Farage is the consequence of limited ambition

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The owner and proprietor of Reform Ltd seems rather pleased that so many people are referring to him as a racist based on the overt racism he allegedly displayed as a schoolboy half a century ago. His argument is that it increases the probability that racist voters (or, to use the term which he seems to prefer, “our core support”) will vote for his company in a future election. It should be no surprise either that overt expressions of racism or non-denial denials thereof would motivate racists to vote for a racist, nor that so many of those most likely to vote for Reform fall into that category. He might choose his words ever so slightly more carefully these days, but no-one who listens to what he says can be in much doubt about his distaste for foreigners, particularly those of a different hue or religion or who dare to speak a language other than English.

The question is about how to respond. If calling him out as a racist solidifies his core support, does that mean we should all cease calling out his racism? Part of the answer to that is that, outside what he calls his ‘core support’, there are many people who are not racist: contrary to what some seem to believe, voting for Farage doesn’t necessarily make someone a racist. There must be at least some in that category who will be deterred by a better understanding of the nature of what it is that they are planning to vote for. But more widely than that, failure to address expressions of racism tends to normalise those views, and that, in turn, shifts the mainstream of political discourse towards, rather than away from, Farageism.

In effect, normalising Farage’s political views is exactly what the leadership of Labour (to say nothing of the Tories) has been doing for some time. Building a tolerant society depends, ultimately, not on what politicians do or say, but on building a wider consensus in society. But building consensus around the type of society which we might wish to see is a project which politicians, and especially Labour ones, have long since abandoned in favour of building a coalition of voters, whatever their views, which is large enough to secure power. Providing politicians with careers who can then exercise the power of the state is a much narrower project, and will change little. That does, though, seem to be the limit of their ambition.