How Nigel Farage made my blood run cold – and made me think of WWII generation

Christine Jardine MP remembers the sacrifices made by the wartime generation as she fears for the future of democracy and human rights

Our past and potential future as a country will, metaphorically, come head-to-head in Westminster this week. The country's newest MP, elected on a wave of support for the right wing, will take her seat as parliament prepares to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, and the defeat of fascism.

Like many, I grew up surrounded by reminders of the sacrifice our greatest generation made to protect our freedoms. My Mum’s elder brothers were army veterans, one was wounded in France and, for a time, my grandmother thought he had died.

Dad was a toddler evacuee to Aberdeenshire with his sister and my Gran because they lived near one of Glasgow’s warship-building yards. My early childhood was spent in Clydebank where every family had lost someone in the Blitz which claimed 1,200 lives, left more than 1,000 injured, and only eight of around 12,000 houses undamaged. Thirty-five thousand people were made homeless.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage's recent remarks about immigration were chilling, says Christine Jardine (Picture: Hugh Hastings) | Getty Images

Freedom, not tyranny

Yet there was so much pride. The knowledge that their hardship had ensured we would live in freedom rather than under tyranny sustained them not just through the war itself, but the pain of rebuilding without loved ones.

As we mark the day they celebrated their freedom, we should be wary of allowing this to be lost through negligence. It’s almost eight years since my first election, and the challenges we face are not what I expected.

We are standing on the threshold of a very different era, a dangerous one in which a very real threat to democracy and human rights is knocking at our door.

Maybe we are all exhausted from dealing with the pandemic, a cost-of-living crisis, the war in Ukraine. People are at the end of their tether. Public confidence in mainstream politics has never been lower.

And the evidence of the local elections in England last week should be a clear warning. People are turning away from the centre, maybe because of what they perceive as political parties fighting amongst themselves, rather than for the population.

They have had successive governments saying they would support pensioners, help businesses and change the economy. Two main parties who promise change but deliver more of the same.

The consequences of that are dangerous. That is when a populist party, offering easy solutions without ever having to back them up, sounds like such a good option.

Language that was once unthinkable

We see the rise of the right wing across Europe and somehow we always assumed it wouldn’t reach our shores. It’s time we stopped and took stock.

An expansionist, autocratic power invaded a neighbour and brought war back to mainland Europe. An unpredictable US President is threatening to renege on decades of support for European democracy. And we have a nascent right wing making ground here at home.

This week I heard the leader of Reform proclaim confidently in the Commons that the problem with immigration was that it was bringing people here with cultures not compatible with our own. I felt my blood run cold.

That sort of language used to be, and should be still, unthinkable. We cannot accept it, we cannot run from fighting for the rights of minorities. It’s time for us to stand up to be counted. Like our grandparents did.

Christine Jardine is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West