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Jeremy Corbyn on Palestine, the Labour Party, and Global Solidarity for … https://youtu.be/-or8bA6wkSI?si=UijPsMqHokNTHqem
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Jeremy Corbyn on Palestine, the Labour Party, and Global Solidarity for the Verso Podcast
Bideoa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-or8bA6wkSI
This episode of The Verso Podcast was recorded live at our sell-out event at the Union Chapel on July 26th, in partnership with Jacobin magazine’s podcast The Dig.
Eleanor Penny and The Dig’s host Daniel Denvir sat down with writer and academic Laleh Khalili and the freshly re-elected, newly independent MP Jeremy Corbyn to discuss the past, the present, and the future of Internationalism. Their fascinating discussion covered everything from Palestine, Congo and Iran, to the Labour Party, the welfare state, the climate crisis, and the economics of global trade.
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w
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now the next group of panelists need absolutely no introduction with a
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combined listenership of about 300,000 plays per month the us-based Dig podcast
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and the uk-based Verso podcast represent some of the best of progressive media in
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the anglosphere in a world of clickbait and
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sensationalism both podcasts remain committed to incisive indepth critical
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analysis of the big political issues of our time from climate breakdown to
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criminal justice from the rise of the far right to The Rebirth of third worldism dig host an Daniel Denver and
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Verso host Ellena Penney are routinely in conversation with the the most cuttingedge thinkers of our
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time and when it comes to incredible guests tonight is no exception joining
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Daniel and Elena is tonight is Professor Lala KH currently a professor of golf
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studies at the University of exor LaLa’s
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career Lala’s career as an academic public intellectual and writer spans
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many decades her work quite literally strikes at the heart of the modern world
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with books such as SS of war and trade on shipping and capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula and time in the
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shadows in on confinement and counter insurgencies her public writing
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frequently appears in the London Review of Books where she writes about topics such as Logistics and trade
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infrastructure nationalism political and social movements and policing and
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incarceration her upcoming book extractive capitalism Commodities cargo and cronyism will be out next
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spring and finally joining our panel tonight is the MP for Islington North and former labor leader Jeremy Corbin
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Jeremy Corin has been the local MP just up the road since 1983 and he has spent much of that time
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not only advocating for the people of isling to North but for a range of causes and social movements including on
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climate Justice economic Justice anti-war struggles LGBT rights anti-apartheid and Palestine
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just earlier this month Corbin was reelected to represent the constituency for the 11th time this time as an
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independent
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MP so without further Ado I am thrilled to hand over to host Daniel Denver and
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Elena penny
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hello everyone wow thank you so much for being here thank you to our fantastic MC
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Daria for that fantastic introduction I can’t wait to get stuck into some increasingly urgent questions about how
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to meet a global series of crises overlapping crises with progressive
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global Solutions Dan would you like to kick us off yes thank you uh it’s really great to to be here tonight um we talk
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about internationalism a lot on the left and we have a lot of questions on that
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subject that we want to discuss tonight but I want to start off by asking how
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has internationalism shaped the British left particularly given Britain’s long
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sprawling often brutal history of of Empire and and Jeremy let’s start with
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with you because we’ll be repeatedly returning to your experiences advocating an
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internationalist and Anti-Imperialist position as labor party leader and most recently winning as an independent MP
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for Islington North thanks and thank you all for
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coming tonight and this I hope it’s going to be a really good um a good discussion and I’m glad pleased you
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started with the issue of internationalism and the British left I’m sure this is a very well-informed
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audience and you would know of the power of the growth of national
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identity in the 19th century by the British State the um emergence of a sort
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of uh loyalism towards Empire promoted by the growing popular media of the day
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and that encompassed quite a lot of workingclass leaders and leaders of trade unions it wasn’t a given that
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every left movement or Trade union would become an Anti-Imperialist force in the
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19th century in fact quite the opposite and so those that had a genuinely
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internationalist Outlook could trace their sort of political thought right back to those that had opposed the slave
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trade in the 18th and 19th century and those Brave union leaders like cotton workers in Lancashire that had stood up
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um against the slave trades and a great personal hardship to themselves and so
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in the late 19th century this growth of um a genuinely internationalist Force
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which was also growing at the same time in France and in Germany and you had a
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sort of Alliance of various left forces to oppose the coming war between the
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European superpowers they’re brought together through working men’s international they’re brought together
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through ideas and they’re brought together by uh tireless traveling around
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Europe by a number of people harez particularly Kia Hardy and later
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George Lansbury and others that did all of that their whole point was to try and oppose the first world
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war they tried and they were overwhelmed by that sense of um that somehow or
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other from uh the whole country from being anti-war on Sunday 3 days later
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had become virulently pro-war and shouted down those that had led them into an anti-war position Kia Hardy died
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the start the first world war that to me was the point of difference within the
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British labor movement and that continued for a very long time in the 1920s arguments about uh whether or not
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we should be labor movement should be supporting imperialism and Dominion status around the world or should it be
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supporting Colonial Liberation struggles or not um this is a shorthand way of
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leading into the issue of the way internationalism was dealt with much later on by the labor party and the
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trade unions and the way the Cold War had a massive influence on them the um
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Atley government is the most contradictory thing there ever was in British history um very brave and uh
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very Innovative on um economic and social policies within the UK and sense
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of the National Health Service Council housing planning public ownership Town
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and Country planning act all of those things that were so essential to the um
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changing the lives of so many people in postwar Britain but its International policy was
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appalling at the same time as promoting all this social justice at home they
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were conniving with um Colonial forces in Vietnam to shut the vietn up and
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using Japanese prisons of War to shoot Vietnamese people in order to stop them gaining independence until the French
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colonists could come back they did the same in Indonesia they did the same in Malaysia they did the same in in
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attacking um the independence movement in Kenya and so it’s that contradiction
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that’s there so within the labor party and the labor movement there’s always been this huge debate and um we were
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talking earlier just before we came in about the role of fener Brock people like that in the labor movement who
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stood up for a genuine internationalism and those that um basically saw the
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whole thing as a a cold war tool and so I’ve always found it very hard to argue
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for genuinely International positions within the labor party and the labor movement and it’s uh the area that I
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suffered the greatest attack um for being leader of the party wasn’t the economic policies that we were
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advocating they didn’t like them but they could sort of live with them what they couldn’t live with was the idea
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that you would have somebody in government who said from the very s set they’re never going to use nuclear
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weapons and they wanted to um dismantle International military alliances and
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instead always search for peace Justice and examining the causes of war and that
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in a sense what goes on now it still goes on today but what I think is
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encouraging for all the Horrors and they’re vile the horrors that have
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happened now in Gaza and the West Bank and all the loss of life that’s gone on
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there there’s a huge International movement grown up of solidarity probably
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even greater than the movement of solidarity with the Vietnamese people that grew up in the 60s and 70s and I
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think this is going to be one of the defining features of politics going forward and maybe we can discuss this a
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bit further tonight how that internationalist thinking can also become anti-racist thinking can
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also become economic Justice thinking as well so we’re always told we’re powerless
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we’re always told we’re a minority we’re always told we’re extreme no we’re not we’re absolutely at the center of
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wanting a world of Peace wanting a world of justice and not wanting a world run
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by the arms trade and run by the lobbyists that that bring all this about I could go on for ages about this but
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I’ve Got a Feeling our hosts are going to shut me up in about 10 seconds so I’ll stop here and hand over to
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you yeah no we’re absolutely going to dig into um
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all of that way more from the labor party to the strange ritual by which you’re supposed to pledge allegiance to
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the in complete destruction of organized life on the planet otherwise you’re some kind of crazy person um me like would
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you press the nuclear button if not why not Jeremy very very bizarre um England does not exist we can all agree on that
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uh but first um I would love to know more from you L about um what you mean
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by internationalism right the idea of what is genuine internationalism has been uh raised by Jeremy and I would
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love to know more about um how in your view that differs from the kind of multilateral organizations that we might
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be familiar with such as the WTO the UN that stop me if I’m going completely off
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piece here might not have our best interests at heart right capitalists have very effective institutions of
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global coordination what kind of um examples can we be looking at um when
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we’re thinking about what our own kinds of progressive internationalism might look like I mean I I one of the things
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that has always bugged me is the fact that people talk about the international community and what they usually mean is
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the United States and it’s poodles um where actually when you look at the
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world uh the inter the real International Community the vast majority of the billions of people that
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are often under the boots of uh States um that are often the allies of the
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United States and United Kingdom um that vast majority of people have a completely different conception um of
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our relationship to one another across the different borders and I think part of what we need to do is to cultivate
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that sense of belonging that sense of being together that sense of collective obligation to one another particularly
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at this moment where um the with with the climate crisis and with the increasing violence of the states
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against all the Ordinary People certainly in Palestine but we we’re seeing it also in Kenya I think Asad
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mentioned that earlier we’re seeing it in Bangladesh we’re seeing it in a lot of the rest of the world with this
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increasing violence with the climate crisis we really do need to build a solidarity from below that challenges
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that idea of an International Community which is sitting in Washington DC or in
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the United Nations building I mean one of the things that’s interesting about the United Nations is that in the moment
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that it emerged in the aftermath of the second world war as much as the United States and its allies the winners of the
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second world war were trying to make it a forum for the projection of their power there was like a little tiny
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sliver of a moment where the countries of the global South that were fighting for some form of political sovereignity
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and for forms of decolonization tried tried to use it as a kind of a forum or as a Tribune in
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order to make sure that they could in some ways uh play out uh some of their
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aspirations um the new international economic movement for example was one of these um movements that was played out
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through um the United Nations but of course one of the things that we also know is that both Empire and capitalism
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are incredibly Supple they in they’re incredibly good at coopting these
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institutions and the force and violence of the Empire has translated into those
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original anti-colonial folks that stood for something in the moments after the
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second world war um either being as actually I think Asad mentioned this in
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the previous panel being a assassinated being overthrown or being replaced with
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further poodles and I think it is in this kind of a constant back and forth
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this constant struggle that a form of solidarity can emerge rather than from
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the top down form that we’re seeing the other thing that I want to mention is that I think Jeremy’s absolutely right
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that there is always a um tension between uh in all the left in all of the
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global North between a kind of a nationalist left that wants to focus on bread and butter issues within its own
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small somewhat provincial um kind of domain and a more internationalist left
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that sees our Fates as interconnected and that’s always been the case um uh
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both the unions and the left parties and I think what has been really important
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is that resistance from the global South has been often the factor the Catalyst
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that has pushed forward this uh the the the possibility of a left arising and I
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think we cannot underestimate the extent to which Palestinians resilience
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strength and resistance has been necessary in the building of solidarity
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across the globe so I think those that’s a point that I really want to
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draw Jeremy as as you mentioned before when you were labor party leader it was
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not so much over domestic policy issues domestic economic issues although the right hated those they attacked you
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constantly over Ireland over Palestine over senat etiquette
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over over questions that have to do with Empire and and internationalism why why
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is it the case that internationalism and anti-imperialism are such particular red
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lines in in Britain and I would say also in the United States similarly for the left well it’s I think it’s because it’s
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linked to the the power of global Capital which has such a massive
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influence on our lives I mean countries all imagine that they run their own
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economic policies they don’t those economic policies are heavily fashioned
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by the power very very large corporations and I thought it was was very funny the other day when there was
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this big meltdown of the computer systems all over the world it was I was
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I was very surprised the Russians weren’t blamed immediately but I didn’t I I didn’t hear I didn’t hear that
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anywhere um it was a complete breakdown the Health Service everything else grew really seriously and badly
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affected not one of our commentators and any of the media said well actually is it such a good idea to have um every
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aspect of our public life uh run by a completely unaccountable company called
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Microsoft based in the United States shouldn’t we think for a moment about the power of Monopoly capital in this in
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R running and in this case severely damaging our lives and so I think you have to look at things in in those
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context and the internationalism that I think pretty well in this room be
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talking about be one of solidarity with those people that are trying to rid
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themselves of um unaccountable power over their lives such as what happened
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in Bolivia what happened in the 60s or’ 70s rather in in Chile and so on where
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they tried to gain control of their own resources for their own value and came up against Global capital and they came
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across up against the full force of it and that is the serious issue we have to face you also also mentioned this
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attitude about wars arms and defense um I remember once asking Tony Blair a
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question when I’ve asked him lots of questions but um one of them he was blathering on about the special
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relationship and um how important it was to maintain the special relationship and
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how The Americans really valued the special relationship and how this relationship was apparently very special
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and and um this was in a debate about um Iraq at a parliamentary labor party so I
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said well Tony thanks for all that um could you tell us what the benefits of
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this special relationship are so he starts pulling his cuffs which he always did when he either didn’t know what the
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answer was I wanted to tell you an answer that wasn’t perhaps completely true so he’s pulling his cuffs he said
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Jeremy if I told you what the reality of the special relationship was there
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wouldn’t be a special relationship so I thought God is it that easy to end it um and so
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this idea is that essentially that British foreign policy and British
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defense policy has to follow in the track of the United States this came
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post second world war when the labor government for as I said earlier for all
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the the great things it did uh was the main motor force in the establishment of NATO it was more Britain than the USA to
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begin with the USA for sure joined in atley’s argument was he didn’t want the
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US to become isolated and he already decided he was not going to make do any links with the Soviet Union and so NATO
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was duly established the visiting forces Act was passed and a bit later on and we
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ended up then with a NATO essentially running defense policies for every
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member State and now it’s NATO who are demanding that defense spending go up to a minimum of 2.5% of GDP rising to 3% of
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GDP so we are about to have in Britain over the next um six years an increase
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in defense expenditure from 1.9% of GDP to 2.5% of GDP there is no such similar
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increase offered for health for housing for education for environment or anything else we’re completely dominated
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by NATO thinking on how we spend that money and that has a massive effect on every other issue about resources around
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the place when they had the NATO Summit in Washington the word peace didn’t
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appear anywhere in any communic but it was all about pouring money and arms
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into conflicts and so I do think we’ve got to start seriously looking at the issues of military alliances and what
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what they achieve the power that this gives to the arms Industries in Russia
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in China and in India as well as in Germany France Britain United States
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Canada and and so on and with Andrew Feinstein we’ve just produced this book called the Monstrous anger of the guns
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which is designed to analyze um the power of the arms industry in the arms Lobby and we’re going to take it on tour
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to have discussions with people particularly those working in the armaments industry they’re not enemies
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they’re people who need a job but they’re skills that could be used to do so much more than just produce weapons
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of mass destruction so the issue has to be of internationalism for peace and to
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improve people’s living standards and environmental sustainability this is terrifying to um
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this whole industry of military producers and think tanks that dominate
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the way in which foreign policy thinking goes on and some is kind of almost hilarious in their contradictions back
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to Blair he went on a political visit to um India Bangladesh and
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Pakistan and um he filled up the plane with journalists and and business people
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and they they all duly went with him so they arrived in India and whilst Blair
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is going to dinners and stuff with the Indian government the rest of them are busy doing arms deals to sell um Europe
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Fighters and so on and so on to the Indian Defense Forces they then get back
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on the plane and go to Pakistan and they arrive in Pakistan says you need this equipment because the Indians have already bought it you you need you need
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to be getting something even stronger and and so they just ended up with a massive amount of arms deals in exactly
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the same way that been done in so many other places if we’re serious about peace we’ve got to be serious about
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challenging the power of these forces that dominate so much of our um of our
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thinking and it’s devastating all the people have been killed in all the Wars all over the
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world I mean I [Applause]
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think I think one of the other things about this is uh that’s really important is um I have a brilliant PhD student I
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think some of his friends are here his name is Charlie and Charlie’s researching at the moment
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internationalist um organization around the question of Palestine right now and one of the things that he’s finding it’s
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um fascinating is the extent to which while it’s easy to reach out to
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different unions to for example find some factions within the unions to issue
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internationalist um statements or to actually organize around these issues a
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a large number of um unionists who work for example in the arms industry are
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extremely resistant to this and they see the arms industry as their bread and butter we’re also seeing an a similar
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kind of attachment to the oil industry in Scotland where for example people are
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resisting the move for example to other forms of sustainable energy and they’re seeing in the really well-paying jobs uh
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in the oil industry um uh something worthwhile to fight for and so I think
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that that kind of a um doggy dog kind of
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ethos that capitalism encourages also discourages forms of international ISM
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in those businesses that are incredibly profit producing but also produce
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well-paying jobs and so some of what we have to also address is how are we going to be able to turn people that work in
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these industries how are we going to find ways to for people to have good wages in industries that are not
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predicated on the deaths and destruction of millions of millions billions of
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people around the world and I think that that is one of the questions that we really have to think about and I’m hoping Charlie and people of his
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generation people of your you guys Generation Um will have some I’m not that young no
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you’re don’t you worry we’ll have some form of um response to can we also look
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at the role of um media media imagery and media reporting that goes with this
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now if I asked you the audience now I’m not going to do it but if I did ask you saying Name six
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Wars that are going on on around the world you’d all get Ukraine you’d all get Gaza West
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Bank how many would say Sudan it’s the worst party game in the world yes how
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many would how many would how many would say Congo how many would say Yemen how many would say West papia and so and so
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on and so the whole thing is formed by the way in which uh the the media
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chooses to narrate it and what is seen as the most serious actually the massive loss of life going on in Sudan at the
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moment massive loss of life in in the Congo hardly any mention of it in any
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media anywhere I Would by British and US Ally Ally the the UAE yes right exactly
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I would love to kind of um dig in more on the specifics of the question of Palestine from both of you from
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basically taking account of what we can learn from the horrors that we’re we’re seeing at the moment in Israel’s
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genocidal campaign in Gaza of course not just over the last nearly 12 months but
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of course over the last 75 plus years and uh what can we learn from this situation and the global resistance to
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it to it in terms of what solidarity demands of us I’m particularly interested in this as a kind of
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infrastructural question right we’ve talked about how this situation is Flushing out the Deep hand in glove
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snake eing its own tail imbrication of State Corporations the arms trade and um
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this seems to be a key question in in terms of deciding where to build the proverbial or literal barricades right
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it’s a strategic question uh can we go to L first on this maybe um one of the things that’s uh really quite
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significant about Israel is that it is the Strategic Outpost of the United States out there Alexander hag and I
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quote this um at nauseum so I’m sorry if among the friends you’ve heard me say this before but Alexander heg who was
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the um I think uh Secretary of State under Reagan um actually
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called Israel the biggest most Unsinkable
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stationary aircraft carrier the US can have in the world and I think that that
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element um that that Israel is seen as a strategic Outpost and as a strategic
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asset is something that has to be addressed has to be challenged has to be
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in some ways fought against and I think what Palestinians have shown over the course of as you said 70 plus but
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actually even further than that is that they have chosen a range of different ways of resisting they have used forms
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of mass mobilization Mass strikes they have used General strikes they have used
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armed struggle they have used forms of um activism for example in the in Mass
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mobilization um uh popular committees kind of Grassroots levels and they have
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been challenged at every stage by some of the biggest most powerful most
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heavily armed uh military organizations um in the world and they
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have managed still through that to maintain their dignity their demand for
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their uh self um uh self for autonomous rule for freedom and for Liberation and
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I think that that’s the first place we have to look at is what the Palestinians have done and what they demand of us so
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I would love to be able to sit here and issue edicts and I’m a bit of a pontificator so I could pontificate for
30:35
as long as you need me to but I actually think that we should I’m not Palestinian myself I think we should listen to
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Palestinians and we should listen to Palestinians in Gaza we should listen to Palestinians in the West Bank in East
30:46
Jerusalem and the Palestinians inside as well inside Israel because they are also second class citizens in an apartheid
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state that stretches from The River To The Sea and so I think the first first task is to listen to Palestinians I
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think that’s probably the the single most important thing that we can talk about the second thing I think is for us
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to find ways of building coalitions across divides I think one of the things
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that has been really exciting about watching your campaigns and across the years as both the labor of uh the leader
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of the labor party but also in in your most recent election win is the is the kind of broad Coalition of folks that
31:30
that have that organized that were excited by the possibility of the changes you were suggesting and I think
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that that kind of Coalition building between the left unionist between
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anarchists between um good old uh gusc kind of marxists and I’m sure there are
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loads of you guys here so I do apologize um ouch student movements which are
31:54
enormously important I think there needs to be coalition building across these divides and we need to find the language
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to talk about this in order for the internationalist movement to take root here that we should listen to Palestinians
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first I would love to throw this to you Jeremy and particularly um I’d love for you to talk more about the uh situations
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that you raised uh in Congo and Sudan for instance this doesn’t seem like a coincidence that these what are can be
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essentially seen as resource Wars are coming to a head and um being kind of aggravated at the same time and I’d love
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to us to start kind of talking and thinking interc connectedly there while still you know keeping our eyes on
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Palestine yeah uh first of all just on Palestine absolutely agree with what you
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said it’s a question of solidarity with the people of Palestine and yes those in Gaza and the West Bank and living in
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Israel but also please don’t forget the um now forth generation of Palestinian
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refugees living in Jordan and Syria Lebanon and so on they have rights as
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well and they should be recognized too often they get completely forgotten in all of this um
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the point you raised about the Congo uh and what’s going on there if you think back to the
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whole history of the brutality of the Congo the way in which the European colonialist led by
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Leopold colonized ized a huge area of Africa in order to extract at that time rubber from it and also leupold’s
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various obsessions about um people artifacts and so on and it was the most
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brutal regime conceivable indeed it was some that was exposed by Roger casement
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who was later executed um for his part in the in the Easter rising and then
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when um it the Congo finally achieved its independence in 1961 the uh leader of the new country
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Patrice Lumber was ex was assassinated after less than a year in office and he
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was one who spoke up for African Unity spoke up for all the principles of
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African freedom and liberation of the people of the Congo and from his murder
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was occasioned by the copper companies and others that were frightened of their
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resources being taken over and also by the US not wanting what they saw as
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going to be a Soviet Ally in Africa and so the Congo then descended into decades
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and Decades of one authoritarian Government after another after another after another and um Congo even now has
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incredible levels of mineral resources very few roads hardly any
34:48
Railways very poor internal Communications and very well financed
34:53
and very well organized militias effectively working for various mining companies and so the coltown and the
35:02
Cobalt which is necessary for the manufacturer mobile phones and other
35:07
minerals as well comes out of the Congo theoretically some of it comes from
35:13
Rwanda in reality it doesn’t it comes from child labor in The Congos exported
35:18
via Rwanda then bought by glenor and all these wonderfully clean mining companies that put it on to the World Market and
35:25
the death rate is running into the hundreds of thousands over the past 20
35:31
years in these militia Wars to try and control the supply of
35:36
those resources and the and the poverty goes on and to go to I’ve been to G
35:42
which is on the co on the um eastern border of um of the Congo it’s a city
35:49
with tens of thousands of refugees no madeup roads whatsoever yet the most
35:55
amazing plush off office blocks owned by mining companies and one or two
36:01
incredibly expensive hotels but without a paved Road between it and anywhere else I it’s kind of just beyond beyond
36:09
bizarre and thousands of people mainly women and children living in refugee
36:15
camps waiting for a um a truck to arrive with food to keep them going and this
36:23
we’re all complicit in in the sense all countries that are supplying the arms and buying that culton so that’s a
36:30
resources war and we need to sort of understand that is the um the underbelly
36:38
the underside of what um Global thirst for minerals does um to the poorest and
36:46
most vulnerable people it’s not the only War that’s going on it’s weapons that are going in into to do it so it is
36:51
about solidarity we can start to mount with people going through those circumstances that we really have to
36:58
think
37:05
about Jeremy a few minutes back you said something along the lines of the
37:13
Palestine solidarity movement the Palestinian struggle being really the defining or a really defining issue of
37:21
our time what sort of possibilities for politics in general in Britain and
37:27
globally do you see the Palestinian struggle and this explosive solidarity movement that’s emerged around it what
37:35
sort of possibilities do you see that that opening in general you want both of
37:40
you take can take it if you want you go um I mean I think uh I’m I’m borrowing
37:48
this from someone else who said this but uh when people go when we all go on
37:54
protests and uh one of the things that one of the one of the slogans is that in
37:59
our thousands in our Millions we’re all Palestinians um I think part of uh what
38:05
Palestine is at that moment um I think Assad also mentioned this it’s our past
38:10
our present and our future it’s it’s what we what is being done against Palestinians is what will be done
38:16
against us when there are climate Wars when there are uh protests for democracy
38:22
and I think um the the nucleus of forms of organization that is emerging around
38:28
Palestine I one of the things that has been really exciting for me is I have lived in the US I’ve lived here um I’ve
38:35
lived in Iran and I’ve never seen a movement that is as Rich
38:42
multi-layered um able to take account of the different kinds of constituencies
38:48
that are coming into the movement and I think that that element of Palestine solidarity that I’m seeing at this
38:55
moment um is is something that is extraordinary and I think that if we can
39:01
build forms of organization around it that allows for us to to to continue to
39:07
solidify those forms of mobilization to perhaps have a place to keep the
39:12
memories of the tactics and the strategies that are emerging out of it to pass on our knowledge gained through
39:20
this moment I think that is going to be the task that we’re we’re looking at and
39:26
I think that that is going to be important not only in trying to challenge Israeli depredations genocide
39:33
settler colonialism apartheid uh in Palestine um and and further in the
39:38
region but to address all the other depredations that are being foed on on
39:44
on on all of us because I think these tactics these strategies these forms of organizing these ways of reaching
39:50
Coalition building um are enormously important we’ve only got each other they’ve got the guns we’ve got each
39:56
other and we have have to find a way to organize together and I think that Palestine provides that template or at
40:02
least solidarity organization and Palestinian resistance at this moment provide that template right right
40:12
yeah I I’d like to see a correlation on
40:17
a timeline between October when the uh uh initial um
40:26
incident took place and the hostages were taken and the people were killed the protests that grew up as the bombing
40:33
of Gaza intensified and intensified from what was it November onwards the
40:38
protests that happened around the world the refusal of most governments around the world to engage whatsoever with
40:46
those levels of protest and then gradually we got the um ICC we got the
40:54
icj we got a number of governments and we we got all the pressure at the UN and we got the demands for ceasefire and so
41:01
on and so on and it’s had an effect it’s changed the mood it’s changed the
41:07
atmosphere and it brought about the legal decisions that we’ve got and I
41:12
realized how successful all the protests are when in a question two days ago in
41:18
Parliament Kia starma answered we’re doing practical things not like people
41:24
who stand on the streets shouting and demanding things well he’s only doing something because people stood on the
41:30
streets and demanded
41:39
things and so the global the global movement uh has grown up yes enormous in
41:48
this country much of Europe but particularly I think impressive is the number of student protests that have
41:54
taken place in the USA and the brutality with which they were treated by both
42:00
University authorities police and so on actually far worse than anything that
42:06
was done against anti-vietnam war protest is far worse in the sort of overall attack on them it just even the
42:13
very right of protest has been challenged so I do think this sort of global movement in solidarity is
42:19
something that’s very very encouraging but don’t run away with the idea that the left and the labor movement in
42:26
Britain have always has been completely in solidarity with the Palestinians
42:31
1936 the British labor movement showed amazing solidarity for Spain for the victims of
42:38
the fascist Takeover in Spain the support was amazing and intense it’s where my parents’
42:45
generation comes from the same time 1936 Palestinian Trade union Uprising
42:51
and Uprising not one word of solidarity or action of solidarity was taken at at
42:57
all anywhere in in Britain that I’ve ever read about anywhere unless there something I didn’t I didn’t know about
43:02
and so it’s been a long time coming and I remember if you read some of the stuff
43:08
that was said in the 1940s over the uh uh the time of the
43:13
nebar the racist language that was used to describe Palestinians and how they had to get out of the way and Make Way
43:20
for settlers because they weren’t capable of farming the land and stuff like this just total levels of racism
43:27
applied towards them and uh I think we have to um just remember that this time
43:32
there’s now a generation a global generation that has woken up to the um
43:39
plight of the Palestinian people and watching in real time this um genocidal acts going on in Gaza and also let’s be
43:47
clear about it there are people very brave people in Israel that have also spoken up in solidarity with the
43:53
Palestinian people don’t forget them as well because they’re going through hell at the same time my friend OA casim
43:59
who’s a member of the knesset has threatened with just about everything just for speaking up for Palestinians so
44:05
it’s not about religion it’s not about nationality it’s about Humanity that we’re talking about in order to support
44:11
the Palestinian
44:18
people um I’m I’m glad you brought up the Absurd Kier starmer thing because
44:24
the I was on that day reading something and and um and then I saw the news item about starmer saying that the grown-ups
44:31
are sitting in the parliament when everybody else is protesting on the street corners and it reminded me I’m
44:36
sorry I’m a I’m a professor so I’m going to read you guys something um but but I
44:42
promise it’s worth it um it’s uh Frederick Douglas the former um the
44:47
former enslaved africanamerican who uh and a major abolitionist who said power concedes
44:55
nothing without a demand it never did and it never will find out just what any
45:01
people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of
45:06
Injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them power will not concede
45:13
anything without a demand and we need to keep making those demands
45:28
talking of power conceding nothing um strap in everyone we’re going to talk about the labor party again um it’s
45:34
historically as we’ve mentioned um been a primary institution of colonial governance across the world including
45:40
when it would when it’s been doing things that we like and agree with and support like building the NHS thank you
45:45
very much that’s lovely um across the world um so I’m wondering particularly
45:50
in light of your experiences over the last few years shall we say Jeremy um how you um uh think about that time of
45:57
being in against the state that’s the framework we use how to um uh how you’re
46:03
thinking about the possibilities and limits of the framework of using the levers of kind of historically hostile
46:09
institutions like the nation state and also like labor movements that articulate themselves on the level of
46:15
the nation state when we are kind of trying to push for Progressive internationalist demands like how do we
46:22
work through that problem that’s a short question
46:28
um it’s a I often get this question put to me
46:33
saying well um is the road to socialism through Parliament and elections or is
46:40
the road to socialism through um Revolution and Uprising or is there some
46:46
other way I mean I I wouldn’t want to use the words third way because I bet confused with Peter madelon then but um
46:52
the it’s it’s not really a binary Choice it’s not really an either or
46:57
thing if you fight and contest an election on the basis of a a demand
47:05
Frederick Douglas Point and uh you gain a mandate from that that means you’ve
47:10
got to try and carry that through and try and make sure those demands are actually met are they going to be met by
47:18
um a simple vote in Parliament no are they going to be met by government
47:23
saying well fair enough that’s it we’ll we’ll we’ll give you everything you want no it’s a it’s always a combination of
47:29
lots of things it’s a combination of um those that have been put into a position to speak out and those that want to be
47:35
in a position to speak out by protests by marches and by demonstrations I mean
47:40
there’s those wonderful Walter crane cartoons saying the cause of Labor is the hope of the world because it’s the
47:46
what he meant by that was the cause of Labor is the unity of workingclass organizations principally trade unions
47:53
in order to make a collective demand that can indeed demand and force and get
48:00
things uh get things from from the state what we now have in in the world are two
48:08
actually broadly similar forces that have grown up but there’s a danger where the far right are and this I’ll just
48:14
very briefly make this point that the global crisis of 2008 910 the financial
48:21
crisis essentially brought about by uh greed and so on in the US sub mortgage
48:27
market and elsewhere brought in that whole period of the most massive austerity all around the world and the
48:34
fight back against austerity and the fight back for improving living standards and getting wage demands which
48:40
continues now because the workingclass living standards in Britain have still
48:45
not caught up with 2010 so all the strikes of the past two years are actually a product of that financial
48:52
crisis as much as anything else and with it now the This Global movement Global
48:58
movement in support of the Palestinian people means there’s been a growth of an
49:03
international aspect to what we do and so if the governments that are now faced
49:11
with the issue of falling living standards growing inequality and growing
49:16
poverty in our society look around you in this country look at the number of rough sleepers the number of home number
49:23
of food banks the number of homeless people the obvious shortages within the Health
49:29
Service and everything else and say well if that’s not resolved by putting
49:35
more resources into those then there Tommy Robinson and all the rest of them out there who ready to say the whole
49:41
fault of everything to do with the NHS with housing with education with transport anything you care to name is
49:47
all the fault of the boat people that have come from Cal and in by some mad process some people will give that a
49:54
hearing the rise of the far right is waiting and ready there unless we can
50:00
deliver an improvement and a community cohesion in what we do and in our own
50:07
small way here in this burrow we had the election campaign in north isington and
50:12
um when we finished the campaign with the big rally on hybrid Fields I just said look around you look at the person
50:18
standing next to you look at the person standing behind you look at everybody what are you you’re Men You’re women
50:24
you’re black you’re white the different different nationalities you’re all kinds of things you probably have quite a wide
50:30
variety of views but once it unites you is you believe there should be a fair of society you believe nobody should go
50:36
hungry you believe every child is valuable you believe that everybody should have access to health education
50:42
and housing and you’re totally United in doing that and you’re not ever going to go and start blaming people because they
50:49
happen to come from Bangladesh Afghanistan or anywhere else and that’s why the labor movement in its Widder
50:57
sense has got to be more demanding more persistent and more aggressive in its
51:03
demands on the new government now than it’s ever been before in order to meet those demands of people to live in a
51:10
decent fair and just Society because if we and others across Europe fail in
51:16
these demands the forces of fascism are rising all over Europe they have to be
51:21
opposed that means we oppose them by our unity and our opposition to racism in
51:26
any form
51:33
can I can I quote another africanamerican uh Malcolm X if you’re
51:40
not careful the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are
51:45
doing the oppressing the people who are oppressing us are not the people coming over in the dingies from Cal they’re the
51:52
people that are uh that are doing everything they can to ensure that the
51:57
hedge funds and the um private Equity firms uh and and the people down in the
52:04
city continue to flourish and I think that that’s what we really really need to focus on educating people
52:12
about yeah Val yeah I think we could um extend a uh now internet famous slogan
52:21
of my enemy doesn’t arrive by boat he arrives by limousine until he arrives by private jet
52:27
umly or helicopter many options um Lala we’ve uh we’ve talked a
52:34
lot about internationalism mostly in terms of anti-imperialism in this discussion but in the first program with
52:41
Macos uh there was a lot of really incisive analysis of the capitalist
52:47
World system and the place of of of Britain within it and the British labor
52:52
and and the struggles of of people in the global North and how those connect to be in the global South you are an an
53:00
expert on the the infrastructure of global capitalism today uh neoliberal
53:05
global capitalism maybe it’s a different type of global capitalism maybe we don’t know quite what it’s becoming yet but
53:11
what what do we need to understand about the architecture both inherited and
53:18
emerging of the global capitalist World system today and how we need
53:27
to analyze that system in order to fight it to produce to achieve global economic
53:33
Justice for a global working class um really easy
53:40
question um I mean I think one of the most important uh elements of that
53:46
question is that everything that we try to do in order to um transform the world
53:53
around us whatever it is that um governments decide whatever agendas the
53:59
governments decide to produce whatever the social movements do whatever um
54:04
political parties do I think the S simple the simplest most fundamental question is who
54:11
benefits who benefits and to whose detriment does this policy um work
54:17
because I think if we begin to break everything down about who it is that’s
54:22
benefiting from this um architecture as you say of Global Capital it becomes
54:28
clear that the for example the massive movement of capital from the global
54:33
South to the global North doesn’t necessarily enrich the people sitting in this room although of course it benefits
54:40
them marginally by for example funding um I don’t know some of the public services that they have it benefits the
54:47
very rich people who live in Mayfair and in uh Estates in the shes um I think
54:54
it’s really important to ask who who benefits um and that question of who benefits isn’t just a question of
55:01
movement from the global South to the global North only last week there was a wedding in um Delhi or Mumbai of the
55:09
Amani family child which cost $600
55:16
million a wedding over the course of one week was nearly a billion dollars in a
55:22
country in which people don’t make $300 a year the vast majority of the population
55:28
doesn’t make $300 a year I think we have to ask that question of who benefits
55:34
everywhere that we are because I think despite the fact that all of us make a lot more than $300 a year we have
55:41
probably more in terms of our futures and in the kinds of solidarities and
55:46
relations we will build we have more in common with the ordinary Indian person
55:52
than with the Amani spending God knows what on caviar and Rolex watches and massive diamonds and rubies for their
55:58
guests so I think that that recognition of inequality and the way it’s
56:05
constantly reproduced at National level and internationally is fundamental to
56:10
that architecture of
56:20
capital let’s talk a little bit more about how that’s changing as well because we are arguably at least seeing
56:26
the um the fall of at least unquestioned us hegemony on the world stage as an
56:33
economic power and also as um a power with the reign of global infrastructure
56:38
of extraction for instance we can look to China’s belt and road infrastructural project and the impact that that has had
56:44
on what we might sort of very broadly bagly and maybe inaccurately call the global South right um and so how is that
56:52
changing what the shape of internationalism and uh resistance to Capital uh and what that needs to look
56:58
like in uh in the near future I think that’s a really important question and I think part of the reason that it’s
57:04
important is because while things are changing there are some things that are still constant so yes the US hegemony
57:10
has been shattered and I actually think in no part because of Palestinian resistance but but I think that there is
57:15
a lot of other stuff that’s going on as you said with Congo but also with this with the popular movements um and
57:21
struggles that um uh Thea mentioned in the earlier panel um and other forms of
57:26
organization the US heemy is on Decline and yet the United States still spends
57:33
more on its military than the next nine countries put together so they are
57:39
maintaining their the the Empire uh through coercion the US still has the
57:44
highest number of billionaires in the world it still has the largest economy in the world and I think that China’s
57:51
rise uh which is being turned into a kind of a bogeyman by by the United States and those in power there um could
57:58
potentially affect us hemony but not in the short term I mean I think that this
58:04
is a change that is coming so what does this translate to um in in terms of global solidarities I think what this
58:11
translates to is also something that either James or asset mentioned in the previous um uh panel which is that the
58:18
people that are working in the factories in the shenzen um offshore um are
58:24
probably having a lot more in common with people who are Factory working in factories in the Nearshore so uh people
58:31
working in the peripheries um of Europe or working for example in what used to be the free trade zone the NAFTA Zone um
58:37
in the Borderlands in the United States and elsewhere and so I think it is this this kind of a convergence between the
58:45
interests and the livelihoods of people in different parts of the world also requires from us to have different and
58:52
new tactics of organizing which allows for um organizing unions for example or
58:58
or political action or labor action or community actions across the globe to
59:04
that I also think that it’s really important to mention a number of different kinds of movements that have
59:10
emerged and again because I work on Palestine in the Middle East this is the example that that comes to mind immediately which is for example
59:17
organization mobilization in ports um in in a lot of the in a lot of the world
59:23
for example on the west coast of California you have to stop the boat movement which brought together unions
59:29
and the unions even even the good Lefty um unions there were actually pushed to
59:35
the left by Community organizations and what was amazing there was the community organizations were both Palestinians and
59:42
the black lives matter movement where we were trying to resist the importation for example of armament um by Israeli
59:49
ships um we’ve had organizing by uh Port workers in Genoa um and in Barcelona and
59:57
in South Africa um against the movement of armament in this instance to Israel
1:00:03
but also in previous Mo moments to Saudi Arabia and I think that there is again this is really exciting and this is
1:00:10
something that we really need to find a way to replicate across different kinds
1:00:16
of settings finding forms of solidarity that also tap into the anger that
1:00:23
ordinary workers have against their bosses turning that anger into an internationalist form of organization
1:00:30
that works not only on behalf of us but on behalf of our Brethren our sisters our comrades halfway across the
1:00:37
[Applause]
1:00:44
world I think it’s great I’d just like to sort of throw in the extra thought
1:00:50
the the US economy seems to have um serious very serious serious structural
1:00:57
problems with it in apparently the easy vote in Congress every year is the
1:01:03
annual increase in in the US federal debt so you put it up by a couple of trillion each year and you just carry on
1:01:10
and on and on and um then carry on with the pork barel politics of handing out
1:01:15
stuff to favored people in different states and so the debt levels of the USA
1:01:21
are astronomical by any standards anywhere in the world the the same US
1:01:27
government and the same US representatives on both the World Bank and the international monetary fund
1:01:32
would put any African country any Latin American country under the most appalling kinds of special measures if
1:01:38
they’ go anywhere near the debt levels that the United States has the whole thing is unsustainable in that sense and
1:01:47
where the problem arises from the US is that the dollarization of trade around
1:01:53
the world which is now developing quite fast has a huge impact and generally
1:01:58
speaking will reduce the attraction and the value of the dollar the bricks countries which are considerable and
1:02:06
Powerful I do question the human rights records of quite a lot of the bricks countries but just look at the E the
1:02:13
economic power of the brics countries Now setting up their own currency or currency and trading Arrangement this
1:02:20
means there’s increasingly a fundamental change in the world’s power structures
1:02:27
towards China away from the United States the Chinese influence around the
1:02:33
world is largely an economic one increasingly diplomatic and political
1:02:39
they managed to patch together some kind of deal between all the Palestinian factions whether it’ll hold or not I
1:02:46
don’t know but they made an effort to do so they managed to get the um Ukrainian
1:02:51
foreign minister to go to China to discuss the possibilities of some kind of ceasefire peace deal or whatever it’s
1:02:59
going to be and they’ve done all this without having bases all over the world the US has 800 bases at least all around
1:03:07
the world and spends more money than almost the rest of the world put together on arms and arms and defense so
1:03:13
I think what we’re seeing is a process of fundamental change um in in
1:03:21
world world political structures and I think we should push it along as fast as we can by always making the demands for
1:03:30
peace in order that we can pursue an equality strategy which deals with the
1:03:35
issues facing the world the climate issues the environmental issues and the social inequality issues that exist
1:03:42
around the world surely that is what unites the left around the world it’s not anything else that unites the left
1:03:50
better than a call for peace and a call for social justice and equality and that
1:03:55
means much better practical relationships around the world if I could just may say so just by way of information on the um
1:04:03
14th of September peace and Justice project holding our second International Conference one day conference at Queen
1:04:09
Mary College please come along you can register online for it it would also be a hybrid conference where we’re
1:04:15
practically talking about attacks on Trade union rights in India in some
1:04:22
parts of Latin America and in the USA and the growth of the glob Global Peace movement it’s our way working with
1:04:28
Progressive International and others of bringing voices together all around the world not on an over ideological basis
1:04:36
uh but on a basis of saying well actually we’re here together to try and get union membership in Amazon we’re
1:04:42
here to try and get union membership in Starbucks we’re here to support coffee producers around the world who have been
1:04:49
grotesquely exploited by um coffee importers around the world and and and
1:04:54
things like that and that’s a great way of building up a sense of real International solidarity that really is
1:05:00
practical work and practical Way
1:05:07
Forward should we uplift some voices right here right now with some audience questions perhaps Oh I thought we were
1:05:14
going to ask another question or two first Well we I’m just uh we just sadly
1:05:19
we’ve got to go to the pub in about 20 minutes and um that’s a that’s an appointment which I am Duty bound to
1:05:25
keep um as well as I think local legislation bound to keep um would uh
1:05:30
you like to um kick us off uh you can go first I need to open the door so um let’s uh kick off we um you
1:05:39
may have seen arriving in your inboxes in the last couple of weeks a form to submit questions to our lovely panelists
1:05:45
here we have some for you um let’s choose let’s see okay um this is one
1:05:52
from I have from Elio they would like to know um what kinds of international
1:05:57
political interventions or relationships uh you guys think are possible or
1:06:02
necessary when it comes to dealing with the environmental impact of global trade
1:06:08
right this question of uh the environment and of course the urgency of that of that Horizon um maybe does shape
1:06:16
uh the the kinds of answers that we can reasonably give right of course we need to build a global movement of solidarity
1:06:22
but we need to build it about I don’t know yesterday or 20 years ago right so what do we do demand and question the
1:06:29
way in which trade treaties are drawn up um demand proper environmental standards at
1:06:37
each end of the supply chain because a whole lot of people in Europe have managed to achieve actually quite tough
1:06:43
environmental regulations on manufacturing processes and a whole lot of other things but in reality by
1:06:50
deregulation in developing countries we’re actually exporting pollution exporting
1:06:56
environmental destruction and issues like that likewise a trade deal in
1:07:02
manufacturing Goods with um Japan with Australia and so on what does that mean
1:07:09
other than ships going 12,000 miles carrying Cars one way and fridges the
1:07:16
other and so on the pollution levels created by global Shipping are absolutely enormous and the built-in
1:07:24
obsolescence that goes with it and all that means you’re on an endless accelerator of Greater consumption and
1:07:30
greater pollution so it comes back to some very fundamental questions very fundamental socialist and Marxist
1:07:36
questions about do you produce for profit or do you produce for need do you
1:07:42
manage to organize Society where you share wealth out basic income all those
1:07:47
kind of arguments come to the four in order that you produce for long-term use
1:07:54
rather than short-term profit and short-term gain that’s where the environmental issues come into it and so
1:08:01
the environmental solidarity is important and um those people that are
1:08:08
suffering the consequences of the appetite of global oil companies for
1:08:13
dragging oil out of the ground irrespective of the consequences such as the huge Damage Done in the Amazon
1:08:20
forest in Ecuador and other parts by um by in that case Chevron the damage that
1:08:27
was done in by shell in Nigeria and is still done and so on around the world we
1:08:33
need to be in solidarity with those people who are the victims of that environmental destruction just as much
1:08:39
as those that are victims of the new the the new fad of lithium mining all around
1:08:44
the world so let’s just remember solidarity with those people that are trying to protect their own environment
1:08:50
I mentioned earlier the war in West papia a lot of that is about the O uh about the the mining companies
1:08:57
destroying the livelihood of people there they’re rebelling against it so the Indonesian Army are going in to try
1:09:02
and shut them up I think as a professor I would say we need to educate ourselves
1:09:07
a lot more about what’s going on around the world because I think that one of the things that is um quite uh striking
1:09:15
to me as I study um various kinds of environmental movements that are
1:09:20
emerging in a lot of the rest of the world is that we don’t know the specific circumstances and context of again I’m
1:09:28
speaking as a professor but of of of all of these different kinds of movements that are emerging in a lot of different
1:09:34
um uh continents actually and I think that part of it is part of our job here
1:09:40
um in addition to forms of local organization across a range of different
1:09:45
kinds of methods and tactics everything from the disruptive Civil Disobedience of something like stop the oil all the
1:09:53
way and and I can now say this is an old older person who’s calmed down a little bit and is perhaps doesn’t have the
1:09:58
guillotine you know not dragging the guillotine behind me but um I going all
1:10:03
the way going all the way from disruptive Civil Disobedience to perhaps
1:10:09
even um legal recourse um find filing lawsuits against polluters um I think we
1:10:17
need the whole range of local forms of organizing in order to be in solidarity
1:10:23
with people across the world but in order to be in solidarity with people across the world we need to educate
1:10:28
ourselves about the kinds of struggles they’re engaging in and I think that that’s enormously important political
1:10:33
education is one of the things that is I think Fallen by the wayside quite a lot
1:10:39
in the last 20 30 years and I think that that is something that we really should focus on and um and and and it’s hugely
1:10:46
important not only for the environment but for so many other kinds of um causes
1:10:51
um and uh and crisis uh we have a question from Nick
1:10:57
that I imagine is intended for Jeremy so I’m going to POS it to you first but I would also really like to hear your
1:11:02
perspective on it laa uh Nick asks I’d be interested in his advice to MP’s
1:11:08
wavering about breaking the whip like what’s actually so bad about being
1:11:14
suspended from the PLP for 6
1:11:22
months I’m I’m not member of the Parliamentary lab party anymore I’m an independent MP um when uh my colleagues
1:11:32
were voted the same way as I did to try and end the disgraceful two child
1:11:38
benefit cap um I sort of said to them well well done in all this and um and I
1:11:44
spoke to some of them the next day and said okay what’s happening now they said it’s only been withdrawn for 6 months we
1:11:50
we’ll get it back I said yeah they said that to me five years ago
1:11:58
um so don’t hold you don’t hold your breath on that no the the issue’s got to
1:12:04
be that two child benefit cap is just
1:12:09
immoral by any stretch the imagination so you’re saying that the second third
1:12:15
and fourth child of uh sorry third fourth and fifth child of a big family
1:12:21
each would get give or take £99,000 per year in Universal Credit benefit for
1:12:28
them so that family is being penalized by 27,000 a year because they’re a big
1:12:36
family on Universal Credit are those children less valuable than the first
1:12:41
two it’s just totally immoral and the cost of um ending it would be about 1.3
1:12:50
billion thereabouts well that’s not much compared to the amount they proposed to put up defense expenditure and it
1:12:57
wouldn’t take much of a wealth tax to bring in1 1.3 billion uh to pay for it
1:13:02
the question is priorities so I see this as an absolutely key defining subject to campaign on now
1:13:12
and when the chancellor comes up with her initial financial statement on
1:13:17
Monday it’s being heavily trailed in all sorts of directions I’ll be one of those that’s there continuing to make this
1:13:24
demand as a symbolic point that if we can lift that um that benefit cap then
1:13:30
it shows the direction in which US as the public as public opinion are
1:13:36
prepared to make a noise and and push in that direction why do we live in a society where we tolerate such poverty
1:13:44
such inequality and so many people depended on food banks just to survive
1:13:49
whilst at the same time they blather on about reducing the tax burden on the very rich people in our society Bring It
1:13:57
On take the poorest out of tax and put more tax on the
1:14:08
richest I mean I I can’t see into the minds of the people who choose to stay
1:14:15
but I suspect that part of the reason that people stay is out of loyalty affection all of the all of the work
1:14:20
that they’ve put into the party for many years but also because a political party does provide a certain degree of
1:14:28
continuity um ability to campaign etc etc um which is why I’m going to ask
1:14:35
Jeremy why are you not starting a new party
1:14:41
well sorry I had to ask it’s a perfectly fair question got
1:14:46
it all the time people say St party announce it now invite me this is the
1:14:52
start hang on guys hang on there’s been about 15 attempts in the
1:14:58
past 40 years to establish another party in Britain sadly none of them have been
1:15:05
very successful it’s a serious question serious point and so what I’m saying is
1:15:12
I don’t know if I broke the habits of a lifetime and wrote an article for the
1:15:17
guardian after winning um after winning our election in Islington North because I wanted to make the point that how we’d
1:15:25
won was by having very honest and very serious conversations with every single
1:15:30
door that we knocked on it couldn’t turn up and say hello I’m the Party candidate are you voting for the
1:15:36
party and people say yes no maybe don’t know go away something better on the
1:15:42
Telly or something um and go away without actually having any conversation
1:15:48
we had to explain on every single doorstep why I was standing as an
1:15:53
independent why what the principles of the campaign were about peace Justice
1:15:59
equality public ownership and all those kind of issues it’s all about empowerment of
1:16:06
people and so what I hope will happen indeed is happening is that we’re going
1:16:12
to set up here a local community Forum it’ll meet at least once a month I’ll
1:16:17
report to it others will come to it and speak about housing about health international issues lots of things that
1:16:24
will will be the growth of an empowerment of people in a Grassroots community that will very rapidly morph
1:16:31
into a series of political demands on social justice on environmental
1:16:37
sustainability on public ownership of these thieving water companies and so on a whole lot of things like that these I
1:16:45
see growing up all over that will become a huge political force will you call it
1:16:51
a party with a specific dot dot dot dot dot man esto on every last item of policy immediately no but I tell you
1:16:59
over a pretty short time it’s going to become a very very important political
1:17:05
force and political voice that will change things and because uh I have
1:17:11
spent my life campaigning yes I’ve been in the labor party all my life I was expelled from the labor party 28 minutes
1:17:18
after I announced I was standing as an independent candidate they’re a bit slow
1:17:23
actually um and um that is the work that I’m committed to doing and determined to
1:17:30
do and the other four colleagues that were elected as independent
1:17:36
MPS mainly but not solely on the issue of Gaza we’re working very closely
1:17:42
together we’re working with the green MPS we’re working with the SNP on some issues we’re working with ped cery on
1:17:49
most issues we’re working with some of the labor MPS and issues we only been there 3 weeks to doing this but I tell
1:17:55
you what we are going to be there to make that voice of these kind of social demands it’s all about empowering of
1:18:02
people because the media and the right in politics always want to disempower you tell you there’s nothing you can do
1:18:09
you just got to put up with a market economy you just got to put up with being winners and losers in society
1:18:14
you’ve got to put up with being low streamed in school and not achieving anything because you were rude to the
1:18:19
teacher at the age of 14 or something hang on let’s try and Empower people into understanding their rights and
1:18:27
understanding the power of solidarity think of the great political changes that have happened The Bravery of those
1:18:34
that stood up against the slave trade those that stood up against the racism in the USA and elsewhere those that
1:18:40
stood up for the right to vote those that stood up and died in petero and so on there’s a whole Rich vein of history
1:18:46
of people who empowered themselves and empowered and changed political movements and that’s what I’m serious
1:18:52
about doing for the rest of my life
1:19:02
thank you and sorry about
1:19:09
that Lala earlier you said that what we really need is more political education
1:19:16
that what today today’s left in particular lack is good political
1:19:22
education and we have a question from the the audience along those lines from Adam the right has seen a surge in
1:19:30
popular theorists from academics I’m going to put that in scare quotes like Jordan
1:19:36
Peterson to more informal philosophers even bigger scare quotes like
1:19:43
andate does the left have a problem making its theories as accessible and
1:19:48
popular as the right if so why H um and if you don’t know who
1:19:55
either of those people are I’m happy I mean I I I think it’s an excellent question and I think part of it is
1:20:01
because I think the right um understood certain things extremely well number one
1:20:07
the power of social media the number two The Power of memes and symbols in ways that it took us on the left a little
1:20:14
while to catch up that’s number one I think number two is also the I actually see I don’t necessarily see a kind of a
1:20:22
scarcity of good left theorists there are a lot of really amazing left theorists um and and Among Us probably
1:20:32
loads of you have extremely good analysis of what is wrong with us I
1:20:38
think we have to build forums in which that voice can get out that’s number one
1:20:44
and I think part of what you were talking about the about the Forum that you’re building uh is is incredibly
1:20:50
important but I also think that some of the things that you mentioned the fact that you said you went and knocked on
1:20:55
every door and you explained what you were doing I think we need something
1:21:01
like that that happens in um schools in
1:21:06
churches in community organizations in youth organizations in LGBT in um and we
1:21:13
need to have a lot of these and that political education needs to happen in these groups and my political education
1:21:20
I don’t mean necessarily a reading group although that’s fantastic I also mean past pass ing on the histories and
1:21:26
experiences of those who have had those experiences of organizing across decades
1:21:32
so that we can learn and we don’t repeat the same mistakes again and again and again and again which you know as as I’m
1:21:38
as I’m getting older I’m seeing that happen a lot more so I think that’s what I mean by political
1:21:45
education yeah and lastly to to Jeremy do we do we need more charismatic
1:21:51
weirdos on YouTube what’s the what’s the State the state of political education on the left as you see it what we need
1:21:58
is people understanding that political education is actually the experience of everyday life it’s everyday life how you
1:22:05
how you live your life what you do and what solidarity or otherwise you show with other people I I’ve always felt an
1:22:11
hour on a picket line is far more valuable than a week in a lecture theater actually because it does you
1:22:17
begin to understand what power structures and and struggles are about um because of that but I do think think
1:22:24
um the areas that I would look at profoundly are the education system we
1:22:32
have and the teaching of history in our schools and that sense of lack of
1:22:38
understanding of history I mean so many um students going through Secondary
1:22:44
School primary and secondary school have this sort of weird view of history that
1:22:49
it’s sort of um Romans Normans tudas vict victorians the second world war
1:22:58
that’s about it really and without any sort of context or connection that goes
1:23:04
with it there are some history teachers that are absolutely brilliant and managed to turn it into either local
1:23:11
history history of change history of colonialism all all this absolutely
1:23:16
brilliant but they’re not all doing that and so if you think about it your knowledge and perceptions of History
1:23:22
actually have a huge framing of your views of the rest of the world how do you promote the ideas of racism and
1:23:30
racial superiority other than by promoting the ideas that somehow or other Europe was Superior or is superior
1:23:37
to the rest of the planet that’s why there was European colonialism and so on and so it is about exploring these ideas
1:23:45
and ensuring that um our young people are brought up with a questioning and an
1:23:51
inquiring mind that does begin to understand the great broad sweeps of
1:23:56
History not easy to put over in a few minutes but I think it’s the attitudes and and teaching that’s so important and
1:24:04
whilst I we all use mobile phones we all use social media and so on we learn a great deal from it actually it’s a bit
1:24:10
hard to put forward a long and complicated political argument in 22 22 lines on an X message you know you
1:24:17
actually have to have some better way of communicating I’m not I’m don’t pretend
1:24:23
to know all the answers of this what I do know is I’ll finish on this I know you want to stop that if you open up
1:24:29
people’s ideas on imagination and so on um I’ve been doing the last year or so
1:24:36
quite a lot of um poetry evenings around the country partly with this book we’ve done poetry for the many a lot of people
1:24:43
come who mostly turn up and say I’ve only come because I heard you done this book I hate poetry so I said great it’s
1:24:50
nice of you to come I hope you enjoy the evening and then they start us asking questions and
1:24:57
taking part in discussion because poetry can be in a very healthy way a sort of
1:25:02
Flight of the mind bringing together lots of different ideas and Concepts so it’s a question of reaching out to
1:25:08
people we do the same with music and so many other things reach out to people that rich experience of daily life can
1:25:15
enrich us all and Empower us all can
1:25:22
I I completely agree on the Poetry I love poetry literature but I also want
1:25:28
to say thank you to the Tik Tok generation if you weren’t doing what you
1:25:33
were doing about Palestine the US wouldn’t try to ban you guys so well done
1:25:44
you so there we have it read more poetry watch more Tik toks smash capitalism let
1:25:51
me know how it goes put poetry on Tik Tok put poetry on Tik Tok I’m sure people are someone under sort that out
1:25:59
for me um All That Remains I you said that uh we want to finish of course what
1:26:05
we want to do is keep everyone hostage here for another like four hours and we still will only scratch the surface of
1:26:12
all of the things that you have so um ably so bravely so insightfully raised
1:26:17
throughout the course of this evening but on behalf of the Verso podcast and of course on behalf of the Dig um I’d
1:26:23
like to wrap up up there and remind you of course this is the moment uh to subscribe to the Verso podcast sign up
1:26:30
to the Verso book club subscribe and support the Dig podcast and of course
1:26:36
macro do I would like to thank our wonderful MC Daria Gabriel who has done such a fantastic job
1:26:42
[Applause] tonight and that’s political education
1:26:49
too actually all three of those podcasts and a few others are real good itical education so there you go I I I said
1:26:58
nothing I didn’t even pay her to say that yet um so thank you then to our macros panelists we had Assad Raymond
1:27:04
theia Francos and James
1:27:13
mway I’d also like to thank the Union Chapel for this fantastic beautiful
1:27:18
venue my goodness what a privilege
1:27:25
and to our friends and colleagues at Planet B Productions and of course to Space 4 who have done the the most
1:27:32
possible to help nourish us and nurture us as an independent production company so thank you so much and of course join
1:27:39
me please in raising this beautiful roof for our panelists Lila KH and MP Jeremy
1:27:45
King
1:28:10
what do you say Daniel Pop I think uh I’m going to get a beer you don’t have to go home but you
1:28:17
can’t stay here thank you so much for joining us thank you so much for coming everyone thanks everybody thank you
1:28:24
[Applause]
oooooo
