Hello and welcome to AUK column interview.
I'm Charles Mallett. I'm pleased today to be joined
by Lord Deeben, who has spent many years as a government
minister, then known as John Gummer.
Lord Deeben, thank you very much indeed for joining me and
welcome to UK column. Thank you.
Now, I got in touch with you because you over the years have
been a close personal friend of the recently deceased Mike
Lynch. And in particular, you've spoken
out about the extradition situation that he found himself
subject to back in 2023 as a result of the Hewlett Packard
autonomy fraud case. What I'd like you to do, please,
is just to explain to the audience your view of the
situation as it unfolded. Well, I was concerned about this
before Mike Lynch was involved. It was an agreement between the
British government under Tony Blair and the Americans, which
was a one way extradition system which enabled the Americans to
insist upon the extradition of individuals from Britain.
But there was no reverse. We couldn't insist upon
extradition from the United States.
Now, the problem with this is not only that there is no
reciprocity, it is that it could be used and later, when it
happened to Mike Lynch, was being used for commercial
purposes. The American legal system is
very different from our own. It has quite a number of the
elected judges and prosecutors, people who may have other
interests. So it is always difficult to
have a rest, a reciprocal arrangement, but to have one
that doesn't allow us to get the benefits of being able to
extradite people whom our courts need is of course unacceptable.
But the trouble here is that Mike Lynch was the most
important shareholder and the creator of a very successful
software business. And he was haunted by Hewlett
Packard. He didn't go to them.
They weren't in the business of selling it.
But Hewlett Packard came after them and offered them, after
considerable due diligence, when everything was open to them,
offered them a sum of money, which was accepted.
Indeed, it was accepted because the shareholders who were other
than Mike and he didn't have a majority of those shares.
The shareholders thought this was an extremely good deal.
It was done by a British firm under British law, and yet
Hewlett Packard decided that they would try to have the real
trial in the United States. Now, this was after the British
Serious Crime Unit, the fraud organization that we have, had
investigated the claims of Hewlett Packard and had said
there was no case to answer. And then for year after year
after year, Mike Lynch was living under the shadow of being
extradited. And it was a shadow because I
think it's true that 100% of people who are extradited would
be found guilty in a commercial case like this.
Indeed, well over 90% of people who are head up in this way in
the United States are found guilty.
Only North Korea has a more universal situation.
So you will understand why he was very concerned about this.
He was to be taken to an organiser, to a situation in
which it was almost impossible for him to win.
And the reason they have such a high proportion of success is
because people are so frightened of losing that they do plea
bargaining. It's a thing we don't know of in
Britain and it's really nothing to do with justice.
What you do is to say, yes, I'm guilty.
And you say that because they promise you two years in prison
rather than 20 years, or they promise you a fine of $100,000
instead of $1,000,000 or whatever may be the deal.
Deal always differs depending on the circumstances of the person
concerned. Now Mike was not prepared to do
that. Mike was an honest, decent,
straightforward man. His whole life had been spent in
being, without doubt, the probably the most remarkable
figure in software industry in the whole of Europe.
Only in Silicon Valley could you find people who would compete
with him in his abilities. And he wasn't going to say he
was guilty, because he knew he wasn't.
Ultimately the British came and in a charmingly informal but
still firm way, took him to the airport and accepted the
extradition. Now, during all this time,
people who knew the case were fighting it not only in the
courts but in but in the public arena.
And I, for example, raised it again and again in all sorts of
ways. And I'm ashamed that home
secretaries did not say, look, this is just not true, just not
sensible. And it wasn't just because we
felt strongly about Michael, though of course, one's
friendship, Matt and Lord. It was also because the
Americans are already using their power to get advantage
commercially. What they do is to threaten
things like this so that people are afraid not to do what they
want. They use it to extend American
commercial interests. America pretends to be the great
free enterprise economy, but of course it is one of the most
protective protectionist economies there are.
And it's protectionist in two ways.
It uses all sorts of excuses to stop people buying businesses in
the United States. You can't buy an airline, for
example. You can't buy most the very
large numbers of things because it's called national security.
And if it's not there to, I'm told that you can't export into
America for for some kind of health reasons.
So, for example, no one who grows lemons can export into the
United States, into any state which is contiguous to a state
that grows lemons. Now, what more, what more
protective and protectionist system could you have?
So America uses its own internal laws and also its outstretch
through tax and through every other way of using laws beyond
its own rights to protect its businesses.
Because in the end, it believes that somehow or other
globalization is actually the extension of American hegemony.
And So what has happened here is just one example of that.
And many of us felt that using the extradition rules in order
to cow businesses, which is what it was about cowing the business
and Mike thought it. Now I have to say I had very
little hope that he would win because with those sort of
figures last 90%, how should he have won?
And he won because the case was so clear, it was so clearly
proved, and he was so clearly honourable and honest that the
jury said that on no single one of the 14 counts Hewlett Packard
dug up, no one of them was he guilty.
Now, the sad thing is that Hewlett Packard, we understand,
we'll try to proceed beyond the grave if you can think of
anything more unpleasant or anything that further underlines
what I've said about the way America uses these things.
So I have 3 very simple desires. First of all, to get the law
changed, we can't go on like this.
This is not acceptable. We are a sovereign state and we
certainly didn't take back control by stupidly leaving the
European Union. But the fact of the matter is we
do believe that we make our own decisions and they is no
position for a non reciprocal arrangement with anybody.
Secondly, there should be no provision with a system which
plays into the American legal system which just isn't like
ours. And I'm saying that in the most
delicate way, but it certainly isn't like ours.
And the third thing is that I hope people will realise that
Hewlett Packard is not a company with who 1 wishes to deal.
Because it's clear that what really happened was that Hewlett
Packard bought this company having sorted, as I say, not
that it was offered to them, but that they wanted it and then
they mucked it up. And that I'm afraid, is one of
the problems with some kinds of businesses.
They, they know they can't do it themselves, so they buy
something and then they impose on that, build business the ways
which they run things. And very often those are the
very reasons why they've not been able to do this themselves.
And I fear, and I begin to sound rather anti American.
I'm not at all, but I fear that American companies are very
often like that. Some are not.
I've got a very good example where Molson Coors has bought a
business near where I live and it's been at absolutely
remarkable. It has recognised that it was a
really good business. It has allowed it to continue as
it was, but it has provided the money which was necessary for
this expansion, which is exactly how you should deal with these
things. But I'm afraid Hewlett Packard,
in order to save the face of senior management, decided that
they would pursue Mike Lynch in particular.
Now, Mike Lynch had a few days, literally, of release and
relief, relief from his terrible audience, just a few days, and
was then trapped. I have to say that if I were
running Hewlett Packard, I would understand perfectly well that
this is the moment in which you remove yourself from this whole
saga. And if they don't, then I for
one will never buy anything from them.
Indeed, I think you've made your position clear on that.
And I think there's a number of things to pick out from that
sort of opening statement just to go back to the way in which
the law could or should be changed.
Of course, he was talking about the Extradition Act 2003, which
was effectively crafted by the Ben Blair government.
Due to what extent do you consider it the case that in
fact the, the the sort of nine principles by which any
situation should be judged were were simply failed.
And the I think the two I'm I'm really thinking of are excessive
delay because of course this this took place 12 years after
the the deal had effectively gone through.
And then also forum in that if justice could be served by a
trial in the United Kingdom, then it then it should have done
and and so is it. Is it a case that the law should
be done away with and and reinvented, or simply that that
what is written down should actually be adhered to
correctly? Well, I don't think that this is
a law between equals. And I think what you just said
shows that the truth is that when push came to shove, the
British government was not prepared to enforce those two
principles. And I fear that British
governments very often aren't because the Americans bring
pressure to bear unconnected with this particular agreement.
What they do is to remind Britain about the special
relationship on military matters and all sorts of other things.
They they constantly use the strength of the mightiest
country on earth and people give way to them.
So I fear that whatever you do to the Act in order to make it
more likely that governments will stand by those elements,
the more that you have to doubt whether they will be brave
enough. And so I come back to the matter
of principle. I'm in favour of reciprocal
arrangements for extradition, but they have to have two
elements. First of all, they have to be
reciprocal, and secondly, the rules have got to be of a sort
that mean that neither side is prepared to lean on the other,
because otherwise it will cease to be a reciprocal arrangement.
In other words, you can keep things like those elements you
raised. If the United States knows that,
not only would we insist on it as far as our people are
concerned, but we would insist on it and as in terms of our
relationships with them. So they would then put
themselves into a position in which they would have to use the
same things when we asked for reciprocity this way.
But you see, they wouldn't and we know they wouldn't.
So my answer is no reciprocity, no agreement with that
reciprocity where I live, both do it.
Now the awful thing is that the Americans said they couldn't
give reciprocity because their Constitution did not allow it.
But what the blazes are we doing, having reciprocity with a
country that won't do it with us on the basis that their
Constitution, in order to protect the freedom of its
people, doesn't allow it? Well, if their Constitution
doesn't allow it, our unwritten Constitution shouldn't allow it.
Absolutely. Fair enough.
And I think sort of beyond that really from certainly from the
way you've described the situation at the start, in
actual fact, it looks much more like the leavers really are
being pulled by corporations rather than government.
So even if there were reciprocity, what by what
mechanism are corporate interests checked, as it were in
in the within political sort of circles?
Well, the truth is that Britain has many failures, but in
general corporate interests are much less powerful here and in
America corporate interests are much more powerful.
And you see that very clearly. First of all, you see it in the
way in which corporations engage in elections.
Never be allowed to use your money in the way that Elon Musk
is using is now in the American elections in the United Kingdom.
And secondly, you know it when you see a company like Exxon
Mobil, which managed by using money to hold up the battle
against climate change for some 20 years, even though its own
scientists, and this is after all public knowledge, its own
scientists had shown that climate change was happening and
that it was the use of fossil fuels that were making it for 20
years. They kept America from taking
the steps that he'd ought to take, which is the reason that
it's going to cost us a great deal more money, be very much
more painful in order to battle for our own existence.
Because of Exxon Mobil, that is what happens in America.
So the reciprocity becomes not only a lack of reciprocity with
the government, but it means that we have a non reciprocal
arrangement with American big business.
We're very interested in protecting their own position.
And just to sort of go back towards Mike Lynch and, and what
he became subsequently involved in which which was at least from
the funding point of view and, and advisory dark Trace, which
deals with cybersecurity in, in the AI dimension.
Now the set up and the continuing conduct of that
company is is very, very closely aligned with the intelligence
and security architecture of the United Kingdom.
How do you perceive that relationship in terms of its
correctness? I suppose for want of a better
term. Well, I am not as familiar with
the post arrangements that I am with the ones we have been
talking about. I merely said that Dart Trace
owes a huge amount to that brilliance that we've now lost.
That the contribution to British economy as well as security,
that Mike Lynch as an individual May was absolutely outstanding.
And even if we hadn't lost a friend, even if we hadn't lost
somebody who was economically valuable to us, we've lost
somebody who's LED the British software industry and our
understanding of modern technology in a way which no one
else has. So we've lost somebody who made
one of the biggest contributions to our nation of anybody in the
last 30 years. So we ought to stand up for him
and the way in which he was treated by organisations like
Dark Phrase or To Be Looked At really Carefully, because they
owe everything to him, just as Hewlett Packard could have owed
a great deal to him if they'd known how to run that business.
Absolutely. Now, something that's rather
more sensitive, but, but I think it must be asked, given the
circumstances that you've described, the backdrop to and
the situations surrounding the deaths of, first of all, Stephen
Chamberlain, then Mike Lynch and associates aboard the Bayesian.
Coincidence, it must be said, does seem like the least
plausible explanation. What do you think about that?
Oh well, I have a view that says that fate sometimes deals the
most amazing of both. You really don't have to go very
far into history to see the most amazing things happen.
People avoid wars via whip stitch, create wars by the
tiniest of decisions. I I think there is nothing to
say that this is anything other than a coincidence, but it is a
terrifying and terrible coincidence and of course it
leaves deeply wounded people behind.
And what an awful thing to happen to the daughter who had
just got into Oxford, who had a beautiful future ahead of her,
also a lovely girl, as well as somebody who had another 30 or
maybe 40 years even of contribution to Britain's and
those other people who were on that boat too, who were people
who were making real contributions to life.
I feel very deeply saddened, of course, for the dead, but even
more so for those who are now living and have to live with
what has happened. But I think what happened was
genuinely a coincidence. And just to, to sort of tie that
off, what, what to what degree do you have confidence in any
investigation into deaths on both sides of the, well, sorry,
both sides of the Mediterranean, I suppose I should say.
But but the the the UK and indeed the Sicilian
investigation. Oh, I, I see no reason to be
other than sure of the British 1 and I think the Italian 1 is
probably likely to be perfect. But I have no reason to, to
criticize that. I'm, I'm not somebody who goes
around being suggesting that there are all sorts of hidden
businesses at at work. I know which ones are at work,
which is why I quoted a number of them.
Those are real objective, proven things.
I don't think we need to get into any kind of view of of, of
hidden hands to deal with this case.
There are no hidden hands. I think there's the absolutely
direct hand of American business determined to get what it wants
at any cost of anybody. And that is not a thing that we
should have in this world and it's not a thing that Britain
should be complicit in. And that is why I blame two home
secretaries for not actually saying no, not here.
And particularly when we had had a case in Britain of someone
prosecuted and found guilty of dangerous driving, driving
without Duke, but I think dangerous driving in fact, who
managed just to sit in the United States and saying she
wasn't coming here. We knew from an absolutely clear
example which had meant the death of a young man, we knew
that this agreement was entirely 1 sided and entirely
unacceptable, and we should have chosen used any opportunity to
make sure that it didn't mean that Mike was exported to
America to stand trial. Absolutely.
Don't tell me then, with all this in mind, how do you push
your campaign forward on on the extradition front?
What are what is your plan in the immediate future to deal
with this? Well, hoping to liaise with
David Davis in the House of Commons.
He's been extremely good in the House of Commons.
It's the thing that both houses will have to try to put
together. We'll try to try to use as much
of our efforts as possible. It's not going to be easy
because the moment that a government thinks of doing it,
then all those pressures are turned on them.
I mean, after all, we went to war in Iraq when it should never
have been because a government feared saying to the United
States we won't. I've always honoured those prime
ministers who have stood up and said no, we were saved, after
all, from being at war in Vietnam because a British Prime
Minister said no. And I voted myself against the
war in in Iraq. And it was quite clear that all
that was happening was that Tony Blair was proposing something
because it was what the Americans wanted.
I think if he had said no, first of all, there would have been no
parliamentary backing for it because his party would not have
been whipped. And, and I think if you'd said
no, there might well never have been that war in Iraq which was
so disastrous and left us with a mess which we're still having to
clear up. So we have to be willing to be
independent. And no, we are though a
generation away from from that time, with the whiff of
conscription and talk about national service in the air,
with apparently looming threat from either Russia or Iran or or
goodness knows where else do you see that there is a realistic
chance of becoming involved within a kinetic action in the
next couple of years? Well, I think one of the
problems that we've now got is that we have a situation in
which if the American, if the American election goes one way,
then the United States will be saying things which are quite
inimical to a proper association between us in Europe.
And, and then it seems to be perfectly reasonable for
putative presidents to talk about the world in a way which
we would not be able to because of our relationship with the
United States. So I think we're in a very
difficult position at the moment.
Let's put it at the at the very least thing We're in a very
difficult position, and we must hope that the United States does
recognise how important it is not to go down the false ways of
pretending that that the battle in the Ukraine isn't a battle
for freedom of all of us. Pretending that climate change
isn't happening and therefore you don't have to do anything
about it, but pretending that you can have a relationship with
Russia which condones their manifestly militaristic and
imperialist intentions, that is an impossible position, it seems
to me, for the United States to take up.
And yet there is one candidate who seems to think, but that's
how it should go forward. So we must pray that that
doesn't happen. Yes.
I mean, I think, you know, we'd all be encouraged that there was
greater effort going into talks of or the pursuit of peace, but
we seem to be where we are at the moment now, just we're,
we're sort of closing down in terms of time.
But what I do want to just deal with, because you've now
referred to it a couple of times.
And of course, until last year, you were the chairman of the
Climate Change committee. It, it is still, despite the,
the, the, the sort of prevalent narrative, it is still a
contentious topic. And I think the particularly the
the fundamental underpinning of the, particularly the pursuit of
what's called net zero and indeed the focus on emissions of
carbon dioxide. So what I would ask is, is how
do you explain the proposition that approximately 3% of overall
emissions of carbon dioxide, which are anthropogenic, can
affect the climate in such a way that 97% of biogenic emissions
seem not to be able to? Well, it's very fact.
First of all, I don't say that. That's what almost every
scientist in the world, every single major scientific
institution says. That's the first thing.
Secondly, historically we can go back a million years into the
ice and you can see that the there has never been a time in
which the temperature has risen as far as past since as it has
in the last 100 and 5200 years since the industrial revolution.
So first of all this is a non analogous situation.
Thirdly, if you think about how it is we know that the Earth
became cool enough for first of all reptiles, then mammals, then
human beings to emerge. It was because the bushes and
trees that also emerged earlier on took out of the atmosphere
carbon and laid that carbon down as they died in what became,
over the millennia, oil, coal and gas.
No one, no one at all denies that.
If you then use that and put it back into the atmosphere, it
wouldn't be surprising, would it, if the atmosphere heats up,
given that it got cool when you took it out.
So thirdly, it is quite clear from our scientific
understanding of history that this is happening.
And the fact of the matter is no serious scientist now denies
climate change. And as you look across the world
and see the effect of climate change, and you know it never
happened before except when we put this carbon into the
atmosphere, then you'd be frankly absolutely ridiculous to
suggest anything other than this.
There is no evidence that counteracts the fact that we are
creating climate change. We have to stop doing it.
And when we do, we will take a long time to reverse the damage
that we're doing. And the terrible thing is that
we who have grown rich from what we've done, are giving some of
the poorest people on earth lives which are intolerable
because of what we're doing. So there is a battle that's on.
And I shall go on fighting that battle till my dying day,
because I've got 10 grandchildren.
And the sort of world we're leaving them is a world in which
in which they will find it very difficult to live.
And those who suggest that we should not take these steps are
the people who are really betrayed us.
And I've just finished, while I talk about a wonderful comment
once which was made to one of these major deniers by Tristan
Gale Jones, a member minister. He said look, if those who deny
climate change are right, all we've done is to clean up the
atmosphere. If they're wrong, we buggered up
the future. There's no doubt about where the
precautionary principle takes us.
But we don't need to do it because of the precautionary
principle. We should do it because of the
facts. Yes, I mean, I, I would, I would
have to agree to to disagree, and certainly I would push back
on the assertion that all scientists believe the same
thing. Well, 97% of those who are
qualified support what I have said.
I'm sorry, you can't say that and be taken seriously.
You really can't. I'm not prepared to say this is
not a sensible position. When the head of every single
scientific equivalent to the Royal Society says one thing,
you are not in a position to say the opposite and be taken
seriously. You can't be taken seriously.
And if your organization doesn't see that, then you've joined the
group of people who only don't take it seriously because it's
inconvenient. There is no case that you've got
there's nothing else in science that is as sure as this.
So really, don't expect to be taken seriously.
Well, I think I I will still continue well.
I'm very sorry. I mean, it's like it's, it's
about a, a serious position of suggesting, well, something much
as the the the Haitians were eating, were eating pet dogs,
which they were stealing. Like you've got yourself into
that position if you're saying that you really do.
I mean, it's just not a sensible position to be here.
The the fundamental question of how a 3% contribution outweighs
that of a 97% contribution to emissions is something that I
haven't really heard satisfactorily resolved.
Well, you can go to any scientist who is a climatologist
and they'll go through it with you.
The fact that you're not a scientist of any of that amount
and you say that as it's another of the excuses, it's the one
they used. They each one one by one, they
are destroyed. This one has been destroyed.
I don't want to go through the total details of it would be
here back to us. But the fact of the matter is no
serious scientist supports what you've said and therefore it's
no you. In the end, you have to look for
the best advice, and if I want to mend a motor car, I do not
ask somebody who sells newspapers or treating dark
houses or is an expert on archaeology to tell me how to
mend a motor car. If I want to find out about
climatology, the climate, I ask people who are experts in the
climate. I know of no respectable expert
in the climate who will support you.
For technical reasons beyond the control of either of us, the
connection with Lord Dieben was lost at that point, and I must
make it very clear that it certainly had absolutely nothing
to do with the divergent of views towards the end of the
conversation. So it just remains for me to
thank you, the audience, very much for joining me and also
thank you to Lord Dieben very much for a frank exchange of
views and certainly a terrific insight into the state of play
with regard to extradition and in particular the relationship
with the United States and indeed the wider corporate
interests and influences. There will be notes posted
alongside this interview with links@ukcolumn.org.
Thank you very much for watching.