A Dissident's Guide to the Constitution

My name is Jerm and this is Jerm Warfare, the battle of ideas.

Jerm Warfare

The claim is often made that Parliament is sovereign. Often, “Parliament” is taken to mean “not the Crown”, or that the Crown should refrain from exercising a political role even if it is grudgingly acknowledged to have one.
 
Is it right that the Queen has bowed out of politics? What was she taught at an impressionable age (from twelve onwards) about her constitutional role? Why do UK Column News presenters voice consistent scepticism about the proposal of “direct” or “participatory” democracy and the likelihood that those chosen to have their say will be briefed by the Klaus Schwabs of this world? Isn’t democracy a Fundamental British Value these days? What did household names C.S. Lewis and Lord Hailsham have to say in the post-war generation about democracy?
 
Join David Scott, Mike Robinson and Alex Thomson for the first half of Episode 5 of A Dissident’s Guide to the Constitution, entitled Democracy — a British Value? The second half of the episode, released separately, will build on this ground to cover perhaps the best treatment so far written of what is wrong and unhistorical about the notion that a house of elected legislators, controlled by parties, is the cure for all ills.

A Dissident's Guide to the Constitution: Episode 5, Part I — Democracy: a British value?

UK Column News Podcast 18th June 2021

UK Column News Podcast 13th August 2021

UK Column News Podcast 15th October 2021

UK Column News Podcast 3rd Decmber 2021

UK Column News Podcast 21st January 2021

UK Column News Podcast 11th February 2021

UK Column News Podcast 18th March 2022

UK Column News Podcast 21st March 2022

UK Column News Podcast 4th April 2022

UK Column News Podcast 22nd April 2022

UK Column News Podcast 29th April 2022

UK Column News Podcast 13th May 2022

UK Column News Podcast 16th May 2022

Brian Gerrish, Mike Robinson, David Scott and Mark Anderson with today’s UK Column News.

UK Column News Podcast 3rd October 2022

Gutsy Women- Eva Bartlett

Brian Gerrish, Ben Rubin and Prof. Diane Rasmussen McAdie with today's UK Column News.
If you would like to support our independent journalism, please join the community: https://community.ukcolumn.org/
Sources: www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-12th-august-2024

UK Column News Podcast 12th August 2024

Mike Robinson and Vanessa Beeley discuss the events of the past week in Syria, including Vanessa's escape from the terrorists who moved into Damascus and surrounding areas on Sunday morning.

Syria Podcast Episode 2

University of Glasgow student Heather McKee spoke with Diane Rasmussen McAdie about the threats to academic freedom and free speech for students at universities in the UK and Ireland. Read the write-up at: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/heather-mckee-convener-of-student-academics

‘Students Are Being Bullied Into Submission’ – With Heather McKee

Mike Robinson speaks to Carl Zha about the changes seen in China since the end of the Cultural Revolution. Carl is a Caltech graduate and is host of the Silk and Steel Podcast focusing on everything China, history, culture and politics. Read the write-up at: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/insight-an-introduction-to-china-with-carl-zha

Insight- An Introduction To China With Carl Zha

Mike Robinson, Patrick Henningsen, Mark Anderson and Debi Evans with today's UK Column News. Guest segment with Ruth O’Rafferty
If you would like to support our independent journalism, please join the community: https://community.ukcolumn.org/
Sources: www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-24th-january-2025

UK Column News Podcast 24th January 2025

Katharine Gun tells Charles Malet about the extraordinary and timeless events surrounding her arrest under the Official Secrets Act whilst a highly dubious case was made for war with Iraq. Read the write-up at: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/a-defence-of-necessity-breaching-the-official-secrets-act-with-katharine-gun

A Defence Of Necessity- Breaching The Official Secrets Act—with Katharine Gun

Mike Robinson, Charles Malet and Vanessa Beeley with today's UK Column News.
If you would like to support our independent journalism, please join the community: https://community.ukcolumn.org/
Sources: www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-29th-january-2025

UK Column News Podcast 29th January 2025

Asian grooming gangs have been raping young women and girls across the North of England for decades, with the full knowledge and protection of senior Labour politicians. Raja Miah bravely stood up six years ago to call out this horrific practice. Ben Rubin interviewed him for UK Column to find out more.
Read the write-up: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/truth-about-grooming-gangs-raja-miah

Systemic Abuse: The Truth About Asian Grooming Gangs—With Raja Miah MBE

Mike Robinson, Patrick Henningsen and Mark Anderson with today's UK Column News.
If you would like to support our independent journalism, please join the community: https://community.ukcolumn.org/
Sources: www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-31st-january-2025

UK Column News Podcast 31st January 2025

s inheritance tax the only worry for farmers? In this exclusive interview, Sandi Adams and vet Roger Meacock tell you why there is a much bigger agenda at work. In Part 2, they will explain where we are in 2025. Are we heading for a famine? Read the write-up at: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/dear-farmers-999-part-2

999, Part 2 – The Bigger Agenda – With Roger Meacock And Sandi Adams

Sir Julian Rose, a man forever connected with the soil, gives Charles Malet his updated view of the world and his antidote to transhumanism. Read the write-up at: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/finding-the-moral-spine-resistance-to-faceless-modernity-with-sir-julian-rose

Finding The Moral Spine- Resistance To Faceless Modernity—with Sir Julian Rose

Mike Robinson, Charles Malet, Vanessa Beeley and Sandi Adams with today's UK Column News.
00:00 The Focus Ramps Up War Propaganda to Hype the Iranian Threat
09:48 Trump Warns ‘Let All Hell Break Loose’ as Escalations Loom
15:25 The Trojan Horse of Devolution: Beware the Hidden Costs with Sandi Adams
25:38 British Regime Dangles the Cancer Cure Carrot to Funnel Billions into AI
32:12 On Location Event Tickets On Sale—UK Column Is Member Funded, Please Join Us
34:25 Lebanese Tribesmen Humiliate HTS Elite Forces, Challenging Al Jolani’s Power
42:33 Inheritance Tax Grabs Full Attention While Land Grabs Surge in the Name of Climate Change
51:57 Questionable Sources: Are They Relying on Wikipedia?!
If you would like to support our independent journalism, please join the community: https://community.ukcolumn.org/
Sources: www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-12th-february-2025

UK Column News Podcast 12th February 2025

UK Column News - 17th March 2025
Brian Gerrish, Ben Rubin, Prof. Diane Rasmussen McAdie and Dr Jobst Landgrebe with today's UK Column News.
If you would like to support our independent journalism, please join the community: https://community.ukcolumn.org/
Sources: www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-17th-march-2025
Timestamps:

00:54 The 'New Media Nudge Unit': Steering Minds with a £697,474 Budget
11:34 Alarm Bells Are Ringing In Germany With Dr Jobst Landgrebe 
21:38 Dirty Money Shuffles: And Who Are Quadrature?
33:41 Cheltenham Event Tickets — UK Column Is Member Funded, Please Join Us
36:48 Diane's Report From Keswick: A Festival of Words and Ideas
45:54 Key Cities at the Heart of the Government's Agenda
54:30 Woke Academia

UK Column News Podcast 17th March 2025

In this episode, philosopher-turned-data expert Dr. Barry Smith discusses his journey from European philosophy to shaping ontological frameworks for data consistency across U.S. federal agencies and international intelligence communities. He explores how philosophical rigor enhances computer interoperability, national defense, and global data standards.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/jobst-landgrebe-and-barry-smith-why-machines-will-never-rule-the-world

Jobst Landgrebe and Barry Smith: Why Machines Will Never Rule the World

Jerm and Alex discuss the ongoing tariff war, questioning if it’s a strategic move by Trump or just for show. They explore how Trump’s policies affect the US economy, the role of tariffs in trade, and the shift towards a multipolar world that could weaken the US dollar’s global status. Alex highlights the US economy’s vulnerabilities, especially foreign ownership of assets, and suggests a dual currency system. He stresses the need for US-China cooperation to benefit both in a multipolar world. Alex also critiques the Austrian School of Economics, pointing out flaws in its views on privatisation and public services, and discusses how tariffs might help restore American sovereignty and shape future global trade.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/alex-krainer-tries-to-understand-trumps-tariff-wars-with-china

Alex Krainer tries to understand Trump’s tariff wars with China

Tim Noakes exposes the lies about diet, sugar, and science — and why everything you’ve been told about health might be wrong.
Show notes: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/tim-noakes-why-modern-nutrition-is-failing-us

Tim Noakes: Why Modern Nutrition Is Failing Us

Randy Walsh is a commercial pilot and certified flight instructor with a longstanding interest in aviation, history, and the space industry. As a revisionist researcher, he has written extensively on the Apollo Moon missions, questioning their authenticity. His books include The Apollo Moon Missions: Hiding a Hoax in Plain Sight (Parts I and II), along with the fictional thriller Apollo: The Real Mission, co-authored with Robin Landry. In these works, Walsh argues that the moon landings were likely staged, pointing to what he sees as major technical shortcomings — from underpowered rocket engines and limited onboard computing, to the absence of crucial telemetry data.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/the-impossibility-of-the-apollo-missions

The Impossibility of the Apollo Missions

Frances Leader talks about the Black Nobility, a group of wealthy families with
roots going back to the Roman Empire. She explains how they built their riches
by taking advantage of others, used religion to control people, and still shape
global politics today. The talk shows how past and present power systems are
linked, stressing the importance of understanding these patterns to grasp
today’s social problems.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/the-black-nobility

The Black Nobility Are the Most Powerful People in the World

How does government work? Who tells government where to stop?

By popular request, and to meet the need of the times, Alex Thomson is joined by Mike Robinson and David Scott to brief dissidents on the Constitution. The podcast will be of interest to overseas listeners too but primarily explores the English and Scots Constitutions, the common law, and the British constitutional legacy.

This is not a series of history lectures. After a few initial episodes on key concepts (constitution, common law, rights, democracy, the rule of law, the nation state), we aim to go through the last thousand years of constitutional development with an eye for what has been hidden (how we have been governed in the past), then to explore how the state fits together (how we are governed now), and finally what plans there are for our future.

A Dissident's Guide to the Constitution: Episode 1

Why does English have the Norman French word “legal” as well as the Anglo-Saxon word “lawful”? Is the law the Crown’s or ours? Is “jury nullification” the most hazardous phrase to utter near a courthouse?

Alex Thomson discusses with David Scott and Mike Robinson how the stirring phrase “the common law” has been understood down the ages, and whether the legal and political fraternity is right to hold as an article of faith that common law is the most inferior of the sources of law. Where does society’s conscience come into it? Are the Continental philosophers right to accuse English and Scots law of being unknowable because we have no single text that calls the Crown into being or criminalises theft or murder?

Join us to find out why state bodies like to masquerade as The People when prosecuting; why juries are being curtailed and abolished step by step; whether it is true that a freeman can individually say he does not consent to statutes; and what it was that got former Supreme Court Justice Lord Jonathan Sumption so riled this week that he said “I reject that claim” in a lecture to Cambridge Law Faculty.

A Dissident’s Guide to the Constitution: Episode 2 — Common Law

How come we have such different visceral reactions to the assertions “I am entitled to a house” and “I am immune in my house”, even though both entitlements and immunities are kinds of rights? Is it really a step forward that the UN has enumerated “rights” in an International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and an International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights? What are the practical effects of Locke’s and Rousseau’s thought-exercise propounding that man is a blank slate? Were our rights won for us by being asserted by our forefathers against government, or are they graciously granted by government and then curtailed and withheld again by that same government with a supposedly heavy heart?

How is it that the first time the phrase “human rights” was weaponised as a slogan was by sexual proclivity activists in the Weimar Republic organising as the “Human Rights League”, a century and a half after the coining of the term by philosophers? Why can an Englishman eject an intruder from his home but a Continental must wait for the police to turn up and do it for him? Is it sheer coincidence that Article 29 of Magna Carta 1215 seems to have been subverted by the same-numbered article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, the so-called Global Magna Carta? Are rights truly about “fairness” or “equity” — or is that actually a swizz?

Join us to hear why David Scott argues that the twentieth-century rights discourse has made us “part-time slaves”; how “You can’t interfere with me” has degenerated into “The government must interfere with you because of my rights”; whether we even have a right to bodily integrity any more; how statutes as apparently innocuous as the Local Government Act 1888 hive off rights from us to government; what it means when Continental judges “set aside” their national laws and constitution because of a treaty ratified by their government; and what the lawyerly trick of conflating rights with powers involves. There is no better time to be discussing these questions than in 2020.

For an example of the thinking that we politely disagree with, this recent podcast on human rights may also be of interest to our listeners as they consider our current episode: it goes into detail on the mediaeval Christian background of “natural rights” but sadly skips over immunity from theft and harm, in its haste to assert equal entitlement to positive goods — thereby tragically forming the very pretext for such theft and harm by modern governments.

Dissident's Guide to the Constitution Episode 3 — Rights

Self-government or the consent of the governed? One or other of these assumptions about democracy must be a sham if the other is valid. Either we are ruling ourselves, or someone else is ruling us, and one or other of these has to be the preferable model.

Democracy has been elevated to the status of an object of worship in recent decades, particularly in the English-speaking countries and in the discourse of the European Union, but it is accused by some dissidents of being a god that failed. Why is it that Homo democraticus tolerates no end of blatant corruption and has no qualms about the tyranny of the 51% over the 49%, as long as he is allowed to "have his say" in tokenistic votes choosing between increasingly pre-cooked outcomes? Is an "undemocratic upper chamber" (the accusation slung at the House of Lords in recent decades) an outrage or an intentional safeguard? How does the degenerate standard of British rhetoric in the "democratic" 2020s, and the political tolerance of dissent, compare with that of forty years ago?

Last episode, we considered several aspects of — and accurate names for — the distinction between immutable personal rights (immunities) and redefinable civil or civic rights (entitlements), and concluded that there was great tyrannical power in the deliberate obfuscation of these two fundamentally different categories. We now proceed further into the mirk and engage with the thinkers who have dared to question the axiomatic goal of democracy, considering seminal works by Hoppe, Hayek, Mises et al., Ferrara, Legutko, Barnett and Orbán. Just as Episode 1, on constitutional design, inevitably "did God", so this episode will surprise some by necessarily dwelling on economics and on the capture of thought-leadership channels, the media and academia, by a swelling government. After all, it is in those circumstances that dissidence becomes necessary.

Listeners who are keeping up with our book discussions might already wish to obtain a copy of Ben Greene's pamphlet The British Constitution and the Corruption of Parliament and an incisive review of its issues on the UK Column website by "A Musing Michael"; these sources will be the focus of Episode 5, Democracy — A "British Value"? (N.B.: due to the amount of material to discuss on democracy, we are again splitting the theme into two episodes, so the introductory section of this series will now be seven episodes long).

A Dissident's Guide to the Constitution: Episode 4 — Democracy: The Books

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