Ok, I survived my Mark Collett video experience. Caught no cooties.
He’s definitely grown up since he was on that ‘Young Nazi and Proud’ tv show. He comes across as someone who is well- informed, and considered in his opinions. He unflinchingly describes himself as a Nationalist. He speaks proudly of his involvement with the BNP, which was at the time of their peak success as a party, with numerous councillors.
He starts his video with what he describes as Farage’s good points, probably about ten minutes of material. He has some interesting thoughts on propaganda, and clearly uses these techniques himself, including in the video itself. He emphasises NF’s importance in getting the referendum in the first place and also making it more acceptable t0 talk about immigration.
Then he moves on to critique Farage. It’s very weird hearing criticism of Farage from the other side (I’ve always considered myself to be a leftie, but Liberal left, not authoritarian left) and some of it I agree with - Collett describes Brexit Party as a vanity project for Farage, a single issue, single use project. He points out that UKIP are actually a proper party, with members and elected officials and points out that it’s the work of ordinary activists that has created these successes and he sees parallels with the way the BNP worked 15-20 years ago. He calls the Brexit Party a ‘toothless tiger’.
I agree with this, and actually, I think Change U.K. are in a similar position - current Brexit MEPs were elected, in part, due to the work of UKIP volunteers.
Same with the MPs who have founded change - technically for Parliament we vote for individuals but most of us select those individuals on party lines and if you vote for someone only to have them cross the floor, it will anger many of the voters, and enrage party members who lost finger nails in snappy letterboxes, delivering leaflets on their day off.
The rest of the argument is calling out Farage for not being right enough. Farage’s anti European/pro commonwealth immigration comments are dismissed as ridiculous (unsurprisingly a former BNP person would rather live next to a white Scandinavia family than a Bangladeshi family) and he is criticised for having no political friends other than Trump, and that’s now over. Collett accuses Farage of ‘punching right’ (see, that’s one of those propaganda moments, he’s adapting the SJW ‘punching up’ phrase) and slagging off other British right wingers, including current UKIP leader. Farage is accused of deliberately sabotaging UKIP in order to further his own profile (‘leaving the party before the job was done’) and being far more interested in his own legend than in actual politics. Farage is accused of being an establishment shill (paraphrasing) and the Brexit party is described as a ‘pressure valve’ - a way for angry people to vote that seems meaningful but achieves nothing.
Collett read out a memo supposedly written by a UKIP MEP who accuses Farage of deliberately scuppering Brexit in a closed door meeting 2 days before the leave deadline - Farage is accused of doing this to force the U.K. to participate in the EU elections - giving Farage an opportunity to be relevant and high profile again.
The Brexit Party is just a grift.
I won’t be voting for either of them, but if I were a proper right winger (not a centrist accused of being a right winger or a lexiteer or whatever else gets dismissed as right wing nowadays) or someone who was anti establishment protest voting I would be sticking with UKIP.
Perhaps the vote being split between UKIP and Brexit will actually tell us lots about why people voted leave in the referendum?