To think that Nigel Farage should not be allowed any airtime

[crossroads3]

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 .

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

SapphireStrange
You are duly reminded. What you said isn't possible to achieve as he doesn't sit on the Front Bench in Westminster. I think you'd have a hard job getting him out of mainstream politics as well, given that he is democratically elected. There is a bit of difference between the two things.

Farage is making a point about the migrant crisis surely, and that the EU has failed. It has failed Greece and Italy in providing assistance in dealing with the flows of people from Iraq, Syria, Eritrea, Libya. The migrant crisis has caused division within the EU with the Central European member states; Greece cannot cope with the financial crisis and the burden of dealing with the migrant influx, and the EU has had to ask NATO to step in to aid FRONTEX as they cannot do their job.

You are duly reminded.
Are you in fact a teacher, as your username suggests? I might say a better descriptor than 'scary' might be 'pompous'.

What you said isn't possible to achieve as he doesn't sit on the Front Bench in Westminster

Have we not already been over this? Might you like to give it a rest now?

Oh diddums. Yes, I am a teacher, and no I'm not pompous.

You evidently get the point about the front bench now!

I live abroad, and so I have to be very precise in my wording, otherwise the non native speakers pick one up on grammatical imprecision. and drill down until they get to the precise meaning and nuance of what one is saying. Sloppy English doesn't cut it here, and as I am also in the midst of GCSE marking, it enrages me when a meaning isn't clear and I have to read an answer 5 times to award a mark.

scary I think you make an interesting point there.

So Oh good!

You evidently get the point about the front bench now!

Yes, good for you. Give yourself a massive pat on the back for teaching an idiot a point.

diddums.

Sloppy English doesn't cut it here. I don't give a rat's ass what does or doesn't cut it with people posting as pompously (yes!) as you.

as I am also in the midst of GCSE marking, it enrages me when a meaning isn't clear and I have to read an answer 5 times to award a mark.

See above re rat's ass.

Because there has been too much and too quickly and no one asked for it This is I am afraid yet another blair Legacy, people have had too much. It saddens me that the UK seems to have closed it heart to genuine refugees fleeing for their lives with nothing, because of the over whelming immigration we have had from Eastern Europe. Its sad.

Totally agree.

I was out with some lovely, Guardian-type friends last night who are new to the area and were asking about schools. They were subtly probing me as to why we decided to send ours privately.

Finally I said, because the local primary has 85% of its children starting with either very little or no English, according to the Ofsted report the school is coping to keep up and rated 'needs improvement' - that's why.

Their response was heavily nuanced but the gist of it was that my reasoning was a bit coarse and not terribly civic-minded.

I think there should be a line that all politicians should not cross and that poster has crossed it IMO.

Great that you get to draw the line.

People genuinely differ over whether this kind of thing is racist or not, and even those who agree it is will differ over whether that racism is deliberate and calculated or unthinking. There is no definitive view or interpretation of Farage or his poster that you can impose.

Not only must Farage have the ability to campaign and debate, but also anyone who wants to oppose him must campaign and debate against him.

There are vanishingly few settled arguments in democratic politics: if you want things to go your way, you have to debate and persuade enough people you are right. As Joschka Fischer famously said to Donald Rumsfeld (re: invading Iraq) "You have to make the case".

One of the very reasons we are in this political mess in the EU and NATO (with little leadership, a singular lack of political talent in many countries and demagogery on the rise) is the tendency of politicians of all political stamps and levels to behave as though they don't have to address people's concerns because the argument has been won and bingo! not going to talk about it anymore. This applies especially to economics and immigration.

I don't like Farage and UKIP at all. But I despair of the politicians of the opposing parties who cannot seem to deliver a clear and coherent message to voters on why and how Farage is wrong. Because they are crap.

If the cap fits etc. I wouldn't have called you an idiot, I'm too polite.

'Here' means where I live, so in the country in which I live, which is not the UK, I have to be very precise in my choice and use of words, otherwise there can be a problem. I'm sure you don't give a rat's arse, but I do. (Ass is an Americanism).

I am so glad to see that you wish the standards of education and use of English in the UK to be upheld . I would hate kids to fail their GCSEs or get low grades because they can't make themselves understood either verbally or in writing, and that they fail to get work because of that.

Great that you get to draw the line.

I think the operative word in that post was 'IMO'.

I don't know how that is done in a democracy - where the red lines are set - by whom and how.

Red lines are set by consensus of opinion.

If consensus of opinion shift, what is deemed acceptable shifts.

Farage was not getting air time previously because his views were not thought to represent opinions that the consensus thought was acceptable.

As consensus has shifted to the right those views, whilst unpalatable to many are now acceptable to others. Hence he gets airtime.

Banning him therefore would do nothing. It would make those who felt he had a point feel like they were being disenfranchised in a way.

The horse has already bolted on the fact that he is now viewed as part of mainstream thought, even though this is still on the fringes and he isn't a front bencher. Remember he IS an MEP so does have a certain status with regard to the referendum in that respect and is felt to have brought about the shift in consensus by many that has led to the referendum.

The only way to get rid of his air time if to make him irrelevant again. This is either by proving his argument is not accurate, or otherwise shifting consensus back to the centre again in someway.

I spent my childhood scared the bnp woukd get in power and send me "back" to a country I've never seen.

Farage is doing well because people are being labelled racist when they aren't. I fear the BNP and violent racists will make a comeback because of people flinging round the term "racist" so freely. Of course it's reasonable to have concerns about uncontrolled immigration.

I don't ask people their political views but I know a few BME people, including first generation immigrants, who are also worried that concerns being shut down will take us back to the days of my childhood.

good post toomuchMNtime, good post.

Exactly formerbabe. Lefties are getting more and more authoritarian by the day it seems.

I don't agree with Farage on much at all. But he's about the only one prepared to put the mainstream, political establishment through the ringer over 'Multi Culturalism' for a start.

Can I ask why you put the word(s) Multi Culturalism in quotation marks, super?

I feel the same TooMuch.

At the same time, I do think people should remember that having democracy can mean not getting, or even never getting, what you want if the consensus is against you. RedToothBrush is right.

The only way to get rid of his air time if to make him irrelevant again. This is either by proving his argument is not accurate, or otherwise shifting consensus back to the centre again in someway

isnt it a shame, a shift to the right, and of course not just the UK but the whole of EU, up in arms about immigration.

why did anyone ever think it would work the only way to get consensus back into the center is to stop driving people away and to start listening and acting...

oh wait they cant coz we are in the EU

I fear the BNP and violent racists will make a comeback because of people flinging round the term "racist" so freely.

^^ I agree and its devaluing the word.

Wind, yes, I am disappointed at the number of people I know who think that we shouldn't have a referendum and say quite freely they think people are too stupid or racist to have a say.

And it's getting a bit "whatever racist means" because I don't think having concerns about standards of English spoken at school is racist.

indeed toomuch

So, I don't think violent racism has ever gone away. The kids at ds's international school were warned at one point not to go into the city centre as the ME lads were attacking white teenage boys (this was a warning from the security bods at the Embassy, so not just hearsay). The local Vlaams Belang group is active too, and racism by language spoken is also a big thing here regardless of skin tone.

Absolutely SoThisIsSummer.. The left delegitimise racism by crying it whenever someone, in public life especially, brings up, say, respecting our national borders.

I find it utterly bizarre that we live in a society where Nigel Farage is perceived by so many people to be despicable racist, yet people who have actually advocated military intervention against non-European countries, leading to the deaths of thousands of non white men, women and children are somehow spared this label.

The blood of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans is not on Farage's hands, yet he's the racist and not the MPs and politicians that voted for an invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan?

Since when was a poster more horrendous than blowing up someone's fucking house?

But this ad IS deliberately racist, and Nigel knows exactly what he's doing. FFS. It's so fucking obvious. And it's a lie. Really, all of those migrants will wait the 8 years to get asylum approved, then residence, then citizenship and then come flooding over to Blighty once they've done that?

BTW, I'm really tired of hearing how Nigel Farage just "says what everyone is thinking, isn't it good I can speak my mind now". If you hold racist attitudes and decide you'd like to share them with others, then expect to be told you're racist.

Freedom of expression works both ways; say what you like (within the limits of laws against inciting hatred) - but everyone who disagrees with you can tell you what they think.