Interview with Daniel Hannan (6/2/17)

e hi everyone Jared Selle here with prageru I'm here with uh Mr Daniel Hanan an MEP member of the European Parliament and very well spoken defender of conservative and libertarian principles thank you Mr Hanan for joining us pleasure so I want to start off in light of the Manchester terror attack is the UK doing a good job in general combating his it's a really difficult question to answer in the immediate aftermath of an attack right but an exception yes it is it really is and the the the proof I would offer is that the last really big attack was the London Tube bombing in 2005 in those 12 years how many islamist attacks have ended in a in a fatality three three in 12 years right one was the horrible murder of privately rig in wo in 2013 then there was the the knife attack in Westminster and now this how many dozens have been foiled well we'll never know it's the nature of the of the game but you do get a sense of the imbalance of forces that up against some of the best counterterrorism operatives in the world are people lacking sophisticated Weaponry lacking support and driven to seek softer and softer targets When Donald Trump said evil losers I think he was exactly right losers was exactly the word we should glamorize them we shouldn't call call them monstrous a monster is something that you cower before and these people are are losers losers in the sense that they've been defeated in in in Iraq and Afghanistan and so on but also loses in the sense that they're in no position to launch attacks on Military targets you know when you're driven to blowing up a room of teenage and pre-teen girls leave aside what that says about the wicked of of your outlook it's also telling me something about how how bad your position is that that's the the the target you're left with because you can't aim any higher in a free Society is full security a reasonable expectation nothing is ever 100% safe I mean it just it can't be done thing is human beings are very bad at Computing risk you know terrorism is still at a historically low level for us it's nothing like what it was in the 70s ' 80s 90s uh and even then terrorism was a very uh unlikely way to end your life everyone I mean the cliche that people give is you're more likely to to be killed in a lightning strike than in a in a Jihadi attack well that's true you're 48 times more likely to to die struck by lightning never mind that you're you're more likely to be killed by a toddler statistically than by a Jihadi uh you're more likely to die having sex than in a terrorist attack right uh but of course the human brain is bad at Computing probability it's a very natural thing that you focus on the Vivid and the horrific and the recent not on the dull right and the terrorists know this this is why they go for these these monstrosities while the IRA used to call spectaculars because they know that it'll make an impact and because citizens are rightly uh it's it's more of an existential threat to daily life jihadist Terror than say a lightning strike not really I mean uh uh the the attack on Westminster claimed the same number of lives that are killed on the roads in the UK on any typical day but they didn't get the publicity they didn't get the news coverage so we of course naturally focus on the the one that was a result of deliberate human agency and that gives them a great deal of uh of attention and and of of column inches but I wonder whether we wouldn't be better off as Trump suggested mocking them laughing at them them scorning them and recognizing them as losers is political correctness uh a problem in combating islamism in the UK the way it has been in in much of Europe I'm not sure that it is no uh I mean one of the things that was clear in the aftermath is as we talk now a couple of days after the attack is that Sam abedi the the murderer had been repeatedly reported to the authorities by Muslims in Manchester because they thought he was showing signs of radicalization he was barred from his mosque because he took issue with an Imam after the Imam had given an anti-extremism sermon so I don't think this is really about uh you know the status of of Islam or of of migrants or whatever it's it's it's a much more narrowly focused security issue which on this occasion failed but that as I said earlier is is the exception not the rule from this side of the pond it looks like Britain's labor party is falling apart what in the world happened to it it elected as its leader somebody who I think regrets the outcome of the Cold War I mean I realize that's a pretty shocking summary of it but listen to what he says and make your own mind up uh he is somebody prepared to Ally with any cause however vile provided it is sufficiently anti-western he backed the IRA Hamas hisbah anyone because in his world viiew everything is the fault of the West in general and the US in particular and therefore uh all of these monstrous terrorist organizations are not responsible for their own action everything must be our fault it's incredibly kind of solipsistic view of the universe it treats it's actually also funnily enough a rather racist View because it you know the Isis and hisbah and so on are presumed to lack agency everything they do must be our fault what are lessons that leftwing progressives in the west should learn from brexit trust the people I mean the reason we got to this point is because there was an absolute refusal by the EU to take public opposition seriously uh or to listen to the criticisms there had been several previous referendums which had gone against closer integration in the Netherlands in France Denmark irel and they were all swatted aside public opinion was treated in Brussels as an obstacle to overcome not as a reason to change direction and eventually that got to the point where people in Britain correctly saw that the EU wasn't interested in reforming would never return any powers and therefore we had no option but to seek a different kind of relationship from the outside that would not have happened had the European Union been prepared to show a little bit of flexibility in granting Britain a looser kind of deal during the speech and my final question during your speech that you just gave here you said that uh free trade restrictions are kind of like a self-imposed economic blockade can you elaborate think about it so when you're at war first world war second world war you know why do you blockade the enemy what are you what are you hoping to achieve you're trying to disrupt his trade you're making him poorer you know can we all agree that you're not doing it to nurture his infant Industries right not doing it to try and help him be more sufficient in fuel or or food or whatever you're not trying to build him up so that he can be a more successful competitor in World Markets so how extraordinary that when you impose a tariff or a quota or any other protection that you should effectively be choosing to do your to yourself in peace time what an enemy does to hurt you when he's at war with you it's a great explanation thank you Mr Hanan and uh that was another episode of PR thanks everyone e e e e e e e