The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

00:00:00.160 Hello, welcome to a new episode of RealPolitik. I am your host, Firas Maldad. I'm joined today

00:00:05.640 by a very special guest, Peter North, Northern Variant. You all know him on X, you all follow

00:00:11.240 him. One of the most astute commentators on British politics on the right, and always

00:00:17.740 very, very realistic, to the extent that he upsets some people by being too realistic.

00:00:23.820 And that's why I thought it's very important to hear from him, understand his perspective,

00:00:28.620 learn from him, and see what he has to say. Pete, thank you so much for joining me.

00:00:33.960 Thanks for having me. Good to be here.

00:00:35.560 My pleasure. My pleasure. Tell me a little bit more about you. You don't exactly fit as

00:00:42.620 an ethno-nationalist, and you don't exactly fit as a civic nationalist. Tell me a little

00:00:47.560 bit about the evolution on your thinking on the question of nationality. Because I know 0.82

00:00:53.560 at some point you were closer to the civic nationalist position.

00:00:56.040 Yes. But you are also not a pure blood and soil ethno-nationalist. You're somewhere

00:01:02.980 in the middle. Help me understand this, please.

00:01:05.900 I'm not 100% sure I do understand it myself. This is part of the self-analysis that I've put

00:01:14.480 myself under for the last couple of years. The thinking I was doing was along the lines of

00:01:25.820 what is the actual difference between ethno-nationalism and civic nationalism in policy terms. Now,

00:01:34.680 take civic nationalism. This is predicated on some notion of civic identity and these

00:01:43.040 British values. Well, who defines what those British values are? And assuming we could have that debate and

00:01:52.440 agree on something, well, these British values are going to be contemporary. They're going to be

00:01:59.680 liberal. And so then if you take it upon yourself to define these values as the basis of your society,

00:02:09.400 then it requires two things from you on a policy basis. You have to demand certain sacrifices of

00:02:16.260 incomers that they buy into your civic identity and that you defend those values robustly.

00:02:25.260 And these are the two things that the multicultural state is not willing to do. 1.00

00:02:33.020 And so in order to enforce these kinds of things, you say, if you're coming in from

00:02:37.620 the third world, you leave your third world cultural practices at the door. No, you can't wear a hijab. 1.00

00:02:44.020 No, you can't eat halal. No, you can't do... You set what you believe in because, you know,

00:02:49.700 British contemporary mindset is we don't like animal cruelty. We want our women to have the same rights

00:02:56.960 and freedoms as the rest of us. We want gays to be able to live their own lives according to

00:03:04.340 their own needs and desires within the law. This is the basis of our modern liberal society. But of

00:03:14.060 course, though Britain is predicated on these liberal values, liberalism is dying. So you then

00:03:24.400 get a situation where the civic identity based on these liberal ideas is a gulf away from where the

00:03:32.180 people actually are. And in fact, we're already there. There is already a massive gulf between what

00:03:37.940 ordinary working class voters think and where the progressive liberal Blairite Labour Party is.

00:03:45.200 And the two now actively despise each other. And so there's no basis for a civic contract there.

00:03:53.960 And so I then started thinking about how you would further enforce this civic nationalism.

00:04:01.120 You would have to shutter the mosques that are preaching radical Islam, which is rather a lot of 1.00

00:04:09.080 them. You would have to expel the 40,000 or so on the terror watch list. You know, ban halal, 1.00

00:04:17.520 do all these inherently authoritarian things, which would be authoritarian in the defense of liberalism.

00:04:26.040 Um, and when you actually look at, uh, remigration strategies, um, put forth by the ethno-right,

00:04:35.280 um, the, the two are remarkably similar. They are 95% the same. Now, so what, where I start veering

00:04:46.380 towards the ethno-right is when, uh, when civic nationalism was being mooted, it was, uh, around

00:04:55.440 2003 as a replacement to, um, multiculturalism because it was, the debate was very much around

00:05:04.500 multiculturalism has failed even then. And it brought about authors like, uh, Melanie Phillips 1.00

00:05:09.940 and her Londonistan book. And, um, quite a lot of the commentators at the time were all saying

00:05:16.140 multiculturalism has failed. We need a replacement for it. And at the time the BNP was rising and this 1.00

00:05:22.660 was the politics that was beyond the pale. So we, we needed a, a mechanism that people, ordinary people

00:05:30.400 could buy into and see the logic of. And civic nationalism in its own right is one that seeks

00:05:37.260 to be fair to the outsider, to bring them in, to call them part of our family, uh, uh, our national

00:05:44.160 collective and to creative framework where everybody's operating on the same page. And superficially,

00:05:52.300 uh, that's fair and that's right. And that's where I'd like to be. That's Britain's character

00:05:58.060 in terms of our generosity. But, uh, there comes a point where the, the, the scales start to tip

00:06:05.700 where, um, you have third world migrants arriving in this country. They move to the cities where the 1.00

00:06:13.140 economic opportunities are, where there are people who speak their language and practice their faith.

00:06:18.540 So they integrate in with their own, their offspring, go to schools where their children

00:06:25.680 are not immersed in British culture, um, because they're not, they're not among British people. Yes.

00:06:32.840 And so you can have your confected rituals of teaching your pupils how to sing all verses of

00:06:38.600 Jerusalem and sing, God save the King in assemblies. Um, but to be truly integrated, um, and we did have

00:06:47.920 integration. I remember growing up in Bradford, um, I would say about 10 to 15% were Asian students,

00:06:54.980 uh, um, pupils, um, there'd be Muslims, there'd be Hindus, uh, Indians, um, and they would become

00:07:04.500 our friends. They didn't have a choice because they were outnumbered and they had to adopt,

00:07:09.280 uh, our slang. Uh, they had to watch the same television programs. Um, not least cause there

00:07:15.780 were only four channels, but, uh, they were being immersed in British culture, not just the, uh,

00:07:22.760 not just the bureaucratic definition of British values, teaching, uh, teaching Britishness as a,

00:07:29.180 uh, as a module in a, uh, an education curriculum. You really have to be, uh, around British people

00:07:36.040 to understand it. And, uh, that was possible, um, around, you know, 1990 to the year 2000 at that

00:07:45.080 particular rate of immigration. Cause I think the 91 census still has us about 95% white, uh, that

00:07:53.760 starts to radically change. And as I say, kids, kids from migrant families are growing up with very 1.00

00:08:00.640 little exposure. The only actual white British person, uh, that they'll meet are the four or

00:08:06.520 five remaining kids who, uh, who go to that school either because their parents don't particularly care

00:08:12.960 enough to get them out of there, uh, or they're too poor to move. Um, because generally as a rule,

00:08:18.740 anyone who can get away does this explains white flight. And this isn't, um, this is just human

00:08:25.520 nature. People seek out their own kind. We, uh, uh, uh, we are gradually abandoning our cities, 0.97

00:08:31.980 moving to the shires. You're seeing the population of North Yorkshire expanding because it's people

00:08:37.700 moving away from Bradford and Leeds because they're seeking the safety and the familiarity of their own

00:08:43.780 people. Same as foreigners coming into this country will go to the cities where they can find 1.00

00:08:48.100 their own people. So you're getting to the point where there's nothing left to integrate with.

00:08:54.940 And as such, the integration process that was happening is now in reverse. Yes. And you're now

00:09:02.900 starting to see, um, that there was a time when the Pakistanis was starting to integrate into Bradford.

00:09:10.900 They would drop their Punjabi, Punjabi shop signs and you'd see an Anglicization of Pakistani culture 0.98

00:09:18.460 in Bradford. And you believed it was possible on a long enough timeline, but now that's not happening.

00:09:23.720 They're reverting to wearing the ethnic garb of their home country, speaking and actually campaigning 0.97

00:09:30.300 in, uh, at general elections. And I noticed this, I was at a new, I think I was speaking, uh, or attending

00:09:40.300 a new culture forum meeting in Newcastle. I thought I'll make a day of it. So I went up, uh, and had a

00:09:48.480 drive through, um, Sunderland on the way cause never been thought of being nice to take a look. And this was

00:09:55.420 just before the general election. And what I expected to see in Sunderland was rows and rows of,

00:10:01.660 uh, labor posters in windows. Cause it's a traditional labor stronghold working class area.

00:10:07.900 Um, sorry, what year was this? Uh, last year, um, uh, last election. Yeah. Uh, and I would have

00:10:14.140 expected even in its current state, I would have expected to see the odd labor poster or billboard

00:10:19.280 here and there. Um, or maybe reform even, but actually the reality, no outward sign there was

00:10:27.480 even an election happening at all. But you drive the great, drive down the Great Horton Road in Bradford

00:10:35.060 and it's a sea of electioneering and it's all, every single poster, billboard has got a candidate,

00:10:42.400 um, and something about Gaza and the Palestine flag. And this is this alien politics that's growing 0.81

00:10:51.880 up in our cities. And so this is the beginnings of, uh, ulsterization. Yes. We are seeing the

00:10:59.580 fragmentation, this great melting pot that we were promised by Tony Blair, um, and a little bit

00:11:06.580 before that all the dogmas about, you know, we all, we're all essentially British. We're not.

00:11:14.220 And this is, uh, uh, all of this was based on a conceit and it was a conceit that we went along

00:11:19.980 with out of politeness because it is in our nature to be generous. Yes. And we still want to be that

00:11:26.100 way. We still want, but we can't be because you start bumping into the reality that not only are

00:11:32.600 they not integrating, they don't want to, and even if they did want to, they couldn't. So, um, this puts

00:11:40.200 me outside of the realms of civic nationalism because I no longer believe that a viable civic

00:11:48.760 identity can be established that everyone will buy into because it will demand of white English people 0.92

00:11:56.020 that they give up something of their own identity in order to accommodate foreigners. But that would 1.00

00:12:03.000 only work if foreigners were also willing to give up something of their religious and ethnic identity 0.96

00:12:08.680 in order to form this, this, uh, mythical, uh, melting pot, melting pot utopia. It hasn't happened.

00:12:16.780 It's not going to happen. And so you are seeing manifested in the politics. Increasingly, you see

00:12:23.720 ethnic minority enclaves electing, uh, people on an ethnic basis to do with issues in Gaza or their

00:12:31.740 home countries. And they come to parliament to lobby for things in their own ethnic interest. They

00:12:37.800 come to parliament to lobby for a new airport in the backhills of Pakistan. Uh, and so my parliament,

00:12:46.160 our parliament has become this internationalist arena for, uh, ethnic grievances, gripes, and agendas.

00:12:53.720 The only sort of United nations instead of a British. Yes. Yeah, essentially. And where we're getting

00:13:00.980 to now is everybody, uh, I noticed, um, I don't know her name, but, uh, just a couple of weeks ago,

00:13:09.860 uh, uh, a black Caribbean MP sitting there in her ethnic garb standing up talking about reparations. 0.95

00:13:17.960 And it's like, I'm just thinking, oh, we're on the hook again, uh, another immigrant community 1.00

00:13:23.460 with a handout. And then I look at this and think, well, who is the ethnicity, uh, that is not

00:13:31.040 represented in this parliament? And of course it's the white English people, because you've got the

00:13:35.880 Lib Dems who will always go to bat for foreigners. White English people are at the absolute bottom of the 0.89

00:13:43.300 list of any priority, um, for labor Lib Dems and to a large extent, the Tories. And I, I just kind of

00:13:52.740 think, um, uh, uh, we, for some reason, this is permissible for ethnic minorities to form their own

00:14:02.800 ethnic voting blocks, their own, uh, enclaves, their own power bases, their own agendas, their own 0.57

00:14:09.180 lobbying bases. So we get foreign funding coming in, uh, to places like, uh, Tower Hamlets and Bradford

00:14:17.260 funding certain international agendas. Um, we need to be alert to this. This is national security threat

00:14:24.540 kind of thing. Uh, and yet this is permissible and it's all part of diversity and multiculturalism.

00:14:32.940 And we're supposed to welcome all of this. It's a bit of diversity upon, but of course,

00:14:39.100 it's subordinates our own politics and our own ethnic interests and subverts them.

00:14:43.260 Yeah. Yes. Um, I never wanted, uh, yeah, I've always been suspicious of blood and soil ethno 0.92

00:14:52.140 nationalism because it is the gateway to a darker politics. And, um, if I'm in a room full of ethno

00:15:01.980 nationalists, um, not all of them are bad people, not all of them have got ugly politics. Um,

00:15:07.580 just people who have arrived at that position through the same logical process I have.

00:15:12.300 But if you walk into that room, you're, you know, you're in the company of some dark politics and

00:15:19.820 places that you wouldn't necessarily want to go. I've certainly noticed there's a,

00:15:23.740 a, uh, a seam of quite vicious antisemitism that just, it just creeps me out to the extent that I,

00:15:32.540 um, the more right wing and doctrinally pure the ethno right gets, the less I want to have

00:15:39.820 anything to do with it. But I don't see anything intellectually coherent about the current civic

00:15:45.580 nationalism. So I occupy the space in between that doesn't actually have a definition.

00:15:50.940 And I think it's just the sensible center and forgive you for interrupting you.

00:15:55.580 Yeah.

00:15:55.980 For, for somebody from the Middle East, what does being British mean? It means somebody who's

00:16:03.020 descended from British people.

00:16:04.380 Yes.

00:16:04.860 It means somebody with British ancestry. What does somebody Chinese mean? Somebody who

00:16:09.420 looks Chinese, speaks Chinese, is Chinese. And these things to the rest of the world are extremely 0.82

00:16:16.220 self-evident. Um, you, you look at East Asia, the level of racism within East Asia towards other

00:16:22.940 East Asians is off the charts. Uh, you look at the religious nationalism of India or Pakistan, 0.93

00:16:31.340 and again, it's completely off the charts. These are peoples that have very clear definitions of who they

00:16:37.260 are. And they are in a, in a very real way, the universal norm. The West has adopted Americanism

00:16:48.620 to a very large extent as a sort of melting pot, as a sort of come from wherever.

00:16:54.460 Yes. But that Western countries are built on immigration and which of course, which is 1.00

00:16:59.900 absolutely nonsense, which is absolutely factually nonsense. Uh, but that Americanism was primarily

00:17:06.300 aimed at white Europeans. If you were a white European Christian seeking, and Christian played

00:17:13.100 an important part of it, uh, although Jewish was also part of it as well. Um, if you were a European 0.85

00:17:20.300 Christian, you were welcome to leave the baggage of Europe's wars and come to America, but I don't 1.00

00:17:26.220 think it included shrines to Vishnu or Krishna or anything of that sort. Um, it was predicated on a

00:17:33.900 shared system of beliefs that, okay, we have our ethnic and language differences, but the moral framework

00:17:40.220 is Christian. Well, America of course is built on, um, uh, philosophy. Uh, there's an, there is an underlying 0.91

00:17:48.940 philosophy that everybody bought into. And part of that goes, uh, it is, you know, free markets and

00:17:55.900 commerce, the land of opportunity, freedom. It's built on this idea of freedom. So, um, that civic

00:18:02.620 identity is, uh, it's wrapped up in the dollar sign. Everybody coming to, uh, find their own part of

00:18:10.780 America and, you know, put their stake in the ground and build something around it. And of course,

00:18:15.580 it's a country that's big enough for that to happen. And so you did have, um, you did have like

00:18:21.500 Amish settlements and you could even have an Indian settlement somewhere in the, because it's big,

00:18:26.380 vast country with, um, it's interesting how, uh, um, exclusively American sports events are still

00:18:36.140 called the world series. Um, or, uh, you know, the world championship of a sport that's only played in

00:18:43.500 America because America in itself is a contained world. And, uh, it's one of the reasons, uh,

00:18:52.460 America doesn't really play by the same trade rules, trade FTAs as Europe does, because America

00:19:00.300 is a country that sitting on so much of its own reserves of everything from oil through to minerals,

00:19:06.700 its own talents, uh, its intellectual resources. It does not need trade in the same way that a little

00:19:14.620 island moored off the, uh, coast of Europe does. If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from

00:19:20.220 the Lotus Eaters, head to our website where you can find more.

PREVIEW： Realpolitik #21 ｜ How to Fix Britain With Northern Variant

Episode Stats

People

Summary

Transcript