Nigel Farage on the Riots

I’m delighted to say we’re joined this morning by Nigel Farage, Nigel a very good morning to you, welcome back into the studio. We live in very dangerous times it seems right now and I want to start by saying that you know you have been the subject of an awful lot of accusations over the course of the last several days and I suppose since a week ago Monday, I mean you’ve been accused of starting riots, you’ve been accused of encouraging riots, I mean and your own safety is at stake in this as well, right?

Some of what’s been said is absolutely disgusting, it’s cowardly, it is unjust, you know I’ve been fighting elections for 30 years because I believe in the democratic process. I’ve never in any point in those 30 years been involved in violence, been involved in Street protest, been involved in encouraging any of these things. What I did sense after those horrific murders was we weren’t being told anything yes, we had a lot of, and I saw it as you did, he’d arrived on a boat across the channel last October he was a Muslim activist etc. Might that and I said, can you tell us, was this man on a watch list yes, or no?

Remember the London Bridge attacks yes, within an hour of the attack we knew the man had been on a watch list right, one of the reasons the Southport riots were as bad as they were, one of the reasons the mosque itself was targeted is because the authorities didn’t tell us quickly enough what the truth was, we then learned a few hours later he was born in Cardiff and actually he wasn’t a radical Islamist at all, but my question as to whether he was on a watch list still hasn’t been answered and because I asked a simple question that suddenly becomes incitement and as a result of this and as a result of what has been said by some highly irresponsible broadcasters over the course of the weekend, my security situation has radically changed.

Yes and isn’t it libelous apart from anything else some of this stuff well I’ve been looking at this yeah, you have to prove actual harm, actual reputational harm right, I’ve fought libel before, actions I’ve even fought one against the Times newspaper, I don’t know whether you’ve ever thought one but if you do yeah, if you do it sucks up all of your emotional energy, it can take months out of your life, there’s no guarantee you’re going to win so I’ve tended to be more of the Duke of Wellington publish and be damned, ignore it and move on but this is very nasty indeed.

We’ve got this terribly polarized world now haven’t we, we’ve got two-tier Society minimum, we’ve got two-tier policing, we’ve got two-tier politics, we’ve got two-tier pretty much everything, two-tier Justice, I mean I’m going to play you from last night the Walthamstow rally because of course it’s all Kumbyar this morning everybody’s going oh isn’t it lovely, you know, hate has been beaten by hope, but look at what they were  chanting.

Now forgive me yeah, the first time I played that this morning Peter Blexley was here and I said let’s just play you how they were reacting to you know the far right threat and I thought oh sorry we’ve played the wrong clip, that must been one of the free Palestine marches, but no this is what they were doing all of the signs they were holding up looked to be pre-produced all over the country by the socialist workers party, all of the chants were free Palestine you know, in what world is that anything to do with what’s going on?

Well, first things first, the violence has been abhorrent yes and should be condemned in every way all right and we’ve seen violence on both sides but let’s be frank more thuggery from young white youths than from Muslim gangs, let’s be absolutely frank about what’s happened over the course of the last few days yeah. However, policed very differently is the first point to make second point to make is whether it’s free Palestine chanting in Walthamstow, whether its Palestinian action attacking a factory in Bristol and using sledgehammers against the police injuring police just within 48 hours right or whether it’s some of those on the extreme right.

Here’s my biggest worry of all and why I believe we’re in a perilous position, our tradition has always been that we can have the most furious arguments and we can have protests and strikes and goodness knows what else but ultimately we settled this at general elections yeah, we might not like the result of elections but over the decades that I’ve been around we accept the result because that’s how we do things.

Why we’re in a perilous position is an increasing number of people are now losing complete faith in the democratic process, they email me every single day to say what is the point now none of what I’m about to say justifies the thuggery at all, but if you’ve been told in 2010, 2015, 2017, 2019 in general elections that immigration, legal immigration into Britain will be substantially cut and it rockets to three quarters of a million a year, that’s why people have lost faith in the democratic process.

So you know and that’s the net figure by the way isn’t it, oh gross figures of double yeah, I mean so you have the free Palestine mob who know they can’t get a majority in Parliament they just think street protest and violence is their way of achieving something, you’ve then got you know someone the extreme right who think well we’ve been totally let down, what’s the point and that’s my real concern you know as you say it’s come by our morning very well put and all of it means that Kier Starmer will do absolutely nothing, will not change policing, won’t change his narrative, won’t change all that might slightly change is that Mr Musk and X (Twitter) might start to face a bit of regulation potentially from the Labour government and so what’s going to happen is we’re going to become like France where these things flare up.

Look at Northern Paris, you look at parts of Marseilles even in effect got total religious segregation between areas of the city, we’ve got it here and we’ve got it emerging here, it’s emerging here and none of the underlying causes are being dealt with and you know we have a parliament, we have government with a thumping great big majority with only a third of the vote yes, so he doesn’t really have the authority to say the things that he’s saying frankly in my opinion and the underlying upset and resentment.

I’m talking about now, the genuine people is that their kids can’t get houses, that rents are up 25% in the last three years, that access to Social Services, the roads, the infrastructure, the and I said this to you in this studio during the election campaign that the population explosion even taking the religious element out the population explosion is having the biggest effect on the largest number of people in this country and is in a negative way.

It’s clear to me none of that is going to change and that’s the only reason why they’re attacking me, they’re not attacking me just because they hate me, they’re attacking me, particularly Labour politicians because they’re deeply fearful of what’s going to happen potentially to my vote and Reform’s vote in time to come. There was some polling out yesterday that showed since the riots began immigration and crime have now massively overtaken even the economy and they used to always deny that immigration was something that people complained about.

They used to always say even in this election always it’s about the fourth or fifth thing down below you know the NHS, down below the cost of living, well it’s not it never was I don’t think and it’s it definitely isn’t there according to 99% of our school teachers, it’s not an issue at all also the other the poll this morning that nobody’s talking about is the one that says about how many people support the actions of those people who are demonstrating.

Not necessarily the violent actions of them but they understand and support in quite big numbers what people are unhappy about yeah, I mean again that needs to interpreting properly it’s understanding what the motives are as opposed to the violent behaviour, so what does Kier do, I mean if you could advise him three things that he could do, I mean I know he won’t do them, but what should he do?

There were three very simple things to do that would quell much of the anxiety genuine anxiety that is held out there by tens of millions of people; number one is there is a massive perception and it has been ever since the BLM protests back in 2012 of two-tier pleasing yeah and let me say what was said by the chief superintendent and the chief constable of West Midland’s police in the last 48 hours just fuelled the fire, children you know we’re here just for you just for your community, we’re here we’re your mates, we’ll speak your language and the rest of you can go to hell yeah, very stupid so I do actually think that all 43 you know Chief Constables should be brought to number 10 and told look we got a massive problem here, a massive problem here and whether it’s dealing with street violence whether it’s the operation of stop and search which by the way is overwhelmingly popular with voters, of all political persuasions we’ve got to have a police force that becomes colour blind, we’ve got to start treating everybody equally so number one deal with the problem as we believe it to be. Two-tier policing but certainly public perception.

Number two you have to say that young men that cross the English Channel that throw their iPhones and passports into the sea when they reach the 12m line will never ever be given refugee status and will not be allowed to stay in this country and to hell with the ECHR and to hell with the fact they might come from Syria or Afghanistan they’re not staying because, I think even though the numbers are tiny compared to the legal immigration it’s a sense of unfairness and by the way operation scatter so take them out of the hotels put them into private rentals or social housing, how do you think the public going to feel about that?

A few, I mean we’ve already talked to people who say you know our village has changed because they’ve moved people have now started renting their houses out via the council to groups of young men living in multiple occupancy houses in our street yeah, no, so number two you have to say as the Aussies did a decade ago and slightly more no one that comes by that route will get things that you can’t have and won’t be allowed to stay and number three there has to be an absolute promise that we’re going to reduce massively levels of net migration and one of the ways we do that is firstly a massive change of emphasis into skills and trades.

Why aren’t we training enough nurses? It’s amazing why are we not training enough Engineers? I was talking this morning about Douglas Murray’s piece in spectator today in which he says that he looks back at 2011 and what the circumstances were in places like Rotherham in Sunderland the unemployment rates are higher now than they were then yes and he says back in 2011 14% of the workforce in this country was foreign it’s now 21%.

Oh yes and the other thing to sort of bear in mind is that of gen Zee, you’ve got about 28% of them not only don’t work, don’t want to, don’t want to work no, and I’m afraid life for them has to become a little less cozy yes, those are the kind of people that were out chanting free Palestine in Walthamstow last night, you probably actually had quite a lot of them on both sides over the course of the last week to be entirely fair about it. 

So, they’re the three things the Prime Minister could do and none of that will change the situation overnight but if people could see that the country’s now got leadership that understands their genuine concerns then that would help. Starmer will do none of those things and he has no real proper opposition with the Tories right now does he?

I mean we had Robert Jenrick in here yesterday who’s the only Tory MP who has even gone towards saying that you know the police have to have to crack down on people in this same way and he called them sectarian gangs.

I said why can’t you call them Muslim gangs and he said because you can’t be sure that they always are. Fair enough but you know given what they were challenging in being very clear. Well you think and also the fact they’re protecting mosques but the bottom line is that you know the Tories are nowhere here, even if Jenrick wins and you know Robert appears to have been on quite a journey politically and I’ve listened very carefully to what he’s been saying, but even if Robert Jenrick wins he’s leading a party that is completely split and a party with its new intake you know the 100 down to 121 MPs, but the one nation is actually dominate the Parliamentary party now, far more than they did now if he makes the last two with the members in the country he’ll probably win right but how does he command?

But he might not, he might not, he’s already been under fire for what he said yesterday, you know I don’t see the Conservative party changing at all I think they are a broad church, I’m told it’s a broad Church to which I respond yes but without any uniting religion right?

 No roof even the flying buttresses are gone so and again this takes us back to where we started this worrying but growing perception that our former democracy isn’t working anymore no and that worries me greatly. It may have gone too far do you also worry as I do that that Two Tier Kier may use this as an excuse to kind of clamp down on all sorts of things like free speech.

Yes, the police have already, I mean Mark Rowley’s already started making noises about going after people who incite violence, I don’t know what that means, I don’t know whether you know I’m inciting violence. He might say you’re inciting violence. I think you and I have been around long enough I think we know yeah what inciting violence is, I think we know where the line genuinely is, I think what’s really interesting is the war of words that Elon Musk has launched against Starmer, you can almost tell that’s a pre-emptive strike yeah, he senses that the Labour government regulators, it’ll be ofcom with you and with me. That things are going to get more difficult but you know what governments that try and ban things, governments that try and suppress things, all they do is create new avenues for people to go to and I honestly think that to control the internet to control that debate, I think it’s almost impossible.

I think it is because they’ve tried it and it hasn’t worked in the past and the more people know, the better informed they are and the better they are able to judge what’s going on around them and they can see with their own eyes what’s going on around them yeah and also you know something, Musk and you can love him, you can hate him, you can agree with him, you can disagree with him, pretty extraordinary individual you know.

If you take on someone like Musk goodness graciously you are taking on a battle royal. A final word from you actually on Kamala Harris because you know who knew that only 3 months ago the woman who nobody wanted is now the great answer to all of America’s problems.

I did, I predicted it in September 2023, I said Biden would not make the line, too embarrassing so Harris is there she has injected some energy into the campaign let’s be fair, she’s actually going out doing rallies, going around the country not done a single proper media interview for over two weeks, picked a running mate who is I guess a sort of kind of fussy, Midwest.

Well, you think that but he’s actually not well what he stands for. But, the image of the geography teacher, the sort of middle-aged man, but when it comes to policies quite a long way to the left in marked contrast to Trump’s Midwestern pick JD Vance who’s very much on the other side. Look, the media wanted a win you know, this sort of you know this sort of isn’t it this wonderful fairy tale that suddenly emerged, my own belief is that she will step on every single available banana skin between now and November the 5th that is on that path. She’s been highly unsuccessful herself when she tried to run you know in the primaries a few years ago.

I don’t think there’s much substance there, I may be wrong I don’t think there’s much substance there but Trump has to think carefully how he deals with this it, particularly if you’re an older alpha male. How you address how you speak to a woman and how that’s perceived is very important if it’s you and me we have a good old up yes but I think it’s different when it’s Kamala Harris and I think Trump he need to think that through very hard. Interesting well good to see you again you very much indeed, I’m sure we’ll be talking again about all of this because it ain’t going away despite the Kumbaya moment last night, we may have some more stuff to talk about in the coming days and maybe over this weekend as well.