Whatever support Nigel Farage had for Britain’s total lockdown, now appears to be wavering. Although the Brexit mastermind was an early supporter of the anti-coronavirus, “stay home, save lives” policy, Farage is now asking the same questions, we here at Caldron Pool have been asking, in regards to government overreach and the absence of any assurance that civil liberties are being safeguarded.
In his latest vlog, the chief architect of Brexit commented on the increasing ‘ridiculous, lacking in common sense interpretations of social distancing’ being applied in a heavy-handed repression of civil liberties by Western governments, saying that this repression is starting to create a ‘real dilemma for authorities’.
Citing examples of the overextension of police powers where ‘drones are being used to try to identify dog walkers, and identify people going for a walk across the beach.’ The Brexiteer pointed to the two main questions now being asked of Western governments, “what is the lockdown for? Is it to stop the spread of the coronavirus, or to put us all under house arrest?”
He asked, “where’s the humanity in these regulations?” “Are we not supposed to see anybody over the course of the next six months? This is impractical, it’s ridiculous and it’s wrong.”
What’s worse, Farage said, Britain’s airports are still open. “There are planes coming in from Italy. Planes coming in from New York; twenty flights a day; planes coming in from Tehran; planes coming in from China – planes coming in from the COVID-19 hotspots and not a single test being done on anybody. We are, more than likely importing this disease into the country, every, single day.”
Noting the same inconsistencies being consistently highlighted by Paul Joseph Watson, Farage said the London Tube is mobbed. Airports are still active and yet the police are chasing dog walkers, and solo beachgoers. “We’ve lost all sense of perspective with this, and of course there’s always a danger that if you give the authorities too much power, they.will.abuse.it.”
“Worse still, are the hotlines, set up so that you can dob in your neighbour, not just if they take the dog out for a walk more than once a day, but if they suspect a COVID-19 hate crime has taken place.” Farage quipped, “Why not take us back to East Germany so that kids can report on the transgressions of their parents?”
The whole video is a testament to the growing concerns of centrists and conservatives. And those concerns are not unwarranted, given that under anti-coronavirus laws, the freedom of the state has almost total freedom over the freedom of the individual.
Farage is still supportive of the police breaking up groups not practising reasonable social distancing, but draws the line at house arrest, stating “to put us respectively under house arrest, and seeing the police and politicians saying that they’re going to crack down further, even when we are being responsible, and we are socially distancing, well I tell you what, I will not be out under house arrest by them, or anybody else.”
Farage’s prescription for the way forward is “common sense, not house arrest for citizens”. Stating that “there’s a great danger in this, and the danger is that people see these nonsenses; people see these abuses of power and they start breaking the guidelines wholesale. People will only respect the police forces, and the government if the government and the police forces respect the people.”
The catalyst for his slight shift in perspective appears to have been heavy criticism he’d received on social media, after making a passing comment on the BBC, where he mentioned that he’d been out walking on eight different occasions. Farage said that despite two weeks of self-isolation, and although he lives in a semi-rural area, rarely seeing anyone, he was met with the kind of public condemnation you’d expect to see thrown at “a suicide bomber.
From here Farage talks about China and the faux benevolence being propagated by its propagandists and their Leftist sycophants in the West.
I found nothing on which I could disagree with Farage. Governments are still failing to reassure their citizens of measures they are taking to safeguard civil liberties. The lack of clear reassurance, breeds wild innuendo, conspiracy theories, and will, in the end, culminate in widespread civil disobedience.
What makes this video significant isn’t just its content. Farage is a freedom fighter. His concluding message to Western governments is a warning shot across their bows:
“Yes, we know the coronavirus is serious. Yes, we get the point about social distancing, but don’t kill civil liberties, and “bully us out of our freedoms!”