Opinion

Feeney on Friday: Why would anyone want the endorsement of Nigel Farage?

Unionists fail to understand that right-wing carpetbaggers come here not to support them but to promote an extremist English agenda

Brian Feeney

Brian Feeney

Historian and political commentator Brian Feeney has been a columnist with The Irish News for three decades. He is a former SDLP councillor in Belfast and co-author of the award-winning book Lost Lives

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has been offered additional private security by the Home Office after various objects have been thrown at him while on the campaign trail
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage reacts after something is thrown towards him on the campaign trail (Danny Lawson/PA)
By Brian Feeney

Jim Allister declared he was “disappointed” that Nigel Farage had endorsed two DUP candidates, Ian Óg and the party’s conference clown, Sammy Wilson.

Wilson, however, responded that Allister must be very embarrassed because it proved the TUV/Reform alliance is “non-existent”.

This latest fiasco in the DUP-TUV civil war in unionism is a perfect illustration of the parallel universe Alice in Wonderland that unionist politics is.

Think about it. It’s the world through the wrong end of a telescope.

Would you not be disappointed to be endorsed by Nigel Farage? Maybe shocked, horrified, are better words to be endorsed by someone whose racist slurs and tropes have repelled people in Britain.

His appalling 2016 poster with the infamous caption ‘Breaking Point’ showed hundreds of refugees walking through a countryside, implying they were heading towards England. Farage claimed it “transformed British politics”.

Nigel Farage unveils Ukip’s ‘breaking point’ poster in the EU referendum campaign
Nigel Farage unveils the controversial ‘Breaking Point’ poster during the EU referendum campaign (Philip Toscano/PA)

George Osborne, then Chancellor, said it was reminiscent of literature of the 1930s. Of course, like most of Farage’s claims and assertions, the poster was a fake. The refugees were in Slovenia heading to Germany.

More recently, on June 4, Farage claimed there are “streets in Oldham where no-one speaks English”. The newly elected leader of Oldham council, Arooj Shah, said his comments were “as stupid and inaccurate as they are offensive”.

She added: “As Reform and the Conservative Party go to war with each other for a tiny slice of the British electorate, trying to antagonise and provoke hate and division to grab a handful of votes, residents in Oldham want answers to the real issues facing people today.”

Why would you want the endorsement of a character like Farage? What would it say about you?

Ian Knox cartoon 11/6/24: Nigel Farage has endorsed the DUP's Ian Paisley and Sammy Wilson in the general election despite Reform UK's pact with the TUV
Cartoonist Ian Knox's take on Nigel Farage endorsing the DUP's Ian Paisley and Sammy Wilson in the general election despite Reform UK's pact with the TUV

Sammy Wilson says Allister must be embarrassed by Farage dissing the TUV/Reform deal. It never occurred to Wilson to be embarrassed that Farage supported him.

Then again both Wilson and Ian Óg have proved themselves to be unembarrassable by loudly proclaiming their support for the most dangerous liar in America, the execrable Donald Trump. Maybe they’re hoping for a trip up to his penthouse in his gold lift with their hero Farage.

Poor, jilted Allister doesn’t seem to realise the similarities between his own unionist splinter group, TUV, and Farage’s Reform party.

Jim Allister and Richard Tice
Then Reform UK leader Richard Tice and TUV leader Jim Allister pictured at the TUV conference in Co Antrim after the two parties struck an electoral partnership to run agreed candidates in Northern Ireland

Yes, of course there’s the same fantastical nonsense about the EU being a colonial power.

More pertinent is the role each party will play in next month’s general election. Farage is out to destroy the Conservative Party. He says he doesn’t want to join it, rather its defeated remnants will join him.

Allister is out to destroy the DUP for selling the pass on the dreaded Irish Protocol and leaving him out on the streets and in Orange halls.

The Tories fear votes for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party will hand seats to Labour
Nigel Farage is out to destroy the Conservative party (James Manning/PA)

In both cases, Reform and TUV, what’s more likely going to happen is that they will succeed, in Reform’s case electing Labour MPs and in the TUV’s case, electing Alliance MPs. Few if any Reform candidates will be elected in England and no TUV candidates here, but their objective is to damage their right-wing enemy, Conservative or DUP.

All in all, it’s another example of the fatal attraction the far-right in English politics holds for unionists.

After all, when the progenitor of English racism and ethnonationalism, Enoch Powell, was repudiated and kicked out of the Conservative Party, the Ulster Unionists welcomed him with open arms.

Why do unionists not understand that right-wing carpetbaggers come here not to support unionists but to promote an extremist English agenda?

He used South Down not as a platform to promote unionism, but as a base from which to advance his antediluvial racist, imperialist agenda in Westminster, and with some success it should be said.

Former Conservative cabinet minister Enoch Powell laughing with his wife Pamela (wearing rosette) and supporters during his election campaign as an United Ulster Unionist candidate for South Down
Former Conservative cabinet minister Enoch Powell during his election campaign as an United Ulster Unionist candidate for South Down (PA/PA)

Why do unionists not understand that right-wing carpetbaggers come here not to support unionists but to promote an extremist English agenda?

If Farage turned up in a town in Scotland or Wales he’d be run out on a rail.

Allister should take the opportunity to repudiate him.