04.07.2024
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Nigel’s me too moment
Reform UK attracts bigots like flies to shit. Meanwhile, the mainstream parties parade their anti-racist credentials and compete over who can be most beastly to migrants. The irony is not lost on Eddie Ford
Would you believe it? Reform UK attracts racists, homophobes, misogynists and followers of lunatic conspiracy theories. We all know this now because Channel 4 News did us all a big favour and secretly filmed the bigoted views of a couple of its canvassers.
As a quick aside, this writer will not be using the strange habit of obscuring ‘offending words’ with asterisks - as if swear words have a magic property to them - something done by both the mainstream media and many on the left. So Socialist Worker, when it is trying to be really outrageous, will say, ‘F**k off!’ BBC news simply uses bleeps.
Anyway, regarding Clacton, where Nigel Farage is standing, we have the story of Reform activist Andrew Parker. As we all know by now, Parker called Rishi Sunak a “fucking Paki”, before going on to tell the undercover journalist: “We’re fucking kicking all the Muslims out of the mosques and turning them into Wetherspoons” - not to mention getting young army recruits to use incoming migrants as “target practice”. Another canvasser said that a Pride flag on a passing police car was “fucking degenerate”, as LGBTQ people are “nonces”. As for London, it makes him feel like “a foreigner in your own country” (no marks for originality, it has to be said).
Alf Garnett
Nigel Farage is claiming in Trumpian fashion that it was “the biggest smear stitch-up” in UK broadcasting history - saying that Parker was an actor - a “plant” used by Channel 4 to discredit Reform, whether paid or unpaid. In reality, or so we are told, Parker is a “well-spoken” middle class individual, but from the moment he arrived in Clacton he was doing what Nigel Farage called “rough speaking” that involved playing “an Alf Garnett type” (for younger readers - a TV comic character who was the embodiment of pure bigotry, no matter how absurd, invented by Johnny Speight). Of course, there is absolutely no evidence for this allegation, but Reform has written a letter to the Electoral Commission complaining that the Channel 4 story “cannot be described as anything short of election interference”.
Indeed, Farage and other leading Reform figures are seeing conspiracies everywhere. After appearing on the BBC’s Question time election special, he protested that the audience was “rigged”, as they had “hand-picked a prominent pro-Palestine activist and even a BBC TV director to attack me”. He then refused to go on the flagship Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show, as he was “boycotting” the BBC unless it apologises. He promised that his party would be “campaigning vigorously” to abolish the TV licence fee, as “our state broadcaster has behaved like a political actor throughout this election”.
Then after two Reform candidates defected to the Conservative Party, saying that the majority of those standing for it were “racist, misogynistic and bigoted” - fancy that - Reform chairman Richard Tice described them as “Trojan horse” candidates placed ahead of the election with the intention of blackening Reform. “Note same press release language coordinated by dirty tricks central, CCHQ,” he fulminated on X/Twitter - “What jobs & safe seats have toxic Tories offered this candidate?”
Now, no serious socialist would claim for a minute that the BBC is politically neutral, committed to nothing other than objective reporting, as supposedly proved - so the old argument goes - by the fact that it is held in equal disdain by both the radical right and left, so it must be telling you the truth! No, its instinctive pro-establishment/pro-system bias is obvious to anyone who has a brain. Countless studies confirm it. Historically, a quick look at the BBC’s origins under Lord Reith in 1922 should be enough to tell you about its political physiognomy - although, of course, it has evolved like any other institution. But it does not require a conspiracy by the BBC or anyone else to tell us that Reform UK attracts bigots like flies to shit.
Enoch!
That is only to be expected. In general, these people are refugees from the Tory Party - those who admired not just Margaret Thatcher, but, say, Enoch Powell. Until relatively recently, local Tory offices would have pictures of both on their wall. Powell is infamously associated with his ‘rivers of blood’ speech basically saying that Britain is going to the dogs because of migrants, a patrician giving plebian racists the green light to express their views. Hence the horrible phenomenon in 1968 of London dockers marching to Westminster chanting, “Enoch! Enoch! Enoch!” Maybe Nigel Farage fantasises about a similar scenario, though this time it would be a budget version with more elderly people in a decaying seaside town murmuring, “Nigel … Nigel … Nigel”!
What is most interesting about the Andrew Parker story is that it underlines the existence of official anti-racism, which some on the left still deny for whatever reason - it is as though they have not noticed who the outgoing prime minister is, not to mention other dark-skinned members of recent Conservative cabinets. Naturally, Rishi Sunak denounced Reform, saying that, while the “Paki” slur left him “hurt and angry”, he will always “call out blatant racism.” Well, unless racists come bearing thousands of pounds, like Frank Hester.
Naturally, Labour, the Lib Dems and just about everyone else piled in to denounce Reform and the evils of racism. There followed a steady stream of prominent Reform politicians appearing on the media to also disassociate themselves from anything that smacked of open bigotry - one actually claimed that half of the Reform office is gay.
No less to the point, Nigel Farage himself has said he wanted “nothing to do” with racists, actually disowning three of his own candidates live on air during Question time when their bigoted or racist remarks were put to him - though, of course, they will still appear on the ballot paper as official Reform candidates, as it is too late for them to be removed. However, quite understandably from his own point of view, Farage said people should still vote for them if they wished to “register support” for Reform.
Another Reform candidate, Raymond Saint in Basingstoke, was also dropped because he features as a member of the British National Party in a list that was published by WikiLeaks in 2009. According to Reform rules, every potential candidate is asked to declare their past or present political affiliations - specifically whether they have ever been a member of the BNP. This is reminiscent of The House UnAmerican Activities Committee asking people: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” If you give the wrong answer, you are out - a sinner cannot repent in Nigel Farage’s party.
Tellingly, when Farage was asked why his party “attracts racists and extremists”, he countered by saying he had “done more to drive the far right out of British politics than anybody else alive” - even claiming credit for “destroying the BNP”. In reality the destruction of the BNP was almost solely down to an episode of Question time on October 22 2009 when the then leader of the party, Nick Griffin, was a guest.1 He was relentlessly exposed by his fellow panellists, especially by playwright Bonnie Greer, as a buffoon and a charlatan - an emperor with no clothes - and when the BBC audience actually started to boo Griffin, you knew the game was up for him. The BNP as a project was finished. Now that was a true ‘set-up’, but in a very positive sense. Let’s have more like that!
Idiotically, Unite Against Fascism - then the SWP’s favoured front organisation - held a noisy little protest outside the television centre against Griffin appearing. In fact it was the ‘oxygen of publicity’ that did over the BNP leader. A valuable lesson that the left should have learned, but no such luck, as it keeps repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
Unacceptable
So official anti-racism exists - Nigel Farage subscribes to it after all - as does racism. But, expressed in its old way, it is not socially acceptable. As everybody knows from real-life experience, the expression of particular views or phrases puts offenders beyond polite society. They become pariahs.
But at the same time, we get the Tory Party and Labour basically competing with Reform UK, when it comes to who can be the nastiest towards migrants. True, shooting them, or using them for “target practice”, is not recommended. But for the Tories and large sections of the press, sending people thousands of miles to Rwanda is acceptable. Even though it is utterly foul. Meanwhile, George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain wants the royal navy diverted from the Red Sea to the English Channel, so it can force the boats back. Of course, no-one would drown, would they, George?
If asylum-seekers do get to Britain, is the Labour Party proposing anything essentially different to the Tories - a “faster processing” of people maybe? But the reality is that mass migration will keep happening, not because Britain is such a heaven, but where people come from is such a hell - Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Kurdistan, etc. It is wars, oppression, state collapse and IMF structural adjustment programmes which are driving people. Here is the real cause of illegal migration. Not people smugglers. Though, of course, such people are quite prepared to make a small fortune (just like narco criminals, who profit handsomely from the ‘war on drugs’).
Migrants will not stop coming and the working class needs to be clear about that. Of course, this adds to competition when it comes to that commodity known as labour-power. Therefore, our answer is to organise people in trade unions and working class parties - not only in Britain, but internationally. It goes without saying that communists aim for a world where the working class is in control: a global ruling class.
The CPGB is not against migration. But mass migration is clearly a sign of social stress and breakdown - not something to be welcomed. We would never turn people away, or treat them as if they are the reason for falling wages, the shortage of housing, long waiting lists, or a lack of doctors and school places. They are not to blame. It’s the system, stupid.