On the Ground in Makerfield ｜ Interview with Andrew Bridgen
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Summary
Andrew Bridgen was a conservative MP until he decided during the COID pandemic to do the right thing at the right time. And ever since then, Andrew has been a warrior for the nativist right, the right that s tired of compromise at this point and wants to see tangible gains.
Transcript
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Hi folks, I'm joined by former MP Andrew Bridgen. He was a conservative MP until he decided during
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the COVID pandemic to do the right thing at the right time and of course they kicked him out for
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it. And ever since then Andrew has been essentially a warrior for the, how to describe us, I guess the
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nativist right, the sort of the truth-telling right, the right that's actually tired of compromise at
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this point and actually wants to see some tangible gains. You've been basically at the front line of
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every issue that's uh been something we've been championing um since then um and as i understand
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it you've spent a few days up in makerfield canvassing for restore and rupert lowe i spent
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a day up in makerfield on saturday um and i was very impressed the um you know for a new party
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to hit the ground like that in such numbers and to be able to organize those numbers so it was
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actually done productively so yeah i was out and had um out on the streets knocking on doors with
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people who'd done it before and people who'd never done it before and it was very similar to um being
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out i did three days in great yarmouth and really enjoyed that as well um i'm a bit of an old war
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horse you see so it seems like the first waving of the flags and the and the whiff of grape shot
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and i've got to be there no no i i totally understand uh i really do um so uh yeah okay
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so tell us first about the campaign in great yarmouth um what what was that like for you when
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you were there it was like the best of days um you know the optimism uh the enthusiasm
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something that's been sadly missing in uk politics for a very long time and you know it's it's
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Rupert's Backyard, obviously you've got to start there
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because most of them do know about Rupert Lowe, their MP.
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because, as we know, we moan about low turnouts
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at general elections, but the turnouts at local elections
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so despite the fact that you you know on paper you're probably talking to two-thirds of the
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people you're talking to aren't going to bother to vote anyway um the campaign was amazing i mean
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it's totally one-sided there was nobody else out there at all we wiped every other party off the
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map uh i think they just kept away just for anyone who doesn't know what the numbers were
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the average vote share for great yarmouth first which is ruper lowe's uh local party there was
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46 percent which was ahead of every other party including reform and the conservatives and labor
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and whoever else and if you'd halved the restore britain vote share they still would have won every
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single award so it was an unbelievable victory well seeing that was what was hoped for and seeing
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the number of volunteers that turned out that was what delivered i mean it was just proving the
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method the method works it worked in great yarmouth to great effect um and there were some
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good candidates um and i had a conversation a week last saturday well two weeks ago with with
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rupert and i did say you know people are saying it's too soon for a by-election and some people
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saying you know you're gonna do this or do that and i said you've just got to stand because you
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are a party you're you're a player in the game now and you know those who fight and run away
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only live to run away another day and if you don't compete in this by-election the same pressure will
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come on at the next by-election and you never break through and in fact restoring offering is
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so radically different to every other party you're not taking anybody else's votes we're just taking
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policy to places other people don't want to go and even if we do take other people's votes you
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don't own those votes you aren't entitled to them there's a weird sort of socialism of the electorate
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And if they voted for them twice, I mean, you really can't call them
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It's time to go and re-canvas and find out who they are voting for.
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And, yeah, I think the demographics of Makerfield are very suitable,
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I mean, that should be a problem for people like Andy Burnham,
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Well, I mean, weirdly, it was Labour that made returning to the EU
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I mean, they've asked the people once, they said they wanted to leave
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in in makerfield two-thirds of them said they wanted to leave so we can't ask them again we
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just go back in yeah yeah but this is always the way with the european union and its allies and as
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you've already pointed out i mean um 14 almost 49 percent of the electorate were not impressed
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enough by any of the existing parties to be bothered to go to the polling station and cast
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a vote so this is very fertile territory yeah i i thought that as well because i mean great yarmouth
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actually has relatively similar demographics to make a field when you actually look at the uh
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the actual makeup of who is actually there and you realize oh what what was the problem of great
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well it's a place in britain that felt like it had been left behind by the modernization of the
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country and the diversification of the country and the fact that as you said half of the electorate
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just isn't even voting anymore they're just not bothering even at general elections they're just
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not bothering and these are the people that rupert turned out en masse to win this overwhelming
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victory the most encouraging thing about the great yarmouth local election results was the
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turnout and clearly people who'd given up on politics had decided to come out and not even
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just to vote for a general election or an mp they were voting for local elections and just this is
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really good just for anyone who doesn't know as well um for so in in a general election you for
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example the average turnout in the last general election was 59 percent which is lower than
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normal normally it's between sort of 65 to 70 percent which is fine you know that's that gives
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the the winning parties a mandate right um but when you've when you when you're ticking down
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towards half of people not voting that costs a pall across the very nature of the democratic
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system itself and then when you drill down to local elections as you said 30 is a good turnout
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Now, in Great Yarmouth, the turnout was somewhere between 40% and 50%.
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Rupert's party effectively got more votes at the local elections
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than Rupert got at the general election, and he won.
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I led the Leave campaign for the East Midlands a decade ago.
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who don't normally vote but would vote on that issue
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for a fundamental change, people who wouldn't come out
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for the status quo would come out for something different.
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Do you know what the turnout was in my own seat
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And I knew they weren't coming out to stay in the EU.
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but what what i loved about the brexit referendum i was a hardcore leave voter obviously um what i
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what i loved about it it was it and i was just some no-name youtuber at the time uh it was
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we have a chance to stick it in their eye at the moment this is this is our chance just stick it
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to them we're not happy the way the country's going and we know what you want on this we know
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that you're very committed no we have to remain in the eu okay well we're not committed to that
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and we know you're going to howl if we make you do this.
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And, of course, they didn't really let us leave.
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We had the bad bits of leave and none of the good bits.
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The establishment never wanted the oiks to exert their preference.
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And that's fine because we're being given another clear-cut choice again.
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You know, even reform are being accepted into the fold.
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You can see the positive media coverage they're getting.
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So they're being accepted by the establishment.
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But they understand he's definitely better than the alternative,
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which will be another poke in the eye from the electorate.
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I think the vote was a lot different to what we were actually shown.
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we caught our own returning officer slipping a little bundle of a thousand leave votes onto the
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remain table and of course when you catch them all it's a mistake it's just a one-off as well
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i remember having a conversation with craig oliver who was um david cameron's political advisor
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right i complained some weeks before the referendum because they just seconded another 200 senior
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civil servants onto the remain campaign really who are supposed to be impartial and i took issue
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with him privately and said look this is just not fair you're you're breaking all the election
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rules you're in you're using civil servants paid for by the state to run the campaign and he said
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be under no illusion andrew everyone who works for the government in any position across the country
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they're all working for the remain campaign and that's 100 correct we found out afterwards i mean
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that means your returning officers and your counters at the counts and we found out afterwards
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should just resign of course obviously saying is we think another country is better at running our
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country than we are but it's it's all of the benefits and none of the responsibility they
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get the position they get the chauffeurs they get the money they get the security and you can blame
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the eu exactly and then you you just pass up the problems up the chain and say what can we do about
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it you know and so this this this is the the reason this is important as well folks this is
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the underlying tension that has been present in britain for as long as i can remember really
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a lack of proper accountability in the political class and this i don't want to say condescension
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because i don't think it's a strong enough word but i don't say hatred because i don't want people
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think i'm being too strong but there's there's a disdain uh an arm's length sort of like we we
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literally just don't care about your opinion we have calculated what we think right and wrong are
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and you're on the wrong side of it so we don't even need to discuss these things with you and
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And that's why I think people are coming out so strongly for Rupert Lowe,
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Rupert Lowe's trust is in the British public and not the systems,
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the structures of government, the institutions.
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And he makes this very clear every time he talks about them.
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Well, if you look at, actually look at the way we vote.
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You don't have to take people's opinions into account, do you?
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there are any polls there's only an opinion yet we we don't sign our signature on our ballot paper
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we put the cross the mark of an idiot and we put it in a box and anything on a legal document that's
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in a box is discounted that's the way it works see the the the benefit that we do have though
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is we still have the power of selection yeah and this is one thing that a lot of people are very
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cynical about democracy but at the end of the day it must still have an influence otherwise they
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wouldn't be uh so angry about restore running in these constituencies where they thought they had
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it sewn up so there must still be something to it um so as we saw in great yarmouth actually
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they've got the narrative sorted for the next general election already just just as starma
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years before the 24 election all the papers were saying it's going to be a labor landslide
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well with 32% or 30% of the vote on a 60% turnout yeah um so and Nigel wants that next mantle that
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you know we've tried the Tories they betrayed us Labour did it in record uh time now we're
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going to trust Uncle Nigel and he's already in the club and it's but the I think I think the
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the ground is shifting under his feet in a way that makes them very uncomfortable very nervous
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I mean, the past couple of days have just been a flat-out meltdown
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over the poll that came out in Great Yarmouth that showed them in second.
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So I can understand why they're bothered about this.
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Like, this is actually indication that, in fact, they're not going to win.
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Well, if they're not part of the solution, they must be part of the problem.
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And notice how they're not trying to proselytize, right?
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Notice how they're not trying to make a positive argument
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to the people that they think are splitting the vote.
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they're saying no no you're bad people and hell will come if you don't just give us what we want
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it's like persuade me persuade me as to why persuade me as to why i should vote for you and
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it's like well okay we can't really do that because we're far to the left of what you're
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actually voting for and also the question of character when it comes up well a lot of people
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think nigel fryer's a man of bad character very few people think rupert lowe is a man of bad
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character and so he's standing on the correct issue he's got a record of actually doing what
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says he's going to do and he seems like a decent chap what's the argument you could possibly make
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to me on those that is true i've known nigel for many many years yeah and we've had our disagreements
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i mean you know i told nigel three years ago about the european defense and securities union both
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the conservatives and labor wanted to sign us up to which you know given them eu effectively
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full control of our defense policy procurement our army navy air force cch gchq mi6 mi5 and our
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nuclear and our local police force that's the that's the european defense and security union
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which start which starmer signed us up to in august 24 as soon as he got in yeah i told nigel
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about that years before and he said the eu's we've left andrew we don't talk about the eu anymore
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that's done and he said the problem with you andrew is said you're always looking for a fight
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i said no that's not correct nigel but if there's a fight got to be had i don't run away from it
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and that's why i'm in restore britain you think you think the politicians of this country yes
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yes you're looking for a fight yes i am because there's something because it's important yeah
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because it's important because we've got to like that's such a weird uh indictment it's like no
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no you're always looking for trouble so yes i am that's that's why i'm here but it's the only thing
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i get for free well exactly yeah yeah it's the only thing i'm guaranteed out of like guaranteed
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out of life for free is trouble yeah yeah yeah yeah so uh anyway so like like we're saying the
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the enthusiasm in make in in great yarmouth was off the charts and it really paid dividends right
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restore being on the ballot and offering a substantive and um you know britain first
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agenda was really really popular with a credible mp who has a history of doing what he says he's
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going to do overwhelming win this election in makefield was triggered by the labor party for
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very cynical reasons this is andy burnham's route back into parliament to save the labor party from
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keir starmer's um total apathy to their own polling uh to their own position in the public
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imagination uh andy burnham for anyone doesn't know his entire career has been in the labor
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The Labour NEC blocked Burnham before, but now...
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But I think what happened is that it's clear that Labour's polling is so dire
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So I saw an interview with one lady who was on the NEC
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no, no, essentially I'm part of the Burnham faction on the NEC,
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and we managed to persuade them to let us give Andy a crack at it
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You know, which, you know, even the most diehard Keir Starmer loyalist has to be looking at the situation on the ground for Labour and be like, can we go on like this?
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Well, yeah, but it was Southport that really did it.
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And you can see from Southport onward, their polling just went straight down.
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But the point is, they're doing this for entirely cynical reasons, which isn't exactly a great argument.
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why would we want to save your party and actually there are lots of other people around who are
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competing for our vote so this whole thing is a kind of microcosm of what could be happening in
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the next general election which is what everyone is making such a big deal out of it um there are
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really only three proper contenders obviously labor under burnham uh reform under farage and
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of course restore under um rupert um so when you got there what was the atmosphere like with the
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restore camp it's amazing i mean i've been to a lot of by-elections during my political career
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and i've never seen that number of motivated activists and and that was only the morning
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shift yeah so i i got there at 10 o'clock for the 10 30 start and that's the morning shift until
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two and 2 30 the next a lot of activists come in to take over in the afternoon amazing so the
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was it similar to great yarmouth yes yeah excellent uh and so and in a way i mean i
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imagine for more of the population uh maker feels easier to get to than great yarmouth
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yeah well i tell you what that was the reason i didn't go yarmouth isn't really on the way to
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anywhere is it no it's unless you're going to great yarmouth it's yeah exactly it's literally
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the place you're going to it's bloody out of the way uh and was a real pain to get to um but when
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you live in the middle of the midlands like i do you can get everywhere yeah exactly i can even get
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to swindon oh really well that's good to know um no no but so right so the great great atmosphere
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great energy um when you got out and were canvassing what was the response like on the
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doorstep okay so it was positive people people have a negative perception that people won't
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like them knocking on their doors nobody whatsoever is hostile really yeah nobody's nobody is hostile
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I think it so rarely happens nowadays that anyone knocks on your door
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I mean, Nigel Farage isn't asking people for their vote.
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We are a new party, a new organisation with new ideas
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um and as this campaign builds over the next three weeks i mean we already by now every door
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in the constituency will have will have been knocked not everyone's in probably only one in
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four or five people are in on a on a saturday afternoon um we are going to get round more and
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more and fill all those gaps in until we've got a pledge base and you know the the mathematics and
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the mechanisms of politics are not difficult you canvas for the election period and then on the
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last day you refine down to all the people who were positive so they were thinking or were going
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to vote for you and you just remind those on polling day to get your vote out that's it and
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then you win and as long as i've been involved in politics which is over 20 years um that's that's
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how you win it worked it worked only and it's still working because it worked the other day in
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uh in in great yarmouth system works sorry about the cough it's all right i'm down with it i've got
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i've got one too yeah but you're right it's it's it's actually not terribly complex and it is a
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but it can't because politicians do it and they're not very bright are they i sussed that out when i
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was in business before i went into politics that yeah we don't need to any lessons from them because
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they're not that bright so if they can do it we can do just look at the labor front bench i mean
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jesus christ yeah um yeah so the the the methods are tried and tested and reform have restore have
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a massive activist base i mean that's what you need i mean that that is the impact that gets
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you around those doorsteps in i mean a general election always suits the incumbent because they
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will have the canvas return so labor will have canvassed over the years make a field many many
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times they've got a computer base i'm afraid given the fall in popularity they're left their
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data's a lot of the historic data is worthless because as we know the support for their party
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that's great for parties that are moving up yeah yeah yeah that's a great database and great
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comfort it's terrible and a collapse well yeah and now i think it's so bad that a lot of labor
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activists won't want to go on the doorstep and hear the bad news although there are still
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die-hard Labour voters I found some when I was out canvassing um yeah and then even they
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apologized to me and said yeah I wish you good luck but I am Labour despite everything and
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they're almost apologizing for the state of the country well I mean to be honest with you so they
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are tribal Labour voters but that that tribe's being thinned out a bit and it doesn't that just
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speak to a huge amount of demoralization on the part of the ruling party and the status quo that
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Labour have engineered like the the system is failing and even their own voters know it
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and they're looking at Starmer and I mean Starmer is massively unpopular on the doorstep we are told
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over and over and I believe it as well and also the problem with the by-election I mean by-elections
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are traditionally much lower turnouts than general elections and I always find that frustrating
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because, obviously, you'll know that the election spending
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is much higher for a by-election than a general election
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I mean, I think you're looking at over £100,000 of campaign resources
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And you've got all the parties who are serious about winning doing that.
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So, I mean, they get far more leaflets than you'd ever get
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during a general election, and then you get a lower turnout.
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The turnout with Restore in the mix, I think, is going to be fascinating.
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I think it's not only can Restore be very good for the country,
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and it's needed, I think we could be very good for democracy as well.
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To reach the parts that other parties cannot reach.
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And that could be a marketing slogan, you know.
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But I think that's genuinely important, though,
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is that because 50% of them just didn't vote in the last general election,
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Rupert could summon up an actual legion of people who...
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Like I saw a Labour Party canvaser the other day
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you know but the point is like the the point is that they they are they are seeing restore voters
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on the door where they're knocking and this whoever they're knocking for says oh no i'm
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voting for a store so don't worry it's like okay well that's that's gotta that's gotta be a real
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concern and restore's own internal canvassing data shows that they've got 24 percent who are
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like yeah no i'm definitely what does it show to the political establishment that a party that's
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only been organized and legally formed three months ago could possibly be a contender at a
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by-election in a cast-iron Labour seat which the incumbent MP has given up to allow another
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Labour grandee to get back into Parliament to challenge for Prime Minister. Yeah I mean there's
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something tectonic plates are shifting under the political establishment. Certainly there's one
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think for sure they they won't be able to ignore restore britain anymore we are the dominant news
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cycle at the moment i mean elon musk is out there promoting us nigel farage is attacking us a few
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people have heard of elon musk a couple even if they haven't heard of rupert lowe but you'll
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notice that what restore has done here is kind of muscle into the conversation where everyone now
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has to talk about restore okay you might complain that they're splitting the vote but now we're the
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focus of conversation it'd be but actually if you think about it be a pretty boring uh um by-election
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if if restore wasn't there we we're making all the political headway and all the headlines exactly
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and the the energy is off the charts like i saw the pictures of here's the labor activists here
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the reform activists and then the zoomed out picture of all the restore activists like right
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okay you you can't ignore that kind of energy you know you can't ignore it and that's why we're
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coming under such ferocious attack at the moment actually i think um i think there is a genuine
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in fear that the message we're the lesser of all of the available evils is not brilliant for reform
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actually and the poll that they're promoting is we're losing to Andy Burnham please vote for us
00:26:33.360
because we're not as bad as Andy Burnham it's like well yeah okay Andy Burnham's not great but
00:26:37.420
is he worse than Keir Starmer why would I want to vote for it's essentially like leftovers that's
00:26:44.640
what I'm being asked do you want to have leftovers dinner do I have a steak it's like no no I'm
00:26:47.740
i'm tired of voting for the lesser of well the reason that the turnout is normally less at a
00:26:52.720
by-election is people know it's not going to change the government yeah yeah i'm going to
00:26:56.480
change the government it's not it's not it's not um trivial and we'll we will see whose voters are
00:27:03.140
most uh enthused to come out won't we we will and i i i don't like all of the signs like from
00:27:10.580
people like yourself and like we've got lots of activists who went to great yarmouth and are now
00:27:15.440
in makefield messaging us all the time saying feels just like great yarmouth feels just like
00:27:20.580
it you know the energy is high low really great response from people on the on the street i mean
00:27:25.380
it's a it's a more difficult hill to climb obviously um but if the energy is there
00:27:30.980
who knows yeah there aren't a lot of hills in great yarmouth on the coast yeah that's true yeah
00:27:36.560
but um but if the energy is there it's one of those things where you can you can feel them
00:27:42.520
not wanting to admit that there is a significant chance that restore not only throws spanner in
00:27:48.580
the works but actually win this because that like like you were saying they're basing this on old
00:27:53.960
information of these people don't vote these people vote labor these people it is almost
00:27:58.500
unbelievable that you could have the prospect of possibly a party that was only formed three
00:28:03.240
months ago winning a by-election yeah but this this is a this is a thing that i think they don't
00:28:13.680
There's no resisting an idea whose time has come.
00:28:18.340
They're trying to hold back the tide like King Canute.
00:28:21.120
Although that's a bit of a misattributed story,
00:28:25.800
no, no, we just need to vote for something that's not them.
00:28:28.020
And Nigel Farage, taking all of these failed conservative politicians
00:28:32.240
someone could say, oh, you were a conservative politician.
00:28:36.860
I don't think they can ever call me part of the political establishment,
00:28:44.780
But I didn't want people turning the poorest constituency in Leicestershire
00:28:53.040
Where's that going to get the rest of the politicians who didn't?
00:28:56.200
I suppose it depends what your interests are, isn't it?
00:28:59.180
But the point is, you weren't brought in by Nigel Farage.
00:29:04.340
In fact, you were warned about making the stir that you caused
00:29:10.900
and I think you've been vindicated on these things.
00:29:13.360
But look at who's taken instead, Nadim Zahawi, Nadine Doris,
00:29:17.660
like Robert Jemmerich, the immigration minister
1.00
00:29:19.360
who oversaw the Boris wave, and sorry, and the Afghans,
00:29:23.240
Swella Braveman, the Home Secretary during the Boris wave.
0.93
00:29:25.180
Like, why would you take these people in and then try to...
00:29:31.680
You can't portray yourself as some kind of renegade outsider party
00:29:36.220
if you've got the former government in your ranks.
00:29:40.920
Who did most of the things that the electorate object to.
00:29:44.460
Yes, who actually caused the real substantive damage
00:29:54.140
He's had his road to Damascus conversion in the last year or so,
00:29:59.840
he was still writing articles about how we need to accept the afters.
00:30:02.600
Not that he was called in the parliamentary party?
00:30:07.120
Well, that's nominative determinism wins again.
00:30:10.120
Because he is, I met him once, and he seemed nice enough,
00:30:14.640
Well, I remember going to his by-election to help him get in in Newark.
00:30:26.000
not many compared to uh to rupert yes yeah interesting um so yeah the the the angles of
00:30:34.760
attack are quite desperate i feel at this point then and they don't know how to attack us as you
00:30:40.000
say it's having the streisland effect isn't it yes you know we're all thinking you know when they
00:30:44.540
complain uh me thinks he doth protest too much and and it's just amplifying the message it's going
00:30:51.300
around social media and when you've got an ally across the pond like elon musk i mean those are
00:30:57.280
big guns aren't they and not only that when when you when you feel like it's very interesting how
00:31:01.840
on the so the the salvation poll at the time was published for anyone who doesn't know um they had
00:31:07.160
369 likely voters so they ignored the unlikely voters because the the actual poll was of something
00:31:13.340
like 507 people or something like that it's like okay but why are you ignoring the unlikely voters
00:31:18.140
in this circumstance exactly well i think i think there's more chance i think there may be some shy
00:31:23.620
restore voters out there and i think and of course as with this is why i knew we were going to win
00:31:30.220
the eu referendum and the polls were wrong i was campaigning to get those people that haven't
00:31:36.600
voted for years to vote on an issue and i think we're in the same mindset now for the public
00:31:42.400
yeah exactly the same same tactics um you know you could be i ring up as the pollster first of all
00:31:50.440
you gov poll you've got to be on the you gov panel you've got to be engaged in politics so
00:31:54.320
all the non-voters they're not engaged in politics and on the you gov panel they're invisible and
00:31:58.980
when comrades ring up and you say yes i'm voting for restore in maca field make a field and they'll
00:32:06.400
say well did you vote in the last generation no did you vote in the one before no and that's it
00:32:24.000
And this is exactly what happened in Great Yarmouth.
00:32:26.340
And the thing is, if we didn't have such a recent
00:32:36.720
Like, you can put out a poll of 369 likely voters,
00:32:40.460
but you're ignoring 140-odd unlikely voters who, given the reason...
00:32:48.340
Exactly, and could come out and absolutely flood you.
00:32:58.040
given the performance of their government over the last 18 months.
00:33:02.260
I mean, honestly, there's a part of me that genuinely feels bad
00:33:09.440
and most of them are actually socially conservative you know absolutely they're just not
00:33:13.280
wide-eyed thatcherites you know who want to privatize the entire country and make sure that
00:33:18.800
foreign businesses and governments can own our country which is actually very quite a very
00:33:23.340
sensible position when you think about it but anyway i don't want to get into the economics
00:33:27.320
of it but the point being that poll that reform are staking everything on is not something i
00:33:33.220
personally would stake everything on because i mean a it shows you in second place which isn't
00:33:36.840
great you know you indicate you're gonna lose but it's only it's a tiny sample 369 people that
00:33:43.280
you're actually measuring from and you're ignoring about a third of that uh potential uh sample
00:33:48.380
anyway which is where our strongest constituency comes from so all i'm saying is it's i i don't
00:33:55.960
know playful it's all the next poll will be fascinating yes and i and i think you're
00:34:00.440
absolutely right i think the polls will consistently underestimate restore support
00:34:06.060
and that's not always a bad thing no no it's going to be i i i'm i'm weirdly optimistic about
00:34:11.560
this and i'm very rarely optimistic about these things but in the in my defense i'm often wrong
00:34:16.460
you've been taking the hopium have you not no that's the right so i i didn't think that trump
00:34:21.720
was going to win in 2024 uh i i it's not that i didn't feel the direction of the energy it's just
00:34:28.100
i was like no no it's probably going to be that something happens or whatever and we won i didn't
00:34:34.180
I didn't think that great Yarmouth was going to be such an overwhelming
00:34:45.080
and I'm feeling the same draw of energy in the same direction for maker
00:34:49.980
my rational mind is saying that manage your expectations,
00:34:52.360
but I've been wrong before managing my expectations.
00:35:02.000
it i was managing my expectations and i was wrong and so it's nice to be wrong in a positive
00:35:06.980
direction every single time but um but i i i just can't bring myself to get the hopes up of it
00:35:14.540
because just in case we don't but that i i i can't help but feel there's every reason to think that
00:35:19.860
we've got a real fighting chance here i can't help but feel it i mean there's there's no way
00:35:24.420
you can see so many and restore has absolutely nothing to lose out of this exactly it's the first
00:35:30.140
parliamentary by-election than the party's ever taken part in and it's completely normal for
00:35:35.980
parties to lose by-elections most parties lose by-elections it's totally normal well i mean
00:35:43.320
most most governments lose by-elections absolutely um so if this is a ultra ultra ultra safe labor
00:35:50.880
seat it's deeply worrying isn't it and as you were saying for a party that's three months old
00:35:56.240
to be the current center of the national media discussion about are they going to call are they
00:36:02.300
going to be a significant player in just a random by-election i mean that's pretty unheard of and
00:36:07.880
that shows how much ground has been gained so quickly for a store like they we like they didn't
00:36:14.320
talk about advance during the gorton and denton by-election and it's not i don't like the advance
00:36:18.620
guys i'm friends with a lot of them and that i know nick nick was a good guy great guy you know
00:36:23.400
He got 50,000 votes in the mayoral election and the last one that Andy Burnham won.
00:36:30.140
It's just, I think there's always a sort of like, you know, a time and a place and a confluence of energies that means you're the right guy for the right time.
00:36:39.620
And I just think that Nick was the wrong, the right guy at the wrong time for Gordon and Denton.
00:36:44.460
And it was a, it was a real shame, but the, the, the winds feel like they're very much in our sails.
00:36:52.040
And the fact that we're here after such a short period of time
00:36:58.860
I mean, have you seen anything like this before?
00:37:02.640
But we've never been in such dire straits as the country finds itself now.
00:37:08.560
It is very much the last chance saloon of politics
00:37:18.680
yeah and and i and i it's beholden i think on all of us to
00:37:24.080
create the peaceful revolution we're going to need because the alternative is going to be awful
00:37:31.580
yeah and and one thing i've noticed about uh restore members is that a lot of them are
00:37:38.580
normal people right who are just not political they're not people who like andy burnham is a
00:37:43.500
professional politician he knows the game inside now and he has been his entire adult life uh
00:37:48.540
i i speak to lots and lots of restore members and many of them are just mothers and fathers
00:37:54.020
small business owners or people who are working in whatever private field which is no i just have
00:37:58.960
to get involved now i just i didn't want to i've never wanted to be involved in the politics but
00:38:03.520
there's a kind of quiet resolution that is being set did you notice that um the other saturday at
00:38:09.580
the unite the kingdom rally i didn't see one reform uh flag in the crowd i didn't think about
00:38:17.360
actually weirdly i have a look back on the picture yeah i didn't there are there are a store flag
00:38:21.860
there are i mean when i was on the stage and i said look we're coming a huge cheer like the you
00:38:27.500
could feel the energy and the mandate of heaven was very much with rupert i mean when tommy was
00:38:31.540
saying you know i'm not going to tell you which party to vote for and he lists all the parties
00:38:35.520
and people start cheering rupert in my in my little address after tommy after tommy i said
00:38:40.700
you know that i think that rupert lowe's currently the only man who could lead that peaceful revolution
00:38:45.260
but this is and it's coming i i think so because this is what i've noticed is it's it's not wild
00:38:53.220
eyed radicals right who are joining restore it's people who have seen the state of travel the
00:38:58.840
direction of travel the state of play the direction of travel and have just kind of quietly but firmly
00:39:03.500
set themselves against it they said no i'm whatever you're asking me to do i'm not doing that
00:39:08.100
i'm just going to start traveling in the right direction that i think is the right thing for the
00:39:12.080
future and rupert lowe is the person embodying that and i can feel like i can feel the the sort
00:39:18.740
of the patient resistance in restore i can feel it like we've been through this like all of these
00:39:25.240
very few people are you know i mean there are some young people obviously but a lot of them
00:39:30.400
are people who've got some experience in life and who have been around the block a few times
00:39:35.800
we've all been led up the garden path a few times as well haven't we exactly and we're not
00:39:41.820
voting for the second best option anymore no just not doing it and this is or the least worst option
00:39:46.840
yeah exactly the least worst option we're not voting for that anymore we're voting for the
00:39:50.280
thing that we think actually is going to get the job done and it's already got a track record of
00:39:54.680
victory this is and you've also got rupert's um going to be going public with his rape gang
00:40:01.160
inquiry oh yes i can't imagine that uh the political establishment whether it's the reds
00:40:08.800
it's going to come out very well out of any of this.
00:40:11.720
I mean, there's a reason that they've done everything they can
00:40:21.500
since Nigel Farage ends up catching up to your positions anyway,
00:40:36.200
he sees which winds the wind's blowing and then he'll he'll join it when it's safe to do so
00:40:42.000
i've said this for years now he leads from the back he leads from the rear he watches other
00:40:47.160
people carving out space and says right i'm going to go and occupy that for you because i've got a
0.91
00:40:51.940
large media presence it's like sorry nigel i don't want someone who's constantly behind the crest of
0.69
00:40:55.780
the wave actually as you said it's not leadership i actually want a person who's carving out the
0.86
00:41:01.280
space to be the guy in charge and actually doing it and this was the rape gang inquiry is such a
00:41:05.860
great example i'm glad you brought it up because nigel frosh stood up in parliament said i will
00:41:10.460
conduct that rape gang inquiry myself it didn't happen there's no difference between him and the
00:41:15.240
labor party then is there no no there's not he's it's exactly what the labor party did and of course
00:41:20.420
no one even talks about the conservative party on this issue at all even though they had 14 years
00:41:24.700
in government to do whatever they wanted about it they could have done anything they did nothing
00:41:28.620
because they're the conservative party and so who actually did it well rupert lowe crowdfunded it
00:41:36.940
And like you said, the report's going to be released.
00:41:38.860
And it's, I mean, Rupert described it as the worst two weeks of his life.
00:41:41.840
And the government inquiry would take, you know, they already said five years.
00:41:47.620
But you know they're just kicking that can down the road.
00:41:50.000
Well, I mean, I have no faith in public inquiries.
00:41:52.280
You know, despite being the MP who uncovered the Post Office Horizon scandal,
00:41:56.240
you know, in the end, they never called me to give my evidence
00:42:02.740
I was the one that got Boris Johnson to agree to have the public inquiry.
00:42:07.640
I introduced him to my constituents, Michael and Susan Rudkin.
00:42:12.320
He had a Zoom call with them, and five days later his office rang me
00:42:16.660
and said, yes, I'm going to authorise the public inquiry.
00:42:20.400
And I didn't even get to give evidence because they didn't want my evidence.
00:42:26.500
The people who say they'll do something and either not do it properly
00:42:30.360
or not do it at all versus the person who says he'll do it and actually oh words are cheap aren't
00:42:35.900
they words are cheap uh from especially from politicians i mean i i i can remember a very
00:42:41.020
wise old man he'll be long dead now in northwest leicestershire uh probably about 2006 when i was
00:42:46.940
first canvassing before the 2010 election and i i met him he was well in his 80s then and he said
00:42:54.340
you have to remember lad he said that politicians promises he says that they're like pie crusts
00:43:00.340
they're soon broken well we know well we've had enough of that haven't we yeah but he's not wrong
00:43:07.620
he's not absolutely this is this is i mean he was a wise man well he'd seen a few hadn't he
00:43:12.900
there's a reason this is the received wisdom of the general public and why half of them have
00:43:16.740
checked out of politics yes and this is why i think rupert lowe cuts such a dramatic figure on
00:43:23.060
the world on the political stage at the moment he actually does the things we need to we need to
00:43:28.660
appeal now to the dispossessed and the disillusioned and to bring them back because now is the time
00:43:34.820
in in our nation's need our hour of need is for every man and woman to come to the aid of the
00:43:41.760
party and so um what final parting thoughts would you have about this entire situation
00:43:49.660
anything that we haven't covered so far that you'd like to say well i mean the the labor mp
00:43:55.360
Simmons who gave his seat up after two years and bear in mind you know I've always felt as well
00:44:01.760
that there's there is a negative the public don't like unnecessary elections yeah that most of the
00:44:09.220
public think about elect elections for a very limited amount of time possibly only just before
00:44:15.500
a general election now they've there's always I've noticed always been an electoral backlash
00:44:19.780
against the party that forces an unnecessary election on the public and that's the Labour
00:44:25.540
Party. They've done it purely for selfish reasons thinking that they own those votes and that could
00:44:32.620
be a big problem for them. Excellent. Andrew thank you so much for joining me. Thank you.