Dan Wootton Outspoken - NIGEL FARAGE LAUNCHES BRUTAL ATTACK ON LYING CHANCELLOR RACHEL REEVES FROM ACCOUNTS

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

VERSO - https://evening.ver.so/outspoken - Use code OUTSPOKEN to save 15% on your first order. As Nigel Farage takes on Rachel Reeves, Labour is exposed as the real nasty party. In his Digest, Dan reveals a shocking backstage clash between Labour minister Jacqui Smith and Matt Goodwin after last night’s Question Time. Then he welcomes Baroness Fox of Buckley, otherwise known as Claire Fox, the founder of the Academy of Ideas and former Brexit Party MEP.  PLUS: A Tory grandee claims there is a 70 per cent chance of a merger with the Reform UK party, as Nigel Farage claims a sweeping victory in Wales last night. But will that really happen? AND: JK Rowling wages war for women on the MSM who continue to try and label a rapist as a woman, a scientific and legal impossibility. THEN IN THE UNCANCELLED AFTERSHOW: Our Royal Mastermind Angela Levin is on deck to reveal the shocking edits being made to Meghan Markle’s Netflix series, as William and Catherine publicly express their love on Valentine’s Day. Sign up to watch at www.outspoken.live. ---------- Today’s Sponsors: GROUND.NEWS - Go to https://ground.news/outspoken to see through media bias and stay fully informed. Subscribe through my link for 40% off unlimited access this month. INCOGNI - Take back your personal data with Incogni! Use code OUTSPOKEN at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: http://incogni.com/outspoken SURFSHARK - Go to https://surfshark.com/outspoken for an extra four months of Surfshark at an unbeatable price VERSO - https://buy.ver.so/outspoken - Use code OUTSPOKEN to save 15% on your first order. MANSCAPED - https://manscaped.com – get 20% off + free shipping with the code Outspoken. ---------- Dan Wootton Outspoken is fan funded through monthly and one-time donations: https://www.outspoken.live ---------- Join Dan's Substack community: https://www.danwoottonoutspoken.com ---------- Find the full audio show wherever you get your podcasts: Apple — https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/dan-wootton-outspoken/id1762436723 Spotify — https://open.spotify.com/show/19Ltoneek2MSPL10CpSA1J?si=8f6d84e2db56448c ---------- Follow Dan on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@outspokendan?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc Follow Dan on Twitter: https://x.com/danwootton Follow Dan on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danwootton/ Follow Dan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danwootton/?hl=en   #DanWootton #DanWoottonOutspoken #news #outspoken Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Truck Month is on at Chevrolet. Get 0% financing for up to 72 months on a 2025 Silverado 1500 Custom Blackout or Custom Trail Boss. With Custom Trail Bosses available, Class Exclusive Duramax 3-Liter Diesel Engine and Z71 Off-Road Package with a 2-Inch Factory Suspension Lift, you get both on-road confidence and off-road capability. Dirt road ahead? Let's go! Truck Month is awesome! Ask your Chevrolet dealer for details. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue?

A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver.

No spin, no bias, no censorship. I'm Dan Wooten. This is Outspoken Live, episode number 163. Happy Friday. So look, I have big issues with folk having their private communications thrust into the public domain to achieve cancellation. I know a little bit about that myself. But it hasn't taken the Labour WhatsApp leaks to show there is a hypocritical culture within our government, holier than thou on the outside, when it's actually corrupt, nasty and rotten to its core. Nigel Farage is taking on Rachel Reeves. An economist at the Bank of England turns out she was in customer service and on expenses. Well, she had very big problems when she worked for a bank and as a member of parliament had a credit card taken away. So here's the question. Will the real Rachel

Reeves please stand up? And in my digest next, I will reveal a shocking backstage clash between Labour Minister Jackie Smith and Matt Goodwin after last night's question time. Then I welcome one of my favourites to Outspoken for the first time, Baroness Fox of Buckley, otherwise known as Claire Fox, the founder of the Academy of Ideas and former Brexit Party MEP. She is with me for the entire show. Also coming up today, a Tory grantee claims there is a 70% chance of a merger with the Reform UK party, as Nigel Farage claims a sweeping victory in Wales last night. So what will really happen? And JK Rowling wages war for women on the MSM who continue to try and label a rapist as a woman, which let's just remember is a scientific and legal impossibility. Then in the uncancelled after show on Substack,

our royal mastermind Angela Levin on deck to reveal the shocking edits being made to Meghan Markle's Netflix series as William and Catherine publicly express their love on Valentine's Day. Sign up to watch on Substack at www.outspoken.live. You can register completely for free and join the Outspoken Revolution. Now, of course, because it is Friday, we are also hunting for the worst Britain in the world this week. And the nominees, which you can go and vote for in the community, over 20,000 votes already. Andrew Gwynne for those leaked WhatsApp messages. Peter Mandelson, the new US ambassador. Hugo Norton, Taylor, who was the pro-Garzen judge. And Rachel from

accounts for her swindling of expenses and CV lies. Stay tuned because I will reveal the worst Britain in the world this week at the end of the show. But now, let's go. It hasn't taken the Labour WhatsApp leaks to show there is a hypocritical culture within our socialist government. Zipri Starmer, Angela Scum, Rainer, Looney Lamy, Mad Miliband and Rachel from Accounts are holier than thou on the outside when this government, this party, is actually corrupt and nasty to its core. Do as I say, not as I do. And last night, that approach exploded during an astonishing backstage clash between the academic and sub-stacker Matt Goodwin,

a regular here on Outspoken, and the Education Minister Jackie Smith, following their appearance together on the British bashing corporation's fading question time. Watch. for people to come in. The only way you fix this crisis, leave the ECHR. Keep British people safe. Reform the Human Rights Act. Also need to do that and have an active... Human rights are bad.

Those are the only three things that are going to keep you safe in this country. The Labor Party are basically lying to you when it comes to illegal migration. What was the lie? I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you. First of all, let's just get some facts on the table. Now, Matt had been attempting for years to get on Question Time,

and he did well, spitting facts that Fiona Bruce and the rest of the panel couldn't stand. Personally, I have a different approach to these things. I believe it's time for all sound commentators to boycott these types of state media propaganda outlets, where if you have views even slightly to the right or slightly on the outside, you are used as a sacrificial lamb in a five versus one setup. No, thank you. Indeed, the only time the Question Time producers ever asked me,

I very quickly said, hell no. But anyway, it was after the cameras were turned off last night where things got even more interesting. Matt Goodwin revealed, Something revealing happened on Question Time last night. We had a debate about the small boats. Then, when the credits were rolling, I turned to Smith, a Labour minister, and asked, Why are you lying to the British people? She replies,

Oh, do shut up! A Labour government minister. It will all be on tape. The key point is not my irritation, but this, they don't care. They don't care about lying to you. They don't care about evidence which shows their plan is failing. All they want to do, like the left always does, is shut down alternative views, speak the truth, and call them out always. And that I do agree with. As brilliant commentator Gareth Roberts put it, I had Jackie Smith down as one of the probably okay people in Labour. Wrong. And indeed, we are learning very fast. There are very few okay people within this government, given we have an expense fiddler, CV swindler, Chancellor Rachel from Accounts, who couldn't even run her own LinkedIn page, let alone the country's finances.

We're becoming an international embarrassment, you know. This Daily Star front page, brutally going viral all across the world. Chancellor's Pinocchio CV in full. From 1952 to 2022, I was the Queen of England. In 1966, I scored a hat trick to help England win the World Cup. In 1969, I was the first man to walk on the moon. In 1989, I invented the World Wide Web. In 2025, I'm learning my four times and seven times tables. But as ever, it has been left to the moral,

if not official leader of the opposition, Nigel Farage, to call out this utter sham. Economic figures today show we're all getting poorer again, and we're led by the most incompetent chancellor in history, Rachel Reeves, and there are some very big questions. She said she worked for 10 years at the Bank of England, turns out it was five and a half. Said she was an economist at the Bank of England, turns out she was in customer service and on expenses. Well, she had very big problems when she worked for a bank and as a member of parliament had a credit card taken

away. So here's the question. Will the real Rachel Reeves please stand up? But meanwhile, we have a prime minister who refuses to stand up. He refuses to face down people who are not prepared to agree with him, like our under attack farmers. It must be really incredible to be part of building, I mean, actually here, not just building houses, but building a community. But amidst all of this failure, can I just provide one word of warning about this WhatsApp scandal? Because yes, it does show that these Labour MPs have very grim thoughts about the people who they claim to represent. But I have big issues with folk having their private communications thrust into the public domain with the sole goal of

achieving the cancellation of someone. I've experienced that, remember. And I want to share what the Free Speech Union wrote about this on X. They said a non-hate crime incident has been logged against Andrew Gwynn after leaked posts in a private WhatsApp group. This marks the first time we've seen a non-crime hate incident recorded over a private conversation, a worrying sign for free speech. Toby Young, who runs the Free Speech Union, went one step further, writing, no one should be prosecuted for offensive messages in a WhatsApp group. The way to avoid accusations of two-tier justice is not to prosecute more people for things said in private, but to prosecute none. And Claire Fox added, Gwynne's vile comments equal telling re-contempt felt by many Labour politicians about electorate,

especially the elderly. Don't forget Brexit years and open wish for older leavers to die off to overturn referendum. But Toby Young is spot on. Defending even offensive chat equals the key to free speech. And I'm delighted to welcome Baroness Fox of Buckley to Outspoken right now for today's uncancelled interview. Claire Fox, it is so wonderful to have you. Of course, the founder of the Academy of Ideas, former Brexit Party MEP. And look, there is so much to get stuck into about this Labour government, right? But this does feel like quite a disturbing development when it comes to free speech,

does it not? We now have a Labour minister out of a job. We have an MP suspended from the party. We have 11 councillors sacked for communication, which was private, which was said in a jokey capacity. And to me, this really adds to the sort of Orwellian state that we've seen under Starmer, where we have good folk in jail for a Facebook post or something a little bit offensive on X. Personally, I don't think anyone should be punished in this way for speech. Completely agree with you. There's a number of things about this. When I read these WhatsApp messages,

as I indicated in that post that I put up, you actually see, have confirmed, what you've always suspected about Labour politicians, which is that they really do despise and hate ordinary British workers, yeah? And they talk about them, and as I said, the elderly in particular. But it's very important, this, isn't it? Which is, I don't necessarily want people to always feel that everything they say is being recorded or is about to be posted on X or

sent to the police, right? You need somewhere where you can think aloud, you know, where you can say things that are unpalatable. And you have to have places where you can mess around with your mates, even if what we read isn't exactly savoury. So I do not want spying on encrypted messages and this in this instance it wasn't spying of course there's somebody who snitched on it and that drives me mad as well because imagine a situation where every single conversation you have every private chat could be being taped could go live well i know the consequences of it i mean i know the consequences of it i lost i lost my job at g GB News fundamentally because of a private message that I sent feel like there is a line that shouldn't be crossed. I have to say, though, Claire, I do think the right deal with these issues very differently

to the left. So, for example, Susan Hall, the Labour mayoral candidate posted today, Eamon Holmes on GB News has just said that he finds the WhatsApp comment from the MP about the pensioner dying before the next election funny. Obviously, we all find different things funny. Now, what I like about what Susan Hall has done is, yes, she's expressed her, I guess, irritation that Eamon has a different view on this, but she hasn't said, let's cancel Eamon Holmes. Let's get him sacked from GB News. You know, we can have these debates about things without immediately, I think, suggesting that people lose their entire role. And by the way, I think the comments were vile, utterly, utterly vile. But I do just have a problem with people losing their

job for private communication. I think that the difficulty we've got with this one is that sadly more and more people on the right i mean remember i'm historically from the left so i don't count myself in the right tribe but anyway that's one side i actually think that many people on the right are actually in danger of playing this game though because there's far too much enthusiasm to cancel people on the left as it were were, from people on the right. And I understand it. You know, it's like give them a taste of their own medicine. They're anti free speech. So if we can do a gotcha on them, great, we'll go for them. But actually, that legitimizes the notion that you should be canceled for something you've said privately or something you've said on social media.

So I don't want anybody to call for anybody to be sacked in that way. Now, it's up to organisations. I mean, if the Labour Party want to get rid of someone from their party because it's revealed something about them that they disagree with, fine. I'm afraid probably this is something which they've done out of embarrassment rather than anything else. But it's more the kind of gotcha. You know, we're going to show you what somebody said off the record. We all know. I mean, forget how vile we think those comments are. There is such a thing as black humor. Right. There are lots of times that people in all sorts of circumstances make jokes,

inappropriate jokes to their mates about things which you wouldn't necessarily make public and i think we have to protect that private sphere i think it's would be impossible to live if we all spoke as though we were following a script as though it's like compelled speech you know you basically have to say what you think will go down with bosses or the public or whatever and i don't want to live like that because i sometimes want to explode with rage say something inappropriate you know or or sometimes just when you're thinking out loud you're actually saying is this a mad thought i've just thought maybe we could do this and then kind of retract it. But that's almost how you realise it was a stupid idea in the first place. You gave voice to it. Otherwise, we will all sound like Keir Starmer, you know, spun beyond any credibility at all,

reading things out in a monotone, robotic fashion, saying the right thing. But that's not what anybody wants. It destroys authenticity in politics. That's the danger with this. Well, indeed, indeed. I mean, he is a robot. He would not speak to the farmers. We saw that. But I also think critically, Claire, he would not speak to some of the families and friends of the victims of the Southport massacre when he visited that city and emotions were running high, which to me was such a failure of leadership. But can I ask... Sorry. Sorry, no, you go.

Well, no, because I just wanted to say, I mean, the Southport, I've actually commented before on how badly handled Southport was when he went there, his inability to be human in a way. Yeah. And that inability to understand the febrile and very raw atmosphere in Southport actually indicated that huge gap between the political elite and ordinary people's understandable and righteous fury. But on the farmers issue, which you showed the clip of yesterday, I mean, I was I'm so incensed by this because he took the time to do an interview in relation to why he didn't speak to the farmers in which he actually impugned the reputation of the farmers and effectively blamed them for problems with the NHS. And he had no choice whatsoever but to make this ridiculous attack on family farmers

through the attack on inheritance tax because otherwise people would be dying on trolleys and the NHS and so on and so forth so he doubled down and made it worse I mean he made it million times worse and the farmers are tearing their hair out and he could have taken the time that he did that interview to go and just shake the hands of the odd farmer and say to them, I'm going to stick by what I said. I mean, he doesn't have to change his mind, but he has not got the capacity to go and interact with and be held accountable to the people that he's destroying the livelihoods of. That's what really, it's the cowardice of it that I can't stand. Total cowardice. Now, Claire, can I ask you about this clash on Question Time? Matt Goodwin's a big boy. He's saying he isn't worried about the fact that Jackie Smith told him to shut up. But again,

does it not indicate the scorn in which this Labour Party treat their opponents. They aren't really prepared to debate. Yeah, so a couple of things. You started off when you were doing your introduction saying you'd never go on Question Time. Let me tell you, I think it's important that people like Matt go on Question Time. People even like me go on Question Time. I've got no problem with taking it to them, as it were and taking it to the man and I actually thought that Matt was in the honour of this your own programme was suitably outspoken and made some very important points I didn't agree with all of them but that was good. Jackie Smith I thought couldn't cope

with that she kept interrupting so just after what we've been talking about I'm really not interested what happened in the green room afterwards because after all that was a private exchange but actually her behavior on camera I thought really let her down because she just didn't want to hear she just she didn't want the audience to hear that alternative point of view and did her damnedest to stop it really emerging and I thought that Matt did a really good job at just saying this is a point of view that people need to hear and it will be widely clipped and people will have heard it and he got some claps from the audience so I was really glad to see that but yes it does reveal yet once more that sort of contempt and I find myself in the

Lord's endlessly you know I ask questions I the Lords endlessly. You know, I ask questions, I make points, and whoever the minister is I'm addressing it to just kind of looks me in the eye and just almost answers a completely different question. It's like being gaslit. You just think, did you not hear what I said? You know, they just don't want to answer directly what you've just challenged them on. They want to try and airbrush and erase away any criticism and that's the problem with jackie smith's shut up point and i think by the way that jackie smith is one of the better people in the labour cabinet which is to say she really genuinely exactly she really genuinely is far more able to handle those kind of encounters.

And the fact that she couldn't indicates how defensive they are on immigration. I think that's the big thing is they don't know. Matt was saying you've lied. I mean, she could just say, no, we haven't lied. But the truth of the matter is, is that their immigration policies, such as they are, are rhetorically saying we're going to deal with this and every commonsensical bone in your body knows that what they're doing is doing not even the opposite but it's just not going to work and so matt was right to call that out okay i don't know if we're going to agree on rachel reeves claire because this is where i take a much harder stance because Reeves, Rachel from Account months, months to try and admit to what she did. It was only after the BBC actually confirmed this reporting from her former colleague Kev Gillett, which I first brought into the public domain right back at the start of December, that she has now actually made this additional change to her LinkedIn. And given we now have a chancellor who is driving the economy

into the ground, is this not significant? No, actually, we probably do agree on this. I mean, apart from anything else, they've been hoist on their own petard because they were the sanctimonious uh i mean if you remember in the build-up to the election they barely gave us a policy to vote for they simply said we will be the trustworthy ones you have been betrayed by the sleaze and the uh corruption of the conservative party and a lot of people agreed with that. And they said, look at us. We are holy. We are absolutely pure as the driven snow. We are so. And at the time, I thought, well, they sound so dull, you know, because they kept talking about their own virtue.

But within days, almost of them getting elected, we found out that they'd had free tickets to football and concerts. And there was all sorts of rather dodgy doings, goings on. And I think that Rachel Reeves is in really serious trouble here. I mean, her fake CV, the fake CV argument and people then, I mean, Jackie Smith last night on Question Time kept saying it wasn't her CV, it was her LinkedIn post. And it was like, God almighty. I mean, and then somebody else wrote it.

It's like, well, check your own LinkedIn post. And it was like, God almighty. I mean, and then somebody else wrote it. It's like, well, check your own LinkedIn post then. And the truth is, is that people were misled by her experience. But I don't suppose anyone voted for Labour because they thought she was like a brilliant economist. But it's also the case that this now accusations from the BBC, no less, that doesn't mean by the way I trust it but it just makes it awkward for them because they're the ones who tell us the BBC are the fact checked, you know, fact checking trustworthy broadcasters even if we don't

always go along with that. The truth is they've said that she had somehow left her job on an NDA wait for it, that is Amazon delivering two hours too late and I've got to get it. Proves it's live, won't be a second.

It's good. so it's just more flat it didn't take me long at all there we go i'm back no worries jesse what do you want to do do you want to pick up because i'm moving on to the next subject after this. Well, it was about Reeves and Claire. Okay, great. Claire, can you just start your answer again? Well, no, I do my head um right so the thing about reed is that um she right sorry i've got lost now so basically you were saying about the fact that she had um that they had revealed the bbc had taken all this time and then they had revealed the fact that the expenses had been done.

Okay, I'm just going to emphasise that this is not a bad piece of investigative journalism. And by the way, Dan, credit to you for having done that kind of work before at exposing this. It's very important that these stories are told. I mean, this isn't the same as private messages. This is what you have to do when you hold people to account. It's interesting, however, that it's the BBC. And we all know that the BBC are a trustworthy source, unlike Dan

Wotton, in their eyes, not in anyone else's. I'm not saying that. But they're the ones who tell us if it's on the BBC, it must be true. And it's the BBC that has now told us that actually there's something rather dodgy about the way she left the bank that she wasn't an economist for 10 years, that actually there was some expenses scandal of some sort. And it looks like an NDA was signed. People are saying she didn't leave that written, but something odd happened. And if it hadn't been for the case that um the labor government's big claim to fame was that they were not dodgy like boris johnson and the corrupt tories they might be able to pull this off but i think for the public it just smacks of the kind of double standards and two-tier approach to everything which is oh when we said we were going to be attacking people

for corruption and not trusting, we didn't mean us. Don't talk to us about that sort of thing. The only slight qualm I have is that I do want to see the back of Rachel Reeves, and I'd rather that it was that she was dispensed with because she made such a mess of the budget. Because we've already mentioned her. She is likely to destroy British agriculture, substantially damage farming. Her national insurance contribution in employers is really killing, having a terrible impact on the hospitality industry, on hairdressers, on anyone, employees, anyone, right? It's been pretty disastrous. And I always want to be, you know, I'm the Academy of Ideas, for God's sake. You know, I'm one of those kind of like, we don't want to do people over for

petty reasons. Let's get them on the big stuff. There's plenty of political disasters associated with Rachel Reeves in terms of her role as chancellor, that should lead her to being rather quietly or loudly removed from the cabinet, in my opinion. And I want her to be held to account for that rather than her dodgy CV. Me too. I think that will probably only be a matter of time, given the current state of the economy. Breaking right now, Nigel Farage has described last night's election result in Wales as a big win and said that is the reason Labour is panicking. Of course, this comes after a whole load of positive polling for the insurgent party. The deputy leader, Richard Tice, posting Nigel Farage

is the most popular PM choice, almost twice that of Kemi. The chairman, Zia Youssef, talking about a resounding win for reform and arguing that our campaign machine is starting to fire. I mean, in all fairness, when you actually do look at those results, wow, they've gone from nothing to 47%, Labour down 49% to 26%. Of course, the latest polling also suggests a majority for reform. So maybe it's no wonder that Tory grandees are now publicly discussing what was unthinkable even just a few weeks ago. In a new interview with the GB News political editor Christopher Hope, Sir Edward Lee, the father of the house, has said that there is a 70% chance that there is either a merger or an electoral pact between the two parties before the next election. And he certainly didn't express much support for the failing

Kemi Badenoch either, saying he has no idea if she will be in charge. But Farage's former spinner, Gwaine Toer, has dismissed that suggestion, saying 70% of statistics are made up on the spot. Sir Edward has no idea what he is talking about. Not a single reform figure is interested, only Tories desperate to save their skins. As for policies, reform are not a high-tax, mass immigration, net zero loving bunch of woke ideologues. Now, Claire Fox, you were, of course, a Brexit party MEP. You were essentially working under Nigel Farage. You know a lot about him.

You know how he works at close quarters. Firstly, are you tempted? Are you one of these people who thinks maybe I want to be part of this reform action? And given how much you know about Nigel, do you see the potential of him becoming prime minister? So I think that the result in Wales is very significant, by the way. You know, I'm Baroness of Buckley and Buckley's in North Wales and I've got a lot of family and friends in Wales is very significant, by the way. You know, I'm Baroness Fox of Buckley, and Buckley's in North Wales, and I've got a lot of family and friends in Wales. And it was very difficult in Wales.

It really is a Labour heartland, and it really is not going to be a Labour heartland. And you made the point about me being a Brexit Party MEP. I was partly inspired by the people of Wales who carried on voting Labour, but huge numbers voted to leave the European Union and then were taught down to by the Labour grandees in Wales who call them racist and xenophobe and stupid and all that argument we've heard before. So I was delighted to see reform do so well in that council election, and I hope we'll see more of it. But I suppose one of the things that I think that's peculiar about this discussion is it's almost as though, no disrespect to Nigel or Richard or any of the reform or Zia or anyone, it's almost as though it doesn't really matter what reform do now. The public have decided that reform are the way of shaking up mainstream politics. You know, the two party system

is really cracking, really falling apart. And so when you ask me if I'm going to be part of reform, it's not really, you know, I'm a non-affiliated peer. My big passion is the Academy of Ideas and the work I do with that. And, you know, you said I worked under Nigel Farage. I've never worked under anyone, so let me tell you. So I worked alongside.

He was the leader of the party that you were serving. I was nonetheless, and credit to him for having stood in the elections, brought the Brexit party together. But I'm only making that point because, you know, nobody would want me in their party because I'd be too argumentative and stroppy. But the thing I am... But he did, Claire.

He did want you. I know. But for for now in a proper political party listen i'm a critical friend i want reform to shake things up i really genuinely hope that things will i i and i i don't want reform to become complacent because polls are polls and in the end you have to win the arguments and you have to win the people around but i have talked to so many many many many people who contacted me from the old Brexit Party days, voters I mean now rather than anyone important, and they're people who don't particularly like Nigel Farage,

weren't going to join reform. Some of them went back and voted Labour at the last election just in the hope that Labour might have got sensible and they were so furious with the betrayal by the Tories. Some of them carried on voting Tories and lots of them didn't vote at all. Now what's happened is they're all joining reform. They're not just joining, but they're organising local groups. And I'm talking about trade union organisers.

I'm talking about real Labour Party hardliners. So that becomes really problematic when you get this talk of a Tory reform merger, because it can't just be seen as a kind of, you know, Conservative Party. It's got to have that sense of changing politics for good, part of the new political realignment that goes way beyond the traditional left-right lines, that is not to do with either the Conservative Party or the Labour Party. Now, think if reform does really well, as anticipated in the next general election, it might well have to form a government with another party. And that's different than actually doing a pact before the general election, which I think would be ill-advised because it would

disillusion those people who really don't see themselves, never seen themselves as Tories, but actually are appealed to by a kind of common sense politics, socially conservative in some ways, economically very mixed when it comes to reform. But the main thing is, is that they want a populist uprising, a bit like what happens in America, right? like what happens in America. Yes, we need it. Exactly. And a lot of people who voted for Trump don't really like Trump. They wouldn't consider themselves to be Republicans. Do you know what I mean?

But they could see that the Kamala Harris brand of politics had to be destroyed. And in some ways, Trump himself has destroyed the old Republican brand of politics. Now, nobody in the Conservative Party is going to destroy the Conservative brand of politics because it's run by a particular class and elite of people. And so the only way is to march through the middle. And that's what reform could do. Look like they've got every chance of doing and they need to improve lots of things. Their policies are a bit all over the place. But it's almost despite that, the voters are just saying, we want change. Remember, Labour got elected on the basis of we are the change party. And everybody now they've seen them in power realises, oh, that elitist disdain and disgust for ordinary people

who brand us as far right or racist or whatever, that's not confined to the Tory grandies. There's actually loads of people in the Labour Party prepared to do that. It's the first type of message we got from Keir Starmer in relation to Southport and the riots. And so people now are just saying never again, not going back to Labour, not going back to Tories. What about Nigel's sensibilities, him as a human being? I mean, I know you're saying he wasn't your boss, but you did work with him up close. Does he have the capability to be a Trump like figure?

I don't know. I mean, he's his own man. And obviously he's friendly with Trump. I think as the as the leader of this particular part of the populist revolt, I think he embodies for me somebody who could take us forward. Yeah, because he's got the backbone. You know, he's got you just showed him dealing with Rachel Rees. He's got the humour. He's got a certain loyalty factor because even people who don't like him recognize that he's a substantial and important political figure. You know, he's not a nobody. Right. It's not going to be walked over. And I think that's very important for anybody who's assumed he's got a leadership position. So I think, yeah, I think he probably is. I mean, he himself is rightly pointed out. He doesn't want to do this forever. And it might be that he takes the next step forward and then he has said and then hands over to younger or different people.

But I think that it's very important that I hope in many ways that Nigel will stick the course until the next election, because I think that he is likely to be or much more likely to be internationally recognised as somebody of substance. And it doesn't matter. You see, you can say, not you, but people can say Varadj is, you know, he's uncouth, he's a chancer, he's a, you know, all the things that people say about him. But actually, he's done some very important,

he's moved politics in a way that I actually think some of it at least is essential. I mean, we wouldn't have got Brexit over the line without Nigel Farage. I mean, that's the reality. That's why, despite my personal anxiety about standing for the Brexit party alongside Farage, when I actually took the nomination, I actually said at the press conference, I never, ever, ever thought that I would be sitting on the same platform as Nigel Farage. It just wasn't my DNA, not my tribe. But actually, he was very, I don't want to look like I was being disrespectful when I said it didn't work under him,

although that was true. But actually, he was very respectful of me and he encouraged a broad range of political people to stand as would be MEPs during that election. And it looks as though his sensibilities are allowing him to let go a little bit of the way that the Reform Party is organising. And there are now thriving local groups being set up and i suppose credit then to zia um and to richard who kept the show on the road that that we're in a position now where that's happening and i i do want to say it's made a huge difference by the way that they've got those five meps because meps mps because it's it's allowed some sort of, without being silly, allowed some respectability. They've shown they're like proper grown-ups in a way. I mean, Rupert Lowe's like a one-man parliamentary accountability machine. I mean, amazingly impressive.

So that's made people who wouldn't have thought of them before think, oh, you know, they're all right. 100%. 100%. I mean, look, I almost feel like celebrity culture is dying out. We saw that in America. And actually, we need some political stars. And I feel like the reform MPs, because there's so few of them, are becoming that. It's almost helped them having that low number. But speaking of political stars, Claire Fox, I want to talk about something that you did in the House of Lords this week. But to set it up, I think it's important to provide context. And I'll show you a little bit of a very impressive woman, Katie Amess. She's the daughter of Sir David Amess, the Conservative MP who was killed, murdered brutally in a terror attack by an Islamist extremist who had been referred to the Prevent

scheme. Now, Katie was on the show earlier this week, making it very, very clear she intends to fight hard against Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper. Watch. Oh, I will be speaking to them. It is absolutely absurd that they can launch an inquiry immediately into one attack and not another. What are they hiding? What is going to come out in this inquiry that they do not want seeing the light of day? It's going to be an embarrassment for them and it's going to be something that they don't want to have to discuss. But how can you look at yourself in the mirror at night? How can you claim that you're my dad's friend if you are actively keeping his family from getting the answers that they deserve? Now, what's despicable is Katie Amess has been ignored by the vast majority of

the Westminster establishment, but not Clare Fox. And Clare, I want to watch this very important question that you put to Labour in the House of Lords this week. The passion and fury from Katie Amess, David Amess's daughter, over recent weeks, demanding a full inquiry. And I'd just like to say she's very much her father's daughter and he'd be so proud of her. But she feels as though the government are ignoring her. ond mae hi'n teimlo fel os yw'r Llywodraethau yn ei gwneud yn ei gwybod. Rwy'n gofyn i'r Gweinidog edrych yn seriol ar y cyngor cyfnodol hwnnw, a yw'r achweliadau atal Axel Rudder-Kobana wedi'u thrymlo i gynnwys ei mwyafrwydd, Ali Harvey Ali, oherwydd, fel y mae hi'n ei ddweud, mae'n anghywir penderfynu a chyfweliadau a fydd yn cael eu atal. Mae'n rhaid i'r Llywodraeth ddech yn cytuno bod y ddau ffyrdd yn gysylltu â phwysig? Nid yn unig y gallai gwleidyddion ymgymryd â rhai gêm o ddibwysion anodd. Pan ddwyd Sir David, roedd gennym ni swydd o bobl yn sgwrsio am

cymhwyso cymhwysedd yn y cyfwysedd, unrhyw beth, ond yn sgwrsio am islam radigol. Ar ôl y llwyrion yn y Cymru, beth ydym wedi sgwrsio amdano? Sgwrsio am gael gwaith ar Amazon. Nid ydy'n teimlo'n ddewr i mi. Felly rwy'n credu y bydd ymchwil cyfan i'r ddau gyda'i gilydd yn ddefnyddiol i bawb. Rwy'n ymddiheul i'r Llywodraeth. Rydyn ni wedi gwneud yw, rydym wedi cyflwyno ymchwil cyhoeddus i'r diogeluion Southport, ac rydym wedi cytuno i wneud hynny, ac rydw i'n edrych ar y cyfrifoedd a nifer o fesurau eraill i gael ymchwiliad hwnnw ar waith.

Rydyn ni wedi gofyn am adolygiad cynharachol gan yr Arbennig Lord Anderson o Ipswich ynghylch tynion llawr Sir David. Rwyf hefyd, fel y Gwlad, yn cymryd caniatâd i Gwlad Sir David, Katie, sydd wedi gwneud yr hyn sydd wedi ei wneud hi'n hapus, gan ystyried arbennig ei fater, ond hefyd arstyried i sicrhau bod ei fater yn ddiogel ac mae gwasanaethau'n cael eu dysgu. Mae hynny'n rôl hollol ddifrifol i hi. lessons are learned and that is an absolutely vital role for her to do we are going to review first of all the noble lord anderson of ips which is examination of what's happened on top of the reviews that have been undertaken which we published this week and in the light of that we'll consider further discussions uh downstream and that may not satisfy the noble lady now. And I

presume it didn't satisfy you, Claire Fox, because effectively they are ignoring Katie Amos just like they ignored her for all of these years. Yeah, so I mean, that's the kind of word salad I have to listen to all the time.

God, I feel for you. I deserve a bloody medal, that's all I can say. But I do these things. Listen, by the way, I want to listen to all the time. God, I feel for you. I deserve a bloody medal, that's all I can say. But I do these things. Listen, by the way, I want to just give credit to you because a lot of people wonder whether this world of YouTube channels matters or is important as opposed to the mainstream media. And I have to say, I mean, the Academy of Ideas, we have a YouTube channel, it's not quite like yours, but archives every single debate we've ever organized for 20 years or what have you.

And they are important because they I actually heard that story on your channel. Right. That's where I heard Katie Emma speak speak i listened to that with my mouth wide open i could not believe the way she'd been treated and i hadn't seen it on the news i hadn't seen it anywhere else it was to your credit that i watched that interview and then as soon as i saw i only found out half an hour before that there was going to be any questions on this issue i rushed it i wasn't even meant to be there so that i could ask that question i'm so happy about that well that's you inspired it and that's very important isn't it because it shows that this new world of alternative media it's not even called that but you know i mean the youtube world of where we can speak truth to power can then actually have an impact on on political discussion because

even though it was a word salad answer by the way it was suitably i think muffled and embarrassed you know he didn't really he wished i hadn't asked the question there'd been a lot of quite good questions by the way from friends of of sir davidess beforehand. But I felt I didn't really put them on the spot. So what I'm going to do to follow up is I'm in touch now with Katie and I'm going to pass on the details of the noble Lord, the minister, Lord Hanson of Flint, so that she can write to him because he said he understood where she was coming from. Well, let him be on the receiving end of her um attempt to change their mind i mean they are not going to do an inquiry into david

amos's murder which is astonishing it's astonishing but you see they feel they feel dare i say it i mean i'm going to say it so it's outspoken i think they feel that somehow the Southpaw murder, murders, the slaughter of those children, right, is safer territory for them because there's a sort of ambivalence. I mean, you know, prevent were useless. And in fact, all the institutions were that let that happen. You know, well rehearsed. But actually, Asa Rudder-Kabana doesn't fit into the particular brand of terrorism that the government don't want anyone to talk about. So before my question in the House on that, the minister kept saying whether it's radicalism, bar right, extremism, you know, like it's always all a mush. Yeah, everybody. What they don't want to do, I'm afraid, and they're still avoiding, and we saw it with the grooming gangs and the rape gangs and so on, is they do not want to talk about the rise of radical Islamism in the UK. You know, they've got an inquiry as we speak into the harassment, bullying and terrorising of candidates during the general election by radical Islamist supporters of Palestine rights, who basically terrorised Labour candidates.

And it really kind of shook them up. And they set an inquiry up. But whenever I ask about that, there's a kind of, oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes, we will be. I mean, you know, for God's sake, they want to avoid it. And so I think that because we know absolutely that David Amess's murderer was inspired by radical Islamism, the nihilistic, vicious anti-Western movement that's responsible not only for the pogrom on October the 7th that killed Jews is anti-Semitic in its nature, but also wants to destroy the West. Because they don't want that discussion, I'm afraid they're avoiding looking into what happens in relation to Sir David Amess. Breaking right now, J.D. Vance, the U.S. Vice President,

has given what Alison Pearson of the Daily Telegraph has called the speech of the century at the Munich Security Conference. Now, of course, the timing of this speech couldn't be any more significant. Just yesterday, another revolting terror attack by an Islamist fundamentalist who should not be in Germany in the first place shook the very city that Vance has turned up in. Now, J.D. Vance has said here that Europe should be far less concerned about Russia and more concerned with the threat of freedom from within. This is clearly a reference to the attacks on freedom of speech, the attacks on religion. But what's great is that I have Claire Fox with me. Neither of us have seen this speech, which I am told is utterly extraordinary. So I've got a section of this now, which we are going to watch together. Let's go. Go, J.D. Vance. I'm excited.

And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons, in particular, in the crosshairs. A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith-Connor, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and an Army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own. After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply, it was on behalf of the unborn son he and his former girlfriend had aborted years before. Now, the officers were not

moved. Adam was found guilty of breaking the government's new buffer zones law, which criminalizes silent prayer and other actions that could influence a person's decision within 200 meters of an abortion facility. He was sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution. Now, I wish I could say that this was a fluke, a one-off crazy example of a badly written law being enacted against a single person. But no, this last October, just a few months ago, the Scottish government began distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law. Naturally, the government urged readers to report any fellow citizens suspected guilty of thought crime. In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is dead. Wow, free speech, I fear, is... Wow. Free speech, I fear, is dead.

Claire Fox, shots just fired from the US vice president. So J.D. Vance, the other day at an AI summit, which I thought, oh, this is going to be dope, also made an absolutely stonkingly brilliant speech centering on free speech. And the fact that he's made this speech today would indicate that he is an important hugely important voice in free speech in europe terms my god what what can you imagine the humiliation of the uk for it to be known on the international stage

that they actually prosecuted people for silent prayer. Now, let me make it clear. I'm an atheist. And what's more, I'm pro-choice. That means pro-abortion and so on. So you'd think that I wouldn't be on his side on this. But actually, I argued against that law for buffer zones because I always knew that the state being allowed to make it illegal for people to stand around leaflet or have any voice at all outside an abortion clinic was a very dangerous precedent to set. And as we've seen, it has been used to criminalize silent prayer. And I think that we can be grateful.

I mean, you know, dare I say it, to J.D. Vance and the Trump administration. And I've got loads of criticisms of them, but I can be delighted that Elon Musk raised the issue of the rape gangs to such a point that actually the government were embarrassed to do something. And I really, really hope now that this eminently sensible point by J.D. Vance allows us to keep raising this issue of the attacks on free speech in this country. Because one thing we didn't I didn't refer to earlier, which was hugely important, is that on this private WhatsApp row about the Labour MPs and so on saying vile things, that the police were involved and issued a non-crime hate incident. We have a situation in this country, maybe J.D. Vance will talk about it, in which you don't have to have committed a crime. Nobody even said you've committed a crime, but the police can come around,

warn you for a thought crime, for a pre-crime, and write your name down on a police database. I mean, what an atrociously authoritarian situation that is. So brilliant. I'm cheering all the way so far. Now, I haven't heard what else he said, so he might have said some atrocious things I don't agree with. But that clip was brilliant. Yes, that clip was great.

I said he said that free speech was dead in the UK. He actually said it was in retreat. However, it has been viewed as very significant that he has called out the United Kingdom and this Labour government more than any European state. He did really go for the issue of uncontrolled mass immigration, though, to Claire, saying no voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, I can't disagree with him on that either.

I mean, listen, I'm from a liberal left, relatively, you know, liberal on immigration. But I have been myself shocked and horrified by the way that immigration has been allowed to go out of control, right? And the lies that were told. We were talking about, you know, Matt Goodwin accusing Jackie Smith of lying. I mean, one of the greatest lies and one of the things that is most galling is that just after the citizens of this country democratically voted to stop freedom of movement, we get into a situation where we discover that the Conservative Party that was supposed to be delivering on that Brexit promise actually said, oh, yeah, we won't have freedom of movement of Europeans, but we're going to allow legally millions of people to enter the country.

And they did that behind the backs of the electorate, right? They didn't have that as a democratic discussion. So good on Vance as well. I mean, listen, I think that what we can say is that I've been really worried. So I'm glad Vance has done this, that the Trump vibe and the impact on Europe is something which we can see whether it has an impact. But we have to build our own fortunes. Right. We can't be dependents on the Americans saving us on this one, although any help is appreciated. But at the Academy of Ideas, we're actually going to set up a European free speech network.

We're working on that at the moment. Love it. Because my concern is that too many people in Europe now see Europe as the kind of home of illiberal wokeism and attacks. You know, everything is equality, diversity and inclusion. And they want to pose themselves as distinct from these sorts of mad Trumpist, far right American free speech world. And I think what we need to do with free speeches in Europe is to actually build our own movement

to show that actually Europe is not going to become the bastion of closing down speech. It's actually from the grassroots, not from the EU side, from grassroots ordinary citizens, we've got to lead the fight back. And Claire, obviously, an election in Germany in just nine days time. Now, Elon Musk has said the AFD, the Alternative for Germany, is the only way to save Germany. Nigel Farage, I saw yesterday, says, no, no, no, no, I'm not associating myself with them, the far right. Now, I'm in the Musk camp on this. You might not be surprised to learn. Where do you stand on the rise of the AFD? I'm going to sit in the middle, which is always very uncomfortable for me because I'm not the type. But listen, the AFD has got some particularly unpleasant, well-known, unpleasant racists in it.

There's no getting away from that. And I mean rac racist. I don't use that term, by the way, glibly, because I know that it's been used to describe anyone who's concerned about mass migration or in fact, who voted Brexit or anything else. Right. But there are people and we've seen it in the UK. There is a rise of ethno nationalism that actually genuinely objects to people because they're of the colour of their skin, you know, has this sort of notion of an England for the white English and so on and so forth. I despise that kind of prejudice and bigotry. And I do think that's what it is. And it should be called out as such. However, however, there are going to be hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people who vote for the AFD for the same reason that they will vote for any populist party anywhere. Right. Because they represent the alternative. That's what makes it confusing.

So I know from colleagues and friends of mine in Germany that many very smart, bright, you know, non-bigoted German young people are going to vote for that party. And just describing them as Nazis and putting up posters saying never again and reminders of the 1930s is what the German left are doing is cheap politics and doesn't work.

So I can understand what Nigel, Nigel's in a difficult position because he's under pressure from some of these kind of more unpleasant ethno-nationalists in the UK to kind of, you know, actually genuinely say kick all the Muslims out, regardless of anything, right, which is disgusting in my opinion, right, when all the Muslims out, regardless of anything, right? Which is disgusting, in my opinion, right? When many British Muslims are as abhorred by Islamism as anyone else, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I don't need to go on.

He also doesn't want to be associated. I mean, we were in the European Parliament. We met some of them characters, right? And some of the people associated with European populism leave a lot to be desired. But he shouldn't be too hardline about it. I think Musk went too far because he doesn't always understand European politics. But I think that we have to be much more pragmatic in a way and recognize that this

populist revolt that's happening all over the world, you know, in all of the European countries is ordinary people saying we will not be looked down on. We will not be treated as fools. We will not be taken as saps. You just go along with the establishment parties because we're told that if we don't, we're going to get this horrible label of being far right or Nazi or what have you. I mean, I get called that all the time by people who are prepared to turn their cheek and look the other way when we've got the rise of visceral anti-Semitism in this country. And yet they have the nerve to start throwing that as an accusation if you raise something like the murder of Sir David Amess

by an Islamist. So I think that we've got to be more pragmatic and say we understand what's happening in Germany. And to be honest, it's the same trend as the rise of reform in the polls. So Nigel has to recognise that it's part of the same movement. People are saying we're tearing up the old establishment parties because they have betrayed us. They do not deserve our vote. And absolutely right, they are too. Totally, and that's why I believe Marine Le Pen will become president of France as well. But look, stand by, Claire Fox.

In just one minute, this big row going on between JK Rowling and the mainstream media. It's a fascinating one. So don't go anywhere. But first, sleep quality declines in people as early as 30. When you were young, your body was producing a good amount of sleep-regulating hormones. As you get older, your body's ability to produce those hormones decline, making it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep. And don't I know it. I have to admit, I've tried everything to help improve my sleep.

Not eating or working out three hours before bed, banning blue light devices, loads of unnatural products, all of it. Nothing has moved the needle though, like evening being by Verso. After three years of perfecting the formula, they created a melatonin-free drink mix with clinically studied patented ingredients. It's formulated to calm an active mind, help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and improve deep and REM sleep, all without creating dependencies or causing morning grogginess. I look forward to drinking Evening Bean every night, not only because it helps me fall asleep faster without having to get up in the middle of the night and wake up much easier, but because it tastes so good too. This has actually become my new nightcap. It's really good, by the way, if you're vegan or keto. So click in the link in the show description or head on over to evening.ver.so forward slash outspoken.

Make sure you use the coupon code outspoken when you check out and you will save 15% on your first order. So try evening bean tonight and wake up feeling refreshed tomorrow. That's evening.ver.so forward slash outspoken and use the coupon code outspoken at checkout to save 15%. But now back to the show. Breaking right now, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is waging war with the mainstream media over their presentation of a rapist as a woman, a scientific and legal impossibility. So this was the headline that got J.K. Rowling up in arms, not surprisingly, from the mail. Transgender woman appears in court accused of raping a girl under 13 and sexually assaulting a boy. Now, JK Rowling posted man appears in court accused of raping and sexually assaulting two children. No, I don't

respect his effing identity. Now, can we just look at this man, Madison Wilson, 37 years old? Come on, come on. And you know, the Liverpool Echo of all newspapers didn't even describe him as a transgender woman, but simply a woman, prompting the former Home Secretary, Swala Braverman, to write, this is a man. A woman cannot commit the offence of rape. The Daily Echo should correct the record. But what's interesting is that there has been growing tension over the course of the week between the male and JK Rowling, specifically the male on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges. Talking about the trans issue on X, he wrote, it depends what the boundary is. If someone is trying to enter your changing room, it's fine to challenge them. If someone says, would you mind calling me she, that's how I feel comfortable, then I think you should respect

their request. JK fired back at Dan Hodges, saying a man explaining to women that they should pretend some of his fellow men are women because that's respectful is exactly what this debate needed. Thanks for your bravery. And then on the issue that Dan Hodges keeps pressing, which is that JK Rowling no longer has respect for trans people, he claims that that is a significant 180 since she first entered this debate publicly. Well, again, J.K. Rowling wasn't having any of it.

She wrote, my position hasn't changed in the slightest. What you and many other men fail to grasp, possibly because you're so used to women coddling men's feelings you see as the natural order of things, is that while a trans-identified man is absolutely and rightly free to dress and refer to himself however he likes in our society, that doesn't give him rights over women's beliefs and speech. I don't believe a man literally becomes a woman when he identifies as one. And as I have freedom of speech, I have the right to call him a man. The verifiable truth of sex forms the legal basis for women's rights and for safeguarding. Nothing reveals your inability to grasp this issue or your fundamental sexism more than the fact you, a man, are assuming the right to dictate to women how they should speak about men.

Claire Fox, former Brexit Party MEP, member of the House of Lords and founder of the Academy of Ideas, joins me now. Claire, who's right here? Dan Hodges and the Daily Mail or J.K. Rowling? J.K. Rowling, of course. Why? Well, it's worth saying that the Daily Mail, J.K. Rowling? J.K. Rowling, of course. But it's worth saying that the Daily Mail, forget the Dan, I'll come back to Dan Hodges, the Daily Mail in general, a lot of newspapers now

have these ridiculous codes about what they should and shouldn't say. And in those codes, which by the way, the newspapers should tear these things up, which is, you know, that we have to be trans-inclusive, we can't be offensive, and so on and so forth. And of course, it's not only that it's offensive to describe this rapist as a woman, but it's completely misleading. And all those people who go on about fake news and misinformation and disinformation all the time, should bear in mind that actually calling somebody who is a male who identifies as a woman to call that person a woman misleads the readers.

It's a lie. It's an untruth. Right. And so that's the the the the context on Dan Hodges. He has just been so irritating. I mean, Dan Hodges can be, you know, interesting on times and so on. He's a bit of a character, but he's got himself into real trouble here because one of the consequences of this situation is that, for example, in Scotland, as we speak, there's been a big court case going on where an NHS nurse, Sandy Pegg, has been basically taken to court because she did not want to share a changing room with dr in inverted commas beth upton who is actually a dr theodore upton who's chosen to identify as a woman now one of the things about this is that people think these like changing room issues are trivial it's not you know imagine you're working as a nurse you have to change a lot if you're a health worker right you're possibly putting your uniform on and putting scrubs on whatever it is and you don't you don't

want to be looking over your shoulder in case there's a man there these are things that we thought we never thought we'd have to even explain why for example we don't want men when we take getting naked right but of course now we do because we're told that it is disrespectful to uh dr upton if we don't go along with his fantasy that he is a woman but it's a fantasy now you can have that fantasy i don't care right i mean dr upton can pretend as much as he wants. And in the privacy of his own house, even in his job, do what he wants. But what he can't do is compel the people to go along with his particular way of describing himself. So if I came on your show now and started saying and you said something horrible to me and I said that's racist because I'm black, you'd go, what? And I go, no, I'm black. I I identify as black you wouldn't have it right you'd be all thinking I was mad

right and we wouldn't go along with that and and if I then said no and if your auntie Dan you've got to let me speak because I'm an oppressed black Afro-Caribbean woman and you've never been through my experiences it's what this doctor is saying to uh Sandy Peggy who has been you know treated by the way the court and the employment tribunal rather have implied that it's nurse Peggy that's being the harasser and the bully because that's the other thing that and and this is what um um had in the newspapers and the reason why we've got this controversy. She's been told that because she won't comply with the wishes of a doctor who identifies as a woman, she is harassing and bullying that Dr. Upton. I mean, it's the world's gone mad and turned upside down.

And women, you know, I'm not even from a feminist school of thinking, particularly. I never thought that I'd have to assert the importance of the distinction between women and men. It's not particularly something I'm interested in, but it is absolutely the case that it is women who are predominantly raped by men and women who are harassed by men historically. So, for example, we think I think it's reasonable that if you go to a rape crisis centre and you're told that only women will be there as counsellors, that you believe that. But if you are forced to accept that a trans woman is a woman, then you can go to a rape crisis center and have the person who is doing the counseling a man who identifies as a woman and you've just been raped by a man i mean god you you know and this is this is a real case i'm not just making that up by the way and that is happening all the time and it's subject to a number of court cases so i am

absolutely with jk rowling in this on rolling on this one. And it drives me mad that we've had to depend on her so much as a celebrity to change the noise. But it's a bit like Musk. I'm not going to complain. She didn't want to be in that position. But if she can shine some light and she has done bravely. Now, one thing I will say is I have, unlike JKk who said actually i have never changed my position i have changed my position because it is the case that i initially did have some sort of thoughts oh well maybe it's polite if somebody says call me back me too you know maybe i'll go along with it and i kind of maybe i went along with the fiction too much. You know, I kind of didn't I didn't really see. But increasingly, like a lot of us, as I've seen the policy consequences and realise that this will have an impact on real lives.

I mean, that young girls who are playing football at the moment, there's two cases, the way being brought um the football association have disciplined two teenage football girls footballers playing in the girls team and in both completely separate cases they've said both of them as it happens are on the autistic spectrum both of them have said in different ways looking at the opposition team is that a man there's a consequence of which they've been treated like a bigot disciplined by the football association nonetheless and banned from playing matches because they pointed out the bleeding obvious that everybody else knew but went along with because they were being polite and so i now have changed my mind and i do no longer require politeness in calling a man a man, a woman a woman. That is not being anti-trans, by the way, because if you can be as trans as you want in your own time,

go over there and do it. Don't expect me to go along with your fantasies. No, me too. And Megyn Kelly, for example, has changed her position on that. For me, I think we all have one of those moments, right? And so for me, I thought it was weird, the whole Caitlyn Jenner thing. I couldn't really get my head around that, but I was the same as you. I thought, okay, but I'll call her she, you know, like when I interviewed Caitlyn, because why not it's what caitlin wants but for me it was the sam smith thing and actually it was the mail because i was a columnist at the mail at the time and they were doing that thing where they were saying to me no no you can't call sam smith he anymore so i actually wrote this column and they did allow me to write it actually and. And it was effectively where I said, sorry, no, no, no, no, Sam Smith, you are not a gender-neutral

person, or I'm going to call they, you are a man. And it was because, Claire, it wasn't, again, because I was being mean, it was because there was a genuine consequence from what Sam Smith had done, because he got the female categories removed at the Brit Awards. So there is no best female at the Brit Awards anymore. And for me, that was the final straw, actually. And I just thought, no, no, no, I'm not doing this madness. Claire, I did want to show you one other thing, which has been going absolutely viral. I don't think you've seen this, so I'll be fascinated to get your reaction. It is an episode

of the BBC soap opera, Waterloo Road. And there is a storyline about an apparently trans woman, apparently this is a 24-year-old who's playing this trans woman, but that's sort of irrelevant. And the death of this trans person's grandmother. And the storyline is all about the fact that the trans person is offended by the grandmother deadnaming them. Now, it all sounds bonkers, right? But remember, this is paid for by us, the state propaganda network,

and it really does have to be seen to be believed. Watch. Your granddaughter. I don't have a granddaughter. Only a grandson. It is you, Jake, isn't it? I saw her this morning and she couldn't remember who I was. Who I am now.

That's proper sad. Yeah, but you've got to do what's best for you, babe. And if that's not seeing her, then don't. Let's go. Am I in trouble? No. Your mum called. You've got permission to take the rest of the afternoon off to be with your nan.

Claire, I'm not Lois. Claire, your response? So, I'm mad um so listen it's the worst kind of narcissism that the main part of the story that they're showing is not the sadness of an old person dying but the uh the feelings and sensitivities of a confused, pubescent teenager, because it's seemingly set in a school. And it's a way of, it's almost like an incitement to the young to treat the elderly with contempt. I believe, because I just saw that you mentioned,

I don't know if this is accurate or not, that the grandmother who is dying has got dementia. And the one thing that I was thinking was, well, even in dementia, the dying grandmother knows that her grandson is her grandson. It's actually a moment of lucidity and actually a moment of love. I mean, she's not saying, I don't know who you are. I mean, my mother, you know, like many people, had dementia and didn't know us and so on. And that's the tragedy there. Not some teenage boy who wants to be seen as a girl and can only think of themselves.

I mean, I think it's the act, the act of selfish to the fact that this is public service broadcasting, effectively propagandizing that the problem are these old people with their backward, bigoted, transphobic attitudes, unlike the new enlightened world, where we're all meant to go along with the fact that a young man is pretending to be a young woman. And the consequences of that are, for example, puberty blocking drugs that are used to affect that, not just dressing up. I mean, if anyone thinks that you change sex by just changing your dress, that's superficial and stupid enough in and of itself. Because sex can't be changed. It's immutable. That's it. End of story. However you identify through whatever gender. But secondly, can lead to, and we've seen this, young girls who are transing to young men having double

mastectomies on their healthy bodies. Now, if anybody knows anyone who's had breast cancer and has had to have a mastectomy, it's a terrible procedure. It's not something you wish on anyone. The idea that we are encouraging young people to physically change their appearance through surgery or through drugs or through cosplaying in order to pretend that they're a member of the other sex has got very serious repercussions the dbc should be ashamed of themselves for doing that i'm so glad i played that to you claire it was a last minute decision but i i i thought you might have views on that uh well it has been so amazing to have you on outspoken claire how can people find out more about well i guess you would want people to follow the the academy ideas subscribe to the academy of ideas on youtube presumably yes go on to youtube

like everyone else we've also got a sub stack academy of ideas sub stack so we'd like to subscribe to that too exactly and it's free but it's actually our one shot um stop one stop shot where you can find out everything we're doing and we also have lots of guest writers and lots of films and lots of interviews and so on. And I will say that I'm going to, we do a media roundup and I'll make sure that the link to this is in there. So I hope that you'll get some more subscribers from our subscribers too.

Thank you so much. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I recommend the Academy of Ideas, but I'm going to make sure that I do. I'm certainly subscribed and I love it. Yeah follow me of course on social media and i know it sounds silly dan but we need a kind of sense of solidarity don't we we all need to be promoting each other to even if we don't agree on lots of things we're kind of on the on the sensible side as well well yeah my big thing is we have to build up an independent ecosystem

in the UK. It's happened very, very successfully in the US. Look at the impact that it had before the last election. And we need to create the same thing here. And the Academy of Ideas is, I think, a really, really important part of that. But Claire Fox, you know, I always love talking to you. Thank you for being an outspoken and please come back. Thank you. Thank you, Claire. Thank you so much. And actually, speaking of Substack, we're moving over to Substack now

for the uncancelled after show. Angela Levin on deck to reveal the shocking edits being made to Meghan Markle's Netflix series as William and Catherine publicly express their love on Valentine's Day. But before that, because it is the end of the week, you know that we take the Union jackasses chosen by you from Monday to Thursday, and we put them in one big poll for the worst Britain in the world this week. Over 20,000 votes from you, which is just incredible. Let's reveal the winners. In fourth position, Peter Mandelson, the new US ambassador

with 7% of your vote. In third position, Andrew Gwynn over those leaked WhatsApp messages, the ex-Labor minister with 8% of the vote. In second position, Hugo Norton-Taylor, the pro-Garza judge with 24% of the vote. But a runaway winner, the worst Briton in the world this week is Rachel from Accounts, the Chancellor, Thieveen Reeves, for her expenses swindling and CV fiddling. Goodness gracious me. At this stage, we come off YouTube and rumble, we move to Substack for the uncancelled after show, www.outspoken.live. I will be back though, 5pm UK time, Monday, midday Eastern, 9am Pacific. I hope you have a wonderful, restful, happy weekend. Hope you enjoy Valentine's Day. I've got to send a big kiss to my Valentine, Alan.

I'm taking him to see Bridget Jones tonight. One of my favourite movie series. I've seen the reviews. They look amazing. So have a wonderful Valentine's Day. Lots of love to you from me. And I promise to keep fighting for you. Hope to see you on the after show on Substack. Outro Music