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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that Nigel Farage should not be allowed any airtime

138 replies

crossroads3 · 17/06/2016 13:27

Apologies if there has been a thread but I couldn't find one:

IMO this is the real Nigel Farage

www.newstatesman.com/2016/06/nigel-farage-s-anti-eu-poster-depicting-migrants-resembles-nazi-propaganda

yet we allow him to appear on our television screens and listen to him as if he is a normal person.

Aibu unreasonable to think that beneath his friendly man down the pub veneer lies an out and out racist determined to plant hatred in people's hearts and minds Angry.

And I have added to his publicity by creating a thread about him Angry.

OP posts:
Tiggeryoubastard · 17/06/2016 13:42

Ffs. Let's all stop feeding it.

MariaSklodowska · 17/06/2016 13:43

he then went on to say
" As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood". "

How is that 'hate speech'?
sorry it is just typical of Labour voters and other would be left wingers, that they have this knee jerk reaction to Powell, without even reading what he actually said.

They just go'''ooh Powell what a stupid old racist".

In fact he was a highly educated and cultured man who spoke several languages.

scaryteacher · 17/06/2016 13:43

I think he should be expelled from, ideally, politics but certainly from the front benches. He is a democratically elected MEP, and so sits in the EP. He doesn't sit on the Westminster front benches, as he isn't an MP.

I felt the same from 1997-2010 about one T Blair, but I still had to look at him because he also had been democratically elected, and thus represented some of his constituents. I also feel that now about G Adams and M McGuinness, but it isn't my choice.

We live in a democracy; that's the price we pay for living in one when we have freedom of expression and the right to vote, that some people to whom we are opposed will be elected.

KissMyArse · 17/06/2016 13:45

The people in the poster don't look to me like Nazis? Prince Harry dressed up as a Nazi and he is still allowed on our TV.

I think you've missed the point to be honest.

It's the comparison between the UKIP poster and the Nazi propaganda film. There's pictures in the link but I'll post them here.

TheNaze73 · 17/06/2016 13:45

YABVU. It is not 1978 East Germany & we thankfully, aren't monitored by the Stasi.

I don't agree with a word he says, so I switch him off. I think to ask for him to be banned however, just because (and I totally get why) you disagree with his viewpoint, would be worse than his views, themselves

glenthebattleostrich · 17/06/2016 13:46

He gets airtime because he leads the party who took 12.6% of the vote in the last General election. That's the same as lib dems and snp combined.

I personally dislike the leader of the snp (for example, I'd be here all day listing everyone in politics I loathe) but I respect the fact she leads a political party within the UK and gets a large amount of airtime.

SapphireStrange · 17/06/2016 13:46

I love it when people pick apart every syllable of every word.

Powell – he was expelled from the shadow cabinet after 'Rivers of Blood'.

Front benches - mainstream.

Expelled by whom – don't know and don't care, but very much hope the police take this seriously enough to make his continuing as a politician untenable.

Thank you for the 'FGS'; I do so enjoy being snarled at.

As I've said, I think this goes beyond airtime really, but that's a very good point about the disparity between his airtime and that given to the Green Party.

MariaSklodowska · 17/06/2016 13:51

no Sapphire I am not 'picking apart every syllable of every word', I am just asking you to quote the 'hate speech' of Enoch Powell that you referred to.

Then you realised that in fact you have never even read any of Enoch Powell's speeches, so start on about people 'picking apart syllables'.

No I am just asking you to back up your claims.

Musicinthe00ssucks · 17/06/2016 13:53

I'm not in favour of totalitarianism so YABU!

VikingVolva · 17/06/2016 13:54

"I don't see why he gets the amount of airtime he does. UKIP has one MP. The Green Party has one MP but she's rarely given any time at all and if she was, what she would say would be in direct contrast to UKIP."

Because they took 12.6% of the vote, making them the third most supported party.

Yes, 'first past the post' throws up anomalies, such as the party in second place (with just over twice the share of the vote of UKIP) getting not 3 seats, but 232.

And the Greens, who polled only 1/4 of the number of votes as UKIP getting the same number of MPs

SapphireStrange · 17/06/2016 13:55

Then you realised that in fact you have never even read any of Enoch Powell's speeches

Haven't I? Gosh, my mistake. Thought I had. Silly me.

HowBadIsThisPlease · 17/06/2016 13:55

Maria, I find your posts terrifying. And they are a symbol of the dire times you are in.

You are quoting Powell and pointing out - with some grounds - that the import of what he was saying, is actually fairly acceptable.

I agree that it does feel pretty mainstream.

I also find it hateful, inflammatory, and racist.

Your posts are an example of the huge amount of trouble that our culture and society are in. Post-Powell, we went through a period where it was unacceptable to say "go home" "we don't want them" "they're not like us" and so on. That period is over.

I am afraid.

MariaSklodowska · 17/06/2016 13:58

" hateful, inflammatory, and racist. "

please could you show me where the 'hate speech' is?

I am not saying I would vote for Farage, far from it, I am just pointing out that people say 'ooh Enoch Powell' as some kind of lazy shorthand when they have not even read anything that he actually said.

Flashbangandgone · 17/06/2016 13:59

YABVU

YABVVU. Personally I'm not a fan of NF, but that's not the point.

I find amazing that some people don't see the irony of seeking to ban/silence someone because they don't share their 'liberal' inclusive views.

Exactly who decides who should be allowed to have a voice? On what grounds would he be banned? Be careful what you wish for... Do you really want a state where those in those in power only allow those who agree with them to have a voice. I'm guessing you're probably not a Tory, so given that we have a Tory government, by your logic you'd need to accept that you might not have a voice!

MariaSklodowska · 17/06/2016 13:59

and (on a roll now) further lazy shorthand is the cry of 'racist' as soon as anyone opens their mouth against mass immigration.

KissMyArse · 17/06/2016 13:59

Maria

You missed out this part of his speech which I think is what made people consider him racist.

“Eight years ago in a respectable street in Wolverhampton a house was sold to a Negro. Now only one white (a woman old-age pensioner) lives there. This is her story. She lost her husband and both her sons in the war. So she turned her seven-roomed house, her only asset, into a boarding house. She worked hard and did well, paid off her mortgage and began to put something by for her old age. Then the immigrants moved in. With growing fear, she saw one house after another taken over. The quiet street became a place of noise and confusion. Regretfully, her white tenants moved out.

“The day after the last one left, she was awakened at 7am by two Negroes who wanted to use her 'phone to contact their employer. When she refused, as she would have refused any stranger at such an hour, she was abused and feared she would have been attacked but for the chain on her door. Immigrant families have tried to rent rooms in her house, but she always refused. Her little store of money went, and after paying rates, she has less than £2 per week. “She went to apply for a rate reduction and was seen by a young girl, who on hearing she had a seven-roomed house, suggested she should let part of it. When she said the only people she could get were Negroes, the girl said, "Racial prejudice won't get you anywhere in this country." So she went home."

MariaSklodowska · 17/06/2016 14:02

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

scaryteacher · 17/06/2016 14:03

If you mean mainstream then say so. The term 'front bench' has a different meaning in UK politics.

Blair managed to continue as a politician, and I found him far more offensive than Farage (and still do).

Presumably, had the poster showed the migrants in a straight line, you would have had no problem with it? The wording on the poster is right - the EU has failed us. There is much consternation in places like the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia about this too. Would you like their politicians banned as well?

What I find objectionable is that one can't have a debate about the effect immigration has without the terms xenophobe or racist being bandied about. It's not a debate confined to the UK. Many of the areas around Brussels have this too, from the richer areas, like the one in which I live, where locals feel that incomers on large salaries have pushed them out of the housing market, either to buy or to rent, and have changed the feel of their community; to the poorer areas like Molenbeek where we are all too aware of what the outcome of the problems there are from events earlier this year in Brussels, and last year in Paris.

Should we leave things to rumble and hope for the best, or should we actually discuss the problems and possible solutions? It seems to me that at least Farage is trying to do the latter, rather than sticking his fingers in his ears and singing la-la-la as many politicians do because they don't want, or don't know how to, deal with the issue.

MavisPilkington · 17/06/2016 14:03

Is that the poster Nigel Farage said he would not launch today, as part of the all party suspension of campaigning? If it is, it's inappropriate for the NS to keep it up on its website and allow comments, IMO.

MariaSklodowska · 17/06/2016 14:04

sorry 1960s.
You see even what I have written above will be interpreted as 'racist' won't it?

HowBadIsThisPlease · 17/06/2016 14:06

Maria, before we even get to the bit someone else posted, look at the bit you posted:

" Here is a decent, ordinary fellow Englishman, who in broad daylight in my own town says to me, his Member of Parliament, that the country will not be worth living in for his children. I simply do not have the right to shrug my shoulders and think about something else. What he is saying, thousands and hundreds of thousands are saying and thinking – not throughout Great Britain, perhaps, but in the areas that are already undergoing the total transformation to which there is no parallel in a thousand years of English history. We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. So insane are we that we actually permit unmarried persons to immigrate for the purpose of founding a family with spouses and fiancées whom they have never seen.[4][5]"

what Powell is saying here, is that England will not be fit to live in when there are too many people who have come from other countries; and that it is mad to think we can live alongside them.

this is racist because it implies that there is something innately particularly awful about the people who are coming that make them unfit to live alongside. this is wrong.

(and it is abdicating England's responsibility to the world as a formerly colonial nation. England did not sit about minding her own business to look up one day to find that people seemed to want to come here; England barged about the world, taking what it liked, grew rich on it, and now has to face up to what it means to belong to the world)

and the "foaming with blood" is either implying that the "other" will be shedding "our" blood, or inciting "us" to shed "theirs", or both

KissMyArse · 17/06/2016 14:07

Maria - it's the way Powell chose to phrase it, the wording that he used. For example "When she goes to the shops, she is followed by children, charming, wide-grinning piccaninnies."

Then again, the late 60's (his speech was in 1968, not the 70's) weren't exactly the most enlightened of times I suppose.

MariaSklodowska · 17/06/2016 14:10

" this is racist because it implies that there is something innately particularly awful about the people who are coming that make them unfit to live alongside. "

I personally do not agree that he meant that.

Anyway Kiss is right, he was of his times.

SapphireStrange · 17/06/2016 14:11

If you mean mainstream then say so. The term 'front bench' has a different meaning in UK politics.

Remind me never to post on here again without being rigorously specific, and never to speak at all casually. Because no one else on MN ever does Hmm

I'm not against having discussions about immigration. But here Farage is making a point about immigration by showing a picture of mainly non-white people. I'm not sure what kind of a discussion that's meant to engender.

Well, I am actually.

MariaSklodowska · 17/06/2016 14:12

Yes and also the picture seemed to just of men, with no women or children, which seems a bit ...'dehumanising' .