Nigel Farage selling videos to neo-Nazis is no mistake

The Guardian has gone through 4,366 video clips that Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has made since 2021. And it has shown that, as part of his £374,893+ side hustle, Farage has happily performed for neo-Nazis. He may claim he made mistakes, but his consistent dog-whistling suggests he knows exactly what he’s doing.

Farage has received money on the Cameo platform to make videos for all sorts of fans. He recorded messages:

• For a man who got 16 months in jail for participating in far-right riots, which Farage labelled “absolutely outrageous”.
• Dog-whistling around the far-right phrase “If in doubt, kick them out”. As the Guardian said, “Farage uses – or more often alludes to – the hardline anti-immigration phrase more than 20 times”. In doing so, Dr Ashton Kingdon insisted, he was “choosing to cultivate this audience and to speak its language back to it”.
• Happily saying “up the Rhodesia”, despite that likely referring to the historical white supremacist ethnostate in Africa.
• Voluntarily referring to antisemitic conspiracy theories, saying: “Is it the Bilderbergers that are running the world? … It could be the Masons. Some think it’s the Rothschilds. Maybe it’s George Soros. I don’t know. What I do know is actually I don’t think any of it is a conspiracy theory.”
• For people who, as the Guardian said, “openly expressed offensive views in their prompts”.

The most shocking video, however, gave what the Guardian describes as:

a pep talk for Canadian neo-Nazis

Farage endorsing neo-Nazis? Sounds about right.

One video, the Guardian explained, wanted Farage to:

endorse the “Road Rage Terror Tour”, a Canadian show hosted by “Jeremy MacKenzie, Derek Harrison and Alex Vriend”. A quick Google would have revealed to Farage the extremist nature of the individuals and their event.

MacKenzie, Harrison and Vriend are leaders of Diagolon, a group identified as a “Canadian far-right ‘extremist’ group” by the US state department in 2022.

Diagolon’s website advertised a book alluding to Adolf Hitler called Meme Kampf and the group’s extremist slogan – “they have to go back” – was a nod to the forced repatriation of migrants.

Farage apparently didn’t do a quick search to find out more about the event. Instead, the Guardian said:

he duly obliged, starting his video: “They have to go back.” Farage’s message then encouraged “Andrea” to attend what he said was “the most talked-about show in Canada”. “Why not give it a go?” Farage said. “You never know, you might walk out saying, ‘Road Rage Terror Tour is the best thing that ever happened.’”

The neo-Nazi group quickly clipped up the video and used it in their propaganda. This included one video, the Guardian reported:

in which a leader of Diagolon makes shooting noises and gestures while saying: “I just saw you were brown and I couldn’t help myself.”

In another, the paper added:

Farage’s Cameo clip featured alongside white nationalist and antisemitic messaging

A representative for the far-right group itself said it showed Farage:

being lazy and stupid enough to say anything for a dollar

Farage, meanwhile, pleaded ignorance. A spokesperson said he had been using Cameo “without knowledge of the individuals”.

But we reckon Farage knows exactly what he’s doing.

Featured image via the Canary