How To Confront The Radicalisation Of Young Men | Jimmy The Giant | Zack Polanski

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1:22And so we're going to be having a conversation today about radicalisation. that inevitably means we'll be talking about topics that some people will find offensive I do believe though and I meant this when I said this when I launched the podcast it's not just to have people I agree with all the time or conversations that are easy dealing with this moment means having the tough conversations that also means a lot of swearing I'm really delighted to welcome to the podcast YouTube streamer Jimmy Vagina

1:57a secret this week you weren't necessarily going to be the guest the guest was going to be a guy i met in clacton the other day so this guy is a um a guy who's just come out of prison he's irish and he's a migrant he said look i don't hate migrants i'm a migrant myself but look at my community it was his words he said it's a shithole yeah um and then we got into a chat about migration and then i said actually would you want to have this chat on a podcast and he's like i'd love to he then messaged us a couple of days ago to say totally understandably I've got a shift at work, which is part of this, right?

2:27There's so much structural inequality, we can't even have these conversations. But I felt really strongly, especially after what's happened this weekend, I needed to have a conversation with someone about patriotism, about what is happening in this country, what is happening with the right. And you seem like a pretty perfect person to have it. So this is not a, you are the perfect replacement, but also we were going to have a conversation anyway. But I wanted to say that to our viewers because some viewers are saying, when are you going to get normal people on? And I'd say you're a normal person.

2:51It's the classic thing about when they say like champagne socialist, and they're like, well, you're not truly working class. It's like, well, because working class people are fucking working. They ain't got time to be out doing speeches and shit. And it's like, there's obviously always going to be inherent bias in your politics. It's always going to be middle class people because they're the only people that can really typically get to those positions. Yeah, for sure. It's always filtered out. So, Jimmy the Giant, I came on your stream and thank you so much for that because afterwards, literally hundreds of people joined the Green Party.

3:18So, I think you introduced me to literally a whole new audience. I'm hoping I can introduce you to a whole new audience So a lot of people will know exactly who you are and some people won't. So how would you like to introduce yourself? I am Jimmy the Giant. So I make YouTube documentary, video essay kind of things. I guess my arc is that I used to be pretty on the right. I was like a Jordan Peterson, self-help, go to the gym, gym coach. I still love all that shit, but it was like that is quite co-opted with a lot of right-coded politics. So, yeah, I was like in that world. I grew out of it. At one point, I was a Tommy Robinson supporter.

3:54I went to one of these rallies when there was like 20 ,000 people. And somehow, yeah, after a very long... There's a whole video on it, so you can watch it. But after a long trajectory, I managed to get myself out of that. And then I guess what it has given me is a sort of internal monologue of someone on the right. So whenever I talk in my videos about certain topics, I know the questions and the thoughts that that person's going to have. So then I can kind of address that. so I think it gives you a unique perspective and I speak to a different kind of audience because I guess just my background my sort of the way I speak, the way I act so it's like it definitely gives me a different audience than a lot of the people on the left and I think that's good really, it's like Gary has a similar thing he can speak to certain people so yeah it's been an interesting journey but to be honest when you're on the right they always tell you that young straight lads or whatever they don't like that I have literally felt nothing but welcomed by the left like as long as you're not a dick they're very welcoming people and yeah I feel like I've had incredible support from people and established people and yourself it's like amazing to have so well thank you for everything you're doing I mean I think you're literally a key voice I want to talk to lots of people but I also know there's people who will just they're less likely to hear me as opposed to someone who has come from that place and goes like I understand the march that happened on Saturday I was looking at some of the crowds and just thinking, are some of those people in the crowd recognised that Katie Hopkins, Tommy Robinson, Elon Musk are all grifters, and they're still on the march because they're concerned and they go, actually, I don't support what's being said on stage?

5:35Do you think everyone in that crowd supports what's being said? Obviously, we can't talk for everyone. But what do you think is going on? Why are so many people coming out on the streets? Yeah, I think it's like, I'm guessing you saw that Clive Lewis tweet, which was pretty on the money. if people don't know he was sort of saying like he had a mate who recognised sort of the problems of Tommy Robinson a lot of these people didn't trust a lot of these people but still was finding like community in this I guess you could call it nationalistic but in his mind sort of more patriotic group and yeah it's one of these ones where it can be really difficult because a lot of these movements are like an onion that has different layers to it so you have like the far right ethno nationalists who exist they are big you see them on twitter but they're like a small part of it and then you'll have people who are like very anti-islam but they will say they're super fine with migration that's like quite common and then you'll have people that are just sort of like mass migration is too much maybe i have some problems with this problems that and then you get this guy who's just like i don't know finding community and people that are like uh yeah celebrating where they're from etc and all of these people can be in the same group and you gotta be really careful and it's hard I make mistakes as well where it's like when you try and talk to this group and if you focus on the most extreme then you're going to alienate all the other layers who are less extreme and yeah it's really tough so a lot of these people they will just be people that yeah normal people and I think who was that guy Trevor Trevor Phillips was saying the other day he was like these are kind of he was shocked how normal the people were and it's true because a lot of people they will just be like I don't know like just maybe concerned about migration and then they will sort of tolerate, because I remember when I was at one of these rallies, there was a movement in the past called what were they called?

7:22It was this yellow flag and effectively they're an ethno-nationalist movement. New Dawn? I can't remember what it was called. It was a bit older now and I don't see them that much now. And I remember when I was at this rally I would always say I wasn't a racist person. I would always say that I was just concerned about Islam specifically and I really didn't like the fact that this other organisation was there and all being true that we're in the same room sort of supporting effectively to the same ends the same politics and I guess that's our argument is that no matter how deeply invested you are in it maybe you're not an FNA nationalist maybe you're not even anti-Islam maybe you just have some problems with mass migration we feel like typically on the left that these politics tend to filter to the more extreme point because they're sort of always trying to solve a question which is why is Britain getting shitter but their analysis is from the complete wrong perspective.

8:15They think everything is to do with cultural decisions of individuals, of groups, rather than material elements of inequality, housing, jobs, etc. So they're sort of chasing the wrong scent and it can eventually lead to a point where that ethno-nationalist tiny movement becomes bigger and bigger because they offer the next step. They're like, look, you guys were wrong. It's not about mass migration. It's not about Islam. It's actually about the white. you know we need to keep an ethno pure nation and it can go like that and that's why it can be quite hard to talk to this because sometimes we're trying to critique the extreme element right and we alienate all the other layers who aren't that but we're trying to warn them but that can be easily misinterpreted as we're saying all of you lot are fascists all of you lot are this and they're not all going to be fascists yeah i've not thought about in these terms because sometimes i go on what you could call a left-wing march and people say justify that poster that someone waved and you go, well, that wasn't me waving that poster.

9:11And actually, there's a coalition of things that we agree on. And I guess you can make the same argument in reverse. Diane Abbott's written an article today in The Guardian that essentially says that we need to talk about the fact that that march was racist and there's racists in the crowd. And if we justify too much of this around inequality and austerity, what we are doing is normalising or justifying racism. Now, I'm asking you a really hard question here because if you ask me the question back, I'm hearing Diane's words and I'm reflecting on them myself. and we're all doing this in real time.

9:40I think those people can lead the movement but they're not like, you know, it's typically, I even think people would have said this in like 1930s, etc. They would have been like, it was more the people that were standing around idly by and allowing the extreme elements to lead it. So yeah, it's the complacency of a lot of that crowd to tolerate that extreme element and that extreme element, I would argue, will lead it. Because again, it's what I was saying, they're trying to find solutions in the wrong place and ultimately at some point when you've deported all the migrants when you've stopped the boats when you've done this you're going to be like well what have we not done shit's not got better but yeah I get what she's saying you cannot forget you cannot like that's the balance it's like trying to criticise the extreme element whilst not alienating all this other group and that is kind of their strength is that they can always sort of say look we're just normal people but there is this extreme element and that extreme element arguably is leading it in the direction Because if you know there's working class people that are walking and they're watching Elon Musk you know a multi-billionaire tell them what they need to be doing in their country classed as patriotism and part of me even the most empathic part of me goes I don't understand how someone doesn't look at him and go he is totally uninterested in my material conditions my country.

10:57it's so hard to understand because I remember being like pretty into Elon Musk I was like yeah this guy is because they they give you different concerns they give you the concerns over free speech wokeism and immigration they're the big problems and they also sell you like this I guess like inevitability of capitalism so they will say like they will never critique the system the system is always how it is like capitalism will always work like this this is normal but the problem are these small elements within it there's even that like kind of famous meme they will share which is like the top one percent versus the 99 percent like the classic images we should be like going after this one percent then they sent they edit the image to have like it halved so it's actually it's a percentage of the one percent you should be worried about and a percentage of the 99 you should be worried about which is like the enemy from within kind of rhetoric um but yeah it's so strange because i remember thinking he was like a liberator which is insane because like what would it be of his interest to give a shit about Britain I don't know has he I'm sure he's been to Britain but he knows fuck all about Britain but somehow I suppose when you're in this desperate mindset you it's like there is this element of power and strength that you're kind of attracted to because that's also part of the narrative of like from that angle why society is crumbling it's because we become weaker we become too empathetic we're allowing too much too many human rights It's too many stuff like that.

12:26And then he represents this kind of like somehow strongman narrative, which I wouldn't say he comes really across like that, but somehow he works like that. But it is so weird, that disconnect of like, this is literally the wealthiest, most influential man on earth. And somehow he cares about the little people. And it's insane how they keep that in the brain. But I've done it. I used to think like that. And it is just weird and reflection. And how gendered is it? because the caveat I want to give is that everyone always talks about young men voting reform and it's true, but actually more young women are voting for the Green Party than young men are voting for reform, but we rarely hear about that.

13:02Having said that though, I know from when I visit schools, young men are interested in Nigel Farage, they are interested in reform. Do you think this is about strength and power or is that too simplistic a narrative? I think it's part of it because I think when you're a young lad, you're sort of always told to admire strength, whether it's overt or just like subconsciously, like we look up at athletes. There's nothing wrong with this inherently. But like, if you just think of the trajectory of being a young person, you're brought up admiring athletes, which are like physically perfect beings. You're brought up watching films about how one bro saved the fucking day.

13:40You're brought up admiring celebrities who are very attractive to women. There is an archetype that from a young age as a man, you're always kind of like looking at, and you're being told it constantly and you can then in some regards be more like women aren't quite given that message in life that they need to be the strongest, baddest bitch. That ain't really like a thing that women, I would say, are probably fed their whole life. But young men, it's kind of like if you're not that, you're a loser and you don't want to be a loser because you'll be poor, you know, women won't like you. And so if you're fed that message all throughout your life, then you'll have this innate sort of subservience to powerful people.

14:22You'll think, well, Elon Musk must be right because he is successful and success is everything. And you'll see that throughout the whole, you're fed this lens of looking at the world of like, effectively, strength and sort of biological determinism in some regards is good just in and of itself. It doesn't matter how, why or what they represent. It's the same like with Andrew Tate. like most people would say, yeah, morally, he's not a good guy, but he did it, man. He like made it. He came from a rough background and he's successful. You can't argue with the success. And I think there is that very, yeah, very hard thing to reckon with that we have been taught that our whole lives.

15:04That is the image of masculinity. And your, yeah, I guess your politics can easily be warped towards seeing power as everything. And you might not in your head put those two, like those things together that that is what it is. but I think that does drive that when you're lost, you're a man, you're lonely, you're single you're struggling in the economy like everyone is and you're thinking well, it's because I'm not like this cool dude I need to be more like that and then I can have success yeah, makes sense and on this podcast we're going to talk to women about violence against women and girls and stories that young women are told as well, but to come back to young men is this conversation so when I was out in Clacton I could feel like conversation at a time you can turn people around You can sit there empathically and listen and eventually kind of have the conversation where you can see people are joining the dots.

15:51Obviously, having those individual conversations with every single person in the country who might be fueled by the right is going to be a very difficult challenge. Presumably, that's where you come in with YouTube and with storytelling and with narrative. Do you think that's enough? Are there other things that we need to be doing? I think we're all doing our own thing. So, like, we all have our own job to do and we lean into, like, what we're good at. and I guess what I see in you, which is I want to thank you for being you and doing what you're doing, is that you have this really good ability to sort of listen to people and never come across condescending.

16:29I can sometimes come across condescending. I don't like to, but sometimes I can come across a bit smarmy. I've never got that vibe with you. I appreciate that. And I think that's such a strength and also you show a strong leadership. because I remember I said about you at the very beginning before you'd sort of gone and done all the stuff you'd done I was like I don't know if he's too nice or something because I was used to seeing leadership as strong assertive aggressive and then I realised there's such a strength in your way because you're not you're not submissive in any sense you are direct strong and you will stand your principles but what you're not is you're not a dick so you will listen to people and you'll take in that argument and I think that's so powerful and I think it really when you see you talking to reform voters that is the empathic thing that society needs and that's an incredible strength so well done for having that I really appreciate that and though if I'm going to self-criticise I think that's going to speak to lots of people and that's my plan is to speak to lots of people I feel like there's a block as well though who maybe do need a strong leadership or a strong role model and maybe that's the kind of old outdated model now that we don't need in our society but I think that's where people serve different roles and we all speak to different things So it's like my angle is, I guess I can be like representative of young lads just because I grew up like that.

17:43So I know that sort of mentality where thinking I know that, as I was saying earlier, I know the sort of questions they're going to ask on these topics. Right. But then different people speak to different things. Gary is as well as very good, effective communicator because he doesn't he just keeps it all on economics and that's that serves him. But then there's other people that will dismantle like, yeah, I guess more like attitudes on gender and stuff. and they're going to speak to a certain crowd, but we're all trying to build up these arguments and education and we're all finding our own angles.

18:12What I try to do, because I was going to answer your question, is that I try to... One of the things I think is the problem with trying to speak to people on the right from the left is that we often do this thing of trying to, like, play whack-a-mole with misinformation. So we're like, okay, they've said this one statistic. There's this one recently, like, Afghans are 22 times more likely to commit sexual violence than native white British. and it's like that's one piece of uh i said that in one like it took me 10 seconds to say to undo and look at that statistic and understand it i'd need like 10 minutes to explain it to you so one of the problems is we'd sort of do this whack-a-mole to try and debunk shit but the big thing that we're missing is that their core structure understanding of the world comes from a very different place than say uh leftist politics so their understanding typically on the right is everything is a product of culture and individual decisions and bad people making bad choices, because that's kind of the attitude of generally at the root of right wing politics.

19:14On the left, we understand what we try and explain is that, and this is what the facts will say, it's not just like what we think, it's like structures, systems, inequality, housing, job opportunities, they are what create these problematic cultures. So if you see more crime rising, it's because we've created places where that can foster. And when you go around this thing of like whack-a-mole in all these bits of data, they go, okay, maybe that one was wrong, but this one's right. But you're never replacing that core underlying sort of belief system that individuals and bad people, bad actors are the root of all problems.

19:51You need to replace it with a sort of more material lens understanding of how these social problems manifest. And once they've got that, you can then start looking at the world in a different way. When you really understand how inequality affects like every layer of society, people's behaviours, outcomes, poverty, etc. Then you can kind of like go through the world and start looking at it differently. You stop looking at like, oh, these people make these decisions. It's actually, oh, OK, look at the fucking surrounding they're in. Look at how underfunded their schools are. Look at like the crime rates being coming out of that.

20:20Like once you see it like that, it's a whole different thing. But if we never replace that core structure and we're always playing whack-a-mole, you're never going to win because you're not giving them anything to replace it with. Yeah, I love it. And that's exactly why I wanted to do a podcast actually to be able to take that zoom back. You mentioned about the Afghan statistic. Is there anywhere people can go to hear you debunk that though? Because I'm just aware of not spreading misinformation. I'm doing a video right now about it's like, what I like to do is do really reactionary, provocative titles.

20:47So we call something like the Islamification of Britain, but I'm deconstructing that idea. But yeah, that video also Sneaker, I'll just shout them out because they're great on TikTok. Sneaker and a guy called like Lewis Ahrens or something like that. those two go through all of these, every one of these stats you hear about, I don't know, 100 % of bad things come from this one group of people. They debunk them and you, it's like a rabbit hole when you find out these think tanks, who funds them, how insanely shambolic these groups are, yet just plastered around the media like they're a really prestigious group of people.

21:22There's one called Center for Migration Control, which from all it seems to be publicly aware is just one bro. who like no one knows where he came from his first media appearance and pretty much paper trail his existence was on a Russia Today news channel from 2017 he's also a senior I won't I won't bait him out too much but like yeah he's a pretty uh questionable character yet his statistics get blasted all around the media most of these really uh insane stats that we hear tend to come from this group I think we need to know who this person is and what they're doing yeah a whole piece of work to do around these like groups that appear with um x handles or blue sky handles and are probably not on blue sky yeah yeah mass uh research team but actually yeah they somehow got money and they somehow people are sharing them everywhere and it's like yeah it's very suspicious and we don't know anything about them you look at their like about page doesn't have a team doesn't have where they come from and it's like a sus like we should be definitely looking into how much do you worry about repeating frames maybe you don't at all and maybe it's not your responsibility to but like I think you did a video or at least you said at one point immigrants are taking your jobs and the point was to get people to click on it to then debunk it is there a danger though that you're kind of repeating the frame or do you think as long as you're then hooking people in and then you're debunking it as long as they're sticking with you?

22:38It's a very good point yeah because are you just really submitting the idea I guess if this idea is already viral like this is already a widely believed thing I found like a lot of the thing I found when I was on the right is I just couldn't have access to these like information like these sources of information that would deconstruct all these ideas. There are really good channels out there now on YouTube like Some More News they do these two hour pieces where they debunk these kind of like viral ideas. And I think I never had access to any of this. So if I heard when I followed Tommy Robinson and I wanted to understand more about this grooming gang stuff I wouldn't know where the fuck to look.

23:15Like he's making all these really compelling arguments. Sounds data driven. I'd nowhere to fucking look to find that information. like one of the best videos it's a little outdated now because there's been updates since but one of the best videos on it was a conversation between Loki and Ella Cobain I think her name is and it's got about 3 ,000 views and it's them going through all of this data and explaining how a lot of it's like out of context and etc etc so I think you need those information pools because I get a lot of people that say they send my videos to their right wing uncle or something like that and that can be useful but what you are hitting on which is right is that we can't play catch up.

23:54We need to be driving the narrative and that is what you are doing that's what Gary's doing. That's what all these people in this space like Grace Blakely and stuff that's what they're doing is that they're trying to give a different frame and a different set of problems that we need to be looking at and I think that is you're right from political, if you're a political figure an activist everyone has a different role but I think there needs to be people that do that and I think that's what you're kind of doing yourself. There's lots more I want to pick up with you straight after the break. That refresh you've been putting off until the right deal came along?

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26:21show and patriotism do you consider yourself a patriot what what's yeah yeah i love being british like i don't know like i love i almost love being british more when i'm out of britain because when you're on holiday i don't know you might be in spade or you might i was in i was in ukraine during an airstrike and i was in a bar because it was an underground bar that's basically where they go they go underground into like car parks and stuff and uh this one happened to be an underground bar and I just heard an English accent and then it's like every time when you're on holiday you're like you have this sort of shared experience and I really do love like British humour I think we're incredibly funny I think we have like a great sense of humour very self-deprecating very aware like we have a complete awareness and yeah I just love British humour British theatre like if you if you're lucky and this is part of when people say like British culture's under attack I often say it's not under attack it's hidden and basically only accessible if you're quite well off because if you want to live in the most quintessential beautiful British town those exist but you don't have the money to live there but yeah British theatre if you ever are fortunate enough to go to see really good theatres in London it's incredible and I would say our food having married a Ukrainian woman is maybe a little bit a subpar but maybe that's one of my more controversial opinions i think british people are very friendly very nice and i yeah i love i love being british but i think unfortunately on the right that what they do is typically try and make it so if you ever have a critique of britain if you're ever like well yeah these things we did in the past have had like trickle down effects that affect us now infect certain communities now uh all of a sudden they start saying you're like anti-britain and stuff and it's like how do you jump to that it's like a weakness that you can't criticise yourself I think the only way you can progress as a human yet alone like a civilisation is to be completely aware of your faults and try and address them and work on them so when people on the left are like talking about colonialism it's not because they're saying like we fucking hate Yorkshire puddings they're just saying like colonialism to this day has effects on people's lives that are causing outcomes that probably us as a community don't want and it's like yeah I think it's like this weaponised maybe ignorance or something like this weaponised misunderstanding, like deliberately trying to frame what you're saying as something much different than what you're saying.

28:49But I do think on the left, it is important that we celebrate the things that are good about Britain. Like I celebrate multiculturalism. I fought that era. I love grime music. I grew up in that era. And that's firmly a sort of product of multicultural London British. It's a beautiful story of how Grime sort of connected these two communities from the garage era, acid house, young sort of white British meeting with inner city, black British. And then that created its own thing that's completely unique to Britain. And it's like, that's a beautiful thing. That to me is patriotism because I'm celebrating that.

29:24So yeah, I'm definitely patriotic, but it doesn't mean you can't criticise the past. I'm loving the passion for Grime. I forgot that whole thing. speaking more as a young man now than kind of as a YouTuber and a streamer how worried are you? it's been it's very up and down like I was really I came into left wing politics sort of personally it was a bit before this but when I started making videos it was when Gary was popping off and I was feeling this massive optimism I was like man this guy's cutting through he pulled me he pulled a bunch of people out of like positions and I'm seeing it cutting through and I was like this is sick And then, yeah, the Tommy Robinson rally the other day definitely put a bit of a downer.

30:09I think Trump became president just after. So it has been a bit like this because I'm seeing myself growing. I'm seeing lots of people in this space growing. But then, yeah, with the Tommy Robinson rally the other day, it was massive. It was popular. It was super popular. And I hear it in my personal life. If I hear people that I would have said were just vanilla, apolitical people, they'll sometimes post stuff about Islam or they'll respond to some of my, if I'm on Instagram or something, because that's where mainly my personal mates are. They'll be like, yeah, but there's this problem in the Muslim community.

30:46I'm seeing it from people that, I know a guy who came to this country unable to speak English. Now he's learned English. It was maybe like 10 years ago. and he's like talking about the Muslims are the problem. They're not integrating inside. I'm like, bro, they came from exactly like if you're critiquing them, you can speak English when you get to this country. And I'm like, how people are being pushed to this position. People that I would say are very, even I know lefties, like people who, when I was on the right, I was like, man, he's woke person, whatever. And now they're like, yeah, but there is a problem with the Muslim thing and stuff like that.

31:19So it's like, that is worrying me because I think, yeah, I think it's starting to like get out there become mainstream this idea that Islam doesn't integrate into the West that's becoming a very I think you're going to probably run into having to like really maybe sit down with Tommy Robinson oh god you know good luck if that ever happens but like that's going to have to be tackled head on and I'm trying to do it with my videos and stuff but it's like that is a talking point argument that needs to be addressed properly you mean just sit with Tommy Robinson to talk about Muslim communities I can't imagine having that conversation I know it'd be hell I think he's quite far gone with that yeah but it's like his arguments are getting out there right and the way he speaks I was on the way up listening to a Tommy Robinson thing and the way he speaks it's I sometimes I wish he was a leftist right because he's an incredible rhetorician like he can really ramble off a load of shit paint a completely convincing narrative and it only breaks down when you start like breaking each part of it so he was doing this whole spiel on this podcast and I was like he said a statistic He said like 90 % of all grooming gangs are Muslims.

32:25And I was like, even from your argument, that is incorrect. Like even, you know, there are, there are pieces of data that can talk about representation of Muslims in grooming gangs. It doesn't say 90%. You know, it doesn't say 90%. And so what he'll do is layer on layer, these half truths, these sort of like incredibly embellished things. And he'll do it in like one minute. And he has this whole narrative tied down. I think your brain, like I wouldn't be able to keep up with a conversation with him because he can just go like that but someone's gonna have to deal with his arguments like head on or at least we need to explain why islam isn't like destroying britain right because that is becoming a more and more i'm hearing that even from leftists that they're like yeah but muslims are a problem and it's interesting because it feels like nigel faraj is doing everything he can to not associate with him yeah and i would argue that their politics are coming from a very similar place it's just nigel faraj is doing it in a suit with the veneer of respectability politics but actually ultimately what they're trying to do is marginalised Muslim communities.

33:22Yeah, and they work effectively. They work together. Like, even though they are against each other politically, they're different parties, they are appealing to demographics that each other can't appeal to. So, like, Tommy Robinson is really going to struggle to speak to white middle-class Susan. He's going to struggle because she will see him as like a thug. And he is like, yeah, football hooligans. They would have grown up in the 70s and have known about football hooligans. That was the big cultural problem at the time was that we were having groups of typically white men going out and fighting people over football.

33:52That was a big problem back then. So that era is kind of sort of scarred by that type of person. But a Farage can speak to her because he has this sort of, he's that guy in the pub who drinks the beer and he's probably worked behind the bar, like respectable, that kind of vibe. Although he was a city trader. It's a complete mythology. It's not true, but I'm just talking aesthetics. The impression people get. Yeah, absolutely. And it's like, even though they will claim to be against each other, they're perfectly helping each other because they appeal to different audiences. And over time, Tommy Robinson is actually starting to now appeal to different crowds.

34:27So he starts getting this, how would you call it? Like someone who's been the truth teller, this kind of archetype that he was suppressed by everyone in the media. And then over time now, people are starting to realise he's speaking the truth. So you will sometimes see these people who are like, I would say like COVID conspiracy brained. So there was like quite a group of maybe middle class, wealthy, doing all right type of people who during COVID got radicalized by like Facebook. And then they start distrusting everything. And then they're going to distrust that the establishment used to lie about Tommy Robinson.

35:04So those people are maybe starting to come around to him. But generally, they're sort of covering, yeah, different squads. I think you're I mean, it's so messy because I see Israeli flags often at those marches. and for me they're the biggest group of anti-Semitic people that I would not want to spend time with. And so not obviously everyone on that part. There's definitely people in those groups that are definitely anti-Semitic. Yeah, and you're right. Somehow they're coalitions. This is the thing that's the difference between the left and the right. The right is so just okay with really broad coalitions of groups that have no shared interest.

35:36And at some point, and you see it, they do have these little civil wars, but ultimately they all understand and they're better at politics. they understand they're all moving in the similar direction. So you can accept, like, when Elon Musk and Donald Trump fell out, it didn't really do any damage. They're all still moving in the same direction. Whereas the left, and this is something I'm quite interested to hear, your opinion, but it's like we are, I would say the left generally is very principled and it can really struggle to, like, open the tent up to certain people. I wouldn't say that's 100 % true.

36:08That can be a bit of a vascularization that the right makes of us. but I would say like you know when we understand about the sort of trans thing that's a really important topic and like we understand we get why it's not this thing that the right make it out to be they're just normal people that deserve rights but if we sort of say to people you if you have any of these anti-trans opinions or something which which they might be able to be reasoned out of they might be able to come round on them they might realize that they'll be misinformed but sometimes I worry that if we're so principled on this in the sense let me let me just think I want a word if we if we find ourselves in a position where we go fuck you for your bigoted opinions then this is what Ash Sarka's been sort of saying lately we risk losing people that might come round to our arguments do you get what I'm saying?

36:58I hate talking about this because I feel like I'm giving legitimacy to the anti-trans argument which I'm not and I never think you should move your principles I think it should be you should be not like purity testing people. I don't know. Yeah, so there's a few things. One, the first thing I'm going to say might be even reinforcing what you're going to say, but it's still something I strongly believe that for me, left wing politics is about solidarity and compassion. It's about human rights and trans people have to be included in that. And that's non-negotiable. I do think there's a difference between someone who makes a whole entire life about being transphobic and to make trans people's lives hell, who, by the way, I think we shouldn't abandon in terms of if you're talking about society, but as a political party or as a movement, I think it's not a political party's job to convince every single person who disagrees with them that they are welcome in their political party.

37:45Political parties by their nature are saying these are the things we stand for and if you don't stand for those things that's fine but this is not the party for you. And I think there is truth to what you're saying and it's something I'm thinking about a lot which is women, particularly women, who are worried about violence against women and girls, who are worried about the gender kind of pay gap, who are worried about getting a gynaecology appointment. All these things are actual material things that we should be worried about. But none of these things are the problems or caused by trans people.

38:13They're a problem of society and particularly often cis men who are in power, who are pushing these things. I also accept, though, what I've just said. If I go to lots of communities and said those things, I'd either lose people in the nuance. Not always. There's plenty of working class communities, for instance, who have shown massive solidarity over decades, both with LGBT people, also black and Asian people. And obviously those communities are often made up of LGBT people and black and Asian people. There's no them or us here. But I think what you're pointing to is right, is there's a nuance in terms of how do you grow the coalition, making sure that, I really like the phrase, rather than calling people out, you call people in.

38:50Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of, that's not acceptable, what you've just said. Let's talk about why it's not acceptable. Yeah, I think that's the key thing. And it's really hard because, yeah, people could easily take what I'm saying out of context. But it's like, it's don't just say fuck off. And don't like, there can be a feeling sometimes of like, if we're really hardline on people, it's like, yeah, because we stand on our principles and we're solid. But it has to come across like, look, we think you completely misunderstand this topic. We want you to come in and talk to us about it so we can explain what we think about it and why it's important to us.

39:22And I think it's the same with like immigration as well. It's like, if you say fuck off to everyone who has concerns about immigration, you will you're just going to lose lots of people when they may be able to be invited into a conversation right that's what i try and do with my immigration video i don't i i go through all of the well not all of them because you couldn't do that but all of the anti-immigrant arguments and i explain okay this is so one of the ones is wage suppression and i i don't go um you're you're you're a bigot for thinking that there is situations it's very minor it's like 0.1 p per hour but there are situations where it can cause certain wage stagnation but what i say is look why is that that isn't because of immigrants it's because of weak labor laws it's because of like de-unionization like weakening the unions and if we focused on strengthening unions strengthening like yeah collective bargaining generally you will find that wages will go up and so it's not saying you're a bigot for having this opinion it's explaining the contents at context and giving people time to learn about these things because that was the thing i felt when i was on the right is i just didn't understand a lot of things like if you've grown up in the 2000s and you have never seen a trans person in your life and then the right is telling you that trans people are coming to take over women's sports or and they're saying that they're biologically women or something like this you don't have the layers of understanding of gender and the history of like gender constructs etc you're coming at it from this position where you don't have all of that and that opinion might sound insane to you based on your whole life because you've never experienced it if someone sat you down and i'm sure many on the left would be very happy to do this and it's this is where the right are kind of lying to them where they're saying they don't even want to you know talk to you about this sort of stuff they're scared to have this conversation it's not true but if you sat them down talk them through it and explain it like an adult they'll probably go yeah actually that's a really interesting point like you know yeah that's how i see it i think it's just it's not a case of never renee on your principles always keep it like that is at the core we stand for human rights stand for all rights and all types of people.

41:27But always be pulling people in and pushing people away. Always want to sit down and spend your time talking to this person about this topic and why you think the things that you think rather than just shut it down and move on. I think there's a couple of things I want to bounce off there. One, again, huge respect to your videos because I think you tell sometimes the inconvenient truth as well in terms of I think sometimes on the left we can rightly be accused of just presenting. It's quite simple, this is the easy argument, but actually I've definitely heard you say sometimes, actually, it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but actually overall, this is why this is really important for the country.

42:01Second though, I think we don't exist in the vacuum. So particularly when I think about the gender critical movement in America, it's been funded by fossil fuel companies, they're very often funded by fossil fuel companies. I wonder why they care about gender. Right, exactly. And so the big principle, the idealist in me wants to go, if we just have conversations with people about information and diplomacy and we chat with people, everyone will come to the right conclusion at the end but we've got to remember that you know we're two people sat in a studio but there are people you know literally with billions of pounds and industry who are going how can we distract how can we create division in our group and then the biggest thing I kind of took away from the last few minutes too is I caught myself saying you know you've got to call them out and say that's not acceptable but who am I to decide what's acceptable or not and I think that's a legitimate question but I'll answer it myself the person I am is a political leader of a party and so I think it's perfectly legitimate to say as a political leader of a party or a party more widely because we have a democratic party.

42:52These are the things we stand for. These are the things where it are acceptable and aren't acceptable. And I think it's totally legitimate for someone like you outside of a political party when you're making a YouTube stream, you're having conversations with people going, we talk about what's acceptable and unacceptable, but actually I want to explore what's unacceptable, not in a way that makes it acceptable, but creates a space where those conversations can happen. And those things are difficult because, you know, if someone from the right was in this room, they'd go, you know, people have not got a right not to be offended.

43:18And you know what? But I think that's true. I think we can all be offended sometimes. But people do have a right in this country not to be harassed, not to be victimised and not to face physical or verbal violence. And I think it's about where are the lines in those things but also making sure that the people who are the most vulnerable are protected by those of us with the power and status. And make sure that we're doing the job. So if we're really, like, we have this position, like we're pro trans, we need to make sure if we're broaching a topic that people don't have a lot of information on that we are doing everything we can to get the information understanding of how we got to that position out there and accessible and there are like lots of youtubers doing that but you can't tell someone an opinion uh is right or wrong without giving them the tools and the knowledge to understand because our education system my opinion failed a lot of us to even understand why why people earn pensions like i knew you just sort of told you get a pension if you go and travel around like developing nations and you see 70 plus year old women on the street begging you now know why pensions need to exist but because in britain we take so much of the welfare state of structures of governance as just a given they when when like an elon musk when a farage comes in and talks about cutting the state cutting all this you go yeah because it will save money but you don't understand what the society looks like on the other side when you don't have these protections so we have to do everything in our power to give people not just tell people this is right this is wrong I'm not saying that's what people are doing but like we have to also put shit loads of effort into education and getting these ideas complex ideas out there to people in different mediums different ways that are digestible to different audiences so that we can give them the tools to understand these things rather than being like look this is what it is and this is what it isn't yeah some people like you sometimes time to see this opinion i can understand why they say it but they'll be like um maybe this is just a twitter thing but they'll say like you could just google it like i'm or you can pay me for my googling or something like that and it's like no you unfortunately you have to do the effort like you have to do the effort so we have to if we're gonna have like principles we also need to back it up with information and trying to get that information out there it's equally just important to stand up for someone's rights and spread the information as to why those rights are necessary and needed because otherwise if people don't have that education understanding their brain we can lose those things and give it back.

45:38Yeah totally and you're a young person who is absolutely making that effort so I've really appreciated this conversation and everything you've done because I think just in this conversation too I'm learning and whether someone agrees with everything you say or disagrees with bits I think it was same as me I don't want people to agree with everything I want to have that discussion I really appreciate it. Yeah we're trying to work towards the same goal we're just trying to find how to get there and it's a big up big up what you're doing man you've given me a lot of hope lately which is nice because it's feeling rough at the moment and you've joined the Green Party as well right?

46:05Big time huge welcome I feel really excited that new people and new ideas are joining the Green Party I love it man you've got the energy that you have because I know people online you won't see how tiring it can be doing this stuff but the energy you've come into this and you don't seem nihilistic you seem hopeful that is a really good thing so thank you for that thank you

46:31We'll see you next time.

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