#041 - Charlie Downes - Why British Zoomers Are Against Mass Immigration And Multiculturalism

Charlie Downes is the co-founder of the think-tank Centre for Migration Control, which is "committed to controlling and reducing immigration to the United Kingdom". 

In this episode, Charlie and I talk about why there is only a hair's breadth between the Conservative Party and the Labour Party on immigration policy; how the negative impacts of mass immigration can be seen in the crime statistics, the performance of the National Health Service, living standards, the tax bill of Britain's, and the changing landscape; how a combination of mass immigration and multiculturalism has left young British people without a sense of identity, and why this explains the rise of the 'Anglo-Zoomer'; how the Overton Window on how to respond to legal and illegal immigration has radically shifted now that deportation programs are being spoken of in the mainstream; and why Zoomers on the right do not buy into the doomerism that Britain is done and that their rise is inevitable, and much, much more.

Enjoy the show Classmates. And don't forget to subscribe.

You can also check Charlie out at:

• Twitter/X
• Centre for Migration Control

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, classmates, and welcome to Thinking Class. I'm John Gillam, and today I'm speaking with Charlie Downs. Charlie is the co-founder of the Think Tank Center for Migration Control, which is committed to controlling and reducing immigration to the United Kingdom. In this episode, Charlie and I talk about why there is only a hair's breadth between the Conservative Party and the Labour Party on immigration policy, how the negative impact of mass immigration can be seen in the crime statistics, the performance of the National Health Service, living standards, the tax bill of Britain's, and the changing landscape, how a combination of mass immigration and multiculturalism has left young British people without a sense of identity, and why this explains the rise of the Anglo-Zoomer, how the Overton window on how to respond to legal and illegal immigration has radically shifted now that deportation programs are being spoken of in the mainstream, and why Zoomers on the right do not buy into the Doomerism that Britain is done, and their rise is inevitable, and much, much more. Before we dive in, you'd be really helping me out if you click subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to or watching the show on. The more subscribers we have, the more guests we can attract, and the faster Thinking Class grows. Enjoy the show, classmates. Charlie Downs, welcome to Thinking Class. Thanks so much for joining me. Hi, John, great to be here. Charlie, I came across you, I believe, when I saw some research that the Center for Migration Control had put out, which is a think tank that you're involved in. And since then you keep on popping up in various feeds of mine as a talking head on the topic of immigration. Now, you're you're part of Generation Z, the Zoomer generation. What was it that motivated you to get into focusing on immigration statistics and the topic of immigration in Great Britain?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

It's a really good question. I think there are a number of things that kind of contributed to me uh sort of coming to view immigration as being the most pressing issue of the time in Britain and in Europe more generally. Um the first is just the simple reality of growing up uh in Kent, which is where I'm talking to you from now, um, pretty rural, um, and watching as the town that I grew up in, the community that I grew up in, changed in a way that made it made it almost unrecognizable. Um, it's particularly the experience of seeing the fields that I used to walk my dogs in when I was a kid being paved over for these uh you know, plastic-looking, almost sort of IKEA flat pack new builds that I actually will never have any prospect of living in because housing is so expensive. So it's a number of things, all of these different variables. Um and if you you know work back far enough, you realize immigration is at the root of a lot of them, you know, whether it's crime, the price of housing, the price of renting, the fact that the uh you know, the actual texture of the country is changing. Um I it seems to me that immigration is at the source of this. Now, the interesting thing about immigration and a number of other topics that are sort of very mainstream at the moment is I view them as actually secondary problems. They are symptoms of a greater issue. And the primary problem, the actual cause, the illness, if you want, is the fact that we have been governed by a political class for the better part of 30 years who actively seem to hate this country. I mean, the way they govern is it's explicitly against the interests of the British people, whether it's on immigration or foreign policy or anything else. Um and so immigration is just the most visible, tangible, immediate of these uh issues, I think, because you see it when you walk in the streets, you feel it when you uh go to buy a house and whatever else. Um but actually the problem here is the fact that we have a political class who we can't vote out. You know, we've had an election recently, but actually the Tories and Labour seem to be almost exactly the same. They seem to agree on about 95% of things and then argue the remaining 5% to give the electorate the illusion of choice. When actually, when it comes to the direction of travel for the country, they agree completely that the only difference really is the speed at which the travel should take place. Um so this is this is really the reason that I'm interested in politics uh in general, is because I think that Britain is a is a country with a history, a proud history, of being extremely well governed. You know, we've had the privilege of having a number of amazing leaders uh in our 2,000 years of history. Um and we are living through a moment right now that I have been fortunate or unfortunate enough to be born into, where we are seeing some of the worst leaders that this country and the world has ever had. So that's really why I'm interested in these topics.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

So things have changed. You've talked about Tories and Labour that they're basically the same, one just boots to the end goal of lots of immigration faster. When did Britain lose control of its borders and why? What's behind it? This this juicing of the economy for immigration.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Well, this is the thing, right? So left-wing pundits will often say that Britain's history is the history of migration. And when they say that, they are actually right. Because if you look at our history as an island nation, it has been a series of waves of migration from various different places, primarily around Europe, but now more recently around the globe. You know, from the Roman conquest and settlement at the beginning of the first millennium, Anglo-Saxon migration, 5th and 7th centuries, Viking invasions, the Jewish settlements through the early uh 1100s, 100 and 1200s, and uh the Huguenot refugees and so on. Um right up to the Windrush migrants after the war. Um, it is true to say that the history of Britain is one of migration, and that that has massively impacted the texture and identity of this country. Now, what those people seem to neglect to say is the kind of immigration that we are seeing today is absolutely unprecedented. Migration as a fact is not unprecedented. Yeah, it'd be ridiculous to suggest that it is. But the scale of migration and the places that the people are coming from is what is completely unprecedented. We're talking in the order of hundreds of thousands and millions. And with um, you know, last year over half of those visas, 1.2 million, handed out to people from India, from Pakistan, from China and Nigeria. You know, these are places that don't really have any meaningful cultural links to Britain outside of perhaps the empire period. Um, but in terms of cultural proximity, they are very, very different. You know, it's it's just a simple fact that if you observe the histories of, for example, Britain and France, there's a great deal of crossover. You know, we have a lot of shared history, shared culture, and shared people. But when you look at the history of, say, uh Britain and uh Nigeria, for instance, um, there's just not that same degree of uh similarity. And this is not about, you know, it's not about marginalizing people or hating people, it's simply about noting that differences between groups, meaningful and consequential differences between groups, do exist and that that has an impact when those groups are grinding up against each other in certain geographical locations that are bad. You know, it's ultimately uh negative for the people living in these places because they feel alienated, they feel they don't belong, they feel that something they love, i.e., you know, which is their home, has been lost or changed in a way that they don't like. And that's just not a good experience for anybody. And back to the point about me being a Zoomer, I'm 23 years old, I was born in 2001. Um, you know, I've never known Britain to be anything other than this. This is what a lot of people, I don't think, fully grasp, is that my parents' generation and further back, they knew the old Britain before this type of unprecedented mass migration. Um, and they have seen the change, observed it happen, and have, you know, a variety of opinions on the matter. But I have never known Britain as anything other than this kind of multicultural economic zone, which is kind of, it doesn't really have any real sense of identity and is just kind of desperate to remain relevant on the world stage, desperate to you know see the line go up on the GDP graph. Um, and there's no real uh sense that the ruling class are prioritizing the well-being of people in Britain. It's all about these kind of abstract, kind of managerial uh concerns about spreadsheets and how Britain ranks on various global ranking indexes. Um so, and then in terms of just actually walking in the streets and seeing the change, I completely agree. I mean, you know, over the last few years, I've uh I was at uni for four of them. Um, and even when I was there in a town that I didn't live in, that or that I lived in, but that I wasn't from, um, I saw the change happen there. Um, and it was it's truly quite a phenomenal sort of, you know, it's quite an interesting phenomenon to observe and quite sort of frightening, I think. That's that's ultimately my feeling about it.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Yeah, the the the change having been felt by your parents, for example, their generation, the generation before. It's something which yeah, I spot when I speak to older, older people. But what I've noticed on X, now I had never been on Twitter until I started this podcast. And anyway, you obviously can't help but pick up on these trends that start to be appearing with regards to what people are talking about. And on X, I see lots of older Britons starting tweets of things like I'm 66 or I'm 70 years old. And they the common theme is they're lamenting the change and loss of their country and values and atmosphere. You know, they're at pains to say it's not about race per se, it's more about that they feel betrayed and like they've lost something. And and and I've noticed that this feeling is never, well, it can never be accounted for in the statistics. So even for those people who want to criticize immigration policy, ultimately in the modern world, everyone says you don't have an argument unless you can throw statistics up. And when people like to talk about it in a pro uh look what it can earn it, that still doesn't account for the fact that there are vast swathes of people that might be feeling a sense of loss. And what whilst the easy way out is to call those people complaining to be racist, gammon, um those same people who would cast aspersions on them, I think if they were to look a bit deeper into their own guiding assumptions, you'd they'd realise that there is something there because that the people who suggest we should celebrate all people and their cultures equally, that new arrivals' cultures should uh should be celebrated equally, so they do not have to experience a sense of loss, shows that culture matters and people are sad when it changes, and and particularly that they're angry when they didn't ask for it. And I think that's the one thing you notice, right? Is even amongst political commentators who might lean a bit left but are sympathetic with the anti-mass immigration rhetoric, they say ultimately no one's asked for this, and this is why there's this simmering resentment. What do you make of all that?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Well, there's a number of things to say here. Now, I think you're you're totally right to say that the sort of statistical quantitative approach to talking about mass migration fails to capture um the thing that really resonates with normal people, which is just the experience of watching their homeland transform in a way that they don't like. But even with that in mind, the statistics are in our favor. I mean, the statistics all show that mass immigration is damaging to this country. For instance, a piece of research that we did recently showed that in order for migrants to break even uh financially speaking, they need to be earning more than£47,000. And only 19% of migrants actually achieve this, leaving the remaining 81% as net takers from the system. So that's what that means, to be clear, is British taxpayer money going to migrants, right? Who are here only as a part of government policy, right? Another piece of research we put out showed that in the last two years, the average salary of skilled worker migrants has decreased by 10,000 pounds down to 27,000 pounds, which again shows you, suggests the extent to which these people are contributing to the economy. Um that's not to mention things like homelessness. 38% of homeless people, uh, of which there are 4,000 in Britain, are immigrants. You know, it's ridiculous. And uh, and then we don't even need to get onto issues such as, you know, the massive increase in crime, the massive increase in Islamic honor violence, um, the massive increase in uh, you know, for example, sexual violence and the rape gangs in towns like Telford and uh Rochdale and so on. All of these things. Um and to address your second point there about the kind of older generations noting these changes, um, I am sympathetic to those older people who do uh look at their town, look at their community, and feel that they have lost something. But actually, in a lot of cases, it's this it's this generation's crippling fear of being called racist or being called bigots or being called xenophobic or whatever other smear the left uh kind of chooses to use against them. That crippling fear that has led them to feel unable to criticize mass integration and to let it go on for so long. That's part of the problem, right? And another thing to talk about here is the fact that the generation that we're talking about, which is basically my parents' generation, the kind of uh Gen X Boomers kind of kind of uh area, um, these are the people who believed and told us and taught me when I was going through my education that the most important way to think about Britain is as being uh a set of values, right? I remember when I went to university, there was a mural to uh celebrating 800 years uh since the Magna Carta was signed. And the values, quote unquote, that um this mural uh celebrated, that it stated that Magna Carta was about, were diversity, equality, peace, democracy, and all the rest of it. You know, the various sort of buzzwords, the various slogans of the regime that governs us. Um and actually that's not at all what it was about. And that's not actually at all what Britain is about. Because Britain, fundamentally, being a nation of the old world, of Europe, is a nation of people and history and traditions. America, on the other hand, which is a nation of the new world, you can actually call that a nation of values because it was explicitly created at a specific moment in time with a specific constitution and set of values and uh project that it was fundamentally uh designed to pursue. Um and this kind of model has then been transparted back to the old world and sort of imposed upon Britain to the point where we're now told that, you know, somebody who's turned up from Africa last week, um, as long as they believe in gay marriage and democracy, then they're just as British as we are. I mean, it's it's actually a ridiculous claim when you stop to think about it. Because Britain is not a nation of values, Britain is a nation of people. You only get British values when you have British people. This is what's so crucial to understand is these things don't just appear out of the out of the ether uh fully formed. These are products of thousands of years of tradition and um, you know, people passing these values down, noting that they are valuable. But if you remove the people, then you inevitably lose the values, which is what we're seeing happen in real time with mass migration.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

The the point you made about values and people being inextricably intertwined is an interesting one, and one that I've noticed rising in salience. So I think Douglas Murray might have made the point on a recent podcast with with Jordan Peterson, where he said the the founding of America was based on values, but those values were ultimately from, and I think Peterson finished the sentence and said, Englishman, uh, they they were from a settled tradition. And that liberalism that that we've we've put an ism on the end of was just a settled way of life. There'd been this um an establishment core, there'd been dissenters and non-conformists, uh, there'd been this uh need for toleration to be to be um bred, given all of the uh the religious strife that had been taking place over centuries. And they just started it in a new continent and decided that there was a whole bunch of stuff they didn't like about the old place, which they would try and keep out, but ultimately they're going to try and live in accordance with what they thought were the worthwhile things that they'd learned from their ancestors. And I've noticed this rising in salience in America, um, particularly as they go through similar things with uh changing demographics. And um it reminds me of a quote of um of of Franklin Roosevelt, where he said that there's no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities. And there seems to be a truth within this because homophyla, this idea of birds of a feather flocked together, is a very human thing. And actually, what's been so great about the West in general is our social and cultural norms tended towards a universalizing view where we were much more accepting than probably anyone else in humanity. However, what we're finding out is that they can quickly unravel if you put too much pressure, uh, too much strain on this organic system through through this um through through all these policy um, and and this policy we can see at government level, we can see it in the workplace through multicultural networks where lots of people band around ethnic, religious identities, sexual identities. Um, and they they use it to shield themselves from being part of a a wider um core culture. And if this is what what's being bred everywhere, we're actually breeding a balkanizing of society. And I think you can just see it taking place not just online but on the streets, and and and seemingly now we're seeing it amongst people who would say they've got Anglo identity, which you'd never heard of before. Do you think that is uh an entirely predictable thing to have happened given what we know about humans and what we see in our culture?

SPEAKER_01 17:55

So I there's a number of things to say here. The first thing I'll say, just on that last point you made, is I am an example of that phenomenon you're talking about. I mean, in my Twitter bio, I call myself an Anglo-Zoomer, right? And that's and that's because that's how I think of myself. And that is actually an expression of identity politics, which the right has been railing against for years now. But the point is, the kind of liberal universalism that we're talking about is paradoxically a distinctly and particularly and almost exclusively European and Anglo phenomenon. And so this idea that you can just transplant the the values of a specific people to everyone is actually bonkers and misguided. You know, well-meaning, I'm sure, but ultimately misguided. And that I think is what the story of our present era that we're living through, that's that's what it's actually about. It's the European mind coming to terms with the fact that their project of transplanting their high-minded enlightenment values all over the world has failed. And that's what we really need to come to terms with now. Because what I would say is the European mind, for centuries at this point, has fetishized the rational element of uh human nature. I think it was Aristotle that said that man is a rational animal. So the the European mind has fetishised the rational part of it and forgotten the animal part of it. And what happens when you forget the animal part of the rational part is the rational part collapses because the rational part exists on top of the animal part. Because the animal part is all the things that we don't really like to talk about. Like, for example, the fact that identity, what gets called identity politics, is an inevitable and perennial element of human existence. In order for humans to feel as though, essentially to feel happy, to feel as though they belong and to feel as though as though they're in their right place, to feel as though they have a meaningful role in society, they need to have a sense of identity. You know, this idea, this liberal idea that we're all just atomized individuals, totally sort of self, self-actualized and self-realizing, is ultimately untrue. For a small number of people, that is the case. There's a small number of people, generally with very high IQs, who can be these kind of perfectly individuated people. But for the most part, for most people, as you say, humans are ultimately um pack animals. You know, we need our tribe. And this is, you know, this is revealed every single day. I mean, humans are tribal creatures, whether it's in politics or sports, or uh, you know, or even down to the fact that you prefer the people you live on your road with than people who live the next road over. And it's a distinctly English phenomenon to say that, oh, the guy who lives, you know, two streets down, they're foreigners or whatever. Even if they aren't literally, even if they're just as English as we are. Um, but this is the point, right? Is I, as a 23-year-old Anglo-Zuma, I'm part of a generation and part of a political phenomenon that is only just beginning to emerge. Because what I have recognised is that by, you know, by my condition of living in a multicultural, multi-ethnic society, as I do in Britain, um, what that has done is brought into sharp relief the distinct and unique qualities of Anglo identity and Anglo history and British history. And it's made me realize, and this is what older generations just are not prepared to confront, is that I actually have a preference for that. I have a preference for Britain, I have a preference for British people, I have a preference for British values. Um, I think they are better than the values of other nations and other peoples. And I would rather be around British people than non-British people because they are my own. I feel at home, I feel I belong among British people. But again, what the political class of the last 30 or so years has done is they've taken that from me. They've taken that from my generation. And so it's inevitable, it's unsurprising that we find ourselves in a situation where young people are, you know, flying from identity to identity, seeking this kind of belonging. And the left have recognized this, which is why they're so big on identity politics. They've recognized that there is this gaping vacuum where belonging and identity once occupied. And they've instead filled that void with meaningless abstract categories like, you know, oh, the black community or the trans community, the LGBT community. All of these various immutable characteristics that they've chosen to elevate to the status of most important identity credential actually are ultimately meaningless because what truly matters is being a part of a people. You know, the LGBT community is not a people, it's a group of people who have a shared sexual preference. And that that doesn't really, that's not a very strong glue for binding people together. But what is a strong glue is a shared history, shared traditions, shared language, and shared land. And that ultimately is what is being attacked by the present liberal regime that we live under.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

There's a lot in there, Charlie, that I think we could go off down lots of rabbit warrants on. But one of them where you talked about the emergen we're we're living at the beginning of the emergence of this subset of identity politics that ultimately hadn't appeared up until now, which is that of the Anglo identity. Um you said I prefer to be around these people, these cultural norms where I feel safe, secure, and a part of something, and I believe it's better. Now that was interesting because I grew up, I'm 14 years older than you, and I've grown up in the age of cultural relativism. I I've grown up in the age of oh, well, it's all kind of just made up, so you know, just do what you want, and it's all kind of the same, and there's no real difference. Um, which my journey through life, through my twenties and into my 30s, has been all of those scales falling from my eyes as I've realized that that's not true, and that actually there are certain um values and principles that, if you live by them, lead to a flourishing life, both individually and in your family. But then also that when you chuck a bunch of different cultures together from different places on the in the globe, whilst most people have common concerns that are similar, how they go about achieving those common concerns and moving towards their goals or how it is they choose to run their societies are totally different. Now, when you talk when we're talking about the emergence of Anglo identity, do you think we're also seeing the emergence or at least the decline of cultural relativism? Uh and I appreciate this might not exist across everyone in your generation, because as your friend Conor Tomlinson said, is you're going to get some kind of a cultural revolution in some ways, it's either going to be the continuation of the woke one, or you're going to have effectively the kind of revolution that the the right of the Zoomer generation are talking about. So do you think relativism is on its way out here?

SPEAKER_01 24:42

So there's two things to say here. The first thing I will say, and it's important to understand this conversation properly, is this idea that young people are the most radical, the most rebellious element of any society, is a boomer liberal myth. It's not true. Young people, especially young women, by the way, are the most conformist, the most status quo people in any society because they can't be anything different. Because young people are so impressionable, so open to being indoctrinated, quite frankly. And that's how they need to be. I mean, that's that's kind of what being a kid is about. It's about imbibing um the society and culture that you're living in. You know, if if young people were these completely um sort of radical, completely unable to listen to or absorb the culture around them, then there would just be chaos. No. Young people are very impressionable and are therefore ultimately always the foot soldiers of the regime that governs them. Now, the genius trick that our regime that governs the West has played on young people is it has told them that by fighting for causes like, for example, climate change or, you know, racial justice, BLM, and all that sort of stuff, LGBT stuff, all of these various issues that are ultimately state-approved, you know, they're regime-approved issues. They've told them that by supporting those causes, going to marches and posting about it on social media, that they are being radical. And that is a genius trick because what they're actually doing is they are being the unwitting foot soldiers of the power structure that governs us. And it's actually a very small minority of people, among which I count myself and also Connor, of course. We are the actual radicals. We are the people who are looking at the power structure for what it is, looking at what it tr what it's trying to do, looking at a trajectory, and saying, actually, we don't support this. Because if you look at every single center of power in our society, from the government itself to the civil service through to the universities, the various other educational institutions, to the private sector, corporations, media companies, and so on, all of these organizations walk in lockstep to the same tune. And that's the tune of diversity, equality, and inclusion. And if you speak to most young people, if you speak to 80% of young people, most of whom are not particularly politically engaged, if you speak to them, if you ask them what they care about in politics, it will be diversity, equality, and inclusion. It will be climate change, it will be racial justice, it will be rights for LGBT and trans people and so on. All of these issues, which are ultimately the issues of the state, that the state have approved. Now, what we, you know, the kind of Anglo-Zuma uh right-wing vanguard, you know, self self-fashioned, um, what we're saying is we don't actually support any of this stuff. And that we are the act we are the actual dissidents, because we're saying that look, these things, these ideas, are destroying our society. The direction of travel of the regime that governs us is incredibly damaging. It's it's ruining our prospects and it's ruining our country, and we want something different. Um, and so ultimately, you know, the question of whether, you know, which direction the revolution will take. Well, the left-wing Zuma um types have the backing of the regime, um, and they're ultimately its foot soldiers. So they're not actually revolutionaries or radicals in any sense. Um, you know, will will we see some kind of revolution from the right? I hope so. Um, I'm not, you know, I'm obviously I'm not advocating for violent revolution here. I think that would be catastrophic. I think political solutions are still on the table. Um, I just think that it's about navigating the right people into the right positions um at the right time for that to happen. Um we're seeing, I mean, I'm very heartened by Reform UK and their success at the general election because I think that could be the beginning of that. Um, but we'll have to see.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Dear classmate John here. This isn't an advert, so you don't need to reach for the skip button. If you're enjoying the show, then show your support by liking, subscribing, and sharing on whichever device or platform you are watching or listening to Thinking Class on. You can find me in the show on YouTube at Thinking Class. You can also subscribe to me on Substack, searching for the at thinking class handle, or by entering thinkingclass.substack.com in your browser, and you can receive reflections, blog series, and recommended reading to your inbox. You can also follow me on X at Thinking Classes. Thanks for listening, thanks for sharing, thanks for showing your support. Enjoy the rest of the show, classmate. A little bit later on, I'd love to get into Reform, its approach to approach to immigration, and continue that topic of what are people going to be prepared to do about it, what needs to be done about it, all that kind of stuff. But picking up on what you talked about, about ultimately the likes of yourself and Connor and those who are in the right-wing reactionary Zoomer category, as it were, being the dissidents, I believe you're right. I think what's quite interesting here is that I I read um Robert Toom's English and their history book earlier on in the year. Very good. And there's this theme throughout, which we've already touched on, of there being this establishment core, some dissenters, and some non-conformists. And typically they would map out geographically over the country. So you'd have lots of non-conformists in the um in the industry industrial towns and cities. Um, you'd have a lot of the Anglican establishment vote within the smaller um parish communities and towns that were typically within the Midlands and the South. Um, and then you'd have dissenters that would also sit within some of those um industrial towns, the bigger places. And within Scotland and Wales, then you'd also have lots of people who were not conforming to the Anglican tradition within the country. But ultimately, just think about Anglicanism, Tory, Toryism, they had this cultural Christianity at the core, and there was a certain way of comporting yourself and all of those things, and things that you stood for, monarchy, all the all the age-old traditions. And people would set themselves up in opposition to that, and they would be geographically located here there and everywhere. But what's quite interesting is that Toomes talks about how post-Second World War, when the Anglican church lost supremacy around the time of the sexual revolution, is all of the places where dissent was biggest, like um, or at its greatest extent, like in Scotland and Wales and the Presbyterian and Methodist churches and all the industrial towns, those churches that were once full to bursting because they were going with the anti-establishment message all started to close down en masse. And you can see them bordered up now. Now, the Church of England is effectively the same thing, right? It's you know, 1% of people go to Church of England services. And whilst this isn't a talk about religious stuff, it just shows that the Church of England ultimately now is, for example, overrun, I would say, with the non-conformist tradition. It basically just gave up to the non-conformists. And the non-conformists and dissenters still live in all of the big towns and cities, but they are the establishment now. And what I see as a bit of a, and this is a long-winded point, but what I see as an interesting thing here is that whilst you, Connor and others are ultimately part of this growing dissident class, is you actually seem to be trying to rescue a tradition that had once served the country so well. And this seems to me something which people, including all those, you know, well, highly exalted brain scientists, uh, you know, we like to talk about the science these days. Antonio D'AMASO wrote a book which he talked about called Descartes' Era. And he talked about how when people start hitting their late 20s or their mid-30s, is they start to switch into this mode of wanting to save the tradition of which they came from. They want to uphold the norms which they see as holding society together, and they want to be at the vanguard of leading those. Now, I appreciate you're not in your mid-30s, but I see a pattern emerging here, which is those people who are being dissidents, they're doing so trying to rescue something which is in wreckage at the moment because they believe it's a better thing to cohere around than the non-conformist stuff which has become the establishment.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Yes. And there's a couple of things to say here. Um, the first is just going back to a point that you made before, which is relevant to all of this. I think one thing that we are seeing among the young right-wing kind of crowd that I sort of am part of, the kind of this phenomenon that I'm talking about of young people waking up, looking around them, and saying, actually, you know, the way our country is being governed is leading to its destruction and its demise. Another parallel phenomenon is, as you said, is the death of relativism. Because maybe I only speak for myself here, but a journey that I've been on over the last few years, especially when I was at university, being you know, fed all sorts of postmodern garbage, um, is coming to an absolute uncompromising belief in the reality of objective morality, objective beauty, and just you know, the notion that reality has a structure that is unchanging and universal and perennial, and that human nature also is unchanging and universal and perennial. Um, all of these things that are, you know, the the these beliefs that are thought of as being old-fashioned. The idea that actually morality is relative and beauty is relative and that, you know, and that everything is beautiful. I mean, you you need only walk into London or go on the tube to see that this, you know, the ugliness, objectively speaking, is championed and celebrated in the modern world. Whether it's in the architecture or the people who are chosen who are chosen to um you know be put onto advertising, billboards, or whatever else, ugliness is yeah, ugliness and poor health and um sickness are what are celebrated in the modern world. And we're told that they're just as beautiful as anything else. And that's just that's just such a demoralizing and depressing thing. Um and the only so you know the only kind of um conclusion that a right-thinking person can come to is that actually, no, these things aren't relative. There is an objective aspect to things like beauty and morality. Um, and you know, the forces that would seek to um advance the opposite argument, must have some very strange ideas about what is good and what is true and what is beautiful. Um sorry, I've realized we're getting deep into the weeds here, moved quite far away from migration. Um sorry, what was your actual question there? Just remind me.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Oh no, I don't think there was a question. I was I I'd just gone on talking about how there's a there's an English tradition that, whilst much of England's and Englishness is being lost in many ways because of the pace of change that we're seeing, technological, demographic, all those things, is that amongst this um battle for supremacy in the political world about the topics we've been talking about, is an English tradition continuing between non-conformists and establishment, but roles have just been reversed in some way. Um and and yet so so I do take I do take heart from that, even if you know voices like yours under the current government and the future direction of travel on freedom of speech as uh decided by regulators, um, bureaucratic organizations, means they're going to be minimized. But at the very least, you know, we're we're still we're still seeing this English culture continuing, albeit perhaps not in the same spirit as before. Getting back to the immigration point, because we talked a lot about culture, and I think that's important because actually my worry about talking about immigration is that you can talk too much about the economic side of things without touching on those points that we've already raised, this sense of cultural loss. However, economics does cut through, partly because most people now, I mean, everyday dinner table conversations always end up centered around economics. You know, when people want to talk about the prospects of government and how to judge government, they talk about maybe they'll get the economy going and just give them a bit of time. And people know how to talk statistics and pounds and pence. So, from your work on migration control, uh, or for migration, the Center for Migration Control, what have you what have you seen? So, what does it cost the the average person? So, if we think about GDP per capita, you know, what have we seen that become? You know, how how how much of our taxes are being used to pay for various different policies? Um, what's happening to real-term wages? You've already touched on on skilled workers, skilled migrant workers.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Yeah, so there's there's lots to say here. Um the first thing, and the first most and most important thing to understand when it comes to this issue, is that the uh institutions and organizations that have been set up um to monitor this kind of thing are themselves completely corrupt. So the Office for Budget Responsibility, for example, um, is a creation of the kind of uh, I think it was created in 2010. So it was um just before Gordon Brown left office, I think. But I I would check that because I'm going off the top of my head there. The point is the OBR is uh absolutely a kind of uh a creature of the kind of new labor post-1997 consensus. Um, and it tells us that emigration, mass immigration of the type that we've seen for the last 30 or so years is economically beneficial. But what our research has found is that the OBR massively overstate the benefits of immigration to the tune of billions of pounds. Um, and this is not inconsequential because the OBR and their uh research and their forecastings, most importantly, inform treasury policy and inform immigration policy. So if the OBR is saying immigration is the best thing since sliced spread for the economy, then it's gonna go up. And that's part of the reason that it's been so difficult to have a conversation about immigration, is because the government itself has been telling us for years that it's beneficial. And the reason they're saying that is because the people telling them that it's beneficial are lying, ultimately. Um but in terms of actual numbers, I mean, there's one and a half million economically active, which is to say unemployed, and also possibly on benefits, immigrants in this country right now, costing the taxpayer something like 20 billion pounds per year. And again, I need not um talk to you about the better ways that that money could be used. I mean, as I said before, 4,000 homeless on the streets, many of them are veterans, for example, you know, that money could be spent putting them up in accommodation and uh, you know, getting them clean from drugs or alcohol or whatever else. Yeah, I don't need to go into that. You can use your imagination. But this is money that is being used to pay for people who ultimately shouldn't be here, who have no business um being in this country and taking from a system that they're not contributing to. Um and so so yeah, I mean, and that's just that's just that doesn't even scratch the surface. I mean, as I've said already, the uh degree to which immigrants contribute to the economy um has decreased massively only in the last few years. We hear this idea, actually, that you know, the the the one thing that will uh that left-wing commentators specifically will always come back to when talking about immigration is the NHS, the holy NHS. And don't get me wrong, I support the existence of the NHS. I believe that universal healthcare is a completely appropriate thing for any self-respecting modern nation to have. And if done right, it can be extremely effective. But you can't have uh universal healthcare and mass immigration. You don't get to have both because the two cancel each other out. So I'll give you an example. Only 3% of the migrants who came to Britain last year were doctors and nurses. 3%. And yet we're told that we need mass immigration because of all the doctors and nurses. And more to the point, when those doctors and nurses do come on the health and social care visa route, they are able to bring their entire families. So, sure, you might be gaining one doctor, but you're also gaining four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten patients who will take from the system. So even if we are bringing in these, you know, these doctors and nurses, it's still a net negative because they're allowed to bring their families. Um and there's so many different, there's so many sort of different angles here. I mean, this isn't it, they haven't even mentioned students, for example. Theresa May set a target of 600,000 international students in Britain per year. And uh Boris Johnson and Priti Patel accelerated, you know, accelerated the numbers right up towards that. And again, allowed people coming on the uh university visa route to bring their families. So these are people who have no business being in this country, who being brought here purely to meet arbitrary targets, so that we can say, again, competing on these various international global uh indexes that we have the most, that we have the best universities, the most in-demand universities, and all the rest of it. And there was a time where that may have been true. But because there are so many international students in this country now, our research suggests it's something in the order of 800,000. There are literally hundreds, over 200 universities that exist solely to service international students. And it's not surprising that this is the case, because not only can the government then celebrate our how good our universities are and how in demand they are, um, but they're also a cash cow for the universities themselves, because international students pay about three times as much as uh uh domestic students in tuition fees. So it's unsurprising there is a financial incentive here. But what this leads to is not only a dumbing down of the universities themselves, because universities are supposed to be exclusive places. They're supposed to be um, you know, taking in only the best of the best. Whereas now we have, you know, I mean, Tony Blair's figure was 50% of people going to university. I don't actually have the figure to hand of how many young people are going to university, but I guess it's something like that. I mean, I remember when I was at school, um everyone was pushed to go to university. And it's and what that's meant is there's been a massive dilution uh in the value of university education. And I mean, uh, speaking as somebody who came out of university education last year, you can see it. It's tangible. Um, and so there's all of these very, you know, when we want to talk about the kind of quantitative side of mass immigration, there's so many different angles where it is so evidently, obviously a problem. Um, and yet the conversation is still one that's difficult to have in polite company. It shouldn't be that way. And again, I bring it back to this crippling fear that so many people have, so many well-meaning people have, of being called racist. But actually, again, bringing it back to the uh phenomenon that I think of myself as being a part of, you know, I belong to a generation where for the entirety of my adult life, everything has been called racist. Milk is racist, chairs are racist, air conditioning is racist. And so the word has completely lost its meaning. So when I'm accused, and I've been accused of being racist many times. I remember when I was at university, I was called every name under the sun purely for expressing uh what amount to dissident beliefs, you know, beliefs that challenge the consensus of the power structure that governs us. I was called a white supremacist, Nazi, and all the rest of it. And so my response to those things now, and what I believe the response of every person who is serious about. The future of Britain should be is when you call me a racist or a xenophobe or any of these other slurs that left-wing types throw against the right to shut down conversation. I say, do you realize that you are using the language of the power structure against somebody who is dissenting against the power structure? What you've told me by using that kind of slur against me is that you belong to an outdated political paradigm that normal people do not recognize as legitimate anymore. And so you're acting, whether you know it or not, as the foot soldier of this power structure. And I think you should just own that fact rather than pretending to be some kind of rebel. So anyway, there we are.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

Well, immigration is certainly one aspect of this mode of governance which the world over has been applied, at least in the Western world. And polling in the UK has said that immigration has now shot up to be the top concern amongst British voters. Um, again, this always happens in a bit of a lag, uh you know, it lags behind when immigration shoots up because it takes a while for people to see the effects. But obviously, the news cycle is quite relentless at the moment. And um, even in attempts to try to dampen um the any potential um rhetoric or diffuse the situation by not drawing uh attention to certain uh characteristics, referring to people as a man has stabbed X, for example. We've done lots of that recently. Um I think there is a palpable sense of fear in the country. So immigration, top concern. And what I've noticed is that there seems to have been the last few weeks an Overton window shift, which um you know not on talking or criticizing immigration, that's been around for the best part of a year and a bit. But in mainstream publications, we've seen people like Isabel Oakshot start talking about how Britain, this is a quote, Britain needs a camp a shock and awe campaign of mass deportations to tackle the illegal migrant crisis. We've had Douglas Murray and Jordan Peterson. Now, Douglas has criticized immigration policy for years, but he spoke about integration, said we've always had this goal of integration, but and he starts pointing to the history of of Britain about being different different ethnic groups of British peoples, said, It's not clear to me whether we've managed to integrate people into that because how do you do so? Um Douglas Carswell, uh, a former UKIP politician who now spends his time between the US and UK, uh, released some statistics of um British Muslims being asked, uh 16 to 24 years old, being asked whether people who convert to other faiths ought to receive uh the death penalty, um, or be should it be punishable by death. 36% agreed. And he said this ought to be a proxy for stripping people of their citizenship and deportation. This is not me necessarily saying that's a something that can actually happen. But interesting that people are coming out saying this stuff uh and it's going to mainstream publications, and you can find people who are once part of the Conservative Party jumping behind these and agreeing with it or reposting Connor Tomlinson's article saying, you know, immigration debate's over, it just really isn't doing us any good, and anyone who tells you it is is lying. So the overton window might not be shifting for everyone. You know, we have Keir Starmer delivering speeches and never mentioning immigration. What actions do you think the public would deem acceptable to get immigration illegal and legal under control within a bounds of acceptability for the for the British people?

SPEAKER_01 47:48

The Overton window is shifting massively. Um that's right to say. Um again, I will bring it back to this thing of people just getting sick and tired of being called names when they talk about this topic, whether it's racist or you know, whatever else. Um we're at a point now, as you say, where we've had in the telegraph somebody, Isabel Oakshaw, calling for mass deportations. Now, when you say the word, this the phrase mass deportation to the average person, their mind immediately goes to like mid-century Germany. Um but actually, I put out a tweet yesterday saying deportation should not be a dirty word. Um, and it's actually the policy of any self-respecting and secure nation. Because it's it's just simply the most effective solution to removing foreign criminal elements from your society. There's no reason that there should that there are foreign criminals in our in our prisons, for example. I mean, with hearing Keir Starmer talking about how full our prisons are and how he's going to release about 20,000 uh prisoners, in order, well, partly in order to make room for people that were arrested during the riots, which is a very dark thing in and of itself. But these are foreign people, foreign criminals who have no business being in Britain, who are being put up by the taxpayer in prisons, at, you know, again, at our expense. Um and so deporting those people should just be a matter of course. It should just be, you know, something that's not even talked about. It's just the obvious solution. And yet we've got to this position because of various activist groups, NGOs, lawyers, and so on, that even broaching the notion of deportation is somehow considered evil. You know, talk of you're immediately in talk of human rights and and all the rest of it. But actually, it doesn't have to be, you know, people think that it's somehow like a violent thing. It doesn't have to be a violent thing at all. I mean, of course, if people, if foreign criminals start resisting uh the uh deportation measures, then obviously there's going to be a need for a certain amount of um of force. But actually, these are criminals that we're talking about, right? They're not exactly, you know, they're not like kids or or or innocent people. Um so it's absolutely appropriate that the conversation shift now to a to a more serious register when we're talking about deportation, because it is necessary. I mean, there's literally no other solution to some of the problems that we're facing other than that. I mean, again, to bring it back to illegal immigration, which is a very a very important but very, very different issue to legal immigration. People will sort of conflate the two because they are, they sort of sound, you know, obviously they're both about migration, but it's fundamentally different. When it comes to illegal immigration, there should not be a question of deporting people. If you come to the country illegally, you have no business being here and you will be removed. It should be that simple. And again, any self-respecting nation has that policy. But again, we're at a point now where our political class are so atrophied and so kind of stultified that they can't actually achieve any of these things because there's just the will just doesn't exist. You know, the actual machinery of the managerial state in the civil service is institutionally left-wing and progressive. And so they can't broach any idea, any sort of notion of um of this kind of thing. Um, which is why, again, I'll bring it back to this, which is why a new political class is necessary. New leaders need to step forward and emerge in order for this to happen. And I have absolutely no doubt that that is going to happen. I think that what people like me and Connor represent is inevitable. I think that the young people in Britain, um, most of whom are under ordinary times would be apolitical, they're seeing what's being done to their country. And they're thinking, actually, I do actually love this country. It's my country. I grew up here, um, all of my friends are from here, and I'm watching these people who are in positions of power doing things that are actively damaging not just my local community, but the country at large. And so there's going to be a far greater appetite and a far greater level of kind of um acceptance of things like deportation as things go forward. Um, and I think that's a good thing. Um, it's not a pleasant thing. It's not I I think it's terrible that we've found ourselves uh in this kind of situation as a nation, but it's simply the reality of the situation. And if the options are get called racist and do deportations of criminals, or get called racist and don't, and watch the country become more dangerous for women and children, uh more unstable, more financially um worse off, uh then I pick the former every time.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

Well, I was gonna ask about the prospects of regaining control, but you've already pointed to how institutional bias will mean that it's gonna be hard to do so under the current form of governance which we have. However, you've nodded to this rising counter-elite, as it were. Have you read Peter Turchin's book End Times by any chance?

SPEAKER_01 52:28

I'm I'm familiar- I haven't read it. I'm familiar with Peter Turchin, though.

SPEAKER_00 52:31

Yeah, so his his his research, having looked at you know, about a thousand years of history, perhaps even more, looking at all of these times where there ended up being political disintegration within nations and within empires, it came about as elites became distant from and started to disregard the needs of those that they govern. And the time that things are more harmonious are when they're they're closer to them, they're closer to their needs, they uh they govern not just in their interests, but they are actually able to be held accountable. And when they grow distant, you know, conflict rises inexorably until such point as either reform happens, so they save it before things get really bad, or counter-elites displace them. And there are many different ways which that happens. And some of them we've talked about how we don't want to happen, but it can happen in a violent and bloody revolution, it can happen in civil war, or it can happen through the means which we've developed over time within the Western world, a democratic handover. And so you you've said you're you're confident you can see a rise in people who would be willing to take the reins and do something different. Where are these counter-elites rising from to challenge the status quo? Do you see it besides you and people uh within your uh political milieu? Do you see uh institutions being set up uh that are um going to be pushing against the grain we've been we've been moving in for so long?

SPEAKER_01 54:02

The battle that we face is pretty daunting. Um, I mean, the power structure that we are up against is absolutely almost incomprehensibly complex and large. Because we're not just talking about the government here. This is the problem people need to understand that when we talk about the regime that governs us, it's not as simple as it just being, you know, parliament. It's it's not nowhere near that simple. There's a blurring, there has been a blurring of the lines between all of the various centres of power in our society, whether it's, you know, again, it's the ones I've listed before, between the government, the NGOs, the civil service, the corporations, the media, the education institutions. These these things all mass together to form this absolutely towering structure. Um and it's that in its totality that we are up against. Um, so that's a daunting prospect. But again, every single day I am so heartened by the types of people who are drawn to the politics that I am myself drawn to. It's almost exclusively fit, young, attractive, normal, relatable, intelligent, driven, ambitious young people. And that's because it's only those people who are capable of actually writing this shit. Because, you know, again, my parents' generation, quite frankly, they are they're already checked out. You know, they have their lives, they have their jobs, they don't want to upset their own lives because they've got families to worry about and mortgages to pay off. I don't expect people of that kind of generation to be the place where the change comes from. And so ultimately it has to be us. Um, and I am, as I say, I'm I'm so confident. And it's and it's lit up and down the country, from every area of the country, there are these young people emerging who have this advert, it's just this quality that I don't think we've seen for a very long time in mainstream British politics. And it is just this uncompromising integrity, sincerity, commitment, um, and authenticity to to Britain. It's out of a sense of love of this country and love of the people around them and love of family, love of history and love of uh tradition, um, that they're coming out and they feel as though they have to. That's the thing. I mean, I I that's how I think of myself. I can't bring myself to do anything else other than be involved in politics. And I'm not hugely pleased about that fact. Because when I was at university, my plan was to go and join the army, but unfortunately, they wouldn't let me in. Because I never wanted to be the type of person that went straight from education into politics. But actually, I found myself in a situation where I cannot, like my morally, I can't bring myself to do anything else because I think that the hour is so dark and we live in this time that demands that people who are prepared to do so step forward and step up. That I have to. And there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of other people similar to myself, who are going through the same kind of thing. And I think that's amazing. I think it's beautiful, and that's why I say that we are inevitable.

SPEAKER_00 56:53

I think that's probably a reason that the the Overton window is shifting too, because I think a lot of the people that you're referring to, and I've certainly spotted a lot online, is that, well, you're the online generation as well, and you know how to uh create content for want of a better word. And they it it's slick, you're not afraid to produce videos of yourself, get messaging out. You know, you can fit a lot of information, hardly any time, not afraid to go on talk shows. And that's something I've certainly been struck by in the last couple of years is seeing the likes of you, Connor, Harrison, Pitt, um, a whole bunch of others who wouldn't necessarily say they're part of the same ballpark, but people like Freya India, people who are going against uh this um perceived wisdom on a whole bunch of different issues or very countercultural, as you say, even though people would accuse you of being somehow establishment shills, no doubt. And I suppose a question is is there a political vehicle for you? You know, we've got reform marching ahead in the polls. Are they are they going to be capable of doing the job required on immigration? And will we see uh a um an opening up a democratizing of reform so it's less a Nigel Farage pet pet project and it's opened up for it to become a proper political party? And is that something that you think younger people can be attracted to?

SPEAKER_01 58:21

So what I'll say first is the people that I'm talking about here, we are people who would, under ordinary circumstances, be conservatives. Yeah, we'd call ourselves conservatives, we'd say we have conservative values, but I don't call myself a conservative anymore. I used to, but I think I look around, especially uh institutionally speaking, what is left of value to conserve? You know, conservatism is the wrong mode to be thinking in because there's a certain, there's an inertness to conservatism. There's a there's a sense that you're just that the march of history is inevitable and that, oh, well, you know, we're clinging on to these old values that we wish would come back, but actually, you know, progress is progress and all the rest of it. No. What I think is there is no going back. There is no such thing as returning to this, that, or the other. There is only going forward. The question is which direction? And the direction that I favor is unrecognizably different to the one that the current power structure is heading in. You know, at a certain level, the kind of world that I'm imagining that I would like to live in. Um at one level, it's very, very similar to the one that we live in now. You know, every you know, people would still drive cars and people would still have computers and so on. But at almost every other level, it would be completely different because there'd be a different sense, again, a different sense of um of identity, community, culture, tradition, and all the rest of it. And so the question of what the most effective vehicle for this um will be, I do actually have faith in reform. I think Reform UK is the best vehicle we have for bringing these kinds of politics into the mainstream and beginning to affect the kind of change that we want to see. Um I think Nigel Farage recognizes this. I think he knows that uh what he is part of is bigger than him. Um that this is a movement that, if done right and if the right people are brought in and are allowed to have uh the kind of authority they would need, um, would be basically unstoppable. Because reform already have uh Gen Z curiosity. You know, um there was uh well, more Gen Z voters voted for reform than they did the Tory Party. What they need to do now is capture their attention. And I think there's a number of ways they can do that. One way they could do that is by establishing a youth wing. Another is by showing young voters why specifically their policies benefit them. Um but there's yeah, again, there's a number of things that need to be done there. Um but I I I again I just bring it. I have this undying optimism that this, you know, things will not last um in the way that they're currently going. And I think that, again, the caliber of person that is drawn to right-wing dissident politics is so much higher than the type of person who is drawn to mainstream regime-approved politics. And that's inevitably the case because it requires a certain, I don't know, a certain quality, a certain level of panache to uh to put yourself out there um in a dissident fashion. Um and so it's unsurprising that the people drawn to it are high caliber. So again, I would just bring it back to I those people who say it's over, who say that you know Britain is done for and that you know there's no going back, I say to those people, where is your spine? I say to those people, stand up like a man. You know, you're an Englishman, start acting like it. And I think that you know what's coming cannot be stopped.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:28

Well, that's uh that's that's almost a perfect note to finish on. But we're not gonna finish there, Charlie, because uh there looking forwards then, which is where you're saying we we can only go forward, is people have often said that the victors write history. So depending on who it is that's coming to write history, and they look back on this period, say the last 30 years, or arguably the period since the Second World War, and the modes of governance which have become the typical ways of doing business amongst Western governance uh governments. What do you what do you think people will say about this period in history? How will it be judged? How will the leaders be judged?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:11

I think this is a really useful way to think about um any era is to imagine in 200 years' time how our descendants will be taught um you know what this period was like. Um personally, I think that this period will be remembered and taught and written about as being the era in which Europe completely lost its mind. Um I think that the context of the Second World War is crucially important. I think that we're still living in the aftermath of World War II and that that's how this will be remembered, is we're still in the post-World War II era because you know, the rate, you know, what Michel Foucault would call the regime of truth that we've lived in for the last 80 years is completely informed by the events of World War II. Um, and once we can finally get free of that and get free of the scars that that war uh uh you know inflicted on Europe, only then will we be able to see that the that some of the stuff that's happened over the last 80 years in every area of life, whether it's you know, immigration is what we've been talking about today, but there's also the various things around, you know, you mentioned earlier the sexual revolution, for example, um, all of these things will be looked at as being a period of madness, a period of insanity in Europe. Um and you know, day to day, you know, we all live our lives, we go to work, we you know, we sit down with our families, we, you know, and all the rest of it, we play some sports. It feels like it feels normal, you know. But actually, in the long view of history, when only the key details remain and the day-to-day is, you know, cast aside, we're living through a period of madness. Um and I that's how I believe this period will be reported. Because I have, as I've said already, I have no doubt that we will win and that we will therefore be the ones to write the history. Um and I think that right-thinking people, people who recognize the objective reality of things like morality and beauty, the unchanging um element of human nature and all of these things, will look at this period as being an absolutely unprecedented blip in human history where we just completely lost touch with um every aspect of reality. We we we decided to declare war on nature um in a sense by just go by rejecting uh nature, rejecting morality, um, embracing relativism, embracing universalism. And what this led to was destruction of an unprecedented type across Europe. Um but as I say, this will be reported from a uh a position of having returned to the historical norm. And I said before that I don't really believe in the idea of returning to anything, and I do believe that's true. But I do think there have been periods in history where we've been closer to um that kind of objective uh you know perennial world than we are now. Um I think returning to that is important. Um so yeah, I think we'll this period of history will be remembered as um as being completely insane. Uh and I think those of us who can realise that uh as we are living through this moment will be the ones who um essentially spearhead the movement out of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:13

As you were talking there, I couldn't help but Google some Rudyard Kipling poem lyrics. And he seems to have a poem which is fit for almost everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:23

Is it the gods of the copybook headings?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:25

It is. Yeah. Yeah, and it's exactly it's exactly what you were talking of there, this return to the norm. And I and I'll just open with the the first verse here because I think it speaks to what you're talking about. As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the gods of the marketplace. Peering through reverent fingers, I watch them flourish and fall. And the gods of the copybook headings, I notice outlast them all. And you know, there are about seven or eight verses, and effectively it goes on to talk about how. Human folly is to keep getting caught up in these abstractions, these um these utopian ideals that if only you could plan perfectly, if only things were going to turn out in the best case scenario, then everything would be fine. But every time your delusions are availed by the things which we have done so well to throw on the scrap heap, like, for example, the the copybook headings people used to write out at school, which is various things that were in the proverbs or in Psalms or you know biblical teachings or whatever else from ancient wisdom, uh the ancient Greek philosophers. So really interesting that you talk about that, and it's something I meditate on quite a lot when I, working in the corporate world, see people get really worked up about, as in, worked up in excitement about this new thing, and every time it fizzles out because it's never what they thought it was, and it's always counter to reality. Um, I'm gonna let you go in a second, Charlie, but before I do, I know you're you're a young man, and you may not have had any of these um big U-turns, these moments where you think, um, oh, that's just shaking everything. But perhaps you have. Maybe you haven't always thought the way you have. What I like to ask my guests is is there anything that you were once pretty certain of in life that you changed your mind about? And what was it that made you change your mind? That is a really good question.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:29

Um That is a really good question. You have to give me a second to think about it because you know what it is. So one of the biggest, I think, is going from studying politics in an academic setting into working in politics as I do, um it showed me that politics is almost nothing to do with ideas and everything to do with people. And that just and that concept extends well beyond politics, and that actually applies in every area of life. Um what's important is people, um, and ideas are kind of after the fact. Because what I would say in the political context is if you have good ideas but bad leaders, bad people, then you will get nowhere. But if you have bad ideas but good uh bad ideas but good leaders and good people, then the ideas tend to catch up. Um and this is why I'm so heartened, and this is why I keep harping on this point of the calibre of person that is drawn to uh kind of right-wing dissident politics. Um, yeah, the idea, the ideas are there, of course, but it's it's their personal qualities, their personal drive, competence, uh, commitment, sincerity, authenticity, and so on. That's what I'm so heartened by. Um and so, you know, being in that kind of academic context, it's easy to think that the only thing that matters is ideas and that the history of the world is the history of the battle of ideas and the marketplace of ideas and all the rest of it, when actually it isn't. People are what are important. Um, and I would say that that's again, that's a truth for every area of life.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:11

Charlie Downs, thanks so much for joining me today. It's been an absolute pleasure. I'm looking forward to seeing what you get involved in as the years roll on and hope to have you back on Thinking Class at some point. Thanks very much, John. It's been great. Thanks, Charlie. Take care. To keep up to date with all that I am doing, please subscribe to the Thinking Class YouTube channel at Thinking Class and follow me on X at Thinking Classes. Thinking Class seeks to understand the civilizational issues we face and why what our leaders do in response matters. Here I seek to explore the ideas, values, and culture that made our civilization, those that are unmaking it, and how leaders at our public and private institutions should respond. Engage with me on YouTube or X or write to me at thinkingclasspod at gmail.com to tell me who you want me to speak to and what topics are important to you. I look forward to seeing you there and for joining me on this journey.