The Battle for Britain and Beyond | Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg

I have a little courage it's very easy in UK politics say what you think if you're on the right people have the real Carriage are um people like um uh the the lady who ran for the leadership of the SMP and what a party at the left expressed civil abuse because she was absolutely pillared for that and it was thought the tummy of her views could not stand for a quote uh Progressive Party now the ride there is much more tolerance the the right in modern times is the party of Tolerance whereas the left has become intolerant [Music] the right honorable Jacob Reese MOG is the conservative Member of Parliament for Northeast Somerset in the west country of England along with other senior political officers he previously served as the leader of the House of Commons and the Lord president of the council the fourth of the great officers of state in the United Kingdom he's the author of three books and he hosts State Of The Nation on GB news Jacob thank you so very much for your time here in London in your own home it's it's very good of you indeed oh it's great pleasure thank you for coming you've had a much longer Journey wow yes it is a long way from Australia to Britain but always worth the trip now it would be fair to say that you're a conservative both I think by party affiliation and by uh for your own philosophical approach many were deride conservatism and due to Rider today is a mere preservation of the status quo against change against progress in your view can you just give us a feel how would you describe the philosophy of conservatism and why you believe in it yes I think the idea that conservatism is just against change is wrong I think what conservatism is about is first of all an understanding of human nature and then the relationship of the individual to the stage and how Society is created and how through that you create the best most successful most prosperous society and part of that is constitutional that we have learned that if you have a constitution that is based on freedom of speech the rights of property the rule of law and democracy you become prosperous if you look at all the most prosperous countries in the world they have those four aspects to their Constitution and the people who seek to change that the radicals are ones I think risk our prosperity but you also want to look at the proportionality of the state does the state need to do it because the state is built up from individuals not the other way around the family um in terms of weird 13th in his encyclical realm Nevada Pride States the state and therefore it has rights and freedoms that lead to the creation of the state and that seems to me to be a conservative underpinning of the policies that one then wants to implement as a politician where do you think a conservative can find touch points in other political philosophies that they can constructively engage with and work with and if you like respect well I I think there is an element of conservatism that touches with liberalism that if you take economics the 19th century liberal economic prescription is one that is pretty attractive it ties in with allowing people to get on with their own lives with understanding the Primacy of individual liberty and then applies it in an economic field which has gained the tag of economic liberalism but I think it's not in any way in contradiction to conservatism I know in my own country I found in my earlier days in the Parliament that whilst I vehemently disagreed with their approach to the management of the economy and so forth there were some of the old-fashioned if I can use that word socialists in terms of their objectives you know picking up the disadvantaged the marginalized and trying to ensure that they were part of Family Australia gave me a basis upon which I could at least talk and then discuss the reasons that I didn't think their actual policies were the right way to achieve them but there was something at a human level that we could communicate on now what I'm driving at is that that seems to be being washed out of the system now unless you agree with me and unless you're aligned with my philosophy I think I agree with you on both parts that it was very noticeable in the last general election the red war in the UK that Boris managed to appeal to and get to vote conservative why did they vote conservative well it was an alignment of values but they hadn't changed their values so much as the labor party had abandoned its value so what what do these people live in they were patriotic they loved their country now the lame party in the UK historically had been a very Patriotic Party Jeremy corbyn wasn't he was very much an internationalist very suspicious of patriotism um he'd been in talks with the political wing of the RA in the 1980s he'd been sympathetic to those hostile to the nation state and that was rejected by labor voters and I also agree with your point about wanting um to lift all boats that the traditional socialist wanted people who were leased well off to be better off now they seem to be much more focused on what have become called woke issues on what you say and what you think and if you disagree you are a bad person and that's a big change in in politics I wouldn't say it's yet infected the House of Commons but in broader politics I think particularly for younger people they do feel that if they express a view that isn't fashionable they are um deemed to be a bad person if I can come to the term social conservatism can I ask you how you would describe that and why you see it as good for society particularly in the context of the the line I've always thought it was a bit of a home goal with people in the conservative country of movement in this country saying we're seen as the nasty party well the emergency say we're seen that way you're you've allowed others to Define you and you're owning it it seems to me but that's an aside social conservatism and why it's good for for society well I think it's an important aside I never thought that conservative party was the nasty party I remember that speech made by Theresa may very well because the next day I was speaking to a conservative group and it was in Shropshire the conservative women's group and there you had all these people who had worked for years for the conservative party who also did all the charitable work in their local communities then they ran the village fate all those sorts of things and suddenly they'd been told they were nasty so I thought it was wrong foolish thing to say and misunderstood what conservatism is about again back to my point on the family being the building block of society rather than the other way around and therefore of the of the state the conservatives ought to support the family because it helps individuals in their lives the successor people who are brought up in a stable family is statistically better than those who are not brought up in a staple family but the bite is very important it's not for politicians to be judgmental on how others lead their lives but it is for politicians to allow people the freedom to lead their lives what we have currently in the UK and I don't know if this is also true in Australia there's a benefit in tax system that is actively hostile to the family you are worse off in a family than not in a family this can't be sensible so I don't want to go back to a time where you stigmatize people living in other groupings or make their life more difficult or make it harder for single parent families who have a pretty tough time for all sorts of reasons I don't want to penalize or pillory them but I do want to support the traditional family because I think it's helpful for society overall and I suspect is is important in terms of economic outcomes ultimately well I think that's absolutely right that if you if you look at success at school if you look at the prison population and you correlate that with um children in care it's a particularly difficult picture if you correlate it with broken homes altogether it is a difficult picture so the stability that you get from being in a traditional family is very helpful to people growing up and to their families as I say this doesn't mean you want to criticize people whose lives haven't worked out that way or have made other choices they must be free to do that but you don't want to have policies that actually make family life harder we do seem to be living in an age of sort of quite radical self-autonomy you know um the idea that somehow the greatest virtue is that I am who I feel almost that I am and that sometimes I think creates awkward Dynamics in that set of Virtues is not particularly friendly to community including family it can be a bit Anarchy an archaic a bit you know anti-organized government and and stability and certainly anti-religion so you've got a bit of a clash there with this modern idea I think of the virtue of self-autonomy and what we've seen as the essential ingredients of a cohesive and Cooperative Society well people can identify as they wish they're completely free to do it but am I obliged to accept how they identify it was in the papers recently that somebody had come to United Kingdom from America and had identified as being British well that doesn't entitle him to a passport and he may think he's British marvelous I'm not in favor of people thinking that restricting but that doesn't entitle you to the rights of a British citizen it doesn't give you a vate it doesn't give you a passport it doesn't give you a National Insurance number and so I think people are entitled to say what they wish it's a free country but equally others are entitled not to change their behavior in accordance with somebody's whim this has been the genius I think of Western uh civilization over the last few hundred years we've evolved to the point until it seems recently that we were able to accommodate one another's deepest differences in a way that's been quite unique and one worries a little that it's under attack yes I I think there is an intolerance um and the intolerance mainly comes from the left not from the right I I see this uh on I do a television program for GB news I see this with some people that I interview that people on the right who I disagree with don't automatically think that I'm a bad person because of it some people on the left just assume if you disagree you must be bad and the right very rarely feels that towards the left intolerance is a bad thing it's bad for the cohesion of society but it's also a desperate arrogance because if you look at human history you go back all through whatever records there are we make terrible mistakes we all believe things which then turn out a hundred years later to have been wrong unpleasant false based on bad information but therefore one ought to have a certain humility about one's own views and images um talking of certainties we've got a very vigorous debate going on in all of our countries now about uh you know the whole issue of transgender identity and and I think you've been on record of saying that Single Sex spaces need protection and we've seen some very ugly clashes over this in Australia and we read of some Terrible Things having happened in this country frankly where there have there's been a lack of protection particularly for women in certain situations um how do you think this debate might unfold what would you say is that from your perspective there's the right way to understand philosophically transgenderism and the trans movement well I I think that the real issue is about the protection of women that the Single Sex space is uh for women are there to protect them from Men and a man who wakes up in the morning and says actually I'm a woman says I can go into a woman's changing room should not be allowed to do so and in my view most reasonable people think that is the case you you cannot self-identify without going through any procedure or any medical interaction as of an opposite sex I'd expect to be treated in that way and we've seen this with um sporting activities as well and so I think it's really just common sense it's not particularly difficult at the moment this is what most people think I think that's what my constituents overwhelmingly think that doesn't mean that there will be a small number of people as very distinguished historian James Morris who became John Morris who um had an operation and so on so forth and lived as a woman and I think if people go through that full procedure then it's a very different situation I still wouldn't necessarily say they could compete in female competitions because they have an inherent advantage of the male physique you've taken a position that would be Not Unusual in conservative politics in America in relation to being pro-life but in your country and in mine and many other Western countries it's anathema why is it that there are such different perspectives in America you know it's a subject of fierce debate but there's no debate it's a sort of it's a dead deal we're not going to reopen it yawn go back to sleep you you know you're just out of order sort of approach uh in so many other cultures how does that a differentiation arise and how do you how do we understand it it's it's very interesting I wouldn't necessarily want the UK to have the U.S politicization of Life issues because I think they are above and beyond Party politics I think politicians have closed it down because it's too awkward but I think they're out of touch with voters now I'm not saying that voters take my view because I don't think they do I I think they don't take the Catholic Church there's the starting point on where life begins but where they do disagree with the consensus uh is as far as opinion piling is concerned they are strongly against in the UK sex selective abortions which I think are wrong they are increasingly concerned about allying abortions up to full term for any disability which is I think a terrible thing that happens in this country and the bulk of the population are actively against this when asked and they also would mostly like to see um and interestingly more women than men a reduction in the number of weeks from 24 weeks down to a lower level and and I think politicians shy away from it because they think you're either proportion to full term or you're against it after the moment of conception which in fact the bulk of Voters in Britain would like to see greater control greater safeguards and um the removal of things that are clearly wrong I mean the the abortion term of disabled babies is to my mind so wrong we have a society that has become increasingly sympathetic to and helpful to the disabled but only once they're born before that ball they are disposable I just think this is awful but so do most of the British people I must say that I think one of the most insightful commentators in contemporary Britain and somebody I must say I'm very fond of personally is the amazing Peter Hitchens uh but he makes a case at the conservative party hasn't really been conservative for a couple of decades any comments on that uh how do you feel about his perspectives do you share them are you optimistic that in fact The Embers can be stuck back into a fire blow share your high regard for petitions I think he is a very interesting thinker and a good writer and challenges conservatives in an effective uh way whilst being broadly on our side I think the conservative party lost its confidence after Tony Blair won three elections in a row and we came to conclusion between 2005 and 2010 that the only way to be elected was to be a bit more like new labor and we tried that we then still didn't win the election but we have then governed in that way or certainly who did in the Coalition because we had no choice to live dance with her then we haven't had much of a majority in 20 until 2019 then when we got a majority we were hit by cavid and we're dealing with brexit which was a very conservative thing to do but was slightly above and beyond conservatism so I think there is truth in his analysis and what conservatives need to do is to make the case we need to make the case for conservatism why will this make people better off why is it the Archbishop of Canterbury who I actually held in very high regard I think he is a genuinely highly man was speaking about immigration yesterday and saying that um the policy of sending people to Rwanda was immoral now we need to make the case for why conservatism is in fact moral and good in my view sending people to Rwanda is moral and good because it breaks the Stranglehold of people traffickers on an illegal trade that is risking people's lives coming across the channel that seems to be a morally good thing to do and it requires action to be taken to deter people from coming and the best way of doing that that we have been able to come up with is to send them to Rwanda and actually Australia did something similar and reduced the number of deaths of people trying to get to Australia because you had people coming in leaky boats and all sorts of terrible things large numbers a day large numbers of deaths and those stopped now surely that is moral and conservatives shouldn't be frightened of making the moral case when the left is making the moral case against us I think he raised two really interesting points there that I I feel paper on the center of the center right are not as good at as people from the left the first is make the case build a constituency I hear some of those who have followed me saying John there's no constituency for economic reform or for tax reform or for debt reduction I don't know there ever was you've got to go out and build it you've got to make the case and then the second point that I think you raise is that the left is extraordinarily good at prefacing every policy prescription or pronouncement with a moral statement they go to the heart first and then try if they ever do to reach the head where's center right people tend to be cold analytical this is the way we'll do it because this is the way to go to Sweet set of numbers we've got to I think if it's an economic argument for example State the moral case good economics is good outcomes for people we're not very good at it completely agree with you um you have to make the case it's very interesting um you will know this better than I do but I believe not that many years ago Australia was thinking about introducing identity cards an opinion polls trade something like 80 of people were in favor of identity cards the case was then made against identity cards at which point about 80 of people were against identity cards and one should make the case and not be too influenced by opinion polls if I say to you would you like more taxes to fund the NHS you will all be probably wait but most people say yes because why it's a good and nice thing to do when I come to you and say okay can I have an extra five percent of your income you say no why should I give you that and you've got to think through what people mean in opinion polls and whether they are just saying something that they think sounds good and nice to the person they're talking to or whether they absolutely believe and understand the case and conservatives need to make the case better and we need to show that actually our well thought through prescriptions are more caring and better for society as a whole than the labor party is wearing its heart on its sleeve I can think of another area where opinion Pals say everybody's demanding action and we've got to tackle the problem it's called climate change but then if you turn around and ask how much they're prepared to pay for it it turns out to be not very much I don't think it's a very honest debate I know in my own country it really worries me that that everyone's saying we want action I think we're responsible for one point one percent now and net terms of global emissions even though we're a major energy exporter but everyone wants action and what worries me as a social impact when people realize how expensive that action is because they're not being told they're actually being I think nothing short of misled when they're told that the switch to Renewables will reduce power cost there's no evidence of that anywhere in the world for a variety of reasons you know renewable energy is basically only cheap once you put the infrastructure there during the 30 of the time that the wind and the sun blow filling in the gaps makes it a very expensive way to go and yet there's no acknowledgment there's no honest dealing with people and I think they're just in the long term I worry that it just builds more cynicism well I think you're absolutely right we had the second reading of an energy bill a couple of days ago in Parliament and this will put huge costs on consumers this ignores the fact that last September when Energy prices went up nobody was willing to pay them but the reason Energy prices went up was at least in part because of the effort to get to Net Zero why do I say that well we haven't done the things that we would otherwise have done to ensure our own energy Supply we had I had something of a moratorium on issuing licenses to drill in the North Sea we hadn't got on with the extracting Shale gas so once you don't get the basic resource of fossil fuels you find you've got a shortage prices go up and what happens when prices go up people say to the government this is impossible we must be bailed out so the government that intervenes to subsidize the costs that the government itself has created and this is it's absolute Madness and ultimately voters went down for it because governments don't have any money so when you get your energy bill and it's a third of what it might have been because of a government subsidy that two-thirds is still being paid by you it's just being paid in taxation rather than on your energy bill you you I think I'm correct in saying a strong supporter of brexit yes um since then we've had covert we've had endless drawn out negotiations and so forth and the perception that the British economy is not doing well that it faces ongoing headwinds like most western economies a lot of unfunded liabilities coming down the road that nobody's really focusing on and it would probably prefer everyone forgot about you're essentially optimistic of course what's the road map for Britain if it's to recover its prosperity and opportunities for people from where it stands now as you said it's a very general question I know but you will have thought about it a lot I know that the thing about brexit is that first and foremost it's about democracy who should govern us should it be the people elected in the UK or should it be unelected people in Brussels now the risk with that is that we might elect worse people in the bureaucrats in Brussels that's not impossible we might have elected Jeremy corbyn but we're entitled to do it but if Jeremy corbyn had had a mandate he would have been entitled to carry it out now having said that I have a very clear view of what I think we should be doing economically but to go back to our earlier point I have to sell that to the electorate so they will want to vote conservative to do it and what is that well it's free trade I'm delighted we have got a free trade agreement with Australia which will have a much bigger economic effect than the model is uh predicting that um uh the gravity models of trade uh don't work they're out of date don't really understand how Services work either so I think that's a really positive action we need more of those and we need to be bold about free trade because actually unilateral free trade makes you more prosperous we need to deregulate the government's just given up on repealing EU rules we need to cut through vast ways of EU rules say that we can be a more competitive economy because EU regulation was all about creating a protected market for European country companies within a European sphere we want to have an open market that is low cost that people will want to invest in and will come here to invest in but also sell their goods into which benefits UK consumers so it's about open free market economics low regulation and looking globally and our relationship with Australia is very important in this the free trade deal but also August because I think we have a role as a global strategic player as well as simply a global trading partner I was very interested in just teasing out this issue of why you believe that the trade agreement between Australia and UK will be of more value presumably to both economies than people have realized yes the forecast has been done on base of gravity models and gravity models are inherently unreliable so economists work through them on what would happen if the UK joined the Euro and thought it would boost our trade initially by 300 then revised down to 200 uh with the European union now there was no evidence for this in the countries that did join the Euro gravity models assume that your trade will be more with the Nations to which are closest but actually that misses out that so much of trade is now in Services which aren't particularly sensitive to distance but also the transport costs shipping costs are relatively low and relatively low proportion of the total cost of sales so you've tended to find and certainly um Australia and the US found that the removal of trade barriers led to much faster increases in trade than were predicted by the models well that's good news um to return to the broader economic outcome or outlook for Britain and this has always been an Innovative country the if the structures are right one assumes that Britain's capacity to reinvent itself and go forward is sound but at the moment it looks a bit green and in particular you've got a lot of underfunded liabilities coming towards you pension schemes and so on and so forth how do you see it more broadly um I I think you encapsulate it very well that the basic constitutional settlement is sound and it supports the rights of property and freedom of speech so you tend not to have a corrupt political settlement and that's pretty fundamental to prosperity in the long run but we have put burdens on ourselves that have made us less competitive so we've become the highest tax that we've been in 70 years we've adopted e-regulations which makes us a highly regulated economy how do you deal with that well we have the ability to do that through Parliament if we can get conservative messages across and can move to a more efficient uh open market so that must be the aim economically for the UK can we do that yes I think we can because as you say we have the right foundations in place we often refer to the British Parliament as the mother of the parliament and it's very easy I think to overlook that really modern Freedom modern Liberty Springs from Britain there are people who think that's an Antiquated view or very relevant or whatever I don't think it is at all it's not France it wasn't the French Revolution not America in fact but from Britain and I just wonder whether younger britons really understand how important Liberty is to a flourishing society and maybe the love for Liberty is if you like being squashed by calls for sustainability for diversity for safety for comfort a little unthinkingly perhaps I mean I think you're right I think the teaching of history in schools is not what it was so people used to be taught the kings and queens of England and that was their base for understanding English and then British history and through that you understood how our liberties had evolved and whether that's from Magna Carta in 1215 or it's the um Glorious Revolution in 1688 or the great Reform Bill In 1832 you you saw how Liberty was um bought effectively and how power went from the autocratic arms of the state to the Democratic arms of the state and the great thing about the U.S Constitution is that it is an aim to codify and perfect the British constitution which the writers of it greatly admired and it's absolutely fascinating if you look at the U.S Bill of Rights it includes in it the right to bear arms the right to bear arms is in the British the English strictly Bill of Rights though oddly ours is the right to bear arms for the maintenance of a Protestant militia that's a Catholic I'm quite glad has fallen out of fashion but but the U.S Constitution has things on acts of attained there won't happen well active attained had actually stopped happening um by the 1780s in the UK anyway but they were trying to stop things that they thought of as abuses and put them in their constitution so if you look at the history of Liberty I absolutely agree with you it emerges from um the English political approach helped by the Scottish uh joining in at a later stage and interestingly you can trace it back to the Anglo-Saxons that the Normans adopt quite a lot of the Anglo-Saxons institutions with one fundamental principle which is why it's not the French fundamental principle of English law and you saw this at the const at the coronation is that the king is the king under the law he is not the king above the law and the French King was always the king above the law and the French State After the revolution carried on as if the state was still the Royal state it just didn't have a king anymore on the coronation and this may be interesting um as we share a king um look what happens doesn't happen by accident what is the first thing the king does the very beginning of it he takes an oath then he is acclaimed by the people then he is Anointed by God why is the sequencing so important well he's only anointed by God once he's been acclaimed by the people and he's only acclaimed by the people once he has agreed to rule according to the laws of the land and William the Conqueror did the same so the whole history of kingship in England is a king who is acclaimed by the people because he's entered into a contract then God comes along and anoints him the Archbishop but the archery of acting on behalf of God and that's really really important because the power is a conditional contractual power that the state has what would you say to people who doubt the value of a monarchy what's the ceremony wrote as they did in some of our newspapers that this is weird out of touch has no relevance has no meaning interestingly they're people who would never say would never would absolutely do you over in Australia if you've criticized Aboriginal rituals for example but our own somehow are to be dismissed you presumably would defend them and point to their values what would be your essential argument um you've always got to be very careful about ritual because if it becomes ritual for its own sake it is pointless it becomes ruritanian and then people laugh at it and they don't take it seriously the question is what does the ritual symbolize and the ritual symbolizes the structure of our Constitution and both our constitutions that they are bottom-up Concepts that lead inevitably to a pinnacle that is the head of state now where that head of state is a Monaco is a governor general doesn't particularly matter it matters how you construct your state and what the basis of power is and the Constitution is a very occasional event symbolizes that in a way that I think reminds people of how they are in fact governed republics do it every four or five years when they inaugurate a president there's much less ceremony involved in that because you're doing it regularly and people perhaps think less about the structures of their state in republics but I think the symbolism illustrates points to reminds us of something that is both important and beneficial say it's not the coaches and you may like the coaches or you may not like the coaches they're they're part of the Grandeur of it it's that actual ceremony that is really very important and links us back of course to our history as well and the stability that our constitution has given us and stability is essential for Prosperity unstable states are never prosperous I was in America when the queen became very ill and where I was it was very very early in the morning I'd woken early because my buddy clock was out because I was in another country and the major programming was all interrupted in America Republican or apparently America of course you know that broke away from Britain um the the news Services were saturated with uh minute-by-minute coverage of what was unfolding in Britain they don't have a monarchy they rejected the model their forefathers argued endlessly you've got canceled if you were an American founding father who indicated that there might be some value in the British model of monarchy and yet here they are having rejected the idea totally absorbed as I realized with the idea of the British monarch passing on very interesting it it is very interesting and it's a very British thing because although the queen was second longest reigning monarch in history um she'd only just overtaken the recently deceased king of Thailand uh who people hadn't reacted in this way to and when emperor fito of Japan died after a very long Reign they didn't react to him in that way either I think it is the symbolism of monarchy that is so important and to your point the monarchy is an indication of Liberty that is important the Liberty that the British constitution the British model has brought that's why it's interesting that's why Americans are interested it's not just the celebrity culture um though I also think that the queen was a very remarkable woman that that the role she carried out so well for such a long time was tremendously important over a difficult and uncertain period the servant model of leadership absolutely in an age when we recognize its value if four billion people I don't know how they measure these things tapped in to watch it but it's not not really our value anymore you know we're increasingly teach our children that it's not about serving others but you you're the center of the universe when we see that on the stage when we think our political leaders think it's about them not about us we're actually in a strange way reject the value system we're instilling in our children don't we I think politicians always have to be very very careful to remember that they are there on behalf of the British people or the Australian people they're not there because they themselves are so marvelous and I think it's one of the good things about um the first part of post system so every weekend I go back to my constituency and almost every weekend I have a surgery where anyone can come and see me and can tell me um what I'm doing wrong and what they want me to do better and I have one constituent who was rude to my staff and so I said you're allowed to be rude to my staff but you are allowed to be rude to me I'm your Member of Parliament so a few weeks later he rang up and said to one of my parliamentary systems I want to be rude to Jacob if I took the telephone he was rude to me that's his right and it's very important it's very direct and particularly as you go from being a back venturer to being a minister it's easy to get disconnected from your vatas and our system of weekly surgeries helps keep our politicians directly linked to remember what they are there to do and things like parliamentary privilege what is my main parliamentary privilege anything I say in the House of Commons cannot be questioned in another court so I can't be sued for libel if I said in the House of Commons that sort of privilege for me because I am uh important it is a privilege for my constituents I can speak up on their behalf likewise I have a right of unhindered access phrases on molested access but that gives me the wrong impression to the House of Commons at any time when Parliament is um in existence not between the solutions that's not there for me that is there so that I can always get there and I can't have some official saying to me where's your pass or you've got to go around that way because I have to be there to represent the interest in my constituents and it is important to remember the Privileges are about your constituency not about you as an individual and they're all just reflecting for a moment surgery as you call it making yourself available in your office for your constituents it's a little easier in a company of this size my one constituency was the size of your country that is why we're it is easier for us and and for Australians and American politicians it is obviously much harder because of the numbers or the size or both but perhaps your constituents present you with more difficult problems so much I don't know about that coven you know we all now I think look back and certainly in my country with some concern about how we handle it you've expressed some strong views I think such eminent people as Lord Jonathan assumption have expressed the same views I think the to my way of thinking they go to the heart a little bit of the idea of who owns our liberties are they somehow the gift of government or they ours that we surrender only to the extent that we need to for the common good and shouldn't we be more recognizing of the fact that it's not for governments to gift us freedoms it is for them to defend them sometimes against their own interests and desires but it's their job to defend them and to recognize that they it's in the same theme as you're talking about serving the electorate serving the people rather than lauding it over them I was in government at the time so I was bound by Collective responsibility um and I was reading Jonathan Thompson and was thinking good Heavens this man is talking sense um that uh I know him anyway but the novel were sort of extraordinarily highly of him and what he was saying just seemed to me to be right the answer that unfortunately was given regularly in government circles was that lockdowns were polling very well people wanted to be told what to do and frankly that's not good enough that people have rights over their own lives and where I think we got it wrong and I think Australia got it more wrong than we did actually was that after the first lockdown which was legitimate because we didn't no you know we were in the dark at that point and it could have been much worse than it was by the second lockdown we knew it wasn't actually that dangerous and we also knew that people were broadly pretty sensible that people were inevitably flexing the rules but inevitably as politician I was being as careful as I possibly could be I assumed there was a photographer from a left-wing newspaper in the garden on basis if you assume that you'd probably behave well or at least within the rules but I think lots of my constituents allowed the rules to be uh um not looked at too carefully once we got in second and subsequent lockdowns and the government should have reacted to that rather than thinking it could force people to do things I hope and I think this is potentially very good news that if any government ever tried this again nobody would take any notice I think the government exceeded its ability to tell people what to do and by the end of it people had enough and subsequently they realized it was nonsense anyway so you take all this mask wearing that we had to do which I didn't like doing I did maintain the right of members of parliament not have to wear masks on crowns of our unhindered access you cannot create a new rule for Member of Parliament without primary legislation however trivial it may seem um but now people know wearing masks didn't do any good or anybody else any good why would you wear a mask again so I I think people wouldn't put up with it on another occasion so perhaps there's some good that can come out of this it might check governments in the future hey Jacob you allude to the way Australia's perceived on the international stage there's I actually participated in a television program in America two hours whatever has happened to the Australians that they allowed themselves to be so tied down and lent on particularly in the state of Victoria Melbourne uh it is a wide-held widely held perception though I I would hope on the other side which is to raise a new topic that we might be seen as having been quite Plucky and to have stood for our own interests when it comes to the way that the Chinese Communist party's been behaving oh well I'm very pleased to come on to that um happy to answer I I was astonished by Australia of all countries um with lots of space being as locked down as it was and then finding it very difficult to get out of lockdown and the Australian people putting up with it it but they're nobody expected I I sat in on meetings at the beginning of lockdown where the experts said to us well you will have lockdown fatigue and we must bring in lockdown late because if we bring it in too early you'll have lockdown fatigue and people won't be taking any notice of it when you really really need it that turned out not to be true the people happy to be locked down for months and months um but on China I cannot tell you how much I admire the courage of Australia to its own economic risk of standing up to a totalitarian regime and leading the Western world that the Western World the US and the UK were going along with this um Golden Age view of China that we could deal with them ignoring every human rights abuse that was going on in China the treatment of the uyghurs and then the treatment of Hong Kong and just thinking this could all go along swimmingly and it was Australia that stood up and said no this is not right we're going to do something about it you had trade sanctions then slapped on you you didn't back down I think you then sold Iran or to other countries for just as good prices so the economic effect was not as bad as expected and then the US and the UK changed and I I think this is really important actually in terms of um there's an awful word geopolitics but I can't think of a better one because it shows what an important free mid-sized country can do to change the view of the western world for the better and for the stronger to stand up for our shared values I would give quite a bit of credit to Japan as well and they've got some baggage in this area to be honest from the 1930s and 40s but nonetheless uh they have made it very plain that uh they will do their bit and I think that is an embolding between the two countries it's emboldening the region to say well we don't have to sacrifice our freedoms and our opportunities to a very authoritarian regime always important to distinguish between the Chinese people and the regime okay yes I mean it is a totalitarian uh Communist Regime and that is not the fault of the Chinese people they never get a chance to vote for it but you're right about Japan and you'll write about how Japan has been trying to handle this as tactfully as possible with the difficult history it's very important there was an agreement between Japan and South Korea very recently yes and that is I I used to be an Emerging Markets investor um but also included in Asia so I used to go to South Korea quite often and the um view of Japan because of the war and because of colonialism is not enormously positive so that Japan and South Korea are cooperating is I think a really important step forward I'd be very interested in your views on on the geopolitical Outlook firstly orcas you're playing the troubles boating deeply which tells you that I think maybe they're worried by the coming together it really reflects what's happened in relation to the Ukraine the West is not quite as decadent and as degenerate and divided as they thought and they are prepared to stand by their values that's encouraging how do you see orcas when you've talked about the trade relationship between Australia and Britain but August is a very new development that will have major implications beyond the geopolitical I think in binding a mid-level country Australia with Britain and America I'd be very interested in your thoughts on it I think it's really very important I think it's from British point of view of benefit of brexit we could not have done it if we're in the European Union and banned by the doctrine of sincere cooperation with the eu's foreign policy which would have overridden orcas and as you remember the French were very angry about orcas and we would find it impossible to do um I think it is a reflection of actually two mid-sized countries Australia and the UK being able to influence the progress of the West because for the U.S to have done it on its own would have been impractical it needed Partners um and it needed in a way validating because I think the U.S after Iraq and Afghanistan has become quite sensitive about its International involvement for which it gets very little thanks and a great deal of criticism and therefore to do something with two willing partners of a smaller size who were willing to take a lot of the publicity around it was I think helpful to bring the us out of the renewed isolation that the withdrawal from Afghanistan had created and humiliation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan as well so I think it was important in so many ways important for the UK reestablishing itself as globally interested important for Australia and seeing benefits of what it had done previously in standing up to China and getting Western support and important for the US and allowing it slightly to come out of its shell it's really really fundamentally important but I'd like to see the UK go further Australia's involved in the in the quad with Japan and India and the us as well I'd like to see us join that because I think that is the route to Global Security these are dangerous times I can't not ask you your views on Ukraine and I might preface the the request that you tell us what you think by saying that I look on and worry about how it might end I worry about the extraordinary commitment by the Americans the potential for it to impact in various ways economically the supply of limited Weaponry enthusiasm for you know engagement internationally at a time when we would like their focused to be very clearly frankly on the Pacific region and we wonder we see Britain doing a lot of heavy lifting we wonder a bit about Europe and I particularly think perhaps the French and the Germans could do a bit more so the Americans weren't quite so heavily burdened here at a time of great danger elsewhere I think the greatest danger of the Pacific would have been if we'd done nothing in Ukraine because it would have shown that the international order had broken down that it was a free-for-all and what would have stopped China invading Taiwan overnight whenever they felt like it so I I wouldn't worry that you are less secure because of the U.S commitment to Ukraine and you are absolutely right but I should always think what is the exit but there are some times when you have to enter even if you don't know what the exit is this was very definitely one of those times because I agree with them if Putin had succeeded again after annexing the Crimea about 10 years ago but where would he have stopped and this is so Redland I know she was the principles that was the king who pointed this out when Crimea was invaded he got a lot of stick for it he said this is Redland of the 1930s when Germany invaded bits and pieces for more living space the arguments were so sinisterly similar that Putin was using and then he went back for more not expecting the West to say no the West did say no and this has stopped him he is not now going to invade Estonia or Poland or any of the other neighboring countries and this has massively increased our Global Security pieces also have been very helpful in terms of persuading China of the limits of what it can do that doesn't mean we should ignore China because China has been building up alliances in the Middle East it's got Saudi Arabia talking to Iran we should be very concerned about that which would be very concerned about the way our relationships in the Middle East are deteriorating and actually the U.S Biden has been um not good in our relationship with Saudi Arabia the irony is that for all of the criticism Trump actually was far more effective in the Middle East than the current president but Trump was amazingly effective in the Middle East and I saw in the UK the Ambassador from the UAE and he said to me was I aware that it was easier for somebody from UAE to get into Israel than to get into the United Kingdom because of our visa and passport control and that was Trump that was Trump who brought them together and he deserves a lot of credit for that we've got um you know obviously an approaching presidential election in America and what happens there is very important to the rest of us I sometimes wonder whether the election of our prime minister in Australia is as important as who the Americans elect as their president uh it's not an insignificant matter the issue that I'd be interested in your views on is that we are picking up and you've already alluded to this a certain weariness in America about global involvement and I get very little thanks for it we expect them to be there whenever there's a problem and then we criticize them uphill and downhill all the time you can I don't blame them for sometimes thinking why do we bother to be honest but we kind of fooled that attitude I worry I wonder whether it worries you that the next presidential campaign in America may very well seed isolationist views which would be worry in the context of an uncertain globe it is always a feature of American politics and it's particularly always a feature of Congress isn't it that most senators and most um representatives are interested quite rightly in their constituents and don't like foreign engagements and that's been true for a long time so it's presidents who have to lead the way in foreign policy and presidents have considerable leeway and what they can do on the U.S Constitution but Donald Trump when he was president um wanted a realignment haven't he wanted to go back to request on Ukraine uh Germany and France to pay more for the defense of Europe not an entirely unreasonable thing to ask for it is it is difficult we're needing American engagement um and we have to be very careful that there is a tendency for um non-american journals to be very dismissive and politicians of American political figures who may then be leaders of the Free World we have to be quite careful about what we say even if what goes on in American politics is very surprising from the UK or an Australian perspective I'd be very interested in just a teasing out some of uh your own views on a couple of matters Lord assumption in one of these consultations talked about this being the age of disengagement and he talked about the Staggering fall off in the number of card carrying members of the major political parties for example and that's certainly true in my country as well at every level you hear it school boards can't get people who are prepared to go on the sporting clubs have trouble the local shows can't find young people coming through um right up to the top level of political parties fine sometimes now that there are very few people who want to take the job on when I left and it was a safe seat there are only three people when I'd run 20 years before that there were 12 who wanted the job when when John Howard had first grumped his seat there were 33 candidates the age of non non non-engagement do you see that as a as a how do we counter that how do we get people saying I want to contribute I need to contribute there's something I can do and it I should do it it's really interesting how things have changed um why does anybody take on any voluntary trusteeship because if you were asked 20 years ago somebody would say to you John William atrocity of this body I usually I would lie to this fight now what will they say they'll say will you apply and send an a CV and be interviewed by a couple of teenagers to see whether you're suitable to go onto this body but then will you do some course on diversity and inclusion to see if you're suitable for it oh and by the way here are all the liabilities that you take on by joining this body and people think well Lily I'm doing this as a favor I'm not doing this because I need it as a CV point I'm doing it because this body needs somebody and why does anyone take on being chairman of the BBC in the UK anymore most of them end up being forced out having to retire for one reason or another they get no political support when they get into difficulties uh they get paid very little for it compared to jobs of similar size in the private sector um and their reputations get Trashed by the end of it why would anyone do that and so you've got a sort of societal pressure against engagement why didn't people join political parties I suppose they've got other things to do I mean they're more various forms of entertainment um I'm perhaps more worried about participation elections how do we keep vote voter numbers up I know there you have compulsory Pages which I'm not in favor of I think it is a freedom not debate as much as it's a freedom debate that I think is easier I think people vote when it matters so in the Scottish independence referendum you had the highest voting land of all since the 1950s in the uh brexit referendum you had the highest rating level since the 1990s when people think it matters they will turn out about and that's for politicians to make happen but with the more General engagement I think you've just got to make things easy for people again um David Cameron had this thing about the big society which I quite liked as an idea the problem was it had to be new whereas what I wanted was those people who were doing Coronation Street parties just to be able to do them rather than have to register with the council tell the police they were closing the roads put the advert up on the day of the coronation you found the odd raid through a village was closed did that really matter could we just be a bit more flexible a bit lighter touch but you've stepped out out of conviction whatever the obstacles and sometimes in the face of hostility to your views you have stepped up to your great credit what drives you oh well I think politics is extraordinarily interesting and I think that the country can be better governed and I think I have something that I can contribute to that I think conservative ideas work we need people who believe in them and are willing to um articulate them and put them as powerfully as they can but I confess I enjoy doing it as well and when people say to me well what about the intrusion and this and that and the next thing and Twitter not always being entirely adulatory um I point out that I chose to do it and I didn't have to choose to do it you're well known as a man of of strong Catholic convictions you will have been subjected I could take this for granted I was to this sort of line that you should leave your religious views behind when you enter the cabinet room as though anybody can leave their worldview behind but that has not discouraged you from being very open very honest about your views no I mean religion is not partly political in this country we're not like America that America in this extraordinary position that if you're a republican uh you um have to be anti-abortion and pro-capital Punishment uh I'm Andy both uh um I I think it's it's fascinating how U.S politics has created this uh um bifurcation um but I think that the issues of Life are of extraordinary importance it worries me saddens me that we live in a culture of death and that is death of the newborn and it's death of the ill uh with euthanasia being increasingly um common in civilized countries and I think this is wrong it's not a party political matter but I think it's really important to speak out about it I think it's wrong for moral reasons but I also think it's wrong for practical reasons too on the issue of Ethics you've commented I think that there's a problem with moral relativism and indeed I think more broadly there's a problem if I can put it this way that if there's no authority over government if there's no God that there's no absolute rights and wrong then government becomes God and principle is thrown out the door and everything becomes about power but can you just elaborate on what you mean when you say there are issues and shortcomings and the concept of moral relativism I think your point on power is absolutely heart of it in the Westminster system Parliament can legislate on absolutely anything that it wishes to legislate on but that doesn't mean that all its legislation will be legitimate and this is actually the argument that Henry VII um found him itself in with Thomas Moore Thomas Moore was saying that there is a natural law and the Parliament cannot override this natural law I think that must be true that there must be limits even to what a democratic Parliament can vote for it can't abolish the family for example even though the state has always been in competition with the family because this family is a power Blog the greatest power block against the state why the state is some extent jealous of the founding so I think there are overriding principles that um you can't change by Statute law moral relativism um I suppose the problem is it's all relative to what you mean isn't it that uh what you're trying to get at with moral relativism and then no absolutes are there no fundamentals and I think there are some fundamentals and I think one of them is life admire your carriage and I know that I'm not alone in that and you've been very generous with your time we were quite I have a little courage it's very easy in UK politics say what you think uh if you're on the right the people who have the real courage are um people like um uh the the lady who ran for the leadership of the SNP who won a party at the left expressed civil abuse because she was absolutely pillared for that and it was thought that somebody of her views could not stand for a quote uh Progressive Party now on the ride there is much more tolerance that the right in modern times is the party of Tolerance whereas the left has become intolerant extraordinary really that isn't it there's a lot of truths they all saying that the right things to the left is misguided and the left thinks that the right is evil yeah I pray that's true yeah well again thank you so very much it's absolute pleasure I'm sorry I had to go to the House of Commons Midway through the interview and come back [Music] [Music] thank you

Channel: John Anderson

Views: 52,740

Keywords: John Anderson, John Anderson Conversation, Interview, John Anderson Interview, Policy debate, public policy, public debate, John Anderson Direct, Direct, Conversations

Id: xkdpObbp_Nw

Length: 66min 47sec (4007 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 17 2023