The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

00:00:00.120 Hi folks, welcome to the podcast The Lotus Thesis for Monday the 2nd of December 2024.

00:00:05.560 I have the pleasure of being joined by Ben Habib. Hi Ben, how are you?

00:00:09.120 I'm very well indeed, thank you Carl, thank you for having me on.

00:00:11.940 I was really looking forward to this interview, I have to say.

00:00:15.620 It's been a long time coming, hasn't it? So obviously you guys won't know,

00:00:18.940 but we've had massive scheduling problems, been trying to get Ben on for ages,

00:00:23.800 and it's just every single time someone's schedule fell through, but finally we made it happen.

00:00:27.860 It's my fault I think, actually part of it, because I was trying to organise it to start with, wasn't I Carl?

00:00:32.360 Anyway, enough of that, yeah.

00:00:33.440 But yeah, no, but I had the same problem on the other end.

00:00:36.680 But anyway, so today we're going to be talking about what Brexit meant,

00:00:40.700 and why it hasn't been properly followed through on,

00:00:43.720 Keir Starmer's apparent turn towards the right, which I'm very suspect about,

00:00:48.680 and why Ben decided to leave the Reform Party, which I'm sure nobody has any strong opinions on.

00:00:53.940 So, okay, so let's begin talking about Brexit then.

00:00:59.820 So as I understand, you've been a Brexit supporter for the entire time that the topic had come about.

00:01:05.900 You joined the Brexit Party, and you were a prominent voice among the right-wing commentariat about Brexit,

00:01:14.140 and you don't seem to have ever backed down from that position.

00:01:17.320 So would you like to give me a quick summary as to why you were a Brexiteer?

00:01:20.640 Yeah. So I was actually, being frank, I was a mild Eurosceptic.

00:01:27.120 I'm a businessman by background, and I was a mild Eurosceptic.

00:01:30.900 I knew that I didn't want to be part of the European Union,

00:01:33.800 but I was running my business and getting on with life.

00:01:36.380 And I didn't campaign for Brexit in 2016.

00:01:38.760 I did donate to Vote Leave, which was the appointed, you know,

00:01:41.960 the anointed campaign group by the government.

00:01:44.680 But the thing that got my attention was Mark Carney saying things like,

00:01:53.020 if we vote to leave the European Union, we will need to put £250 billion aside in case there's a run on the banks.

00:02:01.020 And George Osborne saying things like, a million people would lose their jobs,

00:02:05.020 75,000 jobs would be lost in the city, we'd go into an immediate deep recession,

00:02:09.980 and he would have to apply austerity, which is actually what you never do if you go into a recession.

00:02:14.680 You actually let the state come to the rescue of the economy.

00:02:19.440 And that got my antenna up.

00:02:21.800 And I kept thinking, well, these guys aren't telling the truth.

00:02:24.140 They're actually outright lying.

00:02:25.800 And Mark Carney, who's meant to just be the bank of the, the governor of the Bank of England,

00:02:30.040 shouldn't have a view on Brexit.

00:02:31.340 He should just react to what the political circumstances, you know,

00:02:35.060 what political circumstances are thrown at him.

00:02:36.840 He should not be, you know, offering up his opinion.

00:02:40.880 And so I got the impression then that the establishment was moving against a perfectly legitimate question,

00:02:49.120 which was, do you want the United Kingdom to be a member of the European Union?

00:02:54.220 And, and I wrote as one does, I think, I don't know what your political journey has been like,

00:02:59.660 but mine started with writing furious letters to the Financial Times.

00:03:02.940 Can you believe it? To the Financial Times.

00:03:04.260 I can't believe it. Mine was basically writing furious letters and putting them on YouTube.

00:03:09.120 Yeah.

00:03:10.360 I was nobody, you know, I didn't have anywhere to go.

00:03:12.640 I didn't even appreciate then that the FT wasn't, you know, on my side of the debate.

00:03:16.780 I just kind of thought everyone was a sort of honest broker.

00:03:19.340 Anyway, I started off by writing these letters, Telegraph as well, obviously.

00:03:22.980 And then Theresa May got elected, appointed rather by the Conservative Party's prime minister.

00:03:27.580 She said all the right things. You know, no deal's a deal. No, no, a bad deal.

00:03:32.860 No deal's better than a bad deal. Nothing's agreed till everything's agreed.

00:03:37.020 It's about the, just about managing and so on. And I thought, right, fine, she's got it.

00:03:41.920 And I vacated again. And then, and then of course she didn't deliver Brexit.

00:03:47.760 And I got increasingly anxious about what was going on. But at that stage, I was a Tory donor.

00:03:52.880 And I went to a lunch with Michael Gove. This is too much detail.

00:03:55.900 No, no, you please. I won't hear it all.

00:03:57.700 So I went to a lunch with Michael Gove.

00:04:00.720 If you're...

00:04:01.540 I'm a bit ill this week. Sorry, I apologise.

00:04:03.560 But if you're a Tory donor, and I was a member of something called the Renaissance Group,

00:04:08.260 you pay an amount of money per annum, and you get to have lunch with a cabinet minister once a month,

00:04:15.420 with no more than 10 people present. And my first meeting was with Michael Gove,

00:04:20.140 who, for me, was a Brexit hero, because he campaigned for us to leave the European Union.

00:04:26.040 And as a businessman, I asked him, well, you know, if we don't get a good deal with the EU,

00:04:30.720 this was in June 2018, if we don't get a good deal with the EU, what are your no-deal plans?

00:04:37.280 You know, are you going to deregulate, cut taxes, you know, rocket-propell the British economy

00:04:42.240 so that we can take any, you know, hits we might get from the EU?

00:04:46.000 And he said, no, no, no, no, we don't need any plan B.

00:04:49.460 I said, what do you mean you don't need a plan B?

00:04:50.880 He said, we're going to get a good deal.

00:04:52.840 And at that moment, the balloon...

00:04:54.660 Oh, are we?

00:04:55.500 The balloon went up for me.

00:04:57.080 You know, these guys don't know what they're doing.

00:04:58.900 Either they don't know what they're doing, or they're going to screw us.

00:05:02.200 And then, of course, it became evident that Theresa May wasn't in good faith.

00:05:06.540 She wasn't going to deliver Brexit.

00:05:08.460 And then I heard about the Brexit party through someone I worked with.

00:05:12.440 And they said, would you like to meet Nigel?

00:05:14.360 And I thought at the time, ooh, Nigel, right-wing, xenophobic.

00:05:18.260 Do I really want to meet him?

00:05:19.840 And of course...

00:05:20.900 But I said, yeah, sure, absolutely.

00:05:26.140 I don't mean to laugh, but looking back, why can't he be the Nigel Farage I was promised?

00:05:34.220 But, you know, as a businessman, having, you know, been quite institutional all my life...

00:05:39.380 Anyway, I met Nigel, and of course, Nigel's none of that.

00:05:41.880 Nigel's very affable, very good interest, certainly not a racist, and so on.

00:05:47.100 And we talked about his new party, the Brexit party.

00:05:50.360 And I said, well, I'll do whatever I can to help.

00:05:53.500 And before I knew it, I was standing in the bureau elections in May 2019.

00:05:59.540 And sadly, I haven't been able to look back since.

00:06:03.120 It's been a sort of full-on political...

00:06:06.720 I've been on the same...

00:06:08.060 I say I'm on a political journey.

00:06:10.280 I'm learning more and more about politics as I go forward.

00:06:13.700 And I'm getting less and less impressed by those who govern us.

00:06:18.160 And, you know, and which is why I know that we now need...

00:06:22.500 Which is why I'm acutely aware that the country's facing what I call an existential threat,

00:06:27.100 constitutionally, democratically, economically, and culturally.

00:06:30.000 And we need a 180-degree change in the way the country is governed.

00:06:34.420 Oh, there is no doubt in my mind that so many people are converging on that same perspective

00:06:40.440 for a good reason.

00:06:42.260 It has to be that there is something to it.

00:06:44.900 Just a quick aside on the Brexit thing.

00:06:47.420 I'm not a businessman, nor am I an economist.

00:06:49.940 But it strikes me that we have the corporate tax rate that's twice that of Ireland,

00:06:55.560 which is right next to us, which strikes me as a very poor strategic move.

00:07:01.260 Why aren't we undercutting them?

00:07:02.460 I mean, it's absolutely absurd.

00:07:04.900 And if it is a bad strategic move for the United Kingdom,

00:07:08.840 you can imagine how awful it is for Northern Ireland,

00:07:11.800 which operates an open economy across the island of Ireland with the Republic.

00:07:17.340 And they have a tax rate, or they had for many years, of 20%.

00:07:20.320 And the Republic of Ireland has a tax rate of 12.5%.

00:07:24.960 And all businesses, if offered the opportunity to work in Europe,

00:07:31.420 would always choose a lower tax rate than a higher one.

00:07:35.500 And businesses were sucked out of Northern Ireland.

00:07:38.260 You know, we tend to think of Northern Ireland as a poor province, which it is.

00:07:42.100 It's the biggest deficit province in the United Kingdom.

00:07:45.140 But that's very significantly due to the fact that it has an open economy with the Republic.

00:07:49.580 And the Republic has half the tax rate.

00:07:53.220 And so just to put that into context, last year, the Republic had 24 billion pounds in corporate tax revenue.

00:08:01.500 24 billion pounds.

00:08:03.060 And I think their economy is about a sixth the size of the United Kingdom.

00:08:07.100 And we in the United Kingdom had 60 billion.

00:08:10.040 So when people say to you, we need to raise tax rates to make more revenue for the Exchequer,

00:08:15.360 they're talking garbage.

00:08:16.740 If they slash tax rates, they would attract more businesses like the Republic of Ireland has,

00:08:23.300 and they would gain more corporate tax revenue.

00:08:26.200 The Exchequer would get richer.

00:08:27.560 And this is what Liz Truss tried to do. 1.00

00:08:30.140 And she got ousted by a kind of internal coup, didn't she?

00:08:33.200 She did.

00:08:34.200 So, you know, one of the bizarre things in my mind is that economics shouldn't be an ideological.

00:08:42.400 We and I had a discussion about the word ideological.

00:08:44.780 But economics shouldn't be driven by ideology.

00:08:47.860 Economics, I think, should be driven by a pragmatic recognition of where the country is at any particular point in time.

00:08:55.340 And you adjust your economic policy accordingly.

00:08:58.640 So, for example, if we were at war against, you know, if we're in a world war, for example,

00:09:04.680 I would endorse completely very high tax rates and, you know, demands made on private enterprise and individuals because we're at war.

00:09:13.080 And we do nevertheless have the highest tax burdens as a proportion of GDP since World War II.

00:09:25.280 And we also, as it happens, have the highest debt burden as a percentage of GDP since World War II.

00:09:33.180 And the policies which got us to this position are the policies which need changing if we want to reduce the tax burden and reduce the debt burden.

00:09:43.760 But instead of changing direction, the policies that got us to the position are the ones that the establishment continue to wish to foist on us.

00:09:53.740 And Liz Truss, it may have been a slightly ham-fisted attempt at changing the direction of travel. 0.88

00:10:00.360 But she recognized she had to change the way the country was governed economically because we were being overtaxed.

00:10:06.400 The state was spending too much money and we needed to row back the state, row back spending and cut taxes.

00:10:12.460 And, of course, the political organisms which run the United Kingdom, many of which are not democratically accountable, including notably the Bank of England, again, you know.

00:10:23.860 Thank you, Mr. Blair.

00:10:24.800 Yeah, thank you, Mr. Blair.

00:10:27.040 Cut Liz Truss off at the knees. 1.00

00:10:29.620 They didn't like the change in direction.

00:10:31.420 They didn't want the received political governance wisdom, if you like, to change.

00:10:37.360 And they couldn't tolerate her agenda.

00:10:39.960 She did make some mistakes.

00:10:41.160 You know, she didn't have to offer up a cut in tax rates for the most wealthy people in the country from 45%. 1.00

00:10:47.980 I think she was going to cut it to 42.5%. 1.00

00:10:50.620 She could have left that alone. 0.68

00:10:53.300 The optics of that was bad.

00:10:56.280 But Liz Truss's idea on the economy was basically the right one. 1.00

00:11:01.040 Cut taxes, reduce spending and liberate the private sector.

00:11:04.300 It really drives me crazy because just from anyone who had the best interest of the United Kingdom in mind, to have essentially a very close competitor, English-speaking first world country with half our tax rate that has an open economy connected to the United Kingdom.

00:11:23.060 I mean, like I said, I'm not an economist.

00:11:26.660 I'm not a businessman.

00:11:27.820 I'm not anyone other than a concerned onlooker.

00:11:31.200 But I'm looking at this and thinking, okay, but this is surely strategic suicide.

00:11:35.060 We are allowing our competition to completely undercut us and destroy the temptation for people to invest in the nation.

00:11:43.180 Yeah, that's precisely what happens.

00:11:45.700 And AstraZeneca, I don't know if you followed a couple of years ago, maybe even...

00:11:49.700 Not very closely.

00:11:50.560 As a year ago, AstraZeneca, instead of developing a new facility in the United Kingdom, decided that they were going to go to Republic of Ireland and they cited the tax rate.

00:12:00.180 Yeah.

00:12:00.380 And of course, they're not wed to any particular country.

00:12:04.640 They'll go to the country which has the least regulations and the lowest tax rate so they can make the most profit.

00:12:10.280 It's the same with all of the Silicon Valley tech giants.

00:12:13.580 Every single one of them has their headquarters in Ireland.

00:12:16.760 And so any interface anyone in Britain has on a professional level with any of the major internet services, the social media giants, they're all in Ireland.

00:12:27.140 It's all Ireland. 0.55

00:12:27.900 When you get paid by YouTube, it's Google Ireland has paid you however much.

00:12:32.320 And it's for exactly that reason.

00:12:33.860 There's just no reason not to.

00:12:34.800 And what this is doing is making Ireland a very rich and prosperous country, which is great, but that's not us.

00:12:40.280 We should be doing it.

00:12:42.340 And I mean, Rishi Sunak, you may have followed, tied us or was trying to tie us into a minimum 15% corporation tax rate agreed with the OECD country.

00:12:54.580 And why would you do that?

00:12:57.340 Why would a nation state whose one economic tool, fiscal policy, is so critical in the way that you run that nation state, why would it give up a fiscal tool in the pursuit of some kind of harmony with its neighbours?

00:13:10.720 Global trade is not a kumbaya experience.

00:13:15.160 Global trade is a competitive one.

00:13:17.080 It's meant to be ruthless.

00:13:17.920 It's meant to be ruthless for the benefit of the British people. 0.99

00:13:20.560 And so we should keep all our armoury, if you like, economic armoury, at our disposal in the pursuit of getting richer as a country.

00:13:29.840 And this is, I mean, you talked about Brexit.

00:13:33.000 Brexit was a cry from the British people, not just to leave the EU.

00:13:37.420 It was a cry from the British people to stop governing the country through global liberal principles, economic, cultural and constitutional.

00:13:48.640 And it was a cry of the British people to recognise we are the United Kingdom.

00:13:53.100 Can you please start putting British interests first? 0.96

00:13:56.460 That's fundamentally what it was.

00:13:58.160 And we want to be governed by people in this country.

00:14:01.260 We want to be able to hold them accountable.

00:14:03.320 We want to be able to boot them out when they get it wrong.

00:14:05.540 And we want those monkeys to do what's best for us.

00:14:09.820 Honestly, the reason I've got this map of the referendum up is, I mean, I agree with you, but I think it's a very English phenomenon as well.

00:14:19.560 The left behind parts of England, in particular, are the most Brexiteery places for a reason.

00:14:25.060 But even then, England and Wales, generally, I think it was kind of almost spiritual.

00:14:29.500 Like we shouldn't be governed by someone on the continent.

00:14:31.700 No, we shouldn't.

00:14:32.760 And by the way, we still are.

00:14:34.980 I know.

00:14:35.500 And this is the point.

00:14:36.640 And it's not just the EU that's governing us, as I'm sure you're better aware than I am.

00:14:42.440 You know, we have multiple global institutions and international treaties, as well as domestic bodies, which neuter our ability to govern ourselves as a democracy.

00:14:51.500 And these are the things that we need to be fighting against tooth and nail.

00:14:55.740 This is where Blair was so evil because he set this train in motion in many ways.

00:15:01.080 Well, the EU goes back before that.

00:15:03.840 But the hollowing out of our democracy, the pursuit of international treaties, the abrogation of local governance in favor of international institutions, all of that started with Blair in the way that, you know, we're now, you know, the speed at which we're now.

00:15:24.540 So we're kind of enmeshed in this strange sort of spider silk web of quangocracies.

00:15:30.020 We are.

00:15:30.320 Yeah.

00:15:30.820 I think Liz Truss is the best example of someone's come up to that and said, OK, I'm just going to push through it.

00:15:36.580 And no, you're not.

00:15:37.540 It's it's very deeply entrenched.

00:15:39.480 Strangled her.

00:15:39.980 And it's going to require legislation to remove, clearly.

00:15:42.640 And and so they were never going to let Brexit happen.

00:15:45.520 And that's why I think and that's why I think it's very important to recognize we didn't get Brexit because only if we got Brexit, which means genuinely cutting our ties with the European Union from a regulatory perspective, genuinely removing their laws and their ability to influence our laws.

00:16:06.580 Because only then would we be free to push back against this global liberal order and indeed the quangocracies, because you'd pull the rug out from all from under the feet of all these people.

00:16:18.700 And some people say, oh, Ben, that's so risky.

00:16:21.980 We would have ended up in a trade war with the EU.

00:16:24.560 Well, my response to that is, well, let's have the trade war with the EU.

00:16:28.520 We can win it.

00:16:30.320 Deregulate.

00:16:31.060 Cut taxes.

00:16:31.760 It would have forced our government to do what's right for the United Kingdom.

00:16:35.420 A trade war would have been cathartic for the United Kingdom.

00:16:39.580 We would have got rid of so much baggage that we carry unnecessarily.

00:16:44.540 It would have been so brilliant if they'd if they'd cut corporation tax something ridiculously low.

00:16:50.080 I mean, as someone who owns a business, I would have appreciated it.

00:16:52.820 But but it would have been it would have been just an unleashing of the country.

00:16:56.980 Absolutely.

00:16:57.420 Optimism would have returned.

00:16:58.540 Which is what Trump's about to do in the US.

00:17:00.640 Exactly.

00:17:01.000 You know, what Trump has said, he's going to ditch net zero, which is highly expensive for energy and for businesses and for families and households and everything else.

00:17:07.840 He's going to deregulate and he's going to cut taxes.

00:17:11.780 Simple.

00:17:12.720 And if the UK.

00:17:13.820 It's really not very complicated.

00:17:14.820 It's not complicated.

00:17:15.480 And if the UK doesn't follow suit, we're going to be in a real pickle because capital is fluid.

00:17:22.420 Global capital is fluid.

00:17:23.720 It will leave the UK.

00:17:25.360 It will leave the European Union and it will go to the States because it will find a much pleasanter experience.

00:17:31.960 And we're going to have such a good example in another English speaking country that we're very close to politically, where they're doing the exact right thing for themselves and we're doing the exact wrong thing for ourselves.

00:17:42.660 Absolutely.

00:17:43.420 And yet we're trapped in this.

00:17:44.900 Again, it just feels like this kind of gossamer webs that just hold on.

00:17:47.840 You can't do that.

00:17:48.440 It's like, but I think if I just tense my muscles, I could.

00:17:51.460 And for some reason, they're like, yeah, but you're not allowed to do that.

00:17:54.020 No, we can't do that.

00:17:54.800 Just don't just just this this narcotic effect that our current political environment has.

00:18:00.180 It's like, yeah, but we're just going to raise your taxes now.

00:18:01.860 So it's just more difficult.

00:18:03.040 And everything becomes more difficult.

00:18:04.100 And so everything it looks like doom and gloom on the horizon just because they're not prepared to release the gentle hold they have on us, slowly pulling us back into the loam until we just dissolve into nothingness.

00:18:16.920 And it's like, no, I just don't want that.

00:18:18.400 And they don't seem to understand the benefits that encouraging your own population to actually go out and get something done does.

00:18:25.020 I mean, this is this would be steel sharpening steel.

00:18:27.600 You know, OK, we become more competitive.

00:18:29.200 We become better.

00:18:29.780 This is a pursuit of excellence.

00:18:31.640 OK, what's that do to the Europeans?

00:18:32.960 Well, that makes them up their game as well.

00:18:35.380 And so suddenly competition is good.

00:18:37.400 Everyone is getting better.

00:18:39.480 And yeah, exactly.

00:18:40.000 Competition is a fundamental good that for some reason, the international liberal order is just completely against, which you would think that's weird for liberals.

00:18:47.520 They were usually very pro competition.

00:18:49.000 I remember when Sunak was at a conference.

00:18:52.340 I can't remember if it was a G7 or G20 or something.

00:18:55.860 He tweeted, obviously in a moment, you've euphoric collegiate emotion towards his fellow world leaders.

00:19:04.660 As he tweeted saying, we must not compete with our friends and neighbors.

00:19:09.920 Signed to that effect.

00:19:10.820 And I thought to myself, you just haven't got it, buddy.

00:19:13.860 Yeah.

00:19:14.000 That's we can cooperate with them, but we must compete with them.

00:19:18.380 Yeah.

00:19:19.020 I mean, I'm constantly competing with my friends in a genial way.

00:19:23.580 You know, absolutely.

00:19:24.180 You know, once you've got a fair and established set of rules that everyone agrees to, competition becomes fun because now everyone knows no one's going to get screwed, you know, and they're going to do their best and someone's going to come out on top.

00:19:34.960 But that's okay.

00:19:35.960 You know, no one loses out really.

00:19:38.100 It's just everyone gets a bit better.

00:19:39.680 Anyway, I don't want to focus too much on that because it's just one of those things I just find very innovating.

00:19:45.040 And I just want to talk about it.

00:19:47.640 But anyway, so I found the Lord Ashcroft Proles, just to linger on Brexit a little bit more, very fascinating.

00:19:54.180 Because of the reasons that people gave for voting for Brexit.

00:19:57.600 I don't know if we can get this up, actually.

00:19:59.640 Maybe this would be.

00:20:00.360 It's quite small.

00:20:01.460 But why the Leave voters voted to Leave.

00:20:03.900 The number one principle was decisions that the UK should be made in the UK, which is obvious.

00:20:08.480 So essentially, English radicalism.

00:20:11.120 I think it was Paul Mason that made this comment on, like, Jimmy News or something.

00:20:14.240 He was like, look, English radicalism has always been based around self-determination.

00:20:17.860 And yeah, of course, England's been a sovereign nation for a thousand years almost.

00:20:21.500 So of course it's obsessed with it.

00:20:23.100 But the second one was regain control over immigration on our own borders.

00:20:27.680 And that, I think, is the thing that people are most disappointed with Mr. Johnson about.

00:20:32.480 How could you do this to us?

00:20:34.240 What were you thinking?

00:20:35.440 But we haven't got Brexit.

00:20:36.800 That's the point.

00:20:37.940 You know, we're still being governed by the same liberal global mindset.

00:20:41.600 You know, technically, I mean, what happened on the 31st of January 2020 was that we left the institutions of the European Union.

00:20:50.660 We left the Parliament.

00:20:51.880 I left the Parliament.

00:20:53.320 The Brexit Party left the Parliament.

00:20:55.280 I bet they were pleased with that.

00:20:56.340 You know, we left our position on the Commission.

00:20:59.460 We left our position on the European Court of Justice and so on.

00:21:05.880 But we didn't give up the laws.

00:21:08.900 The deal that Boris Johnson, he did two deals with the European Union.

00:21:12.500 The first was the withdrawal agreement.

00:21:14.520 And in the withdrawal agreement, he left Northern Ireland behind.

00:21:17.460 It's something I've been fighting very hard.

00:21:20.380 And the effect of leaving Northern Ireland behind is not just Northern Ireland being seriously compromised.

00:21:26.180 It's that it also created a grappling hook, a regulatory grappling hook into the flesh of the rest of the United Kingdom, into Great Britain, basically.

00:21:36.280 And so we are being tugged through the Northern Ireland protocol towards the EU.

00:21:42.400 And Starmer is using it to justify getting closer to the EU on phytosanitary and sanitary conditions and so on.

00:21:49.560 He will neuter our ability to chart an independent economic path using the protocol as his excuse.

00:21:59.940 That's what he'll do.

00:22:00.720 And that's partly why the protocol was designed the way it was designed.

00:22:04.360 So even if you don't really care about Northern Ireland, I happen to care a lot about Northern Ireland.

00:22:10.280 But even if you don't, even if you care really only about Great Britain, you still need to get rid of the Northern Ireland protocol because it's a grappling hook into Great Britain.

00:22:18.660 So we did that.

00:22:20.500 And then the second deal that Boris Johnson did, the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which came a year later, required us, still requires this country to align with state aid laws in the European Union, such as they were on 31st December 2020.

00:22:36.980 Competition laws, employment laws and environmental laws.

00:22:41.780 And of course, under environmental laws, one of the passing shots of Theresa May was to embed net zero on our statute books. 1.00

00:22:50.580 And the way the environmental alignment with the EU is framed in this new treaty is that we're not allowed to regress from any domestic environmental laws, even if those domestic laws have future effect.

00:23:05.760 And of course, net zero is all about getting to net zero by 2050.

00:23:08.440 And so it's a future effect. Are you with me?

00:23:11.480 Oh, yeah, completely.

00:23:12.240 So even though...

00:23:13.380 I hate it. I'm getting angry and trying to contain my phrase.

00:23:16.760 So under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, we are not allowed to ditch net zero.

00:23:23.360 People don't realise that it's not in the gift of our government any longer, whether or not we get rid of this incredibly self-harming policy.

00:23:31.680 It's signed into international treaty.

00:23:34.040 And the other things he signed us up into, which I find horrifying, is a continued commitment to the European Convention of Human Rights.

00:23:43.340 Now, the ECHR is independent of the European Union.

00:23:47.320 But in the trade deal that we did with the EU, we committed to staying in it.

00:23:51.700 So if we want to leave the ECHR, which is a reform UK policy, which is something Robert Jenrick also said he wanted to do, we would have to terminate the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

00:24:02.660 See, I didn't know this.

00:24:03.820 Yeah, so this is very interesting.

00:24:06.260 So all roads take you back to getting Brexit done properly.

00:24:10.680 You want to protect our borders, you've got to get Brexit done properly.

00:24:14.680 You've got to ditch the Trade and Cooperation Agreement before you can really get out of the European Convention of Human Rights.

00:24:22.440 So, I mean, what this is doing for me is putting the scope of the Conservative betrayal into perspective.

00:24:28.260 Because a lot of people, I think, have been fooled by Boris Johnson.

00:24:31.560 I think a lot of people thought, you know, he's going to get Brexit done.

00:24:34.360 You know, it's oven ready.

00:24:36.040 And essentially what we've done is sold out 1.6 million British citizens in Northern Ireland, left them to rot. 0.56

00:24:42.860 I mean, just the most uncompetitive position we could put them in and said, right, that's your problem.

00:24:49.620 You're on your own.

00:24:51.200 Enjoy being immiserated by the Republic of Ireland through these unfair, well, not even unfair, but just through us holding you back competitively.

00:24:59.160 And then for the rest of the UK, it's like, right, you're not going to get the thing you voted for because of the agreement that we signed, which we could have been much more aggressive upon.

00:25:08.300 We should have been much more aggressive about it.

00:25:10.220 It's crazy.

00:25:10.740 I mean, I'll let you into a little, it's not really a confidence anymore, but I'm going to let you into this.

00:25:15.760 One of the arch negotiators of the trade and cooperation agreement didn't know that he'd bound us into a non-regression obligation on net zero.

00:25:24.920 He didn't know it.

00:25:26.160 And I was challenged by a peer in the House of Lords, as opposed to a piss head, but a peer, if you get the, that was a joke, on whether or not I was right.

00:25:39.040 But because one of the architects of the trade and cooperation agreement had contradicted me.

00:25:43.860 So I took a photograph of the provisions in the TCA, sent it across to this, this peer.

00:25:50.860 And I got a text back a few days later, oh yeah, oh yes, no, yeah, we are, we are committed to non-regression.

00:25:57.620 So even one of the architects of the agreement didn't know what the agreement said.

00:26:02.880 Oh God, what do we do?

00:26:08.280 And I'll just quickly rattle through what else is in the agreement, very quickly.

00:26:11.840 So through that agreement, we're also committed to funding European Union military development, the European Defence Fund.

00:26:20.680 So that is for the creation and implementation of European hardware and software, military hardware and software on an interoperable basis.

00:26:31.280 We, the United Kingdom, are funding the creation of a European Defence Union.

00:26:36.680 And Starmer, I'm sure, wants to take us into that EDU.

00:26:40.080 And it's not like NATO, where it's lots of different independent sovereign states coming together and cooperating.

00:26:47.140 The European Defence Union will be under Brussels.

00:26:49.520 We will be giving up our independent defence capability.

00:26:54.980 Now, Boris Johnson didn't sign us up into that precisely, but he signed us up on a path towards that.

00:27:01.180 He also signed us up into the European arrest warrant.

00:27:04.580 So a court in Romania, for example, could issue an arrest warrant for a British citizen.

00:27:10.780 And there's very little a British court could do to protect that British citizen.

00:27:14.700 Now, you just think about that for a moment.

00:27:16.760 How in any shape or form is that Brexit?

00:27:19.520 I mean, I'm trying to be charitable.

00:27:23.280 I'm trying to think of a way to be charitable about this.

00:27:26.360 But I just, I didn't follow Brexit very closely after the referendum and after the Boris government.

00:27:35.460 Because the general attitude from the mainstream was, okay, well, we've kind of lost on that and so we'll capitulate.

00:27:41.240 And so I assume, well, it can't be too bad.

00:27:43.820 And I've got other things I need to look into.

00:27:45.700 I've got other things I'm more interested in studying.

00:27:47.640 And now I'm glad I didn't because I would have been raging about this every day of my life.

00:27:51.580 Like this is obviously, essentially a way to tacitly and slowly, by degree, scupper the entire project.

00:27:59.640 Absolutely. And, you know, we say quite rightly that the United Kingdom doesn't really have a written constitution.

00:28:05.180 Well, I would say two of the most important constitutional documents in the UK now are international treaties over which we, the British people, have no control.

00:28:14.200 The two treaties Boris Johnson signed, because they constitutionally determine, they determine our constitutional framework in so many areas.

00:28:23.420 And we can't ditch net zero.

00:28:25.560 We can't get rid of, do with state aid that which we wish to.

00:28:28.740 We can't buy British first. 1.00

00:28:30.200 Did you know that?

00:28:31.300 We can't, our government can't buy British first. 1.00

00:28:34.460 In areas of strategic military importance, there is a carve out.

00:28:38.720 But if our government wants to go to tender on something that isn't of strategic importance, we're obliged to tender with European Union member state firms on an equal basis.

00:28:50.020 That ain't Brexit.

00:28:51.220 It was all about buying British first. 0.99

00:28:53.760 And so I'll just say this one last thing on Brexit.

00:28:56.160 If we got Brexit, if we genuinely became independent of the European Union, we would set the country on a path that you and I both wish to set it on.

00:29:07.820 And it's like, you know, that game, is it called Django or something, you know, where you...

00:29:12.980 Django.

00:29:13.500 Django, not Django.

00:29:14.640 That's a film, isn't it?

00:29:15.840 Django, where you pull out a bit of, you know, if we pulled out the trade and cooperation agreement and the withdrawal agreement, the whole thing would come crashing down and we'd become independent.

00:29:24.740 We'd be forced to become independent overnight.

00:29:27.300 And that's why Brexit was so critical.

00:29:29.480 And it's so sad that we didn't get it.

00:29:31.120 And if we just had a government that actually wanted this, because I think the main issue is that none of our politicians really wanted this to happen.

00:29:38.120 This was a massive upset.

00:29:39.540 Even those ones who campaign on Brexit, you, I mean, like the Michael Goves, the Boris Johnsons, you can tell this isn't really in their DNA.

00:29:46.380 They're actually quite liberal internationalists themselves.

00:29:49.240 And they would rather go on as they have done up until this point.

00:29:52.580 And it would require a complete change of mindset from a new government that came in that was quite aggressive and bearish on this.

00:29:59.960 It's like, no, we're here to fight, actually.

00:30:03.300 We're here to fight for a future that is a possible future but is not being realized because of the kind of torpor that has come across the country.

00:30:10.980 But I think that would wake everything up.

00:30:12.400 Suddenly the energy would be back.

00:30:13.740 Suddenly Britain would be back. 0.98

00:30:14.960 Like we would be, I mean, they always talk about being a world leader and competitive in this, that and the other.

00:30:20.760 It's like, but we're not in anything at all.

00:30:23.020 Possibly poverty.

00:30:23.960 I don't know.

00:30:24.440 But things are really going downhill.

00:30:26.380 And everyone can feel the degradation of the country.

00:30:29.480 Absolutely.

00:30:29.680 We're just walking around it.

00:30:30.660 And it doesn't have to be this way.

00:30:32.040 Absolutely.

00:30:32.660 And, you know, it's a tragedy that we haven't taken advantage of it because, you know, we all should know, or I think we all know in our heart of hearts, that regulations made in Brussels are not made for the benefit of the United Kingdom.

00:30:48.600 It doesn't even need to be said.

00:30:49.980 It doesn't even need to be said.

00:30:51.280 So the fact that we're taking regulations from the European Union means we're just self-harming.

00:30:57.920 Yes.

00:30:58.760 And we should be, in fact, inflicting the harm on them via fair trade and competition.

00:31:05.220 But, right, okay.

00:31:06.180 Well, I guess we'll leave Brexit there because, honestly, it's infuriated me.

00:31:09.820 And I'm just, it's just very, very frustrating.

00:31:14.820 Let's move on.

00:31:16.620 So I'm sure that you've seen and everyone else has seen that net migration into the UK has been revised upwards.

00:31:24.860 It's the second time they've revised it upwards, isn't it?

00:31:28.320 It is indeed the second time they've revised it upwards because last time they said it was something like 650,000.

00:31:33.580 And, I mean, as if that is an acceptable number.

00:31:36.380 I know.

00:31:36.800 That's an insane number.

00:31:39.560 We're broadcasting from Swindon, which is about 270,000 people.

00:31:43.240 Swindon is a massive town.

00:31:44.820 It's absolutely gargantuan.

00:31:46.120 And, yeah, it's 650,000 was supposed to be the acceptable number.

00:31:52.620 That was revised upwards to 740,000.

00:31:55.300 And recently it was revised upwards yet again to 906,000.

00:32:00.000 Net.

00:32:00.460 Net.

00:32:01.220 So every year about 700,000 people leave.

00:32:04.920 So we're probably looking at over a million and a half people who were let in in one year under the quote-unquote conservative government.

00:32:12.980 And this was a chart that just went upwards over the last five or so years.

00:32:17.760 So basically it looks like the conservative government willfully let in over 6 million people in five years.

00:32:25.000 That's exactly right.

00:32:26.060 Yes.

00:32:26.420 And that's the way to look at it.

00:32:27.620 The net figure is trying to distract us from the real rapid change in our demography.

00:32:33.380 The gross figures of what you have to look at.

00:32:36.720 And there has been a dramatic increase in immigration in the last few years, none of which was needed for the economy.

00:32:45.240 None of it was needed for the economy.

00:32:46.680 The notion that we would have somehow economically collapsed without all these people coming into the country is absurd. 1.00

00:32:53.600 In fact, I'd say quite the opposite.

00:32:55.540 I say we're being seriously economically challenged.

00:32:59.300 Well, we've covered this many times on the podcast.

00:33:01.160 And on the plus side, the narrative that mass immigration provides economic growth has been resoundingly disproven by the lack of economic growth that has coincided with the mass immigration.

00:33:13.080 We are about to head into a recession.

00:33:16.360 Britain's economic growth has been completely flat for all this time.

00:33:19.500 And we're now starting to get the bill.

00:33:21.080 We're starting to find out that we paid nearly 6 million pounds on asylum seekers.

00:33:25.340 And notice there's a nice sleight of hand that's always played as well.

00:33:30.080 We can maybe get rid of the asylum seekers. 1.00

00:33:32.660 It's like, okay, but the million and a half people who are let in are not asylum seekers.

00:33:36.760 They're just people who are looking for economic opportunity.

00:33:39.620 And if you're looking for economic opportunity, why come to Britain?

00:33:42.260 I don't know.

00:33:43.280 But they're not the same.

00:33:45.000 Actually, Carl, I'd say many aren't even looking for economic opportunity.

00:33:47.740 They're looking for benefits.

00:33:49.120 Absolutely.

00:33:49.520 I think we've got to be straight about what they're doing.

00:33:52.280 And we know that a third of them are just dependents.

00:33:54.680 They're registered as dependents.

00:33:56.000 A third of them are students and another third are here for work.

00:33:58.560 And it's like, right, so two-thirds of these people really ought not to be here.

00:34:02.900 Absolutely right.

00:34:03.820 Let's be fair.

00:34:04.200 On the economic argument.

00:34:06.200 And there are various metrics that have come out recently that show that this depresses wages.

00:34:12.060 It's preventing economic growth.

00:34:13.520 It's causing massive growth in state redistribution and spending.

00:34:17.420 So the taxes have to go up.

00:34:19.220 The £22 billion black hole has to be filled.

00:34:21.840 And even then, I'm not even going to go into it because obviously that's nonsense.

00:34:25.180 But the point being, it's obvious that immigration is the reason that Britain is decaying. 1.00

00:34:30.180 It's costing us too much.

00:34:31.900 It's filling our towns and cities with strangers who are not paying their way. 0.98

00:34:36.740 The infrastructure is overburdened.

00:34:39.300 There is no free money for anything.

00:34:41.440 I mean, it's impacting us at every single level.

00:34:43.840 So, as you say, economically, it's burdensome.

00:34:46.740 The NHS is being pressured because far too many people in this country, they keep saying we need, you know, foreigners to man our NHS.

00:34:55.040 But actually, there are many more foreigners using it than there are manning it.

00:34:59.300 Oh, my God.

00:34:59.820 So, just a quick thing.

00:35:00.600 This is a point I have to make to leftist commentators all the time.

00:35:03.740 It's like you do realize that these people who come here are people.

00:35:07.260 And sometimes they get sick too.

00:35:09.360 Absolutely.

00:35:09.780 And so, you are just compounding the problem and saying, okay, well, we need now more people.

00:35:14.220 And, I mean, we've had a population growth since the late 90s of probably somewhere north of 15 million people.

00:35:21.340 If immigration was the solution to the problem, why isn't everything brilliant? 1.00

00:35:25.000 Yeah.

00:35:25.200 If the, you know, if the problems aren't being caused by immigration, well, why aren't things just, we should be living in utopia. 0.96

00:35:33.080 Yeah.

00:35:33.300 So, our public services are all burdened.

00:35:36.000 Our housing stock, which we're not building enough of, or we're certainly not even able to repurpose that which we've got because of net zero and other onus obligations, is incapable of dealing with the number of people in the country.

00:35:50.340 We're paying out benefits.

00:35:52.320 You know, we've got one and a half million foreigners effectively on benefits in the UK.

00:35:57.100 I do.

00:35:57.600 And so, that is a benefits bill of somewhere.

00:36:01.620 I've heard estimates of 10 billion.

00:36:03.100 I think it's more like 15 billion.

00:36:05.520 Just that alone.

00:36:07.280 And then you've got the thick end of 8 billion a year on illegal migrants.

00:36:11.360 You're talking about, you know, that fictitious 22 billion black hole that they're talking about.

00:36:15.320 You could fill that instantly by removing immigrants on benefits and removing people who shouldn't be in the country in the first place. 1.00

00:36:24.340 And, I mean, it's just bizarre.

00:36:26.840 It beggars belief.

00:36:28.640 And there are going to be people who will say, well, the services have collapsed, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:36:34.740 It's like, look, okay, even if that is all true, we can't continue on like this, right?

00:36:41.280 So, even if they haven't collapsed right now, on the current trajectory we are on, they're going to collapse.

00:36:48.000 We're going to arrive at a point where the NHS, I mean, there are 7.5 million people on the NHS waiting list.

00:36:53.740 And that went down by 200,000 and that was heralded as a great victory.

00:36:57.240 It's like, oh, so there are only 7.3 million.

00:36:59.740 And, I mean, the budget, so Rachel Reeves kept identifying the 22 billion so-called black hole for her reason to do all the tax rises. 1.00

00:37:11.640 The budget that she announced actually is 45 billion pounds in tax rises and another 32 billion of borrowing on top of that.

00:37:21.240 So, she's basically going to spend 77 billion pounds a year extra. 1.00

00:37:28.400 And the burden of all that taxation is already showing its effect on the economy when all the indicators now in the UK economy are pointing towards recession.

00:37:39.160 And if we end up in recession, she won't get the 45 billion pounds in tax revenue she's expecting.

00:37:44.440 But her spending will still stay the same, which means our borrowing is going to go through the roof.

00:37:50.860 It's already through the roof.

00:37:52.200 It'll go even more through the roof.

00:37:54.120 And what will happen then is that interest rates will have to go up to try and attract money into government coffers.

00:38:01.740 As interest rates go up, people will still, investors, private investors, will be looking at the UK and going,

00:38:07.180 well, I'm not going to invest there because actually they've got a borrowing requirement which their government can't fulfill.

00:38:12.980 Well, their economy's in recession.

00:38:14.860 So, I'm not going to be investing in the UK, which means sterling will fall.

00:38:18.800 And sterling's fallen already 7% against the dollar.

00:38:21.880 That means even though they're putting interest rates up, we're going to be importing inflation in a recessionary environment,

00:38:28.400 which means they'll have to put interest rates up even more.

00:38:31.880 Can you see where I'm going with this?

00:38:32.880 Oh, absolutely.

00:38:33.680 We're going to end up.

00:38:34.580 This is crazy.

00:38:35.420 This is crazy.

00:38:36.240 It's a death spiral.

00:38:36.960 It's a death spiral.

00:38:37.700 We're heading into it.

00:38:38.220 It's an economic death spiral.

00:38:39.300 And it seems like such an unforced error.

00:38:43.960 Like, there's no reason that we have to be in this position.

00:38:46.860 No.

00:38:47.440 And so, I'm genuinely, genuinely concerned about this, but what can I do?

00:38:53.620 And so, one of the things that people noticed the other day was Keir Starmer speaking about migration.

00:38:59.620 Now, I found it very interesting that he was prepared to lay this at the feet of the Conservatives,

00:39:05.340 because it is the Labour Party that began the experiment in mass immigration into the country.

00:39:11.340 And Keir Starmer, I think, would probably admit to being a Blairite, so he would admit to being the heir of this project,

00:39:17.040 which David Cameron and the other Conservatives have been as well.

00:39:20.320 And Boris Johnson, for some reason, just ramped it up on steroids.

00:39:22.860 And Keir Starmer accused them of running an experiment.

00:39:27.500 He essentially adopted the far-right perspective on immigration into the country.

00:39:32.700 Now, I'm mildly sceptical about his far-right credentials in this regard.

00:39:39.120 What do you think?

00:39:40.860 Well, I don't like the expression right-wing,

00:39:43.280 because I think it misdescribes those of us who simply want the country's interest to be put.

00:39:48.040 You know, if you want the United Kingdom to do well, you're somehow right-wing.

00:39:53.060 You know, apparently.

00:39:55.320 So I don't like that.

00:39:56.320 But I mean, it's a complete lie, obviously.

00:39:58.480 Of course he doesn't, he's not right-wing.

00:40:01.320 Of course he doesn't really care about immigration.

00:40:03.740 Keir Starmer, I mean, let's just get one thing straight.

00:40:06.620 Keir Starmer is anti-British.

00:40:08.000 Oh, yes.

00:40:08.380 And I don't say that because I want to be inflammatory,

00:40:12.420 or because he doesn't identify the town in which he was born or whatever.

00:40:16.840 It's because the policies which he wishes to adopt are firmly of that liberal global order,

00:40:23.360 where British citizenry is no more important than immigrant citizenry.

00:40:29.440 And you may have noticed, Carl, I'm sure you would have done,

00:40:31.560 that they now, in order to avoid using the word minorities in the country,

00:40:35.940 they're referring to them as global majorities.

00:40:38.420 So we should welcome, in the spirit of democratic inclusion,

00:40:45.260 we should welcome the global majority because they're the majority.

00:40:48.920 Are you with me?

00:40:49.720 Well, I'm sorry.

00:40:50.620 I'm feeling that maybe I'll become a leftist

00:40:52.720 and start talking about how we're being oppressed by the global majority.

00:40:56.220 You know.

00:40:56.380 Yeah, we become the minority in our own country.

00:40:59.940 Okay, well, now I want minority rights.

00:41:01.880 But obviously, preposterous.

00:41:03.540 But yeah, no, I completely agree.

00:41:04.640 So he's anti-British.

00:41:05.980 He doesn't care.

00:41:07.320 Literally Davos man.

00:41:08.740 He is literally.

00:41:09.460 He said he preferred Davos to Westminster.

00:41:11.640 He wants open borders.

00:41:13.020 He doesn't give a damn about the illegal migration,

00:41:15.120 as far as I'm concerned.

00:41:16.120 And he'd be very happy to be governed by Brussels.

00:41:19.180 We know that.

00:41:20.100 We know exactly where his heart is.

00:41:21.460 And if you want to be governed by a foreign power, 0.98

00:41:23.960 if you don't want to protect your borders,

00:41:25.680 if you care as much about foreigners as you do about your own people,

00:41:30.420 you're not British. 0.99

00:41:31.360 You're not really pro-British, are you?

00:41:33.020 I mean, that, to me, is not in any way controversial.

00:41:36.500 That's self-evident from exactly the premises you've laid out.

00:41:40.080 There are going to be lots of people who will claim that that's not true

00:41:43.540 and will claim that you are somehow being exclusionary.

00:41:46.560 But I just don't see the argument.

00:41:48.680 I mean, he really seems to...

00:41:49.980 I mean, he spent his entire legal career defending foreign murderers. 0.97

00:41:53.120 I just...

00:41:54.500 I don't know why he has sympathy for those people.

00:41:57.460 But absolutely no sympathy for, say, British pensioners

00:42:00.420 who are currently freezing to death during a cold snap.

00:42:02.920 And we said, you know...

00:42:04.860 I mean, I noticed this straight after the Southport protests and riots.

00:42:09.340 Of course, rioting's wrong.

00:42:10.460 Let's just say that.

00:42:11.460 Because a statement of the obvious before someone accuses me

00:42:14.120 of stirring up a non-crime hate incident.

00:42:17.100 Obviously, rioting is bad, but there were many people out

00:42:21.620 legitimately protesting against the causes of the breakdown in our society

00:42:27.500 coming, you know, the principal cause being mass immigration,

00:42:30.980 the breakdown of our law and order and, you know, protection of British people.

00:42:37.060 Legitimate protests.

00:42:38.140 And instead of taking on board their legitimate protests,

00:42:42.100 he categorized everyone as far-right because it's a pejorative term,

00:42:45.480 which is also why I don't like using the word right-wing

00:42:47.840 because the minute you accept your right-wing,

00:42:50.100 it's a hop in a skip before they categorize you as far-right,

00:42:53.100 if you're with me.

00:42:54.200 Oh, I completely agree.

00:42:55.880 But he categorized everyone as far-right

00:42:59.460 and he literally directed the criminal justice system to find...

00:43:06.340 Fast-track them through.

00:43:07.200 Fast-track them through, find them, detain them, put them in custody,

00:43:10.320 don't let them out, throw away the key.

00:43:12.500 And then we had the famous case of Peter Lynch.

00:43:14.460 I'm moving on, but Peter...

00:43:15.820 No, no, please.

00:43:16.600 You know, 61-year-old grandfather who said some nasty things

00:43:19.980 to the policemen, had some conspiracy theories up on a placard.

00:43:24.480 He was accused of violent acts,

00:43:28.220 which... and the only evidence offered up against him was non-violent

00:43:31.140 for reasons which are not clear to me.

00:43:33.440 Maybe he didn't have proper legal representation.

00:43:35.340 He pleaded guilty.

00:43:36.280 He got two years, eight months,

00:43:37.840 and a couple of months later he hanged himself in prison.

00:43:40.340 And so a man is dead because Keir Starmer politicized the criminal justice system

00:43:47.800 and he did it because he is of the liberal global order

00:43:51.360 where he wouldn't have any truck with the criticism

00:43:54.700 that the protesters were making of mass immigration,

00:43:58.200 which is a perfectly legitimate protest.

00:44:00.560 I completely agree.

00:44:02.100 And the fact that Starmer, on the very first day,

00:44:05.560 almost the first words out of his mouth,

00:44:07.400 were to stigmatize and call them far right.

00:44:09.920 That is, right now, they are the political enemy

00:44:12.740 and I will deal with the political enemy.

00:44:15.400 So hang on, you don't know who these people are, Keir.

00:44:17.560 Absolutely.

00:44:18.280 These people are afraid, you know.

00:44:19.800 And like you say, they had bad legal representation.

00:44:21.820 Every single one of them pled guilty.

00:44:23.400 It's like, okay, but I'm looking at, you know,

00:44:25.320 that bricklayer from, you know, Liverpool or something.

00:44:27.940 I'm thinking, has that man ever spoken to a lawyer in his entire life?

00:44:31.180 He doesn't have a lawyer on retainer.

00:44:32.960 Like, he's probably never seen the inside of a courtroom.

00:44:35.020 He doesn't know how this process works.

00:44:36.700 And so some government appointees lawyers just come along and say,

00:44:38.900 look, if you just plead guilty, the whole thing will be over really quickly.

00:44:41.340 You'll get like three months in jail.

00:44:43.420 Whereas he hasn't actually done a thing wrong.

00:44:46.700 He's not guilty of a crime.

00:44:48.960 And so pleading guilty to what he's being accused of,

00:44:51.180 he could doubtless have proven that he wasn't guilty.

00:44:53.720 And yet now he's in jail and now you get a Peter Lynch.

00:44:56.720 It's a tragedy.

00:44:57.580 It's a tragedy which needs investigating.

00:44:59.840 Peter Lynch's death.

00:45:01.200 It's almost predatory.

00:45:02.740 That's the point.

00:45:03.660 It's almost like a predatory act.

00:45:05.440 And so that's why I say he's anti-British.

00:45:07.380 Because what those protesters, again, a bit like Brexit,

00:45:11.480 what the protesters were saying was, please put our interests first.

00:45:14.280 We don't want to be assaulted by people who've come to this country illegally. 1.00

00:45:18.460 Help us.

00:45:19.200 And mass migration.

00:45:20.700 Help us.

00:45:21.200 Please help us, the British people.

00:45:22.600 You know, far from being far right, I would, if I were to put money on their political disposition,

00:45:28.380 the people who were protesting, I'd say traditionally, probably they voted Labour.

00:45:33.380 100%.

00:45:33.740 And you'll notice that all of the protests were basically in Labour heartlands.

00:45:37.140 Were they?

00:45:37.440 Oh yeah, absolutely.

00:45:38.300 The protests in Liverpool went on late into the night.

00:45:41.820 Liverpool's been deep red for a long time.

00:45:43.860 But it's all across the north of England, where it's all the Labour heartlands.

00:45:46.860 And it's like, okay, but this is literally like a cry for help from the traditional Labour

00:45:50.860 voter saying, look, we are afraid in our own country because you've brought people over 1.00

00:45:55.680 who do not care about us, do not respect us, do not like us.

00:45:58.860 And we've had 20 years of very negative community relations with.

00:46:03.560 And you've taken the side of this new community every single time.

00:46:07.480 And now look at what's happening.

00:46:08.960 And so, I mean.

00:46:12.320 And the policies as well that the Tony Blair introduced it, he started it with the Companies

00:46:18.720 Act, Section 172, which was the beginning, I think, of, you know, stakeholder capital, capitalism,

00:46:26.300 which was requiring businesses in this country to have a view for social justice.

00:46:31.360 You know, businesses should just be amoral entities which exist to employ people and make 1.00

00:46:36.900 money.

00:46:37.580 And he introduced this concept of social justice.

00:46:40.320 And on the back of that social justice concept, they have created progressive discrimination

00:46:45.260 in favour of minorities.

00:46:46.720 And that progressive discrimination now manifests itself, not just in a two-tier criminal justice

00:46:52.340 system, but in a two-tier society.

00:46:55.180 Every single institution in this country is encouraged to hire ethnic minorities over the

00:47:02.080 majority white folk of this country.

00:47:05.480 That's the only way to put it.

00:47:07.240 Every institution, you know, whether you're educational establishment, armed forces, public services,

00:47:13.300 private sector, whatever you are, wherever you are, you're encouraged through the regulatory

00:47:19.080 framework.

00:47:19.820 This is not a, please do this.

00:47:21.240 This is a regulatory thing.

00:47:22.800 You have to report on it.

00:47:24.260 My company has to report to the London Stock Exchange.

00:47:26.780 The most egregious example of this was the RAF, saying that they kept getting useless white

00:47:31.520 male applicants to be pilots.

00:47:33.820 Well, how were they useless?

00:47:35.140 Well, they weren't useless in flying planes.

00:47:36.840 That was not the issue.

00:47:37.780 Of course, they were going to be brilliant pilots.

00:47:39.240 They were useless when it came to totting up the diversity figures and accounting for 1.00

00:47:43.880 the diversity of the RAF.

00:47:45.120 It was like, well, sorry, you're in Britain.

00:47:46.380 I couldn't care less.

00:47:47.220 Yeah.

00:47:47.720 And of course, the impact of that is that you get rid of meritocracy.

00:47:53.140 Of course.

00:47:53.460 And you get rid of meritocracy, it's the beginning of the end of your country.

00:47:57.460 And, you know, do we really want anything other than the best RAF pilots?

00:48:02.560 We just want the best pilots.

00:48:03.900 It doesn't matter what skin color they are. 0.90

00:48:05.880 But if you're coming from a perspective that is, as you described, anti-British and actually

00:48:11.080 pro-global, pro-European, actually, maybe you do want Britain to slowly degrade in quality

00:48:17.780 and standards so that they aren't actually a good example to other people on how things

00:48:21.480 ought to be done, which is historically what Britain has actually been, I think.

00:48:25.320 An example of why high standards matter.

00:48:28.060 Because, I mean, if you just look at almost anything, actually, that Britain has been involved

00:48:32.320 in, we've almost always been outnumbered or out-financed or out-gunned in some way.

00:48:37.660 And yet we always come out on top because we have the highest standards.

00:48:41.180 And this has just been a perennial narrative for the British people that, okay, we are small,

00:48:47.160 but we can punch way above our weight if we want.

00:48:50.020 And other people could do the same if they wanted.

00:48:52.400 And we're in this position now.

00:48:54.500 Yeah, I mean, what we've done, very sadly, I'm digressing slightly, but that ability to

00:48:58.740 punch above your weight comes from self-confidence.

00:49:02.420 And we've damaged our self-confidence as a nation because we keep attacking our heritage.

00:49:07.200 It comes from inculcating aspiration, a belief that if you work hard, you will be able to make

00:49:14.500 money, do well for yourself, do well for your children, and so on.

00:49:17.320 And that's been neutered by high taxation, high state intervention, and inability for businesses

00:49:22.420 to do well in the way that we used to be able to do it.

00:49:25.180 The eschewing of excellence in the pursuit of equality, instead of levelling up, everything's

00:49:31.120 actually being levelled down.

00:49:32.420 And we see that through the VAT being imposed on private schools, for example.

00:49:36.980 And then this completely anti-British attitude where it's, you know, where people of the world

00:49:44.140 and so the entire world needs to benefit from our largesse.

00:49:47.340 No!

00:49:48.740 It's the British people who need to be protected.

00:49:51.320 But ironically, if we take the British Empire as a model, yes, the entire world will benefit

00:49:55.520 from our largesse if you allow us to be excellent.

00:49:58.240 When we are excellent, actually, the entire world does benefit and we feel better about

00:50:02.620 everything.

00:50:02.960 Everyone gets more wealth, more health, more longevity, more food, more prosperity.

00:50:08.660 We actually did create all of these things when we were unleashed.

00:50:11.800 Absolutely.

00:50:12.240 And I, just if I've got time to say it, you know, I was born in Karachi in 1965 in what

00:50:19.680 I would call the tailwinds of British Imperial India, even though it was Pakistan. 0.95

00:50:24.880 And it was a fantastic country into which I was born.

00:50:29.180 Wide avenues, clean avenues, the water services worked, the sewerage worked, the electricity

00:50:35.460 worked.

00:50:36.240 Better than Britain in 2024. 0.54

00:50:37.840 The buildings.

00:50:39.060 Frankly, it was.

00:50:40.080 I believe it.

00:50:40.760 It was safe.

00:50:41.980 The buildings were all in great order.

00:50:43.900 The legacy of the British Empire, contrary to all the lefties, view of the British Empire

00:50:49.300 was a phenomenal legacy.

00:50:51.880 And the people with whom I grew up were very proud.

00:50:56.060 Pakistanis were very proud of the British Empire.

00:50:58.680 They're not so now because the whole narrative has changed.

00:51:02.420 And, you know, there are all sorts of other reasons.

00:51:04.120 Decades of indoctrination.

00:51:05.340 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:51:06.240 But back then, people were very proud of their British legacy in Pakistan.

00:51:11.880 And I am still, even though I was born in Pakistan, I'm very, very proud of the British Empire.

00:51:18.480 Why would I not be proud of the British Empire?

00:51:20.520 It is through the Empire that I have the great privilege, frankly, of being in this country now.

00:51:30.380 My dad did marry an English lady, but he wouldn't have met her if it hadn't been for the British Empire.

00:51:36.380 But it's the same for my granddad on my father's side.

00:51:39.340 He came over from St. Hamina to help with the war effort against the Nazis in World War II,

00:51:44.200 met a British, an English woman, married her, and that's how I ended up here.

00:51:48.240 So, obviously, he was very much the same.

00:51:51.500 He was very proud of the Empire, very proud of the country.

00:51:54.520 The idea that we can just sit there and go, okay, well, we'll let...

00:51:57.440 I don't know whether you saw, but the writer of Horrible Histories came out and said,

00:52:01.320 yeah, no, I hate Britain, I hate the Empire, I always have.

00:52:03.500 It's like, okay, but why is he on the BBC writing our histories then?

00:52:05.920 You know, that can only be a deliberate pattern and agenda of subversion,

00:52:10.820 and no one who had the country's interests in mind would ever permit this.

00:52:15.100 This guy would never have been anywhere near any kind of position of influence.

00:52:18.940 And yet, my son watches Horrible Histories, he's like, oh, I really like this, Dad.

00:52:22.220 It's like, yeah, but you don't see what I see in it.

00:52:24.600 I see, yes, you know, like Nelson is actually like a weak coward or something is how he's portrayed.

00:52:30.580 I mean, they're indoctrinating.

00:52:31.900 He's one of our greatest heroes, what are you doing?

00:52:33.600 They're indoctrinating our children.

00:52:34.820 And it really is, and I despise it.

00:52:38.540 But okay, let's leave that there, because again, it's making me very angry.

00:52:42.720 It's making me very angry thinking about all of this.

00:52:46.540 Right, so the final thing I thought we'd talk about is probably the most timely and most sensitive.

00:52:52.420 Oh.

00:52:52.620 Which is, you recently announced that you've left the Reform Party, or at least stopped subscribing to the Reform Party.

00:53:01.600 I'm not even sure how the membership works, actually.

00:53:03.720 Yeah.

00:53:03.880 But, yeah, so you put out this very measured and reasonable statement, and I think it was about 12 minutes long, the video, so it's a very calm, reasonable explanation of what you felt had gone wrong with not just the party, but more the direction of travel.

00:53:21.940 The direction towards the center of politics moving towards the left of politics, and why this, you didn't think, actually satisfied the desires of the electorate.

00:53:33.440 And I'm of the opinion that basically it's a mistake for the Reform Party to try and move into an already very crowded sort of center-left field.

00:53:41.780 And you got quite an inappropriate backlash to this, I think, from Nigel Farage himself, who...

00:53:50.440 I'm going to read a few quotes, because I just wanted your comment on this, because...

00:53:54.360 Yeah.

00:53:54.920 I, and again, just to be clear, I didn't feel that this was a fair characterization of you at all.

00:54:00.560 So, GB News tell us that he described your departure from UK as a champagne moment, and the absolute icing on the cake.

00:54:08.800 In an interview in GB News, he claimed that you had become increasingly critical, stating that you'd attacked him more in public than the Labour Party have,

00:54:16.520 and that you're very bitter, very twisted, and it's very sad, and the fact that you walked away is, frankly, a huge relief.

00:54:24.960 A note out, it is a huge relief, otherwise he wouldn't have said it.

00:54:27.700 Well, yeah.

00:54:28.300 And I think he also sang, The Sun Has Got His Hat On, hip, hip, hip, hooray.

00:54:32.560 He did.

00:54:33.820 But I am not aware of having attacked Nigel at all, personally.

00:54:42.400 Well, neither am I. I've watched many of your interviews, many of your...

00:54:44.980 Yeah. I mean, I do think that there is a much better line for Reform UK to be taking on many policies,

00:54:53.000 for example, calling Brexit out for not having been done, as opposed to accepting it's been done, but it's been done badly.

00:54:59.980 You know, you end up in a really difficult conundrum without, or, you know, leave that aside.

00:55:05.260 But, you know, I don't accept Brexit's been done.

00:55:07.560 I can't at any level accept it, because Northern Ireland has been left behind.

00:55:11.420 I think that we must have mass deportation, because anyone who's in this country illegally should be deported, detained, and deported. 1.00

00:55:21.880 And if you can't do it quickly, then you take whatever time it requires to get it done, but you get it done.

00:55:27.240 Just as a quick side there, wasn't that in their manifesto, that they were going to remove illegal aliens? 0.97

00:55:32.320 It is. It is. But there isn't a declaration to remove all illegal aliens. 0.85

00:55:38.320 Right. OK.

00:55:39.720 And I'm very worried about the rate of demographic change in the country, because that is the other side of the same coin,

00:55:48.380 which is doing so much damage to the culture and integrity.

00:55:51.080 I say integrity of our society. That's actually grammatically incorrect, because society requires a settled culture.

00:56:00.040 And what we've got, we haven't got a society in this country anymore.

00:56:02.680 We don't have a society. We have lots of different communities, all coexisting, and sometimes less harmoniously than at other times.

00:56:12.000 And so we don't have a society. And I see the rate of demographic change as part of the reason our society no longer exists.

00:56:23.460 And why multiculturalism is so damaging is because of the rate at which people have come into the country, amongst other things. 1.00

00:56:30.140 And so I've got, you know, a few issues on that front with Reform UK.

00:56:33.980 And also the party isn't democratised. There is no kind of check and balance or broad body of people that appoint the leadership and so on.

00:56:43.180 It's a company owned by Nigel and Richard Theiss.

00:56:46.060 And Nigel has said, to be fair to him, that he's going to democratise, but it hasn't happened.

00:56:50.340 And some of the statements coming out have been misleading, in my view, about what they're going to do.

00:56:55.060 But can I just leave all of that aside for a second?

00:56:57.720 I think what Reform UK is squandering, if I may say so, is the ability to really galvanise and broaden and galvanise the movement it started.

00:57:16.420 That, frankly, Richard and I started. Richard started and I joined him in this endeavour.

00:57:20.880 4.1 million people voted for Reform UK, and they voted for Reform UK because they want a 180 degree change in direction for how the country is governed.

00:57:33.760 We've talked about it at length in this interview.

00:57:37.020 And by moving towards, I think, a position where Reform UK thinks it can appeal more to the mainstream,

00:57:44.620 what it's forgetting is that the mainstream is a very crowded area politically.

00:57:50.880 You know, you've got Liberal Democrats, Labour, Conservatives, they're all there.

00:57:55.480 Greens, SNP, there are a plurality of left-wing politics.

00:58:00.340 I mean, you know, I suppose Reform wouldn't be as far over as they are.

00:58:03.840 But, you know, I think in the pursuit of sanitising itself, in the pursuit, I think, frankly, of recruiting Tories,

00:58:11.440 Reform UK is at risk of turning its back on the movement it created and at risk of not growing that movement,

00:58:21.580 the movement being turned off by it.

00:58:24.020 And it's opening up a very wide gap because Kemi Badenoch is not going to be able to take the Conservative Party. 0.88

00:58:30.920 I don't like the expression, but she's not going to be able to take the Conservative Party to the right 0.97

00:58:35.400 because she's got too many one-nation-wet Tories in it. 1.00

00:58:39.500 Apparently, she's very close to Michael Gove.

00:58:42.480 Yeah, that's what I've heard.

00:58:43.760 I mean, some people say she's not.

00:58:45.460 But anyway, she's going to have a devil's job moving the Tory party to the right. 1.00

00:58:50.740 Nigel, it looks to me like Reform is heading towards the centre to garner support from the Tories and to recruit Tories.

00:58:58.000 That means that for those of us who are really pro-British, who really want an agenda that changes the way the country's governed,

00:59:08.240 that there's a huge political gap being opened up.

00:59:11.920 There is.

00:59:12.740 I didn't get the data up on this one.

00:59:15.600 I think it was on the previous one.

00:59:16.500 But I was looking at the numbers the other day on the 2024 election, and out of 48 million potential voters, only 28 million voted.

00:59:24.420 And I personally characterize our politics as quite far to the left and rather anti-British.

00:59:31.800 And I suspect, although I don't have hard data to prove this, that a vast amount of disillusionment with British politics

00:59:39.300 is that, frankly, patriotic, nativist people don't feel represented by any of these parties.

00:59:45.320 And so when Nigel Farage, he does well in interviews when he's being interviewed from the left.

00:59:51.140 But as soon as he's interviewed from the right, you get quite a bit, like the Stephen Edgington interview recently.

00:59:57.140 And there were a couple of others where he essentially just sounded like a conservative politician.

01:00:05.800 Oh, no, we're not going to do anything about mass immigration.

01:00:08.820 We're not going to do anything about Islam.

01:00:11.180 I mean, what's he going to do about the quangocracy that's currently keeping this nation ensnared? 1.00

01:00:17.280 Like, all of this he's been incredibly weak on, and I just don't understand why.

01:00:21.080 And then as soon as anyone brings this up, he essentially ejects them from the grace of his party and soldiers on without them,

01:00:31.000 creating a large number of people who are very valuable allies, whom he is not taking into consideration whatsoever.

01:00:38.640 Why is he like this?

01:00:40.280 Well, I mean, I think it's deliberate.

01:00:42.980 I mean, the only way I can explain it is that I think he wishes to recruit Tories.

01:00:47.060 He wishes to take the Tory party over.

01:00:49.100 I mean, he put out a letter.

01:00:51.180 Look, I don't want to have a go at Nigel.

01:00:52.820 I don't want this to be having a go at Nigel interview.

01:00:55.460 No, no, I didn't want to send it.

01:00:56.760 No, no, no, sure.

01:00:57.620 But, you know, I just get it out there, people watching.

01:01:01.300 But he sent a letter, as a matter of fact, to 1,300-odd Tory councillors who are coming up for election in May saying,

01:01:08.460 you know, please consider joining Reform because you're going to lose as a member of the Conservative Party.

01:01:12.180 And I can see some rationale for it because he wants to develop a ground game for Reform UK.

01:01:19.340 But if you take on Tories on a wholesale basis, you become the Tory party.

01:01:25.340 And in the pursuit of recruiting them, he's giving up on the very policies, principles, philosophy that got Reform its 4.1 million votes,

01:01:36.520 that gave people some hope that this country may now have a change in direction.

01:01:42.260 And so, I mean, I think we need to just look at what is opening up and how our movement,

01:01:50.180 to which I feel very obliged because I was in part, you know, helped create it,

01:01:54.800 how our movement reacts to what Reform is doing.

01:01:57.720 And, you know, maybe we need a new political force to engage with that movement and represent that movement.

01:02:04.660 I am definitely coming to the conclusion that there needs to be some kind of big tent party that understands itself to be consciously and foremost pro-British.

01:02:16.260 Because I'm prepared to say things about Nigel that you're not prepared to say.

01:02:21.200 Anyway, I've spoken to many people over the years who have had this kind of problem with Nigel.

01:02:26.040 He seems to feel that his ego is under threat and his position as the kind of leader of the right in Britain is constantly under threat by talented people.

01:02:34.080 And so he stepped on many people to get to where he is today.

01:02:37.100 But this, I don't think, is sufficient.

01:02:39.560 The fact that Reform are trailing in the polls when both the Labour and the Conservative parties are at their nadirs,

01:02:46.920 I don't know how they could become less popular than they are, and yet Farage is still not beating any of them, is remarkable.

01:02:54.420 And the fact that, I mean, when we had the local council elections a few weeks ago,

01:03:00.540 and Reform, I think, got something like four out of however many hundred it was,

01:03:05.660 and the Conservatives picked up loads.

01:03:07.420 And it was like, well, hang on a second, how is this happening, Nigel?

01:03:09.560 And he had to ask councillors to defect to him, and none did, or one did, I think.

01:03:13.640 And it was like, okay, but that's a tremendous embarrassment.

01:03:17.200 That shows a profound amount of weakness.

01:03:19.220 And the fact that you are stood in an ivory tower saying, okay, you can come to me now.

01:03:24.140 And it's like, well, why would they?

01:03:25.720 Like, they've already committed.

01:03:27.820 And you're kind of, you're letting the moment pass you by

01:03:31.340 because of your inability to build a coalition of people who want to work with you.

01:03:35.620 And now you're, you know, Richard Tice disavowing the Unite the Kingdom rallies

01:03:40.000 and any other commentator, Gwaine Towler.

01:03:42.940 And it's like, there's no level of loyalty there.

01:03:45.380 There's no level of incorporation there.

01:03:47.920 I didn't understand the Gwaine Towler sacking.

01:03:49.980 I mean, Gwaine's been such a loyal servant of the movement.

01:03:53.840 Yeah, but the point being, there's a vast wealth of talent and energy

01:03:59.340 that's being gatekept out of reform.

01:04:04.020 And like you say, they're going towards former conservatives who lost.

01:04:11.480 Yeah.

01:04:12.340 Yeah, I don't understand it.

01:04:14.620 And, I mean, look, it's nothing personal.

01:04:18.140 I'm certainly not bitter and twisted, by the way.

01:04:19.860 I didn't think that for a second.

01:04:21.580 I don't think any thought that for a second.

01:04:22.760 I mean, just one thing about me for people for years is I'm a businessman

01:04:27.580 who's run my own business most of my life, a small business.

01:04:30.720 When you're a small businessman, you have no time for bitter and twisted experiences because...

01:04:36.620 Believe me, I know.

01:04:37.820 You know what it's like.

01:04:38.680 Yeah, I do.

01:04:39.180 You have to be looking, how do I keep going?

01:04:41.320 How do I keep going?

01:04:42.300 What's the next step?

01:04:43.220 How do I protect myself?

01:04:44.900 How do I promote myself?

01:04:45.960 How do I make this thing work?

01:04:47.400 How is my business going to succeed?

01:04:49.160 That's all I'm interested in.

01:04:50.240 I reckon...

01:04:51.200 I'm only in politics.

01:04:52.720 This is going to sound quiche, but it's true.

01:04:54.880 I'm only in politics because I feel the country is facing an existential threat at multiple levels.

01:05:01.660 And I am only interested in finding solutions to save the United Kingdom.

01:05:07.740 That is it.

01:05:08.380 I completely agree.

01:05:11.180 And this is why I do what I do.

01:05:14.300 This is why I don't have a giant ego that runs away from me.

01:05:18.700 I'm actually not a very...

01:05:20.340 I'm not a person who's very interested in being on the news.

01:05:26.200 I actually hate it whenever...

01:05:27.600 I've got a Google alert set to my name so I know when they publish something about me.

01:05:31.000 Every time it comes on...

01:05:32.140 The other day, Jess Phillips was attacking me. 1.00

01:05:33.860 I was like, why?

01:05:35.240 What have I done?

01:05:36.140 I haven't done anything in like five years.

01:05:37.900 What's going on?

01:05:38.480 I'd wear that as a badge of honor if Jess Phillips... 1.00

01:05:40.220 Well, yeah, sure.

01:05:41.100 But it's just...

01:05:42.560 That's not what I want.

01:05:43.920 Okay, if you're the sort of person who wants that, then fair enough.

01:05:45.700 But like, you know, you could have a well-structured, well-organized hierarchy that Nigel would be at the top of and then they would have layers of activists and, you know, and close advisors and things like that.

01:05:57.440 But instead, he surrounds himself with just a handful of people who all seem okay, but not brilliant.

01:06:05.600 And...

01:06:05.840 But also, there's a kind of fragility to the Reform Party that I think, well, as soon as Nigel...

01:06:12.500 Frankly, I think that I don't think he's going to win the next election on the current trajectory that he's on in the big numbers that he's expecting to do.

01:06:19.300 But honestly, I thought, like, you know, six months ago that he would be capable of.

01:06:23.100 I think that the fragility that exists in the Reform Party means that essentially he will...

01:06:27.720 He'll get, you know, 30 seats or something.

01:06:29.680 But then Nigel's going to be 65 and say, okay, I'm just going to pack it in.

01:06:33.120 Well, that's the risk with him owning and controlling the party.

01:06:35.880 And then the whole thing just collapses.

01:06:37.100 There's one point of weakness.

01:06:38.840 Exactly.

01:06:39.300 If that point of weakness breaks, it's...

01:06:41.500 The whole thing's gone.

01:06:42.520 And it's not like Nigel hasn't done this before with UKIP, with the Brexit Party.

01:06:47.580 It's not like...

01:06:48.660 He doesn't have a history of this.

01:06:49.860 And I'm not even bothered about Nigel.

01:06:52.060 You know, okay, whatever, Nigel.

01:06:53.180 You know, I don't care.

01:06:54.860 But I know lots of the activists on the lower levels that he relies upon.

01:06:59.980 And I know that they're good people.

01:07:01.640 Like, I've spoken to various functions where, essentially, it may as well have been a Reform

01:07:05.820 function, even though officially it wasn't.

01:07:07.600 Because they're all like, well, no, we're...

01:07:08.960 You know, we know that he's not great on this.

01:07:11.340 But it's the only thing we've got going.

01:07:13.300 And I'm just...

01:07:14.800 I feel that he's going to...

01:07:17.100 Like, and this happened when I joined UKIP.

01:07:18.620 A lot of people were genuinely disappointed with how Nigel treated them.

01:07:22.780 And not taken into consideration the amount of time that they gave up.

01:07:25.960 And effort that they gave up.

01:07:26.860 I mean, I'm deliberately not talking about this in a personal context.

01:07:31.500 Because I actually don't mind being treated badly.

01:07:35.140 That's fine.

01:07:36.100 Treat me as badly as you wish to treat me.

01:07:38.200 Stay true to the cause.

01:07:40.420 I mean, Nigel, if he stays true to the cause, can call me anything he wants to call me.

01:07:44.320 I couldn't care less.

01:07:45.060 Yeah, Nigel, if you're doing the right thing, I'd be like, okay, well, that's weird.

01:07:48.280 But, you know, whatever.

01:07:50.920 Absolutely.

01:07:51.220 Whatever.

01:07:51.700 Absolutely.

01:07:52.160 I couldn't care less.

01:07:52.920 I'm thick-skinned.

01:07:54.780 That's fine.

01:07:55.620 So, I mean, I just, you know, let's just hope things get better with Reform.

01:07:58.840 Or something emerges which garners that movement, grows the movement, and delivers the result for the British people.

01:08:07.000 Delivers the vote that we had in 2016 for us to be an independent, proud, sovereign, democratically governed state with strong borders.

01:08:16.080 I mean, it's simple, right?

01:08:17.840 Those people are still out there waiting for political representation.

01:08:21.900 They still voted for it.

01:08:23.120 And I just thought we'd just end on, you've written an article in The Express recently.

01:08:28.940 Yeah, this morning.

01:08:29.980 Yeah, this morning that I thought, again, was, like, if it was addressed to anyone else, essentially, other than Nigel Farage,

01:08:39.060 I would say, well, this is a fair critique and a reasonable critique that ought to be addressed.

01:08:46.700 But you were saying that you think Nigel will see this as a personal attack.

01:08:50.800 Well, he described me as having attacked him personally.

01:08:55.080 And so he does obviously see the criticism.

01:08:58.180 And I have been making criticism.

01:08:59.760 You know, I want the party democratized and I want, you know, policies to change.

01:09:04.040 But I think he does see criticism as personal attack.

01:09:06.740 So I suspect he'll probably see the article as a personal attack.

01:09:09.920 It isn't.

01:09:10.400 Nigel, if you're watching, it's not a personal attack.

01:09:12.300 Ken, one of the things that I think Nigel fails to understand is a lot of the people who he exiles from his orbit are fans of his.

01:09:23.420 They're people who like him.

01:09:24.400 I've been supporting Nigel Farage for years.

01:09:26.160 Yeah.

01:09:26.260 And I don't like to be like, OK, but, you know, actually, how many conservatives do you really need?

01:09:33.300 You know, aren't you looking at those as the sort of like the people who failed the country?

01:09:37.280 And, you know, you should be raising up a bunch of people.

01:09:39.940 I mean, what Nigel should be doing, forget about everything we've discussed, what Nigel should be doing is gathering around him all the really great thinkers of our movement, including people like yourself, if I may say so, and others, you know.

01:09:55.060 But there's such a wealth of talent.

01:09:56.220 There's such a wealth of talent.

01:09:57.280 I won't name names because then I'll have to go on naming names until I've named everyone.

01:10:01.140 But there's a massive wealth of talent, all desirous, all recognizing the threats the country's facing, all desirous to do well by the country.

01:10:09.400 And only in it for the country.

01:10:11.960 And he should be gathering those people around him and promoting them and listening to them and understanding what it is that needs to be done and making a fighting force.

01:10:24.240 We should be a fantastic, strong fighting force.

01:10:27.460 Very much in the way that Trump has done recently.

01:10:29.540 You look at all of the people that Trump's been bringing into his campaign, into his administration, and you realize this is taking on the sort of Avengers-style memetic quality to it.

01:10:39.040 It's like, oh, hang on a second.

01:10:40.320 There is a revolution happening.

01:10:42.000 There is a revolution happening in the States.

01:10:43.940 And we could have the same thing here, but Nigel Farage is...

01:10:47.040 Well, maybe he'll do it.

01:10:48.220 Maybe he'll do it.

01:10:49.060 Maybe he'll watch this interview and go, yeah, yeah, I'm going to do that.

01:10:51.380 Maybe.

01:10:53.160 I'm not going to put my money on it.

01:10:54.540 But the point is, I think, the potential is all there.

01:10:59.480 And, okay, if Nigel Farage isn't going to pick it up, well, he's not going to be around forever.

01:11:03.580 Maybe someone comes along afterwards and does it.

01:11:06.100 Yeah, well, I think there are many great and good people in this country who want it done.

01:11:11.620 And then it just becomes a matter of bringing them together.

01:11:14.260 How do you bring them together?

01:11:15.840 That's the challenge.

01:11:16.920 And then you do it.

01:11:17.740 You know what I've found is people are actually a lot more open to have discussions and form friendships in this sphere than not, actually.

01:11:27.580 I've not had any problems getting guests on here.

01:11:30.520 I've not had any problems going to other people's shows.

01:11:33.960 Everyone has been very, very lovely.

01:11:36.340 Very few out-of-control egos, actually.

01:11:39.200 They seem to be accumulating in reform.

01:11:42.680 But in every other way, everyone's been completely level-headed, completely polite,

01:11:46.680 and I'm concerned about the future of the country, primarily.

01:11:49.760 And so I'm actually mildly optimistic that if someone were to do something,

01:11:55.040 then people would flock to the banner quite easily.

01:11:59.000 Shall we go to some comments?

01:12:00.540 We've got lots of people who have left lots and lots of lovely comments.

01:12:04.340 Such a great conversation, great episode, top-notch guest.

01:12:06.960 I wish Ben all the best in whichever direction he goes.

01:12:09.600 He's a huge asset to our side, meaning our movement, which, again,

01:12:12.920 I'm going to skip over most of the praise for Ben comments.

01:12:16.600 Let's go to the critical ones.

01:12:18.280 I don't know if I have any of those yet, but there's just a long list of praise.

01:12:22.680 Oh, that's very kind.

01:12:25.160 I will let him know.

01:12:27.060 Kevin says,

01:12:27.880 The more I hear, Ben, speak the more I'm convinced that I will not return to the UK

01:12:30.600 until he's in number 10.

01:12:32.140 Okay, I said I'd stop reading the random comments.

01:12:35.380 But as for the trade war with the EU, Kevin agrees.

01:12:38.640 Better a war than rolling over and let them rip us open chin to groin, 0.97

01:12:42.340 as they have been doing for decades.

01:12:43.500 It would be a short war anyway, judging by the videos coming from EU Commission meetings lately.

01:12:47.700 I haven't seen any of those.

01:12:48.720 What's going on with the EU Commission?

01:12:49.780 Well, they've just got a new commission, and they're all a pretty awful-looking bunch, I think.

01:12:53.780 Oh, are they?

01:12:54.260 Yeah.

01:12:54.800 Baudelaire is still at the top.

01:12:55.860 Oh, is she?

01:12:56.280 She's as awful to behold as she was before.

01:12:58.680 Absolutely.

01:12:59.880 But it's completely correct.

01:13:01.920 I mean, I just don't see how we could lose it, because as a single, centralized country,

01:13:08.680 we could move so much more nimbly than the European Union.

01:13:12.040 Yeah.

01:13:12.420 I mean, look, I understand that after World War II, we needed some kind of settlement in Europe

01:13:18.460 to prevent another world war, to bring nation-states back.

01:13:22.620 You know, we were ending empires.

01:13:24.400 That's what was happening.

01:13:25.680 Empires have long-ended.

01:13:27.000 We don't need these kinds of global constraints anymore.

01:13:30.760 We need to be nation-states.

01:13:32.420 I want, for what it's worth, France to be a strong, independent nation,

01:13:36.760 Germany to be a strong, independent nation, Italy, and so on.

01:13:39.700 And we can all cooperate, but we all have to be ourselves.

01:13:44.500 Yeah, and that's really not a controversial or difficult position to adopt, either.

01:13:50.340 There's nothing contradictory about it.

01:13:52.040 Like, I like our foreign neighbors as they are. 1.00

01:13:55.940 I don't need to have regulatory power over their internal markets.

01:13:59.360 I've got some issues with the French, but, you know, we're discussing that.

01:14:02.680 Traditional historical French issues.

01:14:04.200 But on a sort of, you know, a sentimental level, yeah, I want them to be the French 0.99

01:14:10.780 because I need someone to hate in the future.

01:14:12.400 You know what I mean?

01:14:12.780 Like, if they stop being the French and start speaking Arabic, I don't know why. 0.99

01:14:16.180 Yeah.

01:14:16.780 You know, I did French in school, for Christ's sake.

01:14:20.640 Yeah.

01:14:21.160 The point being, it's about self-respect and respect for the other nations around you.

01:14:26.100 And, yeah, of course I have respect for these people, and I want them to have respect for me,

01:14:29.260 and then we can deal with one another as equals.

01:14:32.500 Absolutely, as equals.

01:14:33.660 Yeah, with a knowledge of, an experience of one another.

01:14:36.320 And a respect.

01:14:37.380 Yes.

01:14:37.780 Even if it's grudging, a respect for each other.

01:14:42.000 Colin says, the biggest problem with Brexit is that hardly anyone involved in the negotiations

01:14:45.820 wanted it to succeed.

01:14:47.100 Yeah, absolutely.

01:14:48.360 And in the governments afterwards.

01:14:50.420 Again, the fact that we're so, just, like, we've got hooks in our skin holding us down.

01:14:57.000 It's just horrific.

01:14:58.860 Theodore says, the establishment refuses to abandon the economic and other policies

01:15:02.720 that got us into this bad position, because it's so ideologically committed to them that

01:15:06.300 they have to insist that things have only gone wrong because they haven't done those policies

01:15:10.500 enough.

01:15:10.880 So this is an issue that I am genuinely concerned about, is the mediocrity of the people in charge.

01:15:19.580 What are your views on that?

01:15:20.720 I couldn't agree more.

01:15:22.100 I think the mediocrity is, you know, I said I've been on a political journey.

01:15:27.000 Part of the political journey, not in an ideological or philosophical sense, but in just the

01:15:33.020 recognition of how...

01:15:34.320 Discovery.

01:15:34.620 Discovery.

01:15:35.220 Yeah.

01:15:35.460 I've been on a journey of discovery.

01:15:38.740 And what I've discovered is that the vast majority of our parliamentarians are not qualified

01:15:44.000 to be in parliament.

01:15:45.020 Morals.

01:15:45.920 The business secretary has never been in business.

01:15:48.360 There's not a single individual in the front bench who's been in business.

01:15:51.040 Rachel Reeves, the...

01:15:52.420 Well, was she?

01:15:53.160 HR or...

01:15:54.240 Reeves from accounts or Rachel from accounts.

01:15:55.880 It's like, how is she in charge of the economy?

01:15:58.500 I know.

01:15:59.240 And Keir Starmer is hardly our best and brightest.

01:16:01.740 So that's why Nigel's got this great opportunity, or there is a great opportunity, to get some

01:16:06.140 really fantastic economists into the party, get some really fantastic military experts,

01:16:12.200 get some people who understand the environment, who can debug the whole net zero nonsense and

01:16:16.280 make the case.

01:16:17.600 Are you with me?

01:16:18.340 Oh, completely.

01:16:18.980 Get doctors who understand the NHS, get them around you.

01:16:22.660 And they've all been sidelined by the mainstream anyway.

01:16:24.560 So they're eager, they're chomping at the bit, to say, no, give me something that I can

01:16:28.940 use to advance what I believe to be the truth about this thing, what is in our interest

01:16:33.400 to advance.

01:16:34.180 And show up all these lazy parliamentarians who stand in contempt of the people.

01:16:37.920 And they're lazy experts who are never properly challenged on many things.

01:16:42.120 It's like, who was the doctor who did the modelling for the COVID lockdowns?

01:16:47.640 Ferguson or something like that?

01:16:49.180 It turns out, you look at him, his modelling has been terrible.

01:16:53.360 His modelling has been terrible for years.

01:16:55.020 And surely there must be a scientist in the country who also knows about data modelling or

01:16:59.200 whatever it is, and can say, well, look, he was wrong consistently on all these things.

01:17:02.960 He was wrong on that.

01:17:04.080 We really should be listening to something else.

01:17:05.880 But they were always going to lock down.

01:17:08.220 Oh, yeah.

01:17:08.900 It became, it was an ideological thing.

01:17:11.720 It was.

01:17:12.220 They were going to lock down.

01:17:13.260 And it was part of that liberal, you know, liberalism champions the individual.

01:17:17.720 So the majority had to be locked up to protect every individual.

01:17:22.180 I always had my suspicions about this.

01:17:24.720 Because you see that Boris was, from the WhatsApp leaks, you saw that Boris didn't want to lock

01:17:29.740 down, but the institute, the sort of apparatus around him just continually just loomed over

01:17:36.460 him until he just capitulated.

01:17:38.000 And then Boris looked haggard after having done it.

01:17:40.520 He looked like, I mean, I don't know, I'm not going to suggest that Boris Johnson has

01:17:43.520 a conscience, but he looked like something was playing on his mind afterwards.

01:17:47.100 You know, it seemed to really affect him.

01:17:48.620 I mean, if Boris Johnson is one thing, he is a freewheeling Englishman, isn't he?

01:17:52.320 And so it probably goes against his grain.

01:17:54.500 Well, it absolutely went, yeah, exactly.

01:17:56.580 His natural disposition is, well, of course we're not going to do that.

01:17:58.540 We're just going to have to take it on the chin, which was the correct approach.

01:18:00.960 Which is the correct approach.

01:18:02.540 And yet, here we are, locked down from the experts, like, worm-tongue-like, you know,

01:18:07.040 whispering in his ear, maybe.

01:18:08.320 I don't know.

01:18:08.720 Again, maybe I'm giving Boris Johnson too much credit.

01:18:11.080 But I think the people who did it, did it for reasons that are not about health.

01:18:17.540 Who's the communist woman who was part of it? 1.00

01:18:21.520 And she's got an estate in, like, Wales or something.

01:18:23.460 But she's an open communist, and she was a part of the committee as well.

01:18:29.920 And it's like, okay, I just don't trust these people.

01:18:32.300 I think this is actually a power grab from the sort of global technocracy.

01:18:35.520 It wasn't, you know, lockdowns was an invention of China.

01:18:39.620 So we were taking our lead from a totalitarian regime.

01:18:43.420 It just doesn't make any sense.

01:18:45.040 And it kind of looks in hindsight as if they put out a bunch of fake videos about people collapsing in the streets and scared us.

01:18:53.540 And do you remember Jeremy Hunt speaking in glowing terms of the Chinese authorities when they were nailing people into their flats? 0.99

01:18:59.760 Well, he is married to a Chinese...

01:19:01.840 But, I mean, what a remarkable thing for a member of the cabinet to be talking about nailing individuals into their flats in glowing terms.

01:19:08.220 Yeah, and the whole aspect of the sort of international liberal technocrats has been one of veneration towards China and the Chinese Communist Party.

01:19:18.280 And I really find that deeply suspicious.

01:19:20.780 And for some reason they're in government.

01:19:23.400 Anyway, moving on.

01:19:26.540 Fuzzy Toaster, great username, says...

01:19:29.220 Problem with competition in their mind is someone loses.

01:19:32.040 And to them, a world where someone specifically loses is a world where someone is discriminated against unfairly.

01:19:38.220 Yeah, it means there can be no winners either.

01:19:40.520 That's a great point.

01:19:42.040 You know, we're all equally mediocre.

01:19:44.120 Yeah.

01:19:44.560 Which is deeply...

01:19:45.800 It's so...

01:19:48.000 It's deeply damaging.

01:19:49.180 But it's more than that.

01:19:50.560 It's also pathetic.

01:19:53.400 You know, it's genuinely pathetic.

01:19:55.220 If...

01:19:55.860 Like...

01:19:57.240 I used to be very proud of being an Englishman.

01:19:59.760 You know, because I was like, yeah, well, look at how great we were.

01:20:02.180 Look at how hard we worked.

01:20:04.260 Look at the challenges we overcame.

01:20:05.700 And now, if someone says, okay, well, show me an Englishman, we get a picture of Keir Starmer.

01:20:12.440 I mean...

01:20:14.240 You know, there's something genuinely spiritual about the malaise that's upon us at this point.

01:20:19.960 And I find it genuinely despicable.

01:20:23.820 Anyway, Jimbo says,

01:20:24.760 Well, it goes further than that, Jim.

01:20:33.760 I mean, they have the force of law behind them.

01:20:37.100 They...

01:20:37.380 I mean...

01:20:38.760 The concept of a hate speech law seems to be applied only against the white British population.

01:20:44.840 And I don't ever recall seeing an example where someone of a minority group is prosecuted under hate speech.

01:20:52.520 But if you have...

01:20:53.840 If you have...

01:20:54.680 It's taken me a while to figure all of this out.

01:20:56.700 I'm not sure I've quite got there.

01:20:58.180 But if you have a regime which progressively discriminates,

01:21:02.100 in other words, it promotes minorities over and above and to the detriment of the majority,

01:21:06.680 you have to have curbs on free speech because you've got to shut the majority up.

01:21:13.960 Yes.

01:21:14.240 And this whole progressive discrimination, this liberalism, is in opposition to democracy

01:21:20.680 because democracy is the majority interest.

01:21:23.340 We talk easily about being in liberal democracy.

01:21:26.360 I don't know if people really think about it.

01:21:28.360 You know, that liberalism stands in antagonistic opposition to democracy.

01:21:33.700 And sometimes it's a healthy antagonism and through that competition can come good.

01:21:40.600 But at the moment, liberalism is winning and democracy is losing badly.

01:21:44.820 And we've got to go back to the majority interest.

01:21:47.940 And you can tell this through the stigmatization of the concept of populism.

01:21:51.760 Sorry, I thought it was majority rules.

01:21:54.480 Absolutely.

01:21:54.880 What are we talking about?

01:21:55.840 Are we talking about an aristocracy?

01:21:57.100 But we're no longer in the mindset of majority rules.

01:22:00.060 It's the individual that has to be protected and promoted.

01:22:03.040 Well, this is a point that David Starkey makes very eloquently,

01:22:05.980 that the very concept of liberalism has become transfigured

01:22:11.320 from the individual against the state to the minority against the majority.

01:22:15.900 And so the purpose of liberal human rights now is to protect minority groups

01:22:19.040 against just the culture, as in not anything necessarily oppressive,

01:22:23.640 but just the acts, the normal habits and behaviors of the national homogenous majority.

01:22:28.860 That's what liberalism is for now.

01:22:30.980 And that's why it's breaking our society.

01:22:32.380 Well, exactly.

01:22:33.020 That's why it persecutes the majority.

01:22:34.800 The homogeneity is being broken down.

01:22:36.820 Yeah, absolutely.

01:22:38.040 Everything it can to reduce this cultural power, I suppose you would call it,

01:22:43.400 is under attack.

01:22:44.540 And this is why you get strange things where, like, you know,

01:22:47.980 we're going to do a historical representation of Anne Boleyn.

01:22:50.720 Yes, she's an African woman. 1.00

01:22:52.400 Why?

01:22:52.900 Why are you doing this?

01:22:54.240 Why?

01:22:54.580 I know.

01:22:54.760 But if you realize that it's all about trying to reduce the cultural prestige and power

01:23:00.460 of being part of the majority group, oh, that makes a lot more sense, actually.

01:23:04.200 And now it becomes a kind of teleological mission for the left to do,

01:23:08.480 which is why they do it everywhere they go.

01:23:10.180 And they do everything they can in their power to do it.

01:23:12.360 And it's just like, okay, but I don't want to be under this kind of psychic attack

01:23:15.840 by the left, actually.

01:23:17.300 I don't want to feel dispossessed in my own country.

01:23:19.560 Thank you very much.

01:23:22.220 Not controversial normally, but radical right-wingism where we are now.

01:23:27.200 Rebellious says, so immigrants are the global majority.

01:23:32.720 Doesn't that make it even more important to protect the local minority?

01:23:36.620 Here, but the British, of course, but applicable to any nation.

01:23:40.040 It's like, yeah, actually, I agree.

01:23:41.640 And the thing is, in previous series, this wasn't an issue because travel was more difficult.

01:23:46.500 But since the mass adoption of the airplane, well, travel becomes very, very easy.

01:23:52.520 Except these people aren't coming by plane.

01:23:54.580 Well.

01:23:54.920 You know, they're making the journey by boat and then on foot or through train.

01:23:58.900 Well, no, no, but a lot of them are coming by plane.

01:24:00.700 Yeah, some are coming legally and then not leaving, you mean, yeah.

01:24:03.680 Well, the majority are.

01:24:05.140 The millions who are coming here are coming by plane.

01:24:07.340 And you wouldn't, in previous eras, have this issue.

01:24:09.920 Because, like you're saying, it takes a long time to come by boat from wherever.

01:24:14.740 But now, in the era of mass transit, okay, well, we need to have a serious conversation

01:24:19.580 about essentially the sort of collective metaphysical property of a nation.

01:24:24.920 Like, you know, Frenchness belongs to the French people.

01:24:28.940 And this could be if, you know, 100 million South Americans move to France for whatever

01:24:34.900 reason tomorrow.

01:24:35.980 Okay, well, the concept of Frenchness has been deprived from the French people because the 0.97

01:24:40.740 South Americans are not going to replicate this in France.

01:24:43.080 This is a real thing that is actually happening that we need to think about that hadn't come

01:24:47.080 up in previous eras because you just didn't get this kind of, almost kind of diffuse population

01:24:52.560 movement, right?

01:24:53.560 In ancient history, populations moved as groups, you know.

01:24:57.160 The Goths are invading the Roman Empire as a giant group, you know.

01:25:00.900 It happened en masse and it was a war, you know.

01:25:04.500 But that's not what's happening now.

01:25:05.740 It's something, it's much more porous and yet it's still happening and yet it becomes

01:25:11.920 something that's necessary to think about, you know.

01:25:14.440 The presupposed sort of collective property of a nation, which was their patrimony, well,

01:25:19.420 this can be put under threat in times of peace through perfectly legal and, on an individual

01:25:24.520 basis, legitimate thing to have had happen.

01:25:27.560 Well, if you do that enough, we've got a real concern here.

01:25:30.880 I don't want to labour the point.

01:25:32.100 No, but that's what we've done.

01:25:33.300 We've done it too much.

01:25:34.240 And it's a real thing that we have to accept.

01:25:37.420 Omar says, I moved around a fair bit during my childhood, so I probably should have picked 0.99

01:25:40.600 up on this sooner.

01:25:41.580 But even if net immigration was zero, a high turnover of people means that fewer building

01:25:45.760 long-term connections.

01:25:47.440 It's no wonder we have so many problems with integration.

01:25:50.320 Yeah, and the question of integration could only ever be addressed by deliberately privileging

01:25:55.820 the majority group.

01:25:56.640 Yeah, that's the only way to integrate.

01:26:00.520 Yeah, there's no incentive to do so otherwise.

01:26:02.660 And it's crazy that we can't do that, but of course that would be discrimination, and

01:26:07.360 we can't have that, and so we can never have integration.

01:26:09.800 And that's the rule that they've created for us.

01:26:13.380 So, terrible.

01:26:14.760 Caroline says, if Nigel had come out after the riots and said, I don't agree with the violence,

01:26:18.980 but these people are people who have been pushed to the breaking point, and we seriously

01:26:22.340 need to address their concerns.

01:26:23.360 Reform would have won the entire North.

01:26:26.400 Instead, he went along with the far-right thug narrative, and there are many who will

01:26:29.780 not forgive him for that.

01:26:32.380 What do you think?

01:26:33.180 I mean, I feel a bit sorry for Nigel in the post-Southport thing.

01:26:38.020 Because they were saying they were the Farage riots.

01:26:39.240 The Farage riots.

01:26:40.220 And he went very quiet.

01:26:41.780 I don't know if you noticed that.

01:26:43.220 And I think if the establishment is accusing you of having caused riots, it probably is

01:26:49.780 quite frightening.

01:26:50.940 You know, it probably is quite frightening to have been Nigel Farage at that point.

01:26:54.180 But, I mean, I take the point completely that we've got to, we've got, sadly, someone's

01:27:00.960 got to be very collectively, individually, we've got to be brave if we're going to win this,

01:27:05.480 win this.

01:27:05.940 And it is a fight we're having.

01:27:07.220 We're having a fight, and we need to be brave in that fight.

01:27:11.400 And I know Nigel says that there's a massive cover-up going on about Southport, about who

01:27:17.020 knew what, when they knew it, and so on.

01:27:19.700 And if there is a cover-up about it, then I think it needs to be revealed.

01:27:25.840 If only there was someone with parliamentary privilege.

01:27:28.460 Who could reveal it in Parliament.

01:27:29.800 Absolutely.

01:27:30.880 If only we had someone like that, Nigel.

01:27:32.940 Um, very, again, just, and like you said, I do actually, I do actually empathise in some

01:27:40.280 ways as well.

01:27:40.760 Like you said, I, I, Nigel, because of the size of his profile, has become a lightning rod

01:27:46.940 for, oh, I mean, you know, according to Farage riots, that's just not true.

01:27:51.300 That's an, an obvious lie.

01:27:53.520 Nigel Farage was not responsible for the riots.

01:27:55.860 It's decades of failed multicultural policies and mass immigration, and a willingness for 1.00

01:28:02.320 the establishment to look the other way when atrocities have been committed.

01:28:05.520 Absolutely.

01:28:05.780 You know.

01:28:06.140 That's what's responsible for it.

01:28:07.240 That riots could have been prevented easily by Starmer getting up and saying, look, I understand

01:28:13.500 your complaints.

01:28:14.360 This was an absolutely horrendous, horrible, horrific thing that happened in Southport.

01:28:22.320 It was a second generation Rwandan who did it, instead of pretending it was a Welshman. 0.95

01:28:28.540 You know, when you say Welshman, you think of someone who is a farmer and has an unnatural 1.00

01:28:34.140 affiliation to sheep, you know, and you don't think of a second, I'm just kidding.

01:28:39.760 I know, I know, I know.

01:28:40.640 You know, you don't think of a second generation Rwandan who's been, who's been effectively

01:28:46.660 made into an extremist.

01:28:49.080 He was an extremist.

01:28:50.140 That's what he was.

01:28:51.000 And if Starmer had gone up and said, I recognize this, this is what's happened, and I'm going

01:28:55.420 to put my, the British state is going to put a protective blanket around the British people.

01:29:00.240 This is never going to happen again.

01:29:02.000 There wouldn't have been any riots.

01:29:03.400 There would have been people cheering.

01:29:04.800 People would have been cheering.

01:29:05.720 His approval ring would have gone sky high.

01:29:07.320 Absolutely.

01:29:07.820 God, he got the point.

01:29:09.100 Yeah, but that's exactly the point, isn't it?

01:29:11.160 It's not recognize the moral legitimacy of the concerns of the people who are in fear

01:29:16.740 because they, they are worried about their children being murdered, Kier.

01:29:20.640 Like, it's, it's really not an unreasonable fear.

01:29:22.760 It's not a political fear.

01:29:24.600 Like, it's, it's not, it's not a, we hate foreigners.

01:29:27.860 It's, we're worried about being killed.

01:29:29.800 Our children being killed.

01:29:30.960 And this is coming directly in the aftermath of someone murdering a bunch of people's children.

01:29:35.800 Like, this is not unreasonable, you know, it, it, again, just, and I, again, I don't blame,

01:29:41.420 I, I don't, I do blame Farage, but I do empathize with the fear.

01:29:45.020 Like you say, you know, okay, you wanted to be the, the big boy in the, in the right wing,

01:29:50.380 Nige. 0.94

01:29:50.900 This is what you signed up for.

01:29:52.860 Trump would have come out and just been like, exactly.

01:29:56.120 Trump would have come out and essentially owned it.

01:29:58.100 I mean, to be honest, if I were Nigel, I think what he should have done is in a very nice

01:30:02.320 room, sort of a, a, you know, Cambridge style library, just given a very calm and reasonable

01:30:07.280 address as if he were the prime minister, he should have said, look, that, and given

01:30:11.440 the speech that Keir Starmer ought to have given and essentially acted as if he were the

01:30:15.140 prime minister.

01:30:15.680 And that would have calmed things down because, okay, Keir Starmer, our government is currently

01:30:19.420 occupied by a bunch of globalists who hate us and want us destroyed, but at least there's

01:30:23.160 someone waiting in the wings who hears us and is prepared to, to carry the torch where

01:30:27.580 it needs to go.

01:30:28.460 But he, he didn't even do that.

01:30:29.700 And it was just like.

01:30:30.300 I think after he was accused of being the cause of the rights, I think he just went

01:30:35.620 quiet.

01:30:36.300 Yeah.

01:30:36.900 It was too much for him, I think.

01:30:38.960 And the, the last, the last comment, as a critical friend of reform, I found that standard

01:30:45.840 reform voters get very defensive whenever you criticize reform, even from the right.

01:30:49.200 Have you found this?

01:30:50.200 If so, how do we get them, how do we get them thinking critically about reform for themselves?

01:30:54.820 Just a quick thing.

01:30:55.560 I actually found them not being very defensive.

01:30:57.340 I found them accepting of the criticisms I've leveled, but kind of rolling their eyes saying,

01:31:01.200 well, what can we do?

01:31:02.000 It's the best we've got.

01:31:03.480 What's your experience been?

01:31:04.800 Well, I, I think you have to roll your eyes if you've got no mechanism by which to change,

01:31:10.340 to give effect to change.

01:31:11.720 And that's why I've been pushing this democratization of the party.

01:31:14.680 And democracy, it doesn't have to be a pure democracy, with everyone, you know, being

01:31:20.100 able to direct Nigel in the direction they want him to go.

01:31:22.900 We're not going to become ancient Athens.

01:31:24.760 No, exactly.

01:31:26.060 Everyone has a vote on everything.

01:31:27.460 But you could have a body of very capable people that act as a kind of pool of intellectual talent

01:31:33.400 for Nigel, say 100 people, which offer up their ideas to him.

01:31:38.300 And they, in turn, garner ideas from the broader membership.

01:31:42.220 And there's a kind of pyramid approach to how information is passed up to the leadership.

01:31:48.500 And it could be a representative democracy.

01:31:50.280 It could be exactly these people in the middle could represent the movement and offering up

01:31:55.620 not just the policies and ideas from the people, but also offering up candidates and sifting

01:32:01.780 through the candidates.

01:32:03.120 And this body, this theoretical body of people could also then be the voices for reform.

01:32:07.640 He could have great military experts, health experts and so on going out, banging the drum

01:32:12.480 for reform.

01:32:13.400 It would take a lot of the burden off of Nigel Schultz.

01:32:15.540 It would.

01:32:15.940 It could be a phenomenal force.

01:32:17.960 I really think it could.

01:32:19.200 And I'm very frustrated that this is a missed opportunity.

01:32:22.660 But on that point, we're actually five minutes over time.

01:32:24.360 So I have to say, we're going to have to go there.

01:32:26.860 But Ben, where can people find more from you if they want more from you?

01:32:30.800 Yeah.

01:32:31.060 So this is why I'm really bad.

01:32:32.640 The only thing I know about is my Twitter tag, which is at Ben Habib 6, the numeral 6.

01:32:39.000 Right.

01:32:39.560 But I do have at Ben Habib 6.

01:32:45.060 Yeah, that's it.

01:32:45.860 Okay.

01:32:46.000 But I'm on Facebook, I'm on YouTube, and I'm on Instagram and TikTok.

01:32:50.320 We actually do have the links to your socials.

01:32:52.240 So what we'll do is we'll leave them in the description of this podcast.

01:32:54.840 Go and follow Ben on them.

01:32:56.320 Ben, thank you so much.

01:32:57.180 Thank you very much for having me.

01:32:58.320 It's been a brilliant conversation.

01:32:59.800 And we will see you all tomorrow, folks.

01:33:01.720 Have a great evening.

01:33:02.520 Have a great evening.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1054

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