Forget agreeing to disagree - James O'Brien taught Hay Festival Winter Weekend How To Be Right on Saturday afternoon.
"I have had a ringside seat as a significant swathe of the British population was persuaded that their failures were the fault of foreigners, that unisex lavatories threatened their peace of mind and that ‘all Muslims’ must somehow apologise for terror attacks by extremists," he said.
Every day on his primetime LBC show, O’Brien takes on the arguments of ardent Brexiteers, many of whom point to benefits scroungers, the EU, Muslims, feminists and immigrants, as the causes of Britain's ills.
"Brexit means Brexit. Take back control. Lock her up. MAGA. These slogans are the tickets that excuse people from thinking," he argued, while placing much of the blame on the media. "The easiest emotions to spark are anger and fear. I don't think feeding into those feelings was a big media conspiracy; it's a business model."
"It's all turned into football. You pick your scarf, you put it on, and you despise everyone who's wearing a different one. The other side is scum to you."
In his bestselling How To Be Right, he offers a guide to talking to people with faulty opinions. With chapters on every lightning-rod issue, he shows how people have been fooled into thinking the way they do, and in each case outlines the key questions to ask to reveal fallacies, inconsistencies and double standards.
And any grounds for optimism? "Young people... And a People’s Vote."
For all Hay Festival Winter Weekend events visit Hay Player for audio recordings.