Britainia Handiko Armada eta Gaza

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The British Military Is ACTIVELY Involved In Gaza. Here’s How | Aaron Bastani Meets Matt Kennard

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaooeJzsRU8)

Global politics has profoundly changed in recent years. Russia’s war in Ukraine, Israel’s genocide against Gaza, and the election of Donald Trump for a second time, have all shifted expectations, norms and policies. The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu; after some of the most punitive sanctions in history the United States now wants rapprochment with Russia. Meanwhile countries around the world, including the UK, are cutting their aid budgets and spending more on defence.

Matt Kennard can speak with authority on all of this. A journalist and author, his work has ranged from how U.S. military recruitment changed during the ‘war on terror’, to the corporate capture of international aid.

In recent years he has examined Britain’s contribution to Israel’s war in Gaza, from the role of RAF airbases in the Mediterranean to intelligence-sharing with Tel Aviv. In this interview he covers a range of issues, from USAID being eliminated to what next for the British left. Central in the conversation, though, are the revelations he has covered in recent years, mostly in his work for Declassified, about Britain’s complicity in the genocide of Gaza. It’s even worse than you imagine.

00:00 Intro

02:48 Trump is right to end USAID – but for the wrong reasons

21:08 US-funded media or American propaganda?

45:10 The British legacy media is compromised

58:26 The need for independent progressive media

01:06:30 The military base on Cyprus: a remnant of British empire

01:14:28 Direct British military involvement in Gaza

01:30:47 Europe remilitarising

01:39:26 Will Russian invade further into Europe?

01:49:40 When is “defence” spending really justified?

01:57:17 Why the UK needs a new progressive party

02:03:16 The future of British politics

Transkripzioa:

Intro

0:00

i think of the guards of genocide as a tripartite genocide which is the United States providing majority of the arms

0:06

8% uh the majority of the intelligence coming from uh the the British and

0:11

Israel getting it done 47% nearly half of all reconnaissance flights over Gaza

0:17

over 600 they found were flown by the RAF more than double Israel itself are

0:22

we now in the territory of an actual serious conversation about potential arrest warrants for James Cleverly David

0:29

Lammy John Healey etc do you think given precedence with regards to how the ICJ

0:35

and ICC conduct themselves there is a credible case for those people getting arrest warrants 100%

0:44

the last several years have seen so much change when it comes to international relations and geopolitics from Russia’s

0:51

invasion of Ukraine to the war in Gaza and the election of Donald Trump from

0:57

military spending and claims about the need to rearm to aid and whether it’s

1:03

needed at all we’ve seen massive conversations ignited about some of the

1:08

most fundamental ways we spend our money in relation to other countries trade aid

1:14

military spending and all the things in between i can’t think of a better guest to discuss all of that plus the role of

1:22

the deep state than the person opposite me today Matt Kennard welcome to

1:28

Downstream good to be here it’s great to have you back on it’s good to be here man for me third time yep the first time

1:36

was a couple of years ago I think then I did one last year as well yeah you’re looking good you got a tan yeah just

1:42

been to Brazil can’t complain what were you doing there politics or No that was a holiday the first holiday I’ve had non

1:48

non work uh holiday for a long time apart from with kids but it wasn’t with kids so yeah it was good it was weird

1:54

it’s weird not having to do anything you weren’t covering like Bolsinaro and prison or something i did there was a

2:00

Bolsinaro protest when I was there which was quite scary as well it’s quite weird seeing a group of fascists

2:06

um by the beach in the blazing sun and also there’s the fun the quite startling

2:11

thing about that was there was a lot of black people uh who were coming out to support Bolsinari cuz he’s under house arrest at the moment he’s being uh

2:18

charged with um plotting to assassinate Lula so it’s a serious situation there but um yeah it was uh it was a very

2:26

strange experience cuz you know what if you go to a fascist march here it’s all skin heads or and like in in some

2:32

horrible little uh town whereas there it’s like you get you got your coconut drinking your coconut milk and bit

2:39

different they’re doing keepies beautiful people sunglasses yeah fascism doesn’t feel so scary but obviously it

2:45

is when you when you’re in that environment yeah so the last time we spoke we talked really in depth about

2:52

foreign aid really in depth and that conversation has done so well we wouldn’t invite

2:58

people on if we didn’t think those conversations were really timely and relevant and would therefore get a ton of eyeballs but I was actually surprised

3:05

how well that conversation did i mean it’s get a million views in the end um

3:10

since then a lot has changed on the aid front i’m going to read you some statistics um since March in the United

3:16

States so early this month 83% of US aid is being cut the department is going

3:23

from maybe 10,000 employees to as few in the future in the near future to 2 to

3:29

300 uh approximately 5,200 of 6,200 US aid contracts have been cut of course

3:36

that’s because of Trump being in the White House Marco Rubio Secretary of State you’re somebody on the left do you

3:44

agree with what Donald Trump is doing to US A yes i mean I think the world’s a better place without US A um and I think

3:52

that’s palpable and obvious to anyone who knows the specifics of it because

3:58

look at uh some of the programs that US A run you know it’s come out over the years that they were funding subversion

4:04

of the Cuban government uh they’ve tried to US aid money was being used to set up a new Twitter or a kind of Twitter to

4:11

try and uh stoke up unrest in in Cuba and overthrow it evan Morales in Bolivia who we talked about last time 2013

4:19

uh throughout US aid he’s a democratic socialist leader bolivia did much better without US aid um so basically it’s

4:27

interesting i don’t agree with why he’s done it but he’s done it for he’s he’s unwittingly dismantling a major part of

4:34

the US empire that’s what’s quite interesting about it the the potency of liberal propaganda in Washington is and

4:41

and the effectiveness of it has been so good uh that they have embied all the

4:46

ideologies which justify us a which are mostly coming from the liberal sector and you read in the New York Times and

4:51

stuff and that’s why Trump and Elon Musk are tweeting oh US aid is a a haven for

4:57

Marxists who are trying to spread Marxism around the world they genuinely think that but that and and that’s what they’ve been told or they’ve been told

5:04

by the New York Times it’s about spreading all these wonderful benefits to the developing world but that’s

5:09

obviously not the case if you know the reality that’s not the case so I I and

5:14

also the other point about it is I think that Trump his whatever you say about him and I’m obviously I’m not a fan he’s

5:20

a monstrous figure um but he is a rupture with the blob with the

5:27

bipartisan consensus in Washington whatever you say that that’s just a fact he is doing things that are really

5:33

upsetting deep-seated interests in Washington and uh uh and and and

5:38

including in the corporate sector because as we talked about last time as well US aid is used as a as a tool for

5:45

subversion around the world but it’s also a massive uh um uh financial

5:50

benefit for the corporate sector because 40 billion a year that budget large portion of that is going to American

5:56

corporations because America practices what’s called tide aid where aid has to go to the money spent has to go to

6:02

American companies so you’ve got huge conglomerates multinationals getting huge sums taxpayer money to spread uh

6:10

into the developing world so how can we not welcome that and I think that the the

6:16

um part of it is that the word aid has been so heavily propagandized no one

6:22

wants to be seen to be against aid because the conception of it is okay this is a budget transfer from the rich

6:28

countries to the poor countries governments i think about 10% of aid goes directly to governments as budget

6:33

support the rest of it is given out to private contractors to corporations to

6:39

financial houses you know it’s it’s a it’s a whole different thing when you see it on the ground and the other interesting thing is aid

6:46

became a key part of the whole capitalist system one of the amazing things that I saw when I was going

6:53

around the world reporting on corporate projects is the amount of a amount of them that would that would have some aid

7:00

involvement and these are corporate projects but definitely a majority i’d say maybe 70 80% if you looked into the

7:06

finances they’d have financing from the World Bank or the regional development bank or some other financial institution

7:13

it’s a whole racket and if you talk to people in the industry they say “Oh yeah well I got money from the IFC which is the private sector lend lending arm the

7:20

bank it’s seen as a revenue stream.” So we should welcome that and also we should say okay US aid uh uh you could

7:29

you could spend a 100 years giving aid to a country and you could spend a 100 years Oxfam there funding grassroots

7:36

organizations and not have any impact compared to having one liberation leader in there for 10 years which is what

7:42

happened in Bolivia evan Morales came in in 2006 transformed the country and that

7:49

is and that but that the other parts of the US government and actually US aid itself work hard to destroy those

7:55

leaders so what we should be focusing on is saying okay we want no uh uh uh US

8:01

aid money because it’s it’s not there for the reasons they tell us and actually officials say that in public

8:08

and have throughout there was a a quote from Brian Atwood who was then the administrator of the of US aid in 1998

8:13

he said to Congress the US a budget is a bareboned uh attempt to uh realize US

8:20

foreign policy objectives he said that in Congress so people know about it within the system but um but it’s not

8:26

well known about asylum so we should say we don’t want that money uh we don’t need that money the developing world

8:31

doesn’t need that money and what we should do is focus on uh uh supporting leaders against the US empire who are

8:38

trying to overthrow leaders who are trying to actually bring the country back under sovereign rule and actually use the resources of their country for

8:44

their people eratraa kicked out US aid in 2005 and it’s obviously not a a rich

8:50

country but it’s it’s development uh index and its different uh uh indices

8:55

denoting public health and stuff like that are very very similar to other countries which are receiving billions every year from us a like uh Rwanda so

9:04

there’s no correlation between and in fact I would say it’s actually there’s that if you gave a country long enough

9:09

to escape the system there’d be a correlation between it developing and not receiving USA money like Bolivia

9:15

like Venezuela and others i just want to take a quick break from this conversation to talk about the role of

9:22

Navara media in the media landscape and how actually I think we’re doing pretty well at shifting the debate in so many

9:28

ways but we started this project with an understanding that politics is downstream from media and that to change

9:35

politics you have to change media first the older I get the more

9:40

incontrovertible that is if you want to shift politics in Britain and beyond you’ve got to start with the media start

9:47

with Navara Media help us continue to build this organization take the conversations we have to an even broader

9:54

bigger audience go to navarami.com/support the link is in the description below one

10:01

pound a month £5 a month,10 a month 100 pound a month i don’t mind i don’t care

10:06

get on board help us build a new media for different politics vietnam’s a really interesting

10:11

one because I think if you look at Vietnam over the last 30 years it’s exports every year for about 30 years

10:17

are going up by 15 to 20% and I understand you’re starting from a very low base but it’s just phenomenal to the

10:23

extent that that country now has a domestic um EV manufacturer they’re making electric vehicles in Vietnam

10:29

vietnamese technology Vietnamese capital they are massively amping up um

10:34

photovoltaic solar cells to generate renewable energy in that country lithium battery industry incredible and like you say US

10:42

A hasn’t played a particularly large role in that a counterargument would be though Matt look at the um role of US

10:50

aid in dealing with HIV AIDS particularly in subsaran Africa uh this is one particular program signed off by

10:56

the Bush administration Bush Jr george W bush which has saved approximately 20

11:02

million lives now you might say well that’s exceptional that is not normally how USA works nonetheless it did work so

11:10

surely that’s an argument to say well you can and should keep some programs like that while getting rid of the

11:16

things that you’re saying but your position instead is get rid of the whole thing well no but that’s not an option we’ve been given if if someone said to

11:22

me you can keep the HIV programs obviously yeah I would because yes I I like to see money going towards stuff

11:28

that’s going to have a positive health impact but the point is that is a small part of the USA budget and it’s it the

11:36

the vast majority is going towards corporations it’s also going towards special economic zones which we talked

11:42

about last time when I went to Haiti in 2010 after the earthquake uh US aid was

11:47

the main financer of the industrial parks which were being built to take advantage of the basically the slave

11:53

wage labor in Haiti which was going to condemn Haiti to another generation or two of underdevelopment so this is the

12:01

US aid model and yes you can point to the fact that they were they were handing out some tents for the for the

12:07

uh um uh earthquake victims fine but that’s not the program that’s not what it’s about that’s window dressing it’s

12:14

the same in the UK like uh you know they they they’ve said that what he’s doing is is off the charts crazy right boris

12:21

Johnson did the same thing here and not in terms of the reduction in in the budget but he rolled the intern the the

12:27

Ministry of International Development into the Foreign Office um uh and it became the FCDO

12:34

uh which is what the the So Rubio is keeping 17% of US aid and making it under the State Department in my opinion

12:40

that’s more that’s a more honest way of presenting the a budget because it’s a it’s a as the administrator for USA said

12:47

it’s a bareboned approach to realizing foreign policy goals why don’t we be honest about it roll it into the foreign

12:53

office this whole um ideology and and uh uh uh uh basically uh lies that that

13:00

that present that they present to the society is not a good way to do it if you’re going to do it be honest about it

13:06

and um uh uh the the the the well now Karma is reducing it again from 0.5 to

13:13

0.3 but I mentioned this before when we talked right why so not just to be clear it was 0.7%

13:20

of GDP now it’s 0.5 it’s going down to 0.3% it was 0.7 which was David Cameron’s um uh promise in the coalition

13:29

government while he was destroying Yeah british society and the poorest

13:34

eviscerating social programs and and and money for councils to support the our most vulnerable people meanwhile he was

13:40

saying we’re going to uh uh maintain 0.7% that went down to 0.5% at during

13:46

COVID because they had uh they had to spend other money it’s now going down to 0.3% the point is it’s like you say can

13:52

I just ask what what’s the politics that drives that i think the average punter watching this left very leftwing very

13:57

rightwing most people would say it is insane that you’re putting a cap on two child uh benefit recipients um it’s

14:05

insane that you’re tripling tuition fees and at the same time you’re safeguarding the amount of money that’s going

14:11

overseas exactly well it makes no sense so why did he do that but it makes no sense if you believe the ideology which

14:17

we’re presented in society which is a which is that aid is a transfer of wealth from our coffers to the poorest

14:24

in the world to help them develop and to help them alleviate health and social problems it’s not what it is a large

14:30

point of that part of that 0.7% goes to corporations to enact uh uh uh their own

14:37

capitalist endeavors in the developing world also goes so give me some examples post 2010 UK aid what kinds of things

14:43

was it well there was an example that I did a story on uh this is a bit different but uh it involves

14:49

corporations because it the money goes to it the UK government uh the coalition government assigned £100 million to

14:56

promote poverty reduction in China this is a country which which since 1980 in

15:02

the 30 years from 1980 the biggest poverty reduction program in human history uh took 800 million people out

15:07

of extreme poverty uh doesn’t exist in China anymore and we’re pay while they were doing austerity here we were giving

15:14

£100 million to China this is the stated goal but that’s because that’s not the

15:20

real goal what it is is about basically a subsidy to corporations to go and find business in China because if you

15:26

remember the coalition government under Osborne and um David Cameron were very very pro- China in terms of they they

15:32

they you know there was this intra establishment beef over China where the business community wanted to take

15:37

advantage of its rise whereas The secure wanted to start a new cold war the securecrats have now won out but back

15:42

then the business community was in in which so the David Cameron administration were like well let’s give

15:48

loads of money to our corporations to go and invest in China and uh and dress it up as a a nice uh poverty reduction

15:54

program which is just absurd uh and uh I mean there’s plenty of others there’s uh

15:59

like Bolsinaris Brazil uh I did a story for Declassified about how we’d spent

16:04

millions um promoting oil and gas British oil and gas companies and in

16:09

Brazil and trying to get Balsen to privatize Petropass this was an aid program so well an aid program to

16:15

privatize Petro Brass yeah one of the world’s largest petroleum companies and convince well they they saw an

16:21

opportunity with uh Bolsinaro in that he was fascist politically but economically

16:28

libertarian I guess wanted to privatize everything and they were they put all this money into uh uh this program to to

16:34

to do that there’s so many examples of it we spent £750,000 on an anti-government coalition

16:41

in Venezuela aid money there’s a whole foundation here what you know like the national endowment for National

16:47

Endowment for Democracy which is another body in the United States which is about promote or which supposed to be about

16:53

promoting uh democracy uh we have it’s essentially a CIA front group according to yeah it is I mean it’s a it’s

17:00

according to some people well we can go into it’s important to go into the history of that as well because he’s defunded that as well Trump which again

17:07

everyone should welcome but um uh we have one here called the Westminster Foundation for Democracy not many people

17:14

know about it millions of pounds 90% of its budget come from the foreign office and it’s got programs all over the world

17:20

uh a huge one in Venezuela that we pay for there’s not a single program in any of the Gulf dictatorships that we back

17:27

or any of the regimes like the CC regime or the the Jordanian regime which we back dictatorships that might need a

17:34

little democracy promotion once in a while and it’s just more and more evidence that this aid money this

17:40

development money is not going to do what it says it’s going as a as a as a political tool and and this is what I

17:47

don’t think Trump’s trying to dismantle the US empire but he’s sort of saying look we don’t need to manufacture consent for our empire in the same way

17:54

anymore let’s just do it openly let’s go back to old school imperialism where we just say we’re going to annex Greenland

17:59

or we’re going to annex the Panama Canal or we’re going to annex can Canada he wants that type of imperialism so when

18:05

so so when you say do you welcome it I don’t welcome what’s coming and I don’t welcome um uh the reasons he’s doing it

18:13

but I do think that it’s easier to fight the empire and easier to fight American imperialism which is we should all be

18:19

concerned with because it’s the most powerful country in human history in terms of its military prowess it’s much

18:25

easier to do it if you don’t have to wade through this just sea of ideology

18:30

uh which manufactures consent for empire which is in which is just absolutely uh

18:35

the mainstream media is soaked in everything I’ve just said and in fact the stories we did at Declassified about this stuff you never see it in

18:42

mainstream media which is why everyone’s so surprised when you say this stuff uh and why people say what even I was

18:49

talking to talking to my dad about he basically said the same question as you in a more accusatory fashion and he said

18:54

“Well you support Trump getting rid of USA.” I was like “Dad it’s not like you think it is it’s not this transfer of

19:01

wealth it’s not about what they’re telling you this is New York Times propaganda this is propaganda from uh

19:07

the Democrat party trump and I mean Trump’s putting out propaganda saying it’s a a haven for Marxists and they

19:13

want to spread Marxism but it’s not what it says on the tin.” Uh and when when you get rid of all that it’s much much

19:20

easier to fight and in fact we should cleave as anti-imperialists can cleave the the left and the the sort of liberal

19:26

wing onto our side now because it’s very very hard for them to justify the system they’ve spent 70 years justifying now

19:34

because all the bless going Trump’s getting rid of them uh and saying let’s just use uh uh power in a much more raw

19:41

fashion and without all the window dressing I think that’s a good thing um in terms of being able to fight it it’s

19:47

not a good thing in the short term in terms of the victims of that new type of imperialism but we we’re yet to see how

19:52

that’s going to play out but it’ll probably play out in places like Iran we’ll talk about Iran in a minute b

19:57

basically what you’re saying is it makes the politics of everything far less obscure and just far more open but

20:03

you’ve got sort of two interpretations there which are slightly conflicting i just want to pin you down on what you actually think so one read is that

20:10

people like Trump and Musk have bought the idea that somehow aid is a liberal

20:17

thing it was never born as that i agree with you there but they’ve bought this

20:22

idea that it’s like this left liberal thing and that’s why they want to get rid of it but then you also say Trump

20:28

wants to get rid of it because we’re moving into a new era of hard politics soft power is less important and

20:34

realistically Trump is saying there are three world powers russia China the United States we each have our zone of

20:40

influence i don’t really give two hoots about trying to export democracy etc etc

20:46

etc so which is it they view us a weird liberal Marxist thing which they just

20:51

want to get rid of or actually there’s a far more intelligent astute analytical point which is they realize we’ve moved

20:58

into a new a new moment of imperialism and it requires different tools well I

21:03

think it’s a bit of both i think that they have they do believe it but I also feel like they just the reason Trump’s

21:08

doing it is not because he thinks that we don’t need I mean I said manufacturing that’s part of it because they do fund a lot of media that that’s

21:15

the other thing I should just mention while I’m on it you know when it when when they when they when they uh

21:21

announced the uh US aid uh cut um there was an uh reporters without borders

21:27

article which said independent media in crisis globally and a lot of people who

21:33

don’t know how aid works were like what do you mean why is an aid cut affecting independent media and then you read down

21:38

the article and it says nine out of 10 Ukrainian media outlets receive US aid money nine out of 10 90% people don’t so

21:45

aid money is being used as in as part of the information war i did a story for declassified that British aid this is

21:51

aid money was funding media in 20 countries around Russia so and you might

21:58

argue well the former Soviet Republic yeah all those uh uh and it was like 80 million over a 5year period in 20

22:03

different countries wow madness but look at what’s happening to local media in this country i know exactly and and and

22:10

and people on Twitter and other places kind of kind of establishment types were saying well this is there’s an

22:16

information war we have to fight it okay well if you’re honest about it fine but they don’t present it as an information war even the RSF article the reports

22:22

without borders article calls it independent media and it’s sort like how independent is it if it’s receiving US government money do you think those like

22:29

how can you be receiving money from a government from a government which is a belligerent in this conflict or at least

22:34

a party to the conflict and and uh and call yourself independent But that’s the beauty of the ideology when we do it

22:41

it’s not information war it’s just funding independent media because we believe in democracy and a free press

22:47

when the Russians do it RT is propaganda and we’ll shut you down rt is actually shut down in this country so there’s a

22:54

and aid is used for this this is aid used the conflict security and stability fund that CSSF if you look into that

23:01

body which I don’t think exists anymore i think it was uh got rid of as part of the FCDO creation million tens of

23:08

millions being spent on media on on clearly information warfare uh uh

23:14

projects against Russia and and others too um that and people said aid and

23:20

you’re like yeah I know I know what it is is a geopolitical tool it’s a slush fund um to to enact control and as I

23:26

said there there’s so many examples of it i I was doing a a story about um um

23:32

and it’s not just USA do you know like peace the peace corp which was created in 1961 by JFK along at the same time as

23:38

USA was created and peace corp is a a volunteering program that Americans do where they’re sent to different countries to do it there was a a

23:45

transcript of a conversation between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in 1971 where they’re discussing Bolivia at

23:51

that point which was under a president called Juan uh Torres who was like a leftwing leader and they were basically

23:57

saying what should we who like uh and and Kissinger’s like “Well the ambassador down there is being a bit of

24:03

a softy.” Uh and then Nixon’s like “Do we need a coup?” And he’s like “We don’t know yet but they’ve kicked out Peace

24:08

Court.” And then he says “Which is an asset?” So even back then they they were using these organizations and they knew

24:14

internally that that’s an asset it’s a it’s an intelligence gathering asset or whatever it is and it’s still the case

24:19

now and that that’s the other thing about USA it’s an intelligence gathering asset because you know the cover of a

24:25

journalist is is is well known about in in in media i mean sorry in espionage is

24:30

like it’s brilliant you can go around the world you can talk to people and it’s the perfect cover aid workers the same thing aid is a massive is used as

24:38

an asset for the the security establishment to gather information which is what uh USA’s used for a lot as

24:43

well so there’s a whole tapestry of uh uh mechanisms of control which uh of

24:50

which aid is a huge huge part and and as you say the the the the water is muddied

24:56

a bit by uh the fact that there are some good programs yes like especially disaster

25:02

relief HIV as well but disaster relief when you when there’s a a natural disaster and they need uh uh basic

25:11

things to keep people alive yes that’s fine but as I say that’s a small small part of it i I’ll finish with this

25:17

another very very uh uh uh illustrative example and another institution I hope

25:22

Trump does close down is the is called the Millennium Challenge Corporation the MCC the MCC was started by George W bush

25:29

who was basically in a bit similar to Trump he was like saying look aid is basically a business and we need to just

25:36

get rid of all the propaganda about it and we need to create aid agency which is basically run like a business so he

25:42

created the mill millennium change corporation it didn’t have a head it had a CEO it was funded by the uh by the

25:47

taxpayer and what they did was they did what they had compacts with countries where very very explicitly they say um

25:56

if you want this aid money uh you have to do uh uh this to your uh you have to

26:02

enact this policy whether it be like get rid of uh some tariff or or or lower uh

26:07

lower the minimum wage I don’t know what it is there’s many many of them and uh and and the MCC operates all around the

26:14

world and these compacts it’s like structural adjustment that we all know about you know the structure adjustment programs but it from the IMF from the

26:20

IMF to when when you’re in a f uh uh uh monetary difficulties they’ll they’ll give you the liquidity but it will be

26:27

predicated on you doing certain things but it wasn’t ever talked about in such overt ways whereas Bush the MCC is like

26:32

“This is how you do it.” And in fact I went to Tanzania and looked at an MCC project and talked to government

26:38

officials and they were they took me to one and this one was the MCC had given the money to build an electrical cable

26:44

going from the coast of Tanzania to Zanzibar which is this tourist destination uh and I was saying to the

26:51

officials I was like well why why are you doing this like I think something like 13% of the rural of rural Tanzania

26:57

had access to electricity i was like shouldn’t they get it and they were like well no cuz sometimes the electricity turns off when tourists are on holiday

27:04

in Zanzibar uh and they have to use candles after at night uh so MCC uh said

27:10

that they’d they’d give us a a new electrical cable if we did these things to our economy uh and obviously they

27:16

took it so but that’s not what Tanzania needs uh it’s also not all Western taxpayers think they’re exactly i’m

27:24

telling you it’s everywhere and as I say like it was extremely shocking how many

27:32

capitalist um corporate endeavors in the developing world have an element of aid

27:38

uh funding in them and then it goes it goes back to beginning after the second world war even the Marshall plan itself

27:44

the European recovery act which was like $13 billion what was that was that aid i

27:50

don’t think it I mean it was but was that about um uh uh helping Europe partly to to rebuild but also it was to

27:57

to to rectify what was called the dollar gap in that before the uh second world war the the Europeans had enough money

28:04

to buy American products and when America came out of the uh uh second world war I think it was like it it was

28:10

just dwarf the rest of the world half of global output was coming from America so that and they needed markets to buy

28:15

their goods so they gave Europe this money to to be able to to to buy their

28:20

goods to keep them surely you’d accept that’s a little bit more benevolent than what’s going on with places like Yeah it

28:26

makes more sense it makes more sense because I don’t understand how there’s Yeah there’s a justification for that

28:32

there’s I can’t understand how there’s a justification for that for the amount of public money aid money that’s going into

28:38

just raw capitalist endeavors where where they’re basically either giving uh non-commercial loans or uh actually

28:46

investing in certain projects they don’t need that that’s not how capitalism is meant to work it’s not meant to have a massive wing which is just subsidized by

28:53

the taxpayer under the guise of develop uh uh uh um uh helping development it’s

28:58

just it’s bonkers it is bonkers um and trust me if you talk to people in it I’m talking about entrepreneurs they know

29:06

that this is a massive re revenue stream to that you can tap into like it’s known people it’s like a massive goal of

29:13

people to get an IFC loan or to get defid funding like it and it’s we went to a conference in Liverpool in 2014 i

29:21

think it was called the aid expo and that people were coming on stage and saying this is the great new frontier

29:26

for corporations we like we can tap into these billions of dollars they were saying it openly and they don’t see it

29:32

as bad because as we talked about before they say well uh

29:39

uh for countries to develop they need foreign direct investment that’s the only way they’re going to develop so in

29:44

that context public money going towards corporations who are investing in new markets uh that they otherwise might not

29:51

invest in is a good thing it’s it’s hocus pocus it’s madness i think any sort of familiarity as well with a lot

29:58

of these um institutions this world really opens up your eyes so just to

30:03

move for one moment to the UN um I know somebody whose parents work for a UN

30:10

agency okay they’re quite well off they do very well they’ve got you know multiple nice

30:17

homes one of the um goodies you get if you work for the UN is that they pay for

30:24

your kids post-graduate education so this person can then go and do a masters

30:29

in public administration at the LSE or may even maybe even do an MBA i have no idea which obviously incredibly

30:36

expensive and they’re already very wealthy and you’re basically reproducing who are paying for the the investment

30:42

costs of the global elite to reproduce itself and that’s through a body like the UN i think they may even work for

30:48

the development agency and you think this is ludicrous this is ludicrous there are people out there on £30,000

30:55

£35,000 struggling every day barely able to feed their kids part of their taxes are going towards institutions

31:01

investments like this which allow very wealthy people to live very accommodating nice lives and it’s one of

31:08

those things where the more you read the more you research actually the folk wisdom of people who by the way they

31:14

might say bigoted things or they’re on the right or whatever they say we need to look after our own first i don’t buy that argument but there is a kernel of

31:22

truth there when actually the point of these programs isn’t necessarily what

31:27

you think it is exactly well and this is a very very important point because the whole space is occupied by the

31:33

right-wing arguments because the left doesn’t make these arguments so you don’t have a critique where you’re saying “Yeah the UN shouldn’t do pay six

31:41

figure salaries to everyone and pay for the post-graduate education but we do need multi Yeah but we don’t have them

31:47

saying that and saying but we do need multilateral institutions which are which which are promoting peace and and and whatever it is that the UN’s meant

31:55

to promote.” But so but they literally doesn’t exist i think part of the reason this com that original conversation we

32:00

did so well is cuz it’s not being aired at all it’s not been this this whole space is occupied by the Daily Mail

32:06

angle yeah which also is the Trump angle which is that uh aid is this Marxist

32:12

thing where we give uh money to uh the poorest and and and we should keep it

32:17

for ourselves uh and my argument would be like I don’t I’m not against aid as

32:22

an idea i think it’s there should be some reequal uh uh it’s like I’m I agree with taxing the rich more than the poor

32:29

i agree that there should be some mechanism for transferring wealth especially as we’re uh the trade relations and other things where we’re

32:35

we’re we’re complicit with their poverty but that’s not what it is um so what we

32:40

need is we don’t need to get rid of aid we need we need to make aid what it says on the tin we need to make aid about

32:46

what they claim it is um and that’s that that argument is never made and that’s a problem and again as we talked about

32:52

before like the reason is is that it’s like you say it’s it’s a beautifully integrated hole because so many people

32:58

do well out of the system that there’s no space for critics cuz everyone’s doing it everyone’s getting their kids

33:04

post-graduate degree pay for everyone’s the Guardian journalists are getting their salaries paid by the Bill Gates Foundation where’s the space for a

33:11

critique of this from the left it doesn’t exist and we have to which is why people are shocked when they when

33:17

you say “Well I think Trump’s doing a good thing about this.” because they they’ve they’ve they’ve never heard the

33:22

argument well actually aid is part of the the tapestry of imperial control and yes how can we not welcome it being

33:29

dismantled and as I mentioned the national end for democracy as well like as you mentioned uh uh uh it’s called an

33:35

overt CIA and and actually it was conceived of as such because it was made

33:41

it was created in 1983 by Ronald Reagan actually in a speech in London he made

33:47

in front of Margaret Thatcher where he said we need to reinvigorate the infrastructure of democracy but what it was about was like the 70s had been um

33:54

speckled with CIA scandals um and back then the press actually revealed stuff

33:59

about the CIA and stuff in the United States in in the New York Times and stuff you’d read scandals and then there

34:04

was a church committee in 1975 which was the me which is the most um impactful

34:10

congressional investigation to the CIA there’s ever been um and they revealed all this countless uh uh assassination

34:16

attempts poisonings subversion the destabilization so what they thought about in Washington you can read this in

34:22

the planning documents for the National Endowment of Democracy they said we need to stop this kind of subtifuge and this

34:28

covert action and just go public and that’s what the National Endowment of Democracy is they they they give

34:34

thousands of grants every year that the average is about £50,000 or £50,000 and

34:40

it’s the things like um fund freedom of expression in Venezuela um or fund

34:45

freedom of expression in Bolivia or somewhere you know somewhere where the U the US is um trying to sto not Saudi

34:52

Arabia no actually I looked into it because I did a it’s here as well you know it funded it funds index on

34:58

censorship here funded open democracy here funded uh article it funds to the

35:03

tune of millions uh article 19 another free so a whole but all open do great stuff they do so this is that and

35:10

actually that that was in 2017 to 18 and they would and they do great stuff which is often critical of the US security

35:17

state and I say that because not many people do it in this country so it’s very I mean there’s you guys there’s us there’s some others of course as So it

35:23

makes it very conspicuous when you see it yeah and I did interview the editor at the time and he was an editor when

35:29

they accepted that money and he said that it had no impact on their uh uh uh

35:34

editorial uh output and there was it was a small percentage but it’s just a fact like I like open as well they’ve got

35:41

some really great reporters they’ve done really important investigations but it’s just a fact that they were one of the the the media organizations finance

35:47

uncovered is another one that got hundreds of thousands index on censorship how much are we talking 600

35:53

over600,000 pounds from 2016 to 2021 wow

35:59

and of course the the the the head honcho at the index on censorship is a former Labour MP now she’s now she’s now

36:05

left but the former CEO was Roose me at that time she was the CEO she’s now a Labour peer she’s now a labor and also

36:12

it was revealed in the um Wikileaks cables she was a strictly protect informant for the US embassy in London

36:18

that came out in uh one of the Wikileaks cables she was um This is before 2011 right yeah it was when she first stood

36:24

for I think it was in 200 uh in 2009 she was talking to a US embassy official and

36:31

she was talking about whether Gordon Brown was going to call an election um and the information she gave to the the

36:38

US official which was in this cable said he said it hasn’t been reported in the media um and it said Ruth Smei she’s now

36:46

known as Rof Anderson it said strictly protect in in brackets after her so that’s what they use for informants

36:52

anyway so plus her husband Michael Smith was a senior figure in the British

36:58

American project which is another uh US project here which was uh set up by the

37:04

US embassy in the 80s uh when they were worried about the left would drift within Michael Foot’s labor um and uh

37:11

but but um but anyway to go just I just want to sit no I just want to stick with this for one minute just just because I think our audience you know they’ll be

37:17

like hold on a second let’s just put this all together ruth Smith was an adviser at the time to the Gordon Brown

37:24

government strictly protect would indicate that she’s some kind of asset for the US security state she then

37:29

proceeds to become a Labor MP she at some point leaves the she’s no longer a parliamentarian she goes to work for

37:36

index on censorship where she’s the CEO they received money from the National Endowment of Democracy and today she’s a

37:42

labor peer so she’s an unelected legislator for life in this country i just think that’s really important just

37:47

to show how that’s how the it gets even more interesting you know index was founded in 1972 by Steven Spender who

37:55

was the famous poet he’d in the year a few years before quit

38:02

uh as editor of Encounter magazine in the US because it was revealed in in the papers that it was funded by the CIA now

38:08

he said he didn’t know that it was funded by the CIA u but he left um uh he

38:14

founded index on censorship some years later with a huge grant from the Ford Foundation which at the time was known

38:20

to be a conduit for CIA money because this was still in the period where they were secretly covertly doing it there’s

38:26

an amazing book where this whole infrastructure is laid out uh it’s

38:32

called um who paid the piper in the UK edition and it’s called the cultural cold war in the US edition it’s by

38:38

Francis Ston Saunders who’s a at the Royal Society for Literature I think now a fellow there anyway she basically just

38:45

shows that that we live in a a Truman show reality which is created by co

38:50

covert money and and this was the case in the cold war but she said to me the cold war cultural cold war never ended

38:56

it just got new targets so that this money is going around to different places and what it creates you realize

39:02

things like okay what abstract expressionism uh the movement in art that was funded by the CIA yes it was it

39:08

was funded by the CIA because the CIA wanted to put the idea that we are the free west look at this compared to

39:14

totalitarianism in Soviet Russia what’s the What’s the book on that one there’s that great There’s that great book isn’t there that’s That’s it is that the one

39:21

yeah yeah yeah i need to read it it’s amazing jackson Pollock is like a CI exactly and she said makes sense by the

39:27

way exactly and and and that’s kind of just one example you see that there was money so many cultural things that we

39:34

think were just spontaneous or became prominent just for natural reasons of

39:39

being popular with the public actually they were being pushed by covert forces because there was some interest in it um

39:46

and and and as she says this continues she said with the national end of for democracy that that’s the the kind of

39:52

umbilical cord that goes from Washington to fight its informationational operations around the world uh and and

39:57

in the case of so so and and index is is a is one example but there’s plenty of others index is just one of the most

40:03

obvious examples because it’s you as as you just laid out it’s you’re just like wow this is a this is a organization

40:11

working for the United States effectively I I’ll just add on us a right one of the amazing things uh about

40:18

us a story I broke on Twitter just and it went bananas was US A fund was the

40:24

second largest funer of BBC’s charitable arm BBC media action now BBC media

40:29

action trains thousands of journalists in dozens of countries around the world and it’s biggest second biggest fun I

40:36

guess not anymore because they’re it’s gone now but has been USA a do you think those journalists are being trained in

40:41

any other type of journalism than just journalism which is going to present um uh uh the United States as uh the well

40:49

as a benevolent power and American exceptionalism as the reigning ideology that’s what that that’s how they manufacture consent for for uh for

40:56

empire plus it’s being done through our public broadcaster madness so People

41:02

were shocked by that and I was shocked by that when I read that but um and the you the BBC after because I got tweeted

41:08

about by Elon Musk not my tweet specifically but someone who tweeted after me and then the BBC had to release

41:14

a statement saying well this is just our charitable arm and doesn’t have any impact on our on our training programs

41:19

and it’s like well that might be technically true but there’s no way that

41:24

this whole uh ocean of money is not having impact on editorial output

41:30

everywhere of course it is otherwise it they wouldn’t be spending it they’re not spending they’re not spending that money

41:35

on nine out of 10 media outlets in Ukraine because they believe in a free press in Ukraine they’re doing it because they want to fight the

41:41

information war with Russia which you can argue they should be doing or whatever i’m not arguing i’m not making a value judgment on that but the point

41:48

is it’s not what it says on the tin that’s what’s the important thing is we there it’s about manufacturing consent

41:53

about creating this Truman show reality where we think we’re getting a a spontaneous uh and natural

42:01

discourse when in fact the discourse is being driven by covert forces aid agencies uh and and intelligence

42:08

agencies whatever it is it’s it’s quite scary when you start looking into it and I have to say that’s why I think that

42:13

that book by Francis Sona is one of the best I’ve ever read because it’s this stuff can go into conspiracy tin foil

42:21

hat stuff quite easily but her book is so rigorously written and beautifully written actually uh and she spent years

42:29

she said it almost sent her mad the amount of archival research she had to do but it’s all there in black and white

42:34

and you can see that many many things we assume uh happen spontaneously were

42:39

actually driven by covert forces and and and a aid agencies and national

42:45

endowment for democracy but again it goes back to what I was saying none of this stuff is covered in

42:50

the media either none of it the National Endowment for Democracy presence in the UK never been written about in a single

42:56

newspaper ever that the the the the fact that NE funds 600 thou funded 600,000

43:01

pounds worth of uh money to uh index never been written ruth SME RF Anderson

43:08

now a strictly pretend informant for the US embassy never been not a single word

43:14

has ever been written in a UK paper right madness i mean if you the thing is if you raise Ruth Smith’s um profile on

43:20

social media it’ll obviously be called names obviously and you you do wonder obviously to what extent is that

43:25

coordinated i don’t think it has to be actually that’s the sad thing people say this stuff for free so on that BBC point

43:31

um you’ve got the BBC’s charitable wing receiving significant amounts of fund from a foreign government i don’t think

43:36

that should be happening under any circumstances any government even if it’s money that’s well intended I don’t care even even if it’s a socialist

43:43

government I don’t care um but you get people defending it um and I I really do

43:48

wonder where their where their brains are at the whole point of the BBC according to Lord Rereath was to inform educate entertain and the idea that a

43:55

foreign power could send money in our direction and that that somehow wouldn’t

44:01

influence outcomes but you know the interesting thing obvious nonsense it’s revealing of the status that the United

44:07

States has in this country which is that it’s assumed we are the 51st state there

44:13

is no no one it’s not problematized in in our psyches at all like people if you say if you said Russia was given uh uh

44:21

was the second largest fun of the BBC charitable arm people would be like what or Mexico or I don’t know like Australia

44:27

like people but no when it’s the United States no one seems to care it doesn’t register and it’s quite interesting it’s

44:34

it’s like a deeply ingrained uh uh psychology that that that I I come up I

44:40

came up across a lot with the with Declassified because it was kind of like taking candy from a baby the stories I was doing about US influence in this

44:47

country because it was all out there uh all I had to do for the NE stuff was look through the comp the charity

44:53

commission’s accounts and tot up why had no one done that um so and it’s the same

44:59

with with the British American project which I did a lot of work on again it’s all out there but it’s just no one’s

45:05

done the work and that’s because I think that no one problematizes the US presence in this country the 12,000

45:11

troops that we have permanently stationed here uh the the the CIA and

45:16

NSA presence that the NSA runs are GCHQB in Cornwall none of it is ever

45:22

problematized um so when I say problematized I think most people are even aware that’s the case no exactly

45:27

what that figure people know that I think people know there’s US troops here but I just did a story for Declassified

45:33

back in the day about the 12,000 troops and I looked and that that figure has

45:38

never been written about in a in a in a UK paper you would think that even on the right someone it’s just interesting

45:44

isn’t it that if you’re occupied by or there’s a presence of a foreign military you might the number might be interesting to a journalist but it’s

45:51

it’s but it’s never been written about so how many again well o over 12,000 and that’s just the official numbers yeah

45:58

you wonder I mean obviously the the population of these islands was much bigger but you wonder 2,000 years ago

46:03

how many Roman legionaries were stationed here in the first century i bet it wasn’t I bet it wasn’t 12,000 yeah and and that’s as I say that that’s

46:09

the official numbers so it doesn’t count special forces which are off the radar does the intelligence one is much more

46:16

um uh uh terrifying really because uh as

46:21

I say the Snowden leaks in 2013 revealed that GCHQbued now GCHQ is the largest UK

46:27

intelligence agency by quite some distance it’s our NSA right yes exactly it’s a surveillance organization um and

46:34

it’s based in Chelenham but it has a couple of uh recognized sites ones that they admit to one is in view in Cormal

46:41

where all the transatlantic cables go to the United States and stuff snowden’s leaks in 2013 showed that half of the

46:48

funding for that site comes from the NSA and that there’s countless NSA personnel

46:54

there we don’t know how many personnel because the government won’t say so that the whole of this uh pre US presence and

47:01

it includes the CIA as well RF Kraen they say there’s a thousand CIA uh spies there and RF Kraen is where um Harry

47:08

Dunn was killed you know by an Sakulas in that in that what became quite a big

47:14

scandal and she was taken out of the country before there could be any justice for Harry Dunn well she fled the

47:20

country i think she was and then no one know what she was but it seems like likely she was a CIA officer or or the

47:27

they said the wife of a CIA officer but she was probably CIA anyway that was that RF Crown is a central part of CIA’s

47:34

operation in Europe a quarter of all military communic uh and intelligence communications that go back to United

47:40

States from Europe go through RAF Crown so and again none of this has ever been written about there was a the NSA

47:46

funding GCHQB was a story in the Guardian actually from the Snowden period um I don’t think would it be

47:51

would it be published now do you think that was under the old editor i don’t think it would i don’t think they’d do Snowden alan Rus since Alan Rushper left

47:58

has there been one kind of deep uh deep state or security state uh investigation

48:05

that has that has captured the public or at least got in been I don’t think there’s I don’t even think there’s been

48:10

one that’s not captured the public i can’t think of one uh it’s why do you think they’ve been

48:15

intimidated well we talked about this last time so I don’t want to bore people but yes I think uh it was quite clear

48:23

that after the Snowden leaks particularly but the Wikileaks revelations of 2010 as well and 11 they

48:30

were terrified of the Guardians uh um uh willingness to actually do proper

48:37

journalism about these secret institutions which are not meant to have any light shone on them by the media

48:43

they’re kind of allowed to operate off the books that’s why it’s called the uh secret state and they are effectively

48:48

completely secret and the dnotice committee meetings dnotic is a a meeting of uh journalists and security officials

48:55

that meets every uh month or couple of months at the mod oh sorry every six

49:00

months at the mod and discuss what they can and can’t publish they they the minutes from some of the meetings in

49:06

that period were came out and it showed that the the guardian basically was uh

49:12

uh uh bought inhouse they appointed Paul Johnson who uh is the deputy editor uh

49:19

was the deputy editor of the Guardian so it wasn’t previously going to those meetings and then it subsequently did yeah i don’t want to repeat all this too

49:25

much because I did talk about this last time but he he he was appointed to the D notice committee itself in 2014 and then

49:31

when he left in 2018 the security official said this is all in the minutes said we uh we thank Paul Johnson for uh

49:38

reestablishing links with the Guardian so it was basically a massive uh program

49:44

of of of dampening down on the Guardian and uh and and yeah none of the I mean

49:50

we should go on to this because this has been revealed massively by Gaza as well uh we’re going to talk about Gaza right

49:56

now don’t worry uh yeah well so the Guardian has done basically zero investigations of the British role in

50:04

Gaza uh and once upon a time that wouldn’t have been the case you would have been able to read really good

50:10

investigative stuff on the British role in what is one of the worst crimes of

50:15

the 21st century and there’s been zilch zero you say the Guardian I mean back in the day 50 years ago you would have read

50:22

it in the Daily Mirror yeah yeah exactly and the Times even not even that long ago yeah so uh uh yeah it’s

50:29

uh yeah they’ve made I mean yeah there’s obviously many many theories about what

50:34

why what’s happened has happened but it’s just a fact that we don’t have a mainstream media which has any kind of

50:40

the uh uh uh check on power that it used to have uh it was never perfect has

50:46

always been a a sort of uh rich man’s tool in that the the the press but it’s

50:53

it’s become completely devoid of any kind of critical analysis and investigation of of deep state power

51:00

they can do frothy stories you can still do that but you can’t do stuff that will actually uh make people question the

51:08

deep systematic uh uh uh mechanisms of control that we enforce internally and

51:15

externally as well and and actually if you look at the repression

51:20

of journalists in this country over Gaza it’s all uh alternative media uh

51:26

journalists because they’re the ones that are revealing the information you know Asa Win Stanley of Electronic Infard was raided by police in a dawn

51:35

raid uh and they I didn’t know this you could do this in in the United Kingdom

51:41

they raided his house took all his electronic equipment uh and then didn’t

51:47

even charge him with a crime so he’s it’s like Kafkaresque you could They don’t even need to tell you why they’re

51:52

doing it so the But they did they have they have to return it within a certain time frame don’t they uh I don’t well he

51:58

I think he’s trying to maybe do a legal uh challenge that to mean that they can’t look at it but then just a month

52:06

before that Sarah Wilkinson who’s a activist and journalist on Gaza she had a she was raided by the she was charged

52:12

under the terrorism act so that’s ongoing she was bundled into a police van uh and interrogated for hours they

52:19

they destroyed her house tipped over the earn with her mom’s ashes and wow um yeah crazy stuff what police station was

52:26

she taken to i can’t remember i don’t know where she lives but then the month before that Richard Medhurst another

52:31

independent journalist who is on uh YouTube and Twitter and stuff he was detained under the terrorism act and

52:38

charged under the terrorism act in at Heithro when he arrived he’s a British citizen well that’s a really dangerous

52:43

one isn’t it when you come in and out of countries because actually people on the border they have really exceptional

52:48

powers schedule seven you can do compared to domestic police you’re kind of in a spot of bother of that yeah yeah yeah and that and they know that that

52:54

which is why they use that but the that the scary thing is about Sarah Wilkinson Richard Medhurst Asa Win Stanley scary

53:01

in itself scarier for me is that there’s never been a single word written in the

53:06

UK mainstream newspaper about any of that it’s completely off the radar so

53:12

you realize and that’s partly to do with what we’ve been talking about in that the civil society is so infested with

53:18

establishment money uh and US money that they that it’s they’ve created an

53:24

infrastructure uh of control it’s invisible but of control where certain things aren’t said certain things aren’t

53:30

covered and how can you have the police raiding journalists and it never be in a guardian it’s crazy and what so just one

53:37

more point is that you realize that the public realm in this country is lies undefended because the people that are

53:42

meant to that we’re told defend that public realm from oppressive power which

53:48

is journalists and civil society they’re they’re they they’re not there or they’re not there when you they won’t be

53:53

there when we need them if we ever need them they’re there for their for the kind of uh for the show but they’re not

53:58

there to actually do what their job is index on censorship never mentioned it you know well I mean that’s not a surprise but I mean for instance I I’m

54:05

pretty sure Asa Win Stanley is a member of the NUJ as one example i’m pretty sure i mean did they not say anything i

54:11

think they did i think the NUJ did but there’s a lot of civil society

54:16

um uh that dropped the ball on that case and also just civil society is yeah a scary

54:24

part of it for me the media is a scary part of it because they’re journalists so how can the media not publish a

54:30

single word about it even they they didn’t even publish smears which basically took the government line which is maybe what you’d expect the sun to do

54:37

or something but that it just is disappeared it’s disappeared it goes into what George Orwell called the

54:42

memory hole uh and if you read 1984 it’s quite sinister

54:48

like it’s obviously a brilliant novel about how totalitarianism works but uh it is a very very effective way of um uh

54:57

uh brainwashing is just to uh leave out and uh uh excise any information which

55:04

is not conducive to power which is how the media operates in this country interventions in the conversation about

55:09

Gaza are hugely important we’re having one here i’m having another one on April the 7th at Earth in Hackne with Elan

55:17

Pepe an extraordinary man an extraordinary historian his works focused on the ethnic cleansing of the

55:22

Palestinian people particularly uh with the Nagba in the mid to late 1940s and

55:28

the emergence the growth of an Israel Zionist lobby on both sides of the Atlantic over the last 150 years the

55:35

authority on both of those subjects as far as I’m concerned i really hope you can make it

55:41

uh to join us on April the 7th in Hackne we’ve got some tickets left not many try

55:47

and get one try and bring a friend his books will also be on sale and I always say the best gift for a family member or

55:55

a friend is a book which illuminates something about the world of real importance i can’t think of many things

56:02

right now more important than what’s going on in Gaza hope to see you on April the 7th the link for that is in

56:08

the description below when things get really interesting is when they try to make you the butt of a joke which is

56:14

what happens to Labour after 2018 with Corbyn it went from saying he’s not serious about power there was a real

56:19

shift after the 2017 general election right he’s not serious about power he doesn’t politics he’s principal over

56:24

over power all these nonsense meaningless talking lines and after 2018 there was clearly a shift

56:30

where it’s no we’re going to make him a joke make him a racist right that’s what’s going to work um and I think

56:35

you’re right um a mission is another really really powerful one i’ll never forget Matt the week after 2017 general

56:42

election the week after the 2017 general election um this is when Nvar Media was

56:47

much smaller much much smaller we didn’t have studios we didn’t have you know much of a YouTube channel we were tiny

56:53

we basically had a little bit of a social media footprint and we had a weekly radio show on Resident FM which is a Londonbased community radio station

56:59

the week after that general election where I said it was going to be a hung parliament very few people were saying

57:04

that i said it was going to be a hung parliament and obviously there’s a hung parliament we have our live stream does

57:10

terrifically well the day after I start being followed by loads of who’ve subsequently blocked me or

57:16

unfollowed me people like Sebastian PT because they thought “Oh these guys might be near power i I need to know

57:22

what the hell’s going on.” Bit late pal um anyway um a week later the Telegraph

57:29

do a front page story a front page story about something that one of us says off

57:34

the cuff on Resonance FM which is a London community radio station and I thought these people are serious

57:41

they want to destroy us um and I I had a front row seat to it and I can’t talk about everything but people being

57:47

blocked from jobs defamation campaigns dossiers dossias handed which I know

57:53

about and I’m sure there’s much more to it than just that there was a dossier handed out around around me i know that

57:59

at the BBC I applied for another job um IPR just as a part-time thing obviously

58:05

you’ve got the Labour Party with a leftwing leadership they need leftwing policy dossier’s handed around to all

58:11

the trustees the Archbishop of Canterbury has given a dossier this man cannot be employed by IPR and this is

58:17

how these people operate um and like you say it means that we don’t get anything vaguely

58:25

resembling the truth that said Declassifi has played a major role in all this stuff there is lots of stuff

58:30

out there do you think that fills the gaps nvar Media too of course we talked about all those stories at the time on

58:36

our daily show yeah do you think that fills the gap or or or really does there

58:42

have to be a concerted effort to make sure that outlets like the Guardian ITV

58:49

etc actually try and cover these stories properly or do you think that’s simply impossible we have to rebuild it all

58:54

yeah I I take the latter view i think we have to rebuild it all because I think the system as it exists the mainstream

59:00

system has been so far co-opted it’s not coming back and we shouldn’t make it our priority to bring

59:07

it back because as you say there’s so much exciting stuff happening in alternative media and we have the tools

59:12

now to get our word out and the the the experience I had at Declassified was

59:19

that you can create quite a lot of interest uh in uh in stories and in

59:25

information that the mainstream won’t cover if you go about it the right way like use the different parts of

59:32

alternative media like Navara Double Down News whatever it is there’s many many outlets now you can go to to get

59:37

the word out so we were we were doing a lot of stories about the British role in Gaza and I was you I I wasn’t just doing

59:45

the stories which is what I might have done once in a while um I was taking these stories and doing videos for

59:52

Double Down or coming to talk to to different uh to the Canary or whatever it was um and it and and it had an

59:58

impact you know like the stories I was doing about Cyprus um uh caused a massive ruckus in Cyprus

1:00:05

where there was ma major protest at the British base which was being used to supply and support the genocide in Gaza

1:00:11

uh the the and and and the interesting thing one of the major takeaways is that on all these stories they were covered

1:00:18

by the mainstream press in the country in the foreign country that it related to but not here so nothing’s ever been

1:00:26

written about the stories we did at Declassified and continue to do um has a single Declassified story ever been

1:00:32

reported on by the Guardian no not that I think not that I’m aware of no it’s been reported on as if if they’ve got if

1:00:39

like we did the story about um depleted uranium uh shells being used uh being

1:00:45

sent by the British to be used by Ukraine which got Putin to move tactical

1:00:51

nukes into Bellarus and that was obviously a global stories but it was kind of declassified story originally it

1:00:56

was by Phil Miller yeah a declassified scoop meant Yeah well you know Putin was going to escalate nuclear tension well

1:01:03

it it was again it was a interesting one because it was one that was up on the government website it was a it was a

1:01:08

parliamentary question that was asked by by Lord where he said “Are you are you sending depleted uranium shells which

1:01:15

are used in Challenger two tanks which were given them?” They said “Yes.” The mod stayed on the website phil Miller

1:01:22

the uh who’s now the editor of Declassified uh wrote up a I think it was like a 300 400 word story and by the

1:01:30

afternoon Putin was talking about in a press conference and saying we were going to we’re going to move tactical

1:01:35

nukes to Barus in response but um so again the media covered that but they didn’t reference the fact that it was a

1:01:42

declassified UK story originally but yeah generally no but everywhere it’s happened uh everywhere the the countries

1:01:49

that have been impacted by the stories and UK foreign policy that we’ve covered it’s become a major deal like in Bolivia

1:01:55

when I did a huge investigation of the UK role in in the 2019 coup there there

1:02:00

was uh the ambassador got called in it was on the front pages of all the papers there were protests um and yeah zero

1:02:07

happened here uh Venezuela we there was another scandal we created we created scandals in Cyprus where as I say the

1:02:14

presidents on both sides of the border uh spoke about it there were protests zero coverage in the UK which surprised

1:02:21

me as I have to say because you would think if presidents are speaking out of the UK media is going to have to respond

1:02:26

but they don’t but um yeah it’s it’s it’s the I talked about this before it’s

1:02:32

the major mechanism of control that they that they have is just to marginalize it’s obviously preferable to living in a

1:02:38

dictatorship where you get put in prison if you’re releasing information which is uh uh detrimental to the powers that be

1:02:44

but it’s still it it’s an obstacle because marginalization is very very

1:02:50

effective tool uh and we we obviously I mean part of the reason you were attacked I imagine so so viferously is

1:02:58

because you were clo well you were part of a movement which was close to power they that’s when they start caring if

1:03:04

you’re just pissing in the wind on the sidelines and saying stuff that they don’t like but it doesn’t it’s read it’s

1:03:10

read by I don’t know or watched by a million people okay they’re not going to like it but they’re not going to really

1:03:16

care if you start talk about actually someone close to you or close to you ideologically getting close to the

1:03:22

levers of power or even with the levers of power then okay that’s a real problem i mean you’d mentioned Corbyn it it

1:03:29

really revealed the different um pressure points in our society like within a week of him being elected

1:03:35

leader in 2015 a serving general was briefing the Times newspaper and saying there will be

1:03:40

a mutiny in the UK military if he’s elected prime minister so that doesn’t

1:03:45

sound like a democracy to me u true but I do think a a different person if they were in Corbin’s position would have

1:03:51

just said “Who the hell is this man he needs to resign by this afternoon.” Far would have done that yeah said this man

1:03:56

should not be in a job by 9:00 tomorrow yeah but I Yeah but well we don’t want to relitigate the whole No I appreciate

1:04:02

that but I I don’t disagree i don’t disagree with you politically those conflicts can actually well and they were when the best parts of the whole

1:04:08

Corbyn period were when they actually started talking in unashamed terms uh

1:04:13

about the establishment like I remember John McDonald had this contramp with um Richard Dear Love the former MI6 guy on

1:04:21

on Sky News where he was just like what did you what was your involvement in Iraq in the uh and and and everyone got

1:04:27

behind him you know and then they kind of just dropped the ball and said “Okay well let’s just try and uh appease

1:04:33

everyone.” And it was it’s not the way to do it you have to go if you’re if you’re actually against the establishment you have to go the

1:04:38

Trumpian route and I’m not saying in terms of policies obviously but speak against the establishment he does it but

1:04:45

yet fills his cabinet with JP Morgan people and and and uh uh neocons like

1:04:53

Marco Rubio but he talks a talk and people love it and that’s why he’s elected he won those elections the first

1:04:58

one and the second one without basically zero no national newspaper and very very few even local newspapers backing him he

1:05:05

had right-wing radio and stuff but how do you do that you have to speak against the establishment and and they didn’t do

1:05:10

it well that’s that there’s two points I want to make the first is the general coming out against Corbyn like that I

1:05:15

think is a good thing because they think this and they’re having to say it precisely because that guy’s in that position that’s a good thing you’re

1:05:21

highlighting you’re exposing these political tensions which actually undermine democracy they subvert democracy it’s good that they’re saying

1:05:27

that they’re briefing that if you play it right then secondly on the media point and Trump and I do want to talk

1:05:33

about Trump later on we’ll talk about Gaza first because it’s just a huge huge story you’ve played a massive role in exposing some awful stuff um but on the

1:05:40

media side of things I remember looking at the top five US podcasts the week before the presidential election you

1:05:46

know early November um last year the top five podcasts were basically all

1:05:51

proTrump right obviously Joe Rogan Experience um I think Tucker Carlson was in the top three you had that other dude

1:05:59

I forget his name you know he’s a US comedian huge huge podcast and you look at them I think number five was Candy

1:06:05

Sens and then like you say you look at the legacy media particularly broadcast MSNBC CNN basically every but Fox

1:06:11

totally different and for me it was probably the first internet election it was the first time where online

1:06:17

non-leacy media smashed legacy media and I do wonder well part of this is a

1:06:23

thought in this country i do wonder if that’s what happens in 2029 um and not

1:06:28

to the benefit of the Labor Party I must say uh Gaza talk to me about RAF bases

1:06:33

in Cyprus how have they been used in Gaza in Yemen well let me go back start at the beginning because there there’s

1:06:40

an important history in this in that um that really goes

1:06:45

to show how the British Empire was never decommissioned after the Second World War which is the fable we’re fed from a

1:06:51

young age in this country um basically uh Cypress was a British colony until

1:06:57

1960 when it was uh uh given independence or it won independence um

1:07:03

but it wasn’t given independence what Britain did was it retained 3% of the

1:07:08

island so which is quite significant portions of land and not only that it had it it retained 3% of the island

1:07:15

which which are now called sovereign base areas we still own them but they also had retain sites which were

1:07:21

different sites in the country which were just solo sites one of them is called RAF Trudeau which is the highest

1:07:26

point in Cyprus which is a massive NSA GCHQ surveillance station which spies on

1:07:32

the whole of the Middle East and North Africa um but the sovereign base areas were kept and they we still got them

1:07:38

their sovereign British territory um from the start the British basically

1:07:44

were taking a piss with these new territory because basically the the treaty of establishment of Cyprus said

1:07:51

that uh they b they wouldn’t be used in any kind of uh way which undermines

1:07:56

criate security and undermines criate national uh uh administration and

1:08:01

obviously Archbishop Macarios III who was the li the first democratic president of independent Cypress he was

1:08:08

a kind of liberation leader uh in Cypus he fought the British he was in exile and came back and won that election in

1:08:13

in 1960 he was a founder of the non-align movement uh which tried to uh

1:08:20

uh chart a course between east and west during the cold war and one of the I found a top secret document from the

1:08:26

Ministry of Defense at the archives in Q Gardens which showed that Britain secretly turned Cyprus through these

1:08:31

sovereign base areas during the Cold War into a major NATO asset uh including

1:08:37

hosting Vulcan uh nuclear capable Vulcan bombers there which uh so and a massive

1:08:43

spy station as well so hold on Vulcan bombers back in the day these would be used to carry nuclear weapons like

1:08:49

little boy used on Hushima rather than an ICBM and there were other uh hints in the document this was a top secret

1:08:55

document because it it had information about nuclear stuff and that’s always the case they they they were saying that

1:09:00

um uh things they were saying were suggesting that they were the target would have been Russia which we we you

1:09:06

can assume anyway but they were also saying we have to keep it quiet because they knew and this is their words is not

1:09:12

consistent with Cyprus’s non-aligned stance that we’re turning these areas into huge NATO assets and making it a

1:09:19

front in the cold war they also said if we are found out or if it becomes too unpopular we we’d have to go to Malta

1:09:26

which had also got independence from Britain but uh they were saying they would never let us host uh the kind of

1:09:31

stuff we’re hosting in Cypress so well because Mortal is in a sim similar vibe right you had um you had a socialist

1:09:36

government there Dominic Mento and uh I think as far as I’m aware as recently as

1:09:42

the Iraq war multi dockers wouldn’t allow um US Navy Royal Navy ships bound

1:09:51

to fight basically Saddam Hussein they weren’t letting them dock in Valleta anyway sorry so this that’s just a bit

1:09:57

background but it’s important because not many people know this right but we I didn’t really know much about Cypress i went there in 2022 and and uh to these

1:10:05

sovereign base areas and the amazing thing about them as well is that they’re run as military dictatorships so people live on them there’s bases on them which

1:10:12

are huge like RAF Aretier which is the main air base um but obviously 3% of the

1:10:17

island so it’s there’s there’s huge sways of territory where people live and stuff and and it’s all executive and

1:10:22

legislative power resides in one person who’s called the administrator in kind of some cafkaresque terminology and that

1:10:30

administrator is appointed by the Ministry of Defense in London so there’s complete control um but when you go

1:10:35

there you you don’t know you’re going into British territory it’s not there’s no border and there’s no British flags

1:10:41

interestingly like they try and keep it on a very low level because the occupation in the north in from 1974

1:10:47

when the Turks invaded and they’ve never left in an occupation that’s not recognized by anyone in the world apart from the Turkish themselves who you

1:10:53

might understand why they do that but they don’t want to trap the eye the British of the Turkish occupation

1:10:59

because that’s a very live issue and if you go to the border there’s Turkish flags huge ones obnoxiously displayed

1:11:05

over the mountains um but so the British try and keep it very low level but it’s a it’s basically the central node for

1:11:12

the Anglo-American Empire to uh militarily dominate the Middle East and and when out the Eastern Mediterranean

1:11:19

yeah eastern Mediterranean so north you got Turkey east you got Syria Lebanon south you got Egypt so they can so this

1:11:26

is again the British Empire in terms of grand strategy they retained basically this huge military and intelligence

1:11:32

station in the eastern Mediterranean and and they obviously still got Jibralta which is the gateway to the western

1:11:37

Mediterranean so that whole so we do have the choke points and pressure points of uh of that whole region um

1:11:45

which again was if you start looking into it is quite surprising because even I thought okay Britain’s a bit part

1:11:50

player in the imperial strategy where the US is the main player which is true obviously the US has overwhelming power

1:11:55

but we play a very important role and this the Gaza kind of shows this because

1:12:01

the other point about these bases is that there’s been a presence there by the United States for 50 years since

1:12:06

1972 when it was admitted that there was some US presence for humanitarian

1:12:11

reasons but they never And the US and UK have kept secret the

1:12:17

complexion and the size of the US presence at RAF at Criteri

1:12:22

um which is the western sovereign base area and Dealia which is the eastern soft uh sovereign base area which is the

1:12:29

int intelligence part and which is occupied by the NSA as well but um in in

1:12:35

one of the stories I did for declassified at that point was I revealed for the first time that 129 US airmen are permanently stationed at RAF

1:12:42

Eriti snowden’s leaks again showed the NSA uh were uh uh funding a large

1:12:48

portion of the Kellia which is the huge GCHQ station in the east and were

1:12:53

occupying RF Trudeau as well so this is a another uh very important function we

1:12:59

provided for the Americans after the second world war when they basically took on the mantle of world domination is we said we’ve got all these uh

1:13:05

overseas bases which we still have you know like in Kenya in Falklands Cyprus

1:13:11

uh Nepal you can use them as uh joint st joint int joint bases now that’s

1:13:18

explicit and official in places like Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean but it’s the case unofficially in in in all

1:13:24

the other ones and all all of them well not maybe not all of them but all the major ones like the US can use like

1:13:29

Cyprus is not a US base but yet the NSA’s got probably hundreds of spies

1:13:35

there the the the Americans have got 129 airmen secretly permanently deployed

1:13:41

there um and they can use it however they want because the other point is you can’t get any information about it so if

1:13:47

I if I if I sent a freedom well RF act criteria you can’t get any information because it’s the freedom of information

1:13:52

act is blocked just you can’t use it because like I say it’s a military dictatorship it’s run completely on

1:13:58

secret lines but in the US bases in the UK I can send a request to get

1:14:03

information about what UK troops are doing on it i can’t send one about US troops because they just say a blanket statement of we don’t comment on allies

1:14:10

movements or actions on our bases so they operate as black sites for the Americans which is another service we

1:14:16

provided to the Americans after the sequel war but anyway so the US

1:14:21

present so the US has had this presence for 50 years which is now revealed as this hundreds 129 uh US airmen now it’s

1:14:30

a 40-minute flight time from Gaza uh so soon soon after the 40 minutes yeah so

1:14:37

basically like here to Amsterdam or something like yeah it’s and very very easy all over water as well there’s no

1:14:42

you don’t need to and Tel Aviv as well obviously so uh when the when the genocide began soon after October 7th I

1:14:49

started uh looking at uh thinking well having been there the year before I’m

1:14:55

sure Cypress RFI uh these sovereign base areas are being used to support Israel um and I asked

1:15:03

the Ministry of Defense initially like how many planes are going from uh Cyprus to Israel and they wouldn’t tell me and

1:15:09

that’s when I began looking at flight tracker websites which I’d never used before then but now I know like the back

1:15:15

of my hand because I’ve just been using them for so long now but for some reason the flights were being put up and still

1:15:22

are and what they were showing was there was nearly daily flights of huge C17s

1:15:27

and A400M which are huge military transport vehicles they can carry 150 troops helicopters Abraham’s tanks were

1:15:34

going to Tel Aviv every day uh by January 48 had gone so it was nearly every other day or maybe more than every

1:15:40

other day um still to this day we don’t know what were on those flights because the UK government when they had to

1:15:46

defend it and like I said the mainstream media wasn’t covering it so they never had to defend it to the mainstream media that to us they told us well medicinal

1:15:53

supplies and moving ministers now a couple of ministers are gone that’s it

1:15:58

48 massive uh uh military transport taking medicine up so we don’t know what

1:16:04

were on those flights in December they they were they they began spy flights

1:16:11

daily over Gaza which continued for over a year um and these are shadow R1 uh uh

1:16:18

airplanes which can uh do target acquisition for military strikes so this is Royal Air Force or US Air Force royal

1:16:24

Air Force um and so the UK announced that they were going to start doing them but they

1:16:29

didn’t say where they were going from or how long they were going to be in the air or how frequently so uh uh I found

1:16:34

that they were over Gaza for 5 hours every day and sometimes they were over Gaza for 10 hours and one day there was

1:16:40

even three flights and and and they the the information they were collecting over Gaza

1:16:46

um was going to Israel that was the government said that the these flights are in support of Israel now they said it was all to do with hostage rescue

1:16:52

which is what they always say but we don’t know what that what that means now we still don’t know what departments of

1:16:58

the Israeli government that information has been handed to and we don’t even know what the intelligence collected is

1:17:04

and what has been handed to the America to the Israelis cuz they the UK government won’t dis talk about it at

1:17:10

all which is a very serious thing when you’re talking about a genocide case at the IC ICJ and an ICC arrest warrant out

1:17:17

for the prime minister and the former defense minister and you’re talking about what seems like material support

1:17:22

and intelligence support which makes you a party to the conflict um we and again any media that

1:17:29

actually was was doing its job or just basic stuff when you’ve got some crimes

1:17:35

of this severity and and legal live legal cases against the government uh um

1:17:40

uh government ministers and your government is seems to be party or is clearly party to the conflict you would

1:17:45

thought would be some interest zero but and the other the other part of it is

1:17:51

that the the UK and this came out in the New York Times again it’s interesting isn’t it this came out in the New York Times no UK paper covered it no news UK

1:17:59

paper has revealed anything but last summer the New York Times revealed based on a leak from an Israeli official that

1:18:05

the UK had deployed a spy team inside Israel early on in the genocide to help

1:18:10

with their bombing of Gaza uh and they sat and this Israeli official told the New York Times um uh we’re the British

1:18:19

are helping us collect information we cannot this is the quote we cannot collect on our own and it’s giving us

1:18:24

quote value added never been written about in the UK media um so so the

1:18:30

intelligence support is huge and in fact I I think of the guards of genocide as a tripartite genocide which is the United

1:18:36

States is providing majority of the arms 8% uh the majority of the intelligence

1:18:41

coming from uh the the British and Israel getting it done because there was an subsequent to the work we were doing

1:18:48

Al Jazzer did an investigation of the reconnaissance flights over Gaza they found 47% nearly half of all

1:18:54

reconnaissance flights over Gaza over 600 they found were flown by the RAF

1:18:59

more than double Israel itself so this is this is incredible information that actually

1:19:06

should be uh uh followed up on by legal institute initutions and the ministers that ordered that and we’re talking

1:19:11

about uh defense secretary Grant Sheps uh prime minister Rishi Sunnak all this stuff continued under the labor

1:19:17

administration so you talk about John Healey defense secretary prime minister Kama should be investigated by the ICC

1:19:23

so this is my question for you so are we now in the territory of an actual serious conversation about potential

1:19:28

arrest warrants for James Cleverly David Lammy John Healey etc yeah well we

1:19:34

should be and we should no but this is the point it’s not about a moral or emotional feeling of antipathy towards

1:19:40

those people because that’s subjective yeah of course do you think given precedence with regards to how the ICJ

1:19:46

and ICC conduct themselves there is a credible case for those people getting arrest warrants 100% i think if we if

1:19:52

they were doing their job uh they would have to because if you look into the the

1:19:58

the legality of if you’re an accomplice and you’re if you hand intelligence to a

1:20:03

country which is committing war crimes and you’ve got restaurants already out for the prime minister and the former

1:20:09

defense minister the people who are handing them intelligence which is probably being used for targeting need

1:20:14

to be arrested as well surely that’s how it works you can’t if I if I if you were going to commit a crime and I started

1:20:20

giving you information about how you can do it uh knowing what’s going on because all this information was the war crime

1:20:26

the daily war crimes was was was out then uh I would be I’d be liable as well

1:20:32

and I should be liable the other point is I’m talking about stuff we’ve basically revealed this is like a small

1:20:38

uh outlet declassified at that point there was three of us four of us maybe um any legal process with discovery

1:20:46

would reveal I think we’re still scratching the surface as I say there’s so many question marks about so much of this if the whole weight of legal uh

1:20:54

where you can subpoena documents and and actually get truth about especially the intelligence role because it’s it’s so

1:21:01

secretive then then stuff stuff will come out that would I think would would implicate these ministers in serious

1:21:07

serious war crimes and genocide and there’s another part of it as well because I talked about the intelligence role I talked about these huge military

1:21:12

transport flights which we don’t know what were on them the SAS the special forces which is an even more secretive

1:21:18

part of the British state than the intelligence they were there was an article in the Sun on October 27 so a

1:21:23

couple of weeks after the bombing of Gaza started saying the SS had deployed to RF Acretion on Cyprus for quote

1:21:30

unquote Gaza operations october 28th the Dnotice Committee which we’ve talked

1:21:36

about sent out an advisory to the whole British media saying “Do not publish any

1:21:42

more information about special forces and Gaza.” Since that day we don’t know

1:21:47

what the SAS has been doing either in Israel probably in an advisory role but we don’t know or in Gaza itself could be

1:21:54

and Jeremy Corbyn asked a question in parliament saying “Is there um is there

1:21:59

are have any UK personnel been on the ground in Gaza?” And the defense minister wouldn’t answer so there’s a

1:22:05

credible case of the SAS being in Gaza well very credible well I’d say a credible case that they’re definitely in

1:22:11

they definitely been in Israel because they probably moved in some of those transport flights that’s what I think uh

1:22:16

cuz the UK also deployed 500 extra troops to Cypress secretly in that period as well but that was actual

1:22:22

troops not SAS um but uh but from what I know about uh the SAS is they often play

1:22:29

an advisory role so you send a team in and they they advise on a ground on the ground operation probably because it was

1:22:35

quite early on uh but what could the SS is a question because obviously the the

1:22:41

Israelis have pretty well recognized special forces they’ve got tremendous amounts of experience obviously they’ve

1:22:46

been inflicting this stuff on Palestinian people for decades and decades and decades realistically what

1:22:51

would the Brits be and the SAS in particular what would they be teaching the Israelis yeah well this is it’s it’s

1:22:57

a question which can also apply to the RAF flights you know we’re talking about a tiny little strip of land that is

1:23:02

under full operational control of the Israelis and this is one of the most high-tech militaries and intelligence

1:23:08

systems in history they know everything that’s going on in Gaza why do you need our flight one of the world’s leading drone manufacturers is Israel exactly so

1:23:15

why do you need 47% of the reconnaissance flight to be and I don’t quite know the answer to I think part of

1:23:20

it is the Brits want to get involved at all times because we have this imperial hangover where we want to be seen as as

1:23:27

a as a global player so we instantly say “Oh we’ll send the flights.” On from Israel’s side it’s much better to be

1:23:33

seen as an alliance isn’t it because and and if you drag in the United States and drag in the British it’s see it’s seen

1:23:39

more it’s like coalition of the willing stuff in Iraq you know it’s it’s much more you you look stronger if you’re part of part of an alliance especially

1:23:45

if you’re committing the heinous crimes that they were so I think that’s part of it but um the

1:23:52

SAS also have a special reputation not for good reasons well outside of uh Andy

1:23:58

McNav and stuff they’ve got a reputation for brutality and and knowing how to uh uh put down uh resistance movements uh

1:24:06

around the world for for decades and decades because of main IDF i mean so the IDF they the they infiltrated

1:24:13

Hezbollah to an extraordinary extent they’ve clearly compromised massive parts of the Iranian state apparatus in so much as the Iranians have pulled back

1:24:19

from the brink so I I just don’t understand I don’t think they need it also when you look at what they’re doing

1:24:24

right they’re just carpet bombing and they’ve been doing that for over a year they’re not it’s not strategic it’s not

1:24:30

that they basically failed in all their strategic goals the cast hostages weren’t didn’t come back of a few well

1:24:36

they’re arresting the families of the hostages because they’re saying “Please stop bombing these places we want our families back.” And they I think they

1:24:42

probably wanted to occupy or depopulate Gaza and that that was impossible like so I yeah to answer your question I

1:24:49

think it’s not an operational need that the SAS and the RF provided i think it’s more a cosmetic

1:24:55

uh uh thing and part of the British wanting to be involved in everything it’s the same with Iraq what do what what did we needed with the invasion of

1:25:02

Iraq we actually we completely ballsed up uh southern Iraq to the point where

1:25:08

it was embarrassing for the British and Bush said look just we’ll take over and you go to Helman province in Afghanistan

1:25:14

which was another um complete mess but that was literally what happened like you took the easy job which it wasn’t

1:25:21

which it wasn’t yeah but we really bulled up and and the Americans came in and and and went harder than the British

1:25:26

but again it’s I think it is I think it is we have a British establishment which is pickled in uh and brought up in

1:25:36

institutions which are which have which are from the time when we ruled the world and they want to maintain that

1:25:41

role and if we didn’t maintain that role if we didn’t become involved in all the US imperial adventures didn’t become

1:25:48

involved in Israel’s attacks on Palestinians we we we could be seen as like a bit part player like an Italy or

1:25:54

a Spain you know we still retain a main this kind of relevance in grand power uh

1:26:00

grand power politics because of our uh closeness to uh the United States and

1:26:05

also Israel so but anyway we don’t know so we don’t know what happened what the SS were doing there and we don’t know

1:26:10

what they’ve been doing for over a year we don’t know if they’re still there we don’t know if the spy team I mentioned which was leaked to the New York Times

1:26:17

is still there so this is crazy stuff when you’re talking about uh uh live

1:26:23

legal cases when you’re talking about ministers which go on TV every day and they’ve never been asked a question by

1:26:29

one journalist about any of it how is that and so to to answer your question

1:26:34

about should they should there be a restaurant I think 100% whether that will ever happen I

1:26:40

think is probably less than 1% um less than 1% because these guys are going to

1:26:46

probably be around for a long time you know 50 60 years some of them well maybe not 40 years i’m cynical about uh I mean

1:26:52

I was surprised that the ICC sent the arrest warrants out for Netanyahu and Gallant to be honest with you like uh

1:26:59

that’s the first time they’ve ever uh indicted a Western official despite all

1:27:05

since it was created in the early 2000s Iraq happening they never sent one out for Bush and Blair so the idea that they’d actually I think they were under

1:27:11

so much pressure cuz the Israelis were advertising their genocidal intent they didn’t nice things up like Bush and

1:27:17

Blair uh they were basically Galat went on TV and said we’re going to withdraw water food electricity from 2.3 million

1:27:23

people they he put them in a bit of a bind uh so I think they were forced to do that i doubt that their traditional

1:27:29

role as basically an enforcer of uh uh imper uh imperial control through

1:27:34

prosecuting official enemies will change much uh and include people like K star

1:27:40

or David Lami although it should uh and also there’s no pressure because if you

1:27:45

you know the the one thing that the new government did the Labor government was they suspended 30 weapons licenses uh

1:27:52

well they did several things right I mean they did several things which the Israelis weren’t happy about what what were the other ones

1:27:58

There was there was talk about a commitment to recognizing a state of Palestine that’s being jettisoned no I No no I know it’s it’s never going to

1:28:05

happen and it’s not substantial but within the context of a new government it was something which really did piss off Netanyahu at the same time like you

1:28:12

said the suspension of certain weapon sales um but I think actually look in

1:28:17

the broader context of and and people forget this three UK nationals were killed um whilst being involved in some

1:28:24

kind of aid mission in in Gaza well you interestingly you meant but and but but what happened and and like you said

1:28:30

we’re giving 47% of flights reconnaissance flights Royal Air Force when three of our people were killed well interestingly a Shadow R1 spy RF

1:28:38

spy plane was in the sky just before that attack that which was a targeted assassination and uh we requested uh

1:28:46

through the Freedom of Information Act a uh the the video of the uh an

1:28:51

information about what they collected on that day and and the Ministry of Defense refused to give it so even with the British citizens we take crazy I know

1:28:58

and the family have spoken out about it the British experts paying for those reconnaissance flights to be there like

1:29:04

it or not it’s happening and they’re not even going to divulge the data when British nationals are killed and they’re

1:29:10

feeding information to the people that killed them from the day it happened it’s wild which is And we need

1:29:16

to pay more money for this by the way we need to increase defense spending so we can do more of it yeah i remember uh like Carl Hansen who was the former

1:29:23

editor of Tribune he tweeted something the day after saying “It’s good to know that if I’m killed uh by the Israelis

1:29:28

the government that the UK government will take their side not mine.” Of course they will yeah but it’s quite insane i tweeted early on in a genocide

1:29:34

that if uh if Israel invaded the UK um I think that our political uh like

1:29:40

establishment would would would like about it but eventually would end up supporting it that that’s how insane

1:29:47

it’s got that’s how much uh uh uh Israeli control effectively is control

1:29:53

of our political system there is is that that our national security our lives are

1:29:59

that a lower down priority for our government than than supporting Israel i think that’s true i mean look if if

1:30:05

Navara sent people to the West Bank or to Lebanon to do journalism

1:30:10

I think there would be a genuine conversation about safety and it would be in regards to the IDF and I genuinely

1:30:17

think if there was some kind of you know accident with regards to and has happened to many journalists to UK

1:30:23

journalists which you know you could potentially read as a target assassination and you’d need a conversation about it like with these

1:30:29

three aid workers the British government would do nothing they wouldn’t do anything and these the people that you

1:30:35

know it says on your passport his bratannic majesty request to require as the bearer of this past to be able to move without hindrance well except if

1:30:42

it’s the IDF in which case they can shoot you in the head and nothing’s going to happen exactly and that’s what And it’s also the the the the

1:30:49

institutions we’re putting billions of our taxpayers uh money into you know

1:30:54

like this is like when Kama says he’s going to raise um uh defense spending to 3% of GDP

1:31:02

eventually that’s where he wants it by 2030 right yeah yeah yeah he uh he’s it’s all presented as we’re defending

1:31:08

you uh against Putin mainly but that would that can change um uh and when you

1:31:14

start looking into it in fact no that’s like they spent tens of millions on these RAF flights to support a genocide

1:31:20

well how did that Well presumably more well there’s been some anal there’s if you’ve got a spy plane in the air for

1:31:26

seven hours that’s not cheap i think that there’s a group called Genocide Free Cypress which sprouted up uh as a

1:31:32

response to the stories that were coming out about um uh the Cypress’s role or the UK part of Cypress’s role they did

1:31:40

an analysis uh where they found like 40 million pounds but I think it’s they said at least they said this is very very conservative but this is based on

1:31:47

but it’s probably a lot more and then you talk about all the other elements of it you know like the the extra troops

1:31:52

the the spy uh other spy planes that they were sending that we don’t we can’t track on flight tracker websites the

1:31:58

boats they deployed a whole whole uh load of Navy assets to the Eastern Mediterranean early on October huge I’d

1:32:04

say like tens of millions like uh definitely oh well 40 million 40 million

1:32:12

on the spy flights and yeah you probably up to 100 million easily I would say but that’s just kind of back of an envelope

1:32:19

figures but the point is what that could do to a imagine what that could do to like a medium-sized city in this country it could make it look very nice but

1:32:25

instead we’re pissing up the wall but but this is it’s a huge huge problem that we allow them to get away with

1:32:31

calling it defense spending you know they used to call it the war ministry before they called it the Ministry of Defense was a lot more honest because

1:32:37

it’s not about if you start looking into declassified documents and stuff national security is actually a low

1:32:43

priority compared to what they’re actually trying to do which is project power uh militarily or in terms of

1:32:49

corporate power um and and like this is if you look at the increase that Star’s

1:32:56

um made in or the since the announcement I looked yesterday BAE Systems the

1:33:02

flagship UK arms company which is just dwarfs all the rest of them privatized by Margaret Thatcher in the 80s it share

1:33:09

price has jumped 28% since that announcement was made 3 weeks ago and that’s because they know that 13 billion

1:33:16

extra a year in defense spending or weapons spending war spending is going a

1:33:22

lot of it will go directly into the coffers of BAE shareholders know that the market knows that but the people

1:33:27

don’t know that they think that that’s a m it’s kind of like the aid racket it’s a massive sub because we don’t have uh

1:33:34

publicly owned arms manufacturers we used to uh but that money goes straight

1:33:39

to the private sector and then obviously Eisenhower talked about this military-industrial comp complex the

1:33:44

every incentive is to increase uh the military part of the economy because

1:33:50

these these companies have huge sway over the government you know Robin Cook in his memoir said BAE have the keys to

1:33:56

the back door of number 10 bae are hugely hugely powerful in this country and a guiding policy um and what it

1:34:04

means is we we we have a situation where we have a Labor government which is taking uh uh what is it 5 billion from

1:34:12

disabled people they reckon it’s going to they reckon it’s going to cost um it’s going to cost 1.2 2 billion

1:34:19

disabled people four to six grand a year the cuts that they’re proposing i mean I think there’s going to be a lot more personally that’s for that’s for now i

1:34:25

think even before the end of this year that’s they’re doing that while increasing weapons spending 13 billion a

1:34:31

year it’s just crazy and and they’ll say well it’s because we need to rearm because because of the threat of Putin

1:34:36

that’s not true like I I agree we every country needs a defense it needs an army

1:34:41

it needs some it needs to have some strategy for defending against invasions or whatever it might be and and there

1:34:48

there are there is there are um uh especially cyber threats against this country from hostile actors uh yes they

1:34:56

should focus on that but the point is this is the policy is not being made rationally and it’s not being made in

1:35:02

the way I just described it’s being made because of the incentives the system the political system has been given by the

1:35:08

hugely powerful arms industry it’s the same in the United States you know they spend $1 trillion a year on the Pentagon

1:35:14

one trillion and they don’t need that they got 800 bases around the world they got these just the level of military

1:35:22

control over that economy is bananas it’s there’s a term for it it’s called a strattocracy where it’s basically ruled

1:35:28

by the military and that’s what it’s what it’s become in the United States it’s what they want to bring here and we

1:35:33

need to really completely upend the terminology and the ideologies which are used to justify it because it’s an

1:35:40

abomination when you’re taking money from disabled people um who are some of the most vulnerable people in our

1:35:46

society and giving it to BAE shareholders effectively and BAE as a

1:35:51

company it’s obscene um and it’s obscene that a Labor government can do this but an interesting part of the the Gaza

1:35:57

thing as well is is it’s a very very revealing of how bipartisan

1:36:04

uh foreign policy is in this country because we talk a lot about and you talk about Navara and the left talks about in

1:36:10

general about how this the Tories and Labor there’s very there’s like a cigarette paper between them on domestic

1:36:15

policy but we thought that well actually Labour seem to be worse now but we thought they might be marginally better than the Tories on foreign policy it

1:36:23

there’s continuity throughout the whole uh uh thing like when when see I thought

1:36:28

it’d be the other way around i I I thought there’d be complete continuity on foreign policy but Oh no that’s what I’m saying yeah right and it’s always

1:36:34

been like that there’s but and most of it’s done in secret so and and all the

1:36:39

Gaza stuff I’ve talked about has been done in secret and and it continued directly from what was it July that they

1:36:46

were that they became in there was literally no difference in fact US special forces flights from RFAR 2 to

1:36:52

Israel increased understandment that was a minor difference but effectively there’s no there’s no difference it’s

1:36:57

just a one congealed whole blob uh policym which is uh influenced as I say

1:37:03

by the arms industry these armed arms industry funded think tanks and uh it

1:37:09

it’s really really pushing us into uh what could actually cause social collapse in this country you can’t take

1:37:15

that much money out of the benefit system without causing like mass

1:37:21

suffering especially we’re talking about a society which has been hammered since 2010 uh hundreds of thousands of excess

1:37:28

deaths because of austerity uh the councils having some of their budgets cut by 50% um you can’t then impose

1:37:36

another one when everyone’s been wait for about 15 years all we have to do is get the tries out and it will all be all

1:37:41

right there’s going to be and then meanwhile you’re giving all the money to the arms industry it’s it’s a recipe for

1:37:47

disaster and social collapse uh and I predict that what it will end in is Nigel Faraj as prime minister I think

1:37:54

because at the moment the left are nowhere you know we are literally nowhere the Labour party is is is a

1:38:00

monstrosity which is doing all this stuff you have like these five independent MPs who are doing good stuff

1:38:06

but in terms of an organized left there’s nothing and the trade union is a trade unions are captured in the same way that labor are captured that’s a

1:38:13

huge problem because I think that’s the real way out of this for me is that you have all this money that organized labor

1:38:20

has 30 million they give to Labor a year if they could stop if they could get rid of that disaffiliate defund the Labor

1:38:27

Party and start something new I think something could happen because if you look at I know everyone always says this

1:38:32

which is like oh the the left every time we tried to create a left party outside of Labor it’s failed miserably which is

1:38:38

true right you’ve had like left unity plenty of other damp squibs that’s not

1:38:43

to criticize the people who have tried because it’s worth trying but the point is if you unleashed 30 million pounds of

1:38:50

spending you could create a proper infrastructure it wouldn’t be this inco sort of uh messy sort of trying to band

1:38:59

together stuff you’d have a lot of money you could start employing people you could create a machine and that’s what and and the and the unions basically now

1:39:07

are paying for a part uh uh through the nose to fund a party which is destroying

1:39:15

the working class in this country and also uh undertaking a genocide it’s it’s

1:39:21

a banana scenario so you just said a whole bunch of stuff there there’s a lot to unpack

1:39:26

um I want to just quickly start with defense so I think you’re right a country should defend itself what we’ve

1:39:36

done probably since the Second World War actually um is about that projection of power as the sidekick to the United

1:39:42

States there’s a reason why Europe the continent of Europe has six aircraft carriers Russia has zero right because

1:39:47

Russia’s military procurement has been about hard-headed um foreign policy ambitions like you

1:39:54

know taking bits of Ukraine starting cold wars in Georgia or maybe Lithuania maybe Muldova whereas ours has been

1:40:01

about projecting power and helping the United States and that has meant a massive misallocation of resources like

1:40:07

I say this country has two aircraft carriers that’s as many aircraft carriers as China has right really

1:40:13

screwed up now somebody who disagrees with you and I politically might be watching this and they’re really

1:40:18

interested in military procurement they might say “You’re right that was catastrophic really stupid we

1:40:24

shouldn’t be trying to project power india Indian Ocean Pacific Ocean none of our business.” They might even want to

1:40:31

retreat from certain you know bases around the world they might say “Yeah Diego Garcia I don’t care.” But Russia

1:40:38

um as a revanchious power in Europe which it is justifies increasing defense

1:40:44

spending from 2.3% of GDP to 3% what would you say to that what would I say to the argument that they’re that that

1:40:50

they’re increasing russia Russia has clearly built a very formidable war machine which just you know we’re now

1:40:56

getting to a point where European media is actually accepting that right um Russia has not had the best relations

1:41:02

with Europe for much of the last 200 years you can blame either side you can go to Napoleon you can go to Hitler beaten the great whatever that’s been

1:41:09

the case um and so the counter argument is particularly for the former great powers

1:41:14

of Europe particularly France and the UK they need to take a lead in ensuring European self-defense even if NATO

1:41:20

collapses tomorrow yeah yeah what do you make of that argument well I I I don’t agree with the premise because I don’t

1:41:26

think that Russia is a threat to the UK now to Europe my well is your it’s a

1:41:32

threat to Ukraine and it has been a threat to Ukraine but it it’s not going to attack a NATO country if you if you

1:41:38

look at the history of Ukraine that was obviously it was an illegal invasion you can’t just go in a country and annex uh

1:41:45

Crimea in 2014 now Donbass uh after the latest invasion but the prelude to that

1:41:51

was a massive NATO expansion in Europe when they promised that they wouldn’t at the end of the cold war uh James Baker

1:41:58

promised Gorbachov he said we won’t move one inch east uh and obviously but I agree with all that but we are where we

1:42:05

are now yeah but but my point is that’s but I I think that that leads up to Ukraine so I don’t think I don’t think

1:42:11

that that the the idea which is pushed by the militarists is that because Russia invaded Ukraine they’re going to

1:42:17

then invade uh thei the United Kingdom if they get away with it i don’t think they’re going to by the way just to be clear I don’t support an increased

1:42:23

defense no no no the point you’re making this is really important i want to play devil’s advocate um and in a meaningful

1:42:29

sense not a stupid sense because I do I do think if I was Polish if if I was Lithuanian I’d be really well I know

1:42:36

these people I would be very worried particularly Lithuanian if the Baltics and Poland well particularly the Baltics actually if you’re in NATO Poland’s got

1:42:42

nothing to worry about article five no one’s like the I this is what I he invaded Ukraine because he believed that

1:42:49

they were being put on a path towards NATO membership which is probably true like he so you think article 5 is

1:42:56

meaningful without the US yeah yeah i mean but then hold on but then that

1:43:01

necessarily requires the UK to spend more of its Yeah but again I don’t think is going to withdraw from NATO i just

1:43:08

don’t think that’s going to happen that’s another I like that they’re presenting it now as we need to rearm because the US is potentially going to

1:43:14

withdraw from NATO he didn’t do it in the first term although he said he was going to i don’t think it’s going to happen and it would completely upend the

1:43:20

whole uh infrastructure of uh security arrangement that’s been around since the

1:43:26

Second World War since 1949 but but it but there’s a deeper read isn’t there

1:43:31

which is that and this is true European leaders are saying you know what fundamentally something shifted in

1:43:36

American politics their electorate doesn’t want to fund the collective security of Europe anymore which is true

1:43:41

and actually you know they got kind of got a point in which case Europeans are going to have to spend slightly more on defense but what what what do you think

1:43:48

the Russians said when we invaded Iraq in 2003 were we a threat then what what what did that reveal because that was an

1:43:54

illegal invasion imperialism we were we were junior partner in in a war of imperialism obviously exactly but that’s

1:44:00

what that’s what Ukra Ukraine is a war of imperialism by Russia right so yeah

1:44:06

the question is does that go to the Baltics yeah but I don’t think so i think I think there’s no way a NATO uh

1:44:13

uh uh article for any country in NATO is going to be messed with by Russia i just

1:44:19

don’t I don’t believe okay so let’s do it speculatively if the United States left NATO Yeah um and and then if the

1:44:26

Canadians and the Europeans said you know what it doesn’t exist anymore would you then say you know what that’s a set of circumstances in which Britain France

1:44:33

probably Poland Germany should spend more on defense spending and again to be clear I don’t think we should spend more

1:44:40

on defense but these are quite hypothetical discussions it’s like I think they’re quite plausible though no see I don’t think it is plausible i

1:44:46

think that I I I also think that if you look at what uh what Putin’s done in in

1:44:51

Ukraine he hasn’t he’s taken the Russian speaking regions basically like the Donbass and the Crimea like he’s not

1:44:59

annexed any like he if you look they tried they tried they well there the I

1:45:05

think you’re probably right they probably did want to go to Kiev but my point is like I just don’t see the the

1:45:11

threat of Putin in this Russia’s it economy smaller than South Korea it’s 30

1:45:17

minutes that’s not true it is it is g by nominal GDP its economy is

1:45:23

tiny but by PPP which measures an economy’s ability to buy goods and services in its own currency

1:45:29

domestically it’s the fourth largest economy in the world it’s it’s I know what you’re saying compared to Europe it’s not powerful but it’s a serious

1:45:36

it’s a middle power it’s a serious middle power i would say Russia is probably as strong as France this is

1:45:41

such a stupid school child way of doing it russia is as powerful as Britain and France put together you reckon with more

1:45:47

hydrocarbons yeah 150 million people very impressive technology base loads of

1:45:52

energy resources strong highly nationalistic so who’s who’s a bigger threat Putin or Xi Jinping i don’t think

1:45:59

she’s a threat at all but obviously the the the Americans and the Brits are are pushing well I think I know i think the China thing is complete but I

1:46:05

think you know you do have a live war in Europe which does ask questions about European collective security if and you

1:46:11

don’t think that and that’s a fair fair point if NATO has had its day but it’s it’s a big hypothetical and number I’m

1:46:16

I’m basically arguing uh it’s the same as the second world war if you the rise of Hitler and the invasion of Poland and

1:46:23

stuff you can make the argument yes we’re about to enter a world war uh we need to arm up because we we’re going to

1:46:29

be invaded or there’s going to be like the whole the whole thing is going to go to pot i don’t think we’re anywhere near that area so so I it’s too hypothetical

1:46:36

to even talk about well they’re two they’re two separate things we’re basically saying is is is military spending ever justified and as I say yes

1:46:42

if if if the goal is defense if that’s the priority yes and obviously that will

1:46:48

be variable depending on the threats that you face uh Nazi Germany a very

1:46:53

example of a of a massive threat like I don’t put threat anywhere near that uh I I

1:46:59

think that we are the threat to most of the world uh he might be a threat to our little uh to Eastern Europe but I don’t

1:47:06

think NATO is going to be disbanded i don’t think he would touch any article 5 country uh it would just be madness um

1:47:15

and also the other interesting thing about NATO is it is the United States like it

1:47:21

doesn’t if you look at I I did some work on looking at like NATO deployment in Afghanistan for example and they call it

1:47:28

NATO but it’s like 90% US troops so it’s again it’s this idea that it’s an alliance and Trump’s kind of right in

1:47:34

the sense that it’s mass that the funding of it is massively disproportionately put in by the United States yeah and and they I I don’t know

1:47:42

i don’t think he’s power I don’t think he’s powerful enough to withdraw from NATO i think that a lot like he’s

1:47:47

obviously going against the blob prevailing wisdom but that would be just

1:47:52

such a huge uh punch in the gut to NATO and I just don’t think it could happen

1:47:57

interestingly NATO’s maritime command is in London i don’t know if you knew that i didn’t know that yeah so then the the

1:48:03

um land commands in in Turkey air commands at Ramstein in Germany and the

1:48:08

maritime command the whole of the NATO maritime command is on the Metropolitan line in West London um I’ve been Where

1:48:14

is it um it’s called Northwood uh so it must be maybe the place is called

1:48:19

Northwood but the base is called Northwood and it’s uh so it we’re we’re

1:48:24

like and we have I think 500 NATO troops in this country as well uh over half American so I just can’t see that

1:48:33

infrastructure being dismantled uh and I don’t think it would survive without the United States i just don’t I can’t see

1:48:39

well you know if you look at sort of historical precedent you know 19 in 1938

1:48:45

nobody thought that Germany would overrun France in 8 weeks literally literally not even the Germans thought

1:48:51

that like literally nobody thought that um and I think on the one hand you’re right we’re not going to um a World War

1:48:58

II situation obviously Germany is not you know Germany in the 1930s had the

1:49:03

potential to be the world hedgeimon right you have the world’s best scientists amazing technology base you

1:49:09

don’t have energy resources incredible army russia today like has a lot going

1:49:15

for it i’ve already said that it’s also really old lots of it doesn’t work you

1:49:20

have loads of deaths of despair like it’s not a a successful country you wouldn’t say it’s like Switzerland or something right um in terms of a per

1:49:27

capita sort of um relationship to success so I think the situation is clearly very different to World War II

1:49:33

at the same time we’ve been really wrong about um foreign affairs stuff in the

1:49:39

past and when you get things wrong that obviously there’s tremendous downside you’re saying about defense the UK as I

1:49:44

understand it can’t even actually defend its own waters in terms of the investment we put and by the way I think that’s because of bad procurement i

1:49:50

don’t think we should spend more money but I think 20% of the time um basically

1:49:55

where Russian ships have been intercepted in UK waters or around UK waters it’s been by the United States

1:50:01

because we have not got the capacity to do it now I’m not suggesting we should have the capacity to do it personally I’d get rid of Trident that’s a hell lot

1:50:07

of money i’d get rid of that and I’d say okay well you want to defend this country put some of it towards that

1:50:12

that’s my personal view stop building stupid aircraft carriers which don’t work but um I think there probably is an

1:50:19

interesting conversation about about European security without without the Americans because I have to say as a

1:50:24

European I don’t want American empire overseeing European security and that’s a really interesting question for

1:50:30

socialists right because so socialists in places like Vietnam China have had to

1:50:35

take revolutionary self-defense really seriously anyway but yeah and not just in Europe

1:50:42

europe’s a revolutionary policy but these are these are important questions for left yeah i I think but another

1:50:48

important part of the debate is when you talk about what does defense mean cuz when you’re talking about Yeah okay uh

1:50:53

weapon systems which are defensive fine uh but if you talk even intelligence agencies which is a large part of the

1:51:00

defense budget by the way like MI6 is is called a security services as MI5 but I

1:51:05

like to think of MI6 as an investment security service like they operate as the kind of like secret arm of the

1:51:13

British state to enforce uh corporate rule corporate uh priorities and and it

1:51:20

it’s come out it’s very well known how close BP for example are to MI6 uh Iran

1:51:25

Russia in fact the interesting thing is they made a killing with uh uh in in

1:51:30

Putin’s Russia did you know that to this is important for the for in context of what you’re talking about putin was um

1:51:38

the Russian intelligence came to London in in 2000 and talked to MI6 and said

1:51:46

“Can you help us get Vladimir Putin elected cuz they were this is when uh after he took over from Boris Yelson

1:51:51

there was an election um and MI6 were like “Yeah all right we’ll do it.” And

1:51:58

they sent uh Tony Blair to the uh St petersburg to attend the O uh the an

1:52:03

opera with Putin there’s pictures of it famous picture and and now and and it came out about the MI6 thing

1:52:09

subsequently because Richard Dav revealed it in a speech and they said that we’re very sad about it in 2003

1:52:15

uh he came to London uh Putin for the first um uh uh state visit of a Russian

1:52:22

premier since 1874 months later maybe even weeks later BP

1:52:28

signed a deal to make them the biggest foreign investor in Russian history wow and he was at war in what year was this

1:52:34

2003 he was at war with in Cheschna at that point a brutal war that raged from

1:52:40

uh 99 to 2009 look at the I’ve looked at the archives if you look at the articles at

1:52:46

the time people are just like the relationship between Blair and Putin is unbelievably close they they they visit

1:52:52

each other repeatedly this state visit um and basically he was a he he he was

1:52:59

the same guy then he was like a a deep state guy he was uh he he Anna Politco

1:53:05

Skoya the famous investigative journalist was killed in 2006 i read one of her articles actually about when she

1:53:11

came to London in a period and Blair was kind of famous in this period for for supporting Putin even when he was

1:53:17

destroying Cheschna in an absolutely brutal campaign it was Groznet was declared the most destroyed city on

1:53:23

earth by the UN in a period she came to London she saw him uh she went to London press club or something she saw him at

1:53:29

his table with Alistister Campbell he was the prime minister at the time alice Campbell was a spokesman she went up to him and said uh can you just explain

1:53:36

your support for Vladimir Putin he’s he’s he’s doing XY Z and Tony Blair said to her um

1:53:44

uh it’s my job as prime minister to like Mr putin and in that period in the

1:53:50

Cheschian war period I looked at the archival uh export weapons licenses data

1:53:55

they increased uh weapons licenses to uh uh Russia in the period when they were

1:54:00

smashing up chest by 500% the Blair government so the second Chchan war was

1:54:06

brutal the first was brutal as well in the ‘9s um but the my point is like he

1:54:12

was a threat he was a he he was the same guy but when it was in our interest or

1:54:18

our corporation’s interest because at this point BP was called Blair Petroleum because of how much he was going out to

1:54:24

bat for it that’s what the priority is that so we need to understand when we talk about defense we’re talking about

1:54:30

institutions which get given money to support private vested interests often

1:54:36

uh not our national security that’s not the main goal of them uh and and it look at the British Empire the the tax the

1:54:42

British taxpayer was paying huge sums for the infrastructure of the British Empire for the ships for the gar all the

1:54:50

garrisons of troops in India and other places do you think that that was there to that the people in Britain saw any

1:54:56

benefit from that it was all the riches went back to a tiny elite in London um

1:55:01

and that’s that’s the way that’s still the way it works you know GCHQ MI6 MI5 a

1:55:07

lot of their work is about enshrining uh uh the interests of the corporate sector

1:55:12

and enshrining the interests of the British establishment and that’s why they’re so secretive not to protect us but to protect them from us um so we

1:55:20

need to realign all I as I say we need to be very clear of course defense national security is important and we

1:55:26

should be funding different institutions different uh weapon systems which are

1:55:31

defensive but when you’re an imperial power which Britain is that’s not what the defense budget is that needs to be

1:55:37

understood different to you entirely i know I agree with you entirely and the point is you spoke about the need for a

1:55:44

new left party a few minutes ago and I’m going to return to that in a second you’re very you’re a serious leftist

1:55:50

you’re serious and by that I mean you’re engaging with serious questions of politics and power if you had a leftwing

1:55:56

leader in this country you would need some kind of state apparatus to ensure that that person is not shot by foreign

1:56:02

security agencies no I’m being serious and I’m laughing because I’m being serious i’m laughing because the last leftwing leader um we had uh who

1:56:11

potentially could have been prime minister we we were more worried about them getting shot by the security services like Jeremy Corbin so that’s

1:56:17

Yeah if you had I mean look at the Swedish PM Olive Palmer in the 80s yeah that that is what would happen something

1:56:22

like that would happen okay if it wasn’t Corbyn it would be somebody else or or broadly speaking in theory these are

1:56:29

questions that you have to engage um but they’re but they’re the enemy of our

1:56:34

security uh in reality of course often like look at look at the the pictures of

1:56:39

the the troops in Afghanistan shooting at um Jeremy Corbyn’s of course how did

1:56:44

those pictures get there why was it leaked like that was I think that was like the general leaking to the times

1:56:50

about the mutiny which was obviously coordinated i think that that was leaked on purpose because it was a message to Corbyn to say “Look we’ll we’ll do you

1:56:58

if but again again again and I know we agree you you put out a political statement you’re a member of the Prevy

1:57:04

Council you can literally speak to the monarch right?” And you say “I’ve spoken I’ve spoken to the

1:57:09

Queen i’ve relayed my comment i mean that is bad if you’re the the British army right?” So I mean we we

1:57:17

Okay so we agree these are all important points i want to get to the point about the the left party because this is really really critical yeah

1:57:22

these are these are serious questions of of of political power which I think actually lots of the anglophone left

1:57:29

doesn’t engage with because it doesn’t actually take power seriously because leftwing politics isn’t about power which is just wild if that’s the case

1:57:35

what why bother go get into literature go watch you know uh anime i don’t know

1:57:42

go get into classical music very pleasant things go for nice country walks you know this is not a pleasant

1:57:47

world to be in unless you want to change things and actually get power why bother uh so what’s your sort of analysis of of

1:57:54

why we need a new life party then well I’m looking at the landscape now and basically it’s something I think we all

1:58:00

have to engage in because I do see parallels with the 1930s uh fascism is

1:58:06

on the rise globally you know um I was just in Brazil bolsinaro is currently under house arrest for apparently

1:58:13

allegedly plotting to murder Lula uh MLE in Argentina next door is a a crazy uh I

1:58:20

don’t even know what he is ideologically he’s just a complete lunatic but close to fascist trump in the White House uh

1:58:27

the system is uh imploding and the people that are benefiting now are the

1:58:33

far right uh and they’re organized reform what was it founded a couple of years ago and is now leading some polls

1:58:41

we need to do that on the left because I I feel like we have a historic responsibility because if we don’t do it

1:58:46

the far right are going to benefit and will benefit and are benefiting so and and it has to coales around a vehicle

1:58:52

because as you say it’s no point just shouting in in into the ether or like

1:58:58

it’s very or engaging in debates on Twitter or whatever there has to be some

1:59:03

vehicle around which we can organize and I believe a leader I also I I am a

1:59:08

believer that you need a leader to coales around who can who who people are

1:59:14

inspired by uh I don’t like that idea philosophically cuz I I like the idea of a more horizontal uh approach but if you

1:59:22

look I’ve spent a lot of time in Latin America if you look at the movements in Latin America where democratic socialist

1:59:27

leaders have uh got into power they have been often charismatic individuals that are kind of unique like Eva Morales Hugo

1:59:34

Chavez Lula Rafael Korea Amllo Claudia Shinbau now in Mexico we need that uh so

1:59:41

who is it you know what when when in the Corbyn period I thought the best best MP and best uh kind of uh uh

1:59:51

figure to fill that role was Laura Pigcock uh she’s she’s now co-director of Declassified UK actually um but but I

1:59:59

don’t maybe we don’t maybe we don’t know them like look at Mick Lynch right this is a guy who’s brilliant a communicator

2:00:08

but he became a instant celebrity overnight because people are crying out for someone who they can relate to who’s

2:00:15

saying stuff in a rational way about how the system works and how they’re getting effed over they’re only getting that

2:00:21

from Nigel Farage now so we we need to promote and workingass voices especially

2:00:26

i think Mick Lynch uh because of his history in the RMT because of his history working on the railways he

2:00:31

really resonated with people people if and and as I say it’s scary cuz if we don’t provide them with those people if

2:00:38

we don’t provide them with the answers that are actually based in rational analysis which is that there’s a 1%

2:00:43

that’s rigged the whole system to make sure you live your life in poverty and uh struggling uh you’re going to open it

2:00:50

up to the Daily Mail to say it’s all the fault of the Muslims or in Nazi Germany it’s all the fault of the Jews it’s this

2:00:56

is a playbook that’s been that we’ve seen it throughout history so I I believe so we need to basically I don’t

2:01:03

think we know who it is yet but they’ll be out there somewhere you know uh you’re talking about it in very messianic terms you know it’s a bit like

2:01:09

June with you know Tim who’s Timothy Shalom i know and I don’t think I don’t like it philosophically but I just it’s

2:01:15

just my experience you know I’m reading a book now about the Third Reich uh and the rise of Hitler because and apart

2:01:22

from what I’m about to say it is quite sinister the parallels between uh that

2:01:27

period and what we’re seeing now i’m not saying we’re going to get a Hitler figure but but something short of that

2:01:33

um but the the author who was uh it’s a very famous book it’s called the rise

2:01:38

and fall of the Third Reich and he was an American journalist that was living in Nazi Germany in the 30s so he saw the

2:01:43

whole rise of it and his argument is and is that it wouldn’t have happened without Hitler like the conditions were

2:01:50

obviously there for someone like him to come along but he was such a unique um

2:01:55

figure with such a force uh and this ortor and stuff he said that that he his

2:02:01

argument I’m not saying he’s right or wrong cuz I don’t know enough about the situation and but he but I do think that

2:02:07

certain periods call for certain people and we need someone to coales whether it

2:02:13

be so and I think that we need to be clear about this because another thing is a lot of the left party chatter I’m

2:02:20

hearing is we’ll have a leaderless party who’s saying that I don’t I don’t I

2:02:26

don’t want to yeah but this is what I mean but but philosophically I kind of like it right this is what you’re saying like you don’t want to be messianic

2:02:32

about it you you don’t you want to have like but we need we do need someone to lead us uh and and uh I mean people like

2:02:40

Zara Sultana is very good um it would be great to like you look at

2:02:45

Evan Morales came from the unions as well uh I don’t know uh defin there’s a

2:02:50

lot of union leaders that wouldn’t be good but um some like I don’t know I don’t know but we need to get our act

2:02:56

together basically yeah I think we need to create the infrastructure um and we need to I think this the left in this

2:03:01

country I don’t know if you agree with this but has been hamstrung for so many decades by what people call laborism

2:03:08

this belief that labor is the only vehicle that can change and it’s be it’s it’s perfect for the oligarchy they love

2:03:15

it they want us to be it’s falling apart now right because because we’ve had 18 years of zero growth and like you say

2:03:21

for most of that people say “Just get the touries that’ll be fine.” Well it’s it’s literally not fine we’re going to we’re going to have to do something

2:03:26

about it yeah what about you would you do it um would I do it i would love to be part

2:03:32

of a political movement which was um headed up by a new political party i

2:03:37

would love to be part of that um do I think right now would I leave journalism to do politics i think actually I’m very

2:03:44

lucky in a way because I can be a good bridge between people who are left and

2:03:49

people who aren’t and I think I’m viewed as a result as a relatively fair broker not by everybody some people hate my guts i mean guy tried to thump me last

2:03:56

year two years ago but I’m a relatively fair broker and I wonder to what extent

2:04:01

would that be lost when I’m speaking to um Telegraph readers GB uh news viewers

2:04:07

or people that like Farage when I speak to them to what extent would I lose some of that if I was part of a big P

2:04:12

political project i don’t know i agree with you we need to have a cadre of

2:04:18

people who are who are offering political ideological leadership in society beyond the left the Labour party

2:04:25

you’re already seeing that at the level of the media right that’s already happening that and that’s really

2:04:31

impressive but politics and media are very different games and I think one of the reasons why lots of things went so

2:04:37

badly wrong with Corbinism I’m not talking about Corbyn I’m talking about the media side of it including us by the way is that we were good at media which

2:04:45

meant we were bad at politics so um the remain stuff lots of people who were very good at media very good at being

2:04:52

able to sell a message shot the bed when it come to the second referendum stuff because actually somebody like Corbyn is

2:04:58

like “Look I’ve been in this game 35 years you have to be true to yourself that’s actually the correct position.” M

2:05:03

so I I I think and the great thing for Farage is he’s all of that right or

2:05:09

Bernie all of that as somebody with 40 years of experience tremendous campaigner very good

2:05:15

communicator and I think the closest we’ve had in this country I think Mick Lynch is a really is a really good example I can’t think of many though

2:05:22

Tony Ben well he had it all he he was the he he he and he nearly won the

2:05:27

leadership election but uh so it’s not the Greens I really like Zack Palansky

2:05:34

who’s is he the deputy um he’s great uh I just think they’re just weak like they

2:05:40

they’re pro- NATO they’re not and they’re not speaking we need someone who speaks in stridident

2:05:46

terms um because the the center’s falling as you say it’s falling apart no

2:05:52

one that that and that and in that situation people are going to go right or left there’s the arguments that the

2:05:58

left are providing are a bit more complicated and harder to to get across and the ones on the right are really

2:06:04

easy to get across which is why you see the obsession with Muslims and immigrants right if and also there’s

2:06:11

vehicles for the right to go to the Reform Party now exists UKIP existed uh Brexit party existed there is literally

2:06:19

nowhere for someone on the left to go like uh the workers party but I I don’t even know if that still exists but um

2:06:26

you’re talking about people completely struggling and having absolutely nowhere to go that’s why it’s such an important

2:06:33

point to get this infrastructure in place and as I say before the real game

2:06:38

changer and everyone needs to focus on this is is the unions disaffiliating and defunding labor because that whole

2:06:43

ecosystem works in a in a very beautiful way for the oligarchy because you have the organized labor which is meant to be

2:06:49

the one sort of liberatory force in our society which can take on the power of the corporate and state sector is

2:06:55

affiliated to a party which is a main a main element of the oligarchy itself and

2:07:00

workers actually paying for their own oppression it’s madness 30 million a year is given by organized labor to lab

2:07:07

uh organized labor to labor i I mean unison is the is the country’s biggest union i think a million members mostly in the public

2:07:14

sector i mean okay NHS and education they’re being protected but local government’s going to get 7% cuts there

2:07:19

are people in the public sector unison employees who like you say they’re literally subsidizing being laid off or wage repression and

2:07:26

it’s not even just their interest that is obviously the proximate concern but you’re talking about the structure of the working class and the most

2:07:32

vulnerable which should be a concern of every trade unionist as well because you’re paying into that as well um and

2:07:38

uh I if we can break that if we can break that link between organized labor

2:07:43

and and this this party which is cap was captured by the oligarchy a long long time ago and actually yes people might

2:07:50

argue oh well but Corbyn showed that it’s not look who was the main people that destroyed Corbyn wasn’t the right

2:07:57

which obviously tried their best the main people that destroyed him were the Labour party itself he would have won in 2017 if he hadn’t been fighting a

2:08:02

guerilla war against his own party for two years so It supports our notion that

2:08:07

the Labour Party’s role is to absorb and neutralize the left with uh and that’s its role with it for the British

2:08:14

oligarchy and the service it provides to the British oligarchy has done for for many decades uh we need to untether uh

2:08:21

our collective power workingclass power organized labor union power from that

2:08:28

institution and put those resources which are significant

2:08:33

uh somewhere where uh where where they can actually do good and promote the interests of of of of working people uh

2:08:41

and I think that it’s happening that’s the important thing i think that people are seeing it because the last time I

2:08:47

came on here and I was talking to Ash I was like I think that people are going to see that uh the to that there’s going

2:08:52

to be an awakening because people have been fed this idea that Karma is going to make the Labour party going to make

2:08:59

everything okay after the 14 disastrous years of the Tories and I think that’s

2:09:04

been borne out people’s people are shocked that they are I I mean labor I

2:09:09

know people who are labor first members which is their ideological allies of the labor right and they can’t believe

2:09:14

what’s happening yeah it’s mad so that that the important point is the

2:09:21

discussion doesn’t end at that point we don’t say oh we’re shocked the important point is we move on and say well look there’s a theory behind this which is

2:09:27

that this is the Labour party’s role it’s always going to be like this it’s not be it’s not the case of if you get

2:09:32

someone get stalmer out and get I don’t know where streeting well obviously not him but even if Rebecca Long Bailey like

2:09:39

they will destroy uh the chances of left leaders before they get into power they’ll destroy them when they’re in

2:09:45

power um so we need to start something bigger and this and you know I think the reason people get scared by is because

2:09:51

we’re talking about a long-term project this isn’t going to happen in a year or two this is going to take decades and

2:09:56

it’s the same with media though it’s happened in media look at Navara look at Declassified look at double down like

2:10:01

these are this to create an alternative infrastructure outside the mainstream outside the oligarchal institutions is a

2:10:08

massive pro project and is there’s huge obstacles because that oligarchal system doesn’t want an alternative system but

2:10:14

we have to start that process because the right have started it already and they’re winning well that you know what

2:10:20

I mean that’s so true and it’s something we talk about a lot at Navar Media and obviously people have disagreements

2:10:25

political disc all kind it’s a big organization 25 people on payroll You’re going to have all kinds of disagreements

2:10:31

but I think what helps us get through all of those and grow is that we recognize we’re in a 15 20 25 year I

2:10:38

don’t like military metaphors war we are and I say war because you have tactical defeats you have tactical retreats you

2:10:45

have victories you have overwhelming victories you have moments of you know stagnation and and that is really really

2:10:53

key and it’s a really important mindset for people and like you say it’s not just going to be like a little um trending hashtag and I do think like the

2:11:00

the the mental um furniture and psychological sort of

2:11:06

um being that’s generated by social media really undermines that ability to

2:11:12

say you know what we’re going to think about 10 15 20 years i want Navar media and people when I say say this people think some people think I’m mad i want

2:11:18

Navar media to exist when I’m dead right the observer’s been around since like the 1780s you know that that is how

2:11:23

people used to think why can’t we why can’t we continue to think like that and

2:11:28

in terms of in terms of the Labor Party and the trade unions you know I I used to think that these people who are not

2:11:35

very good at their jobs you know the head of TUC it used to be Brendan Barber and I didn’t know this um at the time

2:11:41

but once he left his job I found out he used to go for cooking lessons with Mvin King who at that time was the governor

2:11:47

of the Bank of England i mean that tells you everything right that is literally that’s it that’s how it works

2:11:54

he’s now of course a lord Brendan Barber um and I used to think these people were like malicious ideological

2:12:00

antisocialists some of them are in the trade union movement for instance some of them are most of them are just really

2:12:05

lazy and they have a really nice job and it pays really well and they don’t have to work very hard and they can retire

2:12:13

and that’s it and but and actually that’s a lot of progressive institutions out there yes it just means you don’t

2:12:19

have to do much to turn up you don’t have to work very hard i I’ll never forget Matt i went to work for um I

2:12:25

worked at Demos and the Young Foundation as an intern before I started my PhD and I went to work at one organization the

2:12:31

day I the day I turn up and obviously hotheaded mid20s um the day I turn up the the person

2:12:38

who’s line managing me says “The great thing about the third sector is you can leave early you can turn up late you can leave

2:12:43

early.” And I’m thinking those at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley at that time they’re not thinking like that

2:12:48

and that’s why they run the world yeah yeah and we don’t and I think that’s a that explains a lot

2:12:54

of inertia in places like the trade union movement for sure and it’s it’s an ecosystem that works for the people

2:13:00

within it career-wise financially and people don’t want to rock the boat sharon Graham at Unite so when she was

2:13:06

elected the talk of the talk was she was a firebrand leftist that was going to like take on uh the Labour Party if it

2:13:14

did anti-worker uh things and and speak out on the issues of the day she’s done nothing and that’s partly because you

2:13:20

get co-opted that’s how the system works she slowly brings you in you get Do you think she would say that i mean she

2:13:26

would probably say “I’m doing loads of things actually at the everyday level of the trade union you can’t see.” I don’t know i’m just trying to be I’ll be

2:13:32

totally honest with you i think the biggest moral crisis of our time is the Gaza genocide our government is

2:13:37

complicit and participating in it our government is run by the Labor Party so any union funding the Labor Party is

2:13:46

funding genocide so I’ve got zero tolerance for that no one should have tolerance for that disaffiliate defund

2:13:53

and denounce the Labour Party you cannot support an institution which is uh committing genocide against a besieged

2:13:59

entrapped 2.3 million people half of whom are children it’s disgusting there’s no other word for it they’ve not

2:14:05

even I mean you can say you just said defund disaffiliate denounce they’ve not done any of those three right not even

2:14:11

denounce which is quite easy actually well they I I go to uh uh a lot of

2:14:16

events these days about Gaza and they do have union officials speaking and they

2:14:22

often give very good speeches uh denouncing uh arm sales or denouncing XY

2:14:28

Z and I’m always I never say it cuz I don’t want to be a in a in a public meeting but I’m always thinking

2:14:34

your union is funding the party that is doing this because it is participation as we’ve talked about before we talk

2:14:40

about giving intelligence to the people doing it you’re participating you should that that’s disgraceful you can’t that’s

2:14:46

complete hypocrisy that’s the definition of hypocrisy so and and and no one talks

2:14:52

about it this is again it’s just it’s just assumed or it’s the two things are kept apart in people’s heads but

2:14:58

organized labor is complicit in the genocide in Gaza and it’s not just that they’re now complicit in the destruction

2:15:04

of the life of 1.2 2 million disabled people cuz they’re funding the party that is cutting uh uh personal

2:15:11

independence payments that even the tries didn’t do that even the tries didn’t do that it’s disgusting like how

2:15:17

have we got to the point where organized labor is funding that kind of stuff uh it it’s an ecosystem that needs to be

2:15:24

blown up completely and we need to start again uh and that’s why we need to start the conversation that’s the basic part

2:15:30

of it because the oligarchy which loves this system uh cuz organized labor has been co-opted um and in a similar way to

2:15:37

the Labour party even like back in the 60s and 70s you’d have the Labour party would obviously talk about much more in

2:15:43

a much more leftwing rhetoric and have leftwing policies the unions did as well and in the 80s happened that smashed the

2:15:49

unions um the Labour party became basically a Thatcher right party um and

2:15:55

the the left is completely uh nowhere Uh that’s we that was one of my major

2:16:01

takeaways from the Corbyn period was like it was amazing he was there but he was this lone figure he was a completely

2:16:08

lone figure there was no infrastructure there was no mainstream media there was no Labor party there was no institution

2:16:14

the unions weren’t that like he was just this lone figure in this like morass of

2:16:19

uh oligarchal institutions that were were paying for his blood effectively i like to think of it like Napoleon in

2:16:25

Russia you know yeah yeah yeah you’re you’re in you’re in Moscow they’ve torched the place you’ve got no supplies

2:16:31

you know and you you’re buggered basically right you’re completely cut off from and look it got to it was it

2:16:37

the oligarchy and the establishment went so bananas that Simon Heer the Daily

2:16:43

Mail columnist went on LBC and said he wanted to reopen Awitz you know you’re talking about you’re talking about a man

2:16:49

who’s the most important probably anti-racist campaigner in parliament for

2:16:54

his whole generation uh in terms of supporting the Jewish community the Muslim community like all the black

2:17:00

community and he’s he’s been someone can say that on the daily on the radio on a

2:17:06

but you know what that bken to me which is really interesting the collapse of 20th century conservativism because

2:17:13

I went to a grammar school in Bournemouth right and so you had lots of grammar school in Bournemouth the people teaching there about as rightwing as it

2:17:19

gets and there was lots of dudes who did their national service and whatnot one was a guy called Alan Petri who was the headmaster there and he loved me because

2:17:26

I think I reme I knew that you know Conor Montgomery General Montgomery rather was in charge of the the desert

2:17:31

rats i think I said something once in some in some he was a math teacher but for some reason he asked that question i

2:17:37

got it right he loved me and he was former artiller artillery guy and they were you know these were Tories

2:17:46

these were um monarchists like it wasn’t something that they could be persuaded

2:17:51

about it was it was who they are right they wouldn’t dream of saying that the leader of the opposition um a member of

2:17:57

the privy council they wouldn’t dream of saying something like that it wouldn’t they’d be like that’s just not you don’t say that even if you think it say in

2:18:03

private the idea of saying it publicly and to me that just showed like a complete disintegration and decay about

2:18:09

what the British right is and Peter Peter Hitchens interestingly enough Peter Oborn would also agree peter

2:18:15

Hitchens would say that you know and I think we have seen the death of something don’t it’s not my politics you

2:18:20

know I don’t agree with him on on that much but we’ve seen the death of a certain kind of political um tendency in

2:18:27

this country with thatism basically and Peter Hitchens puts it really nicely he says “We need a right which doesn’t just

2:18:34

believe in exploiting their fellow man which is basically what conservativism is how do I ma maximize exploitation of

2:18:40

other people yeah yeah yeah and and you know what lots of other people don’t like that and you can call it woke

2:18:46

you can call it whatever you like i don’t like it yeah yeah yeah yeah i agree but I mean the same things

2:18:52

happened to the left say we don’t have a I mean we don’t have a someone like Corbyn there’s like what

2:18:59

five five or so left Labor MPs now like the Labour Party has been completely uh

2:19:06

defrocked from like it’s it’s a it’s a managerial century i don’t even know

2:19:12

what it is it’s like I don’t think they have any politics they’re just a congealed machine politicians it’s

2:19:17

disgusting so uh but I I also think the reaction of the right is the disintegration of what you’re calling

2:19:23

like traditional conservatism is also a result of the implosion of the system because people don’t like the center

2:19:30

right as well as they don’t like the center left or they don’t like centrist they nothing that’s telling them things

2:19:36

are can get gradually better they’re like the system is now tell me

2:19:41

why and the writer saying it’s immigrants it’s the Mexican border um uh

2:19:48

it’s the fact that uh globalists are uh are trying to uh inundate your community

2:19:55

with foreign people uh and the left is saying well I don’t even know what the left is saying because you never

2:20:01

freaking hear it cuz with like it’s very Gary Stevenson yes well I don’t is he is he on the he’s good on asset inequality

2:20:08

i think that’s obviously a leftwing argument right yes yes everything else I don’t even think he would say he’s on the left on asset yeah exactly that’s

2:20:13

what I mean but I mean in terms of we in terms of a political program like it’s

2:20:18

we’re nowhere we’re literally nowhere they smashed the Corbyn movement i’m talking about this country specifically but I think it goes for the states as

2:20:24

well they smashed the Corbyn movement we have no vehicle to go into the unions are co-opted the the Labor parties are a

2:20:32

disgusting mess uh we are literally nowhere and there’s a yes there’s some a

2:20:38

few alternative media places uh around where we can talk but in terms of reaching the mainstream is yeah Gary’s

2:20:46

doing great work but there’s there he’s been number one Sunday Times bestseller for six weeks but it’s not a political program is it I’m he’s not I don’t know

2:20:54

I think I think it’s interesting that reformer leading the polls at the very same moment a former trader banging on

2:21:01

about asset inequality is in the three for two section at water stes I do think they’re I think the same thing that’s

2:21:07

driving both of those right but he Yeah but his book for example has a quote from Rory Stewart on the front cover

2:21:12

who’s uh Why not well get those people to buy as well yeah yeah yeah no of course but what I’m saying is it’s not

2:21:17

like it’s not a political it’s not a political there’s no political program he’s got he’s got policy prescriptions

2:21:24

about what he’s talking about so you think he should have a political program no I’m not saying I’m just thinking he’s not that no he is who he is and he’s

2:21:30

doing good work but that’s a I’m talking about someone who’s like a potential leader who can or of a party or some new

2:21:37

vehicle we don’t have that uh we don’t have the vehicle for them to lead that’s what I’m saying we got to build from scratch we’re smashed so you say that

2:21:44

and I’m going to end on a positive note I think um and I won’t end you can end you can come back if you like but you’re

2:21:50

saying we’re smashed and I agree with you but at the same time all the ingredients are there

2:21:56

that’s that’s the crazy thing look at public opinion on things like public ownership it’s there you look look at

2:22:01

the growth of new media um in the last 10 years i mean Matt in December I love

2:22:07

blowing the trumpet of my colleagues here at Environ Media in December our Instagram page got 30 million views in

2:22:12

one month uh well done to our social team but the point is a there’s a desire

2:22:18

for that kind of stuff and b that simply wasn’t there talking about Corbyn when he came in in 2015 there was literally

2:22:23

nothing there was nothing nothing and there’s a ton of stuff out there now

2:22:29

you’ve got some of the policy program and and and I’ll also add this you know I was in um water st the other day no

2:22:36

foils in water Lou and I saw Asha Shan Fay again in like the really popular

2:22:43

book section right and I saw Gary Stevenson and I saw Grace Blakeley um so

2:22:49

I think something’s there and that was also repeated to me by a German

2:22:55

publisher he said you’ve just got really you’ve got really popular authors who are leftwing and they’re critical of

2:23:00

your center-left party the Labour Party he’s like “We don’t really have that in Germany which I find really interesting.” So all the ingredients are

2:23:06

there matt is there anything else you’d like to add where can our our viewers and our

2:23:12

listeners find you on social media etc uh you can find me on Twitter which is my favorite of the social medias I have

2:23:19

to say i joined Instagram quite recently and don’t really like it as much i know it’s a whole different audience but I’m on Twitter at Kennardmat um and I’d like

2:23:27

to end just giving a little bit of support to your optimistic outlook as well because it’s not good to end on a

2:23:34

downer um I think you’re totally right that the ingredients are there for for

2:23:40

something and things can happen fast that’s the thing it’s like with Corbyn it came out of nowhere no one was

2:23:45

expecting that uh what I can’t even remember what his odds were in the at the start 200 to one at the start I

2:23:50

think yeah um and that can happen again and also the other point is I think they have unsuccessfully put uh tried to put

2:23:58

what was unleashed by Corbyn back in a box all that stuff’s still there you know that’s the reason they it’s less so

2:24:05

now you have I have noticed in recent times that they’re less obsessed you remember with him you remember even

2:24:10

after he was stood down there would be like regular scandals where and that was all about they want to destroy any kind

2:24:18

of hope that he might leave that something could rise up again and I don’t think they’ve done it he’s still a

2:24:23

very prominent figure in fact I always get criticized for talking about him too much still because it’s like it’s gone

2:24:28

now we got to move on which I agree with but it was a important moment in British political history but all the stuff that

2:24:35

he unleashed and I saw it when I I joined the Labour party for the first time i went to meetings when I was living in Stoke Newington and I went to

2:24:41

the first Labor meeting and it was at uh the Rosen Crown pub and I remember going

2:24:46

up and and it was literally humming there was loads of people and I was speaking to I spoke to a few regulars

2:24:53

and they were like this is the first time we’ve ever seen it like that there was such enthusiasm uh and then years of the

2:25:00

anti-semitism crisis everyone’s pointing fingers at each other and stuff like that it ground it all down then uh but

2:25:07

that we can tap into that that enthusiasm is still there and and things have got worse for people so they’re

2:25:12

still they’re looking for an even bigger answer to the questions they’ve got and we need to but but we need to be there

2:25:17

to provide them and and and yeah I I hope we can and I think we can matt Kennard been a pleasure talking to you

2:25:24

mate you too mate we’ll get you on a fourth time I’m sure uh 6 months or a year thanks for coming on downstream

2:25:30

thanks

oooooo