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?

I don’t like Farage at all, but I think most people (of that age) would cringe at the things they said at school.

Bit desperate.

20 of his schoolmates (and a teacher, named) have come forward to detail explicit instances of racist bullying by NF, including a time when he was a prefect (shame on Dulwich College) and officially an adult.

I don't care if the story was broken by the Beano in these circumstances (not that it's the first time this has come up, it did in 2013)

Not really as he hasn’t changed at all, and his story keeps changing every time this comes up. He’s a snakey, Russian asset con man and scumbag.

Pretty sure most people weren’t singing songs about marching pxxis into the gas chamber. I do vaguely remember that the song about Hitler’s balls was still intermittently popular…

I think Farage's racism is a big selling point for the people who vote for him. It means they can pretend they aren't awful themselves, because hey - their chosen future PM.is just like them.

You can make heat from cold, by the way. Heat pumps do exactly that.

Of course his supporters will endorse what he's said and done. He got very tetchy in the interview I saw too.

Cringe worthy things I did at school include shaving my eyebrows off, putting my middle finger up in the year group photo, and calling my teacher a stupid cow.

If I had sung racist songs and had literal Nazi ideals I'd like to think I'd find it more than cringey. Shameful, disgraceful, disgusting. 3 more apt adjectives than 'cringey'. Those three adjectives can also be applied to anyone excusing his behaviour.

So the media are pumps?

The Guardian is a truth pump with 20 people?

The Guardian has spent the past decade rolling out people who told us that men are women. Nobody can now believe these people and they have themselves to blame.

Do they hold up 4 fingers or 5?

. Meant to quote pp

Nope. I am the same age as Farage. I never said any of the types of things he did. I was brought up to know better. Even at primary school, I was aware of what the Nazis did to Jewish people. I wouldn't have dreamed of using that to mock the Jewish pupils at my school.

Bit desperate to suggest getting he couldn't have known exactly what he was doing.

He's racist alright.

But he has a new "ist" every so often to lure similar "ist" voters depending on the cause du jour. It's a game plan, unpleasant as it is.

I think some people have taken NF parading around in tweeds and Barbour like a stereotypical country squire as an indication that he represents some sort of mythic Lost England (that never actually existed), when in reality he's a member of the generation of punk/the Clash/the New Romantics/ alternative comedy (that deliberately turned its back on the likes of Bernard Manning) ,the Anti Nazi League and Rock Against Racism.

It also contained *NF boot boys, racist graffiti and many things many of us reject now, but Farage seemed to embrace that side wholeheartedly then and nothing has changed. His expensive education gives him even less of a get out, unless Dulwich College was providing far inferior tuition and guidance than my Black Country comp.

What it didn't significantly contain, this generation, is praise for Hitler and Oswald Mosley, unless you were an actual neo Nazi. It was too close to the War.

*National Front, although he was apparently chuffed by the similarity.

Wrong. I was brought up by a homophobic, racist misogynist. I have always inherently and instinctively abhorred that attitude and it has been a massive influence on how I have chosen to live. As a woman only a few years younger than Farage, and also a product of private education, I can confidently state that such attitudes were not widespread at my school. Nor would they have been tolerated. There is nothing I said or did in my youth that I cringe about, apart from occasionally smoking and a bit of underage drinking.

Seeing as we have some BBC fans they have the film, The remains of the day, streaming.

Some people may want to have a think about those that use DARVO (Deny, attack, reverse, victim offender) on you and ponder on who are the Nazis eyeing up your home and who is Lord Darlington.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0012y96/the-remains-of-the-day

"he's a member of the generation of punk/the Clash/the New Romantics/ alternative comedy (that deliberately turned its back on the likes of Bernard Manning) ,the Anti Nazi League and Rock Against Racism."

This is so true. How did he come out of that and end up as he is?
He's six months older than me and my generation lived and breathed all that.

The Young Ones, Ben Elton, Patrick Fitzgerald, The Specials, Alexi Sayle, CND, Hunt Saboteurs, Compassion in World Farming, the passing of the Race Relations Act and the Sex Discrimination Act.

Anyone saying "Well he's old" isn't remembering the times. Things were changing, you could chose a better way. My God it was exciting and freeing. How did that not touch him?

It's like he made a conscious decision to be a total bastard and has stuck with it at it all his life.

Who cares . We’ve all said stuff 50 yrs ago we’re not proud of .

I have never sung about gas chambers, have you?

The Alf Garnet show Til Death Do Us Part was satire. It's intention was to make fun of the man's ignorance, racism and bigotry not hold it up as an example to follow.

Love thy Neighbour was similar. The women characters in it get on famously and were constantly pointing out the stupidity of the men.

We are not trying to be Prime Minister.

I care.

Can I have some dressing with that word salad?

i just don’t care , I really don’t . I’m sure if the media tried to dig dirt on any politician they’d find it and if they have to go back 50 odd years to find something he can’t be that bad .

Exactly. I'm 57, so a little bit younger, but if I'd gone around the school spouting racist crap and singing songs about sending Moroccans to the gas chambers (I grew up in the Netherlands), I would have been expelled and probably disavowed by my parents, one of whom lived under the Nazi occupation.

The apologists on here are just embarrassing themselves, describing racism and Nazi comments as 'a bit cringe'. Either you lot have your head stuck in the sand because you know deep down the two are completely different, or you agree with Farage's behaviour and think it was perfectly acceptable, in which case - well...

One of the contemporaries from Farage’s school came up on my Facebook feed, detailing his memories of how Farage behaved. Other of his contemporaries added their recollections in the comments. I looked extensively through this guy’s profile. He had decided to stick his neck out and talk about Farage because he was horrified by his political profile. His profile was extremely easy to verify. He was a long term GP with his own practice & website. I am sure that the Guardian found him via the same route I did and contacted his peers as well. I haven’t read the Guardian article, but I was completely horrified by what I read on fb. And I am older than Farage and not particularly ‘woke’.

What are you on about? And why do you keep going on about trans stuff when we're talking about racism? It's all very odd.

Have you? What were you saying 50 years ago that you're not proud of, then?

Being a Farage apologist tells us a lot about your current day opinions. Anyone decent would be revolted by him.