The Duran Podcast - Collapse of British political establishment. BBC angers Trump

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

Collapse of British political establishment. BBC angers TrumpThe Duran: Episode 2383

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in the UK. Let's talk about what is going on with the political parties, labor and conservative. How is reform doing? And what is the state of the UK economy? Well, let's start with the political situation, because it is actually quite interesting. Now, we've had an opinion poll, an opinion poll which I think gives us. gets the mood correct and which I think is quite accurate. Others think otherwise, but I think it's an accurate poll and it reflects my own sense of the situation. It puts Reform UK on 32%. It puts the

Green Party second on 17%, which is quite astonishing. I mean, it's come out of nowhere. It puts Labour and Conservative, joint third or fourth if you prefer, on 16%. Now, if you put Labour and Conservative together, that comes to 32%, which is equal to what Reform UK is polling. Perhaps more importantly, Reform UK has now had a lead. It's had a lead as Britain's most popular party. which has lasted for about a year and which shows no sign of diminishing.

So more and more people in Britain, in the sort of polling agencies, in the kind of people who track political developments, are saying that this is an extraordinary moment, that it is looking increasingly difficult either for the Conservatives or for Labor to try to reverse this. And we are on the point of a crisis in the current political system. The duopoly that Labour and the Conservatives established back in the 1920s

is about to break down irretrievably and that we could be looking at an extinction moment for both parties. So the Conservatives are basically now being eaten up by reform and they're losing more and more support to reform. And the Labour Party, even more interestingly, is being eaten up both by reform, which is eating up its working class, its original historic working class base. but it is also losing, if you like, the more modern, middle class, affluent, liberal people, the people who support the conflict in Ukraine, who believe on, who are more interested in the social questions, who are interested in climate policy, they're all migrating away from labour to the Greens.

So we're looking at, in effect, the start of a political, a major political transformation. I'm not going to say exactly a revolution because reform might become Conservative Party Mark II and the Greens could become Labour Party Mark two. But certainly it is different and it suggests that the British are absolutely fed up and exasperated with their existing political leaders and now basically have lost all faith in them and are prepared to move on. Isn't it difficult for the parties to win elections, though, the way everything is set up?

Wouldn't it be difficult for reform and or the Greens to come out ahead in elections because the system is so difficult for outside parties? This used to be true and I would have said it was absolutely true a year ago or even six months ago. But you're now looking at a collapse that is so great. I mean, you know, there's never been a time in British electoral history since the 1920s when Conservative and Labour have been consistently voting for an extended period at around 15% in the mid-teens. When you see a collapse of that scale, then in fact, the electoral system, which up to now has supported them, actually starts to play against them.

Because remember, with the British electoral system, if you get the plurality of votes in any constituency, then you win. At this moment in time, it doesn't look as if Labour or conservative. are getting the plurality of votes in many constituencies at all. So what's more likely to happen if this trend continues is that you're going to see a whole swath of traditional working class labor voting constituencies switch to reform en masse. You're going to start to see parties like the Greens winning in the government. in the more liberal middle-class constituencies

like those in North London, where I live. And you're also perhaps going to see both reform and the Greens winning over more conservative middle class, rather reforms winning over more conservative voting, middle class voters in the suburbs. So it's like the demographic, that supported these parties are now switching so comprehensively away from conservative and labor that the electoral system isn't going to help them much anymore.

You don't hear much about the economy anymore. Well, you should. I know. I think that explains everything. Maybe you do because you're in the UK, but I'm saying outside of the UK, they're not running any more stories about the terrible state. of the UK economy or the budget hole that they had going on? They're still giving money to Ukraine, by the way.

Yeah, no. So, I mean, what's happening with the economy? Well, you should be reading and hearing more about the economy because it's actually deteriorated since the summer. We have officially stagnant growth. I mean, there's been no growth at all in the summer. Now, it was various people who work in statistics had said that they'd expected some kind of growth to return in the summer.

But that didn't happen. I don't know why they thought that, by the way, because I never did. I mean, I never saw any sign of it myself. But in fact, there's been no growth. Now, a situation where there is no growth is a situation where there is economic decline. And you can see further signs of economic decline because the budget hole that people were talking about in the summer has actually grown wider. So a year ago, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, the Finance Minister, was saying that the budget

whole was 22 billion pounds. It's now believed to be around 50 to 60 billion pounds. It is continuing to grow. And she gave a speech a couple of days ago, in which she gave pretty clear signals that she's going to raise income tax, increase income tax right across the board to try to close this hole. And doing so goes against a categorical promise that the Labor government gave before it was elected. They said that they would not increase income tax or other direct taxes, but it looks as if they're going to have to because this hole has widened to the extent that it has. And virtually every single economist who's been asked about this, left wing and right wing, centrist and wherever, all agree that the kind of tax rises

that we're going to see in three weeks' time when the budget is proposed are going to crush even further growth downwards. In other words, they might briefly close this budget hole, but at the risk of pushing the economy deeper into recession. And of course, if the economy goes into steep recession, that's going to make the budget hole increase again, because that's what recessions do. Kirstamaer Stammer? Well, Kirstama floats above the political system. He continues to make speeches from time to time. Nobody, I think, pays much attention to him anymore.

But this is the nature of the depth of the crisis, because it's become clear now that the Labour Party has nobody that they can put in his place, just as the Conservative Party appears to be stuck with its leader, Kim Badenock, who practically nobody takes seriously either. Of all the political energy in Britain is going drifting either to reform, which does have a leader who people take seriously, or at least people are interested in, who is Nigel Farage. And of course, the Greens, one of the reasons the Greens have surged ahead is because they've come

up with a new charismatic leader. Suffraity, who, by the way, reminds me a great deal of Moundarni, you know, the man who's just won the Merrill elections in New York. It's very similar to him in many respects. Anyway, this is Zach Polanski, who's now the leader of the Greens. He's young, he's telegenic, he's fluent, he comes up with all sorts of ideas. He's as a fervent supporter of Ukraine, fervent advocate of all the social. issues that we know about. He's very interested in Middle East issues. He's very critical of Israeli policies, all of these things. So exactly the kind of people for whom these things are matter. They're all migrating to him and they're leaving Labour behind. And I forgot to mention

obviously that climate issue for him, the climate issues for him, remained very much center. So he is, if you like, Robert Harbeck and Alina Berbock, but perhaps a little more political in his brains and astuteness and charisma than they had, a kind of cross between then and Mabdani in New York. But you can see the attraction. But to repeat again, I don't think that he has remotely any kind of solution to the major problems that Britain is facing. And I think that is the issue because people are saying, you see, article after article now,

saying that we are in this political crisis, that the political establishment has discredited itself, but nobody, nobody wants to address the underlying issues. Why? They don't want to talk about the Iraq War. They don't want to talk about the handling of the financial crisis in 2008. They don't want to remind anybody of the Brexit war when there was this concerted attempt to reverse the result of the Brexit referendum. They absolutely do not want to talk about the pandemic and they don't want to talk about the support for you. Ukraine, Labour and Conservative were in lockstep in relation to every one of these policies. All of them have failed. In every case, there is an admission of failure, except about Ukraine. And of course, on the topic of Ukraine, they remain as committed to them as always, as By the way, Zach Polanski, who continues to speak with further about the need for Britain to continue to support Ukraine.

Farage is supportive of Ukraine. Yeah, absolutely. And you said this green party guy is also supportive of Ukraine. But perhaps the difference, at least with the left and the right, maybe this is the way that we're going to see political parties in Europe moving forward. this is the formula that they're going to use, is the left will be anti-Israel pro-Ukraine, where the right will be pro-Israel, pro-Ukraine. I'm simplifying it a lot, actually, but maybe that's going to be the formula that will differentiate the two sides.

There is some truth in this in terms of foreign policy. I would say that one gets the sense with Farage that, yes, he, He supports Ukraine, but doesn't really believe in it quite so much, and that there are other people in reform who are much more skeptical about the whole Ukraine thing. But these are a few voices, and they haven't broken through. And the silence about the conflict in Ukraine continues, even though, to repeat what we said in many places, if you want to understand why Britain has a budgetary crisis, as most of the moment, of Europe does, you have to go back to the conflict in Ukraine. We continue to send direct financial support to Ukraine. I've seen the number given as five billion pounds a year. We continue to accept the penalty of ever higher energy costs. We have supported EU sanctions

by passing sanctions of our own to try to restrict Russian oil and LNG exports, which will no doubt be diverted to other places, but which will leave us short, which will cause energy prices in Britain, which are the highest, by the way, in any G20 country to rise up further still, at least relative to the others. There is no discussion in Britain about these things. What about the BBC and what's going on with Trump to wrap up the the video. Should, should Trump sanction the BBC for election meddling? His words, his words, not mine. This goes back to the telegraph article, just to summarize what's going on. If people don't know, the telegraph, they had a whistleblower who revealed to them that the BBC was

doctoring video during January 6 in Trump's speech. to make him look bad. And this is now surfaced, thanks to the telegraphs reporting and their conversations with this whistleblower. And now you have Trump calling out the BBC. He's saying it's a foreign entity from our number one ally. This foreign entity was meddling in the election. That's pretty much what he posted on Truth Social.

So what should happen now with the BBC? I mean, you should understand that the BBC is it's every bit of the government. much part of the establishment setup in Britain as all of the various other media outlets are, including the Daily Telegram. The Daily-Sponsored is, I mean, it is state-sponsored. Because they always try to, just real quickly, they always try to make it like it's not state-sponsored. Exactly.

But I mean, what's your thoughts? I mean, it is state-sponsored, right? Well, absolutely it is. I mean, it's a public broadcaster. Now, it is funded through something called the license-free, which is a kind of tax that British people pay. But it is controlled by a board whose members are chosen by the British government. I mean, there's no two ways about this.

I mean, it's completely part of the basic political setup in Britain. And everybody knows that the BBC has its political biases. There are some disagreements about what those are, but anybody can see, anybody who follows it, can see what they are. You know, this business of Trump speech is really strange to me, a little strange, because the BBC's been accused of publishing a doctored version, broadcasting a doctored version of this speech before the 2024 election. But I can recall them doing exactly the same thing shortly after the events of January 6th and many times after. I can also recall them, by the way, giving every conceivable credence in broadcast after broadcast and in article after article that they published on their website to the collusion allegations that were made against Donald Trump during his first term.

So, I mean, you know, we've now had this internal report from the BBC which says, you know, this wasn't really particularly good behavior and it was most unwise. Everybody could see it. Everybody could see that this was going on with the BBC. I saw it. I saw, as I said, broadcasts. This is when I was still watching the BBC. Of that speech, which I knew were not correct.

And this is a while back. So anyway, let's move on. Yes, maybe Trump should take action against the BBC. But ultimately, the BBC is the establishment. It has been conveying all kinds of narratives to the British people about Ukraine, about Russia, about the economic situation, about all sorts of things, which are establishment narratives. Yes, maybe Trump would be justified in taking the kind of action.

that he might be considering taking. But the better question is, why do the British people who are clearly increasingly out of tune with what the BBC's news service is saying continue to pay taxes, a tax to support it in the way that they do? It's unfit for purpose, just as all of the rest of the British establishment is. Yeah, that's a good point. Why continue to fund this thing by a taxes, right?

Yeah. Okay. At some point, at some point we will get, something will change in Britain. But this is the disaster, the real disaster in Britain. I read accounts all the time about how Britain is collapsing into lawlessness. These are greatly exaggerated. They are exaggerated to the point where I would say they were, in fact, wrong. What you are seeing instead is something much more insidious, which is a steady process of decline,

which if you live here, is visible to you from one week to another. the crisis is that there doesn't seem to be any person or political movement, except perhaps some people in reform, but they're not fully organised, that is prepared to break with the policies of the past and really start to address the many big structural undeclined problems that exist in Britain. Unless and until that happens, that decline will come. continue and beyond a certain point it will accelerate. And to be frank, I think that the acceleration is now so strong and the problems of the political situation are so profound that I have to say, I think we have to go right through to the bottom before we could start to come out the other end again.

Well, what are the two parties, reforming green? What is their position when it comes to the migrant issue, to migration? I mean, reform. Okay, reform, I think everyone knows, right? Nigel Farage has built the party on the migration issue. Are the Greens aligned with labor and the conservatives? Because there was also a report. I read about this the other day, but I don't know much about it. I just remember reading the article where there were some documents that were leaked,

which said that the government is planning to house migrants at I want to say abandoned military bases, but I'm not quite sure if that's what it said, the document. And now the residents who are living close to these military bases, they're very upset at what these documents reveal. I think these are labor documents. Actually, I'm pretty sure it said the article said labor, Kirstammer plans to house the migrants at these bases. And the reason they're doing this is because they were previously being housed at hotels at the cost. at the cost of taxpayers. Correct me if I'm wrong about any of this.

I just remember reading about this the other day. I think you're basically right, but about the Greens. I mean, their position on migration is the same as that of somebody like Zamundani in New York. They are in favor of it. I mean, they basically support migration, which is one reason, by the way, why they are getting the support of the liberal demographic that, I see, spoke about, just as that demographic tends to support migration into the United States. So this demographic that now supports the Greens is doing the same for, it feels the same

in Britain. So if you're looking for a change on migration policy, you are not, where you are going to get it from the Greens, they're going to, they are committed to relaxing the rules. rather than I think harbening them. At least that is what I understand their position to be. So I don't think you, I think there is a clear difference there between reform and the Greens. But if you're talking about the underlying structural problems

of the British economy, which I've been talking about, then as I said, I don't think either reform or the Greens have any answers or any real plans going forward. If we're talking about Farage, it's interesting that he started very much as a Thatcherite free market advocate. And he is gradually adjusting his position to a much more social democratic position, not that different in some respects from what you might expect from someone like Jeremy Corbyn. And I don't think that's really the economic program that is going to. to succeed in Britain today. All right.

Okay, we will end the video there. The durand.locals.com. We are also on substack and check us out on Telegram, on X, and on Rumble. Take care.