The Real ‘Two Tier’ Politics That Enabled Nigel Farage to Fan the Flames of Hate

Imagine there was a prominent British Muslim politician with a huge personal following. 

Imagine that for months this politician had hosted their own nightly television show, in which he had toured the country whipping up fear about a non-existent crime wave committed by white Christians, while pointing his cameras at the buildings where they were housed.

Imagine that after this, there was an entirely unrelated, but horrific, murder of three young Muslim children in a northern town.

Now imagine that in the hours following this tragedy, this politician falsely led many of his followers to believe that the perpetrators of this horrendous crime were the very same white Christians he had previously whipped up fear and hatred about.

Now imagine that in the wake of helping to spread this dangerous disinformation, large numbers of this politicians’ fellow travellers then took to the streets to seek violent revenge against white people in general.

Imagine too that in the days that followed, footage of their attacks on homes, churches and places of business were broadcast right across the world, with the police also being seen to suffer horrific attacks as they sought to protect those affected.

Now imagine that, instead of focusing on calling for these gangs of racist thugs to step down, this politician sought to attack the police for a “two tier” approach which came down too hard on the Muslim attackers, while ignoring crimes by Christians.

Imagine too that this politician’s colleagues then enthusiastically joined in, claiming that the racist Muslim thugs had merely fallen into the wrong crowd and should now be let off the hook by the police.

At this point there would not just be demands for this politicians and his colleagues to see the inside of a police cell, but that they should be swiftly proscribed as an extremist group.

Yet if you replace British Muslims with far-right rioters and the nameless Muslim politician with Nigel Farage and this is exactly what we have been seeing play out on the streets of Britain.

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Two Tier Extremism

However, rather than face prosecution, or even universal condemnation, Farage and his fellow travellers continue to be treated as if they are legitimate and valued voices in the political debate.

A sign of this could be seen on Wednesday when the front page of the Daily Express carried a large picture of Farage with the headline: ‘FARAGE WARNS: BRITAIN IS AT ‘QUITE PERILOUS POINT’ alongside a piece warning that the country will suffer more violence unless the Government does exactly what he suggested.

There are words for such threats, all of which we would now be loudly hearing were Farage a brown-faced radical Muslim preacher, instead of the white-faced, right-wing British politician he actually is.

The fact that we are not hearing those words is a clear sign of where the real “two tier” system lies in our county.

As multiple studies have shown, far from there being a “two tier” criminal justice system that discriminates against white people, as Farage has implied, ethnic minority criminals are actually significantly more likely to be convicted than their white criminal counterparts.

As with the criminal justice system, so too with our political system, in which the causal bigotry of privileged white male politicians is not only tolerated, but in some cases celebrated.

In this system, a politician like Boris Johnson, who famously compared Muslim women to “letterboxes”, suggested that Islamophobia was a “natural reaction” to Islam and that “Islam is the problem”, and referred to black people as “picanninnes” was not just let off the hook, but actively elevated to the very top of our political system.

As with Johnson, so too with Farage, whose own long history of racist comments include suggesting that British Muslims have “split loyalties” and do not share “British values”, has been repeatedly dismissed and explained away by many of the same people who have now belatedly reacted with horror to the wave of racist riots that have spread across our country.

On all these points Farage and Johnson were given extensive cover by the British media, parts of which have long swum in the same waters.

Whether its the Spectator magazine publishing a piece claiming that there is “not nearly enough Islamophobia within the Tory party” or GB News employing a presenter who has published multiple racist memes about the Muslim takeover of Britain, parts of the British media have directly helped to fan the flames of racist hate, that they are only now belatedly condemning.

Yet unlike other forms of extremism, the inflammatory politics of Johnson, Farage and the right-wing press has long been given a free pass in the UK.

Indeed just last year, Rishi Sunak’s Government published a review suggesting that there had in fact been ‘too much focus’ on tackling the far-right threat, as well as too much focus on prominent commentators pushing anti-migrant ideology in the press.

This review, which was led by a man who had himself been accused of Islamophobia, resulted in the then Government taking its eye off the ball of the very extreme far-right groups that have spread violence and terror on our streets over the past two weeks.

In the wake of Rishi Sunak’s appointment as Prime Minister there were multiple attempts on the right of politics to claim that it proved that racism was no longer an issue in the UK.

Recent events have shown that to be the lie it so obviously was.

Yet just as the Daily Mail and others are now applauding the thousands of anti-racist protesters standing up to the far-right last night, we mustn’t forget how we got to this position in the first place, or the “two tier” approach to political hate that allowed it to happen.