Pod Save the UK
Trump wins: where the hell do we go from here? w/ Katy Balls + Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP
Thu, 7 Nov 2024
It’s a dark, dark day for the world. Donald Trump - a convicted criminal no less - has been elected 47th US president in a shocking political resurrection. Nish and Coco are joined by the Spectator’s political editor Katy Balls to discuss just how ready the UK Government is for Trump’s comeback and Kemi Badenoch’s leadership win. Later, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Labour MP and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations, calls in to discuss her dismay at the US news and to Foreign Secretary David Lammy ruling out cash-based reparations for countries blighted by slavery.And with the Government announcing the first hike in tuition fees since 2017 - we want to hear from you. Are the increased fees or maintenance loans affecting you? Are you sick of paying off student loan repayments? How can we fix the crisis in higher education? Email us at [email protected] as we’ll be chewing this over with some special guests next week. Guests:Katy BallsBell Ribeiro-Addy MP Audio Credits:BBCSky NewsGB News Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.Contact us via email: [email protected]: https://instagram.com/podsavetheukTwitter: https://twitter.com/podsavetheukTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@podsavetheukFacebook: https://facebook.com/podsavetheukYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/podsavetheuk
Okay, well, oh boy.
Just one foot in front of the other. It's okay. It's just another four years.
Could be quite a lot more than another four years.
Right. So not going to be okay then. Hi, this is Podsafe the UK. I'm Coco Kahn.
And I'm Nish Kumar. And oh shit, it happened.
Yeah, I'm still in shock. I'm still processing. How are you feeling?
Yeah, I mean, I'm feeling, I feel like I've been punched in the face.
Yeah.
And I've not been punched in the face for quite a while, which is a surprise because I'm quite annoying. But anyway, today we'll be discussing what the cataclysmic US elections mean for the UK with The Spectator's political editor, Katie Balls, and talking about the new Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch.
And Foreign Secretary David Lammy has ruled out transfers of cash to countries blighted by slavery across the British Empire. So what could reparations look like instead? We're joined by Labour MP Belle Ribeiro-Addy. So as we record, it's a cold, grey and miserable morning, which seems fitting given the context. As we record, the final victory has just been confirmed.
So congratulations for Donald Trump's victory are already rolling in from world leaders.
Yes, that's right. Yeah, it's Wednesday and we're still sort of processing what that means. We don't know the full results other than we know that Trump is... going to be elected president and the Republican Party will control the Senate. We're still waiting on House races. We understand that for our American listeners, this is an extremely difficult day and you are in our thoughts.
We, as a kind of UK based political podcast that operates under the crooked arm, are also pivoting to what this means for us and obviously what this means globally. I guess the short term concerns will be what this election means for Netanyahu, who has been sort of openly cheerleading for the Republican Party in recent weeks and what that means for the situations in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.
What this means for the Ukrainian army is obviously of huge interest to all European countries. And also, I mean, what this means on the climate crisis because of Trump's total hostility to climate science. What does this mean in the kind of medium term? You know, we're already seeing footage of large parts of Spain that have been underwater. So I guess we're all worried about...
Yeah, I mean, I feel the same way. I'm also worried. I'm still very much in shock. Genuinely, I'm still blown away. Look, what I really hope doesn't happen now is that us as progressives or people who are interested in progressive ideas and really needed more than ever progressive thinking. are divided too much.
I hope we don't get the results come in about what groups voted for who and now we're all blaming the Muslims because they didn't get into line or we're all blaming black Americans because they had their reservations about the former prosecutor. I hope we can just have some soul searching as progressives and sort of say we are needed more than ever. What can we do?
How do we push back on the politics of people like Donald Trump? Because it's terrifying. It is really scary. And Yeah, I hope it brings us closer together and we're all more animated and energised after we've obviously recovered from this terrible shock.
So look, now the polls are closed. Your friends at Crooked Media have got you covered. to dig through whatever comes next in this clusterfuck. So here's what you can expect. What a day is fresh in your feeds every morning with Jane Coaston easing you into the biggest stories and making sense of what you need to know in just 20 minutes.
Pod Save America has a new episode daily diving deep into the results and where we go from here because no one should have to be alone with their thoughts after this disaster. Check out Hysteria, Love It or Leave It, Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams and more on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts.
But now, on to what admittedly feels like a bit of a small story, I suppose, amidst this big bombshell, we have a new Conservative Party leader. The Tories have embraced Kemi Badenoch, the madness and the meanness of Kemi Badenoch. She's in the hot seat.
Yeah, although I will say, when it came to embracing madness or meanness, given the choices between her and Robert Jenrick, we were getting madness or meanness one way or the other. We just get different flavours of madness or meanness.
I keep having this thing where I'm like, what's worse? Because Jenrick... I mean, we'll talk to our next guest about it more deeply. But, you know, Jenrick struck me as being a bit of an opportunist, whereas Kemi is a true believer in her terrible things she says.
Oh, I would definitely say that. I think Badenock is like a true ideologue. Yeah. Whether it's, you know, gender critical views or an ultra conservative approach to immigration, even on women's rights. I mean, you know, it's stunning to me how many people espouse gender critical views as an expression of their belief in women's rights.
But then when it comes to women's rights, have absolutely nothing useful to say whatsoever. Bear in mind, just a couple of weeks ago, Blade Knock was saying that we should be rethinking maternity leave. So, you know, I'm always baffled by that. It makes no sense to me. I mean, it's almost as if gender critical views are done in bad faith and have nothing to do with women's rights whatsoever.
Kemi also has a pretty controversial track record of being quite personally mean. And one of her first acts as leader of the opposition was appearing on the BBC's Laura Koonsberg show. And listen to this clip.
I find it astonishing that Rachel Rees keeps talking about how she's the first female chancellor, which in my view is a very, very low glass ceiling within the Labour Party, which she may have smashed. Nowhere near as significant as what other women in this country have achieved.
I mean, that is quite extraordinary.
You're so mean, man. It's sort of also, you know, there were a lot of... Labour politicians who were either saying things to the press or posting things publicly on social networking websites, saying things like, regardless of her politics, we must congratulate Kevin Vandenhoek on being the first black woman to lead.
You know, and there was all of this kind of... And as I was reading, I was like, she's not going to congratulate you back. Like, there's so much of this... sort of civility politics that sometimes centre-left or left-wing parties indulge in. That is not reciprocated at all. I mean, that's not just a problem in this country.
The Harris campaign spent quite a lot of time talking about how it was going to work with the Republican Party. Do you think Donald Trump is going to be reaching across the aisle to the Democrats? There's a lot of, like, people engaging in good faith with people who have no interest in good faith engagement.
And, like, it is quite an astonishing thing the number of people that came forward and said, we must, regardless of our politics, congratulate Kevin Biden. Immediately she goes on Laura Koonsberg and it's like, Rachel Reeves is an absolute joke. That's an embarrassment. It is so... I'm sort of incredulous by the level of, like, magic beans buying that progressives indulge in.
We must, in the spirit of bipartisanship... Oh, God, they just kicked me in the shins again.
Well, in a way, you know, she sort of reveals some of the problems about representation and diversity writ large, probably bigger than we've ever had before. Maybe it's a good thing that we have these conversations about, you know, race and gender. And don't forget class, because Kemi is actually working class, as she told GB News.
It was the first time that I interacted properly with people who didn't come from the sort of background that I came from. You know, I grew up in a middle class family, but I became working class when I was 16, working in McDonald's.
I mean, that's not how class works. You don't become working class because you work a few shifts in McDonald's.
So you do believe people can transition?
It's just so ridiculous.
She went on to clarify these comments by saying that she had to catch buses whilst working at McDonald's, which is, I mean, it's not a hardship. One of the shocking things that we haven't mentioned yet, and we probably should mention more often, is that in 2008, she hacked Harriet Harman's website.
Now, to be clear, we don't have to say allegedly or anything about this because she confessed to this crime, which is a crime and carries a jail sentence of up to five, or carried a jail sentence of up to five years at the time. And the reason we know this is because she confessed to it when she was asked a question about what the naughtiest thing that she'd done was.
We were jonesing for Theresa May's Fields of Wheat. What was the naughtiest thing you've ever done? Oh, I committed a crime by hacking someone I didn't like's website.
I'm actually a cyber criminal. In amongst my other various hats that I wear as a working class McDonald's worker. But anyway... Well, let's find out how weird things are going to get. Here's a taste of Kemi Badenoch's victory speech.
The task that stands before us is tough, but simple. Our first responsibility, as His Majesty's loyal opposition, is to hold this Labour government to account. Our second is no less important.
It is to prepare over the course of the next few years for government to ensure that by the time of the next election, we have not just a clear set of Conservative pledges that appeal to the British people, but a clear plan for how to implement them.
Joining us now to find out what kind of opposition leader Kemi Badenoch intends to be is Katie Balls, the political editor of The Spectator. Hi, Katie. Welcome to Pod Save the UK.
Thank you for having me.
You were at a watch party yesterday evening for the election for Sky News. How was the mood there?
Well, the slight problem of all these watch parties is they start quite early in the evening. So this starts around 9.10. So by the time you actually get to any serious results, either most people have gone home or the people who are there perhaps aren't in the quiet state of coherent thought.
The analytical minds are not as sharp as one would hope.
Is that from sleep deprivation or alcohol? Some hydration of sorts, maybe not water. Okay.
You cannot put a group of British people in a room and give them, I assume, an open bar.
Yeah, yeah.
And expect them to have coherent thoughts about Delaware at two in the morning.
Exactly. And then I think when it all started to become clear, it was more around, you know, 3am onwards, by which point I was actually watching it from the safety of my sofa.
Right. Okay, fine. How are you feeling about the election results?
I suppose it's almost deja vu if we go back to the last time Donald Trump won. And I think, again, it's one of those ones where there are obviously so many different polling predictions. But once again, it feels as though no one really got it right, punned or pollster.
Yeah. I am feeling a bit like the Joker sequel in that it's something terrible that happened and I have no idea why it's happening again. And there are people walking around going, oh, this is really bad. And you're like, yeah, it was terrible the first time.
This time's meant to be Donald Trump learning from past mistakes where he does not think he was effective enough. And this is now the Donald Trump 2.0, where he does the things that perhaps some on the inside he feels stopped him doing before. So if it goes to plan for Donald Trump, this is the purest form of Trumpism yet.
Pure Trump is the fragrance no one wants to smell. How prepared is the UK government for this moment? We've talked a lot about... The attempts that Keir Starmer has made, and he was very quick to congratulate Donald Trump today. David Lammy, whose past remarks about Trump and his affiliations towards the KKK have been recirculating on social media.
He's been recently trying to cozy up to incoming Vice President J.D. Vance. J.D. Vance has basically taken every opportunity to talk about how much he thinks London is no longer a British city and how much he hates everything about the U.K., So that doesn't seem to be great.
How do you think, as someone who spends a lot of time being aware of what's going on in the machinery of British government, how do you think the British government is about to respond to a Trump presidency? And are they ready?
Well, I think they've tried to be ready. And I think the official line, which you heard from Keir Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions and also in a tweet prior to that is, you know, the government will work with whoever is in the White House, the special relationship, security and so forth. And they've done all this work with David Lammy and J.D. Vance, as you mentioned, and other Republicans.
So they have lines of communication and everything is going to be OK. However, I think you just can't get away from the fact that this is awkward for the Labour Party. And also, even if you took aside party politics, Theresa May and Boris Johnson as prime ministers both had to deal with Donald Trump and they both found it very difficult. Yeah.
And while Theresa May, I think, had quite a tricky relationship with Donald Trump. Yes, he wanted to hold her hand at one point, but I don't think there was mutual respect. I think you can say the Boris Johnson relationship, at least Donald Trump has some affection for Boris Johnson. It didn't make things much easier when you speak to figures in number 10 at the time.
So you have the unpredictability of Donald Trump, which was always going to be a challenge, whichever party is in 10 Downing Street. And then adding to that, it is just in several ways more difficult for a Labour government because of the past comments of the foreign secretary.
Now, David Lammy and Keir Starmer did obviously share dinner with Donald Trump, but we also saw the Trump campaign describing the Labour government as far left. Yeah. over volunteers going out there to help. You have the comments from J.D. Vance and you also have Elon Musk, who clearly is someone who is quite close to Donald Trump these days.
He was in his own Twitter spat or expat, that's what you probably should call it, with Keir Starmer. And I think the tension too between, you know, since that result has come out, you have had Sadiq Khan, Emily Thornberry, other Labour politicians really be quite critical of Donald Trump. And every time Keir Starmer tries to cosy up to Donald Trump, his party will be upset.
But if he sticks with his party, Donald Trump will be upset. So there's a real tension at the heart of it.
Emily Thornberry's comments as the chair of the British Foreign Affairs Committee were trade focused. She said that it could have huge impacts on trade because there's threats of import tariffs of 20% on goods from Europe and 200% on goods from China. Are we likely to get caught up in that as well?
I think there's a decent chance of it. As ever, the slight question is how much of what Donald Trump says is what he plans to actually do. But if you do get a tariff whacked up on China, but also a 10% general tariff, which is what Donald Trump has been talking about, There's been forecasts out saying what that would do to UK growth.
I think it makes Rachel Reeves' budget from... Well, it's entirely based on growth. A lot harder to do. And the growth forecasts weren't looking good anyway. Also, the cost of borrowing has already been going up. And some Labour aides were saying it's not actually the budget you're pinning it on the budget, it worries about the US election and what might happen. Well, it has happened now.
And I think that that means that you could see costs keep going up. And therefore, I think partly it's trade policy, but also general borrowing and the decisions the Labour government have made, I think could be quite tricky if... Donald Trump does half the things he said he's going to do on the economy.
The Liberal Democrats have been quite outspoken about this. Lib Dem leader Ed Davey called the results a dark, dark day for people around the globe and said that the world's largest economy and most powerful military will be led by a dangerous, destructive demagogue. Do you think this could be a problem with other parties?
Well, I think the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party will try and jump on anything that looks like cosying up to Donald Trump or, for example... Will Kirsten Armour and David Lammy offered Donald Trump a state visit. It was David Lammy who led a protest against the last state visit. And of course... I was there.
I was on that protest. I remember it. I remember it very well. I was one of the speakers at it.
So did you hear David Lammy? Did you watch him in real time?
No, I was further down the bill. It's like when I do Glastonbury, I'm not seeing Beyonce, personally. I'm in the crowd, but I'm not actually side stage.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I think if they were to do that, you can quite quickly see all the parties to the left or going for the centre ground would start to say, look at them, we wouldn't do that. And obviously, the beauty in a way of being in opposition or not being anywhere near having to make the decisions of government means you can throw those points a bit more easily.
So listen, talking of the beauty of being in opposition and how easy that is, Kemi Badenoch, new leader of the opposition, I am going to ask you a question that you yourself have posed in a column for The Guardian this week, which is, do you think Kemi Badenoch is going to lead the Conservatives into the next general election?
I think more likely than not. But I wouldn't bet a huge amount of money on it. Not that we do betting in politics since the general election. It didn't go that well for some people. Ultimately, there is a precedent and there is a long history in the Tory party, which I think is almost a bit too Labour, this idea, you know, the most ruthless party around.
But while Labour kind of let their leaders struggle on for longer when they're not doing very well in the polls, The Tories tend to move more quickly. You look at a few of the factors. No candidate in the final parliamentary stage had more than a third of the party supporting them. Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick or James Cleverley. That's quite low.
You'd hope one would have at least half the support. And I think the last time that happened, the closest example is Ian Duncan Smith in 2001. And he was forced out before he got to an election. And they've already changed the rules before Kemi Badenoch started on the 1922 committee, which is the shop steward Tory backbencher group. to raise the threshold for no confidence letters.
So it's now a third of MPs. Because, of course, what we saw for the past couple of years was just journalists constantly tweeting saying, I hear a letter might have gone in. Is there going to be a vote?
I think I'll live a long and happy life if I never hear the phrase, a letter has gone into the 1922 committee.
Exactly. What would we tweet about all day? No, so I think... So the apparatus is in place to try and help her get to the next election. And I think right now, you know, well, you would expect this, you know, we're about three or four days in. There's not currently an appetite for regicide, but it would be quite worrying if there was this early on. So there is a path.
The risk is that she proves too divisive to her party, doesn't make enough friends. And, you know, after some tricky local elections next year, runs on a bit. And then they say, why don't we look to someone like James Cleverley on the back benches?
Yeah. Making friends has not been her strong suit, shall we say. She's, you know, she conducts herself in a way where she's sort of, she has upset quite a lot of people. And some of those people are sort of within the Conservative Party. But do you think that the early indications of who she's assembled in the shadow cabinet show that she's actually trying to kind of
reach out to different bits of the Conservative Party. I'm thinking of someone like Mel Stride, who's more towards the centre of the Tory party, being made Shadow Chancellor, whilst also bringing back good old, she did commit some light treason, but we don't talk about it too much, Priti Patel, who traditionally is from the right of the party.
Is there a sense that she's actually trying to sort of build a coalition across the different bits of the Conservative Party?
I think there is an effort to try and make this a unity shadow cabinet. And you can see that in some of the appointments. I think Kemi Badenoch's bluntness is both almost her biggest strength and her biggest weakness. It wins plenty of admirers who think it shows she's authentic and that's what the Tory party has been missing.
in a world when you're up against these really big personalities in some cases, perhaps not the current prime minister. I'm like, who have we been talking about? But they're very worried about Nigel Farage, who's often seen as this authentic, straight-talking politician by his supporters.
So I think in that shadow cabinet, those really two senior roles, obviously a shadow chancellor and shadow foreign secretary, going to not just where they are in the party, but they both also went for the leadership. So, you know, reaching out in that sense. And interestingly, because obviously a lot is written about, you know, she is moving the party to the right.
Speaking to figures around the shadow cabinet table in the party, actually the bigger complaint is there's not enough figures from the right in the shadow cabinet. Right, yeah, yeah. Because you, Priti Patel, for sure, but you look for it. You know, Robert Jenrick, who was her main rival, he has been given a job, but it's not the most senior job, the shadow justice secretary.
But then they put in some of Robert Jenrick's backers, only two, Victoria Atkins and Ed Arger. All you need to really know about them is they are slightly more from the one nation wing of the party. So when Robert Jenrick was trying to say, my campaign is not just the old Tory right, he would say, look at Victoria Atkins and Ed Arger.
So while we're now saying Team Jenrick have places around the shadow cabinet table, lots of figures on the right saying, well, they were just the people to make us look more like we were. So one of the complaints is, you know, where are some of those figures there? But generally speaking...
I think they've balanced it to a point that you can say every faction, every group is represented and there's some younger talent and there's also those with more experience.
Do you think that... Let's, for talk's sake, call it a unity cabinet, which I find unity, Kemi Badenoch, not two words that sit well in my head. But do you think that would be able to hold, though? I mean, my impression of Badenoch, and perhaps I'm wrong, is that, you know, she really believes all the things she says.
Does that not mean if Badenoch is a true believer, so to speak, won't that mean that cabinet will just fall apart anyway? Potentially.
I mean, I think she ultimately needs to pick the right fights. And in the past, Kemi Badenoch has picked,
various fights she will often say that you know she's in a position where she has to respond to things it's the right thing to do but picking a fight like for example maternity leave maternity leave or indeed confessing to having hacked Harriet Harman's website those are not necessarily fights you needed to pick yeah and I think I mean I think on maternity pay that was one where almost you knew she hadn't meant to pick it because she very quickly said that wasn't what she meant and she is the type of politician that
If she did believe it, her team might say, oh, you have to speak it down. She'd say, no, I believe it. So I think that was perhaps a misspeak. But generally speaking, she has picked lots of fights for parts of the left, but she's also picked fights with the European Research Group.
She's really put the noses out of joint of a lot of old Tory Brexiteers when she was saying, I'm not an arsonist, I'm a conservative, because they were pushing for some EU regulation rules more quickly than she wanted to do. So I think she needs to really try and go for fights against Nigel Farage and Keir Starmer.
Let's go straight in on Farage then, because, you know, there were so many instances where the Tories were pushed into third place in the general election by reform. Does Badenoch, because of her sort of sabre-rattling on culture war issues, does she head off Nigel Farage?
It's hard to know. I think that you had in Robert Jenrick and Kemi Baden two quite different strategies because Robert Jenrick was almost just matching the reform migration policy, saying we want to leave the ECHR and the Convention of Human Rights and also being much tougher on legal migration. Kemi Badenoch has not gone that far.
But I think her argument is authenticity is how you match Nigel Farage and she's got that in spades. So that will work. The Reform Party are saying that since she's taken over the party, they're getting a lot of new members and they think that actually Tory members or Tory voters are moving to them because they don't like Kemi Badenoch. It's
Really, not to be unhelpful on this podcast, way too early to tell. Yeah, right. But I think some of the things she says, such as, you know, women's only spaces. Nigel Farage loves to speak at reform rallies saying, what is a woman railing against Keir Starmer? That's something that Kemi Badenoch will be doing too.
But I think there's a question on immigration, other areas and how she matches Farage. And moving all the way to reform means you also will lose some votes the other way. So all Tory leaders try and find this almost third way. But I think, you know, even looking around that shadow cabinet table, it is quite one nation in some ways.
That is not, to me, a shadow cabinet team that's going to want to go all the way to reform on their policy positions. And actually, she's going to be trying to create a space for the Conservatives and seeing if that works or not.
Do you think it's also a bit of a problem for her that she's black, to be frank? Because we saw activists for reform be filmed by Channel 4 in the run up to the general election saying that they had been lifelong conservatives but couldn't support Rishi Sunak. Is that also an issue for her?
I think it's hard to know how substantial or how many voters there are like that, if that makes sense, because obviously Reform had loads of problems with vetting candidates and those comments and then also their own suspensions on it. And I think that probably the counter to that is she did win the Tory membership vote pretty confidently.
It was probably around the same as Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. If the membership had such an issue on that, would it have been closer? Would she not made it? If that makes sense. So these things can be factors. I think the question is, is it something which is a substantial thing that's going to impact votes? Perhaps Reform Party will pick up some votes.
But it's not something where I think we have enough evidence yet.
Do you think that... You know, we've just started off this conversation talking about the US election. Donald Trump has a close relationship to Nigel Farage. That makes him more of an asset, you could say, to the right side of Commons. Do you think that this could be the worst possible result for the Conservatives or...?
Well, I think on the Donald Trump one, it's hard to know because obviously as a country, British voters are much more hostile to Donald Trump than American voters, as we've just seen in the election, but also just on polling. And the Conservative Party, you know, the Labour are a sister party to the Democrats.
But in the Tory party, there are plenty of Tories who said they would vote Democrat if they could and were backing Kamala Harris. And I think that's also reflected in some Tory members and Tory voters. So it's not a clear cut. All the Tories like Donald Trump is definitely more nuanced. And therefore, Nigel Farage could pick up some votes.
But if Donald Trump does some things that, you know, lead to a real backlash, whether it is a trade war, whether it's foreign policy decisions that have huge effects, such as Ukraine, for example, that's something where support for Ukraine and Britain is very strong, more so than lots of European countries.
if it looks as though Donald Trump sold Ukraine down the river and then you have Nigel Farage close to Trump. So I think, yes, you can look influential, but I don't think it's a clear net win, you know, at this point.
Katie Walls, thank you very much for joining us on Pod Save the UK.
Thanks for having me.
Bye.
Now, a couple of weeks ago, we talked about the UK's refusal to discuss the issue of reparations at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. While travelling to the conference, Keir Starmer told reporters that he wants to look forward rather than have very long, endless discussions about reparations on the past.
King Charles also sidestepped the issue, saying, none of us can change the past, but we can commit to learning its lessons. And this week, David Lammy doubled down during his first visit to Africa as Foreign Secretary, ruling out cash-based reparations from the UK.
Unsurprisingly, this went down like a lead balloon with Commonwealth leaders who in their conference agreement insisted that the time has come for a conversation about reparatory justice. Joining us now is Belle Ribeiro-Addy, the Labour MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill and chair of the all-party parliamentary group for African reparations to discuss what justice might look like.
Belle, welcome to Pod Save the UK.
Hi. Belle, you've just given us a brief tour of Portcullis House as you move from one office to another. You're now in Diane Abbott's office.
It has much better lighting.
Should we just, before we get into the substantive body of what we want to talk to you about, I guess we should reflect on how you're feeling this morning in light of the news from the U.S.,
The sad thing is it got to a point where we couldn't be surprised about it, just devastated. And that's absolutely where I am, devastated. You would think to yourself that after the last time people would know better, you would think that people would have qualms about elected, a convicted felon, but that That didn't come to pass.
And the knock-on impact across the world, I mean, it's going to affect all of us majorly. And I, for one, am not looking forward to it.
Does this create a very complicated diplomatic situation now for a Labour government?
I think it does pose problems. I think it poses a lot of problems because of Brexit, mainly. We have to look toward trade deals across the world. And we can touch on that in the next part of the discussion. And America is going to be one of the huge ones. And it may make it even more difficult for us, given our position now out of the EU.
And actually, but more generally, it's just the idea of having to on the face of things, be cordial and nice. The idea that we would in some way indirectly be endorsing a man like that doesn't really speak to Labour values. But I don't know how, as the Prime Minister of the UK, you get out of that.
It also makes me think, you know, we're all talking about a Labour government for 10 years. And this is a bit of a shock because it kind of reminds you, oh no, I mean, anything could change at the next election even. Absolutely.
Absolutely. You know, obviously we won. We won by a landslide. We have so many MPs at the moment. If I try and go downstairs into PMQs, I'm not going to get a seat. So I might as well just talk to you and then watch it on TV. But some of our elected MPs only won by a small amount. Also, some of them won because other parties got more votes.
So at the next election, it's not a dead set that we will win again. And we're going to have to do a lot of work to solidify that. those positions in really difficult times. People are struggling and people have lost faith in politicians and politics.
Let's talk reparations. So David Lammy repeatedly backed calls for reparations as a backbench MP. What was it like for you to hear him now say that conversations about reparations will not be about the transfer of cash? So just to clarify, these comments were made during David Lammy's trip to Nigeria to boost economic ties.
Is this a comment that could put important relationships like this at risk?
I think it will put important relationships at risk. I think sometimes it's not even about the final action. It's about how you behave. Surely that's the whole art of diplomatic relations. To go to the Commonwealth and to tell sovereign nations, by the way, we're not even going to discuss this, you know, seems quite wrong.
And even, you know, the rhetoric that came from the press, they kept talking about these sovereign nations defying the UK and putting it on the agenda. I didn't realise that once colonialism had ended, that the UK had a veto to be able to tell them what they were able to talk about.
And we have to remember that some of these nations have some of the fastest growing economies in the world, some of these Commonwealth nations, and they have achieved that not because of anything the UK has done to help them, but in spite of it.
And if we're worried beyond the moral arguments for reparations that I'm more than happy to make them, I think we need to make a think about the economic ones. We left our largest trading partner, Europe, you know, Brexit, which I already touched upon. And actually, we need to go around the world looking for friends. And we're not going to do that by disrespecting people.
One of my favourite ever pieces of writing is by the American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, and it's an essay that he wrote called The Case for Reparations. And it's all about him almost convincing himself, him starting from a position that he didn't think reparations were important to African-Americans and then through his research coming to the conclusion that they were important.
What is the British case for reparations? You referenced a moral case. What is that case and how would you make that to somebody who, that isn't necessarily familiar with the arguments around this? Because the reality is a lot of us were taught British history very poorly in the British education system and so have come to this knowledge ourselves by our own reading.
What would you say to somebody who looks at this and says, oh, why on earth would we be paying reparations?
Well, we all already have paid reparations. First point to make in terms of us paying reparations, we, as the UK, took out the largest loan that we ever had in our history when we abolished the slave trade. And we, you know, used that money not to pay off those who were enslaved, but to pay off the slave owners, many of whom are a number of, you know, still exist today.
And we didn't finish paying off that loan until 2015, which means that You paid it off. I paid it off. Members of the Windrush generation paid it off. So those of us who may have had ancestors who were enslaved effectively paid towards the UK's reparations for slave owners. And so that money has existed within society for a long time.
So the idea that no one should pay reparations when essentially we have, we just paid it to the wrong person. It is wrong. And also, surely we have a collective responsibility. I hear a lot of the time, you know, people say we shouldn't look back. We shouldn't look to the past. You know, we need to look forward. But, you know. In Britain, we love looking to the past. We love looking to the past.
I mean, half of our shows are period dramas, which are great. I love a good period drama. We sit in a House of Commons which is literally based on history and we carry all those traditions. And in a few weeks, next week, we're going to be having Remembrance Sunday, something that we seek to remember all the time.
And we say that we want to remember the atrocities of the World War so that never again. But when it comes to... to the enslavement of peoples of African descent and the colonisation of even more. We never seem to want to remember that. We seem to say that we have to move forward.
Now, I always start with talking about reparations, but trying to make people understand that there is no amount of money or collection of acts that could ever fully recompense for the harm that was done by the enslavement trafficking and colonisation of peoples. But we do ourselves a disservice if we don't try. And it's not all about money.
That doesn't mean there shouldn't be any money, but it's definitely not all about money.
And we had an episode with Laura Trevelyan and Clive Lewis, and they were talking about, you know, the case of reparations as well. And there was one insight that really stuck with me where they were talking about what would the money that the UK pays to, let's just say, a Caribbean nation, what would it be used for? Well, probably a substantial amount of it would be for climate security.
You would say that actually a move like this would make the world a safer place, a better place, would not only be moral, but smart.
Yeah, it would be absolutely smart that the powers that be seem to be so oblivious to the fact that people don't like us. And when I talk about these issues and to whether you hate your country, I'm like, no, I don't hate my country. I love my country. I don't want anybody else to hate us. So perhaps we should do something to make sure that that doesn't happen.
And more importantly, we should be looking to right wrongs. Who are we and how dare we go around the world preaching what is right when we ourselves are not doing what is right. And it's not just about money. It couldn't possibly just be about money because we need to look towards changing certain international institutions. So you talked about giving money to Caribbean nations.
If we were to just give the money, for example, they would end up paying a whole load of debts back.
Right.
Which just recycles the money back into the West. wouldn't it make sense to cancel those debts, especially when so much has been paid in interest on them already? That could be a form of reparations. But looking at climate security, as you said, in a more sustainable way, at the moment, most of it is being delivered in the form of aid.
And we need to understand that international development aid has become an industry. And because it's an industry and you've now even got private companies being involved in it, it is no longer what it was intended to be to help people all industries survive on supply and demand. So actually, it benefits developmental aid agencies to keep people in poverty.
And that's not saying they don't do any good work, but until their strategic aims are really to bring their organisations to an end... They're not doing what they say they're doing. And we're not making any progress in terms of development across the world.
You know, what you've outlined there are quite radical changes and I would argue would threaten a lot of positions of power of certain people, certain organisations. And so perhaps that would explain some of the reluctance. But before that, surely saying sorry is free. We could just do that.
Yeah, the Church of England, the Bank of England, both those institutions have apologised for their links to the slave trade. Shouldn't the UK government, shouldn't we be starting from that position?
It's not that big a deal, is it? Well, I can tell you why they do think it's a bigger deal and why they keep on talking about sorrow and deep regret. I mean, like when I think about sorrow, I think about how upset I am that Woolworths closed down all those businesses in England. When you think about deep regret, sometimes it's your choice of shoes in the morning, not the worst crimes in humanity.
And the reason why we don't use the word sorry is because effectively it is, or I apologise, it is the legal language of liability. Once we use that language, I think the government is afraid that people could say they've now accepted responsibility. And then we're always told you need to be really, really happy. At the end of the day, we ended that slave trade.
But I don't know how many people really generally celebrate an arsonist putting out their own fire. You know, you want us to give you a round of applause. You move from enslavement to colonialism, which continue to extract a lot of wealth from countries who are already quite impoverished by our extraction already. And then you expect people to be grateful as they're continually exploited.
You know, we have to do better than that, not just for those countries, but for ourselves, because, as I said, their economies are rising whilst ours is falling and they deeply resent us.
Before we let you go, Belle, we should talk about Kemi Badenoch, the newly crowned leader of the Conservative Party. We're in another of these interesting and thorny moments for racial representation.
You know, Coco and I are sort of... British-born South Asians have talked a lot about our, shall we say, charitably mixed feelings about Rishi Sunak, Suella Braverman and Priti Patel and our slight... The way that we sort of have been trying to push back at people telling us we should be thankful for the representation that these politicians have held up.
How are you feeling about the sort of the symbolism of Kemi Badenoch being the leader of the Conservative Party?
Diversity is not and has never been representation. I point to the female prime ministers that we have had. just because they were women did not mean that they represented the issues of women the best, and doesn't mean that women's lives necessarily improved under their premierships.
In the same way, having someone of colour leading an organisation or an institution could signal a change in diversity, but it doesn't signal a change in representation if they are not speaking to or championing the issues of the majority of that particular group. So there's not necessarily a lot for us to be happy for.
And I would say this, Kemi Badenoch said we shouldn't make a big deal of the fact that she is black. And if she doesn't think we should, why should we? Yeah.
It's an interesting way of looking at it, of splitting those ideas of diversity and representation. In some ways, both the conversation around reparations and the conversation around Kemi Badenoch as Tory leader, we really need to be more sophisticated in the way that we talk about race in this country.
Absolutely. Representation, as I said, is truly actually championing the issues of disenfranchised communities. And if you're not doing that, you're not really a representative.
I do just want to ask you, though, it must have provoked a bit of soul searching in the Labour Party, though. You know, yet to have a woman leader, you know, not doing so great on issues of race. I mean, I'm just throwing it out there. What do you think?
I don't think it's a good look. But then, as I said, diversity is about how it looks. And in terms of representation, in terms of representing people, let's say, women's issues or issues of people of colour, the Labour Party has been better.
But I think visually and actually, quite frankly, not necessarily speaking to the talents of those that we have within our party and I suppose promoting them, it does look quite bad to people because the reality is, you know, politics, media, a lot of it is on the surface. And if people can't see it, they don't necessarily believe it.
So I'm not sure whether it's prompted soul searching, but it's definitely prompted a lot of criticism.
Interesting. Absolutely. I would just add, sorry, we'll let you go, Bill. But I just, I'm very aware, you know, we're talking to you and you're in Diane Abbott's office. We're just talking.
Oh, she's in PMQs at the moment because she gets a seat because she's the mother of the house.
Right, okay. Exactly.
There's a little seat for her and she gets to sit down. And if anyone's sat in her seat, they need to be.
There will be hell to pay, actually. Look, she's a titan of politics, but she's also the target of so much racist abuse, sexist abuse. And, you know, because we were just talking earlier about like how the conservatives are doing better. You could say better, whatever, quotation marks better around diversity than Labour are.
But one of the things I often think about is like if you're a woman of colour in the Labour Party, you just get pilloried.
in the press they're constantly talking about you as being not competent and then maybe it's no surprise that then the Labour leaders are like well don't put them front and centre they'll get pilloried in the press and it's like a vicious circle of like the public the press and do you know what I mean like in a way I wonder if we all need to take responsibility for our role in the public as well
I think we definitely do. And I think about the reason why, you know, women of colour in the Labour Party do face that treatment. And Diana herself is because of the types of issues that she's willing to speak up about. And once you start speaking about those issues, I can tell you from experience.
You get some of the most awful comments, even to the extent that they do this thing now in the press. If I'm talking about immigration or, you know, anything to do with race, they'll always have a really awful picture of me next to it, like with my mouth open, something like that. Just to, you know, you know, when you try and make the image, I'm like, why would you use that?
There are so many others. Why would you do that? Ah, I know, because I'm talking about migrant rights today.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And then it sort of softly creates this manufactured opinion of our diverse politicians that, you know, they're not good enough. Well, they're not good enough. Whereas the Tories, they don't really get that. Anyway, rant over. No, you're absolutely right. Angry about it. We get it all the time. In journalism, we get it as well.
If you have a POC byline, you'll just get rinsed. way more than you would if I was just John Smith. I'm just going to become John Smith, right? You heard it here first. I'm changing. I'm changing my work.
Wait, so hold on a second. You're trying to dodge criticism from the right wing press by changing your gender.
That's the worst idea you've ever had. I didn't think it through. I didn't think it through.
Bella Berardi, thank you so much for joining us.
Take care.
Now, this week the government also announced a rise in student fees for next year. It'll be the first rise in eight years and it matches inflation at 3.1%.
Now, a rise in student fees isn't something that's bringing us joy. However, the university sector is pleased by the move. as the runaway inflation over the past few years has turned into a financial crisis for the university sector. Earlier this year, the Office for Students, the higher education regulator in England, predicted 40% of universities were expected to run budget deficits this year.
The National Union of Students called the move a sticking plaster, however pointed to the increase in maintenance loans provided to students to support their living expenses while in university as something that would have a positive impact on the poorer students struggling with the cost of living.
But the decision is a tricky one for the Labour government, as in 2020 it was Labour policy to scrap tuition fees altogether. But with the pressures on the public finances and Rachel Reeves' message of financial doom, it's not exactly a surprising move.
It is perhaps a little bizarre that they chose to omit this announcement from the budget last week, and the opposition were very quick to jump on this apparent U-turn. New Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott didn't have any alternative policy to offer beyond just calling it another broken promise.
Now, while this rise is not like the trebling of university fees under David Cameron's coalition government, it's still going to affect thousands of students across the country. And so we're going to be diving into the issues next week. So we'd like to know your thoughts.
Are the increased fees or maintenance loans affecting you? Are you working in the university sector? Are you sick of paying your student loan repayments? Email us at psuk at reducelistening.co.uk. And don't forget to subscribe so you can see us turning this over with some special guests next week. So what are you going to be doing to distract yourself from the disastrous news?
Oh, I don't know. Just having a very long bath. One week long bath, shrivel like a prune.
Yeah, I think the one thing you must not do is go on Twitter. I think it's a case of stay off Twitter.
No, no. Also, Elon Musk, he's definitely had a role in all of this, so I just... Wait, I mean, you don't need to...
grimace at me in a slightly conspiratorial way as you did there. He had a very big role in it. He was paying money to registered voters. I mean, yeah, I think, I don't know in terms of words of comfort, like I don't think anybody, I don't think I'm ever going to be the person who is qualified to give you any words of comfort. I'm not even sure people, uh, want comfort at the moment.
I think people sort of want to just bask in their rage, which they're entitled to do, especially if you're in America. You know, it does have such disastrous consequences for all of us. And whenever stuff like this happens, what do I always do? Because I'm a 70-year-old man, I listen to Bob Dylan.
Oh, really?
Yeah. And so I was like, let me put some Dylan on. Let me clear my head. I was even playing an election catastrophe playlist this morning on my way into work.
You have one already?
Well, I was just making one on The Hoof.
Oh, right, okay.
All Right by Kendrick. Okay. What's Going On by Marvin Gaye.
Yeah.
Rainforest by No Name. These are all like just, you know, good... Good tunes. Apocalyptic political songs. Yeah. But like there is a line in the Bob Dylan song Hard Rain's Gonna Fall where he says, and I'll know my song well before I start singing. And I think...
Just to bring it back full circle to something you said, there is a danger here of progressive movements splintering into infighting to account for who's to blame for this. The next half decade, there are a string of interlocking issues, one of which is the existential threat to the entire species and our way of life on this planet.
The options are either just give up or the progressive movements in America and around the world need to know what our song is before we start singing it. What is the case that we are making to the public? And how are we going to counter the rhetoric that is about to come out and the policies that are about to come out of this administration?
it is imperative that we don't do what comes so naturally to us, which is lapse into infighting. It's the easiest move for us. Whenever people talk about the cosy consensus on the left, I'm like, which bit of the left? You can't get three left-wing people to agree on where to go to dinner because of different interlocking boycotts that we're all engaged in. And that's it.
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