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Chaos, what chaos? Rayner’s out. The cabinet’s reshuffled. The lurch to the right hasn’t stopped. But in the words of Homer Simpson, could Keir Starmer’s shit show be a “crisitunity” for the left?

 

To tell us how we can seize this moment, Nish and Coco are joined by leftwing royalty – Zarah Sultana MP and Bimini Bon-Boulash – live at the London Podcast Festival.

 

Zarah shares why she feels liberated from Labour, has zero sympathy for Angela Rayner and zero tolerance for colleagues who don’t agree on trans rights.

 

And as the government goes flag crazy, the gang reclaim some patriotic merch for the left. Zarah champions her Princess Diana mug and Bimini channels their inner Spice Girl by reclaiming the Union Jack.

 

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GUESTS:

Zarah Sultana

Bimini Bon-Boulash

 

IMAGE CREDIT: 

Kings Place / Monika S. Jakubowska

 

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TRANSCRIPT

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Nish Kumar Nice to see you all. Welcome to King’s Place. Welcome to Pod Save the UK. It’s very lovely to see all of you. We have an incredible show for you. It says here I’m supposed to ramp up the crowd. They seem… Alright. They seem pretty ramped. They’re pretty fucking ramped! These people, some people taking photos and videos. It’s going to be released on the internet. This is not an exclusive live event. Yeah, we’re very excited. This is going to be a fun show, right?

 

Coco Khan Yeah, it really really is. We’ve got some incredible guests. We’re going to be talking about the future of the left. Do you remember that meme? This is the future the left won and it was always a some sort of snarky attack.

 

Nish Kumar It was often a picture of me. It was often used as a personal attack. Yeah, I do remember.

 

Coco Khan This is what we’re doing we are talking about the actual future the left one that isn’t just like Whatever the right-wing memes were talking about. I don’t know only having dark chocolate or something

 

Nish Kumar I think it was something about Sharia law. It’s always Sharia Law. It is always Shari Law to be fair to them. Let’s just get this out of the way before we get into the chat that we’re going to have with our guests about the future of the left. Angela Rayner is out. This was huge news this week and was a blow for I think the soft left of the Labour Party who would look to Rayner as one of the few soft left voices in the government. And after she quit, there’s been a massive reshuffle and realignment. So the reshuffles seems to be targeting areas where the government has failed in its first year and are going to look at it as a chance to reset some poisoned departments. So its plans for welfare reform, which were obviously a total disaster, that’s resulted in Liz Kendall getting a demotion. And Pat McFadden coming in, who has been described as a government fixer. Which I still am not clear about as a term and makes it sound like Harvey Keitel’s character in Pulp Fiction. Like, I’m not entirely clear on what the fixer element of this is.

 

Coco Khan Yeah, so we asked someone who has campaigned against the government’s attempts at welfare reforms, and we won’t say who because we protect our sources here at PSUK, and they said on the plus side, Liz is gone, but also Pat is even more hard-line with less visible skills or understanding. They also told us that it’s important to remember it was Raina negotiating for concessions around the welfare reforms, so it doesn’t fill

 

Nish Kumar Let’s move on to the next clusterfuck. The Home Office, the British Institute of Organized Racism. So the tin-eared prescription of Palestine action has been very politically damaging, and we think, again, in words that we have to run past a lawyer every time we say them, it is bad. I think that’s been legal. And sets a chilling precedent that undermines our democracy. We’re talking on Sunday afternoon. This is the day after 857 people were arrested while protesting against the prescription. On Saturday. So I think another sort of 17 more have been arrested for disorderly conduct or violence against the police. But 857 of the arrests made yesterday were simply for expressing support for Palestine action, which is obviously completely insane. I don’t know how much longer this law can survive, right? I don t know how many more pictures We can have it the newspapers of like an 80 year old woman doing this just like being led away by their limbs by four policemen and like dangled like a god damn stretch Armstrong action figure, like it’s, I really don’t know how many more retired priests we can see be dragged away, dragged away. By the police force in this country before something has to move on that law. Obviously, that’s not the only issue here with the Home Office. There’s also the government’s complete inability to dismantle the inflammatory and racist conversation around immigration. So, Yvette Cooper has been demoted upwards to foreign secretary. It’s one of the whitest things I’ve ever heard in my life. Like, only white people can be fired into better jobs. She’s been shuffled to become foreign secretary and has made way for Shabana Mahmood, who’s previously the justice secretary, who we should note, and this is a quote, agrees with J.K. Rowling’s views on gender and says that biological sex is real and is immutable. Another proud day for the South Asian community.

 

Coco Khan Yeah

 

Nish Kumar Just when you thought we were done with these fucking people.

 

Coco Khan And it doesn’t end yet, so on one of the many areas where we and the government disagree, many many areas, it’s our place on the world stage, so it’s no surprise to our regular listeners that we’ve been very disappointed and ashamed by our government’s handling of the genocide in Gaza. But Starmer is undoubtedly thrilled by the performance of former Foreign Secretary because he’s now the Deputy Prime Minister, David Lammy. It is strange with David Lammy because he… I have seen him at Palestine rallies. He was at the Stop Trump rally with you, I believe. Yeah. So it was all strange to see him sort of do the double speak. I don’t know, if you were being generous, you might say maybe that’s why he’s moved away from this, although there’s a better reason that’s being cited.

 

Nish Kumar Which is.

 

Coco Khan That he’s best mates with JD Vance.

 

Nish Kumar Yeah, but isn’t that a reason to keep him in the post? This is what I don’t understand about the Lammy move, like, if you look at it coldly and rationally, Lammy has been sort of credited with easing the tariffs placed on the UK because of his relationship with whatever the nature of his super special friendship is with his fishing buddy, J.D. Vance. Maybe the idea of this is that by moving him into Deputy Prime Minister, it’s an idea that Vance has a closer rear to Keir Starmer.

 

Coco Khan  Well, he’s the mirror, right? Well, he’s the mirror, right? He’s the Mirror if he’s Deputy PM and JD Vance is… I don’t know, I feel like they’re trying to tighten up this bromance. They’re fishing buddies.

 

Nish Kumar I’ve always felt that the Deputy Prime Minister is not analogous with the Vice President. Like, it feels like the Vice-President in the States has more constitutional responsibility, whereas our Deputy Prime minister feels a little bit like when I was in a cricket team and I won an award for Clubman of the Year.

 

Coco Khan *laughs*

 

Nish Kumar Which was like the player who tried the most despite being visibly and obviously shit. Like that’s how, I might be wrong and I’m happy to be corrected if there are constitutional and legal responsibilities that our Deputy Prime Minister has, but to me it’s always felt like a bit of a kind of, you know, it’s something you give a kid to stop them from acting out at a dinner.

 

Coco Khan Well, look, there’s no two ways about it. This first year has been, I mean, it’s been shambolic. And we should note that this reshuffle represents a rightward shift. It’s all we’ve been talking about since this government came in. It’s like, oh, they’re going to the right. They’re going the right, and they said, don’t worry, PSUK, we still have moves. And while Farage might be gutted that his big moment in the spotlight at the Reform Party was snatched away this week, it does mark the high point of his outside influence on the government.

 

Nish Kumar And listen, whatever you think about Angela Rayner, and I think given the specific nature of her responsibility in government, and it probably was correct for her to resign, especially if the government is going to make moves on property taxation in the budget in November. But whatever you thing about Rayner it is really, really important to note that this weekend The Guardian has run a story looking into Nigel Farage’s financial affairs. So he has avoided paying tax on his GB News show. By getting GB News to pay into a corporation, which attracts just 25% rate of tax. Now that’s something that’s been happening across the media and increasingly broadcasters are attempting to crack down on it when individual presenters set up companies for the specific purpose of taking in their wages from that broadcaster so that they pay a lower rate of tax on it. So he’s doing that already. So that’s a 25% of rate of taxes he’s paying on wages that you would expect to pay 40% on if you were earning them as pure income as a self-employed person. Also, the house that he lives in in Clacton was purchased by his partner, which again is an opportunity to avoid tax to the tune of 44,000 pounds, okay? That is even more than Raina’s tax dodge. So whatever you think about Angela Raina, it is worthwhile taking a second to note the enormous cultural and political problem that lies at the heart of this country and has lain at the hard of this county really for the last 25 years, which is there is an enormous double standard in what we expect. From progressive politicians versus what we expect from Nigel Farage, right? It is, I didn’t mean to set him up as the, he is the opposite of progressive, like I’m sorry that I hate the fact that I stand here being like Nigel for us, the politician, and not Nigel farage, the obvious racist. Like I, But it is a huge double standard. The way that Nigel Farage is treated is extraordinary. I mean, I think hypocrisy is bad, but I think there is a cultural and political problem where we have placed an emphasis on hypocrisy being worse than just being a cunt. Like we really, really have. If somebody is hypocritical or is living in a way that’s contrary to the way that they express themselves in public, that is bad. But it’s also bad to just be a cunty all the time. Like, consistency is not… In of itself, a virtue that we should be celebrating. Can I tell you who else has been consistent in their lives? Adolf Hitler, Jack the Ripper and Jimmy Carr. Those people have all been consistent their entire lives and it is not necessarily a good thing.

 

Coco Khan So we had Alexei Seil on the podcast last week and he talked about this great moment in The Simpsons that I’m now gonna paraphrase from him and therefore Homer Simpson, which is the originator of this great quote. So someone says to Homer Simpson there’s a crisis, an opportunity, it’s the same word in a language, I forgot on which, don’t worry about it. And Homer responds saying woo-hoo, crisis-tunity. And so here we are, a crisis- tunity for the left, terrible times, but a chance to regroup. So that’s what we’re doing, we’re regrouping. Which is a perfect time to bring on our next guest. She’s the member of parliament for Coventry South. She’s a co-founder of a new party that promises to be the voice for a progressive Britain. I don’t need to give you an introduction, but let’s say hello to Zarah Sultana.

 

Nish Kumar Zarah just said, hello Nish, I see you’ve been saying some problematic things. You’ve got a fucking nerve, missy.

 

Coco Khan I had a note before you came on that you were going to come into Oasis, but it was just our theme music.

 

Zarah Sultana What did you play?

 

Nish Kumar You requested. Zarah requested Oasis.

 

Coco Khan I’m so sorry.

 

Nish Kumar Zarah requested Oasis.

 

Zarah Sultana I can explain.

 

Nish Kumar Yeah, but I have to explain to you why we couldn’t play it.

 

Zarah Sultana Yeah please do.

 

Nish Kumar We literally can’t afford to clear the rights.

 

Zarah Sultana You can’t just go on YouTube or Spotify and just press play, like the bureaucracy, the red tape, insane.

 

Nish Kumar This is what we left Brussels for. This is exactly what Brexit was about, being able to play Oasis, as far as I understand.

 

Coco Khan I’m actually really frustrated because you were going to come out to roll with it, and I had this whole bit in my head being like, oh, I wonder if that’s a metaphor for your party because they’re just rolling with it. They’re seeing how it’s going. They’re going to reach out to their members, but maybe a better Oasis song for her to come out would be Don’t Look Back in Anger because that’s how she feels about the Labour Party.

 

Zarah Sultana This feels like an English literature exam where it’s like what do you think the author meant by like a black sky and it’s yeah absolutely all of the above.

 

Coco Khan It hurts that we both did English at uni. That was such a read, Zarah. That was a such a read.

 

Nish Kumar No, it’s just a correct read of the situation. Why did you want to come out to Oasis? Explain it to us.

 

Zarah Sultana Because I was able to finally get my hands on tickets, not in London, but I had to go to New York.

 

Nish Kumar Wait, you paid for them?

 

Zarah Sultana Yes, yes. Some MPs do pay for their own tickets. It’s shocking, I know. Yeah, so basically me and my partner spent about five hours on multiple devices, different email addresses, trying to get these fucking tickets to see Oasis in Wembley. And did not succeed and then I went on Twitter as most of us do to vent and I did hashtag nationalized Ticketmaster and people lost their shit. But my partner’s brother managed to get tickets for New York and I’ve never been and we just went last week and it was really funny. Well, getting questioned, getting secondary questioning was not funny because racial profiling sucks, but…

 

Coco Khan What? You got detained!

 

Nish Kumar What happened? You got questioned at JFK?

 

Zarah Sultana Yeah, so we basically went to the desk and there was a woman who was just asking us like, were you here? And we’re like, tourists. And she was really friendly, which is actually really quite disturbing because then she… Sent me for secondary questioning, and my partner’s wife didn’t get secondary questioning and it was just like, you guys just, you’re so obvious. And I went and I waited for about 45 minutes to an hour and I kind of prepared for this. I even bought a watch, right? I like off Amazon. I don’t actually wear watches, I just use my phone like most people. But my friend had told me that when you’re detained, they don’t have clocks just to fuck with you, right, so you don’t have a sense of time. And if you’re then taken into these interrogation rooms and then detained, you could be there for 12 hours but you have no sense of time because there are no clocks. So I bought a watch for that purpose. And then, so I’m sitting there for about 45 minutes, I get out a bag of pretzels, cinnamon flavored pretzles because I’m like, I don’t know how long I’m gonna be here. And eventually an officer calls me up and asks the same questions, why are you here? And I said, oh, I’m here to see Oasis. I had no idea. Who they were, and I replied, you know, Liam and no Gallagher, like, surely that should … No, nothing. And then eventually he asks what my job is, and this is when racial profiling meets the privilege of my job, and then they kind of equal in equilibrium. I said, oh, I’m a member of parliament, which is the equivalent to a congresswoman in your political system. And he said, Oh, okay. And then it was very quick after that.

 

Nish Kumar Thank god he didn’t ask you anything about your political beliefs.

 

Zarah Sultana I didn’t search that, I didn’t look at that, no.

 

Nish Kumar Which conserved a pie? The equivalent of the Republicans. I’m our Marjorie Taylor Green. Don’t Google it!

 

Zarah Sultana It’s, you say that, but as I was answering the questions, I was looking at them and there was a framed photo of Donald Trump and I was like, this is so fucked.

 

Coco Khan Honestly, oh my goodness me

 

Zarah Sultana Yeah, hopefully they don’t like pick up on the fact that I’m gonna be speaking at a stop Trump demo in a couple of days, all of those prickly political things.

 

Nish Kumar There’s various advice going out to people who have in any way expressed themselves publicly about Donald Trump in a negative sense and like, did you take a burner phone or anything?

 

Zarah Sultana Yes, burner phone, watch, kind of like all printed out like boomers, everything like hotel tickets, Broadway tickets, everything. And then actually, I did take my parliamentary pass just in case because I was like, member of parliament, here’s the proof. Here’s the proof. Because it was all physical proof, right? Because the second you say, oh, let me show you on my phone. Again, this is another tip.

 

Nish Kumar Don’t take your phone out.

 

Zarah Sultana Don’t take your phone, but if you then take out your phone that gives them the permission or the ability to take your Phone and then like basically take everything off it and anyone who tries to claim the US as a democracy It really isn’t the way you have to think about even traveling there the way You are there what you see there and the ice stories and everything else is frightening and and bringing it back to home That’s where we could be in not a lot of time right in a couple of years if we elect Nigel forage in in 2009. And he is already talking about deportations, he’s already voting against workers’ rights, we could be in a very similar place.

 

Nish Kumar Let’s bring it home. Let’s start with how you’re feeling since extricating yourself to use a non-pejorative phrase.

 

Zarah Sultana When people ask me this question, I think sometimes they expect me to be like, oh, I’m so sad or I’ve been so worried. I’m, so good. I feel liberated. I feel fucking free. And I could not be part of a genocide apartheid party. And I tried my level best while I was in the Labour party every single week to hold them to account for arms sales to Israel, trying to call for universal free school meals. Supporting wealth taxes, supporting all of those progressive policies around social housing, not being in bed with developers and lobbyists and oil and gas giants. And it got to a point where it was like, this isn’t a matter of if I leave, it’s a matter when. And every week became more and more difficult. Terrible things were being ushered in. And in particular, the week that I resigned was the week a Labour party that is led by a human rights lawyer. Prescribed a nonviolent direct action group for the first time in British history, Palestine action were prescribed.

 

Nish Kumar A civil rights lawyer who, 20 years ago, defended protesters from the exact same action.

 

Zarah Sultana The hypocrisy, which you were speaking to earlier, but it also cut benefits for disabled people, the most marginalized in our community, and we’re long past the days where we have to tell people why austerity was bad. We all know it was bad, we all know the amount of excess deaths that came from that. We know how it has harmed our communities and how the most marginalized in our society, especially disabled people, bore the brunt of that. So to see a Labour government do that in power when it doesn’t have to because it can make different economic choices. Being in that party was just unconscionable and I had to leave.

 

Nish Kumar Do you feel, you sound free and you feel you saying you feel very energized and positive. Do you also understand that for a lot of Labour voters they will be feeling very sad that the values that you’re espousing put you at odds with the Labour Party? Because everything that you’ve said is I imagine a lot of the reason why people vote Labour in this country. Right?

 

Zarah Sultana Yeah, it’s the reason why I joined the Labour Party as a 17-year-old. I was really pissed off about the tripling of tuition fees. I saw the Labour party not as the perfect political party, but the party that most closely represented my values and my principles around equality, investing in our public services. And then to see the Labour part that we have now is not the same Labour party. That Labour party is dead.

 

Coco Khan Well, lots of people that I really respect and have shepherded me through my journalism career, they’ve always told me, it’s the Labour movement that you love, not necessarily the party. And the question is, is the Labour movements still working with the Labour party? Has that fallen away? If you want to be part of a Labour movement, what does that look like? I think we’ll probably discuss on this panel about that disconnect if it still exists. It’s probably a good opportunity for me to just ask you though, what’s your take on this Angela Reyna debacle.

 

Zarah Sultana I do not feel sympathy for Angela Rayner, and I know that that has been much of the framing over the past few days, but Angela Rayna voted to scrap winter fuel payments. She voted to cut disability benefits. She has voted to keep the two-child benefit cap. She has defended this government when it sells arms to Israel and has defended its enabling of genocide. And so my sympathy is with the millions of kids that are still in poverty. The people that were struggling, the elderly people that struggled through winter, and disabled people who, again, are having to make difficult decisions around heating and eating. That’s where my sympathy is. And again, her story epitomizes the anger that a lot of people feel when I knock on doors in Coventry and everywhere else, when they say, oh, it’s one rule for you and another rule for everyone else. That’s what dodging 40K in tax speaks to, that disconnect. In between Westminster and ordinary people. And I think we need to understand that a lot of people live very difficult lives where they’re making difficult choices between paying the bills at the end of the month and then they see politicians who just think they can get away with it and we have to rebuild that trust.

 

Nish Kumar But why does Nigel Farage sit outside of that paradigm, the idea that there’s one rule for them and one rule us? Why is it, do you think, that Nigel Friar, who has also avoided 40K, 44,000 pounds in stamp duty, why does he sit outside of this idea that the political classes are completely disconnected? Why is he not- He shouldn’t, he shouldn’t.

 

Zarah Sultana He shouldn’t he shouldn’t. He frames himself as this anti-establishment guy when he couldn’t be more establishment You know his wealthy stockbroker background the privilege that he comes from And the friends that he has, you know, he’s got billionaire donors to his party Which is a private limited party a company rather posing as a political party This is someone who was rehabilitated by our media class he got 1.5 million to go and I’m a celeb. He has the second highest number of appearances on BBC Question Time. So he’s very mainstream and he is platformed more than ordinary politicians. And that’s what it speaks to. It speaks to the fact that the establishment like him, the media are not gonna give him a hard time because he’s one of them. And so it is up to us on the left or the duties on us to show people what a fraud he is, how he has voted against their interests, how he opposes their interests and how he’s going to harm them and I was going to say destroy their lives, but I guess if you’re a migrant or if you’re from a marginalized background, him in power is going to destroy your life and is a scary, scary thing to come to terms with. Well let’s talk

 

Coco Khan about your party, I think it’s safe to say that when you announce it, it’ll break the internet. Not quite like Kim Kardashian, but close. Listen, both great moments in my world, okay?

 

Nish Kumar He should have got Corbs to get his arse out.

 

Coco Khan That’s not what I was going with, but we’re here now. I’ve got a note in my script that says, oh, the party had XXX supporters because we’re not actually sure of the numbers. I’ve heard it all. What is…

 

Zarah Sultana Over 750,000, and the coolest bit is we got over 200,000 signups within the first 20 hours, which just speaks to the desperation, the energy, and how excited people are, because that rate is immense, it’s, yeah, it makes me low-key speechless. It’s a massive

 

Coco Khan of undertaking setting up a party there, right?

 

Zarah Sultana Yeah, it’s never been done before you say that and then everyone’s like this has never happened before and I’m like, oh shit

 

Nish Kumar So where are you in like on the progress bar? How downloaded is this new party?

 

Zarah Sultana So it’s been a month since I announced to Jeremy that we are gonna co-lead the founding of a new party and people are getting very, I was gonna say, they’re getting desperate to know what’s gonna happen. When is the conference gonna be announced? There’s an impatience, yeah, for sure. There’s a impatience and I get it, there’s a frustration as well. But this can’t be a top-down, here’s this polished PR version of a party. And when you say it was a bit messy, it’s because it really is coming from a very authentic way of developing a party that is rooted in working-class communities that members have to have an ownership of. And at this moment in time, just getting a conference arrangements committee that is gender balanced, that reflects our regional diversity as well as our racial diversity, that has representation from trade unions and social movements is so important. Otherwise, it could be another top-down machine. Led by MPs, very Westminster-centric, just focused on elections, which I don’t think it should be. I think if you just focus on elections which happen every four years, you become irrelevant when there aren’t elections and so you need to have strength within social movements, within trade unions, and that’s what’s taking a bit of time. Trying to find technology, venues, and a way to engage over 750,000 people is no easy job. And so we need to make sure we get it right. And that is what is taking time. And I fully get it, but we can’t rush this process because having democracy, which is so important, which distinguishes us from everyone else is what essential to get right.

 

Coco Khan Well, your co-leader with Jeremy Corbyn. You know, Corbynism, I actually really hate the term Corbynesm. Like, I remember, even at the time, I found it really irritating. I remember just thinking, like, someone described me as a Corbynnista. And I was like, babe, I had these politics before. I really even knew who that man was, to be completely honest. So I’ve always found that very irritating. But nonetheless, for our generation, us geriatric millennials, Corbysn… Yeah. Do you know what was 10 years ago? What happened? Time really flies when you’re having no fun. The back pain and the gray hairs, they’re there.

 

Nish Kumar Yeah, okay, well, you didn’t have to look directly at me when you said it back there. I know I’m older than both of you, but…

 

Coco Khan I was talking about myself, actually. But ten years on, we are in a very different political moment. I would argue we’re in an even more scary moment where you have actual fascists barking at the door. So how should the left be adapting to this very present moment?

 

Zarah Sultana I think we need to learn from Corbynism, as you put it, recognizing its strength, its mass appeal, the hope, the joy, the excitement, the fun, the cultural parts, which I loved, its bold policy platform, but also at the same time recognize that we are in a more dangerous place. We have fascism growling at the door. We have people trying to set a fire to migrant hotels. We’ve got climate destruction on a- on a much- at a much faster rate and we have to grapple with those issues and so you have to be bolder in what you’re saying. You need to understand that when you take on the establishment they’re going to come at you like they did to Jeremy and the Labour Party at the time with everything and that’s why my approach has very much been you can’t give the media and the establishment an inch. The media, the legacy media, not you guys, legacy media are our class enemies. If you look at who owns them, if you look the front pages they’ve been putting out, if you at the interests that they advocate for, we can’t treat them as, you know, oh, they’re just neutral observers of what’s going on. No, they frame the discourse. They are able to influence public opinion. And so you operate with them or you talk to them on a… Basis that you’re comfortable with and that’s been my approach when it comes to dealing with legacy media I think it’s really important that we support independent new forms of media local media and so forth and and therefore going back to Corbinism understanding what went wrong is really important, but I think we’ve got a really exciting opportunity You called it a Christ? Well, it is it’s a crisis for our country for the world, but it’s an opportunity for the left to reclaim our political space, because the Labour Party, basically, its strategy, which it was briefing to journalists, was, well, the left have nowhere to go. That’s what Peter Mandelson always believed. The left have no where to go, so they’re gonna vote for the Labour party, and they didn’t believe that the Greens were doing a good job. And this way, we’re saying, actually, we do have somewhere to go we’re gonna build it ourselves, and we’re going to win for our communities, and we are not gonna play hostage to the way that you think this two-party system governs our country, which we know is also dead. And so… Taking this with both hands, fighting for a future for not just young people, for everyone because we deserve to live in a safe, equal country where whether you’re born here or you’ve moved here, whether you are old or you’re young, whether you a cis or you are trans, whether you black, Asian or white, it shouldn’t matter, you should all be able to live with safety and dignity and at the moment that’s just simply not happening for anyone.

 

Coco Khan [AD]

 

Coco Khan You talked about that Corbynism, again, that word, but you talked about time and the kind of culture moment of it, like a lot of music artists got involved. It was reaching across all different disciplines to galvanize, particularly younger people at that time. So I think this is probably a really good opportunity to get our next guest on, who is also a brilliant culture maker, already been very vocal about their support for your party, so.

 

Nish Kumar Yeah, they’re the drag queen that needs no introduction, but I’m going to do it anyway because it’s in the script. Ever since appearing on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, they’ve taken the world by storm, rising to fame with their razor-sharp wit and incredible outfits, but just as fierce as their looks, a phrase which, coming out of my mouth, does not sound correct. I’ve never felt more like an undercover cop in my fucking life. But just as fierce as their looks…

 

Coco Khan *laughs*

 

Nish Kumar Is their activism and devotion to the LGBTQ plus community. And they haven’t stopped dominating since. Books, music, fashion shows, podcasts and performances across the globe. There seems to be very little that they can’t do.

 

Coco Khan So can I ask you to give a fabulous welcome to the one and only Bimini Bon-Boulash.

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash Let me make sure you can’t see up my skirt.

 

Coco Khan I’m just really excited, you know, we’ve got a drag queen, an MP, a journalist and a comedian. It looks like we type.

 

Nish Kumar Into chat GPT can you give a daily mail reader a brain aneurysm as fast as humanly possible? It’s like we’re trying to wipe out half the Telegraph’s readership in one photograph. Can we? This is gonna be the shortest podcast we’ve ever done. How are you Bimini? Thank you so much for being here.

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash I’m good. Thank you for having me. I’ve been very excited about this. I was in Lyon last night DJing 12 hours ago, and then 12 hours later I’m sat here.

 

Coco Khan So I’m not going to lie to you, when the producers told me that, and this is how you know that I’m a loser and that I just stay at home with my baby, I thought they meant Leon, you know, where you get the rat. And I was like, oh wow, what an interesting partnership.

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash Could you imagine, like, that’s my life? Like, maybe it’s just at Leon, like around the corner, then they’re coming to the podcast. No, I was doing that and I just feel like, you know, that’s why I love my life so much. 12 hours ago, I’m DJing to 1,800 people gurnin’ and then next thing you know I’m sat here talking about politics.

 

Coco Khan And that is the future the left wants. It’s what we deserve. It’s…

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash I mean, all you have to do is go to the toilets in Parliament, isn’t it?

 

Coco Khan Not all of us, Tim! I reckon we’ve got three minutes of podcasts so far, I reckon. This is good. Going well. Is having a laugh illegal? Might be. Under garage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, Bimini, you’re on Celebrity SAS.

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash I was, yeah, it’s just finished now, thank you.

 

Nish Kumar We’ve got one celebrity SAS fan in the room.

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash I mean, firstly, I will say, so that was recorded 15 months ago. I have always been very vocal about how establishments of war are very critical of that. Like, I’m not in agreement of the fact that we need to have a military service, you know, because essentially it’s men in power sending people out to essentially kill other people. I just think that’s wrong. I don’t believe that we should have that. And when I got asked to do it, it was kind of like a thing being like, I don’t really necessarily. Understand the ins and outs and the psychology of it and actually going into it I learned a lot from the people that go to it and their idea of why they want to do it so much when I go To it is because a lot of it is sense of loss of who they are. They want to find something Deeper than themselves and I feel like it’s it’s a shame that we we have that belief You know that a lot people believe that they have to kind of serve For their country in a way because of the powers to be sending people to do I think it’s It’s a shame, but. And also, I will say, I did it 15 months ago before I knew what the UK were doing over in Palestine. And I think it’s sad to see that. So I don’t necessarily support institutions of war at all, but I had a really good time doing it.

 

Coco Khan Have they ever invited you on a PSAS-ish?

 

Nish Kumar Have they ever invited me onto Celebrity SAS? Are you fucking high, woman? No, they’ve not invited me on to Celebrity SA. That’d be the worst booking. I didn’t even do Cub Scouts. Because, and this is true, when I was eight years old, I asked my mom if I could join and she said, Asians don’t camp. That is true.

 

Zarah Sultana I mean, I never camped until I went to Glastonbury.

 

Nish Kumar That’s the first time any of us can. There’s a thing there. But no, I’ve never done, it wouldn’t be a good booking. I’m allergic to most things outdoors. But how much of you doing stuff like that, how conscious are you that your presence in a show like that is in of itself subversive? Well, so many comments afterwards.

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash Because I got to the end.

 

Speaker 5 Um, I’ll just-

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash I’ll just woot myself. I got to the end and I think because a lot of people were like, oh, I thought you were going to be shit because you’re a drag queen and you’re queer. And like they have like, so, and this is no shade today because I love Louis Spence. Louis Spense went out on the first episode and obviously was like there for entertainment right at the beginning. It was hilarious. We love Louis. Everyone thought I was going to be the same. I did rock up in a pink tracksuit. But I am stubborn, like I am not going to get kicked out unless they tell me that they’re going to kick me out and then they realized they were like no you’re quite hard like you’re doing it and I think representation especially in the UK right now especially in the media it’s a lot of misrepresentation or it’s Taking one singular person and basing an entire community on that So the idea of non-binary and people that reject the idea with binary it became ridiculed by people on this morning or good morning Britain and it became like a mockery of people’s existence. So I think for me going on there and taking up space is important

 

Coco Khan Do you feel dragged into it? Do you think you’ve had to offer your own self into a political conversation? Or is it something you’ve done willingly?

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash I love the adjective that dragged it in.

 

Coco Khan Yeah

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash I think I dragged myself into it. So I studied journalism. So years and years ago, I was… Corbynism years. I was going to all of the rallies. Because I was so engaged. I think so many young people were so engaged at that time because it felt really hopeful. And I remember I was studying journalism. I hated how the British media was so… My whole dissertation was on the bias in right-wing media and the language that they used compared to the other side. Like I remember just being so engaged and outraged by it because to me it was so obvious. It’s like, how is nobody else seeing that there’s so much bias here? And the media have so much power. The legacy media, like you say, they are the ones that control everything, you know? And I think I drag, drag is political. I think being queer is political, I think every day you get out. Onto the street wearing whatever you want or being however you want to be standing up for what you believe that is political and I think everyone has a voice we live in the UK every single person should use their voice in whatever way and we’re at a time where it feels well the pendulum has swung to the right and people are having their voice silenced for standing up for Palestine you know and we can’t allow that to continue so we need more voices everywhere across the board and we need less misinformation from the media and there needs to be some sort of regulation of truth there.

 

Coco Khan Yeah, and also, I mean, joy. I think sometimes one of the things missing from left-wing politics is the hopefulness, the optimism, the joyful, there is a reason why comedians are predominantly left- wing. Aside from the fact that obviously you’re just very smart if you’re left-wings and much more witty. But like there is, I’m just saying, it’s just very clear.

 

Nish Kumar I’m one of the smartest boys in school!

 

Coco Khan But it’s because politics of compassion and humanity lends itself to the arts, it lends its self to creativity in a way that hoarding doesn’t, selfishness doesn’t. And I guess I’m asking, do you feel that there’s a creativity missing in the left? Is that where your drag comes into it?

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash I believe that everybody should be allowed access to have their voice and have their voices heard and I think that’s what politics is about and I know that’s what you stand for and like you see politics and the way that the media like create and we see the Labour’s gone to the right and we do need more acts of joy we do you need more ax of radical joy and acceptance you know actually I think empathy is a big thing that we’re lacking it’s the us and them divide and conquer mentality that we’ve seen so much and Unfortunately we’re at a time where Migrants are getting the brunt of it right now. Trans people have had it and still continuing to get it. They always attack the marginalized groups, but if they’re gonna come for one, they’re going to come for us all. And that’s where you have to really understand that. And on the migrants thing, like, it’s too, like when they talk about, they say all of our problems are because of migrants, essentially, people believe that. It’s like, I think the taxpayer annually pays £2 a year, annually, to house asylum seekers or to benefit the asylum-seeking system. I would happily spend £2 per year to do that. If people are trying to seek and get a better life over here, you know, I’d rather my money going to benefit and help other people than a lot of the places it’s going now.

 

Coco Khan It is scary how willing people are to throw away their own human rights out of hatred, a whipped up hatred for a migrant. I mean, I think I’m quite radical, and yet I find myself being like, you know what’s great, Nish, human rights. Like, I find my self saying the most basic things. That’s not that radical, but apparently it is. Do you know, what’s good? Law.

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash But Nigel Farage likes migrants when it’s benefit, economic migrants when, I don’t know if you saw this recently it’s come out and he got some money from doing a speech in Kuala Lumpur where he was doing a talk to a load of other economic migrants that are trying to get second or third passports so they can avoid tax in different countries. And it’s like, it’s okay for migrants when it benefits the wealthy, but when it is people that are displaced or trying to seek a better life, then they are the problem.

 

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Nish Kumar Listen, the rhetoric is so amped up at the moment. I mean, I’m literally talking on a day where I’ve received a string of photos from a friend of mine who is at a counter-protest in Bristol that has happened this morning because a group of far-right protesters have turned up at another asylum hotel. And asylum seekers are not the reason this country’s economy is in the state that it’s in. You know, asylum seekers didn’t. Spend years decimating our welfare state or spend years decimated the way that our economy is organized. We have so many problems, but our most fundamental problem is a problem of misdirected anger. And we’ve turned powerless people on each other. So the working class has now turned on people that it should be standing in class solidarity with. So turning to you, Zarah, that’s, we’ve got to rebuild those alliances, right?

 

Zarah Sultana The thing is also that the right don’t have a monopoly on anger. I feel angry. I’m sure everyone in this room feels angry when we look at the levels of inequality, when we realize that we have more food banks than McDonald’s restaurants in this country, when we looked at the way politicians have basically transferred so much public wealth into private hands. We’ve seen. That’s actual scandalous behavior and we saw it most vividly during COVID where friends of MPs were just getting millions of pounds in fake PPE. That sort of fraud is just written off. And the way that people on benefits, disabled people, migrants, trans people are then attacked. All of these things are deliberate strategies and we have to make the arguments but we also have to go out and talk to people. There’s no shortcut in undoing the damage that has been done to our country. The social contract’s broken. I think young people feel it quite a lot as someone who graduated with 50,000 pounds of student debt and then realize that, you know, they tell you, just get good grades, just go to a good uni and then your life is sorted, you get a great job, you’ll get a house and you realize that doesn’t fucking happen unless, you know, there’s something miraculous happens to you in your life. I feel like I’m an anomaly for my generation, for someone to graduate. Have that debt, be able to get a really well-paid job and the privileges that come with it. But that’s not the life that…

 

Nish Kumar That’s not systemic, that’s not…

 

Zarah Sultana No, I’m a complete utter anomaly and therefore it is important to understand that social contracts broken, people don’t feel hope, you’ve got the far right polling sky high like they will be in government and so what are we going to do about it? So we need to get into our communities, we need knock on doors, we need have conversations, we need to support trade union membership, we needs to support tenants and tenants unions when our neighbors are being evicted. And challenge racist, anti-migrant, transphobic rhetoric wherever it rears its ugly head. Like Bim said, our safety is in solidarity, our lives are deeply interconnected, you know, you can’t get rid of Islamophobia and racism in society without also… Ending transphobia and all forms of discrimination like we are intimately linked to one another and that’s what solidarity is, that’s socialism is and that is why it’s so important for me in setting up a new left wing party to be quite clear about our values and our principles because if people don’t share those progressive views then like you said there’s plenty of other parties that they can be looking to not a left wing grassroots democratic socialist party.

 

Nish Kumar So where does that leave us then with someone like Adnan Hussein who’s recently angered a lot of the prospective members of the new party by saying that trans women are not biologically women and safe third spaces, which still nobody has explained to me how that fucking works, safe third space should be an option for trans people. How do you manage that as you set this new party up and place core values in situ that are going to guide the way that policy is being drawn up?

 

Zarah Sultana There is no room for socially conservative views in a socialist left-wing party, period. We have to defend the rights, dignity, and life of everyone. And that means centering the most marginalized. And if people don’t have pro-trans, pro-migrant, anti-racist values, then, like I said, there are plenty of other political spaces that you can enter, but not this one, because we have to have our values. We need to let people know what we stand for. And then we need to be going out to the country and saying, this is the vision of society that we want, that we believe we can achieve, and we want you all to be part of it.

 

Nish Kumar Listen, if you’re transphobic, you’re not short of options. Yeah, literally. With absolute respect, in British politics, for Christ’s sake, join the fucking Conservative Party and watch a Ricky Gervais Netflix special. You’re fine.

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash Do you know what’s wild though with transphobia, it’s so of like a zeitgeist thing and like whatever’s happening culturally, because 20 years ago when Trump was like in charge of or he owned Miss Universe, he was advocating for the trans women as the first Miss Universe. He was like fully supporting, there’s videos of him being like, I believe the transgender, like he was very supportive and now he’s gone the other way. So it’s just like, people just talk a load of shit and no one’s got integrity, you know?

 

Zarah Sultana And it’s also what’s been funded, right? So when you look at anti-abortion, anti-trans, think tanks and movements, you’ll see a lot of right-wing funding that comes from the states, that finds its way in Europe and even in the UK. And it is a deliberate international strategy to divide our communities. So we all identify a scapegoat. It might be the trans community today, it might be Muslims tomorrow. And so we’re not, we’re punching down rather than looking and punching up and seeing who’s actually the root of all of our problems.

 

Coco Khan It must be nice now that you’re out of Labour to not have to performatively say how many flags you have.

 

Nish Kumar How many flags do you have? But how many flags DO you have, Sara Sultana?

 

Zarah Sultana You’ve put me on the spot. I can count how many football shirts I’ve got, but I don’t have any flags. Therefore, the Labour Party probably would have picked me out. It’s all about this performative bullshit and this false portrayal of what patriotism is. As someone who is in love with our NHS, with institutions in this country, I’m very proud of our NHS. I’m proud of the country at its best. And therefore… You know, I always feel like as an Asian woman, as a woman of color, as a Muslim, I have to be like, I am British, but why do I have to say that when actually no one else has to prove themselves? And it’s a shame that all of this flag behavior and shenanigans isn’t addressing those structural. Economic issues that will make people’s lives materially better. It doesn’t matter how many flags you’ve got in your window if you can’t feed your kids. But do you have a Princess Diana mug? I love Princess Diana. I do have a mug. I know, it’s weird, isn’t it? It is weird. No, I genuinely do. I bought it from a charity shop. I love princess dianas. Of course you have the fucking princess diana mug.

 

Nish Kumar Of course she has a fucking Princess Diana mug. She’s a brown woman, it was bought for her by her mother. Are you joking?

 

Coco Khan I’ve got my own, my mum has her own. How many flags you got, Bimmin?

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash I can count probably like four that have been shredded into outfits.

 

Coco Khan Yeah

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash Because I felt like, I love to be inspired by the Union Jack cool Britannia of the 90s, you know, when Jerry Halliwell was like, ehh. And for me it’s like, I kind of love wearing it and then in like the other subversion way of walking down the road and then people being like, a bloke from the pub called Dave who’s like you know that’s my flag. But like, I feel like you can fly the flag, you know. You can be patriotic, you can support your country, but you can also not be racist.

 

Zarah Sultana I boil so much piss when I wear my England top and I upload it. Honestly, like, people just can’t understand, like you said, multifaceted. Exactly.

 

Nish Kumar As a British person who has talked openly about sort of, you know, your rejection of the gender binary, where are you sort of deriving hope from? Because like your journey and the fact the way that you’ve talked so openly, you know, there’s this beautiful clip from your series of Drag Race where you kind of explain the concept of being non-binary. I think probably for a lot of people, it was their first encounter with somebody just explaining it on a human level. Where are you finding optimism from, given that we’ve talked a lot in the last few months of the show. You know, about the dangers and the threats posed to the trans community. Where are you deriving hope from at this moment, right now as a British person?

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash I have worked too hard on myself to allow someone to tell me that I shouldn’t feel the type of way. I know who I am, I know how I feel, and I know that the binary doesn’t actually benefit the majority of people. The binary, on a basic level, if you take it away, it has created so much division in terms of men can’t express their emotion because they’re not taught to do that, because they are taught to man up, and then girls are taught be quiet. This is just on a basically level. You go into society. And there’s the disproportionate gap in wealth and in jobs for men and women just because of these gender ideology. We created gender. We’ve gendered everything from blue to pink, from strong to feminine and masculine and what that is. Sex and gender are two different things and gender is a socially constructed ideology and I reject the binary because I know for me it doesn’t benefit myself and I’ll be whoever I want to be. And I can flow between both and I think there’s power in that.

 

Coco Khan Let’s talk some strategies. So one of the criticisms of the creation of this new party is that it’s gonna splinter the left. Obviously over at the Greens, they’ve got their new leader, Zach Polanski. He’s, you know, hello, we’ve got a fan here.

 

Nish Kumar I honestly cannot interpret what that noise was. Zach Plante’s got a massive mandate from the Greens, 85% of the vote. So listen, I’ll level with you personally about how I feel, right? My fear is there is going to be a splintering of the left vote between bits of the Labour Party, bits of The Green Party, the SNP in Scotland, and obviously your party as well. My fear, I will just lay it all out, Jen Rick becomes leader of the Tories, which I think is. Feels like to me like he’s gonna be is inevitable Jen Rick does a deal with reform because the conservative party has never ever been able to Control Nigel Farage. It has constantly been dancing to his tune really for most of the 21st century at this point and My fear is that the electoral maths means that a splintering of the progressive vote Means that reform with the assistance of the conservative Party will form the bulk of the next government talk me down

 

Zarah Sultana Okay. I am.

 

Nish Kumar Shitting myself

 

Zarah Sultana Don’t, don’t shit yourself, no one wants to see that. So what’s happened in the Greens is positive. It shows that there’s been a massive shift in strategy, in direction, and what Zach Polanski’s platform was, which is eco-populism. That’s a positive thing. Our party, your party, the left-wing party, is all about class politics. That is integral to what we’re building, and we’re not shying away from it. We are a socialist party. The Greens will never, or don’t at least at the moment, identify in that way. And that is a distinction that is really important. Trade unions also will be at the heart of what we’re building, but we will not be splitting the left vote. We don’t really understand yet what that means materially when it comes to electoralism. And I think it’s too premature to be saying, well, this constituency will run in and the Greens will run this constituency. That has to be done democratically and the greens will say the same to you. But there will come a time where those of us who have the same values, that don’t support genocide in Palestine, that aren’t driving austerity, which rules out the Labour Party, by the way, come around the table and are able to negotiate. But that time is not yet, and we’ve got four years to figure it out. It will take some time, and so don’t shit yourself.

 

Nish Kumar But you might have to work with bits of the Labour Party as well, because there are still Labour MPs that…

 

Zarah Sultana Anyone who voted against austerity, anyone who has supported any vote or campaign to stop arms sales is someone I can work with.

 

Coco Khan Can work with. Bim, I want to bring you in here because I saw an interview that you gave where you talked with great energy about the party that Zarah’s setting up and I just wondered do you feel that way about the Greens?

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash So I think the Greens currently, no. No, I don’t. I think, like, I… Imagine if that was just the end of your answer. Yeah, yeah. I think we need a shake-up. I think it’s unfair to always, like… The question is always about splitting the left vote. Labour did that themselves by going to the right, you know? So, the fact that they went there… We need someone to shake it up. I hope that Greens, they could find a way to work with your party to come to where it’s more of a socialist values and a lot of… More people in the melting pot, rather than just a two-party system. And I think that that’s a way to be more progressive, is to listen to more voices, you know? We need different people sat at the table, we need different points of view, understanding, and also just to tell fascists, no.

 

Nish Kumar Fuck off. But, you know, I think it’s really important that we don’t rule out any coalition building, that we work with people that are gonna work with us as a progressive, unified movement to keep out reform. And also, it’s a really important to articulate the fact that, as you’re seeing in America, you know changing the Department of Defense to the, whatever it is, is it a Department of War?

 

Zarah Sultana Is it the Department of War now? They’ve just been honest about what they’re doing.

 

Nish Kumar But also, that, I’m afraid, amazingly, has not bought down the price of fucking eggs. And the Rubicon that we need to cross as a progressive movement is how do we make the working class people of this country realize that Farage is a threat to them, and he absolutely is a thread to them. In the way that Trump is absolutely a threat to working class Americans, because he can only finance his tax cuts by cutting Medicaid. How do we do that? You two, now, go.

 

Bimini Bon-Boulash I think it comes down to empathy compassion. I think instead of having people like Nigel Farage or other people that might not know all of the information sat on millions of people watching television in the morning, hearing points of view for people that doesn’t affect, we should have people that are actually being affected by these issues. We should have more migrants coming on to talk about maybe the stories. I know it’s not like that’s a trauma for them, but maybe actually hearing… Humans hearing other humans talking about things I think is really crucial having trans people come on and just actually talk about their Experience and then hit people hearing it We need more of that than the dividing and like getting people on to this morning For example to have an argument about it because there’s always an agenda We need most humanity and more compassion and I think that’s where we’ll change because essentially working-class people They need, what they’ve managed to do is turn working class people against people that are less fortunate than them and need the help up and I think it comes down to humanity, needs more of that.

 

Zarah Sultana Like Bim said, their politics is on fear and hate, and our politics is about love, empathy, and solidarity. So how do we tell our story? How do we the story of London, of Coventry, of the UK, which is a working class story of immigration, of trade union radicalism, how we all fought for our rights. It was never bestowed upon us, right? The NHS, the right to work, votes for women, and so forth. All of these things were fought for. People died for them, and now, you know, the same kind of people that celebrate rights for women suffragette movement. Who wear the sachets and so forth, are the ones prescribing nonviolent, direct action groups. The hypocrisy and the irony in that is there for everyone to see. But we need to tell our story, we need communicate it. And I think…

 

Nish Kumar Because also our story is, it is like, the working class is not some group distinct from the LGBTQ community and the immigrant community. You know, we are also the working-class. My grandmother worked in a fucking lightbulb. Like, no one is ever going to confuse me with being working- class. With love to my grammar school and Durham University education. But like, my grandmother worked at a lightbulbs factory in Leicester. We are not distinct from working class.

 

Zarah Sultana No, we are the working class and I think we need to tell our story and we can’t rely on legacy media mainstream TV to do it But we also have to be organizing those of us who are politicians and activists and organizers We have to do the not so glamorous work of being in our communities and right now some of the most direct action is Fighting fascists when they come into our communities And try to divide us and spread their hate we need be speaking to the issues that people care about and we need to build a political movement with them. It’s incumbent on us to involve all of our communities right from the get-go.

 

Nish Kumar Thank you so much for being here. Thank you very much to London Podcast Festival. Thank you, very much, to King’s Place for hosting us. Thank you all, the audience, for coming. Thank you and give a massive, massive round of applause to both of our guests on the stage, to Zarah Sultana and Bimini Bon-Boulash. Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media, thank you and good night!

 

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