Douglas Murray, the Eton educated author and conservative commentator is alleged to have incited violence during an hour long interview with John Anderson (former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia) in November 2023. You can watch the full video here or read the transcript here.

Anderson and Murray spoke in a wide ranging interview on Israel, Immigration and Islam. The video comes across as a strange kind of Little Britain parody complete with pious intellectuals, leather armchairs and weird green wallpaper. Anderson and Murray discuss some of their favourite topics such as imminent western collapse, the benefits of civilisational Christianity and a failed immigration policy in parts of the West. However it was Murray’s comments on what needed to happen at an upcoming pro-Palestine rally in London which irked many on the left. 

The police sanctioned rally was planned for Remembrance Day when the British remember their military sacrifices. Murray explains (from around the 58th minute of the video) that protesters from “Muslim groups, Palestinian groups” would “defile the Cenotaph and the statues of our dead and our war leaders” by chanting “Allah Akbar and and jihad, jihad”. Murray explained that because the UK Police prefer to police by consent the protestors wouldn’t be challenged in any of their actions. Therefore at some point, “if the army will not be sent in, then the public will have to go in, and the public will have to sort it out themselves, & it’ll be very, very brutal.” It’s these words, uttered last November which have now resurfaced along with other allegations of incitement to violence. It should come as no surprise that Murray, in true armchair general style, chose not to heed his own advice (to do something brutal at the rally). And thankfully the event didn’t get anywhere near as apocalyptic as Murray anticipated.

Any honest broker will find it challenging to listen to Murray’s words in the final five minutes of the interview without taking the clear message that reactionary violence by members of the public will eventually be necessary against the groups of people he mentions.

Murray’s 2022 book “The War on the West” and the promotional image used by Harper Collins.

It’s noteworthy that none of the media outlets who vigorously defend Murray are even prepared to acknowledge exactly what he actually said. Instead they obfuscate and deflect to side issues. For instance Fraser Nelson, the Editor of The Spectator (where Murray is a columnist) claimed Murray was the target of a twitter lynch mob which was slightly ironic given that Murray himself seemed to be calling for an actual lynch mob to be sent into action.

The Editors at US based Free Press (where Murray is also a columnist) highlighted all indiscretions made by others on tangental issues but failed to acknowledge the one Murray made during that interview. They also offer uplifting phrases such as “nothing will stop our columnist from truth-telling” and “the more they try to intimidate him, the more they prove him right.” (It’s funny how the far right always claim to be intimidated into silence, while the far left say things like “our voices are marginalised”. They have more in common than they think.)

You’ll find a raft of other divisive and inflammatory comments in the interview itself. For instance on the question of immigration to the West, Anderson claims there are now “barbarians inside our gates”. Murray says that “many of them broke into our house illegally” and that “they’ve spat in all our faces, and now they want to trample everything we have.” You can almost hear the spirit of Enoch Powell (made famous for his Rivers of Blood speech) when Murray proclaims that “the British soul is awakening and stirring with rage at what these people are doing.”

This controversy certainly isn’t about restricting discussions on important ideas as Murrays defenders allege. You can easily find strong opinion on everything that Anderson and Murray discuss. If the tables were turned and someone had advocated similar “brutal” action against attendees at a pro-Israeli rally there would rightly be calls of anti-semitism and anti-Zionism from both the Spectator and The Free Press. But in this instance those circling Murray’s wagon prefer to focus on the personalities, motives and timing of his critics rather than address his inflammatory remarks.