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But of course there is one person who hasn't rebuffed, rebuked what the Trump administration has been saying
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Take a guess which political leader has not been rebuffing what we've been hearing from the US
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It is a certain Nigel Farage who not only has failed to condemn what J.D. Vance has said on social media, he reposted it
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they say retweets are not endorsements well this looks like one and this from a man who failed in parliament on wednesday to condemn the violence in southampton
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on tuesday night i think we have to ask serious questions of nigel farage now
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look people will disagree on whether his words his language on tuesday morning talking about pure
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cold rage, whether that amounts to some kind of incitement. And as ever with Nigel Farage, there is always enough wriggle room, there is always enough
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plausible deniability. But then why didn't he condemn the scenes that we saw on Tuesday
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night in Southampton, when Tommy Robinson, a far-right thug, led violent disorder on
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the streets of Britain, attacking police officers? No one needed that. And whether you believe
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Nigel Farage had helped inflame that situation he certainly did nothing to calm it down and then
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why wouldn't you the next day at very least condemn those scenes and why wouldn't you now
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when a foreign actor which is what JD Vance is wades into an incredibly sensitive political debate
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in the UK why wouldn't you condemn him whose side are you on Nigel Farage you've got UK in your
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party's name, well, why don't you put the UK first? Why don't you stand up for the UK
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and defend our government, our police, when they are being attacked by a foreign leader
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03456060973 is the number to call. Is the Trump administration trying to interfere
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in our democracy? And if so, how should we respond? We'll get your calls in a moment
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First, I want to bring in Femi Oluwole, anti-racism activist, journalist and YouTuber
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Appreciate your time this morning, Femi. First of all, your response to J.D. Vance. The administration does not care about protecting the safety of the lives of innocent people
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because when his administration via ICE, via the ICE agents, shot Renee Nicole Good and Alex Preti
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their administration essentially supported those murders on the streets by essentially law enforcement
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Well not really law enforcement because their actions are illegal but they are on the side of those who would kill innocent people in the streets So to suggest that they are on the side of Henry Novak in this case
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being, well, not killed by, but neglected by, severely neglected by, and abused by a police officer, is ludicrous
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And his comments about mass migration being to blame, I mean, leaving aside how inflammatory that is
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I mean, it should be pointed out, Henry Novak himself is the descendant of immigrants
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You know, he comes from a British-Polish family. Yeah, and we've seen this happen by people from that branch of politics before
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When we had the stabbing on training in Cambridgeshire, Matthew Goodwin, the Reform Party's candidate in the Denton and Gorton by-election
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he tweeted that this is a problem of immigration, even though the man who was responsible for that
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was born in the UK. And then when somebody pointed out that that person was born in the UK
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and therefore not an immigrant and they were a British citizen, Matthew Goodwin tweeted
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it takes more than a piece of paper to make you a British citizen
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which implies that this isn't about nationality. It's not about immigration. This is about race
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This is the fact that the killer in this case, Digwa, he was a brown person
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and therefore they're trying to make it a race issue. And it's frankly disgusting, especially given that the father of Henry Nowak specifically said
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this is not about Hinduism, this is not about Sikhism, this is not about racism, this is about murder
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So we have branches of the right of politics, whether it's J.D. Vance in America or Nigel Farage in the UK
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deliberately going against the express wishes of a grieving father, and it is frankly disgusting
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Does this amount of foreign interference, what we've heard from the Trump administration
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I mean, back in... J.D. Vance, about a couple of months ago, went across to Hungary to campaign for Viktor Orban
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and praise some pretty authoritarian measures that he was taking. Fortunately, that didn't work over there, and I don't think it will work in this time
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But J.D. Vance is no stranger to foreign interference. and given that we have Nigel Farage currently leading in the polls
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meaning he became our most likely next Prime Minister, and J.D. Vance interfering in such an overt way
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and Nigel Farage retweeting his intervention, he is essentially pulling the strings of our next government
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So it does feel very strongly like foreign interference. Is this going to work for Nigel Farage, though
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Because he not a stupid man he knows what he doing And you know he has previously liked to talk about the fact that he has held the line against sort of the far right he would he would say for example that he never allowed the likes
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of tommy robinson into any party he's led uh he's always been very strong on anyone who's ever been
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in the bmp that that is what nigel farage would say but this week i think he's gone further down
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a dangerous road than i've ever seen him gone down what why do you think he's doing this
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well the beauty of Nigel Farage is he knows how to play the game he knows that well a tiktoker
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once once said the difference between America and the UK is that in America the classism is subtle
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and the racism is overt and in the UK the racism is subtle and the classism is overt and I think
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that's that's the tune that Nigel Farage plays to he knows that he can never be overtly far-right
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and racist and therefore he generally tries to be more subtle with it which is why he rejects
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people like Tom Robinson because they are the more brash form of racism
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But he still does things like claiming that 46% of British Muslims support terrorism, which is a lie
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He still does things like embracing Lucy Connelly after she bled guilty to inciting racial hatred
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by calling for asylum seekers who burned alive and hugging her on stage, specifically because of that
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So that nasty, violent side of the far right is very much his brand, but he tries to be more subtle with it
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I think that as we get closer and closer to the next election, with people like Rupert Lowe, Tommy Robinson, making Nader Farage look like he's not truly far right enough, I think he's trying to lean into that brand a bit more to make sure he can actually capitalise on those elements of society and that that vote isn't split with people such as Restore Britain
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So I don't think this is the case. I think this is just Nader Farage showing who he's always been, especially given what we know about him from when he was a child
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Whilst I've got you, Femi, I want to ask you about something David Lammy told us on LBC yesterday
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He said he wouldn't take the knee for Henry Novak because there are people who have said
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look, you know, politicians took the knee in the wake of the murder of George Floyd
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Why is that not happening now? Is there a double standard? Should the same politicians who took the knee for George Floyd take it for Henry Novak
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Well, the thing is, taking the knee is an inherently, is a symbol that is inherently linked to the fight against racism
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Colin Covenant took the knee specifically against racially discriminatory police brutality. So you can't really unpick taking the knee from the racism angle
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And with George Floyd, it was an example of a systemic problem of discriminatory violence against black people
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However in the UK the Metropolitan Police own data says they use violence against black suspects four times more than against white suspects So with the case of Henry Novak it is not an example of a systemic problem of racial discrimination against white people
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because it is, statistically speaking, an outlier. So if he wants to show a sign of respect
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and a sign of anger, which there should be justifiable anger against the police for how they treated Henry Novak
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in the final moments of his life, if you want to do that, go ahead. But choosing to use the taking the knee symbol
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as your gesture for that feels a bit out of place. But it was interesting
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I mean, he was speaking to my colleague, Nick Ferrari, and he essentially said
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look, I wouldn't do it because it is just symbolic. And looking back at that sort of post-George Floyd
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summer of 2020, Black Lives Matter movement moment, was the taking of the knee purely symbolic
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Did it achieve anything or was it important? I think it was useful because we wear symbols all the time
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We wear puppies all the time. There are a whole bunch of things that we do that are symbolically showing our respect for certain things
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I think what it did do was highlight the kind of people that are not on the right side of history
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For example, and I find it very funny that the same people who got angry at Keir Starmer for taking the knee or politicians for taking the knee in general
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are now the ones suggesting that we should take the knee for Henry Novak because they showed themselves that they were against the very principle of equality for black people back then
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and now they want to use it now, which shows that they understand that symbols matter
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They're just not willing to do it if it supports the rights of black people. Femi, appreciate your time. Thank you
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Femi Oluwole there, anti-racism activist, journalist and YouTuber. And I'm really keen to hear from you this hour
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First of all, what do you make of what J.D. Vance has had to say? It's just, I mean, where do you even begin
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when you start blaming the death of Henry Novak on mass migration
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And look, you and I have had conversations about rates of immigration
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I think rates of immigration have been too high. I think we've got an issue with illegal immigration and small boats
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Those are legitimate points of public debate. I don't blame the tragic death of Henry Novak on immigration
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For J.D. Vance to do that, I mean, presumably the only reason he's raising that
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is because Henry Novak is white. despite the fact that Henry Novak himself is the descendant of immigrants
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So how, therefore, is his death anything to do with mass migration
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unless he's bringing ethno-nationalism into it, unless he's talking about the fact that Henry Novak happens to be
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a white descendant of immigrants and Vikram Digwa was a brown descendant of immigrants
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Is that the only distinction that he's making here? And how should we respond? Do you see it as foreign interference
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What should be the response from politicians here
