May 19, 2025 • 39 mins
In this conversation, Ryan and Matt Goodwin discuss the significant shifts in UK politics, particularly focusing on the rise of Nigel Farage and the Reform Party, the Labour Party's response to immigration concerns, and the legacy of Boris Johnson's leadership. They explore the implications of national populism across Europe and the cultural and economic challenges facing the UK, emphasizing the changing public sentiment towards immigration and identity. It's a Numbers Game is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to a numbers game of podcast with Ryan Kurdsky.
I am your host. Thanks for being here again this week.
Lots of big news happening, especially in the podcasting world,
and I just want to talk about something for a
second that it not political, just made me laugh. The
Golden Globes announced that they are going to give an
award out now for best Podcasts starting next year. This
is the first major award show to give an award
(00:23):
out for podcasting, and it is a big bag of
bs in my opinion, because you know, when you think
of the biggest podcast hosts in the country. Obviously I'm
not the biggest podcast host in the country, but if
you think of the biggest podcast hosts in the countries,
the Joe Rogan's, the Theo Bonds, Megan Kelly, Crime Junkie,
Call Her Daddy, Ben Shapiro, you know, these massive, massive
(00:44):
shows that have been on for years and I've basically
built the platform. None of them, in my opinion, You're
probably get nominated like none of them, because if you
think about it, because Hollywood doesn't make a lot of
movies anymore, and TV shows are like ten episodes long,
and it's just not what it used to be even
a couple of years ago, pre COVID. A lot of
celebrities have moved to the podcasting world, so you have
(01:05):
like Amy Poehler and Michelle Obama and Conan O'Brien and
John Stewart. That's who's going to be nominated. Not actual
podcasters who work really hard to make the platform and
do really really good work with it. It will be
people who are already famous and celebrities, and they'll just
find another way to reward them. I don't know. May
My I roll made me laugh. I thought it was
(01:26):
very funny and I wanted to share with my audience. Anyway.
Lots of news happening in America, with discussions over the
tax bill, which I plan on covering hopefully later on
in the week, and the Trump trip to Saudi Arabia,
which I briefly covered last week. But something revolutionary is
happening overseas, like truly revolutionary that really needs to be
touched upon. And it's happening in the United Kingdom. Prime
(01:48):
Minister Kerestarmer of the Labor Party that's the center left
party like our Democratic Party, has announced he's doing a
major crackdown immigration Okay. This is significant because as the
Labor Party, like our Demo Democratic Party, has spent decades
being peddled to the medal for mass migration. Immigration in
(02:09):
the UK was fairly stagnant for most of the twentieth century.
The form foreign born population from nineteen fifty one to
nineteen ninety one double from one point eight million to
three point six million over forty years. That's about forty
five thousand a year. That's a lot, but it's not
you know, it's not unsustainable migration. Then came former Labor
(02:32):
Prime Minister Tony Blair, same party as Keir Starmer from
nineteen ninety seven to two thousand and seven when he
led the country. He was the prime minister during those years.
He fundamentally changed it. Remember it took forty years to
double a very small population of immigrants in the UK.
He managed to double a larger population in just twenty years,
(02:54):
from three point six million to seven point two million
under his leadership. After decades of having no more than
seventy five thousand immigrants in a single year a net
immigration a single year, Blair increased into about a quarter
of a million a year by his final year in office.
And why he did that, Why did he make such
(03:14):
a dramatic transformation in a relatively small country with long
standing traditions longer than our countries even existed. Well, according
to people close to him, he said he wanted to
rub the rights noses and diversity. That's the entire reason
behind mass immigration. It was nothing to do with the
economy or labor shortages, or increasing the military or advancing technology. No, nothing,
(03:36):
It was just to make conservative people feel uncomfortable. That
was the entire plan. The Conservative Party often called the Tories.
So if you're hearing me say tourism referring to the
Conservative Party, they are the traditional center right part of
the UK, our version of the Republicans, and they campaign
on reducing immigration to historic levels. So after more than
(03:57):
ten years of the labor leadership, they finally won control
of Parliament in twenty ten under David Cameron. So what
did David Cameron do well two years? For two years
he kind of lowered them a little bit, immigration a
little bit, and then he rapidly increased it, even surpassing
Tony Blair numbers. And that doesn't even go to the
increased level of illegal immigration that was coming to the country,
which spiked because of the Hour of Spring, when Angela
(04:20):
Merkel of Germany led the whole Third World into Germany.
A lot of them made their way to the UK
because they beautiful, generous welfare policies and it was a
wonderful place to live. So they managed to sit there
and get there, and the British public was fed up
and a lot of them blamed the European Union on this.
After all, Germany was the largest nation in the European
(04:40):
Union on the continent. They Angela Merkel was the face
of the European Union at the time, and there's a
lot of European regulations around migration that forbade them from
deporting people and accepting people. Cameron decided to try to
appease the British public. Prime Minister David Cameron tried to
appease the British public by offering a vote on the
(05:01):
country's membership to the EU. And to the shock of
David Cameron and most of the media and the British
public at large, the British voters voted to leave the EU.
They voted for Brexit and Breggs. It was about many things,
but immigration, sovereignty, and the ability to control one's borders
were the main reasons. That's why that happened. And once
(05:24):
breggs it was successful. The Tory shuffle leadership because Cameron
resigned because he campaigned to stay in the European Union
and he lost. And then they got Teresa May and
you don't really remember her much except she was an
awkward dancer. She would dance for some reason in public.
I kind of loved it, but it was it was
awkward anyway, and then ultimately end up with Boris Johnson.
Boris Johnson was oftentimes compared to Trump. He had a
really messy personal life. He said crazy things a lot,
(05:46):
and he had vibrant blonde hair that was always very unique.
And people call him Bojo, so I'm gonna say Bojo.
While Bojo campaigned on quote unquote getting bregsit done and
finalizing the agreement with the European Union, he quite blacked
away from his pledge to lower levels of immigration. And
despite having one of the largest parliamentary majorities in modern
(06:08):
British history, the largest for the Tories since Margaret Thatcher
in the eighties, he did nothing to promote a conservative agenda. Seriously,
if you want to feel good about the Republican Party,
Look up the Tories while Bojo was in charge of them.
Johnson increased legal immigration, passed anything that Tony Blair and
(06:30):
the Labor Party could have ever dreamed of net migration.
Remember it was historically forty five thousand, increased to over
eight hundred and fifty thousand people per year. And remember
this is the country that is a fifth of the
population of the United States. It would be like the
US quadrupling our legal immigration. And this happened under the
(06:51):
Conservative Party, the center right party decades a promising reducing immigration,
and he blew it out of the water. Boris Johnson
ended up having to resign and his success was win
named Liz trust I remember her. She lasted for less
than I think it was ahead of Lettuce. I think
she lasted for seven weeks. And then there was Richie
(07:12):
Sunac who was the previous Prime minister Rishi Sunac as
I call him Britain's modern day Lady Macbeth because he
sabotage and backstepped everybody to get the position of power,
only to lead the Tories to the largest defeat in
modern history, where they lost two thirds of all their seats.
But he's important and it's important to mention Sunak before
I mentioned the current prime minister. Most important things Suonek
(07:34):
did at the end of his time in office is
once again, he also campaigned on reducing immigration and said
he was going to do it right, unlike the other
three Tory leaders and two Labor leaders. Was he was
going to crack down on illegal immigration by making a
deal with the nation of Rwanda to house illegal immigrants,
kind of like how Trump is doing with El Salvador.
(07:56):
Because there was a mass problem with illegomgration. They were
a string of tax a string of crimes, some rooming gangs.
He was going to solve this. Well, the courts struck
him down almost immediately upon doing this, and they was
because he was in violation something called the ECCHR. This
is extremely important for anyone who likes to know about
(08:17):
European politics. The ECHR is the European Convention on Human Rights.
It was drafted back in the fifties, right after World
War Two, and it was basically to prevent countries from
refusing admission to you know, Jewish, prominently Jewish refugees, or
send them back to what would be like Nazi Germany
(08:37):
to a concentration camp. And basically it said if a migrant,
if a refugee would be harmed in their native country,
you cannot send them back. It's totally illegal to send
someone back if they would be harmed in their country
of origin. So let's say, let's say someone from Nigeria
came to the UK, had a family there and they
(08:58):
went on to rape a bunch of young girls. He
cannot be sent back to Nigeria if he states he'll
have a political persecution there. That's a real story that
really did happen. A Nigerian pedophile was not allowed to
be deported after raping young girls because he said he
(09:21):
would life would be too hard for him in Nigeria,
and the British courts agree with him. Now you could
obviously see how that would upset the British public. It
upsets me even talking about it. There's also thing called
the Civil Rights Act. That's thing that Tony Blair put
in that also has a series of different regulations and rules.
But who you can deport when there's some thing called
(09:44):
like people have a right to a family, So if
you have a family, they are in Britain then that
would mean you probably can't be deported unless you commit
a very serious heinous act. Apparently rape is not one
of them. But Sunak was adamant that the ECHR had
to go. He's promised to sit there and campaign against
it and never did. And that leads us to our
(10:05):
current prime minister here, Starmer, the one is in office
right now, the Labor Party who was announcing he's doing
all these immigration policies. A lot of these immigration policies
seem common sense to the average person. He's going to
increase the wait time to declare citizenship. You have to
wait ten years now instead of five. He has restrictions
on visas. You have to know English fluently in order
to live in England. Seems pretty obvious. And he announced
(10:31):
he wants to start to do a Rwanda plan. He
wants to do his own Rewanda plan, the same plan
he campaigned against the same plan in the courts, sat
there and said you can't do under the ECCHR, which
he said he's going to reform. I will hold my
breath for that. Why. I think that's the question that
leads you to sit there and say why, why would
the Labor Party, why would Cure Starmer of the Labor
(10:51):
Party the far Left sit there and be co signing
this now because on May first, a very important thing happened.
The Labor part Party got obliterated in local elections, but
they didn't lose to the Tories. They lost to Nigel Farage.
I'm sure my audience know who Nigel Farage is. For
those who don't, he's very closely aligned to Trump. He's
(11:13):
been in America media a ton. He has a party
call Reform UK Party. It is hated by the British
establishment and the media, just like Trump was hated here,
and he was in the political wilderness for decades. Nigel
ran for Parliament seven times and lost all seven times.
He was considered a joke until the last election when
he finally won. He won along with four other Reform
(11:34):
UK parties, and they've won another seat since then in
a by election and a special election. Essentially, he is
now polling in first place at over thirty percent in
a country with seven political parties. He will be if
this election were held tomorrow, he would be the prime minister,
which was considered an impossibility just a few years ago.
(11:57):
It would be like going back in a time machine
to twenty thirteen and hearing Donald Trump will be your
president in the next few years, and you laughing at
the person anyone would have laughed at the person. I
would have laughed at the person like that seems like
it's impossible in twenty thirteen, and by twenty sixteen the
situation had changed so dramatically and so badly that anyone
with a compelling message like that obviously was going to win.
(12:21):
And to you know, to take from a British term,
Nigel Faraj is scaring the living piss out of Cure
Starmer and the Labor Party. So that's why he's changing
his tune on immigration. Why does it matter to an
American audience? For the same reason that the transformational Labor
Party could indicate the transformation of the Democratic Party. The
(12:43):
Labor Party is so woke. England is so woke that
they still on certain soccer games. This is true as
like two weeks ago, at certain soccer games they still
kneel for George Floyd. In the UK, this is a
woke country, this is a woke elite, a woke established
a woke political party. And if they are sitting there
(13:05):
and saying we need to get right on immigration? Can
the Democratic Party be next? My guest this week is
a brilliant professor from the UK who's going to tell
us what's happening there and what could happen here. Stay tuned.
Matthew Goodwin is a British academic, a writer. He is
a brilliant substect that I use to get all my
(13:26):
insights on the UK, their politics, their culture, what's going
on on our mother country. I cannot recommend a nothing
can be found at Matt Goodwin dot org. Matt, thank
you for being here.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Thank you for having me. It's great to connect.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Now, Matt, first question. Prime Minister Starmer has announced a
series of new restrictions on migration, from increasing the wait
time to apply for citizenship to closing loopholes in the
AChR and talking about even reopening the Rwanda deportations unders.
How much of this is sincere and how much is
just fear of the Nigel Farage and what are the
(14:02):
chance that the labor actually goes with it?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
So I think there are a couple of things going
on here. That first is our political system has been
completely transformed by the rise of as you say, Nigel
Farage and the All Party, which is currently number one
in the opinion poll. This is the most significant political
insurgency since the rise of the Labor Party in the
early twentieth century. It's really really big. Nigel Ferrage and
(14:26):
this party just won the local elections local municipal council
elections in the country. They became the first party in
history to finish ahead of Labor and the Conservatives in
those elections. So look, this is a very very significant moment.
But the reality is that I Steamer and the Labor
Party are also responding to a very different public mood
(14:48):
for the first time since the vote for Breakfit, which
Americans will remember because it was only a few months
before the election of Donald Trump, the first election of
Trump in twenty sixteen. For the first time since then,
migration is now the number one issue in British Southiety
according to you gov, which is a reliable Polster. Immigration
is now seen by voters as being more important than
(15:09):
the economy, and that is reflecting these unprecedented historic levels
of migration that we have had into the country, particularly
since the COVID pandemic. We've had about two to three
million people migrate into what is quite a small Island
in just a few years, mainly low skill, low wage migration.
(15:29):
So what Issimer and Labor are trying to do is
not just fend off the threat of Nigel Projen a
reform party who are doing particularly well in labor areas
in what you guys would call, you know, flyover country,
the roughs spelt, you know, all of that sort of
similar here in working clocks areas. That's the core for
(15:49):
this reform party. But I was also saying, well, we've
got a country here that is increasingly concerned about the
immigration Issho very anxious about the direction of the company,
and he's also trying to get his arms around back wide.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
But I mean labor. Some Labor Party members have pushed
back and say they don't want to go forward with it.
They said, you can't out forage Farage. I mean, do
will they have? Will they be successful in pushing out
you know, Starmer or pushing Starmar away from us?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Well, I see a lot of parallels with the U
estimate to be frank right, Remember in the early days
of Trump, a lot of people's dead. You know, this
strategy isn't going to work. Going hard on border security,
going hard on immigration, you know, there are all kinds
of people polstered Democrats, even moderate Republicans who were staying
you know, the times had moved on. This is you know,
(16:39):
this is a strategy that will only win among angry, old,
you know, white men and the past. Trump obviously outside
the whole system through that strategy and he realized there
was something else going on in the country. I see
a parallel with Britain because if you look at the
pro immigration attitude of the labor activists who are complaining
about kids Darma, both attitudes are basically ten to fifteen
(17:02):
percent of the country maximum if I'm being generous. You know,
we had one opinion poll this week that showed eighty
five percent of Brits eighty five percent want net migrate
and reduce from where it is now, so seven hundred
and thirty thousand people every year, meaning meaning nearly a
million more people coming into the country than leading every year.
(17:24):
The Brits want that reduced the low one hundred thousand
and a nearly halfable Brick want net migration reduced to
zero or net negative migration meaning more people leaving than
coming in. So if you basically are a labor activist,
thinking I'm comfortable with the state that's quote. In fact,
I want more immigration. According to that pole, you are
basically representing five percent of Britain. Just five percent of
(17:48):
Brits are basically comfortable with wettings are the VARs majority
one to dramatically reduced migration. So Farage is swimming in
some very very favorable warp that I would argue he's
got the biggest political market that he's had at any
point in his career. But for the Labor Party, you
can see the tensions because they're not really going to
(18:10):
win back reform voters because reform voters see through Karstarma,
they know that this is political rhetoric, it's not actually
supported by robust policy. But they're also alienating those pro
immigration fanatic who are going to start to go off
to the Greens and to the Liberal Democrats and to
parties on the left. So yeah, we're seeing real historic
(18:30):
change here.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Because while Starmer is made of this announcement, he also
had a free was a free migration policy with India
that he just announced to actually increase migration to India.
All these things in a crackdown and it's very we
see a lot of them in the States too. I
want to ask about Nigel Farage because he's probably the
most well known British politician in America. He's got a
ton of American media who's very close Donald Trump for
(18:51):
a while, and I don't think Americans understood he was
considered a joke by the British media and by the
British public. He ran I think for office seven times
and losing before join member of Parliament with the Reform
UK Party. Why has this moment launched him? A man
who's been around for decades and what are Labor and
Tories toys trying to do.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
To stop The first thing to say about Nigel Ferrage
is that he is going to go down as one
of the most consequential politicians in the modern era. Remember this.
There is a guy who has already won two nationwide
elections with two different political party. He won the twenty
fourteen European elections with his first party, the UK and
Debended Party. He maintained back after the Brexit referendum with
(19:34):
the Brexit Party to make sure that Brexit was implemented.
He won the twenty nineteen European elections with the Brexit
Party and now He's just won the local municipal elections
with the Reform Party, so look, you know, and by
the way, he helped deliver the Brekdit vote, so he
is rans down the most consequential politician of I would
(19:55):
argue our generation. He's a sort of modern day wat Pilo,
the man who led peasants revolt against London many centuries
to go. And he is a very charismatic politician. The
reason he's back, let's be clear about this, is because
I know Nigel very well and he once told me
that he looked at politics like he used to look
at the stock market. Okay, he buys the stock when
(20:17):
they're cheap, and he tends to cash out when the
stock is thurging, you know. And I think what happened
a year ago, he looked around at the liberal landscape.
He looked at this big debate over immigration, the small
boat crisis, a legal migrating crisis on the border, which
is quite similar to your migration crisis on the southern border.
I think he looked at the Labor Party. I think
he looked at Kemmy bad Knock, the new leader of
(20:38):
the Tories, and I think he just thought, you know
this whole thing is wide open. I'm going to come back.
I'm going to lead the perform Party and I'm going
to pull together a coalition that's bigger and better than
anything I've had previously. And everyone in Westminster always brutinely
they laugh at Nigel ay Mock, They insult, their dismissive.
But is he once said in the European Parliament. They're
(21:00):
not laughing now because he's number one in the Indian polls.
He has effectively rhy and replaced the Conservatives. Already, you
arouse me. They're scared the piss out of it speaking now?
Is you and I speaking now? In the national polls,
the former on thirty one percent, the Conservatives under Kemy
Badnock are on sixteen tense. So this is really an
important point. What we're witnessing is the depth of one
(21:26):
of the most successful and older political party than the
history of democracy. And Americans really should they'll know what's
going on here because what the Conservatives represent is that
kind of Romney old Republican coalictum that never moved with
the times, and what Nigel represents is that Trumpian manga
(21:48):
more only givety just you know, UNTI establishment and ti
immigration alternative. The Toys have refused to lean into or
deal with this realignment in the way that Trump did,
and now Nigel's the big beneficiary of that. So with
see English remarkable coalition coming together.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, and it's so odd from an American who reads
and follows British politics, Boris Johnson in twenty twenty one
had a gigantic majority or twenty nineteen whenever the year
of the election was a majority Surgery support Biggish since
Margaret Thatcher and had the wherewithal, had the ability to
really do whatever he wanted. Britain is not like the
(22:30):
America or we have a Senate in sixty votes. If
you have a majority of the Parliament, you can basically
do almost anything you want. And from two tier policing
to immigration to I mean, he didn't have even a
coherent policy where he demanded to be Singapore in the
teams of the idea of having like London be like Singapore,
have mass migration. He kind of had no central plan
(22:51):
and the Conservative Party withered in real time from almost
the apax of their political power since the eighties to
well to nothing in a matter of five years, six years.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Well, absolutely I mean Boris Johnson, it's not quite fair
to say you didn't do anything. What he did do
with them a liberal agenda on the Conservative Party. That's
basically what Boris Johnson did. He liberally likely im the
Great Francisco. He opened the floodgate. I remember in twenty
nineteen he was very clear. He said, I will lower
overall numbers and now we gain control of the border.
(23:24):
He put the numbers to the highest level that we've
ever seen. We call it the Boris wave in the country,
a wave of loth skill and no wave migrating from
outside of Europe. But he also lost control of the borders.
At the same time, Boris Johnson basically reinvented Nigel faraja career.
Nigel Faraja is really representing the revenge of voters on
the Conservative Party that told them down the river. In fact,
(23:47):
many Americans don't know this, but if you think Boris
Johnson is like a Winston Churchill figure, you know, you're
you know, smoking something very strong. Let me put it
like that, because what Boris Johnson did, you know what
he did? He even removed the requirement for British company
to advertise jobs in Britain before they advertise for those jobs. Oversee, now,
Winston Churchill would have been a pool by Boris Johnson's
(24:11):
they've inclected Winston Churchill would around today a bit like
Margaret Thatcher. I suspect that they would be voting for
the Reform Party, not for the Tories. I mean, this
is the party that has really fundamentally lost touch with
the country because it's so far left on these culturally.
It refused to do whatever is necessary to regain control
of our boarder that Nigel frag has got this enormous
(24:33):
amount of space to move and operate in. And I
would predict that if you and I were to have
another conversation like this at the end of this year,
at the end of twenty twenty five, I would predict
with some confidence that not only will Reform be even
stronger in the national polls, but they will have a
number of prominent Conservative Party defectors.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I was going to ke you about that, because I've
heard rumors that Reese magg is considering and that other
people are considering joining the Reform Party from my friends overseas.
I I had that I've heard the same thing. I
know Suella Braverman's had many conversations, but that's been public anyway.
But I've heard private conversations existed as well, so I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
There was a fantastic British show back in the day
before Kevin Spacey looked involved called House of Calm, and
as you know, one of the lines in that show
filmed down the road from where I'm speaking to you now,
and Weminster is you might think that I couldn't possibly comment.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Okay, it's very good you track you have tried. I
have your book actually right here. You've tracked national populism
throughout the globe. You wrote the first book before I
even wrote my book, and it was a big inspiration
for me. We have seen this narrative against of centrist
parties and politicians. They're paying lip service against mass migration.
(25:54):
Before Angelo Miracle said multiculturalis was a failure. Before showpen
with the floodgates David Cameron so they would reduce the ration.
Kranton said that he was not Macroan before It's our
Cozy said he was the inst immigration. None of it
ever happened, none of it ever did anything. And now
we're seeing Mertz in Germany, we're seeing Macron and France.
We're seeing Starmer in the UK sit there and say
(26:14):
they're going to finally do something on immigration and multiculturalism.
Is this is this exactly ten years ago or is
it has the center of the portable dynamics change such
because the rise of national pop isn't that they will
do something.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
So my broad view of this is in twenty fifteen
twenty fifteen, the rise of Populace party was essentially an
invitation to the establishment to make the compromise on thee
around my great then they refused to do that. Past
forward ten years to where we are now, and those
parties have only become stronger everywhere Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Italy,
(26:53):
UK would reform Trumps back in the White House. I mean, basically,
if you look at the map of West and politics,
national populism is really it's turn of a jery and
I would suspect that that will continue so long as
we are dealing with the record rates of migration and
in the refusal of the liberal political class to make
(27:15):
a compromise with the party. I mean, if you look,
for example, at what's happening in Germany, it's nothing short
of remarkable the alternative for Germany at number one in
the opinion polls recently, and the establishment has basically done
whatever it can to refuse to allow the AfD into power.
It's already done a u turn on the promises to
(27:36):
clim down on migration, and again you see this refusal
to compromise with the voters who were saying, I'm not
going to.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Live by this.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
You know, I mean I've gone on a political journey
over the last nive years because I've been I guess,
like many voters out there, absolutely pulled the refusal of
people in the establishment just to do very simple things
like control who comes in and out of the country,
lower the overall rate of migration, clamp down on radical Islamism.
(28:05):
You know, Germany is now having almost weekly the tax
cars driving through market the neighborhood. You know, nobody wants
to live this way. And the public debate, I think
ryan is also shifting in that now. If you spend
any time online around the European political theme, there are
very many people now just calling for deportation or policies
(28:28):
like remigrate them. You know, I was speaking to the
Austrian freedom to yesterday. They canpaign openly on see of returning.
Like so, the public mood here is really changing quite
rapidly as well. And again that's a reflection. This is
all a reflection of the very deliberate political choices that
(28:50):
were taken by politician during the twentys and the twenty tens.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
A couple of years ago in the UK, it would
have seemed been thought of as you would have been
laughed at if you would have said, Nigel have Farage
was a real chance of ever being Prime minister. That
seems like it's a real, a real possibility in our
near future in the UK if things continue as they
are right now. Is there a world truly where we
(29:18):
wake up in five years from now? In twenty thirty,
Jordan Bardella is the president of France. Farage is the
premise of the UK. The EFTY is the largest party
in Germany and Georgia. Maloney has the most stable government
in all of Europe and Italy.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Well cool, it's entirely wallsible, you just look at the
opinion poll at the moment. For Nigel Farage to get there,
he basically needs to maintain his current jactory. He needs
to follow Donald Trump and getting a team of people
around him. Trump was very collabor I think with the
light of art k Tossa, gad and jo Rebo Pelsa,
(29:55):
Gabbadiela must just to sort of project a coalftin of people.
I think Nigel needs to do that and I think
that will happen. You know, there are a frank right,
you know, there are question marks over you know, how
easy there for an insurgent outside a party to transition
(30:16):
to an insider party of government. There are some very
real challenges there that will need to behind out. But
everything you just pointed to is entirely possible. Look, if
you said for me that would essentially be controlling the
Netherlands or the Sweden, Democrats would essentially be controlling Sweden.
You know, ten years ago I would have laughed at you,
would have said that it's just not going to happen.
(30:36):
But such as the pace of demographic change in Europe,
And that's what it's about. It's not really the economy,
the pate of demographic change. It's the fact that you know,
sixty percent of young people in schools in the Austria
don't speak German. You know, it's the fact that one
in four kids in Britain's primary schools don't speak English
at their main language. You know, these kinds of things
(30:57):
that are making people sit up and say, rightly or wrongly,
I'm losing my country. I feel as though, actually the
civilizational it's not even about it's not about the detail
of policy anymore. It's this sense of, well, I'm losing
the thing that I recognize. I'm losing my identity, my community,
my sense of history. And I think obviously, you know,
(31:19):
we've had multiculturalism in Europe for twenty thirty years, but
already now fifteen years on from David Cameron say multiculturalism failed,
Nicola Farco, Angela Merkel, they've all come out and said
to play fifteen years on, no frontline politician has articulated
what is the successor what is the next policy framework
(31:42):
to multiculturalism. All they've given people is more migration with
no integration. And I don't think that's the same thing.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
And at the same time you've had this immense demographic change,
you've had very prominent people on the left saying very
having very genocidal language about waits and saying that waits
don't bull basically anywhere. I mean, you have the conversation
right now on South Africans that they have no historical
representation the Afrikaners in South Africa. It's just it's it's insane.
(32:11):
I have one last question for you is are we
ever going to see a Matt Goodwin stand up for
a parliamentary seat.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
You might think that I couldn't possibly comment, well, I'll say,
let me, let me, let me just say one thing.
It is quite an important point I did say recently
on X I said, you know, my, my my reaction
as I've pivoted away from academia into the public debate.
I think we probably have two national elections to save
the UK, to genuinely turn it around. And Elon Musk
(32:41):
actually was one of the people that popped up in
the replies and he'd said, no, you have one election
web to save the UK. And I think it's that
sort of sense of if we really don't tackle the
fundamental suit, leave the European Convention on Human Rights reformed
and you Blair legislative legacy, have an immediate freeze on
(33:04):
mass of controlled IMMI grape and our sense of identity agreement.
If we don't really get a government that it's going
to do a kind of Trump style, you know, shock
and all kind of political campaign. It's very, very difficult
to see how the country gets out of what we're
(33:24):
living in, which is it's fine. I mean I always
run into Americans in London always say the same thing, which, well,
I haven't been to the UK in many years, and
to be honest with you, I'm shocked by what I see.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
I can't lave that the UK lost their last steal manufacturer.
I can't believe it. I don't know. I asked one
of my British friends the other day, James Johnson. I
asked him what does the UK produce? And he said,
we have really good universities. And I said, oh, that's
not a good sign.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
That's not well. Absolutely, we've not only closed our own
field factory, but we're now importing and we've closed our
cold factories. We're now importing coal and else and other resources.
That twice surprised some other countrying that zero infanity in
the industrializing much of our working class community. Then often
that's happening under a labor government. I mean, that's what's
(34:20):
so absolutely outrageous about this, the labor government of smashing
the working clouds depart. I mean, that's why Nigel Barrage
is the most popular politician among the working class. It's
why many counterparts across the Europe are doing very well
among blue collar workers. So look, you and I both
know if we step back, we know that the political
RELI the political realignment that you and I talked about,
(34:42):
you know years ago, I remember that conversation while talking
about the ongoing reshaping of Wettern politics. This is now
really seeing that realignment going to televot. It's now fatally
moving in Parsley. There are of that. There are beneficiaries
of that, like Nigel Barrage, and there are losers of that,
(35:05):
like the British story.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Well, I sure the media will handle it.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
It will accelerate.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
I'm sure the media will handle this change X with
the most care and responsibility and not be hyperbolic at all. Matthew,
Where can people go to read your stuff? Aside your
backopn dot org, which is great, I highly recommend your substack.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Where else does reach your tough Yeah, that's that's the
main outlet we're obviously we're on all the social media
platform too, and likewise we learn a lot from your pizza.
So great to touch base with you, and I wish
you and all of your readers and listeners are really great,
a really great time. And you know, please open up
in the sylum of Brits fleeing kir Starmer's Britain. Do please.
(35:44):
I will be the first from the key.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Thank Scott.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Hey, we'll be right back after this and now for
the Ask Me Anything segment of the show. If you
want to be part of the Ask Me Anything seg
when you could email me ryanat numbers Game dot com. Sorry,
that's wrong, you could email me I'm not even gonna
edit that. Just leave that in Ryan at numbers Game
podcast dot com. Email me at ryanat numbers Game podcast
(36:13):
dot com. I'd love to get your questions. I'd love
to sit there and answer them. This one actually came
a guy and Fred, who said, Hey, would you think
that the Democratic Party would ever nominate a Jew, specifically
Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania. That is a great question there
is especially Governor Shapiro is a very strong support of
the Nation of Israel. He's a Zionist. As far as
(36:36):
I could tell he's a Zionist. Don't if he's said
that word explicitly, but he is a big supporter of Israel,
and I think that he doesn't stand a chance hardly
because of it. I think there's a deep, deep seated
belief of anti Semitism, a deep trait of anti Semitism
going on the Democratic Party right now. I think it's
(36:57):
very real. I think it comes from the fact that
Democrats have been trained that whiteness is the enemy, and
they equate Jews with being white and Palasans with being brown,
and they understand only the oppress or oppressy complex. That's
the only thing that they truly understand. I don't have
(37:18):
a lot of strong feelings about the personal politics of
what goes on in Israel. I'm not extremely well read,
and I know a little bit, but I don't know
enough to sit there and speak on it publicly. That
being said October seventh was a terrorist attack and however
Israel wants to respond to massacre like that is essentially
pretty okay with me. I mean, within limits, but essentially
(37:41):
okay with me. And I think with most people follow
October seventh in the Democratic Party, they look at you know,
the retaliation October seventh as a war crime, and they
think of Benjamin now Who as a war criminal. And
I think that anyone who takes too fervent up stand
two on him will be a problem. And also, this
(38:04):
is the last point I want to make. I've talked
about this a number of times on television and on
this podcast we told Immigrations podcast. We bring in so
many Muslim immigrants into this country every year, and their
birth rate is high enough that we are probably within
the decade, maybe a decade and a half, will have
more Muslims living in this country than Jews, and their
(38:25):
political weight will matter more. They will be in states
like Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, swing states, swing states that matter,
and in order to win those votes, you will need
to appeal more to Palestine than to Israel. And I
think that it's a calculation in the minds of many
many Democrats. So I don't think that that's going to happen.
I don't think this support Josh Bureau for that reason,
(38:46):
and I think going in the long term, in the
long term future, I think that progressive Jewish Democrats who
have spent their entire career bashing Christians and whites and
everything else.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Will.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Will look back at our mass migration that they have
supported endlessly and realize it is the undoing on a
lot of things that on the undoing of the strongest
support of Israel ever had. So but that's sad, but
that's what I believe will happen. It's a little bit
down earth to end the podcast, but it is what
I feel and what I believe, and I just give
(39:23):
you the truth as it is. So please be part
of the Numbers Game Podcast questionnaire. Email me on Ryan
at Numbers gamepodcast dot com, Ryan at Numbers gamepodcast dot com,
or tweet me and I will try to answer your
questions next week. Please like and subscribe on this podcast
and the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're feeling generous, give me a five star review.
I appreciate you all. Talk to you on Thursday.
Welcome back to a numbers game of podcast with Ryan Kurdsky.
I am your host. Thanks for being here again this week.
Lots of big news happening, especially in the podcasting world,
and I just want to talk about something for a
second that it not political, just made me laugh. The
Golden Globes announced that they are going to give an
award out now for best Podcasts starting next year. This
is the first major award show to give an award
(00:23):
out for podcasting, and it is a big bag of
bs in my opinion, because you know, when you think
of the biggest podcast hosts in the country. Obviously I'm
not the biggest podcast host in the country, but if
you think of the biggest podcast hosts in the countries,
the Joe Rogan's, the Theo Bonds, Megan Kelly, Crime Junkie,
Call Her Daddy, Ben Shapiro, you know, these massive, massive
(00:44):
shows that have been on for years and I've basically
built the platform. None of them, in my opinion, You're
probably get nominated like none of them, because if you
think about it, because Hollywood doesn't make a lot of
movies anymore, and TV shows are like ten episodes long,
and it's just not what it used to be even
a couple of years ago, pre COVID. A lot of
celebrities have moved to the podcasting world, so you have
(01:05):
like Amy Poehler and Michelle Obama and Conan O'Brien and
John Stewart. That's who's going to be nominated. Not actual
podcasters who work really hard to make the platform and
do really really good work with it. It will be
people who are already famous and celebrities, and they'll just
find another way to reward them. I don't know. May
My I roll made me laugh. I thought it was
(01:26):
very funny and I wanted to share with my audience. Anyway.
Lots of news happening in America, with discussions over the
tax bill, which I plan on covering hopefully later on
in the week, and the Trump trip to Saudi Arabia,
which I briefly covered last week. But something revolutionary is
happening overseas, like truly revolutionary that really needs to be
touched upon. And it's happening in the United Kingdom. Prime
(01:48):
Minister Kerestarmer of the Labor Party that's the center left
party like our Democratic Party, has announced he's doing a
major crackdown immigration Okay. This is significant because as the
Labor Party, like our Demo Democratic Party, has spent decades
being peddled to the medal for mass migration. Immigration in
(02:09):
the UK was fairly stagnant for most of the twentieth century.
The form foreign born population from nineteen fifty one to
nineteen ninety one double from one point eight million to
three point six million over forty years. That's about forty
five thousand a year. That's a lot, but it's not
you know, it's not unsustainable migration. Then came former Labor
(02:32):
Prime Minister Tony Blair, same party as Keir Starmer from
nineteen ninety seven to two thousand and seven when he
led the country. He was the prime minister during those years.
He fundamentally changed it. Remember it took forty years to
double a very small population of immigrants in the UK.
He managed to double a larger population in just twenty years,
(02:54):
from three point six million to seven point two million
under his leadership. After decades of having no more than
seventy five thousand immigrants in a single year a net
immigration a single year, Blair increased into about a quarter
of a million a year by his final year in office.
And why he did that, Why did he make such
(03:14):
a dramatic transformation in a relatively small country with long
standing traditions longer than our countries even existed. Well, according
to people close to him, he said he wanted to
rub the rights noses and diversity. That's the entire reason
behind mass immigration. It was nothing to do with the
economy or labor shortages, or increasing the military or advancing technology. No, nothing,
(03:36):
It was just to make conservative people feel uncomfortable. That
was the entire plan. The Conservative Party often called the Tories.
So if you're hearing me say tourism referring to the
Conservative Party, they are the traditional center right part of
the UK, our version of the Republicans, and they campaign
on reducing immigration to historic levels. So after more than
(03:57):
ten years of the labor leadership, they finally won control
of Parliament in twenty ten under David Cameron. So what
did David Cameron do well two years? For two years
he kind of lowered them a little bit, immigration a
little bit, and then he rapidly increased it, even surpassing
Tony Blair numbers. And that doesn't even go to the
increased level of illegal immigration that was coming to the country,
which spiked because of the Hour of Spring, when Angela
(04:20):
Merkel of Germany led the whole Third World into Germany.
A lot of them made their way to the UK
because they beautiful, generous welfare policies and it was a
wonderful place to live. So they managed to sit there
and get there, and the British public was fed up
and a lot of them blamed the European Union on this.
After all, Germany was the largest nation in the European
(04:40):
Union on the continent. They Angela Merkel was the face
of the European Union at the time, and there's a
lot of European regulations around migration that forbade them from
deporting people and accepting people. Cameron decided to try to
appease the British public. Prime Minister David Cameron tried to
appease the British public by offering a vote on the
(05:01):
country's membership to the EU. And to the shock of
David Cameron and most of the media and the British
public at large, the British voters voted to leave the EU.
They voted for Brexit and Breggs. It was about many things,
but immigration, sovereignty, and the ability to control one's borders
were the main reasons. That's why that happened. And once
(05:24):
breggs it was successful. The Tory shuffle leadership because Cameron
resigned because he campaigned to stay in the European Union
and he lost. And then they got Teresa May and
you don't really remember her much except she was an
awkward dancer. She would dance for some reason in public.
I kind of loved it, but it was it was
awkward anyway, and then ultimately end up with Boris Johnson.
Boris Johnson was oftentimes compared to Trump. He had a
really messy personal life. He said crazy things a lot,
(05:46):
and he had vibrant blonde hair that was always very unique.
And people call him Bojo, so I'm gonna say Bojo.
While Bojo campaigned on quote unquote getting bregsit done and
finalizing the agreement with the European Union, he quite blacked
away from his pledge to lower levels of immigration. And
despite having one of the largest parliamentary majorities in modern
(06:08):
British history, the largest for the Tories since Margaret Thatcher
in the eighties, he did nothing to promote a conservative agenda. Seriously,
if you want to feel good about the Republican Party,
Look up the Tories while Bojo was in charge of them.
Johnson increased legal immigration, passed anything that Tony Blair and
(06:30):
the Labor Party could have ever dreamed of net migration.
Remember it was historically forty five thousand, increased to over
eight hundred and fifty thousand people per year. And remember
this is the country that is a fifth of the
population of the United States. It would be like the
US quadrupling our legal immigration. And this happened under the
(06:51):
Conservative Party, the center right party decades a promising reducing immigration,
and he blew it out of the water. Boris Johnson
ended up having to resign and his success was win
named Liz trust I remember her. She lasted for less
than I think it was ahead of Lettuce. I think
she lasted for seven weeks. And then there was Richie
(07:12):
Sunac who was the previous Prime minister Rishi Sunac as
I call him Britain's modern day Lady Macbeth because he
sabotage and backstepped everybody to get the position of power,
only to lead the Tories to the largest defeat in
modern history, where they lost two thirds of all their seats.
But he's important and it's important to mention Sunak before
I mentioned the current prime minister. Most important things Suonek
(07:34):
did at the end of his time in office is
once again, he also campaigned on reducing immigration and said
he was going to do it right, unlike the other
three Tory leaders and two Labor leaders. Was he was
going to crack down on illegal immigration by making a
deal with the nation of Rwanda to house illegal immigrants,
kind of like how Trump is doing with El Salvador.
(07:56):
Because there was a mass problem with illegomgration. They were
a string of tax a string of crimes, some rooming gangs.
He was going to solve this. Well, the courts struck
him down almost immediately upon doing this, and they was
because he was in violation something called the ECCHR. This
is extremely important for anyone who likes to know about
(08:17):
European politics. The ECHR is the European Convention on Human Rights.
It was drafted back in the fifties, right after World
War Two, and it was basically to prevent countries from
refusing admission to you know, Jewish, prominently Jewish refugees, or
send them back to what would be like Nazi Germany
(08:37):
to a concentration camp. And basically it said if a migrant,
if a refugee would be harmed in their native country,
you cannot send them back. It's totally illegal to send
someone back if they would be harmed in their country
of origin. So let's say, let's say someone from Nigeria
came to the UK, had a family there and they
(08:58):
went on to rape a bunch of young girls. He
cannot be sent back to Nigeria if he states he'll
have a political persecution there. That's a real story that
really did happen. A Nigerian pedophile was not allowed to
be deported after raping young girls because he said he
(09:21):
would life would be too hard for him in Nigeria,
and the British courts agree with him. Now you could
obviously see how that would upset the British public. It
upsets me even talking about it. There's also thing called
the Civil Rights Act. That's thing that Tony Blair put
in that also has a series of different regulations and rules.
But who you can deport when there's some thing called
(09:44):
like people have a right to a family, So if
you have a family, they are in Britain then that
would mean you probably can't be deported unless you commit
a very serious heinous act. Apparently rape is not one
of them. But Sunak was adamant that the ECHR had
to go. He's promised to sit there and campaign against
it and never did. And that leads us to our
(10:05):
current prime minister here, Starmer, the one is in office
right now, the Labor Party who was announcing he's doing
all these immigration policies. A lot of these immigration policies
seem common sense to the average person. He's going to
increase the wait time to declare citizenship. You have to
wait ten years now instead of five. He has restrictions
on visas. You have to know English fluently in order
to live in England. Seems pretty obvious. And he announced
(10:31):
he wants to start to do a Rwanda plan. He
wants to do his own Rewanda plan, the same plan
he campaigned against the same plan in the courts, sat
there and said you can't do under the ECCHR, which
he said he's going to reform. I will hold my
breath for that. Why. I think that's the question that
leads you to sit there and say why, why would
the Labor Party, why would Cure Starmer of the Labor
(10:51):
Party the far Left sit there and be co signing
this now because on May first, a very important thing happened.
The Labor part Party got obliterated in local elections, but
they didn't lose to the Tories. They lost to Nigel Farage.
I'm sure my audience know who Nigel Farage is. For
those who don't, he's very closely aligned to Trump. He's
(11:13):
been in America media a ton. He has a party
call Reform UK Party. It is hated by the British
establishment and the media, just like Trump was hated here,
and he was in the political wilderness for decades. Nigel
ran for Parliament seven times and lost all seven times.
He was considered a joke until the last election when
he finally won. He won along with four other Reform
(11:34):
UK parties, and they've won another seat since then in
a by election and a special election. Essentially, he is
now polling in first place at over thirty percent in
a country with seven political parties. He will be if
this election were held tomorrow, he would be the prime minister,
which was considered an impossibility just a few years ago.
(11:57):
It would be like going back in a time machine
to twenty thirteen and hearing Donald Trump will be your
president in the next few years, and you laughing at
the person anyone would have laughed at the person. I
would have laughed at the person like that seems like
it's impossible in twenty thirteen, and by twenty sixteen the
situation had changed so dramatically and so badly that anyone
with a compelling message like that obviously was going to win.
(12:21):
And to you know, to take from a British term,
Nigel Faraj is scaring the living piss out of Cure
Starmer and the Labor Party. So that's why he's changing
his tune on immigration. Why does it matter to an
American audience? For the same reason that the transformational Labor
Party could indicate the transformation of the Democratic Party. The
(12:43):
Labor Party is so woke. England is so woke that
they still on certain soccer games. This is true as
like two weeks ago, at certain soccer games they still
kneel for George Floyd. In the UK, this is a
woke country, this is a woke elite, a woke established
a woke political party. And if they are sitting there
(13:05):
and saying we need to get right on immigration? Can
the Democratic Party be next? My guest this week is
a brilliant professor from the UK who's going to tell
us what's happening there and what could happen here. Stay tuned.
Matthew Goodwin is a British academic, a writer. He is
a brilliant substect that I use to get all my
(13:26):
insights on the UK, their politics, their culture, what's going
on on our mother country. I cannot recommend a nothing
can be found at Matt Goodwin dot org. Matt, thank
you for being here.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Thank you for having me. It's great to connect.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Now, Matt, first question. Prime Minister Starmer has announced a
series of new restrictions on migration, from increasing the wait
time to apply for citizenship to closing loopholes in the
AChR and talking about even reopening the Rwanda deportations unders.
How much of this is sincere and how much is
just fear of the Nigel Farage and what are the
(14:02):
chance that the labor actually goes with it?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
So I think there are a couple of things going
on here. That first is our political system has been
completely transformed by the rise of as you say, Nigel
Farage and the All Party, which is currently number one
in the opinion poll. This is the most significant political
insurgency since the rise of the Labor Party in the
early twentieth century. It's really really big. Nigel Ferrage and
(14:26):
this party just won the local elections local municipal council
elections in the country. They became the first party in
history to finish ahead of Labor and the Conservatives in
those elections. So look, this is a very very significant moment.
But the reality is that I Steamer and the Labor
Party are also responding to a very different public mood
(14:48):
for the first time since the vote for Breakfit, which
Americans will remember because it was only a few months
before the election of Donald Trump, the first election of
Trump in twenty sixteen. For the first time since then,
migration is now the number one issue in British Southiety
according to you gov, which is a reliable Polster. Immigration
is now seen by voters as being more important than
(15:09):
the economy, and that is reflecting these unprecedented historic levels
of migration that we have had into the country, particularly
since the COVID pandemic. We've had about two to three
million people migrate into what is quite a small Island
in just a few years, mainly low skill, low wage migration.
(15:29):
So what Issimer and Labor are trying to do is
not just fend off the threat of Nigel Projen a
reform party who are doing particularly well in labor areas
in what you guys would call, you know, flyover country,
the roughs spelt, you know, all of that sort of
similar here in working clocks areas. That's the core for
(15:49):
this reform party. But I was also saying, well, we've
got a country here that is increasingly concerned about the
immigration Issho very anxious about the direction of the company,
and he's also trying to get his arms around back wide.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
But I mean labor. Some Labor Party members have pushed
back and say they don't want to go forward with it.
They said, you can't out forage Farage. I mean, do
will they have? Will they be successful in pushing out
you know, Starmer or pushing Starmar away from us?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Well, I see a lot of parallels with the U
estimate to be frank right, Remember in the early days
of Trump, a lot of people's dead. You know, this
strategy isn't going to work. Going hard on border security,
going hard on immigration, you know, there are all kinds
of people polstered Democrats, even moderate Republicans who were staying
you know, the times had moved on. This is you know,
(16:39):
this is a strategy that will only win among angry, old,
you know, white men and the past. Trump obviously outside
the whole system through that strategy and he realized there
was something else going on in the country. I see
a parallel with Britain because if you look at the
pro immigration attitude of the labor activists who are complaining
about kids Darma, both attitudes are basically ten to fifteen
(17:02):
percent of the country maximum if I'm being generous. You know,
we had one opinion poll this week that showed eighty
five percent of Brits eighty five percent want net migrate
and reduce from where it is now, so seven hundred
and thirty thousand people every year, meaning meaning nearly a
million more people coming into the country than leading every year.
(17:24):
The Brits want that reduced the low one hundred thousand
and a nearly halfable Brick want net migration reduced to
zero or net negative migration meaning more people leaving than
coming in. So if you basically are a labor activist,
thinking I'm comfortable with the state that's quote. In fact,
I want more immigration. According to that pole, you are
basically representing five percent of Britain. Just five percent of
(17:48):
Brits are basically comfortable with wettings are the VARs majority
one to dramatically reduced migration. So Farage is swimming in
some very very favorable warp that I would argue he's
got the biggest political market that he's had at any
point in his career. But for the Labor Party, you
can see the tensions because they're not really going to
(18:10):
win back reform voters because reform voters see through Karstarma,
they know that this is political rhetoric, it's not actually
supported by robust policy. But they're also alienating those pro
immigration fanatic who are going to start to go off
to the Greens and to the Liberal Democrats and to
parties on the left. So yeah, we're seeing real historic
(18:30):
change here.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Because while Starmer is made of this announcement, he also
had a free was a free migration policy with India
that he just announced to actually increase migration to India.
All these things in a crackdown and it's very we
see a lot of them in the States too. I
want to ask about Nigel Farage because he's probably the
most well known British politician in America. He's got a
ton of American media who's very close Donald Trump for
(18:51):
a while, and I don't think Americans understood he was
considered a joke by the British media and by the
British public. He ran I think for office seven times
and losing before join member of Parliament with the Reform
UK Party. Why has this moment launched him? A man
who's been around for decades and what are Labor and
Tories toys trying to do.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
To stop The first thing to say about Nigel Ferrage
is that he is going to go down as one
of the most consequential politicians in the modern era. Remember this.
There is a guy who has already won two nationwide
elections with two different political party. He won the twenty
fourteen European elections with his first party, the UK and
Debended Party. He maintained back after the Brexit referendum with
(19:34):
the Brexit Party to make sure that Brexit was implemented.
He won the twenty nineteen European elections with the Brexit
Party and now He's just won the local municipal elections
with the Reform Party, so look, you know, and by
the way, he helped deliver the Brekdit vote, so he
is rans down the most consequential politician of I would
(19:55):
argue our generation. He's a sort of modern day wat Pilo,
the man who led peasants revolt against London many centuries
to go. And he is a very charismatic politician. The
reason he's back, let's be clear about this, is because
I know Nigel very well and he once told me
that he looked at politics like he used to look
at the stock market. Okay, he buys the stock when
(20:17):
they're cheap, and he tends to cash out when the
stock is thurging, you know. And I think what happened
a year ago, he looked around at the liberal landscape.
He looked at this big debate over immigration, the small
boat crisis, a legal migrating crisis on the border, which
is quite similar to your migration crisis on the southern border.
I think he looked at the Labor Party. I think
he looked at Kemmy bad Knock, the new leader of
(20:38):
the Tories, and I think he just thought, you know
this whole thing is wide open. I'm going to come back.
I'm going to lead the perform Party and I'm going
to pull together a coalition that's bigger and better than
anything I've had previously. And everyone in Westminster always brutinely
they laugh at Nigel ay Mock, They insult, their dismissive.
But is he once said in the European Parliament. They're
(21:00):
not laughing now because he's number one in the Indian polls.
He has effectively rhy and replaced the Conservatives. Already, you
arouse me. They're scared the piss out of it speaking now?
Is you and I speaking now? In the national polls,
the former on thirty one percent, the Conservatives under Kemy
Badnock are on sixteen tense. So this is really an
important point. What we're witnessing is the depth of one
(21:26):
of the most successful and older political party than the
history of democracy. And Americans really should they'll know what's
going on here because what the Conservatives represent is that
kind of Romney old Republican coalictum that never moved with
the times, and what Nigel represents is that Trumpian manga
(21:48):
more only givety just you know, UNTI establishment and ti
immigration alternative. The Toys have refused to lean into or
deal with this realignment in the way that Trump did,
and now Nigel's the big beneficiary of that. So with
see English remarkable coalition coming together.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, and it's so odd from an American who reads
and follows British politics, Boris Johnson in twenty twenty one
had a gigantic majority or twenty nineteen whenever the year
of the election was a majority Surgery support Biggish since
Margaret Thatcher and had the wherewithal, had the ability to
really do whatever he wanted. Britain is not like the
(22:30):
America or we have a Senate in sixty votes. If
you have a majority of the Parliament, you can basically
do almost anything you want. And from two tier policing
to immigration to I mean, he didn't have even a
coherent policy where he demanded to be Singapore in the
teams of the idea of having like London be like Singapore,
have mass migration. He kind of had no central plan
(22:51):
and the Conservative Party withered in real time from almost
the apax of their political power since the eighties to
well to nothing in a matter of five years, six years.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Well, absolutely I mean Boris Johnson, it's not quite fair
to say you didn't do anything. What he did do
with them a liberal agenda on the Conservative Party. That's
basically what Boris Johnson did. He liberally likely im the
Great Francisco. He opened the floodgate. I remember in twenty
nineteen he was very clear. He said, I will lower
overall numbers and now we gain control of the border.
(23:24):
He put the numbers to the highest level that we've
ever seen. We call it the Boris wave in the country,
a wave of loth skill and no wave migrating from
outside of Europe. But he also lost control of the borders.
At the same time, Boris Johnson basically reinvented Nigel faraja career.
Nigel Faraja is really representing the revenge of voters on
the Conservative Party that told them down the river. In fact,
(23:47):
many Americans don't know this, but if you think Boris
Johnson is like a Winston Churchill figure, you know, you're
you know, smoking something very strong. Let me put it
like that, because what Boris Johnson did, you know what
he did? He even removed the requirement for British company
to advertise jobs in Britain before they advertise for those jobs. Oversee, now,
Winston Churchill would have been a pool by Boris Johnson's
(24:11):
they've inclected Winston Churchill would around today a bit like
Margaret Thatcher. I suspect that they would be voting for
the Reform Party, not for the Tories. I mean, this
is the party that has really fundamentally lost touch with
the country because it's so far left on these culturally.
It refused to do whatever is necessary to regain control
of our boarder that Nigel frag has got this enormous
(24:33):
amount of space to move and operate in. And I
would predict that if you and I were to have
another conversation like this at the end of this year,
at the end of twenty twenty five, I would predict
with some confidence that not only will Reform be even
stronger in the national polls, but they will have a
number of prominent Conservative Party defectors.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I was going to ke you about that, because I've
heard rumors that Reese magg is considering and that other
people are considering joining the Reform Party from my friends overseas.
I I had that I've heard the same thing. I
know Suella Braverman's had many conversations, but that's been public anyway.
But I've heard private conversations existed as well, so I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
There was a fantastic British show back in the day
before Kevin Spacey looked involved called House of Calm, and
as you know, one of the lines in that show
filmed down the road from where I'm speaking to you now,
and Weminster is you might think that I couldn't possibly comment.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Okay, it's very good you track you have tried. I
have your book actually right here. You've tracked national populism
throughout the globe. You wrote the first book before I
even wrote my book, and it was a big inspiration
for me. We have seen this narrative against of centrist
parties and politicians. They're paying lip service against mass migration.
(25:54):
Before Angelo Miracle said multiculturalis was a failure. Before showpen
with the floodgates David Cameron so they would reduce the ration.
Kranton said that he was not Macroan before It's our
Cozy said he was the inst immigration. None of it
ever happened, none of it ever did anything. And now
we're seeing Mertz in Germany, we're seeing Macron and France.
We're seeing Starmer in the UK sit there and say
(26:14):
they're going to finally do something on immigration and multiculturalism.
Is this is this exactly ten years ago or is
it has the center of the portable dynamics change such
because the rise of national pop isn't that they will
do something.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
So my broad view of this is in twenty fifteen
twenty fifteen, the rise of Populace party was essentially an
invitation to the establishment to make the compromise on thee
around my great then they refused to do that. Past
forward ten years to where we are now, and those
parties have only become stronger everywhere Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Italy,
(26:53):
UK would reform Trumps back in the White House. I mean, basically,
if you look at the map of West and politics,
national populism is really it's turn of a jery and
I would suspect that that will continue so long as
we are dealing with the record rates of migration and
in the refusal of the liberal political class to make
(27:15):
a compromise with the party. I mean, if you look,
for example, at what's happening in Germany, it's nothing short
of remarkable the alternative for Germany at number one in
the opinion polls recently, and the establishment has basically done
whatever it can to refuse to allow the AfD into power.
It's already done a u turn on the promises to
(27:36):
clim down on migration, and again you see this refusal
to compromise with the voters who were saying, I'm not
going to.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Live by this.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
You know, I mean I've gone on a political journey
over the last nive years because I've been I guess,
like many voters out there, absolutely pulled the refusal of
people in the establishment just to do very simple things
like control who comes in and out of the country,
lower the overall rate of migration, clamp down on radical Islamism.
(28:05):
You know, Germany is now having almost weekly the tax
cars driving through market the neighborhood. You know, nobody wants
to live this way. And the public debate, I think
ryan is also shifting in that now. If you spend
any time online around the European political theme, there are
very many people now just calling for deportation or policies
(28:28):
like remigrate them. You know, I was speaking to the
Austrian freedom to yesterday. They canpaign openly on see of returning.
Like so, the public mood here is really changing quite
rapidly as well. And again that's a reflection. This is
all a reflection of the very deliberate political choices that
(28:50):
were taken by politician during the twentys and the twenty tens.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
A couple of years ago in the UK, it would
have seemed been thought of as you would have been
laughed at if you would have said, Nigel have Farage
was a real chance of ever being Prime minister. That
seems like it's a real, a real possibility in our
near future in the UK if things continue as they
are right now. Is there a world truly where we
(29:18):
wake up in five years from now? In twenty thirty,
Jordan Bardella is the president of France. Farage is the
premise of the UK. The EFTY is the largest party
in Germany and Georgia. Maloney has the most stable government
in all of Europe and Italy.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Well cool, it's entirely wallsible, you just look at the
opinion poll at the moment. For Nigel Farage to get there,
he basically needs to maintain his current jactory. He needs
to follow Donald Trump and getting a team of people
around him. Trump was very collabor I think with the
light of art k Tossa, gad and jo Rebo Pelsa,
(29:55):
Gabbadiela must just to sort of project a coalftin of people.
I think Nigel needs to do that and I think
that will happen. You know, there are a frank right,
you know, there are question marks over you know, how
easy there for an insurgent outside a party to transition
(30:16):
to an insider party of government. There are some very
real challenges there that will need to behind out. But
everything you just pointed to is entirely possible. Look, if
you said for me that would essentially be controlling the
Netherlands or the Sweden, Democrats would essentially be controlling Sweden.
You know, ten years ago I would have laughed at you,
would have said that it's just not going to happen.
(30:36):
But such as the pace of demographic change in Europe,
And that's what it's about. It's not really the economy,
the pate of demographic change. It's the fact that you know,
sixty percent of young people in schools in the Austria
don't speak German. You know, it's the fact that one
in four kids in Britain's primary schools don't speak English
at their main language. You know, these kinds of things
(30:57):
that are making people sit up and say, rightly or wrongly,
I'm losing my country. I feel as though, actually the
civilizational it's not even about it's not about the detail
of policy anymore. It's this sense of, well, I'm losing
the thing that I recognize. I'm losing my identity, my community,
my sense of history. And I think obviously, you know,
(31:19):
we've had multiculturalism in Europe for twenty thirty years, but
already now fifteen years on from David Cameron say multiculturalism failed,
Nicola Farco, Angela Merkel, they've all come out and said
to play fifteen years on, no frontline politician has articulated
what is the successor what is the next policy framework
(31:42):
to multiculturalism. All they've given people is more migration with
no integration. And I don't think that's the same thing.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
And at the same time you've had this immense demographic change,
you've had very prominent people on the left saying very
having very genocidal language about waits and saying that waits
don't bull basically anywhere. I mean, you have the conversation
right now on South Africans that they have no historical
representation the Afrikaners in South Africa. It's just it's it's insane.
(32:11):
I have one last question for you is are we
ever going to see a Matt Goodwin stand up for
a parliamentary seat.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
You might think that I couldn't possibly comment, well, I'll say,
let me, let me, let me just say one thing.
It is quite an important point I did say recently
on X I said, you know, my, my my reaction
as I've pivoted away from academia into the public debate.
I think we probably have two national elections to save
the UK, to genuinely turn it around. And Elon Musk
(32:41):
actually was one of the people that popped up in
the replies and he'd said, no, you have one election
web to save the UK. And I think it's that
sort of sense of if we really don't tackle the
fundamental suit, leave the European Convention on Human Rights reformed
and you Blair legislative legacy, have an immediate freeze on
(33:04):
mass of controlled IMMI grape and our sense of identity agreement.
If we don't really get a government that it's going
to do a kind of Trump style, you know, shock
and all kind of political campaign. It's very, very difficult
to see how the country gets out of what we're
(33:24):
living in, which is it's fine. I mean I always
run into Americans in London always say the same thing, which, well,
I haven't been to the UK in many years, and
to be honest with you, I'm shocked by what I see.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
I can't lave that the UK lost their last steal manufacturer.
I can't believe it. I don't know. I asked one
of my British friends the other day, James Johnson. I
asked him what does the UK produce? And he said,
we have really good universities. And I said, oh, that's
not a good sign.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
That's not well. Absolutely, we've not only closed our own
field factory, but we're now importing and we've closed our
cold factories. We're now importing coal and else and other resources.
That twice surprised some other countrying that zero infanity in
the industrializing much of our working class community. Then often
that's happening under a labor government. I mean, that's what's
(34:20):
so absolutely outrageous about this, the labor government of smashing
the working clouds depart. I mean, that's why Nigel Barrage
is the most popular politician among the working class. It's
why many counterparts across the Europe are doing very well
among blue collar workers. So look, you and I both
know if we step back, we know that the political
RELI the political realignment that you and I talked about,
(34:42):
you know years ago, I remember that conversation while talking
about the ongoing reshaping of Wettern politics. This is now
really seeing that realignment going to televot. It's now fatally
moving in Parsley. There are of that. There are beneficiaries
of that, like Nigel Barrage, and there are losers of that,
(35:05):
like the British story.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Well, I sure the media will handle it.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
It will accelerate.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
I'm sure the media will handle this change X with
the most care and responsibility and not be hyperbolic at all. Matthew,
Where can people go to read your stuff? Aside your
backopn dot org, which is great, I highly recommend your substack.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Where else does reach your tough Yeah, that's that's the
main outlet we're obviously we're on all the social media
platform too, and likewise we learn a lot from your pizza.
So great to touch base with you, and I wish
you and all of your readers and listeners are really great,
a really great time. And you know, please open up
in the sylum of Brits fleeing kir Starmer's Britain. Do please.
(35:44):
I will be the first from the key.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Thank Scott.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Hey, we'll be right back after this and now for
the Ask Me Anything segment of the show. If you
want to be part of the Ask Me Anything seg
when you could email me ryanat numbers Game dot com. Sorry,
that's wrong, you could email me I'm not even gonna
edit that. Just leave that in Ryan at numbers Game
podcast dot com. Email me at ryanat numbers Game podcast
(36:13):
dot com. I'd love to get your questions. I'd love
to sit there and answer them. This one actually came
a guy and Fred, who said, Hey, would you think
that the Democratic Party would ever nominate a Jew, specifically
Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania. That is a great question there
is especially Governor Shapiro is a very strong support of
the Nation of Israel. He's a Zionist. As far as
(36:36):
I could tell he's a Zionist. Don't if he's said
that word explicitly, but he is a big supporter of Israel,
and I think that he doesn't stand a chance hardly
because of it. I think there's a deep, deep seated
belief of anti Semitism, a deep trait of anti Semitism
going on the Democratic Party right now. I think it's
(36:57):
very real. I think it comes from the fact that
Democrats have been trained that whiteness is the enemy, and
they equate Jews with being white and Palasans with being brown,
and they understand only the oppress or oppressy complex. That's
the only thing that they truly understand. I don't have
(37:18):
a lot of strong feelings about the personal politics of
what goes on in Israel. I'm not extremely well read,
and I know a little bit, but I don't know
enough to sit there and speak on it publicly. That
being said October seventh was a terrorist attack and however
Israel wants to respond to massacre like that is essentially
pretty okay with me. I mean, within limits, but essentially
(37:41):
okay with me. And I think with most people follow
October seventh in the Democratic Party, they look at you know,
the retaliation October seventh as a war crime, and they
think of Benjamin now Who as a war criminal. And
I think that anyone who takes too fervent up stand
two on him will be a problem. And also, this
(38:04):
is the last point I want to make. I've talked
about this a number of times on television and on
this podcast we told Immigrations podcast. We bring in so
many Muslim immigrants into this country every year, and their
birth rate is high enough that we are probably within
the decade, maybe a decade and a half, will have
more Muslims living in this country than Jews, and their
(38:25):
political weight will matter more. They will be in states
like Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, swing states, swing states that matter,
and in order to win those votes, you will need
to appeal more to Palestine than to Israel. And I
think that it's a calculation in the minds of many
many Democrats. So I don't think that that's going to happen.
I don't think this support Josh Bureau for that reason,
(38:46):
and I think going in the long term, in the
long term future, I think that progressive Jewish Democrats who
have spent their entire career bashing Christians and whites and
everything else.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Will.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Will look back at our mass migration that they have
supported endlessly and realize it is the undoing on a
lot of things that on the undoing of the strongest
support of Israel ever had. So but that's sad, but
that's what I believe will happen. It's a little bit
down earth to end the podcast, but it is what
I feel and what I believe, and I just give
(39:23):
you the truth as it is. So please be part
of the Numbers Game Podcast questionnaire. Email me on Ryan
at Numbers gamepodcast dot com, Ryan at Numbers gamepodcast dot com,
or tweet me and I will try to answer your
questions next week. Please like and subscribe on this podcast
and the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're feeling generous, give me a five star review.
I appreciate you all. Talk to you on Thursday.
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