The Reform leader said West should be allowed to enter the UK despite the "rabbit hole antisemitism, stroke Nazism, that he's gone down"
Former Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman has criticised Nigel Farage for “leading a culture war” with his response to the government banning Kanye West from coming to the UK.
Speaking on Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Baroness Harman said it was “deplorable” that Farage opposes the decision on free speech grounds.
The Home Office announced on Tuesday that West, who now goes by the name Ye, has been barred from coming to the UK on the basis that his presence would not be “conducive to the public good”.
The decision came after backlash that West had been booked to headline Wireless festival in July, despite a history of making comments praising Adolf Hitler and filming a Super Bowl advert directing people to a swastika T-shirt.
The London music festival has now been cancelled after West’s removal from the lineup.
Keir Starmer said that West should “never have been invited to headline Wireless”.
He said that the government “stands firmly with the Jewish community, and we will not stop in our fight to confront and defeat the poison of antisemitism”.
However, critics have pointed to what they see as inconsistencies in Starmer’s record, including his government’s tough stance on migration, continued military and diplomatic support for Israel in its ongoing genocide in Gaza and his controversial ‘Island of Strangers’ speech last year.
Farage, on the other hand, said that the rapper should not be penalised for free speech.
“I wouldn’t buy a ticket, I wouldn’t recommend anyone buy a ticket. I think his comments are vile, really vile. The sort of rabbit hole antisemitism, stroke Nazism, that he’s gone down is vile,” the Reform UK leader said.
He added: “But I think if we start banning people from entering the country because we don’t like what they say, I worry where that ends up.
“If Keir Starmer was to ban people coming into Britain, with whose views he doesn’t like, almost everybody wouldn’t be allowed in. I think it’s a dangerous path to go down.”
Farage said he wouldn’t ban people from the UK for saying “thoroughly objectionable” things, “unless, of course, the line’s crossed and you see direct incitement of violence”.
Harman condemned Farage’s position on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, saying: “I think it’s so deplorable that Nigel Farage is saying, you know, he’s trying to lead a culture war against this.
“I mean, what kind of society does Nigel Farage want us to be living in? Is he really happy for us to be in a society where you have to worry if your kids are going to a Jewish school, about the security around that school, that if you’re going to worship at a synagogue, you have to worry about the security of that synagogue.
“You know, these are issues for all of us, not just for the Jewish community.”
In December, the Guardian unearthed allegations that Farage had made racist and antisemitic remarks to fellow students at Dulwich College as a teenager.
One former student, the film writer and director Peter Ettedgui, recalled Farage growling “Hitler was right” or “Gas them” at him when they were at school.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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