Free speech has never been so at risk as it is now, Nigel Farage has said, because this time its opponents are highly organised and their networks are putting pressure on anyone questioning the tactics of far-left movements like Black Lives Matter.
Speaking to Fox News’s Laura Ingraham on Tuesday, the Brexit Party leader warned that what makes this battle for free speech different to others in the past is “the sheer level of organisation” and support that groups like Black Lives Matter receive from the powerful progressive institutions.
“Black Lives Matter is backed up, of course, by other organisations like Media Matters. You can trace much of the funding of this back to George Soros and many other people,” Mr Farage said on The Ingraham Angle.
The former radio host recently parted ways with talk radio station LBC, over what he had suggested this week may have been as a result of leftist pressure on advertisers. Mr Farage told Ingraham that this tactic has become a tool in silencing those who question far-left orthodoxy in the media.
“What you’ve got now is you’ve got commercial organisations who if they dare even ask the question: Who are Black Lives Matter? What is their agenda? What are they really stand for? Is mob rule in our streets and tearing down statues something that’s acceptable?
“Even to question such things means that… corporate companies that advertise through television stations, radio stations, in newspapers, are now being attacked by the mob. They’ll get hundreds of thousands of emails from people saying: ‘We’ll never buy your product again if you continue to advertise with this media organisation.’
“So it isn’t just mob rule on the streets, it’s actually changing the whole shape and perception of our mainstream media.”
Farage went on to criticise British Prime Minister Boris Johnson for failing to take a hard line on violent and destructive London BLM protests. Even after the statue of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill was vandalised twice, no arrests have been made.
While the desecration of the memorial to the greatest Briton in modern history was a terrible act, Mr Farage said that for the far-leftists, the protests are not just about memory-holing men like Churchill but to tear down the whole of British history.
“What we’ve seen in London and other UK cities over the last couple of weeks now has almost nothing to do with racial equality and fairness, which, of course, all of us would like to see.
“This is now a Marxist anarchistic attempt to tear down and make us disrespect all the great symbols through our history from Winston Churchill and going right back through the centuries… These are the national heroes that we’ve brought up with.
“We’re now supposed to loathe them, and even more importantly, we’re supposed to loathe ourselves. This is about fundamentally changing the whole of our society. It must be resisted.”
The far-leftists leaving cultural destruction in their wakes want to tear down Western civilisation, Mr Farage continued.
“They want to destroy the nation-state, capitalism, the family unit and virtually everything that we’ve stood for and previous generations have fought for. We need brave people in politics and the media to stand firm and not to allow us to live under mob rule,” he said.
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