In This Episode
In the wake of the UK Supreme Court ruling that the legal definition of woman should be based on biological sex, Nish and Zoë speak to LGBTQ+ activist Ellen Jones, author of “Outrage: Why the fight for LGBTQ+ equality is not yet won and what we can do about it” about the implications for trans people.
They discuss how the campaigning of reactionaries like billionaire author JK Rowling led to the decision that has seen Prime Minister Keir Starmer backflipping on his support for the trans community. Ellen speaks on the dangers of the recent ruling and practical ways to resist and support the trans community.
Then, as the Tories flounder ahead of the local elections, Zoë hedges her bets. And we take a look at two shocking attempts to seize the limelight by Liz Truss and Tony Blair.
Plus, ahead of the Australian election this weekend, Nish speaks to former Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan about how, in the wake of Trump’s tariffs and attacks on allies, the commonwealth might be more important than ever and what the US and UK could learn from Australia’s compulsory preferential voting system.
CORRECTION: In this episode we at one point refer to the EHCR incorrectly, for clarity, it is the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
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Guests:
Ellen Jones
Wayne Swan
Useful links:
Outrage: Why the fight for LGBTQ+ equality is not yet won and what we can do about it by Ellen Jones
https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/ellen-jones/outrage/9781035030606
The Good Law Project Crowdfunder to legally challenge the Supreme Court Decision
https://goodlawproject.org/crowdfunder/supreme-court-human-rights-for-trans-people/
Compilation of protests against the Supreme Court Decision
https://whatthetrans.com/compilation-of-protests-against-the-supreme-court/
Volunteer at your local trans pride – London Trans Pride call for stewards
https://www.instagram.com/londontranspride
Write to your MP
https://transactual.org.uk/change-actions/write-to-your-mp/
Reclaim the framing of UK trans rights
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTWR6sdj_xWKoOGLmwp0JotSL3NBrYSd1Dy3VZOIIKJKy0Ej6cFPt32IIKan3qCq6fG4lpgrw46ewO0/pub?urp=gmail_link
Protect the Dolls T-shirt in support of Trans Lifeline, a US-based charity
https://connerives.com/products/pre-order-protect-the-dolls-t-shirt
Info on voting in the Australian Election abroad:
ALPABROAD.ORG
Audio Credits
Sky News
ITV News
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TRANSCRIPT
[AD]
Nish Kumar Hi, this is Pod Save the UK. I’m Nish Kumar.
Zoë Grünewald And I’m Zoë Grünewald. Nish, it’s been a while. How was your week off the show?
Nish Kumar My week off was very exciting. I’ve been in Sydney, Perth, Brisbane. I’m now in New Zealand. I’m deep in true Lord of the Rings country. I would love to say that I’m going on a tour of Hobbiton. The set of Lord of The Rings has now been turned into a tourist attraction. I’m not doing that and that’s simply because I’ve already been before.
Zoë Grünewald Wow, Mr. Worldwide over here.
Nish Kumar Yeah, I’m very cool, I am very, very cool.
Zoë Grünewald On the show today, we’ll be talking about the U.K. Supreme Court ruling that the term woman refers to a biological woman.
Nish Kumar Yes, that’s right. The decision has seen JK Rowling emerge in full super villain mode, sharing a photo of her on a super yacht, smoking a cigar, along with the caption. I love it when a plan comes together. Pedro Pascal, the actor and star of The Last of Us, has branded this heinous loser behavior, which is a pretty pithy summary of a lot of her behavior in the last couple of years.
Zoë Grünewald And speaking of heinous losers, we’re going to be discussing what’s at stake for the Conservative Party in this week’s local elections.
Nish Kumar And whilst in Australia, I spoke to former Australian Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan about why it might be time for the Commonwealth to start coming closer together, this week’s election in Australia and, perhaps surprisingly, unless you know a huge amount about Wayne Swan or me, Bruce Springsteen. There was a lot of talk about Bruce Springstein.
Zoë Grünewald So Pod Save the UK was off last week, but there’s still plenty of stuff to talk about. Mark Carney won the unwinnable Canadian election. JD Vance killed the Pope.
Nish Kumar I think we have to say allegedly. I think WE HAVE to say ALLEGEDLY.
Zoë Grünewald Ha ha ha.
Nish Kumar Listen, these are the facts that we know, JD Vance met the Pope, the Pope is now dead. These are the only facts we can present to you, okay? This is Liz Truss and the Queen all over again.
Zoë Grünewald But here in the UK, there’s only one place to start this week, and that is, of course, the Supreme Court ruling that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act refer to biological women and biological sex and does not include trans people with a gender recognition certificate. It’s pretty bleak stuff. And of course to our friends in the trans community, this is devastating and scary, and we are with you.
Nish Kumar Yes, absolutely, 100%. Look, the case was brought by the gender critical campaign group, Four Women Scotland, and backed by J.K. Rowling, multi-millionaire author of the Harry Potter novels and. Afa mentioned, heinous loser, who reportedly donated 70,000 pounds to the long running legal battle. Now there has been a lot of confusion around the meaning of the Supreme Court ruling and what it means for trans people in practice. So it’s important to clear up a few things from the outset. This ruling is not statutory. It has no force of law until parliament rules otherwise. The ruling does not automatically restrict single-sex services, spaces or sports by biology, but it does give legal permission to do so. And this is what opens the door to trans exclusion, especially if an organization… Weaponizes that interpretation.
Zoë Grünewald The Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is the EHRC, have done just that. So on Friday, without consultation from trans organizations, they rushed out interim guidance on how services and organizations should interpret this ruling. Now it says that in places like hospitals, shops and restaurants, trans women, brackets biological men, should not be permitted to use women’s facilities and trans men, brackets, biological women. Should not be permitted to use women’s facilities, but it also says that in some circumstances the law also allows trans women, brackets biological men, not to be permitted to use the men’s facilities and trans men, brackets biological women not to be permitted to use the women’s facilities. Basically, it’s very confusing and risks excluding trans people entirely from public toilets or spaces. The Green Party have said that the guidance is ill-considered and impractical and should be withdrawn immediately.
Nish Kumar The summation that you’ve just given us there, Zoe, sort of makes even more of a nonsense of Keir Starmer then saying that he welcomes real clarity that this ruling brings. I mean, I think what the EHRC has said and that interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling is a lot of things, but really clear is simply not one of them. Now, look, in the wake of the ruling, we’ve seen tens of thousands of people out the streets to protest in the United Kingdom. But we’ve also seen Keir Starmer come out and say that a woman adult is a female. Again, very difficult to describe any of this as possessing anything approaching clarity. And all of this is despite his commitment a few years ago to uphold the rights of trans people. It does feel like a long, long time ago when Starmer and Angela Reyna were photographed at the London Pride event holding trans flags.
Zoë Grünewald Well, joining us now to discuss the implications of the case and what we can actually do about it is Ellen Jones. So Ellen is a LGBTQ plus activist and author of Outrage, Why the Fight for LGBTQ plus equality is not yet won and what We can do about it. Ellen, welcome to Pod Save the UK. Thank you for having me. Ellen, how are you feeling in the wake of this ruling?
Ellen Jones I think the first thing that should be said is that people who are working in this area did not necessarily expect the ruling to go through. The legal case was believed to be unarguable. On the other side, we know how embedded transphobia is and how that will have had an impact on the judgment overall. So on the one hand, we were really surprised by it. And the second thing is that we kind of were not surprised. I also think for a lot of us. We are interested that this has been the thing that has galvanized people when there have been massive erosions and attacks on trans people happening in the UK for a number of years. So it’s a real mix of things. And interestingly, I’ve seen from kind of progressive people who are not interested in LGBTQ plus things, and certainly not trans things, that the Supreme Court ruling was not what has galvinized them. It was the Ehrc guidance that galvanized them that they felt was a massive overstep. And so that’s been a really interesting time. It’s also been really reassuring in some ways, the BMA, the British Medical Association, have just had 50,000 doctors, essentially, say this is scientifically illiterate in a letter. And that’s come out in the last 24 hours and tells me a lot about the fact that this is being done not on a scientific basis or with any understanding of what biological sex means, but on the basis of politics and a fear of trans people and a hatred of transpeople.
Nish Kumar There’s certainly been a lot of confusion about what the 88 page ruling actually means in practice. Here’s Labour Mp Dawn Butler challenging Tory Chief Secretary Simon Clarke on his interpretation on Sky News.
Clip What concerns me about the toilet debate is if trans men then have to use women’s toilets, that’s going to make women less safe because how are you going to stop a man, a normal man going into a woman’s toilets and saying, I’m a trans man? And so I think we have to look at.
Clip I don’t follow that logic.
Clip Bye!
Clip Because the point is that we’re saying that people who are biologically men Shouldn’t be using women’s toilets. That’s the point of this ruling among other things
Clip But a trans man is biologically a woman. Someone who’s transitioned from being a woman to a man. And so they would then have to use women’s toilets.
Clip I-I-I think this…
Nish Kumar And that’s the problem. It’s a fascinating thing that people have absolute confidence to opine in this area without even a sort of cursory understanding of what they’re talking about. I mean, I really do think a core problem in a lot of the conversation we’re having at the moment is that everybody seems to be getting their information from Twitter. It does feel like there’s no real engagement with. Trans people’s experience or what any of the actual issues are around these things. There’s a lot of opinion flowing around that is purely based on a tweet that someone has read.
Ellen Jones It’s also fascinating for me because for a long time, you know, trans people have advocated for the existence of gender neutral facilities, and that’s been shot down historically, and now it’s almost being mandated as a way to exclude them from public life. And so it’s a really, really concerning thing. But also, I think it’s very telling to me that the focus has been on toilets, and on kind of that as a space, you know, historically, that’s a way racially segregate, it’s been a way to exclude. Gay men, in particular, that was always the fear in the 80s, is that gay men would be in the toilets waiting for you. It’s something that always is used, not because toilets are the most important thing necessarily, but if you can exclude people from toilets, you can excluded them from public life. And that’s what trans people have been saying all of this week is that actually this becomes a way to mean that you can’t leave the house. And I have to say this week Um, alone and actually over recent weeks, the number of trans friends I’d have who have been stopped and harassed and policed in toilets. Um, there was a former Scottish MP last week who was prevented from going into the toilet at a train station without showing ID. I think there’s this idea that you can always tell when someone’s trans is let’s make it clear and utter fallacy. And it’s going to become a way to police the gender conformity of people. And if you have any sort of non-normative body, basically that you don’t look like a very, very conventional, let’s be real, white idea of what it is to be a woman or what it is to a man, you are going to be critiqued and punished. And I think it’s really, really dangerous, not just for trans people, but for everyone. But ultimately, that’s, you know, one of the things that one of my dearest trans friends who’s a community organizer says to me is that a lot of this work is not about just trans people. It’s about controlling women. It’s about controlling women as a means of production. And if you look at the groups who are funding these laws and who are responsible for donating to campaigns and working on various legal cases that are coming down, they’re also staunch anti-abortionists. They’re staunch anti-feminists. It’s all part of this wider thing called the anti-gender movement, which I touched on a little bit in my book, but essentially trans people are a wedge issue, which isn’t to say that we should not be extremely concerned about the threats being placed upon them, but that this is part of a much wider picture.
Zoë Grünewald Ellen, you mentioned the European Human Rights Commission’s guidance, which was rushed out on Friday. At 10pm. So yeah, seemingly without consultation from the trans community. And you spoke about how this has galvanized people who previously might not have even really talked about LGBTQ plus issues. Can you tell us a bit more about that? I mean, what are the risks of the EHRC throwing its weight behind this ruling?
Ellen Jones The judgment says that you can exclude trans people, not that you must. And the EHRC has almost gone, well, you should and you must, I should clarify it’s not legally binding, it’s guidance. So businesses and organizations are not required to enforce it at this point. But it is really alarming that a human rights led organization and a body that is kind of looked to and respected would offer this guidance that essentially will. Yeah, it leads to the complete exclusion of trans people from public life, either because there is literally nowhere for them to go to the toilet, or because it’s not safe. The UK talks about itself as being a really great place to be an LGBTQ plus person. We used to be top of the ILGA rankings when I came out in 2012, and we’ve gone down and down and to 17th, and I think it will be even further down this year, I mean, almost certainly. And I think, for me, this guidance is really emblematic of just how terrifying things have gotten and how fast things can shift.
Nish Kumar Ellen, how have we got here in the kind of last few years? I just want to read a line from Theresa May speaking in 2017 at the Pink Awards, being trans is not an illness and should not be treated as such. And that speech that she made was as part of the announcement that the Conservative government is going to press ahead with plans to let people officially change gender without medical check. That, in 2017, was a proposal that was met with no opposition from the Labour then-opposition party. How have we backslid this far since 2017?
Ellen Jones Something that I found in my book is that although the media has never been great on trans representation or trans people in general, it kicked in after marriage equality came in. We have this collective amnesia about what happened when marriage equality came in, I remember it well because it was the year I came out, I was still at school and I was reading headlines, sometimes as part of PSHE classes, that said, you know, this is going to allow for bestiality and for pedophilia and this is, you And then after when marriage equality comes in, it’s kind of is met with this universal celebration. And six months later, that void, that vacuum created by what had previously been homophobic press was filled in with a community that had much less public support at the time, was much less understood, and that was trans people. And so you see it kicking in about three to six months after. Marriage equality comes in. At the same time, you had this incredibly, incredibly well-resourced and incredibly well financed groups and organizations that use trans people as a wedge issue and that stokes hatred of them even further. At same time I do have to say, I think if Trump hadn’t gotten in, we would be looking at the UK right now and going, oh my goodness, this is horrific, this is pure fascism. But because Trump is there as this kind counterpoint the number of people I go well at least we’re not the US. Things aren’t as bad here. And actually, I think we’re worse. It’s also what allows politicians to say, Oh, I support you, I support queer and trans rights, and then not have that actually be the case. And so it’s always very difficult to tell when Theresa May gives a speech like that, whether she meant it at the time, or whether she was trying to appeal to voters.
Zoë Grünewald You spoke about the immense power and influence behind the sort of anti-trans movement and we’ve also seen the rise of the influence of the kind of mega rich and influential, so obviously people like J.K. Rowling who bankrolled this case, Elon Musk, who’s able to exert more and more power and influenced via his own social media platform X. But I think it’s also important to note that most Britons are actually in of transgender rights. So recent UGov. Paul said 49% of people should socially be able to change their gender to 35% who said they should not. And young people and women skew more in favor at 61% and 55% respectively. But of course, Starmer has doubled down on the ruling. Does this show that he’s catering to the minority?
Ellen Jones I think some things potentially he can get reform voters back, which he can’t. I mean, reform have no money and reform are actively against things that will support workers and are actively against things, that will help your general day-to-day person, let’s say. The challenge for Stalmer is recognizing that he’s not going to be able to get those people back From the from from reform i don’t think and and going off to trans people is not enough of a way. To do it, I think reform is very clever in how it operates and how it supports people. As in, it gives them a sense of community, a sense belonging, a sense of being part of something that the Labour Party has basically managed to do the opposite of.
Zoë Grünewald Ellen, where do we go from here? What can we do as listeners, as podcasters, as advocates, all these things? What should we be doing to organize ourselves and putting pressure on the government to change their approach to LGBTQ issues?
Ellen Jones The first thing I would say is actually look at what the Good Law Project are doing, which is essentially they’re going to take it to the European Court of Human Rights. They’re fundraising for that and that is something that you can be doing to tangibly challenge this because governments don’t get to do just what governments want and legal systems don’t do what legal systems want. We do have power to influence and change that. The second thing is to volunteer for Trans Pride. Looking at your local Pride, do they need fundraising? Do they need volunteers? And that’s something that several Prides, I think Plymouth Pride’s been canceled, Southampton Pride’s being canceled. Several of them are going to not exist in a few years if people don’t step up and support. I think also just go with trans people to the loo, be that person, show up for people, be vocal in your support. Also write to your workplace, that’s the other thing. So because the guidance is not obligatory yet, it’s guidance, write to workplace and make it clear, demand that they continue to be trans inclusive or implement trans inclusive policies and in the meantime make it clear you will not vote for your MP if they do not support trans people.
Nish Kumar We will include a link to the Good Law Project’s crowdfunding website. At the time of recording, they’ve already raised £250,000 of the £300,000 goal, so that’s obviously great news. We’re also including in the show notes a document produced with advice from human rights lawyers about how organizations can do the kind of things that you’re saying and decide to be more inclusive. And the link to the Protect the Dolls t-shirt line that people like Pedro Pascal have been wearing publicly. The proceeds from all of that go to the American organization Trans Lifeline. Ellen, before we let you go, thank you so much for joining us. We talked a little about the fact that you came out just over a decade ago. I wonder what you would say now to young people who are in the position you were at that moment, it just come out now.
Ellen Jones I would genuinely be scared as a young person now. Not that I feel like they should be, but being honest, that’s what I think I would feel. What I also say at the end of my book is I was scared to write my book because I didn’t want people to think that being queer and trans was terrible, that it’s a bad thing to be or that it is hard. And it is a hard, but it’s also brilliant and it’s wonderful and it is community and it joyous and it full of hope. Brilliant community organizing. We are constantly showing up for each other. We are constantly sharing up for people who have nothing in common with us. That’s the thing that I would say to young people is that we have got you and like the adults have got, you that’s what I would say is we’ve got you.
Nish Kumar Ellen Jones, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save the UK. Ellen’s book, Outrage, Why the Fight for LGBTQ Plus Equality is Not Yet Won, and what we can do about it is out now.
Zoë Grünewald [AD]
Nish Kumar Alrighty, so as I get my bags packed to come back to our green and pleasant land, citation needed, there’s seismic local elections about to be held on the 1st of May as this podcast goes to air. So firstly, get your arse to a polling booth if you’re listening on Thursday and in any of the councils that are up for grabs. And secondly, let’s all collectively indulge in some schadenfreude because Zoe, the polling does not look good for conservative party, right?
Zoë Grünewald No, it doesn’t. In fact, it looks really bad and we already have Kemi Badenock doing expectation management on the airwaves, which is what we usually get. You usually get the incumbent government going out and saying things are going to be bad for us because hopefully that means that when they are bad, they can say, look, we told you so and it’s not such a surprise and the party doesn’t start circling the leader like sharks. But the conservatives are going take a hammering because they’re already starting from a pretty high base. Okay, so there are 23 councils going to election, 16 of which are currently controlled by the Conservatives and one which is currently controlled by Labour. Now, the latest National Yougov voting intention shows that reform is set to take the vast share of the vote, so 26%, Labour to take 23% and Tories on 20% and then you have the Lib Dems and Greens always doing relatively well for them at 15% and 9%.
Nish Kumar A lot of the press coverage I’ve been reading, and again, maybe it’s because I’m out of the country and I’m absorbing news at a distance, a lot of press coverage seems largely to be focused on the consequences for Kemmy Badenok and the Conservative Party, but what are the implications for Keir Starmer?
Zoë Grünewald So it’s correct that Tories are going to suffer the most from reforms gains. So it is going to be a bloodbath for Kemi Badenok. For Labour, they’re still going to see some of their vote nibbled by reform. The issue more is that reform is obviously going to seize the headlines come polling day because of the damage it’s going to do to the Conservatives, because of The Profile of Nigel Farage, because they’re probably going to gain a majority or two. And therefore, the conversation is going to continue being on Farage’s terms. They’re going to keep seeing that part of the party, that blue Labour part of the party try and push the leadership rightwards.
Nish Kumar At the risk of sounding naive, Zoe, which I’m sort of aware is a sort of weekly battle for me on this show, but at the risk if sounding naive if reform are now the official party of opposition and have consumed the Conservative Party, is there not a case to be made that should not be trying to chase their turf, but instead… Act as the government that stands against the opposition. Have I misunderstood fundamentally what the relationship is between government and opposition? I thought that politics was supposed to be a clash between two different ideas rather than a race to all have the same awful idea first.
Zoë Grünewald I think for most sane people, you’re not missing anything fundamental. It sounds to me like if there’s a group of voters that are taken by reform and taken by the right of the conservative party, then Labour should be thinking about the other voters actually delivering change and also not forgetting its core vote, which is only going to become more isolated if they continue shifting rightwards. The problem is there is this group of vote as this kind of red wall. A group of voters that are socially conservative, that have flicked between Labour and the conservatives historically, that were seized by Boris Johnson in 2019, that are consumed by Brexit. But this obsession with the red wall vote is currently what’s consuming the Labour leadership and particularly it’s the people around Keir Starmer like Morgan McSweeney, the blue Labour rights. Who really want to win back this votership by moving rightwards, by talking really tough on immigration, by talking tough on government spending, by talking top on welfare. But as academics point out time and time again, as political theorists point out, if you keep raising the salience of right-wing issues, all you do is push those voters into the arms of the most right- wing party. So everybody seems to be playing right into Nigel Farage’s hands right now.
Nish Kumar All of which adds up to long-term problems for Labour, but incredible short-term problems for the Conservative Party and Kemi Badenoch. To what extent, Zoe, are these local elections a straight referendum on her as a leader?
Zoë Grünewald Yeah, I think that’s a really good question. So some polls suggest that the Tories could lose half of their councilors, which would be a really devastating blow for the party. There is already lots of questions and movement around Kemi Badenoch and whether she’s going to be leader by this time next year. My feeling is, because under Tory party rules, she has a year as leader before any kind of confidence vote can be held. She seems to have until November at least, which happens to be the month after Tory party conference. So, my feeling is that she’ll probably scrape through locals, even with a bad hammering. People are going to start on maneuvers. Yes, Kemi Badenoch has been abysmal. I mean, not only has she been morally and ideologically horrific, but she’s also not been good at pinning Keir Starmer down. She seems to operate on basically bringing up talking points that she’s read on X with no underlying research. She hasn’t produced any substantial policy. She’s just been continuing to focus on culture wars. Having said that, I don’t know anyone who would be able to reverse the Tory party’s fortunes after 14 years of such devastating rule that they managed to isolate pretty much every type of voter they had. It was always going to be, I think, that the next Tory party leader would fail, but whether they’d fail as catastrophically as Kemi Badenoch has, I is a different question.
Nish Kumar So you’re saying she was dealt a bad hand, but she’s also holding her cards the wrong way so everyone can see them, essentially.
Zoë Grünewald Exactly, exactly.
Nish Kumar One of the big tests for Labour this week is the Runcorn and Helsby by-election that’s former Labour Mp Mike Amesbury’s seat, and it does not look like it started well. Here with Karen George, the Labour candidate in the by-elelection.
Clip Bye bye. No chance of me giving you my vote. Now if it was that I’d have sat down and happily I’d stand the man, wouldn’t vote for the man. I’m going green. Bye bye!
Zoë Grünewald Okay. Fair enough. Good for her. That was Karen Shaw, the Labour candidate, getting the door slammed in her face on ITV News. Definitely not the clip you want broadcast on ITv News when you take the Tv crew with you, but you know, them’s the breaks for the Labour Party at the minute.
Nish Kumar Yeah, it might not matter to their majority if they lose the seat, but if they lose the seats to reform, does that start setting off more alarm bells?
Zoë Grünewald Yeah. So I think this is quite a significant seat for Labour because they had such a large majority last time. It is one of their safest seats in the country. So to lose it to reform will definitely be setting off alarm bells because this becomes the archetype in many Labour strategists’ heads of how they can lose all their other seats. And this is exactly the sort of thing Morgan McSweeney and the blue Labour rights will be pointing to and saying. This is why we need to get real. Well, they’ll say get real, get serious on immigration, government spending, waste, et cetera. But of course, Runcorn has its own problems, not least that the MP who previously held the seat, Mike Amesbury, left in an absolute blaze of the opposite of whatever glory is when he punched a constituent in the face. And the footage was broadcast all over the news. You have to always take by elections with a pinch of salt in that it does matter how the incumbent lost the seat or an election needed to be called. Having said that, the fact that it is reform that is chomping at Labour’s heels in this particular area, which is it’s seen industrial and manufacturing decline, that is going to worry a lot of Labour strategists.
Nish Kumar While the Tories flounder, at least they have Liz Truss who’s always around making the current Conservative party and the current Conservative leader look good. We are a bit late to this story but we thought it was important for everybody just to have a good laugh at it. This is a clip of her speaking at a cryptocurrency conference in Bedford.
Speaker 10 What I am doing is establishing a new free speech network, which will be uncensored and uncancellable to actually talk about the issues people don’t want to talk about.
Nish Kumar At last, a free speech network for the freedom of speech, free speech, free speech.
Zoë Grünewald If that doesn’t already exist in the form of X, then what is X? Because as far as I’m concerned, you can say anything you want in there and no one will counsel you, which is exactly why I had to leave many moons ago. I mean, the idea that we need a new free speech network and we need it to be led by Liz Truss is a level of delusion and grandeur that I aspire to, actually.
Nish Kumar It’s identifying a gap in the technology market that doesn’t exist. And I say that as somebody who worked for Quibi. So I know a little something about disastrous apps. If Liz Truss does formally launch that network, I pledge to join. And my first post will be Liz Trus killed the queen because she wants to eat a corgi. That will be my first pose. Let us test the limits of this free speech network for the freedom of speech.
Zoë Grünewald Okay, who else is trying to seize the limelight this week, which is of course a pivotal week for the Labour Party? Well, it would be none other than Tony Blair, of course. The former Prime Minister has helpfully attacked Keir Starmer’s Net Zero plans, suggesting that phasing out fossil fuels in the short term is doomed to fail. So Blair, who was writing the forward to a new report from his think tank. Went on to say that the current climate obsession is irrational and driven by a fear of being labeled a climate denier. Wow, I’m sure the Labour leadership are delighted with his latest intervention. He also suggested that the UK government should focus less on renewables and more on technological solutions such as carbon capture or nuclear power.
Nish Kumar For people who are not watching this, I am just currently sort of rubbing my face in a manner that suggests I’m trying to remove the skin from it. I just, every time this fucking guy opens his mouth, you just think, please shut the fuck up. Also, Blair is out of step. The public on this issue. Support for climate action in the UK remains solid. A recent YouGov poll found that 66% of voters were worried about climate change. On Monday, the Think Tank persuasion Uk said that Labour could lose far more seats at the next election from disillusioned left-wing voters defecting to the Greens rather than reform. I don’t know what this man’s problem is.
Zoë Grünewald No. Look, I’m definitely never going to jump to Tony Blair’s defense on anything. The report is a little bit more nuanced than how the Telegraph, et cetera, have been jumping on it. Yes, there is a healthy dose of skepticism in there that is going to annoy everybody on the left and progressives, especially when we know that the uphill battle for net zero targets to be adhered to and renewables is getting increasingly harder as the right-wing papers sees on this as an issue. They are still in favor of the net zero targets. They’re just talking about solutions needing to be grounded in technology and talking about a sort of more realistic approach. So I think there is a little bit of the papers kind of trying to frame this in a way to cause maximum drama for Labour. Having said that, obviously, this is an incredibly irritating intervention a couple of days before local elections. On one of Labour’s key flagship policies, which is all their green technology stuff. And I’m sure Ed Miliband particularly will be really frustrated by this. And if I was Stama and the Labour government, I would stop trying to take advice from this man because it feels like he’s much more interested in shoring up his own legacy than he is actually being helpful.
Nish Kumar Jesus fucking Christ, just shut the fuck up, man. Like, you know.
Zoë Grünewald Enjoy your retirement!
Nish Kumar Oasis of reforming doesn’t mean we need to hear from Tony fucking Blair in 2025. Right, after the break, ahead of this week’s Australian election, I spoke to former Aussie Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan about how the country invested their way out of a recession and what tips our democracies could take from…
Zoë Grünewald [AD]
Nish Kumar I’m in Australia at a factory theater in Sydney, Australia is a country that I’ve been visiting for I would say over a decade now and for much of that time like the United Kingdom it’s struggled under a series of increasingly strange conservative governments. They’ve had onion eaters, they’ve had religious fundamentalists and they’ve a guy who looks like the villain in a series children’s books written by a disgraced author. In 2022 Anthony Albanese won a narrow majority for the Labour Party in Australia, and this weekend they go to the polls again. So we got one absolutely fantastic time to talk to somebody who has experience of Australian politics, and we found someone who has arguably too much experience of Australian politics, the former treasurer and the former deputy prime minister, Wayne Swan. Wayne, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save the UK. Great to be with you. Before we get into the politics, there’s a couple of key Australian specific terms that I want our listeners to have clarification on. What does it mean if we say the Labour Party won by a bee’s dick?
Wayne Swan Well, it might be a pretty narrow margin. Just maybe, and a bee’s dick really matters. So it’s a small, but important margin. Exactly. What’s a donkey vote? That’s an invalid vote. Somebody fills the vote out incorrectly, so it’s not counted.
Nish Kumar And when we talk about the coalition, generally we’re referring to an alliance between the liberal and the national parties.
Wayne Swan Absolutely, that’s the coalition that, you know, they’ve been attached to each other for as long as anyone can remember. And also…
Nish Kumar I’m thinking colloquially, if we’re referring to Lord Voldemort, we’re talking about opposition leader Peter Dutton, who bears an unfortunate resemblance.
Wayne Swan Well, of course, we don’t call people names and Australian politics anymore, but some would say it is unfortunate.
Nish Kumar It’s an unfortunate resemblance. How is the campaign going?
Wayne Swan Look, all elections are contestable and they’re never easily won in this country. We have a one vote, one value compulsory voting election where electorates are drawn fairly. So they’re always very, very contestable. And I have been in elections in my past life where government has literally passed us by in the last week of the campaign. So I don’t think anyone ought to be thinking that just because Labour’s got a relatively small lead in the poles. That, that, that means we’re a sure thing, or a bee’s dick from Victor.
Nish Kumar Really want to come back to both of those things that you’ve talked about in terms of the mechanics of the Australian electrical system because I think it’s incredibly well I matter
Wayne Swan Well, they matter a lot because they
Nish Kumar A big difference compared to the rest of the world. But in terms of your political career, I mean, you were Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer of Australia from 2007 to 2013. I mean in terms where you see Australia at the moment, what’s actually at stake for this country in this election right now?
Wayne Swan Well, Australia has been a very prosperous nation, and more so over the last 20 or 30 years. And one of the reasons that we’ve been as prosperous as we are is that we didn’t suffer the fallout from the global financial crisis, and our government had the guts to move in and stimulate substantially our economy at a time when the global economy was threatened and economies around the world were all going into recession. So we didn’t have what what was left over in the UK and in the United States a large number of people unemployed as a consequence of those events and therefore suffering considerably. And I’d make the point that Australia at an economic level and social level is far more egalitarian and far more prosperous than many other countries precisely because we have a stronger political system with the integrity of all the rules you and I have just discussed. And we’ve had governments which have been prepared to take far-sighted decisions for long term, such as we did during the GFC, it wasn’t just a short term thing. We’ve all lived with the benefits of that. But Labour governments in particular, over a long period of time, have been strong reforming governments, putting in place policies which deliver fairness to working people and make sure that when we create prosperity, we spread opportunity and then strive for a greater egalitarian outcome. Let’s talk about the financial.
Nish Kumar Because listening to this podcast will know that it is one of the origin sources for my rage.
Wayne Swan And indeed the rage of electorates across the UK and the United States. I mean, Springsteen, for example, in wrecking ball was playing about the damage that has been done not just to the working class during the GFC, but during periods of neoliberal economics practiced by both sides of politics in the United states over the last 40 years.
Nish Kumar Or how would you characterize the way that you handle the government, because the source of my anger specifically is that from 2008 to 2010, the then Labour government made attempts at at least, you know, increasing taxes on the highest earners in order to pay off the trillion pound government debt that we’d accrued bailing out the banking system. But then as soon as the Cameron government came into power in 2010, they tried to cut their way out of the system.
Wayne Swan Well, that didn’t happen in Australia, but Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown, and people like Ed Balls did a very good job for that period. They were doing what we were doing here in Australia. But we did it bigger and for a longer period of time. That is, we stimulated our economy to drive growth. How did you stimulate the economy? Because again, we come to a really important point here. By short-term and long-term measures. In the short term, we put money in people’s hands. For the longer term, we built school halls. We invested in infrastructure. We did a combination of short-term and long-term stimulus because we believe here, at the very core, I think of any social democratic program, that distributional outcomes matter. The problem we have with our conservative opponents is that they just think if you have a balanced budget and a sparse social safety net, that’s ideal. Well, it’s not. It leads to rampant inequality. What we must always do when we’re creating prosperity is spread opportunity. So long-term structural reforms, but always being aware that if you leave too many people behind, the human and economic cost of that is not worth it. That is, inequality is expensive, and it’s far better to put in place a range of economic and social policies that both drive growth and drive greater quality of opportunity.
Nish Kumar Growth is a very important word for the Uk Labour government at the moment. It’s something that they keep returning to. We’re in conditions that seem to be verging on another 2008 style economic crisis. What would you be encouraging social democrat governments around the world to be doing in the face of the threat of that.
Wayne Swan Well, I mean the wreckage in the British economy caused by Brexit, you know, is not dissimilar to a number of other short-sighted decisions taken in a number of other countries around the world. So they’ve got a really difficult hand to play here. And it’s one that can’t be done or solved overnight. So you can’t just keep jacking up taxes either. I mean you’ve got to get a good mix between your revenue measures on the one hand. And spending on the other, that delivers the long-term productivity growth in your economy. So it’s a balance. It’s not just a question of saying we’ll put a lot of money into social welfare, we’ll put a little money into infrastructure. There’s got to be a plan where all those things are brought together over time. But sadly, because of the wreckage of Brexit, which is essentially your Trump moment, you see what damage this mad right-wing populism can do to an economy, not just in the and now, but for the long term. If you were
Nish Kumar Rachel Reeves’ position now, the Chancellor in the UK, would you be revisiting some of the Brexit agreements, especially in light of the complications, shall we say, of doing a trade deal with the United States?
Wayne Swan Well, I think a trade deal with the United States of America is essential if the planet is going to work properly. I mean, where America is going is making it impossible for so many other countries, even if they’re doing the right thing, to make it work. I mean they are willfully damaging and demolishing significant sections and channels in the international economy. So that makes policy making pretty hard when you’ve got a new government that’s come in after a decade of Tory neglect and blowing up the economy through Brexit makes it hard for them to get immediate traction to get things done.
Nish Kumar Australia and the UK have always had a close relationship and have always had a closer relationship with the US and often Australia has, you know, that’s been part of the security agent.
Wayne Swan And that was the case during the GFC. We worked really closely with Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown, ironically also with Mark Carney, who was in the room for all those GFC meetings because he was the central back governor of Canada. And yours was there as well. So we worked together really well. And if the US continues to wander off, then you can see a situation where countries like Australia, UK and Canada will seek even closer relationships. In light of what’s going on with our former U.S. Partner.
Nish Kumar In 2021, a trilateral security partnership between the US, the UK and Australia called AUKUS was formed and that was aiming to deliver a fleet of nuclear submarines to the region and develop defense capabilities within the Indo-Pacific, which is widely seen as a response to the growing influence of China in the region. With Trump at the helm of the US, what does that do to this deal?
Wayne Swan Well, it hasn’t threatened it as yet, and it’s a really important deal for Australia and the UK, and for that matter, the US. The security situation in the South Pacific is not an easy one. Countries like Australia in particular do need to attend to our forward defense arrangements and nuclear submarines are part and parcel of that. But the other thing is that, sadly, we live in a world where we do require stronger defense forces. But where does that leave us with America? Because I mean, everything keeps… Well, we don’t know yet. We don’t. I could venture an opinion about where Trump was heading, but it wouldn’t be accurate. It wouldn’t all that well informed. What we’ll have to do is make the best of the situation that we have, if and when, uh, the Americans decide that they want to go and do something else. Um, if you’re listening to the news at the moment, I mean, there’s a talk that the tariff question is now up in the air again in the United States. So we’ll just have to wait and see.
Nish Kumar What does a commonwealth country like Australia, what does it do to the relationships within the Commonwealth when a president of America is essentially openly threatening another Commonwealth nation?
Wayne Swan It’s not helpful, and I suppose it is a demonstration of why some people would say that the Commonwealth still matters. There’s probably been a lot of people over the last 20 or 30 years saying, why do we bother? Well, we’re probably getting a demonstration on why it was worth bothering, because we are at least a grouping of like-minded nations with reasonably similar values, and that appears to be a pretty important thing given the situation we’re in right.
Nish Kumar But does it change the calculation when a Commonwealth nation is threatened with annexation and then the head of the Commonwealth sends a personal invite to the threat.
Wayne Swan For a site visit I think a lot of people would be having a second look at all of those things, but haven’t even got to that bridge yet, let alone crossed it.
Nish Kumar I want to come back to these specifics about the Australian electoral system, because in the UK, we often spend a lot of time bemoaning the first past the post electoral system. And we, what is, it is a shocker. Ha! Delightfully Australian piece of understatement to describe it as a shocker. I’m interested in why you feel like it’s a shock. What does it look like to somebody outside of you?
Wayne Swan So you could win the 34% by 34% in every electorate and win every seat. Yeah. That’s bullshit. But it’s even worse than that because not only is it first past the post, is that you don’t have equal electorates. Yeah. So, you know, you don t even have one vote, one value. That was bizarre. So the electorates are rigged, the voting system’s pretty shot, so you’ve got to upgrade your democracy.
Nish Kumar But what’s the incentive to do that? So Labour government has just been elected essentially on the same…
Wayne Swan So maybe it doesn’t happen again, you know, and we shouldn’t underestimate the importance to democracy and policymaking of the foundations of democracy, which are one vote, one value, compulsory voting, fair elections where one side doesn’t have a substantial financial advantage over the other, independent electoral commission, scrutiny of funding, public funding of elections, all of those things are essential ingredients. Of a democratic state. And one of the things that’s coming through in the United States is they have none of those. Like you.
Nish Kumar You think compulsory voting because that we should absolutely clarify, particularly for British listeners and listeners outside of Australia. We might not know this Australian voting is compulsory. You have to turn up on the.
Wayne Swan What you do with the ballot paper is entirely up to you. And then we come back to the donkey vote. Well, there’s not that many donkeys still running around after a hundred years, right? Place isn’t populated but donkeys running down the main street, right.
Nish Kumar Before we let you go, for our Australian voters around the world, why should they vote Labour? Because in terms of our listenership, it does tend to skew towards a demographic that would consider themselves to be philosophically aligned with Labour values, but around the world has increasingly found itself slightly alienated from its own traditional political
Wayne Swan Labour for a fairer Australia where you get a decent wage, where you got good health and education and yet governments investing in the future by acting on climate change.
Nish Kumar What do you say to particularly young voters who feel that the radicalism of a lot of center left parties is not meeting the current moment and the circumstances that their generation are confronting?
Wayne Swan Well, I would also think that if you put up the agenda of the Australian Labour Party against the agenda and many of the other sort of parties of the center or the left around the world, they’d look at ours as being pretty progressive.
Nish Kumar My final question for you is, what’s your favorite Bruce Springsteen album? Wrecking, wrecking ball. Is it wrecking Ball? Yeah. Because of the connection to the financial. And before then it was born to run. Okay. There’s very little great art that I think is directly connected to the GFC.
Wayne Swan Not so, you know, I mean, take care of our own, right? These are the values that we’ve just been talking about for the last 40 minutes, looking after people.
Nish Kumar So do you think that an album can actually change the political will or do you believe it’s more than an album can reflect?
Wayne Swan Moment in time. Well, I believe that if we are going to have social change, you can’t just be dull speeches from politicians. It’s got to be the whole culture and we have to embed our discussions about the future through our cultural activities. That’s what produces a much more vibrant, compassionate, caring society.
Nish Kumar From one boss man to another. Thank you very much for joining us on Pod Save the UK. It’s good to be with you.
Wayne Swan See you in the UK.
Nish Kumar Now we know that our listeners are around the world. We also know that listeners in the UK, many of them are Australians. Certainly we know our listeners will know an Aussie or three. So if you do know an Australian or you are an Australian, remind them or indeed yourself to get out and vote stat. The Australian election is this Saturday, May the 3rd, of hundreds of thousands of Australians not in Australia. The opportunity to vote is actually a bit earlier. Though, of course, it is your right to donkey vote, but maybe you should at least consider putting Peter that in the last.
Zoë Grünewald So for any Aussies in or around London, you can vote in person in the Australian High Commission in central London until Friday, 2nd May. You cannot vote on election day itself as due to time differences, the polls will have already closed back in Australia.
Nish Kumar But on Saturday there will be a watch party hosted by ALP Abroad in central London. They’ve organized a pub to open at 9am and will be screening the election on a big screen. There will be raffle of all sorts of Aussie treats and possibly some Lamingtons. All are welcome. Details will be on their website and the link is in our show notes. And that’s it. Thanks for listening to Pod Save the UK. Now, if you’re listening to this on Thursday and your council is up for election, don’t forget to vote and don’t forget to follow at Pod Save The UK on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter and on bluesky at podsavetheuk.crooked.com. If you want more of us, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Zoë Grünewald Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.
Nish Kumar Thanks to Senior Producer James Tyndale and Producer May Robson.
Zoë Grünewald Our theme music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos.
Nish Kumar The executive producers are Anoushka Sharma, Madeleine Herringer and Katie Long, with additional support from Ari Schwartz.
Zoë Grünewald And remember to hit subscribe for new shows on Thursdays on Amazon, Spotify, or Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
