The Mainstream Media Won’t Tell You This
Photo Illustration by Adam Maida
It is strange to watch the creation of a new culture-war meme in real time. Talking directly to the camera from a fishing trawler, Nigel Farage takes a concerned and somber tone. The pro-Brexit politician says he has uncovered a huge scandal—migrant boats traveling from France to England, escorted into British waters by the French navy. He is worried for those on board: Once in Britain, they risk becoming “modern-day slave labor.” Gesturing offscreen, Farage adds: “You might as well have a big sign on the White Cliffs of Dover, over there, that says ‘Anyone that comes to Britain illegally can stay’ … We are being taken for a ride by everybody, including the French navy.”
Farage is a well-known figure in Britain, thanks to his leadership of the U.K. Independence Party, and then his own Brexit Party. Since Brexit was secured, he has reinvented himself as the closest thing Britain has to a Rush Limbaugh–style provocateur. His video has more than 250,000 views on YouTube, and has also been distributed to his 1.5 million Twitter followers and 974,000 Facebook followers. To put those figures in context, after years of decline and a precipitous drop caused by the coronavirus lockdown, no British newspaper now has a circulation as large as Farage’s Twitter following. Social media gives him the reach of a traditional media organization, but few of its obligations.
If you
