To ask about Nigel Farage Question Time appearance just now

[Acapulco12]

Question Time hosted interviews and an Q&A this evening with Adrian Ramsay (Green Party co-chair) and Nigel Farage.

I watched it to see what they both had to say, as I’d never heard Adrian Ramsay speak before and because I wanted to see how Nigel Farage would present himself and to see what he would say.

NF said many things I didn’t agree with and don’t think are true. However, one thing he said in particular shocked me - he said the Clacton Labour candidate has said very racist things over the last few days. NF said this with so much confidence and conviction, but I can’t find any evidence of it anywhere and no one called him out on it (not Fiona Bruce - the presenter - or anyone in the audience).

The only thing I can find about the Labour candidate is that he’s been moved to stand somewhere in the Midlands, rather than Clacton, and people are complimenting his dress sense online, but that’s it - I can’t find anything about his allegedly racist views at all.

AIBU to think this is unacceptable that NF was not challenged at all for slandering the Labour candidate?

I understand what you are saying, and of course that is a major and valid concern. In response to your comment that sectarianism will become normalised in U.K. politics, I think it already has become normalised and is getting worse. I think it’s become normalised since the Brexit referendum, so it’s had since then - 8 years - to become embedded in our politics and society.

Thanks for the article. That's dreadful. *

The Labour candidate said he had received online abuse after the tweet was shared widely. “I've had people use words… I don't know whether they believe it or not, but they're saying it and they feel empowered to say it – to call me the N word, to say the P word.”

He later goes on to say that people have told him to go back home.

I'm sickened that someone has been subjected to that.

Me too. When there’s the slightest suggestion that a person who’s not white has been racist (which is still not the same as a white person being racist), the repercussions on them are hundreds of times worse than for a white person.

He said he's had to grow a thick skin. He shouldn't have to grow a thick skin in order to be subjected to abuse.

Labour haven't a hope in hell in Clacton, which is no doubt why they couldn't get a good candidate.

Depressing as the thought is, Clacton is probably the one constituency in Britain where non-far-right-wingers need to vote tactically for the Tories to stop Farage and Reform.

Good riddance to him I say. I can't stand Farage, but what is a Cambridge educated Labour staffer with no experience of the actual world beyond PR able to offer the people of Clacton? It's beyond a joke. He's a professional politician looking to get his first foot on the ladder of a very rewarding £££ career.

Labour have stuck two fingers up to the people of Clacton. They didn't turn up to hustings, haven't fielded anyone who understands the area and can't be arsed to engage with people there to even remotely change hearts and minds. More metropolitan bullshit. We're back to the bad old days when the likes of Tristram Hunt was representing Stoke. He's now Creative Director of the V&A, hosting Tory fundraisers. Labour, my arse.

He didn’t say it when he was a candidate in Clacton, so your whole question and argument falls down. I think Labour will focus far less on divisiveness and identity politics than, for example, the Tories are already.

But candidates are often held to account for things that they say before they start to run for their campaign, even for comments that they said a few years previously.
I'm not a big fan of digging through someone's tweets from 10-20 years ago as society changes and people change but 4 -5 years is fairly recent history and any other politician has the same standard to meet.

Yes, they are. In some cases I’d agree it was fine to check out their real beliefs, but this comment is so obviously a daft joke based on a common phrase at the time that it’s irrelevant. Plus I was responding to your comment that it wasn’t “an appropriate comment for a Political Candidate running for office for the largely white area of Clacton”. Agreed, but that wasn’t what happened.

I didn't say that.

My point is that if, as you said, the opposite had been said, it WOULD be worse.

By definition, racism can only occur against a minority or oppressed group - we are no such thing.

As an aside, there has never been a more divisive government that the current one! They ran their last campaign on fear and division and are blowing the same dog whistles this time round. It's nothing short of ridiculous to claim that this is an issue that will arise under Labour.

Absolutely.

100% agree with this.

We all know Reform are nasty racists. Let's call out the truth when we see it. Why on earth did the interviewer let Farage get away with all the crap he was saying?

Regardless of what someone says 5 years ago in a tweet, don't let him take the focus off the fact that he is leading a nasty racist party.

I’ve got no idea. I’m really disappointed and surprised that Fiona Bruce didn’t question him more.

She (rightly) questioned Adrian Ramsay’s answers about the details of the Green Party’s policies, but I don’t think she held NF to account enough.

But… surprise surprise - NF has just announced he’s boycotting the BBC because he thinks last night’s Question Time audience was biased against him -
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/29/politics-latest-news-rishi-sunak-armed-forces-starmer-nigel/

The article I’ve linked to is behind a paywall, so here’s the gist -

Mr Farage told The Telegraph he was “astonished” by what he considered an unrepresentative audience, saying it was “the most extreme example” of bias he had seen in 25 years of appearing on BBC programmes.

Writing on X on Saturday afternoon, he said: “I have just been invited to appear on Laura Kuenssberg. I’m refusing until the BBC apologises for their dishonest Question Time audience.

“Our state broadcaster has behaved like a political actor throughout this election. Reform will be campaigning vigorously to abolish the licence fee.”

NF is behaving just like Trump (again, what a surprise…) by trying to call the shots and claiming that any news outlet which doesn’t completely agree with his views - which is most of them - is dishonest or biased.

I think NF is refusing to appear on Laura Kuenssberg’s show because he knows she’ll question him thoroughly and there’ll be nowhere for him to hide. No audience, just her and him, and based on her previous interviews, she’ll be forensic, and he’s scared of that level of scrutiny.

Farage expects an apology? They should tell him to get stuffed.