by WorldTribune Staff, October 11, 2016
There is a “growing mistrust of the political class” in both Britain and the U.S., a key player in the successful Brexit vote said.
“The little people have had enough – not just here, but in America too,” Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party (Ukip), wrote in an Oct. 9 op-ed for the UK’s Telegraph.
The U.S. presidential campaign “mirrors many of the arguments and conflicts that we have seen recently in British politics, especially during the recent referendum campaign. Essentially, this election is about continuity versus change, with huge doses of personal vitriol thrown in,” Farage wrote.
“When I arrived at the Republican Party convention in Cleveland, Ohio, back in July, I was amazed at the reaction to me over the Brexit result. Normally we follow trends in America, not the other way round, but it was clear that many of the delegates saw Brexit as an aspiration for what they see as the Trump ‘revolution’ against the Establishment.”
Farage noted that “one of the reasons that Ukip went from being an insignificant political party to winning the 2014 European elections is that we spoke about issues in a language that resonated with ordinary people.”
“Like him or loathe him,” Farage pointed out, “Trump is not a part of the political elite and he most certainly is not constrained by political correctness. When I spoke at one of his rallies in Jackson, Mississippi, I saw a fanatical gathering of his fans who want to give the Establishment a good hiding. ‘We want our country back’ works as a slogan here, too.”
The Republican and Democratic sides in the 2016 U.S. election “are very like our own recent battle,” Farage wrote. “As the rich get richer and big companies dominate the global economy, voters all across the West are being left behind. The blue-collar workers in the valleys of South Wales angry with Chinese steel dumping voted Brexit in droves. In the American rust belt, traditional manufacturing industries have declined, and it is to these people that Trump speaks very effectively, since they have all but given up hope of Washington.”
Farage concluded: “I believe we are witnessing a popular uprising against failed politics on a global scale. People want to vote for candidates with personality, faults and all. It is the same in the UK, America and much of the rest of Europe. The little people have had enough. They want change.”