Here’s everything about the Brexit Party candidates they’d rather you didn’t know
Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party is ahead in the polls for the European elections on 23 May. Yet his campaign doesn’t have a manifesto. As a result, specific details about what the party’s candidates are actually standing for remain unclear. But one writer has carefully investigated all the Brexit Party candidates, their links and backgrounds. And anyone thinking of voting for them, or who knows anyone who might be, should read it.
The Brexit Party MEP candidates
S Holloway “read up on every single listed Brexit Party MEP candidate” with one goal, “to find out what kind of people they are”. The article is written in a breezy irreverent style but it links to many different sources to build a clear picture. Some Brexit Party candidates support dangerous right-wing theories, people and ideas. Holloway states that, “just for starters”:
Many of them are really, really into things like conversion therapy for gay people, many support and are beaming friends to actual fascists, and a number have campaigned for a paedophile’s right to access child porn or groom children.
Holloway also notes that many candidates “are minted”, some through business, others through inheritance or marriage. Tax avoidance and offshore banking links feature heavily. The implication is that, for some, Brexit offers financial benefits. The article also observes that many candidates are “spectacularly candid” about:
their desire to personally profit from and fecklessly exploit the chaos and decline that they openly admit Brexit would cause.
Another thing that emerges from several candidates who “manage huge businesses” is opposition to “annoying” EU policies. Many have vocally opposed food safety directives or basic workers’ rights such as sick leave. In Holloway’s opinion:
A lot of them aren’t ‘bad boys of Brexit’; they’re just shit human beings.
Read on...
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Right, right, right
Holloway meticulously lists links between Brexit Party candidates and the far right.
For example, links take the reader to a video of Nigel Farage openly discussing how to ‘use’ immigration to build populism with former White House strategist and Breitbart co-founder Steve Bannon. They also demonstrate Farage’s open support for far-right French politician Marine Le Pen and his meeting with “relatives of actual Nazis” in 2017.
Another section establishes former UKIP leader Paul Nuttall’s links with controversial Bulgarian MEP Slavi Binev. Annunziata Rees-Mogg, another Brexit Party candidate, needs no further links to establish her family connections. Then there’s George Farmer, who’s “chairman of pro-Trump rightwing movement Turning Point UK”. As The Canary reported, Farmer has other dubious connections to the far right. He’s also engaged to Candace Owens, a “far-right” “ultra-conservative” who is openly pro-Trump.
Holloway also suggests that “far too many” Brexit Party candidates:
write slavishly for neo-Nazi websites like Breitbart, and infamously inaccurate papers, while several churn out bile on very murky websites like Spiked Magazine.
“This. is. who. you’re. voting. for.”
Holloway builds a detailed picture of all the Brexit Party candidates. Former Conservative MP Anne Widdecombe’s views are easy to establish from her voting record. She’s consistently voted against equal gay rights, openly opposed gay marriage and voted against environment and climate change issues. What Holloway’s work does is establish links to lesser-known Brexit Party candidates and reveals that there seem to be a lot of similar views in common.
As the article also admits, it seems that some “decent” candidates may be more measured:
I don’t want to generalise too much about the candidates, as some are seemingly decent, well-meaning people, a percentage of which have done some selfless and admirable things for the community. Though an interesting number of ostensibly decent candidates (doctors, lawyers, charity workers etc) actually have shady backgrounds, inexcusable beliefs, and skeletons in their closets, or are at best hypocritically burying their heads in the sand about their party bedfellows.
Without a manifesto, the electorate has little way of holding Farage or Brexit Party candidates to account. Yet many of those standing may not want voters to know about their links, beliefs and previous statements. Thanks to Holloway, all the things they might not want you to know are now easy to find.
Featured image via Wikimedia – The Brexit Party / Flickr – Gage Skidmore
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Oh! STOP IT! with yer political histrionics. Lot’s of Labour Brexit folk will be voting for him. Where else can we vote that hasn’t reneged on Brexit?
very true point you make here also well put— Microbe
My personal POINTS ONLY!
////
P-1 “I voted leave fully no strings attached by any Govt party
P-2 “I voted for Brexit party to at least give us a say in E.U.
they can veto E.U. when voting on matter (by red flag)
P-3 “I had to vote Brexit party because NO over party in Govt + Parliament are for-filling my wisher as a leave voter from 2016 vote.
P-4 “I was placed (forced) in this way of voting for a E.U. candidate by Tory Govt Prime Minister failing to get us, Out of E.U. MESS time and time again she failed.
P-5 WHO ever takes over Tory party we leave voter do not wish the D.U.P. parties backstop rubbish in a new W/BILL O.K. that ties us to E.U. indefinitely this is not what we leave voters/ voted for (to all parties in H.O. Commons now.)
When are people going to wake up and realize that the Brexit movement was started and funded by wealthy people that don’t want the European Courts tracking down their tax avoidance schemes. The British ‘Nasties’, i.e. the uneducated morons that fear foreigners are taking their ‘heritage’ away, and the ‘little Britain’ ignoramus’ have been paraded around as if they are a huge part of Brexit. They are not. These loud mouthed peasants have been manipulated by the wealthy to hide the real goal of Brexit. The freedom to avoid paying taxes in Britain and Europe while continuing to benefit from the British and European taxes paid by others. Brexit is about theft of taxes by the rich. Nothing else.