00:01:17.560And the, as you can imagine, the political thinking of people in the city is often quite different to the people in the suburbs and the rural areas.
00:01:29.320So Norfolk is, you know, Norwich is very much an outlier, shall we say, within the county.
00:01:37.260So I'm glad, actually, that someone from Reform is willing to talk to me because Reform did not exist when I lived here several years ago.
00:01:50.080I think this has a lot to do with, I'm going to call it the Patriot Movement.
00:01:54.740People who are feeling very patriotic about their country, they see a lot of things changing in ways that are maybe not beneficial for the country.
00:02:03.140And your party reform has, looks like it's absolutely sweeping the nation.
00:02:08.300I mean, how do you, how do you, how do you view that?
00:02:11.080Because right now, Norwich itself is quite labour.
00:02:15.300But the rest of the county is very blue, which is a similar pattern throughout the entire country.
00:02:20.580If we go by the general election that was, you know, 15 months ago, that is the case.
00:02:29.180Of course, the only 15 months later, the voting preferences of people in Norwich has changed radically.
00:02:39.180So we find ourselves very quickly in a different environment, which bodes well for May elections, which are local elections.
00:02:46.560And bodes well for a general election, but that won't come for another four years.
00:02:51.440One of the things that I've noticed while I've been here, I have managed to speak to the Cities of Sanctuary, which is an organization that's well, not a national organization, but also has Norwich Cities of Sanctuary,
00:03:02.640who are organizing means of welcoming illegal migrants and refugees and so on and so forth, asylum seekers.
00:03:10.640And at the protest, I attended the migrant protest at the Brook Hotel this weekend on Sunday.
00:03:19.440And it seemed to me very difficult to speak to the counter protesters.
00:03:23.140As a foreign journalist, I don't really have any skin in the game.
00:03:25.940I want to speak to everybody and get their opinions.
00:03:29.200And even the police were protective of the counter protesters and not allowing me to speak to them, even though the local...
00:04:20.400It's been there full of illegal immigrants for three years.
00:04:26.360And there is a catalogue of issues surrounding that hotel, which I've been to talk to groups of residents on more than one occasion at the Brook Hotel,
00:04:39.420in the sort of locality of the Brook Hotel.
00:04:42.840And, you know, there is documented evidence of muggings, rapes.
00:04:51.460Many people this weekend told me about the incidents that have been going on.
00:06:09.840And the words he uses to describe the residents who are protesting, his own constituents, are racists, bigots, extremists.
00:06:21.180And these are his own constituents he's talking about.
00:06:24.340So rather than listening over the last three years to their concerns, as I have done, I don't have a mandate because, again, we haven't had an election, so I'm not in power.
00:06:35.680But the elected officials, whether they be the local MP or the councillors who sit in the council, all of whom are Labour for that particular part of Norwich, both all,
00:06:51.260they haven't been listening to the residents, they have ignored the residents.
00:06:58.520And when you, and you see, if you take this case and then magnify it across the country, you begin to see why there is a movement against migrants, house and hotels.
00:07:13.580And then you come on to the flag campaign.
00:07:21.240Well, it's a cry for help from millions and millions of people who have been unheard, ignored,
00:07:29.240that have been told they're bigots, that have been told they're racists, that have been told they're extremists, and they're just ordinary people.
00:07:58.720However, and I think it started in Birmingham, and it just completely grassroots, swept the nation.
00:08:05.640People all over the place are putting up the St. George Cross, the Red Cross.
00:08:08.840But this is viewed as a racist symbol.
00:08:12.060And one of the things that Canadians might not be aware of, I believe part of the reason that it's viewed as a racist symbol is because this association with football hooliganism and things like that.
00:08:21.080Now, that's not actually all that relevant because it's not really what the Raise the Flags movement is about.
00:08:28.900But there's a huge pushback from the Labour government right now against these flags as, again, like you say, a racist symbolism for people who care about the country.
00:08:42.080There are still millions of people on the left in this country who think anyone that raises the Union flag or the England flag are just racist bigots, nationalists.
00:08:53.300And these people actually don't want nationhood.
00:08:59.260They would be delighted if we had no borders.
00:09:02.940They were delighted when we were completely assumed by the EU.
00:09:08.220And the whole purpose of the EU has many purposes.
00:09:11.520But one is to create a European super state where there are no countries.
00:09:23.300And so, yeah, these protests and if people are taking part in the flag campaign, they're flying in Scotland.
00:09:32.540They might be flying the Scottish flag in Wales, the Welsh flag in England, England flag.
00:09:37.000But they'll also be flying the Union flag.
00:09:39.360And, you see, again, it's not just the illegal immigrants and hotels that people have been ignored.
00:09:45.800We've been ignored about dozens of things.
00:09:49.560I think Canadians can sympathise with that.
00:09:52.100And we have had decades of being told that we should be guilty if we're English or British because we are the cause of all the problems in the world, according to the left.
00:10:05.340And, you know, we'd be told that other cultures are at least as valid as our own, which, you know, is patently untrue if you analyse other cultures.
00:10:22.880That some of which, you know, carry on with traditions and customs that belong in the third world.
00:10:33.600So, it's not the case that all cultures are equal and we should be very proud of Britain's party in building the modern world from the ground up following the Industrial Revolution.
00:10:49.600None of this is permitted to be talked about in our schools and universities anymore.
00:10:54.660And so, the raising of the flag is a counter to that constant drilling into us over the last 20 to 30 years by politicising the education system that we should feel guilty for being British.
00:11:13.340Everything you're saying is so similar to what's going on in Canada.
00:11:18.140Our own Justin Trudeau said that Canada was the first post-national state, even though we're a British colony.
00:11:23.580We retain a lot of the British traditions until recently, I guess, until we became a post-national state.
00:11:29.120Now we have Mark Carney, who is very close to Keir Starmer.
00:11:33.440In fact, I believe that he was in Liverpool this week with Keir Starmer to announce the digital ID, which is a massive overreach in terms of controlling people's freedom of expression.
00:11:43.800That is something that Canadians are very, very concerned about because we look at Britain in terms of the free speech issue or the control on people's speech.
00:11:50.920The fact that there are so many individuals being jailed for tweets or that there are individuals simply being charged and jailed on the basis of speech or expression alone, which is something that's still not quite as advanced in Canada.
00:12:07.500And I'm curious to know from your perspective, if reform does manage to sweep the country in the next elections, like expected, how would you deal with that?
00:12:17.460Well, you're right that Carney and Starmer make very comfy bedfellows.
00:12:44.300But we would restate sovereignty, nationhood.
00:12:50.260Getting into power is not only likely, it's possible, but that's only the very first step.
00:13:02.400That's only the very first brick in the wall.
00:13:04.020So we have an enormous task to repeal many acts of Parliament that have landed us in the state that we're in.
00:13:15.420So right of centre intellectuals like David Starkey will talk about the Great Nikhil Act as being a necessary part of getting a conservative with small c agenda over the line in this country,
00:13:32.320which was not done very, very complete bewilderment of why the Tories of 14 years didn't make steps to turn the tide of progressive policies during their time in office.
00:13:50.760Well, I heard Liz Truss's previous PM recently say that anyone who got in power would have a difficulty repealing laws or changing these things because of the way that the system has been put in place now.
00:14:14.420But with the government with such a huge majority, even though they're doing really terribly in the polls, even though every policy they come out with, whether it's like digital ID, goes down like such a lead balloon in this country.
00:14:30.600So every policy they come out with tax rises next month in the budget.
00:14:35.680For context, everyone, nobody likes labour right now.
00:15:43.860But when Nigel Farage goes in to see the king and is asked to form a government, the very first thing he will have to ask for is instantly to have 400 lords, reform lords.
00:16:00.120Because otherwise, nothing will get through the House of Lords.
00:16:03.400So is that like the Canadian Senate, where they could actually stop a house?
00:16:51.960They knew that the way to ensure against the right of centre government changing things in the future was to entrap everything in the legal apparatus.
00:17:07.640So whether it's the Human Rights Act, the Equalities Act, the Climate Change Act, the act that makes it almost impossible now for the government to choose judges, which is one of the judges who are, you know, dare I say, a bunch of vectors.
00:17:25.960All of these acts of parliament that have been passed, and then Theresa May passed the Net Zero Act.
00:17:36.280So all of these have been put in place, and it's very hard now to move forward with our agenda unless we have a Great Repair Act, which would in a month old swoop take all of those out, which the Tory should have done, but they didn't have the courage.
00:17:52.180We have to have more courage than any government that has ever been before.
00:17:57.840So this is the first time I hear about this, a Great Repeal Act, and it seems to me that sounds like an act to just say, listen, we need ease to repeal things when we identify them.
00:18:16.760If you take out the Human Rights Act and you exit the ECHR, you've got to replace it with a British Bill of Rights, which does protect people.
00:19:20.340The legal apparatus that we created, dating back to, you know, 1250, has been used, as you know, as a legal apparatus for much of the modern world.
00:19:37.840Even though there are many, many people, both in Canada, in Britain, in all of the English-speaking world, who are fed up of what's happened over the last 10, 20 years or so on and so forth.
00:19:49.960There's still a pretty big oppositional force from, and I hate to say it, but the left as a big blob of individual, identitarian, whatever you want to call it, who are a small number, actually, at this point, I believe, but very, very dedicated to their cause, who would not have anything of what you're talking about.
00:20:10.500And we've seen in America, Charlie Kirk being assassinated, the level of violence that they're willing to engage in.
00:20:16.720Just this week, one of our scholars, Frances Whitteson, was talking about truth and reconciliation, doing this, what she calls street epistemology exercise at a university and was completely mobbed by the indigenous protesters.
00:21:08.580Well, when you have a consensus that has dominated for the last 30 years, where you see a Labour or Tory government come in and nothing changes,
00:21:19.560and that is because the key thrust of their policy is the same, mass immigration, higher taxes, a bigger and bigger state, net zero resulting in very expensive energy,
00:22:12.900That is where the division comes from.
00:22:14.780It might come from that, but even if you manage to enact the things that you're saying, even if the majority of the people agree, the people who agree that the masses are quite docile, actually, really.
00:22:29.340The people who aren't, the people who would push back very, very strongly, are not docile.
00:22:34.680You know, many people voted Labour in 2024.
00:23:40.380So those are the three pots in which they sit.
00:23:42.760And increasingly, the Liberal Democrats, which we say are neither Liberal or Democratic in nature,
00:23:49.460they are now a house-and-up leftist party too.
00:23:53.880So you have four groups within those four parties who will fight tooth and nail against any change whatsoever.
00:24:02.880The consensus suits them, even if it means – they don't see it this way, of course – even though it means economic decline, cultural decline, social decline, most importantly, constitutional and democratic decline.
00:24:18.860Well, I'm conscious we're running out of time, but I would love to hear from you, given that the UK is – I mean, the UK has reform.
00:24:28.660Canada doesn't have, I suppose, a dissident party of note that people can get behind.
00:24:33.020What would be your advice for, I guess, what you could say, Canadian patriots who are looking for something different?
00:24:39.240Well, I think Australia is similar to Canada and to the way we were in this country when we had a two-party system.
00:24:47.700You know, you had two main parties that are actually not that dissimilar.
00:25:56.320He's had to reinvent himself several times.
00:25:59.580He's had to reinvent himself after very serious illness.
00:26:04.580He's had to reinvent himself after a near-fatal plane crash, after a near-fatal car crash, after defeat, after defeat, after defeat.
00:26:13.840You know, this sort of movement takes enormous courage, whether it be at the top of the party or with people like me, I'm just responsible for a small piece.