Nigel Farage, the Reform Party, and a very British form of racism

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Back in 2025 (remember 2025?), the Guardian broke a story that surprised no one who pays attention to the British news: Nigel Farage–head of the right-wing populist Reform Party, face of the Brexit campaign, and beer-drinking, former commodities trading, expensive-suit-wearing man-of-the-people–was known, as a schoolboy, for racist bullying.

Such as? According to his fellow former students, he said things like “Hitler was right” and “Gas then all.” Other incidents, which don’t condense as neatly onto a list, involve him asking Black students where they were from and then “pointing away, saying: ‘That’s the way back.’ ”

It is understood by a certain category of British racist that no dark-skinned person is from Britain. If they were born abroad, that’s where they’re from, even if they came to Britain as an infant. And if they were born in Britain, it doesn’t count: they’re still from the country some ancestor was born in. 

Farage’s comments were part of a pattern he was, apparently, known for–a pattern that included leading students in racist songs.

Apparently? Well, I wasn’t there, but a number of fellow former students have told similar stories. Some who’ve gone public were on the receiving end and some were witnesses. 

This all happened in what the British call a public school, which in case you’re not British I should explain means it isn’t public, it’s private. And expensive. The kind of place every budding man-of-the-people is sent by his well-established parents-of-the-people.

Irrelevant photo: a neighbor’s camellia, blooming in December

 

Ah, but the story isn’t complete until we have a denial

I said no one who’d been paying attention was surprised, but I exaggerated: Farage’s Reform Party was surprised. It never happened, the party said. And Farage’s barrister said the same thing, although in fancier language: he never “engaged in, condoned, or led racist or antisemitic behaviour.” 

Farage was also surprised, although instead of saying it never happened he said something I’ll translate to, It didn’t happen like that so it doesn’t count. In one denial (ask Lord Google for “Farage denies racism” and you can take your pick of links), he said he “never directly racially abused anybody.” 

Directly abused them? 

Do I have to explain everything? That’s the opposite of indirectly abusing them. He described his comments as “banter in the playground” and said, “I would never, ever do it in a hurtful or insulting way.”

Would he apologize? 

“No . . . because I don’t think I did anything that directly hurt anybody.”

The people who were on the receiving end have, shall we say, different memories of it all. One said that after his “existence as a target was established” Farage–who was considerably older than him–would wait for him at the school gate  “so he could repeat the vulgarity.”

Another talks about Farage’s comments as “racial intimidation,” and a third–a witness–described one of his targets as being “tormented.”

As denials will, Farage’s have succeeded in keeping the story alive and bringing more former students out of the woodwork to say, Yes, I remember that happening.

Meanwhile, when a BBC interviewer pushed Farage to answer some awkward questions, Farage accused it of hypocrisy. Hadn’t it broadcast shows in the  1970s that wouldn’t meet today’s more delicate standards? He also threatened to sue it. And to boycott it.

I can’t imagine he’ll follow through with the boycott, but I for one would be happy to see the BBC become a Farage-free zone.

 

Free speech

You see where he’s going with this,right? He’s trying to cast it as a free speech issue. Asked whether he’d said things that might have offended people, he answered, “Without any shadow of a doubt. 

“And without any shadow of a doubt I shall say things tonight on this stage that some people will take offence to and will use pejorative terms about.

“That is actually in some ways what open free speech is. Sometimes you say things that people don’t like.”

Which is why you threaten to sue the broadcaster who said them. 

 

Comparative racism 101

If this were just about Farage, I’d leave it to the newspapers and the broadcast media to cover the story. They can do a better job of it than I can. The reason I’m picking up on it is that it speaks to something that fascinates me about British racism. Or maybe that’s English racism. I’ll never figure out which is which. As a friend tells me her immigrant grandmother used to say (about all kinds of things), “For that I am not long enough in this country.”

Thank you, Jane. And thank you, Jane’s grandmother, who I wish I could’ve known.

I don’t expect I ever will be long enough in this country to figure out what’s English and what’s British. I’d be grateful for any insights, guidance, wild guesses, or general wiseassery on the subject.

But enough lead-in. What’s the oddity? Many people of the white persuasion judge whether something they’ve done or said is racist not by its impact but by how it was meant. If they judge themselves not to be racist, then whatever they’ve done or said can’t be racist. Because it wasn’t meant as racism. Which means they don’t have to change. Because their intent is pure.

46 thoughts on “Nigel Farage, the Reform Party, and a very British form of racism”

  1. I would suggest that Farage’s membership of racist parties in the past as well as taking the reins of the current one, indicates where his truth lies. I don’t deny a racist undercurrent in the UK, But feel it’s a small minority. I was never more proud of being Welsh a few years ago when a contingent of the KKK on a recruiting drive in S. WALES was sent packing and laughed out of the Country. I am proud to have a black son in law, and beautiful grandchildren and think intermarriage brings acceptance. Heaven forbid Farage and his like ever gain power. I would also suggest that racism is a two way street when it comes to colour with dark races also disliking and disparaging ‘whites’. We must learn to live together and strive together to save the one world our children must inherit.
    America is currently trying to divide the World, we must unite it.

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    • If anyone needs proof that racism is a two-way street, all they have to do is look at how Israel has become a genocidal nation. But that’s not just about who dislikes who and who disparages which Other. The key element is the addition of power, so that a country or group goes from simply disliking whoever to doing massive damage.

      You remind me of an Olga Broumas poem, which has a line that goes (something like), “Like amnesiacs in a ward on fire, we must find words or burn.” We are indeed in this together, and we won’t get out of it in one piece unless we pull together. You remind me also of the incredible riches of our many human cultures, and how cluelessly people turn their backs on those that aren’t theirs by birth.

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  3. I’m one of the last of the Raj Orphans ( see Old Filth , Jane Gardam) parents in India , schooled in boarding school in the UK. My father was fluent in Hindi and Urdu and would delight in telling me the less than complimentary remarks made about us as we walked about . I doubt there is a country on this planet where the locals don’t say offensive things about tourists and foreigners ? I can’t believe the British are unique ?

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    • Probably not unique, but power–and what was the Empire if not power?–changes mere unpleasantness into systemic racism. The Empire may be gone but the tune lingers on in the racism and anti-foreign songs playing on the right-wing juke box.

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  6. Not just the British or English way to downplay racist comments. Donald Trump said immigrants coming to the U.S. are “poisoning the blood of our country,” a direct reference to what Hitler said about Jews! Still he says he is not racist and his MAGA supporters believe he is not! He also spouted that he had superior genes because of his families German roots, a clear reference to Hitler and Eugenics. Reagan and many Republicans still believe in the debunked belief in Eugenics which is a clear excuse to justify the belief that people with white skin are superior genetically!

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  7. Purely as an interested, rather than an expert, individual, I believe that those who believe in “white and born here” as a criterion have failed to understand (or more likely acknowledge) that we are all African in our origins. Granted, we’re talking millennia, at the very least, since we spread out and changed in appearance but we aren’t different races as such, or there would be no possibility of “mixed race” children being born. We are all, simply, the human race, whatever differences we have developed along the way.
    I hold no brief for deluded bigots, whether their particular blind spot is racial, religious, sexual or whatever, always allowing that we are not often aware of the beam in our own eyes. And our use of language is part of the difficulty. Race or ethnicity? Because sometimes ethnicity matters, in medicine, for instance, making discrimination a positive.
    Age and experience suggest that there’s little hope that enlightenment is about to dawn on humanity any time soon.
    Jeannie

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    • English history–a recently unearthed strand of it–show that much more recent bits of African DNA have been contributed to the English/British gene pool. For me (raised as I was on the US one-drop theory) that’s delightfully, mind-bogglingly enlightening. In other words, we don’t have to go all the way back to Mother Africa to find that the strands of humanity have been braiding themselves together for a long time.

      I’m not as pessimistic as you, though, about our chances of enlightenment. Clearly, the idiots are in charge as the moment and are the loudest voices, but overall I think the conversation has shifted quite a bit since I was a kid–in a positive direction.

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  8. Pinning it all on Farage as an individual is a mistake IMHO. He’s a lightening rod for a lot of energy out there in the political sphere. I look around at my own family and see how they’re using right wing language so easily.

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    • You’re right. He’s good at capturing attention and giving it a focus, but the problem’s much larger. I find myself focusing on him, though, because larger problem is harder to write about. I’m just someone sitting on a couch with a laptop, relying on secondary sources. But you are absolutely right.

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  9. To be properly, inclusively racist in Britain, you pretty much have to be English. Not that there aren’t racists among the Scots and Welsh, but they themselves didn’t quite count as white (to the English) until relatively recently. Conquered peoples have tended not to. The Scots were a bunch of savages (see the Highland clearances), and the Welsh were small, dark, and talked funny — good for going down the mine, though. Neither did the Irish, of course, but then they’re not British.

    I’m reminded in a not-too-roundabout way of one of my favourite pieces of trivia: that the term “wog” originated in the fact that the Egyptian workers who dug the Suez Canal wore shirts stenciled “W.O.G.S.” on the back, for “Working On Government Service.” I’m not sure how long it took to generalise to “natives” in general.

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    • I never thought to wonder about the origin of the word, although it does seem like I should’ve. I think you’re right about English racism, although as far as I, as an outsider, can read the political tea leaves the right is making an effort to use Britishness as a way to unite Britain’s various nations about furriners–including, lately, furriners who’ve been in the country for generations but who’ll never be British enough to be British.

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      • The entire ruling class is desperate to distract voters from the utter havoc wrought by Brexit, and from their own culpability for that, and furriners are the obvious scapegoats. Poor Farage, having to keep moving farther and farther to the right in order to maintain Reform’s “brand!” They’re making it quite hard for him.

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        • Just to mention, almost half of us who voted on Brexit, voted to stay (and I at least am still angry about it). Farage has made an entire political career of scapegoating foreigners, even if many were white Europeans. I was told by someone who met him that he’s “charming”. Con artists are, that’s how they succeed. It doesn’t make them reliable, though.
          Jeannie

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          • Having–as I keep saying–been brought up on a different brand of racism, I was fascinated when I first moved here about how much racism was directed at eastern Europeans. Once they weren’t available, though, it’s amazing how easily some other chess piece could be moved onto that square. I’m sure there’s a moral in there somewhere, although I’m not sure what it is.

            You’re right, though: con men are charming. Just keep your hand on your wallet.

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            • “Foreign or ignorant” is the definition of “barbaros”, in Ancient Greek, giving us “barbarian” (via Latin)… For some “other” always means “mad, bad and dangerous”
              Jeannie

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              • Indeed–or as it was explained to me years ago, barbarian was everyone who sounded like they were saying “Bar bar bar bar bar.”

                Barbaro shows up in Spanish meaning barbarous, uneducated, assorted bad things–basically, rude. Years ago, in Mexico, I met an American woman named Barbara, and wondered how she dealt with that. I wonder if she didn’t have a middle name so she wouldn’t have to go around saying, “Hi, my name is Rude.”

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    • If I understand what you’re saying (and remember, I wrote the post a few weeks ago, during which time it gets a little hazy), then yes, I think withholding energy could starve the problem. But Farage has been very good at using the media, and the media has been sitting up and begging like nice little puppies. Once they decide he’s the story–and they seem to have done that– Well, first they create the momentum and then they add to it.

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  11. Which brings us to the current situation in the US. The right can say whatever they’d like as free speech, but when someone calls them out, the conservatives want to limit the ability of that criticism to be published.

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  12. Ah ! s JD Vance said when hundreds of Young Republicans postings of racist and antisemitic Tweets” (twits ?) became public “Boys will be boys.” Though some of the “boys” were well into their thirties. (that’s :thirties” referring to age, not IQ percentile.)

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    • From Open Democracy: “Our findings reveal that, despite claiming to represent a break with the current political establishment, Reform is largely funded by ex-Tory donors, who account for around a quarter of the £4.8m it has received in large donations (only those who give £11,180 or more in a year need to be declared to the Electoral Commission) since 2023.

      “We also found that Reform has an unusually high number of overseas backers with links to tax havens, which the party has publicly stated is part of its fundraising strategy.

      “While the party previously criticised Labour’s £4m donation from a Cayman Islands-controlled hedge fund, which openDemocracy revealed last year, more than 10% of its total donations are from sources with strong offshore ties.” https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/reform-uk-funders-nigel-farage-5-million-donations-fossil-fuels-tax-havens/

      The article says Reform hasn’t raised as much as it hoped to–tee hee. I also seem to remember reading something about donations in crypto currency, which makes them untraceable.

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