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- [00:01]
Alistair Campbell
Thanks for listening to the Rest Is Politics. Sign up to the Rest is Politics plus to enjoy ad free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolitics.com that's therestispolitics.com the politics of this are toxic and they're toxic everywhere.
- [00:16]
Rory Stewart
There is really deep disquiet amongst the public about immigration.
- [00:20]
Alistair Campbell
There is nothing you can do on this that is going to stop Nigel Farage whipping it up and saying that you failed.
- [00:28]
Rory Stewart
There is a very big problem. Failure to really deal with this asylum crime crisis is leading to the growth of these populist parties.
- [00:35]
Alistair Campbell
They're doing so in order to divide, in order to fan hatred rather than to address it.
- [00:42]
Rory Stewart
There's been a massive missed opportunity with this.
- [00:45]
Alistair Campbell
Hold on, Rory, you've said this several times now and I've not really pushed back on him. The Rest is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy and Fuse are now offering £20 credit and free trip plus membership if you switch to a fixed tariff before the end of August.
- [01:02]
Rory Stewart
They've listened carefully to their customers and the number one request was gas tariffs. So now, at last, you can switch both your gas and electricity to Fuse. One supplier, one bill, one less quagmire to navigate.
- [01:15]
Alistair Campbell
It's also cheaper. Fuse gas and electricity customers typically save £150 versus the price cap.
- [01:22]
Rory Stewart
Today's political climate is full of talk about control and clarity. Well, Fuse have quietly exercised some, at least when it comes to your energy bill.
- [01:30]
Alistair Campbell
And they began with a mission, which was to make electricity cheaper, cleaner, simpler. And Fuse now supplies over 50,000 homes across the UK, all done quietly, efficiently and without a single campaign bus tour.
- [01:45]
Rory Stewart
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- [01:52]
Alistair Campbell
So go to fuseenergy.com forward/politics to switch your gas and electricity to Fuse and get your £20 credit and free trip membership.
- [02:10]
Rory Stewart
Welcome to the Restless Politics with me, Rory Stewart.
- [02:13]
Alistair Campbell
And with me, Alistair Campbell.
- [02:14]
Rory Stewart
And Alistair, we are both in two of the great deep water ports of the world, aren't we?
- [02:20]
Alistair Campbell
We are. Do you want to say which deep water port you're in?
- [02:23]
Rory Stewart
So I'm just off Scapa Flow, the greatest natural harbour in Northern Europe. 100 square miles, I think, of sea, where the British fleet used to be, where the German Imperial fleet was sunk, where the Royal Oak went down. I'm on Rarsei, just looking towards Orkney mainland. And you are?
- [02:38]
Alistair Campbell
I am at the risk of riling up the environmental campaigners whose work I massively support. I am in Singapore via Bosnia, so I've been a bit, sort of flying around a bit. But, yeah, I'm in Singapore. We're going to talk, actually about flags in our discussion of all things populist and faragist when we. When we talk about the UK in part one. And this place is absolutely festooned with flags because they've just celebrated their 60th.
- [03:07]
Rory Stewart
Anniversary and really want to dig into Bosnia, which I think is. Is. Is something dear to both our hearts, where you've just been for some time. And maybe we could pick up on Singapore next week when we've had a bit of time to scoot around.
- [03:19]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, you're at least reasonably close to the political action in the uk. What's your take on what's been going on with boats, flags, asylum, Farage, etc.
- [03:30]
Rory Stewart
Well, quick summary for people. I mean, I think most UK listeners will be deep, deep into this, but Farage is now on 33% in the polls. A Telegraph article yesterday suggested the Tories, which when I was in government was up at sort of 350 seats, could be down to 22 seats in the next election. I mean, almost. Almost disappear. And Farage has. Nigel Farage, head of Reform, has announced his new big policy on immigration, which is, I was about to say, straight out of the European populist playbook, and it echoes a lot of that. But it's closest to Trump. It is about asylum seekers will be detained in military camps, there'll be different Bill of Rights for British citizens compared to foreigners, there will be immediate expulsions to places like Rwanda. He's going to leave the European Court on Human Rights. And essentially there will be a big challenge to the legal system, to the judges, in order to take radical, extreme action. And at the same time, there is really deep disquiet amongst the public about immigration and we can get into the realities of it. But there's no denying that immigration now seems consistently in the polls to be number one on the public's mind, well ahead of things like the NHS. 70% of people think immigration's too high. 70% of people think that Keir Starmer's government is mishandling the migrant crisis. And this has then led to these big demonstrations outside hotels housing asylum seekers. People will be aware that we haven't managed in Britain to sort out asylum reception centres properly in the way they do in countryside Germany, so that asylum seekers in Britain, of which we had about 100,000 asylum applications in the last measured year end up in hotels, with 400 under the conservatives, reduced under Labor. But still 200 people have been demonstrating outside those hotels. Of course, Southport riots was a big example of violence, but in this case it is the resurgence of the St. George's flag, which is now appearing everywhere. The traditional flag of England. Over to you.
- [05:35]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, I want to apply a bit of perspective to this because I think there is a difference. I'm not denying immigration is a big issue. I'm not denying that the, the small boats issue has become a symbol of that. And politically it is unbelievably difficult. But just to give you a sort of illustration, one of our producers sent me a message just before we started saying Farage is speaking live. At the moment he's being watched by 3,000 people on YouTube. Now, that is a fraction of what you and I get if we do a live. And that's not to boast about our popularity, but it is to illustrate that I still believe that Farage is as much a phenomenon of an increasingly right wing media than it is of genuine public opinion. And when you have those polling figures, it's no wonder, given the way that this debate is being covered in recent months, that people are saying labor have messed it up, that this is the biggest issue. Because if you read the Mail, the Sun and now the Times in the Telegraph, which frankly aren't that far from the Mail and the sun in terms of the way that they cover these issues, then don't be surprised. And likewise, I've got to say, I hate slagging off the BBC, but we're going to be talking about the Lib Dems in Q and A because we said that we'd look at some of Ed Davies speeches, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But one of the points that one of the Lib Dem strategists made to me is that your criticism, and my criticism as well, the Lib Dems don't provide cut through. He made the point. It's very hard when in politics, the most significant social media platform is essentially now Post Musk, a kind of right wing fanzine for a lot of these populist politicians. And he said, and where the BBC are just literally hanging on every single word that Farage says, in my view, because the papers are pumping it up the way that they do. Let's just go through some of the issues that we're talking about that are fueling this small boats we talked about recently. And I accept it's very Very difficult. When the government say they're going to smash the gangs and the numbers are.
- [07:38]
Rory Stewart
Still up, I can sort of sense where you're going and we'll get a bit of agreeable disagreement going here. So let me put the case against you and then give you a, give you a chance to respond. So you said, I think quite rightly that Rishi Sunak set himself up for failure by saying that he was going to what it was. Stop the boats.
- [07:55]
Alistair Campbell
Stop the boats.
- [07:56]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, yeah. And then we had Keir Sama saying he was going to smash the gangs. We're now more than a year into Keir Starmer's government and the number of people merging on boats, 28,000 so far to date, 2025, 46% increase on 2024. So at the very least, the public's perception is that Both Conservatives since 2019 and Labour over the last year and a half have kept telling them that they're going to smash the gang, stop the boats. And the reality is that the number of people arriving continues to be very, very high and will probably end up with, let's say, 40,000 crossing the channel this year.
- [08:34]
Alistair Campbell
Right. But just on my point on perspective, so if you followed our media and listened to some of our populist politicians, you would think that Britain was the most aspect asylum friendly country on earth. We take about two thirds of what most European countries do. If you add all of them up together and all the kind of so called illegals and all the rest of it, you're talking about 0.15% of all the people in the UK right now to follow this debate. Particularly when we get into the issues, if, you know, they're all here to kind of take our jobs, take our women, all these kind of profoundly kind of anti Muslim, often racist tropes, then I just think we've got to try to get some perspective into this. So let's just take one of the issues that has really driven this up recently and that's the case of this woman, Lucy Connolly, or as Badenoch generic Philp and Farage and the press call her, Keir Starmer's political prisoner. This is somebody who went through a police investigation, a legal process, and she pleaded guilty to a crime and she was jailed. And let's just remind people what she did. Now you can argue as it happens, I don't think necessarily it was a good thing that she went to jail for this, but just to put it in the context what she said, this person who's now been sort of projected As a, as a latter day kind of Mother Teresa, mass deportation, now set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care. And this is something, when you look through her social media posts before that this is not, was not exactly out of character. Now as I say, I think that jailing somebody for something like that, you go and have a word and you say, you know, you realize what you're doing. Da, da, da, da. Anyway, but that's not the point. I don't set jail sentences.
- [10:12]
Rory Stewart
Sorry. Because it's just before just. If I can just come in on that, that. Because I think there I strongly agree with you. I mean, it's an unbelievably offensive and unpleasant thing to say, but our jails are completely overfilled. We've got absolutely no room for burglars, for people who are robbing people on the streets for violent crime. I can't see that it's helping the public to put her away for that number of months.
- [10:35]
Alistair Campbell
No, I'm talking here about the politicization of this, the weaponization of this. To call her Keir Starmer's political prisoner, as Farage does, as the Tories do, even cleverly, who I thought was better than this, was sort of making the same sorts of noises, is to say that Keir Starmer has decided this woman should go to jail. She was investigated by the police, she went to court, she pleaded guilty, she went to jail. They made a comparison, Philp, Jenrick, Farage, the lot of them, they made a comparison with this guy, Ricky Jones, who was acquitted, he who said that the anti immigration protesters were disgusting fascists, we need to cut their throats and get rid of them. Now he pleaded not guilty and was cleared by a jury. You can have views about both cases, but the politicians do not decide that. And the minute you start saying this one's right and this one's wrong, you basically eroding the rule of law in this country.
- [11:29]
Rory Stewart
Although it does sound like they said basically the same thing. Both of them were making threats, saying they wanted people to be killed. Yeah, can I just lean into this one step more then I think we need to find a way of saying that there is a very big problem, really big problem that needs to be dealt with in Britain and in Europe and that is that we need to find a active, successful legal approach to dealing with asylum and immigration. Because if we don't, we're going to end up with these far right parties and Trumpian politics and that we need to find a way of saying There's a point here. We do have a political system that people increasingly don't trust. We do have this completely unnecessary phenomenon where I think 12 people have died so far this year. I think a woman in her 30s died just last week on the French coast trying to get in one of these boats and that we can solve it. And I think I'd love to just, maybe just move on at some point to talk about what we could do to solve it, what more labour could be doing to come up with a proper legal solution to this. Because where Farage is going is full on Trump. I think his policy basically is to create such an unpleasant, extreme environment that people don't come. And that's why there will probably be, on day one, he would imagine you arrest 50 people and drop them off in one of the most unpleasant places in the world. You break all the laws, you take on all the courts, you do the full Trump.
- [12:56]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah. That's why I think we've got to be very, very wary of where this is going. And look, Farage is a lifelong opportunist, but I think when you see Jenrick Philpot, Badenoch and as I say, even James cleverly sort of basically saying, that was a good sentence, that was a bad sentence, and that was a bad sentence, that is not their job, you know, and then when you have our media playing into this. And so this whole thing about two tier policing, we have, I would argue, had two tier policing for quite a lot of our lives. And it's been two tier policing against black people at one period, against Irish people, against gypsies and all that sort of stuff. So I just think we've got to try and get some perspective in this, into this debate. And take the hotels. You said in your introduction, there's been these big protests, some of these places where they've been advertising protests. As one of the journalists who was covering it said, they barely filled the pavement. Now, I'm not denying people feel strongly. So Epping, Epping, the protest began because an Ethiopian guy was accused. He denies it, was accused of sexual assault. Okay. And this plays into another right wing trope that these men are here to kind of attack our women and their culture lets them do that and so forth.
- [14:09]
Rory Stewart
Sorry, quickly on that one. I think this is really important because this has been so central to the rhetoric, isn't it? You notice Farage keeps saying protecting our women. Generic. Was saying, I'm worried about my daughters.
- [14:20]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah.
- [14:20]
Rory Stewart
I mean, this is really becoming more and more central, the whole thing. It's not just anti asylum seekers, anti Muslim. It's this idea that they're coming to get our women. Keeps coming back.
- [14:29]
Alistair Campbell
And there's been a new group set up, one of these, you know, groups that sort of emerges out of nowhere and they all say this is just sort of, you know, ordinary people coming together, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. So last week you had 100 women's rights group, rights groups, Rape Crisis England Refuge writing a letter to Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper, basically saying that they were allowing the whole issue of violence against women and girls to be hijacked by this anti migrant agenda. Go back to Southport. Remember what the data about the number of the men who protested and violently after Southport and domestic violence. This idea, I'm not denying there aren't bad people.
- [15:12]
Rory Stewart
Tell us about that. Sorry, I've missed this. That a very large number of the men who were protesting had themselves been convicted of domestic violence.
- [15:18]
Alistair Campbell
There was a very, very, I think it was something like 40% of people who'd been in trouble with the police and in trouble with the law over the protests had a record for or known to the authorities for domestic violence. So let's stop pretending that every person who's in one of these hotels is some kind of wannabe sex offender. But that's what happens when perspective is lost, when facts go out the window and when people actually, like Farage now, like Generic now, like Philp, don't see their job as politicians to try to resolve problems, they see it as trying to exploit it. Now, where I think you're right about labor, they at the moment, I think are fighting raw politics with very difficult, complicated policy. And they've got to understand the policy is incredibly important. But the politics are what is driving this now. And that is where they've got to be cannier.
- [16:14]
Rory Stewart
Strikes me that sometimes it's. They're really missing the point. I mean, when they say that by the end of the year they will have closed five hotels when there are 200 of them, it's not relevant. Nobody's interested in that kind of reduction. And I think that there's been a massive missed opportunity with this deal with France. They missed the point. I don't know whether it was the French missed the point or the British missed the point. But the whole idea, if you remember, was that anybody who arrives from France has come from a safe country and what should happen is we should. And they should do it now. There's still a chance to do it. They've just got to get there with The French, let's say that from the 1st of October, anybody who arrives on the British coast will be returned to France. And you just do it on the 1st of October. You do it with the first 50 people. You get all the media there, there.
- [17:04]
Alistair Campbell
Will be a huge outcome. You've said this several times now and I've not really pushed back on it, but we've had a lot of people saying why would should the French take on what is a British problem? In part because of Brexit. Farage never wants to talk about that and the media never wants to challenge on it. But partly because of the Dublin Convention and are withdraw from that, but also frankly because you talk to French politicians, they'll say, why can't you people have identity cards? You know, there are other things that we could do. Why should the French take advantage of them?
- [17:38]
Rory Stewart
Well, because it's going to be in Europe's interest to do it and in France interest. I mean, firstly, in the very short term, of course, what we should be doing is promising to take a set number of genuine asylum seekers from France in an orderly controlled way. So we say to France we will take for example, 25,000 asylum seekers from France a year and they will focus on the people at most need. I've tended to say things like female judges fleeing the Taliban as opposed to young men jumping on a boat and paying people smugglers. But the biggest story is that through this deal with France, you could end it overnight. If every single person who landed was immediately sent back, nobody would come anymore. Nobody would pay €10,000 to get in a boat. If as soon as they landed they were sent back to France. And once you've establish the principle that there is a safe third country, and obviously France is a safe third country, that is then what France, Germany and the European Union can use in its negotiations with Turkey, with Kenya, which they're going to have to do because the only way they're going to be able to deal with a migrant crisis in Europe is through safe third country agreements. In other words, saying people crossing the Mediterranean are sent back.
- [18:43]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, but I mean, look, this is an issue because of the way our media and our politics covers this. This is seen as an issue that's really sort of unique to Britain. It's not, you've got Italy, you've got the same problem, you've got Greece, you've got the same problem. We were in Cyprus, you have the same problem.
- [18:56]
Rory Stewart
Which is why we need to. I think that's precisely my point, right, that we are facing exactly the same problem. And it's the same problem in all these countries, which is the failure of the governments to come up with a safe third country solution. Failure to really deal with this asylum crisis is leading to the growth of these populist parties. So it's not in Europe's interest for Farage to become the next Prime Minister in Britain and it's not in Britain's interest for the AFD to take over. So what we need to prove with the UK France deal, and this is why this one in, one out thing's so silly, it doesn't work if you've got a limited number. It only works if you say everybody who arrives goes back. So the French have gone 98% of the way there, but because of their failure on the last 2% not to have the courage on that, they're screwing the whole system.
- [19:40]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, but you just imagine how you mentioned the AfD, but just imagine how the raison blement National, Le Pen and Bardella would play that. The politics of this are toxic and they're toxic everywhere. But what I worry about is that we are losing perspective, we're losing any sense of fact. And look, I had a woman write to me last week and she said, it's all right, it's all very well for you. I bet you don't live near one of these hotels. As it happens, we do. Could live quite near one. Added to which, those. I think that the way that this is being whipped up to be bigger than it actually is, it is a problem. I agree with you about that. Governments need to do better at resolving it. I agree with you about that. But the fact is, and I said this to one of the Labour team the other day, there is nothing you can do on this that is going to stop Nigel Farage whipping it up and saying that you failed. So your politics on this has to be much more about taking the fight to them, about what sort of country we want to be. This leads me onto the thing about the flags. I've got nothing against people flying flags. As I say, I just ride in Singapore. They're everywhere. I actually think the flag is a flag. You know, it's a perfectly nice thing. It's perfectly. When it binds people together. But let's be absolutely frank. And again, there's some been very good reporting on this. A lot of the people who are funding, who are organizing this flag stuff, they're doing so in order to divide, in order to fan hatred rather than to address it. And I just think we've Got to be. We've got to call this out. Too much of the labor narrative, to my mind, has been actually about saying, yeah, yeah, you were right. That was what was so wrong about the island of strangers speech by Keir Starmer. We risk becoming an island of strangers once you say to Nigel Farage, yeah, you're right, but immigration is the biggest issue. Don't be surprised that he then gets greater ventilation to go out and make more of it.
- [21:30]
Rory Stewart
And also, I guess don't be surprised that if Starmer runs an election campaign saying the Tories are completely incompetent on dealing with these small boats, but vote for us and we'll smash the gangs and we'll sort it out and you fail to do so, then you get bitten.
- [21:44]
Alistair Campbell
I agree, I agree.
- [21:45]
Rory Stewart
But there are things Labour can do and maybe you're right that the trick is to talk about it much less and get on with it. So let's sort out, if they can, a courageous, proper deal with France. They almost got there with Macron. They were so close. They just needed that last inch because he's already agreed to the principle of sending people back across the Channel. Let's get the ID cards. Why are they not pushing ahead with the ID cards? And ID cards could help with so many things. Why are they not building proper asylum reception centers? This is not an issue in Germany. In Germany there are big asylum reception centers. They're not using hundreds of hotels in town centers to house migrants. So these are all things where I'd like to see a Labor minister, whoever the Secretary of State is.
- [22:25]
Alistair Campbell
Yvette Cooper.
- [22:26]
Rory Stewart
Yvette Cooper. To say, I'm going to resign in 12 months unless I achieve the following things and tell us what they are.
- [22:32]
Alistair Campbell
Just to go about briefly on the flags. And this is just. I've not read this in any newspaper, but it came from the Hope Not Hate organization. They say the co founder and organizer of Operation Raise the Colors is somebody by the name of Andrew Currian, but like Tommy Robinson, he likes to use a different name. He calls himself Andy Saxon, Formerly a bodyguard for the English Defence League leadership. Currently running security of a Britain first, previously jailed in connection one of six men convicted after a 59 year old man was crushed to death by a car following a violent racist brawl. How was he describing the Times? A painter and decorator from Wolverhampton and a father of five without any mention of that. Now, maybe they didn't know, maybe they didn't know. But my point is I just think we have to be very, very careful it's so easy to whip this thing up, and you've just got to be careful about where it goes. And labor, to my mind, should be addressing the problem, fixing with policy. But on the politics, calling it out.
- [23:32]
Rory Stewart
There'Ll be a lot of people out there hearing claims that what we need to do is leave the European Convention on Human Rights. But leaving the ECHR itself wouldn't solve anything, because doing any of the things that Farage is talking about, not just in contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights, they're in contravention of the Convention on Torture, the Convention on Children, the Convention on Refugees, we would have to leave the European Council, we'd have to leave all these international conventions. In other words, we'd have to go full Trump. These ideas being put forward by Farage and actually being sort of endorsed, it seems, by quite a lot of Conservative MPs, too, are taking you down a full route of complete confrontation with the courts, rejection of the rule of law, illegal action. And that's also why the populists in Europe are so dangerous, because even those that don't claim to want to leave the European Union, the policies they're talking about with migration, would draw them into direct confrontation with the European Court and Justice and basically destroy the European Union Union if they pushed ahead. So I wish people covering this were a bit clearer, that it's not that there's some easy thing called the echr, which, if you just amend it a bit, all this becomes easy. It's the entire international legal framework you'd have to trash and you don't need to do it. There are solutions that don't involve doing that.
- [24:48]
Alistair Campbell
But this goes back to the point I made recently. The guy that I was talking to at the plastics conference who said that, you know, numbing down and dumbing down. When was the last time you saw an explanation on, in or on much of our media about what the ECHR is? Farage uses a way of sort of reminding people, you know, our stance is Europe bad, Britain good. Fly our flag, not their flag. And I've said to you before, and I'll keep saying, you know, Farage should be challenged way more on Brexit, way more on the lies that he tells, way more on the nonsense that he talks, and also on the fact that basically, like Trump, it's all a game, and it's a game about his personal advance and his personal advancement through up the political poll yesterday. He did an AI video yesterday of himself as a kind of rapper, little bit of fun it said right of him wearing a sort of white fur coat. If any serious leader in our political system did that, the media would call it out, say it's a joke. But he gets away with it. Why? I think because our media is utterly obsessed with him. I'm going to call it out. People at the top of the BBC who said we've got to get with this anti woke psych geist, whatever that means. I think we're heading to a very, very dark place unless people in politics stand up against it, stop pandering to it, stop playing to it and address the problems with policy. But take care not to forget the politics of this because they're toxic and they're dangerous.
- [26:20]
Rory Stewart
Very good. Well, let's take a quick break there. And as we come back from the break, we will we'll get to Bosnia.
- [26:31]
Alistair Campbell
This episode is brought to you by.
- [26:33]
Rory Stewart
NordVPN Summer, the season of sunburn. Sand in your suitcase and unsecured hotel Wi Fi called something like guest 123.
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Alistair Campbell
So from Cornwall to Croatia, people connect to whatever network is nearest. No password, no protection. Just you, you're inbox and a stranger monitoring your keystrokes in flip flops.
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Rory Stewart
That's a very good reason to use NordVPN, which is what I use. It encrypts your connection. NordVPN masks your IP. It blocks unwanted trackers.
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Alistair Campbell
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Rory Stewart
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Alistair Campbell
So to get the best discount off your NORDVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com restispolitics Our link will also give you four extra months on the two year plan. There's no risk with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee. The link is in the podcast episode description box.
- [27:34]
Gordon Carrera
Hello, I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist.
- [27:37]
David McCloskey
And I'm David McCloskey, former CIA analyst, turn novelist.
- [27:40]
Gordon Carrera
And together we're the co hosts of a Another Goal Hanger show. The rest is classified. Where we bring you the best stories from the world of spies and secrets.
- [27:49]
David McCloskey
We have just released an absolutely cracking new series on the infamous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. How the US spent decades fighting a war on drugs to bring his cocaine empire to justice.
- [28:03]
Gordon Carrera
By 1989, Escobar was the seventh richest man in the world, wealthier than the entire state of Colombia. He was a husband, a father, and the most feared narco terrorist in the world.
- [28:15]
David McCloskey
But to the poor in his hometown of Medellin, he was kind of a hero. He built roads, houses, soccer fields, became almost a Colombian Robin Hood to a nation weary with a very unequal and violent political and legal system.
- [28:28]
Gordon Carrera
Over the next few weeks, we'll take you deep inside the murky world of the hunt for Escobar. You using accounts from members of the secret military units deployed to find him, we'll reveal how Colombian and American forces worked together to track down the man who controlled a global cocaine empire.
- [28:45]
David McCloskey
If this sounds good, we've left a clip for you at the end of this episode.
- [28:54]
Alistair Campbell
Welcome back to the Reciprocities. Me, Alistair Campbell.
- [28:56]
Rory Stewart
And with me, Rory Stewart. So, Alistair, you've literally just got off a plane from Bosnia, and I'm really keen to get into that, partly because you've been on the ground, but also it is boys at a place that matters. This was, of course, the great European war. This is the Yugoslav war. This is a place where hundreds of thousands of people were killed. But it's also a place which, because of what's going on in Serbia, is right on the front line of the European Union of pressures from Putin and Russia and Vucic, possible rising ethnic tensions again. And the whole question about whether this great international intervention that took place place in the the mid-90s is working is going to unravel. So over to you.
- [29:34]
Alistair Campbell
I remember Paddy Ashdown, when he was high representative, says Bosnia gets into your bones and your blood. It is one of the most fascinating places. I know you've worked there and I, I worked with the government there starting about 12 years ago for a few years. But I, I was there for the last few days and I don't think I've ever sensed such pessimism, not in the way people are living their lives. People are going about their lives and it's all fine. But in terms of the politics, very, very, very fragile right now.
- [30:04]
Rory Stewart
And tell us, tell us a bit about that.
- [30:06]
Alistair Campbell
Well, as you know, it's one of the most, if not the most complicated democratic systems in the world. So it was born out of the Dayton Accords, that followed the, the war in Yugoslavia, the Bosnian war and the collapse of Yugoslavia. And so you have, for example, if you, even if you say something as simple as who is the president? Well, it's three people and they serve eight months at a time. Within a four year period with a Serb elected in Republika Srpska, one of the two big entities, and then a Bosnian and a Croat elected in Bosnia Herzegovina. And it sort of. It only works if all three of these ethnic groups are committed to it working. And the reason there's this crisis at the moment is because Dodic, who's the president of the Republika Srpska, he has been sentenced to a one year conviction and banned from office for six years for what are called offenses against the constitution. And he basically just not going. And of course, the Paddy Ashdown figure who today is a guy called Christian Schmidt, a German, one of Merkel's ministers, who I had some time with in the last few days, it's sort of, kind of hard to work out. Well, what do you do if this guy just sort of stays there? And meanwhile, you've got Russia, you know, you don't have to go far for people to say the Russians are behind this. And then you've got the Serbs. And Vukic, although Vukic, I heard something quite extraordinary. Several people say to me, Vukic is not nearly as bad as Dodic, I have to say. These are Bosnians. So it's sort of. It just felt a little bit fragile and that there's going to have to be some sort of overhaul of the, the Dayton Accords, because it just feels absolutely stuck at the moment.
- [31:52]
Rory Stewart
Well, I'm gonna maybe unnecessarily play devil's advocate here. So in Bosnia, first in the 90s, I was in our embassy in the late 90s, and obviously to remind people what had happened there, we'd had a situation in which there had been a siege of Sarajevo. Bosnian Serb artillery reining in well over 100,000 people killed, massacres of Srebrenica and this conflict between the Croat community, the Bosniak Muslim community and the Serb community. Things that hadn't really been seen in Europe since the end of the Second World War. And there were, you know, when I drove out of Sarajevo in those days, there would be checkpoints every few hundred yards. There were, I think, 100,000 men under arms, these militia groups, which often were the local guy that ran the gym running his own militia group, or the local baker with another militia group, war criminals on the loose, Karadi Mladic, these people. Fast forward to today, and Bosnia is an incredibly different place. And one of the. The big things that's changed is the most incredible economic growth. Bosnia, when I was there, had a GDP per capita about 1/10 of that of the UK. It's now about 1/3 of that of the UK its GDP per capita in purchasing power parity terms has gone up tenfold since the 90s. It's been growing at about six and a half percent a year when Italy's been growing at 0.5%. So along with that story of the political crisis, which is real, I'm not denying it, is this incredible growth of a Bosnian middle class.
- [33:17]
Alistair Campbell
That's true. That's all true.
- [33:19]
Rory Stewart
And I don't know when you were there last, but my sense is you go back to Sarajevo now and it's incredible. There's suddenly like gluten free bakeries erupting and there's coffee shops everywhere. And a lot of my Bosnian friends have, have dual passports, which is Croat passports, or they move back from the US to do new businesses.
- [33:35]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And, and one of the things that even the politicians I spoke to said to, they said if you just let the people get on with their lives, it's all fine. But at some point we do have to have a kind of functioning political system. And right now it doesn't feel like that. U4, which are the kind of, you know, the international military force that is there to maintain stability, they are upping the numbers that are there. And I listen, I completely agree with you. It's nothing like it was. But I guess it's because that progress has been so phenomenal and because it does feel like just. I mean, I met loads of British tourists there who were just having a. They said, I can't believe this place is amazing. And as you say, nightlife and restaurants and bars and all that stuff, but unless this political thing gets fixed, and it's hard to see how it gets fixed, I must say, by the way, I was really, you know, the, the flag flying British patriot in me. Several people said to me that in fact, this guy, one guy who's a politician, a former politician, and he said to me, the joke used to be that the most important country in the European Union for Bosnia was the United States of America. Today, the most important country in the European Union for Bosnia is the United Kingdom. Both our ambassador, a guy called Julian Riley, who I didn't meet, but also Karen Pierce, remember, who was our ambassador in Washington. She's now a special envoy in the western Balkans. People said they were making a real difference. So that was very, very nice. That's lovely.
- [35:11]
Rory Stewart
Well, let me keep going on my ridiculous optimism. So the other thing that's been really incredible, which makes Bosnia unique, is the returns of people. So as we often talk about, you know, we just interviewed the President of Cyprus. There's been no Greek communities returning to North Cyprus since that war. There's no Palestinians returning to Israel. But there have been incredible returns across Bosnia. And places like Republika Srpska are incredibly multiethnic. There are mosques popping up in places where there had been genocides. And a very large number of the cantons, almost a Swiss system in Republika Srpska, very few of them now have a overall majority. In fact, in many cases, the biggest ethnic group is only 30, 40% of the population. And I've got friends who've got cousins and relatives in Republika Srpska, and they were on up last week in one of the most extreme, nasty places from the war. And they were just talking about how remarkable it is that this mad political system that you're talking about is actually forcing coalition building. I mean, even Dodiq doesn't have an overall majority. And it's not just three ethnic parties. You end up with a dozen parties in all these little governments being forced to compromise. So here's my really provocative thought for you, which you can push back on. My provocative thought is that possibly we're getting too worried and possibly what's happened is that there are lots of Western diplomats sitting around worrying about the politics because that's what they're paid to do. And we have an incredible overpaid German who's called the high Representative, Christian Schmidt, earning thousands of euros a month in order to do something. His predecessor was an Austrian, spent 12 years and basically did nothing in 12 years. And in trying to justify their job, they end up generating these crises. So my solution to the whole thing is kick out the high Representative, get rid of this completely ridiculous that we still have an office. The high representative sounds like kind of old colonial days. There's no reason for Bosnia to have such a thing anymore. Bring him into the European Union. Problem solved.
- [37:20]
Alistair Campbell
Well, I think the path to the European Union right now is quite tricky, let's just put it that way. No, I think you been very, very harsh there. And also I wasn't hearing this from the diplomats so much as from the politicians who felt that the, the Dodic thing was really, really quite serious. And also what's really interesting, Dodic. So the guy that I was mostly closely involved in was the former foreign minister, former prime minister. He's now the UN ambassador for Bosnia, a guy called Zlatko Lagungia and a very nice guy. And when he was prime minister, I think it was basically Madeleine Albright then Clinton's Secretary of State said that he and Dodic were seen as the two great kind of hopes.
- [38:04]
Rory Stewart
Yes, but Paddy Ashton basically responsible for Dodek getting the job along with the U.S. they put a lot of pressure behind Dodek. In fact, they cleared out all the Croats and created the space for Dodek to take over.
- [38:15]
Alistair Campbell
I know. I've worked out who you've been talking to. I'll tell you why. When I was doing my research, Rory, I've got you here. I came across a piece written 50 years ago by your friend Gerald Knau.
- [38:29]
Rory Stewart
And my friend Felix Martin, who you.
- [38:32]
Alistair Campbell
Remember, and Gerald Knaz wrote a piece saying that Ashdown was behaving like a sort of viceroy, trying to turn this place into a new sort of raj. I think you've been quite harsh about Schmidt because I had very good, interesting chat with him. He was. Look, I get your point. I really don't think he's trying to keep his job there. I think he'd love it if the whole thing would just work and he could go back to, back to Germany. But I'll tell you one thing that I thought was really interesting about the way that the politics of this in terms of Russia and Serbia and America. So they're very, very pleased that the Americans are sending a diplomat as their ambassador rather than a kind of Trumpian appointee. Britain, as I say, is seen as being very, very significant in this. Russia is all over it, as people would, would expect. But I kept hearing, and not from Serbs, I kept hearing actually that Vukic is being a lot more responsible in this than maybe he gets credit for. Some people said he actually exports his problems. He's got all this trouble at home, so he doesn't mind stirring it there. But Dodic was the one that was getting it for, essentially for saying he's not going to respect elections, he's going to have a referendum to say that he should be allowed to stay. So that was where it maybe felt a lot messy. And I was talking to people who were, you know, very much against Dodec. And of course, the other, the other figure who sort of hangs around in the background here is, is our friend Viktor Orban. In fact, there was a point not long ago where 300 plain clothes armed Hungarian police officers crossed into Republika Srpska without any approval from the Sarajevo government. And they were there apparently to, quote, train local police. But actually this was what was going to happen. They were going to possibly extract Dodic should it get to that. So that was, you know, they are sort of talking those terms. And also another observation. You'll be interested, Rory. Somebody said to me, if Dodic were to flee, which could happen, he would go to Budapest, and from there he would go to Moscow. If Vukic is ever to flee, he said he would go to Budapest and then to Dubai. Good. There we are.
- [40:59]
Rory Stewart
Well, just to broaden it out for a second, we've talked quite a lot about this, but I guess it is really important to put Vukic and Serbia in the middle of this and the way in which those protests that we've talked on the podcast about in the past continue, these protests that began with the collapse of a railway station, but have spread to massive youth protests against a Serbian government that has frozen in the past. I mean, in many ways, it's the one part of Yugoslavia that has never managed to move on from the war, never really been able to accept its responsibility, never really been able to reconcile, never really been able to think about how to readjust. And then we also interviewed the Prime Minister, Kosovo, Alvin Kurti, and there. The problems that you're talking about in Republika Srpska, played out in northern Kosovo are very, very extreme and very, very dangerous because at least there are institutions in Republika Srpska. Dodek is part of these sort of state institutions, however much strain there is. Northern Kosovo, no Serbian participation institutions, Serbian police incursions, arrests. So this story, I think, will be with us for a long time. I guess my only agreeable disagreement is to think that I'm still more worried in the. About northern Kosovo at the moment than I am about.
- [42:12]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, yeah, no, no, that, that, that. I. I get that. I guess the thing that struck me because I was there for this charity football match with lots of these sort of famous.
- [42:20]
Rory Stewart
Oh, did you play in the end? Did it happen?
- [42:22]
Alistair Campbell
No, there was. It was. It was abandoned because of floods. I mean, it was a nightmare. Anyway, I'm going next year to playing Croatia, where I'm going to be the captain alongside Luca Modric. Who? You. Well, no, you look alike. You'll look alike.
- [42:35]
Rory Stewart
Yeah, exactly. My look.
- [42:36]
Alistair Campbell
Yeah, exactly.
- [42:36]
Rory Stewart
Yeah.
- [42:37]
Alistair Campbell
But what was so remarkable about it was this sort of just walking around the place and just talking to people and just being involved in this amazing charity event where kids were playing chess with grandmasters and. And these four countries, where kids from four countries, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia were brought together, and it was just. It was an amazing event, even with the football being. Being abandoned. But to have that, and then the minute you stepped out of that, as I did, Because I had two or three days there and went and talked to the, the politicians and the diplomats and they're all just sort of, you know, a little bit head in hand. So I agree with you. It's not crisis point. I think there is a political crisis right now that has to be resolved. But, you know, I think we just have to keep our eye on it. And, and it's kind of alarming that they saw it as a good sign that Trump wasn't showing much interest. He was leaving it. He was leaving it to other people. So, Rory, you are in the Orkneys, which is part of Scotland, which is quite a good way to plug our current episode of Leading with Nicola Sturgeon. Lovely to talk to you as ever. Give my, Give my fondest regards to the seals. Did you know the seals love bagpipe music?
- [43:53]
Rory Stewart
I didn't know that, but I'm actually looking at a whole group of seals who are just on the shore outside the window as we speak. So I'm sorry, you're not here with a pipe.
- [44:00]
Alistair Campbell
Well, Rory, if I could persuade you actually to dust off your bagpipes. They, they seals. I've seen, I've seen with my own eyes and my own music where if the seals are underwater and they, and they hear the pipes, they just pop their heads up and have a little.
- [44:14]
Rory Stewart
Beautiful. What a beautiful thing. Well, well, have a, have a listen to the bagpipes, but also have a listen to Nicola Sturgeon, which I thought was a really great interview. I mean, she's a controversial figure, but I was captivated by that interview. So I think people enjoy that on Leading.
- [44:27]
Alistair Campbell
And tomorrow, Question Time, we're going to talk about Israel, which we didn't have time for in the main episode. Today we're going to revisit Rory's loathing of the Lib Dems and I'm going to try and persuade himself, persuade him they're not quite as bad as, as he says. And we'll be making yet another assessment of just how authoritarian is Donald J. Trump.
- [44:50]
Rory Stewart
And if you can't wait for that, then members of the rest of this Politics plus can get. Get early access. And of course, if you would like to become a member, you go to thereslerspolitics.com see you tomorrow, Alistair.
- [45:00]
Alistair Campbell
See you tomorrow.
- [45:00]
Rory Stewart
See you then.
- [45:10]
David McCloskey
Hi again, it's David from the Rest is Classified. Here's that clip we mentioned earlier.
- [45:14]
Alistair Campbell
Victory over drugs is our cause, a just cause, and with your help, we.
- [45:21]
Rory Stewart
Are going to win Pablo Escobar, the.
- [45:24]
Alistair Campbell
Head of the Medellin drug cartel, the.
- [45:26]
Rory Stewart
World'S 14th richest man.
- [45:28]
Gordon Carrera
He was in many ways, a terrorist.
- [45:31]
David McCloskey
This is an economic power concentrated in a few hands and in criminal minds. What they cannot obtain by blackmail, they get by murder.
- [45:40]
Alistair Campbell
And I don't think he expressed any regret at all.
- [45:44]
David McCloskey
He tried to. He tries to portray himself as a man of the people. This kind of like, leftist revolutionary outlaw.
- [45:50]
Alistair Campbell
Nearly everyone in Medellin supports the traffickers. Those who don't are either dead or targets.
- [45:56]
Gordon Carrera
If you declare war, you've got to expect the state to respond.
- [46:00]
David McCloskey
This is the moment where he goes too far. 13 bombs have gone off Medellin since the weekend. By the end of 87, Bogota is essentially a war zone. US spending for international anti drug efforts is going to grow from less than $300 million in 1989 to more than 700 million by 1991.
- [46:20]
Alistair Campbell
It is the certain knowledge that no one is really safe in Colombia from drug cartel assassins.
- [46:25]
David McCloskey
It's a conflict where the goal wasn't even to stop the flow of cocaine. It was to bring down this narco terrorist.
- [46:32]
Gordon Carrera
Everything has turned against him up to this point. The whole thing he was building is collapsing. To hear the full episode, listen to the rest is classified. Wherever you get your podcasts.