Sunday, December 07, 2025
Farage under pressure as the past comes back to bite him
In an angry performance at a press conference in London, the Reform leader suggested he would boycott the BBC and said ITV had its own case to answer, as he repeatedly shouted “Bernard Manning”.
Manning, a comedian from Manchester who died in 2007, was a regular face on British television in the 1970s but he drifted from the public eye after claims that his material was racist and misogynistic.
The intemperate performance by Farage, whose party has slipped in the national polls in recent weeks, came as a further five school contemporaries came forward to the Guardian with allegations that they had witnessed deeply offensive racist or antisemitic behaviour by him.
The former Dulwich college pupils said they had been motivated to speak now by the response of Farage and others in his party to an investigation by the Guardian based on multiple accounts of racism.
This is a classic deflection tactic, playing the victim in the hope of flipping the script, shifting the blame for his youthful issues, and trying to make the BBC the problem in the hope that we'll all forget about the appalling behaviour he is accused of.
Farage claims that the BBC has no moral right to scrutunise him on his past because of their own history with dodgy individuals. However, the difference between them is that the BBC has apologised for their past and moved on. Farage has not apologised, while his career has consistently been about identifying target groups and exploiting them for political gain, a tactic, as any historian will tell you, is reminiscent of Germany in the early 1930s.
A perfect example of this behaviour is Farage noting that a third of Glasgow’s children didn’t learn English as their first language, and railing against the ‘cultural smashing’ of Glasgow.
As Ben Wildsmith asks on Nation Cymru, Glaswegian kids haven’t instituted their own ‘English Not’ in the classrooms of that city, so what is Farage’s actual problem?:
Well, it’s not that the children can’t or won’t speak English. The Scottish Government’s figures relate to pupils studying English as an additional language, so, by definition, these kids are speaking English. The objection seems to be that it isn’t their mother tongue.
Now, think about that for a moment. If Farage is saying that learning English – i.e. actively engaging with the host culture and trying to conform to it – is irrelevant to his notion of who belongs here, then what are his qualifiers?
I’m old enough to remember when Farage was insisting that Brexit wasn’t a racist enterprise because it would open the door to immigration from Commonwealth countries. Now that European exclusion is safely in the bag, it seems that the goalposts have moved.
This argument is all the more astonishing when viewed through a Welsh lens. Imagine bursting into a classroom full of Welsh-learners and accusing them of culturally smashing Wales because they hadn’t learned the language before moving here.
Bullying people who are demonstratively doing their best to fit in is as counterproductive as it is contemptible.
It’s only counterproductive, however, if your aim is to produce harmony. If your product is division, resentment, and anger, then suggesting that people can do nothing to advance their prospects of being accepted in a country you propose to run is, of course, extremely effective.
Farage doesnt get away with his youthful indiscretions that easily and he certainly doesn't get a pass by seeking to deflect attention back on his accusers.
Well, it’s not that the children can’t or won’t speak English. The Scottish Government’s figures relate to pupils studying English as an additional language, so, by definition, these kids are speaking English. The objection seems to be that it isn’t their mother tongue.
Now, think about that for a moment. If Farage is saying that learning English – i.e. actively engaging with the host culture and trying to conform to it – is irrelevant to his notion of who belongs here, then what are his qualifiers?
I’m old enough to remember when Farage was insisting that Brexit wasn’t a racist enterprise because it would open the door to immigration from Commonwealth countries. Now that European exclusion is safely in the bag, it seems that the goalposts have moved.
This argument is all the more astonishing when viewed through a Welsh lens. Imagine bursting into a classroom full of Welsh-learners and accusing them of culturally smashing Wales because they hadn’t learned the language before moving here.
Bullying people who are demonstratively doing their best to fit in is as counterproductive as it is contemptible.
It’s only counterproductive, however, if your aim is to produce harmony. If your product is division, resentment, and anger, then suggesting that people can do nothing to advance their prospects of being accepted in a country you propose to run is, of course, extremely effective.
Farage doesnt get away with his youthful indiscretions that easily and he certainly doesn't get a pass by seeking to deflect attention back on his accusers.
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Two points occur to me
1. A number of children in Glasgow will be learning Gaelic which corresponds with your point abour Welsh learners
2. There is an old adage which says you don't prove your own innocence by asserting the guilt of others.
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1. A number of children in Glasgow will be learning Gaelic which corresponds with your point abour Welsh learners
2. There is an old adage which says you don't prove your own innocence by asserting the guilt of others.
# posted by 
: 6:15 AM
: 6:15 AM<< Home
