Transcript
johngartside: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Debatable Discussions podcast. Today we're talking about sort and current affairs and we will be delving into three main topics.
John Gartside: So yes, you join us for an exciting episode today, as we're just delving into the world of current affairs and what's been dominating the news headlines. So, Diane, this hasn't been something which has been on the forefront of the UK news, but it has been at the front of the European news, and that is the recent Romanian elections.
John Gartside: So can you give our listeners a little insight, but also analysis into the recent Romanian elections?
johngartside: Yeah, so huge election yesterday, the second round of presidential election after the first ah two weeks ago. So the main two candidates are sort of eurosceptic,
johngartside: individual, very conservative, very traditionalist, nationalist. And then on the other hand, you have the mayor of Bucharest at the moment, who is also the president of Romania now.
johngartside: And he is sort of a centrist, liberal, progressive individual. So in the first round the election two weeks ago, we had this far-eyed candidate win 40% of the vote.
johngartside: So Romania operates system such as France, where the main two candidates after the first round of the election go in a head-to-head, one-on-one, sort of...
John Gartside: Thank you.
johngartside: match up in the second round of the election. First round of the election, the far-right candidate managed to gather about 41% of the vote, around 4 million votes, making him clearly the favourite to win.
johngartside: ah ah Yesterday, the mayor of Bucharest, on the other hand, only managed to get about 2 million votes, setting him at 20%, 21%.
johngartside: With the candidate of the sort of governing coalition placing third, about 100,000 votes difference, so about 1%. Now, why is this important? Well, the last election, there was a sort of 10 million voting turnout.
John Gartside: Okay. Yeah.
johngartside: It's really important to say that's about 50 to 53%. And this election yesterday, we had about 11 and a half, 12 million voting turnout.
John Gartside: I, well.
johngartside: something huge. So about 60 to 63% of the population voted.
johngartside: wast There was a sort of en masse mobilisation of people and, know, people got out voted. And yesterday the results show the far-right candidate got four and a half million votes.
johngartside: So more or less he peaked in the first round of the election. And then the other candidate, Nicolò Chordà, who's also the president Romania now, managed to gather about five and a half million votes.
johngartside: So why is this important? Well, a couple of things. Number one, um, um, it does show a bit of the, don't want say decline of the right, but it does say bit about the decline of the right. don't think it's as prominent as it was sort of a year ago.
johngartside: I think people have gotten disillusioned with it a little bit. Um, can see Romania, we can see this in Canada as well, Australia as well. But secondly, probably more importantly on the sort landscape is the fact that this wasn't something that was expected.
johngartside: It was this guy managed the George Simeon, the far right kind of manage in two weeks to go from being a hundred percent president to just shooting himself in the foot over and over again until
johngartside: At the end, he was on the operating table and no one could save him. And what he did was he did a couple of things. Number one, he went to a debate, got absolutely smashed, didn't understand what was going on, got destroyed of domestic and in in foreign politics, got destroyed every time he got angry, started making accusations, got destroyed there as well.
johngartside: Then from then on, he didn't go to a a single other debate. People were waiting for him to show up, never did anything. And instead of showing up to these presidential debates, campaigning in the country, he decided he was going to get so many votes that he was going to go to Poland and he's going to endorse a candidate in the Poland election.
johngartside: Then he went on French national TV, spoke in broken French, half in English, half in Romanian, couldn't manage to get two sentences across coherently, decided to insult the European Union and an Emmanuel Macron saying that they're dictators and they're meddling in Romanian elections.
John Gartside: Thank
johngartside: And in this run up in the last sort week or so, he has managed to lose the election by his own will.
johngartside: it's a good, it's a good time economically for Romania, I think. Well, the sort markets show that it's, uh, the euro compared to the remaining currency has has a sort of normalized again because there was the shock factor after the first round victory i think investors foreign investors are now again feeling secure about their money so i do think it's a a ah good outcome objectively and subjectively but i think it was an outcome that frankly is it's almost like he wanted to lose i mean
johngartside: This is the equivalent of sort of in, in UK terms or in US terms, even Donald Trump saying, I'm going to raise taxes a day before the election.
John Gartside: I've laughed.
johngartside: It's, it's stupid. It's silly. It's unnecessary, not called for. Uh, but thankfully he did it. And, uh, so by this, he managed to lose.
John Gartside: i mean, yeah, I find that quite interesting there because as you've just described, obviously we've been seeing this picture across Europe for the past few months, even about the past year, sort of as we approach now with the July election that happened in the UK, reaching its one year anniversary soon.
John Gartside: And we see that there has been a rise in the far right of Europe. However, that does seem to be diminishing. And you gave that example of Romania there. of how perhaps these more populist leaders aren't really able to attract votes as they come up against perhaps candidates from the left who are less obsessed of publicity rather than delivering solid policies.
John Gartside: But I think i it's a mixed picture across the world, though, because we haven't discussed it yet on the podcast, but we obviously had the Canadian election not too long ago.
johngartside: Yeah. Yeah.
johngartside: I think
John Gartside: mean, that was election which, in my eyes, wasn't perhaps a loss for the rights, but more a loss for Trump, because Trump lost that election for the right wing.
John Gartside: But in general, it shows the effect that a Trump presidency has on the right wing across the world. We saw it in the last
johngartside: Well, it's really interesting. It's really interesting because this guy, he was going around with MAGA hats, saying he's the Romanian Trump.
John Gartside: Oh wow. Yeah.
johngartside: He knows Trump. He loves Trump. I don't think people stood for that, I think.
johngartside: ah it does show, as you said, the impact Trump has had. And also, a very important thing we mentioned is is vote turnout. In low turnout elections, populists have a good chance of winning because they manage to get their people out to vote, which sort of the moderate right and the left don't really do.
johngartside: But in an election such as the one that happened yesterday with a shock factor from the first round with a 20% difference and a 15% of voter turnout, in an increase of 15% of voter turnout, I think that is very important to mention because I don't think society is necessarily one far-right people in power.
johngartside: It's just more about who actually gets up and and goes to the polling station on election day.
John Gartside: Yeah, yeah, yeah. i think that's true. I mean, mean, I think, yeah, it's hard. I mean, I think the world at right now at the moment is showing a far right tendency.
John Gartside: However, Trump, as you said, is a detriment.
John Gartside: You see Farage's branding. If you cast your mind back perhaps six months, we had those images of Farage Nick Candy in Mar-a-Lago with Trump.
John Gartside: Perhaps they met up with Elon Musk there. they You got this sort of image of them almost being best friends. long-lasting mates from childhood type thing.
johngartside: yeah
John Gartside: However, now Farage has distanced himself completely to Trump. He pretends like he almost doesn't know him practically now because he realises the detriment which wearing a MAGA hat, for example, as I'm sure the Romanian candidate will now know, causes.
johngartside: yeah
John Gartside: Because, yeah, Trump's really been a blessing in disguise. Thinking about Trump, I thought we could also perhaps touch on why Trump has recently been in the news.
John Gartside: And that is his Middle Eastern or tour of the Arabian Peninsula, which he's recently conducted.
John Gartside: I'll ask Dan for your thoughts in a second, but for any of our listeners who don't know, he's been around the Middle East.
johngartside: I mean,
John Gartside: He's met with many of these countries. He's agreed generous for trade deals with Qatar, Saudi Arabia. And notably, he accepted a gift from Qatar for $301 million Boeing 787 plane.
John Gartside: This plane is what Anthony Scaramucci, a close friend of the podcast, described as representing the quote unquote golden age of corruption in America.
John Gartside: This idea is that Trump and the Trump dynasty, and one can see it, they're sort of corrupt to the core. You've got Eric and Don Trump using the Trump name to sort of secure generous golf course deals and hotel deals across the Middle East in Qatar, for example. i think there's a new Trump Tower being constructed over there.
John Gartside: So these ideas, whether you like Trump or not, of basically what you'd call corruption are coming to light.
johngartside: right.
John Gartside: do you think about this, Diane? Yeah.
johngartside: I mean, mean, do think it's a bit outrageous, to be honest, especially as someone coming from a sort of Eastern European country. Sort of remnants of government corruptions are also quite apparent in most of the Eastern Bloc.
johngartside: You know, don't have to look very far. I'm not going to name countries, but don't have to look very far to figure out who's very corrupt and who isn't. But it is absolutely outrageous that they...
johngartside: are doing what they are doing at the moment. I mean, this plane is absolutely unnecessary. Trump was saying that a plane is 20 years old. That a very normal age for a plane.
johngartside: Planes are usually quite old. You know, they're not, they're not cars. You don't need to switch them every so five, 10 years. They can go on for 20, 30, 40 years even. And a a plane such as the Air Force One, especially,
John Gartside: It's a nice plane, I'm sure, yeah.
johngartside: I just don't see. It's a nice play. It's a really nice play. I just don't see why in order to get a new presidential plane, you need to go and get one from Qatar.
John Gartside: And also, even so, it's caused lots of doubts, obviously, because of Qatar's links to Hamas. Qatar's backed Hamas, which is quite contradictory for America, seeming that they're backing Israel in this conflict.
John Gartside: So this sort of corruption, if you call it, it raises so many questions. And also, I'll add in there as well.
johngartside: Yeah, I think, yeah,
John Gartside: Oh, I know.
johngartside: I think as well, you know, going, going and getting all these deals, all these hotel deals as well, it's just outrageous.
John Gartside: Oh, I
John Gartside: yeah. Yeah. see again.
johngartside: I don't think, I don't think any sitting president or sitting president's family should be using sort of diplomatic ties and diplomatic trips, you you know, to secure your hotel deals. I mean, what, why are you there in the first place?
johngartside: What's your job?
John Gartside: That's an interesting point you made there, because I don't know exactly what the sort of economic or financial term for this is. But typically, sitting US presidents will put basically all of their assets into a trust or a fund.
John Gartside: So and I think this, yeah, this blind trust, and this dates back to Nixon, basically in the 1970s, that all US presidents would basically put their money into a trust, and that would avoid there being a large conflict of interest, or avoid the president's family using their name to make more money.
johngartside: It's a blind trust. Yeah.
John Gartside: Well, obviously, with Eric and Don Jr., this has been quite the opposite with President Trump. They're using the Trump name money to make profit. And we are seeing this revival of the Trump real estate business, which financially actually took a sort of bit of a hit in between Trump's first term and his second term.
johngartside: Yeah.
John Gartside: But now that they can blast the Trump name across the world as he's as he's smiling alongside alongside leaders in the Middle East who are totally ideologically opposed to him on things like the Israel Gaza conflict but they offer him money so he'll say yes
johngartside: Yeah. i i mean, I do, I do think again, I think it's outrageous. I don't think this should happen. I, I, I would, I don't see any excuse that anyone can present to me saying that, well, but you know, they're still allowed to make, to have businesses that well, they shouldn't be.
John Gartside: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
johngartside: when that, in that position, you are your job, your job description is literally to only represent the US and their views.
johngartside: Your job is not to represent the US and their views whilst also promoting yourself and your own brand. That's, that's not the job. Um, and again, I, I, I find it just appalling.
John Gartside: And so for the final section and the final discussion of the podcast today, I thought we could touch on the recent UK-EU deal. This is a landmark deal, which is, well, inevitably, like any deal with the EU would, ah has attracted a lot of tension, a lot of disagreement over the UK, as it has on the day of recording on May the 19th.
John Gartside: It has been announced today. Now, for any listeners who don't know, this deal has agreed fishing, trade, defence and energy. And the principal sort of agreement was that European fishing boats have 12 year access to British waters.
John Gartside: And this forms biggest reboot since 2020, when the UK officially left the EU. Boris Johnson, obviously a Brexiteer, has, the words of the Telegraph newspaper, lambasted Sir Keir Starmer.
John Gartside: I won't read out all the quote, but he has called him an orange-bull-chewing, manacled gimp of Brussels.
johngartside: Okay.
John Gartside: He's also called it an appalling sailor, hopelessly one-sided and sacrificed US fishing interests.
johngartside: Right.
John Gartside: Now, that does have a bit of classic Boris literary poetic flair, as one could say.
johngartside: I mean, I mean, firstly, what, what S fishing interests, what U S fishing interests.
John Gartside: But what are your views on this new EU?
John Gartside: Oh, UK fishing.
johngartside: Oh, okay.
John Gartside: UK fishing. Sorry, that
johngartside: yeah, uh, well,
johngartside: I do find it a good deal.
John Gartside: Yeah.
johngartside: I think it's necessary for the UK to be a bit more connected the European continent.
John Gartside: Yeah.
johngartside: I think it's beneficial for everyone. again, this also allows the UK back into the Erasmus university exchange program, as well as a youth mobility scheme that would allow young people to access, uh, to the EU through work, study and travel.
John Gartside: Yeah.
johngartside: I think this is a good deal. I think there are some hardliners, to quote Vince Cable, who was also a a member of. I think there are some hardliners here.
johngartside: I think I'm sure if we look on Douglas Carswell's Twitter, going to see some delicious tweets.
johngartside: I think, John, if you can fish any of those out. But I don't think this is a bad deal in any way. I think this allows Britain, again, to bring investment into Britain that's necessary and the trade boost is obviously a positive thing I mean fishermen are very disappointed with the deal but really see I do think there's you know there's an old saying there's enough there's plenty of fish in the sea
johngartside: Yeah, I am positive about this deal. I think what says is the Defence Pact secures British access to a new 150 billion euros. of the EU rearmament fund through the UK.
johngartside: think that's good. Europe needs to definitely, strengthen itself militarily. And I think, you know, the UK not taking part in that effort would just be a bad decision for everyone involved.
johngartside: Uh, also it's an emissions trading deal. So exports would avoid 800 million of carbon border taxes. That's fantastic. you know opens up trade in between the communities and that's that's great again and there's ah ah another cooperation so point on crime and migration you know everyone from labor to reform has been saying there's a problem in migration and this allows allows that to come to a conclusion so i think it's a good deal
John Gartside: Yeah, I mean, I think there are advantages to it, but probably disagree with you on some of them. So there are some clear disadvantages, in my opinion. I think, and you pointed out there, was it the Erasmus scheme or this idea of mobility?
johngartside: Yeah.
John Gartside: That is something that actually is really good. primarily because the UK has a migration exodus at the moment. There's an exodus of wealthy and educated people leaving Britain, going to abroad.
John Gartside: Hence, a sort of youth mobility scheme of the most educated from the EU, or in fact, anyone, is useful for Britain, because we do want skilled people to, frankly, replace the people that are leaving the UK.
John Gartside: So I think that is very good. Obviously, there's a, as you said, the whole migration crisis means that anything's good. But there are a few, and also the e-gates as well.
John Gartside: You know, Dan, you have to travel lots, but I guess you're fine with being a European person, but that has caused some mild frustration amongst Brits in Europe.
johngartside: Yeah.
John Gartside: But for me, there are a few
johngartside: Yeah, it has. Yeah.
John Gartside: There are a few things which which do stand out for me as particularly sort of disadvantageous in this deal. Notably the fishing thing. I can understand the criticisms that it has totally disregarded the interests of British fishermen.
John Gartside: is because they don't have a protected access to this zone. And as Toby Young said as well, quite truly, So Kia has bound future governments within within this 12 year fishing rights deal.
John Gartside: And that is because there is actually clauses stating that the EU can effectively tax or put tariffs British exports. But there's also some other things I think, also on perhaps on slightly more Eurosceptic side of the whole debate.
John Gartside: it does seem like a bit of a step back. In the words of Douglas Carswell, mean, I don't agree anywhere near to the extent of Douglas Carswell, but it has almost been designed to inflame Eurosceptic sentiment.
johngartside: oh god oh god
John Gartside: Another man who's very good at using quite poetic literary language. But I do agree with this idea of surrenderism. We saw Sakiya make this trade deal over the Chagos Islands, which I thought was awful at the time.
John Gartside: It was almost like him sort of handing them to China practically. And I do think it will be a gift for reform. Reform are notoriously good at capitalising on sentiment of communities which feel sort of left out by Starmer.
John Gartside: or communities which, like fishermen I'd imagine, or communities which sort of look down Keir Starmer's metropolitan Labour elitism.
johngartside: Yes.
John Gartside: Therefore, I think this will help reform. That will help them because of this whole fisherman debate, but it will also reignite a bit of an EU debate within the UK because people will think, do we want to be surrendering ourselves to the Do we want to be giving them more rights?
John Gartside: Also, equally, the European Court of Justice, that has been something, mean, especially the European Court of Human Rights, which has caused a bit of controversy. So I think wherever you sort of stand on this debate is going to prove controversial.
John Gartside: And I wonder how well Sakhir can capitalise off it because the only person that reform if he doesn't is reform.
johngartside: Yeah,
johngartside: agree in this video there. I do think it's going to be quite a controversial topic, but I wouldn't call it surrendering.
John Gartside: Yeah.
johngartside: I don't think it's surrenderism, this deal. I don't think there's any part of the deal that is sort of giving more rights to the EU. I think it just allows number one British people.
John Gartside: Or will the fishermen, the fishermen rights?
johngartside: The Fishman. Yeah, well, yes, but also it eases burdens on farmers. That's the thing, because farmers...
John Gartside: Yes, I see that. I think the surrendering the whole of the fishing waters to the EU, that's something which your ordinary Brit will see as surrenderism in the sense that we are giving access to our waters a sort of valuable topic throughout British history, which has caused contention over to the EU.
johngartside: But then you're lowering carbon tax. You're lowering tax on steel.
John Gartside: Yeah, I do see that.
johngartside: You are lowering cost of energy.
John Gartside: Yeah.
John Gartside: Yeah.
johngartside: So, I mean, it's got to be a bit more
John Gartside: Oh, yeah, I see how there are nuances within it. But I still think the main headline that comes from this is surrenderism because the main the agreement was fishing rights. This whole thing about removing red tape from agricultural thing, that's a far smaller point than the branding on this deal, which is overfishing rights.
John Gartside: whole removing
johngartside: think the fishing rights are genuinely the biggest thing of the deal? you think they're just made out to be the biggest thing of this deal?
John Gartside: I mean, I don't know in fairness. That is a good point. i think they're made out to be the biggest thing of the deal. But I think think that's the thing.
johngartside: Yeah, agree with there, yeah.
John Gartside: I think even if they are the headline, as long as these fishing rights dominate the headline, that makes the headline surrender-risen by extension. Because Farage right now, even the Tories, what they're gonna be plotting is that exact plan. They're gonna be saying, Sir Kier has given us our access. They've sold out the UK, UK, whether um yeah, they've sold out the UK's access to fishing rights.
John Gartside: I think I agree with your point that there's been red tape removed, but there's also been places where red tape has been sort of added in bureaucracy. I mean, the carbon trading deal, UK now aligns itself with the EU's aim to hit net zero and they rejoin the EU emissions trading scheme.
John Gartside: I mean, I'm not at all a climate change skeptic. I mean, I totally believe in climate change, but I'm a huge net zero skeptic. I believe that net zero won't happen by 2030. And that's something which surprises me of Sakiya rejoining that EU scheme.
John Gartside: It's purely because I believe net zero by 2030 or 2040 definitely is not really possible without significant economic development for the UK.
John Gartside: So i think it's a mixed bag, honestly.
johngartside: But think...
John Gartside: But I think the the headline from this will be surrenderism simply because the people who dominate the media, they want a story. Fishing rights provides that story and thus the form will capitalise, of
johngartside: Yeah. I do think that also, if you do think about it, I think the UK is cool between Europe and the US at the moment.
John Gartside: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
johngartside: And choice has to be made. And I think... Although maybe in previous years, the American administration would have been more favorable with the way the and American administration is looking towards Europe nowadays, which is basically with zero interest.
johngartside: I do think that the UK has no other choice, but to align itself with France and Germany in order to have a sort of United front against Russia and China.
johngartside: Otherwise I don't see, don't see the European economy and just, you know, this sort of Yeah, I mean, mainly the economy, but also the sort of European ideology when it comes to politics surviving for much longer.
johngartside: I think Trump doesn't care.
John Gartside: Yeah.
johngartside: He genuinely does not care about what earth happens in Europe. As long as he's safe and as long as Americans are happy, he doesn't care. And I think still trying to figure out a deal with the US in this scenario is foolish.
johngartside: I mean, it's like running after...
johngartside: running off the, off the honey, but then you forget there's a billion bees, you know?
John Gartside: Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think that's a good point, but I'd make it even more nuanced. The UK's got to strike a delicate balance between the US and the EU. And as Sikia is doing, we've got to be friends with both, frankly, because one thing which has shocked the world is that Trump doesn't care about the EU, but he cares about the UK to an extent.
John Gartside: I mean, we're the countries that has gotten off the best out of this trade deal with him. We've... The tariff on cars has been reduced, the tariff from steel and aluminium has been reduced.
John Gartside: And we're currently the country that's actually done the best in the world when it one looks at Trump's tariffs. However, Trump wields power
johngartside: Yes.
John Gartside: as we saw in the reaction to his tariffs. Therefore, we've got to side with Trump, but then we've also got to realise our neighbours in the EU. And we've got to say, well, we can't neglect them as well.
johngartside: Yeah.
John Gartside: So the UK really is walking along a tightrope because we've got to please Trump.
johngartside: Yeah.
John Gartside: We've got to please the We've got a a commitment to Ukraine, which we have to please as well, which Trump isn't willing to do. So there's so many different areas to the UK and who they almost need to align themselves with that I think...
johngartside: Yeah, I fully agree with you though.
John Gartside: Yeah, I think, as always has been, British politics will be very interesting for these next few months.
johngartside: I agree with you though.
John Gartside: We've got an unpredictable man in the White House who does as he wishes.
John Gartside: We've got conflicts raging across the world. But also, as you said there, Diane, we've got problems in the EU. And yeah. So thank you, everyone, for listening to this episode.
John Gartside: We hope you enjoyed as we took a bit of a deep dive into the US, Romania, and the UK and EU's recent deal.
johngartside: Thank you for watching. And as always, if you have enjoyed this episode, please do watch our other episodes, especially those with our guests, such as Anthony Scaramucci and Vince Cable. If you're looking for something a bit more controversial and you feel that you've listened to too many people talk sensible things, do also give a listen to Douglas Carswell.
johngartside: And, I hope to see you soon.
John Gartside: See then. I'll stop. ah
