The politics of appeasement

One thing that I hope emerges from the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that it brings home to people the country’s strong links with certain British people who purport to be patriotic. Given the litigious nature of some of the protagonists. a minor blogger like me needs to be careful in what I say, but allow me to use two words: Nigel Farage. To be clear, Farage has been, unquestionably, the most successful politician this country has seen in this generation. For a man who has never been elected to parliament, his effect on our country has been been profound, far more so than politicians who actually achieved high office. But I would argue that there is nothing good or positive about his legacy.

Let’s start with his politics. Farage is a paid-up member of the British establishment, the opposite to what he actually claims. Privately educated, a wealthy commodities trader, he is no man of the people. He is from the political right, somewhere between the far extremes of the Conservative party and the BNP. His friends in high places include the likes of Donald Trump, the standard bearer for the so-called ‘Alt right’ movement but he is also a fan boy of the fascist gangster who runs Russia, Vladimir Putin.

In 2014, Farage described Putin as “The politician I most admire” and we all know about Trump’s cosying up to Russia’s head gangster. He is also a supporter of the Leave EU group which helped Britain leave Europe, an organisation that, like Labour’s crank ‘leader’ Jeremy Corbyn, himself not a man known to condemn Russia, expressed public doubt that Russia was behind the Salisbury poisonings. Leave EU had boozy dinners at the Russian embassy, as you do. Leave EU’s chief donor, Arron Banks, is married to a Russian woman, which of course means nothing, m’lud.

At every stage of Russia’s invasion, Farage has noticeably failed to condemn Russia and Putin. His tweet following the actual invasion itself is instructive: “Well, I was wrong. Putin has gone much further than I thought he would. A consequence of EU and NATO expansion, which came to a head in 2014. It made no sense to poke the Russian bear with a stick. These are dark days for Europe.” He literally says the invasion was “a consequence of EU and NATO expansion”, which would be the democratic choices of independent countries. Farage is literally blaming the west for Putin’s murderous attack on an independent country. But his final comment is the most telling: “It made no sense to poke the Russian bear with a stick.” This is appeasement, pure and simple. Appeasement was the name given to Britain’s policy in the 1930s of allowing Hitler to expand German territory unchecked. For Neville Chamberlain, read Nigel Farage, although happily for us Farage never made it to Downing Street, even if the damage he has caused is near irreparable, certainly for this generation. Refusing to “poke the Russian bear” is literally no different from what Chamberlain argued in the 1930s.

The debate over EU membership is over, for the current generation, perhaps the one after, too. But let us remind ourselves of one of the biggest beneficiaries of Brexit: Putin’s Russia. It thrives on division and we know that Russian money has been accepted by Boris Johnson’s Conservative party. What was in it for Farage and co in order to drag Britain out of the EU, diminishing Britain’s influence and power, weakening its institutions and economy? Britain clearly hasn’t gained from Brexit – there are and never were benefits – so who did, why and what did they get for it?

Many of us who voted Labour in 2019, including me, did so for reasons of habit, principle and the fear of the alternative might be. I know that to vote for a party led by Jeremy Corbyn required I hold my nose. Here is a man who has never knowingly condemned Russia, let alone criticised them, when in his perverted world view the west is always to blame. Yet, by virtue of the political horseshoe effect, where the extremes so often meet, Corbyn’s ally is Farage, who even after Russia’s invasion still did not blame Putin but the west for not appeasing them. When people ask, quite rightly, “Can you imagine what would have happened today if Jeremy Corbyn was prime minister?” they can justifiably ask the same question about the likes of Farage. And if you haven’t worked out the answer, then you haven’t been paying attention.

The only thing that has prevented Farage from gaining elected power is that while everyone knows what he is against – Europe, NATO, the NHS, that kind of thing – no one knows what he is for. We know now. The Lord Haw Haw of our time, the nicotine-stained man frog, the friend of gangsters and fascists and a man for whom taking back control doesn’t mean taking it back for Britain. A traitor to his country.