BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to Political Thinking. A conversation with rather than a newsy interrogation of someone who shapes our political thinking about what has shaped theirs. My guest today made his name studying what he called the revolt on the right. Professor Matt Goodwin has transformed himself from being an academic into being an advocate for the very ideas and people he once analysed and used to condemn.
We recorded this interview a while back in the aftermath of the riots which scarred our towns and cities and which one judge described as hours of racist hate-fuelled mob violence. Ordinary British people, Matt Goodwin wrote afterwards, were reacting to a creeping sense of lawlessness and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness
It's a stance that has lost him old friends, but won him plenty of new admirers, some of whom I hope he'll take the next step to become a leader of a new politics. Have a listen. Matt Goodwin, Professor Matt Goodwin, welcome to Political Thinking. Thanks for having me. you were once A conventional, if you like, academic. You're now in many ways an advocate, a campaigner, a politician, a champion. How do you see yourself?
Well, I wouldn't describe myself as an advocate. I'd say instead perhaps that I'm giving voice to lots of people in this country who feel that they're not included or even respected in the national conversation. Let's start with the riots. You were writing about these issues for many years before the riots. Even the word riot versus protest captures the controversy that you and some other people stirred up. You called them protests and you said that they reflected decades of elite failure. Why?
Well, I think it was pretty obvious to a lot of people in the country that what happened on the streets really was rooted in the simple fact that lots of people in Britain today don't feel safe in their own country. It wasn't just about. the stabbings in Southport. It was an accumulation of events. Remember the police officers being assaulted at Manchester Airport. Remember the British Army officer almost being stabbed to death.
the machete-wielding gangs in South End. I think lots of people were looking at this and saying, Hang on a minute, the whole social contract seems to be breaking down in this country, and fundamentally, they didn't feel safe because of illegal migration, legal migration, and I think the failure of the political class to integrate.
newcomers into our wider society. We're going to come to that because there'll be plenty of people listening saying, hold on, you're connecting a whole series of unconnected events. Stick with riots versus protests though. One of the judges, a judge in Hull, described this as hours of racist, hate-fuelled mob violence, not protest.
I think there were racists and there were violent criminals on the streets. We all saw that. And I think everybody in the country rejects that. But I think it is also true, Nick. that we also saw women and children at protests, we saw peaceful protesters, we saw people who were saying hang on a minute.
I'm not actually comfortable with what's happening in this country anymore. I'm not comfortable with losing control of our borders and paying six to seven billion pounds a year for the privilege of that. I don't feel safe in my own country. It's not just me saying this. If you look at the... polling and the surveys that happened after the riots and the protests. Two-thirds of all people in this country said that the disturbances
had been caused by recent migration policy in this country. They also blame people like Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson and right-wing politicians. But I would argue those politicians themselves reflect this deeper unease and anger over migration policy. I don't want to have an argument about how to interpret polls, but as you know, that is only one way of interpreting that poll.
asked people what had a great deal to do with the riots. There's only been a third said it was immigration policy and more than half said it was far-right groups. But why are those far-right groups present? Those far-right groups are present because millions of people in this country, 66% according to the latest YouGov data,
say migration has been too high. Two-thirds want to see illegal migrants removed from the country. I don't think this is a controversial view. This is a majority view in this country. Okay, so you're saying that you can and should make a distinction. between violent rioters, thugs if you like, those that the head of the Metropolitan Police called
not protesters, he said, not patriots, not decent citizens, thugs and criminals. You're saying you should make a distinction between them and some of the people who came along and protested them. Let me just ask you this, though. It's not protest is it, just to be clear, to surround a mosque. to surround an asylum hotel and at best intimidate the people inside it and at worst trying to burn it down. I have absolutely no time for violence and criminality. I made that clear during the protests.
But what struck many people in this country is the hypocrisy in how we responded to these events versus how we responded to the riots in 2011 or indeed the Black Lives Matter protests. In both of those cases, Nick, it was entirely... acceptable for much of the political and media class to turn around and say, well, gee, what caused this? What are the wider legitimate grievances that are going on here? In 2011, we were told endlessly it was about austerity. It was about public spending cuts.
With the Black Lives Matter protests, we had Keir Starmer and others rushing to take the knee, saying this was about decades of injustice. Why is it different this time around? Why can't we say, you know what, we reject violence and criminality among those people that...
should have gone to prison for some of the things they did but there's clearly a wider legitimate grievance in this country about borders not being controlled, people coming into Britain, we don't know who they are, committing crimes, murder, rape, etc.,
and having a migration policy that doesn't reflect the views of a large majority of people in this country. I'll tell you one reason it might be different, and might thought to be different, is because in the case of these riots, The violence, when it wasn't targeting the police or firefighters and stones were
large enough that were thrown at the heads of the emergency service that it could easily have killed someone. They were targeted at a particular section of the community. People who were at least thought to be Muslim were targeted. and there was a threat to burn them out of the accommodation they were in, with people cheering, which is why Many people listening want to say, no, no, These were riots. This was racist violence, and it was fuelled by a lie, a lie that the murders of those
children in South Pole were killed by an asylum seeker who crossed the channel and who was Muslim. And you accept, don't you? None of that is true. Oh, I think there was a lot of misinformation going on online, but where I depart from much of the commentary... is that what is going on in this country is much bigger than a single tweet or a single piece of so-called misinformation, disinformation. I think we saw this after Brexit.
We saw it pretty much. We see it every time basically something happens in this country which the liberal class don't like. We're told it's fake news. We're told it's misinformation. We're told it's social media. The reality is for lots of people. This merely became a lightning rod, a symbol of how our social contract in this country is breaking down. Lightning rod symbol? It was a lie.
I mean, it was just a deliberate, political, malicious lie. But where you and I depart, I think, is I do not think that the anger and alienation in this country was simply caused by a tweet. a misinformed, misleading tweet that was going viral. I actually think the problem facing this country is way bigger than that. I don't think misinformation is the answer, and I don't think social media is the answer. The other thing I would just say about the police, because it's important,
Remember Black Lives Matter. Well, Keir Starmer took the knee after 30 police officers had already been injured and after BLM protests had gone... on a rampage across America, destroying cities like Portland. I don't really actually buy into that narrative that you suggested. And also...
There was prejudice and discrimination against British Muslims, and that should always be condemned. There was also prejudice and discrimination going the other way, Nick, and what annoyed a lot of people in this country, and this is an important point, I just want to make it. Keir Starmer has only ever spoken to one side of that debate and that is why so many people in this country are frustrated.
There are lots of cases in this country of white British people being discriminated against or being targeted because of their race and ethnicity. Let us come back and explore that sense that you have that people of what you call British identity, white British identity, feel discriminated against. So I want to go back though to the lie, because it was a lie about who allegedly
killed those girls and children in Southport. You wrote a blog post in which you said, who murdered them? The son of immigrants Now, of course, no one has faced trial yet, let alone been convicted of any murder. But it's almost as if you thought the distinction between the original lie and the son of an immigrant
Doesn't matter, but it matters hugely, doesn't it? Well, as I said at the outset, I think what's happened this summer is we've had a string of events which lots of people will have seen as being all symbols of the breakdown of our social contract which have all really hung on this question of are we an integrated country? Are we an integrated society?
Are we doing all we can to integrate newcomers into our shared community and ways of life? And whether it's looking at young British Muslim lads assaulting police officers, whether it's looking at Children from a minority background stabbing British army officers almost to death.
whether it's machete-wielding gangs in Southend. Forgive me, you're doing it again. You did it in the original blog. There's a whole series of unconnected events. It's a bit like to be slightly facetious. It's a bit like me saying, you know, Dr Harold Shipman killed lots of his patients. Lucy Letby.
murdered lots of her patients. Therefore, we can't trust white medical staff because these white British medical staff, they just keep doing it. I'm saying we have a big problem in this country with a lack of social integration. with a model of multiculturalism which is failing and 10 years ago, 15 years ago, you could say that without any controversy.
David Cameron said it. Angela Merkel said it. Nicholas Sarkozy said it. I'm sure you reported on it at the time. That's not the same as saying sons of immigrants are criminals. I'm the son of an immigrant. Am I a potential immigrant? Hold on a second. Hold on a second. The court case hasn't happened yet, but if you're implying that this guy isn't a criminal, then I strongly disagree with you. I'm asking you to generalise from the specific point you made.
You wrote a post saying who murdered them, the son of immigrants. As you say, nobody's been convicted. No, I just simply said, as a matter of fact, that he is. As far as we know, based on information that is publicly available, he is the son of migrants from Wanda. And?
I think it's a significant point. Alongside everything else that's happened. He drives a Ford Sierra. He lives in a small house. What's he got to do with anything? Because what followed in the days and weeks after that event was a lot of unrest and disturbance and frustration and anger in this country.
that is not linked, I think, to a single tweet but is linked to a collapse of social integration in this country and the effects of mass immigration on this country. People might not have been able to articulate that as coherently as Maybe people would have lied. They might not have been able to say what was the specific moment that they came to question what was happening in the country. But if you look at all of the evidence that we have, Skepticism of immigration is increasing.
Concern about multiculturalism is increasing. Support for the current direction of travel is falling. And this summer we've had a series of moments and events, which is why I drew attention to them, where people have clearly reacted and said, actually, we've had enough. We need a change of direction. Now, nobody in a political class
It's really listening to them. There's a big, big difference between, say, you're concerned about the level of immigration. You may even have concerns about integration and implying that sons of immigrants or immigrants are routinely... Can I ask you about the journey you've taken, though? Because we'll explore in more detail these issues.
much more detail. We've got a lot to unpack, a lot to discuss, a lot to challenge. But what makes your views particularly interesting is because for years as an academic you studied what you used to call the far right. And, at one stage, you briefed MPs on the rise of the right and, in your words, warned them about tabloids using socially irresponsible language on migration, Islam and integration.
You've dramatically shifted your views. I would say the elite class has shifted its views. I think one of the questions I often get from people is, well, when did you become... so radical in how you view the country and my answer to that is actually well when did the people running this country become so radical because when I used to write things like that when I began my academic career in the 2000s if you look back we had a pretty reasonable
immigration policy. We had a pretty reasonable settlement in Westminster. Most people broadly felt represented in the country. They felt pretty trustful. If you look at the data, most people trusted.
pretty much our political institutions. You were talking after, many people would say the doors were open to very large numbers. In 2004, but even that pales in comparison to what we have today. What we are living through today is the greatest radicalization of the elite class since the 1960s, where we have seen a series of decisions
be taken by the people who run this country that do not reflect the values of the people who live in this country. Let's talk about the values of those people. Because we want to talk about your journey. Did you think this... Or can you yourself see back the roots of your thinking in your childhood? You've had a working class upbringing. near to Manchester when you look back at that childhood are the roots of your views now in that childhood?
I think I'm a lot closer to the views of the average voter than a lot of the people that I've worked with in universities and also lots of people in, let's say, the elite class in this country, I think for sure. What about your family, though? What about your background? Was it a family in which you talked about politics? Was it an area which I think to use language you use it
was white British working class. This isn't a race and ethnicity thing. No, I'm asking about your upbringing. Yeah, I mean, I was particularly influenced by my grandfather, somebody who, you know, was part of the greatest generation, fought in the Second World War, had small C conservative values. supported Margaret Thatcher, I believe the country was entering decline in the 70s.
believed in change, but also that change should be moderated, certainly wouldn't have supported what's happened in this country over the last 20 years.
wouldn't agree with things like telling boys that they can become girls and girls can become boys and this kind of stuff. Is it people like him, like your grandfather? Passionately in free speech. Is it people like your grandfather who, when you say that people have been let down by... those you call the elite that you have in mind you think of people like him
his background, his service to the country and think these are the people who are being ignored. Well, I think I grew up, I went to a state school. I went to an all-boys state school. I was particularly influenced by my grandparents. They basically came from South Wales and Birmingham, a working class part of Birmingham. And then I went into, let's call it, the elite institutions. I became an academic, became a professor very young. 30, weren't you? Early 30s.
I kind of looked around at the elite class in this country and then watched them between 2010 and 2020 basically go off a cliff. You know, they became so radical in their views of, you know, so-called woke ideology and gender. desecrating our history, repudiating our culture, doubling down on mass migration. That's a generalisation. It's not a generalisation. You're a young man.
You've got to be a professor, a very young professor of politics at Nottingham University. Is there a moment at which you look around you at the people you're... working with the ideas they're promoting hold on Something's gone horribly wrong here. Yeah, there were a couple of key moments. One was watching a lot of my friends be sacked, harassed and intimidated in the universities because they happened to hold
gender-critical beliefs, or they happen to be conservatives, people like Kathleen Stock, Noah Karl, Eric Kaufman, Jordan Peterson, Nigel Bigger, I could go on. That was one of them where I looked at liberals. That's in the 2020s. I'm talking about when you first become a professor, what happens? You said it started then with Canberra and that government. Those things, so-called culture wars, much, much later.
What happened in those early days, or was it people often argue was actually Brexit was the big turning point for you? I think the reaction to Brexit was one of the big moments for me, where I saw, essentially, many of the people around me, 90% of people in the universities, not to mention a lot of people in the national conversation. suddenly decide that half of the
their fellow citizens were racists and ignorant thickos and gammons because they happened to vote for something that the elite class didn't agree with. And they did that for good reasons. I didn't vote on the day of the referendum because I was analysing. data for the media because I was commenting on the results. Looking back, it's an odd thing. But if I could just carry on. You didn't bother to vote? No, if I can carry on. The reason I became a black sheep was because unlike 90% of academics
I stood up the day after and said, I think we should implement the vote. We should publicly accept this. And why did I do that? Because I believed that we should safeguard our democracy. and we should safeguard people's trust in democracy. Now, in the world of the universities, that put me in a very small minority, and what I then experienced was a few years of harassment, intimidation, bullying by academics who view EU membership
and their support for large-scale migration as a sacred value, as things that you cannot question and challenge. Now, I did, openly, and the result of that was a pretty nasty wave of intolerance. So if you say, why did you change your views? That is a really big point in the story. When you describe the elite, for people who don't know you, you often say, don't you, that this is university educated.
city dwelling, small l liberal. That is your description. And you often talk about Oxbridge. No longer liberal. But if you think that that is, sorry, this is important because you're talking about my life story. If you think that is rooted in a sort of secret desire to belong. to an elite class that has sold this country down the river, you do not understand my thinking at all.
Get your own back. They ostracize you. Get your own back. If you're not respecting a democratic vote in this country, if you're deriding much of the country as racist, if you're jamming... ideas and theories down people's throats that are not based in science. If you're working in the media and you're more interested in political activism and truth and independence and objectivity, then I think it's the duty of people to call that out. And that's what I think I've been doing.
What I've seen in the universities, the treatment of Kathleen Stock, the treatment of Noah Karl. The treatment of Nigel Bigger and others has been appalling. These people say they're liberal. They say they're enlightened. They're not, Nick. They're profoundly illiberal. And when you question the sacred values on campus, as I did, what you experience is the reality of contemporary liberalism, which is...
Francis Fukuyama, among many others, have said it is now really undermining classical liberalism. It's not interested in the tolerance and the freedom, the free speech, the free expression it used to define liberal societies. To be clear, when you've discussed the elite, You're often including the mainstream media. You're including politicians in all mainstream parties. You are including a wide range of people when you condemn the illegal.
Yeah, I think the new elite class spans left and right. It's in a large number of legacy institutions. It's a class that has lost touch with the people that live around it. Let's go to the second big trigger, if you like, of change, I think, in your thinking. Brexit was one, and that sense that... you thought that the elite class were trying to overturn democracy. And the other is immigration and integration, which you've referred to.
What has turned you from someone who gave evidence to members of Parliament about the importance of integration, which actually had you on an anti-Muslim hate task force alongside possibly the most prominent? Muslim politician for years, Baroness Saida, Farsi. What turned you from that person? to now the person who appears to be saying, I think integration's impossible.
the reality of what's happening in Britain over the last 15 years. When I was doing a lot of that work in the late 2000s, early 2010s, I was seconded to a government department working on issues around integration. I thought it was still just about possible with net migration levels at around 150,200.
That we could just about continue to be a prosperous healthy society and absorb that level of change What I've seen over the last 15 years, net migration go to 700,000, much of that migration from outside of Europe, from people that don't always share our values and don't always come from similar cultures.
while our government has become completely disinterested in integration strategy. And by the way, our national conversation has become increasingly incapable of talking about it, Nick. As I said, 15 years ago you could come out and have a reasonable conversation about multiculturalism.
Once in a while, a braverman came out and said, we've got a problem with multiculturalism. Nobody could handle it. They had a moral meltdown, a panic, saying, well, God, we can't possibly say this has failed. And so all of those things have made me realize, you know what?
This isn't working. We cannot sustain this pace of population change with no integration strategy while also bashing people over the head by saying you're a racist if you ask questions. So I started to speak out about it. So your conclusion now... is that we should stop immigration altogether. I think what would be the best course of action would be to freeze all non-essential migration from outside of the NHS. So we have an immediate freeze maybe for five years.
we completely what's non-essential So migration that doesn't directly support the National Health Service and perhaps some migration that doesn't support social care. But if you look at the migration that we've had over the last four years, We've had about 4% of our entire population come in the last two years. We've had about 4 million people come into the country. Much of that has been either low-skill, low-wage migration, which is why, by the way, our GDP per capita is so weak.
And it's also been migration that isn't actually contributing to the economy at all. What's interesting is you're already picking and choosing. You're saying, I won't stop at all because I'll keep it going in the health service. I'll keep it going in social care. And those people are quite likely to come from the sorts of countries
that you have previously expressed concern about. You said in one of your blogs that people are coming from Pakistan and Nigeria and Afghanistan. I could add India to that list and that would be the case for many of those people coming into that. You're turning my point into another point. We should dramatically lower the amount of immigration into the country. That is point one. Should we pick and choose where they come from?
I would like to see... Country or religion or views? The first thing to say is I would actually like to see what people in this country were promised, which is a high-skill migration policy with lower overall levels of migration. Now, Boris Johnson and the Conservatives decided to lie to the country. That's basically what they did.
They did the opposite of that policy. They would say they're letting a lot of people from Ukraine and they let a lot of people in from Syria and they let a lot of people in from Afghanistan. Well, that's not what happened. They also liberalised the entire system. That was partly what happened. Only one part. They liberalised the entire system. Salary thresholds came down. Sorry, Nick, you're wrong. They liberalised the entire system.
They lie to the British people. Every government pretty much from Tony Blair onwards has said they're going to lower migration and then done the opposite. This is whining. It won't come down to 200,000 this year. If it comes down to 200,000 this year, I'll come back on the show and eat my book. That is not going to happen. The principle is interesting. Would you limit by country.
by faith, by culture. Because if your concern is not purely a population concern, we can't cope with the numbers, but we can't cope with the threat to our culture in inverted commas. Surely you should say, oh well, Spanish, fine. Pick a name, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Syria, wherever. Were we more worried? Or did you not say that bit? I think like the German centre-right have just said, we probably need to seriously think
about whether we want ongoing migration from countries like Syria and Afghanistan, given the very obvious security risk that is presented, as we've just seen in Germany. I think we need to have a much more mature conversation about immigration. You've asked me what I want to see. I haven't been able to answer it. lower migration to below 100,000 a year, ring fence migration for the NHS.
slash all non-essential low-wage, low-skill migration, have a serious government strategy for integration, actually start investing in integrating communities so they cannot be segregated. We cannot have people in this country living parallel lives and not doing basic things like speaking English. And also being able to critique this broken policy of multiculturalism, which the moment you leave the M25, and it can go beyond the M25.
It's pretty obvious to everybody in this country. It's not working. Well, let's talk about that in a second. Incidentally, if you exclude social care and you exclude the National Health Service, I don't know if the figures in front of me, but I suspect you'd be above 100,000. There's a 40,000 staff vacancy in social care and we need to expand social care. Why are we investing in British kids to take up medical places?
because we turned down thousands every year because we took political decisions 10 or 15 years ago to prioritise immigration over British kids. I'm just pointing out that 100,000 may be harder to reach than you think. Now, you've talked about integration. and what we could or should do. Do you look at some of the ideas that are being pursued in Europe and think this is appealing? I mean, should there be bans on mosques?
I don't think there should be a ban on mosques. Or Islamic schools. I think we need to work much harder than we're currently doing at getting British Muslims to integrate into wider British society. Or burqas. I think, as I say, I think we need to work much harder at integrating communities that are clearly not integrated. I'll tell you one book that had a very... Let me give you an example. An example of integration in France, they say that you can't wear a burqa or a niqab in a public.
I think I'm right in saying that in a bank or in a post office, you're not able to do that. There are limitations. You know, I just recently finished reading Ed Hussein's book, Among the Moss, where he turned up randomly at 200 mosques across the country. and he made the point he said you can be a young British Muslim now and you can live your life day in, day out. and have zero interaction with somebody from the non-Muslim majority. And Ed Hussein, you know, very prominent, respected scholar.
thinker, intellectual. If you go to places like Burnley, Oldham, Rochdale, Rotherham, where of course we saw the tragic case of the grooming gangs where again the rioting and the protesting was particularly severe and I don't think that's a coincidence you have communities that are not integrated. So what do you do about it? If you don't want to ban mosque or Islamic schools or burqas, what do you do about it? First of all, I think that's an inflammatory...
suggestion is not one that I would support. I think we need a completely new approach to integration. We need at least a minimum of speaking English, mixed schooling. I think we need a really honest conversation about how we can put our traditions and cultural history and ways of life ahead of radical minority interests.
and you rejected the ideas I put too they were put originally by gate builders in the Netherlands but I don't think they're particularly helpful as you know that there are movements throughout Europe whether it's the AFD very successful recently in German elections Marine Le Pen who looks like a possible candidate. in France have different approaches but all of them have some sympathy I would suggest with the views
that you're suggesting. You wrote your controversial blog post in Hungary. Lots of... Well, is this a guilt by... It sounds like guilt by association. I'm going to ask you. I happen to write a blog in Hungary. Well, no, I'm not. Do you call it guilt? I mean, you may think it's a model. You said... But you've already associated me with Marine Le Pen. There are lots of left-wing politicians who would agree with me.
David Cameron said much the same, multiculturalism has failed. Angela Merkel said much the same now. So he didn't go as far as you went. He did not, in a blog post, connect a whole series of unconnected crimes and suggest that they were rooted in a problem of immigration. You did, and they didn't do that in truth. Now, I'm not doing guilt by association. You wrote a blog in Hungary.
in which you praised Hungary. It wasn't that you just happened to be there. You said, I saw no crime, I saw no rights, I saw no mass discrimination. First of all, I tweeted that. I didn't write it in my sub stack. But what the point I was making was... There are countries in the world that have taken a very different approach to our own who have said that fundamentally they're going to prioritise.
their values, their culture, their history, their identity. They don't want those things being diluted or overturned or rejected by organisations outside of their countries. Is that the right approach for us? Because as you all know, look, Victor Orban controversially described refugees as, quote, Muslim invaders who are a threat to Europe's Christian values. I think every nation state has a right to protect their own borders and lower migration. That is...
That is fundamentally the right of every sovereign nation state. A lot of people coming into the country in Britain, I think they're good people, but I think that we are also leaving ourselves susceptible to people, to bad actors who are coming. to undermine our society and commit crimes. So even if they're refugees from terrible wars, Afghanistan and Syria, because they're predominantly Muslim countries, no.
They don't get to come. I think we need a much tougher approach to illegal migration in this country. I wasn't talking about illegal migration. often they're coming legally. as refugees. Well, we've got 132,000 coming illegally every year. We also have, yes, we have asylum seekers coming from us in countries. we should be protecting genuine asylum seekers while making it clear that illegal migration is not acceptable and they can feel more children dying in the channel.
and more people coming over on the small boats flouting the British people's sense of fair play, then let's keep the status quo. That's not sustainable. Yeah, but every time somebody suggests an alternative, like leaving the ECHR and reforming the Human Rights Act, which are the only two things you can do.
to basically solve this problem. Everybody has a moral spasm and they say, well, we can't do that. Yeah, we're not going to have that argument here and there. There are a bunch of people who say they would make very little difference and there may be other reasons for not doing it. What I want to go back to is integration. Another part of that has been that you've spoken about preserving, perhaps building, what I think you've referred to as a majority identity.
Is that an English identity, a British identity? What do you mean? It depends how people in the country identify themselves. What I'm trying to say is that we have an ideology in this country that is particularly embraced by members of the elite class that is actively invested in undermining who we are. It rejects our history, it rejects our culture, it rejects our ways of life. You've said that repeatedly. What would you do?
And who are you thinking of? Are you thinking, for example, of your grandfather? I'm thinking of earlier generations, but I'm thinking about the forgotten majority in this country who look at let's say coverage that is telling them that going out for a walk in the British countryside is racist, and they're looking at this and saying this is absolutely bonkers. Nobody has said that walking in the countryside is racist. After this interview, go and Google.
I know, exactly. I did an interview with the author of the report, who simply said... The front page of the newspaper does not prove that it's true. What about the BBC running videos on white privilege, Nick? The author of the report said... that national parks should do more to attract ethnic minorities to walk in them as well as people.
who are currently walking there. That is not saying it's racist. There's lots of it we can talk about. What about the BBC running videos on what is white privilege? Well, there is a concept, an academic concept for white privilege. So why not run a video and what are the problems with white privilege? Well, we're interviewing you.
You put a video out a few years ago. The BBC doesn't do this stuff. Here you are, having this conversation. You know, Nick, it doesn't. And I made an documentary ten years ago called The Truth About... Like, in most public organizations, the primary focus is diversity in terms of race, sex, and gender, not diversity in terms of politics.
Yeah. No, look, I'm hearing your frustration. I'm hearing your anger. Will it take you into politics? It's not just mine. Listen, let's be clear. No, you've been clear. There's lots of other people. I want organisations like the BBC and the police to thrive in this society. And you want them to change, I get that. No, I want them to be trusted. This is a really important point. Public trust in these institutions is collapsing. There is a reason for that.
People can see bias. They can see two-tier approaches to our conversations now What I'm saying is, well, if you're going to run what I would consider as an academic to be a very political video, which is let's get into white privilege, which is drawn from critical race theory. It's not scientific. It's not backed up with evidence. You should, on the same page, run a video. What are the problems with this?
But you don't. I've heard it. Right, I don't run the BBC website, but people will have heard your suggestion. Given your anger, and it is true and it's clear to me that you're angry and that you think you speak for many other people who are, isn't the next logical step?
to get into politics. Will you get into politics? I think the conversation in this country needs to change, and if people want to join others who are trying to change a conversation and bring different views into the arena, then they can...
get behind those people and support them. You often talk about they and people. I'm asking about you. Well, this is an important point that I haven't said. What are you, Matt Goodwin, formerly known as Professor Matthew Goodwin? What are you going to do? I don't know. We'll see. But everything I've said in this interview...
We should lower migration. We should work harder at integration. We should potentially have a pause on this experiment that we're subjecting the country to. These are all majority views in this country. And what frustrates a lot of people is that they are presented as being radical outliers. But actually, everything I've said here reflects the average voter. My background... We just had a general election, so we know what people think. And it represented about 20%, and it does in most.
countries in Europe it doesn't represent the majority. Why do you think the Conservatives got slaughtered? Well there are a whole series of reasons but I think that's a reason. Why do you think most people left the Conservatives staying at home or they switch to reform. I think anger about immigration is a reason. Yeah,
It's what's the number one issue in the country right now as we have this interview. It may have been failures on the economy. It may have been the country right now as we have this interview. Changing their leaders. It may have been party gates. It may have been. It may have been. It may have been. You don't know and I don't know. I'm asking about you and you often want to talk about other people rather than you. You're Fellow author!
Fellow academic writing that book, Revolt on the Right, Professor Rob Ford, described as being on a sad, depressing journey whose final stations are Powell, Edom Powell, of course, Griffin, Nick Griffin, and Tommy Robinson. Is he right? I mean, do you now see yourself as drawing at least some inspiration from the writings and the speeches of Enoch Powell or not? I think it's interesting.
I don't want to make this personal like other people in the university class, but the person you referenced is a good example of what I've talked about. People in the universities have gone so far to the left that what they now do is they stigmatise anybody who challenges the elite consensus in this country by saying, oh, well, that person is another XYZ. Actually, as I said to you, everything I've said in this interview...
Let's lower migration. That's a 67% position in this country. Don't repeat all the positions because you've said them. It's an important thing because this conversation is actually reflecting why so many people are frustrated. Because what you're trying to say through that... I tell you why our listeners are frustrated. I think it's perfectly legitimate to say to you
There are parties throughout Europe, whether it's Geert Wilders or the AfD in Germany or Marine Le Pen. I think it's perfectly legitimate to say to you, Enoch Powell made these arguments decades ago and ask you, Are you with them or are you different? And if you are different, how are you different? So sorry, it's the question here, are you like a far-right party? No, it's saying, are you different in your recommendations from them? Are you different from Enoch Powell?
I don't understand why this interview has become about Enoch Powell. This is reflecting the way that... the media class view these debates. It's a very bizarre interpretation. Most people in this country would agree with what I'm saying. The borders are broken. We have The levels of migration are too high. Law and order is not being controlled. The prisons are not working. These are majority views what you are trying to do. is stigmatized somebody. I'm trying to put your association. Why not use
Why not use the conservative parties around the world? Why not reference a Republican? I'm just checking. We've been talking for about 40 minutes of which you've talked a great deal and articulated what it is you feel and I'm putting to you some of the objections. I'm sorry, I haven't actually talked to that person for over a decade.
Now, one reason you might not go into politics, and it's a conversation I had in this very studio with him sitting in that chair with Nigel Farage before he took a decision, he admitted it was touch and go to run to Parliament. and he felt that America demonstrated, you could often have more influence as a commentator, in his case, on GB News. In your case, you have what's called a substat, for people who don't know that they're kind of blogs, really.
writing on the internet, which people often pay to subscribe to. Do you think the future for you and others in influencing debate and frankly earning a living. It's not being an academic, it's not being a politician, both of which are probably quite a lot worse paid. It is actually in writing and talking.
I think you can have an enormous amount of influence in the national conversation by doing that. And to be clear, the reason I set up the Substack is it's the only place where you can be fully insulated. from legacy institutions both professionally And financially. Spell out what you mean.
I mean that you can't be cancelled. You can't be sacked. You can't be harassed. You're your own boss. And look, Nick, if you're in my shoes... You can say what you like. If you're in my shoes and you've watched... Serious professors be thrown out of universities because of their views. Or you've had interview after interview like this where it's been interesting, but you've also taken a particular line.
to try and kind of box me into the sort of worldview of, you know, Marine Le Pen or Enoch Powell. I don't think you've taken a line at all. Or Enoch Powell. I think listeners can decide for themselves what I think Substack allows you to do. is communicate directly with people about what you think with no interference and no middleman. Final thought, because it's been a fascinating conversation, but I suspect you know there'll be some people listening to it.
shouting at the radio their disagreement as well as plenty no doubt shouting their agreement. So let me ask you the question that you asked in your controversial Substack blog post. What did you expect, Professor Goodwin? When you sought in the eyes of many to explain away, to justify what we saw on the streets of Britain. What did you expect about their action? Were you taken by surprise by it?
Not at all. I never justified criminality and violence, but I did want to spark a national conversation about how the social contract is breaking down, and I'm going to keep doing that. Matt Goodwin, Professor Matthew Goodwin, thank you very much for talking to me on Political Thinking. Thank you very much. What became clear, I think, in that conversation
is the nervousness that Matt Goodwin has about being compared with politicians on what he used to call the far right in Europe, or indeed with Enoch Powell. He thinks it's an attempt to smear or marginalise him, or to stop him being heard. What is clear, though, and of course he was one of the academics who pointed that out, is that the polls here and the polls there show that concerns about mass migration, concerns about integration, are on the rise and they are shaping politics.
What's less clear is how big a role he'll play in the future of that conversation. Thanks for listening. The producer is Dan Kramer. The editor is Jonathan Brunett. And the studio manager, Andy Mills. There is a back catalogue of 250 editions of political thinking. Please have a listen. I'm Greg Foot, and my podcast, Sliced Bread from BBC Radio 4, is back to separate more science fact from marketing fiction. We've gone from where there's some science, and we've turned it science-y.
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