Farage

My views about Nigel Farage and UKIP are incredibly similar to Leon’s from channel fours hit show: ‘GoggleBox’. When watching ‘Nigel Farage: Who Are You?’, Leon could not help but turn to his wife as exclaim: ‘I know who he is – he’s an intolerable idiot’. I could not have agreed more.

There is a common misconception that Farage was educated at his local state school – and this is something that he and his PR team have tapped into. Farage is constantly portrayed as having a pint with the locals, or smoking in his office. They’re desperate to have us believe that he is ‘one of us’, when in reality – he isn’t. Although he frequently talks out against both the Conservative and Labour party for having almost exclusively privately educated MPs, Farage himself was educated at Dulwich College in London, and many of his MPs were also privately educated. In all honestly his ‘man of the people’ selling point is utter bollocks.

He recently appeared on ‘Have I Got News For You’ where they played a special game of ‘Fruitcakes or Loonies’. The presenter read out quotes from prolific UKIP MPs and the panellists were asked to vote either way. Here are some of the things that UKIP MP’s and prolific member’s believe to be true:

David Silvester believes that the flooding we experienced this winter was caused by the legalistation of gay marriage. Whilst Jan Zolyniak and Dr Julia Gasper believe that there is a link between homosexuality and paedophilia which we’re all ignoring. Douglas Denny just simply wants them to leave him alone because “they’re not normal”. Godfrey Bloom rather famously wondered why we give so much aid to “bongo-bongo land” and believes all women who do not clean behind their fridges are “sluts”.

Upon hearing these crackpot theories from members of his own party, Nigel just laughed.

The subject of women, and how little they’re worth, is a common theme amongst the UKIP party. Stuart Agnew believes we don’t have the ambition to succeed because our biological urge to reproduce gets in the way. Treasurer of the party, Stuart Wheeler, told the BB4 Radio Four listeners that women just aren’t as good as men at “poker, bridge, or chess”. The UKIP Kent candidate, Geoffrey Clark, in his personal manifesto has stated “mothers with foetuses detected to have Down’s syndrome and other disabilities should be forced into a compulsory abortion”. Nigel Farage himself believes that women must understand they are “worth less” when they decide to have children, and it is essentially our fault that there is a pay gap because maternity leave makes us “less valuable”. The attitude of ‘not our problem, love’ and utter intolerance that comes from the party about matters like this is absolutely sickening. 

Farage’s big policy is that we ought to leave the EU, and he rather famously won a debate against Nick Clegg on the matter. Personally, I’m undecided. I see both the positives and the negatives of remaining in the EU. However, what alarms me is the brash and arrogant nature that Farage seems to be going about it. During the programme ‘Nigel Farage: Who Are You?’ we witnessed Farage addressing an EU assembly and the president. He points out members of the audience and claimed they look “frightened” and “as if they’ve seen a ghost”, and then, the icing on the cake he personally asks Van Rompuy: “who the hell do you think you are?”. People have applauded him for being so forthright, and whilst that may be a good quality to have – it is not to address a public audience. Acting like a total bellend does not win any brownie points with me, and I’m quite surprised so many people were impressed by his behaviour. He was rude, arrogant and fundamentally: a total dick. That is not how you successfully negotiate on an international level.

I’m a little surprised that so many of my peers are in favour of him. In all honesty: if I see one more person on my newsfeed claim that Nigel Farage is a man of the British people I swear to god I'm about to leave this country. He does not represent me, or what I believe.