This blog was once criticised for being too party political. But what is happening out there in the world is distressing and scarcely conducive to a quiet and calm life. When UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who campaigned on behalf of Trump, describes US President Barack Obama as a “loathsome individual” and a “creature” who “couldn’t stand our country” one has to protest.
This is the fellow who wants to be a diplomat and Ambassador to the United States! No, Sir, Obama is a decent, civilised patriot, who has been stymied at every turn by opposition whose sole objective has been not to help govern the country but to get him out of power. Obama has been a good President, arguably not as active and scrappy as he might have been, but who nevertheless will be honoured among the best.
Mr. “Wreck-Everything-in- Sight” Farage will, however, be remembered for his efforts to render the United Kingdom a poor and pitied offshore island off the coast of Europe, barely bothered with by the rest of the world. This is an undisciplined man set on taking wild, unplanned and illogical leaps into the dark and incapable of thinking ahead. He is typical of some modern politicians for whom invective is policy.
We would have been stronger together than apart.
This is also a man who campaigned for Donald Trump, and refuses to distance himself from Marine Le Pen, who recently praised him and UKIP. He’s part of the same cancer of authoritarian populism that’s sweeping much of the world.
It’s incredible that a man who praises Putin, a kleptocratic despot, but condemns Obama in the strongest possible terms, is admired by so many. Obama isn’t perfect- no one is- but he’s tried his best against relentless and un cooperative opposition. Obama has been too authoritarian, such as his use of drone strikes in Pakistan, or the continuation of the surveillance state. But a Farage backed Trump doesn’t have a problem with any of that. Trump criticses Obama for not being authoritarian enough. He wants us to kill the civilians of terrorists, and use forms of torture worse than waterboarding! Farage hasn’t distanced himself from any of that.