You always had access to money. Now on bbc news, you were well enough off to be able to indulge your appetite for risks. Hardtalk. Well, we werent terribly well off. Welcome to hardtalk, im stephen sackur. Even people on the lowest incomes brexit represents a political gamble now are well enough to do a little played for the highest of stakes. Bit of gambling, a Lottery Ticket or something. If it leaves the eu i wasnt so rich that i could gamble when other without a deal, there will be people couldnt, that wouldnt be fair. You mentioned lotteries. It seems your entire significant economic disruption. Life has been to a even the most ardent certain extent has been this brexiteers acknowledge that. Combination of calculated risk but they believe the potential and chance and the greatest chance of rewards justify the risks. All that you experienced was the fact that as an unwanted its a calculated bet baby, an orphan, you on britains future which comes were adopted by a family naturally to my guest today. Stuart wheeler, the who both loved you but also had the economic means to give you a life of privilege. Successful businessman and lifelong gambler who backed his commitment to brexit i was actually very lucky with plenty of his own cash. 00 01 54,196 2147483051 37 41,813 has his money given him undue 2147483051 37 41,813 4294966103 13 29,430 influence over britains future . The way i was adopted. My. Div mother to be went to the adoptive home with her sister and my adoptive mother to be found a very good looking baby, obviously not me and said, how about that one . Her sister said yes, but this other one who is making the real nuisance of himself might be a bit more interesting. That was me and thats how i was chosen. It was very bit bringing, wasnt it . Your parents were not fastly wealthy but they were well to do your parents were not vastly wealthy but they were well to do and they also didnt really have jobs. They seemed to have, maybe not decadent, but they enjoyed their lives. Your father in particular, spent most of his time riding, shooting. Unless you cant, which is very enough to count it, he fought throughout the whole of the first world war, its the onlyjob we ever had. He once said to me, i can quite see everyone should do some for their money but i hope that doesnt happen when im alive. You, in your 20 and 30s, had of host ofjobs. You were a barrister, you worked in the city as a banker, couldnt really settle at any of it and throughout all of this time, your main love, your vocation, if i can put it that way, seems to have been playing cards, going to the racetrack and gambling. There is some truth in that and i was nailed barrister and a failed chap in the city as well. In the end, i couldnt get a job so when are friend of mine suggested starting the index, ijumped at it because i had no other choice. Were you an addict, do you think . A gambling addict . I dont think i was an addict in the sense that i mightve lost all my money ruined my life. I like gambling but i wouldnt quite say that i was an addict, no. But you nearly did lose all your money. There were various points where you described having to go to, for example, bridge clubs as they were in the 50s and early 60s, because you needed to win money. You were very good at bridge. At one case i was so short of money, i hated having to do it, i went to a friend of mine and said, could i have some money if i really needed . He gave me a cheque for £1000 which was a huge amount at that time and i took it into the bridge club and i knew i would have to cash that cheque unless i won £600 which was a Staggering Amount in one night. I did win it and never had to cash the check but i was eternally grateful to him. Youve written this memoir which is full of fascinating stories of this period of your life. My autobiography, yes. Winning against the 0dds, its called. I wonder if you think very hard about how many different times you could have lost, and actually lost everything. Thats quite true. During the 1987 stock market crash, my company was in a terrible mess. We should say, your company, ig, its based upon spread betting which was a sort of idea that you did quite a lot to make popular in the 70s and 80s. It began not being very well understood. But then, in the late 1980s and again a little later on, you had periods where ig nearly folded. We were very, very lucky in that 87 thing. Lots of our clients, and i dont blame them, they lost more money than they thought they ever could. The dowjones index had never even fallen 100 points before and on the black monday, if you want to call it that, it fell 500 points. 0ur poor clients were in a terrible mess and solicitors you because they are gambling debts, the Financial Services act came to our rescue and was brought into effect in bits and the bits which made these debts enforceable had just been brought into effect when the crash took place. Let us now fast forwa rd because you survive to the financial ig became really very successful. You, in the end, walked away with tens of millions of pounds when ig floated and went public and you made a killing, you made a lot of money. It seems to me you then became rather bored. Thats when your political instinct started to twitch and thats when you decided to use your money to wield some political influence. Its not so much that i got bored. Im totally non technological and i realised that i was the ceo of ig index, i was attending meetings where technological things with the main things discussed so i couldnt understand so i made an instantaneous decision to retire as chief executive so then i completely wrongly lacked confidence in my successois and sold all my shares which was a huge mistake because they went up 15 times very quickly. Except you still made tens of millions of pounds. Thats true, but it would have been better to have made hundreds of millions of pounds. Lets get to the way you use the money and politics. You became a donor to the conservative party. Relatively small donations to start with. But then by 2001, you decided to make the biggest political donation in british history, £5 million. I think i may have shared that distinction with one of the gettys. Ok, the point is you had become hugely influential thanks to money. You think on reflection that is a healthy thing for a democracy . Do i think its healthy quest to mark the people with wealth should have any influence . I dont mean to be rude but i think its absurd to think whatever the Political Party or charity or anything else which receives an enormous amount of money from somebody shouldnt be willing to give them more of the hearing than somebody who gave them £5. Life doesnt work like that. Here we are, weve discussed your personality and your predilections. Youre a gambler, you develop a company which is a gambling operation. Gambling, frankly, is a severe social problem in the uk today youve made a lot of money about a controversial activity and then you put your money into politics which gives you a seat at the table, gives you a significant amount of political influence and many people will say, add all of those things together and that frankly is a potentially very dangerous perversion. Im repeating myself but youre saying people who give a lot of money to a Political Party shouldnt be no more heard than a man in the street who gives them nothing or something. I dont agree with that. If somebody is concerned enough about political matters or about a charity or something to give a huge amount of money, they deserve to have their opinions heard. But you could, as an alternative strategy, if you were so concerned about getting your ideas across, you could have become a politician and put yourself up for election, you could have been held accountable by the public but you didnt do any of that. I was quite old by then, i was 65. There are politicians who are running for office as you well know in the 70s including leaders of the world so age wasnt really the problem, its just you saw a shortcut, you saw that money could deliver you something, perhaps give you more power than running as an mp. It wasnt so much that i wanted to look at power, in fact, i was idiotic. And i went to see William Hague because i rodney leach, before he could opening his mouth, i told him why i was doing this and i ended up saying, if i was offered a peerage, i should reject it and further, i was stupid enough to say i want no influence at all over the cabinet or over your policies. I think you changed your mind about that over time. Yes. It interests me given your background that youve said and again the book you discussed it, that your views of broadly libertarian, you are right of centre when it comes to Economic Policy making. I am right wing economically. The critical point i suppose is that i would be in favour of being not at all kind to those who do not have a job unless they genuinely couldnt get one. I would be more kind to those who have low paying jobs. It seems to me there is an irony in that being a pillar of your political thinking went for much of your life, albeit you made a lot of money out of gambling, but you spent much of your time at card tables and racetracks. Im just saying that its important to encourage people to get a job and to work for it, if they cant get one. I have huge sympathy for those who cant work physical problem or anything like that but i think people who can get a job, who are capable of getting a job, should jolly well get one and work for it. Lets get to the development of your political ideas. Economically, you are clearly on the libertarian right but when it came to your biggest preoccupation in politics, it wasnt in the end economics it was brexit. Euroscepticism and your increasing dissatisfaction with writtens membership of the european union. It got me expelled from the conservative party. Exactly. 2009, David Cameron who i dare say you had never been eye to eye with on europe, actually decided to fire you, expel you from the party because youd decided to vote for ukip. And give them some money. The way i was expelled by was eric pickles, who was the chairman, writing an email saying, later i was interviewed by anne mcavoy. She then asked eric pickles who said, oh, no, i neverspoke to him, or had a long chat with him. I never spoke to him in my life. Maybe that tells us something about politicians and politics but lets stick with you and your evolution to becoming one of the prime movers behind what we now know is the brexit campaign. It began with the ukip, the uk independence party. Cameron, by 2016, decided to hold a referendum. You decided to become a main backer of the leave campaign. How much money, now that you look at it, how much . Several hundred thousand pounds to ukip, when i was backing them, then when the campaign got going i gave more than £1 million to vote leave which was authorised. More than 1 million . That probably makes you their biggest individual donor. I dont think i was, i think there was somebody else who gave more. But when you look at leave and that campaign in 2016, are you proud of it . You paid for quite a lot of it, are you proud of it . Yes, i am and youve gotta distinguish between vote leave, which is the authorized body for backing those who wanted to leave and leave. Eu which was our great rival in the contest to be the authorised body. A lot of the things that body did i did not approve of. They were arrowing in on an anti immigration message. That was quite an interesting point. Many people think that the leave campaign, lets not get too specific about which part of it but the leave campaign unleashed feelings of xenophobia, fear of the other, of migrants, which have been very damaging to British Society in the years since. My. Vote leave was not part of that. Dominic cummings, who i hugely admire, made a point discussions inside vote leave, we dont want to emphasise immigration, if only because everyone is already aware of it and, your point really, it would give us a reputation for being racist which were not. My organisation, what i was a member of, was not doing what you are suggesting. Let me quote you some words from michael gove, who one of the figurehead leader of your leave campaign, in a Campaign Speech in 2016, he said this id just like your views on it today he said, after we establish full legal independence, we can decide which eu rules and regulations we want to keep. One thing we wont change is our ability to trade freely with europe. After we leave, we will remain in europes free trade zone and the day after we vote leave, we hold all the cards and we can choose any path we want. Whats wrong with that . Its just not true, thats whats wrong with it. What is not true . The notion the uk holds all the cards. If it wants a free trade deal it can have one. I see, we can and we very likely will get one because i think the eu it has been very successful so far, for all its posturing it needs a deal far more than we do and i might be proved wrong within days but they will crack up, they will be the ones with the last minute. I have said this all along, at last minute the eu is desperate for a deal, they will give in and make major concessions. This is where i remember you are a gambler. This is the mentality of a poker player whose hand isnt good but is convinced that his rivals hand is worse. 0ur hand is very good. Patently, many of the things said in the leave campaign by levers such as michael gove and borisjohnson the prime minster are just not true, you have to think of the campaign bus. Sorry . Not true. The campaign bus with that message saying that if we leave we will have £350 million a week to spend on the nhs. Not true. Well, it depends what you mean by not true. The money that we have could be spent on the National Health service but its highly unlikely that it all would be. Since you do raise that, i was a bit worried about that because 350 million was a gross figure and not the net figure after the rebate. I was somewhat concerned about that. So here we are more than three years after the vote, we havent left, the country is deeply divided, weve seen yesterday one of the vote leave activist campaigns, not the one you are involved in but another one, putting up advertisements on the internet. Thats exactly why we didnt want to join with them. Theyre doing things like that. Are there racist elements in the Campaign Today . There might be racist elements in that section which is very definitely not our section. When you look at where we are, all the uncertainty over the next few weeks, business and you are businessman, not knowing the reality will be on the first of november, can you want that you regret nothing about what you have done . I do regret nothing that ive done. Its going to be the same as the millennium bug. The fear of disaster or recession, nothing will happen, the millennium bug was meant to be dreadful, but absolutely nothing. Its got up by those who want to remain and are trying to frighten the voters. As a possibility of some very temporary forms but for instance, the shortage of vital medicines, do we really think our colleagues in europe who are perfectly responsible and decent people, going to let us not have the medicines we need . Just a fantasy its rubbish. I began by perhaps suggesting that your decision to make euroscepticism and brexit a big part of a life, it wasnt so much you being the rational character i calculate it on its maker but it was you being driven by emotion. And you are saying about your thinking i had too much emotion the last few minutes. I havent really got to grips within your memoir, or even in this interview, with why you became a eurosceptic. When britain was in the eu, he built a successful business and had a rather wonderful love, with britain inside the eu, i cant for the life of me quite understand why you became so passionately convinced that britain. Britain nothing to do with us being in the eu. Got it hold you all the nation back . Despite the fact we have free trade, no duty, we have a surplus with the rest of the world, the idea that it has been to our advantage is absolute rubbish. What was it in your early to middle life that made you personally such a profound eurosceptic . What was it . First of all, we ran our own things since 1066 and not perfectly but rather better than before, why would do we want to be ruled by the people in europe . Our economy has done better since 1973 than before. But not because of anything to do with the eu. But my point. It fascinates me, people such as yourself, very successful who have become committed, come what may, die in a ditch, brexit supporters, in the end it seems to me largely driven by emotion. Its not driven by emotion, the eu imposes for example about 10,000 regulations on businesses, 95 of which are, they do no business in europe whatsoever and have to put up with this author regulations which impede business. And why do we want to give them that why do we want to do that . Theres nothing that we get from it. We just. Its going to be hugely beneficial. You remain a gambler, you have been all your life. What are the odds you believe on getting what you want which is britain out of the european union, deal or no deal on auto 31 . You think its more likely than not . 60 . Would you agree with me that is perhaps the biggest gamble that britain will have taken in at least a generation . Thats the wrong way of looking at. Its a british decision. Ive not the slightest doubt whether it happens or not, britain is absolutely right, of the British Government, the current British Government to want to get out of the eu because the eu would be absolutely disastrous. Do you know that the percentage of trade which the eu has with the rest of the world has Something Like halved over the last 20 or 30 years and is expected, its not even challenged, to go down much further still. Why do we want to be tied to this losing organisation . Just a final point, goes back to your upbringing and your privilege. Does it strike you that if you are ever wrong, and its possible that youre wrong, that britain wont thrive and succeed post brexit, if you are wrong, its not you about the consequences, because you have a privileged, comfortable, healthy life. Its many millions of britons who are less well off than you are. If im wrong, but all one can do is argue for what one thinks is best for everyone. Notjust the rich, the poor, im convinced and this is why gave the money, no point in my giving the money otherwise. I think it is to the benefit of rich and poor that we leave the eu and that is why do it. We have to end there but thank you very much indeed for being with us. I really enjoyed it. Hello there. Wednesday has been a very showery day across parts of scotland and Northern Ireland, particularly western scotland, rainfall totals really starting to mount up, weve seen some flash flooding in places, a lot of surface spray on the roads. As we head on into thursday, it looks like its going to stay pretty unsettled, turn windier through the day, with another band of rain moving in. Could see the new area of low pressure. This is the low pressure we have had for the last few days, eventually clearing off to the north east. This new area of low pressure will send its weather front out across for the north west of the country, and it will bring another round of fairly strong winds. Thursday though starts off fine and dry for many. Lovely spell of sunshine up and down the country. A few showers across western scotland continuing. And then the band of rain starts to push in, to Northern Ireland initially, and then into much of scotland and perhaps the far north of england. And it is going to turn very wet and we could see further issues with surface water flooding across western scotland. Whereas further south, although there will be a lot of cloud across england and wales, there could be quite a bit of dry weather too. The top temperature of 17 degrees. But through thursday night, it stays quite blustery. Further heavy showers, longer spells of rain across the north west of the country. And then we will start to see some more persistent rain pushing to parts of england and wales by the end of the night. You notice temperatures 12 14 in the south. Turning much milder. Temperatures nine or 10 the overnight low for scotland and Northern Ireland. The reason for the wet weather as we head on into friday and, indeed, into the weekend, is this weather front which will be pretty much part across england and wales, we think, and it is going to bring a lot of rainfall throughout friday. Tending to pile up into the hills of wales, perhaps the north midlands, and northern england, particularly across the peat district. 50 70 millimetres of rain by the time the day is out, so that could cause some issues, atrocious conditions on the road and some surface water flooding. Across the far south east, we could se a little bit of a brightness and dry weather, then it will be mild to the south of that weather front, friday afternoon. 18 degrees will be the high. Around 15 or 16 on the weather front. But to the north of it, for scotland and Northern Ireland, where we will see sunshine and showers, cooler air mass, 13 or 1a degrees. And for the rest of friday, looks like the showers across Northern Areas begin to ease down. Perhaps the rain for england and wales might ease down for a bit, before a new renewed bit of rain starts to push into the south west so that means, into the weekend, i think england and wales look like seeing most of the cloud and outbreaks of rain which again could cause some issues, with some surface water flooding. But a different story further north, for scotland and Northern Ireland, youll be in the slightly cooler air mass and therell be a mixture of sunshine and showers, some of which may be heavy and thundery. This is the briefing im sally bundock. Our top Story International condemnation as turkey invades kurdish controlled areas of north east syria. With just a week until the eu summit, the british and irish prime ministers are to meet again to argue over border rules. The difference that thirty years make hungarys viktor 0rban was once moscows enemy, but now hes russias best friend in europe. In business tense times for global trade as the us and china meet for talks ahead of a new wave of tariffs next