Sections of the right-wing press seem completely relaxed about Farage’s plans to strip away constraints on state power
Yesterday Nigel Farage let loose, exposing his contempt for democratic institutions and legal constraints, as he pushed a hard-line message on refugees, immigration and asylum seekers, normalising rhetoric that previously would’ve been considered beyond the pale.
He described irregular migration as an “invasion” and a “scourge”, referring to men who cross the Channel repeatedly as being of “fighting age”. As the Guardian summed up so succinctly in its editorial yesterday: “This is not a policy contest. It is an attack on democratic norms – the kind that paves the way for repressive rule by and for economic elites, under the guise of national restoration. That’s Donald Trump’s game. It’s Mr Farage’s too.”
The most worrying trend of all, is that sections of the right-wing press seem completely relaxed about Farage’s plans to strip away constraints on state power, and rather than holding him to account over his attack on democratic norms and institutions, they’re more concerned about how his plans will be implemented. In this, they have abdicated their responsibility to hold power to account.
At LFF, we will do all we can to expose Farage for what he really stands for. Here are four worrying takeaways from the Reform UK leader’s speech.
1.Scrapping the Human Rights Act
Farage made clear his intention yesterday to scrap the Human Rights Act, which would remove protections against state power not just for asylum seekers but for each and every single one of us.
As Labour’s Stella Creasy made clear yesterday: “The Human Rights Act protects everyone. Including you. He wrecked your economy with Brexit, don’t let him wreck your freedoms with this.”
The ECHR has helped British citizens by providing legal protection against torture, discrimination, and breaches of rights like freedom of expression and a fair trial.
2. Farage is happy to pay despotic regimes like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Iran to secure a migrant deportation deal, despite their appalling human rights record
The Reform UK leader said he wasn’t bothered by people being deported to regimes where they would be at risk of being tortured and killed.
3. Locking up women and children
Farage confirmed that under his plans women and children would be detained and deported in a bid to stop small boat crossings in the Channel. That as a democracy we would be willing to lock up vulnerable children, should alarm all progressives.
4. Threatening peace in Northern Ireland
Farage accepted that pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights would create significant problems with the Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of violent sectarian conflict known as The Troubles, and which requires the ECHR to be incorporated into Northern Ireland law.
The party has been warned that its plan to withdraw the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights risks disturbing the agreement that brought relative peace to Northern Ireland when it was signed in 1998.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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