Emergency Budget Special with Nigel Farage

So Nigel, what's the biggest thing that shocked you in the budget? Did any of it shock you?

Well, it was always going to be the doom budget, wasn't it? Because Keir Starmer had given this address a few weeks ago. The, the, as I called it, things can only get worse speech. Quite what he thinks he's doing to business confidence, I don't know. It was, I mean, obviously having for the last 45 years been fascinated by budgets because of, you know, my life in the commodity markets and current affairs and politics and media and to actually sit in the chamber for it was that, in a way was quite a privilege. Politically. It was clever, very clever. There were things like, oh, we're going to give half a billion pounds to potholes. Well, everyone goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, we need that. Not raising, not raising the fuel escalator. Things like the fuel escalator not being put back on. Fifteenth year in a row it's been frozen. 37 million plus car drivers in the country, politically, quite clever. Especially as everyone thought they were going to put another 5p a tank on petrol and diesel. The Scottish stuff was genius. It was genius. More money from central government to Scotland than ever in history. The SMP was sitting in front of me. I mean, they had a rotten afternoon. So on all of that stuff, it was clever. I think what we hadn't perhaps realized is, is just how ideological Reeves and Starmer are. These guys are way to the left of how they portrayed themselves at the general election.

So more left than people think they are left.

Oh yeah. And you've only got to look at the portraits in number 10 and 11 that they've taken down and put up to realize this. So Nigel Lawson's portrait's gone to be replaced by a woman who was a founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. That's up in Rachel Reeves's office. I am not joking. I am not joking. So tax and spend. A 40 billion increase in taxes. But it won't be, it'll be more. No, be less. All right. She's anticipated that, you know, if you, if you get rid of the tax perks for non doms, you'll make more money. I'm not so sure you will. I mean they're heading for Dubai every day and Monaco and elsewhere. So I think there's some very overly optimistic expectations of what the tax yield will be. Her estimates of public spending, well, we've seen already with union demands, they give in quite easily, I have to say. I said in the, I spoke in the Debate. And I said, politically clever but economically illiterate. And I did ask who was doing the sums, was it Diane Abbott? Some of the Labour benches got a bit upset about that. It doesn't add up. It doesn't add up. And here's the big point, the really, really big point about everything she's done. And by the way, you know, I mean, the fact that you can't now leave your own accumulated pension pot, which you've built up over the years, even that's going to come within inheritance tax. Family farms now come with an inheritance tax. Business premises over a certain value come with an inheritance tax. It is literally an assault on saving for your future. It really is. But here's the big point. And no one makes this point and the Conservatives can't either, because during their time in office, our national debt went from roughly a trillion to 2.7 trillion. Our interest repayments every year are over 80 billion on the debt we're building up. And if you look at the REES projections or the Office of Budget Responsibility projections, you find, well, number one, there is no 22 billion pounds black hole. Maybe about 9 billion, but not 22. No, actually it's 2.7 trillion. That's our black hole. If we're being frank about it, that's our black hole. And even on her budget estimates, we're going to go on borrowing 70, 80 billion a year over the course of the next few years. We are getting poorer and poorer. But here's the big one. If you measure gross domestic product per capita, you know, what are we kind of ourselves generating and worth? Individually, it's fallen almost every single quarter for the last two years. We are getting poorer. Yeah, we are getting poorer. The correlation is very interesting. The faster the population rises through mass unskilled immigration, the poorer the whole community gets. Of course, it's a fact not even discussed in the budget. And here's the real problem. For all the talk of four day weeks and work from home, darling, I'm so much more productive and all this.

You nearly said the baby.

I can't keep the language clean. Actually, we need to do the opposite. We need to say, success is good, making money is great, working hard is good and working hard is good. And I said this in Parliament, actually, if you say to a youngster, if you work hard and get your head down, you'll succeed. And that same principle applies to us as a country. We need a complete 180 on all of this. You know, 2.8 million people now on disability benefit, many of them because on a zoom call with a doctor, they've said they're feeling depressed. We can't go on like this or we're going to sink and sink. And if you look at our world rankings on tax competitiveness, on productivity, we are slowly but surely going down and down and down. And you know, as one or two people said yesterday, you know, we're sort of becoming like France and Germany. Do we not understand that the world is changing, that there are incredible things happening in Dubai, other parts of the Middle East? I mean, I was in Malaysia recently, I couldn't believe the level of economic growth that's going on, the industry that's happening.

Dubai just pledged something like 230 billion into the growth of Dubai. Like, can you put more into Dubai?

We are falling behind. So, so, so I would say the budget's dismal and even on her projections, she's got growth at 1.5% by the end of the five years of a labor term. 1.5%. If you add in the population increase, it's zero. And here's the real truth. If we weren't borrowing money every year to add to the budget deficit, we would have had no growth for years and years and years. So they're the realities. Wow.

So I want to talk about the possible solutions a bit later on because I always like to end with solutions. A couple of things that irked me. Well, the first thing that irked me was a lot of people said, oh, that wasn't bad or it wasn't that bad.

Well, yeah, they had pre briefed it was going to be disastrous, I suppose.

And I think we all knew that was a, some brinkmanship. But people saying our national insurance only went up by 1.2. No, it didn't. It went up by nearly 15% when they reduced the relief. And a 1.2% increase on, on 13.8 is 9% increase, not 1.2% increase.

Yeah. I mean add to that, minimum wage increase is above the rate of inflation as well. I mean, I'm looking at the numbers this morning. If the average salary is £35,000, that for an employer is an extra £1,000 a year. Think about it. It's a lot. It's a heck of a lot.

It's 80 grand a year for us.

So yeah, I mean, you know, a penny off a pint. Right?

Did you see all the cheer?

So what I spoke in the debate, I said a penny off the point. I've just worked out it's going to save me a pound a Week. Some of them laugh, but most are too dim. But I spoke to a publican mate, he said, hang on, my beer prices are going up because of employers, national insurance and the increased minimum wage. Actually, beer will go up, not down. You know, look, we're in a difficult situation, there's no question about that. The Tories have not left a great legacy, that is true, but everything she's done in a budget that was billed as a budget for growth is anti growth. And that's the point. Oh, by the way. Well, maybe I'm wrong, because if I'm in a militant left wing trade union, life's happy as Larry working Whitehall down the road here. Lovely. Do a few hours every day, don't bother with a Friday. Wonderful. Guaranteed pensions at the end of it. I mean, this public sector versus private sector thing is now enormous. It's enormous in terms of basic salaries, it's enormous in terms. Even the bonuses, can you believe. And with pensions, the divide is absolutely. It's almost pensions apartheid. So basically, if you're in private business or if you're a pensioner, as far as Labour's concerned, you just, just go and do one, right? They are, they are. They have decided that those people won't vote for them and they're going for those living on benefits, they're going for those working in the public sector. It's actually, if you think about it, quite divisive.

Yeah, but do they not understand that small business is the greatest driver of the tax revenue in the economy? Isn't it? Something like 50, 55% of all tax revenue is small business, so. And yet they're the ones that have been attacked the most.

Again, with my helpful contribution in the Parliament yesterday, I did say none of you, none of you on the front bench have ever worked in private business.

Didn't you say the Chancellor's never even had a job?

I said, the Business Secretary's never even had a job. The Business Secretary. Mind you, that was the same for George Osborne when he was Chancellor. Never had a paper round. It's extraordinary. It was funny because someone shouted. I said, I've set up businesses, I've worked, I've done these things. And some abuse came over. I said, look, I've worked all my life. Well, apart from being an mep, I couldn't call that work, really. But I'm sorry, I'm making light of it, but it's not funny. No, there is a complete lack of comprehension and what I did learn in Brussels, and I'm seeing it in London too, is the business voices that speak to politicians are the big businesses.

It's the big businesses, the big corporations.

Yeah. They're the ones that take you out for dinner, they're the ones that take you to Wentworth to play golf and.

They'Re the ones that fund your political campaigns.

They're the ones that fund your campaigns, they're the ones that take you to watch the FA cup final. And so these politicians with very little experience of almost no experience of private business or of risk capital, not unearned income risk capital, they think they know the voice of business because a multinational spoken to them.

Right.

No, they have no comprehension of entrepreneurship, they have no comprehension of what it's like to run a small business. They have no comprehension with tax and regulation, just how much more difficult it's becoming in this country. The fact we still have five and a half million people who act as sole traders or run their own little businesses is almost a miracle. Yeah.

Wow. So I'm going to come to the exodus in the UK from the UK in a moment as well. But what pissed off a lot of people was that if you're a saver, you're not a working person. You know, if you're a landlord, you're not a working person. I mean, how did you get savings? You worked your whole life to save.

I know.

What is this? Is this because they said they weren't going to tax working people and now they're just trying to change the definitions?

Well, definitions they struggle with. And after all, Keir Starmer couldn't say what a woman was, if you remember. So they struggled to. With working people.

Look, they don't know what growth is, do they?

Well, absolutely no clue. They've got no clue about any of this stuff. The fact is that the thresholds at which we start to pay income tax are frozen until 2028. Inheritance tax thresholds have been frozen since 2009. Think about this. So you've got a situation where 40p tax comes in. In the middle late 1980s, 40p was top rate. It's paid by one and a half million people. Go all the way through the 1990s, through the whole of the Blair era. Top rate tax is still 40%, but because the bands have shifted in line with inflation, one and a half million people are paying 40% in 2008. By 2028, it'll be 8 million.

Wow.

8 million paying what was for decades stealth tax increase. Basically, that's what they've done. Yeah. So, you know your staff nurse is now paying 40p tax. The manageress of my local publisher is now paying 40%, is now paying 40% tax. And so we're being taxed to hell. And this, this impression she gave Reeves in the election campaign and since that taxes would not go up on working people is for the birds.

So are you as bearish about the future of the economy as I am? And do you think this is going to push us into some big recession, depression?

The funny thing is, however hard government makes things, there are still people out there that are ducking and diving and trying and doing their bit like most of my listeners. But yeah, no, and look, we shouldn't be put off from doing that. Of course we shouldn't. It's just going to be harder. Yeah, you're just going to be, you know, you're going to be taxed more. It's going to be harder. What I am certain of is that we will have five more years of continued overall decline. There are people within the system that will do well, but I'm afraid the average Joe will not do well and the average Joe will get poorer. And I find it depressing. I thought that Brexit was the big opportunity to really re engage with the entrepreneurial side of our country been squandered by both parties, frankly. I mean, everything from financial services regulation to our fisheries. We've not seized a single opportunity. And that's very disappointing. I think the big one, the really big one is this. If you think about the credit crunch that happened in 089-@-roOT of it was too much debt. Too much debt nationally, too much debt corporately, too much debt individually, you know, and it's sort of the epicenter was the mortgage market in America. But that was symptomatic of a bigger, broader problem. Well, indebtedness now is way bigger than it was in 2008. 9. And I do think at some point in time there comes a bit of a reckoning for Western economies and there will be another financial crash. I can't tell you when it's going to be. You know, if I knew it was next Wednesday, I'd walk out of here right now and start trading. But I don't know when it's going to come. But I do think a reckoning is coming at some point in time. And I think when that happens, I think the sort of political realignments that we're seeing beginning to happen already across the west will increase in pace.

What do you mean by political realignment?

Oh, I think that the corporatist center left view of Big state, high taxes, which has prevailed for a very, very long time, which, by the way, for the rich, has been fantastic. You know, asset growth, quantitative easing. You know, the rich have got richer hugely in the last 10 to 15 years.

But I think you mean super rich. The super rich, yeah, because they're defining people on 150 grand as rich.

I meant the asset rich. You know, if you've had property or stocks, the last 15 years have been a dream and part of that's been because of these policies of quantitative easing. Creating false money, basically. No, I think there's a very big political reckoning to come. I think that, I think that for your middle income skilled worker, the things they could afford 10 years ago, 20 years ago, they can't afford now. I think their kids just look on with a sense of helplessness. I mean, if you're young, 18 year old, leaving school, you're ambitious and want to work hard, how are you going to buy a house? Where's the money coming from? It really is difficult. So I think there will be a big political reaction to this at some point in time. I think that, albeit with debt, but I think that the economic circumstances that Trump produced in those four years in America, that's what people are hungry for.

I want to talk about Trump in a bit as well, but I do want to talk about this millionaire exodus, this entrepreneur exodus from the uk. So since lockdown, the amount of millionaires that have left the UK seem to have doubled every year, you know, plus or minus a bit. And every entrepreneur I speak to, bar none, is either saying, I can't leave, but if I didn't have my children and my parents here, I would, or I'm trying to figure it out or I'm already gone. And I know a lot of entrepreneurs and every single one saying the same thing.

Isn't it bizarre that in the European Union, where it's against the rules, Milan and Lisbon are bidding for British people to go there with tax deals?

Yeah, it's very clever in a way.

Very clever.

Come to us.

Yeah, Rob, the, the, the, the, the non dom's going. I mean, there are downsides to non doms, which is they push London property prices up more than they maybe needed to do. But the upsides are they spend their money. Yeah, they spend their money.

Why wouldn't we want all the rich people here?

And, yeah, and they pay tax here. So, so, so create loads of jobs. That exodus has been going on for some time. Similarly with those that are very wealthy, there were concerns a wealth tax would get brought in. It didn't. I never thought it. But still they feel the whole message, the whole mood music isn't very positive. My biggest worry actually are the 30 somethings, right? The people that are setting up businesses, the entrepreneur. I mean, if you're in tech, right, say you work in tech, why be in London, why be in Manchester, why not be in Lisbon? I mean, you can fly back, you can fly back every business week of the year for a couple of days and stay within the 90 day rule on tax. That's my worry, is that we're driving out young entrepreneurs, we're driving out bright people. The brain drain, which I remember in the 70s, you know, up until sort of 78, 9 when, you know, our youngest accountants and doctors and people were leaving and the same's happening again. A lot of youngsters going to Australia, Australia now, very, very tempting location, particularly for the medical profession where they're earning a lot more money in Australia. But yeah, that's my real worry. And the total lack of comprehension that you can't actually have the public services you want unless you have wealth creators. They don't understand that we still have IR35 rules making it nightmarish for the self employed. We still don't allow VAT free shopping. So the global rich now spend the money in Paris and Frankfurt. I mean we must.

That was ridiculous. That was ridiculous.

Incredible. The day we left the single market, they put VAT on all these goods.

Yeah, I remember Bicester was full of international shoppers. They spent millions on refurbing it all and it was dead.

Yeah. No, no, no. And this is, this is frankly, how stupid we become. Clearly, Reeves is motivated by political ideology. The idea that she was a top economist at the bank of England.

I mean, are these people not blackboard economists? Have they actually run a business?

Well, I think she was counting paper.

This recent budget should warn you that your pension is not safe and secure and they're coming for your inheritance. Do you even know how much is in your pension or where your pension is invested? Add to this the recent inheritance tax grab on your pensions and the risk of a market crash. You probably didn't know this and I didn't until recently, but physical gold can be added to your pension. Pot gold is inheritance tax free and has grown 700% in the last 20 years. You probably know from my content I'm investing heavily in silver and gold and that's why I've partnered with Direct Bullion. Myself and Nigel Farage are brand ambassadors and Direct Bullion can help you with gold to protect and grow your pension. I buy my gold and silver from direct bullion and I don't earn any money on any purchases of gold or silver if you buy direct from direct bullion. So if you go to robmore.directbullion.com you can get a great price on your silver and gold and you can get the Penny Pension Gold Investing guide completely for free. As you know, I don't do many strategic partnerships and when I do, I do them with people who are credible, who've been doing it a long time, who invested things that I invest into. And gold and silver's going wild. I'm investing heavily in gold and silver and I recommend you check out robmore.directbullion.com clips personally.

But maybe I'm wrong. She wasn't a top economist, the bank of England. She worked in a department doing a bit of research and fine, you know, I'm not being derogatory about that. It's funny, isn't it? She overplays who she is. And poor old Kier, humble son of a tool maker, he owned the blooming factory. I mean, there isn't much, there isn't much truth about, is there? No, there really isn't. There really isn't. So look, you know, it's a bad budget. Frankly, the last two or three budgets were pretty awful anyway under Jeremy Hunt. Yeah, it's not good for entrepreneurship, it's not good for business, it's very bad for saving. But look, guys, you know, unless you want to emigrate, get on with it, make the best of it.

Do you think you'll be Prime Minister one day?

I don't know. I, that political realignment that I talked about is happening. I think it is to do with a lack of trust. It is to do with a total lack of connection.

And do you think you've become a lot more popular through that?

Well, I've never ever changed. Wanted to change, pretended to change. I'm what I am and if you like it, that's great. And if you don't, I really couldn't care less. No, but I mean that, yeah, you.

Went on I'm a celebrity.

I did.

Connected a lot more with the youth. Your own personal social media channels are huge now.

Yeah.

So you're definitely gaining some power.

I, you know, I have a track record of being consistent and persistent. You know, I've been around a long time. I, I think if we're going to get one of those once every fifty hundred year dramatic political realignments and they do happen, of course. Don't forget, you know, before the First World War, the Liberals governed for years. After the First World War gone and Labour became a second party.

Yeah.

I think reform's got a real chance of doing something very, very big. I genuinely do. I think standing up, honestly, and talking about the problems the country faces. And we're, we're predominantly discussing economics today, but think about the social side of it. I mean, I've been gagged over the Southport murders. Completely gagged. I'm not allowed to talk about it. If I even talk about it, apparently I'll be potentially, you know, in contempt of court or. I mean, we're living in a state where free speech. We're living in a state where law and order. I mean, we are not just in. We're not just in economic decline, we're in societal decline.

Well, all these people now going to jail for two years for social media posts.

I know. And by the way, some of those social media posts were pretty awful. Yeah, but still. Agree. Yeah, but still.

Should they be in two years when criminals are getting let out?

The whole thing's. But I. So, you know, what I'm trying to do with reform is, as I've said about economics, total change of mindset. We have to apply the same thing to mass immigration because it's not working anymore. It may well have worked really quite well for 50 years. It isn't working anymore. I'm worried about societal breakdown. I'm worried about law and order. I'm worried about the way communities are breaking down. I'm horrified at what our kids are being told at school. I'm absolutely horrified at what the Marxists left teach our kids about this country, its values, what it stood for, what our forebears sacrificed and gave to do a lot for the world. So as you can probably see from that quick snapshot, I'm pretty passionate about these things. The Labor Party are taking us completely in the wrong direction. The Tory Party haven't got the guts to stand up and do anything about it. So, yeah, I think there's a chance. And to answer your question, whether I become the king or the king maker in political terms remains to be seen. But something big is going to happen.

Right. So if you were the kingmaker and you had, you were doing the last budget, what would you do differently to turn the country around?

Well, number one would be, as I say, the whole, the whole attitudinal thing to try and start turning around the narrative help. The IR35 rules have to Go. They are absolutely ludicrous.

So you want to encourage people to start businesses and not hamstring them, is.

That what you're saying? Very much so, yeah. Very, very. By the way, that wouldn't cost anything. No, doesn't cost it. That would not cost the taxpayer a beam. So I changed to the R35 rules. I also think there's a very powerful argument of companies with fewer than 20 staff being exempted from quite a lot of employment legislation now. Of course. Yeah. They'll say he wants a return to slavery. No, I don't actually. I want people to get richer.

Yeah.

You know, I think there is a special case for small business. I've already mentioned the VAT on overseas visitors. It was just insane. I mean, bonkers.

Yeah.

You know, there are little things like that that we can do.

Right.

The big one, I mean, the really big one, and this is going to take huge courage, is to say there are too many people in the public sector. The number of civil servants increased by 600,000 since the conservatives came to power and they were supposed to support a small government.

So.

And I'm going to segue now into America, I'll tell you why. Because it's key for what needs to happen. The Darnold, he's doing good. He's doing good. I mean, you know, the McDonald's fries, extra salt. Amazing. The jokes at the Al Smith dinner. He's. Despite nearly being killed twice, he's got himself back into gear. Very much so. And he's going to win. Going to win.

You're sure about that?

Oh, yeah, I really am.

Have you spoken to him recently?

A couple of weeks ago, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, he's feeling confident.

I, Yeah, I mean, I work hard. He, he, I mean, he just is a gorilla. He just keeps going. He's unbelievable. Yeah, he's unbelievable. The hours he puts in, the, the energy that he's got and the energy that he imparts as well. So, yes, he's going to win. I mean, of course I'm worried about some of the early mail out ballots, whatever, but no, he's going to win. Here's the exciting bit. The really exciting bit is Elon Musk.

I knew you were going to say that.

I know this is really quite sexy actually.

He's going to do another Twitter, isn't he?

So, so basically Musk comes into Twitter sacks 80% of the staff and it makes no difference. Yeah, it's fine. It maybe took a. You had to wait a couple of days for Blue Tick, but that was it. So the idea is that musk comes in and starts cutting up the deep state. Yeah. And that's going to be the template for what we need. We need fewer bureaucrats, we need less bureaucracy, we need more streamlined government. And when we then done that, and this is going to be hard, we need to rationalize why are so many people on mental health incapacity and what is it actually doing to them? You see, if I tell you I'm a doctor and you come to me and you're feeling a bit depressed, maybe because you've been locked in the second and third lockdowns on the 23rd floor of a block of flats, I'm worried about leaving for more than an hour a day in case the police come and arrest you, were sitting on a park bench. But if I tell you you're a victim, right, And I put you on the disability benefits that justify that victimhood status, I probably put you on some prescription drug as well, you think you're a victim. So your mental health and probably your physical health is more likely to decline than it is to improve. Now, there are clearly very serious mental health issues in this country and I don't want to demean or devalue those in, in any way, but goodness me, we have to find a way of turning around people's lives. There are young people's lives being ruined by being told that they are mentally disabled, when frankly, all they've. All they. What has happened is they've been through a bit of trauma. So. So. And it's going to take guts to do it. It's going to take real guts to do it, but we have to do it.

The irony, I think, is there's one simple solution to this. Get them back to work, doing a meaningful job, working with other people, not from home, but with people.

Yeah.

And then you start to earn well and you feel good.

Yeah, I'm. I'm convinced of it. I mean, I. Yeah, there are some that will choose that lifestyle and sit and smoke dope all day, but. But they're not all like that by any means at all. The other problem we got, and why we rely so much on mass immigration, is this terrible trap. And I found this in the general election, knocking on doors in Jwick, the poorest bit of the Clacton constituency, actually one of the most deprived communities in the whole of country. I met loads of people who said, nigel, we want to better ourselves, we want to work. But as soon as I work for more than 16 hours a week, I lose my benefits. I'm worse off. So if they can find a really good job on 40 hours a week, fine, it's worth it. But in many cases, the route back into work is perhaps through, you know, a few hours a day, two or three days a week, whatever it is, to get back into the habit of working. So there's some massive changes around the tax system that need to happen.

Yeah.

To make work genuinely pay as opposed to being on benefits. So for me, for me, if we do not deal with those two problems, we're going to just finish up with this massive bill that is becoming increasingly unaffordable. So these are very frank conversations that we've got to have. There's some quite radical surgery needed to get us back to where I think we should be. But that's what my political career is about. Over the course of the next few years, taking on tough issues but offering solutions. Just saying it's all good ahead of the handcart isn't any use. You've got to find positive ways of dealing with things. But. But so much of this. So much of this is about mindset. Yeah. It genuinely isn't. And social media, you know, which we're talking today. And this will go out on social media and that's great. It gives us a platform to reach people. We don't need the BBC anymore, thank goodness. But one of the problems with social media is that it does frighten politicians. You get the pile on, you say something they don't like, you get the pile on. I think politicians feel it very personally and they get bullied into moving away from what they really believe in to what the mob think they should do is. It's safer because it's easier. Yeah, it's easier and that. So we need people of courage to run the country.

And people with courage nowadays are getting cancelled, silenced or assassination attempts on them.

Yeah.

I mean, MPs have been murdered and Donald's had two attempts at his life. Is that. That's not a fair price to pay, but you still do it.

Bit late now. No, of course there are big downsides and big worries and I think you worry about friends, family. I mean, you do worry about these things. Of course it's not easy, but. But I mean, frankly, if we allow ourselves to continue down this route, then it's frankly as evil. It'll lead to a complete loss of democracy in every way. It'll lead to a complete loss of liberty and freedom and personal choice in everyone. That's how important the fight is. Ronald Reagan said 40 years ago, when he was US president, that we're never more than one generation away from losing our freedom and there has to be a perpetual fight to maintain that freedom. He was right.

Yeah. I mean, I don't think people fully understand implications of. I post a lot on LinkedIn about preserving cash. I know you post about that a lot and I get it. They go wild. But a lot of people just say, oh, but it's easy and convenient. That's just so lazy to not think of that. Imagine all your money being controlled by the banking system, which is essentially banks, governments, one world entity.

You're telling me about banks. I mean, no one's fought the banks like I have.

No.

Yeah, it's already happening. It's already happening. You can have an account with one of the main high street banks and you might be putting fifty hundred quid a month through one of the platforms into Bitcoin or Ethereum or whatever. And the bank says, no, we're not doing that anymore. They're already beginning to control the way we not just earn our money, but how we spend our money.

Well, my friend went to the bank recently, asked for 20,000. They said, what for? He said, none of your business. They said, no, his money. Yeah, I tried to put some money into Bitcoin recently. They did our five grand a month for me to put in, in one and a half grand installments. But if you try and it doesn't go in, that counts as one of your tries. So I was able to put, yeah, three and a half grand in.

Yeah, no, no, my money. This is a very big fight. The unholy trinity of big business, big banks and big government. Yeah, yeah.

They're supposed to be independent and it seems like they're. They're just one big machine.

They're not. They're not. They're not. No, they're not. And, yeah, you know, these essential things that are freedom of choice, they're all under attack. It's one of the reasons bitcoin is doing as well as it is.

And gold.

Gold is. Well, what, a budget for gold?

Everyone just buy gold and silver?

Well, yeah, well, silver's more difficult in the uk. Silver's more difficult because of vat. So. It's true, there are.

But the good thing is, if you don't have much money, you can buy silver coins. You can get in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're cheap.

Yeah.

Gold has had a huge rise over the course of the last few years. I've been very bullish of gold for about five years. So, you know, the caveat is that it's risen a lot already.

Well, the bank of America, I think it's going up to 3,000 an ounce.

Well, it's 2800 was morning or nearly.

Oh really?

Yeah, nearly that, nearly that. Yeah.

The last time I looked it was $2,000.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's, it's, it's rocketed.

Yeah. But surely the gold is long hold play.

Well, yeah, I mean, you know, I'm not saying we should, I'm not saying you, you do it for a short term punt. Yeah. You're better off at epsom@the.on Derby Day if that's what you want. I always think I'm going to win. I never do the. Not true. Sometimes I do. But no, here you have an asset class you can buy where there is no capital gains.

Hallelujah.

You can even put it into your pension.

Hallelujah.

Which almost no one knows.

Yeah.

Who knew you could put gold bars into your self invested personal pension? Which is very attractive. Although maybe a little bit less attractive after what she said yesterday. So. No, I mean I think the number of UK citizens who even five years ago would have said, well, how do I buy gold? It's all too difficult. No, it's not difficult at all. It's really very easy. And you buy the stuff and you, you know, put it in a safe, keep it under the bed or have it stored professionally for you and pay a little bit of rent.

Yeah.

And insurance every year. And look, you know, I've got an interest in this. You know, I've been working with direct bullion for some time on this as much to educate people.

Yeah.

That this is an option that's available to you because previously people thought, oh well that's just what you know, the super rich do. No, it's available to everybody.

Yeah.

It's accessible. It's also liquid.

Yes, well, I think it's probably more liquid than money in the bank because the banks can say, no, we're not giving you your money.

Yeah, but you can sell your gold.

You, you've got it and it's. And it's tangible and in your hand.

No, it's gold has become. Actually the truth is ever since Gordon Brown sold it. Do you remember that song Gordon is a Moron back in the 70s? The. Ever since Gordon Brown sold it, it's actually just gone up and up and up.

Yeah.

And it's had very steady returns over the last few years. It's just the last couple of years when it's really moved Up. Yeah. So, you know, yeah, gold is suddenly, as I say, I mean it was Jeremy Hunt that said he was going to bring down the level at which we start paying capital gains from 12 and a bit thousand to 3,000. Now she's putting inheritance tax on virtually everything. You know, here is a capital gains free asset. It's not IHT free of course, unless you give money away more than seven years before you die. So no, I think, I think the massive increase in participation from UK citizens in buying gold coins and bars. I hear that the firms involved in this have had their busiest month in history.

Wow.

And that's before the budget. Wow, that's before the budget. And the more people learn, as I say, you can, I mean if your money's in the pension pot already, if you want to transfer some of it into gold, you can do so.

Right.

So I think it's a very, very attractive place to be. And as I say, I've been, I've been professionally saying for five years you really ought to have, you know, some of your portfolio ought to be in gold.

And is that because generally when economies and other asset classes do badly or inflation is high or people don't trust systems, gold becomes the thing you trust.

Yeah, I mean, oddly, you know, the Dow Jones is very, very high and gold's high, which is unusual in one sense. Look, the world's in a very uncertain place. The Middle east is disturbing to say the least. Yeah. The Ukraine war, it just goes on and on and could go on for years. One never knows with the massive increase in the size of its navy, what the Chinese might or might not do. And as I mentioned to you earlier in this discussion, you know, indebtedness suggests to me at some point there's going to be a big correction coming. And money itself, money itself has been devalued, isn't it?

Yeah, 30%. Well, they quote to 25% since lockdown. Inflation. Because people look at inflation go, it's less than 3%. That's not a lot. No, it's not going down, it's just.

Going up less quickly and it compounds.

It compounds, exactly. So since lockdown, if, if they say it's 25% and I saw that data six months ago, to me now it's 30.

If your money's in the bank, even though you're getting a bit of money on interest now, but you know, you're.

Not winning, you're losing to inflation.

Winning.

And gold always beats inflation.

Yep. It's a great long term play. Yeah, Big opportunity No capital gains. Put some of your pension pot into it. It's all there to do and that's why I've been happy to put my name to it.

And so you said you've got an interest with Direct Bullion. Just want to explain about.

Yeah, no, I've been working for Direct Bullion. I've been doing a bit of promotion for them, bit of advertising for them, bit of education for them. So, you know I have an interest in this. Declared. Yeah. But I'm not doing it out of nothing. I've been doing this now with them for. Getting on for a year. Yeah. But I've been actually, for the last five years I've been involved with financial markets, newsletters, etc, making this argument that you should give gold a serious thought and it is open and accessible to you.

Yeah, well, I'll declare my interest as well. I've become a brand ambassador for Direct Bullion.

Well, you've been a Gold bull for years.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been. Well, I told you my. I was giving my son hole in ones. He'd get a hole in one. I give him a Krugerrand. Think he'll get one in his life. Maybe he got eight by age eight and they were 700. 700 pounds an ounce back then.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And say they are $2800.

Yeah. Which in sterling terms would be $2100.

Still a great return.

Have you given him the Kruger rounds yet?

I'm storing them for him until he's old enough.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you better get on to your dad. I'm not sure about this.

Yeah. So if anyone is interested in looking into gold. Robmore.direct bullion.com that's robmore.direct bullion.com and yeah, I'm. Some people call fiat currency a Ponzi scheme. What do you think about that? I. E? Money isn't real, it's not backed by anything. Well, it's going down in value year on year. How long can that go on before money is worth nothing?

Well, a Ponzi scheme is a deliberate attempt to defraud. Now, I'm not quite sure we can accuse our central banks and government of that directly, so I wouldn't equate it directly to a Ponzi scheme, but. But there's no doubt that since the break with gold, which happened back in the early 70s, the dollar was, you know, firmly pegged to gold. We've seen the most spectacular decline, spectacular decline in the value of money. Quite spectacular.

And the cost of Living relatively. Isn't it lowest since the Second World War or something? The relative cost of living, your standard of living.

Standard of living. Oh, yes. Oh, our standard of living is declining. Yeah. At every level. And this isn't just financial, it's. It's, it's also a feeling of being safe. It's also. You're driving up the M6 on a Friday night. Well, good luck with that. You know, it just. Generally life is, life is more aggro, less peaceful than it was just a few short years ago. Yeah. Look, you know, we can't pretend to have the answer to all the worlds solutions, but I think what we can say is that these are issues and areas that both of us have thought about for many, many years and acted on.

Do you think it's possible to go back to some kind of gold standard or have. Because money evolves over time.

For the moment, there is enough confidence in money for it to last for a substantial period of time, even if we get a major correction. But ultimately, as you say, money is backed by nothing other than confidence and the system and where we are. And people say, well, bitcoin's worthless. Well, what backs up my ten pound note?

Yeah.

Other than the bank of England and the establishment. Yeah. You know, it's all about what we believe in. It's all about what we have confidence in. And of course the great appeal of bitcoin has been there's only ever going to be 21 million of them.

Yes. So they can't do to bitcoin what they do.

They can't, they can't inflate it, they can't.

Quantitative it is bitcoin.

No, no, no. Yeah, no. Really interesting, really interesting. And Trump, who was dead against all forms of crypto, now, you know, I mean, I won't call him a brand ambassador but, but he has me saying, hey guys, this is real. Yeah. And it is.

So when we last spoke, you were really worried about China. You know, you thought they were a major threat. So. And where do you think we are in terms of our safety? Are we near a third world war?

Well, hopefully the Chinese are far too clever to want that because, you know, a world war would be catastrophic for both sides. But the way in which they've operated in terms of industrial espionage, espionage, the kind of society, the social credit system that the Chinese people have to live under. I don't want that. No, I don't want that. Now militarily, Taiwan, I guess, is the big problem. You know, they totally reject the independence of Taiwan and I, I worry at some point in time that they will just simply go and try and take it. I do worry about that. And the extent of the naval buildup is astonishing. Yeah, absolutely astonishing. All sorts of contested little bits of coral reef in the South China Sea. You know, it's, it, it's funny because before President Xi, you know, we never ever thought of China as being expansionist in any way at all. But their modern day imperialism in Africa and elsewhere, the consistent attack on the Commonwealth, you know, they see the British Commonwealth as being a very valuable geographical asset and they've been chipping away at that. So, yeah, my concerns have not shifted.

So I've got three more questions. How do you stay positive, energized, enthusiastic, committed to change? When? Because I don't want to be negative. I'm a pretty optimistic guy, but I think these things are important to talk about. How do you stay bullish about life?

Well, one reason is, you know, I've nearly died three times. I've had three very serious brushes. Yeah.

Plane crash.

Didn't you had a plane crash? Smashed to pieces. Still suffer with that every day. But hey, you know what? I'm not in a wheelchair. I've been very, very lucky. Major road traffic accident, which I had run over by a car just over 40 years ago, in hospital for months in a bad way. And an undiagnosed malignant canc cancer, which was undiagnosed for much longer than it ought to have been. So. So when you've had all these brushes, I just think some mornings you are so blooming lucky. I don't know what I've done to deserve, but no, I am, I mean, no, I'm being serious. I've been very, very lucky. Lucky in my life. Lucky to still be here. So you make the most of it. So that's one way that I stay optimistic and bullish. Yeah. The second is that I have a track record of fighting for things that people said, oh, you're wasting your time. Yeah. Completely impossible. And yet, you know, seems to make you smile. But the impossible happened.

Yes.

Took a long time. But I said earlier, I'm consistent and persistent.

Yeah.

And the third thing that keeps me happy and optimistic is I like a pint. That's my reward at the end of the day. Yeah.

Great. Well, thank you for sharing that because maybe you don't get asked those kind of things a lot, but I do still think this country has things to offer. I do think life is still beautiful. I do still think you can start a business. And you can become successful despite everything that's going on about it. I do think these things are possible.

I would just like it to be easier.

Yeah.

I'd like more people to do it. And if more people did it, we would, as a country, be a lot richer.

And if people like us keep speaking.

Out as well, it helps. It helps. I. I get asked a lot, you know, it's. I. I do this cameo thing, you know, and, you know, it's birthday messages, anniversaries, stag nights, whatever it is. But. But I get quite a lot of, you know, our son Billy is 18. He wants to get on in life. You know, what's the advice you'd give him? And I always say, I'll say. I'll say, Billy, I've not met anyone in sport, in politics, in business, in media. I've not met anybody in my life who's become a real success that hasn't worked incredibly hard and probably harder than everybody else in their field. There are no shortcuts. So I think this is the kind of positive messaging. I am a little way trying put it out. I know you very much try to inspire budding entrepreneurs and people who are on that journey to believe in themselves, to work hard, to think clearly. All of those things we just need to do at a national level to turn things around.

So I was fascinated when Trump went on Patrick bet David, he was Theo Fawn, who's got really big now, and of course, Joe Rogan. And there was a lot of shenanigans with YouTube, which is Google, which is Alphabet, which are a major donut to the left.

What were. Were.

Yes, so they certainly were in the Biden era. I mean, they're not top, but they're still Alphabet, YouTube, Google are still quite high up on the list. And, you know, in two days, that YouTube with Joe Rogan and Donald Trump had got nearly 40 million views and you couldn't really search for it. So I'm looking at this going, I'm a big fan of independent media. You know, you've grown a big channel. You know, our mutual friends, people like Dan Wootton, have become more successful when they've been independent and I think disrupting the BBC and the mainstream media. I think overall is. Is good. So do you think that's maybe what's going to give Trump the edge? He went on all these podcasts, he got hundreds of millions of views.

Well, it's funny because Trump's always said it's mainstream media. For me, he's always said it's mainstream media. For me, he said Internet. I'm the king of the Internet. But it's mainstream media for me. I think mainstream media still, the newspapers, the big radio and TV channels, I think mainstream media still sets agendas. It still sets, it frames the debate and where it's going to go.

Yeah.

But if you want eyes on, there's no doubt it's Joe Rogan and elsewhere. And there's no question, is there, that the world's changing incredibly rapidly. We come and sit here in five or 10 years time, the mainstream as we know it right now, very little of it will exist. So. Yeah. And in fact, if I hadn't been elected as a Member of Parliament for Clacton to represent those good people, I'd probably be seriously considering doing my own thing.

Well, as in your own media company, My own channel.

Yeah, yeah. With other people. And. And yeah, because I think.

Would that give you more freedom?

I think. I mean, it may well be. I mean, and by the way, GB News has done an incredible job. I'm not knocking GB News. I mean, they've come in and talk about disruptors. I mean, they've really shaken up the television market. They've got a terrific following every week. I think about 2.7 million people a week.

Wow.

You know, and it's a very loyal audience. Yeah. And it's very powerful. However, what GB News won't be able to get or any of them be able to get is the under 25 market.

Right.

The Gen Z market. Don't even know what television is.

Yeah.

It's not part of their lives. Just, you know, we grew up with television being quite a central part of family life. They don't even know what it is. And it's to that generation that that's where the new media stuff really, really works. And I'm very encouraged by Gen Z. They're not like the millennials. They've gone. I mean, they're all work, life, balance and be happy. Great. But he. Well, we all want to be happy. But you know what I mean. Now I see a lot of energy in Gen Z. I see a lot of ambition in Gen Z. You know, I mean, a lot of young men and women going out around the country in that bracket, they were smartly turned out, want to get on and they're the people from whom we're going to get the political revolution. It's going to come from that age group. It really is interesting.

So I've got this final question. I've got this theory about tax. So my accountant is very Good. Says the tax code is thousands of pages long. It's really complicated and I don't know how many people need to be hired to keep this very complicated system alive. What about if it was just ripped up and we just had a flat tax rate? And what about if the earlier you start in business, the less tax you pay?

So this happened after the fall of the Berlin Wall. This happened in the Baltic states.

Wow.

Yeah. Was it successful? Lithuania had introduced a flat tax system. Very, very. But they were starting from scratch. As radical as I am, I don't think the British public is ready for flat taxes yet. But I think we can aim there. We can certainly have flatter, simpler taxes. We can have fewer bands. You'll always have the problem with cliff edges. That's the beauty of flat taxes. There are no cliff. Yeah, that's the joy of it. Yeah. Or there may be some at the bottom, but in the middle there are none. Flat or simpler taxes. The UK tax code is now 21,000 pages long. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

21,000 pages.

The most complex tax system in the world.

How many staff does it require just to keep that up to date?

It's very good for local accountants, by the way.

Well, of course.

Hello. I'm paying you lots of money because I can't do it.

No.

Well, none of us can. If you've got a business with a reasonable income and you're paying people, you're almost mad to do the books yourself. Because if you fall foul of any of it, you know, you can be in real trouble. So flatter, simpler taxes. Yes. Absolute flat tax system. No, I still think, mentally, the British public think a lower rate for lower earners. A higher rate for higher earners. That redistribution idea is quite firmly ingrained in our minds, but it can be a damn sight better than it is.

And why do. Another theory I have is that befriend the billionaires, the big corporations, take a bit more off them. Because I understand some big companies are avoiding corporation tax. They're paying like 4% when we're paying 25.

That's the irony. Yeah.

Why couldn't you just get 8% out of them?

Yeah.

And then you're probably putting hundreds of billions back into the economy.

Yeah. I mean, this is about competition, isn't it? So why have Ireland done so well in terms of big American companies and others headquartering in Ireland? Competitive tax rate. And what have we done? What have Victoria's do? They put up. They put up corporation tax by 31%.

Yeah.

From 19 to 25p in the pound whilst Ireland's still 12 and a half. You have to be competitive. You want to succeed in life, anything. You have to be competitive. And what Rachel Reeves did yesterday was to make us even less competitive than we were before.

How do they not know this?

Don't ask me, don't ask me. I've been scratching my head for 30 years asking myself that question. Different people, group, think a lot of people from very, A lot of people from very similar backgrounds, very similar types of people who tend to live their political lives with many of them run through their whole life. They don't have hobbies, most of them outside interests, friends. Most of them wouldn't be seen dead going down to the local pub. They live in this political battle, a bubble. And if you live like that, then you self reinforce perhaps the views that you started with to the degree when you stop thinking about all the others. And that's again where politics needs a massive shake up. We need different people with a much broader range of backgrounds. I think politics was so much better when I was a kid. I know people say things like that, but I think it was because I think, you know, your, your classic Labor MP had, you know, been down the pit and had risen up through the union and was somebody that had leadership abilities and could stand and speak without reading everything off. And I mean, unbelievable. They can't even do PMQS without reading it out. Yeah, it's, it's incredible. You know, when your classic Tory had been a decorated soldier in the war or, or, you know, had run a country estate or. But they'd all, they'd all done something, they'd all been something before they entered politics. Right. And now you get the, you know, Oxford and Cambridge University Research Office MP at 28. What do they know? Too many of them college kids.

Right.

No good.

Yeah. Why can't we just have a few more people, have really run some serious businesses?

We need it, we need it, we badly, we need it now more than ever before. But if you're running a serious business, do you want the level of intrusion? Do you want the level of risk, do you want the level of scrutiny? It's tough.

No. But I did say this. I was being, I was interviewed on a big podcast a couple of days ago. I said, if, you know, the government came to me and said, rob, give us five, eight hours a week of your time to consult and advise and help you do it. I would do it. I would do it for free.

Yeah.

And I reckon every other entrepreneur would as well. Because I care about my country.

Yeah, well, you're. I mean, with what you're doing already, going out around schools, things like that, trying to spread this message. It's really, really important.

Thank you. So, Nigel, can you give us something you haven't told anyone else about what you're planning for the next few years?

No. Yes, you can. No.

Yes, you can.

No. It's all under wraps, dear boy. It's all under wraps. It's an interesting thing, but successful politics is as much about perspiration as it is about inspiration. And right now we're in the boiler room. Zia Youssef, who's become our party chairman, you know, very successful entrepreneur, late 30s, and he and I are working together like crazy to build structure, to build organization.

You move your party.

Yeah. To get people trained.

Yeah.

So a lot of what I'm planning to do in the next few years relies upon having the network and the structure built. Yeah. And that's what I'm doing at the moment. That takes up most of my time at the moment. And if we get that bit right, then you just watch us, all right?

And we will. And as much as I'd love to end on that, I just have thought of one. One thing I want to ask.

Yeah.

Maybe this is a radical idea, but are senior politicians underpaid?

Yes, but you'll never convince the public of that. You'll never convince the public of that, I'm afraid. It's funny, when I was in Brussels, there were 10,000 staff in the European Commission whose take home pay was higher than the British Prime Minister. Amazing. Amazing. And it's the same here. The civil servants earn more than the politicians. If you paid more money, would you get higher quality people? Possibly. Would they do a better job?

Would they be less interested in getting their what?

I'd love. I'd love to think so. But will the British public ever support that? No, it's not happening. It's not happening. If you want to make money, don't go into politics. You want to change the country, in the end, you have to. It's a big sacrifice for many people. It's a very big sacrifice, certainly for me. I mean the, the, the financial sacrifice of the European Parliament for me was absolutely huge. Leaving the city, packing up my company just before the big commodities boom. But do I regret it? No. Because I followed my dream, followed my passion, worked hard at it, enjoyed most of it as my assistant, my press guy. And We've been together 10 years and as he says, Nigel, we've won a few. We've lost a few. We've had a damn good time.

Nigel, thanks for coming on the show.

Thank you.

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