Is Nigel Farage a hypocrite or has Wikipedia got it wrong?

[JackAdamJones]

Hi All,

I wanted to join Mumsnet as I have been reading it for years, but now have something useful to post!

Basically, we all know that Nigel Farage is a racist, but is he a hypocrite too?

According to Wikipedia 'both parents of one of Farage's great-grandfathers were Germans who emigrated to London from the Frankfurt area shortly after 1861. His German ancestor Nicholas Schrod was mentioned in newspapers in 1870 in connection with a dispute with two men over the Franco-Prussian War', which (if true) means that he is a descendant of immigrants to the United Kingdom...

What a turn up for the books!

Does anyone else have any more information on this?

All I have to say is... Vee have vays of reforming zie UK! Wunderbar!

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage

I mean - his wife was German.

I like him!

Seems an OK sort of guy to me.

Isn't 'hyprocrite' the green stuff that supposedly affects Superman badly bigly? I don't think that exists outside of Louisiana?

Yes, he's a hypocrite. After a lot of family history research down many lines, I can't find someone who came from anywhere more exotic than Yorkshire back lots of centuries and believe me, I've tried. He doesn't have the same ancestry, his wife certainly doesn't, but he'd like to stop people making a life here and uses scaremongering tactics to do so.

We are a bunch of mongrels here and the better for it, enriched by immigration, for well over a millenium. Would that it can be recognised.

That doesn't make him a hypocrite though?

That’s bloody weird

I know nothing about my great grandparents but even if I did, I wouldn’t accept that their origins or actions dictated my beliefs. Great grandparents are over a century away and we all have 8 of them: goodness knows what they all got up to.

That might not. Applying for a German passport the day after the referendum almost certainly does though.

How is this racism? White Germans are the same race as white Britons (for the most part). I mean he’s a horrible little twerp of a man, who is very fond of racist rhetoric , but being German is not the problem. He’s as British as most.

Both his children have German passports and apparently he applied for one himself in 2016. I’m not sure if any of this is true but it appears to be.
It’s hypocritical.

I wouldn't be surprised if he had German ancestry and his wife was German. Not sure how useful the post is though as anyone that interested would have looked on Wikipedia anyway.

You are being deliberately obtuse. Immigrants are not interchangeable and Farage just makes the point that many Brits think, whether you like it or not.

His gf is French, his ex is German.

What’s him being German down the line got to do with mass and illegal immigration issues? The King is quite German too, so what.

@DonaldJohnTrump

"sn't 'hyprocrite' the green stuff that supposedly affects Superman badly bigly? "

I thought it was the green stuff that affected hippos with super powers?

@Arafon

"I wouldn't be surprised if he had German ancestry "

I don't understand why you "wouldn't be surprised " - are you suggesting that in some way that his views are Germanic?

Isn’t everyone descended from migrants?

he is a massive hypocrite over brexit - keeping the benefits of EU citizenship for himself and his family while cutting off most other people.

he is also a hypocrite in claiming to be a 'man of the people' when he went to public school and is pretty wealthy with no idea what real people's lives are like.

and pretty awful in all sorts of other ways.

Whats Germanic, his wife is German, he may have other relatives there.

Exactly @parietal. What he's done to the UK is disgusting and repugnant. I can't stand him. My step dad, who has lived and paid tax in the UK for years was harassed on what could have turned out to be his deathbed in hospital over his right to be here, he's a pensioner now and should have been left to rest and recover in peace. He's an EU citizen and has settled status. Luckily he's made a full recovery and will stay here pissing racists off for a good few years yet!

Huh. I always thought it was well-established that his father was French, in which case NF would be entitled to French citizenship as of right. Trying to remember where I read that now!

In any case, German ancestry that far back won't get you German citizenship, unless (oh the irony) you can establish that your ancestors fled the 3rd Reich between 1933 and 1945 out of a well-founded fear of persecution. There are now a few British kids who weren't born when Brexit happened but who have German passports through one or more German-born great-(great-)grandparents, most but not all of them Jewish.

However, with that said and as someone who can't stand Farage, I don't think it's hypocrisy. He didn't choose to be born to the descendants of immigrants, and he may well never have know any of his immigrant ancestors. Maybe they are only an eighth or a quarter of his DNA. I doubt if there is a person in the entire UK who doesn't have at least some immigrant roots if you go back far enough. Calling this hypocrisy feels to me like calling a Labour MP a hypocrite because their parents chose to send them to a private school, which was tried against Starmer before the election because his grammar school went private for a bit while he was there, or something. We are all individuals and if we are to be required to be judged by what some (not even all) of our ancestors did, things would get nasty very fast.

He's a fox hunting cretin. Vile pos

I believe he's one of the few honest mp's we have. He's not racist, he objects to the 1000's of illegal immigrants entering England & many people agree with him.

He's not a racist. But it's a handy buzzword for those that don't want him listened to.

Complaining about current high levels of immigration, legal and illegal, doesn't make someone racist.

Calling him a racist is a shoddy attempt to shut him down.

But he is a racist. This is well documented. Whether it be walking up to a Jewish school pupil and whispering "Hitler was right, gas them all"", singing Hitler youth songs, the awful breaking point brexit poster. Farage has used racism, xenophobia, sexism and Islamophobia to stir up division.