Gabriella Power:
Joining us now is Morgan Begg, director of research at the IPA. Morgan Beg, thank you so much for your time. Let’s start with what’s happening in the UK. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party has poached another conservative MP. This time, the former UK Home Secretary, Suella Braverman. Let’s just take a listen to what she had to say.
Suella Braverman:
The truth is that in recent years I have found myself effectively in a social Democrat left leaning party made up of conservatives in name only. No wonder I have felt politically homeless for years.
Nigel Farage:
And what she’s lost isn’t her career within the Conservative Party, what she’s lost is her battle to get the Conservative Party in the place that she thought it ought to be.
Gabriella Power:
Is this another win for Farage?
Morgan Begg:
Undoubtedly this is a big win for Farage. His ranks continue to grow. He really is presenting himself as the effective leader of the opposition in the United Kingdom right now. And what he’s really taking advantage of is there is a genuine demand in the community for a centre right option in politics. And the Conservative Party have completely failed to present that in recent years, and reformer picking up that ball and running with it. Now, the danger is taking on too many members of that failed Conservative Party era into their own ranks risks than becoming a secondatory party.
Gabriella Power:
Yeah.
Morgan Begg:
And that’s something they really need to be cautious of.
Gabriella Power:
They do. Let’s talk about Keir Starmer’s flagship migrant deal. It’s been branded a total fast by the opposition after the Home Secretary admitted that Labour has taken in more migrants from France than it has deported. It’s been revealed that 350 asylum seekers have arrived under the one-in-one-out scheme, while just 281 have actually been removed in its first six months. So on average, it’s only an average of 11 deportations a week since this scheme began in August last year. I mean, what a joke.
Morgan Begg:
Yeah. As you said, it is a fast. My question is, since 2024, there have been almost 100,000 arrivals by small boats on British shores, and they’ve been given a free pass by the government, accommodation, food, phones, or you got the works. And the question is, what is being done about the 100,000 people that are already there? Yeah, okay, there’s a few hundred here going back, a couple hundred going back. It’s a drop in the bucket to the problem that the UK is going through.
Gabriella Power:
And now Keir Starmer is in China, he’s in Beijing. And he’s there with his team, they will have burner phones and burner laptops. This is in an effort to stop being spied on during their trip. And this trip follows the approval of a new Chinese embassy in London. And Keir Starmer is under pressure from back home to raise several difficult subjects with Xi Jinping, including China’s espionage activity. What are your thoughts around this trip and burner phones?
Morgan Begg:
Well, it just goes to show that there’s the folly in so many of these Western governments, including Keir Starmer, chasing the golden goose of China, the big China dollars. And the big picture for Australia is there is a Commonwealth of Nations. There are a community of nations in the world which account for almost $10 trillion in combined GDP, which have historical ties with the United Kingdom, which have deep friendship and cultural ties with the United Kingdom, which he could be pursuing trade with. And what he’ll find is that it’s much easier to engage in trade with a friend than it is to engage in trade with countries that they themselves acknowledge are high risk, to the point that they’re not using their own devices, they’re using burner phones. It’s absurd.
Gabriella Power:
I’m going to talk to you about Spain. Spain has begun legalising half a million undocumented migrants in a move the government says will blunt the rise of the far right. So to qualify migrants must prove that they were living in Spain for at least five months before December 31, 2025, and show that they have no criminal record. And then successful applicants will be granted one-year resident’s permits with the options to renew. The People’s Party leader has warned that this regularisation will actually increase the pool effect, and of course, overwhelm public services. Do you agree with that?
Morgan Begg:
Undoubtedly. I mean, this is… If you want a better example of the kind of elitist out of touch technocratic leadership that is so common in European countries, just look at Spain right now. The idea that arbitrarily changing the legal status of half a million migrants will somehow solve the problem is absurd. Of course, this just effectively adds to the incentive structure, which is bringing people in. And I have to take issue with this idea that they’re doing this to blunt the rise of the far right. No, that is completely dishonest and disingenuous. This is not a far right concern. Mainstream people are concerned when their borders are not controlled. They’re concerned if half a million people or however many people are in the country and who are not meant to be there. But this is a mainstream concern. And I just find it so telling that the Spanish government would come out with this approach, essentially antagonising the mainstream concerns of the people, rather than trying to do something which will actually represent their concerns.
Gabriella Power:
Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. Just finally, Russian State TV is issuing a chilling warning to Europe with pundits boasting that Moscow could strike any part of the continent with impunity. On his show, The Evening with Vladimir Solovyov, Kremlin propagandist seized on Donald Trump’s comments around Greenland claiming that Europe no longer has the protection of a US nuclear umbrella. So, he even floated a Russia-US alliance and told viewers that Russia could hit Europe and Americans wouldn’t retaliate, as questions grow over NATO’s future. What do you make of this? How concerned should we be?
Morgan Begg:
To be honest, not. I mean, this is, as you say, it’s a propagandist on Russian television, sort of making the case for a big, strong Russia. And countries engage in sabre-rattling all the time. They want to look big, they want to look imposing. What it is a reminder of is the need for countries themselves to form an independent and effective deterrent option and not rely on countries like the United States. The United States have been underwriting the security of the European Union, and the United Kingdom, and Australia, for that matter, for decades now. And we have to be conscious of the fact that whether that defence from the US will come through for us, it may be dependent on other extraneous circumstances. Maybe it will depend on who the president of the day is. We need to form an independent deterrent ourselves. In Australia, defence spending is still stuck at 2% of GDP. We have to get moving now. We have to build the defence capabilities in order to provide our own strategic and defence deterrence, so that we’re not relying on other people to come to our defence.
Gabriella Power:
Yeah, absolutely. Morgan Begg, Director of Research at the IPA. Thank you so much for joining us.
This transcript of Morgan Begg speaking on The Power Hour – Sky News Australia from 29 January 2026 has been edited for clarity.
