Tucker Carlson interviews a British pro-war advocate on Russia, Ukraine, and UK defense preparedness
Tucker Carlson interviews a British politician and commentator — addressed as "Mr. Remmon" — in his home, challenging his calls for Britain to prepare for war with Russia.
Summary
Tucker Carlson sits down with a British conservative politician and commentator who has publicly argued that the United Kingdom must prepare for war, citing Russian aggression, cyber attacks, and the poisoning of individuals on British soil. Carlson repeatedly presses his guest to explain why Russia would specifically want to threaten Britain, arguing that the UK's support for Ukraine makes it a combatant in that conflict and that provoking a nuclear-armed Russia is not in Britain's national interest. The guest defends the principle of nation-state territorial integrity as the foundation of world order, drawing parallels to the First and Second World Wars and arguing that projecting strength is the only reliable deterrent to aggression. The conversation ranges widely across the justification for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the costs and benefits to Britain of both World Wars, the state of free speech in the UK, immigration, and whether Britain can even be considered a functioning nation-state given its inability to control its borders and its prosecution of citizens for political expression.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Russia's Threat to Britain and the Case for War Preparedness
Tucker Carlson: Mr. Remmon, thank you very much for having us in your home. It's really pretty. I'm sad to think of it being destroyed in the war you described. What is this war and why do you have to fight it?
Guest: What I've said is that the United Kingdom needs to be prepared for war. We are coming under attack in various ways from Russia. We've had murders and attempted murders take place. There was an attempted murder in Salisbury, and there was a murder that took place in London by agents of Putin. Putin has invaded Ukraine and he is making threatening noises. Some Russian people close to the state — not formally of the state — have talked about the potential for nuclear war. And the way to avoid war is to prepare for it. If you're prepared for war, it doesn't happen. So that's what I'm talking about. It's the preparedness which I'm worried that we don't have.
Tucker Carlson: Why would Putin want to threaten Britain?
Guest: Well, he is threatening Britain.
Tucker Carlson: Why? I wonder why.
Guest: Why has he tried to poison people in Salisbury? Why have his submarines been poking around near our undersea cables?
Tucker Carlson: Do you have any sense of why? Why would he want to do that?
Guest: I think he wishes to reassert the power of Russia, which in many ways is now a failing state. Its economy has been in the doldrums for years since the decline of the Soviet Union. It's lost a good deal of territory, which is a very un-Russian thing. If you go from the Romanovs taking charge in Russia through to the collapse of the Soviet Union, in most years Russia expands — and then you get the collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia suddenly shrinks. It seems to me that that is looked upon by some Russians as a matter of shame and against the historic destiny of Russia. Hence, of course, the reason for activity in Georgia and more recently in Ukraine.
Tucker Carlson: Clearly Russia wants some control over its neighbors. It wants a sphere of influence as a nuclear-armed power. But assuming that everything you're saying is true — and we could debate it — it still doesn't explain why Russia would want to pick a fight with Britain. It's got a much larger economy than Britain's.
Guest: No, no. It hasn't got a larger economy than Britain. It's got a smaller economy than Britain's. It's got a larger military.
Tucker Carlson: It has much more wealth and resources and a much larger manufacturing sector.
Guest: Its GDP is smaller than the UK's.
Tucker Carlson: GDP is not the only measure of an economy — it's one measure.
Guest: Russia is an economic failure. It could have a huge economy but it's got a small economy because it's deeply corrupt and it hasn't managed to use its resources effectively. So although the population of Russia is bigger than that of the United Kingdom — very significantly — its GDP per capita is so much lower that the total GDP of Russia is smaller than that of the United Kingdom.
Tucker Carlson: Its inherent wealth dwarfs that of the UK. It's the largest country in the world. But leaving that aside —
Guest: Inherent wealth isn't very useful, is it? There are lots of African countries that have huge resources that have never been able to use them.
Tucker Carlson: Depends what your timeline is.
Guest: Well, if you go over hundreds of years, they haven't used them. Russia has consistently been a poor country in spite of its resources.
Tucker Carlson: Okay. I don't agree, but I'll grant you that. It still doesn't explain why Russia would benefit from fighting with the UK.
Guest: Russia has already shown itself to be aggressive, as we saw with the invasion of Ukraine — which was not only illegal in international law but also against a specific agreement between Russia, the United States, the UK, and Ukraine. In return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons, Russia and the other signatories would allow its territorial integrity to be maintained.
Tucker Carlson: We can debate why that war started — I have a completely different view from yours. But I feel like we're avoiding the question I have asked you now three times, which is: why does any of that add up to Russia threatening the UK? Do you believe in cause and effect? Do you think there's some reason that Russia —
Guest: Why do dictators attack? We're nowhere near Russia, but we have the NATO agreement with Poland, which must feel under attack. We know that the Baltic states feel threatened. We know there have been cyber attacks on the Baltic states. So of course we should be concerned about our fellow NATO members. We have Article 5 of NATO, which would then involve us. And we've got Russia saying bellicose things about the United Kingdom.
Tucker Carlson: Here's the point I'm attempting to make — and I just think it's important to understand it whether or not you approve of it. From the Russian perspective, you are helping to fund a war against Russia, and so therefore you're a combatant in that war. They feel this way about the United States as well, and Germany, and NATO. But that is a legitimate perspective. Can you not see that? That there's a reason they're mad at the UK?
Guest: Russia invaded Ukraine.
Tucker Carlson: Right. But this is not Ukraine. This is the UK.
Guest: That's right. And what the UK is doing is supporting Ukraine in defending its territory against Russia. So you are participating. This is exactly the same as America helping Kuwait rescue itself from Iraq.
Tucker Carlson: Right. Except Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons.
Guest: But do you believe in the territorial integrity of nation states?
Tucker Carlson: In my own, for sure. I'm not sure the territorial integrity of someone else's state is even my affair. The question is, first of all, can you guarantee it?
Guest: America did. So do you think that was wrong? Because the quid pro quo was that Ukraine would have kept its nuclear weapons.
Tucker Carlson: Well, there were many subsequent arrangements that were violated on all sides.
Guest: No, this is the fundamental point which you're trying to get away from. The United States made an agreement with Ukraine, Russia, and the United Kingdom that the territorial integrity of Ukraine would be inviolable on condition that Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons.
Tucker Carlson: The United States has never pledged to go to war with Russia.
Guest: I didn't say it did.
Tucker Carlson: Okay. Then what you're saying is immaterial.
Guest: I'm saying it made this agreement with the other parties.
Tucker Carlson: So there's a treaty that obligates the United States to fight a war against Russia?
Guest: It doesn't obligate it — that's irrelevant. I'm saying that if you don't think America has an interest in this, it shouldn't have signed the treaty, and then Ukraine should have kept its nuclear weapons.
Tucker Carlson: There is no treaty that obligates the United States — I'm speaking with authority on this — to fight Russia on the basis of what Russia did in February 2022.
Guest: I'm well aware of that. I'm well aware of what was said in relation to the nuclear weapons. It is not an agreement to go to war. Nor, strictly speaking, is Article 5 of NATO — it's not a requirement to go to war. It is a request that can be ignored. It's not an automatic act of war. The member state affected can call upon Article 5, but it doesn't require an automatic response. But what you're saying is that this treaty — where Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons — was entirely pointless.
Tucker Carlson: I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is there have been many subsequent agreements since, including a verbal agreement — which has been testified to by people who were present — that the United States would not expand NATO to Russia's borders. That's an understandable concern of Russia. You don't want nuclear weapons controlled by another country on your borders. Why would you? And so a lot has happened. There was the overthrow of the Ukrainian government by NATO in 2014. A lot has happened.
Guest: All sorts of things have happened. My only point is that right now we're on the brink of a nuclear exchange, and the question is why. And I don't understand why it's in Britain's interest to be at war with Russia.
Tucker Carlson: What I am arguing is that if we are prepared for war, war becomes less likely. That's the whole basis of deterrence. That's the whole reason —
Tucker Carlson: But if you stop fighting the war, they will be less likely to nuke you.
Guest: No, that's not true. If you don't support Ukraine, if you allow Russia to take Ukraine, then it moves on to the next objective.
Tucker Carlson: But why is it up to countries today to decide whether or not Russia takes Ukraine?
Guest: Because it's strongly in our national interest — and indeed in that of the United States. The one fundamental thing of the world order is the integrity of nation states. If all nation states are up for grabs for whichever country wants to take them, then why shouldn't China take Taiwan tomorrow?
Tucker Carlson: I assume that's going to happen, of course.
Guest: So you don't mind nation states being taken?
Tucker Carlson: I mind a lot of things. But the question is not simply do I think it's wrong. The question is: can I do anything about it, and at what cost to my own population? It's a much more complicated calculation than the one you're presenting. You can project strength — and I'm afraid what the West did towards Russia was project weakness. The agreements made over Crimea by Germany and France made it look to Putin that he could do what he wanted. He then miscalculated with Ukraine and found that the West was not going to go along with that. And it's very important that you don't allow dictators to miscalculate. Same is true of Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein thought he had a message from the CIA — and I'm sure you know all of this — that invading Kuwait would not upset the Americans. And when you project weakness, you make war more likely.
The Limits of British Military Power
Tucker Carlson: My final question on this point — you've got to have the interim levels of defense as well. You can't just go from "we're all pacifists, but if you really do something nasty, we'll nuke you," because nobody will believe you would use the nuclear bomb in those circumstances. The level of aggression would not be high enough. So you've got to have the intermediate levels of defense. But if you go from a fighting force of under 19,000 — which is bigger than Estonia's 5,000, but still somewhat less than the three and a half million in the Russian army — how much would that cost and where would the money come from?
Guest: Well, there's plenty of money. We're just spending it all on welfare at the moment. We're about to spend 400 billion pounds a year on welfare.
Tucker Carlson: On welfare — what specifically do you mean by welfare?
Guest: Welfare benefits — people who are out of work. Some of that's on pensions, but our welfare benefit system has been ballooning. If we could take even a part of that —
Tucker Carlson: And spend it on bombs. That's a fair point. We've got a crazy welfare system. This country is not being well run. We are spending much more money than we have. And our defense spending is pitifully low. It's even lower than it seems because we're at 2.7% of GDP.
Tucker Carlson: Is there a public demand for more defense spending?
Guest: The public is getting increasingly worried. The world is getting —
Tucker Carlson: Do you think that the average Briton, if given the choice between food and housing assistance or unemployment benefits, would instead choose to forgo those in favor of more bombs?
Guest: I think the country at large is deeply fed up with people on welfare who have made it a lifestyle.
Tucker Carlson: I bet that's true. But do you think if you put it up to a vote, a national referendum —
Guest: I think you would find that people want defense. And I think they want to reduce social spending anyway. Do you know, in this country there are six million wonderful people who we should really admire who work even though they would be better off on benefits.
Tucker Carlson: I'm in full agreement with you. The question is, should you take that dividend — that savings — and spend it on a pointless war that you can't possibly win and that will only get your citizens killed?
Guest: We won't fight a war if we are defended.
Tucker Carlson: So to what extent would you have to increase the size of your military to intimidate Russia, which possesses nuclear and hypersonic weapons?
Guest: It's not a question of intimidating. We're not trying to intimidate Russia because we wouldn't succeed in intimidating Russia.
Tucker Carlson: I'm totally confused. What's the difference between intimidating someone and being taken seriously?
Guest: Intimidation is suggesting that you are intending to be aggressive. Being taken seriously is showing resolve — showing that it's not in your interest to do anything to us.
Tucker Carlson: So you're saying: I'm armed, back off. That's intimidation.
Guest: I'm armed, so it's not in your interest to do anything. I don't think that is intimidating because we're not going to intimidate Russia, nor do we want to. We want to tell Russia: if you mess with the UK, it's just not worth it.
Tucker Carlson: How much would you have to spend? How many people would have to join the British military in order to have that effect on Russia?
Guest: It's a question of building up our overall defense expenditure. The interim target is 3.5% of GDP. Whether that's enough is highly debatable, but it's much more about equipment than it is about numbers. Russia is not going to invade Britain. It's got a long way to go to get here.
Tucker Carlson: We could take out your capital city instantly.
Guest: It could, but then we could take out Moscow. If you want to get to nuclear war — but the reason we don't get to nuclear war is that both sides are armed.
Tucker Carlson: So you're totally convinced that Russia would never use nuclear weapons offensively under any circumstances?
Guest: One could never go that far. The whole point of —
Tucker Carlson: Well, both Russia and the United States — President Trump — are both openly threatening to use offensive nuclear weapons.
Guest: Both to use tactical nuclear weapons at the moment. And the reason the Cold War strategy worked is because deterrence worked. But to make deterrence work, you have to be strong. There is no deterrent really if you go from step one to nuclear weapons in one fell swoop. If your only real defense — if Russia does something in Poland or Estonia — is to go to nuclear war, nobody's going to take you seriously on that. No one's going to go from —
Tucker Carlson: No one's going to take you seriously if you use a nuclear weapon.
Guest: I think they will take you very seriously.
Tucker Carlson: No, they're not going to take you seriously that you would use a nuclear weapon because it wouldn't be proportionate.
Guest: You've got to have the intermediate levels of defense as well. You can't just go from pacifism to nuclear weapons because nobody will believe that you would use the nuclear bomb in those circumstances. So you've got to have the interim levels of defense.
The Justification for Nuclear Weapons and the Bombing of Hiroshima
Tucker Carlson: Would it be worth using a nuclear weapon against Russia to preserve the world order and to deter territorial aggression against sovereign states?
Guest: I think ultimately nuclear weapons serve a very useful purpose as being the final threat. The whole Cold War strategy worked. Russia and America did not go to war because both sides realized that the other could wipe them out. But is the actual use of nuclear weapons ever justified?
Tucker Carlson: Is it?
Guest: I think it was justified in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yes. I think it was justified in bringing the Second World War to an end. Unquestionably.
Tucker Carlson: Unquestionably. So it's justified to kill people who did nothing wrong?
Guest: We're not talking about people who did nothing wrong. The Japanese —
Tucker Carlson: Populations of crowded cities are not responsible for the war. Women and children —
Guest: We were in a state of total war.
Tucker Carlson: We were not in a state of total war. There were no Japanese troops on American soil. That's not even close to a state of total war. But I'm asking you a theological question — which is, is it ever allowed under the precepts of, say, Christianity to kill people who did nothing wrong? To kill women and children. Does it meet Aquinas's test of a just war?
Guest: It does. Are you a legitimate authority? Yes. Is it an important cause? Yes, because you have been attacked and you're defending yourself. And is it proportionate? Yes, because it actually shortens the duration of the war.
Tucker Carlson: That's not the definition of proportionate. Proportionate means that you're responding in a way that is not grandly larger than the initial attack. In other words, if you punch me in the face, I can't shoot you.
Guest: Yes, but this is a different means of killing people.
Tucker Carlson: I'm talking about killing people's kids. Nothing to do with the war. That's okay because why?
Guest: We were at war with the whole country.
Tucker Carlson: We're at war with the kids?
Guest: And it ended the war. Japan was at war with the United States and the United Kingdom.
Tucker Carlson: So if another nation says they're at war with us, it's okay to kill our kids. But we don't want to be at war with other nations.
Guest: Japan had attacked the United States. It started a war.
Tucker Carlson: Why not kill the people who started the war?
Guest: Well, we did in the end. The Japanese prime minister tried to commit suicide and we spent ages getting them back to good health.
Tucker Carlson: We also killed tens of thousands of children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And you're saying the war —
Guest: I think it was justified. I think the use of nuclear weapons at the end of the Second World War was justified.
Tucker Carlson: So what you're saying as a Christian is yes, it is okay to kill children who did nothing wrong. Do you feel that is a Christian position?
Guest: Yes. I think it meets Aquinas's conditions of just war.
Tucker Carlson: Really? Has any pope since Aquinas confirmed that? Have there been any papal statements saying yes, under certain circumstances it's okay to kill other people's kids?
Guest: The Church has preached for centuries that there are conditions of a just war.
Tucker Carlson: I don't think there's any statement since 1945 from — and I'm not Catholic, so I'm not an expert, but you are. So you tell me: as a Catholic, you think that the Church endorses killing people's kids?
Guest: Since 1945, there's only been one explicitly ex cathedra statement by the Holy See.
Tucker Carlson: I guess the question is: if you are willing to kill non-combatants who committed no crime — if you're willing to murder the innocent — then in what sense are you better than the people you were fighting?
Guest: Once a war is engaged — and this is the whole point of what I'm talking about — the goal is to avoid war, and you avoid war by being strong. Once you're in war, you are justified in winning the war.
Tucker Carlson: You can behave like an animal once the war starts?
Guest: If the risk to you is sufficient, you can use nuclear weapons. I think that is morally justifiable. Even leaving aside the details of America's use of those two bombs — there was no risk to the United States. Japan was in no condition to invade the United States. It never put troops on our shores.
Tucker Carlson: It attacked territory. Yes. And was that territory a state? It wasn't a state then.
Guest: Of course, you're quite right.
Tucker Carlson: The point is we were not at risk from an invasion by Japan in any sense. It was a defeated nation. We'd already firebombed Tokyo.
Guest: Multiple times.
Tucker Carlson: Do you think the firebombing of Tokyo is justified?
Guest: I don't think killing the innocent is ever justified under any circumstances. And I think the basis of Western civilization is justice for the individual. I believe that blood guilt and group punishment are antithetical to our entire civilization. They're the things we fight against. That's why the Gulag was wrong. That's why what's happening in Gaza is wrong. It's always wrong to kill people who did nothing wrong. And if we don't think that, then on what basis are we administering our own justice systems that take such exquisite care to punish only the guilty?
Guest: I think it's very difficult to have fought the Second World War without innocent people being killed.
Tucker Carlson: Maybe. No one tried, but maybe. I never understood why fight the Second World War in the first place.
Was the Second World War Worth It for Britain?
Guest: Well, that's a very fundamental question. Hitler would have taken as much as he could have done, as he was showing. Did you really want him —
Tucker Carlson: Well, Hitler said that 15% of Poland was once Germany — it was given to Poland at the Treaty of Versailles, that was German territory with Germans. That was his case, and by the way that was true.
Guest: Except the Polish borders had been cut out —
Tucker Carlson: Look, I'm not here to defend Hitler. I'm just saying the idea that Hitler just randomly rolled into Poland is a lie, and everyone believes it because they know nothing about the actual facts. The truth is Germany had big pieces of it carved off, including part of Prussia, and it was given to this other country. It infuriated the Germans. Maybe it shouldn't have, but it did. And that was a justification for it. The UK had nothing to do with it at all. And you destroyed your empire and your country fighting this war that you still pretend was a good idea, but it wasn't.
Guest: It was fundamental. It was the classic good versus evil.
Tucker Carlson: Has the UK benefited from it? Is it a better country than it was?
Guest: To have defeated Hitler? Yes. Otherwise we'd be speaking German.
Tucker Carlson: Who cares? There are a lot of people in Britain who can't speak English. So it would be nice to have at least a European language spoken in your country. But I see no advantage of speaking German over any other language. The point is, a war should benefit — if a war is fought with the children of your citizens, which it is — then that war should benefit those citizens.
Guest: And it did benefit this country.
Tucker Carlson: Can you tell me how?
Guest: As I said to you, otherwise Germany would eventually have invaded us.
Tucker Carlson: We've had 80 years to assess. Tell me the benefits now, sitting 80 years later, as the grandson of people who I'm certain fought in that war.
Guest: Well, my grandfather was too old — he was in the First World War, not the Second — and my father was too young. So we sort of missed a generation.
Tucker Carlson: I'm saying now that we've had — and as a lover of history — why don't you tell me the ways in which Britain benefited from, and I'm going to use air quotes here, "winning" the Second World War? Because from my perspective it looks like the empire ended, India was lost two years later, the United States took over the world and has had troops here ever since. You lost your sovereignty and your self-respect, and this beautiful country has been destroyed.
Guest: We certainly didn't lose our self-respect over winning the war. Our self-respect was hugely maintained by defeating the greatest evil the world has known.
Tucker Carlson: Then why would you allow foreign troops on your soil ever since?
Guest: Because we wanted to stop the Russians.
Tucker Carlson: But it's kind of a prerequisite of sovereignty and self-respect not to have foreign soldiers on your soil for 80 years.
Guest: They're allies. We're in NATO together.
Tucker Carlson: Call them whatever you want, but they're still foreigners on your soil.
Guest: They're very welcome here. They're part of defending our shared interest, which we have. And our shared interest is the nation state — maintaining its integrity and not having people thinking that because there was a treaty some hundreds of years ago and Poland once had a bit that was Germany, we can now say we're going to take it.
Tucker Carlson: You use the phrase "nation state," but it has no meaning if the nation state has no sovereignty.
Guest: This nation state has sovereignty.
Tucker Carlson: How can it have sovereignty when it has foreign troops on its soil?
Guest: We were able to pull out of the European Union. That showed us an exercise in sovereignty.
Tucker Carlson: Well, I was on your side there and I feel so sad about what happened. But my point is: if you don't have sovereignty, if you can't make decisions that are rooted in the core interest of your own population, then how are you a nation state?
Guest: We do make decisions that are in the core interests of our population.
Tucker Carlson: Well, you're just telling me that you may need to prepare for a war on behalf of the territorial integrity of Ukraine. And why is that in our interest?
Guest: Because if the territorial integrity of nation states is protected, there's much less need for us to go to war.
Tucker Carlson: What about your own integrity? Aren't you getting invaded by people in boats all the time? Why don't you use a military to protect your own borders?
Guest: Look, I'm not going to disagree with you on that. We should definitely be —
Tucker Carlson: But you're not calling for conscription or a defense buildup or 3% of GDP to go to a military response to an invasion of your own country.
Guest: I think you can do it without a military response. I think the Rwanda scheme would have worked.
Tucker Carlson: But why not? If you're so willing to commit military force and the lives of Britons to defending Ukraine, why not commit them to defending your own country?
Guest: Because the small boats issue is a civil matter rather than a military matter.
Tucker Carlson: Really? What percentage of your population is foreign-born?
Guest: 19%.
Tucker Carlson: 19%. What was the percentage 20 years ago?
Guest: It was about 8%.
Tucker Carlson: What was the percentage 40 years ago?
Guest: It was 2%.
Tucker Carlson: Okay. So —
Guest: Look, I think our immigration policies have been catastrophic. I think we've got it hopelessly wrong.
Tucker Carlson: But it's not immigration, it's an invasion. So why not use the military?
Guest: Because actually the small boats is not the biggest part of it. The biggest part — which is now coming down, thankfully, but needs to be reduced much further — is legal immigration. But you've also got the problem of visa overstaying, which is a massive problem and we don't even know the details of it.
Tucker Carlson: So you're already admitting that you're not a nation state because you can't control who comes in and out of your own country.
Guest: No. What I am saying is that there are failures in the administration. Every country has —
Tucker Carlson: How do we define nation state?
Guest: Every nation has crime that takes place in it. This is crime that is taking place in this country. This is civilian crime, not military crime. There are things you can do. As Donald Trump has shown, you can get a grip on the new flow of illegal migrants. It turns out even in America it would be very difficult to remove the illegal migrants who are already there.
Tucker Carlson: Well, we're not even trying.
Guest: Well, there — just for the record.
Tucker Carlson: The UK is not alone in lacking self-respect and willingness to protect itself.
Guest: It doesn't stop you being a nation state. But we have a serious political problem of immigration which we need to deal with — and particularly of illegal immigration — and we need to be deporting. I'm just not sure what a nation state is, because the countries that you have described — Ukraine specifically — which has been completely controlled by NATO and the United States and the US intel agencies since at least 2014, and we know that it's on tape. How is that a nation state? That's a proxy state. That's a country controlled by a larger power.
Guest: Very interestingly, I think you make a very important point about Ukraine. Ukraine was to a significant extent in 2022 still Russian-speaking. Putin has created a strong feeling of Ukrainian identity by his attack. And has strengthened Ukraine as a nation state. It's a very interesting side effect.
Tucker Carlson: That may be right. But I'm merely saying the pretense that Ukraine is this sovereign country — when it's controlled by larger powers — is grating. Because really the choice is between a Ukraine controlled by the East, Russia, or the West, the United States. That's the choice. No one's actually suggesting Ukraine should be able to make independent decisions. They tried to do that in 2014 and we overthrew the government.
Guest: I don't think that's right. I think the American interest is in having an independent Ukraine that makes its own decisions.
Tucker Carlson: Really? What if an independent Ukraine wanted to link up with Russia, because they have a lot more in common with Russia than they do with most of Europe?
Guest: I think under current circumstances that is extremely unlikely.
Tucker Carlson: Well, it is now. You're right. But in 2014, it was moving that direction, and the US government just kind of overthrew the government.
Guest: Well, you then got the invasion of Crimea at about that time, and so you got active attack from Russia, which was deeply problematic. But I think we're beginning to lose the wood for the trees. The world is built up of nation states, and nation states are the legitimate building blocks. They are sometimes badly governed, sometimes dictatorially governed, but nonetheless they have an inherent legitimacy. And if you don't believe in the nation state, what do you replace it with?
Guest: You replace it with the nation state. That's why I don't believe in NATO.
NATO, Sovereignty, and the Nation State
Tucker Carlson: So how is NATO consistent with your concept of the nation state? You have a supra-national organization —
Tucker Carlson: Exactly.
Guest: NATO is by far and away the best supra-national organization because it is a voluntary grouping with no ability to compel. So the nation state retains its nation state capability within NATO. It is not like the European Union or the International Criminal Court or any of these things which seek to override your sovereignty by a higher sovereignty. NATO requires the cooperation of states within a structure, but they are always the individual nation states — except when you're at war, when you agree that your troops may be commanded by an ally. But we've agreed to the command of troops by allies in wartime long before we had NATO. That's the norm of international affairs for hundreds of years.
Tucker Carlson: You still give up your own sovereignty because you wind up in a place where you're like, "No, really, we have to defend Ukraine or Estonia or —"
Guest: No, you don't, because as we were discussing earlier —
Tucker Carlson: Ukraine is not a member of NATO.
Guest: I know. You don't get obliged to, you get asked to. Article 5 is not —
Tucker Carlson: No, I understand that.
Guest: And that's important.
The Costs of the World Wars
Tucker Carlson: Let's just reinsert common sense here. I just want to tie a bow on our previous conversation. How specifically did the UK benefit from its heroic victory in the Second World War? What are the material or spiritual benefits? How do you see this country as better than it was in 1945?
Guest: If you think of it in terms of peace — there has now been peace in Europe between the major nations since 1945. And in the history of the UK, our prosperity has always depended upon peace.
Tucker Carlson: So is this a richer country than it was in 1945?
Guest: Much richer. Materially much richer. GDP growth from 1945 —
Tucker Carlson: What was the unemployment rate in 1945?
Guest: Everyone was in the —
Tucker Carlson: Of course, war. It's an unfair question. I agree with that.
Guest: We've got much more welfare. I'm not saying we've got no problems. But has our GDP grown in real terms of national strength or prosperity?
Tucker Carlson: Of course not. It's a measurement of money — how much money is in the system — but it doesn't account for where it goes.
Guest: We are better fed. We are better housed. We have conveniences that weren't even thought of in 1945.
Tucker Carlson: Happier country?
Guest: Happiness is a different concept.
Tucker Carlson: Suicide rate — higher or lower?
Guest: It's much higher. Well, that actually depends. The thing about suicide is that it depends on the reporting of the rate. In 1945, there was much more stigma around suicide and therefore people were much more likely to —
Tucker Carlson: It was a Christian country. Now it's mostly an atheist country.
Guest: Yes. I think that's a great tragedy.
Tucker Carlson: But the point is —
Guest: I mean, you're an Episcopalian, aren't you? But you don't believe in half the things the Episcopalian church now says.
Tucker Carlson: I don't believe in witchcraft. So —
Guest: No. Nor do I.
Tucker Carlson: I'm out on that question. You want to come over to Rome?
Tucker Carlson: Well, I certainly believe in Rome's position on murdering innocents. I'm totally opposed. Whether in the womb or in Hiroshima, they're against it and so am I. I think the killing of the unborn child is the greatest tragedy of the West.
Tucker Carlson: But bottom line — I just want to get this on tape — you think the UK is a stronger, better country now than it was in 1945?
Guest: Yes, I do. I think we have all sorts of problems. I think we have bad governments. I think immigration has been terribly badly handled. I think we have too much state control. But of course, in 1945, we had masses of state control. And I think there are huge ways in which we can improve the country. But are we a better country than in 1945? Are we a better country for the fact that we defeated Nazism? Yes. I think Hitler was one of the great evils the world ever saw, and it was a good thing to ensure that that was destroyed, because it would have destroyed us otherwise.
Tucker Carlson: Yeah. I'm against the Nazis, against Hitler. I don't think it was a good thing for you at all. But I don't live here, so I'll leave it.
Guest: I also don't think you touched on India. I think it was very unlikely that we would have kept India much longer anyway, because the First World War —
Tucker Carlson: India was going — the First World War is a different question.
Guest: Okay. But without even getting into all of this, I'm just trying to get to the core question, which is: is it worth it? So Britain lost — I think just in deaths in the Second World War —
Tucker Carlson: 450,000, maybe.
Guest: Okay. But the point you've really challenged me on is the idea that being prepared deters war. The experience of the UK in 1914 and in 1939 was that because we were thought to be soft, our enemy didn't take us seriously.
Tucker Carlson: You joined both of those wars. You were not attacked in either war.
Guest: We joined both of those wars. Unfortunately, on both occasions our enemy thought we were weak and would cave, and therefore felt it was free to —
Tucker Carlson: So you're saying to protect Belgium, it was worth destroying all of Europe and losing 1.5 million Britons?
Guest: What I said was that the enemy felt free to invade because we were seen to be weak. That's not the same as saying it's the right thing to do.
Tucker Carlson: They did not attack you. You attacked them.
Guest: We had a treaty with Belgium, but we went to help the French, who were falling back remarkably quickly in August 1914.
Tucker Carlson: You attacked the Germans. They did not attack you.
Guest: They attacked Belgium, with whom we had a treaty, on their way through to attack France. But can't you take a big picture and answer the question?
Tucker Carlson: Was it worth losing —
Guest: I'll happily come to that question. But I'm trying to make a point that you seem to wish to refuse to allow me to make — that had we in 1914 been projecting strength, had the Kaiser thought there was a big British army and that the British would take this seriously, he would not have gone through Belgium. And if he had not gone through Belgium, we would not have gone to war. And it is the projection of strength that avoids war. And this is what we should be doing now. We should learn from history that if your enemy thinks you are weak, then you find you get into war by accident. If you show that you are strong, then the invasion doesn't take place. And if Hitler had thought we were strong, then Poland would not have been invaded.
Tucker Carlson: Hitler did not want to go to war with the UK. He repeatedly said — in public and through diplomacy — "I do not want to go to war with the UK."
Guest: He thought we wouldn't do anything about Poland, as we'd done nothing about Czechoslovakia. He thought we'd do nothing about —
Tucker Carlson: You acknowledged that Hitler said repeatedly in public and through diplomacy that he did not want to go to war with the UK.
Guest: I really don't care what he said, because he signed a piece of paper with Neville Chamberlain saying he would not invade. I'm very surprised you're verging on defending Hitler. I think this is not really what you want to be doing.
Tucker Carlson: Yeah, I guess I'm just a secret Nazi. I'm actually not a secret Nazi.
Guest: I'm reassured.
Tucker Carlson: And hardly a public Nazi. I'm someone who tries to think clearly about cause and effect. And this is the point. The cost of the First World War is going unacknowledged by you. The school you went to is called Eton. Eton lost —
Guest: 1,200.
Tucker Carlson: 1,200. Okay. We effectively lost a full five-year period.
Guest: Well, you lost the entire nation and all of Christian Europe.
Tucker Carlson: You ought to go and speak at Eton.
Guest: I'm sure I would be welcome at Eton. But here's my point — and if you do, you should go to the college chapel, because it is the most moving thing. As you go past this list of names of all the people who were killed, it is equivalent to a full five-year cohort.
Tucker Carlson: And you don't think that's a waste?
Guest: I haven't actually answered your question on whether it was right to go to war in the First World War. I think it's a very different question from the Second World War.
Tucker Carlson: But when you see those boys' names —
Guest: It was terrible.
Tucker Carlson: Can anyone look at their mothers and say your son died for a good cause protecting Belgium?
Guest: Which we'd created. It's always worth reminding the Belgians of that.
Tucker Carlson: That seems like a bigger lesson to me. I think the lesson is the war would not have happened if we had projected strength.
Guest: Who knows? But we know that the war wasn't worth fighting in the first place. And that seems like the overriding lesson.
Guest: I think the difficulty — I can draw many lines in the sand. It matters at what point I do that. If you appear strong — both sides during the Cold War appeared strong the whole time — and therefore there was no hot war. The lesson I would draw is the appearance of strength is the best guarantor of peace. The Kaiser referred to the contemptible little army that we'd sent over.
Tucker Carlson: Why would you draw the line there? Why was the First World War necessary?
Guest: In traditional British political terms, it was to maintain a balance of power on the continent, because we felt threatened otherwise. We felt threatened by Germany in our imperial possessions and by the buildup of the German Navy. I'm not clear that the First World War was the right war to fight. I am clear the Second World War was. But what I'm —
Tucker Carlson: There's a connection between the wars.
Guest: This is the question really of the Treaty of Versailles. The really interesting thing on the Treaty of Versailles is we made the terrible mistake of letting the French lead the negotiations. If you go back to the Congress of Vienna, which was led by Castlereagh — Castlereagh's peace treaty with France — Napoleon said these were the terms he would have given Britain had he defeated Britain. We were so generous that Napoleon himself said these were as generous as terms as he would have given had he won, and that led to 100 years of peace. So I don't think we make a catastrophic mistake in Versailles — yes, of course we did — but there's a great difference between seeing why things happen and viewing that as a justification. We would have avoided the Second World War if we had been strong and if we had rearmed earlier. And that's my worry now — that we aren't learning the lessons of how we got into those two world wars, because we are weak and we do not have the defense expenditure.
Tucker Carlson: I mean, not to get crazy with alternate history or whatever, but you've just described two wars that killed millions and millions of people — tens of millions of people — and totally destroyed your country and depopulated it in some places. And both of them were initiated in the defense of small, basically irrelevant countries that are not contiguous to Britain, that you had no cultural history with, no connection to whatsoever. And on the basis of some theory that you keep repeating 80 years later, you destroyed your entire country and got millions of people killed. Maybe that's one lesson.
Guest: We really didn't destroy the entire country. There was a very large cost. But I think you need to go back to the Napoleonic Wars. Were the Napoleonic Wars worth fighting? Is it worth trying to stop a dictator having a commanding position in Europe? And it has usually been seen to be in British interests to stop that happening.
Tucker Carlson: Do you think that — as in business — the cost needs to be part of the calculation, the potential cost? You're a businessman. You don't just look at the potential upside.
Guest: Of course, and that's absolutely right. And this is why I was going on about the Congress of Vienna, because the Congress of Vienna led to 100 years of European peace. So we got the peace right after we'd got the war right. In the First World War, whether or not we got the war right is an arguable point, but we unequivocally got the peace wrong. And that then didn't lead to — you see, we got the peace of the Second World War right and have had 80 years of peace since, pretty much. The wars that have taken place within Europe have been sideshows. And that allows for prosperity. So if you get stability, that is hugely beneficial for your country.
Free Speech, Russia, and the State of British Democracy
Tucker Carlson: So you did a segment on GB News recently, which precipitated this conversation actually, in which you were speaking with a former Labour adviser — whose name I can't remember — but on the other side of British politics from you. And you were both in agreement that we need to confront Russia, that it's the most important thing to restrain this monster Putin.
Guest: I don't want to confront Russia. I just want us to be prepared. I don't want us to be aggressive.
Tucker Carlson: Well, the UK is confronting Russia because it's funding — we're helping fund — no, it's fighting a war against Russia right now.
Guest: We're helping Ukraine defend its territorial integrity against Russia. We are not directly at war with Russia.
Tucker Carlson: Your citizens haven't died yet in great numbers. But I would argue that the United States and Britain are both fighting a war against Russia.
Guest: If we are, we should do it properly, because I don't think we are. And in that conversation, he said, "The first thing we're going to need to do — not in Russia, but here in the UK — is round up people who disagree with the program and put them in jail." And I was finding a historical precedent for that.
Tucker Carlson: Now, the British government did that in the Second World War immediately.
Guest: It did in the Second World War. I knew a wonderful man — now gathered to his fathers — who was rounded up in 1939 when war was declared, was put in an enemy aliens camp in Shropshire. He was German-Jewish, and all Germans were rounded up. He was of fighting age. The day he left the camp, he joined the British army and he ended the war as a brigadier. Amazing.
Tucker Carlson: Yeah, he sounds like a very forgiving man. But I'm not talking about people who are rounded up as potential foreign nationals.
Guest: We can't round up people for their expressed opinions. People must be free to oppose.
Tucker Carlson: But the British government has never apologized for violating its own ancient principles by rounding up not simply members of the opposition party, but their families.
Guest: Yeah. I'm talking about the Mosleys, but also everyone who worked with the Mosleys — the whole leadership and their wives. And no one's ever apologized for that. And it does raise the question — in America, you arrested the Japanese, didn't you?
Tucker Carlson: Hundreds of thousands of them.
Guest: Some of them — in fact, I think the majority — were American citizens.
Tucker Carlson: And does America apologize for that?
Guest: Yes, but not enough.
Tucker Carlson: As far as I'm concerned, you can't arrest your own citizens because of how they look. That's what we're fighting against.
Guest: Not going to disagree with you on that. So if there was an attempt — and there has been an attempt already in Britain to penalize people for opposing a war with Russia — George Galloway was accused of being a foreign agent or something. He's from here, as you know.
Tucker Carlson: I know George. Yeah. You think he's a foreign agent?
Guest: No, I don't think George is a foreign agent. George is a very brilliant orator and an interesting political figure. One of the best orators in modern British politics. His views are completely bonkers, but that's another matter.
Tucker Carlson: Yeah, but I mean, he's — I'm sure he thinks that of you, too.
Guest: I'm sure he does. He's charming when you meet him.
Tucker Carlson: He's so charming. But the point is the British government —
Guest: He's a good Catholic as well.
Tucker Carlson: He is.
Guest: He met Pope Francis — I heard this on the grapevine, so I hope it's true — and told him that he shouldn't be so mean about the Latin Mass. So I'm rather pro George Galloway.
Tucker Carlson: I am too. But the point is George Galloway can't live in the nation of his birth because he opposes —
Guest: George should be free to say what he wants. I'm very worried, as a much broader point, about free speech in this country. We can't simply adopt a First Amendment because with an uncodified constitution it doesn't work. But we have historically protected freedom of speech through the way politicians have behaved, and we are now attacking freedom of speech and I'm deeply concerned about that. Of course, if people want to be Russian apologists, they should be free to do so — and they will be ridiculed for it. But they should be free to do so.
Tucker Carlson: Should Britons be allowed to watch RT or any other news source they want in their own country?
Guest: Of course they should. I'm very against banning things. If you think of Lord Haw-Haw in the Second World War — "Germany calling, Germany calling" — he was a source of ridicule, and actually the more people listened to him, the more ridiculous they thought the Germans were. So I would never ban things because you get propaganda broadcast to you and you laugh at it. The British laugh at most things most of the time. If we had RT coming through all the time, we'd be giggling at it thinking, "That's rum old stuff." I think that's a wise and evolved point.
Tucker Carlson: My final question to you is: if for whatever reason Britain's war and America's war against Russia provokes Russia into responding against the UK and the United States — and I pray that that doesn't happen — but if it does and Britons are killed, will you be able to say to their surviving loved ones it was worth it, that your child died?
Guest: This is the most important question. Is a war worth your own life? Yes. And the freedom of the United Kingdom is certainly worth my rather elderly life — it won't be much use to anybody. But you cannot say this country must be strong and must be ready to go to war without thinking that if it came to a bomb dropping on your house, that is a bomb you would have to accept.
Tucker Carlson: I just don't understand — given what you've already just conceded, that the government of the United Kingdom is punishing and prohibiting people and ideas it doesn't like — Russia is not doing that. So how is —
Guest: You can't say that. In Russia it's doing it in spades. It's beating people up. It's imprisoning them. It's murder.
Tucker Carlson: Russia has put fewer people in jail in the last year for social media posts than the UK has.
Guest: They just accidentally fall out of windows in Russia.
Tucker Carlson: Look, neither of us live in Russia. But if you're a Briton, you live in this country and your ancestors have lived here for thousands of years. The threat to your freedom comes from your government, not Russia.
Guest: I am not in favor of the way free speech is being policed in this country.
Tucker Carlson: So why not try to overthrow your government?
Guest: Well, I hope to stand at the next election. We have a democracy that functions.
Tucker Carlson: But if they're oppressing you, if you can't say what you think, that's oppression.
Guest: They're not oppressing anything that I have tried to say. But I think — they are applying laws, to my mind, much too rigorously on people who are saying things that are unpleasant but not dangerous.
Tucker Carlson: So you agree with that?
Guest: I'm not saying anything that is bordering on that. I'm not justifying acts of violence. I'm not pointing towards violence. I think a state is entitled to say that if you put on the internet "let's go and string up Mr. X," that should be illegal. But I don't think it should be illegal to say "I wish Mr. X were strung up."
Tucker Carlson: Exactly. And that's the standard that we have in the United States.
Guest: And unfortunately we have been eliding the two, and people have been prosecuting for expressing a desire rather than threatening an action.
Tucker Carlson: You're being very generous to your own government. Many people have been prosecuted for expressing views that don't touch on violence at all.
Guest: There have been completely mad policemen who have gone around to people who've been rude about schoolteachers —
Tucker Carlson: Or praying outside abortion clinics.
Guest: Which is dreadful.
Tucker Carlson: So my question is: why is that not a much bigger problem than anything Russia is doing to you?
Guest: Because we have a functioning democracy. We'll have a general election and I hope we will have a Conservative government that will restore freedom of speech. Because I think people are getting increasingly angry about how their freedom of speech —
Tucker Carlson: How could it be a functioning democracy without freedom of speech?
Guest: Well, because the limits that there are at the moment are, to my mind, wrong and should not be allowed. But they are not affecting normal political discourse. They are not stopping people from saying "I think Andy Burnham is a useless prime minister." There's no threat of that. So there is some overzealous enforcement of laws that are meant to stop harassment, which to my mind go much too far. But there has been as yet no attempt to stop free political speech.
Tucker Carlson: Really? So if I say "Free Palestine" — "from the river to the sea, I want Palestine to be free" — which I don't say, but I don't know why you wouldn't say that — I can be arrested for that in the UK. Many have been.
Guest: Well, I think they've only been arrested for saying that if they've been saying it in a way that appears to threaten violence on marches. I don't think if you put that on your Twitter —
Tucker Carlson: Elderly women have been arrested. I don't think they pose a —
Guest: Well, I happen to think this has been completely stupid. They banned whatever the organization is called —
Tucker Carlson: Palestine Action, I think.
Guest: And then they've arrested elderly people who belong to it, which has made the government look stupid. The reason this matters is that governments have the power to stop terrorist organizations — quite right, they need to have that power. But what they've done with Palestine Action is confused the people who support it politically with the people who are bad people who want acts of violence. And therefore they've arrested elderly people who, to my mind, are very silly people but nonetheless are entitled to their view. I don't think the arrest of people for supporting a political view is right. I do think it is reasonable to arrest people who propose and prepare acts of terrorism.
Tucker Carlson: I agree.
Guest: So we're agreeing on that. But yes, there has been overzealous effort. And as I say, I think it's made the government look very foolish. And this is one of the great things about having freedom of press, which we still have — governments when they are overzealous, which is in the nature of government, it doesn't really work because they get to look ridiculous.
Tucker Carlson: I hope you're right.
Guest: I'm not pessimistic about the ultimate success of free speech in this country.
Tucker Carlson: Well, I'm rooting for that, and I'm rooting for the country itself, and I'm rooting for peace, and I hope you don't pick a fight with Russia.
Guest: We're not picking a fight with Russia. We just want to be strong.
Tucker Carlson: And I am grateful for all the time that you have spent graciously entertaining my nasty questions.
Guest: No, they're not nasty at all. I don't have a concept of a nasty question.
Tucker Carlson: Thank you. And thank you truly for your graciousness.
Guest: Pleasure. Thank you.