In This Episode
Coco’s back! She’s both sleep and politics deprived, but Nish is ready to fill her in.
The government’s shake-up of legal migration laws landed this week – but the news has been dominated by one question. Is Keir Starmer Enoch Powell incarnate? His speech warned that we ‘risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks together’ – a careless comment or a reaction to Reform gains? Nish and Coco dissect and take a deep dive into the government’s plans with Minnie Rahman, CEO of migrants’ rights charity Praxis.
Next up, the Government are jumping for joy about the US-UK trade deal, but Nish struggles to find anything to say… is this just a downgrade portrayed as an upgrade?
The race for the next leader of the Greens is on, and will Youngblud make a foray into politics? Nish and Coco discuss how to capture the youth vote. And grassroots football teams are fighting back against the FA’s ban on trans women playing football.
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Guest:
Minnie Rahman, CEO of Praxis
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TRANSCRIPT
Coco Khan Hi, this is Pod Save the UK. I’m Coco Khan.
Nish Kumar I’m Nish Kumar, and Coco, you are back!
Coco Khan I’m back! Don’t call it a comeback, because also I’m just still in my flat, so it’s not really quite. I’m sleep deprived. I’ve hardly followed any politics for the last month, to be completely honest. But if I had to guess what’s been happening, I’d say it’s probably not that dissimilar to what was happening before I left. So the Tories are in shambles, Labour is becoming the Tories in how they’re turning right, and everyone is running scared of Nigel Farage.
Nish Kumar That sums it up, yep. On the show today, we’ll talk about Labour’s rightward moves with their immigration white paper, and we’ll be chatting with Minnie Rahman, CEO of the charity campaigning on migrant rights, Praxis.
Coco Khan Plus I hear there’s some trade deals afoot. Is this a win for Keir Starmer?
Nish Kumar It’s complicated. We’ll also have an update on the Green Party’s leadership race and we’ll be asking should we be looking beyond our regular political choices. So Coco, how have you been? I wanna know, the listeners wanna know. Everybody wants to know.
Coco Khan Well, I mean, you know, having a baby for the first time is a very emotional experience. There’s been enormous highs, some of the greatest highs of my life and some of the greatest lows of my life, often just 10 minutes in between them. So it really is, you just sort of mainlining life is everything’s very raw and very heightened, but you know it’s, it’s good. I’m very sleep deprived. I hallucinate now from sleep deprivation.
Nish Kumar I will say that motherhood doesn’t seem to have changed you. I have had several conversations with you in the past where I ask you what you’ve been up to and you say there’s been a lot of highs and a lot of lows and there are occasional hallucinations.
Coco Khan In a way, it’s just a sort of natural progression really. Who needs acid when you can have a baby? I mean, it really is opening doors of perception. I had this moment the other day. I hope this is not a violation of my son’s privacy, but he had terrible trapped wind for about sort of 48 to 72 hours. He was crying constantly and then the poo comes, the giant poo. Oh, hallelujah, the poo. And so we sort of settle him down and then I go out into the back garden. It’s been beautiful sunshine here in London but I hadn’t seen any of it because I’ve just been in the four walls of my home and I just opened the door and felt the sun on my face and all I could think about was Shawshank Redemption. Just that bit where Tim Robbins character comes out of the sewers and he’s pulling at his shirt and there’s rain on his face and it’s so elated. I just had that Morgan Freeman voice, You know, Coco walked through the shits and the piss.
Nish Kumar Yeah, exactly. You were walking through miles of shit and piss.
Coco Khan Yeah, it was, in a way, that high justifies so many of the lows.
Nish Kumar So you’re doing okay even though you just compared the process of having a child to the most famous film about prison.
Coco Khan Yeah, I think that tracks actually. That really tracks. I apologize in advance because I’m really out of the loop with with politics. I mean, you should see my YouTube algorithm. It’s just like how to fart a baby, how to wind a baby. I feel there is probably some kind of opportunity for us at Pod Save the UK to combine these two things. One of my mates, I mentioned this in passing to about, oh, you know, I don’t know anything about politics. Everything’s been about my baby’s nappy regime. And she said, well, that’s actually quite convenient because all you need to know about this week is that Keir Starmer’s shat his pants.
Nish Kumar Yes. So look, let’s try and bring you up to date on what you missed. The Prime Minister has had quite the week. First of all, and perhaps strangest, and let’s just get through this so we’ve said it and then we can move on. He became the center of a wild Russian-backed conspiracy theory that he was taking cocaine with Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Mertz whilst on a train traveling to Kyiv.
Coco Khan They call him Geir Starmer, that’s what they call him. No one believes that though, do they?
Nish Kumar So there was a photograph and it looked like there was white powder on the table, people were saying on the internet that it was a bag, it’s not a bag it’s just a tissue. But the internet remains absolutely unconvinced. So after being the center of that nightmarish conspiracy theory, he was then at the center a string of events that absolutely nobody wants to see. Two properties owned by Stammer caught fire, including his family home in North London, after they were targeted by a series of arson attacks.
Coco Khan Wow. I wasn’t really expecting that story to end up there.
Nish Kumar But look, in more normal political news, there was a speech announcing the government’s immigration plans that Stammer made this week at the announcement of the White Paper. And here’s what I would say, if you are planning on making a speech about immigration in the United Kingdom, what I’d do is I would look at the text and just before I hit print, I would quickly Google Enoch Powell, rivers of blood, and just have quick, you know, control F. Just to make sure that there are no phrases that overlap with one of the most infamously racist speeches in British political history. However, either Keir Starmer or someone at his office failed to hit control F. Let’s have a quick listen to it now.
CLIP Nations depend on rules, fair rules. Sometimes they’re written down, often they’re not. But either way they give shape to our values, guide us towards our rights, of course, but also our responsibilities, the obligations we owe to each other. Now in a diverse nation like ours, and I celebrate that, These rules become even more important. Without them, we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.
Nish Kumar Just in case there are people unfamiliar, the rivers of blood is a speech that was made by Enoch Patil, a conservative politician in Birmingham on the 20th of April 1968. Become this kind of totemic moment in public expressions of British anti-immigrant sentiment. The essence of the speech is that a multicultural society which allowed immigration would essentially collapse social cohesion. Give me what summer said yesterday is probably worth specifically quoting that speech. And this is what Powell said, for reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country. They found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in Chaba, their children unable to obtain school places, their homes and neighborhoods changed beyond recognition. Now, it’s worth pointing out that Keir Starmer and various people around the Prime minister have denied that there are any link between the two speeches. But I’m sorry to say, we’ve all got eyes and have the power of literacy. Given that what Stammer is saying is essentially along the same lines as Powell in that mass immigration has collapsed social cohesion in the United Kingdom, given the use of the Island of Strangers line, the rest of us can be forgiven. For making the direct comparison. Among the critics were suspended Labour Mp Zara Sultana, who wrote on social media that speech fuelled decades of racism and division. Echoing it today is a disgrace. It adds to anti-migrant rhetoric that puts lives at risk. The accusation was put to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper on Radio 4’s Today program on Tuesday.
CLIP I don’t think it’s right to make those comparisons, it’s completely different and the Prime Minister said yesterday, I think almost in the same breath, talked about the diverse country that we are and that being part of our strength. I’m not saying it is enough, Paul, I’m saying…
CLIP I’m not saying it is Enoch Powell, I’m saying did he know, did his speechwriters know, did you know that he was Enoch Power and are you uncomfortable with it? Is it unnerving? John McDonnell said to you in the Commons yesterday, it was shockingly divisive. Words matter, language matters.
CLIP No, I think we do actually have to be able to have a serious conversation about the policies.
Coco Khan My goodness, that’s chilling stuff that isn’t it? So I was listening to the news agents and Lord Dubs, who’s been a former guest on this show. I mean, he was quite upfront about it, I suppose, given his own story coming over on the Kindertransport. I think we should listen to him when he says he recognizes the sounds and the smell of encroaching fascism. He said it himself. Yes, it is reminiscent of Enoch Powell.
Nish Kumar The journalist and historian Taj Ali pointed out on X that there were indeed rivers of blood after Enoch Powell made his speech. Racist violence doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It is enabled by rhetoric from the top. Stammer was very clear that this was a policy announcement and wasn’t reactive politics. But coming so soon after reform made such notable gains in the by-election, it’s hard to not see this as an act of reactive political cowardice. And an attempt to head off Nigel Farage. But I just also want to raise the issue of the riots that happened last summer on the 4th and 5th of August. Full blown race riots happened in this country. The very fact that the Prime Minister, and I don’t care if it’s a Labour Prime Minister or a Conservative Prime Minister – I’m past caring at this point – the very fact that less than a year from those riots, when for a period of time in this country people of color lived in fear of their lives and feared for their safety, the very fact that Prime Minister is now pointing the finger at immigration and mass immigration as the reason for disruption in social cohesion is. Morally abhorrent. A lot of us in this country last summer felt like strangers in our own home. There were a huge number of us that felt suddenly a violent disconnect with the place in which we were born or the place that we had lived for most of our lives. This speech, from my perspective, felt like Starmer was offering the hand of friendship to the rioters last summer. I’m sure that there will be people that would disagree with beyond that. As a person of color that was born in this country and considers it my home, Starmer’s words make me feel like a stranger in my own back garden and that is not something that I expect from any British politician in 2025. The rhetoric was so reminiscent of Powell and it has left me with a kind of genuine feeling of disquiet. My sense of the speech is that it was attempting to placate racists, and I’m sure people will have views on it, I’m so sure people have views of my views, and that’s fine, but I just wanted to articulate the way that that speech made me feel personally. Beyond the rhetoric, let’s actually talk about what’s in the white paper, so it’s a hefty package of policies that promises to cut net migration by not only curbing irregular migration but by tightening legal routes into the UK too. It’s been described as the most radical shift in the immigration policy of this country since we left the European Union and it could be decisive at the next election.
Coco Khan So the plan includes strict English language requirements, cuts to legal migration routes, including scrapping visas for overseas care workers, as well as stricter rules for international students and raising the qualification threshold for the skilled worker route. It will also make it harder for people living and working in the UK to secure permanent settlement. It doubles the length of time. Most people need to wait before applying from five years to 10.
Nish Kumar But will this address Labour shortages in the Nhs or the care service? Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, put this very question to the House of Commons on Monday.
CLIP There’s been no speaking up about the enormous value of migration in this country that’s kept our NHS running, our education service running and so much more, and that there are already 130,000 vacancies in the care sector. Does anything in her white paper do anything to improve community relations or deal with the now Labour shortage within the NHS and the care service, or is it all about trying to please these people who unfortunately sit in front of me?
Nish Kumar For clarity and for those listening to the podcast, these people that Corbyn is referring to are Nigel Farage and his reform cronies who are sat in the clip directly in front of Corby, grinning like Cheshire cats. Now look, I don’t know how many times we can keep repeating the same phrase. The lesson of British politics in the last 15 years particularly is that you cannot out-Farage Nigel Farrarge. All you do is you give his perspectives credibility. David Cameron comes to office on a wave of promises to stop the conservative party’s obsession with the European Union. He dismisses euroskeptics on the right of the British political spectrum as being a basket of loonies, fruitcakes, and closet racists. Then, over the course of the 2010 to 15 parliament, he finds himself in a political tight spot. He then promises a referendum on the European Union to placate Nigel Farage. He then loses that referendum and it costs him his political career. Since then, successive conservatives have attempted to placade Nigel by heading him off either with policy or with rhetoric. It has not worked. There is no reason to believe that it is going to work for Keir Starmer. Nigel himself told Newsnight’s Nick Watt that Starmer’s language was a catastrophic mistake that will split the left in two. Maybe if you’re willing to listen to Nigel Farage on certain issues, listen to him on this fucking issue. Labour Mps are up in arms about this, especially when combined with welfare reforms and winter fuel payment cuts. Koko, what will this do to the Labour Party?
Coco Khan I mean, look, there’s lots of problematic Labour Mps, sure, but if I was giving many of them the benefit of the doubt, I expect they join the Labour Party because they think it is a party for progress and they probably have some sense that migration and diversity is good. I can’t imagine many of them are very comfortable with this. I just want to come back to something that Yvette Cooper said, because it’s really wrangled me and it’s going around in my head when she talked about like, oh, we have to have a grown up conversation about this. I really deplore that. Line that is trotted out when anyone says anything racist. If you want to have a grown-up conversation about migration, okay, let’s have it then, mate. Let’s have a conversation about climate change, which is displacing loads of migrants. Let us have a conversation about bad wars that we do not need to be involved in that is also displacing lots of migrants, let us have conversation about the failed privatization project that has plunged loads. Of ordinary people into poverty. And let’s have a conversation about neoliberal capitalism and how it’s individualized everyone so that we no longer have a sense of community. Come on then, if you think you’re hard enough, let’s a grownup conversation, but they won’t do it. They’ll just do the same line over and over again. Anyway, it’s really infuriates me. And I’m sure I’m certainly not the only person in the left. And I am sure there’s Labour Mps in that group who would feel the same. I would not be surprised if this is the final straw. Know, after winter fuel payments, child benefits, it’s a lot. Who is this party? I expect a lot of MPs might be asking, did I sign up for this?
Nish Kumar Well, look, after the break, we are going to attempt to have that grown up conversation about immigration and try and separate some of the rhetoric from the policy.
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Nish Kumar So the rhetoric around the immigration white paper is harsh. Nigel Farage is jumping for joy, but the rightward lurch hasn’t been well received by unions and sector leaders. Rosalind Gill, head of policy at the National Center for Universities and Businesses, warned that the crackdown on international students will jeopardize the sustainability and global connectivity of UK universities.
Coco Khan And in response to the scrapping of the overseas care worker visa, Professor Martin Green, the CEO of Care England, has said international recruitment wasn’t a silver bullet, but it was a lifeline. Taking it away now with no warning, no funding and no alternative. It’s not just short sighted, it’s cruel.
Nish Kumar So there certainly is a lot to unpack. To help take us through the government’s plans is Minnie Rahman. Minnie is the CEO of Praxis, an organization that campaigns to end the hostile environment for migrants, and is the largest provider of free immigration advice in London. Minnie, welcome to Pod Save the UK.
Minnie Rahman Hi guys, thanks so much for having me.
Nish Kumar Yeah, I wish we were having you in slightly cheerier circumstances, but I guess your job title precludes cheerier circumstance.
Minnie Rahman Yeah, it’s not been nice for the last however many years I’ve worked in this sector.
Nish Kumar So what do you make as a kind of first reaction to the government’s plans?
Minnie Rahman It’s a difficult one because in some instances, the bark of this paper is in some ways worse than the bite. And there’s a lot of bits of different detail in there, which is quite conflicting and difficult to untangle. For us as an organization, there’s there’s few bits in there which we’re really worried about. The first bit, obviously being the kind of rhetoric that’s used. How is that going to impact migrant communities? What is this going to do for racial discrimination in the country? Who is going to be looked at as a kind of stranger or a target, someone to treat in isolation and someone who doesn’t belong as part of our communities. And then we have the very real policy changes in there, some of which, as you alluded to, refer to kind of care workers and students. But there’s also quite a significant bit in the paper which talks about people’s right to settle in the UK and to become citizens. And ultimately, that’s the bit that I think is really going to affect the kind of people that Praxis sees every day and also just for people who’ve been in the country for quite a long period of time already.
Nish Kumar What are those changes?
Minnie Rahman So what the government is essentially proposing is to make it harder for you to get something called indefinite leave to remain. So that’s your permanent status in the UK. So there’s lots of different routes to settlement. One of which was the five-year route, which a lot of people on work visas are on and a lot different kind of people are on. And they’re gonna scrap that route and make it a 10-year root. So what that means is every two and a half years for 10 years, you’re going to have to pay thousands and thousands of pounds to stay here. And then at the end of that 10 years you’ll get the opportunity to become a sort of permanent citizen. And what we see in praxis is that along that journey, they’re pushed into a cycle of debt, destitution, and even poverty, because they’re paying these extortionate fees and because they are not allowed access. To the public safety net through something called No Recourse to Public Funds. So the government is now proposing putting a lot more people on that route, which means we’re just basically telling people that you can come here, we’ll exploit you, we’ll use you for your work, your Labour, maybe even your kind of cultural contributions, but we’re not gonna let you stay and we’re gonna punish you along the way for wanting to be here. So for us, that’s a kind of really concerning actual policy choice, but it’s also concerning in terms of the narrative and what we’re telling people who want to make their lives here.
Coco Khan So the government plans to introduce a contribution space system. So it’s this idea that, you know, you’re explaining there that immigrants need to earn their Britishness, you they’re inherently strangers and then they need to earn their Britishness and at the minute they’ve put on this timeline of 10 years, but there is always a question that, which is, you know, how long does that actually go on for? Am I a stranger because of the color of my skin? I mean, do you think it’s fair to say that this rhetoric is dangerous and will impact not just migrants but just people of color, people from different backgrounds who are British.
Minnie Rahman Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, we’ve always seen a kind of weird combination of rhetoric and policy. So the hostile environment, which Praxis campaigns on and which has been in place since 2012, the language around that was, let’s make the UK a really hostile place for migrants so they don’t come here. But then it introduced some actual policies which- really have put racial discrimination into our public services and into the way the country works. So for example, you have something called right to rent, which is that you have to show a visa before you can rent a house. Landlords themselves say, well, actually, if we have a list of people, which is like John Smith and Mini Ramen, we’re more likely to take John Smith because, you know, we don’t want to carry out this check and we don t want to get it wrong. So landlords themselves say, the Resident Landlords Association did a piece of work on this a few years ago, saying that we’re implementing racial discrimination because of this set of policies. And I think the track of having both a horrible narrative and policies which put that kind of discrimination into the country means that we are in the position that we in now where reform is on the rise, where riots are happening across the country, where these things are relatively uncontrolled. And for some reason, the government thinks that the best idea is to keep pursuing that narrative instead of doing something different.
Nish Kumar The overarching aim of the White Paper is to cut net migration, which according to the ONS has quadrupled since pre-pandemic levels. Taking all of our opinions out of this for the moment, will the measures in the White paper actually work.
Minnie Rahman I mean, there’s nothing progressive or achievable about this, to be honest. I’m not an economist, which makes it even weirder that I seem to know this information and the government doesn’t. But let like really the question you want to answer is, why are people out of work in the UK? Why is there no jobs in the U.K.? What impact is net migration having? And I think it’s a really disingenuous kind of of the issues in the country. To claim that reducing net migration is going to have a positive impact in any way on the issues we’re seeing in the country. So look, of course, if you cut people’s visas, less people are gonna come into the UK. If you make it more difficult to get into the U.K., that is gonna happen. But that is not going to be good for the economy. So you can’t kind of treat it in isolation. And the reason why people are out of work or the reason why. We’re having a high level of unemployment is for numerous reasons. We’ve had some huge economic shocks to the country, COVID, Brexit, rising energy prices, all of which disrupts spending, consumer flows affect businesses. There’s also a lack of investment, like regional inequality exists. And then on top of that, people are not working because there’s a lack of childcare support, or there’s long-term sickness through mental health, or there is a lack skills training. None of that, none of reducing net migration is gonna create a situation in where we resolve that. So, saying that we’ll reduce net migration and everything is gonna improve is just false and really quite disingenuous because that’s just not how the economy works.
Nish Kumar But that it’s really important that we dig into this, you know, as some sort of tries to hold together a kind of electoral coalition in a single speech around immigration, the red meat that he’s offered one side is Island of Strangers. Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize this sounded exactly like Enoch Powell. I didn’t mean rivers of blood. I meant streams of plasma, whatever that half of this thing is. The other half of it is he’s trying to simultaneously make the progressive case. That mass migration has led to a kind of exploitation of cheap immigrant Labour as a way of undercutting British workers. Mass migration is an expression of free market capitalism. Where do you stand on this argument? Because it’s really important, because this is the case that Labour is making to its core voters.
Minnie Rahman It’s a scapegoating. It’s way of being able to tell a story to the country about why everything is currently failing. And I don’t want to kind of deny the fact that the country is not in a good place, right? We have poor housing, the NHS is struggling, the care system is struggling. The cost of living crisis is going up and people are really feeling that on the ground. And I think this kind of migrants stealing jobs from British workers is just a way to tell a story to the public which takes responsibility away from the government from actually having to kind of resolve these issues. Now the problem is is that when we get to the next election in a few years time or whenever it might be and this hasn’t improved the situation for people on the ground because because it won’t people won’t see migration reducing and a positive impact on the country. What will happen at the next election and the only option is for people to kind of go further towards the right and further towards reform because reform is saying they’ll achieve everything Labour can’t with the same narrative. They’re basically finding a way to make that narrative acceptable and I think what’s really difficult for progressives is for us to kind of make this argument in a positive way that actually migrants are really beneficial to the economy, but they’re also just fine as people. There’s no problem with migrants being in the UK. There is no problem with black and brown people being in UK. We’ve had a positive impact on British society and also we’ve got historical colonial relationships with the UK and we have to accept that. So for me I think the problem is how do we win this argument without playing on the same terms as Labour and the right at the moment.
Nish Kumar Starmer said that we’re charging employers more to recruit from overseas and if they do, that must prove that they’re investing in British workers and increasing British skills. If you kind of create a gap in a sector that’s already on its knees, and that applies both to the social care sector and also the university sector, you know, they have had a lifeline from kind of international students coming. Is the problem partly here that they’re introducing this with no supplementary policy? That addresses how we fill that gap and does that mean it could be detrimental to the government’s growth agenda?
Minnie Rahman Yeah, absolutely. I mean, where are the strategies that match the impact of these kind of policies? If you listen to Yvette Cooper’s statement in the House of Commons, on the white paper, she basically was saying, oh, you know, we’ll do a consultation later on, we will think about this bit later on. Don’t worry, we’re doing, you know, We’ve got it under control, trust us. But here’s just a really set of nasty policies in the first instance. And they don’t have a long term plan for how they’re going to fix these things. And this is exactly what I was saying earlier that… You know, when the situation is ultimately worse and in a few years time, because these issues haven’t been resolved effectively and there’s no comprehensive strategy and this rhetoric’s gone up tenfold, what kind of country are we gonna be in four years time where we’re in a worse position and there is a very, very clear scapegoat coming from several political. Parties. That is really, really dangerous for everyone and quite concerning. And this strategy has been tried for nearly 15 years now. And the one thing that I think is really important in this whole story is that actually the voices of people in the care sector are missing. The voices of migrants who are carrying out domestic work are missing, the voices of students who’ve done their study here and then been cut out through the visa system are missing and we never hear from those people because we’re so busy hearing from the right and from reform and I’d really like to see some of those voices out there.
Nish Kumar Mini, beneath some of the inflammatory rhetoric, is there any actual nuance here? Because the white paper does briefly address the issue of exploitation caused by employees’ visas being tied to unscrupulous sponsors, and it also indicates that they will explore making it easier for workers to move between licensed sponsors. So, are these actual useful positives that we can sort of dredge out of this shipwreck?
Minnie Rahman Yeah, there are actually a few very small crumbs in there. So there’s, as you said, the suggestions that they will make it easier for workers to change sponsors, which is a major driver of exploitation. That’s a very welcome thing. And there’s also the introduction of a new route to settlement for parents whose children have died. And there’s also some suggestion about financial barriers to young adults who’ve lived here most of their lives. And us barred from citizenship. So there’s kind of a few tiny, very small wins in there, and they will have a big impact on the people that they affect. But ultimately, against the wider backdrop of the paper, it’s so minor and actually these, there’s lots of other little things like that that they could have done which aren’t in the paper. And that’s coming from a sort of policy nerd who’s like, well, why did they choose that over this? But yeah, it just doesn’t really have a meaningful impact on the big picture, but you know, I don’t want to detract that those are good things that are very welcome.
Coco Khan So Minnie, I just want to play you a clip from, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, Kemi Badenoch’s Twitter.
CLIP We need to make the wider case on immigration. We welcome migrants. Should immigration be reduced? Well, I don’t believe in numbers and I don’ believe in salary gaps. We’ve always welcomed people to work in this country. We could get a more positive route which didn’t take us into the place of numbers or quotas or your only worth. Having it, you could earn a certain amount of money. What about foreign nationals living in the UK? Should they get a vote? I would like us to look at that. The Labour Party’s been a bit scared of making the positive case for immigration for quite a number of years. I think we need to turn that round. The whole United Kingdom is better because of immigration.
Coco Khan Just for clarity, that was Keir Starmer there, making an argument for a more humane and progressive conversation on immigration. So you know, I think it’s hard to say which Keir starmer was the real Keir Starrmer. Is it that guy that we heard in the clip, or is it this guy that we’re hearing now doing speeches reminiscent of Enoch Powell? But putting that aside, Mini, how can we get back to that narrative about the positive case for immigration?
Minnie Rahman I feel really, really sad watching that clip. And I think it is really hard to tell whether that’s something that Keir Starmer believes in, or whether he’s just so scared about winning the next election that he just is saying everything that reform wants him to say. Look, I think the only thing that we can really do is try and bring a sort of basic level of honesty about what migration brings to our country. To the conversation. You know, that is what has been missing. I would like to see more people with kind of lived experience of migration and people who are black and brown, really being looked at as valuable stakeholders and voters and groups that should be thought about. And really, you know, migration has to be treated as part of the story and not the whole story. And actually, I would say that people need to start just kind of doing stuff in their local communities to stand up for each other and kind of say that this isn’t how our communities work. We’re not doing this alone. We are all part of the same community, whether you’re a migrant or not. And I think it’s that kind of ground level work that we need to do to actually battle the kind of winds that reform are having. It’s really difficult though, because the narrative is so. Wholly placed with where reform are sitting, that it feels like banging your head against a brick wall, but I think it will have an impact if we keep trying.
Nish Kumar Well, Minnie, we are grateful to you for continuing to bang your head against Cedric Wall.
Minnie Rahman Thank you.
Nish Kumar Thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save the UK, Minnie Rahman.
Coco Khan Thank you for having me. Now, after the break, we take a look into the UK-US nothing burger of a trade deal and ask should we be looking to new horizons for the next generation of politicians?
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Nish Kumar Now, Coco, with the immigration white paper story out of the way, we thought we’d catch you up on some of the other goings on in the world, and specifically the world of UK politics. So last week, the government signed a trade deal with the US and they were absolutely leaping for joy.
Coco Khan Okay, alright, catch me up!
Nish Kumar Nothing stirs the blood more than a trade deal. Number 10 called it a landmark economic deal that saves thousands of jobs. So on Friday morning I was poised to create a piece of content, but James the producer and I were on the WhatsApp group discussing whether we should do like a reaction video to the UK US trade deal and I started trying to write some notes and I just, there was nothing to talk about because there’s still so little detail. On what the trade deal actually involves, and so it was very difficult to make a comment on anything. There’s no actual clarity on what is going on.
Coco Khan Well, I mean, I’ve got some of the headlines in front of me and they do make for an amusing reading. So from the BBC, UK-US trade deal, platform for going further. A platform for, going further, okay. That sounds important. And then from Sky, UK US trade deal isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. I kind of like that one because it’s just a bit more straightforward. And in the Guardian, Britain hasn’t agreed a trade deal with the US. It’s ended a hostage negotiation.
Nish Kumar Look, it’s a win in a sense that we’re the first country to secure a deal with Trump, and it’s win in the sense that don’t have a 130% tariff like China did until this week. But let’s be real, this isn’t a free trade deal, and it is a downgrade that’s being portrayed as an upgrade. The government has said that it won’t back down on digital services tax on companies like Facebook, Amazon and Meta. There is an agreement that suggests we won’t be accepting chlorinated chicken, which is, again. Not actually something that we have in writing, but it’s something that hasn’t been committed to yet. The actual detail, though, is in steel and cars, so there had been an import tax. On cars of 25%. This has been cut to 10% for a maximum of 100,000 UK cars, which matches the number of cars that we exported to the Us last year. The 25% tariff on steel and aluminum imports into the US that came into effect in March has been scrapped, which is obviously very, very good news for British Steel, which has just been brought under government control as it struggled to stay operational. The problem is, especially in terms of the 10% car tariffs, it’s a win in the context of everything that’s happened since March, but it’s still a downgrade from where we were six months ago. Six months ago our tariff was 2.5%, now it’s 10% and we’re being told that that’s something we should accept as a huge win for the country. We’re being asked to accept. Defeat as victory in a lot of ways in terms of our trading relationships. Other positives include the NHS being completely off the cards for now. There’s no formal inclusion of carve-outs for the pharmaceutical industry or the film industry on future tariffs, either though both sides agreed to negotiate further on both. This is in reference to a story that happened a couple of weeks ago where Trump proposed a 100% tariff on films produced outside of the US, which given the size of our film industry and the fact that a lot of Hollywood films are choosing to film here, would be a huge, huge blow to the United Kingdom. Trump advisor Peter Navarro has also said that the UK’s digital service tax is still in negotiations and he has a very big deal to President Trump. Yeah, I’m fucking sure it’s a big deal to President Donald Trump. We saw the front row at his inauguration of Zuckerberg. Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, I’m sure the digital service tax is something that he’s getting a lot of pressure on from some of his biggest benefactors. There’s still a lot of detail missing from our trade agreement, and some of the details that we have are measurably a downgrade from the circumstances we found ourselves in six months ago. So It’s very difficult to walk away from this. I’ll be told that we’ve won anything.
Coco Khan It could have been worse is the slogan of the Labour Party at the moment. I feel like that’s really what they’re asking us to buy into. It’s just, okay, well, it could have been worse with the Tories. Well, it couldn’t have been worst with Trump. And yeah, I hear you on this. It sounds like a lot of hot air. I guess maybe we should have given Donald Trump a plane. Don’t know if you saw that story. Did you see that story about how the Qataris have gifted Trump a basically a flying palace? Replace Air Force One, which he’s saying is like, you know, totally cool thing to happen. I mean, I was speechless about it. But maybe that’s what we should have done. Should have got him a flying Buckingham Palace, a flying Morley’s really in spirit of the chicken win.
Nish Kumar Yes, I don’t know how wide Amelia de Moldenburg is looking to expand her booking policy and if Donald Trump is planning on being his to her next chicken shop date, but I think this is right. He gets to keep the plane after his term in office ends, which is obviously, it goes back to one of the oldest sayings in the book, it’s not corruption when white people you’re involved. When white people are involved, it’s a sensible grown up trading relationship. If both sides of this equation had been East Asian or black or brown people, let me tell you, it would have been outright corruption, it would’ve been a disgrace. These third world people don’t know how to run their countries. This is disgusting. Oh, there’s a white guy Guys, this is sensible grown-up. International relations between countries. And actually, you guys need to end your kind of student politics era of the president of the America should not just accept random planes from dodgy oil states.
Coco Khan It’s like the word bribe has fallen out of the dictionary, hasn’t it? You can’t bribe a white person.
Nish Kumar Proportionately reward them for kids or services rendered. Another update on a story that we were talking about last week while you were away, Coco is the Green Party leadership. We heard that Zach Polanski would challenge for it. Shortly after we published the pod, we heard that Carla Denier, former guest of the show and co-leader with Adrian Ramsey, had decided not to recontest the leadership and was choosing to focus instead on her role as a new MP. Replacing her alongside Ramsey is Ellie Chowns, a longtime Green councilor and the former. MEP. Obviously, it feels strange to remind listeners of this, but MEP stands for Member of the European Parliament, which obviously is something that we no longer have cause for.
Coco Khan Yeah, those were the days. It’s set up to be an interesting contest. I was surprised to see the co-leadership proposition continue. I mean, it’s really becoming their USP. I think in a way, maybe it’s quite cool. We have a co leadership vibe.
Nish Kumar Yeah, yeah.
Coco Khan I’m very much the Adrian Ramsey to your Carla Denia in that nobody knows who the fuck I am, but you know, still I persist. There are other political aspirants on the scene though, so here’s a clip of the BBC’s Laura Koonsberg asking Gen Z musical icon and outspoken progressive Youngblood if he’d consider entering politics.
CLIP You know what, I’ve actually thought about that. I know it’s crazy. It’s not crazy? I feel like you start something as a musician and then you kind of connect with people on a daily basis. I always make an effort to see people outside the gigs and see people walk around the festival. And this whole community was built on human connection about how people live and what people struggle with. And I thought maybe one day I think I could do something. That would be I could provide some good somewhere. So yeah, I think that has actually crossed my mind Young blood the politician
Nish Kumar I don’t know, that’d stand up. You described his music in an incredible way to me the other day, Coco. You called him emo, but in a new way.
Coco Khan Why are you trying to publicly shame me?
Nish Kumar I’m not trying to publicly shame you, I actually thought it was a pretty decent descriptor.
Coco Khan I thought that is the case. I’m not familiar with his entire oeuvre, but as I understand it, you know, he’s a really cool young artist, but sometimes I look at things from the youth and I think, get your own culture, mate. So I see Young Blood and I understand that he is a new emo and I’m here for it.
Nish Kumar Were you an emo? Is that why you’re so defensive about this?
Coco Khan I would not classify it as defensive, I was emo adjacent.
Nish Kumar You know?
Coco Khan Yeah, yeah. I had a lot of emo friends. I was more Franz Ferdinand. They were more my chemical romance. But we would hang around in areas of the park in which we would uniformly get bullied by cooler kids. I’ve got no problem with the emotes.
Nish Kumar What do you think about Youngblood taking a run, a seat as an MP?
Coco Khan Look, on a like more serious note, I think it’s really cool that he has said that he’s interested in in politics. You know, we’re looking at a problem of total disillusionment around politics with younger audiences. And so for someone from that crop of of the young people, God, I’m really sounding so ancient.
Nish Kumar What’s happened? You’ve had a baby and you’ve aged about 15 years in a month.
Coco Khan I know, I know. Like to have someone from that demographic saying like, look, you know, politics still has a power. I can see how it could be something that I would want to dedicate my life to. I think it’s genuinely really, really powerful. And I would love to see him actually do it, like get involved. I’d be very curious to know what party you would run in. You know, he’s progressive. We know that. Would it be Labour? I can’t really see it right now. Maybe it would be the Greens, maybe, you know, Zach Polanski and Adrian Ramsey and Ellie Chowns. They need to watch out because maybe Young Blood is on the on the come up.
Nish Kumar It has been a successful route, particularly for the U.S. Conservatives, to get celebrities in Reagan, Trump. I don’t have a concern particularly about Youngblood involving himself in politics. I think that’s absolutely fine. I just think that there is always a danger of patronizing young people. And actually, the most important thing in terms of reaching out and engaging young people in politics is actually addressing policies that concern them directly. Y’know. We know what concerns young people. It’s housing, it’s employment opportunities, it’s the environment. These are the policies that are going to engage and animate a younger generation and involve them in politics. I think that another week where all we’ve talked about in this country is immigration, which is not particularly an issue that animates the majority of younger voters, whilst the country continues to kind of slide into. Permanent, seemingly permanent economic decline and opportunities for young people decrease by the day. This has not been a good week for involving young people in politics. I think we’re now on the 750th consecutive week of this not being a good week for young people in politics.
Coco Khan Absolutely
Nish Kumar I’m all for pop stars running, but we also need policies that actually speak to a younger electorate.
Coco Khan Right. I get why there is a skepticism of celebrities entering politics. I mean, look at Donald Trump, right? Like this is the worst case scenario of a celebrity entering politics, but just because that’s happening on the right doesn’t mean that if it was done on the left, they would necessarily follow the same tack. And I think it’s also worth saying that like, we’ve had a number of politicians on this show talk about how hard it is to be a politician. Like if you want diverse voices, different voices, progressive voices to come up into politics, you know At the moment, the political roots are, they’re not there, they are not there for those voices to come up. And also the life of those politicians is, you know, they face enormous amounts of abuse, particularly if they’re from, you now, marginalized communities. So why not cherry pick someone from a different field? Youngblood, I reckon he’s got those transferable skills. You know, he’s passionate, he is compelling, he, you, know, going against the grain. He’s also an emo, that’s not related, but I think it bears repeating that he is an emo. So yeah, I think, it’s really exciting. I just hope he does it now.
Nish Kumar Coco’s definitely an emo.
Coco Khan So now we just wanted to end on a bit of a shout out for some grassroots football teams trying to make a difference. So recently following the Supreme Court ruling on gender, the Football Association made the unfortunate decision to ban transgender women from competing in women’s football in England.
Nish Kumar Goal Diggers, a Hackney-based women’s football team which includes trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming players, had this to say in response. We will always be a trans-inclusive club. Trans women are women. Hate won’t win. Solidarity and love to all our trans teammates, friends and siblings.
Coco Khan And they’ve gone further. So inspired by designer Connor Ives’ Protect the Dolls t-shirt, they’ve teamed up with fellow team Baller FC to release a Let the Doll’s Play t- shirt with all the proceeds going to the Good Laws Project. They’re challenging the Supreme Court decision.
Nish Kumar There is a small disclaimer here. Our producer May is one of the members of Gold Diggers. So we declare an interest, but well done to May and the team. It’s a really, really lovely thing that they’re doing.
Coco Khan And if you want the t-shirt, you will find the link in our show notes. Speaking of show notes, by the way, you’ll also find a link to one of Nisha’s shows.
Nish Kumar Yes, I’m filming my tour show Nish Don’t Kill My Vibe at the Hackney Empire on the 24th of May. This is the last time I’ll do the show in London. We’ve released the last remaining tickets. There was a show at 5pm and a show out at 8.30pm.
Coco Khan Very exciting.
Nish Kumar I’m a consummate self-promoter.
Coco Khan Yay!
Nish Kumar That’s the thing about me, for people watching the podcast on YouTube, you will actually be able to see me frantically Googling my name and hack the empire.
Coco Khan You know what, I’m sure I’ve told you before, but I love the name of your tour. sure I told you that, but like every time you say it, I love it. I love it because I’ve seen the show and it’s definitely not a vibe killer. It’s amazing. It’s like laugh out loud, funny, obviously, as we would expect, but also genuinely inspiring.
Nish Kumar Thanks, Coco.
Coco Khan God, this was earnest. You can tell I’ve been locked away in prison, isn’t it? I’m coming out in this moment of just telling all my beloved ones, like, I think you’re really great. I just want you to know, I just wanted you to know, they’re all like, it’s only been four weeks, mate. You’ve got to simmer down.
Nish Kumar More evidence that Coco Khan is an emo, Emo Khan.
Coco Khan Anyway, that’s it. Thanks for listening to Pod Save the UK.
Nish Kumar Don’t forget to follow at Pod Save The UK on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter and we’re on bluesky at podsavetheuk.crooked.com and if you want more of us, and we know you do, make sure you’re subscribed to our YouTube channel.
Coco Khan Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.
Nish Kumar Thanks to senior producer James Tyndale and producer May Robson.
Coco Khan Our theme music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos.
Nish Kumar The executive producers are Anishka Sharma and Katie Long, with additional support from Ari Schwartz.
Coco Khan And remember to hit subscribe for new shows on Thursdays on Amazon, Spotify, or Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
