TRIGGERnometry - Can Free Speech Save Rational Debate？

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00:00:30.000 hello and welcome to trigonometry i'm francis foster i'm constantin kissin and our very special

00:00:40.220 interview this week is with two returning guests to trigonometry claire fox and ella wheelham

00:00:44.940 welcome back for anyone who doesn't know who you are claire you are of course the founder and

00:00:48.680 director of the academy of ideas and very recently brexit party mvp for the northwest have i got that

00:00:54.980 right now and you're a brilliant journalist and you're part of the battle of ideas which is one

00:00:59.520 of the things that we'll be talking about and an author of course in your own right so welcome back

00:01:03.000 both of you thanks it's good to have you after that very long intro we wanted to talk to you

00:01:08.120 about the battle of ideas the event but actually the battle of ideas as the battle of ideas more

00:01:13.760 generally about what's happening in our society what's happening about just our ability to have

00:01:18.280 a conversation uh we've had you know the the discussion in parliament in the last couple of

00:01:24.840 weeks about inflammatory language with all all this stuff is kicking off and it seems to be very

00:01:30.200 difficult now to discuss any ideas at all without people getting aggravated and insults being

00:01:35.140 thrown so where are we in terms of our ability to talk about things as a society in your opinion

00:01:39.640 claire i think you feel as though societies become tongue-tied in some respects there's a real sense

00:01:47.400 in which people are very conscious if they say the wrong thing they might be attacked for being

00:01:53.360 offensive for being inflammatory for saying things which will upset other people being accused of

00:02:00.260 inciting violence so there's a sense of people walking on eggshells that coexists with people

00:02:06.260 being entirely unrestrained and saying the most preposterous things all at the same time so it's

00:02:10.900 like this really weird thing you know sometimes i don't know whether i can say that and then people

00:02:15.200 just being utterly abusive in a way you know and by the way i i think that this is almost regardless

00:02:22.380 of what kind of politics you espouse it's not particularly confined to one group of people i

00:02:27.320 think the recent parliamentary spat about inflammatory language caused some upset because

00:02:34.080 um as you rightly pointed out one would never be able to use a metaphor anymore if you constantly

00:02:40.540 having if people say you can't use any battle analogies or any military analogies well we're

00:02:46.280 in trouble because we run a festival called the battle of ideas right you know battle for education

00:02:51.480 killing and so on. So, you know, that's where we start. But on the other hand, it also felt

00:02:56.980 very hypocritical because it might well be that Boris Johnson, the prime minister, had

00:03:02.040 ratcheted up the language and certainly was doing very big rhetorical kind of huge swathes 0.89

00:03:08.480 of making himself out to be the great leader of this big Brexit battle. And people were

00:03:15.860 saying, well, you know, calm down a bit. But these, on the one hand, are people who've

00:03:19.980 spent quite some time accusing other people of being nazis fascists uh you know leading to the

00:03:27.000 third reich and and so on and so forth and quite violent imagery has been deployed in terms of

00:03:33.080 trying to stop and brexit but i don't want to just get confined to brexit i'm just saying that

00:03:38.240 the sense of double standards in hypocrisy is something that we have to bear in mind just

00:03:43.480 winds people up certainly winds me up well i mean we're all according to some people we're all nazis

00:03:48.060 in this room which is lovely lovely to have a third right meeting um surely isn't that people's

00:03:54.000 right to you know say what they think you know if someone thinks you're a fascist welcome to do that

00:03:59.900 and it doesn't really have any effect no well it doesn't have any effect if you it only does if you

00:04:05.420 let it have an effect and obviously um i and claire and the actually the the slogan of the

00:04:11.040 battle of ideas is free speech allowed so it's very much about having that public debate being

00:04:15.380 in favour of people just saying what they think.

00:04:18.120 But I think the context is key because at the moment,

00:04:21.260 the panic about speech and words like surrender or humbug

00:04:26.400 or whatever it is that politicians are throwing around.

00:04:28.720 What a terrible word, humbug.

00:04:30.300 As well as the kind of worry about escalating language on social media

00:04:34.020 and the effect it has, sometimes quite serious issues about,

00:04:38.020 as Claire says, abusive language on social media,

00:04:39.700 is happening at a time in which we've got a broader political issue going on,

00:04:44.100 which is a quite deep fear of the public and a fear of the masses and quite a lot of prejudice going on.

00:04:50.820 And so there's this sort of when people, especially people in political power, talk about the fear of demagogues or Nazis or whoever it is inciting violence through their speech and the need to kind of everyone to calm down.

00:05:06.960 And what it really is, is saying is we're quite scared of having a public debate, because if that public debate happens, then, you know, the mob are going to grab their pitchforks and are going to come after us.

00:05:17.380 And of course, that's one entirely not true. But it also is it's escalating and creating a problem that they're afraid of.

00:05:25.820 They're afraid that people are going to get violent, get rebellious and cause problems.

00:05:32.040 But at the same time, they're saying no one talk about anything, no one criticise us, no one do anything.

00:05:37.540 Anything you say is not just wrong, but illegal.

00:05:40.280 And I tell you, there's one, this is what people who are interested in free speech always point out.

00:05:43.600 And it's true that if you want to make a problem out of something, push it underground, censor it, give it a kind of glamour that it shouldn't necessarily enjoy.

00:05:52.440 And that's when the problem happens.

00:05:54.040 So the antidote is always sunlight, is always more debate, is always more speech.

00:05:59.440 and you've got at the moment a political establishment which is just so hostile to

00:06:04.400 any kind of discussion about its actions which i think isn't going to end well if it keeps going

00:06:10.000 down this very sensorial route and this is where the battle of ideas the festival that you guys

00:06:14.480 run every year comes in because one of the great things about that is you genuinely get people from

00:06:19.020 all over the political spectrum i mean you know we'll be interviewing lord adonis who is not going

00:06:24.440 to be that popular with most of our pro breaks of view, as I imagine. But you get people from

00:06:29.480 across the spectrum genuinely. And that's one of the things I really enjoyed. I'm curious how you

00:06:34.480 managed to do that, actually, because we struggle to get like, you know, kind of woke leftist guests

00:06:40.460 on because they are afraid to be even tarnished by association. So how do you get all these people

00:06:46.380 together? Well, I mean, I think people understand that. I think people are cautious about things

00:06:51.580 being a setup. And so a lot of the time in political debate in the media, for example,

00:06:56.400 anyone who's ever done it knows that you get put into a room and you get told to kind of battle it

00:07:00.260 out with each other. It can often be quite fractious. The difference about the festival

00:07:04.200 is because it's centered around public debate, actually, the focus is not on the speakers

00:07:09.440 themselves, but within their interaction with a wider audience. And so people understand that

00:07:14.820 this is a genuine platform where you will be given a fair shot to try and win over the audience.

00:07:20.660 And I think anyone who's serious about their political views, whether you are a socialist or a hard right person, whatever view you have, what we're essentially saying is go for it.

00:07:31.980 And you might well completely win over the audience. And I might be devastated because I've lost the argument.

00:07:37.180 But it is a fair game and it has been a fair game for 15 years. And I think people really appreciate that space to do it.

00:07:43.100 And as it happens, as it often is the case that at the festival, I will enter a room hating someone's political views and ready to make a contribution to the floor and really nail them and come out being convinced that actually I was being completely one sided about something.

00:07:59.000 So it's it's that kind of a it's a different space for public debate than happens within media discussions or other places.

00:08:06.360 Yeah, I mean, a couple of things to add. I think that to go back to our prior conversation in terms of why people maybe would be reluctant to come on your show or sometimes we were reluctant to speak at a festival like the Battle of Ideas.

00:08:18.940 I think that one of the more worrying aspects of what's happened in recent years, and this is relatively new, is that labels have been used to delegitimize different opponents.

00:08:32.000 So, and basically, you know, if you are a kind of far-right fascist,

00:08:38.020 if you see what I mean, like the way these terms are bandied ground,

00:08:43.060 you know, and you want to go, no, actually, I'm on the left

00:08:45.160 and I'm just kind of a reasonable Democrat,

00:08:47.500 but you kind of can't get the word in.

00:08:49.300 You're delegitimate because what that says is you aren't worth engaging with.

00:08:53.940 So that is one thing.

00:08:55.040 So you don't have to talk to you at all because, you know,

00:08:57.360 if you're so beyond the pale, why would you bother?

00:08:59.800 The second thing that happens, of course, is that there's guilt by association.

00:09:03.300 So people sort of go, well, actually, I really like what trigonometry is doing,

00:09:08.140 what the Battle of Ideas is doing, but I don't want my mates to then say

00:09:11.740 that I might agree with the people who organise it.

00:09:14.600 But we've always had the approach in terms of putting on the festival

00:09:18.100 that we haven't pretended that we haven't got opinions.

00:09:21.080 I mean, I'm, you know, a well-known commentator.

00:09:23.720 I am now temporarily an MEP, hopefully very temporarily.

00:09:27.700 Ella is one of the co-conveners of the festival this year and I'm not

00:09:32.100 we're well known for having opinions

00:09:34.460 but that doesn't mean that you don't run a panel that's fair

00:09:38.900 you have different opinions

00:09:40.840 and I think the key to the success of the festival is

00:09:44.200 we trust the audience

00:09:45.600 and when we first organised this festival

00:09:49.440 and we said half the time is given over to the public audience

00:09:53.120 quite a lot of people who would be speakers said

00:09:55.660 you mean it's open to anyone

00:09:58.480 what do you

00:10:01.540 do if there's trouble

00:10:03.420 so there's this

00:10:05.760 assumption that if you let the public in to have

00:10:07.700 their say, either they're going to all

00:10:09.720 stand up and be completely vile

00:10:11.440 or that there's going to be a fight, anyway

00:10:13.300 I think we've had one or two incidents 0.86

00:10:15.700 over the year, one mentally ill person

00:10:17.820 one person drunk at 11 o'clock

00:10:19.800 on a Sunday morning, that's it

00:10:21.200 and we have thousands of people every year

00:10:23.360 And then we've got a USP, which is speakers will say at the end of being on a panel, oh, my God, where did you get the audience from?

00:10:33.660 Because they were all really smart, asking interesting questions.

00:10:37.440 But they're also you've got leavers, you've got remainers, you've got woke students, you've got free speech absolutists.

00:10:46.660 And they all seem to be able to engage with each other.

00:10:48.760 well shocker for the lock i mean for us that is what public debate is not just what it should be

00:10:56.820 it is what it is if you trust the speakers and the audience who interact with each other intelligently

00:11:01.560 and it creates a really open space it's a great point and i remember when i went last year i just

00:11:07.300 found it incredibly invigorating the way people were speaking and they were listening and we were

00:11:11.780 talking about this before you listen to news night or your question time and it just degenerates into

00:11:17.040 this row, how much responsibility

00:11:19.080 do the mainstream media have for, in a

00:11:21.040 sense, debasing public debate?

00:11:24.220 Well, I...

00:11:25.560 You know, Ellen's

00:11:27.080 ready to go, I can see.

00:11:28.920 Maybe we should go first.

00:11:30.800 I'm always slightly reluctant to kind of

00:11:32.980 blame the media, because

00:11:34.980 they're an easy target.

00:11:37.000 I am one of the people who sits on the couch

00:11:38.960 and shouts at the media, so it's not as though

00:11:40.820 I don't. But I think that

00:11:42.220 the media have, in recent

00:11:45.080 years on certain subjects, become

00:11:46.960 slightly compromised in terms of the

00:11:48.780 impartiality question

00:11:50.100 and I do worry about that because I think

00:11:52.860 it's going to lead to a backlash of people just saying

00:11:54.920 I'm not going to take any notice of the mainstream media

00:11:56.800 I'm delighted that there are alternative

00:11:58.880 forms of media such as trigonometry

00:12:00.440 and that makes me, that kind of

00:12:02.940 widening out of the discussion in the debate

00:12:05.020 is hugely important

00:12:06.560 and I hope that that actually keeps the mainstream media

00:12:09.040 slightly more honest because they actually have to look and say

00:12:11.100 wow, a lot of people are watching these guys

00:12:13.320 doing their interviews, I mean maybe

00:12:14.900 we've got to look at why there's

00:12:16.980 less people watching our current affairs.

00:12:18.840 No, no, no, please stop doing that. Keep doing

00:12:20.960 all the crap that you're doing. We want to keep 1.00

00:12:23.080 Trigonometry unique. Thank you very much.

00:12:25.080 What I was going to say was

00:12:27.080 that

00:12:28.200 Ellen rightly made the point about the

00:12:30.880 set-up. I mean, the number of times

00:12:33.100 that I've been invited onto the media

00:12:35.120 where it's basically you've got three

00:12:37.000 reasonable people and the mad 0.92

00:12:38.900 lunatic Claire Fox come to join us as well. 1.00

00:12:41.120 Now, they don't exactly introduce

00:12:42.940 you like that, but you're basically the

00:12:44.880 we have to have balance so we've invited 0.99

00:12:47.340 a lunatic on. He's got mad 0.99

00:12:49.480 extremist views

00:12:51.100 and you are walking into this

00:12:53.360 situation where you're being set up

00:12:55.400 with a certain sneer and I always try

00:12:57.340 and be reasonable at all times

00:12:59.100 and then they're like oh

00:13:01.060 you seem to not be what we thought you would

00:13:03.400 be. But I think that from an audience's

00:13:05.740 point of view

00:13:06.400 politics, not the media

00:13:08.960 but politics has squeezed

00:13:11.500 out voters

00:13:13.140 citizens and the electorate from the debate. We had a brief flowering of their emergence around

00:13:18.540 a particular referendum where they felt that they were back being taken seriously. And since then

00:13:23.560 they've been denounced and we're told not to take them seriously, which is one of the explanations,

00:13:28.760 I think, for why people are so completely over the top on social media, because what you get

00:13:33.700 is they're so frustrated that they're being talked about and down to, but without any way of

00:13:40.300 expressing themselves that now that you have got twitter and facebook you feel like and you know

00:13:45.920 and they're shouting from the couch takes the form of shouting on twitter and in a way letting off

00:13:51.060 steam so you can understand the frustration of that being uh ignored and patronized and talked

00:13:59.140 about now expresses itself so i i don't i'm not as frightened by social media abuse as some people

00:14:06.760 make out because I just think in a way

00:14:08.740 it's people just rightly expressing that

00:14:10.700 utter frustration even though a lot of

00:14:12.800 it's aimed at me and a lot of it's vile

00:14:14.220 I think there's two things to say about

00:14:18.440 the mainstream media

00:14:20.100 I don't want to slag them off too much, it gave me a lot of work

00:14:22.160 but on the other hand

00:14:23.460 I think part of the problem is the influence of social

00:14:26.660 media, there's one specific influence

00:14:28.820 of social media in that lots of

00:14:30.680 the television programs

00:14:32.820 radio programs are seeking

00:14:34.960 to get gotcha moments to be clipped on Twitter.

00:14:37.380 I mean, that's just like their modus operandi now.

00:14:40.480 Pin the politician, get them to say the bad thing, put it on Twitter.

00:14:44.360 What that means is you often spend five minutes listening

00:14:47.720 to an incredibly dull conversation on the Today programme

00:14:51.440 or on Newsnight or on Channel 4, wherever it is,

00:14:54.060 where you're just waiting for the gotcha moment and it often doesn't happen.

00:14:57.040 There's countless times where I've sat listening to the morning radio,

00:15:00.820 hearing someone ask a politician the same question,

00:15:02.660 you know they're not going to get the answer out of it.

00:15:04.240 it's like a poor man's Paxman and it just doesn't work and it's really really boring and it is

00:15:09.480 really frustrating because then you do end up wanting to go on Twitter and saying what the 0.92

00:15:12.680 fucking hell are you doing what talk about the news and the other side of it is that I have had 0.95

00:15:18.520 countless experiences in green rooms and back rooms before and after shows where people kind 0.99

00:15:25.260 of forget that you are not part of the mix of things you're not part of the media establishment

00:15:30.680 And so they start talking about politics. And what's really interesting is they often talk about how utterly boring. Oh, God, we have to talk about Brexit again. Oh, God, we have to talk about this again. And what they don't realise is that for many people, on leave and remain side, this is actually a very exciting moment in politics because things seem to be up in the air.

00:15:47.980 And if you had a sensible sense of news producers being able to galvanise on that, you could do something really interesting with this.

00:15:55.400 You could actually really engage an audience. You could actually, you know, you've got a political space in which people want to talk about things.

00:16:01.600 So use that. But I think they're still stuck in this notion of what they want is just for the current political mess to go away.

00:16:08.120 So they can get back to doing, you know, the kind of things that you saw on the thick of it, you know, launching a policy, talking about it, doing all these sort of mundane things.

00:16:17.120 They want to go back to business as usual. That's politicians and the media establishment. 0.94

00:16:21.040 They just don't want to deal with the current fray. And that's coming across as either very

00:16:26.280 dull or very febrile exchanges. And I don't think any of us come out any better off from either

00:16:32.180 watching or being part of it. Because one of the things when we started the festival,

00:16:35.840 and before it was fashionable, we always used to say about the battle of ideas,

00:16:39.520 you know, get out of your echo chamber. I mean, now that's a cliche, but at the time,

00:16:42.840 it was quite an important declaration as far as we were concerned that you should come and

00:16:47.460 hear other opinions beyond your own. But I think that what's now incredible is that when people

00:16:54.320 actually do have civilised exchanges over even very febrile issues like Brexit, people actually

00:17:02.100 don't want that to occur. So, for example, UK and a changing Europe, who were actually involved in

00:17:08.680 the festival this year who are academics who are you know broadly speaking based on the research

00:17:13.640 not that keen that we leave the european union and and i don't agree with the number of the

00:17:18.080 the the the statements that they come out but they're actually really interesting i read their

00:17:25.040 publications i'm interested you know and this works both ways but they did a podcast with me

00:17:29.480 and they got abused for interviewing me by their own followers why is that woman on and i and i

00:17:34.700 also did my first MEP blog for them, as they asked me to. And again, they got a lot of abuse for

00:17:44.520 allowing me a platform. And by the way, just to show I'm being fair minded about it, it was also

00:17:51.120 the case that when I retweeted and said it's worth reading this from UK and Changing Europe

00:17:55.400 and what's the problems with a no deal Brexit and some of the real challenges of it, people who are

00:18:02.780 My supporters will say, why are you retweeting that?

00:18:05.820 And I'm like, because I think everyone should read more generally.

00:18:10.680 And, you know, if they're wrong, we should argue against it.

00:18:13.700 So I think that the media, the mainstream media, sadly, are far too prepared to put the label on you.

00:18:24.640 You're there to perform in a role.

00:18:27.060 And if you don't kind of do, you know, it's like that kind of, what was that community used to go?

00:18:30.600 Fight, fight, you know, but it was like that sort of like.

00:18:32.440 If you don't perform as some sort of like fighting, you know, horrible kind of like spitting at each other, which actually often spontaneously happens.

00:18:41.180 But if you don't, because you think, oh, that's a reasonable point, I think this.

00:18:44.540 They're almost disappointed that you're not giving them the gotcha moment or the kind of clip that you can then say, this is real live politics.

00:18:53.440 Well, actually, it's not. No, it's not. It's a bitchy, unpleasant exchange. 0.98

00:18:57.680 Why don't we actually have an attempt at understanding each other's perspectives?

00:19:01.180 Well, just to show that we are fair-minded, whenever we talk about the mainstream media, one thing that should be mentioned, actually, a lot of people on our side in terms of new media are doing the same thing as well.

00:19:10.680 There's lots of people who are not being fair or reasonable or objective in any way.

00:19:15.020 And that's just a long way of constant in saying he wants to go back on Good Morning Britain.

00:19:19.460 I've been on that show plenty, but actually that's mainstream media.

00:19:22.440 And yes, one of the things they do is they they they they're very careful to make sure, as you'll know, to make sure that, you know, you kept in a separate room from the other guests who you're supposedly debating.

00:19:36.000 It was quite funny. I was on a radio program the other day and a woman who didn't know me, I was chatting to her.

00:19:40.640 She didn't know who it was. And she was saying, oh, yeah, you know, good morning, Britain, when, you know, that that kind of debate where they have someone who's black talking about racism and then they get a racist on against them.

00:19:51.320 And I was like, well, I'm usually the racist in that debate.

00:19:54.580 Well, you are Russian, mate, so it's entirely in case. 1.00

00:19:56.500 It's in my genes, so it's part of my culture.

00:19:58.600 You're a Russian book. 0.54

00:20:01.860 But one of my favorite moments at the Battle of Ideas last year,

00:20:05.260 actually coming to talk about identity politics slightly,

00:20:07.820 was you were hosting and moderating a debate between a bunch of people

00:20:11.680 and you were taking questions from the audience.

00:20:14.420 And I think you took questions from two men in a row.

00:20:18.140 and then at this point a woman stood up at the back and started shouting about how you need to 0.56

00:20:23.260 ask a question you get a question from a woman and you went that's not how we do things here 1.00

00:20:27.040 just sit down and shut up i'll ask i'll get a question from who i choose to and i thought it 0.58

00:20:33.700 was quite um refreshing to see that you know the this idea of identity politics doesn't seem to be 0.74

00:20:40.060 quite as strong in that space as it is elsewhere is that is that fair to say well we we challenge

00:20:46.600 the presumptions that are basically a kind of box ticking ritual and i remember that incident

00:20:52.060 because the truth was it was the first round of questions four people put their hands up who were

00:20:57.940 men and i was taking the third one when the interjection happened but we'd only just started

00:21:03.240 the discussion so i was hardly cutting out every woman in the room and there was hundreds of people 0.86

00:21:08.800 at that event um at that particular conversation and you know as one would anticipate caused a lot

00:21:15.980 of women in the audience eventually spoke 0.67

00:21:18.200 but it wasn't because somebody had

00:21:19.760 said are there any women in 1.00

00:21:21.920 you know what I mean

00:21:22.780 we're not having a debate I mean what are we going to do 0.96

00:21:25.560 you know have we got any blacks here 0.99

00:21:27.800 do you know what I mean it's a horrible 0.99

00:21:29.420 vile way to see it right

00:21:31.300 to be fair that sounds worse in my voice

00:21:33.560 no no I mean it's the whole

00:21:35.620 but the whole thing is

00:21:37.000 vile isn't it

00:21:38.540 you see an audience

00:21:41.340 you're trying to encourage an open debate

00:21:43.500 you're not sitting there going

00:21:45.240 have we had enough lgbtqi speakers to satisfy the quota police no that's not the way it is

00:21:54.740 but interestingly we don't play the identity politics game at the battle of ideas but if

00:22:00.920 you actually look at the audience you will find that they are all ages all ethnicities yes no

00:22:08.020 doubt all sexuality they are basically they are the public and we are a mixed and varied crowd

00:22:13.060 yes but we're not trying to get in a group of people it's also the case that i always think

00:22:18.160 as we always do which is um in one of the debates that i was doing on a few years ago you know

00:22:23.740 somebody sort of said well you know i just feel as though you know this is completely biased and

00:22:29.100 what about the women's voice and it was interesting because most of the people who'd

00:22:32.160 spoken had been women but what they meant was it's not what i want you know it it's not to be

00:22:37.340 an accusation that you were bringing too many men in because the women who'd spoken actually

00:22:42.340 were not arguing what this young feminist had wanted them to argue.

00:22:46.260 And it doesn't really matter what gender you are, just speak.

00:22:49.200 Stop trying to do that, right?

00:22:51.120 Say what you want and then we'll have the argument.

00:22:53.600 So I hope that by the end of it people realise actually it's better

00:22:57.200 to not do the box ticking because you get more interesting discussion.

00:22:59.980 And also I think it's, I mean, last year we ran a strand that I chaired on feminism

00:23:05.180 and out of five or six debates, however many it was,

00:23:09.740 there was only one guy on the panel.

00:23:11.080 and it didn't really come into my mind but it just so happened that on issues of you know

00:23:17.440 discussions about gender pay gap I decided to get four people who are very good on it they all

00:23:21.720 happen to be women and inevitably at least once every time in the debate someone got up and said 1.00

00:23:26.580 well where's the representation of men on this panel and you think it's just this has just gone

00:23:31.280 too far yes this is just that's that's funny like that someone's decided to take issue with that

00:23:36.360 but I think a lot of the time most people do think that it's a bit ridiculous and they do

00:23:40.820 if they come along to the debate and they hear that for me always the most crucial thing is have

00:23:45.140 you got the political balance right and in some cases having the political balance right um with

00:23:51.080 the best people that you can get the most interesting people you can get they might all

00:23:54.500 look the same they might all come from the same background but the question is are they going to

00:23:58.060 say different things and i think people might sometimes people might join our audiences and

00:24:02.920 be kind of sitting a bit like uh already have a prejudice about what's going to happen but then

00:24:07.600 they hear people open their mouths and speak and your mind changes and you think okay actually that

00:24:12.500 person is completely on my side or completely not on my side and i think the thing about the

00:24:16.820 identity politics wars we've got a strand on it um this year talking about everything from

00:24:22.400 incels and peterson and toxic masculinity and all that kind of discussion up to gross out feminism 1.00

00:24:29.940 which is like about um the person's political and everything in between race and all sorts

00:24:35.360 I think that people are at this point so sick of the identity politics wars because it's so unpleasant.

00:24:42.600 I mean, because there really is no end to it.

00:24:45.360 It doesn't matter if you are a woman of colour who's also a lesbian, someone will always trump you. 0.96

00:24:51.540 There's a kind of identity politics Olympics going on.

00:24:54.840 And so you can't ever really feel safe.

00:24:57.160 You can't ever really feel solid in your position if you're going to engage in that debate

00:25:02.440 because someone will always come along and be more victimised,

00:25:05.020 have an identity that's more important in the hierarchy than you.

00:25:09.120 And so I like to think that a lot of people who come to the festival

00:25:12.140 want to just put that aside and then talk about the real politics behind it

00:25:16.740 because even as someone who, if you do buy into the whole identity thing,

00:25:21.760 if we ever go on panels and say, well, as a woman,

00:25:24.920 you just know that it feels hollow.

00:25:26.800 It does.

00:25:27.300 But what I was going to say was that the reality is

00:25:31.600 is that you just get born, you have a skin colour, you're a woman.

00:25:37.180 I mean, I know that saying that I'm a woman

00:25:38.760 has now become a matter of major political controversy

00:25:41.540 because I'll probably be accused of some discrimination.

00:25:44.900 But, I mean, in general, these are not achievements in one's life.

00:25:49.220 They're things that happen, you know, there you are.

00:25:52.060 And what you become, who you become, is not about those things,

00:25:56.580 but it's about your mind, about the views you have,

00:25:58.800 the morality that you embrace, and all of these things.

00:26:01.080 And part of growing up, of course, is growing into someone,

00:26:05.380 is working out who you will be in the scheme of things.

00:26:08.660 And I think it's so vile that we've got to a point where we're able to trump each other

00:26:13.960 based on something we didn't achieve.

00:26:15.420 That's all I'm saying.

00:26:16.060 I mean, if somebody says, well, I'm black, well, it's like, yes.

00:26:18.600 But, I mean, what does that mean?

00:26:19.680 It doesn't help me get anywhere in terms of understanding the world we live in.

00:26:24.420 But I think you're actually right.

00:26:26.340 People are fair to believe it.

00:26:27.200 One of my mates actually said to me a year or so ago,

00:26:30.120 you know i've never felt so black and i didn't understand what he meant but what he was saying

00:26:35.240 was that he now feels as i mean he's been involved in anti-racist politics and politics and in general

00:26:40.700 for a long time but what he was saying was he now feels as though the only way that people see him

00:26:45.740 is as black right and that in rather than being taken seriously as an intellectual a film critic 0.71

00:26:52.580 and all of these things he's now sort of invited onto panels because he's black you know he's

00:26:58.260 assumed to have an insight because he's black whereas he was saying no that's not what i want

00:27:03.920 to be defined by so it's ironic that having allowed racism to define people through skin

00:27:09.700 color for many years and that's you know still what a racist does is assumes your character and

00:27:15.860 your morality and your whole being because of your skin color or whichever particular prejudice you

00:27:22.100 go down now it's identity politics that does the same and i think that people have a sneaky feeling

00:27:28.820 that this is very very very regressive and so at least i think there's a sense of relief when they 1.00

00:27:34.260 come to the battle of ideas that we don't just accommodate to that i was slightly rude with that

00:27:40.300 woman which i enjoyed but i think i think what i was trying to establish is as we often do is to

00:27:47.540 say things like you know if you find something offensive argue back don't walk out and storm out

00:27:52.080 or you know don't say you're triggered and not participate you know don't complain about those

00:27:56.100 things you know let's just have a public conversation about really important issues

00:27:59.980 and trust each other that we can cope with any challenges or offense that we might hear in the

00:28:05.020 course of that but equally sorry just to find very i'm not even going to ask a question equally

00:28:09.820 though you don't exclude people who are of that way of thinking there were plenty of god there's

00:28:14.140 I mean, probably the majority of people there believe that,

00:28:18.200 but they can argue for that.

00:28:19.380 They can argue against what I've just said.

00:28:21.720 But you argue against it, not boycott or label.

00:28:26.040 Explain why you think it would be a bit different to do that.

00:28:28.540 Yeah.

00:28:28.820 No, I mean, it is fortunately or unfortunately

00:28:32.060 become a serious political viewpoint

00:28:33.660 in terms of most of our political narrative today

00:28:37.680 is defined by identity politics.

00:28:40.000 Even, you know, something like Brexit

00:28:42.160 it has been largely attempted to be defined by identity politics. And so you've got to engage

00:28:47.020 with it. Even if you are like me and Claire, someone who's very sceptical of the benefits

00:28:51.620 of seeing things through an identity politics lens, it is actually more and more becoming

00:28:57.700 the established way of thinking, which is, we've just been talking about the mainstream

00:29:01.280 media, the way they cast debates will be through an identity politics lens, the way they see

00:29:05.860 having topics will be around an identity politics lens. So that's the realm we're in. We're

00:29:11.520 happy to take that on what we're not happy to do is be count by it so that's what but i think that

00:29:16.720 that we a caution to us all i mean i'm a great fan of titania mcgrath or you know rather as the

00:29:23.820 and and i i love that and you've done lots of things on the issues of identity and had some

00:29:29.500 great guests on trigonometry discussing this but i i do think that i've got to say to myself all the

00:29:35.980 time you know i don't want to over lampoon them because the reason i mentioned titania mcgrath is

00:29:39.680 easy make fun of because the most ludicrous sides of these things are let's be frank you know easy

00:29:47.440 to satirize and say for god's sake and it can be like that but there are obviously things that one

00:29:53.780 needs to engage in and although i hate the promiscuous use of the word far-right or racist

00:29:59.340 and so on there are racists i encountered them um you know there's there's there's quite a lot

00:30:04.080 people at the moment who are having a big campaign against the Brexit party on the basis

00:30:09.700 that it's too politically correct for having allowed a commie pro-migrant like me in it,

00:30:15.600 in its ranks. And they are more than willing to explain their views on deportations and

00:30:21.620 immigration. And they are openly racist, right? And so I don't want, and you can see that people,

00:30:28.280 when they're on the receiving end of some pretty nasty attacks, if you're a woman or if you're

00:30:33.520 black or what have you, you look to different political ways of organising. I don't think

00:30:39.420 that identity politics is the way forward. I think it's really aggressive. But I don't want

00:30:44.300 to suggest that there's no issues in society that need to be confronted and tackled. And that's

00:30:50.000 where the interesting political argument comes. Well, how do you tackle that then? Should it be

00:30:54.640 through kind of saying we as ethnic minorities want to organise in this way? Or should it be

00:30:59.820 more open anti-racist companies so on and so forth so we try and take these things seriously

00:31:03.780 rather than just dismissing them all i apologize you turned that into a question sorry no it's

00:31:09.980 fine i was just gonna say it doesn't affect me because i don't see race or gender but anyway

00:31:13.200 guys just to let you know my show all well that ends well which i advertised earlier the bill

00:31:19.500 murray that is now very close to selling out so we've had to open up another day i will be doing

00:31:24.120 it again with francis i'm seeing it again on the 24th of november the links in the description i'm

00:31:29.160 also coming to Cambridge in November as well. So check that out. Absolutely. Please come down.

00:31:34.580 It's going to be a great show when I'm on. And then when Constantine's on, you just enjoy the

00:31:39.680 interval. There is no interval, by the way. So it's just me and Francis. We'll see you there.

00:31:47.980 So, I mean, we were talking about identity politics. Identity politics is something,

00:31:52.340 I mean, it's been embraced by the right, but very much by the left and labels and all the rest of

00:31:56.640 And I see you two, if I would give you a label, it'd be homeless lefties. 0.99

00:32:01.860 And like me, we are of the left, but we look at the left and we go, oh, for fuck's sake. 0.97

00:32:08.500 And we just go, I mean, I can't vote Labour in the next election. 0.98

00:32:11.620 I just can't. Could you tell us, number one, what being left wing means?

00:32:16.860 And is it compatible with now being a Labour voter?

00:32:19.460 But I don't, from my opinion anyway, I don't think being left wing in the interests of working class liberation has ever been compatible with the voting with the Labour Party for a number of reasons that are historically too long to go into in this interview.

00:32:37.460 But the funny thing is, I think, Claire, you said this before as well, is that my views in terms of what I want from society and societal change haven't changed.

00:32:47.360 So whether they're left wing or not, or, you know, it often feels quite lazy to call yourself left wing now because it's just like saying I'm a nice person because right wing has become evil.

00:32:58.260 But my views haven't changed in terms of what I want to see in a future society.

00:33:03.000 But I think what has changed is the rest of the conversation.

00:33:06.660 So people who now still call themselves left-wing in that quite lazy way are, for example, if you take a figure like Paul Mason, who is a lefty by all accounts of he's understood to be one, but has become this incredible cheerleader for the European Union, who to my mind is the antithesis of all kind of left-wing Euroscepticism and left-wing thought of workers' liberation.

00:33:29.840 So these things have become completely confused. And part of the problem is that the left as a kind of block have just moved towards a sort of centrist establishment outlook from my point of view.

00:33:43.240 So it's not about, you know, challenging the nature of the way society is organized and arguing for more for everyone.

00:33:50.780 And, you know, let's make massive societal change.

00:33:54.020 It's about sort of tinkering at the edges and, you know, making working life slightly nicer for people, slightly raising the minimum wage, taxing rich people a little bit more.

00:34:02.900 It's all this kind of stuff that for me seems like really boring centrism or kind of socialism light.

00:34:09.620 And I think what you have to assess if you are someone like myself, perhaps Claire, who still holds on to some of the serious and concrete left-wing values, like freedom of speech, like Euroscepticism at the moment, and other things, where is the debate today?

00:34:29.820 And the debate, I think, rightly or wrongly, isn't any more about left or right. It isn't about these clear political distinctions, because we're not in the 1980s. We're not in the same world as we were when class politics was a very real thing. So you have to face up to the fact that it is just politically lazy and rather dishonest to keep going on about we're the lefties and you're the right wingers.

00:34:53.620 because the vast majority of the population out there

00:34:56.220 just don't see things in that way anymore.

00:34:59.000 That might be a good thing, that might be a bad thing.

00:35:01.400 It might be changing as it happens

00:35:02.920 because, as we've seen, the kind of discussion about Brexit

00:35:05.360 has become quite clearly cut between an us-and-them narrative

00:35:09.940 and who knows where that's going to go.

00:35:11.780 But I don't think you can anymore be safe in those right and left labels

00:35:16.600 because they've just been hollowed out.

00:35:19.240 I mean, I do feel politically homeless.

00:35:20.860 You can't say that you're an MEP for the Brexit Party.

00:35:24.940 But I was actually going to say,

00:35:26.160 I'm in a party that was actually only formed

00:35:30.000 because there was a pre-existing movement.

00:35:33.320 I mean, you know, you can't...

00:35:34.720 No disrespect to the people who set up the Brexit Party,

00:35:37.280 but they didn't go out and build it from scratch

00:35:39.340 because there was already three years' worth of people

00:35:42.600 wandering around saying,

00:35:43.680 I feel politically homeless and I'm so frustrated

00:35:46.220 about the non-delivery of the vote to leave in the referendum,

00:35:50.320 that then you kind of have a party that comes along with the title of the Brexit Party and sweeps up that constituency.

00:35:58.240 And so therefore it's not the traditional political party that we've known from the past.

00:36:03.460 And its slogan, Change Politics for Good, has got a much greater resonance than I thought it would.

00:36:09.200 Because when I go and talk to people, people say, yeah, we need new political movements, new parties.

00:36:13.260 You know, they want a kind of refreshing of politics because they do feel politically homeless.

00:36:17.200 I mean, there was a very moving moment that I was at a meeting and one woman stood up and said, you know, I've I've been in the Conservative Party for 20 years and until recently, I'd never met a trade unionist ever.

00:36:33.280 And now I'm going to leave meetings and I'm meeting, you know, there's Communist Party members over there.

00:36:38.860 There's members of the RMT. There's the Conservatives, all sorts of people here. Right.

00:36:43.140 So she was kind of honest.

00:36:44.520 And then from the back of the room, the next contribution was somebody who stood up and said, I'm a shop steward.

00:36:49.820 And I recently just got involved in the Brexit party, as it happens in that instance.

00:36:54.840 And I've always despised and hated every single Tory.

00:36:58.920 And I found myself on a stall with that very lady the other day. 0.99

00:37:02.480 And we got on like a house on fire.

00:37:04.500 And so people are realizing as well that maybe the tribes from the past are slightly different.

00:37:08.780 We've got new political challenges.

00:37:09.980 But the other thing I wanted to say was, you know, I was interviewed by a number of publications in the last week or so, Washington Post, New York.

00:37:20.120 And they all sort of start off and they say, well, you've had a fascinating, you know, one minute you're the revolutionary communist party and the next minute you're Brexit party.

00:37:28.860 And I said there was a 25 year gap.

00:37:30.860 I mean, it's a kind of odd one that, right?

00:37:36.760 You know, because what's happened is because I actually and it was unusual when I stood up and said, you know, I didn't think I was going to end up on the same platform as Nigel Frodge when I first was announced as a candidate.

00:37:47.680 You know, I've come from the left. I wasn't expecting this to then mean that there was a kind of wholesale going over everything that was ever written by the Revolutionary Communist Party that I was in 25 years ago and then trying to suggest that I'd said it two seconds ago.

00:38:01.020 So and I'm not denouncing that past, but there's a lot of water gone under the bridge since then in terms of politics.

00:38:08.260 I mean, I mean by that that it didn't used to be that if you were a free speech absolutist, that people would then say, so you're far right.

00:38:17.740 I mean, the left embraced, you know, actually still in America is the case that people on the left are associated with free speech.

00:38:24.640 I consider this to be part of the enlightenment gain that you would have free speech and open mind.

00:38:29.900 And, you know, Ella's already mentioned, you know, that the left has had the major, were the major figures in Euroscepticism and the emergence of the EU.

00:38:41.160 Tony Benn, I mean, the one thing that I agreed with Jeremy Corbyn for, for 25 years, was his attitude to democracy in relation to the imposition and anti-democratic nature of the European Union.

00:38:55.580 I mean, it's not my fault he's changed his mind or being cowardly or whatever has happened to him, right?

00:38:59.900 Has he changed his mind?

00:39:01.280 No, but the reason I say that is he's lost his guts.

00:39:04.840 No, he's lost his guts.

00:39:05.660 But he is the leader of a party who only this morning, I think one of his MPs,

00:39:10.760 I think it's Angela Riegel MP, but I'm pretty sure,

00:39:14.020 just said, let's be frank and tell everyone that Brexit is an alt-right, far-right project.

00:39:21.120 Right now, that's not even just saying it's a Tory project, right?

00:39:24.680 And then Jeremy Corbyn says, we don't want a banker's Brexit.

00:39:28.480 you know the bit where the bankers

00:39:31.640 well the bank

00:39:33.240 the bank supported Remain

00:39:35.140 I mean what are you talking about? I mean what does that mean

00:39:37.300 even right? They funded a lot of Remain

00:39:39.320 campaigns openly I mean in the public sphere

00:39:41.080 they've argued that we should stay in

00:39:43.200 so what I'm trying to say is

00:39:45.220 is that these

00:39:47.020 it does get to the point where the labels

00:39:49.280 become meaningless

00:39:50.280 I was the publisher of LM magazine

00:39:53.440 which had previously been living Marxism

00:39:55.100 I was in the revolutionary communist party

00:39:57.100 into my 30s before it closed itself down um but i so i broadly of course i think of myself as on

00:40:03.700 the left i've had some sort of but the world around me and what constitutes left wing has

00:40:08.780 changed and when i see people who are the leaders of left-wing movements arguing for censorship

00:40:14.260 arguing for people to lose their jobs not be platforming someone because they said something

00:40:20.120 that somebody found offensive i think actually i don't want anything to do with that if that's

00:40:24.220 the left, right? I don't want that label anymore. You know, I can't bring myself now to simply say

00:40:31.280 I'm a left winger without a caveat, which says, but not in the contemporary way of understanding

00:40:36.560 the left. This is something I wanted to ask you about in terms of running the battle of ideas

00:40:41.080 and censorship and platformings. There is this idea that giving people a platform is in a way

00:40:48.300 enabling their views. And therefore, if they have bad views or the wrong views, you are therefore

00:40:53.480 responsible. What is your attitude to, you know, giving a space for people to talk from across the

00:40:59.420 spectrum and to critics that might say, well, you've given a platform to this person that I

00:41:04.920 personally disagree with. Therefore, you are all evil and bad and whatever else that comes out of

00:41:09.200 it. I think the golden rule for us is if it's politically relevant and if it's interesting,

00:41:14.380 then we will look to give it a platform. If it's a debate that we think needs to happen,

00:41:20.060 then it's something that we should facilitate and something that we should get involved in.

00:41:25.320 So that, you know, everyone, whether you're the editor of a magazine or the organiser of a festival,

00:41:30.800 you have to look at what is going to produce a good debate and a successful debate.

00:41:35.520 And one, actually, a debate that we're sort of politically interested in expanding the conversation.

00:41:40.220 So that doesn't mean that you, we've just had discussions about, talked about people being set up.

00:41:45.900 That doesn't mean you find the mad person who's got the really extreme views on, you know, anti-abortion or whatever it is, the kind of really, really crazy view.

00:41:56.720 And you put them on a platform then with some very mild person, let them battle it out.

00:42:01.760 And that's not no platforming someone, by the way.

00:42:03.960 That's just having a sensible view of how to put on an event or how to have a discussion.

00:42:07.520 But the cold panic about no platform is a really disingenuous conversation because actually it's not about, you know, it's it never has.

00:42:16.500 I've never looked at a panel that's been questioned on no platform.

00:42:20.340 And I've been involved in this for many years, both with Spiked and when I was at university at the University of Sussex and there was campaigns around no platforming there.

00:42:28.840 Every panel that's been challenged has, to my mind, been really quite mild.

00:42:32.660 I mean, in terms of whether it's been Julie Bindle or someone from the Tory party, it's never a kind of rabid, kind of viciously murderous person who you think, God, why would anyone want to listen to them?

00:42:46.300 It's always just someone who's a bit politically contentious.

00:42:49.720 And so the fear about no platforming often just comes from people not wanting to have the person that they disagree with heard.

00:42:57.860 But once you guess over that, you have to say that a platform, what is a platform?

00:43:02.920 If you've got, for example, our debates, most of them take place where you've got sort of five people, two or three on each side and then a chair.

00:43:11.180 If you have a strong chair who can facilitate a public debate, then you really don't have to worry about what's being said and its effect on the audience.

00:43:20.380 Because there's this other thing in relation to platforming that, you know, this is the crazy thing about universities and especially when I was at Sussex.

00:43:26.460 They would never have a UKIP person on a platform, even though actually at that time UKIP was doing relatively well in the polls.

00:43:33.000 And it was actually something interesting to investigate what their views were. 0.85

00:43:38.040 People at the University of Sussex and students were terrified that UKIP, this UKIP guy was going to get up and say, you know, whatever they thought he was going to say, all black people should be deported.

00:43:47.440 And then all the student populace of Sussex would be like, yeah.

00:43:50.180 I mean, it was just a complete misunderstanding of both the power of that speaker and the nature

00:43:56.040 of the audience. So it all comes down to a distrust of people's ability to challenge

00:44:01.060 things. You know, I've been almost hounded off panels before because I've spoken about

00:44:05.520 controversial things at university and, you know, the students have not been swayed by my point of

00:44:09.600 view. The opposite has happened. I think we, the problem with the no platforming panic is it's

00:44:15.400 again i mean this is a theme it's again it's a distrust of the public's ability to hold people

00:44:20.900 to account to challenge people um and it's also the case that there's also this sort of idea that

00:44:28.180 we've just been talking about labels if you have someone that's slightly more hardened in their

00:44:33.620 position that they're somehow an extremist and what are we supposed to have beige panels with

00:44:37.900 everyone who's going to say roughly the same kind of middling thing i mean who wants to go and see

00:44:42.280 that exactly because it you know you can sanitize debate by basically saying nobody's saying anything

00:44:48.720 that is going to upset anyone anywhere in the room in which case this festival would attract

00:44:54.240 no one because it would just be you know boring basically but i i think that we confront two

00:45:01.100 problems one is the the way that people are labeled bigots and we've all made jokes about

00:45:07.660 it here and you've said you know we're nazis and all the rest of it and it is quite ludicrous but

00:45:12.820 actually genuinely it's not pleasant no no of course i mean i mean you know actually you know

00:45:17.540 when people call me a nazi or say i'm a fascist enabler and i don't just mean using the label i

00:45:22.460 mean seriously accuse me of enabling fascism or replicating enoch powell's rivers of blood

00:45:29.040 speeches these are you know to your face i mean these are very serious things to suggest you know

00:45:36.180 Somebody responsible for the murderous, I mean, the idea that I have to explain that the Holocaust of Jewish people is not something that I not only agree with, but that I have any remote truck with is ludicrous.

00:45:52.520 But when they say you're enabling the rise of fascism in this country, a militarized, vicious, anti-humanist, nihilistic ideology, which I despise, and I have to go, no, I'm not. 0.83

00:46:03.980 It sounds pathetic, but if you label people bigots, and we know that there's a whole new range, transphobic, Islamophobic, there's all sorts of things which you can be labelled not because you are a bigot, but because you've said something that goes against what a very narrow group of people representing that community, but not voted by that community, have decided to label Islamophobic. 0.87

00:46:26.420 So you will know there are many people who are transgender, don't agree with trans activists. 0.99

00:46:32.540 Millions of people who are Muslims don't agree with the people who say on behalf of all Muslims, I call you Islamophobic.

00:46:39.160 So that's one problem. We would just basically have to go and check the list of who somebody else has called a bigot.

00:46:44.680 They're not going to do that. But on the other hand, that's a good way of finding speakers, though, if they've been called all the right names.

00:46:51.540 But on the UNAN, and this is what I was going to say,

00:46:53.360 was a lot of students I talk to are kind of newly espousing free speech.

00:46:57.440 And I like to think that we've at least opened their minds to it.

00:47:00.460 And, you know, a lot of free speech studies have kind of, you know,

00:47:04.400 somebody would invite me because they've read my book

00:47:06.700 and they're all enthused, we're going to do this.

00:47:08.120 And then they'll say, we're going to invite so-and-so.

00:47:10.720 And actually, they're going to invite a bigot, a real bigot,

00:47:15.140 because they think that the way to confront the bands

00:47:18.700 is to invite somebody for the sake of annoying everybody.

00:47:23.140 Shock tactics.

00:47:23.680 Shock tactics, you know.

00:47:25.200 I know this person will get banned, so we're going to invite X. 0.92

00:47:29.580 I'm not going to name names, but there are obviously some people.

00:47:31.980 You know, I suppose the archetype people will be Katie Hopkins

00:47:35.620 or Tommy Robinson, and they'll say,

00:47:36.920 we thought we'd invite them because that will really upset

00:47:39.800 all of our kind of censorious, woke.

00:47:42.560 And I say, why would you do that?

00:47:43.720 I haven't got anything interesting to say.

00:47:44.820 and that's the thing is

00:47:46.800 you don't want to

00:47:48.520 I think you have an editorial

00:47:51.020 responsibility as Ella has indicated

00:47:53.060 to put together interesting

00:47:55.080 compelling panels of people who are

00:47:57.180 seriously going to discuss the issues in hand

00:47:59.260 and very often the people

00:48:01.220 who are the most

00:48:02.060 well known as the outrage mongers

00:48:04.960 are actually not that interesting

00:48:06.560 now if you think they are

00:48:08.260 that's a legitimate invite them

00:48:10.640 but if you're going to just invite them

00:48:12.960 to be symbolic of the fact that you're anti-censorship that's actually as disrespectful to

00:48:19.260 ideas as those people who are no platforming as well nobody's entitled to a platform just because

00:48:24.620 they're banned from everywhere then actually it doesn't mean that i'm going to go well just out

00:48:29.080 of annoyance i'm going to get then on the other hand there's there's been times when you know

00:48:34.200 it's like a feature now of public debate in which that a festival whatever festival or event will

00:48:39.640 put on something, someone will complain about X person being given a platform and then all the

00:48:45.720 other speakers will back away and say, we don't want to, by guilt of association, be involved in

00:48:50.620 this event because you're giving a platform to this person. And from my point of view, I've always

00:48:55.420 thought, say, for example, like if I managed to get on a panel with Steve Bannon or any of these

00:49:01.400 people who have caused controversy, I'd die to do it because the challenge of being able to get

00:49:08.100 into a space where you could have the opportunity to politically humiliate and take down an

00:49:13.780 opponent. It's like that's what you want. Who wants to, if you're really serious about your

00:49:19.820 political views, which I like to think we are, you want to win people over and you want to win

00:49:25.420 the argument. You don't just want to keep chatting. Let's just chat with people forever and ever and

00:49:29.520 let's just throw around. If you want to win the argument, so what better opportunity than to be

00:49:34.600 given someone who's challenging, who, you know, everyone is running scared from, but then, you 0.90

00:49:39.880 know, sure, I'm not, I sound like I'm blowing smoke up my own ass, but it's like, you know,

00:49:44.020 if you did manage to politically debate them and win, wouldn't that be far better than everyone 0.92

00:49:50.540 backing away and pretending like this person didn't exist? So there's an element of cowardice

00:49:55.300 in this discussion that, you know, that I think gets missed where a lot of the time when people

00:50:00.620 say, well, I'm not joining a platform with this person because they're a bigot, you think, well, 0.96

00:50:04.500 if they're such a disgusting, despicable 0.99

00:50:06.500 bigot who nobody 1.00

00:50:08.380 agrees with, and so I'm sure you can blow them 0.73

00:50:10.380 over like that, just go and do it.

00:50:12.400 So just in case anyone's concerned,

00:50:14.380 we haven't invited Steve Bannon.

00:50:16.220 I mean, I, I, I, I, no, I completely

00:50:18.480 Why not? What is the censorship all about?

00:50:20.460 I was referencing the discussion about the

00:50:22.240 event at The Economist two years ago.

00:50:24.640 We were both involved in. It was on Newsnight,

00:50:26.640 but no, but even, you know,

00:50:28.060 I don't think I'd particularly be that interested in what

00:50:30.320 Steve Bannon's got to say now. No, but they invited

00:50:32.320 Steve Bannon. Actually, The Economist

00:50:34.480 had a festival, invited Steve Bannon.

00:50:36.940 They expressly said they were inviting Steve Bannon

00:50:39.260 to defeat his arguments and to humiliate him.

00:50:42.460 You know, that was their aim.

00:50:45.100 I might be disinclined to say yes to the invitation

00:50:48.480 if you've already proclaimed that was your aim.

00:50:50.240 But nonetheless, he said yes.

00:50:52.280 And half of the British and UK and American speakers

00:50:56.940 at that festival pulled out.

00:50:58.620 And Ella and I didn't.

00:51:00.480 Lots of which, by the way, who weren't even on a panel with him.

00:51:02.940 They weren't on panels with him.

00:51:03.960 They just pulled out because Steve Bannon had anything to do with the whole thing.

00:51:09.080 But there was a real attempt at bullying the festival to pull him.

00:51:14.420 And, in fact, the New Yorker actually did pull him.

00:51:16.540 They'd also invited him.

00:51:18.040 Now, whatever one thinks about Steve Bannon, if you think that he –

00:51:22.600 I don't think that Steve Bannon is responsible for every –

00:51:26.200 I think he's overflattered as being responsible for a range of movements,

00:51:30.100 which I think that in his dreams he wished he was having an influence over.

00:51:34.320 The idea that he's created all of these populist movements around Europe,

00:51:37.480 you think, no, actually, we don't need Steve Bannon.

00:51:39.480 People are kind of quite angry with things, right?

00:51:41.640 But nonetheless, they say he's responsible for that,

00:51:44.480 in which case it would seem to me you have a responsibility

00:51:46.560 to expose his ideas to interrogation and argument.

00:51:51.340 I actually think Steve Bannon's a rather uninteresting character

00:51:54.400 and therefore I don't see the need to have him.

00:51:58.280 I wouldn't not have him out because I think he's, you know, that's the way you're trying to think of things.

00:52:03.860 I mean, we're also, by the way, a small organization with no money.

00:52:07.120 We can't afford to fly in every interesting or American speaker.

00:52:11.100 So you kind of, and I wanted to just at this point say that you asked, how do you get people?

00:52:17.920 I mean, a lot of people say no to speaking at the Battle of Ideas.

00:52:22.040 And say, well, I'd never drew, how could you put on that event?

00:52:25.260 you seem to be questioning you know this and we go yes it's the interrogating an orthodoxy that's

00:52:31.740 the idea well how dare you no i'm not going to do it and people will say i wouldn't speak at that

00:52:36.300 festival i think the fact that every year we get 400 plus speakers across the political range is a

00:52:42.040 credit to them and i'm delighted that you you're doing your trigonometry live at the battle ideas

00:52:48.220 with andrew adonis because andrew adonis and i are well-known political opponents of each other

00:52:54.000 when it comes to the Brexit issue,

00:52:56.420 we've come head to head on Good Morning Britain

00:52:59.780 and in live debates and so on and so forth.

00:53:03.160 But my God, that man deserves credit

00:53:05.240 because he says, of course,

00:53:06.620 I'll come along and speak at the Battle of Ideas.

00:53:08.560 Of course, I'll go on trigonometry.

00:53:10.260 And I don't just mean Andrew Jones.

00:53:11.400 There's lots of people like that.

00:53:13.000 We should not be frightened

00:53:14.360 of having the discussions with each other.

00:53:16.080 If we're really serious about what we believe,

00:53:19.260 as Alice says, we should try and win over audiences

00:53:21.300 of all shapes and sizes.

00:53:22.840 Which is why you should be there at the battle of ideas.

00:53:25.760 Absolutely.

00:53:26.260 At what point does it go from protecting reputation, inverted commas,

00:53:32.000 and tipping to intellectual cowardice with not wanting to go up against somebody who you disagree with?

00:53:40.100 We don't know the answer to that.

00:53:41.720 I mean, one thing I would say is I have occasionally said I don't want to go on the platform.

00:53:47.840 I mean, if I think somebody is just not serious

00:53:51.460 and he's just going to come out with a load of bile.

00:53:53.100 I mean, you've got to decide yourself whether,

00:53:55.300 that's not no problem, it's just I, you know,

00:53:57.900 you have a limited amount of time in your life and so on.

00:54:01.360 But I think that whether it's intellectual cowardice or not,

00:54:07.420 to paraphrase J.S. Mill, you know,

00:54:09.600 you can't really be convincing in your own argument

00:54:13.920 if you don't test it out against somebody else's.

00:54:16.580 How do you even know if you believe what you believe

00:54:18.680 unless you expose it to a range of other arguments?

00:54:21.460 And my fear is that if we don't really rescue a spirit of debate in society, that people will not be able to argue anymore.

00:54:30.440 You know, that's why so many young people are so shocked when they hear an opposite.

00:54:33.060 It's like, oh, oh, oh, because they've actually only heard one side of the argument.

00:54:38.420 And obviously what you need to have done is steel yourself in amongst a range of arguments that you've never heard before.

00:54:47.640 So you can think, actually, this is confirmed that I am absolutely right.

00:54:51.700 Or possibly, just possibly, you hear something, you think, oh, maybe I'm going to change my mind.

00:54:58.540 I mean, when I was 17, I had very strong opinions on a range of issues.

00:55:03.540 Thankfully, I didn't get stuck with that.

00:55:07.100 I mean, over the years, I've changed my mind.

00:55:10.400 I, by the way, hope that I change my mind in the next decade.

00:55:14.600 and that I'm not exactly, I mean, I have principles I believe in,

00:55:18.580 but the idea that you would go, this is it, this is it,

00:55:21.400 I will never think anything other than this,

00:55:23.540 I don't want to hear anything else, I'm never reading a book,

00:55:26.160 I'm never being challenged.

00:55:27.720 My goodness, intellectual death, awful.

00:55:31.500 And I also think we need to recognise that there needs to be a bit more

00:55:35.660 of a giving people space and sympathising with people,

00:55:39.600 I mean that quite seriously, and giving people the benefit of the doubt

00:55:41.900 because especially with young people,

00:55:44.600 I remember when I was in my late teens, early 20s

00:55:47.580 and first started kind of properly getting involved in politics,

00:55:50.720 I had my opinions.

00:55:52.000 And when people challenged them, it would really upset me.

00:55:54.420 I mean, to the point where, you know,

00:55:55.900 who's now my husband used to be a member of the Socialist Workers Party

00:56:00.100 and we used to have the most ferocious,

00:56:02.100 I mean, the left always fights worse among itself,

00:56:04.340 ferocious arguments where we'd like scream and hit each other

00:56:07.720 and it would be really terrible.

00:56:09.700 It's a very happy marriage.

00:56:11.900 and he's absolutely lovely whatever about ella and but and when and then eventually you know when

00:56:19.340 i started doing journalism work and i'd get put up against people and it would it's really hard

00:56:24.400 i mean it is really hard to learn how to argue and there's actually this is what claire writes

00:56:29.680 in her book as well that there is actually an art to debate and discussion that is learned and you

00:56:35.080 won't get it immediately and it is true that if you start off believing this is my absolute principle

00:56:41.400 and often it's when someone comes and challenges it and you realize that you're wrong and that's

00:56:46.100 when it hurts the worst and that's when you will be most viciously lash out so it's a point at

00:56:50.820 which we have to give kind of have a sense that these things will happen people will make mistakes

00:56:56.480 and so if you go on a platform with someone or you debate someone and it ends catastrophically

00:57:01.500 you do not put a black mark through their name and that's it forevermore you understand that

00:57:05.980 these things are a process and it doesn't just happen like that and i think especially for young

00:57:10.260 people uh and or students universities or whoever it is people who are just being brought into their

00:57:16.820 kind of political awakening as it were you've got to allow a space for them to make mistakes

00:57:22.240 change and be open to things and part of the problem i think now is that you met you make

00:57:27.280 one wrong turn or you say one wrong thing or you do one wrong performance and that's it

00:57:32.580 and obviously human beings are much more complex than that um and if that really was the case and

00:57:38.320 we were just going to write off people the minute we disagreed with them

00:57:40.660 and the minute they said something that we didn't quite like,

00:57:42.920 then there would be no battle of ideas.

00:57:45.760 There would be none of these things

00:57:46.740 because everything would have just be shut down.

00:57:48.940 Like if I got held to account for some of the things I said when I was 20,

00:57:52.420 it would be appalling.

00:57:54.300 So a bit of a kind of generous spirit towards debate, I think,

00:57:58.580 is lacking and needs to be brought back into it.

00:58:00.880 And if I give you one final thing,

00:58:02.440 because I was on the programme when the book came out,

00:58:05.400 one of the things i slightly regret is that unintentionally i popularized the concept of

00:58:12.020 snowflakes because i was actually just using an american phrase that was very well widely used

00:58:18.660 to describe a phenomena of of thin-skinned easily offended young people and then it's become as

00:58:25.160 wikipedia will tell you they say it's me that brought it in but you know whatever um because

00:58:30.040 i actually now find that irritating when people say oh don't be a snowflake because even though

00:58:35.180 I probably say a bit, but I know that can be a lack in generosity, right?

00:58:39.620 Because I think that we can all, without sounding like we're going into therapy,

00:58:44.940 I think a degree of political empathy, I mean, if we sort of say we don't want over-literalism,

00:58:50.720 we've got to understand metaphor.

00:58:52.380 I think we've also got to be able to put ourselves in each other's shoes

00:58:56.260 and try and understand why somebody is coming at something from a different political point of view.

00:59:00.940 And I think that sense of being open-minded and generous of spirit,

00:59:05.880 that doesn't mean that you have to kind of go,

00:59:07.480 oh, I don't want to upset you and I'm now going to not say anything that might upset you.

00:59:11.120 But it doesn't mean that you write people off

00:59:13.460 or caricature them to such an extent that they can't come back.

00:59:18.280 And so I hope that one of the things that's really nice,

00:59:20.980 I mean, I do remember that just before the referendum,

00:59:25.920 or rather after the referendum, people actually said to us,

00:59:28.900 oh my god I've never

00:59:30.620 you know there are people here who voted leave you know

00:59:32.840 because we were in the Barbican in London

00:59:34.900 and that was an unusual but then there was quite a lot

00:59:36.960 of leaveers who said oh I've met some really fantastic

00:59:38.880 I've met some really great people

00:59:40.580 and some of them voted remain you know and that's what

00:59:42.860 yes we're all citizens

00:59:44.980 I mean we've got to the point now

00:59:46.960 where we've forgotten that

00:59:48.840 we did things in good faith broadly

00:59:50.800 speaking. Well it's a great thing

00:59:52.780 that you do I think our time is up Francis

00:59:54.760 actually so

00:59:55.460 I don't apologise it's been brilliant

00:59:58.520 It's been fantastic to have you both back on.

01:00:01.640 We will be at the Battle of Ideas having a discussion with Lord Adonis.

01:00:05.340 We'll also be speaking on different panels.

01:00:07.140 You guys will be speaking on different panels, no doubt.

01:00:09.760 There's some brilliant things happening.

01:00:11.700 For anyone who wants to come along, it's on the 2nd and the 3rd of November in London.

01:00:16.000 Of course we can.

01:00:16.860 We have to hold our layflex up.

01:00:18.440 Yes, let me have one.

01:00:19.840 There we go.

01:00:20.880 So this is what you do.

01:00:22.780 I'm not very good with camera angles.

01:00:24.480 We will be giving away a couple of tickets to some of our fans, as we've discussed.

01:00:28.340 But also if people want to go and buy a ticket, what's the best way to do that?

01:00:32.080 You just head to the website, battleofideas.org.uk or check out our social media presences.

01:00:37.700 Yes, you've got just under a month now for tickets and you buy one for the day or the weekend.

01:00:43.880 We hope to see you there.

01:00:44.600 And there's special half price tickets for weekend tickets for students and special concessions.

01:00:49.880 I think school pupils can come for one day for free.

01:00:53.200 And anyway, it's cheaper half the price.

01:00:55.620 Snowflake friendly.

01:00:56.560 There you go.

01:00:57.020 I never use that word myself either, but we will be there as well.

01:01:00.400 So come and say hello if you're around.

01:01:01.840 It's a great place to be.

01:01:02.780 It's a great place to meet people.

01:01:04.080 It's a great place to explore ideas.

01:01:06.360 And we will be back in a week's time with another brilliant episode.

01:01:09.180 See you next week, guys.

01:01:10.340 Bye-bye.

TRIGGERnometry - October 20, 2019

Can Free Speech Save Rational Debate？

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