Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - Lauren Southern Banned from the UK

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March 13, 2018 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

41:39

Lauren Southern Banned from the UK

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	Hi everyone, I'm talking to Canadian journalist Lauren Southern who has recently refused entry to the UK on the grounds that she was some kind of extremist.
	It's been quite difficult to actually pass exactly what's happened, so luckily I've got Lauren to speak to.
	Hi Lauren, how are you doing?
	All things considered, pretty good.
	Great.
	So would you like to give us a rundown of what's happened to you?
	Sure.
	Should I start from the top or should I jump straight to the banning?
	Let's start.
	Just go from the top.
	Let's hear how this occurred.
	So I was planning to go to the UK to meet up with a couple of friends of mine and do an interview for Tommy Robinson's YouTube channel.
	But a few days before I went to go to the UK, I heard that my friends Brittany Pettibone and Martin Zellner had been banned from the country on grounds that they were basically right-wing and going to stir up, I guess, people could be violent against them or they were going to stir up some sort of right-wing extremism or hatred.
	So when I was heading into the UK, I was a little nervous.
	I went by bus through Calais.
	I figured maybe that would be the easiest way to get in considering all of the hundreds and hundreds of illegal migrants that come that way on the bottom of lorries and such.
	Well, I mean, it's probably not the most comfortable journey, but I think you could make it.
	Right.
	So we got our bus to the border, like right at that spot where they take you over to Dover over the water.
	And they were scanning our passports.
	We had all gotten off the bus and they scanned mine and the guy looked down, gave me a double take and asked me a couple more questions, then said he had to go phone someone and take more checks of my passport.
	And at this point, I was like, and so it begins.
	I assumed that a, I don't know, I figured it could maybe just be extra questioning because of who I am or because they're kind of cracking down on stuff.
	But I just crossed my T's and dotted my eyes and messaged Brittany Pettibone and said, hey, if I don't respond in 30 minutes because the bus was leaving in 30 minutes, then I've been detained.
	And just let people know that I've been detained.
	Don't exaggerate anything.
	I just want to make sure if they take my phone and such, people know where I am.
	So sure enough, they tell me to go get my luggage off the bus.
	They bring it in, search it all, and everyone's getting back on the bus.
	And I kind of look at them and I'm like, so I'm not going to make my bus, am I?
	They're like, no, you're not going to make your bus.
	They bring me to a detention center.
	I get in there.
	It's pretty shabby, a little gross, but they've got a nice Quran there and the Bible and instructions in Arabic all over.
	And I sat in there.
	Then they brought me in for questioning, asked me about a speech I did in Belgium recently, a few other things, then sent me back in.
	This seemed like all pretty normal stuff.
	I figured I was just going to have a Brittany and Martin happen to me until I got a knock on the detention center door.
	Someone comes in and they say, we're handing you over to the Kent police.
	I'm like, what does this mean?
	And a man comes up to me in his whole police officer uniform.
	Things are starting to look a little serious at this point and he hands me this piece of paper which I've doodled all over that says Schedule 7, Terrorism Act Of 2000, and I just kind of look at it and look up at him and he says, I have to let you know you are being now detained and taken in for questioning under the Schedule 7 terrorism act.
	Here's what you need to know.
	You have to give us all your things.
	You will not be able to go on your phone.
	You have one last last contact thing you can make.
	So I went and I quickly texted a journalist friend of mine and then they brought me in, took all of my stuff, demanded my phone code and brought me into a tiny room with a recording device on the table and began the Terrorism Act interrogation, which, by the way, for people who don't know, there is no such thing as you have the right to remain silent under Schedule 7.
	I do not have the right to remain silent under Schedule 7 and I do not have the right to legal advice within the first hour.
	And even after that, they can deny me legal advice and counsel.
	So it goes against you if you refuse to say anything.
	Oh, yeah, yeah, I could be tried.
	Like, I could be prosecuted or something.
	But yeah, I do not have the right to remain silent under Schedule 7 because the whole idea of Schedule 7 is they are trying to prevent a terrorist attack against the country.
	So at this point, I mean, of course, I'm still, I always have gallows humor, so I'm still kind of giggling to myself, but I've got this kind of, oh, shit, like sweat drop going down the side of my face thinking, I'm being, this isn't a Britney and Martin situation.
	This is not a Britney and Martin situation.
	They are bringing me in for terrorism questioning.
	What have I done with my life?
	And then, you know, it goes into your mind.
	What meme did I send?
	What joke or shitpost did I make?
	What did they see?
	And I'm like going through it because I'm not a terrorist.
	I'm sorry.
	UK police who think I am.
	You're wrong.
	I'm not a terrorist.
	I never wanted to kill anyone.
	Not in my intentions.
	So I'm trying to go through like shitposts in my head.
	And the terrible part was, too, is this tiny room they brought me into for questioning was so hot.
	They were bringing us glasses of water repeatedly that no matter what I said, I looked nervous.
	That's probably by design, I would say, to be honest.
	Maybe.
	I mean, it's cold here at the moment.
	So if the room's exceptionally hot, that's because they've turned the bloody heating up.
	It's not because of the outside temperature.
	But see, so I mean, this is, I've never spoken to someone who was detained under the Terrorism Offenses Act before.
	So I mean, what did they charge you with?
	And I just want to apologize to everyone.
	This is a bit of an impromptu meeting.
	I've actually got a really bad cold at the moment.
	So I'm sorry about that.
	And Lauren's streaming from an undisclosed location.
	And the reason that her quality is so bad is because of her connection difficulties.
	So I do apologize.
	But yeah, so what did they charge you with?
	What were they interrogating you about?
	This is the fascinating thing.
	I tried asking them that multiple times and they couldn't tell me anything.
	I hadn't been charged with anything at this point.
	They hadn't told me why I was being detained.
	And the fun part about this was I got to use all of the knowledge that I had from every single interrogation movie I had ever seen.
	And it actually worked.
	Really?
	I'm not kidding.
	It actually worked.
	So they wanted to see my phone and my laptop so bad.
	Like they were going crazy over it.
	They were like, if you don't show it, here's what they said to me.
	You have to give us your phone code under Schedule 7 Terrorism Act.
	And I said, nope, I'm not going to do it.
	Not happening, not giving you my phone code.
	Because I know I've made like edgy jokes.
	Like, hey, hey, boys, who's part of the right-wing debt squads, you know?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Like, shit posts.
	You know, I'm like, I'm not showing you my cell phone.
	I'm sorry.
	And they said, okay, so what's going to happen is either we can make this a happy and fun and fast investigation, or you can deny us your cell phone code.
	And what we're going to do is we're going to take your cell phone for a week.
	We're going to send it into our hackers.
	They're going to break into it and download all of its contents.
	And we're going to go through all of it for weeks and weeks and weeks and find out what you have on there.
	And on top of that, we're going to be able to put you away and take your blood and have to take pictures of you and put down your fingerprints.
	And it's going to be a miserable experience for you.
	Or you can just tell us the code now and we'll go through it in the other room.
	And I literally, I sat there for a second and I was like, I remember that case in America where they couldn't get into that guy's Apple phone and Apple refused them the information.
	I don't think they can actually hack into my phone.
	I think they're bullshitting right now.
	I agree.
	So I looked up and I said, basically, do it, fagot.
	Like, go ahead.
	I was like, go ahead, take my phone for seven days.
	It's fine.
	Put me away.
	Take my blood.
	I don't care.
	I want legal representation.
	And they were just like, you can tell it threw off their entire plan.
	Yeah.
	Like, it just threw it off entirely.
	So that is something I was very happy.
	They never got into my phone.
	Never.
	They never took it for seven days, any of that.
	That was.
	So it was all just hot air.
	Yes, absolutely.
	No, I really doubted they could break into my phone and all of that.
	But hey, interrogation movies.
	Cheers.
	Thanks for helping me out.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And then you need libertarian videos.
	Yeah, I mean, this is the thing.
	I mean, like, I would characterize your views as libertarian slash conservative.
	Because, I mean, I know you, you know, we've spoken plenty of times.
	We've met in person.
	We've been for drinks.
	I don't consider you to be part of the alt-right.
	I don't consider you to be a white nationalist.
	I certainly don't consider you to be a terrorist.
	So, I mean, like, I mean, what questions were they asking you?
	Like, what were they accusing you of?
	Or, like, what did they try and get out of you?
	So, I actually took notes during my meeting and called that.
	How religious are you? was one of them.
	They asked me about my religion.
	They asked me, like, would I be extremely Christian?
	All of this.
	I was like, I don't even really know, I guess.
	I'm not a Christian extremist.
	But this was something that they were curious about, whether you were a Christian extremist.
	Yeah, essentially.
	I mean, but here's the thing.
	Like, when they ask someone, like, how religious are you?
	If I say, I was like, I'm Christian.
	And then what do they expect me to say?
	Actually, I'm a Christian extremist and I interpret every word in the Bible as I want to kill my foes.
	And I only read the Old Testament.
	Like, what do they expect me to say?
	Deuteronomy or something like that.
	How do you feel about, oh wait, yeah, how do you feel about people running into running cars or trucks into others, particularly Muslims?
	How do you feel about trucks of peace?
	Not particularly well disposed to them.
	What about Charlottesville?
	Do you think running down protests is a good thing?
	Not overly.
	What were they expecting?
	That's what I was thinking.
	I literally started laughing and I was like, generally a pretty awful thing to do.
	If you want to say an opinion, I can name it.
	We should phone up Nice or something, should we?
	And ask them.
	I mean, that fucking hell.
	That is ridiculous.
	I went off on them a little on that one.
	I was like, excuse me, but you're asking me about my Christianity.
	You're asking me about running cars into people.
	I'm not a terrorist.
	I have no criminal record.
	I don't want to kill people.
	You can watch any of my social media.
	I've said time and time again, I don't care who is doing it.
	I think it is horrific and evil and awful to commit acts of terror and to murder people.
	I think your priorities are in the wrong spot.
	I think we both know which religion and which people are running cars with people.
	And it's not a 22-year-old girl trying to come into your country legally.
	And that kind of set them off on me.
	They went, no, we have lots of problems with right-wing terrorism.
	And then they asked me, what's your opinion on right-wing terrorism?
	Are you pro-right-wing terrorism, Lauren?
	I mean, we need a denouncement here.
	We need it on record because otherwise we just won't know.
	I'm genuinely sitting there.
	I was like, this is rather your investigative process into terrorism.
	Does this work for them ever?
	Do they have people come in and say terrorism?
	That's something I'm into.
	Favorite pastime, committing acts of terror.
	Me?
	Extremist.
	I love it.
	Maybe they're just used to the kind of terrorists who will just say this up front and say, yeah, God willed it.
	You know, like this Alar Akbar.
	We need to be blowing up the infidel.
	I mean, maybe.
	I don't know.
	If I were a terrorist, I'd be a little more canny about it, but that's just me, I guess.
	Karen, what else were they asking you?
	I mean, what grounds do they imply?
	They took my speech that I gave in Belgium for a group called Blabs Blog.
	They're a Flemish nationalist group that invited me to speak on the topic of nationalism.
	And they took it and went and read through it in a separate room.
	And then they asked me to describe my ideology.
	They asked me to describe and define nationalism for them.
	Just a lot of descriptions of who I am and what I do and don't agree with.
	Right, okay.
	So, I mean, how did you describe your political ideology to them?
	I told them that they, because they, when I told them I knew Tommy Robinson, they said, well, he's not a conservative, so how could you consider yourself moderately conservative?
	I said, well, Tommy, while he may seem crazy in the UK, people in America would consider him on the conservative spectrum just someone who criticizes Islam.
	There are hundreds of millions of people who agree with my viewpoints and his viewpoints that are critical of extremism, people who like free speech, people who fight for the values that are fundamental and build up Western nations.
	And that's just kind of how I describe myself.
	I said, I believe in language, borders, and culture.
	I appreciate free speech.
	I believe in the values that founded Western civilization.
	I don't have anything that's particularly crazy or insane or out of the ordinary for someone who would be described a conservative, at least in America.
	But yeah, that's basically how I describe myself.
	Yeah, this drives me crazy.
	In this country, Tommy Robinson is considered to be a neo-Nazi.
	I've interviewed Tommy, and he interviewed me the other day, actually, which will be on his YouTube channel soon.
	And I mean, I was describing liberalism to him, like the classical liberalism that founded the West.
	And he was just like, yeah, that's what I want.
	That's what I want.
	That's what I'm for.
	And I mean, he's not like some sort of authoritarian neo-Nazi.
	He's just a working-class lad who's come from an area that has suffered heavily under mass Muslim immigration.
	There's no getting around that.
	That's the objective facts of what's happened.
	And I think it was Luton that he was from.
	And Tommy is the symptom of the problem.
	He's the consequence of what happens when these things happen.
	I don't think he's pushing for any of this at all.
	He's now mostly concerned about the Islamization of Britain, which, let's be honest, is not an unfair thing to be concerned about.
	But I mean, the main problem that we have now, and there was recently a speech given by one of the lords in the, in, I think, was it in Parliament or was it in House of Lords?
	I can't remember what it was.
	But they were questioning, at what point can we actually criticize Islam now?
	Because this is turning into a secular blasphemy law.
	And Tommy has fallen foul of this.
	And so his name is just mud in this country now.
	But outside of this country, he's a hero.
	Right.
	I think even within the country, but people just are too afraid to say it out loud.
	And fair enough.
	I mean, look at what's happening to me for criticizing Islam, quite frankly, is what it comes down to.
	But yeah, I could go on with this interrogation story if you.
	Yeah, please do.
	Please.
	Sorry, yeah, I didn't mean to sidetrack, but this is...
	No, no, no, I...
	I just wasn't sure if you wanted to skip ahead to Yeah, so once we got through the questioning at the kind of hour point because they're only allowed to they're basically allowed to question me for an hour without me having any rights no right to remain silent, all that, no right to a solicitor.
	But then, after the hour point, they have to properly detain me and then they have to answer my request to call legal representation.
	But it's interesting, because if they think that me pausing to call legal representation will impede on their ability to stop a terrorist attack, they can still deny me my legal rights or something.
	But so they allowed me to call a solicitor though, and they tried calling the solicitor, and there was no solicitor in the UK that would actually represent me.
	Oh well, I know, for anyone watching outside of the UK, I mean like this should give you an indication of just how bad things are in this country at the moment.
	No, I will say I won't say it wasn't because of me.
	They were complaining with cops.
	They were like well, she's in Calais, that's not in the UK, so we can't do anything.
	That's good to hear, but it genuinely is awful in this country at the moment when it comes to free speech, and not even just free speech, just the idea that Islam might not be perfect and that there might be something about it that a liberal, a proper liberal, would actually object to, and I I just can't imagine anyone other than a progressive not objecting to Islam, frankly.
	But um yeah sorry, do you want to carry on with the questions?
	Because the questioning because this was this is just amazing to me.
	Like you, you are not a terrorist.
	I mean, you're not even particularly extreme in my opinion.
	I mean you're a conservative, libertarian type.
	You have issues with Islam.
	Where's the problem, right?
	So the they tried calling the solicitor once.
	They couldn't call the solicitor, I gave them a few names of people I knew that were involved in law and they went to go and try to contact them.
	And I sat in the room and the Kent police were nice to talk to during this period of them being unable to question me.
	I assume we'll get into this, but I assume this schedule seven thing was brought down on me not by them, but someone from up high.
	They allowed me to send a message to my dad, or rather they called him and let him know where I was.
	So that was nice.
	I couldn't speak to anyone though at this point.
	Which this is a part like a good, I was having a bit of fun with it going in, but the one part that I really kind of got upset about was I knew them calling my dad and telling him your daughter is being held under terrorist law in the UK.
	Like that.
	My dad actually recorded the call and it's just like, excuse me, terrorism?
	Terrorism?
	I'm just putting gray hairs on my parents' head, you know?
	Yeah, I genuinely feel bad for your parents because, I mean, if my mum got a call like that and my dad got a call like that, they would be rather worried, understandably so.
	Yeah, so that's where it gets a little more dark, I guess.
	Then after that, they couldn't get a hold of some legal representation for me.
	So another hour had gone by and they said, okay, we have to ask you a couple more questions.
	I said, fine, you can ask me a couple more questions while you try to figure out this legal thing.
	So we went and they checked in on the recording device.
	We kept going a little bit.
	And then someone marched into the room basically and said, this is over.
	End the investigation into her.
	We just got a call from the UK border enforcement, UKB, or whatever, UKBF, I'm not sure what it's called.
	Like, end the investigation, bring her out.
	We're done with you.
	It was really bizarre.
	Like, they just ended it abruptly and then put me back in detention.
	So that was about three hours with the proper police.
	And then I went back for like an hour in the detention.
	I was with them for about six hours in total, which is how long they can hold me.
	And then they came in and they had gotten the order.
	I've got it right here where I was banned.
	And it says I was banned because I present a threat to the fundamental interests of the United Kingdom and for racist distribution of leaflets and leaves.
	Sorry, I'm sorry.
	I mean, no one can see that because the Skype call is terrible.
	I do apologize, everyone.
	We're doing our best in a short situation.
	But the idea that you are a threat to the fundamental interests of the United Kingdom, Lauren, is absurd.
	I just can't.
	It's just, it's like a Monty Python sketch has come to life.
	You know, it.
	Yeah.
	I mean, this is basically the same thing they did to Martin Sellner, isn't it?
	Where they suggested that him giving a speech in Speaker's Corner, which incidentally actually has an act of parliament to protect it as a free speech zone.
	It's like the one place in Britain that has constitutional protection for free speech, and he was prevented from going there because he would have said something they just didn't want to hear.
	I mean, I don't even agree with Martin Seller.
	I'm not an identitarian.
	I oppose the idea in its entirety.
	But I want him to be able to speak because his right to speak is also my right to speak.
	And he, you know, even as a guest, he should be free to enjoy it.
	And if you don't like it, go down there and challenge him on what he's saying.
	For God's sake, don't use state force to prevent him from even getting there.
	I mean, this is what drives me crazy about this whole thing.
	It's like if you genuinely wanted to not make these, like people like yourself and not, you're all the same, but you know, activists, activists and journalists who were inquiring about something that you held as a sacred cow, the last thing you should do is persecute them because then that becomes a news story that goes around the world.
	Suddenly millions of more people are aware of who you guys are than they would have been before.
	And now they've got every reason to just Google your names and find out what it is you believe.
	Maybe you've converted a whole new group of people to libertarianism just on the basis that you have an existing body of work and they've made you famous.
	It's counterproductive at best.
	Well, you really think these politicians that want Martin out are going to go down and challenge him at Speaker's Corridor when they can just bring down that ban hammer.
	These are fat cats on their high horse and they are not about to get down until someone really challenges them on that.
	It's entirely to their disadvantage though because it'd be a huge PR win.
	They would just put it in the papers.
	Sorry, I've got this bloody awful cold.
	They just put it in all the papers.
	You know, politician goes down and challenges Nazi, you know, it'd be, oh, sorry.
	Oh, God, I'm going to.
	I'm going to sneeze, but it's not quite there.
	No worries.
	And sorry to everyone watching.
	But anyway, so would you like to carry on the let me know what happened?
	Right.
	So before I get into, I did want to mention too, regarding Martin and Brittany, like as spooky as this terrorism act does sound and as ridiculous as them use it against me was, six hours isn't that bad compared to three freaking days in a prison.
	So Brittany and Martin, like good on them.
	They're real troopers.
	Well, yeah, that's another thing, isn't it?
	They were just held for three days by the government.
	They weren't even turned away.
	I mean, if they, okay, you know, if they turn them away on the same day or something, like, okay, well, you know, that's silly.
	Again, it's silly to make martyrs out of these people, but no harm done.
	You know, they were just, they arrive at the border and told, go away.
	That's fair.
	You know, I think it's within the remit of a state to do that.
	But to hold them for three days seems utterly arbitrary to me.
	They're just, what was the reason for that?
	We don't want you in your country.
	Go home.
	No, we don't want you in our country, but we're not going to let you leave.
	Now, here's where I think that comes in, because that's interesting.
	That's what I'm about to bring up.
	With the terrorism act being used, they admitted, and my father even has this recorded in the call he had, they don't think I'm a terrorist.
	So why am I being held under an act that is specifically to be used against people who they suspect are going to commit terrorism or could commit terrorism?
	They said we have no reason to suspect she's a terrorist.
	She is not.
	We don't believe she's a terrorist.
	So why am I being held under this?
	Well, I've spoken to some legal counsel, and I can't get too much into it, but it appears as though they needed a reason to hold me for six hours.
	And they can't just randomly decide to detain me and make me miss my bus.
	That's not allowed.
	So they needed a reason.
	And they needed a reason that would give them enough time to find something to ban me from the UK for.
	So it appears that they used Schedule 7 in order to hold me long enough in order to find a reason to ban me from the UK because they weren't expecting me to come in that day.
	And that's why, this is just all assumption.
	I can be completely wrong.
	But that would be, I'd assume, why they came in and randomly ended a terrorism investigation and just said, okay, we're good.
	She's ready to go.
	Right?
	I don't know.
	I mean, a lot of this is quite opaque to me.
	But I mean, it's the problem that our government has is that these days they're less concerned with enforcing the law as they are with enforcing morality.
	And if they consider what you believe to be immoral, whether it is or isn't, which I don't think you can say objectively either way, but if they consider something to be immoral, then they will take action to prevent you from doing whatever it is you're trying to do.
	And they, I mean, look at the way that the British police treat Tommy Robinson.
	I mean, he's, I don't want to have to keep bringing him up, but he is just the best example of this.
	There are so many instances of the police just hounding him.
	And then when he's recording them, they'll just be stood there slinging insults to his face.
	They aren't neutral arbiters of the law at all.
	They're actually people with a moral agenda, which they absolutely shouldn't be.
	But I think this is an attitude that is coming down from the government and the people setting the laws and the environment in which these people have to operate.
	And it should change, I think.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So I should probably explain the racist distribution of material in Luton.
	I don't know if you know anything about that.
	I don't.
	Tell me.
	Were you criticizing Islam, Lauren?
	I literally had a piece of paper that said Allah is gay.
	Wow.
	Wow, that is, I am triggered right now.
	How dare you?
	So we thought it would be funny to go to Luton, and we had just been reading a Vice article that said, Jesus Christ is probably gay, and it had Jesus Christ in front of a pride flag.
	And I was like, that's a stupid article, right?
	I wasn't particularly triggered by it.
	I didn't think these people need to take it down or anything, but we figured, you know, it'd be interesting.
	No one really complained too much about this or said it needed to be taken down because it was hate speech.
	Let's see what happens if we do it with another religion.
	Let's see the reaction we get, the things people say to us.
	So we created LGBT for Islam, UK, and we made those signs that they always make, you know, God is a female, like I'm a female, you're trans, we're trans.
	And we did it with Allah.
	We're like, Allah is trans-friendly.
	Allah is gay.
	Allah is us.
	You know, we made these kind of lefty posters with Allah on it.
	And sure enough, the police showed up and they confiscated the papers and they said, you're not under arrest, none of that, but you're not allowed to distribute this because it's upsetting people.
	I thought that was the end of the social experiment.
	This just annoys me so much about my country.
	I'm so sorry.
	This is upsetting people, therefore you have to stop.
	No, I don't.
	Upsetting people isn't wrong.
	It's not wrong.
	If you want to upset someone, you can upset them.
	It's not a crime, for the love of God.
	Apparently it is a crime.
	Well, yeah, okay, yeah.
	I say it's not a crime, but it actually might be a crime.
	Fucking this thing.
	Now, I thought the social experiment ended there, but apparently the end of the social experiment is me getting detained under the Terrorism Act and banged from the country.
	Because my ban is referring to me holding that Allah is gay poster in Luton.
	And what I just am still trying to get my head around is it saying racist.
	Wow.
	What does Allah is gay have to do with race?
	I don't know.
	Can you explain it to me?
	You're from the Great Britain.
	I can explain why they say that, but I can't explain why it's racist because it's not racist.
	It couldn't possibly be racist.
	Because, I mean, Islam doesn't, Islam as an ideology doesn't have a position on race.
	It's actually remarkably aeracial.
	So making a commentary on Islam can't really be construed as making a commentary on race.
	The problem is, is that most of our Muslims are non-white.
	And so if you talk about Allah, then you are naturally presumed to be talking about race because our authorities are fucking stupid.
	It's bullshit.
	It's because the word racist in this country is like a sledgehammer.
	And it is unbelievably powerful here.
	And it's terrifying, frankly.
	It's beyond Orwellian at this point.
	Britain has real problems.
	And the thing is, we can't even address them.
	We can't even address them.
	It's honestly, I wish we had a constitutional amendment or just a constitution of some kind that would give us guaranteed rights to free speech over someone's hurt feelings.
	I really wish we had that because we just don't.
	But sorry, yeah.
	So you were being a racist for criticizing someone's God, suggesting that that God liked intercourse with other men, I presume.
	And let's be honest, we've got no proof that he doesn't.
	Exactly.
	Why can't Allah be a gay god?
	It's crazy.
	It says by your own admission you were distributing racist material in London too.
	Even if I wanted, what does it mean by my own admission?
	If it were by my own admission, it would be lying to the police because it's demonstrably not racist.
	But they just made that up.
	They literally just made that up and threw it on the piece of money.
	This is the thing.
	They have declared it to be racist.
	And if you admit to distributing it, therefore you are distributing racist material, even though the material is clearly not racist.
	I mean, we don't have a word for religionist.
	And if we did, I would want to get rid of that word because it would be fine to be religionist.
	Well, we do have a word for that, and it's blasphemy laws.
	That's true.
	Yeah, that's very true.
	So yeah, you were prohibited by the British state from criticizing Islam.
	Carry on.
	Now, this is my favorite part of it all.
	After they took me in a police vehicle, they brought me to another detention center, signed some papers, brought me closer to the border wall.
	And I guess no one really prepares you for being banned from a country because after they took me out of the little room they were keeping me in and gave me my passport back, they had a cop escort me, and I was kind of looking at him and I was like, hey man, where are we going?
	Where are we headed?
	And he looks at me and he speaks to me in French and I'm like, oh shit.
	Are we going to like a bus station?
	Are you going to take me to an airport?
	Where are we going?
	And he literally takes me to the border wall, unlocks the gate, opens it, and says au revoir.
	So they just, are you in Calais at this point?
	I'm in Calais, and it's like six in the morning, nothing's open, and I'm sitting there, and I'm doing a pulp fiction, looking around, like, where do I go?
	I've just been looking at a border wall.
	Like, it was the most hilarious.
	I just was laughing to myself.
	That's just ridiculous.
	Just like, right, you're on your own now.
	Good luck.
	You know, or more.
	They're not even going to put you on a plane somewhere.
	We've refused you entry to our country.
	Here's a flight to wherever you need to go or something like that.
	No, just get out, right?
	Okay.
	It's a really good thing.
	I hadn't booked my flight yet because I had someone else that was helping book my flights and they just hadn't found one yet.
	And if I had my flight book, I would have just, I don't know.
	So luckily I walked around for an hour and I found a McDonald's that was open and just sat there until I figured out where a bus station was and found a way to get to a hotel.
	But it was just such a bizarre situation.
	I'm still kind of, I find myself just chuckling in public, just thinking about it.
	Well, it is funny, but the thing is, it's something that my government does.
	And I mean, you know, we let returning ISIS fighters back.
	You know, you see memes going around the internet all day, every day about this, about how a young woman from Canada can't come in because she criticizes Islam.
	How jihadis are allowed back in, though, because they're jihadis.
	I don't know, because they're not being capable of being racist.
	Who knows?
	Oh, God, this is such a backward state of affairs.
	And I'd say Brittany Pettibone made a good point on this.
	I've got kind of a really strong gallows humor after a lot of this.
	So I just, I really, if you don't find it funny, life is going to be pretty miserable if you're in the political world.
	So you got to laugh.
	But Brittany Pettibone made the point on Twitter today that, well, what happened to both her and her boyfriend and myself is really unawful and needs to be challenged and questioned because this is obviously going to be something that will become more of a problem and will become used against more and more people and create a more totalitarian state.
	The real tragedy here is that these police are focusing and using resources on people who I know the language.
	I damn well love the country.
	I love the people.
	I don't want to do any harm.
	I was coming in legally.
	I didn't want to.
	I planned on leaving when I said I was going to leave.
	I booked a hotel with my own money.
	Everything was done right.
	And they're using their resources for six hours, detaining me, looking into my situation, asking me about my Christian extremism.
	Well, there has just been a case uncovered with thousands of girls being sexually abused by Islamic gangs, similar to Roth Room.
	And they don't have time to look into that.
	They don't want to look into that because that's racist.
	Somehow it's not racist or whatever, or it's not religionist, whatever you want to call it, to sit down and ask me whether I want to run over Muslims with cars, but they can't look into the case where a bunch of young girls are being it's actually worse in places like Telford.
	The police are aware of what's going on.
	They're just afraid of handling it because they're afraid that it will, quote, inflame racial tensions.
	And it's like, I guess we'll just let them carry on then, won't we?
	We wouldn't want to inflame racial tensions.
	I mean, that would be really awful.
	And otherwise you might be banned from the country, right?
	Yeah, exactly.
	I mean, you know, allowing them to predate on young girls who are vulnerable, ply them with drugs, groom them and rape them, often in gang scenarios for years and years and years, going back 40 years.
	That's not going to be the thing that inflames the racial tensions.
	It's talking about it that's going to do it.
	I mean, they seem to think that, like, there aren't communities that are having their children hurt by these gangs.
	And these gangs, I mean, they have, after a huge amount of public outcry, actually started jailing them.
	But I mean, like, I think it was about three or four years ago in Telford, there was another gang that was doing this.
	And nine of those people got jailed.
	And it turns out there could be more than 200 of these gang members.
	And they just were like, oh, yeah, nine people have been jailed.
	Okay, job's done.
	It's like, that hasn't stopped them.
	That stopped nine people out of a potential 200-person pool.
	This is ridiculous.
	But this is the state of Britain at the moment, I'm afraid.
	It's a black period in our history.
	I'm not going to lie.
	I think this is really genuinely terrible.
	And there are people actually suffering.
	And there's nothing I can do about it.
	And if I say things, I am liable to get in trouble for it.
	It's insane.
	It's absolutely insane.
	And that's another reason why free speech is so important is because what's supposed to happen in a more totalitarian state or a state that is starting to swerve towards the wrong ways of ruling their people in abusive manners is you're supposed to have the media there to counteract it and question and challenge the state.
	But I've just been absolutely shocked by how the media has treated this situation.
	Every single title, whether it's alt-right or far-right fascists all banned from UK or BuzzSfeet saying, haha, a bunch of border advocates got stopped by the border and kicked out.
	Like, I've just had the far left.
	I don't know.
	I think I am the greatest pro-borders advocate that ever existed.
	In one single day, I managed to turn the entire left into pro-border advocates.
	Yeah, suddenly shut the borders.
	No Canadian immigrants.
	Yeah, yeah.
	They all love it now.
	They've been bloating all over my timeline.
	In fact, I just got off an interview with the BDC, which I'm so angry.
	I'm kicking myself for not recording it, where they were saying, so there's a lot of refugees that try to come into the country.
	You would agree, right?
	I was like, no, they're migrants, but whatever.
	So there's a lot of people trying to come in that get banned from the country, right?
	From like North Africa.
	And I'm like, sure.
	Do you feel sympathy with them now that you've been banned from the country?
	Do you have a change of heart?
	No!
	No, I don't have sympathy for people that are trying to come in illegally.
	I didn't try to come in illegally.
	I had a visa.
	I went through the proper channels, goddammit.
	How is this difficult for them to understand?
	It's not even vaguely comparable.
	This is political persecution by my state from someone who has done everything the legal way, and instead of political favoritism for people who are trying to enter into the state illegally.
	This is not the same thing at all.
	Yeah.
	God.
	I look like I'm crying, but I'm really just really full of snots.
	So for anyone watching, I apologise.
	But I tell you what.
	You should be crying.
	I'm crying on the inside.
	Yeah, no, dude, it really annoys me because, I mean, this is because of the far left.
	Like, I saw a Vice article earlier that called you a border enthusiast.
	It's like, a borders enthusiast.
	It's your hobby to have borders around your country.
	Like, it's an optional thing or something.
	And that's, it was just the weirdest way of characterizing it.
	But I mean, we know that these people, and I know that Donald Trump got in trouble for using this term, are globalists.
	And that doesn't mean Jews.
	That means people who are for open borders.
	It's actually an attitude.
	It's an opinion, not of race, once again, but they are legitimately globalists.
	They think borders are the problem.
	In fact, that was George Soros' actual words when it came to the migrant crisis.
	We view the borders as the problem.
	And it's like, okay, well, there we go.
	I mean, that's everything you need to know.
	These people are against the idea of national sovereignty.
	I'm not.
	So it's insane that they think this is a controversial opinion, too.
	Like the whole borders enthusiast, far-right.
	Even the leftists that tout they love open borders, most of them, I think if you sit down at a table and have a conversation with them when they're not virtue signaling to the public with their blue check marks, they'll be like, yeah, I guess you do need to have some borders, don't you?
	But even beyond far leftists, no one thinks we should just be abolishing the border other than a small amount of anarchists and libertarians.
	It's a very mainstream opinion.
	So to paint it as this scary, evil, horrific opinion that people like myself, Martin and Brittany, have, and you and most liberals, conservatives, anyone, is absurd.
	It just shows how out of touch the media is.
	Look at me.
	I'm being forced into their kind of circle of just describing me, Martin and Brittany, as borders enthusiasts.
	No.
	Yeah, yeah.
	If we're going to be talking about border enthusiasts, there are millions of them in my country.
	Like, border enthusiasts.
	Oh, God.
	How have we come to this position?
	But yeah, okay, so was there anything else you think it would be important for people to know?
	Nothing I can say at the moment, but this isn't where the story is going to end, is what I'll say.
	There's more to come.
	Well, I'm glad to hear that.
	Right, do you want to tell people where they can find you?
	Yes, you can go to my Twitter at Lauren underscore Southern or just YouTube, my name, Lauren Southern, and my channel should come up.
	Great.
	Well, I'm really sorry.
	I feel, you know, I get this all the time, right?
	Whenever something ridiculous happens in like Australia or New Zealand or something, I'll always have a slew of commenters saying, oh, look, I'm really sorry about my country.
	We don't all think this.
	And now I know exactly how they feel because I feel compelled to apologize for what my country is doing.
	But yeah, thanks so much for coming on and I'll catch up with you soon.
	Cheers.

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