STEPHEN GLOVER: Starmer has handed Farage a golden probability to show he is Prime Minister materials – by rising above the bile
Sooner or later most American trends end up on our shores. Some are good, others are bad.
In the United States, politics has for many years been more confrontational and divisive than in this country. With the advent of Donald Trump, debate became even more vituperative and abusive.
For a time our politicians were unaffected. In the last election, for example, campaigning was robust. There were a fair number of half-truths and a sprinkling of downright lies. But Trumpian discourse was largely avoided.
No longer. In the past few days there has been a sudden and alarming coarsening of political language. Words and phrases have been tossed about which until now were almost entirely alien to our traditions.
How profoundly ironic that this new invective has fallen not from the mouth of Nigel Farage, who makes no bones about being a friend and admirer of the crude American President, but from the leading lights of the Labour Party, not least Sir Keir Starmer.
Worst of all were the remarks of Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy. On Tuesday he accused Farage of having ‘flirted with the Hitler Youth’, an organisation for young Nazis which was disbanded in 1945.
Lammy’s grasp of history is shaky – during a TV quiz he once suggested that Henry VII had succeeded his son Henry VIII on the throne – but even he cannot have imagined that Nigel Farage, now 61, marched with the Hitler Youth before being born.
He was recirculating a baseless rumour that the young Farage somehow aligned himself with the values of the Hitler Youth as a schoolboy. It’s been reported that Lammy apologised, but it would be more accurate to say he gracelessly withdrew his unpleasant allegation.
Sir Keir Starmer accused Nigel Farage of pursuing the ‘politics of grievance’
On Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said Farage ‘flirted with the Hitler Youth’
Lammy’s blundering purpose was to depict the leader of Reform UK as a fascist. What he said was undoubtedly slanderous. More to the point, it was the language of the political gutter. In trying to smear Farage as an extremist, he himself adopted extremist rhetoric.
Starmer hasn’t been much better. A man who normally resembles a rather nervous undertaker has turned into a demagogue. In recent days he has described Farage as an ‘enemy’ hiding in ‘plain sight’. Reform has repeatedly been called ‘divisive’ by the Prime Minister, while its immigration policies have been dismissed as ‘racist’ and ‘immoral’.
In his conference speech on Tuesday, Starmer uncorked the bottle and accused Farage of pursuing the ‘politics of grievance’ with racist policies and, worst of all, of not liking Britain. This is preposterous. The PM of course portrayed himself as a patriot who loves his country, and again wrapped himself in the Union flag.
Yesterday he took leave of his senses in calling migrant boats crossing the Channel ‘Farage boats’ – apparently suggesting they have been caused by Brexit. Has he gone mad? Are there any shortcomings he doesn’t blame on the leader of Reform?
Meanwhile, lesser Labour figures have been taking pot shots at Farage, with Health Secretary Wes Streeting labelling him ‘mister money bags’ and ‘a con artist posing as the voice of the people’.
Particularly unedifying were the insults of Starmer’s right-hand man Darren Jones, who compared Farage with Andrew Tate, the self-confessed misogynist influencer who has been under investigation for rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang.
It is true that in 1948 Labour’s left-wing hero Aneurin Bevan controversially described Tories as ‘lower than vermin’, while a few years ago the loose-mouthed Angela Rayner called them ‘scum’. The Left has long had a penchant for denigration.
But rarely, if ever, in British political history has such a concentrated torrent of bile poured out from any political party in so short a space of time. The garrulous American President has been outdone.
Farage has the choice of rising above Labour’s name-calling
We probably shouldn’t be surprised since David Lammy, Peter Mandelson and other Labour figures used to specialise in abusing Trump – until Starmer decided to suck up to him in an excruciating way. Lammy once famously denounced The Donald as a ‘neo-Nazi sociopath’.
What Labour has done is to bring home the insults – to pollute our hitherto comparatively civilised political interchange with the sort of epithets previously reserved for the foreign leaders it abhors.
It won’t work, of course. I don’t believe the British people relish their politicians talking like pub braggarts. Only Labour stalwarts will fail to recognise that the language being used to demonise Nigel Farage and Reform is hysterical, and smacks of desperation.
Nor will many people drawn to Reform thank Labour for implying they are racist. This error recalls Hillary Clinton’s foolish description in 2016 of Trump supporters as a ‘basket of deplorables’. Lesson one of democratic politics is not to abuse the electorate.
Will we inevitably be mired in the sort of divisive politics that so disfigures the United States? Much depends on the reaction of the object of Labour vitriol, Nigel Farage. He has the choice of rising above Labour’s name-calling, and appearing statesmanlike.
The leader of Reform is a brave man, who has devoted most of his adult life to bringing about his vision of this country. For such a courageous politician he can also be surprisingly thin-skinned.
On Tuesday he released a video in which we saw the best of him. Not unnaturally, he complained about Labour’s invective but didn’t descend to the same depths. The worst he said was that Starmer is ‘unfit’ to be Prime Minister, which is a view shared by more than half the country.
If he can maintain this dignity under severe provocation, and respond calmly and factually to Labour’s wild accusations, he will succeed in establishing himself in the public mind as prime ministerial material.
No doubt he will sometimes, forgivably, be tempted to return the insults. He is certainly capable of doling them out. In 2010, he stated in the European Parliament that European Council President Herman van Rompuy had ‘the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk’.
Possibly true and even quite funny. Certainly not in the same league of nastiness in which Labour has been playing the past few days. But someone who is putting himself forward to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom should resist provocative language, even though the present occupant of No 10 does not.
How tragic that Starmer and his colleagues – members of a great political party – should be abasing themselves as they are. Far from setting an example, they sound like the worst vandals of social media.
What they say could, as Farage suggested in his video, incite the ‘radical Left’ and put the safety of those representing Reform at risk. Starmer accuses Farage of being ‘divisive’, but it is he and Labour who are sowing division and discord.
In his conference speech, he portrayed himself as someone who, unlike Nigel Farage, respects British values of tolerance and decency. His party’s choice of incendiary language proves that the opposite is the case.
Sir Keir Starmer is cornered – and desperate. So he lashes out in Trumpian style at his political enemies. How much more damage will our Prime Minister do to our country before he finally leaves the stage?
