TRASHFUTURE - Rivers of Chud ft. Rohan Banerjee

Episode Date: April 14, 2018

Riley (@raaleh) and Rohan Banerjee (@RBanerjee23), who co-hosts the podcast No Country for Brown Men (@NC4brownmen), sit down to talk about the enduring, rotten legacy of Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech, which is being re-broadcast in full by the BBC today for reasons utterly beyond any of us. We talk instead about why racism is not a thing of the past, and the hypocritical approach to history taken by the British establishment. Listen to this instead of the dumb BBC thing.

Hello and welcome back to a very special I was gonna say broadcast I guess it's more of a podcast of trash future the podcast about how the future and today the present is is trash this is a special Saturday edition this is an extra my name is Riley you may remember me from every previous episode of this podcast and today I am joined by Rohan Banerjee who is a journalist at the New Statesman and is also the co-host of No Country for Brown Men which is a podcast that he made and will be relaunching soon yep myself and Hussain Kisvani who has obviously appeared on the show before we are relaunching the

podcast we have been asked when is it happening the answer is soon very non-committal stance but it is happening we are coming back we're gonna be better than we were before and yeah we look forward to it but we are definitely coming back and you know for those of those of you who have been tweeting us you know it is happening we promise it's just a matter of time finally the country will be specifically for Brown Men exactly exactly that Rohan and I are sitting down today because the BBC has taken the bizarre decision to rebroadcast a basically fascist speech from Britain's checkered past and they've

decided to rebroadcast rebroadcast it the first airing of the of the speech and on on British airwaves in full ever in history I get I don't know why that's considered to be good or significant but they appeared to say it and it has high production values and it has commentary but it's still being represented and we think that's basically a bad idea so we've decided that we're gonna do something a little bit different we are going to talk about this speech it is the rivers of blood speech famously as is called given by conservative MP Enoch Powell we're not really gonna quote it that much instead

I think we're going to talk about it's sort of rotten legacy and sort of re-situating it in history to try and you know give an alternative before we launch into commentary I'm just gonna briefly explain what this famous rivers of blood speech was so Enoch Powell was was he's dead now a conservative MP for one of the Wolverhampton constituencies in the West country and he made this speech on April 20th 1968 and it was in response to the passage of the race relations bill which basically just said you can't deny you can't you have to rent so if someone if you're renting a room and someone's black you can't

deny them because they're black you have to find another reason that's I mean it does more than this but that was the kind of thing this bill was doing Enoch Powell as a fascist obviously he was very very against this and the rivers of blood speech it was was made to sort of suggest that Britain was going to now be sort of overrun and taken over by black people and the reason it's called or and brown people and Asian people and non-white people the reason it's called the rivers of blood speech is that he drops in towards the very end a quote from the Aeneid and the quote goes as I look ahead I am filled with foreboding

like the Roman I seem to see quote the River Tiber foaming with much blood I think it's significant that he quotes the Aeneid because Virgil the author of this epic was probably the worst ancient Roman writer the Aeneid was a piece of jingoistic hogwash and is basically the ancient Roman version of Air Force One or perhaps the Expendables it was it was commissioned by Augustus to create to sort of make an argument for sort of Roman exceptionalism and supremacy and the divine lineage of his house and so yeah it was it was utter I mean of course a sort of chintzy fascist is gonna quote it but don't let that make you

think that Enoch Powell was some kind of political outsider he was an office holding MP and on his death Baroness Thatcher said quote there will never be anybody else so compelling as Enoch Powell he was magnetic listening to his speeches was an unforgettable privilege he was one of those rare people who made a difference and whose moral compass always led us in the right direction William Hague Tory leader said there were disagreements sometimes profound between Enoch Powell and the Conservative Party nevertheless his contribution has helped shape the history of our party in our times and he

will not be forgotten and our purpose today is to show precisely how his contribution has shaped our party in our times and that and to ensure that well he will not be forgotten he ought not be fucking honored Rohan yeah I mean you summed up the background quite well personally I think that the the decision to broadcast the rivers of blood speech from the BBC is a strange one I'll say the word strange as opposed to the wrong one because whether or not it's the wrong one will depend on what they do afterwards so it essentially the way I see it is that whatever spin you want to put on it whatever insincere banner of

balance or free speech you might have I think that really the decision to broadcast the rivers of blood speech comes down to this conversation that we've been having recently about whether or not the BBC is biased ipso facto the accusation is that the BBC is a sounding board for bitter remain voters who are just you know they're whining about the Brexit vote essentially so if you give airtime to something that is so spiritually pro-Brexit as the rivers of blood speech and I and I'm aware that any criticism of me conflating leave and racism together is again something we can unpick in a few minutes but if you

give something that is so spiritually pro-Brexit airtime then you could offset the claim that the BBC is only broadcasting pro-immigration pro-remain sentiments now while it might be successful in assuaging the leave community or the those with imperialist delusions and fantasies I think that for remainers and more importantly for the ethnic minorities that are actually targeted in the speech the brown people the black people the non-white people there are actually the victims of that speech it has the completely opposite effect and I think that injecting that speech back into the public consciousness

even if you're going to critique it putting it in a primetime slot and talking about it what that does is it it offers a you know it offers almost a faux legitimacy because basically races are always looking for something to hang their hat on they're always looking for something to latch on to as a way of being like okay well if it's on primetime TV if it's being discussed then it's obviously acceptable but the reality is that this speech whether or not you have for and against the very fact that you have for suggests that you're lending credence to the sentiment of the speech so yes okay you put it on

primetime speech and you say all in the name of balance but those that are arguing for it are occupying a primetime slot and therefore are in a position to influence you know influence those listening so just before before we continue I think we agreed beforehand we were really only going to substantively quote one line of this speech and I think now's a good time to put it in because we're saying well what are we legitimizing and that is Powell said as a again Powell said as a result of simply legislating some equal some legislating some non-discrimination in this country in 15 or 20 years time the

black man will have the whip hand over the white man so this is the demonstrably untrue yeah yeah it's demonstrably untrue except in consensual BDSM situations which is totally sweet but this is the this is the the view the viewpoint that the BBC is saying is now up for debate basically I know and if you're going to entertain the idea that actually mass immigration has led to the empowerment of black men or brown men over white men if nothing else the podcast that Hussain and I run would not exist and you know let's not imagine a world in which no country for brown men is not on the o-waves but it's just it's

simply not the case the fact is that black people brown people they are still they are still very much the the second or the third minority they're not you know you know we haven't we haven't taken over the white the white Britain you know that is not a case no much yet anyway not yet not not not yet exactly so you know the quote is in itself a fallacy it was wrong so the speech the speech has you know it the speech made an ominous prediction that has not come true so therefore giving it airtime and giving it discussion now suggests that it's something worth debating or worth revisiting I'd argue that it's not hmm

well it's the one one thing I sort of want to sort of bring up is this is in fact and we were sorry having a I'll peel back the curtain we were having a conversation about this in the pub earlier and you said like it's the one of the problems is is what is a racist you know we say you said that if you have a you know a skinhead who's shouting slurs is not going to be taken seriously no sure I think that racism has evolved racism is I think one of the interesting ways to look at it is like look a skinhead a skinhead is hard to ignore if he's shouting racial slurs and causing a ruckus you know you

can't ignore it you just acknowledge him for what it is the the modern racist is the one who hides in plain sight the one who puts on a pinstripe suit and therefore gets taken seriously on the debating floor because they put on a suit because they've got you know a nice nice accent I mean there was actually an article in the New States when recently called the polite extremist which was about Jacob Ries Mogg you know being this unwaveringly polite guy who holds these objectively abhorrent views but you know people give him people give him time of day because he's not shouting oh fuck this fuck that you know

it's because he puts on a suit and speaks nicely and says things that are diplomatically he says things in a diplomatic voice and they are the opposite of diplomacy in reality and I think what what you get to is to call out this racism right and to call out the Enoch Powell speech for racism even somewhat you will get you will get a response saying ah you disagree with its ideas therefore you're insulting the person I think it's fairly I think it's fairly disingenuous to defend things under the banner free speech so frivolously free speech is the right to express yourself no matter what you think or

feel and you know and that and that's something that I'd argue that most people you know if not all people on the left words you know would be in favor of doing however free speech at the expense of somebody else's freedom or liberties ceases to be free speech and that's kind of and this kind of gets to I think one of the crucial one of the crucial things to think about about this speech is that the BBC is rebroadcasting it because it's history and it's history because oh it's of interest it's as though and they're rebroadcasting it as though speech doesn't have an effect and the free speech warriors are saying

oh it's just free speech you can't let you and it's no one's gonna get hurt you just have to debate its ideas but the free speech warriors seem who are so ardent on defending free speech when it's racially charged speech when it is when it is paid speech will sort of be the first person to say oh speech has no effect but if it's pointless if speech has no effect why defend it so vociferously I think there are two I think there are two sides to come back on so the first is like okay there is an argument to suggest that history history in its entirety should be debated and should be discussed because you

know you can't you can't really learn anything from history unless you appreciate the full spectrum of it and that means appreciating the good and the bad so on the point that the rivers of blood speech is an important speech to recognize and understand as being you know harmful to race relations and indeed symptomatic of certain values and attitudes and ideals that exist at that time that ideally wouldn't exist now but in actual fact do then yes I can see some merit in discussing it the problem is that if the BBC is really committed to balance then I will only really accept the BBC's decision to

broadcast the rivers of blood speech if the BBC then offer up a similar prime time slot to a debate or a discussion on the legacy of the Empire which is something that is not talked about which is something that is not is not given the same level of historic free speech value or merit so yes okay we believe that's referred to as talking Britain down actually yeah so this is this is exactly the point is that if the BBC are so committed to balance and diversity of opinion then in that case fine for broadcast the rivers of blood speech but then also why don't we have a prime time one-hour discussion on what

Britain did to India in the 19th and 20th centuries but the thing is that program will never be made that program will never exist and the only reason why the rivers of blood speech is taking the prominence that it is is because the BBC basically want to take some heat off themselves for recently becoming you know recently becoming in encounter with you know these these remain allegations the BBC is a left-leaning organisation you know it is you know the BBC is probably more sympathetic the remain cause than the leave cause the BBC is not a terrible organisation by any stretch but what

they've done here is they've submitted to a populist drive and I think that you know that that is why I think they've put this this broadcast out then well I think there is I think I think that's absolutely correct I think and just to sort of bring up the other these other sort of elements that that we were discussing earlier it's that I think that number one you can't deny that there is a bit of sort of prurience and edginess to this I mean again I as as Loth as I am to quote Powell actually this is something I thought was very interesting the line after the in this country in 15 or 20 years time the line

after that is Enoch Powell saying I can already hear the chorus of of execration how dare I say such a horrible thing how dare I stir up trouble and inflame feelings I mean it's you could you could imagine that that written in much more sort of chud English in a Breitbart comment section who talks like that you know pow yeah but it's that and it's this it's this thing where you know they know they're being I'm not saying they know they're being naughty but there is a kind of prurient interest I think in doing this but also one thing I've noticed I've noticed this since Brexit and since

Trump's election is that both of these were two political movements that were essentially reactionary and essentially white nationalist and in both cases the reaction of a lot of the liberal press has been to try and reach an understanding not with the targets of white nationalism but with the white nationalist themselves sort of their endless sort of soft focus portraits of Trump voters in the New York Times saying I was had I guess people kept calling me racist and so I had to vote Trump for some reason and and and it's it seems like there is just this obsession with coming to understanding

with them as opposed to profiling the people resisting these things yeah I mean I absolutely agree I do think that you know for all the criticism that the left gets or the or the center ground even gets for not engaging with those who they disagree with I don't always I think I think while I think it's important to understand the frustrations of the white working class who feel like the European project for example may have failed them I think it's definitely important to listen to them and I think it's definitely important to understand the economic pressures of bottlenecking towards London and the

the capital centricity that we've got in this country but equally I don't think that the left or indeed ethnic minorities have got any responsibility or any duty to engage with people who dehumanize them you know for example I really hate the phrase legitimate concern about immigration because this has become a it's become a blanket term to basically shut down not debate but to shut down concerns raised by ethnic minorities so you know as an ethnic minority I'm told that I need to respect old white people's legitimate concerns about immigration okay so if your concern about immigration is that mass immigration to

a certain area leaves those resources stretched and unable to satisfy demand I can just about I can just about get around the idea that that's a legitimate concern about immigration however if that concern is then qualified by the old white person saying it's a particular kind of person who's mass immigration I have a problem with then it ceases to be a legitimate concern about immigration so I don't really see I don't really see the left as having a duty to you know almost pacify or rather entertain or you know kind of like you know assuage those concerns why why why why should why why do they feel the need to you know

to do that when you know those views may very well be harmful and you know may very well be illegitimate concerns of immigration because they target a particular minority group well that's just that's actually just it is we sort of hear endlessly that oh these things must be debated these things must be debated but the idea what I find fundamentally infuriating is this idea that the fundamental of the fundamental humanity of some people rests on the ability of other people to argue well against guys with statue avis on Twitter that it's it's utterly bizarre that we can say oh yes well we have to have the

debate we have to engage the other side when the other side is set is is trying to sort of stir up almost a genocidal fear but it's not it's not a debate is it it's an enduring hypocrisy of the British narrative and I'm not I don't want to put that into you know I don't want to compartmentalize that into left and right-wing thinking I'm talking about education I'm talking about public discourse public discussion about British history you know if you take GCSE and a level history in this country right we learn about a particular narrative that paints Britain in a certain way you know that the Nazis were terrible the

Brits came in and liberated Europe and you know the Second World War was largely the effects of dissatisfaction with the conclusion of the first right these are kind of like these are these these are things that you'll see on a mark scheme we don't get taught about the Commonwealth's role I mean at the moment it's bizarre that the Commonwealth is being talked about as an as an alternative to the EU trading block as this as this as this savior this savior infrastructure it's mad what was our here's joke oh god it was about the Commonwealth or he essentially says that you know he feels like his own voice

is colonizing himself but you know the Commonwealth the Commonwealth doesn't like the UK like that that's that's that's the that's the real falsehood in all this you know we talk about trading with the Commonwealth post-Brexit because it'll be like a ready-made alternative to the EU trading block the customs union and whatever like the fact is if somebody colonized you and like cause genocide in your country why would you later give them a favorable trade deal to say thank you well it's that you met you mentioned earlier in fact the the sort of the the relationship between West Bengal and

victory and well and again I also just to point out the main decisive force in the Second World War was was was my boys the USSR fucking fucking pour them out from a gentleman but you you mentioned the the role that sort of West Bengal played in in Britain's war effort this is the point like so I can remember doing GCSE and A-level history and being told all about the Battle of Britain and all about the you know the Treaty of Versailles in the aftermath and all that no real reflection or consideration was given to the amount of Commonwealth soldiers whether from India whether from what is now

Pakistan or Bangladesh no real consideration is given to exactly how many lives they sacrificed in the name of the British Empire and no real consideration is given to the amount of resources that were taken from Bengal in order to feed white soldiers you know so this is stuff that we get this is you know you can be the BBC or anyone's decision to broadcast the rivers of blood speech if you say that you're against it you're accused of air brushing history and cherry picking what you want well I would say the exact same is true of the traditional British narrative around history you know

British schools don't learn about what the Empire did they don't learn about genocide they don't learn about the deaths they don't learn about the raping and the pillaging of Commonwealth countries they don't learn about it because it's awkward it's not it's uncomfortable for them to realize but this somehow for them is less awkward it's less awkward because in this instance you know it was who really suffered because of the rivers of blood speech it wasn't indigenous white British people it was people heard that speech and then felt emboldened just as Brexit has emboldened many

races it's a reality that I'm afraid people need to just get their heads around but just as Brexit has emboldened many races to behave a behave in a certain way and express themselves a lot more obtrusively the same thing is true of the rivers of blood speech you know it legitimized or at least perceptively legitimize races to go and attack corner shops in the West Midlands or to say things to black people or to you know it made them feel you know the fact that Parliament somebody in Parliament had said these things meant that they felt okay in holding these views and we're seeing history repeating

itself now so rebroadcasting it is only going to consolidate yeah I was almost gonna say damn it's a good thing no one ever broadcasts the speech and fall in the British airwaves that would be a real fucker it's it's it's baffling really is that you know I mean actually the comedian Paul Chowdhury who had recently done an interview with you know he talked about like a lot of the a lot of his routine rests on contrasting British and Asian stereotypes and you know one thing he says about you know he does the Dave accent you know Dave for every white guy and Trace for every white woman but he says like you know it's

so true he's like he's like come on Paul when I do your accent he's racist but when you do mine it's not like but the thing is there's a huge difference between a white guy going to a bud budding thing and doing the head bob you know but they feel the minute that they see that on primetime TV they'll feel like it's okay look at the apu stuff on the Simpsons people feel that if something's out there in the public consciousness it's made commonplace then it's okay to repeat outside of TV or the media and that's my fear for the Rivers of Blood speech is that people will hear it most likely in this

instance for the first time they'll hear it and they'll say oh this Enoch he had good ideas and it won't be long before you see a bright bark comment piece quoting the Rivers of Blood speech and 21 year old oh gosh and he and that's the other thing right is they is they have this sort of fig leaf where they're saying oh we're going to present we're going to present criticism we're going to present criticism from both sides of the spectrum so you can understand more as though understanding is something that's totally neutral that just takes place in a vacuum whereas I imagine in say it with it when people hear this in

sort of like people who just have in have in turn who may not consider themselves racist but who just believe black people commit more crime I'm doing scare quotes around that they will hear this speech and they'll hear the criticism from the say the side of the spectrum that says yeah Enoch Powell was actually kind of a bell-end and they'll say oh that's just lefty unreal that's unrealistic lefty nonsense everybody knows that black people are just a bit more naughty and actually this Powell bloke had a few good points that's like of course that's what's going to happen and it's see it's bizarre that anyone

would think they didn't well we go back to the point that we made earlier about the evolution of the racist image like yes I'm sure that there are plenty of skinheads and all that who still exists and who will still be very open and forthright in their racism but equally what about the university educated racist who has you know who complains about the curriculum being two left wing and the university educated racist who has Nigel Farage as his cover photo on Facebook you know and has this insistence I bet that guy fucks a lot but has this insistence I'm not racist but that is the most racist sentence

beginning ever I'm not racist but and then inevitably it ends up being something racist as the second half of that you know I'm not racist but Italians have an extra lobe in their brain that makes them criminals God so something actually something that that's that's come up a couple of times that I really actually do want to hit on is that we've spoken quite a bit about the Empire I think it's important to sort of understand Britain's relationship with its sort of disintegrating Empire in the 1960s when Powell made this speech I think I think the saddest thing about the Empire's representation in modern

British discourse is that a lot of British people think that the Empire was a good thing because it politicized it mobilized it technologized railways railways they constantly talk about the fucking railways I think the best way of putting it is that the British Empire probably had you know the most state sized case of little man syndrome you know a country that was so small and had little to no natural resources somehow managed to colonize the world yeah it's like they were the history's big swinging dick but they were kind of a chode yeah the British Empire is the most powerful chode of all time recently there

was an absolutely terrible distasteful tweet from the Conservatives MP Daniel Hannan who on World Commonwealth Day you know he celebrated the Commonwealth countries by saying you know well done to the Commonwealth who are all these countries that are bound by liberty itself is an oxymoron you cannot be bound by liberty liberty means freedom bound means that you're in chains so what the fuck was he on about but the point is that so many Brits and so many people who live in this post-imperialist fantasy they seem to believe that Commonwealth countries feel grateful for being colonized and yes I will say this

like as long as we're being philosophical as long as we're reflecting on the legacy of the Empire India owes a lot to the British in terms of infrastructure yes it does but does infrastructure does federal politics does that make up for millions and millions of deaths you know it's not really an answer that can be given but the point is that you know a lot of these a lot of these people who are defending the legacy of the Empire they just say oh yeah but railways though and the thing is like railways does not make up for relatives that I never met and and and yes okay great it you know when I go to India and I'm taking my

backpack whatever I can get on some functional trains but like in the same way that they don't want to airbrush history about Enoch Powell's contribution to the race discussion I don't want the British's role in partition to be ignored when we talk about the history of the Commonwealth and that and what's interesting is that is that these policies were leading a lot of former Imperial subjects to come to Britain I mean this is this is this is the this is the tragic irony of Brexit is that Brexit was campaigned for on such a massively anti-immigration ticket vote Brexit and we'll take control of

our borders okay fine vote Brexit so stop the Polish people coming from sit fixing your sink for fuck's sake okay fine we've done that but what we're gonna do now is as a way of a concession to the Commonwealth we're gonna let people from Jamaica from India from Pakistan from Bangladesh from you know from from the Commonwealth countries to come in so you're replacing one mass immigration from Europe with mass immigration from the Commonwealth and the ones from the Commonwealth are the ones who look black and brown which are exactly the people that Enoch Powell warned you about so how has how has any

of this how is any of this from the moment he made the rivers of blood speech to the modern reality of Britain being bent over a barrel because it has no willing trading partners at what point has this been a successful speech and a successful prediction well it's it's never been I think that's interesting you asked so we asked sort of what's this speech for is this speech making a proper prediction I would say no it's not it is a and I think it because the idea that white culture despite its sort of position of what white culture quote-unquote despite the fact that sort of majority white countries have

basically been in total military control of most of the world for the last couple hundred years has this sense of intense fragility where it feels like it's always about to be toppled by something and this speech is exactly this and we all in this and you only have to look to phrases like white genocide or whatever that sort of you know dipshits like Steve Bannon push when they think that all white people are going to be outbred by black and brown people the prediction isn't wrong it's that the the propaganda is still go it's not the prediction is wrong it's that the propaganda is still going I

don't know maybe maybe there are too many black CEOs you know maybe maybe there are maybe there are too many wealthy privileged black guys I think that that may very well be the cause of the problems in Britain it's you know I've heard they're not grateful but see this this this reminds me of Stormzy's Brit Award was a performance recently you know electric performance great showmanship and you know he made the he made the slur at my former employers about you know the Daily Mail can suck my dick and you know then a Daily Mail columnist I think I've forgotten and then a Plotel I forget her first name she

made that she you know she made that comment in her column saying you know she says when is Stormzy going to be grateful for the life that Britain's given him and somebody put on Twitter when you give back the gold that you stole from his country you know and again it's comments like that and you see the responses to that tweet you see so many responses saying what are you on about what are you referring to and they don't know they don't know and if they do know they don't care and they should that's the thing there's no perspective there's no perspective as to Britain's role in shaping global history because

what Powell was afraid of and what the white genocide inheritors of his ideas were afraid of was this idea I think I to be honest I think that they there is some internalized guilt they must know somewhere what they kind of have done to the rest of the world and they're fearing that at some point their chickens are going to come home to roost but that's an interesting point you make about internalized guilt so I recently went to Berlin which you know which is very interesting city because Berlin you know it was it was Nazi HQ right so you know there are many landmarks within Berlin that remind you of the horrors

of you know just just about a century ago essentially it's not that long ago and there are constant reminders of the Holocaust there are constant reminders of Hitler what he was doing you know the fact that now modern day Berlin is a liberal metropolitan largely left-leaning nightclub city one with a big LGBT community that is the biggest middle finger that Berlin can give to Hitler it can say you know fuck you we accept gays we accept black people we accept brown people and that is a wonderful tribute now we went myself and my girlfriend we went there and we went on a bike tour around all the famous landmarks and our

tour guide said as he was showing us all these landmarks and explaining how Berlin was now such a progressive city he was saying that in Germany it's taught very early on to understand the gravitas of what happened in Nazi Germany you know from a very early age Germans are told this is bad we were in the wrong this is what Hitler did and we need to reflect on it and the biggest tribute we can give to those that were affected is to become more progressive and more liberal which is great we don't get anything like that in Britain we never we never we never stand back and say like actually yeah probably shouldn't

have carved up Africa like that should we you know like we never ever you know or we probably shouldn't have taken that gold probably shouldn't have taken those jewels you know probably shouldn't have you know probably shouldn't have brought over a load of guys to fix the labor shortage of the 1970s you know in Britain and then racially abused them on top of that so like bring them over here with a promise of a new life and then make them third class citizens you know we never reflect on that and it's it's what I think and this is this is a comparison this is something that's been brought up quite a bit and I think it's worthwhile

to bring up about this speech is that is that Germany is able to remember its own history without rebroadcasting the Nuremberg rallies exactly you know are you gonna see again see this is the ridiculous thing is that I know that as soon as you know soon as you make a comment like if you if you say unfortunately any debate about left right attitudes towards free speech descends into oh well if you compare anything that's kind of like centre right to Nazism then it's almost like hyperbolec hyperbolec and therefore dismissed but the thing is I really would put it to the BBC you would not broadcast the Nuremberg

rallies on primetime TV slots right if anything if you broadcast them to be critiqued they'd be after watershed and you know they wouldn't be they wouldn't be heralded as being all the first ever broadcast of the Nuremberg rallies they would be like this is harrowing and this is an insight into the horrors of Nancy Germany whereas the way that we're presenting the rivers of blood speech is like is a fucking museum exhibition the other a crucial thing to remember is recall what I said towards the beginning of the show Enoch Powell is seen by members of the modern conservative leaders like

sort of thatcher I heard she died but but but he remembered as basically a respectable worthwhile person I mean I'm not seeing the kind and considering what he has said I'm not seeing the kind of broad brush condemnation that would make revisiting his speech even broadly acceptable well this is the thing history history is written by the winners and therefore history reflects favorably on you know on those who they consider to be the winners so I would argue that obviously left-wing historians and pro-immigration historians would view Enoch Powell as we would so I can't really say that it's too broad

brush in that sense but I'll go back to the original example we gave about Winston Churchill Winston Churchill is on our five-pound notes Winston Churchill is has been the subject of four films in the last three years you know like Hollywood's running out of ideas that they had to just keep on making Churchill films you know the sky was dark because all the stars were in the Winston Churchill biopics but see you know the Churchill films and the representation of Churchill as being this level-headed war hero a time when Britain needed him that may he you know that that he might be but we don't get we don't get his

tour of India we don't get his starving Bengalis we don't you know we don't get any reflection of that because that would not suit the narrative that he would fight them on the beaches and and what not you know that's that's we pick and choose we pick and choose what we celebrate and we pick and choose what we ignore and we pick and choose how we celebrate it as well because I'm reminded of probably of a scene I haven't seen the Churchill movie I won't see the Churchill movie it looks boring as hell and it's not gonna be as cool as Crank 2 High Voltage the best movie ever made but I there is a scene in which

an imagined Churchill sort of gets on the tube and which he would never would have done and gives a rousing speech to everybody in the tube and then you know very sort of affirmingly sort of like shakes a black man's hand which he never would have fucking done I know I mean I mean I will I will go as far to say though like history again is written by the winners I will also go as far to say that there are icons on the left that are perfectly flawed you know there's plenty of things you know we don't talk about the fact that Gandhi stood shoulder to shoulder with with white guys in our apartheid we don't talk about that we

don't talk about the failings of Che or Castro really like on the left like we we pick and choose as well but if we want to talk about true reflective history which is allegedly the you know allegedly the main kind of harbinger for the decision to put the rivers of blood speech out there okay if that is genuine what the BBC want then I expect to see you know Empire reflective documentaries within the next few weeks as well hear that BBC we are we we at trash future are officially officially commissioning a documentary about the Bengali famine that will hold up British involvement in that particular crime of history you

may now please make this thank you very much Rohan thank you very much for coming on the show absolute pleasure and just a reminder that no country for brown men is coming back I think now we need it more than ever I'm gonna say the official trash future position is some mash that goddamn subscribe button and and otherwise I really do hope you have enjoyed the alternative we have presented to listening to the words of Enoch Powell well respected by Margaret Thatcher conservative politician I think it was an error to broadcast and I hope you have enjoyed our alternative thank you very much

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