Reform bigwig demands Covid-style national emergency response to migrant crisis

Hello and welcome to Fire at Will from GB News

My guest today is former MP for Stratford-on-Avon and member of Reform UK, Nadim Zahawi

Nadim, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Will. It's a pleasure to have you on

I've been wanting to chat for some time. it is quite rare to have MPs or former MPs

politically interested people who understand business, who understand a balance sheet, I would say

I don't think many Labour MPs could say the same. You have..

When was it that you defected to reform? It's been, what, about a year? It was in January

January was... It's about half a year. Okay. Just over now. But essentially, I allowed my membership to lapse

at the end of 2025 because I really sort of started thinking about

where I think the country needed help, what was going wrong, where were things that were broken that we needed to fix

And I didn't think the Conservative Party had the right answers for it, neither historically

because I think I was the first, to put one of the first my hand up to say we made some terrible errors in government um and um

Nigel uh came to see me three or four times at home um through 2025 he reminded me that he had

uh taken the best on me to become uh leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister

unfortunately i disappointed him i dropped out of that race um but um you are sorry to interrupt

you you're not the only person who's had a mixed relationship with nigel farage of these you've

written some things about him in the past which have been negative i believe you said once you'd be afraid to live in a country that was led by farage now again uh people change their minds

they change their minds all the time why did have you changed yours on farage well because i think

one when the facts change in front of you um then you're i think you should be big enough to to

reassess re-evaluate and change your mind um what are those facts i will tell you that i think

uh the country is broken you know within about three mile radius of this place everything seems

to be fine because it's sw1 and uh you know people are affluent and wealthy and if public

services don't work they can pay for them uh but beyond that um you know people are finding it

really really hard um in the home counties in um south of england north of england western england

east of england in wales in scotland in northern ireland um things just are not working properly

public services are overwhelmed i think you know it is no secret that um out of control migration

both illegal and legal under the last conservative government has been an absolute unmitigated disaster for the UK

both economically, because if you measure GDP per capita rather than just measuring GDP

you see that the return on that investment in people is just not there

And then, of course, public services not being able to cope from not just health, but also policing

and making sure that we've got safe streets, all of that. And I had a choice because I'm very lucky

You opened by saying, you know, I understand a balance sheet. I've had a very successful business career

I've made money. I've been able to make choices that many other less fortunate people are unable to make

And the choice was, you know, do I go and live in Monaco or in Milan or Dubai, or Abu Dhabi

countries that have very good education, very good track record on safety and security

strong economies that grow, that invite entrepreneurs and wealth creators to come and build businesses

Some have got zero income tax. But the choice is fight or flight

and I chose to fight because I think this country is worth fighting for

It has certainly made me when I wake up in the morning and shave my head and I look in the mirror

I have to pinch myself. A boy that was born in Baghdad came here at the age of 11

with almost no English to then live in 11 Downing Street as Chancellor of the Exchequer

is a pretty remarkable journey, but a journey that I think is unique

in many ways to this country. Lots of other countries elect MPs from different ethnicities who choose to integrate

and choose to build their homes and put down roots in the US or in other democracies

But very few in a seat like Stratford or Naverick, 97.6%, I was 98% white, affluent, middle-class

farming communities voting for Nadim Zahawi, five times over to be their champion

their representative in Westminster. So this is the greatest country on earth, in my view, and it's worth fighting for

So when Nigel came to see me, he said, look, here's my plan for the country

And it is genuinely about family, community, country. And I, you know, in many ways, tested him

You know, we travelled together to the Middle East, and I saw him at close contact, almost

And you know, you always find out what people are like, even your closest mates, when you travel with them

And some, you don't want to ever travel with it ever again. You still want to keep them as mates, but not as traveling companions

but others you get much closer to. And Nigel was in that category

I was very impressed by him. He wasn't overwhelmed by the petrodollars

or the billions and trillions. He pushed back where he needed to

but he also listened and took on the evidence, for example, around the malign influence of the Muslim Brotherhood

both in the region, but also here back at home, and has made it reform policy that we will prescribe the Muslim

ban the Muslim Brotherhood on the economy, what Rob Gennarck is doing

Let's take these in turn. Let's take these in turn. But I note and I respect that instinct to look at politics

as a means of serving the people. I'm well aware you don't need to do this job

You don't need the money. Someone like Farage doesn't need the money. Someone like Rupert Lowe doesn't need the money

So that's almost a throwback to an earlier era in public life

where you have people who make their name, who make their wealth, and then they come back and they think of politics as a means of serving

It's more of a 19th century model perhaps. I've got a lot of time for that

When you did make that decision to defect in January It was met with a mixed response by the reform base And we mentioned a balance sheet If you look at a balance sheet of your defection people will say look there are very few people

who are talented and have an instinct for business in politics. You obviously do. You have experience

as Chancellor of this country. It didn't end in the way probably you would have liked it to

but at the same time, that's a handy thing to have on your CV and that's handy experience. and you bring experience across a range of different portfolio areas

to this job, which reform will need, given that they are a start-up political party

At the same time, your critics have said that you represent a brand of conservative establishment politics

which reform was set up to fight against. How do you respond to those accusations

And on balance, I think I know your answer, but tell me on balance, why are you a net asset to reform

as opposed to a net negative? so I've always been an outsider you know in in many ways my background wasn't uh through you know

being a special advisor or political advisor or uh in insider in politics I was an engineer

out of University College London an entrepreneur founded YouGov took it public in 2005 stayed on

for 10 years as chief executive officer uh when i entered parliament um my um uh sort of generation

of mps the the 2010 intake 149 uh new members of parliament on the conservative benches yeah i was

tipped to be the rising star the guy who's you know built this business engineers understand

process so they'll be able to really fix things i languished on the back benches for eight years

because the cliqueiness of the group around George and Dave, George Osborne and David Cameron

just didn't think that someone with my talents, I don't know, like the cut of my jib

I don't know what it was. Anyway, I think I know because I stopped them wanting to deliver for the Lib Dems

vandalism of our democracy because they wanted to abolish the House of Lords

and replace it with an elected Senate to please Nick Clegg because they'd promised him in the coalition agreement that they would

And I led that rebellion. And we won. We actually stopped the government from doing that

Can I ask for a personal reflection on that? Because you've come from being exceptionally successful businessman

You're used to getting your own way. You're used to people clicking your fingers and saying, get this done and people will get it done

And then to go to being effectively a junior in the political sphere

How is that for the ego? Sure. So I would just step back a second. Successful business people don't click their fingers and get things done. What they do is build great teams. You surround yourself with people with talent. I like to think most people that work with me and for me are more talented than I am. And then you empower them, you enable them, and you give them very clear targets. And lo and behold, things happen. Things start to work

right that's the the difference between sort of business and and and politics because actually

in politics what i found odd is it's not the hard work you put in or the talent you have or the

ability to build teams it was whether you found a patron yeah uh and my you know many of my colleagues

end up in cabinet and i'm not going to embarrass them and name them here um end up holding you know

the highest offices in the land basically said to me you know uh sometimes you know at the end of

work over a pint is you haven't found yourself a patron you know my patron is george osborne

and i know what do you mean as in a senior conservative um who would take you under their

uh wing um and then promote you um as part of their entourage as they plan their ascent to power

and to the keys of number 10 i have to tell you you know when you ask me the question it really is

genuinely uh one that always puzzled me and pained me in a way is i went into politics thinking

actually you know your talent will just basically be recognized yeah if you work hard and you you

demonstrate you can deliver and you can you know make the machine work properly um then you'll be

recognized for it and actually doesn't work that way you know much of politics including in my

previous party in the conservative party was about people who were able to sort of it's almost like a

sport to them as in you know uh can i get the keys to number 10 because i'm just much more you know

uh able and talented at communicating and at corralling my colleagues in parliament uh to

support me um without really knowing what they want to do with power without really knowing

what outcomes they want to deliver against. Yeah, I mean, maybe that's unfair to overgeneralize

or to tire everyone with the same brush. But it almost felt to me, unlike business

we have very clear targets, right? Business is all about outputs, right? You live or die by your profitability

by your sales, right? Your customer service, all these KPIs, right? Key indicators that you work to are really important

It's not the same in politics. It was almost even in the Conservative Party, which is meant to be the party of, you know, enterprise and small government and, you know, government that delivers for the people, delivers value for money

It felt like almost it was just a competition between, you know, Oxbridge types who just would deliver a better speech than the next guy

My question to you would be following on from that. How do you stop the same thing happening in reform

Some people are looking at reform as it is scaling. They're looking at some power plays that are happening within this party

They're looking at Zia v. Jendrik, for example. They're looking at Farage hoping to maintain his particular control on power

and potentially looking a bit frazzled as he does so. As this party scales, how do you stop the exact same things happening in reform

as you saw happening in the Conservatives? Well, first of all, I think the big difference is now reform is no longer a startup

It's actually a scale-up, right? It's already scaling. and scale is hard by the way in political movements or inside of government you know the

reason most departments um or most ministers tend to not do very well and fail because you know the

pilot of titus maybe i don't know if that is a word but but what civil service do just to keep a

minister uh you know quiet and tame yeah is give him give him a pilot if he's if he you know if he's

if he's overly energetic, then let's set up a pilot for you, Minister

And there are pilots all over the place, right? But nothing ever gets to scale, to work properly

That's the hard thing. And it's hard in politics. And actually what Nigel's done, he's reached scale

You look at what we've done in the local elections. Thousands and thousands of candidates were properly interviewed, vetted

and put forward as reformed candidates. Almost 1,600 councillors now. we've won all over the place you know we really are the only right of centre party today that can

lay claim um to being a truly national party uh we won in wales we've won in scotland we've won

in manchester in you know places where the concert party has never ever in my lifetime i joined the concert party when I was 18 and I left when I was 59 has never been able to penetrate in the way reform has done

So that's on the right side of the balance sheet. On the other side is, of course, you've got to maintain that laser-like focus on delivery

And I think the big difference is Nigel, because the way he chooses his talent, his team, his bench, right

is people who can really deliver, right? You look at Zia, Rob, Richard Tice, Suella, right, everybody

Sarah Pochin, everyone, Lee Anderson, right, is focused on delivery, delivery, delivery

He's taking over as chairman, is out there, right, Building that capacity on the ground, both physical and digital

Zia, complete focus on fixing the mess that is the home office, right

Rob, making sure the economy is the most dynamic economy. We've lost so many wealth creators to this country

It breaks my heart. You know, I travel all around the world, right, on business

I go to Washington, D.C., and they're like, what are you guys doing

We've never experienced a government under conservatives or now under Labour who deliberately harms themselves, whether it's Chagos or basically turning away billionaires and millionaires because we don't want them here, because we overtaxed them

um you know all just things as simple as just regulations making sure that actually we're

we have our regulations speak to where investors are telling us we're going wrong it's not it's not

most sovereigns will tell you that it's not the legislation it's actually the regulators

that are standing in the way of them making further investments in our country all these

things right we've got a top team that's doing that work that's my observation and the big

difference is we don't have and people say to me you know why don't you unite the right right bring

a coalition of parties together why that was the problem with the conservative party right because

of its legacy and its history you had all these different factions within the party that would

never ever deliver on coming out of the um the european convention on human rights yeah right as

an example why because they pay lip service to it but behind the scenes you know a third of your

MPs are briefing against you because saying no no no no no we're not leaving the European

Convention of Human Rights right we don't want um uh to really seriously take on the the the

challenge of 200,000 males of fighting age now actually being here right and rising every day

with no documents and we don't know in any other country in the world right you think about it any

other country in the world right this would be a national emergency you'd recall parliament if you

have to because it'd be national emergency on the levels of pandemic yeah right yeah and we're sort

of almost um drugged to believe you know taking morphine to say it's no big deal right as we sit

here today, right, and the sun is shining outside, hundreds of men, right, from Afghanistan, Iran

you know, Iraq, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sudan, Yemen, right, all countries where there is

Islamic radicalism, right, there are war, warlords, are being, people are being shipped here

without documents. And we know nothing about them. And all we do is just pay more and more for their upkeep

How is that not a national emergency? So all these things, I think, where Nigel is absolutely clear

What really impressed me, by the way, the thing that really tipped me over is he said to me

I'm not interested in the keys to number 10, as, you know, with these sort of Etonian games

I want to get things done right he's three years older than me roughly

and he says I need people who've been in the room who will not get phased by

the civil service will know how to deal and get things working properly

and you've done it, you did it for the Her Majesty's funeral

you did it in the jabs in arms, no matter what your views on the vaccine

we built an infrastructure for healthcare that is second time from a zero

from a standing start. So all these things, I think he appreciates

that he needs people around him that will deliver the first 100-day strategy

and then beyond that. and you look at what Danny Kruger is doing

what James Orr is doing on this work, we've got real depth and strength of talent now

And I think actually the reality is you don't want to be in coalition

You don't want to be a sort of broad church of the right because you're getting everything done

At the same time, and by the way, Danny Kruger was in that chair a couple of weeks ago, and I was impressed with the way

that he's thinking about how do you actually push through change in Westminster

time at the same time and then you set up you go you understand electoral realities better than most

i would suggest you know at the moment if the polling numbers were replicated in a general

election reform would not have a majority um so i can understand your principled argument there but

there is an argument around electoral realities as well and how do you reconcile those two things

by continuing to demonstrate to the nation that you have the response the

both in terms of policy, but also urgency to get things delivered

We're probably polling somewhere between, I reckon, 27 and 29 points today

We need to get to about 32, 33, and we'll have a majority

About a quarter of the Conservative vote at the moment, the 18 points they're getting

is thinking about reform and thinking that actually the only way you get rid

of this government, because all we're going to get, by the way, is Keir Starmer

with casual wear and probably a little bit better at communicating. But you're already seeing

the same thing happening again. I am worried that last night, I think the team around Andy Burnham

were briefing out that they'll still give billions to Mauritius and sign up

give up UK sovereign territory and pay money, billions of pounds. By the way, it's not money that we have, right

I keep reminding, you know, anyone willing to listen to me because I was Chancellor of the Exchequer

we borrow money we run a deficit right There are economies that run surpluses right You run a surplus If you are the UAE and you running a surplus right you have every right to be generous right your your UAE aid

into Gaza massive right billions and billions of dollars why because you run a surplus we don't

run a surplus right we borrow money so every penny we spend on aid on um this mad Chagos deal

is money we're borrowing. I often say this is a poor country that still thinks it's a rich country

And that mentality is one of the great problems that modern Britain faces. Right. And so ultimately

if you're going to get rid of this government, the only choice you can make

and that's the conclusion I can, I mean, I'm evidence-based. You said about, you know

it's all about, you know, working with clients who are paying us

to do the research, to do the hard work, the evidence, and then work with them on strategy

So I'm evidence-based, and engineers are always evidence-based. Everything's about process, and show me the data

The data says, actually, what we need to do is continue to drive the message home that we've got the solutions

to fix this country, to turn around this country. It is broken

You try and get into A&E in any hospital, not just in London

in anywhere in the country, within a reasonable time period. right a minimum wait is four hours um uh you try and get your kids to the to half decent school

no a friend of mine just uh tried that with three of children they were offered the least well

performing school in their county because all the other places have been taken by the high levels of

immigration right that can't be right that's not being nasty that's just the fact on the ground

that cannot be right and so i think it is incumbent on us in reform to demonstrate to those

um five or six percent of the tory vote that actually um voting conservative will just mean

you keep a labor government or worse a rainbow coalition of red yellow and green um actually

what you need to do is vote reform because then we can turn this country around and you've seen it

you know, with Maloney in Italy, you have two or three big delivery projects

And then the country begins to believe that you can do this. And we can do it. This is the greatest country on earth

You know, it is a nation of entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, as the great lady famously said

This is a great country. And people want to be here. They want to invest in the UK

They just tell me, you know, your government gets in the way. Yeah. We're both examples of that

We're both immigrants to this country. sometimes I think in darker moments that I boarded the Titanic after it hit the iceberg but

I am reminded to your point of the very best elements of this country and you're right

it is worth fighting for I want to quickly get your thoughts on Chagos because you did bring it

up and you're right in saying that Burnham it sounds like Burnham and I just find this

extraordinary we'll continue with this of course one of the great problems that the conservatives

have is that pretty much every single Labor disaster, you can say to the Conservatives

well, either you had that idea initially, or you had the opportunity to fix it initially

and you didn't. And with Chagos, the Conservatives, James Cloverley, started entertaining this idea

long before Keir Starmer came on the scene. What I don't think people understand, and again

And this is one of those ones where not only does this fail the pub test, you know, it gets booted out of the pub and put in jail for the night

To give away British sovereign territory and then pay for the privilege of doing so, people don't understand, you know, I've heard of bad ideas in politics and policy ideas

But I can't really think of too many other policies where there is just no argument for it

Do you have any insider insight as to try and still man it for me

What is the argument for this? None. It's extraordinary. And how much he will wriggle and squirm about this

I wish James Cleverley would just come out and say, I am sorry, I made a mistake

I should have just killed this idea off as soon as some woke civil servant brought it to me

Is it leftist colonial guilt? Is that really what's the root of this? It's mad

It's completely mad. And he should have killed it. And he didn't. It's no wonder his nickname was Cue Card Cleverly in the FCDO

And I wish he would just come out. And sometimes you're a bigger man if you admit your mistakes

And I feel, by the way, so much better when I defected to reform

I stood on a platform with Nigel and said, I am sorry. I'm sorry

There are things that happened under my watch when I was part of that team in Cabinet that we made a terrible

including the lack of control on our immigration and our borders. And I wish James would say the same thing

I wish he'd come out and say, look, I shouldn't have just taken what was on the cue card and agreed with it

I should have literally, I don't understand. Honestly, if that had come to me as chancellor and hadn't

I would have killed it immediately. Because it would have had to come to me for the money

And it'll go to, went to Rachel Reeves and it'll go to whoever is chancellor next

I would have said, no way. What do we, first of all, why are we giving up British sovereign territory

in a world that is so uncertain? You look at what's just happened in the Middle East

what is happening on our own continent with the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia, right

You look at the speed at which defense technology is moving forward

You know, we are entering a world of Star Wars where actually strategic bases are going to be massively important, right

Why would you give up, right, an inbuilt advantage, right, to keep yourself secure and your allies secure

and then compound it by saying, I better pay you for it

I mean, what kind of self-harming idiot would think that's a good idea

You obviously have a very astute knowledge of geopolitics. Would a foreign secretary, Rob, be of any interest to it

I will serve as part of the team wherever I am asked to do so

I think this country could do so much better on the global stage, not only because we've got deep relationships and history with many parts of the world, including the Middle East

We've never been clear eyed about how we build on those relationships

Let me give you an example. You know, we take the Gulf countries

that are sort of one basket of Gulf countries, including the last conservative government

It was very hard to get Kemi, when she was Trade Secretary, to sign a CEPA, which is an agreement with the UAE

which would have moved much faster. Countries like India and Turkey did that very quickly

and increased their trade by billions and billions of dollars. And the response came, no, no, no, no, we can't do that

We have to look at them as the GCC as a whole

And I'm like, why? Other countries have done this. In fact, what it does is it accelerates the others

because then suddenly there's that sort of, you know, the FOMO thing, right

If the UAE does a CIPA, why aren't we doing a common economic partnership agreement

with the United Kingdom? And I think the world is changing, right

And you look at, let's take the Middle East, right? The Abrahamic Accord countries with India, with the United States of America, in my view, are on the right side of history

It's about economic cooperation, technological advance, education, prosperity for your people. These are clever, sustainable, fast-growing economies

And then you've got the large populist countries that are much more challenged in the region. Iran has huge challenges ahead of it because its government is just not focused on delivering for its people

It's focused on wanting to weaponize and have a nuclear weapon and use proxies to destabilize and attack others in its neighborhood

And I think, you know, you can literally go through country by country and work out which ones are economically challenged, big populations, governments that are not really doing well

And therefore, you know, displacement activity takes place. They start looking elsewhere for reasons for their failures

And I think we should be leaning into those countries, like the Abraham Accord countries, and getting much deeper

making those very clear choices. You see France doing it with the UAE, as an example

Greece with the UAE. so i think there's a huge opportunity for us um on uh the international stage um to work both

um with our allies building on what margaret thatcher and ron reagan did for the whole world

you know safeguarding protecting those trade rules took 700 million chinese out of you know

extreme poverty why because they were able to trade with the rest of the world right those are

things that we should be proud of um you know be clear right about the the the the the change of

policy within within china and the threat uh that that uh country poses if it continues its its um

uh you know direction of travel vis-a-vis its foreign policy um but at the same time

We have huge opportunities to build with NATO, with the United States of America

a world that we shape at the moment, sadly, and we're embarking upon a NATO summit

We're seen as the laggard. Yep We way like the way we treated defense both on the conservatives and labor is just heartbreaking yep a few other things i want to get your thoughts on in the time we have

left uh you are a muslim uh it would appear you wear your religion relatively lightly in public

life although feel free to challenge me or to to amend the record uh there are some members of uh

uh or some supporters of reform who would be uncomfortable with that for the record at scale

I don't think that Islam is compatible with a Western liberal democracy, but I don't have any problem with individual Muslims who integrate into this country whatsoever

What would you say to supporters of reform who may be uncomfortable with your Muslim faith

And does it impact on the way that you approach public life

I think there's a fundamental difference. Islamism and the Muslim faith

What do I mean by that? Political Islam, I completely agree with you, is not compatible with our values, Western democratic values, let's put it that way

Why? Because it is very clear. And they don't hide this stuff

They are there to build a caliphate with very different values, very different system of governance

Oppression would be a better term than governance. Right. And that's completely incompatible

But to the many thousands of British Muslims who actually make the distinction between their faith, which is between them and their God

that is in the same way as as christianity or judaism or um hindus uh worship their god

there's a separation right there's no uh question of it entering politics that's

where I think we have lost, i.e. successive political parties. Labour was the first, now the Greens

Entertain political Islam. Why? Or at least turn the other way. If one wants to be a little gentler on Labour

I don't think they just simply did that. I think they actually entertained political Islam

within their party because they thought that, you know, getting that Muslim vote, whether it's a good or bad vote

in terms of, you know, those two different ways of behaving, i.e., you know, if you just happen to be, you know, a Muslim in faith

but actually believe in our values and our, you know, democratic institutions um and assimilate and integrate into that and celebrate

britishness um versus someone who wants to come and actually damage and do harm uh to our institutions to our values to our communities because they think they

They want to live under a theocracy, a political Islamic movement. Those two things, as I say, are distinct and different

And actually, it's incumbent on anyone in politics, in my view, and it certainly is under Nigel Farage's reform government

is we're very clear, right? Political Islam has no place in our country in our communities in our society and we will go after it and go after it hard Right And I think that I hope I can make a real contribution to that because so much of this

and you saw it with Henry Novak, you saw it with, and in that case, it was a Sikh, but

But the same weakness of action led to a murder of an innocent white boy because the police felt, and the same thing applies to the Pakistani Muslim rape gangs

because the white society felt that it is wrong to challenge some of these men

or at least they were shy from taking on some of this very clear evidence in front of them

that these cultures, these Pakistani Muslim men, were clearly criminals and evil

but no one wanted to challenge it because it was felt that it somehow goes against

this sort of multicultural attitude. No, I think if you're going to build a harmonious community

a society that works well together. I referred in economics earlier on to the UAE

In the UAE, there are 200 nationalities living side by side. The indigenous population is about 1.1 million

and they've got about 11 million immigrants. But one, they all contribute

There's no immigrant claiming from the state. They all are net contributors to the state

massively net contributors to the state right two they live side by side right no one um goes out

and waves flags of hamas or hezbollah or um any other um malign movement uh from anywhere else in

the world um and they understand what the rules of the land are right what the laws of the land are

and I think we've just slightly lost the plot. Well, has multiculturalism failed in the UK

Of course, in my view, if you look at what's happening, when you've got a school teacher still in hiding today

because he wanted to show his kids images that were incompatible with a particular religion in his community

I think that Aston Villa Football Club and West Midland Police choosing a spurious excuse to hang their ban of Maccabre Tel Aviv supporters actually coming and supporting their team in our country

All this stuff sends the message to communities, to the silent majority that your government doesn't really care about you

Right. Because it's been hijacked by very loud, sometimes violent minorities who mean us harm. Right. Genuinely, my view is if you're here, you integrate, you assimilate, you celebrate this great country that's taking you in. And if you don't, you've got no place here

That is I think a founding principle of good governments We are rapidly running out of time Nadim And I haven been able to speak to you on the economy particularly in the way that I would have liked

We'll have to get you back on for that. But the one thing I did want to touch on when it came to the economy

is the unsustainable benefits culture in this country. And every time I'm on GB News now

there is a different ridiculous story about, you know, particular groups of people getting benefits when they really shouldn't

that, you know, now I believe that the total number of the amount that is paid out in benefits

is higher than the amount that is taken in by income tax. Obviously, that's not the total tax take, but that is just as a symbol, a very, very powerful and worrying symbol of where this country

is at. Now, you know, again, better than most that this needs to be reformed. At the same time

the political reality is that if you do go about that, inevitably, people lose money or people lose

free money um how do you go about reforming the benefits culture in this country i think by just

being honest and transparent about it if you look at what nigel's been saying on this

um one back to first principles we opened this podcast by saying that we're not running a

surplus we're running a deficit which means we're borrowing money right and when you're

borrowing money you're almost you know doubly responsible for how you spend it right because

money that you don't have and therefore you've got to be really careful about your expenditure

um and what nigel has been saying is look um you know you can't stay off work just because you say

you've got anxiety yeah that will help you will support you but there's no way you're going to

get signed off under a reformed government and claim for anxiety right then there's of course

mental health is incredibly important right but don't abuse the system number one number two right

zia yusuf has done a lot of numbers on this if you look at those who came under that massive

immigration spike under the conservative government right who will automatically get leave to remain in this country

which means they can start claiming benefits. That is money that should not be going to people, right

who are coming here if they're not contributing. And therefore, all these things added up

run into tens of billions of pounds, right? take that money diverted towards tax cuts yeah to get the country working that you know these

these things are not rocket science right follow the evidence and your first principle is we're

borrowing money therefore we're going to be really responsible about how we spend it anyone who's not

a net contributor to this country forget it right you're not claiming and by the way you're not even

coming here yeah right i'm sorry but that's how the world's going to work going forward why because

you know we're entering a period of incredible technological shift and change and we need to be

investing in that and the only way you can invest in that is if you are running a sound economy

right that allows you then the headroom to deliver tax cards to make it the most attractive place to

invest to get entrepreneurs back to get millions of billionaires back in this country not living in

milan um uh or elsewhere and we win it's a great place to be right you and i both know that yeah

your name's ahavi thank you for coming on the show thank you for having me