When I see the allegations of racism against Nigel Farage from his schooldays, I can’t say I am greatly surprised. There are those who believe that the Reform UK leader’s persona must have been developed to win over working-class voters, or the “red wall”. I know that it is quite in keeping with the sentiments expressed by plenty of young men in elite institutions like English public schools – the kind of men who run the world.
Farage was educated at Dulwich college from 1975 to 1982; there, fellow students have told the Guardian, he allegedly used racist insults about fellow pupils and sang a song with the lyrics “Gas ’em all”. I attended Eton a couple of decades later, but the attitudes of some of the people I encountered there were not very different. One pupil, having fallen out with me over some perceived slight, boasted that his great-grandfather was a slave driver. A Jewish friend who was there with me at the same time told me how common it was to hear “Jew” or “rabbi” being used to describe anyone who was thought to be mean with their money. When I later saw Old Etonian Boris Johnson referring to black people as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”, I thought back to the peers of mine who would erupt into rants filled with racist stereotypes whenever they saw the West Indies cricket team on the TV.
But there is another reason I am not surprised when I read about Farage’s alleged teenage behaviour. As grim as these stories are, just look at the damage that Farage has gone on to do as an adult, and the company he has gone on to keep. If you were looking in the school yearbook, wondering “where are they now?”, then under his entry you would want to add: “He inspired the country on a tide of xenophobia to leave the EU, a decision that most of the country either regrets or outright hates, and afterwards went abroad to get a standing ovation from the German far right”. What has truly changed since Farage’s schooldays is the society around him. We will get back to that in a moment.
For now, though, I am thinking about school. I don’t know what Farage was like when he was a teenager, but – in my own regrettable experience, and as I am reliably informed – the majority of people who expressed racist worldviews at school and university have not moved away from those opinions with age. If anything, they have become significantly more extreme in their outlook, viewing the era of Trump and Musk with relish.
And why wouldn’t they? Not only have several of my former classmates retreated behind their walls and gates, they are now fuelled by the various algorithms that send a never-ending stream of loathing to their smartphones. Just as a mosquito requires stagnant pools of water in which to thrive, so their stagnant social circles provide the perfect breeding ground for increasingly toxic strands of bigotry. I was recently at a university reunion and it was striking to see one man, who has somehow gone on to scale even greater heights of racial prejudice than in his student days, surrounded as if he were a returning hero. Most disappointing was to see an old and close friend voice deep and growing enthusiasm for the politics of Johnson.
Almost as disappointing was to hear of Farage’s visit to my old school and to hear that, in the words of one onlooker, Eton boys had cheered Farage’s “worst comments on migrants and Covid”, and had subjected visiting girls to “racial slurs” and “misogynistic comments”. When I saw this quote, my sympathies went immediately to the students of migrant heritage in that environment, especially the visibly foreign ones. The college said it had apologised “unreservedly” for the “totally unacceptable” behaviour, but it is difficult to understand what other outcome they expected. This is what Farage does; this is his skill. When it comes to stoking hatred, Farage is what is referred to in the football world – a world that, for shameless political gain, he is now pretending to understand – as a generational talent. He is a Pied Piper, leading his followers to a future that – for now, at least – they find absolutely exhilarating.
Where, though, is his vision of immigration leading the UK? To answer that we can look to the actions of senior members of the current government, who have already bent their policies to his will. The mood they have created is so sour that, as reported by the Guardian, “record numbers of overseas-trained doctors are quitting the UK, leaving the NHS at risk of huge gaps in its workforce, with hostility towards migrants blamed for the exodus.” For the longest time, the approach by European politicians such as Farage has been “if you don’t like it, then leave”. It should be no surprise that, increasingly, the response is “with pleasure”.
We return, now, to how the society around Farage has changed. We have long had a media culture that prefers its political shows to be populated by entertainers rather than experts, and that trend has accelerated in recent years. We are also now in an era when, every single day, the richest person in modern history – who, according to The New Yorker, is responsible through aid cuts for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings – wakes up and amplifies the most extreme far-right content from the biggest communication platform the world has known, a platform he solely owns. In the UK, the soaring economic inequalities – supercharged by Brexit – have led to such scarcity that many voters are turning against those arriving in the country, blaming them for trying to steal more of a shrinking pie.
Of course, it is in Farage’s interests to stop people from focusing on who is actually using the bulk of resources, because the greediest consumers are some of his funders and friends. Farage’s ultimate message is simple: open borders for the super-rich, closed borders for everyone else. It’s not quite as catchy a slogan as “take back control”, but, as the reality of his true position becomes clearer, it may just take flight. If that does happen, then we will be able to say that the adults in the UK are finally taking Farage as seriously as several of his classmates always have.
Musa Okwonga is an author and football podcaster based in Berlin
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