you get? Lee Anderson says, "We'll have a whip around for a new stick." Robert Jenrick says, Mm-hmm. Yeah. What is there to see here, basically? And so there is a coarsening here. This is why I want to go to the point of the moral sensibility, and maybe this is a transition back to the AFD. What we're trying to say about these parties is something that's quite difficult to notice, which is they are getting rid of norms that we took for granted. Assaulting a woman in a conference in that way would have been, five years ago, unbelievably outrageous. And I think every party leader would have come out and condemned it, right? This sort of incredible corruption, there would have been an immediate series of resignations. And this is what I think the new world is that we've seen just since the podcast started. I mean, we just did this live show and we talked about the fact we've only been going for four years. The transition from the world that we came into, which was- Which was the world of Santa Marin, of Jacinta Ardern, Justin Trudeau, Macron's second election, into this world is a world where, above all with Trump, but actually it's the story of the AFD, and it's the story of Le Pen, and it's the story of reform too, is a story about the fact that things we took for granted, norms, values, democratic behavior, are all going out the window and our politics is becoming more violent, less honest, more polarized, coarser, and more brutal all the time. Well, Trump is a big driver of that. And as Paul said in the first half, you know, Trump posted, I mean, it's like him sort of deciding to post about the West Midlands metro mayor authority elections. You know, he's posted about that. Why? Because the far right is one. It's part of their national security strategy to support parties of the far right. They actually think reform are not fair. They actually think reform are not far right enough now, which is why Musk is backing Rupert Rupert Lowe. But my sense is I'm not a lawyer, but I know people who are. By trying to get round a law which bans these foreign donations, impermissible donors, that in itself is breaking the law. And that I think is where this will go to. Final one for me. The thing that worried me most of all is the reform chair saying that the potential labor candidate to replace Keir Stonewall, who's now announced that he's stepping down, is going to be a by-election. Zia Youssef? Yeah, that the questions should be raised because she wasn't born in britain she is a british citizen she's also a brilliant council leader let me tell you regardless of how brilliant she is but she is what what are they saying what are they saying that a british citizen isn't a british citizen because they weren't born in britain i wasn't born in britain no boris johnson wasn't born in britain right i was born i was born in hong kong right so this is the beginning of something that is unbelievable right and this connects the afd where they're talking about throwing out german citizens who've broken the law or remigration or all this sort of stuff if we no longer have an idea of equal citizenship and presumably zio yusuf has less of a problem with the fact that i wasn't born in britain than he has with the fact that a somali wasn't born in britain yeah exactly so so that maybe is a more fundamental norm because in that is citizenship equality justice and everything that we stand for as a society you get to choose who is and isn't british you get to choose who is and isn't british not based on whether or not they have a british passport but based presumably in this case on their skin color i think the selection is happening in the next 48 hours so this may be out of date but just to say something about sagal abduwali who's the council leader i've known her and her family for 30 years she is absolutely brilliant following georgia gould as council leader was a very very tough act to follow but she's really really good and would be a terrific mp but i think you're absolutely right what he did it was he posted a picture she wears a headscarf she is a muslim and basically said she's not born in britain and therefore she shouldn't be replacing kirsten it's straightforward racism which he probably thinks he gets away with more than maybe farage or kruger or which he gets away because he's sri lanka muslim correct yeah correct yeah the other thing it just shows you we talk about normalization the other thing that's been big on the news this week of course is these thugs people who say that women shouldn't be clothed dressed in black trying to shut down two ports these would be the same people who would celebrate the fact that just stop oil people who did similar things are now serving jail sentences and again the media are very very happy to say the afd are hard right they call these people protesters they are hard right most of them with criminal convictions a lot of domestic violence a lot of them and i take their balaclavas off let's see all their faces and let's see how many of them already got caught and let's see how many of them already got caught and let's see how many convictions and we talked about them as anti-migration protesters i suspect that a lot of them would be pretty experienced football thugs who just want to bundle and you just want to sort of play into this tommy robinson sort of fascist stuff and you know you talk about joining the dots that is what we have to be much more open about they are not protesters they are far-right thugs who are trying to stop any sort of debate around this other than the one they want which is all immigrants are bad let's finish you on germany which which we started on and which you you think about a lot the fd won the election so that represents a far-right party with fascist associations getting well into the 40s percent in this election we've got a very very weak chancellor now in germany who are the person with the journalists we were interviewing was saying maybe on their way out we've got a whole conversation about ukraine and the future of how do we put that all together are you worried about germany am i overdoing it in saying that this is that that this is something we need to worry about not just ideologically or for germany but actually for the whole of europe look if you if you now have as paul was saying not long ago people were saying well listen don't worry about the fd yeah they're a bit of a irritant they're a bit of a nightmare but you know they're never going to get power and look zachary anhalt is is the oldest it's probably the most right wing already of all the 16 lender so i think maybe a better when we see the the one in mecklenburg-vorpommern but i suspect what will happen is that you know they will get momentum out of this and the other thing we should worry about if you remember the le pen trying to become president of france she she's been beaten most times because in the second round people have come out to stop her this election in saxony anhalt had the highest turnout there has been in a regional election for a very long time there's almost 80 percent and the people who were coming out to vote for the first time including a lot of young people massive numbers of blue-collar workers were coming out and saying i've never voted before i'm voting with the afd and it's the point that paul made it's not that they necessarily know or much care what they stand for they just are fed up with the other two parties and of course one of the reasons they're fed up with the other two parties because this is the electoral system they've got is that they had to build a coalition one of the reasons mertz can't get the reforms through that he promised is because he's he's got the social democrats saying no we don't want that they're having to do deals all the time so look i think it is deeply worrying i think it's deeply worrying that the polls suggest i still think le pen and bardell are beatable but the polls suggest they are in a very very strong position because we don't yet know who they would face who replaces macron for the center who stands on the left we don't know yet we know some of the ones who will definitely stand but we don't know the whole picture if you have a france that goes to the hard right we've already got maloney who's okay maloney's trimmed quite a lot but would the french trim in the same way not so sure and as and as powell said the afd are even further to the right of le pen and the other big worry i have because i remain convinced that even despite all this in fact partly because of this hard right popular populism in europe we need to get britain back uh and of course that argument becomes a lot harder if you've got le pen and you've got vital sort of you know taking power there so i think we should be able to get britain back and of course that argument becomes a lot harder if you've got um and one of the terrifying things in paul's documentary was the extent to which people just they just ran this line the whole time this is not our war this is not our war well it you might not think it is but it could quite easily become yours and that's why we have to understand what ukraine are doing it's standing up for all of us and that's what we'll talk about in question time tami regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college that's why she shops at bj's wholesale club saving up to 25 off 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