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June 30, 2025 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters
01:30:47
The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1197
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We're going to be talking all about the gauntlet that's been thrown down at Glastonbury.
We're also going to be talking about Ben Habib's new party that is just launched today.
Yeah, and now I'm going to be adding also Rupert Lowe's new movement.
Restore Britain.
So cover all the breaking stuff coming to you today.
And then we're also going to talk about the MP who's basically been denied communion, haven't they, by the church?
The church has decided to be churchish, I suppose you could say.
As it should be, as it should be.
As it is.
As all things should be.
Anyway, so let's get on with the first segment.
So we all know Glastonbury.
We all loathe Glastonbury.
It's one of those particular festivals that has become more infamous for its moralising and its sermons and its songs and good bands these days.
And this year didn't kick that habit in any way whatsoever.
It's still the same people going there, the same self-flagellating, the same virtue signalling, and the same 80-year-old has-beens, you know, on stage.
I just don't think I'm left-wing enough or wealthy enough to go.
I just, you know, that's certainly not wealthy enough to go.
The tickets are around 400 quid.
Something like that.
Yeah, 380.
380, 390 quid.
Plus everything else that's in there.
Plus everything else that you'd have.
Haven't got a trust fund, you see, unfortunately.
I mean, I can't imagine what the inflation's like on the prices of the recreational drugs in there as well.
So that's probably more expensive than the tickets.
But really the thing that everyone is talking about, so I covered, I made a daily video back on Friday just going over like, oh, look, you know, led by donkeys are going to put Elon on a rocket ship and everything.
Oh, aren't they all silly?
And then they went away, had a lovely weekend, and then they got back and thought, oh, right, things are getting serious now, aren't they?
Because the whole thing seemed to be based around this Irish band that, you know, no one gives a toss about and is totally inorganic, kneecap, basically being their coverage being taken away by the BBC.
So they were performing there, but the BBC wasn't going to broadcast them.
They were just going to get cut out of it.
But then this absolute nobody, this Bob Villain group, did a performance on one of the smaller stages.
And it was just everything that you'd anticipate from, it was like a microcosm of Glastonbury.
So as Lucy was mentioning here, there were two main things to really take away from it.
There were two main statements that were made during this one particular act.
And what I want to focus on is the reaction and which one was given the most importance and which one was it very obvious that the many, many people wanted to bury and weren't particularly interested in.
And so obviously the main, the first one that everyone was pushing about was the fact that the Bob Villains said death to the IVF, right?
And got the entire crowd also chanting death to the IDF.
You know, the Israeli Defense Force.
And obviously very, very pro-Palestine.
You can see all the Palestinian flags.
I'm not going to play the clip.
And you juxtapose that to the Rod Stewart performance, right?
Where it was all flags of England and the counties and Union Jackson stuff like that, right?
So obviously, you know, it's a particular brand of politics from a particular type of music, from a particular type of person.
We've seen it all before.
We've seen it all before.
And it's nothing new.
However, then there was just this sheer brazenness, this sheer mockery of the British people.
Not people on the other side of the world, but us in our own home.
And basically saying, I heard you want your country back, shut the F up, and goes on and on.
And there was another one, further lyrics, where it said something along the lines of, you can't have that.
It's the only place I know, stolen right under my nose.
Yeah, that's the line.
By ignorant scum, trying to lay claim to a land that ain't theirs anyway.
Yes, that's the lines from, I mean, I looked them up.
So I went and looked at the lyrics, and also he's got some others on there.
Yeah.
In another song that he goes on, same sort of argument.
I was born here, I was called all sorts of names, same sort of names I was called as a child.
But the difference between him is I went on and support my country and he decides that he wants to abuse it and say it is his country, but anyone else who was actually here, who's born here, whose cultural heritage here, it's not your country.
It's only a country.
It's a free land.
I remember when I was in the corporate sector listening to some DEI lecture because it was Black History Month.
And I decided to be a good participant to try to listen to the other side.
And I remember hearing that only Europeans are not actually indigenous to anywhere.
So apparently everybody in Europe is not indigenous, but everywhere else in the world belongs to the group that last conquered them.
So if you say, well, you know, Morocco or Libya should be reclaimed for Christianity, no, no, no, that's colonialism.
But if you say Europe should be for the Europeans, no, no, no, no, no.
That's white supremacy.
Absolutely.
So this ideology is pretty consistent and gets repeated all the time.
I spoke up against this, which is why I lost my job.
Yeah, that sounds about right as well.
That's a tactic.
We don't agree with you, therefore you're fired.
Well, luckily I was given redundancy.
But this ideology is deeply ingrained.
And it's, I have to say, ingrained among the minority communities quite strongly who are becoming increasingly brash and unashamed of expressing this perspective.
And this is just another example of it.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I find this an utter disgrace in terms of the way that he just isolates the individuals, namely anybody who is born in this country, has historical elements, and say, You want to shut up, you want your country back.
And it goes to that hypocrisy that if I were somebody who's looked after the Indians or the Inuits in Canada, as you say, that's perfectly fine for them.
I'll back you and I'll support you.
He's on there going about Palestine.
You want your country back from the Israelis, but I'll support you.
This shows the intellectual weakness of their argument, how much they are pygmies in terms of thought process.
You shouldn't think about it in terms of intellectual coherence.
You should think about it in terms of emotion and, firstly, an expression of a will to power, and secondly, an expression of genuinely felt loathing.
Trying to argue with these people intellectually is like trying to argue with this chair on a brick wall.
I get that, but the ideas that they come from have come from intellectuals who justified this in writings, whether it's Columbia University, Harvard, Cambridge.
100%.
And then they put that through into those that they think are intellectuals in government, which then create the policies and allow the papers to come through, just as we're going to see with the Islamophobia.
No, no, not that I don't disagree with you, but just that I also think that amongst all the intellectuals, right, this guy doesn't need intellectuals to come to this position.
No.
This is not a case of talk.
This is, as you say, hatred, tribal hatred.
And sort of justified and apologised for by the intellectuals.
And so really it comes down to there's another thing that also just this is a really good video by Carl if you need to watch it in your own time where it says what sort of person goes to Glastonbury.
It was good.
It was tweeted this one now.
Yeah.
Because it's very, you know, any other gatherings such as this would be called hideously white or disgustingly white.
Yes.
Right.
Disgustingly so.
However, Glastonbury never seems to get smeared with that because the white people who go there have all the correct politics.
Yes.
They hold to the orthodoxy.
And so their particular festival where they all happen to be white doesn't need to be broken up, doesn't need to be diversified.
It's allowed massive walls around it.
Oh, it's allowed everything that I do that.
There's more walls around Glastonbury than there is around our country.
Yes, yeah.
And yeah, Bryce Norton Airbase, apparently, as well.
So it's just absurd.
But one of the things that Carl talks about in this video is the fact that you have really a group of people who are there because they want, they know they're the people who staff the institutions of the state.
And so they're all part of that managerial state.
And yet at the same time, they hear the left-wing arguments that, well, you know, the British state is anti-black, it's anti-minority, it's anti-list.
And so they can go there and they can have this amazing cathartic experience where they can be berated on stage by the minority and feel like they can walk away from all of that still being good people.
By the global majority.
By the global majority.
But ultimately, they're not good people.
They're not good people because actually what it comes down to is that by their own logic, they would rather share their country, our country, with they would rather have this man as their neighbor.
Well, I think more than that, I think they'd rather have this man and his type in charge.
I think they'd have this man running the country.
They would until they were in charge.
Not really, because they would sort of flock to the nicest areas.
They would flock to the areas that are least affected by their policies and want to live there while haranguing everybody else.
They already do.
That's the point.
They're already there.
So for him, they would happily have him in charge because as far as they're concerned, wealth and the houses that they can afford and the land that they already got protects them from it until they get somebody who becomes like a Mahmoudia in New York who says, no, I'm now going to deal with this.
And I think one of the things that might start to change them is the element of what this Labour Party is going to do.
It is they're changing the rules in relation to the disbursement of channel migrants and asylum seekers across the country.
They're forcing councils now to put in proposals for more of these people to come into these nice leafy areas.
And the cost of them is going to be borne by this council taxpayer.
So if you've got a council area, they're going to go into those, those houses, those people who've lived there are going to be pushed out.
Also, with Serco taking over housing and giving people, I've had another story this morning about someone being offered 40% more on his 10 houses, a million pounds he will get for 10 flats up front for five years, no charges.
He'll get it all up front if he just gives it to one of these companies who will then rent it out for five years in an area.
They're going to face this in their nice leafy areas.
Then let's see how they react to it.
Yeah, indeed.
But also, so then you have this fallout between this where all of the coverage, as I'll go through now, of those two things, the BBC and many other people only really seem to have a problem with one of those statements, right?
And was it the death to the IDF or was it you're not getting your country back?
Any guesses on this gentleman?
I'm sure they condemned both of them and took the sensible position.
Well, the BBC wants you to know that with hindsight, we should have pulled the stream during the performance.
We regret that it didn't happen and the anti-Semitic sentiments expressed were utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves.
Right.
So it's just one group that's favoured and the other is trampled in.
Yeah, basically.
So that's the BBC.
What about the Prime Minister?
Well, he was appalled by the IGF chance.
He was appalled by those.
He also, he said that they were basically hate speech.
Will he be charged?
Will he be charged?
Let's see.
Yeah, what about the leader of the oldest political party in the world?
How about that?
The Conservatives.
Kemi says this is grotesque.
Glorifying violence against Jews is an edgy.
The West is playing with fire if we allow this sort of behavior to go unchecked.
Okay, and well, it is part one, so maybe in fairness to us, somewhere along in part two, she says, less than two years ago, hundreds.
Oh, no, it's just, no, okay, right.
So not there either.
Not there either.
Very encouraging.
And this really comes down to the number of the issue, doesn't it?
Because they want you to care more.
Well, there's two things going on here.
Because one, the actual singer himself is basically saying, I want your moral consideration for one side of a foreign conflict.
Yeah.
That is, in his view, you know, rebelling against colonialism and all these sorts of things.
But at the same time, I'm gleefully colonizing your country.
And I, and doing it from a position of total power and total comfort.
Which is why this is not rebellion.
And total impunity, yes.
And total impunity.
Right, because no one in the establishment is actually criticizing him for this.
If you went to Israel and told the Israelis you can't have your country, they will very, very promptly throw you out.
And there will be no questions asked about that.
Israel has very strict immigration policies.
They are very identity focused.
If you are Jewish, you can automatically apply for a citizenship.
This is the Jewish state, and that's all that it's going to be.
And they're extremely consistent about that.
And if you support or oppose this kind of thing, you should be expected to be somewhat consistent about it.
If it's good for them, it's good for everyone else.
If it's bad for them, it's bad for everyone else.
There has to be the same standard applied.
And we see none of that here.
No.
None of that.
No, not at all.
Of course, the actual organizers of Glastonbury themselves only had one part of that to condemn.
And the thing is, well, right.
It's like when you say death to the IDF, okay, so this is obviously, you know, from Palestine, Israel perspective.
But there's also the war in Ukraine and Russia going on.
And you have to ask, would the establishment have reacted the same way if it had said death to the Russian army or Putin's forces?
It wouldn't.
Right.
It wouldn't.
None of this would have been there, right?
It's actually, when there is a war going on, it's actually probably a very common feeling to wish ill will on whichever particular army it is you personally feel strongest.
I agree, and I think the problem with this is that there's a number of aspects.
First of all, this is incitement within the legal definitions that were used for Lucy Connolly.
So I think, you know, he should be charged.
But so would be death to Donald Trump, death to, you know, the MAGA movement, death to Nigel Farage, death to reform, death to any of these which apparently...
Death to anyone chanted in that side, not within the song.
And they're now trying to even argue that because the first part was done within a song, that's okay, freedom of speech.
But I don't see how you can just charge death to anyone, even if it's death to Putin's army or death to a political group that you don't like.
All of that is incitement in some ways because somebody may act upon it.
So we either have free speech absolutism, where you can say whatever you like.
To a certain extent, I'm along those lines because I firmly believe that we should be able to hear what they have to say and challenge them.
And that's part of the fundamental nature of who we are.
But if it is something that relates to a criminal action that leads to incitement, then at least have consistency in the law.
And you cannot pick and choose.
The other thing that I would note about this is how Middle Eastern Islamic this kind of chant is.
Christians in the Middle East don't chant death to whoever.
That just doesn't happen.
This is very much along the lines of Khomeini's death to America, death to Israel, adapted for this context.
And I see this in some New York protests that go on about up, up the Palestinians, down, down Israel, something like that, which is very crappily translated from Arabic.
And you could sort of see the Middle Eastern influence in that whole thing.
And it's just sort of the importation of this mindset is really disturbing.
And it's just, for me, it's cringe, very, very cringe.
But it just shows this sheer arrogance and the venom and hostility that is involved.
It's not the, this isn't what people who do things say.
This isn't what people who do things say.
This is not how they express themselves.
People who do things simply do things.
People who are all about slogans, that's the kind of attitude that they have, until they have enough power to do things.
So there's this nuance that I just thought that I should bring up here.
Well, also, you know, really the thing is, I take your point, Stephen, about speech and what speech we have the right to say and what we don't have the right to say.
But the fact of the matter is, and the reason that I didn't spend all my time this morning just looking through this particular guy's history is because there's nothing special about him.
He's just another enemy, just another foreign enemy who shouldn't be in Britain, who actively hates us, as is evidence from all of his music.
Yes.
Right?
He shouldn't be here.
He should be deported on the basis that he's not British in any way.
And given the slightest chance, he would quite happily tear away everything that we hold dear and sacred and precious on this island.
not just that he's not British, it's also the depth of ingratitude and the depth of disrespect.
So it's not just that his identity is false.
That's what I'm saying.
It's not loyally British either.
Not a shred of loyalty, not a shred of respect, not a shred of consideration, more along the lines of look at me trying to humiliate you, which just shows a weakness of character and a propensity for violence against who are essentially his benefactors.
See, I think there's another element about this.
He's going, when you look at the lyrics of other songs that I decided to go and look through, he takes the view that he's mixed race.
You know, his mum white, his dad's black, he was born in this country, and he received racism when he was younger.
And as a consequence of that, it defines him saying, I have a right to be here, and I would agree with you.
You were born here, you have a right to be here.
After all, that's the crux.
If you're born here in this country, you start to live and encapsulate this nation.
Where it begins different is he blames all the ills that he may have had, so-called lack of opportunities, what he sees people being arrested on the white community in this country on there, which is nonsense.
First of all, it's nonsense.
We're prime ministers, footballers, business people, media stars.
You can be whatever you want from whatever culture, creed, religion, or sexual desire to be in this country now and achieve.
So his very basis of his argument is flawed.
So it comes down to something else, much more guttural.
Yes.
Much more that he just hates white people.
And that's what this comes down to.
All it shows him is it hates white people.
And what my girlfriend partner was saying is that how are those people in the audience cheering somebody on stage that is clearly giving a message that he hates them?
Or does he like them because they're just the ones who are enablers?
Because they've submitted.
Yes.
Without the love of God, you hate yourself.
And this is probably the biggest godless gathering in Britain.
And they are animated by a weird perversion of original sin that makes them see themselves as bad and as deserving of this hate.
And anybody who disagrees is a racist.
Yeah, but I would say he's the racist.
He's very much a racist towards white people.
I mean, a sort of distinction between people is natural and healthy.
Being able to say, look, I'm from a different group than you are.
Fair enough.
Yes, you are.
It doesn't always have to come with hatred, although that is the human norm.
And the only thing that can unite us is a sort of recognition of shared human dignity.
And these people can't have that because they don't believe in that.
Well, just one more that I wanted to come to as well.
So Richard Tice had to say that this is disgusting confirms why I refuse to go.
I stand with Israel.
Richard, honestly, I don't know what you're so worried about.
You know, as far as I can see, you know, from everything that I hear about the IDF, they're on top of things in Gaza in a really messed up sort of way.
I don't think Israel is going to disappear off the face of the planet, not in this century.
You'll be long gone by then, Richard.
So what do you have to worry about?
Why does this concern you?
It's going to outlive you, Richard.
I'd just drop the issue if I were you.
Yeah, I'd just give up on Richard Tice.
I mean, he's showing himself every day, not to somebody who really likes England or the people within it.
To be honest, it's all about just himself now and what he can do.
Maybe he wants to be called Lord Richard Tice.
I don't know.
It seems to me that his views on I don't care that Britain is changing in terms of who this perspective are.
The Muslims will take over, I'll be long gone, as you pointed out.
He and his ilk that are running reform don't seem to really understand the importance about being English and what it comes to.
It's just about English.
You can be like Michael Gove was saying on there.
Well, don't you like cricket?
Yeah.
Makes you English.
Takes a bit more.
You know, I mean, honestly, I mean, this is not about that.
There's much more to it.
I don't particularly like cricket.
I'm good at it.
I used to play it pretty well and I'm okay.
But because I don't like it, does that not make I'm no longer English?
I'm sorry.
No, it's a different thing.
A particular news station as well called Great Britain News, GB News, decided as well that they took more issue with the IDF statement than they did the statement about the GB part of things.
Okay, so that was interesting as well.
Nigel came out with, if you vote reform, you can have your country back from these lunatics.
Better framing, much better framing.
I'll absolutely give that to him because he's dodged the trap there.
Because this is really the point.
All those people that you saw before do not listen to those people.
They don't have your best interests at heart.
Their priorities are not your priorities.
Okay.
And they want to link your allegiance to a foreign conflict to your identity at home.
And your identity at home isn't based on how you feel about a particular foreign conflict, right?
It wasn't based, you weren't more or less less British because you wanted to fight the American Revolution or let the colonists go, right?
You weren't more or less British if you were, you know, if you were a Luddite or if you were in favor of the Industrial Revolution.
You weren't more or less British if you were from these islands and you were for the Empire or against the Empire, right?
It's not about what you think.
It's about who you are, right?
And you, as an Englishman, you have every right to think or feel whatever you wish.
But this man is not English.
And this man hates the English.
And even though the people at Glastonbury can't come to understand that themselves...
They will one day.
And so, as Rupert points out, who's with me?
Because that's all it is.
I want my country back.
And this man has laying down the gauntlet at Glastonbury and invited a challenge to you.
He says, you want your country back.
Come and get it.
Right.
But what he fails to understand, because he's an ignorant fool, is the fact that the hour is actually quite late for people like him.
Right.
Things are getting really, really tense now.
And it's remarkable because I saw this two days ago and I had my rant in my room with no one watching, right?
And throwing and flailing the limbs out, right?
And then I calmed down and now I'm getting irate again.
Yes.
Because it's just there.
It's this burning.
It's the calm anger that's most dangerous.
Yeah.
And that's exactly what they're provoking.
They're provoking a determined reaction and they're making it necessary.
Yes, they are.
And so America as well, just our ally, the special relationship.
Well, I'm sure that our American friends over in the Trump administration saw him saying, oh, wow, this guy kind of hates the English.
They're our friends.
They're our allies.
Should we, oh, no, they were worried about the Israel part again.
So again, this is what it all comes down to, right?
There is one side of this that matters far more than the other.
And the perception of it online amongst all of the establishment types have totally twisted which one is you are supposed to care about more.
And I'm obviously just trying to tell you, it's obvious which one you should care about more.
You feel it intuitively.
And if you don't, you really have to ask yourself why.
Yeah, I agree with that.
Couldn't.
So I'll go to the comments.
Tom Rat247 says, villain is why I'm not only for remigration, but for modern exile.
Commit a crime egregious enough, go to prison until a third country agrees to take you.
Habsification says, the establishment left versus right care more about which side of a war in the Middle East between two different Sam.
Great.
No Fed posting, thank you.
Instead of the ancestral...
I will not now shut up.
I think that meant say not.
Yes.
Based ape.
I consider this a terrific win for free speech absolutism.
That idiot got up on stage, broadcast lefty racial hate to millions of people on the BBC for everyone to see.
Well, that really is the point as well, isn't it?
As well.
Better to have this free speech and him just say that live in front of millions and millions of people than him harbour it privately and leave you second guessing.
Well, look at him.
It's not that much of a second guess, is it?
But you take my point about his motives.
So, anyway, okay, over to you, Mr. Wolf.
Right, well, it looks like we're going to have a pretty interesting day ahead of us.
So I'm now looking...
Harry, I'll move it over for you.
He's just working on it.
Just getting onto my little bit.
Thoughts and prayers for Samson, everyone.
He's very, very sick today.
Oops, it's a daisy.
No.
Right, so this should be the first one.
So the big kind of breaking news this morning, I had plans for a totally different kind of podcast about freedom of speech and how it's been impacted by the European Union, and that'll have to wait till tomorrow now, was that we had news that I'd been kind of known about, I've been aware of for quite some time, was the kind of a launch of a new political party by Ben Habib.
The timing came out a little bit different to where we were expecting it.
And I think that'll show why towards the end of this, why that timing is very important in politics.
So we go into the background of this, obviously.
Ben Habib, former MEP, former deputy leader of reform, ousted in the changes by Nigel Farage when he said he was coming back, when Nigel realised that he had a chance of winning a seat in Parliament and was unhelpfully and pretty rudely dropped in a pretty bad way.
And we've then seen the same apply to Rupert Lowe, elected as a reform MP and then treated abysmally by Nigel and his team as well.
And we've seen the changes of what's happened in reform, where we've just even basically talked about Richard Tice saying he didn't really care that the country is changing and will be majority Muslim or non-British by a certain particular day.
We've seen the abhorrence towards Tommy Robinson or people who support that kind of ideology.
The continued attacks on Rupert Lowe, the taxation issues, which are more left-wing and Labour.
So all of that has been going on in reform, and we've seen people now, even recently, watching Nigel Farage laughing with the crossing of the floor of a very cozy chat, first of all, with Keir Starmer in Parliament, and then laughing and joking, another one with Peter Mandelson at the American Embassy.
So all of this is making a suggestion that something's not fit and proper in reform and that they're looking for power just for power's sake.
They've got the influence, they've got the momentum, they've got the people backing them, but maybe they will not be the saviours of a patriotic party that is truly wanting Britain to change and go back to a way that was more positive about who we are as a nation.
So Ben Habib has been thinking about this for a while.
Talks were ongoing with Rupert Lowe for quite some time and a number of other individuals, both on the right and the online right and others, to try and bring in an idea of a patriotic group of people.
Ben Habib launches this morning on this very clearly and he puts up I won't play for too long it's just because we haven't got the time and it's worth better to have the discussion about it but maybe a bit too loud just to reduce it Hello,
folks.
Now, some of you will know me as Ben Habib, the political commentator.
Others as Ben Habib, the former deputy leader of Reform UK, as I was, Ben Habib, the Brexit Party MEP, as I was.
But today, I address you in a new capacity.
I address you as the leader-in-waiting of Advance UK, a new political force on the British political landscape, a new political party.
So why a new political party?
Right.
So you can see very clearly there, he's putting back to his history of what he's done to help, in his view, defend the nation state in the particular formats that he's done.
And he's recognizing that what many people have been saying for a while, we need a new political party and a party that will challenge reform.
So he makes that.
It's a very good video, very interesting.
And he sets out some very good points because he is a great speaker.
He comes out, he's intelligent, he's a great articulator, he's a great communicator, and he's a decent person who really genuinely believes in this country and really genuinely believes in making the fundamental changes and attacking those institutional kind of barriers such as quangos and the civil service and the laws that are kind of restricting us from having any growth and protection of our nation.
So he goes on, he sets out a nice little website where he introduces the kind of party as a whole.
I'm just trying to get that.
Yeah, scroll down.
If you could do that for me, that would be fantastic.
Sorry, I'll just need you to stop moving the mouse.
I think that's all right.
Yep.
So he comes back there.
He sets out in here, in that, a kind of mission statement, I think, as we're coming down on here.
Why a new party?
And it's quite an interesting little thing.
We saw in the video, nothing is works.
Well, we argue about this and moan about this and show it all the time.
But he puts out a nice clear mission statement.
And out of that mission statement, he's got four particular points that he wants to look at.
The first is stand for the nation state of the United Kingdom, tick, freedom of speech, tick, democracy, tick, and equality before the law.
Tick.
Those are his key fundamentals of what he's setting out as his mission for this political party.
And the first point about that is I agree with all of them.
But I would say, wouldn't of the political parties also argue that they're doing exactly the same?
Isn't that what they would also say?
Well, we do this as well.
Not that we agree with it.
Yes, I mean, obviously, they've failed.
They've up to them on every single one of them.
But yes, they would say that.
So he's wanting to join 30,000 people to come and join this kind of start of a movement, help us mend it.
And as I say, you go through there, the nation, freedom, democracy, equality under UK law.
Again, it's all nicely set out.
He then tries to be different, how we will work, and he sets out five key elements of this new political party, which I think he says really tries to differentiate himself from that of the company that's owned by Zia Youssef and Nigel Farage with no input of other political members.
This was, if I understand, Ben's greatest contention with reform, the fact that it was basically just Nigel's party.
Nigel would always be in charge of the party and Nigel would choose the successor of the party.
There was no, if it's all about, you know, returning authority of like the trajectory, you know, the direction of the nation to the British people, then that's not a very successful way to go about it.
Absolutely.
And he sees the restriction of that.
And so he's worked hard behind that.
He's used lawyers.
He's looked at different philosophies to try and come up with a kind of what he believes is a constitution that hopefully has members who elect a college.
The college, the concept is to be independent individuals who are like the great and good holding to truth the founding principles of the party, who do not necessarily, you look at that, become party, who are independent of the party executive and do not necessarily even get elected potentially as MPs.
They can't really, but they are just going to hold the executive, its MPs, to account.
And this is our principles.
And if you veer off it, you're gone.
Sort of thing, really.
It seems a little bit thin, though.
Other than, okay, this is a decent way to run the party.
The rest of it in terms of content, it's sort of washed over liberalism with the nation state added on top of it.
It doesn't seem to be very credible or well thought out.
What do you think?
Well, I'm looking at this, and this is what some of the criticisms that we'll get down to when we go through it, is that here people are saying, you've got a great man, like him, love what he's standing for.
But this idea of a college, okay, that's perfectly fine.
But who are the leadership?
Who are the board of directors already that you've got?
You've even said in your opening speech kind of salvie that you're interim leader.
You don't even really look as though you want to be the leader.
Where are your policies?
What are we seeing on this?
So it's a nice little front image.
It's a nice video.
It's got some nice statements.
But where's the fundamental backing?
Where's the meat?
Yes.
Where's the substance?
Which is what people need.
And that's right.
Yes.
I mean, the tragedy of it is that unless you figured out everything from farming to fishing to industrial policy to immigration policy as well to the NHS, you can't be that credible because of the way the system works.
The British system is extremely complex.
Yes.
With the sheer number of ministers who are on the payroll who are going to be required to govern, with the number of people who will need to go through legislation and decide how do you slash quangos, how do you reduce the size and influence of the civil service, and how do you change the ideological zeal of the civil service to something that is actually lasting.
So unless you've got a Tony Blair style figure who can force through an enormous amount of change in a very short period of time and rely on popularity and explain that, look, this is going to involve an enormous amount of short-term economic pain.
If you start firing quangos left and right and civil servants left and right and reducing the numbers of migrants and all of that, there is going to be an economic effect.
Now, mind you, you will recover economically very quickly if you do the right things and accept that pain because of the sheer brilliance of this country.
But you've got to be honest enough to explain what the pain is, where it's necessary, and how you're going to inflict it on a big chunk of people whose middle-class status relies on them receiving money from the government because they work for these quangos, because they are civil servants, because they are employed by the NHS, etc., etc.
So you've got to be able to communicate, okay, we want to get there.
There are these intermediate steps.
They're painful.
They're strictly necessary.
And this is what you could expect to see by the end of the first parliament.
And that is the chunk.
That is the kind of meat that you can.
That's the meat.
That's what the meat that is.
Whereas democracy and equality before the law.
Like, Kirster will never admit that there's no equality before the law.
Hermer sort of says, no, that's a conspiracy theory and it's evil and blah, blah, blah.
So like you're tilting at windmills here still.
You're arguing over things that should have been argued during the 1965 Race Relations Act.
And now here we are two generations later, this is reality.
What's your answer?
And therein comes the point.
So I'm going to go on and say, okay, look, we've got some people saying for nearly a year, I've said that reform is not the real deal, which is basically what Ben is saying.
It's not the real deal.
And it's also what Rupert is saying.
And a whole load of people.
I'm glad that Ben has acted.
Wonderful.
He's going to back him and support him.
And then you'll have Richard Taylor, reasonable following on.
He says, I'm going to follow him.
It's great.
Happy to announce the UK.
So there's some support in there.
And then you've got David Vance, I think, making a bit of a joke that he's got Advance in his name.
It's literally cool in there.
And that I find is interesting about it because David would normally like support something like this out and out.
But he's making a joke about it.
And that's my first element of concern that we're coming in.
People are already beginning to make a joke about this element.
It's seeming a little more democratic than reform.
So you've got not only that, they're undercutting reforms, £15 membership because he's charging £10.
I mean, that's one of his point.
He says, I want 30,000 members.
I'm going to give you all £10 to join.
And when I get £30,000, I'm going to donate £100,000 to myself.
Well, that leads into the first criticism.
It's an element of thinking about it.
That's only £400,000.
You can't run a political party on £400,000.
When I was looking to lead UKIP all that time ago, I mean, it's nearly just under a decade ago, we were looking at the party needing £2 million a year.
And most of that, actually, to be fair, most of that was coming from membership fees.
They only needed to top up about half a million a year in terms of big donors and other ways of doing it.
And at that time, that was 2014-15, they were challenging the Conservative Party.
They were doing well.
The idea was that 5 million a year would actually really put the wind up Labour and Tories.
And that's really a figure that you should be looking at in today's day and age.
You have about 5 million a year.
And you can't do it unless you've got the first fundamentals of who are your staff, who's your head of communications, who's your head of policy, who's running all the different organizations around the country, your regional organizers.
All of these people are going to need to be paid.
Who's helping you on research?
They need to be paid.
Because some people will not do it for free.
Your advocates will do it for free.
The people knocking on the doors will do it for free.
But the people who've got to do this 24 hours a day, who've got to concentrate on the door, need to be paid.
And £400,000 will not go far.
No, you need a healthcare person.
You need a housing person.
You need an immigration couple of people.
You need a foreign policy person.
You need bench depth.
You need industry.
You need farming.
You need fishing.
You need rural areas.
There's a lot of expertise required to sort of actually create radical change.
And reform isn't showing that either.
And the only people who have that level of expertise, unfortunately, are the Conservatives.
And they are.
And they get paid very well.
And they get paid.
But look at where they are.
Basic researchers of the Conservative Party are getting £40,000 a year as a start-off.
But of course, then they're given different opportunities in think tanks and other areas where additional monies are provided to them.
So if you're going to have a launch of a political party, you're going to at least need 10, 20 people who are being paid those levels of money, which to some in London is actually going to be realised as too cheap.
And I know that sounds awful to people who are earning a lot less than that.
But in order to get that organised, that means that this political party needs at least £1.2 million a year to be able to fund people who know about immigration.
He's got to have some ideal there, know about all the points you've raised.
£400,000 won't cut it.
The £15, if he got to £30,000 people with £30 each and he adds £100,000 of himself, there's a million.
That's a reasonable start.
It's a reasonable start, but £400,000 is going to be a weak point for him if he gets it.
So, what about the media people?
What are they saying?
Well, Dan Wutton, normally a big supporter of Ben, just announces it.
He's held talks with Elon Musk and he's held talks with Rupert Lowe, but Rupert Lowe is not joining.
Now, let's park that, because aren't those two the big beasts outside of Nigel Farage?
Yeah, who are the big beasts in the Conservative Party?
Possibly Jenrick raising his head, but he's still actually relatively weak in polling terms.
Farage is the big beast out there, and none of Reform's Others come anywhere near.
So, the two big beasts on the right who could potentially form a political party to challenge Nigel are Ben and also Rupert.
And when you come to the United States, I've had lots of calls with people in the United States, talking to people who've funded PACS and Trump directly through fundraising campaigns.
All of them say, yeah, we've heard of Rupert Lowe.
We know that he's had conversations with Elong, and we've heard of Ben, but they're not in the same level.
They're both recognized as being important, but there's a differential.
Yes, Rupert is an MP.
He's got a lot more credibility.
And that MP is the credibility.
That's exactly the point.
You get it.
So not joining creates an issue.
It makes the whole exercise by Ben Habib seem a bit pointless.
And that's a bit of a danger.
Yeah, and that's becoming the big danger.
Maya Tussi, who I know also personally likes Ben Habib very much, launches a new political party.
Neither of these so far is we support it or think.
It's silent because they're holding their tongue.
Jim Ferguson launch it, same sort of thing.
And then you come in the criticisms.
First of all, this is where a big issue.
When you type in Advanced UK into the websites, that's what you get.
This is, you know, for me, first and foremost, the name just doesn't work.
Right.
It just doesn't work.
It sounds, it doesn't inspire any sense of vision.
It has no music to it.
You know, as bad as the parties are, labour is a word that has some colour to it, right?
Labour is an evocative word.
It makes you think of work and it makes you think of, you know, it reflects the working class roots of the party.
Conservative, right?
It has an image to it, a gravitas to it.
Advance.
To where?
To what?
Can I get an advance, please?
Yeah, it doesn't.
It sounds corporate.
It doesn't have any.
It does sound corporate.
That's the point.
And that's what people are picking up.
And I've just come along and they say.
And also the fact that his X account is underscore Advance UK, where this slot is Advance UK.
Right.
So already you're choosing a name that's going to cause masses of issues.
You know, in Google's Google search and all the rest of it.
So people are going to be looking for your political party.
They're going to get this.
And some are saying, well, this one's closed or it's defunct.
It doesn't matter.
It's out there.
Is it fully registered with the Electoral Commission?
The answer is no.
Ben has said he's not put Advance UK.
So all it now takes is somebody to register Advance UK with the Electoral Commission and his name's gone.
So he's announced to the world we're not registered with the Electoral Commission.
So someone could do it.
And then obviously Catherine Beitchlott says, look, there's a Liberal Democrat movement out there already.
So there's criticism over the name.
Then now there's criticism of the splits.
Where does he fit himself in?
And this is one of the key points that I wanted to say about bringing Ben and Rupert together.
Yes, I know there are discussions.
Both of them respect each other immensely.
Both of them have had disagreements about where we go with this.
Clearly, Ben has said, I want to launch this party.
And when we'll come to the end of this piece, where Rupert has gone.
But the reality is now, you have Reclaim, which is defunct.
That's just Lawrence Fox sitting there enjoying himself.
You know, the Heritage Party, which again is David Curtin.
I like David Curtin.
David Curtin is great.
It's been there for a while, but how many members is that?
Really?
How is he going to make any impact?
Homeland, good branding, a lot more members growing up there.
But what's the difference between them and UKIP apart from the fact that they seem to have a falling out?
They're very similar in that.
And now Advanced UK.
So you have five parties quite clearly saying looking for the populist national bridge right is now divided between and they've added reform in there.
I would turn around and say yes to an extent.
That's a huge favour to the establishment.
Absolutely.
It's a huge favour to the establishment that's being done.
All those others, Homeland, UKIP, heritage, should be turning around and saying we're too small, too underfunded, not popular enough to be able to advance the cause.
We need to fall behind somebody who is believing in that patriarch.
Somebody needs to be able to draw them in.
Somebody needs to be not ashamed of them and be able to sort of draw them in.
Absolutely.
And if you do that, you can tame what you might see to be excesses among some of them.
And you can give them a pathway to government and give them experience in proper frontline politics without which they don't stand a chance.
So this is just a battle of personal egos and brands at this stage.
And it's very embarrassing.
It makes it very hard as well.
And this is not Ben's fault, but it makes it very hard as well to make your own party after what happened to Ben and for it not to simply be like the revenge on Nigel party.
That is how it will be perceived by a lot of people out there.
And unless he launched at the same time with Rupert, that's exactly what it's going to look like.
I'm afraid to some people they're already making that case out there, which in some ways is not very fair on Ben.
No, I agree.
It doesn't really matter whether it's fair or not.
And that political perception, the political capital, is what's that.
And that's why I think you're getting the media and the online media being very calm and tame about it.
Because they're saying, we don't want to offend Ben because he's a nice guy.
But this does look exactly like that because it's not moving out there with a whole launch of people behind him.
And then even before Farash came back, Reform's position on policy was pretty weak.
It's not that they had developed positions and policies under Tys and Habib and then Nigel came back and wrecked it.
It's just that it was always a bit amateurish.
Well, they could be popular because they weren't the Tories, because they weren't in the old.
They weren't part of the old guard.
I'm increasingly convinced that the only answer is for the Tories to be actually Tory.
And, you know...
No, that's the political point.
And again, I'm going to whip through a couple more of the criticisms.
Here we are.
We're locked in a struggle for each of them, vying for voter base.
It all looks like it's characters first and branding second.
And rather than turning around, none of these.
And none of these are bad individuals.
No.
I met most of them.
I mean, to be fair, I haven't met Nick Tencone on UKIP, but I understand he's a decent guy.
You know, all of them got the same principles of wanting to save the country and work together, but all of them are looking like it's just my brand, my name, rather than working together.
There are strategically different views on some of them, and that's policy.
But that should be worked out by bringing them all together at the table.
This was an opportunity to do that, an opportunity lost.
Basil LeGrey talks about Rupert Lowe not joining, and that becomes the big issue that you've just talked about.
Interesting then, the political parties, reform.
Quite rightly, I would do exactly the same if I was head of PR, says nothing about it, ignores it completely.
Why would they bother?
No, there is at the moment.
The best thing, online, Connor Tomlinson says nothing about it.
Again, coming on here, Charlie Downs says nothing about it.
The online movement is saying nothing.
And that goes to another thing about where we are, is that the way it's launched.
Monday morning, 7.30, online.
Okay, I want the onliners to come around and support me.
But the online community is not the politics of people as a whole.
There's a broader spectrum.
It's a nice vocal point.
You should have a launch, a proper launch, in which you set out the individuals, the imagery, the branding, the characters, the policies.
And you release more policies over a period of time.
You release more individuals that are with you over a period of time.
You start spreading it and you also utilize in some ways just the online.
You could just do it in front of the online.
You have a studio, in a studio, in which you invite all the online, or you do it in an office somewhere, you invite all the online, and let the main media have to buy it off them.
Yes.
Let them buy it.
But no, it's quietly done, and that's where it dies.
Yeah, announcing a party with a tweet on a website is just...
I look at this just as just something that's interesting for discussion.
But the right needs superstar recruits, clearly articulating, as you said, the policies, immigration, economy.
Need to somehow include the Tommy Lot too.
This is the kind of desire of people to get out there.
And then we come here.
I think I just wanted to run through maybe that's the light, what he's up against.
Yes, these numbers have come down considerably, 30,000 or so.
People are leaving that.
At 309,000, we'll take over.
It's not going to get to the Labour Party.
People are leaving now.
But it's still 229,000.
That's his target to face.
Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, still, even Green Party, big, big numbers.
You can't just rely on £30,000 at £10.
You need to be a political party.
And then the shock about an hour or two later, just as we're coming in, this I didn't expect.
The two of them launching on the same day.
I mean, my God, it's going to send confusion amongst the ranks of the right.
Rupert Lodge launches Restore Britain.
Restore Britain.
I mean, first of all, talk about the name.
Advance or restore, which is the winner?
Well, Restores or between those two.
Yeah, but it's not a political party.
It's a movement who believe we need fundamental change, the way Britain is governed.
We'll build a policy platform together.
A movement will be created together.
A path will be forged together.
So he's not saying I'm a political party at the moment because, you know, lots of people are arguing that he should take over the Tory Party.
Maybe there's some within his group that believe that.
Others say, well, just give the Tory Party an opportunity to see that their numbers are declining.
Our movement will grow.
We'll take the best from the Tory Party.
And therefore, I don't want to frighten everybody else off.
Maybe that's their strategy.
There's a lot more behind it.
It's a far better way of going about things, though, because then all of a sudden what Rupert's really announcing here is obviously the beginning of a discussion with those who want to get on board with policy.
And so that invites you to join because you've got an actual, you're not just a member, he doesn't just want your money, you actually have a voice in where it's, you know, what the actual policy itself is.
That will create some level of consensus.
From there, you can move, you know, to more, you know, stronger direction.
What am I trying to say?
A sturdier platform.
A sturdier foundation to build off of.
Absolutely.
What I kind of know from this is that the idea is we don't mind which political party you're already a member of.
You could be a member of reform, you could be a member of Conservative Party, you could be independent, you could be a member of any of those other organisations we've also mentioned.
But you join the movement because the movement's the same principle.
We want Britain back.
You know, it's very clearly dealing with immigration.
He's got some policy ideas that he's already said about who he is.
But this Restore Britain will come in.
You join in.
Then we're going to start looking at policies.
You can be involved in it.
You won't be involved in it.
You might not wish to be involved in it.
But we're going to start building this together.
And if it gets to a level where you're talking 30, same sort of numbers as advanced, 30,000 or 50,000, then there will be pressure to say either, look, Tories, join us, because you're about to be taken over.
Or, well, we'll only take those of you who really want to, Swela, Liz, for example, but we'll also take those on the right from different parties and we will form a party then.
And I think that's really where this idea is at the moment.
Give the opportunity for people to come together of all political spectrums, look at the policies.
Do you agree?
And then there is the challenge.
We kill the Tories completely and take it over.
Or if they're not willing to move that way, we launch a political party, which may well be the use of Benz.
But I don't think it'll be under that name.
No, I don't think it will.
And so he sets itself out.
He's very clear about the objective.
The thing is, this is easily a two or three year project.
Yes.
And, you know, getting close to 2026 now.
Yeah.
Oh, I share your anxiety.
He's sharing you worry.
And It's a couple of years before there's the election.
This fragmentation shouldn't be happening.
No.
There should be a lot more seriousness about it.
Yes.
And the thing is, so long as Bedenog is sitting there as the sort of head of the Conservative Party, this issue is unresolved.
Yeah.
And I think at the moment it's like both of these, the instability within the Conservative Party and the lack of decision-making of what party they are.
Are we a party of the left and Liberal Democrats who's still there, the Michael Goves of this world?
Yes.
You know, if we're still that party, then by all means go on there.
And anyone who's serious Conservatives need to make a decision within the next year or so, even less than that, and I would argue.
The next six months.
And either go, look, we've got to either join one of these because on the other side, we've got reform who are making waves.
They will do successfully in Wales next year.
They will trounce.
And so that movement will lose an opportunity.
And I think that's where people are thinking, okay, reform's going to be there.
We can be the party of the right under the Conservative banner.
It can't be where it is now because the Conservatives will not change between that dichotomy.
So we're losing time.
And the only winner out of this in the end will be the Labour Party because they will still stay in power backed by SNP, Liberal Democrats, Green Party members.
Coalition to save the progressives, just seeing it on the continent.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And they'll keep for our jump.
I'll just whisk through some.
Sorry, I've gone through the time a bit.
No, no, it's all right.
Breaking news broke it.
Yeah.
Tom Route 247, there are all kinds of issues I have with the Advanced Party, but conversely, a tiny Yorkshireman on my shoulder shouting, £10 bargain.
Well, I can relate to that for sure.
Opunk says, do you think the Americans...
So we'll just move on to yours, Ferras.
All right.
Could I have that mask?
Because this one doesn't seem to be responding to me.
There you go.
Thank you.
So I'm very happy to report that the Catholic Church in Britain is showing strong signs of health.
MP Chris Coughlin voted for the assisted suicide bill.
He was told by his priest that if he persisted in doing so, he would be obstinately committing grave sins, and this would cost him communion.
He would no longer be able to receive communion.
What this means, for those of you who don't know, the Catholics receive the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist at every Mass.
That's the center of Catholic life, really.
And you can't receive it if you are in a state of mortal sin.
You should stop yourself from receiving it.
But if this sin is public, the church is allowed to deny you communion.
Absolutely.
The celebrant, the priest at the Mass is allowed to say, no, no, no, you can get a blessing, but you can't receive communion anymore.
And so a priest decided to go ahead and do this.
And the MP in question, rather than reacting with a modicum of humility and with a modicum of contrition, thinking, you know, I recognize that I belong to the church and I recognize that I am not the moral authority here.
The church is, which is what every Catholic should believe, he decides that, no, no, he's going to try to shame the priest for doing so.
And the argument there is that it is a matter of grave public interest, the extent to which religious MPs came under pressure to represent their religion and not necessarily their constituents in the assisted dying vote.
No.
A couple of points here.
Firstly, you are a man living a public life.
You are meant to lead, not follow.
So you are meant to exercise your own conscience informed by your beliefs and convince your constituents that this is the correct choice.
So saying merely the public wants this and I will follow through with it, that's not leadership.
That's not being a man.
No more than letting your children have all of the sugar that they want and watch all the television that they want is being a good parent.
This isn't how it's supposed to work.
You're supposed to explain to your public and to your constituents what is informing your decision-making.
So just because the public says that they want this doesn't mean that you should do it, firstly.
Secondly, there's absolutely no evidence that the public wanted the NHS to be turned into a murder service.
No.
And that's a sort of important point.
And then he goes on to say, this was utterly disrespectful to my family, my constituents, including the congregation, and the democratic process.
My private religion will continue to have zero direct relevance to my work as an MP.
Hold on a second.
For every Muslim in parliament, their religion pretty much fully informs everything that they do in parliament.
But then they're representing an entirely Muslim base.
There's no contradiction for them.
And those who are not.
Sometimes they're representing a 40% Muslim constituency because the public heritage breaks down.
So that's not exactly accurate.
I noticed you say you would deserve this, maybe instructive to you for the judgment.
I would like you to also do exactly what you've just done.
Take this clip that we've just had now and put that on there as well and make him try and understand that as a Catholic, you are not the moral authority.
Exactly.
No, it is God.
It is the church that is the moral authority.
And as a Catholic, you have to take those principles and either accept them and push them forward or say you're not a Catholic.
You have both choices.
You have both choices.
You have both choices available to you.
You can pick which one you prefer.
Yeah.
And it seems that the reason this guy goes to a Catholic church is because his children go to a Catholic school.
That's right.
And so admissions to a Catholic school are Helped by attending Mass regularly.
Right.
Because, surprise, surprise, Catholic schools actually want to teach Catholics.
What a shock, I know.
The injustice of it all.
And that's the reason that he's there.
But he's basing his argument completely on liberal perspectives.
And he doesn't seem to get what this is all about.
And so who came out to support him?
Well, obviously, Kim Ledbetter came out to support him.
Is she a Catholic?
Absolutely not.
She's the one responsible for the assisted suicide bill.
And she says...
Is he a Lib Dem MP?
He's a Lib Dem MP.
You can't be a Lib Dem Dem Dem Dem Dem.
He's a Lib Dem MP.
Yes.
He can't be a Lib Dem and a Catholic.
Sorry.
You could under a different time.
But at a time where the Lib Dems celebrate Islam and abortion on demand and all of that is not.
And Mrs. Ledbetter says, religious leaders and people of faith have every right to communicate their views to their MPs and to Parliament as a whole, but this is totally unacceptable, this being him being denied communion.
Why?
Why doesn't the Catholic Church get to set its own rules?
I don't understand.
And it's not like the guy did anything that is out of what Catholicism teaches.
I want to read a couple of things here, and I'm sorry this is going to take some time, but I think it's important.
This is from Evangelium Vite, an encyclical by Saint John Paul II, Saint John Pope II.
And it's called the Gospel of Life.
The Gospel of Life is at the heart of Jesus' message.
Lovingly received day after day by the church, it is to be preached with dauntless fidelity.
So your duty is to preach what the church teaches, not what you believe.
That's step one.
When he presents the heart of his redemptive mission, Jesus says, I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
A fundamental principle animating the Catholic Church is respect for life and the idea of the dignity of human life and the worthiness of human life with its diversity, with its differences, with its nations, with its states, with its different classes, yes.
But the principle animating it is that although we are not equal in our capabilities or in what we do in life, we are equal in dignity before God.
I might understand it right as well from what I remember that also it's strictly forbidden to take your own life.
Absolutely.
It's strictly forbidden to take your own life, and it's strictly forbidden to take the life of the innocents.
And so it's not just about his own conscience and his own support as an MP, but surely as a Catholic also, he's then under his own metaphysics, denying them salvation by passing legislation that would prohibit them from being able to do that.
That's the scandalous part.
So the church strongly objects to anything that causes scandal in the public.
As in your private sins and your public sins are not the same.
Because if you commit certain sins in public, you are normalizing this evil.
And you are encouraging others who have less responsibility than you, who are living less of a public life than you, to actually pursue sin.
And so you're not just sinning personally, which is bad enough and we're all guilty of it, yours truly included.
It's that you are encouraging others to commit sin.
That's what makes it particularly bad.
Man is called to a fullness of life which far exceeds the dimensions of his earthly existence because it consists in sharing the very life of God.
The loftiness of the supernatural vocation reveals the greatness and the inesteemable value of human life, even in its temporal phase.
Absolutely.
So this is very clear, isn't it?
This is as clear as it gets.
This was written 30 years ago.
And it continues.
The sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end.
Life is sacred from the start from conception until natural death.
That's always been the Catholic position.
Nobody came up with anything new.
Nobody sort of sprung a surprise on Chris here and sort of, haha, we've changed our minds.
No, no, no, we've never changed our minds about this.
The Pope's just come out from behind a screen and said, hey, exactly.
We've only just said we don't like abortion.
And here we go.
Oh, by the way, killing people.
Suicide.
Not really one of our bags, you know, Nate, to be honest.
What do you think about, Chris?
It's really just the arrogance of it.
The lack of humility.
In a special way, believers in Christ must defend and promote this right to life, that is.
Aware as they are of the wonderful truth recalled by the Second Vatican Council, by his incarnation, the Son of God has united himself in some fashion with every human being.
This is the emphasis on the sacredness of all human life.
That's the animating principle of Christianity.
Christ came down to earth to share in our suffering out of an abundance of love for us, for each individual.
And every few weeks in the homily, we get reminded again that you can't just be a Catholic on Sunday.
You have to be a Catholic every day of the week.
So when this gentleman says, I will completely separate my Catholic faith from my day job, hold on a second.
come.
Like, that's...
Have you been...
I don't think he has.
I think it's being, he was brought up a Catholic, probably taken into church, and he's seen this now as a political opportunity for two reasons.
One, I'm a Catholic, and therefore I might get voters from these areas who are Catholics and B, oh, probably more important, I'm going to stay in this because my kids can get a nice education.
That's pretty much it.
And actually, he doesn't really believe in Catholicism in any way.
If you believe in eternal life, if you believe that there is a hell and that there is a real possibility of damnation, you should go around encouraging people to commit suicide and making it easier and allowing people to commit suicide just because they feel like a burden, which is precisely what this bill does.
It ignores the clauses as all the things I went through.
I mean, they're disgusting clauses that could have been included, such as I will not allow you to say I want to kill myself because I'm a burden on my family, Or that my housing is inefficient for what I'm living in.
No, you don't allow that, but they still voted them down.
They are basically voting for murder.
Pretty much.
And I disagreed with them completely on this.
I think there is a nastiness that runs through their core, hiding behind compassion.
Yeah, the compassion and misery for people who are genuinely suffering and genuinely suffering.
And I know that I've had a discussion with a couple of people about this.
Those people are genuinely suffering.
Absolutely.
But you don't actually help them by introducing a law that will enable those who may not be suffering in the same way to end it earlier.
It's a very sinister bill.
Sinister.
It's not just that.
It's not just that.
It's that the cross of Jesus has meaning because God glorified suffering.
Because God elevated suffering and gave us a pathway to sublimating it.
This is the story of Job.
This is from the Old Testament.
This is also the story of Christ, that you must suffer.
Abraham had to offer his only son, his only legitimate son.
So the idea that suffering denies a right to life is fundamentally against both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
It's against the covenantal relationship that we have with God, where we bear our burdens and we bear our cross in order to participate in eternal life with Christ.
And this is...
I'm a very stupid Catholic.
I only recently years ago.
A lot of us are.
A lot of us are.
Fine, but this is elementary.
And in this Evangelium Vite, St. John Paul II talks about the way in which life is slowly being cheapened and new evils are coming to sort of threaten life aside from the old traditional ones of war and pestilence and famine and all of that.
And he says, unfortunately, this disturbing state of affairs, far from decreasing, is expanding.
With new prospects opened up by scientific and technological progress, there arise new forms of attacks on the dignity of the human being.
At the same time, a new cultural climate is developing.
This is 30 years ago.
And taking hold, which gives crimes against life a new and, if possible, even more sinister character, what you were saying, giving rise to further grave concern.
Broad sectors of public opinion justify certain crimes against life in the name of the rights of individual freedom, which was precisely the argument being made in support of that bill.
So these words must be seen as prophetic.
And on this basis, they claim not only exemption from punishment, but even authorization by the state so that these things can be done with total freedom and indeed with the free assistance of healthcare systems.
Yes.
So the church was warning against this a generation ago.
Yes.
And this encyclical was made again in 1995.
And you're going fully against it.
And you're saying that the priest is wrong to deny you communion?
I don't understand.
He should not have mindset.
I would have gone further.
I'd have gone to every Catholic that there should be a message sent down by Westminster that this is what should happen.
I would have said that this is the bishops did do an opposition of it.
At least they did, rather than the Church of England that was still promoting, I think, some party in York Cathedral on the day.
They ignored it.
But this needs to be taken much more seriously by the Pope and by the Vatican.
They need to be sending messages off that people like Joe Biden should not be allowed communion.
No, no, no, no.
You either are a Catholic or you're not.
Exactly.
these are our principles and if you're not It's not a skin suit.
Exactly.
The end result of this is tragic, again from the encyclical.
Not only is the fact of the destruction of so many human lives still to be born or in their final stage extremely grave and disturbing, but no less grave and disturbing is the fact that conscience itself, darkened as it were by such widespread conditioning, the normalization of this evil, is finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between good and evil in what concerns the basic value of human life.
Now, the encyclical also mentions the demographic problems that this causes and the destruction of nations and the damage to peoples that is caused by this.
So the culture of death was being attacked by the church generations ago.
And it was...
This has been church teaching for an extreme forever.
And then this guy says, well, how dare you deny me communion?
Come on.
The conditions under which you can be denied communion according to canon law are pretty simple.
Let's see further to the right.
There you go.
are pretty simple.
Yeah.
And it's there in...
In 915.
There we are.
Just nearly there.
And it says those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty.
That's one category.
And others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.
How strange.
The church is enforcing its rules.
It's there in black and white.
It's just right there.
It's just right there.
And there's no argument about it.
It's not, you know, unless you're an MP.
There's no opt-out clause that's actually, it's literally the opposite.
Unless you're a human rights lawyer.
Unless you're a human rights lawyer.
Unless you're Joe Biden.
It's literally the opposite.
The more public you are, the more important it is to impose sanctions on you because you are causing scandal to the faithful.
If somebody is looking into Catholicism and sees that the church is being lax on its teachings, he will be less Enthusiastic.
If someone has faith but is doubting, and we all have moments of doubt, that kind of behavior will make it much worse.
Do we think that the current Pope and the Vatican that he is building around him is going to be that type of Pope that is willing to utilize clauses like this by messaging the archbishops,
by getting it out to the bishops, by getting it out to the priests, that politicians across the European countries and the West, and I include Australia and New Zealand and Canada in this, and in particular the United States, are going to receive this level of kind of the ramifications of their actions should be that they can't get Holy Communion.
Because I remember when they did this with Biden, after what he did, that they still allowed him to do so because they didn't want to be embarrassed or because he's the president.
Surely the president is not above God, he's not above the church, and therefore they should be standing strong on this.
Is this president that type of president?
I sincerely hope so.
He's an Augustinian.
He's a type of pope.
He's very much strong enough in terms of his personal faith.
There's an issue here whereby the church tries to avoid to be seen to be interfering in politics.
And the way that it works is that if you say we're going to enforce this in the United States, you've pretty much banned the Democratic Party from receiving communion, given their extremism on abortion.
We are called to think with the church, never against the church.
And so I think that since this conflict is happening, we might as well have it.
The conflict has been forced upon us.
We weren't, you know, we didn't choose this fight.
It was forced on us.
Here we are.
And the church is meant to be a sign of contradiction to the world.
This is the rules.
This is what we believe in.
If you don't believe in it, then you're not a Catholic.
It offers permanence in an ever-changing world.
Like the permanent moral instruction.
Yes.
That is always good and is always evil in every age.
Yes.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And you can't fight back if you're not going to do anything about it.
If you just ignore it.
One of the biggest lessons that we learned from anyone challenging you is.
Nothing can be ignored.
Nothing can be ignored anymore.
Correct.
Yeah.
You can't ignore anything.
All right.
Shall we go through the comments then?
You've got the discipline regarding.
That's a...
This is a letter from Archbishop Raymond Burke, who's one of the great American conservatives.
And he explains why Catholics believe that the bread and wine are literally the flesh and blood of Christ and the burden that this imposes on everyone.
And he explains that in cases of outward conduct, which is seriously, clearly, and steadfastly contrary to the moral norm, the Church, in her pastoral concern for the good order of the community and out of respect for the sacrament, cannot fail to feel directly involved.
The code of canon law allows us basically to deny communion to people who are, you know, seriously, clearly, and steadfastly.
So the priest here, the priest in question, wrote to the MP, spoke publicly, warned him, and made it clear that there will be consequences.
And the MP refused to listen.
And now, behold, the consequences of my own actions.
How dare they impose consequences on me?
I should be above the law.
Don't you see the letters MP behind my name?
Like anybody would know who he was if this hadn't happened to him.
And he's trying to use it as a publicity stunt instead of showing any kind of contrition, any kind of humility.
Yeah, well, I'd quite like to see him excommunicated, but there we go.
Let's hope it doesn't go that far for his sake.
I want us to pray for him at the end of the day and to pray for his penance.
It's our responsibility.
We want more people in the church, not less.
But it has to be the church.
I accept that.
It's not a social club.
It's the church of God.
Yeah, but you're dealing with Liberal Democrats.
And to be honest, they're unrepentable.
To be honest.
I'm sorry they are.
I'm sorry.
I don't think I'm a Liberal Democrat watching this, but, you know, they...
We can pray for them.
Okay.
We can.
Logan, 17 Pine, I saw you think about your other super chat.
Sorry, it's just a matter of trying to timekeep and keep the segments moving.
Loud anger will quickly die out, but quiet loathing can build for years, indeed.
And it's been building all my life, I can assure you.
Habsification.
Oh, no, no, sorry, it's far further down.
O-punk, I grew up Catholic, but the church made me a Christian instead.
I don't know.
I don't church.
Then you've got, that's a random name.
Today is Monday.
Looking forward to Real Politique.
Speaking of which, how is the format going to be?
Will all episodes be pre-recorded like the pilot?
Also, helmets when?
So there's going to be a few episodes released over the next few weeks that are pre-recorded.
I have to say goodbye.
I'm off to Lebanon for a couple of months.
When I get back, we will do a little bit more work on the formats, and I will get a helmet.
I will get at least part of an episode with a helmet, I promise you.
Congratulations on all those comments as well.
It was a great, great start.
Okay.
Let's go to the video comments if we've got any.
Thank you.
Got some time?
Well, yeah.
We're ahead for a change.
I tried.
I tried.
I really tried.
Missed some of these good video comments last week.
Regarding what's going on in Wales with the sex ed for toddlers...
Just have a read of this Bible verse for me.
Be simple.
Yep.
Okay.
Regarding what's going on in Wales.
We got another?
Yeah, it's just working.
That's right.
You got the...
Drop me just click on Fear Harry.
Yeah.
Okay.
We got fused.
Excellent.
Oh, right.
Sorry.
No, I'm just being a total, total.
We've got a challenge for you today, lads.
It's a guessing game.
Let's take a guess.
Out of the two pictures, who you think is the tube passenger?
Normally it's just a man or aspiring architect that does this.
He's also so weird.
How could you possibly guess?
How could you possibly guess?
Next one.
Oh.
Next one.
Next one.
Ah, worse.
It astounds me the English government tells us to prepare for war after they finally regulated the blast furnace into extinction.
Now, England still has a supply of steel via electric arc furnaces, but these feed primarily on scrap metal and don't have a sufficient degree of metallurgical control.
For high-quality steels, you need a basic oxygen furnace, it's self-reliant on the virgin pig iron of a blast furnace.
And blast furnaces operate exclusively on coke.
Now, perhaps Stahmer got confused and thought he had an ample supply, but regrettably we're talking about the black stuff.
Imagine the fury of Sir Bessemer, the former statesman of times gone by.
As there's not a single smoking chimney over Yorkshire, will these morons beat the drum of war?
Oh, brilliant.
Yeah, so true.
Even before we had all of that, you know, total sabotage and everything with the Chinese and Scunthorpe at that steelworks, we were already just importing all of the raw materials.
The Arabs targeting Africa took out about 17 million people.
The British and then the Americans were the rare people who moved to abolish slavery.
So yeah, the British Navy, in a story almost no one now knows, sank something like 1,600 slave ships.
It freed 150,000 people that were enslaved at the time.
Because the Brits objected for moral reasons.
Yeah, they'd had enough of it.
Saudi Arabia only abolished the slave trade relatively recently.
Yeah, no.
Well, 1967, I believe it was.
In Mauritania, I think 20 to 25% of the country is still literally slaves.
I didn't know that.
I didn't know that.
So I think 8-10 million people population.
Sorry.
No?
No.
Okay.
I've clicked them all.
I'm doubling back on myself, apparently, now.
All right, then.
So I'll just go through some comments quickly from my section.
Zesta King, I'm quite nervous about the number of political parties on the right and centre-right.
There's Reform UK, the Conservatives, Homeland UKIP, Reclaim, and now Advance UK.
They could all potentially split the vote and let another left-wing party get into government, not to mention whatever Rupert Lowe is going to be doing with Restore Britain.
This might be a controversial take, but the way that I see it is even if Labour, like, you know, or a coalition of the Progressives do win the next time round, it would be far, not better, but it would be worse to get one of the charlatan parties like Reform, you know, that aren't up to the task to push that ball all the way to the top of the hill, right?
And get them in and sort of give them a foundation of legitimacy as opposed to wait for the right time, the right party, the right people.
I know time's running out.
We are, but, you know.
We'll see.
It's, yeah.
David Ward, reform will win the next election, the last hurrah of multiculturalism.
They will fail.
Then we will see if we can get our country back.
Well, I mean, that is also the other possibility.
It is.
It is a possibility.
Because the energy is towards, you know, the public energy, the mood is towards restoration.
And if reform failed to do that, they're not going to go back to labor, are they?
To counter the point that I've just made.
But it's also true.
It's also true.
Sophie Liv, I'm tired of boomers feeling so guilty over their own privilege regret that they are punishing their kids for it.
Yes.
Yeah.
That's exactly what we're doing.
Well, yeah, absolutely.
It's so twisted.
It's so twisted.
From your segment, Stephen, Kevin Fox says, Ben needs to avoid the trap that reform fell into.
He needs to find his cabinet from outside the Westminster bubble, get professionals from all sectors to do the jobs currently done by underqualified politicians and other parties.
I think that's what Firas and I were discussing, the need for that cabinet and that need for people who would...
Fuzzy Toaster, new parties will split the boat.
That's another option.
In Lebanon, that would be the only option.
Keep that one in mind.
I think the next election cycle would have been better.
We're risking a Labour-getting minority win again.
Well, honestly, Labour in minority is better than Labour in majority still.
And then from your segment for us, you've got other Catholics have the three Cs.
Chris should understand there is confession, contrition, and then only communion.
Exactly.
Communion.
Exactly.
Nicholas Ware, based priest, we need more like.
Absolutely.
Simple as, yeah, indeed.
Simple.
Well, that's all we've got time for today, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you at 1 p.m. tomorrow.
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