YouSaid · the spoken record

Zarah Sultana

lines on the record: 70
first: 2025-10-31
most recent: 2025-10-31
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yes. There isn't something that I think any young Muslim can specifically point to. There wasn't a specific phrase a politician said it wasn't a specific headline on a newspaper, but there was an atmosphere, a climate created through policy, through discourse in our press, our politicians, where the authorization begins. Because growing up, you're just like every other kid. You're playing on the playground. You know, you're supporting a different football team. No one really cares. You're all the same. And then suddenly you don't feel like you're all the same. There's something that's quite distinctly different.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, my granddad moved from Azarga Shmir and he worked in a foundry in Tipton where he was a trade union member. And my granddad installed the values of working hard, sense of community, trade unionism that was a desire for a better life, more opportunities, and that's been a real grounding experience for me, yes.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I believe that our foreign policy is an extension of our domestic policy and while we followed the US into Iraq, we also saw that play out locally and nationally. I remember my local street being graffiti and it was related to Afghanistan. There was a graffiti calling it Taliban Street. I remember the racism and much of that feels like very little has changed. And I remember being really aware of the prevent strategy in particular and the role that that played in surveillance, in policing people, especially people from a Muslim background in what they could and couldn't talk about.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In other words, you're still at primary school. Me and my dad have been on demonstrations, but it was conversations we were having at home about these issues. And the school that I went to is an incredible state comprehensive. The teachers really cared about us and I'm in contact with so many of them today. We did early GCSCs. I mean, I did a classical civilization GCSC in year nine on Wednesday mornings because our teachers really invested in us. But a senior police officer from the West Midlands who had never visited my school went to the city council and said every kid in my school would be able to tell him which gang they would end up in. And he had never met us, but he profiled us based on the postcode, based on the school we went to, based on who we were and how we grew up.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but it wasn't an active membership that they took part in. As someone who grew up in the shadows of the war on terror, I grew up in inner city Birmingham and I remember that there was security cameras that were installed in another part of the city which I didn't grow up in in Alan Rock and the local community were told that these cameras are being installed as traffic calming measures and we later found out they were to spy on the local Muslim community. So those early experiences really shaped me because I'm thinking what is going on here. Why is my community being spied on?”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I disagree with that, Nick, because those reversals haven't been in whole, they are still means tested. And when it comes to the two-child benefit cap, that decision could be made today to stop hundreds of thousands of children in our country from living in avoidable poverty. That is a political choice that is still being made today. And so this government is content with satisfying spreadsheets and justifying that. I think that's unacceptable because the country we live in is a wealthy country. It's the sixth largest economy in the world, yet we have hundreds of thousands of children in poverty. We have our public services on the brink. The NHS on its knees, it doesn't have to be like this. And this Labour government is continuing.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My politics hasn't changed, and the manifesto that I stood on didn't say that we were going to keep the two-child benefit cap. It didn't say that the Labour Party would scrap winter fuel payments for pensioners. It didn't say that they would attack disabled people and cut their disability benefits, and it definitely didn't say that they would continue selling arms to a genocidal apartheid state and then deny the fact that this genocide, then invite war criminals here to the UK and roll out the red carpet. So all of these things weren't in the manifesto.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If members decide to go for a sole leader structure, I would throw my hat in the ring, but I've always said I've wanted to do this with Jeremy.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I want a co-leader structure because I think me and Jeremy both bring very different things to the table. We speak to different constituencies of people. We represent the broad movement. And it's what 800,000 people were so excited by, that offer of me and Jeremy leading the process of building this party.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Essentially, we are working together to build a party that is not led by six MPs myself included. And some of the challenges around that were getting the democracy in place and actually now we are having a conference. We are going to have people vote on motions around governance, finance structure. And that's really important.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That you can put differences aside, and the show is back on the road. And like I said in Liverpool, actually I was in Manchester. That is another gag there. In Manchester, that if Liam and Noel can go back together, then me and Jeremy, of course, can work it out.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think being able to disagree and argue is actually a very healthy part of politics, and we should have more of it done in an open democratic way. And what's happening over the past few weeks, Jeremy said it hasn't covered us in glory. And I would agree with that. I think the key thing is to learn lessons from that period and how we're moving forward and establishing the party, which, like I said, hasn't been done in recent British political history and conference and then being able to organise in constituencies across the country.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Been some teething issues, and what I will say to that is that there hasn't been any effort to create a new political party on the left, that is socialist, that is democratic, that is member-led. And whenever I've spoken to friends and colleagues across Europe, so La Francis Somise in France, the Belgian Workers' Party, they've all gone through similar experiences, Delinca in Germany. And this is just part of the process. And now we're focused on conference in November.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have been advocating for it to be called the left or the left party because it is what it says on the tin. I haven't got any insider knowledge in terms of internal polls with the members, but I don't know what it's going to be. I don't think they will go for the left party despite my strong advocacy for it. And I'm going to obviously support whatever the members decide. But I think embracing our politics and being proud of who we are on the left as socialists and then going out and looking on doors and selling that vision is incredibly important.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have what you're smoking. That would have been absolutely insane to hear. But we do live in wild, incredible times. And I think what we're seeing play out in politics is a response to that, a climate crisis, the rise of the far right, deepening inequality. And it's not just something that's specific to the UK we see across Europe as well.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In May 2019, so we had the EU elections. I was on the regional list in the West Midlands, and Jeremy came for an event in the West Midlands, and we had a really nice conversation. And he just said to me, oh, we've got to think about what you're going to do next. And that will always stay with me.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't remember because my memory is like a sieve, but I do have this one memory. I ran for the European elections in the West Midlands, and that was before the general election. And people thought I was insane because obviously we were going to leave the EU.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is way more fit and active than me despite being much older. But yeah, an incredible honour to be doing this with Jeremy Salon, who I look up to, someone that I've worked very closely with during his time in the Labour Party and during my time in the Labour Party. And historic record of standing up for the most marginalised in our society, advocating for peace and justice and wealth redistribution is something that I obviously also try to do my work”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely not. I couldn't have imagined anything like this, including being an MP, but it's an incredible opportunity and I'm really excited about it”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm in politics because of a desire to change people's lives, and that means winning state power, and that's what I'm committed to.”
2025-10-31 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Life after Labour: Zarah Sultana on Palestine, Farage and 'Your Party' · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source