Like a cowboy keen to get off his high horse before he hit the infamous Port Talbot traffic on the M4, Nige strode into town…and even if there wasn’t a goldrush, there was a still a certain amount of interest generated in his magnificent generalisms.
I’m pretty sure it’s possible to state that Farage puts the ‘pomp’ into pompous and still claim to be objective, and far too many political commentators have put on the record that the popular UKip-er has charisma and a certain charm to dismiss Nige as casually as David Cameron once tried to do. So underestimate this man at your peril. To be fair to the man in the red corner, Cawyn [sic] – as Nigel insisted on calling him throughout the debate – hadn’t come unprepared and was full to the brim of reasoned arguments,” [it’s about] keeping jobs in Wales…Toyota, Airbus and Tata Steel in the south don’t want out…and risk having to deal with fifty separate trade countries as well as Europe itself…we’d still have to follow their rules without being able to influence them! The UK in its present form is not 100 years old. We still have passport control…we’re not part of free movement…it makes no sense for Europe to make itself smaller and to be fragmented.”
He even had some facts and figures about why Wales in particular should stay in Europe,”it’s about more than the money in people’s pocket, that’s equivalent to £3k per household …it’s about keeping jobs in Wales, and our role in the world. ”
Farage to be fair countered this with the fairly neat sounding, “We don’t need to be bribed by our own money into political dependency!”
Of course, statistics and ‘just’ facts matter little when an operator as slick as Nigel Farage is in the fray, and CaRwyn (pay attention Nigel) should have also noted on the back of his hand that Nigel Farage deals mostly in things that sound good rather than things that are good.
Disappointingly, at no point did Carwyn throw his toys out of his PramMobil and insist that Nigel Farage (which doesn’t rhyme with ‘garage’ apparently) pronounced “Carwyn” properly; yet isn’t that kind of lack of preparation and laziness towards Welsh precisely the reason that Farage should not be trusted? Even as much as he insists he’s trying to, “take back our birthright and retake our democracy!”
A fair few staunch Welsh nationalists pointed out on Facebook and the like that there was not a feasible reason that Nigel should have come to Cardiff for this mass debate; one wag on Twitter openly questioned whether in fact Farage had mistakenly thought he’d been invited to the Institute of Welsh Affairs to take part in a political dogging session rather than the bullfight we were able to feast our eyes on. And it must be said that Farage was the fella with the red cloak, and made it seem that Carwyn had all the bull.
That said, Carwyn Jones did well to state in the face of such Union Jack-the-lad-ness that he’s, “Primarily Welsh, then British then European. Why should I have to choose?”
And no IWA event would be complete without the cursory amount of Tory-baiting, although staunch lefties – such as those now at the top of the Labour Party – might flinch to hear such approval of limiting immigration:”of course there has to be a limit on it …but there’s no point of having a number on it: that‘s what Tories do…stop well trained doctors and nurses…”
On occasion, Farage tries to sneak up on the ear of the casual listener in an almost William Blake-like manner in order to play the innocent: “I wholly agree with the culture of Europe, the most fascinating continent on Earth…and I would like to see the nation states of Europe free to trade within Europe.” Anyone with experience would know that Carwyn is not too far from the truth with his accusation that Whitehall top slices “10 per cent” of public money away from Wales.
“At least I know the money is coming from Brussels” was Carwyn’s impassioned plea.
The First Minister doesn’t generally risk a lot in his public speaking; with his background as a barrister he knows how to minimise losses and when to remind the listener of the facts as of the case as he sees it. However, to begin a sporting metaphor (and therefore to borrow another theme from the night), part of the reason that Louis van Gaal’s Man United are not so well-thought-of this season is that they’re not taking risks. By the same token. you pretty know what you’re going to get from C. Jones in a big event, and to some extent his speech-writer could be plucked from any one of the handful of avid watchers of BBC Parliament or the nightshift on S4C and they could all make a pretty good fist of it.
Come to think of it, much the same could be said of Farage’s policy officer, who just has to throw together a fistful of attention-grabbing facts knowing full well that Farage will trot out the same tired arguments as usual, replete with the odd banger akin to a depth charge or grenade here or there just to keep his purple-headed UKIP watchers in apoplexy.
So Carwyn Jones’ example of a student who pays only a third of the fees that they’d have to pay in England seems to matter little compared to Nigel Farage’s dismissal of the system as “ridiculous that it favours students from abroad”.
A genuinely disturbing thing about the anti-Europe argument is the more you think you know about how it works (i.e. unelected committee members deciding on the nitty-gritty while the MEPs try to upstage Farage’s showboating) the more sense Nigel’s plans seem to make…or at least that’s how the crowd saw it as they basked in Farage-isms such as, “better governed by Brussels for agriculture and fisheries? In a genuine democracy it’s possible to get rid of bad law…you cannot do this is the EU.”
To return to our sporting theme, let’s make extra time for Wales’ First Minister, Carwyn Jones AM and some of his best received script reading: “Would the UK still stay together outside the EU? We should be on the pitch and not in the crowd shouting, that’s the future and that’s the Wales I believe in.”
In conclusion then, Carwyn Jones said that leaving Europe would be a disaster, and it’s difficult to sum up in writing precisely what Nigel Farage said because that hardly matters – it’s his delivery that is so sumptuous if not profound.
If Farage has a weakness in his presentation, it’s his fondness for referring to others (including Carwyn!) as the “political class” when that is surely the kettle calling the pot black.
Inst Welsh Affairs result:
On paper – won by Carwyn Jones AM. But, to continue the sporting metaphor: online debates, and in particular TV-style debates, are not played on paper.
words DAVID WYN, photo BEN SALTER