Farage Spooks Tories On Migrant Boats

When the dust settles and the history of the UK’s departure from the European Union comes to be written, and the subsequent decline of Britain as any kind of economic and diplomatic power is chronicled, the list of the New Guilty Men And Women will have one name at its head - that of former Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage.

It was Farage, the cheap spiv’s cheap spiv, whose constant outpouring of mainly untrue invective about the EU conned voters. Worse, it spooked then PM Young Dave into jolly well acting tough with those Brussels chappies, walking out on them and thereby persuading more voters that the EU was A Bad Thing. Cameron then foolishly offered a referendum on the UK’s EU membership, wrongly thinking he could win it.

Farage has demonstrated to the Tories, and indeed to anyone else with brain plugged in and a hole in their backside, that the only consequence of engaging with pigs like him is that anyone so engaging ends up just as dirty, and Mr Thirsty enjoys the best of it.

But as if to prove that membership of the cabinet of alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is not conditional on the office holder demonstrating significant intellectual ability, or indeed any intellectual ability at all, along has come the Benidorm holiday rep Foreign Secretary Priti Patel to once again rise to the Farage bait. Also, she is most likely trying to divert attention from Bozo fleecing the less well off to pay care costs.

Mr Thirsty has used the platform awarded him by Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) to whine on ad infinitum, and indeed ad nauseam, about migrants crossing the Channel, generally in inflatable boats. The fact that France, Germany and other EU member states deal with many more asylum applications per head of population, and accept more migrants, is not allowed to enter.

So to trump Farage, as it were, Ms Patel has tipped off her press pals that she is going to have those migrants, many of whom are Scary Muslims™, turned back and returned to France. That’ll show Johnny Foreigner who’s boss! So it was that the Daily Brexit, still called the Express, this morning proclaimed “Crackdown on crossings after Priti Patel gets tough over French ‘failings’ … MIGRANTS WILL BE TURNED BACK TO FRANCE”.

The Murdoch Sun, meanwhile, is on first name terms with the Home Secretary: “PRITI VOWS TO SEND THE BOATS BACK”. The increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph more subtly tells “Migrant boats face ‘pushback’ in Channel”. But it is the Murdoch Times that lets slip that this is not a mere walk in the park as its sub-heading claims “Home Secretary orders rewrite of maritime law”. Which she is not entitled to do.

And, as the Guardian has noted, “Lucy Moreton, professional officer at the Immigration Services Union [has said] ‘In practical terms, if this happens even once, I would be surprised … There are understandably a lot of constraints around it and you cannot do this with a vessel that is in any way vulnerable and more importantly you need the consent of the French to do it’”. But “The proposals have already been rejected by the French”.

If Ms Patel so much as thinks about going ahead with this latest example of capitulating to Mr Thirsty, it will be she who carries the can when something goes wrong and someone gets killed. Farage just fouls things up. Someone else has to carry the can for it.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by becoming a Patron on Patreon at

https://patreon.com/Timfenton