The Duran Podcast - Starmer's troubles grow as Trump arrives in the UK

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Starmer's troubles grow as Trump arrives in the UK

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the deteriorating situation in the UK. And we had the big Unite the Kingdom March. The British authorities and the British media, like The Guardian, reported that there was 110,000 people taking part in this rally. It looked more like a million. Some reports even say 3 million. So a massive turnout at this rally. The Kirstammer administration is in freefall.

He is in big, big trouble. The UK ambassador to the United States has been effectively fired because of his connections to Epstein, which from what I understand, many people already knew he had these connections, especially the elite and the political class, knew that he was very closely connected to Epstein. But the birthday book came out and some emails were discovered or leaked, which show that he was very buddy-buddy with Epstein. So the situation for Stommer goes from bad to worse, to worse, and there's no doubt that the people in the UK are absolutely fed up with Stommer.

They've had enough of Kier Stommer, whether you look at the rally in London, or you look at the growth of reform, Stamer is on his way out. The question I have is when? When is he on his way out? Well, indeed. Now, let's discuss firstly the rally. I mean, it was, as you absolutely rightly say, huge. And of course, if you have been following our programs,

the various discussions we've had about the situation in Britain, the fact that there was a big rally in London should not have surprised you, because we've been talking on these channels about the deteriorating mood in Britain, the fact that people in Britain are becoming increasingly fed up, increasingly angry, increasingly despondent, increasingly alienated from the political class, which is interested in things which are of no concern to the British people. And they sense increasingly that the political leaders, leadership in London is focused on other things rather than the problems of Britain or the problems

that these people, the people of Britain themselves are facing in their everyday lives. So the fact that there was a big rally, if you've been listening to what we've been saying, would not have been a surprise. But I'm going to say straight away, the size of it nonetheless astonished me. Now, you know, I've been saying all of this for ages. I've been travelling around Britain. We did a program recently, which I, you know, told about my experiences outside London on a recent tour of the inner England, the English regions just north of London recently. And I could see many of the manifestations there.

But I still didn't expect a rally of this size. Now, can I quickly say, I am not going to try and guess the number, but 110,000, where you can look at the pictures, people can look at the photos and they can draw their own conclusions. I mean, it was obviously many, many times bigger than that. I mean, that's clearly how it looks to me. Now, a huge rally. And the other thing to say about this, and you talked about the government. Stama, collapsing.

I wasn't at the rally itself, but I've been watching the film of it. I've been looking at who turned up. I've been looking at the comments that they've been making. And the thing that overwhelmingly struck me is that the people who were at this rally were precisely the sort of people who once upon a time overwhelmingly supported

what is currently supposed to be Britain's governing Labour Party. They were Britain's working class. In other words, the very people who organised once in unions, who supported the socialist or socialist, social democratic programmes that the Labour Party once was associated with. And they are furious with the government that masquerades as being a government that is connected to their party. One of the reasons that these people feel so angry, and I have encountered this in personal conversations, by the way, is that they feel not just that their party has drifted away from them, but that their party has been stolen from them, that it was the party that they created.

That is why it was called the Labour Party, that it was the political arm of what used to be called the Labor Movement, of which the unions were the industrial wing, and now it's gone. It's controlled by and run for people who are completely different to them and who are not interested in them and who don't like them anymore and whose interests are and favour other people, whether it is Ukrainians, Zelensky, people who come into Britain from boats,

all of those things. You have all of those narratives and you get that and it's become very clear to me what is driving this. So this obviously is causing concern in Britain as well because the conservative electorate, as we saw in the election last year, has basically cut its links increasingly with the Conservative Party. The Labour electorate, was the Labour electorate, has now essentially divorced from the Labour Party. I cannot see it coming back, by the way. I mean, the level of anger here is extraordinary. And as you absolutely rightly say, at the centre of power in government in Britain, we have a political vacuum. We have a Prime Minister who has, I would disagree with those who say that he's lost control.

He's never had control. He's never really been in control. And you said that the British ambassador to Washington has been effectively sacked because if his connections to Epstein, the ambassador was sacked. There was nothing in fact effectively about it. And this is, this is, again, it's important to understand who we're talking about. We're talking about Peter Mandelson. Tony Blair's right hand, the man who has done more to make the Labour Party what it is,

who has effectively played the greatest single role together with Blair in moving the party away from the kind of party that the people who were protesting in London supported. and he, it turns out, is not only somebody who has no interests in these people who were protesting in London on Sunday, but he's also somebody who was a close friend for years and years with of all people, Jeffrey Epstein. He gets appointed ambassador to the United States despite the fact, that that connection is known right across the entire British establishment. And on top of that, the Prime Minister continued to defend him. Even after that connection was fully exposed,

and the Prime Minister pretended that new information had come to light, which cast a further light on Mandelson's connection with Epstein. only it turned out that that information, in fact, had come to light before the Prime Minister made public statements defending Mantelson and insisting that he would remain ambassador. So we have a government that is absolutely disintegrating. It is losing control. It is losing its connection to the country. It's moorings in the country.

It functions in a vacuum. It is no strategy, no policy, and the prime minister himself, it turns out, has no control at all. What is Trump going to be doing in the UK from the 16th to the 18th? He will be in the UK for his second state visit. I believe he was in Scotland just about a month ago, wasn't he? No, absolutely. He was. He did the deal with Ursula.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And he met... He met Stamer. Yeah. He met up with Starr. So what's the plan this time around?

Well, this was something that Stama came up with back in February. I mean, he wanted Trump to provide the backstop to the British military going into Ukraine. So he told Trump, you know, well, let's be the best of friends. admittedly, I had all those problems. We've had all these problems with each other because I sent teams of Labour Party activists to Britain, to the United States to help Kamala Harris beat you in the election. But let's let bygones be bygones. Let's move forward together on Ukraine and on other things. And just to show you that I'm really your friend, I'm going to invite you to Britain. You can come on a state,

visit, we'll have all the pomp and circumstance, you'll have the, you know, the lumines and the speeches in Westminster Hall, presumably, and he'll be meeting the king himself. State visits in Britain are rare things, by the way. I mean, you can come as a, you can visit us on an official basis, but this is going to be the full pomp and circumstance of a state visit. And the idea was, the assumption was that it was going to somehow win over Donald Trump. How did it work to a degree? I mean, Trump liked the idea. He got on with Mandelson, by the way, who was sent there, again, partly in order to win Trump round. That's not a good thing, though, Alex.

Well, Trump, I just heard you said right there. Trump now, that's not a positive. Trump now is going to be furious, by the way. He could have got him burned. Absolutely, absolutely. Trump is going to be absolutely furious now when he's learned about all of this. So, and bear in mind, he's meeting, he's meeting. the king whose brother was deeply enmeshed with F. Stein. So it really doesn't look good at all. So whether Trump has second doubts about this, I don't know. But to both Stama and Trump, it perhaps looked like a good idea at the time, which is February. Today, Trump is coming to a country which is in a state of complete crisis. The economy is not doing well, to put it, mildly. We have a budget which is becoming increasingly an issue of intense contention. The government

has postponed it to the last possible day, apparently. So we're not going to get it until the late autumn, November, I believe, late November, which of course simply gives more time for more argument and more quarrels and all of this. And a prime minister and the British media today the media which, by the way, has tried to downplay the scale of the protest in London. The British, if I was astonished by, the British political class were astonished much more by the size of it. I was reading a Labour MP, or former Labour MP, Diane Abbott, who led a left-wing counter-protest at this. protest and she wrote an article of The Guardian. So this is absolutely astonishing. Usually, we outnumber when we hold these counter-protests, we outnumber the people who turn out to these

protests this time. We were massively outnumbered ourselves and she's clearly shocked by the fact and she finds that fact by the way intimidating, which anyway, well, we won't get sidetracked into discussing that. But Trump is coming to a country which is dysfunctional, where the political class is becoming increasingly frightened as it senses that the situation is escaping its control, where the Conservative Party has collapsed, where the Labour Party looks like it's collapsing, where Nigel Farage, who is, of course, Trump's friend, it looks ever stronger every day, and where there is no real plan or strategy about what to do. Now, the media in Britain today is full of speculations as to whether Starmont will survive as prime minister.

The talk is that he will soldier on until May. And if he doesn't do well in the elections, then the local elections in May, then people will move against him. logically, given that things are not going to get better for Stama. I mean, it is absurd to think that this leader, this prime minister, can transform himself into somebody who can engage successfully with the British people or get a real grip on the problem. So we've discussed Kirstama many times. I mean, there's no reason to postpone this to me. You would have thought that there would be taking steps now, especially after the

the Mandelson affair to show him the door and to replace him with someone else. But one of the major problems they have, quite apart from the technical difficulty of doing this, is that they have no one obvious to take his place. When they removed, when the Conservatives sacked Liz Truss, there was Rishi Sutnerk waiting in the wings. He was the chance. He'd been the former chancellor. There are lots of things said about what a capable wizard in finance Rishi Sunat was. There's no one like that today.

The Education Secretary, West Streeting, is talked about. The trouble is most people don't like him. And there's the mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, who's also been spoken about. He's the more left-wing candidate. I mean, outside Manchester, I don't think many people are very convinced by him. And suffice to say, when he did last stand for leader of the Labour Party, he was obliterated in the votes by none other than Jeremy Corby. So there is no one convincing to take Starmer's place because all of the intelligent, capable people have long since been pushed out of British politics by a political class which doesn't like people who don't follow its line. Well, there's the deputy prime minister, David Lammy.

Well, of course there is. I forgot about him. He's the obvious, he is the obvious solution to all our problems. It's all bad. It's all bad. It's all bad, exactly. I mean, it's all bad. I mean, you remember when they lost, when Starma lost,

his previous deputy prime minister, Angela Rainer. Well, in some ways, she might, at least, I don't believe. it would have succeeded, but you could argue that she could just possibly have connected better with those people who were protesting in London over the weekend, because she comes in that same demographic. She comes to Manchester, industrial cities, she's worked her way up through the unions, she's obviously working class, and makes no attempt to conceal the fact she's working class in the way the Starma, by the way, does. I mean, Starma argues that he's also got a working class background. But workers, working class people, don't see him in that way.

With Angela Rainer, she looked like someone who in the Labour Party of, say, the 1960s would have been a recognisable figure. But of course, she's gone. And besides, I don't think she was ever a convincing, a really convincing choice. So there is no one. They have no interest in connecting with the people. No. Zero. The model, the model for the UK political class, actually for the entire European political class

is get somewhere in office, a high enough position. And then when you're done wrecking things, you can go the route of Tony Blair and create some sort of consulting firm or whatever and make money that way, you can go the route of Boris Johnson and run around the world sabotaging peace deals and causing trouble like that. But of course, you're going to get paid for this as well, maybe get placed on some sort of a board or something like that. I mean, that's the model. That's what they care about.

Absolutely. Being in politics is just a stop to something more lucrative. So they don't care about the people. They couldn't care about connecting with the people. It's all bad. Sunak was bad. Boris Johnson was bad. Trust one month in office forever long she was even in office.

Bad. It's all bad. There's no one. There is no one capable to run the country. And we'll see for Raj, I guess. What else can you say? That's all I can. comment on with Farage. We'll see how he does. Maybe he'll do well, most likely not. I don't know.

Well, indeed. You live, you're in the UK. I agree. My hopes are not very high. No, my hopes are not very high either at all. But can I just say a few things about this? I mean, first, you're absolutely right. And the other thing, which is perfectly well noticed by these people who, as I said, protested in London, is that these members of the political class are far more comfortable talking with each other than they are talking to them. That is perhaps the single thing that Farage distinguishes Farage from this lot. I mean, Farage is perfectly happy, even though he was privately educated, comes, you know, wealthy, became wealthy, worked in the city, all of that kind of thing. Farage is perfectly happy going out to the industrial,

regions talking to people like the people who are protesting on Sunday. He's able to joke with them, laugh with them and share beers with them, understand and listen to what they're saying, and talk to them in ways that they feel, make them feel, that he is generally interested and concerned about them. And of course, there's a lot. I don't like to do that. They don't, I mean, look, all you have to do is look at Starman,

meetings with people outside the Westminster establishment. He always looks uncomfortable and uneasy and wooden and stolid. He's much more happy when he's meeting his dear friend, Emmanuel Macron, back in Paris, or is hugging his other dear friend, Volodymyr Zelensky, in Downing Street. Those are the people that Stama feels he can relax with, not, as I said, the mass, the critical mass of the people of Britain, especially not those who used to be the core supporters of Britain's Labour Party. Just saying, now, I'm afraid about Farage, I agree. I mean, he had his conference.

Some interesting ideas came out of reform. I don't think it comes together to set out a platform. I also think that Farage almost certainly underestimates the challenge that he's going to face. He's going to find if he ever becomes Prime Minister that the entire bureaucracy is operating against him and that the economic situation in Britain is much, much worse than he has been told. or than the British people have even been told. So I don't think he understands yet the scale of the crisis. But yes, I agree in proximate terms.

Here's what is to come. And of course, if the Labour Party does dump Stama, whoever takes his place, not only is not going to be any better, but the situation inevitably is going to get worse. because when Starmer is dumped, people will know that the prime minister can be dumped as a result of inter-party coups. And plotting inevitably is going to increase as the Labour Party becomes increasingly desperate. Eventually, as I said, they will all fall apart. And, well, then we'll see what happens.

Trump going to the UK, Trump in the UK for two days, meeting with with perhaps one of the most unpopular leaders the UK has ever had, probably one of the most unpopular leaders in the entire world on this planet. He is universally despised except by the globalist elite and the Brussels technocrats and kleptocrats. But anyway, Trump meeting with this guy, with Stammer, at a time when the UK is a complete mess, a complete basket case. with all of this Epstein stuff floating around. Not a good look. And he also has the issue with the Russian sanctions and his ultimatum to NATO member states,

which is don't buy Russian oil and tariff China. And then I'll join you guys in sanctions or else I'm done with you guys. So you have all of this stuff going on. and Trump is going to immerse himself in it. If I was the US, if I was in the White House, I would cancel the trick. Well, indeed, absolutely. But can I make it? Just saying.

Can I make a further point, which is that, of course, if Trump had done what we said he should have done before the presidential election took place, walked away from Ukraine. So this is Biden's problem. This is Europe's problem. It's got nothing to do with me. I've never believed in this. You people can sort it all out by yourselves. If he'd already taken that step,

if he distanced himself from the Europeans altogether, there would be no embarrassments or problems about this trip. In fact, it's more likely than not the trip would never have happened, and he would not have had to worry, and his media people would not have had to worry. about the look that's going to be when he ends up, as you absolutely rightly say, standing shoulder to shoulder with the most unpopular leader probably in the Western world. I think Stama probably is that. I mean, Macron, perhaps polls even worse.

But I can get to say this. I think Macron has more admirers within the political elite in France. and in Brussels than Stama does. Stammer is just seen by pretty much everybody as a zero. So why is Trump wasting his time with a loser like him? But there it is. He made that choice. Why is he wasting his time?

I'm asking you. Maybe you have to go through with it. You've committed to it. Exactly. But wouldn't it be better if Trump went there? Maybe Trump should go there and just tell Stammer, hold elections, man. It's over. It's over. Elections next month. That's what I want. Yeah, no. Maybe he would. Maybe he would. I mean, it would be an interesting development if you did,

by the way. I mean, just to say. But for the moment, at least, he's committed to this trip. He made the decision to accept the invitation in February. As I said, it was a mistake. I thought it was a mistake then. But there it is. He's got to go through with it now. The whole thing is an exercise, I suppose, in containing the damage. Just the final question. Is he walking into some sort of a media trap, Trump with all the Mandelso and Epstein stuff? Well, maybe. And of course, the media here in Britain is even more hostile to him than the mainstream media and the United States is.

Just say. All right. We will end the video there. The durand.com. We are on X rumble and telegram. Go to the Durandshop, pick up some merch like what we are wearing in this video update. There is a link in the description box down below. Take care.