Firas and Josh dissect Minneapolis protests against ICE, where a shooting during an arrest—possibly due to a detainee’s unreliable SIG Sauer P320—sparked violent reactions, including Antifa calls for armed confrontation. They link this to political motives, like Minnesota officials’ opposition to deportations amid 14th Amendment demographic concerns and foreign-funded activism near the scene. Meanwhile, U.S. military buildup in the Middle East, despite Iran’s weakened regional influence, hints at a potential regime-change strike, though critics argue it’s strategically flawed and could backfire with missile retaliation or destabilize Iraq for Turkey’s gain. The episode also mocks Britain’s controversial ceding of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius—a $30B deal critics call a "scam"—while questioning Keir Starmer’s role in constitutional overreach, comparing it to a "zombie parliament" pushing divisive policies like hate speech laws and gun reforms. Ultimately, the discussion frames these events as symptoms of broader ideological and geopolitical miscalculations, where short-term political gains may outweigh long-term stability. [Automatically generated summary]
Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Loadseaters episode 1340 for Monday the 26th of January 2026.
So happy Australia Day to our Australian viewers in the audience.
Today I'm joined by Firas and Josh.
Hello.
Oh hello.
And we're going to be talking all about today the absolute chaos in Minneapolis.
We're going to be also talking about who benefits from war with Iran and then we're going to be talking about the humiliation ritual that is the Chagos Islands deal.
So obviously just to remind you once again, if you haven't heard, if you've been stranded in the Gobi Desert for the past three weeks with no signal, we have Islander out now.
It's £15 basically rounded up on the main website.
Go and get it.
Wonderful aesthetics by Rory.
Fantastic articles, meditations on power and heroism.
It's a terrific one.
So do go and check that out.
I liked your Aragon piece a lot, by the way.
Oh, thank you very much.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Aragon's in there as well, ladies and gentlemen.
All right.
Josh, anything been going on in Minneapolis recently?
That would have been a good segue, except I need a mouse.
Do you?
I thought.
Thank you.
Josh, anything been happening in Minneapolis recently?
What was that, Samson?
He said, don't forget to plug Real Politic.
Okay.
All right.
Right.
And also, ladies and gentlemen, Firas is going to be a realpolitik at three o'clock.
You know, you're going to be live, aren't you?
Talking all about the new Imperial Order.
So should be a really good one.
Josh, anything happening in Minneapolis recently?
No, let's move on.
No.
Now we've got to transition to a very serious tone.
Oh, yes.
Good work with that.
It's very appropriate, but never mind.
So recently there was a shooting in Minneapolis, and I'm going to break it down, talk about why it happened, what actually happened, and some of the narratives around it.
And I think that a lot of this is politics by other means, really, isn't it?
So lots of the sort of left-wing factions in Minneapolis and Minnesota more widely have been activated.
And as you can see, they are turning out in their droves.
This is obviously quite a significant turnout.
You can see the US Bank Stadium in the background for sort of scale.
That's a big turnout.
There's no overlooking it, really.
There are a lot of people here protesting ICE being the state, which is interesting in and of itself.
However, what they have been doing, they've taken it a bit further than protesting.
They've been driving around trying to follow ICE vehicles.
And we've seen people on Ice Watch, as they've been calling it, where they have signal chats where they share location data of where ICE is with one another in a sort of weird citizen clandestine operation to surveil basically federal agents.
May I comment on that?
Of course.
I just got a message from a former military friend of mine and basically just copying someone else's post, but the point was that this is far more organized than regular civilian activity.
That what they seem to have done is break down the tasks in a way that will be very recognizable from a military standpoint, where there's a division of labor between spotters who are identifying vehicles, sort of back-end support, checking these vehicles, license plates, trying to figure out who they are.
Chasers who are going around after these ICE vehicles and maintaining up-to-date locations, protesters who are there to disrupt the actual detention and capture of illegals, etc., etc.
And it seems to be quite well organized with a good comms backing, with decent financial support, with a lot of people who either have a lot of free time on their hands or are getting paid.
And if you look at the scale of the fraud that has been committed in Minnesota in general, you might have an inkling as to how that money is being channeled.
Yeah, and there's also the fact that people like Will Stancil are turning up and going on Ice Watch, and it's been turned into this thing in the sort of democratic world whereby it's now a sort of acceptable thing to just go out and do this, which is effectively undermining federal agents.
And you have the consent straight from the top of Minnesota as well, from Jacob Frey and obviously the mayor of Minneapolis and all the rest of them, Tim Walsh.
They all agree with that.
We'll be talking about them, don't you worry.
So there is a bit of a darker side to this as well, because it's not just ICE, which is concerning enough that they're following, but they're following other people as well.
They followed James O'Keefe, who many people might be familiar with through his work with Project Veritas.
Yeah, wonderful.
Good work, yeah.
And apparently, lots of people were threatening to kill him.
They had bottles thrown at them.
They were followed and the like.
And he showed one of the texts that he received because his number got leaked.
And people would just message him things like, we know you're in Minneapolis.
You're with O'Keefe and his crew.
I presume this must be one of the people with him rather than him himself.
You're in a white Ford license plate blanked out for the sake of privacy from Florida.
You have one hour to leave or you are dead.
I mean, there's no ambiguity here as to what's going on.
It's just we've taken over the streets.
The people that we don't want here aren't welcome.
And if you don't leave, we'll kill you.
That's as explicit as it possibly could be.
And of course, as everyone is aware now, they're trying to block all sorts of things ICE and other vehicles as well.
This is just a little showcase of what it looks like.
But you can imagine what blocking a vehicle is like, right?
You don't have to have me show it to you.
So one other interesting thing is this.
That one of the people running one of the anti-ICE signal groups has been identified as Amanda Kohler, who is a protest organizer and also just happens to be a campaign strategist for Tim Waltz.
Of course.
What a coincidence.
It's almost like there's a political incentive to rile up people as much as possible to make as much of a fuss about this for political ends, right?
And it's worth mentioning.
And those political ends are keep every single illegal in our state.
And also make ICE look bad by forcing situations that need not happen.
So a point that I don't think gets made enough is to those outside of the US, this is where Minnesota is.
And this is where the border with Mexico, where most of the illegals come from, is.
You'll notice that they're opposite sides of the United States.
Yes.
That occurred to me.
And you might be saying, Josh, have you lost your mind?
What are you talking about?
Well, funnily enough, one quarter of all ICE arrests happen in Texas because Texas is here, Mexico is there, the southern border is the poorest one, although I'm sure people come across the Canadian one.
It's far less common than the one in Mexico.
And so most of the illegals are down here.
ICE is operating down here.
Why are you not hearing about this?
Well, it's because they don't have Tim Waltz as governor and Mayor Frey and lots of Democrats looking to cover their backsides because they've been overseeing some of the largest scale defrauding of the American public in the history of the United States.
And so the difference is that there's a very small number of illegals here compared to down here.
I'm not saying it's insignificant, but the fuss is being made here because of the politics.
Whereas in Texas, where the majority of ICE arrests happen, you haven't seen nearly the same reaction as you get in Minnesota.
Well, you did see three shootings last summer in Texas.
You did, yeah.
Three separate shootings targeting ICE, and I believe they ended up killing illegals that ICE was holding.
That's right, yeah.
So you saw violence there, and you saw a lot of violence in Los Angeles as well.
Though there was a bunch of riots in Los Angeles, they seem to be maintaining a narrative by focusing all of their activity on one location to maximize the disruption in one location and have that grab the headlines and force people to ignore the fact that ICE detentions are happening up and down the United States.
But the important thing in those examples with Minnesota and California is that they're DEM strongholds, right?
Whereas Texas, less so, although increasingly getting that way.
And therefore, you have the lone wolf person who seems to have acted alone and you don't have the wide-scale protesting you have in those other two places.
I suppose as well there is also an impetus to do this as quickly as possible before the midterms come around for any potential political backlash that may come if they lose the House or the Senate.
Well, it seems like a very good incentive.
Like Trump's sending in his stormtroopers to shoot ordinary American citizens.
If you don't want to be shot, vote for us.
And considering the options available to the Democrats, that's probably the line they're going to go with because otherwise they're not going to sell people on their positive vision for America when half of America knows they hate them.
So there was another shooting.
Don't worry that you don't actually see anything graphic.
So I'm going to play it without the audio though, just so you don't have to hear it.
And there's a few angles of this, and that's necessary to figure out what's going on.
And so if you please do humor me going over it quite a bit because it is important to break down the nuance here.
There is a lot of nuance in this.
It's not like some of the other shootings we've seen.
You know, even things like George Floyd and other things like that.
There's less ambiguity there than this one.
And I would like to highlight that because I had to watch the video maybe 10-15 times before I actually realized what happened here.
So I'm going to play it from a couple of angles and then I'll explain what I think happened.
Of course, I'm not a perfect, you know, omnipotent judge of what happened, but I'm going to give it my best attempt.
Maybe if you think I'm wrong and you have other information that I'm not privy to, please let me know.
So I'm just going to skip this forward a bit.
But people are interfering with ICE here.
There's a bit of a tussle.
And eventually they get someone on the ground here.
Notice that the guy that they get on the ground is dressed like ice.
Exactly.
Interesting choice, isn't it?
Yep, so it's a deliberate attempt at confusing the agents and so and then he gets shot.
So if you're looking at this without watching it over and over and over again, it looks like they shot an unarmed guy on the ground.
And at first, to be honest, in the first few watches, it's like, wow, that's actually what happened.
And then I watched it over and over again from multiple different angles.
Let's watch it at another angle, shall we?
They're doing too much, man.
They keep pushing people.
I don't need a Mexican guy narrating it.
Thank you.
They're doing too much, man.
So you can see this is a much better angle as it's from the other side.
You can see the angle we just watched it from here.
You can see they're trying to detain this guy here.
Multiple ice agents.
It's difficult to tell because some of them are wearing winter coats.
But there's lots of struggling going on.
And then there's the shooting.
So you still can't really see what's going on here that well.
It just looks like a struggle.
Then he gets shot.
Here's another angle for the sake of time.
I'm not going to go over this one, but it's linked down below in the website if you want to make up your own mind.
This isn't as useful as some of the others.
And then someone stabilized the original footage we saw, which makes it a lot easier to figure out what's going on because, of course, the camera was very shaky.
So you can see there down on the ground.
Keep an eye on this guy as well.
I think he's the one that takes the gun or one of these round here.
And then he gets shot.
Yes.
So it's still not as clear, but I think the clearest thing here is this.
This is a slowed down bit of footage.
So as someone takes the gun, it fires.
It fires, yeah.
See?
And zigs do that.
They do, yeah.
We'll be talking about those, don't worry.
So what I think actually happened here was they were detaining a guy, and you can hear from the audio, which I didn't play, but you can watch the original clips, that someone says gun, and then a few seconds later, the guy is shot.
And what I think happened is one of the ice agents sees that he has a gun, says gun, either he or another ice agent takes the gun off of the guy, but the other agents don't know that he's taken the gun already because it's happening so quickly.
It's in the matter of a few seconds.
And so they think he's got a gun, therefore we need to return fire, right?
Because I think the law states, and I've looked this up, that you don't need to wait to be shot at to shoot upon someone.
And so as long as someone's armed and they're either, you know, assaulting you, resisting arrest, or in a similar situation to that, legally they are allowed to shoot.
However, they didn't realize that they had been disarmed prior to that.
And therefore it complicates things.
And I think still legally the ice agents would be okay.
But at the same time, I think we can all recognize that the person being unarmed is not a good look.
And the fact that he had a gun in the first place is, of course, something that we're going to get to in a second.
But I think that they took the gun off him.
It went off.
They thought he was firing at them.
They shot him.
And it seems to my mind that it is an accident more than anything.
It doesn't seem like they necessarily executed him deliberately after they disarmed him because it seems like there wasn't communication or necessary communication.
The gun went off on its own, which I think is ultimately the thing that sealed the guy's fate more than anything, is that he bought a gun that wasn't reliable and went off on its own, which, you know, avoid at all costs.
And when you hear a, sorry, when you're in law enforcement and you hear the first gunshot, the first thing you do is not ask questions.
It is to shoot the suspect to make sure that, you know, the other officers or yourself don't end up getting shot.
And of course, with tempers as they are at the minute, people aren't going to necessarily see that nuance.
Well, this is just what I was about to say.
Not only that they won't see it, but that they won't wish to see it either.
You know, I remember obviously when we covered what happened recently with the killing of Rennie Good, also in Minneapolis.
And that was just a prime, and I think that that was an easier case to figure out than this one here, you know, and I've had you explaining it.
That's a lot to piece together from all the different camera angles.
But you see how quickly this is just evolving into pure factionalism and that actually the nature of each death as they come seems to matter less and less to people.
And all that matters are the two grand narratives surrounding that.
And I was actually going to touch on this because the actual events themselves aren't necessarily important to the politics.
The reality isn't actually informing either side, really.
But I do still think it's important to talk about it because I think that, okay, it's important to support your own ends.
Exactly.
And if there are mistakes on our own side, if you will, then you want to know about them to correct them.
And so you've got to look at these things honestly and you're not undermining the efforts of ICE to analyze them and to break them down.
Because, sorry, if I may just say as well, I suppose the thing is with it that even if in both examples it is a case of just naked drunkness on power and ICE barbarism, which I don't believe to be the case, but even if that were the case and that these two people were killed and weren't obstructing anyone, it doesn't mean that all of a sudden overnight, oh, right, we'll just let all the illegals stay then, right?
The work still has to be done of clearing out all of these illegals that were let in for many reasons, you know, many reasons that have been explored previously.
Custom Ammunition and Danger00:04:44
But it is becoming, you can tell that they're emboldening.
I agree with you.
We've not quite seen rebellion like that.
And also, for an example that will be lost on the Americans, just because Dr. Harold Chipman exists doesn't mean I'm not going to go see a doctor if I'm sick.
Like, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to tar all people with the same brush.
So, oh, that's not working.
Never mind.
So, the White House posted a big long rant.
It's almost like it was written by Trump or something.
But I'm not going to read all of that.
The point is that this is the gun that he had, and it is a SIG.
And this type of gun is notorious for going off on its own, which seems to be why it went off on its own.
Who would have thought?
And the funny thing is, even as a British person who, you know, my knowledge of guns is somewhat limited, I have at least fired some and know, you know, roughly how to do so.
Even I know about SIGs and their reputation for firing, you know, rounds when they're not supposed to.
And if I knew this, would you really think that someone who this is quite an expensive gun, all things considered, do you think that they would just overlook that if they're actually truly a proper gun owner?
And in fact, someone's broken it down.
Talking, it's a Sigsauer P320 Custom Works 9mm, and it's not actually a custom, it's still off the rack.
And it's known as the gun that goes off randomly when you didn't pull the trigger.
And it also has the Sigsaw red dot, which they claim is cheap Chinese rubbish with a horrible reputation.
And also they had the same ammunition by SIG, which from what I was reading is apparently quite good, unlike the gun itself.
But the point being that if they had a matching sight, ammunition and gun and the fact that they point out that the magazine here normally, when it gets used, gets worn down and you start to see some silver underneath the black paint, and so it seems like all of this was newly bought together, at the same time, all the same brand and the choice of gun and the cost of it seems to suggest that someone doesn't know much about guns.
Yeah, and that's what they're saying here, this person that probably knows more than me, and they're saying that it fits the profile of commie street agitator well, which I think they're right on that.
To be honest, the point about this being Hollow Point is also interesting, because that's anti-personnel, isn't it?
It's anti-personnel, but it doesn't work as well with body armor, and so you would assume that the ICE guys are wearing some kind of body armor and therefore you wouldn't choose Hollow Point if you actually wanted to kill ICE agents.
So that's not advice obviously yes, but you know, here we are, and it's also worth mentioning as well that apparently an agent's finger was bitten off.
I don't know whether this was the same incident, so I wasn't able to find the full press conference here.
There was another video of a guy with his hand bleeding of an ice, of a I don't think it was ICE, I think it was some other federal agent with his hand bleeding.
I don't know if this is related, but I just wanted to throw this in there to show that there is a tangible danger from the protesters to these people, if you know.
Someone fighting them with a gun on their hip wasn't enough already, but the reactions to this have been predictable.
People rioted, as as is often the case in Minneapolis, for some reason although you know it's mostly just smoke bombs here from this footage but people weren't happy, I suppose is a way of putting it, and for the sake of time I'm not going to play this, but a man who's self-described Antifar, he's very sweary.
He basically says we need to arm ourselves and then he says, I live around the corner from these addresses, we need to assemble here.
So it doesn't seem like someone who is just trying to rile people up but not back it up.
He's saying, we need guns.
I've been talking about this for a long time.
We need to show up and face these people with weapons.
Here's the streets where we need to assemble and things like that.
Which is, I think, something that we've not seen up until this point, really, and is concerning, obviously.
Agitating for Conflict00:09:08
And the issue is that if the illegals get deported, That ends up affecting the census.
The census affects the number of congressional seats that each state gets and their weight in the Electoral College.
So deporting all of the illegals, it changes the politics of Congress and of future presidential elections, which currently favor Democrats.
And so they want this operation against illegals to fail because it is critical to their hold on power.
And because they're psychologically pro-foreign.
Obviously.
And plus, a generation down the line, these illegals' children are going to be legal American citizens because of the way that the, I think, the 14th Amendment is applied.
Meaning that you're going to be in a situation where that's it.
The demographics have changed.
You are now in a uni-party state forever.
Congratulations.
So this is quite existential.
And if Trump succeeds in this, even though the official deportation numbers are low, even though they could be better, da-da-da-da, all of that's true.
But if Trump succeeds in this, then the Democrats have a very real problem on their hands.
Because increasingly, the white majority votes Republican, especially married whites.
We have this profile of the shit white lib, but they are actually a very noisy, annoying minority.
So all of these things factor into play and make this existential.
Do you have the links of Obama and Clinton going out in support of the protesters?
No, but it's important to mention if you want.
Yeah, I mean, when you're a former president, this gives you an enormous amount of legitimacy because you've been at the top seat.
You've ruled the country.
And that means all of the other politicians whose main objective is to be elected will listen to you because you know how to do it.
So when two-term presidents like Clinton and Obama come out in support of these protesters.
The things that they would never have actually supported when they were presidents.
Exactly.
And Obama is on record defending, removing illegal aliens, etc., etc.
Hillary Clinton has a long bunch of rants about the importance of removing illegals, securing the border, all of that stuff.
So when people of that stature within the Democratic Party come out in support of protests and call for more protests, it goes to show you how existential this is for the Democrats.
Well, this feeds in nicely to my overarching point that the reason that the Democrats are pushing this is entirely political.
And that's why it's all happening in Minneapolis and not elsewhere, is that they benefit from making it as much of a situation as possible.
Each person that gets shot by ICE is a victory for the Democrats, basically, because then it makes it seem like they're going in there, or at least more likely to seem like they're going in to target American citizens.
They're not just there to innocently round up illegals and send them home in a civil way.
They're there to cause problems.
And that is why they're doing all of this.
This is why they're encouraging people to protest.
This is why they're not giving ICE police support and helping them clear the crowds, which is what they should be doing.
Ideally, as well, Trump shouldn't be sending in ICE alone with a situation like this.
He should also be pushing to support them and clearing the crowds so that they're not impeded and you don't have situations like the one we watched where it need not have happened had the government basically been doing its job properly.
And there are going to be more confrontations like this if this continues, which it will because there's a strong incentive for them to do it.
And as you can see here, people are now turning up with guns, which I think in the coming weekend is going to really, really heat things up.
The key thing to mention is that everything that Waltz and Frey and so on are doing is a crime under various statutes that codify the Insurrection Act into law.
So Trump has an open goal here in terms of invoking the Insurrection Act, federalizing the National Guard, making the National Guard protect ICE, taking control of the local police forces, just sort of decimating the chain of command, and simply forcing them to apply the law.
Well, to be fair, lots of police officers are already defecting to ICE, defecting, if you will.
Isn't that a wonderful word, given the context?
I know.
That's why I chose everything.
I know.
It's a political thing at this point, isn't it?
And part of the reason, I think, is because the Minneapolis police chief deliberately omits reporting that the victim had a gun in the first place when he was talking about him being shot, which I think is an important detail.
And I think the way he talked about it only helped inflame tensions further, even though he went on to say, be calm, be calm.
By the way, he was executed.
But be calm.
Go out and protest.
But he was unjustifiably killed.
That's sort of the subtext of what's going on here, even if it wasn't necessarily intentional, which I have my doubts about.
And to an urban environment, to a city that is liberally minded and has been indoctrinated for decades now on diversity, equity, inclusion being the most important values that they can possess as well.
It gives these agitators and these people a moral mission and a sense of purpose in their lives that they're obviously severely lacking.
And Tim Waltz came out and basically said you need to carry on protesting.
This is unjustified.
They're coming to target American citizens.
Sorry, how do you say that?
That's what he says.
Just not in prison.
I don't know.
But to be honest, if the federal and what he says is the federal government's coming for American citizens, if the federal government were coming for American citizens, you'd have more than two people dead, I think.
Just a bit of a guess.
You hear about this little thing called the American Civil War when the federal government went after the South.
I don't think two people died in that.
And that was a long time ago.
You also have the mayor trying to agitate people and talking about massed agents pummeling one of our constituents and shooting him to death.
Just trying to agitate people.
Then you've got AOC.
I don't know why the video looks like it's from the early 2000s.
Looks like, you know, New York City pre-9-11.
I don't know why.
But she was there, you know, agitating and trying to make it sound as bad as possible.
And of course, all this goes into serve the same political aims that we were talking about earlier.
And in a bitter twist of irony, the place where the shooting happened, there are a list of businesses in one address that couldn't possibly exist.
Smart Therapy Center, the new American Development Center, and the Nicolette Senior Center.
And people did some digging.
And the Smart Therapy Center, owned by Asher Farhan Hassan.
And there's also others.
So it sort of brings it full circle that the site of this shooting in the background, you can see it in the videos.
Yep.
Institutions that are fraudulent fronts for foreign money.
I don't want to call it laundering.
I guess fraud is the only way you can really put it.
There are these foreigners defrauding your country right behind where the shooting is going on.
And so there's this thematic threat that brings a full circle.
And that is exactly what they're protecting.
And it's very ironic that it's visible with this flashpoint in the background.
So my final point is to wrap up.
All of this is political.
Of course, it is.
This is perfectly easy to prevent.
You just don't keep the protesters next to ICE.
This is possible to separate them.
It's possible to separate these two groups.
And by allowing this to happen, this is a political choice.
And therefore, it's safe to say that the political establishment wants these people to be shot for their own power.
And that's exactly what Cranky Texan says.
He says that they're following the colour revolution playbook, exactly.
Agitating to the point where people get shot.
That's the whole purpose.
I think he also says that.
Sorry, I was moving the mouse.
Yeah, fine.
Allow it this once.
Sorry, Farras, please.
I was trying to scroll down.
Forgiven, but I can't seem to get this mouse to operate.
Me, it's here.
Yeah.
I've got it.
Okay.
Go for it.
Yours has run out of battery fair.
Oh, wonderful.
Then I'll have to see all yours.
That's all right.
Significant Military Buildup00:03:38
Cranky Texas says there is a lot of oil in and off the shore of Somalia.
The West has been trying to extract it for over 30 years.
That's why there are learning centers in Minneapolis and riots to defend them.
That's an interesting explanation.
Tom Ratt says, I think Robert Barnes is right on this.
This is bad whether you support ICE or not.
Unforced error.
It seems pretty reasonable, to be honest.
And they say, again, brutal truth is that even though Ferras is 100%, he might as well be completely wrong.
Arrests should have been top-down, and they aren't.
So they are now thrashing in the mud amongst the tramps.
Yeah, fair enough.
Fair enough.
The holy mouth.
Yeah, sure.
Let's talk about something slightly even more exciting, I would say.
Oh, thank you.
Spiling on that.
So what we have now is a major American military buildup in the Middle East with the very strong possibility of another war to take out the Iranians.
The troop levels are at a record high, at least since May, when the first strike happened.
There's a huge number of bases already in the Middle East, but a new aircraft carrier is being sent to the region, as well as a bunch of aircraft that are tasked with jamming the communications of the enemy.
So clearly aimed at the Iranians, as well as a huge number of refueling tankers and some new destroyers and Aegis cruisers.
The destroyers are obviously there for land attack and the cruisers are there to intercept missiles when the Iranians retaliate.
We're also seeing an inflow of, we mentioned the tankers, but we're also seeing an inflow of air defense systems, including Thad and Patriot, that are being deployed to counter the Iranians' retaliation against a possible strike by the United States.
And this buildup seems to be quite significant and it's going on quite quickly.
On the 14th, 15th of January, we had a near miss where basically the tankers were in the air in order to support aircraft that would be tasked with attacking Iran.
But at the very last moment, a bunch of the Arab states intervened and stopped that, and I'll go over that in a second.
But we're also seeing cruisers that are being deployed to the eastern Mediterranean in order to protect Israel from the possibility of a retaliation by the Iranians.
So this buildup is clearly getting ready to a point of escalation, to a point of no return.
And it's really down to Trump to decide whether or not he's going to conduct strikes against Iran, this time seemingly with the aim of toppling the regime.
And I don't fully see the value of this, really.
And I don't see how it relates to American interests.
Well, I think that there are multiple different things to say here.
The first of which is he signaled that he was going to do something a bit more significant.
And I'm surprised it's actually taken this long because he was saying, you know, hang on in there, protesters, we're coming to help you out, and then did nothing.
Yep.
Islamic State's Nuclear Ambitions00:15:25
And so one would presume that there's maybe some planning going on that's dragging things out or they're waiting for the right moment.
And the second thing I'd like to say, other than the fact that this is going to be an expensive operation that could lead to, you know, deaths and boots on the ground and things that most people don't want, is that if the United States does topple the regime,
it's not necessarily a good thing for anyone involved because the United States pays for it both in blood and treasure, potentially, as well as the fact that then the subsequent Iranian regime will forever be associated with, well, you were only put in by the Americans, even if they were, you know, elected in a free and fair election, they would still have that association.
And so that's not going to help them to, you know, launch safely into a sustainable and happy future, if you will.
It's only going to burden them.
And so it would be better if Iran did this themselves than it be external.
And I think that's the key point here.
The key point is that with the collapse of Syria and essentially its capture by Turkey and its de facto dismemberment between the Turks and the Israelis, the Iranians lost Hezbollah in addition to all of the massive losses that Hezbollah suffered during the actual war with Israel.
Its entire command structure was decapitated.
Its elite units' command structure was taken out.
A huge number of lower and mid-ranking commanders were all killed in the months before the big escalation in September 2024.
A lot of its warehouses have been destroyed.
Its infrastructure in South Lebanon, close to the Israeli border, has been dismantled or decimated one way or the other.
The Israelis have pretty much full freedom of movement over Lebanon and they have full freedom of movement in Syria.
So the Iranians actually lost the Islamic Revolution because the Islamic Revolution was predicated on the revolution being exported to other countries.
In Yemen, they have a peace in the north, which is now weirdly kind of in partnership with the Saudis in a very weird way.
They and the Saudis are working together against the UAE in places like Somalia and Sudan and maybe in the future in Libya.
And the Iranians have been pushed back to just Iraq.
And Iraq is a complete basket case.
As a country, it's utterly and completely dysfunctional.
And so if the Iranians want to keep at least the Shia part of it, okay, that's theirs, fine.
But in no way does it even still threaten Israel.
The missile program could hit Israel.
And we saw the Israelis getting hit pretty hard by Iranian missiles.
And the only reason that the Israelis aren't flying over Iran and regularly bombing it now is because the Iranians can fight back and can cause significant damage to Israel.
But that's not a threat to the United States.
That's the issue.
The Americans aren't actually threatened by Iranian missiles because they'd get obliterated in a full-on war.
Even if they can cause significant damage in the region with their missiles, they have no chance of causing damage to the American homeland.
So we see this mess where there is this drive to war and there is this massive buildup towards war, and it is being done to benefit the Israelis, obviously.
But it isn't obvious to me that the Israelis would benefit from it that much.
Because what you have now is Iraq being held together by a string, more or less.
They had an election last year, and as they do with every single election, it's followed by a massive political crisis because the Shia powers don't want a strong prime minister because a strong prime minister might do anything, might do something to control the corruption.
And so they're fighting to see what kind of weak prime minister do they get.
And the Sunnis aren't happy and the Kurds aren't happy.
But if the Iranians who are keeping the Shia of Iraq together stop playing that role, then Iraq falls apart.
Well, who's right next door to Iraq who absolutely hates Israel and wants to take over Iraq's northern energy infrastructure?
The Turks.
The actual new enemies that the Israelis have.
And the Turks are becoming considerably stronger because over the last week we saw them take over northern Syria, including the Kurdish part of northern Syria.
And that's the part of Syria that has the grains and the oil.
So that's the most lucrative part of Syria.
That's the part that's most amiable to investments, that can generate energy, and that energy solves the main problem in the Turkish economy, which is that it doesn't have an independent source of energy.
And so by getting rid of Syria, the Israelis ended up strengthening the Turks.
And if they go ahead and get rid of Iran, guess what?
The northern half of Iraq, which is all Sunni, between Kurdish and Sunni Arab, is also going to fall into Turkey's lap because there's a vacuum and the Turks are in an imperialist mood and they will take over that piece of real estate.
And also, in so doing, they would create a larger number of insurgents in the first place that will cause problems, not just for Middle East, but also probably for Europe as well.
Exactly.
And we've seen the United States decide that it's going to move Islamic state fighters from Syria to Iraq.
The whole 2014 insurgency and the surge of Islamic State in 2013-2014 happened because the insurgents broke their fellow insurgents out of prisons that were controlled by the Iraqis.
And so everything is being put into place to create total chaos in Iraq.
And who's going to benefit from that?
Israel's new big enemy, Turkey.
But if you're Turkey, you're looking at all of this and you're asking yourself, hold on.
If they can take out the Iranian regime, they can probably take us out as well before we've had a chance to consolidate.
And the same narratives that are being used against Iran can be turned against Turkey.
They're also repressing protesters.
They're also turning the country theocratic.
They're also an enemy of the West, etc., etc.
But how strong is Erdogan's consolidation of power?
Pretty strong.
The elections don't really matter anymore because he can always manipulate them to get the results that he wants.
In 2015, he made them run the election again.
In 2018, I believe, he did that, but it failed more so than the first time.
But if you look at the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Interior, the justice system, the police system, all of the institutions of state, these are fully Erdogan loyalists.
And there is a sort of designated successor who is his foreign minister, who was the former head of intelligence, meaning that he would have been responsible for the cooperation between Turkey and Islamic State a decade ago.
And he was obviously responsible for it.
Islamic State had literally an ambassador to Turkey.
And now this chaos is being planned for Iran and Iraq.
And the objective from the Israeli perspective is to make sure that there isn't a state that's strong enough to take on Israel.
But if this attack on Iran actually happens, the main beneficiaries are going to be the Turks.
And then we're going to have a conversation where the neocons shift their attention from a broken Iran to a pretty strong Turkey.
And does that mean that there is going to be an attack on Turkey in the next decade?
I mean, if Constantinople is going to come back to Christendom again.
Sign me up.
Finally, a foreign adventure the US is getting into that I support.
Yeah, well, it may or may not play out that way.
I'm being facetious, of course.
I know, I know.
I know.
But we saw already after the strike on Qatar that Saudi Arabia ran and signed the defense pact with Pakistan to put Saudi Arabia under their nuclear umbrella, under the Pakistani nuclear umbrella.
And so if this attack on Iran happens and we can all see that Turkey is going to be the next target, what are the Turks going to do?
They're going to place themselves under the Pakistani nuclear umbrella.
And they're going to work with Pakistan and North Korea to acquire their own nuclear weapon.
And they won't make the mistake that the Iranians made, which is sort of use this to negotiate endlessly for two decades as they tinker with the possibility of a nuclear program.
All the time from a weaker and weaker position.
All the time from a weaker and weaker position.
They're just going to buy a turnkey solution and say, we now have 10 Pakistani nuclear weapons that are deployed in Anatolia.
If you attack us, we're going to use them.
That will be the reasonable Turkish reaction to this mess.
That said, there's a bunch of speculation on what the Iranians do about this.
And I want to discuss that for a moment.
The Iranians always say or make noises about closing the Strait of Hormuz.
Let's think this through.
Firstly, it means that the Americans end up destroying the Iranian energy infrastructure, all of it, which is concentrated on one tiny island.
The export infrastructure is concentrated on one tiny island, and that can just be erased.
So the Iranians will be in a situation where they won't export energy for another 10 years, 15 years.
It's not a good proposition.
And if they say to the Saudis and to the Emiratis, you're not allowed to export your oil anymore, well, Saudi Arabia has 150 F-15 American-made jets.
The Emiratis have something like 55 F-16s, American-made, and they have, I think, 44 Mirage aircraft.
These will be placed under American command because, you know, what else are they going to do?
There's one crazy thing that they could do, which is to join the Iranians in an oil embargo.
And then the Chinese economy suffers massively, but Europe falls apart too.
So, because that's 20% of the world's oil that goes through the Strait of Hormuz every single day.
20 million barrels a day, total demand of around 100 million barrels.
And I imagine because of recent developments in Venezuela and the oil that the Americans have got a hold on there, it'll mitigate any effects on America.
So the Americans are already the world's biggest producer of oil, I think.
I think they produce 13 million barrels a day, give or take, because with fracking, the numbers change.
But between the American domestic supply and the Canadian supply, the Americans can take care of themselves.
And with Venezuela, it takes a while to get all of this potential oil up to speed.
So they'll still be at around a million, a million and a half at most barrels per day, which is not enough, but which together with the Americans' domestic supply and the Canadian supply kind of helps solve problems.
And then there are all kinds of technical things around which refineries are suited to which oil.
So it causes a headache for the Americans, but it's not as big of a headache as the one that is suffered by the Europeans and especially the Asians.
So that's one possibility that we see the Strait of Hormuz closed and then the Iranian energy industry is destroyed, or the Arabs decide we've had it with the Americans.
I think that's not likely, but we'll see.
The other thing that they could do is actually build a nuclear weapon.
Well, guess what?
With the attacks that happened against the Iranians last time, what we saw was that the Iranians were deeply penetrated.
That Israeli intelligence really knows what the Iranians are up to.
Israeli and American intelligence really knows what's happening.
And so if they actually try to build a weapon, they have zero guarantee that it won't be detected.
And if it gets detected that the Iranians are planning to build a weapon, we know what kind of media narrative will be used, and we know that that might result in them being actually nuked.
So both of their options are suicidal.
And their only viable option is to keep on firing missiles at the Americans for as long as they can in order to show that they survived.
Okay, but again, this isn't to deal with a threat to the United States.
And we know that Britain is going to be involved because we know that the base in Cyprus is going to be used.
And whatever refueling capability, intelligence capability that Britain has is going to be placed under American command and in partnership with the US.
And we know from the June war in 2025 that all of the French and German available assets are also going to be used because Britain, Germany, and France were all involved in intercepting Iranian missiles that were being fired at Israel and Iranian drones.
So we know that this is going to be a European thing as well.
It's not going to be just an American thing.
And we know that all over Europe we have the pro-Palestine lunatics constantly marching.
These guys are going to activate.
But we know that there are specific Iranian assets.
Because for Qudsday, which is the Iranians kind of celebrating the Jerusalem and how they plan to take over Jerusalem one day, don't we all?
Don't we all?
Don't we all?
Yes.
I mean, who amongst us hasn't wished for Jerusalem to come back into its rightful Christian hands?
But we know that these groups are going to operate in Sweden and in Germany and in London and in Paris and all over.
Hezbollah's Unexpected Allies00:03:33
And we're going to have the Shia minority, which is actually quite crazy and quite vocal in Europe, also get involved in rioting and in protesting and maybe in terrorist attacks.
And the question is, if we assess this objectively, the main beneficiaries of an attack on Iran are probably going to be the Turks, even though it's the Israelis who have the grudge against the Iranians.
And even though if it wasn't for Israeli influence, the Americans wouldn't be thinking about bombing Iran right now.
And we know that the revolution has failed and that the threat from Iran has been massively reduced.
And we know that all of Europe is going to be roped into this one way or another.
And we know that, and it sounds such a silly thing to say out loud, but we know that for whatever reason, Trump in his actual, you know, not the U.S. administration, not its foreign policy plans, Trump as a human being and the things that guide him as a man, he was really obsessed with that bloody Nobel Peace Prize.
Right, which sounds stupid, but he invoked it again just last week over the whole Greenland thing and the fact that Norway didn't give him that Nobel Peace Prize.
And he says, well, maybe now that, you know, I've not had that, I'll change my own mind about how involved I get with certain foreign disputes.
Yep.
Yep.
So just looking at this whole question of bombing Iran or not bombing Iran, all of it is crazy.
And it's strategically nonsensical.
Well, you've convinced me of that.
And it's strategically nonsensical.
And it's just being done because of Trump's donors.
And that should be stated clearly.
And here we are getting ready to suffer the consequences of another war in the Middle East.
Why?
Anyway, shall we move on to other fun topics?
Oh, what?
Other geopolitical situations around the world.
Yes, all right.
Let's move on to something more light-hearted, shall we?
Thank you.
Yes, why not?
I'll take that too.
Yep, go for it.
Does that work?
Yeah, it's working.
A few chats there.
Okay, we'll go through those.
So Bernardo says, Firas, is the Christian community in Lebanon better off or worse off with Turks on the rise and the Iranians' influence waning?
Not really better off.
I mean, the Syrian lunatics still want to take over Lebanon, and they have a huge grudge against the Shia, Hezbollah's people, but they have a pretty big grudge against a bunch of the Christians, and in general against Christians.
And so Hezbollah doesn't have the same kind of...
Well, they do, but they don't exercise on it.
They don't act on their hatreds in the same way that the Sunnis do.
So I don't see it as a good thing, really.
The best thing to happen to Lebanon would be for the Druze and the Christians to sort of get along and figure out, we have the mountain, let's sort of keep that out of Sunni Shia a mess.
But that requires a level of humility and honesty that neither side is showing right now.
I see.
Logan 17 says, why do I have a suspicion that the Greenland noise was smoke for something bigger?
Diego Garcia Controversy00:15:11
And Ochidnis Okigdor says, I'm hearing Zoroastrianism is becoming more public in Iran.
Bring back the Persian Empire.
I mean, Zoroastrianism at least has some sort of cool iconography.
I know you're going to tell me off, but I'm holding back.
Hey, at least it's not Islam, right?
Fair enough.
All right, then, ladies and gentlemen.
So we've heard since last year that Britain was handing over sovereign territory, its sovereign territory of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean to the other island of Mauritius.
Now, this, on the face of it, seemed foolhardy, unnecessary, ridiculous.
And we were assured by Starma and the Labour Party, well, there's nothing really to worry about here because actually the military base shared for British American operations and Diego Garcia is going to be maintained.
So we're going to keep the base.
And yes, we are going to have to start paying rent for it.
But we are going to keep that base.
there was nothing to worry about.
And for a long time, we were left, really, they told us that this was going ahead.
They said that this was happening.
And they said that, oh, and we'll get the American approval for it.
But at any point, did Kiostama or anyone from the Labour front bench for that matter actually come to the British public and say, look, here is the situation and here is why we have to do this now.
And how it benefits Britain.
And how it benefits Britain.
And perhaps in that exact point is the reason why such a speech was never made.
Because there is absolutely no way to possibly construe such events benefiting us, you know, at any point.
But Starmer, as a consequence, went to Washington back in May of last year and spoke to Trump and Rubio and the rest of them and seemed on the surface of it to actually get American support for this deal.
And you can tell here back from May 22nd of last year, it went on to say, today the United States welcomes the historic agreement between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Mauritius on the future of the British Indian Ocean territory, specifically the Chagos Archipelago.
And this is important.
Following a comprehensive interrogancy review, the Trump administration determined that this agreement secures the long-term stable and effective operations of the joint US-UK military facility at Diego Garcia.
This is a critical asset for regional and global security.
President Trump expressed his support for the monumental achievement during his meeting with Prime Minister Stama at the White House.
So in its rhetoric, entirely emphatic, it seems that even though Kiostama had not been able to convince a single member of the British public that this was a good idea, somehow through his miracle and his miracle charisma, he's managed to convince Donald Trump, President of the United States, that this was actually not at all a suicidal act.
I interpret this as sort of just them saying, yes, yeah, okay, whatever you want.
Yeah.
And then actually reading the fine print later on, just like, they're doing what?
Well, how's this for fine print then?
Because, sorry, that was supposed to be a dramatic reveal and it's all gone wrong.
But anyway, you got the point.
You've seen this tweet going about by now from Trump where he says, shockingly, our brilliant NATO ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the island of Diego Garcia, the site of the vital US military base, to Mauritius, and to do so for no reason whatsoever.
There is no doubt that China and Russia have noticed this act of total weakness.
These are international powers who only recognize strength, which is why the United States of America, under my leadership, is now, after only one year, respected like, well, we'll leave the bluster.
The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of great stupidity and is another in a very long line of national security reasons where he goes in to invoke Greenland.
And so a part of me did wonder to begin with, is this turning now, this total 180 of rhetoric from Trump's point of view, is it to point to what seems to be a case study of European geopolitical incompetence to say, look, here is an example of a European country that cannot be trusted with geopolitical assets.
And so therefore, like, i.e., give us Greenland.
And, you know, because you guys clearly can't be trusted with any of your sovereign territories, look at what the United Kingdom is doing.
There's certainly a strong aspect of that by the fact he mentions Greenland at the end.
So that's the thing you're thinking about at the end.
And Trump will know that, you know, you can start something off talking about something else, but the thing that you end on is the thing that lingers with people.
Absolutely.
So the real intention is often towards the end of a statement.
Indeed.
The Dutch and the French must be really praying that Trump doesn't notice that they have territories in the Caribbean.
Like there's the French Guadeloupe, right?
And then there's the Dutch couple of islands that they have still.
Well, you saw Macron trying to keep a low profile, those shades, didn't you, recently?
So maybe that really was part of the plan.
But Daniel Hannan raises many, many wonderful points here, and I just wanted to read a few of them, which is that Mauritius is indeed 1,337 miles from the island and began to press its claim again only when it grew closer to China in the early 2000s.
The barrister it hired is Philippe Sands, a co-founder of Matrix Chambers and a close friend of Kiostama's, who has always been cagey about what conversations they had about Chagos.
He raises point seven.
Far from providing a mandate for a deal, the Labour Manifesto, as seen in the photo down below, basically said we will not commit to such an act.
And it also says as part of eight, Stamer justifies the surrender by pointing to a non-binding resolution by a UN court, which included a Russian and a Chinese judge, and whose jurisdiction has been expressly denied in disputes between Commonwealth or former Commonwealth states.
And so we end up in the situation here where, and this tweet by Edro Egrol puts out a good point, which is that according to one diplomatic source, the Foreign Office, MI6, and the British Embassy in DC had been of one mind for several years.
The best way to maintain the US base at Diego Garcia was to cut a deal.
Mauritius would gain ownership over the islands, but immediately lease Diego Garcia back to Britain for a century.
But one civil servant described it as Mauritian sovereignty in name only and some plan to make Mauritius somehow dependent on British money.
But none of this holds well.
Exactly.
And also, why?
Because the other point is that the alternative was simply toughing it out.
That is, unilaterally laying claim to the islands, regardless of future legal rulings by United Nations courts, or hardening opinion amongst developing countries, including most of the Commonwealth.
So just recognizing the fact that we had the power over the islands and trying to actually just assert the claim.
But the problem is, because we have a third option.
Grab the Mauritius Prime Minister and Maduro him.
Like, it's not like Mauritius can do anything other than talk about this.
This is a very frustrating aspect of this thing.
Because, Samson, would you be able to pull up Mauritius just on a map?
Because Mauritius is a small island that, you know, our brand new Royal Navy recruits could take over in an afternoon blindfolded, right?
Like, are you there, Samson?
Oh.
Hello?
Hello.
Yes.
Would you be able to pull up Mauritius on a map, please?
Sorry.
So it's so tiny, there's no reason that we shouldn't just be browbeating them and saying, listen, we do what we want because you can't do anything.
And reacting with the reality of hard power.
Because, you know.
Well done for zooming in roughly in the right place.
Yeah, I think it's down there where your mouse is.
That it?
No.
No.
That's not it.
Just type it, Samson.
Sorry, what was your...
So, the point being, they're a tiny little island...
There's no point in dealing with them as if they're a major player in politics whatsoever.
That's the size of the island there.
You can see the entire country from, you know, all of its borders from an aeroplane above it or a helicopter.
We shouldn't be negotiating with something that is.
Réunion right there is a French possession still, and they absolutely don't want to stop being French.
And then the Chagos Islands are miles away.
There it is, British Indian Ocean territory.
It's a ridiculously far away distance.
It's closer to the seashores than it is to Mauritius.
And there is no evidence that anybody involved in Mauritius was ever there in the Chagos archipelago.
They've got no legitimate claim.
None.
It shouldn't be taken seriously.
And even if they did, there is no reason to pay them to give it to them.
No.
Thank you.
No, this entire thing is just one great humiliation ritual against us.
And why is it being done?
Well, it's being done because it seems that the people currently in charge of the British state are obviously, and it's not going to surprise you to hear this, they're not governed, as you said, by any sense of the national good, right?
What they're governed by are a set of progressive morals that are interlinked into an international network, framework of international law and human rights lawyers and all of these activist classes and the clientele groups.
And so it seems that Britain is just going to have to bear this problem.
Or at least it did seem to be the case before Trump's intervention.
Now things seem a little bit more ambiguous and we'll see where we get to.
Because the problem that we have is that because of the American agreement that was signed with Britain back in 66 of the last century, we're talking about the fact that about joint cooperation on the military base.
And basically, it means that if we sign this new treaty with Mauritius, ceding the territory, that one treaty is going to contradict the other.
And so actually, in a strange, roundabout way, signing this bill and putting it through Parliament from Labour would break the very international law that they are doing all of this for in the first place.
But they're not doing it for international law.
No.
I mean, the fact that Hermer, Sands, and Starmer are in this weird clique together.
Well, I was just about to get to Mr. Sands, actually.
Shall we talk about him?
So, Mr. Sands, who is 65, is among the preeminent figures in his field and has taken part in a number of landmark cases.
And I've reduced some of them, but it says recently he was a lead outside council in the successful campaign to get Britain to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
Return is a very stretched word in this article, but it is from the New York Times.
So it goes on to say, and he's also argued for Palestinian self-determination in the case before the International Court of Justice.
He also played a key role in the establishment of a tribunal to investigate Russia for crimes of aggression against Ukraine.
Over the last three decades, few people have done more to shape the direction of international criminal law than Sands, says this puff piece.
And it also points out as well, it says, but the London-based barrister's reach extends beyond legal circles.
He is also an acclaimed non-fiction author.
His best-known work, East West Street, published in 2016, is a deeply affecting account of his family's experience during the Holocaust.
And so this is someone where you look at his background roots.
And majority, they're not from Britain.
He has a dual citizenship.
Most of his heritage is from outside of Europe.
And he is most obviously a nomad.
We are citizens of the world.
We need a global passport.
And so any claim to this being in Britain's interest could not hold up to the slightest bit of scrutiny.
And this is, of course, also true for Lord Hermer as well.
Yeah, so go on then, Thera.
Let me pause you there for a second.
Firstly, the fact that he's commenting on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation is funny because it's got nothing to do with him.
Secondly, the idea expressed here that we are citizens and we need a global passport would suggest to the untrained eye that there should be some kind of international body responsible for issuing passports to every single resident on the planet and that everybody across the planet should be free to move anywhere that they want to, making passports carrying this passport, making passports redundant.
So it's sort of like on the one side, everybody needs to be identified under the global digital panopticon.
On the other side, everybody can go wherever they want to because I said so.
So these two views are firstly not in any way British, European, or even Lebanese.
Like when strangers move to my village, I get angry.
And secondly, what the hell has this got to do with you?
Well, it's a good question.
I find that quite interesting as well there.
It calls for an end to the absurd monopoly power of the national passport.
Yes, as opposed to the absurd monopoly power of an international passport system and a more global state.
End of Absurd Monopoly00:06:32
Absolutely.
But it doesn't just end with these names that we've called out here.
And you can see it's from Daniel Hannan, who again was saying, every former minister I've spoken to blames the Chagos Fiasco on Vijay Rangiraja.
I shouldn't have to know how to pronounce that.
The relevant FCDO official.
But in Britain, civil servants are never blamed for anything.
And indeed, he is now running the Electoral Commission as well, which makes MPs reluctant to criticize him.
Why is Mr. Rangarajan running the Electoral Commission?
Because, of course, the Conservative Party put him there.
Firas, of course, like the Conservatives that they are.
The party for subcontinental dominion.
Dear Lord.
And so the Mercian makes a point here that Vijay was literally not even born in Britain.
He was born in New Delhi.
And isn't it curious that he's wanting to cede Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which just so happens to have a 70%-ish Indian population to it.
So all the little pieces from, and it's the thing, isn't it?
It's not one guiding principle.
It's not one great stated aim.
What we actually have here with the Chagos Fiasco are all a number of foreign subversive activists working for their own means, for their own pursuits, for their own ethnic interests, or for their own ideological interests to basically screw us over.
Yes.
Wholeheartedly.
That seems to be the one ideal.
Yes.
If there is one uniting principle.
That's the one.
They're all vultures flying around and picking the bones clean of the British Empire is what they are.
And so what we have, so basically this bill got passed through Parliament that would allow this treaty to be ratified.
But then it's not often that I would say this, but thanks to a Tory Pier, it seems that it was basically amendments were added in the House of Lords and it got kicked back down to the Commons.
And now Starmer has decided, perhaps off of the back of the Trump tweet, just calling out the lunacy of it, they've maybe put a pin in it.
They're waiting for public attention for it to die down again.
But ultimately, I don't think it is because it's such an act of national embarrassment.
And ultimately as well, we are, you know, every year we're just, as a nation, degraded more and more.
We'll have to, you know, put through these humiliation rituals.
And I think as time goes by, well, it just means that Starma is on more borrowed time.
And ultimately, we have to question the fact that, as you say, even if hypothetically this deal does go through, for whatever reason, by some miracle, Starma refuses Trump's very, very strong hints about his IQ and decides to go through with this deal.
Okay, but what about when Nigel Farage becomes Prime Minister and actually just says, you know, Mr. President, you know, Vance or Trump, whoever it is at that time, can you just give us a bit of military support whilst we just take back the entire island?
It wouldn't take much.
Well, it wouldn't take long.
I mean, we could do it on our own, but the point is, and let's face it, you know, given America's relationship with Israel, it's not like America won't back up allies in order to achieve, you know, further aims that benefit the entire network.
At the end of the day, the point is that this whole thing is an embarrassment, and we can only hope that it ends up being dead on arrival because this entire thing is a scam.
So, three things.
First, I am very much of the view that somebody should look into the possibility of massive corruption involved in here.
The sums of money involved, like that Mauritius would get paid $30 billion and not give some kickbacks.
Come on.
That's just not how you do business.
The only government that seems to be fully on board with this, that is getting no contradiction on the matter, is the Mauritian government.
Well, they were talking about lowering their taxes once this goes through.
Yes, they were.
Which is shaky bastards, which is crazy.
They have a lower tax rate than in Britain.
The second issue is that this is the second conflict with the Lords because the medical murder bill that they're trying to force through is also getting stuck with the Lords.
So there is a bit of a Rubicon moment here of Starmer deciding that actually I'm going to change the constitutional settlement in Britain and make it so that even bills that are not on the government's manifesto can be forced through despite Lords' opposition.
And that's a big deal because these guys are chamber redundant, doesn't it?
Exactly.
Exactly.
But these guys have it in for the Lords.
I mean, one policy that they're pursuing is to stack the Lords.
And so they're giving away peerages like they're candy.
I'm, you know, Lord Hermer is a peer.
But secondly, this is becoming a big issue.
Third, this is a zombie parliament.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Neither Labour nor the official opposition, the Conservatives, are expected to retain a significant majority of their seats.
They're both going to lose massive numbers of seats in the next election on current polling.
So the idea that they get to decide these kinds of things at a moment where all of the public hates their guts is insane.
It's absolutely crazy.
Jury trials, increasing votes to 16-year-olds, the abortion stuff, all of it.
All of it.
All of it.
It's absolutely.
It's overreach.
So they are in an impossible popular position, and yet they're doubling down on everything.
And I just wish the right would learn how to wield power in the same way.
To read my Aragon article in Ireland to know about that, you know.
Yes, actually.
Yes, that's a great point.
So this is just not just a humiliation ritual.
It's an act of deliberate sabotage.
I just actually, because I think I worded it quite clumsily just before.
Act of Deliberate Sabotage00:06:45
So I'll just clarify.
When I was referring to the American relationship with Israel as well, what I was more driving at was the fact that America was willing to put its name to Israeli actions in Gaza, despite them, you know, attracting global animosity and hatred and dissatisfaction and obviously a sense of humanitarian evil.
You know, that seems to have been the large reaction to it.
So all I'm saying is if America is willing to back a foreign partner against such things as that, then I don't see why they wouldn't be able prepared to help us over something which is such an obvious scam.
That is really what I was trying to just communicate.
Especially because there's no prospect of civilian casualties there.
Yeah.
Like, there's nobody, it's just a military base and a bunch of empty islands.
And some fishermen.
Also, Mauritius, you know, you can do any number of things to, if they are hostile to the idea.
I mean, you could even put a Simpson-style dome over the island and just be done with it and say you're trapped in there.
We'll let you out once you agree that we can keep the island.
You know, there are any obviously that's not serious, but there are any number of things you can do to just say, you're Mauritius.
I'm sorry you don't get to dictate terms.
You can take it to the UN that he won't care because actually the reality is hard power and it always has been and always will be.
And that's exactly what I'm talking about in Real Politik in half an hour.
Yeah.
There we go.
Be there for that, ladies and gentlemen.
All right, let's go to the comments, shall we?
Just have one.
There's one rumble chat here.
The Engaged View says Josh is now using his voice's powers of persuasion for evil, and I'm here for it.
Who says I wasn't before?
I have no idea what the context of this is.
Oh, just everything you've said today.
But I'm flattered that you recognised it.
Thank you.
Thanks for that.
All right.
Video comment, Samson.
Do we have any today?
Yeah, we do.
Cool.
First video comment of the year.
I know I'm almost a month late.
Luca, I just watched your comment, your section on writing and culture in England.
I'm way ahead of you, man.
I've been writing for ages, been publishing for ages, and advertising on lotus eaters for ages.
And you can check out my books, say the website guys, cscoopa.com.au.
And we're also working on video games, menixgames.com, and I am happy to help other lotus eaters publish their books.
Reach out.
Well, so go and check out his channel, ladies and uh gentlemen.
And also, yeah, a belated Happy New Year, Cooper.
I'm pretty sure, you know, you could put me into a coma, and I'd still be able to say cscoopa.com.au in my sleep and so should all of you excoriating about Keynesian economics.
In analysing what happened in the Roaring 20s and through the Great Depression of the 30s, Rothbard examines monetary supply and government interference entirely from the perspective of the Austrian school.
The relevancy of this book is emphasized by the numerous forewords from each edition.
As the economy grows, increasingly it encourages bad investments, which hurt people upon failure.
Government enacts legislation to prevent that hurt through bailouts.
Malinvestment continues, and the market is so distorted that it must collapse.
Depression is what happens when government continues to interfere.
It's very true.
And I've read a fair share of Rothbard.
I find that he's one of the Austrian writers that his writing is the most accessible in terms of economics and a very compelling writer as well.
In these hard and trying times, may I make a suggestion for Ladzauer?
Robot fights!
That's right.
You could watch these robot fights on YouTube for Lads Hour.
In particular, I like the ones with fire.
I remember watching Robo- Robot Wars.
I was just about to say that.
It was Craig Charles narrating, wasn't it?
Oh, I don't know about that.
I just remember the robots going smash-smash.
I don't remember.
I think it was him anyway, because he also did Takeshi's Castle, didn't he?
That was such a banger of a show.
Sorry, make me logic.
That was good.
Pretend we're all in jail together.
The riot just started.
I get the feeling it's going to be a very busy year.
Yeah.
That was a good summary of a confusing concept because I simply cannot imagine taking time off from my mech work.
This is, of course, because I find fulfillment in it.
If your hustle is where you find fulfillment, fulfillment beyond mere numbers on a screen, but true spiritual fulfillment.
You will not want to take breaks.
You will not want to stop.
And as I say, the proof of the pudding is in needing.
So he broke down the earlier one, and this is the new one?
Not too shocked.
I would like to think that he just owns a secret facility filled with mechs.
And when the collapse happens, he is going to be the most set up person in the world.
Remember when I mentioned those hate speech laws and gun reform bills the government was pushing last year?
Well, sadly, they actually passed.
The Liberals are urban conservatives and the main opposition backed them, which caused the Nationals, the rural conservatives, to finally break away and end the coalition.
The bills were rushed through Parliament with almost no real debate.
Nationals leader David Littleproud slammed them for attacking free speech, taking guns from law-abiding owners and ignoring the real issue, radical Islam.
He called the whole thing poorly drafted and just petty childish politics.
They passed 38 to 22.
Crazy times.
Yeah, I feel sorry for many of my friends in Australia because, you know, you guys have such a nice thing going on there except for your government and the wildlife.
But, you know, you can change the government, and I think you probably should.
Obviously, the easier said than done.
But it is one of the most dystopian places in the entire Western world, Australia.
And I hope it changes because you guys don't deserve it.
Michael's Bomb Solution00:05:53
Yep.
No, definitely.
Really worried about the Anglosphere.
Do you want to go through your comments?
Of course.
I'm not going to read that name, but Dudley says some notes.
The man who was shot was carrying what looks like a SIG P320, a pistol, which has concerns about accidental discharges.
It's like you watch my segment.
Minnesota, you probably put this before I actually got to that.
Minnesota is a duty to retreat state for self-defense.
In short, one can only act in self-defense if there is no other recourse.
Minnesota is a shall issue concealed carry with limited open carry.
Thus, state law stupidly limits the Second Amendment.
Yes, that is very true.
And Alex says, during their Sunday night live stream, Robert Barnes had some particularly hot-headed takes on the shooting.
So I thank you, Josh, for this careful analysis.
The shooting is a tragedy, and I accept Barnes's conclusion that the ICE officers were not competent for crowd control, but that's the core issue.
ICE should be taking care of the deportations.
Waltz and his ilk should be providing police control so ICE can get on with their work.
Waltz's talk of National Guard is evidence of him withholding necessary services at the police level to push the problem up higher to make it more dangerous.
That is exactly what I was saying, and exactly what is going on, in my opinion.
Right, from yours, Firas, yeah, but you need to.
Okay, great.
Canis Familiaris says, best future Iran regime falls.
US focuses on China.
Europe teams up with Russia to take back Constantinople from the Turks.
Actual future, Iran regime falls, European leaders complain, US focuses on China, European leaders complain, Turkey and Russia team up on Europe, European leaders complain, the Balkans fall under the Turks again, European leaders complain, all of Europe is partitioned between the US, Russia, and Turkey.
European leaders complain.
Yeah.
I would be very surprised.
Thanks for summarizing the next realpolitic, by the way.
That's exactly what I was talking about.
The dying man of Europe is not going to take over Europe, that's for sure.
It's.
Michael Dribelbis says on Firaz's segment, this appears to be another disruption operation, yes, to essentially disrupt the BRICS.
Iran's oil, like Venezuela, is China's lifeline.
It isn't.
They get the oil at a 30% discount because it's sanctioned, just like they do with Venezuela.
So they can keep getting the oil.
It just becomes a little more expensive for Venezuelan for Chinese industry.
Now, Iran and Venezuela together, I think, account for maybe 20-25% of Chinese oil.
So having that oil discounted is a big boost to the economy.
But you can remove that boost just by letting the Iranians export at market prices.
And given the new geopolitical realities, they're going to be focusing on holding Iraq and keeping the Turks out.
So this is entirely unnecessary, all of it.
It's completely unnecessary.
I hope, well, thanks for that, Michael.
Israelis' intelligence knows more than US intelligence does, but only because Mossad is competent and the CIS, NSA, DIA aren't.
Yeah, maybe.
Carl's evil twin Vosh, from what I can see, knocking out Iran would help America by stopping drones being sold to Russia.
No, they're manufacturing their own drones.
The Russians are making their own drones.
It's not like they rely on Iranian industry.
They're also quite easy to make.
They're also incredibly cheap to make and easy to make.
That's just not true.
George Happ didn't know that not to bomb was even an option for the US.
To bomb or not to bomb.
You remember when John McCain sang that?
Like, he was asked, what are we going to do about Iran?
And his answer was, bomb Iran.
Okay.
Like the baby Belad for.
Yes.
Yeah.
Sorry.
How was John McCain's reaction?
Just aping a song of bombing is like the most neocon thing I could ever think of.
Yeah.
No, no.
Other than me.
John McCain was a staunch, real conservative.
What do you mean calling him a neocon?
He may as well have been drinking the blood of a newborn.
That's the only way it could have been worse.
From my segment, Sophie Luf says, imagine if England was just half as defensive over the Chagos Islands as we were over Greenland.
And do you have way better reasons for wanting to keep it?
Yeah, Sophie, I know it's madness.
Michael Drebelbus says, Trump has actually earned a Nobel Peace Prize a thousand times over.
Compare this to Al Gore and Obama, who were awarded the prize for nothing.
The prize is truly cheapened at this point to being simply a political award.
Well, this is why.
But this is why I covered it as well when I did a segment about it last year and how much Trump seems to care about it.
There's this sort of like boomer fixation on recognition from the institution, regardless of the fact that so many of the winners of the award previously have all been people who have championed democracy and liberalism and all of just progressive causes.
My favorite Nobel Prize winner is Shimon Perez, the former Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, who, after winning the award, actually admitted that he launched a war on Lebanon in 1996 where the explicit objective was to depopulate South Lebanon.
That was the explicit stated objective.
And up until last year, that was still the objective on the IDF website.
But he's a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Right.
Doesn't mean anything, Donald.
Nobel Peace Prize Controversy00:01:08
Get over it.
I mean, people shouldn't care about awards full stop.
Like, I don't think I've ever been proud of anything I've achieved ever because pride is stupid and pointless.
Like, in every meaning of it in the modern sense.
And my Christian ears are dancing to this music.
Yeah, you shouldn't be proud of your own achievements because you know what went into achieving them in the first place.
So you don't understand the cause and effect of your own life.
This is one of my own pet hates, as you can tell.
Annie Moss says, the US never agreed to change the terms of the 1966 treaty between the UK and the US, which established the framework for the use of the Chagos Archipelago for defensive purposes.
Low tier IKEA Kia never knew it existed.
And Ed Miliband harnessing Enoch's spinning grave, still one of our best usernames.
Mauritius has as much of a claim to Chagos as the Falklands or Gibraltar.
Yeah, very good point.
Anyway, right.
Well, that's all we've got time for, ladies and gentlemen.
You can come back in half an hour and join Faras for Real Politique.
And we look forward to seeing you on the podcast at 1 p.m. tomorrow.