 Are we on? Great. Yeah. Hello. Welcome to Tiskey sour. We have survived the Tory leadership debate Barely barely and I'm joined by a much better panel than Emily Maitley's had I think I've got James Meadway Fresh from John McDonald's office. Well kind of fresh. It's been a couple of months now You make it sound like he was being held captive there or the you know, I'm like some of you found in the fridge You should really well a while ago. Did he treat me? Of course he treats it like you are Of course he treats me well. Did he feed you regularly? Should we move on? Ash Hi. Are you fed regularly? Not by you. Not by John McDonald. That would be weird anyway And Ash Sarkar, senior editor at Navarro Media. How did you find the debate? Suitably infused. Didn't learn anything new about anyone I think that also it was a really bad debate for being able to apply pressure to The panelists the lack of a studio audience I think meant that they treated it more as an internal squabble Boris Johnson in particular Just blusted over Emily Maitley's when she pressed him on things and made interventions and I think the thing of having Voters pop up on a screen was, you know, good for that sense of there's a public out there But bad for getting The panelists to stick to the questions with any great amount of rigor Not very good. I thought the biggest surprise of the night was Boris Johnson getting out the BAME card So he was asked he was asked about Islamophobia and he said That his great-granddad who was Muslim would be proud and surprised that he'd become foreign secretary And he would and he thought that it'd be something for Britain to be proud of that's the thing is that we often say There's no such thing as a race card, but there is there's one race card in existence and Boris Johnson had it Sorry, is the Muslim great-granddad? Yeah. Yeah, that's the I think no I couldn't it would be a stretch. It's not actually a race car. Oh, I see. Sorry. Okay. I'll try to play that one James, what did you think? I thought it's terrible Absolutely awful agree that the format was ridiculous. I mean this might be a I've suddenly had the bad thought Although it's almost certainly true This is why Boris Johnson agreed to do this debate in this format because of course there was no real pressure applied to him at any point or any of the candidates. He was just sort of vaguely talking over each other and points So we're trying to make at some points There were a couple of moments where you thought maybe some of the candidates were having a little bit of a pop at each other But it's a very internal thing. I thought Sadji Javid having to go at Rory Stewart on the issue of Islamophobia and Donald Trump in particular was a bit more of a, you know, slight amount of tension But the problem at this point is that look, we're not really the audience, right? The audience is they claim 160,000 members. It's obviously not 160,000 actually functioning members. Bear in mind the Tory party is now an organisation Which is funded more by its dead members than by its actual living people paying subs to it So so let's let's treat those figures with a pinch of salt and see what they actually finally declare as the turnout And who voted by the end of it. Also that GK Chesterton said The Tory tradition is a democracy of the dead and I never expected them to take it quite so literally Well, there we go. It's them very good. It's and that's exactly what we're up against So so we're not the audience So you can drag in members of the public from various parts of the country as well And probably introduce things that maybe some Tory members wouldn't throw in I thought the question about Islamophobia was worth asking at the Tory party because it's one of the things They really don't want to talk about It changes it a little bit, but the format's bad. We're not the audience There's a slight feeling of like, okay This person's going to be Prime Minister so we probably ought to have a little bit of a public scrutiny But if you're gonna have a public scrutiny, you ought to have a public vote And as they all made very clear because they're cowards and anti-democratic cowards of that They all made very clear there is no chance under any circumstances that they will be calling a general election any time soon Every single one of them made that very clear because they know their audience They know their first audience is Tory MPs and there is no way Tory MPs want a general election any time soon for all the bluster about how much they want to take on Jeremy Corbyn Not gonna happen and they don't really want to force their members to go through another general election either So the difficulty is so with these with these debates as they keep occurring I think what what many people in the audience are wanting is someone to push them on sort of the Irresponsibility or the the recklessness of pushing for a no-deal Brexit, but then We can't forget the fact who that who is voting in these these elections So you gov had some good stats out this morning, which I think we can probably Get up Gary. So it's the one that says Tory members are swivel-eyed loons. That's the Caption I've given it. That's because that was what a David Cameron advisor one of his top advisors had called the members It's not my words. I would never I would never use that to describe them So maybe we can get those up. So Tories are so committed to Brexit This is the membership that they would prefer Brexit to Scotland No, they prefer Scotland to leave the EU then to not have Brexit by 63 to 29 They easily prefer Briggs it to Scotland by the way Yeah, that's probably like take that as red Well, they easily prefer Brexit to the economy as well as a significant damage to the UK economy 61% would prefer Brexit or would would rather Brexit took place Even if it caused significant damage to the UK economy 59% would rather Northern Ireland left the United Kingdom if it were Required to allow Brexit to take place and this is the interesting one actually 54% would Would be willing to accept the conservative party being destroyed if it was the only thing that would allow Brexit to take place I suppose that's because a lot of them are thinking we'll just jump over to the Brexit party That would be completely fine. The only thing that Tory party members fear more than Brexit being canceled Is Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister? So 51% of them would Block Brexit if that was the only way to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of Downing Street. I mean I've got some half-baked hot takes That's what we like on the army. Yeah, the best kind of hot take I mean, I think first is that cookie dough of hot take a cookie. They're sort of like squidgy delicious squidgy We'll make you we'll make you feel a bit nauseous Won't agree with you. So what insightful but not intimidatingly. So that's that used to be my tinderfire So basically I think what this paints a picture of is baby boomer nihilism And it's a sort of worldview which I think it's because often when we've spoken about Brexit We've talked about the sort of importance of political values over a sort of Technocratic approach to managing the economy We've had this sort of emphasis on who's been most affected by austerity one of the things that we haven't tried to get our Head surround or to understand with any great deal of depth is the sort of baby boomer nihilism of people Who have done very well for themselves who do know in property? Maybe even own more than one who've got very good pensions and just also really hate the idea of anyone telling them what to do and it's it's Not particularly deep-hunting, but I think it's something that we need to get our heads around If we're going to think about how labor response to the crisis presented by Brexit Which is a political crisis, but also I think at a more fundamental level It's a social crisis is crisis of how we relate to one another and how we think of ourselves in Collective terms the interesting thing is when you put Jeremy Corbyn up along store those things that the idea of Britain is not important to Conservative party members. I think the implicit thing there. It's not something which came up in The data and explicit has the implicit thing is that the idea of Englishness is much more important So English nationalism not British nationalism perhaps Britain was always a sort of Substitute vehicle for Englishness anyway, and then when you put Jeremy Corbyn up against that He's the sort of you know, he's particularly English in some ways. He likes manhole covers and allotments. He's antithetical to ideas of Aggressive and bellicose and kind of gouty English nationalism He's also seen as being suspiciously close to their Muslims, you know the Iranians the jihadis brown people in Peterborough all the rest of it and so there is nothing that Most conservative party members loathe more than the specter of brown people or the specter of a prime minister Who's perceived to be close to brown people as well. I think that's the sort of hidden story undergirding that data I think you could almost see those poll results in the debate because obviously Michael Gove I think a couple of weeks ago said that if we need to delay Brexit will delay Brexit It's it's somewhat arbitrary to say we have to leave on the 31st of October If we can leave in mid-November or in January on a better deal, let's go and do that But then I think he's seen you know these results and said that that's potentially not very popular with the Tory grassroots And he's decided the only way he can make up for this is to constantly call Jeremy Corbyn Marxist, so you often have in in these debates that was the same on Sunday Whatever the question Michael Gove manages to come up with a very incongruous response Which is about how Jeremy Corbyn is a Marxist who's going to turn Britain into Venezuela I know it was something about wasn't it tax cuts? It was something about tax cuts or austerity and it was like, you know, who doesn't care about working people Jeremy Corbyn because he loves Iran It's quite a leap isn't it? I'm trying to join those two things up. It's not really good at making rice I love Iran too. I mean, have you had a to-deek? Oh my god It's a get now. I Basically agree with that. There's something very peculiar that's happened here Which I think is the sort of shift if you step back a bit a shift from a British nationalism to an English national The concept of party is still the Conservative Unionist party They certainly still call themselves out on occasion and like really looking these results is like forget the unionists No, no, this is like, you know forget Scotland forget Northern Ireland forget anything that would qualify you talking about Unionists, and we still got Wales, but that's been there for a good long period of time so the Without when he's sound dismissive, but I think fairly clearly it's not featuring very highly in anybody's any Tory member's Brexit considerations What what's striking about it is that it is not the British nationalism the kind of person that Nigel Frage would cite but none the people in that panel would cite and it's something I'm wary of citing on Navarra media and it's what what E not power would talk about if it's describing nationalism, you know Quite famously said he would fight for his country if it went communist now If you look at those results like Jeremy Corbyn's not communist, but these people will not they don't want this anymore if it means Jeremy Corbyn So it's quite a distinctive sort of ideological take on all of this has come through that that's different to what you might have seen Well, you know 40 50 60 years ago around a particular variant of British nationalism specifically, so it's something new That we're starting to look at now. Let's look at who the Tories want So, I mean, it seems like a somewhat predictable Racing that no one is is really predicting that anyone other than Boris Johnson will win. He's far away I'm the favorite in the bookies Gary. We can get up who Tory members want So percentage of conservative party members who think each candidate would make a good leader Boris Johnson is weighing the lead on 77% Dominic Robb on 68% obviously he was Removed from the race today when he didn't get enough nominations from MPs He got provoked. Yeah, very good. So did Javid actually not that bad on 61% I think he did okay in today's debate Jeremy Hunt on 56 Michael Gove on 50 and Rory Stewart on 31% These these members do not want someone who is trying to revive The the withdrawal it's only like Lib Dems and pundits love him. Yeah, exactly Actually, you wrote you wrote an article sort of dissing Rory Stewart, didn't you? I think it wasn't dissing Rory Stewart himself because I Don't think there's much point and I was sort of dissing the Warm orifices opened up for him across It like it was so uncritical and Undignified Is your warm orifice opening for Rory Stewart He actually looked at times in the debate This is what it looks like Magic Mike approach to dominating the leadership debate. Yeah, that's Rory Stewart's warm orifice opening Anyway, sorry as we interrupt to do that. What's your take on Rory Stewart talking about the warm orifice is because We might not we might not think of a figure like David Ivanovich who's a very sort of, you know, aggressive bristling figure There's no one you can name who's warm orifice. We're not gonna think of Anyway, sorry, sorry Everyone's got one So I hear All of these figures who just a few months ago when Chukarimuna and Anna Subri and Joan Ryan and Luciana Berger And all the rest of them jump ship and form change UK said this is what we have been looking for and Exalted them as a return to grown-up managerial technocratic politics and The use of that phrase that adults in the room grown-up politics Was really striking to me. It was the sense of, you know, you've let the children play with populism for long enough And so now someone's gonna come in and be sensible Ian Burrell who used to be a speech writer for a David Cameron said that the look of Rory Stewart is of a grown-up Who's returned to the noisy kid in a garden of Brexit dominated politics? So he was being received on okay, I mean everyone else is fucking I'm just sort of like wandering in like, you know blinking eccentric and I realized that what they're responding to one is this is a They look reasonable compared to the other people who are likely to be Prime Minister in terms of the Conservative Party, but also look reasonable in the sense of they're able to Have a good go at Impersonating what a non ideological politic would look like and of course it is intensely ideological And that was the thing that I was trying to point out with Rory Stewart that he is very much an ideologue And it shows for it. It shows an interest that he has made in terms of his voting record And then of course when I write this article, which is sort of like unpicking the Reception of what Rory Stewart by the pundit class the pundit class got very very annoyed at me and a David Aranovic Jason Cowley in particular very snooty. They were like, oh, so I suppose Jeremy Corbyn is the grown-up choice And I was like, did you read the fucking article man? Also, yes I don't normally take comments mid-show, but I think this is a factual direct point So it's important, you know to to intervene with it. This is from Max Shanley Opium is more likely to tighten your warm warm orifice actually so smack addicts are plagued by constipation something I know owing to having watched train spotting A valuable source of life advice in many different ways The tight orifice is still warm, isn't it? I wouldn't know it's less of an orifice I'm not sure if Michael Rory Stewart's the one person who could turn up to like a nursery where they're talking about Brexit on opium And nothing bad would happen because if you're in the MI6 you can squash those kind of problems quite easily I think the history of the British establishment shows you Anyway, you were talking about Are you coming to me straight after that? Interjection You know about the deep state You know how these centrists are gushing overall to it because they think he is He is The adult in the room when you've got lots of kids You know Promising or making world promises Playing to the mob Not being particularly realistic I mean one thing that this tour leadership campaign is characterised Is by people not being particularly realistic So I want to know from you James Someone who knows more about policy Economic outcomes Than I do You've got Boris Johnson on stage You've got Sajid Javed on stage Michael Gove kind of on stage And Jeremy Hunt They're all saying we will countenance a no deal Brexit Are these candidates all making promises to their membership that they cannot do? If you watch them They'll slither around a bit on the question They'll basically back away from saying they'll do a no deal Brexit Every single one of them if pushed From my memory It's just a negotiating position You have to look like you're really serious about this And then they say would you actually do it Oh well, you know it's a negotiating position You have to look really serious about it Which point is a useless negotiating position Because it's obvious it's just a negotiating position The person who was really really enthusiastic about a no deal Brexit To the point of like he will destroy parliamentary democracy Dominic Raab has now been eliminated So you're left with a bunch of basically chances who know full well That this is a really bad difficult idea And they're not going to be able to deliver it But the way they can look like they're going to deliver it In a way that seems like the grown up politics we all care about Is that it's just a cunning negotiating position But everybody and their dog including everybody in the EU Will know that they're not serious about this There is no one who's serious about a no deal Brexit That doesn't mean it can't happen Things can happen by accident Nobody wants it and you just end up with this anyway But really with push comes to shove The question is how rapidly can they sell Not a no deal Brexit which almost certainly looks like The withdrawal agreement we already have Plus or minus some bells and whistles Nothing to do with what Europe will give you Because they won't give you anything What they can give to the Labour side Or anybody else who might vote for it And that's the only thing that's going to be different The only person who's honest about that is Rory Stewart And he's the only person who has the clear position on this one On no deal Brexit So Gary can we prep the clip Hands up if you will leave by 31st of October And while that's being prepared Ash what were you going to say? One of the things I was going to say is that Something that came out today and was reported on By The Guardian is that Boris Johnson's been going around Making wild promises to conservative MPs in private So he's trying to appear socially liberal And centrist to socially liberal Tories And to centrist Tories He's trying to look like a no deal headbanger To no deal headbangers So what he's saying is that whatever cosmetic changes He might be able to secure On the backstop Because this nonsense of We will simply get rid of the backstop We will simply renegotiate the backstop Is a complete fiction Might not be enough to placate the likes of Steve Baker and those sort of Real ERG like wing nuts In his party I think one of the things which Hasn't come up in any of these debates And I think really should The Conservative Party and also has Very serious implications For what happens with Labour's approach To Brexit and how it can Continue holding its current line Or might have to tack more towards Remain Is how likely would Nigel Forage be to do a deal With Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the event of An early general election Because lots of this no deal posturing Is to achieve one thing and one thing only Which is to claw back Brexit party voters from Nigel Forage and get them voting Conservative Again and every single Other candidate in that debate Even the OG Leaver Michael Gove Will no doubt inspire the Brexit party To run their candidates against Tories in key Seats whereas Johnson Is the only one who I could see Opting perhaps For an early general election putting No deal on his manifesto because there would be A way to get it through Parliament Will make it happen and secure Nigel Forage for him not to have the Brexit party stand against him. You don't think There's a chance. I don't think I mean look it's never say never Particularly after the last few years It's possible there'll be an early general election But it's incredibly unlikely The fixed term parliament act basically Means that a government that doesn't want To go to an early general election doesn't have To do it and what everything In fact they've just done it publicly really In private I would have thought Every single candidate standing is going to Do every Tory MP and basically letting me know There is no way on God's earth that they will Have an early general election. You might see In the Daily Mail two days ago had Boris Johnson's camp Noisily declaring that whatever you may have Thought from his rather loose-lipped speech That was being spun presumably by Michael Gove As oh you might call an early general election No no no no Boris Johnson is not going to Call an early general election now Boris Johnson saying something you can either See fit but broadly speaking it's quite hard To persuade a bunch of MPs that you've insisted That you will not have an early general election To then vote for one because you've decided Circumstances are changed or things are just Difficult or for whatever reason so Frankly I think the most likely date for the election Remains 2022 so we're going to be here for a Long time which is a depressing thought In very very many ways unless something big turns Up some big external facts are intervened That's where we're going to get to So in terms of the Brexit party and the Calculations you make with it the real Brexit party sustain itself until 2022 Which is when your election is can you guarantee That no you can't look at the history of UKIP Over the last twenty or thirty Twenty odd twenty five years Up and down and up and down and up and down For a good long period of time the Latest permutation has done more damage Than previous permutations UKIP did But it's within the zone of what UKIP Was able to achieve at European elections So your calculation really is will the Brexit party survive no your Second order calculation might be what Nigel Farage have to be bribed with to shut up And go away for a bit to quote the Late lamented defence secretary At that point Lord Farage In a seat in the cabinet who knows Whatever it takes and you You think that be enough? Would it be enough To get Nigel Farage away once? Yeah I think You quite like the Laurel Reeds And looking important I think that's Broadly speaking what Nigel Farage is after In all of this maybe he's got a longer Term more serious plan maybe it's How we're going to reconstruct the right in Britain Is now a party on its last legs rather Visibly that doesn't mean they Disappear and suddenly it's a whoop You do socialism forever it could Well mean the Brexit party or something Like AFD or something far worse That appears in its place but nonetheless This does not look like a viable project For the British right to this point in time A softer version of that might be what Starts to happen around a candidate like Rory Stewart who can present himself As the grown up in the room the sensible One by the way there's something there's A colonial metaphor here isn't there I'm the grown up who's going to sort out The kids and here comes Rory Stewart Who spent his time in Afghanistan Apparently not working for MI6 or whatever it was He wasn't doing who's going to be Sorting out the various squabbling Tribes and all the rest of it so he's going to do The same thing for British politics which is nice So potentially you could reconstruct Around a kind of centrist vision The trouble is you're still stuck with Actually having to deliver the only thing That we have to deliver the only thing That can be delivered which is the withdrawal Agreement which has been completely up front About saying that's what we're going to do And that's Theresa May's withdrawal agreement Which is a car crash by the way There is no way anyone on the left should Support this under any circumstances whatsoever But that's the only deal in the room And that's what they're going to try and get through Alright we're going to go on to Sort of like the practicalities of Can Brexit be delivered on the 31st of October But before we do that we're going to hear What the candidates in today's debate Whether they will be able to leave on the 31st of October So we're going to get that up now We were doing a sort of difficult technical thing That didn't quite work which is I was going to Put the video on my laptop So we could hear it but then I didn't do it quite in time Anyway They were struggling to confirm whether or not They were going to leave on the 31st of October Potentially it made more sense to the people who were watching it I'm not sure This is why you've got to go to support.nvara.media.com Because with more funding We're going to have a better tech team Than Michael with his finger on the finger We could never have a better tech team Oh you mean than me with my finger on the finger However much money you give to us We're keeping Gary on Whatever it takes Can we leave On the 31st of October How Tell us how that can possibly Possibly draw agreement and you've done it And is that likely to happen Well this depends on a number of other things coming to play Most of which probably don't depend On the outcome of the conservative leadership election And this is a hypothetical situation But let's imagine Labour goes to A sort of clear invisible remain position And you have a Tory leader That says I am committed to delivering The existing withdrawal agreement So there's no messing around trying to renegotiate Or any of this nonsense that the other Candidates have gone for That gives a license To various back bench Labour MPs Who think that they need to vote leave To vote for leave because now Labour's a remain party They don't have to vote With the party whip because You're still going to get Brexit at some point So you can vote against it And then potentially you'll withdraw the agreement through The calculation, if he's made that calculation Would look a bit like that I am leader of the Tory party We are sticking to the existing withdrawal agreement Labour has moved to a more remain position Therefore we can get the withdrawal agreement through I think Robert Stewart is the one person Who has a coherent argument because he's saying If I were elected Tory party leader I could get through the withdrawal agreement And I think that is true because he would have By having gone to the Tory party membership If it was clear that the Tory party membership Were happy with this withdrawal agreement Or any Tory MPs who were wavering reason To back it and as you say If Labour went to a second referendum position Then you'd get some other sort of Labour leaders backing it Potentially At least you could calculate you're not potentially A few more in favour of that withdrawal agreement I mean he's not going to Shit, he's You did a real life NL That's true, he's not going to win though Why not Because we just talked about the nature Of the Tory party membership So the only way Rory Stewart could win A Tory party election Is if he did the whole Jeremy Corbyn Style you can join for £1 And I think there would be enough centrist with moist orifice Is to potentially pay that one That was the analogy with the working wall Was it warm? A warm orifice Is a moist orifice He's not going to win The only way Rory Stewart could win Is If they did a sort of like Affiliated members Or registered supporters kind of way Where he could attract a bunch of centrist into the party To put him into power You're saying things with enough certainty to win me over And then I think about it and I'm going wait how the fuck He can't win, tell us how he could win The route to it if you're Rory Stewart This is very very slender There's not very much going on here But working on the basis that Boris Johnson Is manifestly unfit for office If you're fairly serious and you'd like So grossly dysfunctional And you're prepared to try and make this happen And you're therefore attached to the Tory party in some form I mean look at his performance today He was inadequate and if we have Even a reasonably long I mean I thought it was a bit longer than it is but it's not It's only six weeks after the end of this week For the members to decide If he was the rest of the summer Boris Johnson would be toast under any credible Actual leadership campaign Not with that membership Wait until the entire British press But behind whoever seems to be the credible Brexit-y candidate Who might be able to deliver Brexit But doesn't come with all the appalling baggage Wait until you've got everyone lining up and saying Yeah you know the withdrawal agreement is not great But Theresa May tried her best You could have said that about Donald Trump In the Republican primaries If people want their extremist candidate They'll vote for their extremist candidate And broadly speaking the bit that counts against all of this Is that exactly it You will have a bunch of people who want to vote for Boris Johnson And they're not going to be easily dislodged But if you had to write out a plan about how that doesn't happen This is what it would look like And given the baggage that Boris personally brings to it Given his actual inadequacies In terms of dealing with The pressures of a real campaign Where there is actual scrutiny being applied to you I don't think he'll be able to cope with that If you have the entire press suddenly lined up and saying Do you know what, we're actually not super keen on Boris Johnson anymore Actually we want the withdrawal agreement to happen Not with crazy stuff We need someone who can reach across the aisles to deliver it Whoever it is That's your route to actually winning the thing I think that's Highly, highly unlikely The thing is that every single Serious Prediction I've made in politics has turned out to be wrong Every single jokey prediction I've ever made Has turned out to be right And my jokey prediction has been There's going to be no-deal Brexit So just putting that on the table is number one But number two I think that's highly unlikely Polling has showed that consistently At least half of the Tory membership Went out and voted Brexit party At the European elections And so that means that the membership Who will be voting For our next prime minister Will not be behaving rationally You've got half of that membership Being dead set on wanting a no-deal Brexit You've got the other half of that membership Thinking how do we win back Our own membership And also the voters who we have lost Back to voting for the Conservatives Party So one of the things that will be happening Is this sort of act of political ventriloquism Which is I don't necessarily like Boris Johnson But there is a big red button With his name on it and that is how we Get Brexit through and defeat Jeremy Corbyn All at once And that's the big Boris button Where Rory Stewart will do well Our younger Conservative party Members and also undecideds But I think that both Of those groups of people Are very very low in number And that's why I think that simply There won't be that sort of calculation Of like okay well how do we Stop British capitalism from being Quite so dysfunctional Okay how do we have a candidate Who doesn't have quite so much baggage In terms of you know Unknown number of love children Various forms of ugly Personal conduct A record of dishonesty You can't trust them even as far as you can throw them I don't think that's The sort of thoughts that's going to be Happening between now and the 22nd of July It's as I said it's a slender Root to winning but if you wanted to take it And you weren't Boris Johnson this is what you do And this is what you try and rely on The issue there is look this is kind of What David Cameron did right David Davies in 2005 which I think Is the last time it is the last time the Tories had A really contested leadership election I mean it's really going back a bit David Davies was the candidate who was going to win He had the support of the membership He had everything lined up He was the favourite going into that contest It flipped over entirely partly because Cameron did What was widely reputed to be a brilliant Speech at Tory conference where they had hustings Backed up by this overwhelming Media campaign David Cameron won David Cameron is going to rescue us from Labour That sort of thing and it was huge Now that's a Tory membership Which I think in terms of demography Looks actually quite similar to now Still on the older end The more obviously socially conservative More obviously conservative voting Of the entire spectrum of the population here It's probably changed And got more like that in the intervening period That would be my assumption I think there's also been people moving over from UKIP And all sorts of other things which definitely shifted that way But it has happened before Somewhat like this That the apparently socially liberal Reach across a divide, centrist candidate Comes through as if from now on Appears out of nowhere Eaten educated, no less, there you go Mind you, says Boris Appears out of nowhere, wins over A constituency and delivers it Now I think this is a very hard route For Rory Stewart or anybody else To walk probably harder than walking across Afghanistan At this point in time I imagine walking across Afghanistan When you're Allegedly a spook Isn't actually that difficult If you've got your satellite phone And an RPG or something You're fine It's like swimming the channel where you've got a safety boat Or something you probably ought to do If you're swimming the channel, not having to swim the channel I really think you should have a safety boat I'm trying to think of a metaphor that works And that one probably doesn't quite It's a difficult path to follow But it's not completely implausible I don't see, given the fairly compressed timetable Quite working But then you back into who is Boris Johnson really And what does he really want To Shrug your shoulders, who knows Richard Nixon went to China, Boris Johnson does You know, to stop Brexit It feels to me that your range of Uncertainties with him as Prime Minister Are far wider than with any of the other candidates Michael Gobe will definitely try and do Brexit He's quite committed to this Rory Stewart will do the withdrawal agreement He's quite committed to this He's a sort of empty suit He's a bit more interesting actually So that's interesting I'm reminded that Tory party members are behaving rationally Because I was going to say, if they're behaving rationally And they don't care about the destruction of their party And all they care about is a hard Brexit Then Boris is the right person to go for But you're actually saying that if what Tory party members really care about Is a hard Brexit or a no deal Brexit or whatever Then Boris Johnson is actually a very risky person To get behind He's not someone who when he says he will do a thing Is guaranteed to do that thing he says he will do Right, we know this from his entire Personal and political history When did he run London? Well he basically did nothing He just sat there And allowed all the bad stuff to carry on And did almost nothing else A couple of failed schemes to build a bridge or whatever And broadly speaking he was socially liberal at the time This was Boris Johnson who wanted to deliver An amnesty to migrants And we don't have to go that far back It's Boris Johnson who not that long ago Was talking about global Britain open to the world Buccaneering nation, we're all going to trade And all that sort of thing pitching quite hard Towards the kind of free trade To run the light, pull up the draw bridges Send them all back ended Brexit That's how he was behaving Within what, the last two years or so So do you think he's going to suddenly do a no deal Brexit Because that's difficult That's really difficult by the way And you have to take a lot of flak and everyone will hate you for it Will Boris Johnson want to do that? Probably not It's interesting that that's not what his competitors are going for Because I was doing something on the radio With a writing journalist asked what is the one thing That Boris Johnson could do that could You know throw this race That could lose his leadership and he said if he was seen In any way to be softer on Brexit than his competitor And what's surprising actually Is that his competitors have gone on things That the membership don't care about Which is infidelity or which is Islamophobia Or not being particularly Clued up on the details When the only thing the Tory party membership care about As we can see from The survey results is a hard Brexit So what they should be going on is the fact that he's not genuinely An out and out conservative This whole sort of he is actually Not that committed to The two things that That was what was appropriate at the time The absolute hard no deal Ultimate hard no deal Brexit candidate Dominic Raab Has disappeared because He was so committed to Brexit he would literally Just get in parliamentary democracy That's how much Brexit you're going to get with him So he said he'd do that and he's gone So you're reduced to who is the next hardy start On the Brexit issue is it really Boris Johnson Well up until fairly recently He's definitely sort This is the man who wrote two separate columns On whether he's going to remain or leave How committed is he really Now there's an element of Suspectory MPs who if nothing else Are at least reasonably calculating about their own Personal sort of political survival Will have an awareness That there's a game you're playing with Boris Johnson That he won't actually necessarily follow through And all the stuff he's going to tell all the membership Which would be my working assumption And if you wanted to dig away at him What does he really mean? You saw it this evening It wasn't a particularly good debate Nobody has really put under pressure Boris Johnson flapped and flapped quite rapidly Without very much poking or pro-ring From Emily Maitlis or any of the other candidates So one of the things that I would say And this isn't something that you can measure And this isn't something in which I've got a vast amount of data Or historical precedent to back me up It's one of those things where you sort of Make your finger and see which way the wind is blowing It's something very similar in the way Which Boris Johnson campaigns and the effects That he has on people that support him That Trump has had And one of the things that fell apart In 2016 with Trump's win Were our criteria for judging What is a good campaign And what is a good debate performance And what are the things that The base really care about When they're looking at a candidate So lots of the things that we're saying In terms of has been Incredible Has lacked integrity Hasn't been able to stick to a line Doesn't know detail Falls apart under any form Of prodding or probing Someone whose personal life Is a complete mess And someone even on Some of the most Deeply held Issues to the electoral base Has flipped-flopped around a bit Still manages To stake out a space for themselves By simply being An anti-systems candidate So this is the person You can trust to tear the whole thing down And I think that that's some of the value That Boris Johnson has I would actually think that In a weird way, and James Butler wrote this In his very good LRB piece recently Is that one of the main differences Between Boris Johnson and Donald Trump That Donald Trump actually does have some areas That he genuinely feels You know, incandescent And enraged about, whereas Boris Johnson All he cares about is his, you know Slide and ooze towards number 10 But I would say that We risk Having Our expectations confounded The same way again Which is an incredibly sad thing to happen Because we're trying to apply the same criteria Twice when the spirit of the time simply Doesn't fit I don't quite buy that As a description of how Donald Trump won I think, broadly alright He could say He could shoot somebody in Times Square And people would still vote for him Does that matter? Times Square would have been a red line I'm wondering My nuanced detail of American politics Doesn't run quite that far To which street in New York you can shoot As Donald Trump and people still vote for you But nonetheless, it was one of the streets In New York you shoot people and people still vote for him That is true for a great old chunk of his support Similar for Boris Johnson Is that enough to get you over the line? No, in the case of Donald Trump Well, we know this actually did lose a popular vote I always feel there's a bit of a weedy thing to point out He didn't actually get as many votes But he still won, right? And he won because in America Somewhat as here, but we can get onto the Tory leadership contest It's actually not a very democratic Or fair electoral system And what Donald Trump did brilliantly And what Clinton's side did spectacularly Badly was game the system Donald Trump knew that he had to win three states Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania And he absolutely hammered them And he had a message for people there And he didn't really care that much about what everybody else is doing Can Boris Johnson do the same thing? Can he game the system that well? Probably not, probably not I was also thinking the primaries in the campaign That Donald Trump ran against his other candidates Yeah, that is where More of the Can you round up a big old mob of people Who really, really count in your favour Comes through I think that's right And that's where the Trump-Boris Johnson similarity Holds water The difficulty you've got Is that this comes down to two candidates So it's two candidates who face the electorate The primaries remain very open The primaries remain very open until you get Potentially anybody can win So you always have the opportunity to appeal to a chunk I mean, the entirety of the electorate Who can carry you through If Boris Johnson is appealing to a minority And now, because it's a Tory membership You think, okay, it's a big old minority Probably majority really, I mean, look at the polling You might also think actually some of it can be a bit wobbly And some of it could be knocked around And if it's two candidates And one of them is this person who suddenly What are they saying really What's their background, what's their past Their campaign to be prime minister Even our British press will at this point Subject someone to a bit of scrutiny And they're bothered to in the past, that will happen Why do you think he's not appeared in any of these debates Up until this point? Why do you think he's avoiding Old Germanist questions? He doesn't want that And he's perfectly right to not want that Because it's bad for him If he has to do that Over the next six weeks facing one of the Candidate, this is risky for him And he can lose this I wouldn't say he will, and I certainly Want to place my faith in the Remaining members of the Tory party To not vote for Boris Johnson The second order question of that is Will Boris Johnson be bad for the country Yes, obviously Tory MP PM rather Who would Labour rather face Boris Johnson Or someone else is an interesting question Particularly if it gets to 2022 And that I think is one for the left to think about What do you think is the answer to that question Boris Johnson You think we'd prefer to face Boris Johnson Absolutely Boris Johnson Absolutely, if the Tory members are daft enough To elect Boris Johnson A completely known factor In British politics by this point Where his weaknesses are What he's going to campaign on He's already stuck his neck out And said we're going to raise the high-rated tax To £80,000 So I'm going to make sure that Everybody in the top 5% of the country Is really a lot better off now If I want to run a campaign against someone I'd want to run a campaign against Boris Johnson Absolutely, the only thing that might work For him is that let's say To deliver Brexit in some form It'll be the withdrawal agreement You'll get a slight boost in the economy Because the investment that's been held back For the last two years or so Due to the uncertainty of not knowing about Brexit Suddenly appears, the economy grows a bit Things look alright for a while Maybe then you'll go for an early election But I doubt it, because we've seen what happens If you do that, it's really difficult to call an early election I mean I worry about Boris Johnson as an opponent Not because I think he's So Stephen Bush has a somewhat persuasive Or initially persuasive argument Which is to say that Boris Johnson's Big argument for his electability And what they keep proposing Or bringing up in the leadership elections Not only is he the person who can bring over Brexit party voters, but he is the person Who's won London, and so he is the person Who could potentially win over Metropolitan Liberals And the argument used against him Is that that was in 2008 Times of change, people have become More Well I suppose they identify more With the Social Liberalism In a sort of concrete way that Boris Johnson Because he back-leave is now seen as Against But the thing that made me worry about this Is I was speaking to my dad Before this show, who was speaking to His Muslim neighbour with a headscarf Who quite liked Boris Johnson I thought he was quite a Intelligent, likeable Guy, potentially going to vote for him And what I worry is this idea that People have hardened towards Liberals have hardened towards Hating Brexit, and therefore hating Boris Johnson, doesn't really take into Account the fact that a lot of people vote based on Who they can relate to And I don't think that Boris Johnson will be stupid enough To sort of make these big promises Which people find objectionable, so I think he potentially Could run a kind of Relatable General election campaign So, one thing which I found really interesting And this happened to me the other night I was doing any questions in Painton In Devon, and the constituency That was in Torbay Voted 63% to leave And it has a Tory majority Of 14,000 I don't think any of the people At the Painton Theatre that night Would mind me saying that The audience was almost entirely white So literally only people of colour In the building were myself And The MP for Bristol West They have a song for her Which is I went there for TWT and they were just singing it constantly I couldn't stop them I was talking to a friend of mine afterwards My friend was like, it's her first time really fangirling And I was like, yeah, and he was like It's a good name People are singing your name That's a good sign But anyway, only people of colour in there And it was a very, very old audience A very, very old audience So sort of average age of 60 First question from the audience Was about Boris Johnson Jonathan Dibbleby turned to me and was like Ash, you start and I was like I'm just going to do my Why I don't like Boris Johnson And I'm going to just prepare myself For a little Sharing of applause maybe And that's it, I'm going to be torn apart by this audience And the response was insane It was screaming, cheering Going on for ages And I was looking into the audience as well Because I was like, where is this noise coming from Is this just five lefties In here Making me feel really good about myself And it wasn't, it was like Lots of these much older voters And I imagine that lots of them are I imagine that the audience for any questions Maybe skews You know, a lot more liberal But a significant portion of that audience I think of conservative voters And a significant portion of them I think Voted leave And what's interesting to me is that when you say Well, this is what we know about Boris Johnson And he's really, really shit And I can point to these things which exist in reality And one of the things that was I did deliberately as I said Away from talking about Islamophobia and race And I went for him on his record in London Because that scene is something very stronger And that got a really good reaction So, yes, I think Boris Johnson Has this sort of You know, lingering Celebrity Affability Which people respond to Because people, like when people Feel that they know a guy They know something of his personality Yeah, you know, warm to him a bit more But his reputation I think Is becoming more and more cemented By someone who cannot be trusted Who will say anything to get a sniff of power And this isn't about Liberals will reject him because You know, he's seen as a hard Brexiter and Liberals hate Brexit I think it's more of a case of Liberals and also some conservatives find Him as a person so distasteful That they'll turn against him in a general election I mean, you're persuaded by that one, right? I'm persuaded by the fact that Boris Johnson Isn't like some magic elixir That people just vote conservative What he brings to it Probably, if he brings anything to it Is the enthusiasm Of the conservative base and that can start To dwindle and that may not be enough to carry through Probably is, frankly, I mean, just to be clear I think he's probably going to win, but it's not guaranteed So we shouldn't sit there going, oh, it's definitely guaranteed And if he does win, this is a problem For the conservative party, not Lisa Which is that he's a known Quantity, he's been around a long time We know what to say about it, we know what he's going to do He's always going to have to deliver, because he's going to have to deliver Brexit And what do we know about Brexit? What will be the first thing that happens if Brexit happens? There'll be a campaign to rejuvenate you Immediately, right? So you automatically know Where at least some of the political constellation Is going to end up, right? And then Boris Johnson has to work against that as well So you can kind of see the ways To defeat him In the way, you know, Jeremy Hunt I think is just too dull, really To actually get you away Yeah, he does inspire sympathy He looks like he was sort of deflating In his suit jacket He's better sitting down, I think the chair really helped Today, because on the channel 4 debate He looked like he was just constantly holding in a liquid shit Like really awkward Boris, I think, sitting down Was at least a relief He's got this incredible face where he looks like He's constantly hiding What? Sorry, god This is how you do it, like, red aurora In our case, like, flipping The thing about I think about Jeremy Hunt is that he looks like He's hiding a live tadpole under his tongue He's got this little guy You have a more graphic and imagination Than I have a thing, Ash, that's not I don't look at Jeremy Hunt and think live tadpole Under the tongue, I just sort of feel vaguely sorry for him Which I shouldn't, because he's been terrible Clearly I've had, like, a worse history With men than you do, if I'm like, yep That's a live tadpole under your tongue I've seen it once and I'd recognise it again Yeah One thing that I think is potentially And I thought I just had this maybe I don't know, hasn't been taken account of Is that I think people think that If Boris Johnson has a snap election People think he'll win off the coattails Of anger about Brexit And I actually think, potentially, as soon as the election Happens, the more likely Corbyn is to win, because I think That sort of, like, remain movement could be Just as powerful electorally, especially in the cities And it's actually that if Brexit takes a back seat Boris might be forgiven By many people for pushing for a hard Brexit People might start to remember His sort of like likable Sort of soft liberal charm That he had in London Some liberals might come around to him People will be terrified at this point Of the Marxist, Jeremy Corbyn And Marxist John McDonnell And I think Boris could come through With sort of like a soft managerial option in 2022 And this is your sensible sort of Conservative managerial approach to this Which is you deliver Brexit and then Pivot away from that as rapidly as possible Now, the unfortunate truth here is that We will never ever escape Brexit We can do Brexit and Brexit will still be a feature In all of British political life As long as there is a British political life This is now inescapable This is just a thing we're all going to have to work with And talk about forever more Unless we all give up and go and live in like Tropical Island elsewhere Or just take to writing books or farming or something That's always going to be there So we're stuck with this one But nonetheless you can see a pivot which goes Done the Brexit, it's withdrawal agreement So the economic consequences initially look quite good And then basically afterwards you don't really notice How bad they are, they're just sort of there And then by 2022 you can't things there And off you go That's a sort of sensible version of what you might want to do And Boris Johnson I think is underneath many All of this, fairly sensible And that was probably what his long term plan is I just want to say first While Ash is making her latest intervention I'm going to be collecting questions So start giving me your questions Also, the only reason this double bill Was possible tonight is your kind support Tiskey Salon of R&M is only possible Because of the kind donations of our supporters If you are one of those, thank you very much If you are not Please go to support.navaramedia.com And kindly donate the equivalent of one Hour's wage a month As ever please like this video It means it appears in more people's feeds Share it on Twitter, share it on Facebook You know the score Anyway, Ash, sorry One person that we've forgotten to talk about Is Mr. Relatohead We commented Looks relatable because he looked very nervous And also looked like Mr. Potatohead So that was synthesized to Mr. Relatohead I don't actually think we have to talk about him very much He tried to do A sort of appeal to like hard nationalism Stripping the citizenship away from You know, anyone he Crossed paths with Didn't work Tried to be the iron-ran fanboy And I think that is closer to who he is Didn't necessarily resonate with people Particularly well And now he has become the Muslim candidate Even though he is not himself A practicing Muslim And he's sort of the way into Talking about Islamophobia Talking about issues of racism in the Conservative Party And I don't feel that That's a particularly comfortable place for him to be in He got that sort of Concession from people of yes, there'll be an investigation To the Islamophobia in the Conservative Party But I think ultimately he's really Lost sight of What his role is Within the Conservative Party He thought he could carve out A particular persona for himself as Home Secretary And he's been surprisingly Unsuccessful at doing that, I think In terms of how he's viewed within his party The thing that I would maybe briefly Like to talk about is Where Labour is at the moment Because quite understandably There's been I think quite a deliberate retreat From media Apart from Laura Pidcock on Tiskey's Hour earlier tonight By most of the Labour front bench Because why would you interrupt your enemies while they're making a mistake Why would you inject yourself Into the bunfight when it's blue on blue violence Right, so those are sort of Sound of political rules But I think that we also shouldn't underestimate The Decision-making that is occurring For the Labour Party right now And part of that crisis is Hoping against hope That while you do nothing People's perception of you can somehow Remain the same And I think that that's the approach To this summer And I Find it difficult to anticipate Jeremy Corbyn intervening And doing sort of big Brexit Vault fast that lots of people had predicted For him After the European elections result And I think Only time will tell whether or not That's the right thing to do But I think one thing that People feel a loss of Is a loss of presence Of the opposition at this point in time Where it feels that there is this Reshuffle of power Within the Conservative Party It has consequences for all of us And yet If the alternative that New World Which is not only possible but is breathing And nearly here It doesn't feel quite so real It doesn't feel quite so immediate And I think that that's A consequence Of the Tory leadership race Which really needs dealing with And thinking about in quite a serious way And unfortunately I don't see that happening I think that's before you answer There's two questions that link to that And I'd like to get them in Will support a people's vote and Matt Dodds Should Labour move to supporting A second referendum But I mean I think you can link that In whatever is going to be your answer to Ash there Well the obvious The answer is to quote Barry Gardner Quoting Napoleon, quoting Sun Tzu Which is never interrupt your enemy When he's making a mistake And that is as we know On the Labour side from bitter experience Quite personal bitter experience on my part Leadership elections do not Go down well with like The broader mass of people who frankly Don't really care that much about politics And sort of want things to be run well And want certain things But don't really want to see a major political party Having a good old summer like yelling abuse See each other and tearing chunks out of each other They really don't like that If you trace and take what happens When Jeremy Corbyn's elected 2015 through to 2016 And then you hit the leadership election This is the point at which the polling goes bad And the Risley Conservative Party Although they have more institutional Basis to draw on They won't have to face a continually Hostile and aggressive And sort of weirdly It's not intrusive isn't the word It's kind of picking on details media In quite the same way we have We know that this is going to be the case There's still a good risk that a long summer Even a fairly short summer Of them tearing chunks out of each other Looks bad and damaging the polls And then it takes a while to recover from that That's the reason why you don't necessarily want to turn up And start talking too much yourself Because you kind of detract attention to the fact People having a massive bun fight That they should get on with 2016 was incredible by the way We had a Frankly it was a pointless leadership election We shouldn't have it There's no real reason to it But we had it anyway And it just allowed the Tories to go We should have a leadership election as well But we're not going to do his tourism And that was a story all the way through until 2017 When it all sort of fell apart That isn't quite what's going to happen This time round I don't think But the fact that the Tories are going to have to spend At least a certain amount of time All being relatively aggressive with each other Is not going to work well for them In terms of broader political sport Broad public sport The difficulty is who do they end up without the other side If it's Boris Johnson The question of them is What are they going to say by Conservative conference And that will be very very close to the October 31st date You've got a very brief period of time Where there's any normal parliamentary debate And then it's conference season Then there's a bit of time, then you hit October 31st To me it looks very difficult to decide What you're actually going to do at that point If you're going to try and pull something together Around a deal you're going to have to work very very fast So probably if you're elected Tory leader at all You're going to have to say straight away What your rough plan is for the next few weeks For the next months leading up to October 31st That's quite hard to do If it's going to have to be a difficult decision At that point in time It's going to be a decision that is like And it probably will, there will be a lot of pressure to make this happen To pivot away from the absolute hard Brexit for example So that's one part of it On the Labour side there is a sort of reduced form version of that Which put it this way As soon as there was a withdrawal agreement On the table And details of it were leaked After about what the checkers meeting Or something last summer wasn't it As soon as there's something on the table Or a bit on the table The space in which you can sort of go Well, you know, here's the process argument Here's what we kind of like out of Brexit That starts to close down Because there is a Brexit on the table And to be absolutely clear That withdrawal agreement plus the outline political declaration Which we don't really talk about enough But is even worse Is an absolute car crash for the left It does one thing that I think is Morally something we shouldn't be doing It just trashes freedom of movement The primary aim of Theresa May's deal Is to end freedom of movement And then basically everything else can go hang So it does that And then at great expense it sort of manages to wiggle out of this And there's lots of costs to sort of still be involved with a single market PS includes a whole load of stuff Around state aid Around competition and all the things that everybody in the left Normally objects to So it's an absolute car crash It's an abomination of a deal No one on the left should support it The situation becomes polarised Because either you're kind of in favour of this sort of thing Or something a bit like it because that's Brexit Or you don't like this sort of thing And every single time Theresa May drags a bloody deal back through parliament In every single time you have the same debates That polarisation gets worse And you can see that I think happening quite clearly Over the period of time it was being debated That everybody ends up increasingly With this sort of hardy band in the middle It's probably still the majority really For God's sake just make it end Between remain We really really really hate Brexit And leave we really really love Brexit But more, thank you very much And in a polarised situation It is extremely hard to maintain a position Which is looking at the process Which is attempting to balance all sides off So here's what I think about it Which is Morally Trying to achieve some kind of Brexit compromise Was the right thing to do Trying to depolarise the discussion Was the right thing to do I think it was doomed from the start But morally I can get on board with it Now looking at the process Of deep and polarisation In which the Brexit option And what it means for most of the public Is a no deal Brexit Has sort of You know swept the idea Of a negotiated Brexit Of the table at least in the minds of most people You then think okay Well does Labour stick With what it's doing now Which is a set of institutional arrangements Which not very many people care about And the bit which people do care about Which is ending freedom of movement Is something which It's membership The people that will go out and campaign For Labour Most of its voters really Quite fiercely want to protect Or Do you Try and harden your Brexit position Impossible not going to happen Or do you go for one of two options Which is second referendum Or do you go for What someone has Referred to as woke revoke To me We're going to revoke article 50 We're going to put together All sorts of like ding battery To talk about what Brexit is And we'll revisit it at the end of The next parliamentary term And those being the other two options In that context The second referendum looks like The compromise option to me The problem is Is that I think we're still viewing Both Labour's 2017 coalition And the electoral coalition Which delivered Brexit in very Very flawed terms So I think one of the things that we do Is we persistently Imagine that Labour Leavers are the hardest possible Leavers out there That actually represents a real minority Of Labour Leavers They're the most short The most short A betrayal of Leave voters As a betrayal of Labour's working class voters Working class leave voters made up 15% of the 2017 coalition Working class leave voters This is according to the government Which I read today That a lot of working class Remain voters And so one of the things That starts happening Is you start relying on these What I would term culturalist Understandings of class Which start pulling in our assumptions About race, our experiences Of deindustrialization Whether it's in town or big urban centres So on and so forth And then we start concocting a story Of any betrayal of leave All of Labour's working class voters And again, this is a very flawed Prism through which to view The project of holding together the 2017 Coalition building on it Or indeed looking at what delivered the 2016 vote in the first place No, I broadly agree with that I think it's I think the flawed way of looking At how people vote And why they vote next summer out here Is partly what's driving this And people have ended up clinging Of not so much reality But versions of what a vote looks like That aren't necessarily quite there in practice I think you're absolutely right On Labour's leave vote If you asked Labour leavers What do they care about And this is completely understandable A whole load of other things That you might anticipate Like the economy, education, the NHS Before they hit Brexit So whereas you can go on the other side And ask lots of Remainers What do they care about And often they'll say Brexit Sort of ironically because they're Remainers But that's the polarization That seems to be happening on the polling If you take the idea of How do you get a coalition that actually Wins for Labour next time round It's quite hard Actually the fundamental in this one Is very, very simple If Labour does not have the support Of its mass membership Which is 500,000 and up But this is an overwhelming Advantage Relative to all of your opponents If you do not have that membership You will not win the election Take this as the absolute Rock bottom thing that needs to happen In 2017 Without that membership mobilised And thinking this might be the only shot we get Now it turns out we get a second shot But this might be the only shot we get To make Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister Without that we would not have delivered 10% increase in Labour's vote share In 2017 You can write whatever clever manifesto you want You can do a couple of brilliant speeches Which Jeremy did You can do the campaign and all the rest of it It would not happen So your absolute limit on what is achievable By the Labour Party in terms of Brexit Is what do the members want That I think is quite clear Let's do this quickly because I want to do Quickfire on a bunch of good questions we've got From the audience To my memory And you can probably correct me on this Labour haven't done a mass membership drive I don't think so Since 2017 That's a very good question Why not James? You've been involved long enough Right in your Corbynomics book I know I sit there in my big chair People come to me saying why don't we have a mass membership I say no we must not do that I know I'm saying this to someone who isn't even a member Come to think of it You shouldn't have raised that You can start your membership drive now Exactly Get the form out and you can sign up What I'm saying is that tactically It seems to me crazy That Labour haven't done a mass membership drive That she have put in place things Like the community organising It's kind of solidifying the membership In certain areas with the results That we're starting to see coming through The sets of local council elections Results just back in April Really interesting in terms of where Labour did well This is a pointer to the future I think that's in terms of training up your activists But in terms of building up your numbers You know what we want is 750,000 by the next election But you need a really solid offer We want to get through these questions Quickfire round You get about 30 seconds for each of them Walter Benjamin asks If Boring wins Walter X Benjamin There may be a difference Excellent His orifice is dried up long time That was completely unnecessary James, if Boris wins How quickly has Scotland gone? 30 seconds Oh God, not very quickly actually I don't think That depends on the SMP leadership in the first instance Do they really truly want independence Or do they think they have quite a nice set up there Where you can always blame Westminster for bad things And take the credit for good things Ash, Joseph Oh, is personality politics inescapable? I think that personality politics has always been important I think one of the things that We When people say the phrase personality Politics, what they mean is Mediatized celebrity politics And that's something which I think is specific to now But personality driven politics Well, you saw that when Ernst Talman Would always do his bit at KPD rallies Of showing up in a suit and tie And then to show that he was a man of the people To make it and taking off the tie So personality politics Has always been there Mr. Playdemand How do you think the Conservatives will fare In terms of climate issues In the 2022 general election or sooner? Blimey, right I think climate will be a doorstep issue By then, and it is already Number three in the list of voters' concerns On current polling, shot about nowhere There will be a conservative response to this Michael Gover has done more than A conservative side to try and carve out That position. It's based on work by Bright Blue, a think tank just after the 2017 Election on, you know, environment is something The Conservatives need to get into. There are more Radical and unpleasantly radical right-wing versions Of that. You can see a sort of rise of Green nationalism across Europe, the Front National, what are they called themselves now? National Rally in France have put it a centerpiece Of their program. So this will be a doorstep issue And it's not one that will necessarily fall to the left There will be a right-wing response to it. Ash, Peter Manuel, what are your thoughts between Doing a deal with Farage in order to join the Right? Boris PM and Farage as Deputy Anyone? I don't know how that would Work in terms of Farage as Deputy Because I actually don't know enough About how it works in terms of getting Someone into the House of Lords and then Getting someone into your cabinet or the rest of it So I don't necessarily think that's likely But in terms of what I had in mind was A deal by which Boris Johnson Struggles to get anything through Parliament He's like, fuck it, I'm going to go for no deal Snap general election, no deal on The manifesto and that's the deal by which I don't get the Brexit party contesting seats That's what I was asking you about James, Phil, BC If Johnson wins, how likely is the Tory party split? Ooh, that's a very good question Not very likely because it'll rally My working assumption is whoever wins rallies the door Ash, Barney W, question Will the telegraph stay loyal to Bojo? Yeah, they've made a very good investment In him and I think that he's been I think remarkably Malleable to The wishes of the people who've been Paying him all this time So what was that front page today all about? Like why talk up for your time? Rory being a spy? Yeah, Rory the spy It's something that goes down well with telegraph Turns out the Tory party membership is kind of anti-imperial Miscalculations happen Okay, okay, no, I'll go with that Eduardo Piraz asks What do you think will be the effect of a no deal Brexit And a long delayed recession in the next year Or so on the political landscape? Oh God, it's always right One thing that the left should never ever do is assume That because there's a big recession everyone decides capitalism is bad And therefore decides to support you This happened in 2008, 9, 10 And then we got 10 years of austerity or just about This isn't what happened So first one is let's not Try and wrestle all our calculations on there Being a big recession then people will think we're right Let's think about what we actually want to do And try and work towards achieving that Ash, Average Joe asks If Boris Johnson fudges Brexit Will the cut the Tory party and result in the Tories losing any future general election? It depends what you mean by Brexit fudge So any deal, any negotiated Brexit will be perceived as a fudge And what matters is whether The sort of symbolic elements of that fudge Like cosmetic changes to the backstop Etc, etc Able to secure the support of the ERG Because I think if you get The most nutty head bangers on board And saying yes, this is the only Brexit we're going to get And we're all for it We'll actually lose that sort of respectable Wing that the Brexit party will rely on In order to make their case Because don't forget there are a collection of Very odd people Very weird people And I think that they need that sort of Respectable Wing of the Tory party even though They're quite nuts themselves in order to be taken seriously James, Peter Peter Carmichael asks How does the Labour Party regain in Scotland Or is it SNP in Scotland and Labour South Of the border now? The Labour Party gets anywhere in Scotland Is it takes a much less sort of Hardline position on the issue of independence Which means in this case going for at least Something that Gordon Brown talked about During the independence referendum Which is radical federalism Which is say we have much more devolution We have much more power to the separate parts of the country And that is a position that we're now fighting on Ash, DeepTitanic asks Can we nuke the home counties? No, because I actually went to the home counties And it was quite pretty So there's the like stretch between Like Oh my god, where is it? It's just like in Devon, it's like stretch where The runway is like right up against the stage It's a home county Home counties has to touch London Doesn't it? It's like the ring around London You're in the south west We're not going to nuke the south west So we're talking about Kent, Hartfordshire Buckinghamshire We can get rid of Buckinghamshire I wouldn't say nuke Because that would actually have detrimental effects What are those little target ones? Can I step in? These are the old Labour targets This is where Labour wins now They're only targets because they exist And we don't have them yet I mean targets in the sense of for elections We're not going to nuke any of the counties of Britain Because all of them are potential subscribers To navaramedia.com You guys live everywhere If you enjoyed tonight's two shows The first time ever Please go to support.navaramedia.com It's your kind donation of one hour's wage A month. As ever, like this video Share this video, share it on Facebook, share it on Twitter Keep your comments coming, we love them I've very much enjoyed this evening Thank you very much, Ash Sarkar James Meadway, we're going to get you back on very soon This was Tisgisau This is navaramedia We'll be back next week, same time Thank you, Gary