It was a pleasure to participate yesterday in a live on-air chat with James Freeman, former UK Member of Parliament, on his radio cum video taped political discussion show. The link to the full one hour plus program is here:

https://tntvideo.podbean.com/e/gilbert-doctorow-robert-oulds-on-the-freeman-report-with-james-freeman-24-june-2024/

My segment of the program begins at the 15-minute point. I particularly valued the opportunity to discuss the impact of the latest, 14^th package of sanctions imposed by the EU on Russia yesterday, the results of Mr. Zelensky’s Peace gathering in Switzerland a week ago, and the conclusion of a mutual defense pact between Russia and North Korea, all of which I now reevaluate in light of the lurch towards all-out US-Russia war resulting from Sunday’s missile strike on Sevastopol in the Crimea, which had U.S. fingerprints all over it. The level of irresponsibility, pure recklessness of the present U.S. Administration is well beyond my earlier estimations.

I particularly recommend to viewers the introductory segment of the program by James Freeman which I, of course, had not heard when I was offered the microphone. He makes a strong appeal to voters in the U.K general elections which take place on 4 July to cast their vote for Nigel Farage, which, on first consideration, is a choice that many of us who live outside the U.K. will find off-putting, given the negative political and economic consequences of Mr. Farage’s success in promoting Brexit prior to the vote called by then Prime Minister Cameron. However, to my American audience in particular I must say that Farage’s anti-globalist position, anti “Uniparty” position and his holding the West responsible for provoking the Russian invasion of Ukraine – all of these positions place him very close to Robert F Kennedy in the U.S. elections and worthy of our close attention.

©Gilbert Doctorow

Alternatively see: https://twitter.com/james_freeman__/status/1805491269017239608?t=udde5D6XvSSmTF_qXOybrw&s=19

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus) followed by the full transcript

Der Freeman-Bericht, TNT Radio: Stimmen Sie für Nigel Farage! Anti-Globalist. Gegen das Washington-Narrativ zur Ukraine

Es war mir ein Vergnügen, gestern an einem Live-Chat mit James Freeman, einem ehemaligen britischen Parlamentsabgeordneten, in seiner per Radio und Video aufgezeichneten politischen Diskussionssendung teilzunehmen. Den Link zu der über einstündigen Sendung finden Sie hier:

https://tntvideo.podbean.com/e/gilbert-doctorow-robert-oulds-on-the-freeman-report-with-james-freeman-24-june-2024/

Mein Teil der Sendung beginnt nach 15 Minuten. Ich schätzte besonders die Gelegenheit, die Auswirkungen des jüngsten, gestern von der EU gegen Russland verhängten 14. Sanktionspakets, die Ergebnisse von Herrn Zelenskys Friedenstreffen in der Schweiz vor einer Woche und den Abschluss eines gegenseitigen Verteidigungspakts zwischen Russland und Nordkorea zu erörtern, die ich nun alle im Lichte des Taumels hin zu einem totalen Krieg zwischen den USA und Russland infolge des Raketenangriffs auf Sewastopol auf der Krim am Sonntag, der überall die Fingerabdrücke der USA trägt, neu bewerte. Das Ausmaß der Verantwortungslosigkeit, der reinen Rücksichtslosigkeit der gegenwärtigen US-Regierung liegt weit über meinen früheren Einschätzungen.

Ich empfehle den Zuschauern insbesondere den einleitenden Teil des Programms von James Freeman, den ich natürlich noch nicht gehört hatte, als mir das Mikrofon angeboten wurde. Er appelliert nachdrücklich an die Wähler bei den britischen Parlamentswahlen am 4. Juli, Nigel Farage ihre Stimme zu geben, was auf den ersten Blick eine Wahl ist, die viele von uns, die außerhalb des Vereinigten Königreichs leben, angesichts der negativen politischen und wirtschaftlichen Folgen von Herrn Farages Erfolg bei der Förderung des Brexit vor der von dem damaligen Premierminister Cameron einberufenen Abstimmung abschrecken wird. Insbesondere meinen amerikanischen Zuhörern muss ich jedoch sagen, dass Farages antiglobalistische Position, seine Anti-“Uniparty”-Position und die Tatsache, dass er den Westen für die Provokation der russischen Invasion in der Ukraine verantwortlich macht – all diese Positionen rücken ihn bei den US-Wahlen in die Nähe von Robert F. Kennedy und verdienen unsere besondere Aufmerksamkeit.

Alternativer Link: https://twitter.com/james_freeman__/status/1805491269017239608?t=udde5D6XvSSmTF_qXOybrw&s=19

Transcript below by a reader

James Freeman: 0:45
The conversation certainly does continue. Hello and welcome to today’s Freeman Report. It is exactly 10 days until the British people go to the polls to choose who will govern the United Kingdom for the next five years. On many fronts it feels like this is the most important election in a generation, maybe several generations, because of Agenda 2030 and all of the globalist policies which we know that they want to bring in.

But maybe that’s what’s needed to wake people up, a government in a hurry, trying to rush all of these policies through. Because the worst thing possible, in my opinion, would be if we witnessed the boiling frog approach, which is what has been happening for decades now: a little change here and a little change there. Because the problem with that is that most people either don’t notice or they say, “Well that doesn’t seem that bad”, totally unaware of the fact that this is another small move that is part of a much bigger plan that would shock people if they realised.

1:54
I genuinely don’t think we should fear a Labour government, as the Conservatives are telling us to do as part of their campaign of fear. The Tories were delivering the same policies anyway, maybe just a bit slower, while pretending that they weren’t doing that. So rather than vote for the Tories to stop Labour, it is surely a better idea to do the one thing that the Uniparty and its supporters are telling us not to do, which is to vote for Nigel Farage and the Reform Party.

The corporate media has gone into overdrive telling us that Farage is a disgrace, a supporter of Putin, a racist and everything else under the sun. It is crystal clear that the British establishment do not want Nigel Farage and the Reform Party anywhere near the British House of Commons, which is precisely why we must vote for Reform. It is immaterial, in my opinion, if you don’t like Nigel Farage or Tice, because you’re not voting for either of them to form a government. That simply isn’t going to happen. You will be voting to put a spanner in the works of Agenda 2030.

3:10
Like Trump, Farage is not part of the plan. He is an obstacle in the way of their plans. He’s against CBDCs, digital IDs, the WHO treaty, the WEF, net zero, and last year he called for a full public inquiry into excess deaths and the poisonous shots, which is now part of Reform UK’s list of policies.

For me it is clear: if we want to disrupt the two-party system, then Farage is our only hope at this election. Because while there are other parties standing that do not come with the questions surrounding Tice and Farage’s support for lockdowns and the shots early on in Covid, they don’t have a chance in hell of getting anywhere near enough votes to actually get people elected. And politics is the art of the possible. And it is possible, based upon his current momentum, that Farage will get elected with a number of reform candidates.

How many is difficult to gauge at this stage. If things stay as they are, I think reform will get four or five MPs. But if things keep going in the current direction, where the Tories continue to implode and Reform takes votes from Labour as well as the Tories, if things keep on moving in that direction as they are now, we could see Reform UK, I believe, become the official opposition.

4:44
And the prize of that will be this: Nigel Farage stood opposite Keir Starmer every Wednesday at Prime Minister’s Questions, taking lumps out of the Labour Party. Starmer and the Labour Party will not know how to handle Farage. And if you’ve got any doubts, just to remind yourself, go and watch that speech Farage gave in the European Parliament, where he said, you’re not laughing any more. He will ensure the public is fully aware of Labour’s globalist policies, which is what the official opposition is supposed to do, instead of what we’ve had for decades now in the Labour Party and the Conservatives.

5:28
So if you want to see fireworks in the House of Commons, if you want to see the globalist agenda attacked and ridiculed for what it is, then I cannot see any other option. Also, imagine this: if Trump gets elected later this year, if Marine Le Pen’s party becomes the next French government, and Farage leads the official opposition in the UK, finally we will see the pendulum start to turn on the globalists.

So, please vote for reform on the 4th of July. That is my parting thought before the election, as I’m on break from tomorrow. And I’ll be back on the 11th of July, when the dust has settled. Peter McElvenna from Hearts of Oak will be standing in for me, so you’ll be in good hands. And I’m sure that I will pop up in the live chat to say hello. If you want to get in touch then email me as always at jamesfreeman at tnt radio dot live, and if you want to join in the conversation get yourself over to tnt radio dot live and click on the chat icon.

6:38
My name is James Freeman, and this is the Freeman Report for today’s News Talk TNT.
—————-

James Freeman: 19:54
Right, now it is, we are in the British election campaign, if you didn’t already know. And it’s very apt, actually, my next guest. He is the fantastic Dr Gilbert Doctorow. He’s an expert in Russian affairs and international relations. And it’s very apt that he’s coming on because, of course, we’ve had so much talk about Russia and Ukraine as part of the election campaign over the past few days. So it’d be fantastic to get his view on what he thinks about it all. Welcome back to the Freeman Report, Dr Gilbert Doctorow.

Gilbert Doctorow, Ph.D.: 20:26
Well thanks for the invitation, I appreciate it.

Freeman: 20:30
Right, now Gilbert, I did ask you then, just while we were in the break then, if you’ve been following the British election campaign; you said no. So I’ll lay out what’s been happening over the past few days. So Nigel Farage did an interview with the British state broadcaster, the BBC, where basically he laid out and he said, look the West West has provoked Russia into invading Ukraine. He said that Putin shouldn’t have done it, but it is actually the West’s fault, or at least them in part. It’s their fault in part, for the reason why Russia has invaded Ukraine.

Now, what we’ve seen over the weekend then, we’ve literally seen everybody from the British establishment, whether it’s the newspapers, the two-party system, politicians, all of them have been attacking Nigel, saying, “It’s disgraceful, he’s a liar, he’s a Putin sympathiser.” What are your thoughts Gilbert?

Doctorow:
I think that if the British electorate wants to make it through the next six months without the country being levelled by Russian nuclear weapons, it would be wise to vote for Mr Farage. Not because he’s brilliant, but at least he has his thinking cap on. I understand how he hedged his remarks. He doesn’t want to make it that much easier for his political opponents to claim that he is a stooge of Putin.

21:57
But the issue is not that. Just as saying that Mr. Orban, also another figure on the right, who still has his head screwed on properly, that Mr. Orban is pro-Putin, which is what the Financial Times does every chance they have, a paragraph on him on the front page. This is nonsense. These are people who are looking after the interests of their own country and not looking after Washington’s interests or Jake Sullivan’s interests or Mr. Biden’s interests, not going to prison for his various crimes, which are easily demonstrated in court. This is simple interest in the people who elected you or will elect you. And that’s what politics should be, but unfortunately these days isn’t, particularly on the continent, in Europe, all of the leaders, with two exceptions in Slovakia and in Hungary, are not looking after their own people. They are, in their own way, looking for that 4th of July hot dog on the ranch in the States. Their interests are clear, they’re identified with the master’s voice and not with their own electorate. It’s sad, but Mr. Farage is coming as close to the truth as he believes he’s permitted to without opening his sides to backstabbers.

Freeman: 23:16
Yeah, it’s interesting isn’t it, because you know these attacks that have come from every angle in the British establishment, it’s such a shame isn’t it, because you know when did diplomacy die? When did our leaders stop actually talking to the other side and trying to find routes for peace? It doesn’t seem to be present at all and obviously Gilbert we’ve had these peace summits or so-called peace summits on Ukraine. Tell us your view of those because Russia wasn’t even part of them was it?

Doctorow: 23:50
No it wasn’t part of it, and that was the idea from the very beginning, of Mr. Zelensky and his close advisors. It was to organize an event that the whole world would be saying with one voice that Mr. Zelensky’s ten-point peace plan was the only way to go, that Russia should be punished for violating international law, and that Mr. Putin should stand before a court. This is wonderful, wonderful propaganda exercise, but it fell flat on its face. It’s not to say that– it didn’t just fall on its face without some pushing from the Russians. The Russians did a magnificent, from their own perspective, diplomatic push to persuade the nations of the world not to come. And many didn’t come. The most significant country, of course, was China, which did not come. But then again, Mr. Guterres, the United Nations didn’t come to that meeting in Switzerland. Because it was clear, when you don’t invite one of the two parties to a conflict, you take part.
24:53

Freeman: 24:59
OK. I think Gilbert seems to have frozen there.

Doctorow:
–approved. Sorry?

Freeman:
Sorry, you froze a little bit, Gilbert, there. So can you just quickly just repeat what you said probably about the last 20 seconds?

Doctorow: 25:18
Well, the peace plan of Mr. Zelensky, which amounted to capitulation imposed on Russia, had 10 points. And of those 10 points, only three were approved and placed in the communique that was signed by something like 70 out of the 92 countries attending. And even of those who signed this pablum– because there was nothing of substance left in those three points– even those signatories, several of them pulled out of it and recalled their signature in a day immediately following the closing of that conference.

25:49
The reason is that the Russians did a superb diplomatic job, and common sense prevailed. You don’t have negotiations with only one party to the conflict present.

Freeman: 26:02
Right, we’re going to take a short break now Gilbert. When we come back, I’d like to get your view. We’ve heard from Ursula von der Leyen over the past week. She’s saying that the European Union is going to bring forth a 14th round of sanctions against Russia. I saw a report from the IMF last week which says the Russian economy is going to grow quicker than all of the G7 nations. We know that India, for example, is ignoring the oil cap price of 60 dollars set by the US for Russian oil. So it doesn’t seem to be going that well. So I’d like to get your view, though, on what you think of these new European Union sanctions and what the point of them is, because it doesn’t seem to be having any effect on Russia. So I’d like to get your view on where you think, what you think the European Union is actually trying to do with all of these sanctions, because it doesn’t seem to be hurting Russia.

27:02
So we’ll be back in just a second, right here on TNT.
—————-

Freeman: 28:18
Right, now Gilbert, as I said before the break, it’s clear from this IMF report that the Russian economy is doing very, very well, better than all the economies of the G7 at the moment, or is forecast to this year. So these sanctions from Ursula von der Leyen and the European Union, the 14th round of sanctions, who do you think they’re aimed at? Is that more for domestic consumption within the European Union or is it actually intended to have any effect on Russia?

Doctorow: 28:48
Oh, I think it is intended to have an effect on Russia. They are closing what they consider to be loopholes in the preceding rounds of sanctions, and I can’t quite agree that it’s had no negative effect on Russia. It has. The Russians have had to hustle, really hustle, to produce the results that we see today. They had to change, essentially, their economic playbook. Now, Mr. Putin was, from the start of his first presidency, was very keen on close ties with the West. He sought from Mr. Bush some payback for Russia being the first country in the world to have come to the aid of the United States following the 9-11 attacks and have opened his back door to the United States for their logistical support in attacking the Taliban in Afghanistan.

29:46
So he was not paid back, or he was paid back, but with a vengeance, with the cancellation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which was a good signal that the United States was not looking for friendly relations with Russia, on the contrary. So this was not just a pro-Western stance on the general political level. It was a pro-Western stance on the economic level. Mr. Putin, during the first two decades of his presidencies or premiership, has always been pro-market. He installed– and his director of the central bank of Russia, Madame Nabiullina, she is very much– she would fit in fine in the Bank of England. She has the same principles of how you tame inflation, and how you manage the economy, and how the state stays out of the economy to the greatest extent possible.

30:44
These were principles of the Putin years. And they have been overturned by events, by the response that Russia has had to take to counter the impact of these sanctions. So let’s not diminish the impact. It’s very easy to say, oh, yes, it’s just like thinking of the war and how it’s being conducted as a stroll down the rose garden. It isn’t. If the Ukrainians have lost 500,000 dead in the war, the Russians have, by Mr. Putin’s own admission lost one-fifth of that. One-fifth of that is a hundred thousand dead. And when you– what did America lose in the Vietnam War? Sixty thousand was it? For a country of three hundred million plus, Russia has just lost a hundred thousand, for a country half that size.

31:32
Of course, that is extremely painful for all the widows, for all the suffering in families across Russia. And this is another reason why those in the West who are saying– even the eminent and highly regarded Jeffrey Sachs are speaking about future negotiations as the Russians compromising on this and compromising on that and essentially just keeping Crimea. Well, that’s nonsense. You don’t lose 100,000 men and then give up the peace. The peace will be on Russian terms, not on Mr. Sachs’ terms or still less on the terms of Jake Sullivan.

32:09
So we are facing really tough fighting going on, the toughest in Europe since World War II, and the Russians are doing their best to keep their losses to a minimum. Five-to-one loss ratio is pretty good, but it still comes to significant numbers when the one that’s experiencing the five is experiencing them at the 500,000 level. The Ukrainians are losing 2,000 men a day, plus. The Russians have now started using something that Britain will know well about, the repurposed dumb bombs, which are now called the planer bombs, the ones that are maneuverable, as they come in at three tons. They are killing– with several hundred of these dropped a day, several hundred, they’re killing two brigades of Ukrainian infantry every day. And still the Russians are losing men.

Freeman: 33:14
Yeah, and you’re absolutely right Gilbert. You’re right to remind me that this is more than just about economics or anything else. Actual lives are being lost on the ground. Absolutely right there, to say that and bring that up. But it’s not going according to plan for the West at the moment. And of course, you know, another thing that we’ve seen recently, which, you know, is one of the consequences again of the the actions of the West, is that it seems to be pushing Russia closer to North Korea, to China, which is exactly what the West really didn’t want. Tell us about this meeting in North Korea, where Putin visited recently and what the implications are of that.

Doctorow: 33:58
Well, I was asked earlier today to comment on the agreement between Tehran and Bahrain to re-establish relations, which takes place in the context of BRICS and the context of a moderated, restrained Iranian foreign policy that results from having at its sides, Russia and China and BRICS members. The same is true of what we’re seeing now in North Korea. This meeting is all to the good, and it is a direct rejection of American foreign policy based on creating pariah states and isolating, cutting off diplomatically, economically, in every possible way, today’s “bad wolf”, the one man or one country out there in the world, which must be destroyed for the world to be safe for democracy.

34:50
That has been the American foreign policy. We’ve gone through a number of dictators who’ve been removed, whether it’s Saddam Hussein or Qaddafi. Now we’d like to remove Mr. Putin, calling him a dictator. The result of this policy has been disastrous instability in the world, from which only one country has profited. That is the United States. It’s not England, It’s not France, it’s not the continent, it is the United States. And that’s very good if Europe wakes up to the fact that the war is being fought in Ukraine, not just to the last Ukrainian, but shortly will be fought to the last European.

35:29
And finally, Gilbert, how close do you think we are to seeing some kind of escalation where we start to see a hot war, as it were, between the West and Russia? I mean, it’s probably happening anyway. We know that– because I think Russia has commented recently on American missiles being used to attack actual Russian soil, based upon Western satellite intelligence. So we’re obviously close to that point, but how close do you think we are?

Doctorow: 36:05
Well, we are unfortunately very close. When the Russians signed that mutual defense pact with North Korea during the visit of Mr. Putin, my conclusion at the end of that was this rendered impossible the use of F-16s or of long-range Western missiles, American missiles in particular, against the heartland of Russia, because it was clear that Russia together with North Korea were ready to threaten American military assets directly, and were in a position to do that effectively.

Unfortunately, I misjudged the degree of irresponsibility of Mr. Biden, of Mr. Blinken and of Mr. Sullivan. They are prepared to watch Europe burn, literally. They are prepared to unleash a European-Russian war from which America would expect to emerge unscathed at the top of the heap, as they did relatively speaking in World War II. It won’t play out that way. America will also be involved in what could be a European war, will almost certainly be a world war.

37:23
So we are at the cusp of that. You asked about how close, and this weekend brought us that much closer. As you may be aware, your audience may be aware, yesterday the Ukrainians fired five ATACMS missiles. These are US 300-kilometer range missiles. They are ground-to-ground, so they’re not dependent on launching from airplanes or jets, which the Ukrainians don’t have. They are directed by the United States. All of the inputs into those missiles for targeting purposes are made by American military experts, based on American satellite and drone intelligence flights, which the Ukrainians do not have.

So to say this was a Ukrainian attack on Sevastopol, which killed maybe a dozen people, half of them, small children on the beach in Sevastopol on a Sunday afternoon when they were out enjoying the fine weather, and did not destroy any ships in Sevastopol harbor or any naval command centers in Sevastopol. It was precisely a terror attack. And it was guided– finger on the button, may have been Ukrainian– but the one who would program the missiles was an American, and the Russians are saying that on television, so we are a hair’s breadth away from US-Russian war.

Freeman: 38:52
And Dr Gilbert Doctorow, I hope you’re wrong, but I fear very much that you are absolutely spot-on with your analysis. I will be taking these clips and putting it out to the British public on on X, because I think it’s important that people are aware of what’s actually going on, particularly when we see this disregard for any kind of intelligent conversation about this conflict coming from Nigel Farage.

Thank you for coming back on the Freeman Report and you must come back on again soon. Dr Gilbert Doctorow ladies and gentlemen.

Doctorow:
Thanks again.

Freeman: 39:30
Right, okay. Very very sobering thoughts there. We’ve been talking about this conflict for a long time now, but it seems– but we are getting very, very close to the point where maybe it is the point of no return. Very, very worrying.

But we’re going to take a break now, and when we come back, I will have the director of the Bruges Group, Robert Oulds, on. We’re going to talk about the British election, what he thinks of these attacks on Farage, and also what he thinks the outcome will be of the British election. So stay tuned, right with us right here, on TNT.