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Welcome back to the Keiser Report, I’m Max Keiser.

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Time now to turn to George Galloway, a
Member of Parliament here in the UK.

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George Galloway, welcome to the Keiser Report.

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George Galloway, got to get to this right away.

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You’re against Scottish Independence. Tell us the
economic and monetary reasons for your position.

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Well first of all it wouldn’t
really be independence.

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We’d still be in the European Union and we’d still
have an unelected monarch as our head of state

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and of course the question of which
currency we would use is a moot one.

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The Bank of England, the
Treasury, would surely not

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allow an independent country
to operate the Pound

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because that would be giving the Scottish
government power without responsibility

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and the Westminster authorities and
the City would have no authority

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over what the Scottish government, the
newly independent Scottish state,

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was doing with the currency,
doing with rates of tax,

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doing with interest rates and so
on, so that’s an impossibility.

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So the possibility emerges of joining the Euro.
Well how’s that going?

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Who in Scotland would be persuaded
to go quietly into that good night?

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There have been occasions when the
Scottish independence movement

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has floated the idea of Scotland as Iceland,

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Scotland as, I don’t know, the
Republic of Ireland before it sank

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and of course the Republic of Ireland is
in the Euro but the Icelanders are not

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and we know the ash that
enveloped the currency and

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indeed the economy and
the whole society there.

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So the question of which money the independent
Scottish state would use is a moot one.

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But of course the more serious problems
are that an independent Scotland

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would trigger a race to the
bottom for working people. Why?

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Because without 71 anti-Conservative
MPs coming from Scotland

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which is precisely the number now- 71
anti-Conservatives, 1 Conservative-

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there would be perpetually Conservative
right-wing government in England

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and in England the government
would ensure, surely,

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that rates of corporate taxation, personal
taxation, public expenditure levels etc…

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were so low that the Scottish
government would have no alternative-

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even if they weren’t enthusiastic
about doing so, which they are-

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of following them to the bottom

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at which point, what price the so-called
progressive, even socialist independent Scotland

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that's projected by supporters
of the SNP, what price that?

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You would have two free market,
Friedmanite, monetarist governments

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chasing each other to the bottom

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and I think the time would come
quite soon that the Scottish people

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would rue the day that they
had broken up this country.

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And my last point is less powerful now than
it once was but it remains I think a fact

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that in these storm-tossed times, to get out
of an ocean liner and get into a rowing boat

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which is what a country of
5 million, with the only

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population in Western Europe
that’s actually falling,

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which is 4000 miles of coastline, oil and gas fast
running out and huge tracts of the country empty,

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that would be a very perilous choice
for the Scottish people to make.

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I mean I understand the pragmatic approach but
does your heart match what your head is saying?

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My heart really does, I’m
against breaking up countries.

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I’ve been against up the break-up
of virtually every country.

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I think the partition of India and
then its repartition was a mistake.

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I think the break-up of the former USSR,
the break-up of the former Yugoslavia,

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or Czechoslovakia now into two states,

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has all been a big mistake,
that in this world that we

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have where huge powerful
economic forces are at work,

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that democratic states have to come
together, not splinter asunder

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and of course if it all goes
wrong, what happens is a

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rise in ethnic, sectarian
tensions, national tensions

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because if it didn’t work out the way the
Scots hoped that it would, who’d be to blame?

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Who’d be blamed for the fact
that the Elysian fields promised

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by the independence movement
have not been delivered?

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I understand that breaking-up countries, you’re
against this idea of breaking-up countries

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but without this kind of recourse for
countries to revolt, as it were,

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there is a consolidation of power
always at the top of the hierarchy

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and we espouse democratic principles but they’re
few and far between; power tends to corrupt.

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But I wanted to ask you about a comment you make
regarding independence, that socialism won’t work.

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Your position is that Scotland would be
socialist and that socialism doesn’t work?

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Socialism in one country didn’t
work even when the country

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concerned stretched from
the Urals to Vladivostok.

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The USSR failed as a socialist country, with all
those people, all that land, all those resources.

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Scotland has few resources, hardly any people

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and would be attached forever, organically,
to a permanently Tory England.

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So the idea that an independent Scotland
could emerge as a kind of cold-water Cuba,

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which is how it’s sold by some on the
left in Scotland, is frankly absurd.

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And when it became clear that it was absurd, as I
say, the search would be on for the scapegoats.

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But let me address if I may the point
you just made because you’re right,

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I’m not suggesting that instead
of breaking-up countries

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we have a kind of Super-EU
run on the current lines.

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There are many serious problems,
fundamental problems, about that model.

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But the answer to that is
to democratise that model,

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not to atomise us all
into independent states.

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Every state will have an army, a navy, an air
force, a chain of embassies around the world,

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we’ll have bureaucracies, we’ll
have a flag and a border

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and the temptation with borders is that you stand
at them shouting ‘Boo!’ at Johnny Foreigner.

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That’s what’s wrong with the
Farage/UKIP perspective for the UK

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and it’s what’s wrong with the Alex
Salmond/SNP perspective for Scotland.

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Let’s talk about this idea of socialism for a
second because if I'm understanding correctly

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you’re suggesting that in Scotland’s
case it wouldn’t necessarily work

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but it’s not a blanket
condemnation of socialism as such

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because of course the way that
people view the world typically

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is they break it into two opposing
ideologies: socialism and capitalism.

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I don’t think I could safely put
you in the camp of a capitalist

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so under the very crude
definitions that we are forced

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to live with, unfortunately,
in this day and age,

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there’s usually that split
[of] socialism-capitalism.

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If you’re not capitalism,
you’re kind of socialism,

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but you’re saying that it
wouldn’t necessarily work for

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Scotland, you’re just saying
that in Scotland’s case,

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you’re not saying socialism as such doesn't work

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because obviously in Venezuela
under Hugo Chavez- [you’re

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a] big supporter there-
that’s a socialist model.

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So how do you fine-tune it?

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Yeh, I mean socialism as a
concept is not a busted flush

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but it can only work where you have a
critical mass of population, resources

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and the ability to actually act independently.
Scotland has none of these three things.

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We would not be acting
independently because we’d still

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be tied to the English currency
if the English agreed,

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and they would only agree if we signed over any
independent tools of changing the economy…

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Let me jump in, because what
I’m hearing as a tactician,

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you're saying this is not
necessarily a great idea.

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Let's roll this on... You’re an MP for the
Respect Party in the House of Commons

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and obviously the Respect Party
wants to increase its influence

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 and you want to bring in other
MPs under the Respect Party.

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You mention Nigel Farage-
here’s a guy who was really

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on the outlying force- UKIP
started on the fringe.

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And they’ve really made their
way into mainstream [politics].

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As a party leader for Respect, are there
any lessons [to be] learned from that?

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Number One, from the tactical point of view,
putting aside the politics for a second,

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as a mere tactician Nigel Farage
seems like he’s done a good job.

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He has and I try to do the same kind of thing.

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Be honest, be straight, be real, be a human
being, not a speak-your-weight machine,

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say what you mean and mean what you say.

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Farage is perceived in the country to be all
of these things and I try to do the same.

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Of course, selling right-wing
nationalist ideas to the simple-minded

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is an easier task the selling left-wing,
progressive, socialist ideas,

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especially in the sea of media power all around us

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which is deeply hostile to the
kind of things we talk about.

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Let me ask you a question:

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it seems that Nigel Farage’s popularity is not
really home-grown, it came from foreign media.

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Nigel Farage is a star on RT
because he’s been on RT’s shows

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and this raises global awareness to the point
where the UK media couldn’t ignore him anymore.

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This speaks to the fact that a
huge institution like the BBC,

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very centralised, autocratic institution
here in the UK, is losing its grip;

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Murdoch’s side of the picture, certainly,
and this global media, alternative media-

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I know you’re big on Facebook and Twitter- how’s
that playing into your political ambitions?

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I mean I think you’re right,
there comes a point at which

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the mainstream- so-called
lamestream- British media

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cannot ignore the phenomenon
that are rising in the country.

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One of them is a detestation of the British state
in Scotland, of the European Union in England.

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Others are of what I call the three
cheeks of the same backside,

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the three rulers of the mainstream parties

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who have an iron-clad consensus
behind war, privatisation, austerity.

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The media, the prevailing orthodoxy-

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Dr Johnson said the grimmest
dictatorship of them all

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is the dictatorship of the
prevailing orthodoxy-

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and the prevailing orthodoxy would have prevailed
were it not for, as you say, foreign media,

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the existence of Twitter, Facebook, the
Internet, the ether, the cyber wars,

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ideological wars that are
going on, they have climbed

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over the walls of that
prevailing orthodoxy.

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Now of course on the foreign media side,

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your appearance before Congress in America
just a few short years ago testifying,

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where you slammed the gentleman who was asking you
the questions, and I wanted to ask you something:

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I was watching that event and it seems
to me that it was a great example

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of how education in the two
countries is vastly different

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because in this country
of course, people grow up

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debating and in the Houses of
Parliament debates are key

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and you see [it in] Question Time every Wednesday.

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In the US there’s no such tradition at all.

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It was like watching Muhammad Ali go after a gnat.

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I don’t even remember the guy’s
name [who] you were debating…

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Ex-senator Norman Coleman.

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Ex-senator Norman Coleman!
But it was so one-sided!

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I mean you’re a brilliant orator in your own right

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but this is a system that produces, in
the House of Commons, a lot more debate.

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We have about a minute left, you know the
system so well, how do you contrast the two?

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Well it’s a good point, Senator
Coleman, [as] George W.

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Bush would say,
mis-underestimated me.

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He thought I was just a working class
son of immigrants from a Scottish city,

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how could I stand up to the princes of the Senate?

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And therein lays the point.

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These Senators regard themselves as princes and
other people treat them as if they were princes.

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No one goes into the court of the
Sultan and speaks the truth to them.

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I got up-close, personal and punched
the living daylights out of them.

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It’s good you made the Muhammad Ali analogy.
I’m a former boxer myself.

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Rocky Marciano was the model I purposefully
set out to follow on that day.

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I decided not to be Muhammad
Ali, not to be Mike Tyson,

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just to be Rocky Marciano, remorselessly
punching, punching, punching.

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But as a boxer I can tell you that
you see in the other guy’s eyes

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the point at which he wishes
he was no longer there.

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In boxing you can throw in the towel

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but in politics, in front of live
TV cameras from all over the world,

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you simply cannot and there was no escaping.
He could run but he couldn’t hide.

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Look it up on YouTube, it’s George Galloway vs.
Norm Coleman who is long gone

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but George Galloway of course is on the ascent.

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Thanks so much for being on the Keiser Report.

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Pleasure.

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That’s going to do it for
this edition of the Keiser

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Report with me, Max
Keiser and Stacy Herbert.

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I’d like to thank our guest
George ‘Gorgeous’ Galloway,

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a Member of Parliament
for the Respect Party.