Latest / Thinking Class / #045 - William Clouston - How Britain Began To Decline And Why Its Leaders Won't Fix It

Transcript

#045 - William Clouston - How Britain Began To Decline And Why Its Leaders Won't Fix It · Thinking Class

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, classmates, and welcome to Thinking Class.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm John Gillam, and today I'm speaking with William Kluchton.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: William is the leader of the Social Democratic Party, the SDP in the United Kingdom.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, William and I talk about the reasons for the SDP's resurgence, his own personal political journey, what the current political landscape is looking like in Britain, and why it is hard to escape the feeling of civilizational decline in the country, how cultural identity is being undermined through ideological zeal, mass immigration, and multiculturalism, what Britain's immigration challenges are and the SDP's solutions for immigration control, why the ruling class's reluctance to adapt to public sentiment poses risks for societal stability.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And William tells us why the SDP is the political vehicle to represent the views of the British public.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we also talk about why any new crop of politicians needs to address the failures of the current political class and much, much more.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: You'll hear in the episode that William is a politician cut from a different cloth.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: He had a long career outside of politics before moving into local government and going on to lead the SDP.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he's also incredibly thoughtful in his responses.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: He avoids cookie-cutter answers and speaking in slogans, and he's immensely likable.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Whether William's idea of civic nationalism is realized in the era of identity politics and the demographic change caused by mass immigration in Britain is a question we will see answered in the coming decades.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Before we dive in, you would be really helping me out if you click subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to or watching the show on, because the more subscribers we have, the more guests we can attract, and the faster Thinking Class grows.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy the show, classmates.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: William Cleuston, welcome to Thinking Class.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for joining me.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be here, John.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: William, I learned of you in 2020 in the early lockdowns, somehow the algorithm through SDP talks my way.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got to say you and your conversations were quite influential on my way of thinking, but also helped me make sense of how I'd come to think of myself.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it got me very interested in what the SDP, the Social Democratic Party, of which you are the leader, were trying to do.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you've done a remarkable job.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've you've grown its vote share, I think, something like tenfold in the five years between the 2019 and 2024 elections.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also quite noticeable for those who are looking that there are so many people who, when they learn of you, they talk about you being the politician everyone would wish was more prominent if only they knew you because you're well-read, you're thoughtful, you're respectful, you argue points in a nuanced way, and you tackle taboo subjects, but in a in a respectful, nuanced way.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I I know I certainly lament that STP aren't known as well as they ought to be, but a tenfold increase, does that give you hope that between now and 2029 you're going to be growing your your voter base even more and you are going to be more well known in people's minds?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think if we keep on going, uh that's undoubtedly going to happen.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think the um the the the key is literally um tenacity and to keep to keep on keep on plugging away.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think one of the one of the problems that we've had in the SDP is is the the the illustrious past that we have.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, it was a massive party in the 80s, and and I was I'm old enough to remember it, and I was part of it, and I I worked hard for the party in the 80s.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um and because it's got that that name and that history, I think some people think that it's bigger than it it is at this stage, or that you can sort of go because it got it really did get back.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the three-line history of the SDP is that the Gang of Four started it, uh David Owen protected its independence from the Liberals, and the the uh grassroots kept it alive.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: But by the time I became a leader in 2018, it had 72 members.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was basically gonna get uh, you know, I mean, we were gonna finish uh unless anyone stepped up and and uh and started promoting it properly and rebuilding it.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, it we're we're we're doing we're pretty much on the flight path of um of of a resurgent party if you look at it historically.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the but it's all you know, people do want instant results.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's not necessarily a modern thing.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's part of the human condition to what what you know, why aren't you in government sort of thing?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: But it takes time, and so yeah, from where we've come to where we are now, it's it's quite an incredible achievement.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um but we still we you know obviously the the general public, people in the political universe know about us, but the man in the street, uh the woman in the street, doesn't necessarily know about us, and that's the main challenge, really.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm I'm I'm comforted by the fact that one of the things that's kept us going is that we don't have to change what we believe to suit the public.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, but generally speaking, what our our opinions on most important things are shared by the British public, the majority of the British public.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a nice position to be in.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: When they find out about us, we they sort of warn to us, and that's what's happened in places like Leeds where we we fought elections and eventually won, but not only won, but won big.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: What what did you do pre-politics and what was it that motivated you to pick up the reins of the SDP and and take it on into a new era?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was I was influenced politically by my father first, really.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: He said he's a member intermittent member of the Labour Party um in Durham, my my home city.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so when the SDB set up, uh he he joined, he was a founder member, and I was involved, as I say, in the 80s from that.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but my sort of professionally I I I went to school in Scarborough, North Yorkshire after going to prep school in Durham, and then uh did a planning degree in Birmingham, uh town planning.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's four years there, and then uh worked at Westminster City Council in Development Control, and then I switched and did policy work at London Barrow Enfield.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and after after qualifying as a planner, I I uh did something slightly revolutionary.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, oh, I want to be a surveyor.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I I retrained uh uh and took a surveying degree and worked for a company called Knight Frank and Rutley.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's called Knight Frank now, they got rid of Mr.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Rutley.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure what happened to him.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: They uh got rid of him, but uh yeah, um so and then I and then I worked, uh went to Australia for a while, had a first child, came back to the UK and set a development business up.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Basically for about 17 years, I uh I I built some housing, but mainly supermarkets, some roadside stuff.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh mostly on, well, almost exclusively on brownfield land.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I I specialized in um urban reclamation, basically.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: But commercial, you know.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh so yeah, I did that.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then I went back to university, did what I really wanted to do at the start, which is philosophy.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: I went back to Durham and did that.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then uh sort of came, you know, coincided with me uh rejoining the SDP after hearing David Owen speak in Hexham, Hexham Book Festival was the time.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Pre-Brexit, that was.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: He was mentioning that the SDP was still going, and I was very interested.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, and so the rest is history.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my that's my sort of route into it.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've always been keen on uh on politics, and it and it's really just the battle of ideas, it's the contestation of ideas, what is true um from a philosoph philosophical point of view, what is what can be sustained, and uh uh you know, and and sort of yeah, it's always been been been part of my sort of makeup, really.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: But um I also I should say I had four years in the Tory party from 1999 until 2003.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a friend in Hexham recruited me.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I was quite, you know, I was a district councillor for four years and parliamentary candidate in 01 in the keep the pound election.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I was never entirely comfortable as a Tory and and after four years thought, well no, it's just not not really not really working, so I left uh abruptly.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that yeah, that's that's my sort of route.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's not the eyes that change your ideas do change through the years, but basically I'm I'm pretty settled where I am now.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps this is what gives you quite a lot more um relevance, I suppose, to the everyday person on the street, insofar as you are probably a part of a vanishing number vanishingly few uh politicians who have had various careers pre-going into politics, whereas so many jump out, they join a Tory uh sorry, the Tory party or a Labour Party machine, and they might have one or two jobs, but it's they're much shorter, and then they they get scooped up as being the next big thing, and then they get pushed through the party machine.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um do you think that there was something throughout the course of your career that made you think that's a reason why I need to get into politics, or was there so that was there something within your um experience having been part of parties as as counsellors that made you think this just isn't right and I need to get in there?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it no, in my case, I don't think it worked like that necessarily.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: I I was a social democrat in the 80s because uh largely through my father's influence and and I I believed in it passionately uh and I was desperately upset in in 83 when we we we got sort of you know well with the Liberals um over a quarter of the votes and 23 seats, and I thought it was just outrageous.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: But so no, it wasn't and later on it's not really I mean I think my uh this iteration of my involvement in politics um has been the only time that I've I've I've done it for sort of long-range ulterior motives for the country, or I because I genuinely think the country needs this party.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think the the whole of the top left uh quadrant in politics, the post-liberal uh quadrant, the culturally sensible traditionalist, uh combined with some sensible social market uh economics, is where most people are, most British people are are there, and I think it's it can't hold that there isn't a party that represents that many people.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what we're trying to do in the SDP, and I think we keep on going, we will succeed in doing it.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: I've no doubt if we keep on going that in 2030 so we we could be a very big party indeed.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: The hard bit is keeping keeping going now, when you you you literally have to fight for every vote and you you've got limited resources and things.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: But but no, that's this is the only time when I've done it for sort of altruistic reasons.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it sounds a bit pompous, but yeah, really that my life would be a lot easier if I wasn't doing this.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I genuinely think we need this party.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think you know, we we just need this thing uh to give people a chance to vote for for something decent and something that they believe in.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think the present offer is is woeful.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: I would agree, I'm sure many others would too.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: I I can't help but think that there's a for those people who are tuned into politics, uh I suppose just about everyone feels a sense of jadedness with both the Tory party and Labour.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think now obviously they're in power.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: But people are starting to spot their shortcomings that it wasn't uh the um the the panacea that they thought it was going to be.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think there's a there is probably a hope amongst people who you know are probably plugged into commentary like that of Matt Goodwin's who hopes that SDP could come along and dislodge the Labour Party, and reform could come along and dislodge the Conservatives, and at least then you would have two proper choices.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: You'd you have people who represent largely the um the views of the the country in a in a unified way, but then they both split off with different economic ideals.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um I suppose reform will be a bit closer to that now given their their cut of through.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um but is this is this something that you words uh would agree with?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that uh ultimately you two would represent a new centre left and a centre right, even though I know SDP holds some centre right ideals in there?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's possible.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean the I think the the the key that would unlock all that is the the voting system, and unless that changes, it's gonna be it's gonna be very hard.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think if it were if we had voting reform where we had some form of you know reasonable proportionality between votes and seats, I think it would become quite fluid quite quickly.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you may find that parties like the Tories and the Labour Party actually do get back to their to the size that would merit uh on on actual support or beliefs, you know, they'd be much smaller than they are now.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And correspondingly, I mean it's a point Peter Hitchens has always made, um, although he doesn't, he's not in favour of PR because he's a constitutional conservative, but I think he's wrong about that.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, you know, the there should there are conservatives, social conservatives, so there ought to be a social conservative party for them to vote for, and present there isn't.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I think the the key is the voting system, and and it and and that's mainly the reason why I wish reform well in trying to to change it.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I've I've we did a fairly modest electoral pact with reform, uh which which they just about held to.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: They let us down on a few things, but just about held to the general election, didn't talk about it very much.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: But uh but we do have you know very big differences with them on on economics, I think they're just stuck totally stuck in the past uh and their their approach can't work.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think we all you know the reform also have have uh probably the wrong policy on the migration crisis on the channel as well.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: That what they propose there won't work either.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: But but no, I mean that you know theoretically if we go the sky's the limit if we could change the system.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Zooming out to the the big picture.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so on this show, I like to get under the the values, ideas, cultures that that made our civilization that can either be in the macrocosm of the west or it could be here uh in Britain where we're speaking from.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I I've heard Paul Embury refer to the current crop of mainstream politicians as political pygmies with those who came before.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think for anyone who goes looking into it, you know, watching old political speeches or reading some of the pamphlets uh or articles and watching the way people comport themselves in the commons, for example, that there was a political class, perhaps, uh, that finished maybe the back end of the 20th century with a different modus operandi.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they had a big grasp of history, they were principled, they're articulate.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: It seems to have changed.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Have you got a view as to why that's changed?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first, can I agree?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I I generally agree with you, although there's been there's another element where that isn't the case, but I'll just go on to that in a second.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you you you're uh undoubtedly it's true what you say.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: The the um the golden generation, uh post-war generation, did have vast experience in different domains.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you know many of them fought in the war, and you know, you'd have someone a Chancellor like Healy, you know, who'd uh been in ANSIO and so on, and had a life well beyond that.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: So they had a hinterland in our outer politics, which is very, very important.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Many of them had commercial backgrounds, some were more public sector, but it was quite varied.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want to see something that illustrates the decline in the quality of participants and the quality of debate in politics, just just Google uh 1975 panorama debate between Jenkins and Tony Benn on on uh the European on the EEC.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Have a look at it, and it's a very high quality debate.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have that type of debate now.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: You just don't uh the the participants don't couldn't do that basically.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Most I despair when I'm in SW1 often, a lot of the politicians and the spads and the you know the the people knocking around that environment um think that politics is about uh comms and media, not about reality, not about you know how the company how the country trades or what what housing is or what energy production is or they're not interested in those things.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're interested in how they sell their message on a short-term basis now.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's woeful.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, when you look at the the it is true that the we're we're lacking a uh high quality um political elite that we had.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um at the same time, my friend uh Kevin Hickson, Dr.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Kevin Hickson from Liverpool University, does point out that from a technical, narrow technical point of view, if you look at the 650 MPs we have now, they are educated to a higher level than say the c the Commons in the 1950s.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that it's a it's a you know what we we all despair of of the commons, but the but it is what he says is true.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: So what you get is a slightly different mix.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think what you had in the 50s was some extremely good people at the top, a thicker top, if you like, and then a lot of and it we shouldn't forget about it, but Kevin reminds us that a lot of the you know sort of bog standard MPs of another country weren't particularly brilliant.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um but now you've got they've all been to the same universities, they've all read largely the same things, and largely they they they believe the same things across the parties, and that's a problem.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, I don't know.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I'm I'm I'm pleased to have had you know a number of careers in both the private sector and the public sector.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think it gives me an advantage uh when you're talking about certain things.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, uh the Labour Party's plans for housing, for instance, which they rapidly published just after getting elected.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I know from a technical point of view can't possibly be implemented.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they just cannot possibly achieve what they're saying.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: They want, you know, one and a half million homes in the five-year period, three three fifty or or thereby a year.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: They have no chance of doing it.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: For both you know, capacity reasons, supply line reasons, uh the trades that exist to do it, if it implies their ambitions imply an 80% increase in capacity of the sector, which can't happen overnight.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: But also from a planning point of view, Raina talked about a plan-led approach and wanted to get uh local development frameworks up to date, so they all had plans.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: She wants to do it via via the plan-making process, but she has no idea, she's never done it.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: I've done it.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've actually got a you know uh an urban development uh policy through in Enfield, wrote it, did the background paper and done it.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: I know how long it takes.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: They'd be lucky if they get the plans alone in place uh by by the f in within the five years.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's all sorts of reasons why they can't so they the whole thing will go down in flames.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: And they what the pro what it reveals is a complete lack of real-world experience among people like Raina.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: If she knew about the housing market in reality, she'd go for a policy like the SDPs, which is try and long you know, generate the long-term capacity, trade, train people, get the entities uh together that can actually build the houses.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: She's not doing that, so it it will fail.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: The the underlying response uh uh that you made there seems to point to, and I suppose my my question led to it as well, seems to point to this idea that there has been a decline in standards amongst our political class and um and the ability to execute on policy or even to design a policy that is going to work.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I suppose um Matt Goodwin, who we've already mentioned, he's re-popularized the notion that our political class are presiding over a managed decline in Britain and and suggested that it's only going to accelerate under Labour.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: What is the truth, do you think, about Britain's course?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: There seems to be quite a lot of uh black pilled views out there.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: What where do you where do you where do you think we're headed?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think this is the period of managed decline and do you see any way out of it?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it is.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's the that's a very big question.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm um if we go on as I think we're gonna go on with you know gov you know, governance under Labour or the Tory Party, as they have been, they may change, of course, but then there's no doubt at all the country just slides down the tubes.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's uh it's it's really quite appalling if you look at the the the fundamentals, the basics, um the things that the government should be able to do uh that are crumbling.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I I I it Sounds terribly dramatic, but it but it uh you have to say, if you're honest about it, it really does represent, you know, sort of civilizational decline.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: These if you stand back and look at what what what is happening, uh the failure of of the state to do fundamental things is is a is a is a message, it's a warning, actually, uh that things uh you know could could deteriorate rapidly.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: You could use Hemingway's uh analogy with debt, you know, I think it's a very good one.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you're how did you become bankrupt?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, gradually, very gradually, and then all of a sudden.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: So things could could could unwind really badly in the next decade, or even before.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: So just if you run through the things that a competent state should be able to do, maybe start with energy.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a state that's as well endowed as as Britain ought to be able to be self-sufficient in energy, but it isn't, because we've never bothered to um invest to make sure that that happens.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: We started the nuclear industry in the 50s, pioneers, uh, and we've let it degrade, and then we go go begging to foreign states to uh complete the big projects and don't have the will to do it.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's not because he didn't have the expertise to do it.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: The after all, we're forever bragging about how good our world-class universities are.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, it was a lack of ambition.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that's true.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: What's true of nuclear is true of hydrocarbons and all the other things, and and some of the renewables actually, although we're becoming a uh a very large renewable producer.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of those renewables are owned by the uh foreign investors, and a lot of the tech, the good, the interesting stuff, is is is Danish or German controlled or Chinese.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, we the fundamentals of getting a policy together on energy we failed in.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And as a result, we import about half of the UK's trade deficit is comprised uh with energy uh imports.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, whether it's through the interconnectors or or hydrocarbons and gas just brought in.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: So really crazy, you know, 40 billion roughly.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: We spend and that's that's it's not necessary to have that.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a big failure.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the failure to have a housing market which which gives uh citizens a reasonable chance of renting or buying a house at a reasonable price.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: Massive, massive failure.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it puts pressure on household budgets, um, which puts pressure on couples and families, which undoubtedly leads to more family breakup because you pile pressure on a young marriage and often it it it won't withstand that pressure.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, this is not socially useful to have very, very expensive housing.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: I know the banks like it.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and you know it's become a sort of uh a circus really uh in in terms of how we we finance it and and we we we've become addicted to rising rising house prices.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: But the but it's not socially useful, it's not a good policy.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then you look more widely at uh policies like immigration and the border.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: The failure, honestly, uh John, the failure of a of a modern state to protect its borders or even to have a a political class that has the wit or desire to protect its borders, that's a major warning sign.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: That is you you you allow people, you allow tens of thousands of people just to wander into your state.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: You I've said before, and I'm not being overdramatic, you will not be you don't won't be a coherent state for very long if you if you allow that.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we seem governed by people that can't even sniff the air and see the dangers of running a policy like that.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I'm very I'm very concerned about that.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's that's that's just a a an emblem of total misgovernance.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you know, so and then there's a wider problem about the labour market.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: The way that the labour market is a complete there's been a complete shambles for a long time.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, broadly, we our membership of the European community uh we raised a a generation of politicians that ignored uh the need to do any skills training or vocational training, or even to match labour market uh requirements with with the supply of skills.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: So they and that's because you can just ship people in through the EU, and they got used to that.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then so then when they you know you have an addiction problem which you just solve by importing more and more people.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: So now we the state, this country has a uh toward nearly nearly 10 million people, nine, nine and a half million uh adults uh who are not in the labour supply, five and a half million are out of work benefits, another four and a half million just retiring or not not being actively involved.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, we ship in gross, you know, 1.2 million a year, 1.3 million a year sometimes to plug uh labour market gaps.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of that's very low uh skilled labour, which on the data, it it if the media will actually report it, um it's just disastrous financially because the the people we're importing uh are not net contributors to the public finances.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: They they will consume uh um uh resources.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: So the whole thing is it is a disaster, and unless we face up to a few realities, it will just get worse.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I totally agree with the I I I you know I'm not being dramatic.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think if you can look at the figures alone uh and you're honest about it, you'll see the country in quite serious decline, and it will take a lot to get to to reverse it.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the the theme of civilizational decline uh and uh uh it is very hard to get away from when you see the things that are are facing the country, and you find people will proffer different reasons for it, and you you've touched on both.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: So you'll have those who say the high immigration a la crumbling Roman Empire leads to end of the state and uh a total change in the way the state is run, the people who constitute it.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are some who dismiss that and say, well, that's not the whole story.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um so maybe not dismissive, but they would add to it and say it's actually if you look at the Roman Empire, for example, there was a huge level of debt.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: There was there was lots of stuff that was being paid for with money that didn't exist, and in the end, they were unable to govern.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And yet what we have here really is a combination of those things.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: We've got an eye-watering national debt, which is now 100% of GDP, and looks like it's going to uh triple uh by the 2070, according to forecasts recently.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then you've got all of the numbers of people coming in that you've mentioned, and there is data showing that not many of those are actually contributing, and many end up being net takers.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: So then you continue adding to the debt, and that becomes self-defeating.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then this point of not having a coherent state, I think we are already seeing it, insofar as besides having seen identity politics be rolled out initially for ethnic minorities in this idea of raising them up, is what that's done.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see it amongst the the 20-odd-year-olds who are referring to themselves as Anglo Zoomers, that there is now a sense of cultural loss and identity loss amongst people who are um white British, whether that's English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Northern Irish, Welsh, and they are starting to push back.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're trying to reclaim their identity.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I suppose I saw it initially in the corporate world where it was the promotion of multicultural networks, where in the end, lots of people just started hiding behind these networks in order to advance their own interests in the organization.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you could see it bulkanizing.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: You could see the firms balkanizing, and now it's happening on a national scale because obviously that policy of multiculturalism is is rolled out.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got a we've got a pretty it's it's all of these problems coming together that makes it almost impossible for any government unwilling to challenge any of them to um to actually come up with a solution for the country.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else, if you talk about the other policies, seem to fade into insignificance if you're not going to deal with either balkanization, rising debt levels caused by your promotion of that balkanization through bringing more people in, and then you've got a whole bunch of people who are now feeling totally disenfranchised.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know what you've noticed with the profile of people that get brought towards the STP or the Challenger parties.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do you sense that people are driven by the cultural loss angle, or is there other stuff to it?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, it's an important part of uh the picture.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think you paint uh you paint the picture pretty pretty accurately.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: I I think um one of the things that we say uh in in the part in the SDP is that um all you know all of our economic problems, for instance, or environmental problems have cultural roots.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: Virtually everything has cultural roots.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so the one the the things that you mentioned just there, you know, I think a lot of our uh difficulties are caused by a ruling class that has has has fallen if it ever did love the country, it's fallen in love with it, and you know, it has a degree of sort of uh self-hatred.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um the the these these themes um these things have been uh inside progressive politics, liberal politics for generations.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it literally goes all the way back probably to the eight late 1800s.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was certainly present uh in the Bloomsbury Group in the 1930s, although some you know some of that was a reaction against uh and horrific First World War, but the but but everything that Orwell said about the British ruling class in in the late 30s and early forties is true now, just with with greater intensity.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: So um yes, the d your denigration of your history, the bringing up of a generation in shame and uh general, general you know, self-hatred uh is is me is very, very problematic because the downside, the sort of downstream of that self-hatred uh is uh a lack of self-assertion.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And what you see on say immigration or border control is just a lack of self-assertion, it's just uh an elite that cannot possibly assert its interests.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I jokingly say a lot that you know, what would Lee Kuan Yu do?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: To most problems, I would say, you know, what would Li Kwan Quan Yu do, the great Singaporean leader?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Li Kwan Yu would not have had people wandering into the country, it just couldn't happen.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: It w you'd have to stop that, he'd see that you'd have to stop that, and our ruling class can't see it, so they're really quite incompetent.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, I I think all of these things are interlinked.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: But what you're uh so the question for us is as a political party, can we can we somehow, even if it's a last ditch thing, can we somehow claim and convene and reinvigorate a type of civic nationalism which brings all of our citizens together under uh the the umbrella of being British and get some sort of unity, get some sort of can we find a new us, in other words?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Can we can we possibly do that?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we are trying to do.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if we if we can't succeed, and I think the train has to leave about now, you have to get on that train.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't get on that train, if we don't succeed in creating, fostering, bringing, convening a sense of civic nationalism, then you're you're just headed to what John Gray says refers to as a sort of low-intensity civil war among groups, balkanization and division and enmity.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's you know, so that's one of the reasons why I think there's a lot at stake here to try and bring people together.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you you're quite right.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can't the the British cities have changed demographically to such a great extent, you'd have to be literally blockheaded not to see from a white British point of view that the change might be seen as loss.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think David Goodhart talks about this quite a lot in his writing.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, not everyone sees rapid, massive change to your society as as as as progress.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Some people see it as a loss, or you know, something you might you might miss the old the old situation.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um so but we you know the challenge for parties now is to try and bring people together if they can be brought together.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: And there's there's too much division, too much racialization of everything.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you you know, I one of the reasons we've argued for a cessation in mass migration is to try and look for the conditions that might uh enable us to find a new US, to find a way that we can say, you know, what who the people the people living in these islands uh if you're if you're living here legally, you're British.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: So we we you we have to try and find a way of of of pulling people together, but it wouldn't it couldn't be helpful in trying to build, rebuild solidarity or get social cohesion uh to improve it.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: It couldn't be helpful to have to continue on this slightly balmy uh experiment in mass cultural change.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: You just can't it's not helpful at all.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you look at it, if you look open your eyes and look at it, it it does create division uh and tension.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think a period of time we we originally actually started talking about a mass immigration pause uh because partly because because it has precedent.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in the United States from 1920 to 770, there's a mass immigration pause and it worked rather well.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I I've I've I of late I've stopped using the word pause because I think what you just need is a cessation because you don't know a a pause implies that you you know you you've had this mass mass uh immigration experiment and you're turning off the taps for a while and looking at you intend to turn the taps back on.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well I'm saying, well, maybe you don't turn the taps back on at all, and we just get get a route to finding ourselves, and you try and unite, trying to unite the people that are here.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: That would be uh an important political aim in itself.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: But um so we'll see where we go with that, and of course, like like in so many other areas, uh John, we we the public are with us on this.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you look at data, close to 70% of the British public want uh mass immigration stopped.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll see where we go.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's the it's the ruling class that uh are attached to it.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I found myself um saying that the overturn window is shifted, which isn't particularly original, but it seems to have shifted only for everyone outside of the elite class.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: So for example, you talking about the pause.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: I remember hearing you talk about a mass immigration pause on an SDP talks back in 2020.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember at the time thinking, oh wow, I actually can't believe someone said that.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: It actually seems sensible, but I've never really noticed anyone say it publicly before.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: And now actually people are talking about cessation.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if we talk about the overton window shifting here, but also out in Europe, I mean, immigration is the number one concern pretty much everywhere.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you mentioned um people who here legally are uh are British, and that's the end of it.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: But it's quite interesting how that seems to be shifting in other countries.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: So Sweden is uh trialling or or instituting a re-migration policy, even for naturalized uh Swedes, uh, people who they consider not to have integrated very well, and the Swiss are doing it as well.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: They've they've are revoking the citizenship of long-term terrains.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: So anyone who had been here even for a couple of generations and they've taken out more than they've put in, they've they've been sending back to Kosovo recently, for example, and and then in Germany, in response to the AFD making some more headway as they keep on doing, there's been this idea of closing closing the borders or at least bringing in border checks and trying to stop certain kinds of immigration.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I wonder, because Britain, regardless of what people have tried to paint it as post-Brexit as being this kind of basket case, which I don't believe at all, but we've always maintained throughout our history, I'd say, this idea of moderation, you know, even even in the periods where there were non-conformist dissenters and traditionalists all you know sworn against one another, but they would still keep uh a lid on how it is that they spoke, and they would always try and find a synthesis way through instead of moving too radically.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: And whilst I see that Europe seems to be undergoing this sea change in their approach to immigration, including past immigration and what they're trying to do to rebalance the scales.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: I I think, well, I feel like Britain needs that too, but I also can't imagine us doing it.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Almost even if a new elite class was to come and knock the current one off its perch.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um what what do you think about what's going on in Europe?
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: And for example, it's just a thought experiment and not trying to put your your name to it.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do you imagine Britain ever doing something similar to the Swedes and the Swiss?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's interesting.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't I think I think there are very big differences.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think um I don't I mean the the fact that the that the British public didn't turn to uh either communism or fascism or Nazism uh in the in the 30s, 20s or 30s is significant.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think there are also very, very evident differences in how the British uh coped with and handled uh post the post-imperial situation, decolonization, the winds of change, post-war.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very different.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a I'm a very close watcher of Portugal, and I I I I love the country, I I speak Portuguese, and I've read a lot of Portuguese history.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: But if you take if you take I mean France obviously fought bitterly to retain its empires and too, you know, mate, I mean the the famous ones in you know in uh Vietnam uh and they they suffered the first big loss as a European power at Dienbin Phu and then and then um and then in Algeria famously.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: But they fought for it bitterly, and they the Portuguese actually did the same in Angola and Mozambique and fought you know, 15-year uh counterinsurgency war to keep a colony colonies that they really couldn't keep in the end.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: And the British were had a totally different attitude and thought, well, okay, well, yeah, the game's up, let's let's go.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know you had you had Ian Smith and Rhodeshi, but a slightly different situation.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: But even that was a fruitless.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that was slightly, slightly atypical what Smith did there, could because um demographically they were they were done for.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: So um so you know, I think there is something there is something in the in the national character that's distinct uh from continental Europe, and I think I I pr I would predict now, from now, um continental Europe will hurtle towards uh uh some form of j genuinely what you would call far right uh situation.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: It'll just get worse.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think most European states have had and actually have parties that are uh genuinely on the fringe, you know, on the fringes.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and uh and they they they get they get large votes.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it's quite different to here.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really see that happening here.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: And uh genuinely, I think they they I think the most British people I know we've had the civil disturbances after the uh Southport outrages, but uh I I you know I don't I think that was slightly chaotic, spontaneous.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I I don't think uh actually Rod Liddle said that he thought it was more to do with football hooliganism and criminality than or at least as much uh with those two things as it was with politics.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I sort of I do agree with him.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: I sort of flippantly said at the time, I don't think the people uh, you know, uh throwing things in in Hartlepool or Middlesbrough uh had read the Gabriela D'Annuncio.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think they were convinced uh fascists really.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: But um uh they may have had some and say reviews.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: But so I I think we're quite quite probably quite distinct in that respect.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I'm being complacent.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: I just think it's more um it's more a sort of national character.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: We're more likely to have a cup of tea and think, oh water pity, than we are to sort of burn the place down.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: And in a way, that's a good thing.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: But the of course it belies um uh a sort of complacency that could get you into serious trouble when you de when you do need to react to something.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so but in the in the British political landscape, I think I my feeling, my prediction would be it'll be quite different to to continental Europe.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think the really, really interesting thing about uh about Europe is is that um the things that uh Orban was saying twelve years ago, or even the previous uh Polish government was saying about these things, and the European Union establishment was slagging them off.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh now the the the Dutch, the Swedes, the Germans, the French, the Italian they're all saying it.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: They're all saying it.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: So so that's shifted very very, very rapidly.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: And the the big thing will be uh because eventually it will happen.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean the European Union isn't isn't particularly democratic, you know, the the European Parliament is uh is a a theatre bit of theatre really.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: The power is in the Council of Ministers and the Commission.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: But the if the Member States feed people into the Council of Ministers and to the Commission that represent an Orban-esque type of politics, then the European Union itself will overnight become inadverted commas uh warning signs far right.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: That that's probably going to happen.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that's probably likely to happen.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then of course it'll be quite interesting and from a sharded way to point of view it'll be interesting to see what all these uh British Europhiles think of that.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be well could it could be quite comical.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well we've we've ended up talking about immigration William and I suppose we talked a bit about policy.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: You talked about assessation being required on mass immigration and talked about how our national character as as Brits would mean we will likely do things differently to our continental cousins as it were what what kind of deterrents do you think would be acceptable to both the British people and that the SDP would bring in so for example there's lots of talks about with regards to illegal immigration how people would go about stopping the boats.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we've had Labour talk about smashing the gangs which of course um doesn't seem to be working the numbers have have increased um from the already high numbers that the the Tory party presided over um and I would say you can find it quite commonly amongst people to say well just turn them back take them back to France do you know what would work?
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: Would you talk about bringing back a Rwanda plus turning people back to the French shores?
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: What words what what do you think the C SDP would do if you were parachuted into government overnight well it's published on on the SCP website so you can have a look but basically I think we do know what would work and nothing that any other party proposes will work for various reasons.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: What will work on on the so there are separate things I mean there's immigration in general which is immigration policy legal migration there's overstayers and all sorts of other things but the the sort of the visceral problem the the acute problem is is people just wandering into your your state unannounced uninvited unsolicited and that's the channel migrant crisis which occasionally causes tragedy as well where people drown.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: So how do we solve the channel migrant crisis people just rocking up and arriving well you what you don't do is propose things like pushback uh pushing back boats in the channel you can't do that uh a for various reasons one one of the reasons is that the French won't accept uh your interdiction of boats in their waters so when you get to French waters what do you do uh you have to have cooperation you won't get cooperation with France because it's not in France's interest to have these migrants in their state they they prefer they just put them on to Britain they don't they don't want uh these migrants in their in their jurisdiction so you won't that won't happen and also as a point I've made before and I've made to to Richard Tice uh personally that that I don't think such a policy would survive the first large capsize.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you if you've got 80 people on a boat and you pushed it back and capsized and 70 of them drowned, I'm sorry your policy must end there.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's not going to happen.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: You can cannot possibly pursue a policy that would that would risk that or cause that the you're you can't it's an it's it's it's beyond the bounds of what is possible.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: Keir Starmer's thing about just toughening up police involvement in gangs well that's just pie in the sky.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: They do that anyway I mean the he the the the Tories have done that for a long time uh the British authorities both military and police have done it and they've cooperated with the French and Interpol on it for a long time and it's got them nowhere and they can't seem to deal with it.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: So that doesn't call all Keir Starmer's doing there is calling it something different yeah border command or whatever he calls it.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: So that's not going to do it.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: But the SDB policy would do it which is this which is that anyone arriving unsolicited on the South Coast would be picked up uh taken to Bryce Norton and flown to Ascension Island and they'd be detained in uh an offshore uh facility and they would be detained there until they go either back to where they came from or to a third country.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it wouldn't just be Rwanda or Albany it'd be any country.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: And just but one of the the only place they would not be allowed to come to is Britain.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now the point I make about that is is that if you implemented that your interdiction rate would be a hundred percently within the uh capacity of the uh authorities to to to intercept every single boat a hundred a hundred percent of boats coming across illegally would be intercepted and a hundred percent of people arriving unsolicited illegally would be shipped off to ascension so the point I make about that is that uh the flow would stop overnight literally it would be it would collapse overnight the the deal is a really excellent deal at the moment for migrants because what you do is you pay 5,000 euros and for that for that 5,000 euros you get almost probable you know the grant rate is so high in this country 85% on most categories you're almost certain to obtain for that 5,000 euros permanent access to the British social wage forever for you and your family.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because you first and then family reunion it's the rest of your family.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just an incredible bargain.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's like it's as an investment it's a colossal colossal return.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now if you incentivize people to such an extent you shouldn't be surprised that people take you off on the offer and do it.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's what they're doing.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I've always said you need to change the the incentives.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now if the incentive is that you get shipped to Ascension Island and you stay there possibly for years waiting to go back to where you came from or to another place you are not going to part with your 5,000 euros you're just not going to do it.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: No sane person would do that.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that is the policy and I've done interview after interview after interview that is the policy that you would stop this this illegal flow through that's how you do it.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now in order to do it you have to you have to remove yourself from the post war protocols that the country signed up to and legally it's perfectly possible to do that.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: You just disincorporate them.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: We've incorporated this law into British law but uh Parliament is still uh well people are sovereign but parliament can take the action necessary to remove ourselves from those uh those protocols and and so you if you dismantle a legal architecture which prevents you from uh controlling a border it's a prerequisite to do that if you get rid of that then you can do what we suggest and you would instantly get control of the border.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now you then get on to a I mean we discussed earlier about why certain things are the case and demoralization and collapse and self-assertion are the cultural causes of this I'm asked a lot why don't governments do this and and I don't be flippant but basically it's because they don't want to that's the answer they don't want to during the pandemic you saw uh our government do lots of things that were quite dramatic and draconian in emergency and they did them because they wanted to in this case the political class don't want to get a control of the border in this way and that's why it doesn't happen but it it shouldn't we shouldn't kid ourselves that we can't do it we certainly could do it if we wanted to do it and as I say if you had a leader like Lee Grand Yu post-Brexit a lot of this had been done a long time ago.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: We we've spoken about the the the ability to be able to do this and indeed we've saw seen seen Australia do it albeit with with lower numbers but a a much bigger bit of water that was being crossed and they were able to as you say collapse the numbers overnight and so they they have a handful as opposed to tens of thousands of people being uh detained on on an island offshore and we've also spoken a bit about how um you you forecasting that there could be a real shift to the right in Europe and I can't help but think it's because ultimately those who are governing at the moment keep on trying to find more inventive ways of keeping them out and not listening to the concerns of let's call them the populists and it seems and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's saying this that if you actually just listened to the concerns and tried to deal with those and deal with the problem that you might stop people flocking to these parties for a start but the other thing is is the longer you keep something down for the longer you hold that balloon underwater uh it's going to find a way of coming up eventually and the the deeper you hold it the more violent its reaction and I suppose I've been thinking a little bit about a Rudyard Kipling poem where he always seems to have these poems which which can capture the psyche of the the British people and anyway there's this one verse in um uh called the beginnings and he says um let me get it up actually because I don't want to get it wrong um he said uh their voice were their voices were even and low the eyes were level and straight there was neither sign nor show when the English began to hate and the reason why I bring this up is I am a little bit concerned by a couple of things.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: So number two number one we've got this this volcanization going on which we talked about we've now got people feeling a sense of cultural loss.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: On the other side I do find it commendable um that it's being spoken about that Eric Kaufman is talking about how this race taboo seems to govern most of Western society.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: And in many ways you can see why it's there because you don't want there to be ethnic strife ultimately and you would hope that actually by removing it you can make more sensible policy decisions.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm a little bit concerned that through the overt and window shifting which I think it is and if the current elite class just keeps that balloon underwater even longer and doesn't listen to the concerns and keeps juicing mass immigration and keeps the keeps the borders open to illegal illegal immigrants and keeps providing um people jumping the queue for various public services before those who are legally here that the liberal tolerance which was part of and has been part of the British mindset for a few centuries if and when that goes that we could see some you know not just that low low intensity Civil War John Gray taught us about but some seriously nasty stuff on the streets.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you or the political class I suppose that you find yourselves rubbing shoulders with or at least challenging do you think there's a concern about that or does no one think that's a way that it'll go I think that we're gonna have to stop agreeing on things that it's very well thought John Yeah no I think quite complacent I think they uh I think there are some people in the political class that understand it you know probably uh conservatives like Miriam Cates and uh Danny Krueger understand it.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think Morris Glassman understands it on the on the Labour side Paul Embry understands it on the Labor side but I think far too many of the liberals uh and they're all basically liberal progressives uh which dominate that they don't really see it and they sort of would tend to double down and I think uh there's this there's a strong whiff of um of Coonianism you know the the Thomas Kuhn the uh science uh philosopher talked about people's reluctance to give up their cherished beliefs and theories and particularly in the social sphere they the people don't like to accept they're wrong you know so a lot of the liberalism as l as liberalism uh fails in front of us uh it's the liberal paradox very very simply the liberal paradox if you run liberal progressive policies you'll destroy your your society with those policies and that's it you'll end up with a society that isn't liberal that's the paradox I mean it's it's not difficult to understand really if you just pay attention but they do they they some of these people will go to their graves holding on like rather like the communists uh just saying well it hasn't been done right or the problem is the far right or the problem is this or the problem is that and they just don't accept uh that their own policies are the root of the problems so I don't see a I don't see a dawning of uh of a realization among the ruling class necessarily I think actually Brexit was a good example where where post-Brexit it's just been uh they they haven't taken any lesson from Brendan none at all nothing nothing they have and it and if Brexit was a I mean Brexit was a proxy in some respects there were two things in Brexit it was just sovereignty and immigration uh but it was a pro you know because you didn't vote on immigration in Brexit it was a proxy vote for immigration it was it was obviously an important issue what did the Tories do just just double down just just just increase it even more um so that the capacity of the elite to learn and adapt I would say is pretty low.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think you're absolutely spot on about the dangers because it is the metaphor of the whether you quote you know Kipling that's a very famous poem the one you you read out there the the whether it's that or the other metaphor which is the econom which is the one that economists like which is the the the the brick on a on a uh a bit of elastic you pull on the elastic and the brick doesn't move and suddenly it it moves and hits you in the face that's you know that's that's sort of where we are I think that's that's that's the the challenge we face and and and and in a way a pr a a political project like the Social Democratic Party speaking truths and being candid and honest about the data about some of these things and and saying some things that people find a little bit uncomfortable but need saying it's part of the pressure valve it's part of releasing a pressure valve which is necessary in the way that any election should be necessary to correct things but uh you know we the the the ruling class had better start listening and I don't see huge uh evidence that that's that's happening and it is a concern but on the other hand you do need a political project and you know there are a lot of think tanks and a lot of journalists and a lot of very good people saying things that are important.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_01: Eric Kaufman is one of them David Goodhart's another um but you do need a political vehicle in the end you need to have something where people go in a polling booth and actually elect someone and that's why we're sort of continuing doing what we're doing.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well William it's a perfect segue the the opening part of your response to the question I like to ask all of my guests you you talked about how the current elites won't go give up their their cherished beliefs and will go to the grave grasping hold of them.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_00: I like to ask my guests um what you have changed your mind on in the course of your life that you previously saw as set in stone and what was it that made you think differently well there's there's two there's two things really um the the the most important the most important one is the European Union.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: So when I was uh like most other social democrats in the 80s when I was involved uh as a teenager and then in my 20s I was a pretty passionate believer in European unity and the European project in a vertical commerce so I was very very keen on it to the extent that I had a little um you know European Unity uh sticker on my car that's how far it went.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I was very keen very very keen indeed on it.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that but actually my slow to start but my Euroscepticism pretty much traced David Owens you know because people forget actually the Owenite SDP in 1989 at conference ruled out United to Europe so they were already passing ways to some extent with the Liberals who remained quite quite fanatical on it.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: But really the change with I do I am keen on reading against my my opinion I think everyone should do this I think it you should do this I don't think you should read rubbish but you should read good stuff that that disagrees with your position to see if it moves you to and apart from anything else just the point the sort of J.S.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_01: Mill point is that you don't know your own case if you don't know someone else's your opponent's case you've got to know both to know your own case properly so I what happened on this was I I uh Peter Riddle reviewed a Peter Shaw book called Separate Ways uh in the Times about 20 years plus ago and I it was a very good review and it was it was Peter Shaw you know full throttle Eurosceptic, Labour Eurosceptic, Benite Euroscepticism and what why European Union couldn't possibly happen and couldn't possibly work and why I mean nation states was basically the upper upper limit of democracy and you couldn't practice the point Shaw made was that you couldn't practice the social democracy you profess to want to implement if you sign the treaties because the treaties pretend prevent you.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's as simple as that on the left it really is as simple as that so anyway I bought the book and read it uh very impressed with it and read it again and sort of over Damascene uh conversion really sort of overnight became uh a Eurosceptic and I've be I've remained a Eurosceptic ever since because because basically Shaw takes the palm he he's right happens to be right about this and um particularly from a left wing point of view but but he you know just from a nation state point of view he happens to be right so that's the big the big one that I've changed on is that um the other one that's worth mentioning is that I when I was in the Tory party uh I think four years I went through a slightly immature um sort of libertarian phase didn't last very long but I you know read well I I I was inclined to sort of believe that individual liberty was the be all and end all uh and but I sort of grew out of it as I was in my early 30s and realized in the end that um in you know the the iWee balance and the tendency to put yourself first above wider duties and wider communities was actually part part of the problem not won't be the solution so I I sort of uh grew out of that but that's worth a mention as well.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_00: Phases I think lots of people go through I think I've I've also been through both of those um having started off as a staunch Remainer and then having become a reformed Remainer not long after about a a year after when I realised the impact of a second vote would have on civic um relations and um also having just learned a bit about the European Union realized that that wasn't particularly the place that I would uh want to be if I had to go back to first principles.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah the libertarianism point I think when anyone starts getting into political philosophy it starts to um it can be it can be quite beguiling and then you you realise that it can be corrosive if it's the the only the only value that you're placing above all else.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah it's it's the problem with with with libertarianism is that it's a bit like the sort of ultra free trade economics you know it's easy to understand you know so it's easy it's as a political concept political idea it's very easy to grasp uh instantly and then people you know become bewitched by it and just apply it all over the place whether it whether it works or not and I was in debating uh libertarians I was I was um I would say just just just name one state where such a political program has worked and I would say one will do you know because it just doesn't you know it just doesn't work it it's it's impossible um there you go well quite quite right William it's been an absolute pleasure before I let you go what can we expect from you and the SDP in the coming months and years what are you working on?
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well we we it's quite an in it's quite an interesting time for us we've as you say we've gone off this uh general election where we've got a record vote for us since the eighties and 120 candidates the party election broadcast and we continue to win seats on Leeds City Council which makes me very happy I think the challenge for us is to expand the party to expand the participants in it because we've got great people in it and it's all it's all right for me to head it up but I've got to get a a broader a broader picture there.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_01: But it's very exciting because Labour is so weak and becoming so weak.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_01: It had such a bad start.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_01: Remember that the seats we've taken off them in the northern cities has been when they've been in opposition and and standing at 45 in the polls and things.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I expect I hope that it will become uh you know slightly more straightforward to take take seats off them in in in this parliament.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that's really what I'm looking forward to is to build up our our base in the uh in the town halls and city halls.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then towards the next election just having a bigger slate a bigger offer and growing a party and I think if we keep on going we will succeed.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well all power to you good luck with all of that.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there are many who are rooting for you and uh and also for reform to make some serious inroads into into Labour and the the Tories in five years' time.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_00: So keep fighting the good fight and hope to have you on again in the future it's been a pleasure thank you.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you likewise a pleasure chatting John take care to keep up to date with all that I am doing please subscribe to the Thinking Class YouTube channel at Thinking Class and follow me on X at thinking classes.
• 1:07:18
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• 1:07:24
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• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to seeing you there and for joining me on this journey