Adventures in the Culture War w/ Ash Sarkar

Pod Save the UK

News, News Commentary, Government

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The government has spent the week trying to out-Reform Reform by stirring up yet another moral panic about immigration. The Home Office has been boasting about its crackdown on “foreign criminals and illegal immigrants” and filming immigration raids and deportations. At the same time, it has toughened up rules to make it almost impossible for refugees who arrive in the UK via illegal routes to become British citizens.

Contributing editor of Novara Media Ash Sarkar joins Nish and Coco to discuss her new book ‘Minority Rule: Adventures in the Culture War’ - highlighting how a minority elite are profiting from the chaos they create and how the “i” in identity politics can distract and divide progressive movements.

And Health Minister Andrew Gwynne and Burnley MP Oliver Ryan - along with 11 Labour councillors - have been suspended from the Labour Party after it was alleged that they’d sent offensive messages to a whatsapp group chat lovingly entitled, “trigger me timbers”.

Correction: A previous version of this episode included a statement that Sheffield's recycling bins were not collected from the roadside whilst discussing an ongoing workers strike. Recycling bins continue to be collected amidst the strike. We regret the error.

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Useful Links

Write to your MP about the new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

www.fighttheantirefugeelaw/org

https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-an-mp-or-lord/contact-your-mp/

Guests

Ash Sarkar

Nathan Phillips

Audio Credits

Sky

Channel 5

GB News

ITV

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Pod Save the UK. I'm Nish Kumar.
0:04.5	And I'm Cocoa Khan and today we're going on an adventure in the Culture War.
0:09.8	I hate that phrase cultural war. What even is that?
0:13.8	It's the more boring sequel to the Star Wars film franchise.
0:17.6	I really wish it was an actual like cultured war.
0:21.5	You know, like, oh, let's fight about Lucien Freud or Sigmund Freud.
0:25.2	Who was the best?
0:27.3	So talk about the culture of war and how screwed it's left us all.
0:30.6	We'll be joined by political commentator Ash Sarker.
0:33.0	And later we'll be discussing Labour's latest drama and give you a quick update on the bins that got you all fired up last week.
0:41.9	But first, there's been a lot of big stories this week.
0:45.1	Trump has threatened steel tariffs which could disrupt our economy.
0:48.4	The ceasefire in Gaza hangs in the balance and the UK has refused to sign an international declaration to make AI open,
0:56.6	inclusive and ethical. But today we want to focus on immigration. We don't want to focus on
1:01.7	immigration. We have felt obliged to focus on immigration. Right. So Parliament this week saw the second
1:07.6	reading of the government's new border security bill. Simultaneously,
1:11.5	the Home Office dropped a press release saying that nearly 19,000 foreign criminals and people
1:16.7	with no right to be in the UK have now been removed since the government took office.
1:21.5	Foreign criminals, those are the words and people with no right to work. It is clearly
1:27.0	in century language and in typical
1:28.9	British news fashion, the TV headlines regurgitated it. The government today announced the
1:33.9	fruits of his efforts to deport foreign criminals and illegal migrants. Thousands of illegal migrants
	...

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