Future of Left-Wing Political Movements

Am I tough enough to strong and stable leadership? Total robot. Hell yes, I'm tough enough. Shut French. Not another it's the politics show cast . Hasan Piker, Jeremy Corbin , I am delighted that politics Joe is able to keep the relationship between you two lit . He's met what? Three, four months ago in Cuba. Yep. Yes. And unfortunately, Hassan, you're not here warming this sofa for us right now . Well when you do come, you're most welcome and it's got to be tea on the terrace of the House of Commons overlooking the river, hasn't it? We might bump into Shabanamood, wouldn't we there? Yeah, I was about to say I don't think I don't think they want me inside of the House of Commons and not even inside of the country, but we'll see. And of course , you mentioned Cuba, which is the other which is my other , you go know, vernment intervention here in the United States where haven't received a subpoena yet, but there is there was reporting from Fox News that claims that the government has subpoenaed me over OFAC violations in my trip to Cuba , where we were delivering humanitarian aid and also doing journalism. I had a journalism visa as well . But yeah, the federal government here in the United States is also coming after me . Just on that then, because I mean at this stage you're talking a good month. I mean you've always been getting stick from the right, whether it's in the states or in Europe . But like at this moment in time, I mean Fox were talking about a subpoena. You were talking about how all the checks and balances were played out right the whole time you were in Cuba. And now you've got this with yourself and your uncle band from the United Kingdom. Like how are you coping with it mentally? I mean, it's not great because had a bunch of plans and I wanted to see my fans in the UK as well. I was very excited to visit . But as far as pressure campaign goes, I'm used to it. You have to be used to it. I've seen others get punished regularly for sticking their neck out and offering a voice to the voiceless. I mean, you're on the couch sitting next to one of them right now, Jeremy Corbyn, right ? So I've seen this happen with Bernie Sanders as well since twenty sixteen . There is a there's a very quick retaliation and counter signaling campaign that is launched against those who are considered outside of the neat confines of neoliberalism as far as the permission structure goes in the United States of Amer ica, if you are considered a force of disruption to the pre established pre ordained capitalist hierarchy, if you're an anti capitalist , if you want, you know, higher labor un ion participation in the economy, if you're an anti imperialist, if you call out Israel , it's expected that a lot of these powerful forces are going to coalesce and they're going to come after you. And they're rarely going to come after you on the issues too, right? They're not going to come after you and be like, well, I have a disagreement. I think it's good that Israel is doing a genocide and I don't like that you're calling that out. They're never going to say it like that. They sometimes might call you an anti Semit as plenty of people have tried, right ? And smear me as an anti Semite when I have fought back against all manner of bigotry my whole life and certainly throughout my political career , but then they'll just try and disparage you, right? They'll and if that doesn't work either, if you're unbowed, if you're resilient, and if you continue and your message is penetrating to broader consciousness , then they'll try to prosecute you. And we're at the prosecutorial stage at this point . The pressure is not great , but I don't think I would be receiving this much pressure if I had zero impact Because I've been saying these things my whole life. I've been saying these things my whole political career. It's been almost thirteen years that I've been doing this . My message hasn't changed , right? But what has changed is my audience has grown . And I think the public conscious has shifted quite dramatically in the case of Israel, Palestine, especially in these last two to three years now . But beyond that , something else that's also changed is that there are now candidates that are running and winning in primaries within the Democratic Party's infrastructure that are winning on a message where they say, I'm done with Israel, no more money to Israel, no more endless wars. We have to take this money and spend it on ourselves. We have to focus on expanding the social safety nets. We have to focus on pushing Medicare for all some kind of single single payer healthcare system . This is obviously a major threat to a lot of corporate interests. It's a major threat to a massive GDP earning industry such as private healthcare. Obviously, it's a multibillion dollar industry. It's an unnecessary middleman that doesn't need to exist, and it causes a lot of death and destruction on U. S. soil, really . But because they are so fearful of , you know , politicians that are actively going to push back against the current private health care structure. Politicians that are going to push back against our undying loyalty to the state of Israel . They're terrified of losing their grip of power . So there's been this coalescing around anti left initiatives, both from the center right think tanks, neoliberal think tanks within the heart of the Democratic Party, within the center of power within the Democratic Party, and of course a tremendous amount of attacks from the far right. Before we get into Israel and everything to do with kind of the lobby, whether it's in the United States or the United Kingdom, I'm just going to throw it over to you. Do you identify with any of the experience that his hands had reason? Oh, absolutely, I do . That it's relentless and you have to grow a very thick skin. Otherwise you end up replying to everything all the time and that doesn't do you any good. You've got to rise above it and keep on with your own message. Because what they're trying to do is divert you down a rabbit hole of going to another direction. The question that's interesting before we move into the more details of our discussion is the power of independent social media because twenty years ago , maybe thirty years ago , Hassan and I would have had great difficulty getting a message across because we would not have been allowed on mainstream media or with very limited access to it. Print media a bit , local media probably quite a lot, but not much broadcasting media. And so it really is the technology that is available that you can now set up this channel. And indeed, I work with a lot of independent online news channels like yourselves and others. And that's made an enormous Jeremy. We can't get you off . And so it is a change. Now I'm not quite sure where all this goes to because Fox News and the BBC and others are big , very wealthy and very powerful . Their whole purpose at the moment is to set the agenda and that they tried to do with their news values and news reporting. And that is under challenge the whole time . And the citizen journalists that have told us the truth about what's happening in Gaza , without them , most of the mainstream media which have shown footage from Gaza would not have got it but for the incredible sacrifice and bravery of Palestinian citizens and journalists in Gaza , hundreds of whom have been killed. And even when it does get to the broadcast, I mean , I'm thinking they sanitize it . Well, doctors without Borders, for example, was initially meant to be on the BBC and then it ended up being taken by Channel four because of this kind of confused this question around the narrator and who he was related to. Yeah. There's also a tremendous amount of contextualization that takes place whenever Pal estinian deaths are being discussed , where I saw it in real time . In American media where on CNN, you would have an IDF soldier or a general or a spokesperson for the foreign ministry go on stage, on the main stage on CNN and immediately contextualize why a mosque had to be bombed, why this school had to be bombed, why this hospital had to be bombed. And in spite of all of that , in spite of the efforts of mainstream media to try to create some kind of consent for what Israel was doing, yes, due to the power of social media and due to the bravery and the steadfastness of the Palestinian population that was showcasing their demise, showcasing the genocide, sometimes in their final moments that the Western world caught up to the rest of the world because and I say that because look, I'm from Turkey. I grew up in Turkey . And my perspective on Israel always the majority perspective in Turkey , which is that Israel is a settler colonial apartheid state that's, you know, killing Palestinians all the time . Whereas in the Western world in the UK , in the United States of America, maybe the rest of Europe , with some exceptions, I feel like the majority position on Israel due to this sophisticated , pervasive influence operation that has been around for almost certain ly almost eighty years, but certainly much more powerful since the end of the abolition of the South African apartheid. So for the last three or four decades, there's been this very powerful lobby and very pervasive influence pedaling operation that has caused the majorities in the Western world to either be totally oblivious to the issue of Israel, Palestine, or offer unconditional and unwavering support to Israel or that's why there's common tropes that are deployed all the time, which people now laugh at that used to be used to be unshakable truths, right ? The idea that Israel's most moral nation in the Middle East, it's the only democracy in the Middle East, right? These were very racist concepts, but they were they were concepts that many Westerners agreed with and never even thought twice about. And now that cultural attitude has shifted in the opposite direction broadly. And I think a lot of people in the lobby, a lot of people who are invested in defending Israel's foreign policy interests, defending Israel's interest broadly are terrified and don't really know what to do . So they have decided the best possible way to go about this is to increase the repression. And it's clear that the laborver Gnoment and even the American government under both Donald Trump and this started happening under Biden as well before Donald Trump and might have even led to Donald Trump's victory in the election , they decided repression, state repression is the way to go , that they could maybe brush this problem under the rug or potentially silence people into submission. Do you think there's a part of it as well that's like the kind of worsening of Westerners economic situation has kind of contributed to this like simultaneous ly there has been a reduction in living standards in the West . Younger people can't afford houses, can't afford to settle down, can't afford children . And at the same time very basic things that citizens have always done, expressing their free speech, expressing their solidarity with oppressed peoples around the world . And another thing that the government is doing to them is saying yeah ignore all of these images that you're seeing. There's always been an attack on demonstrations, free speech and so on as long as I can remember, there's always been either establishment tutting about them or police complaints about the amount of money it costs to put them on and so on . But it's now reached an incredible stage where to organize a demonstration . You basically have to seek police permission and cooperation to the extent that they're also monitoring what people are saying on the march and on the demonstration and on the stage. And in the case of Britain, we've got about two thousand two thousand five hundred people at the moment bailed on the the charge of holding up Palestine Action placards . And they may end up in court, they may end up with having a trial, they may end up being fined or even worse imprisoned , or the legal establishment might take the view that this is becoming ridiculous and take the view it's not in the public interest to pursue these cases anymore. They are however, resolutely pursuing the cases against four people from the January demonstration of last year. This is now what fifteen, sixteen months ago they're pursuing that to the extent that two of them are now appealing against the sentence they were given and two others are moving on to the first stage of their trial. And so there is that going on . And then there is the passing of latest piece of anti terror legislation and the powers the Home Secretary has prevent to people coming to Britain , such as the way you've been treated, Assan. You've just not been allowed in Britain on the basis that your presence is not conducive to the public good. Is that the words they use in the letter to you? Yes. What did they say? So here's the issue . They are, I think, purposefully very vague about revealing the exact reasons as to why they did this . So we are forced to speculate a little bit, but yes, the ETA we applied for a regular electronic travel authorization. It's like a super basic concept. Americans , and I myself have been to the UK many times, have never even thought about getting a visa at all. I believe it's a new thing, a relatively new phenomenon , but it's supposed to be due to our special partn ership with the United Kingdom . It's supposed to be a relatively easy process, right? You just go there and you can even do it at the border gate, right ? But knowing that there were some Israel advocacy organizations wanted to create a problem about my travel to the UK. I wanted to get the visa ahead of time, and we did. And then they revoked it. And when they revoked it, they just said , you know, my presence would not be conducive to the public good . But the reason as to why I'm saying it's it's very likely because of my commentary around Israel is one because I've been to the UK in numerous instances. Many of the quotes that they will always use often times out of context are from way before and I have traveled with ease to the UK since then . And that the people that actually took ownership over this ban were those very same advocacy organizations that had made a big fuss about it. There was reporting on this on the times of Israel , both prior to the ban and certainly after the ban as well. So they not only demanded it, but they also took credit for it , right? So it's not that silly for me to assume that it is these advocacy organizations that raise the major red flag and point of concern. What's interesting is they had not done so for Jank. They'd only done so for me, but I was also supposed to talk with Jank, my uncle at Oxford Union. I had already delivered a speech at Oxford Union last year . That speech actually was ironically enough about the dangers of conflating Zionism and Judaism and the dangers of the growth of anti Semitism and how that's a warning warning sign for the growth of fascism in general both, in Europe and in the United States of America . Now we're living in that world and of course no one listened to those warnings, but that I think makes it even a little bit more interesting and a little bit more ironic considering that the main charge against me is that I am an anti Semite. I was chatting to Norman Finkelstein recently, who by the way as well was in the UK about six months ago? Yeah , I'm assuming Who has said things that in comparison to what you've said Hassan , I think like if it's the government of the United Kingdom that are preventing Hass an from coming in, saying things like I am not going to condemn Hamas would probably constitute him having his visa taken away as well. But that's by the by the thing that he said to me that held it still kind of sits with me now is how he was talking to me about how the conflation of anti Semitism and anti Zionism has reached a point where you are in the United States where you've got figures like Candace Ones, you've got figures like Tucker Carlson that are starting to see this kind of this way in for them to have like an ti anti Semitism, a sinister form of antisemitism by co opting an opposition to Israel , where an opposition to the actions of Israel , where you kind of they reference things like the campus strikes, they reference things like the treatment of left wing activists and say this is the action of the Israeli government and use that to propel a more sinister anti Semitism. So I mean it's it's probably to the effect of what you were getting at the Oxford Union, but I think like especially when you've got a government that kind of I mean you fell victim of when it came to Kirstammer becoming the leader and these accusations of anti Semitism and how it was impossible to keep you in the parody . These kinds of things almost kind of they worsen the issue rather than make it better. Put it this way. I was first elected to the British Parliament in nineteen eighty three . And up until september twenty fifteen I was not ever once accused by anybody of being antisemitic . Since that time there have been thousands of accusations made against me , all of which relate around Palest . But to go back to your earlier point, Hassan, of the kind of the activism for Palestine is being used as a way to undermine your anti neoliberal, anti globalist, anti imperialist worldview, your interest and it reflects on you as well. That it's conflating an issue that the public at large up until maybe three years ago didn't know too much about. Now I think there's a lot more awareness in the British public and probably the American public as well that I think these kinds of accusations just don't wash anymore . That's absolutely true. They don't wash anymore. And for all the abuse and the lawfare and the aggression and so on that was thrown at me from from twenty fifteen onwards , we managed to attract forty one percent of the electorate voting to vote in the twenty seventeen election was the largest vote for the Labour Party this century. That was despite those accusations. Including the election when twenty. Then they intensified after the election because we'd done so well and it became very, very intense during twenty eighteen and nineteen . And then as you know , I was then eventually thrown out of the Labour Party and ran as an independent of my own constituency Remember my constituency is London, it is a normal London constituency in many ways . They are not immune from the mainstream media, the newspapers, anything else, same access to anybody, everybody else. Yet we still managed to win there a very large majority despite all the stuff being thrown us . Now that to me was the most fascinating election campaign I've ever been involved in we had to go to every door with no assumption of what they were going to say. No prior knowledge prior knowledge was of no use at all because we knew we had a big fight in our hands because of the way that I had been demonized by the media, but we won . And we won also , despite the stuff of reform and everybody else by saying and I did put it on a leaflet, refugees are welcome here. And we still won the election. It shows it can be done, but way in which European politics is going is very, very makes me very nervous and quite frightening in many ways in that we now have a consensus around economy, which I'm sure you'd appreciate. The consensus being essentially that you reduce the public realm, you reduce the expenditure on broad terms welfare, education, health and housing , increase massively defence expenditure , build up a sort of war psychosis in society . and then link that up to horrible nationalist symbols and racism against refugees . And that way the far right gain control. I'm going to be in Brussels next weekend where we're having a demonstration in Brussels against Euromilitarism on Sunday . I think it's very important to be doing that. It's very important to be starting to say actually the social problems of Europe , which are considerable and getting worse are not going to be solved by spending more money on arms and defense. They're not going to be solved by wars. And so it is putting that counter narrative that we've got . And when it comes to wars , look at what's happening in Palestine we're actually witnessing in real time genocide against the Palestin ian people in Gaza . And those of us that raise it are then told somehow or other you are anti Semitic because you raise it. The community per head of the population by proportion, most likely to be represented on a Palestine march are actually Jewish people . They're the largest single group per head of the population . There are broadly speaking about five hundred thousand or more Jewish people in Britain. And so their attendance as a proportion of their population is probably the biggest of all . Yet the abuse they get as well is huge. Yeah . I mean, the same thing must be happening in the USA, no? Oh, absolutely. So here's the interesting situation that's taking place . Well, there's two issues, right ? And obviously , the United States has the First Amendment. So there's like some level of constitutional protection even though that's being eroded as well actively by the government. So even if there is a foreign terrorist organization, you could literally support it publicly or a foreign state that is a state sponsor of terrorism. You could publicly support it and there's nothing the government can do unless you're offering material support but speech is not material support. It's protected by the First Amendment. In the UK, obviously , you have a prescription system where if there is a prescribed terrorist organization, no matter how laughable it is like Palestine Action being considered a prescribed terrorist organization , any kind of support for a prescribed terrorist organization is considered illegal. And I think one of the examples they use for me, and I don't think they could do this for Cenk because I don't think Cenk even says anything about Hamas that or any of the Palestinian resistance or the Lebanese resistance with Hezbollah or the acts of resistance broadly with Al Sa , my argument always revolves around offering analysis as to why anti colonial resistance movements exist, and anti colonial resistance movements engage in militancy, the evolution of Hamas's militancy and whatnot is a major part of my analysis, which is very frustrating, I think, for a lot of pro Israel groups and they try to shift the argument of anti Semit ism to that. And in an effort to in an effort to justify this the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have done something not dissimilar to what the Labor Party is doing in the UK , which is to try and create an ideological parody . So there is a dual a bipartisan condemnation bill that Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat from New Jersey and Mike Lawler, a Republican from New York , have put forth in Congress. It's not going to pass. It's just to appease the donors. It's very clear that I've frustrated a lot of big donors and a lot of very powerful people in this country and their word is obviously much more important than the needs of the masses . But they set forth this bipartisan condemnation bill and in that bill they put my statements and demanded condemnation for my statements . And also Candace Owens on the other side. Now, of course, with Candace Owens, there's a laundry list of things that she has said, you know, holocaust denial and things of that nature that are objectively anti Semitic and morally repugnant . On my end, however the condemnation almost entirely revolves around criticisms of Israel. So what they're trying to do is create this environment to potentially fight back against a lot of the anti Israel speech by saying, Oh, if you are in any way, shape or form offering analysis as to why militant resistance exists, then you're the same as a Holocaust denier, right ? And I think that's exactly what's going on with the Labor Government as well, where many people will point to the fact that there is a far right polish minister that was denied entry and a Toby Tommy Robinson ally that was denied entry into one of these hate rallies that Tommy Robinson is is putting together , right? Or there's a there's a Charlatan by the name of an American Charlatan by the name of Valentina Gomez , who is an unbelievable reactionary. I can't even call her a firebrand. I mean, straightforward neo Nazi commentary who constantly runs as a carpet bagger in every district that she can and ends up getting like twelfth place in some of the most Republican districts in the country . She's an abject failure, but like her whole shick is just saying unhinged things, increasingly more hateful and violent things . So they'll point to that and say, look, we're just being consistent. We're applying this broadly there is no ideological parody or moral equivalence between my commentary that is anti genocide and also against anti Semitism and the commentary of those who might seemingly oppose Israel's genocide , but will then advance the interests of genocidal groups on US soil or on British soil, groups that want to do programs , maybe not to Jewish folk, but to Muslims, for example Do you know what day it is? No, I'm not good with calendars either. It's Joe Sundays, which means you get a brand new episode of an interview that we've done here on Politics Joe and you get a new discount code to go and get your NordVPN. They're partnering with us on this podcast. Are you on holiday right now? Don't you miss your telly? You need a VPN. NordVPN to be exact. What's so good about a VPN, Sean? First and foremost, it's the security. Like think of yourself as a sitting duck whenever you're in a cafe, restaurant, hospital, anywhere with public wii f . Your dad is at risk in any of these places. You slap on an ord VPN , you're protected. It's the bay of pigs unless you have a VPN It's the wild west out there. Showing you wouldn't believe it. There's an exclusive Joe Sunday deal on this. Ah if they go to nordvpn. com forward slash Joe Sunday, they're going to get four months free for two years spend. So if they get a two year plan or VPN, four months of that is for free gratis. Yeah, and also if they don't like it in their first thirty days, they can cancel it. You're joking me. I'm not joking. I'm Joe Sundays. I see what you did there. That is a good deal though. So what you're saying is they need to go to the link on screen right now. Yeah, nordvnot. com forward slash Joe Sunday. And if Sean's been attentive, he will have put that all in the description box below. You know me, it's in there. Drop a thumb if you think Sean's attentive . Mr Speaker, I am a goona. It's a politics show cast . I mean, again with we were going on it as well, but the aspect of this that I think when you're comparing people like Valentina Gomez any of the other people that had been banned from the United Kingdom for the United Kingdom rally . I think when we're talking about particularly your activism, I mean, you're on the ground floor with people like Mam Danny, you've endorsed a lot of DSA candidates recently. With yourself, Jeremy, you tried to transform the Labour Party from this new Labour Blair project to the kind of the kind of democratic socialist p thatarody it was invented to be . And again, when it comes to these philosophies that you both have , they never seem to be spoken about when we're talking about why you're banned from something or why you're why you're not worth listening to or these kinds of things like there's always something that's considered a social soft spot with and both of you it seems to be your advocacy for Palestine. In the eighties and nineties, it was your anti apartheid stance as well. And support for peace process in Ireland. No. The abuse I got for even speaking to the Republican movement in Ireland in the eighties was phenomenal So yesterday we were in a debate in Parliament about Peter Mandelson and the question of the documents that have now been the government has released they have quite heavily redacted, but they have released a lot of documents about Mandelson's time as ambassador to the USA . And I was reading those and I was reading a lot of the Epstein files over the last weekend . And then you sort of think through , a lot of young women were abominably raped and abused by powerful, wealthy men who felt they could get away with it because of their arrogance and their entitlement and so on . And we ended up with then eventually Epstein comes out of prison from the first offense, carries on doing the same stuff and like a sort of a shining sun attracts all these moths around him who go straight to him and join in it all. Mandelson included . And then you end up with eventually goes back into prison and dies as we know . Mandelson becomes Ambassador to Un theited States while owning a company that is working with Palantir arranges meetings between the Prime Minister and Palantir who then get very large contracts from the Ministry of Defense and are now trying to get hold of the health service. And I was sort of pointing out my speech yesterday. I first came across Mandelson in nineteen eighty seven when Tony Ben told me this man will destroy the Labour Movement and the Labour Party because that is what his whole agenda is. And Tony was right, I'm absolutely right . And I said, The people that really paid the price for this, is every hospital in Britain that's p aying fifteen percent of its income towards paying for private finance initiatives which it didn't want or didn't need , every school paying vast amounts of money to something called Building Schools for the Future, another form of privatisation , and so on with a private and I said it all the whole point was about Blair and Mandelson to operate government as a company rather than a provision of public service. So Hassan and I would presumably be on the same position saying the public as a whole should provide healthcare, should provide welfare and so on to ensure that there is no absolute poverty within our society. Not a very big ask actually . That has now gone by the wayside, and everybody has to be a victim of market forces . And this is what has been achieved in all this. Now, my question is where do we go from here? The DSA in the USA worked really hard absolutely well done on the organisation, what they've achieved and winning in the case of Mandani and getting so very close with Bernie Sanders . Are there limits to what you can achieve by being associated with the Democrats? And does that mean that the DSA is actually a force for something wider or not. As you know, when I was leader of the Labour Party, I was determined to turn the party into grassroots campaign ing organization . And what surprised me was I had lots of battles with lots of people in senior position in the Labour Party when I was leader . I didn't honestly think that they would see as their absolute final stand would be to stop community organizing going on in the party. They were terrified of the idea that we would be mobilizing people in the community, in some cases, challenging labor controlled local authorities or others, basically mobilizing people. And they were terrified of that. And really has to be the litmus test of it really . Is a big party like the Democrats, which is a different structure of the Labour Party. I get that completely different because it's more sort of fossilized into the US Constitution in a way that political parties in Britain are not. So there is a big difference there. But how do you see it going, As a? So great question . There's obviously a lot of difficulties in a non parliamentary structure that we have in terms of fighting for ballot access , which renders third party initiatives virtually impossible at least in the current stage . So there are some major hurdles to overcome and obviously a lot of financial hurdles that are that accompanying this, right? So like the American masses still self identify very much as liberals broadly . And they're perfectly fine with voting for the Democrats, but there's also an opportunity because a lot of people that self identify as liberals that vote for the Democratic Party don't actually know what the Democratic Party is about . They might have much more radical opinions overall. They might be in favor of Medicare for all, for example , because they lack class consciousness and lack the political education, they don't realize that they're voting for a party that's simply lying to them in many instances when they say, oh, we're going to be in favor of Medicare for all, but they don't end up actually doing it. That's why you'll see weird inconsistencies like exit polls that say eighty percent of Democrats in the aftermath of an election said they wanted Medicare for all but then ended up voting for like Hillary Rodem Clinton, right? Who was very clear ly not in favor of that. So but that lack of political education also creates somewhat of an opportunity because the Democratic Party is very weak and it's not a real party in the way that even the Labor Party is, right? There is no ideological movement that can change over time and restructure itself like we saw with Tony Blair , or certainly in the aftermath of your ouster with Kirstarmer, the direct that Labor Party's heading. The Democratic Party is basically just a coalition of corporate interests and some NGOs on the side , right Every now and then they'll offer a little bit of lip service to activists and different groups and different initiatives, but for the most part, it's this behemoth that is rudderless , which is why I think there is a real opportunity at least use the electoral machine that the Democrats offer and ballot access to the Democrats automatically offer and really drive home argument for the masses that democratic socialism first and foremost or socialism in general is not a scary concept because that's a big hurdle to climb. A lot of Americans are unfortunately antagonistic towards socialism due to red scare propaganda, due to the McCarthyism in this country . And therefore that's like the first hill to climb. And I think elections and election successes or even defeats , like with Bernie Sanders in twenty sixteen in twenty twenty , still open a lot of people's consciousness to the idea and expand the permission structure on politics could look like . And then you can draw ideological boundaries between liberal Democrats and socialists that are running in the Democratic Party. So at least that's my that's my method for change . And as far as the resistance from the party goes, I feel like because of its because of its its perceived weakness by the mass es right now in the face of Trumpian authoritarianism and trumpian fascism , there is a real appetite for change for the first time ever , unlike any other midterm election season that I've been a part of. And that's precisely the reason why we're seeing a lot of success running candidates directly against the party machine in deep blue districts like Philadelphia where Ch,ris R abb, who is a socialist and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, was able to defeat two machine politician candidates in Philadelphia, which is like , one you know of the, most one of the bluest districts in the country . Same thing with Adam Hamawi, who just won in New Jersey and Alia Meha, who just also won in New Jersey as well and Nazora Mamdani was a great exam ple. So there is a real opportunity here because the Democrats for many, many decades , in the absence of any sort of real ideological soldiers of socialism or DSA Cadre members running have been able to present themselves as being in favor expansive social safety nets or socializ ation initiatives, nationalization initiatives at times without actually ever being on board with it . But now there are people who are legitimately on board with these causes, but because the Democrats have run on that agenda, there are a lot of people who look to people like Zoron and say, wait a minute, this guy actually is invested in doing these things. This guy actually is invested in protecting social safety nets and expanding public transit in New York as opposed to all the previous guys who said they were willing to do this but never actually did . And I think that that ends up exhausting the contradictions that exist within the party, the Democratic Party . It showcases that good governance is possible. It builds up confidence in good governance in general and it builds up confidence in the Democratic Socialist movement . And that's precisely the reason why I think you see approval ratings skyrocket now and a lot of Democrats self identifying as Democratic socialists. I believe it's like forty four percent or something. That's an unbelievable number that I never thought I would see in my lifetime. Will this lead to a split in the Democrats, do you think or will it actually eventually capture the whole structure of the Democratic Party . I don't know, and I don't think so . I do think that there will probably be much more consequential battles later down the line if our numbers grow , our number of elected grow in the Democratic Party because like for the longest time you had to squad , right? And their numbers were far too few, right ? Rarely any momentum in the Senate and which is obviously a smaller body and a handful elected representatives in the House of Representatives. So there wasn't a large enough force within the party to caucus with or to create a real political movement from within . But I think things might look very differently in the aftermath of these midterms where we might be looking at like twenty to thirty new candidates that are openly Democratic socialists, right? In that yeah, in the well not just the House but, also now you have a couple Bernie Crats running in the Senate as well, Abdul al Sayed in Michigan, Graham Platner in Maine . And that's huge. The Senate is huge because obviously their numbers are far smaller and they're much more powerful as senators and also an extremely undemocratic structure . Yeah . So having like senators maybe like two direct D likeSA aligned or Bernie Krat senators and then maybe like five to six that are sympathetic or will caucus with them creates a real force, a real powerful force within American politics all of a sud den . This is kind of what happened with the Tea Party movement as well. Obviously, there's not a direct comparison here. That was their Republican Party's insurgent movement, but the Tea Party movement was obviously backed by the Co ch brothers and the very powerful dark money funded operation that funds the rest of the Republican Party was also creating this inorganic movement . But we are kind of having a similar insurgency moment here , but instead of it being backed by billionaires and totally astronurfed, it's a complete grassroots movement backed by organizations like the Democratic Social ists of America or the Working Families Party or numerous advocacy organizations that have tried to get their message across to the best of their ability for decades now. I know you won't like me bringing this up, but it's reminiscent of what seems to be happening with the green parody in the UK at the moment . And I think there was an opportunity at some point with Europe where that was the insurgent movement in the UK and then for whatever reason Zack Polanski just stole your lunch . And now we're kind of in this strange place where you've got the green party that I know you've talked extensively about it in the past of how you've worked with them previously on certain bills and certain act ivism , but fundamentally they're not what you in your view. Yeah, I work with the Greens and get on personally quite well with a lot of them. That's not the issue. I think fundamentally you ask yourself the question, are they a socialist force or not? And I think the answer to that has to be the negative that they' notre. Will they become that ? I don't know. We had we've set up, we're underway. We had enormous problems and enormous difficulties and people on the left do find it quite hard to come together on a collective force. It's much easier to come together against something than in favor of something . So it's much easier to be an insurgent force within an existing political party like the Democrats or the Labour Party or something else. It's much harder to be a societal insurgent force without the obvious structure to influence and go on. I have spent the last two years doing a very large number of public meetings and events all around the country discussing all of these issues on international affair s, economic, economy and so on . And there are a very large number of people that want to see something different in society . I think that will coalesce into a political alternative, but also because of the nature of the change in the structure of British politics, we've gone from two party to three party to five or six party . Now you've got labor which is diminishing very, very rapidly. Conservatives likewise reform and then the other bit of reform that broke away from reform was the name again? Restore. Restore, that's the restore Britain. Yeah, restore. That's the ones, yeah. UK. Rupert Lowe, right? That's the one. Yeah, that's the guy. Yep. And then you've got the g reens and then you've got the independence around the country , which we are aligned with through your party. And the independence actually picked up a lot of seats in the local elections, particularly in the North , in Blackburn, in Kirkleise, in Bradford and so on. And so we are an insurgent force and like all insurgent forces, it has its tensions and complications. What brought people together was Gaz a, what keeps people together is the economic argument . Do you see that yourself as I'm with the DSA that there's sorry, the other thing I should say is, which I didn't finish my analysis was very quickly , that the political system in Britain first passed the post actually makes politics very difficult to win anything because you need to get obviously it's fair. When you've gone into a multi party system first past the post , it means that people can be elected to public office on twenty percent of the vote. Yeah . I'm pretty confident that whatever the makeup in terms of which part whatever size , the next UK Parliament will introduce proportional representation. Do you think? I think so. I mean long time coming I know. It would be great, but I think one of the things the argument for PR here, I mean Ireland has PR single transferable vote. It's fantastic that we have it. But the parallel makes it very hard to predict elections. Well, absolutely , but the party that gets in in the UK will always be a servant to first pass the post . So it seems like such a cycle like I mean, Nigel Farage is a big proponent of it, right? I don't see how any pies is going to get an overall majority in the next election in the UK. Yeah, yeah. I don't see how anybody can as of now, but that election could be six months' time or it could be more likely two years time. Two years , yeah Just after seeing the time Hassan , so before we let you go and thanks very much for taking the time out. I'm sure you're back. Hasan, since you can't come here at the moment, which I'm disappointed and sad about, and that's why I put out a statement straight away saying how angry I was about it and I'll continue doing that. I'd love to come and see you in New York . Oh, that'd be great. That'd be fantastic. I find myself traveling to New York quite frequently nowadays because the New York Democratic Socialists of America is very robust. They have an incredible they have a they have a tremendous number of candidates in their DSA slate and I've been working with them actively and and they've made a lot of they've been able to defeat the party machine in New York, which was one of the strongholds of the Democratic Party in general and was unbelievably corrupt . And you know, that's it's been much more difficult to tackle here in California and Los Angeles in the absence of public transit, in the absence of like densely populated urban environments. Organizing is much more difficult in California . But yeah, I'm gonna be in New York soon once again. Don't worry, we're gonna keep in touch and so I'll be happy to come over. All right, perfect. Yeah, no, that'd be fantastic. I mean, I was going to say, Jeremy, are you worried about being denied entry into the country? Well interesting question . The last visits to the USA have been interesting. The first one , well not the first one. What I did was to come to the Assange tribunal which we held at the National Press Club in Washington . That was a huge hassle because discovered I'd been to Iran twelve years ago on a parliamentary delegation . So we had a long debate about that. My entry was delayed but eventually allowed . This time round I came to the UN for the nuclear nonproliferation treaty debate . And I got interviewed, then reinterviewed, and then delayed a bit . And they wanted to know why I'd been in Iran. And I said, Well, this is all very interesting, but that is three passports ago, and I've discussed this with you and your colleagues on the last four visits to the USA. So none of this is new and I'm sure you've got all that information on your computer screen there. They weren't impressed with my knowledge of what they got on their comput er screen . And so that was then delayed a bit longer and then eventually they just said, all right, you can go in. They didn't they didn't actually prevent me. But it is , yeah, I mean there is a problem. But I'll tell you the USA and its treatment of people is quite shocking. I was in Jamaica last year talking to some people who ran hotels on the north coast of Jamaica. And I said, It's coming up to Easter. You must be busy. You're getting ready for it all. They said, No, completely empty. Because Jamaican Americans are frightened of going out of the USA because when they arrive back in Houston or Miami or wherever , they get denied reentry even though they've got all the papers for permanent residents, etc , et cetera. They said they said to me, well, they didn't know. They said, You don't know how bad it's become in the USA. That's what the Jamaican Americans were telling me . In Chile, you're letting it. I've gotten detained. I'm an American citizen. I've gotten detained, coming back into the country, asked questions about my opinions are on Hamas, Hezbollah, Ansar , Donald Trump, Israel , which is illegal. Like they cannot stop me from entering my own country. It's like unconstitutional for them to try to bar me entry into the state and yet they're they're doing it . And they haven't done it since thanfully , but you know, it's just it's this creeping role that fascism is playing fasc ist authoritarianism is taking shape in American politics and I feel like a lot of people are sleepwalking to it. So I fear we don't have a lot of time . So that's why I don't listen to the naysayers who yell at me for participating in bourgeois democracy or electoralism or claim that I'm engaging in the failed methods of entriism or tailism in any sort in any sort of manner. I don't have any I don't have any loyalty to party affiliations. I only care about advancing the material interest of the working class. So if the Democrats are the most viable route to do that for the time being, then I'm going to keep exhausting all readily available options. On that, we're always going to work together advanc,ing the of the cause working class, advancing the cause of justice, advancing the cause of peace. That's what brings us together. Absolutely. That's a good way to end it, I think. All right, perfect. Thanks very much, politics, Joe.. Thank you Thank you for having me. Cheers, Hasan, Teshikal