It was no surprise to see former United Kingdom
Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage on the same stage as United
States presidential contender Donald Trump the other day. They are very similar
men.
Both are unabashed populists, very good at telling
their audiences what they want to hear; both pose as champions of the common
people against a complacent and uncaring establishment; both play fast and
loose with the truth.
Trump sees Farage as a shining example of how this policy
actually worked during the European Union referendum campaign: Short, simple messages
repeatedly hammered home to people who want to believe them. When the rebuttals
come they are inevitably too complicated and anyway are produced by the contemptable
elite who are never to be trusted.
Perhaps the best example was Farage’s signature claim
that Britain’s National Health Service would benefit by £350 million ($A604 million) once the UK quit
the EU. It was wrong; it was proved wrong time and again, but the message still
resonated – slap it on the sides of enough buses and people would believe it.
Of course Farage was not around to take the
consequences. After one last joyous nose thumbing at the European Parliament he
left the scene, leaving the Brexit campaigners to wipe their websites and
pretend the claim had never been made.
For Trump the situation is different. Having taken
control of the Republican Party he has had time to think about what he said
during the primaries and was beginning to wonder if he should not be more ‘presidential’.
Farage was there to reassure the candidate. Never mind what you say, just keep
saying it. Forget the substance, it will be drowned out by the applause.
Build a wall right across the southern border with
Mexico and make Mexico pay for it. Pardon? No details, it will just happen if
you elect me.
Over the past weeks there has been endless analysis
of the EU referendum vote, including one article in which journalist Jeremy Fox
argues that the supposed link between immigration into the UK and Brexit
doesn’t stand up.
Fox found that in many cases, areas which had the
least amount of immigration had the highest vote to Leave while others that had
seen a considerable influx of immigrants seemed quite comfortable with the
newcomers and were among the higher votes to Remain.
This left the Guardian
newspaper to argue, quite reasonably, that it was the fear of immigration, not
immigration itself, which was the driving force in Leave’s victory – and fear,
of course, is bread and butter for those that want to ram home their points,
however spurious.
Most sadly of all has been the spike in overtly
racist incidents since the referendum vote, often directed towards second and
third generation Britons who have absolutely nothing to do with the current
immigration debate.
It may be this can of worms which will be the
lasting legacy of Farage and Brexit.
Wrong again. Farage was not part of the official Vote Leave campaign so had nothing to do with the £350million claim. The claim was made by Messrs Johnson and Gove and was painted all over Boris's 'battle bus'. Maybe you should read other newspapers apart from the largely irrelevant Express and Guardian.
ReplyDeleteForresthillbillies, from your sensationalist tone I can only conclude you favour the jouralism offered by the Sun and the Mirror. Page 3 anyone?
ReplyDeleteNo... I am more a Times, Telegraph and Guardian man....just trying to set the record straight (incidentally, the Sun and Mirror took diametrically opposite sides in the referendum debate)
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ReplyDeleteTo say that Farage was not the principal factor in the Brexit vote is disingenuous to say the least. He may not have been part of the 'official' Leave campaign composed mostly of dissident Tories, but he was certainly recognised, even by David Cameron, as the spearhead of Leave and during the campaign constantly referred to the NHS as a beneficiary of the UK leaving the EU, proving the Joseph Goebbels dictum that big lies, if told often enough, will be believed.
ReplyDeleteI have never denied that Farage was a factor in the Brexit vote. However, the £350million claims were made by Johnson and the official Vote Leave campaign, leading members of which, incidentally, included the co chairman, Gisela Stuart — a Labour MP — as well as, for example Lord Owen, who has rejoined the Labour Party, and many MPs including the moderates Kate Hoey and Frank Field — but not Farage. I find it interesting that you have never mentioned any of the 'misinformation' provided by the Remain campaign, such as warnings of an emergency 'punishment'budget, collapse of the housing market, mass unemployment, exodus of leading companies etc. In the interests of balance and fairness, you should maybe put the record straight on these matters. As the former owner of the Guardian, CP Scott, said: 'It is good to be frank but even better to be fair.'
ReplyDeleteTo add to my previous comment: It is hardly surprising that Cameron and the rest of Project Fear (as it was justifiably labelled) chose the swivel-eyed Farage as their bogeyman. After all, if you wanted to remain in the EU, who would you prefer to attack: the more measured Stuart, Owen, Field, Hoey, Gove Duncan Smith, Davies and the massively popular Johnson or Nutty Nigel? Had you been in the UK at the time of the referendum, you would have noticed that Farage became an increasingly peripheral figure as the campaign wore on.
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ReplyDeleteHi Foresthillbillies, as a matter of fact, I was in the UK during part of the campaign. As regards Remain's 'misinformation' this all refers to what will happen after the UK leaves the EU, which hasn't happened yet and I hope can still be avoided. The exception being the so-called punishment budget with George Osborne was unable to introduce because Theresa May sacked him.
ReplyDeleteNot really. Christine Lagarde of the IMF said on May 13 that a vote (note the words ‘a vote’) for Brexit ‘would trigger shockwaves throughout the economy’. She warned the vote would cause a stockmarket crash, a collapse in house prices and probably an immediate recession. She was echoing the words of Bank of England chief Mark Carney in what was widely seen as a neat, if dishonourable, way of circumventing the ‘purdah’ rules which barred Government Ministers from making such comments before the official campaign began. I could give countless other examples if you like. Of course, we now know that their apocalyptic warnings proved wildly inaccurate. Your likening of the Leave campaign to Goebbels is both unfair and — unintentionally, I hope — extremely offensive.
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