:00:00. > :00:00.campaign events. Don't miss a single moment on BBC Parliament and BBC
:00:00. > :00:23.iPlayer. Pure politics. My guess today has written a book
:00:24. > :00:29.about rebellion and he knows what he's talking about. As a new
:00:30. > :00:34.backbencher he led the Commons of writing which unseated Michael
:00:35. > :00:38.Martin over his handling on the expenses scandal. He harried David
:00:39. > :00:41.Cameron and then quit the Conservatives for Ukip before
:00:42. > :00:53.falling out with Nigel Farage and going independent. He is does this
:00:54. > :00:59.card well -- Douglas Carswell. The central argument of this book seems
:01:00. > :01:03.to be when the free market is moved in on by the state or a powerful
:01:04. > :01:08.vested interests, prosperity goes out of the window. How does that
:01:09. > :01:14.work? We are used to the idea that it is normal for us to become
:01:15. > :01:20.wealthier, children will be wealthier than their parents.
:01:21. > :01:23.Through most of human history, per Capita income has remained constant
:01:24. > :01:30.and people have remained poor. The reason for this I argue in the book,
:01:31. > :01:34.there tended to be some kind of extracted elite group, whether it
:01:35. > :01:42.was Princes, priests or furrows which kept it from the masses and
:01:43. > :01:52.Society pro. What changes is one society disburses power and when it
:01:53. > :01:56.is able... The key engine is able to specialised to trade freely. One
:01:57. > :02:01.society has discovered that, they take off. I go back to history in
:02:02. > :02:06.the Roman Republic, Venetian Republic and the Dutch Republic.
:02:07. > :02:10.Those are examples of modern societies who achieve this happy
:02:11. > :02:15.state of affairs. The liberal order is pretty ubiquitous, it is the
:02:16. > :02:20.driving force behind globalisation. But it is always under threat and
:02:21. > :02:25.the parasitic oligarchy which overthrew the liberal order in the
:02:26. > :02:33.past, is present and emerging today. What do they do to overthrow that
:02:34. > :02:38.order, that poisoned the market? Extractive elite need to have things
:02:39. > :02:42.done on force rather than free exchange. In history you see small
:02:43. > :02:46.elite is presiding over societies, where they found all sorts of
:02:47. > :02:52.pretext to redistribute wealth by force. I look at how, for example,
:02:53. > :02:58.in the late Roman Republic, and oligarchy emerges, you get this
:02:59. > :03:02.inflow of wealth into the Roman Republic from the provinces and this
:03:03. > :03:07.elite emerges and it grows beyond the ability of the Roman republican
:03:08. > :03:10.constitution to constrain it. You get a similar thing in Venice and a
:03:11. > :03:16.similar thing in the Dutch Republic. But I argue we are seeing a sudden
:03:17. > :03:21.inflow of wealth which is leading to the emergence of oligarchy today.
:03:22. > :03:26.From prosperity to the bond market and banking. The very rich and the
:03:27. > :03:33.very powerful accumulate power and freeze the market beneath them?
:03:34. > :03:38.Absolutely. We have seen this nexus of power between central bankers,
:03:39. > :03:43.bankers and politicians, if you like, what you might call the Davos
:03:44. > :03:48.elite. They have emerged in the past 30 or 40 years may have enormous
:03:49. > :03:52.power, they take public policy decisions without reference to the
:03:53. > :03:57.public. Central bankers decide the price of credit and drive economic
:03:58. > :04:02.policy. I cannot ever remember them appearing on a ballot paper. When
:04:03. > :04:07.the Americans had the revolution, they argued for no taxation without
:04:08. > :04:13.representation. The ability for the government to request taxes from the
:04:14. > :04:18.taxpayer a wonderful constraint on the state in most western societies.
:04:19. > :04:24.I argue in the last 30 or 40 years, Western elites have worked out waves
:04:25. > :04:32.of subverting that. They can spend a asking the tax payers' permission.
:04:33. > :04:37.What bad things happen if that continues? We are already seeing it.
:04:38. > :04:42.Since the 1970s when this was created, many industries move in the
:04:43. > :04:46.wrong direction. We start to see less social mobility, we see less
:04:47. > :04:54.innovation. This huge transfer of wealth from people without assets to
:04:55. > :04:58.people with assets. If you own a home in the South East of England,
:04:59. > :05:04.or hedge funds, you have done well just for owning it, not for doing
:05:05. > :05:10.much with it. You have inequality, not an income inequality, if
:05:11. > :05:14.anything, less income inequality, it is the inequality between those who
:05:15. > :05:19.rely on income for wealth and his wealth is in assets. But is a huge
:05:20. > :05:23.driver of social inequality and it has become, I would say,
:05:24. > :05:26.increasingly obvious since the financial crisis. Very few
:05:27. > :05:33.politicians know what to do about it. You are best known in politics
:05:34. > :05:37.as a leading proponent of Brexit, leaving the European Union, that
:05:38. > :05:41.will happen now. How does leaving the European Union fit into this
:05:42. > :05:50.analysis, or is there a different reasons? The European Union is only
:05:51. > :05:55.one manifestation of this problem. The European Union is founded on the
:05:56. > :06:00.idea that a small elite can organise an order human affairs by grand
:06:01. > :06:04.design. They have currency, trade policy, agricultural policy all done
:06:05. > :06:09.by top-down design and it is pretty disastrous. Leaving the European
:06:10. > :06:15.Union is part of what I think we need, this broader reassertion of
:06:16. > :06:19.what I would call classical liberalism. We need to challenge
:06:20. > :06:23.this idea that human economic and social affairs can be organised by
:06:24. > :06:28.design. The liberal elites and we have today, are not about liberal.
:06:29. > :06:32.Liberal means, from the Latin, freed that you believe the world requires
:06:33. > :06:35.little intervention, it doesn't require blueprints, it does not
:06:36. > :06:41.require a small group of people to shake things for us. Again and
:06:42. > :06:46.again, we see these attempts to impose blueprints to order human
:06:47. > :06:52.society. Often they ending catastrophe, communism, socialism,
:06:53. > :06:56.fascism. We see the same version of the elite's conceit when they try to
:06:57. > :07:01.order contemporary society, according to blueprints and design.
:07:02. > :07:04.It is the cause of our malaise, it empowers small groups of people over
:07:05. > :07:09.the rest of us and it is incompatible with being a democracy.
:07:10. > :07:13.It is striking, if you look across much of Europe, where people want to
:07:14. > :07:20.get their particular country out of the EU, it is almost for the
:07:21. > :07:23.opposite reasons for the one you are suggesting, not liberal free
:07:24. > :07:27.trading, it is the conception of the nation state and your's
:07:28. > :07:38.supranational and therefore they don't like it. In France, they had
:07:39. > :07:42.to shedders. We see the voice against the oligarchy, the voice
:07:43. > :07:48.against the Brussels machine and the centralisation of power is a raw
:07:49. > :07:54.data is, pretty obnoxious bitter populism. By arguing the book, the
:07:55. > :07:57.popular order faces this twin challenge, not just oligarchy
:07:58. > :08:01.emerging, but the response is this hideous populist backlash. One of
:08:02. > :08:04.the wonderful things I think about political culture in this country is
:08:05. > :08:12.the new radicals in this country have been a decent bunch. Ukip, my
:08:13. > :08:20.former party, nothing like as angry and nativist as perhaps the National
:08:21. > :08:24.front in France and others. Perhaps, I would argue, Brexit in this
:08:25. > :08:29.country is actually a safety valve. Maybe Geert Wilders, Donald Trump
:08:30. > :08:34.and Marine Le Pen what you end up with if you don't have that safety
:08:35. > :08:38.valve. Brexit has been our safety valve and perhaps that has taken
:08:39. > :08:43.some of the obnoxiousness out of the system, it has allowed us to take
:08:44. > :08:50.power back from the oligarchs, to some extent. Not far enough, but it
:08:51. > :08:53.means the alternative is not between extremism and the oligarchy. You
:08:54. > :08:57.have put this into practice yourself. It is stated clearly in
:08:58. > :09:01.the book that one of the main reasons you switch to Ukip was to
:09:02. > :09:07.stop the wrong kind of backlash from being in the lead to get Britain out
:09:08. > :09:12.of the EU. You were there trying to make sure Nigel Farage was not the
:09:13. > :09:16.face of the league campaign? Absolutely right. I was conscious of
:09:17. > :09:21.this in the run-up to the referendum on the battle to make sure the right
:09:22. > :09:25.people run the right campaign, I was conscious throughout history when
:09:26. > :09:34.you get a populist reaction against oligarchy, often the people who lead
:09:35. > :09:37.that, the grudge brothers in Rome, they are not attractive characters
:09:38. > :09:41.and they often play straight into the hands of the oligarchy. If you
:09:42. > :09:48.are in favour of a federal Europe, perhaps having Alex Cypriot is
:09:49. > :09:51.writing numerically illiterate budget in Athens is a good way of
:09:52. > :09:58.justifying governance by the trike up. There is an irony in the
:09:59. > :10:05.sentence that the fight against the elite has to be led by the right
:10:06. > :10:08.people? It has to be led by people who are able to persuade and
:10:09. > :10:14.understand the problem and not just address the symptoms. Again and
:10:15. > :10:16.again, I found, when looking at some of these populist movements
:10:17. > :10:23.throughout the Western world, both in America and in Europe, often the
:10:24. > :10:26.populist insurgents are talking about the symptoms of the problem.
:10:27. > :10:33.They have very little ideas of what to do to tackle it. Again, if you
:10:34. > :10:37.look back in history, when there was this anti-oligarch rebellion in
:10:38. > :10:42.Rome, they actually introduced measures that were supposedly to
:10:43. > :10:47.redress the symptoms of oligarchy. They played into the hands of
:10:48. > :10:51.oligarchy and I fear that we perhaps see some of this today, some of the
:10:52. > :10:55.populism is actually as much a threat to the liberal order as the
:10:56. > :10:59.oligarchy. Heaven forbid we should end up being what France is today,
:11:00. > :11:03.where in effect you have a choice between a technocrat on one side and
:11:04. > :11:10.political extremist, I would on the other. How does Donald Trump fit
:11:11. > :11:16.into this framework for you? I think Donald Trump is, on a good day, on
:11:17. > :11:21.the right side of the fence. But I am very worried, for example, about
:11:22. > :11:27.some of his economic policy. There is nothing liberal about it, it is
:11:28. > :11:34.Roosevelt new deal. We have had, in America for ten years, monetary
:11:35. > :11:39.stimulus, cheap credit to revive the economy. He is now talking about
:11:40. > :11:43.fiscal stimulus. If that would happen, it will play into the hands
:11:44. > :11:47.of vested corporate interest who would see lots of dollars coming
:11:48. > :11:51.their way and I think it would end the liberal economic model that has
:11:52. > :11:55.made the United States this extraordinary productive and
:11:56. > :12:00.inattentive republic. I think the United States is probably the most
:12:01. > :12:07.extraordinary and most miraculous republic that has ever existed. I,
:12:08. > :12:11.as an outsider who loves America and their Republican ideas, is very
:12:12. > :12:16.worried they may not survive another Roosevelt type a new deal. What
:12:17. > :12:21.about Douglas Carswell himself? You have been pursuing this set of ideas
:12:22. > :12:27.through two political parties and into independent status in the House
:12:28. > :12:31.of Commons. Is part of the issue here, I don't know if it is your
:12:32. > :12:39.ideology or just a personal thing, you don't easily fit into collective
:12:40. > :12:42.organs like a party? I am delighted to be regarded as not very
:12:43. > :12:46.collegiate, the alternative is fitting in with the groupthink in
:12:47. > :12:51.the Commons tea rooms. But this isn't about me. It is a more
:12:52. > :12:56.profound question. Given liberalism, in the true sense of the term, is
:12:57. > :13:01.what the secret of our success is as a society and has led to growth,
:13:02. > :13:06.prosperity and innovation, where do you go if you believe in liberalism
:13:07. > :13:13.today? Where is the party that represents these ideas? I said in
:13:14. > :13:16.the book, many of the parties believe in the big man, or the big
:13:17. > :13:19.woman met, a single individual as a leader can somehow solve the world
:13:20. > :13:23.and make it a better place. What we need is a recognition that that is
:13:24. > :13:28.precisely what is getting us into this mess. We should challenge those
:13:29. > :13:33.people who make public policy, who presume they know enough to know
:13:34. > :13:39.what's right for the rest of us? Politicians love blueprints, ideas
:13:40. > :13:43.and innovations imposed on the rest of us. I do think that for those of
:13:44. > :13:49.us who are genuine liberals, there is a crisis as to who we vote for.
:13:50. > :13:53.What does the Douglas Carswell of Utopia look like? I suppose it is
:13:54. > :13:57.the wrong question to ask, what is your grand design, but what would
:13:58. > :14:03.you like to see this country looking like five or ten years after Brexit?
:14:04. > :14:07.There was an extraordinary Greek man, Epicurus, and I am an epic
:14:08. > :14:16.curing, cos people think I am into hedonistic pleasure. Actual epicure
:14:17. > :14:24.Inez is this idea, you can't achieve Utopia, but the idea is, the world
:14:25. > :14:30.is self organising and our duty and obligation is to be happy and live a
:14:31. > :14:34.life that we believe in the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
:14:35. > :14:38.happiness. That idea is echoed in the founding of the American
:14:39. > :14:47.Republic and it underlines the Western success. What I think we
:14:48. > :14:51.need to do to achieve, the closest we could ever get to Utopia is to
:14:52. > :14:56.live in a world where small elites don't try to organise human affairs
:14:57. > :15:05.by design. That has always been the enemy of progress and happiness. The
:15:06. > :15:07.small elites who organise the BBC Parliament schedule, have reached
:15:08. > :15:10.the end of their tether with this programme. We'll be back again soon,
:15:11. > :15:16.goodbye for now.