Hi, it's Fraser here. Before we get on to this week's spiked podcast, I just wanted to remind you to get your signed copy of Brendan O'Neill's After The Pogrom. We've got a limited time offer on right now, where if you donate £50 or more to spiked, you will get a signed copy, plus a year's membership to spiked supporters and all the perks that come with it. So remember to donate £50 or more to spiked and you will get this signed copy of After The Pogrom by Brendan O'Neill.
To find out more, just go to spikedhyphenonline.com forward slash donate. Now on with the show. Hello and welcome back to The spiked podcast. I'm Fraser Myers and I'm delighted to be joined as ever by Spiked's editor Tom Slater. Hello. And returning guest spiked columnist Luke Gettos. Hello. Got loads to talk about today. We'll be discussing next week's US elections, the madness of slavery reparations, and why it's so difficult to talk about Southport.
US elections next week, probably the tightest elections in living memory, I think in the past week or so, we've seen people go low, quite a lot, I think it's fair to say Tom. Kamala and her campaign, outright calling Trumpist Nazis, they're not even calling them semi-fascists or authoritarian or scurrying around it in any way, particularly after this rally Trump held in Madison Square Garden. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?
No, absolutely. I think we've become a bit too accustomed to this level of hyperbole isn't the right word, but you know, just outright blatant demonization of Trump and his support base. But I think it was really striking this time around as well with this big rally in Madison Square Garden, as you say, tens of thousands of people there.
And pretty mainstream outlets just openly comparing it to Nazism, specifically there was an informously a rally of Nazi supporters of American Nazis in 1939 that took place in Madison Square Garden. And people just openly comparing this, I'm talking about MSNBC, Interspersing footage of the two events, as if to draw parallels, as well as various kind of write-ups referencing this, talking about the rally itself as a kind of a bigotry which hearts bats to the worst points in the 20th century.
And on the one hand, you think they would just drop this for now, for a reason, then it's gotten very tired at this point and aside from how wrong-headed and unpleasant it is to try and dilute the unique horrors of Nazism and the Holocaust just to have a right wing politician you don't like. All of that aside, it's clearly not working. It's still a very close election. There are still many people who are seemingly moving towards Trump because they're so frustrated with the Democrats.
But I think it's really crystallized the fact that this smear, this accusation has always just been a way of trying to de-legitimize one side of the argument to de-legitimize a potential democratic outcome ahead of the game by definition almost if you're voting for an Nazi or a fascist, then it's so beyond the pale that it shouldn't almost be taken seriously.
So I think we've seen that again, but you do think all of these years later the fact that those ridiculous comparisons are still being trotted out not just by people on social media but by very mainstream outlets, it does boggle the mind to some degree. Even over got quite used to it as well. Yeah, and we also had Joe Biden weighed in for one of the few appearances in the campaign. We don't know where they've been hiding him.
And just the other day, I speak right as rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. The only garbage I see floating out there is just supporters. He came out saying in his talking to this like an American channel that Trump supporters garbage. He denies that he said this. He said he misspoke or whatever, but we know that's what he thinks really.
Yeah, so it was interesting to see Biden's team scrambling around to explain that he meant that the all important apostrophe between supporter and supporters. So the point was that Tony Hinchcliffe and American comedian who by the way is very, very famous for roasting. So he's famous for telling rude jokes and being really, really offensive.
Quite an interesting decision to put him on that show at all. But anyway, I totally expected that sort of thing from Tony Hinchcliffe. But then Joe Biden saying that did he did he say that this is their supporters garbage views as in a supporter Tony Hinchcliffe giving garbage views or was it the wider pool of support that he was referring to? It doesn't really matter. It was a gaff and he probably did misspeak or was confused about what you're saying. Who knows?
The point is that Joe Biden has been an obvious drain on the democratic campaign throughout and that's obviously why they got rid of him. I do think though that we need to make reference to the fact that both sides have made this election seem existential for American democracy. Because everything that Tom says is absolutely right. And I don't need to add that Kamala Harris was tried to on the one hand say that Trump is a Nazi and he's holding fascist rallies.
But that also she'll be a president for all Americans. I mean, you can't have it both ways. You either believe the people showing up to support Trump and Nazis or you don't. But obviously Trump has also in a speech at Mara Lago Mara Lago already claimed that there is evidence of election interference way in advance of any evidence likely to be there. So he's already sowing the seeds and he deserves after contempt for that because both.
And you know, it's also worth mentioning that the rally at Madison Square Gardens was full of Trump supporters saying really appalling things about democratic team members and the like. And so both sides have made this feel as though it's a question of American democracy and that feels very, very worrying because no matter what the outcome is there will still be questions about can American democracy continue to function. I think that's very worrying.
Yeah. And Musk as well has been making arguments to say that this is the last ever legitimate election. But now before the Democrats get in before they empower every illegal migrant to vote and apparently they're only vote democratic. So yeah, both sides neither side believes in democracy. Both sides have given up on losers content consent seemingly since 2016 if not before.
I think one big difference though is the fact that as we've written a lot about and talked a lot about their obviously was the election denial of the Trumpists was continues to this day.
They're already kind of trying to get their excuses in early to a certain extent that was to be expected. There is of course what I think we've seen though is that first of all one big difference between the two sides is on the democratic side when they try and delegitimise the other position or actually you know try and go after political opponents using the legal system as has happened with Trump obviously you know he was convicted of what more than 30 charges in Manhattan itself where he was held very held this particular rally these Trump's up charges.
Whether they're pursuing Trump through the courts, whether they're meddling with big tech to get to suppress stories as we saw with the Hunter Biden expose a in the way in which you basically saw the US sort of security state lean on the social media companies to suppress what could be a pretty significant story during an election campaign really kind of put its thumb on the scale to certain extent.
And also the way in which you've also seen various democratic figures not just over recent decades but particularly over the past few years really cast doubts on electoral results by dint of it was Russian misinformation in other cases you have you know stacey Abrams who consistently didn't concede her own failed to runs at the governorship in Georgia on the basis that there was something if you going on and also maybe.
Black male voters in particular were hoodwinked by misinformation so there's this kind of what I think that the one place in which there is a bit of a distinction is you have when a leading Democrat suggests there was something fishy about 2016 that is taken seriously by the mainstream media that will spark an official investigation which will last which will last months and months and months and months and continue to push the perception that there was something wrong with the 2016 results even if the eventual investigation suggests otherwise.
And also they're kind of much better at when it comes to kind of trying to deny elections they're better at it because they're a bit more subtle you know they don't go around screaming about vendors well invoking machines that have been rigged to deliver a certain outcome they cast out in a way that kind of passes the sort of Martha's vineyard.
Did a table test and there for taking a lot more seriously by people in positions of genuine power such one sort of distinction I think is quite striking is that you have got this. As you say lack of losers consent that has built up what is particularly concerning on the democratic side is one that's shared across the sort of U s establishment you know rather than it being the and the emergence of screaming about stolen elections and not being taken particularly seriously to be honest.
Yeah, we should talk a bit about where Harris is losing ground. Tom, you've written about this and produced a really good video this week on her sort of failures with ethnic minority voters. Essentially, you know, the democratic assumption, especially with a black woman leading the campaign, they should be falling into democratic hands, but actually a lot of them are going for Trump, which is a bit of a surprising turnout.
So some of the most recent polling from states like Georgia, which about quarter of Georgian voters are black. Harris is just not as popular among black men as Joe Biden was. And that could obviously make a real difference because the whole election is going to be decided on a relatively small section of the American voting public. Georgia is one of those key battleground states. I think Tom and his video was right to say that they have been taken for granted.
And there's also a really strong sense of denial amongst the Kamala camp. You know, she, if you read pieces in the New York Times and watch CNN, you could believe that there just isn't a problem among black men voting for Kamala Harris. But clearly, they thought it was enough for a problem to bring Baraka Barma about and sort of could Joel, trying to could Joel black men into voting for Kamala Harris.
And the really patronising assumption is that this is rooted in identity politics that black men just don't feel comfortable voting for a woman or a woman of color. And I don't know where that suggestion comes from. But there's no evidence that that is why they're rejecting the politics of the Democratic Party. There's lots of reasons why black men might prefer Trump over Kamala. And they might be rooted in politics.
So I think they need to start taking that section of the electorate more seriously. And it could be the decisive factor in an election that's so close. Yeah. Tom? Well, I do think it could be a really striking irony that there's so much discussion about Kamala Harris kind of essentially making history as becoming the first woman of color to become president, the second person of color to become president and so on.
And yet looking at the polls as they're currently stood, it would also be historic as far as it would be the Democrats, potentially lowest share of the African American vote since the 1960s. Which really says something about who this identity politics, which the Democrats are completely marinated in now actually appeals to. I mean, it has been striking over the course of the past 10 years in politics. You've basically had the rise of Trump.
And in kind of in response to that, the the work of occasions of the Democratic Party, some of those seeds were so in a long time ago, but it's really come out to the fore. They've really embraced previously quite fringe, adentissarian ideas. They really started to kind of define themselves and increasingly woke terms against this sort of fever dream of a fascistic mega-republicanism.
And yet during that period, you've seen particularly black and Hispanic voters begin to peel away migrate over to the alleged white supremacists in the form of Donald Trump. And the party that is claiming to speak much more stridently on behalf of minorities and never before is repelling precisely those people.
So I think it is a reminder that in those very start turns, you see the fact that this elite identity politics, it seems to serve to give kind of upper middle class people and particularly upper middle class white people, dare I say, a kind of warm feeling. But at the same time, it leaves everyone else cold. And also, to certainly say, I'm actually repelled as the voters, I think that it claims to speak on behalf of. There might, again, you can't necessarily make all of these conclusions on the
basis of what just our polls so far. But the direction of travel over the course of the last two elections has been pretty clear in this direction anyway. So at least you would hope that it would be an opportunity for not just the Democrats, but politics in general to have a reckoning with this sort of adentissarian turn and why so many people have embraced it. It may be a reassessment. But I would be very surprised if that reassessment took place. Certainly not before this election,
but probably not after either. This episode of The Spike Podcast is sponsored by Shopify. Now, have you ever had a really good business idea, but then not had the foggiest as to how you're going to go about it? Have you ever thought the world of sales, online marketing, newsletters, all that jazz is just a bit too confusing? Well, if that sounds like you, then have listened to this. Yes, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify. Shopify is the all-in-one
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wherever you are in the world, and whatever time you please. Sign up now for a £1 month trial at shopify.co.uk slash spiked. Go to shopify.co.uk slash spiked to take your business to the next level today. That's shopify.co.uk slash spiked. Let's move on a bit to talk about how identity politics is impacting Britain. I mean, it's just finished the Commonwealth conference in Samoa. And Keir Starmer came away essentially having to agree that there will be a conversation
about reparations for slavery to the former British colonies. Now, obviously, he first said, there's no way this is going to happen. This can't happen. But he seems to not have not found any argument against it. He seems to almost the only argument seems to be we don't have the money. Britain's too poor for it. Well, I looked, I mean, I looked up the figures, and there was a report authored in 2023 by a judge at the UN that claimed that if Britain were to repay its debts in
reparations, it would pay 18 trillion pounds. The gross net asset value of the United Kingdom is about 11 trillion pounds. So we'd have to sell everything we owned as a nation in order to meet the bill. It does show you, though, that this is really a performative discussion. And I don't
think the Labour Party has any serious intention. I may be proved wrong, but I don't think there is a serious intention to actually pay anything, but it is a performative way of political elites talking about the history of racism and slavery, instead of doing things about the structural problems that particular countries face today. And I think that's a real problem. We're talking
about countries that have real economic and political problems. And instead of reckoning with those, we're talking about a completely academic hypothetical repayment that could never be made
and would be completely unjust just on the historical point. I mean, it's obviously also worth making that the observation that if every country in the world had to repay for their history of slavery, then almost every country in the world would be making huge payments to some portion of their, either their own population or a foreign one, including many African countries that enslaved Jewish people. So it's a complete farce, a complete academic game that really equivocates from
the real issues that certain countries face. No, absolutely. And I think what's also quite dispiriting about this whole discussion is the way in which it fixes these other common wild countries is kind of fair ever the supplicant as well. So forever kind of in need of this sort of reparations in need of this kind of reset purely because of the fact that they almost like can't make it on their own. And I think is an unpleasant kind of dynamic to this in particular. I think
Luke's exactly right about, you know, how far in history do you want to go back? And also, when you think about the modern diverse nation that Britain is, if we were in a situation where say British taxpayers had to fund some sort of reparations fund for various different common wild countries, you would have a situation in which various people who are themselves are the descendants of slaves having to pay reparations to nations where their own parents and grandparents
might have actually migrated from. So it's this very bizarre, it doesn't really make sense. There's not a direct line you can draw between these two things. And also, I think relies upon a slightly strange idea of how particular nations have developed as well. The idea that the only reason that the UK is still just about first world country is because of slavery and colonialism as if the industrial revolution meant nothing as if the fortunes of a nation can't take different turns
is absurd. In the same way as if the only reason that certain nations haven't developed as quickly as others is purely down to whether or not they were colonised or not, there are plenty of examples if you look around the world of former colonies that have done pretty well and former colonies which continue to not have been able to develop in the same way. And that's not purely down to those nations or the people within them. Natural resources, all kinds of different things
play into that. But it's this really simplistic kind of binary that is set up. And I think it's because of the fact that it's not really about any real, let's properly make account for past wrongs and try to make up for it. It's just about feeding a narrative which has become increasingly popular within sort of Western intelligentsia themselves which is that we are born in sin and we
should try to make amends for it in some way shape or form. And then you just see various leaders who quite understandably are thinking even if we don't get the 18 trillion out then we might get a few hundred million. You understand why they feel empowered to give it a try at this point in time. Well exactly it's never really spelled out. I mean obviously 18 trillion isn't going to happen but often it's not spelled out what people mean and people seem to mean different things
all the time when they ask for reparations. So I remember there was a I think it was the University of Glasgow paid reparations for its links to the slave trade. I mean it ended up just funding some educational programs in the Caribbean. Sometimes it just means it funds some sinecure for you know some sort of woke activity somewhere in a developing country. Sometimes it might mean paying
people directly but it never really gets the rub of it. You always suspect that it's just to fund some you know some naff NGO or whatever rather than actually helping people on the ground. Yeah I mean you'd hope that the help that these institutions can give to projects or funds overseas could be done on their own terms rather than saying that this is because you were historically a victim of slavery. I'm sure that that kind of funding goes on all the time.
One thing that's interesting though that came out of the conference was you had Kierst Armor try to bat away the the whole discussion by saying we should look to the future. We should partner on projects around climate change and so on and the sort of one two punchers then well we also want reparations about climate change because of the industrial revolution because of the fact that developed nations spew so much more carbon than these little island states who were you know suffering
the consequences of it and so on. So it's quite clear that you can't kind of can't win on this particular subject and actually talking about what form reparations could take if it did get to that you would you would worry that it would be you know we're going to you know build you some very unreliable renewable energy rather than actually help you properly develop which could well be
the way this thing goes if these two discussions get fused as I seem to maybe be. Yeah I mean and the climate thing is fascinating I mean we are you know we are playing a role as a global power in hindering the development of these countries precisely through climate change you know we
tell them that they can't you know in a lot of countries in Africa are abundant in oil and gas for instance and we are among the powerful countries telling no don't go there because of climate change so you know there is a way to resolve that issue to industrialize much of Africa much of
the Caribbean things like that but we don't seem to want to go there it's not very fashionable it's much more fashionable seemingly to just pay out from the British taxpayer than actually develop these these countries to actually create wealth that might you know they might actually take people
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slash spiked to find out more that's drinkag1.com slash spiked check it out okay so let's talk about the south port attacks we've cleaned some new information this week we know that the suspect has been charged with possessing a terra manual and having this poisonous powder called rice in look obviously there's there's legal difficulties in speaking around this case because it's an active court case but it also feels like there's a perhaps a reticence to revisit what's what's been going
on here yeah so it's important to say that they're active criminal proceedings we can't say anything which even risks purchasing the outcome of those the defendant has a right to a fair trial I'd also say that police investigations are always long they always take a very long time digital material
which is the subject of these new charges at least part in part takes a long time to for example obtain from a device so there is a clear explanation possibly as to why it took a long time for this evidence to come to light similarly they would have had to have it's alleged in court that
he was in possession of rice in that's a detail that has been reported and that would have required testing by the police and there all sorts of reasons why they wouldn't immediately go public with this information I think that at the moment it's very very unclear as to exactly
who knew what when the Labour government have come out and said that they only found out about the possibility of new charges three weeks ago in my view that's totally acceptable and reasonable why would the government be kept up to date with necessarily every detail of an ongoing criminal
investigation that could in itself create real political difficulties and you would want to create a kind of cordon sanitaire between the two but I do think saying having said all of that we are at some point when this process has concluded do need to have a reckoning with precisely how the
British state responded to the summer riots because on the one hand there was obviously a real urgent need to have a policing response to the riots themselves they were awful appalling violent incidents which involved in some cases attempted murder of large groups of people
so that demanded a significant police response there is also another response which is still ongoing which was effectively the policing of policing the expression of particular opinions around the riots and and and on particularly online and I've been you know I've been working with people
who are accused of those offenses and I can say that there are some borderline cases I think I can say that so all of this will have to be worked out I do think though that the conspiratorial side of the discussion is actually worrying because I certainly don't think this was a purpose for cover-up
by anyone even the government or within the police and I do think we need to be very careful about calling for more information about criminal proceedings there is one argument to say that there perhaps is space to allow the public to know a little bit more a little bit sooner but I'm
not clear that in this particular case there was any significant delay that wasn't actually justified yeah even at the beginning when we didn't know the suspect's name that was clearly explicable to the fact that he was a minor although having said that it probably would have been
better to have known the truth earlier not least because that information vacuum seemed to be filled with outright mis and disinformation no absolutely in the fact that when the essentially the restriction on releasing his name was waived because he hadn't actually turned 18 when they released
his name they did it a bit ahead of time because they felt like we've got to fill this vacuum I think shows that there is a discussion to be had about make about more transparency about being as upfront as is humanly possible you don't have to necessarily take as red or just assume that
there was some sort of cover up here to suggest that around any kind of case like this there's always that kind of clearly a kind of tentativeness on the on the part of people in authority the part of the police and so on in terms of what actually went information to release often bred I think of
a kind of prejudice that you can't talk about these things openly otherwise you might create some kind of response and arguably we saw the complete inverse of that we we did have an information vacuum and that vacuum was filled by conspiracy merchants and hard right agitators
pushing fake names around which certainly egg don if nothing else the violence and the racist violence and the targeting of monsters and so on that we saw in the wake of the south port killing so I think it does need to be a reappraisal of that and also the way in which in the current moment
the use new charges the the the rising charges as well as the alleged possession of the terramanule and so on when you've got mp's trying to just ask the the simple questions that need to be asked who knew what when when was the prime minister notified of these new charges and so on and so forth
even that request being cast as conspiratorial and dangerous and you shouldn't be talking about it you should just leave it to the authorities and linty whore saying you shouldn't raise these things in parliament like at all yeah where they're exempt from these charges of attempt of course and
there is a danger that I think stama starts to hide behind this all purposes excuse of this is ongoing investigation this is an ongoing trial we don't want to we don't want to prejudice it and therefore shut up because there is obviously questions to answer as loot raised at the beginning
about how the state responded to the crime rather than the alleged crime itself so it's all of that is kind of being thrown together but I do also agree that there's there's also a way in which you know if this work there was an element of caginus on the part of the authorities it has when
they release this information again it's just been used by all of the bad actors to justify some of the misjudged to outright dodgy staff people were saying in the immediate aftermath of the south port killing pushing fake names for instance so there's in that vacuum you not only get
the kind of the conspiratorial things being filled you also have a lot of room for people to basically just so so much distrust that they can kind of give themselves cover for some of the things that they didn't said in the wake of those awful killings yeah look I mean just returning
to the sort of summer riots and some of the arrests for free speech I mean how are any of those convictions unsafe now would you say or is that is that jumping the gun it's jumping the gun so that seems to be the suggestion on twitter so yeah yeah sometimes twitter lois are right most
of the time they're wrong no that doesn't mean that I mean I think that the some of the convictions will be built on sound evidence and the reality is that we have very very broad speech laws in this country meaning that it's very very easy to commit an offense yeah and so if the cases do go up to
the court of appeal which is where they would have to go in order to be quashed there may you know the court would take a view on each individual case and the evidence and individual case and ask whether they weren't in fact stirring up racial hatred and what they said it's actually quite
difficult to see from a legal standpoint how this new development would have any impact on any criminal conviction because you do at least although the laws are very broad you have to have evidence that there was an intention behind what you said to stare up hatred yeah and although in
a lot of the cases going through at the moment that those that is a borderline issue for some of these people there are some that are more clear cut and you know that the fact of these new developments will not necessarily mean that the evidence that was used to convict them at the time was wrong or
inaccurate so we'll wait and see there could be some cases I but at the moment I'm struggling to see how it would happen yeah I think it's just a reminder all this isn't it that however we get to the bottom of all of this you know this particular case the implications that it may or may not have
the questions that might want to be asked of government and so on it's just so important that we have a free and open discussion and people feel that is a free and open discussion I think one of the big impacts of that kind of post riots period in which you had the state not simply going after
the people who were engaging in and directly inciting violence but going after people were posted racist memes going after people who had said outrageous inflammatory things but to an audience of a few dozen on their social media feeds with a level of vigor shall we say that we
haven't seen them pursue even you know violent criminals in the past it created this impression and I think also was intended to create the impression that you had to really watch what you say not what you do but what you say the fact that we had you know various government Twitter
accounts for warning the words think before you post the director of public prosecution saying even retweeting some of this material could land you in prison that has had a clear impact on people's just felt ability to even discuss these issues full stop and I think the surge in membership
that the free speech union reporting is evidence of that and it's really not good just because we shouldn't want to chill free discussion and so on but also when you do have these instances of censorship and potentially even elements of the state being cagey about letting certain bits
of information out at certain points in time it's only going to breed more distrust and it's going to create a more fertile sort of seedbed for those people who do want to occupy that information vacuum with bigotry and liais and things to just stir up trouble so it is a reminder
like aside from anything else we need to have a really clear ride free and open debate about this as possible and we need to really get to grips with the wet the ways in which the response to the to the south port rights and the rights that gripped the country obviously went beyond tackling the
you know the violent racial hatred that we saw in our streets and that needed to be clamped down hard upon and became a general kind of chilling of discussion and that we've got to be out of separate out those parts of ours you know we're really going to be in trouble I think.