'Liberals have failed to understand there's nothing wrong with patriotism'

3 September 2020, 14:13 | Updated: 3 September 2020, 14:16

"Liberals have failed to understand there's nothing wrong with patriotism"

By Fiona Jones

Liberal Maajid Nawaz gave this impassioned speech on the far-left being just as bad as the far-right, calling for left-wing people to understand there is nothing wrong with patriotism.

Caller Ravin questioned why people are getting "so worked up" about Rule Britannia! for no real reason.

This came after the BBC initially announced the words of Rule, Britannia! and Land Of Hope And Glory would not be sung on the last night of the Proms due to connotations of colonialism and slavery; the BBC has since reversed the decision one day after Tim Davie took over as director-general.

"Can we on the liberal end of politics stop gaslighting people and pretending they're stupid?" Maajid said, "people on our side of the political spectrum have failed to understand there's nothing wrong with patriotism."

Maajid took offence to Ravin responding "so what" after the caller had branded someone a Communist, as if to claim this extremist viewpoint fine - Maajid reminded him that both in Nazism and Communism millions of people died.

"We have a blind spot in our left eye. A good boxer fights with both arms up, guards against extremism on the far right and from the far left.

"One of the problems we have in this country is we on the liberal spectrum have not been cleaning our own house while we've been pointing our fingers at the far right," Maajid said.

"It's not the EDL out on our streets intimidating people, it's Antifa blackshirts."

Maajid branded this left-wing extremism "regressive left", highlighting that with far-left movement comes a far-right response.

"We have to put both back in their boxes."

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