The language of fascism

The latest opinion poll in today’s Observer confirms that Britain, or more specifically England, is headed, seemingly inexorably, on a high speed handcart to hell, assuming that you regard far right nationalist politics as a real life version of the fictional hell as described in religious texts. There is only one way that nationalism ends and I am really concerned that this is inevitable terminus for the journey we are on.

Witness, if you can, the performance of Nigel Farage on Andrew Marr’ usually wet and windy politics show on the BBC. For once, Marr almost became the journalist he used to be and actually challenged Farage on a wide variety of policy matters. A seriously riled Farage behaved the only way he knows, which was to spout the language of Trump, complaining that he was not being asked the questions he wanted to be asked. Shouting across the studio at Marr was not a good look, railing at the BBC that until now has barely attempted to ask meaningful question of the hard right nationalists that have taken Britain to the cliff edge signposted disaster. Today’s poll shows that 34% of voters are going to vote for Farage in the EU elections.

Let us put this in context. 34% of voters intend to put their cross in a box for a political party that to all intents and purposes does not exist. There is no membership, there are no policies beyond the hardest of hard Brexits, no leader has been elected. The Brexit Party is Nigel Farage, the privately educated multimillionaire career politician who pretends to rage against ‘the elite’. The Brexit Party (Farage) refuses to say who is funding his party.

The main parties are in collapse. Theresa May’s party of government stands on 11% in the latest poll, Jeremy Corbyn’s pitiful hard left incarnation of Labour is polling at 21%. Between them, the two major parties of government are polling less than a brand new political party that is a hair’s breadth away from actual fascism. A country that was once respected all across the world is perilously close to donning jackboots and swastikas because this is where nationalism ends. Farage might not be an actual fascist – I think this is a matter of debate – but this is his direction of travel. Never in my lifetime has a far right party broken through quite like Farage’s Brexit Party.

The language of Farage is nationalistic in every sense. He talks of ‘betrayal’. of ‘treachery’ he described Theresa May’s Brexit deal as ‘like a surrender document of a nation that has been defeated at war.’ It is pure and simple far right rabble-rousing. In the absence of even barely competent leadership in the House of Commons, the foghorn voice of Farage is heard above everything in frightening clarity. The only version of ‘leadership’ on display comes from the far right, the small state, low tax English nationalists who would strip this country bare.

I am having to hold my nose at the forthcoming EU elections and vote Liberal Democrat for the first time in my life. Corbyn’s Labour is a vote for Brexit and if the three parties of Remain – Lib Dem, Change UK and Green – cannot agree a common ‘slate’ I shall go for the party most likely to secure some seats in the European parliament.

When almost a third of voters are prepared to vote for a huckster and a shyster like Farage, who speaks the language of fear and betrayal, using the rhetoric and soundbites of nationalism, it tells you that our politics is very badly broken. And as of now, I don’t see how it can be repaired.