After a two day break from campaigning for the EU referendum, in light of the tragic killing of MP Jo Cox, politicians from the Remain and Leave camps were all back at it again today, on their toxic campaign trails.
One of those politicians was the leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage.
You might remember last week that he unveiled a rather controversial pro-Brexit billboard, that showed a queue of refugees at the Slovenia/Croatia border and claimed the United Kingdom was at ‘breaking point’.
A poster that George Osborne subsequently described as ‘disgusting’ and compared it to Nazi propaganda.
And, when you see this screenshot from a Nazi propaganda film, you can kind of see his point:
After this blew up, social media started re-sharing a letter reportedly written by a teacher during Farage’s time at the prestigious Dulwich College School in 1981 – uncovered by a Channel 4 investigation a few years back.
In it, English teacher Chloe Deakin pleads with the master of the college to reconsider his decision to appoint Farage as a prefect, alleging that the now-Ukip leader was ‘a racist’ and held ‘neo-fascist views’.
So, in light of all of this happening over the last few days, you’d think even someone as outspoken as Farage would be more reserved and tactile. But this is Farage, after all – so, of course, that didn’t happen.
In an interview on ITV’s Peston on Sunday, Farage tried to make it all about him again by claiming that – rather than, say, the thousands of refugees stuck on borders throughout Europe or Jo Cox herself – that he was the victim in all of this.
Does he not see the irony here? The answer – No. No he does not.
He said:
I think I’m a politician who’s been a victim of it to be honest with you. When you challenge the establishment in this country they come after you, they call you all sorts of things. All we have said in this referendum campaign is we want to take back control of our lives, take back control of our borders and put in place a responsible immigration policy.
In a separate interview with Sky News, Farage defended the poster, saying it was no more ‘strong’ than anti-EU posters created by the official Vote Leave campaign led by Michael Gove.
Oh, and he also said he didn’t think there would have been as a big a row over the poster had Labour MP Jo Cox not been killed, adding that her death may well have damaged the chances of the Leave campaign.
Is he fucking serious?
He added:
I wish an innocent MP had not been gunned down in the street. Frankly had that not happened I don’t think we would have had the kind of row over it.
Nice to see where his priorities lie after all this. You stay classy, Nigel…
