you the forgotten speaks up for you the forgotten majority. on tonight's show at last the day has come. kemi badenoch tory party has announced a tangible policy. jobless and low paid migrants will be barred from indefinitely settling in the uk. but is this all too little, too late? we'll be debating what it means for the tories and reform. i'll also be joined tonight by britain's strictest headteacher, katharine birbalsingh, following the publication of a very hard hitting open letter to labour education secretary bridget phillipson. we'll be hearing her views about what is going wrong in our education system. and as donald trump is busy tearing up the international liberal consensus, i'll be speaking to world leading geopolitics expert ed husain about trump's controversial plans for the middle east. plus, as the bank of england cuts interest rates, its new report spells out an alarming forecast for the year ahead as the government faces a

growing crisis of confidence. that's state of the nation tonight with me, matt goodwin starts right now. now i'll also be joined tonight by my top panel founder of novara media, aaron bastani and political commentator charlie downs. as ever, let me know your views at gbnews.com/yoursay and hit me up on x at goodwin mj. now it's time for the news bulletin with mark white. >> good evening. the latest headunes >> good evening. the latest headlines from the gb news centre . conservative leader kemi centre. conservative leader kemi badenoch has criticised the prime minister's style of leadership over claims he broke covid lockdown rules. speaking to gb news, the tory leader questioned the explanation sir

keir starmer gave for meeting with a voice coach during lockdown. miss badenoch branded sir keir a lawyer, not a leader. >> i think it's just how hypocritical. keir starmer has been.i hypocritical. keir starmer has been. i don't know anyone who needs emergency voice coaching on christmas eve. i think that keir starmer is a lawyer, not a leader, and i think he knows exactly what he can and cannot say to get himself out of trouble. >> meanwhile, gb news can confirm that the prime minister has met in private with victims of the southport attack today. it's the third time sir keir has visited the merseyside town since last july's stabbings. this latest visit was intended as an opportunity to meet the bereaved families and some of the victims. in the wake of the sentencing of the southport killer. axel rudakubana. well. earlier, the prime minister visited lancashire and said

nuclear power would be prioritised in the spending review at a nuclear laboratory alongside the energy secretary. sir keir said more nuclear power plants will be approved as red tape is slashed. ministers say the plans aim to make it easier to build small modular reactors to build small modular reactors to help deliver clean, secure and more affordable energy. two suspected people smugglers wanted by french authorities have been arrested in the uk by the national crime agency. albanian lucy letby bharaj and iraqi national rabin sharif were tracked down and detained in london. both are wanted in france, where prosecutors accused them of being involved in a number of small boat crossings in 2022. they are also suspected of money laundering and other organised crime offences. police and tech

companies have agreed to work more closely to tackle phone theft. the pledge was made at a summit in today, chaired by the home secretary. it follows coordinated action across london 230 phone theft suspects were arrested over the past week. scotland yard said the trade in stolen mobiles is worth more than £50 million a year, as the devices are resold in the uk and abroad. the princess royal has returned to the hospital where she was treated after being knocked unconscious by a horse last year during the visit to southmead hospital in bristol. princess anne was able to thank the doctors and nurses who looked after her. the 74 year old princess described how every day is a bonus after she suffered concussion and head injuries in the accident last june. and those are the latest

gb news headlines. now back to matt goodwin and state of the nation. >> for the very latest gb news direct to your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code or go to gbnews.com/alerts. >> welcome back, everybody to state of the nation tonight with me, matt goodwin. now, yesterday was the day that keir starmer and the labour party finally began running scared from reform, we saw a lightly planted question in the house of commons set up to try and stifle reform's momentum. we also discussed on yesterday's show how number 10, downing street has dispatched strategy experts and advisers to try and support labour mps on issues that clearly matter to reform voters. and it's no doubt that this all stems from reform surge in the polls, including today's poll from find out now, which has

reform leading by four percentage points. but now it seems the conservative party is following labour's lead. ever since kemi badenoch became leader, she has insisted the party was not ready to issue policies. but finally, we now have a policy from the new tory leader. check this out. >> need to make sure that all of the people who are here have to have a meaningful contribution to the uk. so one of the things that we would be changing is making sure that people are net contributors to the to the uk. british citizenship is not an entitlement. it is not a right. it is a privilege. and we have one of the easiest routes to citizenship. >> so the tories are now proposing that jobless and low paid legal migrants will be banned from settling indefinitely in the uk. up until now, they could apply after having lived in the uk forjust five years. but under this new policy, the requirements would be stricter. migrants would need to have lived in the uk for ten

years, having been working in that time, not claiming benefits and not living in social housing. they also will have had to have been net contributors to our economy, our society, in order to stay as well. but many will be left thinking this is too little, too late. reminded of what 14 years of tory immigration policy left britain with. brexit, remember, was meant to be a promise to end the era of mass uncontrolled immigration to lower the overall numbers. as the conservatives told us in their 2019 manifesto. but of course, the conservative party betrayed the country on that issue. if we look at the three years that followed the covid pandemic, we saw numbers that were simply mind boggling. in the year to december 2021, net migration reached nearly 500,000. in 2022, it was nearly 900,000. in 2023, it was about the same figure. that's a net 2 million people in just three years. only about 22% of those people, by the way, happen to come in on worker visas. and

when you look at the fine print, it becomes even more remarkable, shocking. even in the first half of 2024. get this britain issued 15,000 health and social care visas to people coming to work in health and social care, but issued 60,000 visas to their relatives in the first half of 2024. we gave 1000 health visas to people from zimbabwe and they brought 10,000 relatives, ten dependants for every worker. our immigration system is simply the laughing stock of the world. for too long, the economic consensus has opted for mass migration as an artificial means of growing the economy. it's good for big business. it gives them cheap migrant workers, but in reality it's making us poorer, as even the office for budget responsibility now accepts. in fact, all of the academic research, i would argue, shows that the kind of migration that is now coming into western economies is making us poorer, not richer. and while this new policy proposal from the tories

is a move in the right direction, it barely scratches the surface. as ever, let me know your views at gbnews.com/yoursay or meet me on x at goodwin mj. but i'm joined now in the studio by leader writer at the telegraph, sam ashworth hayes, as well as my panel founder of novara media, aaron bastani and political commentator charlie downs. sam kemi badenoch is going to be hoping that this new policy proposal will be enough to win back the one in 1 in 4 conservative party voters who say they're going to nigel farage and reform. will it be enough? >>i enough? >> i don't think so. on its own, it's a good starting point. it had to be done. but the conservative party has so much ground and credibility to win back on the issue of migration. as you've gone through those figures and people saw the last 14 years of conservative government, and they need to send a really costly signal about this. and from my point of view, personally speaking, i think the way 1509 00:09:51,080 -->