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Macron blames Brexit for rise in illegal migration | James O’Brien on LBC
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Jul 12, 2025
Emmanuel Macron said British people had been “sold a lie” as he blamed Brexit for the Channel migrant crisis. James O'Brien goes a step further: 'What if all the people who caused Brexit caused the small boats crisis, and still refuse to say sorry?'. Mr Macron spoke out as he and Sir Keir Starmer unveiled the ‘one in, one out’ deal aimed at returning Channel migrants to France. “Our increasing problems require cooperation, a European approach” rather than what “populists often sold”, he said. He said the lack of a migratory deal with the EU after Brexit ‘incentivised’ migrants to make the crossing. “The precise opposite of what Brexit had promised,” he added. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #jamesobrien #immigration #macron #ukpolitics #france #migration #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
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to begin with what I suspect
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Of all the books that are quoted by people who've never read them, which do you think would come top of the list
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A genuine question. I might even pause for long enough to let you answer it. How many people will have the same answer to this question as me
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Of all the books that are quoted by people that have never read them
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which book is quoted the most? Do you want to have a go at that
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Do you want to have a little... It's not Sun Tzu, Andrew. stop stopping shit
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well maybe it is but that's certainly not which book in it yes Bruce got it in one
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Bruce has got there first I was just going to pause I was going to stay yeah Katie's got there as well
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ooh actually Andrew and Ian have given me a bit of pause there by mentioning the Bible
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well I yeah alright very very few people apart from Donald Trump
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have read the entire Bible you know that Donald Trump has read the entire Bible
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because when he was asked by some Christian evangelicals what his favourite part
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of the Bible was he replied all of it which is just an answer Such perfect, perfect idiocy
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But you almost have to give the old booby credit. But yes, I mean, it is now torn
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It's not Zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance, Richard. Everybody's read that
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But we are now torn almost equally between the book that I consider to be the correct answer
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and the Bible, which I fully accept. Oh, all right, fiction. Oh, God, that's going to open up a can of worms
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Forget I said fiction. All right, okay. So, which novel? Which novel
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What is the novel most quoted by people who have never read it
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That's quite gratifying, actually. You've got an almost... If you remove the Bible from my inbox
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and then you get rid of Dave, who's joking around with a Roger Hargreaves reference to Mr. Bump
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you've got an almost unanimous answer to the question, and the answer is 1984
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If everybody who quotes 1984 had read 1984, then almost all of the people who quote 1984 on Twitter, for example
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would stop quoting 1984 because it's not about what they think it's about
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I almost hesitate to read you this bit. But when you notice public discourse lurching inevitably
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well, inexorably and perhaps inevitably, into the sort of hatred that is now being directed at refugees
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particularly the ones crossing the channel in small boats, you know that this is a trope these are practices as old as the hills
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did you know for example that before the second world war neville chamberlain was raging in the house of commons about how awful
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welfare claimants were i told you i was going to reference nye bevan a lot today that play is very fresh in my memory i got you going back to the
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1930s you got neville chamberlain on the tory benches explaining that the
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country can't afford to support people on welfare unemployed minors for example far too receiving
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far too much in uh in state handouts um but it to 1984 that i turn first no it not how they broke Britain Mike Everybody read that And everybody who has read it should be quoting it liberally
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I hesitate. I hesitate to share this with you because, listen, I mean, I don't know
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why you feel the way you do about small boats. But I do know how much effort and I of course
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I don't know how you feel about it. But I do know how much effort has been put in to make
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you feel like this. And this is Winston Smith, the hero, if you like, of George Orwell's 1984
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recounting a visit to the cinema on April the 4th of 1984. And I'm going to read you quite a bit of
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it. Because 1984 is a warning. It is an alarm bell designed to make us understand what our future
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what our shared future could hold if certain powers and certain forces are allowed to ride
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rough shot over what we hold dear last night says winston to the flicks all war films one very good
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one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the mediterranean audience much
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amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him first you
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saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise then you saw him through the helicopter gun sites
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then he was full of holes and the sea around him turned pink and he sank suddenly as though the
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holes had let in the water. Audience shouting with laughter when he sank. Then you saw a lifeboat
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full of children with a helicopter hovering over it. There was a middle-aged woman, might have been
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a Jewess, sitting up in the bow with a little boy about three years old in her arms. Little boy
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screaming with fright and hiding his head between her breasts as if he was trying to burrow right
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into her. And the woman putting her arms around him and comforting him, although she was blue with
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fright herself. All the time covering him up as much as possible, as if the thought her arms could
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keep the bullets off him. If you're just tuning in, I'm not providing live coverage from Gaza
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I'm reading something from 1984. Although, of course, because the focus of these hatreds can
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shift according to the interests of power and wealth, it wouldn't be a duess, would it, if I
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were reporting on Gaza. If he was trying to burrow right into her and the woman putting her arms
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around him and comforting him, although she was blue with fright herself, all the time covering
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him up as much as possible as if she thought her arms could keep the bullets off him. Then the
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helicopter planted a 20 kilo bomb in among them terrific flash and the boat went all to matchwood
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then there was a wonderful shot of a child's arm going up up up up right up into the air
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a helicopter with a camera in its nose must have followed it up and there was a lot of applause
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from the party seats but a woman down in the prole part of the house suddenly started kicking
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up a fuss and shouting they didn't ought to have showed it not in front of the kids they didn't it
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ain't right not in front of kids it ain't until the police turned her out and i don't suppose
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anything happen to her nobody cares what the proles say typical prole reaction they um winston
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stopped writing partly because he was suffering from cramp go on look me in the eye and tell me that we not on the in the foothills of that kind of process look me in the eye and tell me that we not in the foothills of that kind of process Look me in the eye and tell me that you can think of half a dozen people in public life at the moment
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who have come pretty close to suggesting that we should blow these boats out of the water
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In fact, you could probably name half a dozen people that have done it. Hop over to social media for five minutes and it will be there
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It will be there. You'll find it. People calling for it. You know, you might want to turn your radio off now
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if I'm describing you. If you're sitting in that cinema audience, cheering these murders
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or thinking, oh, I don't like this, I don't want to listen to this, I don't want to listen to this nonsense
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This is ridiculous. I just want those boats to, oh, it's me
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Well, I all well knew what he was talking about. All well knew what he was describing
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And his great gift was his understanding of the universality. His great gift was his knowledge that it can happen any time, any place, anywhere
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The martini, if you like, of historical hatreds. And here we are
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Our public discourse now dedicated almost entirely to whipping up these kinds of hatred
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Some columns in national newspapers are knocking at the door of what Orwell describes
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although for now, I suppose, thankfully, they won't go that far. People do in private
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A couple of texts coming in. I have colleagues already saying that we should shoot them when they land on the shores
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We're not in the foothills, says Jill. We're already up the mountain. Yeah, well, maybe
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And a few people even sharing names of public figures who you would argue have already gone there in propaganda terms
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if not in policy terms. It is 12 minutes after 10. I mentioned that, and now I'm going to mention an Irene Bevan
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because I saw a play about him last night. And my favourite quote of his, which didn't make the cut, is this
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How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power
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Here lies the whole art of conservative politics in the 20th century. Spoiler alert, and the 21st
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And, of course, the timeless answer to that question is simple. Give them something to hate
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Give them something to get angry about. Give them something to chomp on furiously
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as the business of hoarding wealth continues, as the business of inequality accelerates
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as the business of blaming people with the least for the unhappinesses of people with something
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is as old as the hills. And there it is. Two things in absolutely stark relief that are
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Steve tells me at his golf club, if this were to happen now, If those boats were sunk at sea, 80% of his golf club would be over the moon
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And he's not exaggerating. I mean, maybe if it happened and the footage were broadcast
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this is of course why Israel won let journalists into Gaza Maybe if the footage were broadcast public opinion would shift inexorably But I don know I don know Orwell knew what he was talking about I just want to leave
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that percolating, fermenting in your mind, because it's not what we're going to talk
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about today. I've just wanted to read it out for some time and something about the play that I saw last night. And the timeless tropes. It was probably Neville Chamberlain wanging
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on about it. I mean, before the welfare state even existed, you've got Neville Chamberlain
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claiming that unemployed people are getting too much, they're undeserving poor, and you sort of think, it's so
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bloody transparent. But how do they do it? Answer, they own the newspapers
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And of course, when social media looked briefly as if it might offer some sort of antidote
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to this historical manipulation, what happened? The billionaires moved in. Musk bought Twitter
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turned it into a place where that kind of commentary from George Orwell
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is a wet dream for many of the people now paying Elon Musk
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and being paid by Elon Musk for the privilege of spreading their bile
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hatred and viciousness on social media directly into your sitting room, your phone, your social media
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So none of that is at the forefront of my mind today
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And glancing at the clock, I notice it's already quarter past ten, so I will do what I just said I was going to do
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leave that to ferment and start with the phone improper from a completely different perspective in a moment
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because here's the thing, right? We're going to talk about small boats
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but we're going to talk about what caused them. And we're going to reflect upon what Emmanuel Macron told us yesterday
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And the strange fact that all the people responsible, if you think it is a massive problem
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all the people responsible for it are the people now screaming loudest about it
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without taking any responsibility whatsoever for the fact that they did it to you
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They did it to you. I voted for Brexit. And now I'm going to vote for reform because of all the small boats
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what if Brexit caused the small boats? Then what happens to your brain
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Then what happens to your conscience? Then what happens to your sense of self
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your political convictions? What if you caused it? What if the people who caused Brexit
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caused the small boats crisis and still refuse to say sorry? Bussing themselves down to Dover
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rubbing their thighs with their Fisher-Price binoculars as they focus upon these people
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And look, don't get me wrong, The photographs are deliberately provocative. Well, not deliberately, they are inarguably provocative
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Nobody likes to see that sort of sense, that sense of invasion is easily, easily, easily fertilised
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easily watered by people. But there it is. What if they caused it
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And it's unlikely, well, certainly one, who was on with Nick ten minutes ago
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isn't going to be able to ring in and tell us, but they are unlikely to explain to us
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how they deal with the fact that they caused the problem, that they're now furious about
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They did it. I don't know whether or not we will talk about
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how the rest of us squared this circle, but you can find out after this
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