 What defines a right-winger? They want lower taxes, lower benefits. Usually they want harsher border regimes and nearly always they're very relaxed about racism. But is it time to add a new criteria to the ideology of the right? COVID denialism. Let's take a look at the weekend at the world's most powerful politician of the right at a rally. This is our first piece of evidence in the case as to why COVID denialism should be included in the definition of what it means to be a right-winger. You know some countries they report differently. If somebody's sick with a heart problem and they die of COVID they say they die of a heart problem. If somebody's terminally ill with cancer and they have COVID we report them and you know doctors get more money and hospitals get more money. Think of this incentive so some countries do it differently. If somebody is very sick with a bad heart they die of COVID they don't get reported as COVID. So then you wonder gee I wonder why their cases are so low. This country and their reporting systems are really not doing it right. If somebody has a really bad heart and they're close to death even if they're not but they have a very bad heart and they get COVID they put it down to COVID. Other countries put it down to a heart. So we have to be we're going to start looking at things because you know they have things they have things a little bit backwards. I mean it's obvious I don't need to explain why that is so stupid. I mean X has deaths in the United States like in in the UK so these are deaths which happen over and above the deaths that would usually happen far outstrip the official death toll for coronavirus. So this idea that coronavirus the official death toll is just sort of double counting people that would have died anyway. No the excess death toll is much bigger than the official death toll so he's got it all the wrong way around but I don't really need to explain that to you. You know we all remember Boris Johnson bragging about shaking the hands of COVID patients in hospital. He is someone like Donald Trump who has a history of downplaying the severity of this particular virus of this particular disease. But you know our leading politicians in this country those they might be you know incompetent morally you know appalling outrageous they aren't quite as divorced from reality as someone like Donald Trump however our Murdoch controlled press do give Trump a good run for his money. Let's take a look at a debate last week between Labour MP Chris Bryant and talk radio host and Sun editor Dan Wharton. Because you do understand that that science has forever used herd immunity in order to deal with these uh to deal with this coronavirus. I really believe I really believe you need to read herd immunity. Yeah and protect protecting the vulnerable and I really think you should read the Great Barrington. Just tell just take me through how you protect the vulnerable. There's a whole load of ways to do it Chris. Chris there's a whole load of ways to do it and the Great Barrington Declaration spells it all out but look we are a nutcase you're a complete nut and you're dangerous as well. Chris do you know what you can go off now get rid of this man because actually we will not have people abuse well done Chris Bryant. I mean it's so telling Dan Wharton has asked quite a basic question how are you get so in in this theory and the herd immunity people so they're trying to downplay the severity of covid so we don't need these lockdowns all we need to do is protect the elderly and basically let it run through society let it loose whilst protecting those who are most likely to die from it and the problem with this even it might theoretically work obviously long covid and stuff makes it sort of somewhat a scary idea but the problem is no one has found a way of doing this this was the the UK government's original plan was to sort of protect the elderly and let it run through the population it turns out that if young people get a disease you can't actually stop old people getting a disease there's no way of doing this it's not like the Barrington Declaration which he's referring to solves that problem it again just it begs the question how are you going to do that um darling I want to go to you so this is we're going to move on to the far right in a moment and sort of outright covid denialism but the idea that you have to downplay coronavirus which you know is common to both Donald Trump Boris Johnson and the likes of Dan Wharton and Julia Hartley-Brew on the Murdoch owned talk radio what is it about the right that brings out this particular reaction you don't see it on on the center left you don't see it on the far left I think what what the issue is is that in all the actual solution to this pandemic revolves around a communal response it revolves around this concept of solidarity that we change our behaviors we may be sacrificed going out to the pub whatever in order to protect those who are more you know at risk of this virus than we might be it requires that you know it goes against everything that Margaret Thatcher sort of says of like you know there is no such thing a society it can only rely on society for us to actually implement the kind of measures that we need to and to have the kind of will that we need to in order to get through this and I just think that maybe at that base level that rubs them up the wrong way they find it uncomfortable they find it gross and that's why perhaps we are seeing this desire to kind of downplay it because we know what we actually need to do in order to tackle this virus until at least we get you know a vaccine and that kind of what we need to do goes against the actual value system of individualism of you know so-called survival of the fittest type politics that a lot of these people live by. I think that's a really important point you know the solutions to this the necessary implication of recognizing that coronavirus is a serious problem is that we are going to need you know state intervention and collective intervention and we're going to need social trust you know we're going to need all of those values and all of those ideas which you know I don't think are the property of the left but which are espoused by the left I think the other is just that they're not they're not interested they're only interested in a social problem if they get to shit on people who are either poorer than them or browner than them you know if coronavirus was coming just from gay people or just from migrants I think these people would be talking about it like it was the fucking end of the world but because it seems to be you know it doesn't really have a you can't frame this as something that's only becoming only coming from a dangerous outsider they're just not interested they don't care if 61,000 people have died in this country that's the excess death toll because of something which had been brought over by immigrants you would never hear the end of it on talk radio but because this is something which you know hits society at its core you can't really divide people very successfully to blame people obviously Donald Trump tries the only time he brings it up and Dan Watten was actually exactly the same whenever he got a question in the Downing Street press conference it was so asked a question about China they're only interested to the extent you can blame brown people beyond that particular talking point they don't care if they could blame poor people they would but they they can't so they're just like well it's not that big a deal then they're not interested I want to go one step further to the right so as I've said mainstream politicians and journalists of the right usually just downplay COVID they don't normally deny outright that it's a thing or just say that it's completely invented that it's a pure conspiracy you have to go further to the right for that we'll discuss that in a moment first of all let's take a look at a BBC interview with the son of a leading COVID denier Sebastian is 21 into politics traveling and his mum Kate Shemarani has become notorious for spreading conspiracy theories during the pandemic what she's doing is dangerous you nurses dancing I'm coming for you this is her five minutes of fame you will stand trial for genocide I don't want to be here talking about you know but it's something I think we've got to do before these ideas get bigger and more people fall down the same route that she's trying to take them down you can only prevent it before it happens his mum has become a headliner at anti lockdown rallies and promoted baseless conspiracy theories about 5g vaccines and the pandemic that's going to go into your DNA it's going to change you forever which means that you are no longer off the creator they can put a patent on you and you cannot be genocided thousands of people are taking her to be this source of truth and this saint and I wish I could tell them all my mum is not the person that you think she is she's someone with a massive amount of self-interest and loves being the centre of attention Sebastian's concerns are about public health there is no evidence to back up claims his mum makes about 5g and coronavirus which have been linked to real world damage and she encourages followers to ignore health guidance he was also shocked to see far right people in her crowds my dad's Iranian all of her kids are mixed race and she's out there getting all this clout and attention from people who don't think you know I should exist and definitely wouldn't like to listen to her if they did any digging whatsoever I was really sad for that song it was a very interesting interview and piece from the BBC to be fair to them um darling I want to get you in for this again so we've we've sort of covered why why the centre right aren't particularly interested in covid I want to downplay it you know the solutions don't really fit with their ideological persuasions also it doesn't really serve any of the purposes um the outrage often serves and outrage is normally for them about either dividing the working class or hating an outside group distract from their own corruption um but why is it that the far right to think that coronavirus isn't a thing at all not all of them but you know lots of them it seems like there must be a different explanation for that yeah I mean I think that this is being used by the far right to kind of stoke up mistrust of the mainstream scientific community and political elites on their terms i.e. you know we're going to stoke up your already instinctive feelings of mistrust and ensure that it is stoked up in a very particular way that ties you to our our projects and obviously in this context um you know it leads and often as it often does leads to very deadly deadly consequences but I think that one thing we have to be aware of and the reason that I had climate change on my mind is because this really reminded me and I think that one thing that makes it really easy for the far right to use this as a hotbed for the growth of conspiracy theories which then almost acts as a kind of gateway drug into their sort of framework of politics is the fact that the messaging from the top is so confused so you know you have scientists and you have epidemiologists saying one thing and then you have politicians taking measures that don't make any sense uh in relation to what's being said so things like you know you're not allowed to go meet see a family member indoors but you are allowed to go and sit in an office and you know breathe in other people's you know you know share the same breath or whatever as loads as loads of other people and you know so it just doesn't add up and when it doesn't add up when there's a fundamental lack of trust in it the conditions for conspiracy theories um grow so I think rather than this being like a political position being taken by the far right I actually think it's more of a strategic one and the reason I think it's similar to climate change is because it reminds me of this person I grew up around who I was and I think still is a climate denier and she always used to say to me that you know if climate change was as real and as serious as their saying is then the government could stop fossil fuel to could stop the fossil fuel industry tomorrow but they don't because you know they have a profit incentive but they only talk about climate change when they want to control what I eat make me feel bad for driving my car or not recycling so clearly to her she's like well this isn't actually as real or as scary as their saying is they're just using it to control my life now obviously that leads to a really dangerous path which is climate denialism but it's not come out of nowhere it she's identified a kind of hypocrisy a lack of structural political will to address a big crisis but instead focusing on individual behaviors which is an analysis that the climate movement itself has but she obviously takes it into a completely like whack you know kind of direction so I think that you know whilst obviously it is you know the far right are using this they are exploiting this as I think I think more of a strategic game because there's no explicit ideological or political gains to be made I think it is actually like weirdly the mainstream kind of like that neoliberal refusal to take the measures that are necessary to create this very confused messaging to not take the structural action that is necessary if it's going to cut into that kind of political economic you know interests that it creates the perfect conditions for the far right to come in with their own explanations of why something that doesn't make sense and something that doesn't add up is the way it is but like you like you said I think it's really difficult to understand why they are attaching on to this from a kind of theoretical position or from a kind of political position I think it's more a strategic one because conspiracy theories are really central as a gateway drug into the broader politics of the far right and you know they've they've gotten very good at using it in order to get people hooked and to get people to trust them and their sources of information and their figureheads because of the the clear absence of trust in you know mainstream politics I think probably that's the majority of it actually which is that this is kind of a cynical utilisation of a tool which is a gateway drug so that they can sort of hook people on to an ideology which is more directly of the far right but I do also think and this is something that I've sort of got from from the writing of Vincent Bevince he's been on the the show before spoken to myself and to Toa Amber Estani which is sort of the sometimes crazed ideology of anti-communism where you think that everything is this sort of conspiracy by people at the top it's obviously it's often anti-Semitic you think that's sort of a Jewish cabal who are trying to do this but they're trying to get absolute control over society and then you see things like climate change and and COVID-19 as part of this conspiracy to get absolute control over society and it is why I think why the the right tend towards this is because it doesn't it only makes sense if you you think that there is this sort of like what's the motive there because I mean obviously if you've got an understanding of the world as a left-wing person you see that what people want is profit it doesn't make it doesn't make sense for profit-seeking capitalists and states who want national security to invent climate change or to invent COVID-19 they're not you know they're profiting from this sometimes because they're giving their money to their mates but it's not particularly helpful for the workings of global capitalism for lockdowns to happen so I think it's only if you're on the far right where what you are against is control for control's sake that you can come up with a sort of bizarre narrative to make COVID-19 all fit into I mean it often softened a new world's order vibe isn't it so I do I do think there is something which is to do with the ideology of the far right which means that they fall into this and I think it has a lot in common with anti-communism deluded deranged anti-communism but I also think you know it is people it's a very opportunistic way of you know how do we get people who are completely detached from the establishment who we can sort of bring bring into our own toxic political circle