In This Episode
This week, as the far-right continues to fan the flames of violence and division, Coco and Nish are joined by Hasan Piker: Twitch streamer, influencer, and left-wing political commentator who was recently blocked from entering the UK. They dig into what makes him “not conducive to the public good”, and why it’s important to speak the truth–however that comes across.
They also talk about political allegiances, the future of progressive politics, and the worrying rise of far-right MAGA movements across the world. Does a Labour government have the answer?
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TRANSCRIPT
Nish Kumar Hi, this is Pod Save UK, I’m Nish Kumar.
Coco Khan And I’m Coco Khan.
Nish Kumar The revolution will not be televised, it will be live streamed on Twitch instead. This week we’re joined by Hasan Piker, streamer, influencer, left-wing political commentator and one of the latest additions to the United Kingdom’s Not Welcome List.
Coco Khan We’ll be getting into it all with the man described by The New York Times as a progressive mind in a MAGA body, who has been surrounded by no shortage of controversy recently.
Nish Kumar Now, we’ve got a fantastic conversation with Hasan coming up momentarily that we actually recorded yesterday on Tuesday in a different studio because it was a different recording day so I just wanted to contextualize that’s why Coco and I are not wearing the same clothes and we’re in a completely different room. I just think that that’s important to flag up. As we sit recording this section of the show on Wednesday the 10th of June, unfortunately There was a story that as dominating all of the front pages is a huge amount of anti-migrant violence that unfolded on Tuesday night in Belfast. Hundreds of protesters, many with their faces covered, attacked police and burned vehicles across Northern Ireland after a video of a knife attack which left one person with serious neck and head wounds went viral. A Sudanese asylum seeker was charged with attempted murder on Tuesday evening in relation to the knife attack and is due to appear at Belfast Magistrates Court on Wednesday at the time of recording.
Coco Khan It’s really scary stuff. So a group of around 100 masked people in East Belfast kicked in doors and broke windows. In another part of the city, masked men attacked a house occupied by people from an ethnic minority background. Some claimed they were liberating the property while nearby graffiti read local homes for local people. The family had to be rescued from their burning home by emergency services.
Nish Kumar Members of Belfast Sudanese community reported leaving work early and staying indoors amid fears about further violence. So similar to the case of Henry Nowak, which we talked about last week, footage of this alleged knife attack was widely shared online by far-right figures, including Steven Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, who posted calls for protests after, and this is a direct quote, yet another invader attack on our people.
Coco Khan The speed is genuinely chilling because Tommy Robinson posts and then Elon Musk does the same. So Elon Musk shared one of Robinson’s posts announcing protest locations, as well as another post from the far right party of Restore Britain that read, do not make peace with evil, destroy it. Elon Musk also tweeted yesterday, only Restore Britain can save Britain. It is the only way.
Nish Kumar On Wednesday morning, First Minister Michelle O’Neill said of the previous night’s unrest that groups of masked men burning families out of their homes is nothing less than disgusting cowardice and outright thuggery.
Coco Khan Paul Doherty, an independent councilor from Belfast, has been supporting a family who were put out of their home by a mob on Tuesday night. Dohery said he knows people from Bombay Street in West Belfas who, and to quote, still bear the scars of being burned out of their houses in 1969. He said, we know where this road leads.
Nish Kumar Listen, it’s another week of violence and intimidation following a horrendous act of violence in the first place. The amount of sort of misinformation and disinformation that’s circulating on social media, it is really, really important that you approach information that you receive on social media with a degree of skepticism, and that’s the really concerning thing that’s happening at the moment. There have to be some kind of consequences for the dissemination of mistruths and in some cases AI generated fake imagery. If you really care about sort of justice being done in this situation, the thing to do is let due process take its course. It is so alarming. And I don’t know who burning a car helps in this specific instance, right? I really can’t wrap my mind around who this helps. And, you know, it’s another week where. Bad actors are misdirecting anger for their own nefarious purposes. So we should say that at the time of recording, obviously the riots hadn’t happened with Hasan, actually we talk a lot with him about the legitimisation of this kind of violence by the far right.
Coco Khan And Elon Musk. How come he’s allowed to visit Britain? Look at what he does. Look at what he says. He believes he is the king of the world and he’s sending people out to harm each other, essentially. I don’t even know where to begin with dealing with that. And I’m so sad that when people who take what he says at face value forget that he’s the world’s richest man, forget that is. The apartheid Clyde, you know, and forget his position to them.
Nish Kumar Yeah. And I mean, you know, Yaxley Lennon has sort of spent the week traveling to Russia to meet Elon Musk’s father in a hotel in Moscow. So, I mean these are people, we do need to ask serious questions about where the financing behind someone like Stephen Yaxely Lennin is actually coming from. And you know I think there’s a really, really important, very, very frightening tipping point here. I think the justice minister in Northern Ireland, Naomi Long, has sort of said something that I think is really pretty significant and pretty important intervention. What disgusts and disturbs me is that there are those prior to yesterday who would have struggled to find Belfast on a map, who are online, who were sharing incitement and encouragement for people and weaponizing the fear that people genuinely have about what happened to try and turn this. Into some kind of anti-immigration issue or racist protest. These are people, and she’s right to observe that these are people that have absolutely no interest in social cohesion, they have no interest in the welfare of people in Belfast. This is being stoked for political ends.
Coco Khan I mean, I just, it’s just profoundly disrespectful and disgusting.
Nish Kumar Yeah So as I’ve said, we don’t really get into that with Hasan because it was a sort of new story that escalated after we recorded with him. But I do think that some of the things that we touch on, including Musk and including the sort of financing of someone like Yaxley Lennon, these are things that do come up in the conversation. In the meantime, we will obviously keep across, as I imagine all of you will, what’s going in Belfast and the kind of retaliatory riots that have sort of… Initially sprung up and so far seem to have died down quite quickly across the rest of the country. But it is alarming. It is very scary for a lot of us in this country and it is sort of stomach churning that it looks like we’re in for a third summer of this. Like it really, really does look like we are in for, you know, a third consecutive year of migrant and immigrant communities being scared into not leaving their homes. We’re in a third consecutive summer of bad actors on the far right. You know weaponizing all this stuff for their own ends and I sort of, I’m really pushing hard against accepting that as an inevitability and I think it’s incumbent on as many community leaders and political leaders right now in this moment to kind of push back against this kind of narrative and my concern, honestly my concern is that just on a kind of national level, yeah, this is the first time that Nigel Farage has sort of faced a threat from his right flank, right? Nigel Farage’s entire political career is being, you know, for most of it really sort of actually outside of elected office, but being sat on the kind of right flank of the Conservative Party and essentially puppeteering the party from its right. And now with the kind rise of Restore Britain and the Musk backing of someone like Rupert Lowe, the concern is that Farage is now being puppeted from his right.
Coco Khan Right, exactly. Because he was meant to be the guy who kept the loonies out. That’s what he was mean to be, right? He famously said, oh, we wouldn’t let Tommy Robinson join the party. But you’ve seen the change happening, you know, pure cold rage. What is that? That’s the language of restore Britain. And also just the other day we saw Bader not talking about like, oh, we’re going to get rid of, what was it, diversity from the Yeah
Nish Kumar Yeah, these things have a kind of knock-on effect in where it drags.
Coco Khan So they’re all dragging that the Overton window is moving so far right now. This is what my dark humor, but genuinely on the way here, I was like, well, maybe the world cup will just make sure that people be too distracted to race rioting. I mean, how sad is that? Like when I’m looking to FIFA to keep social cohesion more than our own government, I think things have gone terribly wrong.
Nish Kumar I wouldn’t look to FIFA for any kind of moral leadership, I really, really wouldn’t.
Coco Khan Do you know what? I take it back. Not FIFA, the boys, the lions, we’re looking at the lions.
Nish Kumar Focus on them and you know, because I’m pretty convinced if Gianni Infantino could have given Isis a World Cup, he would have done. If they’d hung on for a few more years, if they’d just hung in there for a few more year, Infantinho absolutely would have given them a World Cup. Listen, we’re now going to play you our interview with Hasan Piker . It was a fantastic conversation. Please enjoy.
Nish Kumar [AD]
Coco Khan Known as HasanAbi online, Hasan’s Twitch is one of the platforms most subscribed with over 3 million followers, but unless you’re terminally online, you may not have heard of him until recently when he and his uncle Cenk Yuga, both due to appear at London South by South West Festival, were blocked from entering the country. The Home Office confirmed that it denied Hasan entry on the grounds that his presence in the UK is not considered to be conducive to the public good, but they haven’t provided any details than that.
Nish Kumar Last month, 11 far-right agitators were blocked from entering the country under the same grounds. They were expecting to attend the Unite the Kingdom rally organized by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson. At the time, Keir Starmer said we’re in a fight for the soul of this country and that he would block those coming into the UK who seek to incite hatred and violence.
Coco Khan So Hasan isn’t besties with the US government either, having made it onto the official White House website page for left-wing lunacy. Yes, that’s right. That is a real website page. And he entered that for lamenting that President Trump was still alive.
Nish Kumar Hasan welcome to Pod Save the UK. That’s quite a rap sheet man
Hasan Piker Yeah, and there’s definitely still a lot that that couldn’t even make it into the cut with the introduction. Okay. A month ago, I also got word from Fox News that there was a subpoena that was coming that I have not received yet from the Treasury because I went alongside Jeremy Corbyn and activists and advocates and politicians and journalists from all around the world. I went along side them to Cuba to deliver humanitarian aid, which the federal government has now decided should be criminalized in some capacity. It’s all up in the air of course because Fox News claimed I had received a subpoena. I had not. But that is the nature of American politics nowadays where there’s direct coordination between right-wing agitators, right- wing media, and all of our regulatory agencies that in the past were tasked with trying to figure out what level of involvement oligarchs had with Vladimir Putin or, or. Uh… You know financial transactions are taking place or more commonly whenever an american capital owner decides that there is market competition that they want to destroy that would go to the treasury and say sanction this company uh… They are deploying that technique towards twitch streamers that the government has considered to be uh… That the governor considers a bridge too far you know political dissidents that they do not want in the country.
Nish Kumar Can I just ask a subsidiary question off the back of that? Are Fox News now delivering subpoenas? Is that how thin the membrane is between the federal government and Fox News?
Coco Khan They all lost their job under Doge. There are no one left to deliver subpoenas. The fuck is going on?
Hasan Piker Yeah, and it’s really funny because they also obviously they like Hound me wherever I go and when they do they’re like, oh, what do you think about the government? You know investigating you what about this being and i’m like, I haven’t received one You guys know better than I do like you are saying i’ve received one. I have not
Coco Khan So listen Hasan, it’s so wonderful to meet you. I confess when you came on my screen, I did have a thought which was, oh, so he doesn’t have eight heads after all. I mean, the villainization of you, I half expected that you do like lasers from your eyes, you control bats and the weather or something, but you are just a guy.
Nish Kumar Yeah, and let’s remember my Hindu upbringing and leave eight heads off the demon list, okay? Okay.
Coco Khan I was just saying you are just a normal man and it must be quite strange to be just a normal man, and leading so much international news. So I guess let’s start with that international news, you have had your ETA revoked, you you genuinely didn’t think this would happen.
Nish Kumar Yeah, I mean, how did that decision reach you? Were you at the airport and they just said, don’t get on this plane?
Hasan Piker No, luckily I wasn’t. I was actually coming later, but my uncle Cenk Uygur was flying out with his whole family. My family, my mom was supposed to fly out with me as well. And Cenk was at the airport and they stopped him. They stopped him from getting on the plane with his whole family, they were like, you don’t have a visa, you can’t get on this plane. And so he tweeted it out and he let me know that his visa had been revoked. That led us to look, my team to look and see if my ETA was revoked. We found out it was.
Nish Kumar I mean, it’s a strange list of people, these kind of far-right agitators that were supposed to come for the United Kingdom rally, Valentina Gomez, who is described here as being an anti-Islam influencer, or Kanye West, who was recently blocked from headlining wireless. I mean that’s not, that’s got to be a list you weren’t planning on. I mean, in fairness, left-wing lunacy. Fine, that might be a list you were expecting to be on on the White House’s website, but this is not a list you expect to be part of, right?
Hasan Piker Yeah, no, absolutely. I think like there are deliberate agitators, deliberate far right agitator that traffic in bigotry. And ironically enough, many of these institutions, even like center left institutions or now center right institutions like the Labour government would consider my worldview to be far too woke, right? Like they would have an issue with my commentary, not because, or at least in the past, not because my my worldview is is morally repugnant because it’s hateful but because it is too woke and it’s like electorally insufficient right it’s not you’re not going to be able to win elections if you’re this woke that’s usually what i hear from the democratic party as a matter of fact here in the united states of america and certainly like the worldview that i represent would be considered far left so it was shocking to it was uh, a dangerous dissident, uh, and my presence to be, uh not conducive to the public good in the UK, uh when the Tory government didn’t seem to think so. They had no issues allowing me to enter the country and, and do whatever I wanted, um, because if you are in any way, shape or form reasonable, you would recognize that, you know, I, I have hyperbolic moments or, but, but Ultimately I am someone who has spent a lifetime combating bigotry, combating far right extremism, combating misinformation on the internet. So it’s remarkable to try and bracket myself off and Cenk as well. And Cenk is nowhere near, I would say, as radical as I am in terms of his world. I mean, he’s a basic social Democrat, right? It’s like, he is a social Democrat who is very upset with Israel, which is, I think, the most popular position you can have in American politics right now. And yet that was enough for the British government to decide that we were agitators, that we dangerous. And the only reason why I say this is because it’s not like Siobhan Mahmood came out and said, this is why we made this decision, right? They never do. But at least in the instance of Kanye West or a far right Polish minister or Valentina Gomez, there’s so much information out there that you can point to that that whether people agree with it or not, they kind of understand exactly where this band’s coming from. In my circumstance or in jank circumstance, there wasn’t so much information out There that you could point to. So so they they tried to do the same thing like a choice clips, most of which revolved around my commentary. Nothing for jank, by the way, again, which is I keep going back to that because like this was almost like a package deal and I feel really terrible about what happened to him and his family not being able to go to the UK because I feel like he got caught in the crossfires a little bit because there were Israel advocacy groups in the UK leading up to my potential travel to the UK making a big fuss. There were some articles that were written. There was a Labour MP that was, you know, demanding that the home office revoke my visa. And it was all the same stuff. This guy’s dangerous. He said America deserved 9-11 in 2019, even though he apologized for the language that he had used at the time. And he was simply talking about the cost of the blowback. It doesn’t matter. And even though, he has traveled to the UK a 10 plus times since 2019, we’ve decided now is the moment. Uh, to pounce on this decision. It was very deliberate. It was very obvious. And then they were claiming that I was anti-Semitic, which is again, doubly ironic considering last time I went to the UK, I went to the Oxford union to deliver a 30 minute speech on the dangers of anti-semitism and how we must combat it. Um, yeah, so, you know, all of this stuff was, was ridiculous, but I think the real issue that they had was with my commentary around the Palestinian resistance, something that I had, quote unquote, doubled down on, on Pod Save America, as a matter of fact, as well. This became a big point of contention. The ADL has been making a lot of fuss here about my statement saying, like Hamas is a thousand times better than Israel, or I’m a harm reduction voter, and I would vote for Hamas over Israel. This is the meat of the argument from their perspective. Of course, it has nothing to do with anti-Semitism and everything to do with whether or not, you know. Occupied people have an internationally protected right to resist against their occupation militarily, not necessarily endorsing the methods overall, but just the principle of militant resistance. And when I bring that up in a less than academic and sanitized context, people get very frustrated. And I saw a version of this with LBC with Louis Goodall, who I had a conversation Uh, only a couple of days ago, he had actually criticized Shabana Mahmood, right? He’s, um, I, I assumed he was some, you know, center left liberal type, right. And, uh, the conversation started off, uh about, about the dangers of the Labour government, restricting people’s travel over silliness, uh over, over differences in opinion, and it kind of ended with Lewis endorsing Shabana Mahmood’s decision because he just also was very frustrated with the things that I was saying instead of actually having a conversation around it.
Nish Kumar So he’s going through his Twitter feed. And he repeatedly was saying, I still don’t support the decision to block Hasan from coming to the United Kingdom. So he still, to borrow a phrase, he’s still doubling down on that as a sort of principle. But definitely the conversation went in a few different directions that I think it seems like you weren’t anticipating.
Hasan Piker Most people who are anti-Israel at this point, understand that Israel’s committed a genocide, have never actually taken the next step to think about like how 80 years of occupation have forced the hands of the occupied people to resist militarily against such cruelty, such brutality. But I think conversations like this are healthy and productive because when they do hear someone say that, It kind of flips a switch in their minds where they go, wait a minute, actually that does kind of make sense. Of course people are gonna resist. Like, what do you mean? What would you do? And it’s not exactly a unique, it’s is not exactly a unique perspective either, as I brought up to Louis. In our conversation, I was like the heads of Shin Bet have said this, right? Like former Israeli prime ministers have been like, if I was on the other side of that border, I’d be fighting against those too. I mean, look, it’s a provocative statement. It’s intentionally provocative. Uh, but I don’t think it’s an immoral statement at all. And I don’t think it, it’s, it’ an incorrect assessment at all, it is actually precisely because it’s not, uh, it it’s not wrong, uh or, or indefensible. That, uh that people have a hard time dealing with this sentiment. If you cordon off people, if you force them to live in a hermetically sealed, uh area as an open air prison where you’re literally dictating what they can and can’t eat, that was before October 7, right? Like that, that existence is. Is always going to create some kind of resistance, for me to have this conversation as a white passing guy in the Western world with a decent amount of mainstream prominence is a very frustrating reality for the limitations that Zionist groups have been able to set on what is permissible discourse for a very long time.
Coco Khan Moving away from Gaza at the moment, you know, your brand, your fire brand is the language people always use about you. A fire brand, is not just when you’re talking about Israel-Palestinians, it’s also when you’re taking about the Democrats in America. You have a style, you have a approach. And the thing I want to hear from you is like, why it’s so important that you continue to have that style despite everyone saying no, no, tone down, watch what you’re saying. Why is it so important?
Hasan Piker It’s not even necessarily something that I ham up, it’s just who I am too, you know, so it’s…
Speaker 3 Yes.
Hasan Piker People are, people are constantly like, no, no no, you don’t understand, you have to be more boring when you talk about this stuff. It’s like, why so you can just like avoid, you just avoid hearing about it? Is that what it is? Like, I don’t know. It’s just who I am. I’ve never, I’ve ever hammed it up or anything. It’s, just sometimes I get very passionate and very angry. I operate in a very interactive medium. That’s part of the reason why when I’m doing podcasts like this one or, you know, British media hits, I… Probably come across very different than when I’m live broadcasting to an arena, a stadium full of people who anonymously can come back at me and say some of the most heinous things you’ve ever heard and then I respond to them in real time in this like super passionate back and forth. That’s definitely gonna be a little bit.
Nish Kumar Different, right? How conscious are you of adjusting those personas? Like when you go between a conversation like this or a conversation, like like the one you had with LBC or addressing the Oxford union versus are you making adjustments in real time? Or are you trying to present as consistent a version of yourself as possible across these different?
Hasan Piker Yeah, I’m trying to be as consistent as possible, but I’m also matching the energy of people that I’m talking to. If someone, if some, if you guys out of out of nowhere decided to behave like an anonymous internet troll and you were like, well, don’t feel like Israel is the most moral nation on the planet, I would probably slowly but surely work through the process. And depending on how much you wear me down, I will probably react at some point, right? It’s definitely a lot easier. Not to lose my cool in a setting like this, as opposed to like anonymous internet trolls, of course.
Coco Khan Oh God. I can imagine.
Nish Kumar It’s probably worth just all of us taking a second to examine whether the UK government has backed themselves into a corner with the specifics of why you’ve been not been permitted into the country. So again, let’s return to this phrase, not conducive to the public good. Now, in September, when Elon Musk addressed the United Kingdom march, he spoke by video link and said, you either fight back or you die. And it was a specific criticism of uncontrolled migration. Are based on things that are not conducive to the public good. We can’t let Musk into the country. I mean, I hate, I hope that doesn’t sound too simplistic, but if we’re now, I mean that phrase is designed to incite a civil war. You know, Nigel Farage last week called for pure cold rage on the streets of the United Kingdom in response to a terrible murder that’s happened here. That terrible murder has also been seized upon by amongst others, JD Vance in America. Now I would argue that Vance’s comments Musk’s comments are not conducive to the public good. I mean, I know the answer to this, but are those people going to be banned from entering the United? I don’t. Are we on a full Musk ban?
Hasan Piker I don’t think they’re going to stop. I’m also not as much as a random rabble rouser as maybe some people perceive me to be either, especially at this point. In my career in American politics, I work with politicians, right? I work candidates. A lot of the candidates I work are currently winning, where there’s this massive insurgency run that’s taking shape in the American Democratic Party’s midterms right now. There are very influential politicians that I also consistently am in contact with and work with, right? All the way from New York mayor, Zohra Momdani to Bernie Sanders and AOC Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ro Khanna, right? So these are people that I guess now also are in question. I mean, they don’t use hyperbolic language. They have to be very careful. They’re not commentators. And especially when you’re on the left, you have to exceptionally careful with your language. If you’re the right, you can say whatever you want, as you’ve also demonstrated.
Nish Kumar Also, you hit quite close to home for us. You’ve been on Pod Save America quite a few times. Is Jon Lovett about to be sanctioned by the U.K. Government?
Hasan Piker Yeah, that would be really funny, because I was talking to Jon Favreau when I talked about the Hamas thing and that, and the reality of the matter is a lot of people in the audience were like, you know what, I’d never had thought about it like that. This actually makes sense, which is exactly the point, right? And that’s precisely what I think a lot of Zionist advocacy groups fear. They don’t want people to think about it. They’re there. Uh, completely losing the argument when it comes to Israel’s approvals, but as long as they can maintain this idea that like, yeah, sure, they’re really violent and maybe they’re a little overboard, but they’re doing it because they’re fighting against these like barbaric hordes that, that deserve to be put down if they, if they just stick to that, then they won’t lose the entire conversation, I guess.
Nish Kumar After the break we’ll be talking to Hasan about the future of UK politics and solidarity on the left.
Coco Khan [AD]
Nish Kumar In the UK, you had meetings scheduled, so there was this appearance at South by South West where you’re going to be interviewed by Ash Sarker. There were meetings scheduled with Yanis Varoufakis, Zach Polanski, Jeremy Corbyn, nothing with the Labour government or the PLP.
Hasan Piker No, no, not even a little bit. Look, here’s the interesting thing. I mean, I think the Labour Party in the UK and the Democratic Party, like the centrist establishment, Democratic Party are our sister spirits. They are currently swept away by neoliberalism and desperately trying to find a way out of of the political crisis that they’re facing by the growth of the far-right in our respective countries and their solution to that has been devastating their solution that has to Lean into the culture war narratives and try to present themselves as the more moderate version The lighter version of the fascist far-Right the Democrats are doing this openly Uh, or at least some are doing this openly in the United States. They did this and failed against Donald Trump in 2024, something that I was very critical of. And I think the Labour government is doing the exact same thing in the UK. Nigel, uh, not Nigel Farage, sorry, Keir Starmer coming out and saying, we’re becoming a nation. Jesus, that’s the mother of all Freudian slaves. Well, I was about to say him coming out as a, we’re becoming a Nation of strangers. I mean, is that Nigel farage? Did you just crib that from Nigel for Roger’s speech? I mean that’s ridiculous. He is it. Trafficking in unbelievably dangerous white nativist anti-migrant sentiment with the hopes that he can soothe the masses because God forbid they make any significant changes that pertain to the economic struggles that the British working class is experiencing, right? There’s only one way out of that. If you cannot, if you cannot go against capitalism and owners of capital and their interests, if your goal is constant austerity and constant privatization to take away what was previously owned by the government and to starve it and then to justify its privatization so that profiteers can come in and ruin the system even further while still generating tremendous profits off of it. And that creates a lot of volatility, then you can only take that angst and that anger and manipulate it in the direction of marginalized people, vulnerable people to make it seem like it’s actually the migrants and the transgender people that are responsible for, you know, why your social services are not working, why your trains are no longer running on time, or why the NHS is underfunded. It’s not the migrants that are underfunding the NHS. It’s actually the migrants that are working in the National Healthcare Service, right? I mean, it’s totally ridiculous.
Coco Khan So when I hear you speak there, because I’ve heard you say in interviews that your aim is to pull the Democrat Party to the left. But where I’m listening to you now, I feel like maybe your mission wouldn’t be the same with Labour. Maybe your feeling about Labour is that they’re done. Move on. If you’re left and progressive, find another party. Like Nish pointed out, you didn’t have any meetings with the Labour Party, but Mr. Corbyn, obviously, your party, and the Greens. What do you think? Should we just abandon the Labour Party now?
Hasan Piker So from my perspective, I have no loyalty to parties. I have a loyalty to political goals. I have political goals, I have a a loyalty to the working class no matter where they are, not restricted by national boundaries or ethnicity or religion. That’s what I care about. I care about advancing the material conditions of the international working class. And if the Labour Party is no longer a viable option to do that, to advance that political project, then I have no problems working with someone else who will do it, right? And as a matter of fact, Zach Polanski has taken advantage of this political vacuum, this political crisis, and I’m glad he was there to do so because I think in the absence of a Green Party, British politics would be so much worse currently because there would be no alternative to the. Right-wing Labour government and the increasingly more popular far-right growth in both reform and restore Britain so Yeah, I I will work with anyone and everyone as long as they are Sincerely advancing the interests of the working class in the American system. Obviously there is this duopoly There is the two-party route. Unfortunately, we don’t have a parliamentary system. We don’t a multi-party system at all but The Democratic Party is actually very weak So, uh, and the democratic party is more a brand than it is a real political organization, right? They’re basically just a holdover for corporate interests in the interest of foreign lobbies for the most part. They’re, they’re a vehicle to take the demands of, of international corporations and profit seekers and deliver those demands directly to the, uh, party politicians. And for the longest time, Democrats have gladly done that, but in an to also win. Votes whenever they actually run in elections they also have to present themselves as like this ostensibly leftist movement this leftist party with no real interest in advancing those goals so for that reason i see what i’m doing as as holding the party to account there’s got to be a reason why these insurgency campaigns are actually uh you know out fundraising some of these old institutionalists uh, with small dollar donations and actually winning these races, uh, against all odds against the, the party, uh system against the party machine in many of these circumstances, like Chris Robin in Philadelphia, right? Or Adam Hamowy in New Jersey, Ana Lilia Mejia also in New Jersey, Zora Mumdani in New York. And, and hopefully the rest of the New York city DSA slate. We’ll see what happens in the, in the midterms. Um, the reason why these people are actually winning within the party system is because. They are genuinely fighting for the things that Democrats said they care about for the longest time that they actually, once they’re in power, show no interest in advancing.
Nish Kumar Your kind of specific political role you see as being sort of energizing and drawing focus to specific candidates. But what you’re saying in terms of the electoral map of America is in reality, there is no real way to challenge that sort of duopoly because of the structures in place. But in the UK, you think our electoral mathematics might be more conducive towards third party influence. Yes.
Hasan Piker Yeah, for the time being, that is of course. I mean, in America, that’s just how it is. So I say take advantage of the weakness in the Democratic Party instead.
Nish Kumar We talk about it a lot on this show, but Nigel Farrow is probably the single most influential politician of our lifetimes, but without actually having held public office really for a very limited period of that time. And one of the offices he held was as an MEP, a member of the European Parliament, where he sort of did far call because he was ideologically opposed to the existence of the Europe Parliament. It was a strange thing that we did. He took the paycheck. Yeah, he took the pay check. Do you think that someone like Zach Polanski and the Green Party, is there a way that they could create a kind of parallel effect on the Labour Party? Or is it more actually about seeing the Green party building an infrastructure that allows it to be a genuine contender to run the country?
Hasan Piker One of the things that I’ve identified is that they have a decentralized structure, which I assume is like somewhat problematic and will probably lead to issues down the line. The other problem is that they’re also not like an openly socialist party, even though that transition is taking place right now. So I will admit that I’m a little biased towards the Greens because of the Greens performance that I usually see all around the Western world. I often see them as as unserious, right? And this was the first time where I was actually paying attention.
Nish Kumar I think a lot of people in this country have that issue, you know, we’ve sort of talked to Zach Polanski on this show about that
Hasan Piker Yeah, I think it’s different now. I think Zach is doing a pretty good job of, and has done a pretty job of like revamping the green brand and the party itself. Having said that, however, I don’t know what the limitations are towards, the limitations to becoming a dominant party in the same way that like, reform is completely overtaken the British right. I hope it can happen and I think it can’t be worse than the Labour government because the Labour government with all of its institutional prowess has squandered the decades of goodwill that they were able to generate off of being the closest to real Labour politics, real working class politics in the United Kingdom.
Nish Kumar Last week on the show, the political journalist Zoe Crowther described Starmer as a dead man walking and so every policy announcement that comes out of the Labour Party at the moment is kind of being taken with a blood pressure endangering portion of soul. But one of the things they’ve announced this week is a ban on what they’ve deemed harmful forms of social media for the under-16s and it was the start of London Tech Week and Starmer was sort of threatening that the government will legislate if tech companies don’t stop children using phones to take in exchange naked images of themselves. Now, regardless of what Starmer’s political future is, what do you think about these kind of loosely proposed, the different variations of these bands? There’s one that’s come into effect in Australia. This is one of a series that has been proposed in the UK. My feeling… I mean, this is only a semi comedic thing, but my feeling is if you’re going to ban under 16s, you have to also ban over 50s, because like, those are the lads that have done the real damage. You know, those are the those are the fellows that have done the real the real hard line damage. But just what do you what do you feel instinctively about social media bans and restrictions from the government?
Hasan Piker I worry about it because I think that whenever, whenever the government takes initiatives such as this one, they obviously use it as a way to open the door to a much broader form of repression and much more stringent mechanisms of control over what kind of speech is permissible or who is allowed to say whatever they want on the internet. So there is a very real fear there. It never stops. And of course, like. The conversation always starts with like the most understandable position. They’re not going to come in and be like, oh, if you’re saying something that we don’t like, you shouldn’t be on the internet and your ID needs to be associated with everything that you say and do on the Internet. Right. Um, so on the one hand, uh, I understand, uh the need to try and protect the youth, uh it’s, it’s a, an honest goal, but I don’t think that’s the actual goal of any of these governments. I think they want to engage in mass surveillance.
Nish Kumar I definitely hear what you’re saying, but I am in favor of some, maybe the issue here is banning, but like I am favor of a regulatory framework for social media companies because I think they have been allowed to operate as publishers without any of the legal responsibility that publishing organizations are subjected to. They’re publishing organizations for profit, but they’re, you know, they’re tech companies. And they’re sort of essentially software operators for regulatory purposes. I feel like there has to be a way to close that gap because I definitely know what you mean about the sort of surveillance capitalist side of this. But there is I do think there is a regulatory framework that needs to be put in place.
Hasan Piker Oh yeah.
Nish Kumar There’s so many different, both corporate and societal frameworks that these companies seem completely impervious to.
Hasan Piker Yeah, no, I think chopping them down to bits is the appropriate measure in this circumstance. But I do worry about mass surveillance initiatives because I live in America. I mean, we live in a surveillance state already and our government is actively spying on us and they are directly contracting this spyware out to companies like Palantir. And like when Doge came into power, for example, when when Elon Musk came in, some of the things that he did initially were obviously gutting the regulatory agencies that were prosecuting him and his businesses. But there was a lot of, of private information that, that, uh, reached unsavory hands almost instantly. Uh, and, and that is a terrifying prospect. Um, and, and that what I worry about first and foremost, I don’t know what the perfect solution is. I just don’t have a lot of faith in the British government nor the American government to do the right thing or have the honest intention of making the internet as safe a place as possible for the youth as they claim they’re trying to do. I think they’re simply doing that to get everyone on a registry so they can better monitor their actions and maybe even punish them for the things they say and do online. In a way that they couldn’t in the past because there was some level of anonymity and some level of protection.
Coco Khan Well, certainly at the very least, even if that’s not what they’re setting out to do, it’s quite easy for it to become the thing that happens, isn’t it? Yeah. I think that’s the concern. Look, you are one of the most powerful left-wing political communicators of our generation. I think it’s fair to say that. And people talk a lot about in the UK about a Labour doesn’t tell a very good story or the left more broadly. But one thing I’m often wondering about is like, so like, you know, today in interview you have pulled no punches. And some people will say, well actually, we have to take everyone with us and maybe we shouldn’t say these things because we need to take everybody with us and we need not engage in you’re my friend, you’re enemy sort of language. On the other hand though, how do you move forward if you don’t tell the truth? How do you forward if don’t say how it is? What do you think about that question, about what is the story we need tell and can we tell it without. Essentially rubbing people the wrong way or potentially turning people away.
Hasan Piker Yeah, I have some fairly simple to understand principles. We must always seek truth from facts and we must always say the truth. There’s never been an instance where political changes come without ruffling some feathers, right? I think people have the opportunity to understand that message, even if it’s against their class interest and recognize that this is charting a much better, much more egalitarian. Path forward. I mean, I myself, I’m in a very successful financial situation at this point. You know, I am endlessly fortunate and I recognize that. But I still also understand that in order for all of us to unlock our potential, that we have to change this system’s design. The reality of the matter is, I think. Capitalism has outlived its usefulness, right? And when I say this kind of stuff, there’s a lot of antagonism towards this idea, because I think people have been propagandized into believing that this is a scary idea. And the irony of course, is that the overwhelming majority of the masses are working class and they aren’t benefiting from the system’s design. And yet they’ve been taught that they actually are.
Coco Khan I just mean like common citizens, you know, someone who is a MAGA person, but it’s just an ordinary person. Like, how do we communicate with them? Is there a tonal difference? Should there be a tonality?
Hasan Piker Oh, absolutely. I think Michael Brooks, who unfortunately passed away, a good friend of mine, he used to always say, be kind to people, be ruthless to systems. And I abide by that mantra as well. When I’m talking to an average person, regardless of their political perspectives, I try to be endlessly charitable in those conversations. When I’m trying to explain to them the situation and who’s actually dominating their lives. Until they show me that they’re a hate monger or a fascist or whatever, I’m always going to be open-minded. I’m going to try to convince them. I’m gonna try to change their minds. This is something that I stress all the time. People come into my chat, be like, you’re a Muslim terrorist and I hope you kill yourself or I hope someone kills you. And I’ll be like look man, I just want you to have healthcare. It’s true. I don’t care. I don’t care that this person feels. This level of anger and hatred towards me that they think I’m a real danger that that must be forcibly excised from American from from, you know, the the American national boundaries. I still want that person to have a better life. I want that person to be able to have A roof over his heads. I want that that person to be able to to have a better life where we’re in a better future for their children. Right. That’s my ultimate goal. I don’t care. And the same goes for every single person. It’s like, I’m not in the business of vengeance. I’m in the not in business of violence. That conversation and the most charitable interpretation is one that is very difficult to oppose. So, most people in the opposition that either have a class interest or serve the interest of the super wealthy have to bastardize what I’m saying and you know… Take choice quotes to make it seem like, you know, what I’m trying to advance here is dangerous, unstable and too destructive. I mean, it is destructive. It’s destructive to the interests of profit. It’s disruptive to those who currently benefit from the way things are going, but it’s not destructive in the sense that they would, you know receive any sort of physical punishment or harm. It’s to the interest of profit at the end of the day.
Coco Khan Sorry, just because you mentioned some of the abuse that you get on your feed. And I did hear an interview where you talked about how obviously you have a Muslim name. I have a muslim name as well. I’m, you know, brown and a woman. So I’m not going to be going on Twitch anytime soon. Thank you for your work. Much appreciated. But you reflected that if your name was like Hank and you were from somewhere else, would you get half the stick that you Yeah. How does Islamophobia shape your everyday politics?
Hasan Piker I mean, it’s the same standard that athletes are held to, right? When they’re performing well, they’re cherished figures that are advancing the nation. And when they’re preforming poorly, they are outsiders. They are consistently reminded that they’re not true British nationals, right. And the same goes for someone like myself. Look, I was born in the United States of America. I’ve lived here since I was 18, almost half my life at this point, right? And obviously, if I didn’t care about the United States, if I did not care about this country, I would just leave. I’d go live somewhere else, right, but I wanna fix it. And I wanna to fix it because I know that America has tremendous promise, tremendous potential. But unfortunately, my citizenship and my existence is seen as conditional and the number one argument that is advanced against me, sometimes by the likes of Randy Fine, sitting US Congress persons is that I must be denaturalized and deported because I’m not a real American citizen. I’m a fake American citizen and that’s a really interesting concept because… Everyone is a fake American citizen at the end of the day. None of them like everyone came here at a certain point, unless you’re literally indigenous, unless they’re a native American, you just came here. Your, your family came here at some point, right? And, and, um, this, this dynamic, I think is best represented with AOC. AOC is Puerto Rican, right. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is Puerto rican. Her family has, has been American citizens for far longer than Trump’s family has. And yet no one would ever call Trump’s, uh, allegiance to America in the question, no one ever considered Donald Trump to only be a, you know, third generation American, right? And when you’re, when you were white guy and you’re right wing, you’re the most American. It doesn’t matter if you, you came here, you know, last week, some of the most redeemable aspects of, of America are, uh the, the fact that we are an unbelievably diverse country. It’s one of the best qualities of America, you know, and same goes for other liberal historically progressive values that have been advanced in Western society like due process or free expression and the protection of free expression.
Coco Khan We, Nish, before we were talking to you, Hasan, we were also having a conversation just reflecting on some of our work in our career. And again, that thing that is often said to us, you know, if you say anything critical is like, you don’t like it, go home then. We’re always like, but we love Britain so much. This is why we’re critical of it. We know that it can be better.
Nish Kumar Oh, yeah. And also whenever I see, you know, when I watched Donald Trump’s American carnage inauguration in 2017, or whenever I seen Nigel Farage describe Britain in 2026, I think, man, you got to move. Yeah. It sounds like you really fucking hate this place. It sounds that you hate these people, because they’re all the rhetoric circles around the same thing overrun with immigrants overrun, with crime, the poor people are scrounging off the state. The women want their stupid rights. The gays and lesbians and the transgender people all moaning the whole time. You’re like, I think you hate most people in these, I must recommend that you move.
Coco Khan As quickly as possible. Also, as all children of immigrants know, we show love through criticism. That’s how we show
Hasan Piker It’s really funny, you’re bringing up a great point that I forgot to mention earlier, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, Tommy Robinson, he hates this country. And he is so hateful about what the United Kingdom actually is. And yet, his criticisms are never seen as un-British. His criticisms are seen as the most British. But that’s the exact opposite. It’s the exact opposite of what the United Kingdom is supposed to be. So yeah, if you don’t like it, leave. Ha ha ha!
Nish Kumar The last question, we’ve got to let you go, but we’d so appreciate the time you’re taking to talk to us. The last person I want to ask is kind of, I guess, pertinent to this whole conversation, which is how important is international cooperation in the progressive space? Because I mean, when you look at the the appalling events the last last few weeks in this country, you know, a murder that’s being seized on for political ends that then activates a whole network of international far right influences, journalists and politicians. And I have this feeling that we’ve not spent enough time trying to cultivate those networks to counteract that kind of thing.
Coco Khan Well, I mean, for a start, in defense of us, we don’t have the money, and we are sort of known for infighting. That is a thing that we’re known for.
Hasan Piker No, you’re absolutely right.
Coco Khan Yeah, unfortunately.
Hasan Piker This is something that I care about quite a bit, this is something I have worked to cultivate international solidarity amongst progressive organizations, amongst socialist organizations and communist movements as well, against the growth of fascism, because fascism is an international movement. It’s not an internationalist movement, but it is an International movement and that’s perhaps best evidenced by the new. Uh, fascist coalition that is taking shape all around the world. And it’s one that’s very interesting. I bring this up all the time. Uh, it’s MAGA like you, all of the far right elements, the nationalist elements, supposedly nationalist elements everywhere around the world have decided to identify with MAGA and sometimes directly identify with MAG, sometimes they wear Trump hats and, and make America great again hats and it’s like. Aren’t you supposed to be a nationalist for your country? It’s so confusing to me. I mean, I brought this up in numerous other interviews as well, Charlie Kirk, before he was assassinated, was traveling to South Korea, was traveling to Japan, these are vassal states for American empire, let’s be real, but their far-right movements In these countries had also identified their movement as one being in solidarity with the Make America Great Again movement. There was no investment in national sovereignty whatsoever and that they were willing compradors of American Empire. And I see this international coalition forming and I know that we have to fight back against it, as also an international movement that cares about solidarity across borders, and does away with national interests and focuses on the interests of a united working class.
Coco Khan I know you’re not going to mince your words here, it’s the UK, a vassal state of America.
Hasan Piker Yes, I mean come on of course of course. I mean there is no
Nish Kumar Your eyebrow has blasted a hole in the ceiling of whatever room you were in there, Hasan.
Coco Khan I genuinely thought he was going to pause here.
Hasan Piker We’ve seen it. I mean, we’ve seen it. There is no there’s no other way to interpret what’s going on. I think middle powers under the banner of the European Union are totally vassalized and and there are instances given Trump’s bravado and Trump’s vulgar use of language. There are plenty of instances where even European leadership feels that they have they have been portrayed as vassals. Middle powers have a lot of power. Only when they are united, right? I mean, there’s one middle power that has been fairly strong in opposing the MAGA wave and that is Iran, ironically enough. They have been able to stop the MAG expansion and its initiatives in the Middle East. I don’t think it should get to that point, obviously. But I do think that Europe should… Maintain its or regain its sovereignty and its dignity and the only way that they can do that is if they are a united force that Leverages its relationships with other countries other powerful countries Against the United States of America that has long taken advantage of the European Union
Coco Khan Well, listen, I’ve never heard the word vassalized before I’m gonna take that with me I mean, it is fascinating. You know, we have to let you go. But one thing about Europe It has a very strong left history And I think actually I always think that Britain we do better to look at Spain. Look at France look at Portugal Maybe less so looking at the states for inspiration having said that though clearly some of our best communicators coming out of the states at the moment. So thank you to one of them, Hasan Pika. Thank you so much for your time.
Nish Kumar Yeah, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. That’s it. Thank you so much for listening to Pods over the UK. Please do keep listening. Also, if the idea of seeing me do stand up is appealing to you, you can watch my stand up special on YouTube for free right now. And if the ideas seeing me do stand-up in real life is appealing to you. You can go and get tickets for my upcoming tour. Angry humor from a really nice guy at Nishkemar.co.uk.
Coco Khan 2D and 3D niche opportunities.
Nish Kumar Yes, 2D and 3D.
Coco Khan 4D!
Nish Kumar I will be spitting on audience members.
Coco Khan What?
Nish Kumar Well, it’s 4DX. It’s like 4Dx movies.
Coco Khan I thought the fourth dimension was space and time.
Nish Kumar No, it’s like, there’s this thing where you can watch movies in 4DX, if you watch Twister in 4dx, the wind blows on you. If you watch Avatar, you get splashed with water.
Coco Khan That sounds- is it just water based?
Nish Kumar It’s rubbish.
Coco Khan Is it all water based?!
Nish Kumar It’s sort of water and shaking.
Coco Khan Water and shaking?
Nish Kumar It’s rubbish
Coco Khan Alright, well anyway, Pod Save the UK is an Intelligent Squared production for Crooked Media.
Nish Kumar Thanks to senior producer Esme Ash, digital producer Chelsea Young-Pingser and assistant producer Verity Di Carlo.
Coco Khan Our theme music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos.
Nish Kumar The executive producers are Bea Duncan and Katie Long.
Coco Khan And remember to get in touch with us. Email your questions or your thoughts to podsavetheuk@ crooked.com. You can also follow us. We’re at PodSaveTheUK on Instagram, TikTok, X, and Blue Sky. And remember, to hit subscribe for new shows on Thursdays.
