The Madras Courier is a prestigious award winning online newspaper. Its readers are mostly in India and the Indian diaspora. I’ve been delighted to be a regular contributor of features .The editor, Shrenik Rao, asked me to write about Nigel Farage and Reform in an historical context using my personal experience of what works when tackling racism and what doesn’t. Malcom X visited Smethwick after the most racist election in British history. Former Prime Minister, Harold Wilson is the example Keir Starmer needs to emulate when it comes to seeing off Farage.
The election is over but not the fight against the attitudes of Nigel Farage and Reform must continue . They’ve won four seats in the coastal towns –areas with the least graduates. Suella Braverman and extremists like her who have brought the Conservative Party into disrepute don’t recognise that they are out of step with the majority of people in this country. She has declared that she wants unite the right and would welcome Farage in the Conservative Party.
As I write the Labour Party, the Lib Dems ,the Greens , the Scottish Nationalists Plaid Cymru , the Independents including Jeremy Corbyn and the more progressive parties of Northern Ireland have 513 seats – MPs who are against Reform xenophobia . The Tories and Reform together have only 129 seats and, I suspect, a majority of those Tory MPs will not want to go to bed with a Putin sympathiser. But you need courage and honesty to fight ideas like his. For me the most powerful argument against Farage is that he is no patriot but works against the interests of our country. I hope Keir Stammer finds the courage and strength that his Labour predecessor, Harold Wilson shared with Conservative PM Edward Heath when it came to calling out those who stir up hate and want to divide us.
