(Sorry, in plain English)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYRy33Yxq3M&t=721s)
George spoke at the Oxford Union on the 90th anniversary of the famous/infamous King and Country debate.
From the Oxford Union: On 9th February 1933, Oxford Union members voted 275 to 153 in favour of the motion ‘This House will under no circumstances fight for its King and Country’, a result met with outrage from the political establishment. Sir Winston Churchill described the vote as an ‘abject, squalid, shameless, avowel’, citing it as a reason for Adolf Hitler’s later brinkmanship. Ninety years to the day after this motion was first put to the House, would this house still not fight for its sovereign and kingdom?
Recorded on Thursday 9th February 2023
Transkipzioa:
0:06
Mr President right honorable and
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honorable gentleman Gallant officers of
0:13
the military
0:16
there’s an awful lot of fighters in here
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have you noticed they’re all ready to
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fight
0:22
I would have opposed this Motion in
0:24
1933. for the reasons Adam bretted by my
0:28
colleagues and their opening speeches
0:32
in fact I would have been the first in
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the queue of the recruiting office
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had I been alive to fight fascism indeed
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I would have been agitating
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to fight fascism in Spain three years
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before the second World War
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in 1936 both of my grandfathers
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fought fascism
0:55
under Montgomery
0:57
all the way from El Alamein to Monte
1:00
Casino
1:05
Lance Bond foreign
1:09
battery 2 Army Cadet Force I’m a former
1:13
Cadet in the Royal Marines
1:16
a pool endorse it
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I’m not a pacifist
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in fact I’ll go five rounds with Tobias
1:23
Elwood
1:25
after the debate if he’s up for it
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and I’m twice his age
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[Applause]
1:34
[Music]
1:35
but the people on the other side arguing
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against this motion have already damned
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most of the wars that I came here to
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oppose you you even opposed the first
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World War
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and the Afghan War and the Iraq War
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Tobias Elwood tells us he opposed the
1:59
Iraq War
2:00
I missed up
2:03
when I was leading the fight against it
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but I’m delighted
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that nowadays you cannot find anyone
2:11
who will support
2:13
these wars the our politicians gave us
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in this 21st century
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you are quite wrong yes
2:32
no I don’t agree with the intervention
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in either of those those cases a better
2:38
case could have been made for the
2:41
Falklands
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an intervention I did support put that
2:46
in your pipe and smoke it because that
2:49
was a direct attack
2:53
on British people
2:55
British citizens
2:57
and I supported it but the examples you
3:00
give are not good ones I’m sorry I gave
3:03
way to you
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I’m not going to dwell on the king
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it’s just as well he’s got a divine
3:10
right to be king because nobody would
3:13
ever have picked him
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least of all his own family on this day
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in
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1649 on this day the ramp Parliament a
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better Parliament than we have today
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passed the following motion
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the office of a king
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in this land
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is unnecessary
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burdensome and dangerous to the life and
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Liberty
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and public interest of the people of
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this nation
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I wish the parliament would pass that
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motion today
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I’m not going to dwell on the king for
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it would be an absurdity as has been
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acknowledged here
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that because King Charles tells you
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you’ve got to go and fight and die in a
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war you’re going to do it
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utterly absurd so let’s turn to Country
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who is the country what is the country
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who are you going to fight for Rishi
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sunak
4:23
you you are bridged the lack of height
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of my colleague have you seen Rishi
4:31
sunak
4:35
in fact
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[Music]
4:39
if you if you push the landscape on
4:42
sunak’s shoulders you still wouldn’t
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even get a Napoleon these are small men
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are you really going to follow give them
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a blank check yes I’ll fight for you
4:54
Rishi sunak
4:57
you only have to roll the name
5:00
or his predecessor
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what was our name
5:05
Liz truss are you telling me they have
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less trusts said you had to go to war
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and die you do it because she was the
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Prime Minister
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Tony Blair
5:19
Tony Blair yes I knew you were an I knew
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you were an idiot from the sunglasses
5:25
that you are wearing
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Tony Blair anyone
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Tony Blair anyone
5:35
who caused the death of a million people
5:40
and Counting who cascaded fanatic
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islamist extremism around the world you
5:48
call them spores the murder Cult of Isis
5:52
Al-Qaeda
5:54
the head chopping throat Cutters The
5:57
Million Dead Iraqis and you want to do
6:00
all again
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by signing a blank check to Tobias
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Elwood
6:07
he told you did you notice the word that
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he the caveat that he slipped in for you
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there’s no conscription
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yet he said did you notice it
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he was on television less than two weeks
6:23
ago calling for martial law to be
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introduced in this country in which case
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I saw your lips move on Sky News I saw
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your lips move
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on Sky News
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and if we had martial law we wouldn’t be
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having this debate
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and that might not be long before you
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can take off your farha and put on a ten
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one
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and go off the fight and die
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on the question of whether copiansk
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is on one side of a line
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when it’s been in four different
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countries in the last hundred years you
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ready to die for that
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because I’m not
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and I’m not ready for sure
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to give a blank check to politicians
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to command my loyalty
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my loyalty is to God to my religion I
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believe in Saint Thomas aquinas’s
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concept of the just War I’ll fight in a
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just War if somebody attacks us I’ll
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fight them
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getting on in years as I am
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I’ll tell my son to go and fight them
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all of my sons all of my daughters for a
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just cause
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but you’re not fighting for a just cause
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if you sign up to the concept that you
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will fight for king and country
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because that’s an unqualified
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commitment that you are making
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my colleague was mocked for pointing out
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that there are circumstances in which
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what does that Bell mean by the way some
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people are spawn for 20 minutes
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the
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the she pointed out that our
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circumstances in which we would fight
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now I I saved this last bit
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for little Ben Wallace who I was told
8:29
was coming here tonight and frankly he’s
8:32
the only reason I’m here and he didn’t
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show up
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you’re going to fight with what
8:39
with what
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you said I’d attack Tommy Atkins I never
8:45
have
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I attacked the donkeys they exploit the
8:50
lives and limbs
8:52
of the lions that they send into these
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wars you will never hear me attack an
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individual British soldier far from it
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I’m one of the volunteers of Jim
9:06
Davidson’s care after combat looking
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after people that have been abandoned by
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the politicians that Gailey sent them
9:16
into war where is Tommy Atkins he’s on
9:20
the streets with the homeless people
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where is Tommy Atkins
9:25
he’s in the mental health hospital
9:27
damaged and abundant by those that sent
9:30
him into war where is Tommy Atkins he’s
9:34
disproportionately in the prison system
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and not as a Warder where is Tommy
9:40
Atkins
9:41
he’s disproportionately hooked on drugs
9:45
he’s in Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester
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I’ve picked him up myself
9:51
hooked on Fentanyl
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and all these new opioids that’s what
9:57
Tommy Atkins
9:59
ends up doing
10:01
in Tori Britain they send these men off
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to war filled with their fake patriotism
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King and Country straw hats and trumpets
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and when they come back they have no use
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for them they leave them to rot on the
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streets without houses jobs Futures hope
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so don’t come here and wave your flags
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at me don’t come here
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and sound the tinny brass trumpet of
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your patriotism yes we will fight
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for the working people of this country
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yes we will fight for the good things
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about our way of life by the way when
10:47
did you fall out of love with using
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Armed Force to take territory
10:53
we we control 25
10:56
of the entire world’s surface and ruled
11:00
one third of the people of the world
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under our flag all of it taken by armed
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Conquest all of those people held in
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subjugation by the British Empire and
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now they want to parade as if they were
11:16
Boy Scouts the oppose the acquisition of
11:20
other people’s territory by force these
11:23
hypocrites
11:25
Robert Burns my national poet put it
11:29
this way in an ode on the occasion of a
11:33
national Thanksgiving
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ye Hypocrites are these your pranks
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to Murder Men and give God thanks
11:44
halt desist gone a father
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God will now accept your thanks for
11:51
murder I move
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[Applause]
11:57
[Music]
joseba says:
https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/1628114584799219718
George Galloway@georgegalloway
Russia state-affiliated media
Sincere thank you to all well-wishers on this speech. It has gone viral with hundreds of thousands of views in 24 hours
Txioa aipatu
George Galloway@georgegalloway
ots. 21
Russia state-affiliated media
GEORGE GALLOWAY ON HYPOCRITES AT THE OXFORD UNION
George spoke at the Oxford Union on the 90th anniversary of the famous/infamous “King and Country” debate. Recorded on Thursday 9th February 2023.
Watch the full video on YouTube: http://youtu.be/gYRy33Yxq3M