TRIGGERnometry - Matthew Parris on a Second Referendum and the Future of the Conservative Party

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:08.600 I'm Constantine Kishin.

00:00:09.760 And this is a show for you if you're bored with people arguing on the internet

00:00:13.820 over subjects they know nothing about.

00:00:16.740 At Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be the experts, we ask the experts.

00:00:21.640 Our fantastic guest this week is a former Conservative MP

00:00:24.620 and a columnist for The Times here in London, Matthew Parris.

00:00:28.140 Welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:28.900 Hello, hello.

00:00:29.900 It is so good to have you here.

00:00:31.140 Let's get straight into it.

00:00:32.200 Normally, we get the guests to tell us a little bit about themselves, but I think most people

00:00:35.860 will know who you are.

00:00:36.640 It will all come out.

00:00:37.340 It will all come out in the end.

00:00:39.980 As I was saying to you before we started the interviews, one of the things we try to do

00:00:43.420 is to talk to people from across the political spectrum who may not be conventional for the

00:00:48.340 position that they occupy.

00:00:49.600 So we've had a lot of lefty Brexiteers on the show, and you are a right of center remainer.

00:00:55.400 So tell us what that's like at the moment.

00:00:57.540 Well, I'm not a far-right person.

00:01:01.040 Get that out there, yeah.

00:01:02.140 You're not Tommy Robinson, fantastic.

00:01:04.540 I'm right of centre, and there are actually an awful lot of right of centre people in Britain who don't like the idea of leaving the European Union.

00:01:12.940 We are the kind of forgotten people there, and there are millions of us.

00:01:17.020 Three million people voted Conservative who also voted to remain.

00:01:21.860 So I don't feel lonely in any way, but I do feel I'm speaking up for a section of the British electorate that has not really been heard.

00:01:31.220 And that's why we wanted to have you on the show.

00:01:32.980 So what is the right of center argument against Brexit?

00:01:37.900 It's basically conservatism with a small c.

00:01:41.640 Leave things alone unless there's something terribly wrong with them.

00:01:46.100 We've been in the European Union since, when is it, 1974, 3?

00:01:51.120 I can't remember.

00:01:52.700 Our economy has been growing fast in recent years alongside the economies of the rest of the European Union.

00:01:59.400 We're still in control of our own destiny.

00:02:02.400 The European Union's project for a sort of European super state is more or less dead now.

00:02:09.600 I'm not convinced the European Union has a secure future, but let's just leave well enough alone.

00:02:17.260 I'm quite sure we have an insecure future outside the EU.

00:02:21.860 So what I can't do, and lots of my leave readers are always hitting me with this question.

00:02:30.100 You know, okay, you said why you don't want to leave, but what's so great about the European

00:02:35.140 Union? Tell us what you believe in, because we believe in something. We believe in independence.

00:02:40.000 We believe in taking back control. We believe in a separate destiny for the United Kingdom.

00:02:45.720 What do you believe in about Europe? I don't believe in anything about Europe. I just believe

00:02:50.520 that it's chugging along okay and we're okay and to take this mad step into oblivion as far as

00:02:58.760 for all we know, it's just a very stupid thing to do. It's always hard to be the sceptical one,

00:03:04.940 the one who thinks let's not do this when there isn't anything else in particular that you do

00:03:09.980 want to do. But I say let's not do this. Now people always talk about no deal and they always

00:03:16.760 use terms like crashing out and all the rest of it. And I still don't know, what would no deal

00:03:23.480 mean for this country if on the 31st of October we decide to leave without a deal? What are the

00:03:28.860 long-term implications of that? Well, the immediate consequence of leaving without a deal

00:03:35.140 is that we would then have to negotiate a deal because we have to have an arrangement with

00:03:40.480 all the countries around us of one kind or another. So any idea that we're not going to

00:03:46.100 have a deal is for the birds. The only question is, do we try and get a satisfactory deal before

00:03:52.460 we leave, or do we just leave and then put ourselves in the position of a supplicant to

00:03:57.320 the European Union and try to get the best deal we can? The immediate effect of leaving without

00:04:02.420 a deal would be, I think, a bit of a stock market crash. It would be a substantial depreciation in

00:04:09.380 the value of the pound, and it would be an immediate contraction of our economy. We could

00:04:15.260 weather that. After four or five years, we would get used to being a country that wasn't in a

00:04:20.900 trading block with anybody else. We'd all be a bit poorer, and we'd remain a bit poorer. We'd have a

00:04:27.240 bit less influence, and we'd remain with a bit less influence. But the sun would continue to

00:04:32.060 rise and set every day, and not many people would die. It would just be a bit shit, really.

00:04:38.800 well it's interesting that you are you you're quite moderate on both sides i i would say

00:04:47.240 just to interrupt that just reminded me so much of one of my parents evening interviews with my

00:04:52.200 dad taking me along sorry carry on there's a triggering moment for francis right there

00:04:56.740 uh but you're quite moderate on it uh so i'm curious what you make because i as a remainer

00:05:02.540 uh or i i try not to call myself a remainer i voted remain i haven't made it into my identity

00:05:07.680 is i'm struggling to see how this language that you see from people like david lammy about how

00:05:15.420 everyone who's who's voted leave is a nazi or the erg are nazis or worse than nazis i i don't see

00:05:22.260 how that extremism helps uh what do you make of the language that we now use when talking about

00:05:28.440 these things i've i've learned uh sometimes to my cost i i have learned that you need to be very

00:05:34.780 careful what you say about people who voted Leave. Lots of my friends voted Leave. Lots of

00:05:40.980 very decent people voted Leave. Lots of people who are not racists or xenophobes or anything else

00:05:48.420 voted Leave. On the other hand, quite a lot of people who are racists and are xenophobes also

00:05:55.020 voted Leave. On the whole, I would stand back from trying to characterize Leave voters in the United

00:06:01.700 Kingdom with any overall generalized characterization. They're just 17 million odd

00:06:07.340 different people, each with his or her own story. Where I would go in hard is on the leadership

00:06:14.620 of that campaign and on the politicians. Most of the politicians leading that campaign

00:06:20.120 know that it's going to make us poorer, but have not said so. These are, in the age-old way of

00:06:28.180 politicians, people who are simply capitalizing on the hopes and fears of a large electorate who

00:06:36.200 don't know as much about it as they do. It's a sort of confidence trick. They are building their

00:06:41.840 careers on building up hopes and building up fears that the hopes they know will not be justified

00:06:48.840 and the fears are groundless. So I dislike and am prepared to vilify the leadership of the Leave

00:07:00.260 campaign. But as for the voters themselves, they are as many and various as are all around us.

00:07:06.360 So you're saying, so in particular, what would your specific criticisms be of a figure like

00:07:11.560 Nigel Farage? Because on the one hand, you could say that in many ways, one of the most talented

00:07:16.340 politicians of his generation with what he's achieved. Well, if by talent you mean the ability

00:07:22.720 to whip the mob up and get them on your side, yes, he's talented. I could name you a lot of

00:07:27.920 other politicians through history who were talented in that sense. But he's the man behind

00:07:35.380 the Breaking Point poster, do you remember, which suggested hordes of people who are definitely not

00:07:40.660 white, trying to get into the United Kingdom. What is that if it's not whipping up popular

00:07:45.980 fears? He's one of the people that pretended that Turkey was likely to join the European Union in

00:07:52.300 the foreseeable future. He knows that isn't true. It isn't difficult to get votes by making people

00:07:59.340 afraid of other people. And I have neither sympathy nor even grudging admiration for

00:08:06.340 people who do that. Well, let me put the counterpoint to you on that because a lot of the

00:08:11.740 people that we've spoken to, many academics, experts, some people from the left, some people

00:08:15.940 from the right, one of the things they've talked about is that the Brexit vote was to some extent

00:08:20.820 driven by people's concerns about immigration, which I would argue as an immigrant in this

00:08:25.300 country were quite legitimate given the labor boom that we saw in immigration and given the

00:08:30.300 fact that while we are in the EU, we cannot control that part of our destiny. You said we

00:08:35.360 control our destiny but that is a part of our destiny that we absolutely do not control right

00:08:39.660 we do not control the number of people who come here or who comes here no we don't have any control

00:08:44.600 over that and uh you know when i came to this country in 1995 like three percent of the british

00:08:49.980 public thought immigration was a major issue by the mid uh not what's it tens yeah by the mid tens

00:08:56.820 it's a weird it's a weird name by the mid tens it was almost 50 because the numbers of people

00:09:02.080 Yeah, something had happened.

00:09:03.140 Something had happened, right?

00:09:04.540 So you could argue that Nigel Farage, rather than whipping up the mob, he was responding to the concerns of ordinary people about the levels of immigration, which were not being heard in Westminster at the time.

00:09:16.060 I think that's fair to say, isn't it?

00:09:17.100 Yeah.

00:09:17.600 The difference between whipping up and responding is actually rather a nuanced thing because we are all in echo chambers and you can amplify and re-echo to people what you hear from them.

00:09:30.800 or you can try and explain the true position. But you are absolutely right that there was

00:09:35.800 widespread anxiety about the numbers of people coming to Britain. Perhaps the then Labour

00:09:41.780 government should have taken the option that was open to them to control the numbers coming from

00:09:47.440 the EU. On the other hand, those people who did exploit those fears, and there is also incipient

00:09:54.960 racism, which I shall not allow you to overlook. People who did exploit those fears knew very well

00:10:01.920 that probably the bulk of the immigrants that we have and are getting, we need. And that even after

00:10:08.840 taking back control, we probably wouldn't enormously reduce the number of immigrants

00:10:12.980 coming here. But as I say, I won't let you get away with the idea that concern about immigration

00:10:19.520 has nothing to do with racism. It does. All across the part of England that was my constituency,

00:10:27.820 the beautiful Derbyshire Dales in the Peak District, there are almost nobody but white

00:10:34.600 people there. In fact, I remember canvassing on the doorstep a man in a very leafy sort of

00:10:45.700 suburb who was worried. He said, black people are flooding into this country. They're all over the

00:10:51.980 place. They're everywhere. I said, well, I don't think there's any black people actually around

00:10:56.840 here. And he said, there's one in Froggett, Froggett being a place nearby. But that isn't the same

00:11:05.340 as concern about immigration. And I have to say that if this immigration had been coming from

00:11:12.260 the United States or Canada or white Australia, you wouldn't have had the anxiety or anger about

00:11:19.560 it that you did. There is a streak of racism in all of us. And there's a very strong streak of

00:11:25.220 racism in the British people as there is in almost every people. I'm Russian, I know what

00:11:30.560 you're talking about. But actually, I would say to you that, well, I think you're right that

00:11:35.500 broadly speaking, everyone can be potentially racist. This is one of the most open

00:11:42.240 tolerant and welcoming countries in the world, isn't it? Yes. Yes. It's not always a very

00:11:48.720 competitive field. Not when my country is involved. But I just want to explore this

00:11:56.000 point a little bit because I understand what you say. I think it's undoubtedly true that there are

00:12:00.880 some people who are racist and some of those people would have voted leave on the basis that

00:12:05.140 it would stop black people coming to your constituency, even though black people don't

00:12:09.360 come from the eu but anyway uh there may have been people like that right but some of those

00:12:13.160 bulgarians are quite sun like me like me yeah they look like me yeah yeah well i i don't consider

00:12:18.780 myself black necessarily but uh it's 2019 maybe i should come out as black next year yeah you can

00:12:24.400 identify it why not why not right uh but on the immigration point the the angle that i'm getting

00:12:30.760 at is the mainstream politicians were not listening to people about immigration and anyone who i i

00:12:37.440 remember this very well. Anyone in the mid-tens, as I keep awkwardly saying, who expressed any

00:12:42.600 concern about immigration was immediately dismissed as being racist, which I think is an

00:12:47.000 unfair conflation. You can be for different levels of immigration without hating the people who are

00:12:52.460 coming. You may feel that it's hampering integration in this country. You may feel that it's hampering

00:12:57.520 community cohesion in this country. You may just feel like we've had a lot of immigration. It's time

00:13:01.760 to let everybody kind of settle down, and then we can open up the door again. So if ordinary

00:13:09.040 politicians in the mainstream aren't listening, is it not the job of someone like Nigel Farage

00:13:15.080 to come along and upset things, upset the apple cart, because ordinary people aren't having their

00:13:19.700 voices heard? Well, you can hear people's voices, that's one thing, and you can do what they ask

00:13:25.240 you to do. And that's another. And we all did hear the voices of people who felt that immigration was

00:13:32.600 too high. And David Cameron certainly heard those voices. And when he went for his renegotiation

00:13:39.000 with the EU, he tried really hard to get some kind of break on immigration. And you can blame

00:13:44.560 Angela Merkel. I could blame Angela Merkel for not giving him something on that because she should

00:13:50.500 have, the EU should have, and that might have stopped all this fuss. But in the end, we can

00:13:56.280 talk, as the media do constantly and as politicians do constantly, talk about listening to people,

00:14:03.120 which is one thing. But in the end, we have to talk about what it is that they're saying,

00:14:08.640 whether they're right, and whether we want to do what they're asking us, which is why I am a

00:14:13.560 qualified believer in democracy. But I think it can have some very undesirable outcomes. I mean,

00:14:18.940 the whole population might be saying we want to go to the moon and politicians might say sorry

00:14:25.220 sorry but that's not on then you would say ah but you're not listening to the people you're not

00:14:29.700 listening to them they're saying they want to go to the moon you're not listening i am listening

00:14:34.500 i hear they want to go to the moon unfortunately it is not feasible you've got you've got to be

00:14:40.720 honest with people and so we're in this situation right now where it's political chaos i think it's

00:14:47.540 fair to say. Yes. Where we're at a crisis point. What do we need to do? How can we possibly solve

00:14:54.660 this? What are the options? Well, if you want a very general long-term answer, I think we've

00:15:02.640 probably got to smash the two-party system because both the parties that we've got are making a

00:15:07.940 terrific mess of it. And I don't quite see how the Labour Party is going to come back from this.

00:15:12.720 And I certainly don't see how my own party, the Conservative Party, is going to come back.

00:15:17.540 And for that, we might have to move from a first-past-the-post system to something more proportional, which gave smaller chances a chance to breathe.

00:15:27.580 But in the immediate, well, what we've got to do is stop Brexit.

00:15:31.620 I still think we can, and I still think there's a decent chance that we will.

00:15:36.520 But what do you mean by stopping Brexit?

00:15:38.800 I mean, and also, how would you achieve that?

00:15:41.260 Is it by a second referendum?

00:15:44.660 Yeah, it would be by a second referendum.

00:15:46.560 it's got to be by a second referendum you can say as jeremy corbyn does it's got to be or should be

00:15:52.520 by a general election fine have a general election but in the end i want a government that wants us

00:15:58.580 to leave and i don't think any government i want a government that wants us to stay and i don't

00:16:04.140 something slipped out there something that'll be the clip that we use we're just going to take that

00:16:08.780 three seconds yes and put it out on the internet and that will define your career yeah thanks so

00:16:14.620 Matthew Parris has his turnaround moment.

00:16:17.440 That'll be the slogan.

00:16:19.340 Yeah, I did an interview with The Spectator ages ago, a podcast,

00:16:23.400 and someone said, so you're saying we're all racists.

00:16:26.720 Everyone's racist, are you?

00:16:27.880 And I said, yes.

00:16:29.500 From now on, all the people that troll me on online commentary say

00:16:33.600 Matthew Parris believes we're all racist.

00:16:35.980 Anyway, I want a government that keeps us in the European Union.

00:16:40.120 I don't think any government could or should do that

00:16:42.880 without getting endorsement from the people.

00:16:45.760 I want a second referendum, therefore, because we've had a referendum.

00:16:48.920 It said leave.

00:16:50.260 And if we're not to leave, we've got to ask the people

00:16:52.480 their permission to change our minds.

00:16:55.120 What if they don't give it?

00:16:55.920 Then we leave.

00:16:57.360 I mean, every nation has a right to self-harm.

00:17:00.940 I think my argument would be that when we said leave,

00:17:06.780 as by a slim majority,

00:17:09.120 I don't think we had really thought through or knew or been informed of just what that was going

00:17:15.720 to mean and how difficult it was going to prove. We have been informed of that. We do know if we

00:17:21.040 still say leave, if we still say, well, we're prepared to crash out without a deal and take

00:17:25.820 our chances, it is a democracy. We just have to accept that. And what would you say to those

00:17:32.140 people who say what you are wishing to do with a second referendum is undemocratic and you're

00:17:36.620 essentially ignoring my voice simply because it is not palatable or mainstream? Well, I would say

00:17:42.320 I'm not ignoring your voice. You can vote in the second referendum and let's see how many people

00:17:46.080 vote how many ways. If you take a single snapshot of public opinion in 2016, it won't be long until

00:17:55.120 that's four years ago. You can't then say you can never go against that snapshot. Opinions change.

00:18:04.820 And do you think it's going to change as well,

00:18:07.440 depending on who the Conservative Party elect to be their leader?

00:18:11.940 Do you think in terms of Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt?

00:18:14.820 I should just say that we're recording this a couple of weeks before the outcome,

00:18:18.100 but the video, as you know, will go out the day before.

00:18:20.860 So as people are watching it, we already know, or they already know,

00:18:25.260 we don't know now.

00:18:26.540 What do you make of the leadership candidates?

00:18:28.460 I'm not absolutely certain it's going to be Boris Johnson.

00:18:31.840 I think the overwhelming likelihood is it will be Boris Johnson.

00:18:36.080 But I do know the ordinary membership of the Conservative Party, the activists of whom I am one of the least active activists in the world.

00:18:44.720 And I know that they adore Boris.

00:18:47.540 I know that they love hearing him speak.

00:18:49.940 I know that you can sell out any dinner with a ticket that includes an after dinner speech by Boris.

00:18:56.000 But I do know also that there's hardly a conservative member in the country who doesn't harbour a little bit of a doubt about whether he has the competence, the concentration, the command of detail and the personal trustworthiness to be prime minister.

00:19:12.540 And it may be that by the time you hear this, that seed of doubt may have grown.

00:19:17.820 And I think Jeremy Hunt, well, he's not mad.

00:19:21.120 So he has a chance.

00:19:23.520 But say it's Boris.

00:19:25.580 Well, we've got to stop him.

00:19:26.520 We've got to stop him taking us out of the European Union

00:19:30.220 without at least letting Parliament vote on it.

00:19:32.520 And I believe they would vote not to.

00:19:34.400 So how do you stop someone like Boris?

00:19:36.200 Well, a vote of no confidence in the government.

00:19:38.580 If there's time before the 31st of October, it's not clear there is, but there might be.

00:19:43.060 Or there are various legislative measures you can vote for

00:19:45.820 that would actually stop a government taking us out.

00:19:49.740 But Parliament's got to have the final say on this.

00:19:52.920 I read an article by you a couple of weeks ago where you were talking about no deal

00:19:59.340 and what I found quite surprising is that you seemed almost resigned to your fate

00:20:05.080 at that point and you were saying I don't think we're going to be able to avoid a no deal but

00:20:10.340 I'm hearing you speak now and you seem quite positive about it what's changed? I wasn't quite

00:20:14.660 saying that but I was saying it's not looking good it's looking as though Boris Johnson could

00:20:20.700 take us out of the European Union without a deal. I could see it happening, and I'm alarmed about it.

00:20:27.500 So to express alarm is not quite the same thing as to express despair. I don't yet despair,

00:20:34.080 but I am alarmed. It really could happen. I think there's a 30, 40, 50% chance that it's going to

00:20:40.280 happen now. And as a result, far from hanging our heads and weeping, we have to fight all the harder.

00:20:46.800 The question I was going to ask, coming back to the democratic point, and I think it is an important one.

00:20:51.840 As I say, we've talked to, and I've talked to a lot of people who voted Remain, but also a lot of people who voted Leave.

00:20:56.800 And what they would be saying is, if you were sitting there now and we had voted to Remain three years ago, would you be as open to the idea of a second referendum as you are now?

00:21:11.060 That's a very, very sharp question.

00:21:14.220 Firstly, if we had narrowly voted to remain, I have absolutely no doubt that the Leave people

00:21:20.060 wouldn't simply have packed their bags and gone home. They would be agitating. They might be

00:21:25.160 agitating immediately for another referendum, or they might be digging in for the long haul,

00:21:32.200 as it were, and prepared to push for it in 5, 10, 15 years' time.

00:21:37.120 Like the SNP did in Scotland.

00:21:38.380 Yes. And what would I say if there was a evidence that the European Union that we'd stayed in was

00:21:46.500 not the European Union that we thought we were staying in, just as I would say that the terms

00:21:52.600 of our departure are not the terms of departure we thought we were going to get. What would I say

00:21:57.940 if public opinion in Britain had swung fairly decisively against remaining in the European

00:22:04.120 Union, I think I would find it hard to resist the demand for another referendum.

00:22:12.800 That's interesting. You say the opinion has swung. I wasn't aware that it had.

00:22:15.680 Has opinion swung towards Romain?

00:22:17.760 Yes, but it might be 52-48 the other way, perhaps 55-45 the other way.

00:22:26.960 But also pollsters haven't necessarily covered themselves in glory in recent...

00:22:30.420 No, they haven't. But what we do know is this, and I don't mean this in an unkind way,

00:22:36.540 but leavers are dying all the time. Leavers are much older than Remainers on balance.

00:22:42.820 And so the actual composition of the electoral base is changing and I think has changed.

00:22:50.620 And how much responsibility does the Conservative government and the Conservative Party have to

00:22:55.740 take for this whole debacle? Because part of me cynically thinks it was just a desperate

00:23:00.000 attempt to save their own skin, really, wasn't it? And to keep the party together.

00:23:03.400 They have to take complete responsibility for this, Dave Barclay. The Labour Party would never

00:23:08.440 have done it. It's all the Conservative Party's fault. It's not so much a crime of selfishness

00:23:16.980 or self-preservation. It's a crime of miscalculation. David Cameron wanted to dish the levers and

00:23:26.180 he felt that a renegotiation followed by a referendum would almost certainly result in a

00:23:35.140 national vote to remain. So he was using a referendum as a weapon to clobber his opponents.

00:23:43.460 If his calculation had proved right, as it did in Scotland, for instance, with their referendum,

00:23:49.960 we would all be saying, oh, what a shrewd politician he was. But the lesson I draw from

00:23:54.980 this. The mistake he made, anyone can miscalculate, he did. George Osborne didn't. George Osborne

00:24:00.260 didn't want a referendum. You can miscalculate, but you should never use a referendum to achieve

00:24:07.780 a result that you want unless you are prepared to run with the possibility that you don't get it.

00:24:16.160 And the truth is that those who called this referendum believed that our membership of the

00:24:21.680 European Union was extremely important to us and that leaving the European Union would be a very

00:24:27.220 bad thing for the British people, then they shouldn't have called a referendum because

00:24:31.600 the British people might have opted for the very thing that they thought was very bad. You should

00:24:36.800 never offer people a choice or give people the opportunity to take a course that you think would

00:24:43.520 be a disaster. It's irresponsible. So Peter Hitchens described how much when he came to do

00:24:49.880 our show, how much he hated referendum. He called them nasty, dirty little things.

00:24:53.840 Yeah, Margaret Thatcher used slightly politer language, but she hated referendums too.

00:25:00.500 I was going to ask, you're someone who's on the outside of the political world now as a journalist,

00:25:06.260 but you are a former MP. How do you feel, would you rather be in the trenches stirring the pot

00:25:15.200 from the inside, or are you happier being on the outside and lobbing grenades in from the outside?

00:25:19.820 I sometimes feel that it's we of the media who are in the trenches lobbying the grenades and the poor bloody infantry are actually the MPs who are really just being exploded with grenades landing all around them and are dazed and miserable and in some cases almost suicidal and don't know what to do.

00:25:43.220 So I'd rather be lobbing the grenades as we are. But to answer your question perhaps slightly more seriously, ever since I left Parliament, ceased to be an MP, I have found that whatever voice I have gets a bigger audience and has more influence than it did when I was a backbench MP.

00:26:05.440 I don't think any cabinet minister ever invited me to dinner when I was a backbench Tory MP.

00:26:12.280 When you're a columnist in a national newspaper, you get those invitations all the time.

00:26:17.360 That's fascinating, isn't it?

00:26:18.740 So do you think that essentially Parliament has little influence now because of this,

00:26:24.760 in terms of how this goes, or will it still have a big role to play?

00:26:28.620 Well, I think the ordinary backbencher has always been a creature whose importance is

00:26:35.660 exaggerated by the general public and has never had a huge amount of power and only ever gets

00:26:41.700 very much power when there's a very fine balance between the two parties and a rebellion on one

00:26:47.060 side or the other can shift the dial. But they do have that power now, backbenchers, and I wish

00:26:53.740 they would use it. Some of them are. There are some very brave people out there, on both sides,

00:26:59.020 actually, some very brave people. But too many of them are just kind of covering their heads

00:27:04.480 while the shells land. In many ways, though, you can't blame them. Because if you are a Remain

00:27:10.300 MP, and that's what you believe is best for this country, and your constituency voted leave,

00:27:15.360 I mean, you're in a horrible situation. You're in a very simple situation. You're going to lose

00:27:20.100 your job. So you have to be really brave to do that. I agree. A huge courage is called for,

00:27:27.540 and some have shown it. David Gork, the Justice Secretary, showed it and was challenged in his

00:27:34.940 constituency, but luckily survived. Dominic Grieve has been challenged. So far, he has survived.

00:27:41.760 Plenty of others know very well that they're not going to be reselected because their Leave

00:27:47.100 constituency associations disapprove of having a remain MP. Yeah, it takes guts.

00:27:52.640 Well, I listened to this, sorry, Francis, with the lever hat on, because we've been talking to a lot

00:27:57.100 of levers, and I can hear exactly what they would be saying now, which is, look, we elect these

00:28:01.940 people to represent us. How is it that you're sitting here as a former MP and saying, basically,

00:28:08.020 the MP should ignore the will of his constituency and show courage by doing the opposite of what

00:28:13.660 they want? MPs are not delegates. They are not presented with a list of things that their

00:28:19.540 constituents want them to do, voted in on the basis of their promising to do those things,

00:28:24.260 and then absolutely obliged to do those things. I think that the things that you have in your

00:28:29.960 manifesto, the things which your party has promised, you have a solemn duty to look very

00:28:37.760 hard and do your best to achieve what people want. But if you come to the conclusion that it can't

00:28:43.640 be done, or that it can't be done without grave damage to the very people who have sent you there,

00:28:49.080 then your final responsibility is to your own judgment and to your own conscience. We have

00:28:54.640 a system of representative democracy, not of mandated manifesto commitments.

00:29:02.040 Well, to me, that sounds like a very strong argument for a general election now,

00:29:05.380 because we have two parties that ran on leaving the EU, neither of which seems to be prepared to

00:29:12.060 implement that. So should we not have a general election to elect a new parliament of people who

00:29:17.460 better represent the public's wishes? I think there's a very strong argument for a general

00:29:21.600 election. Basically, the government's completely buggered. They can't do anything. They're stuck.

00:29:29.040 That's a technical term, I take it. But do you know what this reminds me of watching

00:29:32.540 Labour and Conservatives? I'm a West Ham fan. And sometimes we play another team and both teams on

00:29:39.340 the pitch are absolutely crap. And I think you just knock this on the head because you're both

00:29:44.520 useless. And it's come to the point, I mean, how much responsibility do Labour have to take? They

00:29:51.280 have an open goal against this government in every possible way. And they still can't seem

00:29:56.820 to capitalise on it. Because their leader doesn't want to remain. Jeremy Corbyn has always hated

00:30:03.200 the European Union. If you're a proper Marxist, you ought to hate the European Union. It is a

00:30:08.060 capitalist club. He's absolutely right about that. And so right at the very top, Jeremy Corbyn,

00:30:14.140 I think Seamus Milne, who's an extremely powerful right-hand person, there's a little group there

00:30:19.940 who, A, would like Britain not to be in the European Union. So when we have, as they believe,

00:30:26.980 a socialist government, it'll be free to do the socialist things the EU wouldn't let it.

00:30:31.560 and, B, don't want to be blamed for the pain that would cause,

00:30:35.880 well, then it's perfect, isn't it?

00:30:38.180 Get the Tories to take us out, blame the Tories,

00:30:40.700 but we're out, we're out, and that's what a Marxist would want.

00:30:44.700 So do you think he wants a general election

00:30:46.360 or would he prefer us to leave and then trigger it?

00:30:49.380 I think if you're 70, you probably want a general election

00:30:53.300 as quickly as possible.

00:30:55.740 But I do think the result of that general election

00:30:58.240 might be devastating both for the Labour Party

00:31:00.380 and the Conservative Party. And I just don't care anymore. I think probably devastation

00:31:05.700 would be the beginning of reconstruction. I think that is so true. And I think you speak

00:31:10.240 for a lot of people when you say that. I think there's so many people now who are so fed up of

00:31:14.360 the two party system because it doesn't represent what the people want. And I think devastation is

00:31:19.860 the right word because what you likely end up with certainly is a large Brexit party block in

00:31:25.840 parliament uh the conservatives would and labor would lose quite a lot of votes to them and the

00:31:31.200 greens might get a few seats and uh you know you might get uh the lip dems might be making a

00:31:36.060 resurgence right how if we were to have a general election in the next six months i mean it's hard

00:31:40.780 obviously to make these predictions because we don't even know who the leader of the tory party

00:31:44.080 is going to be but uh what do you think would happen that devastation that you talk about what

00:31:49.660 would it look like? I don't know. I think it's the socialist thinker, Marxist philosopher,

00:31:56.660 Gramsci, who said that the old is dying, but the new is struggling to be born. I think the new is

00:32:04.060 struggling to be born. Look at the poor old Tiggers, the independent group, for instance. It was a bit

00:32:11.820 of a stillbirth, that one. I don't know what the consequence would be, but I think it probably would

00:32:18.260 be the fragmentation of the two-party system that we have at the moment, and it is literally

00:32:23.580 pointless to try to predict how that fragmentation would then pan out.

00:32:30.360 But I think this thought is worth putting across.

00:32:34.560 The next general election will not be a matter of whether YouGov is saying that this party

00:32:41.160 is on 28%, this is on 26%, this is on 19%, oh, the Tories have gone up to 32%.

00:32:47.620 It won't be that sort of an election.

00:32:49.560 It will be an election in which no one party predominates and no one party challenges.

00:32:55.820 And in a first-past-the-post system such as we have, parties may get in on tiny votes

00:33:01.800 as the Labour Party just did squeak through the lowest vote in history, I think, in the

00:33:07.320 Peterborough by-election.

00:33:09.140 It will all be about electoral pacts.

00:33:11.840 It will all be about tactical voting.

00:33:13.500 It would all be about constituency by constituency, which party can split the vote of which other party.

00:33:20.620 And in those circumstances, us pontificating or philosophizing over the overall result is futile.

00:33:30.720 Guys, we wanted to take a moment just to say thank you to every single one of you who has supported us on Patreon, who sent us money through PayPal.

00:33:37.880 We genuinely could not do the show without you.

00:33:40.480 having said that we've now also found a corporate sponsor to sell out to absolutely and it is the

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00:35:18.640 Now, we've talked a lot about Brexit and the European Union.

00:35:23.820 Someone made a very, very good point that one of the problems with Brexit is it stopped us from discussing other matters, which are equally, if not more important.

00:35:32.180 The Conservative Party has always marketed itself as a party of law and order. We will invest in

00:35:38.080 police. We'll have a strong police presence. I still teach in East London and knife crime is

00:35:44.600 out of control. How much responsibility do the Conservative Party have to take for this?

00:35:50.760 I agree that law and order is important and I agree your characterisation of the Conservative

00:35:57.260 Party's stance. I don't think that simply paying police officers more or recruiting a lot more

00:36:05.880 officers on the beat is the answer to the problem. I think the problem is one that any government,

00:36:11.260 but particularly a Conservative government, is going to find difficult to tackle. I think there

00:36:14.940 is a problem in the underlying competence of the British police force or forces. I don't think we

00:36:22.300 should have so many constabularies. I think we should have a national police force. I think we

00:36:27.320 should have a separate police force for dealing with internet crime as we do, for instance, with

00:36:31.740 the transport police. I think we should look at the way we recruit police officers. Some should

00:36:37.400 be paid more. Some should be paid less. It should be easier to fail as a police officer and to lose

00:36:43.980 your job as a police officer. A huge campaign, a project of reforming our national police force

00:36:56.780 should be a priority of any government. But I think the Conservative Party will tend just to

00:37:02.560 slip into the old tropes of we need more bobbies on the beat, we need another 2,000

00:37:11.180 policeman by next July or whatever, and it won't make any difference. On knife crime, I think knife

00:37:16.800 crime is a kind of fad. It's a kind of fashion. Now, it sounds, I know, cruel. It sounds as though

00:37:24.580 I'm trying to diminish the horror of knife crime. I'm not. The horror is, I don't need to explain

00:37:30.600 the horror. It's very real to everybody. But things do go in fashions, including horrible things go

00:37:36.600 in fashions. And it is at the moment a bit like a virus, a bit like a disease sweeping through

00:37:42.280 certain kinds of younger people. And I'm not sure that simply flooding the streets with police

00:37:50.080 officers is necessarily going to make much of a difference. I know it sounds feeble to say what

00:37:55.260 we need is education, but what we do need to do is talk to people, talk to younger people,

00:38:01.420 try to communicate, try to engage, and try to persuade. I'm not sure that law and order

00:38:08.920 alone will solve this. Well, we've had different people on the show to talk about knife crime. One

00:38:13.960 of them is Dr. Tony Sowell, who does a lot of work in that area and bringing young kids from

00:38:21.260 those backgrounds through to apply to Oxford and Cambridge, et cetera. And one of the points he

00:38:26.160 made it was about the breakdown of the family. There's not enough fathers in the home to teach

00:38:31.840 young men, young boys, the way of the world, essentially. So that's one aspect of it. But

00:38:36.680 you could argue, I mean, Peter Hitchens made this point on our show, and I find it very persuasive,

00:38:40.400 that it's also about police tactics. If you have the situation we have now, I remember when I first

00:38:46.040 came to this country 20 or more than 20 years ago, it was a common occurrence that you'd be

00:38:50.360 walking down the street and there would be a police officer walking towards you who was just

00:38:54.020 patrolling the street. They were just on the street, walking around, creating a visual deterrent

00:38:59.000 to crime. I have not, I think I probably haven't seen a police officer doing that in years. You

00:39:05.440 see police officers going to a crime scene, going from a crime scene, but the idea that you're just

00:39:10.520 walking down the street in your town and you see a Bobby on the beat, I don't think that happens

00:39:15.680 anymore, does it? As I understand it, beat policing is not something that the great majority of police

00:39:22.560 officers want to end up doing for much of their lives. And it isn't always just the government or

00:39:29.780 the Home Secretary. It is sometimes the police themselves who prefer to be in panda cars than

00:39:35.640 on the beat. Nevertheless, the police do have an argument, which I think we ought to take

00:39:40.580 seriously, which is we could never have so many police officers that their visibility would be

00:39:47.400 almost everywhere cooling and calming and discouraging crime, that the numbers involved

00:39:55.520 would be too great. We can find places which are hotspots and make sure there are police officers

00:40:01.180 there, but I'm not sure that numbers of visible policemen these days is most of the answer.

00:40:10.260 And how much of the responsibility, again, do the Conservative Party need to take with austerity,

00:40:15.900 With the cuts coming in, in particular, the cuts to youth workers, the cuts to youth clubs, a lot of people have actually said that this has been one of the prime reasons why there's been a spike.

00:40:26.800 I was in favour of austerity, and I still am. I think it was necessary.

00:40:31.700 However, I think the government, the Conservative, first the coalition and then the Conservative government, went for the line of least resistance, the easy target, which is local government.

00:40:45.900 because you can cut local government, and they have, by up to 50%, and the immediate effects

00:40:52.320 don't show. And you say, wow, we're giving them 50% less money, and the world carries on,

00:40:58.140 everything's the same. And it takes a while, because of things like looking after the elderly,

00:41:06.560 looking after young people, youth groups, all kinds of little things that local government does

00:41:12.900 to try to spot where the problems are and to help.

00:41:16.880 When you begin to draw back from those things,

00:41:19.620 it takes a while for it to show.

00:41:21.580 And it is beginning to show.

00:41:22.900 And I think it's a sign that austerity went too quickly for the soft target.

00:41:28.600 So in particular, what would you have targeted rather than local government?

00:41:32.220 Because a lot of my family work in local government

00:41:35.040 and they say the cuts have been absolutely devastating

00:41:38.140 to the point where they can only give the very basic of services.

00:41:42.660 and everything else, it's just, you simply can't deliver.

00:41:46.200 Well, I might have taxed a little bit more,

00:41:48.380 which is a kind of austerity.

00:41:50.700 And I might have held back on pensions increases.

00:41:57.280 Those of retired age in Britain now,

00:42:00.000 which includes me,

00:42:01.240 are no longer the poorest section of the community.

00:42:05.020 We are doing pretty well.

00:42:06.440 I came here with my freedom pass,

00:42:09.380 my London freedom pass,

00:42:10.960 elbowing aside younger people or unemployed people i'm i'm probably earning 10 times what they're

00:42:18.020 earning so typical tory exactly so uh so why were you in favor of austerity because i don't think

00:42:25.940 that's an argument that that gets heard very much why was it necessary uh and why were you

00:42:31.060 we were living beyond our means and you can't live beyond your means forever and how do you

00:42:37.880 In particular, could you pinpoint something, an example of how we were living beyond our means, how we were spending far too much?

00:42:45.640 Well, if you're spending more than you're earning, you could look at any item of your expenditure and see that it would need to be reined back.

00:42:56.820 And I mention pensions as one example.

00:43:01.880 And Francis is from Venezuela. He's not very good with spending and saving. So it was necessary because we were spending beyond. That is an argument I absolutely get, to be honest with you. I think that's, look at our deficit, look at our national debt. It's crazy.

00:43:18.340 Yeah. And look now at the promises that the Tory leadership candidates have been making. They seem to have completely forgotten what I thought was a core conservative philosophy that we should live within our means.

00:43:29.580 And what are they promising?

00:43:30.720 Sorry, Francis.

00:43:31.520 What is it that you're concerned about in terms of that?

00:43:33.840 Well, Boris has been talking about tax cuts for the top level, raising the threshold.

00:43:41.160 He's been talking about more money on education.

00:43:44.660 He's been talking about more money for the police.

00:43:47.520 Jeremy Hunt, I can't remember how many things Jeremy Hunt has probably spent a lot more on defence, for instance.

00:43:53.340 I mean, all these are good things.

00:43:54.640 but you can't just will good things without willing the means to pay for the good things.

00:43:59.700 Well, you've had your bash at Boris. What do you make of Jeremy Hunt just in case he gets elected tomorrow when this video goes out?

00:44:04.940 I don't think he exists. I think he's a hologram. I long to just put my hand and see if it goes right through him.

00:44:12.860 I don't feel there's a real person there. I suppose I'd have to vote for him because he's neither mad nor wicked nor stupid.

00:44:24.640 He's a focused individual, a good manager as far as I can see.

00:44:30.660 But where's the personality?

00:44:32.640 Where's the sense of core values, of principle?

00:44:39.040 He seems to shift every time the wind shifts.

00:44:42.160 I was about to say, if you want personality, vote Boris.

00:44:44.700 But then you started talking about values and I was like, maybe not.

00:44:47.380 Wrong personality.

00:44:47.920 Wrong person.

00:44:48.740 I didn't say any personality.

00:44:50.060 But it's interesting to me that you say that because it's I think it shows to what extent politics and particularly choosing a leader of a party or leader of a country is such a visceral animalistic thing almost because I don't I didn't know much about Jeremy Hunt.

00:45:07.720 And then I watched the Hustings and he had this little video talking about his career, people talking about what he'd done for them, how he created this business.

00:45:16.540 And he's actually had a very accomplished career.

00:45:19.360 He's someone who's created a lot.

00:45:21.120 He's started companies.

00:45:23.340 You know, he took care of one of the most difficult departments to manage in government, in health.

00:45:31.140 And, of course, many people criticize him for it, but also he did some good things in that.

00:45:35.240 And yet you look at him and you go, well, you're just a bit bland.

00:45:38.000 And that is enough to condemn someone to essentially not be prime ministerial.

00:45:42.940 Yes, but you could talk to people at the top of many of our service industries.

00:45:48.480 the media, public relations, all those things. And you will find plenty of Jeremy Hunt-like

00:45:55.780 characters who have done very well and who have worked their way to the top by being bland.

00:46:01.940 He's a smooth operator. He's definitely a smooth operator, and it will get you so far

00:46:06.680 in politics being a smooth operator. And he's a hard worker, a very hard worker. And I went to

00:46:13.080 talked to him about health once when he was health secretary. And I was impressed at the grip,

00:46:18.560 the intellectual grip he has on the whole thing. But these are managerial skills and you need

00:46:23.380 managerial skills. Boris has no managerial skills, but you need something more than managerial

00:46:28.940 skills. And I'm not convinced that he has them, but we may see that maybe there's a new butterfly.

00:46:37.860 Jeremy Hunt is going to emerge from the chrysalis. Isn't there something to be said,

00:46:42.820 though that we've you know we've done personality politics to death you know we've elected somebody

00:46:48.040 who is you know you know charismatic or whatever else ultimately what we need now is somebody who

00:46:54.480 can just get the job done and if that is the case we have to be pragmatic and we have to just say

00:47:00.640 you know Boris great you'll make you laugh you know if he's a comedian you get him to close the

00:47:05.660 comedy store and you know and have you rolling in the aisles applause breaks all the rest of it

00:47:09.260 But if you want someone to get the job done and be consistent, you don't want a comedian.

00:47:13.360 I don't disagree with you.

00:47:14.500 The first thing that we've got to have is someone who can get things done.

00:47:19.920 I'm a great believer in the values of public administration, sound public administration.

00:47:27.100 Politicians talk about vision.

00:47:28.540 They talk about change.

00:47:29.820 They talk about being the change, walking the walk, all this kind of crap.

00:47:34.800 And they forget that the first thing you have to do is run an extremely complicated state.

00:47:40.440 It's like being the governor of a colony.

00:47:42.800 You have to run things.

00:47:44.640 And I think probably Jeremy Hunt does have those abilities.

00:47:48.160 But I've suggested that in order to keep people with you, to keep a nation with you,

00:47:53.560 especially through difficult times, you need something more than that, something in addition to that.

00:47:58.820 And just going back to Theresa May, because there was a part of me.

00:48:03.640 I've never voted conservative in my life.

00:48:06.640 But there was a part of me that felt, in the end, quite sorry for her.

00:48:11.060 How bad a job did she do?

00:48:13.160 She did a really bad job.

00:48:14.940 And you shouldn't feel sorry for her.

00:48:18.960 I know once people are down, you don't want to kick them.

00:48:22.560 But her big failure was to explain both to her own party

00:48:29.940 and to the British people just how difficult what it was we were trying to do, which was leave the

00:48:35.420 European Union, was going to be. And instead, she went storming in at the beginning with all these

00:48:40.160 red lines and promises. And all that was was red meat to the irresponsible right in her own party,

00:48:46.660 and it all ran away with her. Well, Matthew, on that optimistic note, we've got time for one more

00:48:53.980 question, which is the question that we always ask, which is what is the one thing that no one

00:48:58.360 is talking about that we ought to be talking about? There was a feminist called, I think,

00:49:04.940 Valerie Solana, who said, the only purpose of men is to produce sperm. Fortunately, we have sperm

00:49:13.680 banks. My great fear is that... I'll be honest with you, Matthew, I didn't see this coming.

00:49:21.560 My radical feminists are known for their logic and intelligence. Future generations will notice

00:49:25.900 what the animal world noticed a long time ago, which is that you don't need many males.

00:49:31.620 Just enough males to fight with each other to sort of keep evolution going, but you don't

00:49:36.540 need nearly as many males as you do females.

00:49:39.900 Women haven't noticed this.

00:49:41.940 All women really would need would be a sperm bank and sex toys.

00:49:46.120 They don't need us, and we certainly don't need a population which is 50% male.

00:49:51.340 So we're having a marvellous time because no one has noticed that we're unnecessary.

00:49:56.560 There you go, mate.

00:49:57.680 I think one of us is going to have to go.

00:50:01.300 We're unnecessary, that's it.

00:50:03.560 Shall we flip a coin?

00:50:04.540 Yeah, well, that's why I make the tea.

00:50:07.860 Okay.

00:50:08.560 Well, Matthew, thank you so much for coming on.

00:50:11.000 We really appreciate it.

00:50:11.960 You're on Twitter at...

00:50:13.460 I'm not.

00:50:14.440 You're not on Twitter.

00:50:15.280 I follow Twitter.

00:50:16.060 I'm on it, but I never tweet.

00:50:18.460 Oh, okay.

00:50:18.980 I don't trust myself.

00:50:20.420 You don't trust yourself.

00:50:21.220 well don't follow

00:50:22.460 Matthew on Twitter

00:50:23.060 then just read his column

00:50:24.100 it's always very interesting

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00:50:42.160 and yes

00:50:43.000 and you always forget

00:50:44.060 no it's fine man

00:50:45.260 are you sure?

00:50:45.940 yeah it's fine

00:50:46.480 I'm going to sell out

00:50:47.880 my show in Edinburgh anyway

00:50:48.980 it's called

00:50:49.400 Orwell that ends well

00:50:50.220 I've sold a lot of tickets

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00:50:56.180 move i haven't sold any tickets no no he really hasn't seriously bought a ticket i know i've seen

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00:51:16.000 States or abroad, because that helps us get global coverage. And that is pretty much it.

00:51:21.300 Thank you so much for watching and listening, and we will see you next week. Bye-bye.

TRIGGERnometry - July 21, 2019

Matthew Parris on a Second Referendum and the Future of the Conservative Party

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