Nigel Farage is aware of how one can seize on a second and how one can spin a line.
He got here to Washington to declare that Britain had “become North Korea.”
I am undecided if he has been to North Korea, however I’ve, and I can report that Britain just isn’t North Korea.
However maybe Mr Farage met his match over right here on the opposite facet of the Atlantic and on the opposite facet of the political divide.
At a committee listening to in Washington – inspecting the perceived risk and influence that UK and EU on-line security legal guidelines have on free speech – Mr Farage was given what liberals will probably regard as an evisceration by quite a lot of Democratic Celebration politicians.
American politicians know how one can drive a sound chew. One lawmaker referred to as Mr Farage a “fringe politician”. One other, Consultant Jamie Raskin, described Mr Farage’s look as “a drive by hit against a Democratic ally to benefit a Donald Trump sycophant and wannabe…”
Mr Raskin went on to handle the British individuals. “To the people of the UK who think this Putin-loving, free speech impostor and Trump sycophant will protect freedom in your country, come on over to America and see what Trump and MAGA are doing to destroy our freedom.”
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Linehan arrest ‘seems to be an overreaction’
There’s a curiosity round this listening to. The precise in Britain (Farage) and the left in America (Raskin et al) are utilizing this second to warn of what they each see because the erosion of freedom of speech in one another’s international locations.
Frankly each are utilizing the second to attain political factors for their very own facet in their very own international locations – you’d count on nothing much less.
Apparently although, after I put it to Mr Farage that there’s greater than a small dose of hypocrisy happening provided that Trump’s administration has been accused of stifling any speech that it disagrees with (books in faculties, content material in museums, social media on telephones, reporting within the media) he did not push again.
As a substitute he mentioned he was right here to warn in opposition to the stifling of any free speech; and to warn America of the place he thinks it leads: “‘authoritarian Britain” in his thoughts.
Talking to the committee, Mr Farage mentioned: “I’ve come today as well to be a klaxon, to say to you, don’t allow piece by piece, this to happen here in America.
“And you’ll be doing us and yourselves and all freedom-loving individuals a favour in case your politicians and your companies mentioned to the British authorities, ‘You’ve got merely received this improper, at what level did we turn out to be North Korea?'”
