Speaker 1: Welcome to Navara Alive. Coming up tonight, we've got a
Speaker 1: special report from Stephen Methan, who is back from a
Speaker 1: defend our juries process in Westminster during which multiple people
Speaker 1: were arrested seemingly simply of sitting down. We speak to
Speaker 1: a Palestinian student trying to get an education in the UK,
Speaker 1: and will be joined live by actress Juliette Stephenson to
Speaker 1: speak about how campaign work for Gaza and last weep,
Speaker 1: we'll discuss how the Greens will fare against a more
Speaker 1: competent labor leader. I'm Helena Akino, Justice MTG and I'll
Speaker 1: be joined later tonight for Ladies Night by Dahlia Gabrielle.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to support our work, you can sign
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Speaker 1: section down below. In this country, over thirty five hundred
Speaker 1: people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act since last summer.
Speaker 1: Most of them have committed the HEENUS dangerous and Villa's
Speaker 1: act of holding bits of paper on which they've written
Speaker 1: just seven words, those words being I opposed genocide, I
Speaker 1: support Palestine action. Today many of those charged were due
Speaker 1: to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court. In fact, over fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred cases were listed to have a hearing today. That's
Speaker 1: according to defend Our Juries. But all when a bit
Speaker 1: pair shaped Novara Stephen Methnin was down at the court
Speaker 1: and he joins me, now, so Stephen, can you take
Speaker 1: us through the events of the day.
Speaker 2: I can. It was a very, very bizarre from my
Speaker 2: point of view, I have to say. So what happened
Speaker 2: is that around fifteen hundred people were scheduled to appear
Speaker 2: or with hearings for them were scheduled at Westminster Magistrate's
Speaker 2: Court today. So those are people who have been charged
Speaker 2: under Section thirteen, largely of the Terrorism Act for holding
Speaker 2: up signs. Fifteen hundred people is a lot of people
Speaker 2: to process through the court in a single day. Of course,
Speaker 2: it was just an administrative moment, but even so, that's
Speaker 2: a lot of administration to do in a single day,
Speaker 2: and it's a real indication of actually like the size
Speaker 2: of the problem that's going to be facing the court,
Speaker 2: because of course you have the administrative hearings, but then
Speaker 2: you have the actual ones that come a bit further
Speaker 2: down the road. Those hearings were then apparently canceled. Letters
Speaker 2: were written to a law firm saying, please advise your
Speaker 2: clients that the hearings are no longer taking place, have
Speaker 2: been postponed to all October. Other people got the most
Speaker 2: crazy contradictory caf gesque letters. You can imagine where it
Speaker 2: said you might at the top of the letter you
Speaker 2: must attend this hearing, and then further down you must
Speaker 2: attend this hearing, and then a little bit low down
Speaker 2: do not attend this hearing, or in a single letter.
Speaker 2: And then having been told that the hearings were not
Speaker 2: going to go ahead, suddenly they were relisted, and suddenly
Speaker 2: it appeared that there were now over two thousand that
Speaker 2: had been listed. And indeed, I have this document here
Speaker 2: which is from Defender Juries. I haven't been able to
Speaker 2: verify it myself. There are two thousand, one hundred hearings
Speaker 2: on here which were all supposed to be processed today.
Speaker 2: So what happened then was that defendel Juries obviously were
Speaker 2: like well there's going to be there are these hearings.
Speaker 2: Fifteen hundred people at the start we got supposed to
Speaker 2: turn up, so let's do something there. And what they
Speaker 2: planned to do was to erect a stage where there
Speaker 2: would be sort of some poetry read, some statements made,
Speaker 2: all as I understand it to be perfectly legal until
Speaker 2: a certain point at which people would then do a
Speaker 2: law breaking.
Speaker 3: Action under the Terrorism Act.
Speaker 2: Now some of you will have seen that I went
Speaker 2: to New Scotland Yard earlier this month where it was
Speaker 2: the first action where defendel Juria's kind of escalated their tactics.
Speaker 2: So instead of holding up signs, which is a breach
Speaker 2: of Section thirteen of the Terrorism Act, which carries a
Speaker 2: six month sentence and can be dealt with in the
Speaker 2: magistrate's court, they vocally expressed support for Palistine Action, and.
Speaker 3: Indeed they encouraged.
Speaker 2: And some express membership of Palisine Action, and they encouraged
Speaker 2: the police to join the organized station as well, an
Speaker 2: organization which by the way has been disbanded as far
Speaker 2: as we know. So that carries that's the Section twelve violation,
Speaker 2: and that carries fourteen years a maximum of fourteen year sentence.
Speaker 2: And because it has such a hefty sentence. It's the
Speaker 2: kind of charge which has to be largely has to
Speaker 2: be dealt with in the Crown Court, which should mean
Speaker 2: a jury. So that was an escalation in tactics, which
Speaker 2: would mean that, you know, the magistrates courts had been
Speaker 2: sort of flooded with these Section thirteen offenses and now
Speaker 2: they were going to go to start going in front
Speaker 2: of juries and flooding the crown call what most people
Speaker 2: think of it as a criminal court. So there was
Speaker 2: some law breaking I understand that was planned for today
Speaker 2: where people would do a similar thing deliberately breached Section
Speaker 2: twelve of the Act.
Speaker 3: The police put out.
Speaker 2: A statement last night advising people not to do it,
Speaker 2: that they would be making arrests they excuse me, cording
Speaker 2: off an area around the magistrate's court where it was
Speaker 2: an order in place not to be allowed to wear
Speaker 2: face masks. None of these people, as far as like
Speaker 2: aramb but ever wear face masked. But again it's sort
Speaker 2: of you know, it really struck me when I saw
Speaker 2: the police statement. I was like, you know, even the
Speaker 2: police don't believe it's a terrorism, right, this is liked.
Speaker 1: With Was it Harry who did interviews with the police
Speaker 1: about this stuff, saying that they felt really kind of
Speaker 1: awkward about doing the arrest.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: Those were anonymous individual police officers. But this is like
Speaker 2: the met as a kind of organization.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: If you think that there's.
Speaker 2: Going to be literally perhaps the largest gathering of terror
Speaker 2: offenders the country has ever seen outside of court, helicopters,
Speaker 2: what teams, negotiators to negotiate, the signs out of their hands.
Speaker 3: None of that occurred.
Speaker 2: And then they come a batch in to do hostage
Speaker 2: negotiations exactly. None of that occurred obviously, because you know, nobody,
Speaker 2: not even the police, believes that these are these people
Speaker 2: who are being charged under the Terrorism Act, are anything
Speaker 2: like terrorists at all. So that was the setup to
Speaker 2: what happened today, and then you know it all, it
Speaker 2: all went a bit strange.
Speaker 1: Well fair, fair enough, and also I believe you were
Speaker 1: down at the events today, so we've got some footage
Speaker 1: so we'll be able to show you not now. A
Speaker 1: former government lawyer, Tim Crossend explained what the plan for
Speaker 1: the process today had been.
Speaker 5: We had a plan and the first part of that
Speaker 5: plan was to have poems and songs in solidarity with
Speaker 5: our brothers and sisters in Garzen. Police knew that was
Speaker 5: the plan. I was asked by an officer earlier on
Speaker 5: if you're going to do things like that, can you
Speaker 5: please be the other side of that metal barrier. We
Speaker 5: moved to the other side of that metal barrier, and
Speaker 5: then two people came to put up a little podium,
Speaker 5: and it really was a very very little podium that
Speaker 5: side of the barrier. The purpose of that podium was
Speaker 5: so that people reading their poems and speaking could be heard,
Speaker 5: because you've got a big crowd here. Without that, you
Speaker 5: can't be heard. As they were putting the barrier up,
Speaker 5: that the podium up, they were handcuffed, handcuffed behind their back, arrested,
Speaker 5: one dragged off in acute pain for putting up the
Speaker 5: podium and the police saying you're being arrested under Section
Speaker 5: twelve of the Terrorism Act. It was an opportunity for
Speaker 5: people to read poems.
Speaker 2: So setting up a stage is terrorism now?
Speaker 5: Stage apparently is terrorism now. There was somebody without Once
Speaker 5: the stage and the amplification were confiscated by the police,
Speaker 5: someone stepped in just to try and get the attention
Speaker 5: of people and to say we haven't got a stage.
Speaker 5: We haven't got amplification. But the show's going to go on.
Speaker 5: But she was arrested, and I heard a police officer
Speaker 5: say she must be the organizer. I happen to know
Speaker 5: she's not an organizer, right. She was arrested and handcuffed
Speaker 5: for saying, you know, essentially good morning to people to
Speaker 5: get their attention, nothing more than that we're at a
Speaker 5: point not just where you're you know, banned under a
Speaker 5: Public Order Act for trying to speak about Gaza. You
Speaker 5: are a terrorist if you are trying to draw attention
Speaker 5: to the genocide that takes place. The only way not
Speaker 5: to be a terrorist is either to express support for
Speaker 5: the genocide and the burning up of our planet, or
Speaker 5: to be silent about it.
Speaker 1: Stephen also asked Corosland about the escalation and defend our
Speaker 1: Juries' tactics.
Speaker 5: Yes, so you could say the court system has sort
Speaker 5: of fallen at the first hurdle here. This was meant
Speaker 5: to be a simple administrative hearing of a summary only offense,
Speaker 5: and it is chaos. Couldn't even get a message to
Speaker 5: people that they've been in a German But as you say,
Speaker 5: people today being arrested under Section twelve for putting up
Speaker 5: podiums for planning to read poems, not even actually reading
Speaker 5: the poems were Section twelve is jury trial, Crown court
Speaker 5: trial up to fourteen years imprisonment. And this is at
Speaker 5: the same time that Andy Burnham and his government is
Speaker 5: dealing with a crisis about people convicted of violent offenses
Speaker 5: being released early from prison are apparently to make way
Speaker 5: for pensioners who were planning to read poems. The sort
Speaker 5: of situation we've got now, fifty nine year old white
Speaker 5: women are the average terrorist pensioner of conscience, So the
Speaker 5: average terrorists, yes, how.
Speaker 3: Dare they get a conspiracy to commit poetry? Potentially? I
Speaker 3: don't know. Now.
Speaker 1: Pretty quickly police started arresting those who had come down
Speaker 1: to the court, but it wasn't very clear.
Speaker 2: Why what section have you been arrested under.
Speaker 6: Section twelve just for being here? I haven't even said
Speaker 6: any words. I've just been arrested for Section twelve for
Speaker 6: sitting on the pavement with not saying anything or displaying
Speaker 6: any article.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're not wearing you're not holding a sign,
Speaker 2: you're not wearing anything that would be a Section thirteen breach.
Speaker 6: Me no ground for arrest whatsoever. And I can't wait
Speaker 6: to get my wrongful arrest play out from the police.
Speaker 2: Have the police explained to you what sub section of
Speaker 2: section twelve you you're been arrested under.
Speaker 6: You can ask this lady here.
Speaker 2: Officers, what part of section twelve is the arrest outrageous?
Speaker 6: She doesn't want to tell us.
Speaker 2: You weren't chanting anything, You didn't say anything.
Speaker 7: Apped.
Speaker 8: I clapped.
Speaker 6: That was it.
Speaker 2: This is what you were expecting when you sat down
Speaker 2: on the pavements day.
Speaker 9: Absolutely not.
Speaker 6: I is here just to watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're about to get lifted away. How are you
Speaker 2: feeling about that?
Speaker 1: Defiant?
Speaker 2: Any message for the government.
Speaker 6: I don't stop this before late, stop this slide into
Speaker 6: authoritarianism before it's too late.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 10: This is crazy, absolutely crazy.
Speaker 3: You're going to discate the shoulders. What's the matter with you?
Speaker 2: Haven't you ever done any manual handling training?
Speaker 11: Shame on you you.
Speaker 12: I'm not holding a placard. I have not breached the
Speaker 12: law in any way on what basis? Under what law
Speaker 12: are you arresting me? No, you've said Section twelve. Under
Speaker 12: what section of section twelve are you arresting me? Please
Speaker 12: be specific? I have not broken the law under what
Speaker 12: parts of section twelve. Are you arresting me?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 2: What section is she being arrested under?
Speaker 12: But what?
Speaker 3: But what?
Speaker 2: But what was her what was her expression of support?
Speaker 13: I am not commissioned an offense.
Speaker 2: You tell me what section?
Speaker 12: Not telling me under what part of section two?
Speaker 4: You need law?
Speaker 3: Anyone?
Speaker 2: I'm signing him yourself?
Speaker 3: Oh not?
Speaker 1: The Free Speech Union are saying about this, Stephen, when
Speaker 1: they'll talk about the the fact people are getting arrested
Speaker 1: for claps apparently, Now, I wonder if when we'll get
Speaker 1: the screen about the movie went towards you know, the
Speaker 1: policing of speech from people like that. No, no, so
Speaker 1: I don't know when that might happen anyway, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is clearly a much higher threshold for arrests than
Speaker 1: we've seen previously.
Speaker 2: Or yeah, I mean, you know, look, I was there
Speaker 2: when many of those arrests happened, and in fact, I
Speaker 2: was interviewing somebody when I suddenly saw the police begin
Speaker 2: arresting people. And I hadn't seen a single sign. So
Speaker 2: you know, that's that cost normally in these protests is
Speaker 2: when the signs come out that the arrests begin. But
Speaker 2: I didn't seen any signs then behind me that second
Speaker 2: woman started to get arrested, and so I broke off
Speaker 2: the interview to go and talk to her and film it.
Speaker 2: And the claim I heard from some of the crowd
Speaker 2: was that the police had said that they had been
Speaker 2: chanting something, something that was prescribed. Now, there may have
Speaker 2: been some chanting at another part of the of the
Speaker 2: sort of area that I was in, I didn't I
Speaker 2: didn't hear it, and I certainly didn't hear it anywhere
Speaker 2: near me. And you know, look, those two women both
Speaker 2: said they were They didn't say anything, they didn't change anything,
Speaker 2: they weren't holding anything. They clearly weren't holding anything. And
Speaker 2: the really important point here is that they have absolutely
Speaker 2: no reason to lie about that, because the whole point
Speaker 2: of being there for purposes of breaking the law is
Speaker 2: to get arrested for breaking that that law, and breaking
Speaker 2: the law for them is an act of conscience which
Speaker 2: they do in order to preserve what they take to
Speaker 2: be well, in order to oppose what they take to
Speaker 2: be a huge degradation of our civil liberties when it
Speaker 2: comes to speech, when it comes to gathering assembly, and
Speaker 2: also when it comes to direct action, which is how
Speaker 2: they regard you know, palasine action. There's a direct action group,
Speaker 2: one in a very long tradition of direct action, so
Speaker 2: they have no reason to lie. So I don't really
Speaker 2: I don't think when those women said we weren't doing anything,
Speaker 2: we're literally just clapped that that you know, there's there's
Speaker 2: absolutely no reason to disbelieve them. As far as I'm
Speaker 2: concerned now, whether clapping is now supporting a terrorist group
Speaker 2: is a really good question, because perhaps somebody did chant
Speaker 2: somebody and they clapped, and that clap councers a support
Speaker 2: for their statement, which was a support a statement in support.
Speaker 3: For a terrorist group.
Speaker 2: It will be unimaginable to me if that is the
Speaker 2: threshold the police are now applying. What if somebody nods
Speaker 2: their head, is that going to be support for a
Speaker 2: prescribed organization? Well, if you're just like walking across the
Speaker 2: street talking on the bone and you say yes very
Speaker 2: loudly as somebody somebody's you know, makes a statement about
Speaker 2: Palisine action, it is loop de lou, you know, it's
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you know a few years ago
Speaker 2: this situation. Where as as as Tim Crosston, or as
Speaker 2: I said, maybe when I talked to Tim Croston, where
Speaker 2: you know, the average terrorist in this country is a
Speaker 2: fifty nine year old white woman who holds up a
Speaker 2: sign or who now who sits down and claps or
Speaker 2: you know, is is proximate in some way to someone
Speaker 2: who says something would have been completely unimaginable literally literally.
Speaker 1: Well, unfortunately, Shabana Mahmood's pronoctocon shall continue until morale improves.
Speaker 3: Or the sharp and optaicon shall we call it now.
Speaker 1: At one point, our producer Jack tried to get some
Speaker 1: answers from the police, but why people were being arrested?
Speaker 3: If I sit down, will you arrest me? What's the
Speaker 3: answer to that?
Speaker 9: Opposite? Yeah?
Speaker 14: Why not?
Speaker 2: Just another reason why we arrested? So why have other
Speaker 2: people been arrested for certain game today?
Speaker 3: You'd love to ask them.
Speaker 5: I'd have to ask the people who are being arrested
Speaker 5: why they've been arrested.
Speaker 3: It doesn't seem a great deal logic to that officer.
Speaker 1: The professionalism of the Metropolitan Police on full display yet again.
Speaker 1: Now the police say one hundred and seventeen people were
Speaker 1: arrested today under a combination of Section twelve and thirteen charges.
Speaker 1: What do you think the impact of all of this
Speaker 1: is going to be?
Speaker 2: Stephen I mean, I think there's actually no no telling
Speaker 2: I would say something about that interaction between Jack and
Speaker 2: that police officer. You know, I don't think it's a
Speaker 2: failure of professionalism on the part of the police there.
Speaker 2: I think it's actually not knowing what it is that
Speaker 2: they're supposed to be doing, like it being completely mystifying
Speaker 2: even to the officers there. The reason they can't answer
Speaker 2: the question is because they don't know. I really believe
Speaker 2: why it is that they're arresting these so you know,
Speaker 2: they're doing something. They're around, you know, someone who's saying
Speaker 2: something that they shouldn't be saying, which is a prescribed statement,
Speaker 2: but they do not know what the threshold is themselves.
Speaker 2: And I suspect that the police are just under you know,
Speaker 2: from from some chame some from some some some parts
Speaker 2: parts of government, perhaps un there's some pressure to continue
Speaker 2: doing what is actually a form of madness, like literally
Speaker 2: like insane asylum sort of stuff, because what's going to
Speaker 2: happen is that all the what many of those people
Speaker 2: I think will who were arrested today will win, will
Speaker 2: win conversation for false arrests because I don't I find
Speaker 2: it very hard for the police to find very hard
Speaker 2: to see how the police are going to be able
Speaker 2: to maintain a position that actually they were expressing support
Speaker 2: for a prescribed group when I don't think anybody saw it,
Speaker 2: and I know and to disbelieve them, but defending juries
Speaker 2: is obviously going to continue to escalate its tactics. And
Speaker 2: you know, I was there in the summer when last
Speaker 2: summer when the small not the small, when the sign
Speaker 2: protests began in very small numbers, and I saw it
Speaker 2: go from fifty to five hundred to one thousand to
Speaker 2: fifteen hundred, you know, just just a step by step
Speaker 2: by set, more and more people were prepared to break
Speaker 2: the law in order to stand against the prescription of
Speaker 2: palasine action. When I was at Scotland Yard, I think
Speaker 2: there were maybe eleven people who did the escalatory thing
Speaker 2: of a Section twelve breach. I know one hundred and
Speaker 2: seventeen people were arrested today according to the met That's
Speaker 2: a lot of people, and that's you know, tenfold what
Speaker 2: we saw just a month ago. That if those charges
Speaker 2: go through the Crown Court, I don't know how they're
Speaker 2: going to deal with them, because you know, the Crown
Speaker 2: Court is already extremely packed, extremely busy, falling apart. People
Speaker 2: were saying, we have to get rid of juries because
Speaker 2: we're not going to doing cases fast enough of Andy
Speaker 2: Burnham has abandoned that apparently, so that's that's good. But yeah,
Speaker 2: really this is going to take some kind of government
Speaker 2: change of heart. And you know, Andy Burnham is now
Speaker 2: in charge. He must be looking at this, he must
Speaker 2: be thinking this is kind of idiotic. I don't want
Speaker 2: this on my record. I don't want Ivett Cooper's I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm going to say it's you know, stupidity to be
Speaker 2: amar on my time as he.
Speaker 1: Wants to focus on bus prices and on the cost
Speaker 1: of living and domestic policy, and having to have his
Speaker 1: hands tied up by previous silly decisions made by former
Speaker 1: members of the government are only going to distract him
Speaker 1: from this kind of true thing is he actually wants
Speaker 1: to get done in this country, especially when you know,
Speaker 1: like he'd already wants to scrap the jury reforms. I
Speaker 1: believe that was briefed out by somebody else from the
Speaker 1: government because again they don't want to have to deal
Speaker 1: with constitutional reform that distracts from the economy.
Speaker 2: That people will be strongly strongly opposed to as well.
Speaker 2: Curious stuff is doing viral internationally.
Speaker 1: Carlson is talking about, you know, people getting arrested for
Speaker 1: holding science's port Palestine.
Speaker 3: This is a situation that we're.
Speaker 2: Right, and then we just say something about Shabanamamud, whos
Speaker 2: saw the Home Secretary and you know, for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: has decided that she would like her name plastered all
Speaker 2: over this mess as well. If you want to do
Speaker 2: law and order, which I think is something that she
Speaker 2: does want to do, what you don't want to do
Speaker 2: is cram the courts with pensioners and retired people and
Speaker 2: you know, peace nicks and students who are protesting. You
Speaker 2: don't want to see thousands of people in the Crown court.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's obviously a bigger undertaking of the fourteen year sentence
Speaker 2: attached to a section twelve breach. But I think that
Speaker 2: there will probably be a lot of people who are
Speaker 2: prepared to do it because they feel so strongly about
Speaker 2: the danger of this prescription and the kind of slippery
Speaker 2: slope that it creates. I think they're right to feel
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: So if this was a country in the global salad
Speaker 1: there would be admonished by the global law for doing things.
Speaker 1: But you know, under the guise of being a quote
Speaker 1: unquote liberal democracy.
Speaker 3: These able get away with it. Seeven, think you're very
Speaker 3: much for joining me today. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Now that has been some other Palastine Action news today.
Speaker 1: A Palasine Action co founder who Amuri has been given
Speaker 1: permission to appeal the prescription at the Supreme Court today.
Speaker 1: That hearing will take place in the autumn, with a
Speaker 1: Mare saying this. The Supreme Court's decision to grant permission
Speaker 1: to appeal comes as hundreds more ordinary people are arrested
Speaker 1: today under terror laws simpler for saying they oppose genocide
Speaker 1: and support Palestine Action, adding to the more than three
Speaker 1: and a half thousand arrests to date with this entirely
Speaker 1: peaceful protest. Many more reportedly arrested today despite not expressing
Speaker 1: support for Palasine Action, including people who are simply setting
Speaker 1: up a stage or reading poems about Gaza. This further
Speaker 1: evidence is our case that the prescription of Palatine Action
Speaker 1: has become a vehicle for a far broader crackdown on
Speaker 1: expressions of solidarity with.
Speaker 3: The Palestinian people.
Speaker 1: Dahlia this all seems a little bit like that it
Speaker 1: is going to presumably push this back up the new
Speaker 1: story again. I get mister Aliberden Plead doesn't want yeah.
Speaker 14: And I think it's interesting that we've gotten that we're
Speaker 14: in a position now where it is going to go
Speaker 14: to the Supreme Court. I was checked Stephen earlier today
Speaker 14: and he's suggested that this was because I think Burnham
Speaker 14: is a lot savvier than than perhaps we might think,
Speaker 14: and it's a way for him to kind of get
Speaker 14: this off the table in terms of the media, the
Speaker 14: news as a news item, and you know, but do
Speaker 14: it without being seen to show political support for you know,
Speaker 14: not arresting like thousands of pensioners for holding up a
Speaker 14: sign because it doesn't look good. And you know, kind
Speaker 14: of overall on what this means going forward for us,
Speaker 14: you know, I don't like to necessarily say, oh, gosh,
Speaker 14: you know, we're becoming like authoritarian regimes, because it kind
Speaker 14: of suggests that Britain has been this like innocent bastion
Speaker 14: of liberalism and it would never dream of sowing the
Speaker 14: seeds for authoritarianism globally, when actually that is kind of
Speaker 14: what it's done for its at least recent history. But
Speaker 14: I do think that we need to understand that what
Speaker 14: is being done today to the defend our Juries protesters
Speaker 14: and also to the Palestine Action protesters is.
Speaker 13: Like, bit for bit, directly out.
Speaker 14: Of the playbook of any government that we would broadly
Speaker 14: consider to be authoritarian. So, you know, whether you're talking
Speaker 14: about Russia, whether you're talking about China, this use of
Speaker 14: anti terror law in order to crack down on political dissent.
Speaker 14: You know, when when the Russian government closes down all
Speaker 14: independent media, it doesn't say we're doing this because we
Speaker 14: don't believe in a free press and because this is
Speaker 14: an authoritarian regime. They say, we're shutting down these media
Speaker 14: outlets because they are supportive of terror, you know, or
Speaker 14: they are they are sympathetic to terrorism.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 14: And you know, we have to and we have to
Speaker 14: ask ourselves why is it that the government is so
Speaker 14: fixed and hell bent on pursuing the specific crime or
Speaker 14: allegation of terrorism. Because you know, if you want to
Speaker 14: lock up the Palestine Action protesters, if you want to
Speaker 14: punish them for what they've done, there are laws in
Speaker 14: which you could have done that under you know, criminal damage.
Speaker 14: They could have just you know, raised the charge of
Speaker 14: criminal damage. It probably would have gone through a lot
Speaker 14: more easily without as much controversy. But they are going
Speaker 14: specifically after terror legislation for multiple reasons. The first one
Speaker 14: is because when you bring something under the purview of
Speaker 14: terrorism of terror legislation, it almost exists outside of normal
Speaker 14: legal reality. So like all of these principles that we
Speaker 14: have built up over many years, whether it's around you know,
Speaker 14: state surveillance, or around detention, or around the right to
Speaker 14: private legal advice, all of these things suddenly exit the building.
Speaker 14: And so it's a way for the government to be
Speaker 14: able to basically get around the pesky fact of core
Speaker 14: legal rights and core legal frameworks. And so, you know,
Speaker 14: and that's something that people are willing to accept, you know,
Speaker 14: the idea that we would suspend normal due process when
Speaker 14: we're talking about when we're in the aftermath of massive
Speaker 14: attacks where lots of people have died because people are
Speaker 14: scared and angry and.
Speaker 13: Traumatized.
Speaker 14: And those of us who have sort of been ringing
Speaker 14: the alarm on this on this crackdown of civil liberties
Speaker 14: in the name of the counter terror were always very
Speaker 14: unpopular for doing that because it was seen as not
Speaker 14: having compassion for victims, or it was seen as as
Speaker 14: not taking terrorism seriously or the pain that has been
Speaker 14: caused of it seriously. But this is exactly why, because
Speaker 14: what happens is when you expand the category of terrorism,
Speaker 14: you expand the rema of the government to basically bypass
Speaker 14: traditional legal protections, and then you can also introduce this
Speaker 14: secondary crime of supporting a terror organization, which and that's
Speaker 14: when we get into the.
Speaker 13: Territory of thought crime.
Speaker 14: That's when we get into the territory of people being
Speaker 14: criminalized for things that they think or ideologies they might hold.
Speaker 14: And there's no other existing legal framework other than maybe
Speaker 14: hate speech framework to really persecute people for what they
Speaker 14: think and or if they dissent in their thought against
Speaker 14: what the government perhaps wants. Whereas when you introduce this
Speaker 14: idea of supporting a terror organization as being something punishable
Speaker 14: by years in prison or that opens you up to
Speaker 14: being surveilled by the government, to having your devices seized,
Speaker 14: to having your right to privacy compromise. Then suddenly, through
Speaker 14: the back door, we have a crackdown on freedom of association,
Speaker 14: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of the press.
Speaker 14: And so it has been a drip feed. But it
Speaker 14: is not surprising to me that this is where we
Speaker 14: have ended up twenty five years after the entry reduction,
Speaker 14: after the amendment of the cat Terror legislation.
Speaker 1: And like, how different is this to like Marco Rubio
Speaker 1: exploiting this stuff for the NSPM seven to crack down
Speaker 1: on people who they say a terrorist things, to expunge
Speaker 1: from society basically in terms of their organization. It's really
Speaker 1: really damaging to the social fabric. The children of the
Speaker 1: UK lead normal lives and guaranteed access to an education
Speaker 1: is a privilege some of us take for granted. For
Speaker 1: the children and for the teenagers of Gaza, it's a
Speaker 1: very different story. Even with the so called ceasefire broken
Speaker 1: between Israel and the Palestinian resistance, bombs continue to rain
Speaker 1: down on the enclave. This means that even the idea
Speaker 1: of studying as well beyond many Gazans who are desperate
Speaker 1: to go back to their lives before Israel's genocide began.
Speaker 1: Many countries across Europe have offered these people a lifeline
Speaker 1: programs to evacuate them from Gaza and bring them to
Speaker 1: Europe to study at some of the best universities in
Speaker 1: the world. However, for these gifted students to be able
Speaker 1: to come to Britain, they either need to have full
Speaker 1: scholarships or to be able to fund themselves, something that's
Speaker 1: impossible for them to achieve given the extortionate cost of
Speaker 1: the subsistence. In the besieged enclave, from which ninety five
Speaker 1: percent are high, educational buildings have been destroyed or damaged. Luckily,
Speaker 1: some celebrities have tried to come to the rescue. Twenty
Speaker 1: UK celebs have banded together with the Phoenix based charity
Speaker 1: to organize a charity auction to be able to raise
Speaker 1: money to fund these students' costs to come here to study.
Speaker 1: Juliete Stevenson, star of films like Truly, Madly, Deeply and
Speaker 1: Bend It like Beckham, as well as many many stage productions,
Speaker 1: is one of those donating items to the auction, and
Speaker 1: she joins me now to discuss the initiative. Juliet welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. It's lovely to have you, Hi, good
Speaker 1: to be here, absolutely absolutely, Now, why was it important
Speaker 1: for you to get involved with this project?
Speaker 9: Well, for all the reasons you've just said.
Speaker 10: You know, we take for granted that our kids or
Speaker 10: the students across the country, you know, from eighteen onwards
Speaker 10: are able to access you know, tertiary education and follow
Speaker 10: their dreams.
Speaker 9: And study and so on.
Speaker 10: But the students in Gaza have already been through a
Speaker 10: sort of hellish three years of the entire infrastructure of
Speaker 10: their education being destroyed. All seven Guards and university have
Speaker 10: been destroyed, libraries, you know, precious equipment, study spaces and
Speaker 10: so on, and people have been living in hunger, fear, grief, rage,
Speaker 10: and so many of these students have tried really hard
Speaker 10: to continue their studies. We have a situation now in
Speaker 10: which over two hundred of them have been offered places
Speaker 10: by top British universities, which is fantastic and the fact
Speaker 10: they have done this, these students have achieved these places
Speaker 10: not through any kind of charitable avenue, but because they
Speaker 10: have earned these places through academic merit, and on top
Speaker 10: of which, you know, they've had to do this in
Speaker 10: incredible circumstances. We've heard stories of students climbing up mountains
Speaker 10: of rubble to try and reach a little bit of
Speaker 10: Wi Fi signal, endangering themselves in the line of sniper
Speaker 10: fire of the Israeli The idea for or drone fire
Speaker 10: just to get a bit of Wi Fi to send
Speaker 10: their application into a university. One student crossed a very
Speaker 10: very dangerous territory to get to a temporary WiFi hub
Speaker 10: to sit an entrance exam, only for that Wi Fi
Speaker 10: to collapse halfway through his exam. So it's just extraordinarily
Speaker 10: moving to think of what they've been through. But anyway,
Speaker 10: they have over two hundred have these places, but the
Speaker 10: British government, as you said, are saying that they can
Speaker 10: come only if they have fully funded scholarships. How is
Speaker 10: a Gazan student supposed to do that? You know, people
Speaker 10: are starving in Gaza. They haven't got the money to
Speaker 10: feed their families, let alone pay these large sums. And
Speaker 10: we're talking about a minimum of seventeen thousand pounds per student.
Speaker 10: So just as a start, and we hope it will
Speaker 10: be make a big substantial contribution.
Speaker 9: Some of us have got together this auction.
Speaker 10: What's Phoenix Space is the wonderful charity who have organized
Speaker 10: this auction. And originally the idea was that we should
Speaker 10: all donate an item that meant something to us from
Speaker 10: our own education.
Speaker 9: So I've given a book of poetry about poetry that
Speaker 9: I've had.
Speaker 10: I got it as a prize when I was at
Speaker 10: school when I was about fifteen, and I've had it
Speaker 10: on my bookshelves ever since. So I've donated that. But
Speaker 10: then after a while some celebrities said, well, I don't
Speaker 10: have anything from my school days, so they have just
Speaker 10: been free then to donate all sorts of amazing things.
Speaker 10: So Gary Lineker is donating a football T shirt that
Speaker 10: I think he's signed, Vanessa Redgraves donating a very valuable necklace.
Speaker 10: There's lots and lots of different things in the auction
Speaker 10: and we hope to raise a really substantial sum of
Speaker 10: money for these students so they can get to Britain
Speaker 10: to take up their places.
Speaker 1: Given all the difficulties you just mentioned there in terms
Speaker 1: of the Garden's ability to generate the funds themselves to
Speaker 1: be able to come to the case of study, why
Speaker 1: do you think the government havn't stumped up some of
Speaker 1: the money themselves.
Speaker 10: Well, I mean, look at what this government's relationship to
Speaker 10: Palestine and Tagaza has been for you know, since since
Speaker 10: the genocide began. I mean, we have been horrifically complicit
Speaker 10: in this genocide. We have continued to sell arms to Israel.
Speaker 10: That has not stopped. We are still selling arms as well.
Speaker 10: We are still selling parts for the thirty five bombers
Speaker 10: that you know are the very bombers that are projected
Speaker 10: onto the people of Gaza and that have been responsible
Speaker 10: now for over seventy five thousand deaths, including twenty two
Speaker 10: thousand children according to reports on the ground. So we
Speaker 10: are in many ways colluding. We have colluded, and this
Speaker 10: government has had a shocking and shameful record in relation
Speaker 10: to Gaza.
Speaker 9: We very very much welcome that the Home Office have.
Speaker 10: Changed the visa application system so that students no longer
Speaker 10: have to produce biometric data, which was the case a
Speaker 10: year ago.
Speaker 9: And now they don't have to do that. So the
Speaker 9: Home Office has.
Speaker 10: Moved in the right direction, but it's slightly it's sort
Speaker 10: of torturous to say to these students you've got to
Speaker 10: produce these large sums of money, because there's no way
Speaker 10: they can do that. So if the government is not
Speaker 10: going to change their view on this, and we would
Speaker 10: appeal to them to do so, but if they're not,
Speaker 10: then we are asking everybody who's hearing this to either
Speaker 10: go to the auction and bid for something or else
Speaker 10: to donate. I mean, if you don't want any of
Speaker 10: the auction items, that's fine, but please please make a contribution,
Speaker 10: however small, and let's see just how much money we
Speaker 10: can raise for these students if the government are not
Speaker 10: going to change their policy.
Speaker 3: Now, I've got to ask you.
Speaker 1: Now we do have like a new Prime Minister and
Speaker 1: one who has obviously been a little bit more kind
Speaker 1: of forthright and in terms of apologizing for labor slow
Speaker 1: and painful response to the genocide, what kind of action
Speaker 1: would you further like to see from Andy Burnham now
Speaker 1: that we've gotten someone new at the helm.
Speaker 10: I mean, yes, I welcome the apology, but apology is
Speaker 10: completely meaningless unless it's put into action.
Speaker 9: You know, now is not the time for words.
Speaker 10: We need words needs to be followed up by action
Speaker 10: and a complete change of policy. So the first thing
Speaker 10: I would ask urge Andy Burnham to do is to
Speaker 10: stop selling ams to Israel. I. Mean, that is the
Speaker 10: obvious one. We should be employing sanctions towards Israeli government,
Speaker 10: you know, because that is the only way we will
Speaker 10: really hit them is by by sanctions, and you know,
Speaker 10: boycotting and divestment. We have, you know, hundreds and hundreds
Speaker 10: of British industries who are deeply implicated in commerce.
Speaker 9: And trade with Israel.
Speaker 10: And the only way anything will work really is if
Speaker 10: we stand up and first of all stop selling arms
Speaker 10: and then and then hit them commercially, because I think that's, honestly,
Speaker 10: you know, one of the most effective ways we can
Speaker 10: we can make our feelings felt. But I mean, and
Speaker 10: Andy Burnham is going to have to stand up and
Speaker 10: resist a very very powerful lobby which will be pressurizing
Speaker 10: him not to.
Speaker 9: You know, when I heard.
Speaker 10: Your previous your previous reporter talking about why this terrorist
Speaker 10: legislation has got as far as it has, I mean,
Speaker 10: I do agree with her. But what she didn't say,
Speaker 10: which I would say is the most significant thing, is
Speaker 10: that there is an extraordinarily influential and powerful lobby in
Speaker 10: this country that has argued and has in fact drawn
Speaker 10: up that legislation. And it's the same lobby who is
Speaker 10: urging you know, this government and Starmer's government to support
Speaker 10: the Israeli government in spite of this mass slaughter of
Speaker 10: its people. And so Burnham needs to stand up to
Speaker 10: that lobby. He needs to you know, access his moral
Speaker 10: muscle and make decisions that are about what he really
Speaker 10: believes in and not is what he's doing to please
Speaker 10: a lobby that really has it's you know, which has
Speaker 10: has a lot of blood on its hands.
Speaker 3: We'll see.
Speaker 1: For the last almost three years now, we saw the
Speaker 1: destruction of Gaza, the looting of the West Bank, the
Speaker 1: incursions in se Lebanon. I was on a personal level,
Speaker 1: have you had any in terms of your professional life,
Speaker 1: if you had any kind of backclash in terms of
Speaker 1: your personal support for the Palestinian cause.
Speaker 10: I mean, obviously I get, you know, messages of hatred
Speaker 10: and so on, But I mean I've been working all
Speaker 10: the way through. I haven't you know, you don't know
Speaker 10: about the jobs you didn't get. You don't know about
Speaker 10: the people who don't want to employ you because my position.
Speaker 10: But to be absolutely honest, it doesn't really matter to me.
Speaker 10: I know that I'm living through a period of I mean,
Speaker 10: we've never witnessed a live stream to genocide before.
Speaker 9: That's been said many times. I mean I have been.
Speaker 10: So sort of reshaped and altered by what I personally
Speaker 10: have lived through in the last three years, and many
Speaker 10: many people I know feel the same, we've lived through
Speaker 10: something horrific. What humanity can do. What the Israeli still
Speaker 10: just have done to the people of Palestine. They are
Speaker 10: still denying AID, they are still withholding baby formula milk
Speaker 10: when babies are starving in Gaza. You know, they're inflicting
Speaker 10: torture on Palestinian prisoners, they are murdering their healthcare workers,
Speaker 10: they are torturing and detaining incredibly heroic Palestinian doctors and
Speaker 10: surgeons who are just trying to save children's lives in Gaza,
Speaker 10: and what we have witnessed has been so horrific.
Speaker 9: So you know, really, when you ask yourself the big questions.
Speaker 10: In life, what does it really matter my career as
Speaker 10: against those things, I just feel that we have one life,
Speaker 10: you know, and it's up to you to stand up
Speaker 10: and speak about what you believe in. And if that
Speaker 10: sounds sort of pompous or earnest, I'm not going to
Speaker 10: apologize for it because I.
Speaker 9: Just feel, you know, I just need my life.
Speaker 10: I need to align myself behind what I believe in
Speaker 10: and then at least I feel I've done something with
Speaker 10: this life, you know, Otherwise I would not be able
Speaker 10: to look at myself in the mirror. Really, you know,
Speaker 10: I think many many more people need to be standing
Speaker 10: up now that we need to be naming these things.
Speaker 10: We need to be standing up, you know. I think,
Speaker 10: you know, you bullies can only win if you.
Speaker 9: Allow them to win. You need you need to, you know.
Speaker 10: I think there's so many ordinary people in Britain who
Speaker 10: have stood up, who've come out.
Speaker 9: Who have risked a lot to join the protests and.
Speaker 10: So on, and I meet them all the time, and
Speaker 10: it's a wonderful community. So I feel more supported by
Speaker 10: that community than I do feel threatened by those who
Speaker 10: oppose it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely could not agree more with those kind of absolutely not.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for joining us statute. It's an
Speaker 1: absolute pleasure.
Speaker 9: Actually, thank you for having me now.
Speaker 1: Early today I also spoke to a sham Abudalu, one
Speaker 1: of the Garsen students offer a university place in fact
Speaker 1: two places in the UK. She was in Gaza when
Speaker 1: I spoke to her, and I began by asking her
Speaker 1: about her plans to come here and study.
Speaker 15: Coming to the UK just like a dream for me,
Speaker 15: especially nowadays with all situations happening here in Gaza and
Speaker 15: that the education is destroyed by all it means here
Speaker 15: in Gaza, there's no schools, no college, no where to
Speaker 15: study or nowhere to continue my education. So if I
Speaker 15: get to the UK, I would be able to continue
Speaker 15: my journey and to attend university in the UK which
Speaker 15: has a very suitable environment for me to continue and
Speaker 15: to charle my dream there.
Speaker 3: And how much money is it that you'd need to
Speaker 3: be able to raise.
Speaker 15: I don't know exactly the amount of money, but it's
Speaker 15: a lot amount of money we're student because in order
Speaker 15: to get for like the fund, you need to get
Speaker 15: for like the tuition fund and the other living experiment
Speaker 15: in the UK. So it would cost a lot for
Speaker 15: a student, like maybe fifteen pounds for like living expenses
Speaker 15: only a very year.
Speaker 1: And obviously it is a technological based degree you're looking at.
Speaker 1: I think it's other technology from York or there's computer
Speaker 1: science at the University of Edinburgh that you've been accepted on. Obviously,
Speaker 1: so that you were dreamed to coming, to be able
Speaker 1: to study, to be able to get even more of
Speaker 1: an education. What kind of dreams were you looking to
Speaker 1: fulfill with these kind of qualifications.
Speaker 15: I got accepted in AI and commuter science of course
Speaker 15: in the University of Edinburgh.
Speaker 9: So my pasion is.
Speaker 15: About tech and I've been dreaming about it since I
Speaker 15: was a child, because when I was in high school,
Speaker 15: I used to see my parents because most of them
Speaker 15: are commuter engineers. So I was enveloped in this since
Speaker 15: I was a kid, and I started to love this
Speaker 15: and have more visionate about it, and then I started
Speaker 15: to participate in practice in in this field. I joined
Speaker 15: the multiple clubs and brokerams and last one of them
Speaker 15: was before the war. I was selected in tich Girls,
Speaker 15: which is an exchange program that was healed in the
Speaker 15: United States. So it was like a big opportunity for
Speaker 15: me and I think that this is the opportunity that
Speaker 15: made me what I am currently. So after that, when
Speaker 15: the war started and everything shattered, I couldn't complete my
Speaker 15: last year in high school and it got delayed for
Speaker 15: two years. And finally after a lot of obstacles, a
Speaker 15: lot of losing a lot of I lost a lot
Speaker 15: of people, I lost a lot of things in order
Speaker 15: to be able to achieve this, and then I got
Speaker 15: my grade twelve degree and after that I was able
Speaker 15: to apply for colleges in the United Kingdom, and then
Speaker 15: I got accepted in my AI and guter science course
Speaker 15: in Edinburgh, which is like a dream for me. So
Speaker 15: I feel like if I was able to get to
Speaker 15: the United States and to complete the United Kingdom sorry,
Speaker 15: and to complete this course and good this to Douma
Speaker 15: and get this, I will be able to get back
Speaker 15: to the like the knowledge and the technical knowledge, the
Speaker 15: technoledge of the knowledge that I will.
Speaker 13: Learn from the UK.
Speaker 15: I will get back to my country and to start
Speaker 15: and try actually to rebuild a gauza as we you
Speaker 15: used to know and even higher than this, because everything
Speaker 15: here is destroyed. So I will try to to make
Speaker 15: our and take the thing that I gained from the
Speaker 15: UK to my people here in Bossa, maybe to renew
Speaker 15: the educational sector or maybe the the health sector because
Speaker 15: everything is shuttered right now and destroyed.
Speaker 1: One not kind of a broader question, how has the
Speaker 1: war in general effec not just your education, but the
Speaker 1: rest of your life as well.
Speaker 15: Basically, I feel like the war has affected my life
Speaker 15: in every point of it, starting from my home because
Speaker 15: my home got destroyed, so I'm basically now homeless, and
Speaker 15: they took away my family from me. I lost my mom, my,
Speaker 15: twin sisters, and my brother and I'm alone with my
Speaker 15: father and I Also when I lost my mom, I
Speaker 15: got injured and I was stuck under the rubble for
Speaker 15: three hours and I wasn't able to move for like
Speaker 15: a month because of this because I got injured in
Speaker 15: my leg.
Speaker 3: And also it.
Speaker 15: Has affected my mental health and also my physical health
Speaker 15: because after I lost my mom and after like everything
Speaker 15: was happening, because like I was living in this environment
Speaker 15: where there's not even a moment that I got to
Speaker 15: stay like quiet and save like whenever I think something
Speaker 15: bad happened. So I was really insecure and I was
Speaker 15: really afraid, Like every moment I live here in Goza,
Speaker 15: I live it with fear that I would lost my
Speaker 15: soul or anyone that I love in the next moment.
Speaker 15: So I was living in this for like three years
Speaker 15: by now, and the suffer is continue and also not
Speaker 15: like even like the shelter and the food and the
Speaker 15: water were really hard to access, and even like the
Speaker 15: electricity and internet. It's really hard for me to even
Speaker 15: attend this intribute to it because there's no electricity and
Speaker 15: internet in my home. So I got to go to
Speaker 15: a cafe to like internet cafe in order to attend
Speaker 15: this where I have to to pay like insanely pricing
Speaker 15: price in order to get like an internet connection. And
Speaker 15: also I got to like work for miles. This is
Speaker 15: like for like my personal life and my educational life.
Speaker 15: It got affected me a lot because since we started,
Speaker 15: we stopped learning because they destroyed like the schools and
Speaker 15: they even called like teachers and professors. So it was
Speaker 15: really hard to continue my journey, like like my twelve
Speaker 15: my grade twelve, so I got to take like lessons
Speaker 15: online in order to complete this stage, and attending and
Speaker 15: even attending the classes were really difficult. So if you
Speaker 15: think about it, you could find the suffer in everything
Speaker 15: like we do. And what really made me sad because
Speaker 15: these are like really simple things that everything everyone should have,
Speaker 15: Like it's all right, it's all ready to learn to
Speaker 15: live peacefully, to sleep at night without like waking up
Speaker 15: in like a horrible sound, and without having a bad
Speaker 15: news about your loved one.
Speaker 9: So who are has traumatized me?
Speaker 1: I mean, these are a lot of things that everyone
Speaker 1: you know, outside of the kind of the water the world,
Speaker 1: they take for at it, and it's difficult to be
Speaker 1: able to understand quite how that would feel. Given the
Speaker 1: relative safety that all of us live in in the UK,
Speaker 1: and I just the last year, I'd just like to say,
Speaker 1: what would you say to the people watching at home?
Speaker 1: How can they help? And not just obviously yourself as
Speaker 1: well in terms of the fundraiser, but also in terms
Speaker 1: of what's happening in Gards more broadly.
Speaker 15: I can say that this campaign is a really good one,
Speaker 15: and I would say, like my masters to the people
Speaker 15: that they keep up with this and that they support
Speaker 15: this campaign and try to share it as widely as
Speaker 15: they could, because they don't know how much this campaign
Speaker 15: would affect the lives people here in Gaza, because there's
Speaker 15: like two hundred students and even more that are you
Speaker 15: having an acceptance in university, but they don't have the
Speaker 15: enough fund for that will allow them to attend the university.
Speaker 15: So this campaign and this occasion would help a lot
Speaker 15: of people and would change their lives basically because we
Speaker 15: live like this opportunity would mean a lot for everyone
Speaker 15: living here. So I would advise everyone that watching this
Speaker 15: to try to look more and to get more information
Speaker 15: about this occasion and to try to donate or share
Speaker 15: or do like any little thing that they could do.
Speaker 15: Because everything matter, and every voice count and every donation count.
Speaker 15: And I'm really happy that there's a lot of people
Speaker 15: thinking about us, especially for the celebration that attempting this
Speaker 15: occasion today, this would be like a really beautiful thing
Speaker 15: and would really change someone's life.
Speaker 1: That was shame Aboudolo speaking to me earlier today. The
Speaker 1: received wisdom is that politics is hard, but if you're
Speaker 1: Zack Palanski, you'd be forgiven for thinking the opposite. Gifted
Speaker 1: with natural charm, charisma, and with his former career as
Speaker 1: an actor preparing him with all the soft skills necessary,
Speaker 1: it's easy to see how we take to politics like
Speaker 1: a duck to water. There's been ten months since he
Speaker 1: was elective leader the Green Party in a landslide victory.
Speaker 1: He's had quite the meteoric rise since then. It only
Speaker 1: took seven months into his term as lead of him
Speaker 1: to take the party from the respectable seven percent in
Speaker 1: the polls the party achieved for the previous general election
Speaker 1: to registering the first pole lead ever for the party
Speaker 1: in April this year. It's not just Polanski to thank
Speaker 1: for these successes. A slick social media campaign or alongside
Speaker 1: an army of canvases gave the party a crushing victory
Speaker 1: in the Gaulton and Densen by election, as well as
Speaker 1: a discovery of another political talent in the form of
Speaker 1: their candidate, Hannah Spencer. Should this have been a surprise
Speaker 1: to anyone, though, the fertile ground for a party of
Speaker 1: the populist left was made ready and available for Polanski
Speaker 1: and co. To move into when former Labour leader Kirstaer
Speaker 1: pursed anyone to the left of Gerhard Schruder from the
Speaker 1: Labour Party, and then he also dragged his party firmly
Speaker 1: to the right on a number of issues. There was
Speaker 1: a wellspring of post Corbyn's socialist sentiment available for the
Speaker 1: Greens of Tapinsu, especially among the youth, amongst whom at
Speaker 1: time of recording the Green still poll in first with
Speaker 1: and they had been gifted to them willingly by the
Speaker 1: star regime.
Speaker 3: Remember this.
Speaker 16: If you don't like that, if you don't like the
Speaker 16: changes that we've made, I say the door is open
Speaker 16: and you can leave.
Speaker 3: I'm on the subject of Starmer.
Speaker 1: Not only were the Greens gifted and nascent supporter base,
Speaker 1: they were also gifted possibly the worst political operator possible
Speaker 1: as an opponent endless policy gaffs and manifesto breaches, coupled
Speaker 1: with hilariously bad political antennae that made him the motated
Speaker 1: prime minisistance records began. Starmer raised a profile of all
Speaker 1: of his political opponents merely by proxy, especially at a
Speaker 1: time of deteriorated living standards and a broken economic system
Speaker 1: that's creaking at the seams. Let's be frank, the Green Party,
Speaker 1: I've been playing politics on He's mode for quite a
Speaker 1: while now. Not only was there a confluence of favorable
Speaker 1: conditions for them to cannibalize the voter base of the
Speaker 1: Labor Party, their previous status as a minor party shielded
Speaker 1: them from a great deal of media scrutiny that would
Speaker 1: stymy the successes of a mainstream party.
Speaker 3: Polanski and co.
Speaker 1: Have been able to bypass the mainstream media and talk
Speaker 1: directly to voters via social media, of which Fleet Street
Speaker 1: have been very slow to catch up with, another arena
Speaker 1: where Zach Polanski's charisma has been a real boom to
Speaker 1: the party. All of this culminated in record gains for
Speaker 1: the Green Party at May's local elections and the eventual
Speaker 1: toppling of Kirstaarmer's Prime Minister and now the real politics begins.
Speaker 1: Gone are the days of easily dunking on an adenoidal
Speaker 1: PM proclaiming his father was a drill bit. The government
Speaker 1: has finally put an actual human in charge of the
Speaker 1: country with functioning emotions heaven forfen. The rhetoric and policy
Speaker 1: have also shifted to It's clear Burnham's team of recognized
Speaker 1: Labour's polling blue to their left and have parked their
Speaker 1: tanks on Polanski's lawn. Remember the Green slogan of making
Speaker 1: hope normal again while Andy Burnham is bringing back hope,
Speaker 1: even borrowed lines from Hannah Spencer's victory speech in Gortland
Speaker 1: Denton around the struggles to not being able to afford
Speaker 1: simple luxuries during the cost of living crisis. Burnham's first
Speaker 1: week policy blitz has catabolticed his favorability ratings higher than
Speaker 1: any leader in years plus nineteen, so is practically unheard
Speaker 1: of in this era of fractured politics, and whether it's
Speaker 1: a holleymoon period or not, it's clear that a renewed
Speaker 1: focus on the cost of living has immediately curried favor
Speaker 1: with voters. Direct relief for small businesses and economically precarious
Speaker 1: are the kind of policies that are Polanski's bread and butter,
Speaker 1: and given the precipitous drop in Labour support among these
Speaker 1: demographics previously, the Greens will need to up their game
Speaker 1: to keep them on side now that Labour has somewhat
Speaker 1: reverted to type on economic policy, being combative rather than
Speaker 1: collaborative on policies that are shared between the two leaders
Speaker 1: is unlikely to prove popular given the public atte type
Speaker 1: for politicians working together on shared goals. Voters tend to
Speaker 1: give new pms the benefit of the doubt, and coming
Speaker 1: out swinging immediately could look unfair, potentially in the eyes
Speaker 1: of the electorate. If the Greens want to bring him
Speaker 1: back down to Earth, they'll need to force him onto ground.
Speaker 1: Is significantly less comfortable on such as climate change, civil liberties,
Speaker 1: and foreign policy, where the Greens hold something closer to
Speaker 1: median opinion on than the government. It's clear that the
Speaker 1: Greens aren't used to having to respond to narrative setting Elsewhere.
Speaker 1: It was extremely easy to be the aggressor against Kirstamer,
Speaker 1: who spent six years letting everyone else dictake the terms
Speaker 1: of the debate, but Burnham's more effective use of social
Speaker 1: media and direct focus on the quick wins for people's
Speaker 1: pockets may prove a more difficult beast to slay, especially
Speaker 1: after he ditched some of the predecessors. More on popular
Speaker 1: policies such as digital ID and juria reforms as not
Speaker 1: just the opposing parties that are set in the terms
Speaker 1: of debate either. Now the Greens have been established as
Speaker 1: a serious electoral force, they're being subject to significantly more
Speaker 1: scrutiny than they were a couple of years ago. Whilst
Speaker 1: some of these things will be easier to rise above,
Speaker 1: such as ridiculous resurrection of Polanski's decodes or careers aple
Speaker 1: the therapist, others have caught the public's attention more vividly,
Speaker 1: such as the media storm around Polanski's retweeted criticism of
Speaker 1: the officer who apprehended the Golden Screen suspect. More recently,
Speaker 1: He's got himself in hot water yet again, after carelessly
Speaker 1: accepting a collaboration request on an Instagram carousel in which
Speaker 1: a photo of a man wearing a T shirt with
Speaker 1: a picture of a guillotine and would appear to be
Speaker 1: a veiled reference to Nigel Faraj in it. Just days
Speaker 1: after another reform politician was murdered in her home as well.
Speaker 1: The legacy media had a field day on the subject,
Speaker 1: leading to pretty real moments like this one on Newsnight
Speaker 1: when Nicholas Watt started live reporting angry texts from Reform Party.
Speaker 17: Have got reaction from Reform UK to your interview with
Speaker 17: Zach Polanski, and a senior Reform UK source has said
Speaker 17: to me, it's truly astonishing and quite frankly sickening that
Speaker 17: Zach Polanski won't apologize for inciting murder.
Speaker 18: He admits it was wrong, he admits it's dangerous, but
Speaker 18: he still refuses to apologize. Mister Polanski, this Reform UK
Speaker 18: source says to me, is not fit to lead a
Speaker 18: national political party now.
Speaker 1: Regardless of whether Green Party support is for you, the
Speaker 1: criticism as legitimate or not, it's a distraction from policy
Speaker 1: and the hard work of Green represents to have to
Speaker 1: constantly firefight concocted media drama around tweets, and there has
Speaker 1: to be an acknowledgment by the party that serious polling
Speaker 1: figures require a serious approach to politics. Disgruntle party members
Speaker 1: have apparently briefed journalists that they think Zach Planski is
Speaker 1: quote terminally online and needs to hand over the key
Speaker 1: to his social media accounts. His excessive use of social
Speaker 1: media hasn't gone unnoticed by journalists either.
Speaker 4: Zak Polanski is a terminally online political figure, and that
Speaker 4: has been an asset to some extent. It has explained
Speaker 4: his rise, you know, during that period of the doll
Speaker 4: drums of the Labor government and the Keirstalmer government. His
Speaker 4: using his social media content, which was so crisp and
Speaker 4: had such clarity and had such a clear message, it
Speaker 4: propelled them up the polls extremely quickly, and it managed
Speaker 4: to appeal to a disaffected left populist vote in the
Speaker 4: country that basically hadn't been spoken four and two since
Speaker 4: the days of Jeremy Corbyn. But you can have to
Speaker 4: much of a good thing, and you can see in
Speaker 4: terms of Polanski, I mean to be probably honest, I
Speaker 4: sort of notice about myself sometimes when I'm tweeting or
Speaker 4: putting something out, one of the first people who often
Speaker 4: likes it or sometimes retweet is that Polanski. And that
Speaker 4: happens once and you think, oh, that's quite nice. He's
Speaker 4: paying attention to what you're saying. When it happens a
Speaker 4: sort of second, third, fifth, tenth, one hundredth time you're
Speaker 4: like May if you've not got anything better to be
Speaker 4: doing than retweeting my stuff. Don't get me wrong, it's excellent,
Speaker 4: but you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Now, I will be the first to say, briefing to
Speaker 1: journalists about your misgivings for your own party is the
Speaker 1: opposite of serious politics. Anyone who's been involved with the
Speaker 1: Labor Party, We'll tell you that. But neither is accepting
Speaker 1: every collaboration request or retweeting every supporter's post on social media.
Speaker 1: The Greens have money now that the second biggest party
Speaker 1: in the country, and a dedicated social media team available
Speaker 1: to produce content with consistency of direction. Prudence of engagement
Speaker 1: is paramount to taking the Greens from one time insurgence
Speaker 1: to a political mainstay. The last area where the Greens
Speaker 1: have to also adapt is the new environment on policy.
Speaker 1: When you're an insurgent, it's all about talking to your
Speaker 1: own people, and so far they've been excellent on raising
Speaker 1: the salients of policies such as wealth taxes, rent controls
Speaker 1: and actions against Israel's genocide and Gaza.
Speaker 3: But once you've become a mainstream.
Speaker 1: Party, your policies have to appeal to those outside of
Speaker 1: your own coalition, and they have to be defended against
Speaker 1: your opponents, such as this moment on ITV's Pestin.
Speaker 8: We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world,
Speaker 8: but you can speak to almost anyone and people know
Speaker 8: that they don't feel wealthier. Their bills are going up,
Speaker 8: their wages aren't going up. We're seeing people struggle. We're
Speaker 8: seeing nurses queuing up at food banks. So it's just
Speaker 8: not working. And actually we need a fundamentally different economics.
Speaker 9: People.
Speaker 7: If you drive entrepreneurs abroad the very people, well, well,
Speaker 7: I think there's a lot of evidence. In fact, we've
Speaker 7: been seeing over the last couple of weeks and.
Speaker 2: Has a wealth tax a place with famously wealth tax.
Speaker 7: I think the vast majority three quarters of the countries
Speaker 7: that had wealth taxes in the nineteen nineties have scrapped
Speaker 7: them because they didn't work. And what they found is
Speaker 7: actually they were driving away the very people they needed
Speaker 7: to create jobs in the economy.
Speaker 1: We hear these points, you need to have like a
Speaker 1: real constructive and real kind of critical analysis of the
Speaker 1: kind of points that Jeremy Hunt is making here. Now,
Speaker 1: It's true, plenty of people in the country are already
Speaker 1: brought into a wealth tax on the grounds of inequality alone.
Speaker 1: But when you hear points such as stemy, economic growth
Speaker 1: and investment, those things need to be counted for on
Speaker 1: their own terms.
Speaker 3: Luckily we have the data to understand this.
Speaker 1: You look at Norway's tax in which they increase the
Speaker 1: rates recently and only two percent of millionaire wealth left
Speaker 1: the country and still led to an increase in revenue
Speaker 1: and an increase in equality within the country. That's been
Speaker 1: a continual policy in Norway, and it's not been scrapped
Speaker 1: necessarily because they didn't work, quote unquote, as Jeremy Hunt said,
Speaker 1: but lots of funds have been scrapped elsewhere purely on
Speaker 1: political reasons rather than necessarily because it's economically unproductive. And
Speaker 1: in Norway, people who invest in productive businesses the people
Speaker 1: who Jeremy Hunt regards as wealth creators, something I would
Speaker 1: also dispute, probably a subject for another time, but those
Speaker 1: business investments aren't even regulated by this wealth tax. It
Speaker 1: is for people who are landlords. There's people who own
Speaker 1: massive collections of classic cars, or people who have massive
Speaker 1: share portfolios. Those are the people who are heavily targeted
Speaker 1: by Norway's wealth tax. Has continually existed. They've raised the
Speaker 1: rageus recently and it's still generating revenue for the state
Speaker 1: of Norway. And you to have points like this memorized
Speaker 1: so that you can retort in the best way possible
Speaker 1: when people try and take down your policies. Now, there
Speaker 1: was also this very excruciating moment on the Makefield di
Speaker 1: election debate on Question Time too.
Speaker 6: But one thing I.
Speaker 19: Do want to say is that the idea of blaming
Speaker 19: our housing crisis on immigration is absolutely wild to me.
Speaker 13: Actually, do you think it's.
Speaker 17: Got an extra ten to twenty million people come in
Speaker 17: the country.
Speaker 19: You think that if do you think they do.
Speaker 7: An extra ten million people are going to have an
Speaker 7: effect on How do you.
Speaker 19: Think that if we lock down our borders we're going
Speaker 19: to solve the housing crisis? Is not going to solve.
Speaker 8: The thing is, the more people you have in a country,
Speaker 8: the more houses you're going to need.
Speaker 1: And it might sound he's really good at explaining things.
Speaker 19: Blames, Yeah, using immigration on the issue of housing I
Speaker 19: think is absolutely.
Speaker 3: You said it has no impact on housing. I think
Speaker 3: Andy wanted to come in, Do you want to.
Speaker 17: Just ask that question from its immigration of an effect
Speaker 17: on housing.
Speaker 19: Whoever lives in this country has an impact on housing.
Speaker 1: Of course, and again this has been a continual point
Speaker 1: made by the right, and you have to have a
Speaker 1: proper repost. You need to understand where these points are
Speaker 1: coming from. Has immigration led to an increase in house prizes?
Speaker 3: It has done.
Speaker 1: The question is whether the extensive immigration is actually having
Speaker 1: insignificant impacts, and the evidence says no, it isn't. First
Speaker 1: of all, worth pointing out one of the things that
Speaker 1: we do have is an aging population, which means the
Speaker 1: population will have to increase, whether it's by an increase
Speaker 1: in birthrate or immigration coming in and increasing population will
Speaker 1: always increase the number of houses that you need. Have
Speaker 1: we built enough houses well, broadly, we've been under building
Speaker 1: houses for a very long time. But in terms of
Speaker 1: the number of houses per capita in this country, that's
Speaker 1: continued to increase and has continued to increase from a
Speaker 1: much lower position that it was previously, too much higher position.
Speaker 1: Now when you look at the actual impact in terms
Speaker 1: of how immigration affects house prices, like only six percent
Speaker 1: of the house prices we've seen increase over the last
Speaker 1: thirty years, studies have shown is going to be down
Speaker 1: to migration. We actually have fifteen million fifteen million spare
Speaker 1: bedrooms in this country, and lots of these cases are
Speaker 1: because of older people not downsizing because of the potential
Speaker 1: impact of things like stamp duty and not having enough
Speaker 1: bungalows available for them to move into. We have a
Speaker 1: very inefficient distribution of how people live in this country
Speaker 1: because of changing living arrangements. Also, people are staying single
Speaker 1: for longer, meaning they cohabit, or they need more single
Speaker 1: family single person flats rather than single family houses, meaning
Speaker 1: again we have an insufficient distribution of houses or people
Speaker 1: per house. These are significantly greater impacts on house prices,
Speaker 1: especially since migrants often cohabit in larger families and single
Speaker 1: houses in a way that we in this country who
Speaker 1: aren't immigrants really don't. That's been a kind of cultural
Speaker 1: difference there. So the immigration impact really isn't that high
Speaker 1: in this country. And unless you have those things memorized
Speaker 1: and you understand the reposts in terms of these responses,
Speaker 1: you're not going to be able to properly respond when
Speaker 1: people bring up their own perspectives on things such as
Speaker 1: the housing crisis. As we saw on that clip, there
Speaker 1: now all the major parties have started preparing for the
Speaker 1: next selection. The Greens need to start preparing too, and
Speaker 1: that doesn't just mean having the soundbites ready on policies
Speaker 1: people want. It means being able to defend those policies
Speaker 1: publicly and to build a full perspectus for government on
Speaker 1: every key policy area. As policy within the Green Party
Speaker 1: is decided by members, the process can be kind of
Speaker 1: slow and unwieldy. No, that's not a bad thing. I
Speaker 1: really like the member democracy and the Green Party. I
Speaker 1: think it's a good thing. Now, it does mean that
Speaker 1: the work on getting these things tied down has to
Speaker 1: happen sooner rather than later. Dahlia, do you think that
Speaker 1: the Green Party need a change of strategy given that
Speaker 1: there's a new prime ministry in place, or do you
Speaker 1: think we can see the Green Party move in the
Speaker 1: same direction they've been going in before.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I do think that the territory has certainly changed.
Speaker 14: I mean, on the one hand, I do think it's
Speaker 14: important to understand that there is no acceptable socialists to
Speaker 14: the British press, and so we will never be in
Speaker 14: a situation where, you know, we have a prominent socialist
Speaker 14: politician who is not being attacked by the press. There's
Speaker 14: no way to eliminate the likelihood of hit pieces, and
Speaker 14: particularly kind of unfair and frivolous hit pieces, and so far,
Speaker 14: I think that Polanski has dealt with that quite well
Speaker 14: because he sort of refused to cower in the face
Speaker 14: of these hit pieces. He often draws attention to it
Speaker 14: and calls it out for what it is, which is
Speaker 14: a distraction. So he kind of uses the weight of
Speaker 14: the press against itself and I think that has broadly
Speaker 14: been quite effective. But I do you think that now
Speaker 14: we are in a different territory, now that we have
Speaker 14: Burnham as head of the Labor Party. First of all,
Speaker 14: I think that now that Burnham's been elected, the press
Speaker 14: really want to kind of declare Polanski dead. And I
Speaker 14: also think that Burnham is a lot savvier than perhaps
Speaker 14: we give him credit for. I think it's not just
Speaker 14: that Starmer was really bad. I think that Burnham also
Speaker 14: has a very keen understanding of politics. I think the
Speaker 14: fact that he when the transition of power was happening
Speaker 14: from Corbynism to Starmerism, he kind of identified quite early on.
Speaker 14: I don't want to get I need to like take
Speaker 14: myself out of this because the next few years are
Speaker 14: going to be really messy and they're going to be
Speaker 14: really destructive. If I take my hat out the ring
Speaker 14: for the next five years, I can, like pet I
Speaker 14: can reap the rewards of that later down the line.
Speaker 14: But I also think that the Greens are and I
Speaker 14: agree with you, the Greens are now a very serious
Speaker 14: force in politics, and they need to take themselves seriously.
Speaker 14: And I think that it's very important that they remain
Speaker 14: a series force in politics because even though now that
Speaker 14: Burnham is his leader with the Labor Party, the chances
Speaker 14: of the next selection being a Reform versus Green dynamic
Speaker 14: is probably lower. I mean, it was always quite far fetched,
Speaker 14: but I think now it is definitely lower. Especially if
Speaker 14: Burnham does spend the next few years actually making advances
Speaker 14: on bread and butter issues, then the prospect of that
Speaker 14: has decreased quite a bit. But one thing that Reform
Speaker 14: has definitely showed us, and Nigel Farrage as a political
Speaker 14: operator has showed us, is that you don't even have
Speaker 14: to have a single elected MP to be able to
Speaker 14: really shape and influence the political landscape and the political
Speaker 14: spectrum in this country. I'm not saying that that's a
Speaker 14: great thing. You know, it would be great if we
Speaker 14: had like a functioning democracy where you could actually be
Speaker 14: represented in Parliament, not just by two parties that just
Speaker 14: kind of passed the baton to and from one another.
Speaker 14: But we have learned from Nigel Farrajan is various political
Speaker 14: vehicles that you can create quite a significant center of
Speaker 14: gravity outside of the two main political parties that genuinely
Speaker 14: shapes what those political parties do. And I think it's
Speaker 14: very important going forward that the Labor Party never ever
Speaker 14: ever rests on the belief that it can take its
Speaker 14: base for granted, and that the left and that young
Speaker 14: people and progressive people are a kind of nuisance or
Speaker 14: are a fleas that you can shake off when you
Speaker 14: think it's politically expedient. And a strong Green party, a
Speaker 14: viable Green party, a Green party that takes itself seriously,
Speaker 14: that has a serious electoral and common strategy, is absolutely essential.
Speaker 14: So what I'm trying to say is that even if
Speaker 14: the Greens electoral prospects don't look as good under a
Speaker 14: Burnham leadership then perhaps they did under a Starmer leadership.
Speaker 14: There is still a vital role for the Greens to
Speaker 14: play in our political system because I'm not someone who
Speaker 14: is first and foremost committed to any political party. I'm
Speaker 14: committed to getting the best political program, the most just
Speaker 14: political program for Britain and also for all the people
Speaker 14: in the world who are impacted by what Britain does.
Speaker 14: And from that perspective, a healthy and strong and savvy
Speaker 14: Green Party can actually get a lot done, even if
Speaker 14: they might not be as close to an electoral victory
Speaker 14: as they were under Starma, because Starmer made it so easy.
Speaker 1: I mean, we literally left the European Union because the
Speaker 1: exact servative Party were scared of losing votes to UKIP,
Speaker 1: which happened. You have a twelve percent of the vote
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen I think UKIP did. That's a significant
Speaker 1: chunk of the Conservative voture they were scared of, as
Speaker 1: well as internal party politics, and that's how we got
Speaker 1: one of the biggest constitutional changes in this country in
Speaker 1: decades and decades and decades. Right, you can have plenty
Speaker 1: of effect on politics from outside the systemhere.
Speaker 3: I think you're absolutely right, and.
Speaker 1: I think the press kind of haven't talked about the
Speaker 1: fact that Keir Starmer is no longer Prime Minister because
Speaker 1: of Zacho Polanski. Exactly. This is a really important point
Speaker 1: that never gets mentioned at all. It's a huge emerger
Speaker 1: on it, which is that, as I've been pointed out
Speaker 1: by John Curtis, it seems the only person on the
Speaker 1: BBC who's pointed this out, which was the biggest kind
Speaker 1: of vote migration between twenty twenty four and twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six local elections was Labor to Green. That was the
Speaker 1: biggest migration that caused Labor to lose seats in London
Speaker 1: and inner cities, but it also caused them to lose
Speaker 1: seats elsewhere due to a split vote, allowing Reform or
Speaker 1: the Tories to come up through the middle. This is
Speaker 1: the biggest migration of voters. And without Zach Perlanski having
Speaker 1: some way of being able to criticize Kirs Starmer bring
Speaker 1: those voters over. Remember, like the young person's vote, I
Speaker 1: think in terms of vote share was like forty between
Speaker 1: forty and forty seven percent for Labor at the last election.
Speaker 1: It's now sub twenty if you look at or at
Speaker 1: least went under Kistarmer at sub twenty. When you looked
Speaker 1: at the cross tabs on a lot of the polling
Speaker 1: companies showing really like the absolute cratering of their support
Speaker 1: amongst young people was very, very real, and this is
Speaker 1: why Kirstarmer was forced to step down. They lost the
Speaker 1: local elections, he was forced out. This does not happen
Speaker 1: without there being an insurgent force finding some home to
Speaker 1: the people who've been disabused by Stamerism.
Speaker 14: And it's not only that Kiss Starmer was forced to
Speaker 14: step down, it was that his replacement was to the
Speaker 14: left of him. Because there's another world in which Kis
Speaker 14: Starmer could have been forced to step down and parachuted
Speaker 14: in his place, would have been where Streeting. That actually
Speaker 14: looked very likely at one point, but it was specifically
Speaker 14: the fact that he was swapped out with Andy Burnham,
Speaker 14: who is to the left of Starma. That shows you
Speaker 14: the impact that you can have. And that's why I
Speaker 14: think we shouldn't get too preoccupied with you know, oh, well,
Speaker 14: is it likely that the Greens are going to win
Speaker 14: the next election or is it like that?
Speaker 13: That's not the point.
Speaker 14: The point is is that we need to have a
Speaker 14: really strong gravitational pull outside of the Labor Party that
Speaker 14: makes the Labor Party scared of losing the left because
Speaker 14: it has always rested on its laurels that they have
Speaker 14: nowhere else to go. There's always been this thing of
Speaker 14: like the left art going anywhere, they have nowhere else
Speaker 14: to go, So we basically don't have to give them
Speaker 14: any concessions. And that has changed, and that is really
Speaker 14: really powerful and really important.
Speaker 13: And I have to agree with you as well.
Speaker 14: Helena that, like as much as perhaps you know, being
Speaker 14: terminally online might be a problem, I think this briefing
Speaker 14: from within the party to the press has if any
Speaker 14: of you are listening, has has got to stop.
Speaker 1: We've already seen how damage in the stars for the
Speaker 1: Labor Party, like so much stuff that's just come out
Speaker 1: of you know, McSweeney Towers presumably or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: I mean to the point where Superey how to tell
Speaker 1: people in the like the actual kind of in number ten,
Speaker 1: you have to stop briefing.
Speaker 3: It looks terrible. All it does it.
Speaker 14: Makes you look on serious and it takes the potential
Speaker 14: of political power that you can have out because it's
Speaker 14: not like because the reason that people brief is because
Speaker 14: they want to weaken that there's a factional war within
Speaker 14: a party and they're like, I'm going to brief to
Speaker 14: the press so I can like weaken my factional opponent.
Speaker 14: In reality, it makes the whole thing look like a joke,
Speaker 14: So it actually doesn't have the concept the impact that
Speaker 14: you think it's.
Speaker 1: Gonna Like how many labor right MPs lost their seats
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen because people from their same faction of
Speaker 1: briefing stupidship to the press to try and because you
Speaker 1: try and get make sure that Jeremy Corbin lost the all.
Speaker 14: And especially when you're talking about the Green Party, which
Speaker 14: is only really just arriving to mainstream politics, Like you
Speaker 14: have to convince the public that you are a serious
Speaker 14: party that can be a mainstream player, and you don't
Speaker 14: do that by looking like a divided clown show.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. There there needs to be a actual
Speaker 1: kind of unity of purpose. I get in this case,
Speaker 1: I think it was probably something quite small, like lots
Speaker 1: of people understood that. I think that maybe the social
Speaker 1: media stuff did go too far right, but this is,
Speaker 1: you know, a barometer for where this could go in
Speaker 1: the future, and absolutely right even at the first point
Speaker 1: of call when we see these briefings start to happen,
Speaker 1: like the people who they just have to stop and
Speaker 1: learn the press of the enemy if you're a political party.
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter what political party are for, unless you're especially
Speaker 1: a re socialist party, even an ecological party, given how
Speaker 1: much money from the petrochemical industry slashes around the media
Speaker 1: these days, right, the press are the enemy and you
Speaker 1: have to treat them like them, even if it's someone
Speaker 1: who presumably might be somewhat aligned to you, maybe even
Speaker 1: like the Guardian. There are still people there who want
Speaker 1: to take you down for their perceived political interest or
Speaker 1: indeed for viral interest or a good story, for just
Speaker 1: for a good story, for good copy. That's more important
Speaker 1: than that the political ends and means of what happens
Speaker 1: to the country overall, because that is not the concern
Speaker 1: of the media in this country. He's not the mainstream
Speaker 1: or legacy media. Thank you very much Darlie for joining me.
Speaker 13: Tonight, Thanks for having me Helena, and thank.
Speaker 1: You Stephen for joining us earlier as well. And thanks
Speaker 1: everyone for tuning in to day too. Come back tomorrow
Speaker 1: for another livestream from six pm. For now you've been
Speaker 1: watching Navaramedia.
Speaker 3: Good night,