"What is an Englishman?" | Identity, belonging and The New Right | Carl Benjamin and David Starkey

I'll begin with a confession, my former YouTube partner once told me I should never interview Carl Benjamin. "He's much too extreme," I was told. But as the political mainstream has shifted so, too, we must reconsider who we engage with. Indeed given how quickly things are happening these days, Carl, rather than appearing extreme, may be looked back upon as being uniquely prescient.

In this conversation Carl (also known by his online pseudonym Sargon of Akkad) and I discuss our respective journeys into online media, our respective cancellations, as well as issues of identity: specifically the meaning of Englishness and Britishness and who can claim to be either.

Carl, much like my guest last week David Betz, is a pessimist on the question of whether a firm sense of the English identity can be re-established without there being violent consequences (or "kinetic" to use his word). I remain hopeful that a political solution can be worked out. I think you'll find the conversation fascinating.