Keir Starmer urged to 'focus on domestic issues' by John Redwood

GB News

Sir John Redwood has launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's migrant negotiations with France, claiming he is being "gamed" by French President Emmanuel Macron.On his final day of a three-day trip to Britain, Macron declared that the UK was "stronger with the European Union", and that dealing with the Channel migrant crisis is a "shared responsibility".FULL STORY HERE.

Transcript

00:00Are we being pushed around by Monsieur Macron?

00:03Well, of course, we're being gained by the French.

00:06They're so much cleverer at it than Sir Keir Starmer.

00:08I always dread it every time Keir Starmer is in discussion with an international leader

00:14because he always loses.

00:15He doesn't put a strong British case to start with,

00:18and he gives in to more or less anything they want.

00:20He's given billions of pounds of our fish away for no advantage to the French.

00:24He's giving away the rights to make our own laws

00:27over crucial trade and industrial matters.

00:30And now we see him giving way on this issue about people coming into the country.

00:34So he's actually saying he would like to welcome more legal refugees in

00:39through French selection,

00:41in addition to the many tens of thousands we're already accepting.

00:44So, no, this is a disastrous deal in the making.

00:47Another humiliation for the United Kingdom.

00:50Please, Keir Starmer, concentrate on the domestic issues that matter to people.

00:54And above all, Keir Starmer, when you said you're going to smash the gangs,

00:58why can't you?

01:00Why don't you start arresting people when they arrive?

01:02Why don't you start interrogating them, taking away their mobile phones,

01:06finding out where all the dodgy money is going,

01:08cracking the money laundering and the drug dealing that lies behind a lot of this?

01:13Well, good question.

01:14Owen, it does appear as though Keir Starmer...

01:16So, John Redwood's got a point there, hasn't he?

01:18It does appear as though Keir Starmer defers to other international leaders

01:22on the international stage,

01:24rather than perhaps always pushing for our best interests despite disagreement.

01:28I don't think I would characterise it like that.

01:32This is a man who's got a pretty sensible head on his shoulders of certain things,

01:35understands that this is the art of diplomacy.

01:38It's not about going in and waving the biggest stick

01:41and using the longest words,

01:43trying to bamboozle our international colleagues into submission

01:46as previous prime ministers did.

01:48I mean, this was, you know, this reset in the relationship with the French,

01:51it was started by Rishi Sunak in 2023 when he said,

01:55you know, this is an entente reset when Macron was over then.

01:59So I think he's very much carrying on in that style.

02:01I think there's some people who would just endlessly want to fight the Brexit debate,

02:05who endlessly want to have us constantly in this kind of diplomatic spat

02:09with our European partners,

02:10when the fact is, if you really want to solve this issue

02:13of these huge ways of illegal migration,

02:16which should be stopped, of undermining and destroying the illegal gangs

02:20which prey on the poverty of a lot of these people

02:23or prey on perhaps the cynicism of some as well,

02:26then you have to work with our European colleagues to do this.

02:29And I think the way to do that is to use different methods,

02:33this one-in-one-out thing.

02:34Okay, fine, it might be small,

02:36but I wonder if it gets rid of more people than the Rwanda scheme did,

02:40which was much hyped and trailed and didn't deliver very much.

02:43I suppose that's a point to put to you, Sir John.

02:46This is, of course, what the government is describing as a sort of trial period,

02:51a pilot scheme, which I suppose, if you're the British government,

02:55you might argue could be expanded

02:57if the Europeans are sort of happy with initially 50 per week.

03:01You could easily see how that's scaled up.

03:04Well, could you?

03:05I mean, we don't even know that the French president has the power to enforce this

03:09because, of course, he doesn't run a sovereign country and the EU may have strong views.

03:14We know that the southern states are already lobbying not even to have this very small scheme.

03:19But it's got to be so much bigger than the current plan.

03:22I mean, you've been absolutely right doing the figures.

03:25The odds would still be extremely good that you don't get sent back to France

03:29if you come over on a small boat, if they're only sending one in 17 back.

03:33And some of the ones in 17 that were sent back might just simply regroup

03:37and come over again on the grounds that on the law of averages next time it will work.

03:42So it can't possibly deter the big numbers we need to deter.

03:46If Rwanda had been allowed to flourish without the courts and Labour's opposition all the time,

03:51that would have been a very genuine deterrent.

03:53And I think that was beginning to work,

03:56which is why we had smaller numbers in recent months before the end of the Conservative government

04:00than the massive numbers, the big surge we're seeing today.

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