How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S1, Ep6 How to Fail: Gina Miller

Episode Date: August 15, 2018

Political activist Gina Miller is best known for one major victory when she successfully took the government to court over the triggering of Article 50 to leave the European Union. But in this week���s How To Fail, she discusses the failures that led her to that point. In a frank and honest conversation with host Elizabeth Day, Gina talks about failing to graduate from law school, surviving an abusive marriage, raising a daughter with special needs and building up her emotional resilience so that when it came to the crunch, she was able to find the strength to take a stand for what she believed in. Now that she has been catapulted into the unforgiving glare of the public limelight, Gina faces a daily barrage of death threats and racist abuse. She talks about how she handles this and how her unlikely heroes, Iggy Pop and Bruce Lee, have got her through even the darkest times. How To Fail is hosted by Elizabeth Day and produced by Chris Sharp  How To Fail is sponsored by Moorish Gina Miller’s memoir, Rise, is published by Canongate on 30th August 2018.  Social Media: Elizabeth Day @elizabdayGina Miller @thatginamillerMoorish @moorishhumousCanongate @canongatebooks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.

Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. Hosted by author and journalist Elizabeth Day, that's me. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. My guest today on How to Fail is Gina Miller, a woman known to most of us not

for her failures, but for one particularly notable success. In 2016, she took the government to court over Brexit and won. In an historic constitutional legal case, she argued that the government could not trigger Article 50 to leave the European Union without parliamentary approval. The judges agreed with her. Later, so did the Supreme Court. The case has catapulted Gina into the unforgiving glare of public scrutiny. For many, she is a hero, a political activist with

the strength to stand up for what she believes in. But she also faces a daily barrage of death threats and racist abuse. Still, she keeps speaking out. This year sees the publication of her memoir, Rise, described by its publisher as an extraordinary account of what it means to stand up for justice and for yourself, no matter the cost. So Gina, it's so lovely to be here with you. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I should reveal that I worked on your memoir with you and a great honour it was too. It's completely fascinating. I miss our sessions where we just chatted over coffee. And it's out in August, everyone. So available from all good bookshops and from Amazon,

if you don't hate Amazon yet. When we were working on the book, I remember that we spoke a lot about failure in our interviews and you were very keen that that be as much a part of your story as the successes. Why was that? Yes, I'm very good at failing, because I think I take risks, and I push myself to try new things. And when you do that, you open yourself up to failure. But it's a way of really living life. I don't want to just be closeted and take the same path every day. I want to explore as many

paths as possible. And the books that I've read, or the people I've heard speak about success, not necessarily failure, do it in such a way that it's almost unattainable. It makes you feel worse, I think, as a listener or a reader. And I wanted to be very honest about success coming from failure, because failure teaches you so much about yourself. And in life, we're all going to fail. And my view is, you've just got to get used to it. It's going to happen. So you might as well have a strategy for how you deal with failure. And then once you've got that in your back pocket, you can go out in life and really take risks. It's about emotional resilience, I guess. It's difficult because for you to do that, my strategy I found is you have to actually be very honest with yourself.

And that means we're very good at dissecting other people's behavior and being critical of other people's lives. But we're not so good at analyzing our own behavior and our own lives. My strategy is you've got to do that. You've got to be completely honest with yourself. And through failure, if you are honest and you see where you failed, how you failed, the things you can improve, then every time you get a little bit stronger emotionally, physically, and just from a psychological point of view, you learn how to cope with failure. So you can push yourself harder the next time. It's an interesting give and take between success and failure.

So I touched there on the introduction on the fact that most people will know you for that high court case, that you were the sole claimant in that case, which is an enormous amount of burden to take on an individual's shoulders. When you came out and when you heard the judgment and when you realised that it was a victory, did it feel like a victory to you? It didn't feel like a victory because I didn't see myself as actually battling for something that wasn't winnable. I was standing up for what seemed to me a very straightforward question, which actually everybody in the country had been fighting for, which is Parliament is sovereign. So why would I have ever lost? So it wasn't a win to me. It was the right thing. The whole episode outside the Supreme Court and all the media attention and

then the public attention was surreal, because I don't think I did anything particularly brave or extraordinary. All I did was stand up for what was right. And I always find it peculiar that people find that such a big episode in my life because actually I count the fact that I failed from an abusive marriage or I failed in getting my degree. The fact I've come back from those things, to me, is bigger than having won that case. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there are countless people, by the way, who would disagree

with that and think you're a tremendously brave and courageous inspiration. So lots of women who I think, women particularly, struggle with the idea of accepting failure. Do you agree with that? A lot of that is because, as a society, we have put failure in the taboo box, along with crying and being emotional. These are all negatives. They're seen as weaknesses. And actually crying, you know, letting out your emotions and being able to pick yourself up is a strength. And being able to pick yourself up when you fail is a strength. Because lots of people who fail wallow in their failure and then never try again. So those people who have failed and try again and are successful should be applauded. And failure is a part of success. And you asked

about women, we are under so much pressure to be perfect, to be the perfect wife, to be successful in business, to look great, to have the right figure. The flip side of all of that pressure is fear of failure. And we just have to say, just not going to put up with it and say, failure is part of who I am. And fear of criticism as well. And you have had to deal with a substantial amount of criticism, more than most of us would ever have to deal with in our lifetime. And sometimes that criticism has come with a violent threat attached to it. How do you deal with the racism that you've experienced on a daily basis? I cry sometimes. It does upset me.

I'm only human. But then I think, well, I won't let the bullies win. I have a very simple attitude, which is their voice must not trump mine. And I don't want them to win or to feel that they're ever going to win. You know, I'm a Bruce Lee fan. I think I told you this. It's that whole thing about you absorb that energy and redirect it. And that's what I've always done throughout my life. And it becomes easier. What I will say, especially to women or to people who failed is actually picking yourself up after failure, being brave, doing the right things.

actually picking yourself up after failure, being brave, doing the right things, you actually can learn to do those things. And the more you do it, the easier it becomes. It becomes a habit. So picking yourself up becomes a habit. Being brave becomes a habit. Speaking out becomes a habit. And it just becomes part of your personality. So it's easier the more you do it. I remember reading this book called The Rules, is about how to date people and I think it was originally written in like the 1990s I have my issues with it but one of the things it says is that as a woman you should pretend to be incredibly busy all of the time even if you're not and the man asking you for a date has to get used to that and then you come across as someone who's kind of unavailable and enigmatic and one of their points is if you practice doing that even if you don't

feel it you will end up being that person I have say, it's one of the books I would burn for many, many reasons. But there are several other books like that, where you can't live your life through the pages of a book. Because every life is unique, every situation is unique, every relationship is unique. So you have to be true to yourself and live it where you can look in the mirror and say to yourself, I am who I am and I'm not living by somebody else's rules. And then else for us to conform. And if you lose your own voice, and you lose your own personality, you lose a part of yourself. And that makes you quite fragile individual strength comes from knowing who you are and being very centered. And I think that we have to sort of not read some of these things, not look at some of these things and just try and be ourselves. You mentioned at the beginning there

two examples of what you perceive as failure in your life, one of which was failing to get a law degree. And I know that the law was very important to you because your father rose to become Attorney General of Guyana, didn't he? Yes, he did. His story is absolutely extraordinary, you know, from a 14-year-old serving petrol in one of the poorest areas in what was British Guiana to becoming an attorney general, having paid for himself to study is an extraordinary story. But for me, the extraordinary man was the one who taught me everything I know and my sense of what's right and wrong. You know, I couldn't be who I am without him and without my parents. And that's where I think some of the things that I think about what's right and wrong and failure. We as parents have a huge amount of responsibility.

And I think we need to be more responsible about the lessons that we teach our children. You know, Mandela's old saying about a society is judged by the way it treats its children. I think a society is judged by the lessons we teach our children. And I think we have a huge responsibility to do that. So you did end up studying law in the University of East London, but you didn't get your degree. So did you feel bad about that? Was it something that then haunted you afterwards? It was. It took a lot to get over that because I had grown up admiring my father so much, admiring the law so much. It's what I wanted to be from as far back

as I can remember. I wanted to be a criminal barrister. I wanted to stand up for people. I wanted to defend people. Justice was just so important to me. But I had to learn to accept that failure and letting go of that dream because something happened to me. So at the same time, emotionally, I was trying to get used to a trauma whilst I was also having to get used to the idea that my dream had died. So it was a great time of mourning for me because I was mourning for the life I thought I was going to have, but seemed impossible at that time. And it's ironic that I now have an honorary law degree from the university, which 30 years later, and it was

one of the most emotional days of so far in my life, apart from having my children last year, when I got that award. And now I've realised that I can stand up for what's right in a different way. But using the law as one of the stabilising forces, I can defend the law in a very different way. What do you think you learnt from not having that degree? Did you learn to accept that sometimes your dreams wouldn't pan out in quite the way that you thought they would? And did that teach you that life can be unexpected? It taught me that you mustn't make such a rigid plan for your life that when it doesn't work out, you're so sad. And you then just live in feeling

this sense of disappointment, because that ruins the rest of your life. So you have to let go. It literally is like a mourning, you have to grieve and put it aside and bury it and then move on. And that's what I learned to do. I never gave up, though, I always thought I'd go back to it. And ironically, just before the financial crisis, I didn't intend on starting a financial services company again, which I did in 2009. What I was going to do was go back and become a judge, trained to be a judge and work in the family courts, because I think there's a lot wrong in our family courts in the UK. So I was going to go back. And that's the thing. A dream is not always that's the thing I thought I thought I had buried it and what I realized is you can revisit a dream when you're older perhaps and you can bring a whole different sense of clarity and emotional intelligence and wisdom to that original dream

so a dream is not really ever dead impossible is only a state of mind there is no such thing it's a notion I love that I want that on a t-shirt impossible is only a state of mind. There is no such thing. It's a notion. I love that. I want that on a t-shirt. Impossible is only a state of mind. Because I remember when we chatted about it, you know, you brought that legal clarity and your forensic analytical brain to bear on the Brexit court case. And I remember you telling me that you had memorised the entirety of Article 50, and you could recite it word for word. Yes, still 216 words. What I learned to do in that failing was to take what I had learned in my three years, because I was actually all the way up to taking my finals. I sort of forensically, because I do do that, I'm slightly OCD that way, I look back and pull apart

things that haven't worked and try and put them back together. And I decided the disciplines I'd learned going through my law degree were things I could apply for the rest of my life and whatever I then went into. So it has actually been an invaluable discipline. And I'd say for anybody who studies law and doesn't necessarily practice, it will keep you in good stead for the rest of your professional life. Do you think your father was disappointed? My father was hugely disappointed and he tried in his way to help me. He wanted to pay for me to go back to either Barbados or university there or back to British Gallantry there. But it would have been on his terms. And after a couple of years, he gave up because he

knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't do things on his terms, they'd be on my terms. And I've also at that point, I'd been in the UK, most of my childhood and adult life. And I was British and the idea of going back to a different culture. I love Britain, I'd fallen in love with an English boy. England was my home. So I wasn't going to go back. Because you were sent to boarding school in Eastbourne at the age of 10, 11. And you struggled to fit in when you were initially sent there. So in a way, I guess you sort of failed to fit in. Can you tell us a bit about that and about what that was like? Well, from anybody who comes from a Commonwealth country, England is Eldorado. Britain is where

everyone wants to come to. And we hold it in such great esteem. You know, the Queen is on a wall at home growing up and everyone celebrates Christmas, even though it's blisteringly hot. And so for me, I was so excited to come. You know, I'd read all the Dickens books, even though I was young. I'd read all these great novels and I was so excited to come to England. And when I arrived here, I remember thinking on my first journey, the buildings are great. And people don't smile as much as I thought they would. There didn't seem to be as much colour as I was expecting.

And at school, because I was taught by English nuns, I went to a convent back home, so, you know, I spoke English without couldn't, can't. It was perfect English. And people started teasing me about the way I spoke English, but actually it was children teasing children. I was disappointed, I think, in it wasn't the country I thought I was coming to. But then I got used to it. And I loved it. And I knew

how much opportunities it had. And I've never regretted being in the UK a day. And you worked as a hotel chambermaid, which is one of my favourite bits of your story. So I was sent to this very peculiar and wonderful small school in Eastbourne, as you said, Moira House. And two years into boarding, our dictator, we ended up with a dictator back in Guyana, and there were currency restrictions, so my parents couldn't send any money out of the country. So there we were suddenly being told, well, there's no money coming for fees. And my parents had enough money in a small bank account to buy a little flat. So they said, you know, to my elder brother and I, so I was then coming up to 14, 13, 14, and my brother 16. They said, well, be patient. It'll only be for a short while.

So I thought to myself, well, I'm going to have to earn my own money here. My parents can't afford to send me any. So I pretended I was 16, went and knocked on lots of doors and lots of hotels and managed to get myself a job as a chambermaid. And did that in the morning, then went to school and worked on the weekends and just got on with life. What did you learn about what rich people are like when they stay in hotels? That was a bit of an eye opener, I have to say, because there's this wonderful hotel in Eastbourne called the Grand Hotel. And you know, to me, it was like, gosh, these people are coming to stay in this hotel. And I thought, my gosh, the way they leave the bathroom and the bedroom and the way they talk

to people. And I learned very early on then that money doesn't buy you manners. And it definitely doesn't make you a nice person. In fact, it can make you quite horrible person. Yeah, I was just appalled. I thought they would treat things with more respect and they would be very different. So I learned that quite early on. And what kind of a hotel guest are you now that you stay in lovely hotels? Oh, I'm very mindful of that. My husband laughs. He laughs at me for lots of things. But I tend to tidy up and I always put the towels and the sheets in the bath so they're in one place. And I'll always make sure I try as much as I can with children and getting them out of the hotel to write a little note of thank you in the bedrooms and now my husband says Gina you

do know we have paid and that's their job and I go yes I know that but you could still say thank you that's so sweet that you get your children to write thank you notes I know love that and that is something I want to talk about is you as a mother you're the mother of three children and I wonder if you could tell me about Lucianne, your eldest daughter. Lucianne is just an angel in so many ways. She will be 30 soon, but her mental age is much younger because I had this perfect pregnancy and was longing for my baby girl. I always wanted to be a mother. But people forget that in the 70s and 80s in the UK, the NHS was on its knees, not similar to how it is today. And there was no one to deliver her that night. So she was starved of

oxygen and went into distress. So she has special needs, not physical, but mental. You know, she has a lot of challenges, but she is so black and white. Her emotional intelligence is off the scale. And she has taught me that being different is a blessing because her clarity of thought, her ability to light up a room when she walks up into it, it's not disability, it's different ability. And she's an extraordinary person. That said, every day I've got a threat.

I've sat and worried about if something does happen to me, what happens to her. And I think every parent of somebody with special needs worries about when they're not there. And that can be a very harrowing thought process to go through. This is a really difficult question. And I hope you don't think it comes laden with any assumptions on my part. But I think there's so much weight placed on motherhood and being the quote unquote perfect mother. Did you feel when Lucianne was born and when over the years you started to realise that there was an issue, did you feel you had failed as a mother in any way? There were points when I thought I was failing, when she couldn't talk and she couldn't walk.

And I thought it was my fault. And I did lots of tests. In those days, unfortunately, some of the doctors tried to say it was my fault. But I knew that I hadn't drunk through my pregnancy. You know, there was nothing. It was just something that happened. And that's actually your question. It's what led to eventually the breakdown of my marriage to her father, because he couldn't cope with that sense of failure. That when we went out with our friends who had children around the same age that she wasn't doing the things that their children were doing and he found that very very difficult and that's something he had to deal with but for me there were times when I felt and I still feel I mean I've got two much younger children now and there are many times when I think I've been out I've done something I've failed because I haven't been there I haven't

been to the school play I haven't been able to go to this because I'm doing something else. But I'm honest with them. I talk to them about everything. And I tell them, I'm sorry, a lot. And I say, I'm sorry, I haven't been there. I'm sorry. And I'll have a hug. And that makes it all better again. But I found that being honest with your children does negate that sense of failure as a parent. And there are some things, I guess, that you have to let slide as an incredibly busy person. There are some things that you just think, well, that's less important to me. So what makes it less important? I'm laughing because I sometimes say this to talks I give,

especially to roomfuls of young women. I say, well, outside I might look groomed. Underneath, there's many things not happening. There are lots of things neglected, because, you know, I just don't have the time. So I can't remember the last time, probably years now since I've had a facial, you know, you let things go, they're not important. I prioritize what's important and what's not. I'm, as I said, fairly OCD, you know, I'd make sure every single item of clothing was ironed. Now I don't. You know, you give and take., you know, I wish I could go to the gym. I don't have

the time to do that. There are many things, but you just have to think, there's only so much you can do. And to stay resilient and strong, you do have to look after yourself as well, to some degree. And I'm not very good at doing that. So I know I could tell other people to do that. It's a failing of my own. You told me over the Article 50 court case that you just hadn't had time for a bikini wax. What felt like several weeks. Yes. No, no, no. So I think I said, what did I say to the room full of women I last did a job? I said, you know, so the hedge doesn't get trimmed and the nails don't get done. And well, because you just haven't got the time because you have to choose. When I'm very

busy, I have to choose what I do with my spare time. And my choice is always suspended with my children. They are my world and everything I do is because I'm fighting Lewis, historian and host of a new chapter of Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. Join me and world-leading experts every week as we explore the incredible real-life history that inspires the locations, the characters, history that inspires the locations, the characters and the storylines of Assassin's Creed. Listen and follow Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest. This is a time of great foreboding. These words supposedly

uttered by a king over 800 years ago. These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago set in motion a chain of gruesome events and sparked cult-like devotion across the world. I'm Matt Lewis. Join us as we unwrap the enigma and get to the heart of what really happened to Thomas Beckett by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. So your marriage to Lucianne's father broke down and then did you feel that you wanted to find a perfect family set up for her? That always played on my mind,

but I stayed single for quite a long time I think in total was nine years or so but then I did meet someone who out of the blue seemed to be the perfect husband family you know ready-made three children and yes it was it took away that sense of guilt because I never ever wanted to be a single parent I don't think anyone plans that they're going to do that you know you get married you're in love you you think's going to last forever, and you think you're going to have a family and that's going to be, you know, fun. You don't plan for failures. They're just part of life. And so when this opportunity came along to have somebody who I thought was perfect and would make up for some of that failing of the marriage and failing for her not having a family, I took it with open arms.

And it was completely the wrong thing to do. Because I'm very honest. And this is one thing I have learned, actually, from my second marriage which is one of this supposedly perfect ready made family was that I'm too honest with my emotions and my failings and my fears. And when you open up yourself, truly honestly, you actually if the other person is somebody who's going to take advantage of your weaknesses, you give them the weapons to attack you with and to break you with. And so I'm probably more caged in certain ways emotionally. I mean, I now apologize to my husband, who's wonderful and does not deserve it in any way, shape or form. But I say to him, I'm sorry, but you're never ever going to have 100% of me

or my emotions, my love, because I need to keep some of it back because of the hurt that's happened. It's like a vase. If you drop a vase on the floor and you paste it back together, the cracks are still there. And because I've had an occasion

where someone has tried to break me, the cracks are still there and will always be there. So I have to protect part of myself. Do you mean in your second marriage? It was a very abusive marriage. Okay. And tell me a bit about what happened, because I understand that he was very charismatic and charming and kind of bon vivant, and then you got married and things changed. Yes. I mean, the things that I find extraordinary, and it's not just me, because I speak to a lot of women in domestic violence, I do a lot of support. And you know, through my foundation, I do a lot of work with, it's the idea, and I now say that what always surprises

me for many of the stories and my own, is the very things that attracts the person to you, is then the things they try and break in you. It's almost like you are this special gem, but they want to own you and nobody else must look at you. Nobody else must have contact with you. It's almost like you are this special gem, but they want to own you and nobody else must look at you. Nobody else must have contact with you. It's just for them to own and control and lock you away. And that's what happened. And it is a dysfunctional relationship because it's not the physical violence can be there. But actually, what's more dangerous is the psychological damage is the way somebody tries to break every part of you and make you so weak and so dependent on them that you cannot go or

leave however bad it gets and it's that sense of you're drowning and you don't know how to save yourself gosh it's the control isn't it the control that makes you think you're the one who's going mad oh i mean you but when you are so broken and you don't know anything about yourself anymore i mean i describe this like you've left your own body you know people talk about this feeling you have a near-death experience where you leave your own body actually if you're going through severe domestic violence male or female whoever the victim is you have actually left your own body You are no longer that person who's strong. Somebody else has taken you out of yourself. And it's a real struggle to get back into your own body and to your own mental state. It's a very tough thing to do. It was Lucianne, wasn't it, who made you realise that you had to leave? That's why she

has saved me in so many ways, so many times, because she's so honest. And she said it. And she was one who said, but why is he hurting you, mummy? Just simple, straightforward, black and white. And I suddenly thought, yes, why am I letting him hurt me? And I don't need these things. Because I was thinking, how do I get away? And a lot of women, again, I hear this again, how do you get enough money? How do you get away? How do you think everything normally is in somebody else's name? Because remember, that control means that they control every part of your life. I realized actually, all I needed was her and me. I didn't need anything. Because I'm strong enough to build everything up again, I could do it again, I can work doesn't matter what the jobs were, as long as it was honest, and I was earning, I could do

whatever it is, I just needed to be alive for her. And once you realize that, it's an incredibly freeing emotion and thought process because you just then can walk away. And that's what I did. I never took anything. I might've done the home or whatever, not a penny. I literally just got into a car with her with a suitcase of clothes for her and me, and walked away. And what were those first few weeks like after you walked away? Oh, I had no idea where I was going. So I knew I needed to walk away. And wonderful friends allowed me to stay. And you know, you can only be a burden on people for so long. And then I suddenly think you can't rent anywhere, you can't buy anywhere, you can't do anything. Because it always then has

to go back to your previous address and your previous bank accounts. And I just couldn't let him know where I was. So I used as much money as I had on me, which wasn't that huge amount. And whilst I sorted out, actually, I went back and Lucien's father was a great help. And I said to him, look, I need your help in this to find us somewhere to live. But whilst all of that was going on, I mean, we lived in the car for a few weeks because I had no other choice because I just didn't want him to know where I was my ex-husband to know where I was so you just get on with it as long as I was with her and she was with me and I could go to sleep with her in my arms nothing else really mattered and during this time you set up your own business as well

so in yeah because in the car when I go you know this I sleep very little about four hours a night so she would sleep on my chest or on my in the back of the car and I'd be sitting there scribbling out another business plan or something so yes I designed another business in the back of my car with my daughter asleep on me if that's not the definition of a superwoman I don't know what is because this is a story that actually has a very very happy I don't want to call it an ending but oh gosh it has a happy outcome yes because you set up and I never planned it no you set up an incredibly successful business and then you met Alan your yes now husband who is a lovely man um in the back of the car that business I set up consultancy so

I'd walked away from my business as well so I set up a marketing consultancy which I launched which was very successful and then I met Alan and now we have a very successful business together. I was not looking I was not expecting it and I met this man with a golden heart so yeah. And you tried to put him off didn't you? Oh yes I thought oh no I would sort of thought I do I really want to go put myself through this? I was so independent again and things were going so well. And I was having fun and going out on dates. And, you know, I just thought I just want to be myself. And I really wasn't prepared. The only thing I regretted is not having more children.

So I then started looking into the rules had changed. So as a single woman, you could actually adopt. So I started enrolled in an adoption program and along he came. So you never know how life is going to turn out. And what do you think you learned from your previous failed relationships that you could apply to your now marriage that made it better? How to stand up for yourself, but not in a way that is not threatening to the other person, and how to call out the small things. And actually, this is not just in a marriage, I'd say in all walks of life, in work, in wherever you are, you need to not let the small things slide, because then they become big things. And that was a very important lesson

from my other marriages, because I did sort of let things slide and think, oh, well, I'll ignore that. And I don't do that anymore. Probably difficult for Alan for me to be like that. But it means we both know where we stand. And I expect him to be completely honest with me from that perspective as well. And we have the same values. We are very different people. And we have very different ways of doing things. But fundamentally, our values and our morals are exactly the same. And when you have that with somebody else, you can sort of put up with anything. And what do you teach your two younger children, Luca and Lana, about Brexit? How do you talk to them about what you've been doing over the

last couple of years? Well, because they know of all the campaigning I've been doing in the investment world and the charity sector, they know that mummy has not been well liked. And they know that people say things to them at school or other parents or whatever. So they know that. But from day one, I think the most important conversations we can have is with our children. And when we come together around a meal, it's not just about feeding your body with food, it's actually about feeding your cohesion as a family with conversation. body with food. It's actually about feeding your cohesion as a family with conversation. And I always talk to my children. I always have done. And I'm very honest with them. And I find ways of explaining things to them in simple ways, but they understand. And now they're a bit older, they sort of laugh and go, mum, not one of your moral stories again. So I'll tell them little

stories that tend to have a little moral at the end. So they go, oh, no, it's not one of your moral stories again. Because I do tell them everything. And I think the story, we go out there and we talk to other people about our lives and our jobs and what we do. But very few of us talk to our children about what we do. And I mean, my youngest said to me the other day, she said, Mom, we were having this discussion in school, a debate, debating society about what our parents did. And most of the kids don't know what their parents do. But I know everything you do. Wow. Last year, there was another court case that you were involved with for very negative reasons, because a man called Viscount Phillips, no less a member of the aristocracy, was found guilty after posting the most horrible things on Facebook about you.

He actually put a bounty on your head, £5,000 he wrote for the first person to accidentally run over this bloody, troublesome first generation immigrant. And that's actually all that I'm willing to quote from that because he went on to say some other things that are really, really vicious. How do you cope with that, with hearing that about yourself? It was a first. It's the first time the CPS have actually done a prosecution for somebody doing something on social media. So I was pleased that that set that precedent. But that's not the worst. I've had much, much worse things than that. And as I said earlier, I do go and cry and, you know, I'm only human. And it has taken its toll the way it's

interesting what my osteopaths say, because my weak point in my body is my back. And he says, what I've developed and what I now do is I wear like an invisible armor. So I'm so rigid, that actually doesn't help my back, but I need to learn to relax my body so that I can, you know, having a curve in your spine is a good thing. Being completely rigid and straight is not a good thing. Unconsciously, I have developed sort of an invisible armor. And I'm very wary when I go out, I'm always wary of everyone around me, what's everyone going to do, say, you know, I don't really go on public transport, it has changed every part of my life. And that's sad, because I don't go out with my children as much. Because if anything were to happen with me, to me, I don't want them to be there. So Alan and I discuss where we're

going to go, what I'm going to do, if we're going to go with the family. You know, these are conversations that we're still having. And I have to sometimes when I'm very tired, I do think, is it worth carrying on? But now I have a a platform now I have a different sort of responsibility because people are looking to me I get on the other side of all the nastiness I get the most heartbreaking people saying you give us hope my child is now studying law because of you my daughter was suffering from anorexia she's read about you and she's now says she wants to look after herself better these are most extraordinary actually one from a father who there's so many lovely ones there's one that came in from a father who said he has two daughters and he's left all the parenting up to his wife but after listening

to me talk about my father he's going to be more involved in his daughter's lives and I thought that's just wonderful absolutely wonderful so I feel a different sense of responsibility now that when I have a voice other people are going to listen to and I have a platform where I can say things I have a heightened responsibility now to use it in a very responsible way I mean in many ways you are our official opposition I mean you've been called that in the press because you actually like it sometimes yeah quite often you know you stand up for things that you believe in. And recently, it was the dodgy deal that the government did with the DUP to buy votes.

I mean, what do you think of our political system? What do you think of our politicians at the moment, that they are not standing up for the things that you are? I think we have a broken political system. There's an old saying, you get the politicians you deserve. And I wonder what it is we did to deserve the politicians we presently have. Because what we have is politicians who forgot that being a politician is about people, not power. And their responsibility is to the people who've elected them not to stay in their seats. And if it means saying the hard truths, and that's what a statesman

is supposed to do, or woman is supposed to do. Hard truths is absolutely vital. And I despair because I do think our representative democracy system is the best system of government and democracy, because we all have such, such busy lives. What I do think is wrong is the people who are in those positions, because we have professional politicians now, who've come from PPE, you know, the huge number who've done the same route, we need to have real diversity, not just of gender, but of mindset and background. And maybe thinking about things such as two terms that you can only be a politician for two terms, you perhaps can't go straight from university, you have to go to work first, we have to revisit the type of people who are running our country. And unfortunately,

I just don't believe we have the right sort of politicians. I totally agree with you. I think there's something so worrying about people who have gone to say Eton and then sailed into Oxbridge and then gone straight into politics with no experience of real life and what life is like for the vast majority of us. They just existed in this elitist bubble. It is a bubble. Yeah. And it's not only is it a bubble from the point of view of, you know, if you go back to Brexit, I've always said nobody, I can't believe that anybody voted to hurt themselves and their families, however they voted. But the people who say, I'm hurting, you're ignoring me, have a point. Not only do they have a point, but they have every

right to have a grievance against the Westminster MPs because they've forgotten about them. And that's not just this government, it's successive government. It didn't happen overnight. It's been happening drip by drip for decades now. People in society who are suffering have basically been ignored and have become invisible. Do you ever get scared, Gina? That's why I'm doing what I'm doing. And that's why I'm carrying on speaking up because I am scared. I think when we were talking about the book, I think I remember you once asked me if I, how did I become so fearless? And I'm not fearless. I'm very fearful. That's why I do and say and stand up because I think we are going and I'm not over exaggerating when I say

this when people let the small things slide and allow others to be seen as destructive almost animalistic as to and we let fear take over we end up with what happened in Germany nobody called out the yellow star nobody called out the you know the doors well very few people and then suddenly it was bodies on the street where does this stop? Because look at this environment now we're having with Windrush. Look at what's happening with the EU citizens. Look at what's happening with so much prejudice and division. We can't let this go on. It's extraordinary. We aren't actually different. We're all the same. We're all the same. We all have families. We all cry. We all laugh. We all worry. There is very little that's different about us apart from our value systems.

And if we allow our value systems to become fragmented, then we have a fragmented society. You called your book Rise, and it's from a Maya Angelou quote. And I wondered why you chose that quote specifically. most people would not yeah I know lust for life is my song when I'm down lust for life is my song and still I rise is my poem and I revisit them and it's somebody who speaks from the heart and talks about real strength and that's what I hope my book will do because I'm talking from the heart and I'm talk about what's made me strong by talking about where I've been weak and where I failed in my life. So it's a book more about failure than success. And it's an honest book. And I hope that people who are feeling fragile, see it as an arm around them. And it's almost a literary

cuddle that I wanted to give to them. It's a very honest book. It really is. It's wonderful that you were that honest. I think so many people, as we touched on at the beginning, want to portray themselves in a certain way in this age of social media and filters. And actually, you are very stripped back and vulnerable at points in that book, which I think is a wonderful thing for other people to read about. Well, I don't want people to feel that they're failing and that they have no hope. If we don't have hope, we don't have anything. And I just wanted to show that it is possible to pick yourself up. So if you could give one piece of advice to a woman, for instance, who is going through something really tough, maybe they're in an abusive relationship. What piece of advice

would you give them when they're feeling everything around them is incredibly dark and they can't see a way out? It's very difficult to give one piece of advice because when you are so broken, as I said, it is such a hard fight. And the only bit of advice I'd say is take it one step at a time. It's a long journey to recovery. It is. And it takes a lot. But one step at a time. If you don't start the journey, you'll never get out of where you are. You'll never rebuild. You'll never feel better. And small things, small joys, cuddling your children,

going for a walk and sitting in a field of flowers, just anything that lifts your heart, you need to do. Fill up your happiness. Fill up your heart. And then you can fight on. And listen to Iggy Pop, Lost for Life. And listen to Iggy Pop Lost for Life and listen to but jump on sofas and jump around the room like a nutter when you're doing it because that really makes you feel better I love that image I think it's a wonderful one to end on

Gina Miller jumping up and down on a sofa to Iggy Pop Lost for Life you've been an incredible pleasure to interview as ever as always it's such an honour for me to be in your presence, let alone to ask you all of these intrusive questions. Your book, Rise, is out on August the 30th. It really is an uplifting, inspiring read. And just thank you so much, Gina, and keep doing what you're doing. My pleasure.