The Scotsman Bulletin Monday June 23 2025 #Politics

The Scotsman

Dale and Rachel discuss the big topics of the day including the unrest in Iran and the Middle East

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Monday. My name's Dale Miller,

00:06I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by political correspondent Rachel Amory.

00:11Rachel, we're going to get to talking about something that dominates the front page of

00:16the Scotsman today. I also know your highlighted movement around the issue in the morning newsletter

00:24that you put out each day, the steaming, you can sign up to that through the Scotsman website,

00:29that will bring you up to date every morning on what's happening in politics both here in Scotland

00:34and further afield. But the world left holding its breath after Donald Trump's strikes Iran. There

00:40was some chatter on social media about where a number of US jets were headed. It could be seen

00:48that they were heading in the direction of Middle East airspace on Saturday and it turned out in the

00:53early hours of Sunday morning. They delivered a series of strikes against targets in Iran.

01:02It has prompted a response from Iran. It also leaves Rachel Sukiyostama in a slightly tricky position

01:09about how to handle this diplomatically. Can you just talk us through the situation as we find

01:15ourselves in at this point in time? Yeah, it does seem to be escalating sort of hour by hour at the

01:20moment. So it is moving. It's a very, very fast moving situation. Overnight, some more missiles

01:25were fired by Israel into Iran. And we understand that Iran also sent one missile back into Israel

01:30as well. Now overnight, the Prime Minister has been having discussions with Donald Trump.

01:37And both have agreed that there needs to be some solution to this here and they want to see peace.

01:41But as to what will come out the back of that is something that we're still a bit up in the air with,

01:45particularly after seeing some of the comments that we're seeing online from Donald Trump about

01:50about the obliteration, as he calls it, of nuclear sites in Iran, editing his post with bullseye,

01:55which I think has inflamed a few voices in the Middle East as well. So it does seem to be developing

02:00quite quickly. And our eyes are on Prime Minister Sir Keir Staris, what he is doing. Of course,

02:05first Mr John Swinney as well issued a statement calling for the immediate de-escalation of violence using

02:10diplomacy rather than weapons. Look, it leaves the UK government in a tricky position, doesn't it?

02:16Because there have been question marks in the past 24 hours about what influence Starmer actually does

02:23have on Trump. Questions over to what degree the UK was informed before the strikes. Some suggestions

02:31that they might have been told quite late in proceedings. Also, there was no official request to use

02:36a UK-based civil station near Iran that would have been a logical launching point. Perhaps the positive

02:44from a UK point of view is that hasn't brought them directly into this phase of the conflict,

02:49but there may be a future request coming. So it's a difficult one, isn't it, for Keir Starmer and how

02:56that the government should handle it? Yeah, so if you look at Donald Trump, for example,

03:00there are now questions as to what happens seeing as he sort of made the decision himself,

03:04didn't sort of necessarily consult Congress on this too. So there's questions there as well.

03:10Like you were saying, there are British bases near there and thinking Cyprus, for example, it's

03:17pretty close by and hasn't been used yet. So that still sort of leaves a sort of question mark there

03:22as to what happens here. But of course, anything that Sir Keir Starmer does will have long impacts on

03:29sort of defence policies in the UK, within armies, in Scotland as well, and the armed forces here in

03:34Scotland as to what happens there too. So a lot of pressure on Sir Keir Starmer as to what he does

03:39here. Of course, there's so much pressure on him domestically as well, particularly with these

03:45stretched budgets. So there'll be a lot of questions as to whether, does more money get spent here on

03:50this potential escalating conflict? Where does that money come from? Does it come from other budgets

03:54within the UK government portfolio on the back of the spending review? So there's a lot of questions

03:58to think about there as to whether anything else happens with the UK's involvement in this conflict?

04:03And Rachel, a lot of focus as well domestically, well, not just domestically, but globally on the

04:09price of oil. Some of the suggested Iranian retaliatory action would potentially have an impact on the

04:17flow of oil supplies. And there's some concerns that the oil price may rocket on the back of this,

04:25and that will have an impact on inflation and thereby the economy here, which we know is an

04:31issue that's troubling, troubling the UK government at the moment. Just moving on from that as well,

04:36you've covered reform today. There's been a lot of discussion about how they did well in the recent

04:43by-election in terms of vote share up here in Scotland, some 26, 27%, but they hadn't announced

04:51a lot of concrete policy that was actually targeted at Scots, but there is one being announced officially

04:57by the party as of today that potentially will. Yes, it's a policy that is being described as a

05:04Robin Hood still tax policy from the Reform Party. Basically, think about non-DOMs, a lot of chat about

05:11non-DOMs when Rishi Sunak was Prime Minister because his wife, Emma Shakram Murthy, is a non-DOM.

05:17So this would potentially see those who do have an address abroad and have most of their income

05:24coming from overseas, paying a £250,000 fee to get a Britannia card. If they get this card,

05:31they would then be exempt from paying taxes on the wealth that they have accumulated from overseas.

05:36All the money that was then made would then be directly paid into the 10% lowest salary workers,

05:42like directly into their bank account from the HMRC. Now, Nigel Farage is introducing this policy today

05:49and he says actually it will probably benefit Scots more than it will benefit others because there's a lower

05:54baseline rate of pay in Scotland than there is in the rest of the UK and a higher share of low-weight-paid jobs as well.

06:01So he is thinking that all this cash that's going to come the Treasury's way, if he's in charge, of course,

06:06on the back of this policy, will actually probably benefit Scots more than it would elsewhere in the rest of the UK,

06:11as more of them fall into that bottom 10% of workers. So an interesting policy, very different from what

06:17a lot of other parties have been suggesting on tax policy. Labour, for example, have already hit out saying

06:23this will bring us back under the chaos of Liz Truss. They want to see scrapping the non-DOM tax loophole,

06:28for example, rather than trying to give them a way out of them paying tax. So quite an interesting

06:34debate. Of course, all hypothetical because it all depends on before winning a general election,

06:39taking over government in Westminster. So that's a long way of potentially happening,

06:44but interesting nonetheless and certainly causing a lot of discussion.

06:48I think it will be a bit of a watch this space in terms of what policies that they present to

06:52to put forward a case that they could be a credible government come next UK election.

07:00Rachel, well, you can read those stories from rachel at scotsman.com. As mentioned,

07:05Rachel puts together the steamy political newsletter each morning, Monday to Friday,

07:11you can get that in your inbox. It brings you up to date with every development, specifically at

07:15Holly Rood. But Rachel obviously touches base on politics happening more widely across the UK and

07:22the world as well. It's a must read. So please, if you haven't already, sign up to that. You can follow

07:29all the latest news on our social media channels and pick up a copy of the Scotsman in print tomorrow,

07:35where you'll get the latest on the developing situation involving Iran, Israel and the US.

07:41Thanks to you, Rachel. Thanks to everyone else.

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