Writing about Nigel Farage is a frequent quagmire for me.
On one hand, Farage wants publicity, good or bad. He will eat marsupial testicles and record a personalised birthday greeting for you for cash. He would happily turn up at the opening of a fucking envelope if it meant a few more column inches to spout his xenophobic rhetoric.
Farage thrives on attention.
On the other hand, the relentless over-platforming of this reactionary relic by the BBC and the frothing right-wing press leads to a toxic drip-feed of disinformation that poisons the well of public discourse.
And this must be challenged.
The BBC: obsessed with facilitating Nigel Farage
The BBC is a bloated behemoth of “public service” broadcasting, funded by your license fees like a reluctant sugar daddy to the establishment.
Once said to be the gold standard of impartiality, the BBC has treated Farage like everyone’s favourite pint-sinking hero, shoving him onto every screen from Question Time to The One Show with the reverence of a visiting dignitary.
Back in 2019, while Labour and the Lib Dems scrapped for scraps, Farage’s Brexit Party — literally a one-trick pony with zero seats — got more airtime than actual governing parties.
Farage’s grinning mug was disproportionately plastered across BBC News’ Election coverage, despite his utter irrelevance to parliamentary arithmetic. This isn’t impartiality and balance, it’s an infatuation and a willingness to peddle poison as populism to the masses.
The BBC’s Farage obsession normalises his dog-whistle drivel as if it’s some sort of quirky pub banter rather than the kindling for societal arson, and whilst I hold Keir Starmer entirely responsible for the rise of Reform UK, the establishment media are responsible for the rise of Nigel Farage.
GBeebies and the Daily Mail
Then there’s the right-wing media circus. GBeebies News (Farage TV), the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, and a snarling pack of Murdoch minions deify Farage as their messiah of manufactured outrage.
Once you get past the fact these rancid outlets aren’t actually newsrooms but megaphones for the 1%, churning out dishonest headlines that make Mein Kampf look like a balanced op-ed, the rest just seems to fall into place.
I’ve only ever caught GB News a couple of times, and I have to say, any media outlet that allows Eamonn Holmes a prime time slot to peddle his conspiracy theories and rant on about the woke bogeyman while ignoring the food bank queues snaking around austerity-ravaged estates really shouldn’t be considered to be a credible source of news.
From ‘national treasure’ to the deluded cunt on some extremist satellite news channel. Nice work, Eamonn. You will be flogging fluffy moon boots on QVC, soon enough.
The Daily Mail also has an unhealthy Farage fixation. They peddle a barrage of headlines framing him as the saviour from the liberal elites which is irony so thick you could cut it with a knife.
This amplification isn’t accidental but a structural stitch-up that is intended to drown out the voices from the margins.
A ratings and revenue winner for the corporate media
Trade unionists fighting zero-hour contract hell, migrants that are building our economy, or the committed climate activists who are warning of the catastrophic inferno we’re sleepwalking into, the establishment media wants to silence you so they can provide a feedback loop of Farage’s fascism-lite.
Farage gets the mic because he brings chaos and a ratings rocket for ad breaks and clicks, while the left’s vision for solidarity and systemic change gets the cold shoulder.
These spineless establishment sycophants are propping up a gammon-faced gambler whose “populism” is just fash-talk for dismantling workers’ rights and flogging the NHS to hedge funds.
The over-platforming of Farage really isn’t free speech. The corporate media elite are shifting the Overton window so far right that even the most drab of centrist policies sound like a Bolshevik fever dream.
Thank fucking God we have the Canary. We are the perfect example of how the media should platform the supposed powerless, rather than the pint-pullers. If you’re not informing a democracy, you’re undermining one.
We must unite against Farage
This past week saw Farage pitching Reform UK’s “pro-business” manifesto in the City of London, dialing back his many wild, uncosted promises to try and sound vaguely responsible, but in reality, Farage is simply rebranding fascism-lite for the stock exchange.
While the £90 billion tax bonfire might’ve been placed on the back burner, Farage still thinks that under-25 year old workers should be exploited even more than what they are already. These Thatcherite Tories love a bit of naked class war, particularly when it is dressed up as populism.
Farage’s speech, which was delivered, rather tellingly, to a room full of bankers and billionaires, was billed as Reform UK’s grand economic vision for Farage’s Britain.
What it actually revealed was a retreat into the same old Thatcherite playbook of viciously slashing public services, gutting workers’ rights, and praying the markets sprinkle some magic fairy dust on the wreckage.
Farage’s speech wasn’t visionary, it was a clear warning shot. Reform isn’t here to disrupt the status quo, it’s here to restore it with extra nationalism thrown in for not-so-good measure.
The first significant cracks in Reform UK’s armour are beginning to appear. Now the left must find its voice as one to guide voters towards the real systemic reform that we so desperately need.
Featured image via the Canary
