The Guardian is running two separate campaigns against the surging Reform party at the moment. One is a pro immigration propaganda campaign – a series of articles depicting people who will, allegedly, fall foul of the proposed immigration policies of Reform. The subjects, sometimes anonymised, are presented as dignified victims. Their, often unlikely, stories are inevitably accepted at face-value. (Did you really only realise you were in danger in your own country after you arrived in the UK on a Visitor Visa? Your decision to take a flight to the UK and not Portugal after you fled a prison in a former Portuguese colony was just a spur of the moment decision?). Straightforward lies are accepted. “I have never broken the law in the UK” – accept when you came in with a forged passport? And so on.
Meanwhile; they have dragged up, once again, the dirt on Farage. He is accused of being a rather unsavoury schoolboy given to making Heil Hitler jokes and so on. The Guardian is, apparently, not embarrassed to delve into a politician’s childhood and use it against them. Today, there is a new smear. The headline reads: “Farage urged to explain conspiracy theories linked to antisemitism he voiced in US media”. [1] We are told it is an ‘Exclusive’, even though the article appears to be based on a series of public radio interviews! I’ve read the article. There is not one quote in it that has Farage saying anything antisemitic. Not even slightly or arguably. It seems he expressed “conspiracy theories associated with antisemitism during interviews” on US TV talk shows. But the only actual quote they can produce is that on one show he, apparently, argued that globalists are trying to engineer war with Russia, “as an argument for us all to surrender our national sovereignty and give it up to a higher global level”. I am not quite sure I follow the argument; but the view that financial elites find national governments and their legislation an encumbrance is not antisemitic. It may be that there is an “antisemitic trope” about Jewish bankers trying to control the world. That is unfortunate. But the existence of such a trope should not prevent, for example, questioning of what George Soros is up to – with his meddling in various countries around the world, (funding liberal initiatives). The logic that it should would be the same logic as saying that because some people who criticise Israel are antisemitic, which they are, and it is unfortunate, no one should criticise Israel at all.
The Guardian describes the idea that there is a globalist movement which aims to supersede national sovereignty as a “conspiracy theory”. This is the same Guardian that for a year or so described the view that Sars-Cov-2 originated in a lab in Wuhan as a “conspiracy theory”, until multiple US intelligence agencies independently said that this was probably the case, when they silently dropped it. The existence of corporations and financial investment companies with assets far in access of the wealth of many countries, who carry out activities all over the world, and who lobby governments to legislate in their favour, the ever increasing hold of US capital over the UK, (a statistical reality), the very liberal ideology itself, which is globalist in nature – seeking to impose the same set of values on every country in the world, these are not “conspiracies ideas” – they are observable realities. The “conspiracy” here is the same as calling the lab leak theory a conspiracy. It is the conspiracists trying to disguise themselves by calling the normals conspiracists. (A recent article in the Guardian extolls China for their policies which have lifted people out of poverty, contrasting this with the US which is portrayed as backward for tolerating poverty. Modern liberal cultists do appear to gravitate towards authoritarian China).
This particular article is being used by all the political parties, except perhaps the Conservatives, to attack Farage. Amusingly the leader of the Greens, who seem to be filling the void left by the right-turn of Starmer’s Labour Party says: “We can judge Farage not just by the words he, allegedly, shouted as a child, but by the words and actions he has chosen to broadcast as an adult.” Which is weird. How can we ‘judge’ someone on what they ‘allegedly’ did? ‘Allegedly’ means that the jury is still out on whether he said it or not, and if he didn’t, then what case does he have to answer? This is my like my saying: “I allege that ‘Zack Polanski’ is a nasty piece of work who steals sweets from children”. And now I invite you all to judge that he is a terrible person. The whole verification step has just been skipped. This is the level of discourse in UK politics at the moment, and the calibre of the contenders.
And, where would we be without the inevitable Russian smear? [2] The headline is: “Nigel Farage urged to root out Reform links to Russia after jailing of Nathan Gill”. A Reform party politician in Wales has been sentenced (to an extraordinarily long 10 years) for accepting GBP 40,000 in bribes to make pro-Russian statements in the European Parliament. (Why he didn’t just put it down to fees for giving political advice and say the views were his own, I don’t know). And the Guardian immediately tries to expand from this to call the whole Reform party into question. Of course, these days, simply saying there is a ‘Russia’ connection is enough to paint someone/an organisation as evil – since Russia occupies a position as a bogeyman – on the same mental level as the Russian folk personage Baba Yaga, who lives in the forest and eats children. This is pre-rational magical thinking, but hey ho.
I am not a personal fan of Farage. The fag and a pint scene is definitely not my scene. But, my sense of ‘fair play’ is offended by these dishonest and unscrupulous liberal attacks which are notable for their non-engagement with the political substance. I would hazard a guess that that will be how most ordinary people will feel, and that these kinds of attacks will backfire, or at least have no effect at all, as was, apparently the case with Trump.
Notes