Farage’s racism

[CuriousKangaroo]

I haven’t yet seen a post about this story: Twenty people allege he has a racist past. He denies it. Who’s telling the truth about Farage’s schooldays? | Nigel Farage | The Guardian

Farage no longer categorically denies these incidents, and is now trying to fudge things by saying he didn’t mean any harm and it was a long time ago - presumably because he knows it is true and realises that 20 separate people saying it means only the truly deluded wouldn’t believe he was a racist.

But what I am interested in is does this actually assist his election chances? We already know that many of his supporters are racists - does it actually work for him that this blatant racism from him shores up their support? Are they secretly (or perhaps not so secretly in some cases) pleased?

And what do those of you who are Reform supporters but believe yourself not be racist think? Does it make you change your mind about him or Reform?

What was it that was said, she can't even spell his name? What was it I said nobody can help a disability? What was said that I was the abilest?

I am not wasting more time with people who gaslight and misrepresent a situation, it may help people save face for themselves as that is culturally necessarily, I find the fragile shame face thing, like the constant manipulative long winded sob stories quite pathetic and wet.

Meanwhile there is a huge Overton window being moved by Elon exposing all the accounts from BRICS nations interference in Western politics, accounts in Asia claiming to be in the USA/UK is quite a common one, Trumps deportation changes after the shooting over there, Tucker Carlson and Piers Morgans debate and Rupert Low has made his thoughts known.

The interesting thing is that a host of accounts claiming to be UK based and supporting your friends in Reform have been shown to be based in Russia.

People who support his kind of politics really don't care. Their bar for decency is already low. You don't have to be on the left of politics to see this, you just have to lack empathy.

We all know Musk's shared love for a Nazi Roman salute

Oh don't be so ridiculous. I work in TV and know loads of people who are right wing. Most of them chipped off to GB news, mind. The BBC is often a spawning ground for TV talent (at least it was back in the day when they had a decent training facility). Tons of us have worked there. Lots of varied political outlooks. The BBC under Robbie Gibb has moved right, not left.

But I fear you are lost, knowing that your main source of information is Tucker Carlson and a novel written in 1989.

I don’t think Farage’s support for a brutal, racist, extremist regime is funny in the slightest, even if he was, in his own mind, in some way joking.

We’ve had this issue before with Labour senior figures who explicitly supported totalitarian versions of communism, whose regimes were racist and murderous also. Straw, Reid, Clarke, Mandelson.

I think the mature answer for Farage is the same as for those figures: what do they believe, say and do now (including what they say about their youth) not what they did back then.

I’m not saying Farage passes that test, but that’s the correct test unless we are saying leftist horror gets a special pass, which it should not.

Did any of those Labour figures bully their school mates with those views?

I don’t know. I think what’s hit the headlines is not that a politician was a bully, but the racist and Nazi associations.

Those are abhorrent, just as (imo) supporting the same from any political viewpoint is.

I’m not saying let Farage off here. I’m saying let’s not act like this stuff is toxic only if it’s the other team doing it.

I agree in principle. However bullying is a question of both degree and kind.

The accumulating evidence, much by named witnesses, suggests that Farage was vile on both points. I am not aware of any comparable accusations against any Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem or Green politicians.

Ultimately it's about having form, isn't it? I have no idea what the people you refer to said when they were at school, but the fact is that Farage has shown us that he has always been a racist. He's just a bit less overt about it now.

Nobody has said it's only toxic coming from one side. It's always abhorrent.

I agree it’s abhorrent. I also don’t know whether those Labour figures were personally abusive or not. What I think I’m pushing back against is a tendency to see openly admiring (to the point of joining supportive parties) totalitarian regimes and brutal, often racist, often homophobic, murderous leaders as just a bit of a youthful foible when it’s of the left. At least in the UK that normalisation doesn’t exist on the right in the same way, thank goodness. (I think it does in other countries and I’m not trying to say the totalitarian right is better than the totalitarian left. A pox on both of them).

I also think those Labour figures ended up as pretty solid, reasonable leaders. But I don’t remember any kind of media reckoning in the same was as we are seeing with Farage (who I am also no fan at all of).

Because Farage didn’t just join an organisation or espouse those beliefs. He actively bullied people because of them.

Can you give examples if what the other side has done that is similar to Farage?

Mandelson is not getting excused for his Epstein links if that is what you are referring to.

Did any of the people you name use their beliefs to bully and frighten their peers?

I don’t know. They were active members of the Communist Party of GB (CPGB) in the 1960s and 1970s, an explicitly totalitarian strand of far-left thought that was explicitly pro-Soviet long after the purges, gulags, ethnic deportations were known in the west.

Other brands of leftist group were available then. Not all were explicitly totalitarian or pro-Soviet.

It’s not analogous to being a conservative after the 1930s, it’s analogous to joining a British pro-Nazi party after the 1930s.

I don’t know how they personally treated others but I know what they were happy to support. In their youth of course. I think they changed.

Yes, they were members of these groups. Farage marched with the NF I believe. Neither thing is good.
Did the other figures bully people as a result of their political beliefs? Because that’s a whole other layer of nasty.
Have they left those grouos and changed their spoken beliefs? Farage hasn’t denied what he did and still puts forward racist and misogynist ideas.

Are you simply talking about people who were drawn to the policies of the CP in their youth?

Similarly to most religions, communism has been used an excuse for abhorrent behaviour; in the case of communism, by totalitarian governments. Without in any way attempting to excuse this, young people drawn to the ideals of communism are or were in no way practising bullying at a personal level. Many may have been defensive about the fSU or the PRC, but that was more about youthful idealism and the brotherhood of man, etc. No, I wasn’t one of them and no I don’t give full grown adults the same pass.

No, specifically joining the party.

I was quite careful not to tar all leftist (even far-leftists, like those politicians of the same era who may have joined non-totalitarian communist parties who thought the Soviet Union was an abhorrent deviation from the ideals).

Like, I think I could probably just about have a friendly beer with someone who admired bits of Nietzsche and valued order and cleanliness and the nation as family, but who thought Naziism was abhorrent. I’d think them rather naive perhaps. That wasn’t the CPGB. Maybe those politicians didn’t realise, but given that they went into politics full time I have to think they were fairly clued up about what they were supporting.

Don't you think Farage was fairly clued up about Hitler? And presumably is clued up about Putin.

The leftwing politicians you mention, are they still holding those views in public?

I don’t like Farage and don’t like what’s being reported.

Do I think he is a Nazi or Nazi supporter now? No. Do you?

Those four Labour figures all changed significantly. None of them was a totalitarian in their prime political life, thank goodness. I actually think they were pretty good leaders and it would be a shame if we’d lost them because of their views in the before-times, abhorrent though they were at least to me.

The point is that the right test is what they believe and how they act now. We can all have our own views on Farage. (I don’t like him but I also don’t think he’s a Nazi).

I have one friend who was briefly a youthful member of the CPGB. (Well before I lived in the UK) Not excusing it, but it seems to have been a case of responding to the idealism and not thinking about the totalitarianism. Sloppy thinking and part of growing up.

However my friend also did a lot if nonpolitical humanitarian work in Africa, etc, during those years. Infinitely more than I ever did. So, plusses and minuses. People are complex.

So you are comparing apples and pears.

No, I don't think Farage is a Nazi, that would be political suicide even for him.

I do think he is a racist or at least has racist tendencies and he doesn't hide it.

I also think he still admires Putin, he is trying to downplay that but you only have to follow the money from Reform donors.

Your comment about Reform donors is very interesting! Can you point us to something? Thanks very much

I don’t think NF is a Nazi either.

Based on his comments about Putin, the war between Russia and Ukraine, and his disinclination to investigate Nathan Gill’s Russia-related criminality and its ramifications for Reform, I think it is plausible that he has ties to Russia which lie on the spectrum somewhere between shady and illegal. Not what I want in a PM

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/21/cryptocurrency-farage-donor-used-for-russian-war-effort

https://www.desmog.com/2024/06/26/major-donor-david-lilley-nigel-farage-reform-uk-party-owns-russian-assets/

And then there are links to the US heritage foundation.