trans i've always known i'm >> trans i've always known i'm trans ever since i can remember growing up, i just pretended to be someone i wasn't and i hid myself away. >> you never know. trans police officers will now be able to strip search women. surely that shouldn't be allowed. >> and i'm always worried that one crisis is just going to leave me homeless. i'm literally one paycheque away from homelessness. >> we need you to raise our pay. >> we need you to raise our pay. >> what do we want.7 >> what do we want.7 >> io%. >> io%. >> when do we want it.7 >> when do we want it.7 >> now. >> now. >> what do we want.7 >> what do we want.7 >> io%. >> io%. >> when do we want it.7 >> when do we want it.7 >> now. >> now. >> lazy bone. idle civil servants complain about working in the office just three days a week. on my panel tonight is fox's ellie wheatley, gb news presenter alex armstrong and journalist jonathan. liz and labour's environment secretary met some farmers today. >> strength of feeling in the room and in the sector. we can see an example of that right in

front of me now. >> yes. and can you tell me what this is all about here? this kind of epic footage? what led up to that absolute disaster? get ready britain, here we go. spare a thought for the bangladeshi shrimp farmers. next. >> good evening. these are your headunes >> good evening. these are your headlines from the bbc newsroom. sir keir starmer has blamed a dangerous new era for his decision to increase defence spending and cut foreign aid. earlier today, the prime minister announced a major plan to increase defence spending to 2.5% by 2027, calling it the biggest sustained increase since the cold war. but to fund it, the cold war. but to fund it, the aid budget will be slashed

from 0.5% to 0.3% of national income, sparking backlash from charities who warn of devastating consequences. addressing the nation from downing street, sir keir warned putin's aggression does not stop in ukraine and said the defence and national security of britain must come first. meanwhile, the prime minister went on to attack nigel farage for fawning over putin as he faced questions from gb news political editor christopher hope on whether he was nigel farage in disguise after his spending boost mirrored that promised in reform uk's election manifesto. >> farage didn't even turn up to the debate in parliament today. nigel farage is fawning over putin. that's not patriotism. thatis putin. that's not patriotism. that is not what working people need. >> now. ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy plans to travel to washington on friday to meet us president donald trump, after officials agreed to terms on a draft minerals deal. that's according to several

media reports. ukrainian officials hope it will improve relations with the trump administration and pave the way for a long term us security commitment. it's understood kyiv is now ready to sign the agreement on jointly developing its mineral resources, including oil and gas, after the us dropped demands for a right to $500 billion in potential revenue from exploiting the resources. in other news, the bbc has issued an a public apology after a review revealed missed opportunities to address concerns over former radio i dj tim westwood's conduct. while the report found no widespread knowledge of serious allegations, the broadcaster admits it fell short of its values, apologising to those affected and promising changes to prevent future failures. westwood, who strongly denies all allegations, was accused of creating a toxic work environment during his time at

the bbc. for reform uk leader nigel farage has called for antifa to be prescribed as a hate organisation. in a new letter to the home secretary after violent mass protesters descended on the party's rally last night. mask wearing protesters, who refused to talk to local police officers around the gathering, vowed to shut down the reform rally in cornwall and accuse farage of racism. in his letter to yvette coopen racism. in his letter to yvette cooper, the reform leader said absolutely no politician or their supporters should be subjected to threats, abuse and violence. farage also claimed that local labour councillor zoe fox was inciting violence and asked cooper is this kind of violence acceptable in the labour party? a mystery disease has killed more than 50 people in the democratic republic of congo, just hours after symptoms began, with the world health organisation describing the outbreak as posing a significant

pubuc outbreak as posing a significant public health threat. the who and doctors in the drc said that the time between symptom onset and death was just 48 hours in most cases. officials believe the outbreak began on the 21st of january, and 419 cases have been recorded, including 53 deaths, according to the world health organisation. the first outbreak started in the town of boloco after three children reportedly ate a dead bat. those are the latest gb news headlines. now it's back to patrick. 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/advent. >> welcome along. big news today. starmer said he'd cut foreign aid and increase defence spending. >> i can announce this

government will begin the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war. >> naama. >> naama. >> we will deliver our commitment to spend 2.5% of gdp on defence, but we will bring it forward so that we reach that level in 2027. that means we will cut our spending on development assistance. >> let's start, shall we? by sparing a thought for the bangladeshi shrimp farmers, the queer community in outer mongolia and of course, rory stewart's wife's tribal army of afghan basketweavers. >> stopped. doesn't matter. you have a contract. so you know, turquoise mountain, which my wife shoshana runs, has a contract. had another million dollars to go. money just stops. >> rory stewart is talking about trump there. of course. and i think this is all down to trump. the us president came out and he said stuff like this. >> got it right anyway. i said, they're taking advantage. i'm they're taking advantage. i'm the one that got. and the

secretary—general was here, as you know, two weeks ago, saying that if it weren't for me, nato wouldn't even exist right now because i raised from countries that weren't paying their bills at that time, 28 countries, 20 of them were not paying their bills, 21 to be exact. they weren't paying. and or they were paying weren't paying. and or they were paying a very small portion. and i raised over $680 billion. that was the number he gave by saying, if you don't pay, we're not going to protect you. and as soon as i said that, the money came pouring in. >> now, we've seen what starmer is doing, what he's been told. so starmer has openly copied reform's policy. he's openly copied what the conservatives robert jenrick called for last march. and this is all down to trump, because starmer is on record absolutely slamming boris johnson for cutting foreign aid. >> cut is wrong because investing in 0.7% in international aid is in britain's national interest. this has been a cross—party position for 20 years.

successive successive prime ministers, successive prime ministers, successive prime ministers have kept to the commitment. every living prime minister thinks this is wrong. there is only one prime minister who is prepared to do this and he is sitting there. >> yes. and just two weeks ago, foreign secretary david lammy showed his tremendous intellect and political foresight by saying that trump's cuts to foreign aid were a strategic mistake that could leave other countries more reliant on china. well, it's a shame that read ed miliband didn't get the memo, though. now, i'm sure it's just a coincidence that his dad was a marxist, but he's just signed us up to a load of chinese funded windfarms. despite the former mi6 windfarms. despite the former m16 chief warning against relying on china for energy. anyway, back to defence spending. starmer is going to spending. starmer is going to spend 2.5% on defence spending by 2027, rising to 3% after 2030. okay, good. well done, well done. and this means spending less in pointless foreign aid projects , like £9.5

foreign aid projects, like £9.5 million on supporting accountability and inclusion in the democratic republic of congo. yeah, that's the country where militants have started beheading christians. and i think, as you've just been heanng think, as you've just been hearing as well, kids have been eating bats and dying of diseases. anyway, this needs to go hand in hand with other stuff. we need to cut back on domestic spending waste. the arts needs to be completely slashed. screw it. all right? just just scrap all the taxpayer funding for that. the taxpayer should not be funding weird poncey projects like the europe that gay porn built. the taxpayer paid 840 grand for that research. and we need to scrap woke in the military. remember this advert that saw infantry troops pause on their way to battle so a muslim soldier could randomly start praying? >> at the women's? >> at the women's? >> feet with. >> feet with. >> assalamualaikum, warahmatullah. >> yeah. and the raf not hiring

white men? well, i bet they wish they had more pilots now, don't they? on the face of it, though, keir starmer has done a good thing here. but it's president trump who deserves all the credit. let's get to my panel. we've got gb news superstar alex armstrong. we've also got senior reporter at guido fawkes, ellie wheatley and journalist jonathan lewis. alex, i'll put this to you. i mean, is this just trump in action? >> oh, it's just fantastic, isn't it? i mean, it shows to me how how? well, first of all, how easily it is to change keir starmer's mind. he knows he's got to take this dossier. he got that that terrible dossier he got from his friends in the european union just a few weeks ago and say, you know, we want to be at the table with ukraine. in order to do that, we've got to cut foreign aid, which, as you correctly showed, patrick, he has slammed multiple conservative leaders over multiple times and tweeted about it as well. there's always a tweet with the labour party. but you know, look this is good news. and i and i and i want to praise the prime minister for doing this because some of us have been saying this for years, haven't we? we've been saying, cut the nonsense, spend it on

british people, spend it on our own defence. and that's the common sense thing to do. but of course, as usual, it's coming a little bit too late in some cases. we could have been doing this years ago. >> yeah. what do you make of this? do you think this is ultimately the right decision? is it come under pressure from trump or what? >> of course it is. but you know someone's been very politically shrewd here. the public the british public support it 64% support cutting foreign aid. obviously this will please trump when he goes to meet him on thursday. but as always with these things there are holes. so firstly the sums don't quite add up here. so 0.2% cutting cuts to foreign aid the ifs predict will save about £6 billion. that means there's a 7.4 billion black hole there. also there's questions over whether starmer's sort of fudging and fiddling the numbers here. not only is intelligence and security services included in this new budget uplift, but the government won't deny whether or not the chagos surrender deal costs are included in that. >> formal title. >> formal title. >> yes it is. that's what we

call it, guido. but also there's the question of whether or not the question of whether or not the government will actually effectively deploy cuts to wasteful spending like they have donein wasteful spending like they have done in the us and doge. so they need a proper uk doge not just to look at, you know, studying shrimps in bangladesh and all that sort of thing. but as you say, patrick, on domestic waste, i mean, as you noted, those those woke wasteful projects, there's countless, countless projects and contracts on those, but also things like the government's just opened up a £540 million contract to train civil servants. why can't they do that in house? things like that that we should be looking at and which is actually what we're doing at guido with our uk doge project, of course. so yeah. so he does. he needs to properly fulfil that. >> jonathan, can you to get where you are on this because i imagine you would naturally be against any cuts to foreign aid. so do you, do you oppose the prime minister for doing this? >> well, it's refreshing to be on a panel @gbnews where i'm attacking the government and everyone else is much more of

that. please. no, but it's no, it's actually quite useful for me because everyone accuses me of being a labour shill on this program. and here i am going to 90, program. and here i am going to go, you know, going to go studs up. well not quite. there are two bits to this. the first thing is, i actually agree that we need to increase our defence spending, given that the challenges we face. i know some people on the left think that we should leave nato or should not invest in defence. i see where where that argument comes from, but i don't think it's a pragmatic one. we can't think only sort of theoretically, we have to think about what's actually happening right now. and right now there are concrete threats to our security. and we have a president in the united states who is now literally siding with russia at the un, siding with russia at the un, siding with russia at the un, siding with russia, north korea, even iran abstained on the pro russia motion that trump and the united states voted in favour of. this is really, really desperate stuff, very, very worrying. so clearly we have now the german, the new german chancellor, saying that europe has to take basically assert autonomy from the united states, independence from the us. that's these are massive new sort of

geopolitical building blocks that are coming into the eu. so clearly we need to step up to the mark. but but that does not mean that the poorest people in the world have to pay the price of that. it should not be on the backs of the poorest people in the world. when we talk about these. >> poor people in this country, jonathan. and. >> who are homeless. >> who are homeless. >> and that's exactly my point. none of this is a zero sum game. you don't have to because you don't. you don't have to. you don't. you don't have to. you don't have to. well, look, you can. you have a mix of lots of things. lots. you know, there are lots of ways the government can raise revenue by sort of increasing tax on the richest, for example, or increasing borrowing or whatever it is. obviously, we talk about these in percentage terms. actually defence is 5% of expenditure, which is more than two point. >> do you think the army and the military in general also needs to drop all this woke dross? i mean, i showed you an advert. they're recruiting entire recruitment drive that appears to be based around pausing battle for the call to prayer. we've seen the raf get dumb for discriminating against white men. >> yeah, well, you know, you

want your military to be the best people in the job, right? and meritocracy is the most important thing you can have in defence. >> and it's like having a muslim people praying. >> well, it's not it's just the point is that if you want to attract the best people, surely they should just be attracted to they should just be attracted to the job, not whether or not they can pray in it. >> it's not as completely separate. >> you know, whatever. that's just a video. the point is, is that there are tick box exercises that are excluding highly qualified and potentially very good young men who won't be able to get those jobs. and we should absolutely do that. and i also, you know, i just wanted to say spare a thought for david lammy at the moment. mustn't forget. >> no. >> no. >> no, forget. >> no, forget. >> it's really off my mind actually. i mean but but you know. yeah. david lammy i mean just just two weeks ago he was criticising trump, rowing back on foreign aid, saying. >> because it made it zero. trump is going to trump is basically effectively disbanded even even the. so there was a there was a story said about marco rubio, the secretary of state, approving some vital sort of aids care in africa, for example, and those 19 year old interns of musk sort of manually vetoing them. so this is this is

different. >> to the uk because you, you were mentioning there about some issue, potential issue with the chagos surrender deal, as you call it. why is that important to our viewers and listeners? because the government is refusing to say that that that would be part of this defence money. i'll explain that. >> so effectively, we are paying mauritius to give up our british sovereignty. so there was an island called diego garcia, which is a us, uk military airbase, which obviously is vital for our national security and interest. and so whether or not that money that we pay, which is around 90 million a yean which is around 90 million a year, which it could get to 18 billion, the figures vary. again, there's lots of secrecy over this deal, whether or not that's actually included in the 2.5% of gdp by 2030, i mean, that's that's what we're sort of getting at. we don't see fiddling with the figures here by saying that actually, yes, we're increasing spending, but actually he's including stuff that he's already committed to, which is also. not it might. >> essentially be a fudge of the

numbers just to appease trump. ahead of his meeting with him on thursday. >> i mean, we don't know. this is the thing they won't say. >> found out he would get. found very, very quickly. >> they've been asked, the government's been asked and they will refuse. they've been refusing to deny that. >> yeah, it's keir starmer, 3037 00: