A Heretic's Manifesto: Essays on the Unsayable

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Eurocrats are rightly worried about the outcome of next year’s elections to the European Parliament. Another author of the resolution, Sophie in ’t Veld, a long-time anti-Hungarian zealot, has claimed that the European Parliament is ‘not entirely powerless’ to ensure that it gets its way. Most of the government’s core objectives, such that they can be seen or even remembered these days, do not fit neatly into one departmental box.

Then this morning, in a newspaper report on a new landmark study from Johns Hopkins University, we see the headline: ‘Lockdown benefits “a drop in the bucket compared to the costs”. It is for this – the biological equivalent of saying a triangle is a three-sided thing – that the woke witchfinders demand her banishment from public life. According to one report, ‘European parliamentarians are wary that Hungary could use the six-month mandate to promote policies that go against EU values at a sensitive moment’.Remi Adekoya – author of It’s Not About Whiteness, It’s About Wealth – is the latest guest on The Brendan O’Neill Show. Anti-Hungarian MEPs are also feeling emboldened by a recent intervention from the German government.

The truth, of course, is that proof of a disparity does not necessarily mean proof of discrimination. They discuss the demonisation of ‘ultra-processed food’, the ban on disposable vapes, and why everyone is getting so fat. On Saturday 28 October, Chris, Tom and some very special guests will be recording a live edition of this podcast at the Battle of Ideas festival in Westminster. Opponents of the Hungarian government also fear that it could set an example for other dissident voices and parties in Europe to follow. One in which the powers-that-be punish not only the expression of certain beliefs and ideas, but also the expression of fact itself.

These attempts to prevent a Hungarian European Council presidency are merely an intensification of their long-running campaign. I argue that we are living under a ruling class that aspires to the purest form of tyranny: the right to define reality itself. The delusions of the elites carry more weight than truth itself – that is how arrogant the new authoritarianism has become; how determined our rulers are to remake reality in the image of their own fevered opinion. They discuss Rishi Sunak’s plan for smoking prohibition, the war on motorists, and why centrist Tories ruin everything. As it happens, Eurocrats hostile to the Hungarian government have been playing hardball for a long time.

So now we know why transgender-rights activists are so keen on No Platforming speakers and shutting down debate. MEPs are terrified of the rise of populism and of movements committed to national sovereignty, and they are directing their anger towards Hungary. Deviate from their truths that say Islam is a perfect religion, that sex is changeable, that same-sex marriage is morally equal to opposite-sex marriage, and you’ll be damned as an Islamophobe, a transphobe, a homophobe. It seems to me that, rather than engage in fruitless and expensive DEI programmes, which often only make the work environment more polarised, the Cabinet Office should employ people with the skills to deliver, the resilience to cope with a pressurised workplace, and the moral fibre to conduct themselves respectfully. Where you are in your thinking is very much needing a lot of enlightenment and reading’, said a British police officer last year to a woman whose speechcrime was to put stickers on her front door questioning the idea that transwomen are women.They may smile sweetly while raising this question, but a group of Scottish women’s rights campaigners reminds us that they are really asking women to allow men into all the places where they are most vulnerable. The European Parliament has long been committed to cutting Hungary and its prime minister, Viktor Orbán, down to size. Speak the truth about a person’s past – that Caitlyn Jenner was once Bruce, a runner; that Elliot Page was once Ellen, an actress – and you’ll be denounced as a ‘deadnamer’, the unholiest of heretics. They discuss woke censorship in comedy, the junk science about ‘ultra-processed foods’, and why middle-aged, privately educated liberals are ruining everything. Remi and Brendan discuss the truth about racial inequality, the dangers of racial identity politics and how Africa can realise its potential.