Leaders of far-right groups need to explain precisely what they mean about making their countries great again, says Brian Reade. And asks how can Farage make Britain great if he can’t even make Clacton reasonably good again?
Wouldn’t it be just lovely if occasionally there was an outbreak of honesty in politics.
Imagine if, instead of saying, “I made a misjudgment and unreservedly apologise”, the next MP suspended for racist or sexist WhatsApp messages assumed some dignity and said, “I got found out. What a bummer”.
Imagine if Keir Starmer admitted he didn’t have a clue about the direction his Labour government is heading or Kemi Badenoch conceded she was so out of her depth at PMQs, the Commons should stick a lifeguard in the Speaker’s Chair.
And imagine if all those leaders of far-right groups explained precisely what they mean about making their countries great again.
It’s not just Donald Trump who wants to Make America Great Again. Nigel Farage’s Reform party has adopted Make Britain Great Again as their slogan, Marine Le Pen promises it in France, Javier Milei in Argentina, Giorgia Meloni in Italy, the AfD party in Germany, and last weekend, at a far-right summit in Madrid called Patriots For Europe, Hungarian leader Viktor Orban pledged to Make Europe Great Again.
How long before Elon Musk vows to Make Mars Great Again by taking it back to the days before the Red Planet fell to the communists?
Strangely though, most never tell us exactly when their country was great, and what made it so. They simply target the prejudices of the disillusioned by claiming that their lands have been taken hostage by multiculturalism and blame every problem – from potholes to turnip prices – on immigrants.
At least Trump has cited the decade he would like to take the US back to: “The 1890s. It had all tariffs and didn’t have income tax.” It also had America seizing Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico, so you get the retro vibe.
Presumably the AfD would like to go back to the 1940s when the last far-right German government made the trains run on time. Especially the ones that ferried six million Jews to death camps.
Now that Farage portrays himself as a prime minister in waiting, maybe he should ’fess up on his one-man mission to restore Britain’s greatness. He could tell us how Trump’s tariffs are going to boost our economy or why we should believe he’ll make Britain great again when he can’t even be bothered making Clacton reasonably good again.
He could put more detail into his mythical vision of Edwardian Britain where the sun never set on our empire, our nation was overwhelmingly white, and the impoverished working class doffed its cap to rich businessmen like him who sucked up all the wealth.
Maybe he could honestly explain the true sentiment behind his infamous Breaking Point poster during Brexit, which contained hordes of non-white migrants and refugees who he falsely implied were heading to Britain?
At the Madrid summit, Dutch anti-Islamist Geert Wilders called for a “reconquista” of Europe, citing the wars waged by Spanish Christian monarchs to retake the Iberian peninsula from Muslim kingdoms centuries ago.
And there’s the truth about the MAGA mantra. It’s a coded fascist slogan aimed at recruiting those who believe outsiders with a different skin colour to theirs are the root of all their problems.
Which is why the world might be great again when there are no political con artists left claiming they can miraculously make their country great again.