Enda Brady: UK correspondent on the UK and Germany signing a defence treaty

Prime Minister Keir Starmer will welcome Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, to the UK to sign a new bilateral defence treaty.

The treaty promises tighter action on smuggling gangs, expanded defence exports and closer industrial ties between both regions.

UK correspondent Enda Brady says this treaty sends a clear message to Russia amid escalating global tensions.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bryan Bridge. See Brady is a UK you correspondent with
us Hi Hinde. Hey Ryan, great speaking and to you too.
The UK and Germany are going to sign a defense
treaty today.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yes, this has taken eighteen rounds of negotiation and what
we're seeing is Keir Starmer moving the UK far more
closely to Europe yet again. So last week President Macron
of France was here on a state visit. Today he
will be doing business with Friedrich Mertz, the new Chancellor
of Germany. And it's pretty much a defense treaty. There's

(00:32):
lots of other security and trade stuff in there as well,
but there's a key line in it that an attack
on one will be defended by the other. Now I'm
struggling to see how this differs from the protections offered
to both Germany and the UK under NATO membership. But
it's really a message for Russia's ears that if you
even think about coming close or threatening either of these countries,

(00:57):
both of them will respond. So let's see how that
plays out. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Interesting, and Kostama's suspending four of his own in peace.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
He's had enough of these four. So three of them
only came in as new members of Parliament last July,
so they've been in the job barely a year and
he's suspending them. They've all led various different rebellions against
legislation he has tried to bring in now, in particular
the recent welfare reforms. They were very prominent and I
think they made it difficult for other Labor MPs to

(01:29):
defend the government position when you've got these four popping
up on the airwaves, spouting off and giving their tubbensworth.
So the end result is he's had enough of them. Now. Look,
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labor leader, is rumored to be
starting his own left left wing party, so they may
well quit and go there. There is some speculation, but

(01:51):
it's clear. I think this is a message. As MP's
are just about to break up for their long summer
holidays until the end of September. This is Starmer sending
them home just with a warning that you know, if
you even think about causing me problems next time in parliament,
this is what will happen to you.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
And what about the jetpot? This is the Lotto jetpot
four hundred million dollar or euro I should say, is it?
And an Irish family it's come forward to climate.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, it's four hundred million en Z and they've come
forward anonymously. So the euro millions is played everywhere France, Germany, Italy, Greece,
you name it, Belgium, UK, Ireland. But crucially it's not
six numbers to match. You need to match seven. Can
you imagine the odds on that. Someone said to me once,
a statistician, that it was like stopping someone in the

(02:39):
street and telling them their mobile phone number, that those
are the odds. So you've got to match seven numbers
in euro millions, and one winning ticket last week in
Ireland did just that. Now everyone in Ireland every day
has been a paper story saying well we know the
county the ticket was sold and now we know the
shop it was sold in. Of course could have been

(03:00):
someone just driving through, or it could be someone local,
so everyone was super excited to find out who they are.
They've come forward anonymously, they've got the money, and a
statement was put out by a lot of organizers from
the family saying it's a family syndicate. They're going to
have a holiday and one member of the family has
said he will not be deviating from his cheese and

(03:21):
Ham Sandwich every lunchtime. So let's see if four hundred
million dollars does not really change them.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Is there a big texts over there like in the US,
I get texts of the Jesus out of them. Is
it the Simon no no.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
That drops into your bank account as soon as the
check clear's four hundred million dollars for you to do
whatever you want with. I think they're very clever not
having any publicity because a country the size of Ireland,
with the amount of criminal networks, seriously, the amount of
organized crime we have in Ireland, you might as well
just draw a big X on your back. And they

(03:55):
need to be careful about how they spend it as well,
because if you're suddenly driving a Lamborghini Hurricane round County Limerick,
that's going to draw attention to you.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Certainly. Hey, thanks so much for the end of radio
are UK Correspondent.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
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