Nigel Farage’s immigrant bashing speech on Tuesday presented a fantasy of figures pulled out of thin air and cited some highly dubious scaremongering statistics to support his weaponisation of the immigrant/refugee issue.
Let's look at some facts. The reality is that no refugee has ever taken away vital funding for the NHS in order to give tax cuts to the better off. No refugee has ever defunded education in order to boost spending on armaments. No refugee ever lied and deceived about the UK’s relationship with Europe and made false promises that never had any chance of being delivered. No refugee was ever responsible for devastating the British economy’s trading links with its closest partners and then refused to acknowledge the harm and job losses that they caused. It’s not refugees who are responsible for rising prices for food and energy or the widening gap between rich and poor. It's not refugees who have underfunded practically every institution and item of infrastructure in the country for years.
Having lied about the problems of the UK being created by bureaucrats in Brussels and falsely promising a golden age for Britain once it had cut its ties to the European Union, Farage is attempting to repeat the same con trick, only now the enemies are refugees and human rights laws.
Farage’s speech was predictably broadcast by a fawningly uncritical UK media which is increasingly treating him as a prime minister in waiting. The speech featured entirely made up figures about how much his mass deportation plan was going to cost and/or save. He insisted that his plan would cost £10 billion over five years, although a very similar plan put forward by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe was costed at £47.5 billion over five years. Farage predictably waved away questions asking him to explain the difference. He has previously said Reform would use RAF sites in remote locations to house and deport people, but has repeatedly refused to say where they would be, meaning that likely costs are impossible to assess. We are supposed to take Farage’s word for it that his plan will only cost £10 billion but will “save tens and possibly hundreds of billions of pounds.” Quite how it’s going to save all this money he didn’t say. Nige doesn’t deal in reality, he deals in racist jibes and English victimhood.
Farage proposes to introduce these mass deportations by withdrawing the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). As well as leaving the ECHR, Farage seeks to repeal the Human Rights Act and disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention and the UN Convention Against Torture as well as the Council of Europe’s anti-trafficking convention.
Make no mistake, when a government repeals Human Rights legislation and withdraws from international treaties on human rights that have been in place for many decades, it’s not going to use its new powers solely against refugees and asylum seekers. It’s the human rights of all of us which are on the line. It’s the employment and civil rights of all of us which will be threatened.
Leaving the ECHR runs a coach and horses through the Good Friday Agreement which underpins peace in Northern Ireland. Not that Farage will have considered that, or cared about it if he had.
He ignored questions about whether he was concerned that he could deport people to countries where they might face torture or death. He doesn’t care. His supporters lap up the cruelty and cheer it on. For them the cruelty is the point. But, as Trump’s MAGA voters in America have been finding out the hard way, the populist hard right only looks after the interests of the rich and powerful.
It’s not just the British media which has normalised Farage’s vile language and his talk of “invasion”, the Labour party under Starmer is complicit in it too. Starmer has refused to condemn the scaremongering and rabble rousing language used by Farage and there is no sign that he is going to make a positive case for immigration.
British politics have become extremely ugly. Blatant lies and the demonisation of minorities are the order of the day. Compassion has been replaced by contempt. The UK is headed to a cess pit of hatred and bigotry in which marginalised minorities are demonised and scapegoated for the sins of others. Extravagant language? I don't think so and I'd love to be proven wrong.
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