Farage Backslides on Islam

(Photograph: Laurie Noble, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Twenty-four hours is famously a long time in politics. Presumably then, that makes a couple of months an eternity – particularly in the life of a newly-appointed MP. It was not so long ago after all, that Nigel Farage finally embraced Islamophobia; awarded his ‘I hate Islam’ badge live on-air by veteran Islamophobe Trevor Phillips. As I reported myself at the time, it looked like big Nige had at last come clean on the issue of Islam – 15 years too late perhaps, but welcome nonetheless.

Now however, there has been some serious backsliding – not just on the religion of peace, but on the perils of mass immigration itself. Could this be the same Nigel Farage who prides himself on putting the small boats crisis front and centre of the political agenda? Having gotten his feet wet, are they now getting a trifle cold too?

Interviewed last week by GB News’ US correspondent, Steven Edgington, Farage baulked at the notion that the decline of the white British population should be classed as a concern:

Edgington: “Do you think that immigration represents a major threat to Britain from a demographic perspective, so in the last 20 years the white British population has declined from 87% to 74% – is that a concern of yours?”

Farage: “No. No, that’s not a concern of mine. What is a concern of mine is in many cases the lack of integration, we see that writ large by the new kind of politics that’s emerging, sectarian voting along religious lines… no, I think the real problem is this: the population explosion.”

Apparently unsatisfied with that answer, Edgington probed a bit further:

Edgington: “You say you’re not concerned about demographic changes in Britain, but we have seen the fastest and most rapid decline of the white British population ever experienced in British history, and I think some people are concerned about that – cities that were once 90% white British are now majority ethnic minority: London, Leicester, Birmingham, so why isn’t that a concern of yours?”

Farage: “I am very concerned that we have whole areas of our towns and cities that are unrecognisable as being English, but they are not unrecognisable because of skin colour, they’re unrecognisable because of culture.”

Culture then, or civic nationalism it seems is where Farage is laying his hat these days. It’s a safe bet, unlikely to arouse accusations of xenophobia, but then again, it’s unlikely to be true, or indeed honest for that matter. Culture, race and heritage are inextricably linked – something the civic nationalists either mistake or wilfully ignore. Certainly it’s true that if you replace Brits with Poles or Swedes you don’t wind up with British culture, so skin colour per se is not the answer – but neither is ‘culture’ a fully satisfactory explanation. Is Farage seriously suggesting that if only Muslims, Africans, and Albanians would integrate more (presumably, by spending more time in church, at the football and down the boozer), Britain would remain the same? What roots precisely do these new arrivals in Britain have going back millennia? And how is that absence of roots not a function of ethnicity?

Evidently Farage can see the flaws in the culture argument, because he appeared to contradict himself only moments later:

Edgington: “If Britain is made up of a majority of immigrants and their descendants, is it the same country?”

Farage: “Well it’s not the same country, because you don’t actually have anything in common.”

Quite so!

It is unclear why Farage appears to be rowing back on previous statements. Perhaps he fears the full Starmer inquisition (notably throwing the ‘Tommy Robinson wing of politics’ under the bus once more, in order to distance himself from the ‘far-right’). Possibly he is still considering a future pact or even Tory leadership bid? Certainly, he is desirous of professionalising Reform UK, and making it a more mainstream political vehicle. Whatever the reason, this is a far cry from the Nigel Farage of old, whose mantra used to be ‘I want my country back!’, the man who famously felt ‘awkward’ on public transport filled with foreign voices, and a man who previously claimed illegal immigration was ‘damaging and dangerous to the British people’.

Farage is also the man who sparked outrage when he opined on the 2022 ONS figures, identifying that London, Birmingham and Manchester had become minority white cities:

There is a massive change in the identity of this country that is taking place through immigration.

Throughout the course of the interview, Farage was happy to tease us; flashing the odd bit of ‘far-right’ thigh, but careful not to go all the way. He was willing to lament Britain’s ‘societal decline’, acknowledged two-tier policing and justice, but he stopped short of answering whether Britain was ‘institutionally racist against white people’, and pooh-poohed Edgington’s notion of a ‘rising level of antiwhite hatred’. “I’m just concerned about a deeply divided society” was as far as he would go on the matter.

The strangest part of the interview was when Edgington moved on to the topic of mass deportations. After umming and ahhing over both the impossibility of the project (and the possibility), Farage was asked by Edgington whether mass deportations were an ‘ambition’ of his, and this was his response:

No, I’m not going to get dragged down the route of mass deportations or anything like that. I think it’s pretty clear there are a lot of people that have come who should not be given leave to remain, but it’s a heck of a job… If I say I support mass deportations, you know that’s all anybody would talk about for the next 20 years, so it’s pointless even going there… It’s a political impossibility to deport hundreds of thousands of people – we simply can’t do it.

While naturally I understand the nuances of political discouse and the fact that Farage isn’t hellbent on setting up open goals for his opponents, this level of defeatism and more importantly, straightforward deceit is a bad look. It’s obvious from the tenor of the discussion that Farage does support mass deportations, at least in principle. Arguing that you cannot promulgate that view for fear of a backlash is weak, and in stark contrast to the straight-talking that has been Farage’s stock-in-trade for the past 25 years.

Most regrettable still, was Farage’s apparent change of heart on Islam. Prior to the general election, this is what he said to Trevor Phillips:

I am afraid, I found some of the recent surveys saying 46 per cent of British Muslims support Hamas, support a terrorist organisation that is proscribed in this country… What is interesting is that this prime minister is building up far more of that population than anybody before in history.

When asked by Edgington about radical Islam, post-election Farage seems to have mellowed:

I am convinced that the vast majority of British Muslims are worried about the growth of radical Islam – it’s not an argument you hear very often, but I believe it absolutely to be true. I am very worried about the number of 18–24-year-old young men who think jihad is acceptable, and I did talk about this over the course of the last few months. I am deeply worried about that, but I know that the people really worried about that are the moderate, law-abiding, taxpaying, peace-abiding Muslim majority that live in our country.

And, as to the solution to extremism:

I have no doubt that, you know, this is going to be a major struggle that we’re going to face for decades to come; it is a major, major problem, and that’s why we need the peace-loving Muslim majority on our side. We have to try; we really desperately have to try.

The ‘vast majority’ of peace-loving British Muslims may be wishful thinking on Farage’s part, because unfortunately the statistics don’t seem to support his argument.

As a longstanding supporter of Farage, this is by far the most confused and self-contradictory I have seen him, and it’s hard to conclude his performance here is anything other than damaging to the Reform brand. Failing to stand firm on issues such as deportation, the threat of radical Islam or the decline of the white British population will not only anger his core vote, but is desperately unlikely to curry favour with the left-wing, and / or Muslims themselves.

How damaging remains to be seen. Last Friday’s Reform Party Conference went down a treat with the party faithful, and Farage was on particularly good form. Like him or loathe him, there’s no question where the energy currently resides in Westminster:

For genuine conservatives however, Farage’s slip-sliding may prove a concern in the long run. Having appointed ‘moderate Muslim’ multi-millionaire Zia Yusuf as Reform Chairman in order to ‘professionalise’ the party, Farage may feel he now needs to tread carefully in the political centre ground. For once, this could turn out to be a miscalculation.

 

Frank Haviland is the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West, and writes a Substack here.

 

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