Did you hear the one about Nigel Farage? He walked into his local with the family for a quiet lunch. It didn’t end well. The UKIP leader was chased out into the street and pursued by loud-mouthed, offensive, intolerant and singularly abusive lefty anti-extremist extremists. Call them scum if you like. Farage did.
Except it’s not a joke. It happened Sunday and a member of the fancy dress ambush party, along with the company she keeps, makes for some wonderfully illustrative comparisons.
Step forward Zita Holbourne. She is a self-described socialist ‘activist’ with a list of interests that include – but are not limited to – Public and Commercial Services Union and community issues, equality, freedom, humanity and justice. Holbourne is also a co-founder of BARAC UK which, translated from alphabet soup, stands for Black Activists Rising Against Cuts.
When time permits from that busy schedule of ticking every box in the list of modern progressive concerns, she is also an artist, writer and poet. Phew. How DOES she find the time?
Holbourne likes to travel. On a trip to Washington she can be seen cuddling up alongside Al Sharpton, a man who has never seen a civil disturbance in the US he couldn’t join in the name of racial equality while at the same time magnifying the flames of racial division.
Also in the picture is Labour MP Dianne Abbott. Oh look, Labour’s shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna is there as well. What a bright, shining shot of people steeped in concern for the world and protecting freedom at every turn.
Don’t take my word for it. Ask them. They’ll tell you. Ad nauseam, ad infinitum.
These are the faces of the modern, compassionate left. All together in one line. They have a conspicuous passion for peace and world harmony, togetherness, love, caring, sharing plus harmony. Don’t forget the harmony.
I wait for them all to now stand up and condemn the attack on Nigel Farage and his family – well, all except Holbourne, given that she was there at the time and was presumably in favour of some class warfare on a sunny afternoon.
Just like fellow protester Chris Baugh, assistant general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union. He boasted on Twitter: ‘I just chased Farage from his local, few others with us & very funny. Solidarity.’
Except those ‘few others’ also included Farage’s young children, a matter easily dismissed (or just plain denied) by the protest team.
Dan Glass, another protest leader, claimed Mr Farage’s children had not been scared off, saying: ‘He was sitting on his own and left on his own. We didn’t see any kids.’
Yes Dan Glass, a former leader of the Student Union at the University of Essex who doubles as a sometime Guardian columnist and Guardian Youth Climate Leader, was there to record the day for posterity. Kudos, comrade.
The organisers, Labour luvvies all, later released a statement attributed to ‘photographer’ Mike Kear.
It said: ‘As some protesters and the press entered the rear of the pub, I saw a blonde haired woman leaving with two children. At no time were any children seen to be scared or running away. Could this be that Farage is manipulating the truth for his own ends?’
Er, no. It’s Farage telling the truth. Not that that seems to be of concern for those who choose to ignore it.
UKIP members are human lightning rods for every grievance monger in the land and blamed for whatever the fashionable concern is of the day.
Intolerance abounding? Blame UKIP. A religion feeling persecuted? Blame UKIP. EU commissars in Brussels not feeling the love? Blame UKIP. Life not turning out as you expected? Blame UKIP.
The blame and shame game is never ending but will anybody step up and defend a man whose only affront to progressive values was to take his family for lunch?