US Declares Palestine Action A Global Terror Group | Novara Live

Welcome to Navara Live. Coming up tonight, the US government has issued sanctions against Palestine action. Hundreds of people have been killed by flash flooding on the Nepal Tibet border, which experts have linked to glacial collapse. We discuss whether it's time to abolish the OBR and Fox News is coming for Hassan Per as the DSA proved themselves to be a serious political force. I'm Helena aka Justice MTG and this evening I am joined by Dala Gabriel in the studio. It's good to be back. >> In the studio, I'm back [ __ ] get ready. And ladies night is back as always for [laughter] a Thursday. It is excellent to have you on the show tonight. Shortly I'll also be joined by Navara's own Steven Methan as well. The US Treasury under the power of President Donald Trump has weighed in on the row over the UK government's prescription of Palestine Action as a terror group and has done so in chilling style. The US government has now declared Palestine Action a global terrorist group, adding it to a list that includes al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Justifying the designation, the US Treasury Department said this. The UK-based Palestine Action has supported numerous acts of terrorism since July 2020, including acts they have physically injured UK law enforcement personnel, as well as acts intended to intimidate lawful commercial enterprises and coerc the UK government. The group's actions include multiple high-profile instances of breaking into defense infrastructure in British military installations and causing millions of dollars worth of damage to military equipment. The law that the US government is using to designate Palestine Action a terrorist group is called Executive Order 13224. It was signed into US law by then President George W. Bush on the 21st of September 2001. So just 10 days after the al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers in the Pentagon, thus the US government using legislation rushed onto the statute books during a national emergency to explicitly link Palestine action 25 years later to the so-called war on terror. And the executive order is clear about what it enables the US government to do, saying this. The order provides a means by which to disrupt the financial support network for terrorists and terrorist organizations by authorizing the US government to designate and block the assets of foreign individuals and entities that commit or pose a significant risk of committing acts of terrorism. That means any US assets held by the group are likely to be frozen and any transactions with it by US residents will become illegal. But the law goes even further. Potentially other organizations anywhere in the world can be financially impacted by association as well with the order going on to say this. The order authorizes the US government to block the assets of individuals and entities that provide support, services or assistance to or otherwise associate with terrorists and terrorist organizations designated under the order as well as their subsidiaries, front organizations, agents and associates. Responding to the prescription, Palestine Action co-founder Hood Amorei said this. Palestine Actions activities in the US and elsewhere have always been about saving lives by disrupting the Israeli war machine, which is committing a genocide in Gaza with the support of the US government. Trump has been at the center of the mass murder of the Palestinians, enabling the Zionist regime at every single turn. The Starmmer government's decision to use counterterror law against a British direct action group for the very first time last summer. It certainly set a precedent. But there are also suggestions that neither Star nor his home secretary at the time, Ivette Cooper, may not have thought it up all by themselves. In March last year, Palace and Action claimed responsibility for an action at Donald Trump's turn golf course in Scotland. In large letters, the words, "Gazer is not for sale," was spray painted across the green. Holes were also dug in the turf, while the courses clubhouse was sprayed in red paint. There's no doubt that was vandalism, which is what direct action has historically involved. But reporting on two calls he'd had with Karma after the event, Donald Trump used very different language, posting this on Truth Social. I was just informed by Prime Minister Sar of the United Kingdom that they caught the terrorists who attacked the beautiful Turnbury in Scotland. They did serious damage and will hopefully be treated harshly. The three people who did this are in prison. You cannot let things like this attack happen. And I greatly appreciate the work of Prime Minister Sama and UK law enforcement. The case shows just how cheap the word terrorism has become in just a quarter of a century. From bringing down iconic skyscrapers and killing thousands of people to damaging grass and spraying paint. It's also worth noticing that Trump used the phrase serious damage in that post, a technical though undefined term that is part of the UK's definition of terrorism that was used to designate Palestine action terror group just months after those calls. Declassified has reported that those conversations between Star and Trump also came up in the judicial review the Huda Amorei brought against the prescription last November. But despite several freedom of information requests to the foreign office, their contents remain shrouded in secrecy. The Telegraph reported on the conversations last September as well, writing this. After Trump turn was vandalized with red paint by progaza protesters in March, the prime minister asked for updates on those arrested from police Scotland and briefed Trump personally on developments. According to one wellplaced source, the group was called Palestine Action. Four months later, the UK government prescribed as a terrorist organization. A legal challenge is seeking to establish whether Trump pressed Zakir for the ban. The UK's ban on Palestine action continues to be challenged with the Supreme Court agreeing to hear Hud Mory's case in November. Since the prescription, there have been over three and a half thousand arrests involving peaceful protesters holding signs expressing support for the group. Many of them retired people including NHS workers, teachers, social workers, and clergy. It remains a criminal offense under the UK terror act to express support for Palestine Action. I am now joined by Navar's Steven Methan who's been reporting on Palestine Action very diligently. Now, uh, in terms of this rec recent action by the United States, has there ever been precedent for this kind of action being taken against a UK- based group? >> I mean, not not not not that I know of and certainly not recently. I mean, the you know, the the as you said, the order only that allows this to to happen only came into effect in 2001, so 25 years ago. Um, and then of course it came into effect as uh, you know, in in in a national emergency. It was a piece of legislation that was moved through after the just 10 days after the attacks of of 9/11. Um I don't think can't really imagine that anybody at the time when they drew up that legislation uh imagined that just a quarter of a century later it would be being used against a uh direct action group um largely well not no longer operating in the UK but but you know when it was largely doing property damage in fact only doing property damage actually didn't mean to say largely there. Do you think this will have any impact on the upcoming Supreme Court case about the prescription? >> It's very it's very hard to to say, isn't it? Because, you know, the Supreme Court is the highest court that we have in this land. Um, and we'll be looking really carefully at Huda's case. Um, but it certainly seems to support the idea that Palestine Action is a is a terror organization. I mean hopefully the Supreme Court judges what you know whatever decision they come to will be able to to exercise their own independence of of of of mind but there is the potential for it to to you know impact public opinion right because you now have the US declaring the group a terrorist organization uh if the Supreme Court then overturns it in November um it looks like you have this massive disjunct between the view of the court in the UK and and and and the view of the US government. I mean, I will say I do think that British British people are very aware of what kind of government is is is in power at the US at at the moment. So I'd be interested to know how yeah people are understanding this coming from the US whether they're understanding it as sort of tracking some kind of fact about the organization Palestine Action which you know I don't think it does um or whether they understand it as a feature of of the the kind of government that is the current government in the US. Now, of course, one of the things that we've seen a lot since the prescription of Palestine action is people being arrested for terror charges in relationship to showing support for Palestine action in the UK. How will this ban in the United States affect those people? Again, it's like so unprecedented. It's really it's really hard to say because, you know, the the powers um invoked by the order that this this designation has been made under are quite wide ranging. Um and Marco Rubio I believe has you know explicitly talked about like supporters of of of of groups. Uh now you know what those protesters on the defend our jury's protests are doing were were expressing um support for for Palestine action in protest of the prescription. But nonetheless, you know, they're they were still expressing expressing support which as you've said is is is illegal under the under the terror act in in in the UK. Um, it's an interesting feature though of the of the of the US legislation here that it does have a carveout for for free political speech. It does say that it doesn't affect constitutional rights to free political speech. Now, of course, the constitution only applies to people in the US. Doesn't apply to people in other countries. Um, so I don't really know how the US is going to proceed here. I mean, is it the case that they're going to think, well, if a US citizen was saying this, um, you know, holding up a sign, um, we wouldn't be able to, you know, create some kind of financial circumstance that affects them very badly. But given that it's someone else um we can I mean I would really hope that the British government if there was an attempt to do that although you know you don't hold out much hope for British governments when it comes to the US but I would really hope that that what they would do is they would they themselves would recognize the unreasonability of classifying people who are engaged in a a mass campaign of civil disobedience which you know of which we have a grand tradition in this country. Um, I I would hope that they would object very strongly to the idea that there should be any international implications for for for those people. I mean, the Trump administration has shown they're willing to use the designation of terrorists to commit pretty extreme acts. Like look at the example of the Venezuelan fishesmen, for example, and what they've done there. So, what they what this what is codified in law and what they may end up doing, those could be completely different things. But turning around to the relationship that you mentioned between the US and the UK. Obviously, we know that there was discussions between the two governments. We don't know what discussions were taking place. Do you think that the US might potentially be behind the initial prescription in the UK at all? I I mean I I I I again I don't I don't know but I do think that the the fact that there were conversations the fact that Trump um you know posted about it and used that that phrase serious damage um which as as you said there is like is a term directly in the in in in in the terror act. Um, I think those all raise questions and I think those are all questions that Labour Party members should very seriously be asking of the party and of the leadership. And the reason for that is that and I think you're going to come on to talk about this. You know, the Trump administration is on a mission to suppress what they call left-wing violence or leftwing extremism, but what they actually mean is leftwing dissent of any kind. Um and if it turned out that there was uh you know some kind of conspiring between Kama's government and the US um going in either direction whether it's that you know that whether that whether our government in order to um save face and the possibility of a challenge to the ban asked uh America to do something or whether Trump asked them to do it and they did it. If there's any kind of channel back and forth like that, I think that, you know, Labor Party members should be seriously asking about it because that is the Labor Party, a party that is supposed to be notionally at least of the left. Uh even if it's the center left, even if if it's the Social Democratic left, they're supposed to be of the left. And it if if that happened then they are working in cahoots with a what I think we can all you know begin to see is a an autocratic government or has autocratic tendencies um which is looking to you know to to to to diminish uh to to um uh crush uh the left in in in the US. Um, and that does not seem to be anything that has anything to do with Labour Party's values, [clears throat] even if it it seems completely contrary to the Labour Party's values as as you know, Social Democratic Party um to to really be operating in that way with with w with with with with that kind of government. So, I think really it is for Labour Party members to seriously ask questions about about what happened there. >> Yep, I absolutely agree. Thank you very much for joining us this evening, Stephen. >> Thanks, Elena. When the US announced their designation of Palestine Action as an international terror group, the country's Treasury Department posted this online today. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control took action to counter the growing threat posed by violent far-left terrorist groups. Globallyworked and politically motivated terrorists, particularly far-left terrorists, are increasingly embracing organized deadly violence in pursuit of their objectives. Now, that statement neatly encapsulates what is an explicit strategy in the US government to frame left-wing protesters as terrorists and to shut down legitimate forms of descent. Last month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with delegates from 60 countries to encourage them to clamp down on what he called far-left extremism, saying that left-wing political violence was the result of quote, "a unique evil rooted in a deep resentment towards civilization." You can imagine such a thing. At the time, the BBC reported that there was no discussion of far-right political violence with Democrats accusing Ruby of political partisanship. Around the same time, Trump's Homeland Security adviser, Steven Miller, unveiled a presidential directive aimed at the left. that directs for the first time in American history all of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to work together to disrupt, identify, defund, debank, arrest, and prosecute these political terrorists that are operating in our country. It's very important to understand that left-wing political terrorism seeks as its ultimate end the overthrow of our system and form of government. As part of that directive, the State Department also made it harder for people to travel to the states from other countries. Marco Rubio announced a visa restriction policy targeting what he calls members of far-left terrorist groups. So far, however, there's been little said about what constitutes a far-left terror group. The recent designation of Palestine action may give us a clue, though property damage is, of course, not what people are normally talking about when they talk about terrorism. But is leftwing violence actually on the rise? The Center for Strategic and International Studies, also known as the CSIS, is a bipartisan research center that has defined and tracked left and right-wing terrorism. It defines terrorism like this. The deliberate use or threat of premeditated violence by non-state actors with the intent to achieve political goals by creating a broad psychological impact. It's clear from the report that the CSIS does not count mere property damage or economic vandalism as terrorism. Nor do they count protests against ICE. Though they do argue that these acts may add to the perception of increased leftwing violence. The report defines left-wing terrorism as that pursuit for anti- capitalist, anti-imperialist, [snorts] anarchist or various liberationist ideologies amongst others. and it defines right-wing terrorism as evolving white supremacism, extreme libertarianism, misogyny, anti-LGBTQ ideologies, and QAnon conspiracy theories. Its analysis shows that leftwing attacks and plots have increased in the United States since 94, peaking from 2016 onwards. But with the exception of 2025, when right-wing attacks and plots dramatically dropped, the number of acts of left-wing violence has rarely come anywhere near to those perpetrated by the right shown in red. The severity of the instance is also in sharp distinction with the CSIS saying this. In the past decade, despite the increase in the number of leftwing instance, leftwing attacks have killed 13 victims compared with 112 and 82 victims for right-wing and jihadist attacks respectively. The CSIS also adds a note of warning over the drop in right-wing attacks seen in recent years. It's probably temporary that the report says this. Although it is impossible to definitively prove the link between the policies of and positions championed in Trump's second term and the decline in right-wing terrorism instance in the United States, it is probable that at least some extremists do not feel the need to act violently if their concerns are being addressed. Dalia, this whole debacle that we've seen in terms of the US government's attacks on free speech, attacks on free association, and attacks on disscent is incredibly chilling. But it does seem it's not only chilling in the United States and obviously we're seeing the way in which they're acting in terms of their prescription of Palestinian action when it comes to the UK but it does seem given that they've been meeting with other countries leaders they're trying to spread this kind of crushing of descent to other countries as well. >> Yeah. I mean the use of terror legislation in this way is textbook uh authoritarianism. It's something that authoritarian countries, authoritarian states around the world have been doing for a very uh long time. And I and I think you're right to raise, you know, the deep irony there about the amount of ink that has been spilled over the past, you know, 10 20 years about threats to free speech and the issues of free speech and and you know, the thought police. The whole point of the idea of a right to free speech or, you know, as it is in the in the US, the first amendment, it wasn't about defending people's right to have a newspaper column in the times. It was established precisely to defend people against these kinds of threats. Um, precisely to to protect people from being criminalized for holding political um political beliefs. Uh and you know we have to to understand really what what terror legislation is and what happens when something when an act of violence gets classified um as terrorism rather than as something else or or or when a when a set of beliefs or ideologies become associated with terrorism. In a liberal democracy we are supposed to have these certain protections enshrined in the law that are held universally. you know, things like habius corpus, things like rights to privacy, things like um having limits on on the amount of punishment that can be given um for a certain crime. Terror legislation essentially functions as a loophole um out of those rights. It says for this kind of crime, which we will classify, the state classifies um these universal rights no longer exist. And it's deeply inseparable from politics because the thing that separates uh terroristic violence from other forms of violence is the political or the perception that it is motivated by a political um ideology. So when a state creates a category like far-left terrorism um and to basically implies that a political ideology is a breeding ground for terrorism um even when it's not credibly true as you've sort of pointed out Helena you know there is no credible threat that that terroristic violence from far-left organizations is a gen is something that warrants this kind of level of of um response um that it is not endemic in this way. But when you associate a political ideology with terroristic threat, it does two things. Firstly, it manufactures fear and stigma around that political ideology. So, you know, if you start to say, oh, climate terrorism is a huge threat. You create an air of suspicion around anyone who has a deep political concern around the climate. The other thing that it does is it massively expands the remit of the state to surveil and monitor and criminalize people who are associated with that political ideology or who share some of the opinions of that political ideology even if they themselves don't believe in violence or have no relationship to violence or have never committed a violent act. Um so if you it creates this air of suspicion with this kind of symbolic air of suspicion but it also gives the state credible and material rights to surveil and monitor people for having particular political um beliefs. And that is why the state was so determined to prosecute Palestine action under terrorism legislation even though you know legislation on criminal damage etc is perfectly appropriate. you know, you could get sentences um on the basis of criminal damage. The reason the state has been so eager to prosecute Palestine action as terrorism is in order to create an air of suspicion and fear around pro Palestinian politics. to say that pro Palestinian politics carries with it this threat of violence and it associates in people's minds um pro Palestine politics with a form of violence that most people obviously find genuinely terrifying. Even though this organization that they have designated as a terrorist organization has not claimed a single human life, you can you through this kind of terrorist legislation loophole. you can end up in this obscene like completely irrational situation where people are being prosecuted under terror legislation which is the most draconian legislation that exists on in Britain's in the legal books um for people holding a sign because you have you have achieved what the the goal always was which is to stigmatize the politics that you are associating with terrorism. So when it comes to um the use of terror legislation in this way, the state is always much more concerned with the politics of it rather than the violence. It's actually not concerned with preventing um violence, the kind of violence that people are afraid of. It's actually more concerned with criminalizing and creating suspicion around the political ideology as a whole. whether that's pro Palestine politics, whether that's climate politics, whether it's politics that is against, you know, the wholesale dehumanization of of immigrants. Um, but it becomes a very effective tool to carve out particular kinds of politics from the liberal democratic norms that are supposed to protect things like free speech and freedom of association. >> It's a self-fulfilling prophecy as well in so far as they will say these particular groups are terroristic. there's a real problem of leftwing terrorism. They'll designate >> whoever they want to as terrorists. Like the NSPM7 designation in the United States is casting a very wide net in terms of what it treats as being antithetical values to the United States, potential signs of terrorism. And then from those designations, the overall numbers for lefting terrorism quote unquote will increase. They'll say, "We told you there was a problem." And it's clear that there is a problem. Right? like you I mean we've reported so many times around the UK that the average person arrested for a terror charge is like a a white woman in her 50s or whatever it is because of so many people who've been involved in what's happened since the past action prescription in this country. >> Yeah. And I think it's really important to also note that like none of this would have been possible without the kinds of counterterror legislation and architecture that has been built over the past 1015 years. you know, when you look, for example, in Britain at the prevent legislation, you know, when you actually look at the markers, uh, the things that service providers are told to look out for, um, as possible signs that someone is at risk of radicalization, you know, we're talking like ch like children in primary school. Um, it's things like exhibiting withdrawal, you know, exhibiting depression, um, having a sudden interest in their religion, you know, obviously doesn't mean all religions. they mean specifically Islam. So if you create those categories as markers that someone who might be exhibiting depression and might have you know shown extra interest in their faith you know their faith being Islam that you then say that is some that there is a can be a direct connection between that and conducting you know some of the most traumatizing acts of violence that like people have seen on their televisions right you are creating an air of suspicion around a community and also you can then turn around and say there have been x number of um referrals to prevent in the past, you know, 10 years. Which makes it sound like, you know, this is a really like budding and important threat in in schools when in reality like the benchmarks that are used to to designate that are deeply ideological and deeply problematic. But that that doesn't get communicated when you say, you know, there have been dozens of hundreds of referrals to prevent um which flags people on the basis that they are at risk of being radicalized. What you hear is, you know, that hundreds of or thousands of people are at risk of, you know, im immediate risk of committing extreme violence, which is just not the case. Parts of Nepal and Tibet have been hit by devastating flash floods, leaving hundreds of people dead and more than,300 people missing. Some viewers may find the following images disturbing. Eyewitness and CCTV footage show the sudden and completely unpredictable devastation that the floods and mudslides have inflicted on the Himalayan region with people given just moments to flee areas where walls of water weighing hundreds of tons appeared as if from nowhere. Thought to be amongst the worst disasters to afflict the region ever. The floods of roers yet untold ruin on the people's lives, their homes and the environment. And the risk of further floods remain with evacuation orders issued in several parts of Nepal and Tibet. The Nepalese army have been undertaking rescue operations in the valleys and hillside villages most affected by the floods with some of them all but wiped away. Over 120 people have been rescued so far, but dozens of bodies swept downhill by the torrent have also been recovered from lower altitude planes. Among the missing also many tourists. Two teenagers aged 13 and 14 years old are amongst the 33 British nationals still missing in Nepal. The cause of the flood has also been identified. According to experts, it was most likely caused by a collapsing glacier that had been weakened by melting snow, causing it to plummet a kilometer into the valley below and triggering a massive surge of displaced water. Scientists have warned for years that melting ice and perafrost, which is centuries old frozen soil in the Himalayas is due to climate change. Last year, the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development or ICMOD warned that the rate at which Himalayan glaciers were losing ice has doubled since the year 2000. This may be the largest climate related disaster to hit Nepal so far, but it isn't the first time the country has been affected by climate breakdown. Shrea Casey, coordinator at loss and damage youth coalition Nepal spoke to Sky News. Last year in July 2025 uh the similar glacial lake outbrush flood was recorded in Vertico River in the river where we are seeing huge number of casualties now and as a matter of fact we can say that we will face similar uh climate disasters maybe with bigger intensity with bigger damage in the coming future as well. So there's a lot that we need to do but also there's a lot that Nepals need in terms of climate finance in terms of loss and damage finance. so that we can cope with this impact. >> Talk to me if if you will about that element because it is it is countries like Nepal >> is an example of climate crisis and what it means. Yes. [clears throat] >> Oh, apologies for just cutting over there with a bit of a bit of a delay on the line. But talk to me about that because it is countries like Nepal that impact the global climate the least. but often feel the impacts of the changing global climate the most. You know, your your contribution to carbon emissions is almost negligible compared to other nations, but the impact of a warming climate is felt far beyond that that is felt in other regions. How how is that conversation going in Nepal at the moment when you look at what is happening to your landscape and also the people that live amongst it? Yeah, true. There has been a widespread outrage in the country showing that how little we are contributing to the global climate emissions, but we are always on the forefront of facing the climate impact. We're always the first one to hit and also when we are hit the first, we are hit the most. and um Nepal as a country of the Hindu Kushik Malin region also known as Thorpool we have this majestic mountains but during these cases because of the global warming and all and shrinking glacia rate we are seeing increase in the number of such glacial lake outburst flood so there has been a widespread outrage regarding the injustice that we are facing time and again time and again >> dalia this very terrifying images I was looking at my Twitter to feed last night. I saw Tita Parci tweet out something that genuinely looked out some like from a disaster film from what I was seeing. Absolutely harrowing footage. >> Yeah, it's devastating. I mean, we've got last I checked it was 95 people dead. You know, hundreds are missing. Um, also there there is a chance that there is a a landslide dam upstream that um could collapse within the next few days that would kind of cause a second wave um of of devastation. And obviously, you know, when it comes to to climate breakdown, you have these incidents which are kind of these highly uh spectacular and explicit impacts of climate breakdown. Um, but this is really the tip of the iceberg, you know, for one of a better phrase. uh a lot of the impact of climate breakdown uh it exists in much slower forms of violence. Things like displacement, things like people's people who rely on agriculture for their livelihood, their livelihood being destroyed, uh the various health impacts that happen as a result of climate change. Uh it's a shame I think sometimes that the only time we get to really talk about this is in in this context of these tragedies, but obviously we have to um take these moments when when when we can. And it's I mean it's it's devastating. And it's not just about the kind of the lives and livelihoods lost over these few days. It's also the downstream impacts of of this kind of infrastructural uh collapse. And I was and I was glad to hear in that Sky News segment uh finally the British media talking about the fact that a lot of countries that are the most vulnerable to climate change contributed the least to the climate crisis. What was missing there uh is the fact that this is not just a problem of geography. You know I see a lot of stuff about how this happened in Nepal because it's you know a very mountainous region. It's like yeah Nepal has been a mountainous region for a very long time. you know that's not why we are in this situation. It's because of first of all climate change. It's also because of an infrastructure problem. You know we know um what is going to happen. We know what's what is already happening. And the countries that are most at risk of climate breakdown, the impacts of climate breakdown are being literally prevented from building the kind of infrastructure and resilience that they need to protect life um from a catastrophe that they did not cause. Um I think and and so that's all you know that that's really really important to underline. I also think you know this is a a show about the British political uh the world of British politics. So I think it's been interesting in Britain where we've kind of also had this summer of reckoning when it comes to climate change. you know, not only are we seeing more and more in the news um instances and crises that are so clearly driven by extreme weather, but we've also had, you know, the wildfires and and flash floods here in Britain. You know, the the impact of climate breakdown is being felt in Britain sooner than we might have thought. And I think that what really worries me is how that reckoning is colliding with the rise of far-right politics. you know, Reform UK, the most prominent right-wing party in this country now, um, is fundamentally a climate denialist party. You know, Richard Ty has thrown doubt on the idea that climate change is man-made. Um, you know, that's a position that most of the British public doesn't hold. We should be able to win on that ground, right? You know, clearly climate breakdown is happening. This party doesn't even believe in climate change. That should be a way to kind of discredit this far-right politics. But my worry is that what we're actually going to see um as our own experience of climate change really sharpens, as we see more and more people in the global south being displaced by this, experiencing extreme adversity as a result. That intersection with farright populism, I worry that it's going to strengthen even further this idea of like batten down the hatches, close the borders, get really used to watching like black and brown people dying all the time. Um and you know this idea of like you know okay climate change is happening loads of black and brown people are being displaced. There's resource scarcity. It kind of in many ways like can if if it goes the wrong way can bolster this farright ideology of like we need to get into this like Malthusian kind of world view where it's us versus everyone and we need to hoard the resources for ourselves. We need to get whatever we can. we need to keep drilling so that we can like keep going and get what they call energy security. And so I think as I'm watching the British public begin to have to reckon with climate breakdown in a way that people around the world have already been reckoning with climate breakdown and I see that intersect with a rise of farright politics. I wonder that we are going to get into this kind of what is called climate fascism or eco-fascism that could even intensify farright politics even though it should undermine farright politics because the farright doesn't even believe that climate change exists. So I think that is something for us to really be keeping an eye on um from a British political perspective especially given the fact that within Britain what we should be doing is thinking about climate reparations and thinking about how we own our historic role in creating this problem and you know help to support communities on the front line in protecting themselves from the worst successes of this crisis. And I think that point about farright politics is really really preient because it's in the oligarch's interest to push it because in the same way that the global north have not concerned themselves with the after effects of climate change because it would only be felt by the global south right that dynamic also plays out between citizens of the global north and the oligarchs of the global north in so far as there will be a time when what we're seeing in Nepal now what we what we've seen in the global south in terms of climate breakdown affecting their livelihoods it will affect the global north eventually we're starting to see it from like the wild virus Obviously, it's only quite limited right now, but it will get more extreme as time goes on. And then suddenly, it will be a problem for global north citizens. Won't be a problem for the oligarchs, though. They'll be the people who will be able to avoid all of the after effects. And they have to reckon with the fact that eventually citizens of the global north will want to revolt against them for their historic role in creating the apocalyptic conditions that will come due to climate change. And so trying to make sure that they blame the people fleeing the worst excesses of climate change in the global south coming to the global north is a significantly better dynamic for those oligarchs than if we take them on themselves. >> Today we will increase the lower rate of capital gains tax from 10 to 18%. And the higher rate from 20 to 24%. While maintaining the rates of capital gains tax on residential property at 18 and 24% too. This means the UK will still have the lowest capital gains tax rate of any European G7 economy. >> It doesn't feel like it, but that was two years ago when Rachel Reeves delivered her first budget in October 2024. And the policy of both increasing the rate of capital gains tax and reducing the threshold that widget is paid proved quite controversial at the time. Here's what then shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt said at the time on the IG's Art of Investing podcast. We're seeing lots of speculation about capital gains tax, capital gains tax increasing uh to the income tax levels and wealth taxes um under a suggested new prime minister. Do you think that would be good or bad for the e for the for the investment environment and for the economy? >> It would be terrible. And it doesn't matter if you're left or right. Don't do it. And the reason is because if you increase capital gains tax above 24% uh you will get less revenue not more because investors will change their behavior. They won't sell their assets. They'll move their assets abroad. They'll move abroad themselves. Um and you will get less money not more. So if you're a left-wing government that wants to raise more money to redistribute it to poorer areas or to put into public services, don't do this because you'll get less money for the things that you care about. If you're a center-right government that wants to encourage enterprise and wealth creation, obviously don't do it because you're going to discourage precisely the thing that will make the economy dynamic and successful. The Office for Budget Responsibility didn't go that far, but they did predict that the potential revenue from the changes will be very modest. The capital gains tax measured ounce in the budget affect an overlapping set of taxpayers and tax bases. Together, these measures are expected to raise 5.2 2 billion pounds by the end of the decade mainly across capital gains tax, inheritance tax and income tax and richer mentioned in her speech whether there was 2.5 billion attributed to capital gains tax there as well. Now we got the data in today on the total tax liability on capital gains tax from the 2024 to 2025 financial year. Well, I'll let the figures speak for themselves. This is from the FT. The UK reported a record haul from capital gains taxes in 2425 according to new data on Thursday following Rachel Reeves' decision to increase the rate in her first budget. HM revenue and customs reported a 24.2 billion in capital gains tax receipts in the 2425 tax year and 89% increase compared with the year before and the highest annual capital gains receipt since 1987. HMRC said the CGT rate increase, consecutive yearly reductions in the tax-free allowance, and increase in business asset disposal rates from April 2025 all contributed to the record tax receipts. Now, it is worth pointing out, by the way, there is some evidence to show that the risk here was shown in terms of capital disposal in the run-up to the budget. They were predicting as was mentioned in that podcast clip we saw that there would be people who would sell their capital assets early or create contracts that would then finalize the sale after it but codify it beforehand so it would dodge those tax rises but in the data it shows only about 77 million pounds of liabilities were generated in the October of the budget. So I can't see huge amounts of evidence to say that that is the lion share of this increase in capital gains tax liabilities that we're seeing there in the reported figures today. And on top of that, HMRC themselves said that the increase was driven by the increase in the rates and it was driven by the changing of the thresholds as well in that reporting there by the Financial Times too. This is on top of reports of the first substantial increase in UK productivity alongside the highest growth in the G7 in 2025 as well. The tax raising and debt issuing budget was supposed to create an economic doom loop of stagnation that I was told by the sages over on the Tory benches. So, how did the economic oracles Jeremy Hunt and the OBR get it so wrong? Well, it's not like some of us didn't see it coming. This 2025 tweet from Mavar's own Aaron Bastani looks very preient in retrospect. [snorts] On radio 4, Jeremy Hunt smuggly says he reduced capital gains tax because the Treasury and the OBR told him to. What was the point of the tries in government? What's the point of a chancellor if you just do whatever you're told by an OBR whose models are wrong and whose data is wrong? Seems perfectly reasonable to ask, right? I mean, the point that he made there about saying that the OB just continue to get things wrong. We're seeing the evidence in before our eyes in terms of their prediction for capital gains tax receipts. what we actually saw in terms of capital gains tax receipts in the numbers today. I'm like Jeremy Hunt in the podcast clip we watched talks about well it has to be 24%. If it's any higher than 24% then we'll lose investment revenue. We'll change all of this behavior and that's still lowest rate in European G7 economies as Rach pointed out there as well. And it seems like that's a number that's been told to him by the OBR and then he's just repeated it again. What was the point in having politicians with an ideological framework? I guess if your ideological framework is already embedded in the Crangos who get to scrutinize your policy doesn't really matter about it does it now given how the OBR constantly gets its predictions wrong and its lockstep monitorist framework of fiscal policy orthodoxy continually proving them wrong sometimes some in the green party calling for the quango to be completely overhauled motion A65 a green party conference calls for a totally new approach to budget philosophy calling for the party to embed post keynianism into the state regulator is what the motion says about the OBR The Office of Budget Responsibility would be transformed into the Office of Fiscal Transparency. Within this new office, rather than targeting public debt or deficit levels through rigid fiscal rules, the government will establish a new fiscal policy committee charged with recommending a target range of optimal government spending. Decisions over the level and nature of spending and tax will remain solely with the Chancellor and wider government, but undershooting or overshooting the range would require justification to Parliament. Sheridan Kates, a member of the Green Party Economic Policy Working Group who drafted the motion, said this about today's CGT figures. It is all more evidence of an unfair tax system while that people can bring in so much unearned income tax at much less than income from work. Greens have already got the policy that would equalize taxes from all sources, earned or unearned. And it doesn't detract from the need to tax wealth. Plenty of the richest people aren't even realizing their gains, but take out loans against their wealth to avoid taxes altogether. Now, Daria, given the figures that we've seen and the previous predictions all seemingly being wrong, is it time we just abolish the OBR? >> Well, the thing about the OBR is that it it's not this like ancient pillar of the British [snorts] state. Like, it's barely older than the iPhone, right? It it was it was invented by George Osborne um in 2010. It has this like juicy neutral sounding name, you know, Office for Budget Responsibility. How can anyone disagree that there should be an office for budget responsibility? Like we all believe in responsible budgets. Um but obviously uh George Osborne who who created this quango was not neutral and he had very specific ideas about what public finances are for about what counts as a responsible budget. And for him, you know, public finances are and a responsible budget is not about what you and I might think a responsible budget is, which is, you know, ensuring that wealth is distributed fairly in society and that people have like the basics that they need and that the economy works for everyone. His idea of what a responsible budget is is a budget that creates a good environment for big business to make profit. like that is what and and as well as an ideological opposition to the concept of a welfare um state. And so we obviously can't be surprised that you know any institution that was designed in that mold would continue to perpetuate um that ideology that could continue to measure budgets against that ideology. Um and what is so effective about it is that after you know people's lives have been completely destroyed by austerity, austerity becomes a very difficult thing to sell politically. So what you do when you have this office office for budget responsibility cuz I'm sure George Osborne knew that austerity would eventually become politically unpopular because people don't like to have you know their their GP surgeries privatized. They don't like to have um you know social services cut to the bone. they don't like to have their youth centers closed. So he kind of had this vision and this understanding that austerity is going to become very unpopular. So how do I make sure that the logic of austerity that osborics remains in the fabric of the British state long before I have left becomes like the algorithm on which the British state's economy runs. The way I'm going to do that is that I'm going to create this kind of seemingly neutral or independent watchdog. That means that even if a political party gets voted in on an anti-austerity uh you know um platform which technically this Labour party was uh voted in on that they can then say well we didn't want to do austerity but this neutral uh independent watchdog that knows about the kind what James meway calls the dark arts of of of economic forecasting told us that we have to so it's a way it was a very precient move by Osborne to make sure that his legacy continues on beyond him even as his politics becomes explicitly unpopular. um to to kind of create this this this quango um with this independent official sounding um name because ultimately you know as James Midway says economic forecasting is a dark art in the sense that it it has this this impression of being this mathematical scientific you know objective practice that we you know the econom economic laws exist above politics and above ideology and you can study it scientifically and you can come to objective conclusions In fact, all economic forecasting is subjective and it starts from basic assumptions about what an economy should do. Um, so in a sense all economic forecasting is subjective. The question for us is what assumptions and what principles do we believe economic forecasting and economic management should be run on. So let's be transparent about it. Let's not hide behind this ridiculous veil of of of neutrality and actually be really explicit about what we think this economy should do. And that is what the Green Party can do because the Green Party's vision of what an economy should be doing, which is to take which is take care of the majority of people is far more aligned with what is politically popular than what the Conservative Party did. But the Conservative Party's ideology of what an economy should do makes no sense, is irrational, is deeply unpopular. So they have to cloak it behind this idea of scientific mathematical law that most economists worth their salt know is not true. >> No. No. You don't get it. You don't get it. All of that austerity driven excess deaths that we saw from 2010 to 2019, that was just responsible social murder. That was just responsible social murder the government committed. Like it's so >> we couldn't do anything about it. It wasn't our fault. >> And the idea that you know allowing your own citizens to die early is somehow responsible budgeting is crazy. But like there's also the idea that being responsible is not spending too much. Like from 2010 to 2019, we were in a liquidity trap. For people who don't know what that means at home, when you reduce rates to zero to try and encourage investment, but you still can't get the economy to grow, you still can't get people to invest, right? Interest rates at zero is a sign from your economy that people are desperate to buy government debt. They're desperate to buy bonds. They're desperate to want to make that investment. And yet the government still wouldn't create the investment necessary by going further into deficit to try and stimulate economic growth. They didn't do it. That was irresponsible. Led to a decade of stagnation. A decade of productivity being stagnant as well. It's interesting that as soon as the government does start borrowing more, which they have done since Raise became chancellor in 2024, productivity has started growing again, having been stagnant. The economy is growing again, having been stagnant. Again, those terms in the abstract don't necessarily correlate with better living standards overall and issue have the economic policy to make it happen. But I'm not saying they're bad things. And one of the things that the Conservatives prided themselves on, they always do this, is that they are the ones who are the best at getting the economy to grow. And that's proven to be total [ __ ] That's proven to be an absolute nonsense. And so it has been irresponsible. It was probably the most economically irresponsible time I've ever seen anyone manage this government in this country. When George Osborne was chancellor, it was ruinous. It potentially has created unsolvable problems in terms of our infrastructure, the state of our country. And now interest rates are 5% and the government's having to catch up with all the infrastructure investment that we should have been making. And as anybody when people ask me like who radicalized you, who radicalized you to leftwing politics and people will say Lenin, people will say Rosa Luxembourg, George Osborne. My radicalizing moment was that I lived in Sulford, right? I talk about the story a lot on stream. I lived in Sulford from 2010 to 20 uh to 2017, I think. And I worked at CEX for a large time during that period when that was one of the worst areas hit in terms of council budget cuts, in terms of austerity. People very very poor around there. And CEX you buy and sell games, consoles and and electronics. And people would come into my store and I would have to look these people in the eye and tell them I can't give you more than like 30 quid for your old PS3 or whatever it was. And you'd see like the light drain from their eyes >> as they realized they had no choice but to sell their stuff to me at a cup price to be able to afford to live. And from that moment, I told myself I would make it my mission to make sure that the politics that led to that desperate situation is something that I would oppose the rest of my life. And I and I think the the point that you raised as well is is really important because what often gets lost in these very pretentious and deliberately opaque conversations around economic laws and fiscal responsibility is the fact that actually a lot of what drives the design of the economy is a moral question. George Osborne is not opposed to the welfare state because he truly believes in these neutral economic laws that we have no hand in designing. He opposes the welfare state on a moral ground. Like he thinks it is, you know, these people are all influenced by the same small group of thinkers. And it there is a moral belief that to provide someone with a guaranteed social safety net to take from the rich to give to the poor as they put it. They believe it is a form of theft and they believe that it is morally abject. They believe moral hazard is the way you describe it that it's a moral hazard that it creates laziness that it creates slovenliness. These are people who who ultimately believe that there is ultimately believe that like >> there is no such thing as society like that is a moral position. >> Yeah. They genuinely believe that the people who went to me when I was working at CX having to sell their prized possessions to afford to live that they are at fault. that those are people who made they engage a personal moral failing to get to that point and again it'sable >> and that to protect them from the consequences of their actions is to morally fail them. So we this is where like the kind of they get to hold they get to hide behind this idea of economics as a hard natural science when in fact so much of it much like us you know much like our analysis of politics in the economy is morally driven so is theirs. It's just that our morality [laughter] is not [ __ ] up whereas theirs is. Um, you know, and that's why they can't admit it. Whereas I'm very proud of my moral position on what an economy should do. >> Couldn't agree. Couldn't agree more. There's a lot on the plate of the Democratic Party right now. Donald Trump is shredding the US Constitution in front of the world, starting economy destroying forever wars, upturning the world order, and trying to use the Supreme Court to manipulate the important midterm elections in November. But have viewers at home considered that none of that is as important as talking about the opinions of a Twitch streamer? Well, that's exactly where we are. And it's this clip from commentator Hassan Paher, better known by his online moniker Hanabi, that has been doing the rounds. It all started on Sunday when a short clip of Hassan went viral on Twitter after being posted by this pro-Israel account claiming Assam was inviting quote bad things on American Jews due to their support for Israel. Here's the clip in its full context and unedited. Let's see if that framing is honest. as an anti-inist Jewish person whose temple is reformed and deeply Zionist, it's difficult to even approach trying to change their minds. No, I understand that. I I understand that my I mean, look, to the anti-ionist Jews in my community, you have a a very tough job ahead of you. Well, you have to go back to your communities and and try to get uh your your elderly relatives to understand that this connection between Israel and Zionism that is expressed over and over again through a lot of these Jewish institutions, okay, is teaching people the idea that Jews are monolithic. And this is a dangerous it is a very because look, it's a very dangerous uh mode of propaganda. And you want to know why? Because people don't [ __ ] with Israel any longer. And if and if Jews in America keep putting uh this this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone's going to come around and take action. Not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews. Okay? We're teaching people the wrong lesson. At the end of the day, American Jews do not prioritize Israel, but they do prioritize anti-semitism. And that's precisely the reason why a lot of this propaganda that is facing uh the American Jewish side from a lot of these Jewish outlets, right, will tie the two all the time. And we hear that from outlets like ZBS as well, right? When the host asked Angie Nixon like, "Oh, well, don't you think we shouldn't stop giving weapons to Israel at a time when anti-semitism is exploding?" Where's the connective tissue between these two events? American Jews do care about anti-semitism. It's understandable to care about anti-semitism. They don't care about Israel. So, how do you tie the two? You say, "Well, Israel is the only thing standing in the way of of uh the next holocaust happening." That's how you do it. That's how you do it. So every single time you have prominent Zionist Jews come out and be like, "No, this is anti-Semitic. To oppose Israel is anti-semitic." You're teaching people that you're teaching people the trope of dual loyalty. That's what you're teaching people. After you teach them that, you can't turn around and say, "Oh, well, this is dual loyalty. This is anti-semitic cuz at a certain point people are not going to give a [ __ ] and we're already past that point. It's that simple. So Hassan was not advocating for that to happen. As is made clear when the clip is watched in full context. It's actually very similar in tone to this paragraph from an Ezra Klein article from earlier this year. Anti-ionism [snorts] is rising as a response to what Israel is doing. It will simply not be possible to treat it as a marginal viewpoint that can be shamed or shunned into invisibility. Yes, anti-semitism often cloaks itself in anti-ionism. So don't do the anti-semmites work for them. If you keep telling people that if they oppose the Jewish state, then they must hate Jewish people, eventually they will believe you. Not that context, of course, would stop the pro-Zionist media from seizing the opportunity to use the out of context clip for their own ends. Now, here's CNN's Dana Bash. You may not have heard of left-wing streamer Hassan [ __ ] until this year when Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul Elsa began campaigning with him. Just a reminder, [ __ ] has excused sexual violence from Hamas terrorist. Now, the controversial relationship between the two entered new territory this week after [ __ ] said this. Well, [ __ ] made that comment that American Jews who support Israel are responsible for actions taking against taken against them. which is quite odd when she had previously said this when interviewing Benjamin Netanyahu. >> American Jews in Congress who support Israel and support what you just said um say that a lot of the actions by you and your government are making Jews in the United States unsafe. Congresswoman Haley Stevens, she's running for Senate in Michigan, said Benjamin Netanyahu has made us less safe. He has frankly put Jews in an uncomfortable position across the country. It's >> a bit weird then. Now, of course, this perceived crack in the liberal coalition has been widely exploited by the right-wing media such as Fox News, who have talked more about her son than they have talked about the Iran war. This includes 224 broadcasts about him just in the month of August alone. He is just a taste of their Habi derangement syndrome. far left streamer Hassan [ __ ] who has built a platform on anti-American, anti-Israel rhetoric and has amassed a massive, massive following in doing so. >> Well, [ __ ] is not a socialist. He's not a progressive. He's a communist. Hassan [ __ ] is the ultimate privileged Nepo baby. >> I mean, Hassan [ __ ] wears the costume of Mao Dong, who is the most murderous dictator of the 20th century. He blows the death tolls of Hitler and Stalin out of the water. >> He's just a terrible guy, right? Like I don't know if there's an equivalent on the right for somebody like that. >> I've been doing a lot of Bible study with Harold and Greg and >> I think I'm pretty certain that this per guy >> not getting into heaven. >> I mean again it's interesting because of course I know Fox News aren't stupid. I know that they know that by broadcasting all of this Hassan Paher stuff they're going to create the discourse. they're going to be able to put this into discourse and ask people on the kind of liberal side of politics to respond say well if you don't say anything against Hassan Per then you must agree with him that communism is good you must agree with him that Israel is an apartheid state that is a genocidal state of course they should agree that Israel is an apart genocidal state but of course many of the democrats do not and therefore will jump they will jump at the opportunity to buy into the rights framing of an issue because they have no idea how to engage in agenda setting and we might see well That looks like the Democrats are addicted to allowing the right to set the agenda, as I said, and they've gone into full condemnation mode to try and force Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El Say to himself from Hassan. Representative Hillary Schultton in Michigan was the first Democratic politician out of the block to jump at the chance to make her opposition to her son public with this prepared statement she posted to Twitter on the 24th, claiming he had called for violence against American Jews and named congressional candidate Jeremy Moss on stream. Now, that reference to Jeremy Moss is not from the original clip that went viral last week. Here is Hassan referring to Moss later in that stream. >> Yeah, Jeremy Moss, the Democratic nominee for US House Michigan 11, says this is the person who took who won um Haley Stevens' seat, by the way, says Abdul is going to have to demonstrate some serious outreach to Oakland's Jewish community. I wonder what he has to do to gain the support of Oakland County's Jewish community. Yeah, he has to drop his critiques of Israel. That's what it is. Now, is Oakland County's Jewish community in unison making this demand of Abdul say? No, of course not. But if there isn't opposition from Jewish figures in this community that are loud about the the the um divergence between this representative and their own desires, then the media narrative will set in. even if they don't realize that this media narrative presents Jews as single-minded and singularly invested in the continuation of the Israeli apartheid. I don't know however I don't know how many different ways I can explain this. I don't know how people don't recognize how dangerous this predicament is, how dangerous this is for Jews. You're running around basically tying your entire identity to a country that inevitably will be seen as basically Jewish ISIS. And you're saying as Jews, this is all we care about. Other Democrats were quick to follow suit in their identicate condemnations. Here's the ones who have done so as of the 26th. So have Alisa Slotkin, Josh Gutimer, Jackie Rosen, Susie Lee, Hakee Jeff, Richie Torres, Cory Booker, Brad Schneider, Hillary Shelton, and Jake Okintosh. There's one commonality between these representatives that eagle-eyed tweeters didn't miss out on. However, this graphic from track APAC alleges that the vast majority of these elected officials have received a great deal of money from the Zionist lobby. Weird how they all decided in unison to weigh in on a a deceptively edited clip of a Twitch streamer rather than focusing on beating the Republican party. Outside of copy and paste statements from elected representatives, some congressional candidates also weighed in, including this statement from Michael Lasher and candidate in New Jersey. defenders and some critics of Asan [ __ ] just don't get it. The issue isn't just that he lumps all Jews together and holds us all accountable for the supposed evils of Israel as that his non-stop drive to demonize the world's soul Jewish state along with those who support its survival crosses a line by miles between criticism and due hatred of the ancient variety. Also, Mr. Per, Zionism is fact bound up with Judaism. It is not false conflation. Yes, some Jews are anti-ionists, and yes, you have helped turn the zed word into a slur such that large numbers of Jews, particularly younger ones, disown it partly out of misunderstanding. But when Jews are attacked for supporting Israel, they are being attacked for a core part of their Jewish identity. It is due hatred. It is unacceptable and your rhetoric encourages it. Sparish your taxonomy of good Jews and bad Jews. Genuinely incredible. genuinely incredible for him to go by saying, "Oh, the problem with Hassan Per is that he just lumps all Jews together, which Hassan explicitly did not do in the clips. We have seen them in their full context." He was explicit in saying that Jewish people are not a monolith. Those are direct words that came out of Hassan's mouth. To then go on and say, "Actually, Jewish people are a monolith. Zionism in Israel are permanently indelibly inked upon to the Jewish faith despite only existing as an ideology for just over a century and was incredibly contested especially in the early 20th century with the opposing kind of do-it and bundist movements that were alongside Zionism as believing that Jewish people could be part of a diaspora. Right? There [snorts] has always been levels of disagreement. Any Jewish person will tell you that there's always disagreements around the dinner table. And the idea that you can condemn somebody for treating Jewish people as a monolith when they are not to then go on and say that Jewish people should be a monolith and that they should be somehow entirely indentably linked to a genocidal ethnationalist apartheid expansionist state is again it's doing the job of anti-semites for them as Ezra Klein and as Han have already pointed out. Now perhaps the most deranged of public statements came from representative Josh Gottheimr from New Jerseys fifth. >> Hassan [ __ ] is an anti-semite. He it is what it is and I don't think he would even claim otherwise. He tries to slice the words up at the end of the day. That's what he is. Nobody should be anywhere near this guy. No one should campaign with him. No one should repost him. And and frankly, anyone who is quiet right now is complicit. Everyone should come out against this guy. And we should vote to condemn him when we get back to Congress. Again, Mike Lawler and I have a resolution. I'm I'm hoping that Republican leaders should bring it to the floor so we can stand up to him and to people like Candace Owens who are spewing hate across the board. Yep, you heard that right. Goimer is teaming up with Republican Mike Lawler to try and get a floor vote on the house of the most powerful government in human history to condemn a Twitch streamer. Hassan was unequivocal, however, in responding to his critics, commenting on the coordinator's public statements on Twitter. Apac boss call was made. They are unanimous in their hatred of me and I welcome their hatred. If you're a defender of Israel's genocide, of its occupation, of its child killing spree, then your booze mean nothing to me. Representative Debbie Dingle from Michigan 6th seem to be the only one asking the real questions. At least >> I am done. So don't any reporter ask me again about Hassan [ __ ] It's not what November is about. [applause] Republicans are trying to make it. They're trying to divide us and we got to stop letting them try to divide us. I don't agree with Hassan [ __ ] and a lot of stuff and I really don't agree with them on some of the woman things he said. And I'm still trying to figure out is it the reason he exercises and looks buff is why he has so many followers. [laughter] We should be so lucky. Now, what's so bananas about the neurotic response to this particular episode is that the data suggests the Democratic Party is totally at odds with their voters on [ __ ] himself. Only half of Democrats even know who he is, and amongst those who do, he's overwhelmingly popular with less than a third of respondents thinking his views are antithetical to the party, compared to over half were supportive. That's before we even get to the gaping chasm in opinion between Democratic voters and Democratic politicians over the issue of Israel, with an overwhelming majority supporting arms embargos and aid restrictions to Israel. That's on top of the majority of Democratic voters also believing Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Dalia, do the Democrats just hate their own voters? >> I mean, I'll tell you what I don't hate. The fact that I just got to watch loads of clips of Hassan Pike. Normally, when I'm here, I'm having to watch clips of K Star. So, I'm very glad that we've had that upgrade. Um, >> you and Debbie Dingle in perfect alignment on this one. >> Yeah. I mean, we could all agree he's hot. Like, that is a just a cross party like line. >> I hope son doesn't watch this on stream now. I mean, maybe we do hope. Sorry. Anyway, let me just get back to the analysis, which is why you actually have me here. Um, do the Democrats hate their voters? Uh, in short, uh, yes. you know, I mean, you would think that a party that is supposed to represent the kind of leftish, you know, left of center uh politics in in in the US would be sort of very keen to align themselves with by far the most popular uh streamer, left-wing streamer in the country. You know, a man that streams for eight hours a day, which is unbelievable. uh and regularly get sort of tens of thousands of people watching his stream at any one time. You know, you would think that especially a party that has spoken so much about the importance of of a broad church uh would be very keen to at least find some common ground to try and tap into the clear kind of coalition of potential voters that are organizing around Hassan [ __ ] um and around sort of the kinds of politics that he that he represents. I mean, Camela Harris was very proud to tell everyone that she had received, you know, the endorsement of Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney and how important it was to have a a a broad church of voices in the in the New Democratic party. It's it shows it betrays a very deep level of contempt that you would be more willing to pally up with essentially a war criminal uh from the Republicans than someone who represents the broad you know a significant chunk clearly of your broad base. Um but I think we we have to understand why this is the case. The reason this is the case is because when you have a broken political system, a political system that is not fundamentally democratic, that is completely captured by vested interests, the role of the main establishment parties is not to reflect the politics of the people, it's to make the politics of the people. And one way in which you do that is you create a very very narrow range of political ideas that people can be exposed to and political ideas that are you can legitimately hold. And for the Democrat side that means really really narrowing the boundary of what can be considered an acceptable left or center-left politics. And that inevitably involves neutralizing or delegitimizing anyone who falls outside of that. Now, what I find very interesting um is that on the right, on the Republican side, they have actually been much more able to absorb their version of this. You know, I I saw in one of those clips them saying there's no equivalent of Hassan Pikah on the Republican side, which is in unbelievable. >> Nick Fent is anybody. >> I mean, hello. And not only that, but Trump has been very uh savvy in how he engages with this kind of podcast politics. Um the Democrats have not been able to do that. And that's because the kinds of politics that falls outside of the bounds of the Democrat party are a genuine threat to those vested interests. You know, when we look at the um organizations that are behind a lot of these smear campaigns against Hassan [ __ ] and you know, anyone associated with him, a lot of it is coming from this organization called Third Way, which is basically corporate executives, Wall Street executives, and incredibly wealthy private donors. those people are not going to are investing in the Democratic Party because they see it as a vehicle to neutralize left politics in the US, especially as inequality grows and you know radical politics on both sides kind of grows as a response as a as as a kind of as a response to that. And the Democrat party has been really effective at neutralizing left politics in in the US for a very long time because alongside the kind of you know liberal media which is a phrase I use very cautiously it has had quite a lot of control over what ideas people are exposed to and what's happened as a result of YouTube and the rise of content creators and stuff is that flow that control over the flow of information and ideas has been dramatically undermined. mind, you know, people are exposed now to a lot broader range of ideas. Some of those ideas, Alan Nick Fuentes, are terrible. Um, a lot of those ideas are are really positive and are really kind of um critically thought out. And so what we are seeing here is not necessarily strategic failure from the Democratic Party because, you know, you could look at this and say, well, why wouldn't you try and capture some of this base and reflect the where your base is going? What we're seeing is the purpose of the Democratic Party as it is right now in action, which is to limit people's political imagination and create and neutralize um any kind of left politics that threatens the material interests of power in the in the United States. I just can't get over the fact that they're introducing a bill to Congress to condemn Hassan Per. I just can't get over the fact that there's going to be a Twitch streamer condemnation bill in the House of Representatives potentially if it gets given a floor vote by Mike Johnson, which is crazy to me. But I think there's two things about the story that stand out. First of all, I think that there's a collective delusion amongst the Democratic party establishment that if they just wait, eventually MAGA will crumble and the Republican party will go back to being like it was under Bob Dole, under George Bush senior, like the Reagan >> that had no casualties. >> Exactly. when in fact on basically every single kind of political viewpoint these people have shifted further to the right or they've just completely collapsed like the free trade era is over in terms of republican politics. They're not going back to like the pro- NAFTA reaganite era politics and they're not going back to like liberal interventionism that even though the neocons are still there for you know more imperial reasons as we're seeing like the Don Row doctrine and stuff but the MAGA cult is like 30% of the electorate like that's not going away. People who are supportive of MAGA continue keep winning primaries right that is the Republican party post tea party it's not going back to the way it was and they think by continuing to capitulate that they will be able to win over those moderate Republicans and that's just not happening. it isn't happening at all and that's a collective delusion on top of the fact that they have a huge support for Israel. The second thing that's interesting about this is that just like in the UK um when Morgan Mweeny was designing the electoral position of the Labour party in the run up to the 2024 election, the idea was we're only going to take positions by triangulating the median voters position, right? Which doesn't exist by the way. >> This actually came from a strategy by a Democratic party member called a guy called David Shaw and he described it as popularism. not populism. Popularism are just doing what is politically popular in opinion polling. And that applies to trans people in sports. It applies to defund the police. It applies to foreign policy and loads of different other things. But when it comes to Israel, bro breaks down completely just as it did in the UK. As soon as you Lakshmier and Matt Eacius look at the opinion polling in Israel, rather than go let's move to where the voters are, they go the voters are wrong. How dare you oppose genocide? you're wrong for thinking that we should be trying to move money away from the apathid ethnostate in the Middle East. That's an important geopolitical asset for the United States. I'm like, well, if I was a US voter, I wouldn't want my geopolitical asset tied to child slaughter. Like, that shouldn't be [laughter] difficult for these strategists to understand it. But they've got their mind so tied up in this American unipolar world that they lived in in the 80s and 90s that is dead. It's totally dead and is dying a quick death at the hands of Donald Trump. They don't realize they were living in a different world. We're living in a globally connected, we're living in a far more ideologically disperate world and they can't just hammer the same points again and again and expect the status quo to stay the same. People are moving away from them on explicit moral grounds and they can't cope with the fact that they are the ones who look immoral in the situation. So they're trying to force the square peg of the support of Israel into the round hole of where the American public is at. Right? It's not just Democrats. Lots of Republicans are moving away sometimes for more conspiratorial reasons or anti-semitic reasons, but they are moving away too. And crucially, independents are moving away from Israel as well. It's not a popular position. It is a Democratic Party establishment position that they cannot let go of either because they're bought out by the Zionist lobby or because they genuinely can't see what they've done wrong. >> And also because the geo the structural geopolitical interests of Israel are deeply aligned with the geopolitical structural interests of the United States. It's like they have shared material interests and until they can find another vehicle through which they can confidently exercise that power, they are not going to dissociate from Israel because for them it's not a moral question. It's not a political question. It's a question of maintaining a structure of colonial power in the Middle East. you know that that that is you know and foreign policy in a sense has always uh has always been the kind of carved out exception of you know this idea of politics by consent. I mean this kind of thing doesn't really exist anyway but foreign policy has always been the thing where the the state has had to kind of completely ignore what is actually popular amongst the people because it reflects a much deeper set of interests and I think that I do think that we are starting to see a a shift and I think that the democratic establishment just doesn't know how to deal with that shift because when I talk about you know the control of information and the control of the flow of ideas that you can't see a clearer version of how social media and the rise of alternative media has disrupted that flow than in the case of Israel. you know, there was a very tight, well-funded narrative and story around, you know, what Israel is, what Palestine is, what what it means to to kind of, you know, oppose or defend Israel and the existence of, you know, largely journalists and and people within Gaza being able to finally get their voices heard by the public. that dis like dis like it it dissolved within what felt like what in political timelines felt like minutes and that's a really really threatening thing and like I said you know it's not this utopian thing where it's like social media is the great you know democratizer of information absolutely not but this is one of those examples where it actually kind of worked and this question of what precedent does that set for politics as usual for our understanding of what the role of political parties is which again is not to reflect but is to shape um the the kind of the political spectrum. That is quite an existential question not just for establishment politicians but also the entire network of like lobbyists and think tanks and you know professional political understander that exist all the ecosystem of politics makers that exist all around kind of politics as usual. It's disintegrating and in many ways it's falling into in really scary ways but it's not un it's not even you know in some ways it's actually creating a much more critical you know population. >> Exactly. And we see it in the fact that we saw changing ownership because of like the opposition to Zionism becoming mainstream. Like we saw CBS getting taken over and changing their editorial position. You saw the changing ownership of Tik Toks. There was this conspiracy theory that pro Palestine sentiment was because the CCP were infiltrating the kids through the Tik Toks, right? And those things have changed ownership now. Has the pro Palestine sentiment abated? It hasn't. In fact, it's got even stronger. It shows that actually the lid cannot be put back on the bottle when it comes unsee. >> Yeah. Exactly. You don't you don't unsee children being slaughtered. You don't unsee people with drips in their arms burning to death under the reign of Israeli hellfire. You don't unsee that. And the problem of course is that Democrats would rather lose than give up Israel. They would rather lose in Texas because Talico opposes uh the Israeli aid program. They would rather lose in Michigan because Abid has been photographed next to somebody who's critical is Israel. They want Troy Jackson to lose in Maine because he supports an arms embargo as well. They would rather lose all these races and allow Trump to just continue to destroy American democracy because they're not opposing him. They're not spending time attacking him, blowing up the world economy, and essentially trying to potentially even make the dollar lose its reserve currency status. Huge economic problems are coming for regular Americans and the broader American state if Trump continues. And they're not attacking him. They're attacking Hassan Per because again, they don't care about beating the Republicans. They care about maintaining ideological positions of their own voter base, regardless of where those positions are right now. >> Yeah, exactly. >> Well, thank you very much for joining me tonight, D. It's been an absolute pleasure. >> Thanks for having me. It is sweltering in this in this studio. So, I'm really excited to get some fresh air. >> I know we say it very very [laughter] frequently, but it's extremely extremely hot. Specifically today cuz with it raining outside, it's created this kind of cloud that's kept all the air in. >> Yeah. Like, sorry if there was any like flashes of delirium in some of my responses because I'm like sweating out of every on camera. I've been like this. [laughter] Anyway, and thank you everyone at home for joining us as well. Come back tomorrow night for another live stream from 6 p.m. For now, you've been watching Novara Media. Good night. [snorts]