Farage was a necessary candidate and a pre-established 'winner'. The true hard Brexiteers had to show finally publicly and make noise. But his 'triumph' will serve a a ring bell calling the end of the recreation. Real choices have to emerger now, or else...
1
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?”
Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson’s buddy, Trump.
1
"The most effective orator sets the agenda."
Yes, that IS usually how things work in a democracy. Perhaps leftwing globalists should find a selling point for their ideas that isn't "we're going to make you a minority in your own nations, and also you're racist."
The problem with the narrative by the remain side surrounding Nigel Farage is that they frame everything in terms of racism and bigotry. If it were anybody else most of these things wouldn't even register. The vast majority of countries around the world including most perfectly civilised, sensible and tolerant, westernized countries would not let immigrant in who had infectious diseases and many more insist any immigrant is wealthy enough to support themselves and their families without being a burden on the state. But because it's Farage (and I'm no fan of his) it's couched in language that borders on hysteria. It's similar to the quite absurd Trump blimp and the hysterics his visit is causing. We have welcomed the leaders of some of the most oppressive regimes in the world, regimes tbat murders people on account of their religion or their sexual orientation, and people barely batter a eyelid. But Trump comes over and all hell breaks loose. (Again no fan of Trump, but I am a fan of democracy)
3
The racist and narcissistic likes of Farage, Johnson, Trump, Duarte, Erdogan, Jong-un and Putin, etc, etc....spell catastrophe. These maniacal creatures, of which there are now far many, are setting the stage for some serious worldwide political times. North Korea is hopping. Iran is hopping. Western Europe has lost its mind. The USofA is in turmoil. “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble.”
12
Wait for the judgment of history.
What if the EU experiment goes down in a blaze of bankrupt glory, with Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal destroying the Euro and taking down the whole Potemkin edifice down with it?
Then it will be time to judge Nigel Farage.
3
I'd say it's a tossup between the anti-Semite Corbyn and the xenophobe Farage. Why do you give him such a hand's down win over such a grotesque contender as Corbyn?
3
Wouldn't want to live next to a Romanian? But married a German? What horrible people there are roaming among us. He should be living in a cave somewhere, not the being the head of a political party in a civilized country. Or maybe our claim to being "civilized" is undeserved.
2
Nope, Farage is not the most dangerous man in the UK.
That would be Boris Johnson. He has the power to implement Farage's ideas.
49
Is it just me, or doesn't Farage look exactly like one of the characters on Are You Being Served? Except that the latter was funnier.
4
Mr Farage is right in so many ways. Poor immigrants that arrive into the UK have to be kept by the citizens of the UK there hard earned wages that are taxed have to pay for there Social Housing...Health and Education and many that come to Britain do not work.
Also many immigrants come in with no vaccinations and have brought in diseases that were wiped out in the UK.
8
As usual, blame the immigrants. And how about the Brits who have lived and are living a splendid life abroad collecting unemployment benefits for decades ? They are probably damageing the British economy more than a few immigrants on the dole.
5
Nigel Farage belongs in jail. He has caused untold anxiety, misery and no solutions. The Full Trump. How about a nice cell for the two of them? They deserve each other.
10
An incomplete headline, as this opinion piece should have also included Jeremy Corbyn, the anti-Semitic head of Britain's Labour Party.
9
NO American woud vote to join the European Union because our country would lose all control over immigration - who came here, how many, and all the other good things we benefitted from at Ellis Island.
Britain finally woke up and put a righteous end to their previous mistake.
8
Little England, and little America. A match made in heaven.
3
Throwing a little truth onto the dumpster fire called Brexit:
1. Membership in the EU is better than any of the alternatives, period.
2. Farage plus the Brexit Tories will do anything to achieve Brexit, up to and including carpet bombing Brits economically, something like Bashir al-Assad. They are doing this to conceal, protect and further their offshore interests. They've even encouraged widespread racism and xenophobia to gain their ends. They promote pompous delusions of freedom from geopolitical and economic fact. Britain is a now a world-wide joke. If Brexit happens Brits are going to find out the price of these shabby delusions and pay.
3. Worse is the fact that there is no focussed opposition - no person, no party, no press or other media, no mechanism - to stop this madness. No one is forcefully representing the obviously increasing Remain majority.
4. Brexit threatens to paralyse the working economy and thereby choke off public services, including health and education, creating a mass of ignorant, desperate people primed for servitude, exactly like Trump's base, a worthy goal for some apparently. The British media are entirely complicit in this.
5. What an opportunity for Labour, one might think. Not, apparently, when dotards rule. With the government in tatters the main problem for Britain now is Corbyn. Wake up and dump him.
6. Britain must express itself, legitimately this time as there can be no doubt what is at stake. Another referendum, please.
72
@Angstrom Unit
How can another referendum be forced?
Well, the courts in the U.K. can determine the referendum was held under false pretenses and, thus, nullify it. There is a public case that has just gained court approval against Boris Johnson for lying about the amount of money the U.K. was supposedly paying the E.U. Each week - 350 million pounds - that became a central point in the Brexit campaign.
Here is an entry point for the judicial system to try to insert a check against the disorganized madness of Brexit.
Or, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales could mount an effort to leave the U.K. In favour of Europe.
This is far from over.
5
Dear Richard,
Thanks for the endorsement!
Best,
Nigel
1
Everybody get their own share, My fellow Britons
We have Trump , You have Farage.
Both have their mentor, Putin.
Obviously it ain't anymore 1980s...
2
Farage is a racist. I reside in the U.K. For nearly six months a year these days. It's quite true that he is a racist. I've written about that here before.
However, like Trump, he understands that quite a number of others in his sway are racist, too. In the U.K., Eastern Europeans, Muslims, African refugees all make up the big, scary group that Farage reminds are out to destroy the British way of life.
In this sense, he unites poor white Brits at the bottom of the education heap with the somewhat well-off upper middle class that aspire toward financial gain against everyone else.
Meanwhile, the very rich simply prepare for any eventuality for their own self preservation and they have faded into the shadows to sit this disaster out.
My oh my how this lines up with what is happening here in the States. The outsiders fight amongst themselves (Democratic micro tribes) exactly the way Parliament carved each other up during the winter and early spring over Brexit.
Meanwhile, there are few in the so-called masses who have taken any time to try to sort what this all will look like several moves along the way.
Churchill put it well when he quipped that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Hitler rose to power playing the nationalist blame game. All dictators must have a "them" for the "us" to hate.
Neither Farage nor Trump are sleeping in rundown council estates at night, are they?
If anyone thinks they care about anyone else - they don't.
8
Farage isn't dangerous because of anything concrete that he can do. Rather, given that both major UK political Parties are each deeply divided internally & in crises of leadership, Farage can compound the chaos by appealing to the base emotions & sympathies of significant segments in each of these Parties.
The danger for the UK of drifting into a har Brexit without preparation of plan by October is thus very real. Farage has power & no formal responsibility for increasing this drift.
The tragedy is that time is short & no one appears to be in a place of sufficient political power or influence to negate the influence of this emotional child & his ilk.
2
Farage is the leader of a new political party operating in a foreign arena and that party does not have a majority of members within the British contingent. The British contingent exists as an accident and it is likely that it will constitute a temporary phenomenon. The raison d'etre of the party is the demolition of Britain's involvement in the European parliament as soon as possible, while its new leader has also said to the assembly that he also desires the complete break up of the EU itself. Effectively, therefore, Farage's mission is to end his political career. He has failed many times to establish another career at Westminster and it remains to be seen whether the electorate will be fooled at the next general election.
The saving grace may well be the re-emergence after more than a century of the Liberal(Democrat) party as the head of a fresh centrist coalition. Clearly if the Brexit party were to participate in a national lection in 2020 in another guise it will comprise a raggle-taggle of pseudo professionals and amateurs whose worth will be there for all to see - with or without Farage.
It is vital that the Conservatives can steady the ship under a new leader until election day in 2020 so that we can all have a breather and collect our thoughts in relative calm. It is not difficult for the sensible bedrock of the British electorate to gauge Farage's true motives. His record is one of a serial opportunist, not a profound potential statesman.
2
It has been disappointing to see the likes of the New York Times and the BBC splashing headlines touting the success of Farage and his latest political party, given the actual results. The headlines could have easily and correctly claimed "Anti-Brexit Parties Sweep European Elections in UK" instead. Even on the BBC website, you have to scroll down a long page before you get to the chart that shows that a combination of parties with a stated anti-Brexit position won 40% of the vote against the 31% for Farage & co.; I'm setting aside the paltry votes for the two major parties, as they dithered so much that no one knows where they stand. Yet there's Farage on the Channel 4 news claiming a majority win. That's not a majority, it's not even a third. If you combine it with the turnout figures, you could say 90% of the British public did not vote for Farage (it may not be ethical, but it's at least as correct as anything coming out of his mouth).
Don't get me wrong, Farage, a big mouth looking for a gig, is a dangerous man, and this piece makes many important points. But at least part of the danger he poses is in the power we give him by giving him splashy headlines and by not challenging his questionable arithmetic.
Now, why does that sound so familiar?
5
@A Yank in the UK
I don't know how long you have been here, but if you haven't discovered yet how awful the media is, you soon will do. Quality journalism in Britain died when Murdoch took the Times of London. The byword is now 'the stinking, yellow British press'. Only the NYT Times is left to honour the English speaking world.
1
The excuse that both U.S.A and U.K. were conned to choose their respective destinies by voting for Donald Trump and Brexit, in spite of themselves, should be dropped without any further pretension. America still entertains a choice in 2020; Britain has none once it is outside EU. And nobody is going to help Britain either.
Could Nigel Farage or anybody deliver a more livable outcome with EU? What has he – despised by every Briton – got that EU would genuflect in front of this demagogue? Nothing, nada, zilch!
At least DJT can claim that he has improved the American economy; what has Nigel Farage accomplished so far? His resume looks empty.
1
While you keep on with your condescension, patronizing, and insulting, never forget that the man is very successful in what he is doing, as opposed to the majority of politicians that you would (unconditionally) support. It takes talent, know-how, and there is quite a lot of those who believe him, and rightly so. Of course, they are also bottom of the bottom in your very narrow worldview.
Well, I hope he goes on winning, as well as Trump, just because of your intolerance, arrogance and inability to understand and accept that there people thinking very differently from you but having the exact same rights as you have.
4
He successfully got kicked out of his own party, after he successfully lost said party's only seat in Parliament.
3
The Brexit party has been around for just over 6 weeks, has 110,000 registered supporters who have paid £25 each, they are the main source of funds.
The 29 Brexit party MEPs who were voted in recently by the UK electorate include people who are gay, a mix of ethnicities and religions, a doctor, nurse, business people, decorated war hero, care home owner and many other work experiences.
It’s main driving force is the argument that democracy isn’t working as it should, we had a referendum and our parliamentarians (and the establishment generally) who mostly voted to remain have refused to accepted the referendum result.
The main reason we voted to leave the EU was sovereignty, the EU is bureaucratic and lacks democracy, MEPs can’t initiate laws or revoke them, the Commission does that and I can’t vote for or against Commissioners, they are appointed. We realise there will be challenges, but it’s not all about money, it’s about democracy.
In my opinion this article does reflect the reality of the party, but I guess it depends on where you are coming from politically as to the way you view things.
4
The European Parliamentary elections have been widely reported as a win for Farage and Brexit, but a look at the numbers clearly indicate that the remain vote exceeded those cast for the party which stood for leaving the EU. The British media is still culpable for manipulating the narrative.
Truthfully all Farage did was give the leavers a place to park their resentments, bigotry and petulance. Thanks to the pathetic performance of Labour and Corbyn, remain's clear majority is diffusing its power over a number of parties and positions.
Democracy is not working very well in the anglosphere as the complexity of current events exceeds the understanding of many and the power of media manipulation is increasingly evident.
Another referendum is the only answer, followed by a careful, truthful assessment of how Britain got here.
1
It misses the point to heap blame on and point to all the character flaws of Farage and Trump. One should wonder why, in spite of these, voters still chose them.
Where is the compelling narrative for another way forward? People want to aspire to something and have found the alternatives lacking, this is something to face and deal with squarely.
1
"But since they are the party of business, they can’t seriously contemplate leaving without a deal." Why not? Britain has a large trade deficit with the rest of Europe (as the U.S. does with China). Eurozone producers will be hurt much more than Brits if a "no-deal" Brexit happens.
1
What appears to be true is that, given the baseness of human nature, it is much easier to pull people toward fascism than toward democracy. Democracies are fragile and precious. Unfortunately, for that same reason they are ripe for exploitation by opportunists like Trump and Farage.
4
On the second note , These times are also best indicator of how center left leaders quality and politicial genius.
Let's compare these
Late 1990. Clinton and Blair
Late 2010. Sanders and Corbyn.
Neither Sanders nor Corbyn never ever achieve what Blair and Clinton achieved. That is the Historical truth.
1
If the center (what remains) and the left can pull it off, I sincerely hope that the EU punishes the UK by making a no-deal Brexit as hard on them as possible. The UK believes that it can have its cake and eat it too. But this isn't the British Baking Show, this is the real world. A UK without its colonies will be a pawn to an expanding mother Russia. Don't be surprised if Eastern Europe comes back under the control of Putin while the UK continues to focus inwardly as I expect both the Scottish and the N. Irish to begin to question their relationship with the crown.
80
@Marston Gould Careful saying things like that. Far less than half the population actively want to see Brexit through. As much as I’d love to see them suffer the ill effects of the fruits of their desires, it means many blameless suffer too. I often think the same of Trump voters!
4
Look , I do not believe Brexit is not for benefit of UK people.
But
It is absolutely benefit of EU.
In true terms UK as a giant economy didn't participate Euro financial revolution. That disqualifies them.
EU look forward, consolidate EU economy around Euro , Euro had already lived worst crisis as term of financial complexity which is in the first place was not formulated.
But 2010 European sovereign debt crisis is over , we learned a lot , we bleed a lot too.
But time creating the EU v.2.0 = Europe without UK= Financially EURO BASED.
TIME IS OVER, LET THE UK GO. We will see 10 to 20 year down the road Mr. Farage will be known as the same character as late Communist part secretaries of USSR. Self serving corrupt politician.
2
I take offense. Why are you leaving out poor Jeremy Corbyn? He's just as dangerous as Nigel.
3
Close the boarders. Redefine patriotism as white and Christian. It will all be fine if we get rid of those people. Re-establish our historic "sovereignty." Spend on guns, never butter, and then people will love the crumbs and ignore the profits made by the crumb producers. Tell them they are the best and always right. The world, demand for goods, and what the market values have changed but I'll make it so you can ignore that entirely. The others are takers and they are dirty. Build the ovens. Fill the box cars. I'll get rid of your problems. We've heard it all before.
2
All those countries that were once under British Colonial rule, are still struggling with issues ranging from racism, cultural, economics to name a few. This is the legacy left behind by the British Empire.
Now, it is interesting to see some of the same issues are being confronted in Britain itself.
For politicians like Mr. Nigel Farage, the Brexit platform was the most easiest path to get onto the forefront. Similar playbook, borrowed, and tried in several countries, and resulting in utter failure and disaster. To tell the people, by having Britain go it alone, rather than being part of the EU, is better for the country. It is telling the people - lets Make Britain Great Again.
If the Brexit Party experiment fails, the people in Britain will know what it was due to.
1
Sounds like a guy I could get behind. Still waiting to see how the Brits screw their own voters out of the Bexit they approved. Hopefully this will put paid to those thoughts.
1
"an assortment of Tory retirees and a smattering of ex-fascists and other right-wing cranks," which of course explains the 30% of the vote Farage got, all of them being naturally retirees, ex-fascists & cranks. Lovely analysis . . . not.
2
What many do not appreciate is that, by stealth, the EU is reducing the sovereignty of its member states, hoping in the long term to fashion a United States of Europe, a Federal superstate. Our courts are already subservient to the ECJ. I ask you, would the USA allow its laws to be determined by other countries and overule her courts? I doubt it. Immigration is important for any nation - the greatness of Amerca was built on just that - but now, to open our doors to other mass populations in other European Nation States is just another step toward Federalisation. What you must also try to understand is that in the early 1970's we joined a trading block, (or so we were told), which made sense and that our sovereignty would not be affected. This was a lie. We never agreed to political or fiscal union. The EU is corrupt - what other organisation uproots its Parliament for 4 days every month and moves it to France (just to appease the French) at a phenomenal cost. We want to be an independent country, trading with whom ever we choose, because we can't under EU rules. People in the UK have had enough of our self serving, hypocrital politicians. May didn't deliver what she promised and has paid the price...tough. God Bless the United Kingdom
6
I think that ultimately Mr. Farage's blustering and bait and switch blaming, his cutting away at the very roots of democracy, will wear thin with even his most ardent supporters. Here in the US, we are beginning to see the stress lines on Trump supporters. How often can you be "enraged" by liberals, laugh at stupid name calling that Trump seems to do every day, and cheer for all of bluster without getting a little tired of the circus and wanting actual results.
But both the UK and the US are plagued by picking their leaders from the same schools, the same social circles, the same life experience and so they all (Labour and Conservative, Democrats and Republicans) sound out of touch with the everyday experiences of ordinary people. The British upper class has got to go, just like Harvard, Yale, Stanford and all the like-minded people they produce. Both societies have stagnated, plus the British still strangely cling to that bizarre monarchy they have (the biggest welfare recipients in the world), to keep "the old ways" forever in their minds. The old ways are not gone, but they should be. Britain needs new blood. So does the US. Trump is not new blood; he's old, stagnated and infected blood. But Trump voters thought he was different - defiant and a shoot-from-the hip style of politician, which we just eat up. What they found out was he's just an incompetent, narcissistic liar. Farage will be found out as well.
2
Sounds like Britain and the U.S. are both in big trouble with Farage and Trump! The majority of Brits, we read, detest Farage, same as the majority of Americans detest Trump - and yet they both persist.
How does this happen?
3
You have an absolute right to call Nigel farage as horrible as you please. But you have not explained why it’s alright for a welfare state for immigrants. Why do people from outside have a right to anything in our country. Why politicians do not honour the referendum. Why unelected bureaucrats have the right to do charity with our money. How is being proud of our country and heritage bad? How can people from other minority religions come and dictate terms to us. Do Christians dictate terms to Israel or Saudi Arabia. Immigrants come from outside and try to judge us. Please explain sir!!!!??
3
murdoch; breitbart; alex jones; bannon; the mercers; farage; trump; gingrich; giuliani; limbaugh; coulter; mcconnell: their similarity is unbridled racism, and nihilism. they are all from privilege, and they live to sew hatred and division. the new generation, as led by pols such as macron, mayor pete, aoc, katie porter, stacy abrams, kamala harris, cory booker, will eventually win this battle for our progress.
2
Theresa May was the zombie leader. She couldn't complete her mission to find a one party solution to Brexit. She couldn't fail bad enough for the Tories to call for new elections which very likely would ended their hold on power. Farage is an international laughing stock. A return to the days of Lord Palmerston and Britain's splendid isolation is a pipe dream.
1
We need to thank Putin, Bannon, the Mercers and Trump for the wreckage of the British government and eventually its economy.
1
Richard Seymour (twitter handle @leninology), a commissioning editor at Salvage magazine, is clearly an out and out socialist with a red uppercase 's', judging by the contents of the Salvage website. While he writes with a mixture of half-truths and myths he, like Farage, has a very twisted tongue. Half-truths by Seymour and Farage easily meet "the Donald's" Fake News criteria. How much alike all three of them are. Much of Farage's appeal was to the fatigued Brexit population in the UK. When push came to shove, only the disaffected protest morons turned out for his 'no manifesto' Brexit Party. Not much of a recommendation for British political parties and those who voted.
It's not accurate to say that the Conservative Party lost the referendum on Europe. The party remained neutral during the campaign and allowed its members and elected officials to campaign for either side. The then party leader and Prime Minister David Cameron campaigned on the remain side, as did his successor Theresa May, but plenty of high-profile party members such as Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg campaigned to leave.
2
Farage, according to the article, made his mark as a City trader in the 80's. Such delicious irony that the London banking world will be non existent in five years due to Farage and his ilk, with all the major trading houses having moved to Frankfurt. Of course Farage, having married a German, can move there too. How convenient.
2
If a guy like Farage is the most dangerous man in Britain , it says a lot about what Great Britain has become or has staid.
Probably the same way as if you look at Trump , it defines pretty much the culture and education of the USA .
6
OK, then, let's just get on with it. ExitASAP. That way we (US, EU, AU, etc.) all know what disengagement looks like.
I believe it will be (very) painful, but we all need to see a clear lesson in the consequences of believing politician who are simply, liars.
6
Wake up New York Times. The most dangerous man in Britain is Jeremy Corbyn.
3
Sadly racism is contagious. You don’t need a lot of it to spread everywhere. Just a small amount of yeast to work through the whole dough.
I have always wondered whether the majority of white people in 80’s South Africa really hated black people that much? Or were they just influenced so heavily by the environment of racism they grew up in that they didn’t have a chance to become anything but hateful racists?
If we transplanted the brexiters in the UK now to South Africa in 1980 would they act any differently to the general population that advocated apartheid?
That is my biggest fear. The way the majority sleep walks into becoming racist xenophobes. Influenced by a few loud, charismatic and clever media savvy people. The Farages, Johnson’s, Trumps etc.. They turn otherwise normal balanced people in xenophobic zombies.
I’m sure it was exactly the same in 1930’s Europe. People never think they will get infected by this “disease” and then bam.. they starting spouting racist ideology without even noticing it.
9
Its also a rejection of the USA. The US took us into Iraq. And maybe Iran? We wont go there . . Stay in Europe. Farage is maybe ok then . . . No-one is prepared to die for the USA in overseas conflicts.
1
Perhaps Enoch Powell's speech warning the United Kingdom
about what it would eventually face via massive immigration
should have been given more credence some 50 years ago.
It is fine to be a "Globalist" as long as you have the money
and talent to "Jet Set" around the world.
The Elites have betrayed the common citizens of Britain
to such a degree, that they, like many Americans
vote against their best interests.
None of my friends and compatriots from our school
days in London live in their old neighbourhoods, none
of their children live in London. Why should citizens
feel like foreigners in their own country ?
8
Idaho. Nuf said.
4
USA and Europe - especially Britain since they have the economic policies closest to those of the USA - are in this right-wing racist nationalist mess because the left (although to call what the democrats and labour have been with Bill Clinton, Obama, and Tony Blair "left" is the theater of the absurd ) failed to deliver for what was supposed to be their base, the poor working and middle classes. Dems have been little more than republican-lite, terrified of doing anything that would really challenge the wealth and power of the super-rich and corporations that are running the country for only their own interests. The policies of the dems since Carter have been to stick slightly to the left of the GOP which has been driving full speed to the right such that they now might as well just come out as a full, straight on, openly fascist party since i can't where they could go any further right in a nominally - if not actually - democratic nation. I hope Clinton and Obama enjoyed all those vacations on Martha's vineyard and dinners with the Zuckerbergs and the Clooneys because they were mostly missing in action from the devastation that was hitting the non-elite throughout america. It wasn't just that they failed to deliver, it was clear that they really didn't care much - other than lip service around election time - about the very real fears and concerns of normal people and their worsening problems on almost everything.
5
Carter was a horrible President, obviously unfit for job. His term was marked by economic disaster at home and major failure abroad. His inept handling of the Iranian hostage crisis cements his place as one of the worst Presidents in history. Without the mess Carter made, there is no way Reagan would have won.
There but for Nigel Farage is Donald Trump. Neither care for their supporters nor the society and country they so cavalierly disparage although suggesting quite the opposite. They revel in their own demagoguery and besmirch any and all who see through their charade. Nigel may have won his game this time around as Donald-the-stable-genius did in 2016, but eventually levelheaded fact-based countrymen will supplant these dilettantes with men and women of character, honesty, conscience and integrity! People who actually want to continue making what their country stands for: equality, dignity, freedom and inclusiveness.
4
It seems Britain has the same problem that the U.S. has; a significant portion of the population that is intellectually lazy, politically uninformed, gullible, aggrieved at their diminishing options and ready to lash out at everyone they deem the other. Those diminishing options by the way are in large part the direct result of policies initiated in the Thatcher, Reagan era and accelerating since. The Brexiteers and the Trumpers want quick fixes to complex problems, and they don't want to think too hard about it, so they have put their trust in something much worse than politicians, buffoons and con artists. They are then enraged when it doesn't turn out well. Do I have sympathy? Yes. For those of us who are left trying to clean up after them.
6
As Tolstoy said, countries produce the men required in moments of need. When Britain went into the EU in 1973, both the ultra-hard Right of the Tory party, via Enoch Powell, and the hardest of the Left in the Labour party, via Tony Benn, were vociferous about joining the EU. A capitalist club for the Left, a Franco-German conspiracy for the Right. The argument continued to rumble for decades, in both parties, but particularly the Tories, whose hard Right was increasingly powerful within the party. When Labour was taken over by the hard Left, the anti EU players were in position, but for most of the public Europe was not an issue. Then Farage came along. His stroke of genius was to tap into the streak of xenophobia and racism not uncommon in any island nation. Exacerbated in Britain's case by the historic self-perception of the nation, since the Reformation, as the gallant warrior facing the European ogre, Popery, etc. The rest is history, as they say.
2
Mr Farage is either the idiot he at first sight seems to be, or he is a cunning manipulator of the now well-established system, using the Internet and above all social media to spread untruths among the gullible. (Does that sound like somebody Americans have already elected?)
In combination with people like Orban and Salvini, he can destroy the EU, which grew out of Europe's literally shattering experiences in WW2 and was intended to prevent any further disaster of that kind. Europe may have to let Britain destroy itself, much as a gangrenous body part must be amputated to save the rest.,
5
From the thoughts of informed people, like most of those commenting here, there will now be a rise against those like Farage and it could not happen too soon.
Hate really is such a contagious virus, we now know how hard we have to fight to turn this ship around, our days of ignorance, and believing it was bliss, have ended.
Sad that so many Brits thought that they could “Make the UK Great Britain Again”. Sorry, the sun has set on the Union Jack. Trump may not like it but days of slavery on blacks and browns is also not coming back.
Banks bought Farage and now he will try to deliver but maybe, just maybe, Jeremy Corbyn will finally learn to truly lead.
The inclusive people of the world must unite or the haters will destroy it for us all, including themselves. The haters days of joy will forevermore be short-lived.
1
"With the defeat of the Nazis and their scientifically childish theories, nationalism rather than racism has become the most dangerous intellectual and moral drug which tempts the modern man to discard his precarious hold on sanity"
C.H.Waddington in "The Scientific Attitude"
No, whatever one thinks of Farage, it is Jeremy Corbyn (leader of the Labour Party) who is the most dangerous man in Britain. He is a Marxist, terrorist supporting, anti-semite (the Labour party is now undergoing an official investigation into racism) who has a very real chance of becoming prime minister of the UK.
6
'Demagogue' here appears to mean 'disagrees with me.'
3
These letters cite the wealth and income gaps between the 2% and the rest, the austerity imposed on the British working class, essentially by those with wealth and influence, and the gutting of social services. The UK has wealth enough to pay for these services but it’s in the hands of an elite few, principally who live in the south east, the stock brokers, the financial gnomes, who commute from large mock Tudor houses in leafy villages. And the royalty hangers on who speak with exaggerated posh accents and live on inherited money, keep horses, and are lord of the manor, both figuratively and literally. When wealth was more evenly distributed and there was a middle class with good jobs for those without a financial accounting expertise, normal regular Englishmen and women were content. Then gradually the jobs disappeared, wages stagnated, companies became adept at shifting money and avoiding taxes, and the treasury ultimately had less money to pay for the healthcare and social services that average Britons could at least rely on, even if they were not well off. Now that’s all gone so they blame it on the polish plumbers and immigrant louts from Muslim countries who stand on street corners and pester girls (and worse) with short skirts. Different cultures that grate on the English soul. So they are quite rightly resentful, and turn to fascists like Farage who promises to lead them to the promised land. Shades of Hitler’s appeal, and Trump’s. Similarities abound.
3
Big Brussels is watching out for you.
1
Farage is Cameron's creation. Had the latter not been such a coward and an opportunist, stories like this wouldn't be appearing in the media. But what does Eton Boy care; he's sitting back in Chipping Campden and living off his wife's millions. Meanwhile, Britain faces the prospect of being governed by fascist-inspired so-called leader under bumbling Boris Johnson. How sick is that!
5
An international economy, such as the European Union represents, has turned out to be good for workers in countries with backward economies and low standards of living, and correspondingly bad for workers in the developed world. However, it's wonderful for the owners and managers of huge corporations that are no longer located in any particular nation, but do business around the world, and can park their assets wherever they get the best deal. And it's even better for those who control the money, who can invest it securely wherever the profits are highest, and can move it rapidly in and out of a rapidly changing market.
Nigel Farage, having made his fortune in this international economy, would like to slow down the rate of change, and keep others out. What's the point of being rich if EVERYONE is well-off? Immigrants in motor-cars simply clog the streets and pollute the air. Now that he can live on a country estate, he doesn't want a madding crowd of weekenders in the campground next door.
The solution to Britain's wealth inequality problems would be taxes on the rich, and controls on international business and finance.
But Farage has a simpler solution: raise xenophobia and class resentments, blame the political establishment, stigmatize "elites" - i.e. those who understand the problems and have solutions to them - and instead offer a program of "Make Britain Great Again." Workers who are hurting, and the well-off who want to keep theirs, will respond to his siren song.
5
The Enoch Powell of this decade.
5
Nigel Farage is the fulfilment both of the Daily Mail and of Rupert Murdoch's tabloid agenda. Their xenophobic, hate-filled headlines have been screaming their vitriol against 'Europe' for decades. Thatcher's trickle down con 1979-1990 savaged living standards for the traditional working class and the industrial communities in which they lived. Post 2008 austerity programmes have made things even worse for many in the UK. In some people's eyes Britain's more glorious past seems a nostrum to today's globalised ills. To others, what could be worse than what is going on now? The clean break sounds satisfying. The Brexit vote, the endless focus on it to the exclusion of all else has encouraged enormous frustration. Meanwhile, a strange, robotic, hardly credible drama over the last 2-3 years of Theresa May reprising and reprising her EU 'agreement' with no shifts at all in her position, no effort to include the Labour opposition in forming her 'red lines' until it was too late - (and then she couldn't get it past a totally sceptical Labour Party and the fury from the right in her own party) - meant she ran out of road. Who, then, could see the end of that road? Nigel Farage comes in as no surprise.
7
During the cold war, internationalism was sold as good business and a means to the end of defeating ideologies which, if allowed to propagate internationally, could rob us of freedom and prosperity. WW2 and what led to it was the case study used as evidence; there was a broad consensus that a repeat must be avoided. Since the cold war ended, the objectives of the left and the educated elite have been internationalist and multi-culturalist, tearing down of cultural barriers that separate peoples, including borders. The objectives of the right were to make money for capitalists. Sufficient care was not taken to cushion the shock of this transition for those who were not university educated professionals. Their support for the internationalist agenda was contingent on having a convincing reason behind it. There are good reasons; American led internationalism has brought peace and prosperity to most of the world. The fall of the USSR did not change the need for a peaceful world system. But some have denounced paternalist American hegemony since the 1960s, others support internationalism only for narrow business motives. This has destroyed the consensus that won the cold war and brought peace and prosperity to the world through the neo-colonialist paternalistic Pax Americana. So now we have Brexit, Trump, and neo-isolationism. The only thing worse than the paternalistic American internationalist system is what might replace it.
3
“The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”
"Kubrick definitiely saw this coming."
"The beast, the multitude…they love nothing that is right and proper; the farther it runs from reason and possibility it is, the better. Ben Jonson
2
As we understand history I often wondered how intelligent societies could be fooled by such Elmer Gantry con men.
These con men are just little want to be Hitlers feeding hate . They have no policies, plans just identifying daily a new group to hate.
Let this be a message for our own do nothing GOP you better wake up and understand democracy otherwise you will be voted out of office. People are fed up even your support group. Britain needs to demand policies , implementation plans and not just attending rallies . If your hungry after the rally your still hungry if you have bad water a rally doesn’t make it clean
We the people vote for people who have policies not white noise. No more lies by rich people .
2
I am an orator. You are a demagogue. Label politics at its worst.
I guess anyone who is not a member of the liberal elite is a demagogue, LOL.
4
I live in the UK and I can't get my head around all these comments running down my country!
As far as I can tell the health service still functions, the buses still run and the supermarkets are full to overflowing with food and with customers stuffing their trolleys to the brim.
Even shines occasionally!
Truly, the UK is a lovely place to live, thank you!
1
@Julie Hazelwood
Once it becomes a full fledged colony of the EU the UK will become a true paradise.
1
@Julie Hazelwood
Do me a favour! Yes, if you’re fortunate enough to be in the home counties and can enjoy the benefits of London’s riches then your description stands. But when was the last time you ventured north of Watford, to the market towns of the midlands and further. The old industrial heartlands don’t bare any resemblance to your sunny vignette. The poverty is palpable and the state of the infrastructure a disgrace, austerity writ large for all to see.
Nobody’s running down your country but we’re in this sorry situation for a reason and it isn’t because the shopping trolleys aren’t large enough.
3
I think they should have another citizen vote on Brexit or just ignore the last one. Last time there was WAY to much misinformation on social media and I really can't believe that Brexit would serve England's best interests for trade and commerce. My goodness London is a financial huge center and it will very well be diminished. The world famous British auto, engineering companies will be severely impacted.
3
A little Hegel, anyone? Thesis: a unified, liberal open border Europe will facilitate international fraternity and economic development.
Antithesis: Overweening bureaucracy, stifling taxation, loss of cultural identity and influx of economically challenging migrants exploiting countries without borders resulting in rise of nationalism, protectionism and the demagoguery determined to return to a nostalgic but false identity.
Synthesis: let's wait and see. Will it resemble Europe of 1913 or Mad Max and Thunder-dome....
4
@Michael
Hmmm a wait and see synthesis? Not very Hegelian I am afraid :-)
3
@Blunt
Your correct, but i can't make predictions...I thought Bexit would have lost, Hillary would have won and LeBron would have gotten Lakers to the NBA finals.
if that sorry nation is expecting a Lord Nelson to emerge from the carnage of its destructive thinking, they'll be waiting a very long time. 18th century thinking is now the order of the day! Britain has compounded a terrible mistake by elevating mediocrity to prominence..
1
Some people, always it seems, demagogues, want power for its own sake, not to advance programs which will actually do some good for the people who vote them into power. Making the worse seem the better option, plays on emotions not rational thinking.
Narrowness of thinking should not be where national leadership trumpets the more of the same, but it happens. It is the difference between saying "as long as my house is not blown away, there is no climate change to worry about" and a FDR analogy in arguing for Lend-Lease when England was alone against the Nazis saying "when a neighbor's home is on fire, wouldn't you at least lend a garden hose?"
A former US Senate Republican leader argued against requiring rules for insurance companies until his home was blown away in a hurricane and the company denied funding for restoration. Rending help to those among us who are devastated should be as easy as it is to give money to the rich, but that is not the case with the current president and Republican Senate.
2
The success of Farage, Trump and their ilk, is an indictment of social media. Rule by popular vote, manipulated by the power of social media, is more susceptible to control by electronic means. This situation places the power to influence elections in the hands of a small, talented and well funded parties. The operatives are not hampered by truth, facts or journalistic scruples. The onslaught on the minds of the inherently naive and gullible voters is tremendous. Lies and false facts are spread to millions an a very short period of time--and become quotable truths to many.
Social media will be the catalyst for the curtailing of free speech in the future, or the technical geniuses of the world, employed by the wealthy, will select the rulers of nations.
3
I don't feel I know enough about Mr. Farage to judge him one way or another. I know that there is a reflexive urge in people to find differences of opinion to be caused by some deficiency in their adversary - lack of intelligence, immorality, racism, etc. and the fact that I see no analysis of the reasons so many Britons wanted out to suggests to me the article may be one-sided and possibly unfair to him - the most dangerous man? Really? I know its anathema in comments not to make your mind up without having the facts, but, I won't make up my mind about him, just because someone calls him racist. John McCain, now safely dead, is lionized by many who previously demonized him when he ran for president. Mitt Romney was demonized, so was Barack Obama and John Kerry.
Britain is a democracy. The referendum was done very democratically. The EU has put its foot on Britain's neck to try and force them to capitulate and rescind Brexit and those who opposed it are all for it. I don't like that even not knowing whether it is for the better or worse for Britain. It's their choice.
2
How has the EU tried to force the UK to rescind Brexit? This is simply not true, and I challenge you to substantiate it.
4
@Manuel Robles The short answer is by imsisting on terms that May could not get passed. That was well known before she tried, and even before negotiations began it was known that the EU would make it very difficult. This is their option. But just because someone or group can do something doesn't mean they ought to. Also, I find it hard to believe that you are not aware that the EU did not want them to leave. Their motivation for tough negotiations is inarguable. If you are interested in this and just not being reflexive then you are also well aware of issues surrounding the Irish backstop, the Customs Union and single market. the even shorter answer is that Britain wants to be free and the EU wants its subject to its sovereignty. Last, it would be silly for me to challenge you to substantiate your position, because these things can't be proved, no less in a limited number of characters to use. It's called a comment for a reason.
1
People saying Britain will suffer for leaving the EU miss the point: people in Britain are already suffering and have been suffering for a long time. It was convenient to ignore the discontent fomenting on the margins of British society because it ran contrary to the model for prosperity the EU was using: more immigration, more integration. If it upset some people that was fine, they were all racists and xenophobes anyway.
And as it turns out, calling them racists and xenophobes didn't fix the problem. Ignoring them didn't fix the problem. Their numbers grew until they could swing a decisive vote. The grand neoliberal globalist strategy of doing nothing and hoping for the best is not, as it turns out, a real strategy for dealing with unrest.
We are headed into uncharted waters here. For the last 70 some years the sheer inertia of WW2's horror has propelled the global community headlong into the liberal world order, it has gone on for so long that people now seem convinced this is the destiny of mankind, that we were always supposed to reach this moment and have no choice but to pursue it forever, that resisting it is to be "on the wrong side of history".
This is naive. This is the same blindness that led to the UK and EU overlooking the resentment of the margins. The belief you are invincible, that nothing can possibly alter your destiny, has not yet yielded a single invincible, immortal nation. But history is littered with the remnants of nations who followed that credo.
6
Oh, how the rich play everyone off and against one another. Farage's eloquence---sort of like Blair's---covers for his brutal inhumanity.
3
I read the comments on here and you obviously do not have a clue why we voted for the Brexit party – it was not immigration -It was not austerity but one main reason! we do not want to be run by un-elected Bureaucrats from Brussels that introduce draconian rules whilst giving themselves fat allowances at our governments expense which in turn mean from us -- And this is from all classes in the UK!
4
You tell us why you want Brexit. You cannot know why others did, though many may also believe overstated and untrue claims about fat evil bureaucrats. FYI EU legislation is adopted by member country governments (democratically elected) and the European Parliament (directly elected). Never mind. Who needs fact when you can have the thrills of hating foreign bureaucrats.
5
He has already done the damage. Your warning is a bit late.
4
Oh please...."the sky is falling, the sky is falling". Government's swing back and forth. as has this country, no matter how much the Times whines and pouts. The Brexit vote was not honored and people got sick of it. Macron's high is now a blip in the books as are other regimes. It will swing again, but politicians need to get off their myopic pedestals and LISTEN.
2
The soil that grew this poisonous plant is nostalgia for Empire. The English wallow in rosy-tinted fantasies of the past. One symptom: They have more Railway Preservation Societies than the rest of the world put together. I occasionally receive Steam Railway, a news magazine about these societies, whose mission is to promote steam locomotives. A recent story about defunct steam locos referred to the railwoad "turning its back on steam". The implicit accusation of betrayal is obvious.
Or consdier Downton Abbey, another example of treacly nostalgia, with every episode signalling that these were the days of yore when England ruled the world, and somehow the Others have since stolen England's place.
Farage's message is the same: The cosmopolitan elites have betrayed all that was best in England, and he will restore it. Beware: as we age, we become curmudgeons who wish the times were as simple as we misremember them. That wish distorts pour perceptions, and influences our votes. That's what the Farages and Trumps count on.
2
Interesting how "Trump" could be substituted for "Farage" in this article, and the essay would remain essentially the same. The truth of it wouldn't change.
5
Well you basically said it Seymour,
just like Hillary did.
Farage appeals too "a basket of deplorables".
Now watch him take over
Just like Trump
3
"The most dangerous man in Britain' ? Well, I guess that depends on your perspective.
I would call him the harbinger of the end to the EU experiment with globalism. I'm sure that would make him dangerous in the eyes of those who attend conferences in Davos.
5
Farage’s ‘success’ looks likely to force the Conservatives to keep no-deal Bexit on the table. This will almost certainly result in a referendum, with remain also on the voting paper. In which case, the most likely result is the cancelling of Brexit. Which would be a delicious irony.
It’s also worth pointing out that in the EU elections, parties wanting to remain in Europe polled significantly more than Farage’s gang.
Still, you’ll have made his day by calling him the most dangerous man in the UK.
2
It’s hard to imagine how Britain survived a thousand years without Big Brussels’ benevolent governance.
3
@God
That is easy they destroyed everything they touched.
The reason why Nigel Farage is so popular is because democracy must win.The British public voted to LEAVE the EU,the ruling classes are trying to thwart the will of the people -they are determined to stop in the EU. The British public voted to leave the customs union,the single market and become an independent country once more,with accountable MPs,not being lead by unelected EU politicians.
If the government overturn and deny the will of the British people,who voted th leave the EU, the repercussions will be very grave indeed.The people are voting for Nigel Farage in great numbers because democracy must win.
4
Amen to your reply! Excellent comment!
1
Unelected E.U. politicians? What do you call last week’s election where the pro-EU parties won more votes than Farrage’s party?
3
@Mary Sampson
The democratic vote was to Leave the EU,this can’t be argued.
The media,ruling classes will do all in their power to change this decision.
The remain voters LOST,the only way democracy can be upheld is if we completely leave,by leaving the customs union,leaving the single market and becoming an independent ruling country once again.
The British people know this,and democracy will only work if democratic decisions are upheld.
1
He sounds like just what Brittain needs - an apocalyptic, existential, crushing lesson for an idiotic referendum.
9
The Brits need to screw up their courage and leave the EU. No one can predict what happens next and the Brits will just react and make things ok. They have been in collapse since WW I and just need to take the next step
England is a small country on the edge of a continent that is seeking to weaken itself by breaking apart. It is better seen as a imploding country on the edge of the Afro Eurasian continent where 90% of the world population lives. It’s future role is the one it had in Roman times—a prickly outpost on the frontier. It is simply not worth all these dramas. The Brits know this reality
The UK will remain the quaint little country that will attract tourists. It is basically another Greece. Lots of castles, picturesque farms, beautiful lakes, handsome royalty, great history. A little Disney world to sail around. They just need to wear their costumes well
It was once a good ally to the US and Europe. But certainly they are no longer an ally to Europe. It’s breaking totally away. And the US no longer trusts allies, no longer wants allies, is eager only to make them economically uncompetitive. 90 pound weaklings in the face of the US, China, India, Russia and Germany. When Trump kills NATO Europe becomes a joke. And he will do that.
Why does the UK wait until October. Leave the EU today and go it very alone. You can sell each other fish and chips til you die
7
Just to put Richard Seymour's credentials as a writer and observer of Nigel Farage into the conversation, how many readers have looked as Seymour's Wikipedia page, which I will quote
Richard Seymour is a Northern Irish Marxist writer and broadcaster, activist and owner of the blog Lenin's Tomb. He is the author of books such as The Meaning of David Cameron, Unhitched, Against Austerity and Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics
7
So?
6
The article is still true. Farage is a threat to the well being of the UK.
4
So he can't discuss his views in a Times opinion piece? You don't have to agree with him.
1
"Mr. Farage took an assortment of Tory retirees and a smattering of ex-fascists and other right-wing cranks..." It sounds to me like the elites in Britain understand voter sentiment about as well as the liberal elites in the United States understand Trump's appeal.
6
Similarly, the U.S. is cued up.
"The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience."
Timothy Snyder, from his book "On Tyranny"
http://timothysnyder.org/bio
2
Demogogues and populists are not some kind of "magicians" that can conjure up political influence out of thin air. They operate by leveraging real, actual shortcomings of the political class.
The ruling class in the UK had 3 years since the referendum to get their act together. What followed was a disgrace and utter embarrassment for the oldest democracy of the world.
Once mainstream politicians start actually solving the common men's problems, the demagogues disappear. Everywhere.
5
Finally the brits or smartening up, this guy is one of the few that can actually save the country, the world is turning to leaders with spines the last few years and that’s a good thing
1
His party has no platform or programme, i.e. no details on how he’s going to “save the country”. The man himself says he doesn’t want high office. Of course he doesn’t - that means awkward realities and tough choices, i.e. taking responsibility. It’s far more fun to mouth off, and enjoy a lifestyle bankrolled by millionaire backers.
3
Unfortunately, there is one fundamental problem that underlies all of the recently social upheavals, human migrations, violent unrest, political demagoguery, economic imbalance, garbage overflow, air pollution, social injustice and, doubtless in my mind, weather changes: Overpopulation.
With millions more on the way and birth control demonized by religious and legislative actions we are spinning away from intelligent corrections, and so we must now deal with a solid cadre of right-wing politicians who pander lies in order to create divisions, deny realities, obstruct truth, refuse science and demonize diversity through superheated social media.
Britain and the United States may be the last chances on Earth to change the currents of belligerent ignorance and reactionary violence. The final point of this NYT article rings true, and it is painfully clear that these short-term, rabble rousing, narrow minded politicians have arrived from the right, angrily pushing humans like lemmings toward a cliff without any decent plan for a future beyond grievance and blaming.
Vote them out.
5
Nigel Farage is Britain's Huey :Long.
3
Does he have a plan? Or is he just full of bombast, like his American counterpart?
7
His party said it would publish its policies after the elections. Talk about a pig in a poke!
1
It's easy to destroy and kill with venom; quite another to build a living, breathing, thriving organism that a healthy country is.
3
Like Trump , Mr Farage is a Populist who appeals to only the lowest common denominator in society . They are both a danger to Democracy and compulsive liars .
Let us hope that clear heads will prevail and people will wake up and recognize that living in the deliberate chaos that the likes of Trump and Farage create , makes a civil society is unattainable .
Their specialty is to create diversions to mask their true intent which is to destroy the liberal democratic system we have enjoyed for the past 80 years , and that has resulted in bringing us World Peace.
4
Big Brussels and its self-appointed thought policemen like Richard Seymour are right to fear subversives like Nigel Farage.
1
Farage got a lot of undeserved publicity when he came to visit Trump. He struck me then as just another snake oil salesman, one who apparently has no compunction about leading the lemmings who believe him right off the white cliffs of Dover.
8
For the life of me I can't quite figure out how people don't see the giant scam perpetrated by capitalist populists (and let's face it - the hidden mega donors who love money and hate the the rest of us).
10
Implying that the voters in GB "knew not of what they were doing" when they voted for Brexit is both condescending and demeaning. This is the same shibboleth we hear from the elites in America; that Trump voters were duped or too stupid and bigoted to see the light. It now seems there's little doubt that the Brexit party will supplant both the Tories and Labour if the Oct 31 deadline is missed. And here in America, there's more and more evidence that none of the Democrats will supplant Trump in 2020. Reality does bite.
3
I have no idea, and neither does the Times or anyone else on this thread, whether a successful Brexit will be good for the U.K. in say 20 years. But whenever I hear Farage speak he makes a lot of sense. Why would anyone in the U.K. want to have much of their lives controlled by beurocrats jn Brussels? Would any American cede decision making to Toronto?
2
@Dady
He makes sense only because his statements are lies, including all this stuff about lives controlled by Brussels bureaucrats.
It is beyond dispute that brexit will cause damage to the UK economy. The only question is how much. A brexit that keeps us aligned with the EU (say the Norway plus model) will cause the least damage. A no-deal brexit will be catastrophic.
By the way, Farage touted the Norway model during the 2016 referendum campaign. What's happened to that?
1
People in Britain don't understand what's good for them, people in India don't understand, people in Australia don't understand, people in Israel don't understand, people in Italy don't understand, people in Hungary don't understand, people in Poland don't understand, people in Brazil don't understand, people in France don't understand. The only comforting thing is that writers in the NYT understand.
5
I don't really care what they do, as long as they get it over with already.
1
Farage is an authoritarian crypto facist in an expensive suit, his smile that of the fox just before it ate grandma up. His 'party' is a one issue personality cult with no constitution and everything decided by Nigel. He wouldn't have a clue if he ever actually had any responsibility for government. Opposed to the EU he has had a lucrative time on the Euro gravy train in twenty years as an MEP, which hopefully Brexit will soon stop.
6
Love this guy! Elites beware and take note
1
Oswald Mosley led the British Fascist movement in the 1930s. He was called "the best orator in England." He was mocked, even briefly jailed. but because he was one of the good old boys, he was not shut out of British political life. After WWII, he ran for office (never winning) and was oft-quoted for his outrageous anti-immigration, racist remarks.
Mosley is a scar on British democracy.
Farage is a festering wound. When he is good and done, Britain would do well to make certain he never has a chance to pollute the nation with his brand of racism and fascism again.
6
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. In our day and age of social networks, they have given a new meaning to this old aphorism. Trump and Farage are living proof that even old and well estalished democracies are not immune to this suicidal behavior. Winter is coming, alas in our real world and not in a fantasy TV fiction.
6
LOL! Farage is the epitome of an elite! Did you read the article? He could care less for the ‘losers’ just like Trump. We are all going backwards...it does not bode well for any of us.
I respect some of Mr. Seymour’s writing (esp. his scathing book exposing liberal support for bombing civilians).
However, his analysis here is weak. “Fascist” and "right wing crank” dog whistles are the last resort of a losing position.
The notion that Farage, because he was once a usurer in The City, and is somehow tainted thereby— doesn’t compute. Who hasn't gained from usury-based income or usurious dealings right or left in Britain?
Mr. Seymour patently believes that unless one advocates for open borders one is a swamp creature. This all-or-nothing position which damns dissenters to the Fascist camp, is not compelling.
Decent people can be desirous of border enforcement. Most nations have borders they enforce. Mysteriously, mainly the western nations are pressured to eliminate them. For people of commonsense (“cranks” in Mr Seymour’s view), this pressure is not acceptable.
Some of us are resistant to the moralistic finger-wagging of the owners of the legacy media and their paid writers. Those owners too often live in segregated enclaves where the only immigrants are the ones cooking and mowing the lawn. The rest of us are supposed to humbly accept wave after wave of “undocumented” immigration and the deterioration of quality of life that inevitably follows.
Like Nigel Farage, we say, no more, and Fascist-baiting insults and libel will not shame or deter us.
3
It will be up to Speaker Bercow to save the UK from this ugly demagogue, by enforcing the procedures and laws built around centuries of democracy.
2
@Alex
Ha...so when Bercow carries a Parliament vote by one (his own) to support a Remainer bill (because he's a whining remoaner) then that's called democracy at work. When the liars (MP's across all parties) within Parliament blatantly ignore the result of a lawful referendum and the majority will of the British people because they didn't like the result is that democracy? They think it is. The British people don't. That is why Farage won millions of votes and is sending 29 MEP's to the EU (more than any other UK political party). Nigel Farage is the only politician that has actually done what he said he would do and that is why he gets my vote. I look forward to the day that Bercow retires. He's a noisy, biased, windbag and needs to step down and allow somebody who's prepared to be neutral to be the speaker of the house.
So, many of you who may not have seen Mr Farage in person, let me give a window into that image...
He is shorter than he appears in his images, the first thing that impresses you is that he is well-dressed and his forceful body language. He leans forward, he is passionate and a glib-talker (smooth is the word, I am looking for).
When he laughs or talks, you are riveted to his mouth, it is full of crooked teeth (sorry, I'm a physician, I notice these things), and in the heat of the moment, during speech, spittle does fly.
And while, one may be cringing how he has embedded true concerns for Britain's economy and future into this rhetoric of, we are loosing our grand old lady to EU monopolies, financial woes (figures are incorrect but whose paying attention), and above all these irreverent immigrants, 'hoards marauding our landscape.' etc etc...
Meanwhile, turn around and look at the crowd, their faces are sufficed with pleasure, and hear, hear, and shouts of aye, aye... are heard often.
You realize, he is speaking their truth, as they see it.
He just is saying what this significant part of the population had always felt. And he is bend upon leading Britain down a warren-hole of stupendous stupidity.
As a Farage/Brexit supporter said to me recently, Brexit will happen, come Hades or High water.
And I said, well... Time will tell.
4
Nigel Farage is NOT interested in Britain. Mr. Farage's primary interest is Nigel Farage.
7
A bit late, this.
Seems to me the English citizenry is no wiser than us in the USA! They believe some rich guy is going to make them better off while he's removing safety nets and other hard-earned protection.
Last time we saw such degrees of nationalism and USA isolationism things didn't end well.
I am very concerned for my children and grandchildren!
12
The old-line parties should just step aside and let him run the show! He can get his "No Deal Brexit" and the Brits will have to deal with its consequences. The old-liners can sit back and watch the carnage. If Boris takes command, you'll likely have the same result, but that would truly be the death knell for the Conservatives.
you might have mentioned that he is bankrolled by a man in the Insurance business that wants the National Health service to be replaced with private insurance.
6
Farage may remake British politics in his own image, but he won't last because Britain simply does not have what it takes to economically prosper after a "no deal" Brexit. He'll be the next Oliver Cromwell; celebrated in triumph and then hated and despised.
2
Isn't it hilarious that it was a forty hour a week blue color job and an idiot box in the living room that trained the working stiffs to be the lapdogs to their wealthy tormentors. Working stiff Stockholm syndrome. They love a cruel master. It makes them feel tough.
32
Apparently, Americans have competition for being the least intelligent populace in the world.
468
@Paul
Or maybe American progressives have serious competition for being the most in denial?
19
@AACNY
Just what has trump done for you to better your life? I'd really like to know. he's filled our country with hatred, fear, cruelty and crudeness. he's hellbent on destroying our environment. he's destroying our democracy, has made a mockery of our laws and is leading us down the path to an authoritarian dictatorship that, you not only go along with, but you actually defend. How does this help you? How will you benefit if our country is destroyed? I'd really love to know the answers to these questions. I just can't wrap my head around the conservative mindset.
44
What’s most insulting is that the elites in America and Britain are so stuck up that they have to invent these stories about how the people who voted for Brexit and Trump were somehow conned into voting for something they didn’t understand. We knew what we were voting for with Trump. The Russians didn’t trick us into it. We voted for America first, just as the Brexiters voted for Britain first. And we’re perfectly happy with the result.
150
I’ll be interested to know what you think in 5-years. Good luck.
156
@Greg What result might that be? You haven't even begun to see the long term result of what Trump has done. And no the Russians didn't trick you but they interfered mightily in the U.S. election process. And in France where they also interfered, Macron called Putin on it right to his face. Meanwhile Trump told us that Putin said didn't do it. Lots to be happy about.
202
@Greg Russia didn't trick you, but they did create an echo chamber that told you you were right, everyone else was wrong, the media is lying, and that you're ahead of the game for figuring it out. (I commend you for reading the NY Times though!)
The simple truth is that business men do not make good politicians and politicians do not make good businessmen. (I have worked with both, at the highest levels—two very different mindsets.) Trump's China actions, our largest market for many agricultural products, essentially put American agriculture on the sidelines while others rush in to fill the void—and many farmers may find that the doors are closed for good. Tariffs are not paid by countries, but by the consumers—essentially levying a new tax on what you and I pay for items. And throwing billions in aid to coal and oil while the world demand for them is on the decline is short-sighted and does nothing to break our dependence foreign suppliers. All of these are "business" moves meant to pump up the bottom line—and are contrary to long-term prosperity. Business usually have a 3-5 year view while government thinks in terms of generations. Economic strategy is not a catchphrase.
Seeding social and economic disruption and fanning the flames while a country destroys itself from within is KGB-101. Peppering social media with fake news, inflammatory headlines, false economic theories, and pushing an increasingly extreme narrative to destroy a society is cheaper than bombs.
320
People like Farage, Trump, and Bannon don’t create racism and xenophobia; they nurture, empower and focus the racism and xenophobia that already exist in a society. It’s a useful tool that they exploit. The older I get the more I worry that tribalism and fear of the Other are humanity’s default settings. I cannot get over the ignorance and hatred on display in America and across the world. When you add in climate change, population growth, resource scarcity, disinformation campaigns, and the rise of transnational oligarchies (why do you think Trump defends Putin and MBS?) it’s hard to imagine there isn’t another World War on the horizon. It is sickening and tragic.
22
@Henry I completely agree. Facebook and the internet may have provided a powerful mechanism, but they don't drag anyone by the hair and make them do anything.
Those behaviors, sadly, are neither new or novel.
Well, at least this exposes one truth: that neither Trump nor Farage are “special”... that they are just brazen opportunists who are feeding off discontent from flat wages and racism in both countries to win political success. They have no good ideas and no solutions. Are we going to let them break our social democracies with rhetorical sledgehammers, or are we going to fix this? Clearly, this kind of thing is bound to happen, so there needs to be a remedy, and fast.
9
The British are going to something that will be very good for the E.U.
The British are going to shoot themselves in the foot and show people in the E.U. what happens when you shoot yourself in the foot.
They thought that they had the muscle to negotiate a deal with the E.U. that would give them everything they want from the E.U. and get rid of everything that they don’t want from the E.U.
But this deal never appeared.
632
They do have the muscle. The UK runs a trade deficit with the EU and not an insignificant one. Germany remains a powerhouse but Spain & Italy need the U.K. far more than the U.K. needs them.
19
@Once From Rome additionally, half the carson the UKs overcrowded road network are German imported brands. If the UK exits on No Deal then Germany stands to lose 300,000 manufacturing jobs unless trade is kept smooth. That;s 300,000 jobs in the very industry that basically funds the German govt.
10
@domYes, but the pain in Britain will be much worse.....
30
Nigel Farage and his Brexit Party are reminiscent of Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists, the BUP.
In the 1930's, Mosley and his "Blackshirts" fostered hatred, intolerance and authoritarianism in pre-WWII Europe.
Very similar to Farage and his followers in the UK today.
Very similar to Trump and his followers in the USA today.
10
The U.K. isn’t an empire any more. The wealth created on the backs of subservient colonies is no longer. And we all know where the Nationalist movement in Europe got us in the 20th century. Wake up U.K. before it’s too late! Remain!
4
The British just wanted a fair trade deal with Europe. They never really wanted Brussels to control their immigration or micromanage their economy. The EU bureaucracy grew more bloated and distant. It delivered recurring debt crises, uncontrolled immigration, and worsening income inequality. It repressed freedom of expression. It was fundamentally undemocratic. With Farange cracking the whip, the British government will be able to negotiate a better trade deal and free the UK from the shackles of Brussels.
1
A poll in April found that given a choice between remaining in the European Union, and leaving with no deal, 44 percent of Britons support “no deal.”
Yeah.
So doesn't that mean 56% percent (a majority) support "not no deal"?
What's your point?
5
I thought the same thing. Also, I would love when accusations of “racism” get lobbed they can actually quote the accused.
I’m a liberal OK with immigration mostly, but I’ve always questioned the concept that just because someone wants limited immigration, or even mentions that on average some populations come with it a little extra baggage (higher proclivity for terrorism, or crime), that thinking in this way is racist.
No it’s just being human. We all have stereotypes and process real evidence. And one can call it xenophobia, if you like.
But ask a liberal how they feel about “bro culture” or how a woman may avoid certain people or groups at bars based on personal preferences and you’ll understand the hypocrisy.
@Chicago Paul (who has a point but is really missing the cause)
As much as May and Corbyn are characters from Duck Soup, the problem preceded them by almost forty years. Thatcher and Reagan sowed the seeds and we now we have these two fascists. One a bit smarter than the other. Pretty much the same as their enablers.
3
None of these comments address the fundamental policy issue problems of the EU. Austerity economics post the financial crisis left half of Europe on its knees. Southern Europe has had a generation of no opportunity and high unemployment. The austerity program imposed in Greece by Germany, the ECB and the IMF has devastated Greece and this despite a referendum to decline it. GDP rose to unsustainable levels after that policy was imposed. With free movement who pays back the debt? Italy has high debt to GDP and a recent meeting of EU finance ministers discussed the brain drain now engulfing Italy and the flight of capital from its banks. The banking system is bankrupt. Germany meanwhile has a massive current account surplus with the whole world and flouts the EU stability pact. The leader of the EU commission, Jean Claude Juncker Was elected in a secret ballot.
The Brexit party did not have a manifesto but you miss the point. The EU parliament does not initiate legislation.
The Lisbon Treaty was ratified with very little electoral approval. Referendums ignored.
An EU army is being discussed despite Germany not paying anywhere near its share of the NATO budget.
Since 2008 the U.K. itself has had to reduce spending to control debt and the increasing population from immigration has put a strain on services. There is a housing shortage,
In my opinion it is this sort of article that is stifling proper debate because is legitimises the view Brexit voters are stupid.
1
The only times he holds my interest is after having been sprayed with a milkshake. A walking carnival attraction in an poor fitting suit. The kind of political reactionary that doesn't let reality get in the way of his rapturous nostalgic dream.. there is so little new here, or worthy of leadership.
1
Farage is brilliant.
His policies are disastrous, his ideas are awful, but nobody can deny that he has been incredibly successful and effective. He started from no political base and created a party which caused the biggest upheaval in the UK since the war, and then retired, and then came back for another election, created another party literally from scratch and obliterated all the traditional parties.
Rather than (or in addition to) criticizing people like him and Trump, we need to see how we can learn from them. I do not buy that their supporters are ignorant or racist - rather, they are ignored and feel unrepresented and taken for granted by the main parties. Farage and Trump have found ways to energize them.
How can we get liberal, thoughtful candidates who can engage this base the way Farage and Trump have?
Why do we never get candidates with good ideas who have this type of incredible effectiveness?
I suppose we can hope that Alexandra Ocasio Cortez will buck the trend, and create a movement of people for once voting for policies that are actually good for them. It would be so wonderful.
2
No matter what happens it will end badly.
1
Throughout history, no right wing party has ever done anything remotely economically beneficial, on a local, regional, national, or international level, for their constituents (unless they’re stinking rich, of course). And yet, year after bloody year, voters keep pushing them into power against their own best economic interests (and our current economy is thanks to President Obama, not Trump; there are no policies he has implemented that support giving him credit for it in the two short years he’s been in office). I despair for the self-destructive human race.
3
Nigel Farage is a fascist thug that, like a truck loaded with explosives, is moving unguided through the U.K. and EU. It’s also the case that like other EU fascists, he’s a Putin acolyte - all intent with destroying the EU; Trump included.
We got to this point because no meaningful structural reforms were enacted following Wall Street’s looting which caused the 2008 Great Recession. Last Sunday’s EU Parliamentary elections gave fascists, across the EU, additional seats, though not the majority. During the campaign, centrist parties didn’t speak clearly enough to those still suffering the impact of the Great Recession. In the US, Democratic candidates better develop agendas based on the needs of working families, or Trump will be re-elected to the delight of despots the world over.
Let’s hope the Conservatives don’t select the flamboyant Boris Johnson as PM, given that he doesn’t really have a constructive, clean plan to exit the EU. Like Farage, Johnson is a disaster for the U.K. and the EU.
3
Farage and Trump aren’t responsible for the impoverishment of the working classes, they’ve just exploited popular discontent with establishment parties who have sold them out for corporate interests. The architects of domestic and global economies where nearly all the wealth created flows to the super rich.
The real culprits here are Blair, Brown, Cameron and May over there, and Clinton, Bush and Obama over here. Yes Obama. He is a culprit. Without him there would be no Trump. Like it or not.
1
Farage is the new “face” of the Corporate State.
1
Farage works for Putin who funds him. The same for Trump. Wake up, folks.
This is a serious, serious debacle for the world. Especially for our USA-world relations and future. Putin and his Russian cyber media weapons have won; you have lost big-time.
2
Britain is going thru the same turmoil as the U.S. did in the 2016 Presidential election and that turmoil is rooted in racism.
In Britain just as in the U.S. is “system” works for many but increasingly it’s not working for the low and middle-classes as wages have stagnated, prices for essentials have risen, income inequality has grown and people are uncertain about their future and for their children.
Then in 2016 along comes Trump targeting immigrants as America’s problem, targeting immigrants as the reason there are no good jobs, and blaming immigrants for America’s crime and drug problems, and espousing phony promises to fix everything and to make America great again. Trump exploited American’s fears and helped racism again rear its ugly head.
Much the same happened in Britain and the Brexit supporters, who really wanted to turn the clock back and put a stop to Britain’s progressive, inclusive society and wanted to return to the good old days, used false promises to play on the fears and prejudices of its people to vote to support Brexit.
Now reality has begun to set in for both the U.S. and Britain. It’s now clear that Trump is an empty bag of wind with no plans, no policies, and no prospect of helping most Americans. It’s clear Trump is in the game only for himself and his other 1 percenters.
In Britain its clear Brexit will do non of the things promised except put an end to open immigration and migration of EU workers and try to restore the old order.
1
The Times is way out of line for labeling Farage a demagogue simply because he exposes the fact that a very significant percentage of British voters, if not an outright majority, do not march to the beat of the liberal drummer. If anything he is the ultimate democrat (lower case d, please) because he has given the people an opportunity to speak with a powerful unified voice, one that has thus far been stifled by media just like the Times who have shown nothing but contempt for those who do not shout amen in their PC echo chambers.
1
So Farage "won nearly a third of the British vote in the recent European Parliament elections.."
Trump has a hard core support of about a third of the population.
That is not a coincidence. Clearly, a third of the people are fools. Probably true anywhere, at any time.
3
Actually, David Cameron in my candidate for most dangerous. He started this entire debacle by calling a referendum he was certain would lead to a rejection of all these rabble-rousers yelling for a divorce from Europe; once that sorry business was settled Cameron was certain he would go on to doing great things and cementing his place in British history as a great man.
He lost. And what did he do? Why, the future great man abandoned the public arena, left his country in the midst of a bloody mess, and went to ... do what? Perhaps he’s in the South of France, sipping expensive grape juice, full of pity for the fate of his nation, which he was once destined to lead to great things before someone had the bright idea of calling for a referendum... maybe he’s in Sardinia.
1
Farage must (seriously) be thrilled by this sort of treatment.
Having seen Mr. Farage interviewed numerous times, it's obvious why he is "dangerous" - since he speaks clearly and in a straightforward manner. Which is clearly dangerous in politics - and something that the NY Times should severely criticize on its opinion pages - without a counter-balancing opinion from someone favorably disposed to Mr. Farage.
One-sided negative perspectives, especially in a news publication, are considered not "dangerous". Though maybe, possibly, perhaps they are.
1
Talk about a smear and hatchet job, Mr Seymour is a master at it. Pity it is not aligned with reality. At worst Mr Farage is lightening rod for an unusual mix/coalition of working class, democrats, left and right wingers, free traders, disgruntled reformers, anti elitists. The EU, being elitist, undemocratic, unaccountable and bureaucratic bound is run by and for the benefit of relatively few people and special interest groups. Hence the growing anti EU sentiment, not just in the UK, but as evident by political events in Europe over the past few years growing anti EU sentiment. As a political entity the EU is arrogantly flawed which refuses to reform. As an economic zone it is failing - shrinking in terms of world trade suffering high employment with major nations falling into recession and having a currency that is designed to benefit principally the Germans and impoverish the likes of Greece and Italy. For years various voices from various sectors and nations have called for reform and been ignored by the desire by the Brussels Eurocrats to grab more and more power. Yes, Farage is a one issue candidate with policies in other areas lacking in coherence going from right to left. But he is a clear voice on one cause that unites a lot of diverse people. The solution for the elites like Mr Seymour is to ignore the voices and feel superior by terming the lot racists, fascists and idiots. His attitude is what sustains and encourages anti EU sentiment.
1
Britain's EU departure will speed the unification of Ireland and maybe Scotland and Wales split from the UK.
"When the ax came into the forest, the trees said 'at least the handle's one of us.'" Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of Joy.
2
Brexiteers are sort of like anti-vaxxers.
We're so used to living with the benefits of vaccines that we forget how awful all the diseases used to be, and anti-vaxxers get it into their heads that we'd be better off without vaccines.
And we're so used to living with the benefits of EU membership that we forget how crummy things were before, and Brexiteers somehow fancy that we'd be better off without the EU.
8
Trump and Farage both work for Putin to make him world leader. They were hired for this job. Wake up, people. This is not a mystery!
Putin's cybermedia weapons and propaganda have won.
1
People used to put up with so-called leaders who never really cared about the freedom the citizens valued so much.
May and Obama finally shocked these patriots into acting to save their countries. The fact that Farage and Trump benefitted from the refusal to let the failures continue is more a result of chance than anything else.
Mitt Romney, the progressive Left's favorite Republican, was almost the guy who succeeded Obama due to precisely the sentiments that turned Hillary away. The media may have stopped Romney but they ouldn't stop Trump.
“...he is exploiting our democratic crisis to remake politics in his own image.”
That sounds like Germany’s Angela Merkel when she opened Europe’s borders without the consent of its citizens.
1
For a perfectly fine country like England to invite such calamity is unconscionable. Brexit is shaping to become the greatest fiasco in English history. Thanks to this shameless, newt like demagogue, Nigel Farage.
1
One might think that the Brexit party might self-destruct once they get their way and the British economy takes a nose dive, but you just watch how they will spin it. The elitist EU will be blamed, as will immigrants and it will work. Why? Well, because the Brexiters have tapped into the same enormous source of power Trump has: raging stupidity. Half of Britain deserves the result, but I do feel for the other half. Oh, and I do wish you luck reaching a trade deal with the US as a weaker economic unit. We all know how Trump loves to play fair. Good luck to all of you; you will need it.
1
British people do not want to be governed by bureaucrats in Belgium just like most Americans did not want to be governed by Britain or do not want to be governed by Washington DC. Why is that so hard to understand
I read Steve Bannon was living in a 7 thousand dollar a night suite in a Paris hotel while communicating with the masses.
There’s a sucker born every minute. Remember that line from P T Barnum? Oh and by the way, that was the movie our American president showed his gop at camp David. Remember that?
Too late.
1
I take it that all readers supporting the article will also campaign for the immediate removal of the Green card and a full open door immigration policy in the USA that includes the full treatment of all diseases including HIV.
Not forgetting opening your homes to a poor immigrant without a home. And I am not talking about cheap labor.
Can you also confirm when you will campaigning for the USA to apply for membership of the EU.
Also I am sure you are all happy to cease with immediate effect all ballot Propositions as it is too dangerous to let the common unwashed want something populist - How dare they
Global epidemic of self-immolation and the beginning of the body-shutdown sequence. All vitals are involved -- the US, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Hungary, etc.
1
I’m not British but I lived there in the 1970s and my two cents worth is this: your basic nyt-reading liberal is just as attached to magical thinking as any hoodwinked brexiteer. To many commenters here there’s a universal one size fits all explanation for why the bad guys are being bad: they’re racist! Well I’m here to tell you Britain was a much MUCH more racist place in the 1970s. Every society has a racism problem and always has had a racism problem. Racism is certainly part of the scenery with Brexit and trump but in no way can it be the cause of these convulsions. There isn’t now and never has been anything uniquely formative about racism, it’s part of the scene in good times and bad.
Global capitalism has made a great many “losers” out of those who in former times would have been petit bourgeois. It might make you feel comfortable in your own prejudices to simply say well they’re racist, but it explains nothing about today’s crisis. Security and identity as workers and providers, status within class hierarchies, these issues will, I think, get more acute with AI and automation before they get better. To say the least: A theoretically wise class of technocrats in the European Parliament is apparently not doing a good job of creating trust and faith in their brand. More Gogol than Plato. I don’t see how this blows over, even with a magic wand to clean up racist leanings.
From 1992 to 2014, I went to London on business many times each year and elsewhere in Europe. But London was right out of Pygmalion. You knew exactly where someone came from by the manner of speaking. When together, like birds, they followed a pecking order based on how well or badly they (thought they) spoke.
Thus, tribalism prevails in speech in the UK. As we can see, it prevails in Europe in other ways. Why we think or thought otherwise seems pretty silly right now. The EU is not one big happy family. (Nor are we.) The honeymoon of the Marshall Plan and its subsequent features has ended.
If Yeats were alive today he could not improve on his previous poetry. The center will collapse and anarchy will appear. The question is not how the UK will resolve its self-inflicted, selfish crisis. It won't. It will go back to fearing another Norman/Napoleon/Hitler invasion that it can't handle. And this time the US will not be there to bail the Brits out (again).
It seems evident the UK is an epicenter of a world-wide crisis. How will Germany deal with it? There's a question that goes straight to guilt of WWII. How will we deal with it? We won't until cheeseburgers are not on the top of the list. That won't happen any time soon.
1
As an expatriate Briton and an academic historian, I’m alternately shocked, amused, and ultimately appalled by what my green and pleasant land has become. I wince at Boris’ caricature of Winston Churchill, but I desperately despise Farage, the quintessential chinless wonder reminiscent of Oswald Ernold Mosley, the prewar British Nazi. I see him, like Mosley, as vacuous and immoral, yet I fear that is what Britain has become. I blame it on the insidious evolution of Thatcherism that allowed ruling classes to abandon the plebeian masses without care or conscience, and the recalcitrant masses abandoning their own collective conscience (like Trump supporters) as a result. Maggie’s ruthless destruction of organised labour was calculated and remorseless, leaving an every man for himself mentality. Work became a matter of survival for many: indentured servitude in constant fear of redundancy.
In this wilderness, Farage et al spun the lies of £350,000,000 per week for the sacred NHS when, in fact, the health system has been hamstrung by Brexit, vital medical professionals originally from the EU fleeing the sinking ship. Farage is dangerous because he is a mendacious destructionist with no clearly stated agenda. Where he thinks Britain is headed is anyone’s guess, but I suspect that ordinary people who consume tabloid tripe will rue the day they gave Nigel a soapbox to stand on.There’s a special place in Hades for these pretenders, but it might be on Earth, anchored just off France.
4
And now? Read the article again, this time, replacing, "Nigel," with, "Donald." And what do you get? You get, "us," that is, "US." [Pun intended.]
--
The bedrock of the world's two most well developed democracies is collapsing beneath our feet, and guess what? We, the voting public--by supporting Nigel and Donald--are making it happen, as we speak! That's right. It's not their fault, it's ours.
--
The End is near. Prepare yourselves.
1
Richard Seymour writes about an "assortment of Tory retirees and a smattering of ex-fascists and other right-wing cranks", which translated in American parlance the"basket of deplorables". Such elitist arrogance will make the Brexit party only stronger.
It is like the voters who voted for Brexit liked the idea of Brexit but had no idea of what would happen if it passed. I think of some Trump voters here who said they “just wanted a change” or “ just wanted to “stir things up”. And when repercussions affect them as farmers or factory workers, it seems hard for them to let go of why they voted for Trump.
4
A well crafted piece, dripping with contempt for wide swaths of British society that have had to repeatedly indicate they want out of the EU. The British class system seems to have reformed itself into a simple divide between the Enlightened (Remain) and the Tricked Unenlightened (Brexit). The single area of Britain that did not majority vote to leave on the last referendum was the London area. An island of enlightenment in a sea of deluded nativism, one supposes.
2
@Chris Rutledge
London...a sea of intellectual liberal elitists out of touch with the rest of the country.
I wish Mr. Farage luck. I’m sure he will get the same unfair, propagandistic treatment from the press that Mr. Trump has gotten. The people know better though.
3
The people are exactly who? The people who fall for scams and tricksters?
2
The problem with many of the comments disparaging Farage is they ignore the fact that he has millions of voters and supporters. That's an uncomfortable truth many are failing to recognise and address. You can continue to make comments like 'you've never met anyone who supports him' and other ultimately useless statements but unfortunately you've got your collective heads firmly stuck in the ground. The Brexit party that he very recently started is sending 29 MEP's (lawmakers) to the European Parliament...that's more than any other UK political party. Just keep on saying that he doesn't have any support (etc) if it makes you feel better but you'll only see him continue to win more votes. Maybe those that are 'concerned' should spend some of their intellectual bandwidth thinking deeply about why he is so popular and why the EU is under increasing pressure from national parties from all across Europe. Maybe, just maybe the EU is not delivering what it thinks it's delivering to the people of Europe? Maybe, just maybe they should start listening?
7
@Redcoat
"The problem with many of the comments disparaging Farage is they ignore the fact that he has millions of voters and supporters."
We're well aware of it.
If he didn't have lots of supporters, he wouldn't be dangerous.
5
A single issue party cannot survive long term. Never has. Hence at some point Nige is going to have to come out of the closet with the rest of his program (he promises to do this) and there is going to be a decidedly mixed reaction from his supporters. This was the problem with his previous party UKIP which was effectively a one man band even if it had superficial similarities with regular political parties.
In the short term however there is no doubt he has trapped the Conservative party. They are being forced to elect an extreme Brexiter to satisfy the barmies in 110,000 in their party membership and deal with the outside threat from Farage. The problem is this is likely to create an immediate economic shock and long term economic attrition and any Conservative PM or party ramming this through is going to own it. Most MP's know all this which is why they are so resistant to crashing out of the EU without a deal.
1
Apologies, in an earlier contribution I referred to the EU suffering from high employment. If only! In a typing error it should have been typed as "high youth unemployment". For example, 39% in Greece, 33% in Spain and 20% in France. It's no wonder the youth of the EU outside the UK are less than enthusiastic about the EU and their prospects. Again apologies for my typo.
@Niall
Actually completely false. All the evidence from polls across Europe shows high support for the EU and it's particularly concentrated among younger voters as indeed is the case in Britain.
4
This is just like Trump. A lot of the media react by demonizing the leader of the movement, when a much more productive thing to do would be to try and figure out why that person has appeal to a large contingent of voters. What did the mainstream parties miss about public opinion? I would surmise that a lot of people are worried about what they see as uncontrolled immigration. Now they have rebelled. That's democracy.
7
Too many predicting the economic collapse of the UK after Brexit are missing the possibility of a bilateral agreement between the US and the UK. New market for US farmers, and the UK may actually save a buck or two. The US will become the UK trading partner. Unless you believe that the EU is stronger than the US, the UK will be fine.
4
The political establishment blaming the voters is priceless.
Clearly the political leadership's problem are those the unruly and un-appreciative citizens they rule over not understanding how important their government is. If only government could get rid of the un-desirable citizens, everything would be fine.
Watching the political elite blame the voters is getting old on both sides of the pond. Government serves the people. Figure out what the people want, and serve the people. If 44% of UK voters support a hard Brexit, clearly government isn't meeting some need. The establishment might be out of time to figure it out.
The people have spoken - why are you still not listening?
10
@Tom Stoltz If 44 per cent of UK voters support a No Deal, they have no idea what a No Deal means (remind me, when are the WTO elections again?). It's clear from news reports that many people think that No Deal means a continuation of the status quo - not that it means tariff increases of many tens of percentage points and that friction-free supply chains will be broken off (causing massive holdups at the UK border destroying just-in-time production), meaning that manufacturing will be economically unviable and that those producers will have to relocate to the European mainland to compete. To take one example, 80 per cent of UK car manufacturing goes on export).
2
@Tom Stoltz Hence, the move to have a second referendum. To give the simple masses a chance to see the error of their ways, and vote to remain. Already the Remainers are floating the idea that a new Remain majority has formed - despite this election outcome. Is it possible to live in a social liberal haze and nostalgia?
@Teo Of course it's the people not knowing what they're voting for! How could anyone expect voters to know what they are voting on? If only the government could get rid of the vote so they can provide what people so obviously need, without having to worry about winning their favor.
Many commenters speak of the EU as if it were a completely unified bloc of countries, but it is not.
The EU without the U.K will face forces of dis-integration, especially after this weekend’s vote.
For some EU countries, Brexit isn’t an opportunity to teach the U.K. a lesson, but rather to learn from the U.K. a lesson.
2
@John Sorry to disappoint but it seems like there's more chance for the UK to disintegrate than the EU. Brexit will force Scotland to hold a referendum to leave the United Kingdom and join the European Union. Same for Northern Ireland which will be at last reunited with the Republic of Ireland...
1
@FCH
I actually agree, especially vis a vis Scotland and Ireland.
And the dis-integration of the EU won't necessarily involve countries leaving entirely, but rather weakening the rules that hold them together. At least in the short term.
"Social media - the stock market of attention."
What a great line! I will be contemplating it all day.
8
@Chuck
Yes, Richard Seymour is a magnificent writer.
1
Are there times when voters are looking past the issues and persons on the ballot and are voting for something else? As for instance, might they be rejecting the current power structure as too entrenched, self-serving, and no longer acting in the national interest? Might there be times when voters just want a change--even if they're not 100% sure they understand what that change will mean? How about 2016 here or, currently, Brexit in the U.K. When that's the case it's futile to argue the merits of what's on the ballot or the qualifications of candidates, that's not what the voters are looking at. Does that help explain why Democrats here are so furious with and befuddled by the Trump phenomenon, or why Nigel Farage is regarded by his opponents as a dangerous demagogue?
4
I do not think your readers really understand the mess that is the EU or the political disaster that is the UK. Our political parties have forgotton their purpose and for years now politicians of all parties have made it very clear they are in politics simply to line their own pockets. Representation of the People simply does not exist. Members of Parliament have in many cases followed their own whims on the EU rather that follow the wishes of their constituents. MPs from remain and Brexit majority areas are voting against the results of the referendum in their local area so an MP from a pro Remain constituency could be backing a Hard Brexit strategy as 'they know better than the Proles' who voted for them. Farage and the Brexit Party are a flash in the pan, simply put the British have a sense of humour and consider EU elections as a joke which do not matter. Wait until the General Election, they will hardly feature at all as good old Brits will turn out for Labour and Conservatives as slavishly as they have always done.
2
Farage's Brexit Party may have got just under a third of the votes in the EU election but the parties openly campaigning for Remain got more. The Brexit Party's main support came from UKIP which collapsed. Yes, a few voters came across to BP from the two main established parties, but most voters deserting the Conservatives and Labour were Remainers voting, many for the first time, for the LibDems, Greens and the SNP.
Farage may make a lot of noise but there is a large silent moderate majority who cannot stomach him or his politics. Given Parliament has made it very clear that it will not support a No Deal Brexit, there is a growing view that Article 50 should be revoked and this madness brought to an end.
6
Many places in the North of England have benefited from billions in EU funding. Before detractors claim that “it’s our money in the first place”, remember this: Westminster is largely indifferent to the plight of the North.
One former Tory chancellor even suggested allowing Liverpool, one of the UK’s major cities to undergo a “managed decline” following the riots in the 80s. But these cities were able to apply for EU funding and regenerate themselves.
Brexit will be bad for Britain and mostly for those Brexit voting communities in the North, who will no longer have access to vital EU cash.
8
Great article. I will look forward to reading The Twittering Machine. The more we understand about how social media have altered the political landscape in liberal democracies, the better. Trump, Brexit, AfD, The League, Vox, the list goes on and on. Then there's Christchurch. Not to mention ISIS. Disinformation is the curse of our times.
1
Excellent analysis as far as it goes -- but why no mention of the Labour Party's role in the crisis? Labour should have been leading the resistance to Brexit, which, as @Richard Seymour makes clear, will be a disaster for the working class that Labour is supposed to represent. The majority of Labour members voted Remain, yet Jeremy Corbyn's refusal to honestly support Remain, or even a new referendum, or even acknowledge the disaster that would be Brexit, has emboldened Farage and his supporters and undermined the possibility of Britain staying the the EU.
10
Farage uses his undoubted formidable communication skills to play a very good game of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
His real achievement is convincing his working class base that their mutual enemy is the "British Establishment" which he portrays as some massive liberal elite. The ultimate irony is of course that Farage is the epitome of the British Establishment which genuinely has impoverished the large rural, and former industrial, areas of the country which contain his power base.
It is very unlikely that Farage and his backers have the slightest intention of rectifying this ever. By convincing his supporters the Establishment is his enemy too, they are automatically led to believe he is on their side. Nothing could be further from the truth.
4
It sounds like Mr. Farage took a page out of DJT’s book - get those who need the gov’t most hate the gov’t and mistrust the media and they’ll support a con man. Hey, it worked in the U.S. in 2016.
If the underlying issues behind the Brexit vote and the rise of Farage had been addressed by mainstream parties, we would not be here.
The effects of trade deals, EU policies and practices and mass immigration on middle and working class lives.
Stop focusing on the leaders and start focusing on the issues that are getting them elected.
2
@CNNNNC
Your first sentence is absolutely true.
But the problems are not with the EU, trade deals and mass immigration.
The problem is Tory austerity and the destruction of the social safety net and underfunding and sell-off of public services.
The Tories have been blaming the EU for decades (they couldn't blame themselves after all), and are now reaping the whirlwind, which includes the rise of people like Farage. Unfortunately, the rest of us are caught up in it too.
Nigel Farage is the face of a phenomenon that appears to be happening all over the world. The self-appointed man of importance who has not a care for the very country and the people he claims to represent.
Of course, it was inevitable that founding and then for a short time leading the far right-wing UKIP, he would fancy himself the face of Brexit -- only to disappear from the front pages for a short while when the going got rough.
But now he's back and more determined than ever to push it through, even though most of the advantages he touted about it have now proven to be false.
Unfortunately for far too many, the yearning for the good old days of Pax Britannica and the promise of Brexit returning them to their former glory, without having to take orders from the E.U. in Brussels or deal with all those unwanted immigrants from countries deemed less than worthy, was hard to resist.
And we all know why.
Because much the same thing is happening here under Donald Trump.
But unfortunately no thought was given to Ireland, which shares a border, or Scotland which only stayed around after its own 2014 referendum on independence because it wanted to remain part of the European Union.
Now they're both tied to the economic fate facing Britain.
Meanwhile Mr. Farage continues his thumbs-up joviality while whipping up resentment and dodging milkshakes.
Rule Britannia.
5
Nigel Farage is who he is on that picture : a clown.
He has no power in the EU Parliament. All the representants know that the guy is able to congregate voices of uneducated people in his country but when it is about discussing and negociating law , He has no intellectual weight.
Farage was prosecuted like Le Pen for illegal use of public funds and he does not even attend the sessions in Strasbourg.
Farage owns a house in France where he loves to enjoy the good life that France offers : food not available in England, culture unheard of on the British island, naked people on the beach, good health care with doctors still coming to your house in the middle of the night for children and elederly people.
many English people come to retire in France. Some even collect French unemployment while they restore houses to sell them.
5
They called Trump a clown too...
@NYCSANDI yes but Trump does not operate in Europe .He would not get far in front of educated people .
he is king in the USA because people are uneducated there , like Farage is winning in the UK with uneducated people .
But Trump or Farage have no power in Europe.
You ignore the central issue - the EU Elections showed the UK is divided into three groups.
1) The No Dealers - Brexit Party and UKIP. UKIP are the traditional party of Europhobia, and won most seats in the last election in 2014. They’ve steadily turned to the far right and have lost most of their base. Farage’s new BXP replaced them seat for seat, but ONLY gained 4 more seats. Since 2014.
2) The Compromisers - Labour and the Tories. Brexit but with a deal that preserves trade/economy. Together these two parties won the lowest number of seats, and took a pasting. If this shows anything, it is that the UK is polarising rapidly - ‘compromise’ does not win votes, it seems.
3) The 2nd Ref/Remainers - Change UK, Lib Dem’s and Green. Collectively these parties won THE MOST votes, the popular vote. Had these parties put factionalism aside and ran as a Remain Alliance, then the headlines would be about them. But here lies the MAJORITY of the public. “The will of the people...”?
Thus: If the Tories follow Farage’s self-enriching vision and take the country into a No Deal, they face electoral oblivion as a majority in the country do not support it. Yet all the support for a No Deal is in the Tory Party, or now Brexit Party (mostly ex-Tories). So if they do not, then their party immolates itself.
The ultimate political Catch 22. Sacrifice your party for the country? Or keep your party, sacrifice the country and get voted out for generations? I know which I’d do, but will they?
4
The writer incorrectly attributes Theresa May's failure in Brexit negotiatioms to a decision not to take a "cross-party" approach. The failure was instead the result of Mrs. May's incompetence at running the negotiations. And that was part of a broader pattern of political incompetence on Mrs. May's part. For example, she called a general election to increase her majority in Parliament, but she actually lost her majority and continued as Prime Minister only with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland. Having tied her premiership to the DUP, however, she failed to take proper account of what the DUP viewed as its existential interest in the Brexit negotiations and took actions the DUP could only view as a complete double cross. There are other examples of Mrs. May's incompetence, but those should do for now.
5
What the author called "demagogue" is what I call "freedom of choice." He simply want to reduce the welfare state there (bravo!) which is strangling their growth, allow Britain (and no one else) to determine who is a Brit and who is not, and give Britain independence to take its own path rather than those of Brussels. I wish we had someone like him. Trump is ridiculous. Nigel is well-thought out. I think the author (and his supporters) just feel compelled to demonize anyone who thinks the government is the problem and not the solution.
7
@Roy P
As for the welfare state, here and elsewhere in Europe, how exactly does having decent public services and good healthcare strangle growth?
And as for well thought out - the EU is the largest trading block in the world, why on earth would we turn our back on membership of that? What could possibly replace that?
Farage appeals to ill-informed people nostalgic for a UK that never really existed, a rose-tinted past that they are certain they can resurrect if only they get rid of all the red tape, rules and foreigners.
They are nostalgic for the days of "plucky" Britain ruling the waves, and never mind that we are no longer the richest and most powerful country in the world, that the days of gung ho and gunboat diplomacy are well and truly over, or that the vast majority of Britons, in our vaunted heyday, actually had inadequate food, poor health and short and nasty lives.
Nigel knows all this, but comes out with his appalling lies because it suits him. He's a self-promoting and proven fraud.
A text book demagogue.
2
@Roy P
Nigel Farage is a demagogue because he tells lies in a way that people believe them.
@Roy P You mean the Nigel Farage who applied for a German passport, but was denied one because he lied about his permanent address? The Nigel Farage who has a property in France? The Nigel Farage who attended 1 out of 42 meetings of the EU Fisheries Committee? The Nigel Farage who was docked pay as an MEP because of illicit use of funds? The Nigel Farage who claims to have received nearly £3mn in sub £500 donations, when in fact everything points to him having received underhand donations by one or more wealthy backer and has no way of proving that the funding isn't coming from abroad (which is illegal). That Nigel Farage?
1
When looking back at the behaviours that ushered in the collapse of civilization, the words “prioritized vanity above everything else” should be at the top.
3
In June 2016 Nigel Farage denied that he had claimed, like others in the ‘Leave’ campaign, that 350 million pounds per week would be available for the NHS instead of paying it to the EU.
Video evidence was provided later of him announcing to a TV audience a savings of 10 billion pounds that could instead be made available to NHS or for people in Britain.
This Putin crony who doesn’t remember what he said to Julián Asssange in the Ecuadorian embassy is being allowed a comeback?
I’m reminded of Cicero: to stumble twice against the same stone is a proverbial disgrace.
7
We'll see how patriotic the Brexiters are when there are lorries backed up from Dover to Croydon every day as every item on board every one has to undergo a detailed inspection of every item on exhaustive manifests which will have to completed with NO errors. They haven't had to deal with this for decades.
3
The Murdock clan is next to him at the top. Perhaps Facebook should be up there as well.
2
To use a old British aphorism, which should always be pronounced with a breathy and slightly snobbish condescension, "Oh, Bad Luck!"
Is is too bad about England though. Such a nice country, with so many nice people - and now this. Well, I guess all good things must come to an end, yes?
4
A population which votes for a demagogic liar, or fails to turn out to vote for the alternative, deserves the resulting disaster. Its only short-term salvation is to smarten up next time. In the longer term, we have to teach our children more about the citizen’s responsibility to understand more than the gloss served up by tricksters.
2
@Simon Potter
Too true, Simon. And unfortunately applicable to both the UK and the USA , as was - I have no doubt - your intention.
What's saddest of all over here is talking to people who support Brexit, Farage et al with no regard for plan or policy, only saying, "I just want out."
That attitude is particularly mind-numbing here in impoverished Cornwall, which has received close to one billion pounds in EU funding over the years.
Farage's disingenuousness knows no bounds.
7
Right wing populist parties never solved problems. The opposite was often true. Sometimes it ended with total destruction. They are usually corrupt. Trump and Strache in Austria are only the latest examples. Still people think these people like Farage are truth tellers. They express perfectly well the anger people
feel. This anger is real. And both Farage and Trump are very angry men. They are able to connect. Nothing good will come from it.
It could be the end of the western world as we know it. It could be the end of the enlightenment. Christianity destroyed Roman religious toleration for thousand years. Oligarchs are on the march. They use the social media perfectly for disinformation.
1
Dangerous? Absolutely. He represents the death of democracy. He, like Trump, claims to represent democracy, but like Trump, he is the antithisis of everything he espouses.
But it is a mistake to link him with Britain. His agenda is focussed on England. Everything he espouses is at the expense of the peoples of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. For him, and his base, they represent "the other" as much as the peoples of continental Europe do.
1
It looks like Farage wants a no deal Brexit. So what happens to the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland? Does that become a hard border again, ending years of peace there? Of course an Englishman like Farage won’t care what happens to the Irish. I thought “the troubles” were behind us, but I guess not.
I also bet the Scotts who voted against independence a few years ago have serious regrets. I wonder if the Scottish parliament will put another independence vote on the table.
4
You call Nigel Farage far/hard right. This is wrong. He is trying to ensure that the result of our 2016 referendum is honoured. The useless Conservative party has failed to implement the result after 3 years. We are utterly exasperated. Farage is now seeking a mandate to do this. Many of us will vote for him as we did last week and will do in a general election. He is Hope for us plebs in the street. A No Deal/WTO exit is now the only option. God bless him.
4
Look on the bright side. Like Trump and the GOP, Farage and his party will be exposed in Britain, if they too are unable to govern effectively. Pressure is all on them to produce or be ousted. Just pray and hope, like in the USA, there’s still a country left standing from all the dysfunctional government.
Farage indeed is a dangerous demagogue. More so for Britain, though, than for the EU. While the EU will certainly suffer from a "no deal"- BREXIT as well, our UK brethren are in for a really rough ride - and I write this without "Schadenfreude".
Actually, and in the long run, Farage and his brother in demagoguery Johnson may have done the EU a service, by:
- demonstrating to the rest of the EU that it is hard to leave the EU and not suffer a lot of disadvantages.
- strengthening the resolve of many in the EU to NOT let populists destroy what we have achieved.
- transforming formerly disinterested bystanders into activists and voters. Voter turn out show that already.
- providing a showcase which can well be used in any future discussion about the "merits" of leaving the EU.
While great efforts are needed to make the EU work more efficiently I am greatly encouraged by the fact that the EU parliament still is not a right wing assembly and - most of all - that our youngsters are getting into the fight for their , ie a more united Europe with national identities kept intact.
Once English nationalism combined with ignorance & Farage´s talent for demagoguery will have "brexited" the UK, once N. Ireland has chosen to re-unite with Ireland, once Scotland will have voted to split from Britain to re-enter the EU, THEN - I hope - our English brethren will understand that "Rule Britannia" does not exist any more. "Fool Britannia" may be the more fitting text then.
5
How this man believes he should have any participation in the European parliament is beyond me. I live in Europe, and I wish the parliament would censure him as their first act when they reconvene. His one and only aim in Europe is to drag it down.
Oh, and just for fun, Spain should demand Gibralter as part of any brexit.
3
Welcome to America. The (American) proverbial apple truly hasn't fallen far from the (British) tree. We fought a brutal war to gain our democracy, now we're willing to hand it over without a whimper. In a separate article on Japan it is disclosed how trump-like Abe is. How Japan is on the road to an authoritarian government. How freedom of the press rankings have dropped from an enviable 11th place to 67th. Italy is well on it's way to, once again, turning fascist, Poland, Hungary, Spain, Australia, Austria, France, Brazil, Greece...the list goes on. All those who lived through and were old enough to remember the horrors of World War Two are mostly dead. What better time to start on the road to fascism again. There's so few left to remember the horrors of it and the written history can never convey how truly oppressive and dangerous it was to freedom, to liberty, to righteousness. They say that those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. Apparently those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it as well. What frightening times we live in. I fear for my loved ones, my children and young grandchildren. At age 60 I fear for my husband, myself. How can we so willingly embrace such madness? To actually vote for it? To be so uneducated, so gullible, so easily manipulated? We truly have learned nothing.
4
This excellent and profoundly scary article does not address the big come back of the Liberal Democratic party . Further, a majority of Britain's people ,53 percent, support Remaining in the Union. Perhaps their is a small hope that this Trump like looting capitalism will crash on that majority rock.
1
@Ken res
Nor does it mention the low turnout for this election. I heard it was 17 percent, with 33 percent voting Brexit.
Farage was voted for, because he represents British Bulldog ideology. Not being told what’s good for us, not being told to sit back and be grateful, and not being told to accept millions of uneducated and sometimes dangerous scroungers. He supports British workers and families, and doesn’t like the idea of paying £350m/week gross (£250m/week net) for the right to be talked down to. Millions of people think his ideology is OK. And millions of other people want to pay to stay in this European club. Only time will tell who was right.
1
I stopped reading after the gratuitous, and inaccurate, swipe at Singapore. What was the point of that? What is the basis for such an accusation?
Mr Seymour omitted the most important result of the election in the U.K. the combined vote of LibDems and Greens, who support Remain, was 40% and greater than all the hard Brexit parties combined, 38%. So if there was a second referendum on EU embership in the U.K., the most likely outcome would be Remain.
Similarly across Europe, pro- EU parties won a majority of seats. Green parties doubled their number.
1
This is both fascinating and disturbing. Mr. Farage, like President Trump, excels at manipulating public opinion. This is a dark art practiced by PR professionals bent on selling us stuff we don't need, and probably wouldn't want if we paused to consider it. The political mechanisms of the US and the UK are too slow to react to social media storms, particularly when they are initiated on purpose. Nonetheless, citizens must call these demagogues out, reveal their empty policy portfolios, and use democracy for its true purpose--to advance the goals of the majority, not the manipulators.
3
This article misses the point of Brexit. A majority of UK citizens do not want a political union with the EU but are very happy to trade and be aligned to the EU. This is the fundamental issue at the core of Brexit.
The EU is determined to ensure that a nation state can only be a member of its economic zone if it gives up its political sovereignty. The EU wants its members to cede political oversight to the EU's supranational institutions.
The direct comparison is if the USA had to implement rules and regulations by a commission made up of un-elected bureaucrats from the Mexico/Canada and the USA. Such a situation would be decidedly un-American and both sides of the Congressional aisle would be united against such 'foreign' oversight.
The EU Withdrawal Bill would never be passed by the USA, Canada or Mexico as it would politically neuter themselves for a 'good deal' on a SUV.
Farage is a political 'Halley's comet' and can be seen off by politicians of conviction who can play more than chopsticks on the piano equivalent of policy and character.
2
First of all, over the last couple of years polls have consistently shown the British people to be in favour of remaining in the EU. Secondly, any international agreement to some extent reduces a country's sovereignty. Thirdly, all EU member states have a veto. In other words, the UK is taking back sovereignty it never ceded. Finally, the Brexiters' much vaunted US-UK trade deal is likely to be highly disadvantageous to the UK, including lowering food standards and privatising the NHS, substantially increasing the costs of healthcare.
1
The people who run most institutions in Western societies, the 'liberal' and 'conservative' elites, do indeed have a couple of blind spots that characters like Farage and Trump can easily exploit. First, these top of the heapers don't get it that economic theories about market efficiency do not comfort the average soul, of which there are large numbers, when their job is shipped overseas by executives juicing up their bonus and stock compensation. Second, these average souls do not like the idea of a tsunami of people from an entirely different culture invading the place where they live, and being welcomed by the elites who live in gated buildings and communities, and who very much like the the idea of cheap nannies and grounds keepers and service workers. You can argue all you want that the views of these average souls are retrograde, and you will not change the feelings, and you will find you cannot stuff your views down their throats. And did I mention there are large numbers of these average souls?
11
The UK, just like the rest of Europe, has an ageing population and a severe skills shortage in many sectors, including healthcare, hospitality industry and agriculture. After Brexit, the shortage will have to be filled with people from cultures even more different than those of other EU members. Non-EU immigration to the UK has always been high, and is now considerably higher than EU immigration.
1
The Brexit vote was a Referendum and won with an extremely slim majority. On top of that, only 37% of the UK votes the other day in the EU elections. What clear mandate does Farage and his enablers see in this? What chaos this will cause in the end to industry, we have already seen with its 'ripple effects'!
3
Britain has, for some time, been captured by financiers and, like the New York expression of FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate),which has dominated the US economy these past few decades, is based on such intense capitalism that it undermines the economy for the people. These are choices we make as societies; there is nothing natural about the piracy capitalism that Farage and Trump represent. And, it makes British workers vulnerable because they are being pushed down to the bottom of the barrel where foreign workers can compete. Shoring up a local economy is a good thing and doesn’t require a Brexit—a green new deal could be the healthy answer for both our countries. Another vote on exiting the EU would make sense, too, if, rather than taken on a simple majority basis, I suggest that a two-thirds vote for such a major change is a more moral basis. It isn’t fair for a simple majority to force such a profound change on the whole population.
3
The problem with Britain is they never overcame the shock of being reduced down to a country from a Empire after WWII. Today, they can only stay in Palace only if they learn to live with others ... if you catch what I am saying.
3
Gordon Gekko, I don't think so. Mr. Farage was barely a mid-level player in the London commodity trading arena. As Mr. Seymour states, he is a dangerous character. Mr. Farage, like a number of other Euro politicians, has torn a page out of the Trump playbook, driving a wedge between UK communities with lies and false promises. Shortly his dear friend, President Trump, will arrive in London. Let's see if Mr. Trump meets with Mr. Farage and endorses his crass ideology. They are a match made in heaven.
5
Mr Farrage, much like Mr Trump, offers no real solutions to social and/or economic problems. They indulge in their destructive and divisive discourse to attract voters affected and marginalized by the 2009 crisis. A post- Brexit plan has not been presented or worked out by noone including Mr F or the prospective new PM Mr J.
The UK should remain in the EU from which it has largely profited up till now and where it can in future wield greater influence. Failing that it will become an insignificant island off the coast off WEurope.
5
Thank you for this insightful article. Farange is an anti-social provocateur with a chip on his shoulder. I wish the extent of the Russian contribution to his activities was better understood. Trump's visit next week is a terrible idea on many levels - but especially in terms of his influence on the far-right in Britain. Hopefully Farange will be kept as far away as possible.
10
Now is the time for Elizabeth II to make the first formidable decisions in her 92 years of life and some 67 years on the Throne of Great Britain!
Those actions would include dissolving Parliament, reestablishing the Divine Rule of the Monarchy, banishing / beheading Brexit leaders and bureaucrats, and re-establishing the UK’s role as a member of the European Union thereby vacating the Brexit vote outcome.
… or she could simply say she has extreme difficulty foreseeing how Britain’s leaving the EU will lend assistance to the Royal Family’s continued quality life in a post-Brexit economy.
6
The U.S. has a population of about 327 million people.
England, about 55 million.
Now, among all those people, the two best leaders we can find are Donald Trump and Nigel Farage? The mind reels.
I've seen lumps of coal with more on the ball than Donald Trump. And that's not just hyperbole, because the truth is, a President Lump of Coal would have done a heck of a lot less damage to this country in 4 years, than Donald Trump does every-single-day.
12
Why the EU? In 1870 Germany invaded France and lost; in 1914 Germany invaded France and lost; in 1940 Germany invaded France and lost. Seems that about every 40 years Europe went to war (about every 2nd generation).
The EU was founded with the concept that if finance, agriculture, industry and the free movement of people (and a single currency) were linked throughout Europe, then peace would prevail for more than two generations as it would be in the interest of Europeans not to go to war; and so it has been for the past 70 years.
The European Coal and Steel Community, European Community, European Free Trade Area (EFTA), Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), Euro currency, European Court of Justice, Schengen passport-free movement, Europol (policing) - all have contributed to the original aim of the EU, other European institutions; and succeeded
Farage and Brexit completely undermine this concept, and sadly the British just do not see it.
9
The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 was a solid win for the Germans. They dictated terms.
3
@Michael Anisfeld
European countries economies are too interdependent in the 21st century to make wars between those countries make any sense. Ergo, it won't happen. Even Russia would suffer if the European market for their oil collapsed.
Europe is in great danger not from internal divisions - those are inevitable and unavoidable in democracies where people are free to think for themselves. The biggest danger to Europe is the possibility that the continent will be overrun by millions of migrants or refugees from Muslim countries. That may eventually lead to something resembling the Holocaust. From that standpoint, European populists and nationalists are actually trying to prevent bloodshed down the road, while the policies of pro-migration liberals are making it more likely.
Can I point out that during that three year period that you, and Farage, classify as semi-retirement he was actually a full-time, elected Member of the European Parliament, drawing a six figure salary to, supposedly, represent the interests of the British people.
If he had actually bothered to do the job at all this would have been a full-time commitment. Despite his professed championing of the British fishing industry he hardly ever turned up to meetings of the EU Fisheries Committee, which he was a member of.
You are correct though in saying he is the most dangerous man in Britain.
10
This article was written with seemingly little understanding of the current views of the British public. Those of us who have experienced the EU over the last 40-odd years are fed up with the endless rules & regulations imposed on us in minutiae by this undemocratic organisation. We pay them billions of pounds a year for what? For those who believe the UK is better off in the EU, name one thing the EU have done for the UK which the UK themselves could not have done.
Would the US hand over its autonomy to such an organisation? I don't think so.
8
@Paul Wingert
Farage a product of the financial elites and co-creator of the mess he hypocritically decries wants to deny the interconnection without which the UK can’t avoid total bankruptcy. Blaming others is the easy part. What is hard is to connect your own responsibility to the whole world.
Britain created the world market and a colonial empire that enriched her until recently. Her productivity and social organization have become sclerotic and instead relies on the financial shenanigans of people like Farage. The Ponzi scheme no longer works and people are prescribed austerity and isolation in the form of nationalism that denies the source of real value. Farage won’t change that.
8
@Paul Wingert, I'll take up your challenge to "name one thing the EU have done for the UK which the UK themselves could not have done. "
The UK auto industry. Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Mini, Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls-Royce and Bentley all exist in the UK because of the EU, and the frictionless trade it facilitates. The supply chain for these car makers is spread out across the EU, with parts moving across borders and arriving at the UK assembly plants just in time. The cars are then mostly exported to other EU countries. If the UK had not been a member of the EU, those EU-oriented factories would have been located in other EU countries, and the UK would not be the major manufacturing hub for cars that it now is.
Exactly which EU rules and regulations inhibit your life? Please be specific! Please also weigh those inhibitions against the vast benefit of the shared EU rules.
Most EU regulations has to do with cross border trade, and exist as an efficient replacement for the much more complex set of 28 individual rule sets that the EU member countries would otherwise need. It is truly a success that we have these shared rules as opposed to each country having their own rules, as the UK car industry clearly proves.
12
@Paul Wingert, the billions of pounds that the UK pays to the EU is among other things used to finance shared EU institutions in many areas such as food and drug safety. If the UK was not a member of the EU, it would have to run duplicates of those EU institutions. Would these UK institutions be cheaper to run, without the economies of scale that exist when sharing the cost with all other EU members?
And, the rules and regulations that you question are not forced upon the UK. They are created through participation by all EU members, the UK included. They come into force when approved by the UK parliament, and each EU member state can veto EU regulations.
So think and do some research before blaming the EU for what's wrong in your country.
4
It needs to be pointed out that UKIP was never 'a significant national party' because it never held more than one seat in parliament. Its potential to do so had a significant influence over the policy calculations of the Tory party leadership and subsequent events.
It never 'tore chunks out of the Conservative's share of the vote'. This is an exaggeration. It was the threat that it would that caused the Tories to panic and, among other ill advised policies, to offer a referendum.
2
The most positive consequence of the continuing Brexit fiasco will be an eventual end to that 'special relationship' between Washington and London. Britons will eventually live a moment of reckoning, to realise that Washington is actually a force just as malevolent as Moscow to the very existence of the United Kingdom. The Americans and Russians dream of transforming the British Isles into a new version of the eternally divided Balkans. Simply the latest variation of the divide and conquer formula.
2
Farage and Brexiteers are really (and I mean *really*) good at one thing. Describing what they DON'T want.
They won over 30% of the vote in the Euro elections without a manifesto and without describing a single policy. (I'm currently in the UK and am seeing this first hand). Saying (sic) "We'll leave the EU in October and make no mistake about it" shows utter ignorance of the complexity of the work required to stop the UK entering the kind of economic recession and social adversity last seen in 1930's America.
Farage is so unlike the voters he's conning its unreal. He's a successful trader who (using other people's money) has gone on to create havoc by telling lies - barefaced lies - about the cost of being in the EU without describing the benefits. Drive around the UK and in many areas that have suffered economically you'll see new roads, schools, bridges, rail links etc that have a big sign saying "This project built with grants from the EU". I've yet to see a sign saying "Built with UKIP money".
The EU is not without its faults. But it is an important vehicle that has helped keep Europe stable, safe and peaceful for over 70 years by trying to keep wealth disparity in check. Farage wants to rip those checks and balances up: he sees only 'win - lose', binary scenarios. A more dangerous person you're likely never to meet...
12
@Brian - Quite right. I live in a remote corner of Britain, economically depressed since the collapse of its mining and fishing industries. Pretty much everything good that’s happened round here over the last few decades has been EU funded. Material infrastructure, further education colleges and training programs, conservation and public health programs, all of which have greatly enhanced the area and created meaningful jobs. Yet this corner of Britain voted heavily in favour of 'Leave'. All because of Farage and his 'us not them' appeal to the worst in us, and Johnson and his flag-waving 'Make Blighty Great Again' twaddle. Anyone thinking that the same government funding will come our way once these free-market fan-boys get hold of the reins of power is in for a shock.
It’s much like the Trump GOP’s hijacking of America, and will take us down the same piteous paths.
18
In speaking with working class Brits (not mid city, not high street, and strong regional accents), I understood their concerns as analogy. Immigrants (I mean from poor countries) trigger a visceral disdain in Britain and Europe the way a room full of iron pumpers and decathletes in America would feel toward an overweight smoker on public assistance puffing away and blowing in their faces next to them as they go through life.
The validity, merit of this analogy is of no concern to Brexiters, nor to at least 70% of Europeans (I am generalizing, estimating based on zero demonstrations in favor of immigrants from Africa). They just want the smoker (immigrant) to stop robbing them of their cultural, social, economic health - and be gone. Again, I am not suggesting that this visceral loathing, and the vitriol it produces, is justified.
But it does explain Farage, Salvini, Wilders, Le Pen, and Trump (never mind the over-the-top crazies in Poland and Hungary). It is wrong to think that the referendum on Brexit was a 'one of,' we have evidence that another referendum will produce identical results.
I hope the smarter minds here at home are thinking this through and about the implications they hold for us. It now looks pretty crazy for us to liken our culture to a salad bowl with two or more national languages (which is regarded by too many as a good thing), when what made America truly great was a melting pot with a powerful center.
9
@Kalidan
Good post, but has some contradictions. The only reason you think of nationalists in Poland and Hungary as "crazies" is because you are attached to the melting pot model in the US, and you think that their attachment to their homogeneous societies is not normal.
But just as you are not happy with the transition to the "salad bowl" model that is being imposed on us here, they are not happy with a transition to the "salad bowl" model that Euro-liberals want to force on them. You should sympathize. You have more in common with them than you realize. But don't count on the liberal media to explain it to you.
The melting pot model was the only way to keep the US peaceful and prosperous. It required careful management of immigration, keeping it slow and culturally compatible, so newcomers would want, or have no choice but to assimilate. We blew it.
Our elites hungry for cheap labor expanded legal immigration too much and too fast, and no one has had the guts (until Trump came along) to put the foot down on illegal immigration. The US will pay a very dear price for this, and may not even survive, because the melting pot has been destroyed.
Europe will survive. Europeans have a strong sense of identity, which will unite them against cultural or military invasions from other continents. The US is on its way to lose its identity, with terrible consequences. I wish I was wrong, but I don't think I am.
3
@Eva
Yes, our "salad bowl" model has been based on the notion that our foundational documents and the structure they created would be sufficient to sustain social cohesion in the form of "civic nationalism". This is more advanced and (dare I say) better than the historically "ethnic nationalism" of Europe, but our current administration is putting in to the test. We must lead the way and show the way to build cohesion on the the civic model, not fall into divisiveness.
1
Mr. Farage is simply the result of the incredible arrogance of both the Conservatives and Labour party more concerned with power than the people that elected them.
Brexit will cause economic harm on the UK. Perhaps that is exactly what is needed to get the country, its people and politics on their feet again. I wish it could be different, but right now it seems there is no way back.
3
@Dutchie
Sadly, the harm will not be shared equally. The rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer, but never, ever, admit their mistake.
For an article that appears to attempt a character assassination of Nigel Farage, it inadvertently demonstrates the reasons why he has been so successful, deservedly so, in upending the British political order.
Brexit will be a success (if it happens).
5
@Krd, how will this sucess manifest itself? I see huge economic destruction happening because of Brexit. Please describe the advantages of leaving the EU. Many problems to do with inequality in the UK have nothing to do with the EU. The UK austerity is not caused by the EU, it has been run by the UK government. The EU does not regulate taxing levels, welfare, education and other social issues. Each EU member country is free to run those things as they please, and all other EU countries are more equal than the UK.
3
That which worked when the West was advantaged by industrial and military power will not necessarily do so in a digital global age. As economic control over global resources has shifted the beneficiaries of the old order - the West's welfare protected middle and working classes - have seen no improvement in their wealth circumstances, while in the rest of the world there has actually been considerable uplift. It is of no consolation.
Institutions have an inbuilt resistance to change, none more so than those run by state bureaucracies.
I have been against Brexit, and fear that it will be used to destroy the social democratic post WW2 consensus, replacing it with a nouveau royalty based on extreme economic divide and social Darwinism. However, if change is required, perhaps it might inly come from an atomized economic order rather than one that seems to be governed by faceless bureaucrats in massive inert institutions, vested in a past that no longer exists. Farage's party is about one thing: Brexit. But behind his victory the story is wider: the Greens, the UK Lib Dems etc -Remain parties - also surged. The message is that our institutions are not working any more.
1
The most mind jarring point is that he was one of the leading figures in the referendum for leaving the EU. Yet, precisely the day after the referendum was held, Farage decided to abandon his post as head of the UKIP.
So, one of the main campaigners for leaving the European Union, (undoubtedly one of the largest political operation in the UK post-WWII) abandons ship for the rest to clean up.
And now, he created a party called Brexit Party, and wins parliamentary seats in the very institution that he sought to divorce the UK from? If the UK is still on the verge of leaving, what is the point of getting seats in the union?
This reminds me of the libertarian politicians in the US. They claim to be so against the concept of government, that government should be non-existent and non-interference in the daily choices of the people, yet actively choose to participate in it.
There is some kind of bizzare paradox. It does not feel quite like the rest of the right-wing wave in France, Italy, Netherlands and such. Conservative politicians in those countries (elected or otherwise) remain actively in the political scene arguing for why their version of their country/Europe is best.
Farage is like the antagonist from The Music Man, he swoops into town to sell fear to the simple townfolk, gets the money, and leaves just before the town realized what a disaster they have gotten themselves into. T
he music man has returned, and not for the better.
5
@Anymore
Faced with the lies he told during the campaign, he answered that obviously people know who he is and wouldn't believe a word he says...
I kid you not.
Excellent piece; spot on.
5
Most of us would like our political parties to fit along a spectrum in which even the extremes advance views that add something to the whole. Today there is nothing but polarization and demonization.
Assume there is a way back to constructive and respectful disagreement. It would have to be founded on reasonable agendas and a willingness to compromise. Where we are now is that the agenda of the right is unreasonable and so the left rejects compromise.
The goal, first and foremost, is to restore reason to the right. I don’t believe that the left has the power and the influence to make that happen. The left can rise to power and fight the right over each and every issue. Or the right, through it’s own failure can recognize the error of its ways. Those are the only two constructive options.
Neither of these options is likely to foster high- minded government any time soon. Whether you are a progressive or a moderate, the right is likely to prevent good government for a good number of years. And the question seldom addressed is what our best policy is until the right comes around.
The Conservatives "can't seriously contemplate leaving [the EU] without a deal"? Come off it, man, most of the contenders to replace Mrs May are perfectly happy to do just that if it means they can get enough votes from their party to be the next Prime Minister!
7
I've yet to see anyone ask Mr. Farage what the Brexit Party proposes to do about Ireland. The Irish border is the sticking point in the EU "divorce" Mrs. May did her utmost to negotiate. It seems that millions of gullible English voters simply refuse to acknowledge the intractable nature of that problem, preferring instead to swallow the snake oil peddled by Farage, Johnson et al.
10
Now that NYC has replaced London (already!) as the top global financial center, let's see how this all looks post-Brexit by this time next year in the UK. Sadly, the middle-class and poor whites in the UK and America are going to be the last ones to see that the rainbows (and past) that were promised to them by these ideologues who took advantage of their frustration and anger will only come up empty-handed. I sincerely doubt that the UK will be better off isolated and co-dependent on Trump to (hopefully) throw them some US-to-UK-only trade deals.
5
The great movements of our times will be the same as they have always been. The expansion of the universe, entropy, gravity. Physics permits people to exist and it also makes certain that people die. Any person deluded by someone calling them important or people deluded that someone is important or a person that is deluded and believes he or she is important believes in a heaven on earth where the creation of the universe was intended to benefit humans and paradise exists where no one is harmed. Any article that touts someone as important should also list predictions for the day when that person will be dead. And it is no prize to be lauded by other humans. You will ultimately not live on in people's memory or on trading cards or on stamps. They'll be a time when human tissue no longer exists and all of these things depend on human tissue so... I would shake hands and take posed photos with bacteria. I wish i would have bought stock in them long ago.
3
Wow, you just totally blew my mind. Thank you. Finally someone brave enough to tell it like it really is.
Farage believes in a social order in which some rise and others fall? Indeed. Britain will fall because of him and what he stands for. Just wait until the first time Boris Johnson tries to change the behavior of Russia by threatening “British sanctions”. The whole business is a tragedy, presided over by clowns.
9
Because It’s really difficult to disprove a negative - and Farage, like Trump, is a master at promoting the negative - It’s almost like you have to let the UK go over the cliff in order to prove that Brexit is an economic disaster .
The trouble is, it is by then far too late.
6
“His offer to them is that, in a society of dog-eat-dog competition, they will not have to compete with foreign workers.” Garage, like Trump, grow their base of naive people by confirming their fears, and promising to turn back the clock to an era of protectionism that left through globalization.
4
The writer labels him as a racist, but offer no evidence for that charge.
Unless he thinks opposing immigration from certain cultures far removed from the British culture is “racist”, which says more about a failing of the authors education than about Farage. A nations culture changes as the culture of its constituent citizens change. In a democracy, a decision about who to welcome is a decision about what kind of law one wishes to live under. Any relationship to race is just a tangential consequence of geography.
It would seem that his definition of “dangerous” is efficacy in mobilizing support for policies that the author doesn’t favor. I suspect that a no deal Brexit would be much like the Y2K crises—markets will adapt and life will go on.
6
@KBronson
Not only that. There are many Britons who are fine with paying a high price economically that leaving EU may bring as long as it gives them control over their own country and preserves their culture. I don't blame them one bit. Some things are more important than wealth.
1
I don't get the appeal of Nigel Farage. He's the sort that has me covering my wallet instinctively. But it's true he is the man of the hour, and diminishing him with ridicule (or milkshakes) only causes his followers to love him more.
5
@Duncan
If you google "lovable rogue" and "the English" you may hit on a first-order explanation of the phenomenon.
@Duncan
Replace the name Farage with Trump in your posting, and it explains why the efforts to diminish Trump are causing his supporters to like him even more than before.
What an expression: flat wage growth. Its growing, but growing flat.
1
Everyone had an opinion. Nobody really know for certain. Fact is, Brexit may be a bad thing for Britain and it may be a good thing. Nobody can be certain.
Sometimes I think it really doesn't matter at all.
4
@Jack Lee
Would you like to step out of your 3rd-floor window? You might get hurt. But then... nobody can be certain.
We have our Trump, the Brits have their Farage. Until "the people" become discerning enough to really see who these people are, what they stand for, and how they will hurt the average person; the Free World, as we know it today, is doomed.
Wake up "people."
5
Unfortunately, history seems to suggest that the only cure for a populace once infected with a demagogue's delusional program is either losing a war or suffering through a depression. We will see if Britain and the United States can muster a sufficient majority against irrational populism to save us from those outcomes.
9
Why doesn't anyone comment on the irony of a hard Brexit politician winning the election for the EUORPEAN Parliament? If the goal is to get out soon, why participate in it? Nor has anyone commented on how the Brexit party's signficant presence in the European Parliament will affect its functions, and in particular negotiations over Brexit.
4
The election of members to the European Parliament was mainly a protest vote this time. Turnout in most years is low because the European Parliament is a charade. It is a “legislature” that constitutionally has NO power to initiate legislation. The unelected European Commission is the only entity that can initiate a law, and the puppet MEPs do little more than vote up or down.
Nicely paying, easy work with lots of perks.
4
@Larry Figdill
On the contrary, it makes perfect sense for Farage and his Brexit party to be a part of the EU Parliament. You know the saying: "Nothing about us without us".
1
An often-taught hypothesis in Political Science is that a true single-issue political party doesn't last very long, regardless of whether or not they achieve their single-issue objective. Let's see how long this Brexit Party lasts.
8
@Sándor
A lesser-known corollary is that single-issue parties can do the most damage in the least amount of time.
2
There are two schools of Farage supporters. First, upper class English who dream of Empire 2.0 and second, (to quote David Goodhart) the “somewheres” of England.
The second group is the more interesting. The people in rural England and the factory towns (yes - there are still some) are deep rooted to their locale. [I was told that even within midlands there are divisions] These people see an influx of East Europeans come in and compete for their jobs. And, to be honest, many East European countries were added to the EU more for political reasons than economic ability. They detest that and Nigel Farage is exploiting that sentiment. This is the same problem with Italy.
How do demagogues like Farage win? First, they empathize with the common man and their problems, second they identify target populations the cause - Romanian workers and the ‘anywheres’ of London and lastly an action plan - Brexit will kick out the East European workers and Bruxelles overlords.
Excellent plan - it worked. Now comes the hard part - building a hard border with the Republic of Ireland.
5
@Deep Thought
Farage is not upperclass and any support he gets is from those who believe social class pertains to wealth. That may be the case in the US but it is not the case in the UK.
Garage for all his appeal has lost seven times trying to get elected to the “Mother of Parliaments”.
@Deep Thought
Well, quite! I'm sick of the elites deciding what's good for the common man. If the common man wants to run short of insulin/vaccines/money etc., well, what are these but a mote in the eye of the British lion?
And now they have a Huguenot to lead them! Rememeber the bravery of the Light Brigade, lads, and don't flinch!
@Alison Cartwright
OP should have said "pretentious and aspiring middle class" a UK caste that foreigners tend to confuse with true aristocracy (which, of course, was exactly the idea).
EEC should just say « enough is enough. Hard Brexit, period ». I am sure Farage will figure out another well paid job when he loses his European MP’s one. These guys are good at falling back on their feet.
4
A Brit explained to a close friend why so many in England support Brexit. When the EU was formed, the rules from Brussels dictated, among other things, what agriculture could be done where. Orchards - apples & pears I believe - in some parts of England were forced to close and be razed. Britain was no longer permitted to grow these crops within the EU. Apparently a significant level of bitterness about this kind of thing remains. Farage and the Brexit supporters made their case as did the ‘remain’ faction. The voters chose.
23
@Once From Rome
Thanks, I always like to see the opinion of the opposition as long as it is fair. But 3rd hand opinion, after my life on the planet, is about as good as reading it on the bulletin board in the community grocery store.
19
There’s merit to your skepticism, I understand that. The fellow who told me this however is someone I trust deeply. There are enough other well known crazy EU rules too that substantiate to me.
9
@Once From Rome try this
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/21/the-eu-has-destroyed-some-of-our-most-prosperous-industries---an/
4
To quote our first ambassador to the Court of St. James, "facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
And the fact is that the UK has never weaned itself of the solipsistic notion that through subjugating cultures on every continent in the world for commodities, labor, finished goods, manufacturing processes, or strategic locations that the UK was--in its own estimation--doing the world a favor for which we would owe it our eternal thanks.
It wasn't true then, and no amount of romantic revisionism makes it true now. As the reality of just how small the UK is without its empire finally sinks in, it is acting as many nations do whenever reality contradicts its own preferred view of itself: it is losing its grip. Moreover, this unreconciled UK seems determined to sink to a worse place of its own volition than circumstances truly merit.
The world is a different place than over the 400 years when the UK enjoyed ascendency. To the extent that it deludes itself with one ill-conceived palliative (BREXIT) after another (PM Farage or PM Johnson) to cope with that fact, then it will only hasten a tragic undoing of what it claims desperately to be fighting to preserve.
Since John Adams left his ambassadorship in 1788, the UK and US have been the world's only two governmental structures that remain unchanged. We may yet live to see that record end.
8
@Gui
The Brxiteers' enthusiasm for trading under WTO rules is something to behold. It can only be explained from the "dreams of empire" which you evoke.
1
Farage is great indeed. I was asking my British postdoc why was Farage not in the government, and he said that Farage had no constituency. Now he has.
Let us hope that he will take Britain out of the Paris Accord as well, ending the needless suffering by Brits subjected to it. From what he said on the subject, Boris Johnson would not oppose the Paris exit as prime minister.
I switched from Obama to Trump because of Trump's promise about the Paris Accord (I am a physicist who checked the data), and I am extremely satisfied so far.
11
Check again; many physicists did, including the one Koch hired to look at the data.
5
I would feel so much better looking at convincing data that substantiates your view. Care to share any peer reviewed one?
@novoad
Farage tried seven times to get elected to parliament. He failed
1
There is much to dislike about the organisational structure of the EU, and those who run it. The UK had a referendum about staying in because of increasing concern about EU policies. The people voted to leave. They voted to leave because of the EU - not because of Boris or Nigel or Gove or anyone else. The people spoke and a true democracy would ensure that their wishes were carried out. The people perceived that the established parties were ambivalent about this and so they voted for Nigel. The established parties caused them to vote for Nigel. This article treats UK voters with the same contempt that the Tories and Labour have.
7
No. People were lied to and THEN decided to vote for Brexit. The election was based on out of this world promises that nobody will ever be able to deliver on. Check the sides of Boris' bus.
6
Hear, hear.
Far too many Remainers / center-left political commentators denigrate the Leave outcome with this facile, inaccurate refrain that it is driven by racism or fascism. It is simply not true.
Politicians in the UK are a spent force - Remainers arguing for a People’s Vote, and the reasons deployed, when they have done everything possible to prevent the last People’s Vote from being implemented! Not one of them aware of the irony.
1
Should Mr.Farage be succesful with voters, it will be yet another striking example of people voting against their own interests.
12
I just want to know when Nigel Farage will be receiving his Knighthood at Buckingham Palace. It will be richly deserved for what he has done for the British people, fighting for & securing a choice for British people for the first time ever.
All the main political parties in the UK are pro-EU & therefore the public have never previously had a way of telling their government they want to leave the EU Politburo. British people want to be an independent country again, a perfectly reasonable position to take.
6
@kojak
An independent small country in a global economy with very little to offer? Think again.
1
Has anyone ever tried to follow the money to Brexit? It was easy to follow the money to the Front National--Le Pen made a "thank you" visit to Putin just before the last French presidential elections. And that's why Trump is afraid to disclose who really funds him here in the U.S.A., although Russian penetration efforts with the GOP are in the Mueller Report.
6
"We feel our country is being taken away from us". That is the sentiment that is driving Brexit.
11
Theresa may surely failed, excruciatingly and spectacularly, but it was not because “rather than seeking cross-party consensus, she tried to placate her own hard right and prevent voters from abandoning the party.”
She failed because the results of the Brexit referendum presented insoluble dilemmas that no political process could unravel — e.g., how to have an external border through the island of Ireland that isn’t a border in fact; how to stanch the economic self-harm of withdrawing from the EU, etc.
May performed miserably and should have left long ago, but no PM could have performed satisfactorily. Brexit is a poisoned chalice.
14
Throughout the world, representative democracy is on the rocks--because half the eligible voters aren't qualified to vote, due to their marginal ability to reason about their countries' circumstances, and their failure to invest in learning about current events and options in governance.
The press, vilified and blamed for somehow contributing to the stupidity of electorates, continues to slide in the public imagination. Science, and rationality, are increasingly seen as a problem, and as a source of misdirection and misinformation. A small bit of the antipathy toward the press and inept or dishonest members of the scientific community may be justified--but "a small bit" can't be more than a percent or two. The other 98% are knowledgeable, dedicated, and possess true expertise that should be much more closely attended to.
The clown princes of the world--and the United States has one of the most clownish--are enjoying the world's Time of Troubles, and seem to think that operating this particular space ship doesn't really take intelligence so much as chutzpah and a showman's elan.
Where will Britain go in the hands of Mr. Farange? It seems that it will go off the cliff, into a Hard Brexit, and while the voters can be blamed for 100% of the failure, they possess a very low percentage of real facts and intelligence.
22
@Robert great comment! It seems like many voters want simple explanations for extremely complex problems. What will always baffle me is how people in the U.K. and the US seem to double-down on austerity or “tax cuts”, year after year. Close the schools! Sell the buses! Shutter the hospitals! That outta solve our problems... we just haven’t given enough money to the wealthy yet.
Gluttons for punishment.
14
There's something about the up-turned thumb, Trump's favorite go-to move, that false prophets find oddly appealing. I wonder, will he be "thumbing up" after he attempts to forge a dealing favoring UK but will not be agreed to by the EU? It's becoming painfully obvious, as is the case with the U.S., an electoral plurality needs to be face down in the mud before realizing taking the path less traveled is far more hazardous with little to no likely reward.
6
It always intrigued me when Farage appeared on our political stage in support of Trump's campaign. I'd recently returned from London, having heard quite a bit about his involvement in Brexit.
Farage and Trump, soon to be joined by Boris J. What a sight to behold. Interesting times, indeed.
6
@BC You do mean End Times?
There was a great piece on NPR just this past week where they were interviewing people in favor of Brexit ; they were all of a more aged demographic (Baby Boomers, etc.) and they all had jobs like “gardener”, “painter (of pictures)”, etc. It was a list of romantic professions lifted from a Dickens novel. Those people are in for a rude awakening once the protections from the EU are gone. They need to get used to job titles like “customer service representative”, “call center manager” and “Mandarin translator”.
Given what’s a stake for the Brits, how will they ever be able to get favorable terms on any trade deal? Any sizable country they negotiate with is going to want far more than what the E.U. requires.
13
@Dudesworth
I lived and worked in the UK for two decades, and what I can tell you sounds incredible but is true: the entire system of education and access to leadership positions in this country is predicated on the notion that, if you say something with a particular accent and in a particular tone of voice, people will automatically obey. This belief is the Brit's default position.
2
The reason for British austerity was too much debt. You can't spend money you don't have. Gordon Brown had huge budget deficits that were not sustainable.
This article also mentions Farage being against lowering retirement. Seymour needs to understand that people are living longer and therefore can't retire younger.
4
Nigel Farage won't be Prime Minister. Boris Johnson will. "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimer."
9
No, he's not.
Has this writer ever heard of Oswald Mosley and the BUF?
3
The last thing Mr. Farage wants is responsibility . He would rather always be the demagogic critic.
14
A British Huey P. Long...
7
Farage tells people what they want to hear and too many in his audience feel vindicated hearing it — why he’s so effective.
Phyllis Schlafly, who paved the way for Reaganism and its evils with a book titled “A Choice, Not An Echo”, coined a phrase that also demarked the essential relationship between those two words. Supposedly, politicians are elected to lead and leading invariably boils down to choosing. Choosing. Making hard choices that will impact millions of lives for years if not decades. And they must be prepared to fight to make those choices a reality and even lose elections to choose to do the right thing by their lights.
But most politicians slavishly follow the herd, be it their party leaders if backbenchers or the ignorant prejudiced public by echoing its ignorant prejudicial sentiments. As a leader Farage is the latter, not the former. Then, there’s his drinking.
He offers no choices — not realistic ones, anyway. Were Brexit feasible it wouldn’t be so difficult to pull off. But, like Trump, he lacks the intellectual capacity to see that or formulate a viable alternative: a sustainable economic relationship with the rest of the European continent. And, like Trump, he lacks the moral courage to admit it.
11
Democracies should have a built-in mechanism to stop this type of person from ever obtaining a platform let alone run for office. The idea of free speech for fascists after the Shoah is a nauseating insult to to memory of all who suffered. It is only words; lying, dishonest words that we utter in remembrances of the catastrophes that befell mankind.
Enough with idiotic political correctness and “diversity.” Throw the horrid individual in jail. Nothing else will do. What Farage and Trump and Salvini and Le Pen stand for should be a crime against humanity. Punishable by life in prison.
10
@Blunt I despise those populists too. But between rectless lying populists and someone who would prohibit free speech and throw political enemies in prison for life, I strongly prefer the former.
Not sure you have defined Democracy? Only people who can run are people you like?
@Maria
Are you ok for Mussolini and Hitler to run for office in a democracy?
One has to think a bit before making facile and politically correct comments like this.
1
I used to care about England. Now I hope they crash out, and crash in general, they deserve it. It’s been four years of idiocy. Their leaders couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag. They deserve Boris and Nigel.
Then, as they collapse let’s watch them get out of Ireland, that would be such a treat, colonies are so 18th century.
But please protect the BBC, I would miss that.
22
@Garret Clay
And the rest of the world must be saying the same thing about America.
“We used to care about America because they really stood for certain values. They were trustworthy and dependable allies to NATO and western democracies everywhere. They SUPPORTED democracy. Now? America means nothing anymore. Just another greedy, powerful country out for its leaders personal interests. Period.”
15
Well done May and Corbyn
Your pathetic “leadership” has opened the door for right wing extremists
9
@Chicago Paul
As much as May and Corbyn are characters from Duck Soup, the problem preceded them by almost forty years. Thatcher and Reagan sowed the seeds and we now we have these two fascists. One a bit smarter than the other. Pretty much the same as their enablers.
1
It is sad to see that Britain who more than any country fought fascism during WWII now harbor fascist leaders.
19
@Ralph Sorbris
"more than any country"? Hmm...
You know the smile on the Grinch's face,
just after he's packed up the very last present
and is waiting gleefully for the boo-hooing
down in Whoville to begin?
Look at that lead photo of Farage.
Just sayin'.
12
What the disgruntled voters for people like Trump, Farage, etc., do not grasp, with their desire to smash it all up because they are stressed and unhappy, is that things can always be worse. And when you smash it all up, usually things *are* worse. It's the Republicans and the Tories, respectively, who made their lives miserable with no unions, low wages, etc., in the first place. And maybe a little bit themselves, for being too distracted with sports, TV and alcohol while this right-wing wool was being pulled over their eyes.
29
I know people who voted for Trump because "things couldn't possibly be any worse." I told them that was a lack of imagination. It could be a LOT worse.
So, Farage and Trump are evil twin soulmates who will destroy the world liberals hope to bring about. Even so, it cannot be denied that people voted for them because they are sick and tired of liberal philosophy. Especially in politics, Newton’s third law applies. Liberals seem never to grasp that and are constantly surprised when it proves out over and over.
9
@Larry
then why did hillary clinton get two million more votes the Donald? because the country leans overwhelmingly liberal. the voter turnout was awful in 2016. it wont happen again in 2020.
5
Years ago, we were driving north around Christmas time. And we noticed a car going the other way. Headed south.
He skidded. His car went off the road into a small valley separating the two lanes. He climbed out. Thank goodness, he wasn't hurt. But it was frightful to watch. More frightful to experience--if you were the driver.
Politics in Britain--politics in America. Mr. Donald J. Trump in our country--Mr. Nigel Farage in their country.
And both countries--in agonizingly slow motion--skidding off the highway of sanity. Headed--where?
But my goodness! These two guys--blood brothers. I am remembering that Mr. Farage put in an appearance at a Trump rally. Warmly endorsing our boy, Donald. And hey! Here's something.
Really effective demagogues have no trouble speaking. They speak in loud, commanding voices. The "us--them" dichotomy pervades everything they say. They are masters at creating division--dislike--distrust. They dig ditches between people--between social classes--between races and nationalities.
And their opponents--mealy-mouthed. Timid. Endlessly qualifying--refining--hedging all bets.
I think of the Republican opposition to The Donald--back in '16. Gosh, New York Times--they went down like ninepins.
And Mr. Farage's opposition? Mr. Cameron (remember him?) who in a move of astounding fecklessness contrived this Brexit fiasco.
We'll see what happens to our two cars.
I am not hopeful.
11
Mr Farage , the Tories whose idea it was to have the referendum, and the dim wits who voted for Brexit, are the UK version of Trumps Basket of Deplorables .
9
Farage, is an effect of the problem, not its cause.
Very few Europeans alive today have a direct experience with why transnational entities and relationships were created in the first place, beginning with the coal and steel community, and NATO, eventually creating the European Union: the absolute horror and devastation of WW II and the Holocaust.
Over the decades the Euro-elites not only lost touch with their own nationals but, as importantly, did not understand how the War became history rather than a visceral reality. When the Balkan wars erupted, and Europe could not figure out how to cope, it should have served as a wake-up call that something was fundamentally amiss with the European project. Unfortunately, the leaders effectively blew the opportunity and basically just went about business as usual.
Then, confusing aspiration with reality, Eastern European states with no traditions of democracy or liberal values (in the traditional sense), were brought in as institutional equals.
As a result, when terrorism, mass migration, and the Euro crisis all hit at the same time, European leadership was unprepared and could not cope in a collective manner.
What is needed is more than a simple reforming of European institutions. Needed is the creation of a new transnational, European narrative to replace the no longer viable WW II narrative. Unless people can be persuaded to think European, centrifugal forces will destroy one of the 20th century's greatest accomplishments.
361
"Unless people can be persuaded to think European, ..."
In what language should they "think"?
That's a serious question, because it is very difficult to have a polyglot nation, except under authoritarian rule, where a national language can be imposed.
There are exceptions, but they are small countries -- Switzerland and Belgium, for example.
In the EU, there are 24 official languages (per Wikipedia: "Languages of the European Union").
10
@WKL
Interesting point, WKL. I don't have an answer, but a number of countries have used a single language from "outside", often English, to unite disparate ethnic groups. India and Nigeria come to mind offhand.
I doubt that in the current environment E.U. countries would all agree to using one of their own languages, even though English would be the logical choice, inasmuch as it's the official and semi-official language of all sorts of international relations.
Another existent model also would not work with Europe: Israel, which took a non-spoken historical language, Hebrew, created rules of grammar and words, and used it to unite people from many different countries.
So where does that leave us? Back with your legitimate question. One other thought though: if Europe doesn't try of pretend to become a country or nation, it could muddle along much as it did for decades, with lots of translators, many folks learning multiple languages for travel and business, but ordinary people free to go about their business in whatever language they felt comfortable in.
10
@Steve Fankuchen:"Then, confusing aspiration with reality, Eastern European states with no traditions of democracy or liberal values (in the traditional sense), were brought in as institutional equals."
Right, why would enlightened liberal forward thinking governments of Western Europe even think of treating Eastern European nations as equals.?
You've certainly identified the problem.
10
The British people have been living under Thatcherite austerity since 2008. The social safety net has been crushed. People are eating out of food banks. The National Health Service has been gutted and the European medical personnel it was staffed with have left in droves. School budgets have been cut to the bone. Vulnerable, sick and tired people are sick of being sick and tired. Along comes a glib savior with his own version of Make Britain Great Again. What did we expect?
582
@Suzanne Wheat
And all this was done by the Conservative Party. They are getting their retribution and the debt will be collected from the very people they harmed the most.
44
@Suzanne Wheat
Margaret Thatcher was the absolute BEST thing to happen to Britain OR Europe since World War II. She helped the Pope and Pres. Reagan to end the awful Soviet experiment and free up many nations.
NO liberal or progressive was EVER going to cross Russia like that.
She helped the workers and defended her country.
15
@Suzanne Wheat
I was in Britain BEFORE Thatcher dismantled the semi-socialist economy that she inherited. THAT was austerity. Britain and the British people felt poor. Everything was dreadfully expensive relative to wages. The effects of chronic malnutrition was visible walking down the streets The social safety net has been trimmed but those who work are living much better. Thatcherite austerity was the early 1980’s and it pulled Britain out of the dumpster.
22
Now the Tories are practically obligated to deliver no-deal Brexit. They will not be able to cook up another compromise with the E.U. without duplicating Theresa May's attempt. That will seem like a cosmic joke if that happens. The British people, having finally achieved a no-deal Brexit, will thus turn to Farage and Johnson, the architects of Brexit, and demand, "Now What?" This will be the moment of truth for the leaders. There will be nowhere to hide, no ducking responsibility for the economic fallout, no blaming Theresa May for the ambient national anxiety. The feel-good moment of Brexit will settle into a murky funk of finger-pointing and scapegoating. Britain, having isolated itself from the world without a Plan B, will become smaller in the eyes of the world. The once great nation, having put itself in a hole, will first need to learn how to stop digging.
413
@Dan
Those who have the knack to make the less advantaged vote diametrically against their own best interest never pay the price. When a no deal Brexit causes misery, the demagogues will have multiple reasons: Europe is being spiteful; the elites still have too much influence; too many immigrants were let in by previous governments - never the snake oil we sold you is not working and is in fact killing you.
72
By having voted as they have in the EU elections, The British have made it much easier for the EU to simply wash its hands of the UK and allow her to leave without any agreement. There is simply no incentive for Tusk and co. to negotiate any further, other than the fates of EU citizens living in the UK, and UK citizens living in the EU.
31
@Dan
And in a few years it will be England alone, not Britain.
21
Funny how I haven't met a single person from the UK that admits even sympathizing for Farage. Everyone I know thoroughly despises this pathetic excuse for a demagogue.
Yet apparently many people secretly love his nationalist, divisive, fascist propaganda. I believe this is the result of 20 years of disastrous policies by successive governments who have destroyed the social fabric of the UK through austerity, gutted all kinds of social services and created the largest wealth and income inequality of any nation of the EU.
You reap what you sow.
459
@Andy -- You are exactly right. The neo-liberal (right wing) policies promoted by previous administrations going back to Thatcher were intended to result in exactly this sorry state of affairs. This is the country they intended to create.
18
@Andy Sadly there are many people who openly adore Farage - read the comments section of the Daily Mail online and you'll discover thousands who think he should be made PM automatically.
They are not being secret about it at all, you're just not mixing in the right circles.
12
@Andy
Well, you won't meet many Farage supporters outside the UK. I haven't met many Trump supporters outside the US. In fact, I didn't meet many in the US when I was there in December. But then I was in NYC. Funny that.
21
Not that I like Mr. Farage or his politics ... but the thesis of this arguement and its description of Mr. Farage’s supporters demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of why BREXIT succeeded and Donald Trump was elected. There is a serious cry from the middle class and poor that has been ignored by most mainstream politicians and media that has nothing to do with racism or xenophobia. BREXIT and DJT tapped into that sentiment felt by the middling class. Until there is a mea culpa from mainstream parties and the media DJT AND BREXITERS will crush their opposition ... right or wrong.
115
@Patricio Vasque yet Hillary Clinton received 3 million more votes.
49
not to mention the >1million votes that went to other candidates not named Trump.
26
Like Trump, Farage is selling snake oil.....What he is selling will not help those who by his product.....
27
The initial Brexit referendum was a sham perpetrated on the country by the likes of Farage and Johnson, and instrigated by Cameron, who will go down as the worst PM in British history for having handed May the poisoned chalice that has just destroyed his party. Voters disgusted with Labour and the Tories voted in protest in the recent EU elections for either Farage's latest incarnation of UKIP, the Brexit Party, or the Lib Dems, further complicating an already impossobly strained situation. Look for Britain to crash out of the EU at the end of October w/o a deal, and for Scotland and Ireland to make moves toward independence and EU membership. agacy. Farage is only relevant until Halloween. This is David Cameron's legacy.
220
@expat
It is the U.K.’s legacy, not one politician’s. Unfortunately the voting citizens are responsible.
3
@expat You omit perhaps the most important of the behind the scenes architects of Brexit: Vladimir Putin. What a brilliant idea to have your enemies elect your chosen politicians, using no other weapon than the internet: It costs Putin practically nothing to undermine his enemies. Britain will be diminished with Scotland and Ireland gone. That will be Putin's legacy, not Cameron's. More importantly, the EU will be less of a threat with Britain gone. One down, (DJT), one to go.
16
@expat You omit perhaps the most important of the behind the scenes architects of Brexit: Vladimir Putin. What a brilliant idea to have your enemies elect your chosen politicians, using no other weapon than the internet. It costs Putin practically nothing to undermine his enemies: Britain will be less of a threat with Scotland and Ireland gone. That will be Putin's legacy, not Cameron's.
2
I think the problems in Britain have been accumulating for a long time, and Nigel Farage is a symptom more than a cause. If I were to look for a cause for the discontent more insidious than the rest, the decision to de=industrialise would be at the top of my list.
The Brexit supporters are a discordant group, prominently nostalgics hankering after the glory days of empire, when Britain was mistress of the world, and a thoroughly disaffected working class. Having nothing in common, the two camps hate each other, a national disaster occasioned by a hard Brexit is quite possible.
107
@Pelasgus I'm not a nostalgic rose tinted person. Probably more cynical. I must disagree with you regarding the "hankering after an Empire" bit. I want to be a free, trading nation, trading with whomever we choose which we cannot do within the confines of the EU. A dictatorial regime headed up by Germany and their lapdog France, who have seen a massive swing away from Macron during these elections. It isn't just the UK who are disillussioned with the failing EU.
@Dave Tanner - And those great trade deals the Brexiteers promised before the referendum? "Easiest deal in the world?" Got any yet? What great deals do you have in the wings? Anything?
Chlorinated chicken and GMOs from the US? Replacing the NHS with a US-style insurance market, as Farage has suggested?
Remember the UK in the 70s? Get ready for a replay.
5
how can anyone take Farage seriously? Remember that picture of him with You know who in a gold elevator? I guess maybe He will be a leader, because of the ride in the gold elevator.
3
Unfortunately, support for Farage and UKIP was cast a vote for bigotry and intolerance when the real issue was a protest against the status quo. It was a cry against the widening income disparity and economic hopelessness increasingly faced by a larger percentage of the population as jobs get automated away and as wealth and power continues to concentrate in the top 0.001%. It is a crisis of capitalism the mainstream media continues to ignore and the reason why voting is more polarized than ever before.
3
"Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, and then traveling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV."
Good luck with your big changes Farage. None of that is going to change.
29
@Bryan
None of that is going to change except for the major recession that is going to result after a brexit with no deal.
9
@Mary Ann That too!
The world leader that Farage most admires is Putin, as quoted in the Guardian in 2014. And the Independent newspaper noted in 2016 that the kremlin-backed TV channel, Russia Today, had offered Mr Farage his own show. And he has campaigned in the USA as a strong supporter for Donald Trump.
11
Putin must read this and laugh. What a gift.
NATO’s core recedes into nationalistic belligerence.
“I’m worried about our workers here. Multilateralism is a joke, and we need to keep foreigners out. Let’s do what’s best for us! Right now! It’s what happening in all the other countries too! Everyone should be more nationalistic and just care about themselves.”
“Who cares about Crimea being invaded? What’s an Uigher anyway?
Khashoggi is just one journalist.
So what if we’re friends with a couple folks that are a little anti-Semitic?
We shouldn’t limit ourselves with arms control deals!”
We’ve seen this before folks. Not just in America in 2016. I’m talking 1910s, and again in the 1930s. It doesn’t end well.
Without the US and UK to lead the way, democracy might not survive. Not with enemies this powerful and sophisticated.
Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first - Charles de Gaulle
43
Nigel Farage's ascension is a shame to any thoughtful individual seeking a redress away from a deadly Brexit. But it seems demagogues and charlatans are doing an 'excellent' job in fooling their constituents in believing that black is white and that up is down, and presenting a toxic mix of facts with fiction to a misinformed and credulous population. Poor Britain, a former huge colonial world power not shredded to smithereens by the con men you just mentioned. It goes to tell that a true democracy is not a passive sport; it either has a sizable participation, and contribution, or it dies by attrition. Soon enough, if these bigots triumph, all that may be left is the crying, and the pariah loneliness swerving into despair.
6
So where was Nigel with his plan at the ready after he got Brexit passed in the first place?
He seemed to have disappeared when it was time to execute.
I recall he did a world tour, and I'm sure he thanked Putin properly first.
11
Farage certainly is a "dangerous demagogue." And he has fellow travelers all over the world, many of them in a mutual admiration society.
They lead the USA, Brazil, Hungary, Poland, Philippines, Russia, Italy, Israel, India, China (uniquely dangerous in his own way), and on and on.
The financial crisis of 2008, for which almost no one was held accountable, helped many of these men gain traction.
I don't know how, but they must be stopped--all of them.
22
Speaking of Brexit, whatever happened to Grexit? Anyone?
1
This will all end in the chaos of post-Brexit Britain.
I think the smart ones are selling and moving their money out of the country NOW.
9
@Postette
Yup. I am one of them!
1
'Though The Looking Glass' is not only a children's tale but a chess game. Lewis Carroll was a prominent mathematician, and this profile of Nigel Defarge is reminiscent of how an invisible pawn can shift the political and democratic powers across the global board.
The Red Queen on seeing this photo would have shouted 'He needs a better set of choppers', but then Alice, distracted by a wasp in a gold wig and leaving him, went on to win the Crown.
They do not make models like Disraeli anymore.
1
Replace Nigel Farage w/ Donald Trump, Britain w/ the United States and the underlying story is the same: Footsie between the Right and Far Right gives birth to a Tasmanian Devil. Now centuries of norms, values and institutions are subject to the whims and ego of one individual. If I were the Queen I'd be worried.
5
The author is mixing things up.
Yes, Farage could be a Mussolini type villain, but the British people voted their self-interests: they voted out politicians who didn’t represent them during the tectonic shifts due to globalisation. Just like what happened in the United States.
12
It has been said that in a democracy people get the government that they deserve.
10
@Edward B. Blau
Or as H. L. Mencken famously said: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
7
Trump and Farage only exist because of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
Ronald Reagan totally delegitimized the idea of good government, stating "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem," and "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help". With the GOP he employed obfuscation, lies, and Nixon's white identity politics playbook to foment hate, and social, racial, and economic divisions until society broke. Meantime, in 2016 Thatcher was overwhelmingly selected by the British public as the worst PM in over 100 years for doing the same exact thing.
The damage done by Thatcher in systematically destroying Britain's community and society was summarized by author Emma Darwin: "She destroyed too many good things in society, and created too many bad ones, then left a social and moral vacuum in which the selfishly rich and unimaginatively fortunate could too easily destroy still more of what they don't need and can't see that everyone else does need."
Big money loved Reagan and Thatcher for using their power to prove that government couldn't work by making sure it didn’t work.
They succeeded. Nearly a half-century later many on both sides of the Atlantic now believe government can do nothing right and think the answer is to have two big-money con-men and authoritarians, Trump and Farage, who crawled out of the toxic vats of hate Reagan and Thatcher forged, burn it all the ground.
222
@Robert B
Great analysis.
Fateful wrong turns 40 years ago.
14
@Robert B:" 'The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help'. "
One seminal event in Detroit was the forced busing for the Detroit Public School system. Here's a gem from a social justice liberal. In 1972 a desegregation order to the Detroit Public Schools, forced busing was implemented in Detroit, Judge Roth (appointed by JFK, you know "no price to great to pay" and all that...), who ruled on the case wrote in part:
“Transportation of kindergarten children for upwards of 45 minutes, one way, does not appear unreasonable, harmful, or unsafe in any way. ...kindergarten children should be included in the final plan of desegregation.”
This was a weaponized judiciary aimed at working class folks by liberal Feds who for the most part had no skin in the game.
Fortunately the cross-district scheme was reversed by the SCOTUS. Unfortunately Detroit Public Schools were still forced to implement busing with a total white student population of about 26%. Each school was forced to have a student body that reflected the demographics of the city.
So yeah, a lot folks were hurt by the Feds "trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored".
Reagan was as right as could be.
And there's no racism or dog whistle to it.
1
@Jp
Being right about 1 thing in 1000 is not a very good track record. And Reagan's odds were even worse.
9
Whether Farage-ism or Trump-ism or long-term Republican policy, there is only one true purpose and the rest is facade: Reduce taxes on the wealthy and reduce benefits for the rest. Other policies, whether Brexit or anti-abortion or anti-immigration or denial of climate science or gun rights are simply there for the specific purpose of gaining more votes from single-issue reactionary voters in favor for those who will reduce taxes on the wealthy and reduce benefits for the rest. "Follow the money."
29
I used to think that if things really got bad in America I could move to England where my daughter and hopefully grandchildren will grow up. But the Brits are busy driving their ship of state straight into an iceberg. Soon comes the moment when we see if democracy will destroy itself for no reason, in the midst of unprecedented prosperity.
9
"I used to think that if things really got bad in America I could move to England ..."
It is the UK, not "England", that is going to be leaving the EU, unless the UK fractures.
Oddly, Seymour doesn't say anything about Northern Ireland, despite being a native thereof.
Here's the real reason why Brexit isn't so simple as it seemed at first:
What Do Ireland and Northern Ireland Want From Brexit?
By Megan Specia and Benjamin Mueller
April 3, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/world/europe/ireland-northern-ireland-brexit-backstop.html
Sadly, journalists mock populism and nationalism, yet have done so little to help their readers understand it. JD Vance’s personal “elegy” is an important start, but not sufficient to understand the origins global scope of this phenomenon. This newspaper column missed an opportunity to shed light.
16
Farage is a non-nothing like trump but far fewer supporters.
Let’s see him take GB into the 19th century.
7
@Brad Is what you describe the way you wished it was, the dreamt of scenario, because it bears no reality to what it is actually like.
These two men, Trump & Farage, are doing for millions of people the things that no-one was offering previously.
What Trump did in 2016 was nothing short of phenomenal.
What Farage achieved over two decades as he fought for the British people to have their democratic say in the direction their country would go in was also phenomenal. Only those people who do not value & cherish their democracy could be unhappy about putting the EU question to the population.
Farage has fewer supporters than Trump, yes, but only because Trump has a pop of 320m whereas Farage lives in a pop of 65m. However, the UK 2016 referendum had the largest number of voters in the history of Briton. Farage won his EU referendum, he had the majority of Brits wanting what he wanted.
ThemTheFacts.
7
I am surprised how badly the situation has gotten out of hand: Nigel Farage is back in the drivers seat of the Brexit clown car while Boris Johnson may actually become Prime Minister.
The timing could not be better though: Both will be in office when the post brexit aftermath will require real leadership to deal with the fallout. The spotlight will be directly on them to contrast their promise of “Brexit is easy” with the actual outcome. There will be so much winning...
20
@Just My Two Cents How long after the UK has left the EU does one give it before making such decisions? When will we know if the UK did the right thing by leaving, 10yrs, 20yrs, 50yrs?
Many Leave voters fully appreciate that in the short term the UK economy will fall back, GDP growth will suffer for a while, etc. However, there are many other aspects in regard to being in the EU or being out of the EU. Things like democracy, things like if the UK Supreme Ct should actually be supreme or whether instead the ultimate court is in a foreign land with 27 of 28 judges not being British. Do Brits want to send money to EU's poorer countries year after year. Are British people happy with a foreign parliament & foreign bureaucrats deciding their immigration laws & being in control of such an issue.
British people thought they were joining an economic trade block called, at the time, The Common Market. They wasn't told that it would grow into some huge political union.
P.S When the UK leaves the EU then Nigel Farage will be out of a job & will almost certainly leave political life once more.
2
Who can affirm that "Nigel Farage is the British crisis in human form"?
7
@Trassens I think this is a very astute description of what that man is about and symbolizes, just as his compadre Donald T. Trump is the catalyst of the worst impulses in the US. Sometimes rogues like Farage or Trump just crystalize crises and unfortunately run with it successfully. So yes, the work ahead of those of us who believe in democracy and the construction of good human societies is to recognize the threat by these demagogues, or "crises in human form," and not only send them back to the fringes where they came from but also to disarm those who support and enable them. Trump is nothing without McConnell and his troops. Farage is nothing without the destructive elements of Brits who dream of their old Empire and unknowingly let the Brexiteers pick their pockets. Yes, we have to rip the human mask off the faces of the forces of darkness such as Farage and Trump.
3
The Financial Times published a shocking profile of Farage:
"‘I am what I am,’ says the Ukip leader over six pints, a bottle of wine and two glasses of port."
https://www.ft.com/content/864c3a96-fbf1-11e5-b5f5-070dca6d0a0d
6
What does this digital party platform do, exactly? Could it work in the United States? While I'm not a fan of Farage, it seems he's designed a potentially powerful political tool. Is this the digital future of democracy, or just the start? Or neither?
2
The EU was the worst idea ever and why Britain joined I will never know. If I were British I'd probably vote to leave too, even without a deal. That does not mean I am anti-immigrant or racist or even conservative, I just believe that nations should be able to be free to determine their own fate and make their own rules-isn't that what WWII was all about? How ironic that the freedom everyone fought for has been undermined by the very ideal of a war-free Europe, an ideal that's been taken so far that national sovereignty is at risk.
14
@CJ I am puzzled. How has "the very ideal of a war-free Europe" undermined the "freedom everyone fought for" in WWII? I am truly puzzled by this assertion. The Europe I know and grew up in provides freedom and social systems unheard of in most parts of the world. What are you even talking about?
20
No, that's not what WWII was about. Not even remotely.
7
@CJ Have you ever been to an EU nation? Where infrastructure is attended to, where trade flows effortless according to market demands? I didn't think so.
Farange and the Brexiteers have no plans, no programs, no alternatives. They are ruffians, throwing bricks through windows and running off, howling with laughter. Welcome to a world where none of these bozos accept responsibility for any of their actions.
10
Mr Farage is not the most dangerous man in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn is. But as Mr Farage pushes the Brexit debate toward a hard exit he almost guarantees that Mr Corbyn will be Prime Minister.
6
Wrong. Look at Labour's numbers in the EU polling. Corbym will be replaced as the head of Labour in 3 months's time, if not sooner. He's no danger to anyone, because no one takes him seriously.
1
"Far from impeding Mr. Farage, racism is his ticket to success. It puts him on the same side as his poorest voters."
He's the twin of Donald Trump.
13
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
It’s hard to say this, but I think Farage is an even lower character and even more dangerous than Trump. Farage is a real, committed ideologue, while Trump goes along with dangerous things if they’re immediately expedient for him. But Farage is more crafty and overall more diabolical. Now that’s a bar!
9
well at some point, the two thirds of the British electorate that do not want anything that Farage has to propose will have to take the matter into their hands, coerce a second referendum and get rid of the whole mess
Or let a no deal Brexit occur and live with it
4
@smart fox What are you talking about, Farage rose to fame precisely because he was offering what turned out to be what a majority of the British electorate also wanted.
4
@smart fox Sorry? Oh, you must have been in a faraway country at the time, so I will explain the true facts of what's happened.
Simple really, Farage got 52% of the British electorate to agree with & support his dream of the UK returning to an independent country once again. 17.4 million votes against 16.1 million.
Just yesterday his new political party, just 6 weeks old, massacred every other UK party in the EU election. His Brexit Party won 29 seats, next best was LibDems with 16 seats, Labor 10 seats, Tories 3 seats. Greens did well by their standards winning 7 seats.
It’s no wonder Russia supports far ideologues across the West, all they do is weaken the West from the inside.
10
@K. H. nothing has weakened Europe more than the EU. It has reduced the southern nations to economic basket cases and watered the seeds of populism across the continent.
6
They were economic basket cases to begin with. Remember the Lira and and the Drachma? That's where the pound is headed, post Brexit.
I would be extremely curious to know the demographics of the Brexit Party voters. Ages ago, at the time of the original referendum, they were very predominantly over 55. No particular reason to think that would be any different now.
Nice job, pensioners! Way to stick your finger in the eye of the generations to follow you. Not much of a foundation to build on, though, Nigel, especially since Scotland will bid the UK a not-fond farewell if this goes ahead. Presiding over Rump England will just not have the same cachet.
10
@Bill Levine oh yes, only the generations who spilt their blood in ww2 to keep it's freedom from fascism and sweated their lives to rebuild the country and it's economy afterwards. Also the generations who were sold the EU lie of common economic cooperation when the aim in fact was an undemocratic and authoritarian political project, mismanaged and doomed to fail and drag down the whole continent with it.
As for Scotland leaving, how exactly when the English subsidise them, and Scotland can't afford to extract it's own oil reserves? And what currency will they use? Pray tell.
5
@Bill Levine
So what's your plan? Strip away the rights of anyone over 55? Or worse?
The EU needs Britain far more than the other way around. Greece is economic toast for at least a generation, Jews aren't safe enough to wear their kippahs in Germany, and France is on the verge of going through 1968 all over again.
If that's your model of enlightened leadership, you are defending some pretty bad policies for reasons you haven't bothered to explain.
A free Britain will mean a free Europe. A better neighbor. This is the country that withstood the blitz. It helped guarantee the survival of those nations that are hectoring it now. Once Brexit happens, there are only better days ahead!
3
@dom
It's "its", not "it's". And last I checked both Northern Ireland and Scotland had their own currencies. Oil will be extracted when the price rises enough to make it financially viable, and the UK benefits more from EU subsidies and market access than either Scotland or Nothern Ireland do from British subsidies.
6
“It is ironic that Mr. Farage appeals to people who are besieged by precisely the kind of volatile financial capitalism that he champions. “
Yes, precisely-- a sum up of Americans voting for Trump/GOP, thinking they'll get solutions to their problems. We're besieged by volatile capitalism directed by elites for their benefit. Trump/GOP displaces the blame for economic injustice elsewhere to win election.
Farage/Trump mischaracterize the protections from govt that citizens in a democracy must get as a right from their elected govt.
Brits have experienced their universal health care for generations, so maybe Brits will push back against efforts to underfund and privatize. Even the conservative PM Margaret Thatcher was proud of NHS.
But what will Farage do? Quote in Business Insider:
"Frankly, I would feel more comfortable that my money would return value if I was able to do that through the market place of an insurance company than just us trustingly giving £100bn a year to central government and expecting them to organise the healthcare service from cradle to grave for us."
(frankly that's a very long sentence)
Farage is a pal of Trump and was the 1st EU politician to come over here to congratulate Trump's win.
When Trump visits Britain soon, plenty of street protests will occur. Past surveys showed most British citizens were opposed to a Trump state visit with their Queen.
7
By endlessly stating that Brexit is a catastrophe and the result of ignorant voters not knowing what is best for them, the Times is failing to paint an accurate picture of what is going on in the UK. That Britain will quit the EU is not in question. But there are those in Parliament who believe that having a negotiated exit from the EU is best and those who believe that negotiations should take place after Brexit, when the economies of Germany, France, the Netherlands and Spain take nosedives due to trade obstacles with Britain. I think the latter are right. Negotiate when everyone is feeling the pain, not before.
13
@Asher thinking that the UK would have the upper hand over Germany, France, the Netherlands and Spain *combined* is what will hurt the UK the most, because it will destroy its ego along with the economy. The GDP of those 4 countries alone is 4 times bigger than the UK's, and they have more than 3 times the population. Trade deals with every nation on Earth, versus no trade deals whatsoever for the British. If someone is going to feel the pain, that will be the British.
9
@Asher
I've got news for you. Britain is not a big enough market to make any European economy "nosedive". The power is in the European court not the home of the former Empire.
6
@Adrian thew maths don't work like that. The UK is the EU's second biggest direct financial contributor, and it's single biggest customer for goods, with a 200% trade deficit. A WTO brexit will hurt the Irish and Dutch immensely more, and the French, Italians and Germans equally.
3
The essay doesn't mention Labour, but it has suffered much the same self-defeating grasping aimlessly for voters as the Tories, only less so, perhaps partly due to being out of power (luckily for them). Why Corbyn seems to cling to soft Brexit when the duty and advantage of Labour was with Remain (despite the Brexit Labour voters; I know about that), puzzles me. They paid the price to the Liberal Democrats, who were willing to stand for something.
7
"If he had his way, many of his supporters would be working harder, longer, for less money, with less protection. That, indeed, is his Brexit dream: Singapore on the Thames."
Of course he resembles Donald Trump, because both have been extremely skilled in getting voters to vote--and maintain their support--for people and policies that directly contradict their own self interest.
And both use the dark-skinned and poor (the poorer the better) immigrants as the real enemy--not rich exploiters like Farage and Trump themselves.
It's too clever by half, and it's lethal. Because using the working class to gain power by appealing to their intense desire for scapegoats, for people to feel superior to, weakens democracies.
My question to Britain is this: do you really think Brexit Party voters will continue to be happy once the battle is over and they find themselves the foot soldiers of "Singapore on the Thames"?
41
He only won 35% of the vote. He can't set any agenda. Mr Seymour is using scare tactics. They never have worked, not in Britain not in the U.S. against Trump. You can't scare stupid. Farage will have as much power as the Greens will. As for the U.S. 35% is what traditionally has been the percentage of Conservative voters the last 50 years. Trump won by scaring the blue collar Dems into voting for him. Same with Farage. This is the payback to the sellout Wall St loving centrists and the greedy centrists in Britain. You can never have a vote getting minority political party dictating a country's agenda.
6
@lou Andrews
But they can sure screw things up. Royally.
11
“Brexit. The great escape. It’s a powerful antidepressant.“
Anti depressant use might actually explain a lot. Til now, Putin was my prime suspect for the current trends. Now it’s seems broader than what social media manipulation can explain.
Drugs and weak education vectors may now be worth considering as proximate causes.
5
@RjW It's interesting--what does "drugs and weak education vectors" mean? Too many voters are wasted or just plain uneducated to select anything else? Is there a precedent for this kind of thing?
@Tolerant Reader. By drugs I meant anti depressants, by weak, I meant inadequate education. No civics or geography, and a disregard of the classics.
1
Are they taking Gibraltar with them ?? most likely...old habits don't die easily
2
@Jorge-I bet they'll even demand that India, Zimbabwe rejoin
1
So, if he’s as dangerous a fascist as you all make him out to be...
Only a matter of time before he takes over the whole EU...
Just needs some beer and a hall – both copiously available on The Continent...
Just realize it’ll be without a single UK or French or German tank or fighter plane destroying one another...
PS
He could solve the whole immigration mess by just declaring North Africa to be part of his bad-ish empire...
Nobody’d have to move, then...
PPS
If he turns on a third shift at the MINI plant in Oxford – he can have my retroactive absentee ballot...
Hey, this globalism thing ain’t half bad...
Free MINIs for all...
And now Nigel's vexed at me...
2
The hubris of the left of is unbelievable. Go Nigel and Boris!
13
Nigel Farage is a showboat, ignorant and self-absorbed, like Trump, but fortunately for the British, he has no actual power. In terms of most dangerous demagogue in the world, keep an eye on Paul Manafort - very smart and working tirelessly in the background. Fortunately, on the whole, his efforts for the right wing extremists in Europe were not quite as successful as feared.
As for dangerous to Britain, Boris Johnson, the odds on to replace Ms. May, he is the real threat to Britain. Britain right now seems to be saddled with an inbred group of leaders, starting with Cameron, who still think they can blackmail the rest of Europe into giving them even more special privileges than they already had. I have alway admired the Brits, but they seem to have lost their collective minds, much like the situation here in the US.
7
Paul Manafort is currently imprisoned. I’m not sure how he is the “most dangerous man.”
9
@Claus Gehner
Could it be you did not mean Manafort but may be referring to Steve Bannon ?
@Wolfgang
Exactly - sorry, my mistake
I am a bit confused - so what exactly is the difference between Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn? Corbyn is an avowed anti-Semite who hangs around with holocaust deniers.
6
At some point, one loses sympathy for the British. In America we at least have an excuse. The majority of us never voted for Donald Trump but got stuck with him thanks to the horribly outdated Electoral College.
I'm lost for an excuse for the Brits. They have watched their elected officials try and fail for nearly three years to satisfy their ill-informed Brexit vote. Despite what Farage promises, they should know better by now that you can't have your cake and eat it too. If they can't quite come to grips with that one, they would do well to remember the old Chinese adage; "Be careful what you wish for.....
26
The real question to ask is why people like this author think the UK owes anything at all to Algerians or Sudanese or Moroccans or Romanians or, or, or.
These are the same people who feel guilt stricken that the US doesn’t open it’s borders to every Central American. Why?!
39
@Kurfco Because they are humans and have some measure of care for other humans? I know, crazy...
41
@Kurfco because they have stolen murdered and meddled around the world for centuries.
25
@PGH
The UN says 14 million Britons currently live in poverty. There are no easy answers here.
In the end the culprit is technology. Not other people. But nevertheless, other people may not be able to help unless you deal with the robots and machines.
14
I was waiting - forever - for a Café Americano in a Mexico City Starbucks wannabe. A Celtic-looking lad standing next to me was also enduring a long wait for his cappuccino.
"American?" I asked. "No...a Scot."
"Working down here?"
"At the British Embassy." (Which is in the same block.)
"So, what's going to happen with Brexit after May gave up?"
"That's something we have to move toward?"
"You mean moving further toward wrecking the financial sector in London, undermining the value of the Pound, problems at the Irish border - you mean like that?"
No comment.
Somehow, I expected more from a diplomat.
10
The NYT has gotten into a bad habit of repeatedly publishing ad hominem attacks on Europe’s populist leaders. True or not, these opinion pieces teach readers nothing about the legitimate concerns and interests of the tens of millions of Europeans voting for these people.
The effect is to demonize not just a few politicians, but large swathes of EU electorates. It demonstrates the contempt for common people that has undermined liberalism in the US and turned it from the powerful force for good it was in the middle of the last century into the prissy , PC, economically timid movement we see today.
There is no future in a political “progressivism” that holds average people in contempt, nor in a liberalism that reflexively puts the economic interests of global capitalists over the economic interests of workers.
28
@Philip Cafaro: According to this piece, Farage's supporters are not all the so-called "common people". The author's point is that Farage's economic policies favor the financial capitalists--and he's attracting votes from the working class by blaming poor immigrants. If the author's thesis is correct, this will not be the first time in human history that the demagogues acquire power by appealing to the fear of others. In America, our Farage is blaming poor Mexicans while the capitalists keep raking in the money and the power. You can believe that Trump and Farage are helping the economic interest of workers, but many of us see something quite the opposite going on.
9
The media must find more precise terminology than populism, which can be twisted to mean many things.
@Philip Cafaro
Speaking of ad hominem attacks: In my lifetime, none has been more relentlessly marketed or lavishly funded than that accusing liberals of holding “average” or “common” people in contempt.
Cut off your nose to spite your face, Little Englanders! Scotland will bolt and maybe Northern Ireland, too, so they can (sensibly) stay in the EU. You can sit around in your reduced circumstances and reminisce about when you were an empire. What fools!
77
@MJ Scotland might bolt? You do realise that England subsidises Sotland don't you? And since oil price dropped Scotland can't even afford to extract it's north sea oil. What currency will Scotland use when it 'bolts'?
7
@dom Probably the Scottish Pound, which it uses now.
In truth,Farage is a brilliant orator and clearly media savvy.......but mad as a hatter.
Him and Boris...what a pair!
16
@Lord Snooty by name snooty by nature. Farage and Boris have proven to be the sharpest operators in British politics, as all others have fallen by the wayside. Not mad, just astute.
2
How many Brits died to prevent their country from falling under the power of a fascist like Nigel Farage? How many Americans died to uphold the US Constitution and the rule of law that is being spat upon daily by Donald Trump? People must wake up, rise up and protest the surging power of these demagogues around the globe!
166
@Jefflz- Overblown fearmonegring by the author.. Farage can't dictate anything with only 35% of the vote. the Green Party has a much power as the Brexit Party. So calm down.
6
@lou andrews
"Overblown fearmongering" was the attitude of the intellectuals in Austria and Germany in the 1930's. That history must not be repeated
25
@JefflzIt would help if the corporate world like the Uber's, Apple's and the Google's and the Facebook's, and the Amazon's stepped up to the plate and did something other than make obscene amounts of money and a new permanent underclass of homeless peasants in the cities they operate in. Instead Amazon paid zero in taxes, Facebook got paid to sow descent for a foreign power, amazon and uber are killing retail and transit. one of the few places left for the average blue collar to get jobs. Much like happened in Europe last century, the rich modern elites fancy themselves as wunderkinds. They fail to grasp that old piece of historical happening that the people you take a dump on today, may be the guy who goes and get s a bigger guy to take your head off later. Tech companies ignore this at their own peril.
15
The British establishment representing the status quo is obviously very threatened by Nigel Farage. He possesses the popularity that they have lost.
9
Don't waste your time, UK. Look what happened to us: 4 years in the dark. A HUGE mess we will clean up. But what a massive loss in time. YEARS we cannot ever get back. Squandered on a worthless sociopath. DON'T DO IT.
Don't do what we did (assuming the election was not really stolen, which of course it was).
You must stand up for yourselves and the world.
56
Farage's "success" will be his doom. The UK seems likely to crash out of the EU without a deal. The resulting economic chaos should make "Brexiteer" a term that nominates a politician to be tarred and feathered.
12
@Cfiverson- 35% of the vote is no success. so calm down he'll be put in his place by all the other parties combined.
4
@lou andrews
And Trump was going to be kept in check by the calmer heads in the Senate.
3
@Cfiverson 'crash out' etc etc. The former governor of the Bank Of England is behind a WTO exit. And the current (pro EU) governor has had to admit that the scaremongering has been overblown. 98% of world trade is conducted by WTO rules. The Germans, Frenchm, Dutch and Italians will lose more jobs and GDP than the UK, as they produce and ship twice as much goods to the UK than vice versa. It's in the EU's interest to make a WTO exit smooth, or the voters will blame them for the resulting carnage on the mainland.
3
I always love these pieces. Somehow we talk about these individuals as if they materialized out of thin air. They are not the cause of the problems we face but rather a symptom of the failed leaders before them and the desperation of a citizenry long neglected so they are willing to try anything
24
@Patrick
Yes, they suddenly sprang up out of nowhere. Progressives are always the last to know.
3
They, in Britain, are in as much trouble as we, us, the US is. I do not understand how these people get citizens to get in line and vote against themselves. I guess it is the same kind of people who blindly follow and support our demagogue without thinking or really caring about the country as a whole.
57
@Kathryn- only 35% voted for his party. so chill out. He is way short of any majority or coalition. He can't dictate anything ot anyone but his assistant.
2
@Kathryn
I don’t know if Farage has said it but, I assume along with Trump, he also loves the “poorly educated”.
2
@Kathryn
Most sensible well-balanced people have a great many interests besides their pocketbook and hold some of those interests superior to financial concerns. What kind of country they want to live in and what kind of culture they want to live in for example. Who shall make their laws and select their rulers, and how much ruling those rulers impose over aspects of their lives that they think they are managing fine is another. Whenever someone is following a different God, it is tempting to consider them stupid or bad.
Why does the liberal NYT always have to report the success of exporting American Values as some sort of problem?
Rather than presenting this as a typical liberal 'problem' we should be taking pride in the fact that American Values are once again influencing the rest of the world.
Farage, and the rest of the far right, is just spreading the Republican gospel to the rest of the world.
Farage would be right at home in the Republican party and is running on a Republican manifesto.
"He opposes extended maternity leave, raising the minimum wage and reducing the retirement age... "
"His racism is classed bound..."
"He hates the European Union because its moderate social legislation and free movement defy what he thinks is a Darwinian cultural ecology through which some rise and others fall."
"His offer to them is that, in a society of dog-eat-dog competition, they will not have to compete with foreign workers. This is why the liberal press’s muckraking about his racism and far-right connections, by itself, generally doesn’t work. Far from impeding Mr. Farage, racism is his ticket to success."
A mirror image of Trump and the Republican party.
Right wing racism has been America's most successful export.
16
@JMC- American Values? That's a laugh. Corruption, lying, cheating, stealing, violence, guns, war, supporting dictators. Great values America has.
7
You need Lord Buckethead to intervene, save the milkshakes!
6
I imagine Farage is the kind of man who revels in being called 'dangerous' in an Op-Ed in the New York Times.
32
@EC
Farage will probably touch his fingertips to each other and say “Well, well, well” when he sees this!
3
@EC....he and trump both love being called dangerous
1
There is one organization that could stop Brexit cold. That is UEFA. If the Premier League were kicked out of the Champions league tournament since UK would no longer be part of Europe, every football fan in the UK would be screaming bloody murder. Imagine that....
74
@Forgotten Voter
Sadly, if England were kicked out of UEFA, then the 25 other non-EU countries would have to go too. I wouldn't miss Russia, Azerbaijan, and the like, but I would miss Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland. And of course we'd have to decide how to treat Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland.
3
Countries get the leaders they deserve!
10
Not any more. Countries rather get stolen elections.
2
Nice list of "negatives", but still, why is he so dangerous, he "reigns" down on the Brussels parade of self-serving elites uber alles?
11
@Alice's Restaurant - In case you have forgotten, fascist demagogues like Mr. Farage were responsible for the near total destruction of Europe during WW2.
Somewhere between the “self serving elites of the EU” and the self serving racist blowhards on the far right like Nigel Farage, there surely must be many rational folks in the UK who recognize Brexit for what it is and if given the chance, they will vote to put an end to the madness.
3
"Dangerous"? Seriously?
8
@AACNY
Yes. SERIOUSLY.
9
@MJ
If people are so easily threatened, perhaps their problem isn't with politics but emotional.
5
Out of the frying pan, into the Farage. What could the UK, 'til lately a perfectly decent little country filled with perfectly decent little people (and the odd eccentric) have done to deserve such small and relentlessly selfish minded leadership? But if it can happen there, and in the US...
36
Demagogues swoop in during times of upheaval to skim power and riches off the top for themselves. They use the fear and anxiety of everyday people - feed it - and set themselves up as the natural savior.
Reality is that there is no savior, no promised land. WE are stuck muddling through. The sea change of globalization, technology, automation, AI, consolidation and corporatization displaces people, leaving them unsure how to make a living, unsure about how their children will manage.
You'd think Europe and the US could manage to watch a few WWII movies and read up a little on Mussolini and his trains that would run on time, and look at the corporate interests that propelled Hitler forward, and try to see a few parallels.
But we don't like to think about history, so we get Trump powered by Bannon and Miller and Farage.
122
We keep saying just that and it keeps repeating itself thru the decades. why?
5
@S. Mitchell
I’m afraid that history keeps repeating itself because the darker parts of human nature - fear, greed, arrogance, intolerance, short-sightedness - don’t change. Only the names and details will change, but the stories echo from one era to the next.
10
@S. Mitchell
There's a quote that says something about history repeating, but I always forget most of it.
3
So who or what is financing this snake?
9
Rather than discuss the issues and implications, this is first & foremost a hit piece. So, it's worthless.
23
@CK
I got the issues and implications from this article just fine, thank you. What's your problem?
8
@PBB this article doesn't come close to truthfully articulating the issues and implications.
3
There would be no story here if millions of voters in the UK (like millions more in the US) adopted a skeptical perspective toward political messages. Sadly, the modern world may be one of the most educated in history, at least on average, but also the most gullible. Until we can turn that around, societies around the globe will fall for hucksters that promise the easy way to success without any consequences.
27
If there is any “good” news in this self-inflicted catastrophe, it’s that when the UK finally crashes out of the EU with no deal, the voters who supported the odious likes of Farage and Johnson — and Brexit — will at last find out how deep a hole they’ve dug for themselves. A very dark, rough, and scary hole.
211
@ALB - A half-paragraph ominous threat from an American who has probably never read a British history or could name ten important figures in British history not Winston Churchill or that witch Maggie Thatcher. Not particularly impressive.
11
@ALB Yes, indeed! I just hope that Boris doesn't completely succumb to the insanity. If he's the next Prime Minister, I fear that the little island will sink below the waves.
15
@ALB
Would that this were a simple case of poetic justice. Unfortunately, the rest of the EU will pay a price for the foolishness of Brexit and the Farage/Johnson club.
9
Putin must be giggling in his sleep.
Two short years and he has rid himself of every important adversary, transplanted Nazism into the red, red hearts of the most patriotic Americans, and destroyed America's erstwhile global market advantage.
You can bet he'll be getting a second term, or a fourth, or whatever.
342
@oogada- don't blame Putin, blame greedy, hateful, violent people who want more of the same. That covers just about 90% of the planet. Putin is just more cunning and better prepared to implement those "Values" to other parts of the globe. He's a great facilitator.
11
@oogada
We have only ourselves to blame, convenient as it may be to blame Putin. The interference in the US election was facilitated by Facebook. I am much more interested in hearing solutions for regulating social media companies than I am about hearing how the Russians interfered in our elections. What are our lawmakers doing to prevent a recurrence?
19
@oogada--good one-
2
Tut, Tut! I say. The EU should cut the Brits loose. Let the Scots stay in the EU and the Irish take the Northern Ireland which the Brits stole. Then the Brits can enjoy what their little Duchy calls its own: bad food, bad weather, bad teeth, bad cars and a lazy royal family and its nobles and other hangers-on ... a reality that just reeks of privilege never earned.
112
@joseph gmuca
Actually, I can agree with all of it except the part about bad food. How long has it been since you've been? The Michelin Guide would also disagree with you, awarding London as one of the best dining cities in the world.
8
@MJ improved food quality is due to all the European chefs now working in the UK- another benefit of membership - up to now.
17
@joseph gmuca
And they will have to either put their aircraft carriers up on blocks in the driveway or sell them. They now have a dozen nuclear subs they can’t afford to decommission rotting at the docks.
1
With many elections results leaning right, I see worldwide conflict within a decade. Did no one learn anything from WW II?
366
@MB Apparently not. The only unfortunate question is: do you kill them now before they kill you? Because the lesson history provides when the lowest take power is to be merciless in dealing with them, and quickly.
17
@MB Yes, there is almost no doubt that when the EU disintegrates, war between any number of small unstable nations in Eastern and Central Europe will be inevitable. And this will lead to a wider, global conflict.
17
@Terence Mitchell - nation state democracies never go to war with eachother, that's just historical fact. Nationalism doesn't create conflict, but authoritarianism does. The EU is both authoritarian and undemocratic.
7
Nigel Farage is the UK's version of the US demagogue Donald Trump, albeit much. much smarter.
77
@Joe Miksis
Teensy bit smarter. Just doesn't clown it up with tanner and bad comb-over. Brit accent. But he's just as awful. His intelligence in terms of "smarter" is oriented to just as much evil.
14
@Matthew
The bar is very low when discussing smarter than Trump. It's more of a "limbo stick".
3
The first couple of paragraphs you disparage Mr. Farage without any substance or explanation. Guess we know which side you're on. The people have and are continuing to speak. Unfortunately for you.
20
"Guess we know which side you're on."
Don't be too sure about that -- Seymour's Twitter handle is "leninology".
And Seymour is the author of a book titled "The Liberal Defence of Murder". The title isn't what it seems -- Seymour is *criticizing* liberalism.
For more, see the Wikipedia article titled "Richard Seymour (writer)".
Is Nigel Farage mostly a Mosley? He has weaponized Brexit. Racism is Nigel's ticket to ride.
26
@Nan Socolow
That was my first thought; Farage is Oswald Mosley reappearing in Britain. 30% support is way to much for a country that should remember WWII.
17
@Nan Socolow: You couldn't have drawn a more apt comparison than to that anti-semitic traitor, Mosley. Only his grand family title kept him from hanging during and post WW11.
10
@Nan Socolow I too immediately thought of that notorious Blackshirt Oswald Mosely. It took Winston Churchill's implementation of Defence Regulation 18B to imprison that fiend and his dizzy wife, Diana Guiness. (Goebbels and Hitler attended their wedding.) Farange is another absolute nightmare, masterfully feeding off fear and racism.
4
Always look on the bright side of life.
- Eric Idle
Look the way I see it, if so many want Brexit, I hope for their sakes, they are happy with their decision in years to come. I hope in a decade they sit around in pubs and say: "I can't believe we fought so hard about this thing that we now love".
And I say that for the sake of not only the Leavers, but also the Remainers.
12
@EC
The pity of the whole thing is the young people want to stay! The old, spent elders remembering Empire are screwing up the future they will not have to live with.
4
Bolton, Trump and Pompeo mixed into one highly volatile dangerous man. I thought the UK knew better.
18
A cross between the used car salesman from central casting and the creepy uncle/pedophile from horror flicks, he's ideal for the roll, but a piker alongside the Stable Genius.
84
The British have few of the structural elements that gave the US Trump. No counterparts to a written constitution, the separation of powers, the Electoral College, a coequal Supreme Court endless money-driven election campaigns, hostility to elitism, lack of deference, and so on. Yet, the Tory leadership in the last few years was so lacking in grit and imagination that they could not use parliamentary supremacy to, first, refuse a referendum , and, second, to finesse the outcome so as to work to resolve issues without actually leaving the EU. Their failure has been pathetic and grotesque. The only satisfaction to be derived from this debacle is that the most vocal Brexit supporters among the voters will be the ones to suffer the most. Of course, like the most rabid Trump supporters here, they will learn nothing and just look for more scapegoats.
231
@arp You misunderstand the Conservative Party's position - it hasn't failed because of a lack of grit and imagination, it is being torn apart because it is fundamentally split.
The intelligentsia of the party want to remain in the EU for the economic benefits, the rump of the party has a deep hatred of foreigners having any input into how the UK manages it's affairs (lovely place to go on holiday). This has been the fundamental problem of the Conservative party since 1973 that a multitude of leaders since Thatcher have fudged (poorly).
What's changed is the disaffected poor/working class who used to vote both left & right wing are now attracted to the magical single issue of Europe to fix their depressed situations. The Conservative Party's problem has been Nationalised with a large dose of steroids.
The Conservatives can't fix it, neither can Labour. Only social integration, mobility and a rise in the average person's living standards will change these people's votes.
Leaving the EU and the ensuing drop in GDP is the last thing these people need but it's an issue that is decided by a hard emotional swerve to right-wing demagogues rather than an educated understanding of how to better society and the average person's lot.
We're going to see how much 1933 repeats over the next few years.
23
Make no mistake- between Farage and trump you have to evil characters lining the Atlantic. I hope Britain can see their folly before it’s too late.
23
Nigel Farage is among the most dangerous people in the world. He rationalizes, even encourages, xenophobia and other prejudice. And he doesn’t even just leave it in Britain, either; he campaigned in the US with Donald Trump in 2016, and it seems likely that he’ll be back in 2020.
Come what may for the Brexit drive, the bigotry behind it has been a huge impetus for Farage, and its destructive ramifications will last longer than any politician’s own career.
314
@NM Yes the yobs (as they are called) are empowered with him in power. Then you have the ineffectual police in the UK, the weak legal system, and failing economy with one store seemingly collapsing weekly. And this man says "get out of the EU." He and Trump are made for each other, can you imagine a conversation...who can speak or more important...think. Neither would care.
44
@NM
No one writing for the Times seems to have noticed that ALL that has happened is that his new "party" Brexit has replaced his old party UKIP. The REMAIN group - Lib Dems, Scottish and Welsh Nationalists, and the Greens - got many more votes that the LEAVE group of Brexit and UKIP combined. He is a leader in the sense that Trump is a leader - he leads crowds of ill-informed people who cheer him on because he excoriates elites and so on. Without the tabloid press he would be nothing.
This man has never been elected to the UK parliament - he has certainly tried - and done little but act the fool as a member of the European parliament for decades, while drawing a very fat salary. He is a disgrace even to the British "Public School" system (but, all things considered, that's not all that difficult.) (Dulwich College, if you are wondering - founded by an actor several centuries ago.)
5