Farrukh Dhondy | As Britain Softens Stance On Europe, Farage Takes A Dangerous Gamble
Last week Farage declared that if Reform won the next election, he would ban all immigration and asylum seekers from the country for his full five-year term, and in addition would use parliamentary powers to deport thousands of asylum seekers already in the country. The announcement is — yes, no prizes for having guessed it — aimed at what Farage believes is the tried and tested xenophobia of the British voting public
“Is there no peace from
Memories that take their toll?
Answer comes there none!
Is there no cease from
Thoughts that your heart can’t control?
— Moon eclipse your sun!”
— From The High Coup by Bachchoo
Does material self-interest trump xenophobia? This may seem, gentle reader an abstract and perhaps idiotic question, but in today’s UK politics it’s an essential one.
Allow me to explain. Polling in Britian today indicates that the Labour Party’s popularity under the new PM Andy Burnham is six points ahead of the closest Opposition party, Nigel Farage’s Reform. The Tory Party, for centuries the main governing or Opposition, trail a little behind, though its current leader Nigerian-born Kemi Badenoch, imitates some of Reform’s right-wing policies to win back votes from it.
Though right-wingers have called for a snap general election, on the grounds that Burnham does not have a countrywide mandate and occupies No. 10 Downing Street through an internal Labour Party coup, he is, of course, constitutionally secure at that address (even though, with his professed focus on distributing power from London to the regions, he insists it’s not his prime residence). Burnham has repeatedly ruled out a snap election and insists he will see out this parliamentary term, till 2029. Then the country goes to the polls.
Reform has, in the last few weeks, acquired £72 million to spend, primarily, on campaigns towards that election. It has begun to spend the money, donated by two crypto-billionaires resident outside Britain, on just that — with far-right campaign policies.
Last week Farage declared that if Reform won the next election, he would ban all immigration and asylum seekers from the country for his full five-year term, and in addition would use parliamentary powers to deport thousands of asylum seekers already in the country. The announcement is — yes, no prizes for having guessed it — aimed at what Farage believes is the tried and tested xenophobia of the British voting public.
But is he right? He was one of the chief advocates of Brexit — the 2016 referendum to leave the European Union. While other advocates of “Leave”, such as Boris Johnson, made some lying promises about economic gain, Farage relied on “keep Johnny Foreigner far hence” as he’s corroding British culture, life and… through clear implication “taking our jobs, sponging off welfare and stealing our men and women as sexual partners”.
Despite the 52% vote for Brexit in 2016, most of which I attribute to xenophobia or to “take back control”, which appeals to the British as “let’s make our own laws and not be governed by Johnny Foreigner”, things have changed.
Brexit has damaged British exports; bureaucracy for trade has gone through the roof and now the population is waking up to the fact that it has actually affected the cost of living. Recent polls declare a vast majority of voters are now in favour of — if not rejoining the EU immediately — negotiating better terms tantamount to steps towards, at least, associate membership.
Burnham’s government has digested this positive statistic but is, so far, being strategically cautious. Andy has announced his intention to renegotiate certain terms of Britain’s trade, security and co-operation on immigrations with the European Union. He intends to negotiate immediately on these three fronts, without committing to a referendum on rejoining the EU until such an intention enters the Labour election manifesto in 2019.
This renegotiation is calculated to put a greater distance between Labour and Reform, who have stated that they want to withdraw further from any European connection by leaving the European Court of Human Rights. Declaring an intention to get concessions from Europe will certainly wrong-foot Farage and gang.
Of course, Burnham understands that declaring an intent to rejoin the EU will again bring to the forefront the question of the free movement of European citizens. Reviving the idea of Europeans coming here freely.
The statistics should, and I think do, indicate that material self-interest has for now, trumped British xenophobia.
Farage has no doubt absorbed the poll’s results. He reacted by making his xenophobic trump card even more severe — again xenophobia and even racism. Hence the pledge to stop all immigration, to use the Royal Navy to turn back or perhaps even apprehend or drown asylum seekers’ rubber dinghies as they cross the English Channel and attempt to land on British shores.
Farage realises that in order to seem like a party of government, he ought to put some distance between Reform and open thuggery, and he consequently condemns the few hundred masked men who gathered in Dover and Portsmouth to protest the arrival across the Channel of asylum seekers. He doesn’t condemn their intentions — only their masks. Even as Reform’s ads condemn these wearing masks, they spend double the ads on social media and other campaigns to ban the wearing of burkhas and niqab in public.
Their head of campaign strategy is one Zia (‘Uncle Tom’?) Yusuf — not really a Chitpawan Brahman or devout Christian. I mention that because he once resigned from Reform over some supposed insult to Islam but rejoined after 36 hours.
It is likely that the EU will provide Burnham with concessions which will help him to campaign in 2029 for full membership, which the voters of Britain will endorse, leaving Reform to its impotent xenobigotry.