Inside the radical festival uniting the left and right

How The Light Gets In – the philosophy festival which returns to London this September – is the best of the 2026 festivals, and offers an unrivalled opportunity for human connection ★★★★★

Picture the scene: Jeremy Corbyn and Reform UK’s head of policy are kicking back together in a field in Wales. Admittedly, they aren’t alone: people from as far afield as China, Brazil and Afghanistan have come to the world’s biggest philosophy festival to hear opposing voices engage in rational debate – or at least try their very best to.

How The Light Gets In invites world-leading thinkers from the spheres of philosophy, science, technology, economics and politics to Hay-on-Wye to debate the most contentious topics of today. This September, the event returns to London, taking place on Hampstead Heath from 19 – 20 September.

It isn’t all politics. Hundreds of people had turned up to hear one strange-sounding talk attempting to answer the question: “is water wet?”

If that sounds too out there, musicians helped punters shake the existentialism. Live sets turned cerebral days into lazier evenings. Damian Lewis, the film and TV star, sang, female quintet Girl Group managed to get a load of philosophy heads moshing to their indie-pop-punk, and there were disco-infused DJs sets and late-night cabaret.

The festival is rare for how it unites voices from the left and right. Set up by English philosopher Hilary Lawson, who City AM interviewed in 2024, in a whimsical field setting, his message is that it is more important than ever to listen to people with opposing views.

“Most journalistic organisations can place where they are on the political spectrum, most universities have got a sense of where they think the current truth is, that’s not where we are,” Lawson tells City AM. “We are about exploring ways of making sense of the world.”

If James Orr’s controversial ideas brought heat, it couldn’t compete with the temperatures, which reached 31 Celsius over the weekend. Usefully, the festival occupies a rather handsome stretch of grassland hugging the river Wye half a mile outside Hay-on-Wye, the ‘world’s first book town’, where dozens of labyrinthine sellers tout vintage classics. The town is also home to the Hay Festival, which specialises in new literature.

Talks at How The Light Gets In included The End of the Great Alliance, examining European defense and featuring former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, former Leader of the Official Opposition in Canada Michael Ignatieff, and Gillian Tett, editor-at-large at the US Financial Times.
“I don’t know of any other festivals where we sit down with this kind of debate,” Corbyn told City AM.

“Everybody came away having learned something. Listen to what the other side says, particularly if you don’t agree with them. What I was trying to do today was challenge the globalisation theories put forward. There’s a space everywhere to have that kind of debate. Let’s have it.”

At a talk entitled Patriotism, Populism and the Fate of Nations, Reform’s James Orr criticised plans for a digital ID card in light of his party’s interest in controlling immigration. “We think it’s implausible illegal migrants will be jumping off the dinghy to fill in forms for their digital ID,” he said.

Also on the line-up, sex robots and TradWives

A dozen tents lined the river Wye, each a slightly different capacity to cater to the popularity of the speakers. Waterside deckchairs provided a moment for post-event discussion over gin and tonic and homemade cake. It was as common to see Gen Z as it was Gen X although some punters noticed a lack of Millennials.

“Philosophy sounds like a technical subject, but we start from the view that everyone’s a philosopher,” Lawson said. “We’re all alive and that is a pretty strange business. You’ve got to work out what you think about society, what you think about yourself. We are just putting those big questions front and centre. Our target audience is everyone interested in what makes the world go round.”

Academia is en vogue. On TikTok, the #booktok book reviews and the trend for creators sharing their own digital lectures in classroom-style environments have been going viral. In London, pubs are increasingly hosting lectures on scientific topics.

As How The Light Gets In gears up for its September edition in London on Hampstead Heath, Lawson’s message is that “everyone is interested in what makes the world go round.”

The festival is run by the iai, The Institute of Art and Ideas, which publishes online content on philosophical topics. Their videos have been viewed by around a third of a billion people. One target market he can pinpoint is corporates: this year a new higher-tier ticket costing £700 offered guests a more highly tailored experience, with a personal advisor planning guests’ talks schedules, and those tickets offered separate private areas at the festival for relaxation away from the crowds.
Smaller tents platformed softer ideas. In her lecture, the Olivier Award winning actor Sheila Atim suggested creativity could be drawn from scientific frameworks. “You’ll hear a lot of Hollywood actors at round tables talking about finding their truth – It often sounds overblown,” she said. “My brain structures are the conduit for me to access creativity.”

A busy period in Westminster meant some of the panelists pulled out at short notice. Reform’s Zia Yusuf, Ugandan anthropologist and academic Mahmood Mamdani, and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek were replaced on panels.

Strangers debate horse-sized ducks and duck-sized horses

Sex robots were another flavour of debate as were TradWives, the social media movement that celebrates the 1960s ideal of the nuclear family. Unusually for How The Light Gets In all the panelists – ranging from leftist Instagram political influencer Louisa Munch and radical feminist Julie Bindel – agreed that the trend is a toxic and outdated image of femininity. “We need to be nostalgic for something else,” said Louisa Munch.

Welsh lamb elevated the burgers served in the Waterfront Bar & Kitchen, where banqueting tables facing the river encouraged conversation among strangers. Although the festival doesn’t prioritise late-night hedonism, there are musicians scheduled until one o’clock in the morning. From the middle of the evening, the talks end and the vibe moves toward the bar and the looser cultural offering. Approaching midnight, The Disco Ceilidh events company partnered with The Happiness Project to rate joy levels as festival-goers engaged in dance routines.

There was one exception to the no late night philosophy rule: Midnight Mayhem invites a room full of strangers to debate whether they’d rather a horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses. Hundreds of (fairly drunk) people manage to passionately debate the topic for nearly an hour every night.

If you found yourself burned out by too many talks, a softer option was to pull up a perch by the river, where meetings with strangers would often result in long, decent conversations. In a world increasingly polluted by online silos parroting to us what we want to hear, How The Light Gets In feels genuinely radical.

How to visit How The Light Gets in festival

How The Light Gets In is on Hampstead Heath from 18 – 20 September. Hosted on the grounds of Kenwood House, registration is open online. Fill in the website’s form to be the first to hear more details about the guest speakers, musicians and panellists appearing in London, where City AM is a media partner. For more information go to howthelightgetsin.org/festivals.