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?

Yeah man, I've had to block GB news, it's all some people post.

Personally I'm at the point where people deserve Farage for a bit. Might teach the daft twats a lesson.

@FluffAndBrush the Newsagents podcast also discussed this last week.

The left has a worrying habit of holding marches where they wave placards saying women should be mass-murdered in various ways including being beheaded, as the charmer in Scotland photographed standing right next to the SNP MP and SNP MSP hoped for, or where they parade life-sized hanging effigies of lynched women.

As for politicians, Wes Streeting made a number of threatening tweets a few years ago.

The death penalty?

I don't think a society that has safe prisons should have to resort to it.

We have the mini death penalty law going through parliament at present for the sick, so I would not be surprised that a PM who has tripping footage removed and rules over the biological lie that men are women, would bring back the full death penalty. The supreme Court ruling will be over a year old maybe several before it's implemented.

But they aren’t mutually exclusive, Starmer is both dull and a crap prime minister in equal measures it would seem!

can we stop with the bollocks that this was acceptable 40 years ago, so it’s fine.

I am older than Farage, and was at school between 1961 and 1971. My brothers and sisters, younger than me but still older than Farage, were at school between 1963 and 1980.

If any of us, or any of our friends, had bullied younger kids, we wouldn’t have seen the outside of a detention room at school for a month, and would have been doubly punished at home (for the bullying and the detentions). If we’d added racism into the mix, we’d have been in a bigger world of trouble at home and at school, and we would still be apologising (which the shameful despicable Farage is not).

My parents’ generation may have thought, when they were children, that racism and anti-semitism were acceptable, but by the time they were adults society was moving on, and by the time Farage - who is not old, FFS - was in his late teens (so in the 1980s) it was widely understood to be not acceptable, and he would have known how gross he was being.

Whether it will stop people voting Reform, probably not. Birds of a feather, and all that.

It was also the time of the Anti Nazi League, Rock Against Racism, CND and many other progressive causes and organizations. Have you heard of the Anti Apartheid Movement?

I agree. I'm not much younger than him and no way would that have been acceptable when I was at school. It would have been considered deeply shocking and he'd have been hauled over the coals

Farage is also an alcoholic as well as racist. Plenty of other racist alcoholics would just LOVE him as our PM. FWIW, I don't actually think Farage even wants to be PM for anything other than a show of 'see, I told you I could'. It'd interfere with his own self-interest of making himself and his cronies as rich as possible. Oh, and crawling up Trump's arse at every opportunity.

Some of us can’t afford such a casual attitude. If she is like me, my mixed race DD will be coming to the age of being interested in politics around the time Farage becomes PM (if he does.) There is a huge difference in knowing some people around you are racist as has been the situation in my life, and knowing that the PM and government wish you weren’t in the country they rule and you were born in and that the majority who voted them in feel the same.

Yes a Reform government will be a disaster for many reasons, but can you see why some of us can’t just think “well let that happen and they will learn their lessons” when we and our families will be so deeply impacted?

No @FluffAndBrush - the subject of this thread.

He’s in his early 60s and grew up during an era where racism very much was frowned on despite what people like to make out. My mum is 10 years older than him and she and her friends never went round making racist jokes when they were young. It was actually unacceptable then to most people just as it is today. It’s also not like racism has died out - there’s plenty of racist young people out there if you know where to look. It’s so lazy to say that everyone was racist in the past, especially when “the past” when these people were young is in fact the 1980s and 1990s.

If these allegations are true, then they're utterly disgusting, obviously.
However, as supporters of Starmer are always keen to say - one man does not equal the whole party and like it or not, Reform are saying what many voters want to hear.
Also to the public perception there are always intense smear campaigns against people they're worried about being elected, so this may lead to a lot of people simply not believing these allegations against Farage. Dirty tactics on all sides means the truth is often lost - so yes, this may actually strengthen his campaign.

He’s 61, hardly ancient. I’m 61 too. Lived in Brixton, large black community. I knew even as a child that racism was wrong. As did most people who actually lived alongside immigrants.

Please don’t blame his abhorrent views on the times. We weren’t all horrible back then. People often refer to programmes like Love Thy Neighbour as an example of prevalent attitudes, completely missing the point that it was the white thicko neighbour who was being denigrated and laughed at.

Farage holds the views he holds because he is personally a white supremacist, like his chum Trump. Unfortunately, that only serves to make him even more attractive to his supporters.

My mum is nearly 80 and she loathes him.

She grew up in north London - large immigrant community. I have never heard a racist word come from either of my parents' lips.

Nigel is 4 years older than me. I was appalled by racism at 15/16 and still am.

I think people would be less appalled if his speech and actions reflected that his views had changed but they haven’t. He was a racist cunt as a teen and still is.

I hoped there would be a discussion about whether this new information is, for the first time in many years, something that actually bolsters his support. For at least the last 20 years such revelations would be the end of a politician’s career. It’s fascinating, no?

But I am also interested in how Reform supporters who deny being racist themselves feel about the fact that there is evidence now of Farage’s racism. Does it out any of them off or are they simply happy to overlook it?

I think this very much depends on the demographic (social standing?) of those around you. I knew calling it the Pk shop wasn't OK, but the term was very widely used. We had Love Thy Neighbour and Jim Davidson talking of "Chalkie" considered mainstream family viewing.

Of course nasty racism wasn't Ok, but racist "banter" was very much accepted and where the line was depended on the people involved.

Yeah depends on demographic I agree but it’s also incorrect to assume that this stuff doesn’t still go on. Not on mainstream TV but on podcasts and X and other media outlets. There are some really regressive views out there still. It still remains the case that Farage’s level of racism was shocking when he was young and is shocking today and he can’t be given a pass on the basis that everyone used racial slurs to refer to their local corner shop (which of course not everyone did at all but maybe happened in some circles).

I grew up in an entirely white mono cultural home counties village in the 1980s where almost everyone voted Conservative. Casual racism and homophobia was an everyday occurrence in the play ground (racist jokes) and with many of the adults I was surrounded by. It was 'normal'. I moved to London when I was about 15 which was a rude awaking insofar as having many of my regressive views robustly challenged for the first time in my life. I was rubbing shoulders with people from all backgrounds, religions and sexual orientations and I had to accept very quickly that my world view up until then was largely based on gross ignorance and learned behaviour and the onus was on me to change my outlook completely, which I did.

Key question for Farage is does he still actually believe those views he once held as a teenager?

And this tells us exactly what type of person you are.

It'll bolster support among "You can't say anything nowadays" types

The type of people who defended that woman who posted online about burning down asylum seeker hotels will defend him too

A Christian in a Christian nation.

Would you tell Hindus or Jews they can't have the same?