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Okay, I get
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Welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway Gat's on the
beach in Bali but she'll be back next
week. Nan Brown, I'm sure battle has
joined the battle over whether Britain
remains in the European Union or decides
to leave and join the world. Over the
next weeks, we'll be interviewing many
people from different sides of the
argument. I put my cards on the table
just the other week here on Sputnik.
time for leaving and therefore there may
or may not be fireworks in the next 25
minutes or so because I'm interviewing
the man who more than any other has
brought us to this referendum. He scored
4 million votes in the recent general
election. Not that he got much for his
troubles. one MP who seems, if he
doesn't mind me saying so, a little
semi- detached from the United Kingdom
Independence Party, whose actual leader,
Nigel Farage, joins me for a special
edition of Sputnik. Nigel, welcome to
the show. I'll not pry into the private
grief of uh the loyalties of your one
MP. Uh, but I do want to turn to the
grotesque situation that you can get 4
million votes and only get one MP later
in the interview. But am I right? Has
battle been joined? Is the referendum
campaign now on? Yes. And Cameron next
week will be at the European summit next
Thursday and Friday. Uh, he will come
back. Uh, and I will be very surprised
if he doesn't call the referendum over
the course of next weekend. Uh, it'll be
June the 23rd and I'm 90% certain of it.
Me too. Uh but let's see if we agree on
the reasons why uh why wouldn't the
government and those seeking to remain
in the European Union, not just the
government of course, why wouldn't they
want a long discursive campaign and a
vote sometime perhaps in October? Three
very simple reasons. One is the migrant
crisis will not get better over the
course of this summer. uh and we're
already seeing um after Angela Merkel's
somewhat irresponsible decision to
unconditionally open the doors, you
know, great tensions in many northern
European countries. So, the migrant
crisis won't get better. So, have the
referendum before the summer. The second
point is that you'll have noticed the
stock markets uh taking a big downward
dive over the course of the last couple
of weeks. Why? We're back to 2008 in one
way. Worries about the banks, worries
about their liquidity, and of course,
that knocks on to the Euro zone. You
know, it is only a matter of time before
Greece, you know, fails. Defaults. Yeah.
Yeah. Bounce it. I mean, you know, what
they've done to Greece, what they've
done to Greece makes it virtually
impossible for that economy to pay back
the money. So, so fears that the Euro
zone crisis could come back or perhaps
even worse. And the third reason is he
doesn't want uh those of us who are
going to campaign to leave to have time
to organize, mobilize, and get out there
and campaign in the country. So for all
of those reasons it will be I'm
absolutely certain of it in June. One of
uh you alluded to one of the reasons for
going early namely a a perceived
disarray in the leave camp. Uh I'm with
you in this uh campaign. We don't agree
on much uh but we certainly agree uh on
democracy and the need for our people to
be in charge of their own destiny. I
mean the whole point of this is you know
if you and I take different views let's
say on economics or government borrowing
you know the fact is we should be able
to elect governments with people like
you in it or people like me in it and at
the end of five years get rid of them.
Yeah. Exactly. Elect them and get rid of
them. That's the one thing we can't do
with the European Union. Well that's the
point and and and to me you know the
biggest single democratic point here is
that every directive that comes from the
European Union is proposed by the
unelected European Commission. They have
the sole right to make law and the sole
right to repeal law. And there is
nothing we can do, our government, our
parliament or the British people in
elections, be they national or European.
There's nothing we can do to change a
single European law. And and and that
frankly means we've given up on being a
proper democratic nation. And I want
democracy so that we can disagree
properly. Yes. Quite uh my teacher in
this uh was my leader in 1975. I know I
don't look old enough, but I was a
campaigner in 1975 against joining the
then common market led by Mr. Ben. Yes.
And Mr. Foot for that matter. Both of
whom argued the principal democratic
case that we may or we may not as a
country go down the road that Mr. Ben,
Mr. Foot, and I wanted to go down, but
at least we had the right to. Yeah. Uh
in fact Jeremy Corbin and John
Macdonald's uh economic policy is
illegal under the European Union. Many
of the things that they want to
absolutely because you're stuck with 3%
limits you see on what you can spend.
And could I also say on on on a sort of
contemporary basis what has happened to
our steel industry over the course of
the last couple of months. Look, we know
it's a difficult competitive global
world, but what's happened? China's had
a slowdown. And what they've done is
they've literally dumped their steel on
the world markets. And we're not able as
the United Kingdom to say, "Whoa, hang
on a second. That's not not here, mate."
Exactly. That's not fair play. And the
British government is impotent. The
Scottish, Welsh governments are
impotent. It's a classic example of how
as a part of this club, we cannot put
the interests of our businesses and our
people first. Let's go back to the
architecture point. Who I I'm with you,
you and me, but who are we? Who else is
involved? And how are they organized?
Well, we got two sides to this. It's
basically Goldman Sachs v the rest. No.
Um it's it's well in some ways it is. Um
we could that's a good line that way.
Well, it's the unholy alliance of big
banks, multinational businesses, and big
politics that is on one side of the
argument. Uh, so you've got um BS
they've decided to call themselves. They
should have thought about that really,
shouldn't they? So Britain's stronger in
Europe. I know. Absolutely. That's led
by Lord Rose. Um, and they were used to
run Marks and Spencers. Well, that went
well. But quite quite. No, absolutely.
Are we going to do as well as Marks and
Spencers? So, he's running uh the
official campaign. Then you've got the
Labour Party who are going to do their
own thing. They're not going to join up
with the official campaign. Alan Johnson
will do his own thing on behalf of the
Labour Party. Then of course you've got
the SNP who again will do their own
thing. So So there are three distinct
camps who are campaigning for us to stay
in, but they're being funded by Yeah.
Goldman Sachs. Wow. And JP Morgan. Uh
the very people who I suspect many
viewers are including the Labor
campaign. Well, that we don't know yet.
That what we do know is that they're
going to fund uh the BSE campaign. Labor
are relying on trade unions to fund the
campaign. But I've detected particularly
with TTIP, this transatlantic deal, it's
the only way we can get out of TIP is
not to be in the European Union. That's
right. And I'm sensing that for the
first time in nearly 40 years, the trade
union movement are beginning to look at
this European project in a slightly
different light. So, so Labor may
struggle for funding, but that's that
side. And yes, it's backed, as I say, by
big banks and the big multinationals.
And the multinationals love Brussels
because they actually get to set the
rules themselves. Exactly. To a
disadvantage of all the small and
medium-sized businesses. Now, on the
outside, I have to be frank, uh, you
know, it's not been, it's not been
easygoing. There are two distinct
groups. one called Vote Leave,
Westminster based, very Tory, uh, good
research, clever people, uh, but who
tend to talk, uh, purely about the
economic arguments against a more
populist campaign led by Aaron Banks
called leave.eu, which has aimed to get
support amongst the general public and
has talked more about border control,
security, and things like that. And
frankly, there's been a pitch battle
going on between these two groups.
And whatever the rights and wrongs of
it, I think they've both done
reputational damage to each other
through this. So, I'm part of a new
initiative which has come through the
middle. Um, and that's called GO
grassroots out. Uh, and we've got, you
know, from Labour, we got people like
Kate Hoey involved, myself obviously,
and all all the UKippers. There were
some Tory backbench MPs involved and
indeed David Davis shared some old trade
union lads and we get John Boyd who was
a veteran of that campaign back in 1975
that you talked about shared a platform
last Friday night in Manchester with me
and others with Simon Heer who is a
commentator who's very much on the right
of British politics. So what we're doing
is we're bringing together the left and
right under this go umbrella and we will
now we will now appeal for the
designation. And what I want to do, you
know, I'm not interested. This isn't
about left and right. It's about right
and wrong. And we should be a
self-governing nation. And that's what
we're going to try and do. Yes. And of
course, I wouldn't dream of uh joining
the the Tory Bigwigs. I saw them in the
streets of Westminster uh yesterday. Uh
Liam Fox and so on. Uh I I just couldn't
join with them. So, we'll probably uh
join up with Go. Uh not because we agree
with the other parties, even John Boyd.
Uh but because we have to have some form
of common action. Absolutely. Uh and uh
in Scotland, Jim Sillers, very popular
uh nationalist politician. I I have to
say that Scotland, we we've had this big
debate about what the European Union is
and what it means and and and it's been
raging in England for years. It's
bypassed Scotland. Yeah. Because the
word independence and remember this
referendum is about do we want to be an
independent country or not. the word
independence of Scotland has meant
something different and there is this
myth put out by the Edinburgh media that
the whole of Scotland loves the European
Union and it's not true but there's not
been a proper debate in Scotland and I
think once it starts we'll be very
surprised because we'll find that
Scottish opinions on this are very
similar to the now the uh June 23rd you
say uh same electoral register uh that
the current elections in Scotland,
Wales, London and so on are are are
fighting on Is there a demographic issue
here? Uh do we have a uh a strategy of
approach to uh the minority ethnic
communities for example to young people?
What's interesting is all across Europe
the movements that have sprung up
against this failing can I say
established order uh if we look at
Pademos in Spain we look at Siza in
Greece very much on the left of politics
and what you see is overwhelmingly their
voters are under 30 look at Marine Lean
in France very much on the right of
politics overwhelmingly her voters are
under 30 uh you look at even Beep Grill
the comedian who's now on 31% % in the
Italian opinion polls. Yeah. And he said
to me very few voters over 50 support
him. So across the continent it's the
youth that in this country it's a revolt
Nigel. It's a revolt against the
prevailing orthodoxy which Dr. Johnson
described as the grimst dictatorship of
them all. Quite here it's not so simple.
Here it's not so simple. Here at the
moment the under30s are in favor of
staying part of this union. And I do you
listen when I look at the universities
around this country and when you realize
there are nearly 300 Jean Monet
professorships in British universities
and you begin to think actually our
youngsters have not been exposed to both
sides of the argument. So the answer to
your question is that to win this
referendum we've got to put together
under this go umbrella the biggest
alliance of people from across all ages,
races and spectrums that we possibly
can. If we do it, we will win. I'll be
right back with more of this.
Welcome back to Sputnik with me, George
Galloway, orbiting this particular world
this week with Nigel Farage, the leader
of the United Kingdom Independence Party
and the man who more than any other has
brought us to the point where we're
going to get a chance to vote on whether
to stay or go from the European Union.
Nigel, the arguments then, let's distill
them. Uh, I've got my own, of course,
but you're the guest. Tell me first,
what are your best three or four reasons
why we need to leave? Um, I'm with
Churchill. Democracy is a dreadful
system, but it's by far the best that
mankind has yet invented. And and we're
part of this club, as I said to you
earlier. Well, we can't change a single
European law through the ballot box.
That is wrong. I believe in
parliamentary democracy. I believe it's
something that is fundamentally
important. I believe it keeps the peace
uh you know within our country. Uh and I
want us to be self-governing. I want us
to be independent. I want us to set our
own economic policies which people like
you and I can argue like cat and dog
about but set our own economic policies.
But I also think that limiting ourselves
to thinking that Europe is the beall and
endall of the world is a massive
mistake. I think that's the biggest
argument. Massive mistake. They pose the
EU as the internationalist option but
actually the vast majority of countries
in the world are not in the EU. Not
quite. And I mean look, you know, there
are 2.2 billion people inside the
Commonwealth, you know, from India to
Australia to right across the world.
This remarkable club which comes
together for summits where we're
friends, where we share a common
language. I mean, goodness me, these
countries fought beside us in two world
wars. There is a very strong link and
bond. And what we've done is we've
turned our back on this big
international community, almost family,
some of whom indeed are doing rather
well. uh uh having a special
relationship with India is something to
have quite and look at Canada it's done
wonderfully well um Australia I mean
many of these countries have done
phenomenally well so I want us to be
quite frankly it's out of not Europe but
it's out of political union in
Europe dealing with Europe
this is what upsets me you know Lord
Rose he of marks and sparks fame and and
and and all the others they kind of say
that that that that we'd be becoming
isolationist if we left. No, no, we
wouldn't. And we sometimes underestimate
our own power here. You know, we are
still the fifth biggest economy in the
world. We are still the eighth biggest
manufacturer in the world. We do have a
seat on the UN Security Council. We are
still we speak the world's language for
goodness sake. And and I want us to play
our role in the world, not to be an 8%
vote in Brussels at the Council of
Ministers. And the Commonwealth is one
thing and I I I agree with you on that,
but the bricks are are something even
bigger. Sure. Brazil, Russia, India,
China, South Africa, Iran now coming
back into the international economy,
wouldn't having a special relationship
with these kind of countries be more
profitable for us than what we currently
have? And here's the clue. Here's the
clue. You see, very few people realize
this, but as the fifth biggest economy
in the world, we are forbidden from
making our own deals and trade
relationships with any other country on
earth. That must be done for us by an
unelected bureaucrat based in Brussels.
And and that when you think about it,
and we're told, I did a big debate with
Nick Kle in 2014 in the run-up to the
European elections, and Nick said,
"Britain's not big enough and strong
enough to negotiate its own trade
deals." I said, "Look, Iceland with a
third of a million people has just
signed a trade deal with China. I'm
certain that if they're big enough to do
it, we're big enough to do it." But
here's the key. What Kle meant isn't
we're not big enough, we're not good
enough. Our political class no longer
think we are capable as a people of
running our own affairs. They've lost
faith in this country and its people.
Well, I haven't. And what'll win us this
referendum ultimately is people saying,
"Do you know what? we are blooming well
good enough to live in a democracy, make
our own rules, control our own borders
and live our own lives. It's even worse,
you know, that it's not just that we
have subsumed our right to make trading
uh deals with uh the rest of the world.
We have a foreign policy uh which is run
by completely unelected people. I mean
Katherine Ashton, she rose without
trace, never been elected to anything.
never elected to anything in her life
and she ended as the European foreign
minister. In which position? She picked
a fight on our behalf with half of the
bricks if not more than uh than half. So
it's not just that we're not allowed to
make individual uh bilateral deals with
with them. We're towed along in a
foreign policy of unremitting hostility
to them. This is one of the sort of
secrets of British politics. When
Cameron came to power in 2010 with the
coalition within a few months of taking
office, he signed us up to being part of
the European External Action Service.
Now, this was never part of any
Conservative manifesto and indeed many
Conservative voters would have been
appalled to think they do this. So, we
now there are vast areas of the world in
which there is no independent British
voice on foreign policy. We're happy for
it to be done on our behalf by the
European Union. And I, you know, I've
said again and again that, you know, I'm
not, I mean, I'm not a friend or fan of
Putin as an individual, but the point is
to have provoked Putin, which is exactly
what we did over the Ukraine, shows me
that actually a European Union with a
big active foreign policy could actually
be quite a danger. Yeah. And uh it's not
about I mean I I respect Putin uh and I
think he's uh he's very popular in
Russia and that's the point. He's the
leader of Russia, not the leader of
anyone else. But uh but but we shouldn't
be being put
into things which are against our
national interest when we have no
democratic right to alter it. I mean, we
could not have told Katherine Ashton to
take a different view on the Ukraine.
But if we had our own foreign minister,
we could. And historically, of course,
one of the things that Britain has done
is tried to hold the balance of power in
Europe to try and stop bad things
happening across Europe. And we're
beginning bit by bit to surrender that
right. I think it's a huge mistake. We
should set our own foreign policy. Let's
turn to the issue of uh democracy at
home. I alluded to it in the
introduction. It's not that we're
saying, certainly not that I'm saying
that what we currently have in Britain
is somehow perfection and that we should
in an isolation as little England or way
uh withdraw into our shell. I want to
see many many changes here in Britain
and one of those is pointed up by the
frankly grotesque situation where your
party got 4 million votes and one MP to
show for it. Well, and I told Blair and
Brown face to face, manto man, just the
two of us in two separate conversations
when they had a landslide majority in
their pocket. This is the time to
introduce fair voting in Britain. Yeah.
Uh so that people get the number of MPs
uh related and proportionate to the vote
that they got. I mean, you know, never
in the field of British democracy have
so many been represented by so few. I
mean, you know, that's a fact. That must
I mean it was it was I have to say
personally uh I found last year pretty
tough and pretty wounding really you
know to have managed to get 4 million
people to support us despite you know
unbelievable sort of media aggression
towards UKIP and misrepresentation in
many cases. Look we need to have a more
representative electoral system but can
I say two other things? One is that the
postal voting system is so corrupt and
so wrong we should scrap it and start
again. I caused it from the beginning. I
mean, it really has led to to terrible
things going on. I'm happy for a postal
vote if you're 94 years old in a
wheelchair. Yeah. Or you're in the
British Army serving around the world.
You're you know that you're going to be
working in in exactly Saudi Arabia at
that time. Let's take postal voting back
to what it was intended to be. Um and
the other thing, and people aren't
noticing this, money, money, money,
money. It appears that at bi-election
after bi-election, the Conservative
Party have quite deliberately and
willfully obeyed the law of this land
and massively overspent in elections.
Now, there seems to be almost a pact
between the Labor and Conservative
parties that if they're defending seats
in bi-elections, nobody will report on
the other. Well, for goodness sake, if
we're going to have elections, we have
to have rules and we need to have an
electoral commission that actually
enforces those rules. I would hate to
see British politics become like
American politics where it becomes all
about big money. Michael Crick on
Channel 4 News has uh apparently scooped
the pack uh on this and I wanted to ask
you about that. I was shocked that you
didn't win your seat. No doubt you were
yourself, especially as your party won
control of the local authority on the
same day. Yeah. But it now turns out
according to uh Crick who's quite a
serious journalist, Channel 4 News,
quite a serious outfit, that there were
many items of expenditure that the
Tories uh engaged in that didn't appear
on their election returns. Does that
raise the possibility of uh of a rerun
of a bi-election? Well, I don't know is
the answer to that. I mean, I I I
suspect given what Crick has unearthed
and maybe and maybe there's more to
come. Who knows? He says there is. Yeah,
that's right. Um I suspect there'll be
somebody in Thanet who will make a
proper official complaint to the police
um and let it take its course. From my
perspective, you know, if this
referendum that I spent 20 years
fighting for is on June is on June the
23rd, I've got to look forwards, not
backwards. So, let's move to
predictions. Neither of us has a crystal
ball, but here's mine. Uh I believe the
only way is up for us. the only way is
down for those who want us to remain in
this uh neoliberal uh club called the
EU. Uh I don't think that it's ever
going to be more popular than it is. And
with every week that the campaign is
joined, it's going to get less uh
popular. And I suppose my uh memory goes
back to the alternative vote referendum.
Nobody voted on whether we should have
AV or not. They voted against Nick Kle
and because they didn't like him. They
didn't like what he'd done putting
Cameron into Downing Street and so on.
If this referendum is, and it seems it
must be led by David Cameron, George
Osborne, Peter Mandelen, and the other
discredited members, largely discredited
members of the political class in
Britain, they're going to lose votes
hand over fist. So my prediction is that
we're going to win and that on June 23rd
the British people will vote to leave.
What's yours? I agree. I think there is
a very significant piece of British
history going to happen in a few months
time. I think we are going to vote to
leave. Um and I do you know something?
It could realign British politics in all
sorts of extraordinary ways. I think
this could be the start of a real
fundamental change in British politics.
And by the way, once we've left the
European Union, my next campaign is to
get fairer, better politics in Britain.
I think that's right. Um uh the life
will not end for Britain. Uh if we
leave, the world will become our oyster
instead of this collection uh of uh of
states, some of whom were totalitarian
states not so long ago. Some of them
have uh very powerful far-right extreme
right uh political formations. Uh
there's only trouble ahead, it seems to
me, if we remain in the European Union.
the world can become our oyster, but
Britain will not be perfect and will
have to be uh improved. Will Cameron
fall if he loses the vote on the 23rd?
Let me tell you something. If a prime
minister who through this renegotiation
has tried to pull the wool over the eyes
of the British public as as to what he's
achieved and and having lined up with
the big banks and the big businesses and
done everything humanly possible to win
a referendum, why would I trust that man
if the will of the people is for us to
divorce ourselves from this? Why would I
trust that man to do that job? He's got
to go. Yeah. Uh whether he will fall is
uh is one thing. whether he should fall.
Quite another. We'll wait and see. Nigel
Farage, it's been a pleasure. Thank you
very much for joining us. Gatri will be
back next week, but I've been George
Galloway. He's been Nigel Farage. We're
both, as it happens, on the same page,
at least on this one. It's been
marvelous.
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