Transcription
So, I think that let's let's start on Gordon Denton. What was your initial reaction to that? >> Very happy. I was surprised by how much the Greens won by. Mhm. I guess my my hope is that that is the first step in the death of the Labour Party, I guess. So, I very much come around to that view that I think the Labour Party needs to cease to exist um as a a major party for I guess the left and progressives in general to succeed in British politics.
>> Wow, it's quite quite a bold statement. Why why do you do you think the same for obviously the Conservative Party as the two major parties? Are they obsolete?
>> I don't think the Conservatives necessarily are. I think there's definitely a a faction of the population who would prefer the Conservatives and are still kind of right-wing minded, but are kind of a bit put off by Reform and and populism in general. And I I guess there is there does still exist a portion of the population, I think, who are um loyal to the Labour Party and like the centrist pragmatic kind of center-right neoliberal approach that I think the Labour Party have taken. But, I think that already exists in the Lib Dems. And I think the Labour Party was built on the idea of representing the working class, and I don't think that that exists anymore in the party. And the attempts to push the party in that direction have been very quickly squashed. We had the Jeremy Corbyn, I guess, success of the left-wing in the Labour Party, which the party ended up kind of actively working against when he was leader. And I think that was a confirmation for a lot of people like me on the left that this tactic that I think a lot of leftists have had in the Labour Party, which is that it's better to be inside the party and pushing it to the left and trying to influence it.
>> So, what is it that doesn't work about internally pushing for a more progressive Labour Party?
Well, I think that ultimately they didn't win an election, right? And I Corbyn came close in 2017, and I think that would have been quite a groundbreaking moment for our country. Um but by 2019 and during 2017, there was huge factions of the Labour Party not just not bothering to campaign, but actively working against Jeremy Corbyn. And some of them actually preferring Labour to lose the general election um when it came to 2019. So, I think that there is an establishment within the Labour Party which I think sometimes hate the left more than they hate the right. And I think we saw some of that come out in the Gordon Denton by-election. I think Labour campaigned far more against the Greens. And I think there is uh I think Labour got captured essentially. And it started with Neil Kinnock, but ultimately with Tony Blair and the socialist principles, the unions within the party, all of that tradition got wiped away quite quickly. And I think Corbyn was the attempt to bring some of that back. And I think what we found is that that stranglehold that a lot of the Peter Mandelson types have over the party was too strong. Mhm.
Where where do you think they go from here? Cuz obviously they've still got what, like 2 3 years left in government?
>> It's a strange situation in reality cuz I don't think we've ever had a government as unpopular. I'm pretty sure Keir Starmer is the most unpopular Prime Minister we've ever had. So, it's a very strange situation, I think, to be in to have such a huge majority on such a small amount of actual public support. I mean, they came in with such a small amount of public support in the first place, only 33 34% I think voting for them. So, it's a very strange situation to be, but I think it's probably going to be the political reality for our country now because the most likely situation if we were to hold an election now would be a Reform government, but they would probably come in on 25 to 30% of support. So, I think this idea of very unpopular governments who are going to struggle to get things done, I think it's probably going to be the new political [clears throat] reality.
>> Yeah. That's here to stay in your opinion?
Yeah, I think so. Unless we have electoral reform, which I think is the only way to rescue the kind of strands of our democracy we have left because our political landscape does not match first past the post anymore.
Do you think people [clears throat] would actually vote for that, though? Because ev- everyone's so concerned about the bigger picture stuff like around which we're going to talk about later, rather than changing the electoral system, which doesn't really seem like the top of everyone's priorities at the moment, even though it does shape all the other decisions and type of government that we're
Well, it's had general support, I think, in in polling. And whether or not people would vote for it, obviously we had an election a while back on bringing some form of proportional representation. I think the most likely scenario of us changing our electoral system is possibly a Labour government that the Greens feel like that they could just about bring themselves to go into coalition with. And one of the Greens' kind of deal breakers is electoral reform.
>> Do you think it was Sorry. Sorry, go on.
No, you go on. What did What did you think of Reform and specifically Nigel Farage's comments on the actual election that it was rigged by family voting or whatever?
>> It's It's been something that has been kind of put around every now and then when elections happen. It felt very out of the Trump playbook. Um the data that it was based on was very, I guess, up in the air. I think they were at one polling station, and they saw some instances of it. They have no idea who those people voted for. Obviously, they're assuming that they voted for the Greens or I guess for Labour. Even if you extrapolate that across the whole constituency, I'm pretty sure that data wouldn't have even if all of those family votes were for the Greens, wouldn't have even reduced Green's majority enough for that they would not have won that.
Is there a problem with sectarian voting in your opinion?
>> Not say so, no. I think the the conversation around sectarianism in that by-election was it was, I think, just nonsensical. The idea that it was somehow sectarian to do things that voters liked? Like the idea that appealing to a certain community is dangerous and scary, I think, is is just racist in general. It's like, you can appeal to white working class people, and that's not an issue, but the second you appeal to brown working class people, that's suddenly sectarian and you're being divisive.
>> The Green Party now has almost 200,000 members. Do you think they can keep up this momentum going into the next election?
I think it'll be interesting cuz I think the Greens will reach a peak at some point. I would I I tend to think of the UK in kind of thirds. I think there is about a third of the population who are pretty right-wing, a third of the population who are pretty centrist, and a third who are pretty left-wing. So, I think the Greens will reach a peak in terms of how much support they will be able to get. And I think they will then, possibly by the next election, which could be the issue for them, be in a situation where they're having to balance trying to win over some of the centrist, some of the liberals, some of the people who are a bit put off by by the socialist policies, and not lose lots of the more left-wing people like, I guess, myself to further left parties like Mhm.
Do you think Hannah Spencer is now going to struggle in any way in government?
I think she's in a quite comfortable position, right? When you're an MP for a party that's small, you don't have much to prove, really. You get to be the kind of protest in Parliament. So, you get to go and give lots of nice speeches, be involved in lots of nice campaigns, and good community work in Gordon and Denton. I think she'll become a kind of national figure for the Green Party. I think she's exactly the kind of national figure they needed uh to get away from, I think, the I guess, southern middle class liberally image that the Greens have always had. Yeah, I think she will she will be a very strong, successful MP and probably really important in the campaign actions and and the general election a while away.
Do you think she was the reason that the Greens won the by-election, or was it the strategy? Cuz I know there were so many people knocking on doors, and there was just so much support. So, what what was the main thing that won that election?
I guess it's kind of a combination of that. I think it did start with Andy Burnham, obviously. If Andy Burnham had run, I think he would have won. And that is that is the reality. But she was an amazing candidate, and I think that meant that so many people were motivated to go over because they saw this amazing candidate that fit that constituency so well and went, "We've got a chance of winning. We could actually win here. So, let's go over and campaign." But yeah, the Greens have an incredible ground game, one of the best in the country. And we saw it in New York with Zarah Sultana, right? The the thing that propelled his campaign was people on the ground, door-knocking, doing phone banking, doing get out to vote campaigns. And that's the thing that wins, especially in local politics and in hyperlocal politics like a by-election, that's the thing you need. And the Greens do it really really well.
Why do you think that Labour got rid of Andy Burnham, then?
>> I think that's quite obvious. He's a a threat to Keir Starmer's leadership. Andy Burnham is the most um popular Labour politician as far as I'm aware. He would have easily won in a leadership challenge uh with the membership cuz he's seen as being a bit more on the soft left. And yeah, Keir Starmer was terrified about allowing him back into Westminster because there's not really another person in Westminster who I think could challenge Keir Starmer. And Andy Burnham is the one person. He would obviously leave his position as being the mayor of Manchester, and then they would have to do a whole new election for that. And that would be so costly. I think it costs millions and millions of of pounds. And and all of that faff, essentially, is the reason they they one of the reasons they've said they did. And they And they would probably lose um that that mayoral seat to to Reform.
Do you not think that's a more credible reason rather than it being solely because Keir Starmer sees it as a challenge?
I don't necessarily think so because I think Andy Burnham wasn't transparent when he would put in his application to be MP as well. I think everyone knew what it what was going on there, and it was a leadership challenge. So, yeah, there might have been an element of we don't want to lose the Manchester mayorality, but you know, Keir Starmer and his team are very authoritarian in the way that they run the Labour Party and what they saw there was a threat to that and instantly squashed it. Mhm.
[clears throat] Do you think we're right now I mean I mean obviously there was there was almost 70% of the entire vote in the election was for the Greens or Reform. Do you think the past idea of establishing parties being the most prominent is now dead?
>> I think so. I mean they're polling at third and fourth in a lot of polls. I think they have been in the last three YouGov polls it's been the Greens and Reform top two. So I think there is definitely a shift that's taken place but to know what that will look like by the time it gets to the next election I think is very difficult because the establishment parties still have a lot of I think just weight around their name and I think often in elections you get people reverting back to the party they know. We're we're a very not necessarily politically [clears throat] but we're a very conservative country in that we don't like radical change I think. So I wouldn't be surprised if by the next election you see lots of the Reform voters possibly going back to the Conservatives, lots of the Green voters possibly going back to Labour because they're worried about what this change could be and they kind of revert back to the the normal parties they vote for.
Do you think Zack Polanski is a populist?
>> I think populist is kind of a a term that is loosely defined. Um he's called himself a populist. If if you define populist by leading a popular anti-establishment movement then yes, he is a populist but I think a lot of people tend to see populist as leading a false anti-establishment movement in which case I don't think he is. I think he is genuinely challenging the establishment.
Are people confusing popular with popular?
>> To an extent yeah but yeah I think populist comes the idea of populist is to be against the status quo and the establishment and I think what you see with Nigel Farage is I get what Zack Polanski says he you see a fake populist someone who is pretending to be against the establishment, challenging the vested interests, challenging the political elite when he is absolutely part of that establishment and part of that political elite. I would say working on the behest of the wealthy elite to distract the population away from the actual issues that we have.
Even with all the scandals do you think Reform will still be a major threat in the next general
I think so just because both the major parties are so tainted and I think there are uh just so many reasons to not vote for Labour and the Conservatives. Yeah I would I would even say there's so many reasons to not vote for the Conservatives and so little reasons to vote for Labour. They don't really offer anything. They are trying to position themselves in this weird centrist position which goes we're the adults in the room and we're better than Reform and better than the Greens. We don't like the people on the fringes but people are desperate for change in this country and unless you're going to offer something like that then there is not much reason to vote for you and I think the only thing that could really save them is getting a new leader.
Do you think that some of the policies of the Green Party could be considered you know radical like legalizing drugs for
Depends what you call radical. I I think the Greens' policies are kind of quite mild but I think that says more about my worldview and belief system than it does there. I think the legalizing drugs thing is a very exciting thing and it would be radical in the sense that it hasn't been done in this country before but it's been done in plenty of other countries around the world so it's not necessarily a a radical thing in the bigger picture but again for this country I think we are a quite conservative country and drugs is absolutely something that we have still maintained incredibly conservative around. But I think there is something really exciting that could be done there that actually places drug addiction in the category of a public health issue as opposed to a crime issue and I think if done right could be a genuinely incredible thing for this country.
But Keir Starmer's argument is he doesn't want his son you know to go do heroin for example. So what what is the argument against that? It just on paper it sounds quite dangerous.
Yeah I mean the argument against that is that his son wouldn't be able to go and do heroin. It's that's that's not the policy at all. He his son might be able to go and buy weed which I think is a perfectly logical position to be in when we have alcohol and tobacco illegal. Doesn't mean you just be able to go and buy it without restrictions. There'd of course be the same kind of restrictions applied to weed as there would be to alcohol and tobacco but for more serious drugs it's not like you're just going to be able to go down the corner shop and get some crack cocaine. These are going to be legalized and decriminalized for the purpose of helping people stop being addicted to the I like I can only put myself in this position but if I had a family member who was living on the streets and addicted to drugs I know that my response to that would be to want to take them to a doctor not to throw them in a prison cell because throwing them in a prison cell is not helping them. It's just removing this kind of like uncomfortable, inconvenient part of our society that we don't like seeing but those people need help. These people need actual treatment and they also need safe places to use the drugs because they need it's incredibly dangerous to inject heroin just on the streets and you're buying it from people that are often committing crime, possibly mixing it with things, possibly not being honest with you and if these people have a place to go that is decriminalized and it is a place they can go and get safely uh purified drugs and at the same time be given medical assistance, be given therapy, be given help to stop using the drugs. That's how you actually tackle a crisis like this not by just sending police out onto the streets to go around all these people up and chuck them in.
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Do you think Labour did the right thing by not engaging with in strikes in Iran with the US?
>> Yes um absolutely. We we should not be dragged into another illegal war in my opinion. We didn't we've still been letting the US use our bases for well initially we let them use them for striking missiles that were directly targeting British interests which is a very vague definition and now we're using them to strike Iranian targets which are targeting the Strait of Hormuz and Iran have come out and said this is participating in aggression against and look if history teaches us that every bomb dropped on the Middle East is a destabilizing factor not just for the Middle East but for our country as well. We saw the imperial boomerang, the the blowback that we saw from the Iraq war and Afghanistan in a massive uptick in terrorism from ISIS that impacted people in our country and I think if America and Israel got their wish in Iran that is exactly what we would see and the more we are involved in that, the more it will impact us. So purely from a selfish position of not wanting to be involved in this, not wanting to spend taxpayer money, not wanting to feel the genuine repercussions that will come to haunt us if we are fully involved. We should not be involved but there is also a very obvious moral reason which is that the US have used our bases very likely to commit war crimes. The war in Iraq is illegal under international law. They had no legal basis to invade and no legal basis to drop bombs and by allowing the US to use our bases we are essentially saying that's fine but I don't expect any better from this Labour government are we are.
But what what what matters more, non-intervention or human rights?
>> They come together. I think they are they are intertwined. I don't think you can be an interventionist and pro-human rights. If you just look at the record the intervention has over history. I think human rights are obviously the the underpinning of that but if you care about human rights then you should be anti-intervention because intervention has never been a benefit for the people. I heard a a great quote from an Iranian um who I forget the name of now which is a shame which is that if you crack an egg from the outside it means it's about to be cooked but if you crack an egg from the inside it means a bird is about to hatch and I think that is a perfect analogy for how this works. You cannot do regime change and do intervention from outside a country and expect that that will somehow bring freedom to its people.
What do you think was the actual reasoning behind these strikes? Do you think it was Trump? Do you think it was Israel?
>> I think there was possibly two reasons. I think Israel and America had two different reasons really but I think ultimately Israel were the main um catalyst for this war as far as I'm aware which is what Marco Rubio said Israel had already told America that they were going to strike Iran and Iran were therefore going to strike American bases in the region. So America I guess in their twisted way of looking at it did a preemptive attack because they they knew Iran was going to retaliate to Israel's attack by striking American bases but you know
>> [clears throat]
>> instead they could have just told Israel to not strike America. But I think Israel's intention in this war is pure destabilization for Iran. I think they would be very happy with just a failed state in the same way that we see Libya or Iraq because Iran are the only power in the region who are capable and willing to actually challenge Israel's domination. And if Iran falls, if it becomes a fragmented state, if it becomes kind of Balkanized, then Israel is the kind of hegemonic power in the Middle East, which is I think their ultimate goal, so they can pursue the the ambition of a greater Israel. Whereas I think America have just got this instinct. And I think Trump even said this in one of the one of the um statements that he gave is, you know, we just struck Iran out of habit. And I think there's there is an element of truth to that, which is that America just do these things out of habit. They do them out of out of instinct. And they believe that they have a right to go into other countries and kill their leaders, and that the people should therefore celebrate and overthrow the regime. And I think there is there is an imperial idea that America have of domination over the Middle East. And you combine that with Israel's desire for for regional domination. I think that's how you end up in this situation.
>> Not think that, you know, obviously Iran's regime if that's what you want to call it isn't exactly perfect. Before the strikes were killing so many people, do you not think that that justifies some form of intervention?
>> Yeah, Iran's regime killed thousands of people protesting the government, and they haven't exactly been had a a good record on human rights. Mhm. It's exactly the same argument people used about Saddam Hussein. Exactly the same. It's the some some of the some of the arguments from our politicians is almost word for word. Saddam Hussein was also pretty brutal to his own people and and the Kurds. Specif- specifically look at Iraq now. Are they more free because we killed a million Iraqis and then left them? I would not say they're more free. I'd say they're in a probably far worse position than they were. This kind of stuff doesn't work. You cannot change a regime on human rights basis and then expect them to accept that. I mean, we we did it back in in 1953 in Iran. We uh along with America joined together in a coup against Mohammad Mosaddegh, the last democratically elected leader of Iran, and overthrew him because he dared to nationalize the country's oil resources. And the sentiment [snorts] that that caused, because he was then replaced by a pro-Western monarchy, sentiment that that caused led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And it is the same in Iraq. You look at the sentiment that grew around the American invasion of Iraq. It directly created Al-Qaeda and ISIS. You'll get radicalized when you invade their country. You know, I don't like Keir Starmer's government, but if someone tried to start bombing London to overthrow him, I'd be on the front lines trying to fight back against that. People fight against their country being invaded. Or not.
I think some people speculated that this was also due down to Trump's sort of cognitive decline. Do you think there's any basis to that?
>> I don't think so, necessarily. I think I think arguments like that are often quite lazy. Because it's not Trump who's the sole decision-maker here. Um there is a whole American intelligence department which have been desperate to intervene in Iran for decades. And I think Biden would have done exactly the same thing. I think you put Kamala Harris in the White House, she would have done exactly the same thing. I don't I think Trump possibly maybe haven't cognitive decline. He's quite an old man, and I think it's it's hard to separate if if he's got dementia or if he's just being Donald Trump. But I don't think that would be a reason. Yeah. Mhm.
Do you not think, in terms of our position, the the special relationship that the UK has with the US is so valuable that we ought we ought to work with them rather than in opposition to them?
>> Um I don't. I think if you are to be allies with someone, you need to be able to tell them when they're doing something wrong. Being an ally is not going along blind side. And I think actually, if anything, one of the worst things for Europe right now is us coming to terms with the fact that America basically own us, right? They they supply so much of our military defense. They own so many sectors of our economy. We are now aware that America can elect a a neo-fascist leader. And suddenly really threaten not just global stability, but our interests. So I think if anything, we should be moving away from partnerships with America. Still remaining allies, because there's so many cultural ties. I'm not I'm not one of the leftists who think we should start be um isolationists and you know, shouting death to America. I don't think that would be productive. But I don't think that they are a useful ally right now. And I think you know, you get a Democratic president, I I don't think that protects America from what a lot of their population feel and ultimately what has been an ideological ideological underpinning of the state for a long time, which is Yeah. bloodthirsty imperialism.
Why is Trump a neo-
I think fascism is something that has evolved a lot, and I think people hear the word and instantly think of, you know, Hitler and concentration camps and swastikas. I think it's naive to think that if there's no camps and no swastikas, it's not fascism anymore. Fascism is something that evolves to suit the country it's in. And I think Trump is a far less effective fascist than someone like Mussolini or Hitler. But I think ideologically, he definitely has it. But I think the people around him even more so. People like Pete Hegseth, I think are ideologically committed fascists. I think Trump is interested in power and willing to use fascism to find that power.
>> Yeah. How is that demonstrated in this war?
See, I don't necessarily think the war is fascist. I think the war is is very American. I think Israel is is clearly a fascist state. And their desire for a greater Israel and a land that is controlled by the Jews only uh is is definitely a fascist project. And I think their their element of involvement in this war is to achieve that. But I think America is is acting in a very normal way for a capitalist global hegemonic power, which is to desperately try and expand its empire. But I think there is the in the I guess lack of success that I think America have had in this war and the kind of flailing around and U-turning and not being 100% sure what their intentions were, I think it's showing a collapse of the American uh hegemonic power. And I think we're seeing a crumbling empire kind of lashing out and trying to do too many things at once. And I think it may end up coming back to bite them. Mhm.
I mean, recently we've obviously with this uh this war, we've seen oil prices spike significantly, and they probably will rise even more. Do you think there's anything we can do now that will negate that effect in any way?
Probably not. I don't think we have much control over what's going on at the moment. I think even if we were to be completely anti this war and say to Trump, you cannot use any military bases, we're giving zero military cooperation, it's not going to do much. I think we are ultimately completely at the behest of what America and Israel want to do in the region. If they want to carry on this war, which I imagine they will do because they haven't won, and it would look a bit like a an embarrassment, I think, if they were to just go, "Okay, we'll leave it now. We can reopen the Strait of Hormuz." So I imagine it's going to go on for quite a while, and I think that is only going to impact working people around the world more and more.
Do you not think that America will put a stop to it, or there'll be some conclusion quite soon?
>> I would hope so. Um we obviously don't know what's going on in in Trump's and and lots of his advisers' heads. I don't think Israel are finished, and I think that will draw this out further. Because Israel are not going to be happy with this. I think a lot of their a lot of their project is built on defeating Iran. Netanyahu has wanted to go to war with Iran um with America by his side for the last 20 years, and he's finally managed to get an opportunity to do that, and I don't think he's going to give it up easily. This is an incredibly important war for Israel's project, and they've not achieved any of the goals they want. If anything, they've just made the Iranian regime stronger and more hardened in their anti-Israel bizarre. I don't think Israel will be happy with the goals. And I mean, the the really scary part of it, I think, which I I think is unlikely, but I think is still kind of terrifying to think that it could be a possibility, is that Israel have nukes. And I think Israel is not a rational actor, as we've seen with genocide in Gaza. I don't put it past some of the people in the Israeli government to a couple months down the line, if they still haven't achieved their goals, to use a nuclear bomb. And that is a terrifying prospect that I am really worried about. Yeah.
What even happens then? If if they use a nuke, what what happens next?
Who knows? Who knows? Because Israel seem to have been able to act with impunity over the last 2 years. Who knows if the Western states would finally grow a spine and go, "Maybe don't do that." Or would they all fall in fall in behind Israel the same way that a lot of the Western states did with America when they used a nuke? You know, it was, "Okay, we've done this. Now let's not do it again." That might happen. Who knows? It's it's a scary world to think about if a nuclear bomb was used for the first time in almost 100 years.
>> The diplomatic strategy that Zac Polanski's proposed, you know, especially his response to Vladimir Putin saying that he'd like to, you know, sit down and and discuss a diplomatic solution, do you think that's actually effective when there is there's clearly so much conflict and hostility occurring that it seems like diplomacy is up
It's it's one of the parts that I am not too much of a fan of the Green Party on is disarmament in general. I think, as a principle nuclear disarmament is great. I think in reality if anything what the last two weeks have taught us is not something that I would want to do if I was in power. I think we need a nuke and we need a nuke that is independent of America. Currently Trident is completely reliant on America and I'm sure they have a kill switch all of the technology that they give to the country and yeah, I I I think Zac Goldsmith is right to see it as an ideal and I don't think he's he's the kind of person who will come into if he was to become Prime Minister would just go okay, we're scrapping Trident now and we're getting rid of it and we're never going to have nukes again. But there is definitely a lot of people in the Green Party that that want that. But the idea of nuclear nuclear disarmament and negotiations is a good principle to have but to me not an effective way to do foreign policy at the moment in the current world.
Well, thanks so much for joining us.
Thanks so much for having me.
>> Yeah, thank you very much. It's great chat.
Thank you for listening.