I felt physically sick this morning when Nigel Farage left the stage at the Ukip conference in Bournemouth to the accompaniment of David Bowie’s Heroes. After yet another angry, divisive, bitter, bigoted and beyond borderline racist speech, the thoroughly modern Mosley left the stage. I wonder what Bowie himself would have made of it?
Apart from a wobbly period in the 1970s, when a drug-fuelled Bowie appeared to worship Hitler, something he later regretted and for which he apologised, Bowie was a long-time campaigner against racism and fascism, using his song videos to make the point.
Heroes was, of course, the story of two lovers, one from east Berlin, the other from the west. Many believe the song was a major catalyst for bringing down the Berlin wall, ending years of painful division. A song about love being used and exploited by Farage, himself a pedlar of hate and division.
The idea that Farage is in any way a hero is lost on me. A privately educated rich ex merchant banker with a deep hatred of all things foreign, his legacy is one of poison. It was Farage and his far right fellow travellers who eventually spooked David Cameron into holding a referendum about our EU membership and it was Farage who turned the whole debate into a 1930s style debate, such as you could call it a debate, about immigrants, all of whom were scroungers and rapists. I cannot separate the politics of Ukip from the politics of the BNP. They are merely the BNP with blazers.
Ironically, it was perceived by the Tories that Ukip was more of a threat to them than it was Labour. Under the lumpen leadership of Ed Miliband and the chaotic destruction of Labour by Jeremy Corbyn, those to rise up to support the populist right wing were working class voters in Labour heartlands. Now, having stirred the pot, divided the country down the middle and helped take us out of the EU, Farage has stepped to one side, supposedly. I don’t believe it.
Playing Heroes at a far right rally is virtually sacrilegious. I hope Bowie’s family condemn unreservedly its use by such a hateful man. No way could Farage be a hero, just for one day.
