Elon Musk tells the UK to "fight or die"

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1:02This is a Global Player original podcast. Elon, none of this could have happened without you giving the British public access to the truth and giving us free speech and fighting for our free speech. So on behalf of Great Britain and the British public, we're incredibly grateful, Elon. You're most welcome. Those were the two voices who have emerged unbelievably, incredibly perhaps, as the voices of the British political right. Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson having organised a 100 ,000 strong rally in central London at the weekend. Tommy Robinson thanking Elon Musk for his support. Just how much US billionaire money is pouring into Britain's far right now?

1:51And why is it taking mainstream politicians, the government, so long to call this stuff out? Welcome to The News Agents.

2:04The News Agents. It's Emily. It's Lewis. And we're going to begin with that march on Saturday night. Not just the march itself, the Tommy Robinson organised one which drew about 100, 110 ,000 people onto the streets of Westminster, London, but also the response to it, both from Elon Musk at the time in the US and from our politicians subsequently. And we're going to start by bringing in Andy Hughes, who's the LBC's crime correspondent, co-host of The Crime Agents. Andy you were there and I think we're just keen to get a flavour of how it felt being in the middle of it all well the first thing that comes to mind is the numbers it was it was massive there was a huge snake of people that made their way from Waterloo all the way around across Westminster Bridge and then on to Whitehall and when that protest reached its destination the numbers kept coming and people started being hemmed in just underneath Big Ben and that's when really the mood started to turn.

3:12It started off peacefully enough. The majority is I would say white working class people. There was small numbers of ethnic minorities there as well but there was also the usual suspects who you would normally find at a Tommy Robinson march, the troublemakers. Here's what I found. I'm here today just to stand up and say we've had enough. We've had enough of what's going on in this country. What have you had enough of? Just the way it's been run down. We're just having too many people coming in. It's just getting ridiculous and things have to stop. What do you think about the way Keir Starmer has been engaging with Trump?

3:52Do you think they're on the same page? No, Keir Starmer's a wanker. Nigel Farage, when it comes to free speech, he's saying that this country is becoming more like North Korea. Do you agree with that? You do? Have you ever been to North Korea? No. But I know that there's more political prisoners in prison in this country than in Russia in the last two years. I'm not certain about that. But North Korea, I mean, you wouldn't be able to do this in North Korea. Okay, fair enough. Have a good day, sir. But there's still problems. Have a good day. Thanks for taking us. My grandad fought in World War II.

4:29I want this country to stay the exact same, you know, not to be racist, but dominantly white people. It's our country at the end of the day. All of a sudden you have 20, 30 Syrian men in your area growing up, groping your little girl, your little daughters. It's not on. It's not on. A couple of my friends wasn't going to come today, and after we heard the news on Wednesday, Terry being one of them has said he's coming for Charlie Kirk oh he's coming for Charlie Kirk yeah he's come for Charlie Kirk Terry what have you come for freedom of speech yeah I wasn't going to come but then everything that happened in the week I thought I had to really because it just compounds everything well why someone who's talking his mind and saying not bad things just saying stuff and he gets shot in the fucking neck did you know who he was did I know yeah I've been following him for a couple of years yeah yeah I've watched him from turning point up until when he was friends with the president when he'd become president the first time and for all of that.

5:23So yeah, I was really gutted. Do you know that 71 % more likely a non-British national is to do a sexual assault than a British national? Well, the thing is, a lot of white people, of course, the vast majority of sex offenders are white people. Yeah, of course, but it's only, I should say, one in four non-British national. But when you look at the percentage of the population of non-British nationals, which is only meant to be about 8 point something percent, when you look at it that way, it's 71 % more likely because their population is supposed to be smaller. He got shot because he spoke facts and the left didn't like that.

5:59And you know what it is? He gave them the opportunity on an open mic to talk to them, to oppose what he thinks, and they shot him in the neck. They shot him in the neck for what? Just because you don't like what he's saying? Nah, nah, no way. Britain stands with Charlie and Britain stands with America. We're being censored. No one's wanting to talk. They're getting locked up. That's the be all and end of it. Do you agree with everything he said or do you just agree with his... I agree with his morals. I agree with his morals. I agree with who he is. He's a top, top, top bloke. God rest his soul and rest in peace.

6:37I cannot believe it in front of his wife and kids. Andy, I mean, that was really, really interesting. Obviously, partly because a lot of them, particularly in the way they talk about free speech and the way they feel that free speech is being weaponized against them, often on behalf of ethnic minorities, people from other cultures, this idea again and again of there being sort of one set of rules for them, another set of rules for someone. What I'm trying to kind of work out is whether these are people who kind of always believe this kind of thing or whether that they are genuinely the sort of people who maybe even, you know, a year ago, two years ago, maybe even six months ago, wouldn't have come to something like this, i.e.

7:15that there is a sense that they are being drawn in to these ideas that are being propagated by Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk and others. What's your sense of it? Well, my feeling when I spoke to the people was one of, there's a difference between free speech and actually just saying something which is completely untrue. Like a lot of those people were talking about there. It was actually a load of nonsense. You know, this country's like North Korea. Something Farage has said. Yeah, exactly. You are 70 odd percent more likely to commit a sexual offence if you're Asian. I mean, this is just absolute nonsense.

7:54Yet these people on the face of it come across as normal, yet they repeat the rhetoric of the far right. And I think that's the complex issue here is that normal people are now repeating this rhetoric. This is where we're at now. I mean, you've been to tons of these things. I've been to loads of these things as well. Do you think that that was the group of people there were or at least there was a reasonable cohort of people there who were different? I.e. who wouldn't have been at this sort of thing, I don't know, two years ago, 12 months ago. Absolutely. Back in its heyday, the EDL used to get max 10 ,000 people at their rallies.

8:31We've just seen a rally which they're now saying it could be up to 150 ,000. so organized by Tommy Robinson who not so long ago probably like within a year ago felt beyond the pale well he's just been released from prison this is a man who many people think is a violent racist thug yet he's inspired a protest of up to 150 000 which is the entire population of some of our biggest towns like Ipswich and Cambridge and Blackpool so we've heard conflicting reports about the level of violence there now we should say we know how these things work the majority of peaceful and sort of good intentioned you know on their march and then there is a small number that start getting violent did you see any of of that or would you say broadly it did go peacefully well broadly it did go peacefully but there was real serious pockets of violence i was there when people were being hemmed in near portcullis house and a group i would say of about a hundred people just burst through that line they were attacking the police with bottles one glass bottle just fell right near my feet and nearly hit me because i was right near where the police officers were and then they were ironically throwing flags at the at the police um one officer lost all their front teeth one officer got concussion 26 officers in total were injured some of them very serious 25 arrests were made on the day that's nothing there will be many many more arrests because on days like this the last thing the police want actually is to arrest someone because that takes resources away from them that also heightens the tension andy thanks we should tell everyone that you have got a special episode of the crime agents coming out which looks at the march and then yeah yeah we've got plenty more we were there for the whole day so there's going to be a lot more detail about actually what happened lucky you i know right you go to these things now so we don't have to yeah well there you go

10:34Look, I think we have to recognise, exactly as Andy was saying, that it was a really big march. There have obviously been much bigger marches in the past, but it was, as Andy was saying, I think it was a big moment for British politics that over 100 ,000 people, maybe 150 ,000 people, could be inspired to turn out to a rally which had been instigated by, organised by Tommy Robinson, a figure who I think until very very recently was beyond the pale of British politics considered by many of this is a guy who was a member of the BMP the founder of the English Defence League someone who's been imprisoned multiple times someone who by common consensus again until recently was considered a far-right agitator a dangerous figure in British politics and yet here we have all of these people being inspired by at least some of them at least to turn out for him and for his cause and on top of that and this is where I think it feels really dangerous and echoes themes that we have been talking about all year since Elon Musk started to seriously get involved in British politics he is being supported by buttress by amplified by the most powerful the richest and one of the most powerful men in the world the man Elon Musk who controls perhaps the most important news platform in the world and in it we saw this weekend Elon Musk not just turning up for that not just giving his support to tommy robinson and his cause but quite literally encouraging the british people to have a revolution a violent revolution suggesting that violence is coming for you and therefore you need to fight back by any stretch of the imagination it seems to me this was incitement or a form of incitement to violence that we were hearing from the one the world's most powerful men you will have no choice this is a this is you're in a fundamental situation here where whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you.

12:30You either fight back or you die. You either fight back or you die. Utterly despicable words from Elon Musk there on a split screen with Tommy Robinson and the crowd cheering in the background. And I think it raises a really important point because we've talked and we often talk about the Overton window on the show. In other words, whether people's views have shifted, whether society has shifted towards the acceptable from the unacceptable in fairly recent history. The Overton window does not move on its own. It moves with enormous money and influence. It moves with often US billionaire investment.

13:13There's some very good work done from The Observer this last weekend by John Simpson, who talks about the US tech billionaire Robert Shillman and his ties to Tommy Robinson. He also has ties, it sounds like, to Katie Hopkins, Laura Loomer. He is investing, he's creating fellowships to amplify these people's words. And I think it's really important to understand, to Andy's point, that when people are parroting these words, it's because the words have got louder and they've got more frequent and they often come accompanied by AI digitally enhanced pictures that are completely false. There are pictures circulating now which will show a white woman crying surrounded by Muslim men.

13:54That image does not exist in real life. It has been created. Many of this stuff has been created. It has been fostered and pushed and backed by billionaire US financiers. So if you're wondering whether the Overton window has shifted, that's why people are coming to this because it has become much harder to escape. It is everywhere. It is amplified. It is louder and noisier and more prolific because it is being backed with billionaire money. I think, I mean, the Overton window isn't just moving, it's galloping and it's galloping. You're absolutely spot on in everything you say. And I should just say, just to go back as well, in the wake of Charlie Kirk's appalling murder, we heard a lot of rhetoric from lots of right wing figures from America and the UK as well.

14:37some of them hard right, some of them far right, suggesting that somehow political violence or politically violent rhetoric is somehow the preserve of the left. What we saw 36 hours later, 36 hours later, is Elon Musk turning up at that rally and saying that there should be a revolution in Britain and saying to the crowd that you either fight back or violence is coming to you. So this idea that political invective, as we were talking about on Thursday, is confined to the left. Complete bollocks, proven once again by their most powerful talismanic figure, Elon Musk. But on the point about the Overton window, you're completely right about the money.

15:13Something else is happening, though. And this is actually something which is not the fault of the hard right or the far right. It's the fault of the progressive left. It's the fault of the centre. It's the fault of the centre right, who a shiver should be going down the spine of every decent centre right politician out there. that suddenly the people coming to define the right in this country are Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk. They need to fight back. There needs to be one of the reasons people are talking in this way, one of the reasons that, as Andy was saying, all of these tropes, usually based in misinformation, are starting to be regurgitated.

15:43The reason these ideas are becoming more ubiquitous. In a way, you can't blame the hard right or the far right. They have an agenda and they're prosecuting it day in, day out. They're going out there, sending their message day in, day out, often in a despicable, appalling way, but nonetheless, that's what they're doing. Where's the fight back? who's arguing against them? Because the Overton window moves when there are no ideas to fight the ideas which are moving the window. And I think the best example that we saw of that was this weekend, where this weekend, despite the fact, despite the fact we'd heard Elon Musk at that rally saying, fight back or you die, despite the fact that Elon Musk at that rally had said violence is coming, despite the fact that someone was filmed calling for Keir Starmer to be assassinated, despite the fact there were a whole multitude of religious provocations, despite the fact that Tommy Robinson is a figure who, as I say, was a member of the BMP and the founder of the EDL, despite all of that.

16:32What was the government's response at the weekend? Well, when Peter Kyle was on my LBC show on Sunday and I asked him point blank whether he thought that what Elon Musk had said was incitement to violence or was dangerous, he said it was just too silly that he didn't want to even think about it, that he didn't even want to talk about it. He said that people were turning up at this rally and what it actually showed was that the right to protest was alive and well in Britain. Would you describe the Tommy Robinson rally demonstration, whatever you want to call it, protest? Was it a far right one?

17:01Not overall. I would say that people go on these marches for lots of different reasons. And I didn't watch all of the rally. I wasn't at the rally. But it's very clear that there are people there with lots of different motivations and reasons for being there. So I don't want to tie them all with the same brush. But there were clearly some people there who were perpetrating far-right extreme ideology, but also violence against police. In a small number of people, those people, we will find them, and they will be brought to justice. But I'm not going to tar the whole march with the same brush. Were you surprised by the size of it?

17:34What does it say? What does it say about our country right now and the state of our politics right now? That easily between 100 and 150 ,000 people, whatever number you want to use, a lot of people decided to attend a rally being organised by Tommy Robinson. Well, the first thing it said to me was that freedom of association and free speech is alive and well in our country. And that was a living, breathing example of it. They were free to make their protests. And of course, we as a government listened to a range of voices. And of course, some of those people were there raising very legitimate issues for which this government feels the urgency when it comes to things like small boats and migration and asylum and some of the other areas that they were they were raising i'm sorry what what by any stretch of the imagination robinson has always been considered is a dangerous figure with deeply repulsive ideas deeply racist ideas and we have a government which actually goes out at the weekend on sunday and goes well you know these people the people who turned up that's fine i'm sorry i mean I don't want to be judgmental about anybody who turned up to that rally.

18:40I do understand. At the end of the day, there are so many problems with this country. People feel desperate. And right now, to be honest, it's the hard right and far right who are basically coming up with an explanation and analysis as to why the country is in a state. That's on the left and on the centre and on the centre right. That fact that they haven't put up any other ideas is appalling. But at the end of the day, we know who Tommy Robinson is. And I think if you're turning up to a Tommy Robinson rally, that's problematic. If you're marching with Tommy Robinson, you are marching with Tommy Robinson.

19:08I don't think it's more complicated than that. And there was a world, there was a time in which a Labour government would have really had things to say about that, would have really been clear in its response. I mean, we both remember when Nick Griffin, who was of the BNP, which is not a million steps away from Tommy Robinson, appeared on Question Time and the entire panel and most of the audience were out to correct him, to stand up to him or even to boo him. I mean, they allowed him the freedom of speech to appear on the panel and then they told him what they thought of him. They don't do that anymore.

19:41I have to say, though, I think some of the really interesting work on this goes back to exactly what you were saying about where the government or where the left start trying to find the fight back. And Sam Friedman, the commentator, has got a very good substack today, which compares what people say they think is the problem nationally with what they feel is the problem locally to them. and the disparity is extraordinary. So if you look at something like immigration, 32 % think that Britain is in a bad place with immigration. But if you ask them locally, is that a problem for you? They say 4%.

20:19In other words, that gap is absolutely massive. You think in your local area, it doesn't really matter, but you've heard it's a big problem for Britain. You've heard, in other words, Tommy Robinson and his ilk, repeat it, repeat it, repeat it. You've seen the big money come in. You've seen people try and influence you. You've seen the images telling you that Muslim men are surrounding, you know, young British women and making them cry. That is where the disparity comes from. And his theory is, if you look at actually what people say is important to them, it is hyper local stuff. It is inflation as ever.

20:53It is prices. It is the economy. It is the NHS. And so actually, if you were operating, it's even it's petty crime. So if you go back to what any government in power should be doing, it's making people feel that their own areas, their own localities are getting better, that their prices are not getting higher, that their NHS services are getting better, that their facilities in their neighbourhoods are getting better. If you do that for people, then they don't start parroting, oh, my God, it's all about immigration, even though immigration is something that they see as somewhere else belonging to Britain, not to them.

21:28I agree with all that. I've long said now that I think that the government is going to have to do something more radical on small boats, partly because it has been so effectively weaponised at this point by hard right, far right forces. I think unless it has become cancerous and it is no doubt at all, I think that that part of what we saw at the weekend has basically been driven by years and years worth of coverage on this now. I think GB News has been enormously influential in the spreading of those sort of ideas. And I think the government is going to, for legitimate reasons as well, have to do something more radical than it perhaps had been willing to do.

21:59Before we discussed last week how Shabana Mahmood is clearly part of that strategy. But I just go back to this again, which is that as we've been sat here this afternoon, the PM spokesperson in the Downing Street lobby briefing finally actually does what they should have done yesterday, which is condemn what Elon Musk said unequivocally. The PM spokesperson says, the UK is a fair, tolerant and decent country. The last thing the British people want is this sort of dangerous inflammatory language which threatens violence and intimidation on our streets. I don't think the British public will have any truck with that kind of language.

22:28Why on earth couldn't they have said that on Sunday? It was so self-evident. And the reason I think, Emily, that they don't want to is it sums up exactly this Downing Street's problem and this government's strategic problem all over. Day after day after day, they find themselves in the crouch position. They're so terrified of their own shadow. They're so terrified that they will be portrayed in the media or wherever as being somehow elitist or out of touch. I'm sorry, I'm sorry right, if you are not willing. They are out of touch actually they're out of touch with what most genuine British people feel and genuine British people value in their country.

23:02They should be out of touch with Tommy Robinson. I don't want them aligned with Tommy Robinson. I don't want them, they shouldn't and we all know that they're not right. So unless they're willing, if we're in a position genuinely where where the government, a sort of centre-left, progressive government, centrist government, is not willing to take the fight to Elon Musk, who is calling, literally calling for incitement to violence to overthrow them at a Tommy Robinson rally. Then frankly, lads, we might as well all pack up and go home because basically what you've done and what they're doing, and I say the centre, the liberal left, the centre-right, all really needs to get its act together and start to seriously think about how we're getting ourselves into a position where Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk are being allowed to somehow project themselves and become the embodiment of the voice of the people of this country because they are not and they will never be unless decent political forces get out of the crouch position and actually take the fight to them you know who has taken on Elon Musk this weekend is one Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, who wrote a letter saying where are you all, quite frankly why aren't you standing up to Elon Musk Elon Musk responded to Ed Davey probably a little woohoo in the Davey camp there and called him a craven coward.

24:18Ed Davey then responded directly to Elon Musk with an emoji of, drumroll SpongeBob repeating his words in upper and lower random caps, sort of hostage style, a craven coward. I mean, I'm imagining that SpongeBob's voice. It probably isn't. But anyway, Ed Davey has been sort of singularly unafraid at this point to take that bully on. And I guess the other person that leaves in this really odd position right now is Nigel Farage. Nigel Farage had a little press conference of his own today, of which more later. but he was asked about the Tommy Robinson rally. He refused to condemn either the speaker, the speakers or those in the crowd.

25:03And the weird thing about this, particularly the sort of dereliction of the Labour position, is it then makes Farage look like he's the centre ground. If you've got Tommy to your right and you've got Labour to your left, kind of not really doing anything at all, then Farage starts looking like he's mainstream. The moderate one. Yeah, he's the very calm, thoughtful, sensible one trying to keep everyone calm again, you know, keep the tempers down. And again, it doesn't really become clear why the government doesn't think this is something that warrants a response on the day. Indeed. And I mean, I think the only counterpoint to the Farage thing is that although you're right, it's kind of helpful, it moderates him in a way.

25:40It's also true to say that he has lots of he does have people within his party who are on the Tommy Robinson side of things and would like, you know, we saw it there at their conference. you know, spread this sort of cranks, you spread this misinformation and so on, and would actually like the idea of working more closely with some of those forces. So it's a sort of slight split in the reform camp. I mean, I just want to take back, because we were having that conversation before we came on, about that Question Time episode in 2009, because I think it is really instructive to consider how much the media culture and political culture of this country has changed.

26:08Obviously, it's a long time ago, it's 15 years ago, but nonetheless, you know, when that happened in 2009, and it happened after Nick Griffin and the BNP had won, got quite a decent percentage of the vote in the 2009 European parliamentary election. I mean, younger people listening and watching wouldn't remember. I was a student at the time. It was this big, big thing, you know, that Nick Griffin was going on question time. I mean, we should explain that. That's why the BBC gave him this platform because they figured that he had electorally, at least, justified his position in sort of British cultural life from that.

26:39Absolutely. And the panel at the time, they invited him on and they treated it. It was almost like seeing the cordon sanitaire, like this kind of, kind of almost like immunisation zone around him, right? It was like seeing them. You had Saeed Avasi, a conservative, put up for the Conservatives, a Muslim woman, kind of difficult to imagine that now. You had the then cabinet minister, I think he was justice secretary at the time, Jack Straw. You had a couple of others. And every single one of them treated him like he was radioactive. This is the man who actually said, when we're thinking of Churchill and fighting fascism, yes, Adolf went a bit too far.

27:13Now, which bit too far? Nick Griffin, did Adolf Hitler go? Mr Griffin is a thoroughly, thoroughly deceptive man who comes on here and tries to sell whatever message that he wants. He's no friend of Islam. He's here to demonise Islam, just as he demonises Christianity. Because, you know, there is nothing Muslim about the likes of Abu Hamza and others who actually preach extremism in the name of that faith. Mr Griffin here Preaches extremism In the name of Christianity And brings that faith Into disrepute as well And ensuring That race-based politics Has no place in our society Is fundamental To the decent British values Which are held by most people In this country It's unimaginable I think I actually don't think In talking about how Much closer we've got I don't think it would be Beyond the realms of possibility to imagine someone like Tommy Robinson now appearing on Question Time, even though he's got no elective or electoral base whatsoever.

28:18I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon, but I can imagine that's a conversation within the BBC that could be had in a way that would have, I think, been unimaginable, possibly even six months ago. And this is the thing, right? And so considering why the reaction was so different then to now is really instructive, because back then the BBC and the rest of the media not only was way less afraid of the hard right or far right, but also of course we still had that traditional gatekeeper role right it was easier to exclude them because they didn't have access to their own information system now they do now they have x which is probably the most influential news site in the world as a means of distributing information that's not just right wing or hard right but really far right that's the difference now and the truth is we both know that big news organizations including the bbc who are themselves terrified, just like the Labour government, of looking out of touch, are looking on X every day and seeing all the blue tick accounts with all of their particular news priorities flash up and taking their cues from them, traditionally like how they've done with the Daily Mail.