Zoe Gardner
Appearances
Pod Save the UK
Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
This is like every worker's worst nightmare, right? This is actually why I went freelance. I used to have recurring nightmares about my manager asking me to provide five examples of what I'd done that week. I've actually been quite productive. I've been writing a piece about how the far right is obsessed with violence against women and girls. I can see you sort of shifting in your seat.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
I've done loads of things, I promise. This is a conversation I only ever need to have between myself, now I'm freelance, and my accountant once a year. So I'm not used to it. And apart from that I've just been enjoying lots of great TV. Oh that's good to hear.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
I do know how hard that is.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
Did you manage to get one for this year? Yeah. That's incredible. I know. Congratulations. Hard work. Hard work. All right, on to people who have definitely been making their jobs count this week. Keir Starmer has made a massive announcement that the UK will increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, funded by cuts to foreign aid. Here's a clip of Starmer on Tuesday.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
I thought there were several interesting things in there. I really liked that he made the case for a digital services tax, so increasing the amount that these kind of big digital companies that are mostly based in the US would be paying, and that would kind of help bolster our defence spending. Because, you know, Amazon only paid £18.7 million
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
last year, which sounds like a lot until you consider that their British Arm alone raked in £27 billion. They're not paying their share. And I think there is real public support for increasing the tax burden, especially on those multinational companies that are raking lots and lots of money and aren't properly taxed here. I also... He almost made a pacifist argument in favour of defence.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
You asked him, how do we square it with actually just wanting peace? And he almost made it like it was an insurance policy. So the more defence you have, the more you put off potential attackers. But the thing that I think is also really important to note is that's not just artilleries and soldiers and military capabilities. That also has to be strong public services.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
How is the NHS going to survive a crisis critical cyber attack? You know, how would our critical national infrastructure survive an attack of that sort? And you also need communities who are strong and supportive of their country. So you need to build up public services, local authorities, councils, all those things.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
They need to be equipped to deal with the new kind of warfare we might experience. But also you have to create a country where people want to feel defensive of it. And I think part of the problem is if you just focus on defence spending as military. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You kind of miss what people are fighting for or defending.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
Yeah, and I think the reality of... You know, what does it mean to send troops to Ukraine if the conflict could keep going or if it could flare up again? That would mean British civilians dying. And that impact in our communities. We're sort of talking about defence spending as a kind of economic concept when actually it can mean bloodshed and devastation in our communities. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
There was a really good quote by John Crace, who's a sketch writer in The Guardian, who said, the more you get to see of Kemi, the less there appears to be. And I think that's true. You know, people thought she'd be this really punchy leader who would put Starmer in his place and fight for conservative values. And actually, beneath this kind of condescending facade, there's not very much going on.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
And I think the thing about the Conservatives is it's not like the supporters of the Conservative Party have lost their Conservative values. They just don't like the Conservatives anymore. And part of that, Kemi would argue, is because they've shifted towards the centre. I would argue it's because they were totally incompetent and corrupt for 14 years.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
So if you want to turn around the fortunes of the Conservative Party, there needs to be a degree of humility there. and grace. And Kemi Badenoch does, to her credit, say we've made mistakes, but none of those mistakes seem to be Kemi Badenoch's fault. They seem to be everyone else in the party, as if she didn't serve in previous governments, you know?
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
So Starmer is essentially going to want to try and persuade the U.S. to offer some security guarantees for Ukraine that will contain rather than embolden Russia. So there were lots of questions about this kind of backstop.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
So I think she comes across badly, unwilling to engage and a bit delusional. And, But there is also an existential issue with the Tories, which we've spoken about before, which is they are fundamentally divided. They are divided over everything. Britain's position in the world, the economy, taxation, Brexit, the environment, things they all used to agree on.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
But then the Tory moderates were purged and now there's just kind of the right and a few moderates. So coming up with any workable policy that the party will get behind is actually impossible. So she's got no policy positions, but also she's got no charisma.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
I listen to it.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
That's a shame. I listened to it for my work. You know, that's one of the things I did this week, actually, Elon. I listened to Jordan Peterson's podcast. It was terrible. They're both seeing who can do more word salad than the other one. You know, she's stuck in this podcast circuit, I think because she's trying to capture these voters who care more about ideology maybe than they do about policy.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
But she just talks herself into weird kind of segues and then doesn't really explain them. Like she talks a lot about how she's a Christian, a cultural Christian. She says that culture is upstream of religion. To me, that sounds all quite dog whistle. What is a cultural Christian? Like Christianity is a religion. Yeah. It's all very strange. She's very anti-immigration.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
She talks very passionately about how she hated woke people at university and got in lots of arguments with them, which, you know, is not a good basis by which to select your next prime minister. But yeah, she's just stuck in this kind of podcast circuit, never getting a news line across. She's not being interviewed by proper journalists. And I do think that makes a difference.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
So if there was a deal that had been agreed, there would have to be provisions in place, potentially boots on the ground from European allies, but also maybe the US as well, that would prevent Russia from seeing an opportunity to go back into Ukraine and invade again. They're also probably going to talk about trade.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
They know how to craft a narrative and get a headline. And if you're just talking to Jordan Peterson for two hours, I mean... Who cares?
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
No, I don't know about the anglerfish. Coco, you really need to make sure you're well briefed before we record, okay? Because the anglerfish is all over TikTok. Oh, is it? The new mudang. The new mudang, exactly. So they usually live 2,000 metres below the surface, but one was caught surfacing in Tenerife the other day, and... just become a Gen Z meme and obsession.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
So there's loads of footage of this anglerfish with beautiful piano music, people saying, like, if you don't believe in yourself, be more like this fish who, you know, took their last moments in the sunshine. People are saying this is the Gen Z zeitgeist. You know, this fish captures how lonely and isolated Gen Z feel and is a kind of beacon of hope in a world of Kemi Badenoch and Georda Peterson.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
James Cleverley is really interesting, right? Because the other sort of successors, I guess, are Priti Patel, who was sat next to Kemi Badenoch in that clip. And then there's Robert Jenrick, who is, you know, we have lots of thoughts on Robert Jenrick. But they are trying to make themselves known and quite vocal. You know, Robert Jenrick is always chiming in about various culture war issues.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
James Cleverley is keeping his powder dry. He's not really doing much. I think he's trying to disassociate himself from Kemi because when it all goes pitong, which it probably will, he can jump in as the next Tory leader. And I genuinely think James Cleverley is someone who Labour would be pretty scared of.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
The vast majority of people in the UK support Ukraine and they don't really like Trump and they definitely don't like Musk. Surprisingly enough, British citizens don't like it when people try and interfere in UK democracy from other countries. Yeah, it is funny, isn't it? So... Farage hitching his wagon to Trump and Musk in the way he did was always foolish because they're erratic.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
They're ego driven. They're not going to be your loyal friend. And they were always going to. I mean, Musk did turn on Farage, as we saw. But, you know, Trump... Do you think that's why I'm getting loads of Rupert Lowe content? Oh, I wouldn't be surprised because Musk loves Rupert Lowe. I have heard other people say that as well.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
That kind of has gone on the back burner because Ukraine has been in the forefront as well. But obviously, we know that Trump is potentially considering putting tariffs on the UK.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
And, you know, Musk is known to try and alter the algorithms to get his content front and centre stage.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
I think definitely. I think one of the biggest things we should take from this is that far-right movements can and do radicalise over time. So the AFD, when it was initially created, was a Eurosceptic and economically liberal party. Over pretty much a decade, it became a sort of overtly fascist party.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
And, you know, at the moment here in the UK, reform is obviously distancing itself from Tommy Robinson. But I think we need to remain vigilant about how quickly things could shift Richard Tice has denied ideological alignment with the AFD, but some figures in the party, so the chair Zia Yousaf, has already expressed interest in learning from them.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
So already we're seeing within reform there are different ideological shifts happening. And that's a pretty influential, you know, the chairman's pretty influential. Could we see reform move even further, right? And I think that's a pretty scary thought. The other obvious point for all of us to learn is that ignoring the far right doesn't stop it.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
And so I think what Keir Starmer is going to want to do is try and sweeten this a little bit by offering maybe some concessions to Trump, maybe over agriculture, for example, to try and convince him to not punish the UK as part of his domestic economic agenda.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
So, you know, just trying to dismiss the AFD as extremists didn't stop it from rising, even in Germany, where the, you know, the real memory of fascism is so fresh. The only way you can counter far right parties is strong alternatives, not just criticism. So don't just ignore them. Present real policy solutions. And yes, immigration is something that they all kind of rally behind.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
But that's just snake oil. You know, really voters are, you know, they have concerns, real material economic concerns. And it's easy for the far right to say it's because of immigration. But proper progressive parties need to say no. we're going to have economic solutions to these issues.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
Yes, I think there's a few things. The first is that there is that sense of things have gone so badly wrong in this country that even those little slices of good news, people just kind of think, OK, there might be more NHS appointments, but why can I still not get one at my GP? Or why is my mum still on an eight-month waiting list to get a hip replaced or whatever?
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
People will be thinking, well, I can't afford a train ticket.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
I can't afford my energy bill. You know, this week we saw energy prices go up as well. I think those kind of tangible things sort of neutralise that good news because people just think I'm not feeling those things in my pocket.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
I think there's also a problem with Labour's messaging, which has just been so, we've talked about that before, but it's been so dour and it's really hard to come back from that if that's the kind of tone you set your government off on. But I think they just need some big, bold wins that really change people's lives.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
I mean, so in April, there's going to be 750 schools that get this new trial of breakfast clubs. That's going to be something that actually, hopefully we can immediately see makes life better for kids. And hopefully in a year's time, there'll be some research that shows their attainment or their productivity was better. And that could be a good thing.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
But again, it's just these little slices of things don't seem to actually compensate for the bigger picture of local authorities going bankrupt or the NHS being on its knees or people feeling like they've got no money and the general breakdown of, you know, communities and people feeling unhappier. It's just really, really hard.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
And of course, the general kind of news agenda just being so focused on the rest of the world going to pot, I think dampens anything because people think, great, £270 million for culture, but what if we get nuked in five years? Yeah.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
Okay, I'm going to show myself as somebody who hasn't eaten a lot of doner kebabs. Are there not different sizes of doner kebabs? Yes, there are. Right, so... Not enough information. Kebabs, it's like, you know, it's a bit of a sort of after-night-out meal for a lot of people, isn't it? It's become part of our late night food. Well, not for you, as you explained to me.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
No, so I, because I come from Yorkshire, always had a pie after a night out. I'm not even joking. They used to be the pie shop. It's shut down now, but we always used to get a pie. So if they told me I had to have... six pies a week rather than eight, I'd be like, of course, I can visualise that.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
Oh, yeah. That's really sweet. Got my whippet waiting for me outside, my flat cap.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
Okay, good. Well, I'm just going to carry on eating my pies and drive around in my electric car and, you know, talk about how great my hip pump is.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
Well, I think there's a real general feeling that 2.5% is not enough and it's not soon enough because it's by 2027. But I think what is maybe more key here is Zakir Starmer's language. So he spoke pretty passionately in the House of Commons about the need for this, about how they didn't want to cut foreign aid, about how the Labour Party still see foreign aid as valuable.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
But they note that the global situation has changed. And I suspect for Donald Trump... and for what he wants to do for the US, which is bolster its position in the world, make it the kind of strongman of the world, that just having the power and the influence to get countries to change their position will be enough to placate him.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
I think this is more about the politics than about the numbers at the minute. Whether that will hold in the long run, if the US continues to feel like they're overpaying compared to other countries is a different question.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
I think there's a couple of things here. I think the first is that there is cross-party consensus on the need to increase defence spending. Going for the foreign aid budget as opposed to other kind of public services is interesting because actually there is a lot of popularity for foreign aid in this country. Politicians haven't done very well.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
well at selling what foreign aid does i think there's a feeling that it's often misused um that it it goes to kind of building communities when we've got problems at home actually foreign aid keeps us safe and there's strong arguments on both the left of the political spectrum and the right of the political spectrum for the the utility of foreign aid you know you'll hear conservatives making impassioned arguments for foreign aid as well as politicians on the left um
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
I didn't know you were a Rupert Lowe superfan.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
But it's quite an easy thing to go for, especially because we've seen Kemi Badenock going for foreign aid recently. Donald Trump obviously cut the US's own foreign aid budget. It's one of those things where I think it's probably the low hanging fruit, the easiest to go for because it has the public doesn't particularly like or understand it.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
And other politicians seem to be targeting it at the minute.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
I think so. You know, there is a feeling that if we as the West stop providing money to various projects or various communities that have relied on foreign aid, there is a vacuum which another wealthy country who we might not have our interests aligning with could fill it. And I think that is the worry here. And you're absolutely right that there is community and nation building in foreign aid.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
But there's also things like vaccination programs. You know, there is a real argument that foreign aid actually keeps us safer in the long term. It may prevent crises. It may prevent war. It may prevent people from getting sick and more pandemics. So actually cutting aid doesn't just have domestic implications for those countries. It has global ones as well.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
I guess in that situation, you have to squeeze back, right? Oh, yes. You have to out-squeeze the person who's squeezing you. This is why I can never be a politician.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
He does do a sort of head shake, which is like, these are just facts. They're not important. What's important is what I'm saying. It's good to see somebody fact checking Donald Trump live on camera because we don't really get that anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
I'm here with you and I'm very happy about it, so thank you.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
Starmer's not Hugh Grant in love, actually. Obviously, you know, he's not going to stand up and do a kind of rousing speech. He's not going to do a national stereotype. Or the dance, thankfully. But I do think Starmer is probably at his best when he's making a case for something. And obviously this comes from his background of
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
a lawyer you know he's good on detail we saw that when he was really skewing Johnson over Partygate Boris Johnson back in the day he was really good at building a case bringing the details putting them to him and if you're dealing with someone like Boris Johnson or like Donald Trump who are a light on truth you know they're not that bothered about facts they just kind of bluster on and hope for the best that can be quite good
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
But I think the problem is Keir Starmer, he just doesn't have that kind of leadership quality. He's more managerial. And I think he's nervous as well. He's nervous about what the US can do. The UK is in a very economically precarious situation. We're caught between the US and the EU. Macron is stronger because he's inside the EU. He has kind of the bluster of the rest of the union behind him.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
Whereas the UK, although in some ways it can be positive that they have historically acted as that bridge between the US and Europe, Trump is the unexpected force here. And I think Keir Starmer is just very, very nervous about dealing with this. We also have to remember he's only been prime minister for, what is it, nine months or something?
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
This isn't the challenge I think he thought he would be dealing with this early on in his premiership. So he'll be good on some things, but I think on that kind of putting Trump in his place, probably not so much.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
There are things that the US wants. So, you know, tariffs, as we spoke about before, that's the big elephant in the room. The UK really wants a trade deal, probably focused on tech and digital services. Trump will probably want concessions on agriculture, maybe on drug pricing as well. There are things that they both want from each other.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
It's not just that the UK is going in cap in hand, hoping that the US will give them something. But, you know, Trump, he likes to display strength. That's how he is bolstering the US's economy. That's how he's bolstering the US's position in the world. He's going in as a leader who has total power and control. And in some ways, this...
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
Giving him that and stroking his ego is probably the best way to get him to also do things for you. The other thing that Starmer probably will offer Trump is a full state visit. This was sort of rumoured in the papers over the weekend. He'll also offer him an address to both UK Parliament. So we might see Donald Trump do a speech here in the UK, which would be a very interesting one politically.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
I think when you look at the MPs who have been quite critical of Donald Trump in Parliament, how's that going to go down? Yeah.
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Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
Plus, Bloomberg's Zeke Foe joins to unpack Argentina's wild crypto scam tied to Javier Millet. Listen to Pod Save the World wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube.
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Can Starmer’s upbeat note drown out the donation scandal? w/ Zoë Grünewald and Simon Kuper
Yeah.
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And that reflects a deal that Italy is at the lead of, but is actually an EU-wide deal that has been made with Tunisia, a greater enhanced cooperation between Italy and Libya, and a new deal that's also been signed with Egypt. And these are called migration management deals, which is euphemistic, to put it mildly. Basically, we pay millions and millions of pounds.
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And I say we because the UK has in the past been involved with these deals and in the present continues to be involved in various ways, including financially involved. We pay huge amounts of money to governments, and I use that term even quite generously because Libya doesn't essentially, it's a failed state and doesn't have just one government, but we've picked one of them.
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And we're giving them a lot of money to contain migrants, to prevent them from leaving. And essentially what happens and what has been happening specifically in Tunisia since this deal was signed is that the government there has been
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
rounding up people, chucking them into vans and driving them out into the Saharan desert and dumping them, men, women and children, in the border region between sort of Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, with no water, no mobile phones, no nothing. And Tens of thousands of people have credibly been reported to be subjected to this treatment. And hundreds and hundreds of people have obviously died.
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
That's how she's cut the numbers. Wow.
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Albania has been presented in the media as sort of like how she's achieved this. Actually, the Albania deal hasn't started yet. The drop in numbers has entirely been achieved through these horrific deals with Northern African countries. The Albania deal is yet to come into force.
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
So the Albania deal is different to the Rwanda deal. The Rwanda deal that we had was essentially that we would send people to Rwanda and regardless of who they were or what circumstances then occurred, they would stay in Rwanda, or at least they wouldn't come back to the UK. This is not the same at all. This is about the Italian administration of their asylum system saying,
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
taking place in detention camps in Albania. So that means that they have built these huge detention facilities in Albania. They have again sent many, many millions of pounds to the Albanian government and Italian civil servants are going to process the asylum claims of a select group of the asylum seekers who are seeking to land in Italy. They're going to do that processing on Albanian soil
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
People will remain detained there until the decision is made on their case. If they are recognized under Italian law as refugees, they will then be returned to Italy. But the intention is that the people sent there will be people that Italy deems unlikely to be refugees. But the intention is that then they will be removed if they are not found to be refugees, but they'll be removed from Albania.
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
So they'll be detained in Albania until that removal can be administered by Italy. So it's an enclave. It's a neo-colonial outpost.
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Yeah. Yeah, I tend to pride myself on not being shocked by politicians' behaviour towards migrants. But I was shocked when Rishi Sunak hosied up to the extent he did to Georgia Maloney. So... Keir Starmer starting out his tenure as PM by going over there and having the exact same kind of giggly, cute little photo shoots with her. really turned my stomach to a degree I cannot even describe.
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
He's going over there ostensibly to learn about, yeah, the offshoring element. So again, the irony is not the part that's actually impacted arrivals because it's not in place yet. So it simply cannot be argued to have done that.
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
But Starmer's made it pretty clear that he's not ruling out almost anything and certainly not ruling out the possibility of offshore processing of claims, which is, as I explained, is different to the idea of the Rwanda one.
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Yeah, no, I mean, it has a lot of like fundamental elements in common. First and most important being that it is based on the flawed logic that through cruelty we can deter people from seeking safety and opportunity for their lives. And any expert will tell you that there is absolutely no evidence that that can be achieved. So first of all, like the Rwanda plan, this won't work.
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Like the Rwanda plan also, it has human rights disaster written all over it. So there are some ways in which it's better. Albania is closer to being a true democracy than Rwanda was. Albania is under the purview of the European Court of Human Rights. So there are mechanisms where migrants will be able to find some level of redress.
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Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
There's also things like pregnant women or children will not be included in the people sent there. So once again, men get a kicking. We don't care about brown men. But yes, there are differences. But ultimately, it comes down to the fact that these will be people locked up in offshore camps and For long, long periods, conditions will be atrocious.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Suicide, self-harm will definitely be a feature of these camps. Abuses, just squalor. It's horrific and everybody should be against it. It's different to Rwanda, but it has a lot of the same problems. And ultimately, of course, it won't work.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Yeah. So, I mean, over the whole of Europe, the number one nationality of people seeking asylum is Syrian and in the UK it's Afghans. So we're talking about people who are leaving from countries where situations are unlivable. It's also important to note we're talking about countries where your passport has the least value. Yeah.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
So UK passport gets you visa-free or visa on arrival entry to almost every country in the world. A Syrian passport, an Afghan passport. There is no way to travel legally out of those countries. Not to the UK, but not to any other European country, not to any safe country where there is real opportunity to rebuild your life. And that is why people do so in such dangerous means.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And you look at that list of the least powerful countries, passports, they are the most dangerous countries and they are the countries where people are taking irregular journeys from. I wonder why.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Okay, so I have three problems with the story. But first of all, I just want to ask, at what number does it become mass? Because mass migration, we've all apparently accepted that we're experiencing mass migration. I don't know when it became mass. And I would really love a definition, just to define the term so that we can talk on an equal playing field. But... Aside from that, yeah.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
First of all, the headline there talks about low-paid migrants and it doesn't talk about the most striking OBR finding, which is that the average migrant actually makes an immense fiscal contribution. as soon as they arrive in the UK, they start contributing economically to the UK. So it's just misleading straight off the bat.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Second problem, talks about low-paid migrants, doesn't talk about the structural issues that create low pay in this country. And spoiler, it's not migration. Disproportionately, migrants are represented in public sector roles, including healthcare and social care. These are areas where the government sets the pay scale. And it is the government's decision to set pay low.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
I've never actually met a worker in any line of work who was the person saying, don't raise my wages. It's not the workers who hold down the wages. It is structures of oppression, greed, and capitalism, and just underfunding from government that hold down wages. So you want to talk about low paid workers, you know, you need to talk about the service they are providing.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And the service they are providing is, frankly, in the case of carers and doctors, priceless, absolutely priceless and necessary for our country. So their calculation in terms of these crude fiscal measures does not take into account that we desperately need these people. And finally, obviously, it just reduces people to just economic units rather than human beings.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And every single migrant is one. They're just a human. They're just a human.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Yeah, I think it's important that I try to go on mainstream media. I would love more opportunities to do that, frankly, but I do find that we're constantly on the back foot there. We're constantly reacting to the framing that is put upon us by, you know, the government's doing something horrific. Is this good? And you get very little space.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And it's always sort of like locking people up in detention centers abroad. Good or bad? Yeah. It's just like, okay. And what it doesn't give us space to do is what I think the majority of the country actually wants. I think the majority of the country doesn't like the fact that if you're born in Sudan, you have such unequal chances in life. And if you want to change that, you risk drowning.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
I don't think people like that. I think people want to see that managed better, but we are not given options to manage it better. We are given options to lock people up and push people away. And people want to understand what the alternatives are. And the only way that I am able to do that is spaces like this, or if I am the one creating the content and creating the
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And just a narrative about the alternatives, because the real big lie about migration is that the choices between having it or not having it. And the real truth is the choices between managing it well in a way that benefits us all or this horrific cruelty and death that we see at the current time.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
What do you think is going to happen? One of the most common comments I get is like, you know what? Why are they, you know, spending £6,000 on a smuggler's boat when it costs £35 to fly here from Paris on EasyJet? And I'm like, mate, yeah, you know what? They're real dumb people. LAUGHTER You should have got a star scan of me. Seriously, let's put up some posters. I don't know. Is it yet?
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
What's your target audience right here? Absolutely insane how little people understand the privilege they have of being British, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Yeah, I think there's something here, right? One is just the responsibility that we have to be doing what we can to change the narrative because the narrative is bad, but it is getting scary here and across Europe. And I think everybody just has the responsibility to use whatever voice they have to have better conversations. So one is that.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
The other is, I don't know how much good I'm doing because, you know, you remember Trump and they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of hilarious, right? But like, I've been thinking about that a lot. It's really got under my skin. I'm like, what's the purpose of this? This is so clearly a lie.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And then it brings me back to, you know, politicians who respond to humans,
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
drowning in the channel by saying that we need to go and talk to a neo-fascist in Italy about the camp she's setting up in Albania, when we all know, and I'm sorry, we all know that there is one way, if you actually, your one first priority was to save people's lives and stop them drowning, you would create a route for them to cross the channel without taking those boats.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
That is what you would do. We all know that. So what purpose does the lie serve the lie is not to convince somebody that that's the truth right we all know that that's not the truth the lie is to somehow create an alternative world and a justification and narrative where we can pretend we're acting in in in line with morals or or practical reality and It's to create a fiction.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And so the truth, when the purpose of a lie is not to convince somebody of a lie, then the truth loses its power against that. And I really do worry that even though I'm putting out stuff that is factually accurate, I'm not successfully going to challenge that narrative because the point of it isn't, you know, to convince people of a lie. It is to use a lie to justify situations that aren't going.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
No, I mean, they're fundamentally tight. They're fundamentally tight and there's always winners. And I think that... The point I'm trying to make there about what's the purpose of the lie is to justify a status quo. A status quo doesn't work for us. We're pretty sick of it. It's unpleasant. It doesn't work for the people who hate migrants because migrants continue to arrive.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And it doesn't work for migrants pretty bloody obviously. So who is it working for? Because they're still doing it. And what is the lie justifying? And that is exactly what you say. There are people making an absolute killing out of this.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Whether it's the Albanian government, the Tunisian autocratic regime, the Libyan militia, or the Rwandan dictatorship, or whether it's the private firms that sell us drones, that sell us fences, that run the detention centers and the deportation centers. There is an entire ecosystem of massive profit in this country.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
horror show that we call deterrence of migrants you know the graham king he he's just the most recent sunday times rich list concept that freaks me out but whatever he's a new entry to the sunday times rich list one of the richest people in the uk what does he do he runs clear springs which is a housing accommodate they run they run the asylum hotels
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
There's a reason we have left people in asylum hotels is because there are people, and he's a Tory donor, they get very, very rich off this. And those are the real villains here. And they are hoarding wealth that should be distributed among all the vulnerable people in our population. And yeah, so economic inequality is absolutely at the nub of this, but it's tied in.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
There's a reason it continues, even though it's failing.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
So, obviously, that's quite a big question.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
30 seconds is just like being on Good Morning Britain.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Seriously though, there's the immediate term and then there's the longer term, right? So in the immediate term, if I was advising Keir Starmer and I know that he, you know, hangs on my every word.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Oh, yeah. Obviously.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
At my Twitter feed. Why wouldn't he be? Okay. Immediately speaking, you need to decrease the salience of a tiny, small, small proportion of immigration, which is refugees and asylum seekers. 5.5% of the people who came to the UK last year came on a small boat. 5.5%, slightly disproportionate coverage in media and attention from government. Fucking hell. Just calm it, the ever-loving fuck down.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Sorry. But just stop making your policy be driven by those people. Stop performatively trying to detain them and lock them up and work on European-wide solutions to share responsibility for safe routes for people to reach protection. But keep it in its place and then move on the fact that our real, the bulk of immigration is people coming for work.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And our immigration system forces people into exploitation and low pay because of the way it's structured. And I'm not going to get into that whole detail there. But please, guys, follow me on everything and I'll tell you all about it. And then finally, we need to talk about a word that's a little bit uncomfortable in these circles, but I don't know a better word for it. It's integration, right?
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Now, on the left, people get like, why should people have to integrate? Integration goes both ways. Yes, integration goes both ways, right? And some of the least integrated people into British society are the richest, right? All of that is true, but I think we need to talk about integrated communities and
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
and how our immigration system stops migrants from being able to put down roots and become full members of our communities because it keeps people in a temporary status for a really long time. It separates people out from the welfare state. It separates people out from... all sorts of ways in which we become entwined in each other's lives.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Things like the most family-unfriendly immigration system that you could possibly imagine. British people who are married to people who were born abroad. And God forbid you fall in love with a foreigner. You have these insane income requirements and incredibly onerous bureaucratic hoops you have to jump through. That's like... families that we are keeping apart through our immigration system.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
So when I talk about integration, that's the kind of thing I mean. And then just finally, over the longer term, what you really need to look at is changing the face of our immigration system to one that works with the reality of migration. So people will move because they need solutions because they're fleeing from danger. We desperately need people. We have an aging population, you
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Healthcare workers, all of these people, farm workers, we need them. We actually go out and quite aggressively recruit for those people in some countries and at the same time push away other people. We need to recalibrate over time our immigration system to reflect the needs of the people who migrate as well as the needs of the country.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Yeah, I think it does depend on the context. Probably what most people see of my work is me having horrible arguments in mainstream media about migration. And the framing and the way that debate takes place is horrific. But, you know, a lot of my job is also... talking to ordinary people and coming on lovely podcasts as well.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
But like, yeah, I think the mainstream media framing and political framing of this issue is just so horrific and it doesn't actually reflect the conversations you tend to have with normal people.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
So Georgia Maloney was elected two years ago and she is of the extremely hard right anti-migrant flavour of politician, like much more extreme than anything we have in the UK. Her party is the successor to the fascist movement in Italy. And even if people reject the sort of the label of fascist around her, they would certainly, anybody would call her an extremely authoritarian, hard right figure.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And that is driven primarily through migration politics and She has completely failed, as all politicians do, to deliver on her hardline promises to cut immigration and make refugees disappear from Italy over the last two years. However, there has been a drop, as you said in the intro, in the last year and more specifically, actually, in the last six months.