Transcriber: Peter van de Ven Reviewer: Tanya Cushman
Have you guys ever been, let's say, in the back seat of a car,
and it's heading off a cliff, and there's nobody at the steering wheel?
What would you do?
Would you sit there
hoping that your car happened to be a transformer
or just enjoy the view,
or would you grab the wheel?
Generally speaking,
other than about 9/11 and the Iraq War,
I didn't really care about politics as a kid,
never really took notice.
My parents would occasionally mention
the names of politicians I'd never heard of,
and I sort of figured that the older generation had it covered;
they knew what they were doing;
they make intelligent, pragmatic decisions around politics
and that I'd only really need to worry about it when I got to their age.
So how did that guy go from there,
with, well, start 2016, I had, I think, 20 followers on Twitter,
to the person right now,
who seems to keep getting on the news on a regular basis
and has just under a quarter of a million followers on Twitter?
Because I recognised that there was nobody at the wheel.
And there wasn't.
In 2016, where we're having a massive conversation
about, well, Brexit, obviously,
but nobody was giving us the facts,
David Cameron had -
I looked at a conversation that was occurring
between "take back control of our laws" and "massive economic damage",
and didn't bother explaining the link.
You may know the term "single market".
How many of you in here can honestly tell me
you know what the word "single market" means?
Yeah.
We've heard it on the news pretty much every day,
and nobody's been explaining it.
Let me - let's do this right now.
Imagine if the EU didn't exist,
you had 28 countries making their own laws in their own way,
and you wanted to sell, let's say, beer to those 28 different countries.
But they market beer in different ways.
You'd have to market, manufacture and produce your product
in 28 different ways,
sending your costs through the roof,
whereas under the single market, because you make laws together,
one version of your product
is automatically legal to sell across 28 countries,
lowering consumer prices, lowering supermarket prices,
improving standards of living.
I just explained the single market in 30 seconds;
David Cameron had five months ...
There was nobody at the wheel.
Theresa Villiers,
who was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland during the referendum,
actually used this phrase:
"The border arrangements in Northern Ireland
have been broadly consistent for the last hundred years."
Basically, Good Friday Agreement - not really a thing.
Nobody at the wheel.
Nigel Farage,
telling things about immigration that were simply untrue,
and I'll get to those later -
nobody at the wheel.
So you need to recognise
that the people who are running the show
don't necessarily know what they're doing,
and sometimes it is going to be up to you to step up.
And so that's what I did.
I started off on Facebook,
but all my Facebook friends were pretty much already convinced,
and, yeah, so I had to move on to Twitter.
And at that point, I realised, hang on, I'm already in a bubble here,
and so I started calling up Nigel Farage as well
because I wanted to keep moving out of my bubble.
Because if you talk to people who are already convinced,
you are doing nothing,
you're effectively talking to yourself.
So here's what happened when I gave Nigel Farage a call.
(Video) Nigel Farage: We will between now and June 23rd
make one very simple point:
When Theresa May says
that it is difficult to control immigration
as a member of the European Union,
she's wrong.
It isn't difficult;
it's impossible.
(Applause on video)
There is nothing we can do
to stop unlimited numbers of people from EU countries
settling in this country
and enjoying the same rights and privileges as all the rest of us.
Femi Oluwole: But I'm reading right here
article seven of the EU Citizens' Rights Directive,
which says that in order to come here without a job,
you need to have sufficient resources
to not become a burden
on the social assistance system of the host country
and have comprehensive medical insurance.
NF: Femi, in theory, you're right.
In theory, under European treaties, there's restrictions that can be placed -
there is nothing we can do -
under European treaties there are restrictions that can be placed.
(On stage) FO: So we're talking about the man behind Brexit
saying that his primary message for getting people to vote for Brexit
was a total lie,
a year after the vote.
Again, the people who are in charge do not necessarily -
well, he may know what he was talking about,
but it may not necessarily be true,
which means that it is up to you to protect your future and your country.
And so it was by moving out of my comfort zone,
out of the bubble that I created on social media,
speaking to people on the other side,
that I managed to break through and take control of the steering wheel.
And that's what you need to do.
You need to make yourself into what the conversation needs.
We had a conversation that was completely devoid of facts,
the ability to communicate those facts, and understanding of both sides.
Make yourself into what the conversation needs.
Now what I did
was I took on absolutely every argument that I could find on social media.
Whatever anybody said, any argument thrown at me,
I would think about it and figure out what the response to that argument was
so I was fully informed
so that I was adding something new to the debate
that wasn't already there.
Now, what that means is
because I've taken on pretty much every argument that exists around Brexit,
whenever I go on TV, on the news,
there is no argument you can throw at me
that I haven't already heard a thousand times,
so I've got a prepared response.
Because that's what you need to do: you need to make yourself useful.
Now, how you do that is by knowing your stuff.
I got lucky.
This idea that remainers are all educated and understand all the stuff about the EU
is a lie.
I happened to study EU law at university,
which meant that I know my stuff.
And your usefulness to the conversation
is only as good as your knowledge of the facts
and your ability to communicate those facts
in a simple and persuasive way.
So know your stuff.
Do your research.
If you care about climate change,
know the facts.
If you care about injustice, know the law.
This is seriously important
because otherwise, you will not be useful in the issues that you care about.
Secondly,
if you're on Twitter, on Facebook or on Instagram,
especially if you're starting small,
you have to make yourself certain rules.
You need to know that you're going to be the go-to
that people go to if they want to have information
or a perspective on an issue.
Now, what that means is when you're starting out,
you can't be posting everything that comes into your head.
That means - because what you want to do
is make sure that you only post your top-shelf content at the start
so that when somebody comes to your page,
they want to click "follow"
because they think, "Oh, amazing post, amazing post, amazing post."
That's what you want to do if you want to grow quickly.
Because, like I said, 20 followers in 2016,
239 or so thousand followers now.
Because I recognised what people want to see when they come to your page.
Second, another thing.
You need to make sure
that you don't speak exclusively from your own perspective.
Now, what that means is
you need to speak from the perspective of those people you're talking to.
Now what that means is
you can't make people care about things that they don't already care about.
All you can do is make sure
that they know that the things that you care about
affect the things they care about.
For example,
if you're speaking to somebody
who is massively passionate about controlling immigration,
you're not going to convince them
by telling them all the benefits about European solidarity.
What you do is you point out, as I did with Nigel Farage,
the law around the EU.
You point out the fact that the EU has controls on immigration;
you make the things that they care about relevant to the things you care about.
If you're speaking to somebody about climate change,
you don't say -
if they perhaps aren't necessarily engaged in the Brexit debate -
you won't get them by talking about the beauty of the EU;
you'll get them by talking about the things they care about.
If I speak to somebody passionate about the environment, I will say,
"Hang on, you care about the environment.
Over the next seven years,
if we're spending all of our time and our energy
in negotiating with the EU and Donald Trump at the same time,
is the government going to be focused on climate change?
No.
In fact, they will actually use the economic crisis
as an excuse to scale back on environmental protections."
So by doing so,
I've made an argument that the things that I care about
are relevant to the things that you care about.
If you are somebody who cares deeply about climate change
and you're speaking to somebody who only cares about business,
you make the point that "Hang on,
you're dealing with a population
that is increasingly aware of climate change issues,
so if you want to impress your customers,
you need to make sure you're climate conscious."
Again, frame your argument
according to the values of the person you're speaking to.
Another thing.
Especially in an age like where we are today,
trust in the people making political arguments is crucial,
and it is dying.
Now, one of the reasons is people don't trust politicians,
well, some people don't trust experts.
You have to work around that by building trust.
It's a reason we created Our Future Our Choice -
because you recognise people don't trust politicians
or experts or business experts,
while the only people they do trust is young people.
In fact, young people stand up, fighting for their future
because we care about what our future's going to look like.
And one of the ways that you can show that you are trustworthy
is by showing all of your personality.
It isn't posting everything that comes to your head;
that means showing more of who you are.
So I make sure that when I'm tweeting,
I show pretty much all the aspects of myself.
For example, everybody on Twitter knows that I'm a massive Buffy fan.
And so, as a result, I'm not just an agenda.
If I was just tweeting about Brexit, I would be an agenda alone,
but because I show who I am, people know where I'm coming form.
Now,
as a final point, I would say
nothing in the world is the way it ought to be.
It's harsh and cruel,
but that's why there's us.
No matter where we come from, what we've done or suffered,
or even if we make a difference:
we live as though the world were as it should be
to show it what it can be.
Because if nothing we do matters,
then all that matters is what we do.
Now, that is a point that is super, super important to remember
because you will feel a lot of the time like there's nothing you can -
like things aren't really changing,
that the obstacles in your path are too great,
that progress is so slow,
that "This person is in charge, so how can I make a difference?"
or "I did this, and it didn't achieve what I needed it to achieve."
You're going to get knocks.
But if you don't make that effort,
if you're not out there,
well, if you don't break out of that bubble,
if you don't move into that empty space,
if you don't grab that wheel,
then we're definitely going off a cliff.
Oh, by the way, that quote?
Not Benjamin Franklin. That's from Buffy as well.
(Laughter)
So, yeah, but.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)