What is it that attracts racists, Islamaphobes, homophobes and general bigots to Nigel Farage?

Very well said Merion! It's good to have someone such as you posting after having done actual research and thus being able to scratch below the surface of Reform.

Farage and his ilk are very dangerous. They legitimise racism, make it acceptable and give people a common enemy. That's why he is likened to Hitler. He's no friend of the common man although he says he represents them, he's just using their disatisfaction for his own purposes. Great analysis of Z Y's speech tbh I couldn't be bothered to read anything put out by a supporter of Farage even though I know I should! I should think the history dept at his old school is shuddering with embarrassment or perhaps that's what they teach in private schools!

Yes, so I googled every which way but unsuccessfully. I'd prefer it too - to be able to expose some of the refs to Empire etc.

Wyllow3

I can't find a written transcript of it.

Merion said s/he'd read it.

I can't find a written transcript of it.

Foxie48 The remarks at the end of your post further up the thread are so very true. I am the child of a well off Czech mother and an Italian father I was born in the UK, into a middle class household and have never been regarded as anything but British. On the other hand the daughter of one of my friends who has a West Indian father but also born in the UK has met with racist remarks at school and at university, I wonder why. Farage and his ilk are very dangerous in my opinion.

LizzieDrip

Merion hear, hear!

Agreed.

Thanks for the well researched post, Merion

Do you have a link to a transcript of Yusuf's speech?

I've just listened in full to the speech and largely agree with Merion. The bits about how wonderful our empire was to those countries and how we exported our values to them, given how we treated colonial subjects, just made me feel sick. We killed, enslaved, exploited, and exported our criminals or rich ne'er do wells.
Gave them "equality?".

Merion hear, hear!

Nicenanny3

youtu.be/HQHn_RivO2Q?si=s9oEer4OCve0ah4O

Perhaps listen to his speech before making judgements.

There you go again. Assuming that I hadn’t already seen it. I have listened to Yusuf's speech and read and studied it.

Yusuf (38) is only inspiring to those who don’t bother to scratch the surface of what he said or do any research about him. His speech was riddled with nonsense, inconsistencies, seriously insensitive inaccuracies and downright lies. He must have though that nobody would know anything about the history of slavery and British colonisation, or the history of America, Canada and Australia or fact check about his company.

Yusuf has made himself a very rich man through the sale of his hugely loss-making, jointly-owned company Velocity Mobile to Capital One. The bank is a massive supporter of the gun industry, the NRA and supplies loans to Israeli weapons-maker Elbit Systems. This company has been the subject of international condemnation and divestment due to its complicity with Israel’s severe violations of international law and human rights conventions. Hardly an ethical choice. This condemnation pre-dates the current war and the sale of Velocity. Capital One’s involvement with Elbit must have come to light during due diligence but Yusuf and his business partners went ahead with the sale anyway.

He claims that a British value is equality under the law. Please explain how this squares with Farage saying that Reform will leave the ECHR and how it squares with taking money from a bank which supports an Israeli weapons-maker condemned for violations of international law and human rights conventions.

He had a damn cheek too talking about housing shortages when the very rich people he was pandering to with his concierge app may well have been the very same people that acquire buy-to-leave properties in London. I remember when Kensington Council were struggling to find accommodation for the 300 people who survived the Grenfell Tower fire in which 72 people had died. Meantime 1 in every 8 properties in the borough stood empty.

whoownsengland.org/2017/06/18/where-are-the-empty-homes-in-kensington/

At the time of the Grenfell tragedy, there were 1,399 vacant dwellings in the borough.

There are currently over 700,000 properties that are unfurnished and standing empty in England alone. (ActionOnEmptyHomes)

But it’s so much easier to blame immigrants than the rich for the housing crisis.

The Chattri

I live - as the crow flies a couple of miles - away from the Chattri Monument where Sikhs and Hindus were cremated after they died serving the U.K. in the First World War.

It is a peaceful place.

Many of the injured soldiers were cared for in the Royal Pavilion as it was felt that they would feel at home within the palace. Kind thoughts but misguided😊

He’s a racist misogynist.

Iam64

The Irish history is so reminiscent of the heroism and loyalty shown by groups from what were called ‘the colonies’.
I remain stunned that the awful Lawrence Fox suggested the film 1918 was being woke and historically inaccurate by showing one - yes just one - Sikh soldier

That says a lot about him not understanding our history. The Gurkhas have been fighting as part of the British army for over 200 years, and are formidable soldiers.

The Irish history is so reminiscent of the heroism and loyalty shown by groups from what were called ‘the colonies’.
I remain stunned that the awful Lawrence Fox suggested the film 1918 was being woke and historically inaccurate by showing one - yes just one - Sikh soldier

My family on both sides served in the army. Several died in WW1. My father was an army officer. I used to read in 'Letters to the paper' and had it said to my face that Roman catholics, like the Irish should not be allowed to serve in the army bcause if they had to choose between their country and the pope they would always put the pope first.

Setting aside I couldn't think of any situation where the two (pope and army command) would be eye balling each other. It was such a slur on the generations of irish people who had served the British Crown faithfully and loyally for over 200 years.

40% of Wellington's army in the peninsula war and at Waterloo were Irish and Irish regiments served in 2 world wars, losing their lives and winning gallantry awards.

Primrose53

zakouma66

As usual he is playing the race card too

What does that mean please?

You know full well what it means.

He always does.

Thanks for reminding us of this MOnica, within our life times. I was thinking of this earlier, and also reflecting on the posts earlier about ‘wealthy Asians who came from Uganda with nothing, worked hard’ etc. They weren’t received so positively by many when the arrived, they were the subject of too many immigrants coming here using all our services when they’ve never contributed etc

I was in an expensive country pub/ restaurant with a friend in 1980. She was an Ugandan of Indian origin who arrived with 4 siblings and her parents from Uganda. We were Probation Officers on a work trip. She turned and commented to the man in the queue behind us. He looked horrified, ignored her and stepped back. It was the first time I’d seen such racism. She said don’t worry about it, we’re used to it.
Incidentally two brothers were pharmacists, a sister a doctor

I agree we seem to need an underdog community

M0nica

Writing as a third/fourth generation immigrant - I am half Irish! It is worth remembering that before the wave of, firstly immigrants from the Caribbean, it was the irish who were seen as the alien people with an alien religion (Roman catholic).

I met it at a personal level in the 1960s and my mother could remember signs of lodging house windows saying 'No Irish, No children, No dogs.'

There seems to be something hardwired through societies of always needing to have an underdog to kick.

I gather than in Ireland the rest of the Irish see people from County Kerry as a fair target for contempt.

I met it at a personal level in the 1960s and my mother could remember signs of lodging house windows saying 'No Irish, No Children, no dogs'

I distinctly remember those notices in various parts of London where I lived at that time - north London in particular.

Were they actually advertised in newspapers like that? I can't remember. But I do remember seeing them written on bits of cardboard and pinned to the door of houses where there were rooms to let.

My 16 year old grandson found it difficult to believe when I told him.

Writing as a third/fourth generation immigrant - I am half Irish! It is worth remembering that before the wave of, firstly immigrants from the Caribbean, it was the irish who were seen as the alien people with an alien religion (Roman catholic).

I met it at a personal level in the 1960s and my mother could remember signs of lodging house windows saying 'No Irish, No children, No dogs.'

There seems to be something hardwired through societies of always needing to have an underdog to kick.

I gather than in Ireland the rest of the Irish see people from County Kerry as a fair target for contempt.

Whitewavemark2

Farage has said that he thinks the U.K. should have a system similar to the USA

Well he wouldn't approve of the European model, obviously, which, according to those who've lived in Europe, works much better.

An American colleague visiting the company I worked for in Norway some years ago said (we were discussing health systems over lunch) that as far as he was concerned regarding health insurance, "if you can't pay for it, you can't have it".

My boss asked him "but what about those in poorly paid jobs who can't afford it?". His answer?

"They ged another jaab".

I wish they would all get another job and leave a**holes like him to find empty shelves in supermarkets, coffee shops and bars empty of staff, no one to clean his toilet (or 'bathroom') - or no-one to clean any toilets or bathrooms, no-one to empty his piles of garbage, etc., etc.

American-style Capitalism is brutal.

... and he was pretty ignorant of the world around him, too - he thought we had bears roaming around the streets - in a large city on the west coast of Norway.

And when his secretary, prior to his arrival, spoke to me on the 'phone, I kid you not, she asked me, "do you guys have electricity over there?"

... "no, I'm speaking to you by candlelight furiously cranking a small-generator with my hand the while..."

Which of course I didn't say.

Apologies to any civilised Americans who might be on this thread.

One thing I would point out, seriously, about private health systems is that if you ever need complex and risky surgery - you might well not be able to find a surgeon willing to perform it, regardless of you level of health insurance.

Surgeons value their reputation (naturally) and prefer the more straightforward operations where there's less chance of anything going wrong.

I was on an internet health board relating to my particular problem and this poor woman in the USA was desperately trying to find a surgeon who would perform surgery on her abdominal adhesions as she was in constant pain. One after the other turned her down. It was surgery that I had on the NHS two years earlier.

youtu.be/HQHn_RivO2Q?si=s9oEer4OCve0ah4O

Perhaps listen to his speech before making judgements.

Merion yesterday 22.35
Free speech but only if you agree with Farage. And so it begins. Zia Yusuf should be ashamed.

Perhaps you should be ashamed for such a bigoted post. Zia Yusuf is an inspiring young man who loves his country and all our values and he gave a fantastic speech yesterday

Farage has said that he thinks the U.K. should have a system similar to the USA

I felt annoyed when following up an online ad in Express Online for Reform claiming "zero waiting lists in NHS' as the headline but on opening it found no plans.