The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - Makerfield Debriefing

00:00:00.000 Hi folks, welcome to this fairly impromptu conversation that we're going to have

00:00:03.280 about a kind of decompression after Makefield because it was an intense month leading up to

00:00:09.480 it. I'm joined by Charlie Downs and Conor Tomlinson. And yeah, well, so what do we think

00:00:14.560 of the result overall then, Jams? Well, I do need a decompression after that period because it was

00:00:19.160 intense. It was very enjoyable though. And on the whole, I was very happy with the result,

00:00:23.140 as was the rest of the team, 7% from a standing start with no campaigning infrastructure in the

00:00:27.600 constituency at the beginning of the by-election is a very good result. I was a bit more pessimistic

00:00:34.700 about it. Again, I feel a slightly difficult position because, you know, guys at the top

00:00:38.240 party brass base, the groomsmen at my wedding. Cheers for that. But I do think that if a stronger

00:00:42.900 candidate had been selected, you probably would eat over 10%. Maybe so. I mean, Rebecca was a good

00:00:47.940 candidate. She was a local lass, very good on the doors, very good with the people. It was the case 0.89

00:00:52.380 this was a national by-election run primarily on national issues so you know that maybe should

00:00:58.240 have been more of a consideration but again I think on the whole Rebecca did play a fairly

00:01:03.200 significant part in the result that we ended up getting just purely because of how she came across

00:01:08.420 to the thousands of people that she spoke to. I do think that people are learning the wrong

00:01:13.040 lessons all around so it's not a national barometer like Burnham was uniquely popular

00:01:19.000 in the north and people were using Burnham to get rid of Starmer and rescue the Labour

00:01:25.900 party, which is a brand that they affectively identify with.

00:01:31.260 You know, my dad voted Labour, my granddad voted Labour, I've got to vote Labour.

00:01:34.360 So I don't think he'll have the same success on the national stage, especially when the

00:01:39.060 system continues to produce the same outcomes and Burnham will just be a different salesman

00:01:43.860 than Starmer for the horrible products of that system.

00:01:46.620 But I think reform were almost, even they didn't want you guys to get more. Reform were almost hoping you did in order to pin Burnham on you. And what reform now have to do, and I think you sense a tiny bit of that in Farage's post-election video, that he was still trying to make a sales pitch saying to restore voters, what do you want?

00:02:07.220 you know not recycled Tories but which was he was hoping that you would have split the difference

00:02:12.080 enough to blame it on you rather than have to turn around and say why can't reform win by

00:02:16.600 elections because they've they underperformed in poachers by election eking it out by only six

00:02:21.220 votes matt goodwin's campaign and got on a dentum was a disaster and then not only did they fail to

00:02:26.780 mount a you know a sufficient defense of rob kenyon's bawdy jokes online which i don't think

00:02:31.400 he should have been crucified for um but they ran a purely negative campaign whereas burnham ran a

00:02:35.300 very positive campaign and swept it and well the assumption underpinning reform's complaint about

00:02:41.300 us is that we are uh stealing stealing voters from them who would ordinarily vote for reform

00:02:47.400 and what we're finding with our support is that sure there are plenty of people that have come

00:02:51.540 from reform to vote for us but that's because they view us as being what reform should be

00:02:55.840 you know we are the authentic version of what reform uh sold themselves as certainly in the

00:03:01.220 2024 general election, for example, because we are promising the things that the majority of

00:03:07.080 people, a great many people, view as being the most pressing issues of our time, such as demographic

00:03:11.780 security, mass deportations of illegal migrants, and a recognition of the fact that British identity

00:03:17.100 is more than just values and paperwork. These are all issues that reform have backtracked on.

00:03:22.880 And so for reform to stand there and say that they are owed those people's votes,

00:03:26.860 I think they should basically look in the mirror and ask why they've lost them in the first place,

00:03:30.360 which is to say nothing of the people who haven't voted for 20 years who are coming out in support

00:03:34.480 of us, which is another significant kind of constituency that we are activating. Why is it

00:03:38.940 that reform can't activate that constituency? And I would suggest, as you said, Connor, that it's

00:03:42.880 because those people view the figure of Farage and the people that they brought in, especially

00:03:48.420 from the Conservative Party, as just being more of the same. I mean, there was the giveaway line

00:03:53.380 in Nigel Farage's video. We are the challenger party to the left. No, no, you're not. You are

00:03:59.700 a used car salesman of the right which is why you had to appeal to those thousands of people

00:04:04.820 in makefield what do you want well i would like some authenticity actually i want someone who

00:04:09.540 doesn't come across as if he's trying to sell me a vehicle that's had its mileage wham back

00:04:16.100 by a few thousand miles you know um the this is this has always been a problem with farage's

00:04:23.160 persona of the jack the lad it's fundamentally doesn't come across very serious i mean you say

00:04:28.780 they underperformed in a bunch of areas they also underperformed at the local elections and they

00:04:32.480 underperformed in makefield as again faraj said he he expected 18 000 votes they got 16 000 uh well

00:04:38.740 okay we'll explain the 3 000 that went over to restore then but also their vote share declined

00:04:44.320 as a percentage share from the local elections by about 16 yes and i i think really that your

00:04:49.940 i think your point about makefield not being a bellwether is the most important one that people

00:04:54.940 need to take away because i think that on the right we have trouble putting ourselves in the

00:05:00.340 frame of someone who is on the left or at least i'm not even sure if left and right is is correct

00:05:05.060 way to form it well i was going to say that i mean the fact that fraud frames it in terms of

00:05:08.080 taking on the left i mean most people don't care about these terms and plenty by the way plenty of

00:05:12.340 our voters i think at some point or another would have you know described themselves as being left

00:05:16.420 wing because they have this old school idea of what that means yeah because i mean what like the

00:05:21.060 the old school labor voters aren't what i would consider to be left-wing right in the modern

00:05:25.280 full spectrum sense because i mean there's the the amazing uh sort of 4chan green text that goes

00:05:30.000 around and says look you can repudiate any economic position you want you can hold any

00:05:35.380 theory on the state or anything like that but the second you repudiate trans rights you're no longer 0.76

00:05:40.900 left-wing it's like right okay that's what left-wing really is then right and that's the 0.61

00:05:44.780 sort of socially conservative blue labor morris glassman types who populate the north you know

00:05:49.480 what they expect is economic fairness from the imperial center in london they understand that

00:05:55.460 they do the hard work in the industrial north and they want just recompense they want compensation

00:06:01.980 for that and i think that's quite understandable and i think this is why essentially makefield

00:06:05.520 i'm not even sure if the right had a path to power here because this andy burnham's pitch was

00:06:11.500 basically we're going to restore the labor party well it's interesting his slogan was for us yes

00:06:15.760 on his uh on his uh billboards and everything and i always think that only makes sense when you say

00:06:21.440 it in a northern accent that that's like i mean because it's because that's what he's saying he's

00:06:25.400 saying it's so that we people of the north have some representation yeah and this this is what

00:06:29.940 restore britain is to people like me where it's like well i want some representation as well

00:06:33.480 and so andy burnham was actually taking a very deeply conservative approach to his campaign

00:06:38.540 with northern voters he was saying look i'm here to because i the the the premise being the the

00:06:44.660 Labour Party has been captured by the Human Rights Lobby, what the left calls the Labour

00:06:49.320 Right, the sort of human rights technocrats. And I want to return it to being the party of 0.66

00:06:55.780 patronage for the Working North and Wales and places like that, right? Because this is something

00:07:01.560 that ancestrally, as you were pointing out, this is what they'd always relied on. This was their

00:07:06.400 kind of like a Pokemon or something. Like, this is the thing we send out to fight the powers that

00:07:12.980 be and make sure that we get a fair deal they're the ambassadors for their region and their sort

00:07:17.340 of and it's the same kind of almost like ethnic patronage that we see in like the greens i was

00:07:23.020 going to say the same thing it's essentially the northern version of the liberal democrats

00:07:26.260 or the northern version of the greens yes or the northern version of like you know the muslim

00:07:29.800 independence or whatever like that and i think a lot of them genuinely feel a nostalgia for a time

00:07:36.880 when the labor party was genuinely on their side right when they felt the labor party was their

00:07:41.000 party and they could trust the Labour party to give them a good deal out of things and so I think

00:07:45.260 Andy Burnham's the scale of Andy Burnham's win came as a surprise to everyone but in retrospect

00:07:49.680 if you look at the the campaign that he'd run and what he was offering again very like a return to

00:07:56.020 tradition campaign actually it's not surprising that he won because he was running the right

00:08:00.460 wing campaign that Farage's entirely negative campaign like what was Farage's campaign slogan

00:08:05.120 I couldn't tell I mean it was get Starmer out at the locals which they've now done to block Burnham

00:08:09.220 Exactly.

00:08:09.700 Which was the only way to get rid of Starmer.

00:08:11.340 But Burnham isn't like Sauron or something, you know,

00:08:14.540 Keir Starmer is Sauron,

00:08:15.900 and you'd already run on the vote reform, get Starmer out.

00:08:19.080 Well, he was like, yeah, but I can actually get Starmer out.

00:08:21.040 And look what happened today.

00:08:22.620 Burnham has actually delivered on that.

00:08:24.640 So this was a deeply, like,

00:08:26.340 Burnham's currently going through his own Lord of the Rings narrative, right?

00:08:29.460 He has literally gone to them as the hobbits and said,

00:08:32.800 look, you have to back me and I will take the ring to Mordor

00:08:36.860 and we will topple Sauron.

00:08:38.460 and he is currently on that hero's journey right now it's just that we don't think in the same

00:08:43.420 terms but i think this is persuade i think northerners are thinking these terms and that's

00:08:47.400 why when he said look they i kept getting this on the doorstep this is your last chance like you if

00:08:52.540 you don't do this and you sell us out that's it we'll never vote for labor again well he's and i

00:08:57.120 think he genuinely believes it i think he genuinely believes well it was fascinating because uh on

00:09:01.240 many of the doors sure there were people saying oh i'm split between you and reform and i'm worried

00:09:04.720 about splitting the vote and all the rest of it but there were also plenty of people who said

00:09:07.640 i'm split between you and labor because you know they feel they sense that there was something

00:09:12.380 possibly uniting the two that there was a you know they represented a similar sort of tendency

00:09:16.740 within the you know the british soul at this moment um and that is a desire for some kind

00:09:22.060 of restoration but bizarrely a burnham was able to present himself in that way you know well but

00:09:27.160 burnham's got the history and credentials in that the area to be able to easily win that narrative

00:09:32.820 but basically restore and burnham were presenting the same narrative to the people of makefield

00:09:36.740 which I found fascinating, but Conny, go on.

00:09:38.420 Well, I was going to say, if we're looking at this in terms of client groups,

00:09:42.440 which most politicians do, I think reform are worried at the moment.

00:09:47.760 Yes, by restore nipping at their heels on their rightward flank,

00:09:52.060 but because Burnham represents a falling back into old habits

00:10:00.140 in tribal loyalties to Labour of the northern working class,

00:10:04.280 because reform essentially has three core constituencies

00:10:06.900 that it's banking on to deliver them a majority.

00:10:09.300 And that is Essex, the North, and pensioners.

00:10:11.520 And if you look at the graphs,

00:10:13.180 I think, low though I am to cite them,

00:10:15.480 the graphs that the Spectator posted,

00:10:16.960 because this morning Keir Starmer resigned.

00:10:18.820 So another thing to throw into the mix.

00:10:21.440 The main point that his polling started to dip

00:10:24.300 below subterranean levels

00:10:26.080 was actually the cancellation of winter fuel payments. 0.82

00:10:29.360 If you estrange the pensioners,

00:10:31.280 this is the calculation reforms clearly made with its triple lock,

00:10:33.240 even though it can't be funded.

00:10:34.620 It's destroying the prospects of the young.

00:10:37.100 Many pensioners realise this.

00:10:38.420 But what they've guaranteed is

00:10:39.540 if you annoy Simon and Linda, you lose.

00:10:42.000 And so Reform have locked up the pensioners.

00:10:44.660 They have locked up Essex

00:10:45.620 and confiscated it from the Tories 0.94

00:10:46.780 because they are a very Dino-coded party.

00:10:49.900 Like, they've got football shirts, for God's sake.

00:10:51.340 And the Conservatives decided to put Kemi Badenok, 0.99

00:10:54.340 first-generation Nigerian anchor baby, in place.

00:10:56.480 And weirdly enough, the Love Island viewers

00:10:58.660 aren't so keen on that one. 0.55

00:11:00.480 And then they were banking on the white working class

00:11:02.860 in the North, and they have consecutively estranged them

00:11:06.880 by either their inconsistent economic policies.

00:11:09.400 I also don't think having Jemrick as their economic spokesman

00:11:11.520 is going to win over many people in the North,

00:11:12.660 not just because he presents as a Tory, but because his...

00:11:15.800 I wonder why he presents as a Tory.

00:11:17.160 Well, there you go.

00:11:18.060 But his economic philosophy clearly codes establishment,

00:11:22.580 and establishment is synonymous with Thatcherism, Blairism.

00:11:25.980 Well, it's the sort of thing that's signed off by George Osborne,

00:11:27.860 who cried at Thatcher's funeral.

00:11:29.560 Quite.

00:11:29.780 Right. Whereas Burnham can credibly turn around and say, even though he was a Blairite, a Brownite, a Corbynite, and now...

00:11:36.360 A Stammerite.

00:11:36.980 Yes. He can turn around and say, the legacy of neoliberal economics and Thatcher closing the mines has deracinated our communities, therefore I'm going to be your advocate.

00:11:44.600 If they lose the white working class in the North, they lose overall. 0.88

00:11:47.360 Yeah.

00:11:47.800 And so I think they're probably panicked about the prospect of Burnham over time bribing that constituency with infrastructure projects.

00:11:56.120 Obviously, Manchesterism is unaffordable,

00:11:57.740 but Burnham might just make the calculation,

00:11:59.160 well, I'll leave this fiscal time bomb for the next government

00:12:00.940 even if I get voted out.

00:12:02.280 And so that's why I think they're already calling

00:12:05.560 for a general election this morning,

00:12:06.980 is because their calculation is,

00:12:08.560 okay, Burnham won't have enough time to bribe the electorate,

00:12:10.680 the Tories are in total disarray,

00:12:12.460 their surrogates like Jacob Rees-Mogg won't have time

00:12:14.260 to advocate for our guys to factor a post-election coalition

00:12:18.800 into their risk management calculations,

00:12:20.580 which means that you start prepping your policy for a coalition,

00:12:22.960 which is what they want.

00:12:24.440 The Lib Dems are basically a national non-entity.

00:12:26.940 The Greens don't have demographics on our side.

00:12:28.860 And we still aren't ready for a government yet, even though we aren't ready for a government.

00:12:32.800 You know, we're a bit further down the road with third institutions and pre-drafted legislation and a few candidates.

00:12:36.980 So they're kind of hoping that Burnham makes the faux pas of calling a snap election

00:12:41.980 because he needs a new mandate to govern, a new manifesto in order to borrow for his spending plans,

00:12:47.400 because they just don't want to lose the North.

00:12:49.360 And they're reading it as a national.

00:12:50.740 But also, I think you're right.

00:12:51.940 I don't think reform can hold the North, right?

00:12:55.460 Because I think that what happens with Makefield could happen elsewhere

00:12:59.500 is that essentially Burnham outflanks reform from the right.

00:13:02.700 He says, no, I'm going to give you patriotism

00:13:05.460 in a way that we Southerners don't really understand Northern patriotism.

00:13:10.600 Andy Burnham lent very much in there, again, the language of the familiar,

00:13:14.180 the local, the personal for us, right?

00:13:17.040 He recognizes that actually he can put himself as the Hobbits versus Mordor and lean into that right-wing patriotism through left-wing economics.

00:13:27.900 And what's Farage going to do about it?

00:13:29.360 He can't sell Thatcherism in the North.

00:13:31.580 He can only sell the negative campaign.

00:13:34.920 Oh, keep Andy Burnham out.

00:13:36.280 Well, I mean, to a lot of, I mean, to a lot of, more than half of Makefield, Andy Burnham looks like a savior.

00:13:41.600 He looks like a hero.

00:13:42.600 You can't say, keep your hero out.

00:13:44.280 no no no you failed to read the situation and the relationship that those people have with the

00:13:49.620 Labour Party and it was Keir Starmer breaking that relationship and previous Labour leaders

00:13:53.840 breaking that relationship that is the problem and so having this entirely negative campaign

00:13:58.580 like you said what was the campaign slogan Mayfield I actually don't know I was just googling it

00:14:03.040 before and I just it was just as far as I could tell keep burn them out so why didn't you have a

00:14:08.100 snappy slogan you you know make make her feel great again or something I don't know whatever it is

00:14:12.920 but you don't have a positive vision and that was of course the problem with gordon and denton

00:14:16.060 that's been the problem i mean literally with the the um local elections was vote reform get

00:14:21.460 starmer out it's just we just we just don't like that guy okay but what are you for and at this

00:14:25.360 point nobody knows it does make me laugh that various reform figures this morning were kind of

00:14:29.700 uh reposting the get starmer out graphic saying yeah so he promises made yeah it's just like you

00:14:35.940 know it's so funny there were loads of grain teller and james all both posted as well it's

00:14:39.240 like really you're taking credit for this are you but i do i do think this whole burnham kind of

00:14:43.500 phenomenon is it's interesting because it does speak to the fact that there is something like

00:14:47.640 a kind of package of ideas that the majority of people in the country could get behind but all

00:14:52.280 the various different forces on the landscape are only getting at certain aspects of it like

00:14:56.320 burnham might be getting at the kind of uh i suppose what you could call the left-wing aspect

00:15:00.160 of it the kind of the economic side of it um but he does bring with that a kind of certain you know

00:15:04.980 he wears someone described him as starmer in jeans right so he does have that kind of earthy

00:15:09.040 kind of homely kind of thing about him uh but he is still ultimately you know an establishment shill

00:15:13.720 a globalist and and all the rest of it uh and plenty of people know that but plenty of people

00:15:17.900 don't uh and so my view is that restore basically has to be the party that presents the british

00:15:23.080 people with the full package like yes you've got the the patriotism the mass deportations the

00:15:28.100 securing the demographic future of the country but you also have to recognize that plenty of people

00:15:32.740 and not up for more kind of neoliberal economics,

00:15:35.880 more Thatcherism and all the rest of it.

00:15:37.620 And this is obviously, we're a young party.

00:15:39.200 This is a conversation that is ongoing.

00:15:41.380 But it does seem to me that there is this kind of,

00:15:44.160 I don't want to say perfect kind of agenda,

00:15:46.800 but something close to that,

00:15:48.140 an agenda that will get, you know,

00:15:49.700 not just like reform voters, not just Labour voters,

00:15:52.380 not just Tory voters, but non-voters

00:15:55.220 and people from all parties together looking at it

00:15:58.200 and thinking, actually, that is something I can get behind.

00:15:59.900 There's been polling done that shows that the country is actually socially conservative, but economically left-wing.

00:16:07.640 And nobody occupies that space because no ideology can actually find a coherent and consistent platform in that location, which is ironic and probably quite disappointing for the average person in the country.

00:16:23.040 But I think we have a habit of kind of homogenizing the country when we think in terms of economics.

00:16:29.600 The South does not want Burnhamite socialism.

00:16:32.860 We are an entrepreneurial, honestly, petty bourgeois country in the South.

00:16:38.880 But in the North, they're not that, right?

00:16:40.580 They're not entrepreneurial.

00:16:41.900 They're the industrial heartlands where, for them, it was a lifelong commitment.

00:16:45.880 Oh, yeah, my grandfather mined the steel that was used in the ships that, you know, kept the British Empire winning everywhere.

00:16:53.880 We don't think like that in the South.

00:16:55.300 And so actually having a discrete plan for both sides might actually be more useful rather than saying, right, OK, look, it's that right neoliberalism or it's essentially Soviet burnimism.

00:17:07.000 You know, like I don't want either of those things.

00:17:09.180 This is the issue with reforms sales pitch, because all of their economic dynamism rests on the looking for growth, AI optimizations, drone factories, things like that.

00:17:22.840 And that plays pretty well, specifically in SW1, but it will play pretty well in the South.

00:17:27.640 And they are the technologies of the future, fine.

00:17:30.100 Of course, you know, there are business interests in Dubai that are linked to the party that are very interested in ensuring those are the things of the future.

00:17:36.240 But nevertheless, they might be prosperous and necessary to compete internationally.

00:17:39.660 However, when you have someone like Richard Tice supervising that industrial strategy, that energy security, that sovereign wealth fund,

00:17:45.960 then how's he going to go up to a northern town and say, well, we're going to attract this incredible investment company.

00:17:52.020 There's going to be AI stations.

00:17:54.040 Your average northern voter is just going to look at him like,

00:17:56.320 but that's not my grandfather's industry.

00:17:57.800 And they've only made slight rhetorical overtures to steel

00:18:01.420 when there was that nationalization debate under Starmer.

00:18:03.500 You need to make more of that.

00:18:05.240 You need to be talking more about...

00:18:07.040 They've promised to scrap net zero.

00:18:08.320 They've promised to revoke the Climate Change Act.

00:18:11.000 Fine.

00:18:11.600 Talk about the kinds of energy generation industry

00:18:13.940 that you're going to be developing in the north.

00:18:15.540 Talk about the kinds of steel and shipbuilding,

00:18:18.640 the kinds of rearmament industries.

00:18:20.600 that actually, to be fair, to his credit,

00:18:22.860 Farage can absolutely talk about

00:18:23.720 because he's got a comprehensive knowledge

00:18:26.040 of military history and that.

00:18:27.580 It's very strange that they aren't making that pitch.

00:18:30.040 And I think it's because, as you said,

00:18:32.000 they've either homogenized the country

00:18:33.180 or the people that they've got

00:18:35.060 on their sort of economics team

00:18:36.520 aren't thinking about regional sales pitches.

00:18:38.880 They're just thinking about courting investment.

00:18:40.640 Because, I mean, like the one thing

00:18:42.720 that I've said this before,

00:18:43.720 and it drives me mad,

00:18:44.980 that the Southwest isn't a Brexit voting area

00:18:47.400 as anywhere else.

00:18:48.080 And yet we're ruled by the Lib Dems.

00:18:49.640 and it's because the lib dems are essentially a we're nice people and we're not going to get

00:18:55.160 involved in the way that you run your affairs it's like okay great because we always vote

00:18:58.640 conservative limb deb down here of course the conservatives have died off so it we're saddled

00:19:03.280 with the lib dems well okay give us a regional sales pitch which is we're going to cut business

00:19:07.620 rates or something so the local like farm owner or shop owner or whatever is oh great you know i'd

00:19:12.780 love to save some money and then for the southwest be like yeah this is going to be like our britain's

00:19:18.060 international, global, forward-facing, like outward, you know, with the City of London and

00:19:24.120 all the AI doodads and whatever. But then you go to the North and say, right, we're going to pick

00:19:30.100 up the right-wing narrative on why nationalization is good. Nationalization for xenophobic reasons.

00:19:36.160 Honestly, that's expressly the argument because you go, okay, why is the electricity? Why is the

00:19:40.900 rail? Why is the water? Why are these owned by foreign companies? And in fact, the rail itself

00:19:44.240 is owned by foreign governments like this isn't even a free market this is nonsense why are we 0.67

00:19:48.520 letting the chinese out compete us on steel no no no to protect british workers protect british 0.90

00:19:52.360 steel protect british industry protect british services and utilities nationalize because 1.00

00:19:57.800 foreigners right that's the argument that you can pitch to the north and suddenly you have

00:20:02.340 um the essentially you've got this sort of andy burnham argument from the right which is what

00:20:08.160 they want to hear an andy burnham argument no no we want the we want to know we're being looked

00:20:11.840 after but you're also arguing on free market principles as in these are natural monopolies

00:20:16.960 there is no capitalism when i'm getting on the train right the trains like for example you guys

00:20:21.600 got the train here you've got one train line you have not got any capitalism there there is no

00:20:26.120 competition you have absolutely no choice so the capitalist argument even the sort of like the

00:20:30.920 southeast londoners can understand that even from a capitalist lens these are not competitive

00:20:35.960 industries that we need to be talking about we need to be talking about from a national security

00:20:39.520 position and this is what if if there are you know great shockwaves russia invades somewhere or

00:20:44.460 whatever you know the straits of hormuz are closed whatever we need these things for national

00:20:48.800 security so you've got the right-wing argument for nationalization for protectionism for the north

00:20:53.760 but you keep the south open and free marketeer low tax you know like entrepreneurial and it is

00:21:00.980 all there i think you are absolutely i mean that that to me sounds like the economic agenda of the

00:21:05.160 future is you know basically i mean it's different names for it but something like economic nationalism

00:21:09.700 but it's kind of regionalism as well but it's it's obviously it's like you know what's good

00:21:13.200 for the region and what the people of the region actually look for well that's that's what happened

00:21:17.140 prior to globalization and empire because just just the ability to organize a nation when you

00:21:23.580 didn't have instant communications technology when when it would take days for the king's messages

00:21:27.920 to reach the feudal baron you had different regional cultures and cottage industries and

00:21:32.800 things like that and so you could almost um recover that way of doing things and revive

00:21:38.400 regional cultures through an economic agenda that allowed for that different specification

00:21:42.260 and as you said like it could be a national security issue so it's not just about energy

00:21:46.040 and manufacturing um repatriation but for example anticipating some tumult in the south china sea

00:21:53.240 and taiwan going belly up shouldn't we have our own even marginal like ship manufacturing capacity

00:21:59.100 Well, forgetting anything that advanced,

00:22:00.520 I mean, 80% of our key prescription pharmaceuticals

00:22:03.140 come from China and India.

00:22:04.320 Is that a good idea?

00:22:05.180 And there's loads in Israel as well,

00:22:06.260 which is, of course, not oil.

00:22:08.940 Steel, energy, food as well.

00:22:10.420 40% of our food we import.

00:22:11.760 I mean, how is that sustainable?

00:22:12.880 And most people are at some level aware of this.

00:22:16.220 And I think it's a very hard argument to make against as well.

00:22:19.420 It's like the arguments for globalisation

00:22:22.060 have clearly withered on the vine,

00:22:23.800 and the world has changed around them,

00:22:25.040 and they haven't changed.

00:22:25.780 So I think we can easily win those arguments.

00:22:27.260 And so you can out-burn and burn them from the right, because ultimately, I think he will find himself in a weaker position because of his sort of universalist left-wing tendencies.

00:22:36.940 Well, every other party of them, I would assume you guys, they see globalization and trade as a means of international diplomacy with countries we actually don't like very much. 0.97

00:22:49.120 Like the Indians are demographically gerrymandering our country. 1.00

00:22:52.060 They call it the Living Bridges Program. 0.98

00:22:54.080 And yet, Stalin signed a new trade deal with India that, of course, has loads of visas attached to it.

00:22:58.400 And then when Faraj went to the World Economic Forum, which could have been a really smart move to basically go to the globalist home and tell them what for,

00:23:04.380 he sat down and said we've abandoned india we've ignored it and i've heard behind the scenes from

00:23:10.100 reform surrogates that i've spoken to trying to talk to their rationale about that they said look

00:23:13.260 we get loads of our silks from india we get loads of exports from india and in order to keep getting

00:23:17.660 these products we have to accept at least an amount of indian immigration and okay well as if

00:23:22.900 indians are going to refuse money of course they're not going to refuse money exactly and

00:23:26.800 like restore have already said okay we're putting india on the red list we don't really care about 0.78

00:23:30.960 So I think you would be able to outflank any other party on the grounds of economic protection and prioritizing people's interests by just saying, sorry, we're not going to trade away our domestic industries just to keep another country happy that wants to send loads of its foreign nationals over to us anyway.

00:23:47.140 I think it's also about just literally doing what works.

00:23:49.980 It shouldn't be that complicated, but it's obvious that markets and competition are amazing engines for innovation and efficiency.

00:23:57.100 And you shouldn't have a kind of dogmatic view that, oh, free market capitalism is acidic and awful wherever it takes place, as the left do.

00:24:03.160 Or it's just an unvarnished bounty wherever.

00:24:06.360 But equally, that's what I was going to say.

00:24:07.720 But equally, it's not a good thing everywhere either, because mass immigration is one kind of function of free market capitalism, in my view.

00:24:15.320 And so, you know, a free market economy

00:24:17.560 within the bounds of the national interest

00:24:19.180 is my view on what we need.

00:24:20.560 And then when the free market activity

00:24:22.560 goes beyond those bounds,

00:24:23.880 that's when you say, that's where you stop.

00:24:25.660 Query is obviously as someone who's like

00:24:27.380 friendly to the project,

00:24:28.560 but, you know, regional organizer, spokesman.

00:24:31.680 So I'm just encouraging things.

00:24:34.200 But is there not a tension

00:24:36.660 between the philosophy we're discussing now

00:24:38.900 and the affinity that Rupert has

00:24:41.500 for Ayn Rand and Thatcher?

00:24:43.320 I mean, he's of the generation, the cause of Mrs. Thatcher. He does extol the virtues of that kind of free market entrepreneurialism in less regional, particular or Anglo ways and almost more ideological ways.

00:24:56.280 Is there a tension there? Has this been discussed?

00:24:58.180 I would say a tension is probably too strong a way of putting it. I mean, there's, you know, spirited debate within the party about all matters, including economics.

00:25:05.700 It's certainly the case that Rupert belongs to a generation of men who view Thatcher and her ideas as being only a good thing, you know, the saviour of the country.

00:25:15.020 I and those my kind of age within the party don't share that view.

00:25:19.840 I mean, it's obvious to me that what Thatcher did at that time was in certain respects necessary.

00:25:24.540 But now it's obvious that the consequences of that have been equally terrible. 1.00

00:25:28.180 You know, the condition of certain northern towns, for example, post-industrial Britain that has just been for some reason also flooded with migrants. 1.00

00:25:35.240 You know, you go to these towns and it's just bleak. So the idea that you reheated Thatcherism, you know, Thatcherism for the 21st century is what we need. I don't agree with that. And I think if you spoke to Rupert, his view would be a lot more nuanced than just Thatcherism again. Like he's very open to the idea of nationalization of key sectors. We've got an economics paper, policy paper coming out in the very near future where we do outline our economic agenda. And it does, in my view, take the best from both worlds, as I was just describing. 0.98

00:26:02.180 We take the best of free market capitalism and the growth, you know, growth, I hate that word.

00:26:06.220 It's so like establishment.

00:26:07.480 It's very cliche, isn't it?

00:26:08.620 Yeah.

00:26:09.320 But the efficiency, the innovation that free market capitalism can deliver when it's situated properly,

00:26:14.800 but also the security that a more kind of nationalist, you know, perspective, protectionist perspective can also bring.

00:26:22.900 And that's the, I mean, that's the beauty of it.

00:26:24.480 Because we are not operating within the bounds of the establishment left and right,

00:26:29.380 we can actually just take what's good from our sides.

00:26:32.440 I think Conor does raise a valid point, though.

00:26:34.660 I think what you're arguing or questioning

00:26:37.240 is how ideologically bounded is Rupert.

00:26:41.580 Because in a way, I don't think it's entirely his fault,

00:26:45.700 because remember, at his age,

00:26:47.640 he grew up and was an adult all through the Cold War.

00:26:50.840 The Cold War is a deeply ideological conflict.

00:26:53.200 Economics were the question of the time, yeah.

00:26:54.960 No, no, it's not just economics, though.

00:26:57.220 The economics are deeply informed by an ideological perspective. And the question is, which ideology is correct? Which ideology gets us to the end of history? It turned out it was capitalism, which was, okay, great, but I actually don't want to be at the end of history. You know, the whole premise was false to begin with.

00:27:13.360 um but from this perspective you can see why rupert lowe's um view on thatcherism neoliberalism

00:27:22.000 and ayn rand actually is more of a reflection of the average englishman's instinct as in let me

00:27:30.360 just run my business because he of course owns a family business as well so let me just run my

00:27:35.100 business charge me minimal tax and don't get involved with regulation or anything like that

00:27:38.800 and i'll do a good job of it that that really is what the um the theorists the austrian theorists

00:27:43.900 were abstracting out of anyway in to form the ideology and in a deeply ideological age like

00:27:50.720 the 80s um you needed an ideology to be able to argue your case but i do i do agree with you that

00:27:55.900 time has passed and actually taking the best of both worlds is a good thing but why not i mean

00:28:01.640 we shouldn't restrict ourselves to just being capitalists or whatever and rupert does i mean

00:28:06.080 Obviously, you'd have to speak to Rupert if you want to understand his view of things.

00:28:08.820 I'm not going to speak on his behalf, but I can speak on the party's behalf.

00:28:11.740 And our view, certainly my view, is that there's no reason to restrict ourselves to just being capitalists or just being socialists and all that sort of thing.

00:28:19.040 Because I think there's good and bad in both of those things.

00:28:21.320 And taking the good out of them just makes perfect sense for a time of unprecedented global volatility where we do have to be self-sufficient, where we do have to be looking after ourselves, looking out for ourselves, looking out for our people.

00:28:31.980 not one selling them off you know selling off their jobs you know uh offshoring their jobs

00:28:37.240 offshoring our industries and indeed also bringing in cheap labor to undercut them at home that's

00:28:44.300 obviously a terrible thing to do equally it would be a terrible thing to have the state own every

00:28:48.560 aspect of the country that's equally disastrous but there is there is an in-between between those

00:28:52.920 two things and and the and this weirdly enough is another one of Andy Burnham's strengths

00:28:57.000 is everyone's trying to go what's his ideology and as you made the joke you know a Blairite

00:29:02.540 Brownite and now a Starmerite walk into a bar and it was like oh hello Andy that's actually to a

00:29:06.860 strength and I don't know why people don't understand that Andy Burnham being pragmatic

00:29:10.700 and flexible is actually going to help him win and do well at whatever he does because he can

00:29:17.500 just respond say okay we won't do more of that then because that was a mistake we'll do this

00:29:21.680 we'll try that and you know very trial and error sort of pragmatic approach but it means he can

00:29:27.440 respond to events as they occur and i definitely think that restore britain should take that i

00:29:32.180 think what's interesting as well is it you begin with like who is you talked earlier about the

00:29:36.640 client groups like who is the constituency that you're seeking to serve and with burnham again

00:29:41.260 the kind of right wing aspect of his agenda is it's for us yeah that is that is a kind of

00:29:45.880 deeply nativist yeah it's a kind of nationalist kind of view it's explicitly yeah um but but

00:29:51.380 equally if you if your starting point for a national economic agenda is for us which is

00:29:58.080 which is restores view you know britain first that's of you on every area of policy then that

00:30:02.680 does mean you come out with solutions that are not easily categorized as left or right or capitalist

00:30:07.160 or socialist but it's pragmatic moreover what the the way i think restore britain can outflank

00:30:12.820 Andy Burnham on this, on the sort of nativism, is that Andy Burnham is pitching the North against

00:30:19.140 the South. He's saying, I'm going to go and fight the South, the neoliberal view of the South,

00:30:24.360 on behalf of the North. It's like, okay, but I actually don't want a civil war in my country.

00:30:28.260 I'd like a reasonable dispensation, right? It is true that in the South, we do not want high tax

00:30:34.320 overbearing government. And it is true in the North that you want security from the predations

00:30:39.780 of rampant capitalism. There is an accommodation to be made here that serves both interests.

00:30:45.620 And actually, like I was saying, the non-competition argument will smooth it over with the South.

00:30:53.060 I think you can win the South over by saying, look, the steel is not a competition argument

00:30:57.840 anymore. Now it's a national security argument. There's no free market to be had when China's

00:31:01.840 sending over slave steel made by peasants who are producing absolute crap and whatnot. No, 0.99

00:31:07.560 know that's not safe for us it's not good it doesn't work and then the market con no competition

00:31:12.700 with the trains and things like that i think this is all completely winnable but it also doesn't pit

00:31:16.000 the country against itself it it is a positive message because under in in andy's message i'm

00:31:21.680 not sure he'll ever win over the south i really don't think he will i'm sure that he's a perfectly

00:31:26.220 nice guy and i'm sure he's very popular in the north but i i look covered up grooming gang so

00:31:30.540 not that nice yes well yeah okay but which one didn't you know they all bloody did that um but

00:31:37.000 the that's not what the focus of the conversation will be and i'm just thinking about people like

00:31:40.980 my dad or my my wife's dad you know what what are they thinking you know they're men of the southwest

00:31:45.780 what are they thinking about andy burnham they just think he's a communist right and it's just

00:31:50.100 like well he's not a communist but they they don't want to hear it you know he's just a big government

00:31:55.320 gonna get in your face gonna get your taxes up and say okay no i don't want this so andy burnham

00:31:59.100 is really going to struggle winning those sorts of people over and they are just normal guys who

00:32:03.860 have worked their whole lives and just don't want to pay taxes.

00:32:06.540 And also if you are incapable of defining the us properly as one which feels like it's

00:32:12.560 prioritising the British people, their preferences and prejudices first and foremost, then in

00:32:18.000 crisis moments, because if Barnum isn't in a hurry to call an election, decides he wants

00:32:23.040 to cling on for a bit, when the next inevitable Harry Novak murder or Southport happens, or

00:32:28.180 even the the recent uh attempted stabbings in edinburgh when these moments happens where

00:32:33.680 the febrile ethnic and religious tensions in this country come to a head you are forced to pick a

00:32:39.480 side and you if you're like starmer where you don't have that political agility that you're

00:32:44.940 attributing to burnham you will fall back on the rules and received rhetoric and declare the full

00:32:49.780 force of the law will be brought down on the far right which is an ideological moniker for

00:32:53.160 the english people white people yeah well it's the english the english people the british people

00:32:58.080 who refuse to have their identity liquidated into this new uk and who have the the audacity to grieve

00:33:04.200 a bunch of butchered girls who are one of their own taken by not one of their own and if this us

00:33:10.000 is either us plus or us including or um an us that seeks to reconstitute a national identity

00:33:18.600 without the nation itself,

00:33:19.940 which is what Wes Streeting basically said in his letter,

00:33:22.820 bowing down before Burnham,

00:33:24.460 saying that Burnham is the only person

00:33:26.180 that we can rely on in the fight of our lives

00:33:27.760 against nationalism, so against the British people.

00:33:29.800 If your us quite clearly in these crisis moments

00:33:32.440 does not put the British people first and foremost,

00:33:35.240 or is not exclusively the British people,

00:33:37.560 then you will be coded as an enemy, no matter what.

00:33:41.220 I don't think the right can rely on that.

00:33:44.320 Starmer's reaction,

00:33:45.320 I think that the final nail in the coffin for Starbuck was Southport.

00:33:51.560 It was utterly unrecoverable from that point onwards.

00:33:54.000 Everyone hated him because he literally just came out and said,

00:33:56.620 I'm against you because you're British.

00:33:58.600 Essentially, that's what everyone took from it.

00:34:01.240 Burnham won't do that.

00:34:02.200 I think he'll be more sympathetic in his speech,

00:34:03.820 but if the state responds in the same way,

00:34:05.540 like millions more security to mosques and things like that.

00:34:07.940 But it wasn't even that.

00:34:09.180 I think people would have quite easily accepted 0.78

00:34:11.540 millions more in security to mosques. 0.97

00:34:13.500 his problem was 24-hour courts full force of the law for you being white bridge that was the issue

00:34:18.220 burnham won't do that he's not a human rights lawyer that's not his natural instinct i actually

00:34:22.960 think that when a tragedy happens and it will under burnham actually he'll come out he'll look

00:34:27.020 haggard he'll look sad and he'll give actually i think quite a sympathetic speech where he says

00:34:31.580 look this is terrible i just like us to all calm down we're going to get the police to you know

00:34:36.700 arrest the bad guy make sure that you know we the the people in the hospitals are given the best

00:34:41.460 treatment we can get him he'll give quite a human speech and like um he was at the don't look like

00:34:46.460 an anger vigil for Manchester Arena yeah yeah exactly he's got experience doing this right

00:34:50.500 it's not he's he's not going to make himself hated in the way that Keir Starmer does so the

00:34:55.160 right definitely shouldn't rely on that um he'll you know go down to a negative opinion because

00:34:59.960 everyone has a negative opinion of every bloody politician but I it'll be on the economics that

00:35:05.200 he doesn't win over the south i think and but it counts likewise can be on the economics that

00:35:11.700 restore could win over the north um you've just got to make sure that you can present like

00:35:16.140 a whole of country approach rather than just oh we're going to use the north to attack the south

00:35:21.780 yeah well i mean i agree and as i said our paper is coming out very soon on this i look forward to

00:35:26.480 yeah no it should be good i've glanced over the first draft and it is very strong um i mean my

00:35:32.180 view is that we have to have a completely new uh framework for thinking about economics in the

00:35:36.320 21st century because the whole capitalism versus socialism thing it's a cold war you know holdover

00:35:41.260 that's not really relevant anymore it's anachronistic yeah because you know for example

00:35:44.540 like the nhs as an example i get flack for this for sometimes like the nhs in its current form

00:35:49.200 obviously needs to be basically torn down and rebuilt from the ground up but the nhs as a

00:35:53.320 concept everybody paying into a pot so that when one of us is ill we can take out and not go

00:35:57.180 homeless perfectly logical in my view and a policy of any self-respecting country does that

00:36:01.520 make me a socialist? Obviously not. Equally, state ownership or at least state involvement in certain

00:36:06.720 key strategic sectors like energy, like steel, like medicine, like food for that matter, all of

00:36:11.880 these things that without we die as a nation, perfectly logical. Equally, do we want to fall

00:36:18.580 behind when it comes to our ability to solve problems? No, definitely not. And especially

00:36:24.000 the new problems that the 21st century is going to present. So we do want to be a place where

00:36:29.120 innovation can happen, where those who are entrepreneurial and risk-taking are able to

00:36:35.340 take risks. And if those risks pay off, be rewarded for them. You know, that combination

00:36:40.660 is a winner, in my view. And again, restricting ourselves to these old frameworks is a mistake.

00:36:46.840 And I think that goes not just for economics, but for every other area. I mean, our de facto

00:36:51.100 slogan right now, and we ran a nationwide billboard campaign on this, as you know, one of them was

00:36:55.360 Swindon is a party that will put the British people first and that is our central principle

00:36:59.940 anything that benefits the British people defined as the indigenous people of these isles 0.99

00:37:03.820 is what we will do good that's what I like to see I mean weirdly enough the sort of the economic

00:37:10.420 situation sort of between John Major and Tony Blair is actually what it sounds like you're

00:37:15.860 describing you know we have the NHS we had all of these things and yet we didn't have an insane

00:37:22.360 overbearing tax burden so if we can just try and you know rein those things in but go on con what's

00:37:28.740 with the expression well demographics are different yes exactly and if we're going back

00:37:34.680 to the conversation about which demographics you're seeking to win over as your reliable

00:37:39.540 electoral factions um saying that you're going to do something to the triple lock or saying you're

00:37:45.680 going to restructure the nhs no matter how efficient that might be and i would agree you

00:37:49.720 You know, it's completely unfundable.

00:37:50.980 It's a fiscal black hole.

00:37:52.440 And with two kids on the way,

00:37:54.580 I just can't tell you how many bad experiences we've already had.

00:37:57.020 They missed a baby the first time.

00:37:58.860 So, you know, completely incompetent.

00:38:00.880 Nevertheless, the moment you say we're going to restructure the NHS, 0.78

00:38:04.400 or in your own words, we're going to tear it to the ground

00:38:07.200 and rebuild it from the ground up, 0.50

00:38:08.300 you will do the pensioner equivalent of host scaring. 0.88

00:38:12.720 Well, potentially, I mean, on the triple lock, you know, 1.00

00:38:14.780 it is our policy to essentially get rid of it

00:38:17.100 because it's completely unsustainable.

00:38:18.520 And it's screwing over the youth of this country. We're confident, to be totally frank, that we've made the calculation.

00:38:25.840 Yes, pensioners and those over the age of 60 tend to vote in far greater numbers than those who are under the age of 30.

00:38:32.600 But there is an increasing politicization of young people.

00:38:35.600 Many of them are going to the Green Party, obviously, because they're looking at the Green Party as being the only kind of radical option

00:38:40.680 that doesn't kind of trip their, you know,

00:38:43.600 sort of state indoctrinated minds

00:38:45.880 about things like racism and sexism and all the rest of it.

00:38:49.760 But they do, you know, the Green Party presents themselves

00:38:52.160 as being radicals when they are, in fact,

00:38:54.040 you know, more of the same on steroids.

00:38:56.440 But I'm confident and we're confident

00:38:58.120 that if the youth of Britain are presented with a party

00:39:01.360 that is explicitly going to put their interests first,

00:39:04.060 which is going to do things which make their lot better,

00:39:06.600 I'm pretty confident that we're going to be able

00:39:08.340 to convince a huge number of people

00:39:09.560 And again, losing the pensioners, I think, is an overstatement, because I think a great many pensioners will recognise that actually maybe it is, you know, maybe it is not sustainable for my generation to be taking from the pockets of the younger generation.

00:39:22.120 I'm not saying they won't, because I would include my own grandparents, past and still alive, in this.

00:39:27.160 What I am saying is you need to sell it with a bedside manner.

00:39:30.120 Yeah, of course.

00:39:32.700 Don't get me wrong. I'm guilty of this as well.

00:39:35.720 The very energetic and almost provocative way that we rambunctious young Zoomers put things across do rally the troops.

00:39:49.160 However, you need to, I'm not saying you specifically, I'm saying we broadly.

00:39:54.720 The party.

00:39:55.160 Yeah, the party, the movement on the whole, need to mix up the voices.

00:39:59.800 And one of the best things that J.D. Vance did, actually, in the 2024 election, no matter how one feels about him, is that when they were trying to beat him with J.D. Vance's weird stick, he actually just came across like a very reassuring voice.

00:40:11.660 Like Tim Waltz in that debate looked like a Jim Henson character, whereas he, you know, he almost took the audience's side.

00:40:17.840 And many women actually thought, oh, no, he just seems like a normal dad.

00:40:21.380 He's actually quite sensible.

00:40:22.700 You need those sorts of tones and deliveries in it.

00:40:25.540 So my follow-up question is going to be, okay, you got the by-election out of the way.

00:40:29.780 Of course, there's this looming Greater Manchester mayoral election now, but part of that to

00:40:33.340 one side for a minute.

00:40:34.660 Barring any by-elections eating up all of your time in political capital and planning

00:40:38.020 capacity, are you going to expand the team's spokespeople for different issues and different

00:40:43.680 departments?

00:40:44.360 Because it's excellent that Harrison's producing the papers and you've got loads of detail,

00:40:49.620 but not everyone is a subject matter expert, even after reading those really detailed papers.

00:40:53.600 and you need to be able to have people

00:40:55.240 that can be called upon for those subject matters

00:40:57.200 so people can't be wrong-footed on given issues.

00:40:59.420 So is that in the works?

00:41:00.660 Well, it was our intention to kind of go into phase two

00:41:03.700 of Restore Britain after the local elections.

00:41:06.500 But obviously then the make-field by-election happened

00:41:08.320 and that was kind of then, you know,

00:41:10.060 pushed to one side for the moment.

00:41:11.740 But now that that's out of the way,

00:41:12.980 it is absolutely our intention to expand our team,

00:41:16.140 to have more spokespeople,

00:41:18.260 especially spokespeople who are specialists

00:41:19.960 on their, you know, subject,

00:41:21.480 um produce more policy uh obviously open more uh branches across the country um and basically

00:41:28.560 professionalize turn into a proper political party because it does remain the case that we're a very

00:41:32.780 small team which has its advantages uh but increasingly you know with the level of support

00:41:37.540 that we have the sheer number of people that we have to organize nationally uh it's definitely

00:41:42.540 the case that we need a larger team so yeah that's absolutely our intention uh and one you know

00:41:47.700 there's going to be um various announcements over the next few weeks um related to that one of which

00:41:53.780 is the launch of our youth wing of course which i will be heading up um and i am confident uh just

00:42:01.000 going on from what we were just talking about that that will go a long way to reassuring of

00:42:05.540 demonstrating to the youth of britain that this is the party for them that we understand their

00:42:09.680 plight because i mean i am i am a youth you know yeah well you know i think following on from

00:42:15.440 connor's point um i am concerned about the uh the representative demographics of restore um that are

00:42:24.120 not necessarily representative of actually the core of the party sure because of course we've

00:42:28.380 all been to lots of the meetings and the average age is probably about my age yeah um it's mums

00:42:33.040 and dads who are concerned about the future of the country i would really like to see some of those

00:42:37.920 voices front and center um you know not to name any names but we've seen especially out of the

00:42:44.240 makefield campaign a few certain middle-aged stars wandering around with their sons saying well this

00:42:50.260 is how these are all the problems and this is what we've got to do so well that that's great

00:42:53.980 because i mean you know i think you guys are doing a great job i think you're all doing a great job

00:42:58.140 but there is something to be said about you being too young and fresh-faced for the older generations

00:43:03.980 to consider you to have the kind of lifelong experience that i think they're expecting

00:43:09.980 seeing politicians well if things continue to go the way they are i will probably look about 50

00:43:14.220 in about five minutes time that's good um but i'm not i'm not joking i think i see your point

00:43:19.840 no i do see i do think um get some of the um people who have shown themselves to be reliable

00:43:26.320 sensible and articulate uh give them uh representative positions um like you know

00:43:33.660 so and so is a representative for men's issues or for women's issues or for whatever you know

00:43:39.580 domain that they happen to have um and get them out on the media giving good uh informative talks

00:43:45.620 about the things that are important to them so it shows that the party isn't just it's it's

00:43:51.780 rupert who is the patrician and then the sort of young uh outriders well i want to see the people

00:43:58.420 in the middle or i want to see those represented because as a married business owning father

00:44:03.180 i need to see myself represented in that party lots of people unconsciously be thinking that

00:44:10.080 yeah no that sounds very sensible to me yeah so pass that on to the folks that's why i think

00:44:14.400 i do usually say to the people that accuse like me of being sort of too young and inexperienced

00:44:19.240 i often say the only experience that you need to be a political activist in britain in the 21st

00:44:23.720 century is the experience of having grown up here and watched what has been done to our country

00:44:27.760 closely true and it but it's also about what the you've got to be able to pitch things without

00:44:33.980 having to explain them right so uh when it's you know some 50 year old chap who's uh you know got

00:44:41.180 wrinkles on his face and is explaining oh when i i spent 30 years working in a steel mine or

00:44:47.660 it still works and this is what we learned blah blah blah you can't do that whereas you know and

00:44:52.880 And that's the main burden of youth.

00:44:56.060 You've got all the energy, but you haven't got those stories.

00:44:59.620 And I know there are lots of people in Restore

00:45:01.280 who do have those stories.

00:45:02.640 So I think putting those people in their appropriate positions

00:45:06.560 in the party is definitely the next thing to think about.

00:45:09.720 Yeah, that sounds perfectly sensible to me.

00:45:11.260 Yeah, yeah.

00:45:12.120 Right, okay, was there anything else we needed to cover?

00:45:15.380 I mean, what do we reckon is going to happen

00:45:18.020 after Starmer's resignation?

00:45:19.660 What's the bet for the next year?

00:45:21.000 Oh, yeah, that's a good point.

00:45:22.880 I think, Feroz made this point before we started recording,

00:45:28.160 but I do think that reform needs to come out of campaigning mode.

00:45:32.520 Reform or restore?

00:45:34.080 Restore.

00:45:34.900 I'm very old.

00:45:36.400 I'm old and I'm tired.

00:45:39.260 Restore needs to come out of campaigning mode

00:45:40.720 because it was a very high energy campaign

00:45:45.180 and you can tell that they were genuinely shocked

00:45:48.120 by the number of people that we had out there.

00:45:50.200 And I think they were surprised that we'd get 7% of the vote.

00:45:52.880 I mean, we were all, of course, hoping for more, but that's not a shabby result at all.

00:45:58.780 Kept our deposit, made a significant national impression.

00:46:02.020 And in the face of dozens of hit pieces from all quarters of the mainstream media.

00:46:06.020 Yeah, they couldn't believe it.

00:46:08.280 Brendan O'Neill joined the Daily Mail, joining the Guardian, going like,

00:46:12.540 oh no, these guys are Nazis.

00:46:14.100 Oh yeah, yeah, okay. 1.00

00:46:15.300 You know, that's pathetic. 0.84

00:46:16.120 um but the point is i think now the party needs to um reassess decompress and begin the process

00:46:25.420 of again recruiting persuading uh and expanding its base further like for example i know the

00:46:32.080 manchester uh mayoral election is coming up it's like well what's the point is my question you know

00:46:38.920 well look i mean it is our intention to stand in that um and there are very specific reasons for

00:46:44.160 that which will um be made public once we announce formally our candidate um but often these uh these

00:46:51.900 elections are just a good opportunity to center um issues that may otherwise not get a hearing

00:46:56.600 which may otherwise be ignored by the mainstream um and so you know as i say it's our intention to

00:47:02.080 stand in manchester um but as against the makefield by-election it might sound counterintuitive but

00:47:07.480 it will probably require a lot less manpower because it's such a large area so i mean it's

00:47:12.200 five million people i think um you know it's a huge um you know huge sort of piece of land

00:47:17.840 and a huge number of people to to potentially canvas so our view is that the air war is going

00:47:23.100 to be where that particular election is won uh which means that we don't need to mobilize you

00:47:28.320 know thousands of our activists on quite such a regular basis as we did in for example makerfield

00:47:32.700 of great yarmouth um so we will be able to we will have the capacity to continue to grow the team

00:47:37.780 whilst that is going on right so i think it's worth um setting expectations for that pretty

00:47:43.120 soon which is the demographics just do not favor it well that's definitely true yeah

00:47:47.200 you know if you as long as it's made very clear this is essentially a platform for a particular

00:47:53.920 issue that we're going to advance uh that's fine um but um i i just personally wouldn't

00:48:01.040 waste the time honestly um because it's not even going to be a national issue really you know like

00:48:06.060 No one cares about Manchester mayoral elections outside of Manchester.

00:48:10.920 So it's, you know, no one in the South.

00:48:12.980 I think Andy Burnham's sort of salience in the South,

00:48:16.080 I think for a lot of Southerners, it's just like, oh, who?

00:48:19.220 Oh, the mayor of Manchester, never heard of him.

00:48:21.220 You know, like there are going to be loads of people like that

00:48:22.800 on the train this morning going in.

00:48:24.900 And Keir Summers could resign because of the mayor of Manchester.

00:48:28.020 You know, like people are going to be piecing this together

00:48:29.980 because he's not a big figure down here.

00:48:31.820 I do think it's important to remember that, you know,

00:48:33.900 Restore is still, as a party, only four months old.

00:48:35.860 So we're still very much kind of finding our feet and all the rest of it.

00:48:38.620 We've had great success in the last two sets of elections that we've stood in.

00:48:42.940 But we are still, you know, we're hammering out our platform.

00:48:46.460 But this is why I think for us is advice of stop campaigning now.

00:48:51.200 Worry about expanding the base.

00:48:52.900 Worry about solidifying, putting down roots,

00:48:55.360 making sure that you're spreading the good news of Restore Britain

00:48:59.400 is more important than trying to win any individual election now.

00:49:02.540 Yes.

00:49:02.780 Because my follow-on question for that would be,

00:49:04.840 okay let's say

00:49:05.620 Burnham does decide

00:49:06.500 he needs to call

00:49:07.100 an early election

00:49:07.740 in what fit state

00:49:09.660 is restored to contest it

00:49:11.060 I'm not saying

00:49:11.420 that he wouldn't run

00:49:12.000 candidates but

00:49:12.920 obviously Rupert has said

00:49:14.400 his intention is to win

00:49:15.680 the 2029 election outright

00:49:16.980 which means standing

00:49:17.840 a slate of

00:49:18.820 candidates nationally

00:49:20.200 which means Lewis

00:49:20.820 is going to have

00:49:21.180 an awful lot of emails

00:49:21.900 to answer

00:49:22.360 but if there's

00:49:24.160 a snap election called

00:49:24.900 oh that's easy

00:49:26.800 that's easy

00:49:27.340 I mean I'm not speaking

00:49:28.120 on behalf of the party

00:49:28.980 but here's what I'd do

00:49:30.480 obviously Great Yarmouth

00:49:32.080 yes

00:49:32.480 Boston Skegness

00:49:34.120 just dethrone tice yeah god bless him boston's game that's the most brexit voting area in the

00:49:41.900 country tice is one of the least appealing politicians in the world i described him to

00:49:46.880 we spoke to the new statesman journalist and the piece is coming out soon i described him

00:49:50.440 as he thinks he is hugh grant in love actually but he's actually hugh grant and bridget jones

00:49:56.740 but that's the point right i i bet if uh say you get a thousand activists put 500 of them

00:50:03.500 in Great Yarmouth

00:50:04.220 to make sure that Rupert

00:50:05.180 keeps his seat

00:50:05.680 even though

00:50:05.980 that's probably a foregone

00:50:07.140 conclusion at this point

00:50:07.920 I'd be surprised

00:50:08.540 if they even bothered

00:50:09.300 campaigning against him

00:50:10.380 yeah it's a one party state

00:50:11.300 yeah yeah

00:50:11.700 after the success

00:50:13.460 of Great Yarmouth

00:50:13.980 first and the locals

00:50:14.740 you can tell

00:50:16.060 they're just like

00:50:16.520 okay yeah whatever

00:50:17.220 but I would be

00:50:18.540 I would be targeting

00:50:19.260 something like Boston 1.00

00:50:19.920 and Skegness

00:50:20.360 I probably wouldn't

00:50:21.060 bother with Clacton

00:50:21.760 because Farage will be there

00:50:23.740 and you know

00:50:24.400 again one party state

00:50:25.400 one party state

00:50:26.280 I'm not even sure

00:50:28.040 if it is

00:50:28.540 I'm not even sure

00:50:29.180 if it's that bad

00:50:29.780 because it was only

00:50:30.120 about 37%

00:50:31.020 of the constituency

00:50:32.600 that voted for Farage

00:50:33.340 but it's not

00:50:34.140 but if it looks like

00:50:35.360 Reform

00:50:35.800 were going to win

00:50:37.140 the next election

00:50:37.700 then the persuasive

00:50:39.320 exactly

00:50:39.960 the charisma of the office

00:50:41.440 therefore

00:50:42.280 but Boston and Skegness

00:50:43.960 I think is

00:50:44.400 well I actually think

00:50:45.260 Reform would thank you for that 0.99

00:50:46.620 or getting rid of Tice 1.00

00:50:48.120 yeah because the

00:50:48.540 internal faction wars

00:50:49.320 are that Tice is a pain 0.99

00:50:50.420 in the arse 0.99

00:50:50.880 he's the one that's been 0.99

00:50:52.040 facilitating loads of 0.73

00:50:52.940 the former Boris Wave

00:50:53.720 cabinet ministers in

00:50:54.580 so

00:50:55.080 and nobody likes

00:50:56.260 Isabel Oakshaw anyway

00:50:57.020 so the further you can put

00:50:57.960 distance

00:50:58.300 that's definitely true

00:50:58.940 and even Farage

00:51:00.080 again he might give you

00:51:01.460 a clear

00:51:01.700 he doesn't even learn

00:51:02.280 to be honest we have obviously we've had plenty of conversations about this um my view personally

00:51:07.740 is that if an early election is called um we would be best if it would be best if we yes

00:51:12.640 obviously run in great yarmouth goes without saying but then tag target a handful of other

00:51:16.080 seats that we feel we can win pour all of our resources into those and establish a kind of

00:51:20.760 you know a bridgehead in parliament as reformed in 2024 yeah you become the new reform basically

00:51:24.500 yeah to keep them honest and and then because the way i've been looking at restore and again

00:51:28.420 they might not be popular with some of the viewers

00:51:31.360 who think, no, rah, rah, we must win the next one,

00:51:33.660 is how familiar are you guys

00:51:35.940 with the history of Fidesz in Hungary?

00:51:37.800 Not very.

00:51:38.280 So Fidesz was Victor Orban's party.

00:51:41.120 Orban was one of the original founding members.

00:51:42.980 Before he got voted out,

00:51:44.040 he was in power for 20 of the last 36 years,

00:51:46.220 and three of the cabinet ministers

00:51:47.100 were three of the original founders.

00:51:48.260 And they started out as a rural and student movement,

00:51:51.640 anti-communist, photoshopping photos of Brezhnev

00:51:54.200 kissing a man to take the piss out of the union, right?

00:51:55.880 So, 89 to 91, of course, the Soviet Union falls apart. 0.98

00:52:00.080 And the first government in Hungary is like a wet,

00:52:02.700 centre-right coalition government.

00:52:04.360 And they don't really do much to actually dismantle

00:52:06.460 the bureaucracy of the Soviet state.

00:52:08.040 It's the sort of thing that I'm seeing out of reform at the moment,

00:52:10.420 where if left to his own devices,

00:52:12.960 Danny Krug will only deal in half measures.

00:52:15.260 I've heard rumblings that basically they can put all this policy on paper

00:52:18.320 about gutting the human rights sets and that,

00:52:19.540 but they don't want to replace any of the judges

00:52:20.740 because that will be too extreme.

00:52:22.500 And so people are saying, I know, it's frustrating.

00:52:24.880 Woke nonsense.

00:52:25.340 Yeah, quite. As Tice would say. So if they inadequately gut the state, or if they aren't prepared enough with a snap election to get their agenda through, then Restore could be an intergenerational political project which cultivates those annoyed mums and dads and the next generation of like Zoom politicians, while also establishing a parliamentary beachhead and trying to keep a damp government honest, and also keeping the narrative alive and rescuing it from the failures of

00:52:55.340 of a reform government or god forbid you know reform and conservative coalition especially 0.82

00:53:00.400 if that like in hungary was succeeded by the left reanimating itself because the communists came in

00:53:05.560 for eight years and then fidesz came in and won and then was successful for the next 20 well this

00:53:09.440 this was always the worry with reform was uh if they do win a government in 29 or whenever it

00:53:14.200 ends up being is that they will screw everything up and then the left will be very it'll be very

00:53:18.720 easy for them to point to reform and say look at what happens when you put the right in power and

00:53:22.260 then the right is dead for another generation and so i agree that is really the role of restore

00:53:26.500 is to be the you know the authentic sort of genuine article of what uh the restore i should

00:53:31.980 say of what reform are pretending to be and i've always maintained that restore is a you know 0.59

00:53:38.580 decades-long project because i've always said i'm not going anywhere the rest of the zoomers on the

00:53:43.520 team are not going anywhere um we're going to be in it for the long haul because we're in it for

00:53:48.320 to save the country because we love the country and for no other reason than that um rupert is

00:53:53.180 obviously of an older generation to us and it's possible he will um bow out of politics sooner

00:53:58.400 than we do um but as i say we're not going anywhere and so if it is the case that we don't

00:54:03.160 win the next election and depending on when that is i mean if it's you know let's be real if it

00:54:06.660 happened if it is called in the next six months it's gonna be a bloody difficult effort um uh but

00:54:12.260 if you know come 2029 i think that is possible because i think between now and then it is

00:54:16.060 possible for us to show the british people uh that we are what this country needs uh but even

00:54:20.900 if we don't win a majority then if we establish that you know kind of presence in parliament

00:54:25.540 come the next election it's entirely possible absolutely doable and it's also to win a government

00:54:29.800 it's also important just to put as an addendum to that that unlike faraj rupert isn't saying i'm

00:54:33.940 going to retire in two years that's also true even though even though he's what five or six

00:54:37.740 years older than him i think i think eight years old but he looks so much healthier i think i think

00:54:41.760 He's about six years old, and Farage is 62, Rupert's 68.

00:54:44.320 He's all right, okay.

00:54:45.260 But you wouldn't know by looking at their pictures, right?

00:54:48.180 Rupert looks hale and hearty.

00:54:49.560 He looks like a man in his 50s, you know.

00:54:51.340 That's what farming does.

00:54:53.240 Farage looks like a man in his 70s,

00:54:55.580 because he smokes and drinks and probably eats a lot of red meat.

00:55:01.520 What was I going to say?

00:55:03.920 I do think that's the strategy, but, like,

00:55:06.660 I think the advantage of Makefield is the fact that they responded to us

00:55:10.300 as if we were a national party yeah right let's put us on the map that's all to wall we hate these

00:55:14.940 guys okay fine but at least you recognize us as a power as a threat um but i i think that your

00:55:20.720 perspective you know just target certain uh particular areas that are actually reliable

00:55:26.240 if there was a 2027 uh election or one even later this year general uh later this year like that

00:55:32.700 that's i i'm not i'm not comfortable with reform a restore being in a constant campaigning mode

00:55:38.580 we need to be in a sort of expansive mode and persuasive mode when you're in a campaigning

00:55:43.720 mode it's actually less persuasive than you think it's about more about drawing the lines rather

00:55:48.280 than slowly growing people across because i think in makefield i i'm sure that the restore internal

00:55:53.460 polling was actually correct i bet 24 of the constituency was sympathetic it's just andy

00:55:59.440 burnham's narrative was very powerful and very right-wing so okay i am sympathetic yeah but i'm

00:56:04.100 still going to vote for burden because we're on a mission yeah right people also hate starmer and

00:56:07.900 that was another reason why they voted yeah i mean it was all tied up in burnham's narrative

00:56:11.540 yeah like we hate starma we've got to save the labor labor party andy burnham comes on a white

00:56:16.700 horse you know shining he's the guy to do it and it worked you know so um but yeah i i really think

00:56:24.860 it's easy to feel that a party especially a new one should be in hardcore campaigning mode over

00:56:30.540 and over but i'm actually not sure that's wise and it gives you a kind of air of desperation almost

00:56:36.640 that you don't want to cultivate.

00:56:38.080 What you want to cultivate

00:56:38.820 is this quiet confidence

00:56:40.060 that, okay,

00:56:41.020 you know,

00:56:41.300 we don't have to stand

00:56:42.060 in every election,

00:56:42.840 especially if we're not ready.

00:56:44.360 But what we are doing

00:56:45.440 is slowly but surely

00:56:46.420 increasing and spreading

00:56:47.980 and growing

00:56:48.680 under their,

00:56:50.620 outside of their gaze.

00:56:52.220 And people do appreciate that.

00:56:53.100 Like, when we only stood

00:56:53.780 in Great Yarmouth

00:56:54.360 at the local elections,

00:56:55.340 people were not fair enough.

00:56:55.520 I thought that was sensible.

00:56:56.400 Yeah, no.

00:56:56.640 That was very sensible.

00:56:57.860 And, like,

00:56:58.100 so not feeling

00:56:58.700 that you have to challenge

00:56:59.460 every election

00:57:00.020 is definitely the attitude

00:57:02.460 because it speaks more

00:57:04.260 of self-confidence

00:57:05.020 rather than the sort

00:57:06.080 desperation. Well, that was what they were trying to

00:57:08.100 hit you guys on for the Scottish elections

00:57:10.160 that happened at the same time at Makerfield. The response

00:57:12.040 was just, we didn't have a branch there, we weren't going to parachute

00:57:14.160 a candidate in or... We can't run

00:57:16.000 two or by-elections at the same time, which is not doable.

00:57:18.160 Which is not, yeah.

00:57:19.840 Okay, well anyway, gentlemen, thanks so much for

00:57:22.060 joining me and I wonder what

00:57:24.060 the response to this will be. Indeed.

00:57:36.080 Thank you.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - June 23, 2026

Makerfield Debriefing

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