“Banter” – the refuge of the abuser

Seven Up is a documentary series that first aired in 1964 by Granada TV.  Every seven years it follows the lives of a diverse group of children from around the UK who were aged seven in 1964. As it begins each update, a sonorous voice-over from the original 1964 documentary gives us a Jesuit quote, “Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man.”

That quote has been in my head this week as I have read about Farage at Dulwich College and the outrage of his supporters who say that we cannot judge the adult by the racist, antisemitic bullying behaviour of his school years.

Is the boy who took great pleasure in taunting Jewish and Asian boys the same person who now stands on the world stage and has captured the imagination of 20% of the voting British public?

We on the left, who were in the Labour Party from Corbyn’s leadership through to Starmer’s, know about people digging into our chaotic pasts. It was used with great effect to discredit activists:

“You sat on a platform with people who defended terrorists.”

“You stood on a picket line with members of a far-left group.” (This one was against a local long-standing member of the Labour Party who went before a councillor selection committee. They had photo-shopped the original photo to shift them closer to an SWP banner.)

But what did Flashman become when he left Rugby? We know that he worked in the City and joined the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party – always the refuge of the well-bred racists. We know he left to form UKIP and, because of the apathy and indifference of British voters to Euro elections, his activists got him a seat in the European Parliament in 1999 until 2020. There he formed alliances with Italy’s Northern League, and the Sweden Democrats, who used to wear Nazi uniforms to meetings. Plus other far-right, neo-Nazi, homophobic individuals who, like Farage, simultaneously condemned and grabbed every bit of funding or expense that was available.

There is a continuous and undeniable thread. And despite the presence of a Muslim Chair of Reform and right-wing Jews at his rallies, the boy who praised Enoch Powell has become a powerful politician. The people he surrounds himself with are there for display or the money they provide. We know he is entrenched in the white nationalist wing of the Republican Party. Like Trump he performs a delicate dance with white supremacist ideology.

He has appeared on the podcast of conspiracist Alex Jones, and said that members of the Bilderberg gathering of political and business leaders are plotting a global government. Or that the banking and political systems are working “hand in glove” in an attempt to disband nation states. And, of course, “Globalists” are trying to engineer a world war as a means to introduce a worldwide government. Antisemitism is much more sophisticated than it was in the 1960s. You can’t just mutter “Hitler was right” any more. You have to talk about George Soros who, says Farage, “wants to fundamentally reshape Europe’s racial makeup and to end the continent’s Christian culture” and calling Soros “the biggest danger to the entire western world”.

Peter Ettedgui, the grandson of Jews who escaped Nazi Germany, has been open with his claims about Farage’s antisemitic bullying for many years. “I made a post on social media and I was overwhelmed by people who got in contact with me,” he said on BBC Radio 4. “People who were nine years old and Nigel Farage, when he was 18 years old, marched frequently into the playground where they were playing and they were told to ‘go back to Africa’. Others were singled out for being Jewish.”

This is damaging the bluff, straight-talking, British-values man of the people. His response to it has been disastrous and, I hope, will damage him even more. He’s called it “banter”. That “banter” phrase just about worked for Trump when it was situated in the adults’ locker room. The school playground is a very different place. There are many unpolitical people of Britain who are still badly damaged by what happened to them as a result of school bullying. They remember the sickening dread of entering the unsupervised areas; the shameful relief when the bully turned their attentions to some other victim. And never breaking the Omertà code by telling.

“Did you have a good day at school?”

“Yeah fine.”

Many are now sending their own children to school.

There is also “banter” in the workplace and “banter” within families. Let us also remember in silence those who couldn’t take the “banter” any more.

A massive electoral swing to Reform will depend on the undecideds believing not just in Farage’s message, but in who this man is. He’s been telling us who he is since he was 18.