Latest / FDD Morning Brief / Britain's belated reckoning with the IRGC | feat. Robin Simcox

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Britain's belated reckoning with the IRGC | feat. Robin Simcox · FDD Morning Brief

• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Good morning, it's Friday, July 17th, the Multifron War in the Middle East is now 1,000 and 14 days old, I'm your host Jonathan Schanzer, welcome back to the FTD Morning Brief.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Another day, another wave of punishing US air strikes on Iran and other step toward a widening war, the more these two sides trade blows the lower the likelihood that Iranian regime gets back to the negotiating table.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Although there was a bright spot on Wednesday night, the regime released an Iranian American dual citizen held on espionage charges since 2024 as a sign of goodwill to the Trump administration hard to understand exactly what's going on here.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: But for now, I'll just make two quick observations.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: One, any attempt to fight a war while keeping it on a low flame is bound to backfire at some point.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's exactly how mistakes happen.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: and how low intensity conflict becomes high intensity in a matter of minute.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the other point is this, the longer this thing plays out, the more likely it is that the regime will collapse.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've seen US attacks on Iranian infrastructure overnight.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a new thing.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So this is a regime that is under enormous strain and that strain is only compounding.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I must say, I don't mind where we are right now, not one bit.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we all saw it and we can't unsee it more than 100 members of Congress voted against providing military assistance to Israel and I have to wait in.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: First, let's just acknowledge that this war, this thousand plus day old conflict, was one that Israel neither started nor
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: was needed warranted, nor justified, and it is nauseating to see Congress add to the vitriol that has been spouted for nearly three years by students for justice in Palestine, the Democratic Socialists for America, and the clown car of our left activist that are slowly but inexorably.
• 2:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: bringing about the downfall of our republic.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Second, the American political system may well be broken.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: This vote is a symptom of that malady, the level of congressional education is a bismal folks.
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you cannot easily identify the side of justice in this conflict between Israel, a democracy, and Iran, a terror sponsoring theocracy, or any of its terror proxies, will you probably shouldn't be serving in Congress?
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: third.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And finally, we can lament this all we want, but that's not going to change anything.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've got a problem to fix here, folks.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Elections are part of the solution.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Education is another part, but so is the unmitigated expression of outrage, not disappointment, not sadness.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: These members need to understand that there will be political consequences for the political feeder they put on this week.
• 3:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: These members need to know the virtue of signaling and obsequious messaging to the woke masses, it will not be forgotten.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now for your headlines, headline one, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned seven companies and individuals that are part of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps weapons procurement network.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: The targets are spread across Iran, Russia, Italy, and Nigeria.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some actively help secure weapons, other help ship the goods to the IRGC.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: The good news here is that the Treasury remains committed to choking off those networks
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maximum pressure is maxing.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Keep it coming folks.
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Had like to, Iran instructed the hoothies in Yemen to close the Babel Mandab straight.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: If the US strikes Iranian power infrastructure that of course did happen, we believe last night.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Babel Mandab is the choke point on the southern end of the Red Sea, and with the straight of Formus already under blockade, any threat close the Red Sea risks compounding the global shipping crisis already underway.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sores has told media that the hooties have already positioned drones and missiles near Babel Mandab, and they're just waiting for the ghost sign from Tehran.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some serious escalation could be brewing, and now,
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just to add a dash of complexity, there reports that Somali pirates just took over a vessel in the Red Sea, completely unrelated to the Boopies, never a dull moment in this region, ain't?
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Headline three, Syrian authorities splorted an attempt to smuggle arms from Iraq through Syria and onward to his Bala in Lebanon.
• 4:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: The weapons included advanced missiles, such as missiles.
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: according to the Syrian Interior Ministry.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: During the Assad years, Syria was a key overland smuggling route for arms and drugs by the way, Captain Gond.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Back in June, President Donald Trump spoke with Syrian President Ahmed Alshara, also known as Abu Muhammad Al-Jawani, his clunya as we call it, about efforts to shut that supply route and to counter his Bala.
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that message didn't completely fall on deaf ears it appears, but I don't buy this line.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: that the Syrian regime is suddenly moderate.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: They are still Sunni Jihadists, and I continue to wait for this government to show its true colors.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Two quick pro-tips for all you aspiring Middle East analysts out there thinking about your own podcast.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Number one, terrorist don't reform an optimism rarely pays off in this troubled region.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's number two.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And headline four, I noted this at the top of the show, President Trump announced the release of a dual US Iranian citizen from the Islamic Republic almost two years after she was detained.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: She didn't serve time, but she was subject to a rather difficult exit ban.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: and she was interrogated dozens of times since late 2024.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Trump commended Iran for its quote, gesture of goodwill and quote, but let's not get carried away here.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: These Omic Republic continues to hold several other Westerners, including American citizens, as bargaining chips for future negotiations.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hostage diplomacy is one of the things that this regime is, I guess, known for now, maybe not good at, but you know what I mean.
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's get down to business here.
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Joining me today is Robin Sincox.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's got a robust career in counterterrorism from the London-based counter-extremism group to ascent as the U.K. government's commissioner for countering extremism, he's counseled six different home secretary, spanning both the conservative and labor parties.
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Throughout his career, he's brought his expertise on ISIS, Al Qaeda, and related groups before US Congress, and he's also brief committees in the British Parliament.
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: He now holds a fellowship in war studies at King's College, London, where your humble host earned his defile.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's British for PhD, case you're wondering.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Robin brings a wealth of knowledge to this program, so let's get this conversation rolling, let's bring him right on.
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the FDD Morning Brief Robin Simcox.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Good morning, it's great to be with you.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, great to have you, been trying to get you on for a while, glad it lined up, and I think it's a good day to have you on or at least an appropriate one, because now we're watching care stormers exit.
• 7:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: We apparently are watching Andy Burnham's entrance into the political scene or at least at the high stage, anyway.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I guess I just need to ask you.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what's going on in UK politics?
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do we expect?
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do we think comes out of this?
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what does it all mean for international security, the transatlantic alliance?
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, just a broad easy question for you.
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot to be said.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I will begin by referring to a post I saw on Twitter this week, random bits of a heat wave in the UK at the moment.
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I saw someone posted England is now a Mediterranean country.
• 8:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have hot weather, a terrible economy, a good football team.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it kind of feels like that's the direction, it's quite chaotic, of course, it's quite chaotic period to live through.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Andy Burnham was a former mayor in Manchester sitting in the north of England and was quite well-liked there, but it's obviously a completely different beast.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: being Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and dealing with all the litany of challenges and problems, some of them quite deeply structural that we face.
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we wish him well and hopefully he can last be on six months.
• 8:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that is kind of quite the rotation you have going on there.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Any sense of Burnham's perspective as it relates to the Transatlantic relationship, which has been
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, he's been, there's not an awful lot known about him from a foreign policy perspective to be honest.
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure he'll begin to flesh that out.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And obviously, who has choice of foreign secretary and secretary of defense and those sorts of positions will give us a bit more of an insight into his thinking.
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: insufficiently robust.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: He means that it was essentially to pro-Israel on that conflict.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so should we expect to see some rebalancing there?
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think we probably should.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it reminds me a little bit, Rimram Tony Blair left when he resigned as Prime Minister.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: his success was always going to say, no matter who it was, O Blair was far too close to the Americans, far too spoiled by when I'm racking that sort of thing.
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, Blair genuinely was a really fantastic partner, I think, to the United States, on this, Kirsta was a bit far more hands-off, but it's a sort of, I think, a sign of where things have gone 20 years on, than even the far more tapered lukewarm support that Star McGave on some of these big foreign policy questions.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: His successor will still feel like they need to distance themselves even from that degree of like I say quite milk toast support.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I wouldn't say that your that your viewers and listeners there should be fantastically optimistic about a direction of travel and this new government though I would of course love to be wrong.
• 10:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'd love you to be wrong too, but you are not often wrong, so I'll take your word for it.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, IRGC prescription, as you guys call it on the other side of the pond, designation as we call here, there's some news right now coming out of the UK, it is I guess somewhat encouraging, tell us about it.
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, there has been a new legislation passed in the UK.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: New State threat powers under the National Security Act, which has given this government the green light to give prescription designation like powers against the IARGC and the Islamic movement of companions of the rights, which is another IARGC linked organization responsible for a series of arson attacks in the UK in the last couple of months.
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: There has been a long, long delay to get here.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So when I was commissioned for Country Extremism, I was calling for the designation of the IRGC.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was back in 2021.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, the US government had made moves that that direction the EU had made moves in that direction.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the UK were a real outlier.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the argument we always got back, or I always got back.
• 11:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: was a, well, the IRGC is part of the state and we don't have the legislation in place to be able to designate something that's part of the state.
• 11:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And B, we would lose leverage in Tehran if we if we carried out this kind of move and I mean, I've heard variations of that when it comes to UK Iranian policy for decades at this point.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think that ultimately the culmination of events meant this government kind of had to act.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's an open secret at this point.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: The Iranians are trying to assassinate British citizens and residents, including on UK soil, normally Iranian journalists who operate in the UK.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: The RGC have been trying to do that for years.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that in conjunction with obviously,
• 12:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: the arson Iran's role as arsonists across the Middle East, and of course these attempts to these arson attacks and on Jewish communities in the UK, meant the government rightly, if belatedly, had to act.
• 12:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And those journalists, I mean, I guess they're mostly affiliated with Iran international, right?
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the channel that's based in the UK, is that where it's operating primarily?
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly right.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's exactly right.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they have been living on the threat from, and it's obviously like there's Iranian operatives, but the kind of IRGCMO generally has been to pay gangs.
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: and pay common criminals to carry out these kinds of attacks, including with some of the arson attacks.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so the new legislation would mean rather than an arson attack being considered if you were to pop between the courts to be something that you wouldn't spend too long in jail for, for example, with these new powers you could be jailed for life.
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: for carrying out that silver tack on the behest of a foreign state power.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I do think it's like I say it's over due, but it's, you know, you should you give credit where it's due and it's it's a much needed move.
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would say that if you're carrying out our Senate tax at the behest of a terror sponsoring regime that does seem like something that's worth putting you in jail for for quite some time.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I suppose yes.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: credit where it's to.
• 13:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, if I can ask you to just maybe broaden out for a minute.
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to hear about the lay of the land in the UK.
• 13:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it has been quite a journey for the US and the UK battling terrorism.
• 13:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had what was called the global war on terrorism, the GWAT, which is the worst.
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: acronym, maybe on the planet.
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we have the UK, it's been battling, not just terrorism, but also kind of a homegrown extremism, as you've been wrangling with questions about immigration and the like.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So where are you right now?
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know you spent a lot of time when you were commissioner on countering extremism.
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: You spent a lot of time thinking about these issues wrestling with them.
• 14:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So where has the UK ended up right now and what trajectory are you on as it relates to this long term?
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Really existential battle.
• 14:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, it's a, you know, and you correctly loot, this is a kind of decades old problem, right?
• 14:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I think the genesis of much of this UK was accepting.
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: brotherhood members in from like the 60s, for example, right, that the brotherhood came to the UK by the universities and the 60s.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then if you get fast forward, 1990s, you have just a ton of South Africa hadies who set up in the UK who are fleeing from countries that are essentially trying to overthrow the monarchies of across the Middle East and North Africa.
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that kind of
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: that the islamism and jihadism was injected into the kind of like the bloodstream of British discourse decades ago and we've been dealing with the consequences of it ever since.
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: The the major
• 15:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: kind of coordinated sophisticated terrorist plots that were brought about by Al Qaeda and of course taken up by the Islamic State.
• 15:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: We haven't seen one of those for a few years now to be honest, the benefits of successful military intervention especially in Syria have helped make this a safer country.
• 15:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if you look at the atmospherics below it, I think things have got much worse.
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like if you look at the protests, for example, it took place after the seventh of October attacks,
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: These were being planned in support of, like, let's say, generically the Palestinian cause, basically, while the attacks were still going on.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: There was fireworks and celebrations being taken place outside the Israeli embassy in London while the attacks were going on.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we've got a very significant, kind of broader ideological problem, even if you, even if you,
• 16:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: except that the terrorism threat is still ongoing and persistent and present, but not as high as that peak around the caliphate.
• 16:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: They kind of brought around most folks around it.
• 16:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: The the extremist milieu has only grown.
• 16:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was looking at the as as you say, I was commissioner at the time, I was looking at some of the sermons.
• 16:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: in mosques to be specific at the, at the time of these attacks in the days and weeks afterwards.
• 16:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was extraordinary.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was extraordinary.
• 16:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: It reminded me to be frank of the 1990s and some of the things that were able to be said before this country really had any idea of just how dangerous jihadism could be for our own domestic security.
• 16:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like, you know, we are not as naive now as we once were, but honestly what I saw come out this country after
• 17:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: even I was taken a back.
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so it's hard to be too optimistic about that because that that's like a broad of societal thing that needs challenging and rooting out.
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not just like one or two, you know, or even dozens of terrorist plots.
• 17:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's the more dangerous life threatening stuff that the ideological currents behind it and we're in such trouble.
• 17:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I tend to agree in a really, I mean, you know, people sort of tongue and cheek call it London stand or what have you, but on that's what you got on the one hand, the other is we haven't seen like a seven seven style attack in.
• 17:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: quite a long time, right?
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: So is this just better intelligence and better coordination with five eyes in the United States on the one hand, but a just a growing cultural problem?
• 17:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, is this how we would dissect it?
• 17:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or, I mean, I know you've done a lot of thinking about this.
• 17:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do you break it down?
• 17:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because it does seem on the one hand that the UK is sort of safer from these large-scale attacks, but is much more susceptible to this growing problem that of extremism at
• 18:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I've been thinking about it a lot in the last couple of years.
• 18:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the, the, the last really major terrorist attack coordinated sophisticated with 2017.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: We had a state of them in that year.
• 18:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: The last one being in in in in London in in the summer of 17.
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: The big things that changed for me is one, but we broke the caliphate.
• 18:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: and the US obviously absolutely central to that the indispensable partner on it and don't underestimate the importance of that in taking the kind of like air out of the balloon and like the and and doubts in the enthusiasm of of of jihadism in the UK.
• 18:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that was absolutely fundamental.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think to be frank, a lot of the people that carry out attacks would want to carry out terrorist attacks were killed.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: There are the killed or captured or they tried it.
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so there was the numbers went down pure maths, the numbers went down.
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then after the seventh, what's over?
• 18:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do wonder whether, I and when I was in government, I was kind of thinking on the lines of previous ways of jihadism and this may still play out to an extent.
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was thinking previous ways of jihadism, how it's affected the domestic threat picture.
• 19:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And obviously, we saw an optic of terrorist planning.
• 19:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: We saw some smaller scale stuff, but it didn't cascade in the way that the post 911 threat picture looked like what you did see.
• 19:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: was a real main streaming of one of the things that is the miss care about more than anything and that's Jews and hatred of Jews and threats against Jews.
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: So for example you've seen and we had the attack in against a synagogue for example the end of towards the end of last year not as sophisticated coordinated as you had previously seen but the
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: the threat against Jewish communities really scaled up.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was an obviously that I think that's one of the main differences between previous, like, systemic foreign attacks, foreign terrorist attacks, is that the threat in the UK actually became quite specific.
• 20:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's less about attacking like the infantel's writ large, is more about honing in on one of the key hatreds, which is the presence of Jews in their connection real or imagined to Israel.
• 20:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's where I think there's been a shift and a change into what I expect to threat to what like this is what it actually did.
• 20:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think that that is sort of the lowest kind of denominator among key hottest right now that's important for Hamas, that hatred for Jews, that hatred for Israel,
• 20:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I guess that leads me to my next question for you, a key driver of all of this is an organization that exists worldwide, but has a significant presence in the UK, the ideological driver of so much of this, it's the Muslim Brotherhood.
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, we know that the UK is wrestling with its Muslim brotherhood problem.
• 21:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is a core base of operations.
• 21:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, the Tanzimadoli, this is the central apparatus of the Muslim brotherhood is based in the UK.
• 21:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So in other words, this sort of,
• 21:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: operating instructions for this wider organization.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like 90 plus different branches worldwide.
• 21:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hundreds of millions of people.
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is the status of the UK's policy as it relates to the most brotherhood?
• 21:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had a designation cure, and we've added some foreign chapters of the most brotherhood to our terrorism list here.
• 21:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's really positive, but I haven't really seen a mirror image action
• 21:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: am I missing something?
• 21:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're being very generous, or even at the, I think the reality is we haven't done anything.
• 21:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a cause of embarrassment to be honest to me.
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: When I see the US taking very tangible steps to designate sanction, it's the live here.
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right, like this, this is a this is a UK problem first and foremost, and we are not dealing with it in anything like the with them from like the seriousness that the United States is.
• 22:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a major problem.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was I was have long obviously championed doing UK doing more on the brotherhood, because sometimes what you hear back as well, you know, from British security establishments to be honest, is well, the brotherhood isn't really a definable thing.
• 22:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't have an address.
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: we don't know really where to log.
• 22:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like it's just not true.
• 22:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I could tell you who the dozen top Brotherhood people are in the UK.
• 22:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can tell you the addresses they've often live in.
• 22:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can tell you the offices they use.
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can tell you their favorite moss.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can tell you which charities they use.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: There is a real network in the UK.
• 22:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: What it ultimately comes down to.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: is a British government and the police, security services, have never had the incentive or the motivations to take the brotherhood on because they don't think it's as important enough to take resources away from other things.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: So for MI5, for example, Counter-Russian police, they would say, well, okay, you want to support resources into the brotherhood, we have to take it away from
• 23:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there just isn't been the motivation, the belief that these groups are important, that the Brotherhood is important enough to focus on.
• 23:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's a massive strategic mistake.
• 23:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm really glad the U.S. have taken their seriously.
• 23:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And my sincere hope is that U.S. pressure leads to lead to progress on the UK side.
• 23:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I've just right now with the transition taking place in the UK government, I guess we're going to have to wait and see we probably have a transition period before we find out whether there's anything that the UK is willing or able to do with some coordination from the US, but a lot of that has to do with maybe how close Andy Burnham wants to draw to the US president, which of course,
• 24:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's some political downside to that.
• 24:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I absolutely understand that, but let me ask you this.
• 24:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this is my last question.
• 24:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: You've been very generous with your time.
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of drawing closer to the US president, speaking of closer coordination with the United States.
• 24:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we have a huge problem in the state of Formos right now.
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I understand that, you know, there probably a lot of people in the UK, it would say this was Donald Trump's choice.
• 24:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: He drew America into this war.
• 24:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: You could probably throw Israel into that as well because they were fighting alongside the U.S. on February 28th when this recent war erupted.
• 24:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we now have a crisis in the straight of four moves.
• 24:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You got 20% of the world's energy, maybe it's 15 now, as markets have maybe expanded and supply routes have changed.
• 24:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this is an international problem, is it not?
• 24:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is an international waterway that has been shut down by a terrorist sponsoring regime that has long looked at the UK.
• 25:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: as an enemy and they've long looked at the West as an enemy.
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And here what as I see it, you've got a paralyzed UK, a paralyzed NATO, a paralyzed EU.
• 25:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody seems to want to get involved to help solve this problem.
• 25:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you see that changing in any way in the weeks or months ahead if this work continues to drag out?
• 25:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: The only way, if it does change, I don't think it will change with much enthusiasm because the new Prime Minister is particularly enthusiastic about the American President.
• 25:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: It will change because we are getting our ASCII economically.
• 25:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: The countries on its knees in terms of energy prices, people's bills are going up.
• 25:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: to an extraordinary amount, the economy's tanking, housing is extremely expensive, and generally there is a lot of dissatisfaction and anger at the progress and how things are developing as a country, right?
• 26:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like already the war in Ukraine sent gas prices by and out of control, people have really, really feed in it, people have really struggled economically.
• 26:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so if any Prime Minister worth his soul,
• 26:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: and Burnham will be alive to this, knows that they've got to try and kickstart the economy, they've got to try and make people feel like a bit of optimism and like that they can pay their bills or they can get on a housing ladder, all these sorts of things, and it seems to me like unblocking the streets of America.
• 26:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: problem is pretty central to that.
• 26:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I don't see how you can get the the world economy and obviously with the impact has the UK economy moving again without resolving this problem.
• 26:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, they, that means the UK has to do it reluctantly or burn them and will not be messaging before throw it support if it happens.
• 26:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, but I can't see like a credible way forward for the UK to do all the sorts of things it wants to do on other fronts, unless it helps resolve
• 26:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, tend to agree, although I tend to be, I don't know, a bit of a pessimist that we're going to see any direct action, I do think that it's probably the way forward if we're really going to isolate and run diplomatically, politically, economically, militarily, all that needs to happen, they need to feel that there's consequences for what's happening.
• 27:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I do think that the UK is going to be pivotal for this.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, I guess we'll hold our breath and we'll wait and see what happens next.
• 27:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Robin Kim, Sim Cox, you've been incredibly generous with your time.
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Glad we were able to finally make this work.
• 27:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for joining us today on the FTD Morning Break.
• 27:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Great project.
• 27:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much, Jonathan.
• 27:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, glad we were finally able to make that happen.
• 27:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was one that was months in the works.
• 27:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a wrap on this episode, folks.
• 27:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's a wrap for this week.
• 27:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: As my British mates would say, I'm just chuffed for Monday's episode.
• 27:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you can't wait until then, you can head over to FDD.org for some smart weekend reads.
• 27:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then, you can turn that doom scrolling of the smart scrolling by visiting our social media accounts, stop watching cat memes, folks, seriously.
• 28:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: you can head on over to ftd.org slash invest to make a tax deductible donation that will help us keep on keeping on.
• 28:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Have a great weekend folks.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Catch in 72 hours.
• 28:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: As old, I'm Jonathan Chancellor signing off for FTD.