“If Clacton vote for the £5million pound conman again they know they will never see him again just like last time. He will be straight off to his private members club with his billionaire friends and donors to follow the money,” says a man on threads. This is all true. Nigel Farage is a career politician, a grifter, a member of the establishment that operates in order to keep the lower orders in check. He has no answers to the country’s problems, beyond blaming Johnny Foreigner. Clacton is not a wealthy place, indeed the Jaywick district is one of the poorest areas of the entire country. Farage, in office, would make their lives even worse, scrapping their NHS, stopping their benefits, forcing them into poverty pay jobs, having abolished the minimum wage and means-tested pensions, yet still they vote for him. Why?
If you are fortunate to be ‘comfortably off’ financially, as I am, at least relatively speaking, for the first time in my life, it may be hard to understand the dynamic. Farage, a privately educated multimillionaire city trader who owns five homes, claims he speaks against the so-called establishment, but in truth he could not be more of an establishment figure. However, he is also the smartest politician of his generation. Farage knows how to find and tickle the G spot of the British public, or at least a substantial part of it, including, especially even, those who have the least. What he gets is a justified sense of grievance among millions of people who feel left behind.
Farage’s main shtick is to blame migrants for the country’s ills. he amplifies the myth that somehow we, the indigenous population (which given my ancestry cannot include me), are being swamped and invaded by brown and black-skinned people especially those who live in areas where there are few brown and black-skinned people actually live. Migrants are, so the story goes, living the life of Riley, showered with untold riches by governments of all colours – free homes, free mobile phones and of course free money – while the rest of us live in worn out sink estates, lacking basic community facilities and even shops, living on poverty wages, inadequate benefits and few opportunities for getting on in life. The unpalatable truth for some is that actually those referred to as ‘the left behind’ do actually have a point. They have been left behind.
I don’t want to engage in some kind of patronising spiel about how I have special knowledge of left behind Britain other than to say that actually I do. Many of the jobs I have done, both paid and voluntary, have exposed me to the cold reality of our divided country. In our fair city of Bristol, you can walk just a couple of streets from one area to another to experience huge differences in wealth and the lack of it. One way of describing it – and I know I should be careful in how I present this argument – is the difference between those who work and volunteer at food banks and those who depend on them. That is not to say that everyone who works at a food bank is paying the higher rate of tax or that everyone who visits a food bank is permanently in poverty, but I have found the contrast to be a window on the world.
The main parties, but especially the Conservatives, have enabled inequality and grievance to grow. Most of our problems began with Margaret Thatcher, whose poisonous legacy endures to this day. It was Thatcher who sold the industries and utilities we the people owned to the rich and powerful, who have made hundreds of billions of pounds that would otherwise be ours and potentially used to improve our lives. It was Thatcher who sold off council houses and never replaced them, preparing the way for a housing market that excludes millions of people who may never even get on the housing ladder. It was Thatcher who cut taxes for the rich and transferred them to the poor. It was Thatcher who trashed and destroyed public services. The Labour government from 1997 to 2010 did much to restore public services and make Britain a better place to live, but in 2010 the Conservatives returned to power in a vicious austerity government in which, disgracefully, the Liberal Democrats took jobs and essentially took Britain backwards again, certainly in terms of equality and opportunity. And under Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, the ludicrous Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak the number of food banks went from 35 to over 2800.
Nigel Farage will return to Westminster next week when he defeats a man dressed as a bin in a by election he himself caused, some say to avoid scrutiny of the millions donated to him by dodgy sources that he somehow failed to declare. And he will be elected by people who are among the poorest in the land because they believe he is on their side. The establishment politicians have let them down, goes the argument, so why not give Farage a chance? He couldn’t do any worse, could he?
Given that Farage’s company Reform Party UK Ltd, which masquerades as a political party, offers a more extreme version of Thatcherism, it is hard to see how they would improve the lives of the disenfranchised. And that’s because it wouldn’t. Slashing taxes for the rich, the scrapping of public services including – especially – the NHS, slashing benefits (which should ring alarm bells for pensioners, as well as the sick and disabled, given that the state pension is actually a state benefit) and removing both basic human rights and workers rights would seem strange things for poorer people to vote for, but that is the paradox of modern politics. The established parties have allowed the mess to happen on their watch and unless they offer not just hope but action, the charismatic snake oil salesman that is Nigel Farage will tempt people to vote for change, if only for change sake.
I repeat, there is nothing to be gained by attacking people who have lost hope with the status quo and see a far right political party, owned, financed and run by some of the wealthiest people in the country as a genuine alternative. People need hope, but more than that they need hope that they can believe in, hope that their lives and those of their families can be better; a fairer, more equal country where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. Clacton’s next MP, Nigel Farage, will not bring the people any of these things, indeed he will likely seek to make things even worse for them. But desperate people take desperate measures and Britain’s slimiest politician knows that only too well.
Action not words is the answer. Without it, extremes will prosper and inaction by government is one reason why are where we are today.
