The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - August 14, 2025


What Is Next For England？ ｜ Interview with Andy Ngo

Topics
online safety bill backlash restrictions on speech & immigration
Hosted by
Callum Edmunds Carl Benjamin Connor Tomlinson Harry Robinson John Wheatley Joshua Ferme Edward McLaren Elizabeth Heverin
Guests
Andy Ngo
Mentioned
Keir Starmer Donald Trump Lee Kuan Yew Luigi Mangione Steven Crowder Nigel Farage Tim Pool Aristotle Stalin Antifa James Carl
The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1229 The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1231

Episode Stats


Length

18 minutes

Words per minute

149.78

Word count

2,781

Sentence count

188

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I'm joined by Andy Ngo, host of Unmasked, an anti-fast-food restaurant and independent journalist, to discuss the UK government's attempts to censor online speech, including the controversial Online Safety Act.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hi folks, I'm joined by Andy Ngo, independent journalist and the host of Unmasked, an anti-fast study.
00:00:06.000 Andy, how have you found the new media conference?
00:00:09.000 So this is actually my first time speaking live in the UK since I've been here for several years now.
00:00:16.000 I'm very honoured to be here.
00:00:18.000 I am always encouraged at the spirit of debate that is within the norm a sort of British society.
00:00:28.000 This is in comparison to America.
00:00:31.000 There's, even though the people here would generally be probably supporters of people like you and I,
00:00:40.000 there's also quite a bit of disagreement that's played out already in some of these events.
00:00:44.000 I like that a lot.
00:00:46.000 It just reminds me part of what's great about British culture is that tradition of debate and speech
00:00:54.000 that unfortunately you're losing as your populations change.
00:01:00.000 And not just the population change either, since the government imposes ever more strict and tight rules.
00:01:06.000 What do you make of the speech rules that Keir Starmer has been employing, such as the Online Safety Act?
00:01:13.000 I actually have mixed thoughts on this, so I think it's a serious issue that it is so easy for children to be able to access explicit material online.
00:01:29.000 And I'm not of the view that there should be no restrictions on anybody being able to access that.
00:01:41.000 I think that, you know, minors and children, there needs to be some type of safeguards in place.
00:01:47.000 And clicking, I am over 18, is, in my opinion, not enough.
00:01:53.000 So, the backlash against the Online Safety Bill, I think, that has come from people who care about free speech,
00:02:01.000 I feel like they've kind of overlooked that particular part, which I believe was part of the intention of it.
00:02:06.000 I'm concerned that, however, the concerns that they do have, I understand that.
00:02:13.000 I've been impacted by it. I think on the first day that it went into effect, immediately on X, a whole bunch of content,
00:02:24.000 sometimes like a whole page of scrolling, it's not available to you.
00:02:28.000 And that's, I mean, that's moving in, that's now in the direction of where Australia has been,
00:02:36.000 where a whole swathes of content is just blocked based on your IP.
00:02:41.000 And for me as an American, like all this is very anathema to me.
00:02:44.000 I know that outside of the US, there's people who are more used to censorship and big government control.
00:02:52.000 That's like a big difference for me.
00:02:55.000 If it helps, as an Englishman, I feel this is horrific as well.
00:02:58.000 So, the thing about the Online Safety Act is, you are right that there is a genuine problem with children being able to access explicit material on the internet.
00:03:07.000 But if you actually look at the framing of the Online Safety Act, it does say children and adults.
00:03:14.000 And the content that it lists is also not only explicit content, but also quote-unquote hate speech and content related to illegal immigration.
00:03:25.000 So, actually, it is not just implicit in the Act, but explicit in the Act, that it's designed to censor adults from seeing political content.
00:03:37.000 I think the...
00:03:38.000 This passed under the Conservative government, right?
00:03:40.000 It was begun under the Conservative government and passed finally under Stalin.
00:03:44.000 Again, this is Conservatives letting down their side.
00:03:50.000 Yes.
00:03:51.000 Or maybe just doing what we should expect them to do.
00:03:54.000 I feel it's almost like you don't...
00:03:59.000 I don't know if the legal framework here doesn't exist for more protections of free speech.
00:04:05.000 But I feel, as this American immigrant here, like, not just myself helpless, but I look at the people around me.
00:04:15.000 It's kind of like all these laws that are just passed, one after the other, another related to a number of issues that you and I care about.
00:04:23.000 And it's like, there's nothing we can do.
00:04:28.000 Have you got no faith in Nigel Farage and reform to fix this?
00:04:35.000 It's a long pause.
00:04:38.000 You need a huge shake-up in your political system, and I think you can do that.
00:04:44.000 However, without the existence of some equivalent of, like, the First Amendment in America, it just, it seems really tenuous what can be done, you know?
00:04:55.000 It's like, okay, a government maybe at best can roll back something, and then five, ten years down the line, a different government in power could easily implement those, you know, those type of restrictions again.
00:05:10.000 So it's just...
00:05:14.000 We've got a governmental system from a previous era, where we had a much more sort of socially joined-up country, and modernist, and a far greater level of not only social trust, but political dialogue.
00:05:29.000 Because, I mean, I kind of noticed that in America, you've got these two very powerful streams of content that come from the mainstream and the online media.
00:05:39.000 That is almost entirely segregated between the left and the right.
00:05:45.000 And for some reason, there is just very rarely any point at which they actually ever converge, and have a conversation with one another.
00:05:52.000 And that's always the most interesting thing in the world to see, actually, a devout right-winger and a devout left-winger actually talking about the same topic is a fascinating thing to watch.
00:06:01.000 And so we come from an era where you would always have both sides represented in the discussion.
00:06:08.000 But we've lost that completely, and now we have the domination of one side over the rest.
00:06:13.000 And so the sort of organic nature of the British Constitution was never such a problem, because there was always a kind of implicit understanding that actually this is for all of us, and we're just trying to do the right thing.
00:06:26.000 Now it's ideological, and it's one-sided, and I think that's the real problem.
00:06:31.000 And I think there's no real solution in a sort of First Amendment position, because, A, I don't think we can get stuck.
00:06:39.000 But it changes the nature of the political system entirely, rather than being an organic thing that we possess.
00:06:45.000 It becomes like the dead hand of a treaty on top of the civilization that imposes from long into the past, even if the thing doesn't fit the current moment.
00:06:55.000 It's my understanding that the British political tradition is that you don't actually have a ton of laws written down as laws.
00:07:04.000 Like things are just sort of inherited as sort of common law, right?
00:07:09.000 Yes.
00:07:10.000 You know, I'm going to present a question to you.
00:07:17.000 What do you think of the argument that the boat has sailed on Britain being a multicultural society?
00:07:28.000 It's like you have millions and millions of people who are here, who have been here now for a couple of generations,
00:07:34.000 talking about the immigrants going back to the 60s and 70s.
00:07:39.000 And then, of course, you have those who came in the 90s and more recently.
00:07:44.000 But they're here.
00:07:45.000 And the logistical and legal challenges of mass deportations is immensely challenging,
00:07:53.000 if not impossible, given your legal framework.
00:07:57.000 In a diverse place like Singapore, for example, they have some of the most restrictive laws on speech there.
00:08:09.000 You can be imprisoned for a very long time for offending religion, hurting people's feelings.
00:08:18.000 And it's been argued that that type of draconian reality for them is how they're able to maintain peace and order
00:08:31.000 amongst Buddhists, Christians, Muslims in a multiracial society.
00:08:37.000 Do you think the future of the UK and Europe is, well, it is moving in that direction of more and more restrictions on speech
00:08:45.000 to clamp down on dissent and conflict that happens as the populations become more diverse?
00:08:54.000 I think there's no other way for it to go, because if there's no common understanding between the groups of people,
00:09:00.000 and no common—I mean, I think it really does come down to Aristotle's conception of the polity.
00:09:06.000 It's based on friendship.
00:09:07.000 If you don't like the people around you, then you'll end up with conflict.
00:09:11.000 And if there is one hegemonic state that's decided this is the way that things are going to be,
00:09:17.000 then they have no choice but to become tyrannical.
00:09:19.000 They've got no choice to do a Lee Kuan Yew or anything like that.
00:09:23.000 Well, what are other options?
00:09:25.000 There is no option.
00:09:26.000 It has to go in this direction.
00:09:28.000 And so it's inevitable that Keir Starmer's Labour Party, to maintain order and peace,
00:09:37.000 ends up tyrannising the majority native population.
00:09:41.000 But this is a horrific state of affairs, because nobody ever asked for this.
00:09:45.000 This wasn't ever voted for, and it's been voted against probably about half a dozen times, if not more.
00:09:51.000 And yet here we are with this problem.
00:09:54.000 But the advantage that Britain has over America is actually in the fact that we don't have a written constitution,
00:10:01.000 because the laws can be repealed at any point.
00:10:05.000 All it takes is 350 MPs with the will to do it, to repeal any law.
00:10:11.000 We can denaturalise anyone we like.
00:10:13.000 We can make anything to be true.
00:10:15.000 The parliament has supreme power.
00:10:18.000 And so things...
00:10:19.000 Not under the ECHR.
00:10:21.000 We can leave it.
00:10:22.000 The parliament has the power to leave it.
00:10:24.000 The parliament has the power to do whatever it likes, and set the legal regime of the entire country.
00:10:28.000 And this could happen tomorrow, if Kier Starmer wanted it to happen.
00:10:32.000 He just doesn't want it to happen.
00:10:34.000 So things are bleak.
00:10:37.000 But I think things in places like America and Germany, where you have a more formal constitution,
00:10:43.000 I think they're more permanent, actually.
00:10:47.000 So it's...
00:10:48.000 I don't know why I'm so optimistic about Britain's future, given the current statement.
00:10:54.000 Well, I mean, we can't just be blackpilled and depressed, right?
00:11:04.000 So...
00:11:05.000 James, in the subject, what's next for you?
00:11:08.000 I'm continuing my reporting.
00:11:13.000 I...
00:11:14.000 2025 has been a particularly violent year in the United States, with political violence.
00:11:22.000 As the Democrats and their allies on the left who are doing anything and everything they can
00:11:30.000 to try to sabotage American solventry in regards to immigration borders.
00:11:41.000 There's been immense attack on U.S. immigration officials.
00:11:47.000 Violent attacks, calls for them to be abolished.
00:11:52.000 And a lot of that incitement is coming from Democrats.
00:11:55.000 It's the same playbook they used five years ago against the first Trump administration.
00:12:04.000 And I wonder why...
00:12:09.000 One thing I realize is that for all liberals and Democrats talk about insurrection and how dangerous that is,
00:12:17.000 they are actively involved in that now.
00:12:19.000 They call for insurrection against the current government that they don't view as legitimate.
00:12:24.000 Attacking its institutions, attacking federal agents and federal law enforcement,
00:12:30.000 when it comes to anything related to immigration detaining suspects.
00:12:35.000 And...
00:12:37.000 So...
00:12:39.000 One thing that I've had my eyes open up to in the last year and a half, two years,
00:12:45.000 and I was probably a bit naive, is that I didn't realize how much of a threat to democracy comes from Democrats.
00:12:57.000 Even though I am a conservative, I don't view myself as particularly hyper-partisan in terms of party politics,
00:13:04.000 but with some of the, what Democrats have called for, I mean, imprisoning Donald Trump last year,
00:13:12.000 prosecution and all that, it...
00:13:16.000 Because Americans are saturated in that news reporting every day for four years now, five years,
00:13:21.000 I don't know if they realize how it comes across like how there is a breakdown in the rule of law in America.
00:13:32.000 It's not just the rule of law, it's the civic polity itself.
00:13:34.000 Yes.
00:13:35.000 Because it's genuinely, do we want to share a country with one another in America?
00:13:39.000 And the answer just seems to be no.
00:13:42.000 Neither side seems to want to share a country with the other.
00:13:45.000 And that's, I mean, I view America as undergoing a kind of cold civil war,
00:13:49.000 where it's, like, Donald Trump is basically going to try and clean out the institutions of left-wingers.
00:13:54.000 Well, okay, the next Democrat president, he's going to have to clean out the institutions of right-wingers.
00:13:58.000 And so you just have this continual changing of the guard until one culture is dominant over the other.
00:14:04.000 I mean, this is a bit worrying, isn't it?
00:14:09.000 I appreciate the clarity you speak when you say, like, civil war, how you say that a cold civil war,
00:14:15.000 because there are some commentators who say things like they think that imminent arms,
00:14:21.000 violence between different factions in the U.S. is likely. I don't think so.
00:14:26.000 But this cold civil war is describing is more accurate, I think, much more accurate.
00:14:33.000 We, I mean, I'm from Portland, Oregon.
00:14:38.000 I see the hatred that the people have there for conservatives and Republicans.
00:14:43.000 Like, they don't, it's not that you don't want them as neighbors.
00:14:46.000 They view them as, like, a lot of them as subhuman, actually.
00:14:49.000 It's, now that I'm out of the U.S., away, I can look, I have a distance where I can look at it.
00:14:58.000 And it's, now that I feel black-pilled.
00:15:01.000 It's like, how do you solve these issues? I don't know.
00:15:05.000 You have the lying media, you have institutions that are captured, and you have, sort of like a corner dog,
00:15:12.000 referring to those on the left, and Democrats who are now lashing out violently, either directly or indirectly, or calling for violence.
00:15:22.000 And people, many liberals don't, don't see that as a problem.
00:15:30.000 I mean, we're developing sort of a, a culture of assassins, celebrating them.
00:15:35.000 You know, like, everybody knows about Luigi Mangione, who killed, allegedly murdered the United HealthShare CEO.
00:15:45.000 And there was another one the other day, wasn't there?
00:15:47.000 Recently, there was a random shooting, not random, there was a black shooter in Manhattan who wanted, allegedly, to go after people associated with the NFL.
00:15:57.000 But there was a CEO of a different company, corporation that was killed, a woman.
00:16:02.000 Yeah.
00:16:03.000 And just because she happened to be CEO, there was all the celebrations on social media from the left.
00:16:08.000 And that's this mainstreaming of, I mean, it's all, it's also linked to Antifa in the sense that the radicals on the left so believe that their cause is righteous,
00:16:20.000 that anything and everything that needs to be done, killing people, killing families, maiming people should be justified,
00:16:26.000 imprisoning political targets, killing political targets. 0.98
00:16:30.000 And that's, that's the America I live in, it's...
00:16:33.000 I don't, I hate to say it though, but I don't think it's confined only to the left.
00:16:38.000 The right, the right is not the right of 2016 anymore.
00:16:42.000 Their hearts have hardened.
00:16:44.000 And you can see it in the media, in just the kind of output that American media produces.
00:16:49.000 Well, you'll notice, you'll notice that everyone in America is fighting, right?
00:16:52.000 Like, Steven Crowder says, I'll fight for you.
00:16:54.000 The Young Turks say, I'll fight for you.
00:16:56.000 The Democrat politicians say, we're going to fight for this.
00:16:59.000 The Republican politicians, we're going to fight for whatever we want.
00:17:03.000 And you realize that, okay, this is just a brawl that everyone is engaged in.
00:17:08.000 And these are not people who have anything that they can concede to the other side.
00:17:15.000 Like, they, they can never at any point concede to the legitimacy of the point that the other side is making.
00:17:21.000 But I think that, yeah, corporations in America have run out of control.
00:17:25.000 I could concede that to the left, but so yeah.
00:17:27.000 I think the right, American right is much more in the political establishment willing to concede.
00:17:33.000 I agree.
00:17:34.000 I mean, they've been following the, the court orders, for example.
00:17:37.000 Yeah.
00:17:38.000 I think if it was the other way around.
00:17:40.000 They wouldn't at all.
00:17:41.000 But the, the right, it's clearly hardening.
00:17:43.000 Yes.
00:17:44.000 And it's, and I don't blame them either.
00:17:46.000 I actually think this is a normal response, an organic response to what they've been given from the left for years.
00:17:53.000 And you know, we've been on, we've both been on the receiving end.
00:17:56.000 But that, that seems to me an irreconcilable position.
00:17:59.000 So then what do you think's next for the US?
00:18:02.000 I don't want to get a civil war on you, but Tim Pool might have a point.
00:18:09.000 I don't know that.
00:18:10.000 And I'm not, you know, you can't, I think one of the main problems is generals always fight the last war.
00:18:15.000 And so I think that the internet and the general ideological nature of what's happening makes the future a bit less predictable than it was in the past.
00:18:23.000 And it could be something we just can't predict.
00:18:25.000 Anyway, thanks so much for joining me.
00:18:29.000 My pleasure.
00:18:30.000 Thank you, Carl.
00:18:31.000 Hopefully we'll get you back on the podcast.
00:18:33.000 Thank you.