Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to the Working Class History Podcast.
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Speaker 2: As we come Margin Martin in the Beauty of the Day,
Speaker 2: a million dark in kitchens, one thousand mil last grade
Speaker 2: are bredden by the beauty. His sun Sun discloses and
Speaker 2: the people heresing breaden roses, breaden Roses.
Speaker 1: This was one sort of thing that I did want
Speaker 1: to talk about in terms of this year, which is
Speaker 1: especially like you can see now how kind of liberals
Speaker 1: and center left people are pushing for their own destruction
Speaker 1: in a way that is very reminiscent of the nineteen
Speaker 1: twenties and thirties from all these kind of like social
Speaker 1: Democrat and center left and center right to some extent
Speaker 1: parties pushing to rearm Europe and strength in Europe's defenses
Speaker 1: against Russia, especially in Germany, while at the same time
Speaker 1: the far right is growing so so much so they're
Speaker 1: pushing for the government to be given all of these
Speaker 1: additional weapons and bigger militaries. France talking out potentially reintroducing
Speaker 1: military service and all that, while the far right is
Speaker 1: starting to take little bits of state power and places
Speaker 1: and pushing towards getting state power nationally. Obviously in some
Speaker 1: countries they have it already. And then the other day
Speaker 1: or recently you see Labor in Britain, while Reform is
Speaker 1: you know, almost certainly going to be the next government
Speaker 1: because they're so far ahead in every opinion poll, the
Speaker 1: Labor Party thinks and this is the best time to
Speaker 1: get rid of the right to trial by jury.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was like completely out of left field kind
Speaker 3: of because you know, I was already thinking that the
Speaker 3: prescription of Palestine action was already completely outlandish thing to
Speaker 3: do with, you know, again, with the idea of a
Speaker 3: reform government coming down the line, because okay, so you know,
Speaker 3: as soon as you outlaw outlaw Palestine action.
Speaker 4: You know, straight away you had like you know, various
Speaker 4: think tanks being like, oh well yeah, parast that action.
Speaker 4: They need to be banned. But you know there are
Speaker 4: a couple of other groups that need to be banned
Speaker 4: as well. And you know, then you see Trump's thing
Speaker 4: about banning antifa, Antifa probably antiflawer I'm starting to pronounce
Speaker 4: it by the Americans, and you just know that, you know, yeah,
Speaker 4: like a reform government in the UK would just be like,
Speaker 4: oh yeah, great, So the precedent has been set, let's
Speaker 4: let's expand it further exactly.
Speaker 1: And these like swivel eyed loons, they believe in all
Speaker 1: this basically Nazi conspiracy theories like great Replacement theory and
Speaker 1: cultural Marxism and all these things that were fringe Nazi
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories like what three years ago, and now like
Speaker 1: mainstream views held by the US government and so like
Speaker 1: these people are going to get into power, you know.
Speaker 1: And for all the things about the US kind of
Speaker 1: going fascist, the fear of that and the talk about that,
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, the government system in the
Speaker 1: UK is actually much more fragile and easy to kind
Speaker 1: of subvert than the government in the US, which has
Speaker 1: more checks and balances in it. Because in the UK,
Speaker 1: like the government who wins the election, if they got
Speaker 1: a majority, can they literally do whatever they want. So
Speaker 1: if reform one like Trump did, could distill all the
Speaker 1: stuff that Trump wanted to do, like just ban abortion
Speaker 1: nationwide or something like that, fortunately to an exit. I mean,
Speaker 1: they are talking about restrictions on abortion and things like that,
Speaker 1: but even on the far right, that's not a popular
Speaker 1: policy in the UK. But if you have a majority,
Speaker 1: you could do that if you wanted to. There's no
Speaker 1: constitution or Supreme court that can really overturn that. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously there is a Supreme Court, but that because there's
Speaker 1: no constitution, they can't overturn very much. So they like
Speaker 1: they could just cite great replacement theory and say that
Speaker 1: being a member of the Labor Party is treason, like
Speaker 1: they literally talk about like these these people as being
Speaker 1: treason us, like Keir Starmer and that government as being
Speaker 1: trees and near betrayed the country and whatever, and they
Speaker 1: could literally just do that and Labor are like, oh, yes, please,
Speaker 1: let's bring in all these laws and strengthen all these
Speaker 1: institutions which could be used to ban us and throw
Speaker 1: us all into camps and never not let us have
Speaker 1: a jury try and never get out. And it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like please please, you know, it would
Speaker 1: be kind of just ridiculous, and if it wasn't so
Speaker 1: absolutely terrifying.
Speaker 5: And there's just like there's so much stuff Like it's
Speaker 5: seeing like, you know, all the all the stuff that
Speaker 5: the current government are doing, thinking that that will steal
Speaker 5: the reform vote.
Speaker 4: It's like imagine if you've got the loo, like an
Speaker 4: anti migrant to the loo, and the form are blowing
Speaker 4: into it and blowing it up, you know, blowing it
Speaker 4: up really really big, you know, and you're like, gosh,
Speaker 4: you know, we need to find a way to deflate
Speaker 4: that balloon. Yeah, we're going to blow into it more.
Speaker 4: And you just see them blowing into it and just like
Speaker 4: you know, all that happens when you do that sort
Speaker 4: of thing. You're basically saying, yes, migration is a huge issue,
Speaker 4: and we also believe that something drastic needs to be
Speaker 4: done about it, and you will never be the ones
Speaker 4: to do the most drastic thing, you know. They will
Speaker 4: then just as you think that you've taken the reform
Speaker 4: policy or the far right policy, the far right will
Speaker 4: always step one step over and be like, oh, actually
Speaker 4: this is the new level that you need to bring
Speaker 4: it to. You know, we we're going to put naval
Speaker 4: ships in the in the channel and like you know,
Speaker 4: literally shooting boats as they as they come across or whatever.
Speaker 4: Whatever you do will never be enough. Like it's a
Speaker 4: funny thing because I like, I definitely see it a
Speaker 4: lot in the UK, and especially like you know, because
Speaker 4: of all these like flags that have gone up and
Speaker 4: things like that. So I don't know if people know
Speaker 4: in other places in the UK there was a campaign
Speaker 4: basically putting up British and English and I guess another
Speaker 4: play maybe. I think in Wales they were definitely putting
Speaker 4: up world flags. Yeah, so putting up these flags and
Speaker 4: also painting them onto people's houses and all sorts of
Speaker 4: stuff like that. And basically that was a big campaign
Speaker 4: by a bunch of like far right agitators and it
Speaker 4: spread really widely across the country. But I feel like
Speaker 4: on the left there started to be this this desire
Speaker 4: for like, you know, well, can we can we reclaim
Speaker 4: the flag? You know, can we reclaim the flag and
Speaker 4: can we have a kind of progressive patriotism or something
Speaker 4: like that? And again, I like, I am very very
Speaker 4: skeptical of progressive patriotism. Are stealing it from a Jewish
Speaker 4: Marxist called Moshi Postane, who basically is the left will
Speaker 4: never be as good patriots as the right because fundamentally,
Speaker 4: the left is not motivated by the love of your country,
Speaker 4: you know, above everything else. It's a kind of a
Speaker 4: universal desire for justice and things like that, you know.
Speaker 4: So the idea that like, you know, we're why don't
Speaker 4: we just like level Gaza and build like really fancy
Speaker 4: hotels there and then use that money to fund public
Speaker 4: services in the UK, I don't think you can argue
Speaker 4: against that on a patriotic basis, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: It's good for our it's good for our country. Very
Speaker 4: bad for them. I feel bad for them, but that's
Speaker 4: nothing to do with us, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is how a lot of European social democracy,
Speaker 1: especially like historic labor governments in the UK work, like
Speaker 1: let's chop off like workers heads in Malaya so that
Speaker 1: they can make more rubber so we can pay for
Speaker 1: the NHS.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's completely it, exactly. So I'm
Speaker 4: so skeptical of like any attempts to sort of do
Speaker 4: this sort of progressive patriotism dar. I just think whatever
Speaker 4: you do, it just comes off as it kind of
Speaker 4: comes off as insincere, because yeah, I'm not ultimately motivated
Speaker 4: by my love of Britain as British as I might
Speaker 4: be in many ways, you know, and things that I
Speaker 4: do love about Britain and British culture, it's not Britain
Speaker 4: as that motivates me in politics, and I don't think
Speaker 4: it is for anyone.
Speaker 6: It's a different moral and political and ethical and philosophical
Speaker 6: framework completely as to like why you should look after
Speaker 6: migrants when they come to your country, not something special
Speaker 6: about being British or whatever, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I also think that just on a more kind of
Speaker 1: fundamental level than that, because basically the background for this,
Speaker 1: for any especially people in the US aren't aware, is
Speaker 1: the yeah laborer proposing all these new really horrific new
Speaker 1: asylum policies to penalize migrants. In particular, they at the
Speaker 1: moment people can apply for permanent residency after five years,
Speaker 1: and they want to make that increase that to twenty years.
Speaker 1: They also want to have the migration policy basically treat
Speaker 1: people much more differently depending on how much they earn,
Speaker 1: so that high earners can migrate much more easily, and
Speaker 1: so all like really terrible stuff that will totally upend
Speaker 1: people's lives. And you know, if you have to wait
Speaker 1: twenty years, you can't have any kind of stable existence
Speaker 1: in that point.
Speaker 4: Well, why wouldn't they integrate? You know, you're like, you're
Speaker 4: a fucking idiot, you know what I mean. You're there
Speaker 4: like some like kids who's like been in the country
Speaker 4: since who was five and now he's like four, he
Speaker 4: still doesn't know if he's ever if he's ever going
Speaker 4: to be able to step on you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: you fucking Matt, Like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Labor are only doing this as a shameless and
Speaker 1: desperate attempt to grab votes from Reform Right to stay
Speaker 1: in power. But the thing is all of these like
Speaker 1: racist idiots that are going to vote for Reform will
Speaker 1: never vote for Labor. They'll never vote for them. That
Speaker 1: brings us to the end of this episode. Preview Hope
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