Konstantin Kisin: anti-woke libertarian who reluctantly calls himself ‘right wing'
Konstantin Kisin has until this week been best known as a libertarian, pro-free speech independent podcaster, and for a viral appearance at the Oxford Union arguing that 'woke culture has gone too far'.
His profile has suddenly risen, however, after hosting the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, on his podcast, and arguing in an episode with Fraser Nelson, the former editor of the Spectator, that Rishi Sunak was not English owing to his 'brown Hindu' background – triggering criticism on social media.
Kisin has rounded off the week by giving a keynote speech at the hard-right Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc) conference where he delivered one of his often-repeated jokes: 'I love this country and I say so publicly, which is how you know I still haven't integrated into British culture.'
In a speech covering anti-woke themes, he argued 'identity politics and multiculturalism … are two failed experiments' and railed against diversity, equality and inclusion as 'anti-meritocratic discrimination'.
Kisin did not directly address the controversy about his Sunak comments in his speech, but responded to a journalist challenging him on X, saying: 'The Moron Industrial Complex is desperately trying to fabricate outrage over the fact that I said there is a difference between being British, an umbrella imperial identity into which we can all integrate, as I have done, and being English which is a group that, at the very least, has an ethnicity dimension.'
Related: US culture war show comes to London – and strikes a chord with European populists
A Soviet Russian-born former pupil of a Bristol boarding school, who initially forged a career as a comedian, Kisin is co-host with the comedian Francis Foster of a podcast known as Triggernometry. It has 1.25 million subscribers and has featured guests from Reform UK's Nigel Farage, to the centre-right Tory Rory Stewart and the Canadian psychology professor and culture warrior Jordan Peterson.
The podcast is known for its promotion of free speech and attraction to controversial subjects, with Kisin named in 2023 by the New Statesman as one of the top 50 rightwingers in British politics.
But despite hosting many rightwing antagonists on his podcast, Kisin has long fought off the description of his politics – anti-woke, pro-west, in favour of defending borders and recently pro-Trump – as 'right wing'.
Kisin, who describes himself as a 'politically non-binary satirist', claims to be challenging the perception that defence of free speech should be a rightwing position, and has previously referred to himself as a centrist-liberal remainer who has only ever voted Labour or Lib Dem, and whose comedy heroes are Bill Hicks and George Carlin.
He has also written a Sunday Times bestseller called An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West, which identifies the west as suffering from guilt in discussions about the history of slavery and colonialism. In the book, which is part memoir, he recounts a family history of repression and persecution in Soviet Russia, giving rise to his own commitment to defending free speech. His father served as a junior minister in one of Boris Yeltsin's cabinets before coming to the UK.
A repeated critic of Putin's invasion of Ukraine, he appeared on the BBC's Question Time in 2022 to condemn Russia's actions and recently called Trump's description of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a dictator 'absurd'.
He is, however, a defender of Trump in other ways. On his own social media, Kisin is forthright on a number of hard-right talking points, posting on X in 2023: 'Diversity = anti-white people, inclusion = exclusion, anti-racism = racism.'
He does appear to acknowledge that he has been on something of a journey politically. Kisin recently recorded a YouTube video, in which he described his opposition to some Democratic policies on trans issues and relief that Trump had won the US election, saying: 'If opposing this insanity makes me right wing, then so be it. The choice is between civilisation and people who think men can give birth. Everything else is fluff.'
The video is entitled: 'Fine, call me 'right wing'.'
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