Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: general election, nigel farage

Four Days To The British General Election- The Time I Met Nigel Farage

In the run up to the British General Election, I recall the first and only time I met with Nigel Farage. And, yes, Enoch Powell was involved.

Rich Johnston, founder of Bleeding Cool, is a British political cartoonist. This is the third of several columns in the run-up to the General Election being held by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on July 4th.

Picture the scene. It is the run-up to Christmas 2020, in full lockdown. I am attending a socially distanced and ventilated business meeting following official guidance which happens to be in a pub. The pub is meant to be open-air, but it turns out it really isn't. Oh and Nigel Farage is in that pub. I should have left earlier, even anywhere was Covid Ground Zero it was probably there. But I take the opportunity to chat with him. He was familiar with my cartoons, said I should draw him uglier (something I have attended to since) and then proceeded to tell me all the great politicians buy original art of their cartoons. I presumed he was going to namedrop Kenneth Clarke or Kenneth Baker, two politicians famous for doing that, but no, he told me how he had gone around to Enoch Powell's place and was dazzled by his cartoon collection.

Even for Nigel Farage to go from zero to Enoch Powell in under sixty seconds was impressive. For those not familiar, a firebrand Conservative minister, known as being a great orator, delivered a speech speaking out against the then-recent Race Relations Act, predicting violence "I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood" and stating that "in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man". Known as the Rivers Of Blood speech, it saw Powel castigated, ejected from the Conservative Party and the go-to for many a racist to say "Enoch was right" for decades to come. Some people defend him saying he was a realist, not a racist, but I also recall he told a TV station he was doing an interview for, who employed one black female journalist, that he wouldn't enter the building if "that black girl" was present. She was sent to cover a distant story instead.

But back to Nigel. He is a remarkably engaging man. He likes both talking at people and talking to people. He enjoys the cut and thrust of debate, he enjoys the presence of people who disagree vehemently with him, he's always looking to learn something new – as long as he can twist it into backing up what he already believes. And he's very good at that. I made my excuses and left.

A former banker, he campaigned for Britain to leave Europe for decades, joining the UKIP party, which he moved from its left-wing roots to taking right-wing positions on many topics, including leaving the EU. He stood and campaigned for over a decade, building up a base, as a Member of the European Parliament, before he was able to trade support for the Tories against a referendum. Everyone, including Nigel Farage, expected to lose it. But he won,

He continued to horse trade support for the Tories, stating his new party, Reform Party, would not stand candidates against Brexit-supporting MPs in exchange for ensuring a harder, faster Brexit. But this time around, he thought that enough was enough; the Tories hadn't Brexxitted hard enough, been anti-immigration enough, been anti-woke enough, and they still tolerated an independent license-funded BBC. So he decided to stand as an MP again in Clacton, the seat most likely to return a Reform Party candidate and stood candidates in every seat across the country. And because every seat, all 65o of them, operates a first-past-the-post system, he will ensure that Conservative support is deprived across the country, that the Labour Party returns to power with a massive record-breaking majority, even if Reform only gets one or two seats. And then, as we previously mentioned, take over the Conservative Party, officially or as part of a split, and drag it rightwards. And then stand to be Prime Minister in 2029. This is the plan.

This week, there were a couple of hiccups, though. Channel 4 News secretly filmed the views of certain Reform activists in Clacton calling the Prime Minister racist slurs and suggesting that we machine gun immigrants crossing the channel. In response, Nigel Farage disagreed but then accused Channel 4 of planting the activists with actors, calling it a stitch-up. I mean, it was, Channel 4 went out looking for such views to report, but no one really thinks that they would have had to use actors to get them. Apart from a couple of tame Reform-friendly journalists who look more and more ridiculous with each statement, finally bringing Trumpist and Fox News style reporting to the UK.

Of course, it is also possible that Farage will not win his seat. At which point we will expect a Trumpist election denial call as well. But they do have a point about the British electoral system. Here's how it works,

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is split into 650 seats, each of which returns one MP to Parliament. The MP is the one who gets the most votes in that individual constituency. A government is made of a party that can command a majority of MPs, and its leader is the Prime Minister.

Parties with geographically focused support get MPs. Those parties whose support is spread out don't. If you get 4% of the vote, spread evenly, you get no MPs. If all those voters are in Scotland, you get all 50 MPs. Practically, this has meant that if Labour or Conservatives can get around 40% of the vote, they can get 60% of MPs and can form an effective, working government without having to deal with any of the other small percentage parties.

Attempts to change this over the years have floundered. We had a referendum on this in 2011 and chose not to. But then it was the smaller parties on the left and left of centre who were pushing for the Alternative Vote system. After this election, where Reform will (probably) get around 17-20% of the vote and no seats, the push will come from the right as well. When you have half the electorate not adequately represented by the electoral map, that may be enough to change things. Now the Labour returned with a massive majority, maybe as much as 80% of the seats based on 38% of the votes, may not be minded to push for it. But Labour also values things being fair, so enough Labour folk may push for it as well.

At which point, if we get proper Proportional Representation, we will start to get actual fascist and communist MPs, rather than just what people call MPs they don't like. Greens, Flat Earthers, Islamists, Evangelical Christians and Jedis will get elected seats.

Tomorrow… Keir Starmer, the Man Who Took On McDonald's.

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