TRIGGERnometry - Paul Embery on Lexit and Why the Left Has Abandoned the Working Class

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantin Kissin. And this is the

00:00:10.140 show for you if you're bored with people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing

00:00:14.980 about. At Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be the experts, we ask the experts. Our brilliant

00:00:21.340 guest this week is a Blue Labour trade unionist and a columnist for Unheard. Paul Embry, welcome

00:00:26.280 to Trigonometry. Good to be here. It's good to have you here. The first question we always

00:00:29.980 ask is just tell our guests and our viewers our viewers rather than our listeners a little bit

00:00:33.980 about who you are what's been your journey through life how are you here okay well i'm a firefighter

00:00:39.940 by trade i've been a firefighter since uh since i was 22 years of age um i sit on the national

00:00:47.320 executive of the the fire brigade union the fbu uh although i should probably make clear that some

00:00:52.260 of the views i might express now may not accord with some of the views of the fbu i'm looking

00:00:56.440 forward to this now. That's an early disclaimer. I've been a trade unionist all of my adult life.

00:01:04.200 I became a trade unionist at 16 years of age when I was stacking shelves in ASDA. I'm the national

00:01:10.340 organiser for trade unionists against the EU. And as you mentioned, I'm a columnist for the

00:01:15.660 UnHerd website as well. So professional troublemaker. That's a good description.

00:01:19.980 That's probably a good description. Well, it's good to have you here. One of the things we really

00:01:23.600 wanted to talk to you about is the left-wing position for brexit because francis and i both

00:01:28.420 voted remain because we're good people i'm off that is the running joke on the show uh but we've

00:01:35.600 always we've always been keen to speak to people what we try and do in the show is actually speak

00:01:39.300 to people who have different views as much as we can as opposed to just talking to people who have

00:01:43.140 the same view as us so you're a left-wing brexiteer hold on let me just get my milkshake um

00:01:48.780 what is the left-wing position for brexit because the reason i ask this is we've had a bunch of

00:01:56.580 people on the show who are pro-brexit and the main criticism that we get always is why do you keep

00:02:03.180 getting the right wing is on brexit is all about right wing it's all people who hate immigrants

00:02:07.780 it's all people who you know want to destroy beautiful diversity and progressive tolerance

00:02:13.320 in this country. So you are a trade unionist. You come from the left. You are undeniably left

00:02:21.400 wing. So make the left wing case for Brexit for us. Okay. Well, until fairly recently,

00:02:29.140 the position of opposition to the European Union was always a mainstream position on the left. It's

00:02:34.960 only over more recent years that much of the left has turned into a bit of a fanatical club in favor

00:02:41.900 of the EU. So if you go back a little way, you can look at people like Tony Benn and Bob Crow,

00:02:49.280 the general secretary, late Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT. And Jeremy Corbyn.

00:02:53.760 And Jeremy Corbyn. And John McDonnell. And Peter Shaw. And Barbara Castle. And real big hitters

00:03:02.000 like that in the labor movement who were opposed to the European Union, predominantly because

00:03:09.080 they saw it as what it is, an anti-democratic and anti-socialist institution, an institution

00:03:15.360 that embeds austerity, embeds deflationary economics.

00:03:22.620 And the view of people on the left is that actually, as socialists, we're in favour of

00:03:28.800 things like public ownership, whereas the EU is much more geared towards privatisation.

00:03:33.260 we're in favour of investment even at times of recession and when the economy is flatlining

00:03:39.780 whereas the EU particularly if you look at what it did to Greece is much more in favour of a kind

00:03:46.320 of neoliberal approach to these sorts of things and from the point of view of socialists you've

00:03:54.680 got to be able to elect and remove the people who govern you that's a fundamental principle

00:03:59.180 It should be a fundamental principle for anybody on the left, that actually the people who are making your laws and the people who have a large say over your economy must be accountable to the people.

00:04:11.960 And in many cases, they're not.

00:04:13.420 And always remember the five questions that Tony Benn used to ask.

00:04:16.440 He said whenever he met anyone famous, he used to ask five questions.

00:04:19.620 What power have you got?

00:04:21.040 How did you get it?

00:04:22.340 In whose interest do you exercise it?

00:04:24.640 To whom are you accountable?

00:04:26.200 And how can we get rid of you?

00:04:27.360 Must have been a popular guy.

00:04:28.780 And that's – and it's that – well, he became a national treasurer, of course, in the end, didn't he?

00:04:35.700 But back in his A-day in the 70s and 80s, he was absolutely –

00:04:38.420 It was brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

00:04:39.920 And it's that fifth question, you know, how can we get rid of you, which goes to the heart, I think, of the debate about the European Union.

00:04:47.520 You've got to have power over the people who ultimately are making your laws.

00:04:51.900 And in many cases, directives and regulations come from the EU, which members of parliament have no say on and we as citizens of this country have to abide by.

00:05:03.000 You can then get into the more technical details and talk about things like restrictions on state aid.

00:05:07.520 So at the moment, for example, there's a huge debate around whether we should nationalise British still in light of the problems it's been experiencing over the last few days.

00:05:16.200 And actually, if you look at EU regulations, we can't do that because they have, because it's so in favour of market forces, they have to have what they call this level playing field.

00:05:26.520 So state aid from countries which give, in their view, an unfair leg up to particular companies is wrong.

00:05:32.620 And in fact, in 2016, the EU fined the Italian and Belgian governments for trying to rescue failing steelmakers by baiting them out.

00:05:40.160 You've got things like the Stability and Growth Pact, which says that member states cannot run a budget deficit of more than 3% of GDP.

00:05:48.280 Now, anyone who sort of understands economics in terms of the right approach to tackling a flatline in economy and a recession,

00:05:56.380 what Maynard Keynes taught us in the 1930s is that actually you need to maintain levels of investment during a recession.

00:06:02.600 Because if the government cuts and slashes at a time when everybody else is doing it, no one's going to create a recovery.

00:06:09.380 So it's the government's job to sort of hold the line.

00:06:12.760 And that stability and growth pact makes it very, very difficult to do that.

00:06:15.780 So in effect, they've ruled out Maynard Keynesian economics from the EU.

00:06:20.600 And then you can look at the mass unemployment that's taking place across Europe.

00:06:25.860 You can look at the renewed tensions that have appeared between particular countries,

00:06:30.040 Germany and Greece, for example.

00:06:31.740 So all in all, this idea that the EU is some progressive, benevolent, democratic organisation,

00:06:38.620 which is in favour of workers and in favour of the interests of ordinary people

00:06:43.640 is a total and utter nonsense.

00:06:46.240 And the left-wing case was always built around some of the stuff that I just said.

00:06:50.740 But now, unfortunately, so many people on the left seem to have fallen in love with it.

00:06:55.960 Firstly, two questions.

00:06:57.760 Why is that?

00:06:58.480 Why have the left fallen in love with it?

00:07:00.020 Because I'm in the comedy industry where everybody's left and woke and all the rest of it

00:07:04.440 and we're all great people and we all hold hands and all the rest of it.

00:07:07.640 Number one. And number two, why is Brexit perceived as being a right-wing issue or a right-wing movement?

00:07:15.020 My assessment of why they fell in love with it is I think if you look at the change in the Labour movement towards EU fanaticism,

00:07:23.640 which it really is bordering on now and away from EU scepticism, that started to take place in about the late 80s.

00:07:30.480 Before that, as I said, an anti-EU position was always very much a mainstream position on the left.

00:07:35.780 but the left and particularly the trade unions in the late 80s had been battered by Margaret Thatcher

00:07:43.480 to be perfectly blunt. Trade unions had been neutered as a result of restrictive trade union

00:07:49.440 legislation. We'd seen the defeat of the miners. The Tories were looking like they could govern

00:07:54.640 for a very long time and so because of that the left were looking for if you like any port in a

00:08:01.800 storm. And over the hill rode the EU. And at that time, they had sort of left-leaning bureaucrats

00:08:07.980 the like of Jacques Delors, who was an EU, I think, the president of the EU Commission.

00:08:12.360 And in a very significant speech he delivered to the TUC, the Trade Union Congress, in the late

00:08:20.480 80s, he sold the idea to them of a workers' Europe. And many people on the left thought,

00:08:25.460 we need the EU's protection as some sort of bulwark against thatcherism. And the truth is, 0.95

00:08:32.460 it was just a load of tosh because the EU has never been particularly in favour of workers'

00:08:36.500 rights. If you look at most workers' rights that have come about in this country,

00:08:40.080 they've come about as a result of trade union struggles through the UK Parliament following

00:08:44.160 trade union struggles. Minimum wage, trade union recognition, health and safety law, equal pay,

00:08:49.180 all of that stuff came about as a result of struggles by trade unions in this country.

00:08:53.980 The question about why Brexit is perceived as a right-wing project, I think largely because of the things I touched on, because there are so few people on the left now who articulate an anti-EU position, it's almost like we've abandoned the field to the right.

00:09:11.080 So it's not surprising that if you see so many people on the right who are arguing in favour of Brexit and so few people on the left, I think people will infer from that that actually it must be a right-wing project.

00:09:22.820 But it really isn't. I mean, under the under the surface, there are trade unionists and people on the left who will put their head above the parapet sometimes and argue back.

00:09:33.620 But, you know, one of the arguments that was made to me is that there's no such thing as a left wing exit from the EU because the Tories are in charge and there's no left wing exit.

00:09:42.640 So we should remain to which my argument, well, there's no such thing as a left wing remain either.

00:09:46.860 You know, if you look at the EU and the way that it's increasingly taking democratic powers away from national governments, it's heading now for, you know, possibly for fiscal union as well as monetary union.

00:10:00.240 And if you look at the way that neoliberal economics are becoming more and more embedded within the EU's DNA, if you like, the very idea that by staying in the EU, you know, we're going to create socialism is a nonsense.

00:10:13.600 Now, I don't describe myself as a lexateer. I don't think there is a left-wing exit. Clearly, there's not. It's the Tories who are negotiating it, the Tories who are going to remain in charge at least for some time after we leave the European Union.

00:10:28.180 But my view has always been that Brexit clears the path, if you like, for a radical Labour government to come along at some point in the future, hopefully, and to be free from the straitjacket of EU regulations and directives and to actually be radical in some of its economic programs.

00:10:45.080 So my view is that socialism before Brexit is impossible.

00:10:49.760 It has to be the other way around.

00:10:51.160 Brexit itself isn't a panacea, but it has to be a step on the path for me.

00:10:55.020 What I find interesting with this Jeremy Corbyn thing, him coming out, we're recording this the day after the European elections, and they'll probably go out a few weeks after.

00:11:05.080 In which no doubt Labour have stormed it.

00:11:07.040 Yeah.

00:11:08.220 They've got my vote, so, of course.

00:11:10.840 Clearly.

00:11:12.980 I doubt that very much.

00:11:14.240 But this narrative about Brexit being a right-wing thing, Jeremy Corbyn yesterday tweeted, and you criticized him for this, that the only way to stop the far right is to vote Labour.

00:11:26.300 And I think what he was referring to was, you know, the Brexit Party, essentially.

00:11:31.820 They are the far right, when in fact, I would argue, very many of the people who voted for the Brexit Party yesterday are precisely the kind of people that the Labour Party used to represent.

00:11:41.920 It's completely and utterly insane and, in fact, dangerous to just dismiss anybody who you don't agree with as being some sort of fascist or being on the far right.

00:11:55.200 And my view is the way in which the terms such as fascist and far-right and racist have been, frankly, completely debauched over recent years and devalued means that people who actually not that long ago whose views would be regarded as pretty mainstream, so for example, wanting to leave the European Union,

00:12:19.520 and now being dismissed as, you know, people supporting fascism and the far right.

00:12:25.520 And I find it genuinely disturbing that actually, you know, there are still people alive in this country

00:12:30.320 who fought against real fascism and people who fought in the Second World War against real fascism.

00:12:35.300 What real fascism is about is the total dominance of the state and the leadership over the people.

00:12:42.260 It's about government dominating every area of activity, social and economic.

00:12:47.580 And, you know, the idea of the supreme leader, no dissent, you know, no pluralism, no room for alternative parties to speak out and often tinged with the hardcore racism, as we saw with the with the Nazis.

00:13:04.640 and it means white supremacism and it means Holocaust denial and it means jackboots

00:13:11.300 and it means people with those sort of ultra-nationalist sentiments.

00:13:19.120 The idea that people who are voting for the Brexit Party or even the leaders of the Brexit Party,

00:13:24.260 the candidates of the Brexit Party, Anne Whittacombe, Claire Fox, Nigel Farage,

00:13:28.320 I disagree with Nigel Farage on most things, disagree with Anne Whittacombe on most things. 0.87

00:13:32.160 But the idea that these people are fascists in that sense or on the far right is completely bonkers. And I just think it debases our political debate. And it's dangerous because, you know, we saw just as an example, we saw yesterday when, as you say, the election, the European elections were taking place yesterday.

00:13:51.320 We saw an old guy, 80 years of age or something, sitting outside a polling station in Hampshire wearing a Brexit party rosette.

00:14:00.620 Turns out that this guy had served in the armed forces for 22 years, and he was attacked by someone throwing a milkshake or a yogurt, covering him with it, and allegedly, according to reports, screaming fascist and then cycling off.

00:14:17.120 There would be a cyclist, wouldn't there?

00:14:18.480 There would have to be a cyclist, wouldn't there?

00:14:20.320 Yeah, lock them all up.

00:14:21.320 but but and this is this is what that sort of hysterical language leads to unfortunately the

00:14:27.880 minute you allow a narrative to develop where anything that is you know mildly right-wing

00:14:35.580 center right right of center whatever is dismissed as being at the extreme end then you're giving an

00:14:42.080 encouragement to people to say look that guy sitting with a rosette he supports fascism why

00:14:46.820 because Jeremy Corbyn tweeted that we've got to vote against the far right today

00:14:50.840 because other prominent figures on the left are saying we have to defeat fascism

00:14:55.320 because David Lammy is calling Tory MPs Nazis because they support a no-deal Brexit.

00:15:01.780 That's the arena we're getting into and it's sinister

00:15:04.940 and people need to stand up against this sort of language

00:15:07.620 because A, it's factually incorrect and just nonsense of itself

00:15:10.780 and B, it's dangerous.

00:15:13.100 So the question I'm going to ask now is this,

00:15:15.340 is that Farage is widely seen to be fascist

00:15:21.080 or have links to fascism or certainly hard-right parties.

00:15:26.160 Is there truth in this?

00:15:27.640 Because when I was talking about it online,

00:15:30.240 people were like, how can you defend Farage?

00:15:32.100 How can you defend Brexiteers?

00:15:33.880 This is a man with links to the far-right.

00:15:36.080 He's mobilising a wave of hatred, all the rest of it.

00:15:40.060 I mean, my assessment of Farage is that he is a hard-line Thatcherite.

00:15:44.720 That's my view of him. I suspect that he was perfectly comfortable inside the Conservative Party when Thatcher was in charge.

00:15:51.940 In fact, I think he was a Conservative Party member probably around that time.

00:15:56.740 And he is an old-fashioned Thatcherite libertarian who believes that private enterprise should pretty much run everything,

00:16:06.380 believes that there should be low taxes for the rich, doesn't want trade unions to get above their station,

00:16:13.140 believes in rolling back the frontiers of the state, believes in small government letting the

00:16:19.080 free market rip, all of that kind of stuff. I oppose him on all of that stuff. Everything I've

00:16:23.800 spoken about and written shows that I oppose him on all of that stuff. And in fact, just on that

00:16:29.180 point, as I said, he's a libertarian, really. That's his political philosophy, which is about

00:16:36.000 small government, government not intervening in the economy, getting out of the way and letting

00:16:40.340 people run their own lives, letting private enterprise dominate, et cetera. In many respects,

00:16:45.180 that's actually the opposite to fascism. That small state libertarianism, I don't agree with

00:16:49.860 it and I don't like it, but don't tell me it's fascism because fascism is about the total

00:16:54.160 domination of the state over every area of our lives. So no, I refuse to say that Farage is a

00:17:02.080 fascist. I refuse to say that he's a racist. If you look at some of the stuff that's been going

00:17:08.380 on with UKIP recently. Faraj, to his credit, it has to be said, left UKIP when it started going

00:17:15.220 in a direction where it started straying into supporting Tommy Robinson and got Tommy Robinson

00:17:20.220 on board as an advisor. Now, I've got no time for Tommy Robinson at all. I think he's a racist

00:17:26.700 rabble rouser. Really? Why do you say that? Well, because I think his record shows that he is. And 0.99

00:17:32.480 I'm someone who has argued, as you know, that actually you shouldn't fling the word around

00:17:37.240 casually. If you make that accusation against someone, I think you need to be able to stand

00:17:41.880 it up. I think if you look at Tommy Robinson, there's videos circulating of him online where

00:17:47.560 he's particularly disparaging about Asian taxi drivers and uses the word Paki in relation to

00:17:54.660 what he assumes is a Pakistani taxi driver. You don't use that sort of language as far as I'm

00:17:59.760 concerned unless you harbour feelings of racism. I think he's pretty sinister in terms of his

00:18:06.760 backstory uh he's been convicted of various stuff uh he's he's changed his name for whatever reason

00:18:12.540 i think he genuinely does have dubious links so so i've no time for for tommy robinson and as i

00:18:18.300 said nigel farage actually walked away from ukip because of his developing relationship with 0.99

00:18:23.100 robinson so so you know yes he's he's on he's clearly a right-wing factor right farage um

00:18:30.280 but i refuse to buy into the idea of fascism and racism and what and where do you stand on

00:18:35.160 And I know, but I feel it's important to ask this question about the whole milkshaking thing, because I just thought it was pathetic and puro, but there is a large swathe of the left who go, no, that is a way to deal with these people. 0.96

00:18:48.560 You mock them, you cover them in liquid, and then you make a fool of them. 0.64

00:18:53.080 Before you answer, I just want to add, I saw a graph, I think it was from one of the polling groups in the UK, which showed what percentage of which voter group approved of milkshaking and at what level.

00:19:07.260 And Lib Dem and Labour voters, 27% of those approved of it.

00:19:12.440 It was 6% of Conservative voters.

00:19:15.100 And I think overall across the country was like 18%.

00:19:17.480 So it's clearly a liberal Labour thing.

00:19:20.620 It's interesting, isn't it? Because the very same people who, over the last year or two, have been lecturing us about the need to tone down our language, about the need to engage in more constructive political discourse, to be fairer in the way that we talk about our politicians.

00:19:42.060 Don't use words like traitor or betrayal, because if you do that, you know, you're raising the temperature and leaving them exposed to vulnerable attacks.

00:19:52.300 The people who condemned those on the street who heckled Anna Soubry outside parliament, the people who told us to moderate our behaviour and our language after the terrible murder of Joe Cox,

00:20:06.380 seem in some cases to be the same people now

00:20:09.500 who are saying, oh, it's only a milkshake, get over it.

00:20:12.560 This is political theatre.

00:20:14.560 You know, these are politicians on the stump.

00:20:16.360 They've got to expect a bit of criticism.

00:20:19.180 No, I think it's appalling, actually.

00:20:20.740 I think it shows that you've run out of arguments.

00:20:22.340 If the only thing you can do to challenge a politician

00:20:27.780 who at this moment arguably is probably

00:20:32.620 the most popular politician in the country,

00:20:34.920 whether we like that or not,

00:20:36.380 the only thing you can do is to douse him in milkshake,

00:20:40.180 then actually you've probably already lost the argument.

00:20:43.880 And let's be honest about it.

00:20:45.080 It's a way of shutting down political debate

00:20:46.880 because they know that the minute they throw a milkshake over somebody,

00:20:49.800 and of course the milkshake never killed anyone.

00:20:51.620 We know that.

00:20:52.200 It's probably not going to injure someone.

00:20:54.060 Bear in mind you're saying that in Islington.

00:20:55.720 There's a lot of lactose intolerant people.

00:20:57.820 Well, I've worked here for 20 years.

00:21:00.680 I stick out like a sore thumb.

00:21:02.280 but but what it does is it drives people from the public square so you know with the example

00:21:08.080 of Farage being being milkshaked he was immediately I was gonna say whisked away that's

00:21:14.660 he was escorted away and you should use that he was escorted away and you know the opportunity

00:21:24.980 to speak to hundreds of people in Newcastle was taken away from him because somebody had

00:21:29.460 decided to throw a milkshake on him and that was it. He was gone. Actually, my view is if you're

00:21:35.880 trying to do that sort of stuff, if you're trying to shut people up, if you're trying to close down

00:21:39.160 public debate by physically assaulting people at the same time as attacking others for being

00:21:44.940 fascist, then you probably need to look in the mirror. I'm all in favour of politicians getting

00:21:51.460 it in the neck in terms of verbal debate. I'm disturbed at the snowflake tendency in our

00:21:58.420 country which thinks actually you can't be offensive, you can't push the boundaries,

00:22:04.380 you can't be too critical towards people, you mustn't upset people. Politicians hold public

00:22:08.980 office. They've got to get out there. They should do it more. They've got to get in front of people. 0.95

00:22:13.040 They've got to listen to people's concerns. I'd like politicians, frankly, some of the people

00:22:17.120 in Westminster to go to the town square in places like Mansfield and Stoke-on-Trent South

00:22:21.160 and listen to people and listen to people berating them. So I'm all in favour of politicians being

00:22:27.540 exposed to the public but you draw the line at any sort of physical assault because it's wrong

00:22:31.460 in principle and it shuts debate down and it's designed to shut debate down. Well it's a strange

00:22:35.980 world we live in where the people who advocate the sort of political violence which I think is

00:22:40.320 what it is are the ones that call themselves progressive. I don't see how it's progressive

00:22:45.080 to stop people from talking. What I found scary about it to set aside the security issue where

00:22:51.180 if someone can throw a milkshake on you they can throw acid on you or whatever else it might be.

00:22:55.080 The thing I find really scary about it is that essentially we are now in a position where I can't ask this question.

00:23:05.780 Well, you're saying were we starting to justify political violence? Is that the way you're going to go?

00:23:10.360 Well, the thing is what I recognize out of what happened during the EU campaign and the milkshake and all this is the people who've been running around calling everyone Nazis and fascists,

00:23:22.300 which I always thought they were doing as a kind of exaggeration, they actually believe that.

00:23:27.620 They actually believe that they're milkshaking baby Hitler. That's what they think, which is why

00:23:33.500 they feel it's justified. I think that's right. I think people, because the narrative has been

00:23:39.540 allowed to develop that actually, if you're on the right wing of the Tory party, for example, 0.89

00:23:44.500 you're a member of the ERG group or something, then by definition, you're a Nazi and a fascist, 0.65

00:23:49.020 because this is what some people in the media and some people in parliament are calling you, 0.64

00:23:53.700 then actually people will start to believe it.

00:23:56.860 People who may not actually be aware of the real history of fascism and what it really means.

00:24:04.140 I mean, I read a tweet a little while ago where someone said that they were living in Spain.

00:24:10.380 They were a British citizen, but they were living in Spain.

00:24:14.260 And there was a people's vote march in London.

00:24:19.020 And someone tweeted, in all seriousness, it was a she, she tweeted that she was flying back to

00:24:24.560 London to take part in this march because it was important for her to defeat fascism. And that's 0.91

00:24:31.680 what this government in Britain was. And I thought, hold on a second. Once upon a time,

00:24:38.000 people from Britain went out to Spain to fight real fascism. And now they're coming back to

00:24:42.960 fight imaginary fascism. That's the level of hysteria that the debate has reached. And

00:24:48.400 I just sort of try and say to people on the left, look, what you need to understand is when you use

00:24:53.480 this language about people, because when Jeremy Corbyn, for example, says vote against the far

00:24:59.140 right today, people take from that that he's not just talking about Nigel Farage. He's talking

00:25:04.920 about the whole of the Brexit party and anyone who might vote for the Brexit party. So people who

00:25:11.660 are inclined to vote for the Brexit party. In many cases, traditional Labour voters,

00:25:16.760 and in fact, I think a recent poll showed that 47% of Leave supporting Labour voters,

00:25:24.180 Labour voters normally, were going to vote for the Brexit party. So when you use language like

00:25:29.640 that about people, do you really think you're going to win people back? Do you really think

00:25:33.240 that actually you're going to win hearts and minds? When you show no inclination to understand

00:25:38.700 what it is that has driven people to stop voting Labour, for example, and to start voting for the

00:25:43.820 Brexit party. This is a party that is completely without any sort of political program, and people

00:25:51.000 are prepared to vote for it in their millions on this particular issue. When you get a situation

00:25:55.900 like you had during these big Brexit party rallies that have been taking place over the last few

00:26:00.980 weeks, where Anne Whittacombe can go to a working men's club in Featherstone in West 0.71

00:26:08.620 Yorkshire, which is about as typical a Labour heartland as you could ever wish to find,

00:26:15.560 a former mining town, and get applauded to the rafters. Anne Whittacombe, a right-wing 0.91

00:26:24.180 Tory, when she's going to places like that and being embraced, then people on the left have got

00:26:31.540 to understand that they've got a serious problem. I tweeted it's the equivalent of Jeremy Corbyn

00:26:36.280 going to the Henley on Thames branch of the Women's Institute and being cheered to the rafters. It

00:26:41.520 just wouldn't happen. And if it did happen, it was probably something seriously wrong with the

00:26:45.680 Conservative Party if that was happening. My fear is that there are actually some people in the

00:26:50.880 Labour Party who don't want to win those hearts and minds, who frankly do believe that large

00:26:57.800 parts of what you might call the traditional working class in this country in those sort of

00:27:01.900 post-industrial areas are racist and reactionary and nasivist and old-fashioned and frankly we can

00:27:11.000 do without them. And I think that attitude has probably been emboldened by the 2017 election,

00:27:17.740 Even though Labour didn't win it, it picked up large swathes of that kind of middle class remain supporting constituency and won places that traditionally would never have won, places like Kensington and places like Canterbury.

00:27:34.500 And what I say to people in the Labour Party, and I've been in the Labour Party for 25 years, what I say to people in the party, look, it's all very well.

00:27:39.780 It's great to win places that you don't normally win.

00:27:42.100 If you win in places like Kensington and Canterbury, great, but actually what you need to remember is we lost places like Mansfield to the Tories, an old mining town.

00:27:51.720 We lost places like North East Derbyshire, an old mining constituency, Stoke-on-Trent South, Walsall North, traditional Labour heartlands,

00:27:59.120 which have been Labour since time immemorial, who, after seven years as it was at the time of Tory austerity and cuts, are actually swinging to the Tories and away from Labour.

00:28:09.280 And you saw a real swing to the Tories in some of those sort of post-industrial heartlands.

00:28:14.020 The C2Ds, as they're known, which is the occupational working class, voted Tory.

00:28:20.080 A majority of them voted Tory.

00:28:21.700 The middle classes flocked towards Labour.

00:28:23.400 The working classes flocked towards the Tories.

00:28:26.240 61% of Labour constituencies voted for Brexit.

00:28:30.140 If you look at the 45 target seats in England and Wales that Labour needs to win in order to form the next government,

00:28:35.240 35 of them voted for Brexit, as did 16 of Labour's 20 most vulnerable seats.

00:28:41.900 So, you know, my view is the Labour Party, if it's going to be successful again, if it's going to win power again,

00:28:47.300 needs very quickly to re-engage with those heartlands, which it has lost over recent years.

00:28:52.580 And by demonising these people as racists and fascists, then you've got no chance of doing it.

00:28:58.240 But, and just to make your point, I don't think the Labour Party are interested.

00:29:03.480 And I talk to a lot of people, you know, the middle class, metropolitan elite, as they're known, who are Labour voters, and they don't seem particularly interested either.

00:29:12.840 And to me, when we had Peter Hitchens on, he made the point that, you know, essentially this Labour Party, they don't represent them.

00:29:21.140 So what you're leaving in those areas is a power vacuum, in my opinion, where you get someone like the Tommy Robinsons of the world who come in and go, look, they're not listening to you.

00:29:30.280 And he's right, they're not. I will.

00:29:32.940 I think actually that's broadly true. I think if you look at the membership now of the Labour Party, the data on the membership was released about a year or so ago, and it showed that 77% of Labour members fall into that occupational middle class ABC1 category.

00:29:52.180 many of them are sort of university educated graduates many of them live in the south of

00:29:57.500 England many of them in in London and the party and I think it's something that predates Corbyn

00:30:02.920 by the way you know Corbyn's got his faults but you know I think he's right on a lot of stuff I

00:30:07.680 think he's absolutely right to argue against the politics of austerity but in terms of you know

00:30:14.740 cultural connection the Labour Party is is losing those communities and I think you're right there

00:30:19.440 are some people in the party who would be prepared to sacrifice them. I think if you, you know, you

00:30:25.440 look at the, the Gillian Duffy thing was a big thing for me. You know, the 2010 election,

00:30:32.120 Corbyn Brown, the then prime minister, was out on the stump, went to a traditional Labour heartland,

00:30:37.240 Rochdale, working class constituency, was confronted by this woman, Gillian Duffy, who had 0.93

00:30:43.540 been a Labour Party supporter all of her life and buttonholed the Prime Minister and just

00:30:50.520 expressed concern in not terribly aggressive terms by any stretch of the imagination, just

00:30:57.160 expressed concern about what was happening in her community, about the impact of rapid

00:31:02.400 and large-scale immigration and the pressure on services, etc. And Gordon Brown obviously

00:31:07.620 was mic'd up and privately said to someone she was just a bigoted old woman. And in fact, 0.99

00:31:14.800 that was what he did is he said publicly what many people in the upper echelons of the Labour

00:31:19.800 Party feel privately about those old working class communities. I say that the Labour Party

00:31:25.280 treats the working class now like some embarrassing elderly relative. It wants their votes at election 1.00

00:31:30.560 time, but it doesn't want to be seen in public with them. And he's in many respects ashamed of

00:31:36.280 them another example emily thornbury um mp for islington south where else and i mean i i know

00:31:46.020 emily very vaguely and and i like her and i respect her but she she did the during i think 2014 the

00:31:53.060 rochester and street by-election where she was out campaigning and she saw a sort of modest home and

00:32:00.520 there was a white van parked outside and there was St. George's flag hanging from the roof or

00:32:06.740 something. And she found this so noteworthy that she felt the need to tweet it with the caption

00:32:15.420 image from Rochester. And again, it just showed a complete disconnect between the priorities of

00:32:22.320 ordinary working class people, many of whom should be tribally Labour because that's how their 1.00

00:32:27.340 parents voted. That's how their grandparents voted. And the sort of, as you said, the sort

00:32:32.020 of metropolitan, liberal, university-educated elite who just find those people a different

00:32:41.140 breed and can't relate to them at all. And I think there's a real debate beginning to break

00:32:46.840 out now in British politics, not before time, between people, including people on the left

00:32:53.680 like myself, who are arguing for a return, if you like, to a more communitarian style

00:33:01.360 of politics, which respects people's affinity for place and for their sense of belonging

00:33:08.800 and for the concept of community and family against this, what has become now the dominant

00:33:16.760 ideology amongst large parts of our establishment, not just on the left, certainly on the left,

00:33:21.460 but not just on the left, which is a much more sort of liberal, globalist, open borders, cosmopolitan worldview.

00:33:30.280 And I think it's a debate that's been encapsulated very well by David Goodhart, who's...

00:33:37.020 One of our former guests.

00:33:38.340 Right. Okay. Well, I think David has captured the debate really well.

00:33:41.340 And he's talked about how he was disowned by his North London tribe himself because he came from this sort of very liberal background.

00:33:47.400 And he wrote some years ago about the impacts of mass immigration in working class communities and how the liberal establishment just didn't understand that people's concern about it wasn't driven by racism or hostility to migrants, but was just driven by the disruption and the violation that, you know, very large movements of people were causing to their sort of sense of place and their sense of belonging.

00:34:11.760 And he's written about how we've got, in a book particularly called The Road to Somewhere, how we've got a governing class in this country, which is part of what he calls the anywhere breed, which comes from this very liberal, globalist, cosmopolitan, university-educated background,

00:34:28.620 who make up about 25% of the population

00:34:32.220 but actually exert a much greater influence

00:34:36.360 well beyond their numbers across the political debate,

00:34:39.600 across political discourse, across our institutions,

00:34:42.200 our governing institutions.

00:34:43.920 And the somewheres who make up about 50% of the country, 1.00

00:34:47.700 the rest are in between, calls them in between us,

00:34:49.400 but the somewheres who make up 50% of the country 0.96

00:34:52.100 who are on lower wages, who are often in poorer housing,

00:34:56.240 who have fewer skills, less opportunity in life, who are much more likely to be impacted by things

00:35:05.020 such as free movement in terms of the impact on their wages and local services, etc.

00:35:10.040 And it's these people who increasingly feel disenfranchised and disconnected from the

00:35:16.960 political system. And those people are crying out for a much more communitarian approach to society.

00:35:23.280 And these are generally people, as I say, who are not opposed to immigration.

00:35:29.580 And in fact, you know, my view is that we are still in this country, despite what some people say, we are still one of the most tolerant countries in the world.

00:35:37.440 Most people are open to the idea of immigration and rightly so. 1.00

00:35:42.260 They just want the thing to be managed properly.

00:35:44.360 They don't want a situation where you have open borders where a government says, you know, we've got free movement and invariably newcomers will gravitate largely to already hard pressed working class communities where the property might be cheaper, etc.

00:36:00.700 And just the governing class says to people, well, it's great.

00:36:04.660 This is cosmopolitanism.

00:36:06.120 This is multiculturalism and we'll probably be better off in terms of GDP. 1.00

00:36:10.980 So just accept it.

00:36:12.360 Just get on with it.

00:36:13.040 actually, I think it shows a profound misunderstanding of the priorities of working

00:36:17.440 class people. The idea that they are prepared to see a fundamental change and rupture to their 0.76

00:36:25.560 local community as a result of globalisation and open borders, simply because they might be a

00:36:30.700 tenner a week better off. It's almost a Thatcherite argument, saying the economy comes before

00:36:36.180 everything. The economy comes before your sense of belonging, before your sense of place. And what

00:36:41.300 they've done through doing this is they've toxified the entire argument about immigration.

00:36:46.920 So, you know, whereas most people, I think, are happy to have immigration, just want the thing 0.99

00:36:52.960 managed properly and are tolerant and say, look, once migrants are in the country, they should be 0.99

00:36:57.860 treated equally. They should be given fair access to jobs. They shouldn't be exploited.

00:37:02.160 We should oppose any sort of racism. The debate has now gone to the extreme where if you say

00:37:07.560 you're opposed to open borders. People on the left here, oh, you're anti-migrant. You're some

00:37:14.340 reactionary, some nativist. That's the level. And I deal with these people every day. I deal with

00:37:18.660 them in my union. I deal with them through social media. They are not open to a serious, nuanced

00:37:23.480 debate around this issue. They see things, dare I say, entirely in black and white.

00:37:28.380 And as an immigrant, let me just add this. I completely agree with everything that you said.

00:37:34.380 The one thing we were talking before we started the interview that really pissed me off, actually, during the Brexit campaign was this country and the people of this country being smeared as racist xenophobes.

00:37:47.000 When I know for a fact in my own experience and many people that I know who are immigrants in this country would tell you, as I told you, this is one of the best places in the world to be an immigrant.

00:37:57.320 But you're right, I think, that there is a section of the left that has gone so far off the deep end.

00:38:02.040 I mean, you look at America, someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talking about how if you don't want open borders, that makes you racist or having an immigration system is racist. 0.95

00:38:13.140 And you just go, these people are insane.

00:38:15.160 I mean, and you must be tearing your hair out because, I mean, I don't really see how with that trend that you're talking about happening within labor, I don't see how labor is ever going to win back the working class vote ever again.

00:38:28.880 It's going to be very difficult, frankly.

00:38:32.040 And I mean, just on your point about tolerance, one thing that struck me is after just after the EU referendum in 2016, the Sunday Times, I think it was, ran a poll where they asked people whether EU nationals who were in the country before the referendum should be allowed to stay post-referendum.

00:38:51.300 And what that poll showed is that 77% of Leave voters said, yes, people who were here before the referendum from the EU should be allowed to stay.

00:39:03.320 And that's my experience of speaking to Leave voters, that they're motivated by a fundamental sense of fair play and not by racism.

00:39:09.200 And the picture that's been painted of them as people who just want closed borders and people who, I mean, Vince Cable said the Leave vote was driven by people with a hankering for nostalgia and empire and they don't like non-white faces around the place and they want to see blue passports.

00:39:25.520 a complete caricature. The Leave vote was driven by people who wanted self-government and sovereignty

00:39:32.940 and a return to the spirit of community and democracy and belonging and those sorts of

00:39:39.840 things. And the interesting thing, actually, is that since the referendum, those things have

00:39:44.660 hardly been discussed in a lot of the public debate. The things that actually drove the vote,

00:39:49.440 including control over immigration, much of that has just been dismissed. And what we've had in

00:39:55.500 is a very kind of dry technical debate about the customs union and the single market and the

00:40:02.500 Irish border. All of that stuff's important, of course it is, but the idea that people went into

00:40:07.820 the polling booth and said, you know, I'm against the customs union, I'm going to vote leave,

00:40:12.540 fundamentally misunderstands why people voted so many in such large numbers in the way they did.

00:40:17.960 And in fact, in many ways, in many cases, people voted for the first time in their lives because I think people would sense that in general elections, they felt they couldn't get fundamental change in general elections.

00:40:32.320 That actually on some of the key issues, such as EU membership, for example, the parties, the mainstream parties were all over peace.

00:40:40.740 And what's the point in voting in general elections?

00:40:43.060 Because they're all the same.

00:40:44.340 We're going to get the same sort of government, whatever happens.

00:40:46.420 I think with the EU referendum, actually what they saw was here was an opportunity to put a missile through the political and economic system to really disrupt the status quo and to say to the establishment, look, you forgot about us and this is the punishment that you are now going to get for forgetting about us.

00:41:06.000 And in many respects, you know, I've argued that in many ways it wasn't necessarily just an anti-EU vote.

00:41:14.380 It certainly was an anti-EU vote, but it wasn't driven just by opposition to the European Union.

00:41:19.800 Less still was it driven by opposition to the continent of Europe.

00:41:23.160 And people often conflate the two, don't they?

00:41:24.900 They say if you're against the EU, you're against Europe.

00:41:27.440 Actually, the two different things.

00:41:29.760 What it was in many respects was a vote against the political establishment in this country.

00:41:34.580 You know, the people saw all of these people lining up, the mainstream political parties, Cameron, Osborne, arguing, you know, the banking industry and, you know, the CBI and people like that, big business, who they felt had actually made their lives difficult over recent years and were in many respects responsible for their predicament and were now desperate for their vote.

00:41:57.600 And people thought, actually, no, I'm not going to vote the way that you want.

00:42:01.840 I'm going to do this because you've forgotten about me and this is the lesson that you're going to get.

00:42:07.100 And I've likened it in some ways to a general strike.

00:42:12.500 We haven't had one in this country since 1926.

00:42:14.880 Not that some of us haven't been trying to work to work.

00:42:18.340 But we haven't had a general strike since 1926.

00:42:20.440 But it was like a general strike in the sense that people, I think people knew that if they voted leave, it would create some turbulence in the country, certainly in the short term, and probably accepted that it might hit them in the pocket a bit again in the short term.

00:42:36.480 There's a debate about whether Brexit will be better economically in the long term.

00:42:40.840 But I think people felt that, you know, some of the disruption to the money markets, whatever, might make us poorer in the short term.

00:42:47.040 but it was a price they were prepared to pay because they knew it was the only weapon that

00:42:51.960 they had and possibly might ever get in their lifetime to make their political masters sit up

00:42:56.520 and take notice. Very similar to workers going on strike. And I say that as a trade unionist,

00:43:01.040 you know, you know, if you go on strike, you're not going to get paid. You're going to get hit

00:43:03.560 in the pocket. You know, it's going to disrupt operations. You know, you're going to be

00:43:07.980 attacked for it, but you sometimes feel that actually that's a price worth paying because

00:43:12.820 in the long term, it might lead to a better working environment. It might lead to better

00:43:18.020 conditions inside the workplace. And that's what people felt. They knew that it was going

00:43:23.420 to create disruption, but equally they knew they had to make their political masters sit

00:43:27.900 up and take notice. And the really interesting thing is they still aren't sitting up and

00:43:31.400 taking notice. The political establishment in this country, in large parts, is doing

00:43:37.880 everything it can to subvert the vote. And actually people voted Leave because they felt

00:43:41.860 the political establishment had stopped listening to them. And that political establishment has

00:43:45.880 spent the last three years proving them right and trying to undermine the vote. And my fear is that

00:43:51.460 actually if you do block Brexit or if you have a second referendum, the forces it would unleash

00:43:56.580 in this country from people who say, right, you've shut off any democratic mechanism I've got

00:44:02.060 for expressing my view or for affecting change. You're now leaving me with no other option but

00:44:07.260 to take to the streets.

00:44:09.020 And I always say to people,

00:44:09.840 look, democracy is like a pressure relief valve.

00:44:14.420 If you shut that off,

00:44:15.840 the pressure doesn't go away.

00:44:17.400 It just breaks out elsewhere.

00:44:18.880 And that's the danger of subverting the vote.

00:44:22.680 The one story that I always use about Brexit 0.82

00:44:26.300 as to why Brexit voters aren't racist,

00:44:28.100 I remember in 2016,

00:44:30.660 I got a cab from one gig to another.

00:44:33.160 And the cab driver who drove me 0.98

00:44:34.300 was a black cab driver who was a black guy. 0.96

00:44:36.700 And we were talking about it.

00:44:37.860 And he goes, I'm going to vote Leave.

00:44:39.840 And I said, that's interesting why.

00:44:40.960 And he went to me, it's because the government don't want me here in London.

00:44:46.060 And he went, I'm not saying that they don't want me here because I'm black.

00:44:49.480 It's because I'm an ordinary working person.

00:44:51.480 They don't want me here.

00:44:52.540 They don't want you here.

00:44:53.420 They want this to be like Paris.

00:44:55.880 And that they have all the liberals, all the very wealthy people in the centre,

00:44:59.560 and the rest of us can travel in.

00:45:01.860 Well, it's really interesting because if you look at the data from the referendum,

00:45:05.720 I mean, if you listen to the media and to liberal commentators and some of the mainstream politicians, you would think that every person from a minority ethnic background voted Remain.

00:45:16.540 And in fact, the data shows that about a third of BME voters voted Leave.

00:45:21.100 And in some cases, if you drill down a bit more, you see that some of their motivation was opposition to free movement.

00:45:27.420 And because many of them had come from the Commonwealth in the 50s and 60s and felt that actually EU free movement was unfair because it gave a leg up to predominantly white people who were European, whereas if you're a nurse from India or something or the West Indies, you have to jump through more hoops.

00:45:45.860 So there was this sense that there was a profound unfairness about EU free movement amongst that section of the BME community.

00:45:53.340 And if you look at some of the data, if you look at some of the towns and cities with high BME populations, places like Slough and Bradford and Birmingham, they all voted by a majority leave.

00:46:08.920 So the idea that – and again, it's totally patronising to suggest that black and minority ethnic people can only vote Remain because obviously Brexit voters are all racist and they couldn't line up with them.

00:46:21.560 I mean, my own in-laws are Anglo-Indian.

00:46:25.960 My wife's Anglo-Indian family came from Calcutta back in the 1960s, and many of them voted

00:46:32.660 leave because actually they look at the country.

00:46:35.500 I mean, I was speaking to my mother-in-law about this recently.

00:46:37.660 She looks at the country she arrived in in the 1960s, and of course, there was lots of 0.97

00:46:41.700 racism around, much more so than today.

00:46:44.580 But actually, they developed a fondness for the country and they became settled in the country and they established their home in the country.

00:46:56.420 And in her case, she didn't like the way that the country is being managed and didn't like any more than other working class people the way that the country has been thrown to the four winds around globalization and the way that it's now dominated by people with this sort of liberal globalist worldview.

00:47:12.840 So she was very much in favor of voting leave.

00:47:15.460 So we do need to challenge this myth that people from a minority ethnic background by default must remain voters.

00:47:24.120 It's an interesting thing on the economy as well because I remember I host things every year at an economics and comedy festival where they get comedians to host discussions between economists, politicians, etc.

00:47:34.420 And I remember this, Don, your point about everything being about money, everything being about the economy.

00:47:38.980 there was an economist there who kept talking about the fact that the communities that will

00:47:43.120 be hardest hit by the economic impact of leaving the EU will be precisely the ones that voted for

00:47:48.880 it. And I kept saying to him, I hear what you're saying, but they know that. And they voted to

00:47:55.100 leave anyway. People quite often prepare to accept an economic hit if they get something else that's

00:48:00.880 more important to them. And he just kept ignoring that question. I kept putting to him over and

00:48:05.780 over and eventually just threw his hands up and, well, I'm an economist, so that's what I'm going

00:48:09.280 to talk about. It's a very sort of dry scientific way of looking at what is in many respects a much

00:48:15.900 more human debate around what drove people to vote leave. And yes, as I said earlier,

00:48:22.640 it's a fundamental misunderstanding of working class people. The idea that they are driven

00:48:28.240 just by this Thatcherite philosophy that it's all about the economy. It's all about whether we can

00:48:34.420 make a fast buck out of something. Just because people at the top might see things that way,

00:48:38.620 it doesn't mean that people at the bottom do. And I despair sometimes when I hear Labour

00:48:42.340 MPs say, well, nobody voted to be poorer. Well, as I said, first of all, there's a debate around

00:48:49.620 whether Brexit will make people poorer or not. I think it's an opportunity actually to be a lot

00:48:53.740 more radical with the economy when we're free from the EU and actually to weight the economy

00:48:58.760 much more in favour of working class people. But actually, aside from that, how do they know

00:49:04.020 that people didn't vote to be poorer. As I said before, people going on strike. I've been on

00:49:08.560 strike three times in my career as a firefighter. I knew that certainly in the short term, I was

00:49:13.880 going to be poorer every time. I was going to not be paid. It was going to be harder that month to

00:49:18.960 pay the mortgage. But it was absolutely right in my heart what I was doing because I was fighting

00:49:25.420 for better pay or I was trying to defend my pension or I was challenging the government

00:49:29.840 trying to make cuts in the fire service. And all of those things outweighed the short-term

00:49:35.520 impact on my pocket. And for the vast majority of firefighters who went on strike on those

00:49:39.680 occasions, they had exactly the same sentiment. So I say to people, just be careful about saying

00:49:45.180 that nobody voted to be poorer, because if you believe that, then effectively what you're doing

00:49:49.160 is just dismissing working class people as being motivated entirely by money. And that was why 1.00

00:49:56.580 Thatcher approached the economy in the way that she did, because she thought that was all that

00:49:59.820 people were interested in. Of course, having money takes this thing out of being poor,

00:50:04.920 as someone once said. But actually, for many working class people, that sense of place,

00:50:10.200 that sense of belonging, that sense of community, the principle of self-government,

00:50:14.400 the principle of sovereignty, the principle of being able to control your own borders

00:50:18.780 and being able to resist the onslaught of globalisation and de-industrialisation,

00:50:25.000 that actually means a hell of a lot to people. And it's something that money can't buy.

00:50:30.460 Paul, I'm going to ask you quite a difficult question now, and I apologise for this. We had

00:50:33.940 Dr. Steve Davis on, a brilliant interview, if you haven't seen it, check it out,

00:50:37.960 from the Institute of Economic Affairs. And he said that what Brexit is, is a catalyst for the

00:50:45.180 death of two-party politics. Do you think what we're witnessing now with Corbyn and the way

00:50:50.700 They're abandoning their working class heartlands as a slow death of the Labour Party.

00:50:56.360 In a sense, there might be a new movement or a new party like the SDP coming forward

00:51:00.680 representing the working class.

00:51:04.100 I think it's possible, but I think we've been here before, maybe not in such a serious way,

00:51:12.380 but I think as a nation we've been here before where it looks like another party may break

00:51:17.520 through.

00:51:17.880 It looks like the death of two-party politics.

00:51:20.200 You could think, for example, in the early 80s when the sort of old SDP broke away from the Labour Party and there was a surge in the polls and they did really well in by-elections.

00:51:29.900 And then before too long, everything kind of went back to normal.

00:51:34.080 but I do think there's probably more chance of it now simply because I think there is and I think

00:51:40.900 this has probably been a consequence of the referendum that tribal loyalties as they were

00:51:48.220 are breaking down more and more I think if you look back to the 1980s you know working class 0.99

00:51:54.120 people by and large voted Labour because they knew that the Labour Party represented them

00:51:58.720 spoke for them even if they didn't always agree with it even if they didn't always like its leader

00:52:03.680 The Labour Party speaks for the working class.

00:52:05.720 The Tories speak for the rich and the bosses, and we have to be Labour.

00:52:08.980 You know, my dad was Labour, my grandparents were Labour.

00:52:11.640 That was people's motivation.

00:52:12.960 It was very tribal for people.

00:52:14.780 I think now that tribalism is wearing away, and because of the referendum, people felt

00:52:19.200 able to vote Leave, for example, whilst knowing that they weren't helping the enemy, the Tories,

00:52:26.120 because, you know, there were Tories who were lining up for Remain and Leave.

00:52:28.940 There were Labour people lining up for Remain and Leave, probably less so Leave.

00:52:32.920 But they felt able to vote that way without thinking, I've betrayed my class, I've betrayed my parents, you know, they've always voted Labour.

00:52:40.980 And I think increasingly with the way that Labour is becoming this kind of bourgeois, metropolitan, liberal, very sort of youth-obsessed London-centric party, there are people in the country who are looking at the Labour Party now and thinking, that party just does not want me.

00:53:02.060 That party is ashamed of me. That party speaks for a different type of person now and wants a different type of person, you know, someone with any sort of traditional views around, you know, if you like, small C conservative views, which many working class people have got.

00:53:20.220 But, you know, this small C conservative thread runs through working class communities in terms of their approach to issues like the family and their affinity for their country, patriotism, their approach to things like crime and immigration, things that are completely dismissed as reactionary and right wing.

00:53:36.520 But these people who have these traditional views, there was never any inconsistency between holding those views and being a proud Labour Party supporter.

00:53:45.800 And the Labour Party once upon a time wanted those people.

00:53:48.920 Nowadays, we talked about Duffy, we talked about Rochester.

00:53:52.080 Nowadays, the Labour Party is embarrassed by people like them.

00:53:55.340 And I think the danger, which comes back to your question, is that actually you do leave

00:53:59.260 those people open to the forces of the right.

00:54:02.420 You leave those people open to the forces of populism.

00:54:06.160 And I've got to say, I think it's something that isn't just happening in Britain.

00:54:09.160 You can look at the Rust Belt in America, where they voted for Trump in such large numbers.

00:54:14.560 You look at the Gillet-Jean movement in France, where people have got together and said, actually, we want to fight for great democracy, for economic justice, for national sovereignty.

00:54:24.520 They've been completely ignored by the left in Britain, by the way.

00:54:26.860 The internationalist left in Britain, which will support every international struggle by workers elsewhere, because it's the right kind of struggle.

00:54:34.200 But the Gillet-Jean, you know, don't quite tick the right box.

00:54:37.740 And you see throughout Europe the rise of, you know, what some people would dismiss of nationalist movements.

00:54:43.660 But I think actually if you just dismiss them as populist nationalist movements, you know, reminiscent of the 1930s, you're making a grave mistake.

00:54:51.680 Because in the 1930s, that kind of ultra-nationalism was a very expansive, aggressive nationalism.

00:54:58.900 It was about dominating other countries, about invading other countries. 0.98

00:55:02.300 Nowadays, the nationalist movements in Europe are just about defending their own space.

00:55:06.760 They're not interested in going elsewhere.

00:55:08.500 They just want to defend their community and their culture and their democracy, et cetera.

00:55:13.660 and that's why unless we try and win the hearts and minds of those people

00:55:18.060 then they are going to be potentially drawn by forces of the right

00:55:25.800 and by other populist movements

00:55:27.220 and it's going to be very difficult to win them back after that.

00:55:30.360 We've got about five minutes left Paul

00:55:32.440 and I wanted to ask you something completely different to what we've been talking about

00:55:35.760 which is just to tell us you've talked a lot about austerity

00:55:38.380 and obviously you're a former firefighter and you still work in that area

00:55:44.280 Given what we've seen in this country over the last eight to ten years,

00:55:49.420 what is the state of the fire service in this country?

00:55:53.480 Well, this is really an unwritten story.

00:55:56.020 It should be getting much more coverage than it is.

00:55:58.740 The fire service in this country is being absolutely decimated.

00:56:03.300 It's being decimated as a result of ten years of austerity,

00:56:07.580 and people are paying for it with their lives.

00:56:10.480 I mean, that's not scaremongering.

00:56:12.560 We're seeing now a rise in some places in the number of deaths from fire.

00:56:19.180 We're seeing a rise across England in terms of response times,

00:56:23.280 in terms of the time it takes a fire engine to get to the scene of a fire.

00:56:26.780 Those response times are at their worst for 20 years.

00:56:29.340 We've seen huge cuts from the government.

00:56:31.060 We've seen 12,000 firefighters' jobs go over the last decade.

00:56:34.520 A huge number of frontline firefighters taken out of action.

00:56:38.680 We've seen scores of fire engines close up and down the country.

00:56:41.860 and we've seen a cut of government funding to the fire service of about a third over the course of

00:56:48.400 that time. And it's a really, really serious situation because, you know, the behaviour of

00:56:53.320 fire doesn't change over time. Fire is just as much a threat now to people as it ever is. And

00:56:58.160 the argument that the government uses to defend the cuts, well, there's been fewer fires over the

00:57:03.380 last 10 years, you know, which there has, but actually you can't base a fire service around

00:57:09.520 the principles of supply and demand. It has to be done on the basis of risk. The supply and demand

00:57:14.280 argument, for example, would say, well, you shut the fire station at Heathrow Airport because there

00:57:19.260 hasn't been a serious incident there for the last, you know, God knows how many years. We don't use

00:57:23.400 it, just shut it. Well, no one would do that because it's about whether or not you've got

00:57:27.800 the resources in place to be able to deal with the risk should something happen. And that should be

00:57:33.180 the approach to fire cover generally across the country. So, you know, it's a real important

00:57:39.360 issue because people's lives are at stake as a result of it and people need to hear about it.

00:57:44.580 And what's the morale like in the fire service?

00:57:46.980 I mean, it's really tough at the moment because, you know, the firefighters feel that they're

00:57:51.020 fighting a constant rearguard action. They're trying to defend their service against cuts from

00:57:56.820 the Tories. They're trying to defend their pensions. The Tories are trying to rip up their

00:58:02.440 their pensions and there's been a you know a struggle over many years to try and defend that

00:58:07.180 we haven't had a decent pay rise in the fire service for the best part of a decade

00:58:12.420 even though the fire service does a lot more work in terms of the broad range of work than it's ever

00:58:18.580 done before we do a lot of work in the community now we're not just about racing to fires when they

00:58:22.940 happen we go out to people we we do fire safety work we teach them about about the dangers of

00:58:28.480 fire, et cetera. We fit smoke alarms in people's houses to make sure they're as protected as

00:58:33.820 possible. But we've seen really paltry pay increases over the last 10 years. And I know

00:58:40.080 people who have left the service and gone off to be train drivers because the pay is better

00:58:44.600 in that industry. And it's completely unacceptable. Firefighters put their lives on the line

00:58:49.620 every day to defend their communities. And all they ask is to be treated fairly, to be

00:58:54.360 fairly paid and to make sure that they have the right equipment and resources in place to do

00:59:00.400 their job and it's not happening and that obviously impacts on morale in a big way and as a former

00:59:06.000 teacher i can the teaching profession is the same although we do tend to go and strike far more than

00:59:11.080 yeah yeah we love a strike in the teaching profession also you don't risk your life

00:59:15.160 yeah i'm trying in london yeah i used to teach in you and mate i risk my life

00:59:19.440 Yeah, I went to school in Dagnam, you never should have done that, I assure you.

00:59:23.240 All right, well, we're out of time.

00:59:24.500 So we've got one more question for you, man.

00:59:26.540 What is the one issue that no one is talking about that we should be talking about as a society?

00:59:31.640 I think a big issue, controversial, but it needs to be said.

00:59:36.440 We are called trigonometry.

00:59:38.000 There we go, so I'm in the right place to say it.

00:59:40.280 I think what I would describe as the abolition of womanhood, to be perfectly honest, 0.99

00:59:46.840 I think we are seeing an attack on womanhood and women's rights through an approach which seeks to abolish the sexes in some way by saying that people now can effectively just self-identify as whatever sex they want and that society has to accept that and the law has to accept that. 0.77

01:00:16.840 and that if you don't accept that then you're some sort of bigot and some sort of reactionary

01:00:22.580 and I find it extremely sinister I have to say and I'm very much in favour of people living the 0.74

01:00:30.360 lives that they want you know if they're not hurting other people I'm perfectly happy for

01:00:34.960 people to identify as they want to dress as they want to worship who they want to eat what they

01:00:39.460 want but when the government intervenes and says that someone for example who is a man has the

01:00:48.840 anatomy of a man can wake up one morning and identify as a woman and potentially have access

01:00:56.660 to women's safe spaces because the law interprets that person as a woman and anyone who doesn't 1.00

01:01:03.180 accept that interpretation, could be arrested and prosecuted. I find it pretty Orwellian,

01:01:11.140 to be honest. And it's almost like we're now saying that there isn't a definition

01:01:15.080 of woman. And I say to people who challenge me on this, define woman for me. And they get into

01:01:19.520 all sorts of muddles because they can't, because they know if they did, they would have to accept 1.00

01:01:23.660 that actually, you know, the sexes are different. And I know many decent women who have been on the 1.00

01:01:30.560 right side of equality struggles throughout their entire lives who are really seriously concerned

01:01:36.040 at this and have said, well, hold on a second. We didn't fight for years to, you know, get advances

01:01:43.340 in terms of women's privacy and dignity and security in public spaces and workplaces, et cetera, 0.95

01:01:49.520 only for you to effectively come along now and say, well, there's no difference between the

01:01:52.840 genders and you're entitled to use each other's facilities and you have to treat this person as

01:01:57.160 a woman even though he's got the anatomy of a man. I find it disturbing. I find it sinister. 1.00

01:02:01.640 I find people try to close down the debate on it just by shouting accusations at you when you try

01:02:06.240 to discuss it. And it's not, for those reasons in many respects, it's not being spoken about as much

01:02:12.180 as it ought to be. And it's a debate that needs to be had. Well, it's a good point. And let's dig

01:02:17.320 into it for a couple of minutes, Francis, because I don't want to just leave it hanging. We've had

01:02:20.540 a few people on the show and talked to them about it. And we've also had a transgender woman on the

01:02:24.900 I had India Willoughby on the show to talk about this. 0.96

01:02:28.680 So let's dig into it, because I hear that argument a lot.

01:02:31.200 And I have to say instinctively, I agree with it.

01:02:34.440 But the argument about women's rights being taken away by having this, the one safe space 0.96

01:02:41.060 that people often talk about is bathrooms, right?

01:02:44.120 And there are two issues I would kind of pick up.

01:02:47.460 Number one, the easy solution is just to have cubicles for everybody, then it's not an issue.

01:02:51.740 Another thing is if you were a male sex offender who wanted to get into a woman's bathroom, you can do that without self-identifying as a woman now anyway, right?

01:03:03.880 So I don't really – give us a bit more on where you think this is something that has an impact on women's rights. 0.97

01:03:12.000 Well, I think in terms of the example you use, if someone tried to do it now, they could walk through the women's – into a women's bathroom. 0.84

01:03:18.220 I've done it a couple of times by complete action.

01:03:20.040 Yeah, I've heard the rumors.

01:03:21.740 you could sort of go into...

01:03:24.360 And thus ends the show.

01:03:26.920 You could go into the women's bathroom, 1.00

01:03:29.160 but actually, you know, you could be challenged

01:03:32.960 and you could say, someone could say,

01:03:34.680 actually, you've got no place in here, you should go.

01:03:37.380 I think if you say effectively there's no difference

01:03:40.560 between the sexism, people should be entitled to...

01:03:43.960 And there's a debate about whether people would be entitled to...

01:03:47.200 Trans people would be entitled if they self-identified 0.99

01:03:49.460 to use the spaces of the other sex. 0.99

01:03:54.380 And the fear is that if they do, then actually you can't challenge them

01:03:58.160 because if you do, you're discriminating against that person.

01:04:00.960 And even if the government does say, well, we are going to preserve safe spaces,

01:04:06.160 there will be exemptions in terms of bathrooms, et cetera,

01:04:08.760 what we're seeing is a creeping acceptance among institutions, firms, et cetera,

01:04:17.540 that because they don't want to be accused of discrimination, then they just let it happen

01:04:22.180 anyway, even if they did have the right under law to say, well, no, this is an exempt safe space.

01:04:26.960 So there was a story recently, Topshop in London, where I think somebody tried to access either

01:04:33.700 the women's fitting rooms or the women's toilet or something. And Topshop would have been within

01:04:39.460 its rights under law to say no, but just completely capitulated when there was this

01:04:43.920 Twitter storm saying that you are discriminating against people. And I just think it's, and I think 0.98

01:04:51.260 sometimes you have to think personally, I mean, I've got a young daughter. Would I want my young

01:04:57.320 daughter to be in a changing facility with somebody who had the anatomy of a man but identified as a

01:05:04.900 woman? No, absolutely not under any circumstances. And I would challenge anybody who said that I

01:05:11.280 should have to accept that. I mean, I totally accept that people who are having, you know,

01:05:17.880 a personal crisis around their gender and their identity need compassion and people should be

01:05:24.920 sympathetic towards those people and understanding towards those people. But it shouldn't extend to

01:05:30.420 effectively saying that there isn't such a thing now as sex, as biological sex, you know, it's

01:05:36.600 It's kind of disappeared, and we are who we want to be,

01:05:39.900 and society just has to pick that up and run with that.

01:05:42.200 I think that has really disturbing implications.

01:05:44.980 And on that non-controversial note, and we shall end it,

01:05:48.540 we shall end the interview, if people want to find you online,

01:05:51.760 Paul, where is the best place to find you?

01:05:53.740 What's your Twitter or the rest of it?

01:05:55.080 My Twitter is Paul Embry, as in my name, Paul Embry.

01:05:59.120 I'm pretty active on Twitter.

01:06:01.760 I write a column for the Unheard website from time to time,

01:06:04.740 so go on the Unheard website.

01:06:05.700 You can see some of my stuff there and disagree with it or agree with it, you might.

01:06:10.960 And so those are probably the two best places to go to.

01:06:13.080 Yeah, but Paul is very active on Twitter.

01:06:15.200 I follow him with great interest.

01:06:16.660 As always, follow us.

01:06:18.040 I just wanted to give a shout out to a couple of people.

01:06:20.380 We've had a couple of PayPal donations from people who I will not name

01:06:24.720 because we don't want their names to be tarnished in public by association with us.

01:06:28.780 But thank you very much, guys.

01:06:29.820 You're really making us, giving us an opportunity to keep the show going.

01:06:33.440 And buy soup.

01:06:34.780 Soup.

01:06:35.140 Do you eat soup?

01:06:36.300 Yeah, of course I eat soup.

01:06:37.380 Soup and soy, that's you, man.

01:06:39.660 Soy latte is for you.

01:06:40.860 Yeah, hence 10 comments now.

01:06:42.820 I'm a soy boy.

01:06:43.860 Carry on.

01:06:44.960 What do you have in your tea?

01:06:46.760 What do I have in mine?

01:06:47.620 It's not the point, mate.

01:06:48.660 That is the point. 1.00

01:06:49.600 Every time we go to a fucking restaurant, 1.00

01:06:51.480 do you know what Francis does? 1.00

01:06:52.520 Have you got any non-milk alternative, non-dairy?

01:06:55.760 I don't speak like that.

01:06:57.160 I don't speak like that.

01:06:58.000 It's true.

01:06:58.500 Have you got any non-dairy alternatives, mate?

01:07:00.920 There's nothing more than almond milk latte.

01:07:03.060 I'm just soy shaming you.

01:07:04.540 Yeah.

01:07:04.680 Anyway, follow us on all the social media at TriggerPod.

01:07:08.560 Click the bell button next to the subscribe button

01:07:11.180 if you haven't already subscribed.

01:07:13.000 And we'll be back next week with another episode

01:07:15.260 where I will shame Francis for something else.

01:07:16.940 Absolutely.

01:07:17.660 Leave us a review on iTunes.

01:07:19.560 Tell everybody that you can about it, all the rest of it. 0.66

01:07:22.800 Konstantin, you're a donut.

01:07:23.980 What have you forgotten to promote?

01:07:25.180 Oh, yes.

01:07:25.740 I am doing my Edinburgh show in August.

01:07:28.720 It's called Orwell That Ends Well.

01:07:30.720 You can buy tickets.

01:07:31.900 There's a trailer on my Twitter profile.

01:07:33.800 Francis will be doing 0.92

01:07:35.080 a couple of shows here

01:07:36.120 at the Bill Murray

01:07:36.980 in London

01:07:37.460 here in London

01:07:38.120 at the Bill Murray

01:07:38.760 as well

01:07:39.460 check that out

01:07:40.120 in late August

01:07:40.840 yep

01:07:41.100 so come and see me then

01:07:42.060 yep

01:07:42.920 and

01:07:43.260 thank you guys

01:07:44.940 for watching the show

01:07:45.800 is there anything else

01:07:46.280 you wanted to say?

01:07:47.040 no one's listening

01:07:47.780 by this point

01:07:48.160 everybody is switching 0.60

01:07:49.880 the fuck off 0.60

01:07:50.180 well 1.00

01:07:50.740 to three people

01:07:52.380 thank you for listening

01:07:54.100 and we will see you

01:07:55.220 next week

01:07:55.680 bye bye

01:08:03.800 We'll be right back.

TRIGGERnometry - June 24, 2019

Paul Embery on Lexit and Why the Left Has Abandoned the Working Class

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