John Lathsworth, the situation in Gaza, of course, is tense. The foreign secretary has told me this morning that he thinks that the Israeli Defense Force should not go into Rafeh, as has been indicated by the Prime Minister. Do you agree?

Well, a full scale offensive into Rafeh would be catastrophic beyond description. I think there are over a million people, 1.5 million people in that region, 600,000 children. We've been calling for an immediate ceasefire for some time. I strongly believe we need a ceasefire. We need international aid into the region. But I do not want to see an offensive go into Rafa. Also, let me tell you this, I certainly don't want to see British-made weapons, British-made components, which are part of weapons, be used in any full-scale offensive into Rafa. I think the government, like the Americans have, should say that they will not sell those arms for use in Rafa.

That is the labor position now that you would call for a suspension of arms sales, stop export licensing, licenses for components for weapons that could be used by Israel?

We do not want to see weapons used in Rafe. Like Joe Biden has said, if that goes ahead, those weapons should be halted, and we believe that the government should adopt that position now.

But some Some of those weapons have already gone. I suppose what I'm asking you about is, should there now be an export ban on weapons or components of weapons to Israel from the UK?

I'm talking about weapons and components that can be used in weapons, British made, that can be those weapons that could be used in Rafa. We do not want those weapons to be sold. So we hope the government... We've already called on the government, as you know, to publish its legal advice more generally about arms, but But just as the Americans have said, they're halting shipments and saying that shipments will not go ahead if the Rafa offensive goes ahead, as we all fear. The government should adopt that position.

Okay, we should do it the same as the Americans right now.

The government should adopt the position. We have got to put pressure on to stop this offensive into Rafer going ahead. It will be catastrophic.

I'm just trying to get absolutely clear on this. Should we pause arm sales to Israel or not?

We should be pausing arm sales in order to stop to any arms that would be used in that Rafa offensive.

Okay. There is an issue here about whether we actually should have the capacity, I suppose, to influence this situation. When you say we should pause arm sales on anything that could be used, it's still not entirely clear. Should we hold all arm sales to Israel, or are you saying just some arms?

No, we're talking about weapons. We do not want this Rafa Offensive to go ahead. It would be absolutely catastrophic, completely catastrophic. The Americans have said they are not going to hand over arms which could be used in the Rafa Offensive. I am saying that we should adopt a similar position, that we should not sell British-made weapons or components that should be used in this Rafa Offensive.

All right. Your leader this week has been talking about a new policy to stop the small boats. 9,000 people have crossed already this year, despite the government giving millions to the French, recruiting hundreds more people to the border force and deploying the Coast Guard and the Navy. What is it that you're going to do that they aren't already doing?

Well, there's a number of things that we believe should be done, which don't happen now. It's why we've called for a new border security command. That's what we would introduce. It would bring together all the different crime and intelligence agencies.

There's already a committee under the Home Office which does that.

It's not in the way that we are proposing.

Yeah, because the way-Well, I'm asking you, what's new?

Well, I'm telling you what's new. We are going to bring it together. It's going to be properly coordinated, report directly to the Home Secretary. But here's the thing. We will allow what we call some of the terrorist-style laws laws to be used to go after people smugglers. Things like the control orders, which means people can meet people's financial arrangements, Internet access, things like that can be dealt with. Using stop and search powers that we should currently use for people suspected of terrorism at the borders, we should use them against people smugglers, suspected people smugglers. Getting search warrants to go into premises, which we use when we're going after terrorists. We want to use similar powers to go after people smugglers. There is legislation on the statute book which is designed, which gives the police extra powers for terrorists. We want to use that, use that legislation to give extra powers to tackle people smugglers. That's not happening at the moment. The government don't do that.

Well, there may be a reason why it's not happening. You want to use these powers against people smugglers. You want to break into their flats and all the rest of it. The people smugglers are almost exclusively operating from French soil. So are you saying that somehow we're going to put British police officers, British spies into France to break down people's doors? How's that going to work?

Well, we have our arrangements with you, Europol, with France and other countries.

No, are you going to send people?

There's obviously issues around the-To create the jurisdiction of a-to do police actions on a foreign country soil. There's obviously issues around jurisdictions of other nations, quite obviously. However, you can cooperate. It's not a big one.

It's France.

Hang on. You can cooperate cross-border by putting more of your police and associated forces into your role to work together. That is what we want to do. But of course, when you say that it's... Of course, it's an international problem, which is why you need to cooperate internationally. But you've also got to use these powers to deal with people on this side of the channel as well.

No, but The smuggling gangs aren't operating this side of the channel.

They're putting people in boats. They're putting people in boats on French beaches. So let me ask you about that. They put it on the French beach and they have contacts on the other side. That's the whole point. You need to go after the contacts on this side And you need to go after the gangs on the other side by cooperating with your European partners in Europol.

All right, well, let's just be very practical. My colleague here, Adam Parsons, put out a report the other day in which he literally on the beach and he watched smuggling gangs put people in a boat. I think we can show you that clip.

That is the taxi boat that's just arrived to pick these people up. That boat is already really full. But as you can see, they're marching out through the water. Now, the reason they're doing that is they know the police can't stop them once they're in the water. But actually, there's not a police officer to be seen.

That is going to happen tonight. It's going to happen tomorrow night. Is that the French side? It's going to happen next week. Under your plan, who is going to be there?

That's on the French Coast? Yes.

That's where they're coming from.

Yeah, exactly. But that's why you've got to have more cooperation at a Europol level with French, and that you need to have people on the Coast on both sides, obviously.

There's cooperation, but at 3:00 AM in the morning, who's going to be there?

Well, that is why we are cooperating through Europol, and we're going to work together. That is not happening at a sufficient level at the moment.

It does sound to me a bit more of the same. Only you're spending £75 million more.

No, it's not more of the same. It is a new approach. Secondly, why are people coming here? It's because they know if they can cross the border here, then they are in an asylum backlog, right? When they never get dealt with. It's like a big neon flashing light saying, Please come to the UK. No, I haven't. Because the fact that we have this huge backlog with people in hotels forever and ever and ever is an incentive It's a incentive for the smugglers to get people here. We're going to put more staff into processing claims, more staff into a returns unit, so we can send people back who don't need to be here and deal with the backlog. That backlog incentivises the smugglers.

All right, let's move on to what you might call Labour's Broad Church. This week you got a new MP, Natalie Elfick. If it turns out, as it's been reported this morning, that she did indeed try to lobby the Lord Chancellor on her husband's behalf, as is alleged, over the case for which he was imprisoned, you're going to have to withdraw the whip from her, aren't you?

Well, she said that is nonsense and is not her interpretation of the meeting. I mean, obviously, it wasn't in the meeting, so I don't know. If this happened at the time, why did the law and Chancellor not raise this issue at the time through his good offices?

But more broadly-The simple answer is, do you have complete confidence in her version of the story, and it's nothing to see here.

Well, she said it is nonsense and not her interpretation of the meeting.

Okay, you trust her. But this is a person who said as late as, I think 10, 12 days ago, that labor wants an open door to all immigration you couldn't be trusted. Let me add another one here. Your Shadow Foreign Secretary, having previously described Donald Trump as a, quote, racist and a, quote, Nazi sympathizer, is today all over his advisors and says, I'm quoting him, Trump was misunderstood. Is there anybody that labor wouldn't make common cause with to win this election?

Let me make a broader point. First of all, Natalie Elfick's defection, that in itself, I think, reveals the disintegration and decay that we're seeing in the Tori government. She defected because she was hugely, hugely disappointed and let down at the Government's failure to get young people onto the housing ladder, to deal with problems in the rental market, and indeed, their failure to bring order to our borders. But more broadly, Natalie Elfick, like Conservatives across the country, are coming over to the Labor Party.

I'm asking about the Labor Party.

That is a good thing. Look, I'm not a tribal guy. You know that. I'm not a tribal guy. Conservatives are my friends, my neighbors, my relations. I want them to vote Labor at the next general election. Many of them voted Labor for the first time in our local elections a few weeks ago, and we are working hard to win them over at the next general election.

One quality that would bring people across might be consistency. It took you five minutes to adopt Natalie Elfick without any apparent due process. You've taken a year not to restore the whip to Diane Abbott, and there's no sign you're going to do that. What's so different about Diane Abbott?

Well, I hope we can resolve Diane's situation quickly. You know it's a independent-I'm hearing that from people who sat in that seat for weeks and weeks, possibly months. I know. You even wrote a blog about me the last time I came on and made this comment about it being an independent process, but it is an independent process. However, I would point out there's a couple of colleagues who have been through an independent process recently and have had the whip restored. So these processes do find a resolution. I hope they can get on with it and resolve it.