Nigel Farage: I was never scared of being out on a limb
by Tim Adams, The Observer, July 21, 2012
Farage’s problem is that for all this nuanced analysis, many of his flag-waving supporters are less libertarian optimists than simple Little Englanders. They hear what they want to hear and sometimes he seems to encourage them to do so. In his book, he offers an unapologetic paean to Enoch Powell, one of his political heroes. Questioned about that passage, he suggests that “though Powell was clearly wrong on race, he was right on so many other things”, a distinction he does not make anything like so directly in print. Farage is adamant in his assertion that the “multicultural experiment has failed” but equally so in his belief that “Ukip’s potential with the black vote in this country is huge”.
How so?
“In Brixton market they still believe in the Commonwealth, they think there is something of value in the relationship between Jamaica, or wherever, and the UK, and do you know what? I do too!”
If he dances this fine line between nationalism and something more extreme among supporters at home, the difficulties become even more complicated in Europe. “A big danger we face,” he suggests, “is that Euroscepticism across the continent will now move sharply to the left and to the right. So you will have Eurosceptic parties that are also Islamophobic or antisemitic or totally anti-free markets and broadly communist.”
