Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Immigration, nationalism, and the future of the conservative movement

00:00:00.240 Tonight, after the results of the British and French elections, what should national conservatives do?

00:00:06.840 Well, wouldn't you know it, I'm at a conference about that very question.

00:00:09.680 And this is the Ezra Levant Show.

00:00:11.700 You're ready for freedom!

00:00:14.580 Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:00:26.080 Oh, hi everybody.

00:00:27.080 I'm in Washington, D.C. for a meeting called the National Conservatism Conference.

00:00:33.840 Now, what does that mean, national conservatism?

00:00:36.180 I think it might actually be the reverse, conservative nationalism.

00:00:40.820 Nationalism has had a negative connotation for, I think, two generations, partly because Hitler called his socialists the National Socialists, which in German is shortened to Nazi.

00:00:54.580 The C part is the socialist part, but the now part was national.

00:00:59.300 And I think that after the Second World War, there was a desire to destroy nationalism, at least in the West, thinking that that is what had caused so many wars.

00:01:10.140 And so international institutions were built to blur over the lines of nations.

00:01:15.140 In some ways, it was a great success.

00:01:18.500 Think of the European Union and the trade amongst those countries.

00:01:22.360 The theory was, if France and Germany did an enormous amount of economic intercourse, perhaps they wouldn't go to war again.

00:01:31.020 And if they can overcome the differences that borders give them, if they can be unified in some way, maybe they won't go to war ever again.

00:01:41.280 It was a utopian idea.

00:01:43.540 And in some ways, it worked, because really, how different at their core are French and German people?

00:01:51.560 They're both Europeans.

00:01:52.960 They're both Christian people.

00:01:54.480 Of course, there are many differences amongst them, too.

00:01:57.240 But should those two nations naturally be at war with each other?

00:02:01.240 Think, for example, of the United Kingdom.

00:02:04.160 Great Britain and England and Scotland were at war with each other for generations.

00:02:10.080 But now they're a United Kingdom, and it's unthinkable that they would go to war against each other.

00:02:14.680 So maybe that utopian vision could hold, except for by destroying the idea of nationalism and borders amongst those countries, the European Union and the United Nations and progressive NGOs and the World Economic Forum and all these other groups that sprung up to displace and minimize nationalism.

00:02:37.200 They also erased the border around the European Union, and they allowed in millions, indeed, tens of millions of people into the European nation who are not close cousins like French and Germans might be, but have very different worldviews, different religions, different cultures, different ideas about democracy, usually no ideas about democracy.

00:03:02.720 For example, there are millions of Turkish people in Europe, especially in Germany, who have not assimilated.

00:03:10.120 They've been there, frankly, for two generations, and they still fly their Turkish flags.

00:03:15.040 One of the most astonishing things for me to see was Turkish politicians flying to Germany for campaign rallies in Germany, where Turkish candidates duke it out for the Turkish vote in Germany to vote back in Turkey.

00:03:30.660 It's just astonishing.

00:03:31.600 I mean, I'm talking a lot about nationalism and the absence of it, and we have that same issue in North America, in Canada in particular.

00:03:40.820 Do you remember when Justin Trudeau was first elected, he talked about Canada being a post-national country, where we're really no more than a hotel room, when he said there's no core identity.

00:03:52.500 Remember that?

00:03:53.080 Because at its best, Canadian identity, I'm a proud Montrealer, I'm a proud Quebecer, I'm a proud Canadian, I see no contradiction between any of those elements.

00:04:07.840 And we all have layers of identity that we add to, and our communities are more resilient because of all those multiple layers.

00:04:15.280 But when it comes down to, if you can't identify what a Canadian is by surface attributes, like skin color, or language, or religion, or ethnicity, or background, or story,

00:04:37.880 then how do we define the Canadian identity?

00:04:44.800 How does a newcomer figure out, well, what do I need to do to become a Canadian and to feel like a Canadian? 0.99

00:04:50.980 And it's not about hockey and poutine, although that helps.

00:04:56.800 Tim Hortons is probably the top of the line there.

00:05:01.420 It's about our shared values.

00:05:05.120 Those values of openness, compassion, search for justice, respect, a desire to be there for each other, desire to work hard.

00:05:20.980 These are values that get their concrete articulation in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but get their expression in the communities we live in every single day.

00:05:35.260 That would shock the late father, Pierre Trudeau, who spoke at length about the French identity.

00:05:41.360 In fact, by official bilingualism and so much of Canadian historical iconography is about the French nation and the English nation,

00:05:52.820 who fought at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, but then had a kind of working relationship hammered out.

00:05:58.720 If you read our Constitution, you'll see the way that the French people and the British people came to harmony.

00:06:06.580 And we put aside our wars with Quebec, and we've had two and a half centuries of peace.

00:06:15.160 There may be disagreements, but certainly not war.

00:06:17.820 But the idea that there is no Canadian nation, that as Trudeau would say, we're just a place with no core idea,

00:06:25.060 is not only offensive to Quebec nationalism and the Anglo national history, not to mention the Aboriginal people,

00:06:33.700 it's an excuse to open the door to mass immigration that has no connection whatsoever to Canadian culture, French, English, or otherwise.

00:06:44.380 And I think it's reached a crisis in Canada under Justin Trudeau, who has literally quadrupled immigration in the last two years.

00:06:52.200 And when you look around Europe, you see where that crisis will lead if we don't fix it now.

00:06:57.160 This is a very long introduction to my point that what we saw in the United Kingdom on July 4th,

00:07:04.240 and what we saw in France on July 7th, was a clash between the nationalist vision in the UK,

00:07:12.240 as manifested by Nigel Farage and his Reform UK, that wants to strengthen the British military,

00:07:19.380 strengthen British pride in their culture and history, stop mass immigration, increase prosperity.

00:07:27.160 Versus the Keir Starmer, Labour, and further left, that wants an Islamification of the UK, mass immigration, 0.99

00:07:36.760 and believe that London is an international city, not a great national capital of the UK.

00:07:43.060 Same thing in France.

00:07:44.820 On July 7th, the number one party in the vote, just under 40%, was Marine Le Pen's national rally.

00:07:53.300 Yet it only came in third place in number of seats, with leftist and far-leftist parties gaming the political system,

00:08:01.560 literally withdrawing hundreds of candidates to sort of game the system.

00:08:06.900 It was a very stark choice.

00:08:09.640 And the number one choice in terms of popular vote was for Marine Le Pen's French nationalism.

00:08:15.860 But what won through that jiggery-pokery was an Antifa Islamist hard leftism, 0.91

00:08:23.780 including actual communists and actual Antifa leaders getting elected.

00:08:29.440 It's an astonishing choice, and the stakes in France and the UK could not be higher.

00:08:35.940 I always say that Europe is a time machine where we can see our future in Canada five years from now, 0.87

00:08:42.000 five years of eroding and diluting our national culture, five years of mass immigration, 1.00

00:08:48.780 five years of political parties being a uni-party, where no one dares to speak about these things.

00:08:56.780 In France, they've broken the uni-party, and Marine Le Pen is a voice against immigration.

00:09:02.340 Nigel Farage has finally broken that silence in the UK, and he got five seats,

00:09:08.920 but over four million votes as his thanks for it.

00:09:12.420 In Canada, I see Pierre Polyev slowly mustering the courage to talk about immigration,

00:09:18.040 but very, very carefully.

00:09:19.840 He's not willing to come out against mass immigration.

00:09:22.700 He says he'll reduce the numbers, but he won't give you the actual number,

00:09:26.260 and he doesn't dare talk about the elephant in the room, namely Islamist immigration.

00:09:31.340 We've seen these hate marches on our streets for the last nine months,

00:09:34.720 and they're overwhelmingly populated either by people who are not yet citizens or who have recently been naturalized

00:09:42.140 and have brought with them ancient hatred to our country that hasn't seen them before.

00:09:47.280 That's what I'm doing here in Washington.

00:09:49.880 This is an American conference, and there are plenty of Americans here talking about American nationalism,

00:09:55.460 but there's also a lot of Europeans here.

00:09:58.140 My old friend John O'Sullivan, who's now with the Danube Institute in Hungary.

00:10:03.300 Hungary is held up as an example here at the National Conservative Conference,

00:10:08.000 a country that maintains its borders, has a pro-fertility agenda,

00:10:13.680 i.e. trying to build up population by having babies, not importing people from the third world.

00:10:19.120 It is, they have a rebuilding, their old architectural styles.

00:10:24.060 They are anti-war.

00:10:27.520 What Hungary is doing under Viktor Orban is a fascinating thing,

00:10:31.060 and it's often held up as a role model.

00:10:33.600 Over the course of the next 48 hours, I'm going to try and learn more about what national conservatism is.

00:10:40.120 I haven't seen many other Canadians here.

00:10:42.700 In fact, I've seen none.

00:10:44.880 I don't know if this is compatible with Canada's situation.

00:10:48.660 I've got to think there are lessons here that we can learn and apply back home.

00:10:51.740 So anyways, that's just an explanation of where I am.

00:10:55.500 There's 900 people at this conference, including lots of little lobby groups and NGOs and activist groups.

00:11:02.500 There's a lot of scholars here and thinkers and academics and writers.

00:11:06.540 I'm going to try and buttonhole a few of them to talk.

00:11:08.620 I want to see if those ideas of Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage and Victor Orban in Europe,

00:11:16.900 if they can be imported to America.

00:11:20.040 Is Donald Trump himself a kind of conservative nationalist?

00:11:24.740 I think he is.

00:11:25.660 I think his number one campaign platform in 2016, Build the Wall, was an essential statement of nationalism,

00:11:32.600 which is why it failed, I think.

00:11:34.880 The whole establishment was against him.

00:11:36.900 Anyways, stay with me as we try and learn about this political creature called national conservatism.

00:11:52.460 Well, national conservatism, which is the name of this conference, is a phrase that really we don't hear a lot in Canada.

00:11:58.660 And if you're wondering what it means, well, let me tell you some of the panel discussions they have, which sort of gives you an idea.

00:12:05.820 Breaking the China addiction. 0.81

00:12:09.300 That's a symbol that they're not globalists, are they?

00:12:13.200 An immediate end to the border crisis.

00:12:15.520 Obviously, a conversation about immigration.

00:12:19.300 Corporations and conservatives.

00:12:20.600 And listening to some of the speeches today, there's a big difference between Wall Street, big business, and national conservatives,

00:12:27.980 who are not on a globalist, corporatist agenda.

00:12:33.120 Lawfare, the criminalization of politics.

00:12:36.520 India and the West.

00:12:38.320 As in, they're pro-India, I think.

00:12:40.560 Big tech.

00:12:41.900 They're hostile to big tech.

00:12:43.520 So it's sort of an amalgamation of ideas, some of which are libertarian, some of which are conservative,

00:12:48.500 some of which are nationalist, and some of which, frankly, are a little bit statist, but it's a worldview.

00:12:56.320 The crisis of meaning and morality, a little bit philosophical.

00:13:00.580 Islam, Israel, and the West. 0.56

00:13:03.580 Working class conservatism.

00:13:05.220 I think that's a big part of national conservatism.

00:13:07.500 So you can see it's a little bit different.

00:13:08.720 I sat through one of the panel discussions on immigration, and I've got to tell you, it was one of the most interesting things I've ever heard.

00:13:17.260 And these are by serious people.

00:13:19.200 Think tankers and people who worked under the Trump administration, who, if Trump is re-elected this November,

00:13:25.920 quite likely would be part of his immigration team.

00:13:28.740 Let me start by showing you sort of a sampling of the comments made in that panel discussion on immigration.

00:13:35.240 I don't even think you could have a discussion like this in Canada.

00:13:39.460 People would be too afraid.

00:13:40.900 Take a look.

00:13:41.780 From the Rio Grande to the Mediterranean, from the English Channel to the River Jordan, from Poland to South Africa,

00:13:49.600 the existential threat to national sovereignty is the same.

00:13:54.220 Asylum.

00:13:55.540 Not abuse of asylum, but asylum policy itself.

00:13:59.840 In a 2019 statement on the border emergency, President Trump said,

00:14:07.040 a nation without borders is not a nation at all.

00:14:10.700 And what asylum does is not lead to open borders.

00:14:14.660 This, I think, is a mistake in our terminology.

00:14:17.260 There's still somebody at the border.

00:14:18.700 What it does is it takes away the ability of democratic governments to control who enters and lives in their own countries. 0.60

00:14:32.260 Since the end of the Cold War, the forces opposed to the very idea of the nation have made increasing use of the post-World War II asylum regime 0.99

00:14:44.460 to subvert the ability of self-governing peoples to control who enters and remains in their own countries.

00:14:50.240 The current system, usually referred to just as a refugee system, but in our law, in U.S. law,

00:14:57.880 there's a difference between refugees and asylum, established in 1951 with the convention relating to the status of refugees.

00:15:05.680 Only applied to people in Europe, and it only applied to people who had been displaced before the convention was ratified or signed.

00:15:14.840 In other words, people displaced by World War II and the Red Army subjugation of Eastern Europe.

00:15:20.240 That framework was then universalized in 1967 in what is called the protocol relating to the status of refugees,

00:15:28.380 which is exactly the same.

00:15:29.880 It's just applied everywhere in the world and applied prospectively in the future.

00:15:35.520 And there are two aspects to this, one of which is not problematic.

00:15:40.100 The other is, I think, the fundamental existential threat to national sovereignty.

00:15:46.220 The first one is refugee resettlement.

00:15:47.840 This is a sovereign act where a person who is in a camp or something overseas is brought into a country of resettlement.

00:15:57.760 It could be a good idea, a bad idea.

00:15:59.420 It could be done well.

00:16:00.340 It could be done poorly.

00:16:01.240 But it is a sovereign act of the nation involved.

00:16:06.200 The other part, and this is the problematic part, is asylum.

00:16:09.900 Asylum is for an alien who is already in the country, usually illegally, and then seeks refugee status as a way of avoiding deportation.

00:16:23.980 It represents a surrender of sovereignty, a pledge to permit foreigners to decide who's going to live in your country rather than the citizens of that country. 0.99

00:16:35.960 It reframes immigration as a right rather than a privilege, a claim that an illegal immigrant can make against a country, 0.57

00:16:45.700 regardless of what the laws of that country set as far as levels and characteristics of immigration.

00:16:54.060 In March of this year, the foreign-born or immigrant population in the United States, both legal and illegal, hit record highs.

00:17:03.480 51.6 million people in the United States are foreign-born.

00:17:08.200 That is more than 15% of the population of this country, higher than at any time in our nation's history.

00:17:13.860 Many consider these immigrants to be nothing more than workers, but more than half of the immigrants who have arrived since 2022 are not employed.

00:17:23.820 And of the approximately 2.5 million recent arrivals who are not employed, only about 8% say they are actively looking for work.

00:17:33.720 Immigrants now make up over a fifth of the residents in California, in New Jersey, in New York, in Texas, in Florida, our most populous states.

00:17:41.300 But less populous states are also seeing unprecedented immigration growth.

00:17:46.920 The immigrant population is growing by 40% in Delaware, North and South Dakota, and West Virginia.

00:17:54.520 An experiment is a test to discover if something works.

00:18:00.460 The numbers I just described are a national experiment.

00:18:04.360 And the American people? They're the guinea pigs. 0.94

00:18:07.120 We know this is an experiment, a test, for which we don't know the outcome,

00:18:13.140 because this level of immigration is new and different in at least three fundamental ways.

00:18:19.420 First, the scale.

00:18:21.860 The amount of immigration we are experiencing is unlike anything our country has experienced before. 1.00

00:18:26.900 The United States is now home to more international migrants than any other country in the world,

00:18:32.380 and more than the next four countries on the list combined.

00:18:37.520 And in fact, no country in modern or ancient history has experienced numbers like these.

00:18:44.020 Second, the speed.

00:18:45.880 9 million aliens entered the country in all of the 1990s.

00:18:49.420 Now, 10 million have entered during just the first three years of the Biden administration,

00:18:55.180 with 58% of that increase coming from illegal immigration.

00:19:00.020 This growth is far greater than even our government predictions would expect.

00:19:03.740 The federal census data from 2020 predicted that the foreign-born population of the United States

00:19:08.700 would not hit 15% until 2034.

00:19:11.900 Yet it is 2024, and we have already surpassed that prediction.

00:19:15.920 Third, this wave of immigration is unprecedented in its diversity.

00:19:22.300 Previous waves of immigration tended to come from particular parts of the world

00:19:26.480 that made absorption and assimilation easier.

00:19:29.600 But now immigrants come from every corner of the globe,

00:19:32.940 speak every language and dialect, worship every kind of God,

00:19:36.380 and reflect every culture that exists on the planet.

00:19:39.820 And all of this matters because immigration can only be sustained 1.00

00:19:44.120 when it is assimilating.

00:19:47.140 This is not a new idea.

00:19:48.780 Our founders discussed and agreed unanimously, nearly unanimously, on this point.

00:19:53.860 As Jefferson pointed, immigrants, quote,

00:19:55.800 should distribute themselves sparsely among the Native population

00:19:59.460 for quicker amalgamation.

00:20:01.400 You know, I took a plane trip last week while we were President Trump,

00:20:06.740 and something happened when I was boarding the plane.

00:20:10.440 That's the first time when the captain comes out to the galley.

00:20:13.860 He says, hey, I thought that was you.

00:20:15.180 I appreciate your service in the country.

00:20:16.560 I hope you come back.

00:20:17.920 He goes, but I got a question for you.

00:20:20.100 He goes, why are you always pissed off?

00:20:23.080 I see you on TV, you're upset.

00:20:24.780 I see you're talking from a congressman upset.

00:20:26.720 So I want to talk about the border and why I'm pissed off,

00:20:31.600 and why the border isn't just a crisis of the day.

00:20:35.020 We've had a crisis on the border before.

00:20:36.640 We had a surge of 1450.

00:20:39.140 We had thousands coming across back when I was boarding choice in 1980.

00:20:43.620 But this one is different.

00:20:46.220 This border crisis is the biggest national security vulnerability

00:20:49.980 this country has seen ever.

00:20:52.560 I've worked for six presidents.

00:20:55.700 I say this all the time.

00:20:56.600 I'll keep doing this now.

00:20:58.000 I've worked for six presidents,

00:20:59.220 Donald Ronald Reagan, and I became a board choice.

00:21:01.960 Every president I worked for took steps to secure the border

00:21:06.040 because they clearly understood you can't have strong national security

00:21:10.240 if you don't have border security.

00:21:12.280 You need to know who's coming in, what's coming in,

00:21:14.400 why it's coming in, where it's coming in.

00:21:16.280 We need to do that.

00:21:18.920 No one did better than President Trump.

00:21:20.600 I'm a Trump guy, not ashamed of it.

00:21:24.560 Trump was unprecedented in his success on the southern border.

00:21:28.140 Illegal immigration was down 83% to 90%.

00:21:30.940 Illegal immigration was at a 45-year low.

00:21:34.460 No one had that kind of success.

00:21:36.560 And he did that by himself

00:21:38.580 because Congress certainly wasn't helping him.

00:21:41.920 You had the Republicans, never Trumpers.

00:21:44.140 They weren't helping the first two years.

00:21:45.680 We had the House, the Senate, and the White House.

00:21:47.700 And he still had unprecedented success

00:21:50.680 because he was an out-of-the-box tanker.

00:21:53.400 He kept some great executive orders.

00:21:56.800 So every president took steps to secure the border.

00:21:59.160 Even Clinton Obama took steps to secure the border.

00:22:02.280 But you've got to think about the current president.

00:22:04.220 President Joe Biden is the first president

00:22:06.920 in the history of this nation

00:22:08.820 who came into office in unsecured border on purpose.

00:22:13.340 Signing over 90-second orders

00:22:16.380 abolishing everything we've created

00:22:17.660 on the Trump administration.

00:22:19.300 I wrote an op-ed six months before the election for Fox.

00:22:22.760 I said, if Joe Biden becomes president,

00:22:24.840 we lose the border.

00:22:26.600 And man, did the left come out.

00:22:27.980 Holman, there's Holman again, the fear of Margaret,

00:22:30.460 trying to scare people.

00:22:33.200 Well, I just said, look,

00:22:34.280 if Joe Biden was running on end-ice detention,

00:22:37.580 I'm going to have an amnesty.

00:22:39.120 We're going to fix DACA.

00:22:40.220 We're going to get free health care, illegal amnesty.

00:22:44.060 I mean, you know,

00:22:44.640 some type of promises to the whole world,

00:22:47.080 they're going to come.

00:22:48.120 It didn't take a border expert to understand that.

00:22:51.700 So he unsecured a border on purpose,

00:22:53.920 which has caused the biggest national security crisis

00:22:57.460 I've ever seen.

00:22:58.540 Now, I've been called all kinds of names.

00:23:01.560 I don't give a shit what people think about me.

00:23:03.440 I never have and never will.

00:23:07.640 Over 400,000 children have crossed the border

00:23:10.140 under Joe Biden,

00:23:11.120 and they can't find 100,000 of them.

00:23:15.120 Based on my 34 years,

00:23:16.600 I'm telling you right now,

00:23:17.380 many of these children are in forced labor.

00:23:19.320 Many of these children are living with predators.

00:23:21.240 Many of these children will appear

00:23:22.260 in pornographic movies.

00:23:25.380 Many of these women are forced into prostitution 0.96

00:23:27.360 because the cartels control them. 0.66

00:23:30.320 If they don't do what they tell them to do,

00:23:32.400 they'll kill their family back in their homeland. 0.97

00:23:34.100 That's what this administration has done.

00:23:40.060 So there's the secret.

00:23:41.720 That's why Tom Homan pissed off.

00:23:44.160 Because we had this lockdown.

00:23:45.900 Down.

00:23:50.040 And I'll tell you what,

00:23:51.080 Washington Post can draw the stories

00:23:52.280 that wound me about Tom Homan's report

00:23:54.580 people is really good at.

00:23:56.140 They ain't seen shit yet.

00:23:57.420 Wait till 2025.

00:23:58.180 Apologize.

00:24:11.640 I probably shouldn't say the S word.

00:24:13.780 I'm going to tell you to stop saying it.

00:24:16.500 I just,

00:24:17.560 I've never seen you for numbers, right?

00:24:20.140 And lately,

00:24:20.920 the press is on,

00:24:21.880 oh, Trump's,

00:24:22.940 Trump's going to do

00:24:23.560 a historic deportation operation.

00:24:25.660 What a terrible thing to say.

00:24:27.420 What a racist thing to say.

00:24:29.080 No, it's not.

00:24:30.900 On the hands of a historic

00:24:32.260 illegal immigration crisis

00:24:33.340 where millions of people

00:24:34.240 have entered the country illegally

00:24:35.340 or been released into the United States

00:24:37.280 by this administration illegally.

00:24:39.380 Here's what you need to know.

00:24:40.500 Look at the immigration court data,

00:24:42.640 EOI data over the last decade.

00:24:44.780 Nearly 9 out of 10 people

00:24:46.200 who came asylum at the southern border

00:24:47.680 will never get relieved from U.S. courts

00:24:49.780 because they simply don't qualify

00:24:51.240 or they don't show up in court.

00:24:54.240 Asylum is about escaping 1.00

00:24:55.240 fear and persecution

00:24:56.380 from your home government

00:24:57.720 because of race, religion,

00:24:59.440 political affiliation

00:25:00.520 or participation

00:25:01.460 in a specific social group.

00:25:04.040 These people are calling

00:25:04.820 a better life.

00:25:05.540 I get that.

00:25:06.620 But it ain't asylum.

00:25:08.700 So 9 out of 10,

00:25:09.860 it's actually,

00:25:10.440 I think,

00:25:10.680 86.7 last time I looked,

00:25:12.500 but nearly 9 out of 10

00:25:13.620 will get an order removed.

00:25:16.400 We have to remove.

00:25:18.380 What's the option?

00:25:20.700 Don't execute the final order

00:25:22.260 from the judge?

00:25:22.920 Because if that's the answer,

00:25:25.800 then what the hell are we doing?

00:25:27.680 Shut down immigration court.

00:25:29.720 Take the border 0.91

00:25:30.260 to off the border.

00:25:32.320 If we're not going to enforce the law

00:25:33.800 and have consequences

00:25:34.700 for violating our law,

00:25:35.840 what the hell are we doing?

00:25:37.320 So when people say,

00:25:38.240 it's ridiculous having a historic,

00:25:39.400 you've got to have a historic

00:25:40.480 deportation operation.

00:25:42.100 I mean,

00:25:42.360 here was a historic

00:25:43.100 immigration where 9 out of 10

00:25:44.880 will get an order removed.

00:25:45.840 But I kind of disagree

00:25:48.740 and agree with you

00:25:49.220 a little bit.

00:25:50.080 I still think,

00:25:51.280 Tom Holman,

00:25:51.900 we need to prioritize

00:25:53.180 gastro security threats

00:25:54.440 because we know

00:25:55.240 they're here by the thousands.

00:25:56.680 So we do have to prioritize

00:25:57.880 some people,

00:25:59.040 but I agree with you

00:25:59.660 one fact that

00:26:00.300 no one's off the table

00:26:01.340 in the next administration.

00:26:02.440 If you're here illegally, 0.98

00:26:03.440 you better be looking

00:26:04.200 over your shoulder.

00:26:05.960 I didn't drive

00:26:07.100 for 120 miles an hour today

00:26:08.600 because I don't want

00:26:08.960 to get ticked.

00:26:09.880 I don't want to have my taxes

00:26:10.860 because I don't want to go to jail.

00:26:12.300 It's not okay

00:26:13.200 to enter this country legally.

00:26:14.740 It's not okay.

00:26:16.640 When I became the ICE director,

00:26:17.920 the first testimony I did

00:26:19.180 meant that I take hate

00:26:20.440 for two weeks on the left.

00:26:22.240 Tom Holman said

00:26:22.960 during the testimony,

00:26:23.740 if you're in the country legally,

00:26:24.720 you need to be looking

00:26:25.360 over your shoulder.

00:26:26.720 You're damn right.

00:26:29.040 That's what it's supposed to be.

00:26:30.840 It's not okay

00:26:31.660 to enter this country legally.

00:26:32.620 It's a crime.

00:26:34.060 If you get deported,

00:26:35.100 come back,

00:26:35.700 it's a felony.

00:26:37.400 It's not okay

00:26:38.060 to enter this country legally.

00:26:39.060 There's a right way

00:26:39.600 and a wrong way

00:26:40.240 to be a part

00:26:41.280 of the greatest nation on earth.

00:26:43.320 And what no one's talking about,

00:26:44.520 why they're letting

00:26:45.060 millions of illegal aliens

00:26:46.280 in here,

00:26:46.900 release them illegally,

00:26:47.980 in my opinion,

00:26:48.540 in the United States.

00:26:49.600 There are millions of people

00:26:50.720 standing in line,

00:26:52.360 taking their tests,

00:26:53.620 doing their backgrounds,

00:26:55.580 paying the fees

00:26:56.480 to be part

00:26:57.600 of the greatest nation on earth.

00:26:58.660 interesting people.

00:27:00.180 I buttonhole Mark Krikorian,

00:27:02.300 who's been in the trenches

00:27:04.120 on the immigration issue

00:27:05.160 for decades.

00:27:06.220 Here's my conversation with him.

00:27:07.940 All right.

00:27:08.280 I'm here with Mark Krikorian,

00:27:09.520 who gave an amazing speech

00:27:10.860 about asylum.

00:27:12.440 First of all,

00:27:13.100 identify yourself

00:27:14.000 to our viewers

00:27:14.520 who might not be familiar with you.

00:27:16.080 You've been fighting

00:27:16.720 this immigration fight

00:27:17.700 a long time.

00:27:18.880 Yeah, I'm Mark Krikorian,

00:27:20.620 Executive Director

00:27:21.220 of the Center for Immigration Studies.

00:27:22.520 We're a little think tank in D.C.

00:27:24.400 We're what I call

00:27:25.000 a boutique think tank.

00:27:26.140 We just do immigration, 1.00

00:27:27.360 unlike the department store

00:27:28.520 think tanks that do everything.

00:27:30.400 And I've been doing this

00:27:31.600 for almost 30 years now.

00:27:33.440 And, you know,

00:27:34.640 it seems like,

00:27:36.260 at least on the right,

00:27:38.700 the issue was moving

00:27:41.160 in the right direction

00:27:42.020 because there was,

00:27:43.200 for a long time,

00:27:44.540 really strong opposition

00:27:46.360 among the business

00:27:47.240 and libertarian folks

00:27:48.760 basically wanting

00:27:50.380 unlimited immigration.

00:27:51.800 And they're still there,

00:27:52.820 but they don't,

00:27:53.460 they're not driving

00:27:54.020 the bus anymore.

00:27:55.380 They benefit from lower wages,

00:27:57.460 higher property prices.

00:27:59.080 It's, you know,

00:27:59.920 cheaper tech workers,

00:28:01.080 whatever.

00:28:01.900 But I think there's a pushback.

00:28:04.020 What do you make

00:28:04.680 of what happened in the UK

00:28:05.880 with Nigel Farage

00:28:07.600 and his reform party?

00:28:08.960 And in France

00:28:10.680 with Marine Le Pen,

00:28:12.200 both of those were really

00:28:13.180 immigration-focused campaigns,

00:28:15.480 weren't they?

00:28:16.280 Yeah, absolutely.

00:28:17.140 And I think people

00:28:18.060 are misreading it.

00:28:18.820 I mean, the left won

00:28:19.980 in the sense that,

00:28:21.540 you know,

00:28:22.860 they're going to have

00:28:23.740 governing power.

00:28:25.920 But when you look

00:28:26.640 at the share of the vote,

00:28:28.620 it clearly,

00:28:29.500 the electorate

00:28:30.260 has moved right significantly

00:28:31.780 on immigration,

00:28:33.220 both in France

00:28:34.140 and in the UK.

00:28:35.980 So it's kind of,

00:28:37.040 those two things

00:28:37.760 can happen at the same time.

00:28:39.180 But I think,

00:28:39.960 so in the short term,

00:28:41.220 it's bad news.

00:28:42.240 I mean,

00:28:42.540 the labor government,

00:28:43.860 the woman in charge 0.99

00:28:44.800 of immigration,

00:28:45.700 the home secretary,

00:28:47.180 she's actually tweeted

00:28:48.960 a picture of herself out

00:28:50.200 with a holding,

00:28:51.580 you know,

00:28:52.160 a piece of paper

00:28:52.800 saying,

00:28:53.500 refugees welcome.

00:28:55.600 So, yeah,

00:28:56.520 Britain and France

00:28:58.020 are in for some bad times,

00:29:00.340 but clearly,

00:29:01.680 the public mood

00:29:02.580 is shifting.

00:29:03.520 And it seems like

00:29:04.200 in the longer term,

00:29:06.340 I mean,

00:29:07.700 I'm not British or French,

00:29:09.160 but I would be optimistic

00:29:10.320 if I were,

00:29:11.100 at least in the long term.

00:29:12.600 Especially in the UK,

00:29:14.180 Farage has normalized

00:29:15.440 talking about this subject

00:29:17.460 before really

00:29:18.400 it was a cartel.

00:29:19.480 Now,

00:29:19.840 you talked about asylum

00:29:21.200 as a legal concept.

00:29:23.580 That was fascinating.

00:29:24.940 I've never heard of that before,

00:29:26.620 your critique of it.

00:29:28.300 Can you explain

00:29:28.900 for our viewers,

00:29:30.100 why is the concept

00:29:32.040 of asylum

00:29:32.920 an outdated

00:29:34.320 Cold War idea?

00:29:35.760 You talked about

00:29:36.240 Soviet ballerinas.

00:29:38.040 Those of us,

00:29:38.780 you know,

00:29:39.420 who are over 40

00:29:40.520 might remember

00:29:41.160 that great movie

00:29:43.220 where,

00:29:43.720 you know,

00:29:44.240 the Russian guy

00:29:45.840 comes over

00:29:46.420 and says,

00:29:46.780 I defect,

00:29:47.580 and the whole,

00:29:48.700 that was Yakov Shmirnov.

00:29:50.520 He launched

00:29:50.820 a whole career.

00:29:52.980 Williams also had

00:29:53.700 a movie like that.

00:29:54.480 Remember,

00:29:54.720 Moscow and the Hudson

00:29:55.620 where he defected

00:29:56.500 in Macy's,

00:29:57.300 and he was a musician

00:29:58.620 in a Russian circus band.

00:30:01.400 But again,

00:30:02.600 It was obscure

00:30:03.400 and rare back then.

00:30:04.380 Right,

00:30:04.520 it was very rare

00:30:05.220 because you couldn't,

00:30:06.060 it was hard to get out

00:30:06.680 of the Soviet Union,

00:30:07.900 and the third world

00:30:09.600 was mostly still

00:30:10.860 colonies of various countries,

00:30:13.160 and so,

00:30:13.480 and the populations

00:30:14.680 were smaller,

00:30:15.480 and it was hard

00:30:16.100 to get here.

00:30:17.400 What,

00:30:17.640 what asylum is now

00:30:19.280 is it's turned

00:30:20.660 into the main way

00:30:22.140 of illegally immigrating

00:30:23.720 to Europe

00:30:24.460 or to the United States

00:30:25.800 or frankly,

00:30:26.540 Israel,

00:30:27.160 Australia,

00:30:27.740 even South Africa

00:30:28.620 is facing this.

00:30:30.540 And,

00:30:30.860 and in South Africa,

00:30:31.860 the government

00:30:32.480 just recently issued

00:30:33.560 a report saying

00:30:34.440 that they're going

00:30:34.960 to withdraw

00:30:35.440 from the Refugee Convention

00:30:36.720 and then re,

00:30:38.780 re,

00:30:39.940 re sign up for it,

00:30:41.380 but with exceptions

00:30:42.480 and reservations

00:30:43.480 that aren't in there.

00:30:44.700 Wow,

00:30:45.120 if South Africa

00:30:45.960 can do that,

00:30:47.020 theoretically,

00:30:47.840 anyone could do that.

00:30:48.800 I mean,

00:30:49.080 again,

00:30:49.440 maybe they're breaking

00:30:50.080 the taboo first.

00:30:51.440 Has any country withdrawn

00:30:52.460 from the Human Rights

00:30:53.240 Convention before them?

00:30:55.460 No,

00:30:55.740 this is the Refugee Convention

00:30:57.080 and no one's withdrawn

00:30:57.880 from it yet,

00:30:58.720 except that it's a treaty,

00:31:00.240 and every treaty,

00:31:01.260 by definition,

00:31:02.080 has a clause saying

00:31:03.140 that here's the way

00:31:04.400 you withdraw from it.

00:31:05.260 You know,

00:31:05.540 you give notice,

00:31:06.340 six months,

00:31:06.920 whatever it is,

00:31:07.780 anybody can do it.

00:31:08.960 It's just that

00:31:09.620 you have to want to do it.

00:31:10.500 I suggested it

00:31:11.340 to the first Trump administration.

00:31:13.300 It never got anywhere.

00:31:14.220 I assume Jared Kushner

00:31:16.900 or something

00:31:17.460 squashed the idea,

00:31:18.680 but I can very much

00:31:20.160 see the administration,

00:31:21.800 a future Trump administration,

00:31:23.360 withdrawing from it.

00:31:23.980 Now,

00:31:24.460 you then have to change your law.

00:31:25.900 That in itself

00:31:26.720 doesn't solve the problem,

00:31:28.700 but it's the first,

00:31:29.720 it's the essential first step.

00:31:31.440 I got one last question for you.

00:31:32.940 I appreciate your time.

00:31:34.300 In Canada,

00:31:35.260 we're not as far gone

00:31:37.100 as France and the UK,

00:31:38.380 but we're further gone

00:31:39.160 than America,

00:31:39.720 I think,

00:31:40.020 although some of the stats

00:31:41.300 you were talking about

00:31:42.160 were astonishing.

00:31:45.400 Is there such a thing

00:31:46.500 as re-migration

00:31:47.740 or mass deportation

00:31:50.940 might sound a little harsh,

00:31:52.180 but I look across Canada

00:31:53.420 right now,

00:31:54.160 there's 900,000 student visas.

00:31:58.140 That's more than there are

00:31:59.240 Canadian nationals

00:32:00.280 in university.

00:32:00.880 I see the pro-Hamas 1.00

00:32:02.920 street marches,

00:32:04.220 most of them speak

00:32:05.600 with a thick foreign accent.

00:32:06.780 They're new on the ground.

00:32:08.580 How do you normalize

00:32:09.920 sending these folks back home,

00:32:12.500 especially if they came here

00:32:13.620 claiming they were in danger

00:32:15.300 back home,

00:32:15.760 but they obviously aren't?

00:32:17.560 The easiest one,

00:32:19.200 obviously,

00:32:19.520 is people who are themselves illegal.

00:32:21.420 In other words,

00:32:21.720 they're not in a legal status.

00:32:23.620 But what you have to know

00:32:25.000 about immigration,

00:32:26.040 whether it's legal or illegal,

00:32:27.260 is that there's always churn.

00:32:28.940 There's always people leaving,

00:32:30.180 even in normal circumstances.

00:32:31.580 And so the solution,

00:32:33.600 I mean,

00:32:33.800 it's kind of simplistic,

00:32:34.960 but it's real,

00:32:35.840 is that you reduce the number

00:32:37.580 of new people coming in

00:32:38.840 and you increase the number

00:32:40.640 of people leaving.

00:32:42.180 And most of that

00:32:43.300 doesn't even have to be

00:32:44.540 forced removal,

00:32:46.320 where you take someone

00:32:47.300 in custody and deport them.

00:32:49.040 Some of that you have to do.

00:32:50.160 There's no question about it.

00:32:51.380 But even during the 1950s,

00:32:53.040 we had something,

00:32:54.240 unfortunately,

00:32:55.280 called Operation Wetback,

00:32:57.220 which was a normal term back then,

00:32:58.980 to deport illegal immigrants, 0.53

00:33:00.300 Mexican illegal immigrants.

00:33:01.980 Most of the illegal immigrants 1.00

00:33:03.280 who left,

00:33:04.020 left on their own

00:33:04.860 because they started the operation

00:33:08.060 and the other illegal immigrants 0.98

00:33:09.980 got the message

00:33:11.020 that the party was over

00:33:12.240 and that they would be wise

00:33:15.380 to wrap up their affairs,

00:33:17.960 pack up the car,

00:33:18.940 and go home on their own

00:33:20.120 before they got arrested.

00:33:21.840 And so the issue is,

00:33:23.320 I call it attrition.

00:33:24.920 You squeeze the illegal population 1.00

00:33:26.300 and even legal people

00:33:29.440 with student visas or whatever.

00:33:30.920 You tighten up the requirements.

00:33:32.460 You enforce the requirements.

00:33:34.420 And you not only physically

00:33:36.680 remove some people,

00:33:38.180 but you persuade

00:33:39.680 an even larger number of people

00:33:41.600 that it's time to go back.

00:33:43.620 And that's not a perfect solution.

00:33:45.240 It's not going to solve everything.

00:33:46.360 But you can, in fact,

00:33:48.280 reverse the trend

00:33:49.760 and get people to leave,

00:33:52.300 even if you don't take them

00:33:54.800 all into custody.

00:33:56.020 Last question.

00:33:56.860 What do you think about the term

00:33:57.960 net zero immigration?

00:34:00.780 We've heard about net zero carbon.

00:34:03.180 What do you think

00:34:03.660 of net zero immigration?

00:34:05.020 It's something people,

00:34:05.860 we've even written about it years ago.

00:34:07.140 Zero net migration

00:34:08.100 is the kind of stock term for that.

00:34:12.580 I think it's not a bad idea.

00:34:14.160 The thing is,

00:34:15.060 I mean, it's a goal to shoot for,

00:34:17.700 but you can never really know

00:34:18.860 how many people are leaving

00:34:19.880 because at least in the United States,

00:34:22.420 and I'm pretty sure Canada

00:34:23.240 is the same thing,

00:34:24.140 it's not like you need an exit visa.

00:34:25.860 So you really don't know for sure

00:34:27.780 how many people are leaving

00:34:28.780 and how many people are just going

00:34:29.980 for a junior year abroad in Italy

00:34:32.220 or whatever it is.

00:34:33.640 You know what I mean?

00:34:34.200 But yes, that would be,

00:34:36.080 in fact, I would say more broadly,

00:34:38.340 the goal should be

00:34:39.320 what I call demographic conservatism,

00:34:41.780 which is to say countries,

00:34:44.360 their populations,

00:34:45.480 whether it's ethnic, religious,

00:34:46.940 however the makeup is,

00:34:48.080 it's always going to change.

00:34:48.960 The ancient Greeks said

00:34:50.760 you can never step

00:34:51.480 in the same river twice

00:34:52.700 because the water is moving.

00:34:54.220 You know, your country changes.

00:34:56.460 Changes, though,

00:34:57.720 should be slow and gradual.

00:35:01.000 One of the speakers

00:35:01.800 quoted Thomas Jefferson saying,

00:35:03.540 you know, immigrants

00:35:04.420 should spread themselves out

00:35:06.020 thinly across our population

00:35:07.840 so they're quickly amalgamated.

00:35:09.700 Well, that's,

00:35:11.040 is, is, change should be slow.

00:35:13.240 Immigration should be low 1.00

00:35:14.700 so that when immigrants come, 1.00

00:35:17.940 they don't have that big

00:35:19.700 an effect on the society

00:35:21.160 so that even if you screw up

00:35:23.820 and let in people you shouldn't,

00:35:25.880 if we had one Ilhan Omar

00:35:27.540 in Minnesota,

00:35:29.220 well, that would be bad,

00:35:30.520 but it would be one person.

00:35:31.980 If you have 20,000 Somalis 0.66

00:35:33.680 in one city,

00:35:35.180 well, then it,

00:35:36.200 you've, you've made

00:35:37.040 significant changes there

00:35:38.460 that you can't really,

00:35:41.900 that are hard to undo.

00:35:42.920 So anyway, the point is,

00:35:44.300 yes, zero net migration

00:35:45.620 is a sensible way

00:35:48.540 to think about the issue.

00:35:49.800 I'm just not sure

00:35:50.520 you could fix that into law

00:35:52.020 because you don't have

00:35:53.240 a legal yardstick

00:35:55.320 for how many people are leaving.

00:35:56.720 You see what I mean?

00:35:58.020 Very interesting stuff.

00:35:59.200 We'll have to talk to you

00:35:59.880 more often,

00:36:00.320 especially about Canada's

00:36:01.880 immigration crisis.

00:36:02.740 Great to talk to you today.

00:36:03.680 Good luck to you guys.

00:36:04.740 I tell you,

00:36:05.480 they're having that conversation

00:36:07.380 in the UK now

00:36:08.300 because of Nod's of Fraud.

00:36:09.460 They're having that conversation

00:36:11.120 in France

00:36:11.960 because of Marine Le Pen.

00:36:15.540 I don't know.

00:36:16.280 Pierre Polyev is gently

00:36:17.700 dipping his toe in the water,

00:36:20.920 barely talking about immigration.

00:36:23.680 Of course, Donald Trump

00:36:24.520 talks about it a lot.

00:36:26.000 I think Canada needs to start

00:36:27.500 having that conversation.

00:36:29.360 And you know what?

00:36:30.320 Nothing happens to you

00:36:31.360 if you talk about it.

00:36:32.260 If you don't allow people 0.99

00:36:33.620 to cancel you,

00:36:34.440 who doesn't talk about

00:36:35.680 immigration in Canada?

00:36:36.880 You can literally see

00:36:38.060 its effects with your eyes.

00:36:39.460 Every day.

00:36:41.120 It is,

00:36:42.200 there's a lot of Europeans

00:36:43.320 who are here.

00:36:44.960 The last National Conservatism

00:36:47.160 Conference was actually

00:36:48.220 in Brussels, Belgium.

00:36:50.820 And one of the speakers

00:36:53.100 who regularly attends

00:36:54.860 is Suella Braverman,

00:36:56.440 who's a British-UK

00:36:59.340 Conservative Party MP

00:37:01.800 who was until recently

00:37:03.200 the Home Secretary.

00:37:04.960 She was a very senior position.

00:37:06.600 That would be,

00:37:07.260 I'm not sure what the equivalent

00:37:08.500 would be in Canada.

00:37:09.520 Maybe Department of Homeland Security

00:37:12.260 I think is some overlap.

00:37:14.540 Anyway, she was fired 1.00

00:37:15.860 by the last Conservative

00:37:17.240 Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak,

00:37:19.660 for talking about immigration

00:37:22.760 and multiculturalism

00:37:24.520 that failed.

00:37:25.760 Talking about extremist elements.

00:37:28.440 Anyway, she gave a speech today

00:37:30.080 that was remarkable,

00:37:32.660 not only for taking a strong stand

00:37:35.080 against mass immigration,

00:37:37.160 but saying that

00:37:39.160 the Conservative Party

00:37:40.320 of which she was a part

00:37:41.660 for so many years

00:37:42.720 was a disaster

00:37:44.200 and didn't deserve to win

00:37:46.600 because it treated voters

00:37:47.920 with great disrespect.

00:37:49.280 Here's a sample of her speech.

00:37:50.480 Her speech was about

00:37:51.020 half an hour long.

00:37:52.060 I would call it

00:37:52.620 the keynote speech so far.

00:37:54.420 Very interesting stuff.

00:37:55.880 And she didn't quite come out

00:37:57.040 and say she's running

00:37:58.080 for the leadership

00:37:59.240 of the Conservative Party,

00:38:00.500 but I get the feeling she is

00:38:03.320 and she'll announce it soon.

00:38:04.420 Here, take a listen.

00:38:07.480 Lots of my colleagues

00:38:08.520 are solemnly muttering

00:38:09.460 about how much

00:38:10.360 they respect the results.

00:38:12.240 But having mouthed these words,

00:38:13.980 what does their solution

00:38:14.660 turn out to be?

00:38:16.500 Liberal conservatism

00:38:17.760 hasn't been tried enough.

00:38:19.700 We need to head even further

00:38:21.540 and faster to the centre.

00:38:24.620 If the Tory party

00:38:26.120 has a future,

00:38:27.560 it's by being conservative.

00:38:37.560 My strategy is simple.

00:38:39.760 I don't want to put

00:38:40.860 Nigel Farage,

00:38:42.120 leader of a rival party,

00:38:43.740 in a comfortable place.

00:38:45.340 I want to put him

00:38:46.080 in an uncomfortable place.

00:38:48.120 I want the Tories

00:38:49.080 to credibly offer

00:38:51.100 conservative policies

00:38:53.340 which make the existence

00:38:54.940 of a rival right-wing party

00:38:57.300 moot.

00:38:58.780 And not just moot,

00:39:00.400 but which makes

00:39:01.020 their continued existence

00:39:02.640 seem visibly harmful

00:39:04.740 to conservative goals

00:39:06.420 being achieved.

00:39:08.220 But the only way,

00:39:09.200 the only way

00:39:10.180 that we're doing that

00:39:11.940 is by talking credibly,

00:39:14.540 credibly,

00:39:15.400 to reforms voters.

00:39:18.400 And we haven't even started

00:39:20.100 to respect them,

00:39:21.540 never mind seriously address

00:39:23.440 why they no longer vote for us.

00:39:25.680 We satisfy ourselves

00:39:27.840 by insulting them,

00:39:29.600 denigrating the party,

00:39:31.540 trying to throw mud,

00:39:32.520 makes us feel better.

00:39:34.240 But the reality is,

00:39:35.500 is we're pushing

00:39:36.120 more and more

00:39:37.160 of our own people away.

00:39:39.600 It's why,

00:39:40.360 if we are serious

00:39:41.020 about continuing to exist,

00:39:43.140 let alone win elections,

00:39:44.980 we need credibility.

00:39:47.240 Not just the veneer,

00:39:49.140 the veneer of right-wingery

00:39:51.300 to win the base,

00:39:53.240 only for the liberal reality

00:39:54.720 to emerge under the pressure

00:39:56.660 of scrutiny and challenge.

00:39:59.200 That's what we've just tried,

00:40:01.020 a cosplaying right-wingery,

00:40:02.960 only for the reality

00:40:04.180 to be socialism-light.

00:40:06.440 The voters see through it

00:40:07.720 because

00:40:08.300 they're not idiots.

00:40:10.560 Now,

00:40:13.600 you can take

00:40:15.000 from the example

00:40:16.140 of Britain

00:40:16.620 whatever lessons you think

00:40:17.900 are applicable

00:40:18.380 to your own countries.

00:40:19.760 I take from everything

00:40:20.760 that I have heard

00:40:21.620 and read

00:40:22.060 about the US

00:40:23.360 and so many other

00:40:24.120 Western countries

00:40:24.840 this painful truth.

00:40:25.920 We are at a moment

00:40:26.900 of crisis.

00:40:28.280 The chickens have come

00:40:29.080 home to roost

00:40:29.740 and all the things

00:40:31.080 that we conservatives

00:40:31.980 have warned about

00:40:33.040 for half a century

00:40:34.280 and failed to stop

00:40:35.780 are now upon us.

00:40:37.800 The palpable sense

00:40:39.100 of discontent,

00:40:40.420 a crisis of meaning,

00:40:42.280 the dissolution

00:40:42.920 of the ties

00:40:43.960 and bonds

00:40:44.700 of loyalty

00:40:45.240 and society

00:40:46.220 which formerly bound us

00:40:48.260 into a cohesive,

00:40:49.800 organic unit,

00:40:51.540 the loss of faith

00:40:52.300 in politics,

00:40:53.600 the descent

00:40:54.080 of formerly stable polities

00:40:55.920 into states

00:40:57.160 we once upon a time

00:40:58.740 would have sneered at

00:40:59.820 as being banana republics.

00:41:02.380 Even in our countries,

00:41:04.620 things worse

00:41:05.320 than stopping you

00:41:05.980 speaking Brussels

00:41:06.660 happen.

00:41:08.020 Political dissidents

00:41:09.000 are persecuted

00:41:09.920 by lawfare

00:41:11.620 with all the loss

00:41:13.220 of faith

00:41:13.600 that brings

00:41:14.140 in its wake

00:41:14.960 for democratic politics

00:41:16.480 and elections.

00:41:18.260 Now, the efforts

00:41:19.060 made to delegitimize us

00:41:20.400 seemingly have,

00:41:21.840 in the US

00:41:22.400 of all places,

00:41:24.040 gone beyond

00:41:24.600 the merely rhetorical

00:41:25.860 that we're used

00:41:26.900 to seeing in the UK.

00:41:28.840 It should not be

00:41:30.300 a custodial matter

00:41:31.960 to contemplate

00:41:33.440 public service.

00:41:35.900 Yet,

00:41:36.340 I know American politicians

00:41:38.000 who've had to tell

00:41:39.100 their children

00:41:39.760 if I'm arrested

00:41:41.300 it won't be

00:41:42.180 because I've done

00:41:42.760 something wrong.

00:41:44.500 What has brought us

00:41:45.760 to this place?

00:41:47.020 The answer

00:41:47.700 is liberalism.

00:41:49.820 It's a creed

00:41:50.620 now so self-righteous

00:41:52.200 and so intolerant

00:41:53.700 that anyone evil enough

00:41:55.340 to disagree with it

00:41:56.380 risks actual imprisonment.

00:41:59.180 Yet liberals

00:42:00.020 haven't been winning elections.

00:42:01.340 elections

00:42:02.000 that people

00:42:03.180 have voted

00:42:03.840 for conservatives.

00:42:05.540 But the problem is

00:42:06.460 they are the ones

00:42:07.680 who've delivered liberalism.

00:42:09.540 These ideas

00:42:10.360 are not

00:42:10.920 the irresistible truths

00:42:12.880 that liberal ideologues

00:42:14.180 insinuate them to be.

00:42:16.040 They're highly contested ideas

00:42:17.880 that we're free

00:42:18.820 to dispute.

00:42:20.340 And dispute them

00:42:21.140 we should.

00:42:21.980 They're fundamentally wrong.

00:42:24.260 Arising as they do

00:42:25.180 from the false assumption

00:42:26.160 that custom

00:42:26.780 and tradition,

00:42:27.880 for example,

00:42:28.380 the common law,

00:42:29.540 may be dispensed with

00:42:30.620 in favour of

00:42:31.440 solipsistic

00:42:32.160 first principles

00:42:33.300 rationalism

00:42:34.060 articulated by

00:42:35.260 educated individuals

00:42:36.420 at any given moment

00:42:37.260 in time.

00:42:44.560 In practice,

00:42:45.780 liberal conformity

00:42:46.740 and uniformity

00:42:48.200 leads to

00:42:48.860 the cult

00:42:49.580 of the self.

00:42:51.240 Wealth

00:42:51.580 is valued

00:42:52.220 for its own sake.

00:42:54.200 And where has that

00:42:54.760 got us

00:42:55.380 as a society?

00:42:57.220 Cultural disorientation 0.78

00:42:58.620 and the loss

00:42:59.540 of home

00:43:00.040 and belonging.

00:43:01.140 That's where.

00:43:02.540 The solution

00:43:03.120 is conservatism.

00:43:04.720 The conservatism

00:43:05.620 of Roger Scruton

00:43:06.700 emphasising community,

00:43:08.940 family,

00:43:09.520 place,

00:43:10.120 attachment,

00:43:11.360 love.

00:43:13.120 I'm so proud

00:43:13.860 to speak to you

00:43:14.780 because national

00:43:15.760 conservators know

00:43:16.680 that the preservation

00:43:18.220 of a national culture

00:43:19.600 is precious

00:43:20.780 precisely because

00:43:22.320 it unites.

00:43:23.780 The most fundamental

00:43:24.820 insight you offer,

00:43:26.580 so well articulated

00:43:27.640 by so many of the speakers

00:43:28.780 I've heard

00:43:29.300 at successive events

00:43:30.820 is that liberalism,

00:43:32.500 both economic and social,

00:43:33.860 has led us

00:43:34.640 to a point

00:43:35.580 of societal

00:43:36.500 disintegration.

00:43:38.800 My own

00:43:39.460 Conservative Party,

00:43:41.020 far from contesting

00:43:42.060 liberal ideas,

00:43:43.340 has embraced them

00:43:44.380 wholeheartedly

00:43:45.400 and offered

00:43:46.280 no opposition.

00:43:48.060 Where Thatcherism

00:43:48.800 was national renewal,

00:43:50.740 it was a reaction

00:43:51.820 devoutly

00:43:52.580 to be wished for.

00:43:53.520 When it was degraded

00:43:55.800 into being simple

00:43:56.960 liberal economics,

00:43:58.200 where the objective

00:43:59.140 of personal,

00:44:00.340 material wealth

00:44:01.020 was elevated

00:44:01.720 above all else

00:44:02.840 by Conservatives,

00:44:04.660 it forgets

00:44:05.760 what prosperity

00:44:06.840 is really for.

00:44:09.080 The slavish elevation

00:44:10.340 of wealth

00:44:10.980 as the purpose

00:44:11.780 of life

00:44:12.380 is fruitless

00:44:13.680 and has allowed

00:44:15.120 Conservatives

00:44:15.860 to be caricatured

00:44:16.980 as venal,

00:44:18.040 selfish

00:44:18.500 and infamously nasty. 0.52

00:44:20.260 We need to rediscover

00:44:22.460 the why

00:44:23.100 in politics

00:44:24.360 and that's not

00:44:25.700 answered

00:44:26.460 just with money.

00:44:28.180 The Conservative

00:44:28.940 surrender

00:44:29.520 to social liberalism,

00:44:31.700 the cult

00:44:32.080 of self,

00:44:33.060 of self-esteem,

00:44:34.120 of self-realisation,

00:44:35.140 of self-absorption

00:44:36.020 is causing

00:44:37.120 our societies

00:44:38.040 to fracture.

00:44:39.900 We must be

00:44:40.600 unashamedly

00:44:41.500 the champions

00:44:42.340 of family,

00:44:43.800 the party

00:44:44.400 of duty,

00:44:45.580 of love

00:44:46.100 of country,

00:44:47.420 service

00:44:47.720 to our people,

00:44:48.980 respect for all,

00:44:50.260 community,

00:44:51.740 traditional culture

00:44:52.720 specific to our nation,

00:44:54.880 the party of home.

00:44:56.880 We must fight

00:44:57.620 to protect

00:44:58.200 our national culture

00:44:59.720 which is precious

00:45:01.300 because it unifies us

00:45:03.180 and it allows us

00:45:04.140 to be at home

00:45:04.880 in our own country.

00:45:07.360 That culture

00:45:08.060 is contained

00:45:08.760 in our customs,

00:45:10.160 in our religion,

00:45:11.420 in our traditions,

00:45:12.420 in our common law,

00:45:13.420 in our architecture,

00:45:14.560 in our music,

00:45:15.240 our arts,

00:45:16.380 our educational institutions,

00:45:18.500 our sporting traditions

00:45:19.500 and our constitution.

00:45:22.160 These things,

00:45:24.080 sadly,

00:45:24.760 have not mattered

00:45:25.480 to far too many of us

00:45:27.620 who call ourselves

00:45:28.900 conservatives.

00:45:30.600 As we emerge

00:45:31.660 from this catastrophe

00:45:32.460 in the United Kingdom,

00:45:33.860 every conservative policy

00:45:35.460 must be evaluated

00:45:37.060 by how well it serves

00:45:39.160 those fundamental objectives.

00:45:41.840 So philosophically then

00:45:43.200 and politically,

00:45:44.380 the choice is clear.

00:45:45.620 Do we keep doing

00:45:47.620 what got us

00:45:48.260 into this mess

00:45:49.020 or do we change?

00:45:51.780 Do we start listening

00:45:52.700 and start responding?

00:45:55.000 Are we going to be brave

00:45:56.280 and tell the truth?

00:45:58.340 Or will we be timid

00:45:59.600 and continue the charade?

00:46:02.700 You should be listened to.

00:46:05.660 Your message is right.

00:46:06.900 And it has been a pleasure

00:46:10.620 as ever

00:46:11.760 to be here

00:46:13.100 and learn so much

00:46:14.800 from you again.

00:46:16.620 Onwards.

00:46:17.460 Thank you.

00:46:17.960 Thank you.

00:46:18.040 Well, I emailed

00:46:27.980 Suella Braverman

00:46:29.020 and I actually bumped

00:46:29.740 into her in the hallway

00:46:30.620 but she was busy 0.99

00:46:32.080 so I said,

00:46:32.740 can I email you

00:46:33.940 for an interview?

00:46:34.980 She sent out

00:46:35.500 a very friendly staffer

00:46:36.740 who said,

00:46:37.400 it's a polite no.

00:46:39.800 And I was thinking,

00:46:40.720 why is that?

00:46:41.740 And I have a theory

00:46:42.600 and I think it's because

00:46:44.140 Rebel News

00:46:45.000 is associated

00:46:46.040 in the United Kingdom

00:46:47.900 with Tommy Robinson

00:46:49.440 and in fact,

00:46:50.320 we just hosted him recently

00:46:51.580 on his Canadian tour

00:46:53.140 and Tommy Robinson

00:46:54.720 absolutely terrifies

00:46:56.520 the British conservative mainstream

00:46:58.860 because he is absolutely

00:47:01.620 universally loathed

00:47:03.200 by the media

00:47:04.280 and anyone who associates

00:47:06.140 with Tommy Robinson

00:47:07.040 will be loathed in turn

00:47:09.620 and it's just a fact.

00:47:13.500 I think that's why

00:47:14.080 Nigel Farage

00:47:15.020 keeps Tommy Robinson

00:47:16.440 at arm's length

00:47:17.560 I think that's why

00:47:18.480 the conservatives

00:47:19.140 certainly do

00:47:19.920 and that's my secret theory

00:47:22.080 about why Suella Braverman

00:47:23.740 declined a one-on-one

00:47:24.840 interview with me.

00:47:26.480 It doesn't hurt my feelings.

00:47:27.880 Politicians have to be politicians.

00:47:30.060 Rebel News

00:47:30.540 is who we are.

00:47:32.420 Tommy Robinson

00:47:33.080 is not a staffer with us

00:47:34.620 but he's an alumnus

00:47:35.820 and we think he is

00:47:37.080 very interesting things to say.

00:47:39.760 I understand the limits

00:47:41.380 of a conservative

00:47:42.860 political leader

00:47:44.240 in the UK.

00:47:44.840 It's a difficult battle

00:47:46.080 and the worst enemy there

00:47:47.600 as we saw in this last election

00:47:49.180 has indeed been the media.

00:47:51.860 Well, this conference is on

00:47:53.900 for the rest of today

00:47:55.100 and for tomorrow as well

00:47:56.640 so I'll try and have

00:47:58.040 more interesting reports.

00:47:59.840 You know, I generally

00:48:00.500 don't go to conferences like this.

00:48:03.760 At my age,

00:48:05.980 I feel like I've heard

00:48:06.820 all the speeches

00:48:07.500 and met all the politicians

00:48:09.020 that I want to

00:48:09.880 but this felt

00:48:11.040 a little bit different.

00:48:12.140 I have not heard

00:48:13.080 this quality of conversation

00:48:15.140 about immigration before

00:48:16.460 and I think Canada

00:48:17.680 is late to the battle.

00:48:19.720 Donald Trump,

00:48:20.440 Nadja Farage,

00:48:21.320 Marine Le Pen.

00:48:22.520 I think we're the people

00:48:23.480 in the world

00:48:24.200 that aren't having

00:48:25.260 a proper conversation

00:48:26.200 so I feel like

00:48:27.020 I learned a bit there.

00:48:29.220 It was nice to see

00:48:30.580 900 Americans

00:48:31.780 who believe in nationalism

00:48:33.340 and articulating it

00:48:35.020 a little bit differently

00:48:35.880 than the other parties,

00:48:36.900 certainly than the Republicans

00:48:38.340 or the British conservatives.

00:48:39.880 I've seen about

00:48:40.720 five Canadians down here

00:48:42.320 just sprinkled amongst

00:48:43.400 the 900

00:48:44.440 but mainly they're

00:48:45.940 America or British 0.90

00:48:47.520 interested people.

00:48:49.200 They're not really here

00:48:50.040 from a Canadian point of view.

00:48:52.920 And I'm going to try

00:48:53.600 and think about it

00:48:54.560 some more tonight

00:48:55.260 and tomorrow

00:48:55.860 and I'm looking forward

00:48:57.820 to I don't know

00:49:00.520 perhaps analyzing

00:49:01.760 our political system

00:49:03.660 through the lens

00:49:04.460 of national conservatism.

00:49:06.220 What that means for me

00:49:07.160 is what I think it means

00:49:08.600 for most people here.

00:49:09.880 Getting back

00:49:10.580 to our Canadian identity

00:49:11.680 our Canadian symbols.

00:49:13.220 Stop tearing down

00:49:14.280 the statues.

00:49:15.580 Rebuild our Canadian military

00:49:16.880 with pride and purpose.

00:49:20.440 Shut down mass immigration. 0.69

00:49:22.920 Get away from woke

00:49:24.400 critical race theory.

00:49:27.040 I understand that

00:49:28.400 just because the GDP numbers

00:49:29.980 go up

00:49:30.420 doesn't mean that

00:49:31.400 the well-being of individuals

00:49:32.620 goes up.

00:49:33.780 There's quality of life issues

00:49:35.080 not just quantity of life.

00:49:36.360 I think that's

00:49:37.840 the national conservative

00:49:39.320 ideology.

00:49:40.960 On behalf of Rebel News

00:49:42.720 from here in Washington D.C.

00:49:44.260 to you at home

00:49:44.860 good night

00:49:45.300 and keep fighting for freedom.

00:49:48.020 Keep fighting for freedom!

00:49:50.920 Shame on you 0.77

00:49:51.980 you censorious bug!

00:49:54.060 What happens to you

00:49:55.380 you.

00:50:12.240 What happens to you

00:50:12.580 you?

00:50:12.820 What happens to you

00:50:12.900 you?

00:50:13.080 To see you

00:50:13.460 you?

00:50:13.480 What happens to you

00:50:14.220 you?

Rebel News Podcast - July 10, 2024

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Immigration, nationalism, and the future of the conservative movement

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