A question for you.
Is Nigel Farage racist?
I genuinely don't know the answer and don't pretend to but it is an allegation that Labour cabinet ministers have been on the edge of saying at the Conference this week without ever actually doing so.
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy stated that Mr Farage had 'flirted with the Hitler Youth' in his youth. Clearly Mr Farage is far too young to have ever been a member of the Hitler Youth but it appears Mr Lammy is referring to allegations that have never been actioned against that in his youth Mr Farage "marched through a quiet Sussex village late at night shouting Hitler-youth songs."
Elsewhere, in his podcast "Not another one" prominent Reform UK member Tim Montgomerie has accepted that, in his view, around 10% of Reform UK members are undoubtedly racist and should be dealt with accordingly. I have nothing to doubt his assertion and certainly have witnessed first hand that Reform UK have in the past refused to take action when faced with historically racist comments made by their local government candidates.
But that doesn't answer the question whether Mr Farage is a racist?
And on that question there doesn't appear to be any conclusive evidence.
As far as I can tell there are no clear sources from the historical record to support the allegation, whilst the historic Hitler youth assertion has never been challenged its veracity has never been proven either, and even if it were are any of us the same person we were as teenagers?
Views and opinions can, of course, change but equally they can stay the same.
Reform UK's policy platform isn't racist, even on indefinite leave to remain, as Trevor Phillips points out in The Times, there isn't a fag paper between their policy and Labour's newly rolled out one. If one is, then surely both are? There is a difference between right-wing, populism and racism. The policy can certainly be argued to be the first and second, but the third? Doubtful.
In a past life I've even met and had a leisurely lunch with Mr Farage. He was fabulously indiscreet, charismatic and entertaining, but racist? In my experience, absolutely not.
That doesn't mean he isn't racist of course but when you make these sort of allegations evidence matters. It is up to those making them to prove whether they are true. Which is why Labour are hovering around the edges of making such an allegation directly, in many ways doing the same as it is arguable Mr Farage does, implying.
As well as being a charismatic politician Mr Farage is a clever one too and in a week of apparently orchestrated attacks from the Labour cabinet about his character only one criticism has a ring of authenticity to it.
When asked about Mr Farage, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood described his politics as "worse than racist", adding “What he really knows he’s done is blown a very, very loud dog whistle to every racist in the country … I think he knows exactly what he’s doing and it’s a much more cynical, much more dangerous form of politics. I think it’s much, much worse than racism.”
There is a nasty, racist element in our country and it very much arguable that Reform UK maintain plausible deniability of support for them whilst understanding that, at the present time and whilst playing the right rhetorical tunes, the party will become a natural respository of that element's electoral support.
It that certainly doesn't mean Reform UK are racist and it doesn't mean the people that will vote for it are.
It means the party appears to attract the racist element in our society.
My guess is that before the next election, to win support of the mainstream, it will need to shed that element explicitly. Whether it will or not is the question that should be being asked?
