Nigel Farage and the Chamber of Echoes

Stephen Price

In ominous scenes played out in the recent local elections across England, Reform UK made the most of Labour and the Conservatives’ abysmal approval ratings, upending a status quo we’ve all grown a little too used to.

Watching closely, along with the world’s press – the Washington Post labelled it, a ‘political tipping point’, ‘sparking panic’ in the UK’s two major parties and drawing comparisons to the rise of global populist movements.

Starmer’s winter fuel allowance cuts, support for Israel’s war on Gaza and other issues have been the equivalent of the Lib Dem’s U-Turn on student fees for many lifelong supporters, and with the Tories not knowing quite what they are or who they want to be when they grow up, the vacuum was easily filled.

Closer to home, members of the Senedd will have been watching even closer than you and I, and an exodus of key players (I didn’t say rats from a sinking ship, you did) ahead of next year’s Senedd elections suggest they know the tide has turned for them too.

OK, so at the outset, I’ll out myself as not only a Plaid supporter, but one who proudly had a campaign board in the front garden ahead of the last general election.

Granted, there are things I’ve had concerns about, haven’t we all, but in the grand scheme they mirror a Wales I’d like to see, and they’re on the ground tirelessly in ways I see few other politicians working in Wales.

Whether I disagree on X, Y or Z (take a punt, it’s the obvious ones), ultimately, I feel a kinship and I always feel a kindness.

So, back to the topic in hand (the above is to prevent any confusion over where my natural allegiances lie)… Reform and Wales.

Where to begin, Steve, where to begin…

One thing about me, and my friendship groups (of all ages – I pop in on a few elderly folk, walk their dogs and the like), is that I like to think that I don’t live in an echo chamber.

I’m curious about everything, and I like my ideas challenged, and I’m also quite happy for others to hold opinions other than my own without it impacting how I feel about them, even if I’m not supposed to.

Lived experience

How often we hear that term, ‘echo chamber’, on social media – usually slung at the opposing side of the fence to our own. We’re the good guys, y’see – we’re educated and informed, we allow dialogue in our chamber, it’s the others that deserve that title.

Only, we don’t really allow dialogue on our side either, do we?

One moment from the last election debates is firmly printed on my brain, that shows how we operate over on the left. We educate!

We condescend.

We know a little bit better than you.

Whether it’s said or implied, the conclusion is that Reform supporters are racist, and they’re, for want of a better word, ‘thick’.

The debate, broadcast on ITV almost a year ago, featured a young man from northern England who shared his concerns about immigration.

After relaying his own experience, and his beliefs, he was swiftly re-educated by Rhun, and that was that. Job done. He was told.

Lived experience, on the ground by white working class people, trumped by the superior knowledge of the educated from another world entirely.

And that’s how things have always been, at least for my adult life.

Wales, itself, is experiencing the knock-on effect of England’s rules on migration, and it’s not labelled in such ways as American cities’ ‘white flights’, but call it what you like, blame it on house prices or ‘a better way of life’, one is taking place, let’s not kid ourselves.

It’s racist, you see, to be concerned about changing demographics and net migration of 728,000 in 2024 alone (double the population of Cardiff).

Racist.

The problem with calling out Welsh folk for choosing parties that address those concerns, however we might feel about them, has no merit when we, a nation without its own independence, are at the whim of England.

So does it not make sense, therefore, that the Welsh public, as part of the UK, will look to a UK (OK English but let’s not pretend the two main ones are that much different) party for their concerns to be addressed?

“Insulting”

It’s not just ‘being racist’ (Lolz) that Reform supporters have in common with our Nige either.

Take the Welsh language, for another example. You’ll find no bigger champ than I, it’s etched on my skin, it sounds from my music speakers, it’s the language of friends and family, but let’s also not kid ourselves that it’s been in the best hands in recent years.

What we don’t want to hear is that, contrary to popular belief, what Nigel said on Sharp End this week regarding the target of a million speakers is how Welsh people, and incomers to Wales, themselves feel.

Even I have called out the target of a million speakers more than once before, calling it a ‘meaningless and unachievable pipe dream’ while our children are denied education in their own language en masse.

At the moment, it’s over to them, when it should be over to us.

Like outing my Plaid supporting at the outset, I’ll also out myself as a fan of how Wales has put safety over speed with the 20mph ‘not-a-blanket’ rollout. A month on, I’m still dealing with the recurring images of a squished hedgehog near my home, a casualty of drivers ignoring the limit now, just as they did then, but I’m going off on a tangent here…

Again, however, there’s been no dialogue. No listening.

And where there has been a ‘review’, the approach in Monmouthshire summed things up by making no changes anyway.

Living, and driving, in the ‘Shire, I can assure you there have been some silly applications of the lower limit, so not one? Not one road?

Nope. Like our politicians, our councillors know better than us.

Over to Sharp End to let Farage speak for himself though…

Nation of Sanctuary? A nation that builds bombs, a nation that has a government controlled by Westminster that supports Israel’s war on Gaza? Maybe he has a point.

Anti Racism Wales? ‘We don’t need that, it’s insulting’ Again, some might say it is.

20mph? ‘Nanny state gone crackers’ – the hits and commentary Nation.Cymru gets for a 20mph story might also, sorry to say, suggest some feel he has a point.

Both Sides Now

So what are the ‘Echo Chambers’ saying?

On the one side, in essence he’s an out of touch millionaire (like most of the alternative aren’t), and immigration is a source of unadulterated success in every way, and the NHS needs more folk from afar, and you, reader, voter, grandma, boomer? You’re racist, perhaps you’ve even been interfered with by a Russian if you think otherwise.

The thick are reminded that he’s a “public school educated former stockbroker and son of a millionaire”, as if Sir Keir and others are one of the lads.

Or take the below image containing a host of anti-Reform misinformation from a Welsh Facebook group, that only served to bring out more support for the party.

A commenter replied thus: “Awww you forgot the slaughtering of all male children under 2 years old, cancelling Xmas and the banning of Ron Evans Pies. Get your facts straight mun.”

Others shout: “He’s not even Welsh!!!!” Much like Keir, Kemi and Labour’s ‘parachuted’ Welsh candidates then.

“We need to concentrate on the billionaires not immigrants.” i.e. “Look over there!”

“He’ll destroy the NHS”

And if in doubt, it’s time to pull the abhorrently insulting “echoes of Nazi Germany” card.

And in the opposite side of the ring, too many parallels with the glory days of the EU ‘Leave’ campaign: disillusionment with the two-horse race (although this will be a thing of the past in Wales next year), a general feeling of being overlooked, ignored, forgotten, sidelined.

In the Welsh town’s Facebook debate group I mention above, one commenter wrote: “At this point, it’s just choosing one bad party over the next. None of them will do what they promise.”

Another wrote: “I am voting Reform. Change is needed.”

In true Trumpian fashion, what no Reform supporter is worried about is where Farage was born, or how many passports he has, or the amount of money he has in the bank.

In Farage’s messaging is a highly charged Venn diagram where many working class people’s concerns are answered, even if it is, indeed, the snake oil his detractors say it is, and not the approved snake-oil they’re currently buying.

Simmering

If a group of people are continuously talked down to, and left out of the conversation (listening event, anyone?), and if their votes continually bring more of the same, they will naturally revolt. And with little alternative outside of the ballot box to affect change, this is their only way how.

‘Welsh’ Labour did remarkably well as an island of opposition while the Tories mishandled Covid, Brexit et al. but with their bosses at the other end of the M4 telling them what to say, and how to say it – from Gaza to the Crown Estate, St David’s Day and everything in between – many in Wales, just like the lifelong Labour voters in England’s recent local elections, have had the Welsh Red Wool taken from their eyes and found themselves in a political vacuum.

The Welsh electorate, knife in hand, ready to spite their own faces, feel they have nothing to lose. Ready and willing to ‘f*** around and find out’.

For many, with real problems ‘career politicians’ (I know, I know, it’s a Reform-approved term) could only ever know in theory, things can’t get any worse.

Reform symapthisers are given two options, and two options only, by the ‘mainstream’ parties – keep quiet about concerns on any difficult topic, or raise your voice and expect to be told 2 plus 2 equals 5.

For them, the fuse lit under the Senedd, and Westminster in time, will at least offer a momentary level of control.

A spited land, by a simmering, spited people, who might not have reached boiling point had they simply felt listened to.