Brexit Party Leader Turned House of Lords Member on Democracy, Censorship and Loser's Consent

Claire Fox [00:00:00] Millions of people are not allowed to have an opinion, and they're not allowed to be heard, and they're not allowed to read things that they wanna read. So that then, this is why I think it fuels conspiracy theories. People start to say, what is it they don't want us to know? Why don't they want us to know it? We'll find alternative ways of communicating. I mean, the number of people who keep contacting me on Telegram, or

Listener intro (station ID) [00:00:26] I'm Nicholas Barlett, co-owner of the World's first Popcorn Board Game Cafe, living in Fulton, Missouri. And you're listening to the Vance Crowe Podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:34] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today, we are gonna be re-interviewing Claire Fox, only now she's no longer Claire Fox. You will discover that she is Baroness Claire Fox because she has been invited to join the House of Lords. So we get to talk to somebody that was once a very counter-cultural figure throughout the UK and the EU that joined the House of Lords after she and a small group of people help guide the UK to actually achieving Brexit. Claire is one of my favorite people to talk with. She runs a thing called the Battle of Ideas, where people get together from all over the world and have fantastic debates and great conversations. So when you start talking with Claire, you know she's gonna hold her own, have her own perspectives, and everything she says is super nuanced. We were lucky to get her time because she's on the BB, C all the time. She's got her work with the House of Lords and also, you know, is running the Academy of Ideas. So this was a really good chance we're gonna get to that interview. But I want to talk about a few things that Articulate Ventures is offering, which is the company that I run. So many of you know that I don't like running ads on here so far I've done it without having to do any. And so what I wanna do is instead of doing ads, talk about some of the things that I'm working on and see if any of them are of interest to you. The first one is for people that are interested in in-depth conversations you like debate, you like encountering people that are gonna say things that you don't necessarily agree with, but also know how to have a reasonable conversation, then you might wanna consider joining the Articulate Ventures network there we have all different kinds of classes and programs that people can get involved in, where they're encountering other people, they're talking about ideas, they're talking about their businesses that they're trying to get started, and it's really a forward moving place.

Vance Crowe [00:02:31] So if you're the type of person that loves this podcast and you want other meet other people that do as well, join the Articulate Ventures Network by going to Network dot Articulate Ventures. Another thing that we've been working on is a VR program. So my business partner Ben, who is the executive producer on this show, he and I have done a few events in vr. And if your company is thinking about what do we think the VR world is gonna look like in the next couple of years, we are offering a an introductory presentation. And then we will also actually, if you have headsets, walk you through a few experiences to get you started in virtual reality. This is something that we put together for one of my clients and realize this is actually a really valuable thing for everyone. So if you're interested, why don't you just write an email to Vance at Vance Crowe dot com and we will get you set up and we can talk all about the virtual reality events. So we're gonna head into the interview. I'm so glad you're here. Enjoy these conversations and do me a favor, share them with people. We wanna see this group grow, we wanna see the the network grow, and we wanna see people that are interested in talking about ideas that are at the edge, that are pushing the envelope. And we wanna get more people in that, like this type of conversation. So without further ado, we're gonna head to an interview with Baroness Claire Fox. Claire Fox, welcome back to the podcast.

Claire Fox [00:04:00] Good to be with you.

Vance Crowe [00:04:02] Every time I see you, you are standing in the House of Lords and you're like pounding your fist on the table and and shouting out loud and, and it's totally different than the US system. What in the hell have you been up to since we talked to you last?

Claire Fox [00:04:16] Yeah, well, one of the strange curve balls of history is that I was given a place in the House of Lords is led to huge numbers of conspiracy theories as to why that would be, especially as I've always been critical of a non-elected chamber that decides on legislation. So I've tried to use it as a platform, that's all. And there's been plenty to argue about and talk about it's, wait a second, because you're, you're

Vance Crowe [00:04:41] In the House of Lords. I'm

Claire Fox [00:04:43] In

Vance Crowe [00:04:43] The, I have no idea how this system

Claire Fox [00:04:44] Works. I'm now, I'm now known as Baroness Fox of Buckley. I have been elevated, I have a position in that

Vance Crowe [00:04:53] I apologize, my

Claire Fox [00:04:55] Baroness,

Vance Crowe [00:04:55] So

Claire Fox [00:04:56] Oh, please don't call me Baroness. I'm just making the point that formally that is the situation.

Vance Crowe [00:05:01] How does the, how does the House of Lords differ from, say, the US Senate, which is kind of the way that I think about it.

Claire Fox [00:05:08] So it's unelected, it's all appointees. There are some hereditary peers from the olden days, IE the aristocracy. There's a limited number of those people. The bishops are in there and law lords. But in, you know, in every possible way, it's undemocratic. That's the problem with it. It's, it does act as a second chamber that checks on and scrutinizes legislation. And actually the issue we are going to go on to talk about, which is Brexit, it became particularly controversial as a second chamber during the whole rous over Brexit because the House of Lords is predominantly full of people who supported staying in the European Union, and they did absolutely everything they could to try and thwart the referendum results of 2016. And that made led to a popular discussion and debate about whether the house of laws really should be abolished or at the very least reformed. So of course, it is an irony that I've ended up there. Partly, I think because the present government were keen to, you know, put people in because that's how you get in. You get nominated who maybe were Brexit supporters to try and balance things up a bit, and acknowledgement of the fact that I'd stood for the Brexit party in the European elections, and they wanted to acknowledge that. And also because they, there's a kind of argument that if you're gonna have a house of laws, it should at least have some life to it, rather than it being a place for former, former politicians who weren't elected to go and retire.

Claire Fox [00:06:48] So they kind of decided to add in a few curve balls like me, people who would maybe not tow the party line.

Vance Crowe [00:06:57] You know what's interesting about the comparison between systems, a lot of people don't know this, but in the US the senate used to not be elected. It used to be appointed by the house of the, of the state. And so the state was sending you, and then later they turned it into an election. And so it just became really a House of Representatives members that had a longer term or maybe a little bit more power. Yeah. So it's interesting that the UK has kept your your appointment system.

Claire Fox [00:07:23] That's right. I mean, I, I think the problem is that if you now had elections for the House of Lords, which some people would argue would be a progressive reform, the difficulty is, is that it would just simply end up replicating the House of Commons. You know, it's kind of what is the purpose of it. And so in some ways I just think abolish it, you know, even though I'd lose a job, because I think that in the end, you know, it doesn't, it, it, it, it, it doesn't, it isn't able to be representative. It, it can scrutinize, but it takes its role too far. And, you know, it's, people are paid attendance allowance for going in. They're not paid a salary, but they're paid an attendance allowance. You don't have to do very much to earn that. And it just seems to

Vance Crowe [00:08:09] Me, to me, does that mean you show up each day and then you get paid for it? Or what does that mean?

Claire Fox [00:08:12] Yes, you get paid if you show up. And obviously during the COVID crisis, there's not very many people turning up and there's a kind of half payment system if you, if you turn up via Zoom to join in the debates. But I've, I've tried to, I've tried to avoid being cynical about it. I mean, I, I have tried to show up, not because of the money. I've tried to become a working parent when I actually kind of started, I think in October. And so I've, you know, I still run the Academy of Ideas and I, that is what I consider to my

Vance Crowe [00:08:45] Job. Well, you are spending, I well you're spending a lot of time at the House of Lords because I'm, because I'm going every time I, and I thought you were just a spectator there, so I, I actually didn't understand when I would see you talking, I thought, wow, they wanted Claire to speak again. That's crazy. So I wondered what you were doing, but you're doing this and all of the Academy of

Claire Fox [00:09:02] Ideas. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:09:05] So when you said that the House of Lords has the ability to throw a bunch of roadblocks in for Brexit, and that's kind of what you have been navigating through, what did they throw up and, and how are you now through it?

Claire Fox [00:09:18] So I think for a period of time, you know, I think maybe for your audience to understand, when the referendum happened in 2016, it was not expected that the vote would go to leaving the European Union in the buildup to that referendum. Most of the establishment, all of the main political parties, very, you know, but practically everybody respectable as it were, argued that we should stay in the European Union. Even people who'd previously been quite critical of the European Union ended up arguing to stay. And, you know, this included the whole of university vice chancellors, you know, science organization, the arts organization. So it really felt as though the, the, the, there was kind of hardly anyone in respectable society as it were, certainly amongst the ruling elites and the media elites who were for it. So it was a real shock to the system when leave won in 2016. And for the first period of time, I think it was pretty obvious that whereas those of us who voted leave, just because we were asked the Constitution question, we decided that we wanted to leave. We just thought it would be enacted. It soon became clear that there was a, a pretty determined effort to, to stop us leaving the European Union come what may either to water down our relationship or water down what leave would mean, so that we effectively stayed connected to the European Union absolutely.

Claire Fox [00:10:53] In a variety of ways. And that caused huge amounts of bitterness. Some people just arguing to overturn the vote. And where every time anything like that would occur, the House of Lords would vote to ensure that you couldn't just leave that, you know, they were just constantly saying, no, no, no, no, no, we're not gonna let this happen. Which obviously is a terrible affront to democracy. And in some ways that radicalized leave voters and many people who voted remain as well, because they suddenly realized the British establishment had asked a question to the British people. When the British people voted the wrong way, they weren't gonna ignore them anyway and gonna just trample over their wishes. So that itself became the focus of discussion, whether actually a referendum was legitimate and how it would be enacted. And that has dragged on for years and eventually, eventually having deadline upon, deadline being, you know, done away with or extended. And it looked like it was never gonna happen. Eventually, it, we stayed so long that we ended up having to stand in these European elections in March, 2019. Now, I can't even remember the date. Oh, but no, the summer of 2019. And we meant to have left by then, by the way. That was a, after a deadline where we would never have had to stand in those European parliamentary elections when those elections had to happen, just 'cause we'd ended up staying. That's when the Brexit party was formed. And a cross party alliance, which included me, stood as candidates in those elections, and out of nowhere, won dramatically and humiliated the mainstream parties, conservatives.

Claire Fox [00:12:33] The Labor Party, the Lid Dems came after the Brexit party, which had just literally been formed. And that changed everything. The conservative party suddenly realized that they could no longer get away with fudging this decision. And Theresa May was, was deposed as the leader of the Conservative party. Eventually, Boris Johnson became the leader of the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister, and he declared that he would now honor the 2016 referendum. No ifs, no buts. And that's kind of what happens

Vance Crowe [00:13:04] When we see Boris Johnson in the news. Well, I'll just speak for myself. I have no context as to is he an intelligent person? Is he good at getting people to get along because he is portrayed as an absolute buffoon in, in a, in a way that is almost cartoonish, where you're like, I don't think this can be true. But I've never taken the time to figure out, is this a legit positive leader or just the guy that happened to be sitting there.

Claire Fox [00:13:30] So he's incredibly ha has been very popular, maybe in a populist way. He's very smart, very intelligent, but he does bluster. And he's certainly not on top of the detail, but he has inspired a certain following because he's at least got kind of that kind of character that makes people think that he's, you know, a bit different, doesn't fit into the mold, even though in fact he's absolutely well and truly part of the establishment. But the main thing is what he represented when he became the head of the Conservative Party, which, which was that he, he basically promised to honor a popular sovereignty to say, we will leave. And as the whole debate around Brexit was about sovereignty, it was about who has control, who has power, should the British people have, be able to hold legislators to account, which they couldn't, if those decisions were made in Brussels or Strasbourg via the eu, he became a, a, a kind of new hero for the populace in some ways, which was very unlikely because the Conservative party aren't associated generally with kind of mass ranks of working class people. They are, you know, that would be the Labor Party historically. But the, his, the Labor Party had somehow managed to get itself into a position where it was arguing against the EU referendum results and therefore pitted itself against many millions of working class people.

Claire Fox [00:15:06] So, Boris Johnson,

Vance Crowe [00:15:07] Let me, let me gained

Claire Fox [00:15:08] Certain trust, that's all I'm saying. Go. Yeah, ironically.

Vance Crowe [00:15:12] Well, so one of the things that I observed was that you were standing up in front of crowds of throngs of people, like masses of people that I, I think most human beings will never have that experience. What was it like to be riding that wave and not knowing whether or not it would actually come to fruition?

Claire Fox [00:15:32] I think it was, well, I mean, it was, for me, it was an extraordinary privilege on the one hand. But it, I think what it summed up when they first settled the Brexit party, and, you know, I'd never had any desire to be an elected politician. I, I was perfectly happy with the, the world and the life that I was leading. But I felt that people would become disillusioned with democracy unless they had the ballot box to express their continued desire to do what they voted for in 2016. I thought it was a very dangerous moment for democracy to remove that ballot box and to, to make people cynical about democracy. So when you ask what it felt like to stand in front of people, in some ways it was joyous because people were so relieved to have an alternative way of expressing their views, that they were excited to have this party to vote for just temporarily during those European elections. And that then forced the conservative party to change. And then they, then they loaned their votes. Maybe it's only a loan, their votes to the Conservative party to say to Boris Johnson, who look them in the eye and said he would get Brexit done. They said, okay, we'll vote for you then. It's not, we are not naturally conservatives, but we'll vote for you. So I was very pleased to be part of that historical moment that could actually remind people, because people were so, I can't tell you how in despair they were. And what, what you've also got to understand now, this does reflect a little bit on some of the discussions in America, was that because people had voted in a constitutional referendum to lead the European Union, which, you know, we were asked whether we wanted to or not by the private.

Claire Fox [00:17:14] Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:17:14] Don't ask me if you're not gonna listen to

Claire Fox [00:17:16] Yeah, yeah, exactly. But they were called racists and xenophobes and Little Englanders who didn't care about anyone. And, you know, especially the accusation of racism was particularly irritating for people and not irritating 'cause it was so insulting. And, and so people didn't just feel that they were being sold out in terms of the vote. They also felt that they were being introduced, you know, it was the UK equivalent of being called the deplorable. There was this phrase that was used, they were kind of labeled gammon, you know, white, red Rudy faces, you know, working class, you know, type. I mean, it was just vile. And so, I I, despite the fact that actually a third of ethnic minorities in the UK voted to leave the European Union, somehow this notion of them, of this kind of backward os who were knuckle dragging, you know, took hold. And it kind of split society into this kind of very elitist way of looking at things versus ordinary people. And for millions of ordinary people, they just felt furious and, and it was toxic. So it was nice to be part of something that was positive, which said, actually we did know why we voted to leave the European Union. We still think we wanna leave the European Union. You can't just besmirch our character and ignore us any longer. We're gonna force you to do this. And in fact, that's what happened. The electorate in the end had their way, and we've just arrived at the culmination of that now because the trade deal has been signed and Brexit has effectively happened.

Claire Fox [00:18:49] There's no going back, in other words.

Vance Crowe [00:18:51] And so what, what changes in the world now that Brexit has said we're not a part of the eu. How does that tangibly impact other, every other relationship with other countries?

Claire Fox [00:19:02] So first of all, it in some ways it's difficult because isn't, Brexit was never a destination, it was a start. I mean, that sounds trite, but what I mean is some people say, well, what do we get now? You know, where's your Brexit dividend than we wanna see it? Well, it doesn't really operate like that. It's about democratic accountability. So it's more that you've removed the layer of decision making that was not accountable to British electorates. That's why it was important. So you never immediately see gains. In fact, if anything gets quite disruptive initially, partly some of us believe that trying to negotiate a trade deal with the European Union actually would carry on entangling our relationship with them in a way that was gonna be unhelpful. But nonetheless, Boris Johnson carried on with that. And there is now a trade deal signed. So in some ways, the trade deal with the EU means that trading will still occur with the eu. But just to use one very pertinent example, at the moment, if you are a member of the European Union, you as a nation state can't, on a wide, wide range of issues, make certain decisions on your own. You have to get the agreement of the other 27 nation states. So the most visceral example of that at the moment is on vaccines. You know, the, the, the COVID vaccine situation is such that the numbers of vaccines being administered in the European Union amongst the member states is very, very low at the present time. Largely because no individual countries could sign their own trade agreements in relation to the vaccines.

Claire Fox [00:20:39] Yeah. They couldn't say, we'll buy this many vaccines because it was said, no, you've gotta, everyone's gotta do it at the same time, start at the same time. And they've got themselves into a real mess on that. Whereas the UK is actually on that issue well ahead, in relation to vaccines and has actually been able to do its own, make its own decisions about who it did work trades with in relation to vaccinations. But there's a whole range of other things. A a a a point you'll be familiar with will be something like the precautionary principle, which has been used in many ways to thwart the developmental, for example, GM crops in the uk, if you wanted them. Right? If the British population wanted them, you couldn't have them. It didn't matter because the EU wouldn't let you.

Vance Crowe [00:21:25] So for people that aren't aware, this is a big deal because it basically sets up your framework for how your regulations are created and how new innovations can enter the market. And so if you wanna have an innovative society, you need to be able to take some risks. But the precautionary principle says you have to prove that this does no harm. If the, if there's a chance that it could have a substantial impact on things, well it's next to impossible to prove a negative. And so what you do is you then have a cabal of people that are getting put in charge inside of a black box, and they say, this is okay, and that's not okay. And when you ask 'em why, they say, ah, precautionary principle. And so decisions become entirely made up of politics instead of saying, can we have a standard that we can meet and then, and use that as this, as the single gauge of rail so we can work together.

Claire Fox [00:22:16] Exactly. And the, the, the, the rules, rules-based system deployed by the European Union, which, you know, represents all of its member states, is a kind of iron and fist. It becomes like an international law. You are not allowed to break it if you are a member of the European Union. They say, and by the way, when I say they, I mean this really is unelected technocrats in, in, in, you know, closed rooms, making decisions about the standards, which are then basically dictated to the member states, the nations that are members of the European Union.

Vance Crowe [00:22:50] And that's because the EU is essentially a bureaucracy. It's, it's saying like, we are gonna put in weights and measures, and we need people to make sure all the weights and measures add up, so we don't go elect them. You, you install them the same way you do for somebody for the USDA or they apply for a job. And so it's just an ocean of bureaucrats. Yes.

Claire Fox [00:23:13] And it's got a, you know, a court of justice, which is draconian in its implementation, and it's making you pay, I mean, it, it, you know, the kind of fines it levels at nation states that break any of its rules and so and so forth. So it really is a very tight and prescriptive set of rules and organizations. So there's one elected part of it, which is the European Parliament, which I was part of, but the European Parliament, ironically, cannot initiate legislation. It acts if you want, as the House of Lords does. So it's elected in which, but you are elected not to make any rules, but to rubber stamp those rules that are being made by the unelected. So it is one of those great, everybody will say to me, oh, the EU is democratic. 'cause you have elections, but actually to the most, to the, to the part of the European Union, which has least power, which is the parliament. It's kind of a talking shock in the real sense of the word. So the, yeah. So the European Union, you know, has moved towards a kind of more federalist relationship over recent years. It started off just as a trade organization, a trade gathering around coal and steel. And now it's gone on to become a more political project. Now, if you can imagine a situation, I mean, obviously the US is a fed is made up of federal states, but nation states within the European Union, not treated as though they're federal states, if you see what I mean.

Claire Fox [00:24:46] But there was never an agreement made where, you know, no nation state was created whereby a European citizen would be given access to democratic accountability of all the people who make decisions in Europe. So it cheated, it's avoided the civil war bit, you know, it's avoided the bit where you forge that state and you forge that central state outta the different states into a nation state.

Vance Crowe [00:25:10] Well, and the Civil War is a good example of how they forged together a federalist power, but then also e essentially the bureaucracy is what continued to allow the state's power to just creep and creep and creep and creep. Because once you get the ability to tax and print your own money, now all of a sudden your ability to say, well, we'll give you some of this money to build things that you want, but you have to give control over what is the drunk driving limit, what is this thing and that thing, and then all sorts of trade standards. And yeah, I think there's a perception that we were always in this centralized national government, that that really has only occurred in the last 30, 40 years, expanded in the way that it has. Yes,

Claire Fox [00:25:53] That's true. But it's, i i, it, it, it none Nonetheless, there is a kind of consent in relation to the way the US has developed. And all I'm saying is, is that what's happened is, is that the people who are at the top of the EU want that federal situation where they dictate what happens in the member states, but they, you know, there's a, there's a tension because they still are nation states. They are nation states, and the way that you have democratic decision making is by voting in your prime minister or your president, or whatever form you've got. But you know, you'll see that there at the moment, there's a massive row going on about what's happening in Poland and Hungary in particular in this instance, because the EU is saying, your member states you are doing things that go against our rule book. And they say, but we were elected on the basis of doing these things at home by our own constitu, you know, by our electorate. We are accountable to them, not you. And then they say, well, if you don't do what we tell you from on high and ignore what you promise your electorate, we will fine you or kick you out or punish you in some way. So it's federalism by the back door, you know, it's not explicit, but it's a, it is a way of creating a federal unit that has that power to dictate what nation states do. That's why it's such an affront democracy. And, you know, national sovereignty is important to me. It's a very important principle. And so I, I, that's one of the reasons I voted to leave. So that's the kind of things that are at stake and that were being discussed all the way along.

Claire Fox [00:27:28] The other thing you say about currency, the UK were never part of the Eurozone, but the EU does have its currency. You didn't have to join the Eurozone to be part of the eu, and so the UK didn't join the Eurozone. But I can tell you now that that control of currency has been used to impose the most awful punitive, you know, economics stipulations on places like Greece and Spain and Portugal, particularly those countries, because the European bank is absolutely rules the roost and tells people, you know, and involves itself. Politics says, well, it doesn't matter what budget you decided will tell you what budget you live by. This is to a country. Remember, these are countries, they aren't just, you know, they are countries in their own right. So you, but they're treated by children. You have this,

Vance Crowe [00:28:25] You have this feeling of sovereignty, and because you kept your currency, you guys had a chance to leave in a different way. Yeah.

Claire Fox [00:28:32] But if

Vance Crowe [00:28:32] Somebody like Italy decides to just pack up and leave, what are they gonna do? Because at a minimum, they would still be held pretty, pretty tightly be if you still have your currency connected with, with what's going on in Brussels.

Claire Fox [00:28:45] Well, I, I think the only way would be, that's why it's very difficult, but it's also for those countries to consider leaving because they're very tied in. But you could in a way see it a bit like declaring yourself bankrupt, which is, you could leave and start again. I mean, that's bet's what we'd have to do.

Vance Crowe [00:29:02] I mean, maybe that's where the crypto future goes, maybe if you have a sovereignty movement. Yeah,

Claire Fox [00:29:06] Yeah. And the people are saying that. I just, just just quickly to, to add that, you know, a lot of people were so shocked at the way the EU treated Greece in particular during the recession and, and, and what was called the Eurozone crisis, that a lot of people in, in the uk, even though they weren't part of the Eurozone as an act of solidarity, could just see that the EU app were just bullies. And that this was something that, you know, to emphasize. When the UK decided to leave the eu, it wasn't a little Englander feeling, it was a sense of what was just, and Right. And lots of it actually was in solidarity with what had happened in different European countries. It wasn't just an attempt to saying, we don't want anything to do with any of these countries. It was not wanting to have anything to do with the EU as an institution, not European countries, per se.

Vance Crowe [00:29:59] Well, let me, this brings up an interesting parallel, which is, what was the news saying? Like how did a narrative of we're doing this in solidarity of Greece come about among the people, if the establishment wanted to stay in the eu? Because in the US it appears that when the establishment wants something, it's the same thing as what the media wants.

Claire Fox [00:30:22] Yeah. I mean, that's effectively the, the, the alternative narrative was thrown up in some ways simply by the question of the referendum. Once you had a referendum, and the referendum was called, the establishment then had to tell people that it was worthwhile voting in it. So they then had to motivate people to vote in it by saying, this is the most important. And they actually did say this. They said, this is the most important vote you will ever make in your life. This is, we are trusting you to decide on the con on the future constitutional arrangements that this country makes. And quite a lot of people who'd previously been apathetic or never voted or not thought that anyone cared what they thought suddenly felt that each vote would count, which it did in a referendum. Each vote counts, right? So 50 50 situation. So that in a way kickstarted a genuine debate. And people started to say, which way are you gonna vote in the referendum? And there was an establishment and media narrative, but they made this mistake of basically defensively involving themselves in a narrative that tried to demonize anyone who was even thinking of voting leave. And by doing that, they, they were already, instead of that working, it actually had the impact of people thinking, well, I'm considering voting leave. Why are you calling me? You know, I'm gonna find out about this. So there was a lot of self-education. So for a period in the buildup to the, the referendum, something which the media themselves never reflect everywhere you went, you know, you go to the hairdresser, you go to the shop, you go to take the kids to school, you'd be in the pub.

Claire Fox [00:32:05] Everyone was talking about, what are you gonna do in the EU referendum? And then everyone had argue about it, and they were reading around, you know, they were going to libraries, they were looking online. So the, the media narrative was such that the media didn't realize that millions of people were not taking a notice of their narrative, which is why the media got such a shock when people voted to leave because they believed their own hype. They thought the only people who were gonna vote leave were a, you know, a sort of hardcore bunch of lunatics who didn't understand anything, right? And then they lost, they were outraged. How could that have happened? Because they didn't actually listen to the country, they didn't reflect the country. And they actually, in some ways helped create a, an alternative narrative, which was, let's find out for ourselves. And that was very positive for democracy.

Vance Crowe [00:33:01] I'm, I'm really concerned about the future, because the very thing that you're describing, where there were blogs, there were things for people to go and read in the US now that the, there was the people that decided they were going to rush into the capitol, break things, push back with the police, a woman got shot, like bad things happened in that space. If you label that as sedition, or that these people were actually trying to overthrow the government thinking that they would then install their own government, then looking in all of the places where they were collecting together and getting together and talking would make sense. But if this is a group of people that had like some outside ideas that got whipped up into a frenzy and probably went too far, then increasing the domestic terrorism, like the amount that we're gonna do surveillance and check into people and label them, I think is going to have a kickback response in the United States. Where we're we, we are going to see the very thing that they're looking for, which right now exists, but in very, very small pockets.

Claire Fox [00:34:13] So that's not just a US issue. I mean, that's exactly the same here. So I, I, I think that it had got to a point in the Brexit situation, probably in 2019, where if Brexit hadn't been delivered, it would've so alienated people. There could have been some civil unrest. I mean, that's what I was worried about. Yeah. Genuinely that was abated and Brexit has now happened, but Brexit isn't the only game in town and the international consequences of what's happening in America or being felt here. So we all watched on in horror what happened in Capitol Hill. It was a shock to see it. But yes, there is now a route about whether it was a planned coup, an act of terrorist insurrection, or whether as you say, it was undoubtedly an out of control unsavory, in my view, completely unhelpful, you know, intervention and, and it was outta control. That's true. But you are, right now, we have a situation which I think is very precarious because it's not just happening there, because in the uk lots of people are shocked by the fact that Twitter removed Donald Trump from his account, regardless of what you think of Donald Trump, even if he is suspended, him, suspended him for 24 hours to take him out whilst he's the president of the us.

Claire Fox [00:35:44] That feels a bit coup like itself because we now know that the big tech companies are themselves hugely influential. I mean, they are the power brokers and they are not elected or answerable to any of us. And so when I then hear, you know, the, the new administration, but who are legitimately elected good, but then when they start to use what happened at Capitol Hill in a way that I think can be incredibly illiberal and dangerous and authoritarian in order to deal with Trump voters or anyone who doesn't go along with a particular narrative on Capitol Hill, and you can see that happening. I mean, it's not just the people who were involved in that invasion of Capitol Hill who are being treated as though they're terrorists. Anyone who says they might not be terrorists is treated as though they're a terrorist enabler. And then you get to a situation that you say, where you also drive these movements underground, you can radicalize them. You, you end up doing, I mean, you explained it better than me. You end up creating such a toxic, febrile atmosphere, such a deep sense of resentment. And it doesn't matter what one thinks about Donald Trump, tens of millions of people voted for him even when he lost. You know, this is not some minor figure in American politics.

Claire Fox [00:37:16] This is somebody with a huge popular base.

Vance Crowe [00:37:19] And the way to thwart somebody that has a huge popular base, if that's what you wanna do, is through the system, through the mechanism that you built long before either of you got there. Because if you start monkeying around and making it like, I'm gonna change the rules, or I'm gonna, when we do win and we do get power, we're gonna ratchet it up as high as we can, then that pendulum is just going to swing further and further back. And I don't think society will handle instability. They would rather have a less optimal situation over the long term than they would to have it be chaotic and, and not understood.

Claire Fox [00:37:59] Yeah. I mean, I, I think in some ways though, that's one of the reasons why Donald Trump actually didn't win, because he became associated with that chaos. You know, in, in many ways his, his, his erratic narcissism, regardless of what you think of his policies, was very difficult to stomach. Even if you thought some of what he was doing, some people, you know, might have said, well, I, I, I quite like his policies, but my God, I just want a bit of quiet. You know, maybe the Democrats will bring a bit quiet into the world. I actually think that it's a real tragedy for me that, first of all, I do think that Donald Trump's reaction to, you know, not having an overall win, has been an example of an anti-democratic refusal to give losers consent, which is one of the complaints I had against the remain establishment, by the way, in the Brexit argument, which was they wouldn't give losers consent. Losers consent's important. I don't mean there should have been no charge.

Vance Crowe [00:38:56] I don't know that term. What does that mean? Lose

Claire Fox [00:38:58] Lose loser's consent is a, a, a key part of democracy, which is you accept that you've lost, you know, you accept there's an election you lose, you accept it, otherwise you have chaos. Don't you, you don't have to change your mind. You just have to say, I accept it. That's what a peaceful transition is. You say, I give losers consent. You know, I, that's what happens. You might bitterly resent it. You might be furious, you might think anything. But you have to accept that if, like in the UK when Brexit happened, the establishment refused to give, or huge sectors of the establishment refused to give losers consent to Brexit happening. That was what caused the chaos here. And Donald Trump did the same, or Trump supporters did the same in the US more recently. And that the, the, the remainers don't like the comparison and make, when I say that they're a bit like, you know, Trump was, but I do think that Trump did accuse the amount of damage there. However, it does seem to me to be a completely shortsighted and foolish thing for the Democrats who have behaved, you know, in the way they have. Because they should then say, right, okay, it's taken a while for him to eventually concede, but he's conceded now. We should just go in calmly and run the country 'cause we won the election. Instead, there feels like a vengeful, punitive attempt at removing any vestige of support for a Donald Trump style of politics. Now, in view of how many people voted for Donald Trump, that seems to me to be a very dangerous strategy because it can only lead to divisiveness, suspicion, and a loss of faith in the democratic system

Vance Crowe [00:40:43] And archipelago of where people will get together to talk about what they think is real and true and what knowledge and where are they gonna get their news. People are gonna be on these islands that are just chains of islands that are so far away from other people. We, we already didn't have the same narrative, but we are gonna split into entirely different, like, what, what, where is the focus of the country? Is it Washington DC or will it be somewhere else? I, it's, I agree with you that it's very dangerous. So when you have been running battle of ideas for all these years, you've probably learned a lot about the value of letting people that you don't agree with you speak. So as you think about the tech companies shutting down ideas or pay, what was that parlor? Yeah, parlor getting, getting knocked out. Like what's your take on this?

Claire Fox [00:41:35] Well, I just think it's, I mean, it, so obviously fuels conspiratorial thinking. I mean, it is censorship, of course everybody will say, well, they're just private companies. They're entitled to decide who is uses them and what basis on which they used. But the treatment of Parlor is an example where you see something more sinister happening, I think, because there you have a situation where you say, I'm, I'm knocking you off Twitter because I don't like your views. You know, go elsewhere. Start your own platform. You know, you can't use Facebook anymore 'cause Facebook have decided that go use your own platform. So a new platform emerges, which is Parler, which by the way, I've got no interest in because it's, I don't, this doesn't appeal to me 'cause I think it's too much of an echo chamber. But that's not the point. Point is a new platform is created and then the big tech companies refuse to allow that new platform to happen by taking away, you know, either YouTube taking away their space, you know, and all the things that have happened. Now, what does that say to people? It says that millions of people are not allowed to have an opinion and they're not allowed to be heard, and they're not allowed to read things that they wanna read. So that then, this is why I think it fuels conspiracy theories. People start to say, what is it they don't want us to know? Why don't they want us to know it? We'll find alternative ways of communicating. I mean, the number of people who keep contacting me on Telegram or I can't remember what the, you know, there's various of the kind of more encrypted groups and people sort of, in other words, they go deeper in as much as they can.

Claire Fox [00:43:17] I mean, at this rate, people will start writing letters to each other, might even phone each other. But you know, what's happening is not that people will stop communicating with each other. They will find ways of communicating outside of the public realm. And that the, whether we like it or not, Twitter and Facebook and these big platforms have become like the public square. And to therefore remove those people whose views Twitter and Facebook have decided don't fit in with the narrative seems to me to be an explicit admission that they're gonna censor things according to only one way of understanding the world. How dangerous is that?

Vance Crowe [00:43:59] Yeah. To me, the, the tech companies doing this was like making the final wave of the flag that says government, just so you know, we decide who becomes president, who become representatives, senators. And so they have no choice now, but to grab control of it, I don't want that, I don't want more legislation or regulation or tell them who they can and can't do. I don't want people to be told they have to bake cakes that they don't have to bake. Like I want as little interaction as possible. But if you're a sitting government and you know, the guy over there has the power to make it so you are cut off from the world, even seeing you exist, you gotta grab control of that because it's a threat to your sovereignty.

Claire Fox [00:44:43] Well, that's the irony, isn't it, that in this instance the governments are using big tech in many instances. So in the uk, both the conservative party and the opposition, the Labor party are calling on big tech to censor misinformation about the virus and about the pandemic. So they, they, they, they're empowering them to censor. And we are going, we're about to have a piece of legislation in the UK called the Online Harms Bill, which again, is all about threatening big tech that they must censor certain types of things or they'll be irresponsible. Now, originally those big tech companies said, we are not publishers. Why should we do that? Right. We just, you know, we, we, we, we just, people, it's a free speech space they used to say until fairly recently. So the, the irony of it is that governments have given big tech the authority to decide what is misinformation, what is dangerous ideas, and encourage them to do it around things like hate speech, which is an ambivalent subjective term. But then now more recently around misinformation, around the coronavirus, once they've given them that authority and demanded it. I mean, I saw AOC, you know, demanding in America, I want you to tell us what you're gonna do to remove misinformation, right? You then do that. They then do it.

Claire Fox [00:46:14] And in this instance, of course the Democrats might be delighted 'cause they've taken out their opponent, right? But what happens if Twitter decides to take down Biden's Twitter account, right? Who decides, you know, are you gonna say, oh, they're okay,

Vance Crowe [00:46:29] Well that becomes the mob. The mob decides, yeah, that, and like we've created a digital mob that in, in many ways it's its own nuclear weapon, right? Like you can either knock somebody out so they can't communicate. The, I think one of the biggest challenges with this, the misinformation is the government was clearly and demonstrably wrong as they went through coronavirus. They said things that they later literally said the opposite of. And there's no price to be paid there, except for if somebody was kicked off for arguing when the government said that you shouldn't wear masks. Do they get to come back on after the government changes their position? I doubt it.

Claire Fox [00:47:11] No. Well, that's a problem. But also in a situation where you have something so novel as a coronavirus where we don't, and the scientists don't understand everything about it. Let's be honest, where you have a new variant now. So of course it's not even a done deal. How can you say that the science is settled or done? How can you allege that, you know? Exactly. And some of these issues are political. There is a debate to be had surely about the cost of lockdowns because there is a huge cost of locking down side. The UK is locked down completely now, right? And there is a big,

Vance Crowe [00:47:50] I know nothing about where you guys are at with coronavirus.

Claire Fox [00:47:52] We're completely locked down. Everything's closed, right? So, so we're locked in, locked down. There is a huge economic cost going to emerge. And that there's also mental health costs. There's the fact that they're canceling operations for people with cancer. You know, all of these things are going on. Now, I don't mean that's, that's, that's me simplifying what the arguments against lockdowns might be. The arguments for lockdown are that this stops transmission. It's the only thing that can really hold a fast, fastly contagious new variant that's spreading throughout the uk. There's arguments about whether you should do that or not, but there should be arguments, right? These are discussions because there's huge pros and cons to both sides. However, if you challenge the lockdown, your sense be an anti-science, you know, COVID denier, the word denier purposefully deployed, you know, to, to put you in the camp of kind of some fascist lunatic anti-science of course, because you know, that means that you are irrational and unscientific, you know, people lumped together, people like me who are quite critical of the government's lockdown strategies because they won't do a balance. You know, they won't do a kind of balancing harms balancing risks assessment. They won't be honest on open eye, don't think on that. And people will say, oh, you know, you are just fueling Q anon conspiracy theories like what? You know, but they can, they can demonize you by putting you all in the camp in the same camps.

Claire Fox [00:49:30] And that of course then means that there's no nuance. And you were asking about, you know, the battle of ideas. One of the things that's been a great regret in the last, I mean actually in quite toxic times around Brexit in the uk, but also I think in the US pretty toxic divi divisive discussions around Trump. But even around Black Lives Matter, some of these contentious issues where nuance is just banned, you know, nuance. You know, what about what if can we discuss the complexities of an issue or completely ruled out of order because you say you, he, you hesitantly say, could this be the issue? And you get immediately called a COVID denier that that kind of forces people into camps. They either feel they can't speak at all dangerous 'cause they do speak, although they go elsewhere where you can't see them or,

Vance Crowe [00:50:24] And they only speak with people that already agree with them. Right, exactly. When you, when you get into that situation, the only people that you're able to interact with exactly are like, yeah, you know what? You're right. And also this other crazy conspiracy theory,

Claire Fox [00:50:36] That's exactly what's happening. And that is what's happening. It's, it, I can see it happening. I, I can see it happening every day. And that frightens me because it means that the sense of being reasonable, not, not centrist in a way where you don't have opinions or you are, you know, sitting on the fence or you, you've got no principle and you change all the time. But just that sense of saying, well, you know, have things, I, I I think things have changed objectively in relation to current coronavirus in terms of the new variants in the UK because a lot more people are catching it. But I want to be able to ask questions about that. I wanna be able to explore that. What does that mean? Does that mean we do need to have more draconian policies or are we giving up freedoms forever? Or what's the cost in terms of people's livelihoods? All of these things. Yeah. But you can't even have those kind of conversations at the moment.

Vance Crowe [00:51:29] So when you look out at the world, you know, five years from now, are we in a period of time that's equivalent to just before the Treaty of Westphalia where something dramatic changes to the way that countries are structured Because while it doesn't feel like anybody's preparing to attack one another, it does feel like people are, are erupting somehow from, from inside. And you have to wonder if that internal eruption doesn't result in, I don't know if it's different borders or it's different rules, but it seems like something's coming.

Claire Fox [00:52:02] I think your, I don't know whether it will be the Westphalia-like change in relation to nation states, but I think that your right to identify a lot of people have tried to suggest that Biden getting elected over Trump shows that what is dubbed populism is over. Whereas I actually think that completely miss assesses what's happened. I think that the whole, that the election of Donald Trump in some ways represented a rejection of mainstream political parties, including the Republican mainstream, the, the Brexit vote in a completely different way. It's not that they're the same, but it represented a rejection of a technocratic elite doing two people, people demanding that they have more say we've seen throughout Europe and throughout the world, the, the eruption of new forces. And the reason I mention that is because I don't think that's over. I think that was the unraveling of the post-war settlement. And it's not over. It's only just started the disruption of it's only just started. We just don't know what way it's gonna go. Now history's thrown a curve ball at us because the coronavirus, who was ever gonna expect that? Right? And nobody, and that's had an impact as we know on the whole world. And the fact that we voted in the UK to leave the EU under the slogan take back control, because we didn't want to be dictated to by unelected technocrats couldn't be more ironic 'cause we've had Brexit and every day we sit and watch a press conference in which unelected technocrats tell us what they're gonna do to us, to deprive us of our liberties again in the name of public health.

Claire Fox [00:53:45] So I'll hardly feel as though that's battle's been won. But it's not as though everything is resolved. And I think that once the immediate threats of this virus go, and it might still take months and months the way things are going, I don't mean months and months before the political decision is made to effectively allow things to return to normal. I think we can say that there's going to be a different political landscape emerging. I, I'm worried by some of it, I think that driving people underground, some of these conspiracy theories, a deep nihilistic cynicism about the political elite is not a, is not a positive constructive thing. A healthy skepticism is what I'd want. But it's almost as though the elite won't allow you to be healthly skeptical. So they drive people to this nihilistic place that seems to me to be very dangerous. So only just starting as far as I'm concerned.

Vance Crowe [00:54:41] Yeah. And this idea that we somehow don't have secure elections is, is probably one of the most decaying things that you can have because in addition to having masks on, so we can't see each other's faces and emotions or anything like that. Now we've said, all right, now looking forward four years, the next election will be controlled by the social media. And there are, you know, a huge percentage, a non-trivial percentage of the population believes that the elections were not correct. And like, I have no idea. I think the elections probably reflected enough votes that Biden should be in office. But I also think there were some really weird things that happened with that election and I had always just kind of assumed they were secure and maybe they're not nearly as secure as I thought either way. Like, you know, the, the paradigm of would you rather have an election that's secure but everybody thinks it's not secure? Or would you have have an election that it's not secure, but everybody thinks it's secure. I don't know which one is better, but I think they both lead to pretty big problems.

Claire Fox [00:55:49] I I, I agree. And I, I, I think this can only, I I, I've been thinking about that myself because we've got rather big, not national elections, but local elections due in May, but they also involve elections for the Welsh assembly and the Scottish government. And they're talking about postponing those elections now 'cause of coronavirus, which is gonna cause chaos. 'cause people are gonna be very suspicious of democracy postponed. And already there's last year's mayoral elections were put off and we're still not gonna have them now. So people start to lose faith in the ballot box, don't they? And then the whole issue around postal ballots, which is not only an issue in the US but it's a big issue in the UK as well. You know, if you were to have an increase in the number of postal ballots, would anyone trust that? Because people don't tend to trust postal ballots in the same way because they think well with a coerced is a family into voting in a particular way, you know, all these kind of arguments. It somehow seems very different than turning up and putting your ex, you know, the physical act, which obviously we know Trump has kind of played on that, a fair amount in his querying of the results. I I, I, I do think that Trump didn't win if he'd have been a, I mean, my argument is, you know, if he'd have won substantially, the won substantially, we'd all know, right? So he didn't do enough politically to win.

Claire Fox [00:57:20] And by the way, you watched him join the start of the election campaign, you could see that he wasn't doing enough to win politically. I mean, he kind of was, you know, that first press conference was so bad. He was so awful in it. But nonetheless, I, I don't want to say that you should never be able to query an, an, an election. I don't argue that the Republicans who were querying the election should not be able to say there might have been mistakes made here. But I think the general irrationality of the cynicism around the elections is, is over the top. But it shows the breakdown of trust. So I know UK people in the UK who were convinced that, that Biden stole the election, you know, convinced that millions of votes were destroyed. You know, all this. I mean, they've kind of, they can tell you, you know, on Wednesday the such and such, somebody was seen walking with a ballot box dumping them, you know, it was like, because that's one thing social media does, is they're in touch with all the trumpites in America, right? So that kind of generalized feeling of discontent that then takes the focus of a disbelief in democracy is very dangerous. I mean, o obviously

Vance Crowe [00:58:35] T wanna, I did not, not good about this election at all. Like, no,

Claire Fox [00:58:37] No. But

Vance Crowe [00:58:38] When I, when I, as I watch it, I think, well, they've never done that many votes where they've just sent 'em out by mail and they've never done these things, and they've never done those things. And so I think you would be foolish to say there's no chance that this was not fraud. Like there's just no, like, so many things changed in the United States that it's possible, however, I'm with you, we have to have a DA dominant narrative. And it doesn't do us any good to be like, let's be in this middle place. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. Let's choose a path and go forward because you otherwise we don't have a country.

Claire Fox [00:59:15] Yeah. And, and also you can have fraud in it. Not necessarily. I mean, I'm not saying fraud is good. You can have fraud in it. Oh, I, I, I, it seems to me that there was pockets of fraud. I mean, I don't know the detail, but there's pockets of frauds seem convincing. That's not the same as saying that Trump would, if you see what I mean. But, but what, but you are right. The thing that's changed is the disbelief on either side. And at the moment, all I'm saying is, is that the Democrats are in a hugely important position because they can stop some of the more egregious polarization happening if they play it well. It's just, I'm not seeing much sign of that. I mean, the opposite. I mean, I just think be classy, guys, you know, don't do this, you know, don't, don't pursue this in this way. You, you coming over as being too vicious too. You know, you don't need to do that. Best let you know, Trump kind of disappear in the wilderness if you want. But, but, but, but what they're doing is not having the impact of, of making Trumpism go away. It will turn it into a, a Marty narrative that will fuel it. So it seems stupid.

Vance Crowe [01:00:29] I I completely agree with this, that like you've never seen a basketball game where the winning team like celebrates and mocks the other people, and you're like, oh, that was good decision. I'm glad you did that. That made the whole thing better. It only make it only, and with it being people's real lives and with people feeling like the decisions that they're making are gonna reshape my entire life, or my entire future, or whether I have my gun or whether I can educate my child the way that I want. I mean, this is not a thing to flaunt in people's faces.

Claire Fox [01:01:02] Yeah. And, and at the very least, I Yes, that's exactly right. I mean, I, I suppose the, the point that I would make is, is that they could try now, because if you win you have to then try and take people with you. But the bitterness is a very deep, and, you know, there's a big argument here about whether brexiters or people who voted Brexit were too, too ungracious to the remain voters. And, you know, they could have, could be more generous. And I think if, if actually the referendum results had happened and been enacted straight away in 2016, that wouldn't have happened. But because things got so bitter for four years, people turn into enemies, you know, real enemies. And I mean, you know, that's what it's like in America now. I know. It's what it's like. It's still like that here. I mean, people are vicious. I mean, you know, it's not just families falling out. I mean, it's, people are vicious. I mean, you know, there's a kind of thing, this is not even whether you are a conservative or a laborer or whether you are left wing or right wing, but, you know, it's kind of what side you were on in the Brexit war. You know, people won't go out with somebody who voted remain or vice versa. You know, all of these things feel as though they're permanently in place at dividing us. And so that's a very unhelpful thing. That's why I just think it's a shame that the pursuit of Donald Trump is taking the form of a changes in the law that will effectively, you know, potentially criminalize even be the kind of person who might have voted for him.

Claire Fox [01:02:35] Well, and I mean, that's very dangerous myself. And I don't think it was a coup, I I, your assessment of it is, is was spot on for me. But, you know, surely even that should be discussed, you know? Okay. You think it was like, not you, somebody thinks it was a, like a coup either people say, well, no, it's not a coup. Some people say it is a fascist, and people say he's not a fascist in a mature democracy. They are exactly the sort of things that you should be able to talk about, not say, if you take one side of that, that proves you're a fascist who wants a coon, which is effectively what's being said and also proves by the way, and then they might as well throw it all in. So they then say, by the way, you are also a racist who are also this, you're also that. And, you know, people do feel, and this sort of sense of unfairness, or there's one rule for them, and one rule for us, I think it's very important to grasp at the moment, because people do feel that, well, what happens in relation to the, the riots in the US around race questions in the summer were treated differently, right? Than the way the, the, the attack on Capitol Hill. And I think that they, they, they, I can understand why people feel that frustration. You know, that you'll be bemused to know him. I mean, if you go on an anti lockdown demonstration here, there's, they're very small. But you know, if you go on one, you get rounded up, you get arrested, you get called a COVID idiot, a denier and find enormously, and sometimes put in jail, if you go on a Black Lives Matters demo, that doesn't happen to you.

Claire Fox [01:04:13] And what's more is the Extinction Rebellion. Protestors seem to be forever out and about doing things and seem to get away with it right? Now you can imagine, right? You to, to, to ordinary people. They're looking and they're thinking, why is that? Then why come if you are an environmentalist on an Extinction Rebellion demo, or you are a critical race theorist, activist and a Black Lives Matters demo, you know? But then I want to go on a demonstration that says we shouldn't close down the whole of Stockport because there's never gonna be any industry anymore, and we don't think it's right that I'm treated like a pariah and they're not.

Vance Crowe [01:04:53] Well. And, and justice, justice is one of those things that if you've been surrounded by it your whole life, it's like water. You don't really understand what it's like to be in a position where you feel like there was an injustice and no one's coming to help you. I, I'm reminded, I lived for two years with a guy from Afghanistan. He was a Fulbright scholar, and he told me something, and I remember where I was when I heard it because it shocked me so much. He said, when the Taliban came into Afghanistan, the people welcomed them. And if you think the people don't welcome them right now, you are wrong. The reason that they welcomed them is that the Taliban, when they came in, they enacted justice. Now you could go to somebody that would serve as a judge, and it, they weren't a warlord, they didn't like take bribes. They didn't, they had a system and they installed it. And once it was installed, then everybody knew where their place was and how they fit. And that was stability. And they would rather have that with the incredible rece repressive measures that they put in than having fueling warlords that, that never really knew who was gonna get justice when and where. And when I think about that, I think nobody wants that, but they would choose it over being unstable. I think that's an important thing to remember right now. Yeah,

Claire Fox [01:06:09] I I think one of the most vile things about authoritarianism, you know, author totalitarian regimes, is the arbitrary nature of them is the arbitrary nature of terror. Knowing, you know, not knowing whether they will come for you not, you know, it is not even that there's a set of rules, it's the fact that somebody can make the rules up as they go along, right? So as you say, it's not even the repression, it's that, you know, if you think about East, east Europe or, or you know, under understand and East Germany and the Stasi and all that, it's like somebody could listen into your conversation privately and report you, you not even for doing anything, but for saying wrong thing, you know, saying the wrong thing around the dinner table, all of these kind of things. Well, that's how people feel at the moment. They feel as though it's all a bit arbitrary, right? They don't know what rules it is. They're breaking. And when, you know, I want to make clear for your listeners, you know, pretty obviously, but just to clear, be clear, black lives do matter. Of course they do. We're talking about a systematic though rewriting of fighting racism around identity politics in which you can be arbitrarily called a racist because you don't sign up to an academic way of looking at identity politics if you don't go along or use the correct language, you can be damned as a racist. That is like tyrannical rule where you can't even be sure that you won't have your motives imp p no matter what you think.

Claire Fox [01:07:46] So, you know, it doesn't, you know, you can be the nicest person, the, the, the, you know, with the best intentions in the world, if somebody listening to you decides to dub you a bigot, you can be done over. And that is a frightening place to be.

Vance Crowe [01:07:59] And I'll tell you the, the, when I think about that, I think about the thing called struggle sessions. And I always ask people when they start talking about identity politics, have you ever heard of struggle sessions? And most people are like, no, they have no idea stadiums would be filled with people. And just regular people marched in there and they had to talk about why their privilege allowed them to do these things, and it wasn't fair. And they should, they regret all of it, and they would wear heavy chains and hats that would pull their heads down. And that is like the step that we are in now actually occurred in Maoist China before the struggle sessions. So if we're seeing this happen, what is it that we can do to block before that next step? Because I don't want struggle sessions for anybody.

Claire Fox [01:08:48] Yeah. But like, I I, I, I'm afraid, I think we've gone past that point. I mean, I think in, in American universities and the UK universities, those struggle sessions are happening. I mean, they're happening increasingly. And you think about that letter that was in Vanity Fair, that that happened, I mean, God, it, the, the, it is hard to remember it now, but it was a letter by liberals against cancel culture. I mean, the most liberal types, if you remember got,

Vance Crowe [01:09:17] I

Claire Fox [01:09:17] Don't remember this case,

Vance Crowe [01:09:18] Gimme the

Claire Fox [01:09:19] Whole story. That, that the Vanity Fa published a, a, a signature signed letter by hundreds of people, arts and literary and academic types who basically said, you know, we as effectively said, we as kind of lefty liberals are worried about the fact that lefty liberals are canceling people and cancel culture is

Vance Crowe [01:09:42] Problem. Oh,

Claire Fox [01:09:43] So

Vance Crowe [01:09:43] No, they're in trouble.

Claire Fox [01:09:44] Exactly. And they, I mean, I, I, that's the best way of explaining what it was. But anyway, no sooner had the letter come out than there was attempts at canceling all the people who'd signed the letter and saying, why so and so on there and why so, and then some people denouncing people who'd signed it, and people who had signed it being surrounded in their struggle session by their friends saying, why are you signing on a letter with that person? And then they say, I now want to withdraw my signature and all of this kind of thing. I, I, I think that the, the atmosphere of the kind of Maoist cultural revolution that you described so well in the struggle sessions is really happening now. People are being asked to denounce their views. You know, the slogan that came out during the summer of silence is violence is an incredibly passive aggressive threatening slogan because it, it doesn't say that you, it doesn't, it's not even a, an attack on your free speech. It basically says you have to speak compelled speech. You have to say what we say otherwise, it's the equivalent, you know, silence if you say silent, if you don't go along with us, right? You are being violent and the violence was associated with the brutal killing of a black man by police officers. So, you know, immediately you find that if you don't reiterate the given narrative of a particular organization, you are put into the same position as somebody who has just killed a black person because of their skin color.

Claire Fox [01:11:17] I mean, it's impossible. That is the end of freedom of conscience. And it's like a kind of equivalent struggles session.

Vance Crowe [01:11:25] Well, it's, you know, one of the fun fundamental, it's

Claire Fox [01:11:27] Frightening time.

Vance Crowe [01:11:28] One of the fundamental discoveries during the enlightenment was that if you don't know the answer to something, if you en encounter a philosophical argument, it is okay for you to not have an answer for, for there to be like a, we don't know. Whereas when you're living in some sort of religious society, there are no unknowns there. Like, we know everything already and everyone must come to this conclusion because if you don't, you're not a part of the religion. And that the important philosophical discovery that we had as we were moving out of the dark ages was, it's okay for us to draw a line and say there are things that either we don't know as a group or I myself don't know, and therefore the act of not making an assertion is actually a philosophical charity or something. It's, it's the right thing to do.

Claire Fox [01:12:22] I think that's absolutely right. I, I mean, I I I I'm worried that I'm coming over as being overly pessimistic, but I think there are some

Vance Crowe [01:12:30] Very, well, you do think the struggle sessions are already here and we're headed that way. So it wasn't

Claire Fox [01:12:34] Exactly optimistic. IIII don't want to be, I don't want to be too the, the, the one thing that I suppose that the only thing that, or or to, to have a more po slightly more positive take on it. One of the things that's happened in relation to having a state now in the UK anyway, but also the rest in Europe and partly in America, that has effectively taken it upon itself to remove freedoms through this lockdown period and to deprive people of everyday decisions in relation to their own liberty has, at very least, and this is the only positive, bit, reminded people what freedom is and what it feels like not to be free rather horrendously, rather, a lot of people have gone along with it without even a murmur, but most people realize they don't like it. And even the everyday freedoms, or suddenly when you're deprived of them, you know, and the, you know, you're not allowed to meet more than one person outside. I mean, you know, so freedom of association is completely banned freedom of speech completely on the right. But what that's done is it is shone a spotlight on freedom, and it gives those of us who care about freedom and see it as a foundational value and the opportunity to remake the arguments for freedom. Because at these people, you know, it is not irrelevant to discuss it. It's become a key issue. And I think actually as it happens, the, even the kind of struggle sessions that the, the kind of, the way that identity politics suddenly was in the spotlight over the summer in particular, but it carries on of course, in different forms being in the spotlight in both the US and in the uk because it is, it is suddenly not just something that people discuss on university campuses.

Claire Fox [01:14:27] Everybody knows about it now. And that again, gives you an opportunity to have those debates and discussions without sounding like as though you are kind of banging on some sort of, you know, there's only a few people who people say, oh, he cares about statues, you know, it's just sort of thing university students do. Then suddenly everybody cares about statues. What's your attitude on statues becomes a big thing. This just kind of has universalized the conversation. And partly the fact that the whole world has gone through coronavirus means that also we have an opportunity to understand a little bit about the way we've all gone through this same experience. I mean, it will have taken different forms. And so I think that the more po the, the positive thing going forward is how we use this time, how we use the next time when we're going back to normal to ensure that those conversations are really given maximum amplification.

Vance Crowe [01:15:21] Well, I have to say that for me, I really resisted the masks. I hate them, right? Like, and it's because I am a communicator. I love watching people's faces and seeing are they smiling? Are they happy? Are they aggressive? Are they whatever? But I had a, my wife and I had a baby during coronavirus, and I don't think I would've been so keyed into how important it is to develop the emotional visual language on your face had it not been for the masks. Because one of the things that I discovered is like a baby from the first four to six weeks, it only has crying and not crying. So it's a hostage taker, right? But as soon as it gets to smiling, which is about six weeks, now all of a sudden it can negotiate with you and it spends over a year from that point until it can learn how to speak not having words. And so most of our communication, more foundational than the words you and I are using is the emotional visual language. And because of the masks, I've been so much more focused on that. But then the more focused I've become on it, actually, the more terrified I have been. The masks have got to go. We need to push them out as fast as is humanly possible. And

Claire Fox [01:16:37] It's horrible because here people, you know, in the public health, you know, the kind of leading public health types are saying, well, even when we get back to a situation whereby we can stop locking down and relax some of the restrictions, the masks will stay forever. And, and, you know, you just think this must be a threat, right? But you know, your point about, and congratulations by the way, but your, your point about your baby is that I, I'm sort of understanding something there. I mean, I was really shocked when a friend said to me, you've got to understand that my baby has never seen anyone apart from, you know, me and her dad without a mask on for nine months. You know, she's never seen anyone else's faces but ours, right? And I, I I, I was reminded of that because I was on a particularly long tube journey, and there was a little child, you know, baby with, with her mother opposite, who was kind of distracted. And I was of course smiling and, you know, kind of like, and then I realized I had the bloody mask on, right? And the child judge me. I mean, you could say, how foolish am I? But I realized that I, I like, like you say, you know, on Tuesday when there's, I kind of smile and, you know, and all this sort of thing, and I realized that the child couldn't see any of that. I had this big black thing over my face, and I, I was so sad that I, I mean, you know, that I didn't, and even in those passing forms of communication or what we do without thinking about it, right?

Claire Fox [01:18:14] So that child doesn't know me, doesn't care. But you learn something about human beings when you are a baby and people smile at you, whereas all your singers is, all you are seeing is this array of masks is not the same. So I think that's sort of a good analogy to my point about freedom, which is you do learn to appreciate some of the aspects of public life, civil society, social interaction, social solidarity that we've been deprived of. And I, I think we need to make a case for bringing them back as quickly as possible as, as you just explained.

Vance Crowe [01:18:50] So Claire, I could clearly talk to you all night, but, but I'm gonna wrap up, but I have a question for you. You're now the man, right? You're a Baroness, you're in the government, and yet you have been a person that has pushed back on, you know, tyrannical rules or the things that you didn't want to see. What guidance do you have for people on how they ratchet up, how they're heard by their government? You know, it goes from voting to protest to civil disobedience. Like what should people know that have never gone through the fight that you've gone through?

Claire Fox [01:19:25] Oh, God, I, I'm not even sure, but, but right, so first of all, there's no, there's no, at the moment, there's no right to protest in the uk if you did that, just get arrested. And people keep saying to me, well, what can we do? We can't even do that. And I'm, I'm afraid that my advice at the moment is to bide one's time. Because until things go back to normal, it's gonna be very difficult. But what, what I would say is to avoid yourself getting dragged into the sewer and to, and to not cature one's opponents, to try and set an example. We have to not succumb to a kind of fatalism that says it's always gonna be like this. So we have to have a sort of sense of what we want. So you've just done a really ex a good example. What do we want the world to be like when COVID is gone, right? And you say, take the masks off, appreciate human communication. And you know, it is that kind of thing, right? That's actually a positive vision. Not constantly saying, we are never going to, you know, we, you know, not giving into this idea that this is the way it has to be, but to start describing the way that we want the world to be. You know, the new, the, the, the, the old normal comes back and we appreciate this, this, this, and this about it. And start making the arguments for that now so that people don't just say, oh, well we've got used to wearing masks. What's wrong with it? Say, no, we shouldn't do that. You know, I'm not saying take your masks off now if it's not safe. I'm saying the reason why masks are a tyranny is because it stops us communicating with each other.

Claire Fox [01:21:00] And so there are temporary necessity. We should not make a virtue of that necessity. And just as I say, not to ture one's opponents, because I think we all have an obligation now not to try and stir up or fuel the animosities and the polarizations that are so toxically destroying any sense of social solidarity. And as I say that, it doesn't mean you don't have to believe things, or it doesn't mean that you don't have to, it doesn't mean you have to sit there and go this side versus that side, because you might well be on one side of the argument, but just not if you are on that side of the argument to treat your opponents in the way that you know, is gonna just immediately antagonize them. So to try and take people seriously, you know, and, and, and, and avoid being the troll that you hate yourself, that sort of thing. So, but it's a time, you know, we have to bite our time. I mean, what we are doing at the Academy of Ideas is we've just launched a new series of things called pamphlets, called Letters on Liberty, making the point that we need to, we need to remake arguments we took for granted before in terms of freedom. You know, you can't just say free speech anymore, expect anyone to agree with you because you've gotta remake arguments. You've gotta find new ways of bringing arguments to life. And pamphlet hearing was a hugely important part of the emergence of the public sphere in the uk historically, people went were, well, you know, pamphleteer discussing the pamphlets in the pub, and so they're a bit old fashioned, but we physically made these pamphlets so that we make the point, we are going back to pamphleteer, even though obviously they're online as well.

Claire Fox [01:22:36] And, and we are carrying on doing our Zoom debates. And the reason I'm saying that is because I think you have to then say, okay, we might be locked down for two more months. We might have this to face, we might have that today, but we are not being thwarted, we're not giving in, we're gonna carry on. Don't allow yourself to be intellectually locked down. It doesn't mean at the moment. So when you say, how do you, how do you make an impression on politicians? The final thing I suppose, which is the political elites in both countries have no more contact with the public than you or I do if you're locked down. That's the point, is, in a way, the public sphere is evaporated. And so sadly they're dependence on, you know, polling, you know, those hideous polls and the media far too in influential in representing what the public thinks. And then they kind of look at social media as well, and they think, oh, they're all lunatics. I, I think we need to rebuild, rebuild the public sphere so that we start to have a voice. Because the political, the politicians, in my opinion, realize they're in a bubble, but dunno how to get out of it. And so we've gotta find ways of talking to them that's not just screaming at them. I don't know. But that at the moment means writing, it means podcasts. It means getting them out and get encouraging. People

Vance Crowe [01:23:57] Should be sending their, I think people should be sending their representatives this podcast over and over and over again,

Claire Fox [01:24:03] That sort of thing, and just make them think there's another way of considering this.

Vance Crowe [01:24:08] Well, Barness Claire Fox, it is always a pleasure. If people wanted to learn more about the, the Academy of Ideas and how to find you, where would they do that?

Claire Fox [01:24:19] So that's academy of ideas.org.uk. And I, I look forward to hearing from you. And yes, you can contact me, look at the Academy of Ideas website. If you wanna email me, find me on Twitter, on Fox Claire and I can even be contacted at the House of Lords in the public domain. Should you wish to email me there?

Vance Crowe [01:24:41] Well, I can tell you that I really enjoy watching your speeches from the House of Lords, so keep posting them. It's great for you. And I'm, I'm, I'm really impressed with your pursuit for sovereignty, without blood, without anything. You did it through the mechanisms and we can all learn something from that.

Claire Fox [01:24:59] Thank you

Vance Crowe [01:24:59] Very.