Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage said that Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden couldn’t condemn the far-left anarchist group Antifa in Tuesday’s debate with President Donald Trump, because he is beholden to the radical left and fears losing their support in the November election.
In the first presidential debate of the 2020 election, when questioned on the far-left violence that has ravaged American cities for months, Mr Biden claimed that Antifa is “an idea, not an organisation”.
In an interview with talkRadio’s Mike Graham on Wednesday morning, Mr Farage baulked at Biden’s refusal to condemn the radical anarchist group, saying: “I’ve seen Antifa turn up at my meetings, threaten members of the public, and that’s in this country.”
“This is a deeply unpleasant, violent organisation and Biden cannot condemn it. He wasn’t pushed hard enough — I mean Trump was pushed ‘do you condemn far-right activism’ … Biden Never was,” Farage said.
“That was the point of the debate where I felt Chris Wallace didn’t do a very good job,” he added.
“But here’s the point,” Farage said: “There’s a large chunk of the activist base of the Democrat Party who support Antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement, which by the way is completely different from racial equality and justice, and I think this is Biden’s weak spot.”
Antifa — which has played a large part in fostering the rioting and mayhem in America following the death of George Floyd — has long roots in Europe, originally forming in 1932 in Germany before later reconstituting itself again in Germany in the 1980s.
The group has been responsible for destruction and violence across Europe including in hotspots such as France and Germany.
The organisation was classified as a domestic terrorist organisation by U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr in May, for its role in the violence and rioting in cities throughout the country.
Mr Farage said that there is always one key election issue, and he predicted that law and order will be the central focus of the 2020 elections.
“This election will be won or lost in the middle-class suburbs of the big cities, people living there and they’re seeing two or three miles away from where they live rioting, looting, shootings, shops being burned down,” Farage described.
The long-time Trump ally did have some critiques for the President’s performance, urging Mr Trump to slow down in the upcomming debates to allow Joe Biden to have more room to fail.
Mr Farage, who was live tweeting during the debate, did have critiques for the 77-year-old former vice president as well, at one point refering to him as “Bumbling Biden”. He noted, however, that as Mr Biden didn’t actually fall asleep during the debate, it will be perceived as a good performance.
“In performance terms it was almost a score draw, but in content terms and in terms of setting out the agenda for the rest of the campaign, the Trump team will be very pleased with that,” he said.
“Anyone that looks back at that debate last night will see that Trump was at his most fluent on the issue of supporting police forces and defending law and order,” Farge concluded.
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