 Welcome to Navarra Media, on the eve of the most significant election of our generation. I am absolutely delighted to be joined by Loki, who's music has been raising consciousness about politics, British foreign policy for over a decade and who is now one of the many artists who have come out in favour of Corbyn to have energised this movement. I want to know what inspired you or what brought you to come out so strongly in favour of Corbyn this time round. What Jeremy Corbyn represents is alternative to neoliberalism and that's important because that economic philosophy became prevalent and uniform across the political class. There were exceptions on individual levels but he is the first person to really be driven and propelled into the position he's in, in spite of his party, by this exasperation but also opposition and rejection of neoliberalism. I believe we can win, I believe we will win, but even if we don't, two things are clear. The political class which has remained servile to neoliberalism for these years, neoliberalism is discredited, it's bankrupt, it doesn't work, it doesn't, as Stiglitz has pointed out it leads to more inequality, trickle down is a lie, the mythology of it is completely discredited. They can't go back now and secondly in terms of access to information, in terms of the sort of potentialities to organise, they can't limit it again, they can't limit it the same way they used to be able to, they can't repress, completely hopeful, and inspired, and inspired, completely inspired because neoliberalism it hides within the anonymity and the ambiguity of bureaucracy, so if you're a disabled person who receives benefits and needs to live and it's the difference between you eating three meals a day and living off milk for instance, when your allowance is cut, who are you able to blame? There is not a tangible force in front of you that you can blame, it's the mythology of the artificial state, its arrangements, so they hide behind the bureaucracy of it, they hide in the anonymity of it, and it's that anonymity which is absolutely being exposed and is absolutely being taken to task now, as never before. It's been exposed where you sit, it's been exposed on social media and new technologies and also by Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, right? By people like you, by people like, what you guys do and the vital function that is served by this, you know it's quite hard for us to view this in its totality because we're living in it, we're part of it while it's happening and it's very spontaneous, however what this period of time will stand as historically is a time of a greater participation in political decision making, that's what will happen, whether they like it or not. I want to ask you about participation because you're an artist, you're also an intellectual, you've been on the left for a decade, but what I mean is that you're part of a left milieu that have been speaking about neoliberalism, IMF loans in the 80s, things like this for a while and a critique that's often been thrown at the left or a potential source of sort of like self-doubt we've had is do ordinary people understand this language, like politics is my hobby, to an extent like it's not a hobby, but you know I spend more hours of the day thinking about politics than most people do. One thing that Corbyn's leadership or especially the last two weeks of this general election have surprised lots of us on the left is that something is cutting through to a much broader section of society, especially young people than we were told was possible, I mean what do you think, what for you explains that? The reason for that change in the mood has been that in the law in this country they are absolutely obliged to give equal time to each party to represent their own ideas, now the corporate media has up until now been falling over itself to represent and misrepresent Jeremy Corbyn's ideas and to ostracize him and to authorize him and to put him outside of his unelectable to create that mantra in people's heads, but now Jeremy's discourse has been able to get through and people have really been able to see that it's actually a very clear choice, it is a choice between people dying in old age alone and called unable to pay their electricity bills or people being able to live, it's a choice between people being able to go to university or people being incited into there of which 75 percent of them will die without paying, it is a choice between people going to school and being fed and not, it is a choice between family members going into hospital being treated and being able to live and people not being able to live and that's important. I think the energy of the campaign in the last few weeks has partly been as you said because Corbyn can speak directly to people, it's also been because there's been a kind of a ground swell of sort of cultural leaders, artists, especially young artists coming out in support of him. With yourself, sort of like the difference between what you've done before is the electoral politics element of it, you've always done politics. We've also seen, we've seen lots of people come out who we may not have associated with the left in inverted commas before JME, Stormzy. Did that surprise you? No, because generally the celebrity class is overpaid and under useful in critical political moments, that's my reading of it, they're superficial, they're very much concentrated on the aesthetics of situations, I'm not in any way directing that towards JME, Stormzy, any of the rappers mentioned, I'm really generally actually directing that more, the kind of Hollywood, the way that Hollywood is very corporatized and it very easily can fall into bed with certain political interests, we've seen it repeatedly throughout history, it's nothing new. But in terms of what's happening now with Jeremy Corbyn is everyone comes from a certain socioeconomic situation and when they look at a situation and say either what kind of society would I ideally like to live in or they look at it and say what's actually going to affect the lived realities of members of my family and it's that that has resonance with people. And you think Corbyn has successfully cut through as someone who is for your family, not for corporate interests basically, right? Yeah and that's what people want, people are sick of it, people are sick of service to corporate interests, people are sick of having politics subjugated to economics, they're sick of having vital services within the society, can't, while arms sales are subsidized, while bankers are subsidized, they're sick of it, they don't want it anymore. Do you think this movement can last? Yeah, it will build. You think it won't last? So we've got one option which is Corbyn wins, Labour go into government, the establishment are trying to crush down the subversive elements of that. And the deeper state, the deeper state will come into it, as you know the statement that came out from someone high ranking in the army I think 2015 implying in some ways that there was against him. And without a doubt and moreover he's going to come under pressures but the important thing and the point I was trying to make before was that he's receptive to social movements in a way that anonymity of bureaucracy isn't. I mean if he loses there's also going to be an attempt to close this movement down probably from within the PRP, from within the Labour party. That's the way these things always seem to work. There's attempts to co-opt subversive ideas and thinkers and people active in that way, or to repress them. And they will repress them through the attempt to neutralise them through the corporate media, you know, there's all types of different ways. And the energy that's been mobilised for this particular election, how do you see that carrying on in the months and years? I don't see it dissipating. And what forms do you think that will take? Do you see people joining the Labour party for example? Well I mean I see people at least from what he's done is he's been steering the discourse in a way that it's never been steered before. It wouldn't have been steered there by Owen Smith. It was never steered there by Miliband. But Corbyn has done that. Because also he's a product of these movements, you know. And like I say he's been propelled by them. Not the other way round. He's been propelled by them, not the other way round. And so it's important that we get away from this personalisation of politics in this sort of where you isolate people and atomise the situation. And what we like to do it seems is have martyrs historically that we then idealise and sort of in a nostalgic way begin to worship and say well yeah they understood it, but they were part of specific movements at specific times that were organising for specific aims. And that's what he is. He has been thrust by people. Do you think it's surprising that the guy who has been thrust that's mobilised all these young people, diverse, urban from inner cities, thousands of people, thousands of kids running up hills to watch this guy speak. He's like an old white guy. Do you think that's surprising or? No, because I think it's about the strength of his ideas. I think this aestheticism is not, I mean obviously you know he has a willingness and a humility to listen and to attempt even if he can't to understand other people's experiences and that's the core of it. That's all you can ask from someone is a willingness to listen and so I think that it's that humility which has served him greatly. I want to get into the best case scenario which is the Corbyn wins on Thursday. I think this is going to go out, it's Tuesday today this is going to go out tomorrow the day before the election so imagine come when we wake up on Friday Corbyn is Prime Minister. What are the first things you want to see him do? Let's have free, the free things you came most about. Definitely the tuition fees issue. I would also like to see him as he said aim to ameliorate the issue of people in debt from that. There's so many things, there's so many things. I mean as I've said one of them would be to lessen the influence of the military industrial complex and stand up to them you know and say we don't see why the taxpayer should be subsidizing what it is that you do. I also do find his discourse on the issue of mental health really refreshing actually really refreshing because it's bringing in a humanity to the way that we interact with each other as a society you know he is attempting and has put forth a plan to build a society which is more cohesive and which is more harmonious but also is far less alienated and far less divided by chasms of estrangement and so you know I see him moving in that direction but I like the the attention that he's given to these issues of mental health and I also think you know when we look at our demographics you know I'm not necessarily sure of your age but I think yeah so I think our demographics the thing that we're most likely to be killed by is ourselves right and I think that that talks to the and is symptomatic of this culture whereby images have become so prevalent and where we so often mutilate our emotional expression and limit the width to define ourselves and we take in these mantras of of being a man which are essentially about that psychological mutilation and that emotional limiting and I think finding a way to deal with people and also because it's about aspiring to unrealistic ideas of what it means to be human and and I think that having a leader who doesn't aim to use strength as well right of course yeah of course this fetishization of violence I don't have to know all the answers also this fetishization of violence and this is being a measurement of manhood of how you can apply violence to other people and I think that he understands societal trends so the things that he's putting in place five years later we will see them in the eyes of younger members of our family or younger members of our community we will see them having benefited from for instance the culture fund that they're setting up we will see them having benefited from this and having you know we are all of us born into conditions which are not of our choosing but we have the potentiality to to interact with them in certain ways and I think that like I say he's been propelled by people like him and like minded people that are working on a more functional a kinder a more a society guided more by empathy guided more not just by justice I would definitely like this is the third one hundred percent is address the the climate in a major way and and to really take the fossil fuel companies to task over it and to address the issue of fracking you know and and and and really take on Trump in that regard as well also because I think that what we're looking at is we're looking at the future of the human species and that overrides everything else really but also what I would love for him to do and this is something he's spoken about previously is curriculumizing the study of the British Empire so when we look at you know this small part of the world that's made up of people that have their roots in the Celtic origins Anglo-Saxon origins Gaul Gaulish origins Roman origins Norman origins from 1066 when William the conqueror invaded this amalgamation of people that unite under this flag of British hood you know by 1914 it occupied 12,700,000 miles of the planet in the non-contiguous empire what that meant for the rest of the world and the legacies that people unknowingly inherited and whether it's collective amnesia or whether it is purposeful miseducation there are ramifications of it and people are living proof of the damage that was done whether it was the Durand line between Afghanistan and India at that time separating Pashtun people whether it was the complete erasure of the Tasmanian population when the British arrived whether it was the opium wars in China whether it was the Bengal famine whether it was the Irish potato famine whether it was psychspeaker whether it was the Balfour declaration these are important parts of history for even even if just anecdotally for people born here to learn both children of diaspora but also people that consider themselves indigenous or native to this place they should also learn because it will then enable us and this was the great thing about what he said because it means that we'll be able to build more kind relations with each other more open more understanding relations with each other more honest relations exactly and also it will lead the way for societal atonement which i think is important and you look at same the period after the second world war when people from the common world came here you know you had windrush but prior to windrush there's a real lack of understanding of what led people to be here in the first place and so i think that the kind of society that we can build it's one that not only exists in as just the way possible with each other but also exists in as just and functional way as possible with nature rather than seeing nature as something we are at war with one of the as a species i want to ask about the war on terror because one of the one of the issues i most associate your music with i think probably most of your most successful tracks are critical in some way of the war on terror got abomination terrorist okay well what i would say is that in 2003 you had the largest mobilization of human beings on the globe simultaneously that has ever taken place you had the most opposed war probably in the history of the human race that ever took place and Jeremy Corbyn was at the forefront of that campaign now that was a perfect example of inverted totalitarianism whereby we live in a democracy right so why is it the democratic expression of so many people within this society was absolutely completely ignored for this mass projection of very sophisticated forms of murder and the point i'm trying to make by pointing at that is that jeremy is an anti-imperialist but he's an anti-imperialist from a position of logic and rational interrogation investigation of what are the pros cons what are the material results and ramifications of this action and i think that when people are really given the choice and given the facts and clearness in a very clear um an ambiguous way they come to similar generally generally people will come to similar conclusions about it so in terms of what you're talking about the deeper state and we were talking about the intelligence that i mean it was the media as well right that they'll who'll jump on you in a second the minute you question the media you know he he is proof that the media is losing power man he is proof that the media is not the litmus test for what can and can't happen anymore i mean i suppose the people who are who are providing the Corbyn search yeah the young yeah i mean what newspaper do they read yeah they're not even interested in the guardian let alone the daily telegraph or or the daily mail that's not where we get our news from yeah yeah all right so to finish us off yes we've talked about a lot of long-term issues why you're supporting Corbyn what what kind of vision he offers obviously we're not having this interview on any day yeah we're two days into a general election people will be watching this the day before the general election yeah maybe on the day of the general election i want you to finish on why the audience should care what the audience should be thinking today what the audience should be doing today right okay so what i would say that this campaign has really revealed is that we are actors as we have never been before within this process that we have within our ability a function of galvanizing of mobilizing other people we are able to organize on a grassroots level the biggest gift of this campaign whether we succeed or not which we will succeed is confidence it has given people it has essentially revitalized so many people i know who have been left jaded and disenchanted by all of the disappointments by all of the repression by all of the pushback by all of the backlash of the last few years by the anonymity of corporate hegemony i have seen people absolutely revitalized and the most important thing is that we use that to push us and thrust us and enable us to essentially proselytize essentially bring people together to direct them to the polling station to personally take them to the polling station have those conversations with people in your family have those conversations with people that seem on the fence have those conversations with people who have allowed themselves essentially to you know full victim to the propaganda to the mantras that are repeated unelectable unsustainable untenable combat that arm yourself with ways to argue against it be absolutely clear have clarity in the argument that you are presenting to them convince them with clear arguments that regard the material lived realities use examples from their own lives use examples from the lives of people they love and make clear to them that this will be the difference this will be the difference and this is not me trying to dramatize it or or go over the top it will be the the difference between people dying that don't actually have to die that is the reality of this and that's what jeremy has been able to communicate throughout this campaign by the fact that legally they've had to give him equal time to represent himself these are the points we need to emphasize we need to be absolutely clear and steadfast and uh like i say take everyone you know to the polling station on the 8th of june and let's do this let's make this happen i feel inspired i was already motivated and i feel more inspired now thank you so much for joining us thank you we'll have you on very soon wicked