Seeing as we've been making these films for well over 10 years now and also we've been encouraged
to believe that we're on our way out of one reality into God knows whatever comes next,
it seemed like a good opportunity to take stock and look at Anywhere but Westminster and ask
why and what next, probably with the help of the people who watched the films.
So let's start at the beginning when we first started making these films back in 2009 and in the
beginning there were party conferences, right? – There was and the lord said, 'you will be bored'.
Very, very strange places. Completely sort of artificial environment, really.
It was like a metaphor for how bad politics had become, right?
We started going out and talking to people on the streets.
Can I ask you a question? We are making a film about people looking for jobs ...
So this was early in the coalition, austerity was in full effect.
I can remember I was horribly hungover that day
and we had in our heads some idea that we'd talk to people and then we take that into the conference.
We met these two young guys, one of whom had just come back from a tour of duty in Afghanistan
who was selling paintball and getting paid a pittance.
How much are you making on a bad day? – Nothing.
Nothing.
All day for nothing? – Yeah, what else is there? There's no other way.
I'm 19 years old, I'm full of ambition, desire,
I want to want to do something but at the moment, I've got nowhere to turn to at the moment.
I felt really sort of crushed going back into the conference, the sort of vividness
and the life of the conversations that we'd had and the sort of deadening effects of
walking in a conference, I mean, that was it really ...
Then it taught us politics should be
covered from the street rather than from the inside.
Yeah.
It's getting more difficult all the time, to be honest with you.
We had a pay freeze last year, we facing the same,
you know, next year from April.
What, you're working a 60-hour week? What's the money like?
Shit.
That's today's catch in there, how have you done?
You really need to know? Terrible.
So more than ever you felt that this sort of
idyll that had been painted, this sort of prosperous country where everyone
was broadly content, you know, that was the sort of 90s vision and that had slipped away.
But it hadn't yet found a political expression ...
Not a political expression
but there was a lot of people going, 'well, I don't like this, this is making me feel weird' and it made
us feel weird as well.
And then along came 2014.
How's the place doing? –Rubbish.
Really? – Terrible.
They call it Beirut, basically.
We're a backwater, aren't we? That nobody gives a shit about.
Do you think Mr Farage are any different?
Well, I'm hoping so.
They're all lying, aren't they?
All of them, the ins and outs.
We get to decide on the future of this bit of land.
It's actually the first time I've ever voted. – You're joking.
If we start this, we could make a big forward movement for the rest of the country because
I think we should because I think the poverty in this country between us and England and everywhere
else shouldn't be happening in 2014.
What's your message then to people in Yorkshire
or Liverpool or Manchester or Cornwall?
Ask for a referendum. Change it all.
Make a movement.
Sick pay, pay increase ...
You think you'll get it?
Yeah, we have to, we have to get it.
This is a precious thing for Kensington, I think if that was to be taken away, you know, you could ...
Where are you from? – Portugal.
Portugal. Where are you from?
Cameroon.
OK, and you are from? – Malaysia.
And you're from? – Liverpool.
2016.
Sorry to bother you, can I give you a leaflet about the upcoming referendum?
I really start to get a sense now, of how like all referendums,
this one is about much more than what's on the ballot paper.
We didn't know what was going to happen and certainly the idea that remain was a shoo-in
was just absurd, right?
And so we decided quite quickly, right we gotta go on the road.
It's too much a recession here.
No jobs for English people.
But you're not from England originally.
No, I'm here nearly 40 years.
You know, I mean, I studied environmental health and I can't even get a job.
As a person who came into the UK 15, 16 years ago,
I've seen the change, I know what is happening, I've been there, it's affected me but the thing is
I'm pulling out.
My mum had her wake there, god rest her soul,
in the Billy Green, yeah.
Booming, thriving Manchester's only 10 minutes drive down there.
Yeah.
Why does that happen? – Money talks.
Last question. How are you voting in this referendum?
Out.
They are all voting in in town.
Of course they will, they've got that.
We were in this exact same spot when we had a very good encounter
with a fella who came out the Betfred betting shop.
Quite by chance, he's there again.
See, all them people
who vote for Brexit, all came out on their Zimmer frames because they're patriotic and they wanted
Britain to be great and it will never be great again.
When they were going around robbing and reaping,
they were great then, now people are looking for revenge, you understand me?
They're taking back what they can take out of England.
I was one of the Windrush that was going to be deported.
They said I had no right of residency in this country and I came here 59 when I was four.
People have been conned.
The same as it's my fault that the country's on its knees because of
disabled people and jobless people, all the rest of it, it's nothing to do with the Tories, is it?
But do you have a meaningful option in this election do you think?
Absolutely. For the first time ever,
I think we've genuinely got a choice.
I want to vote against crony capitalism and the only way to do
that is to vote someone like Jeremy Corbyn.
Change the priority, stop spending money on bloody war,
feed and clothe the poor, every single person, not one person excluded, yeah, and we could actually
progress as a species on this planet.
What's your name, sir?
I am the tin man.
Thank you Mr tin man, it was lovely to meet you.
Basically, what we've been covering for years, right, people's insecurity and
sense of loss about places they lived in, lay behind a lot of these political responses.
Yeah, it did.
And people had them in common right? People wanted their communities to be better.
They wanted more security and control over their lives but those commonalities got lost and instead
what we got is division.
Well, I think what you got in the wake of the referendum was the drama
and spectacle of division and polarisation and argument because that's what you see if you're
not careful when you pick up your telephone, right?
As soon as you go on any social media platform.
And what got lost in the midst of that was, you know, the thing that we'd been reminded
of endlessly down the years which was that no matter where you went and who you spoke to
a hell of a lot of the same stuff came out about insecurity and equality, people wanting a greater
sense of community and a future they can sort of depend on, right?
The other important thing is that everywhere we go,
people are all right, right, we like them, they're good people
and that we meet people doing great work in their communities both big and small, right?
Yeah, yeah.
People within the Wigan community, they've got the ideas.
The only thing that they're lacking at the minute is the funding.
For me, I believe that our idea literally could change the world.
Yeah, you find everything from sort of small kindnesses, passing between sort of friends
and neighbours to big ambitious projects and all of them are sort of political but only with a small p, right?
I mean that's one of the fascinating things about it.
I'd like to know more about those,
I'd like to cover those things more.
Yeah, they're the sort of people we need to put into the foreground.
The precautions we have to take ... I don't like these are very Hannibal Lecter.
I don't think you can ask people to talk about ... This is not right.
Can I talk to you for a minute?
Life's shit.
You ain't earning no money.
Mental health's, it's gone down ...
My mental has been affected and, like, no one's asked, like ...
I'll ask if you don't mind.
I mean, how have you been?
Very lonely, I felt like I didn't have anyone to talk to, like ...
This isn't some sort of, I don't think people think of this as some ball from the blue
that turned everything upside down.
It's like one more thing and this is the biggest thing so far.
So, what do you guys ... – We work for The Guardian, the newspaper.
OK, what are you asking questions about?