Should We Return To The EU? | Mike Galsworthy | Zack Polanski

0:00In my time as leader of the Green Party, so far I've spent a lot of time talking about inequality and I make no apology for that. We've got to lower people's bills. That does mean, though, there's less time to talk about other important questions. Our future in Europe, NATO, peace and security. And so that's one of the conversations I'm going to be having today with Chair of the European Movement and scientist Mike Goldsworthy.

0:25Hey, Zach. Chris Packham here. I just want to tell you about something really exciting. EcoTalk. It's a phone company that helps restore nature and it's brilliant. You can find out more about it at ecotalk.co.uk.

0:47Mike, there was a time a few years ago where the only conversation that was around was Brexit. And it's felt for the last couple of years. You don't hear politicians talking about it much. Have the catastrophic consequences just gone away? that was a nice tea up of course they haven't and the problem with brexit is not that it was a one off event that did some damage and now we can be all english and look at our shoes and say let's not talk about that again the point is that we have put ourselves in a very disadvantageous position in terms of the opportunities for our youth for our traveling artists for our scientists for our businesses, particularly small businesses, and for all of these sort of NGO and green and consumer-based initiatives that we want to do, we're just outside the team.

1:34And it's costing us in red tape, and it's costing us in lost opportunities. And it's also at a time when you've got America in a really dangerous place, and China is the other superpower, and you're thinking, what's the direction forward for humanity? And clearly, we sit within the pluralistic, citizen-based, green, collaborative environment of Europe. And so we should really be leaning into that. And even though a lot of our traditional political parties aren't talking about it, that sense hasn't gone away. You can feel it in the youth, you can feel it throughout the countries you can feel it whenever you bring the topic up and ask about it and people say overwhelmingly Brexit was a disaster but next year is going to be the 10th anniversary of that vote and I think it will be pretty clear at that time point that the legacy of Brexit was that was a disaster that was bad for us but the question then is right fine now what do we do about it.

2:39And so that's immediately the next question. What do we do about it, Mike? We build back, I mean, obviously. But here's the nice thing about building back. A lot of the problem with our initial development in Europe was that the BBC didn't cover what was going on at the European level. Our political parties weren't saying, let's have an MEP's question time, right? Or or something like that it wasn't being discussed and each of the bits of our integration because there was integration because we were working together as a team it wasn't being democratically signed off now as we go back in i want us to be picking up youth mobility do we all like youth mobility let's do polling on it okay we all like youth mobility we can agree that brick in place do we all like erasmus plus because we haven't talked before enough about the opportunities that it brings to working class people, people from struggling communities.

3:35You know, the middle class and upper class, they'll always take care of themselves. But do we all like Erasmus Plus as a package? Let's have a look at it. Yes. You know, green collaborations. Do we like that as a package? Single market with its consumer protections. Yes, I think we all like that. So you can actually build back with Europe in a much more robust way than we were ever in Europe because each part of the build can be deliberate on our part and sort of item by item and we we're also doing it from seeing the contrast of being in being out with being back into programs again and I think that's actually a good and healthy thing yeah that's really interesting and more difficult conversations so cards on the table I worked for Erasmus before as a politician I used to do community theater so I didn't know that yeah I aligned with everything you just said and it was an incredible experience to work with young people from all over europe often from working class communities and marginalized communities who would come to london or manchester i'd run training programs with young people from all over europe and they would go back yeah to their cities or towns and you'd see them doing amazing work with theater so for me they're kind of and they'd go back with love for our country and um networks with our country and also like the soft power and the quality of life that's imbued with that is fantastic as well.

4:56Agreed entirely and I've got a book coming. So during the Brexit referendum I was very pro-Remain. I would still be pro-Remain now. In fact I definitely need to put that card on the table. I would rejoin Europe as soon as possible. I think it's been a disaster. And all that being said I am more sympathetic than I was to a left-wing argument for leaving Europe and that's because I look at Europe now rather than 10 years ago and I'm seeing right-wing governments. I'm seeing the rise of neoliberalism more seriously the rise of fascism across the whole of Europe. And you could argue, and this is a more nuanced argument, that was already there.

5:28But I still think the cards were so clearly in favor of let's stay in in Europe and reform. I don't regret campaigning for that. I can also see the argument now that if countries have been taken over by fascism, you don't go, you're on your own. We're going to have our little isolationist island over here. But I guess it's a very open question is what would your answer be to someone who is on the left or a socialist who goes, I want to see a socialist Europe. And it feels like at the moment, European Union, a lot of those countries are very far away from that. Yeah. How do you get a socialist Europe if you're not in it?

5:59Right? I mean, it's that straightforward. The problem with the problems with right wing surge and far right surge are absolutely everywhere. And one of the best ways to deal with it is a robust pluralistic system with proportional representation with checks and balances being built in not just nationally but also internationally and that's what you're getting in Europe so yeah you've got this problem everywhere but compare Europe to America right now right it's it's really that simple take for example the the power of the big tech bros and all of those oligarchs they run the show in America whereas in Europe via the EU they're still being fined regularly when when they reach too far and they reach out now if the eu didn't exist and it was just different european countries they would be picked off easily one by one this person and you know this leader in this country would be bribed effortlessly this one here because you're not working as a team cross-checking each other and you don't have that big institution together that's all about we have a program across all of our countries about citizen empowerment consumer protections and things like that.

7:11So, yeah, it's absolutely everywhere. And you can actually see the American tech bros, as well as the government, sticking their fingers right into supporting AFD in Germany or Tommy Robinson out on our streets here, you know, criticising all of the different governments that are against it and trying to make their systems dominate on our patch. And it's only by hanging together that we actually have the collective power to see that off. Otherwise, all of the trade deals and all the leverage from the states would absolutely mean that Europe would be picked off one by one. So the framework is right.

7:54And the collective drive of citizens to be empowered, healthy, have agency and have balance that rejects all of these hateful, divisive notions is, you know, is what we've all got to work on together. But if there's any structure, I'd most likely to take that battle within. It's the European-like structure. You can even see in the parliament, they're always saying right-wing surge, right-wing surge, but they're not counting the left-wing surges in the Scandinavian countries, for example. That means that it bounces out to still be centre-right, right? And the ability of, for example, the European Union to hold Poland from not completely going off too far right, long enough that Donald Tusk then comes back in and stabilizes things.

8:45And you've got a similar problem with Hungary as well. Just imagine what would happen if there weren't shared collaborative frameworks there. I feel very passionately that one of the greatest barriers against takeover is just the collective checks and balances of working together as a team. No, it's a brilliant frame. And I'm glad that you've very diplomatically challenged something I've said, which I want to correct. So the media in this country often talks about young men voting for reform or being interested in reform, but they don't talk about more young women who are thinking about the Green Party.

9:17And it's not that I'm complacent about young men thinking about reform, but it's just the whole narrative is always young men served to reform, not young women to Greens. And I think it's the same in Europe. The whole narrative is the right are taking over Europe. And we very rarely hear about left wing success in Europe and socialist success in Europe, which undoubtedly is happening in various countries. but it's just we hear it a lot less. And again, that's not about complacency of the march of the far right in Europe. That's also really serious. Yes. But we shouldn't allow narratives to kind of dictate what the next narrative is as opposed to going, actually, let's look at what's actually happening.

9:49Yeah, totally. And I think it all comes from, well, who's pushing these narratives? And it tends to be the old guard that owned the big institutionalized media with the older generations having a slight more penchant for the right-wing end of things. And so they dominate the conversation and they push this into things like our national broadcaster. And so we do actually have to think about how do we ensure that the voices, particularly of the younger generations, can get into that mix more? Because at the moment, it doesn't feel like it is. And can I ask where you stand on the issue of security and defence?

10:30because obviously we've got Donald Trump who I would argue likes for a fact we're out of Europe because it kind of isolates us a little bit and he doesn't like the idea of a united Europe because it's a challenge to his power but then there will be people who are also skeptical about the idea of a united Europe getting to an arms race with with America or other NATO countries yeah I mean again because you've got a team spirit to Europe with all the checks and balances it's not as though like the EU as a whole is going to go invading countries right it just doesn't work like that whereas Donald Trump is clearly a risk you know you've seen him with Greenland you've seen him with the Panama Canal you see his we're just going to own the Gaza Strip attitudes it's absolutely bizarre and I think that if you look at who in the world is the a more trusted full work of defense, I think a lot of people would hope that it would be Europe because it is a team, because it's so pluralistic and because it's got so many connections to other places in the world through culture.

11:39You just think that China is clearly a risk. America is now clearly a risk. And Europe has been asleep for far too long under the security blanket of America. But now that that's gone, and you've got the absolute nutcase of Putin, who just wanted to completely decapitate Ukraine, take it all, take all the children and bring them into Russia and destroy a culture. If Europe can get itself together to fight that off, then I think that's a major achievement and I'm all for Europe being stronger because I trust it to be stronger and I trust it to have a sense of guardianship over important security matters and I would like to see Europe be a lot stronger like that because I don't trust the states I don't trust how it has operated over the last half a century.

12:47I mean, it's been terrible how oppressive it has been in so many countries and taken down so many democratic governments from inside as well. So I'm all for Europe stepping up to the plate, defending itself against Ukraine. And then I also I think, on the issue of Palestine and Gaza. I've been frustrated with how slow Europe has been moving, but at least within Europe you can see movements from Spain and Ireland and Slovenia and then France and now at the commission level as well. It's like getting up slowly in the morning and waking up slowly, but you can see that that's not going to happen in America in a hurry.

13:35You know, America is a real danger. So I think that for me, the empowerment of Europe is very necessary. I really appreciate the nuance you bring to that. And it's interesting to hear this issue of trust because I've not heard it framed like that before. You know, ultimately, who do you trust and do you trust Europe? And I think maybe to answer my own question at the beginning, I think some of what's been lost recently is the trust in European countries to be able to do good as a bloc. And I just wonder if that's the narrative, not just the narrative actually, but the solid work that needs to be done to rebuild trust in the idea of something together.

14:12I think Europe really needs to step up to the plate on a lot of those fronts. I think it's showing that it can do on Ukraine. I think it's slow, but starting to show that it can do on Israel-Gaza. That is not going away in a hurry because Netanyahu is a complete and utter psychopath. And when people like that are trapped, they just go all out. But then I think in terms of Europe's reputation in the world, people understand that it will uphold all those international institutions and be there for the UN, for the ICJ, for the ICC. you know, it's already been honoring those. I think what Europe needs to do in terms of trade is make sure that it splits from the classic understanding of America and Europe being exploitative with regard to other countries around the world.

15:05I think Europe needs to show that But it's about working with the rest of the world and has completely dropped any kind of colonial mindset and rather wants a future of shared teamwork and responsibility. Brilliantly put. I'm going to ask you some more questions in a moment, Mike. But first, we're going to take a break.

15:32Hello Zach, Chris Packham here. I hear you're being politically bold. Well we at EcoTalk are being equally bold. It's the best service going I've got to say. Best network coverage in the UK. Lots of different deals, lots of packages and if you get any trouble you don't speak to a bot. You speak to a real human. But you know the best thing? The best thing is that the profits are going into nature conservation for beavers and badgers and birds and butterflies and lots of other things which don't begin with bee so zach i'm telling you if you want to talk bold mate you better be doing it on eco talk and you can switch really easily at ecotalk.co.uk

16:18you mentioned the toby robinson marchers and then a few sentences later you mentioned citizen empowerment yes and it really struck me because i think citizen empowerment is a huge key to being able to tackle the rise of the far right and to tackle the rise of fascism so i'm wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about citizen empowerment and what what you mean by that right well this is why i set up the bylines network which is a set of now 10 citizen journalism publications around the uk and essentially it emerged out of when boris johnson came to power at the end of 2019, I had been working with and developing a whole load of pro-European groups around the UK.

16:59And a lot of these pro-European groups also overlapped with lots of other pro-democracy groups, pro-PR groups, things like that. And I thought, I don't want them to fall away as teams around the country, but just having Facebook pages and Twitter accounts isn't enough. I thought I know that when they've been trying to get stories into the local news it's been hard for them to do so but I also know that when our community shares news articles it's done really well like like I've I've wrote articles for Guardian or Independent and then I would share them with the community and then the people from the Guardian Independent go like oh wow you can get a lot of traffic on that and i was like yeah but i also noticed that when people wrote quality blogs they would be shared just as voraciously as from the standard mainstream media and on top of that i was aware that in the states the hollowing out of local journalism um contributed to politics becoming identity politics at the national level which is not about solving problems not about working together but rather just poisonous and so i i i went to peter dukes editor-in-chief of byline times and said do you think there's any chance that like what you do alternative news holding mainstream media to account covering stories at the mainstream that's doing really well online do you think that there's a case for doing that kind of thing but regionally and Peter Dukes, you know, classically, enthusiastically goes, Mike, that sounds great.

18:39Yeah, we just developed this white-label copy of Byline Times and we don't know what to do with it. And I was like, what's a white-label copy? And it's just like the same thing, but you can put in content, but it's the same format and everything. And I said, can we grab that and play around with that? And he said, yeah, where would you start? And I said Yorkshire because I know real pro-democracy person Louise Halton in Yorkshire. And also the Yorkshire pro-EU groups sort of work together as well. It feels very cohesive and their strong regional identity. And he said, yeah, go for it. So I went out from the office.

19:17I called Louise on the way to the tube station. She loved the idea. I called Peter back to say it was on. By the time I hit the tube, you know, we were ready to go with this plan. And just a few months later, we launched Yorkshire Bylines and then lots of other areas wanted to copy. We now have, you know, 400 ,000 reads a month across the different publications. And we work with universities to get their students writing. We work with minority and marginalized communities as well to get new voices through, which is all very different from the mainstream media, because this is people engaging directly about local issues and national issues and international issues.

19:59It's more authentic, it's more homegrown, it feels more wholesome, and it also means that you can be promoting all of these community-based initiatives that are actually really productive. So the media we do is not clickbait and for-profit, it's you know by people who are just doing a job it is from people who care about these issues and they have first-hand experience or expertise on them and it's about getting as many people as possible owning the means to have their own platform and have their own engagement and so it's a really beautiful thing it's it's it's predominantly volunteer powered um and it's really breathing a sort of new life into citizen journalism because we take these people and we we give them editorial passes on on their content and then it's all in press regulated so it's all like professional journalism but it's empowering everyone to do it i love this and i also want to shout out the enthusiasm of louise i've never known anyone love a project so much and to link these conversations i feel like in some ways we were patient zero with this with brexit we saw with Cambridge Analytica, the pumping of the bus with, I can't remember how much money it was for the NHS.

21:21$350 million a week that could go to the NHS. But also we played right into Boris Johnson's game because everyone, I mean, how could you not counter that number? But we kept saying the number, right? I say we, I mean very broadly, people who are pro-European who wanted to remain. How do we deal in a world of misinformation with challenging narratives without amplifying their narratives and also without kind of delving into, or to put it another way we have this with this podcast yeah we're always looking for a catchy headline because otherwise we know people won't click but also in that catchy headline there's a real balance to make sure that what you're saying is a true yeah and b isn't inflaming kind of the narratives of your opposition or negative narratives yeah and Farage is an absolute master at this trying to make people work within his frame yes um and I feel that there's a real problem in this country at the moment of everyone rushing in to talk about reform everyone taking the bait um and so even if you've got eloquent put downs of what he's saying it is just like brexit he's set that fire you know you're all busy putting it out and then he's gone and set another fire and you're and everyone's talking about farage and reform what you really need is kind of like, okay, you've negated reform or you're trying to negate reform, but then people are thinking, but then what?

22:44What else? You know, if it's not Farage's vision, then what? And because no one has spent time building up their own alternative visions, there's nothing else to point to or talk about. So one of the things that we really, really badly need to do is ensure that we build the vision about what we want Britain, Europe and the world to look like. And we bang on about that. We have our conversations about that. La, la, la to the other stuff. And then we then start saying, BBC, why aren't you covering this? You know, Guardian, why aren't you covering this more? Independent, why aren't you covering this more?

23:24We aggressively demand that people come to our patch because we do have ideas that haven't been tested and worked through. You know, it's not peddling the same immigration narratives again and again and again. It's whole different structures of how this could be handled, what this should look like. And the more that you set out your own stall and dedicate it to setting out that stall, you're not only doing a power of good and clarifying in your own mind what I would like human life to be like for myself, my kids and my grandkids and this country and my fellow citizens, which is a good in itself.

24:02you'd find that you're setting up the alternative model and so you can then say no not that this media why are you talking about that and not this you have to have the this i agree entirely in fact i was on newscast the other day and they accused me of avoiding they didn't accuse me but they gently accused me of avoiding scrutiny by saying up this podcast they said are you as a leader of a political party just trying to do your own news now and i said to them anytime you want to ask me a question, I cannot be criticised for not being happy to speak to a microphone. Like, put a microphone in my face and I will answer any question.

24:35But also, I want a space where we can set the agenda and actually say these are the things we want to talk about, these are the people we want to platform, rather than responding all the time. The problem I can see though is if you're not a leader of a political party, or if you don't have power, agency or money, the deep inequality in our society and the structural inequality mean how do we make sure that the people creating the vision aren't the people who already have access to the material to be able to produce their own stories. Yeah, that's a really good point. And that's why Bylines Network, right?

25:05It's citizen journalism. So if there's anyone out there thinking there is a topic about local issues or national issues that I am not seeing covered, but I have particular experience or knowledge about this, you know, from life stories through to having done research on it, just get in touch with one of the editors in chief and say, I want to write about this. and then you can write another article then another article and then when people search up your name on google they will find the set of articles that you've written you have an author page on that particular publication and essentially we are investing in you um with our time and effort and money and structures in order to facilitate more people coming through that is dead important that's really fundamental because otherwise it is like you say the people who have the luxury of money and power are the ones that get the say and everyone else just has to watch but but the representation inherent in that is is vanishingly small think about all the communities that don't have a voice almost whatsoever in the media right you know they're talked to one you know once in a while by some middle class white person with a microphone about a topic or an issue, but where are the community voices that can talk to each other?

26:27I mean, if we want to go forward as a multifaceted nation that feels that there's balance and community, we absolutely need to think about what are the mechanisms that really get under the skin of everywhere and give everyone proper agency and empowerment. I love it. And it might be a bit like saying, who's your favourite child? but is there an article over the past few years where you think if someone was going to come across the Byline Network for the first time I'd really want them to see this piece of work? One of the things that we did that I really loved is when we did a gazette on the...

27:03Essentially when the freeports were being pushed heavily by the last government and getting set up we, lots of the different spy lines publications identified issues with what that would actually mean for their local environment and they wrote those up And then we collected those into a gazette, which basically mapped it all around the country and went deeper into the issues. So it was both local and national. It was all collected together. And I think your Natalie Bennett, for example, talked about it in the House of Lords as well as kind of like, why isn't the media doing this? But local investigators through the bylines network around the country are covering it and collating it, you know, and here it is.

27:46that's brilliant because freeports is such an outrageous issue yeah but it's also so sprawling that it's almost exactly what you're saying about the right when they throw so much at you you kind of become overwhelmed yeah i think freeports from my experience like can overwhelm the public because it's kind of scandal after scandal after scandal that people start to go this is just too complicated i'm not going to get involved so here's here's a thing which is um when there's a case of flood the zone right whether it's above the radar or under the radar just a lot is going on and then people don't know where to pick it up or what to do with it, the best answer to that is map the flood.

28:22You know, if you can identify the issue and you can do a meta picture of it, then when the new incidences of it come along, you can say that belongs to this pattern and here's the authoritative account of it. And in fact, Christine Pagel, who's a UK scientist, is actually doing that with all of Trump's actions in the States. she's got a trump tracker which talks about all of his breaches of power again you know it's the steve bannon flood the zone on on on human rights on citizens rights on um taking out the courts on uh going against the constitution so many things how do you keep up she's actually collating all the examples mapping them and turning them into graphs and that means all of the crap that comes in can get dealt with in a structured way.

29:14And so I think that, and again, this isn't a mainstream media thing. This is someone who's an expert with data analysis seeing the opportunity, and then it needs support from all of us and exposure and funding and things like that. But think of the good that can be done when you can really empower people who are in the right place at the right time to get things to where the media should be. I love it. And final question. I've got a scientist on them. We've not talked about science. Is there anything you think the audience should know around science and Europe at the moment? Yes. Europe is doing science right.

29:59Like really, really right. And I think people hadn't understood with Europe because it hadn't been covered enough in the media, the fact that the Horizon programme is the world science programme just hosted by Europe. And everything is about mobility and multinational collaboration. And when you've got 27 countries plus then other associated countries, so taking well over 30 to about 35, all contributing to a common pot, which can then tackle all of the major scientific issues. Like usually in a country with national funding, there will be gaps. You can be an expert in X, but there isn't national funding for X.

30:46But when you've got such a big pot that's competed for, you can have the mega projects to the small projects and those have more impact as well and circulate ideas better and really underpin what modern science is about, which is humanity investing in discoveries for humanity. It's all shared and open. And I think that as Donald Trump brings down America so badly, also attacking science and also attacking universities, there is a real chance in Europe for a real second bright renaissance because if you can marry all the brain drain coming into Europe and the projects that Europe is salvaging from the States with the kind of citizen empowerment that Europe is increasingly thinking about, I just want science to be bound with people's everyday lives.

31:49I want postgrads to be able to work with local councils and local small businesses so the data analysis flows between them. I think if you can generate all of that, then there's a lot of really exciting pro-humanity stuff that can come out of the whole spirit of Europe. Sounds like a very positive place to end on. Thank you so much. Thanks, Zach. Cheers.

32:19Hey, Zach. It's Chris Packham again. Jane, I'm ringing to ask if you've switched to EcoTalk yet. Come on, come on, come on. The beavers are waiting for you and you can go and have a look at them at ecotalk.co.uk.