'How will this help BRITISH people?!' | Keir Starmer GRILLED on joining EU £78 billion Ukraine loan

Have a look at our top story this

morning. The government has announced

that it intends to start talks to join

the European Union's 90 billion euro

loan for Ukraine. That's 78 billion

pounds as it seeks to bolster support

for Keefe and deepen defense ties with

the block. While the prime minister is

in Armenia where he will tell leaders at

the European gathering that Britain

wants to work more closely with them.

Well, let's speak now to broadcaster and

commentator Christo Fufas who joins us

in the studio. A morning to you, Kristo.

>> I'm also not artificial intelligence. In

fact, there's barely any intelligence

here.

>> Not true. Simply not true. You're

actually you're actually

>> you're actually going to tell us what

the prime minister is aiming for with

this summit today. What's he there for?

>> Well, yes. This is the the summit that's

being held, as you said, in Armenia.

It's the European political community

summit in uh Armenia where there will be

discussions about a potential reset with

the European Union. Now uh what's

contentious about this is the idea that

we will have to hand over vast sums of

money to the EU in order to have access

to the single market. Now, some people

are saying it could be up to a billion

pounds a year because, as you know,

we've got so much cash to splash around

at the moment as a condition of further

access to the single market. The

European Union want Kyama to make this

concession in principle and then there

will be uh more detailed integration

negotiations along the line. And I can

give you a quote apparently that the

times are running this morning from a

European diplomat diplomat. They said if

the UK wants further integration, they

must pay to play.

>> Yeah, I guess many people at home will

be seeing this story and of course we're

talking about close ties with the EU.

We're talking about money for Ukraine.

We're talking about so much going away 1

billion quid if we want to bit be closer

to the EU. 78 billion pounds is it

million or billion? I couldn't quite

remember. uh to Ukraine at a time when

we can't even

>> billion 78 billion

>> billion this is and this is a loan

scheme because of the fact that

America's uh support of Ukraine has

somewhat waned there was this loan

scheme for scheme for Ukraine that was

mooted for78 billion pounds now that was

there was an impass about that because

Hungary were against it now Victor Orban

has gone from Hungary it looks like it's

going ahead now and the UK also wants to

be a part of that wants to try and make

some money out of this loan scheme and

that will be part of the money that they

need to to hand over as part of this

billion pounds. But Christa, we haven't

got any money. We're broke. And this is

the thing. While we've been told

constantly time and time again,

warnings, we had a warning last night

that Britain hasn't even got enough

defense to defend itself from ballistic

missiles. We're handing over cash to to

to foreign countries. And listen, don't

get me wrong, I support Ukraine in their

war against against Russia. Um but at

the same time we're leaving ourselves

massively wide open.

>> Uh what's interesting as well I think if

anyone said look this we're going to try

and facilitate because we ended up with

a terrible Brexit deal like we did. I

mean we ended up with a Brexit deal that

Boris Johnson negotiated that made

absolutely everyone unhappy. If there

was a mechanism by which British

businesses I think could more easily

trade with the EU without us having to

be integrated in them. I think most

people would say actually that's okay

cuz British businesses have got a lot

more red tape now I think what stick

will stick in a lot of people's crawl

going to your point Alex is the fact

that well hang on why are we having to

pay so much money for this and this idea

of closer integration will this mean

that actually the European Union will

then start having a say once more even

further on the standards that we have on

the laws that we need to actually

implement around products we might sell

in which case that then starts to go

directly against what people will say

they voted for.

>> And that's what scares people, isn't it?

That's what frightens people when they

see stories such as this. But we have

got this European diplomat, he's a a

source on the front page of the Times

this morning saying that actually um

this would work more like a Swiss style

deal. So we would contribute to annual

EU budgets uh to reduce economic,

social, and territorial disparities

across the block. So it makes things

smoother.

>> But I don't understand that. You're

right.

>> He does go further to say we were not

able to cherrypick. The Swiss pay €375

million euros a year in order to access

the single market. But again, free

freedom movement of goods and I know the

single market is a little different to

this, but that starts to get into the

realms of free movement of people. So

again, will that end up being a part of

it? Because a lot of the people that are

outside the countries that are outside

of the EU still have free movement of

people even though they're not part of

the whole of the European Union. Uh but

but secondly as well why I thought the

whole point of us leaving was that we'd

have a trade deal meaning that we

wouldn't need to do any of this stuff.

So I think again a lot of people will be

saying well hang on why are we paying

it's almost like a subscription service.

Well if we offer the best deal for a

certain product isn't that enough for us

to be able just to sell that product. So

true, Christo. And you know what this

reminds me of? People forget about this

now because it's been so long since we

of course had the referendum, but David

Cameron went on a tour of European Union

countries before we had the referendum

to get a new deal for us, which would

have basically put us where we're at

today, which is half in, half out. And

everyone said this is the worst possible

solution for Britain. We're either going

to be in it or we're going to be out of

it. And it seems to me what we're doing

is dragging ourselves closer back to the

EU again, but without the powers that we

had previously. We might as well have

stayed in at this point if the prime

minister is going to drag us back in

without a vote.

>> And look, I voted remain from a business

perspective. But I absolutely thought

that when if we did leave, great. We're

going to end up remember Singapore on

temps. We're going to have really low

taxes. We're going to have people drive

can't wait to do business with Britain

because at least without being tied into

EU laws, we can set those. We can

subsidize companies and industries that

need them. We can do startups. We can we

can we can sell trains to to British

firms that are going to be made by

British companies, which we weren't able

to do before. All of that stuff. None of

that happened. And what we've ended up

with is this, as you say, this weird

half in half out. We're not even shaking

it about. So, I think that that that a

lot of people will be quite perplexed by

this. But the the the different the

balance that has to be set here. I think

if I were Kama would be well actually my

own policies have caused economic

stagnation in the country I'm in. Um

America the ties with them aren't great

at the moment because I've alienated

them. What on earth do I do to try and

drive the British economy a bit more

forward?

>> It is yeah it kind of ties into what the

prime minister was writing in the Sunday