Video summary
Konstantin Kisin argues that the United Kingdom is currently in a state of decline, characterized by a mass exodus of talent and wealth driven by an increasingly hostile business environment. He illustrates this shift using comedian Mickey Flanigan's observation about leaving London for Brighton to escape stress and regain ambition, applying it nationally as wealthy individuals and entrepreneurs flee due to high energy prices and punitive taxation on small businesses. Kisin notes that the UK has lost more millionaires than any country except China, replacing these wealth creators with lower-income immigrants who contribute less tax revenue. This demographic shift is compounded by a deteriorating infrastructure and housing market, leading to a situation where net immigration figures mask the departure of high-value cohorts while low-level crime rises unchecked on public transport like the London Underground. The speaker details a severe crisis in law enforcement and social order, citing data showing a 56% increase in tube crime, an 83% rise in thefts, and doubled robberies between 2023 and 2024. He recounts personal experiences with ineffective police responses to low-level offenses, such as car break-ins under CCTV cameras that were ignored until media attention forced a reopening of cases, and violent assaults on citizens near Scotland Yard where authorities failed to investigate promptly. Kisin attributes this breakdown partly to economic stagnation since 2007 and the constraints imposed by Net Zero policies, which he believes drive up energy costs and reduce funding for policing. He suggests that the perception of safety is eroding because low-level criminal behavior goes unpunished, creating an environment where citizens feel justified in ignoring minor infractions like fare evasion or vandalism. Kisin delves into the cultural roots of this unrest by analyzing riots in his hometown of Middlesbrough and other Northern towns, arguing that immigration was merely a scapegoat for deeper feelings of abandonment and lack of upward mobility. He describes an "ambient malevolence" among working-class communities who feel stuck without role models or economic hope, leading to antisocial behaviors like throwing bricks through windows in empty houses rather than attacking immigrants. This frustration stems from the realization that jobs are being outsourced to India and China under green accounting tricks while domestic workers face unemployment and poverty. He posits that this anger is not inherent malevolence but a reaction to broken promises regarding dignity, community respect, and mastery over one's life, which he identifies as essential components of human purpose often missing in the current social fabric. To address these systemic issues, Kisin proposes accepting the reality that Britain has shifted from being the center of Western civilization to a provincial outpost of American culture following World War II. He argues against nostalgic slogans like "Make Britain Great Again" or attempts to rebuild an empire, suggesting instead that the UK must download successful economic and cultural memes from America while adapting them locally. This involves slashing regulations, making energy cheap through abandoning Net Zero targets, and securing favorable trade deals to foster genuine domestic growth rather than relying on imports produced dirtier abroad. The ultimate solution lies in creating meaningful employment opportunities for deprived communities so they can build things of value again; if society cannot provide jobs that offer upward mobility and purpose, it risks falling into a gravitational well where the best use of agency becomes destruction rather than construction.
Read the full video transcript
what's your assessment on the state of
the UK at the
moment um at the moment I think
it's I really do um I you know I I love
this country I really do but at the
moment I feel like have you ever heard
that Mickey Flanigan joke about going to
Brighton so Mickey Flanigan is a very
famous very successful British comedian
um and I remember he did a show in
Brighton and um he talked about you know
coming the contrast between London the
big city and Brighton the seaside town
that he comes and he went you know you
you get on the train in London you're
really stressed and you just you get on
the train it's full it's packed it's
uncomfortable and then you just you get
off at the station and bright and you
you smell the seaa and you can feel the
ambition just draining out of
you it's kind of how I feel about the UK
and I know that and the reason i' say
that is that all the bright and talented
people that I know are leaving
anyone who can is uh all the rich people
are leaving this country has lost more
millionaires than any other country
except China now if you compare the
populations that tells you 3% right so
we're losing the people who have created
the jobs who are going who are creating
the jobs and who are going to create the
jobs and one of the reasons is they look
at the environment that we're operating
in we've talked about high energy prices
but this government has decided that the
people who who it needs to tax are the
businesses basically particularly the
smaller side businesses which is where
so much creativity really happens um uh
and then there's all sorts of other
things about infrastructure housing uh
demographics uh that are going on that I
I don't you know we talk about net
immigration figures and what no one
really talks about is the fact that what
we're actually doing is we're chasing
out all the people who create wealth and
have wealth who pay the taxes and we're
replacing them with people coming in
towards the bottom of the jobs Market at
best if they're actually working at all
uh and so you've your net immigration
figure of 900,000 that includes you
having lost some of your best people and
replac them with people who are not
contributing that's very interesting
yeah net doesn't account for the cohorts
that have gone and the cohorts that have
come in and it's probably not like for
like yeah and so everyone I know who who
actually had a a a successful business
that that's portable
they're moving to Dubai they're moving
to America they're moving to all sorts
of other places uh because and what they
say is very simple well look I want my
kids to go to a school where they're not
taught that they're trans I want to pay
reasonable taxes which in some places is
like 0% um I I want uh clean Safe
Streets which you do not have you know I
w't um I don't go on the tube very much
these days just from a you know um
I'm not on London that often actually uh
and I went on the tube the other day
during daytime it was like I know 5 6:00
and there was kids running absolutely
rampant all over it jumping over
barriers not paying pushing each other
on on the escalators smashing the stop
button like really causing genuine
nuisance and I I watched the staff watch
them jump over barriers and do nothing
right I got some data recent data
reveals a 56% increase in tube crime
with thefts up by 83% and robberies
doubling in 23 24 and this extends more
broadly I saw the the labor governments
talking about you know they're going to
reduce crime um well Street crime is up
very significantly and one of the
reasons it's up is that it's not really
being dealt with by the police I mean
anyone who I had my car broken into a
few years ago uh window smashed there
was a CCTV camera right above it I
called the police you can't call I had
to email the police because they don't
answer the phone unless it's like you
know someone someone's been misgendered
or something you know um and they they
emailed me back saying we've
investigated we can't find anything
right under a CCTV camera here's your
crime reference number there was a viral
video uh that you probably would have
been seen of a guy who deliberately left
a bike on the street with with a uh
geolocator in directly outside of
Scotland Yard yeah you got nicked uh
they raed down to the house where it was
being stored they gave the police the
information the police said we've looked
into it here's your crime reference
number we can't do anything and then
once the video caught sufficient fire
they got an email back from the police
saying we've reopened your case great
news exactly now by the way I I don't
want this to come across as if I'm
criticizing police officers because I
know police officers and I know that a
lot of them really are working very very
hard uh but the priorities and the
resources they have set from above don't
seem to man manifest themselves in this
kind of low-level crime being addressed
now you might say well you know there's
some kids not paying for the tube who
cares well actually the broken window
series is entirely correct if you are
observing people engage in low-level
criminal Behavior Uh it makes people
feel much less safe about the the the
overall experience because they know
that well if they're not going to
enforce this well what reason do I have
to think that if my phone gets stolen
the subtext is that more serious things
also won't looked at with cat and they
aren't and they aren't uh I know people
who've left because of s single
incidents I know a really wealthy guy
who left the UK uh because she was
walking out of a restaurant in Mayfair
with a nice watch on his wrist and his
pregnant wife uh three guys jumped out
of a van with balak clavas on smashed
him to the floor uh punched him a few
times pushed his pregnant wife aside got
the watch off him got back in the van
police don't give a [ __ ] no no real
investigation nothing why why are these
crimes in the UK why is this sort of
social fabric disintegrating like that
uh I think it's partly because the
economy isn't growing and so there's not
a lot of money to be put into policing
um and when you think that Ned zero is
the way to Prosperity I.E driving up
Energy prices because you want to feel
green or whatever you want to reduce
Britain's contribution to global climate
change from 2% to 1% you know that's the
great ambition well then you're not
going to have money and when you don't
have money you can't pay police officers
and when you don't have police officers
people engage in crime um I mean this is
just to add additional context for the
northerner in the room uh this is in
London
yeah I think the UK has the six biggest
economy in the world I heard this really
phenomenal explanation which is the UK
is not the sixth biggest economy in the
world the UK is a very poor country
attached to a very rich city London has
the sixth biggest economy in the world
no one gives a [ __ ] about Newcastle no
one cares about Carlile or rexam except
for Ryan Reynolds Manchester Manchester
like a a little bit like a tiny teeny
tiny little bit Birmingham a teeny tiny
little bit everywhere else can go and
get [ __ ] like anything basically north
of Birmingham can just fall off a map
and you know I wrote this thing after
the uh riots that occurred a few months
ago uh I read it yeah if you can
remember that I basically my thesis was
I saw some videos of my old Hometown
Middlesboro and there were Street
marches these people hadn't joined it
looked like they were maybe walking to
the place where the main March was going
to go on but it's kind of classic sort
of British Larry louy behavior um these
people weren't carrying slogans they
weren't chanting anything it didn't seem
like they were there for a particular
purpose and there were houses that
looked like they've been recently built
a classic workingclass British Street
you know Terrace Terrace Terrace Terrace
Terrace all the way along this is a
house that had those pieces of um
stickers still on the windows that look
like they were they were sort of freshly
created you see one of the people pick
up a big brick just throw it through the
window of this house that doesn't have
anybody in it's not like it's the house
of an immigrant or the house of an enemy
or the house of somebody from the other
political party and it's very difficult
to describe this to somebody that didn't
spend half of their life 18 years in a
Northern workingclass Town at a state
primary State secondary State six form
college that was me I spent 11 years no
13 years in full-time educ
right around these people I know these
people I know the way that they feel and
it's this ambient malevolence they're
disgruntled they're unhappy they feel
stuck and they don't know why and
they're mean they're mean about it
and the synopsis that I came up with was
that uh immigration wasn't the reason it
was the excuse for this kind of
antisocial behavior and we don't
remember asbos I Haven [ __ ] heard
asbos in ages antisocial Behavior order
for the Americans and it was the the
yous on street corners that would sort
of you know push and jumble granny as
she tries to go to the corner shop to
get milk and stuff like that they'd be
issued with an antisocial Behavior order
which meant they sort of couldn't leave
the house and they shouldn't go to
certain areas kind of like a weird sort
of curfew type thing and um that culture
in the UK and I'm sure it's everywhere
I'm sure that workingclass towns and all
the rest of it people don't necessarily
have much in way of upward Mobility they
don't have much to distract them maybe
they're a little bit despondent maybe
they haven't had the right Role Models
fatherless homes all of these things I
understand understand but that culture
in the UK is so [ __ ] self-defeating
because it is a gravitational well that
keeps people stuck to the floor as much
as possible that this is as good as
things are going to be and the best use
of your agency and self-authorship is to
break things not to build things and I
know that intimately well this ambient
malevolence it's like the air before a
thunderstorm starts and that was what I
saw in that video really got to me it's
the first time that I've seen something
on the Internet that really got to me
and that really [ __ ] got to me so
yeah well I know what you mean and I
think the answer to that and I know I
keep banging on about Ned zero in this
conversation but the answer to that is
to scrap Net Zero because um what those
people need is meaning and purpose and
for the vast majority of workingclass
men the primary source of meaning and
purpose is going to be a job and when
you have a job that is a meaningful job
that you're making something you're
building something that you're making
good money that you're providing for
your family that you feel like you have
upward mobility and upward Mobility
doesn't have to look like I grew up in
Newcastle and then I started a YouTube
channel now I live in Austin Texas up
Mobility might be you know I made 30
grand a year for 10 years and now I'm
making 35 and now I've got a promotion
at work and now I own a home I own a
home right most people really don't need
very much to be happy to be honest and
it's a tragedy that in most of uh the
Western World and especially in the UK
the thing that we used to consider like
what is the American dream the American
dream is you arrive with nothing but the
shirt on your back and your kids go to
university you have a house uh maybe a
small business you pass it on to them
and their children are you know better
off really better off well if those
people that you're talking about where I
agree with you there's an underlying
malevolence um and it's not malevolence
it's anger really um it's frustration
it's frustration and anger and what is
that anger about well it's the anger is
about the feeling that um you're not
going to be able to do the things that
you thought you would and what are they
well you get a job you get a house you
you have some kids uh they're going to
be slightly better off than you you're
going to have dignity you're going to
have Community you're going to be
respected meaning Mastery right now if
you have a society which has effectively
said we're going to do a green
accounting trick we're going to take
your jobs we're going to put them in
India we're going to put them in China
where they're going to make the same
steel or the same cars or the same
whatever the use to make they're going
to do it
dirtier of course they are because it's
a it's a much less developed country and
then we're going to import that steel
and we're going to import those cars
back into the UK so we can pretend that
we're
Green Well you combine that with this
person no longer having a job and our
economy as I said we're poorer now than
we were in
2007 what did you expect just gruntled
there's this feeling there was always
this feeling but I can never put my
finger on it of kind of being forgotten
in the northeast of the UK it was like I
like on the outside a little bit even
within a a community on the outside of
culture yeah um even even little things
like um the way that you were
represented in media like a story about
Newcastle that hit the national press
was like a uh um Whimsical [ __ ]
cottage industry piece or something like
that I said I was going to show you uh
this can we do one more thing on just
that absolutely um so one of the the
things that we've talked about in the UK
is like oh we need to build
infrastructure we need to build
transport links and it's like why do you
need a better train line to know where
yeah um and and so what you really have
to do is you have to and that's why you
know I was talking to Mary Harrington
who I know you're a fan of too at our
Christmas party actually and she was
saying something I really have been
thinking about as well which is I
think if we're in the offering Solutions
space the solution for the UK is to
accept the reality that's always part
the first bit of the solution is to
accept the reality that you know a
slogan of make Britain Great again isn't
going to work because we're not going to
we're not going to recolonize India do
you know what I mean we're not going to
rebuild the British Empire what I think
we could do if we really wanted to but
this would require both a political and
a cultural shift on a on a level that
would be extremely sign ific would be to
recognize that over the 20th century the
Britain went from being the Center of
Western Civilization to being the
provincial part of it we're on the
periphery now the Center of Western
Civilization after World War II during
World War II I would say shifted from
Britain to America we are now
effectively a a the European Outpost of
American civilization it's a great Point
that's what we are now what does that
mean well what that means is we have to
lean in to that that means we have to
download the right memes from America
instead of downloading the hands up
don't shoot meme what we should be
downloading is okay we want economic
growth memes how do you do that well
you're going to have to make energy
cheap you slash regulation Etc you're
going to have to do the right trade
deals with that world right uh what that
means all sorts of other things that we
borrow from them and apply Li to
ourselves as opposed to thinking that we
know best we clearly don't otherwise our
society wouldn't be as screwed up as it
is um and part of that is you're going
to have to give people in uh deprived
parts of the country work yeah and they
you're going to have to find ways of
employing them and actually creating
things that are of value and that means
yes we in the UK may end up paying more
for some of the things that they make
but that money is going to go to your
neighbor instead of a perfectly nice guy
in India doing the same job yeah but if
we want our society to hold cohesively
together some of the extremes of the
globalization process that is the reason
why those people in Newcastle are angry
and malevolent and mean and nasty uh
we're going to have to find ways to
actually give them jobs and employment
and that means not chasing out the
people who are job creators and that
means not pricing them out of the
country by making business impossible
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