Is Kemi Badenoch too brutal for her own good? | The News Agents

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Kemi Badenock started off, I thought, with brutal efficiency in the attacks that she launched.And then I think we were all watching it and started to feel a tiny bit uncomfortable.Is this going too far?

He tweeted, there were gasps amongst us reporters in the press gallery at the sheer brutality of Kemi Badenoch's attack on the Labour Cabinet.

Reeves's face was once again, it was a face that was trying not to cry.

Kemi Badenoch looks like she wears hobnail boots and is tough as nails and all the rest of it and is the hard woman of the Conservative Party who's taking the fight to Labour.And so for her supporters, her backbenchers, that looks good.And if you're Bridget Philipson and you've been called a spiteful class warrior, maybe you wear that badge and think, well, There might be good that comes to me.

Spiteful class warrior, actually, I don't think is a big problem.I've heard worse on the floor of the House of Commons.And honestly, I don't think Bridget Philipson will mind a bit.

What happens to somebody who brings dignity to the office?They get turfed out by their own because, frankly, they're not electoral magic.They're not electoral gold dust.Dignity is a bit of a kind of like the loser's prize now.You know, you've done dignity.Well done.

But yeah, fuck off.We still don't want you.

Hands up if you think the Education Secretary is doing a good job.Even she doesn't think she's doing a good job, Mr Speaker.Even she doesn't think she's doing a good job.Oh, someone did.Someone did.Just for those...

For those who raised their hands, the two people who raised their hands, yesterday a poll found that 0 % of teachers think the Education Secretary is doing a good job.0%.She taxed private schools to pay for more teachers, but the number of teachers has gone down.It turns out appointing a spiteful class warrior as education secretary was a disaster.

Traitors, spiteful class warriors.That was Kemi Badenoch at Prime Minister's Questions today, earning a rare rebuke from the speaker about the sort of language being used in our politics today.It was blunt.

It was brutal.But was it bullying?Is this just what politics sounds like today?Or has it gone too far?Welcome to The News Agents.

It's Jon.It's Maitlis.

It's Lewis.

And it's Jon.Watching Prime Minister's questions there was always going to be an added interest today.The first Prime Minister's questions since Keir Starmer announced that he was resigning as Labour Party leader and that Andy Burnham is almost certain to take over from him.Kemi Badenoch started off, I thought, with brutal efficiency in the attacks that she launched on the government, on the Labour backbenches, and then I think we were all watching it and started to feel a tiny bit uncomfortable about yeah is this going too far and you know to Emily what you just said is it bullying and at which point while we were thinking that debating it upstood the speaker to warn MPs about the language they're using.

First quarter of this year.

Sorry Prime Minister can I just say let us think about the language we're using.I think that'll be the first to leave please.Can I just say, think about the language you're using.Because when we leave this chamber, don't be surprised when constituents feel they can use the same language against each other.Let us show a little bit more decorum and respect to each other.

So that was, as John said, the speaker rebuking Kemi Badenoch for her comments.And indeed, I know some of our colleagues in the press gallery, including GB News' Christopher Hope, echoing just how shocking at least some people in the chamber found it.He tweeted, there were gasps amongst us reporters in the press gallery.I mean, they've seen a few parliamentary sessions that have got, you know, pretty brutal over the years, at the sheer brutality of Kemi Badenoch's attack on the Labour cabinet and putative successor Andy Burnham at PMQs today.This wasn't the end of it, it has been reported.Jess Elgott from The Guardian saying that MPs have told her that Bridget Philipson and Liz Kendall, the science secretary, confronted Kemi Badenoch about her language at PMQs after the step session in the gallery where she called Philipson spiteful, which Kendall said was outrageous.

Badenoch is reported to have replied, I'm never going to stop talking about how spiteful you are.Philipson then hit back at Badenoch saying the public are going to find out who you really are.So this bad blood, this acrimonious exchange developing after the session as well.And it is also being reported that Labour MPs want to complain officially to the Speaker about some of that language, talking about the Gestapo, talking about traitors and so on.It is not the first time that Kemi Badenoch has shown, let's put it more charitably, some steel at PMQs, but it's clearly the moment which Labour MPs feel most exposed to it.

Look, let's put this in context.Kemi Badenoch fired a few straight arrows, frankly, at a party that probably is feeling pretty queasy about the way that they have behaved over the last 48 hours.There were very few people who stood upnumber 10 or number 11, including the Chancellor herself, when the Prime Minister was making his speech.There were 200 or more MPs in that selfie that Andy Burnham took when he arrived at Westminster Hall for his, I mean, swearing in, but virtual coronation.And so I think what Kemi Bainock did in PMQs today was go for the jugular.

She did not shy away from saying what I think many people around the country are thinking, which is that Keir Starmer has stepped down partly as a result of some terrible policies on behalf of his chancellor, and that actually, it was not a particularly edifying spectacle for his own chancellor, not even to be outside, sort of waving him off or being at least part of a farewell team when she'd stood beside him and had that job so prominently for the last two years.And if you walked up to the chair, set, which I did, I actually walked towards the television set, Reeves's face was once again a picture of somebody who was...Tortured.Well, it was a face that was trying not to cry.I think, you know, we were asking ourselves, because we have seen her in Tears in the Commons last time, because she thought that Keir Starmer was about to fire her, to sack her, quite frankly.And we were trying to work out whether she was sort of holding her face in that grimace because she was angry at Kemi Badenoch's words or contorted because it was quite hard to get away from the truth of what she was saying, or just, you know, coming to the reality that maybe her time as Chancellor is very much up, which is a pretty excruciating thing to have to sit through publicly.

And I think the point is that that Kemi Badenoch was kind of, frankly, hitting where it hurt as far as Reeves was going.But once she turned onPhilipson... it started to have that sort of edge of mean girls, because suddenly you've got sort of, what, two prominent labour women in a row, and two sort of working class women in a row, and you're just going from one to the other without even a pause.Now, what she said about Philipson was, there are fewer teachers on your watch than when you came in.We fact checked that, that is true, right?So it's not that what she's saying is so shocking, but it sort of created an atmosphere that she was just kind of like, going through, popping them off, right?

I wonder whether at the end of this what you're left with is it being a net win -win because Kemi Badenoch looks like she wears hobnail boots and is tough as nails and all the rest of it and is the hard woman of the Conservative Party who's taking the fight to Labour and so for her supporters, her backbenchers, that looks good.And if you're Bridget Philipson and you've been called a spiteful class warrior, maybe you wear that badge and think, well, they might be good that comes to me from this.

The deplorable me badge.

The deplorable me badge, exactly.And so they all come out of it thinking, yeah, it's a bit of a net win I've got there.I don't know.I mean, that's a very cynical view.But look, the House of Commons, you know, it was bombed in the Second World War and Churchill insisted that it wasn't redesigned when it was rebuilt.He wanted it to remain the cockpit of debate, a bear pit where people really looked at each other across the...

A sword's length away.A sword's length apart so that you were kind you felt that it was you know almost one -on -one combat taking place a sword lengths apart.

I think that spiteful class warrior actually I don't think is a big problem.I've heard worse on the floor of the House of Commons and honestly I don't think Bridget Philipson will mind a bit.I think that she has, I think what Kemi Bayonok has just done is cemented Bridget'splace in the next cabinet.Because the best thing that you can be like, honestly, she'll get it.You say, John, wear that badge.

I wouldn't be surprised if she literally wears that badge, literally puts it on a badge.Because remember what Kemi Badenoch is talking about there.She's talking about one of the most popular policies within the Parliamentary Labour Party and actually within the public, which is levying VAT by the people.on private schools.Now, Kemi Badenoch might not like that.And I'm sure it's probably cost maybe the old Conservative MP a few quid as a result of it.

And maybe they don't like that very much.And they've been against it from the start.Fine.But Bridget Philipson will wear that with pride.I think that there are other remarks, though, about that policy from Kemi Badenoch, which she didn't say on the floor of the Commons.But when Badenoch is talking about Gestapo, which she did with a interview with Tim Shipman the other day in Spectator in relation to that VAT policy.

I think, you know, Winston Churchill will tell you this because he did this back in 1945.Maybe it's just a good idea not to bring the Gestapo into anything with regards to, you know, British political life, particularly that on private schools.I don't think the Nazis had a particular policy with regards to value added tax on private schools.

Godwin's law in a nutshell, isn't it?It's like, how quickly can you get to a Nazi analogy from something completely unrelated to anything to do with the Second World War?

Yeah, I'm not sure that Himmler had that many views on whether British school kids, British parents should be paying VAT on sending their kids to Marlborough College or whatever it happens to be.But anyway, I do think that it is true to say with regards to Baden.I actually quite like a Pugnash nature style in the commons and I do think part of her shtick and clearly I think actually possibly one of the reasons she's polling pretty well at the moment is that she does have and is cultivating this sort of aura of strength and being brusque and no bullshit and just sort of telling it how it is. I do think you could make an argument to say that clearly the danger of that is that it goes too far and there is quite a long history now of her speaking let's let's put it put it this wayrather firmly about certain issues which has caused a backlash.I mean, people might remember during the 2024 Conservative Leadership Contest, she said that she thought that between five to ten percent of civil servants should be in prison.She was accused during her period as a cabinet minister.

There had been some suggestions that she had a rather bullying type of behaviour towards her officials.She suggested that her critics internally were covering up their own failures.gross incompetence, she...

I tell you what all this makes me think is that, and it's quite interesting, you know, the media gets blamed a lot for what is happening in politics and it's quite interesting to sort of go into the bare pit as you call it and say no no this is how politicians are actually speaking to and about each other, this is, like, leave us out of this.But what strikes me and all those examples you've just given, Lewis, I think tell a story of somebody who is frankly, terminally online and who is writing and indeed speaking to be clipped up.And that is the thing that absolutely sort of gets me.If the chamber is meant to be a place of proper debate, if it's actually meant to be a place where you argue on your feet and you actually sort of put policies or put ideas or put challenges to your opposition which are then responded.That feels like a healthier place to be than somebody who comes with a few set lines or a few set tweets and just wants the virality of it.

She's always struck me as a deeply online politician.The way that she speaks, the way that she acts, she is very much a politician of the 2020s.And I think, you know, that way the online political culture is, which does sort of Brooknoe dissent and which is extremely direct and just sort of cultivated, everything cultivated, that sort of snark, that snarkiness, you can hear it in the way that she interacts.

But you can hear it as a sort of political trail video, can't you?You can hear them sort of using her interjections andsort of showing you what has happened.I mean, it feels very curated in a way, even though I'm sure she would argue it's just common sense and it's telling it like it is. I agree with that.

But, you know, you go back to the Commons where debates on policy would happen.When there is a debate on policy in the House of Commons, the second reading of the whatever bill, the place is empty because no one is interested in that.They come in for Prime Minister's questions.They want to see a punch -up.They want to get written up on X or wherever it happens to be so that they get a good review of their performance in the comments.

We've just opened the newsagents with that exactly.

Who won PMQs?And I just think that, you know, so maybe she's smart.Maybe she's just being smart about the way you play modern politics, which is to come out with ready -made quotes and clips that will play well on X or Insta or Facebook or wherever it happens to be.I mean my question I suppose is does she go too far?Does it tilt into that question of whether it's bullying or whether it's mean girls or whether it's just plain unpleasant that you just think oh I mean I you know I mean when when Norman Tebbit was kind of right by Thatcher Norman Tebbit did the boot boy stuff, the Chingford skinhead.He put the boot into all these politicians.

That just sort of rose above some of that.Whereas Kelly Badenock has taken it upon herself to be the boot person as well.And maybe we're just shocked because it's a female voicing it.

Whereas, frankly, male politicians have patronised and booted female politicians for decades.

Yeah, and that is also a good question.I mean, are we kind of going, you know, getting an attack of the vapours.

Well, to your point, Kemi Badenoch is seeing her highest favourability to date, according to YouGov, which is 31%.Now, I'm not pretending it was as a result of what she said an hour ago in the Commons.This will go backto her win in Aberdeen South, the by -election over the weekend.This will go back to, presumably, how she handled some of the earlier debates that we were having around Henry Novak and around the sort of prime ministerial delicacies, I think, of how Keir Starmer resigned.But it is interesting that whatever she is doing or has done in, let's say, the last 10 days, appears to be working.

So she will take sucker from that.

I question whether today's PMQs performance helps her in that area.I think that I know for a fact that, you know, some of the people that are advising her about how she needs to kind of shape the leadership and get the party in the direction it's going.Loved the way she reacted towards Henry Novak and thought it was very smart politics, thinking about, you know, the way they fought Aberdeen South and concentrating on the government's energy policies and the shortcomings there.That was all very smart.And I think that they worry about nastiness and coming over as a sort of, you know, as you say, snarky, always snarky.

I think there is one exception though.I don't mind the class traitor stuff or the class warrior stuff.As I said, I think Philipson will be very, very content with that.Absolutely fine, particularly given that Andy Burnham will be choosing his cabinet.And Starmer was very complimentary about her as well.I do think there is one category of word which is complicated.

And this is something which we hear in politics more and more, which is treachery and betrayal.Betrayal is a really dangerous word, I think, in politics.The sort of stab in the back stuff.Now, in fairness to Badenock, she was talking about members of the cabinet betraying and being traitors to Starmer.

another word for what happened to Starmer in the past week.

Well, perhaps, but it is a word which, you know, it is being invoked consistently, particularly by the populist right.And I would just say, and I suspect it might be that word more than spiteful that got Hoyle's ears pricked up.Because let's not forget that, you know, we've had two MPs killed in this country.We've just gone past the 10th anniversary of Jo Cox's murder.And let's not forget the circumstances in which she was killed.by a neo -Nazi with loads and loads of material at his home, basically about this idea that Britain was being betrayed and everything like that.

So I'm not saying that Badenoch is invoking that there.It's far more subtle.But I do think the language of betrayal in politics has a very, very long pedigree.And I think senior politicians have to be careful about invoking it in any circumstances, really, because we know that there are people out there who hear something different to that which they might intend.

I mean, over the Boris Johnson years, It was the Brexit betrayal that was the one that was used constantly in the Commons to suggest anyone who didn't follow his steps was somehow letting the country down, not patriotic.a huge amount of hypocrisy in all this, because the one thing that we have all lauded Keir Starmer for is restoring dignity to the office, bringing back this sense of high office being reputationally sound, and everyone said yes, he's restored dignity, he's put us back in terms of good relations.What happens to somebody who brings dignity to the office?They get turfed out by their own because, frankly, they're not electoral magic.They're not electoral gold dust.Now, I understand why that happens.

I'm not naive enough to say, you know, oh, I don't know why they did that or why they got rid of him.You know, we've been over that for weeks.But it does seem to me that dignity is a bit of a kind of like the loser's prize now.You know, you've done dignity.Well done.But yeah, fuck off.

We still don't want you.And so I do think

do think there's a hypocrisy between saying oh we're dying to get back to discourse we're dying to get back to civilized language we're dying to have this wonderful warm sane comfortable place but actually don't dare lose yes I don't lose yeah look I think they're there unless it's a debate that has gone on for for years position, it's an official post in the Constitution, and you are there to oppose.And if you're not going to score political points on a day when the Prime Minister has been felled by his own party, I mean, for God's sake, when are you?

There was one fundamental truth that, however she expressed it, Badenock was right about, which is that if they liked him so much, why has he resigned this week?Which is fundamentally true.And Badenock's spokesperson has apparently told lobby journalists, even while we've been sat here, saying that Kemi Badenock will absolutely not apologise for the language she used during PMQs.Spokesperson said that he thought Badenock had been nice to Keir Starmer.I tell you, with friends like that, who needs enemies?In the chamber.

And she felt sorry for him.He said there was very little aimed at the Prime Minister.himself.This was about a cabinet which has let him down, about a group of Labour MPs who have let him down and now they've got rid of him.One interesting sort of thing for the future, of course, is how Andy Burnham and Badenock face off at PMQs, because there you have potentially two very contrasting and very different styles.I think we could say box office.

Well, I don't know.Well, yes, yes, maybe.I mean, look, but the thing is,in a way, Starmer and Badenoch were sort of a similarish sort of temperament in the sense that Starmer would try and batter her like a lawyer with sort of facts and this, that and the other and kind of match her at some of her, maybe not match her invective, but match that kind of the sort of approach that she had.How long does Burnham's more sort of come by are all come with me kind of like approach, which is let's work across party and I'm much more gentle and I'm placed not positive.How long does that last?

How long does that stick last in the adversarial bear pit that is PMQs against a leader of the opposition who is more adversarial and more pugnacious than most?

It'll be a very interesting spectacle when it happens.I mean, years ago, and obviously it never happened.But when he was health secretary, he was the one who said we need to find a cross party solution to social care.Good luck.That's what I mean.There will be millions of people in this country who say, I would like nothing more than to bang politicians heads together till the parties can work together to deliver a proper defence plan, a proper social care plan, a proper safeguarding children plan.

And I mean, I don't think you can argue that that kind of language makes working together out of reach, but it does suggest that we're not really at a place where we are going to work in a rainbow coalition.

I think the question about how does Kimmy Badenoch approach Andy Burnham is a really interesting one, and I also think how does Andy Burnham approach her?On the US edition, We've been talking about, you know, the influence of Zoran Mamdani on American politics and how there is this optimism and there is this hope, joy, joy and pleasure in what he's doing.And that's kind of very hard to bat against.I mean, obviously, Kemi Beynon will come and say, well, but look at the latest unemployment figures or look at the latest growth figures and whatever else.But, you know, Andy Burnham, if he keeps that bit of, you know, authenticity as the kind of number onefellow with a smile on his face.

And I thought, I wonder, I think Kemi White find that a very difficult thing.

I've just been hearing from one of the advisors to her PMQs sessions.I said, did she go too far?No exclamation mark.She's had to put up with his, Keir's, condescending, patronizing, sanctimonious lectures, as we all have for two years.So there was a sense, I guess, in that of like, right, it's finally coming out.

Well, you're done.

I'm here.

Well, we had a little glimpse of what Bernard might say or think about Burnham because she did have something to say about Burnham, of course, didn't she?At the very end where she said, he's been let down, that's Keir Starmer, by backbenchers who don't understand that government is about tough choices.He's U -turned again and again and again to appease them.And now they've abandoned him.What for?A pair of eyelashes and a black T -shirt.

So Kemi, I think starting as she means to go on with the Bade, not Burnham contest.

I mean, that is actually quite flattering.Whereas if you start painting him as the guy who led the heist, the guy who, you know, led a coup on his own leader.

Yeah, but the public wanted it.

Yeah, I'm not.But I'm just saying you're back to the argument or the narrative of betrayal then.You betrayed your own party for what?you know that's that's clear ground where the opposition will probably land and she's still doing with Ed Miliband versus his brother in the you know election.

I think if she just goes on the line of black t -shirt and eyelashes he's okay I think she's underestimating him somewhat given what he's you know given The political operation that has been unfolding over the past few weeks, some of which we've seen in the past week, and, you know, the Makerfield by -election, but that has been going on longer than this, Andy Burnham is not to be underestimated.

Many politicians would kill for those eyelashes.

It's been a hell of a long journey this.I first got involved in Eurosceptic politics 25 years ago, and the first election I contested, I managed to beat the late Greta Thunberg.Lord Such by 164 votes, so I did not come last.Now, there are 17 million people that voted for Brexit.It is a victory for ordinary people, decent people.It is a victory against the big merchant banks, against the big businesses, and against big politics.

I am proud of everybody that had the courage in the face of all the threats, everything they were told, they had the guts to stand up and do the right thing.The election was won, in my view, in the Midlands of the North, and I think it was the old Labour vote.

That was Nigel Farage 10 years ago today, on the 24th of June, when Britain had just voted to leave the European Union.David Cameron had resigned as Prime Minister after gambling and failing that Britain would vote to remain.And I stood on the ninth tee at Turnberry Golf Course with Donald Trump as he'd come over to look at his golf courses and saying, well, of course, I predicted all along that Britain would vote to leave the EU.European Union.It doesn't feel quite as joyous 10 years on.

Yeah and obviously this is a moment where there is a lot of introspection about what has happened since and there was some really really interesting polling actually the Times conducted as well as a focus group in Earwash which was one of those places that kind of determined the referendum in so many ways and I thought in a way that absolutely summed up their reporting on it exactly where the country is, which is you can see not just from this poll, but pretty much from every poll that's been conducted for years now, that there is deep, deep unhappiness with the Brexit settlement in every direction, not just Remain, as you might imagine, but Leavers as well.A quote from the piece that was explaining some of the polling results, it said, with very few exceptions,the Long Eaton voters we spoke to felt, as did the 1690 adults from across the country surveyed for us by YouGov, that Brexit had been a failure.Forgotten.Disappointing and disastrous were words that were used to describe it, although only one person in the focus group and a small percentage in the polling said that they would change their vote if the referendum were re -run.And this is the kind of curious politics that I think we find ourselves in in a sort of post -Brexit settlement, which is basically we are Deeply unhappy as a country with how the settlement ended up, but deeply, deeply wary about unpicking it because there is this collective memory of the angst and the turmoil and just the political oxygen endlessly that it would suck up to reopen it all again.

Yeah.And I think if you cast your mind back, I mean, those of you who are old enough to the Brexit campaign, What people were being told was that their lives were shit predominantly because we were in thrall to the European Union, that without breaking free we wouldn't be able to have sovereignty, we wouldn't be able to have our own growth, we wouldn't be able to have our own trade deals.In other words, the narrative that was formed was that everything that is wrong in your life probably goes back in some shape or form to our membership of the EU.And what has become apparent in the last 10 years is that Without the EU, we have got poorer.Our growth hasn't come back.Our industry hasn't come back.

And I'm not saying it was just a result of Brexit, because ever since the financial crash, things have been stalling.We haven't seen wages increase.We haven't seen growth in the economy.This has gone on for 20 years, not just 10.But it was essentially a lie that was told to people by a very small, very elite political cabal who knew that there would be benefits from Brexit, predominantly for the architect.of it.

And it was quite interesting.I was in a room full of people last night.There was a book that's just come out called The Brexit Effects and it has a sort of 40 different chapters from people across the spectrum.You know, I saw Richard Tice was there and I saw Jonathan Sumption and Marina Wheeler and a lot of people, you know, from the Leave side, a lot of people from the Remain side who had all sort of contributed chapters to this book.And one of those who stood up was Paul Johnson, the economist.And he's quite plain speaking, you know, he doesn't sort of mince his words, but he doesn't come at this from a particularly sort of openly political view.

And he just said, look, the mistake that was made was it's fine to give people a choice between in or out.But you do have to spell out what that would actually mean and what that wouldn't mean.And I think, you know, I'm sort of paraphrasing some of his words, but he said it's absolutely fine for people to choose to leave the EU.What wasn't fine for them to pretend that their lives will become richer as a result, because that was never going to happen.And it never did happen.

Also, the whole idea of taking back control, which was the great slogan of that time.I just don't know what it means.Why are we any more in control?And we look at the cost of borrowing in the bond markets.Are we in control of that?No, the bond markets are in control of that.

What is happening in NATO?Are we in control of that?No, Donald Trump's still in control of that.And I just think that the idea that somehow this was all worth it, I find the polling fascinating, but not surprising.I think it's virtually impossible to imagine a circumstance, if you think about it seriously, where we go back into the European Unionthe conditions that will be attached to us rejoining and given what the European Union will be demanding from Britain so that they don't go through another bloody psychodrama with the Brits not sure whether they want to be in or whether they want to be out.

our jobs and all the rest of it.Now, this is just the poll from that one part of the world in Long Eaton.It's only 20 % that strongly oppose or tend to oppose freedom of movement.In other words, 80 % of people in that poll now either support it strongly or tend to support it or don't know.Now, if that was what the whole thing was about, and if that's the thing that's stopping us from joining the customs union or stopping us from joining the single market, or stopping us from actually working out an immigration policy now that does work to put more people in care homes, that does work to fill out the jobs in the countryside, that does work to actually provide hospitality and restaurants and all the rest of it with people who don't need visas coming in and allowing them to sort of open seven days a week.Genuinely, what's stopping us then?

I think there's two really interesting questions about this, and one you've already alluded to, John, which is that, you're right, I mean, Emily, that freedom of movement thing is actually...It's staggering, isn't it?I have to say, that was the only bit of the polling that really surprised me, that actually...And I wonder whether there's part of it which is that, you know, one of the things that people will have experienced in their day -to -day lives as a result of Brexit, one of the actual encumbrances, because a lot of the rest of it, you know, largely can affect business and regulation that doesn't really affect most of us on a day -to -day basis.But people do see the impact on their ability to travel, the impediments, the fact you can only go for 90 days and then you're given a 180 -day period.the possible queues, you've all experienced, you know, those, you know, I came back from Germany yesterday, I have to say, I did not feel I did not feel the sort of strong fruits of sovereignty as I sat there.

I didn't feel that free.I have to say, oh, I can taste the sovereignty as I just sat there.And you really need to get my Irish passport.But anyway, so I think that maybe that is part of it.When they hear freedom of movement, that's what they now associate it with, those kind of checks and those difficulties.And yet, and yet, and yet, two things.

In this polling, as I say, there is still a great deal of scepticism about the idea of rejoining.And also we see that the guy who was, you know, as he says himself, the sort of godfather, the midwife, you can be both of those things at the same time, of Brexit, Nigel Farage's party is leading in the polls.And there is this sort of slightly curious disconnect, isn't there, between the fact that his signature achievement, political achievement and contribution to British public life is is Brexit, and yet he is not discredited by the fact that so much of the population feel that Brexit was a bad idea and has gone badly.And I think that part of the explanation to that conundrum is that actually revealed not so much in the quant bit of this polling, i .e.the hard numbers, but in the qualitative bit in terms of what people are saying.

And I've heard this myself in focus groups, which is people often say that, yes, Brexit has been, you know, has worked out badly.But that is because they think that this is right or wrong.They think it's just been done badly.They don't think that it was a problem intrinsically and structurally.

Well, Nigel Farage himself says that.Michael Gove himself says that.

And those who are anti -Brexit, I don't think have done a particularly compelling job, mainly because a lot of the Remain forces have just left this alone in recent years, in actually be willing to say to people, actually know that there were structural trade -offs here.It doesn't quite matter what you do.And I do thinkyou will have these results.Look, I think that so much of Brexit, right, was born, we've talked about this on the show before, it was born partly out of, in some cases, very, very comfortable people voting for it, which we don't talk about enough.People, frankly, were so affluent they didn't have much to lose.

But it was also, as we know, born from places that, even in 2016, you know, were in absolutely dire economic straits and had been for a long time.And they wanted and they bought into the hope that maybe Brexit would be enough of a jolt to the political and economic system that finally would incentivise Westminster political elites to think about them deeply, to craft a new economic settlement that worked for them.Now, 10 years on, we see that that hasn't happened.But as the people in this polling and these focus groups are saying, they still think it could happen and that it might happen and that they would rather than unpicking the Brexit settlement, like to see a situation where politicians simply try and address and create and make good on the promises that were made 10 years ago.

I just think a jolt that makes you poorer is not the jolt you want.

Although they were poor anyway.

Yeah, but if you look at what businesses are saying now, they're like, we're not any better off and we've got red tape and I now can't start to do the trading that I was doing before or I can't work in Spain or that's what one person is there saying.So, I mean, again, it goes back to just a huge amount of dissembling, frankly, which is, yes, it was always going to be very, very prosperous for a very small number of probably men who were already millionaires.

I think this will go down as the greatest act of national self -harm that a sovereign nation has inflicted upon itself.You know, sometimes wars start and Ukraine is bombed to pieces by Russia and has no choice in it because Russia started this bloody thing.We voted for this thing.It has left Britain's worse off.But the chances of it reversing seem to makenegligible, because as this polling data shows, people think, oh no, please, please God, no.

What would you vote to go back into?If there was a referendum now?

Well, I think it would depend on, you see, again, if it meant that we had to, you know, accept Schengen, accept Euro, accept everything else that we had carve -outs for.But what if we had the same conditions?If we had the same conditions, and I think I think, yeah, I would vote.I think we were better off inside the European Union.

See, my thinking's evolved on this a little bit over time.I heard Jeremy Hunt sort of make a similar point yesterday that I kind of agreed with, quite rare for me and Jeremy Hunt.You Tory, you Tory scum.I know, I know.So you're right, I think it would be tempting if we could have the same conditions as we had before.That would be tempting, I must admit.

But I have to say, I do think that the truth is, and this is the tragedy of Brexit, Brexit was bad for us.It was also really bad for the EU.Because what the EU has done in the 10 years since, we were always the kind of leader of the pack that was arguing for more trade freedoms, less protectionism, less regulation on new emerging industries and so on.And in our absence, frankly, the EU has gone down the route of more protectionism, dare I say, a more dirigiste French direction that we were always somewhat battling against.But we were big enough and ugly enough when we're in the club to basically usually fight our corner more often than not.win.

In the 10 years since the EU has gone down, I think it's become a worse version of itself, as have we.And if you look at a lot of the emerging industries, you know, the city doesn't want to go back in now.That's true.They wanted to stay in, but now they don't want to go back in because they don't want the regulation back from Brussels.A lot of the emerging technologies, AI, robotics, all of this stuff, gene editing, they don't want us to go back in because they don't want to be regulated under the Brussels, you know, under the Joka Brussels regulation.And so although I think and I was always most concerned, partly because of the background from of the impact on, you know, the old heavy industries, car making and things like that, which has been really damaging.

It has been really, really damaging.I do think an incoming government now, we would have to, or a new vote now, we would have to reckon not with what the EU was, but what the EU has become.And I think that is a more complicated question, to be honest.

I would still welcome a political voice brave enough to say, our GDP has gone down by 4%, 4 % in 10 years.

But the French economy is doing badly, the German economy is doing badly.It's not like the EU.When we went in, the EU or the EEC at that time was booming and we weren't.So it was very attractive for us to go in.And if the EU now...We have fallen faster than any of the other nations.

We've fallen faster, but I'm just saying...And the point is that there is still...I hear you.I mean, I absolutely hear you, which is why I think any question that's asked has to be a very kind of thoughtful question.But the idea that we have shut ourselves off from that trading block, when we are in such massive debt, when our growth is not coming in, when we do not see any of the economic benefits that were promised, I think you'd have to be just dumb to say I'm not prepared to re -engage with that question again.It's too big an amount of money that is within reach if we wanted it.

But I think A, as I say, my concern would be in terms of the direction the EU has gone and whether we could correct it and go back to a settlement that we'd be more happy with, A. And B, my other question would be...

We want them to join us, really, don't we?

Well, that was always our attitude, unfortunately.Come over here.Yes, exactly.A channel full of fog, Europe cut off.And then the other question, beyond an economic one, for me as well, would be the political one.And I'm sure this would be Brussels' concern as well.

Has a settled will developed among the British population that this was a mistake and it needs to be corrected?And that's the problem, right?So that's why Brussels will say you must be bloody joking.Exactly.And that's a problem for us because it could potentially again suck up the next 10 years of political oxygen.But it's also a problem

frankly, would be one, as you say, John, that the EU would likely treat as being completely radioactive because the last thing that they would want is for their political options.

We kind of want the EEC, don't we?

We want to go back to the 70s.Yeah, well, that's the single market, I suppose.Yeah.And what's intriguing about that, of course, is that the biggest problem in the single market was always considered to be freedom of movement.And according to that poll, there you go.It's now fine.

Although I think we've sorted the Norway option.There we go.I'm always in favour of the Norway option for personal reasons.

There are a lot of very shell -shocked people on the night of June the 23rd.We hadn't really digested what had happened and we hadn't really got to grips with what was coming at us down the line.But one person who made a pretty quick decision in the hours after Britain voted out was the then Prime Minister, David Cameron.He emerged at around seven o 'clock the morning after the vote outside 10 Downing Street and explained why it could not be him that, in his words, led the ship of Brexit because obviously it went against his own vote.And then this happened.

Right.

And in the middle of all that Brexit hullabaloo, the one thing that people remembered from the David Cameron resignation was the humming.

And the right.What next?Oh wait, nothing.Wait, nothing because I've just torpedoed my entire political career.

See, give Salma a look close to tears and David Cameron.We'll be back tomorrow.Right.Bye bye.

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