The Brexit Party
SIR – After reading the article by Nigel Farage (Comment, February 9), I can now, after 50 years of voting for the Conservative Party, confidently state that I will, unless Brexit is delivered fully, resign my membership and cast my vote in favour of his new Brexit Party… if only to keep any “heat” on the European Council’s charming president, Donald Tusk.
Torquay, Devon
SIR – It seems that a new fascist party has been established (with the blessing of the Electoral Commission, astonishingly enough) – a party on which you are bestowing publicity in your newspaper. You may yet live to regret giving publicity to this party.
I am, of course, speaking of the Brexit Party which, according to the man who clearly sees himself as its future leader, is to be based unashamedly on what Germans call the Führerprinzip. Nigel Farage, in his article on Saturday, boasted: “The Brexit Party will have a leader, who then appoints a board of their choosing, and the party will ultimately succeed or fail on the judgment and personality of that leader. This will be a disciplined machine and will run more like a company. Dissenters can go elsewhere.”
Another way of expressing Mr Farage’s philosophy is Il Duce a sempre ragione, or “The Leader is always right” – Mussolini’s formulation.
Mr Farage states that he needs such power because, as leader of Ukip, he was often so constrained by the political nonentities on its NEC that he was left “virtually powerless”. Clearly, democratic or constitutional accountability irritated him. However, among the many reasons for Ukip’s demise, Mr Farage’s lack of power never, ever figured.
Britain has no use for a mini-hitler with delusions of infallibility. I hope, therefore, that the Brexit Party will fail. Professor Alan Sked
Founder of Ukip London School of Economics London WC2
SIR – When we sang the Verdi Requiem in Wells Cathedral a few days ago, the repeated theme Dies Irae left me thinking of March 29.
There was, however, a note of optimism in the final movement: Libera Me.
Sherborne, Dorset