It isn’t the first time I’ve addressed this issue. Farage and his supporters outshine the masters at dealing with criticism. I suppose you have to admire them, much in the way Farage admires (or admired, which is it?) a certain Russian president with a penchant for foreign ventures.
The denial tactic
One of Farage’s tactics is plain denial. When various alumni of his alma mater said that he had made antisemitic jokes, including making a hissing sound to imitate Zyklon B being released in Nazi gas chambers, Farage’s team’s first response was that the accusers were lying.
These accusations were not new, and there were soon several more accusers. But Reform seems confident that their supporters, already so strongly disenfranchised with the mainstream political landscape, will readily dismiss what has been spun as harmless banter’, and that it was such a long time ago, and that even if he might have said it (and I’m not saying he did) is he guilty just because someone says he said it?
It’s all such a muddle, but muddles work well when muddying pools.
The demonisation tactic
There is another parallel approach, which seeks to demonise the accusers and anyone who reports their allegations. Thus, one of Farage’s GB News chums Camilla Tominey asserted that: “The campaign against Farage shows that nothing is beneath the frightened Left.”
This attempt to undermine criticisms of Farage avoids addressing the accusations and instead merely attacks the accusers. It implies that any accusation they make is false and vindictive, simply because of who they are.
Tominey then tries to cast further doubt on the accusations, claiming that: “After 49 years, the timing of these allegations raises obvious questions about their political motivation. Why now? Why at this particular moment?”
This is a classic ‘muddy the water’ Reform response. According to Reform, all criticism is ‘politically motivated’ and must be, by definition, wrong or at best dubious, on account of the views of the party making the claim.
In addition, the ‘Why now?’ argument plays on ignorance of the fact that allegations from contemporaries at Dulwich College were first reported in 2013 by then-Channel 4 News reporter Michael Crick, and repeated in a book in 2022. It really isn’t just a recent discovery, but most people don’t know that.
The duping tactic
Farage asserted he never made racist remarks in a “malicious or nasty way”. Could this be interpreted as an admission that he did make racist remarks, but that no malice was intended? Has he, at any stage, condemned the sort of remarks he is alleged to have made?
The dupe tactic is to wear down and discredit the accusers while playing the victim. As already argued, the claim used by Farage and his supporters, that the accusations had a “strong political element” is not valid since being anti-Reform does not entail that the accuser is lying. He implores voters to believe him rather than his accusers by appealing to their supposedly malevolent motives. Yet, more than twenty Old Alleynians have made similar accusations. Regardless of their motives, surely so many corroborated accounts need to be taken seriously?
Reform confuses, denies and distracts whilst taking turns to play the victim and the tough guy. Farage denies bullying anyone directly, yet he sidestepped altogether the opportunity to give a full denial of having made racist comments, taunts and jokes. While carefully painting himself as the unsuspecting victim of the march of time, Farage defended himself: “Have I said things 50 years ago that you could interpret as being banter in a playground, you could interpret in a modern light today in some sort of way? Yes.”
The disillusion tactic
Jewish support for the Labour Party is falling, while Reform UK is on the rise amongst British Jews. According to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR), “support among British Jews for the Labour and Conservative parties combined has fallen below 60%” due to the war in Gaza, rising antisemitism and growing mistrust of the mainstream parties.
In a move away from both Labour and Conservative, 18% of British Jews now favour the Green Party, and 11% favour Reform UK. Although the Green Party has officially labelled Israel “an apartheid state”, and Reform UK calls for an end to “the scam of mass immigration”, British Jews are beginning to move toward these parties in the wake of rising antisemitism in the UK and disillusionment with both the Labour and Conservative parties. Despite the antisemitic allegations surrounding Farage, Reform UK is still able to capitalise on disillusionment with the current government and its predecessors.
An Ipsos poll predicting which party Britons will cast their vote for in the next General Election reflects that this desire for change is in the larger populace as well, with Reform UK predicted to earn 30% of the vote, while Labour is predicted to earn 22% and the Conservatives 19%. The forces pushing British voters away from the Labour and Conservative parties are pulling them “toward parties that offer clarity – whether through populism or radical progressivism”. This just so happens to be Farage’s wheelhouse.
A disaster for our democracy
Farage may reject accusations of antisemitism, but he has been publicly associated with Rick Wiles since 2005, according to Wiles’s own recollection. A far-right, antisemitic American pastor, Wiles used his evangelical web radio show to claim that Trump’s impeachment was a “Jew coup”. On the show, Farage even spoke of a conspiracy theory whereby bankers and “globalists” plotted to impose a world government, a theory which is widely recognised as antisemitic.
Furthermore, on his LBC radio show in 2017, Farage claimed that the “Jewish lobby” in the United States is “very powerful” when it comes to “money and influence”.
But the fact remains, Farage is a master when it comes to sidestepping criticism. Until the British media up their game, he will continue to ‘get away with it’. This is a disaster for our democracy.
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