You should judge a man by the company he keeps. Or so they say. Whilst for most of us that approach may be a little unfair – I am sure we all have old friends we would rather not be judged by – the people a politician chooses to surround themselves with might serve as a barometer for their character and judgement.
What do supporters reveal about a politician?
But perhaps those who reveal most about what a politician represents to the public aren’t the people they choose to spend their time with, but rather the people who choose to spend their time supporting the politician.
To be properly informed, you need to examine the character of the countless, nameless men and women who sacrifice their time to support an individual they may never meet, but who they believe speaks for them.
And that is why a recent Labour Party report, highlighting a myriad of racist, misogynist, and downright bizarre views amongst Reform Party candidates at the upcoming local election, might tell us somethingabout the man at the top of the party – Nigel Farage.
Whilst it is true that all political parties contain a minority of members who do not reflect the party’s views and do not reflect well upon the party, these members are not usually handpicked to stand for elected office. And even when they are, they represent an aberration, some failing of a vetting process. But the sheer number of Reform candidates who have voiced views that would disqualify them from other major parties suggests that either the party overwhelmingly attracts people who express bigoted or racist views. Or is it deliberately following a policy of courting and amplifying the far-right in all its guises? Or perhaps both?
Reform and Farage are interchangeable concepts
Before we move on, let’s make one thing clear. In many people’s view, the Reform Party and Nigel Farage are interchangeable. Farage is the party’s leader, its figurehead and a public persona in his own right. A handful of middle-weight Tory defectors will not change that.
In fact, these revelations should be all the more damaging for Nigel Farage for the very fact that Reform seems to me at least to be less a political party and more, like all Farage’s previous political projects, a cult of personality led by him. A one-man band intent on implementing the worldview of its charismatic leader.
The dossier, titled ‘Reform Revealed – The People Behind Farage’, which was produced off the back of the Labour report, makes truly shocking reading. There is evidence of Islamophobia, racism, misogyny, and homophobia, with a healthy portion of madcap conspiracy theories, as well as a dash of NHS-bashing for good measure. Enough, one would think, to be a very damaging recipe for a political party about to head into an election.
Shocking but not surprising
But the truth is these revelations, whilst ‘shocking’, aren’t surprising and are unlikely to do much harm to Reform or Farage.
Now it is true that, as Farage has found himself in the quite incredible position of perhaps becoming Prime Minister, he has curtailed his own public statements, careful to walk the tightrope between acceptable right-wing patriotism and nationalist bigotry. He has also tried to distance himself from some of the more unpleasant (to me) figures of the far-right, including Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (Tommy Robinson), former Reform MP Rupert Lowe, and even, to some extent, US President Donald Trump.
However, it may be Farage’s desire to be taken seriously and seen as a potential statesman that makes the candidates highlighted in the report so useful to him.
As the country lurches to the right, and a national Labour government struggles to tackle some of the nation’s major issues, Farage has seen an opportunity to capitalise on Reform’s momentum. And to do so, Farage does not seem to be taking any action to stop his army of supporters saying the things a future Prime Minister simply can’t.
The support of their leader
And for their part, these supporters are emboldened, knowing that their leader will stand behind them, forever excusing the inexcusable (“free speech”) and forever ready to berate an overly sensitive ‘liberal’ media for being, in his view, out of touch with the common man.
Labour’s Communities Secretary, Steve Reed MP, mused on why Farage continued to support such candidates in the face of such offensive rhetoric. And whilst Farage’s need to keep his base happy and appeal to a population increasingly happy to blame all their ills on foreigners and ‘others’ offers a partial answer, the full answer may lie in ancient philosophy.
There is a term in philosophy called Occam’s razor, which, simply put, argues that the simplest, most obvious solution is probably the correct one.
So, why then would a man who was the architect of the overtly racist Breaking Point poster in the Brexit campaign be happy to oversee a party littered with racists? Why would a man who seemed to genuinely believe “a lot of people” referred to Chinese people as ‘Chinkys’ and suggested people might not be comfortable living next door to a Romanian family in London, be happy to see xenophobes and bigots elected representing his party?
Often the simplest answer is the correct one.
Reform Revealed – a look at some of the local election candidates
Explosive dossier reveals shocking opinions of some of Reform’s candidates
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