Eddie Izzard is Going Into Politics | Joe Rogan

So you are running for something now? What are you doing? I've said that for nine years, quite consistently, I would like to say that I was going to run in 2020. We had set terms in our politics like you always had. You've had a four year. We arranged it into a five year, but then we've gone back to the old system, which is where the Prime Minister of the country can choose when they have an election and it can be anywhere up to a day, the next day after the election or up to five years later. So we have no idea. So the Prime Minister can decide, you know what, we'll have another election in two weeks. Yeah, and they wouldn't do that for them. But you know, like we had a general election in 2015. And then in 2017, having been there for only two years, Theresa May was persuaded that if you go for election now, you're going to win big, you can win tons of extra seats and then we'll be able to do whatever we want. But in fact, they lost seats in the election. So, you know, sometimes they grab it. Sometimes you go in the fourth. There's a traditional thing of going in the fourth year, because if you've got all the economics going and everything's pretty good. OK, let's go now. We've got a year to spare, but let's go in the fourth year and we can, because we know we're in a good place and then you have to allow six weeks for an election campaign. But yeah, we do that. I think other countries do that. But I'm sure to America you go, that sounds crazy. But anyway, that's what we've been doing for some time. What are you going to run for? A member of parliament for some constituency, hopefully in England, would be my thing, as opposed to the United Kingdom, because there's Wales and Scotland. Is this a step? Are you going to move further along the line? Or are you going to eventually? No, that would be once I stand for an MP, then I would. Glenda Jacks, I don't know if you know Glenda Jacks, but she did this. Well, Arna Schwarz, you know about him, because he went away and then came back to the creative work that he was doing to. Doing films, but he went away for seven years. So I will go away for a period of time and put my career to hibernation. And just do politics. Just do politics. But you have a set period of time where you're going to do this and then afterwards you're going to retire? No, I would do it. No set period of time. I just kind of go off and work as hard as I can, as far as I can, and then I come back when I choose to come back. So no stand up, no nothing during that time? You could do stand up if you're raising money for charity, if I'm raising money for the Labour Party or my party. I think that would be allowable. I think my constituency members wouldn't mind that if I was raising money for constituency. But if I was just doing it for myself, well, you can write books. You'd have to write books and articles. It's all a bit hazy, but I'm not sure if you have the same system. We have a similar system. My friend Doug Stanhope was running for president briefly, kind of as a lark, and realized that he really couldn't do stand up, because if he did stand up, he would have to allow equal time for everyone else who wanted to perform, who also had some, like his stand up performances were then thought of as political campaign performances. Something along those lines. It was like some weird bullshit that he was going to have to navigate that he decided to just back out of it. Yeah. But he was bullshitting the entire time. Really. He was just doing it for fun. No, I'm going to do it. I'm going to go in. I think a lot of moderate people don't go in. I consider myself a radical moderate. I do radical things with a moderate message, and I've already done a number of things like that in my life. So I'm just going to take that in and... What's your goal? My goal is to try and encourage my country and the world to go in a positive direction. I think I've been saying this politically that I think this is our last century on Earth or it's our first century on Earth. I think next 80 years is for everything. We're going to choose everything here. We're either going to wipe ourselves off the planet or we're going to make it a fair world for 7.5 billion people. Where you have a right to have a fair world. Enough democracy and transparency. Enough money to live a life, to have a family. Not everyone, not billions of people living on one dollar a day or two dollars a day. So I think we need to get to there because then immigration rises its head, your country, my country, every country in the world. And that's all people moving around because they haven't got enough money to live on or they haven't got enough security because there's a war, civil war. And if we could get beyond that, then a lot of those problems drop away. So, but going into politics and talking about a global vision of the future and whatever is slightly, it's a very difficult thing to do because people are going to say, oh, you've just asked for that. How is that helping this this global vision? But I just thought we seem to be trying 90s, 30s politics again and in political areas. So I thought, well, I'm going to I'm going to look for a vision of a positive vision of the future. And I know when I came out as transgender in 85, there was no way I could imagine anything. I didn't know where it was going to go. I just thought I could need to go out there, need to argue or discuss at least, try and set up a positive image version, you know, because I'm not sure what age you are, but I think it was 51. If it went so, you know, I'm 57. So remember in the earlier years of our lives, it was just so out there transgender. You didn't even talk about it. I mean, gay and lesbian people out, but transgender was like some crazy out there place. What the hell are you on about? And that was that was when I came in the middle of that. Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't an easy thing, but I just thought I'm if I'm not going to do special forces, I'll do this civilian. That is a hilarious group of choices, special forces or transgender. Well, I did the the civilian special forces, but then I had to fight on the streets and argue people and be and it's all mental, isn't it? Right. If you're if you're in a isn't any way the same because people are shooting bullets at you and people are dying and getting blown up. So I know there's a massive difference there, but everything in the end is psychological. And if I wasn't going to do that, I was going to try and do this and I would take risks in these areas of of, you know, I'll go out and people say things the street or whatever they do and do that. And then I'll run the math. So you were going out knowing that you might have to be in an altercation. Yeah, I'm sure that was going to happen. Teenagers are hard. They just point and scream at you.