None of these allegations are new, having first surfaced in 2013 when teachers' letters at Dulwich came to light. One of them observing that Farage was "a fascist, but that was no reason why he would not make a good prefect." A flailing Keir Starmer happily seized on them at Prime Minister's Questions. "These are disturbing allegations and it is vital that Nigel Farage urgently explains himself", said the chief presser to the lobby hack huddle afterwards. Does it really matter what the Reform leader said while he was a kid almost 50 years ago? For Starmer and his team, as a recent convert to calling racism racism, they're hoping the label will stick. And if it does, it could cause the softer edges of Farage's coalition to think twice. Something that might have a stronger chance of working if the messenger bearing these attacks was held in higher regard.
However, the real political tell comes in the criticism of Farage. Or rather, its focus. Obviously, there's a link between racist young Farage and 61-year-old Farage who's done very well out of spouting anti-immigration drivel. His campaign was pivotal for helping Leave get over the referendum line in 2016. But dwelling on the past alibis the present. Starmer can't attack Farage now as a racist as, quite deliberately, Labour's attacks on refugees leapfrog Reform. Neither can Kemi Badenoch's Tories, who've also dabbled in overt racism - not that anyone cares enough to notice. The idea is to use whatever the press can dredge up about Farage, and then pin the racist label on him in a manner akin to the Anti-Nazi League's/Unite Against Fascism campaigning against the BNP in the 00s. And this, they hope, deflects from Labour's own scapegoating, its own racism, its own moral depravity. In other words, another cynical ploy unlikely to stymie Reform's support while doing nothing to rebuild Labour's own.
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It smacks of desperation to land a blow on Farage. I mean 50 years ago! I know of a man who 5 years age spouted left wing rhetoric and said nasty things about the capitalist system and the need for nationalisation but he didn't mean it. He did it for effect.
ReplyDeleteNext thing we will be told about Farage is that he used to support Spurs 50 years ago but changed to Crystal Palace.
So in his early teens Farage liked winding people up by saying childish, but offensive things about minorities. Ho hum. What's more interesting is that most of the people remembering this stuff don't seem to have been particularly disturbed by it at the time. Perhaps because it was all very childish, or perhaps because the offence is at least partly confected for attention in the here and now? Possibly an element of changing moral standards too, only minorities that receive the benefit of moral and cultural relativism can get away with expressing some of these views in the UK today.
ReplyDeleteYou're all missing the point. Racism is an opinion, and most people have some ill-informed opinions in their teens which hopefully change as they mature- this is partly the point of education, which is what Dulwich College was supposed to be giving him. But the detailed recollections of Farage paint him not only as a racist, but an obnoxious arrogant bully, and that is a matter of character, which in my experience changes much less, and is largely formed by the age of 16. It takes a big conscious effort to change one's character, and there's no evidence that Farage has ever made such an effort. Most people had already left school and started full-time employment at age 16 in the period referred to. And I'm eight years older than Farage and grew up in South London. Sure, lots of people talked like that in the early 70s, but that's because they were racists. We knew the meaning of the word back then.
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