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The myth of free speech in Britain, with Winston Marshall
2.3k Plays6 days ago
Whilst illiberal progressivism (or woke for short) appears to be in retreat, what will take its place is an open question. The right in the UK has splintered, Europe is still being suffocated by the weight of the leftist social democratic model, free speech is under assault in Australia (as it is pretty much everywhere), and whilst the Republicans are resurgent in the US, Trump’s brand of economic protectionism would have been anathema to the American right in years gone by.
To discuss the future of conservatism, free speech, and Western civilisation, Will is joined by Mumford and Sons alumni and host of The Winston Marshall Show, Winston Marshall.
Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.
Read The Spectator Australia here.
Subscribe to The Winston Marshall Show here.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Fire at Will' and Upcoming Event
00:00:20
Speaker
G'day and welcome to Fire at Will, a safe space for dangerous conversations. I'm Will Kingston. It is my solemn duty to inform British listeners that next week, London will be invaded. Fortunately, it isn't the type of invasion that the country has sadly become accustomed to in recent years.
00:00:40
Speaker
Instead, thousands of conservative politicians, pundits, and punters will be in town for the Second Global Alliance for Responsible Citizenship Conference. Think of it as Coachella for conservative nerds.
Conservatism's Uncertain Future and Ideological Shifts
00:00:54
Speaker
Arc's advisory board includes several friends of the podcast, Ian Hersey-Lee, Bjorn Lomborg, Douglas Murray, John Anderson, Sunil Ferguson, and my guest today, Winston Marshall. The event is well timed because the future of conservatism has perhaps never been less clear.
00:01:13
Speaker
Whilst illiberal progressivism, or woke for short, appears to be in retreat, what will take its place is an open question. The right in the UK has splintered. Europe is still being suffocated by the weight of the leftist social democratic model and all the bureaucracy and regulation that comes with it. Free speech is under assault in Australia, as it is pretty much everywhere.
The Political Nature of the ARC Conference
00:01:37
Speaker
And whilst the Republicans are resurgent in the US, Trump's brand of economic protectionism would have been anathema to the American right in years gone by. Thankfully, there are few people better placed to help me untangle this web than Winston Marshall. Winston, welcome back to Fire at Will.
00:01:53
Speaker
Well, thank you for having me back on your show. I think that I might have to tangle your web a little bit more before we untangle because I'm not sure I'm convinced that AHRQ, the Alliance of a Responsible Citizenship that's being hosted in London that you described, is a conservative meeting, nor do I i think it's necessarily particularly political. i' You're absolutely right to say there's a lot of politicians coming, and and some even speaking, like I believe Nigel Farage can be made a knock.
00:02:23
Speaker
Mike Lee, Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House and in the States, and some I'm sure some Australian representatives speaking. I'm not particularly convinced. it's i for I, for a start, don't consider myself conservative. I consider myself a classical liberal. And I think that the conference is a meeting of ideas to discuss the issues, and it includes left-wing voices as well.
Changing Political Alignments and Influences
00:02:49
Speaker
It's, for example, Morris Glassman, I believe, is due to speak. He is the founder of Blue Labor. Eric Weinstein, I think, would shudder at the notion of being described as a conservative, and he's speaking there as well. So if anything, there's no progressives there, that's for sure. So perhaps it's everyone but the progressives might be a better way of describing arc.
00:03:11
Speaker
It's interesting though, isn't it? Because someone like Eric Weinstein or say a constant and kissing would never have called themselves a conservative in years gone by. They probably would have said they were more on the the left. And yet something has happened in recent times where those types of people, even if they wouldn't self-associate as being right-wing or conservative, have been lumped in there.
00:03:32
Speaker
How do you feel about the way that the right, if that term even still has any meaning today, has evolved and what that looks like in in the West today?
00:03:45
Speaker
I think the best way of understanding what you've just described, particularly with the likes of Constantine and Eric, aligning with traditional conservatives, even if they aren't one, is what Hayek described in his essay, Why I'm Not a Conservative. and There's lots of sort of theories about what are what is conservatism and liberalism, what is the spectrum, the left-right spectrum, the left-right horseshoe, the circle you know they meet at the other end.
00:04:11
Speaker
And I think a Hayek's definition of it, you have this line between conservative and, I guess, socialist, which is almost temperamental and at both extents they are
Western Civilization's Future and Economic Recovery
00:04:25
Speaker
authoritarian. And the the liberal, be it classical liberal or libertarian, is more the person who is about certain principles and is like a rod that will swing and align with whichever side is closer to those liberal principles in the moment. So at the moment it's obvious that the
00:04:50
Speaker
Authoritarians are those on the the left. It's not always been the case. I don't need to give examples of the case when authoritarians have been on the right. And when it comes to the West today, it makes more sense for those classical liberal types to align with the conservative types against what is the authoritarian socialist and globalist progressive left.
00:05:10
Speaker
How successfully do you think that that is taking place at the moment? So, you know, we we spoke a couple of months ago, you said that one of your goals in your life today is promoting the future of both the United Kingdom, but the future of Western civilis civilization and those classical liberal principles that underpin it. If you were to do a quick pulse check of how successfully that fight for the future of Western civilization is going in 2025, how would you assess it?
00:05:36
Speaker
I agree with your introduction that in America, ah it's a great relief that Trump won. If you look at how authoritarian things were under the Democrat leadership, and how much things like censorship illegal immigration would have escalated, progressive woke nonsense, particularly concerning is that the transgender nonsense, which which at its extent is has been state-funded butchering of our children. i mean it's It's beyond evil, as far as I'm concerned. the true The direction America was going in, it's a total relief that it's it's swinging back towards the middle.
00:06:23
Speaker
And i would say there's a worldwide sort of similar movement against bureaucracy if you want maximum prosperity. You need to get rid of bureaucracy you need to create incentives you need to create a system where people have.
00:06:40
Speaker
maximum property rights and they have incentives to work harder to generate more wealth and the more wealth the society generates the more it can be spread so long as it's a system that's inclusive that you look at.
00:06:54
Speaker
javier malay efouera He destroyed the bureaucracy, a bureaucracy which has destroyed Argentina 120 years ago. Argentina was the third most successful economy in the world, and it's been fettered and strangled by socialism for a century, and it's killed the society. And now it's seemingly, I mean, results aren't fully in, but it seems to be moving back into the realms of prosperity. In Britain, we went a slightly different direction at the general election in July, 2024, where a splintered right meant that the socialist left under Sir Keir Starmer's Labour Party managed to win a stomping majority of seats, despite only having 20% of the electorate. Normally you need about 35 to 40%. He only had 20%. So it's not like he supported, he didn't win
00:07:49
Speaker
more votes In fact, he had far fewer votes than Jeremy Corbyn in the previous two elections, general elections. so So Britain is on a slightly different course, and we're paying the price for that. How much damage can be done in these four and a half years, while six months has seemed to be doing a lot of damage to our economy, and can we pull it back? Well, there needs to be a political movement to pull it back. and so We're a long way off that, though. That's four and a half years. It's hard to you know talk about the whole West without looking at each individual country.
00:08:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's fair. And we will look at Britain more specifically in a bit and particularly what that pushback movement could look like. look like But I want to go back to your statement of some eternal truths around prosperity and growth. And there was a time where we knew that the bigger the state, less the less or the lower the growth, the higher the regulation, the lower the growth, the higher the taxation, the lower the growth. And we knew that growth was essential for prosperity in the Western world.
00:08:50
Speaker
We are both sitting at the moment in a country where there's been no growth for 20 years. Europe, similarly, has been stagnant. As a result of that, you have seen living standards either stagnate or decline. How have we forgotten those eternal
Critique of Globalism and UK Economic Challenges
00:09:05
Speaker
truths? What's happened over the last 20, 30 years where the advances of the eighties and the nineties have been forgotten and we've embraced this more social democratic model, which doesn't seem to be delivering?
00:09:17
Speaker
yeah To answer that question fully would take several PhDs. I don't even know where to how to possibly begin, but perhaps there's some broad stroke things we can look at, which have been particularly damaging. I think one of those has been the reign of the globalists.
00:09:38
Speaker
and the fallacy that all immigration and mass immigration is a good thing. You know, we've learned only recently the Boris wave under conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
00:09:53
Speaker
His immigration will cost the British economy something in the rain region of 35 billion pounds. there' this There's been this long been this fallacy that immigration is good for the economy. When when you have over the last two years in Britain, something like 20% of the visas issued were work visas and the other 80% were Oh, I think this is from not this is from visas for Africa and Asia, something like 80%. You'll have to fact check me here. you know that You know the detail. I think I saw the Matt Goodwin tweet that you may be referring to, and from what I recall, in the last five or six years, only 5% of the total number of visas that have gone out in the UK have been skilled worker visas, which, coincidentally, is the visa I'm on. Right. So 95% have been for non-skilled workers.
00:10:48
Speaker
and And there's another one where it's a high percentage of dependents. So there's skilled workers, and then there's workers, and then there's dependents, and there's a staggering amount of dependents, i.e., not generating any wealth for the society and being a natural. On the on the contrary, costing society.
00:11:05
Speaker
Not only that, so then the working classes, the indigenous working classes, the people who are here, have been here generations, who might themselves be progeny of immigrants, the ones who bear the brunt of that cost.
00:11:21
Speaker
So that's one aspect, I think that there's a ah general battle between the sovereignists and the globalists, and the globalists have been very successful, and there's somewhat of ah of a ah so a system that's that's been profiting them. Another huge problem we have in Britain,
00:11:39
Speaker
is that it is basically impossible to be young. the cap the The free market types, of whom I consider myself one, it's pretty hard to push to convince young people that free market the free market system is a good one, when now in Britain, I believe the average age to buy your first home is like 37 or 38.
00:12:03
Speaker
You know people want to buy a home before they start a family while they can't do that till a thirty seven thirty eight while by that point ah a woman is ready it would be already a geriatric mother. It's a system that's just not the doesn't support.
00:12:18
Speaker
young people and doesn't support it doesn't incentivize them to be part of the system. And in Britain, something like 67% of under 30s have a positive view of socialism. I mean, socialism, we know to be the most evil ideology of the 20th century, certainly by death count. We you know we're in the region of 100 to 140 million killed in the name of socialism.
00:12:47
Speaker
And yet that's that's at this point preferable because they, young people are being told that this is the free market system. Well, if they say that, well, they want to fuck that. This is awful. So what to do about it? Well, I think one big thing is to, there needs to be a dismantling of crony capitalism. There needs to be a dismantling of the property cartels and, uh, property cartels. What do you mean?
00:13:13
Speaker
While the whole system suits property developers, it's not in their interest to build too many properties. We need to build and build and build homes and make housing more affordable for young people. That's a, that's a huge.
00:13:30
Speaker
ah I think that whoever comes into power at the next election needs to make that central, and it's going to hurt je traditional conservative voters because they're the ones who've got all of their assets locked up in property, and as well as as the property of developers themselves. But that that will take some courage, but if they don't do that, then ah then it's a freebie for the socialists.
The Impact of Politics on Private Sector and Economy
00:13:50
Speaker
So anyway, I tried to make the point that there's just all several major cook ups that have left a system in Britain that's very fragile and that needs serious change. Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it because when I reflect on the current level of seething anger in the United Kingdom, and I think there is that is not an overstatement. There is a seething anger across the population. It feels like the perfect storm of a lot of mega trends that are reaching a tipping point at the same time. You've got the
00:14:27
Speaker
growth story or the lack of growth story, you've got the immigration story, and then you've got the cultural side where the ridiculously fast change in demographics across the country has led to an equally fast change or fraying of the social fabric. And each of these three forces are coming together right at this moment. And it's leading to a level of of frustration and anger that that potentially you haven't seen in this country in 50 years.
00:14:56
Speaker
I guess what follows from there. So, as a two-part question, when you look at the future of the UK, do you see those problems as being insurmountable or do you think that there is a way to respond to them? And B, who is best placed to be able to respond to those problems?
00:15:13
Speaker
For a long time, I believe that if you wanted to get things done in the world, and certainly this is what I was advised growing up, is do not work in politics and work in the private sector, because that's when you can actually do things. You can build and you can create and you can do social enterprises as as well as commercial enterprises. And for 20 years, that was what I did and that's and that's what I found. But what's been evident to me, not only under the conservatives, but now turbocharged by the sitting labor government, is that actually so much of it is political and you've got to create a system. For example, the significance of property rights, as I've mentioned, has been brought into into light with Rachael Rees' budget. She's charged with a checker. And, you know, yesterday I was in Westminster and I saw all the farmers routing because of the the family inheritance, you know, the family farm inheritance tax.
00:16:07
Speaker
that the The new taxes you bring in this morning, I was reading more about stamp duty taxes. We are taxed and taxed and taxed and taxed so that we don't have either incentives or proper property rights. I mean, we technically have property rights, but if you actually look at how much we're taxed on that property, it comes out in the same incentive at the end. Or rather it comes out to the same, the the the modeling incentive kind comes out in the wash.
00:16:35
Speaker
so I do believe we need a political change to gut the system, gut the bureaucracy, turn around the tax stuff. Now, i someone like Farage or Rupert Lowe, they are basically Thatcherites, and someone like Malay is probably closer to them than Trump. And Trump is a lot more protectionist. There's a sort of populist economic populist nationalist aspect, and you see this with the tariffs. So there's different solutions being applied in different countries. In in Britain, what
00:17:16
Speaker
What is needed? Well, at this point, I'll take any change.
The Role and Definition of Populism
00:17:22
Speaker
but And what what can happen between camp in four years is a hell of a lot of time in politics. Four months is a long time in politics, even four weeks.
00:17:33
Speaker
so that I do believe strongly now we need political change, we need to create a system where there is ah the proper incentives throughout the system to encourage people in the private sector to build. Entrepreneurs are leaving this country, it's not just wealthy entrepreneurs, so too are young Ambitious entrepreneurial types, young craftsmen, tradespeople, they're moving to Australia. They're moving to New Zealand. Jews are moving back to Israel. Other entrepreneurs are moving to the Emirati, to Emirates. Many are moving to America. We are losing all our talents and we need to create a system where those guys bring back, they come back to Britain because it's off that talent that a whole country is sustained.
00:18:24
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. We spoke with ah John Moynihan who's just written a book, a member of the House of Lords, written a book called Return to Growth, and that was his big argument is that there currently aren't the incentives to keep your richest people at the top end, but also your most talented people who may be on 100K, 200K, they're the ones that are all going to Dubai at the moment, and they're the ones who are going to be future millionaires. They're the ones who make up the bulk of your tax return or your tax tax. It's a system that isn't working at the moment. Some would say that the types of answers that... and i
00:18:59
Speaker
Big fan of Farage. I really like Rupert Lowe. We chatted to him last week. Some of the answers that they are promoting are populist, which is simple solutions to complicated problems. I reject that definition of populist.
00:19:13
Speaker
I thought you might. so Since we we last spoke on this podcast, you spoke in a ah debate in the Oxford Union on the topic that populism is a threat to democracy. You had a very well-publicised, viral takedown of Nancy Pelosi. you You didn't have that definition of populism. What is your definition of populism? And on balance, do you see it as a positive or negative force in modern politics?
00:19:39
Speaker
Populism today is the politics of ordinary people in contention with an established elite. That's it. That's what populism is. Now, historically, there was a populist there was a specific political populist movement in the agrarian South in the 1890s in the American South.
00:20:00
Speaker
which was had specific policy and and ideals and principles, and it was sort of a sort of Jeffersonian, might it might come out as a little bit lefty nowadays, although it's not quite so but just simple to define it that way.
00:20:16
Speaker
But populism today is simply the contention between ordinary people and an established elite, which it's not anti-elite, it's anti-specific elite who have failed. So I would say that Javier Millay was populist in the sense that he was against the ruling elite, socialist elite. Bukele in salvador El Salvador is populist in that he is against the ruling he was against the ruling gangs. They were the elite, the established elite, and he turned that on its head.
00:20:49
Speaker
trump Even though he was himself from a a kind of elite, he was against the established neoconservative neoliberal unit party of D.C. He is brought in a new elite of Elon Musk, and no one would argue that Musk is an elite. He's simply a different elite. So populism is is that different that contention, and that's why in Britain Jeremy Corbyn is as much a populist as Nigel Farage is a populist.
00:21:20
Speaker
And so populism is just a type of of politics. i'm not against I'm not for all populism. I'm not for socialism. I'm not for Jeremy Corbyn's idea of populism. I think that would be terribly damaging for our country, probably destroy it. But populism itself is as positive or negative as any political movement.
00:21:42
Speaker
There's two contrasting approaches on the right in yeah UK politics at the moment. So I was listening to Kemi Badenok on Trigonometry last night. Don't know if you've listened to that that interview yet, half of it. And it's interesting the approach that she is taking compared to someone like Farage. So Farage and Lowe and the Reform guys are starting to make very clear, putting very clear stakes in the ground on immigration.
00:22:07
Speaker
on the economy, on broader cultural questions. Kemi Badenok has got more of, I would say, a ah so traditional or a strained approach where she does now a pretty hackneyed line. I'm an engineer, identify a problem, I think through a careful way of solving it, and then I try and get consensus and then I try and work towards solving for it. It's why she hasn't committed to, say, leaving the ECHR or putting a number against an immigration target.
00:22:34
Speaker
or really any policies, and she said she won't do so for some time. Do you think that sort of brand of more a restrained style of politics can work in the type of age that we live in where populism seems to be in the ascendancy?
00:22:51
Speaker
It's an interesting tactic. The polls suggest it's not working for Baden-Ock, as reform have been pulling ahead. And now I think in most polling ah are ahead of the conservative party. If there's an election called tomorrow, I don't think it has been a good approach.
Internal Dynamics of the Conservative Party
00:23:10
Speaker
If there is an election in four and a half years, it might work.
00:23:14
Speaker
So who can possibly say but i also would say that we don't know exactly what's going on behind the scenes of the conservative party i am ex reports of the leadership of cchq different leaders of different parts of the party having different ideas about what.
00:23:34
Speaker
was and was wasn't the reason for their failure at the 2024 election. I think Constantine asked this question in that interview at Trigonometry, is it true that some conservatives believe they lost because they had gone too far to the right? this And I believe that's a commonly held belief amongst wet conservatives, even though it's so obviously not the truth because the Reform Party outflanked them on the right.
00:24:02
Speaker
and Just had a brand of common sense politics that's that seem to attract those who weren't attracted to the yeah ideological liberal formally liberal formally democratic liberal democrat party so. It's hard to say because we don't actually see all the different games kenny is playing at the moment. She's got a front facing game and then there's a behind the scenes game that we're not privy to that she's playing and how many of these different games she's playing at once i don't envy her whatsoever it's an absolutely.
00:24:33
Speaker
impossible job she's got. Yeah, it is an impossible job because the response to every single position that she puts forward now, and I would imagine for the foreseeable future is, well, you guys already had 14 years and you cocked it up. And that statement is true. And it's a really hard thing for her to be able to get past. I think the other problem that she has, and Rupert said this the other day, and is personnel is policy to use that old Reagan line.
00:25:01
Speaker
And a lot of the current Tory party was in the image or was was selected in the image of David Cameron and David Cameron's instincts ultimately were more liberal democrat than they were conservative. So now to use your term, you've got a lot of really wet Tories that Kemi Badenok is trying to pull back to the right. But at the same time, it's not evident as to whether or not they want to move in that direction. It's not. ah It's not evident. So I can speculate that I do We just have to to watch and see. Well, speculate with me for a second. About once every century, you see a seismic political revolution in the United Kingdom. The last was in 1922 when the Liberal Party, which was one of the great you know United Kingdom political parties, effectively faded from existence. The Labour Party rose and the Conservative Party then held power for, I think, something like 36 of the next 44 years. Goes to show that
00:26:01
Speaker
Nothing is forever in politics. Do you think that the Conservative Party, which is the oldest and most successful party in modern Western political history, is in terminal decline? Or do you think it can be resuscitated?
00:26:16
Speaker
I think that the chances of it falling apart are greater now than ever before, or certainly as far as far as my and not my knowledge of the history of the party. so oh Certainly, let's put it this way, in my lifetime, as we said already, so much can change in politics. you know well Can we even be the leader in four and a half years' time going into the next election?
00:26:38
Speaker
There's rumors of Boris Johnson coming back, though that makes me so angry that if if that was the case, I i do hope that the the the party would completely implode. So much of this is his fault. on As it a slight tangent to to the question, you know, Britain had our MAGA victory in 2019, where Boris won a stonking victory where he'd managed to win over the red wall seats, which had been labor for a century. He did, he pulled off what Trump has pulled off with a great coalition of patriotic Brits and he completely
00:27:23
Speaker
Blundered it. He squandered it. he He not only carried on with the net zero bullshit, which is costing us a fortune. It's why our energy prices are 4x what they are in the States. But the um I've already suggest hinted at earlier in this conversation, the Boris wave where net migration went up to nearly a million a year.
00:27:47
Speaker
We had a lot of the the the decline has been under his watch. He had the mandate to pull Britain out of the sort of Blairite globalist mess and he threw it away. He went, I don't know what happened, but it seems like he followed his wife into the woke nonsense.
00:28:12
Speaker
He, rumor has it that he was more concerned with finishing his book on Shakespeare. He should have had, if you remember his first hundred days in office, look at Trump's first two weeks. He's coming with 200 executive orders. Last night he was saying what has needed to be said about the Israel-Hamas conflict since day one after October 7th. He said, if they are not delivered by Saturday, there will be all hell.
00:28:39
Speaker
what the Trump's start to his second term has just been totally professional as ah as a prime minister. If that was the CEO of of an organization, that's a man who means business and he's getting it done. It it just just it appears to be extremely competent. It's not exactly what happened in the first term. But anyway, Boris had that mandate from the British people and he completely blew it. So I say that.
00:29:07
Speaker
Because it wasn't very long ago that we believed that not only that the nation was saved, but traditional conservative voters believed that the Conservative Party had been saved. That was not long ago. That was six years ago. Do you think that was a problem of ideology or competence? So do you think he actually secretly, or maybe even now not so secretly, believed the type of globalist, Blairite approach to politics that probably most of the Tory party before him had believed? Or do you think he was just incompetent?
00:29:37
Speaker
it's hard It's hard to, it's i he's ah I can't work out this guy, but i it's a good it's a it's a good question. yeah i I've never met him, I've never had an experience with him.
00:29:49
Speaker
I don't know how to answer that ah that question. you know in some In some domains, he he does appear to be competent. He he is obviously competent at winning elections. that he and A conservative managed to win the London mayor ah mayororship Mayorship right now is it's unthinkable, so and and he won a majority of the Tories at the general election. He's obviously talented in that domain, but when it comes to the art of governing itself, it's there's not much evidence of
Free Speech Challenges in the UK and Australia
00:30:18
Speaker
it.
00:30:18
Speaker
Yeah. If you are looking at Western civilization or something which we've touched on briefly, and that is free speech. I know you've got some event on this weekend looking at the crisis of censorship. And as I said in my introduction, free speech is under assault pretty much everywhere in the Western world. Australia is beefing up hate speech laws. There's discussion in the UK that you may see blasphemy laws come in as a result of this ah silly word Islamophobia, which Angela Rayner is now looking to define and turn into some sort of sort of law. The question that I always have here is, it's not just the loony left that doing this stuff when it comes to authoritarian oppression on speech, the right has forgotten how to argue for for speech. You see a lot of right wing parties now that are more than happy to go along with
00:31:13
Speaker
bans or or regulation of social media to go along with hate speech laws, to go along with all this sort of stuff. Why do you think, particularly on the right, why do you think, or maybe dont not use the term right, why do you think classical liberals are less effective at arguing for free speech than they once were in the days of John Stuart Mill?
00:31:34
Speaker
Well, just to back up your question with with some startling events that happened, it was under the conservative government that the online safety bill passed, which is a kind of blueprint for online censorship. This came about because of the terrible suicide of a young girl called Molly Russell, I believe her name was, and there was look for more online safety, but within that bills is more restrictions on online freedoms.
00:32:03
Speaker
It's a lot of the problems. During COVID, Matt Hancock, who was Health Secretary, his messages were x were revealed to the leaders of American Silicon Valley big tech companies, I believe Facebook and Twitter, if I'm not mistaken, where he said, I want to scare the living pants out of the public to this is why right the beginning of the pandemic and they were very much complacent in there was the various organizations designing to target ah naming british individuals who who were to be. Silence there was there was a counter disinformation unit the cdu.
00:32:47
Speaker
Again, under Boris Johnson, that was was specifically trying to take down, quote-unquote, misinformation or malinformation. It was not even to pretend that it's wrong. It's like, yes, it's true, but it might have negative implications or consequences. that There was a lot of this anti this pro-censorship behavior happened under conservatives.
00:33:12
Speaker
Which is perhaps because they're not, generally speaking, and I don't like to generalize too much, conservatives are, it's more a temperamental thing and ah than than having these sort of principles, like going back to my Hayek ah hypothesis from the beginning of the conversation. So, but so I will say, I am not totally convinced we've ever had free speech in Britain. There is this fallacy, I think, or a myth that we have free speech, that we've always had free speech.
00:33:41
Speaker
and that the the it's a ah founding British principle. And I believe that we think that because We see the Americans' First Amendment, and we sort of have taken on their culture of as if it's ours. That's one reason. Another reason is you you mentioned John Stuart Mill, his famous tract on liberty. You can go further back to John Milton and Areopagitica. We have these famous tracks and articles making the case for free speech.
00:34:13
Speaker
But I think that those only exist because this was a nation that did not have free speech. Had we had free speech, we wouldn't need to be defending it. We had but we had blasphemy laws until 2008. We had the Sedition Act until 2009.
00:34:28
Speaker
these ah these are ancient these rather We've had these laws for a long time, and now, of course, blasphemy laws are coming back. And you might argue that these are medieval laws. I mean, I said they're coming back. There was a Labour MP called Tahir Ali who argued for it and yes in the chamber. And ah ah not that it's necessarily going to pass, although the islamaho the APPG definition of Islamophobia that angel Angela Rayner is looking to to pass through and that Labour, them the party themselves have taken on as their definition.
00:34:56
Speaker
they that That would have massive implications for free free free speech and in Britain. So yes, it it might well be the case that we have ah blasphemies blasphemy laws coming back. In fact, only last week there was a man in Manchester who was arrested and he's being prosecuted for burning a Koran in Manchester City Centre.
00:35:18
Speaker
and The fact that he'd be arrested for that means that we have de facto blasphemy laws. But anyway, my point, my larger point is that I'm not convinced we've had free speech in Britain. If you look at the great moments of free speech, like the Bill of Rights in 1689, in that bit, in the Bill of Rights, the only thing it talks about is parliamentary privilege, like the right to say whatever you want in parliament. But if you remember last year, after the actual Rudabakhana killings,
00:35:48
Speaker
Nigel Farage was not allowed his parliament parliamentary privilege of of speaking on that, because you they didn't want to subjudice the court case of Ruda Cabana. I think we have a myth. I think free speech in Britain is a myth. I don't think we've ever had it. i think we've ah Liberals have argued for it for for centuries, but they've had to argue for it because it was never really there.
00:36:16
Speaker
It's a really interesting proposition. The logical end point of that is, well, it just means you need to keep arguing for it and each generation needs to continuously and vigorously make the case. And I don't think, even if we'd never had it in the way that maybe some people would roast into glasses would seem to think that we have, I think we've had better defenders of it. That may be a better way to frame it. And you mentioned that Manchester case where someone was videoed in Manchester burning a Quran. I think a lot of people now instinctively just go, well, that's not a particularly nice thing to do. And if it's not a particularly nice thing to do, it should be illegal.
00:36:56
Speaker
What's possibly problematic about that? Similarly, if someone was to, I was having this and thought experiment discussion with a friend last night with Sal Grover who's been very big on the gender ideology stuff. Most people now without thinking too deeply, if they were to hear someone say to a a African-American, you're a N-word, that's ah an awful thing to say.
00:37:18
Speaker
What's the problem with that being illegal? That should be illegal. How do you make the case to a broad cross-section of people that even if something is unpleasant, that even if something is morally reprehensible, on balance, it is still better for it to be legal because I don't hit too many intelligent people making that case too to the public today.
00:37:37
Speaker
Everything is offensive to someone. Free speech is offensive to some people. Censorship is but of offensive to some people. Some people think equality is offensive. Some people think freedom is offensive. If you're going to try and school or police a people on ideas that are being, ah that are offensive. Who gets to decide what is and is not offensive? And at what point do you draw the line? In Britain last year, a schoolgirl was given a non-crime hate incident, which is going to stop her from being able to work in schools or any care she grows up because she called another student, she said another student smelled like fish.
00:38:20
Speaker
That's not a joke, another person got an iron crime hate incident because they said that their neighbor they whistle the Bob the Builder theme tune at their plumber neighbor or something ridiculous like that. A 15-year-old autistic girl was arrested in in West Yorkshire.
00:38:35
Speaker
because she said that a policewoman look like a lesbian, like aunt like ah like Nana, because then the Nana was a legend or something like that. These are real incidents that that are happening. So if you're trying to say, no, we've we've we've got to help people protect people's feelings, well, then who exactly decides what is and is not acceptable speech?
00:39:01
Speaker
Now, we already have pretty strong, we do not have free speech in Britain, certainly not like the Americans have. And I'm not sure I'm a free speech absolutist. For example, I support the Terrorism Act 2000, which is that you're not to support prescribed terrorist groups like Hamas. That would not wash in America, but there are there are reasons for it. And um I think we have to decide at a nation what those lines might be.
00:39:30
Speaker
But I think we can all agree that if you, let's say, repeat the lyrics to a Snoop Dogg rap on your Instagram to commemorate the death of a friend who loves Snoop Dogg, as happened to a girl who lived in Liverpool, who then had to who was charged and had to wear an ankle monitor for a year as a consequence, we can I think we can all agree that that's absurd.
00:39:57
Speaker
So yeah, so what you get offended, I mean, I thought sticks and stones might hurt my bones, but what break my bones, but words meant wind may never help help me. if that Is that not the sort of British concept of free speech? I was reflecting on that line not so long ago, and I was thinking as a child, and as ah even as a young adult, maybe.
00:40:17
Speaker
You heard that a lot. I remember my mum saying that to me a lot as a kid. You don't hear that line a lot. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. In fact, you hear it very rarely in inside today. And it goes to the way that I think that the left or the illiberal progressive side of politics, however you want to phrase it, have been very successful in reconceptualizing the notion of harm from being what was once about physical and direct and immediate harm.
00:40:47
Speaker
to something which is indirect into something which can be caused through words and there's a lead to memo from the home office in january. Sit with we've got with with advice advice the home secretary about what speak. Is dangerous and they include that if you believe that to a two-tier policing exists in britain that that is far right extra stream is if you believe if you talk about the and this is i'm this is not me saying this is the.
00:41:15
Speaker
the league's home office report the quote-unquote alleged grooming gangs, ah it's not me doing the quote-unquote there or using quite alleged that's their words, then that is a sort of a stepping stone to the the the far right. So it it's if you if you really want to talk about censorship, think about whether that you want your political opponents in power,
00:41:37
Speaker
ah to be able to have the same powers that you would have if you were in power.
Cultural and Religious Influences on Western Values
00:41:41
Speaker
And and then that's when you get back to classical liberalism, I think. It's like, what are the principles that we can all agree about existing if our opponents were in power?
00:41:51
Speaker
Let me ah pull one more item out of this little grab bag of the travails of Western civilis civilization that we seem to be picking from. And that is on the future of Christianity in the West. I would probably now say I'm at the point in my life where I would call myself a cultural Christian in terms of being thoroughly supportive of the Judeo-Christian values upon which Western civilization has been built.
00:42:20
Speaker
Again, as we've we've spoken about several times, I can't get myself to the point at this stage of my life of believing in a higher power. My question my first question here is, do you think that in order to relay the foundations of Western civilisation, the cultural Christianity bit is in and of itself sufficient? Or do you think you need to have the spiritual attachment to that cultural Christianity in order for Western civilisation to thrive?
00:42:49
Speaker
Excellent question. i As a Christian who who does believe in this in the metaphysical part of the religion, I am thrilled that so many people are culturally Christian, even if they don't accept the supernatural aspects. However, the problem you you get to philosophically in in being culturally Christian without the metaphysical aspect is if Christ did not indeed die and rise again from the dead, then the whole thing sort of falls apart. So it's all good and all to to support support it, but that fundamental, if that goes for me, the whole thing kind of goes.
00:43:38
Speaker
This is that old CS Lewis paradox was a liar, lunatic, lord. I'm really going back into my memory, but he's saying basically, if. There was someone called Jesus who was making the, or saying the things that he was saying and saying he was who he says he was. And if he was lying, then he is one of the worst liars in history. And how can you take any of his moral teaching seriously? If he's saying that and he genuinely believed it, and it turned out that he wasn't, he is a lunatic. And again, how can you take his moral teaching seriously? If he's saying it, he believed it. And it is in fact, the case he is Lord.
00:44:16
Speaker
And the C.S. Lewis, liar, lunatic, lord, a paradox, I guess you'd call it. So yes, it has to be one of those three things, which I think is maybe kind of partially where you' where you're getting at there. Partially, but I think I'm making a more simple case is that that if the the foundation stone is not itself real, then the edifice will eventually crumble. like the the the ah cultural christian the The culture of cultural Christianity could not have grown if it if i cannot be sustained i think if this is the metaphysical aspect is not.
00:44:54
Speaker
true. But I'm not saying that in in such a way that I would judge anyone for not believing or or ah having doubt, you know, the the story of Christianity is is one of doubt. Israel itself means to wrestle with God, the the word. And and so i it's not I don't mean this on an individual case, but i but i think I don't think it would be enough to sustain a civilization just to be culturally Christian without at least some proportion of that population believing in the metaphysical.
00:45:25
Speaker
Yeah, ah and I struggle, I struggle with this question and and I spoke, I put this question to Zuby on this podcast and he framed it more around a clash of civilizations. So he basically said if you don't have that belief in the metaphysical There will be a group that does have that belief, potentially with more with incredibly troubling views, and they will overwhelm you. and Again, there is an elephant in the room here, and it's a very obvious elephant in the room, and that is Islam. think Increasingly, we are seeing that sort of clash of civilisations in the United Kingdom.
00:46:01
Speaker
There is a very fast moving demographic shift in the United Kingdom and it's largely coming in the form of migrants from fundamentalist Islamic communities. We're seeing this play out in politics with the rise of Islamic sectarianism in the political discourse. This is a choose your own adventure question, but how do you reflect on what we're seeing in that regard?
00:46:24
Speaker
But to tie this with the rest of the conversation, I i think of Ariana Falacci. The word she had was liberty side, which is that liberalism will eventually tolerate that which will no longer tolerate it. And I think that that's what we're seeing somewhat in Europe. I think that in amongst conservative discourse,
00:46:45
Speaker
particularly on the hard right. There's a lot of talk of re-migration and Islam and Christianity being incompatible. I would say that this is a problem specific to nations where there's mixed... Well, actually it's not even a problem that's specific to nations necessary with a mixed
Addressing Immigration and Integration Issues
00:47:05
Speaker
population. Singapore has 20% Muslim population and it has no Islamism.
00:47:12
Speaker
me Israel obviously has a high Muslim and Arab population, but that's a kind of different kettle of fish. Then we have other nations that are Muslim majority that that Britain gets on very well with. We get on very well with the Jordanians, the Emiratis. We're increasingly well with the Saudis. So I don't think that there is a clash that we're necessarily seeing between civilizations, if you were to to say that Europe is one and the Muslim world is another. I think that what we're seeing is that
00:47:43
Speaker
different cultures within Europe and and these different moral frameworks but between different peoples who are living side by side has caused problems. Now, I don't believe in the... I believe in we should deport foreign criminals. I think we should deport those All those who came here illegally which is up to in britain that's one point two million people, they they' are criminal they shouldn't be here they broke the law to get hit they should be gone but as as to the problem of. Let's say the the most obvious one would be the rape gang scandal which is predominantly pakistani british men abusing white girls specifically because that could fall.
00:48:23
Speaker
We haven't actually properly tried law and order. If we you know deport foreign nationals, absolutely, but the problem we've had is a lot of these people have been getting away with it. If we have proper law and order and a deterrent, which is what Singapore has, then we might actually get towards peaceful cohabitation.
00:48:41
Speaker
i'm not saying, and you know, people, I can imagine the sort of hard right coming back at me and being like, no, no, no, you can't do it. But I would say we haven't even tried that. So let's try law and order and see, because I think there are plenty of great British Muslims that we consider themselves patriotic British people. They accept that Britain is a Christian nation and they they don't have the intention of changing it to, to being a Muslim nation. In fact, they don't want it to be, they want it to be a Christian nation. They came here because it was great as it was.
00:49:11
Speaker
names such as Majid Nawaz, who's been on my show, Ed Hussein, who's been on my show, Zia Yousaf, who's the chairman of the Reform Party. i see I look around and I do see great British Muslim people who want to be part of this project. And they also agree of the horrors of, let's say, the rape gangs scandal, and that the the at least the first solution be law and order. And I think we haven't properly tried that. I'd also say that these The class of civilization is even more complicated. So for the rape gangs, it's an issue specific to Pakistani men or Pakistani community. But we also have huge FGM, female genital mutilation problems in Britain. I think we have something like 120, maybe 150,000 cases, but that is predominantly from.
00:49:55
Speaker
Somali Brits now so you'd say okay that's another muslim nation yes but these are these are specific issues and we need one. We need to apply one law to all british people one rule and not just in law but also we need to get rid of this two-tiered system where where different peoples are treated differently.
00:50:16
Speaker
for ideological reasons or whatever whatever you you might have. So for me, yes, there's there's definitely problems. i'm not I'm horrified by the problems. i'm I'm literally kept up at night because of the problems. But I believe that we need to try law and order. We haven't tried that in this country. when my final question We will have a lot of very intelligent people next week in London talking about the future of Western civilization, talking about a lot of the things that we've discussed today.
00:50:42
Speaker
What do you think are the really big questions that they need to be thinking about if we want to ensure that Western civilization does have a future? What are the questions that you have on your mind that you want to get closer to an answer on? I think we need a clear pan on maximum prosperity. The reason that certain nations in the world were so prosperous, let's say the specifically the Anglosphere,
00:51:10
Speaker
is because we had certain principles about, I've mentioned in this conversation, property rights, certain principles about in building institutions with maximum inclusivity for all people in that nation.
00:51:27
Speaker
we We need to have that, we need to battle a lot of the atrocious ideological nonsense like net zero, like this climate hysteria, which is a total nonsense.
00:51:40
Speaker
we need to I think we're winning the battle when it comes to the trans-extremism. i think I think that conversation at this point is kind of and it's still some willing to be had, but the very fact that we're treating the health secretary for the labor government has upheld the cast review principles, suggests that it's kind of winning and it's the same in America, Trump's executive orders.
00:52:05
Speaker
ahlthough There's much work to be done in those domains, it's definitely heading in the right direction. ah so I think there's a few of these battles, but it's how do we get aligned for maximum prosperity so we can, once again, be and a nation that and ah and a civilization that is the the envy of the world, and a strong west, I think, means a strong world. That's that's my personal opinion.
00:52:32
Speaker
and And I guess we've got to talk about free speech. I'm speaking on a panel on free speech. there's ah There's a few other different topics, but maximum prosperity. That's what I care about. Well said. A link to the Winston Marshall show is in the show notes. Subscribe on YouTube and all the podcast platforms. It is brilliant win. Thank you for coming on fire at will. Thanks for having me on. Well, you're a star.